Category Archives: Babies ‘n Stuff

no verdict

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I started to write this last night, but I was so upset that I couldn’t find the words.

I got home yesterday around 4:30, same as usual. I checked the voicemail, and I had a message from my OB’s office. They said that they needed to reschedule my appointment. For the record, they left the message at 4:00 p.m. – approximately 22 hours before my actual appointment time. My heart sank before I called them back, I knew it wasn’t going to be happy news.

Apparently the ultrasound tech is going to be out all afternoon. No explanation, she’s just out of the office. I’m assuming it’s some kind of emergency – or at least, it better be for them to bump me at the last minute like that. They rescheduled me for Thursday afternoon at 2:00.

I managed to hold back the floodgate of tears until after I hung up the phone, which is not easy with all these crazy hormones. I tried to call Dave, but he didn’t answer his office phone and he had left his cell at the house. (I heard it ring downstairs when I tried to call him. I’m working on trying to make him remember that he needs to be a bit more reachable in case of emergencies, because my worst nightmare is that I’ll go into labor at some point and have to drive myself to the damn hospital because he won’t call me back until four hours later.)

Since I couldn’t get in touch with Dave, I tried my mom. I didn’t get nearly the sympathetic response that I wanted. I just got the, “well, I had to wait 9 months to find out. And anyway, it’s only two more days, big deal!” She also reminded me that the only reason I was crying about it was because I’m pregnant – which, thank you, I know that’s true, but that isn’t helpful, Mom.

Dave called me back about an hour or so later, by which time I had long since glued my ass to the couch and had several off-and-on crying jags. I cried again when I told him, and got the same, “oh well, it’s only two more days!” chipper response. I think he and my mom both were honestly trying to make me feel better, but… argh.

The thing is, I know it’s not that huge a delay, but it feels like forever when I’ve been counting it down since the day I found out I was pregnant. Which, for the record, was 15 weeks ago. So I know it’s not the end of the world. I’m just really upset about it right now.

Last night, I even left a couple of messages with some random ultrasound places in the area to see about their openings. Apparently my OB doesn’t have a 4-D ultrasound, and I had been thinking that I wanted to get some of those groovy high-quality pictures at some point anyway, so I figured what the hell. Unfortunately, my insurance won’t cover it if I go to one of those places, and I have no idea how much it costs. And none of them have called me back yet.

So. It seems as though I’m stuck waiting until Thursday. And also? There goes my plan for Dave’s Big Birthday Surprise.

This sucks.

Aside to Dave: Happy 35th birthday, sweetie. I’m sorry I was such a grump last night (and still a grump this morning). I’m working on it. But I love you, and I hope you have a fantastic birthday.

the weekend before the big 3-5

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I’ll bet y’all really want to know what I got Dave for his birthday, hmm?

Well, the main present was this:


It’s a Sony HandyCam. This was a partially selfish gift, because I’ve been wanting a video camera for a long time. I knew that Dave would love it too, as he loves all things gadget-y. Does it have a plug? Does it have buttons? Rock on!

Especially now with the baby coming, I really want to be able to make home movies for our own personal archives. Plus, this nifty little guy will let us edit our movies and then burn them to DVD’s, which is extra-handy since all of our parents live so far away. Not that sending them DVD’s of their grandchild will necessarily make them less inclined to visit on a semi-regular basis, but at least they won’t feel like they’re missing out on quite as much.

Other presents of the day: a hair-trimmer thing (I know, it’s kind of boring, but he specifically asked for it), season 2 of “Lost” (umm… ok, that’s another partially selfish gift), and a couple of things for the baby. This was my favorite:


I found that onesie online and I thought it was absolutely hilarious. Ages ago, Dave and I joked about finding baby clothes with a little Union Jack flag on them, I really didn’t expect to find something that so perfectly sums up this baby’s heritage.

You can see all of the pictures from our little Saturday afternoon birthday shindig here.

In other news: two more days until we know the sprog’s gender. Two days.

Twoooooo. Daaaaaaaays.

The wait is driving me insane.

This morning, Kris and I met up and went to church, and afterward (since I was in the neighborhood), I went to Target. I didn’t buy anything (!), but I wandered through the baby section for a while. Every time I’ve been there, I’ve always steered myself toward the gender-neutral clothes. This was the first time that I really took a good, long look at the boy and girl clothes. Here’s what I learned:

* Little boy clothes are heartbreakingly adorable. I don’t much care for the sports-themed stuff, because I figure that the kid can decide for himself whether or not he likes sports, and I’m not going to push that issue. But the clothes with puppies or firetrucks or little airplanes on them? I sort of love those.

* Little girl clothes, for the most part, annoy the ever-loving crap out of me. Sure, some things are really cute, but there are so many with slogans written on them, like “Precious Little Angel” or “Our Darling Princess” or whatever. Throw up. Considering this baby is going to be the genetic offspring of Dave and me, I can guarantee you that if it is a girl, there is no way that she’ll be either an angel or a princess. Unless they mean princess in the “diva” sense of the word. Because it would be entirely possible that we’d have a little drama queen on our hands.

I don’t know if the fact that I gravitated toward the boy clothes is any indication of this baby’s gender. It could just be that I’ve had a feeling that it’s a boy for the past fifteen or so weeks. I suppose we’ll find out one way or the other in approximately 46 hours. (Commence nail-biting.)

the longest four days

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I know some people (read: Dave) still think it’s too early for this, but lately I’ve been looking at a lot of baby furniture online. I had this idea in my head of how I wanted to decorate the nursery, but when I started pricing out the items that I really liked… ouch. That stuff adds up. I’m starting to think that maybe it would be wiser to check out some of the local classified ads.

Case in point: I stopped by one of our local kids’ furniture stores on my way home from work a few days ago. The crib that I liked the most? Was $700. That didn’t even include the mattress.

Of course, I know there are certain baby items that one is never supposed to buy used. Like car seats, since a lot of manufacturers have recalls on older models. But for basic items, like a changing table or a playpen? Buying secondhand seems like a good idea.

I recently learned there’s a neighborhood near us that’s having a community garage sale this weekend. They have these little events twice a year. Kris went to the one back in March and said there was tons of baby stuff for sale. (This is a very posh little neighborhood, they have their own community daycare center, which was apparently also selling off a lot of older equipment.) At the time, Kris tried to talk me into going back with her to look at what was available, but I wasn’t even pregnant yet, so it seemed sort of silly.

Not this time! No, Dave and I will be hitting the sale first thing on Saturday morning. After stopping to get Dave a latte, so he won’t be totally unbearable. That should be fun. Wish me luck.

In other news: I have my 20-week appointment – including the ultrasound where we’ll find out the baby’s gender – on Tuesday, the 19th. Four more days, I can’t wait. Tuesday also happens to be Dave’s birthday, so that’ll be a neat little birthday surprise.

It’s funny, I’ve always celebrated my birthday on whatever weekend was closest to the date. Whether it was before or after my real birthday has never mattered that much; the important thing is that I get to sleep late on whatever the chosen Day of Celebration happens to be. (Or, more likely, that I can safely be hungover on the day after the Night of Celebration. Whichever.) But Dave has always been a stickler about not doing cake and presents except on the actual day of your birth itself. But, since Tuesday is going to be a pretty action-packed day on its own with the doctor’s appointment and everything, he has mercifully caved in and agreed to make this coming weekend his Birthday Weekend. How very generous of him, no?

So we’ll do presents and cake on Saturday. I’m really looking forward to that too, because I’m pretty sure I kicked major ass with the birthday gift selection this year. He’s been trying to guess what I got him, but so far he really has no idea. And even if he did guess – which he hasn’t – I wouldn’t tell him, because (unlike me) he seems to really love surprises.

cleaning is my cardio

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I thought the whole idea of nesting during pregnancy is that it takes place during the last few weeks? Apparently that is not the case with me. Ever since this second trimester started and gave me back my energy, I have had some house-related project every single weekend. It’s borderline-manic. Dave seems sort of confused by my behavior; I just tell him that it’s helping my brain relax, and he leaves me alone with it.

So even though I’m sure y’all are probably sick of hearing about it, here’s the list, so Dave will have sufficient evidence against me when it comes time for my commitment hearing.

This weekend, I:
* Cleared enough space in the garage that there is now more than enough room for all of the doors and baseboards that are being delivered later this week.

* Washed and folded four loads of laundry. Dave’s sock drawer is now so full that it won’t close all the way.

* Cleaned our bedroom, and in the process, found Dave’s glasses that he thought he had lost weeks ago. Go me. And go Dave, who no longer has to wear his big nerdy glasses from high school that make him look like Harry Potter.

* Cleaned my office. (Except for the litter box in there, because that task is on Dave’s to-do list while I’m in this delicate condition.)

* Started to clean out the baby’s room, which is weird to say because until now it’s just been a guest bedroom, or a junk room. (Mostly a junk room.) That’s going to take a while to finish up, and will require some help from Dave, because there are a few heavy items in there (i.e., boxes of books) that I am not going to attempt to carry downstairs by myself.

Oh, and at some point on Saturday, I went to retrieve our garbage can from the end of the driveway (garbage pick-up is on Fridays), and I noticed it was still full. The hell? A couple of our neighbors happened to be driving by, and they stopped and told me that the waste management guys are on strike. Lovely. Don’t our garbage guys know that I have big important cleaning projects to do? Stupid jerks.

This weekend I also started watching a few of the baby shows on Discovery Health. I know that’s generally not a good idea – I’ve read stories of pregnant women weeping over the preemie babies as their husbands physically wrenched the remotes out of their puffy little pregnant hands. But honestly? Those shows don’t really scare me that much. At least, not in a “oh dear god, what if this baby is born at 24 weeks and almost dies and has to spend the first few months of its life in the NICU?” sort of way.

However, it does make me start thinking about the pregnancy timeline a bit more. And it occurred to me that by Christmas, I’ll be 35 weeks pregnant, and if the baby is born then, it’d most likely be healthy and ready to come home after a very short hospital stay. So that makes me feel a bit “holy sh*t, we have to get our entire house baby-ready within the next 3 months!!”

I don’t know what it is about that February 2nd due date – somehow it seems a lot farther away in the future when you think of it as being “next year.” Next year? Heck, it’s not even really fall yet! We have all the time in the world to prepare!

But if I think that it could happen toward the end of this year? I wig out.

And then I read the crib reviews in my Baby Bargains book (which is seriously the greatest book ever, and I’m going to owe my cousin’s wife a thank you note for recommending it), and I see that sometimes nursery furniture has to be ordered a few months in advance, and I wig out some more.

Logically, of course, I know that newborns don’t really require that much. All I really need is a car seat, and maybe a Pack N’ Play that I can use as a bassinet for the first few weeks. And it’s not like newborn babies can crawl, so I don’t have to worry about the fact that one of the cats got upset about my cleaning a room and decided to go poop in the corner. None of that stuff really matters.

It’s just this idea in my head of not being prepared for the baby by the time he/she arrives. It feels like that nightmare where you’re in school taking an exam that you haven’t studied for. It’s a horrible, anxiety-ridden feeling.

So, in the meantime, everyone will just have to excuse me while I’m using the DustBuster to clean all of the windowsills in the house. Because this is just how I cope.

confession time

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Ok, this is where my nesting instinct has led me:

Oh yes, the boxes in the garage, they will be labeled. In various fonts. And then, perhaps I will stack them alphabetically. I haven’t decided about that last part yet.

You can make fun of me if you like. Believe me, Dave mocked the label maker plenty when I first bought it. Then he decided it would be a good idea to label all of the cables on the surround-sound system/home network in his office, so he can actually find what he’s looking for when he needs to go un-hook or re-hook something. Which he does all the time. Because he’s a guy.

So, ha! The label maker shall eventually be loved by all. Except Teenie, who clearly expresses her disdain for it in that photo. (Although honestly, as much as I love her, I admit that “disdain” is sort of her default setting. Not with me, of course. She’s all cuddles and purrs with me. The rest of the world? Not so much.)

Moving on: I have no idea why my father seems to be such a recurrent topic on my blog lately, but here he is again. The other day, we were having a conversation and he asked me if I was showing more now than in the last photo he saw of me. (I sent him that picture of me when I was 12 weeks pregnant. Six weeks ago.) I was like, “Um, gee. What do you think?”

But since my dad doesn’t have much of an imagination, he asked me to take more pictures. So I did. And here, we have the belly at 18 weeks.

Before you judge me, remember that I have a very short torso.

Although even considering that, I figure that at my current rate of expansion, by Christmas the circumference of my waist will be approximately the same as my height. Terrifying.

Also noteworthy: yesterday morning I was lying in bed during that decadent eight-minute stretch before the snooze alarm goes off. Unlike most mornings, I was actually awake during this little snooze-break. Dave and I were talking about feeling the baby move; people keep asking me if I’ve felt it kick yet, and it bothers me that I always have to say no. As if I’m going to get graded on the progress of my pregnancy or something. (No kicks before the 20-week mark: C-minus!) The problem is, what with all of the other “tummy issues” that I have on a regular basis (which we won’t discuss here), I really wasn’t sure if I had felt it move yet or not. I was waiting for some really obvious sign. Like, I don’t know, the outline of a footprint on my stomach.

I told Dave that the night before, as I was trying to fall asleep, I felt some fluttering that felt a bit more front-and-center than my usual tummy stuff, and I thought that might have been the baby moving. But I wasn’t sure.

Dave got up and went downstairs to turn the kettle on. (Those Brits love their tea, dontcha know.) I stayed in bed, lying on my side, with one hand sort of on top of my stomach. As soon as Dave left the room, I felt something bump my hand. I’m almost positive it was a foot. It shocked me so much that I yanked my hand away, and it took me a few seconds to recover to even realize that, “Hey! That was it!” So that was pretty cool.

Of course, I’ve been totally unable to re-create it ever since. It’s not like I can teach the baby to kick on demand. Yet.

Labor Day summary

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The weekend housework report:
* I worked in the garage for a couple of hours on Friday, but it was just too hot, so I gave up pretty quickly. According to the forecast, this weekend is supposed to be in the low 70’s, so hopefully I can finish it up then.

* On Friday, I ordered new doors, baseboards, casing and crown moulding for our entire house. It’s all part of the big Pre-Baby House Renovation Project. But fear not: we have a contractor who’s going to install the stuff, we aren’t going to do it ourselves. For one thing, we want the work to actually be finished by the time the baby arrives. For another, we don’t want it to look like crap. However, the price tag on this little project is steadily climbing. I’m really glad that I get frequent flyer miles whenever I use my credit card.

* Yesterday, I cleaned out our bedroom closet. That’s actually a much bigger feat than you might imagine. But it’s a small space, so it felt really good to start and finish a project in one day. And now Dave will never be able to find his clothes because (gasp!) they’re all on hangers in the closet, rather than on the floor or in the laundry basket.

* Speaking of the laundry basket, I folded a good three or four loads of laundry yesterday, which my lower back really didn’t appreciate.

* I also made my first-ever attempt at cooking lasagna, since I thought that might be a good dish that I could potentially make and freeze for after the baby arrives. This was just a trial run to make sure it would be edible. And it wasn’t bad, but I need to remember to add more salt in the future.

Other odds and ends:

I’ve been having problems with an internal application at work, so this afternoon I had to call our helpdesk. While I was on hold, I heard muzak/instrumental versions of “Fernando” by ABBA, one of the “Fame” songs by Irene Cara (I’m not sure which one), and “Your Song” by Elton John. The music of my childhood has been deemed appropriate for elevators and hold music. I suddenly feel very, very old.

The news about the Crocodile Hunter made me incredibly, inexplicably sad. I suppose it was bound to happen eventually. Mostly I just feel sad for his family.

On Saturday, I bought and paid for Dave’s birthday present, although I don’t actually have it in my possession yet. It’s driving him crazy because he has no idea what I’m getting him, he just has a few vague hints that I’ve dropped. And it’s a really good present, too; I’m quite proud of myself for thinking of it. I’m going to enjoy dragging this one out for the next two weeks.

Which reminds me: two more weeks until we know if the sprog is a boy or a girl! Aaahhh!!! I’m so excited, I can’t wait. I honestly don’t care either way, I just need to know. It’s driving me crazy every time I pass through the baby section at Target. Also, my dad has been forewarned that if my instincts are wrong and this baby happens to be a girl, and he dares to make one reference to Gone With the Wind, I will hang up on him, and he will not be welcome in our home at Christmas.

[For those of you who didn’t catch that reference: When Scarlett gave birth to Bonnie Blue Butler, Mammy said, “I apologize, Mr. Rhett, for it bein’ a girl.” My dad thinks that line is hilarious. Obviously, I feel otherwise.]

[Also: when I first told my parents that I was pregnant, my dad quoted Luca Brasi from The Godfather and said, “I hope your first child will be a masculine child.” Ever the movie buff, that guy. I didn’t really think that was funny, either.]

[Actually, I suppose either of those jokes would be funny, if you didn’t know my dad and you hadn’t already heard both of those movie quotes about thirty-seven gazillion times during the course of your life.]

[And what is up with me and brackets today? Weird.]

Random pregnancy tidbit of the day: I am craving crab legs in a big, bad way. Dave won’t eat shellfish at all – and is, in fact, repulsed when I eat crab legs because he thinks the whole shell-cracking thing is barbaric – so I think I’m going to have to enlist Kris to go out to dinner with me. It’s gotten so bad that last week, I actually bought fake crab (you know, “krab”) at the grocery store, and dipped it in melted butter. I even managed to gross out myself with that one, but I was desparate. I think it’s time to treat myself to the real thing.

pregnancy brain sets in

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I have heard hundreds of stories of how scatter-brained pregnant women can become. It’s mentioned in all of the pregnancy books, I know it’s a very common ailment. So far, I’ve had to deal with things like forgetting what I needed to buy at the grocery store – annoying, sure, but nothing too scary. But now, I offer my own undeniable proof that gestating a fetus has led me to lose my damn mind:

I’m at work, and I was just composing a work-related email. It was addressed to someone who I have emailed and spoken on the phone with, but who I have never actually met in person. I believe it’s also worth noting that my boss was CC’ed on the email.

I had my mouse hovering over the “Send” button, and was about to click it, when I suddenly thought, “Hmmm… Something on this email doesn’t look right. I should double-check it.”

My error? I signed a business email with this closing:

Love,
Cindy

ARE YOU KIDDING ME?!?!! Thank the baby Jesus in heaven that some shred of my former brain showed up long enough to make me think twice before clicking “Send,” because that could’ve been positively mortifying.

Honestly? I think that just about sums up how my Monday is going so far. I should probably go home and crawl under the covers before I embarass myself any further.