The Land of Milk and Poo

Off Bedrest! Hurrah! Er...Back On Bedrest! Hurrah!

Today I was officially supposed to be off of bedrest. It was to be a day of much rejoicing, with a grand mall trip and a romp outside with MP and J the wonder dog. I was a little tired--didn't sleep last night--so decided to take it easy in the morning, and take MP to the mall with me in the early afternoon. I plotted where I'd go, planned out my route--Nordstrom for hair pretties to wear during labor, new lip gloss, Baby Gap, Pottery Barn Kids for sale stuff--it was to be a glorious reawakening of the Shoppy! And I had to get a bridal shower gift for a party I was looking forward to on Sunday, a big outing for me with adult! friends! after being cooped up for so long.

But my dent-the-foot game had Random worried, so after his griping for 24 hours I called my doctor. I had an appointment tomorrow anyway, so figured they'd just tell me to come in then, but they told me to come in right away and have my blood pressure taken. It's always been "perfect," but my doctor is awesome and doesn't let you get away with much. So I planned my mall trip for after and schlepped my bulk to the dr's.

I peed in a cup. No protein, hurrah!

I was weighed. Again. Oh, 2 lbs in one week? Is that all? So 45 lbs total? Huh. "You're swollen," the nurse said. "It's that." Um, yeah. I'm going to use that excuse for YEARS, people. I'm really a size 2 underneath all of this swelling. 

The nurse took my blood pressure. She frowned and did it again, muttering about not being able to hear. I smiled, looked off into the distance, dreaming of the Westchester, where there is an ENTIRE WING dedicated to baby and kid stores, with Anthropologie and Crate and Barrel at the end, like the gold at the bottom of a rainbow.

"I'm just going to run this by the doctor," she said, and ran off, my chart clutched in her hand.

I sat, smiled at everyone walking by. I heard grumblings in the office--my doctor said something like "have her lie down" and "take it again." The nurse came back, told me she was going to take my blood. Then she asked me to come with her and had me lie down on a table on my left side.

My beloved Dr. came in and smiled. "It's always something with you, isn't it?" she said.

She took my blood pressure again and sighed. "I won't lie, it's a bit high," she said. "Higher than it was last week. After all this, you might have to be induced."

I looked at her. A bit open mouthed. Erm, huh?

"We need to watch this," she said. "You're back on bedrest. Do nothing for the next three days and I see you on Monday. I'll call you tomorrow with your blood results."

Then she taught me how to recognize swelling in my arms, legs, and face (dent and wait), and mentioned the "I" word one more time--as in "Well, if we have to induce we have to induce, so just be prepared for that." And she warned me about headaches and told me to call no matter what.

And so now I am back on bedrest, which means nothing right now, because I am alone with MP and there are cries of "MOM! I POOPED!" coming from the bathroom, and J needs to pee really really badly, and there's a snacky to be made and a juice to get and you get the idea.

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CHANGING TOPICS FROM THE DEPRESSING TO THE...DEPRESSING, I have some questions about pregnancy and breastfeeding and boobs. Obviously, pregnancy changes your boobs. It makes them bigger and darkens certain areas up considerably. So here are my questions:

1. Will the darkness go away? It's blotchy, weird, and looks like I tried to self-tan my chest and failed miserably. Or MP took her ugliest brown marker and drew on me. Or I got really, really dirty and didn't wash for months and it just kind of merged with my skin. Or they ate a big plate of chocolate icecream and didn't wipe their mouths. It's not pretty. Tell me this is temporary and that things will happily revert back to normal. (And how long will that take?) 

2. How much will breastfeeding change them, and how will it change them? I know you can't look into your magic boob-ball and tell me what will happen to mine, but please do tell me what happened to yours. Even if you didn't breastfeed, did they change? How?

Thank you for indulging my inner boob.

Let's Play Dent-The-Foot

This is the new game in my house: We dent my foot, using our fingers, and time how long it takes for my foot to un-dent itself.

We also play "make a fist," which is an exciting game comprised of me trying to make a fist with my big swolled-up manhands. Seinfeld would not date me right now.

Last night, in addition to the incredible discomfort I have from 1) horrible sciatica in both legs and butts, 2) hip pain, 3) abdominal stretching, 4) abdominal itching, 5) back pain, 6) swollen ham foot pain, 7) restless leg which has me frantically bicycling the air at 3 am, 8) sweaty coal oven hell (it's 85 degrees in our boudoir; we have an old house with no central air; our air conditioner, which we bought yesterday, needs to "sit" for 24 hours) I woke up four times from excruciating THUMB pain. My left thumb hurt so much I couldn't bend it, and when I did force it to bend, it popped. So I switched sleeping sides and an hour later woke up to my right thumb in the same thumby boat. Apparently I am now severing a nerve or blood vessel or something as I sleep due to my increased Hulky Bulk--this is the only explanation I can think up since googling "thumb pain during pregnancy" doesn't do a whole lot. If someone else has experienced this strange phenomenon, please divulge.

In other news, my dreams (when I get around to having them in between all of the night time fun) are getting more and more interesting--the other night I dreamt I got pregnant while I was still pregnant. When I told Random this, he balked and said "IS THAT POSSIBLE???" My mother tells me it is. I read all of your advice about contraception with interest, as it is a hot topic these days (hahahahahahahaha), and thought I liked the idea of the IUD but then realized I'd have a string dangling from me for the duration. Is this true? I'm not so hip to this. I can't do the diaphragm or cervical cap thing since my cervix is so battered. At this point I'm leaning towards either the mini-pill or FAM coupled with lots of spermicide. I did FAM for years and years, and am apparently quite good at not getting pregnant whilst doing it, so it would seem to be a possible contender.

In getting-ready news, we set up the co-sleeper and bought the breast pump, for which you need life savings for, and have decided on a stroller--this one, which is a giant red beast but which drives pretty well. Plus, I can use it to knock other annoying shoppers out of my way as I race towards the regular clothing racks. And it fits our car seat. And it has a huge basket underneath, which is important for stashing the third child, should we ever have one.

At this point I am very very big, although people who see me swear I am not "that big," which frankly is distressing since I am (43+ lbs at this point) and this makes me think that I must have been pretty big before. Anyway, here's a picture from three weeks ago thereabouts. I've grown even more fetchingly giant since then. I have a double chin, too, which is really bumming me out. Nothing fits except Random's t-shirts. I am reduced to Adidas slides on my feet (even flip flops don't fit anymore). All of my rings are in my jewelry box, waiting for the day when I no longer sport manhands. However! I am thrilled, underneath all of the new flesh. 

And I am ready to give birth now, please. 37 weeks. I am in shock that I have made it here.

Way cuter and more interesting anyway: My kid, who is getting more and more gorgeous by the second. Plus, she is sooooooooooo freakishly funny. I have a video of her singing "Frere Poo-poo," which is her own creation (she sings the song in French, but "Jacques" is replaced by "poo-poo"). She also makes up her own lyrics to "Old MacDonald," so Old Mac can have, at any time, on his farm: a poo-poo head (she's a bit obsessed, I think because she's poop potty trained at this point--!!!!), a bath, a mommy, and some medicine (which she also, strangely, loves). I am so lucky it hurts. 

I Don't Have A Title For This Post Because I Don't Really Know What It's About. A Really Bad Prom Dress? My Weird Belly Button? You Decide.

Thank you, everyone, for your thoughts on my prickly name situation. My father has not said a word about anyone's name since that night. He did make an off color comment about something else, which I quickly called him on, which he then (in his usual way) poo-pooed. Later, though, he told Random that I had "caught him" and that he had "messed up" in saying what he said, and that he didn't mean it at all. They talked about it. When Random told me this, I was stunned--it seems important to me that my father can admit to being wrong with my husband, but not with me. And really sad, although I'm glad he knew it was wrong to say. But why couldn't he have this conversation with me? This seems to be something I might need to work on with my dad too--I can be a real ass at times and then not admit I was an ass for ages. To give you an example: I told him right before my wedding that I didn't think he should be the only one walking me down the aisle, that my mom should be there too, and he got so upset at that he cried and I, well I just kept on being a gigantic weenbrain trying to explain myself. The scene ended with my dad having to leave the dinner we were at and Random going out to talk to him and tell him I didn't really mean it (I didn't). I just apologized for that two months ago. It was over eight years ago that it happened. So, yeah, I mean I think we need to work on the being-vulnerable-in-front-of-each-other thing.

In Babyland, I'm still trying to take it easy, but my ever burgeoning belly has recently sprouted a nice red crop of stretch marks which ladder up my skin unattractively. Perhaps they will join with the ones on my hips and boobs and I can just give up and be a giant stretch mark. In some kind of masochistic ritual I find myself watching shows on television where the female cast is donned exclusively in skimpy clothing that leaves little uncovered, and where the host will say something like "ladies, this is the time to wear your itsiest bikini!" and the ladies will all cry with glee and I will cackle from my bedridden perch, unwashed, unshaved, untoothbrushed, unhairdoned, swollen like a blue ham and obscene belly hanging out, "HA! YOU WANNA SEE ME IN A BIKINI? HEY RANDOM! YOU WANNA SEE ME IN A BIKINI?" And I will hear Random's weak reply from the computer, where he is drowning his pelvic-rest sorrows in a rip roaring game of WOW (he is a WOW freak, in case you didn't know) "Huh? Oh, sure, babe!" Last night we watched "The Bachelorette," which I haven't watched in years and years, and after informing Random that he would get a first-impression rose from me without doing a damn thing--just being his hot self--I asked Random if I looked anything like a Bachelorette. He laughed. "You look like a pregnant ho," he told me. "But you are still beautiful." This is why I am with Random. Another reason I love him: He put a pair of MP's shoes in my pillowcase so that when I finally lay down at 11:20 after "The Bachelorette" was over, I lay my head down on MP's shoes. He is such a jokester. 

Further evidence of my Attractiveness: My belly has holes in it. These used to be hidden; they are old piercing holes. Now they are hideously stretched out and lined up above what my belly button has become, which is a ridiculous hole surrounded by a strange whitish circle and two brown dots on either side of it. I can't figure it out. It baffles me daily. The holes are freakish, the white circle was obviously done by aliens who couldn't find a convenient field of crops, and the two brown dots--like I drew them with a brown Sharpie--lined up on either side--I am clueless.  I may post a picture and ask you to figure out what the hell is going on with my belly button.

But before I go any further I need to post this picture:

This is just so terrifying. Apparently this is a prom dress. The poor girl looks like she is wearing it after losing some horrible bet. I just want to wrap her up in a big sheet and feed her cookies and milk. Also, someone took this picture, which means someone is letting her go out in this. That person should be smacked, hard.

Anyway, back to me and my senseless rambling. I am almost 36 weeks, which means soon I will be set free to cavort joyfully throughout the aisles of Babies R Us in pursuit of the final infant stuff that I apparently need. And I still have to pack my hospital bag. Also, there is a stroller to purchase. Do any of you have any feedback on the Quinny strollers? Either the Zapp or the Buzz?

Other questions:

--Do I need a bouncer AND a swing? I have the Combi Pod Bouncer. Is that good enough?

--What birth control besides barrier methods can you safely use that will not compromise your milk supply? Random and I are not interested in getting pregnant again just yet. (We laugh every time we talk about this, because we still say things like "Can you believe there is a BABY in there? WHAT THE HELL?!!!")

Thank you. If there's anything else you think I absolutely need for an infant, please put it here. That way, I can indulge myself of all Shoppy in these last few weeks. 

--Oooh, yes...and to the commenter who thought my dad was responding to the name "Rocky" for my daughter--that he didn't like that name, when the commenter liked it just fine--THANK YOU, m'dear. I think if we were planning to call Rocky Rocky then he might actually have a point in razzing us. Rocky, however, is not the baby's REAL name, it's just a nickname we came up with before we knew her sex. Rocky's real name will be revealed in a future post, promise. 

What's In A Name?

It's been a looooooooonggg two weeks on bedrest. And I'm still supposed to be on bedrest, but I'm so tired of lying down that even getting up to go to the bathroom is luxury. So I'm playing hooky from bed more and more. And then I get yelled at for not lying down, although I'm doing a fair amount of sitting on my ever plush-ening butt. I've got restless leg syndrome out the whazoo at night (which my mom claims does not actually exist), sciatica so bad that I can't lie on either side comfortably anymore, and Rocky practicing for the Heavyweight championship in boxing on my uterus all night long. So I sleep sitting up.

Whoever recommended the Nintendo DS is my hero. I resurrected mine from the tangled techno heap in our armoire and have been playing Dr. Mario ever since. My other company is TiVo'd episodes of the ever-riveting "Farmer Wants a Wife" (which, if you are unfamiliar, basically consists of a bunch of psycho city chicks running around in skimpy tops and high heels on a farm, stepping in manure and wrastling chickens, trying to impress a guy that is sometimes attractive and sometimes skull-like) and endless googling of terms relating to preterm labor and preemie babies. I went to an OB appointment two days ago and DID MY HAIR for it. Tonight I have a newborn care class and I might actually shave my armpits in celebration of getting out of the house and seeing adult life. Yesterday Rocky turned 35 weeks and I've got about two more weeks of being a good for nothing layabout before I am set free and allowed to cavort around with my distended watermelon belly and subsequently go until 42 weeks in an obscene twist of fate. (By the way, the baby dropped, and I am now officially enormous. Or, as my husband told my brother, "large and in charge." This is the only time in his life that he is allowed to say this without getting a swift "Restless Leg" kick to the arse.)

Anyway, I've been having some trouble with names recently and thought I'd see what other people think. We have finally decided on a name for Rocky, and it is a beautiful name. We love it. It goes with MP's name and our last name and our dog's name. It's unusual-ish but still in the top thirty or something of popular names, so you can find the all-important glitter stickers of it if you want. Rocky's middle name will be my mom's name, which is a classic. So the name is all set. I've bought the "official" wooden   letters, so there's no going back. Runners up of our name choice included Ruby (my original first choice...I campaigned heavily for this one, but was ultimately shot down), Alice, Sophie, Kate, Lucy, Hailey.

Well. My father, whom I adore and who is currently looking after me, along with my mom, HATES the name.

Every time we say her name, he asks if we can change it. Then he claims to not know how to spell it and makes faces as he tries. Then he pronounces it all kinds of ridiculous ways. Ultimately, he wants us to rename the child with HIS name, since he is desperate to have a kid named after him somewhere, but his name is not only a boy's name (a real boy's name, not an androgynous name) but it's a weirdo Danish boy's name, and I've only ever heard of him with this name (and talk about spelling and pronounciation....if you knew his name you'd understand how completely bonkers his claims about the baby's name are). (And I'm not telling you what it is, either, because he routinely googles it and since he's the only one in the world, I think, with this crazy name he'll get here and read what I've written and yell at me. Sorry.) He's suggested "feminine" variations of his name (which all, um, suck). So this is becoming frustrating. My way of dealing with it is to ignore him or to say "hey, it's a beautiful name" and just let it be, but it's getting to me. He's not someone you can say "cut it out" to, either--he'd get pissy and sulk and I can't have that when he's doing all of this for me. So I just suck it up. But still.

And then there's MP's middle name. Her middle name is her given Chinese name, and it's perfectly lovely--Chao Xing, pronounced Chow-Shing. I have sang songs around her middle name, written it out in phonetics, and said it a million trillion times since we returned from China, and STILL my father will persist in making fun of it. By "making fun" I mean he will sing a long line of words that end up sounding incredibly racist and uncool (like "chin chow chow chin shang chin.") And then when I protest and remind him of the way to say it, he'll poo-poo her middle name and claim it is not important, that he doesn't know why we kept it, and that she's part of our family now and we shouldn't push her towards anything to do with her birth or past. He says everyone he's talked to who was adopted isn't interested in finding their "real" parents so therefore we need to believe MP will be the same and that giving her this middle name is a reminder.

Needless to say, things got a little uncomfortable last night as we talked about all of this. I told him how important her middle name was, explained AGAIN for the thousandth time why we chose it, and told him I'd support her if she wanted to go to China and search for her birthparents, although I was guessing that it might be pretty hard to find them. He was horrified. I gave up.

My father is an incredibly awesome, funny, smart, and thoughtful person. I can't get why the name thing is such a big deal, or so hard for him to understand. When MP gets older and can understand her beloved grandpa deliberately messing with her middle name, I need strategies. I need to know how to talk to my dad without hurting him or upsetting him, which he gets very easily. This, I am guessing, is something I'm going to have to work out myself, since I know him better than anyone (besides my mom). But it's hard to hear the name you've picked out for your child, so lovingly, treated as if it means nothing.

 

By The Time You Read This I Could Possibly Be Giving Birth

We just got back from my ultrasound.

Good news: Baby looks great, measures one week ahead (putting my due date at June 10, but as the tech stressed, earlier measurements are more accurate--although baby has never measured a week ahead) and weighs in about 5 lbs, 1 oz (I think that's a bit above normal at this stage?). Oh! Yeah! And baby is HEAD DOWN!!!!! (Woo hoo!!!)

Bad news: My cervix is a measly weensy 1.6. Last time we measured it it was a whopping 3.0. The tech told me my doctor, who is in the OR right now, would most definitely call me. (Baby's head is RIGHT THERE. I mean, I could feel it pressing against my cervix if I was so inclined.)

I don't know what this means--am I going to make it to 36 weeks? (That's in approximately 3 weeks.) How long do women with cervixes measuring 1.6 have until they give birth? How prepared do I need to be at this point for Rocky to make an entrance?

In awesome too-cute-to-be-believed news, Rocky has my feet. The tech took a 4-D picture of her feet and her second toes are longer than her big toes--the dreaded curse of the finger toes! Poor thing.

If you know anything about cervixes measuring puny amounts, please fill me in. I'd like to be prepared for how long I've got at this point. Especially since Random is going away tomorrow (far away) until Sunday.

Edited to add: Doc just called. Errrrrr, complete bedrest at this point. Bed and couch is it. Plus, I have a urinary tract infection I am now on antibiotics for. I'm screwed, people! We have no family up here, all of my friends work, and Random doesn't get home until 7:30 most nights! ACKKKKKK!