Author Archives: Cindy

Introducing…

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Internet, meet Lucy.

Lucille Devon Wilkinson was born at 9:36 p.m. on May 31, 2011. She weighs 7 pounds, 1 ounce, and is 19 inches long. She has Dave’s ears, my mouth, a nose that I can only describe as my grandfather’s, eyes we haven’t figured out yet, and a full head of dark hair that I cannot stop kissing.

She is absolute heaven, and I can’t stop staring at her. We’re all totally in love with her.

Last night, Dave took a picture of Lucy (who at that point still had no name) with my cell phone and sent it to my sister. Tracy was at our house with Catie, and she showed her the picture and said, “Do you know who that is?” Catie replied, “That’s my baby!!”

Today they got to meet each other. They seem to dig each other so far.

More details, like the whole birth story and whatnot, when we’re all back home and not poaching the hospital’s wi-fi.

But seriously, y’all, the messages on Twitter and Facebook the last couple of days? I don’t know what to say except thank you so much. It was beyond amazing to feel so incredibly supported and encouraged through all of this, and I cannot wait to share more about this amazing baby girl with all of you.

the old wives' & their tales can go jump off a cliff

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I’m getting induced tomorrow. I’ve come to terms with the fact that this baby is not going to evacuate her current premises willingly, so we’re going in after her.

And it’s funny, I’ve been joking for a while about how I have a feeling that this baby is going to be more like me. Mainly because Catie is so much like Dave, but also because this child will be the second girl (just like I am), with a large-ish age gap between herself and her older sister (Catie is almost 4 1/2, my sister and I are 5 1/2 years apart). I don’t know, it’s just a hunch that she’s going to inherit more of my traits than Catie did.

And as it happens, my mom had to be induced when she was pregnant with me, because I had no intention of being born either. So there you have it, commonality from the get-go.

It’s sort of weird, having the induction scheduled and knowing that I’m going to have a baby tomorrow. It’s actually helped calm down my tendency to over-plan. Today we’ve spent doing laundry, getting groceries, setting up the pack ‘n’ play in our bedroom, all of those last-minute preparations.

And I’ve been trying to soak up as much of Catie as I possibly can, enjoying these last few minutes of her as an Only Child. It’s probably weird that I haven’t been emotional about that until just now. Go figure.

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And now for a completely unrelated topic!

Ever wondered about some of those old wives’ tales that people swear will make you go into labor? I’d like to tell you right now that they’re all crap.

Here are some of the ones I’ve heard repeatedly, along with my personal experience:

* Acupuncture – While it definitely made the baby “drop” a lot lower, nothing else has happened.
* Sex – No comment. (People in my family read this website, I refuse to say anything else about it.)
* Walking – I’ve been on the treadmill every day for the past two weeks. No luck.
* Other exercises (prenatal yoga, squats) – No luck.
* Castor oil – Relatively unpleasant (not as bad as what I’d heard some people describe, but still not what I’d call a good time), and it didn’t help at all.
* Spicy food – Ok, this is the one I couldn’t really commit to. I ate things spicier than I would normally eat them, which is still way milder than what the old wives’ tale intended. I am a wimp about spicy food, I just can’t handle it at all. It’s physically painful for me. So, eh, whatever.
* Evening primrose oil – I’ve been taking the pills orally and also applying it, um, internally. Nothing.
* Red raspberry leaf tea – Nope. Doesn’t taste bad, though.
* Warm baths – Nice, but totally unhelpful.
* Nipple stimulation – I’ve yanked on my own boobs about a million times, trying to mimic the feeling of a nursing baby or a breast pump, because (allegedly) it’s supposed to make the uterus contract. Let me tell you what I learned: it hurts. A lot. And it didn’t do a damn thing.
* Eggplant Parmesan – It was delicious. But it didn’t do anything.
* Pineapple – I love pineapple. I’ve eaten so much that the inside of my mouth is sore from the acidity. And it didn’t help one whit.

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Back to the whole Impending Baby Thing!

So, yeah. Induction starts tomorrow at 7:30 a.m. Hopefully we’ll have an announcement before the day is over. Oh, and a name. Because we still don’t have a clue what we’re going to call this poor kid.

But, my sweet little Baby No Name, we can’t wait to meet you. And your mama can’t wait to not have this view every time she looks down.

Current view. See that pointy part sticking out? That's her butt.

You have no idea how much more comfortable we will both be once you’re out here in the world. I promise. We’re gonna have so much fun.

Impending Arrival. Sort of.

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Since the incident this past weekend with contractions that went nowhere, Baby 2.0 has shown absolutely no signs of wanting to leave her current abode. Which is frustrating, since we really want her to hurry up and get the heck out of there.

Also, my sister is here this week, so timing-wise, it would be SUPER convenient if this child would go ahead and make an appearance. In-home childcare for Catie, at the ready! Woot! Let’s go, baby!

39 weeks.
39 weeks pregnant. Feeling like Violet freaking Beauregard.
And yes, I took this in the bathroom at my OB’s office. Their mirror is cleaner than mine.

On Wednesday, I had an OB appointment. My doctor walked in, and said, “Wow, look at that face! You look pretty miserable!” Uh, yeah. So I listed my current complaints symptoms:
* Headaches almost every day. (Sometimes every other day, but they’re still pretty ever-present. When I’m not pregnant, I get headaches maybe once a month, if that.)
* Certain, ahem, digestive issues. (No additional comment needed.)
* Sometimes I’ll just get light-headed and dizzy for no reason.

Honestly, the dizzy thing freaks me out the most. You know the sort of head rush feeling you get if you stand up too fast? I’ll get that out of the blue when I’m not doing anything. The other night it happened while I was standing in the kitchen talking to Dave and my sister. Sudden dizziness, double vision, the works. I sat down on the kitchen floor and leaned against the wall, and it took probably 15 minutes for the feeling to pass. It was really bizarre and unsettling.

So, when I mentioned all of this to my OB, she said, “Ok, you convinced me. I’ll call the hospital to see when they can induce you.”

I know a lot of women would do anything to avoid being induced, but I had Pitocin with Catie, so I’m not scared of that. I just desperately want this baby out of me so I can start to recover and feel like myself again. (And yeah, I know that the newborn phase is it’s own special sort of hell, but the difference? Is that I love my babies, but I hate being pregnant.) So, hearing my OB say that she’d induce labor is like my own personal version of the Hallelujah Chorus. There is a light at the end of the proverbial tunnel. Thank God for that.

My OB said that she’d call the hospital at the end of the day, then call me to let me know when I was on the schedule. No biggie, right?

So, fast-forward and cue about a dozen or more phone calls back and forth to her office (where I was told by her nurse, “Sorry, she’s at the hospital delivering a baby and I don’t have any info”) and to the hospital (where I was told, “Uh, we don’t see you on the schedule”). It took a ridiculously long time to find out anything, and obviously I was getting really frustrated because I just want to get this baby out of me.

FINALLY, my doctor called me back and said that she got me on the calendar to be induced… on May 31st. Which is my official due date, yes. But it’s also next Tuesday, and my sister won’t be here by then, and it means more days of feeling sick and miserable.

So, I’m back to trying natural induction methods. One of the few that I’d read about that actually seemed promising was acupuncture. My family is big on acupuncture – my mom uses it to help manage her chronic pain issues, and my dad and sister have both used it to help with various injuries. I managed to get a very fast appointment with a local acupuncturist, and tried it this morning.

It was… weird. The first session involved needles in my hands, ankles, feet, ears, and the top of my head. I was supposed to rest like that for 20 minutes, but after 10 minutes, I got suddenly dizzy and sweaty and had to stop. The second session involved needles in my lower back, and I almost fell asleep during that part. So, part of it kinda sucked, and part of it was totally relaxing and nice. Weird.

I have another appointment with the same clinic tomorrow, assuming that this first one doesn’t send me into labor today (fingers crossed!). I can’t really tell much so far, except that Baby Girl has been going NUTS ever since the acupuncture appointment. I’m not having contractions, but she’s squirming around all over the place, so I hope that means that something is happening in there.

Anyway, worst-case scenario, this baby is coming in 4 days. But I’m hoping it’s sooner rather than later. We’ll see!

what the heck was THAT?

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Hi there! How’s it going? Allow me to tell you about my action-packed weekend, ok? Ok.

So! Saturday. My awesome cousin offered to pick up Catie and take her to the Got To Be NC Festival because, let’s face it, even though it sounded pretty fun – and, as a bonus, had the promise of copious amounts of fried food – I am in no condition to be hiking all over the NC State Fairgrounds. So I said yes, please, take my kid away from me for a few hours and thank you so much. They set off around 10 a.m., and I promptly went back to bed.

While I was lying down, I started having contractions. I timed them (did you know there’s an app for that? Because of course there is), and found that they were every 20 minutes. Mild but still regularly patterned contractions. That seems promising, no?

I decided to see if I could move things along, so I went downstairs and got on the treadmill. I walked for about 30 minutes, and by then, the contractions were every 10 minutes. Crazy, right? So I told Dave and started making phone calls, and we packed the rest of our stuff, because hey look at that, we might be having a baby today!

Meanwhile, Catie came home, tired and sweaty and happy. (Apparently it was pretty awesome, because she’s been telling me about all of the things she saw and did at the “Festy-buhl” ever since.) We chilled out for a while, and the contractions got a bit stronger and were coming every 7-ish minutes on average. They stayed that way for several hours.

I called my doctor’s after-hours line and talked to the OB on call, and she said not to go to the hospital until my contractions were 3 to 5 minutes apart and I couldn’t walk or talk during them. That sounded… weird to me. I mean, if labor is that intense, shouldn’t I already have my drugs by then? (For the record, no, this isn’t my first baby, but with Catie, my water broke first, so I never had this whole “ooh, is this labor or not?” thing. This is a whole new, unknown world for me.)

Since I was able to be up and about during my contractions, we figured that we still had a long way to go. Dave packed an overnight bag for Catie and we had a back-up plan to get her to my cousin’s house just in case we had to head to the hospital in the middle of the night. Everything was set. So we went to bed.

Or rather, Dave and Catie went to bed. I lay there and couldn’t turn my brain off, and I jumped at every twinge of a contraction. Which I suppose makes sense under the circumstances, but I was beyond exhausted and just needed to sleep. Finally around midnight, I took half of a Xanax (which I’ve really avoided taking since that whole incident back in March, but I’m very thankful that I kept them for emergencies). That finally took the edge off enough that I could go to sleep. I still woke up a lot with the more intense contractions, but I was able to fall right back to sleep.

This morning, contractions were still in the 7-10 minute range, so I tried the treadmill again. I only walked for about 15 minutes before my lower back started to hurt, so I gave up on that. I thought I’d try my prenatal yoga DVD, since that has some good stretches in it, and I thought it might help the baby “drop” more.

So, I did the yoga DVD, and the contractions… stopped. Like, completely. Not even a twinge. Nothing.

What the hell??? How does that even happen?

Did I seriously just experience “false labor” for over 24 hours?

I just… I… WHAT?!?!!

I’m completely and utterly baffled. And kinda pissed. I went through all that pain and discomfort for NOTHING???

I don’t know, y’all. But this baby had better hurry up and make for the exit soon, or she’s going to be in BIG TROUBLE when she finally shows up.

38.

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I’m 38 weeks pregnant.

Just to give you some perspective on this, here’s what I looked like at 19 weeks pregnant:

19 weeks pregnant

And wearing the exact same shirt today, at 38 weeks:

THIRTY. EIGHT. Weeks.

I know, right?

I had my 38-week OB appointment today, where I learned that Baby 2.0 is doing just fine and dandy, despite the discomfort she’s causing her mama. I’m apparently only dilated 1 centimeter. I said that was pretty discouraging, but then my OB reminded me that, “Fortunately, it’s not a predictor of anything, so it doesn’t really matter.”

Which I suppose is true, I was only at 2 cm when my water broke with Catie, and she showed up a few hours later. So, fine. I’ll try to be patient.

But I gotta say, I am so ready to:
a) meet this little girl, and
b) not be pregnant anymore.

I feel bad for whining because I know so many women would give anything to have a relatively uneventful full-term pregnancy. But the aches and pains are getting to me, as well as the million other things (not being able to walk upstairs without getting winded, the swollen ankles, the constant heartburn, not being able to sleep more than 2 hours without getting up to use the bathroom, etc.). So, yeah. I’m tired and everything hurts and I’m whiny about it.

It’s also really hard to remember that this is all going to be over soon. I’m now at the point where I’ve been pregnant for so long that it feels like “OMG I’m going to be pregnant foreeeeeever!!!” Maintaining perspective is a challenge. I try to keep reminding myself that I have two weeks left at the most, but it’s difficult.

P.S. I was trying to hold out and not cut my hair because I firmly believe that no major hair decisions should be made during pregnancy. But the split ends were making me insane, so I went and asked for “just a trim.” The lady took off about 2 inches, which is a bit more than I wanted, but I like it. I feel better now. And I can still get it into a ponytail, which is my main requirement for that initial newborn phase.

P.S.S. I’m debating getting my eyebrows waxed too, as long as I’m taking care of self-maintenance stuff, because lord knows they are a mess.

Best! Friday the 13th! Ever!

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(One of Catie’s favorite lines from the movie “Tangled” is Rapunzel swinging around a tree, yelling, “Best! Day! EVER!” She repeats that a lot. Hence the post title.)

Why I love this particular Friday the 13th, superstitions be damned:

1. Catie got dressed and left for daycare without any fights this morning. Hey, it’s the little things.

2. Beaumont is currently at the vet getting shaved. (Insert your own shaved p***y jokes here.) We have to do this every summer because his fur is so long and it gets all matted and nasty. And yes, he looks ridiculous afterward:

Beaumont post-haircut
(Exhibit A: his first haircut, 2 years ago.)

But he’s also a lot happier. And since he is currently in “Guard the Pregnant Lady” Mode and is all over me constantly, I’ll also be a lot happier when there’s less fur on him. Hopefully it means I’ll stop having the recurring nightmare about being attacked by a bear, when I wake up and realize that it’s because I’ve got a ridiculously furry cat sleeping up against my face, suffocating me.

3. The housekeepers are coming today! I always feel a little weird mentioning that we have housekeepers, because it feels so… I don’t know. Snobby? Elitist? I get oddly defensive about it. But you know what? Whatever. For the mental health benefit alone, I consider it to be a totally worthwhile expense.

Oh, also? Knowing that the house will be all sparkly and clean should I happen to go into labor in the immediate future? HUGE load off my mind. You can’t even imagine.

4. I’m getting a massage this afternoon. All of y’all who’ve had babies know how late pregnancy can make you ache all over. My back and shoulders are currently a disaster zone of knots and pains. Then Catie’s daycare teacher Mandy informed me that a new massage therapist opened up shop in the building next to the daycare, and she had left a stack of coupons for them to pass out to the parents. When I checked it out, saw that this lady is certified to do prenatal massage, and that the coupon was for 50% off her normal hourly rate? Hell yes, I booked that sucker. I cannot wait.

5. It’s Clean Sheet Day. Between the massage and the fresh sheets on the bed, I’m already looking forward to bedtime tonight. It’s gonna be so good, y’all.

6. Our sixth wedding anniversary is on Sunday, the 15th. Awww.

Still laughing.

And we’re still laughing. (Most of the time.)

realizing I can't pick my child's friends

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Last summer, I blogged about a little girl in Catie’s daycare class who was bossing Catie around. It just occurred to me that I hadn’t really said anything else about it since then.

In the last several months, I’ve learned quite a few things about this girl, Allie, and her home life, which kind of make me feel bad for her. Like:

  • Her parents divorced after Dad started banging his secretary. (Seriously, could that be more of a cliche? And shouldn’t she be called his admin assistant or something? God.)
  • Both parents are now in new relationships (Dad is still with the secretary, Mom has a new boyfriend). And yet, even with a combined total of FOUR adults on the scene, Allie and her sister spend the majority of their evenings and weekends with Catie’s daycare teacher, Mandy. Like, they regularly spend the night at Mandy’s house. Mandy is a young single mom, and I’m sure that the daycare gig doesn’t pay a ton, so she’s happy to have the extra income from being a part-time baby-sitter/nanny. And honestly, Mandy is awesome with kids, with lots of hugs and kisses and “I love you”s and all of that. But still, it’s got to be pretty shitty to have your parents fawn you off on a paid caretaker rather than spend time with you.
  • Case in point: it was Mandy who brought Allie to Catie’s birthday party. On a Saturday afternoon. Allie’s dad showed up briefly, spent most of the time outside on a “business call” on his cell phone, and then left long before the party was over. Mandy took Allie and her sister home with her afterward. Not to her either of the parents’ houses.
  • Mandy brought an old broken cell phone for the kids to play with in the “housekeeping” area of the classroom. When Allie was playing with it, her imaginary conversation went like this: “You need to get over here RIGHT NOW and pick up these kids because they are driving me CRAZY!!!” It’s kind of funny at first glance, but then you think about the whole thing with the parents’ divorce and the fact that Allie is only three, so she’s probably repeating something she’s heard, and suddenly it makes me kind of sick to my stomach.

So, even knowing all that I do about her, and the fact that I kind of feel sorry for her, the fact remains that I still don’t like this kid. She’s obnoxious and rude. She’s bossy. She’s a tattle-tale. (Almost daily, when I pick Catie up, Allie runs over to tell me something Catie did that was bad. I usually just say, “Oh, ok.” I give her no emotional reaction at all.) She throws huge tantrums to get her way, and it works: the parent figures in her life cave in & give her what she wants to keep her quiet, and Mandy also caves in because (I’m guessing) she feels sorry for her too.

And honestly, I feel bad, because what the hell kind of adult am I, that this tiny three year-old child can grate on my nerves the way that she does? But there you have it: I don’t like her. She bugs the crap out of me.

Over the last several months, the dynamic between Catie and Allie has gone through several stages:

1. Allie bosses Catie around. Catie takes it.

2. Catie ignores Allie. The each find other kids to play with.

3. Allie befriends Roman, Catie’s BFF. Catie tries to play with both of them, but it doesn’t really work, so she gives up and plays with the other kids.
(And btw, Roman’s mom told me that Roman informed her, “When I grow up, I’m going to drive a car like Daddy’s, and Catie will ride next to me.” That’s apparently the 3 year-old boy way of saying he intends to marry her. Awww.)

4. Roman & his parents move to California. (So much for that future marriage proposal.) A few other changes in the line-up at daycare leaves Catie and Allie as the only two girls in class.

5. The current status: Catie and Allie are both BFFs and mortal enemies. They hug, they hold hands, they dance together… then five minutes later, they beat the crap out of each other. Mandy says they “take turns being the boss” now, which I guess is a good thing?

But the fights. Oh man, the fights. One day on the playground, Catie and a couple of other kids were in the little plastic playhouse. Catie told Allie she couldn’t come in. (Which, yes, that is bossy and rude, I admit.) Allie responded by dragging Catie to the ground by her hair. Catie screamed, “You pulled my beautiful blonde hair!!” and cried to Mandy about it. (And ok, that line made me laugh. And realize that maybe I compliment her hair too much.)

In adult terms, I kind of see them like Linda Evans and Joan Collins on “Dynasty.”

BFFs:

Not so much:

The problem I’m noticing is that Catie is starting to adopt some of Allie’s more obnoxious behaviors, with the whining, rudeness, and tantrums. We try to nip it in the bud. I’ve told her flat-out that acting that way might work for Allie, but we don’t act like that in our house.

And yes, I’m sure that the impending arrival of Baby 2.0 has a lot to do with it. I’ve been out of commission a lot because I feel lousy, and Dave has had to take over as more of a disciplinarian. So Catie is challenging that whole dynamic shift. I understand that: it’s her job to test boundaries, and it’s our job to enforce them. That’s normal.

So we’re working on it. I just wish there was a way I could hand-pick Catie’s friends for her, and I know I can’t. I also know that this is the least of my troubles compared to, say, when she becomes a teenager.

Sigh. I tell you, man, this parenting gig is rough.