monsters at bed time

This is either a terrible parenting moment that I'll deeply regret or a genius parenting moment which uses the power of the fairy tale in a magical and effective way.

Gemma (nearly four years old) has been resisting bed time with every ounce of her being. I've once before told her that monsters will come after bed time and check to make sure she's in bed. If she's in bed, they'll leave her alone. She brought the subject up again. She was refusing to change into her pajamas and said "will the monsters come?" I said, "Oh yes. Monsters come and check to make sure you have your pajamas on." (desperate parenting maneuver on my part.) The discussion continued about what the monsters will do, etc, etc. The end of the conversation was this:

Me: "The monsters come after Mommy and Daddy leave your room and they check to make sure that you're in bed and have your pajamas on. If you don't, they will scare you. If you're in bed and have your pajamas on, they leave you alone and go check the next little girl to make sure she's in bed."

My husband comes in the room and Gemma tells him, "Mommy said that monsters will come to make sure I'm in bed and have my pajamas on."

He says, "Oh, I'm sure she didn't say that. There's no monsters."

I said, "Well, um, yeah, I kind of did say that."

Miracle of miracles, Gemma and Oona were in bed by seven o'clock - light out and pajamas on. I'm sure the monsters were both disappointed they couldn't scare them and happy that they were being good little girls.

(And my apologies go out to friends if Gemma tells them that monsters come at bed time. What works for one little girl may completely backfire for another.)

26 weeks

this is when

i could still see my toes.

i can't see my toes anymore.



and after enjoying some cake, my blood sugar the next morning was high. no more sweet indulgences for me.

24 weeks

I've made it to 24 weeks now. I had an ultrasound this morning and besides a little extra weight gain, everything looks good. No change in the placenta, and baby's growth is right on track. He has super long fingers. Wonder if he'll have my hands? Or a masculine version, that is.

It's amazing how tired I get but I'm still hanging in there. I have good days and hard days, but isn't that true anyway?

I've been thinking a lot about the challenges of being a good mother and wanting a career. Being "only a Mom" isn't very valued by many and the expectation to be both super Mom and super career woman is a hard one to live up to. My career is very important to me as are my kids. It's hard not to feel like your life is on hold in these pregnant and early baby years. Career is such a huge part of definition of self - the ego especially thinks so. I keep trying to think of it from what my perspective might be as an eighty year old. Something tells me family and children and grand children will be much more important than any career accomplishments (those will be important, too, but family connections will trump them).

I've been sitting and knitting and crocheting a lot. We got a new lap top so I have to figure out getting the camera hooked up to it. Once I do that, I'll post about those kinds of happenings, too. Pictures have been missing too much from this blog.

almost twenty two weeks

Tuesday marks twenty-two weeks. This is the time in Oona's pregnancy when I went on partial bed rest. I use the term bed rest loosely. I never actually had to stay in bed. Instead I had to sit on the couch. Riding in the car, folding laundry, picking up, etc, would all cause five to ten minute contractions - not something you really look for at twenty-two and a half weeks. Even if you have a lot of Braxton Hicks contractions, having them that frequently and regularly isn't very typical.

Last week we took a family trip to a lake about an hour and a half away. That took some recovery time. I could barely move by the end of the day. Luckily regular contractions haven't set in but I'd rather be cautious then go through what I did with Oona. Having your bum glued to the couch for three months is not easy.

Even as a whine about being pregnant, I keep reminding myself that it's not as bad as it was with Oona. First of all, that winter we had a ton of snow. I don't think I went further than the front porch for about six weeks. Doctor's appointments were the only place I went. Second, I had left my job under bizarre circumstances a couple months before I got pregnant. My work friends ended up being just that - friends you are happy to see when you see them but that you don't really see outside work. Those three months on the couch were nearly completely isolated months. Phone calls to my sister and knitting every couple weeks with a knitting friend I had made were all that kept me sane. Conversations with my husband were reserved for the end of the day and I was lucky if he could stay awake. Those three months were some of the hardest I've ever had.

Approaching twenty two and a half weeks has made me think about that time quite a bit. This time around, though, my contractions haven't settled into any frequency or regularity, thanks, I think, to taking Prometrium. I have friends that I can count on and knowing that is sanity saving. I'm sitting a lot (and my bum is growing as a result) but I'm not glued to the couch. The hour and a half in the car was really too long but shorter trips are manageable - tiring but they don't lead to hours and hours of regularly spaced contractions. Pregnancy is not an easy state for me but as I know from experience, could be worse! Even if I do have to go on bed rest (heaven forbid), I know I won't be so isolated like I was. I'm hoping that I can keep it at just taking it easy and avoid the whole bed rest concept.

Did I mention I was taking care of a one year old when I was on bed rest with Oona? Gemma went from 14 months to 17 months during that time. This time around I'd have a two year old and a three or four year old. That just sounds too nutty to even think about.

week 20

I've made it half way. 20 or so more weeks to go, knock on wood. I had my ultrasound on Monday. Good news is that it's a healthy boy! Possibly good or possibly bad news is that I have a circumvallate placenta which either causes no problems or some pretty serious complications. If you google it, you get lots of worst case scenario cases including mention of it causing infant or maternal mortality - just what a pregnant person should be thinking about. I was given the advice today to stay far far far away from the internet. Anyways, there are also a lot of women who safely deliver healthy babies with no complications in spite of this particular abnormality in the placenta. I admit to being thrown for a loop by the diagnosis. All the ghosts of pregnancies past reared their ugly heads again as well as feeling jinxed when it comes to pregnancy. Why can't I have a completely normal low risk pregnancy? Am I going to have third trimester bleeding? Will I have to be on bed rest? Will I have pre-term labor with hospitalized bed rest - very scary thought? C-section? Hemmorhaging? Placental abruption?

After a restless night, I'm able to kind of accept it as a what is and am less caught up with the what ifs. I could potentially have a full term pregnancy and a crisis free delivery. Or I could not, which I will deal with if that possibility becomes an actuality. Worrying about it will not help and will not change anything - besides adding more adrenaline to my system and causing the baby to be more stressed out, too. I tell Gemma that it is okay to have an ow-ie. She's okay, the world is not ending. The same advice goes to me. Even if things don't turn out exactly as I hope, I will be okay. Still, I'll rest much more easily once I've crossed that finish line and am holding a baby in my arms.

pregnancy furnace

Does anybody know how to stop the Chinese comments? My husband can kind of read them and they're spam of some sort. I'm getting really annoyed with constantly deleting them.

Last night the pregnancy furnace turned on. I've been doing pretty well temperature wise up until now. In fact I've been more cold than not cold. Last night, I had to get up and take a cold shower and then sleep with no pajamas trying to catch the breeze coming from the window. My head is right next to the window so the breeze blew on my wet head and I was finally able to fall back asleep. A couple hours later, it got chilly enough, I had to get up and put my pajamas back on.

I'm finding it really stressful to be at home right now. It's just a constant reminder of what needs to get done and isn't. I'm scared to overdo it and end up with contractions so I get to look at dust bunnies, disgusting carpet, piles of toys, and unmopped up spills. I'm wondering how the boys would react if I wrote up a list of chores...

nearly eighteen weeks

Tomorrow will be eighteen weeks, twenty-two (or so) to go. I have not been successful at being a cheerful pregnant person. Thank goodness the girls are playing right now instead of climbing on me. It's a nice break.

The progesterone (Prometrium) supplements are really helping with the contractions. I sleep more soundly, too, even though I have plenty of crazy dreams. I'm able to do a lot more than I could before I was taking it. I'm still pretty exhausted by the end of the day, though, even with the little that I do manage to do. I think that contributes to the crankiness. I don't like feeling unproductive. Growing a baby is technically productive, but it's hard to feel that way sometimes.

I was talking to another pregnant Mom the other day. She was saying the part she was dreading the most is going through labor. I'm the exact opposite. I'm dreading pregnancy and am looking forward to labor and birth and no longer being pregnant any more. At least in labor you're actively doing something instead of passively gestating. Once you're in labor and then the baby is born, then you can feel like you can get on with things. Pregnancy is such a time of waiting, getting bigger and bigger, growing more and more uncomfortable. I keep whining to myself about how much I hate being pregnant, then a quick reminder to myself and the baby that even though I hate being pregnant, it is much much better to stay pregnant until January. I don't want to manifest a miscarriage or pre-term baby because of my negative thoughts about being pregnant. That wouldn't be good.

Sorry for the whiney post. Twenty-two weeks (or so) to go... I think I can, I think I can, I think I can - just like the little blue engine.