Posts Tagged ‘Pregnancy’

I’ve been a little lazy on trying to find homes for Tal and Gabby. A few months ago I worked on it a bit, then figured we had plenty of time and it would work out. Maybe it just bums me out so much, I don’t want to deal with it and hope it will just magically fix itself. Well, we’re leaving next month and we still have them. I’d love to bring them along, but it just doesn’t make sense. I’m sure they’d be happier finding loving families locally than they would be going through all the changes we’re about to encounter.

We have an ad in a bunch of papers for them and I got our first call on Saturday for Tal. An older woman whose 13 year-old cat, Mickey, passed away in December. We arranged for her to come by on Sunday and check him out. Of course, she thought he was absolutely gorgeous. He is always scared of strangers at first, and usually takes a few days to warm up completely. I was a little nervous as she cornered him in the hallway to pick him up, but thankfully he didn’t freak out and scratch or hiss. He was definitely nervous, but he was wonderful about it. She decided to take him home and we explained that he’ll need some time to adjust, of course, but then we’re certain he’ll be as loving and affectionate with her as he is with us. It was a really rough day and I was pretty much crying on and off until I went to bed. It’s hard because the goodbye seemed so quick, but how can I really say goodbye? He doesn’t know what’s going on and it’s best to just get it over with. I feel silly for being so upset over it — I know there are bigger things in life — but it was just a very stressful day (and I’m pumped full of pregnancy hormones!)

I woke this morning to a phone call. The woman wants to bring him back to us. Apparently he was hiding and wasn’t as “warm and cuddly as Mickey”. We were very upfront with her yesterday about how he needs time to get used to the change and that he most certainly will be shy for a little bit. It sounds like she just wants a Mickey clone, this perfect cat who loves all people immediately. Tal didn’t do anything wrong, he just wasn’t friendly with her. Over one night. I tried asking her to give him a little bit more time, but she really thought it was a mistake and brought him back to us. I’m so mad that she didn’t give him a chance. And that I went through all the heartache and tears yesterday just to have him back, disoriented and moody, with us today. We’re going to have to go through this all over again with someone else now. And hopefully they’ll be more patient with him. It’s a big change for him and I don’t want him pulled in and out of homes. He’s been home for a few hours now and isn’t quite himself. He’s not hiding anymore, but he’s hissing at Gabby and slinking around cautiously. I’m worried that he won’t be so easy to place. He’s beautiful and friendly, but people can’t get a good feel for his personality after just a brief meeting. I’m praying that someone else will come along for him.

We did get a call about Gabby today. There’s a couple and their two year-old daughter who wanted a young cat. She sounds great and really excited to meet Gabby. She isn’t bothered that she’s missing a leg, just concerned she won’t be able to walk up steps. We don’t have stairs, but she manages to get on the couch and the bed, so I’m sure stairs will be just fine! And she’s worried that Gabby will be aggressive with their toddler. We don’t have a lot of small kids over here, but Gabby has never swatted at anyone, has really only hissed at other cats when she was stressed out, and I’m sure will be nothing but sweet and gentle. So I’m really looking forward to having their family come over and spend some time with her on Wednesday morning (assuming I’m not in the hospital!)

I’ve also been in touch with a woman at VIVA, a local cat and dog rescue. VIVA, like all the shelters around us, are so full and cannot take our kitties in. They are being very helpful in trying to find homes for them, though. This woman was with animal control when Gabby was brought in two years ago and had her leg amputated and she remembers her very well. She said so many people fell in love with her then, and those sorts of cats pull at peoples’ heart-strings, so she’s certain Gabby will be easy to adopt out with the right advertising. We’ll see what happens on Wednesday, but if that doesn’t work out then they’ll be pets of the week in the paper and on their e-mail lists and all that. We’re praying that the right people come along for both of them, and soon. I know we have until the end of March, but things will be so busy very soon and I’d rather get the tears out before I’m tired with Baby, visitors, and moving.

Well, it’s the 8th! Here is my 40-week belly photo, a little washed out.

I had another appointment today. Not much is happening, still. Doctor asked me how comfortable I am and if I’m okay with going another week. I told him, of course, and he said that I shouldn’t go too far overdue. So he wants to talk about setting an induction date next Friday, if Baby isn’t here by then. I told him we can talk about it. Hopefully I won’t have an appointment next Friday, or he’ll be all right with me going to 42 weeks. We’ll see then!

There really hasn’t been too much of interest over here. Pregnancy is going well. I’ve had two appointments since my last update, both of which are fairly uneventful. My strep test came back negative, thankfully. Nothing’s really “happening” yet. We hired our Bradley instructor as our doula. She’s on call for us exclusively since last Friday until Baby is born. The doctor didn’t seem thrilled about our plans, but she doesn’t work for him. Plus, she’ll be spending time with us at home from the time that I start labor, if I like, until a few hours after Baby has arrived. It will be nice for Matt to have some extra support, to have another person “on our side”, and to have someone with us before we head down to Santa Barbara. I’m feeling more confident about the whole experience and am now just getting a little anxious! I don’t mind being late, I just don’t want my doctor to start pressuring us into induction or for things to run too late that getting all our PCS paperwork finished in time becomes too stressful.

The ladies from our Bible study are planning a second baby shower for us, though it will be after Baby is born. I thought it would be nice to plan around when my mom is visiting, but that is so up in the air it would be impossible to plan around. I set it for March 2nd, the weekend that Matt’s parents are visiting, so that will be really nice to attend with his mom. We’re going to do a dedication at the church also, so I picked February 24th (I sure do hope Baby is here by then!) and maybe my mom will be out for that! She sent us some really cute knitted and crocheted christening outfits a little while ago (I’m not sure if she wore them as a baby or if we did) that would be perfect for the occasion.

We had plans last break (Mon-Wed) to visit with our friends Denna and Adam in Ventura then head down to LA to spend some time with Jen. Well, Matt’s monthly training came up on Tuesday, so we weren’t able to make it down to LA on Monday. We did go hang out with Denna, Adam and their son Tyler during the day for chatting, shopping, and dinner before heading back home Monday evening. Then after Matt’s morning training on Tuesday we made the drive down to LA. The weather has been really rainy and crummy out here, so driving 3 hours in the pouring rain was sort of a bummer. Jen’s been out here for a while, but whenever we get together she usually wants to escape the city and visit with us, so we had never been down to see her place! We relaxed at her apartment, ate cookies, met her roommates, and watched some movies. It was nice to just veg and chat with her. Wednesday morning we went to the Apple store to pick up an FM transmitter for our iPod for listening in the car and had lunch at the farmer’s market. I wish we could have spent more time, and this will probably be our last opportunity to go down there, but it was really great to spend some time with Jen. The drive back wasn’t so terrible at first. It was still raining like crazy, but traffic wasn’t bad and we were making really good time until we got just north of Santa Barbara, almost home. We were then sitting at a stand-still for over 2 hours over an accident. Matt took a nap and we watched some Invasion on the iPod and got progressively grumpier. It was a long drive home and we didn’t make it to our Bradley class (Barbara said it’s the most important one, too!). We have our 12th, final class this Wednesday so we should be able to catch up a little. It was a long trip home, but we were safe, just tired.

I’ve been working on school, trying to get as much finished as possible before all my time is taken up with Baby and moving stuff. The term goes until the middle of April, but I don’t expect to get too much finished in March. We have 3 times that relatives will be visiting, will have to take care of all the paperwork for Matt to get his orders and Baby to travel with us, and will be dealing with packing and moving issues on top of recovering and getting used to Baby. I’m really looking forward to it, but I know schoolwork will be the least of my concerns. It’s going kind of slowly, though. I’m doing a big critical thinking paper on obesity in the U.S. and have a handful of calculus papers that I’m thinking about working on. I am just not so motivated right now and it’s not exactly fun stuff for me. My mentor wants me to knock the 3 classes I’m taking out early so I can pick up another before the term is over, but that just isn’t realistic. Once we’re in Japan I’m hoping I can burn through them more quickly, but right now it’s just not going to happen.

Well, I missed the 37 week photo. Sometimes we get pretty lazy around here. I can’t tell so much of a difference from week to week anyhow, so you can just imagine what I looked like last week!

We took another photo tonight. This is 35 weeks, 5 days.

I think we’re also pretty much decided on names now, too. If it’s a girl, it’ll be Maia Joy (if we ever have a second girl, then she’ll be Madeline!). If it’s a boy, it’ll be Ryan Lowell. Yes, Lowell just kind of came up out of nowhere recently, and it surprised me that we both liked it. It happens to mean “little wolf” in Old French, and Matt loves wolves, so that’s just perfect. (Here are other names we had been considering.)

We had our 9th Bradley class tonight. We talked about cesarean sections (and watched a video – ick!) and advanced first stage labor and a few other things. We also chatted with the instructor after class about doulas. Andrea asked me about whether or not I think she should hire a doula for her birth and it never really occurred to me. I figured, if you have a husband coach, why would you need one? I brought that up to our instructor, since she is a doula, and she explained the role and the importance of her job. I’m thinking it might actually be a good option for our situation. Since I’m a little worried about whether our doctor is going to bully us around or try and convince us that we need certain interventions which we aren’t interested in, it would be nice to have someone else to sort of stand up for us. She has a lot more knowledge and confidence and would also serve as an assistant coach. Matt will be the main coach, but he will need support, or possibly rest, or she can run errands, etc. We also get a 50% discount because we are Bradley students, which puts the service within a what I think is a very reasonable range for what we’d get. Matt and I are going to talk about it a little more and research some other doulas in the area. And I know our doctor sort of rejected talking to me about a birth plan the first appointment or discussing medication and other options, so I really haven’t brought anything up about what we want and don’t want. He knows that we’re doing Bradley classes, so if he knows anything about that, then maybe he can make some assumptions about what we don’t want. Our instructor mentioned a home birth with a midwife, which has been something on my mind since my second appointment back in August. We’ve switched doctors all ready and really like the hospital in Goleta, so I’m thinking I’d rather not do a home birth anyway. It’s something I’d be interested in possibly for the next birth, but I feel like it’s too late to change now. I still like the idea of a water birth, and I can’t do that in the hospital here, so if I did a home birth later on that would be an option. Anyhow, it’s something I never really considered, but we’re going to be talking about having a doula present at the hospital after all. I think it could make the whole thing with the doctor less stressful. So we’ll see what happens with that.

Well, 35 weeks and 3 days. I’m a little behind. This definitely isn’t the most flattering photo of me, but there it is! Ohh, and the gray sweater is a Christmas gift from Mom and Dad. It’s not really a maternity sweater, but it buttons halfway down then flaps open at the bottom, so it works for me.

I don’t really update very often on how the pregnancy is going. For about a month now I’ve been getting Braxton Hicks contractions, but they aren’t much of a bother. I try and drink a lot of water, which is supposed to help those. For a little while, I’ve been feeling baby hiccups (yes, babies do hiccup in utero!) which is really cute and not as annoying as I hear some women say. They don’t really last too long for me right now. Stretch marks have taken over the underside of my belly, despite my efforts to prevent them. I have a difficult time rolling over, getting out of bed, and getting up off the floor without Matt’s assistance. I’m not too sore, achey, bloated, or tired. I think being off of work this past month has helped a lot with my moods and I’ve been able to take care of myself a lot better. Matt and I have been going to our Bradley Method classes every week for the past 8 weeks (classes finish at the end of this month). We’ve been getting a ton of great information there, get to practice relaxation, have to track everything I eat, and am assigned weekly exercises that I try my best to do. I feel great and am anxious to reach my due date not because I’m miserable being pregnant, just very excited to meet Baby!

Well, Matt and I had a pretty quiet Christmas to ourselves. We put on some carols, baked some cinnamon rolls, and opened gifts from Mama and just a couple from his family. Mama sent us language books and maps for Japan, some sweaters for each of us, new flatware (because whenever she comes to visit, we’re always running out!!), my favorite chocolates, and a great matching mommy and baby gowns! I’m definitely packing them in my hospital bag! We went over to Jody and Roy‘s in the afternoon to hang out with the babies, play some games, and have a wonderful home-cooked Christmas meal. The babies are growing so much and are absolutely adorable! We brought them a toy and a blanket and to to play with their new toys, too! The boys played Portal (I got Matt The Orange Box for Christmas) and duetted some Guitar Hero II. We brought some munchies and Yahtzee and played that after a great turkey dinner (yup, I stuffed myself!) They gave us some yummy smelly candles (chocolate chip cookies and mint cookies) which make the apartment smell like Christmas baked goods. We visited with them for about 5 hours and had a great time. It was really nice to spend Christmas with our friends.

We saved most of Matt’s family’s gifts for when Jen returned from Mexico. She came up to visit on the 29th to have “Christmas 2″ with us! She was nannying for a family who was on vacation in Cabo over Christmas and really wanted to have the holiday, even a few days late, with some family. She brought us some awesome paintings (I love my green background polar bear painting — I’ll have to get some photos up here soon! And Matt got a Nightmare Before Christmas painting of hers!) She’s very artistic and did a wonderful job! We also got more baby stuff (clothes and toys, yay!), a sandwich grill, cookbooks, Mass Effect (for Matt — he was psyched!), warm clothes (and earmuffs and Matt got this hood thing that he adores), salt and pepper shakers to match our china set from Papa, etc. We were pretty modest with our gifts this year, but our families were very generous and we got tons of useful and fun things. Matt had some money and a gift card that he took to Best Buy to pick up Beautiful Katamari (I love it!), Timeshift, and Assassin’s Creed. So now he received all the cool games that he wanted this year. (Which he better enjoy now, because I don’t foresee that we’ll be buying too many video games for ourselves in our baby-filled future!)

Matt’s birthday was last night, but he works on his birthday, so we decided to celebrate early when Jen was around. So he opened birthday presents after “Christmas 2″ and we had a cake for him and all that. He got the 11th Mystery Science Theater 3000 collection and a hilarious movie, Kung Fu Hustle! For our first anniversary, Mama and Ron took us to the Melting Pot in Colorado Springs for an excellent fondue dinner. Matt often reminisces over that night as the best meal he’s ever had and how great it would be to do that again. I mentioned to Jen that a fondue pot might be a good idea for a birthday gift. So that’s just what she got him! Matt is usually excited by games and DVDs, so I was surprised at how giddy he was over a cooking appliance! We ran out to the store to stock up on ingredients for his birthday dinner. We made a yummy cheddar, spinach, and artichoke fondue for our first course, in which we dipped carrots, tortilla chips, and chunks of french bread. Then we had beef and chicken pieces to cook in a Coq Au Vin fondue, which was also excellent and all very easy. Jen had never had fondue, so it was a neat experience all around. And of course, we had a birthday cake for him. I really just haven’t felt like baking, even though I had planned to bake him a nice cake. But we picked up a pretty one from the bakery and covered the whole thing with a mix of normal birthday candles and trick candles. Of course, we were all too full from the fondue, so we’ll have leftover cake in the fridge for quite some time, I’m sure.

All in all it was a very good holiday for us! We would have loved to spend Christmas with our parents, but it’s just been a hectic time and we’re saving up our leave and money and I’ve been pretty run down, so staying home made the most sense to us. And it’s the last Christmas we’ll have without child(ren) for … well, quite some time! 2007 was a great year of lots of work, studying, and anticipation. And 2008 will bring plenty of excitement! Happy New Year!!

Just six more weeks … ish!

As promised, here is me at 33 weeks. Some of my new maternity pants are fitting very well and, despite my efforts involving olive oil and lotions, the stretch marks keep coming. It will all be worthwhile in just ~7 more weeks!

More weekly belly photos. Don’t look too closely at the bare-bellied one or your might see some stretch marks!! 0.0