a clothes encounter

i'm packing up my maternity clothes today! i actually could have done it sooner, but i've been lazy. blame it on the kiddo. i've lost all but 8 pounds of the weight i put on while pregnant. yay!

i had to go get new jeans though, because my pre-baby jeans just did not fit and won't really unless i lose another 10-15 pounds after the baby weight is gone. i think i was just deluding myself before that they fit. while i was at old navy looking for jeans i found a very cute top that will be great for nursing. strangely, i cannot find it online.


those gathers at the neckline are elastic so it pulls down very easily without stretching out the knit, and i think the fit is pretty universally flattering. i got two, because they are such a nice lightweight jersey and i'm very into comfy soft tops lately.

i also stopped by target last week to pick up a couple more of these nursing camis which i absolutely love. i had gotten a couple nursing bras there as well but am not a huge fan of them. specifically this one. (is it wierd to be posting about my underwear online?) it's just not as comfortable as i thought it would be. any recommendations on a comfortable nursing bra? i have not tried the medela ones yet, mostly because they are so pricey ($38) but i will splurge if anyone thinks they are worth it.

add one more to the list

i'm trying very hard not to feel guilty about having requested more pain meds at this morning's doctor appointment. seems we are making a daily pilgrimage to the clinic for one reason or another these days - brian had an eye appointment, hannah has her weight issues, and me - well, i'm just a mess. as if labor and delivery weren't enough, i now also have a urinary tract infection. joy!

before we left the hospital my doctor wrote me a prescription for norco, which is similar to vicodin but has less acetaminophen. it's working well at controlling the pain from my cesarean, but i was down to the last couple pills, and when i slept through my reminder alarm and woke up in quite a bit of pain i decided that maybe now was not quite the best time to try to wean myself off of it. i'd rather not be taking highly addictive narcotics, but i'd rather more not experience the pain just yet. i've just had major abdominal surgery, thank you very much. i don't understand these women who go through this postpartum recovery basically without pain meds. one of my girlfriends only took vicodin for the first day after all three of her cesareans. another took only ibuprofen afterwards. i admire them for being able to do that because i'm no hero. the twinges and cramps send me crying into brian's arms. so we got more norco.

speaking of cramping, i thought we were done with that. i thought we had 2-3 days of afterpains and then my uterus would be relatively shrunk back to size and no more cramps. turns out i am not necessarily wrong in this, but lucky me, i have something else going on altogether: the day after hannah was born, the doctor came to me in the hospital and asked if i knew that i had uterine fibroids. i said yes, they've been there for a while and my ob can feel them, she just keeps an eye on them. they're small. he said, um, not exactly. apparently when he opened me up he found a fibroid the size of a baseball sitting on top of my uterus. he did not remove it because there was a risk of vascular problems and too much bleeding as my uterus contracted. also, removal would weaken that area of my uterus and i would be at a much higher risk of uterine rupture during labor for the next kiddo. so unless it starts causing me problems (i'm thinking that's unlikely as i didn't even know it was there until now) then it stays in until we are 100% sure we are done having children. and here brian and i thought it was hannah's bottom the whole time.

the fibroid shouldn't really cause any problems anyway, he said - i might have more cramping and heavier flow when i have my period. big deal. i've had that all my life. the only "problem" it is currently causing is these abdominal cramps. fibroids are apparently very sensitive to estrogen, so it was hanging out and getting fat and happy while i was pregnant and making estrogen like there was no tomorrow. once hannah was born, my estrogen production dropped like a mob man with cement shoes. as a result the fibroid is probably shrinking and causing my cramps.

the urinary tract infection is lots of fun because i can't feel anything down there. i've heard this is not uncommon after vaginal births. granted, i didn't have one, but since i pushed for almost 3 hours i get to claim vaginal birth aftereffects. i don't feel that pressure and urgency when i need to go, so i have to keep reminding myself to head to the bathroom every couple hours. but! not to worry! i can still feel that resistance to go, and the burning. yay! i was put on keflex for the uti, which should be an interesting experience as i've never taken it. usually i get cipro instead, because i'm allergic to the sulfa drugs that are commonly used to treat uti's. however, cipro does turn up in breastmilk and can cause problems for baby so keflex it is.

the printout of my "active medications" includes my prenatal vitamin (huh?) and is a bit horrifying to me:
- prenatal vitamin once a day
- motrin every 8 hours
- norco every 4 hours
- keflex twice a day
- stool softener twice a day
- nor-q-d (minipill birth control) once a day

i feel like my grandparents, with 86 pills spread before me at the breakfast table.

breast vs. formula (my experience thus far)

only 8 days old and already life with hannah is an adventure. we had our two-day checkup on friday (15) afternoon and it turns out she is losing weight. we knew this already and that night began supplementing with a little bit of formula. i did not want my baby to be formula-fed but i wanted her admitted even less, which is what the pediatrician needed to do if her weight did not turn around fast.

i was kind of feeling discouraged and all about the whole breastfeeding thing anyways. i am not planning on giving up... just discouraged. i did not make it through 12 hours of HARD labor with no drugs just to complain about a couple sore nipples. besides we don't have the money to throw away on formula all the time. i am planning/hoping to breastfeed for a year or longer if i can. besides i did not have problems with engorgement when my milk came in thank the Lord, so how could i throw away THAT gift and decide to go to formula?

i honestly did not know what was wrong when i started feeding and it hurt. all the classes and books and websites say breastfeeding should not hurt, if it does you are doing something wrong. and it didn't hurt, at least not right away. but by thursday (14) when we went home from the hosptal it did. i told the lactation lady who came in to my room to help me before we left, and she helped but it still hurt. i didn't tell her though, i felt like it must be me if she was making the latch and standing over me making sure i was doing it right and it still hurt. now i think maybe she didn't know well enough what she was doing. then we went for our 2-day appointment with the doctor - usually that one is with a nurse practitioner so she can be sure you are feeding properly because pediatric doctors don't get a lot of training in breastfeeding but pediatric nurse practicioners do for some reason. that was when we found out hannah was SO down on weight, and the doctor recommended supplementing with a little formula. all babies lose some of their birth weight but hannah had lost a lot. 14 oz. in 4 days which was 12% of her birthweight and the doctors do not want to see more than 7% lost. they were ready to admit her if something did not turn around asap which is why the pediatrician suggested supplementation. i did not want to because i did not want her to get used to the (easy) bottle nipple and then not want to suck from mama, because boob sucking is harder than bottle sucking.

(aside: did you ever think i'd be discussing "boob sucking?" i never thought "boob" would become such a "normal" part of my vocabulary, personally.)

so brian went and got some formula. i had him get the liquid kind, smallest bottle he could, because i did not want to mix powders and i thought she might take it better than powder anyways. like how chocolate milk you buy in a refrigerated carton is WAY better than chocolate milk you make from powder. we had a coupon but still, i do not even want to know how much it cost. the liquid formula is more expensive than the powder so it must have been like gold.

we only gave her one ounce on friday night but she did not feed well when i tried later that night. THAT was discouraging, but i did not know then that formula keeps them fuller longer. i think it probably has more calories and less water. (because you can give a formula baby a teeny bit of water in the summer when it is so hot, but you can't a bf baby because they get all the fluids they need from breastmilk and can get an electrolyte imbalance.) it was nice that night to give my boobs a break - and then that night my milk came in. other than that she fed fine and when the nurse practitioner saw her on saturday (16) she had put on 3.5 oz. overnight. she said, otherwise how are things going? and i grabbed my boobs and said, sore, the usual, but otherwise fine. she said, would you like me to show you how to breastfeed her without it hurting AT ALL?

well heck, lady, when you put it like that... does the sun rise in the east?

she said usually babies have the reflex down okay but sometimes they don't know exactly what to do, and moms sure don't, so don't beat yourself up over it. i guess whatever she was doing was pulling on my nipple which caused the soreness and also the cracking/bleeding at the end. and she is not supposed to do that, but f she is not latched on properly sh will in order to get enough milk. i am still not quite sure what is different except in how i hold her back now, but i can feel she is not pulling on me and the cracking/bleeding is all healed on one side and almost all healed on the other. and let me tell you it is so nice to be able to feed your kid without dreading it. except that now i dread it at night because it means less sleep.

we gave her another ounce of formula sunday (17) night. she had another checkup with the pediatrician yesterday, and she had put on another 3 ounces! the doctor said if we only gave her 2 ounces formula and she gained 6.5 ounces in 3 days, that is DEFINITELY my milk (my milk had not yet come in when we first saw the pediatrician on friday) and good breastfeeding. i could sure tell when my milk came in. it is nice to know that for sure i have enough for her because she is putting on weight.

so now there is the rest of a 24-ounce bottle of similac in my fridge and can I tell you how tempting it is at 3 am? breastfed babies only sleep about 2-3 hours at a stretch because breastmilk is so easily digested and they are that hungry sooner. formula babies sleep 4+ hrs at a stretch i guess. and last night, like the night before and the night before that, I could NOT for the life of me get her to sleep in her pack & play. i personally was fine with her sleeping on my chest but brian did NOT want that because what if she rolled off, and i was sleeping HARD at that point so i would not necessarily wake up and notice. he had a point so i tried not to sleep with her on me but often i just dozed off, because when i'd put her in the pack & play (asleep) she would wake up and cry, LOUD. i finally got her to last night, yay me! brian stayed up with me to give me some moral support since it's not like he can feed her. but then about 230 am she was awake again and we heated up about 1/2 ounce of formula hoping it would be little enough to not affect her feeding and big enough to get her to sleep a little extra. we caved. i think she slept about 2 hours (in her crib! or maybe on brian?) and man did i need that. i'm such a better mommy when i have some slep under my belt.

baby watch: 5 days left

i think i'm ready to meet this kiddo. if only to get rid of the interstate road map of veins that is my entire body.


this afternoon doc said baby had dropped a tiny bit, maybe 1 cm, and i was approximately 50% effaced. so: i could go into labor this weekend, or not for another two weeks. she's not concerned as baby seems healthy (nice strong heartbeat and still moving just as furiously as ever) and i'm healthy, so i'm not concerned. at this moment she's willing to let me go a full two weeks past my due date, which would be may 25 before she would recommend induction.

in other news, i am apparently not completely insane for thinking my feet are hugely and grotesquely swollen. my legs are as well and doc said my swelling is some of the worst she has seen. yay! she commented that she was impressed that i had not really complained about it. i haven't to her, because what can she do? although i did ask the nurse last time if maybe she could just lance them, like a blister or something?

we are at: 39 weeks 2 days.

HECK. i am not ready for this.

today's appointment at the doctor was another quick one. brian has been amazed at how quick they are lately, but they are just brief checkups. yes, i am still pregnant. yes, kiddo is still head-down with a good strong heartbeat. nope, not dilated yet BUT apparently things are changing (softening) enough that doc said i may not make it to next wednesday's appointment.

SAY WHAT?

if i do make it that far, we'll just schedule another appointment for the following week, but i might not make it that far.

EXCUSE ME?

i am not ready to have this kid yet. i have too much to do. the shelves for her closet still need to be painted. i still need to get brackets so i can hang the shelf on the wall above her dresser. i have cooking to do and a freezer to stock. i need time to just put my feet up and rest with a good book that i know i will not be able to finish once she arrives.

i called brian to let him know how things went:

brian: you're out of there already? what did she say?

me: everything is fine, she is still healthy and head-down. she also said i might not make it to my appointment next week.

brian: why not?

me: because of how my body is changing, she is getting ready to be born.

brian: but why does that mean you might not go to the appointment? is the doctor not going to be there or something? why wouldn't you go?

me: BECAUSE WE MIGHT HAVE A BABY BEFORE THEN.

brian: no! we can't have a baby yet! i haven't slept in a month!

me: honey, i haven't slept in FOUR months.

we are at: 38 weeks 3 days.

wherein boobs are discussed, but not at great length.

weekly checkup was today, very quick. kiddo's heartbeat is a nice strong 140 beats per minute and my blood pressure is fine.

brian has been bugging me lately to get the hospital bag packed. he asked me last night, do you want to bring a deck of cards with us? i said, do you honestly think we'll have time to play cards? he said, i might be bored. i said, i think will be keeping you pretty busy with the whole BIRTHING A BABY thing.

we (possibly just me) have a breastfeeding class tonight. this morning at the doctor they had me fill out a quick little questionnaire about my boobs in general and breastfeeding in particular. since i've never had a kiddo it was pretty easy, lots of no's. the very first question kind of threw me, though: have your breasts changed size since you became pregnant? of course they have. they are monsters attached to my chest, rivaled only in size by my stomach. there was a box to check to say "increased in size" or a box to say "stayed the same." WHOSE BOOBS STAY THE SAME SIZE DURING PREGNANCY?

back to the fruit again

at the beginning of pregnancy, all the books and the doctor liken the size of your baby to fruit. your baby is the size of a blueberry! now it's the size of a strawberry, how sweet! your uterus is about the size of a grapefruit now! at some point they stop using the produce department as a metaphor for your child and just start using real measurements: the baby weighs approximately 10 ounces, the baby is approximately 14 inches long, the top of your uterus can be felt approximately 4 inches above your bellybutton. i guess this is because it could be detrimental to an ob/gyn's health to tell someone in an irrational hyperemotional state that they are carrying around a squash or a watermelon and by the way YOU ARE NOT DONE GROWING, NOT BY A LONG SHOT.

i realized last night when my ankles disappeared that i think i am back to the fruit again. i knew my feet would swell, but i didn't expect it to be this bad. i always thought i had kind of nice-looking feet - they're not bony or anything but have nice little curves and hollows on them, kind of like the curves and hollows of a woman's collarbone. (which imho is very sexy.) it's not like i could be a foot model or anything but i don't think i'm scaring small children when i go barefoot. but this! no more curves. no hollows. my ankles are completely gone. my foot has been replaced by a puffy, stiff, tingly THING.

and that thing? is approximately the size of a papaya. one of the large ones, the mexican papayas. i have papayas at the ends of my legs. we've come full circle, folks.

we are at: 35 weeks 3 days.

tailbone. hurts.

especially when i get up from sitting. doc says this is completely normal. apparently kiddo is pressing on it. apparently also the bones can actually move a little bit. this is because my body is producing a hormone called relaxin which loosens up my ligaments so that my hips will open up during labor. unfortunately it also has the unpleasant side effect of loosening up all my other joints, so my back is achier than usual and those tailbone bones can move slightly.

on a positive note, i have the option of sitting on a donut pillow to help ease the ache. on a negative note, this makes it look like i have hemorrhoids, which i most emphatically do NOT as i have been diligent about eating enough fiber and drinking enough water to (thus far) successfully avoid them.

on another positive note, apparently the "effects" of relaxin go away within about 24 hours of delivery. it's produced by the placenta, so once there is no more placenta, there is no more relaxin. but as my doctor reminded me, postpartum brings its own new set of aches and pains. remind me again why women are so set on perpetuating the human race?

we are at: 33 weeks 2 days.

maternity photos

man that sounds awful. maybe it is just that word, maternity. it makes everything sound awful. maternity leave sounds like when you sent away an unwed mother in the 1950s so no one knew she was pregnant. maternity jeans sound horrendous but i love mine, they are so comfy and imho actually rather cute. likewise, maternity photos sounds so fuggy and blech but i really like how ours turned out. it helped that i was having a good hair and makeup day and my husband is just naturally devastatingly handsome.


i was a little nervous at first showing so much skin. our photographer was a man also, maybe it would have helped if it were a woman. (i would have loved my friend joanna to have done them but she is two hours away.) it was the first time i had shown that much skin for someone whom i was not in love with and it is a bit unnerving to deliberately remove your clothes and be willingly photographed in basically your underwear. i'm not in love with showing off my body to begin with and here i was paying someone to take pictures of it.


fortunately my husband was amazing as usual. often in the crush of daily life i forget what a truly fabulous man this is that i was lucky enough to marry. more than the photographer (or his wife who was also his assistant), he really put me at ease. i mean, here is some strange man who is pulling open my shirt and arranging my hands or brian's hands on my stomach and in doing so he has to sometimes brush my skin and it is just plain weird. but brian completely relaxed me and made me laugh and really made the whole thing fun.


even better was that we were doing it together, so even though there were two other completely random people in the room, it still felt very intimate between us. at least it did to me. and the best part is, i know brian was doing it all for me, which speaks volumes to me about how great he is. these belly photos were all my idea and i really pushed for them. i wanted a record of our baby while she is still "just" a bump in my midsection. i want her to see these photos and know how much her mom and dad love each other and her, even before she is born. when i initially brought it up, brian was rather against the idea. he did not want to spend the money on baby pictures with no baby in them. but he gave in for me.


i think even he had a good time, and i am really glad that we did this. i love pregnant belly photos and i am so glad we have our own for our kiddo. and if i do say so myself, i think they turned out pretty damn great. our photographer is really talented and brought out the best in both of us. and it makes me happy to see these photos, because very often these days i am feeling unwieldy and ungainly and just not very attractive. not ugly or anything, just unattractive, with this huge watermelon for a waist and tired all the time, and these remind me of what i have always (previously) believed: that there is quite possibly nothing more beautiful than a pregnant woman, except maybe a pregnant woman and the man who loves her.


we are at: 31 weeks.

special thanks to cesar and desserie at artpix portrait studio for taking our beautiful photos. all images are copyright to them.

body issues again. i thought we were done with this.

i went to yoga the other night for the first time since getting pregnant. okay, let's be honest, for the first time a long time. too long, because i really do enjoy it. i always leave feeling refreshed and calm and centered. being aware of my breathing and my body and how it occupies space always seems to reset my brain.

but this! i thought i had gotten used to this body finally. i'm really getting to love my pregnant body, even as i'm a bit fuller than i used to be in places other than my belly and certainly not as agile as i was before. i mean, it takes some effort to put socks on in the mornings. and i really love my tummy. i thought i had figured out this new body of mine, how to move with it and to move myself around it, how to handle this new bulk that i'm hefting around.

and this was not "real" yoga to me - mostly just stretching, none of the usual poses that i'm used to. easy yoga for the pregnant ladies. and yet when i lifted my arms over my head and brought them back down again - where did these boobs come from that are completely in the way? my body never used to behave like this. i'm used to making the effort to put on socks or shave my legs, but sitting indian-style with this belly? how did that become difficult? and then there's the kiddo squirming around, pushing up against my insides, and can't she just sit still for an hour so i can get something out of this class? it was a shame too, because of all the body wierdness that i was bumping up against, i couldn't relax and slow myself down enough to enjoy being there. better luck next week, i suppose.

we are at: 29 weeks 5 days.

uncomfortably pregnant and i know it's not going to get better from here

the third trimester started two days ago and boy did it ever get itself started with a bang. monday morning about 3a i woke up HUNGRY and hot. guess that metabolism is really picking up! on the bright side i don't have to wear as many layers of thermals as i usually do to keep warm in the winter. and boy can i ever eat these days. that kiddo is really growing, judging by my appetite.

this morning about 4a i woke up with a sharp pain across my lower abdomen. it felt better when i stood up (even better when i walked around) than when i was laying or sitting, so i took a shower to relax and ate a little breakfast and then tried to catch some sleep. it did not feel like baby pain and she was kicking so i tried not to worry too much. the book didn't make any mention of sharp abdominal pain which was a bit frustrating, but i did not seem to have any of "symptoms" that i thought i should be worried about (bleeding, cramping, pain that is not alleviated by changing position, et cetera) so i just cuddled up in brian's comfy recliner and fell asleep. i felt a lot better when i woke up.

the pain came back this afternoon so i called the nurse for a little reassurance, and fortunately she thought it was nothing also. my belly doesn't get hard (like braxton hicks) and i don't have any warning signs of pre-term labor. prescription: tylenol, hydrate, take it easy, discuss with doctor at my next regular appointment (monday). this gal has been kicking around like usual, so hopefully all of this will ease brian's mind as well.

the nurse did suggest that it could be normal stretching pains, or round ligament pain, which i thought had started about a week ago. apparently it can be sharper stabbing pains; i thought it was mostly a dull ache, the achy pain i had felt in my hips, mostly when getting up from sitting. i guess this is the uncomfortable part rearing its head.

we are at: 28 weeks 2 days.

i take back everything i ever said about maternity clothes

yes, those are maternity jeans and yes i love them. they are insanely comfortable. as much as i hated the idea of it, i absolutely love that tummy panel in my pants. much more so than low-rise pants that button under the belly.


doing my best with the lotion not to get stretch marks but i think i'm fighting a losing battle.

we are at: 26 weeks 5 days.

there really is a baby in there

monday night, at 23 weeks exactly:


i don't know if the angle of the picture i took is making me look rounder or what, i am not standing 90° to the camera nor am i standing straight on, obviously. i stood up as straight as i could because my sister is convinced i am HUGE for 5 months and sticking my belly out. in this photo i am not even relaxed and any curve in my back is the natural curve of my spine, probably visually enhanced by that huge round ass back there, the one that only seems to be getting bigger. according to the pregnancy books i look like the 5 month drawings so who knows. is this normal? i've never been pregnant so i don't know.

sleep is somewhat better though getting uncomfortable, and i still have 4 more months of growing to go. to get around sleeping on my side, i've kind of accomodated by "leaning" on my stomach, kind of at an angle so i don't put too much pressure on my belly, but now even that is getting uncomfortable. this gal is getting big enough too that laying on my back for more than about 10 minutes is uncomfortable, since her weight is enough to push on whatever organs are behind my uterus.

at least we're on the downhill stretch!

we are at: 23 weeks 3 days.

touché, honey

last night when he came home from work and gave me a hug:

brian: "you know, i've never been with anyone whose belly got bigger every day!"

me: "huh."

brian: "YOU KEEP YOUR MOUTH SHUT."

we are at: 18 weeks 1 day.

get a little backbone

we were only supposed to hear the heartbeat this morning, but brian really wanted an ultrasound and begged the doctor for one. so she rolled in the machine, squirted that cold jelly on my tummy, and baby spot popped up on the screen.


WOW! what a change from four weeks ago when we saw him/her last! eyes and nose were clearly visible to us and the doctor could see its brain (all i could tell was a big head). that curved horizontal line on the left side is its spine, and there were little stripes across its chest that the doctor said were ribs. spot was very wiggly this morning and we saw arms and legs flailing everywhere. apparently he/she was as happy to see mommy and daddy as we were to see him/her!

we did get to hear the heartbeat as well, which the doctor said would get stronger and easier to hear as the baby gets older. it was beating along at 120 bpm which she said was good. normal is 110-140 bpm, she said.

my uterus is up at my belly button, which means spot is growing well. doctors measure "fundal height," the distance to the top of the uterus, as a way of making sure the baby is growing enough. they just poke around on your stomach as if they are feeling for your liver or spleen or something. i had been trying to figure out where it was the last couple of weeks and have been unsure so she showed me. i was quite surprised - it is hard and firm, like a flexed muscle, and then at the top my stomach gets all squooshy again. personally, i knew that baby was growing without her even having to tell me. i only fit into a couple pairs of my pants anymore and my bias-cut, elastic waist skirts.

our next visit is in december, the same day that we have the 20-week ultrasound. next week or so i go in to the lab for the expanded alpha-feto-protein (xafp) test, which tests not only for some chromosomal abnormalities (like down's and trisomy 18) but also for non-hereditary problems like neural tube defects. i will also have a chromosome workup on myself, as there are some minor family histories that could have caused a problem that could be passed on to our baby. highly unlikely, but i figure it's just one more piece of information, and i only have to do it once. it's not like my chromosomes will change from this baby to the next.

we are at: 15 weeks 3 days.

getting plumpy

my lovely hubby commented this morning that i was starting to look pregnant. (those were not quite his exact words, but that was the general gist of things.) i love him, but this is not exactly what i wanted to hear at 8am as i was getting out of the shower and trying to figure out which pants i can still fit into. poor guy, i didn't take it exactly well and i know what he meant - that he enjoys seeing the woman he loves start to visibly show that she is carrying his baby - but he just kept digging himself into a hole. i reminded him that the baby books he's been reading voraciously are quite adamant that daddy should NOT under any circumstances comment on how much weight mom is gaining or how flabby or saggy her bottom is getting.

unfortunately, he's noticed what i've been noticing for the past two weeks or so: that my body is really starting to change. at the moment i'm not thrilled about it because i don't really look pregnant unless you know intimately what i look like un-pregnant (like brian does). otherwise i just look like i can't lay off the krispy kremes and halloween candy. my pants still fit for the most part - the waistband is just tight - but i did discover this morning that the cummerbund of my gypsy costume doesn't fit anymore. (i had to find a different, less restrictive costume to wear to hand out candy tonight.)

all that to say, i cannot wait for when i actually start looking like a pregnant lady. then at least i have an excuse to eat all those krispy kremes.

we are at: 12 weeks 5 days.