After Math

C-day countdown: 9

Yesterday I went into the Hospital so the Dr’s could attempt an External Version to get BB head down for birth. It didn’t work so I am now scheduled for a C-section on Nov 12. This is something I didn't want, but I have no choice now, so I am looking at the perks for it. Many women have sent me messages helping with this, so I am accepting this is what will happen and making the best of it.
Yesterday was an experience. They gave me a choice of having an epidural or not. There was part of me that wanted to test how tough I was, but I decided that there was a better chance of them being able to turn BB if they didn’t have to worry about my discomfort too. Also, I would be more relaxed if I wasn’t in pain, giving them a better chance of turning her. The epidural was a little off though or something because my left side was so numb I couldn’t even move my leg, but the other side wasn’t really getting any medication. They turned me and adjusted my epidural and got me numb enough to proceed. Meanwhile they had also kept pumping in medication. My left leg was so numb that when I would accidentally bump it with my hand or something I thought it belonged to someone else for a micro second. I was also really groggy too. I didn’t really think an epidural was supposed to do that, but maybe it was they put so much medicine in me trying to get my right side to numb.
Anyway, they covered my belly in goo and monitored BB while they gave some mighty pushed on my belly. I just remember concentrating on relaxing and letting them work. There was a little pain on my right side, but easily bearable. Wes said all the pushing didn’t look comfortable. BB was getting stressed though and they couldn’t get her to turn so they stopped before they hurt her. So the bad news was that they couldn’t turn her. The good news is that the attempt did not result in the spontaneous eruption of BB or emergency C-section.
I was doing fine after the medication wore off, but once I got home, I wasn’t feeling so great. It honestly felt like a hangover and that is likely what was wrong. They put a lot of medication in me, maybe more than I needed. That and I forgot I had skipped my daily dose of caffeine. Oddly enough the most pain I had during the whole procedure was the shot they gave me in the arm and the removal of the IV. Even now, though my belly is a little tender, the most residual pain is on my back where they inserted the epidural. Funny.
BB has been moving around like normal since then, so it’s just proof that if you push this little girl around she’ll stand her ground and bounce back. Go BB!
So now that I have a day to countdown to, I guess I should prioritize the important activities before then. Like shopping and lunching with friends…errr…I mean revising the birth plan and vacuuming the car. :)

Baby Room Ready - ish

So here it is... the baby room is as clean as it will probably ever be. From here on out will be chaos!

Just Flip It

Days to Due Date: 22

BB is upside down, that is to say her head is up and it should be down. I have known this for about a month, but I have really been hoping that she would do a few flips and get into position. Today was the moment of truth and she hasn’t moved. Her head is still lodged up under my diaphragm which makes breathing difficult and her feet are standing on my bladder which makes me spend most of my day in the bathroom. The combination is especially dangerous when I sneeze. Sneezing causes a chain reaction which only sheer determination prevents from resulting in peed pants.

So what does this all mean? Well, for delivery BB should be head down, otherwise it is known as a breech birth. Breech births can be dangerous and most hospitals won’t allow them to happen. Instead they schedule a C-section. I am not quite to that place yet, but next week, if BB hasn’t turned, they are going to attempt an External Version. This is where they physically try to turn the baby from the outside. I am worried about this because it can be quite uncomfortable for me, can result in spontaneous eruption of baby or an emergency C-section. I hope that she heads south over the weekend, making the procedure unnecessary. If I can’t have that I hope that the procedure works and BB stays where she’s put. The thing I am really dreading is having a C-section. There are many medical reasons that I dread a C-section, but the most prominent reason is that I won’t get to see BB for several hours after she is born and that just makes me so sad. I am trying to convince myself to consider those hours as part of the birth process, but I want to see her and hold her and all these other people in the world will see her before I do.

So as I consider all these possibilities of where this next week will lead, I have to remind myself that I have had a relatively easy pregnancy…well, as easy as pregnancy can get. I have to remind myself that instead of thinking that maybe I will have 3 fewer weeks to prepare for BB, I have may 3 fewer weeks of pregnancy and all the discomforts.

Tomorrow is my last day at my job at the Norfolk Botanical Garden. It has been a great place to work and I will miss it and I will miss the people. I know it will some time before I stop worrying about what is happening there and about the classes. There is also a part of me that is sorry to be missing out on some of the exciting classes coming up, but as with all jobs, there are some aspects that I won’t miss. :)

I will keep you all posted on BB’s position in the world and I hope you will all send BB visions of flipping over this weekend!

Inner Musings

Day to Due Date: 23

For most of my pregnancy I have had no ambition and little creativity. This has been pretty depressing, because I am used to working on 3-4 projects at one time while 10 more jump around my brain like popcorn. Instead I play solitaire and watch reruns on TV. I am generally bored while I am doing these activities but rarely have the energy or ambition to do anything else. Of course this has been difficult on several levels. First, I am used to having that sense of accomplishment as I work on and finish projects, so now I have to remember not to criticize myself as lazy. Second, everyone tells me that I will have no time to do anything once the baby comes. Of course they all do this with a malicious joy that drives me a little nuts. Anyway, I tell myself that I should be busy doing all kinds of stuff while I can, so I feel like I am wasting valuable time. I am sure there are more reasons lounging on the couch makes me feel bad, but those are the most important.

I recently watched this video by Elizabeth Gilbert, author of Eat, Pray, Love. In this video Gilbert talks about historical views of creativity. It was believed by some cultures that creativity came from a muse or genie that lived in the walls of your house. If you weren’t particularly creative, it wasn’t your fault. It was just the way your muse was. How comforting would it be to live in a world where there was no pressure to perform…to work harder… to be better. If you weren’t those things, it wasn’t your fault. It was just accepted that whatever creativity you had, flowed from your muse and there wasn’t anything you could do about it.

While having guilt over my lethargy swirl around in my brain and mix with this idea of a muse, I came up with some rather amusing scenarios. Assuming that everyone does have a muse, where do the new ones come from? I mean there are over 6 billion people in the world, so when a new person is born, where does their muse come from? I had this vision of a little green creature with a pregnant belly eating Oreos right along with me. That is really where all the Oreos went – no way I could’ve eaten that many at once. ;) So instead of helping me with my creativity, perhaps my muse is busy growing another muse for my daughter. In which case, the muse can have as many Oreos as she likes and I will play as many games of solitaire as it takes to keep me busy while my muse works.

Randomness

Days to Due Date: 25

The unexpected perk: Swollen ankles are easier to shave. You don’t have to worry so much about delicate bones because you can see them.

The unexpected problem: Backing up the car is very difficult because it hurts to twist around and look behind you.

Weirdest dream of the night: I had to unexpectedly move somewhere for a trip. The room I rented last minute was full of baby items and strange men kept coming in and I had to yell at them before they would leave. Or maybe it was the dream where I was in hiding like Anne Frank because someone was trying to kill me. The only one who knew where I was hiding was a little creature named Crunk who had no face. Or maybe it was the dream where I couldn’t get into our house because either the house had shrunk or I had grown to the size of a giant.

I had hoped to get more baby things done this weekend, but the list seems depressingly small when I look it over. I went garage sale shopping on Sat morning looking specifically for bibs and burp cloths. I had a really hard time with this. I have never been good at shopping among used clothing for myself and it’s that much harder for BB. I did manage to find some burp cloths and bibs at a consignment shop. I figure that she is only going to puke and drool on them anyway. The other baby related accomplishments include hanging the quilt on the wall and getting started on another project. I had hoped to hang a shelf too, but the kit was missing a part and now I have to go back to get the part before I can finish.

This week is my last week at work and I am looking forward to having more time to finish the various baby preparation projects.

Stuff

Days to Due Date: 28

I am amazed at the stuff we have accumulated in preparation for BB’s arrival. I mean I had heard from other parents about the stuff and have seen homes where children live. Of course, knowing about something and living it are two different things. Baby stuff aside though, I am really amazed at all the stuff I am supposed to have for myself. Maternity clothes are just the beginning. I also require special lotions, vitamins, new bras, different underwear, different style PJs (PJ pants are no good in the hospital for obvious reasons). Then after BB is born, I can’t just pull out my pre-pregnancy wardrobe and hop back into my comfort zone. I have to slowly deflate and guess what I get to wear while I deflate! Yup, the same maternity clothes I have been wearing for the last half year. It’s either that or buy more stuff to wear in between. And then there are the shoes.

Everyone has heard in one TV sitcom or another about a pregnant woman’s swelling feet. I think I have been pretty lucky here, both because my feet haven’t swollen that much and because I have been able to wear flip flops all summer. Now that the weather is cooling off though, I have been wearing only the oldest, most broken-in pairs of my shoes. To my horror, I was informed a few weeks ago that my feet may never go back to their normal size. AAHHHHH!!!! Women love to tell other women their pregnancy horror stories and this is the worst one I have heard. Apparently when a woman’s ligaments loosen to accommodate a baby, this includes ligaments in feet (even though baby has nothing to do with your feet) and those feet ligaments may never tighten up again. Now, I am not a shoe hoarder or shoe fanatic, but I do have my favorites. Also my feet are large enough that it is hard to find cute shoes in my size. When I think that I might have to start from scratch finding new shoes that are cute in an even larger size is daunting. I think I might revert to my childhood habit of not wearing shoes. The only thing that stops me is the thought of Max’s drool puddles all over the kitchen. Max drool between my toes...Ewww!

Dreamin’ the time Away!

Days to Due Date: 30

One of the topics in my baby classes was the very vivid dreams that pregnant women often have. At the time I had probably only had one or two dreams and they weren’t any different than usual. Well, that has changed and now I am dreaming nightly. Here are a few.

I dreamed that my belly button popped out. By this I mean that it went from and inny to an outy, which commonly happens during the later part of the pregnancy. However, when mine popped out in swallowed my navel ring. I could see it under my skin and if that wasn’t scary enough, it was all oozy and leaky!

The night before last, I dreamed that everything around me was falling apart. Our house was invaded by cats, then invested with giant cockroaches that were ganging up and attacking the cats! Then the city came and turned the driveway and yard into a big trench for a new waterline. We couldn’t leave to go to the hospital because the cars were in the garage. The dream ended with my blubbering in the yard while the construction crew and neighbors ignored me because I was just a hysterical pregnant woman.

Last night I dreamed that I had my baby, but she was only 2” long and I kept losing her. I couldn’t find a good place to keep her because she was so small and then I kept forgetting she existed. Pockets, by the way, are not a good place to keep 2” babies. Keys and stuff, you know.

I’ll keep you posted about more weird dreams.

Topsy Turvy Life

Today is one month out from my due date. Yes, an alien life form that has hijacked my body for the majority of the last year and she is due to arrive on November 18, 2010. We call her Baby Brown, but I think I am just going to call her BB here. BB currently has the hiccups, which for those of you who have never been pregnant feels like an involuntary muscle twitch deep in your belly. Weird! I know I have been neglecting my blog and the opportunity for sharing this wonderful experience with the world, but somehow I just didn’t feel up for it. It turns out I am not very good at being pregnant. Some women are and love the experience, but I am not one of those women, but more on that later…maybe.

I am going to try to blog frequently for this last month just to let everyone know how it’s going.

To start, I guess I should post some photos chronicling BB’s life so far.

Glamour shots

BB showing that she will someday be a yoga champion.

Proof that BB has feet.

BB's little face. Look at that cute nose!!!

BB’s home and expansion project

3 months, 6 months, and 9 months (FYI A real life pregnancy is 40 wks or 10 months...Aahh!!)