Hot Hot Hot May 28, 2006

It’s MAY fercryingoutloud! It isn’t supposed to be 90 stinking degrees outside! I’m miserable. I can’t say that enough. I made Erich put the window a/c unit in our bedroom last night. I couldn’t really sleep the night before, and it was even hotter yesterday. We ended up spending a large chunk of time outside at my Mom’s house in the 90* hot humid heat and I started to look, well, large. Erich made the comment that I looked a bit bigger. I asked if it was bigger in tummy or just bigger and if the change had come from the day before. Definitely was a difference from the day before and I attributed it to heat and swelling. So we sorta enjoyed a cool night, but I was still sweating even with the a/c on.

I’m a bit on guard at this point. I’m 36 weeks today and at this point in my pregnancy with Magdalena, my blood pressure was creeping up, I started swelling and my hours were cut at work. By the 37th week I was on limited bed rest (only get up if you really really have to), and she was delivered at 38 weeks when my body said “I’m done with this stuff!” So the swelling starts to make me nervous, even though my blood pressure was great last week (108/60) and I know it’s just really really hot outside.

Things seem to be gearing up inside my body. Apparently my uterus didn’t get the memo that I scheduled a csection. I’ve had almost constant contractions with intermittent breaks here and there. They are consistent, they have no pattern. Some hurt, some don’t. There is definite cervical pressure and pain though. I popped my hip during my “nap” this afternoon (it really wasn’t a nap, it was me trying to get in a comfy position with Magdalena crawling around on my head for a few hours). After my hip popped I felt bambina slide right into my pelvis, which was a really weird feeling. Since then, more intense cervix pressure and cramping.

I was told by my OB to go into labor this weekend. She’s on call, it’s air conditioned at the hospital (heh), and since bambina is smaller she has a greater chance of making it out. Erich is down with that game plan. I’m feeling like if my water would just stinking break I’d be golden. She’d be coming out either way. Even if I didn’t go into labor, they’d section me now and put me out of my misery. Erich has had some grand ideas about how to go about getting my water to break, but his ideas sound none to appealing thankyouverymuch.

Other than that, things are good. Bambina was transverse at my last appointment, but now I feel like she’s firmly head down. Not that it really matters you know, unless I go into labor. I’m feeling okay with the idea of the section and the idea of doing this on my own. I know that if it’s meant to be, I’ll go into labor and try the vag exit route. If not, it isn’t. I’m at peace with our decisions, and I know that they are the right ones for our particular situation. I’m not scared of labor, I’ve had vivid flashbacks of my 26 hours of labor (22 unmedicated on pit!) and if it’s going to happen, I just wish this show would get on the road! On Wednesday we have another ultrasound. Still measuring large and she wants to make sure everything is okay in there since I did decline genetic testing. I’m very uneasy about stuff. I’m worried that she is really a he, I’m worried that she has a cleft lip (seriously need to stop visiting pregnancy boards!), I’m just feeling worried. So the ultrasound will hopefully put my mind at ease.

I just realized that three years ago, on the Sunday before Memorial Day, we found out that Magdalena was on her way. It’s been a crazy 3 years!

I Still Miss Him May 21, 2006

Yesterday marked the day that my dad died 14 years ago. At this point, he’s been gone longer than he was with me. I’m told I look a lot like my father, and pictures of us as younger children make us seem identical. So naturally I see him in Magdalena. He would have made a phenomenal grandfather had he been given the chance. It’s really hard to cope with the fact that I still miss him *so* much.

Near the end of my pregnancy with Magdalena, I had a dream that my father came to the hospital. In the dream, my family was all around us in the hospital room and there was a knock on the door. It was my father and he just walked in like it was so normal that he would appear for the event. It didn’t really cause an uproar and people didn’t seem amazed that he was there. It was all very ordinary, you know? Anyway, he came in and asked to hold the baby. I handed her to him and said “I’m so glad you came to meet her.” He replied, “I wouldn’t miss this for the world kid.” It’s a beautiful memory I have, and really I felt him with me the whole time I labored. Along with the reassuring hands of the nurses and Erich, I felt my dad right there with me, telling me it was going to be okay.

When I was wheeled into the OR for my csection, I was punched in the gut with this dread. It was a combination of knowing that I was going to be a mother very soon and I was having major surgery. As soon as they had me transferred onto the table though, I had this warm rush of reassuring love. I knew it was going to be okay. I knew that I was being taken care of and that I would make it through this. I was able to pull myself together and be able to calm Erich down. It was amazing, and I do believe it was my dad right there with me.

A couple of weeks ago I had another dream about my father. I’ve had it once or twice since then, but I can still vividly remember the dream. In it, my dad had come back to see us. My mom was here and the two of them were ducking behind corners and such “acting like teenagers”, kissing, hugging, and giggling. Erich was at work and Magdalena was playing like she normally does. I was pregnant with this bambina.

The dream cuts to the bedroom, where I’m changing the sheets. My dad comes into help me and we have a conversation. I tell him I’m so happy that “they” allowed him to come back and see us and that he’ll get to meet Erich and really get to know Magdalena. He tells me he is glad to be back and he looks forward to getting to know Erich and hanging out with Magdalena. I ask how long he’ll be able to stay to which he replies, “I’ll be here until the baby gets here and a little while after that. I’m really looking forward to playing with Magdalena a lot and helping you with the new one. I’m glad I get to be there for that.” The dream ends when I tell him I love him so much and I’ve really missed him.

What Will You Be Doing… May 18, 2006

four weeks from today 5/18/06? Do you know? I do. I’ll be laying in a bed, with a tiny itty bitty baby at my breast. Isn’t that crazy? Wasn’t it just yesterday that we were oo’ing and ah’ing over a picture of a little sac? That’s just crazy.

I love… May 14, 2006

nursing my toddler girl. Don’t get me wrong, I can’t wait to have that tiny itty bitty baby in my arms grunting cooing and rooting for some milk. And I loved when Magdalena was tiny and passed out in my lap after nursing. Erich and I always said she looked like a drunk frat boy after a really good keg.

But this nursing toddler stuff is awesome. Your baby crawling into your lap and smiling sweetly, telling she loves you and then demanding asking sweetly for “dis side pease Mommy!”

She tells me she loves to “durse” and that ones tastes like cheese and the other like apple juice. Apparently I’m a regular snack bar.

Honestly, I can’t wait to hold both of my girls in my arms and nourish them. It’s pretty mind boggling now in the late evenings, nursing my daughter. It’s the realization that not only is my body growing a baby, but also still taking care of my first baby. It’s hard to wrap my little tiny brain around, yk?

Video Cuteness May 10, 2006

Visions of Nesting May 8, 2006

I’m so sorry for my absence. Things have been crazy, to say the least, around here. I almost don’t know where to start. But I guess I’ll start where the absence began.

Soon after I posted pictures on Flickr of my belleh at 30 weeks, my laptop broke. Here are the pictures you missed:

Anyway, the laptop broke. Having a geeky computer repairman husband, I knew it wasn’t my hard drive (THANK GOODNESS!). Turns out my fan died. The computer would start to boot then immediately shut itself off to protect from overheating. So a few phone calls later and the laptop sans hard drive was on it’s way to Texas to get a new fan courtesy of Acer and my warranty. I talked them into letting me keep my hard drive so I could use Erichs enclosure to back up my stuff and be able to access, well, everything. Dude, I depend way to much on my laptop!

So it came back last week. It works well now too. But Erich was home on vacation and we were doing lots of stuff around the house and hanging out as a family. So my laptop time was still being robbed because Erich wins out over the Internet. We had so much fun with him home too. It was hard to see him leave us to go back to work today. Maybe someday he can have a job that pays well enough and work from home. That would be awesome.

He might have been a little bit glad to go back though cause I put him to work. Heh. For weeks now, I’ve had the urge to nest but never the energy required for the work that needed done. My list became increasingly longer as I thought about it too. The week before his vacation, Erich decided that we should have a garage sale. I protested a bit, because I knew how much work would be involved, but agreed. I slowly started going through drawers here and there and started a pile. However, while he was home I got the motivation to dig out the baby clothes and sort. Piles of clothes sorted into keep, sell, give away, donate, etc etc. (Don’t worry if you have given me clothes in the past, I sorted them and sent them on to good homes. I did not sell them.) In fact I’m still kinda knee deep in the clothes, because I’m having trouble getting them put back. And all those itty bitty pink newborn gowns, man I’m getting excited!

So anyway, back to the subject. Since Erich was home I decided that he would be the perfect extra set of hands that I needed to get some of my list done! He had had to do some work before earlier in the day and was tired, but reluctantly agreed to help me sort through the linen closet. Our linen closet had turned into a dumping ground. You could no longer walk into it and you could barely get to the linens as they were all just dumped in the closet. So we started by emptying out the closet. We pulled EVERYTHING out of it and sorted into piles of sheets (twin, full, queen, blankets, etc) and then we went threw and folded and tossed and did lots of that stuff. The “keep” stuff went back into the closet in orderly piles on the shelf. All organized and neat looking, I was charged! I was ready to move on to the next closet, but Erich needed a nap. So while he napped I moved on to my closet which is supposed to be walk in, but at that point was anything but a walk in closet. I put away, sorted (just like baby clothes) and all kinds of good stuff and got rid of a BUNCH of stuff that no longer fits or I would never wear again. It was awesome. So at that point I moved on to yet another room. Heh. You see where this is going right?

At 10pm that night Erich asked me, “When are you going to start leaving things alone so we can go to BED!?” So I stopped, but man that felt good. The next day things were sent to their new homes, sold, or hauled to goodwill. Man, decluttering helps the soul. Seriously. And it’s probably made better by the fact that I’m pregnant because that nagging voice in your head that says “maybe I’ll need this/maybe I’ll fit into this later/ I sorta like it though/ what if” and makes you keep stuff, is totally gone. That thought never crossed my mind, and I’m sure that’s how the piles got so big.

So hard core nesting around here. And have you ever noticed how seeing how great things look makes you move on to the next room? I found awesome stuff too! And my next big room to tackle is reorganizing the play room!

Moving on, Magdalena is such a little opinionated girl now. It’s weird how she’s this totally unique person, you know? Yesterday as I was drying her off and putting lotion on her I exclaimed “I’m going to eat your toes!” and she screamed in horror “NO! NO EAT MY TOES ” Poor girl, thought I was going to actually eat her toes. I couldn’t help but laugh, it was to funny. The things she says makes both Erich and myself burst into fits of laughter sometimes. The way she discovers things is awesome. Like today, she came to me, grabbed my hand and said “cmere!” She took me over to a corner of the house where the sun was shining and her shadow was revealed and asked “wht’s dat? Wht’s dat Mommy?” It’s so cool to watch her discover her world.

She also loves birds. She picked up a yard ornament of a bird the other day and started making it “fly” around in the yard. She kept singing “fly birdie fly!”

We have a new family of birds that have taken up residence on a high ledge on our porch. They are pretty quiet and don’t leave messes so I left them alone. After watching for a while I realized that they must have little baby birds in the nest, which surprised me since it’s so quiet out there. The Mama Bird flys in frequently during the day bringing lots of worms with her. Magdalena loves to watch her fly in and out from our living room window. The Daddy Bird comes by frequently too. I climbed up on a chair and took a picture of the nest with my phone while they were out today.

Aren’t they adorable? Anyway, this has gotten long enough. Next up, more talk about baby and a new belly picture!

She Lives! May 4, 2006

Hey, I just wanted to drop in to tell you that my laptop broke earlier this month. So that is why I’ve been MIA. Any computer time I’ve had has been brief and spent trying to keep up on the most important blog posts and email. My bloglines subscription has over 50 new feeds. It’s ridiculous.

We’re still here. I’m still pregnant. Bambina is doing well as is Magdalena. I’ll be back with a real update really soon. My laptop just came back yesterday and Erich is on vacation right now, so computer time is still a bit lacking right now.