Wow, I hadn't realized how long it had been since I last wrote here. My apologies! The only explanation I have to offer up for my absence is that I've been nesting like a maniac over here, not to mention the little unexpected hospital admission for contractions at almost 34 weeks (more on those in a bit), but I'm happy to say that all is well right now!
As of today, I am 35 weeks and 1 day pregnant, so we have less than 4 weeks left until we meet our baby girl. Can I tell you how excited I am?? I'm GIDDY at the thought, people. You have NO IDEA.
I think about the baby constantly. I have been driving my husband and son nuts in my quest to get her room ready for her, and to get all the essentials purchased and in place for her arrival. (Seriously, there were maybe 2 weeks there where I thought Super Man might actually go insane because I was all "we've got to get this done - we've got to get that done - NOW!") I spend hours daydreaming about what the baby will be like, I love "window shopping" online and looking at all the cute girly clothes, and I can't stop thinking about what our life will be like with her in it. Oh - and we're still obsessing over what we're going to name her (and yet we're no closer to having ONE NAME chosen). At least we've got it narrowed down to three names, so that's a start!
Before I get off on a tangent about that, let me just tell you what all I've been up to lately!
Baby Super Girl is taking Super Boy's old bedroom, which is right next to my and Super Man's bedroom, and we've moved Super Boy into what was our guest room/playroom (we've always referred to it as The Back Bedroom as it's at the back of the house, but Super Boy is now VERY quick to correct me when I call it that rather than Super Boy's Room). Super Boy is THRILLED with the new sleeping arrangements, to say the least. He has wanted The Back Bedroom as his bedroom f-o-r-e-v-e-r, and has been sleeping back there for the past few months anyway, so it was a pretty natural transition for him. Which was a HUGE relief to me and Super Man because although Super Boy is very excited for his baby sister to arrive and seems to be doing really well with the changes that have already come about in preparation for her arrival (not the least of which is my completely altered shape!), we know it will be a huge adjustment for him once she's actually HERE and it's no longer just him and us.
No, this bedroom move was met with elation on his part, so that went very smoothly. Unfortunately, given that The Back Bedroom was the spare room, its closet became the catch-all closet, where things we didn't have room for anywhere else ended up. And by things, I mean a LOT of things! Clothes, pillows, blankets, sleeping bags, Halloween costumes, duffle bags, fitness things (hand weights, medicine balls, the big exercise ball, etc.). And ALL of that had to be cleared out so I could move Super Boy's clothes and things from his old closet -- and since we needed Super Boy's old closet for the baby's things, all the crap we moved had to find a new home.
Say it with me: Uggghhhhhhhh.
So, there I was, 7-1/2 months pregnant on a step ladder, tossing things off the shelves, going through a ridiculous amount of clothing and crap, throwing some stuff in the garbage and other stuff into garbage bags for Goodwill, and finding a new home from the stuff we wanted to hold onto. It took hours, but holy smokes, did it feel good to have it DONE! The unfortunate (or is it fortunate?) thing is that I wasn't able to just work on that closet, when all was said and done, because finding new homes for what was being kept meant having to go through all the OTHER closets in the house -- the one in my and Super Man's bedroom, the closet in the hallway, and the closet in Super Girl's rarely-used room. So instead of purging and organizing just Super Boy's new closet and the baby's closet, I ended up purging and organizing ALL of our upstairs closets.
Needless to say, I got rid of a TON of stuff. Most went into the Goodwill bags, which I felt good about. But the whole process just had me shaking my head, wondering why the heck we held on to some of the stuff I was going through and sorting. We have wayyyyy too much STUFF, and I guarantee that most of it was there because one of us said to ourselves, "I'm sure I'll wear/use that again someday." Those words ought to be the kiss of death from now on. If I ever think them again, I need to find a 6-months holding area for those items and if they aren't used in that time, they're gone, no questions asked.
All in all, it took me nearly an entire day to go through all five closets upstairs, and the hall and staircase landing were full of bags by the time I was done. Needless to say, I overdid it a bit that day (ya think??), but I was on such a roll that although I intended to rest the day after, I found myself doing a little bit more purging and organizing, though not nearly to the same extent. And I did make sure I took long breaks every couple hours to rest, as I was really feeling it that second day.
Anyhoo, Super Boy's new bedroom still has a little bit to be done to make it just right (we desperately need to go through all of his toys, stuffed animals and books and PURGE), but he LOVES it and has been so excited to show it to his friends as he's had playdates the past few weeks. I think the best part of it to him is that the room has a t.v. and the Wii in it. Now, before anyone jumps down my throat and spouts research showing how awful it is to let kids have a t.v. - much less a video game system! - in their bedroom, let me just say that those things have ALWAYS been in that room because, REMEMBER, it was our guest room/play room. We contemplated moving the t.v. somewhere else and the Wii down to the living room, but then Super Boy is going to have his play dates in the living room instead of upstairs, and that level of noise and activity is not something I want to deal with!
So, instead, we set some ground rules for Super Boy that MUST be followed in order to keep the electronics in his room. First, he is allowed to watch 15 minutes of t.v. before he falls asleep at night, and I set the sleep timer on the t.v. when I say goodnight to him so I know when it will be turning off. He knows that if he resets it or turns the t.v. back on after it automatically shuts off, the t.v. is gone. And he is not to play the Wii at all before bed -- that's for after school or weekends, not evening hours. He's always been really great about following house rules and not pushing his luck, I'm sure because he knows I don't mess around and I WILL follow through on the consequences, so I fully expect this arrangement will be fine for the time being. Thankfully, Super Girl will be 18 in three more years and we will no longer feel compelled to provide her with a designated room at our house at that point, so if the situation with Super Boy changes and it's a problem for him to have the t.v./Wii in his room, we can move it to the new spare room at that point.
Now let me tell you about the baby's room! :)
I never in a million years thought I'd be the mom who would want a pink bedroom with pink things in it if I had a daughter. And yet, lo and behold, that is apparently EXACTLY the mom I am.
We originally planned to keep the bedroom painted the way it was as Super Boy's nursery, as it was done in a relatively neutral animal theme and the crib bedding we used with Super Boy and planned to use again was Pottery Barn Kids Animals bedding (2003). Well, it didn't take long for me to conclude that I just wasn't digging that plan, and I felt compelled to make the room girlier. And making it girlier meant painting it pink. Not just one shade of pink, but two shades of pink.
Extra pink.
Thankfully, Super Man didn't fight me on my compulsion. In fact, he went along with it quite willingly. So we picked out two complementary shades of pink that, surprisingly, we agreed on without any debate - one medium/deep pink and one pale/medium pink - and Super Man promptly painted the room.
Once the room was painted, however, I came to the conclusion that the animals crib bedding was no longer going to work in the room, as there is no PINK in the animals bedding. Of course, that's when Super Man decided to disagree and insist that we reuse Super Boy's bedding!
But I (being the clever mommy-to-be that I am) had a plan: I had just gotten some belated Christmas and birthday money from my in-laws, so I decided to use some of that to get a new crib bumper and a few new sheets that were girlier. And then, as luck would have it, my mom called my cell phone while I was ON MY WAY to buy the new crib bumper and sheets, and in the course of our conversation she asked if we were using the same bedding we had for Super Boy. I explained the situation and before I could even say that I was going to buy a new bumper and sheets myself, she offered to buy a new bedding set as a (yet another) baby gift for her granddaughter. I accepted her offer, but declined to get a whole new SET because although I loved the set we had for Super Boy, we only used the toddler quilt for a very short time with him and it was mostly just for decoration despite being the most expensive piece of the set, so I really didn't want to spend the money on an entirely new set. I was able to get a new bumper and sheets for ~$60, as compared to $150 on a whole new set, but I got exactly what I wanted, and was so excited to put it in the baby's room! (Thanks again, Mom!!)
That same week, after scouring Craigslist every few days in search of an old, tall dresser for the baby's room, I found the PERFECT one: it was $30 and the size was just what I had in mind. So that weekend we went and picked it up, and Super Man gave it a fresh coat of white paint the next weekend. I was thrilled to be able to clean and line the drawers and get all of the baby's 0-6 month clothes put away in it (I'd already hung the hangable stuff in the closet earlier in the week). And Super Boy helped me set-up the crib while Super Man was painting the dresser, so it felt like the whole room came together in a day but for wall decorations, which I finished the week after.
We had already decided to do vinyl wall decals this time as opposed to having Super Man paint a mural or murals again. And, thankfully, we once again were able to agree on a set of decals pretty quickly, which Super Boy helped us put up one Sunday afternoon! The set has owls, birds, a tree and branches, flowers, and a few other animals, and there were enough that we were able to do one main arrangement right by the baby's crib and several smaller ones elsewhere in the room.
In addition to the decals, I decided to finally try my hand at making some mixed-media art on canvas, something I've thought about doing for quite a while but was never confident enough to try - until now. I made two smaller canvases with birds on them and one larger canvas with an owl, and they turned out beautifully! I painted the canvases with acrylic paint, let them dry, and then using my ridiculous stash of scrapbooking paper and some templates I found online, I made multi-patterned/colored birds and the owl and Modge-Podged them onto the canvases and then Modge-Podged the canvases in their entirety to give them a little sheen. I had a few "uh-oh" moments along the way (1. I had planned to use some felt on the bird canvases but after sponge-painting the Modge-Podge on the felt and seeing the effect - can you say "ruined?" - I quickly pulled the felt off and replaced it with a different scrapbooking paper, and 2. I thought I could ink stamp the owl canvas, let it dry for nearly 2 days and then Modge-Podge it, but the Modge-Podge smeared the ink, so I had to finish the picture, let it dry, and THEN ink stamp the canvas), but the end results are awesome. To finish them for hanging, I just hot-glued ribbons to the back. Gorgeous, simple, low-cost and made with love - doesn't get much better than that!
Anyway, the baby's room is so sweet, I can't even tell you. I love the pink. I love the white crib and white dresser against the pink walls. I love the pretty pink crib bumper and sheet. I love the gorgeous stuffed birds and owls I found and purchased on Etsy.com to go with her room. I love the artwork I made for the room. It's all beautiful, and it's all ready and waiting for her to get here!
Now, about the unplanned hospitalization...
Wow, that was scary! It was last Monday; I wasn't quite 34 weeks yet (two days shy), and I was doing nothing that should've triggered labor. The day it happened, I had literally spent the entire morning working on the owl canvas, sitting at my kitchen island. I wasn't cleaning, lifting, doing laundry, climbing stairs excessively or anything of the sort - it was actually a pretty relaxing, low-key day. Around lunchtime, I used the bathroom and came out to start making my lunch when all of a sudden I had a terrible pain in my lower abdomen. Thinking maybe I had to go #2 (sorry for the TMI!), I went back to the bathroom, but nothing was coming. That said, it did look as though I'd lost a bit of my mucus plug (again, sorry for the TMI), and that made me nervous. I came back out and continued making my lunch, only to realize that the sharp pains were coming with some frequency and consistency. Still, I tried to stay calm, drink my water, eat my lunch and sit quietly. It wasn't getting any better, so I went upstairs, grabbed the phone and lay down on my side on our bed, praying that the contractions would go away. I called Super Man first.
SW: "Hey, baby - it's me. Um... can you come home?"
SM: "Uh... what's going on? Everything okay?"
SW: "Well, maybe. I'm not sure. I'm having contractions, and they hurt. Bad. I really think it would be a good idea for you to get home, just in case." (side note: Super Man works an hour away from where we live.)
SM: "Really? Have you called your doctor yet??"
SW: "No - I wanted to call you first and have you get on the road, and I'll be calling her next. Whether she wants to see me in her office or not, I think it's smart for you to plan to be at home in case I have to go in somewhere later on. Can you just come home?"
SM: "Well, yeah, I should be able to. Let me start wrapping things up here, but you call Dr. ____ and call me back, ok?"
I called my OB's office next and explained what was happening. They didn't put me through to the nurse right away but said they'd take my number and have the nurse call me back. I waited. And waited.
Thankfully, I spent enough time lying on my side waiting to get a call back that the contractions seemed to be easing up a bit, and since I had not yet showered that day, I decided to take a really quick, warm shower in the hopes that that might also calm the contractions down. I put the phone right next to the shower and took a quickie shower. The doctor's office still had not called me back.
The contractions, while still coming, were less intense and seemed less frequent, so I was a bit calmer, but I also realized that I had to pick up Super Boy from school in about 45 minutes, so the clock was ticking.
As I was getting dressed and drying my hair, the nurse finally called me back. We talked a bit and I told her I was nervous because this round of contractions were more painful than the bout I had at 27 weeks. That said, the last round was triggered by a UTI, and I had been on the fence wondering if I had another one, so we ultimately decided that I should go in to their office to do a urine test to check for a UTI, and then depending on what the urinalysis showed, Dr. ____ may or may not see me.
I called Super Man back and told him that I was picking up Super Boy and heading to the doctor's office and that he should just meet us there. It all worked out great timing-wise, and thank God I did ask Super Man to come home because the contractions were getting worse as I was driving with Super Boy to the doctor's office.
My urinalysis didn't show any sign of infection, so they said they'd culture it (since it took a culture to diagnose it last time) but would not give me antibiotics for it until they knew for sure. The urine DID, however, show that I was rather dehydrated, no doubt as a result of the on and off diarrhea I'd had all weekend. And dehydration can definitely trigger contractions. The doctor was able to see me, as I wanted her to check my cervix. Thankfully, it was still tightly closed, but I was really in a lot of pain then, to the point of tears, so she hooked me up to the fetal monitor to see what was going on with the contractions. They were coming about every 4 minutes and lasting up to a minute, and they weren't letting up. So the doctor sent me next door to the hospital to Labor & Delivery to get some IV fluids, hoping that rehydrating me would stop the contractions.
Again, thank God Super Man was there. I looked at the clock as I was wheeled over to L&D and it was about 5:30pm, which meant Super Man had to get dinner for Super Boy and make sure he got homework done, not to mention run home and let our dog out and feed her. In the meantime, I was admitted, told to put a gown on, and hooked up to the fetal monitor and an IV to get the first liter of fluids. The monitor was showing my contractions were coming every 2-4 minutes (which I could definitely feel at that point - the pain was worse than ever), but still lasting 45-60 seconds each. When the first liter of fluids failed to stop the contractions, the nurse called my doctor and was told to give me another liter of fluids and terbutaline shots to try to stop the contractions. I had the first shot, and although I felt MUCH better almost immediately, the monitor was still picking up mild contractions, so I had another shot 20 minutes later to completely knock them out. I had to wait until the second liter of fluids was empty and until I'd had 30 minutes without any contractions being picked up by the monitor to be released, which happened around 10pm. My doctor didn't put me on bed rest, as she fully believed that whole situation was due to the dehydration and I wasn't dilating, but she insisted that I take it very easy going forward.
We were all exhausted by the events of that evening, physically and mentally. God bless them, Super Man and especially Super Boy were both very calm and reassuring through the whole ordeal seeing how upset I was, but I know it was hard for them, too. It was definitely at the forefront of my mind that having the baby that early could've been really bad. Yes, babies usually survive when born at ~34 weeks, but they're more likely to have problems. I know that to be considered "term" we need to get to 37 weeks at least, so I was immensely relieved that they were able to stop my contractions, get me rehydrated and send me home. I am now DETERMINED to stay properly hydrated at all costs, diarrhea or not, and have been taking it extremely easy since that day to make sure I don't trigger another episode.
As it turns out, I had another - worse - episode of diarrhea this past Sunday night/Monday morning that left me feeling nauseous, but I forced myself to drink tons of Gatorade and water anyway, and thankfully nothing came of it contraction-wise. But then I was nervous because I was also summoned for my first jury duty EVER and was to do it yesterday/today, and I was praying the diarrhea would resolve well before then so I could just go and get it over with. Thankfully it did, so I was able to report for duty yesterday. And even MORE thankfully, I was dismissed at around Noon yesterday and told I didn't have to report back today!
Anyway, we aren't sure what's causing all my diarrhea, and that's a bit of a concern to ME at least, because it's really uncomfortable and I don't like that it could send me back into contractions. I also think it's odd because I was SO ridiculously constipated for most of this pregnancy and now all of a sudden I'm on the complete opposite end of the spectrum. I have NO normal BMs - I either can't go at all or I'm going like a goose. That can't be right!!
Still, I had my 34 week check-up last Friday and everything looked good, and I'll have my 36 week appointment next Friday, where she'll be checking my cervix again. And other than the diarrhea episode, I have been feeling mostly pretty good since the hospitalization, so that's a good thing. I have less than 2 weeks to get through before I could safely have the baby and feel okay about it, and I have less than 4 weeks until my scheduled C-section, if the baby stays put that long!
I look back at all the time it's taken us to get here. Not just the past 8 months of pregnancy, but the miscarriage I endured last May, the year of seeing our fertility specialists, and the three and a half years of trying for another baby without success on our own prior to that. March of 2011 marked 5 years since we began our journey; that sort of takes my breath away when I think about it. I was just 32 at the beginning of all of this, and Super Man was only 40. I still can't believe that it took us this long, but I am so, so immeasurably grateful that we are finally here, in the final weeks of this pregnancy, waiting to meet the final member of our family. Every moment, even the worst of them like the days and weeks following the miscarriage, of the past 5 years has been worthwhile because each one brought us one step closer to where we are now and has made us that much more appreciative of being here.
For all reading this who are still waiting for their miracle, stay strong. I know that not everyone will get their dream come true, as medicine and science can only do so much, but for those who have not yet exhausted all their options, don't lose hope, don't lose faith, and keep believing that the journey isn't over until it's over. As often as I doubted things along our journey, there was always that part of me that believed we weren't done yet, and I'm so grateful that part wouldn't let me give up. I continue to pray constantly for others who are going through all forms of infertility, always.
SW
