One month old!

Wide awake with very busy hands, in
a dress from B's mom which is still too big

Here is Amelia today, and tomorrow she'll be one month old! On Wednesday she went in for her checkup, not because she really needed to but I had scheduled it because I was sure I'd have questions.  First, about her weight.  At birth, she weighed 7lb 0.2oz and the next Monday she was down to 6lb 6oz so I wanted to see how much she had gained.  I knew she was gaining because of the leg and chin pudge, but I wasn't prepared for how much... 8lb 8oz!  Holy crap!  I have no reason at all to worry about her eating or my milk supply apparently, even though I can't pump much at a time.  She's just far more efficient at getting it out of me than the pump is. She's been spitting up a bit so we're working on that.  She has some baby acne going on, which drives me nuts but there isn't much to do for it and it'll apparently go away on its own. Hormone thing.  Yay.  Overall, she's great!  She's spot on for development and she's working very hard on holding her head up.  Her vocabulary is mostly grunts and squeals and we're slowly getting her hands out of the way for feedings.  She gets overstimulated after some time on her play mat so we need to cuddle for a while to calm down.

My healing hasn't been going too well.  Last week I realized that I had been at the same level of pain for quite a while, no noticeable change for probably 2 weeks.  I went to see Sue to have it checked out and lo and behold, one of my stitches had come out and I had exposed nerves.  No wonder! She got me some topical lidocaine and a sitz bath so now it's finally healing up from the inside.  She didn't stitch it up because it looked like it was trying to brew an infection.  Now the last couple of days I've been a lot more sore again but farther inside so I called Dr. B wondering if she wanted to take a look since she's the one who stitched me up in the first place.  She blew me off again, saying it was probably the stitches dissolving and working their way out and to wait it out over the weekend.  Meanwhile, my limited mobility was halved because my entire pelvic floor is constantly sore, worse when I try to do something like get groceries.  How dare I, right?  I went back to my clinic and the nurse there took a look for me, and she's pretty sure it's another yeast infection.  Thanks again for nothing, Dr. B.  Lord.

We're doing pretty well.  I'm just sick of being in pain after such minimal labor trauma.  We'll see if the Monistat takes care of it so I can function a little.  Dare I ask for such a thing?

Diaper switch time!

Our first attempt at tummy time on the floor,
wearing her Softbums Echo in Lilac

I know many people will think I'm crazy for using cloth diapers.  Honestly, I hadn't even considered it as an option until my BFF/sister Sara tried them a couple years ago for her son, who was horribly allergic to EVERYTHING.  After that, I started looking around at the different styles and found out that a few of my other friends use cloth also.  By the time I found out I was pregnant, there was no question in my mind that I'd go with cloth, and especially after buying a couple weeks' worth of diapers to use while Amelia's belly button healed up (less than a week's worth for $30? excusemeverymuch???!!! how do people afford that?) I was still happy with my decision.  She's never been a fan of diaper changes but once we get it on she's fine, so the only real difference is that when the diaper pail is full (or I'm almost out of inserts, which needs to be remedied soon!), they go in the washer instead of the garbage.  I have some more shells and inserts ordered so we'll be in better shape in a few days and I won't have to wash quite so often.  I had no idea what would fit her so I got just a little bit of everything to get started with.  The disposables I did have didn't fit very well anyway, the newborn ones were getting too small and the size 1s were too big (and resulted in blowouts), so it works out well that I can adjust these to fit perfectly every time.

In other news, she's now 18 days old and we're all doing very well!  We attempted some tummy time on the floor today, but she didn't know what to do with that so her legs were going but her top half was confused lol.  She lifts her head a lot when I'm holding her on my chest, so I thought it was worth a try to get some of those muscles built up a little bit.  We'll try again tomorrow to see if she gets the idea.  I think I got some real smiles out of her today too!  She's napping at the moment and I'm attempting to figure out what we should do for dinner.  She's been doing pretty well with sleeping at night, even if it's not solid sleep yet.  She gets up about every 2-3 hours, but it doesn't take long to change and feed her and get back to bed.  It's about on par with how often I had to get up to pee while pregnant so I'm already kinda used to it.  Once I figure out dinner I'll grab a little nap.  I've been running laundry all day (mostly clothes and sheets, plus a load of diapers) so I at least feel somewhat productive.  Yesterday B and I worked outside, him with the weedeater and me in my garden pulling weeds and harvesting potatoes.

Could that paragraph have wandered any more?  Maybe I'm more sleep-deprived than I thought. :P

36 weeks... and BIRTH STORY!

 A lot of it is a bit fuzzy, but I do remember feeling a lot more tired, achy, immobile, and just generally blah in the week or so leading up to my 36-week checkup.   My belly was hanging pretty low (swing loooowwww, sweet jelly bean!), there was a lot of pressure on the front of my pelvis that made it very difficult to walk some days, and I swear I could feel a "pinching" in my cervix when I laid down.  I got checked by Dr. B on Tuesday the 26th and she checked for dilation, and I was 1cm and 50% effaced.  Getting checked was a highly uncomfortable experience so between that, the 107 degree day, running Mom to her appointments, and mattress shopping (I bought one! It's heavenly!), I was pretty miserable the rest of the day with the pelvis pressure and contractions.  The contractions went away overnight, but I still had to sleep all morning the next day for whatever reason.  


That evening B and I made some stuffed-crust pizza, which was amazing, and while I was cleaning up the kitchen later I started to feel something that felt like a period gush, which I thought was strange, but I thought I should wait it out.  It kept happening, and a couple of times it felt like I had peed myself, but to rule that out it happened while I was on the toilet also so it obviously wasn't that.  I started to think that maybe my water had broken, but I was torn because it started at 9:30pm and I didn't want to drag everyone up to RC Regional an hour away in the middle of the night for nothing.  I called Sue to get her opinion on it, but it took her a while to call back so I woke B up, called Mom, and started packing a bag.


I resigned myself to not panic.  At all.  I'm no expert on any of this, but everything I had heard and read pointed to the fact that staying calm made everything much easier, so if it was time, it was time and freaking out would do absolutely nothing.  Sue called back and said that it did sound like my water had broken.  I could wait until morning if I wanted to, but instructions from Dr. B were that if I thought my water had broken that I needed to go to the ER because if it had, they want delivery to happen shortly afterward.  As the little gushes kept happening and filling pads and I started to get semi-regular contractions, I decided we should go.  Mom stayed behind to get some rest and clean out her car and B and I packed up my car and got on the road at about 11:30pm.  While we were on the road my contractions became more regular and were about 3 minutes apart but not painful yet.  When I finally got checked in and everything, I was dilated to 2cm and 70% effaced, but my contractions had stopped.  Once they were sure my water had broken, I got moved to a delivery room at about 2am so they could start the pitocin and get my contractions going again.  Once the water breaks, they want delivery within 24 hours to avoid infection.  Unfortunately, this put the kebash on my birth plan because I had to be on monitors and an IV the whole time, mostly stuck in bed, couldn't get into the tub or anything, and didn't get to do any of the laboring at home.  I wanted to stick to med-free, but because of the pitocin I left my mind open to IV pain meds if it got too rough.


I had two nurses because one was training for her RN, so I was lucky there to have all that help.  My blood pressure was a little high when I checked into triage, so the automatic blood pressure cuff thought it had to squeeze my arm to death every time it checked me.  Honestly, the pain from that was worse than the contractions until the back labor started.  The IV in my hand was At first, they had me on external monitors, one for my contractions and one for Amelia to make sure she was tolerating everything okay, but the contraction monitor wasn't picking everything up like it should have so they put in an internal monitor instead that went between her head and my uterine wall.  That was horribly uncomfortable and made it difficult to get to the bathroom without making me worry about pulling it out accidentally.  They kept upping the pitocin so that my contractions were at the intensity level they wanted and the nurses helped me to breathe through it all.


Mom got to the hospital that morning and she and B were the best support tag team ever!  They took turns rubbing my back and helping me get to the bathroom and relieved each other for lunch and such.  B had helped me smuggle in some craisins since I knew they wouldn't let me eat, so he'd help me sneak a handful here and there.  I get that they don't want you to throw up during labor and for an emergency c-section they need an empty stomach for anesthesia dosage, but I'm far more likely to get nauseous and sick on a completely empty stomach than if I have a little something in there.  That did kick in later though, when I was fully dilated and involuntarily pushing, but at that point the only thing in my system was water and it just wouldn't stay down.


The labor wasn't too bad, except for the blood pressure cuff and the internal monitor, until about 2pm when I was dilated to about a 7 and the back labor was starting to kick in.  At that point I was exhausted to the point of tears and asked for IV pain meds so I could get back on top of it.  That helped immensely, since I was able to get a few cat-naps between contractions for the next hour or so.  I got another dose a little later on, but that ended up being all.  I thought about getting an epidural, but at that point it was probably too late and the back labor was so intense that I didn't think putting something else in my back would really make my back feel better anyway.  Amelia wasn't completely face-up, but she was turned enough that the contractions wrapped around my back.  Mom and B helped by pushing on my lower back during the contractions and we found a couple of positions that helped.  My favorite was sitting on the edge of the bed leaning slightly forward, but the problem with that was that it made my feet swell worse than they already were so I couldn't do that for long, unfortunately.    That whole stage felt like an eternity.  I kept asking if it would ever end.  But, I never yelled at anyone during the whole thing.  I'm pretty proud of myself for that. :)


When it came time to push, I had one nurse on each leg and Mom and B helping lift up my shoulders.  In my original plan, I didn't want to do all the pushing while laying on my back, but at that point my legs were too shaky to do anything else so I didn't fight it. Laying on my side meant that what little water I'd managed to drink would come right back up, so that didn't work very well either.  I pushed for an hour, which I'd compare to the worst constipation you've ever had in your life.  I know I pooped on the table a little about 6 times, but I had tried to pass that earlier and it wouldn't happen with the contractions.  I know it happens, and I didn't care much at the time, but it was annoying and I felt bad for the nurses.  Apparently Amelia had hiccups while in the birth canal, which I didn't notice but Mom told me about it later.  Dr. B was called too early so she was just kinda hanging around until the last 20 minutes or so of pushing.  Proof again that the nurses really do all the work.  B snuck a peek while I was pushing her out and his jaw dropped!

When it was finally over at 5:39pm 6/28/12, Amelia let out a little squeal and arched her back the way she had done a thousand times in utero.  I was amazed by how strong she was already, but thinking about it I wasn't very surprised.  B cut the cord and followed the nurses over to the warming table while they checked her out and she gripped his finger right away.  She was 19 inches, 7lbs 0.2oz, and her 5-minute Apgar test was a 9 out of 10!  Meanwhile I delivered the placenta, which was nothing compared to delivering her, but it was a strange sensation anyway.  I ended up with a few little grade 2 tears so Dr. B had to stitch me up.  She said I did great, made one last comment about my weight, and they put Amelia on my chest so she could nurse.

She latched on pretty well right away while Dr. B and the nurses pushed on my belly (painfully, I might add) to help shrink my uterus back down.  They did that every half hour for a while in the hospital too, but it got less painful each time.  After nursing, the nurses took her up to the nursery (lol that sounds strange) to get her cleaned up or do some blood work or something, so I got to take a shower.  It was heaven.  It hadn't been that long since I had showered, but after 15 hours of pitocin it felt amazing.  I got wheeled over to my recovery room, B went home to get some rest (he had tried to nap on the couch-thing in the delivery room but it was hard as a rock and he worked hard with me through the whole labor) and Mom got some food then met me in my room before going home.  She would've stayed if I asked her to, but I felt comfortable enough there that I let her go home and get some rest herself.

I let the nurses keep her in the nursery overnight so I could get some good rest and take advantage of the help while I had it.  They brought her in to feed and worked with us on her latch and I slept as much as I could.  Mostly, I just slept as much as I could, which was hard to do since they kept coming in and checking my vitals and pushing on my uterus.


Amelia's blood work turned out great, except her bilirubin levels were a little bit high so she had a touch of jaundice.  It wasn't enough for them to recommend treatment aside from feeding her as much as I could and sitting in a sunny window with her occasionally.  She bruised pretty badly on her head during delivery so that was a lot of it.

Isn't she beautiful?  We had joked about her having red hair because we both have redheads in our family, and here she is with dark strawberry blond curls!  She has my lips for sure, but aside from that I can't really tell what she got from who.  I can't wait to see her eye color when it comes out.


I opted to stay at the hospital one extra night to get more help from the nurses and lactation consultant on her latch since it was still hurting.  The lactation consultant didn't help a whole lot, and each nurse had a different technique, but I'm glad I stayed because my overnight nurse on Friday night got us to make some real progress so I felt a lot more comfortable going home.  Amelia stayed in the nursery for a little while that night too.  B came up to take us home around noon on Saturday, but he brought the convertible carseat that came in the mail from my cousin Jon a few days earlier instead of the infant carrier and he forgot the infant insert... oops!  I sat in the back seat with her holding her head up and praying that nothing happened.

Mom is beside herself finally being a grandma.  She's been bugging me about grandbabies for years, but partly because when I was little I promised her my firstborn in exchange for something I wanted... probably a popsicle or something similarly banal.  She never let me forget about that... so now when I leave Amelia with mom to run to town, I remind her that I held up my end of the bargain!


Yesterday Amy turned 2 weeks old already.  Her first doctor visit the Monday after she was born went very well, but her weight was down to 6lb 6oz and she was still a little yellow.  I took her with me to my WIC appointment the other day and now she's back up to 7lb 2oz!  Once she really figured out how to latch on nursing has been pretty smooth sailing.  She will have some chunks of time where she can't seem to eat enough, but then she'll sleep for a good while so maybe those are mini growth spurts, but I can still pump enough for an occasional bottle feeding with daddy or grandma.  

Here she is at 2 weeks old, my lovely daughter.  It took me almost this long to make sense of the fact that a short time ago she was inside me, and that she's a whole brand new person that I grew from nothing.  It's pretty incredible and sometimes I choke up just from looking at her.  Does that ever go away?  Or is that just the name of the mommy game from now on?


My feet are back to their normal size, but the skin is still a bit tender from being stretched so tight for so long.  I'm only 6lbs from my starting weight, which considering all the flak I caught from Dr. B about that makes me feel good.  I want to rub it in her face... if I had gained way too much like she kept saying I had, would it all come off so quickly?  I'm sure a good 10lbs of it was just from extra water weight in my legs.  From the knee down my calves, ankles, and feet were tight like sausages.

I'll try to keep updating, it's just hard to do when she's this little and nursing as much as she does, but I'll do what I can do.  I'm officially a mom... and really, it does just come to you.  It's not as hard (at this stage) as I thought it would be.  Newborns have very low expectations. ;)  Hopefully in a few more days her belly button will be all healed up and we can switch over to the cloth diapers!

35 Weeks

Down to one hand's worth of counting the weeks... eeeeeeeek!  Maybe less, if she decides she doesn't want to wait that long!  Of the 36 mamas in my due-in-July Facebook group, 9 have popped already so we have 10 babies!  It's been crazy and though I don't have any of the symptoms/issues that the others have had, it still freaks me out that it could realistically happen any time now!


I'm trying to bump up my productivity now that I'm feeling better.  It took all last week for the ear infection to clear up, and the whole time I was taking the antibiotics I felt pretty crappy even though I was avoiding dairy and taking them with food and all that.  I'm sure they also caused the raging yeast infection I'm dealing with now.  I was uncomfortable enough from that and leftover ear pain that I had a lot of trouble sleeping last week.  Now that I'm off the antibiotics and on yeast infection cream I'm feeling tons better.  It must have been causing more discomfort than I expected because I slept like a rock the first night for the first time in weeks!


On Monday I saw Sue and everything looked okay, except my blood pressure was creeping up, so with that and the incessant foot swelling she decided to test me for pre-eclampsia.  The prospect of that scared me to death, since that's the reason several of my July girls were induced this early, but luckily the labs looked okay and Amelia's non stress test was perfect.  Still waiting to hear back on the 24-hour urine test since they wanted me to start it Tuesday morning, so it got dropped off this morning.  I see Sue again tomorrow to follow up, probably to check blood pressure again and do another non stress test.  I'm suspecting my blood pressure was more from the lack of sleep and the general feeling of unwell-ness over the last couple of weeks than from anything else, so we'll see how it looks after a few good nights of sleep.  Then next Tuesday I go back and see Dr. B, and she'll check for dilation and stuff and we'll figure out a plan for appointments so I can still save some gas and see Sue a few more times before the main event.  I'm far more comfortable with Sue than I am with Dr. B.


My feet are ridiculous.  I'm afraid to take a picture but I probably should at some point.  I've been avoiding salt (which is hard enough, but to do that while also avoiding dairy made for some interesting half-meals the last couple of weeks), drinking a crap ton of water (evidenced in my 24-hour urine test, which I had to sacrifice a Tupperware for because I filled up the jug they gave me even though I attempted to drink less... TMI, I know, sorry!), keeping them up when I can (noticed that the computer chair is the worst possible chair for me to sit in for my feet, but my back loves it), and trying both ice baths and warm baths.  I think I've narrowed it down to a circulation issue since the ice baths did nothing, avoiding salt did nothing, and drowning myself in jugs upon jugs of water didn't seem to help much either.  Sue thinks that possibly Amelia is compressing some veins so that the extra fluid can't really get pumped back up my legs.  Possibly compounded by my heart murmur, which everyone keeps telling me not to worry about.  A warm bath before bed does help the swelling go down a bit more in the night, so I'll stick to doing that since that's the only thing that helps.  


I've gotten some decent cleaning done today plus swimming with Mom and didn't feel the overwhelming need to nap, but it's creeping up on me now so I should probably give in for a little while. ;)  I've been typing up a template contract for composing music for a web series, which is taking a lot longer than I anticipated but once it's done I won't have to do it all again.  Then, maybe I can start working on some episodes soon!  I should have something else coming up too, helping a friend's dad write his second book (typing, research, probably some editing), so we'll see how that goes once we get started.  At least he'll pay me a little bit for it and it's definitely something I can do from home on the couch :)


Work is still going well for B. His ankle is bothering him some, but mostly he's doing fine. :) He should get his first full paycheck tomorrow or Friday, which is good because bills are due and I'm all kinds of antsy about that!  We should be able to take care of the end-of-the-month bills and the beginning-of-the-month bills, then we'll be on a regular schedule for stuff, but this extra week waiting for a paycheck has about driven me insane.  I need to work in some other bills that have been taken care of by our parents, but I can't really do that until I see what a typical paycheck is like.  Then we'll work on a new mattress and getting him a little pickup.  Naptime, even though Amelia's going crazy at the moment!

34 weeks

I had all kinds of energy that first day B went to work!  I got a lot done that day.  My productivity dwindled quite a bit after that and my naps got longer and longer... once it hit me that I'm at home now, it really felt like the week after finals or something and I just needed tons of sleep.  I guess that's not necessarily a bad thing, I wish I had gotten more done last week but oh well.  My ear didn't get any better with the drops.  Actually, it got worse, so I ended up going in last Friday to get antibiotics.  It still bothers me a little but it doesn't hurt like it did.  Unfortunately, the side effects of being on antibiotics are worse with pregnancy than they are normally, which contributed greatly to my need for naps... ugh.  Good thing I'm seeing Sue again next week.  My feet are still swelling quite a bit daily and they don't go down much overnight unless I make a conscious effort to prop them way up for several hours, an angle which causes a weird...stretching? in my cervix, so that makes me a tad nervous.  I'm starting to feel that when I stand up too, so we'll see if Sue thinks that's anything to worry about.

Mom recently found out that the Motel 6 in town will let people swim in their pool for $2 per visit!  She's been going 2-3 times a week with a friend to do exercises and relieve the gravity pressure from her back and hips.  I went with her on Wednesday and it felt AMAZING.  Until it was time to get out that is, then gravity hit full-force and I could barely walk. :/  I borrowed an old suit of hers that doesn't fit very well since I didn't see the point in buying one this late in the game.  Then yesterday she found a maternity tankini on sale that fits perfectly!  Next time I go I'll wear it and since I intend to labor in Mom's hot tub (with the temp turned way down, of course) it will definitely come in handy.  Until then, I'll probably wear the top a lot anyway because it's comfy!

B's incision abscesses healed up perfectly and the little scabs are almost gone.  Yesterday he had his final appointment with Dr. G, who proudly pronounced him healed!  We pretty much knew it was done, but it helped to hear it from the surgeon.  We expected them to at least run some blood work or something to make sure, but it ended up being a couple questions and a couple pokes.  He didn't bat an eye at the sugar treatment we did for the incision so it must not be unheard of... okay whatever, it worked!  It's hard to believe that almost 5 months later we're finally done with all that.  He still has some aches and he has to build up more strength, but he's doing really well at work.  He was very sore for a few days last week but we worked through it.

Last Saturday was my birth class at the hospital.  Most of the information was the same as I've heard/read, but at least now I know what the hospital policies are and that they'll support me in my efforts to have a med-free birth and to get breastfeeding right away.  Mom and B went with me and there were probably 25 other couples there.  The chairs were horrible!  Sitting there from 9-4 made my feet puff up like sausages and I had to get down on the floor for a while in the afternoon.  I can't believe I was the only one in the room with that problem, but I was the only one that got out of the chair for a while except for the tour of maternity.  The breastfeeding class was scheduled for last night but after B's appointment, I decided not to go.  I've read plenty and watched videos so I'm perfectly comfortable with what to do until she gets here, and it'll be a whole new ball game then.  There will be a lactation consultant at the hospital and I'll get lots of help from the WIC office and Sue, so I couldn't justify going out to dinner and wasting all kinds of time in Rapid waiting for a class that would've gotten us home late.  I didn't sign up for that one anyway, I was going to wait until after she was born but because it came free with the birth class they just signed me up for it anyway.  It just seemed pointless, so home we came to relax.

I finally caught back up with Robin for exercising and we've done something almost every day this week.  She has some sort of nerve/muscle issue going on that they haven't diagnosed yet, so we're running at about the same speed, which works out well for both of us.  I'm meeting her for yoga this morning.  I'm hoping that stepping up my exercising I'll get more energy to get the house ready and curb my weight gain a little.  I'm still steadily gaining, but I'm sure some of it now is due to retaining water in my legs that I just can't seem to really clear up.  Next on my list of stuff to do at home is go through my old toys for stuff to sell so I can move some other stuff into the shed to make room for baby stuff.  It's not a gigantic project, but bigger than I've wanted to do since my ear has been bothering me.  Hopefully I'll get somewhere with that today after yoga.  Tomorrow my friend Krystal is coming to town to take maternity photos at Kidney Springs, so that should be fun!

I have less than 2 weeks left on my indiegogo fundraiser, so one more share would be appreciated! :)  B's paychecks are much better than mine were but we still have some catching up to do.  His bills are still in limbo so we'll be dealing with that for a while.  TGIF!

32 and 33 weeks

33 weeks, in one of Mom's old dresses.
I have 2 of these and fully expect to live in them all summer.

Last week was a little on the crazy side so a post didn't happen, sorry!  My last day at work was Thursday so now I'm officially a stay-at-home-mom.  Or, work-at-home-mom, if you figure in music writing and little side jobs here and there.  Whatever.  I didn't fully announce this before, but my boss moved the office to a smaller place, basically a desk inside another office, and decided he didn't have room for me there.  So, I've been laid off.  I thought I should be more upset about it, and I do sort of wish that it could've waited another paycheck or two, but honestly, this is okay.  My job ended just as B's job started (he started this morning and will be staying the night at the job site) and I'm pretty sure he'll make something like twice what I did, so we'll be fine one way or another.  Mom and I decided to expand her online book consignment business a little bit to include a local bookstore, so that will bump that up and help both houses.  We might let it become a big thing, we might not, it just depends on how manageable we can keep it.  So, now my job is to get the house ready for Amelia, keep us fed with fresh homecooked food (with Mom's help of course, we share food a lot), and work on scheduling my exercise and writing into my day so that it all gets done.  I'll do really well once I've established a routine.

We had a little scare with B last weekend.  His incision, which had been healed up nicely for 2 weeks, was red, hard, and looked like a giant blister.  We debated going to the ER, going to the local clinic when it opened next (of course, this was over Memorial Day weekend), or waiting until we could get an appointment with the surgeon to look at it.  We ended up having to drain a bunch of stuff out of it on Sunday because it looked like it was going to break open on its own, which made me nervous but it helped a lot, and since he wasn't feverish or anything we waited until Tuesday to get into the clinic.  It turned out to be the right thing to do, since the doctor that was there that day has dealt with a lot of infected wounds and knew exactly what to do.  Dr. G has been trying to get B to go to his own doctor anyway so we figured this was as good a time as any.  It turns out that the scar tissue from the incision trapped a few pockets of infection where the antibiotics couldn't get to them, and once he was off the antibiotics those little pockets went nuts with staph.  Treatment is strange, but simple and extremely effective... he cleaned out each little abscess, opened each of them up with a q-tip, and shoved a clump of brown cane sugar into each one.  The infection and dead tissue gets drawn out immediately into the gauze dressing, so we just need to rinse it in the shower then repack the sugar daily until the holes close up.  This has been by far the simplest recovery of anything we've had to do, and the weirdest treatment, but it works!  It should all be healed up sometime in the next few days.  Oh, how I wish we could've done this for his liver abscess... I suspect it would've worked SOOOOOO much better than what they did... but oh well.  His next (and hopefully final) appointment with Dr. G is next Thursday, then hopefully none of us will have to see him again.

I had my 33 week appointment with Sue today and that went well.  Everything looks fine, except my ear has been bugging me since I got sick 2 weeks ago, so she got me some ear drops to take care of that.  I got two grocery runs done today, the first one when I dropped B off at his carpool rendezvous point and the second after my appointment (because I forgot my WIC checks at home this morning... oops).  I'm taking a break now from attempting to get the kitchen under control after groceries and neglect.  I'm making a conscious effort to sit down and put my feet up several times a day since they get swollen so easily, especially when it's 95 outside and 80 inside.  I'm attempting to keep it cool in here but I'm not having much luck lately.  Normally I can open up the windows at night and the cool night air will cool down the house considerably, but last night there was no breeze whatsoever and the night before we had a storm but it didn't cool down much, so i haven't been able to cool the house off at night so during the day this aluminum box of a house just cooks.  I hate running the air conditioners more than a couple hours per day but lately if I don't turn them on the minute it starts to warm up outside the house gets almost as hot as outside.  Especially doesn't help if I'm trying to cook or run laundry or clean or something.

Speaking of which... the kitchen still needs help and it's about dinner time.  If you have a moment, please look at my sister Sara's indiegogo fundraiser to help with her ovarian cancer surgery.  Her insurance company made her and her doctors jump through all kinds of hoops in order for them to approve the procedure, which wasted a lot of time and nearly resulted in the cancer spreading to her stomach and spine, then after the surgery was done denied the claim.  She's fighting them about that now, but she's on oral chemotherapy and has lots of follow-up appointments to go to so any help you could spread her direction will be deeply appreciated.  I still have a few weeks left on my fundraisers, but I imagine you're all sick of looking at links to them. ;) Have a good week, and I'll attempt to be a good little SAHM :)

31 Weeks

The time is drawing near, I can now count the weeks until our due date on my fingers!  Am I ready to be a mom? Nope.  Am I getting nervous for labor and all that? Not really.  Anxiety only makes labor worse so I just won't let myself go there. 

I had my appointment with Sue yesterday and it went well.  I'm still gaining too fast, but she's not very worried about it if I'm making the effort to eat well and be active.  I could be doing better on both fronts... now that concerts and everything are over that will help me get back on track.  When I'm pulled in too many directions the first thing to go is my exercise regimen, second is meal planning.  Work will be done soon (sooner than I would've liked but oh well) so that will help too.  Overall, my iron is a little low so I need to bump up the iron in my diet, otherwise everything else is looking good.  I'm measuring 1.5cm big (which translates to 1.5 weeks ahead), which is pretty consistent with the last couple of measurements so she's not worried about it and it's not a big deal unless it's 3cm+ more.  Monday was a rough day.  I felt generally crappy all day, breakfast came right back up (which is extremely strange for me, considering I made it all the way thru my first trimester and the 10 years prior without throwing up), and all I wanted to do was stay in bed.  I didn't feel actually sick with body aches and everything, but just low enough that I knew I had to take it easy.  I have been fine since, so maybe it was just the stress from the previous week being so crazy.  I always knew that stress made me sick, so apparently that plus pregnancy makes for a bad combo.  Surprised that it didn't happen this way before considering everything that's happened, but maybe I'm more delicate in the 3rd trimester than I was in the 2nd.

Amelia is head-down and squirmy!  Her new favorite thing to do is stick her little butt out right above my belly button.  She does this every few hours during the day and it's pretty funny.  I'm feeling all of the kicks on the right side, so Sue confirmed that her back is along my left side for now.  Very strong heartbeat and very active, so that's all good.  I've been having some Braxton Hicks contractions, which really just feels like I suddenly have more room to breathe.  It's a wonderful feeling, actually!  She's not showing any signs of coming early yet so hopefully it all stays this way for a while.

I'm really hoping the job that B has lined up pulls through.  No reason why it shouldn't, but I'm always nervous about this stuff before it actually gets going.  He needs to put some real effort into getting up and about more so that he can keep up with the new job without pushing himself too hard.  I should be able to get unemployment for a while so that will help. 

I got a new diaper in the mail today!  It's a bit ridiculous how excited I get about new diapers.  Not sure if I've talked about it before, but we'll be using cloth diapers!  There are still plenty of naysayers (often the same people that say maybe I can't breastfeed, and most of them don't have kids... what??) but I'm gung-ho on this.  The initial investment is higher, but in the long run they'll save us THOUSANDS and we can reuse them for future kids and/or sell them.  Try doing that with a disposable. :P  Plus, customized fit and absorbancy, complete control over the chemicals that come in contact with her little bum, and look at how freaking CUTE that print is!  I've decided to go with Softbums because they can be used with a pocket or not, since the insert snaps in, and I didn't want to have to wash the whole diaper every time like you do with pockets or all-in-ones but didn't want the hassle of messing with prefolds (yet... I may experiment with that down the road, we'll see).  I've got a good starting stash of these now, in lavender, mint green, and brown plus this "Miss Kitty."  I've registered for white and two different blues and B wants a bright green one, so I'll pick one of those up at some point too.  I've been getting myself about one a month to build up the stash before she gets here without putting too much stress on the budget.  They don't often have prints, mostly it's just the solids, but when I saw this one I couldn't resist!  It was on sale too, with free shipping! :)  These aren't the cheapest brand but they got great reviews on Padded Tush Stats and I'm even more in love with them now that I have some.  I can even use different inserts with them if I want to, I just like theirs because they come in different sizes and the huge ones fold over for more absorbancy but still dry quickly.  Next thing I need to figure out is a clothesline.  Specifically, where I want to put it...  I'm pretty sure I can get one at Ace for pretty cheap.

We've got about a month left on our online fundraisers at indiegogo and giveforward and it may be time to start looking at bankruptcy attorneys even though all the final bills aren't in yet, at least to get a consultation.  I'm pretty sure we'll need those funds either for filing his bankruptcy or to offset the fact that I'm losing a month of paychecks before Amelia is even born, and I'm unsure about going back to work afterwards or not.  I'm putting off that decision until she's here and she and I have a good rhythm set.  That also depends on what B will be making, and we can't know that until he's been there for a little while.  I'm trying not to worry about it, I know things will work out one way or another.