Musical Dreams

Maybe musical dreams is a new theme. This morning's dream involved a large group of people being shown around some sort of exhibit by a tour guide. I don't remember what the exhibit was, but at the end we were all supposed to learn a dance.

The last move we learned was along with the words "shake those fuzzy cheeks and hats". There might have been more to the dance, but I woke up right afterwards, probably due to the levels of ridiculousness.

Breast Pump

I'd been waffling between getting a new breast pump and getting a used one.

The FDA recommends that they only be used by one person. I'd been leaning that direction, then I talked to people who've actually used them and I looked at a video of how it works. No fluids actually go into the pump part and all the external parts are replaceable. There's no possible way that milk could get sucked into the pump and then get spat back out into the external parts. New Medela breast pumps are $300 roughly.

I changed my mind. I decided to get one on Craigslist. I found one that was being advertised that the lady said had only been used a couple of times. She was selling hers for $160. It came with a bunch of extra pieces, too. I went through it and cleaned everything today. All the external pieces can go through the dishwasher, but we're waiting till closer to when we'll need it.

Weird dream

Last night, I dreamt that I was at an event where someone was selling soda drinks in brightly colored cans. They were called something like K3 or K7 soda; I remember there being a K in the logo. After I bought the soda, I knew (in that weird way that you often just know things in dreams) that if I drank it, it would kill my baby. I also knew that if my baby died, there would be an investigation, the soda would be taken off the market, and this would save the lives of hundreds or thousands of other babies.

I woke up before I made a decision about whether to drink the soda or not.

Legwarmers

I knitted leg warmers for the baby.

Current clothing tally

After washing all the newborn and very-small clothing items, here's a summary of what we have:

4 fleece sleepers (plus 2 others that still have tags and weren't washed)

10 knit sleepers (8 with feet, 2 without)

7 bag sleepers (3 with closed bottoms, 3 with open bottoms)

25 short-sleeved onesies (including the two frog outfits that have short legs)

9 long-sleeved onesies

8 shirts (3 kimono style with ties or snaps, 5 pull-on)

6 pairs of pull-on pants and 2 overalls (plus a pair of stretchy jeans that still has the tag)

5 hoodies of varying degrees of warmness

15 pairs of sock (various sizes, not pictured)

6 hats (4 cloth, 2 knitted fruit)

Fruit hats

I have a thing for knitted baby hats shaped like fruits. I've made several before using the same pattern, but apparently I never managed to take or post pictures of them. However, here's a hat, and a second hat, that aren't shaped like a fruit.

Here's what the fruit hat looks like:

And here's a second fruit hat on an appropriately sized model.

Still on the list for completion is a strawberry fruit hat. I have the yarn already, but got distracted by knitting rainbow-striped baby leg warmers.

Baby's Room Organization Night

We got into pre-baby organization last night. We brought up the tubs of little clothes and I resorted them into tiny newborn clothes and merely small clothes. I'm running them all through the wash now in preparation to actually move them into the baby's dresser.

Speaking of the dresser, I can't figure out if I posted about it before. Here's a picture of it:

I found it on Craigslist. I'd been looking for a dresser for the baby because we don't have any extra drawer space. How could a person resist a dresser with rabbits on the front? Too cute! We went and picked it up down near Oregon City somewhere. It just barely fit into the car. If it had been another half-inch bigger, I don't think it would have fit. It was obviously meant to be. It's been sitting in the craft/baby room waiting to be filled with baby items.

The baby is going to be merged in with what is my current craft room. For those of you who have seen my craft room, you may not believe this to be possible. Usually it's in something of a state of ... disarray. 

Last night, I went to bed around 11 as usual. Mike didn't come to bed with me, but that's also as usual. I figured he was up playing video games or reading web comics. Apparently he was up reorganizing the craft room! He was just going to bed when I got up at 9:30.

He reorganized my storage shelves and put things into bins. It actually looks like a person could find things in here now! I'll have to go through it and see where he put everything. I'm going to need a map.

He also reorganized my fabric storage shelf. I'm trying to use up fabric and not buy anything new as I create baby projects. I've been fairly successful so far, but there's still a lot of fabric to use! Again, I'm not sure where he put everything, but the last time he organized the fabric shelf he did an excellent job. For example, he put all of the fabrics with foods on them in one section and all of the fabrics with rodents on them in another section. Doesn't everyone have a rodent-fabric section?

This is what he currently looks like after all the hard work:

So the first phase of baby room organization has been accomplished. There's room to move around in there, my shelves are pretty organized, and I can start finding places for all the baby stuff.

Update - not much to report

The title pretty much says it all.

I'm slowly getting bigger. I still don't feel like I'm as big as other women who are pregnant the same amount I am, but I guess that's ok. Next doctor's appointment is on the 31st and I'm sure she'll say something if I'm growing way too slowly. On the one hand, it's nice because I'm definitely not as inconvenienced as I would be if I were huge. I can still put on my socks and wash my feet in the shower. On the other hand, I was sort of looking forward to actually looking pregnant while I am pregnant. It's vaguely disappointing to not be larger. I'm sure I'll get there, though.. and then wish I was smaller again.

Sleeping is still challenging. Last night was a tough one. My hips got sore and I woke up and rolled over a lot of times. Strangely, I only got up to pee once. Maybe my hips were distracting me because I drank a ton of water yesterday evening.

I feel like I'm drinking a lot more water than I'm peeing out. I'm thirsty a good portion of the time, so I've decided to just carry a water bottle with me around the house. I don't feel like any body parts are getting particularly swollen (ankles seem to be normal), so maybe this is one of those parts of the pregnancy where my blood volume just increases quite a bit.

I haven't been remembering any of my dreams specifically. I feel like I remember them sometimes when I wake up during the night, but then by the next time I've woken up I forget them. It just seems way to hard to write them down in the middle of the night so I might remember them in the morning.

Last night, I sorted through all my yarn and divided it into categories by yarn weight (thickness). I know I had things in mind for most of this yarn when I bought it... but wow. This is a lot of yarn. No more yarn purchases, probably until the tiny squee is in its mid teens. Today I'm hoping to go get some bins for yarn storage.

My father is coming up to visit tomorrow and we're going to go hunt for more bins for storage. My goal is to get some of the craft/baby room organized. Right now, it's relatively functional for me as a craft room, but there's no way that we could fit much in the way of baby stuff in there. I did get in and craft some baby items last week. I've made several waterproof pads that could be used as changing pads or on the floor under a naked baby. I think they're pretty cool and I'm planning on making more for gifts. They also use up a lot of fabric, which is a plus. I feel like it makes a dent in my fabric stash when I pull out and use up a large piece.

Birth Class

We went to our Yoga Way to Birth class this weekend. It was really good. There was enough sharing and talking about fears and feelings, but there was also good concrete stuff. It wasn't too full of woo-woo to be useful to us.

Neither Mike nor I found the actual yoga practice part to be all that useful. It was a lot of postures that I don't like when I'm not pregnant, and I don't find them to be any more pleasant now that I am. I'll stick with my prenatal yoga class. I think we do better poses for pregnancy and birth in there.

We talked about what happens to the baby during the birth process. The instructor (Tina) had a pelvis and a babydoll and modeled what the baby would be doing during the entire thing. It was very useful to see how the baby turned and moved because that's been hard for me to visualize.

We did a "sensation processing" activity where we held ice cubes in our hands (or on our wrists) and tried different things to cope with the sensation. Tina said we shouldn't think of it as pain processing because we didn't know whether or not the labor process would be painful. It could be, but it could also not be. I found that focusing on my breathing was very helpful. Focusing on the sensation and evaluating it was also useful. Focusing on both my breathing and the sensation also worked, but it was challenging to get it all together.

We talked a bunch about our assumptions about the birth process and what it might really be like (summary: we have no idea, so it's hard to really prepare). We also talked a lot about what we needed in order to feel safe and prepared. Those were some of the most useful conversations.

I really liked the other couples who were at the class. I'm hoping that we stay in contact and can get together before (and after) the birth. Of the four other couples who were there, three are due at the end of March. It'd be like a ready-made playgroup for the babies. We're also going through a lot of the same things during pregnancy and we're similar enough in beliefs to have all gone to a yoga birth class. The instructor said she would send out contact info this week. I'm going to see if anyone wants to get together again once I have people's contact info.

Overall, the class was a very positive experience and we learned a lot. It led to some good talking about the birth process between Mike and I. I'm glad we did it.

GD test results

Dr Liz just called with my blood test results. My blood sugar is 78, which is normal. Apparently anything below 100 is within the normal range for not-pregnant people. For the gestational diabetes test specifically, glucose levels should be below 120 two hours after a meal.

She also said that my hemoglobin and hematocrit are also normal, so I don't look anemic at all. This is a plus, because much of the time when I'm not pregnant, I'm borderline anemic. I know this because sometimes I can't donate blood because my iron levels are too low.

It's an eggplant.

Yoga makes my hips hurt.

Of  course, most things make my hips hurt at this point. Sitting. Sleeping. Walking. Probably the yoga is good for them as it stretches them out.

Doctor's Appointment

Today, I had my gestational diabetes screening. It's pretty much done with all pregnant women, not because I had any risk factors. This morning, I got up and had my usual bowl of oatmeal (8:30am). At 10:30, I drank 50g of glucose solution. It wasn't as horrific as I had been led to believe by people's posts online. It tasted sort of like flat sprite. I mean, I wouldn't drink it if given a choice, but I didn't think it was particularly worthy of complaint. At 11:30, Dr Liz drew blood that gets sent away to wherever it is that does the glucose tests. She says she's not worried about the results, what with me not having any risk factors and all. I'm not worried either, although I did lodge a complaint about having to take the test right after Christmas when my cookie consumption is at an all-year high. She pointed out that if I'd taken the test before Christmas and gotten bad results, my cookie consumption would have been reduced to an all-time low. Therefore, by taking the test after Christmas, at least I got to eat the cookies regardless of the results.

I've gained 3 pounds since my last appointment, which was a month ago. I figured I would have gained a lot more than that. I added in at least one extra meal per day composed entirely of cookies while I was at Granny's house. I also look a lot more pregnant than I did at the last appointment. She measured my fundal height (how big the uterus is, basically) and said I'm right on track. Apparently I've caught up from being a bit small and am now regular-sized. This totally agrees with my feeling that I'm about 5x more pregnant looking than I was a few weeks ago. Maybe the baby just needed some extra cookies to kick-start its growth.

Heartbeat was steady and sounded fabulous. Next appointment is in a month.

Third Trimester, here we come!

We've officially entered the 28th week of pregnancy, which starts out the third trimester. I feel like I got about 5 times more pregnant in the last couple of weeks.. hopefully it's due to baby and not due to fudge and cookies.

Baby has active days and less active days. I went to prenatal yoga on Saturday and Shana (the yoga instructor) told someone else that the less active days are probably when baby is turned around and kicking towards the back. Apparently you can't feel kicks towards the back. All the kicks I've felt have been either down or to my left side, so maybe baby alternates between that direction and facing backwards. I enjoy the yoga class. It's really nice to check in with other pregnant ladies. I met someone who is almost exactly the same amount pregnant as I am. She's due March 28th. She looks a lot more pregnant, but she's also 5 inches shorter.

Sleeping has definitely become more of a challenge and I seem to have entered another tired phase. I slept (or at least tried to sleep) for 11 hours last night. I start out on my left side with a pillow between my knees. At some point during the night (usually about 3am), I wake up, go to the bathroom, and switch to the other side because my hip is starting to hurt. After that, I wake up every hour or hour and a half to change positions. I can see why pregnant ladies sometimes move to the couch or to a reclining chair for the last bit of pregnancy - laying on my back is more comfortable for my hips than laying on my side, but it's uncomfortable to be flat on my back. I have to be propped up on a couple of pillows so that I'm laying on a slope.

The disrupted sleep is making it easier to remember my dreams, so there have been a lot of those. Last night, I had a dream that I took the baby swimming. The baby had just recently been born, and this was going to be one of our first outings. Baby was the size of probably a 6 month old, which occurred to me in the dream. There was a whole saga involving lockers and where to put the baby while I changed and swim diapers. We were going swimming with Jess and several other friends who had babies. Jess's baby could swim like a fish because she had a pool in her backyard. In this dream, the baby was a girl.

I also had a dream that we took the chinchillas outside for a walk at my mother's house and we lost one of them. In the dream, we had three (we only have two in reality) and we lost the one that doesn't actually exist. We searched around the neighborhood looking for it. At one point, we asked a neighbor who was out raking his leaves if he'd seen the chinchilla. We told him it looked sort of like a squirrel.