Week 38: just a few days left

So, I haven't posted in a really, really long time. It isn't that I haven't had anything to post about; I just haven't had any time. Now that school is out, I have my one week of vacation before the baby arrives, so I have to use the time wisely. Which means I need to get off the computer and get some stuff done. Oh well. Anyway...last time I weighed myself (a couple of days ago), I was 242.0. I was 244 at the doctor's office yesterday, clothed. So it looks like I'm going to end up at about the same weight when I have Ian on Friday as I was when I had Brendan, about 245. Sucks to weigh that much, but at the same time I managed to gain less weight this time around than I did last time. When I had Brendan, I started at 206, so I gained about 40 lbs. This time, I started at 237, dropped down to about 217, then came back up to where I am now. Gross gain is about 25 lbs, but net gain is really only about 5 lbs. I guess that's pretty impressive, although I would have liked to be lighter than this. I'll have a lot of work ahead of me to lose all this--my goal is to be back down under 160 lbs. I don't know if I can do it within a year. A friend of mine has suggested that we could do one of those "zombie run" 5K races next summer. I think I can probably handle a training regimen that gets me to run about 3 miles in a full year. But I'll have to start out slowly. They really don't recommend much in the way of exercise after a c section until about 6 weeks out. My exercise before that is going to be a little walking and a lot of breastfeeding (I hope). I can't even remember when I last posted. The past few months have been a whirlwind. We survived two trips, one to Memphis for a wedding and one to San Diego for my brother's wedding. I only got barfed on once (on the plane between Salt Lake City and Memphis, absolutely nightmarish). Brendan did barf on our San Diego trip, but not on me. :/ But really, he was actually very good on both trips. However, I doubt we'll be doing much traveling anytime soon. It's too hard to keep Brendan in the seat on the plane, and when we have to start paying for more seats on the plane (when he hits 2 years) it's going to get way too expensive to fly. And driving with the little guy will be difficult. So we'll just have to wait and see. Maybe the world will finally start coming to us, instead of the other way around. I'm not going to hold my breath, though. I did also survive a slightly disappointing Mother's Day. Not anything horrible, but my husband was sick, so we didn't do anything. Heck, the only card I got was from my dad. Silly of me to be disappointed, I know; I should just be a lot happier that I have a wonderful family and not feel sorry for myself. But it did make me a little sad. And of course, I survived the school year. This has been really rough; I've been pregnant for more than half the school year. I am very tired. It has been a lot harder than I thought it would be. When I was pregnant with Brendan, if I didn't feel good, I just didn't take a sub job. This time, I haven't had the luxury. I've had to take a lot of half days here and there for doctor's appointments, so I really haven't had a lot of days left to take off if I didn't feel good anyway. Had 12 kids fail, which was 10%. I guess that is a reasonable number, although it's interesting that most of them were in my freshman English, in which I had half as many students as I had in SciFi. I will admit, I didn't do a great job with the SciFi classes and their research paper. A good lesson to learn--they weren't as motivated to do it right as my classes at St. Agnes were. I'll have to do a much better job next time. Of course, I have no idea what I'm going to be teaching next year...I know I'll have Academic Success classes (basically a study hall for the slackers), but supposedly I'll have at least one English class as well, at least first semester. Fingers are crossed. Now I'm trying to get the last things done before Ian arrives. I am scheduled for a c section this Friday, which will be 39 weeks. Makes me a little nervous to have him a week early, especially since we don't know exactly when he was conceived; since I was on birth control, I didn't really pay attention to my periods or anything, so his due date of the 15th is just an estimate. What if he isn't quite ready yet? I hope it doesn't mean he'll be sickly or anything. Also, since I'm not likely to have any contractions with him, I'm worried that his lungs won't be cleared. With Brendan, I had almost two days of contractions before having the c section, so he got all the benefits of being squeezed (whatever those are). I'm also really worried about Brendan. He'll stay home with the grandparents--it would be a nightmare turning him loose in the hospital; goodness knows what he would unplug--and he's never been away from us for an entire night before. I don't want him to be upset without us. Seriously, I want to cry every time I think about it. It also upsets me that I won't be able to play with him or pick him up for a few weeks too. I know I'm just overreacting and he'll be fine, but still. I have so much to do. The nursery isn't put together, I have to make the guest beds for the grandparents, I have to vacuum the whole house and at least spot-clean the carpets, I have to hit the grocery store...but I'm enjoying sitting on my butt and not doing anything. My dad will be here tomorrow night, so I really do need to get stuff done. But first on the list is taking the dog to the vet. I'll post more about him later. Whew. Well, up to date now, I guess. Wheeeeee.

Week 30, Are we there yet?

Yesterday's weigh in (since after all that Easter candy I probably don't want to weigh myself today): 232.4

The boy really enjoyed his Easter. He ate lots of M&Ms (the only candy he's had so far), enough that I think it contributed to his barfing at dinner. Can't say for sure, but I guess if he overdosed enough he probably wasn't feeling great. He enjoyed his toys from the Easter bunny--a little race track and a stuffed bunny--but he really still wasn't old enough to search for eggs. Maybe next year.

One other milestone was reached...Brendan got his first haircut. My mother-in-law brought a hair cutting kit with her (her mother was a hairdresser, so she knows something of the skills needed). It wasn't very easy to do--he wouldn't really hold still for a proper cut--but she did get his little mullet evened out in the back. The only downside to the whole procedure was that I had saved one of his little curls on a piece of tape and wrote his name and date on it, but it accidentally got thrown away by a helpful family member who was clearing off the counters the next morning. Oh well. Maybe I'll get more hair the next time she trims him, or maybe I'll get some when he has his first professional cut.

As for me, I'm tired. I'm having a lot more pressure in my lower pelvis. I remember that from last time; it's a lot like the feeling you get after you've ridden a bike for hours. Not fun. I'm just so ready to get this over with. Luckily, since I'm working full time, the time seems to pass pretty quickly. I'm already 3/4 of the way there. And the next few weeks will pass extra quickly--this is a short week at school because of the Easter holiday, and the end of the week and beginning of next week we'll be in Memphis for a wedding, so next week will be short as well. That next week will be "regular", except that I'm taking a half day in the middle of the week so that I can take Brendan to his 18-month checkup and go to my own ultrasound (checking on growth). The week after that is short: we have Friday, May 4 off from school. The next week is full; the week after that will be short because we are going to San Diego for my brother's wedding. A full week after that, and then the final week of school starts with Memorial Day off and finishes with two half days for exams. So I've really only got two full weeks of school, I think. That'll be easily handled.

At my next Dr's appointment, on the 17th, I'm supposed to get scheduled for my c section. While I'm a little dismayed that I have to have surgery again, I think it'll be for the best. There isn't really a reason to assume that things will go that much differently than last time if I go into labor again. If I do go into labor before my c section, my dr. said we'd see how it goes, but otherwise we may as well schedule. What is freaking me out the most is that she has asked several times if I want to have my tubes tied while she's in there. While I've never seen myself having more than two kids, it's also really hard to rule that out entirely. I mean, it would be nice to have a girl, although there's no guarantee that even if I got pregnant again it would be a girl. It's just hard to take such a final, permanent step.

Anyway, things are progressing. I'm just tired and ready to have this over. And I need a nap.

Week 28 1/2: is it over yet?

This morning's weigh in: 229.4

The weight has definitely piled on in the past few weeks. And I can really tell; my plantar fasciitis in my feet is killing me, my back hurts, and all my used-to-be spider veins have all turned into full-on varicose veins. Gross. I wonder if they will fix themselves, or if I'm going to need to do some kind of surgery someday to fix them. Because they look horrible--it looks like my legs are covered in bruises.

I'm still about 7-8 lbs below what I weighed when I found out I was pregnant, but they say in the last trimester an expectant mother can gain 1-2 lbs a week. I've got just over 11 weeks left. I guess I need to assume I will end up weighing about the same as I did when I had Brendan. But that will still be a net gain of less than what I gained with Brendan; with him I started at 206 and ended up at 245, so I gained nearly 40 lbs. If I start with my lowest weight while pregnant this time, about 217, and figure I may hit 245 again, that would still be only about 28 lbs. And if I figure it from the weight I was when I actually found out I was pregnant, about 237, it would only be about 8 lbs. That's not bad.

Still tired. Not getting much sleep. I'm at the point where my hips and shoulders are starting to hurt, so I'm not comfortable staying in one position for long at night. Combine that with needing to pee, and with the fact that Brendan STILL can't sleep all through the night, and I'm pretty worn out before I even start each day. Meh. And my darling husband's sleeping doesn't help either.

But I will survive. I did it before and I can do it again. I just wish I could fast-forward through the next 11 weeks, because I know it's going to get more uncomfortable before it gets any better... *sigh*

Week 26, Just Weighting

Didn't weigh myself today, but my most recent weigh-ins have been 225 or so. It was like overnight about two weeks ago my weight just jumped. I know I'm supposed to be gaining weight, and I've been worried about the fact that I haven't done so, but then to suddenly jump up five pounds or so in just a day or two also worried me. Then I start thinking about my cravings for sugar and sweet stuff like candy and ice cream, and that makes me start worrying about gestational diabetes. Not only do I not want to have any problems with any pregnancy complications, period, but I also fear having something like that happen since I am so poor at advance planning at work. I really do pretty much make it up as I go. I mean, I have a general idea of what I need to do and when I need to do it, but I typically make up my teaching materials, like presentations, handouts, and quizzes, the day of the class. That's one reason I can never be sick: I don't ever have anything prepared ahead of time for a sub to do. I know I have some sub days coming up--I'm taking two days off to go do some essay grading for a state writing assessment, and we have a couple of trips planned in the next few months--and I'm already panicky about trying to get stuff arranged for the subs. So if were to actually need to be gone for a length of time, say if my doctor recommended bed rest or something, I'd really be in trouble.

Anyway, Brendan is showing signs of heading for his terrible twos. He has started pulling on things, rather hard, like animals' tails, people's hair, my shirt, stuff like that. Not sure what the purpose is. We've gotten rid of the bottle, and we've abolished the pacifier during the day (I'm bad about slipping it into his crib at night, hoping it will help him sleep through the night). And he's still not talking. Oh, he babbles all the time, and he does say things like Mama, Dada, "woof" (what a dog says), and "Yuck", but he doesn't always say them in the correct application, and he's made no real effort to learn any other words, at least that I can tell. It bothers me. I feel like with the amount of talking to him that my husband and I do and the frequency with which we read to him, he should be much further along in his verbal abilities. My husband, whose degree is in speech pathology, hasn't expressed too much concern, although he agrees with me that Brendan should be capable of saying more, and the pediatrician wasn't too concerned either, but it just surprises me. I also worry that he isn't eating enough. The sitter says he generally consumes everything I send with him to her house, but at night when I try to get him to sit down and eat, he'll eat a few goldfish crackers and maybe a few veggies, and a cheese stick, but he doesn't really like meat, and he doesn't really eat a whole lot of anything (except cheese). Sometimes he'll eat pasta, sometimes not. I wonder if I need to start pouring cheese sauce over everything.

As for me, I'm tired. My spider veins left over from last time have become varicose veins, and my varicose veins have become worse. Now that the weather is warming up, I keep thinking how nice it would be to put on shorts and spend some time outside getting some sun, but my legs are really gross-looking. I'm desperate for some springtime weather, but I definitely don't have the body for it. I'm approaching the third trimester, so at least the end is getting a little closer. I need a nap.

Mardi Gras: every Tuesday for me is Fat Tuesday

Today's weight: 223.4. Could be I'm finally gaining. Or it could be all the Oreos I ate yesterday while making "slutty" brownies for my brother (layer of cookie dough on the bottom, followed by a layer of Double Stuff Oreos, covered with brownie batter and baked at 350 for about 45 minutes). After all, I couldn't put broken Oreos in a recipe, right?

Worn out today. Brendan slept horribly last night: up at 9:00, 12:25, 12:55, and 3:00. No idea why. I know he's teething, but I wouldn't have thought that would throw him so badly at this stage. His room smelled a little funny when I went in at 9, funny enough that I wondered if he had thrown up somewhere, but I couldn't find anything. Reminded me a little of when he had his digestive bug back in November, but his diaper wasn't dirty, so maybe he just had gas. He did have a bit of a rash on his back when he went to bed last night, so maybe there was a little bug in his system. No idea. But it meant poor sleep for me. Figures he'd have trouble sleeping on the last night of a five-day weekend for me, the night when I need my sleep because I actually have to go to work in the morning. Bleah.

I think I've started to have Braxton Hicks contractions. It's all very low in my abdomen, but it makes me a little breathless and gives me a weird feeling of pressure. I need to go back and look at my old posts to see if that's an accurate description of them. Funny that I can't really remember what they felt like. But they aren't painful, and they aren't regular, so I'm pretty sure that's what they are.

Week 23, and it's gonna be a boy!

This morning's weigh in: 220.4

Had several appointments yesterday. Started with my OB. Everything looks good, growth is good, bp is good. She's not even concerned with my weight. It cold very well be that since I'm overweight anyway, my body is balancing the baby accumulation with a loss of fat weight. I'm sure I'll eventually reach a point where the baby is growing faster than I'm losing, and so I will surely gain some weight, but the OB estimated that it would probably only end up being 10-15 lbs (instead of the almost 40 I gained with Brendan, and the 55 my OB gained with her son). The only concern she had at all was pretty minor: when they did the 24-hour urine test (to make sure my kidneys were functioning appropriately, since I'm hypertensive), I did have protein in my urine. That indicates that my kidneys aren't functioning at peak efficiency. But it was well below the cutoff for pre-eclampsia, so she wasn't particularly worried.

Then I spoke with a genetic counselor, who went over the results of my quad screening (for problems such as Down's Syndrome, spinal bifida, and Trisomy 13 and 18). My odds are quite good, the same as a 28 year old. So it was a very brief visit, because everything looks so good.

Then I had my ultrasound. The tech took measurements and checked all the bits and pieces to make sure everything was where it should be. She said everything looked fabulous, as did the maternal fetal medicine specialist (I saw him last pregnancy, too). He said he had absolutely no concerns at this point at all. So that made us feel pretty good.

And we finally got a gender determination. It's a boy! Which honestly surprised both of us, I think. I had expected it to be a girl, just based on the fact that I've had the eating issue (where I haven't really felt like eating much) and the weight loss as opposed to the constant eating and weight gain with Brendan. And I think my husband had made that assumption as well. We're both completely fine with another boy (although I think my husband might be a tiny bit disappointed that he isn't going to have a "daddy's little girl" to spoil). But we've got all the boy clothes and stuff like that, which will save money in the long run. Thank goodness for hand-me-downs.

So now we have to come up with more boy names. We had pretty much isolated the girls' names we were interested in, and hadn't really given much thought to boys' names. So we don't have much of a list or any real idea of what we want. It's been a lot easier to decide what we DON'T like, rather than come up with things that we do like. At least we've got several months!

Week 22, I'm such a slacker

Wow, I haven't posted since the beginning of January. I am such a loser.

First of all: 222.4

This is the first time I've weighed more than 220 since I bottomed out on my weight. I don't know if this means I'm actually finally gaining weight, or if it's just because I had a big dinner last night. Guess we'll see.

Brendan is a wild man for sure. He had his 15-month check up at the end of January, and he weighed 23 lbs 6 oz and was 32 inches tall. He's still long and skinny, 50th percentile for weight and 75th for height. Hopefully he'll continue to grow. Some days he eats really well, and some days not so much. But I'm realizing that he needs to be eating more than just baby food. Really need to make the transition between baby food and more solid foods. Also need to get better about giving him a chance to feed himself with a spoon. He doesn't do very well right now, but he'll never get better if he doesn't try. He did hit an unwelcome milestone the other day: his first real injury. He was looking out of the back window of the living room while standing on a toy. The toy went out from under his feet, and he went forward and hit his lower lip on the window sill. His little teeth in there are sharp, and one of them cut the inside of his lip. He started crying, which I expected, but when he turned around to reach for me I realized he had blood running out of his mouth and dripping down onto his shirt. As all head/face injuries, it bled a lot for being pretty small. I grabbed a washcloth out of the clean laundry and jammed it onto his lip, trying to stop the bleeding. It stopped in just a few minutes, but it sure bled enough to make me more upset than he was. He calmed down pretty quickly, and it doesn't seem like it has really bothered him at all since then. I'm just glad I didn't get woozy or pass out; the blood of my loved ones has that notorious effect on me.

He also seems to be leaning towards the dubious milestone of napping only once per day. Usually on weekends he only naps once each day, but it's because we let him sleep in as late as he wants. But now on weekdays, even though he gets up at 6:30 each morning, he has been really resisting the afternoon nap. It has made him a super grump in the evenings this past week, but I guess this change is inevitable as he grows up. It just means I need to take full advantage of the times when he does nap.

As for me, not much has really changed. I'm still not eating a whole lot, although I do find I've been eating a lot more sweets lately, candy bars and ice cream. I need to make sure I get enough vegetables in there, and grains. I have noticed that the fetal movement has become a lot more noticeable, which is always a good thing. I've got a checkup and another ultrasound scheduled for this Thursday, so hopefully we'll have a better idea of how everything is going after that. Also, I hope we'll have a gender!