Tuesday, April 28, 2009

Bump Watch 09 - The Beginning


And so it begins! The weekly picture taking of the growing belly. Tim & I kept saying we needed to take pictures every week to document two things, my growing belly and his growing hair. So far the belly won out, as it rightly should. No offense to hair but really, it cannot compete with the cuteness that is growing within the roundness that is my abdomen these days. These pics were taken at 17 weeks. (just over the 4 month mark) I feel noticeably larger this time than I did with Nate and much more so than I did with Ben. I looked like this with Ben at about five and a half months. It's very true that with each subsequent pregnancy your body shows earlier. It now has the blueprint for what is supposed to happen and man is it an efficient builder!



From the left



From the right - note to self, must find a better backdrop for next week.

Monday, April 27, 2009

Warm Weekend


Our pansies.



Our two new strawberry plants! Fingers crossed that we keep them alive and they actually produce some fruit.



Nate spent most of Saturday playing in the water table outside. The COLD water felt really good given the temps were close to 80.



Ben on the porch explaining something about Legos while hiding in the shade.



So happy to be outside again!!!!

A few shots of how we spent our weekend. It was super warm around here, so we got out to enjoy it! Getting out = hanging out in our driveway/side yard because Tim and I are fighting off a super annoying cold but it was still lovely to be in the sun and the boys had a good time. We even ventured out for Ice Cream on Saturday night to officially welcome in the warmth!

Thursday, April 23, 2009

Side Effects

So pregnancy is a wonderful thing and the resulting child an amazing reward for months of sickness, pain and hard work. But today...well today, I'm just having one of those "crabby preggo" days and so I've taken to the blog to vent it out. Please bear in mind, the remainder of this post will be full of griping, nonsensical whining and random ponderings about truly unimportant or previous resolved issues.

I had an appointment with my midwife this afternoon. It's my third time seeing her and I truly like her and the two student midwives she has working with her. Every time I've seen her I've felt like the only pregnant person on the world (in a good way) and not rushed or dismissed because I'm just the mom not the birth professional. So today totally caught me off guard. I had Pre Eclampsia with Nate which resulted in having to be induced four weeks early. If you don't know about Pre Eclampsia you can go here for more info. The short and skinny is that it's a condition of elevated blood pressure that can seriously endanger mother and child and result in death for one or both. In my case, I didn't show any signs of Pre E until 36 weeks and then when I did my body went for it. My blood pressure was 140/100 which is very high and so we were admitted and induced. Luckily, Nate and I were both fine, but it was scary beyond words.

Ok, so back to the present tense. When I first contacted our midwife I told her of this condition and asked if that would prevent me from having the homebirth that I'm dreaming of with this baby. She said it shouldn't, that she'll monitor things and if it gets to a point that we need to look at transferring care and such then we'll do that. Well today I went in and she essentially seemed to be deciding whether or not she could keep me on as a patient because I have a history of Pre E. I completely understand where she was coming from, she's running a business and I could be a liability given my history so I hold no anger or resentment towards her. I was just really surprised by this since I thought we had already covered it months ago. Anyway, everything is fine, there is nothing in her regulations about a history of Pre E just the protocol in case it presents itself. So, we're not switching midwives and things are good. BUT, the first 20 minutes of my appointment were spent discussing this and me (the worrier that I am) thinking I'd have to find a different midwife and knowing that there aren't any others in the area that will do a homebirth whom I feel comfortable with. So my anxiety was raised and for some reason, when I'm pregnant, it takes hours for it to come back down.

So, I sit here now with a new Prenatal Yoga dvd to start practicing, a cup of tea and two happy boys to keep my stress level down. I hate that my mind gets so wrapped up in things like this. I've always been this way so I understand why it happens, but it doesn't make it easier to resolve.

When it comes down to it, I just want a healthy baby in the fall. That's it. Time to refocus on that. Oh and to end on a positive note, our ultrasound is scheduled for next Thursday so I'll be sure to report back if we find out the gender. I was so opposed to finding out originally and now I can't wait. See, that there is also pregnancy related craziness.

Monday, April 20, 2009

Beach Time

Last Saturday (not this past one, which was rainy but the last one) the boys and I ventured out to our favorite beach for some fun in the sun. It was nice, a little windy but still a glorious day to be outside. Little did we know that this Friday we would revisit the same beach with friends and enjoy temps near 70!!! We plan to go back this Friday too if the forecast proves accurate!







Friday, April 10, 2009

Springing







Signs of Spring in our neck of the woods are finally popping up! The snow is melted...gone, I haven't seen a snowbank or even a small mound of snow in weeks. This makes me deliriously happy! We've hung up our bird feeders, though we have yet to attract any visitors. I think we need to place them a bit further into the woods near us and be less obvious about it. Right now they hang on our porch and I think that's very wishful thinking on my part. That the birds will just fly right up to our doorstep for their snacks is a bit unrealistic.

This past weekend we started our seedlings for our container garden. It's the first time we're doing this so I'm a little nervous but overall excited and hopeful that we'll have some produce to show for it at the end of things. Ben is very involved in it and has been carefully spray watering the seeds every day and checking on their progress. The two sets of obvious larger seedlings are green beans and peppers. They've both almost outgrown the container and I need to look up what to do about that ASAP (as in, as soon as I finish this blog). It's still too cold out at night for them to venture outside in larger containers so I think they might just be making the leap from one container to another for the time being. Container gardening for dummies anyone?

We also have two tulip bulbs and a hyancinth bulb growing in the kitchen window. My mom found that great container at our local thrift store for $2 last year and gave it to me. I didn't know what to do with it at the time and put it in the garage. I unearthed in over the weekend while looking for sidewalk chalk and voila! The perfect holder/display for our new bulbs. I can't wait until these bloom!!! We'll be sure to update with pics.

The other living things around here are all doing very well. Ben has sprouted another inch or so it seems. I have a legitimate fear that he will tower over me by his tenth birthday. He started swimming lessons this past week at a new facility that I'm thoroughly impressed with. He's loving it and asking when Monday comes again so he can go back. It helps that he also gets 90 minutes of free play in the pool area that looks like a water park after his lesson too. ;) Nate is full of energy as always and eating us out of house and home. I'm not sure where he puts all of it as he's not getting much taller or rounder...Tim's guess is that it's being used to grow hair. I'm not totally convinced of that either but he certainly does have more fuzz on the back of his head than he used to. Maybe he'll have a full head by his third birthday. And of course, the baby seems to be doing well. As of today we're at 15 weeks which amazes me. Having been through this twice before I didn't think I'd be as surprised by the progress of things, but each time proves to be as unique as the child that arrives and so it's only right that every noticeable experience of the pregnancy is fun and strange too. As of last week the baby was the size of a lemon according to one of the weekly internet updates I get. So, I've taken to calling the baby lemon. I can't seem to help it and I fully admit to hearing Alec Baldwin in my head saying "Lemon!" every time I say it and it still doesn't bother me. I also admit to my on-going, much loved trend of re-writing songs to suit our lives. For example, in the past there has been a rewrite of Sexyback to TubbyBack, this winter I rewrote U2's Get on Your Boots, Your Sexy Boots, to be Your Winter Boots. Made us all laugh as we piled on layers of winter clothes to go to the library. And so in honor of baby #3 I rewrote U2's Lemon with lyrics about the Lemon in my belly etc. I won't give you the full version here, I fear I've revealed too much already and wonder if this baby will read this post years from now and realize how deep rooted this little song hobby of mine is. hmmm...

Anyway, on that note I wish you all a great weekend! I'm going to figure out how to rescue my seedlings now. And perhaps rewrite Rescue Me to suit the needs of my little green friends. ;)