The Pleasure and Punishment

I can remember as a kid loving summer vacation. I would look forward to it all year. I would plan and think about how much time I could spend at home doing anything or nothing. The first week I was in heaven. I would have so much fun sleeping in until 12 and then staying up and playing video games, going outside, swimming, in the sprinklers, hanging out with friends. After about a week my new found freedom was restricting. I was bored, I felt gross.

Bed rest is much the same. The idea is awesome, staying in bed, watching TV, reading books, catching up on all those things. But for me after one day I was sick of it. My body hurt from being in the supine position. I was tired of TV and books were hard to read because I felt to crappy.

I found out today that I have some blood pressure problems from pregnancy however, the good news is it appears I do not have pre-eclampsia. So...instead of delivering this weekend we get to hold out until June 4th. That is my newly scheduled date. This means one week of bed rest. I have such respect for women who do this for months. Take my mother for example, she had to be on almost 9 months of bed rest for 4 of her 5 children. It is amazing she had as many kids as she had. I have new found respect for all of the women in the world who have gone on bed rest.

Anyhow, please feel free to call me, email me, play games online. I am stuck on my side for 8 more days. Yikes.

Bed Rest

So...I am on bed rest. I have gestational hypertension and a chance that I have pre-eclamsia, which can be life threatening. So...I am stuck in bed until my little girl comes. This could be as early as this weekend and as late as a week and a half. Either way, I feel like I just went up either a shoot or ladder (however you wish to look at it) on the whole parenting thing.

I am grateful that I am this far along when I was put on bed rest. I cannot imagine this at 30 weeks or 20 weeks like many women get. In my one day of bed rest I already feel antsy and a little bored. I watched The Painted Veil (pregnancy induced crying), and now I surfing the Internet.

Anyhow, wish me luck. Who knows what is going to happen.

Defining Ways to Let You Know You are Growing Up

I had a birthday this last weekend. Yup, I am now 28. I can tell I am getting older, not by the wrinkles, or weird skin things that appear, but the types of gifts you receive at 28. Now, let me preface this by saying I am really happy and excited about all of the gifts I got, they are perfect and just the right thing to get. But they say something about me, they tell me I am getting old, they tell me I am settling down, and they tell me whether I meant to or not, I have entered a new phase of adulthood. Here is the list of birthday gifts: a blender, place mats, butter dish, salad spinner, china plate, a replacement ipod (my old one just quit on me). With the exception of the ipod, all of these gifts can and do, live in the kitchen. And the craziest thing of all, I am thrilled to have a great butter dish, excited about the blender (smoothies every night), I love the place mats, needed to complete my China collection, and now can have clean salad. What more could a girl ask for? Who knows, maybe if I wish hard enough this Christmas I can get new flatware.

No baby news. I am now 37 weeks along and find myself in that large camp of women praying every day to go into labor a little early. It is getting tougher to get around and I am looking forward to getting the birth over with. My maternity clothes are all small now, they don't really cover my belly. I find this horrifying but I am at the point that I really don't care. The good news is my mom bought her ticket, so sometime either around or right after my birth I will have my mom here. She is planning on doing a mural for the nursery and I cannot wait!

No News

I am a little sad today. We went to the doctor to see the progress of the baby. There are a few tell tale signs that a baby is going to come in a reasonable amount of time. Unfortunately, I have not one of those signs. I am not detailing these signs because they all have to do with unmentionable functions of the body that many people don't even know exist. It looks like this kid is going to hang on inside for the long haul. My due date is June 11th but I think if this kid has her way she will co-habitate a bit longer. Unhappy.

My doctor is going out of town June 8-10th. She asked me not to go into labor. Maybe my child will be rebellious and come out of spite.

As I approach these final few weeks I feel what is exaggerated in all tv shows and movies, an out-of-control hormonal rage. I have cried every night this week. Yesterday during a Lost episode I cried for a half an hour that Charlie was going to die. What is that about? The night before I cried because I thought my dad had forgotten my birthday (which is several days away, and I have no reason to think that), the night before I cried for no reason at all, just needed it. I am not a crier. I can remember times when I was on my mission in California there would be a tender moment as I was talking to someone. They would cry, my mission companion would cry, and they would look at me and I would be dry eyed. Occasionally I would try to make my voice sound shaky to compensate, but lets be honest, I was completely under control. When I was 12 I went to girls camp. Every night we would have to stand around the camp fire and listen to either "Its so Hard to Say Good Bye to Yesterday" or "From a Distance." The whole camp would tear up, and then there would be me, hiding my face in my hair trying to hide the lack of emotion I felt. How I wanted to be one of those out-of-control criers.

A friend of mine asked the other day if I cried during my ultrasound, the answer is no, so why folks....why is it I have been completely under control for 35 weeks of hormonal rage that makes puberty look like a warm up, and now I break down? The one time I need to have it together.

The Cat's Meow

This past Sunday was mother's day. It was a new experience for me because although I have yet to have a child ex-utero, carrying a child in-utero is enough of an excuse to qualify for mother's day. AND...I got a special present.




First let me preface this by saying I am not a cat person. Among the many pets that came into my home during my childhood years cats were just a brief stint and it wasn't a happy ending. We had two cats: Tiga and Wolf. Tiga ran away or was given away within his first month of family life. They were outside cats so this was not a difficult feat. For all I know he was eaten by an alligator. Wolf, on the other hand had a much sadder fate. Wolf was a hunter. She would eat mice, lizards, and frogs and put them at our doorstep to let us know how much she loved us. This was the said purpose of the cats, to keep the critters out of our house.




Unfortunately, Florida in its many paradisaical ways, was also a bit like the Garden of Eden gone all wrong. Everything was gorgeous, but many things were very poisonous. Wolf discovered this the hard way. One day she went out on a hunting excursion and found a beautiful shiny lizard. We called these lizards skinks (which is funny it is close to the word skanks, also knon as a loose women ). Skinks look like a cross between a snake and a salamander. They live on the land, not in the water and they move sort of like snakes but they have legs. The most distinctive feature is their shiny bluish skin. Now those people who have made it to high school biology know that blue skin is never a good thing (except for those in the Blue Man Group). It usually means poison or you are choking. In the case of this lizard it meant poison. Wolf caught the lizard and it poisoned her but didn't kill her. Her fate was much worse.




Instead she was relegated to a life of a cat-like drunkenness. She could no longer walk a straight line. She would from point A to point B in arcs. This proved to be to her detriment as a car came and she could not cross the road in time. Rest her cat soul and all nine of those lives.




So...that being my cat experience and not ever really getting close to Tiga or Wolf. I never cared much for cats. So when Seth presented me with a beautiful black onyx Persian cat necklace I was a little taken back. It was gorgeous, and funny, and ironic, and weird, and confusing. At the same time I loved it because it was so awesome. Awesome in a way that let me know my husband understands me incredibly well and I am so lucky. I love it, and it is beautiful, and weird, and it is a cat. Does it get better than that.








Oh, and for those of you who are wondering how gignormous I have become. I am posting a picture. Yikes. I am the sort of big that makes young girls never want to be mothers themselves.

Free Stems Cells!!!

The minute you find out you are pregnant and let any commercial vendor know, you are inundated with mass amounts of advertisements for cord blood donation. Cord blood has been found to help with over 40 diseases and could be potentially life saving. However, the chance of needing your child's cord blood is extremely slim and the cost is $2000 plus $125 every year. They market it as extra life insurance for your babies life. Prying on your pre-mothers guilt that is already beginning to develop.
I have decided that cord blood banking is just too pricey for the risk. It sounds like a good idea but at $2000 with such a slim chance!? I would rather put that in her college fund. Although, admittedly the guilt thing is working.

That being said, I think cord blood is a great idea. I think we should have stem cells on hand to treat these diseases. I am willing to give her placenta to a bank and let others use it. I figure since I live in the DC metro area there would be a company that would want it. Nope. No available cord donation centers. I think this is a problem, especially since this avoids the ethical debate of stem cells. Here I am giving them up, not destroying any life or manipulating life, just have some extra cells to give, and no place to give it to.

So does anyone want my placenta?

Showering

It is official, Seth and I are ready to have a baby. Yesterday we spent an uncomfortable amount of money to finalize and get everything we needed. It was shocking at how expensive getting ready for a child is. I really wonder how those who live at the poverty level are able to afford it.

Seriously, here is an example of costs of what you need just to prepare for the arrival of a child:
Crib--$200 for a cheap one
Mattress -- $100
Bedding--$170-$400
Car Seat--$120
Stroller--$200
Recliner that is not ugly--$400-$700

Etc, etc, etc It is amazing at how expensive these little people cost. I'm starting to understand why there are so many cheap moms out there. Note, there is distinct difference between cheap and frugal. Frugality is to be respected, cheap has an essence of con-man in it. And cheapness is a plague. I always just thought it was the few people I knew that had kids. I now realize it is an epidemic. For example, craigslist is just riddled with ads for used clothes, "Used shoes, originally purchased for $20 asking $15." Why parents think that their used junk is less disgusting is beyond me. Check out this post, some woman thinks she can sell a 30 percent off coupon for $10!? Give me a break. How can I be frugal without becoming cheap?

Besides purchasing a newborn essentials I had a shower with all of my DC friends. I felt so loved and had a great time. The food was delicious, the games were great, and the best part was the nice mix of people. I had friends from my current job, my old GW job, neighbors, and church. The best part was the company (although I did win the smelling and identifying baby food contest, which was really fun). I feel very loved and lucky. I am a lucky person, it was one of the best showers I have been to (probably cause all the gifts were for me/baby).

On Saturday night we saw Spiderman 3. My recommendation on this one is to skip Spiderman 3. Don't even wait for DVD, just skip it and take a nap, watch HGTV, anything but this. It was ridiculous. There was no focal point, just plot points on top of each other. When it came to the end there were so many plots and characters that didn't matter, it felt like someone had vomited all of the comic book movies ever created and shoved it into 2 hours. The worst part was the evil Peter Parker sequence. Apparently wearing eyeliner makes you evil, beware Tammy Faye and The Artist Formally Known As Prince, now known again as Prince. Evil Toby Maguire just wasn't cutting it. Maybe it was the homage to Saturday Night Fever, yet there was not enough tongue in cheek about it to make you know if they were kidding or not. So...to sum up...save your $10 and turn on cable to watch Macguyver reruns.

I will post shower pics when I get them. Until then!