I've reached that point in this pregnancy where I am starting to spend ridiculous amounts of time lost in delicious daydreams, picturing what my baby girl is going to look like, what her personality will be like, what it will be like to have her in our daily lives, in our home, in our family. It's sublime.
I will admit that when I picture her, I picture her looking a lot like Super Boy only more feminine. Similar faces and features (especially the eyes and thick, dark eyelashes and the beautiful rosy lips), with similar hair color and curl like Super Boy's, but I picture her hair longer. I picture her build being more slender though, more like I was as a baby/toddler/kid. I try to imagine what her smile will be like, and her voice, and her laugh. How her little fingers will look in my hand, and the shape of her little feet. I'm obsessed, and she's not even here yet!
I'm sure it's due in part to the fact that other friends who were also pregnant have had their baby girls recently, and seeing the pictures of their yummy newborns is akin to torture for an impatient mama like me. I find myself absorbing every detail of their beautiful babies, from the downy hair to the peach-like skin, the itty bitty fingers and toes, the little button noses. I'm so thrilled for my friends to finally be holding their babies in their arms, but I've gotta say that my arms are itching to hold my baby girl, and that's a tough kind of impatience to endure.
Granted, our baby isn't quite ready for her to make her grand entrance yet. She still has several weeks of gestating to do to get big, strong and healthy and I would never want to jeopardize that. I want her to be fully-cooked when she joins us, for sure.
And, frankly, we're not quite ready for her arrival yet either! I'm still struggling to decide where to put her upon her arrival, for starters. Our house is laid out such that our bedroom is at the front of the house, Super Boy's room is right next to ours (we can literally see most of his room while laying in our bed), Super Girl's room is slightly down the hall, and then our guest room/play room is at the other end of the hallway, right next to the bathroom. The long-term plan is to move Super Boy to the guest room/play room and put the baby in his room, but the question we're struggling with is whether to do that right away or not.
The argument for NOT doing it right away is this: I'm a SAHM, but Super Man has to go to work Monday through Friday, and with me planning on breastfeeding again, there's not much reason for Super Man to have to get up during the night. So if we put the baby in Super Boy's room right away, not only will Super Man hear the baby when she cries to be fed at night, but I'll be in and out of our bed and our bedroom every few hours to feed her. Super Man is usually a pretty deep sleeper, but not always, and once he's awake, he usually can't go back to sleep.
So the alternate plan was for Super Boy to stay in his room for the first few months after the baby comes and for the baby and I to set-up shop in the guest bedroom, since it's at the opposite end of the house from both my & Super Man's room and Super Boy's room, so they'd be less likely to be woken up by her crying and I'd be right there with her for feedings. If she's anything like Super Boy was, she'll be sleeping at least 6 hours by 10-12 weeks, so the bedroom changes should be able to be done by the end of the summer at the latest. There's just a few problems with the plan though.
First off, Super Boy has been spending most nights in the back bedroom for the past few months because he LOVES sleeping back there, and he's not crazy about having to go back to sleeping in his bed once the baby comes -- he wants to make the guest bedroom his new bedroom NOW. And I don't blame him. It's a great room, with windows on all sides, not to mention that there's a t.v. back there! (For any critics, Super Boy is only allowed to have the sleep timer on the t.v. for 15 minutes before bed and then it's lights out.)
Secondly, my nesting instincts are kicking in BIG TIME, and I'm having a super hard time NOT getting the baby's room ready. And what I mean by that is that we plan to paint Super Boy's room before it becomes Baby Super Girl's room, and there will undoubtedly be some minor decorating changes in there, and the thought of having to wait until the baby is 2-3 months old to make those changes is driving me batty. I LOVE the idea of sleeping in the back bedroom with her for the first several weeks for the convenience and to let the rest of the household sleep, and for the summer breeze from all those windows, but I want to have a finished bedroom for her sooner rather than later. I want to be able to put her clothes away (once) and just have a space that is all hers.
You might say, "well, why not just make the guest bedroom her bedroom?" That would be bad. Bad because that room is farthest from our bedroom, bad because it's a big bedroom and would be mostly wasted space as her bedroom for the next few years, and bad because Super Boy REALLY wants it to be HIS bedroom and I want this transition to be as smooth as possible for him, since he's been my only child for nearly 8 years and while he is thrilled about his baby sister coming, I know he's got some reservations about not being my only baby anymore. The more we can do to help him view the coming changes as positive, the better it will be all around.
Aside from that situation, we still don't have some of the things we "need" for the baby. As far as I know, there isn't going to be a baby shower this time around, so we're trying to spread out the necessary purchases a bit so as not to go broke all at once! I've been trying to borrow as much as I can, and to find gently used things as cheaply as possible through eBay, Craigslist, etc., but there are just some things that are going to have to be purchased. I have my list, I keep an eye on the sales and wait for coupons, and I buy them as I can. I'm sure we'll be ready to roll by May, but it still makes me a little anxious that we're not fully locked and loaded now.
In the meantime, I'm trying to allot more time in my days for just sitting and thinking about the new baby and how her arrival will change our lives in great and wonderful ways. I can't wait. :)
Yours,
SW
Sunday, March 6, 2011
Thursday, March 3, 2011
10 to go...!!
I hadn't realized how long it's been since I last updated on the pregnancy, so my apologies if anyone has been waiting for an update. That said, I'm officially 29 weeks and 1 day pregnant, and since we're planning a scheduled C-section for May 11, 2011, that means that we have 10 weeks AT MOST before we get to meet our baby girl!
I can't even begin to tell you how excited and eager I am to meet her. I'm not a patient person by nature (in case that hasn't been READILY apparent), so waiting for May to roll around is hard. But I want the baby to keep on growing in my belly until she's ready to come out, so hopefully she stays put for at least another 8 weeks.
Speaking of that, I had another little scare the other week. I didn't pass out again (thank God!), but there was a Thursday evening two weeks ago when I spent the night almost entirely wide awake having contractions. I was only 27 weeks at that time, so needless to say, I was freaking out. They weren't painful contractions and were probably Braxton-Hicks, but it's been so long since I last had them (with Super Boy) that I really couldn't remember what they were supposed to feel like. I managed to wait until 6am to have my OB paged, and after talking to her, she wanted me to come in to her office that morning so she could check my urine and see what was going on. Of course, by the time I got to her office, I was no longer contracting and felt fine (albeit exhausted!). Still, she checked my urine, my blood pressure, and the baby's heartbeat. My urine test was iffy for a UTI, so she wanted to culture it, but she gave me 3 days of antibiotics to get through the weekend on the assumption that that was the culprit, as I guess UTI's can trigger Braxton-Hicks contractions. My BP was totally fine, and the baby's heartbeat was strong and I could feel her moving, so she chalked it all up to the suspected UTI and told me to take it easy for a few days. But... she didn't check my cervix, and that made me nervous.
As the next several days went by, I took it easy and followed doctor's orders to the letter. Super Man and Super Boy took excellent care of me, and of the dog, and of the house while I stayed off my feet and stayed hydrated. The antibiotics had me feeling much better within a few days, and the culture came back Monday confirming the UTI, so my OB extended my antibiotic another few days. But I was still nervous about what effect the contractions might've had on my cervix, coupled with the fact that I seemed to have more discharge and I was worried it might be amniotic fluid. I toughed it out until Thursday, but it was really bothering & troubling me, so I made another appointment for Friday to have her check my cervix and swab for amniotic fluid. Thankfully, my cervix is still tightly closed (amen!) and the swab was incredibly clean - no amniotic fluid, no yeast (usually after a week of antibiotics I end up with a yeast infection), and not a lot of other stuff either. I was so relieved, I can't even tell you.
That's the thing with this pregnancy: After all the years we tried for this baby, and after miscarrying out of the blue last spring, I am SO PARANOID whenever anything unusual happens now. I know that's not a GOOD thing -- my stress level affects the baby. But I can't seem to shut my mind off once something starts troubling me, especially if it's a physical thing that's bothering me. My OB has been so cool and awesome about the whole thing though that I now feel much more comfortable just going with my instinct to call her and/or come in to get checked out when I'm really nervous about a new symptom or pain or whatever. Bottom line: I'd rather be safe than sorry. If getting checked out will put my mind at ease and let me relax, better for both me and the baby. And I'd rather find out for sure sooner than later if anything IS wrong.
Anyway, I'm glad to be in the home stretch of the pregnancy: the Third Trimester! In just over 2 months, we will have our baby girl with us. She will have a name (finally!), she will be sleeping under the same roof as us, she will be wearing all the sweet little clothes I've been readying for her arrival, burning through the diapers I've been buying, and making our family complete.
I cannot wait to meet her.
Thanks to all for the well wishes and prayers all along the way. We are so grateful and feel so blessed to be where we are right now, and I know all the positive thoughts and prayers have helped to get us here. So, THANK YOU. :)
Much love,
SW
I can't even begin to tell you how excited and eager I am to meet her. I'm not a patient person by nature (in case that hasn't been READILY apparent), so waiting for May to roll around is hard. But I want the baby to keep on growing in my belly until she's ready to come out, so hopefully she stays put for at least another 8 weeks.
Speaking of that, I had another little scare the other week. I didn't pass out again (thank God!), but there was a Thursday evening two weeks ago when I spent the night almost entirely wide awake having contractions. I was only 27 weeks at that time, so needless to say, I was freaking out. They weren't painful contractions and were probably Braxton-Hicks, but it's been so long since I last had them (with Super Boy) that I really couldn't remember what they were supposed to feel like. I managed to wait until 6am to have my OB paged, and after talking to her, she wanted me to come in to her office that morning so she could check my urine and see what was going on. Of course, by the time I got to her office, I was no longer contracting and felt fine (albeit exhausted!). Still, she checked my urine, my blood pressure, and the baby's heartbeat. My urine test was iffy for a UTI, so she wanted to culture it, but she gave me 3 days of antibiotics to get through the weekend on the assumption that that was the culprit, as I guess UTI's can trigger Braxton-Hicks contractions. My BP was totally fine, and the baby's heartbeat was strong and I could feel her moving, so she chalked it all up to the suspected UTI and told me to take it easy for a few days. But... she didn't check my cervix, and that made me nervous.
As the next several days went by, I took it easy and followed doctor's orders to the letter. Super Man and Super Boy took excellent care of me, and of the dog, and of the house while I stayed off my feet and stayed hydrated. The antibiotics had me feeling much better within a few days, and the culture came back Monday confirming the UTI, so my OB extended my antibiotic another few days. But I was still nervous about what effect the contractions might've had on my cervix, coupled with the fact that I seemed to have more discharge and I was worried it might be amniotic fluid. I toughed it out until Thursday, but it was really bothering & troubling me, so I made another appointment for Friday to have her check my cervix and swab for amniotic fluid. Thankfully, my cervix is still tightly closed (amen!) and the swab was incredibly clean - no amniotic fluid, no yeast (usually after a week of antibiotics I end up with a yeast infection), and not a lot of other stuff either. I was so relieved, I can't even tell you.
That's the thing with this pregnancy: After all the years we tried for this baby, and after miscarrying out of the blue last spring, I am SO PARANOID whenever anything unusual happens now. I know that's not a GOOD thing -- my stress level affects the baby. But I can't seem to shut my mind off once something starts troubling me, especially if it's a physical thing that's bothering me. My OB has been so cool and awesome about the whole thing though that I now feel much more comfortable just going with my instinct to call her and/or come in to get checked out when I'm really nervous about a new symptom or pain or whatever. Bottom line: I'd rather be safe than sorry. If getting checked out will put my mind at ease and let me relax, better for both me and the baby. And I'd rather find out for sure sooner than later if anything IS wrong.
Anyway, I'm glad to be in the home stretch of the pregnancy: the Third Trimester! In just over 2 months, we will have our baby girl with us. She will have a name (finally!), she will be sleeping under the same roof as us, she will be wearing all the sweet little clothes I've been readying for her arrival, burning through the diapers I've been buying, and making our family complete.
I cannot wait to meet her.
Thanks to all for the well wishes and prayers all along the way. We are so grateful and feel so blessed to be where we are right now, and I know all the positive thoughts and prayers have helped to get us here. So, THANK YOU. :)
Much love,
SW
Wednesday, March 2, 2011
an answer to a question
One of my new readers, Theresa, posted a comment on my last blog post, and in her comment she asked why we had ultimately decided that adoption wasn't for us as we went through our journey to a second child together. Frankly, I was surprised to find that I hadn't ever really addressed that along the way here, because we did talk about and consider it in weighing all of our options, but apparently I never did get around to addressing that. Which is why I will address it now, in answer to Theresa's question. (Thanks, Theresa!)
Super Man and I never imagined it would take us forever and a day to conceive the second child we always wanted together. When the first year of trying to conceive passed with no pregnancy to speak of, we started to talk about all the "what ifs" and "what would we dos" if our efforts on our own continued to be unsuccessful. It was never a situation where we had one conversation and laid out the master plan at the end of it and said "it's this or nothing!" It was a long, drawn-out conversation that led to a loose plan that changed a bit here and there as circumstances changed.
Some things to consider before I answer the question:
-- From the time I met Super Man in 1998, he already had a child from his first marriage, Super Girl. She was 7 when Super Boy was born and 10 when we started trying for a second baby together. Super Man pays child support for Super Girl (now 15) in addition to being the sole bread-winner in our family.
-- Super Man and I were already blessed with one child together, Super Boy. He was 3 when we started trying for a second baby together, and is almost 8 now (will turn 8 right after our baby girl is born).
-- I was working full-time when we first started trying for another baby, but dropped to part-time in the second year of trying to conceive, and then left my job entirely to be a stay-at-home mom by the third year of trying to conceive. This left us with a reduced second income for a year and then NO second income for the 3 years since. Our financial situation today is way different than it was in 2006 when we started trying for this baby.
-- I was 32 and Super Man was 40 when we started trying for a second baby; I am now 37 and Super Man will turn 45 in two weeks.
And now, to answer the question!
Yes, we considered adoption. We know others who have their children and their families solely because of adoption. We have nothing against adoption. For us, however, it just never seemed like the right or practical option.
Our main reason for choosing not to pursue adoption is that it is expensive, regardless of whether you adopt stateside or internationally. From what I've heard, it's more on par with in vitro than anything else, and can be way more costly than in vitro. And so, once we decided that in vitro was outside of our financial capabilities (or at least outside of the financial risk we were willing to take, given that there's no guarantee that in vitro will result in a baby), that pretty much took adoption off the table, too.
We've heard horror stories of international adoptions that ended up being WAY more costly than expected because of corruption within the foreign governments, and unexpected delays and added trips overseas and additional legal expenditures to clear them up. And we know personally of a situation with a U.S. adoption where one of the birth parents suddenly decided to challenge the adoption, adding tens of thousands in legal costs to the adoptive parents' bill to fight back (which, fortunately, they could afford). Thankfully, they won their court battle. My point is, just like we had no guarantee of getting a baby from in vitro, we felt that we had no guarantee of getting a baby through adoption with our financial resources being limited, because of all the unknowns that can arise unexpectedly along the way. For us, it wasn't worth the financial risk to end up empty-handed, just as we felt in vitro wasn't worth the financial risk to end up empty-handed.
That might sound too cold or unemotional to some, but believe me, it was not a decision arrived at lightly. The bottom line, however, is that we have an obligation and a responsibility to the children we already DO have not to jeopardize our ability to provide for them solely because we wanted to have another child.
Aside from the financial concerns, it was the emotional risk involved in adoption that turned us off. Anyone who knows me personally knows that I'm not one who can keep intensely emotional experiences at arms' length. No; with me, once I've given my heart over to something, I'm ALL IN. If we had found a good match to adopt a baby and started that process and then the birth parent(s) changed their mind or something happened to keep it from going forward, I would've been utterly devastated. It's just not something we wanted to risk going through.
And then there's the fact that part of my desire to have another child was to experience pregnancy again one last time. I LOVED being pregnant with Super Boy; it was one of the best experiences of my life, and certainly the most moving and life-changing. I personally couldn't see foregoing that part of having another child. As for Super Man, he comes from a long line of very traditional Italians, who take great pride in their heritage. He didn't know how he'd feel to adopt a child that wasn't biologically, genetically his given that his other two children are.
If we didn't have Super Girl and Super Boy, and if we had found out that our fertility problems were due to something specific that couldn't be fixed, I suspect that we'd both feel very differently about adoption and would've been more willing to pursue it. But since that was not our situation, we were able to look at and then conclude that it just wasn't the right fit for us.
All of that aside, I think adoption is a wonderful option for many and I would never discourage anyone from considering it. In fact, I'd encourage anyone going through fertility struggles to at least spend some time looking into it and talking to others who have experience with it. In the end, however, it boils down to each couple's circumstances and personal feelings about the positives and negatives of adoption and what they're willing to risk.
Thanks again to Theresa for asking that question and opening up a new area of discussion. If any of you ever have questions about our experience, please don't hesitate to ask - I'm happy to answer them!
Be well,
SW
Super Man and I never imagined it would take us forever and a day to conceive the second child we always wanted together. When the first year of trying to conceive passed with no pregnancy to speak of, we started to talk about all the "what ifs" and "what would we dos" if our efforts on our own continued to be unsuccessful. It was never a situation where we had one conversation and laid out the master plan at the end of it and said "it's this or nothing!" It was a long, drawn-out conversation that led to a loose plan that changed a bit here and there as circumstances changed.
Some things to consider before I answer the question:
-- From the time I met Super Man in 1998, he already had a child from his first marriage, Super Girl. She was 7 when Super Boy was born and 10 when we started trying for a second baby together. Super Man pays child support for Super Girl (now 15) in addition to being the sole bread-winner in our family.
-- Super Man and I were already blessed with one child together, Super Boy. He was 3 when we started trying for a second baby together, and is almost 8 now (will turn 8 right after our baby girl is born).
-- I was working full-time when we first started trying for another baby, but dropped to part-time in the second year of trying to conceive, and then left my job entirely to be a stay-at-home mom by the third year of trying to conceive. This left us with a reduced second income for a year and then NO second income for the 3 years since. Our financial situation today is way different than it was in 2006 when we started trying for this baby.
-- I was 32 and Super Man was 40 when we started trying for a second baby; I am now 37 and Super Man will turn 45 in two weeks.
And now, to answer the question!
Yes, we considered adoption. We know others who have their children and their families solely because of adoption. We have nothing against adoption. For us, however, it just never seemed like the right or practical option.
Our main reason for choosing not to pursue adoption is that it is expensive, regardless of whether you adopt stateside or internationally. From what I've heard, it's more on par with in vitro than anything else, and can be way more costly than in vitro. And so, once we decided that in vitro was outside of our financial capabilities (or at least outside of the financial risk we were willing to take, given that there's no guarantee that in vitro will result in a baby), that pretty much took adoption off the table, too.
We've heard horror stories of international adoptions that ended up being WAY more costly than expected because of corruption within the foreign governments, and unexpected delays and added trips overseas and additional legal expenditures to clear them up. And we know personally of a situation with a U.S. adoption where one of the birth parents suddenly decided to challenge the adoption, adding tens of thousands in legal costs to the adoptive parents' bill to fight back (which, fortunately, they could afford). Thankfully, they won their court battle. My point is, just like we had no guarantee of getting a baby from in vitro, we felt that we had no guarantee of getting a baby through adoption with our financial resources being limited, because of all the unknowns that can arise unexpectedly along the way. For us, it wasn't worth the financial risk to end up empty-handed, just as we felt in vitro wasn't worth the financial risk to end up empty-handed.
That might sound too cold or unemotional to some, but believe me, it was not a decision arrived at lightly. The bottom line, however, is that we have an obligation and a responsibility to the children we already DO have not to jeopardize our ability to provide for them solely because we wanted to have another child.
Aside from the financial concerns, it was the emotional risk involved in adoption that turned us off. Anyone who knows me personally knows that I'm not one who can keep intensely emotional experiences at arms' length. No; with me, once I've given my heart over to something, I'm ALL IN. If we had found a good match to adopt a baby and started that process and then the birth parent(s) changed their mind or something happened to keep it from going forward, I would've been utterly devastated. It's just not something we wanted to risk going through.
And then there's the fact that part of my desire to have another child was to experience pregnancy again one last time. I LOVED being pregnant with Super Boy; it was one of the best experiences of my life, and certainly the most moving and life-changing. I personally couldn't see foregoing that part of having another child. As for Super Man, he comes from a long line of very traditional Italians, who take great pride in their heritage. He didn't know how he'd feel to adopt a child that wasn't biologically, genetically his given that his other two children are.
If we didn't have Super Girl and Super Boy, and if we had found out that our fertility problems were due to something specific that couldn't be fixed, I suspect that we'd both feel very differently about adoption and would've been more willing to pursue it. But since that was not our situation, we were able to look at and then conclude that it just wasn't the right fit for us.
All of that aside, I think adoption is a wonderful option for many and I would never discourage anyone from considering it. In fact, I'd encourage anyone going through fertility struggles to at least spend some time looking into it and talking to others who have experience with it. In the end, however, it boils down to each couple's circumstances and personal feelings about the positives and negatives of adoption and what they're willing to risk.
Thanks again to Theresa for asking that question and opening up a new area of discussion. If any of you ever have questions about our experience, please don't hesitate to ask - I'm happy to answer them!
Be well,
SW
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