38 Week Check-Up

I've been feel pretty lousy this week. I caught Chris' cold, and my energy level has just plummeted.  I can't breathe very well unless I'm standing or sitting propped up, and doing more than one activity leaves me feeling exhausted and light-headed. So I've been taking it easy.  However, last night, I had about an hour of menstrual-type cramping, and I worried, "is this the beginning of labor?"  It subsided, thankfully, because as I've mentioned, I'm not ready quite yet for this baby to get here. The cramps did have the effect of kicking Chris into high gear by getting more things ready - he washed the infant car seat fabric and got the Pack N Play out of the garage (although Charlotte immediately stole the three little plush owls that make up the mobile).  I think it was a wake up call that she could be here any day.

Fast forward to this morning.

I had my 38 week check-up this morning.  Not much to report - blood pressure is great, I gained two more pounds, but that's about it. I saw a new doctor today because mine has been on maternity leave for the past six weeks, so I'm being shuffled around a lot.  This doctor was really nice. She asked about my plans for delivering this baby, as in, do I want to go into labor naturally or be induced.  I told her, I would love to go into labor naturally, but that I was willing to go to 41 weeks again.  This gave her pause, given that Charlotte was 9 lbs 9 oz when she was born.  So the doctor did a cervical check, stated that the baby's head was way down low (which explains the horrible pain I get every time I roll over to the other side in the middle of the night) and asked if she could "stretch" me, in hopes that doing so will put me into labor naturally.  I said yes, and oh my gosh, was that painful! But she did end up stretching me to two centimeters, so we'll see if that does the trick.

The doctor said she'd see me at my next appointment on Monday, March 5, and that if I wanted to be induced at 40 weeks, she'd be totally fine with that, or if I wanted to wait longer, that's okay too.  I also think that this baby isn't as big as Charlotte was, and the doctor agrees. However, she said that I have the body type that could hide large babies really easily (i.e., I have a really long torso).

Anyway, that's about it. I'm worn out from this fifteen minute appointment, so I'm going to go sit down and rest. I really hope that we at least have this weekend to get more things done. Plus, the new closets are being installed on Tuesday. And Wednesday is Leap Day, and I certainly don't want my baby born that day! But after that, bring it on! :)

Family Fun Time

Well folks, I made it! Tomorrow is my first official day of maternity leave - it really hasn't sunk in yet that I'll be off of work until around Charlotte's birthday in June.

I still have about two and a half weeks until my official due date, but it's really strange how two pregnancies can be so vastly different.  Last time, with Charlotte, I was done. I was huge, I had major swelling everywhere, and I had major aches and pains.  And don't get me started on the number of people who commented on how huge I am.  This time around? It's totally different. I've still gained a lot of weight (40 lbs so far), but I have little to no swelling, I feel totally fine most of the time, and I've had no one tell me "you must be due any minute," or "are you sure your due date is X days away?"  In fact, I have random people telling me how small I am when I tell them how close I am to my due date. I'm not sure about "small," but I'm definitely not as big as I was last time.

Last Friday at 37 weeks

Apart from not sleeping very well, and the brief, stabbing pain every time I roll over or get up to use the bathroom, I'm doing pretty well. And I'm actually not at all ready for this baby to get here.  I mean, I'm ready in that we have everything we need, although I haven't packed a bag for anyone, but I'm in no hurry for her to get here. I'm really trying to enjoy these last few days of being a family of three, and I'm cherishing my time with Charlotte.  I love cuddling up with her and watching a movie together, and I love playing games with her. That's not to say I won't be able to do those things once the baby gets here, I just won't be able to do them every time Charlotte wants me to.

The past few weekends have been spent doing a lot of family time, and for that I'm really thankful. We have had three birthday parties during the first two weekends in February (we were invited to a fourth but couldn't make it), and two at the same exact kids' gymnastics place. Charlotte has had a blast with her friends.

The first picture is at Charlotte's friend Elissa's 2nd birthday party; the second is at Charlotte's friend Ava's 3rd birthday party, both at the same place.  Charlotte was one of the few kids who was fearless enough to do the zip line (at Elissa's party it was an actual zip line, not the dolphin).

On Saturday, we went up to Echo Summit and went sledding. We were supposed to go for our friend's son's 2nd birthday party last weekend, but poor weather made it impossible.  I was itching to go this weekend because a) it was probably our last shot at it before the baby arrives, and b) Charlotte had such cute snow clothes that I didn't want to go to waste.  I, of course, being 9 months pregnant did not go sledding, nor did I have any snow clothes to wear anyway.  Instead, I wore jeans, a fleece pullover, and a down jacket that had two zippers, so that I could zip it at the top and leave it open at the bottom.  It was a bit chilly, but I was warm.

Charlotte was so excited to go up to the snow.  As soon as we passed the first bit of snow on the road, she started shouting "Snow! Snow!" and kept on shouting it for the next 30 miles.  It was so cute.  She also wondered why we weren't stopping.

Once we got up to the sledding hill (our friends arrived at the same time, which was perfect), Charlotte was ready to go.  She loved the saucer, and it went so fast, that Chris had to literally sprint in front of her in order to stop the sled.  Unfortunately, when Chris and Charlotte went down together on the longer sled, Charlotte fell out and scraped up her face on the icy snow.  That sort of ruined the rest of the day, but by then, it was so crowded on the slopes, we likely wouldn't have stayed much longer anyway.

After making a snow angel

Last night, we did one of those family activities I never thought I'd be doing.  We went and saw Toy Story 3 On Ice.  Charlotte loves TS3 - she's seen it multiple times streaming on Netflix and Chris' parents got her the DVD for Christmas.  When I learned that the On Ice version would be coming to Sacramento, I thought it would be a really fun thing for her, but I wasn't sure if I wanted to shell out the money for it.  Luckily, Chris ended up winning tickets in Intel's corporate box at the arena.  It was the perfect place for us to sit. The seats were much more comfortable than the normal arena seats, and we had a great view of the action.  Charlotte was mesmerized the entire time. She sat on Chris' lap and never took her eyes from the show (meanwhile, I was pretty uncomfortable and tired, so I kept standing up and walking around). Personally, the show was pretty cheesy, but it was worth it to see Charlotte so excited.  Chris' mom had knitted (crocheted?) Charlotte an amigurumi version of Woody, so we took it with us to the show. It's really an amazing likeness to the actual Woody, only crocheted. Charlotte held onto Woody the entire time and even made him clap at times.

Charlotte and Woody

Charlotte and Daddy

The Toys! On Ice!

Woody is watching the show

A happy girl at the end of the night.

On the drive home, Charlotte would not stop talking about the show, despite it being nearly 10 o'clock and way past her bedtime. She talked about the scene in which the toys are about to fall in the fire and how they're saved by the "crane."  (She corrects us if we saw claw) This scene apparently scared her a lot, but she told me: "It's okay, Mommy. Woody saved me."  Like I said, if you had told me 8 years ago that I would one day be taking my daughter to a Disney On Ice show, I would have laughed at you. But it was so, so worth it (and free!).  It might be time to get those two other Toy Story movies on DVD...

In Honor of Valentine's Day, a Story

I'm posting this not because I really want to win a $100 Visa Gift Card, although that would be nice, but because one of my favorite bloggers posted something today that struck pretty close to home.

http://www.jennepper.com/2012/02/i-am-sooo-excited-that-i-get-to-be-part.html

It's part of a promotion for eHarmony, which I admit I've never visited before and kind of find the commercials pretty cheesy.

But I will tell the story of how Chris and I met, which was online.

It was way back in June 2003. I had just graduated from college and knew I'd be moving to Sacramento to get my Master's there.  I knew nothing about Sacramento, other than visiting it all of twice -- once when my mother was attending a conference and the other time to meet friends in Old Sacramento to have lunch and then go on to their parents' house in Oroville -- so I was curious as to what there was to do there (it was nothing like Berkeley or San Francisco).

I put a profile on Yahoo! Personals, but didn't include my photo. I didn't want any creepy people choosing me simply based on a picture. Plus, it was in the old days before digital cameras were ubiquitous and I had all of one picture online and it was for my aunt's friend's Internet endeavor of selling shirts to women NASCAR fans (how unlike me is that?! I laugh just thinking about it).  The endeavor ended quite abruptly by the way, because they tried selling them at NASCAR races, which was a big no-no for those NASCAR staff.  Anyway, I don't remember what I put on my profile, but I know that I put something about checking the "News" at The Onion because sometime after I posted my profile, I got an IM on my Yahoo! Messenger from some guy named Chris saying "thanks for reminding me to check The Onion today."  We chatted for a bit about ourselves, about Sacramento, and that was about it. I thought he was nice. A few days later the law firm I was working at removed Yahoo! Messenger from my work computer and that was that.

Flash forward a few months later and I had moved to Sacramento, started classes, and was working part-time at a job downtown. I liked my job, but I was miserable in Sacramento.  I didn't know anyone, my roommate was less than ideal, and more importantly, I didn't know what to do in Sacramento at all. I was, in short, super lonely.

I decided to try my hand at online dating in earnest, but I was way too cheap (and poor) to actually pay to contact someone, so I waited to see who would contact me. I had several guys email me, but none that piqued my interest enough to respond to them. I, did, however, come across Chris' profile again. I extrapolated his email address based on his Yahoo! ID, asked him for some help with things to do in Sacramento, and a few days later he got back to me. We chatted online and soon after, on the phone.  And when he suggested meeting up to play Pub Trivia on a Sunday night at a local English Pub, I was hooked. What better way to this girl's heart than trivia! (I had played some pub trivia back in Berkeley, but it had been several months, so I was itching to play some more).  So I plucked up my courage and went to meet him.  Apparently, he didn't need as much courage as his two good friends were there with him (if I had known anyone to be a wing man or woman, I would have brought them, but I didn't).  I impressed them by figuring out an anagram that spelled out Melissa Joan Hart (I'm pretty sure part of that anagram was @$$), helped answer some other questions and sipped on some hard cider.  I had the first fun night since moving to Sacramento five weeks prior.

We went on our first official date, without his friends, three days later.  It's not a classic online dating story. I didn't meet up with anyone else. But it's a good story, and it's our story. And 8 and a half years later, we still chat online everyday, but not with Yahoo! Messenger of course. Oh no, Google Chat is so much better and doesn't require installing any pesky software that your employer might decide to delete. :)

Happy Valentine's Day, Everyone!

Keeping it Real

From the way I write, you'd probably think that Charlotte is an angel. And she is, for the most part. She still has never come out of her room during nap time or at night, and even if she's awake in there, we hear her talking happily to herself.  And when any adult is around her, she just turns on the charm, mostly because our friends play with her.

But.

This parenting business is getting hard.  Charlotte is deep in the throes of Terrible Two Tantrum Land.  She has tantrums daily, and most oftentimes, multiple times a day.  It's anyone's guess what it's going to be about, but the tantrums mainly revolve around Charlotte wanting something and not getting it.  And it's so easy to set her off.  Just tonight, when we arrived home from daycare, she immediately started whining for a snack. I told her that she couldn't have a snack because I'd be making dinner right away in order for her to get to gymnastics on time. She accepted this explanation, mostly. But then she noticed her Playdoh on her table and asked to play with it. I explained that we didn't have time to play with the Playdoh. This, too, set off a tantrum.  She continued whining, "But whyyyyy? I want to play with Playdoh!"  When she figured out she wasn't going to get what she wanted, Charlotte flung herself on the floor in quite the dramatic fashion.

Hmm. What else sets off tantrums?
Not wanting to get in the bathtub.
Not wanting to get out of the bathtub.
Not getting dessert because she didn't eat enough of her dinner.
Wanting Mommy to take her to daycare.
Wanting Daddy to pick her up from daycare.

The list goes on and on. Sure, it's easy to get her to stop crying, by simply giving her what she wants.  But obviously, we can't do that.  A child cannot subsist on cookies alone.  The newest fun is when she shouts "That's not fair, Mommy!" or "That's not nice, Daddy!" So, I'm not sure what else there is to do but ignore her.  It's hard, and the whining and tantrums are definitely getting to us, but then she'll just do something so cute that we forget about the tantrums, at least for a few minutes. :)

Ups and Downs at 36 Weeks

Today marks one month exactly until my due date, and I'll be officially 36 weeks pregnant tomorrow.  I had my 36 week appointment today, and it's been so hard to be patient.  At my last appointment at 32 weeks, the ultrasound showed that Baby Girl was breech, and I was told that they'd schedule a c-section for me at 39 weeks.  I was both worried and semi-looking forward to a c-section - worried because it's major surgery and sad I would never get to experience spontaneous labor, but looking forward to having a date on my calendar that would only be three weeks away from today.  And for the past four weeks, I have been certain that she was still breech.  I've been feeling most of her movement on my lower right side. I was fully prepared to hear that March 2nd would be her birthday.

Anyway, the nurse practitioner did an internal check and when she couldn't feel the baby's head, she asked her medical assistant to bring in the ultrasound machine.  To my surprise, the baby is, in fact, head down, just way up high.  Her spine was along my right side, which means that she must have just turned over because as I mentioned the kicks were, until recently, down low on the right side. I haven't felt any on the left side yet.

So given the fact that she's head down but not anywhere near engaged, and nothing is happening regarding dilation, I'd say that we're probably headed to a late due date.  On the other hand, I'm measuring exactly at 36 weeks and everything else looks great in terms of blood pressure.  And despite feeling like I've been eating horribly, I only gained four pounds in the last four weeks, so I'm happy about that.

The nurse practitioner gave me my documentation to start my disability leave on Tuesday, February 21 (got to take advantage of being paid for President's Day), which means I'm all set to only have one week of work to go.  I'm feeling much better than I was four weeks ago, but I'm still looking forward to having some time to decompress before the baby gets here and the newborn craziness ensues.

We've also got a lot of things planned to get the baby's room ready before her arrival.  The room is painted. We've scheduled an appointment to get a custom closet built in both the baby's room and Charlotte's room for February 28th (it will be so much better than the current wire shelving).  My mother-in-law sent the crib bedding she made, and it looks amazing.  We've received our wall decals and the beautiful mobile I ordered from Etsy should be here any day.  The one thing that won't be ready by early March is a new glider for the baby's room.  The room has two windows in the far right corner, and because of their size and height, we didn't want any furniture underneath obstructing them.  A low glider will be the perfect thing for that space, but it won't be ready until early April.  Although the glider won't be here in time, I'll be sure to take pictures once the mobile is here and hung up and all the wall decals are in place.

Other than that, I just got word that my dear friend is being induced tonight for her first baby, so I'm excited to meet Baby Berry's future playmate. I hope all goes well for them!