Well. Verdict is in. I’m in for a summer of cabin fever.

I was sent home from the OB today with a note for my employer recommending that I work from home full time. This is due to the fact that I never know when I’m going to need to lay down to ease the dizziness and contractions.

I have very mixed emotions about this. On the one hand, I get it. Driving all over town isn’t really smart when my “episodes” are unpredictable and laying on the floor of my office isn’t the best solution to a mid-workday “episode”. On the other hand, that’s a long time to work from home.

I suppose I will just have to manufacture ways to get out of the house so the cabin fever doesn’t get too terrible. Lunch breaks at actual restaurants, visits to my mom’s house after work, walks around the block (when I’m feeling up to it). The trick is just that I need to keep outings short, or at places where I can lay down/sit when I need to. Sigh.

The good news is, however, that I am done with all testing to try to figure out what is going on. I visited the perinatologist yesterday and she was happy to conclude that the dizziness is caused by a compressed vena cava along with very low blood pressure. She said that diagnosis makes perfect sense with everything I’ve described feeling and with all of the normal test results.

The most interesting thing the perinatologist told me is that it also makes sense that the “episodes” have become less frequent after the advice from my OB’s office to drink 100 oz of water a day. Why? Because low blood pressure means my blood vessels are dilated and large, and therefore there is room for more fluid. In the absence of extra fluid, my blood pressure drops lower and lower (nothing to push out on the walls of those vessels!). But if I drink more water, there is more fluid to fill up those dilated blood vessels, which makes my blood pressure go up and the dizziness subside. So fascinating!

So the plan: keep drinking 100 oz of water a day, buy some compression socks to help with blood flow, get an extra ultrasound to check on baby at 32 weeks, and work from home so I can lay down as needed. Easy enough!

So the dizziness is “solved”, but no one had anything useful to say about the contractions – which is fine. My OB and I had a good laugh that I must not be in labor because this has been happening for the better part of a week and (direct quote from doc!) “there isn’t a baby coming out” of me yet. I agree, I don’t feel like I’m in labor! So I’ll just continue to…lay down (my go-to solution for everything these days). Since that’s the only thing that makes them stop.

Moral of the story is that I’m in for a relatively uncomfortable few months physically, cooped up at home most of the time, and not moving much. But baby is fine, and I’m “fine”. So it’s all good.

Lookie lookie. Baby is still cooking!

Baby

According to all the weekly emails, baby is about 2.5 lbs this week. It seems like she is fattening up at quite the fast pace! (So am I, for that matter) but it still feels like she has a long way to go before she is big enough, and not a lot of time to get there!

Baby has been dancing around in my belly. Not as nonstop as in earlier months, but still plenty to keep things interesting! She even jabbed me so hard the other day I doubled over. And as I mentioned in my previous post, I caught some hiccups for the first time.

Mama

I have been ok. My “episodes” are pretty infrequent, although I had one today that even came with a headache, which is not normally part of the equation. Very unpleasant! 

My sister in law and brother in law came and grabbed Lewis to take him to the zoo with his cousins so I was free to rest (So desperately needed), and Kyle got a break from being “on” all the time. He has been doing double duty on parenting this weekend while I’ve been pretty low key, trying to cram in horizontal time at every possible moment. 

The horizontal time has felt pretty necessary even on days I haven’t had “episodes” due to all the contractions. They have still been going strong every time I stand up. The only sure fire way to stop them is to lay down. Sigh.

I have my appointment with the perinatologist tomorrow morning, and then my regular OB appointment on Wednesday, complete with my gestational diabetes screening. I’m nervous about having GD, but I am even more nervous that I am going to end up on some variety of bed rest. 

We will see what they say, but I wouldn’t be surprised if they told me to work from home full-time, and I honestly do see why it might be necessary. I really do feel better when I lay down. And driving back and forth to the office when I don’t know when an “episode” will strike is probably not ideal or safe. I should probably just be home as much as possible so I can lay down when I need to.

Lewis 

Lewis is doing awesome. Same as last week, and a delight. He has his little moments, but I am impressed with his resilience, bravery, and kindness. Those traits far outweigh his tough toddler moments.

We did discover this week that he is terrified of bees. I didn’t even know he had seen one before, but he freaked out at the proximity of a rather large one yesterday. Sweet boy. He jumped into Grammy’ s arms and cried and cried. Eventually he said to Grammy that he was going to “talk to mommy” and I grabbed him and we talked about how he was feeling. Then he was all better. It was pretty adorable.

He also fell a couple times at the park and ended up with some boo boos, including bloodshed. He recovered unbelievably quickly, given the tumbles he took. I wouldn’t have blamed him for blubbering for 4 times as long, but he got it together and got back into action. Astonished me!

Just a quick note to say I felt Baby Girl hiccup for the first time ever! What a weird sensation. And way more fun than elbows and kicks. ❤

Let’s start with the good news – The doctor didn’t make me come in to get checked out because of all the contractions! I’m so happy to avoid an extra trip to the doctor, especially with two appointments coming up next week. That seems like plenty.

The bad news? The general consensus is that, while there is nothing to be alarmed about whatsoever (unless things change – and I have a list of things to watch for), we just have to consider this my new “normal” for this pregnancy.

So basically, this pregnancy now means intermittent dizziness and difficulty breathing, along with contractions basically every time I move. And a long list of “things to watch for”, AKA constantly being on high-alert.

The only thing that helps both of my “conditions” is to lay down on my side, which is obviously not possible to do all the time since, well… I am a mother and I work. Plus they’re making me hydrate like crazy, which means I have to get up to pee every 2 seconds. You simply cannot combine hydrating with resting when you’re pregnant! It just doesn’t work!

This isn’t ideal. If I got to pick what my “pregnancy-normal” would look like, this would definitely not be it. But Baby Girl seems to be super happy in my big ole belly, and as long as that stays true, I can work with this “normal”.

That being said, I do reserve the right to be a little emotional during the adjustment phase. I know I can work with this, but I just don’t know what “working with it” is going to look like yet. So I’m feeling a little overwhelmed while I process the fact that I’m basically going to feel unpredictably unwell and that I must constantly be analyzing whether things have worsened for the next 3-ish months.

Anyway…the pity party will end when I figure all of this out. In the meantime, I’m trying my darndest to forget the rest and just be grateful I’m not at the hospital right now!

Well, friends. My pesky uterus is keeping up with its shenanigans. This time? Way, way too many Braxton Hicks contractions.

I get these. Got them with Lewis, been having them with Baby Girl. No big deal. Except yesterday they were happening all the time, no matter how much water I drank or how much I rested. Every single time I stood up, I would immediately contract. There was even a point where I had 6 in 30 minutes.

So I called the doctor. I honestly didn’t think anything was wrong, but all general wisdom on the topic says to call your doctor if this kind of thing is happening. I’m continuing to be an obedient, cautious pregnant mama because I would hate to find out what would happen if something that seemed benign was serious and I had ignored it.

Anyway, long story short, they didn’t make me come in yesterday, but they told me to call if it was still happening today. And it is.

The nurse I spoke with agrees with me that it probably isn’t anything serious. At worst, perhaps strange symptoms of a UTI. But her best guess is that my uterus is just going to be more active because it is my second pregnancy – AKA this may just be how things are for me this pregnancy.

Either way, she is running it by the doctor and there is potential for another doctor visit. I’m so sick of doctor’s visits that turn out to be nothing. Baby and I are getting way too much attention and it makes me feel silly.

…but again, I would hate to miss something. So I’m following all medical advice to a T. Sigh.

Well hello there, baby bump in the 90 degree weather. Thank goodness for AC! Also, Baby and I have made it to the 3rd trimester! Bam!

Baby

According to the weekly emails, there is a good chance that Baby Girl’s lungs would be able to function (with medical help) if she were born right this minute. I have been waiting for that milestone to pop up! I remember feeling great relief at that news when I was pregnant with Lewis, and I knew I’d feel the same way this time.

With all the weird stuff that my body has been doing lately, I have had a heightened sense of concern about Baby Girl’s well-being. I find myself constantly worried about “reduced fetal movement” in a way that I never was with Lewis. There are days when she doesn’t move much, or perhaps I don’t notice it because I’m too busy? Either way, she used to be on the move non-stop, so that whole “reduced” term means something different when it comes to this little munchkin, and I find myself questioning how many kicks are “enough” kicks.

In order to cope with my concern and not panic unnecessarily, I have learned to really pay attention to the wild moments as a source of reassurance. With Lewis, I never really got on board with the kicks – I mostly found them distracting and annoying. While I still feel that way this time around, I am making myself appreciate them at the same time. Whenever Baby Girl is whacking and thumping my belly, I allow myself to fall totally into the distraction that those moments bring and find peace there next to the annoyance.

Mama

I’ve been feeling a mix of positive and negative sensations this week. That feels pretty normal for this stage of pregnancy, so I suppose I don’t have much to complain about. Hooray! But even so, I’ll summarize below.

I noticed this week that some of my early-pregnancy symptoms went bye-bye without much fanfare. To the point that I hardly even noticed they were gone, and couldn’t tell you when they left. The most notable departures are the gagging-while-brushing-my-teeth phenomenon and the acne/dry skin debacle. I do not miss those at all!

My cravings haven’t been terribly off the wall either. Cookies have pushed themselves to the top of the list, which is reminiscent of my pregnancy with Lewis. I have also really been into toast with cheese and cucumbers. But mostly I’m back on the sweets bandwagon, which makes me extra nervous for that glucose screening I have next week. It would be very hard to resist cookies. Crossing fingers (for many reasons) that I don’t have gestational diabetes!

My heart monitor results came back normal last week, and I went several days in a row last week without any “episodes” (short-hand for my dizziness/shortness of breath spells). But then I had 1-2 each day Friday through Sunday. So I guess this strange little problem plans to persist, but at least it isn’t debilitating and/or constant. And having experienced it as long as I have now, it isn’t nearly as scary as it first was. It is nice that the acute panic is gone.

I do have an appointment next week with a perinatologist for a consult about my “episodes”. This seems like another over-reaction to me, but I am just going to continue to be dutiful and follow all my doctor’s instructions. She said go, so I will go.

My biggest discomfort at the moment is that I am tired. Oh lordy, am I ever tired. Even my best nights of sleep are only half-decent, and I find myself dragging by mid afternoon. I wish that life allowed for daily naps, but alas! That is not how things work. Last night I fell asleep at 8pm while Kyle handled bedtime until 9:45 with Lewis (wtf, kid). I just couldn’t stay awake! After he finally went down, the kid slept like crap the rest of the night too, and I was up with him for ages since then Kyle was the one who couldn’t wake up. So my early bedtime did literally nothing to help me recover from the excessive fatigue I was feeling yesterday, and I’ve been tired from the moment I woke up this morning.

Oh well. I’ve been more tired at other times in my life. And I’ll be more tired again later, I’m sure. I did get my butt out of bed early enough this morning to blow-dry and straighten my hair (a truly rare feat!), in the hopes that it would make me feel fabulous and negate the fatigue. No such luck. I do look fabulous, but I’m still tired!

With the warm weather that has come to PDX in the last few days, I have been upping my game with water consumption to try to keep braxton hicks contractions to a minimum. I have noticed a marked increase in the number of contractions I’ve been having lately, and even though I know they’re harmless and normal, it is nice to minimize them as much as possible. They are a little uncomfortable, after all. (Of course, the trade-off is that I contract less, but have to pee way more. So…just a different kind of discomfort!)

Lewis

Other than the unexplained crappy night of sleep last night, Lewis is amazing. Now that we’ve gotten over some of the big hurdles we were dealing with the past month-ish with him, I am finding that I’m quite enjoying this phase of Lewis’ little life. It is fun to be able to talk with him about everything we’re doing, get his opinions, and get through things together instead of guessing what he is thinking. He has even started telling jokes! My little buddy has a silly sense of humor, and I love it!

We have a fun time laughing together, he loves to play outside, still wants to “do it self” all the time (and is getting better at actually doing things himself!), loves to build and “crush” stuff, and is obsessed with anything that has a motor in it (literally anything). He has also been getting very good at remembering things – especially people’s names – and gets excited about seeing people and doing things that he is familiar with.

For the most part, we’re in a phase with Lewis where he is fairly compliant. He makes demands all the time, naturally, but if we say “no” he tends to accept it as long as we give him a reason. He usually responds to a rejection + explanation with a little, “oh. okay!” and then just moves on with his life. I hope this lasts forever. This is nice.

One thing he does that drives me a little batty is that he will repeat the same thing over and over again until you respond. He basically refuses to be ignored. And he has no limit to his patience. He will literally repeat, “mommy look! an airplane!” 7 million times until you say, “wow Lewis, that’s a cool airplane”. Most of the time, I’m totally in on toddler conversations. But sometimes, I am in the middle of something else that requires my attention and it is a bit on the annoying side. Oh well. Toddlers are funny creatures!

Disclaimer: This post is going to sound complain-y. So prepare yourselves mentally, but also know that I am not throwing myself a pity-party over here. It’s all good in my hood. I’m just observing the new pregnancy phase I’ve entered!

We’ve gotten to the point of pregnancy (here comes the 3rd trimester!) where sleeping at night is tough even if circumstances are perfect.

Lewis has been a very good boy the last few days and hasn’t made a peep all night. Husband slumbers quietly and hasn’t been tossing and turning recently.

Me? Ha.

The past couple days have included a minor cold which has me drippy and coughy at night. But…that’s really the least of my sleep problems.

A typical night: Get up to pee. Fall asleep on right side. 30 minutes later, right hip hurts. Fully wake up to roll over and reposition the pillow between my knees. Fall asleep on left side. 45 minutes later, left hip hurts. Fully wake up to put pillow behind my bottom so I can maybe not rest on my hips, but maybe be propped up enough that I am not “laying on my back” and cut off circulation/make my heart race. Fall asleep. 1 hr later, get up to pee.

Rinse. Repeat!

Add to that the fact that Kyle and I think we have found the baby’s name and that has me so excited that my brain won’t shut off… PLUS the approaching 3rd trimester has me going 100 mph trying to figure out how to “get ready” (AKA “omg shut up, nesting instinct!”).

I mean, just no sleep. None at all.

Oh well. I remember this phase from last time with Lewis. So I knew it was coming, I just wasn’t sure what the timing would be. Turns out, we’re here now!

I know that no matter how little sleep I’m getting right now, Baby Girl will make sure I get less when she arrives. So I am going to treasure the “abundant” sleep I’ll be getting in the next three months! How about that for perspective. haha

The obligatory bump picture for you! Last week of the 2nd trimester. Go team!

Baby

Baby Girl has been kicking and rolling like crazy. I don’t expect to get sent back to Labor and Delivery for fetal monitoring due to “decreased fetal movement” this week like I did last week, that’s for sure!

Sweet angel is almost 2 lbs, according to the weekly emails. I also hear that she is still just fattening up and practicing using all her organs so they’re ready when she comes out. Keep up the good work, baby!

On the outside, her room changed a bit this week. Kyle broke down the second twin bed and put it in the closet, and he reassembled the crib and moved it into its (probable) final location. I hung up the pink banners from the “gender reveal” for a little fun pizzazz across the window. It is starting to look like a little baby is planning to come live in there. Makes my heart happy.

Mama

Speaking of my heart, I felt so much better this weekend! I don’t know if baby just moved off my vena cava or what, but I felt as normal as you can feel while pregnant. Happy to be back in that place.

We are waiting for the heart rate monitor results now, but I am seriously doubtful that they will find anything requiring any kind of treatment.

That all being said, I do have some minor/normal physical ailments that have come back. My hips, for example, are aching. I think it is time for a pillow between my legs while I sleep to try and alleviate some of that. (and maybe I shouldn’t go sleep in Lewis’ bed when he wakes up in the middle of the night. Cramming in that tiny bed with the crappy mattress with him can’t be good for my joints!)

Additionally, I’m pretty sure I’m coming down with a cold. Aside from sore throat/ears, it is really zapping my energy. I’m having one of those days where every time I succeed in moving, I am surprised. It is like my mind is independent from my body, with my body operating at a semi-normal pace, and my mind just watching it happen and not quite keeping up.

I’m so tired that I didn’t even realize that I wore my “house shoes” (AKA worn out old sandals) to work until I got to work. I looked like a hobo all day!

Yaawwwwwwn.

Maternity leave should start during pregnancy.

Lewis

Lewis is adorable and exhausting. I’m honestly too tired to write about him this week. So let’s sum it up with:

Lewis is the same as last week, except he talks even more (!) and has been inconsistent with his sleep (both going down and staying down), but sleep still isn’t as bad as it has been at other phases of his life. Good job, Lewis. Keep doing your thing.

Today is my 3rd mother’s day, but it feels different. Maybe it is the pregnancy hormones, but the weight and meaning of being a mom feels like it has really sunk in. 

Can you believe it? I’m a mom! Someone (soon to be two someones) sees me the same way I see my own mom. I mean that much to another human being. 

How could I possibly live up to that? She’s everything – my mind tells me it is impossible to be like my mother. So impossible that I don’t dare even aspire to it. She is so magnificent that it seems like something you must have to earn. But somehow, simply by having a child, I. Am. That.

Automatically to Lewis, and soon to this new Baby Girl, I am that important. Wow. I just have to bask in that. What a tremendous, beautiful, massive, special responsibility I have. Is it normal to feel this lucky to have this difficult a job? To feel so lucky to have such impossible shoes to fill? 

It is nearly 5am. I have been awake for a half hour after Lewis woke up screaming, I assume from a bad dream. Kyle went in there to comfort the beast, and hasn’t come back despite quiet returning immediately upon entering kiddo’s room. I can only assume he crawled in bed with Lewis and they’re both sleeping soundly now.

I should do the same. I’m so tired, and it is quiet, the baby is kindly avoiding my bladder with her kicks, and I have the whole bed to myself. But I can’t seem to find my way back to sleep because of the image of my husband and my baby snuggling together dancing through my head.

This is another thing that has hit me this mother’s day – I never knew that so much of being a mother, for me, would be soaking in how much my child(ren) love their father, and he them. 

The relationship Lewis has with his father allows my relationship with Lewis to be what it is. I am what I am to Lewis because of what Kyle is. It is such an all-consuming awe I feel as a mother to watch my husband as a father. 

So I lie awake this morning instead of getting some more – much needed! – sleep, because I know that in the other room, the two men I love the most are sleeping peacefully together. Possibly with Lewis’s hand on Kyle’s face, almost assuredly with Lewis’s legs tucked into Kyle’s belly, both of them breathing into each other. And it just… brings tears of happiness to this mama’s eyes.

Well! I got home from the ER yesterday after about 7 hours and a million tests. They all came back normal, which is obviously fantastic news. The only downside is that the docs still don’t know how to fix me!

I was quite alarmed at my body when the ER nurse took me on my “walk” around the ER with all the monitors on me. My heart rate spiked with just a 2 minute slow lap around the nurses station. And it was scary to see how low it plummeted when I laid on my back briefly. It even spiked when I simply rolled from laying on one side to the other. I was all over the map.

Today is a new day, though, and while I have had brief periods of difficulty breathing, I have mostly been fine. I am enjoying being able to take a full, deep breath again. And because I work from home on Fridays, I am able to lay down on my side (the only position that helps consistently) and then I feel better and can move about again after not too long. Lewis has even cooperated and behaved well for me today so I could manage working, being a mom, and taking it easy. What a superstar he is!

I will be done with my heart rate monitor in less than an hour, and then this evening I will go turn it in to be analyzed. My OB is happy enough with the results from all the ER tests yesterday to decide we don’t need to do anything further until after the monitor results come back – she is reassured that baby and I are safe in the meantime. I agree with her wholeheartedly, and am only too happy to rest up this weekend and stay out of the hospital.

It is quite strange to feel this out of control of my body. And the sensation of not getting enough air is pretty terrifying. I’m enjoying the “good day” today, and hoping that we continue to get good test results and that baby stays safe and cozy in her little home in my belly. This incubator/mama is trying her very, very best to make sure baby has a comfy home for the next 3+ months.

Guess who got sent to the ER for difficulty breathing! That’s right. Me!

I still say it’s just the damn vein in my back, but when you can’t even breathe comfortably when you’re sitting, doctors don’t really want you to tough it out, it turns out. So here I am.

I am guessing that after all the tests they’re running here we will finally be able to safely say whether there is anything serious. Just gotta get through the day, and then we will know.

I’m grateful to be in good hands. 

My subconscious is doing funny things. I thought I was mostly just annoyed by this heart rate monitor situation. Convinced that nothing is wrong and I’m just jumping through the hoops because, well, you always listen to your doctor when you’re incubating a little tiny baby.

Apparently I’m only convinced on the surface, because I had a terrible dream last night that I went into labor at 30 weeks and was hospitalized to try to keep the baby in as long as humanly possible using a bunch of scary medical interventions.

I wonder how the heart rate monitor logged that nightmare. I can’t imagine that my body was calm while my subconscious was running through that dream.

Anyway… a little over a day left of wearing the monitor, and then who knows how long until my doc gets the results and (probably) tells me that everything is fine. I just wish that the dizziness and difficulty breathing would stop so that my subconscious would calm down and accept that a compressed vein isn’t serious – just uncomfortable.

Well this is “fun”! Hooked up to a heart monitor for the next 48 hours. Baby is fine, just checking on me – AKA the incubator. Feels like an over reaction, but here we are!

Two “ups” today:

1. Lewis has been eating like a crazy person! Biggest dinner of his life last night, and an equally gigantic breakfast today. No fights, just eating. He kept asking for more! Woo!
2. I ordered 3 pairs of sandals just now in the hopes that one fits for summer. All 3 pairs require little-to-no bending over to put them on. I am uber-excited!

Not a “down” per-se, but perhaps a “sideways”:

1. I peed literally 10 minutes ago and I already need to pee again. I swear I needed to go again before I even got back to my desk from the bathroom. It is highly amusing, but also very inconvenient!

Aww…. 25 weeks! Hi, us! And bonus – hi, Lewis!

Baby

My mom felt the baby kick for the first time this week. It was right around this time in my last pregnancy that she felt Lewis, so we’re seeing a pattern there!

Baby is about 1.5 lbs – what a porker!

Mama (and a little bonus baby)

I get the longest update this week! Lucky me!

I experienced first 80 degree day during this pregnancy this week! I wrote about the energy the sunshine gave me, but I didn’t write about the physical unpleasantness. I felt dizzy, my arms and legs were heavy like when you’re drunk, I was short of breath, and my heart raced. While it was happening, I first thought, “is this what summer will be like?”

But then I realized that something might actually be wrong. It kept getting worse, and I was quite alarmed. So on Thursday afternoon, I called my doctor. The initial idea was that I was dehydrated – that the amount of water I drank had been working for the cool days we’d been having, but wasn’t even close for hot days. And not technically enough on any day, regardless of temperature. I needed to drink twice as much as I had been! Oops!

So I tried that, and it didn’t solve the problem. Although I’m sure it was good for me, so I’ve been keeping up on my hydration to the best of my ability. And peeing every 20 minutes as a result. Yipee. 

Like I said, hydrating didn’t work. So on Friday when I got hit with another round of dizziness, I called the doctor again and they wanted me to come in for an urgent appointment. I was freaked out and started crying, and Kyle rushed home from work to watch Lewis so I could go get checked out.

They took my vitals, drew blood, and analyzed my urine while I was there – all of that came back normal. Given that, the doctor suggests that the diagnosis is most likely that my uterus and the baby are compressing my inferior vena cava vein, which causes poor blood return to the heart and therefore could explain all the strange sensations I have been having, but she wants to put me on a heart rate monitor for a few days just to be 100% sure there isn’t something else.

If doc is correct, the compression of the vena cava vein is not a serious threat to my health or the baby, which is great news! It just causes some inconvenience (for example, I can’t drive when I’m feeling dizzy) and discomfort. The good thing is, it is not always acute, so I do not feel bad at all times. If I have an “episode”, so far I am able to wait it out. When I am better rested, the “episodes” are not as long, so the doctor told me to take it easy as much as I can.

I DID end up in labor and delivery For fetal monitoring after the advice nurse called to follow up on how I’m doing and got freaked out over some of my answers. But the monitoring showed that baby is “textbook perfect”, and we quickly got sent home.

So for now I am learning to work around the issue with my dizziness, and I am grateful that baby and I are safe. I’ll try to update about the heart monitor when I get it on Wednesday. Hopefully that will be the last hoop I have to jump through with all this craziness. Phew!

I have been tempted to make myself feel better by going to get my hair dyed. Just some highlights or something, to distract from my icky double chin that I’ve suddenly sprouted, and to lift my spirits. But alas! It is too expensive. Oh well. I will just try to soak up some sunshine to lift the spirits instead!

I did get my toes done over the weekend, since that’s a pregnancy expense Kyle and I have agreed to take on so he and I don’t have to figure out how to cut my toenails. I got sky blue polish in honor of the beautiful weather we’ve been having, and that has gone a long way towards making me feel more put together and good about myself.

My buddy Shalyce and I got together to make more freezer meals this weekend, too. We made 2 batches each of 3 different meals. My freezer is so full now that one of the bags decided to jump out before it was frozen… so now I’m down one bag of crockpot curry. But I’m still up 5 meals overall!

Lewis

Kiddo’s first week at the new daycare is done. I am feeling very, very positive about it. Lewis is excited to go, and asks about his friends and teachers by name, and talks about all the things he does while he is there. He is always very excited to tell me about what they did outside, especially.

At home, we have been working on rule following and listening to mommy and daddy the first time we tell him something. Because he is a little parrot, this has resulted in Lewis’ new favorite phrase being, “I said NO!” Pretty funny, because now everyone knows that this is what we say to him at home all the time – only slightly embarrassing!

The big boy bed still going better than we expected. He doesn’t get up in the morning and jiggle the doorknob anymore – he just chills in bed until we come in. On occasion, he will fall asleep on his own after several back-and-forth “GET IN YOUR BED” conversations, but we still don’t have a solid bedtime or naptime routine figured out. Sometimes he needs to be rocked and put in bed after falling asleep in our arms, sometimes we lay in bed with him, and sometimes he asks us to leave and he falls asleep on his own. We’ve even had one occasion where he asked Kyle to leave and then we found him sleeping on the floor when we went to tuck him in later. But he is sleeping through the night and loves his bed. So I don’t think we can really complain!

With eating it seems like we’re in a very normal toddler pattern now. There are still some drier spells, but overall the change is sticking and I’m optimistic we’re heading towards some good weight gain. My favorite thing is that Lewis is willing to try a bite of everything before deciding not to like it. My mom always made us try everything growing up – We didn’t have to like it, but we had to try it. Implementation of the same rule at our house is going very well! I think it is fair to let Lewis decide whether he likes something or not, since everyone has their own taste/texture preferences, but you can’t decide if you like something just by looking at it!

Overall, lots of ups this week even though it has been a little bit scary here and there too. We are feeling hopeful for an easier week to come.

I have a new favorite day. It is called “Kid Free Wednesday”, and it is the day that I work from home while Lewis is at school.

Why is it my favorite day? Because I get so much done!

Yesterday, for example, was a glorious Kid Free Wednesday. I had energy oozing out of every pore and orifice. My very personhood was a ball of energy. I suspect it had something to do with the glorious 80 degree weather we saw here for the first time since last summer. As a matter of fact, we hadn’t even left the 60’s yet this spring before yesterday!

Anyway, who cares what the origins of the energy were – the energy was there, and that’s what matters. A true pregnancy miracle.

In between work tasks, I did more laundry and dishes than I care to disclose here, because if I did that, you would know how much I had let pile up. *blushes*

I also cleaned out and organized the freezer, because why not? I sorted the mail, scheduled the exterminator for another ant-control visit, cleaned out Lewis’ school bag, tidied the whole house, emptied every single garbage can we have, took out the recycling, folded the laundry I washed, cooked dinner from scratch (!!!), worked worked worked, went for a walk, showered, and did bedtime on my own since Kyle was playing softball.

You’d think all that would have killed me, but I already told you it was a pregnancy miracle – I felt fine! No abnormal aches and pains, no braxton hicks contractions, no extra-early bedtime, no complaining to the husband (who, by the way, was both amazed/grateful and a little mad at me for taking on so much myself while I’m in my “delicate” condition), nothing! I just rocked it all out.

Favorite day. Kid Free Wednesday. Hands down.

I’d like to amend part of today’s earlier post. Namely that we haven’t been able to leave Lewis alone to fall asleep in his new bed because he wanders. 

People, breaking news! Kyle got fed up and left the room for a breather while kiddo was still wide awake, and we didn’t hear a peep out of him after that.

I just went to tuck him in, 45 minutes later, fully expecting to find him on the floor. And behold! A child, fast asleep in his big boy bed, clutching his hot wheels car (we don’t really do teddy bears around here…).

A sight to see, truly. And a proud moment for Lewis’s history books.

This, along with the longest sentence he’s ever put together spilling out of his mouth earlier (“Please I have more yogurt, daddy”), makes for quite the eventful day in toddler land. What a grown up!

Baby and I – looking large, feeling good.

Baby

BIGGEST NEWS OF THE WEEK: We have reached our first viability milestone! At 24 weeks, baby is considered medically viable. I’d like to keep Baby Girl cooking quite a lot longer, but it is a small comfort to know we’ve made it to this point!

In other, equally important – but slightly less mind-blowing – news, we visited the doctor today for our 24 week checkup. My uterus is measuring right on track, and baby’s heart-rate was 145 – perfectly healthy and normal.

Baby also displayed her sense of humor, putting on a bit of a show for the doctor. I warned the doctor that baby was kicking on the lower right part of my belly, and she decided she’d put her little heart-rate wand right there. Sure enough, Baby Girl kicked the crap out of the wand and nearly blew our eardrums out! Doc got a good laugh out of that, and I like to think that Baby Girl was giggling in my belly at her joke, too.

Over the weekend, our sweet girl stopped moving quite as much as she normally does. I was starting to get worried due to the decreased movement, but never did call the doctor about it because 1) I did feel her a little on occasion so I knew without a doubt she was still alive, and 2) I knew I’d be seeing the doctor today anyway. She picked back up her activity again yesterday at some point to a level that is reminiscent of Lewis’ activity levels, which also helped ease my mind. Maybe her “young and wild” days are behind her and she’s settling down into a more mature, easygoing pattern? Too soon for that? Wait 25-30 more years? Oh well, one can always hope.

Baby’s room had some small transformations this week, too. Obviously, one of the twin beds is gone (into big brother Lewis’ room!), and the crib has moved in (disassembled at the moment). Additionally, some non-baby items that were in the closet switched places with some baby items that were floating around the room. Next steps include moving the non-baby items to new homes, getting rid of two tables and an old rug, disassembling and storing the other twin bed, and reassembling the crib. Then we just figure out how to get our hands on the new furniture we’ve picked out, decorate, and bam! A nursery. Sounds like a lot when you write it out, but it feels like it could all be finished in a weekend if we felt compelled. So I’d say we’re in excellent shape, given the fact that we’ve likely got about 15-16 more weeks before it needs to be done!

Mama

I was right that they recorded my weight wrong at my last appointment. I talked with the doctor about it and she agreed. Now we’re all satisfied with the news that I “only” gained 8 lbs in the last month. Which is still too much. But it’s time to face the music – I’m just not good at keeping my weight in check while I’m pregnant. Plain and simple.

My cravings have remained unpronounced, except that I’d really like a light, summery beer. Perhaps a Corona with lime.

Physically, I’ve been exhausted. I was home alone with Lewis on Saturday, for example, and I actually fell asleep while he was playing. I was sitting on the couch, and he was tearing around like a crazy person, and I fell asleep. Thankfully not for very long, but the fact that I could sleep through Lewis’ “vroom vrooms”, crashing, and laughing just shows you how stinking tired I was.

I’ve also had some braxton hicks contractions. They’ve been pretty infrequent and not painful at all. But I do notice them and try to use that as a cue to slow down and/or drink some water.

The dry skin on my face has improved, but my hands are cracked and bleeding. I am sure this is partly due to hormones, and partly due to all the hand-washing after diaper changes and the constant peeing I’ve been doing!

This week I also finally gave in and went to get new bras to accommodate my changing shape. No regrets! I have gone from constant awareness that I am wearing a bra to not noticing at all. Sweet, sweet relief! The change in size is but one of many signs that my breasts are starting to think about feeding a baby again. Good work, body!

Lewis

Lewis gets a long update again this week, but I’m happy to report that it is more positive. After a couple really, really tough weeks, we are starting to figure a few things out and we’re all feeling more optimistic.

The big boy bed transition is going about as smoothly as we could hope. Lewis loves his new bed! We spent the whole day on Friday (while I was working from home! Phew, busy!) talking about how he was getting a new bed, playing with the mattress, putting the sheets on, etc. Then Lewis “helped” daddy take down his crib while we all said “bye bye crib”, and voila! The new bed was in place. Still, days later, he walks into his room and sees his bed and exclaims with delight, “NEW BED! MY NEW BED!”, as if he is surprised to see it. And when we go into the nursery next door, he sees the pieces of his crib and says very matter-of-fact, “it’s baby sister’s bed”.

We put a childproof doorknob cover on the inside of Lewis’ door so he can’t escape and roam about the house in the middle of the night now that he is a “free range” child, but we haven’t really needed that so far. He does wake up a few times a night and kind of whimpers and calls out for “mama”, but he hasn’t gotten out of bed and usually puts himself back to sleep within 3-5 minutes. I suspect the wake-ups are because he is cold. He doesn’t seem to like the big comforter, but the small quilts and blankets we put on him instead are easily kicked off. Oh well, that seems like his problem – not ours! We offer him the big blanket, and he refuses. So he can live with it!

Unfortunately, he has been waking up earlier in the new bed and does get out of bed in the morning and jiggles the doorknob. He finds it quite distressing that he can’t get out of his room. So no dilly-dallying for Kyle and me – if we hear the kid, time to get up. 5:30? 6:00? Get up, mom and dad! (yaawwwwn!)

Putting Lewis to bed at bedtime and, to a lesser degree, naptime has turned quite challenging, and we haven’t quite gotten a routine figured out there yet. So far, we’ve tried laying in bed with him, sitting in the chair while he is in bed alone, sitting next to the bed and rubbing his back, and other similar varieties. But we can’t leave him unattended yet because he does get out of bed if we don’t stay. The end result is that bedtime has been averaging 60-90 minutes, which is waaaaay too long. Anyway, I’m confident this piece will come when we finally find a routine that everyone is comfortable with. In the meantime, I’m thanking my lucky stars that the rest of the bed transition isn’t terrible.

The eating battles have all but disappeared. (GASP! Amazing!) The whole “it takes a week” thing has proved to be true in this instance, and we have noticed that Lewis has settled into the new expectations and started eating again. Even with the improvements, we expect some ebb and flow in his appetite, because he’s a toddler after all! But at least it isn’t a completely dry spell where he isn’t getting enough calories to exist.

Everyone’s moods have improved with the improvements in kiddo’s eating habits – Lewis is happier because he isn’t starving (duh!), and mama and dada are less stressed about the health of kiddo AND it’s easier to be in a good mood when there isn’t a toddler screaming nonstop. Woo!

The new daycare started today! After the whirlwind and upheaval last week, and all the emotions that came along with it, it felt really good to leave Lewis at the new place today. He immediately settled in and seemed comfortable, and he was excited to see his same teacher, whom he loves.

Because the change happened so quickly, Kyle and I hadn’t had a chance to visit the new location in person. That felt a bit risky, but now that I’ve been there I feel really comfortable with it. There is a kitchen, a Japanese style table where the kids can sit on cushions on the floor to eat, two indoor play spaces with lots of fun toys, and a fenced in outdoor area for the kids to play.

They eat vegetarian, which isn’t my favorite thing for Lewis, even as a semi-vegetarian myself. But the teacher is well aware of Lewis’ need for high calorie/fat foods, and she is on our team making sure he gets what he needs. And Lewis does get meat at home, so he isn’t going to be a forced-vegetarian. I just don’t think that will work for him as a permanent diet choice, given his weight issues.

Anyway, the point is that I think this new situation will work out just fine!