Author Archives: Cindy

24 weeks – and, the hair

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I’m officially 24 weeks pregnant today. And since I’m trying to keep up with tummy photos every six weeks or so, I figured that I would combine them with before-and-after pics of my hair. Two birds, one stone, yadda yadda.

So, this is before the haircut:


There was this whole other drama yesterday afternoon about getting the crib delivered to our house, and how the delivery guy was well over an hour late, and how I almost missed my haircut appointment because of him, and how I almost yelled at him that he shouldn’t come between a crazy pregnant lady and her hairstylist because dammit, this is all I have left when the rest of my body is going to hell!

I didn’t yell at him. He was very nice and apologetic about the delay, and I managed to be pretty darn polite, given how tense the whole thing made me.

Oh, but hey, I have a crib! It’s still in a box by the front door, but at least it’s here. The website I ordered it from had made it sound like it was going to take 4-6 weeks to receive it, and I think it showed up something like ten days after I ordered it. And I was only five minutes late for my haircut. So really, no complaints.

My hairstylist is great – she’s one of those rare finds who genuinely listens to my incredibly vague description of what I want my hair to look like, and she executes it very well. Although she has, on occasion, told me that there was no way on earth that what I described would work on me, and I appreciate her honesty. The bangs, she said, definitely would work, and she thought it’d be really cute. So we decided to go for it.

She also has a three year-old daughter that was born on my due date (February 2nd), so we talked pregnancy and baby stuff the whole time, which was fun. Because, you know, I don’t get to talk about that stuff nearly often enough. Like with anyone who’ll listen to me. And even some people who only pretend to listen (hi Dave!).

As for the final results… Well, I’m still a little in shock.


I haven’t seen myself with bangs in probably a decade, so I keep doing double-takes every time I pass a mirror, because it just doesn’t feel like “me.” I think I might like it, I’m just not used to it yet.

Dave says he likes it. And my mom (who demanded that I email her a picture the minute I got home from the salon) says that I look like the pictures of herself when she was pregnant with my sister. Which I’ll take as a compliment, because she was 23 years old at the time. If having bangs means that I get to shave off the better part of a decade, I think I might keep them forever.

I suppose I should have some sort of “I’m six months pregnant and here’s what I’ve learned so far” update here, but I’m drawing a blank, so I think I’ll leave that for a future entry.

religion, hair, all the important stuff

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Thank you all for your suggestions on the previous post. I found an Episcopal church that’s relatively nearby, and I went ahead and called them to ask what the services are like, because I really don’t like walking in not knowing what to expect. It sounds good, and the guy on the phone promised that they have no bongos. (Yes, I specifically asked.) I think I’m going to give them a test run on Sunday, and I’ll report back afterward.

Honestly, I don’t know why I hadn’t thought of the Episcopal church before. It’s essentially the American version of the Anglican church, which is how Dave was raised, so it makes sense to at least check it out and see how it feels.

I should add, though, that one of the Methodist churches that Kris and I tried was actually pretty nice. It was a little modernized, but not to a scary degree like that last one. I liked the minister, they do lots of really good local community work, and they had a church member who’s been HIV-positive for the last 12 years get up to speak because she had just gotten back from the United Methodist Church’s nationwide summit on global AIDS in Washington, D.C. Who knew that such a thing even existed, but Kris and I both thought it was cool.

In other, totally unrelated news, I am having some major issues with my hair lately. Ever since my gastric bypass surgery (four and a half years ago), I have noticed two very strange changes with my hair: it grows crazy fast, but it also falls out in large amounts. This means that there’s always a pretty large amount of “new growth” sprouting up on my head, causing those annoying little fly-away hairs that stick straight up. For the last four years, it’s been irritating, but at least somewhat manageable.

However, it would seem that another side effect of pregnancy is the acquisition of thicker hair, which means that I now have even more new growth showing up on my head. I’m honestly not too excited about the prospect of thicker hair, since my hair was plenty thick before I got knocked up. And besides, I hear that it all falls out when you’re three or four months post-partum anyway. So I’m not getting attached to this new stuff.

In the meantime, it’s everywhere, and it’s driving me insane. The worst place is right around my forehead – I have all of these short little hairs along my hairline that make it look like I started to go for bangs, and then changed my mind when I was about 20% there.

So, I gave up. I called the salon, made an appointment, and tomorrow: I am getting bangs.

I’m sure this will all end in tears, since I usually hate the way bangs look on me. But if bangs can make the stupid new hairs a little less obvious, I’ll give them a try. And I love my hairstylist, so if anyone can make bangs look halfway decent on me, I think she’s the one who can pull it off.

Pray for me. (See how I tied it back to the religion thing? Wasn’t that clever? Yeah, I know.)

bongos!

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I don’t know if I’ve mentioned this or not, but since I’m going to be something like 35 weeks pregnant by Christmas, Dave and I decided a long time ago that we would not be flying anywhere for the holidays. Instead? My entire family is coming here. That means my parents, plus my brother and sister. That’s six people if you count me and Dave, and everyone is crashing at our house. It isn’t really a bad thing at all. I haven’t seen them since my cousin’s wedding in June, and they’ll only be here for three days, so it should be fun. I like the “short and sweet” trips – it’s great to get a chance to see everyone, but it isn’t long enough to wear me out. (My family is a very high-energy group of folks.)

I’m not trying to plan an agenda for their trip here. I have a couple of things I’d like to do, but I also like the flexibility of being able to change plans at the last minute, if we feel so inclined. There are only two things that I know absolutely will happen:
1) There will be a huge meal on Christmas Eve;
2) We will go to Christmas Eve church service.

Both of these things are family traditions that I can’t imagine my family (well, ok, my dad) being willing to alter just because the geography has changed this year.

So to that end, I’m getting prepared. For the meal, there are a couple of things that I can make and freeze in advance, that’s really no big deal. My mom will probably be doing most of the cooking anyway, since by that point, I’m sure I won’t need to be standing on my feet for long stretches of time. As for the church service… well, it seems that after having lived in the greater Seattle area for the last five years, I am now in the position of trying to find a church for the first time.

I consider myself half-Methodist and half-Catholic, and for a long time, I really thought that I was more Catholic than anything. But I’ve come to realize that Methodists generally fall into the category of “relaxed and groovy” Christians (read: liberal), so I’m identifying more and more with that as I get older. I like the idea of Christianity that’s based only on Jesus’s teachings and none of that hellfire-and-brimstone stuff that happened in the Old Testament. No judgment of others who happen to have a different lifestyle or belief system than your own? I can get behind that.

I also figured that maybe while I’m investigating churches, I could find one that has a Mother’s Morning Out program, and that would be all the better. (Selfish, I know.)

Dave isn’t really into this idea of “experimenting” with different churches to find one that I like. He agrees that it’s important to go regularly when we have kids who are old enough to understand, because we want our children to grow up with some foundation of beliefs. But right now, I’m basically church-shopping, and if Dave doesn’t want to go along, that’s fine. Kris was also raised Methodist, and she’s been more than happy to test-drive a few churches with me. This past Sunday was our third so far.

The thing is, I do really like the more traditional church services. I like it when there’s a choir and an organ and a minister who gives a regular ol’ sermon. That’s what feels church-y to me. Which is why the church that we tried out on Sunday was such a bizarre experience.

We got there right before the service started, so we had enough time to hit the ladies’ room (because, you know, it had been more than five minutes since the last time I had peed), and then we went to find a seat in the sanctuary. Right away, I noticed that there was no organ and no choir. And although they had a piano, they also had a full band – a guy on guitar, another guy on bass, a drummer and a couple of singers. Hmm.

They started the service by launching into song – which was not exactly a hymn, it was more of a song you might hear on contemporary Christian radio. Very pro-Jesus rock music. And apparently this was one of those churches in which the congregation raises their hands up in the air during the singing – I think it’s supposed to symbolize receiving God’s grace or something, but it looks more like an “I surrender” gesture. I have never understood why people do that.

Sometime during the first song, I noticed the one band member I had missed earlier – they actually had a guy on bongos. BONGOS!! And the guy playing the bongos? Had a harley-biker mustache, and he played with his eyes closed, because he was just that into it, man. He would not have been out of place at a Grateful Dead concert.

(I kept leaning over to Kris and whispering, “Bongos!” to make her crack up. Because I’m evil like that.)

After the first song, the minister got up and spoke for a few minutes – he said one prayer, and then did the standard church bulletin announcements. You know, the youth group will be meeting at this time tonight, if anyone wants to volunteer for such-and-such on X date, all that stuff.

Then, the minister sat back down and we launched into more of the contemporary Christian pop/rock singing. Only this time, it was a medley! I was thinking “ok, almost done with this song, then I can sit back down” and they’d launch right into another one. It felt like it would never end.

At some point during the big Happy Christian Sing-along Hour, I turned my head to the left to whisper something to Kris, and I saw over her shoulder that – so help me, I am not making this up – along the side aisles of the church, there were interpretive dancers, people. I counted four of them, and they were all holding flags and waving them around while doing their little dances. The bongos were one thing, but that was the point where I officially lost it and spent the next several minutes shaking from trying not to laugh.

The dancers, for the record, were not synchronized and had nothing to do with each other AT ALL. I guess they were just moved by the Holy Spirit or something. Also, one of the interpretive dancers was wearing some kind of tai-chi outfit – sort of like white coveralls with a big blue sash belt around his waist – and everyone else was in street clothes. If there was a point to all of that, it was lost on me.

I have no idea how long the singing went on, or if that was the whole service. Somewhere around the fifth song in the medley, Kris leaned over and whispered, “Do we have to stay?” I was thinking the same thing, but I was afraid that she’d think I was being rude. So we high-tailed it out of there and went out for brunch.

For the rest of the day, I kept trying to imagine my dad’s reaction to that type of church, and I’d nearly pass out laughing. I know it’s going to be a challenge to find a traditional church in the Northwest, but there has got to be some sort of happy medium. Preferably one that doesn’t include bongos and interpretive dancers. Sweet Jesus. (No pun intended.)

weird body issues and other neuroses

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And now, back to our regularly scheduled pregnancy update:

* Baby girl has been causing me some major hip pain lately – not so much when I sleep (thanks, body pillow!), but sitting at my desk all day is not fun for me. So today I got a massage, and it was delightful. Only afterward I developed a sudden headache. Has this ever happened to anyone else? I guess maybe it has something to do with increased circulation, too much blood in the brain, whatever. It just seemed odd. In all of the massages I’ve ever gotten in my life, this was the first time such a thing has happened to me.

* Another weird medical anomaly: last night in the shower, I found a lump in my right breast, very close to my nipple. Today I noticed that I have the same thing on the left side, but the left one seems a bit smaller. (The lump, not my left boob.) I’m guessing this is a milk duct issue? It freaked me out when I first discovered it, probably because it’s Breast Cancer Awareness month and I’ve been seeing pink ribbons everywhere I go. Now that I realize it’s at least somewhat symmetrical, I’m a lot less concerned. (And no, I’m not seeking medical advice on the Internet. I’m seeing my doctor in two weeks, I’ll ask her about it then.)

* I had a dream last night that I went into labor at work, and had to be taken to the hospital by ambulance, and I couldn’t get in touch with Dave. This is actually a very real fear that I have, because he often forgets to take his cell phone with him when he leaves the house, and he almost never answers our home phone because the odds are pretty high that it’s going to be either a telemarketer or my mother. Historically, it’s never been a big deal – if I couldn’t reach him, whatever I was calling him about could probably wait a few hours. Things are a bit different now that I’m pregnant. I keep trying to stress how important it is that I’m able to reach him, and he’s getting better about the cell phone (although maybe that’s because I’m being more proactive about physically handing it to him before he leaves the house).

In the dream, though, the reason I couldn’t get in touch with him was because he was playing World of Warcraft with his headphones on, and he didn’t hear the phone ring. Which reminds me, did any of you see the new episode of South Park this week? It’s pretty sad that I have never played that game in my life, but I got almost every joke about WoW because I’ve picked it up by osmosis. I’m afraid that game may someday be the thing that sends us to couples’ therapy.

* The other dream that I keep having, and is also a general feeling I have all the time, is that this baby is going to come early. Not scary-premature-NICU early, just maybe three weeks or so. Early enough that we won’t be entirely 100% prepared beforehand. And that, honestly, scares me to bits. I know that everyone keeps saying that all we really need is a car seat, some diapers and onesies, and everything will be fine. But it doesn’t feel like that.

So with the intent of helping my brain relax a little bit, this week we bought a crib. (I ordered it in the cherry finish – that dark mahogany color that I love, love, love.) I bought crib bedding too. I forgot about the mattress (why oh why do you have to buy the crib and mattress separately?), but those are easy enough to come by. And I think I’ve pretty much finished our baby registry too. (I’m really annoyed with Babies R Us for the fact that over half of the things can’t be bought online, they have to be purchased in the store. Boo to you, BRU. Boo, I say!)

I don’t know what it’ll take to stop having these little “you’re so not ready for a baby” nightmares. I could probably have an entirely decorated and fully-stocked nursery, and the feeling would most likely still be there. I guess it’s just your everyday, run-of-the-mill fear of the unknown.

Bah, whatever. Deep breath in, deep breath out. I’m going to do more yoga and try to chill out until February.

topic change

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I’m finding it very difficult to write, talk, or think about anything other than pregnancy right now. I’ve hit this very strange phase where this baby is taking up a large enough portion of my body that it’s virtually impossible to stop noticing it all the damn time. Even my dreams are all about babies. I think I’m probably somewhat annoying to have a conversation with at this point.

So instead, I am going to focus this post on other people I know, and none of this has anything to do with this little baby girl that I’m gestating. Although some of it might be related to other people’s offspring.

* There’s someone who I’ve been friends with for several years, but lately I’ve decided that I’m tired of living in her little self-absorbed world where she “accidentally” hurts my feelings on a semi-regular basis. She’s the type of person that I would’ve drifted apart from ages ago, except that we have a mutual friend in common, which keeps us in contact with each other. Still, in spite of Mutual Friend, I think it’s time to cut my losses and move on.

I mentioned this over on Shannon’s blog yesterday, but my sister has a friend who uses this analogy: “Your friends are like a flower garden; you have to constantly tend to them to keep the friendship alive and growing; you have to love and nurture them so your friendship can bloom and flourish… And sometimes, some of them just gotta get weeded out.” I think now is the time to weed this person out of my Friend Garden. It sucks, because it’s hurtful to close a chapter of your life that way. Also, it sort of puts Mutual Friend in an awkward position. But in the end, I think it’s for the best.

* Speaking of Mutual Friend, she and I seem to be going through a sort of weird/tense phase. Part of me thinks that it’s the married-versus-single thing, which I hate. This is someone who I thought I would always be able to relate to, but lately it just feels like we’re in two very different places. She can’t seem to understand why I never want to go out dancing anymore, and I don’t understand how she can stand to go to those types of clubs and not feel like the “old person” in a room full of 21 year-olds. Oh, and have I mentioned that none of my cute downtown club clothes fit me right now? Dancing in maternity jeans and sneakers (because let’s face it, heels aren’t going to happen) is not my idea of a perfect Saturday night.

I’m not too worried about that, because this friend and I have been through tense phases before, and they always blow over eventually. Right now I just find myself missing our usual rapport.

* On a much happier topic, I have a dear friend who I have known and adored for over a decade. She’s one of those people that I can lose touch with for months, or even a year, and when we talk again, we just immediately pick up where we left off. We have such an easy, comfortable vibe, and I love that about her. She and her husband started trying to get pregnant around the same time that Dave and I did. So they’re going on a year with no success, and she’s had all of the up-and-down mood swings that go along with that. She’s been charting her cycles for the past few months, and right now she’s having some very strange “uh, WTF?” symptoms that could possibly, maybe, hopefully be signs of very early pregnancy. But it’s too early to take a home pregnancy test, so she basically has to sit on her hands and wait for the next few days, which I know is agonizingly frustrating. I’m crossing every finger and toe, making wishes, saying prayers, and sending as many positive embryo-implantation-vibes that this is finally it for her. She and her husband would be fantastic parents, and I want this for them so much.

(See? That doesn’t count as me “talking about pregnancy,” because I was talking about someone else’s, not my own. So there.)

(Aside to Shannon: this friend lives in the DC area, so I keep thinking that I need to set up a “playdate” for the two of you or something, because I think you’d totally hit it off. But she isn’t a blog reader at all and I don’t know if that would be weird.)

* Have you seen my cousin’s baby yet? Because she’s really, really cute. I can’t wait to meet her in person. (Next March or so, yes?)

* My mom told me yesterday afternoon that she thought she was getting a bladder infection. The way she described her symptoms, and knowing what I do of her medical history, I told her that it sounded like a kidney stone and that maybe she should get that checked out. Like right then. She said, nah, she was sure it was just a plain ol’ boring UTI. She called me back at midnight her time (10:00 here) to let me know that she and my dad were on their way to the ER. And guess what? She has a stone. Ouch. I partly feel a little “I-told-you-so,” but mostly I feel bad because I know she’s in a huge amount of pain. Poor mom.

* My sister is a bridesmaid in a wedding this weekend, and as such, she has to give a toast. The bride has specifically requested my sister for this task, so there’s no worming out of it. I’m having a preemptive anxiety attack on her behalf. (I know my sister doesn’t have nearly the same fear of public speaking that I do, but still. That sounds like hell to me.)

* Dave has now been in a good mood for two days in a row, so we can all say a little *hallelujah!* for that. It wasn’t really his fault, he was just having some weird sleep issues for the past couple of weeks and it made him a major crankypants. Last weekend, I was all jittery and wanting to talk (about nothing in particular), so I sat next to him on the couch babbling about lord-knows-what. Finally, he kind of gave me this icy glare and said, “Do you need something??” Ooookay. I’m just gonna go in the other room and watch TV, then. But he’s back to his normal sweet, funny, lovable self right now, and I’m very grateful for that. I was starting to miss the sound of his laugh.

maybe you had to be there

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The scene: Dave and I were lying in bed late on Saturday morning. (We’re taking full advantage of our last few lazy weekends while we can.) Dave started playing with my hair, but not really doing anything, just sort of “arranging” it on the pillow around my face. I was still making a half-effort at sleeping, so I found this totally annoying.

Me: What on earth are you doing?

Dave: I’m fixing your hair. See? Now, you look just like Snow White.

Me: Oh yeah? Where are my dwarves?

Dave: [Gestures at Teenie, who’s perched on the body pillow next to me] Well, you’ve got Grumpy right over there.

Me: [Point at Beaumont, who’s sleeping on Dave’s feet] Yeah, and I guess there’s Dopey too.

Then, I tried to say that our cat Cleo could be both Sleepy and Sneezy, since she is both. (She’s got asthma, so she wheezes a lot, and she has an enlarged heart, which makes her pretty lethargic most of the time.) However, somehow my brain-to-mouth connection malfunctioned.

Me: And I guess Cleo could be Sleazy…

Dave: [laughing his head off] Sleazy??

Me: I meant Sleepy and Sneezy! It just came out wrong!

We laughed about that for a minute or so, then quieted down.

Me:Yes, Sleazy, the lesser-known eighth dwarf…

Dave: You didn’t see him around much because he was always trolling the woods in his little pimp outfit.

Me: Sort of gives a whole new meaning to that “hi-ho” song, doesn’t it?

Dave: “Hi-ho, hi-ho, it’s off to work you go…”

I laughed so hard that I started choking. Poor ol’ Walt, probably rolling over in his grave, and it’s all our fault.

cushiony goodness

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Yesterday, I bought a body pillow. I really didn’t want to get one, and I held off as long as I could, but I finally caved. I honestly have sort of a problem with the idea of body pillows. It’s fine if it’s on my side of the bed, but if I roll over and drag it with me, then there’s sort of this “line of demarcation” down the center of the bed between me and Dave, and I didn’t like that. Not that we’re very cuddly sleepers, but still. It didn’t seem like a romantic addition to our current stock of bedding accessories.

Another reason why I didn’t want to buy one was because I kept thinking that if I only use the body pillow during pregnancy, where on earth am I going to store the damn thing later? There’s so much stuff that we’re going to have to acquire for the baby, that it’s making me go through this phase where I don’t want to buy anything for myself that falls into the category of “crap I don’t really need.” And I don’t know how familiar y’all are with body pillows, but those things are huge. When I put it in my car, the pillow alone took up the entire length of my backseat. My linen closet is full, I have no idea where this pillow will go when I’m done having babies. I guess it’ll go in a hefty bag in the garage, like so many other things have done in the past.

Also, I guess I figured that since we have at least a dozen or so regular-size pillows in our house, surely I could arrange them all in such a way that I could sleep comfortably at night. That’s logical, right?

The thing is, I could arrange them all, but then I’d have to rearrange them every time I rolled over. And sometimes I’d wake up because one of my hips would start to hurt. (Usually the hip of the side that I was lying on.) Or sometimes I’d wake up because I had rolled into a position where I was half on my stomach, and the baby decided to let me know that she wasn’t too happy about that.

Anyway, last night? With the sleeping? And the body pillow? That might possibly have been the best night’s sleep that I’ve gotten in the last two months. And I had no weird creaky/achy things when I woke up today. I think I’m in love.

Consider this my formal apology to the body pillow manufacturers of the world: you were right, I was wrong. That was the best $9.99 that I’ve spent in a very long time. I shall never speak ill of you again. And if you let me know your address, I’ll send you a box of candy.