Not Exactly Martha

2011-05-05T09:13:00.000-07:00

It has been close to one hundred years since I last posted on my blog. Life is busy, sure, but mostly I've been lazy. There are nights I lie in bed thinking about how fast Anique is growing and changing and how I should be documenting all these little changes; about how I should be blogging. But then I think about how I'm really not all that exciting to read, as far as bloggers go I'm pretty average.

Does anyone really want to read average

But really, does it matter if no one wants to read this? If this is only for Anique and myself?

So for the last 3 months I haven't typed a word, worrying myself with other things like rugby, the wedding or grad school. But now here I am and I'm ready to type. So there will be a string of updates starting all the way back on February 10th when my daughter Anique made her screaming entrance into this world.

Well, there will be updates...as long as Anique stays sleeping.

How the time flies

2010-11-16T11:05:00.000-08:00

Wow, suddenly here I am at 30 weeks...down to the FIIINNAAAAAAL COUNTDOWN... if you are into that sort of awful music.

10 weeks left, TEN WEEKS! That's it, that's all and then suddenly one day I will have a kid in my arms. Crazy!

We have almost officially decided to name her Anique Fuller, so far no middle name seems to work right. I'm no w able to figure out her sleep patterns most of the time. Except for days like today when she's moving all. the. time.

If you have ever seen either of the movies "Tremors" or "Predator" then you will understand what it looks like when my daughter moves. Seriously, my stomach rolls and punches, like she's trying madly to make an early escape but she hasn't quite found the best means of exit. Then after a few minutes of desperate escape attempts she get's frustrated and kicks me in the ribs just to let me know...isn't she sweet?

While the idea of having a daughter in only a few short weeks may seem a bit surreal still, I'm not going to lie...I want my ribcage back to its previously un-battered state.

27 weeks down, 90 days to go.

2010-11-03T09:03:00.000-07:00

Well ladies and gentlemen, here we are at the final stretch, the final days before I really truly become a parent. Scary stuff! And as the days trudge by the more I wonder (and worry) about the life ahead.

Sacrifices are abound and the first one was realized by me these last couple of weeks. Grad school. Apparently I may have been off my rocker trying to get grad school applications done and in by January 15th, a mere 16 days before my due date. So, well I don't want to admit it, I am apparently human, and trying to accomplish all of that between work, doctor appointments, OB appointments, a fiance, prenatal classes, wedding planning, two dogs, and maintaining a house was a little psycho. I am still applying for Dalhousie in September for the winter semester, but beyond that the rest of the applications will be collecting dust until after the baby arrives.

I can't lie I was upset. I expect grandiose things out of myself, and accomplishing everything plus a portfolio should be completely within my realm..or so I thought. Then I realized that pregnant women like to sleep, eat and maybe on the off chance have some time for themselves before the inevitable arrival of a baby that will demand a ridiculous amount of attention for the next few months (or years) of their life (and mine).

As I move further along in this pregnancy I'm starting to realize that weakness is an ok thing, and admitting that you have weaknesses isn't too bad either. But at the same time, it makes me question my own ability to get through labour without interventions that I am not comfortable with.

I know everyone says,
epidurals = amazing, don't even worry about it.

But honestly I hate the idea, I really want a natural birth. I want to be able to rely on myself and those around me to get me through the pain of labour and delivery.

On a far less serious note, Marc and I went to our first prenatal class and I'm not going to lie to you the word vagina was thrown around like it was going out of style. While I personally prefer using anatomically correct names for things, it was obvious by the snorts and giggles that people in general are far more used to "vayjayjay", "peepee" or "you know that area down there that I'm not supposed to talk about".

I also discovered something I did not know, men can (and should) be doing Kegels!!! That's right ladies, this is not an exercise just for women, and apparently it can help a guy last longer during sex.

Also, as a party trick, apparently when a guy does a kegel it actually causes his penis to shift directions. So one night when you and the guy you are with are bored and having a few beers get him to demonstrate. It should pass at least a few minutes with some entertainment value.

Well Well Well, I certainly am lazy...

2010-10-21T12:30:00.000-07:00

Ok lazy might not be the right word for it, utterly exhausted is probably closer to the truth. The last week is the first time in a long time I haven't felt like putting my head on my desk and sleeping until tomorrow.

The anatomy scan went well weeks ago, everything was normal and the baby was growing at the exact speed that it should be. Now the big surprise killer, the ultrasound tech's "educated guess" was that it was a baby girl!!! She couldn't say for sure because the baby wasn't co-operating very well, but from what we could tell there were no boy parts.

The last few weeks have honestly been uneventful beyond the movement in my stomach that I can visibly see and feel on the outside of my belly. I was referred to an OB, but apparently OB's are lazy and don't call patients when they have been referred. It has been over 2 weeks since my doctor sent in the referral and still no phone call. So my doula was amazing, and sent along the contact information for a new midwife employed by the RQHR, and I'm on the client list!!! I'm so very happy to have a midwife on my side, I wasn't a big fan of having an OB so a midwife is a fantastic development.

I think the last weeks have really surprised me as far as some of the people who are close to me. I was recently told that if I were to breastfeed in public a friend of mine actually wouldn't go shopping with me (and likely to other public venues). I support individual ideas and preferences and I love to support my friends in their choices, so the lack of support for me breastfeeding in public was beyond shocking to me. I think what also surprises me is the lack of support for my desire to have a natural birth, I've had enough "oh, you'll sees" to make me want to *Head Desk*.

7 More Days!

2010-09-03T08:45:00.000-07:00

Its been a pretty uneventful few days, I had my usual prenatal checkup which was about as usual as usual can be. Except for one thing, at my last prenatal my doctor had asked me to make sure I get a urine sample every time I come. So, this time when I walked in I asked the nurse at the front station if I could get a pee cup. She obliged and I filled the cup while waiting for my name to be called.

We get into the Doctor's office, he does all the usual motions and at the end he looked at me and asked if I had gotten a pee sample taken. I said yes, and he suddenly looked shocked and said "Wow, you beat me to it! I'm impressed." Then, as he was leaving he mentioned a couple more notes about blood tests at week 28 and as he was walking out the door he said "Thank you for the urine!"

Not going to lie, this was the first time in my life I have ever been thanked for my urine.

Now here we sit at 19 weeks, waiting impatiently for the next 7 days to pass quickly. Why? Might be what you would ask, why would 7 more days be such a big deal when you still have 147 days left of being pregant? Well, in 7 days we find out the gender of our baby!!! And although I'm not big on the whole pink, blue or pastel yellow fiesta I am looking forward to buying or making clothes that are a little more gender specific. Plus if its a boy we can stop thinking about baby names, and if its a girl...we really need to get our act in gear!

Belly Picture!!!

2010-08-24T20:23:00.000-07:00

Alright, this is the belly picture from week 17! I'm carrying high already.

Parvo + Pregnant Woman = Recipe for Tears

2010-08-24T14:43:00.000-07:00

This last week has been a bit difficult in general, and my pregnancy brain was only the beginning.

Never in my life did I think that I would be using bad cliches like pregnancy brain to justify my own forgetfulness, but its getting extreme, I have honestly forgotten my cellphone in my jacket pocket for two days and almost cancelled my phone. Thankfully I bumped into my jacket hanging up at work and stuck my hands into the pockets just to check. Yay for having a phone, boo to forgetting it at home for 2 other days this week, most useless cellphone ever.

So this week has been interesting to say the least, now we get to add in the infamous Parvo virus. My poor puppy who chewed up every set of headphones I own suddenly started throwing up only hours after the loss of my poor Sennheisers. Can someone say guilt trip? Once we took her to the vet it was discovered that she had parvo, a pretty mild case to my eyes, but of course the vets play it up and we fell for it hook, line and credit card.

$1100 later we take puppy home because we really can't afford a second mortgage on the house we just bought in May. Never in my life have I seen an angrier, pukier dog than I did that night. Not only was she mad at us for leaving us at the vets, but she threw up the food that the vet had force fed her. Puke pile number 1 billion and counting.

Today seemed ok, and I actually took the morning off to care for my sick puppy because clearly we can afford me to take time off right now. Puppy starts to throw up again, can't keep water down and looks so sad and depressed that with my pregnant brain all I can think is "oh my god, she's doomed I'm going to lose my puppy and we can't afford anymore vet care" (start tears now). So Marc and I miraculously come up with another $600 and he takes her to our regular vets office, the other was a 24 hour emergency vet.

Here comes in my love for certain vets. Our regular vet looks at Brunswick and says that she isn't even really that dehydrated, gives her an anti-nauseau shot, shows Marc how to insert an IV and gives Brunswick IV fluids. The vet then gives us IV fluids and some more medications along with a syringe to give her medications and foods. Total cost $100, that's right ladies and gentlemen $100.

Do I feel ripped off? More than a little, more than a little ladies and gentlemen.

On a good note Brunswick is getting better, and is expected to make a full recovery which is nice (insert more tears here). I am now a weepy crying mess because my puppy is going to live and its not going to cost me another $1200 or more.

I need more sleep...and less horomones, sadly only one of those is rectifiable.

Is it too much to ask?

2010-08-19T13:39:00.000-07:00

I must confess, there are many things in life that I desire, much of which consists of extraordinary pieces of furniture that come with extraordinary price tags. So, it is no surprise that I am covetting a few amazing pieces of baby furniture that I cannot afford, so instead I must just sigh and leave Modern Baby for Baby'sRUs. Now, there are generally some not so awful pieces of furniture on many a standard website which will likely not induce vomitting upon sight, except for one. The infamous bassinet. The one piece of furniture for baby that I really really want, but cannot find anything of a suitable nature.

Now, don't get me wrong if I was willing to fork out $500 for the first 4 months of my baby's life I could get a pretty amazing, modern, sexy bassinet. But let's be honest, $500 could go a long ways towards my next tattoo, and will last a heck of a lot longer than 4 months. Instead as I search through bassinet after bassinet for under $200, I am confronted with the more is more principle. I don't know what poor sap decided that every baby bassinet must look like Fabricland vomitted hundreds upon hundreds of yards of lace and bad fabric which was then compiled into something vaguely resembling a bad 1980's grad dress, but it has now become a plague.

What happened to less is more? Modernism? Le Corbusier? I keep hoping and wishing for a nice simple bassinet, instead I am confronted by lace, frills, rocking, singing (yes some come with music, now your tinny christmas light music can confront both you and the baby all day everyday for 4 months), and worst of all...vibrating. When will consumerism just leave us alone, give us a break from the "you need this or that to be a good parent" mentality?

All I want is a bassinet, something nice and simple that my baby can sleep in. Not something that will drown my child in frills, lace and tinny music.

2010-08-16T15:37:00.000-07:00

I was really trying to hold off on posting more until I had set up my other blog. Unfortunately that is taking one hundred times longer than expected thanks to me being far worse at html than I had originally anticipated.

At this point an "easy" set up tutorial, a pre-made wordpress theme and the phone a friend help line aren't enough to help me set up this blog.

I've also been beyond lazy in taking cute belly pics, something that looks good and that isn't taken in my dirty bathroom mirror. I honestly have no idea how serious bloggers do it all and remain even remotely sane, and I'm not even surrounded by piles of poop and dirty diapers yet.

Thankfully beyond feeling like an overfilled water balloon, I have not had any more parkade puking escapades to report. I have now been a regular visitor of the porcelain throne for another reason, a reason I had hoped would wait until I actually looked like I was pregnant and not like I've just been downing too many twinkies.

The inevitable uncontrollable desire to pee has snuck up behind me, its won the battle, and its about to win the war. There has actually been times were I went to the washroom, went back to bed, and by the time I was lying down again I had to pee. Now this is not just a minor inconvenience when this happens repeatedly 3 or 4 times, its even less convenient on a road trip in the middle of no where.

Add in the horror stories from every pregnant woman I have ever known about how their bladder is never the same...kegels won't be able to save me from peeing myself everytime I laugh, sneeze or catch a football.

Never did I think that at 25 depends would be my underwear of choice.

Just one of those days

2010-08-10T13:11:00.000-07:00

Well, thankfully my grandpa is moved out of icu and is doing so incredibly well after his surgery. We are all proud of him, and we know that nothing can keep him down!

On another note, its just been one of those days. It started out raining, and then it started pouring. My day actually did begin with a thunderstorm and a power outage while in the midst of doing my make up and hair. It was all I could do to prevent myself from looking like Marge Simpson when Homer creates the makeup gun.

There was also no way to dry my hair, (the exception being headbanging of course, but I'm not sure my fiance would love me headbanging to death metal at 8 in the morning..) so I really do have to thank the one cute knit cap I own.

While on the way to work I knew I wasn't feeling good, I figured it was nothing.. "I'm in the second trimester" I thought to myself, "I'm invinsible!" I drove to work, because a) I was lazy and b) it was pouring rain out, and nothing ruins the makeup you did in the dark like biking in a rainstorm. I get a block from the parkade and I start feeling worse, do I pull over? No, that would have been smart. I get to parkade and I'm feeling much much worse, I then find myself stuck behind some ass who is desperately waiting for another car to move so that he can park on the 2nd floor instead of the 5th. I then try to get rid of the nauseau by trying to burp....

BIG BIG MISTAKE! I then am gagging. Another car pulls up behind me. I gag again. I try to hold it in. I can't hold it in. I thank myself for keeping the window down. I lean out. I throw up. I gag. I throw up again. Rinse and repeat another 2 times. Guy in the car in front of me panics, and tries to move over so I can drive by, because we all know someone puking out the window of their car in the parkade should be driving. Guy in the car behind me is watching me. Car we are all waiting for finally backs out. Car in front of me pulls into parking spot, instead of offering said parking spot to the pregnant woman puking out of her car window. I start driving. Still feeling nauseaus. I throw up again, out the window, while driving. Repeat twice more. I finally hit the fourth floor of the parkade, feeling better. Guy behind me is following far behind. I reach the 5th floor which is the open air part of the parkade. I park by one exit, guy behind me heads to the opposite exit on the other side of the parkade, it was nice of him to ask how I'm doing....

And that ladies and gents is how a pregnant woman's day can begin, isn't life precious?

Also on a side note, I will be moving this blog to my own hosted site. Although it could take a while with how epically bad I am at html.

2010-08-05T10:35:00.000-07:00

This has been the longest short work week of my life, and today I'm just feeling numb. Yesterday I recieved a call from my mom informing me that she was at the ER with my grandpa who had fallen and in the process had hit his head. After the CAT scan it was discovered that he had a large hematoma on the right side of his brain, and it was getting worse quickly due to the blood thinners he was on.

Thus, I spent a good 4 hours at the ER with my grandpa listening to neurologist after neurologist. Trying to understand what my grandpa was saying. Trying to hold his hands down as he tried to pull out the catheter and iv's. Listening to the beeps of the machines around us. Waiting, forever waiting.

Finally it was decided that they would move him up to SICU (surgerical intensive care unit), the blood thickeners were working as was the blood pressure medicine and the longer they waited on surgery the better the prognosis. As long as my grandpa stayed concious and could respond to various questions they would wait on surgery to drain the blood.

Even through his aching head and his delayed responses, my grandpa managed to retain some of who he was. When asked to show the doctor one finger my grandpa promptly raised his middle finger and asked the doctor if that was the one he wanted to see. Only 30 minutes later the same doctor came back, and before the doctor could even ask a question, my grandpa once again asked the doctor if he would like to see his finger again as he raised his middle finger. The neurologist laughed and said "He's fine."

Not exactly true, but it was nice to laugh in a long day of frowns. He's still not out of the woods, and we are waiting on the surgery to be scheduled. Just feeling numb today, I've been staring at the same 3d model for the last hour with little to no thoughts of movement.

When Appliances Attack

2010-08-04T08:20:00.000-07:00

Ever have one of those days where every appliance in your house hates you, and you don't know what you did to make them mad?

Now to be honest my shower and I have been on the outs for a while, but I thought the temporary patch would work longer than a couple of weeks. Whoever said women hold grudges has never met my shower... I have a wonderful 100 year old clawfoot tub, with all the retro fittings that I now currently despise. I turn on my shower this morning only to be blasted by hot water, while this sounds perfectly normal for a shower it wasn't quite right. See, most showers spray water down from the shower head because that is what is considered normal for a shower. Mine on the other hand, decided to spray water sideways from a random connection at around my knee height. I was standing fully clothed outside my shower, getting a shower! A panicked 3 minutes later i finally wrap the shower curtain around the gushing water and managed to shut off the shower. I then look around to see water dripping from the walls, ceiling, sink and me.

I decided then that I had had enough of trying to shower, so I went to eat some breakfast and opened the dishwasher which is supposedly clean, only to find all of the dishes dirty. Not only had the dishwasher not cleaned anything, it had made the sort of clean dishes (like glasses that only held water) dirtier! Everything is covered in grease spots.

Who knows what I did to make my appliances angry at me, but I can only imagine what my washer is doing to the load of laundry that went in yesterday... Maybe the other appliances were talking to the garberator, and it mentioned that I wasn't exactly its biggest fan. Its not that the garberator did anything, I just don't trust garberators in general. Far too many B-rated movies start with some chick washing dishes, and as she pulls the plug you hear a clink, clink, clink, and she exclaims "Oh no, my wedding ring!". And then you get a close up shot of the ring dropping into the garberator. Without thinking the chick reaches into the garberator to save her ring, only to have the garberator magically start up. Then you get shots of blood spraying onto the white tiles whilst listening to her blood curdling screams in the background. Garberators cannot be trusted!

And Baby Makes Three

2010-08-03T17:40:00.000-07:00

No one warns you that your baby may just look like predator the first time you see them

Tap Dancing

2010-08-03T15:07:00.000-07:00

Apparently baby decided that my last post was not nearly exciting enough, so she/he gave me a few quicks to get my butt going.

Which means that I may have officially felt the baby moving for the first time!!! Strange that it felt the way everyone described it; fluttering, butterflies, etc. I only felt it on my right side, and it was so neat. I almost started crying right at work...at least until my boss came over and started going over cost estimates and stair designs.

Who knows, it very well could be gas coming to get me..and my coworkers, but it could have been baby!

Oh how life changes

2010-08-03T14:00:00.000-07:00

Only three weeks back in Saskatchewan and there I am, standing in the bathroom with a positive pink pee stick in my hand. Fast forward 8 weeks and its July 19th, and my fiance and I are staring at the wriggling, moving, kicking, waving being that is our baby.

Neither of us could help but grin like fools, it was instant love and instant terror all at the same time. I finally get comfortable with the thoughts of caring for another human being, a baby...then I realize that at some point babies turn into toddlers, toddlers into children, and children into teenagers...and thats when I turn pale, hyperventilate and sink to the floor in shock and horror. Yet every time that I see a little baby, all I can think is awwwwww I can't wait!

Here I am at 15 weeks pregnant, due January 31st, getting married July 8th, and trying to figure out my entire life in a very short few months.

So here I sit, shovelling pumpkin cheesecake in my mouth, daydreaming once again about the so very unknown future. Yet, for all that uncertainty I'm still grinning like a fool, knowing in my heart that no matter what I have a man that loves me thoroughly and a baby on the way. Sometimes thats all you can really need to know to get you through the unknown.