Category Archives: Babies ‘n Stuff

the big sister transition

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Catie’s been talking a lot about becoming a big sister lately. I’ve been trying not to talk about the new baby constantly, so I tend to wait for her to bring it up. Which she does, often.

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Example 1:
A couple of weeks ago, she cleaned out her toy box and filled up a huge bag with toys that she doesn’t play with anymore. She says, “These are baby toys. We can give them to Baby Sister.” We put the bag in what will be the baby’s room. I kept thinking she’d go back and decide that she needed something from that bag of toys, but so far? She hasn’t even mentioned it once.

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Example 2:
She decided that we needed to set up the baby crib, like, right at that moment. (Which is funny because I was the exact same way when I was pregnant with her.) I told her no, we have plenty of time to do that. She started to cry, “But my baby sister needs a beeeeed!!” So, as a compromise, we set up the Pack & Play together (which takes like 10 seconds, tops). Catie put a bunch of the baby toys in the Pack & Play, so it’ll be all ready for her.

And I have to admit, it sort of threw me for a loop to see that Pack & Play again. I had a major, “OMG this really is happening all over again, isn’t it?” moment.

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Example 3:
Last night, Catie and I lay in her bed together snuggling after we read a book.

Catie: Hey, Mommy? How is Baby Sister gonna get out of your tummy? What if she gets lost?
Me: *trying to dodge the question and be vague – saying stuff like, oh, babies know how to get out, it’ll be fine.*
Catie: I think the baby comes up out of your mouth just like the barf does.
Me: Well, no, sweetie. The baby will come out of my noonie. That’s how all babies come out.**
Catie: *shocked & laughing* YOUR NOONIE???
Me: Yep.
Catie: Hey! That’s just like in Milo & Otis!
Me: Um… Yeah, I guess?

(Side note: I had no idea what she was talking about for a minute, but then I remembered that toward the end of the movie, Otis and his “wife”(?) have a litter of puppies, and they showed the female dog giving birth to them. So… Yeah, ok, I guess it is sort of like that?)

** I know it’s not how ALL babies come out, but it was late at night and the thought of trying to explain a C-section to a 4 year-old was too much for me.

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Example 4:
Two nights ago, while we were snuggling in bed…

Catie: I love you, Mommy.
Me: I love you too, Catie bug.
Catie: *pats my tummy* You too, Baby Sister.

And then I died from the sweetness.

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Honestly, the main reason for this blog entry? I wanted to make sure I had a few of these little moments written down, so I can reference them someday when all she does is complain about how her little sister drives her crazy.

on being "outed" as pregnant

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When I started this job back in November, I was close to 10 weeks pregnant. I didn’t say anything about it at the time, because it was my first trimester and I didn’t want to alter anyone’s perception of me as an employee.

The problem is, they hired me as a temp-to-perm employee – meaning they wanted to give me a trial run for a month or two to make sure that I could actually write before they put me on their payroll for real. Which is fine, I’m confident in my abilities as a technical writer and I don’t mind proving myself. I figured that I’d probably be transitioning over to a full-time employee around the time I was comfortable with announcing my pregnancy, so no big deal.

But then, a whole bunch of stuff happened in between (like the holidays, and other people’s vacation schedules, and one manager in particular who had absolutely nothing against me personally, but wasn’t convinced that I was right for the job because I’m “just a writer” and not a software engineer… which, um, yeah, but the job title is technical writer, dude). So, they decided to extend my contract trial run until the end of January. This is around the point where I started to get nervous because I still hadn’t told anyone that I was pregnant.

(Well, ok, let’s amend that – Dave’s manager knows, because Dave had to explain why he was leaving work in the middle of the day, when he was meeting up with me for an ultrasound appointment. Apparently his manager had no idea and just thought I was chubby. I don’t know if he’s told anyone else in the office, but I’m thinking that people must be starting to figure it out, because good grief, y’all, my expansion rate is out of control.)

Fast-forward to the past week or so: everyone is back from vacation, and I’ve apparently won over the one guy who had doubts about me, so yesterday my manager made me an offer to become a permanent employee, and I accepted. And don’t get me wrong, this is great. I love this company, my co-workers are great, I really enjoy the work that I’m doing, and the offer is for a higher pay rate than I thought I’d get. It’s all great news.

But my manager? Is based out of the Colorado office. Which means he’s never met me in person and has no idea what I look like. So… I still haven’t told him that I’m pregnant. And for those of you keeping track, I’m now 23 weeks along. Hmm.

The thing is, as a contractor, they have no obligation to me whatsoever. So even though, yes, it’s technically illegal to discriminate against me for being pregnant, they could easily say, “Well, your contract is over, thanks for your time!” and let me go with no explanation at all. And I doubt that they would do that – my manager is a really good guy, and he has kids himself, so I’m sure he’d be sympathetic. But I just didn’t want to look like I was walking in the door going, “Hey, thanks for the job and by the way, I’m gonna need some paid maternity leave in a few months…”

Also, this is terrible, but there is this stereotype of working mothers being a bit flaky. Like I’m going to collect my paid maternity leave, and then suddenly say, “Oops, sorry, I can’t possibly go back to work, I need to stay home with my new baby, thanks anyway.” I know that women who have done that probably have very valid reasons for doing so, but… well, let’s face it, they haven’t exactly done the rest of us any favors. Employers are understandably a little gun-shy about hiring someone who might quit suddenly without notice.

But this is not my first time at this particular rodeo, and I know I’m going back to work. I mean, (a) we need the money, and (b) I need to maintain my sanity. It might sound awful, but I know I’m a better mom when I get a break from being in Mommy Mode and I get to use my brain for a while. I did the stay-at-home mom thing with Catie, and while I have no regrets about it, I didn’t particularly enjoy it either, and I know that I don’t want to do it again.

So, the upshot is that I’m planning to wait until all the paperwork with Human Resources is signed, sealed, and delivered, before I tell my manager about this pregnancy. I just hope it doesn’t take too long for the paperwork to process, because I am getting awfully nervous about postponing it as long as I have.

a little Monday whining

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I feel really “off” lately. I can’t quite put my finger on it, it’s not quite a full-blown depression or anything that severe, but there are a lot of small things that are adding up to make me feel like I’m not myself. Like:

1. I’ve hit the point of pregnancy where I can no longer sleep comfortably for long periods (examples: I have to pee, the baby is kicking, my hip hurts, whatever), so I’m really freaking exhausted all the time.

2. Pregnancy hormones are making me a weepy and grouchy mess, which I hate. I spend way too much time either completely irritable, or on the verge of tears. I like to be in control of my feelings, so I’m not a fan of this.

3. Related to the hormone mess: I feel puffy and fat, and even my skin feels stretched tight, like it doesn’t know what to do with these changes. I don’t feel like a glowing pregnant Earth Mother type. I feel ugly, and I feel dry and itchy all over. I don’t feel like I “own” my body, if that makes sense. It’s like my body has been hijacked by some mysterious creature and I just have to put up with it for several more months while things get progressively more miserable.

4. I miss Dave. We live together and work at the same company, but it feels like we don’t see other very much. Weird, right? Well, case in point: he had a massive deadline that was due today, so he worked all weekend. And I mean, like, he worked: he drank coffee and didn’t sleep for 2 days. (He took a two-hour nap on Sunday afternoon. That was the only sleep he had between Saturday morning and Monday morning.) I know it was stuff that he needed to finish, but it makes me worry about his health when he pulls all-nighters like that. We basically barely spoke to each other all weekend because I wanted to leave him alone to get his work done, and I spent a lot of time corralling Catie to keep her quiet so she wouldn’t disturb him either. It sucked.

5. The anxiety of “holy crap, this 2nd baby is really on her way, and how on earth am I going to juggle two kids and a full-time job?” is starting to sink in. Plus all of the stereotypical stuff that goes with that – the fear that I’ll be “less” of a mom to Catie once the baby is here, that I’ve maxed out my capacity for love and won’t bond with this new baby, etc. Stupid stuff that I know – I KNOW – isn’t true. But that doesn’t stop me from worrying about it now.

I had an OB appointment this morning, and I talked about a lot of this stuff with my doctor. I told him that I think that the majority of my issues are environmental and not physiological. I’m pretty sure most of it can be filed under, “This too shall pass.” He said that it’s good that I’m aware of it and talking about it, and he wants me to let him know if it starts to feel like something we need to address more seriously.

I don’t want anybody reading this to worry about me. I’ll be ok, and if it feels like things aren’t getting better, then I absolutely will discuss it with my doctor and take it from there. I’m not naive, and I know enough about depression to know when to ask for help.

Today, though, I just needed to vent. Thanks for listening.

20 weeks

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Today was my 20-week ultrasound. Everything looks great, and Baby 2.0 is most definitely a GIRL. (She wasn’t shy at all about showing off her bits. That’s my girl!)

Baby #2 at 20 weeks

My favorite picture of her, doing a little “Fight the Power” fist raise. Mama’s little rebel.

Now Dave and I get to start arguing about names. I have one name that I love-love-LOVE, and I feel like it’s totally perfect, but Dave isn’t sure about it. So I have a list of about 20 other names that I also kinda like (even though they’re not my first choice), and we can sit down and haggle it out.

Of course, we didn’t officially decide on Catie’s name until after she was born. (It was one of 2 or 3 that we were still juggling.) I’d like to avoid that particular stress this time around, if possible.

And, uh, whenever we do decide, don’t expect me to announce it. Because I’m sorry, but I really don’t want everybody putting in their two cents about it. I’ve heard enough of that, “Oh, I knew a girl named [whatever] and she was a horrible bitch” stuff. No need for that.

I did, however, ask Catie what she thinks we should name the baby. She offered up two ideas:
1) She said we should name her Catie, “because that’s a pretty name, right, Mommy?” Well, yes, that’s why we chose it the first time. I told her that we probably wouldn’t do that because it could get really confusing.
2) She suggested we call her Baby. I told her that we probably will call her that at first, but that she still needs her own name.

So, that was useless. Never ask a 3 year-old for baby name advice, let me tell you.

Oh well, 20 more weeks (give or take) to figure it out. Wish us luck!

Irrational Me

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I think I’ve stated before that I am not a graceful Earth Mother type who relishes every moment of being pregnant, right? Ok then, consider yourself warned for the whine-fest ahead.

One of the parts that I really hate about pregnancy is not feeling like I’m in control of my own body. Sure, I’m klutzier, but whatever. That’s no big deal, I’m a klutz anyway. And I have no control over the way that my body is physically expanding and changing. Again, this is not my first time at this particular rodeo, so that’s not a big deal to me either.

It’s the emotional part. The crying about abso-freaking-lutely nothing, the getting angry about stupidly insignificant things, and just feeling like a really horribly unpleasant person. That’s the part that I hate the most.

Example scenario: The past couple of days, my breakfast has been an omelet with spinach and tomatoes. It’s delicious, and I do it with about 1/3 eggs and 2/3 Egg Beaters, because let’s face it, you can eat a hell of a lot more with no guilt if you’re using the low-cal egg substitute.

[Side note: Before I got pregnant? I was doing the same thing for breakfast, except it was spinach and mushrooms. But pregnancy totally put me off mushrooms – which used to be one of my favorite things in the whole wide world, so that was weird. But I do have a history of eating tomatoes when pregnant. When I was pregnant with Catie, I would eat about four or five whole tomatoes a day – just slice ’em up, salt ’em, and wolf ’em down. When I’m not pregnant? I can take or leave tomatoes, I’m totally indifferent about them. Bizarro.]

So, I come downstairs this morning all excited to make my omelet. Only to find out that while we do have spinach, we’re out of tomatoes. Like, even the diced tomatoes in a can. None. The closest thing we have is ketchup, and… well, NO. That would be disgusting in an omelet.

And seriously, I stood in the kitchen for a good five minutes, trying to figure out what I was going to do. I wanted to yell at Dave for finishing the last of the tomatoes – because, you know, the big jerk woke up earlier than me, and how dare he? I debated getting dressed and going to the store right then for tomatoes, except I hadn’t eaten anything yet, and I’m pretty sure that pregnant lady + empty stomach = A BAD SCENE at the grocery store. (I’d come out with $200 worth of food, easy.)

Then I decided that maybe the wisest thing to do would be to eat something else, and have my spinach-tomato omelet later, after going to the store. But the thought of eating something else made me feel like I either wanted to barf or cry. Or both.

See? IRRATIONAL. And I know it, I totally recognize it, but I cannot seem to control it. And I really, really hate it.

In the end, I ate a piece of cheese toast. Which I normally love, but today it was wholly unsatisfying. Still, it was enough that I can now go to the grocery store without fear of buying everything in sight.

But I might buy every last can of diced tomatoes that they have. You know, just to be safe.

The 19 Week Belly

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Last night, I was walking from the living room back into the kitchen, when Dave sort of looked at me sideways.

Dave: “So… Has anyone at work asked you if you’re pregnant yet?”

Me: “Nope.”

Dave: “Well then, they’re obviously just being polite, because, DAMN.”

Uh.. thank you, my love?

Here’s the thing: the office where I work? Is almost entirely male. And the guys are all nerds, which means they’re overall a relatively shy bunch, and I’m pretty sure they’d rather die than risk offending me by asking if I’m pregnant.

So, you know what? Fine. Let them wonder if maybe I just went balls-out nuts with the holidays treats this year. I’m not that bothered by it.

But something that has been bothering me, is the fact that my maternity clothes don’t fit me very well. My starting weight when I got pregnant with Catie was 20 pounds lighter than this time, so my old maternity clothes are mostly too tight, too short, or I feel like my boobs are going to fall out of them. (And don’t get me wrong, I don’t have giant pregnant hooters now. I’m just not used to having anything, so actually filling out a B cup is sort of mind-blowing to me.)

[Random aside: I was wearing one of the shirts that makes me feel extra cleavage-y the other day when I was helping Catie get dressed. I leaned over to help her get her pants on, and she put her hand on my chest and said, “I like your boobs, Mommy.” I was sort of dumbstruck for a response, but finally I said, “Thanks. Me too.”]

Since I worked crazy overtime hours yesterday, I decided to make up for it by taking off a little early today, and I headed to the mall to try to find some maternity clothes that fit me.

19 weeks pregnant

So, yeah. I think I might be showing a bit?

The crazy thing is that at my doctor’s appointment last week, the scale said I’d only gained two pounds so far. I don’t understand how a belly that large can only account for two measly pounds, and lord knows I have not been making any effort whatsoever at maintaining a healthy diet or exercise plan with this pregnancy. So I guess stuff must be redistributing itself from other parts of my body, but damned if I know.

But if this is how large I look at 19 weeks, I’m terrified to think of how huge I’m going to be in about three months from now!

differences and similarities

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Common wisdom states that all pregnancies are different, and I knew that going into this one, but it took a while for the reality to set in.

For one thing, the nausea during the first trimester? SO MUCH WORSE this time than it was with Catie. Of course, I didn’t really get sick until my 3rd trimester during my first pregnancy. This one has more of the “traditional pregnancy” (?) feel, since right around the 6 week point, I was absolutely flattened by the nausea. Because of my gastric bypass surgery, I can’t throw up, but so many times, I wished I could. (A nurse at my OB’s office told me to be thankful because most women say they don’t feel any better even after they barf. Uh, good to know?) I spent a lot of time with that horrible metallic “about to barf” taste in my mouth, without actually being able to do anything about it. It was pretty awful.

What’s funny is that I absolutely hated keeping my misery to myself, I wanted to whine about it. And I kept thinking, oh man, just a few more weeks and then I can moan about how miserable I am on my blog. Only now that I’ve ‘fessed up to being pregnant, I’m right around the 13-week point, and most of the horribleness is over. I get an occasional nausea flare-up, but it’s pretty rare. The heartburn is no fun, but, eh, it’s manageable. That’s why God invented Tums, right?

One thing that I didn’t expect? That my cravings this time are totally different than they were with Catie. The main things I remember craving with Catie were peanut butter and tomatoes. (Um, not at the same time. Ew.) But with this kiddo, I suddenly want:
1.) Coffee. Which is weird because I normally hate coffee. I’m not a fan of hot beverages in general, I’m a Diet Coke addict. I’m not sure if it’s the power of suggestion (the office smells like coffee because everyone here drinks it all day), or if I want a hot drink because the office is cold and I’m trying to warm myself up. But my normal “hot beverage of choice” would be green tea, and I don’t want that. I just want COFFEE. Weird.
2.) Citrus fruits. Specifically, mango and pineapple. Which I’ve always liked, but now it’s like, neeeeed. (Maybe my body needs the vitamin C?)
3.) Fried eggs. When I ate eggs while I was pregnant with Catie, they had to be either scrambled or hard-boiled, because if I saw even a hint of a runny yolk, I’d get sick. Now I want my eggs over easy, and the runnier, the better.

There are other occasional food cravings that pop up. Like last week when I decided that I needed a baked potato more than I’ve ever needed anything in my entire life. So I decided to cook steak, just so I’d have a vehicle to serve baked potatoes. And I mean, I went all-out with it: I bought sour cream, chives, and shredded cheese to put on top. The works. And when I finally ate it? I made so many happy noises that Dave was like, “Uh, do you and your potato need some privacy?” It was borderline obscene. And you know… Don’t get me wrong, I like a good starchy carb as much as the next girl, but that was weird. I don’t think I’ve ever had that kind of reaction to a potato in my life.

But to be fair, there’s a pretty long list of things with this pregnancy that are the same as last time:
1.) Exhaustion.
2.) Crazy dreams.
3.) Stretch marks (yes, already).
4.) All the tiny new-growth hairs that are sprouting up all over my head and driving me crazy. (Last time, I decided to tackle that issue by getting bangs. Which I liked at the time, and now I look back and wonder what the hell those hormones did to my brain. The “before” picture is so much better than the “after.” Yeesh. So let’s all say a prayer that I maintain enough of my sanity this time to not do anything too drastic to my hair.)
5.) Acne.
6.) Itchy dry skin.
7.) Complete and total loss of my attention span.

Wait… What was I talking about?

Oh right. I guess that overall, there are probably more similarities between my two pregnancies than there are differences. At least so far. I just have to wait and see if that stays true over the coming months.