IDWIYO

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2010-09-29T10:55:00.000-04:00

Essie is eighteen months old. She's walking, talking and dancing, learning new stuff every day and acting like any other kid her age. Once she hit around a year old I really slowed down on updating this weblog. Mostly because taking care of her is pretty engrossing and I had other writing projects and creative things I was working on.

Now, though, I feel a little weird about keeping a weblog about Essie. I'm no Dooce and while I love to write I have some reservations about detailing so much of what's going on in her life.

I guess the reason for that is that she's becoming a person. A real little personality with quirks and traits and preferences and things that make her unique. I love sharing her with my friends and family, but I do that on Facebook and having a weblog open to the world about my daughter isn't really necessary. Someday she can choose to share herself with the world, but for now I'll keep it to a minimum and Facebook is a place where I can control that.

I'll leave what I've written; I just won't be adding anything else here. When I had Essie I was grateful to find many weblogs out there detailing the experiences of others with having preemies. Being able to read about the same things we were going through was comforting, so I want to leave this here in case anyone else going through something similar stumbles across it in a Google search.

Thanks for reading along!

Shiny Happy Baby

2010-01-21T20:48:00.004-05:00

Essie had her most recent neonatologist appointment a couple of days ago. I went into this one stressed out because the last visit brought lots of head-shaking and stern words about Essie's lack of upper body strength.

At that time she'd been not getting enough tummy time, and not cooperating when having it. (Argh, the term 'tummy time' still gets me with its cutesy-ness, but whatever.) I wasn't expecting quite the level of negativity we got out of that one and it primed me to freak out about this visit. Leading up to it I was worrying about her development, wondering if the things she could do were enough to get a passing 'grade' or not.

And O, did this frustrate me. I don't tend to worry that much about what she's doing as a general rule. I quit checking the sites that tell you what babies should be accomplishing month by month because she was fairly normal-seeming and I didn't want to become a worrywart charting every single little thing. Also the preemie-to-adjusted age thing muddies the developmental waters anyhow and I knew it would be crazymaking.

So in the last couple of weeks I'd been getting more and more anxious about what they'd see in her development and even broke my rule and looked at a couple of sites; an action I immediately regretted. I started getting really angsty about things I thought she was behind on.

Then we went to the neonatologist appointment and everything was fine! They praised her up, said she had all the ingredients for crawling and just needed to put them together, said her prone posture was perfect and even put my mind to rest about her current refusal to eat solid foods. They did say to keep working on her torso strength, of course, and I suspect that will continue to be a weakness of hers but overall they were pleased with her and my stress levels about it went way, way down.

She's so close to crawling. And she wants to be moving, let me tell you. She can scoot on her butt a bit but it's slow going so far. She face-plants a lot in her experiments with getting on all fours, but doesn't cry over that kind of thing much because she's a tough little nut. I'm a bit taken aback by this speedy transition from immobile baby to almost-toddler, honestly. Nobody warned me how fast all this goes when it's your baby doing the changing. Sigh.

Her one-year birthday is approaching so quickly. I'm also amazed by that. Where is the time going?

Ba Ba Ma Ma.

2009-12-16T16:27:00.002-05:00

These days Essie is pretty major entertainment. I may or may not have talked before about what a weirdo she is, but she so is. In the most awesome way, of course. She has this demon voice that she loves using. Really deep and growly. It actually sounds painful but she doesn't seem to mind it. She just sits and curses us in her demon tongue.

Then in the next second she'll be singing in a high baby falsetto, as sweet as anything. She's a very, very talkative baby which surprises some people because she doesn't tend to be that way around anyone she's not that used to. Spend a few hours with her, though, and you'll likely witness her breaking into a monologue of some sort. Unfortunately she has an often-used combination of b's and m's that sound kind of like she's saying 'bad bad mama' but she's NOT saying that at all. At all.

She's not ambulatory yet, even if she is a giant creature who grows like a mutant weed. She can rotate herself in a full circle when we have her on the floor but that's as far as she travels. She can sit up without falling over much now and does kind of try to pull her legs up underneath her when she's on her stomach. She puts a lot of weight on her legs now if we hold her in a standing position but she gets lazy fast about that. I love that she can sit on the floor with a few pillows around her and keep herself amused with her toys for a long time.

Also she's FINALLY figured out how to bounce in her bouncy seat. I thought she was never going to figure it out, but she has and now she's kind of conflicted about the thing. She's been seeing it as more and more of a prison these days since she's outgrown the toy bar and I often put her in there when I need to leave the room for something. Now, though, she finds herself enjoying the bouncy-ness when she suddenly remembers that she doesn't really want to be strapped in there. Even with her Sesame Street circus within reach she's not that entertained, so here's hoping the bouncing brings on a new level of enjoyment.

We're excited about Christmas, it being Essie's first and all. She'll be seeing her cousin Orla again for the first time in a number of months and that should be awesome. She's at a stage where she loves kids, the closer to her size the better, and we're looking forward to her having a new appreciation for Orla this time around. I'm really happy that Ess has relatives that are close enough to her age on Andrew's side of the family, since I put off having kids a bit longer than my sisters did.

So, yeah. Things are good and I am always amused. Essie does weird, interesting things in little bursts, too, like the couple of days where she loudly sniffed her wrist, or the way the 'Bushel And A Peck' song had her mesmerized every time we sang it. Sadly that's not working as well now, since I liked how it helped me to get her to sleep. She's started laughing at her own farts, too, since I always laugh at hers. No one else's, though. Just hers.

Oh, hell. I'm THAT mom.

2009-12-08T10:16:00.000-05:00

Well, I'm mostly physically recovered from my LEEP experience and haven't had much to write about when it comes to my physical health. Because I KNOW you're just ready to pounce on any post where I tell you gross details about my ailments, oh yeah.

I've discovered something new about myself as a mother these days. It appears that I'm a wimp. Or at least a wimp when it comes to transferring Essie from co-sleeping to sleeping on her own in a crib. I am truly bad at it. And the problem here is not Essie in any way, shape or form. No; it's me.

Ever since Ess came home from the hospital I've co-slept with her. It was easier for me to react to her quickly and it also afforded me a bit more sleep at night since when she needed fed I just had to grab her bottle off the dresser next to me instead of get up and go to another room to get her and feed her. It worked, even if it gave us less room in the bed, and we were all pretty happy.

Now I have to interrupt this story to tell another tiny one, but it's necessary. Essie and I are currently staying in Kingston at my mom's place and Andrew comes to stay on weekends. The apartment in Toronto was just not sufficient for Essie to have the space and freedom she needs as she gets more mobile, but we don't want to get locked into another rental agreement just yet, so this is the short-term solution. It's hard, yes, but Essie has already flourished so much in just the short time we've been here that we know it's the right thing.

OK, so Essie and I have still been co-sleeping here in Kingston but when Andrew is here the bed doesn't fit the three of us. Our bed in TO is a queen, this one is a double and I think even the queen would be too small at this point. Essie's a big girl now, around eighteen pounds and already longer than most babies at her actual age of nine months. She's way, waaaay out of the ballpark for her adjusted age of six months and is wearing clothes in nine to twelve-month sizes. She is not kidding around here.

The two of us fit comfortably in the bed, even if she does wiggle over to my side so she's pressed up against my back all night. It's cozy and warm and nice. But getting her to simmer down and go to sleep each night is becoming more and more difficult, so I figured that plus the weekend situation meant I had to transition her to sleeping on her own in the crib, and hopefully not needing me there while she falls asleep.

She's slept in her own bed a couple of times, but not truly all night long since it's pretty easy to just fall asleep with her after bringing her back to the big bed for a feeding during the weekend. This week I decided to get serious about it, finally, and yesterday I experimented by putting her down for a nap in the crib and just walking out of the room after tucking her in. To my great surprise she just drifted off to sleep like it was no big deal. She did that for her next nap, too! Wow.

When bedtime came, though, she was having none of it. I ended up snuggling her to sleep in the big bed and then putting her in the crib while she was asleep. And she slept there all night but I was a mess! I had nightmares all night long about leaving Essie alone in various places and finding out that she'd been screaming and crying the whole time because I'd abandoned her. We were sleeping in the same room but I felt like I was neglecting her or something.

I know I'm the one with the issues because this stuff isn't bothering Essie at all. My guess is that this is leftover angst from the time she spent in the NICU, when I had no choice but to leave her behind and go to sleep far away from her. Finally getting her home with me and being able to hold her in my arms as much as I wanted was a big deal and I felt like I should never, ever let her feel like I wasn't there for her.

So me = ridiculous wimp who feels like she's a mean mom for putting her baby in a crib at night. I'm sure I'll get over it eventually, especially when I can put her to bed for the night as easily as I can get her down for naps. That'll be pretty nice.

The Big LEEP.

2009-11-27T21:54:00.000-05:00

Well, yesterday I went in for my LEEP procedure. Andrew drove me there in the morning for ten o'clock. I was still pretty nervous about the whole thing but I felt OK going in, honestly. I knew it had to happen and would probably not take very long so I just decided to grit my teeth and bear it.

And it would have been completely bearable except for the fact that, because Princess Margaret's is a teaching hospital, someone who was still learning performed the anaesthesia and the procedure. She either did not use enough anaesthesia or put it in the wrong spot because when they started the procedure I felt it.

The injections did sting, but it wasn't all that bad. I was surprised, then, that I started feeling really faint and dizzy and everything started sounding weird in my ears. They waited for it to pass, then once I was feeling all right started the LEEP.

I'd been told to expect a feeling of heat, which I did immediately feel. Then I started to feel pain which surprised me since they'd said that the injection of anaesthesia would be the worst part and I'd feel all right after that. My brain kind of went like this:

"Yep, heat. Huh. Hmmm. ow. ow. ow. owowow. Ow. Ow. OW. OWOWOW."

I quickly said I was feeling pain and they stopped, then talked a bit. The doctor told the student not to go so deep on the next pass, then they started again. This time it was immediately painful and I nearly jumped. I'd been told not to jump since they were using a crazy cauterizing tool inside my body and things could go very badly. I again said I could feel what they were doing and at this point started crying a bit which embarrassed me pretty badly. But man, it hurt. So. Much.

They gave me another shot and while it helped I still felt the rest of the procedure, but it was more like an aching feeling than a searing pain. I'm not sure why it was so painful since I've been told there aren't nerve endings in the cervix, but survey (of my cervix) seems to say otherwise.

I'm glad it's over, but I've been feeling a bit silly about how traumatized I feel. I think my strong reaction was specifically because I was so relieved when the needles were over, then found out that it could get a whole lot worse. I'm just crossing my fingers that I don't have to have another one!

A different kind of leeping.

2009-10-28T17:07:00.001-04:00

I haven't been very writely lately, I know. Things are OK, but I've been stressing out about a certain something and trying to write about anything else just wasn't working for me. I'd start stuff and never finish it.

Anyone who's been reading this blog from the beginning might remember that when I had my first OBGYN visit after finding out I was pregnant he did a pap smear (of course) and that there were abnormal cells present. He saw the results as serious enough to send me to Princess Margaret hospital to have a colposcopy done by a doctor who specializes in treating cancer during pregnancy.

So she did the colposcopy back in December and scheduled me to have another one in mid-March to see if the bad patches had spread. The big wrench in that plan happened when Essie was born on March 3rd almost three months early and I missed the appointment. As soon as I realized what had happened I tried to contact the clinic, but it proved very difficult, for some reason. Calling the hospital and trying to get transferred to the correct office was a bunch of fail because every time they'd transfer me I'd end up on a line that rang and rang but never went to an answering machine or was picked up by a human.

When I went to see my OBGYN for my post-partum checkup I told him about my difficulties and he gave me a different number to call. Awesome. So I started calling that number and it went to an answering machine for a few different doctors, at which I left pleading messages to call me back so I could make a new followup appointment. These messages went unanswered for quite a long time, then finally I called the general hospital number again and wouldn't let the woman transfer me until she could assure me that she was doing so to a number with real people on the other end.

Someone answered! And told me to call a different number, but this woman did go to the trouble of pulling up my patient number and giving it to me, instructing me to leave that information next time I left a message. So that's what I did, and I waited some more. I left maybe one or two more messages, but finally someone called me back and told me I could make an appointment! O, happy day.

I did so, and they scheduled me for September 8th. I ended up also getting my tattoo done on that day and was quite honestly more nervous about the tattoo since I knew that a colposcopy doesn't hurt in the slightest. So they did their thing and checked it all out and said that things weren't looking bad at all, but decided to do a biopsy for the sake of being thorough. That made me nervous but it ended up not hurting at all, either. The tattoo was much more painful!

I wasn't too terribly worried. The doctor had been quite casual about what she was seeing with her naked eye, saying it didn't look worrisome at all. So I was actually a bit shocked when I got the results and they told me I have severe cervical dysplasia, otherwise known as high grade squamous intraepithelial lesions or carcinoma in situ. All very scary-sounding. When they did the biopsy they'd scheduled me for a treatment in case things did end up worse than they appeared, and I'm thankful for that now. I'm going in for a loop electrical excision procedure (LEEP). That, my friends, is a loop of electrified wire used as a knife to cut away the offending pre-cancerous hot spots on my cervix. Also very scary-sounding, although they use local anaesthetic to make sure I don't feel anything during.

Dudes, I am so freaking nervous about this procedure. In the last year I have pretty much lost all fear of needles WRT them taking my blood, putting in an IV or giving me some kind of shot in my muscle. The thing I'm most nervous about for this procedure is the locality of the anaesthetic. OW. I'm not looking forward to the needles they're going to give me to freeze the area. Not at all. Not one little bit. I am what you call somewhat terrified. Electrified cauterizing wire used as a blade? I'm not going to feel that one! I'll feel the impalement of my inner bits and I'm sad.

I know. Suck it up, be grateful this was caught before it was full-blown cancer, be thankful there's treatment and I should be fine. I'm thankful, but still scared.

Oh, heck, almost a month since my last entry!

2009-10-05T21:54:00.003-04:00

After having the end of spring and the entire summer off for parental leave Andrew went back to work toward the end of September. It's been an adjustment for me. Surprisingly more of one than I expected, really. When Essie first came home as a preemie not even having reached her due date I was definitely overwhelmed in a "HOLY CRAP THIS IS MY LIFE NOW," kind of way. I'd never had a baby of my own at home before, of course. Andrew still had a few weeks left of work to finish up so I was alone with her during the day right from the beginning. However, it was not too bad and I remember being relieved at how quickly I took to it.

With that in mind it was a bit surprising to me that being alone with her now would be a big adjustment. I figured it would be pretty seamless since we're so used to her and her ways and it wasn't like I was experiencing a brand new lifestyle altogether. I quickly discovered, though, how much I had come to rely on the little things that having Andrew at home afforded me. Just being able to make lunch or even go to the bathroom without having to consider what to do with Essie in the meantime is something I can't take for granted any longer.

Essie herself is so different now, too, of course. As a teeny newborn she was sleepy most of the time and I could easily set her down by herself for a few minutes since she wasn't going to move at all or even really know the difference. Now ... now she knows the difference. Boy, does she ever. She's awake for a LOT more of the day than she used to be and if she naps in the daytime they're little catnaps, at most half an hour to an hour if I'm lucky. Thankfully she's never cranky and always wakes up with a big grin, but keeping her amused is something of a challenge at times. If she wasn't a good night sleeper I might be at the end of my rope, but she's a champion night sleeper.

So it's all eat, sleep, diaper, play, eat, sleep, diaper, play around here. She's doing pretty well physically and developmentally as far as we can tell, although she's not too terribly excited about rolling over. She's rolled over from her front to her back a few times, and rolled from her back to her front for the first time tonight (yay!), but she's not super-energetic in that way. She's mostly happy to loll around on her back playing with her feet or sitting up in our laps and looking around. The bouncy seat and play mat still amuse her, too, but she likes us best for amusement.

She's growing in her hair, slowly but surely, and growing out of her clothes faster than we can buy them. (Well, that last isn't true since we've barely had to buy her any clothes ourselves due to the generosity of family.) Those seemingly long legs of hers puzzle me because they look short enough, but they hang out of open pants and get all bent up in outfits with feet. Oh, well. I have gotten to know which brands to buy by now.

In other news: I'm really feeling the need to start some kind of new creative project. Nothing serious and deadline-oriented since life has gotten so full, but definitely artistic and productive. My friend Colin has started a new photo-blog and it's a daily reminder to me that I want to do something that I love, too. We'll see if I can fit it in around maintaining Essie and some semblance of a life!

Baby talking.

2009-09-09T22:08:00.002-04:00

It's difficult to imagine on any given day that I'll love Essie even more twenty-four hours later, but somehow it always happens. My heart; it grew twelve sizes.

She's just so hilarious and loving and charming and sweet. You know what she is, though? A daddy's girl. Through and through. Nothing makes her smile bigger than making eye contact with Andrew. If we're all sitting on the bed I'll sit her on my thigh and she'll start to put on a show for Andrew. She grins and grins and grins, making her 'talking' noises, then flings herself forward in his direction, making that fake cough noise that babies make to get attention. If she's lying down all he has to do is put his face above hers and she starts cooing and gooing and whispering at him. It's enough to kill you with cuteness.

Don't worry, she gives me lots of love, too, but she never, ever fails to give Andrew the smiles. Lucky bastard.

It struck me the other day how once upon a time I told myself I'd never use 'baby talk' with my kid(s), that I'd always use full, adult sentences and never use cutesy euphimisms or nicknames for anything. Ha ha, I was dumb. I DO use some cutesy words. Not sickeningly much, but things like 'tummy' instead of 'stomach', and 'toesies' intead of 'toes'. I wondered why, what's the instinct that makes these words pop out?

My view is that it has everything to do with the total, unsullied innocence of babies. Essie is nothing but genuine right now, there's no guile whatsoever to anything she does. And when interacting with a tiny being who is so untouched by the world it's difficult not to reinforce that, make everything as light and fun and lovely as possible. I know it won't last, that she'll learn about the world in very short order so right now, when her smiles are exactly what she's feeling inside and her cries or frowns are because she's genuinely uncomfortable or hungry or wet, well, I want to cherish it like nothing else.

Right now her toes can be toesies without her rolling her eyes or saying 'gawd, mom'. And when a stomach is so soft and round and kissable it just feels more proper to call it a tummy than a clinical, boring STOMACH. There are other things (like her bottle [bubs] and soother [soosy, pronounced like the 'oo' in book]) that have nicknames just because I'm insane about giving things nicknames, but that's not the same. It makes me wonder how I ever thought I could speak to Essie like an adult when dude, she is a baby.

"Shaughnessy, I understand you're telling me you're hungry. Allow me to feed you some formula."

"That's a cat, otherwise known as a feline. He is a Siamese, one of many breeds."

"Your diaper is emitting a rather foul aroma! It's high time we exchanged it for a clean one."

All right, so maybe I wouldn't be all stilted and stuff, but the baby talk just happens and I can't bring myself to feel silly. Essie responds to my voice and tone and words with so much happiness and joy. That's enough to make it OK.

Six months old.

2009-09-03T22:43:00.003-04:00

Today was Essie's six-month birthday, or half-birthday as I like to call it. We didn't do anything to celebrate, of course, since she could care less and we had other things to do. Well, I did, anyhow, having an appointment to keep this afternoon. Andrew goes back to work at the end of the month so it's nice to take advantage of being able to go out by myself!

Anyhow: Essie is six months old and we're completely amazed. Yesterday was also her four-month homecoming anniversary, so we had two notable days in a row to feel great about. It's incredibly strange to remember what it was like to hold her as a brand-new preemie. It's even a bit weird to think what it was like to bring her home! I have pictures to look at of that time, but I have to admit that I find it very difficult to go back and look at the Facebook albums I made when she was in the hospital. This is odd to me, since at the time those pictures were precious and I couldn't stop myself from poring over them whenever I was at home where she wasn't. I loved to gaze at them, inspect her every tiny feature, obsess about how much weight she'd put on and whether it was noticeable yet.

Now, though, I get extremely emotional and upset when I look at them. Back then I was trying to be so strong and for the most part succeeding. I didn't have a lot of choice, really, and so I just did it. It was hard and it felt hard, but Essie herself was more important to me. Now that she's home, she's healthy, she's happy and chubby and thriving ... well, maybe now I'm feeling the backlash of how truly difficult the whole experience was. I've got some distance from it and gained some perspective that tells me just how traumatizing it is to nearly lose your baby, nearly die yourself and then have to deal with your baby being very sick and requiring intervention just to survive each day for two months. It ... kind of sucks.

It makes me overwhelmingly grateful for the baby she is now. She's so alive and every day Andrew and I look at her and marvel at her. She reminds us to stop what we're doing and just enjoy life since that's what she does all day long. Her smile makes us smile back every single time. It's impossible not to smile back at her, so smiles have increased exponentially around here. Watching her discover something new or figure out a new trick is like watching a magic show. Every day she's a little brighter, a little stronger, a little bit more aware and alert.

I didn't expect a baby that looks like me, but the older she gets the more people say she does. I don't mind, certainly, and I see so much of my family in her. Her hair is still indeterminate except for the two stubbornly white-blonde spots on the right side near the front. Her eyebrows seem reddish-blonde, but might be darkening up a bit. Her eyes are definitely not blue, but haven't settled on a positive true brown like mine and might end up being hazel; that particular brown-green that a few of my family members share. Her legs don't look especially long to me, but it's hard to find sleepers with long enough legs for her in her age range and so she might end up tall, something that would surprise me but not shock me totally since there are some taller women in my extended family, and there certainly are on Andrew's side of the family.

It's just exciting to watch her grow. She's only three months adjusted and keeping up well with the milestones for that age, but the changes just pop up every few days and I haven't gotten used to one when suddenly she's on to the next thing, soaking up experience as quick as she can. She saw her feet a while ago and watched them suspiciously, not sure how to get them within tasting reach, but grabbed them for the first time the other day at my mom's place while she was playing with an overhead toy, kicking at Big Bird and Cookie Monster. She still doesn't really understand them and hasn't grabbed them since, but to see her grip her pudgy toes with her fingers was amazing to me.

She's a baby, normal and lovely as can be, and I'm so very, very lucky to have her in my life.

This is how she rolls.

2009-08-24T12:20:00.003-04:00

Essie rolled over for the first time today. I decided to give her some tummy time since she was full of freaky energy and tummy time usually works some of that out by making her furious. Seriously; I have a hard time dealing with putting her on her stomach sometimes since doing something purposely that will make your baby cry kind of sucks. (Also I am not a fan of the twee name 'tummy time' but that's what the professionals call it and it kind of just rolls off the tongue.)

ANYhow; tummy time. I put her on her stomach and turned away for a few seconds to grab a toy to put in front of her to give her something to look at. I turned around and there she was on her back, her expression totally saying, "What just happened?"

I was amazed, so I put her on her stomach once more. She immediately rolled over to her back and looked pleased with herself. I flipped her, she did it again. We waited for Andrew to come back in to the room from having his shower and I showed him. She took a bit longer the last time since she'd tired herself out a bit by this point (yay) but she did it and we had to accept that we have a baby on her way to mobility. Yikes.

She's pretty much exactly on track with this milestone for her adjusted age, so that's nice. She has also, as Andrew put it, discovered 'loud'. She's started screaming conversationally, not just to indicate she's upset. Actually; she doesn't scream to indicate that she's upset, so this is very new for all of us and extremely so for our neighbours at 11:30 last night! Whatevs, she shut up pretty quickly once I gave her a bottle and snuggled her to sleep but I have noticed that her most active, frenetic behaviours usually start when she's getting tired. She doesn't really want to get tired, so she starts kicking her legs like crazy and talking and shooting her arms around. Then she gets frustrated because damn, she's tired, and her eyes get all red and she's kind of irritable while her eyelids are drooping shut. It's cute, but here's hoping it doesn't get worse!

Also she is growing out of her clothes at a rapid rate except for one onesie that I mentioned to Andrew today. It's a magic onesie that seems to be growing with her and getting looser on her rather than smaller. She's wearing it right now! Honestly I suspect that it's just cheap material that is stretching out a bit, but I like the thought of a magic onesie. She'll always have something to wear!

Owie. But also some stuff to be grateful for.

2009-08-21T13:57:00.004-04:00

I haven't written in a bit because I had a week from hell and haven't felt much like getting out of bed, much less writing. At first I was all, 'Oh, I won't talk about it, it's so unladylike and so very unbecoming,' but on second thought I don't really care. I'll still try to use euphemistic language so as not to offend anyone's delicate sensibilities, but other than that ... hah.

So I've been having a week of uterus pirhanas and it's been driving me insane. Since having Essie PMS has been twice as bad (maybe more, since it wasn't something I suffered from much before and I considered myself lucky.) My usual depression/anxiety combo kicks into extreme overdrive and I feel like the world is ending and there is no hope for the future for anyone, ANYONE. So far I've been thinking I'm lucky since I'm not having 24/7 postpartum or anything like that, but the week leading up to the event is quite ungood in my brain. And during the actual event? Phyisical pain like crazy.

It's tiresome and I do not want. It's yet another reason to add to the list of countable blessings with regard to having a happy, low-fuss baby. If I felt like this and had to deal with hours of screaming or sleeplessness I'm sure I'd be looking for bridges or tall buildings right quick, but Essie is so very, very good. I also often feel awkward talking about that, like I should somehow not bring it up in case I'm perceived as bragging and thus alienating anyone reading who has to deal with a baby with colic or whatnot, but I have to give this kid her props. She's posessed of an extreme good nature and I appreciate her for it every single day. Taking it for granted? Not over here.

So, that's my last couple of weeks emotionally in a nutshell. LUCKY for me there was some extreme goodness in there. My family threw me an awesome baby shower last weekend. La hosted it and did all the prep work and inviting and whatnot (because she's so incredibly awesome and beautiful.) It was full of moms and aunts and uncles and cousins and sisters and in-laws and nieces and nephews. It was co-ed (obviously) and was a BLAST. It was also hot. Really, seriously hot. Essie spent the whole time in just a diaper, even though I'd originally dressed her in a sweet pink sundress and sandals. Most of the rest of us wished we could sit around in just our unders, but it just wouldn't have been right so we all stayed clothed and envied the freedom of pink, innocent babies.

Speaking of pink, innocent babies here she is sitting in her brand new Bumbo at the shower:

SO CUTE. She's got her frog in there with her to help her fit a bit better since she's still just a teeny bit small for it. Not for long, though!

Very poop-centric, this one.

2009-08-09T15:10:00.000-04:00

Andrew took Essie to her pediatrician's appointment last week. I stayed home, ostensibly to do some housework and make spaghetti sauce for dinner but also so that I could twirl around singing, "All alone, all alone," to myself in the empty apartment while the cats looked on.

The dishes were done, surfaces were wiped, sauce was made, songs were sung and cats were petted. Then Andrew and Essie came home and I nearly ripped her out of the sling since I had missed her sunny little self so much. After spending a while sniffing and snuggling and kissing her I got the report from Andrew on the visit.

Essie's been spitting up a lot these days. Nothing major, nothing serious, but still she's been spitting up a bit more than we thought might be normal so Andrew asked about it. The pediatrician wasn't too worried but suggested mixing a little bit of pablum in her formula to thicken it up a bit, which might cut down on her bringing it back up.

So, Andrew went grocery shopping and came home with a package of President' s Choice organic rice pablum, which I mixed a teaspoon or so of into her next bottle. She didn't even flinch, just drank it down as usual. I did the same for the bottle after that, and when she was pretty much exactly halfway through it my brain said, "BZZZT what about constipation?"

Hmmm. Essie is always constipated these days. Sometimes her poop even makes her cry. So, I looked up rice pablum to see how constipating it is and was HORRIFIED to read what moms and doctors had to say. The worst quote likened a mixture of formula and pablum to pouring concrete directly into your baby's bowels.

I yanked the bottle away and made a fresh one, making it a bit more watery than usual, even. Essie didn't care, whatever, a bottle's a bottle. She doesn't even care what temperature it is, warm or room temperature, it's all the same to her. This was Thursday. On Friday she pooped and it was a normal poop. A pre-pablum poop, I knew, since there was no way she'd processed the bottles of concrete mix from the night before that quickly.

Fast-forward to today, Sunday, the day she'd be due for a poop after pooping on Friday. She's an every-two-days pooper, this kid, and like I said; it's often very uncomfortable and downright painful for her. Poor bug. I'd had a restless night with Essie and was napping kind of fitfully. Andrew and Essie were also in the bed, relaxing on a thunderstormy day, and I heard Andrew say, "Oh, poop." He'd done a diaper scan and seen some poop. I told him he should let her work it all out and then change the diaper.

After a bit he scanned again and said, "Yeah, poop." I was excited. I sat up to witness the triumphant passing of the concrete poop, relieved that it hadn't taken weeks to work through. Andrew opened the diaper, carefully folding the sticky tabs so that they wouldn't catch on Essie's perfect baby skin. Then. Then: he pulled back the front of the diaper and revealed the concrete poop within!

Lo: A tiny nugget of poop sat forlornly in her diaper. Not even a nugget: A pellet. She had produced one tiny, insignificant pellet of poop. I laughed. I laughed and laughed. The poop pellet was just so anticlimactic.

Thankfully she produced a much more significant poop in her next diaper and I am satisfied that our concrete worries are behind us. BUT! I am getting excited for solid foods now since it seems she can process more than just formula pretty well. Go, baby, go!

Good times, good times.

2009-08-07T01:37:00.002-04:00

Last weekend we went to Ottawa for the annual cottage weekend at Colin's family cottage. It's something I really look forward to every year, and this year even more so since it was Essie's first time. She got to meet Colin (the birthday boy) and Jen for the first time which was very awesome.

We may have overestimated Essie's ability to deal with lots of travel, though. We stayed in Ottawa at night and traveled to the cottage in Val Des Monts during the day instead of staying there overnight. I figured it would be more sensitive to the other cottage-goers in the sense that they wouldn't be disturbed by overnight baby noises or the early rising of babies that often happens. I also figured it would be easier to care for Essie in the city and that part was definitely true.

Essie was not quite herself, though, and I think perhaps she didn't quite cope with the back-and-forthing in the car coupled with the exuberance of the cottage atmosphere as well as we'd hoped. This isn't to say she was screechy or anything. No; she was just more somber and a bit more whimpery than we're used to with her. When we had her to ourselves back at Colin and Jen's place she was smiley and sweet as usual.

But O, the good times we had eating fabulous cupcakes, playing games, talking and even doing karaoke! (It was my first karaoke experience, and even though I sucked it was fun.) There was an incident, however. Andrew usually sets off a fireworks display after dark on one of the nights, and this year the finale firework malfunctioned and he ended up burning a couple of his fingers. Not terribly badly, thankfully, but just in case it was worse than it looked Andrew went to the emergency room back in Ottawa. This meant that Colin and another lovely couple accompanied us back to town so that Andrew wouldn't have to drive, then they headed back in one car together. We appreciated that a LOT, since I currently don't have a license and couldn't drive the rental.

His burns turned out to be mostly second-degree and warranted nothing more than some bandaids, so all is well if slightly sore.

We came home on Tuesday to our sweet cats and Essie has been doing very well. She had a pediatrician's appointment today and she's just, just shy of thirteen pounds. It's a bit less than we expected based on how she's been gaining over the last few months, but she put on almost two pounds since her last visit so that's still pretty substantial! She's getting so big and active and LOUD. She's really discovered her 'complaining' voice, and it's got quite a volume. I'm not surprised, but the days of the growls are officially over now and I'm already nostalgic for my tiny, grunty little baby. Of course this big, smiley, talkative baby is just as lovely and even more engaging but damn if they don't change overnight.

Caring more than I should.

2009-07-27T11:37:00.001-04:00

At the infant massage class I talked about in the last entry all the other moms were breastfeeding their babies and we were the only couple bottle-feeding (with formula, no less.) I had some angsty pangs about that which irritated me since I've stressed to myself a million times that bottle-feeding Essie is NO BIG DEAL.

Well, apparently I didn't believe myself, but I think my issue is more with the opinions of other parents than it is with Essie or her health. Essie is obviously thriving, getting fatter and happier and healthier all the time. My angst stems from the fact that I feel like I may be looked down on for my 'choice'.

It wasn't much of a choice. Essie resisted breastfeeding very strongly. I was never happy with pumping at any point anyhow, and when my milk supply got harder and harder to maintain it got a lot easier to mix formula and bottle-feed her; something she was entirely content with. Instead of an agitated, unhappy baby at every feeding I had a happy, satisfied baby. It made sense to me.

I could explain that to anyone I suspect might be raising a mental brow at me when they see us bottle-feeding, but since I am a paranoid person at the best of times it's more likely that there are no mental brows and I'm being overly sensitive to perceived prejudice. While Essie was at the hospital, though, the pressure to breastfeed or at least pump breastmilk for bottle feeding was overt, and I've heard from other new moms that even with a regular, non-preemie birth there is still great pressure placed on them to breastfeed over anything else. So I do get anxious that the moms who have bought into it and think that anything less is wrong will be judging me when they see me with a bottle.

All that said, I was very aware of the fact that at the massage class Andrew was the only dad who also fed his baby, and I'm pretty sure he was the only dad who burped his baby (although I could be wrong on that one.) It's a positive about this bottle-feeding business that I'm appreciating more and more. It affords me more freedom, yes, but it also allows Andrew to bond with Essie and take on aspects of her care that he wouldn't otherwise be likely to. I love that when we're all in bed together she'll lay there quietly watching him for long, long stretches, just staring at him. He gets great smiles from her and she'll do all she can to catch his attention when he's absorbed in something.

So I guess I need to let go of feeling so self-conscious about not breastfeeding Ess. I am aware of so many positives as a result of bottle-feeding that it's just stupidly self-indulgent at this point to think it's any big deal, especially since it's having no adverse affects on the one it matters to most: our daughter.

Overdue update.

2009-07-19T18:33:00.004-04:00

It's been a busy week so I haven't been writing anything anywhere except on Facebook. Oh, those statuses are such an easy way to give little, pithy updates. I have a Twitter that I don't use much because of Facebook statuses, even, and I have it set so that my tweets become my status.

Anyhow, I was overcome with sudden panic about the fact that we want to move to a two-bedroom apartment and actually have a room for Essie and her stuff rather than just having her things piled haphazardly around. Soon there will be a necessity for actual furniture for this kid, and that day is coming more quickly than I'd even thought. We've lived in this apartment for going on three years now and it's a small, dark little cave that we've crammed with bunches of junk and I've started the process of winnowing through the junk and generally cleaning the heck out of it and trying to get rid of stuff. We want to give notice and I stress out about prospective tenants looking at my living space, so figured this time around I'd better be highly proactive.

The worst part, of course, is when you feel like you're only moving the mess around, not actually resolving it. Sigh.

Essie, though, is doing so, so fantastically well. The smiles! The talking! You can tell she's really trying to emulate the noises we make and the way we move our mouths and it's hilarious. Check it:

My baby is the smartest and cutest! OK, maybe not but she seems that way to me. ;)

We took her to an infant massage class that our friend Candice, a registered massage therapist, ran. It was very cool to attend and learn how to squish our baby girl. There were some parts of it that Ess didn't like as much as others, but by the end she was totally relaxed and happy. I plan to do it as much as possible. What surprised me most, actually, was the facial massage stuff. I figured she'd hate that since she gets agitated when things are touching her face, but she loved it. It was the hand massage that bothered her most. The back stuff didn't go over super-well with her, but mostly because it involved her being on her stomach and nothing pisses her off like tummy time. SO: If you have a newborn or infant and think that sounds like fun, make sure you check Candice's site for class schedules. I might do it again just for a refresher sometime!

I'm sure there are a million more things that I'd intended to write about but my mind is totally blanking on them right now. Essie's not feeling so hot today so I'm a bit worried about that even though it's nothing serious. Just more sleeping than usual and more crankiness, plus a touch warm-feeling. It's probably just a growth-spurt and I'll find out tomorrow that she doesn't fit into any of her onesies any more. She's like a weed!

Oh, how you've changed.

2009-07-11T15:18:00.002-04:00

Becoming a mother for the first time is scary in a lot of ways, but one of the less talked about ways is that it can be a problem for other people in your life. Your life changes drastically, and so your interactions with others change as well. I understand that well, and understood it before I had Essie. I never said to myself, "Oh, motherhood will never change me. I'll still be the same old Keltie!"

What I was most afraid of? That it wouldn't change me. That I'd be the same old Keltie.

Being pregnant was overall very odd for me. Just when it was getting real and fun and far less tiring I was suddenly an early mom. I didn't get a lot of opportunity to get past the 'this can't be real' phase before it was incredibly real and twice as terrifying. I looked definitely pregnant for about, oh ... two weeks? Tops. Nobody ever gave me their seat on the subway or patted my belly.

So I don't feel as if I changed much as a person during that time. I hadn't made room in my brain for the reality of Shaughnessy since I thought I had more time to get used to her being inside of me. She was a concept, and a pretty major one, but not part of the world yet. She was yet another oddity about my physical being that I was contending with, I guess.

The circumstances of her birth were kind of equivalent to being thrown into a pool when you can't swim. And the pool water is freezing cold. And not very clean. I had to learn to swim with a quickness. Once I was discharged from the hospital I had to do all kinds of things that I wasn't thrilled about doing, but having a kid takes choice away from you completely. You don't have a choice about taking care of your baby. YOU had it, you silly thing, so you have to take care of it. I had to pump if I wanted her to have my breastmilk and I had to get out of the apartment every single day to go see her and take it to her (something difficult for my agoraphobic self, even if it doesn't sound like such a big deal.)

Now that she's home I have even less choice. 'Sleeping in' doesn't actually exist any more, even if Andrew is taking care of her while letting me sleep. On a very visceral level I'm so attuned to being her mother that the sound of her crying or making any other baby noise will wake me and I'll be on high alert even when I'm trying to get myself settled back to sleep. But when I do have to wake up to her cries or whimpers for a bottle or a diaper change it sucks as much as waking up to a strident alarm clock. It feels shitty to rouse yourself from comfortable sleep. There is no choice though, and so I do it.

So on that level I have changed. I have a giant new responsibility and I'm doing what is necessary to fulfill it and changing my entire previous lifestyle to accommodate it. The nice thing about babies is that the longer you work at it the greater the returns. She's started smiling at us now when she sees our faces, which is pretty awesome at a time when you're feeling sad about having to be awake.

I've also changed in some ways that I was worried I wouldn't. I worried I wouldn't love my baby enough, which is so obviously not the case that I feel relieved every time I think of it. She is heart-splittingly lovable and I can't decide if it's that I have an exceptionally awesome kid or it's a built-in failsafe kicking in deep in my brain. Whichever; I don't care. I love this kid. I spend all day with her and it's all about her needs coming first now, not mine. It's not painful in the way I feared it would be, though. I worried that I'd be the mom sitting there staring at her wailing baby trying VERY hard not to smother it with a pillow and yes; there are frustrating moments so far, but no murderous instincts. I know that there are tantrum times coming down the road that I'll have to contend with. For now, though, I'm just happy that I've turned into a mother, one who loves her daughter when she's unhappy as well as being smilingly adorable.

So, um ... I've changed. I'm finding that it's hard to put into words how I've changed, I guess. I am embracing the all-consuming aspect of it right now in a way that might be surprising to anyone who knew me before Essie was born and had heard my many reservations about motherhood back when I was contemplating never having children. She's here, though, and I am now throwing myself willingly into the water rather than being forced in. I'm taking all the pictures I can, talking about her all the time, noticing other babies more as a result and maybe squee-ing a bit over them. I'm not trying to retain my concept of what I was before she came along; rather I'm excited about watching what I grow into now that she's here.

My hope is that if you love me, so are you.

Home again, home again.

2009-07-07T18:09:00.002-04:00

We spent the last two weeks in Kingston with my mom. It was awesome and I knew that the danger in doing so would be that once the time came to leave I wouldn't want to. I was right and it was really, really hard. Essie had gotten used to her grandma's love and attention and it was so difficult to tear her away from that. I also hate that my mom can't see Ess whenever she wants to. :(

So I was pretty blue when we got home but Essie doesn't let me sit around feeling sorry for myself too much, so it's been the usual day-to-day stuff. It's amazing how much she changed over just the last two weeks, though! She grew her eyelashes in, finally, and looks like a real sweetie with them. She lost a ton of hair on the top of her head and it's already growing back in super-fast. The biggest change, though, is her activity level. She's suddenly much more interested in what's going on around her and while she's always been a wiggler, now she's a REAL wiggler and seems to want to be moving around a lot.

Of course she can't do too much, so this pisses her off a tiny bit. Poor bug.

We had a pediatrician's appointment today and Essie weighed in at 11 pounds, four ounces! So a bit of a gain since this past Thursday at the hospital. The doctor said she hardly even recognized her from the last visit and admired how she's chubbed up and looks bright and happy. She said that Ess was due for her next shots, though, so did them and this did not go over well with our little girl. They're given in the fronts of the thighs so the doctor had me hold Ess while she did them and while the first one made her squawk, the second one made her cry for real and it broke my heart. Essie has the saddest cry ever, especially since she never really cries. We thought she'd been working on crying lately, but this ... this was a cry.

I jammed her soother in her mouth and she resorted to sucking it sadly instead of crying. My poor, poor bug. For the rest of the trip home (including a stop at the grocery store) she was solemn and a bit sad, but she was OK once we got here and I cuddled her, fed her and then sent her off to the bedroom with her dad so I could do some stuff. They're both sleeping hard on the bed now.

Shhhh, they're 'leepin.

Anyhow, things with Ess are great. We're getting really spoiled by the reactions from health professionals about how great and healthy and vibrant she is. It'll come as a shock if anyone just goes, "Meh, she's all right. Pretty average." Even if she is average for a baby of her adjusted age, the way she started off will always make me look at her and marvel, I'm sure.

LEEP LEEP!

2009-07-05T16:37:00.003-04:00

Yesterday Essie had the most awake, alert day of her life. It was like she was at a day-long party or something. It started at around seven in the morning and I hadn't gotten quite enough sleep. I wasn't horribly underslept, I just didn't have quite enough under my belt. So I was not prepared for Essie's sudden baby party.

You can only hold a baby for so long before you need to eat or bathe or go to the bathroom or crouch in a corner and weep. When Ess is awake, though, she wants you paying attention to her because she's pretty dependent on others for her entertainment. If you lay her down she is not satisfied. She's no dummy. She knows you're not HOLDING her, stupid, and so she will begin to prompt you to get with the program and pick her up. She does this through adorable wiggling and baby noises and it takes her a bit to escalate to anything more serious.

I took this video during the approximate middle of the party:

Twitch, twitch, wiggle, wiggle, gasp, wiggle, twitch, gasp. No crying, no real anger. Just persistent, focused action designed to alert you to her non-held, fully adorable status. I tried hard all day to get her to sleep. I used all the tricks I knew and her grandma did too. Mimi came over at one point with July and Rowan, both of whom seem very taken with Essie and like to admire her and hold her. Essie stayed awake during their visit. Usually when they come over Essie is asleep or on her way to it so Rowan (who turns four this month) will say, "The baby is 'leepin." He's also accused me of choking her to death when I'm trying to burp her on my lap with her chin propped in my hand which is not as accurate an observation, but hey. He's four.

Anyhow, Essie stayed mostly awake and kept partying. After they left, though, the baby party was winding down and Essie was becoming that partygoer. You know the one. The one who likes to talk and who has reached the point of not really enjoying the party any more but don't want to actually leave yet. So they latch on to someone and talk politics or religion or some other possibly anti-social topic and it's strident and kind of off-putting and uncomfortable to the remaining party-goers. That's who Essie became. The baby party had gone on too long, she was no longer happy about it, her eyes were red and her grumps were grumpy.

She kept falling asleep for ten or twenty minutes, then waking up and saying, "HEY, what happened to the party?" This went on until I decided to just take her to bed already and I guess once we hit the mattress she got the idea and had a normal night's sleep from then on. A normal night's sleep means waking up every three hours and demanding food, but at least there is sleep in there, right?

Oh, man. It looks like she might be entering a partying phase of her life where she's more wakeful during the day and sleeping longer stretches at night which is FINE, I just want to be aware of it so I can adapt. I'm really looking forward to her sleeping through the night if she's the type of baby to do it!

Anyhow, today hasn't been quite as party-ish. Check it:

The baby is 'leepin.

O noes! It's an emergency!

2009-07-03T11:39:00.004-04:00

Last night we had our first emergency room experience with Essie. Thankfully it wasn't a terrifying emergency at any point. Essie'd been kind of out of sorts for about a week since starting on the thrush medication. Last night Mom and I went shopping with Mimi and when we got back Andrew said that while we were gone Essie had been fighting with drinking her bottle and then throwing up pretty much every drop she drank after each eating session. I fed her a bit more and she did exactly what he'd been talking about; struggling and fussing while eating like it was uncomfortable, then barfing it all back up.

Seeming a bit uncomfortable is one thing; not keeping any food down is quite another. After a quick call to TeleHealth we decided to just go to the emergency room with her. We all loaded up into Mom's car and off we went.

I brought a full bottle with us in case the doctor wanted to see what we were talking about and since her stomach was mostly empty Essie got fairly quiet and calm. We had a bit of a wait to see the triage nurse, then another minor wait in the common waiting area. Things moved pretty fast for us, though, since Essie is so young and a preemie to boot. I felt guilty about that since I felt like she was doing well and in no immediate danger, but I'm no doctor and if there was something serious going on with her we wanted to know.

The ER nurse was a former NICU nurse so she was extra-great with Ess, but the funny part was that she'd forgotten we were the parents of the preemie baby and couldn't tell until I mentioned it. She was totally surprised and said she'd never have known unless we'd said something about it. She took us off to weigh old Essie and I was wondering how much she'd have put on. Last time she was weighed on June 8th she was eight pounds, four ounces, and this time she was 11 pounds! This kid is not kidding around about being big and healthy.

Sucking back a bottle in the emergency room like nothing was ever wrong with her.

The ER doctor (Dr. Cottle, for all you BSG fans) pretty quickly determined that Essie doesn't have anything wrong with her other than ongoing thrush issues, and that the vomiting might be because the thrush is in her throat as well and it's irritating to her. So she just told us to continue with the meds four times a day, and assured me that no, the meds will not harm her in any way even if she seems uncomfortable. After the diagnosis she praised Essie up like gangbusters and told us we were obviously taking great care of her and that she was a superstar.

I always love hearing stuff like that, especially that it's obvious that we're taking good care of her. It does make me wonder, though, how many babies they see that aren't receiving good care. Is it in any way remarkable or are they just being reassuring? Babies are pretty straightforward when all is said and done. Keep 'em clean, keep 'em clothed, feed 'em when they're hungry and talk nicely to them. They grow! They're even amusing and interesting a lot of the time as a result.

They're not quite as simple to take care of as houseplants, but then every houseplant I've ever owned has died a horrible death of outright neglect. Essie, on the other hand, is doing just fine. I think the reason for this is that a houseplant has never once smiled at me.

Mid-trip update.

2009-06-29T12:26:00.004-04:00

So we've been here at Essie's Grandma's place now for over a week and it's been so incredibly awesome for me to see the two of them getting so much quality time together. I think there's nothing in the world my mom loves so much as a tiny, sweet baby and if that baby is in the slightest distress she's ON IT.

Like, the other day my mom had had insomnia the night before and hadn't slept a wink. She went off to bed, but got up when she heard Essie crying in the living room with me, took her from me and walked her around until she was soothed and sleepy again. Then gave her back to me and went to bed! That's love.

Essie's been more cranky than usual the last few days because she has thrush and the medicine for it is making her feel sick. The med info says it can cause diarrhea, intestinal discomfort, stomach pain and nausea. Poor little bug. She hasn't been freaking out but she's definitely been more serious when awake and seeming more uncomfortable overall. When Essie cries you know she's in actual discomfort, not just complaining for complaining's sake. She doesn't cry much at all, this kid, so hearing it at all is startling and worrying.

Hopefully the thrush will be all cleared up soon and she'll be back to her normal, mellow self. Other than that excitement we've pretty much just been chilling out and hanging with my mom. She's bought Ess a bunch of cute clothes, of course, and we finally managed to find a couple of sunhats after discovering they're strangely difficult to find during the actual summer season. Here are some pics from the last week:

Crashed out on the sofa on a pretty brutally hot day. Just a diaper was sufficient for clothes!

After her hot nap, cooling off by a window on Grandma's lap.

Getting some morning cuddles on Grandma's shoulder.

Leaving WalMart, the only store in which we could find any sunhats for newborns. Essie's rocking it.

Essie is more of a mellow yellow kid.

2009-06-19T11:37:00.002-04:00

I can't stop kissing her. It's mostly her cheeks. She has the most pokeable, kissable, pinchable cheeks ever and when she's awake and interactive I just HAVE to kiss them. This, of course, guarantees that her first words will not be anything like 'boo' or 'gee' or 'dada' but will instead be, "If you do not stop invading my personal space I am moving in with GRANDMA."

Sucks to be you, kid. She'll kiss you too. Plus take you to Sunday School.

But O, how I love this baby. Her Aunt Jenny is in town this week and we went to Fresh to have dinner with her last night. Jenny commented that Essie is a pretty chill, calm baby and she really is (for the most part.) Of course she had a bit of an out-of-character cranky period after we got home but that's OK. Her cranky periods are so few and far between that we just count our blessings every day and make the most of what could very well be a temporary state. For the other 22 hours of the day she is so fun and funny and charming. And chubby.

I read in someone's blog a few years back (and I don't recall which blogger it was although I know it was one of the upper echelon of 'mommybloggers') that they would totally stalk their baby on MySpace. I laughed at the time because it's funny, but OH MY HECK it's true. Andrew and I have been trading off every other night of taking the 'Essie shift' where one of us is responsible for waking up and taking care of feeding and diapers when she needs it. The thing is that when I'm in bed and I wake up and hear her making some kind of noise out in the living room with Andrew it takes everything in me to just stay in bed and go back to sleep. I want to go to her, I want to hold her in my arms and snuggle her close and kiss her head and nuzzle her neck. She's so freaking nice and lovely and I enjoy her so much.

I want to describe to you so badly what the things are that fire me up so much with love for her. The problem is that it all sounds kind of crazy or too commonplace. Like how she drinks her bottle. The way she puts her hands on the sides of it and makes a little 'nyuck nyuck' noise when she swallows and how she keeps her eyes on mine. Then she stops drinking and sighs and takes a little rest (never letting go of the nipple, mind you) then digs right back in.

See? I just described a baby drinking a bottle. But ... but it's ESSIE drinking it, see, and she's ESSIE and ... and ... argh. I can't make it work with words.

I joke that she's the best baby ever and there will never be a better baby, but at the same time I feel very strongly that I want to raise her with the most realistic expectations possible. I don't want her to be saddled with the idea that she's a special, special flower and a total genius and a cut above most other kids. I don't buy into this Indigo Kid bullshit which is where a lot of that 'You're the greatest and other people just don't understand you!' stuff leads. Here's a freaking awesome quote from the Wikipedia:

Skeptics suggest that the indigo phenomenon is due to parents preferring to believe their children are special, rather than having a medical diagnosis which implies damage or imperfection. Also criticized are the traits used to describe children, which have been compared to the Forer effect - so vague as to be able to apply to anyone.

Yeah. Pfft. BUT: I want Essie to be who she is. I want her to go to school and play with other kids and learn what she learns and be good at some things and not so good at others. I want her to gravitate toward the things she's interested in and help her pursue the things she's most passionate about. I don't want her to feel any pressure to always be better than the rest and the smartest and the one that stands out most. I just want her to be happy to do her personal best and understand that that is what's most important.

Wait, wait!

Descriptions of indigo children include the belief that they are empathetic, curious, possess a clear sense of self-definition and purpose, strong-willed, independent and unconventional. Indigo children have also been described as having a strong feeling of entitlement, or "deserving to be here." Other alleged traits include a high intelligence quotient, intuitive, resistance to authority, disruptive, impatient and easily bored. According to Tober and Carroll, indigo children function poorly in conventional schools due to their rejection of authority, being smarter than their teachers and a lack of response to guilt-, fear- or manipulation-based discipline.

HAhahahahahaha! So ... basically they're assholes? Got it.

Out and about.

2009-06-14T15:31:00.000-04:00

Essie attended her first concert last week. Our friend Michele Jacot puts on an annual show called Commingle and this was the third one, actually called Commmingle Three (and that is not a typo.) The last two years I showed some pieces and last year had a piece up for auction but this year there was less art, more singing and performing. There was a silent auction and the whole thing was a benefit for the Cystic Fibrosis foundation.

I love Commingle because lots of people we know perform (mainly Michele herself, being an insanely talented professional classical musician). One of the highlights of the show for me, though, is Cadence. I'm pretty much a squee-squee Cadence fangirl. A capella singing, four tenors, excellent showmen ... dang. It just makes me so happy!

I was a bit leery about taking Essie to the show. I'm not the type of parent who thinks that my baby should be welcome at any function, no matter what. There are some things that just aren't baby-appropriate. Like movies. I wouldn't dream of taking Essie to a movie theatre, believe me. I know there are movie nights for parents specifically so that they can see movies while also bringing the kids, but not in general. So I was worried that the night of Commingle would be the night that Essie decided she wasn't going to be an easygoing baby and wouldn't sleep through all kinds of noise.

I was relieved that Maysie and Dan showed up (which I had no idea they were going to) and took the table beside ours. Then the table on the other side of us only had one guy and he left and sat somewhere else (or left altogether, I'm not sure; he was the representative for the CF Foundation and took off after his speech) before Essie even made a peep. So we were buffered a bit, and quite honestly Essie was pretty great. If she started to make any noise I offered her a bottle or her soother and she quieted down every time. I was poised to dash out of there with her, though, so that she wouldn't interrupt anything or take away from anyone's enjoyment. Maysie and Dan left during the first intermission and Candice and Rich came up and sat in their places so we still had people we knew beside us, at least!

So, I don't know that I'll be taking her to many more events like that, if any. It's stressful for me as her mom to worry about it and I really do feel that if you have a kid you just have to accept you can't take them to certain events that you would have attended before sprogging. If Michele hadn't explicitly told me she wanted us to come and bring Essie I might have sat it out at home. Thankfully it all went really well, but she's only going to get crankier and more opinionated as she grows and I'm not going to take it for granted that she'll behave appropriately at public events like concerts and shows.

Good, healthy baby.

2009-06-11T08:26:00.000-04:00

Essie had a pediatrician's appointment on Monday. I don't mind taking her to them because it's always nice to have verification that she's continuing to do well, but I was getting a little irritated about hearing that the fact that my daughter was gaining weight quickly was undesirable. I was not looking forward to hearing about it again.

Thankfully this time the pediatrician had nothing but good things to say! Essie weighed eight pounds, four ounces (up from seven pounds, fourteen ounces at the last visit two weeks ago) but there was no finger shaking this time. The doctor just praised her health and said that no one would guess she was a preemie if they didn't know what had happened. She also said that I was doing a good job as a mom, which was pretty nice to hear, you know, coming from a doctor.

I'm so used to how Essie is that I sometimes get confused on whether she's ahead in certain things. There was a five-day-old baby in the waiting room while we were there and her grandma commented that Essie must be close to the same age. Essie was asleep at the time so they didn't see what she's like when she's awake, but she's certainly more alert and focused than that newborn was. She already tracks things with her eyes (in a limited way) and just overall seems more engaged and aware. This baby was all limp and foggy and even though it was adorable, Essie seems more 'human' to me.

Of course she's had lots more time to practice being a tiny person out in the big world so it shouldn't surprise me, but it does kind of confuse me from time to time. I have also still been trying to settle on a good answer for when strangers ask me how old she is without having to go into the really long explanation. I'm going to start just saying her actual age and leaving it at that. Some people will realize she's pretty tiny for her age, and some people won't know the difference. I won't offer more info unless they ask specifically.

It's not that I don't want to talk to people about it or her. It's just that lots of people ask, and if I told the whole story every time I'd get pretty tired of it. In the waiting room at the pediatrician's office is OK since we're all there for the same reason and have babies in common, but on the bus or in line at Shopper's Drug Mart ... not so much.

Dummy dumb dumb.

2009-06-07T14:12:00.002-04:00

You know how sometimes you say something and it doesn't occur to you until much, much later that you were highly inappropriate or insulting or both?

No? Just me?

Damn.

Sigh. It happened to me last night. We went to May and Dan's 10th anniversary party. I was excited to go since I knew there'd be a number of friends in attendance who hadn't yet met Essie, plus getting out of the house for such a fun reason is pretty sweet. One of the highlights of the parties that Maysie and Dan throw is that I always meet someone interesting and new at them and last night I got to meet a couple of people like that. One was a cool woman who was there with her husband and 9 month-old son and we chatted a lot about breastfeeding (which is on my mind a lot these days.)

The other woman is someone who went to high school with Andrew and Dan. She is nine months pregnant (and I think she even said that yesterday was her due date) and looked awesome. Glowing and energetic and lovely. I ended up having a great chat with her toward the end of the night and talking to her about my experience with pre-eclampsia and Women's College Hospital. At one point I mentioned that I was quite satisfied with having had a c-section and that given the choice I'd likely opt for a c-section again.

She was all, oh really? And so I proceeded to say that yes, I would, but that my experience might have been easier since they weren't pulling a full-term baby out of the hole in my abdomen and so I might have recovered faster. Then I went on to say that while I was in recovery I lay there listening to the screams and shrieks of other women going through natural childbirth and that I couldn't imagine what kind of pain they'd be feeling since nothing I experienced was anywhere near the level of pain that would cause me to scream.

She got a kind of bemused look on her face, but NOTHING registered to me at that moment that I was saying something awful to a woman who is about to give birth in the next week or so. I just blathered on about how glad I was that I didn't have to feel horrific pain and that I was thankful I hadn't been in such agony.

Oh, I am so dumb. This poor woman. I know that in the months that I was pregnant I went to great lengths to either not think about labour or convince myself that really, it wouldn't be so bad. That all the stories I'd heard were exaggerations, likely, and that women make it sound worse than it is. I was basically scared out of my mind and who knows how I'd have felt if I'd carried Essie full-term. At nine months I'd have likely been in weak-kneed terror and if some dumb bint had stood there talking about the horrors of childbirth I might well have punched her in the snout.

I would totally have deserved a snout-punching. I am so, so dumb.

One month, baby.

2009-06-02T17:58:00.000-04:00

Essie's been home with us for a month as of today! It's so strange. On the one hand I can't believe she hasn't always been here with us, but on the other hand it feels like just yesterday we brought her through the apartment doors for the first time.

I don't miss going to the hospital every day. I don't miss the feeling of having her care be something I had no say in. I don't miss feeling like it was a special occasion when I could hold her or do regular, every-day things like change her diaper or bathe her.

I DO miss having medical professionals around all the time to let me know when things are OK. Not that it often happens that I think I need an immediate answer or that she seems sick or anything. It was just a luxury, is all. I also miss free diapers. That was nice.

It's been a strange transition. Very different from bringing home a newborn directly after giving birth, I am certain. She wasn't 'new' in the same way, and was already pretty stoic about a lot of things. We'd had the opportunity to get to know a lot of her quirks already and had some practice when it came to many aspects of her care. I wanted very much to get her used to lots of human contact and love and I've been very successful in that regard, if success means she never wants to be put down now! I joke, but I also like it. I certainly don't get tired of holding her and snuggling her!

I am kind of reluctantly trying to ease her into sleeping on her own, though. Not at night (or whenever I end up getting the bulk of my sleep, anyhow) but during the day when I should be able to put her down and get some things done. She doesn't always want to be in the sling, so I can't depend on it for her sleep times. She definitely knows the difference between being held and simply being set down in warm, cozy blankets and she'll protest.

Anyhow; in the month that she's been home with us she's already gone on two road trips, attended a comic arts festival, ridden the bus and subway and met a bunch of family on both sides. She's outgrown all of her preemie clothes and is quickly starting to work through her newborn stuff as well, fitting better and better into the 0 - 3 months sized stuff instead. She's out of preemie diapers and well into the newborn size, with the Pampers brand newborn size getting a bit tight. She likes having baths (or at least doesn't seem to hate them), loves having her tiny bit of hair brushed and has decided that she's too big for swaddling. Swaddling is for preemie chumps, not grown-up full-term babies like herself.

She'll allow the modified arms-free swaddle but ... come on. That's a toga.

All is transient.

2009-05-29T09:49:00.000-04:00

I like reading weblogs a lot. Personal weblogs of people I know especially, but if I stumble across a weblog written by someone I don't know and they're entertaining and engaging I probably end up following it. Since Essie's birth I've read blogs written by other preemie parents about their time in the NICU and coming home, and have found other blogs through those blogs.

There's one in particular that I've followed. I don't even recall how I found it. Probably when I was doing a search on various medical things I was worried about for Essie. It's a blog written by a 23 year old single mom whose daughter was diagnosed as having anencephaly at 19 weeks gestation.

Anencephaly is a devastating diagnosis because there's no good outcome. Basically it's when the skull hasn't formed properly, leaving the brain exposed and the amniotic fluid eats away a large portion of brain matter. Babies with this diagnosis obviously have no chance of survival and it's often recommended that the mother terminate the pregnancy as early as possible. If they don't terminate the baby remains alive, being attached to the mother as life support, and develops as normally as it can under the circumstances until birth, at which point it passes away.

Some parents make the latter decision, knowing that they'll have only minutes or possibly hours with their child. Many of these babies are stillborn. But still some parents choose to do this rather than abort early, and feel that even if it's harder on them, it's worth it somehow.

I have very little personal understanding of how to make that kind of decision, or what I would realistically choose in their position. But I found this blog written by this 23 year old mother who decided that she'd carry her daughter to term and say goodbye to her when she was born. She knew it wasn't a standard choice and fought tooth and nail with medical professionals to have her pregnancy and birth treated with the same dignity and respect as 'normal' pregnancies and births. She had no usual baby showers, collected nothing beyond some clothes for her daughter to wear when she was born. Her support system was at least fairly extensive as she is devoutly Christian and the choice to not abort was a natural one in her circle, but she still carried her child knowing the probable date of her death.

So then her daughter, Faith Hope, was born by c-section. And she lived for a few hours with no assistance beyond feeding and pain management. And then a few hours more, and then a few hours more. And kept on living. Soon her mother took her home to live out her remaining time there.

Faith lived for 93 days. During that time she cried, smiled, ate, made regular baby noises, demonstrated that she could hear sounds and feel pain, fulfilled all of the list of reflexes babies are supposed to present ... pretty much did everything babies with her condition aren't expected to do. Her mother posted many, many videos on the weblog demonstrating all of this, and apart from the bandage covering the top of her head and eyes she looked and responded much like a normal baby. That in itself was unusual since babies with anencephaly often have a startling, alien appearance especially around the face due to the eyes not having enough cranial support.

Trolls eventually discovered the site and began making comments, telling Myah (the mother) that she was raising a meat puppet, an empty doll with no feelings or sensations behind the random firings of what few neurons existed. They told her she'd have been better off if her baby had died or she'd aborted her as soon as she knew what was wrong. They tore her down for having feelings and love for her daughter. She quickly took comment capability off of her weblog and set up her email to be screened by another person so she'd never see those emails. In her position what else was she supposed to do? Say, "You're right," and leave her daughter out to die?

Faith had health problems mostly related to her breathing. She was on medications for it and also eventually ended up on a feeding tube. There's no question that she wasn't a 'normal' baby. Her mother celebrated her every minute alive and gave her all the love and affection any mother could. But over the last week Faith developed bleeding ulcers due to her feeding tube and one of her medications, and on the 23rd she died.

I visited the weblog not expecting this at all, as the last report had her feeling quite well. The illness came on quickly and she died just as quickly. I was shocked, and ended up pretty much bawling my face off as I read about it and watched some of the videos her mother posted to remember her as she'd been in the beginning.

I questioned myself a bit later. Why was I so affected by this? And after processing it a bit I realized that I was crying not so much for Faith, who was never expected to stay in the world very long and who passed away peacefully, but for her mother. Myah probably felt incredibly protective and defensive throughout Faith's life, knowing that many didn't approve of her decision in the first place, and had to feel that way on top of the overwhelming emotional tumult that comes with having a child no matter what.

I think of what I felt for Essie while she was in the NICU, instinctively wanting to make her pain go away and make it all better. How did Myah feel, knowing her daughter had such an extreme condition and yet lived and even thrived against those odds? As proud as I did? Prouder? Then she got to know the personality she saw in her little girl and loved her even more every day, still knowing they were on borrowed time. No matter what her medical condition this baby was her daughter and it's obvious she loved her more than anything in the world. Since Essie's birth I can relate to that feeling so closely, so viscerally, that it makes me choke up to even think of how she has to feel without her little girl.

Is Faith better off dead? Is Myah better off not having to care for a child who would have been severely retarded if she'd lived on, requiring complete physical care for the rest of her life? I know it all depends on point of view and we're not the ones who held her as she died a few days ago. But I also know that I had no actual idea of what I could feel for a child of my own before Essie, and there's a possibility that despite all her appearances of doing fabulously there are still things that can go wrong for her in the future as a result of being a preemie. What I can't imagine is a single thing that would make me feel like life would be better if Essie weren't in it.

Nearly a sneeze.

2009-05-29T01:20:00.009-04:00

We went to May and Dan's tonight for a visit, where Essie got to meet Candice and Rich for the first time, as well as the fabulous Sabrina! It was a good time and Essie was her usual mellow, growly self. At one point Maysie said that she hoped we'd be getting some of her growls and whatnot on record, so when we got home I decided to take some video using our camera.

The result? Not so much growling, but I did manage to accidentally catch her making her sneeze noise! I wasn't expecting it at all, but she started as soon as I started filming. If she almost sneezes she does it, or she does it after a big sneeze. Golly, it's cute!

Also, as you can see, putting a soother in a baby's mouth while filming them is kind of hard. Nearly went right up her nose, there. You can kind of hear me giggling about it while she's all, 'get it right, mama.'

Dressy Essie

2009-05-26T08:13:00.004-04:00

My mom sent us a package full of awesome baby clothes. I'd mentioned how I'd love to dress Essie in shades of brown but that it's harder to find nice clothes for baby girls in brown. Mom used her special Grandma skills to find some, though, and packaged them up and sent them off.

I got the package the other day and indeed it was full of awesome brown baby clothes. Also included, however, was a FANTASTIC sundress. A fantastic, colourful, summery sundress. I could hardly wait to put it on her so I did a little photo shoot so I could have some gorgeous shots of her in it for the Facebook albums. (This blog crossposts to my Facebook as well, so apologies to those who have already seen the pictures. There are bonus ones here, though!)

Make sure you click on them to see them full-size!

Of course, Essie can't exactly sit up on her own yet or anything so for pretty much all of these sitting up shots I'd whipped my hand back and taken the shot super-fast before she fell over. Here are the ones where I didn't take the picture quite quickly enough:

This last one is my favourite.

Guess what today is!

2009-05-24T06:30:00.001-04:00

Happy Due Date, Essie!

That's right; today is the day Essie was 'supposed' to be born. Or, the most likely day on which she could have been born. Of course things didn't exactly go to plan, but I was attached to this date for a number of reasons. It was my grandma Morrow's birthday, it's one of Andrew's wonderful cousins birthday, and it just has nice vibes what with all the partying and goodtimes on May 24 weekend.

But yeah ... not so much, huh? Instead of sitting here with a massive belly and feeling as supremely uncomfortable as a pregnant woman can feel (which you know I would be; I am very accomplished at feeling physically uncomfortable) I am sitting here typing on my laptop with a little warm baby sleeping cradled against my left shoulder. I've been a mom for almost three months now. Essie's been home with us for three weeks! What should have been a third trimester became a scary medical journey that I never want to repeat again.

But despite the rough start Essie's so great. So healthy and strong. She's growing and changing incredibly quickly, fattening up and getting more and more aware of us and her surroundings. I've said multiple times to multiple people that her prematurity had nothing to do with her, technically. Pre-eclampsia is about the mother's body malfunctioning, and Essie wasn't the problem physically. She was trying to grow and flourish in there and would have if I hadn't crossed my wires. So I believe very strongly that this is why she managed to grow and flourish like she did in the NICU. She wasn't sick, she didn't need any intervention; she was just early, evicted from her safe haven and forced to deal with a ton of obstacles as a result. In response she basically kicked the ass of all those obstacles and now here she is, a full-term-age baby with fat cheeks (both kinds), a great appetite, a friendly, resilient personality and all the love in the world at her fingertips.

Sometimes when she was in the NICU I felt like the day I got to be a 'real' mom would never come. The constraints of having a NICU baby are many and I've talked a lot about them before. Since she came home I've come to appreciate how that time allowed me to regain my strength and health while helping her develop hers and I'm thankful for it as such. But now that she's here I'm so in love with having her with me, with being her mom and taking care of her that I'd never want to relinquish her to anyone else like that again.

The fact that I'm enjoying this new role as much as I am has been a pleasant surprise. Yes, of course I'm always tired. I was this tired when I worked that night job in Ottawa, though, and this is definitely a more rewarding variant of exhausted. She wakes me up to feed her with escalating growls and when I give her her bottle she is hungry and attacks it like a snapping turtle, her eyes wide. Then she settles into a happy feed, humming and sighing and staring into my eyes. I talk to her and sometimes she 'talks' as well, groaning and growling around her bottle which results in pretty much one of the most hilarious noises ever. She does this with her soother too, and I laugh every single time.

She is lauded for her every poop, fart and burp. Pooping is difficult for her so of course I get genuinely happy that she is more comfortable when she works out her issues, so to speak. Just because her accomplishments are basic and biological in nature doesn't mean she doesn't deserve praise, you know. Hooray for being so good at being a baby! Maybe I feel so enthusiastic about it since for so long she was holed up in an incubator, unable to do all these usual baby things because of the shitty hand she'd been dealt. Her pure baby-ness now is a wonderful thing.

I'm a frickin' mom. Essie has made me into a mom. It's not like I thought it might be which is a relief because frankly I had a dim view of what kind of a mother I'd end up being and what kind of kid I might have. BUT! I had Essie, who is pretty much wonderful and I genuinely like being with her. And so far I'm not sucking so much at the mom thing, most of which I credit entirely to hormones and instinct and the example set me by my own Mom, who taught me common sense.

So Essie; today, the day that I held in my mind for six months as a kind of finish line, a theoretical kind of thing like the idea of what's over that next hill we've never climbed before; today I want to celebrate you and how far you've come in this crazy old world. I'm so proud of how strong you were in the NICU, how you put up with all the discomfort and pain and fright. I'm proud that the nurses all recognized the toughness of you, the fight you put up to make the sliver of the world you were aware of as comfortable and controlled as you could even if it meant just shoving your CPAP or holding tightly on to your feeding tube. I'm proud that you surpassed their expectations of you and did things ahead of schedule as often as possible, even when it caught us unprepared. And I'm proud, proud, proud that you're MY daughter.

Hells no

2009-05-22T08:46:00.001-04:00

OK, so Essie's due date is on Sunday and recently I have been looking at her and thinking there is NO WAY THAT CHILD COULD HAVE COME OUT OF ME ... you know, the 'natural way'.

It's her head, you see. Her head, it is really big. Man, when she was born I was fascinated by the eensy-teeniness of her eensy-teeny head. When we'd do Kangaroo Care I'd cup my palm and fingers over the curve of her skull and marvel at how miniature she was. Now I place my hand on the top of her head and it sits there, flat. Big-headed babies are not uncommon in my family and if this is how big our heads and my sisters' kids heads were when they were all born (the natural way) all I can say is, "Wow. My vagina does not envy yours at all."

It really hit me this morning. Essie was clean and dry and fed and had fallen asleep against my shoulder. I was supporting her with one arm and she was folded up into a very classic fetal position, head curled into her arms, legs all tucked up under and against her, her spine a cute little curve down to her butt. She was compact and bean-shaped and it struck me that yes, even though it seems entirely unimaginable to me, she actually could fit inside of me at the size she is now. Getting out is another matter altogether, but the way she was all tucked up against me really made me see it.

So. WEIRD.

Please don't mistake me; I'm still not mourning a natural birth. I thought maybe I would over time, but almost three months later and I'm still relieved I had a painless delivery. I guess I'm just not that invested in experiencing pain, you know? Obviously I wouldn't choose to give birth under the circumstances that Essie was born in a second time. Given the choice between her being a preemie or experiencing the pain of natural childbirth I'd choose the natural childbirth, pain be damned. But there's a certain relief in knowing that if she's our only child, I won't have to endure the pain of labour in this lifetime.

Because that head? Is way bigger than a grapefruit.

GrrrRAHrahrargharghARGH.

2009-05-19T07:15:00.000-04:00

We took Essie over to Maysie and Dan's for the first time the other night. I was really looking forward to introducing her to Dan, who had not yet met her, and just chilling with friends since we hadn't done so since she came home.

It was a great night and she was lovely. Emma also came over so she got to meet her, and everyone who wanted to got a chance to hold her. At one point, though, Maysie said that she was surprised I got any sleep co-sleeping with her like I do since she's so noisy.

I was a bit bemused since I actually hadn't even noticed her making much noise while we were hanging out. What's very possible is that I've just gotten used to her particular brand of noise and am tuning it out. But THEN the next day I was on the phone with my mom and Essie was beside me making her poop growl, which is the gutteral growl she makes when she's trying very hard to poop. Mom was all, "Is she OK? She sounds upset." I assured her that no, she's not upset. She's just narrating her life. Loudly.

She doesn't get upset to the point of inconsolable crying so far. The closest she comes is when we're attempting a nursing session and as soon as she starts making the high-pitched shriek noise I stop and we switch to bottle feeding. I think, though, that this nursing balderdash is teaching her to cry more quickly than she would if we weren't still persisting. Or at least if I weren't still persisting. I have been purposely not talking about the nursing situation these days, so that's all I'll say about that.

But noisy; yes. I honestly do not mind the kind of noisy she is currently. I mean, this served her very well in the NICU where the squeaky wheel was definitely more likely to get greased. Her nurses (and those who didn't have her) all knew her trademark growl. At St. Mikes one nurse told me that she'd went prowling around the room to find which baby was making such a noise and fix whatever was wrong, only to find Essie just growling to herself for no apparent reason. I was tickled by it then and I still am, since it's obvious just by looking at her that she's not in any distress, she's just talking in her baby way about the situation. When there's something bugging her she still growls and groans, but kicks it up a notch or two without resorting to screaming or anything like that.

I fully expect her to find her crying voice sometime very, very soon. Her due date is coming up within the week and any money one day she'll suddenly start with the regular baby cry and leave her tiny bear growls behind. I will miss them so, so much.

Good from the bad.

2009-05-14T06:15:00.000-04:00

On Monday I had to take Essie to Toronto Sick Kids Hospital for an eye exam. Preemies get tested on a regular basis after they're born for retinopathy of prematurity and this was to make sure that she was still doing well since she'd scored pretty much perfect on all her tests before this. Even so I was unhappy because I know for a fact that these tests are highly invasive and distressing for the poor babies.

Basically they take these gadgets like from A Clockwork Orange and clamp them inside their eyelids to hold their sockets wide open so they can go in there with a pokey-proddy tool and poke and prod their eyeballs, or 'manipulate' them, as they put it. They give them eye drops to dilate their pupils, and before they do the testing they anesthetize their eyeballs, but it's horrific for the poor little things. The doctor asked me if I'd brought her soother so she'd had something comforting to distract her, but I hadn't and I'm sure it wouldn't have done any good at all.

They also asked me if I'd be more comfortable waiting outside of the room, but since it was my daughter having to lie on that table and be supremely uncomfortable I figured I could handle sitting there not being the one with my eyeholes cranked open. So I sat in a chair and watched. From my angle I couldn't actually see what they were doing, but it was agony to listen to my normally low-fuss baby girl scream and scream and scream. One doctor swaddled her and held her head very still while the other did the tests, and after they finished the one holding her unwrapped her and told me I could pick her up.

I picked her up with a quickness, you can be sure, and immediately held her close to me against my left shoulder, trying to soothe her with my voice and physical contact. And, she instantly stopped crying, wiggling in closer to me and dropping the noise down to an aggrieved whimper. The doctor said, "Wow. She knows who her momma is!"

I was upset about seeing poor Essie so scared and uncomfortable, but the doctor's comment made me feel pretty good. Since she's come home I've been doing my best to give her as much touch and positive contact as humanly possible, wearing her in the sling a lot and sleeping with her beside me rather than putting her in a bassinet or crib. Also talking to her a lot so she'll know my voice. She had to spend her first two months so isolated, despite the best efforts of the nurses and our visits. Not the way a baby should begin life! So it means a LOT to me that she already knows me as a safe haven, that I won't hurt her and that my physical presence is a constant in her life now. One of the hardest aspects of her being in the NICU was imagining the times when she needed or wanted physical comfort when there wasn't a nurse able to provide it and I wasn't there.

Now I can give her that, and I'm seeing the difference it's making.

My first Mother's Day.

2009-05-13T11:43:00.000-04:00

Mother's Day was pretty awesome. I kicked it off by getting up early and giving Essie a bath so she'd be fresh and clean for a day full of meeting people. Then I dressed her in the outfit I'd been saving for that day; one that her Grandma gave her. It's pink and brown with polka dots and a flower on the front of the onesie, and she rocked it with pink socks and her clean, fuzzy hair. I have a slight obsession with finding nice outfits in brown for her since it's not as usual, but they're hard to come by!

We stopped at TCAF so I could meet some of the people Andrew had met the day before, and specifically so I could pick up Meredith Gran's second and third published collections. I stuck Essie in the sling and she was snuggly and happy in there until we got to the webcomics section and I pulled her out on request. After she was out of the sling and in my arms she got a lot of attention and loving up from various artists and inspired Kate Beaton to create her comic about meeting her. It was a LOT of fun. This was Essie's first public appearance and she was totally cool about it. I got my first taste of the public appreciation for teeny babies, something that was kind of on my radar before but not something I've been on the receiving end of as a mom.

So after that we bombed off to Kingston as fast as we could, which was not fast at all due to insane traffic on the 401 and having to make a baby-feeding pitstop. It was also a parent-feeding pitstop since we desperately needed some lunch, so it was slow going. But eventually, eventually we arrived and LO, the Essie-loving did begin.

I gave her to her Grandma to hold first, of course, and I was thrilled to finally see my baby in my mom's arms. It had bothered me so much at the hospital that she couldn't hold her there, and if we'd spent longer at St. Mike's I had planned to pretty much just put Essie in her arms and fight with anyone who tried to stop me. What actually happened was a much nicer scenario, of course, so it all worked out in the end.

Then La and Mimi took turns holding her for the first time, and after that the cousins all got a turn throughout the rest of the visit. Essie was a superstar. She was calm and content the whole time. I mean, she did do her usual growling and groaning but it was all good-tempered and she was pretty alert for much of the afternoon, which surprised me. I think overall everyone thought she was a cute, yummy baby as evidenced by the threats to steal her and eat her cheeks off entirely.

In all the madness I didn't end up doing much reflecting on it being my first Mother's Day. Things were busy and hectic, but good. Which is fine by me.

I ARE INTERNETS FAMOUS NAOW!!1!

2009-05-12T00:30:00.003-04:00

Holy crap! Kate Beaton drew a comic featuring me and Shaughnessy!

The poop that ate TCAF.

2009-05-09T18:54:00.002-04:00

Since late yesterday Essie had been a bit fussier than usual. After eating she falls into a comfortable sleep and usually stays that way until she's ready to eat again. Since last night, though, she'd been squirming and complaining even after eating, throwing up a lot more than I'm used to from her and generally seeming unhappy. She's been pooping almost alarmingly well since coming home from St. Mike's. I was worried that she had something wrong in there, actually, since pooping hasn't always been her strong suit and she often had to try pretty hard to poop once a day. But no; she'd been pooping all day, every day and nothing solid at all.

I know. This is gross. IDWIYO has been all boobs and poop these days.

Anyhow, she hadn't pooped since sometime in the afternoon yesterday and as the night went on she got fussier and more complainy. I'd been planning to sleep at night since today was the first day of TCAF and we'd been planning to go to it. I really, REALLY wanted to meet some of my favourite webcomic artists in person and buy some of their merch. Instead of sweetly sleeping, though, Essie slept very lightly, keeping up a running low-grade grumble. I don't know about you, but running low-grade grumbles aren't exactly a relaxing sound for me so I was not really sleeping so much as trying to sleep and ignore the grumble. Then when she got hungrier she'd ramp it up to a squeaky growl, which is an even less relaxing sound.

By the time Andrew got up for the day I was exhausted and sad, having only managed to grab a few minutes worth of sleep here and there between Essie's feedings and diaper changes. I had reached the point of tiredness where nothing really matters but just getting some damn sleep already, so I was like, "TCAF or sleep? I choose SLEEP before I cry."

So, I stayed home with our grumbly, poopless daughter, convinced that I'd never sleep and she'd never poop, that she'd forgotten how to do it and would require medical intervention every time poop needed to come out. Andrew went out to get some necessities, then came home where poop had still not appeared and sleep was still not succeeding, then went back out to see TCAF.

Mid-afternoon? She pooped. A giant poop, a triumphant poop, a poop that fulfilled the purpose of her diaper like no poop has ever done. So there was poop, there was a cessation in low-grade grumbling, and then after a bottle and some snuggling there was some sleep! I had to get up after some sleep because she yet again needed feeding and diaper changing and snuggling so was awake when Andrew came in the door, flush with stories of all my favourite webcomic artists and how nice and wonderful they are. I'd say a name and he'd be all, "Yeah, we talked. He/she is really nice!"

And they were really nice and a few signed some merch for me and my most favourite even said she'd send me some buttons as a Mother's Day gift! Of course at this point because I'd had some sleep and Essie was back to her usual mostly-content self I was petulantly sad that I hadn't been able to go to TCAF after all. So we're considering going for a few minutes before our drive to Kingston tomorrow so I can bask in the glow of the Dumbrella/Topatoco crew and probably buy even more merch. If you want your favourite webcomic artists to stick around making webcomics, you have to support them!

P.S. Notice how when she poops I'm worried that there's something wrong, and when she doesn't poop I'm worried that there's something wrong? Yeah.

Update from the trenches.

2009-05-08T19:21:00.001-04:00

OK, so week one with an actual baby living at home with us is coming to an end! Craziness. It's been pretty fine, all around. Like I said before; the first 24 hours were a bit rough, and thankfully I got over the cold pretty quickly or else this whole week would have been horrid, especially since Andrew had to go away for three days on business.

I suspect some thought I might lose my mind being home alone with Shaughnessy so immediately after she arrived, but really it was fine. Before he left town Andrew did a big grocery shop and made sure we had everything we need, plus did some laundry, so we were set that way. All I had to do was continue to feed her, clothe her, clean her and make sure all her needs were met.

And seeing as how I've always been a poor sleeper the new Shaughnessy-driven schedule isn't quite as much of a shock to my system as it might be to someone who swore by a 'normal' sleep schedule before the arrival of their baby. If I depended on sleeping at night, getting up bright-eyed and bushy-tailed in the morning and couldn't function any other way then this would definitely be a nightmare. I've never taken to that sort of thing naturally, though, so this isn't as soul-sucking as it could be. I can adhere to that sort of schedule when I have to, don't get me wrong. I just feel gross about getting up early in the morning every time I have to do it. Every. Single. Time.

Honestly it was really nice to focus entirely on my girl and how she functions. We had real quality time together and it was nice to see how I work as a mom, too. I've found that using the sling that we got makes her a very happy baby. I wasn't really expecting that because I mostly wanted the sling so I could have two hands free when I needed them but still had to carry her around. It's a Hotslings pouch sling and the newborn carry means she's cradled inside it and carried nice and close up against me. The whole effect is very cozy and womb-like and she falls into a really deep, relaxed sleep and I even have to wake her up for a feed when she's like that. Not only that, I can even take a quick nap if I want to while wearing it and she stays comfy and settled without me having to move her anywhere.

So, I guess I'm a sling proponent. I've always loved the idea of them. It makes a lot of sense to keep your baby with you as much as you can when they're this young. I also love the design of this sling in particular. I may find I need to move on to a ring sling or something when she's a bit older, but for now the simplicity of this one is exactly what I want. I'm hoping that the various carries for this one will work as well as the cradle carry so I don't have to look for something else that involves dangly bits and adjusting and wrapping and ties and stuff. Me = Lazy!

So, to sum up: We've had Essie for a week. I did not throw her out the window or down the well or sell her or anything like that. Being alone with her for an extended period is not scary. Slings and baby-wearing are two thumbs up! Yet I want the simplest sling possible because dude, extra complication in my life is a no.

More woe in B**bland.

2009-05-06T22:11:00.001-04:00

While Essie was at St. Mike's I was concerned about the supply of milk they had on hand for her. When we transferred there WCH sent over a bag of bottles of stocked milk left over from what I'd pumped for them and I was surprised at the size of it since I'd actually thought they'd have less. Then my supply got low for a bit there after the transfer and one day I asked Essie's nurse how much they had left. She LIED to me and said only what I'd brought in since the day before, which was about eight 80ml bottles worth.

I didn't know she was a LIAR so this freaked me out. I had given them permission to give Essie formula if they ever ran out of my milk, but I still figured it was optimal for her diet to stay the same. So, I did my best to keep pumping and bringing milk in and while I wasn't getting huge amounts, my supply did improve a bit. I estimated that I was meeting her daily needs just barely with what I was bringing in.

You can imagine my surprise on the day we took Essie home and a nurse came out with a big old bag of frozen breast milk and handed it to me. It looked to be about as much as had been sent over by WCH, and it turned out that it was mostly made up of the milk I'd expressed there. There was some newer stuff in there, but not much. So, it appeared they'd been using the newer stuff I was pumping and leaving the older (but still good) milk. I have no idea why; all I know is that they LIED TO ME and said they were out of milk when really they had a good supply on hand.

Whatever the reason, I am actually very thankful to have this bag of milk because things have been difficult in the land of breastfeeding. Essie is still having no success with nursing at all, and I've been having supply problems yet again. I'm trying to express after every feeding but it's not encouraging right now.

In the interests of trying to make it work I visited the La Leche League International website to see what they had to say. There is some awesome advice there on getting resistant babies to nurse and it was comforting to read that it's not that she doesn't want to nurse. I can tell that she'd nurse if she could figure it out since she roots and makes all the physical signals that tell me so. Anyhow, there was a lot of good stuff to read and I plan to put a lot of it into practice.

In doing my research there, though, I came across some things that upset me a bit. LLL is known for their strict stance on breastfeeding and only breastfeeding and they are big believers in nipple confusion. They don't think a baby should be introduced to any kind of fake nipples at all and that doing so will result in the baby getting turned off of the real thing since it's actually a bit more work for them to nurse for real rather than bottle feed. Fake nipples include both bottle nipples and soothers.

Before Essie made her dramatic appearance I was not convinced I'd encourage her to use a soother at all. However, she came early and had to endure being a preemie. The reason preemies are given soothers when they're in a NICU is so that they'll have a form of self-soothing since they're so isolated from the regular physical comfort and touch that most humans receive at birth. Do you think that there is any way on this planet that I'd hear that and say, "Oh, no, please don't give her a soother. I don't want her to be able to comfort herself if it means difficulty when I try to nurse her later."

Is that honestly a choice to some mothers? If there are mothers out there who would choose that over their premature, sick little baby having a way to comfort themselves during a painful, frightening time then I seriously would like to put the beatdown on them.

Oh, sorry, am I being NORMATIVE? I might be. But as much as this breastfeeding frustration sucks, I'm sure that being born too soon, intubated, stuck with IV pokes all over her arms and feet, having repeated painful eye exams, feeding tubes stuck down her throat, having to wear an uncomfortable CPAP and enduring many, many other things I wasn't even aware of sucked EVEN WORSE for Shaughnessy and she didn't even have the perspective of knowing why it was all happening. All she had was whatever instinctive physical defense she was capable of.

If they'd told me that the only form of comfort possible for her was a bong hit every hour, you'd better believe I'd have been in there lighting it up for her.

Why cats approve when you make the bebeh:

2009-05-04T16:34:00.003-04:00

Everything is cat-sized.

Mission Basic Hygiene: Accomplished

2009-05-04T11:44:00.002-04:00

I'm the last in my immediate family to have kids. Most of my extended family (cousins and whatnot) either have kids or siblings who have kids. Babies and spending time with babies is nothing new to any of us. Most of the friends I grew up with have kids and actually started having them years ago. So, I'm somewhat of a latecomer to this mom party. When I write about my epiphanies and the minutia of each new experience I know that they're reading this and either nodding sagely or laughing at me outright.

That being said, I'm still doing all this for the first time on my own and whenever I go through something as a first-time mom I want to write about it. Yes, because I love writing, but also because I don't want to forget how this felt.

So laugh at me if you want, but today I had a shower with no one here but Essie and me and I was stressed. I put her snoozing little self in the bassinet in the bedroom (on her back to comply with the Back To Sleep guidelines) and closed the door on her as she began to mildly grunt, then tried to have the fastest shower I could without compromising hygiene and social acceptability. I didn't skip any steps, but I did try to complete them all with efficiency.

While I soaped and lathered and rinsed (no repeating) and conditioned and scrubbed I imagined that I could hear her screaming over the sound of the running shower. I thought about how I've maybe only ever seen one actual tear from this kid since the day she was born since so far she's not much of a crier and I've been able to head off any major upset by meeting her very simple needs. I dreaded turning off the water to hear her wails and having to rush into the bedroom to find her covered in tears and the drool and snot of despair and abandonment.

When I was finally able to turn off the water I stood still and held my breath, listening. And I heard nothing. This wasn't entirely comforting as I immediately feared that she'd died from crying too hard, so I (very) hastily toweled off and rushed to the bedroom.

Where I found her angelically sleeping, looking as serene and untroubled as any perfect baby in any random advertisement featuring perfect baby products for perfect babies has ever looked. She continued to sleep as I got dressed, and is sleeping now on the sofa near me as I type. I have to rouse her to get her fed before we leave for her first pediatrician's appointment in about forty five minutes and I hate to do it, she's so content and comfy. If I don't, though, by one o'clock she'll be an angry, grunting, squawking noisebox that could very well produce a multitude of actual tears for me to wipe away.

The baby has landed.

2009-05-03T17:33:00.003-04:00

Essie's home now. She's been home since yesterday morning, and we 'roomed in' overnight on Friday night. The rooming in went pretty well all things considered, if you consider that taking care of our daughter was the first priority and sleep was definitely the second! We managed to grab a few hours of sleep each, but not much. Also, a real cold finally decided to hit me that very night. Not one of the 'oh, maybe I'm a cold, maybe I'm not' things that have been plaguing me since she was born. No; a real, no-kidding cold.

Coming home, though, was lovely. We rented a car for the weekend to make things a bit easier for the first couple of days and you should have seen us on the drive from the hospital. Giddy with happiness and love for our little family unit, thrilled to be united at last. Bringing her into the apartment was strange, strange strange and the reality hit pretty dang fast. Like any newborn, Essie's schedule is eat, sleep, diaper change, eat, sleep, diaper change, eat, sleep, diaper change. She goes approximately three hours between feeds, so my entire focus has been on following this schedule and grabbing sleep when she's sleeping (after I've expressed milk, maybe eaten some food, had something to drink, possibly gone to the washroom. I hear tell I might even have a shower someday!)

In a very unexpected development my girl has decided she wants NOTHING to do with my boobs. I'm not talking simply bare boob, here. I mean she seems to suddenly hate the nipple shield with a tiny grunty passion. Whenever I attempt it she gets furious and overwrought and finally I just get a bottle and bottle-feed her because girlfriend needs to eat! She still isn't latching on enough to eat without the nipple shield, so this is a project we'll have to revisit a little later on when things have settled down. She has her first pediatrician's appointment tomorrow and I'll be damned if I go in there with a baby that's lost weight.

In all honesty this last day has been extremely difficult. Even without the cold it would have been, I'm sure, but it's been rough. I've been feverish and coughing and sneezing and throwing up and even with Andrew's considerable help I've found myself wondering how this parenting thing can be manageable long term.

The answer, of course, is that it won't be like this long term and that every new parent goes through this sudden reality-check of actually having a baby to care for around the clock. I will get over this cold, she will gradually go longer between feedings over the months and then start sleeping through the night (hopefully; I'm not dumb enough to think that's any sort of guarantee!) She's going to change so fast and I'll find myself looking back and missing with everything in me the tiny, perfect being that she is in this very moment. I'm disappointed that I got sick for these first, formative days together because I'm already realizing that I hardly remember the many details of what the last 24-plus hours have been like.

What I will remember is how it felt to instinctively hold her near me when I'd crash out with her on the sofa during her sleeps. My own head spinning and sore and stuffed up, but all my senses focused on her breathing and how perfect her round little cheeks are. I'll also remember the painful reality that struck each time her hungry grunts would wake me up too soon from a desperately needed nap. There is no choice. Baby must eat, baby is our baby, we're the ones who have to sustain her. That's life, momma.

So I guess yet another chapter in this weird blog now begins. We'll see how regular my updates are now, but I guarantee I'll have a lot to share when I do!

A bit of a surprise!

2009-04-29T18:36:00.000-04:00

Our precious, precocious daughter yanked out her feed tube the other day and rather than put it back in her nurse decided to see how well she did on a 'feed on demand' schedule rather than a timed gravity feed schedule. That just means that every time she acted hungry they bottle-fed her with my breastmilk. Apparently she did well and gained weight at her usual rate, so they decided there was no real reason to keep her around much longer and informed us that she should come home within a few days! She'll likely be home on Saturday or Sunday!

Um ... what? A baby here, living with us? We are master procrastinators and having not expected her to come home for at least another couple of weeks we find ourselves now scrambling to prepare. Some things we'd intended to do won't get done before the weekend, but they're not the important things like having diapers and bottles and all the little things you find yourself needing. Moving furniture? Can wait.

Luckily we have the most important basics at hand like a place for her to sleep, a car seat, clothes and other essentials. Plus, my boobs. She actually managed to latch without using the nipple shield for a few minutes today, but I am still glad I have that thing or I don't think we'd be having so much success. But the fact that she can be sustained through bottle feeds means that the hospital feels she's ready to strike out on her own, and so it's time for us to take over.

More to follow, but we have a lot to do!

Glimpsing the bottom of the well.

2009-04-27T19:06:00.001-04:00

I'm so thankful that I told the nurses that it was OK to bottle feed Shaughnessy. Since the night before last I've had a scratchy throat, sinus pain and an on-again, off-again slight fever. It doesn't feel all that serious but the presence of symptoms like this keeps me out of the nursery where my daughter still lives and that makes me very sad. Even worse it keeps me from breastfeeding my girl, but at least she's being bottle-fed which keeps up her practice at suck-and-swallow.

They did make some worried noises about how much breastmilk they have on hand and feel that they're running low. I wouldn't be overly concerned but my milk supply has decided to get less plentiful over the last week and I'm not quite sure why. If it does happen that they find themselves out at some point I'll give them permission to give her formula, but I'm hoping it doesn't come to that. She's never had formula and the sudden switch would probably give her gas for miles, not to mention worse constipation than the poor little bug already has.

Mostly it's a selfish worry, though. She's at what is considered full-term with regards to her gestational age. Drinking formula is pretty much a non-issue at this point. Being able to express milk for her and know that all of her sustenance came directly from me was a major source of comfort for me during the time when there wasn't anything more concrete I could do for her. I couldn't cuddle her, I couldn't comfort her, I couldn't even really touch her much, but by golly I could pump! Even if I hated physically doing it, I was glad to do something so maternal for her.

Now that I can hold her, interact with her and even breastfeed her directly it's not as emotionally necessary, but I'm still a bit freaked out. I didn't have to put much effort into keeping up my milk supply, and suddenly it is betraying me! The nurses at both hospitals were/are very pro-breastmilk and although they're not explicitly anti-formula (and I am decidedly NOT anti-formula) I have overheard disparaging comments about it. I don't want to be disparaged! I'm already paranoid enough about seeming like I'm not a good enough or caring enough parent.

Anyhow, it's just something new for me to freak out about and poke at with my brain. I'm stepping up my pumping/expressing a bit to try to stimulate more milk production but if anything I've seemed to be getting even less as a result. I do not know what this is all about. What up, boobs. I'll have to chat with the lactation consultant at St. Mike's, someone I have not yet met. Reports to follow on whether she is terrifying.

Anus, whatever.

2009-04-26T01:22:00.000-04:00

So I've had three good breastfeeding sessions with Essie so far. The last one was today and she drank about 22 cc's altogether which is almost half of a feed. I tried to get her to do it again for her next feed but she was like, "What? I'm tired!" So, no go. Her stamina is not yet enough, I suppose, so I may have to try to nurse her at alternating feeds rather than two in a row for a bit.

We did have a nice visit with her today. The nursing session was cozy and wonderful, of course, and Andrew was there too which was nice because he wasn't for the last two sessions. The breastfeeding might be going well because I gave permission for the nurses to bottle-feed her and that's apparently been going well too, so she's getting lots of practice with suck and swallow. I just want this kid to be able to eat, as I've mentioned, so the fact that it's all going well makes me very happy.

She is getting a bit of a diaper rash, and I've noticed when I change her diaper at St. Mike's that it's always very, very wet. Like, many pees worth of wet. At WCH that didn't seem to happen and she never really came down with a rash at any point. The nurse gave us some zinc cream to use on her to help with it and Andrew changed her.

While we were sitting around he got in a conversation with the nurse about the rash and ... well, he used a lot of proper terms. Stuff like, "When I wiped her anus," and "I noticed she was red around the anus," and "There wasn't really any fecal matter around her anus."

I was sitting there holding our daughter and all I wanted was to holler, "STOP SAYING 'ANUS'!" He went on to say 'feces' and 'anus' and 'fecal matter' a few more times, and I just clenched my teeth and stayed quiet. We went out for dinner during the shift change and over our meal I suggested to him that terms like 'bum bum' and 'poo poo' were just as serviceable.

He disliked the unprofessionalism of such language and pointed out that when the nurse gave us a bath demo she kept saying 'vagina' a lot and it's true; she did. It was all vagina this and vagina that and vagina over here. But still she is a nurse and he's not! He's a dad! I still can't imagine him saying bum bum and poo poo, though. He's far more likely to say 'ass' than 'anus', to be entirely honest.

The big transfer.

2009-04-25T15:45:00.001-04:00

On Thursday afternoon I got a call from the charge nurse to tell me that Shaughnessy was going to be transferred that night to the level 2 nursery at St. Michael's hospital. I'd been expecting yet dreading this call for a while so it wasn't much of a surprise. I knew that we weren't supposed to be at WCH any more and it was only serendipity that had kept us there thus far.

The transfer was supposed to happen at 8:30 but the ambulance actually arrived early so she went around 8-ish, I think. I was about to change her diaper and take her temperature and all that stuff when they got there, so instead her night nurse took over and got her ready to go. It was a nurse who hadn't had her before and while she was listening to her chest with the stethoscope Shaughnessy started up her usual grunting and growling. The nurse tried to work around it, but eventually looked at my girl in pretend exasperation and said, 'You sound like a bear!" I loved this, since her growliness is something that I find extremely funny. If my sources are correct she'll outgrow some of this around the time she reaches her due date so I really need to cherish it while I can!

Anyhow, the nurse did get her settled into the transfer incubator out in the hallway where the ambulance attendants were waiting around. When she was done she draped a blanket over the top, saying to us that whenever people see one of these incubators they gawk at it to try to see the baby inside so it was just a bit of privacy. Then we all started off.

When we got to the elevators to go down to the first floor a huge group of people came out into the elevator area. It was a tour showing expectant parents the various floors they'd be visiting or could possibly end up visiting. It looked like they'd just come up from the high risk floor where we'd spent the first month and a half and when they all saw the incubator they looked very solemn indeed. All the moms were hugely pregnant, likely due near the time I'd been or near thereabouts. The back of the incubator wasn't covered by the blanket and we did see lots of the parents peering in trying to get a look at the preemie within. Shaughnessy was wrapped in blankets, wearing a hat, strapped in a head hugger, covered with more blankets over that, strapped down to the floor of the incubator itself and surrounded by rolled up towels so there was nothing to see but fabric.

We eventually got into the elevator and left the group behind but it was just so awkward and funny and strange. For them the reality that our daughter has had to live is what they are hoping against with everything they have, so that brief encounter in the elevator area was serious and scary and sad. For us it was anything but, seeing as how her transfer is just another indicator of how healthy she is and how much progress she's made. I know that if I'd been a part of that group I'd have felt the exact same way and pitied the poor parents walking next to the incubator, but all I felt was grateful that my girl was OK.

I rode up front with the ambulance driver and Andrew took the subway to meet us at St. Mike's. The drive over was pretty awkward because the driver had a sense of humour that I just didn't understand at all, and had a little outburst to himself where he was looking out the window to his left and muttered angrily, "I just don't give a damn!" It was unrelated to anything we'd said and anything going on around us (that I could see) so I just waited out the rest of the ride as best I could. Eeek.

When we arrived and got up to the nursery one of the first people I saw was a mom I'd been getting to know at WCH, so she and I chatted a bit while the nurse got Ms. Essie out of the incubator and handed her off to her new nurse. Then they did a whole inspection of her with the pediatrics fellow checking all of her reflexes and muscles and whatnot. After all that the new nurse dressed her in new clothes, wrapped her up, covered her with a blanket and that was it! Transfer complete!

I'm having a lot of separation anxiety about not being at WCH any more. Yes, the St. Mike's nursery is bigger and fancier and the rocking chairs are nicer and all that jazz, but it's just not WCH with the nurses we know and the familiar surroundings and all that. WCH is a hospital that I have come to have a lot of respect for and I want to give back to it in some way. Also, change sucks and in a weird way I feel very unsettled about Shaughnessy being in a place that I don't know well. It's not sensible since she's about as safe as safe can be living in a hospital nursery with medical professionals all around her, but whatever.

I did get to nurse her again yesterday which was awesome and went even better than the first time. She drank about 12 cc's before getting tired this time. I can see how it will take some time before she's able to subsist just on breastfeeding alone since she really needs to work up her strength in order to get a full feed from nursing. But it's just as wonderful as I thought it would be to be able to sit and look down at my daughter and hold her hand and sing to her while she nurses. She's awake for most of it and she looks at me and we connect. I feel like I'm more than just her friendliest nurse in that moment.

My baby is unreasonably accomplished.

2009-04-23T06:19:00.002-04:00

I went into the hospital yesterday so that I could spend Shaughnessy's eight o'clock and eleven o'clock feedings with her. The nurses seem to think that doing the lick and sniff in the half hour before the feed is supposed to start is best, so I wanted to time it right. She was sleepy when I got there, but I changed her diaper and took her temperature before starting the first lick and sniff and she woke up and was nice and perky.

I'm going to start off each session without the nipple shield but then switch to it after a few minutes. I'm not really expecting her to get a good latch yet without it since she still needs to build up some strength, but I also want her to be familiar with me sans silicone barrier.

Her nurse wasn't there when I started, but when she came to check on us she told me that we looked like a textbook illustration of the football position so that was nice. I'd already started with the nipple shield but S-Girl was still kind of fussing around a bit, moving her head back and forth a lot. All of a sudden, though, she latched right on and started sucking. I could tell she was getting some milk because she paused a bit and seemed to be concentrating on how to coordinate this new aspect of sucking, but then swallowed and from there on didn't skip a beat!

The nurse came back and saw that she was sucking and seemed very impressed. We hadn't weighed her first so the nurse decided to see if any milk would come back up the feed tube, and sure enough it did! She also used the stethoscope to verify that there was swallowing going on (since it's hard to tell with her fatty little neck now), which there most definitely was. Through all this little Ms. Essie just sucked away, kind of ignoring all the fuss going on around her. In the end she really only drank about 5 cc's of milk, but she NURSED THAT BREASTMILK, BOOYAH! The nurse was impressed and wrote it in her chart as a mini-feed, not a lick and sniff!

I know. Babies nurse. It's not earth-shattering. But she's a month shy of her due date and seeing my daughter go from a 1000g baby with no body fat to a 2169g+ baby with thunder cheeks who can nurse like it's no big thang, well ... it thrills me. OK?

Phew. After her feed was over and all that excitement faded I cuddled her for a long time and she flaked right out in my lap, snoring her little snores and getting really warm and comfy and content. I had to put her back in her incubator so I could go eat something, but I had a feeling she was going to be a sleepy baby for her next feed and that the second lick and sniff wouldn't happen. I was right, and oh noes the horror instead I had to cuddle my baby girl for another long period of time, what a chore.

Then I came home to sickly Andrew who has been sick and not able to go to the hospital himself, sadness. His parental leave from work cannot come soon enough. Man needs a vacation and this summer looks like it's going to be the best of our lives!

Suckle THIS, smartypants!

2009-04-22T17:35:00.002-04:00

Since I'd gone in earlier in the day I called the nursery at around midnight last night to check on Ms. S before going to bed. The call went really well until the end, when things degenerated for me. Here's how it went.

NURSE: She wants to suckle.

ME: Oh, I know. We had a great session with the lactation consultant today. She's really getting it.

NURSE: No, she needs to do it more than that!

ME: Well, I try to do it every day. It doesn't always work out.

NURSE: Every day! More times a day! If you don't she won't nurse later on. She won't know how!

ME: (Getting a bit defensive.) She had an eye exam today. She was too exhausted for more than the once.*

NURSE: Well she really needs to learn this. More times a day!

Now I am all agitated by the thought that due to my negligence my daughter will never really learn to nurse, even though that's bullshit of the highest order and we'd made real progress earlier in the day. I was feeling great about it, really encouraged by the experience and glad that the lactation consultant had helped me out so much and now I am trying to hang on to that and not feel like I'm failing her in some way.

To me the true point is not that she's breastfeeding, even if I've talked a lot about how much I want to be able to do so with her. The truly important thing is that she's getting my breastmilk and the how of it getting inside her is secondary. If she never takes to nursing and we have to bottle-feed her while I continue to pump then that's how it'll be. Ideally I want her to do both so that Andrew can also feed her and so that we can bottle-feed her when it's less convenient to nurse. I am not stuck on her ONLY breastfeeding and nothing else. I think it would be irrational to feel that way, and potentially crazy-making. I don't want to set myself and Shaughnessy up for disappointment and difficulty. I just want to do what works best and makes us both comfortable

I am doing my reading on all this, believe me, and even if it takes time the majority of babies, preemie or otherwise, figure it out and end up doing fine on only nursing, or a combination of both. I wasn't even planning to breastfeed in the first place and had fully expected to formula-feed her with bottles but the fact of her prematurity threw a wrench into those plans. So, this has been a pretty major adjustment of expectations for me and that's probably why I'm pretty flexible about the idea of bottle vs. breast since either is a vehicle for her to drink my breastmilk. She'll be in my arms, alive, not dead due to undiagnosed preeclampsia. I'd rather wake up every day happy about those things than stress out about whether she'll be a perfect breastfeeder!

* The eye exams that the doctors do to check for ROP are very traumatizing and uncomfortable for the babies, so after they have them they're usually very exhausted and out of it for the rest of the day. They tend to sleep more and be more fussy when awake, so things like lick and sniffs aren't usually all that successful.

Ow, my everything!

2009-04-21T22:46:00.002-04:00

WELL! I certainly had a day of man-handling. Or ... person-handling, anyhow.

It started off with a visit to the OBGYN for the six-week followup visit. I had a wait of at least an hour and a half, an hour of which was spent half-naked and trying not to fall asleep on the examining table. No kidding; an hour. Maaaan. But when my doctor got in there he was his usual charming self. He looked at my incision and admired it, which is what every medical professional does when they look at it. All, "Oooooh, very nice. It's hardly going to be noticeable!" This is wasted on my non-bikini-wearing self, but I appreciate it nonetheless.

After he got done looking at it he proceeded to PROD MY INNARDS INTO A PULP while checking my uterus and ovaries. Seriously, I was ready to crawl off the table it was so uncomfortable. I'm not talking about the hand in my privates, I'm talking about the one feeling around on the outside. Ow! My incision is pretty (so they say) but it's still a healing wound, people!

Then it was all, "Put on your pants and scram," so I did. I went to the hospital that houses my daughter and spent the afternoon with her. I was intent on this visit because I was supposed to spend some time with the lactation consultant trying to figure out a comfortable position to nurse Shaughnessy in since what I'd been doing hadn't been working for me.

She recommended the football hold, which is where you tuck your baby under your arm like you're a quarterback and nurse her that way instead of having her lay across your lap in front. It was actually really good and comfy right from the start and I was very happy, but then we moved on to trying to get Shaughnessy to latch, which is something she hasn't done yet. The LC watched me for a minute and then said, "May I?" I said yes, of course.

So she grabbed my boob and the back of my daughter's head, squishing my boob into what she referred to as a 'sandwich', and anytime Shaughnessy opened her mouth she jammed the two together. All I could do was laugh because it kind of showed that there isn't a lot of science involved in the nursing concept. Shaughnessy didn't mind at all, although she still wasn't getting the latching concept very well. Baby+boob=eventual nursing if you're persistent, it seems, so I do think it was a valuable lesson. I don't think I was really doing enough to introduce S-Girl to the concept of nipple going in mouth.

We also tried a nipple shield, which is a thin silicone thingie that goes over your nipple. It's closer to the shape of the soother she's been using, so she actually did latch onto it and do the right thing for a while, but she was super-tired and kept falling asleep. All in all, however, it was a success and things are looking good for future breastfeeding, woot woot! I also have a newfound respect and admiration for the lactation consultant, so won't have heart palpitations from now on when I see her. ;)

I had a bad headache by evening so came home to recuperate from that and all the bodily indignities I'd suffered for the day. Becoming a mother really has stripped away a lot of my extraneous dignity, I must say.

I think this song is about me.

2009-04-19T18:06:00.000-04:00

OK, one of the weird things about having a premature baby in the hospital is that you are watched and analyzed in a way that parents of full-term, healthy babies are definitely not. When we go in to see our girl our visits get entered in her daily chart and there is a checklist of parental involvement that the nurses have to keep an eye on.

This is for a sensible reason. There are parents who react badly to having a premature baby. They don't know how to relate to this tiny, alarming being. If the baby is especially ill some parents are scared out of their minds and don't know how to deal with it, so end up avoiding the NICU and having to handle their baby. The nurses and doctors need to be aware of this so they can address the situation and help the parents cope.

This hasn't been a problem for us. We go in to see her every day. We gladly change her diapers, hold her, take her temperature, wipe her face and do all the little things we can do for her. Now that she's in level 2 we're encouraged to do even more for her and so far we're loving it.

Because I yam who I yam, though, this is crazy-making for me. I love my baby, I am not afraid to handle her, bathe her, change her, feed her, do all the things for her that as a mother I have to and want to do, but while she's in the hospital this stuff is being monitored and I find it really intimidating. I have this irrational fear that no matter how hard I try, something will be found lacking.

Of course if she'd gone full-term I'd have had her and then been sent home ASAP. There wouldn't be anyone keeping an eye on how many times a day I feed her, how much time I spend with her, what bathing technique I use. I am an overly-private person (in my RL, not so much online, I guess) so this situation pushes all my buttons and I have to work hard to remember that it's not personal.

The nurse who did the bath demo with us the other night said that in a sense the parents of preemies who are first-time parents are lucky to have this extended period of acclimatization. Having the opportunity to learn all the things you've never done before in a setting with professionals who can show you what to do instead of having to figure it out on your own is a luxury. She's totally right. It's my personal oddities that make the 'being monitored' aspect of it difficult for me and I know it. Parents of full-term babies no longer stay in the hospital long enough to experience that kind of nursing care and our nurse said it made her sad.

Do not get me wrong. I am inexpressibly grateful for Shaughnessy's time in the NICU. I have total respect and admiration for WCH and the staff. They have made the scariest time of my life so much easier than it could have been and I will gladly continue to forgo privacy and autonomy in my interactions with my daughter as long as it's in her best interests. If it had to be that way for the rest of her life I'd do it and do it willingly. But the day that she comes home and she's all mine, MINE, MINE! Well; that'll be a really good day. :)

Oh, man.

2009-04-17T17:22:00.003-04:00

Right after I posted the hospital called and said Shaughnessy was back down in level 3. She had a bad choke on some spit-up and they think she aspirated some in her lungs. They've put her back on an IV and discontinued her feeds for the moment (I'm not 100% sure why but I'll find out as soon as I go) and thankfully haven't put her back on CPAP. She'd be devastated to have to wear it again.

I'll update late tonight when I get back home.

Update 11:54 p.m.

Well, we went in to see her and when I got there Andrew was already there, having gone straight from work as soon as I called him to let him know what happened. He was giving her hand hugs and helping her keep her soother in and it was really nice to get there and see her being loved up by her dad.

The charge nurse explained things again to me as soon as I came in and reassured me that they thought she was looking OK but that they were going to do x-rays to see what was going on in her lungs. She was also more pale than usual and very sleepy and still since the whole episode had been stressful. We sat with her for a bit and since the shift change was coming up we decided to go out for a bite to eat so that we wouldn't be in the way.

When we got back her colour had improved some but she was still very out of it. Toward ten she was getting pretty upset, though, since she'd missed two feeds by that point and was used to getting them so regularly. Her night nurse said that the doctors would decide on their rounds when she should go back on her feeds and that wasn't coming up for a little bit so I figured we'd come home and I'd call back a bit later to see how she was doing and whether she was back on them. She did calm down after a diaper change and also a change from the position she'd been in for the last few hours so we felt OK about leaving after that.

If things continue to go well and she doesn't take a turn for the worse she could be back in the level 2 nursery by Sunday morning. It can take a few days for lung problems to really worsen, but so far everyone seems to think she's doing OK and will likely recover well.

Tiny little leaps and bounds.

2009-04-17T17:07:00.004-04:00

This has been quite a week in the life of Shaughnessy. And her parents. She's started wearing actual clothing now instead of just hanging out in a diaper all the time, and we got to be there while she had a bath on Wednesday. The best thing, though, is that she's moved out of her incubator! That's right; girlfriend sleeps in a crib.

The clothing is all hospital-issue but it's adorable little pajamas that are donated so she wears something different and cute every day. One outfit so far was even a bit small on her teeny preemie self! She just looks so much like a 'real' baby all of a sudden, and in my eyes the clothes make her look even smaller somehow.

The bath was great. She'd already had a few so it wasn't new to her, but the nurses always do a demo bath with the parents before getting us to do it on our own. Shaughnessy enjoys it and didn't make a peep the whole time, even after the bath when they're most likely to cry because of colder air on their damp skin. She just made her usual conversational grunts about everything. The very best part was when her hair dried. It all stuck straight out from her head in this awesome fuzzy halo of cuteness and looked much lighter than it does when it's all stuck down to her scalp. I nearly passed out, she looked so awesome all dressed up and fuzzy-haired.

Her nurse had intended to change out her incubator to a cot that same night but ended up not doing it, so when I went in the next day I found her in her brand new crib, hanging out like a full-term baby. The crib is awesome because it's so much easier to access her and hold her whenever I want to. That's getting more and more usual, too. The nurses are less and less concerned about her ins and outs and pretty much let us decide when we want to hold her or not.

We've done three lick and sniffs now and she's still pretty much just licking and sniffing. Not a lot new to report there, but I'm going to start trying to go in earlier now and hopefully do more of that so she has lots of chances to get used to it.

That's all that's new. I've been feeling really tired this week and finding it hard to get the energy to do much and force myself to get up and go. Not sure what's up with that, but I'll have to get over it with a quickness! We'll be invaded by a baby tyrant soon and I won't have much choice in the matter.

Oh, I added a Flickr badge over in the sidebar where I upload all the pictures of Shaughnessy that I put in my Facebook albums. Anyone can see the pics, so feel free to click on it to admire her cuteness. They go all the way back to her first week, and I'll keep adding whenever I have new ones.

Because the Lactation Consultant still scares me ...

2009-04-15T14:30:00.005-04:00

Aaargh I bought a pump. I bought a Medela pump, even, which is the company that makes the hospital grade pump I've been using. I was going to buy one pump in particular but it was just way expensive so when we got to the pump-buying place I saw another cheaper one by the same company and bought it on faith, which is sometimes a bad bad thing but I do think they make good pumps so risked it.

It's a good pump. Really strong suction, lots of milk pumped, and risk of injury if I use it on the highest setting (which I found out the hard way [please don't ask.]) It has an electric setting, a hand pump mechanism and will also use batteries if you're somewhere without access to an outlet. The hand pump works so well that I almost prefer it to the electric, but mostly because it's much quieter. This pump is pretty loud compared to the hospital-grade pumps.

Holy crap, the word 'pump' is just meaningless to me after reading the last couple of paragraphs.

Anyhow, I still intend to hand-express lots and this pump isn't meant to be used for all your pumping. I got it to make sure I get my hind milk outta there for the kid, and also to use if I get mastitis and want to really make sure I empty the girls out. I haven't had any mastitis problems since switching to hand expressing, though, so hopefully that will continue to not be an issue.

Shaughnessy is doing really well. The level 2 nursery is agreeing with her and she's being her usual talkative self. Her nurse last night joked that Shaughnessy almost doesn't need to be hooked up to the monitors since she can tell from the other room what's going on with her based on how much and how loud she's grunting away. It's very true. That girl knows how to express herself.

The CPAP seems to officially be a thing of the past! I was cautious about believing it, but unless she gets sick she won't need it again. If she comes down with an infection or something she might need the help since she'll be weaker and having to put her energy toward fighting it off. Right now, though, she's breathing on her own and doing it well!

She's had two 'lick and sniffs' at this point. That's basically breastfeeding orientation for preemies, where she's put in the breastfeeding position but not expected to do much except hang out there. She's got the rooting reflex down, she knows how to suck (as evidenced by her enjoyment of her soother) but she has to start learning how to put it all together and figure out how to swallow while still breathing as well. So far she's been opening her mouth really, really wide but not actually latching on as a next step. Then she falls asleep. Hee.

I just like the opportunity to hold her even more, but it's encouraging to see that she has the basics and will probably figure it out in a couple of weeks. Preemies usually start to 'get it' by about 35 weeks gestational age and she's nearly there.

Overall I try not to have too many expectations. The fact that she's alive and already asserting her personality is enough to impress the hell out of me.

Rawk

2009-04-13T15:00:00.003-04:00

She's not even supposed to be born yet and she's already throwing the horns!

Fatty Fat Fat

2009-04-10T18:13:00.001-04:00

Suddenly my baby girl is getting some real meat on her bones! Breast milk must be amazing stuff because that's all she's eating (although they do fortify the pumped stuff at the hospital.) I'm sick AGAIN and haven't been in the NICU for the last few days, but Andrew is taking pictures and really capturing the sudden chubbiness of her cheeks. She's just, just shy of four pounds now. A few more grams to go and she'll have doubled her birth weight!

Craziness. As of today she's in a level 2 NICU! This is big news since it was all riding on her being off the CPAP for good, and after 48 hours with no desats or bradys she's clear. She was supposed to be moving to St. Michael's but they just haven't had the room, so they finally moved her to the level 2 NICU at Women's College. It's for preemies who have a possibility of being downgraded back to level 3. I'm thrilled that she's still at WCH because I really love that hospital and its staff, but I'm also kind of glad because I'm worried she might still need the CPAP after a few more days, like last time, and have to go back to level 3. As soon as a space opens up for her at St. Mike's she's supposed to move, but I'm in no hurry for that.

Anyhow, overall things are good except for me being sick and not able to visit my daughter. It makes me feel so guilty, even if it's the best thing for her right now. Happily she'll be meeting her great-grandpa today. Andrew's grandpa (and much more of his family) is in town for Easter weekend and she'll be meeting a bunch of them. Quick visits, and not everyone can make it who wanted to, but people are finally getting to see her! I want my sisters to come meet her as soon as possible, too. She changes so fast now.

She looks like Shaughnessy most of all.

2009-04-08T22:03:00.003-04:00

Shaughnessy's having a pretty good week, overall. She's back off of her CPAP, seemingly for good this time. We were a bit worried that they were cycling her off of it too quickly again, but as I kept reminding both Andrew and myself; a week in the life of a preemie is a pretty significant chunk of time and her lungs have probably strengthened up more than we'd expect.

She's had two eye exams so far to check for ROP and so far both have come up at zero, which is the best result you can get. She is startled by loud sound and is obviously light sensitive so for now I'm not worried about basic sight and hearing. It's too soon to know if they're perfect or anything like that, but it's all encouraging!

What the CPAP news means is that she'll be moving to a different hospital within the week. I called today to check on her and the nurse asked me what hospital we want her moved to since it's imminent. We want either St. Michael's or Mt. Sinai and would prefer the latter since it's even easier to get to, but we'll see. I don't know what the protocol is for these kinds of things and nobody had really mentioned Mt. Sinai to us as a possibility.

ANYHOW, I'm just excited because she's doing so well and getting so big. She's really starting to put on weight and fatten up a bit. She's hardly recognizable as the baby I had five weeks ago. She's not fat yet, by any means, but her cheeks are really filling out, her arms and thighs are starting to get pudgy and she may even have a butt beginning! In all the dreams I had about having a baby during my pregnancy I had a fatty fat little girl, but as one of the nurses said to me she might just be a lean baby naturally when she's reached her 'ideal' weight. She is a lot like her dad.

Speaking of which; I think she looks totally like Andrew. She has his face shape, definitely has light hair and just overall seems to bear a strong resemblance to him. I'd read all about babies looking more like their fathers as an evolutionary safeguard against the father rejecting the child, but I was surprised to read up on it more and discover that apparently the mother will also insist strongly to the father that the child resembles him, even if they're less likely to claim the same thing when he's not around.

Now, I'm ALWAYS telling Andrew how much I think our girl looks like him. I'm disappointed to think that I'm obeying some sort of evolutionary imperative, but I also insist the same thing to anyone else who will listen. I mean, I think she might have my ears and nose and will probably look like a girl and all, but you can SEE the Andrew half of the equation when you look at our daughter. Even the nurses have told me so.

What it boils down to is that no matter who she looks like she's adorable.

She knows what she wants.

2009-04-06T00:18:00.003-04:00

Ooooh, girlfriend.

Shaughnessy was in pretty fine form today. When I got to the hospital my mom was already there (because I was late, for shame) and told me that it had taken TWO nurses to get the CPAP back on her little granddaughter after she'd had it off, so mightily did she fight it. And after it was on she smooshed her face against her blankets and knocked it right back off her nose again.

She spent the rest of the day battling her CPAP and her feeding tube. Erin A. came for a quick visit as well and while she was sitting there with me the nurse let me hold Shaughnessy for a bit. Not Kangaroo Care; just cradled in my arms in her head hugger. Well, little miss thang got seriously overwrought about the CPAP at that point and began twisting her head back and forth against the sides until the prongs were out of her nose and the hat part was askew. Then she worked her feeding tube out of the tape on her chin (tape which she'd already ripped free a couple of times) and they had to stop her feed and take the CPAP off, she was such a grouchy, growly mess.

After that, she calmed down and was a lovely little sweetie for the rest of Erin's visit. She (Shaughnessy; not Erin) did spend some time rooting around against the side of her head-hugger hoping to find a boob to nurse on but had no luck since it's a head-hugger and I was also fully clothed. I hate to see her rooting and not be allowed to try to nurse her yet, but they all say it's still too early. So: no nursing. And she pretty much slept and muttered the rest of the time.

When I say she's growly I mean it, though. She makes an awesome crabby little grunty growl noise when she's displeased. It's very particular to her and definitely means she's about to pitch a fit of some sort if what's bugging her isn't taken care of. They've taken to swaddling her pretty tightly in her blankets and head hugger when they want to be entirely sure the CPAP stays on and that does seem to calm her down some, which is understandable. Infants and preemies in particular respond well to swaddling as a calming device. So the growlies can be tempered that way after she realizes she can't move her arms too easily. It's when she's free to move her limbs that she really goes to town.

I held her again before coming home. Mom and Erin had both left and I was waiting for Andrew to arrive when the nurse asked if I wanted to do Kangaroo Care. Of course I did, and Shaughnessy again spent a little while rooting around with her mouth on my chest trying to find a meal. Poor baby. I'm going to point it out to the nurses next time and see if they'll bump up the intro to nursing schedule for her since she's obviously trying to get to the head of the class.

Despite all of the above, she really is a very peaceful baby when she wants to be:

Regarding miracles.

2009-04-04T16:51:00.002-04:00

Maysie sent me this article yesterday. I read it and immediately empathized with the feeling behind what the author had written since I am all about stripping away over-sentimentality and coming at things with hard-boiled common sense. Her point was that people often call premature babies 'miracle babies', but that for their parents those tentative months in the NICU feel anything but miraculous, when all kinds of health problems and complications are a part of day to day life.

It's very terrifying. The uncertainty you feel is exhausting even when, like us, you are blessed with a relatively strong and tough baby that has few if any problems that require invasive treatment. You compulsively count the days, adding them into weeks, waiting for them to equal months until that magical term is reached, the time when your baby should have appeared in the world.

We have weeks and weeks left until then. We are still the anxious parents beside the incubator, peering in at our little girl, delighted just to be in her presence. The sheer luxury of having a baby you can pick up and cuddle on a whim is entirely unknown to us. The privilege of holding her is something that is still meted out to us by her nurses, something we ask for and hope that we asked at a convenient time. When it is offered it's a treat.

On the other hand it is difficult not to refer to these little ones as miracles. When we sit by her side or gaze at the other one of us holding her we are impressed by every little thing that she does. Remembering all the time that she is doing things far, far ahead of schedule for her tiny little body constantly amazes us. Since her birth I've felt a brand new desire to push myself, seeing how she has had to push herself and do it with a determination I never expected to see in such a frail little individual.

Perhaps I am romanticizing the situation, ascribing something to her that isn't really there. It could be argued that she's doing well because her body is simply capable of it and that it isn't taking any sort of spark of personality to drive it along. But I see her irritation and anger at the CPAP she has to wear, how she clearly wants it off of her head and tries to pry it off with her hands or scrape it off on the surface of her blankets. Her nurses tell me all the time that she's a funny, charming little baby and that she makes her wishes well-known, nurses that deal with a constantly changing influx of babies and who have seen it all.

She yawns, she hiccups, she holds on to whatever she can grab and grips it for all she's worth. She opens her eyes and peeks out at the world she's in, unaware that all the blurs will someday coalesce into recognizable objects and loving faces. She cries very little, using her voice to squawk in short-term displeasure rather than kvetch for long periods. These are all things that most every baby does, yeah, but she's doing them all uphill in a way that full-term babies don't have to. Even if she's not technically a miracle, I find her to be the most thrilling, life-affirming thing to ever happen to me and it feels just a teeny bit magical. Even for a lover of hard-boiled common sense.

I didn't say 'nipples' once!

2009-04-02T00:31:00.002-04:00

So, the battle of the breast pump has been ongoing. The battle is all in my head, really, but I continue to hate pumping like cats hate water. Cats can swim, see, and I can pump. I just don't like it. *hiss*

What I hate about it is the stupid ceremony of it all. Sterilizing the bottles and bits, drying them out, assembling them, hooking up the tubes to the machine, hooking up the machine to the bottles, attaching them to myself, pumping, emptying the bottles into the milk containers, labeling them, rinsing out the bottles and bits and setting them out for later, putting away the tubes and labels and putting away the machine. When you're nursing you just stick the baby on your breast. You don't boil either of them first.

Sigh.

I'd been intending to learn to hand express. I'd read about it a bit and thought it sounded like a good idea in case I ever found myself without a breast pump around and needed to express. After reading about it even more, though, it sounded like something that I could possibly do as a substitute for using the machine. It's supposed to be good for mastitis and also produce more milk than pumping, something I'm interested in because I'm a bit stressed about providing enough milk. So, I've tried it a few times and tonight I was able to hand express instead of pumping altogether!

Woot indeed, because it knocks out a ton of the annoying steps from the pumping ceremony and I can express straight into the collecting containers instead of having to sterilize anything. All I have to have is clean hands and then I label the container and stick it in the fridge. Pretty sweet.

Also I am still nervous about the lactation consultant cornering me in the NICU and asking me all kinds of questions. Yesterday I was sitting beside Shaughnessy's incubator and the LC was helping a mom with nursing her preemie for the first time. I was glad she was otherwise occupied, but when Shaughnessy's nurse noticed the LC she asked me if I had any breastfeeding questions or anything. I was all, "NO, I'M FINE, MY SUPPLY IS FINE, IT'S ALL FINE, THANKS VERY MUCH!"

Instead of taking the hint she went over to the LC, who was finished with the other mom and washing her hands at the sink, and said, "I have a mom over here you might want to chat with and see if she has any questions."

I told Andrew today that when this kind of thing goes down my instincts are all, "Cheese it, it's the Lactation Consultant!" I didn't run away, scramble or flee; I just gritted my teeth and tried to make it quick by being all immediately confident about my milk supply. She went ahead and quizzed me about how many times a day I pump and how much I think I produce each time. I exaggerated a bit, but then she wrote it down! So now my exaggerations are recorded and I could be caught in my exaggerations at a future date. Dang it.

I just don't want to talk about my boobs to people (who don't read this weblog, I guess.) My boobs are private boobs and I will not let my daughter starve! My hope is that Shaughnessy will take to breast feeding fairly easily and I can put this pumping jazz behind us. In the meantime I can at least alternate hand expressing with machine pumping to make it a bit less irritating!

One step back.

2009-04-01T09:29:00.001-04:00

Shaughnessy had a bit of a setback this week. When I went in to see her on Monday I thought she looked a bit pale and seemed listless. They set me up with her to do Kangaroo Care and throughout the whole time I held her she kept having little spells where her breathing was too slow or stopped. I'd have to rub her back to remind her to take a breath whenever this happened. This was VERY unlike her, as was her paleness and general lack of energy.

Andrew had arrived while I was holding her and we were told by the nurses that it was possible that she could have an infection of some kind setting in. We were very upset to hear this, of course, since she'd been doing so well up to this point and we honestly aren't used to getting any bad news, just consistent reports of her good progress. So bad news is out of the ordinary, something that not all parents of preemies are lucky enough to experience.

They also mentioned that if it wasn't an infection it could be that she was tiring herself out from being off the CPAP altogether and had hit the wall. They decided to put her on low-flow air, run some bloodwork and see if an infection was the problem, but in the meantime pretty much sent us home to let her rest. It was getting late anyhow so we went, worried and concerned for our little girl.

Thankfully when I talked to her nurse the next day it was good news. There was no sign of any infection, and they'd put her back on the CPAP. Since going back on it she'd had no more breathing interruptions and was getting her colour and energy back. So; in the end even though Shaughnessy thinks she doesn't need to be on the CPAP, she obviously does and her stubbornness will not change that fact. Breathing entirely on her own is still a bit of an effort for her little lungs which is understandable, given that she's not even supposed to be using them yet!

This does mean she's staying in the level 3 NICU until she's breathing on her own but we're just so thankful that there's nothing wrong with her that we're OK with it! The CPAP is at most a bit uncomfortable at times. It doesn't have any adverse effects other than some frustration for her, so I'm grateful to see her with it on rather than her having to fight off an illness!

Musings on a second child.

2009-03-30T23:41:00.002-04:00

In an email today I was mentioning to a friend that I missed out on having a third trimester entirely. Even though there are actually positives for me as a result (like being in good physical form when Shaughnessy comes home) I still feel cheated out of that experience. She was kicking quite a lot by the time I had the c-section, but there has been a major portion of the pregnancy experience missing for me, even if it's one that is described as often uncomfortable.

The thing about preeclampsia is that if you plan to have more children, you're supposed to have them sooner rather than later. The sooner you have your next child, the less chance there is that you'll have preeclampsia again. After a c-section you're supposed to wait at least a year to get pregnant again, and if you give birth within two years you have to have another c-section or there's a chance your uterus could rupture during birth.

Andrew has been kind of shocked to hear me saying things like, "Yeah, if we have another kid we'd have to start trying next year," and things along those lines. I'm not saying that I definitely want to start trying that soon, or even that I definitely want to have more than one baby. I think that a large part of that kind of talk stems from me trying to deal with the fact that I'm not in the middle of my third trimester when that's exactly where I should be right now. I can only think about a complete pregnancy experience as something I can have if I do it again, so I currently kind of want that even if the desire is ridiculous and totally hormone-induced.

I was a middle child and loved it. I got to be the baby for six whole years, then I got to be a big sister without having to be the oldest child and do everything first. There wasn't any of that oldest or youngest baggage involved for me. I don't really know what the only child experience is like, and since I love having siblings so much I kind of want that for Shaughnessy. I never did have a brother, but I always wished I had one, too. Siblings are crazy-fun to have, or at least mine are!

As for the c-section thing; I like the idea of a c-section again. Call me insane, but I know what having a c-section is like now and it's no worse than getting your gallbladder out (which I have also had done.) I HEARD women giving birth the natural way while I was in hospital and I guarantee you that as far as physical comfort is concerned my experience was WAY better. That's including recovery. There was nothing involved in my experience that made me scream, dudes. The kind of pain you feel after c-section surgery isn't fun, no, but it's also not earth-shattering and I know I can take it. This is also something I reserve the right to change my mind about, but if I want to have kids close together I'd be hard-pressed to find a doctor willing to let me have a VBAC.

She's mighty mighty.

2009-03-29T22:33:00.003-04:00

Shaughnessy shrieked at me in rage tonight! I was doing Kangaroo Care with her in the NICU and her legs seemed a little scrunched up in a possibly-could-get-uncomfortable way, so I tried to shift them so that she was more stretched out. The nurses like it better when their legs are extended because it gives their lungs more room to breathe, too.

So, I attempted to get her to straighten out her legs a bit and she squawked, then literally shrieked at me. Not a pain yell, but an anger yell. Her nurse, who was tending to another baby, hardly even glanced over, just laughed and said, "Heh, you're trying to move her, aren't you?" I finished what I was doing and tucked her back in against me, at which point she immediately settled down and got totally quiet and happy once again. It seems that when she's comfy she does NOT appreciate being relocated, and gives her nurses the same attitude. Trying to move her to her stomach from a different position always results in stiff, stick-straight legs stuck out in front of her and much bitching.

Apparently she is also trying to figure out how to escape her incubator. The nurses have been reporting to me that she's been discovered up against the back of her incubator, entirely out of her head hugger, and this morning she was wedged into a corner of it, happy as could be. They had no idea how long she'd been like that, but only discovered her when it was time to give her a feed.

The capper, though, is her CPAP. They tried her off of it permanently earlier this week since she was doing so well with an on/off cycle. She did great for the first 24 hours, but then had an episode where she choked a bit on some spit-up, after which they put her back on the CPAP as a preventative measure after the choking so she wouldn't tire out. As of today the CPAP was making her so angry that she spent three hours this morning fussing over it and fighting with it, so they made the decision to take her off of it permanently again rather than have her blow a gasket. Her nurse told me that as soon as they took it off her head she calmed right down and went to sleep.

I'm thinking that girlfriend doesn't realize she's a preemie, or just doesn't care. Apparently she has places to go and people to see and we're cramping her style in a big way. Since she's really doing so well and is what one nurse referred to tonight as a 'straightforward baby' in terms of care needs she'll be moving to the next level NICU fairly soon. That means moving to a different hospital since she's been so healthy and had so few things wrong with her. I'm VERY sad to think of her no longer being at Women's College Hospital, but I can deal. Whatever brings her home to us sooner is good.

There are still some hurdles for her to get past, like regulating her own temperature, learning to nurse as her sole means of food intake and being entirely independent of any breathing assistance. That last is basically no longer an issue unless she has a setback, so the other two just need a few more weeks of growing and learning. Since she is so obviously determined and strong I'm not too worried about her getting there in good time.

I don't know if you can tell, but I am incredibly proud of our baby girl. :)

Some pictures for you to enjoy:

2009-03-27T22:59:00.003-04:00

They tried her off the CPAP permanently and moved her feeding tube, but it's been moved back to her mouth since:

She had some gas and Andrew got this great smile shot out of it:

She is such a peaceful baby:

Caught in a rare moment of rudeness:

She's kind of spilling out of this head hugger:

Admittedly maybe it's SOME kind of science.

2009-03-25T18:39:00.003-04:00

I think that upon finding out I was pregnant I, more than anyone else, was curious to see how I responded to motherhood. I don't mean the overall, lifelong experience of it. What I mean is the very fact of having a child. I wondered what my reaction would be to the actual baby that popped out of my womb.

For most of my adult life I didn't have a desire to go forth and procreate. I never really did, even as a kid. I didn't play house with the whole, "I can hardly wait to grow up and be a mommy," sort of thing going on. I think I played the parts of daddy, kid, cat and dog with enthusiasm equal to that of the mommy role. The 'baby rabies' was a foreign concept to me as I reached my twenties. I liked kids, I just didn't feel the need for any of my own. I also didn't choose to spend much time around them. I babysat for my entire teenage career, and did so even into college, so I tried to avoid getting involved in children's ministries at church. That wasn't a popular choice and I did end up getting pressured into it from time to time, but I tried my best to stay out of it.

So ... yeah. I've just never been that 'someday ... a baby' person. Getting married did not equal having kids. Being an adult didn't either. It wasn't something I was going to jump into recklessly.

At times when I found myself doubting that choice I tried to picture myself with a baby. It was less than convincing. The baby was always very conceptual. Chubby, roly-poly, wispy-haired and warm with vague features. It was just some baby. I didn't feel anything emotionally significant when I imagined that baby. It was like any number of babies I'd seen and while it was appealing in an infant way, it didn't make my heart jump or my ovaries twitch. I'd heard and read about parents who didn't feel a bond with their baby when it was born and I wondered a bit if I'd be like that; that I just didn't have that instinct in me.

And then Shaughnessy was born. I spent her first 30 hours away from her, flat on my back being pumped full of magnesium sulfate and unable to visit the NICU until I was off it. I couldn't tell physically that I'd given birth since I'd had a c-section and was still medicated against any pain, and I hadn't yet seen her with my own eyes. I worried that I wasn't connecting with the fact that I'd had a baby, and that I didn't feel enough emotion regarding the whole situation. Yes, I was being very hard on myself in a very turbulent time, but I couldn't grasp what had happened and it concerned me a LOT. I thought I was already failing the parenthood test.

The next day I met my daughter. And while there wasn't some instant, mind-blowing connection that opened up the floodgates of motherhood and swept me away on a tidal wave of maternal instinct, there was something just as surprising to me. I met her and instead of feeling that neither-here-nor-there feeling I had toward the conceptual baby of my imaginings I realized, "Oh, it's YOU!"

It wasn't just some baby after all. It was Shaughnessy. I recognized her. I saw her and knew her as my daughter and that was that. Of course, that didn't make things easier. No; it made everything more difficult in the most amazing way. I was terrified of losing her as quickly as I'd gained her. I hated that her nurses had the freedom to handle her any way they wanted to while I had to stand by and watch and get permission to do any little thing. I lay awake in bed imagining all the horrible things she'd had to endure so far and the potential things I'd been told could go wrong yet. I wanted to be the one caring for her and protecting her and comforting her and sustaining her.

Basically, I felt like any other parent of a premature baby. But boy, oh boy, did I feel it. Any worries I had about not feeling enough for her were erased very quickly.

So, my deduction is this: It's not rocket science. Babies are not conceptual. They are YOUR FRIGGING BABY and even if you don't like kids in general, you're still very likely to feel something pretty strong for your very own child. While there may be parents who don't have an initial bond, I'd be willing to bet that they do form one sooner rather than later and it ceases to be an issue.

Of course, this is all coming from the perspective of the mother. I was hopped up on hormones, magnesium sulfate, pain meds, blood pressure meds, fatigue, hunger and fear. I'm going to have to quiz a few formerly-childfree dads on their reaction to their newborns; especially dads of premature babies.

Update-y goodness.

2009-03-23T16:01:00.001-04:00

As soon as Andrew got well enough to finally get into the NICU to see Shaughnessy I got sick with whatever it was he'd had. At least we managed to pass off the baton, but still ... it sucks to not be seeing her together.

Andrew seeing her does make me extremely happy, of course. I hate to think of neither of us able to go in, so the fact that at least one of her parents can see her daily makes me feel a lot better. And Andrew made sure to get a great shot of himself holding her for the first time. See:

While he was there Shaughnessy's nurse was doing her hands-on care and had Andrew help out with it, but didn't make him change her diaper, hee hee. The diapers that they use are ridiculously small preemie diapers but they still come up to Shaughnessy's armpits if they're not folded down. When Andrew asked about that the nurse said they just fold them down so they don't look dumb, not for any practical reason. I think I'll start folding them down first when I change her, because I always end up giving her saggy-butt diapers and that's probably why.

Her IV burn is healing well, it seems, so I'm going to stop worrying about it. She's been doing really well with breathing off of the CPAP machine, too, so hopefully that means soon she'll be off of it for good! It hasn't bothered me so much with regards to her breathing because I know it wasn't hurting her and was necessary to keep her breathing and strengthening her lungs, but it'll be nice for her to not have to wear the gear on her head and face any more. It gets in the way of how cute she is, and always seemed uncomfortable on her face and cheeks. There are two different kinds they use; a mask and a two-pronged one that sits inside her nostrils. They both have their pluses, but I'll be glad to see them gone!

She's off the IV altogether because after the IV burn happened they didn't want to chance another interstitial vein and she was nearly at full feeds anyhow. Now she's at full feeds, is off the IV, is soon going to be off of the CPAP and hopefully I'll get to start nursing her within a month! I can hardly wait for that!

Learning the preemie ropes.

2009-03-20T14:37:00.002-04:00

I had an appointment with my blood pressure doctor this morning so went to visit Shaughnessy in the NICU right afterward. Her nurse today is a really nice, sweet woman who's had her a couple of times before, but she informed me this morning that she'd finally seen what the other nurses mean when they say our daughter has 'an attitude'. I can't recall what she said she'd done to make her angry, but apparently Shaughnessy had herself a right little fit over it and showed her what she's made of.

I know I should be more worried for my future than amused by that, but to know that she doesn't put up with crap warms my heart and makes me laugh. If she was crabby about everything I think I'd be more alarmed at what the future holds, but she's really not. In fact, she's downright peaceful most of the time and I've only personally witnessed her getting angry a couple of times myself. Sneezing made her really mad the first time we did Kangaroo Care, and when she was first born she didn't really like being handled much so had some mini meltdowns, but honestly when I go in to see her she's always just very peacefully sleeping or blinking.

I don't think I've mentioned Kangaroo Care here. That's when they place your baby right against your skin and you have about an hour-long snuggle session with her. I've only done it twice so far, but man, does it feel nice. This last time she was super-content and just cuddled on my chest, moving her fingers on my skin and holding on to the tie from the hospital gown. She had the hiccups when they first put her on me and man, preemie hiccups are about the cutest hiccups in the universe. They are hiccups, but the tiniest hiccups you have ever heard.

I've been changing her diaper and getting better at it. The first time I changed her diaper was a shock because I wasn't prepared for how different it is to change a preemie's butt. I've changed countless diapers in my time what with all the teenage babysitting and nieces and nephews. Diaper-changing was something I wasn't worried about since I know how to do it, so it was a blow to find out I kind of had to re-learn the art. I keep telling people that changing Shaughnessy's diaper for the first time was like changing a bullfrog. She has these skinny, kicky little legs, no butt and a teeny little waist. The nurse told me to do the diaper up tighter than I thought I had to but it's hard to do that when you're so afraid of breaking your miniature baby.

Anyhow, I'm much more confident now but today I got a poop diaper. She'd spared me that up until now and I finally lost the diaper lottery. Not that her poop is all that hard to deal with. A big poop for her is still a teeny poop in the realm of pooping. One of my favourite things to do, though, is wipe her face. All we use to do that is a clean bit of gauze and sterile water, so when I'm cleaning her mouth she gets really still and thoughtful and seems to be trying to figure out what exactly is going on. It's little moments like these when I feel like I'm connecting with her a bit, since she opens up her eyes a lot during handling time.

Right now the only thing I'm really concerned about is the IV burn she got. It wasn't looking good yesterday so they changed the ointment they were using and this morning were talking about having a plastic surgeon look at it. While I was in today, though, they reassessed it and seem to think it's healing better. I got my first look at it and it's nasty-looking, but I can't really bring myself to be angry at anyone or the hospital. Veins can go interstitial, especially so with preemies, and these things happen. I HATE that it happened to Shaughnessy and I'm still nervous that it'll turn into a bad infection, but for now it's being treated and she doesn't seem to be in any pain or distress over it.

I did get in trouble from the lactation consultant today. I'm still producing lots of milk, but they want me to pump more times a day. Dang it.

Angry and sad.

2009-03-19T13:38:00.002-04:00

With Shaughnessy's birth has also come the emergence of the 'Motherbeast'. The Motherbeast personifies all the primal, raw feelings of protectiveness and nurturing that have flared up in me. It's overwhelming, to say the least, and sometimes kind of scary. Seeing my daughter endure all the things she's had to endure so far in her tiny, short life has been like poking a stick at the Motherbeast and I get truly angry. There's so much frustration and helplessness in having a preemie that you just want to BLAME someone, take it out on someone and make them FIX it. I literally want to resort to violence at times, and I'm surprised at myself.

Which brings us to the other side of things. Because when I'm not feeling the protective fierceness of the Motherbeast, I'm feeling the frightened guilt of a puppy who knows it's done something bad and that there's a reckoning coming. I did it wrong. I didn't carry my baby until she was ready to come out. My body was so inhospitable that I couldn't make it a safe place for her to stay. I FAILED her and she has to suffer for my inadequacies. Isn't someone going to punish me for that?

It's been drilled into me by many people (doctors, psychiatrists, social workers, nurses) that these feelings of guilt and shame and self-blame are normal, that every mother who suffers from pre-eclampsia has the same thoughts. Intellectually I am thankful to know that. Emotionally, it's hard to hang on to it. I know that my part in this wasn't easy, that it wasn't my fault, that I could have died from the pre-eclampsia as well and that having Shaughnessy when I did saved both of us. But I visit the websites that tell me how she should be developing in my womb, still safely tucked away in a warm, pain-free environment until being born a fat, healthy full-term baby and I mourn that for her. And for me. And for Andrew, who has had a painful few weeks and has had to juggle work, illness, worry and stress around all the hospital business, not to mention having to quarantine himself away from his brand-new daughter almost this entire time. He hasn't been able to comfort himself with sitting at her bedside, giving her hand-hugs, holding her from time to time. He's had only pictures and my reports on her sweetness to satisfy his paternal instincts and it's just not enough.

I know this will all get easier. We'll look back on this time as difficult but necessary, and it'll seem like such a short blip in the bigger picture of her life. Right now, though, it's fricking hard.

Mother bear is gonna rough you up.

2009-03-17T20:44:00.001-04:00

OK, so after singing the praises of WCH like I did in my last entry I will admit that there are a couple of nurses that I simply do not like. NICU nurses, specifically, since it really didn't matter if there was anyone taking care of me who wasn't sweetness and light all the time. Motherhood, however, apparently makes you very protective and the thought of someone not treating your fragile little premature daughter with anything but love and tenderness is awful.

Mom came to town again yesterday and we got to spend hours visiting Shaughnessy. The day nurse was nice, if a little bit less than self-confident about absolutely everything. I think she was pretty new, but it didn't matter because any time she second-guessed herself she got someone else to step in so there wasn't any reason for us to feel like Shaughnessy wasn't getting proper care. Shaughnessy's night nurse, though, was a nurse that simply rubs me the wrong way. I've seen her get impatient with crying babies before, and she just has a really brisk, clinical way of doing things that doesn't include the parents at all if they happen to be there.

Mom and I stood back and gave her room while she did Shaughnessy's hands-on care and even though she wasn't being precisely rough with her it still made me feel uncomfortable to see the way she was flipping my baby around like a rotisserie chicken, fast and not exactly gently. Shaughnessy didn't cry at all and seemed more thoughtful about it all than anything and she's not a baby that's afraid to complain when something's not right. I'm sure this woman knows her job and knows it well, but parents of preemies feel like their babies aren't getting enough affection as it is so to see their major caregivers dealing with them like objects rather than a son or daughter is upsetting, to say the least.

I asked her if she wanted us to leave the NICU entirely while she worked with my baby girl and her answer was, "Oh, I don't care what you do." All righty then. You don't have to be Nurse McFriendlypants, but 'I don't care' is not a helpful answer. I asked a few questions and made a few comments but she just wouldn't engage, so I pretty much gave up and went and sat in the waiting area since my back was hurting and I didn't feel good. After she was done Mom came and got me and we sat with Shaughnessy a while more until Mom had to catch her bus back to Kingston, but I felt sad that for the rest of the night my girl had this woman instead of someone more affectionate and interactive.

I was also starting to get a scratchy throat last night and when I woke up today it was even worse, so I can't go in to see Shaughnessy until it's better. I'm hoping it gets better with a quickness because it WILL break me if I can't go visit her. I don't know how Andrew's managed since this is the worst illness he's had in forever and it's kept him out of the NICU for a long time now. I called today to see how our girl was doing and as it turns out she got an IV burn from the IV line they put in yesterday, which means that the vein the IV was in got compromised and the IV fluid leaked out and damaged the surrounding tissue. I haven't seen it yet and they assured me that it was being treated so I'm trying not to assume that it's horrible, but it's extra-difficult not to be able to go see her now that I know she was in pain the night before. Poor little monkey.

WCH Rocks!

2009-03-15T12:00:00.001-04:00

While being in the hospital is never FUN, it does have nice moments. I suspect that the Women's College Hospital has some sort of rigorous testing system in place to make sure that all the medical professionals working there are part guardian angel or something because I've never in my life experienced so many indescribably kind people in one place. Most all of the nurses who took care of me babied me extravagantly, bringing me countless cups of ice water and apple juice, chiding me about eating my meals, tsking over the state of my poor, swollen, scabbed-up, bruised arms (from all the blood-drawing and the bandage tape that ate away my skin) and generally treating me with more compassion than I'd ever expected. There was no sense of it being anyone's job; they were genuinely caring.

Of course, they were also doing their jobs, as evidenced by the carefree way in which they regularly walked into my room and demanded to see my crotch or boobs or incision. The most amusing thing to me was Fart Watch 2009. They were very concerned about my first fart after surgery and every time anyone entered my room the first thing out of their mouth was, "Have you passed gas?" I wasn't allowed solid food until that happened, so by the end of Fart Watch I was eagerly anticipating it as well. It finally, finally happened at 10:43 a.m. on Wednesday the 5th. I farted. And it was awesome.

I think this is possibly the only time in my life I will ever openly and publicly admit to engaging in that particular bodily function, so write down the date or something.

The people who have made the strongest impression on me were Maja, the nurse in charge of me from the minute I was admitted to the high risk delivery unit, and Beverly, a lovely nurse in the NICU.

Maja really did remind me of an angel, which is SO cliched when it comes to nurses, I know, but she was an incredibly solid rock of support and comfort during a time of shock and fear for me and Andrew. We were being swept along on this unstoppable tide of sudden major surgery and our daughter coming into the world three months early, and Maja very calmly explained everything to us that she could. She also had no compunction at all about physically comforting me, putting a hand on my shoulder or hand whenever she could just to remind me that she was right there beside me. When I was getting the epidural injected into my spine she stood in front of me with her hands on my shoulders and reminded me to breathe whenever it seemed like I was getting panicked. She told me afterward that there came a moment when she herself got overwhelmed with everything going on and head to leave the operating room for a moment to breathe deep and calm down, and I have to say that I didn't even notice, she was just so ever-present and reassuring.

They delayed moving me to the recovery part of the floor long enough that Maja couldn't come with me to see Shaughnessy for the first time and she was visibly upset about it, telling me that she'd been looking forward to sharing that special moment with me and how disappointed she was that the nurse taking me was someone that I didn't even know. I was disappointed too and ended up having some separation anxiety over the abruptness of my move and being taken out of her care so suddenly. She was the best nurse I've ever had in my life, bar none, and I'm immensely grateful for her. We'll definitely be bringing in a major thank-you gift for her soon.

As for Beverly; she's a lovely, kind Australian woman who goes to great lengths to make sure that I feel involved in Shaughnessy's care and gives me as much information as she possibly can whenever she sees me, even if she's not assigned to Shaughnessy that day. She was the first NICU nurse to insist that I help her with Shaughnessy's 'hands on' care, when they change their diapers, feed them, give them a little break from the CPAP and do various other things related to their well-being. She let me pick my daughter up in my hands for the first time while she changed the bedding under her, had me wipe off her face and mouth of the bubbles they blow when they're on CPAP, take her temperature and just generally interact with her in ways I hadn't before. They do this with all the parents, yes, to ease us into taking care of a preemie, but Beverly did it with so much kindness and understanding of how I must be feeling to watch what amounts to strangers having so much more access to my own child than I do. You can tell when the nurse working with your baby actually cares about how you feel, and Beverly cares. A lot.

These are just the two standouts, of course. Like I said; almost every single person at WCH has been unfailingly kind and caring and genuine. HAVE YOUR BABIES THERE, Torontonians! I recommend it!

Hey, let's talk about my chesteses.

2009-03-14T14:40:00.004-04:00

So far this mom thing is really bizarre for me. Obviously nothing happened as planned or expected, so I'm kind of swimming in the deep end with regard to exactly how I'm supposed to be feeling or acting. Mostly I just give myself permission to feel however I happen to because what's right or wrong in this situation?

Now that I'm out of the hospital and back home I'm spending most of my time pumping breast milk, preparing to pump breast milk or figuring out when to next pump breast milk. I HATE pumping breast milk. Really, really do. It's so detached and impersonal to sit there attached by the boobs to a machine for twenty minutes at a time and stare into space while waiting for it to end. The type of breast pump the hospital sends you home with is called a double electric, meaning you pump both boobs at once with great, electricity-fueled force. This is nice and efficient, yes, but also extremely limiting as you have to hold the contraption in place with your hands. So I sit there, like a bored dairy cow, and stare around while enduring the least sexy form of nipple torture ever.

The cats are intrigued, of course. Mong sits a small distance away and just watches kind of askance, not really approving of the process. Shelley, unsurprisingly, is much more scientifically interested in the whole thing and wants to get right in my lap and watch up close. Because my range of movement is extremely limited I am reduced to doing a kind of chicken wing flap with my occupied arms to try to dissuade him, or draw one knee up to make my lap less inviting. He is not easily dissuaded and will eventually park himself up against my leg if he can't get in my lap, watching in a very intent and discomfiting manner what is going on with my poor, poor nipples.

Nipples, nipples, nipples. I never really thought I'd end up talking much about one of my MOST PRIVATE body parts in this blog because I wasn't planning to breastfeed. Since Shaughnessy ended up being preemie, though, breast milk is one of the best things for her and I can certainly oblige. It turns out that producing breast milk is a crazy skill I have. It's like, effortless for me. When the lactation consultant came to talk to me in the hospital I was in the middle of pumping and quit early so I could chat with her. She did a total double-take when she saw the amount I'd already pumped and was all, "Is that the volume you usually produce?" I was like, no, I usually get more. She was impressed. My boobs; they are enthusiastic. Which is awesome, because as much as I HAAAAATE to pump it's extremely gratifying to feel like I'm doing something so directly beneficial and mother-like for my daughter.

Even though breast-feeding in itself is also a procedure that limits your movement and takes up time I can only look forward to it as a great improvement as I'll actually be holding my daughter and bonding with her, able to look down at her and into her eyes and interact with her. I won't be hooked up to a happy yellow robot that doesn't want to bite me and pull my hair.

How to have a baby in the most dramatic way.

2009-03-12T13:46:00.000-04:00

Let me tell you what happened.

On the night of February 27th I had a pain in my upper right torso area. It was not incredibly excruciating or anything. It felt almost exactly like mild gallbladder attacks used to feel when I still had a gallbladder. I had any of a number of things to blame such a pain on, of course, such as coughing due to the cold I was recovering from or a newish heartburn effect. Whatever it was I kept noticing it, but not feeling affected enough by it to worry overmuch. It was annoying and I took some Tylenol and hoped for the best.

It faded by the next morning and I carried on with life. Saturday night, though, I noticed a headache starting up on the left side of my head. Kind of radiating up from my neck and around to my forehead. I popped a couple more Tylenols but by the next morning it was on both sides of my head and was much worse. I figured it was a migraine since it had some of the same symptoms and results, like nausea and light sensitivity. So Sunday night I still had a headache that hadn't really responded to pain meds much. On Monday morning the headache seemed a bit less, but still present, and by Monday night I was getting pretty worried. I get lots of headaches, yes, but three-day headaches are a rarity for me and headaches that don't respond to pain meds during pregnancy are a bad sign.

I'd read about pre-eclampsia, and one account in particular that I'd shared with Andrew as an example of something that I hoped would NEVER happen to me. One of my favourite webcomic authors had her daughter quite early as a result of pre-eclampsia and had presented symptoms from quite early on, mostly very swollen feet. I wasn't having any issues like that, my pee sticks for protein had been coming up clear at the doctor's office and my blood pressures seemed to be OK. The visit to the obgyn right before Jen and Colin's wedding had a tiny bit of protein in my urine, but it was a trace amount.

So, the three-day headache was concerning me but I wasn't having any other symptoms like swelling or vision disturbances. I decided in the end that it was better to be safe than sorry so on Monday night after Andrew got home from work we headed out to the emergency room at Toronto General to ask about my headache.

I'll just get this out of the way right now so I don't have to repeat it a lot: We don't really know why we went there instead of Mt. Sinai. We were on autopilot or something, it's where we went last time we visited an emergency room and in the end it worked out pretty much the same as it would have in any case.

The wait ended up not being too terribly long for me to get in and talk to a nurse at the ER. She sat me down and asked me what all was going on, I said I'd had this three-day headache that was unresponsive to pain meds, she strapped on the blood pressure cuff and when it beeped she did a total double-take. "That can't be right." Yep, she thought the machine was broken, like in some cheap movie script. So she took it again, it was even more alarming and she was like, "OK, this is an issue." I did have to go wait again in the general waiting area but it really wasn't all that long, thankfully, as it kind of turned out that I was a walking seizure waiting to happen. Andrew and I were called back into the ER and I got on a bed and pretty much didn't get up for days.

The poking and prodding and questioning and needling and blood-pressure-cuffing began in earnest. Things get fuzzy for me at this point because they started me on magnesium sulfate and it made me light-headed and flushed, which was very distracting. Basically after a lot of talking about pre-eclampsia, how I definitely had it, how dangerous it is, how close I was to having seizures and brain hemorrhages and dying we were told that the baby pretty much should come out that night so that I wouldn't die, and kill her in turn. My 28 week baby, since apparently I ONCE AGAIN had the weeks counted wrong, argh.

I was instinctively like, "No, that's stupid," but that was inside my head. In reality I knew there wasn't much choice, so Andrew and I were like, "Um, OK." They were talking about DYING, which is scary to hear in your face like that.

Usually I'd have been transferred over to Mt. Sinai for the c-section, but they were having a flooding issue so I was taken by ambulance over to Women's College Hospital at around 10:00, to Andrew's best recollection. I am SO thankful that's where I had my baby. I cannot say enough good about the place or the people that work there. It is just yes in every way possible.

Things happened fairly quickly. I was taken to the high risk delivery floor and they got me ready for surgery. Andrew wasn't allowed in the operating room while they did the epidural and that part ended up taking longer than we thought it would. I have to say that the epidural was the most unpleasant part of the entire operating procedure for me. Mostly when women giving birth have one they've been in labour for a while, so the physical sensation of the epidural is overshadowed by the pain of labour. In this case not so much. I felt everything the anaesthesiologist did, and it was pretty unpleasant the time he injected in a spot where there wasn't enough anaesthetic. Once it was finished and took effect everything was great. I couldn't feel a thing from my chest down and I was immensely grateful that they waited until then to insert the catheter!

So they found Andrew and the surgery started. I was feeling weird because of the mag sulfate and they also gave me some morphine so it's somewhat fuzzy for me, but I remember thinking that it felt exactly like a description I'd read of getting a c-section, where you are on a bed and there are people trying to wrestle a pair of too-small jeans onto your body. It really did feel a lot like that. Then there was a HUGE sensation of pressure and pulling and suddenly I heard someone say, "It's a girl!" Then I heard a couple of little tiny cries and I knew our daughter was born. It was 1:35 a.m. on March 3rd.

I didn't see her at all. Andrew did get a glimpse of her, but they took her immediately away to get her intubated in case she couldn't breathe on her own, even though she'd definitely breathed enough to cry out which was a very good sign. I was left to get reassembled and stitched back up, then I was taken to recovery.

Things get even fuzzier for me at this point. I remember talking to my nurse, talking to Andrew, asking about Shaughnessy and things like that. I was probably in shock, plus drugged a bit and the mag sulfate was still being administered through the IV so I wouldn't have a seizure. Eventually I was wheeled back to the high risk birthing unit and I stayed there until the next day.

Andrew had of course contacted my mom and sisters and so my mom came as soon as she could the next day to see me. My mom is awesome. I know she pretty much had zero sleep and yet she came all the way to Toronto and sat at my bedside and just hung out with me while I lay there all woozy and stupid from the mag sulfate and whatever other drugs were messing me up. She and Andrew got to go see Shaughnessy; something I couldn't do while I was still on the mag sulfate since I was still a seizure risk and they didn't want that to happen in the NICU. It was really hard for me to wrap my brain around the fact that I was no longer pregnant since I hadn't actually seen my own baby yet and physically I didn't feel a whole lot different since the numbness was still present. I made sure to tell them to touch her, though. For some reason it was really important to me that somebody who loves her touched her.

Mom had to leave that evening, but I was so, so glad she'd come. The whole experience had been pretty terrifying and surreal and having my mom appear was incredibly comforting. Thank you, Mom, for being so awesome.

I finally got to see Shaughnessy the next morning after they took me off of the magnesium sulfate and moved me to the high risk recovery part of the floor. It was a bit rushed, but being able to see my incredibly tiny daughter for the first time was amazing. She was so very small inside her big old incubator, all wrapped up and covered in tubes and wires and things stuck to her body. I couldn't do anything but look at her and hope with everything in me that she was going to be all right.

There's lots more about being in the hospital, which I was up until yesterday with soaring blood pressure and general recovery from the c-section. It's not all that interesting, though. What's awesome is how great our little girl is doing. She's apparently a tough, smart little baby what with all the breathing on her own and not needing any assistance beyond a CPAP (Continuous Positive Airway Pressure) device that reminds her to keep taking breaths just in case she ever forgets. The nurses consistently tell us how cute and funny she is and that she has a feisty little attitude and lots of personality. While I was in the hospital I spent a lot of time beside her incubator staring at her little self, touching her sometimes (although preemies are not necessarily all about the wanting to be touched, as it turns out, although a hand placed on them and held still is comforting,) and generally just getting used to the idea of being a mother!

Andrew promptly came down with some kind of virus right after our daughter was born so his contact with her has been a lot more limited than mine, unfortunately. He should be better in time for us to both be able to hold her, though, since her belly button IV came out today and that means more mobility for her. We've been taking some pictures and admiring her teeny little self. Here; admire her, too:

We had a baby.

2009-03-07T11:32:00.003-05:00

I've been trying to write a weblog entry about the fact that yes, we had our daughter, we have a baby now, Shaughnessy Patricia Joyce Jeanes was born on March 3rd, 2009, at 1:35 in the morning weighing exactly one kilogram and breathing on her own.

Somehow, that weblog entry hasn't been coming out. I'd start it and have to stop really quickly. It wasn't flowing the way I wanted it to. I couldn't tell it the way I like to tell a story. It took me a while, but I eventually realized why.

Why? Because it sucks. I had preeclampsia. My daughter should not be outside of my body. She should still be in there giving me heartburn, kicking my bladder, bouncing my laptop at unexpected moments. I should still be carrying her and I'm not. I'm not happy about that in the slightest and wish more than anything that it wasn't this way. So when I try to write about the actual events and find the humour in them (of which there is some, believe me) it's just ... too soon, I guess.

This week has been the hardest of my life, probably the hardest of Andrew's life, and no picnic for Shaughnessy, either. Our families and friends have been amazing, supportive and right there for us from the minute we let them know what happened and we're unspeakably thankful for all of you.

I'll write about it. I'll write about it the way I want to, tell the story the way I like to, and it'll be REALLY LONG.

Writing from my deathbed.

2009-02-25T18:04:00.002-05:00

Oh, man. I have been sick all week long. I'd felt something lurking for most of the week before and it hit on the weekend. It seems to be at most a seriously bad cold but it's getting old at this point. Bah.

It's why I haven't been writing much this week. A) It's boring to read about other people's snotty colds and B) I just haven't had much energy for it. So I've kept my writing to boo-hooing in Facebook and Twitter status updates about how sick and gross I am.

I have run into the Maalox condundrum, however, of timing my pregnancy-related heartburn relief with cold relief and other medication. Maalox (and other antacids) interfere with the effectiveness of medications if taken close together so I have to decide if I want relief from heartburn over relief from head-pounding stuffiness and sinus pain. It's a testament to how bad the heartburn is that I'll often choose the Maalox over the Tylenol because having to wait a few hours seems impossible. Admittedly I am trying to take as little as possible of the Tylenol Cold, even though it's supposed to be all safe and stuff.

Taking pills is no big deal for me. Some people gag on pills but I can knock back a handful at a time as long as I have a glass of water to wash them down. (Not that I've ever knocked back a handful, of course, but my re-reading of that last sentence tips me off that it sounds a bit alarming.) Ahem. Yes, I can take multiple pills at a time and not blink. Chewables, however, are another story and the Maalox are just plain old gross. They're mint which makes it better, but they don't really go anywhere while you're chewing them. They just get foamy and sit there in the same spot where you're chewing them, like they have a memory of the shape they were in and want to stay that way. It squicks me out like nobody's business and you can bet that I'm so relieved you're supposed to wash them down with water because swallowing that mess dry would be nearly impossible. Because it's not really dry; it's a pasty almost-gel that clings to every surface ack ick ugh!

O, this is the grossest entry. The baby is still kicking in there despite its momma lolling about like a serious invalid and hacking up a lung or two. I've been forcing food down as much as I can so that baby Jeanes is getting, like, vitamins and stuff and taking my pre-natals and making sure to keep aware of movement and all that. S/he's pretty consistent with when and what makes her/him kicky. Six a.m. aerobics are still a go, me on my left side always results in some irritated shoving around unless I am laying there just so, and random spazzes throughout the afternoon and evening are common. I think my coughing over the last day or so has been a bit alarming for the poor thing, but there's not a lot I can do about that, unfortunately.

Yeah, OK. I think I've exhausted my non-news for now. Things are good despite my having the plague. Andrew is going away for a little travel trip of about 24 hours so maybe by the time he gets back on Friday night I'll be somewhat less gross. Here's hoping!

Random Acts Of Gratitude

2009-02-21T15:35:00.003-05:00

I keep meaning to post about this and forgetting, so here I am posting about it FINALLY!

My lovely friend Jerome is doing another year-long project, this year entitled Random Acts Of Gratitude. It's an awesome daily posting of things he is grateful for and it's so lovely to read it and get a smile out of it every day. When I used to keep my KayBeeBlog weblog daily I always said that one of the nicest things about it was that it helped me to find a positive about the day I'd had, no matter what, and I think that Jerome's current project has a similar effect. For Jerome I hope it does, of course, but it's so nice to read it as a friend and then want to hug him when I'm done.

Jerome, you are the greatest! I am grateful for YOU!

It's all about the socks.

2009-02-18T22:05:00.004-05:00

Hello again. I seem to have a lot to say lately. I do like writing and used to blog so regularly that I guess I've reminded myself how much I get out of it! Also lately I've had a small run of funny little events when generally my life is so boring and predictable that it's less easy to find things to share.

Anyhow, I never did tell the wee story about shopping at The Bay with Andrew. It's not insanely hilarious, but it was definitely a highlight of a shopping trip that was not so successful for me otherwise. See, Andrew was looking for a shirt to wear to the wedding to match the ties that Colin had bought for the groomsmen. So, he took a small variety of shirts to try on in the change room while I parked myself on one of two seats outside the change rooms and waited. A couple of other women ended up sitting beside me while their partners tried things on but they were there and gone pretty quickly. Then another woman sat down and her husband headed into the change rooms with a couple of bathing suits (the kind that are like long baggy shorts.)

We didn't talk to each other or anything, just both sat and waited. Then her husband came out of his change room and peeked out of the changing area, wanting his wife's opinion. He was still wearing his button-up shirt and his socks, as well as the bathing suit in question. His wife began to quietly giggle when she saw him in his bathing suit and socks and he kind of sheepishly got her opinion while she continued to giggle at him, then took off back to his change room to try on another suit.

I had been trying not to giggle while he was there, and when he was gone I leaned over to her and said, "The socks really make the outfit," which caused her to immediately bust out laughing.

So we both lost our shit entirely and laughed and laughed and laughed and wiped away tears of laughter. I saw his change room door open again and tried to compose myself. He skulked down the wall of the hallway and when he got to the end where we were stuck out one of his be-socked legs and did a little pointy-toed sexy thing with it, then peeked out at us again. So she and I laughed some more and then she pulled herself together to give him her opinion on his second bathing suit and he went away again, all smiles. I told her that I hoped I hadn't hurt his feelings with the sock laughter and she assured me that no, if he could get a laugh he'd always go for the laugh. Hee hee.

When he came back out I assured him that his socks were very nice and looked great with the bathing suit and he and his wife laughed with me some more and then went on their merry way. I tried to share with Andrew how very hilarious and happy-making it had all been for me, and it really, really had been. I love running across happy, funny people like that.

Hey, baby-mama, do you come here often?

2009-02-18T01:28:00.000-05:00

So yesterday I had to get up and go to the obgyn for a blood glucose test. I'd been given instructions the week before and so didn't eat or drink anything sugary beforehand. Now, the office that I go to is in the obstetrics department at Mt. Sinai so there's a central area for outpatient stuff where I had to go to drink my glucose drink. You take a number from a machine and wait around for a long time until your number comes up.

I sat down beside a nice Chinese woman and we ended up chatting for a bit, discovering we were there for the same reason and that we share the same obgyn. We were about the same number of weeks along and compared notes and bellies and whatnot until a tech came out and asked who was there for glucose testing. About eight of us swarmed him so he waved us back and said he'd take three at a time, and that he'd call for us every fifteen minutes. We showed our tickets and the three lowest numbers got to go with him. My friend and I weren't in the lucky group, so we headed off to the obgyn to pee on our sticks since during the one-hour waiting period after the glucose drinks we were supposed to go see our doctor.

When I got back to the outpatient area I ended up sitting beside a woman who looked much further along than me. She was also there for glucose testing and since it was very boring just sitting there we started yakking. It turned out that she's only twenty weeks along as opposed to my 27, but is having triplets! Wow. I was VERY interested in talking to her about what it's like and she was more than happy to share it. The triplets were a total surprise and since she has to have ultrasounds all the time to check on them they know the sexes and everything. Also they seem to be very healthy little babies and are pretty big, so a cesarean is pretty much guaranteed. She was all, "Yeah, I'm not pushing out one of them and then finding out I have to have a c-section for the other two anyhow." I'd feel the same way!

I finally got to drink my glucose drink (which is exactly like super-sweet orange carb drink) and the tech was impressed that I was able to chug it down fast. They give it to you in two cups and I just knocked them back quick since they weren't exactly delicious and the woman before me was having a hard time with hers, taking little sips and grimacing. The woman before her was all, "Mmmmm, this is delicious."

The doctor's waiting area was insanely busy so it was hard to get a seat, but when I finally did I ended up sitting beside a grandma who was there with her daughter and two grandkids. The one had been born just a month before and was a hilariously cross-eyed, foggy, squinchy newborn who made the ugliest faces at the waiting room over her mother's arm. I am always highly amused by that stage of babyhood, when being in the world is still the most alien thing to them since they're so used to the womb and haven't acclimatized at all to being out. This is not to say I think they're hideous; they're just so NEW.

Anyhow, the grandma was very proud of her grandkids and couldn't stop talking about them and ended up in a bit of a one-up war with a grandma sitting two seats down from me on the other side. Her daughter was there, wearing a 'pregnant is the new sexy' t-shirt over her big old baby belly and standing there while her mom took a load off. The daughter had apparently been colicky and so there was lots of talk about how this baby might restore the balance in the world by also being colicky. I was sympathetic to her, having also been colicky but having no recollection of doing it out of spite or innate meanness.

I finally got to see my doctor and he was as efficient as the time before, measuring my belly, listening to the heartbeat and advising me to switch from Tums to Maalox or Zantac since the heartburn is getting so bad. Then I dashed back to the outpatient lab with minutes to spare before getting my blood drawn.

This was the best part. The tech was the same guy who'd drawn my blood wayyyy back in the day when I had my first bloodwork done at the hospital. Back then I'd been nervous since I always am about needles and he had chatted me up really charmingly and casually, starting off by admiring my Claddagh ring and saying that I must be Irish and that Irish girls are his weakness. He inquired about my names and their meanings and I told him all about my mom and grandmothers and family history across the pond.

Well, this time I went in and sat down and pointedly looked away from the prep as he got out the tubes and needle. He started to chat me up and suddenly said, "You must be Irish. I can tell because you're wearing a Claddagh ring. Irish girls are my weakness."

I tried not to laugh and just went along with the conversation, but it took everything in me. The first time it was totally charming and put me at my ease: This time it was HIGH-LARIOUS and also put me at my ease because I wanted to laugh so hard. Dude obviously has a method for dealing with the needle-shy and it's very effective!

The wedding, friends, family and love.

2009-02-17T16:24:00.002-05:00

Oh, man. Jen and Colin's wedding was just perfection. I'm sure if you asked them they could tell you which things went wrong, but from the perspective of someone who wasn't in charge of arranging the details and worrying about what happened when it went off smoothly, enjoyably and memorably! Hooray for Colin and Jen!

For reals, though, I was exhausted just being a bystander who helped with very small stuff that didn't require any heavy lifting (like bagging candy and putting tablecloths on tables.) I can't imagine how tired I'd have been if I was in charge!

We came back home to Toronto yesterday, bringing Jen. F and Paula back with us since we had room in the van. Now, the wedding had a daisy theme and Jen and Colin had tons of potted daisies left over that they weren't planning to keep so I asked if I could take a pot to my mom. They said that was fine, so we made a quick stop at my mom's house in Kingston on the way back to Toronto from Ottawa.

When we got there they were all in the middle of dinner but we came inside so that we could all have a bathroom break and I could hug my sister and mom and niece and nephew. I handed off the daisies and we hung out in the kitchen a bit while each of us had our time in the washroom. Mang, of course, came into the kitchen and presented herself to everyone and looked regal and lovely and I got some kitty loving in with her and Leeloo. Keller stayed hidden in one of her hiding spots and didn't come out to visit at all, unsurprisingly.

The best part, though, came while I was absent, having excused myself to the washroom. July, who is eight, apparently thought that Jen and Paula were VERY pretty and proposed the idea of having a Pretty Lady Party in Toronto sometime that they could come to as well as some of their pretty friends. Hee hee hee! That kid cracks me up! Jen and Paula are very pretty so she was totally justified in wanting to celebrate that, of course. I hope I'm invited, too.

After a too-brief interlude with my adorable family we headed back out on the road, stopping to get a bite to eat and then driving without stopping until we hit our city. Getting back to our apartment and hugging my cats was the best thing ever until I climbed into my bed and realized that being in my bed and hugging my cats was EVEN BETTER. Then Andrew got into bed and I realized that being in bed with my cats and my Andrew was EVEN BETTER THAN THAT. And then I fell asleep.

I do wish I had a pillbox like that.

2009-02-16T10:07:00.003-05:00

So I had my first official real nightmare about this baby. I crashed hard in bed last night after the wedding festivities and had a few weird dreams, but this one freaked me out.

Yes, I know other people's dreams are boring.

So, in my dream I totally had the baby and was all, "Baby-having is sooooo easy and painless. I don't really think that hurt at all!" And the baby was so tiny that she fit in a pillbox so that's where I carried her. No wonder it didn't hurt.

I set the pillbox carrier down at some point and TOTALLY misplaced it. It was a pink pillbox, very cute, and easy to spot. When I realized I had no idea where I'd set it down (with my daughter inside) I started to freak out. I knew Andrew would be really pissed off, plus I was extremely embarrassed that I'd misplaced my own child like that.

I searched and searched and searched, but it got pretty obvious that I just wasn't going to find her again. My baby was gone for good.

Waking up was a relief because I know exactly where the baby is for now and s/he'd better stay there for a few more months.

Ottawa update.

2009-02-14T20:48:00.002-05:00

Hellooooo! We've been in Ottawa since Thursday night. I STILL haven't seen Alannah and the kids and that makes me sad, but we've settled on tomorrow night being the night, after all the wedding festivities have ended.

We HAVE seen Colin and Jen and all the other wedding participants. Friday night was the wedding rehearsal and dinner, and for the rehearsal I stood in for one of the bridesmaids who couldn't be there. I was Fake Kim, and it was fun. I was a bit worried that it would mess with my back to stand around a lot, but it ended up doing a number on my sciatica leg instead, which is not something I can blame on baby Jeanes at all. It's very handy to be able to blame ailments on pregnancy, you know.

Baby Jeanes was super active all the way from Toronto to Ottawa. I don't know if it was my posture or bumps in the road or what, but that baby was busy. It was funny, since I actually think s/he's pretty mellow compared to stories I've heard of other babies who were constantly active while hanging out inside their moms. But yeah; riding in a vehicle seems to provoke lots of movement. If I ever get worried that s/he's not moving I'll try to get a ride somewhere and see what happens.

I did attempt to find maternity clothes today but was not so successful. Andrew and I went to the Bayshore mall because they were having a sale on shirts at The Bay and he needed to buy a shirt to go with his tie for the wedding. I figured I'd check their maternity section first and go from there if I couldn't find anything, but it turned out that they don't have a maternity section at all at that location. So I checked out Thyme Maternity in the mall but all their stuff was very casual. Mom had told me of some maternity stores in town but by the time we got out of the mall it was too late to do any more shopping.

I guess I'll make do with the outfit I bought last week which is really not bad at all. Still, my impression of maternity clothes so far has been that they are not very much to my tastes. They DO make one look pregnant, though, which I proved by wearing a maternity shirt for the first time the other day and being told multiple times that I suddenly look quite pregnant. The a-line cut really accentuates that baby belly, I guess!

Not much else to tell. I do have a funny story about our shopping experience at The Bay, but I'll make a separate post about it since I don't have the energy to write much more tonight. I's tired and need my beauty sleep since we have to be somewhere at 7:30 tomorrow morning!

People do make me laugh.

2009-02-11T07:28:00.003-05:00

So yesterday I went first to an OBGYN appointment, then went shopping to see if I could find a pretty maternity dress to wear to Jen and Colin's wedding this coming weekend.

The appointment was brief. My lovely doctor came flying into the room, ordered me to lie down, whipped out a tape measure, measured my belly, whipped out a heartbeat thingamajig, listened to the heartbeat, asked if I had any questions then told me to go to the outpatient lab and pee in a cup since my pee stick had some protein in it. The entire thing, including me waiting in the waiting room, took about 15 minutes total, a new record for obstetrical efficiency in my experience! Everyone at the office seemed a bit frazzled, actually. Busy day in babymaking, I guess. Except for the old man who was seated next to me in the waiting room and was eventually tipped off that he wasn't where he was supposed to be. He looked around and said, "Yes, there are an awful lot of pregnant women here."

Shopping for the maternity dress was as difficult as I'd expected, but only because there weren't any dresses. Like, none. I went to the Dufferin Mall because there's a Pennington's there and I was hoping to find an a-line dress that wouldn't necessarily have to be a maternity dress. There were no dresses at all. I'm not even kidding. Skirts and blouses, yes, but no dresses. I then went to Rietmans which most always has an awesome and plentiful plus-size section with great selection, but this time they also had no dresses. The clerk immediately got my drift as soon as I turned to face her and mentioned a-line dresses and had some suggestions about perhaps such-and-such a store would have something, but seemed dubious. She said this is a hard time of year to buy a dress anyhow, it being that wasteland between new seasonal lines when everything has been picked over.

I ended up getting a dressy pair of maternity pants and a fancy shirt which looked good to me when I tried them on in the store. Here's hoping I wasn't just desperately telling myself so in order to end the shopping process. I'll try them on again here at home and see. I still have a few days of grace and can shop in Ottawa, too!

My day was spiced right up by the craziness of my fellow shoppers and travelers, though. The first incident was in Pennington's. I entered the store at the same time as a woman using a walker and a much younger woman accompanying her. The elderly woman looked old enough to be the younger woman's grandma but referred to her as her daughter throughout. The daughter was shopping for a jacket and the two attracted the attention of one of the clerks as they discussed. The older woman had a VERY loud voice, and to my horror shouted to the clerk as she approached them, "We're looking for a jacket for a really FAT person, here. Really, really FAT."

I was mortified and wanted to hide behind a rack of clothes. Astonishingly (to me) the daughter didn't seem fazed by this at all, just calmly talked about the coats they were looking at with the clerk like this was absolutely normal behaviour. Yes, the daughter was obese, but HELLO OLD LADY, you are in Pennington's. Your daughter knows where she is, the clerks know where they work, your specificity is overkill in this situation.

I was left to wonder if the daughter just has to deal with this so much that not acknowledging it is her best defense. Whatever their personal relationship, I left and went off to shop elsewhere for my non-existent dress happy in the knowledge that my own mom is not a crazy, loud-talking, insensitive crone.

The second incident was much more palatable to me. I was on the Bathurst bus and an older couple sat down behind me. They looked to be in their sixties or so and quite cheerful and pleasant. The husband suddenly broke out into song. That didn't seem so weird to me because I live with Andrew, a man who has a song to fit every occasion and who will always sing that song.

I immediately realized, however, that I was in some kind of time warp and it was actually me and Andrew from the distant future sitting behind me because as the man sang his song his wife began to say, "Shhh. Stop singing. Stop it. Hush. Shush. Stop. Be quiet. Stop singing. Shhhhh."

He carried on singing for a bit, she very quietly carried on shushing him and eventually he stopped and they started talking about something else very happily and lovingly. So, I'm assuming that even when we're in our sixties, Andrew will still be breaking out into song and I'll still be shushing him. Some things will probably not change.

Kick the kitty!

2009-02-09T18:54:00.003-05:00

In a development of extreme suckage I think the morning sickness is flirting with me a little bit, still. I wasn't too sure about it since the heartburn has been making me feel gaggy, but in the last day the heartburn has calmed down somewhat and I've noticed that the nausea is still there. Hrm. Go away, nausea. You have no place here in my beloved second trimester!

I still have some Diclectin left and this is nowhere near the feeling I had in the first trimester so I'm not panicking. Just giving it a very stern look.

Yeah, the heartburn got pretty epic over the last five or so days and I was sad about that. Andrew reminded me that raw or blanched almonds are supposed to be helpful for that so he came home from the store with two big packages of them for me. I think they might actually be helping! Since I started eating them I've definitely taken fewer Tums and had a bit more success with sleeping. The heartburn kept waking me up after at most three hours of sleep and I'd have to do something to try to deal with it instead of being able to drop back off so my sleep was all jacked up. So there's been a bit of an improvement there, at least!

Shelley is really starting to notice the baby kicks now when he's purring on me on the sofa. He'll look up at me a little quizzically when there's a particularly strong thump. I'm waiting for the day that they actually notice my belly moving with their eyes rather than just feeling it. I'm waiting in fear, as they both like to attack targets that are moving mysteriously underneath something. So I could be a mass of flesh wounds by the time I actually go to give birth!

It puts the baby on its skin.

2009-02-08T11:53:00.003-05:00

I was doing some reading about 'wearing' babies last night, using slings and various styles of sling-type carriers. I'm extremely invested in finding a good sling that I can stick the kid in so I can have my hands free when necessary to do random things, so I really want to do my research.

The danger of online research, you realize, is that you end up getting sidetracked by other interesting things as you read. As a result I started reading about how skin-to-skin contact is something that is extremely comforting and healthy for babies, especially when they're brand-new. I've known this for a while, but it was something I wanted to mention to Andrew, seeing as how he's the kind of of person who can't abide wearing pants for longer than five minutes after he gets home from anywhere and will disrobe at the slightest provocation. I figured he'd be thrilled at the opportunity to foster nudist tendencies in our child.

I also pointed out that baby skin is one of the most magical things on earth, it being so unreasonably soft and perfect and fresh, so skin-to-skin snuggling with a baby is like cuddling unicorns or something equally fantastical. Andrew's response?

"Oh, man. I'm going to rub that baby all over my body!"

How DO you respond to something like that? I coped through laughter, but a less understanding person would be all surreptitiously programming CAS into their cellphone.

Don't worry, there will be no using our baby as a reverse loofah, I swear. Besides, I think baby Jeanes would get a lot less out of Andrew's leg hair than Andrew would out of our baby's perfect flesh.

I barfed a lot and it sucked. Let me have that, OK?

2009-02-03T22:47:00.003-05:00

OK, so a real positive about this pregnancy has been fewer migraines! I've always been prone to them but for some reason instead of even worse migraines I've just been getting more of the smaller, more bearable headaches instead. I mention this because I had an actual migraine today and was reminded of how long it's been since I had to deal with one. Pretty sweet!

Uh ... perhaps I was a bit more of a baby about it as a result, but Andrew has skipped town until tomorrow night so didn't have to hang out with me for more than a couple of hours worth of pathetic behaviour.

Now, I expected that with this pregnancy I'd be throwing myself headlong into some online communities of pregnant women and getting right involved with all that, but I've quickly discovered that I don't really have the urge to. I have a hit-or-miss relationship with online communities in general, preferring mostly to keep them strictly online and not have them encroach too much into my oxygen life. There are a small number of people I've met online that I'd made an exception for, but they are few. So, after lurking slightly and posting just a couple of times in a couple of pregnancy/parenting forums and whatnot I can say that I now have no real desire to do this.

Part of it is that on the one hand I'm just kind of a bitch, I think, and get easily frustrated when certain things start to look more like contests than sharing experiences. I'm not going in trying to one-up anyone or be told to just be thankful I had it as easy as I did. Y'know, the morning sickness sucked my will to live and it makes me seriously reluctant to do this ever again. Don't tell me I was lucky, k? I was not lucky. No one who experiences extreme unpleasantness during their pregnancy is.

On the other hand I feel like I have such a strong existing support network through my family and tons of friends who have babies and have experienced everything I'm going through that I don't really need to seek strangers online to get advice from. It's one of the reasons that not getting into a midwife group didn't break my heart too much, because I have the experienced feminine moral support thing built right in. Mom, sisters, cousins, aunts, friends, all kinds of people a phone call or Facebook message away! I'm pretty blessed and I'm reminded of it constantly.

I'm also pretty blessed to have Andrew right there with me being as supportive and involved and interested as he is. Love you, sweetie!

Those kicks were fast as lightning!

2009-01-31T12:06:00.003-05:00

My belly moves noticeably from the outside now when Baby Jeanes is practicing Kung Fu fighting! I saw it for the first time this morning. I was wearing just a thin stretchy tank top instead of a t-shirt and had my laptop sitting on my legs. Baby Jeanes had been pretty active for a while, but I suddenly noticed my belly actually twitch when s/he let loose with a really good kick. So I sat and watched for a while and saw about four or five good ones before s/he got tired and settled down.

How. Weird.

I mean, I've seen the bellies of other pregnant women doing the creepy alien thing when they're really far along and you can see the skin moving around and shifting with the movement of the baby, but it's incredibly weird to see it happening to yourself for the first time. I'm not at the creepy inner alien phase yet, just the periodic outer twitch phase, but man ... WEIRD.

The whole thing is weird! Human procreation is weird! Maysie was telling us about Noah's reaction to how babies are made (hey, he asked) and y'know, dude ain't wrong when he seems a bit stunned by the process. Why can't we all be Cylons? Although I guess even they are pretty gross, too.

I think mostly I'm just so constantly surprised by my body actually having the capability to produce human life. There are so many things it's NOT good at doing that this seems overly ambitious, you know?

Started out good, but ended with rant.

2009-01-25T17:37:00.000-05:00

It occurs to me quite a lot that even though I've moaned and complained variously about the discomforts of this process, I'm extremely thankful that that's all they've been: discomforts. I've had no pregnancy-related complications that threaten me or baby Jeanes and that's something to be grateful for!

Pre-eclampsia and gestational diabetes are two things I worried about but so far, so good. The diabetes one wouldn't surprise me all that much but my bloodwork has been fine and I'm feeling pretty physically OK (for sickly ol' me.) I definitely need to be getting more exercise. That one is self-inflicted and not the fault of being pregnant, of course.

Last night Andrew and I went out for dinner and after we got home I was reminded of how much I need to start doing some more regular forms of exercise. Man, did my back ever hurt! Andrew is the one who nearly killed his entire self on some stairs while we were out, and I'm the one with the pain afterward. Unfair, I say. I had a bit of a preview at the One Of A Kind Show of the backaches to come, and I guess I'll just have to get Andrew to give me some nice massages or something (especially since La gave me that incredibly awesome Lush massage bar at Christmas.) But yeah; I do think that going for some regular walks will help, even if it makes it hurt a bit more at first.

Time is really flying now. I'm five months along and kind of in disbelief about that. It STILL doesn't seem entirely real that we're going to have a baby, you know. Yes, I feel like there's a human being growing inside of me but that isn't any kind of prep for what it's going to be like to LIVE with a TOTALLY DEPENDENT BABY. All my selfish ways and decisions are going to be secondary to making sure our kid survives each day. As a 34 year old with ingrained habits I think it's going to definitely be a rude kind of awakening! There are a few camps of parent out there. The kind that we have the most contact with, fortunately, are the kind who want to share useful advice and empathy, but there's another kind. The kind that like to maliciously shake their heads and say smugly, "Oh, you have no idea what you're in for. You'll see."

Yeah ... thanks. Does it surprise anyone that the first kid is a challenge? How can it not be? There was a time when I did not want to have children. I knew I could change my mind in the future when I hit my thirties, or encounter a surprise pregnancy and have to deal with that, but I really resented the idea that people saw being childfree as a negative of my personality. When I saw the kind of behaviour, though, where the parents seemed to relish the idea of someone sharing in what seemed to be their misery I felt a bit better about my decision. There are all kinds, of course, and even in the spectrum of the childfree there are wildly varying approaches and feelings about kids in general but I hope I never turn into the kind of parent who treats the role as a negative experience overall. Yes, there will be challenges and times when I question my sanity and the decision to have a child but I fully expect that overall I will like parenting and LOVE our spawn.

Seriously. My cats piss me off regularly (every day!) and I love and forgive them, so how much more am I going to love and care about a human being that's made up of me and Andrew?

Baby Jeanes has moved from Riverdance to STOMP.

2009-01-19T20:43:00.002-05:00

Andrew FINALLY got to feel some substantial kicks from baby Jeanes. We were sitting side by side in bed doodling around on our respective laptops when I suddenly felt a series of no-kidding-around kicks that were quite different from the usual more subtle sensations. I grabbed Andrew's hand and put it where I thought they were strongest and he felt at least three good ones.

I've felt kind of guilty about being the one to feel all the baby sensations, silly as that is, so it was really nice. Yes, I'm doing all the heavy lifting of the carrying and growing of our kid but I'd still like to share the positives of the experience with Andrew and the kicking is definitely the fun part. At this point.

It's comforting that Andrew thinks I'm noticeably showing because I've had more than a few people say that I'm not showing at all and that pretty much just makes me feel like I must be a TOTAL fat-ass or something. (Don't worry if you've said it to me; I overreact to pretty much everything lately, OK?) Andrew is the one who sees me without my clothes so he's the one who can tell the best, I realize, plus I'm still wearing regular jeans that stretch so they probably inhibit the belly, but I just kind of want to look verifiable-y PREGNANT already. If I'd started out wafer-thin there'd be no question at this point, I realize, but at least I've gotten to wear my regular clothes for a good long time, right? I'm down to just a few shirts at this point, and Maysie was sweet enough to send me home with some of her maternity clothes to try out the other night so those plus some shopping on my part should have me set.

On a related note I have to find a pretty maternity dress to wear because our beloved friends Colin and Jen are getting married next month! Hooray! I'm so excited to go and take part, and I hope that the deities of maternity wear will smile upon me and have a dress in existence that will satisfy my needs. I'm not one hundred percent sure what those needs are at the moment other than it being a-line and able to contain my ridiculous pregnancy boobs. Oh, I have not complained here about my boobs and I'm afraid to start because they might sense it and go even more insane. I am afraid of these breasts.

Hmmm. What else? I guess not much else pregnancy related. We went to St. Catharines and Niagara On The Lake over the weekend to visit Jerome and then go to dinner with Andrew's Nana and Grandpa Bill. Seeing Jerome was super awesome fantastic, as always, and we totally fell in love with his house. It's seriously the kind of house we'd love to raise our kid in, just the right size for our needs and freaking gorgeous besides. It has CHARM, people. CHARM. I hope you love your house as much as we do, Jerome!

After that we went to NOTL to see Nana and Grandpa Bill. We met them for dinner at a restaurant/hotel/spa that is quite nice and even though I shouldn't have I ordered the prime rib for dinner. I had to because it came with Yorkshire pudding and ... come on. Yorkshire pudding! I ordered it rare and the chef was obviously incredibly good at his job and sent me a perfectly rare piece of meat. The problem was that it was also an enormous piece of meat and I could barely eat half of it. So I had to take it home and reheat it, at which point it was no longer perfectly rare. Sob. Oh, but my life is filled with tragedy.

Then we came home. The next night (Sunday night) we went to Maysie and Dan's and had delicious homemade pizza and a night full of excruciatingly depressing episodes of Battlestar Galactica. Depressing or no it is the best show on TV, so it's totally worth it. Uh, to me. I had pre-watched the episodes on my own at home so didn't break down bawling every few minutes when we were with the friends, but I assure you that I cried my face off in private. Pregnancy hormones FTW!

Look at the baby!

2009-01-15T08:11:00.003-05:00

OK! Here are the ultrasound pictures as promised, just ... late. Forgive me!

Here is baby Jeanes lolling on her/his back in November, head to the left:

Here is baby Jeanes from the front in November, waving at us with his/her right hand:

And finally here is baby Jeanes from last week, from the front as well but flipped in the opposite direction, possibly with her/his hand up beside her/his face:

That last one is less obvious than the other two, unfortunately. I was so jazzed by the end of the ultrasound by how cool it had been to see baby Jeanes spazzing around that I forgot to ask for a picture, so I was surprised when she handed us one. I think it made more sense to me at the time, having just been looking at live images, but it isn't so clear to me now. I do think those are some fingerbones to the side of the face, though.

Baby Jeanes is pretty consistently kicky and wiggly in there. Not constantly, but more than enough to keep me reminded of his/her presence. Especially when I'm on my side. When I move to my back and try to get Andrew to feel what's going on in there the baby calms down a lot, probably because things spread out more and there's more room to stretch out.

Otherwise, not a lot is new in the realm of baby-making. Sickness is gone, heartburn is present, there's some weirdness with the relaxing of ligaments but nothing too notable. All in all it's evening out into the second trimester honeymoon, I do believe. I approve!

Moody me.

2009-01-12T05:48:00.000-05:00

So, um, Andrew didn't get the ultrasound shots scanned on Friday but he'll try to today, promise!

I really must be feeling more energetic and happier now that I'm feeling much better physically. Dan commented on it when we were at their place for a Battlestar Galactica night (must catch up since the new season starts so soon!) I was thinking about it and yes, I think it's true. Except that I'm also still hormonal and prone to sudden mood changes, something that happened on our way home from said delightful evening.

When we left Maysie and Dan's place it was snowing out but it wasn't deep or anything. We walked to Bathurst to catch the streetcar to Bathurst station, something we normally do since it's a shorter walk. Now, this snow wasn't the lightly falling, pleasant kind of snow. It was small and mean flakes that drove persistently against us, borne on an unpleasant wind. The kind that stick all over your clothes and collect on your hair like a white blanket and then instead of brushing off bond to your hair and clothes, then melt there.

As we were walking to Bathurst we saw a streetcar go by. This isn't uncommon so we were prepared to wait for the next one which usually doesn't take too long and we were optimistic, borne as we were on the high of having had a great night with friends. The streetcar stop is situated so that hopeful cab drivers pull up constantly right in front of you and stare at you a bit until you either shake your head or just look disinterested and this happened quite a few times. We briefly discussed grabbing one since the weather was so bad but it's expensive so I suggested we should wait. So we did. We waited and waited. And waited.

The snow got meaner and meaner, coming down more heavily, and the cold combined with the inescapable annoyance of the flakes against my face got more and more uncomfortable until suddenly I couldn't take it any more. My stoic resistance to spending cab money suddenly and completely transformed into disgust and major frustration at the discomfort we were experiencing and I said we should take the next cab that came along. Andrew readily agreed, thankfully, and even though it then (of course) took a bit for a free cab to come along we got one and got in. Phew!

Now, I'm an emotional person, something I readily admit, but even I am a bit bemused by how very quickly my moods can change on a dime these days. One minute I'll be humming along, thinking about how cute my cats are and what I'm going to be eating for dinner later, the next I'll be welling up with tears over how radically our lives will be changing and worried about whether we'll be prepared. Then I'll think to myself that we won't have a choice and it'll all work itself out and I'll feel better and eat a banana. Then I'll feel the baby kick and get overcome with the total weirdness of growing a human in my very own body.

So, I'm all over the map, but managing to keep it together for the most part and remind myself a lot about how I have to keep it together for this kid since ain't nobody else going to mother it for me! (Despite the apparent need my sisters and mom have to grab it and hug it and smother it with love, I'm sure they don't intend to keep it after it starts crying or wetting itself. And besides; I might turn out to be okay at the mothering thing after all.)

DENIED, AGAIN!

2009-01-08T15:41:00.002-05:00

We had the anatomical scan ultrasound today and I was SO. EXCITED. to find out the gender. I went in all happy to discover the gender of our large-banana sized child, and ultimately was denied this knowledge. Yes, the umbilical cord was totally in the way of the specifics.

The experience itself was nice, though. The tech was the same one who gave us our first ultrasound and during that one she was uncommunicative and reserved, but I'm pretty sure that was due to the mixup of how far along I was. This time she was much chattier and quite informative, seeming totally charmed by our bouncy kid. Apparently baby Jeanes was moving around a LOT, all wiggly and twitchy (although I couldn't really see this from my position during most of the ultrasound.) She'd be trying to measure the limbs and the baby kept moving them out of position. This mostly just made her laugh, though, and she told us that all of her babies today had been hyper.

After she'd taken all the measurements she turned the screen toward me and pointed out a few things like the baby's face and legs and arms. It had one arm up and a hand over its left eye which the tech thought was totally adorable. I was more worried that it was trying to suck its thumb, though! Then she did her best to see the gender but showed us how the cord was in the way. I jokingly said that it must be a boy if it was so active, taking after its dad, but she said that she was leaning more toward it being a girl. Since she couldn't say for sure, though, it was just a guess and now I have to try not to take it too seriously.

So yeah, I'm a bit disappointed but it's hard to be too upset when we could see our little mini human being all energetic and lively. That's pretty reassuring. After we left the clinic I made a lot of jokes about our naughty, uncooperative baby but I'm not literally blaming the kid. Honest! Oh, and Andrew took the new ultrasound shot and the ones from last time to work so he could scan them, so hopefully later today or early tomorrow I'll post them.

DENIED!

2009-01-07T06:26:00.002-05:00

So, Andrew went to Ottawa for the weekend. My only request was that he bring me home a caramel apple from The Purple Cow, since the caramel apple craving is still upon me and The Purple Cow does them PERFECTLY. He arrived home on Sunday and all was well, we were happy to see each other and I forgot about the caramel apple until much, much later when Andrew suddenly said, "Oh, I went to the Purple Cow to get your caramel apple and guess what?"

"What?" says I, with a feeling that the story would end with no caramel apple for me.

"IT WAS GONE," he informed me.

I did not believe it, but he insisted it was true. Apparently he went to the store and it was like the candy store from The Chocolate Touch when John Midas goes back to get the shopkeeper to help him; totally empty inside.

I accused Andrew of simply forgetting my caramel apple and coming up with this implausible lie, but he continued to maintain that he was telling the truth. Sigh. So, in the end I had to believe him.

The hope is that they're either renovating or relocating, but since Andrew couldn't see any evidence of either I am lost in a limbo of not knowing. And I'll REALLY have to make my own caramel apples now.

This is all really for the BABY of course, not me. The BABY wants the caramel apple, or makes me want it ... or something.

The morning sickness is still mostly a thing of the past so I'm letting myself relax a bit about it. Other common pregnancy things abound, but I can deal. Heartburn is a big one and while heartburn is no fun there's a certain freedom in realizing that anything I eat is going to result in it. I can eat things that I used to be more cautious about before, like hot dogs (not healthy, but tasty when you really want one) or red peppers or whatnot and know that they'll do me no more harm than anything else. As long as I have my giant-ass tub of Tums (Andrew bought me a HUGE container of them after I told him this would go on until the baby Jeanes is born) and my wild cherry Rolaids chewables I'm good.

I'm LOVING how the kicking is getting more pronounced every day. It really is the coolest part of pregnancy so far, just feeling proof that yes, there truly is a little sprog in there kicking around. I was never sure how I'd find the whole experience of pregnancy and it's been very surprising so far, but I always figured that if I did end up having a kid I'd find this part the most fascinating. I'm checking a lot to see if I can feel anything from the outside at all so that Andrew can start sharing in the weirdness, but it's still not strong enough for that. Soon!

Post-holiday entry.

2009-01-03T22:48:00.004-05:00

Happy 2009! I'm still pregnant, so things are going well on that front. Christmas broke me a bit, I think, so I haven't felt much like writing but I've been feeling bad about not updating so here I am.

I would have definitely handled the holidays better if I hadn't gotten that dumb cold. I'm actually still trying to get over the last of it, but traveling and not getting a lot of sleep probably made that harder to do. Seeing family and friends was incredibly awesome, of course, and Christmas day I hardly noticed how sick I felt, it was so good to spend time with my family and enjoy the nieces and nephews. My mom got a Wii and I actually had a LOT of fun playing it, something I did not expect. It's just that everyone looks dumb when they play that thing, so it's not so bad. I still giggle to myself when I remember watching Andrew boxing. Heeeeeee.

It might have been easier if we'd been able to stay longer in each city we visited, giving us a chance to catch our breath, but since all the places we stayed involved people giving up their actual beds for us we definitely didn't want to overstay our welcome! Thank you so much to Hayley, Alannah, and Jenny and Colm, all of whom let us sleep in their very comfy beds. This is not something I plan to repeat, since ... no. It's just not right. We are really blessed to have such generous people in our lives who were willing to sacrifice to help us make our holidays work out.

I guess the multi-city Christmas craziness that has always been our way (out of necessity) will have to shift somewhat with the arrival of baby Jeanes. Accommodations will be even trickier and I suspect we'll end up staying in hotels and trying to perhaps stay longer in one place so that we aren't run ragged. Eek. I dunno. I guess we'll think about it when we have to. Alannah has already demanded babysitting privileges and we'll definitely take her up on them while baby Jeanes is still tiny and adorable and hold-able. If we can make Post-Christmas Christmas work next year, La, you're booked!

The morning sickness is definitely almost entirely a thing of the past, thank heavens! There are still moments, but they're laughable compared to what it was. I still crave kind of random things and no one craving hangs around too terribly long (although I could eat a caramel apple anytime.)

The BEST part is feeling the baby moving. I'm much more able to distinguish between regular internal workings and the kicks and jazz hands going on in my uterus. Hilariously the baby is most active when Shelley is lounging on me and purring. This tends to happen when I'm using my laptop on the sofa and Shelley kind of sprawls along my left side between me and the sofa cushions (I'm sitting sidewise with my back against a sofa arm in case I'm not making myself clear.) This means that his purrs are pretty much right up against where the baby is probably trying to sleep, and he/she is probably annoyed at the rumbling and vibrations. Cat purrs are surprisingly strong, if you're not that familiar with cats. Sorry baby, but I'm not kicking my cat off for anything. Get used to it!

Still hoping to find out the sex this month so I can switch to using an actual gender to refer to our spawn. I'll be calling on Monday to make the appointment, so here's hoping they can get us in there soon.

Ummm ... not much else happened. We went to a New Year's eve party thrown by one of Andrew's old co-workers from the computer store. I was kind of reluctant since I was still feeling sick, didn't know anyone and couldn't even drink any booze to just relax myself and go with it. It turned out to be more fun than I anticipated, though, and we had a nice time. The host booked a suite in a hotel across from Nathan Phillips Square so we got to look down at the mass of people and enjoy the fireworks when midnight hit. There was even a fantastic vibrating chocolate fountain that I thoroughly enjoyed until someone moshed into it and ended the chocolate fun by splattering it down the wall. Fruit and chocolate are the PERFECT combination, people. Luckily for the host there was an immediate cleanup effort by family and friends and all was well.

OK. That's really it, I guess. Or at least I can't remember anything entirely relevant right now and will post later if something occurs to me.

Pre-Christmas posting.

2008-12-23T06:50:00.000-05:00

I've been hardly daring to believe it, but I think I'm feeling better! The morning sickness has eased off quite a bit and even though I still have a bad day or so, not every day is constant nausea like it used to be! It's so awesome to feel an improvement, right when I was thinking there would NEVER be one.

Of course, I've managed to get an awful cold for Christmas but I still feel better than I did! A cold isn't the end of the world but not being able to take Neo Citran feels so weird. I've been using a saline nasal spray to help with the sinus stuff and it's ... very different from Otrivin. Otrivin is meant to go in there and stay in there, whereas the saline spray is meant to flush you out, baby. I'd never used one before, or a Neti pot or anything like that, so the learning curve for me has been a bit steep and uncomfortable, but surprisingly it does help. Perhaps not when the cold is at its worst, but it makes a difference. I used to be the kind of person who never took medication for anything, but in my early twenties I discovered that medications WORK and actually bring relief, so converted enthusiastically to cold and headache relievers. Now that I can't take the ones that work best I really miss them.

I ran into my cousin-out-law (Andrew's cousin) Emily on the street tonight when I was coming home from some Christmas shopping. I mentioned to her that so far this weblog has been mostly just a bunch of bitching about how horrid pregnancy makes me feel, but there are some really good things starting to happen now and I want to make sure to highlight all the great stuff since I don't want this to be a total warning to the female population to never get pregnant.

I'm nineteen weeks now and the baby is getting very normal-looking in there, according to the experts, instead of looking like a creepy alien. It's about the size of a large deli pickle (except baby-shaped), and my uterus is a bit larger than a cantaloupe! A cantaloupe! Wow. So, I'm starting to look more pregnant although it's still hard to tell in general since I tend to wear loose clothes anyhow. I also think I'm feeling some baby movement, which is bizarre but awesome. Fluttery feelings, which is exactly how it's described by those who've experienced it before. My innards are definitely shifting around to make room for all this growth and stuff and it feels odd. Not bad; just odd.

We won't be finding out the gender until after the holidays. I meant to book the anatomical scan before Christmas but things got away from me, so hopefully they'll be able to fit us in soon after the new year. I have my heart set on finding out and if it turns out that the baby won't cooperate and they can't get a good enough look I'm going to be very disappointed. Don't be shy, baby!

We're going to be traveling like mad over the holidays, which is our usual way of spending Christmas. Three cities (Kingston, Ottawa and Montreal.) Maybe I'll be able to score another caramel apple from the Purple Cow!

Hello, cervix! Nice to meet you!

2008-12-16T14:15:00.004-05:00

It's been a busy time over the last little while, but I'll do my best to recap.

I had my colposcopy on Friday. I was extremely nervous about it since I wasn't sure what exactly to expect going in. I didn't know if they'd be doing a biopsy or not. As it turns out the oncologist was extremely nice and put me at ease very well. Andrew came in with me and after doing an interview with a nurse about my medical history I saw the oncologist and she got right up in my hoo-ha with a camera and showed us my cervix on the big tv screen.

I'm always squicked out by the icky biological nature of our human bodies so seeing my gross cervix magnified by a bajillion was creepily fascinating. The oncologist was very merry about pointing out stuff to me and explaining that all the goop and whatnot was normal and nothing to worry about. Then she pointed out the problem areas to the left and just above the cervical opening which, thanks to the vinegar solution she'd used, showed up white (the cells, not the opening.) And that was pretty much it. She decided not to do another pap since the problem areas were obvious and she could see them clearly.

So, instead of doing anything right now she said for me to come back in March when she'll check and see how things have progressed. No biopsy until about six weeks after the baby is born, too, so nothing will endanger the progress of pregnancy at all. On the one hand that's very relieving since I was worried they'd want to risk it, but on the other hand I can't help but feel like doing nothing for a while feels worrisome. I'm mostly just resolving to try not to think about it until I have to, though, so concentrating on the progress of the pregnancy and how baby Jeanes is doing is priority one.

On Friday night we headed to Ottawa with Andrew's parents in their car. Andrew's grandpa was having the annual Christmas party on Sunday, which was also Andrew's birthday, so we were off to enjoy a weekend of celebration. We stayed with Colin and Jen and on Saturday we went out for lunch with Alannah who was kid-free for the weekend. We ate at Feleena's, whose cheese enchiladas I'd been craving for a long, looooong time. It was good except the enchiladas came with red salsa instead of salsa verde, and the salsa verde is one of my favourite things about them. Ah, well. They were still delicious, if a bit too spicy.

After lunch, though, we got me MY CARAMEL APPLE. Yes, my caramel apple! We got it at the Purple Cow, whose caramel apples I'd been specifically craving, and I have to tell you that it was exactly as I remembered. Better, even. I'm sure some of the noises that I made while eating it were very distracting for Andrew as he was trying to drive the Ottawa city streets in the middle of a snowstorm. It was just. So. Good.

That night we went out to New Mee Fung with Colin and Jen for delicious Vietnamese food, then went out for bubble tea after that. Oh, man. So much good food in one day. I was feeling pretty good, all things considered, and was thrilled to enjoy some of my favourite Ottawa treats without suffering from too much pregnancy-related illness.

Sunday brought the Christmas party at Andrew's grandpa's retirement home. It went off fabulously and I ended up discussing the baby a LOT with very interested, charming people. There were a lot of stories and advice heard that afternoon, believe me. Mostly stories, though, as the majority of people are of my grandparent's generation and had come to Canada from England or Ireland or Scotland or Wales. Grandpa's parties are always a good time and I end up socially exhausted after from all the talking!

After the party Andrew's parents took us directly to the train station, where I got to have my first experience with riding Via Rail first class. Andrew's dad had upgraded our tickets for us. All in all it was fantastic, although I'm used to being pretty much left alone during my train ride. In first class they're always checking in with you and waving wine bottles at you. I stuck with juice and pop, of COURSE, and was ecstatic that the meal was as delicious as it was. Andrew had reserved our meals beforehand and got us the pork tenderloin and it was fabulous. The other choices were scallops and (I think) spinach ravioli. The ravioli probably would have been OK, but oh ... the tenderloin was good. I really enjoyed my food this weekend, it seems.

Sadly I spent most of yesterday feeling sicker than I'd felt in a long, long time. I guess the weekend caught up with me or something, or I'm coming down with something. I even barfed, just to remind myself that yes, I'm still pregnant and no, the morning sickness is not gone yet! It's OK, though. The weekend was totally worth it.

Mmmm, pizza.

2008-12-06T15:03:00.000-05:00

I'm feeling a little discouraged this weekend because I'd sincerely hoped to have seen the last of my morning sickness by now. Unfortunately, it hasn't gone away. It might be somewhat less, or I might just have gotten used to it, but it's still definitely around and troublesome if I don't keep taking Diclectin to make it less so.

The other stuff is breezy compared to feeling nauseated all the time. I'm not going to list and rank it all here, but I'd happily deal with the rest right up until delivery if the sickness would just GO.

Argh. Anyhow, I am still managing to eat somewhat regular meals. I was kind of shocked to see that I'd only put on two pounds when we went to the obstetrician. I was convinced I'd have put on a lot more what with my uterus getting all sizable and having eaten not-necessarily 'healthy' foods when I could eat. I guess I should be thankful, though, since there's still lots of time for me to pack on the pounds, especially if I get my regular appetite back.

For some reason pizza has seemed to become a favourite. I know that sounds kind of awful, but looking back over the last few months I see that when all else fails, pizza has usually been a good fallback form of sustenance. I guess that's not so bad, what with it usually containing most of the food groups and all. I'm kind of the opposite of a pizza snob. I'm not all that invested in getting gourmet pizza with asparagus and eggplant on a whole wheat artisan crust with heirloom tomato sauce. I like my pizza hot and cheesy on a substantial crust, and ham and pineapple tends to be my favourite topping. That or olives and green peppers, sometimes with pepperoni. I'm quite happy to order Pizza Hut and eat it as hot as possible as soon as it comes in the door.

So, I've been eating variations of pizza whenever I can't think of anything else that my stomach would enjoy. There's usually a McCain's rising crust pizza in the freezer for when I need one, and I still LOOOOOVE the Dr. Oetker's mozzarella pizza although it's harder to come by, seeing as how it seems to sell as quickly as the Loblaw's will stock it. Which isn't all that regularly. I'm even grooving on the Lean Cuisine single-serving four-cheese pizzas somewhat.

My belly is definitely popping out more with babyness now that my uterus is moving on up. I was a little overjoyed to realize that I could start wearing some pants that were too big a while ago, a situation that would in the normal scheme of things not overjoy me AT ALL. I'd forgotten about them and was stressing that I only had one wearable pair of jeans around, but then remembered the existence of these pants that seemed to fit in the store but then were kind of fally-downy when I got them home. For once I'm glad that I procrastinated on returning them since now they're pants that will last me until beyond the holiday season, even if they're baggier in the leg than I'd like. I'm feeling a bit resistant to going and buying maternity clothes, for some reason. Maybe because I don't really plan on having more children, so don't want to go crazy buying all kinds of expensive stuff like a complete wardrobe of maternity clothes and matching nursery furniture and whatnot.

Yes, a crib, but I'm not feeling the need for a matching changing table and all that. No matter what we'll still be living in limited space, so we have to keep the baby furniture pretty limited as well. I'm more excited about baby clothes than I am about baby accessories beyond the bare necessities. I would like to get rid of our sofa, keep the loveseat and get a rocker, which will also give us more room in the living room. This is assuming we stay in the same apartment for a while after the baby is born, which is more of a possibility now than we thought it had to be initially. It would be workable with a baby; not a toddler.

Anyhow, all in all babymaking is coming along pretty well and I'm trying not to think too much about it all until after the new year, although I still have some moments of nervousness every now and again. Maybe I'll complain a little more in a few days or so! (I know you can hardly wait.)

Yay, baby! Circulate that blood!

2008-12-03T05:25:00.003-05:00

I had another obstetrician visit yesterday. I wasn't so jazzed about the visit itself, but kind of looked forward to eating some very cheap Chinese food in the hospital food court after so met Andrew at the Queen's Park station and we headed over to Mt. Sinai.

The doctor seemed a bit confused about why we were there, oddly, asking if I was there early for the scheduled colposcopy. I had no real answer other than that we'd been scheduled to come in that day, so he went with it and checked out where my uterus was at and let us listen to the heartbeat. That was pretty awesome as we hadn't heard it before. Any proof that the baby is in there doing its baby thing with apparent health is always happy-making.

Unfortunately the doctor wasn't so positive about the abnormal cells result from my pap smear and said that on a scale of one to five (one being a slight risk of cancer and five being probable cancer) that I'm a level three. Normally this would mean a colposcopy as soon as possible and a biopsy being done, but since I'm pregnant that complicates things and messing around with the cervix isn't a good idea. He said that in order to save time he'd rather send me to a specialist at Princess Margaret since that's what he'd do after doing a colposcopy anyhow, so why not just send me there initially. So they're setting me up with a specialist and we'll find out more. Eventually.

Of course this is anxiety-producing, but until we actually know something there's no real point in freaking out or assuming the worst. So after going and having seven (SEVEN) vials of blood drawn from my poor body for other baby-related testing Andrew and I parted ways and I went to eat my Chinese food. It tasted good, but ended up not sitting so well and I felt like craaaaaaap by the evening. Boo. I've still got the sickness and I'm about as thrilled as you can imagine.

Oh! We got an official due date, finally. Our kidlet is due May 24th, 2009. Paaarty! There will be no iterations of the name Victoria/Victor appended to the baby if it's actually born on its due date, though. None. Those names were RUINED for me by The Young And The Restless back when I was a teen, and will never be the same again.

OOAK show and babies everywhere I look.

2008-12-01T09:46:00.003-05:00

Yesterday Andrew and I trekked out to the One Of A Kind Show here in Toronto. I try to go to it every year that I can and I think the only shows I've missed since 2003 were the two years we lived in Ottawa. I love this show. Love it, love it, love it. It's the weirdest mix of what Andrew and I call 'shit-on-a-stick' art (a term I picked up when I used to peruse professional crafting forums that usually refers to the sock monkey/polymer clay/plastic canvas end of the spectrum) and art worth thousands and thousands of dollars.

Roaming the aisles is kind of overwhelming at times, especially if you go on the weekend when there's a huge number of people. I like to go initially for a look-around and then take advantage of the free re-admission on subsequent weekdays during business hours when the place is less likely to be crammed full of folks. Yesterday was crowded and I think I mostly just looked at booths from the aisle, only venturing into the ones that seemed most interesting and braving elbows and squeezing in between people when it was most worth it.

What struck me, though, was how many, many children and pregnant women I noticed this year. I know they're always there, but now that I've been yanked onto a new level of awareness of these things I couldn't help but check out all the strollers, slings and looming bellies I was surrounded by. Andrew pointed out that next year we'll be lugging our own kid and, as always, I was a bit gobsmacked by that. Even though this gestational thing feels interminable at times, it's still not really all that long and well crap maybe I'd better be making plans beyond just names, huh?

After Christmas. OK?

Anyhow, kids were everywhere as were women in various stages of pregnancy. I'm still not obviously pregnant even though I can tell where I end and uterus begins (I will NEVER refer to it as a 'baby bump' ever ever ever because that's the stupidest thing I've ever heard) but since I've always been the type to have a bit of a belly, even when I was at my most skinny-stage wee in my early twenties, it's not something anyone would notice yet. I notice it and I can definitely no longer sleep on my stomach comfortably, but ... yeah. I just looks faaaaat. I'm especially heartbroken about my beloved brown wool coat that I bought last year. It won't fit me much longer. I can still wear it open, but when I need a real winter-type warm covering I'll have to go buy a sub-par maternity jacket and I'm not happy about it.

Anyhow (again) I took a break to sit on a bench while Andrew wandered some more and one pregnant woman in particular walked past me a few times. She was working a booth and was bopping between it and ... somewhere else. She was just enormous, looking like she might just give birth at the show, and seemed all energetic and glowy and on top of the situation. I am so hoping I feel that way toward the end, too! She was wearing yoga pants and a tight t-shirt so was obviously embracing the whole 'yay I'm pregnant' look. It was nice. I really need to start buying some maternity clothes. Maybe I'll go for an entirely different style in maternity clothes than my usual casual to the brink of unacceptable. Where can I get punk babymama wear?

So, this was rambly and disjointed, but I guess it's just kind of revisiting how my awareness has really shifted to noticing tiny babies and spazzing toddlers and being forcibly reminded that it's no longer a 'maybe', it's an inevitability. WEIRD.

Super!

2008-11-30T07:46:00.002-05:00

Recently I've had a bit of an obsession with reading foodie weblogs. It might surprise some close to me to know that I especially like reading online journals of people who eat odd foods or foods that are not common in North America. I've been known as a basically picky eater for most of my life and have resented the title quite a lot since I'm not picking and choosing what flavours are positive or negative to my taste buds; they are what they are.

It bothered me to the extent that I started doing amateur research about it on my own and I've found a bit of comfort in the articles I've read. I found out about supertasters this way, and after comparing that to the phenomenon of picky eating, or selective eating disorder I'd definitely say it's more the former than the latter in my case. I'm not bothered by textures at all, and aroma is not a problem for me unless the taste is also unpleasant. And in some cases the smell of things I don't like the taste of are actually pretty pleasant; like coffee.

It's a good explanation for why I often strongly dislike things that people say you have to 'develop a taste for', like alcohol, coffee, bitter foods, et cetera. If the intensity of the taste is increased for someone, then it's a lot less likely they're going to 'get used to it'. Those close to me know that I tend to prefer sweet alcohol beverages and never drink straight Scotch, whiskey, vodka, grain alcohol in general or beer. Cocktails are definitely my thing. Beer has never tasted good to me, and extremely spicy foods are a bad scene because my taste buds get overwhelmed with the spice and all other flavour is lost.

In college there was a couple who won a wing-eating contest and after it was over I remember the woman commenting that the suicide wings weren't even all that spicy. There were others eating them who literally had tears running down their faces and were in obvious pain. At the time I felt inferior, but now I suspect she was a nontaster! My taster is superior! Ha ha ha!

Actually, it's not. The concept of supertasting is not 'super', as it's an extreme that isn't very desirable, as is nontasting. Both can lead to health problems (according to the brief article I linked to for nontasting) and supertasting definitely leads to a more limited diet. The people you know who will put some of everything on their plate when presented with a variety of dishes are closer to the non-tasting end of the spectrum, although they will definitely say that they can taste their food. We all can, but the nontasters are much less likely to be affected by spiciness, bitterness and saltiness, whereas the same things will overwhelm the palate of a supertaster to the point of unpleasantness.

As I age my tastes are slowly, slowly broadening. It makes sense, since as we age our sense of taste dulls somewhat due to our olfactory senses diminishing. People who drinks lots of hot liquids dull their taste buds that way, and smoking also affects the sense of taste. I don't like many hot liquids, although tea is something I can drink on occasion. I'm not even a real fan of hot chocolate. They're just so hot. But yes; I have gradually been adding more foods, mostly in the vegetable category, to the things I eat. Broccoli and potatoes in the forefront, but I'm also toying with the idea of eating edamame more now that I'm pregnant. I have always HATED beans, but edamame is pretty mild in the bean category.

Uhhh ... I guess this entry is borne mostly of the eating frustrations I've been feeling in general since getting knocked up. And finding myself reading food blogs like porn is a new thing for me, although I've always kind of been fascinated by them. I'm jealous of foodies who eat at new and exciting restaurants all the time and give rundowns of the meal, commenting on flavours, textures, quality and quantity. I'd be a very poor foodie and I know it. It doesn't stop me from being totally fascinated by blogs such as Deep End Dining, though. This guy is amazing. And his sidebar has links to tons of food blogs that have me glued to my laptop.

I personally know some foodies, of course, who eat lots of delicious food and probably would pity me for my limited food enjoyment capacity. My friend Candice keeps an awesome food blog called Mmm, Tasty! and it's fantastic. Check out her giant doughnut cake! She also made the world's best chai latte cupcakes for me for my birthday, which she writes about in the blog. They were egg free, too, so Andrew could enjoy them!

So ... yeah. I think I'ma go find a blog entry about someone eating something bizarre. Fun!

Pregnancy has made me think more about food than I ever have before.

2008-11-27T08:38:00.002-05:00

I have to get the food thing under control. For the last few months I've been eating whatever the hell I can whenever the hell I can because the sickness has been so constant and occupied my whole being, mental and physical. Seriously, when something seemed good I ate it, and when I was feeling even the slightest bit better than usual I tried to make sure I ate whatever would go down.

Like, when Mang came to live with us way back in the day and she'd been a stray for a while. She ate anything edible at all that fell on the kitchen floor, even things cats don't normally eat, because she was still in the 'you never know when you'll eat again' mentality. She got over it eventually when she learned to trust that she had an always-available dish of dry food out 24/7, which made me happy. Now I have to start getting over the 'eat anything, who cares what, it's sustenance' mentality.

So, I am feeling the anxiety of a) trying not to eat unhealthy crap all the time so that I am getting enough in the way of nutrients, and b) trying not to eat unhealthy crap all the time so I don't balloon to thrice my original size and give my obstetrician a heart attack every time he sees me. Or give myself one, either.

The sickness might (might) be starting to wane slightly, but I refuse to believe that until I have a full un-medicated day of non-stomach-roiling sensations. Even so, I don't want to be sitting around eating just pickles and pizza and jars of mandarin orange slices in light syrup. Half the time I'm dying for something specific, the other half I'm vaguely hungry but don't know what the heck I want and anything I think of makes my guts go, "Eh."

Like yesterday; I kept trying to think of something to eat. I ate some pickles but after a few my stomach suddenly told me to cut it out, so I did. A while later I ate some of the mandarins but they didn't sit too well, either. Finally out of desperation I decided to boil some rice noodles then fry them a tiny bit with some sesame oil and teriyaki sauce. Surprisingly, my body said, "Yes, that's right." And lo, my fickle hunger was appeased.

Then an hour later I needed to eat pickles so badly that I had to cut myself off after a certain amount so that I don't OD on sodium. And I'm still jonesing for those caramel apples! Possible weekend project?

More miracles of pregnancy.

2008-11-26T07:51:00.002-05:00

So I can't really decide if being pregnant is a nightmare or a wonderland for the hypochondriac in all of us. We're all that way to an extent, and I've been actually making an effort not to freak out about every little thing. So, I usually try to wait and see if something is a continuing issue before getting my Google on.

Well, lately I've noticed that I've been short of breath a lot, and also that I've had a stuffy nose for a couple of weeks. The short of breath thing could just mean that I'm way out of shape, which is pretty true. The stuffy nose thing could mean that I'm getting allergic to stuff in my old age, that I'm coming down with a cold, or something along those lines. Well, two weeks of it seemed to me to indicate an ongoing issue, so yesterday I plugged both symptoms in with the word 'pregnancy' appended to them. And guess what?

Yep, they are both talked about quite frankly as things that happen in pregnancy. The shortness of breath is a real thing that happens early and later for different reasons. Progesterone is always behind these awful things! I'm really starting to hate progesterone.

So, after reading about that and going, "huh," I looked up the stuffy nose thing and the Google was like, oh yeah, sure, you have rhinitis of pregnancy! I've had zero things that indicate a cold other than this ongoing stuffiness and wish to blow my nose all the time, so I'm forced to conclude that I've got this crazy deal.

The worst part of it all is not feeling like I can breathe properly a lot since being short of breath and having a stuffy nose are a crap-ass combination, but I am breathing. Just not as efficiently as before, I guess. I think it's more a sensation than anything else and I don't seem to be fainting or swooning or whatever, but it's just annoying.

Also annoying is ME since this kind of stuff makes me variously crabby and petulant and Andrew has to put up with me whining and whatnot. He does buy me whatever weird stuff I ask him for from the store. Also, I often will suddenly say out of the blue things like, "Do you know what sounds great right now? A bottle of queen olives. And some spaghetti. And a caramel apple." Andrew is always kind of like, that's weird, but is sympathetic.

I really do want a caramel apple. One of the ones from The Purple Cow in Ottawa. Big Granny Smiths with a thick layer of caramel. Nothing else, though. I don't need it dipped in chocolate or with peanut bits or Smartie pieces stuck to it. Just the tart, juicy apple and the gorgeous caramel that they use. Oooooh. What I'll probably end up doing is making my own here at home to just get it over with. It's not that hard.