Out of Avalon

September 30th, 2009 by Ascelyn

Here, at least, meaning “hanging around the house doing chores and sleeping a lot.”  This is a significant step up from the here that was “sitting at work being super uncomfortable and wishing I could be at home doing chores and sleeping a lot.”  Monday was my first day off, and while Certain Engineers at work weren’t too happy about it (even though she’s taking off a full week before her wedding; I think I have a better excuse), it seems to be for the best.

Bedroom has been cleaned and pack n’ play set in its new home.  I even covered a shoebox with baby-ish wrapping paper to hold the upstairs diaper stash.  I r crafty like that.

Some contractions yesterday and today, but not the uber-painful ones like I’ve had in the past.  I’m very greatful for that much, at least.  Maybe they’ll actually lead to something one of these days.  I’m ready to get this show on the road.  I miss being the only inhabitant of my body.

Also, if I have the baby, say, tonight, I get out of doing dishes.  Our microwave, having the great timing that only appliances can have, decided to die a few days ago.  Unfortunately, having to heat everthing on the stove means doing dishes a lot more often.  The end result of this is that I ate nothing but apple pie and a box of mac & cheese yesterday because I was too lazy to wash any other pans and make real food.  At least I make a pretty awesome pie.  I cannot express just how much I hate dishes.  Still, who would expect a woman who’s just given birth to come home and wash them?  Hurry up, kiddo!

Speaking of food, Eadric, Sam, and Aaron came up the weekend before last and helped me stock up my freezer.  They’re even more awesome than pie.  My mom made us two lasagnas and a batch of beef cubes and gravy to heat up over rice, so the freezer’s looking pretty good at the moment.  I went aheadand cheated and bought chicken strips and breaded fish fillets, since I figured I probably wouldn’t get around to making them myself.  Today, assuming I don’t end up at the hopsickle, I’m making chicken & dumplings for dinner and putting together several cottage pies to freeze.  With what I have in the freezer plus a small stockpile of pastas and pizza supplies, we should be okay for a bit post-baby.  And while I’m sure the environment hates me for it, I also bought a pack of paper plates and brought home my box of plastic utensils from work to cut down on dishes in the first week or so.  (See:  hating dishes, above.)

The band stuff is finally out of the Mazda, and the car seat has been installed.  While I’m sure it’s a bit more irksome to install one using a seatbelt rather than LATCH, I don’t understand how 80-90% of car seats can be installed improperly.  It seemed pretty simple to me.  This, of course, worries me even more, since my brain is currently mush and likely to make very complicated matters seem easily and vice versa.  Mr. Rocket Scientist himself didn’t have an issue, though.  Maybe I’ll have to get my brother-in-law, a cop and father of two, to check it out.  He’s all officially trained and whatnot.  Or maybe I’m just paranoid.

I feel like I have to be missing something.  There has to be something left to do before the big day other than scrubbing pots and toilets.  Something baby-related that I’ve forgotten even after my countless lists and books.  If not, will someone please extract this child from my abdomen ASAP?

September 22nd, 2009 by Ascelyn

Well, here I am.  38 weeks.  Full term.  Any day now, right?  (Ha!  I’m late for everything else; why should this be any exception?)

According to the doc, I’m doing well for a first-timer.  My appointments are generally on the Fridays before the official start of each week of pregnancy–in other words, my 38 week appointment was held on the Friday of what was technically Week 37, since 38 didn’t start until Monday.  Regardless, at 37 weeks I was 1 cm, 50%, and -3 station, and last Friday I was 2 cm.  I guess doubling is good, but for all the misery of last week, I thought maybe I’d be doing a little better than that.

Thursday I had another bout of miserable contractions that lasted all day.  I came in late, just in time for my 10:00 meeting, and gave in and left around 2:00 in the afternoon.  I figured I’d come in Friday, which was technically my day off, to make up time and finish some revisions to a procedure.  Friday morning, I dutifully came in at 9:30…and left at 10:30.  I feel kind of guilty “wasting” PTO, even if it was only a few hours, but I couldn’t take the contractions on top of the noises and smells, the bright lights and irritating managers who insist on stopping by to chat about my pregnancy.  Note to managers:  I don’t care.  I don’t like you.  Your wife finished having kids long, long before I was born, and you weren’t allowed in the delivery room.  You have no first-hand experience in birth, and therefore no reason to try to advise me.  Leave me alone.  My uterus is none of your business.  Go away before I throw something at you.

The two times I’ve stopped what I was doing and gone home to rest, the contractions have tapered off to a reasonable level and allowed me to sleep within an hour or so.  Otherwise, they’ll start in the morning and continue all day.  30 seconds to a minute long, two to five minutes apart.  I’d be excited and wonder if it was all going to be over soon if I hadn’t been doing for months now.

I don’t want an epidural.  There are other things I’d like to avoid even more–pitocin and c-sections and episiotomies–but I really, really don’t.  That said, I found myself wishing on Friday as I drove myself home that I might not mind some form of pain relief right at that second.  Have I mentioned that these “fake” contractions are really freaking painful?  I can’t walk through them, have to focus on my breathing and try not to make any noise, and as a general rule I handle pain very, very well.  I’ve had a lot of it, all things considered, and while I know it’s nothing compared to what’s coming, I hope it gives me the background and mental fortitude I’ll need compared to someone who thinks a papercut is the end of the world.  My frustration, and the thing that makes this false labor or whatever it is so unbearable at times, is that it’s all for nothing.  I think I’ll be able to handle contractions much better when I know they’re useful and there to accomplish a goal.  I’m a very goal-oriented person, and without them, I feel like I’m wandering aimlessly and can’t focus on taking things one step at a time.  As long as I can break things down into more manageable increments–just another mile, another page, another centimeter, another hour–I can deal.

Right?

My mom keeps trying to get me to promise her that I’ll call when I go into labor.  She wants to be able to come to the house and “help me walk” during early labor.  I can’t seem to convince her that I can walk just fine with the help of my husband, who put this kid in my body and can bloody well do everything possible to help it get out.  I don’t need–don’t want–my mother there to make me paranoid and distract me in all the wrong ways.  I love my mother.  Really, I do.  We’ve never understood each other, though, something I come to realize more and more with each passing year.  It’s amazing how much you can hide from your own parents when they don’t understand you and have no desire to try.  And so, among so much else, she doesn’t understand just how utterly freaked out I get around all but a handful of people.  Even around my closest friends–something I didn’t feel I had for ages because of my inability to trust that people really were who they seemed–I watch and listen and analyze and try so hard to be careful up until the point where I slip and say something I regret.  That they put up with me anyway is a gift I treasure more than almost anything else and that amazes me every time I see them.  I never thought I’d have such friends, certainly never in a million years would have guessed I’d marry someday.  The idea of sitting in a common area with others, much less sharing a tent or room, pretty much precluded ever being married.  Who could trust someone so much?  Who would be worthy of such trust?  Apparently, Jason.  Poor guy.

So I don’t want anyone else around.  I love my mother, but deep down, I know I can’t trust her enough to relax fully with her there.  Can’t trust anyone but J.  Sometimes I worry about him, even, and what he thinks of me.  This is one more reason why I hate knowing that half the people working at the hospital know me, even if I don’t know them.  They’re not just strangers I’ll see once in passing, who will forget me the next day.  What will they think?  Who will they tell?  (HIPAA–bah.  If you know medical workers, you know that’s a sad little joke of a pledge.)

I worry, too, about having her in the hospital.  I know it would mean a lot to her to be there.  At least, I think I know that.  She makes it seem like she wants to be involved with all sorts of stuff, but then always backs out or doesn’t want to in the end.  Says she never gets to see me, but apparently “seeing” me can’t consist of anything more than both of us being in the same room as she watches TV.  I want to do something–want to cook, want to shop, want to go get dinner, want to make something together.  Small doses of sitting in front of a screen are fine, so long as stupid remarks can be freely exchanged.  Comments while she’s watching TV just seem to be taken as distracting rather than half the fun.  TV-watching is not an interactive experience.  I want to interact.

So at least she acts as though she wants to be there, but she’s said that about other things in the months leading up to all this.  I don’t want to offend her by not calling her in.  I once thought she’d be a great help, having been a nurse for so long and aided in deliveries and the care of both moms and children.  I thought she could explain what was going on when the hospital workers didn’t have time or didn’t care, and that she could act as a go-between, making sure they took me seriously when so often they don’t seem to bother.  She was awesome when we lost the twins, making sure I had what I needed (after I’d waited for a nurse to bring me a cup of water to rinse out my mouth for four hours) and that I was kept informed.

But her ideas of birth are so different from my hopes that I don’t know if she’d help or hinder.  She makes a point of mentioning nearly every time I see her that I’ll “give in” and get an epidural after all.  She seems to think that it would be a crushing experience for me, while I’m actually okay with it if I end up really needing one.  She doesn’t understand that I’m just trying to keep my options open instead of demanding one the moment I walk in the door–her preference.  She doesn’t get that I’ve actually thought this out and have a multi-level plan of action (end result:  just get this baby out of me).  I need people with me who will support me and help me focus on breaking things down into manageable goals and remind me that I can do whatever needs to be done.  There are one or two people I’ve seriously considered asking to be there to help coach me, but I can’t, because she’d be highly offended (and perhaps rightfully so) if I asked them to be there and not her.  It also worries me that I’m counting on her to give me accurate information if the other nurses and the doctor don’t, and the majority of what she’s told me so far has proven to be false.  I will be allowed to drink and even eat lightly during labor if I want…as long as I’m not on medication via an IV or epidural.  They do allow patients to use the hot tub…as long as they’re not on medication via an IV or epidural.  They do allow patients to get up and move around after being admitted…as long as…well, you get the picture.

I wish I had someone to remind me of all my options and help me find out what even more are, even the medicated options, and to help me decide what’s best for both me and the baby.

I wish I had someone to tell me what to do regarding people:  my mom, J’s family, the nurse who so grossly violated every privacy law on the books when I was in that same hospital last October.

I wish this would get over with so I could be home with our (healthy, perfect) baby and not wondering and worrying about the future from a really uncomfortable desk chair.  Running to the bathroom every two minutes, where the guys seem to think they can make a mess of the ladies’ room and leave it for me to clean up, while some smallish creature batters my cervix.  (You know, hits it.  Not battering like one does to fried fish.)

Mmm, fish.

September 14th, 2009 by Ascelyn

Less than three weeks left until the official due date.  How crazy is that?  (Alternatively, how crazy am I going?  Take a guess!)

Having been on a 9/80 schedule at work for the last year or so, I’m really not liking two-day weekends.  In brief, 9/80 means we (at least in theory) work 80 hours over 9 days instead of 10.  Basically, M-Th we work 9 hour days, and Fridays alternate between being 8 hours and being off entirely.  Three-day weekends tend to be a lot more productive, and it’s great to have a day to slack off or sleep in and still have the actual weekend to get work done.

Anyway, this was a “work” Friday, so a two-day weekend.  Still, I got to sneak a few cat naps and still get a lot done.  Maybe not all that I’d planned, but a fair bit.  The baby’s room is essentially done–curtains have been hung, closet has been emptied and refilled with baby gear, floor has been cleared of random curtain rod parts and the baby gear now stowed in the closet.  The toy hammock has been hung and my fifteen zillion teddy bears placed lovingly therein.  The trash can we picked up the other day for a diaper pail was about 1/2″ too long to fit where I wanted it, so we returned it for a different size.  As J likes to remind me, the size he wanted to get to begin with.  Of course.  Regardless, it fits perfectly, and all that really needs to be done to the room now is to vacuum it.

Oh, and I did laundry!  Go me!  J won, though, having done dishes twice, moved an old bookshelf out into the kitchen to hold our cookbooks and jam jars, and reorganized the cabinet holding the drinking vessels and the one holding the miscellaneous kitchen-y stuff so that the former holds glasses and water bottles and the latter, baby bottles and mugs.  He then moved on to the linen closet, which I’d been meaning to do anyway.  Tonight, if we’re not too tired, we’ll work on cleaning out our bedroom and possibly reorganizing some small bits of furniture to make room for the Pack ‘n Play/bassinet/changer where the baby will sleep for the first little bit.  Someday, I need to straighten up the loft, which has random Pennsic stuff strewn about still, and carry the futon downstairs and out to the Bronco to take over the Val’s house until they save up to get a real couch.  Also someday, the music room/office, which is where all the random stuff from the baby’s room got thrown until we can figure out a permenant home for all of it.

It’s going to be a long week.  Hopefully productive, but certainly long.

My parents and baby brother (ha! he’s 20! so wrong!) are coming over this weekend for turkey.  I’d planned on making the turkey in part so that I’d have leftovers to cook into other meals and freeze, and in part because I wanted an excuse to eat mashed potatoes and gravy.  Mmm, potatoes.  So hungry….  Of course, given the amount of food my family can consume in a single sitting, there might not be much turkey left over.  I’m planning for pot pie and turkey noodle soup, at the very least.  We’ll see how it goes.

Speaking of someday, someday while I’m off work but before the baby comes I need to sew a sling or two and a curtain to serve as a door for the baby’s closet.

I think the next few weeks are going to be insane.  I just hope insanity comes with naps and lots of snacks.

September 11th, 2009 by Ascelyn

It’s amazing what two nights of almost-sleep will do for a person.  Sure, I wake and have to flop out of bed every two or three hours still, but not staring at the ceiling (which I can’t see without my glasses anyway) during those two hours in between helps a lot.

I have a note from the good doctor saying that I’m to be excused from work as of September 25th.  For those of you playing along at home, that would be the Friday after next.  I’ve just returned from discussing it with my boss (who rocks, by the way) and signing the forms over at medical that will put me on short-term disability after the initial 5-day waiting period.  Things seem to be shaping up nicely.

Finally bought a diaper pail last night, so I think we’re about good to go in the “stuff” category.

Off to my 37 week appointment.  Go me!

September 9th, 2009 by Ascelyn

Remember how lovely the beginning of Month #8 was?  The intro to Month #9 is a lot like that.  Just replace the awesome with an equal amount of sucks-my-will-to-live.

I hurt.  It’s like all the joint pain I’ve experienced in life, no insignificant amount, has come back to torture me all at once.  There are days I literally can’t get out of bed in the morning.  I do anyway–I don’t have much of a choice–but it involves lots of hopping around and falling over.  That same pain combined with the constant kicking of my own personal paraiste keeps me from sleeping at night.  Which gives me migraines.  For which I can’t take my medication.

At 8 months, I giggled at the idea that I’d want this to end.  Sure, pregnancy isn’t fun exactly, but it’s tolerable when compared to the idea of never sleeping again.  Now I look forward to the baby being born so that I have the chance to sleep.  Those chances might come in 15 minute time spots spread far apart, but during them, I’ll be able to sleep, dang it.  Something I can’t do now.

I have a note from Dr. W excusing me from work after Sept. 25th.  If things don’t change over the next few days, that will be bumped up a week to the 18th.  Being home all day might be boring, but my body can’t take this lack of sleep and constant standing or sitting in uncomfortable chairs.

Just four more weeks, right?

September 1st, 2009 by Ascelyn

I’ve discovered something over the last 4 years.  Apparently, while I’m perfectly capable of taking care of a dorm room, I’m not so good at keeping an entire house clean and orderly.  I clean when things are dirty.  Usually.  And the only part of the house that stays even mostly tidy is the living room, and that’s because it’s mostly a matter of rearranging the pillows on the couch.  Since our living room and kitchen are essentially the same big space, though, the disaster area that is the kitchen tends to outweigh the modicum of order (note that I did not say cleanliness, which would imply that I had dusted sometime in recent memory) in the living room.

It also helps that the TV is now downstairs, so there aren’t DVDs and blankets strewn about the room any longer.  That mess is much easier to hide when it’s not five feet from the main entrance to the house.

Once every few months, however, it strikes me that I would be much happier if our main living areas  were neat and tidy.  The problem is generally finding time to make them so.   By the time I get home from work, I want to eat something that requires little to no work and go to bed.  If I were more like J and didn’t require food on a regular basis, I’d probably just go straight to sleep.  Cleaning does not enter the equation.  On the occasional weekend when we’re not busy, I really just want to lay around and relax.  I would rather watch a movie than clean at those times, which is saying a lot, considering that I don’t particularly like staring at a screen for long.

Suffice it to say that “nesting” in the traditional sense has not really entered my mind.  I also laugh when people tell me that I should try to nap when the baby naps, but that I probably won’t do so because I’ll be wanting to do dishes or clean the house.  No, I won’t.  I like sleep.  The house can be messy.  I’ll eat off paper plates for a day if necessary.  I really don’t see myself suddenly going into super-maid mode just because a baby’s around.

On the other hand, when I woke up this morning and dug through the clothes basket full of clean whites to find a pair of socks (and please note that I do have all good intentions of putting them away in their drawers at some point), I realized that I did want to have a clean bedroom.  After all, that’s where the baby will be sleeping for at least the first few weeks.  Our room is in the loft, with its sloping roof and lack of normal wall space.  There is significantly limited space for the Pack ‘n Play/bassinet/changer combo that I intend to set up there.  Right now, there is no space, because the floor is covered with laundry and mostly-unpacked duffel bags from various trips.

Hmm.  I should fix that.  But when?

I’m also somewhat appalled that the baby’s own room isn’t finished yet.  For one thing, Somebody needs to finish installing the second curtain rod so that the curtains are no longer laying in the middle of the floor on their old rod.  A year ago, I would’ve happily jumped up and done it myself, but lately jumping up on anything tends to lead to me falling off shortly thereafter, and that doesn’t seem like a good idea right now.  Somebody also needs to put up the toy hammock in the corner so that I can get the massive pile of stuffed animals (previously belonging to yours truly) out of the crib, where they were moved when there was no longer space available on the twin bed.  Then, I can put the newly-washed sheets back in the crib so that they’re not sitting on the changing pad.  I also need to talk my father into making me a quilt hanger so that I can use the super-cute comforter that came with the bedding set as a decoration until the baby’s old enough to convert the crib to a toddler bed and use it as a blanket.

These are just the simple things.

The closet in that room has long housed my garb and our random clothing.  My camo, both of our graduation gowns, my formal dresses and boxed-up wedding gown.  Somewhere in there are my old roller blades, size 9 mens, which I’ve since realized never actually fit properly despite having Really Cool Colors!  (Duh…)  All of these and more need to be moved somewhere, and heaven help us actually find available storage space in our attic-less, garage-less house.  Then, we need to get rid of the mirrored-glass sliding closet doors, which are hideous at best and potentially dangerous at worst, and replace them with a curtain rod and fabric.  That means sewing.  I ran out of any trace of enthusiasm for sewing sometime before Pennsic.  Sadly, I also need to sew (or coerce someone into sewing) a sling for me, since I found a really cool pocket/ring sling hybrid pattern that is confusing my poor pregnant brain.  And for the closet, I’ve recently decided that I also want to install shelves on both sides, or maybe just along the bottom.  You know, for sheets and all that miscellaneous stuff that seems to accrue.  It’s not like I can fill an entire closet with tiny baby clothes anyway.

Must.  Be.  Done.

And I still don’t have a clothes basket or diaper pail!  Or nursing bras!  Or sanity!  And only 3 weeks until I’m considered full term!

!!!

I think I’m going shopping after work today.  And throwing all the crap from the closet into the music room, which is trashed anyway from all the other stuff we moved out of the nursery.  And folding clothes.  And maybe losing my mind.