Marcus recently brought in some gladioli from the yard. Here are a few pics.
Aug 23
Extended Update
Well, it’s been a few days, so I thought I’d offer an extended version of Marcus’ update from a few days ago.
FIRST, THE ULTRASOUND: We had this on Friday and health wise, things look good. They estimated that Babysor weighs about 6 lbs. 6 oz. I thought that sounded pretty big, but the doctor said that those numbers put him in the 62nd percentile, which is totally fine. I read online that babies gain about an ounce a day at this point, a fact I did not discuss with my doctor, but if true, means Babysor would put on 2 pounds exactly between the ultrasound day and my due date, making him 8lbs. 6 oz. — big, but not crazy huge.
Other good things from the ultrasound: They noticed a small kidney blockage at the first ultrasound, something which is very common in boys and which usually resolves on its own at birth. And so this time they saw that the blockage is still very small — just 5 mm. Doctors don’t start worrying about it unless it is 7 mm or bigger. As far as what the blockage means, well, they told me that some babies with really big blockages in utero end up needing surgery to resolve the issue after they are born. In fact, the sonographer herself mentioned to us that her own 3-month old baby was going to need surgery to fix his blockage — but his had measured 20 mm on ultrasound. So, even though the blockage is still there, the sonographer indicated that its small size was good news.
Another tidbit: Babysor has hair! Yes, they could see it on the ultrasound. Little wisps of hair along his scalp. And it was the most beautiful shade of reddish blond! …Just kidding about the color, but they did see hair and pointed it out to us.
But there was one important thing that was not great news. It’s not exactly bad news, but it’s not good news either. Our stubborn Babysor is still hanging out with his head at the top, when he should have been head down for weeks now. I still have lots of amniotic fluid (another piece of good news) which means the baby is still very mobile and so there is a chance he could turn on his own. But if he doesn’t, then the chances I will need a c-section go up a lot. They already have. I really don’t want one because I dread the extended recovery time and the possible complications with possible future pregnancies, but obviously I will do whatever is safest for me and Babysor. Still, if anyone would like to send him some words of encouragement — you know, really lay on the social pressure to flip head down like all the other babies are doing, feel free!
THE STROLLER AND CAR SEAT: We had a 20% off coupon for Babies R Us, and so we went ahead and bought a stroller/car seat set a few weeks ago. As with many of the things I have picked out for baby, this car seat is the #1 safety rated car seat sold in the U.S. I’m not bragging, y’all, I’m just saying that’s why we picked it out! Plus, here are some pics:
Check out the gender neutral color palette! Look how the front wheels pivot in all directions!
The car seat snaps into the stroller, so the stroller is usable even while Babysor is very small.
This is my view peering over the handle of the stroller, so I can see Babysor. That's a lie. This is my view peering over the handle of the stroller while standing on the first step of our stairs. I think I will need platform shoes to actually see the baby clearly when I am pushing the stroller anywhere other than down a flight of stairs. Or, I will just keep to the stairs at all times.
THE HAIRBALL BUMBLEBEE: Sometimes I will email Marcus in the middle of the day to tell him about something amusing that happened during my hours at home, or a trip to Target, or in my brain. As you can imagine, my days at home washing baby clothes and watching HGTV are filled with excitement. But the other day, Marcus was treated to the hairball bumblebee story. I will just copy and paste it here:
I finished my elliptical workout at about 10 AM, right when I was due to check my post-breakfast bloodsugar count. So I sat down on the futon, and was about to start preparing the supplies when I saw a bumble bee hovering under the corner of the coffee table! I screamed and ran out of the room, but oh no! I need my bloodsugar supplies, not to mention my cellphone, which I had also left behind in my mad dash to get out of the room. So I stood in the doorway to see where the bee went. I saw him still hovering in the same spot. How did he get in here? Why does he like the corner of the coffee table so much? I figured that as long as he remained in that same general area, I could probably go around to the other side of the coffee table and quickly grab my monitor and supplies, plus my cellphone, and not get noticed or stung by the bee. So I approached the doorway slowly, and after just getting a step or two into the room, I realized that the bumble bee looked kind of weird… After a moment I realized that it wasn’t a bumble bee at all! It was one of my hairballs, knotted at the center, and dangling from the corner of the coffee table! Still pretty scary, but not dangerous…
For those of you who don’t know, I shed hair like a madman. And this is not the first time that I have mistaken my own hair for something sinister. And before Sam, Clark and Chris start cracking wise, yes, I really do exercise on the elliptical :p It keeps my blood sugar down and my deodorant relevant.
OTHER UPDATES:
1. Marcus has a bad cold. I hope I don’t get sick.
2. One of the scars from my 2007 gall bladder surgery, once deeply hidden in the wrinkled recesses of my belly button, is now located outside of my bellybutton. I wonder what’s going to pop out of my bellybutton next. An old m&m, maybe? A fish hook?
3. Dreyer’s sugar-free mint chocolate chip ice cream, a recent discovery, has made gestational diabetes infinitely more tolerable.
4. I THINK WE’VE DECIDED ON A FIRST NAME FOR THE BABY.
Aug 19
quick update
There haven’t been any updates in awhile, so I figured I’d give a quick rundown of what’s been going on.
- Shona and baby are doing well. We have an ultrasound scheduled for tomorrow morning to check on the baby’s size.
- We have a stroller and car seat.
- Shona mistook one of her hair balls dangling from the coffee table for a bumble bee and ran screaming out of the room.
Jul 14
Cribs
Last week I called Babies R Us to find out if the crib we ordered had come in. It had, so Marcus and I went to pick it up. At the time Mom and I went to the store to order it, we were assured that there was no way in Utah that the box would fit into our modestly sized Rav. But after looking up the box measurements online, and taking a tape measure to the car, we figured (hoped) that if angled just right, we could make it fit. Sure enough, Marcus and the very same girl who told me weeks before that I would need a truck, pretty effortlessly slid the box right into the back of the Rav. I helped by watching from the store window. Yayz! When we got it home, Marcus assembled it while I reclined on the bed and watched TV. We decided to set it up in our master bedroom and keep it there for the first few months, so that I can stare at the baby while I (don’t) sleep.
The mattress was sold separately, and yes, the plastic cover is still on it. We’re not going to take it off and replace it with a crib sheet until the baby comes.
I picked this particular crib after weeks of online research: safety ratings, extensive customer reviews, plus a good jostling of the store display. Initially I thought I wanted a modern style crib, but most of the ones I saw online that I liked either felt flimsy when I went to examine them in the store, or they were not on display in any store at all and thus were not subject to a vigorous jostling!… And some were just too expensive ($950 for the Oeuf Classic — D’oh!).
But when I saw that the crib above got lots and lots of good reviews from customers (one of whom specifically mentioned that the crib is great for short moms), felt very sturdy in the store, looked pretty in person, and was very reasonably priced, I made my decision. And after seeing it at home, assembled, I like it even more than I did in the store. Mom and Dad were kind enough to make this crib their baby gift to us. Thanks, Mom and Dad!
The crib mattress is one I picked after reading that Consumer Reports identified it as the absolute safest mattress your baby can sleep on. I don’t remember the exact wording of the report, but I think it was something like, “If you use this mattress, nothing bad will ever happen to your baby, for his whole life.” SOLD!
Anyway, the next crib pics will feature a baby in them. Just ten weeks to go!
Jun 28
Five Symptoms of the Home Stretch
As of tomorrow, I am officially in my third trimester. And I am huge. Big as a house. My wedding ring doesn’t fit, my chin has a twin… and my feet are holding water like a pink reservoir. My toes, which have always resembled small sausage links, now look like an odd white meat, of indeterminate origin, being squeezed out of an overstuffed burrito.
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I think I am carrying additional babies in my thighs.
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Lately, BabySor has been using my bladder as a bean bag chair, which means whether I have to or not, I feel the urge to pee almost all the time. So I have had to develop a routine for running errands: Whenever I go to the store I pee before leaving the house, pee as soon as I arrive, and then pee again before heading home. I usually manage to do this in the bathroom.
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I am mobility-challenged (to a greater degree than I was pre-pregnancy). This makes high surfaces difficult to get onto, and low surfaces difficult to get up from. Example: Our bed sits higher than most, so for weeks now I have been using the corner of the 38″ Ikea-dresser-turned-nightstand to push myself up high and then drop and roll on the bed. Each night that I am able to land somewhere in the vicinity of Not-On-Top-Of-Marcus, I consider this method a success. Getting out of bed is much easier, though. I just swing my legs downward and voila! I’m standing up.
It’s the opposite story with the couch. It sits much lower than the bed, so I don’t need any leverage to get onto it. But if I choose to recline, then getting up is an adventure! For some reason, I can’t go from lying down to sitting up without five minutes of physical exertion and cursing. And I can’t swing my legs to the side and find myself standing. So instead, I scoot to the very edge of the couch and then try to get up enough momentum to hurl myself on the floor, being careful to land on my knees. I imagine it looks alarming to the observer, and it sure startled Marcus the first couple of times I did it, but as uncontrolled and pathetic as it looks, it is all really quite strategic!
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I don’t know if this is a pregnancy symptom or not, but for days now I have had some very vivid dreams. The one I had two nights ago was the strangest. I dreamed that the baby was only two months old and already talking. At first I was shocked and wondered if this was a sign of something wrong (possession by Satan, maybe) but I quickly concluded that I was just darn lucky to have a baby who could talk to me and tell me what he needed or what was wrong. The other weird thing is that despite having a crib, he was spending all of his sleeping and waking time in a Moses basket on the dresser. At his request, I had the dresser and basket positioned by our open bedroom door so that he could look out and see the rest of the house. I would go off and do things I needed to do, and when I heard him fuss I would go into our room and ask him what he needed. A diaper change? A feeding? Magazine? Open the blinds? At one point I was downstairs doing dishes when I suddenly remembered that for a few minutes I had forgotten I had a baby at all! How long had it been since I checked on him? Frantic, I ran upstairs and rushed to his basket to find him kicking back with his hands clasped behind his head. “Is everything okay?” I cried, still catching my breath. He rolled his eyes at me, sighed, and said, “Ye-ess!”
Duh.
And to think, I foolishly thought I had 16 years before my kid took that tone with me :/
May 07
New, Amazing Ultrasound Pic!
Marcus and I were so excited by our ultrasound videos, that we couldn’t resist trying out those new 3D ultrasounds that everyone is talking about. And the results? WOW! Check it out…
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