Team Fox

Motherhood really changes you, I never thought that I would get poop on myself and not be grossed out by it.

For the past week we have been dealing with a very fussy baby, this is a lot of fun when I’m home alone all day while hubby is at work because I can barely put the baby down to use the restroom and it requires an act of congress to get him down for a nap that he would then wake up from 5 mins later.

The fussiness seems to be gas related but I don’t know if it’s something in my diet that he gets through the breastmilk since it doesn’t happen at every feeding.  He tends to be cranky in the afternoon and evening, once he settles down for the night he sleeps like an angel and I have to wake him up to nurse or else he’ll sleep straight through the night.  By the morning my breasts are so full that I feel like I’m carrying water balloons.

Before we start to get the flood of suggestions for things to try, please know that we have done research and tried all of the usual suggestions from wearing, movement, positioning, white noise, vacuum cleaner, etc.  they usually work for a few minutes if that.  So unless your suggestion is really offbeat and uncommon, we have already tried it.

Usually he finally settles down after a nursing session in which he’ll fall asleep on my chest, the key is knowing when he’s in a deep enough sleep to be transferred to his bassinet, lately I’ve discovered that he’s fine as long as he’s not sleeping on his back.  Doctors don’t advise babies to sleep on their stomachs but I admit to have done it once or twice during the day when he finally falls asleep after crying inconsolably for hours.  I end up checking up on him very often and don’t do it at night.

It is only a matter of time before he makes the choice for himself though.  He can already easily roll over on to his side, another favorite sleeping position of his so I wouldn’t be surprised to one day see him completely turning onto his stomach and then there won’t be much that I could do about it.

he turns onto his side all by himself

I can’t hardly wait for Shaman’s and my appointment with Dr. Punger next week.  We had noticed that he had a slight tongue-tie but didn’t think it was a problem but after almost 2 weeks I think that it is interfering with his breastfeeding latch.  He is fully capable of a perfect latch… when he wants to but when he’s not in the mood he just does what he wants and it takes quite a bit of adjusting and pain in the meantime.  Thank goodness for Lansinoh.

After a struggle to get my disability forms in now it’s a matter on waiting for my employer’s HR department to submit their part in hopes that I can get the first check before our rent is due.

The baby blues have eased quite a bit without me having to take the pills but I admit that I come close to losing it when I’m home alone with a baby that’s been crying non stop for an hour.

you wouldn't imagine that he had just spent 3 hours crying nonstop

The anemia is better in the sense that I no longer get dizzy spells but I still struggle with weakness and exhaustion and the fact that I easily get cold, even when the thermostat is set to 80 degrees.  That is quite a change from when I was pregnant and I felt like I was melting at 70 degrees.

I have lost an additional 8 pounds this week for a total of 29 pounds lost since birth.  I’m sure that a demanding baby that doesn’t let mommy eat more than mini snacks during the day has anything to do with this.

The swelling is not fully gone but it has gone down considerably, my wedding band fits again (barely) and some shoes fit again (tightly), we’re getting there.

Right now I’m not using cloth diapers exclusively due to some slight technical difficulties.  The washer for some reason is not filing up with hot water while washing them and since them his skin seems to be sensitive to them, not rash extreme but enough that I alternate between cloth and sposies to give his skin a break.

I will say that the cloth diapers are way better at containing his blowouts, the only time that he’s had “accidents” has been when wearing disposables.  I still use the sposies at night until he can grow into the pocket diapers that I have since he tends to sleep for so long that I have to wake him up to change him.

I do like the cloth wipes way better than the disposable wipes.  Just a cloth wipe and water does faster cleaning using less wipes, I really should get more of those!

And by the way, the backseat of the car SUCKS as a changing table.

Shaman’s first few days were spent being poked and prodded at all hours of the day.  Since Shammy was born after my water had been broken for a long period of time, the doctors feared that he may have an infection.  The cultures came back negative  and he never had a fever but one of the usual markers for infection was way higher than normal so he ended up receiving antibiotics and spending an extra day at the hospital.

Because he was born by C-section I wasn’t able to take the placenta home to encapsulate.  I actually had a mini argument with the surgeon while I laid out open in the OR but I realized that it was a losing battle as he dismissively said “we’ll have you talk to the pathologist”.  They were not against giving me the placenta once they were done with it, they just insisted on giving it to me in formaldehyde, ugh.

While at the hospital I kept getting comments of “wow, big baby!” and the doctor even said that he didn’t think he could have been born vaginally due to his head being so big, I disagree but there is no point in arguing by now.

Sometimes I look at him while somebody else is holding him and think “that big baby came out of me?!”, lol.  Now that we’re in the outside world people ask if he is a preemie until we tell them how old he really is and then they switch to wow, that’s big, lol.

This is a very strong boy from the start, he was holding his head up just hours after being born and smiling.

He has taken to breastfeeding well although since I nurse on demand we’re still trying to find a schedule and stick to it, right now it looks like it’ll be every 2 1/2 hours or so.  I am glad for this as breastfeeding poop is so much better and doesn’t smell.

There was a particular nurse at the hospital that annoyed me and I nicknamed her the breastfeeding nazi.  First she expected my milk to have come in less than 12 hours after he was born, she was overly critical of the latch position in contradiction to the feedback from other nurses, the lactation consultant and later on Dr. Punger.  But when she really freaking annoyed me was on the last night at the hospital when she tried to lay a booby trap on me.  Boobys trap are misconceptions that are forced upon nursing mothers that make them feel that they are unable to exclusively breastfeed their child, thankfully I had been well educated on this in pregnancy so her tactic didn’t work.

The bf nazi decided to wake me up at 2am on our last night at the hospital and while I was in a sleep induced fog tried to “inform” me that Shaman had lost too much weight and that I will need to supplement with formula starting immediately.  In my fog I was able to muster enough coherence to explain to her that no, it is normal for a newborn to lose weight (and she should know that) and that even though he was in the upper range of weight loss, it is normal for breastfed babies to lose more until mom’s milk comes in and there is no need to rush into formula as long as he’s soiling enough diapers.  She kept arguing with me so I ultimately convinced her to bring me a breast pump and allow me to supplement with pumped breastmilk.  She didn’t like it but realized that she was not going to change my mind without bringing a team of pediatricians in carrying medical literature.

In the end I only pumped about an ounce that was never brought back to us to give to him before discharge.  Just like I knew, she had been making a big deal over nothing as Shammy had regained 8 oz by the time he had his first pediatrician’s appointment approx 30 hours later (and grew half an inch!) and although he hasn’t been weighed since then I can tell that he’s gaining weight by watching his cheeks filling up and noticing that he’s already outgrowing the newborn sized fitted cloth diapers.

I am lucky that I only encountered the one booby trap but feel bad for other mothers that would have easily succumbed to the pressure.  I met one such mom at the breastfeeding class I took at the hospital that was already supplementing with formula on the belief that she wasn’t making enough for her baby.

The hospital experience was so stressful for him that it made him constipated.  This poor kid was really holding it in for several days.  He pooped while in distress and then once more the night he was born and then nothing again until he came home from the hospital.  The doctor was not worried so I wasn’t either.  Within hours of coming home he relaxed and cleaned himself out over the next 24 hours to catch up.  Now he can fart with the best of them, it can be heard all the way across the house.

I am not doing elimination communication yet as it was too overwhelming to move around and take care of him but I am trying to pay attention to his patterns so that when I do try it it’ll be easier for me to know when he needs to go.

This little baby has inherited his mom’s “in your face” approach to certain things as he insisted on nursing during the whole wheelchair ride out of the hospital room to the car when we were discharged.  It was hilarious to watch the look of shock on everybody that we encountered along the way.  The nurses asked if we wanted to wait and my response was “he doesn’t mind”, I guess that they’re not used to dealing with somebody that is confident in nature’s design.

Shammy proudly nursing at the hospital's entrance while waiting to get into the car

Now that he’s at home I wish that there was a camera constantly following us to document all of the precious moments, there is so much that is being missed on a daily basis.

I can just stare into his eyes forever, they are so hypnotizing.  I just sit there in awe every time he smiles or when he makes interesting facial expressions as he is having nice dreams.

He is showing tendencies of being a barefoot hippie as he doesn’t seem to like wearing socks and is an expert at taking them off in record time.  The same applies to hats and blankets.  We just ended up having to get a sleep sac so that he won’t end up with cold feet overnight.

isn't he the cutest sleeping little ball?

So Baby Fox seems to enjoy the cozy accommodations in my uterus as I have made it to 40 weeks with him/her not hinting at being in any rush to come out.

Making it to this point is a huge thing for me given my family history (nobody that I know of in the current generation made it to their due date), I was born about 2 weeks early. I admit that due to the somewhat traumatic experience of my cousin I did have a fear of pre-term labor for a while, I even used EFT to overcome that anxiety.

From the “due date clubs” that I check out in various internet sites, I seem to be one of a small handful of moms that have reached a due date and do not have a scheduled eviction, I mean induction appointment made.  I had to roll my eyes when another mom-to-be that was also due today was crying because her induction scheduled for today was postponed because 2 other women went into labor spontaneously, wtf?  I must remind you that these are healthy women in low risk pregnancies with no medical reason to rush the baby out.

Things have been quiet on the labor front for days, I used to have signs of prodomal (sp?) labor a few weeks ago but they have all but vanished. I know that a lot of my contractions were stress induced so I think that not having to deal with work drama has certainly helped in that front.  In a sense I think this is a good thing because when some action does happen I will be more likely to pay attention and less likely to chalk it up as “more of the same”.

I’m happy to report that the feet swelling is not being so scary anymore. I still swell daily starting the second that I get out of bed but at least unlike before, most of it is going away while I sleep.  This usually means that I go to the bathroom 15 times instead of 5 during the night to get rid of all of the excess fluid but it’s worth it to have it be less uncomfortable the next day. I credit the massaging that hubby does right before bed with helping with the drainage, it’s not as long as I would like but I see it making a big difference and even though I still don’t fit into any of my shoes, my feet look almost human again.

My sleep patterns are going back to normal again, I get tired easily but no longer feel the need to sleep the day away.  My productivity is limited in capacity though, if I don’t get something done before noon chances are that it won’t get done at all as I notice that I get very drowsy in the afternoon although not enough to sleep it off.

All systems are go for Baby Fox’s arrival, it’s only a matter of waiting to know when it’s time to call the midwife and fill up the tub. For someone that can be OCD about scheduling (just ask my husband), it’s kind of fun not knowing when baby Fox will decide to make an appearance.   It makes every day somewhat of an adventure, although I notice that I don’t wake up thinking “maybe today is the day”, I just wake up and go around the day knowing not to get attached to any plans I may want to make.

Some people say that I will “know” when it’s going to happen soon, all I have to say about that is that it either won’t be anytime soon or I’m just out of touch and clueless.  Meanwhile I try to rest when my body asks for it and be semi-productive and entertained the rest of the time.

After months of research and consideration we have opted to skip the Vitamin K shot at birth unless baby has a hematoma or another reason for it. I was originally going to administer the dose orally but even that felt unnecessary if everything was healthy so I have been taking the vitamin K myself so that baby will get it through breast milk but I’m willing to give it to baby directly if it feels right. I must admit that I feel more safe giving those vitamin K drops to baby than infant formula as all of the ingredients are completely natural, not synthetic and all ingredients are pronounceable. I can’t say the same about the formula in the supermarket shelves.

A short commercial break with the trailer for a very interesting documentary on breastfeeding that I want to watch:

So here I am about to have a baby any day now and I don’t know any lullabies.  It’s ok, I knew about this for months, I could have tried to learn some but like with prenatal yoga, I just never got the motivation. I’m not concerned because baby will just care about hearing mommy’s voice and won’t know the difference between a lullaby and a Counting Crows song.

I had received a magazine in the mail from the people from theknot.com called “The Nest”, I wasn’t particularly interested but I did flip through it and saw an article about a married celebrity couple (a drummer and actress, have no idea who they are) and their green living tips and instantly noticed that there was no mention of the cloth diapers that their baby is obviously wearing in one of the pictures, a few months ago I would have never noticed something like that, lol.

Yesterday I saw a blog posting from another mom about what she carries in her diaper bag, the entry had a picture with everything laid out and numbered and she gave a list of the whole inventory. This made me curious and I did some research into what some other people carry for comparison. It is amazing to see how some people seem to come close to packing the whole nursery!

I can see the relevance of many items but I wonder if the rest is just there for peace of mind and never get used. I plan to start basic and add things as I find myself needing them because I don’t want the bag to weigh more than baby!

My poor husband is constantly intercepted by people at work asking “no baby yet?”, none of them seem to consider that he would not be at work if there was a baby. That man has gone to every single prenatal appointment with me, why in the world would he go right back to work as soon as he cuts the cord? He doesn’t get to have a paternity leave but you bet that he deserves a few days to get hang out with and get to know his child. I’m just glad that I’m not at work because heads would have already rolled from people asking questions and making comments, he’s got way more patience than I do.

thankfully people know not to call me

People do seem to be way more interested than I am to know how many centimeters dilated and what percent effaced I am.  Why do they care if I don’t?   Those numbers mean nothing unless I am in active labor.  I can be 4 cm 80% effaced for 4 weeks or not be dilated or effaced at all and have a baby before midnight.    My midwife only checks by request and I have no interest in knowing before show time.

“no baby yet?” that seems to be the question du jour, usually coming from the masters of observation mentioned previously, if I’m still walking around with a basketball under my shirt the answer to that question should be pretty obvious.  It makes me wish that I had ordered a t-shirt that says: “No I haven’t had the baby and I’m not in labor.” or even better, one that says “it isn’t over until the fat lady isn’t fat anymore”

still "fat" on the 38th week

I made the mistake of sharing a link that I found interesting/amusing on Facebook about how people swear that a dish at a certain restaurant is guaranteed to induce labor within 48 hours.  Several different people took it to mean that I wanted to eat the dish to induce myself, quite a jump in logic!  Specially when I’m the one regularly ranting about how one shouldn’t induce labor unless medically necessary.

And since everything is healthy, the only time I would consider induction is if I’m overdue which I am not (yet).  Yes people, please remember that I still have almost 2 weeks to my official “due” date or as I like to call “guess date”.    And if it comes to that, then I’d rather try the natural tricks before I check myself into the hospital for a pitocin drip at 42 weeks.

As much as we’re excited to meet baby Fox, I am not trying to dictate when he/she should make his/her appearance.  In a sense I would probably miss being pregnant as I’m still enjoying it all when I don’t count the cankles.  I do hope that this isn’t one of those “cool babies” that insists on being fashionably late for it’s debut but baby will get to pick the time it considers best and we’ll adapt to that.

I guess this is another aspect of being a granola mom in a fruit loop world.

Thinking about fruit loops, it saddens me to see so many other new parents putting so much focus on the theme and color scheme of their nursery and not on other more important (in my opinion) decisions.  But I notice that this is because there is hardly any mention of the important  decisions to be made since most people think they have no choice and go with the “standard” procedures.

I am referring to things such as where to give birth, how to give birth, who to give birth with, which classes to take, whether to have a doula, which prenatal tests to take, to eye goop or not,  whether to vitamin K shot or not, whether to delay vaccines or skip them, whether to circumcise and most of this is just the “medical” side of it.  There’s still the decisions on parenting style and everything that comes with actually bringing the baby home.

It shocks me how often I hear somebody saying that they just did things that way because “that’s how everybody does it”, “that’s what my doctor told me to do” or “I didn’t know there was an alternative”, has anybody ever heard of the concept of INFORMED decisions?

In non ranting news, this week we had a belly cast made of the bump, it didn’t come out perfect but being Daddy Fox’s first job as sculptor it’s pretty good, it wasn’t hard to do and aside from having a waterproof belly and boobs from the vaseline lubricant it wasn’t as messy as we feared.

Now it’s a matter of me getting the chance to try to sand it a little and figure out how to decorate it after a trip to the craft store for ideas and supplies.

belly cast in progress

I had been having trouble sleeping for a very long time and something as simple as flipping sides was being torture, this was in part because we have a tiny bed and Daddy Fox is a giant and I’m not so pixie sized with the bump so there isn’t much room for movement and positioning.  Apparently Daddy Fox got tired of my whimpering and swearing throughout the night and he started to sleep on the futon in the bedroom and suddenly the room to spread and move in bed has allowed me to get the best sleep in months.

It sucks that it’s harder to fall asleep without him as close and  I can no longer sneak in middle of the night cuddles without getting up but at least I’m starting to get some decent rest again.  I appreciate his sacrifice and it’s cool that our room is big enough to fit 2 beds so that he doesn’t have to be all the way out in the couch.

An unexpected side effect to this pregnancy is that I’ve developed a sensitivity to certain food ingredients.  In the past all I had to do was avoid seafood and I could eat anything else without remorse but in recent months I find myself having reactions to MSG and other food additives used in many popular restaurants.  Now I get sick after every time I eat at Golden Corral and the other night I had an allergic reaction to food from Chipotle that was bad enough that required me breaking out the benadryl to avoid skinning myself alive.

Back to ranting… This hasn’t yet made a big stir in the news but it may, there is a peaceful “nurse in” being staged tomorrow at a park in Orlando to protest the discrimination by a lifeguard against several breastfeeding mothers and I’m cheering for them from afar.

A lot of people seem to be getting their panties in a twist over this ranging from “breastfeeding is gross” to “I don’t care what you do but I don’t want to see you do it”.  A lot of this stems from the taboo over breastfeeding and the over- sexualization of breasts.  I roll my eyes at the prudes that don’t want children to see a woman nursing a baby, they will never grow up to learn what breasts are truly for otherwise since media and society emphasizes a completely different purpose for them.

Normalizing breastfeeding means more people, adults and children, must be exposed to it on a regular basis in the course of their everyday lives.  Breastfeeding is not something to be embarrassed about. In cultures where breastfeeding is the norm, children simply don’t ask what mothers are doing with their babies, because they already know what breasts are for. And parents understand the dual purpose they can serve without embarrassment.

I’ve got nursing covers and if I use them it will be for my benefit and not anybody else’s and if baby doesn’t like them or it’s too freaking hot or inconvenient to cover up while nursing people can choose not to look or put the cover on THEIR head.

I believe in people’s right to be offended but that doesn’t entitle them to interfere.  There are many legal activities I witness in public that personally offend me and when I don’t like it, I stop looking and continue about my day.

Regardless of the many benefits of breastfeeding and its promotion by medical and governmental organizations, Florida law protects a child’s right to nurse but most people don’t know about this. Florida enacted Fla. Stat. § 383.015(1) (1993), which reads:

“A mother may breastfeed her baby in any location, public or private, where the mother is otherwise authorized to be, irrespective of whether the nipple of the mother’s breast is uncovered during or incidental to the breastfeeding.”

Why should we stand up for our breastfeeding rights?  Because the next breastfeeding mother might not know her rights, she might not be confident enough to stand up for herself, she might even be discouraged enough that she stops breastfeeding.

On the getting ready for baby front, the stereotypical nesting instinct of wanting to clean and disinfect everything including the screws in the cabinet hinges has been non existent for me.  The house needs a good spring (or in this case summer) cleaning but the best that I can do is try to keep it from getting worse, oh well…

I have been doing some last minute shopping for miscellaneous items that we still don’t have, most of it would be extras (more towels and washcloths) or luxuries (fox crib mobile and wall decals) but it brings me joy, still dreaming over that fox themed bedding set that is out of my current financial reach….

I have printed a sign to be posted in our front door in case I get loud at odd hours while in labor and somebody calls the cops.

Think it gets the point across?

This has been an interesting week, Daddy Fox behaved and waited until I reached the official 37 week mark to start with the “is it time yet?” jokes, if I go overdue I’ll be VERY sick of those jokes…

The pregnancy newsletters that I subscribe to have shifted from talking about ” this week baby developed …” to ” cope with labor by…” or “things to take to the hospital”.

At least my body has been showing signs that it is getting ready for labor but nothing definite, it could still be weeks.

At work the boss looks at me like I’m a ticking time bomb, at least they finally started to plan for my leave.  Work has been particularly hard this week due to fatigue, swollen feet and sporadic contractions.  But despite all that I found myself nesting at work, since those are the hours in which I have energy and I’m stuck in there I end up cleaning my desk and reorganizing my filing cabinet.  It sucks that I don’t have the same energy by the time I get home, or if I do, by then my feet are so huge that I have no choice but to get off them.

Yes, I have elephant feet now, they are HUGE!  And the swelling doesn’t go down after a good night’s sleep either, they may shrink a little but it’s still super inflated.  But my blood pressure is good and it’s only my feet so I don’t have to worry about pre-eclampsia.

I am hard pressed to put my feet up often due to work and lifestyle but yesterday when I finally did get the chance to put my feet up for most of the workday I found that it didn’t help one bit, my feet kept swelling at the same pace as if I had been walking all day.

I’m drinking the water, moderating salt, trying to rest, trying to do some light walking (or in my case waddling) all to no avail.  I freak out every time I look at my feet.

I just hope that I don’t end up like my mother, her pregnancy edema is still with her 29 years later.

I admit that swelling is the only symptom that is making my life miserable.  Heavy belly, minuscule bladder capacity, low heat tolerance, pelvic pain, contractions, cramps… and anything else that I forget at the moment, they’re all manageable, constantly swollen feet that don’t fit into anything but flip flops = grrr.

We are in the final readying stages as we enter “safe dates”.  We have the birth tub at the house, the labor day supplies are all ready in a box and I struggle to keep the house clean or at least semi decent.

Daddy Fox finished assembling the nursery furniture and I love it.  Cherry is my favorite wood color so I’m glad that we got this set. It was super cute to have Daddy Fox channeling Martha Stewart last night as he applied the decorative decals to the walls.

Aside from some clutter reduction and floor cleaning the nursery is almost done!

Nursery Decorations

My placenta brain doesn’t let me remember that I still need to get the empty gel caps to encapsulate my placenta, agh! I’m pretty sure that I am forgetting other things as well but my placenta hasn’t allowed me to remember what those are.

I have already acquired the belly casting kit as it was on sale at a decent discount, now I’m trying to figure out when to do it.  I would like to wait until close to 40 weeks but with the whole “it can happen at any time” I don’t want to risk going into labor and missing out on the opportunity so I may end up doing it sooner rather than later.  It’s up to Daddy Fox now as he will be playing the role of “sculptor”.

Hubby finds it amusing that I seem to have developed what he calls a “reckless” attitude, I call it “who the hell cares”, this is seen in me being too tired to try hard at anything anymore, lol.  Didn’t park exactly parallel to the lines? don’t care, didn’t meet my quota for quality evaluations at work?… don’t care, used the wrong word?… don’t care.  I dropped something on the floor?… don’t care.  I have stopped being an overachiever at work until I return from maternity leave.

One thing that I’ve been ranting quite a bit elsewhere online is the fact that most people think that natural birth and vaginal birth are synonyms.  They don’t seem to realize that one can have a very medicalized vaginal birth (examples: induction, artificial membrane rupture, pitocin augmentation,  epidural… you get the point).  I don’t know about you but none of that seems natural to me.  Perhaps the new natural should be called drug free or intervention free.

Vaginal, natural…who cares? I guess I care.  I’m willing to concede that one can still have a natural birth with artificial membrane rupture provided that it’s done while labor has already been off to a good start,  there are some natural induction techniques that can be considered as well but pitocin, epidurals etc fall way out of that scope.

And  I think it matters because the pendulum about childbirth is swung so far out that, in general it has become an undefined mystery and it needs clarification, if only to let others make up their own mind of what seems normal and natural to them.

Will I get the natural birth I want?  I don’t know… I hope so but will I strive for it?  that’s what I’ve been doing for 9 months!

I leave you with the heavy bump and cankles at 37 weeks:

36 weeks. According to most people baby is now considered a fully baked bun if it decides to pop out of the oven so even though I technically have almost 4 weeks left we have entered the “any day now” stage.

First time moms are notorious for going overdue but the general consensus with the exception of 1 person is that I won’t make it to my due date.

I’m not one for competitions but I’m curious to see what the online consensus is, if you have an opinion, post a comment with the day you think Baby Fox will debut to this world along with your gender prediction.  If you feel really psychic you can also add other information such as time of birth, weight and length.  I’m curious to see if the online opinion varies a lot from the people that have already expressed their “knowing”.

I don’t care when baby decides to show up as long as it waits until next Thursday (the 37 week mark at which point it is legal to have a homebirth in Florida).  That is a big difference to most moms in the online message boards that I visit which are bragging about their baby “having an eviction date”.

Last Monday we had the home visit with the midwife, this means that she knows how to get to our house and won’t be accidentally knock on the neighbor’s door at 2am.  She loved my meditation bench, something I’ve had for years that allows me to meditate in the lotus position for hours while keeping good posture and preventing my butt from falling asleep.  It looks like a mini kneel cushion as seen in Catholic churches, apparently midwives can sometimes spend hours on their knees during a birth so it’s good to know that she won’t have to worry about sore knees at mine.

“If you really want a humanized birth, the best thing you can do is stay the hell out of the hospital.” – Marsden Wagner former director or the World Health Organization (Women and children’s health) and author of Born in the USA

We are thinking about printing a sign to put on the door for when I’m in labor just in case I am in the backyard and decide to get loud and somebody calls the cops thinking that somebody is dying, it would be nice if I could find a template online though, lol.

Mentally and physically I’m as ready as I’ll be, not saying I feel 100% ready but it’ll have to do (and I’m sure it WILL do).

On the house front we are not fully ready but we’re way closer.  Last week we had a baby shower hosted by MIL and SIL co-conspired with hubby, I didn’t know any details until a few days prior and it was better that way.  We got a lot of very needed items, baby is all set for clothes, bath items and we even got a nursery furniture set!  Out of town family and friends that couldn’t attend sent gifts from afar.

I feel very grateful and blessed for the generosity of family and friends, we certainly wouldn’t have been able to buy all of this on our own.

Now I feel like I’m on a time crunch to get the thank you notes done and sent before baby arrives, yet another deadline!

Now I’m in the stage of buying the last minute must haves, found a good deal on the sling I wanted online, got a changing pad for 1 of the 2 changing tables that we now have and other minor items.  Still pending… a diaper pail.

I can’t stand Diaper Genie, most diaper pails are designed for disposable diapers, I was looking into just a kitchen trash can with a step but haven’t found the right one so I’ll probably end up ordering online.

Still looking for a carrier that Daddy will like, it looks like it will be an Ergo which is on the pricey range, specially if he will use it before 4 months because we would need to buy  the infant insert.  I’d rather spend the money in the Ergo than go cheap on an Infantino or Baby Bjorn for him, heck I would use an Ergo once baby is older.

I have finished sorting through baby’s clothing just to separate the newborn and 0-3 sizes to wash those first, baby has a lot of clothes!  More than mommy, lol!

Thanks to grandma Fox the clothes have been washed and the cloth diapers are being prepped which is great for my peace of mind and also a huge savings of $ and time at $2.90 per load (wash only) if we had gone to the laundromat.

While my nesting urge involved laundry and shopping, Daddy Fox’s nesting urge involved clearing and setting up the nursery.  One day he just HAD to clear the room of anything not baby related, that same night!  So here we are in the middle of the night relocating computers, desks, etc.  not a bad thing except it happened on the same day that I was trying to get the house cleaned and organized but relocating things meant we first had to create chaos, rearrange furniture and then… we could clean, so that was annoying for me but we got past it.

Daddy Fox’s second wave of nesting entailed getting the new furniture assembled, he pulled an all nighter going to bed at close to 5am and although not completely done he made a decent amount of progress.  It’s funny how our nesting urges seem to take turns, now that he’s slow down on the nursery setup I’m starting to get itchy about getting it finished, lol.

Daddy Fox getting started on his all night project

So formula companies seem to realize that they’re dealing with a hippie and now they have started to market ORGANIC formula to me, they just don’t give up!

On other marketing news, Amazon.com seems to know that I want a camcorder to video tape everything baby because they have been sending me sales and discounts on camcorders for weeks, unfortunately I can’t splurge on such a luxury when we still have baby stuff to buy so I probably won’t be able to get one until well after maternity leave is over.

Yesterday I had my 36 week appointment with my Primary Care Physician/ Breastfeeding Specialist/ Baby’s Doctor.  As usual it was great, we (meaning I) took almost an hour of her time with a long list of questions on breastfeeding, cloth diapering, vitamin K for newborns, etc.  I’ve never before had a doctor not rush through things and take the time to give honest answers in plain English.

When she asked me how I was doing and I said “good, aside from the swelling”, she immediately offered to write me a note for work to allow me to wear non-restrictive shoes for the rest of the pregnancy.  This is welcome as right now flip flops is the only thing that doesn’t torture my swelling feet.

I did find some slippers at Wally World that feel very comfortable and although they’re not designed for work, they do look like ballerina flats from afar so I hope that upper management won’t mind, I’m sure that they’ll rather have their supervisor wearing that than flip flops.

I find it half amusing/ half annoying when several people demonstrate that they are masters of observation and state the obvious with comments like “that belly is getting bigger!” I usually smile and give a slightly sarcastic “I think it’s supposed to do that, I would worry if it was shrinking“.  I really don’t understand why people get so shocked at the bump doing what it is supposed to do.

And yes, I know that my belly has been getting bigger, I live with it 24/7, there is no way I could have missed that, I even wrote this list:

You know your baby belly is big when…

- you keep hitting it with doors, including car doors, fridge doors and cabinets, when you close or open them (ow!)
- you instinctively turn sideways to squeeze through a narrow space, only to end up more stuck
- you can use it as a table when your sitting down.
-  your maternity shirts don’t fit so well anymore
-  you knock things over with it!
- you have trouble getting in and out of a public bathroom stall…why do those doors have to swing in??
- It’s an act of congress to flip over in bed every night!
- when you have food stains in the same spot on all of your shirts
- when you drop something and debate on whether or not it’s worth it to pick it up
- you walk down the stairs and can’t see the steps below
- you bend over to tie your shoes and it sounds like you’re dying.
-  you can’t sit up straight to eat anymore, so you lean back and put the plate on your belly.
- you try to cuddle up to your hubby and kiss him and you’re still WAY too far away!
- you snap the elastic on several pre-pregnancy skirts that you were trying to wear
-  in the middle of the night you have to wake up to get momentum going in bed to flip to your other side.. then when you do and finally get comfortable again… you have to FRIGGIN PEE!!
-  you are eating and the food didn’t just fall ONTO the belly – it bounced OFF the belly and hurtled ACROSS the room at great speeds
-  you feel like a turtle on its back trying to get out of bed and your husband makes that your new nickname

On the evolution of the nesting instinct….

So at first I had no nesting urge, then it showed up in a weird way by making me want to throw away anything not baby related and go shopping for baby stuff. By now it has evolved into a must get everything baby washed, sorted and organized!

It sucks that we don’t have a washer at home or I would already be done…  that would have been a great way to satisfy the urge and deal with insomnia at the same time.  Sadly the nearest 24 hr laundromat is in Ft Pierce and hubby doesn’t care for that area during the day so he wouldn’t approve of his wife going there by herself at 2am.

The prefold cloth diapers have to be pre-washed 4-5 times to make them soft, quilted and absorbent and that would be an expensive and time consuming endeavor at the laundromat so I need to get started now if I want to be done before baby gets here.

I thought that the nesting urge would come with a surge of energy but it looks like the energy part called out sick. My brain is spinning with all it wants to do but my body is totally uncooperative, add to that the fact that we’ve had a very busy week with minimal rest and I have gotten very little accomplished.

Daddy Fox finds my nesting comments cute and amusing but has no idea to what extent it bugs me. Before I would be all “I still have a month to get it done” but now I’m feeling like I’m running out of time, like I have to HURRY! What if baby arrives next week?! I don’t have the cloth diapers ready! I don’t have a sling yet! aaahhhh! Yes, this has triggered insomnia and dreams on the topic once I do fall asleep.

On epic swelling…

Swelling has now become the most stubborn third trimester symptom. It started with me having to take my wedding band off because it didn’t fit anymore and by now it has evolved into permanent cankles and giant feet. I even had to enlist hubby’s help in removing my toe rings as they were starting to make indentations in my toes and it felt like blood circulation would soon be compromised.

This is the first time in approx 13 years that I don’t have anything shiny on my feet. The swelling has gotten so bad that I practically live in flip flops now, I can’t fit into most of my shoes anymore, not even my boots! And those that barely fit feel like medieval torture devices. I even ended up having to make an emergency shoe shopping run midweek to get elastic sneakers that I could wear to work.

I do pretty good on the drinking fluids part but I don’t have the luxury to put my feet up often. By now the swelling is such that even though it gets better after a night’s sleep, it doesn’t fully go away and I’m starting to forget what my feet used to look like.

On parenting…

People have commented on how they think that my parenting style is weird with the whole baby wearing, cloth diaper, elimination communication, etc.   it’s actually not as weird as you might think.  I have found myself identifying with the Attachment Parenting model and I have come across a lot of people that follow it as well both on the internet and locally, it is refreshing to see that I’m not the only crunchy mama in the Treasure Coast.  Obviously I’m adapting some of their principles to suit our lifestyle but it pretty much summarizes how I feel, you can see the 8 principles of attachment parenting here.

Even if I didn’t know of attachment parenting I would still wear baby, strollers have an useful place for certain scenarios but I don’t think that they should be the primary mode of baby transportation.  I find it funny that people complain about baby wearing being complicated when to me a stroller is more complicated!  I agree some slings are easier to learn than others but it’s a matter of finding what works best for you and after the initial learning curve it is easier, faster, a lot less bulky and a lot better than a baby stroller.

Another thing that some people complain about is why we have an Amazon registry, some don’t even consider it a registry and like to say that we’re not registered anywhere (wtf?).  Why would I be so “inconsiderate” and not register at Babies R Us or Target?  Various reasons, first an foremost because they simply do not sell most of the things that we need/want and I hate to be limited by a store’s inventory, I haven’t found a single store that remotely comes close to having every item that we would want.

Amazon offers an Universal Registry, meaning that we can add items from ANY online source, including handmade one of a kind items made by WAHMS, I wouldn’t be able to add Etsy items to a store registry.  Their prices are lower in general than Babies R Us and Target and most things come with free shipping if Amazon itself sells it.

We do have a handful of Babies R Us items in the registry to please those people, if you want to pick up something at the store, I can simply mark the item as purchased in the registry and Amazon doesn’t complain about it not being purchased from them (unlike Babies and Target).  So it’s not like anybody is tied to anything.

week 34- first family photo

Today we went to the beach since it’s the first time we have a common day off in a while and due to the environmental sadness we decided to take advantage of something that we have been taking for granted while it’s still available to us.  It saddens me deeply that baby Fox may not have the opportunity to enjoy the ocean right where we live.

I don’t have a maternity bathing suit and wasn’t going to waste money on something I would use once so I dug up my old bathing suits, sadly because I don’t use them often enough I only found one matched bikini set in the my drawers.  This is from 2007 and 60 pounds ago so the bottom was tighter than it should have but it got the job done.

So I now present to you, the bump- bikini edition…

week 35- belly getting tanned

We had a good time while we were there but as the sun kept rising the heat started to get to me and I had to seek shady shelter but not before we went into the water and the waves massaged the bump.

While we were in the water daddy Fox yells out “holy $hit what is that?! watch out!”, by the sound of his voice I would have thought that there was a shark right behind me.  I turned around to see this big dark mass coming up right behind me under the water so I announced “it’s just a manatee!”.  The sea cow swam over to check us out, got pretty darn close stuck its nose out of the water, turned around and swam back the way it came.  Odd. I have encountered manatees before but only in rivers,  never before in the ocean.

That’s a story that we’ll be telling baby Fox about his/her first visit to the beach…

week 35- bikini edition

We also took an Infant CPR class courtesy of a friend who does that for a living.  I hope that I never have to use what I learn but must admit that it was simpler than I feared.

Most of week 14 was spent feeling like $hit courtesy of a cold and upper respiratory tract infection. I’m mostly recovered from the yuckiness but not 100% yet, at least I’m able to go back to work. Things at work are intense, it comes with the field, every few months job security is up in the air…

Something interesting that I’ve been dealing with is the peer pressure to find out the sex of the baby. Fox and I have agreed that we won’t have an ultrasound unless there’s a medical reason for it which means that if everything is ok we won’t find out the sex until D day. But it’s amazing how friends, coworkers and even other moms in pregnancy forums are obsessed with ultrasounds and knowing.

I admit, I am mighty curious and I would prefer to buy other colors besides yellow and green but at the same time I don’t want to melt baby’s brain cells with ultrasound waves just to satisfy our vanity. I just tell myself about all of the millions of women that didn’t know what they were having until the midwife/doctor/daddy made the announcement at birth and they were just fine and it didn’t cause a shopping crisis.

I know the above statements open a whole can of worms about the supposed safety record of ultrasounds and I am not looking to debate. I hold no judgment for those that choose to have multiple ultrasounds during their pregnancies, I myself already had one early on to determine my due date and I am not opposed to getting another one if there is a medical need for it I simply choose to treat it like the medical procedure that it is and not take it as a fun and recreational “let’s see what the baby looks like this week” approach.

Enough rantings, back to updates. I’m so hormonal I cry very easily, my weak spot, animals (although surprisingly enough I am starting to develop feelings towards humans too). Last night I cried on TV over the funeral of a fictional cat, FICTIONAL! No cats had to die for the recording of this scene.

The previous night I couldn’t get through watching the second Babe movie, all of the (usually funny) challenges the characters where experiencing had me crying uncontrollably. Isn’t that fun?

And now I leave you with the bump at week 14. I start week 15 tomorrow, don’t know if there will be weekly bump pictures but we will aim for at least monthly…