Wednesday, February 28, 2007

advice from man-hating mommies

Oh man. The advice just keeps on coming. Today at lunch (note to self: go out for lunch from now on) I was asked by a couple of my coworkers how I was feeling and if I had begun to do any baby shopping yet. I mentioned that I got a crib from my neighbor and that I picked up a couple little things for Avery to wear, and that my hubby had gone stuffed animal crazy for her too (he is so cute right now). I brought up the fact that I was keeping my eye out for a change table/dresser, and I was told by 2 women not to bother to get a change table. Oookay.

“Just change her on your bed” they said.

“What if I’m upstairs in the nursery?” I asked (we live in a bungalow with a loft so our master bedroom is on the main floor and there are 2 bedrooms upstairs, one of which is the nursery.

“She might roll off the table” one of them said.

For fucks sake people. Like I’m going to put my baby in a high place she can fall from and leave her alone. I’m changing her goddamn diaper. I’ll be right there.

Then one of them started to tell me about the best bottles to use. The other one asked me if I was breastfeeding and I told her yes. She told me “Then you won’t really need a breast pump. And you won’t need bottles for a long time.”

“What if I want to leave her with the grandparents and go out for dinner one night? How will she eat?” Me, apparently asking a stupid question.

“I never left my baby for the first six months” one of the women.

“Me neither” the other one.

“What if you want a night out with your husband?” me.

“Why?” they asked in unison.

Oh. My. Gawd.

Tuesday, February 27, 2007

weird

So, I woke up this morning and my bump is barely there. What gives? Yesterday my tummy stuck out further than my boobs (which is no small feat mind you) and now it’s just slightly pushing out. I’m back in my regular pants today with no problem.

Other symptoms I have read about but that have not yet happened to me include:

Linea negra, the line women get from the base of their navel to their pubic area (no sign of this yet)

Bigger, darker nipples (nope, still the same old nipples I’ve always had)

Swelling of the hands and feet (I got sausage fingers one day in my 14th week and I had to pry my wedding ring off using butter and my husband. After that, no fat hand incidents)

Excess saliva (I have always drooled a little while I slumber. No marked difference in that.)

Symptoms I did get/am having so far:

Giant boobs (and there are veins on them now. Ewwww)

Cravings for sweets (which I never liked before. Though the cravings seemed to have subsided now)

Tiredness

Nausea (long gone now)

Lack of patience for assholes in my office who feel it is their duty to give me advice on MY pregnancy.


In other news, we have a gas shortage. This has not been causing me to panic though we did just buy a minivan that is a pig on the gas compared to our other car. Then this morning on the way to work I noticed that we only had half a tank in the little car and when I went to top up I could not find a single gas station in our town that had gas. I finally found one and had to wait forever to get it and as I was leaving they were shutting it down. Yikes. Toronto is out of gas almost totally and now it has spilled out into the surrounding suburbs. I am not going to go into my rant about why this is all total bullshit and how bullshit it is that Canada has not built a refinery since the 60s and that we are piping all of our crude down to the states for them to process and they are selling it back to us while raping us up the ass and how sick and greedy and overly reliant on oil we all are…suffice it to say that the fact that we are paying almost a dollar a litre again is outright gouging and I will not be surprised if, even when the gas stations reopen and we have a supply again, the prices will not go down. And a guy on our street just bought a Hummer.

Oh, I have something else to complain about: why is everyone in my office constantly sick? There are people here who have literally been sick since October. What is wrong with these people?

Okay. I’m done now.

Thursday, February 22, 2007

21 weeks

Dear Avery,

I am now 21 weeks pregnant with you as of Tuesday this week. I can’t believe how fast this seems to be going right now. Despite some sickness in the first trimester with you, the second trimester has been wonderful. I started to feel you fluttering around in there around the 15 week mark. My doctor and many other people told me it was too early to feel anything but I knew it was you. The other day you really started moving around, even kicking me in the bladder! This morning, daddy woke me up as he left for work and this must have woken you up too because you got the hiccups all of the sudden. I think you had them for about ten minutes before you finally settled down in there again. Every time you move, I feel happy and relaxed, knowing that you are safe in there.

Your dad and I bought a minivan the other day. We also put your crib together and have started to set up your nursery. Hopefully we’ll get out to Ikea this weekend because they have some neat baby stuff there. I’m looking for the perfect artwork to adorn your walls too. I haven’t bought you any clothes yet but I know lots of other people have. Your great-grandmother and paternal grandmother have been knitting away like crazy for you. I think you have 8 receiving blankets already! Of course, most of them are pink. I know your dad and I didn’t want to have you in frilly, girly clothes all the time but I saw the cutest little dress with a matching cardigan the other day and I think I might have to get it. It probably won’t fit you until you are around 3 months old (and then probably not for very long). I know that my mum, your grandmother (and the best one out of the bunch, I might add) is very excited to meet you. And the most excited out of everyone are your dad and I. Your dad brought home some of his medical stuff and takes my blood pressure all the time to make sure that we are okay. He is going to bring his stethoscope home this week so he can hear your heartbeat any time he wants. We first saw you when I was 12 weeks pregnant on the ultrasound. It was the most amazing thing either of us have ever seen. You were very tiny and we could see your little heart pumping away. While we were looking at you, you wiggled around and waved your arm at us. We were so excited! After that ultrasound, I felt less worried about you because I knew you were doing okay. The next time we saw you was when I was 18 weeks along. This time you were much bigger and moving around a lot. Daddy and I really wanted to know if you were a girl or a boy but you were lying in a funny position and the technician couldn’t see between your legs so I had to move around all over the bed while the technician poked at you from the outside. Finally you moved and we got to find out that we are having a little girl. That night we went out for dinner to celebrate.

So far, it has been wonderful for me and I hope you are enjoying yourself in there! LOL. I have never craved strawberry Poptarts more in my life and I’ve been indulging in some seriously good peanut butter chocolate ice cream. I know you are enjoying these things too. Take care in there. Keep growing strong and healthy, and we’ll see each other very soon.

Love,

Mum

xoxoxoxo

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Wednesday, February 21, 2007

not going to cut it with me

There are always going to be people in your office that everyone else makes excuses for. Usually, you do not have any knowledge of any prior circumstances which may have led to this type of treatment, and therefore do not understand why everyone would be covering for such an idiot/emotional basketcase/ sick day abuser. There is a woman in my office who falls under this description. She appears to be very sickly all the time, and often takes sick days. She also has a habit of wandering in after 9am and leaving way before 4pm without any explanation or even a goodbye to anyone. No one questions this. I speak to her every once in a while, not by choice, but because she wanders into my office and drags out uninteresting stories for sometimes over 20 minutes, and occasionally farts and does not acknowledge it, leaving me to sit there inhaling her fart smell while she prattles on like nothing happened. I do not despise this woman, but I don’t particularly want to be her best friend either. Today, our relationship changed.

I came back from my 354th trip to the bathroom to pee out a super tiny bit of urine because my bladder continues to trick me into believing it is full to find a message on my voicemail. It was her. She asked me to call her back right away. I call her back right away.

Her: “Do you know if the material for this text has gone out yet?”

Me: “As far as I know it has, but I am not handling the distribution of the material this time. Let me see if I’ve been copied in on any e-mails that could verify this for you”

I check my emails for this project and find some.

Me: “Yep, here we go. The material went out in December of last year.”

Her: “Thanks”

She then hangs up without saying goodbye. I am confused and beginning to wonder if I was supposed to let her in on this information earlier. After a few minutes I confirm with myself that she does not even work in my department and I have never had to tell her anything before so I am not responsible for this. I decide to double check on this by going over to her office to ask her in person. I knock on the door and am told to enter. She is sitting in front of her computer with her hands folded in front of her. I begin to ask her if there is anything I can help with when she cuts me off and, sobbing, tells me she is so furious she cannot even talk to me. Oooookaaaaaay. Is she mad at me? I have no idea why she would be, but decide to ask her if it is something I did or did not do and I am told to leave and close her door. I back out of the office and close the door. She proceeds to have a nervous breakdown (I am assuming) behind this closed door. For the rest of the afternoon, I have been wondering what in the hell has been going on. No one has told me anything. I have not seen her.

You know what? Not going to cut it with me. You cannot just freak the fuck out like that at someone and not give them any explanation as to why you are freaking the fuck out. I am left wondering what I did or did not do. Most likely, this has nothing to do with me, but still, how would I know? I don’t care how sensitive this woman is, this is work, and at work, there is an assumed air of professionalism. Use your big girl words and stop having tantrums. I do not have time for this bullshit.

Hey – in other news: my lovely daughter is now repeatedly kicking me as hard as she can right in the old bladder as soon as I curl up in bed for the night. I have a feeling her and I are a lot alike. What can I say though; it’s good to feel her moving around in there.

Tuesday, February 20, 2007

more unsolicited pregnancy advice/comments

I was at my doctor’s on Friday. As usual, the nurse who came and got me from the waiting room took my weight before sending me in to see my doctor. When my doctor came in to the room, she had a concerned look on her face.

“You’ve lost more weight” she said.

“Oh?”

“Are you eating?” she asked.

I must admit I was a little taken aback by this comment. I am by no means fat, but I have never been underweight and have always had a couple of extra pounds on me. Since getting pregnant, I have lost some weight. Most of this was during the 1st trimester, which I am not that far out of, due to nausea and vomiting and a general loss of appetite. I have stopped running but continue to go for hikes and walks daily with my dog, and I do some light yoga to keep all my ladybits etc. primed for the eventual hell of labour. Other than that, I eat a healthy three meals a day, plus healthy fruit snacks, and I am feeling good.

After convincing my doctor that I am not a total moron and that I know how to eat healthfully and that I am taking a prenatal vitamin and calcium supplement every day, she decided to lay off since the baby is doing fine. She told me that the next time she sees me (4 weeks from now) she will be expecting me to have put on some weight. After leaving the appointment, I started to feel a little guilty. This snowballed all the way home until I got in the door and when asked by my husband how everything was going, my eyes filled up with tears and I informed him that I am already a bad mother because I am starving our child. Dramatic, I know.

I eventually calmed down and realized that the doctor was only concerned and that she did reassure me before I left the appointment that the baby was perfectly fine.

Today at work I had 3 separate women in my office tell me that I looked like I was “wasting away”. This is absolutely ridiculous considering that my tummy is bulging out like a hardened alcoholics’ and my tits are the size of mountains. I have never had hips or an ass so that part has always been smallish. Anyways. I felt instant rage. They did not say this in a concerned, nice, motherly way; they said it like they were accusing me of something. I am not wasting away. I will not post my weight on this blog but I can assure you that I’m not 115 pounds. I eat tons of really healthy foods and often some junkier ones (like sweet, sweet poptarts or strawberry sundaes from Dairy Queen).

After the hair dye comments from yesterday (by the way thank you teh mommeh for your support) I was in no mood for more of this.

Tomorrow I am not getting out of bed.

Monday, February 19, 2007

F%*@ing Idiots

Amongst the compliments I received on my newly red hair today were a few comments from some mental midgets in my office including: "I thought you weren't supposed to dye your hair when you're pregnant."

First of all, fuck off.

Secondly, I did happen to ask my doctor before I did this and got the go-ahead as I am safely in my second trimester now. Who the hell do these people think they are? I would NEVER in a million years say anything so ignorant and uncouth to someone. These are the same morons who ask me if they can "get me some milk" at lunch when they see me drinking my ginger ale. To these cockheads, I would like to say:

"Oh you mean the hormone-injected cow juice? Yeah, that sounds like something I should be drinking. Something that has been injected with hormones. I'm not a fucking baby cow and neither is my daughter. I take calcium supplements if you must know asshole, but thanks for your concern. Yeah, hair dye is full of chemicals. So is the goddamn air we breathe outside because you insist on buying a fucking SUV to hall your fat, McDonald's eating ass the whole 5 kilometers that is the distance between your house and work. You know what's bad for you? Being 50 pounds overweight. I don't look at you funny when you get cookies or a bag of chips with your lunch everyday, even though I'll be paying for your ass through the health care system when you keel over from a myocardial infarction or stroke because you can't stop pounding back the food. I don't know where the fuck you were raised but where I come from, if you don't have anything remotely pleasant or productive to say, you shut the fuck up. I know that trying to grasp this concept might be difficult for you because you have to get your head around what happened on American Idol and Grey's Anatomy last night, so let me break it down in simpler terms: You are an idiot, a fucking idiot who has no idea what to think, so you just say whatever dumb shit comes in to your head. You are a morbidly obese mindless consumer that has an opinion about everything and if you were an American I bet you'd be an Evangelical freak who would vote for Bush."

I am declaring a jihad on the idiots in my office.

Sunday, February 18, 2007

one hell of a weekend

This has been the weekend of getting shit done. I had Friday off (my work allows us every other Friday off-thank jeebus for flex hours) which I ended up spending at the dentist having an infected wisdom tooth pulled. I would not recommend doing this unless you absolutely have to, which I did. Because I am pregnant, the little bastard tooth had to come out. Because I am pregnant, I was not allowed to have any decent pain killers. Let me just say that Tylenol does not cut it after you've had a giant molar pulled out of your head. Oh yes, and being fully conscious for the whole thing (no nitrous oxide allowed either) is no picnic. However, I managed to recover somewhat for Saturday, though I was unable to eat anything other than mashed potatoes and soup, and me and the hubby went at our to-do list like the world was ending on Monday. Here is a breakdown:

Saturday.

Morning: Cleaned all 3 bathrooms and started laundry, took Charlie for 2 hour hike to doggie park.

Afternoon: Lunch at Denny's (mmm pancakes), purchased a freaking minivan in under 2 hours. (We did do our homework over the last couple of weeks though)

Evening: Made giant pot of texas chili, watched a documentary (Jesus Camp - very disturbing but worth seeing), ate texas chili, then a bowl of ice cream, had sex.


Sunday.

Morning: 1 hour hike in doggie park with Charlie. Read paper, drank coffee.

Afternoon: Cleaned and organized entire house, including all closets. Put nursery together. Went food shopping and got yummy food from a German deli. Had my hair done. Am about to go make dinner.

Evening: Will be eating yummy German deli food, watching Family Guy and new episode of Rome mostly for the super hot, scantily clad, muscle bound men. Husband watching for the boobies and sex scenes which show lots of boobies. Might even have sex again.

Now that was a hell of a weekend.

Monday, February 12, 2007

20 weeks tomorrow

I’m at the halfway point! The lovely zits I have been getting since basically Day 1 are finally starting to disappear and my skin has this strange luminescent glow to it, I wonder if it’s because I am so fair skinned. Do I feel beautiful and goddess like? Hell no. I’m starting to feel puffy.

I made the mistake of picking up what sounded like (and turned out to be) the world’s stupidest pregnancy book. It’s called something like “The Girlfriend’s Guide to Pregnancy”. I flipped to the “What your Husband is thinking about the Pregnancy” section and the first thing on the list was, and I am paraphrasing here, “He worries that you will become fat and unattractive.”

Hmm.

Underneath this bolded headline begins a paragraph pointing out the fact that, amongst other things, your husband did also marry you because he likes your figure and he is concerned that you will be unattractive to him whilst pregnant and then not ever regain your figure EVER AGAIN AFTER THE BABY.

I felt my eyebrows knitting together as the left side of my mouth pulled itself all the way back to my ear. I was searching for something reassuring and sarcastic to say to myself about this stupid book and this stupid paragraph in this stupid book when a little voice came into my head and whispered “maybe this is true.” And so begins the downward spiral into the “no self-esteem zone” that I managed to pull myself out of a couple of weeks ago. Every pregnancy book I read talks about the disappearing waist. They all talk about feeling unattractive, about stretch marks, about sagging skin. The next time I hear someone refer to stretch marks as “honour badges” I am going to go postal.

I am not wallowing. I hate myself for feeling this way. I should know better. I know that my husband does find me attractive and that he loves me and he is way beyond being so shallow as to judge my body after I have our baby. But let’s be honest; there is still a huge part of us that squashes that and makes us doubt. I do not want to accept these changes to my body gently and with an air of acceptance. I know this is shallow, but after being raised in a family where your appearance is constantly criticized and discussed, the damage has been done. I find myself turning sideways in the mirror and scrutinizing my tummy. Am I too big for five months? How much bigger am I going to get? I slather Vitamin E oil all over myself twice a day praying that I don’t get any stretch marks.

There are moments when I am completely swept away by the wonder and beauty of pregnancy. When I feel her kick and in the mornings when I wake up and touch my stomach and remember her. I am ashamed for feeling so critical of myself at a time where I should be thankful for being able to get pregnant and enjoy the experience.

I think books like the “Idiot Girlfriend’s Guide to Pregnancy” should be left to rot on the shelves.

Friday, February 09, 2007

shut up and glow

Apparently everyone at work knows that I’m pregnant now. The VP came into my office to congratulate me yesterday and then a bunch of people came up to me today to say “I hear you’re eating for two now” and all the other bullshit stuff people say to you when they don’t know what else to say. One woman asked me how far along I am and when I told her I am almost five months she asked me if I was sure. I said yes; she told me that I do not look that far along. When I said that everyone is different she said “Yeah but you would think you’d be showing more by now.” Well, I guess I’m doing something wrong then. Maybe I need to drink more milk.

Another woman came up to me and said “I guess there’s something in the water around here” (there is another preggo in my department) and so I said “I’m pretty sure this is a direct result of having sexual intercourse with my husband” (ha ha) No one laughed. I then went on to joke about the other pregnant woman with my husband. Ha ha. Dead silence.

I am supposed to shut up and glow, I guess.

Anyway. Avery was moving around like crazy last night and for a minute, I was a little terrified. Just for a minute though. It was one of those moments when the kid does something crazy in there like roll over or something and you go “Holy shit. There is another person in my body right now.” She just felt so big all of the sudden. I’m over it now. I just have those moments every once in awhile.

In boob news: I am now surpassing DD territory. Apparently I am carrying the baby in my chest. People are beginning to stare.

Thursday, February 08, 2007

my new ob/gyn

Yesterday I had my first appointment with my new ob/gyn Dr. Chang. Besides the fact that he has a penis and therefore probably cannot come close to empathizing with women about vaginas and what happens to them in labour, he seems okay. We had a quick interview in his office and he gave me a bunch of registration paperwork for the hospital. I asked him if he had the results of my IPS and he kindly opened up the online hospital file on me and took a look, since no one else had called me. The baby is normal, which I kind of figured anyways, but it was nice to hear. He jokes around a lot, which is fine but I found that he wasn’t overly serious when I was asking him some hard core questions. I’ll cover those below.

Anyways, then he took my weight (I have lost another 4.5lbs) which he says is no concern since I had some extra chub on me pre-pregnancy and he figures that I have probably lost about 20 lbs since being pregnant but gained back about 6 – so basically, I have lost 14 lbs. This is fine as long as I don’t lose anymore and continue to be sensible with my eating (this of course excludes my new addiction to Tim Horton’s French Vanilla, which I am gulping down as I type). Then he chastised me for not drinking milk (hello- I take a prenatal and a calcium supplement; not good enough according to him. He would rather I drink cow juice. Yuck.) Then my husband and I got to listen to the baby’s heart. It was a thing of beauty, and so comforting to hear.

As for the questions I asked him, number one was about episiotomy, because lets be honest, someone slicing up my vajingo bothers me a wee bit. He told me his episiotomy rate is about 10%, and that he only does it if a) the baby is in distress and needs to come out right away, or b) if he can see that tearing is inevitable (which he pronounced in a Kim Jong Il from Team America accent). When I told him that in much of the literature I have been reading, they clearly state that tearing is better, he disagreed, and said that many women end up with worse tears when left to do so naturally. I am skeptical. But you know what? I have no idea what to believe now. I think I need to talk to a nurse.

His cesarean rate is roughly 23%, which is about the average for the hospital. I asked him why he felt that cesarean rates were so high and he kind of alluded to how interventions used during labour can sometimes hinder the process to the point where they feel that the labour is not progressing and yadda yadda yadda, c-section. He told me we could discuss all of this more in depth the next time I see him.

So that’s that. Next week I see my family doctor and then have a freaking wisdom tooth pulled because it’s infected. No painkillers allowed. Great.

Oh yeah, and I went to a maternity store and got 2 of the best bras I have ever had in my life. Here’s a tip for the big-busted ladies out there: forget the Bay, forget La Senza; get a Maternity bra, even if you aren’t pregnant. My boobs are so happy now.

Wednesday, February 07, 2007

my way

Before I told my boss about the pregnancy, I told a woman in my office. We’ve become friends over the last few months. She’s already a mom and pretty much came right out and asked me if I was pregnant a little while ago. I asked her to keep it to herself because I had not told anyone yet. She kept it to herself but had a few near-slip-ups around the office every once in awhile. I must remind myself to keep mum about my pregnancies in the future. She did her best to keep her mouth shut but she’s one of those busy-body type of women. It was actually getting pretty annoying to have her come up to me every morning and half-jokingly ask me if she could tell anyone yet.

Now, why the hell was she so excited about telling people? She was acting like it was her pregnancy or something.

So after I told my boss the other day, she asked me how it went. I told her it went very well and then she actually said “Now I can send out an e-mail and tell everyone.”

I was like, uh wtf? First of all, no you will not send out a fucking email to tell everyone in the office, secondly, this is not your news to tell. I explained to her nicely that I am a very private person and that I am aware that people are eventually going to find out one way or another but I will not have an email sent out to the entire department about it. Most people will not give a shit and wonder why their time is being wasted with a dumb email like that, and the other ones (the other busy bodies) will come running over to my office to gush and flit around like hens with their high-pitched voices talking about how wonderful the whole thing is.

I hate shit like that.

Then I made the mistake of showing her the pictures from my ultrasound. She actually took them from my hand and told me she was going to photocopy them so that I could put them up in my office. I lost my patience. I took them back and told her to forget it, that obviously she does not understand me. I do not want the attention from people. This is my baby, my life and I really do not care enough about the majority of people in this office to share this with them and have them come in while I am working to gawk at the pictures.

So there. Once again I look like an asshole. The same thing happened the other day when a friend of ours decided they would like to buy us a Disney lamp for the nursery. I said no. When they asked why, I went into a rant. It goes something like this:

I hate Disney. I hate Disney-themed nurseries and I especially hate the “princess theme” nursery shit that Disney puts out. It makes me sick. My little girl is not going to have a pink princess room because that is bullshit. I hate the “You’re a girl so you must dress like this and you’re a boy so you dress like this” crap. I hate that people let their kids watch the Lion King 8 times a day. It is mind numbing. I hate Disney like I hate Walmart. It is banned from my house.

Don’t get me wrong; the whole thing is very magical for me. I am so excited to be having a baby and I love sharing the experience with my friends and family. I am just a very private person who does not want to be gushed over. I also do not want people telling me how to decorate the baby’s room. Let’s be honest, the baby does not care either way what her room looks like because SHE’S A BABY. The room will be for her mommy and mommy wants Michael Sowa paintings and Edward Gorey artwork in there.

So there Martha Stewart.

Monday, February 05, 2007

phew

My boss gave me a hug and congratulated me. She told me to enjoy the pregnancy, not to worry and that my job is here for me when I return from babyville.

Now I can REALLY officially enjoy every moment of this pregnancy.

Yay!

It's a Girl!

I had my 18 week ultrasound on Friday. My little girl is doing very well. I got to see all of the beautiful bones and organs and her sweet little fingers and toes.

I’m in love.

My husband and I have decided on Avery as a first name and Brynn for a middle name. So little Avery was not very cooperative at the beginning of the ultrasound. She was lying on her back and wouldn’t budge. The technician jiggled my tummy around with the scanner thingy and still she wouldn’t move. After a few minutes of this, I had to stand up, move around, and then lie back down on my side while the technician jiggled my tummy some more until finally Avery flipped around and then my husband was called in. The technician told us that if Avery hadn’t shifted, we might not have been able to find out the sex. When she moved the scanner thingy to Avery’s little bum, her legs all of the sudden flung open and there it was; a little vagina.

Did I tell you how in love I am?

I’m telling my boss after lunch. I’ll write more then. Wish me luck!