Overheard from the nusery....BWAHhahaaha!

Infant: WAAAAAHHH!!!!

hubby/studmuffin: Welcome to So You Think You Can Poop! I'll be your judge today... show me what you've got...

Infant: WAAAAAHHH!!!!

hubby/studmuffin: That's it?! That's all you've got?! I've seen better poop from hamsters! Where's the PASSION?!

Infant: WAAAAAHHH!!!!

hubby/studmuffin: Please leave the auditorium

Infant: WAAAAAHHH!!!! WAAAAAHHH!!!!

hubby/studmuffin: You know we're going to have to bleep all that out... bleeping bleepity bleep judges wouldn't know good poop if it bit them on the bleep!

Infant: Waah... Waa.... Aahgoo!

hubby/studmuffin: Come back next year.

"Working Mother" = redundant OR, phrased another way, shoot me now

Mommyhood is HARD. Seriously. There is a Darwinian reason that nature makes infants so gosh darn cute. It's so they will survive the day - cause they can't do Jack for themselves, and, frankly, in the early days, they really aren't all that entertaining. In fact, they are downright annoying at times. They are kinda like tiny little asexual Paris Hiltons. Good thing they have their looks. They are, all in all, just a f-load of WORK.
The cruelty of 'life today' means that riiiiight about the time they start to suck a little less - adding cooing and gurgling to their to-date limited vocabulary of shrieks - that's exactly the time your maternity leave is up. Which is like, now. That's right folks - I'm back at work. My OTHER work I mean... the corporate stuff that you can get paid for.
I'm only sort of back, in that my brain is still firmly attached to the infant. Not literally, cause, ew. But figuratively, the hormonally-driven two-way baby clinginess is far far more powerful than I gave it credit for being. I miss the creature - the same creature who keeps me up at all hours, who poops on me, and who chews on my nipples for fun - I MISS her. Clearly this is not a feeling driven by logic.
The 'work' part is a little shaky. In part because, compared to what it takes to keep an infant alive during the first few months of its life, my job can hardly be called work. It's bordering on being a vacation, comparatively speaking. A wicked boring one, but still. I am still expected to produce things, for my pay, and that has been a bit of a challenge.
In part because the small segment of my brain that is not attached to the infant and has managed to make itself present in meetings and whatnot, is TIRED. Bone weary tired. Drooling on oneself tired. Consequently, some of my contributions are tending toward the, 'I don't know whatever you think' category. Others are just, well, lame. See, some people work fine on low sleep. Me? I start walking into walls and giggling to myself. Not really employee of the month type behavior.
One of the other little barriers to peak employee performance are my boobs. I'm not Dolly Parton so they've never really had a large impact on, well, anything before, much less work. But now? Since I've managed to get them up to speed on the babyjuice production, they require a lot more maintenance. Specifically, just like the cows in the fields, if I don't get milked regularly, I start to hurt. And/or leak. Both suck (no pun intended). So every few hours I have to take a midevil style boob sucking torture device roughly the size shape and weight of a cellular phone from 1981 down to the officially designated tata room and have at it. Which is just (and there is no better phrase to describe it) flat-out weird. Some things should not be brought into the work place. Rack Milking is one of those things. But here we are.
So between the exhaustion, the hormonal baby yearnings, and the Bessie the Cow deal, I can't honestly say that I feel like I am running at peak performance. In spite of all these however, I AM able to add a few sniblets of value - enough that I am not a TOTAL waste of space here. Some hours it's touch and go though.
The infant meanwhile is currently hangin with relatives, and apparently being incredibly easy to deal with. "She's SUCH a good baby!!!" This is because she saves allllll her cranky up til mommy's home. Now, granted, my arrival home tends to coincide with when she starts to get tired ( 6 or 7pm which my mommy friend refers to as the 'arsenic hour' ). But still. Its hard not to wonder if there is something deliberate there....or if the relatives are drugging her somehow. And if they are, can I get some of what they are dishing out?
In the next week or two she will be starting 'school' aka day care at work. We struggled with the decision on where to put her/keep her. With relatives is nice AND free, which is no small benefit. But they have lives to lead, lives that don't always mesh with the schedules of the infant. On the flip, daycare = no scheduling conflicts ever, but wicked expensive. Ultimately, family could only help for the the summer anyway, and we got a slot in the work daycare which is like, the Harvard of baby care. So we went for it. They seriously have a 'gym' just for babies. A baby gym. seriously. And, I feel pretty sure that the bean will do great there. Like mommy and daddy, she has the attention span of a hamster, and anything bright and shiny and new is considered good to her. They have a LOT of bright shiny and new at this place - more than we could ever provide even at home. We'll know for sure her review of the facilities next week, and I'll report back in. For now, I'm going back to 'work'....

Knocked up no more!

Clearly, quite a bit has happened since my last post... I spent the week after penning that puppy in and out of the hospital. BP would go up, doc would send me to the hospital, they'd drug me more, BP would drop, they'd send me home, then BP would go up again. lather rinse repeat. It was an ever escalating battle - drugs vs. skyrocketing BP. 'I dare you!' 'I double dare you!!' By the time we'd reached the triple dog-dare of blood pressure treatment aka 750mg of TWO different BP drugs 3 times a day with full left side only hospital bed rest, it became pretty clear that we were out of options. It was babytime.
Because she was only 34 weeks, I was all for riding it out as long as possible. A couple of docs in my ob's practice were down with that, to a point. And there was a lot of 'discussion' about exactly where that point was. This was a bit confusing from the patient side of the conversation since opinions varied. When you are hospitalized, you get the doc du jour, which means you get the opinion du jour. 'You are good, just hang on your left side indefinitely and when your BP spikes again, we'll have a baby!' Next day, next doc? 'Get her out!! NOW NOW NOW!!!' Um, what? Many confused calls and intense spousal conversations later - we went with doc 2s opinion, who, come to find out, was dead serious about the 'NOW' part of her opinion. The hubby barely had time to get to the hospital before they were wheeling me into the operating room. He was literally met at the door with the little paper booties and hat. Exceptional timing!
I'll spare you the details of the delivery, but it could have been worse. We went c-section. Considering that rolling onto my right side spiked my BP by 20 points, we were pretty sure that a 24 hour bout with intense induced pain would probably have had a negative impact on my readings, to the tune of 'not enough drugs in the world'. So a quick slice n' dice and boom! Baby.
She was born at 3 something on march 7th (hey, I was drugged - cut me some slack!) and weighed 5lbs 9ozs. And after 10 days in the NICU, she was allowed to go home. I had to stay in the hospital myself another 4 days. The first of those 4 days, I was drugged to the gills on magnesium, to prevent seizures triggered by my ridiculously intransigent blood pressure. I refer to that period as my Keith Richards days. I was borderline incoherent and feeling zippy pain. This was especially welcome since shortly post birth the epidural wore off/broke (trust me you don't want the details) and I had been feeling EVERY bit-o-pain that comes along with being gutted like a codfish. Yay for magnesium, I say! And percocet and tylenol 3...
Next few posts I'll get y'all up to speed on the transition from human podcreature to mommyhood - its been quite a ride. But details will need to wait - the infant is paging me (read: there is an air raid siren going off in my home).... Happy Early Mother's Day!

You want the good news first?

VERY good news! The kicked in the crotch sensation has subsided substantially! Now, it's subsided because I've been put on full time bed rest and am not allowed to leave the bed/sofa for more than 5 minutes at a stretch, but hey - I'm all about looking at the sunny side of the street. Another little bit of solar radiance is that I don't have to do said bed rest at the hospital. This was a strong possibility, and in fact, got a little trial run. Here's the fun summary of the past week in short. Monday, standard doc appointment. Been going in once a week for a while, so no biggie right? Um no, BIGGIE. My BP was not exactly what you'd call low... 160/100. This displeased the docs so much they sent me straight to the hospital. Um what? You want me to go where?! 'Labor and Delivery'. Uh-huh. And When do you want me there? 'Now.' Did you say now? 'Now!' Crap. Didn't really expect that one.... to say the least. So I freak, my husband rides in on his green stallion and rescues me from displaced hysteria, and shuttles me over to the hospital, which turns out, not to have been as bad as I expected. Mind you, I expected a cross between a Spanish Inquisition Torture Chamber and the movie Saw, cause I'm what you'd call 'anti-hospital' in spite never having been admitted to one before. I was wrong. It actually wasn't all that bad. It was less fun on the second day. In part cause they sent me home Monday evening, then went and sent me back the very next day. I expect that impacted my overall attitude on day two. Day 3 I was definitely not feeling it. All that said - they really were pretty nice, the food didn't suck as much as I thought, and in spite of all the poking and prodding at all hours, I did actually get SOME sleep. The upshot is that the baby is still doing well, I'm still doing pretty well, but the timing on all this birthing stuff is likely going to be, um, moved up a bit. Like she's going to be showing up any where from one month to 6 weeks early which would be anywhere from 3 weeks away to like, tonight. This is causing some minor scheduling difficulties, in so far as we kinda thought we'd have another, say, month or 6 weeks to do things like get the nursery together and buy diapers. Not so much. But really, of all the things we could be dealing with at this stage of the game, being stuck is bed is minor. She's healthy, I'm all good, and she'll be here soon. So yay!

Ahead of Schedule and Overdelivering - how overacheiving is BAD during pregnancy...

Normally, the American Way is to do things bigger better and faster, and that is Good. When dealing with baby-growing, average really is optimal. Trust me. I know this for several reasons.
The first reason is that being ahead of the curve when it comes to labor readiness, actually translates into a cootch that hurts like a mother (no pun intended). Here's the medical 411 on this little joy. When you are pregnant, your body is flooded with a chemical that relaxes your ligaments and muscles and whatnot. The technical, medical name for this chemical is, and I am NOT kidding here, 'relaxin'. 'Relaxin' for goodness sake. It's not inherently bad. I mean, loosey goosey ligaments and muscles are a major plus when passing a child out of your nethers. They aren't however so useful when it means your esophagus ends up relaxed enough to allow dinner to wander up in your craw every time you lay down for bed. This is a relatively minor inconvenience, however, when compared to the irritation I'm currently experiencing.
I either have extra relaxin, it started really pumping early, or I'm relaxin sensitive - regardless, I have a REALLY relaxed pelvis. Super chill, is my groin. I am, in short, a loose woman. Now again, when passing a child like a bowling bowl from twixt your legs, this is good. Prior to the actual moments/hours of birthing, this is not so good. Cause it HURTS.
Having the four major bone-parts of your pelvis free to wander about at will, independent of each other and with no ligamentarian supervision means that all the surrounding muscles and joints and tendons and whatnot get wicked ticked. These bones gone wild are wreaking havoc in their bodily neighborhood, and the complaints from the nearby residents are coming in loud and clear.
The overall sensations vary from person to person, depending on how you walk or carry your weight or the weight of your mini-me-2-b. In my case, my pelvic area, for example, feels exactly like I was assaulted in a Law & Order SVU kinda way by an elephant or 12. Or, alternatively, like I just finished a 48 hour bike ride, had my legs removed at the hip, swapped, then screwed back in improperly. So, you know, um, OW! As you can imagine from these scenarios, spreading my legs, or really separating them at all, hurts like heckola. (I'm not exactly sure how that's going to work with the whole birthing process, but I figured I'll worry about that when forced too. Hopefully the drugs will have kicked in before it ever matters.)
Plus, since most of that groinal area seems to be running amuck most of the time, when I need to actually USE those joints, they need a lot of advance notice to get back into marching formation. When I get up after sitting for a while, or lying down, I have about 5 yards of shuffling like a stoned zombie, followed by some rather disturbingly loud popping noises coming from my lower regions, before I can walk even remotely normal. This makes the semi-conscious 3am bathroom trips especially exciting/entertaining for any viewers in the area.
The official medical word on this little adventure is that it is quote, normal, end quote. That's doctor speak for 'I know it hurts like a bieotch but there isn't jack doodly we can do about it so suck it up, and also, drink a lot of water'. Any doctor given advice while pregnant always ends with 'drink a lot of water'. Apparently hyper-hydration cures everything pregnancy related. Who knew?
On top of this day to day groin-centered painfest, last weekend, courtesy of my overrelaxed muscles, I managed to twist my ankle. Doing nothing. I sat on the sofa and pointed my toes. Seriously. That was it. For this impertinent toe-pointing I was rewarded with near total loss of mobility. If you thought the idea of me shuffle stepping around while I waited for my pelvis to get it's act together was amusing, imagine me HOPPING around like a stoned zombie. It WAS really impressive, I have to admit. Jaw dropping even. So being overrelaxed extra early, really? Not recommended...
The other ahead of schedule bit would be, oh something minor, like OUR CHILD. We just went in for an ultrasound (number 3) and were informed that the baby-2-b is approximately 2-3 weeks bigger than is average at this stage. She seems to think I'm in week 31 of my pregnancy vs the actual week 28-29 that I'm in. AND she's started to grow hair. With as much as she kicks and the size and the fur thing, if I wasn't actually there at the time of conception, I would be concerned that I have the love child of Jean-Claude Van Damme and a Yeti in there.
My official advice to any and all pregnant women, now and into the indeterminate future, is Average is Good. Watch Maury, eat McDonalds, Get 'C's. Just let go of any overachieving bone you have anywhere in your body, cause if you don't, I promise you, it will sure enough dislocate itself and start to wreak havoc on every body part you own.

This just in...

At my appointment this morning the doc decided she wants to 'monitor me more closely', mainly because of the high blood pressure. She wants to make sure that I don't end up with preeclampsia - or more specifically, so they can catch it as soon as possible should I get preeclampsic, since apparently there is Jack Doodle you can do to avoid it, if'n it's a-comin'. Now, I appreciate the vigilance - it's a bad-to-dreadful thing if it kicks in - but the monitoring... oy! I now am on every 2 week doc visits, and they are making me do that pee in a jug thing AGAIN. (Mercifully, they're letting me wait til after I get back from my LA trip so I can collect my urine in a giant gas can in the privacy of my own home, instead of having to skulk around in the work place with it like last time. Whee.) I appreciate the on-top-i-tiveness, I just have a hard time reconciling it with the totally normal BP reading I got this morning.
I was also given the heads up that if I should go all preeclampsic and whatnot, the only 'cure' is to deliver the baby, which clearly, ain't an option for quite a few months yet. Barring the cure, the 'treatment' is to chain me to my bed - the dreaded bed rest! Ugh! Now, the doc said, everything is good now, but she just wanted to let me know so I'd be mentally prepared if this did happen, and that I could, and I quote, 'turn at any time'. I did consider turning on her at that point.... Lemme get this straight, the only thing I can do to possibly avoid this is drink more water? And the treatment is to just go to bed? Greeeeeaaat... sounds like my last stomach virus, and it would be about as welcome.
And on top of this adventure, I'm also due for the standard glucose screening (aka 'the drink some nasty-a** sugar laden goop and then get blood sucked' test), they want to up my ultrasounds to every 3 weeks and I need to go to the hospital for some Ghb, Gbh, Gamma boogen sompin' shot so my blood doesn't end up in a head to head face off with the baby's blood. Basically, I'm going to be spending a CRAPload of time with medical professionals over the next few months.
Talk about starting the new year with a bang! ;-)

I'm BAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAACK!

Between 2 funerals (grandmothers ::sigh::), 2 rounds of work layoffs (still employed), and the general holiday chaos, blogging went bye-bye. But now that I've got a nanosecond to breathe I'll get everyone up to date cause a lots gone down - all good.

- We got our 20 week ultrasound which is the 'measure ever bone in the baby's body' ultrasound. We learned that all bones in the babies body are intact and accounted for, heart's there and beating, so allll good. We also discovered the babies gender. Before we got all excited we asked the doctor, how sure ARE you? Since we've heard stories of all blue nurseries that suddenly get populated with baby girls and visa versa - a boy named Sue and all that. So the doc whipped out the scanner, flipped the switch, and the screen was filled with our lovely child's splayed legs. Nowhere to hide a thing, no pun intended - 'Oh yeah' he said, 'I'm sure - that is DEFINITELY a girl'. So yay!

- We've also discovered that the first ultrasound did not lie - this is one active baby. Now that I can feel her, I'm pretty sure we've bred a kick-boxer. She's now kicking hard enough that I'm not the only one feeling her. The kick like a mule skill is concerning considering I've still got a whole trimester to go. She's going to get WAY bigger and WAY stronger over the next 3 months. THIS is where the stretch marks come from, I'm sure of it. God help me...

- I've also retired nearly all clothes that are non-maternity. I am unmistakably knocked-up from nearly any angle, including the rear (waddle-a-rama!). Now like the kicking skillz, this is concerning. I am short, petite, vertically-challenged, stumpy, un-tall, whatever you want to call it, but the upshot is there really isn't a lot of torso here for baby-hosting. Unless I get a liver removal, I calculate I've got about another 3 or so weeks 'til the only way to grow is out. And with 3 MONTHS left to go, it looks like I'm going to end up approximately as wide as I am tall. Now it's not like I'm giving up a skateboarding career here, but with these proportions I'm not sure how WALKING is going to go. It's going to be entertaining I'm sure.

Next up is a trip next week to LA so we'll be flying cross county and playing tourist, at least as much as I am able in my early-waddling state. This will be one globe-trotting fetus - she'll have been to NYC, West Palm Beach and LA all before she's born! We're clearly enjoying the travel thing while we can. ;-) I'll be updating on the fun upon return...