Things I Love

So tomorrow is my baby shower. My mom is very excited about being an abuela for the first time, and has put together this whole thing. It's going to be at my apartment because I have more space.. Turns out we underestimated how many people would want to come. I'm not quite sure where I am going to put everyone, but they will have a ton of cookies.. C baked like a million cookies. He's been more stressed about cleaning and baking and making everything perfect than I am. But I guess that is always true of our relationship. There is a reason I call him my little housewife. I'm so lucky to have him. I'm excited about tomorrow, and I know I am being so optimistic about everything. And at this point with all the kicking and everything, I have realized something.

I want to make it clear I miscarried my first, and I miss her immensely. But I do understand now how stillbirth is different, being at 28 weeks now.. I think if I lose this one, I will lose my mind. How can you go on after feeling those movements inside your body, knowing there is someone in there you created, gave life to, and then not knowing them once they are born.. It would be heartbreaking. No I don't believe in the "my pain is worse than yours game" but every pain is different, and it is easier for me now, to understand why some women would say that to me, as hurtful as it is to hear that your pain means nothing compared to someone who lost a full term baby. Which I don't think is true. It is a different pain. It is a pain that comes from feeling the little person moving around. Becoming attached to that little person over 8 or 9 months. Knowing they are fully formed and responding to light and sound, it's just something different altogether.

Having said that, I miss you Sophie, and I don't love you any less than your sibling. You were just as important to me. I'm sad I never got to know you as well as this little one, but I know you will always be my baby.


Anyway, enough of my rambling, onto what this post is about. The things I love right now.

1. C is always there for me, keeps me from losing my mind. Bakes about 150 chocolate chip cookies so I can eat a bunch before the shower. Basically everything he does for me.

2. My mom is just wonderful, so supportive and so excited to be a grandma.

3. My dad, surprising me with his reaction. While it took him a while to warm up to it, he now says "Don't break your neck but kiss my grandson goodnight for me" before we hang up the phone. He rubs my tummy, talks and sings to his grandbaby.

4. The way the 2 year old I take care of thinks she has to pull my shirt up everytime she wants to talk to the baby. Haha and I will never tire of her waving at my tummy and saying "Hi baby"

5. My bosses. They are the kindest people in the world. They're giving me a crib. An entire whole actual crib for the baby, this is insane to me. And my christmas present is a baby sling. She wants me to go pick one out..

6. The way my cheques each week have hearts and smiley faces on them that say "We love you and appreciate you sooo much!!" in the notes part..

7. Freddie Mercury. Yes my first true love. I will always love you. No matter what's happening, when I am down, when I am happy, when I am feeling anything at all there is always Queen. You have been with me my whole life, all my ups and downs.

8. How beautiful I feel being pregnant. I have never felt so empowered as a woman. I feel a sense of something wonderful. Whether baby makes it or not I have created life, I have felt this little person moving around in me. That is something amazing.

9. The amazing fact that everyone loves to shop for babies. There are people I have never met (who have worked with C at some point, etc) who are buying stuff for the baby..

10. This community. Although I wish there was no reason for it to exist, it does and it's important. I have no idea what I would have done without everyone here. To read your blogs, and know that I wasn't alone in losing a pregnancy. And though I seriously hope that this one makes it out unscathed, I'm invested now in each and every one of your lives. I worry about you guys, I talk about you, I "pray" for your babies.. (I use the term pray loosely here since I'm not christian.. but you know what I mean..)

And now.. I should go clean or C will faint when he gets home..

Baby Bump

I guess it's pretty undeniable now. .

Great Googly Moogly

So the other day, as I'm making my oh so healthy snack for the day of a peanut butter sandwich, I suddenly have gut crippling lower abdominal cramping. I keel over basically into C's arms as he fortunately heard my whimpers and came to my rescue. He walks me carefully to the couch and I sit for a while. The pain is horrible, the tangible sense of panic and fear we both feel is worse. I spent the rest of that day worrying about why he wasn't kicking and when he did finally kick I worried it wasn't as strong a movement as it should have been. So on and so forth. It never ends does it? The worry? I was ready to call the nurse the second the pain returned, but it didn't fortunately. As the day progressed I realized that the day before, I had consumed unhealthy amounts of real whipped cream which as a lactose intolerant person may not have been such a good idea. Lately dairy hasn't been treating me so harshly which is why I hadn't thought of it earlier, but I'm now certain it was just my body rejecting the lactose. It hasn't happened again, and the baby is kicking stronger than ever.

So this morning I get a call from my clinic saying that my appointment for this coming monday, the 20th needs to be rescheduled.. Uhm ok? Can I come in today instead? No (of course not.) I have no idea what's happened but the earliest I can get in is Oct 30th.. ten days after the appointment I had.. Which sucks because a.) it's not like I had been looking forward to it all month and had a list of questions written down in my purse to ask her.. of course not.. and b.) after I got off the phone I realized that Oct 30th is a thursday, all my appointments have been on mondays, and there's a reason for it. I work thursdays. Monday is my day off. So there is no way I will be able to make it to the appointment and I have to call and reschedule and it will probably be even further off than before..

I seriously wonder what is going on that my nurse is gone for that long.. Perhaps a loved one died.. I hate to think it, something really bad must have happened. Anyway she is a really nice person and I hope she is okay.. In the meantime I am just going to have to suck it up. My appointment with the obgyn is Nov 7th. bleh. I don't think I'm looking forward to it, I hope she turns out to be as wonderful as everyone says.

And to everyone who participated in the stillbirth awareness, I think you did a wonderful thing, and I would like to thank antigone for bringing it to our attention. Even though I'm in Canada it's absolutely worth talking about.

Stillbirth Awareness and Research Act

On October 15th, remember the thousands of unfinished children lost and the families who remain to grieve them. Honor them by taking action. Let's help pass H.R. 5979.Action Steps:
Step 1. Use Your Blog to Enlist Others-Copy the contents of this entire post and publish it on your blog immediately.
GOAL: Enlist 10 of your readers to spread the word
Step 2. Use Your E-mail to Enlist Others-E-mail 5 bloggers and ask them (nicely and in an unspammy way) to publish these action steps on their blog. Consider contacting celebrity bloggers, political bloggers, medical bloggers, or bloggers who are not part of your reading community.
GOAL: Enlist 3 bloggers outside of your normal blog sphere to spread the word in other online communities.
Step 3. Help Pass the Stillbirth Awareness and Research Act-By October 15th, publish a post on your blog supporting H.R. 5979 Stillbirth Awareness and Research Act. For maximum impact, title your post: "Stillbirth Awareness and Research Act."

and you take me the way I am

So I'm officially huge. People who I assumed knew I was pregnant before have come up to me within the last week and said "Oh congratulations, I didn't even notice when I saw you last week" and people from my Baby & Me class have asked "How far along are you now? You're finally really starting to show" And all Friday my daddy called me "fatty", but it was in a cute loving kind of way. He'd rub my tummy and chuckle and say fatty. Eh guess you had to be there.. In spanish "gordita" (meaning little fatty) is actually a term of endearment. So I'm not insulted by it. Had it been someone else, and in a different tone yeah I'd be mad.

Today was a busy busy day. Although I didn't wake up until 11:30 which is the latest I've slept in in a long long time. Technically though I did wake up at 5am to pee and have a little romp under the covers.. Anyway I finally got back the very last of my stuff from my ex, including my dining room table and chairs, my tv stand and a set of dishes. Which means never having to speak to him again. Yay. I wonder if he noticed I was pregnant... I did put on a huge sweater, but at this point it's kind of showing no matter what I wear.

After getting back all my junk, we came home and I quickly finished hemming C's little sister's pants. Then we headed out of the city to his parents place to do laundry. Which believe me going out there like once a week once every two weeks is annoying it's necessary. Not because we can't do laundry here (it's kind of costly.. but we can do it) but because C wants to visit his parents every once in a while. Which is fine by me. They might be annoying, and abusive and whatnot, but they usually behave when I am around, and I can't just tell C that he isn't allowed to see his family anymore. He loves them despite everything.

Anyway their neighbour's kid just had a baby, and they had an extra carseat so they gave it to us. Yay for free car seats. It's brand new, and it's Peg Perego. Which I hear is some sort of fancy brand. We also found out that his dad is planning on buying us the crib if we don't get it for the shower. His dad is so excited about becoming a grandfather I don't know what to think. I'm feeling very wary, hopeful that he won't try to make the same mistakes with our kid that he made with C. He has the potential to be a half decent person. I hope he decides to use that potential so I can allow him to be around the baby.

Anyhow poor C is putting away all the clothes while I sit here, and I just told him to be quiet so I could finish typing my blog.. So I better go give him some kissies..

So Much

So much has happened in the last few weeks. I kept wanting to write in here, I'd open up the window, have no idea where to start, and close it again just as fast. I have been keeping up on everyone's blog though. I check every day pretty much for updates..

I still have no idea where to start. I've been working so much lately. And it's making me crazy. I normally have quite a few days off. Sat, sunday, monday and wednesday. Wednesday has been my day for my baby classes, where I get free milk coupons, and they feed me and I learn stuff.. But now apparently I will be working on wednesday evenings and I am more than a little pissed off.. I also on this last cheque had to pay for C's adjustments.. (I work for a chiropractor and he's been adjusting C.. ugh) so that was 100 dollars off my cheque which I actually needed to pay rent. Lovely. So that also made me quite angry. Not to mention I am nearing the third trimester and am noticing that absolutely everything it seems makes me very very very cranky.

Anyway I have been working everyday of the week now except Sunday. Today is my one day off. I'm just feeling tired, and like I need the money yeah, grateful for that sure, but I work these stupid split shifts and I have like 4 hours in between the two shifts some days and it's just ridiculous. I work all the way across the city so sometimes C will come and get me for lunch, but he always has to work at 1:30pm and sometimes I'm not back to work until 4. So he drops me off near my work and I sit around in a field or whatever until I have to go back. It kind of sucks. I mean it wasn't so bad in the summer when it was nice and warm out, but the days are getting colder. And I don't think hanging out in a field for 2 and a half hours will be such a good idea during a Manitoba winter.

It wouldn't be so bad if it was a normal 6-8 hour day with a short lunch break in between or hell I don't even need a lunch break, I'll bring a sandwich and eat when she takes a nap or while she's having her lunch. I don't care. At least then I could to work, and then go home at the end of the day and just be at home and not have to go back in 2-4 hours for another 3 hours and then go home again. Also I was getting my bus tickets for free on Wednesdays from my baby & me program and now that I have to work wednesdays I don't get to go get bus tickets.. UGH. Pain in the ass really.

Oh and did I mention I have been super paranoid this whole time and it is driving me up the wall. I've broken down I don't know how many times now, because the baby hasn't moved enough in one hour, or because I am cranky and I get so worried that the baby is going to know I am pissed off and he is going to be pissed off and whatnot because the epinephrine travel through my blood stream to him. Absolutely crazy.

I went to my last prenatal appointment, funny story actually.. not.. It was Monday morning, usually around the end of the month I have my prenatal. So I couldn't find the paper that says what time/date my appt is. So I call the clinic. And she says "actually it's today, in fact right now.. 10 o clock" well fack, it's 9:55. So we drive down there, the 20 mins it takes to get there, and they say have a seat Donna will be out to see you in a minute..

Wait a second who the hell is Donna?? My nurse is Jane thank you very much. So I see this Donna chick and she is like "uhh you've been seeing Jane your file says.. Was she too busy to see you today?"

"No.. who are you again? I have no idea why they scheduled me with you.."

"Yeah you really should be seeing Jane, she's been following your whole pregnancy.."

"Yes I'm aware of that. I'm sure I booked the appointment with Jane, the receptionist must have misclicked a button or something."

UGH. So while Donna was nice and all she totally had no clue about my pregnancy, and just my luck we got back my ultrasound for this appointment, and she completely skimmed over it and didn't bother reading it. (Luckily though I was sitting right next to her and read it for myself.)
She looks at it and says "Looks like you have abnormally high amniotic fluid" And I am reading over her shoulder, and it actually says "Amniotic fluid is in the higher range of normal" So she's having trouble reading it or something, and reads it over again a few minutes later and corrects herself and says oh it's normal, but higher end of normal. Well duh. Read the damn page correctly or better yet give it to me to read.

Also she wasn't as comforting as my normal nurse. The one I usually see is awesome, she answers all my questions, takes me seriously, reminds me that my body is healthy, baby is doing awesome, etc etc. But since I didn't see her this month I am falling apart. The heartrate was much lower than normal (only 120) and this nurse said like nothing about it. Didn't reassure me that that was okay or whatever.. I'm sorry but yes I do need the reassurance.. I'm actually pretty pissed about it. And now I have to wait until the end of October to see my normal nurse again. I kind of elongated the word Jane this time when I booked the appointment, like hello want to schedule it properly this time? With the right person??

There is so much more to right but I am just not going to get into it, I need to get some sleep for tomorrow. bah.

Sleep?

If sleep is for the weak well I must be quite strong. It's fair to say I never got much sleep growing up. And still don't for the most part. Lately though I am tired, drop dead tired. Normally a good 5 hours will get me through the day no problem. I know that isn't healthy. Right now though, I climb into bed, and inexplicitly wake up a few hours later.. to pee, to blow my nose, whatever it is, something always wakes me up. I stumble back to bed trying to keep my eyes closed as much as possible hoping this will facilitate my re-entry into dreamland. Alas I lie there in bed, tired but unable to fall back asleep. Eventually I succumb to the fact that I am not going to fall back asleep until much later in the day when I have once again exhausted my body to the point where I cannot stay awake any longer. My guess is this will happen around noon.

C seems to be doing much better now, though last night he was wound up like a jack-in-the-box. Some real life friends of ours had their baby at 10:30pm, and when we got the text message he was practically through the roof. I doubt he fell asleep until sometime in the wee hours of this morning, because when I walked into the kitchen it appeared we had been ransacked by raccoons. I was of course freaking out because it looked like someone had eaten all my cookies, until I realized he had reorganized everything in the cupboards and for some reason thrown the empty cookie box on the floor.. (The garbage is literally 2 feet away I know your legs aren't broken..)

I think he is just so excited to hear that our friend is now a daddy, and that if all goes well, he too will soon have a little baby. We won't be able to see their baby for another two weeks, he's still in the ICU to get his blood sugars up, and he was born in a small town outside the city or else we'd go to see them right now.

Anyway I need some breakfast cookies.. I'm gonna go do that.