Alabama Tracks

I found this on one of the discussion boards that I read.  I thought it was appropriate for what lies ahead for me.
*I choose love…*

This is my baby’s birth day.  Today I will put my needs, my desires, my
hopes and my feelings on hold so I can concentrate on giving my baby
the birth he needs.

*I choose joy…*

I will not give into the temptation to wallow in self-pity.  I will
celebrate each contraction as one step closer to holding my baby.  I
will remind myself that this is the event I have waited for so many months.

*I choose peace…*

I will not battle my body or my baby. I will simply allow my baby to
use my body as an entrance point for life.

*I choose patience…*

I will overlook the inconveniences of labor.  Rather than complain that
the wait is too long, I will be thankful for the time to savor this change
in my life.  I will use this time to put my heart and mind in a state of joy
to meet my baby.

*I choose kindness…*

I will be kind to my baby, she is alone and she may be frightened.  I
will not allow myself to benefit by putting her at risk.

*I choose goodness…*

I will not let myself give into the temptation to use labor as an
excuse to be rude, angry, mean, hurtful, lazy or prideful.  This is my first
opportunity to teach my baby about relationships.

*I choose faithfulness…*

Today, I will keep my promise to my baby.  My family will not question
my love.

*I choose gentleness…*

Nothing is won by force.  If I raise my voice may it only be in praise. 
If I clench my fist, may it be only in prayer.  If I make a demand, may it
be only of me.

*I choose self control…*
I will not allow myself to lower my standards simply because I am in
labor. I will continue to strive for excellence regardless of the pain.

Here’s the latest status picture

This weekend we finished a three stage move. Stage one involved the removal of our beloved futon. Had we the room it would have stayed. Even my former roommate would have bought it had he had the money. But off to Tia it went to fill her living room. May it serve her as well as it has me. Shortly thereafter came the closet (which was partially blocked by said futon). Stage two occured last weekend when my cousin took my computer desk back to her place. The main computer found its way onto the smaller rolling cart and the old machine was set aside. This weekend we moved everything that remained of the office out. We put the computer into the living room, we relocated many things, we vaccumed and we painted. The flat beige was no more as we put one and a half gallons of Lemon Parfait paint onto the walls.

Because everybody LOVES parfaits. They have layers.

We finished by assembling the crib, relocating the rocking chair and the donated dresser/changing table from my mother and topped it off with the mattress from Ken and Chris.

And thus we are moved. We’ve moved into another house for a while. It’s layed out the same, has most of our furniture but there’s this odd little yellow room. We used to go into the one in our old house all the time but this new room seems foreign. As if someone has grafted it onto our old house. I sit in the living room typing this also having moved. Gone is comfortable. Gone is our old life. We have moved. It’s a bit like orthodontics. You move the tooth and, eventually, after some discomfort and perhaps pain, the root moves too. So I sit in our new house and new room with the old still here, mocking us. This is not our house and, yet, here we are. But we are not stationary. We are moving.

Such is our new parfait house. Now with more layers.

Pooped, exhausted, whatever word you want to use, it would probably fit. Every part of my body hurts in some form or fashion making every step difficult.

We finally made headway this weekend on the nursery.  It’s painted (lemon sorbet) and the crib is up, the dresser, rocking chair and stair chair are all in their place and I’m so pleased with how it’s coming together.  The girls don’t quite know what to think of it all yet and my living room and guest bedroom are the next rooms to be reckoned with as a result of the shuffling.  We also found out this weekend that the wireless router we purchased isn’t technically used for internet gaming.  Oh it works okay but it gets caught up at times.  The “gamer’s wireless” is about 3 times more expensive so we might just have to have a line dropped through the attic so he can have a wired router to play his games.  I think in the long run it will be cheaper and it beats having a computer cord running through my house as a tripping hazzard. 

I picked up the remaining pieces of my china on Friday night.  Now I only lack a few serving pieces and my silver.  I now need to find a new home for the three sets that currently reside on my table.  Moving into the buffet is also on the to do list which should help in organizing the back hall closet leaving more room for diapers, papertowels, and maybe a few bill files.

So with a few birth classes yet to attend on Thursdays, Bible Study tonight,  Choir on Wednesday night, and a Sunday School class social on Friday night, it doesn’t leave much time to rest.  I’m sure I’ll miss out on choir or Bible Study.  I’ll just have to see how I feel come close of business today.  It’s rainy here today and I’m craving some pumpkin pie.  But I did buy the stuff to make it so hopefully it won’t be too far down the road.  I’ll be the only one to eat it but at least my craving will be taken care of.

Hope it’s going well for everyone else.  Love to you all.

I’m normal and I don’t have gestational diabetes!!!! 

My tests came back at 109 - smack in the middle of the ‘normal’ range (65-139).

 

My sister has made mention that her cooking ability has changed with each pregnancy.  I recall many times she has commented that she couldn’t make something like she used to but more specifically I remember her saying that she gained the ability to make homemade bread with her last baby.  Each time I would hear her say such things, I may not have done it physically, but in my head I know my eyes did a roll around.  Surely cooking ability doesn’t come and go with pregnancy. Or so I thought….

Fast forward to this week.  Saturday I tried to make banana bread for a cousin and also for Sunday School.  I’ve made this particular recipe a dozen plus times and I’m known at least in my college circle for it.   When I pulled it out of the oven, I was amazed.  It was flat, hard, and dry.  Strike One.

Strike Two came when I tried to do a roasted chicken and veggies.  I’ve made a few chickens and turkeys this way and they’ve been decent.  I can’t say that they turn out as good as Tia’s but they’ve been edible without much effort.  This time, was different.  Dry, Dry, Dry.  The veggies were good and we managed to eat the breast part of the chicken only after sopping it in the juice left in the pan.  Instead of trying to salvage the rest, I quickly boiled the carcas and any meat left on the bone so I could at least have some homemade stock and use the remaining meat for a casserole or something.

Strike Three came last night.  I’ve been bored with my typical weekly menu so I decided over the weekend to find a new recipe to try this week.  I found Potato, Tomato, and Onion casserole.  I was going to supplement it with Lima Beans so we had a protein but overall I thought it would be a pretty meal and fairly healthy.  I started boiling the potatoes and peeling the tomatoes the night before so as to cut some prep time.  I spent over a half an hour putting it together and then it spent 20 minutes in the oven.  I sat down as my feet were starting to get huge.  I lamented to Joel that I didn’t think I wanted what I had just cooked.  His response was the usual, “you’re a good cook, we’ll give it a try, if it doesn’t work, we’ll do something else.” I tasted it and scaled my mouth.  I got it down but it was bland, and boring without much pizazz.  There was no way I could eat a whole plate of this so ChickFilA found us in their drive thru.  I ended up throwing the whole thing away with much disappointment wondering if my sister’s words were really true. 

I still don’t have the results of my glucose test.  I am going to try to call yet again today in hopes of reaching the nurse.  Tonight will be quick burritos at home, birthing class, and a tour of the hospital.  I’ve been so very busy here at work this week, I’ve been exhausted by the end of the day.  I’m hoping today is a slight bit different.  Friday night we will head to a neighboring town to pick up my china I ordered and spackle the holes in the wall to prepare for painting.  Saturday will be painting and the fair (I’ve been given 4 free tickets through work) with some friends.  Sunday is sure to be a day of rest, or at least I hope so. 

Today must begin so I should get busy again.  There are calls to legislators to make, data to look up, election mailers to proof for errors, and board slides to complete and now a phone to answer.  That is if my memory doesn’t fail me now….

Yesterday I had the test that everyone pregnant dreads.  It was the Blood Glucose Test to see if you have Gestational Diabetes.  Before I go further, it was just a test that everyone has.  I do not know at this point in time if I have it or not so there isn’t any need to be concerned.

Unlike the experiences of my sister who was able to eat a set meal plan before the blood test, I had a 12 oz bottle of orange liquid.  Based on the experiences of those I knew had taken the same test and had to drink the stuff, I knew it would be sugary and I knew it would be orange flavored.  Other than that, I really didn’t know what to expect.  An hour before I would have my blood drawn, I poured it in a cup with ice and used a straw.  Hoping that would help.  First sip in, down, and “that wasn’t so bad.”  It was flat orange soda - not something that I really care for but could tolerate. 

Drink it in 5 minutes.  All of it.  I don’t drink much of anything in 5 minutes much less soda.  I forced myself to down the entire cupful only to have the gagging reflex immediately after knowing my system is in shock with all the sugar I had just ingested and HAD to keep down.  10 minutes later I left to go to the dr. office to have my blood drawn.  I won’t know the results at least until Monday, maybe even Tuesday.  I’m not really sure what to expect though.  Will they call me, I need to call them, or will I find out at my next appt.?  We’ll see.  I’m just glad it’s over. 

Birth class was last night too.  The instructer was still pushing epidurals and blocks but suggested we all write a birth plan and talk to our doctor about other positioning requests.  I held my tongue as a fellow attendee is from England and apparently they don’t do hospital births like we do.  They are very open to using gravity help delivery.  She noticed that on the video, every woman was flat on her back.  She addressed it and was told that most everyone gets an epidural and that was why but that she should talk it over with her dr.  Another interesting side note came when the instructor said that the nurses had electronic monitoring wired to the nurses station so that even when they weren’t in the room, they could still monitor.  How interesting to have it put out there so blantantly.  I had read that continuous electronic fetal monitoring wasn’t in mom’s best interest, it is in the best interest of the nurse as it doesn’t allow mom to ambulate freely.  It’s one thing to read it, it’s another to actually be told.  I’m sure glad I addressed this in my birth plan. 

After watching a few episodes of Veronica Mars, we tried to pull family history data from an old hard drive, and then headed to bed.  We had our first “real” conversation of the day at 11:45 - 12:30 at night. So another day has come and tonight we will clean the desk and get it ready to be taken by his cousin.  Saturday will be a big prep day but more importantly a day at home for me.  Roasted chicken and vegetables will be on the evening menu and banana bread will be in the oven for Sunday.  Cooler temps are here again as well. 

So we have started THE classes for baby stuff. The kind that makes you think “OK, we kinda DID ask for this and we can’t back out now”. So Erin and I have been sitting for long hours in less than comfortable chairs learning about how to spit the baby out and feed it. Yes, feed it.

Birthing class has been interesting because we have a perky teacher. While I’m sure she is a fine nurse I don’t think she has quite gotten the art of neutrality. She tells us it’s not her goal to persuade or dissuade us from having a block (epidural) and later in the same class tells us that, if she could have, she would have had the block administered in the parking lot. She later noted that she wasn’t far enough along in labor to have a block when she arrived so she had to make do with something else until the block could be given. I’m sure no women in our class will have a block after that bit of info.

She then covers high school biology, complete with charts, diagrams and videos. It was about as exciting as biology class was too (complete with the overly technical filmstrip, er, movie about how to know you’re in labor). Then we went into breathing (better known as ‘Naptime Review’). Yet another blast from the past, she put on new age music and had us lay down. I declined as I knew I wouldn’t get back up from that floor if I did.

We’ve opted for natural childbirth which, as Bill Cosby put it, means Erin can have no drugs during the labor. I, however, am free to have all I want. Considering Erin has been cut out of a car and had numerous reconstructive surgeries I figure she’ll squint her face and go “ooooh” during contractions and that’s about it. So no blocks for her, just good old fashioned laboring. Alas, kiddie pool labor isn’t an option (Erin would freak if it got on the carpet) so we’ll be using a hospital. I know Tia is disappointed (I know she already had a kiddie pool picked out for us) but do you have any idea how much carpet costs these days? Oh, and something about state law too, I guess.

Last night was breastfeeding class. Rather interesting stuff. Boobs good. Formula bad. Apparently we need a class to teach us these things. The whole mess with formula started probably a result of World War II when women had to work and had less time to breastfeed. This created an industry that has worked hard to make it seem like breastfeeding is bad. And the #1 buyer of formula? WIC, a government program designed to “help” women and children. It turns out there’s a whole host of reasons to breastfeed and boatloads of misinformation and “conventional wisdom”. Just after the class Erin talked to some friends of ours (she is 8 months along) and both her parents and her in-laws have loaded them up with formula. Old habits die hard i guess. Thankfully she’s going to breastfeed as well.

The video on breastfeeding was OLD. As in there were people with mullets in there (and Cathy Rigby, too). It was narranted by the Breast Nazi and featured her with various bewildered shirtless women with the Tammy Faye makeup look. Such a violent thing this breastfeeding. Apparently there’s 4 steps to this

1. Position the baby. Along your side, stomach to stomach or propped up with something like a dozen pillows (less than that is NOT acceptable)
2. Grab the boob being careful NOT to grab any of the areola. I thought one woman was going to cry when she did it incorrectly and was chastized
3. Tease the baby with the nipple to start rooting action. Wait until they get bored and yawn and then…
4. Ram your baby’s face onto the boob

Apparently the babies do try to hoover it in but the video made it look like it was all the Breast Nazi shoving it. The whole class nervously laughed at the scene. I can’t wait until next week when we cover pumps. I wonder what the laughter at the announcement was all about, tho. Maybe it was because they say “Toby Mac” over and over (thanks for the warning Tara).