Author Archives: Cindy

32 weeks

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I had my 32-week OB appointment this afternoon, also known as Round 2 of this game I’m playing called “Let’s See How Much I Can Freak Out My OB With My Bizarre Gastro-Intestinal System.”

The good news is that my stomach is gradually starting to get better. The drugs definitely seem to be helping in that regard, and I’m starting to get a shred of energy back, which I think is probably the best sign of all. I don’t quite feel up to my old workout regimen yet, but I managed to get myself out of bed, dressed, to the doctor’s office and back without feeling like I was going to collapse – and I even stopped for gas on the way home! And I didn’t fall over! So that’s optimistic. 

However, I’ve also lost four more pounds in the past two weeks. This means that I now weigh the exact same amount that I weighed at my very first 8-week pregnancy checkup. I’d be lying if I said that a tiny part of me wasn’t a little bit happy about this news, because at this rate, I’m going to have virtually no pregnancy weight to lose. But the part of me that’s excited about it is the same part of me that finds fashion magazines interesting, so really, we should just ignore her because she’s a very shallow, superficial girl. 

My OB said that she’d ideally like to see me gain ten pounds in the next 8 weeks, but she admitted that it’s probably going to be impossible at the rate that I’ve been going. I haven’t done the “1-2 pounds per week” weight gain yet, so there’s no reason to think I’m going to start anytime soon. Although I wasn’t anywhere close to being underweight when I got pregnant, the doctor is a bit concerned that if I give birth and end up weighing far less than my starting weight, I might be too weak to take care of the baby. So that’s no good. I’ve been drinking protein shakes and taking vitamins all along (because that’s just what we post-op gastric bypass folks do), but I’m going to start drinking more shakes (i.e., three a day instead of my usual two) and increasing my vitamin intake, just to be safe.

(And again, that tiny superficial part of me is happy to note that this is the first time in my entire life that a medical professional has ever encouraged me to gain weight rather than lose it. Silly, I know.)

My doctor also measured my belly and said that it’s totally in the normal ranges, so we have no reason to think that Baby Girl is suffering at all during this. However, just to be safe, she wants to do another ultrasound to make sure the baby’s growth is all progressing smoothly and according to schedule. I guess the idea is that if there’s a problem, it’d be easier to fix while she’s still in the womb, rather than after she’s born.

So I’ll be having another ultrasound next Wednesday (the 20th). I imagine that it’ll be kind of weird, since she’ll probably look a lot more like an actual baby now than she did back in September. If there are pictures to post, you know I will.

As for the childbirth class: it was a long day, and I slept horribly the night before, which made it that much worse. But the class itself was fine, I suppose. I’m always irritated by the judgmental undertones toward epidurals and other forms of pain medication, but I think that’s just part of living in the Northwest with all the hippies. The instructors did a pretty good job of staying neutral on the topic – one of the teachers had four kids, only one of them born without drugs. The anti-medication vibe was from the other women in the room. There’s such a huge trend here in favor of natural childbirth – or as they now call it, “unmedicated” birth. Whatever.

And yes, of course I’m well aware of the risks that come with an epidural. But I also don’t understand women who seem to need to prove something to themselves by enduring the highest degree of pain that a human being can possibly experience. I’m secure enough with myself to know that whether or not I use pain medication during childbirth is no reflection whatsoever on what type of mother I’ll be. Besides, it isn’t like the baby is really going to care one way or the other.

As for the birth video, which is when I thought I’d be splashing cold water on Dave’s face and slapping him back into consciousness, he watched the whole thing with rapt interest and afterward said, “that was pretty cool.” Shocked the hell out of me. (His reaction, that is, not the video.) Who knows, maybe he’ll be of some use when I go into labor after all.

still (barely) alive

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I guess it says something about my state of mind lately, that my blog was down all day yesterday and most of today, and I’m just now getting around to doing something about it. Yesterday marked the three-week anniversary of this stomach bug, and I think at this point it’s officially drained my will to live. I’m sleeping over ten hours a night, and still, I can barely move and function. A task as small as going to the supermarket drains me of what little strength I have. There’s just nothing left in me.

So: it’s not a parasite. (Sorry, Angie, you don’t get to name it.) After a week of tests, a consultation with a gastroenterologist who didn’t know a blasted thing about treating pregnant women, and a cross-reference of everything the GI doc said with my obstetrician, I now (drum roll)… have a prescription. Two prescriptions, actually. It’s a small step, but at least I feel like there’s some hope, and I might not wither away to nothing before this baby arrives and figures out entirely new ways to destroy what’s left of my body.

What kills me is that even after all of this, no one knows for sure exactly what’s wrong with me, just “hmmm, seems like it’s bacterial.” Nice.  

Tomorrow, Dave and I have our first (and only) childbirth class. I’m getting increasingly jittery about it, because for the past couple of months I’ve managed to pretty well convince myself that I’m just going to be pregnant forever. The idea that this class is going to force me to acknowledge that there’s only one ultimate end to this whole pregnancy thing… well, quite honestly, it scares the bejeezus out of me. Denial has been working ok for me so far, I’m not sure I’m ready to think about the alternative.

I know Dave is dreading the class too, mostly for the much-feared childbirth video, but I’m honestly glad that husbands/partners are required to attend, because I think I’m going to need someone to hold my hand, pat me on the head and tell me that everything is going to be ok.

Wish us both luck.

praline cookies

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This may be the first time I have ever posted a recipe on my blog, so to compensate for the Domestic Goddess Overdose-ness of it all, here’s the background story…

I’m pretty good at making entrees, but I’m not very adept with desserts. I’ve tried to make my grandmother’s buttermilk fudge recipe on numerous occasions, and I have about a 30% success rate with it; most of the time, it turns out like caramel. Still yummy, but not what I was going for. And a few weeks ago, I tried to make homemade cookies for my neighbor – the one who checked on our cats when Dave and I were flooded out of our town – and they were a disaster. I was trying to make sugar cookies, and even though I followed the recipe directions exactly, they ended up tasting like hard, flat breakfast biscuits. (Note to you Brits: biscuits are not the same thing as cookies in this country. They’re more like dinner rolls.) I ended up making her slice-and-bake cookies and then smearing them with homemade frosting so she wouldn’t know the difference. As it turns out, frosting is pretty easy to make.

Point being, this whole Holiday Baking Day with the girls had me a little anxious, since I was pretty well convinced that I suck at making desserts. I asked my friend Janet for ideas, and she directed me to Martha Stewart’s recipe site. Riiiight. Because that’s attainable. Well, it is attainable if you’re Janet; everything she makes looks like it should be photographed for a magazine. The girl has seriously got the Mad Cooking Skillz. But Martha Stewart’s name alone scares the bejeezus out of me, so I was too intimidated to try anything there.

So, I asked my mom. She suggested my great-grandmother’s recipe for praline cookies, but she warned me that they aren’t always a hit. Apparently my dad doesn’t like them because he says they aren’t sweet enough. I thought that might be perfect, since Dave doesn’t like regular pralines because he says they’re too sweet. It’s not his fault, he didn’t grow up in this country, so he hasn’t adapted to our super-sugary, make-your-teeth-hurt desserts.

(Random exception: a couple of months ago, I had a pregnancy craving and came home with a box of Twinkies. Dave had never tried them before, so he had one and decided that they were awesome. It made me laugh because who on earth decides at 35 that they like Twinkies? But between the two of us, we wolfed down quite a few before we decided that we were sick of them.)  

Anyway, since most of the people involved in the Holiday Baking Day thing weren’t from the south, and probably had no idea what a praline was to begin with, and therefore would have no basis for comparison or judgment, I decided to attempt the praline cookies. And that, folks, is the very long story of how this recipe came about.

Praline Cookies
(courtesy of my great-grandmother, who in our family is referred to as Ma Mere, because we’re just crazy French-Spanish-Creole south Louisiana folk like that)

* 1/2 cup butter (1 stick)      
* 1 1/2 cups dark brown sugar
* 1 egg
* 1 1/2 cups flour
* pinch of salt
* 1 teaspoon vanilla
* 1 cup pecan halves

Let butter sit out at room temperature until soft. Preheat oven to 375 degrees.
 
In a bowl, mix softened butter and sugar, and beat with electric beater until smooth.

Add egg and mix well. Then add flour, salt and vanilla. Mix again.

Add pecan pieces (then stir, don’t use electric mixer). When well mixed, shape into balls about the size of a pecan, place on a buttered cookie sheet and flatten to about 1/4″ thick.

Bake 12 minutes or until golden brown. Makes 3 dozen.

blogging for A.D.D.

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I’ve been so incredibly lazy about blogging lately, mainly because it’s getting increasingly difficult to sit still and string any kind of coherent thought process together. My attention span is virtually non-existent these days. Dave and I have tried to watch a couple of movies together in the past week or so, and I find myself getting fidgety and bored long before the two-hour mark rolls around.

(Which, seriously? The Da Vinci Code? Was ok, but waaaaay longer than necessary. Of course, I think I’m the last person in the English-speaking world who hasn’t read the book yet, which is probably the only reason I found the movie somewhat interesting to begin with.)

So, here are some random odds and ends, which should probably each be their own blog posts, but I can’t make my brain develop them any further than this:

* My last day at work was Wednesday. It was weird, because I didn’t hate my job at all, so I wasn’t excited about leaving like I thought I might be. Most of the times that I’ve quit jobs in the past, I’ve left feeling very “woo-hoo, I’m outta here!” And I was always moving on to something better. It’s strange this time, to leave a job and not know when I’ll be looking for another one. I know that Dave and I decided a long time ago to just roll with it and see how things go after the baby arrives, but I’m usually a bit of a planner, so this is all feeling quite foreign to me.

* The problems that I’ve been having with my stomach haven’t let up yet. (It’s been over two weeks now, lucky me.) I saw my primary care doctor on Thursday, and hopefully I’ll hear the results from those tests tomorrow. She said her initial guess is that I either have some kind of bacterial infection or a parasite. Charming.

* Yesterday a group of women that I’m friends with got together and had a little Holiday Baking Day. Basically, everyone made two or three things, and then we all traded off, so everyone got lots of Christmas goodies to take home. Most of the things that I got (peppermint bark?) are the types of treats that I would never think of trying to make myself, so it was pretty cool. It was also nice to get to a chance to hang out with the girls, since there were a few people there who I only see every once in a great while.

Oh, and if any of you want my great-grandmother’s recipe for praline cookies, let me know, because they’re really easy and quite yummy. (Aside to Alphagal: according to my mom, it was Ma Mere’s recipe. I’m guessing Nahnee must’ve made them too, though, because I had the weirdest childhood nostalgia flashback moment when I first tried them.)

* This same group of women has also organized a book club, which I’m trying to participate in. Our first meeting is next Saturday, so between now and then, I’m supposed to read “The Alchemist.” Which is another book that it seems like everyone in the world has read except me. I found Dave’s copy, but with my non-existent attention span, so far I’ve only made it as far as the preface. Luckily it’s a short book, so hopefully I can hammer through the next 175 pages sometime in the next week. I don’t know if I’ll be able to keep up with the book club after the baby arrives, but I like the idea of it, so I’m going to give it a try. 

30 weeks

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But first, a gripe: apparently it snowed a whole lot yesterday. Which is no big deal out where we live, since The Boonies seem to operate on their own weather system, so we get snow pretty often. (Something about the geography there, who knows.) Today, I got up, got dressed, braved the icy roads to come to work on my next-to-last day, and… alas, The Giant Software Company is closed.

I mean, technically I was able to get into the building, and I’ll be working today because I have stuff to do, but the company itself is closed. And I had an email from my boss telling me that I should stay home because the roads are so icy. It just didn’t occur to me to check my work email before leaving the house this morning. Argh. Oh well, whatever, I’m here.

So, yesterday was my 30-week OB check-up. I have this weird neurotic habit left over from when I was overweight: I always do a little calculation in my head of what I think my weight will be when I get on the doctor’s scale, because I hate being shocked by the number. I knew what my weight was at my last appointment (two weeks ago), and I know that gaining a pound per week is about average during the 2nd and 3rd trimesters, so I mentally added two pounds to that number, and that’s what I expected to see on the scale. I thought it was possible, given how weird my stomach has been lately, that maybe I hadn’t gained anything. However, I ate a ton over Thanksgiving, so it could’ve also been a little more than two pounds. But I had a pre-defined range in my head, so I felt prepared.

The nurse called me back, and we chatted for a minute – boy, isn’t this weather crazy, that kind of thing. Then I got on the scale. My jaw dropped. The nurse looked at the number, looked at my chart, then looked back at the number. She very slowly and carefully said, “Um, you do know that you’re supposed to be gaining weight, right?”

Not only did I not gain anything since my last appointment, I actually lost six pounds in the past two weeks. So apparently all this stuff with my stomach falls under the category of “decidedly not normal,” in spite of what I was starting to think. My OB told me to make an appointment with my primary care doctor to make sure that I didn’t pick up some kind of bacterial something-or-other. So I’ll be seeing her later this week. Fun. If I got dysentery or some obscure intestinal ailment from our stupid well water, I’m going to be really pissed.

The good news is that the baby appears to be fine – she’s still kicking up a storm, and her heartbeat is perfect. So it’s only my health that’s suffering, not hers. And I suppose that if my ultimate goal is to keep my pregnancy weight gain to a minimum, I’m doing a pretty kick-ass job – only 8 pounds at 30 weeks! But I’m also realistic, and I fully expect to regain that six pounds (plus some) once I’m not so dehydrated anymore.

Speaking of fluids, I think I need to go find some hot cocoa or cider or something, because it’s damn cold here.  

still working on the leftovers

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I’m trying to think of a way to wrap up our little holiday weekend with a minimum of whining, but it’s going to be difficult. Thanksgiving dinner itself was awesome – Kris came over, and it was great to get to hang out with her for a few hours. The food was great, everyone was in a good mood, and a fine time was had by all.   

After dinner, things went a bit downhill. Dave went upstairs to bed for a couple of hours. Kris and I joked that he was sleeping off his turkey hangover, but when he came back down, he had a fever over 101, so it appears that he came down with whatever bug I had earlier in the week. Poor guy. His fever is down now, but he’s been feeling generally tired and achy and miserable ever since.

I also discovered on Thursday night that it’s apparently a really bad idea to spend all day on your feet in the kitchen when you’re 30 weeks pregnant. I was totally fine while I was preparing dinner, but afterward my lower back and hips suddenly started causing me excruciating pain. I’ve been doing my prenatal yoga DVD every day (sometimes twice a day) to try to stretch things back to normal, and it does seem to help, but I still don’t feel quite “right.”

Oh, and my stomach is still weird. It’s been going on long enough now that I’m starting to think it might just be how my body is adjusting to the fact that Baby Girl is getting bigger and bigger, and the fact that I don’t have as much room for my normal (albeit surgically-altered) digestive processes.

Overall, it looks like I’m in for a fun last ten weeks. I’m starting to understand all those women who say that by the time you give birth, you no longer fear the pain because you’re just so desparate to not be pregnant anymore.

So, Dave and I have spent the past few days mostly just lazing around the house and eating excessive amounts of food. (Well, that second part is mostly me – he tends to sleep it off when he’s sick, and I’m the one who’s now eating every two hours.) This is the first time since Wednesday that I’ve taken the time to sit down at my laptop to check email and blogs and whatnot. Like I said, lazy.  

In other news: I only have three days left at my job, although I’m not quite sure how I feel about that. I’ll leave that topic for another post. I also have my 30 week check-up tomorrow, and a few other activities lined up over the next couple of weeks to keep me from going crazy while I adjust to being unemployed. Hopefully that’ll keep this blog from turning into one big ol’ “oh woe is me” crybaby fest over the next few weeks.

sick day

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So, it turns out that I might not be as much of a hypochondriac as I thought. The tummy issues that I was having last week (which we will not discuss in detail, because I’m sorry, but some things are just too gross even for me)? Well, that never really let up entirely – it’d go away for a while, then come back with a vengeance. I had noticed that with all the rain we’ve been having, our tap water had turned sort of cloudy, which is one of the problems that comes with getting your water supply from a well. I thought maybe that had something to do with my stomach problems, so I switched to bottled water over the weekend. No change.

Last night, after I got home from work, I started to feel really awful. I barely ate anything and went to bed early.

This morning, in addition to the stomach problems, I also had a fever (99.8 is pretty high for me, since my temp is usually in the 97’s) and even though I was warm, I couldn’t stop shaking. Dave took one look at me and ordered me back to bed, which was fine by me, since I don’t think I could’ve driven anyway. I emailed my boss to let him know I wouldn’t be in, and called my OB’s office.

Basically, the over-the-phone diagnosis from the nurse went like this:
* Bleeding? Nope.
* Discharge? Nope.
* Baby still kicking? Oh yeah, like a champ.

Then, she said, I just have the flu, and it’s nothing pregnancy-related. She said that if my fever went over 100.4, I should go see my primary care doctor, but in the meantime, I should take some tylenol, keep myself hydrated, yadda yadda.

I tried to eat some chicken soup, which made me completely ill, and I went back to bed for a few hours. When I woke up, my fever had dropped to 97.9, which is much more normal for me. My stomach is still iffy, but I mostly feel better. I don’t think it’s the flu, since historically, the flu equals major sinus problems for me, and I’m not having any of that. So really, I have no idea what’s going on with me right now. 

Hopefully I can get back to work tomorrow, though, since I only have a few days left before my official Reign of Unemployment begins (next Wednesday the 29th is my last day, for those of you keeping track).

Speaking of work, Dave’s phone interviews have been going very well (see? I told you he was a smarty-pants), and I don’t want to jinx anything, but everyone keep your fingers and toes crossed. Hopefully we’ll have some news on that front next week-ish.