Hello readers!
We are 37 weeks! That is insane. Truly.
Things are overall going....well? Considering other people's stories, I have it pretty good. My main ailments revolve around getting bigger, like hip pains, lower back pain, etc. My carpal tunnel in my wrist is flaring up but that could also be the week's worth of rain the northeast just got dumped. My fatigue has been horrible as each day I feel like I could sleep while walking... I guess that is natures way of prepping me for the next 20 years! I have made some adjustments lately so hopefully that improves. Overall I am lucky, I don't have the insomnia, overly frequent urination, heartburn, etc.
My other big symptom lately has been anxiety. As if it hasn't been "real" this whole time, it especially feels real now. IF she waits until full term, then we only have 3 weeks left, (actually by now its 2 weeks and 5 days!!) and thats if she doesn't come early, which she has shown signs of maybe wanting to. I'm thinking (at least hoping) that this is normal for moms this close to delivery to feel. Basically I can't decide what is scarier at this point, her being inside me or her being on the outside living with us.
Last Monday (again with the Monday's) she gave us another scare. I was having contractions on and off Sunday and then came down with this constant abdominal pain that wasn't going away. We figured it was likely the early stages of labor and we went to bed to get a good night's rest, thinking we'd be having a baby Monday. I tried working from home Monday but the pain continued although the contractions faded. I took a nap and the pain continued. I let the doctor know and she told me to rest and try a few stretches to get baby to move. I tried as best I could and went to a cardiology appt that I had, and when I left the cardiologist I just felt dizzy, out of it and still had the pain. I called the doctor again and was told to go to L&D triage. Well, long story short, 6 hours were spent in triage and we didn't leave until 11:30 pm. Our end diagnosis was "heartburn" and I was still in a LOT of pain. I knew it wasn't heartburn, I've had heartburn before throughout my life and know exactly what it feels like. This felt like I was wearing jeans just above my belly button that were way too tight and digging into me, even though there was nothing there. But we were exhausted, I was sore from laying on a stretcher, and were both starving. So we took the diagnosis and left. Tuesday I stayed home from work and rested, the pain continued. I tried yoga, hot shower, resting, lots of water...The pain slightly subsided. I went to get groceries and was practically gripping the shopping cart with white knuckles in pain. I went home and rested some more. Eventually the pain subsided on its own, but it really got me thinking, at what point do you really start raising the alarm? It's not just me and my body anymore, I am a mom now and need to advocate for my daughter. At what point is it just to keep calling the doctors because you are in pain even though they diagnosed you with "heartburn"? I hate being "that" person that doctors roll their eyes at, but they're also not living in my body and feeling my pain. I know its not OK to listen to horror stories online, but how can you avoid them? I hear these stories of mom with weird symptoms that ended up being a matter of life or death for their baby, and they caught it just in time thanks to the mom continuously fighting for their unborn child. It really is hard knowing at what point to trust yourself or to just the doctors. I work in and receive healthcare from a state of the art hospital and healthcare system which I know is a blessing in comparison to other healthcare institutions in my area that I could not say the same for. But it is still terrifying.
So yeah, these last few weeks are anxiety driven as I worry for her health. I go weekly to the doctor and so much technology exists to monitor unborn children, but I know how fast things can take a turn for the worse. I just am terrified I will miss a symptom and not know she's in danger. I've always been fascinated by healthcare technology and I want all the tests done because I want to know as much about her as possible! Her size, her weight, etc. She always passes her kick counts, but then there are those days where she just isn't moving as much and you can see the anxiety all over my face and my tensed body on those days. I just have had horrible nightmares of her not making it or something horribly wrong with her health and I cannot imagine coming all this way and not getting to meet her and bring her home. I just cannot. I addressed these horrible fears with the doctor and she offered anti-anxiety medicine. As if. You would need to put me in a coma to get rid of my anxiety, and frankly I would think any new mom would say that! Its natural to be concerned, and I wouldn't want to be a happy go lucky zombie walking around thats not concerned about her child's health.
But that brings me to her being born! Let's skip over the whole labor and delivery part, I know thats full of many anxious thoughts I won't bring up now. Let's skip right to the day when we bring her home. I know my anxiety will continue. That's natural for a mom with a new baby. But being so close to this point, I am trying to visualize our life with a newborn and the next year ahead. I know our life will change drastically and its hard imagining those scenarios and how we will cope until we're in the middle of it living it. We both want to do everything right, but like any new parent, we also have no idea what we are doing. I'm not sure yet how I am going to sleep, especially that first week, and trust that she's okay, alive and breathing. I remember babysitting infants and sometimes would just watch them breathe as they slept to ensure they were okay. But I hope that anxiety fades in time. But even the years to come, It's going to be hard controlling my anxiety with any ailment the child has. She will cough and I will be worried its tuberculosis. Okay thats extreme, but you get my point. With my huge imagination mixed with my anxiety, you can probably guess I've always been a little bit of a hypochondriac myself. And this extends to those I love also. When my husband has a health issue or a close family member, I always feel like I need to err on the side of caution and I think of all the horrible things it could be. I think this stems from a fear of guilt, from imagining if I were wrong or downplayed their concerns or symptoms and then it ended up being something deadly or serious. I think the same thing applies with my future child. As a nurse myself, I fear that if I downplay their symptom, what If it does turn out to be very serious and I ignored it?
We have picked out our pediatrician and he has helped to ease my anxiety. He has been in practice for almost 30 years and seems to really know his stuff and has good instinct. I trust that and hope we will be a good match.
Overall, we cannot wait to meet her. To see what she looks like. To bring her home and start living our lives as a family of three (6 with the pets!) and to start seeing and experiences those miracles and her milestones. We can't wait to start living life through her eyes and experiencing all life has to offer with a child, showing her all the things we love. But I know the next couple months are going to be the most challenging of them all also. We are very blessed to have a lot of support with friends and family very close by and just a text or call away, so I am thankful for that.
Thank you for sticking with it with a long post with me. It helps to just get all of this out, even just for my sanity! Now we are going to go on a walk :-)
Happy Saturday!
Love, the New Motherboard. <3
Saturday, July 28, 2018
Saturday, July 21, 2018
Creating Her Nursery
Hello!
We are officially "near term" at 36 weeks! So if labor started now, theres no delaying or prolonging it! Thats insane. I can't believe how fast the time has gone. Each milestone in the pregnancy, from finding we were pregnant December 11th, 2017 today feels so long ago yet like yesterday at the same time.
She gave us a little bit of a scare last Monday when I started having contractions bad enough that seemed worth calling the doctor for. The doctor sends me to L&D triage, who at first pretty much brushed us off as totally fine but thought we could run some tests anyway. Turns out contractions were real, coming at around every 10 minutes or so and I was 1cm dilated, 80% effaced! For those not familiar with these terms (I really wasn't either til last Monday), the baby is ready to start pushing out at 10 cm. Effacement goes up to 100% and is speaking of how thin your cervix is. The thinner it is, (100%), the closer you are til baby comes out. So I seemed to be in questionable labor. We waited and waited longer in triage to see if I would progress (even got a hot stylish gown and robe and we walked the hallways) but alas, we did not progress and actually the contractions seemed to have stopped on their own. Baby Tan was like, wait no- Nevermind- not ready yet! So home we went. Ever since then we sort of have had whipped our butts into gear to finalize getting ready for babies arrival.
So that brings me to my topic, the progress of our nursery being put together!
Creating the art was one of my favorite parts. We chose a theme of Disney's Frozen, as we both are pretty big Disney nerds, we both like it cold (no really she's gonna get used to being chilly quick so we may as well put snowflakes in her room), and we love Anna, Elsa, Sven and Olaf. We also had to buy the paint when it was on sale, and at the time did not know the gender yet. We genuinely guessed it was a boy so we went with blue, and thought if it was a girl we can girly it up with a feminine touches throughout the room.
So with the frozen theme I wanted to create portraits of those favorite four characters. Here is the beginning of each and the ending:
Anna:
Elsa:
Sven:
Olaf:
The rest involved a little more hands on construction. When we moved in, the room that we converted to the nursery was a spare bedroom that likely hadn't been updated since the house was built in 1987. The carpet was stained, smelled, the paint was just a base white, and it just lacked any personality. Also the fan on top looked to be original with the house also!
So out came the carpet, in went the laminate floor, and painted the walls:
Then came the furniture (only minor amounts of cursing and tantrums involved), and decorations, and we have a finished product!! Special parts of this photo: The quilt atop our changing table is made by my very talented friend Jess who makes thousands of quilts and I am honored to have our little girl grow up with her own! Its designed to be Anna's dress and the back of it is Elsa's (we plan to rotate). Check out her website here: The Quilty Habit
The artwork:
The closet! A little messy right now as we are still organizing what goes where...
The crib! Next to it is a very special gift, Jasper. I grew up with Jasper! My grandpa made it for me when I was about 2 years old and It has stayed with me my whole life. It then stayed at my parents house when I moved out, and my mother gifted it to me (well, my daughter) now at her baby shower. Now she can grow up with it, and hopefully pass it along to her child also one day. Very special!
We are so lucky and so blessed to have been gifted with so many wonderful additions to the nursery, our baby girl is so lucky to have so many friends and family that love her so much! We also were very fortunate to be pregnant when Babies R Us is going out of business and we got much of the furniture brand new at a very discounted price! Can't beat it.
Few more additions coming as we finish up some more pieces of artwork for her, and I can't wait to show you!
We are absolutely stoked to meet her and can't wait. Although the calendar states we have to wait four weeks, I think it will be more like 2! But we will see!
With love,
The New Motherboard <3
We are officially "near term" at 36 weeks! So if labor started now, theres no delaying or prolonging it! Thats insane. I can't believe how fast the time has gone. Each milestone in the pregnancy, from finding we were pregnant December 11th, 2017 today feels so long ago yet like yesterday at the same time.
She gave us a little bit of a scare last Monday when I started having contractions bad enough that seemed worth calling the doctor for. The doctor sends me to L&D triage, who at first pretty much brushed us off as totally fine but thought we could run some tests anyway. Turns out contractions were real, coming at around every 10 minutes or so and I was 1cm dilated, 80% effaced! For those not familiar with these terms (I really wasn't either til last Monday), the baby is ready to start pushing out at 10 cm. Effacement goes up to 100% and is speaking of how thin your cervix is. The thinner it is, (100%), the closer you are til baby comes out. So I seemed to be in questionable labor. We waited and waited longer in triage to see if I would progress (even got a hot stylish gown and robe and we walked the hallways) but alas, we did not progress and actually the contractions seemed to have stopped on their own. Baby Tan was like, wait no- Nevermind- not ready yet! So home we went. Ever since then we sort of have had whipped our butts into gear to finalize getting ready for babies arrival.
So that brings me to my topic, the progress of our nursery being put together!
Creating the art was one of my favorite parts. We chose a theme of Disney's Frozen, as we both are pretty big Disney nerds, we both like it cold (no really she's gonna get used to being chilly quick so we may as well put snowflakes in her room), and we love Anna, Elsa, Sven and Olaf. We also had to buy the paint when it was on sale, and at the time did not know the gender yet. We genuinely guessed it was a boy so we went with blue, and thought if it was a girl we can girly it up with a feminine touches throughout the room.
So with the frozen theme I wanted to create portraits of those favorite four characters. Here is the beginning of each and the ending:
Anna:
Elsa:
Sven:
Olaf:
The rest involved a little more hands on construction. When we moved in, the room that we converted to the nursery was a spare bedroom that likely hadn't been updated since the house was built in 1987. The carpet was stained, smelled, the paint was just a base white, and it just lacked any personality. Also the fan on top looked to be original with the house also!
So out came the carpet, in went the laminate floor, and painted the walls:
Then came the furniture (only minor amounts of cursing and tantrums involved), and decorations, and we have a finished product!! Special parts of this photo: The quilt atop our changing table is made by my very talented friend Jess who makes thousands of quilts and I am honored to have our little girl grow up with her own! Its designed to be Anna's dress and the back of it is Elsa's (we plan to rotate). Check out her website here: The Quilty Habit
The artwork:
The closet! A little messy right now as we are still organizing what goes where...
The crib! Next to it is a very special gift, Jasper. I grew up with Jasper! My grandpa made it for me when I was about 2 years old and It has stayed with me my whole life. It then stayed at my parents house when I moved out, and my mother gifted it to me (well, my daughter) now at her baby shower. Now she can grow up with it, and hopefully pass it along to her child also one day. Very special!
We are so lucky and so blessed to have been gifted with so many wonderful additions to the nursery, our baby girl is so lucky to have so many friends and family that love her so much! We also were very fortunate to be pregnant when Babies R Us is going out of business and we got much of the furniture brand new at a very discounted price! Can't beat it.
Few more additions coming as we finish up some more pieces of artwork for her, and I can't wait to show you!
We are absolutely stoked to meet her and can't wait. Although the calendar states we have to wait four weeks, I think it will be more like 2! But we will see!
With love,
The New Motherboard <3
Wednesday, July 4, 2018
Dreaming Big
Hello Readers!
Happy fourth of July!
Might I start off by stating that this week hubby and I were joking that next baby needs to be an early spring baby. Not in the middle of a snowstorm, but I can be 7-9 months pregnant in the cold and not in this drastic heat! It's been awful. Even staying indoors is challenging as our AC can only do so much without breaking! It's nice to dream at least, I know baby #2 will happen whenever it's meant to be. It's even a joke that we are thinking about baby #2 yet! (I swear we aren't, just joking it needs to be a winter baby.
Otherwise, I am 34 weeks!! It's INSANE. It's terrifying that baby could come any time now. I know its early still, but in TWO weeks is the mark where they wouldn't try and stop early labor. On June 25th I saw a Reiki therapist ( I highly recommend trying it!) who predicted my baby was coming in 4 weeks (so, like 2.5 weeks from now). We shall see!
My main symptoms have been my 3 ribs are "out of place" according to the chiropractor due to my expanding body and lungs shifting. So all day my upper left back feels numb and tingly and at night its excrutiating pain. But besides that, I am feeling great. Seriously way better than the first and second trimesters. I could honestly do this trimester for the whole nine months instead of go through the 1st and 2nd again.
As for baby, she's in the 73rd percentile! She's about 5 lbs and is very healthy. Going to be a big baby (scared & terrified emoji here please). One of my favorite parts about pregnancy that I have noticed, especially recently, is that when I am very happy, like when a favorite song comes on, or I am eating a favorite food, or I'm with great company, or whatever, she moves so much. Like she senses my joy and is celebrating it too. Could be a coincidence but I don't think so!
Anyway, this post is about dreams. I have had the most ridiculous dreams in this pregnancy and some are hilarious. I wanted to share and hope you have some laughs too! Please feel free any mamas out there any funny pregnant dreams you remember!
The latest & greatest (last night):
All the sudden we had this ginormous house with like 5 floors and hundreds of rooms. For some reason we had like a crazy amount of kids like 20 or something crazy. So here I am in my dream searching for my husband and I finally found him on one of the upper floors hiding, and he had made a little man cave. So I decided to make my own woman cave too. And he is like, well who is watching the kids? And I was like, I don't know, I'm trying to hide from them! And he is like, "me too!" so then the dogs found us and we were all hiding together and we were telling the dogs not to bark so that the kids couldn't find us!! Hah! What does that mean? Don't have 20 kids I guess...
Next-
We went into labour at home, and for some reason that wasn't really a big deal in my dream. We had the baby and it was like a piece of cake like we did this every day. So we put her up in her crib, and we go back downstairs and watch TV for a few hours. Then eventually I am like, do you think I should feed her? And my husband shrugs and is like, probably... So I go to get her from the crib and see she's sleeping with a blanket and I'm like OMG they're not supposed to sleep with blankets! (Great time to start parenting). So I feed her and then I go back downstairs and I ask my husband, "So if she was born this early do you think we should take her to the hospital or anything to get checked?" I can't even these dreams are cray...
Most of my others are pretty vague and just general concepts. I had one where we were on a long plane ride and I just laid her on the seat next to me (not even a seatbelt lol). I got up to go talk to people and came back and she was just sleeping there, and other passengers were like, do you think you should hold her? And I'm like oh shoot I forgot she was there! Lol.
Then I've had a few vague dreams where I'm supposed to watch someone else's baby and I suddenly realize I have no idea what I'm doing, and If I can't babysit how am I going to be a mom???
Dreams overall are pretty funny and are no reflection of who we really are or how we will really act (god I hope so at least!). I think they highlight our worst and greatest fears but who knows why..maybe to show us that even though we think we are messing up in real life, we know we will never actually be that bad as we let ourselves be in our dreams?
I will likely even add to this post as I dream more, but please comment with your own funny dreams! I'm sure we all have the same themes and plot lines as pregnant women! I've heard other themes like forgetting you have a baby and not attending to it for days, or losing the baby, etc.
Thanks for reading!
Love,
The New Motherboard
Happy fourth of July!
Might I start off by stating that this week hubby and I were joking that next baby needs to be an early spring baby. Not in the middle of a snowstorm, but I can be 7-9 months pregnant in the cold and not in this drastic heat! It's been awful. Even staying indoors is challenging as our AC can only do so much without breaking! It's nice to dream at least, I know baby #2 will happen whenever it's meant to be. It's even a joke that we are thinking about baby #2 yet! (I swear we aren't, just joking it needs to be a winter baby.
Otherwise, I am 34 weeks!! It's INSANE. It's terrifying that baby could come any time now. I know its early still, but in TWO weeks is the mark where they wouldn't try and stop early labor. On June 25th I saw a Reiki therapist ( I highly recommend trying it!) who predicted my baby was coming in 4 weeks (so, like 2.5 weeks from now). We shall see!
My main symptoms have been my 3 ribs are "out of place" according to the chiropractor due to my expanding body and lungs shifting. So all day my upper left back feels numb and tingly and at night its excrutiating pain. But besides that, I am feeling great. Seriously way better than the first and second trimesters. I could honestly do this trimester for the whole nine months instead of go through the 1st and 2nd again.
As for baby, she's in the 73rd percentile! She's about 5 lbs and is very healthy. Going to be a big baby (scared & terrified emoji here please). One of my favorite parts about pregnancy that I have noticed, especially recently, is that when I am very happy, like when a favorite song comes on, or I am eating a favorite food, or I'm with great company, or whatever, she moves so much. Like she senses my joy and is celebrating it too. Could be a coincidence but I don't think so!
Anyway, this post is about dreams. I have had the most ridiculous dreams in this pregnancy and some are hilarious. I wanted to share and hope you have some laughs too! Please feel free any mamas out there any funny pregnant dreams you remember!
The latest & greatest (last night):
All the sudden we had this ginormous house with like 5 floors and hundreds of rooms. For some reason we had like a crazy amount of kids like 20 or something crazy. So here I am in my dream searching for my husband and I finally found him on one of the upper floors hiding, and he had made a little man cave. So I decided to make my own woman cave too. And he is like, well who is watching the kids? And I was like, I don't know, I'm trying to hide from them! And he is like, "me too!" so then the dogs found us and we were all hiding together and we were telling the dogs not to bark so that the kids couldn't find us!! Hah! What does that mean? Don't have 20 kids I guess...
Next-
We went into labour at home, and for some reason that wasn't really a big deal in my dream. We had the baby and it was like a piece of cake like we did this every day. So we put her up in her crib, and we go back downstairs and watch TV for a few hours. Then eventually I am like, do you think I should feed her? And my husband shrugs and is like, probably... So I go to get her from the crib and see she's sleeping with a blanket and I'm like OMG they're not supposed to sleep with blankets! (Great time to start parenting). So I feed her and then I go back downstairs and I ask my husband, "So if she was born this early do you think we should take her to the hospital or anything to get checked?" I can't even these dreams are cray...
Most of my others are pretty vague and just general concepts. I had one where we were on a long plane ride and I just laid her on the seat next to me (not even a seatbelt lol). I got up to go talk to people and came back and she was just sleeping there, and other passengers were like, do you think you should hold her? And I'm like oh shoot I forgot she was there! Lol.
Then I've had a few vague dreams where I'm supposed to watch someone else's baby and I suddenly realize I have no idea what I'm doing, and If I can't babysit how am I going to be a mom???
Dreams overall are pretty funny and are no reflection of who we really are or how we will really act (god I hope so at least!). I think they highlight our worst and greatest fears but who knows why..maybe to show us that even though we think we are messing up in real life, we know we will never actually be that bad as we let ourselves be in our dreams?
I will likely even add to this post as I dream more, but please comment with your own funny dreams! I'm sure we all have the same themes and plot lines as pregnant women! I've heard other themes like forgetting you have a baby and not attending to it for days, or losing the baby, etc.
Thanks for reading!
Love,
The New Motherboard
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