Wide awake

Week 37, Day 5

It’s 3:15 on the morning of Friday, February 4, and I have been awake for two hours trying not to worry about the coincident timing of snow that is becoming an ice storm and what feels very much like a slow leak from the Little Dude region.

Paragraph to skip if you’re queasy about TMI: It’s a sweet, straw-smelling kind of leak, not like the pee that has been an issue with coughs and sneezes. And there are different kinds of twinge-y feelings involved, though I couldn’t be pressed into saying the word “contraction.” I do have that regularly scheduled appointment with Dr. Binka-Binka at 9 a.m., but now that we are having a winter storm event instead of a light snowfall, I’m getting concerned about whether anyone will be there if we risk life and limb to maneuver down off the big hill we live on. (Darn those whistling-past-the-graveyard jokes I’ve made this week about being iced in up here and going into labor!)

Everything I’ve been reading tonight — and yes, that does mean more mid-night Googling, never the best idea, but backed up with mid-night paging through the indexes of nearly a dozen pregnancy books — indicates worry is not in order but telling a medical professional is. But what will they do at 3:19 in the morning in the middle of an ice storm? What advice could they possibly give? Monitor the situation and call us in the morning? Get in the car now and hope the much-vaunted off-road capabilities of the Land Rover aren’t just a bunch of marketing hoo-hah?

I’ve packed half a bag (the half I could pack without waking up Michael) and have my suitcase ready for the other half in the morning or whenever everything needs to be thrown into it on the way out the door. I’ve practiced deep calming breaths, and had some water, and written three more thank-you notes. I’ve even tried going back to bed and lying there doing relaxation exercises, but then I just feel this maybe-leak a little more, whether I really do or not, and I hear the ice clicking against the bedroom window, and relaxation is not the end result.

Here’s hoping I look at this again in a few hours from a more balanced and calmer perspective and chuckle over the Old Pregnant Lady Giving In To Mid-Night Anxiety. I haven’t freaked out much over the last 38 weeks, so maybe this entry will get it out of my system.

Week in the knees

Week 37, Day 4

That’s right. One week left. One week from tonight we’ll be checking into Seton Medical Center Austin and Little Dude will be lured into the world a week from tomorrow.

And frankly, it looks about like he’s ready.

We have our final appointment with Dr. Binka-Binka tomorrow, and we’ll get one last set of measurements. Keep in mind that on the first Friday in January (week 33, day 5), he weighed 5 pounds 5 ounces. Anyone want to make a few quick guesses about what tomorrow’s numbers will be?

Meanwhile, my mother, who came to visit on January 5 to stay for a week, went home this morning. Southwest has continued to be a champ through the whole month, letting her reschedule three times and then alerting her to another change she could make because of America’s Winterpocalypse 2011.  Right this minute she is driving down I-65 from the Birmingham airport to their home in Montgomery, leaving behind her one last batch of chocolate chip cookies, a full freezer, a painted master bath, and a complete set of nursery textiles.

If only we’d been able to set her loose on the laundry room and its attached half-bath. The crew we hired has left us in the lurch two of the last five days they were supposedly going to work, when we do not have two days to lose. Michael can’t lay the floor and set the baseboards until the painting is finished, and the washer and dryer can’t move back in until the floor is laid and baseboards set, and I can’t wash loads of dirty cloth diapers until the washer and dryer are moved back in. This is a simplification of the tearful phone call I made to Michael a little while ago during which I sobbed “They still are not here and this baby is coming in one week and NOTHING IS DONE.”

Hormones.

Lots has been done. Of that to-do list in the last post, all that’s left is to pack the bag, install the second car seat, and oh yes, finish the renovation chores, but we’ll leave that for the moment. If it comes down to it, I can always suck it up for one batch of diapers and go to Target and get some Seventh Generation disposables to start and switch to cloth when the washer and dryer are set back in their places. If Little Dude somehow absorbs the idea that his initial living environment is a chaotic mess instead of neat and clean and organized, well, then maybe he’ll just have lower expectations of his parents and any subsequent neat and clean and organized will just impress the little guy on some basic molecular level.

So you’re reading it here first. I am going to try to spend this last week relaxing, enjoying my husband and pets, and while keeping things moving on the getting-ready front, not stressing totally out. This is our last weekend before parenthood (though it feels like the responsibilities have already kicked in), and we’re going to go get a burger at Hill’s at some point and enjoy the baby shower that our Austin friends are giving us on Sunday.  Michael’s mom and dad are coming on Monday, and they will help us with more last-minute chores. The bag will get packed, the second car seat will get installed, and Little Dude will arrive. Everything else is details.

Y’all can remind me of that Attempt At Zen on Tuesday when I’m hyperventilating.

Dude Date

Week 36, Day 4

Since no word of Little Dude Arrival Date pools has reached my in-box, I’m not too worried about this post spoiling anyone’s financial windfall. Consultations between Dr. Binka-Binka and Dr. Oliver have resulted in our timetable being moved up. Instead of a February 21 due date, we’re now looking at being induced on February 11, and this is pretty much for sure.

So nobody else has to look at a calendar, let me confirm: February 11 is just FIFTEEN DAYS AWAY.

It’s also his Uncle Matt’s birthday. And if it takes longer than 16-18 hours, then February 12 is Abraham Lincoln’s birthday. Not bad days to be born on, either of them. (And if, heaven forbid, things stretch out to the 13th, well, we’re looking at Grant Wood and Tennessee Ernie Ford, both esoteric but fun.)

But let’s get back to that slight note of hysteria over losing 10 days of prep time. Michael and I  have both been hit hard with an upper respiratory crud for the past three weeks, and I took a tumble over a footstool late Friday night and strained my back (but did a half-gainer on the way to the floor that protected Little Dude, whose subsequent fetal monitoring by Dr. Oliver was pronounced “a great track, the best track we’ve ever seen”), and we haven’t gotten quite as much taken care of as we’d hoped to have done by now. Fortunately, my mom used Southwest to fly out to see us on January 5, and thanks to their no-change-fee policy, she’s been able to extend her ticket a couple of times to take care of us. So among the many other things she’s accomplished (chicken soup, chocolate chip cookies), the freezer is stocked and getting stockeder, and the crib has a bedskirt and curtains are nearly finished, and clothes and bedding and diapers are sorted, and so on. She’s here until Tuesday, and then Michael’s parents will come down the week of to help us with last-minute things and then will stay while we’re at the hospital so Bailey and the Pussycats have caretaking, and Everything Will Work Out.

Meanwhile, while trying not to infect other expecting moms, we did manage to get to enough of our childbirth classes to be kind of grossed out by what’s coming up. We got a tour of the maternity ward and I know now that I will definitely need to take my own pillows and that I am going to be wishing for a lamp in the mother-baby suite afterwards because all they’ve got is horrendous overhead fluorescent lighting. Our birth plan (which is chock-full of the phrase “we would prefer but”) has been signed off on by Dr. Oliver. And actually, the distract-yourself-from-the-pain breathing techniques we learned did come in handy when I was dealing with the strained back muscles after the fall.

So, in the next 15 days, we’ve got to:
* Finish washing baby bedding and some newborn clothes
* Finish stocking the diaper drawer
* Get some renovation/construction chores done and cleaned up after
* Double-check that insurance coverage is in place
* Install the car seats
* Pack the hospital bag

Among other things. But those are the top priorities, in no particular order. Along with settle on a name so we aren’t calling our boy “Dude” or “Duderino” or “L.D.” for the rest of his life.

Finally, a big shout-out to my college friend Joseph and his wife Heather, who have been about a month ahead of us on this trip and who welcomed little Zoe into the world yesterday. Memphis is a long way to go for a play date, but we could be convinced. Welcome, Zoe!

Back to the bump

Week 34, Day 1

Unless you’re Dr. Binka-Binka, taking measurements of Little Dude, in which case this could very well be considered Week 35, Day 1, because Little Dude is running a week ahead of size. Which is fine and dandy with Dr. Binka-Binka, who used the word “perfect” and then used the word “awesome” when looking over all the measurements and images.

This Self-Bump-Portrait series is getting a little tricky now that my bump's about to exceed my reach...

Regardless of whether we have five or six weeks to go, we’re definitely in the home stretch…

* Childbirth classes have started (oy, the films, and ours are still on VHS, though perhaps I am happy not to have them in HD) and we’re now set to see my regular OB every Monday and Dr. Binka-Binka every Friday until Little Dude’s arrival.

* Michael just finished the last of the trim painting in the nursery last night, after a couple of weeks where each thing he needed to do in there led to unpleasant surprises with old construction and the need for repairs and new projects, and we picked up the last of the furniture Saturday (a vintage ChildCraft dresser/changing table from Craigslist for $45, but the nursery-decor post comes later).

* Little Dude’s Gram (my mom) has come to visit for a week and so far has helped me sort through and organize all the baby clothes, made a huge pot of chicken soup because I’ve been so upper-respiratory-cruddy, schlepped to several different stores and hardware big-boxes in search of furniture and paint, taped and dropclothed and primed Michael’s whole bathroom (with painting on her agenda today), plus baked her famously wonderful chocolate chip cookies and generally worked hard to spoil us a little bit rotten.

* I can’t paint or lift or climb or bend a lot, so I’ve been putting things together like the Stokke stroller and the cow-print car seat and the little white footstool for the nursery, and folding laundry, and inventorying Little Dude’s books, all while snotting through Kleenex at a rate of about 12-15 an hour and peeing a little every time I try to hack the crud out of my lungs and not sleeping because I can’t breathe and am choking on disgusting phlegm and not napping because meanwhile our handy-guys are finishing the drywall in the laundry room and jackhammering out big hunks of concrete that once were steps from the garage to the laundry room and now are steps to a wall because their hard work means we now have a way to get to the laundry room through the house, which is more exciting than maybe it should be.

Little Dude's present from his Aunt Dana and Uncle Tony in Australia, who are spoiling us just a little bit. Bassinet attachment not pictured (it's out of frame), but dig the matching diaper and shopping bags!

(If you haven’t started your own little private count of run-on sentences in my blog posts, that one gives you a good place to start.)

What apparently should be coming next, according to the Parenting.com Babygram e-mail that pops into my inbox every week, is that I should have a bag packed and ready to go. Really? Already? And what do I really need to take to the hospital? They’re recommending things like “hard candies” (which I don’t really dig in non-labor life) and “reading materials” (as if my attention will be held by anything more challenging than US magazine’s in-depth report, “Sandra and Ryan, IT’S ON!”), and they say don’t bring my contacts? Seriously? Doesn’t that conflict with their slotting “makeup” pretty high up that list? Apparently I could also buy a special “delivery gown” that will keep me more comfortable and, more importantly, way more stylish than the standard-issue hospital rag and yet, at $42, is inexpensive enough to just throw away when we’re all done. Hair ties seem to be a key item.

Seriously.

So, in today’s installment of I’m Soliciting Your Advice On This Topic So You Don’t Feel Like You Can’t Give It Even Though You Know You Want To And Besides I Really Want It, what did my mom friends take to the hospital that was ridiculous and hardly even came out of the bag, and what didn’t you take that you wish you had, and what did you have that was just The Perfect Thing? Because whether this winds up being thirtysomething hours of progressing through the childbirth class charts like a good little A student or a sudden C-section, I have a feeling there will be a little time spent waiting for something to happen, and not all of it will be comfortable, and you can probably give me some ideas for dealing with it.

Coming soon… the big nursery reveal… more gushing over the Saab sportscar of strollers… kvetching about IKEA’s inventory-control and -availability system… brunching with the baby bump and two dozen good Austin friends, if Little Dude waits that long… and maybe even The Unveiling Of The Name, assuming we take the choice from two to one in the meantime.

This edition of “Forty Weeks” would not have been possible without my SC09-swag Philips earbuds and the delightful mix put together at “Spare the Rock,” a dad-and-daughter kids’ music broadcast out of New England, which managed to keep the roar of the jackhammer (mostly) out of my brain.

Family man

I have left for its own brief entry a piece of horribly shocking and sad family news, mostly because it is just so hard to think about and impossible to accept. While it isn’t directly related to our pregnancy, it’s about family and love and a man who embodied the idea that you are just there for your family and friends, whatever they need.

My sister-in-law Nicole’s brother Logan, a kind, funny, go-to-and-rely-upon guy, was doing last-minute shopping at the mall yesterday, Christmas Eve morning, when he collapsed suddenly and died. In addition to his wife Lisette and two young sons, his too-sudden and too-soon passing leaves his parents, brother, sisters, nieces, nephews, cousins, in-laws, and hundreds of friends grieving and in disbelief.

Logan with New Orleans Saints quarterback Drew Brees at a recent charity function. When I told him how jealous I was of this picture, he bumped my shoulder and said, "You can get your picture with me too, no problem."

Every little while, it hits me again and I have to stop and catch my breath and send my love and prayers once more across the 500 miles to where his family is trying to catch their breath and come to terms with such an impossibility. I cannot imagine going home to New Orleans, to the neighborhood where the whole family lives within a block of each other, and not having him be there. I cannot imagine how to help comfort his family — who I have felt to be my family — in this sad and terrible time.

I was fortunate to see him with the rest of the family at our New Orleans shower, for which — for us — he made one of his many amazing dishes, a superb etouffee, though I had not yet written the note to him and Lisette to say how much that meant to me, and I’m not sure I even got to hug him goodbye at the end of that hectic, happy evening.

Logan and Lisette always made me feel accepted and welcome and part of their family, and for both Michael and me, the memories we have of his cooking and sense of humor and love of his family and home will stay with us forever. And I can’t help but feel like from now on, whenever we see Lisette and Brody and Wyatt, Nicole and my brother and their boys, and Logan’s sister Desi and brother Eddie and his parents Mr. Eddie and Mrs. Loretta, and we hug them hello or kiss them goodbye or show in whatever little way how glad we are to have such a family to cherish, whenever we take extra time for our own boy or do whatever we can for our own family and friends, a small piece of that will always be going to Logan.

So this is Christmas…

Week 31, Day 6

Merry Christmas! I only realized from looking at the calendar last night that it was already Christmas Eve. Because I was so spaced out on my dates, I missed out on brining my turkey (so we are having venison sausage and Camellia crowder peas and cabbage for Christmas dinner). Usually I’m a walking, talking, caroling Advent calendar, but this December has been different.

Michael's bathroom, post-tub demolition, pre-shower building

Main bathroom (mine and the Little Dude's), showing the insulation charred in a 1984 house fire and a little wasp's nest in the wall. That all came out.

Main bathroom, with new insulation, Hardieboard, and subway shower tile. What you can't see, besides all the dirt and dust and tiling crew's tools, is that they mixed in some of M's off-white tiles with some of my very white tiles, creating a pattern instead of pure white tile walls, and had to take them down and start over. Gah!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

First, we started our Absolutely Necessary Because Pipes Were Leaking In The Walls Of Both Bathrooms house renovations. This was two weeks ago. We also got serious about getting the nursery ready, which meant pulling every single thing out of it so we can paint, pull up nasty carpeting to replace with low-VOC cork flooring, and install the furniture and baby things we’ve slowly been collecting. So where I would normally put our tree, there are components for various IKEA cabinets and random pieces of furniture pulled from different rooms. Where I would normally stash the ornament boxes, there is a huge pile of wonderful baby gifts from our New Orleans shower and near-daily UPS deliveries for which there was no room in my office/the nursery before we pulled everything out of there. Where I like to shower and primp, there are boxes of tile and dunes of sheetrock dust. Where Michael’s toilet should be, there is bare concrete floor. Every place we’d like to put something away, something is already there on a temporary basis (i.e., our entire dining room is furniture and Kim’s-office-and-library storage, while the dining room set sits stacked in the space off the kitchen and living room with all the aforementioned gifts, and the garage, in addition to containing all of the garage-storage, now holds all of the laundry room, which is another saga).

 

Some of everything all in a pile... cork flooring, paint, pieces of closets, baby gifts, stuff going to Goodwill, furniture to sell, furniture to move, etc., etc., etc.

In other words, our open floor plan has closed way down, and just ’tis not the season to try to wrangle all my Christmas tchotchkes into the mix. So we have a mantel full of Christmas cards and one cowboy boot stocking sent to Little Dude by his Bubba, a spot on the kitchen counter devoted to shortbreads and fudge and my sister-in-law Nicole’s pralines, and that is it for the holiday spirit. While I recognize that this is just wise and practical, and it was my idea to begin with, I feel downright Scroogey about it from time to time and came thiiiiis close to hauling off and buying a $30 7′ Frasier fir at Whole Foods on sale on Wednesday just because I needed a tree, horrendous allergies be darned, before I came to my senses and hurried myself along.

The office/nursery, holding more nursery stuff than office stuff...

...holding a little less as the stuff gets moved out into the living room and other spaces...

...and now, this morning, after Santa Mike has been hard at work.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This is not to say that great gifts are not being bestowed today. Since before breakfast, Michael has been working on the nursery floor. So far he has pulled out carpet, carpet padding, little strips of splintery carpet framing held in by huge nails, and half the baseboards. This afternoon, the plan is to paint (a nice buff-cream color in a zero-VOC paint with white trim), and then tomorrow to lay in the cork flooring. I don’t even need a ribbon around the five-foot stack of flooring boxes to be excited about this.

The $690 Oeuf Sparrow crib, object of design-fetishist desire...

...and the somewhat acceptable substitute Baby Mod ParkLane, not quite as eco or as elegant, but do-able and $400 less.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We’re also narrowing down the crib choices, and I think that as much as I wish I could do otherwise, I am going to be wise and practical again and give up the $700 eco-crib from Oeuf and go with the $300 quasi-eco-crib from a major big-box retailer instead, investing some of the savings into a very good and very health- and eco-conscious mattress made by the Amish in northeastern Ohio (that could be a joke, but isn’t) and some more of the savings into other organic nursery items that Little Dude will be in closer contact with than his crib walls (cloth diapers, crib sheets, sleep sacks, onesies, and so on). Once again, I recognize that striking this balance is The Right Thing To Do, but I’m not loving doing it. I want to be able to give this Little Dude every cool and amazing thing there is.

Though, as Michael points out, that’s exactly what we’re trying to do. It’s just a question of defining “cool and amazing” properly.

Funny how time slips away…

Week 31, Day 4

Six weeks have gotten away from us since my last post. Six chock-full weeks. Since deciding on our Britax car seat, we have:

* sold several pieces of furniture on Craigslist just in time for Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving morning: The Butterball this year was all Little Dude and no turkey.

* had a Thanksgiving getaway out at The Dirt, where naps lasted all afternoon

* scanned in about 300 old family photos, some for the sake of historic preservation and some for the sake of making an album of baby pictures of various family members (a post in itself)

* finished boxing up books and other items from my office, which is becoming the nursery, and started trying to get other spots in the house organized to absorb it all

* been feted in New Orleans, where sister-in-law Nicole and best friend Pam put together an amazing baby shower with a gorgeous fondant cake, homemade etouffee courtesy of Nicole’s brother Logan, and a guest list including most of my favorite people in New Orleans (though we did miss getting to see a few folks!)… the driving there and back again was interesting, but the being there couldn’t have been more wonderful, as both sets of parents came and Michael’s brother and sister-in-law came from Dallas and everything was beautiful and lovely and so appreciated (photos forthcoming)

* gotten Christmas shopping finished, wrapped, and delivered

* had an ultrasound at 29 weeks/5 days showing Little Dude’s size as 30 weeks/4 days, which is consistent with where he’s been vis-a-vis the growth charts all the way along… i.e., ahead of the curve…

With Alonso at the student cinema at Vanderbilt, where we spent many hours together many years ago, ready for his "Have Yourself a Movie Little Christmas" program.

* flown up to Nashville to have biscuits and blackberry preserves at the Loveless Cafe and sugar-and-spice pancakes at Pancake Pantry with dear old Vandy friends Mary and Alonso, to support Alonso’s book tour for his fabulous Christmas movie book Have Yourself a Movie Little Christmas, and to see other good friends like Anne and Kevin and Pat for the first time in nearly two decades, plus had my very pregnant photo taken with Southwest Airlines’ Santa Claus at the Nashville airport on the way back home (photo not forthcoming until I let fall the last shreds of my vanity)

Those shreds of vanity fall: I'm tired and swollen from traveling, the 22-degree weather in Nashville has flattened out my hair and staticked up my clothes, but Santa has focused on the important piece of the photo.

* had not one but both
bathrooms ripped out (not quite at the same time, though there has been a little bit of shower-here, toilet-there, brush-teeth-in-kitchen-sink) because of leaky pipes in the walls

* pared the registry down a little, then built it right back up again with more books and fun stuff from Etsy (whoops)

* fought off a kind of yucky stomach situation, with no harm to the Little Dude

* spent hours and hours at IKEA and Home Depot and various flooring stores

* picked out zero-VOC paint and cork flooring for the nursery, to be installed by us over Christmas

* made the thrilling and somewhat breathtaking choice of our stroller, gifted to us by Michael’s sister Dana, in fabulous purple … now all we have to do is put it together…

* worked on deals and products for PlastiPure (Michael) and on communications materials for Water to Thrive (Kim)

* concocted a new fudge recipe with chile and cinnamon (Fudge del Fuego? Frida Fudge?) and baked several dozen shortbread for holiday sharing

None of this is to say I couldn’t have kept up a little better, but really, I figured there were only so many times y’all wanted me to report that I think he got his elbow caught in my ribs while he was turning around or that it looks like my belly button is really about to pop.