Ask, and you shall receive

Well, my dear readers, here are my answers to your questions! Thanks so much for your interest in how our little family is doing.

A lot of people wanted to know what the dealio is with dental school. (God, I hate when people say "dealio". Count your blessings, though, I could have said "dizzle".) I am most definitely going back. I plan to start auditing some classes this fall-- hopefully over the internet and not in person, so that I can still care for Caroline until I start back up in clinic. I will start officially in early January, right where I left off when I took my leave of absence due to preterm contractions. So, I will graduate with the class of 2011 rather than the class of 2010. The idea of being a year "behind" honestly doesn't bother me anymore. It did at first, when I was still pregnant, but now that I have Caroline? Doesn't even register on the scale of Stuff That Bugs Me. Having and raising her is a far bigger accomplishment than my DMD will be. And yes, that sappy statement would have totally made me gag before I had her, but I didn't even blink typing it just now.

While I was pregnant, one of my biggest worries was that having a baby would make me not want to be a dentist anymore, because I suspected that parenthood would change my priorities. And while the idea of sending her to daycare and missing out on her smiles does get me all choked up, I really and truly do still want to finish dental school and go to work afterwards. I will always treasure this year that I was given to spend with her, but I want to be able to provide things for her that I could never give her as a stay-at-home mom-- international travel, private schooling if she needs it, any kind of lessons or activities she wants, a paid-for college education. Besides, I've racked up so much student loan debt and worked so hard towards this goal that it just wouldn't be practical or desirable for me to stay at home. I can definitely see why some moms choose to stay home with their babies, because that is just as a precious of a gift in its own way. I just don't think that it's the right choice for me, personally, to be one of them.

Others wanted to know how my relationship with Tyler has changed. I had to think long and hard about this one. It was definitely difficult during my pregnancy. It took him a long time to get excited about it... at times, I wondered whether he ever would. But once Caroline arrived, and especially while she was in the NICU, he was my rock. He loves that little girl so much. One of the best part of becoming parents, I think, is watching each other be parents. I have never felt so in love with him as I have watching him sing to Caroline, or tickle her, or rock her when she cries.

But, I don't know that I can really say our relationship is any weaker or stronger now that she is here. Life changes 2000% when you have a child, but we are still who we are, and we love each other in the same way. I hope that doesn't seem like a cop-out answer, because I don't know how else to articulate it. Our day-to-day life and priorities have changed completely, but we still lean on each other and laugh together just exactly like we always did. All the external things are different, but internally, our relationship is still fundamentally the same, know what I mean? We always wanted to have children someday, so I guess the fact that Caroline came much sooner than we planned didn't cause any long-term problems between us. We both accepted my pregnancy in our own time, and now she's here, and it's hard to remember what it was like when it was just the two of us, because we are so happy as three. Aside from her prematurity and reflux, she has been an incredibly easy baby, so I'm sure that has played a big part in our relatively smooth adjustment to parenthood.

Do we still have moments where we long for our old life, or feel that we weren't quite ready for all this responsibility? Do we occasionally wish that we'd had more time as just the two of us before we'd added to our family? Sure we do. Maybe I'm not supposed to admit that out loud. But in any case, those moments are few and far between, because now that we have Caroline, imagining a life where she had never existed is unthinkable. And it might help that we both feel that way and don't feel uncomfortable telling each other so. There are no misunderstandings or hard feelings there-- we were thrown into this together, and we are both doing the best we can.

I'm not saying we haven't had some hard times. Having a baby can be difficult on the best of marriages, and I sometimes resented the fact that my life was completely turned upside down as far as my career goes, while Tyler's went on relatively undisturbed. It was tough to adjust to suddenly going from the whirlwind of clinic to the quiet of our apartment, and then the isolation of new motherhood. And sometimes I've probably taken it out on him, and he has been impatient with my resistance to the change, but he's taken it in stride and done his best to help me out, and in the end, I see in him the wonderful father that I knew he would be.

If there is anything that has made our relationship stronger, I would say it hasn't been parenting itself, but rather the NICU experience. We were handed a huge challenge right off the bat, and we really had to support each other just so that we could get through it. Tyler was strong and comforted me while I struggled for days, and then the night she was transferred, he reached his breaking point and it was my turn to step up for him. We made it through together, because of each other. Any parent who has had a child hospitalized will tell you that there is a lot of potential for misunderstandings and hurt feelings and disagreements, but we managed to get by without a single problem between us. Those two weeks probably strengthened us more than eight months of pregnancy and the past seven months of parenting ever could.

As for our future plans, I will be done with dental school in June of 2011, and Tyler will be done with his PhD in June of 2012. I will probably do a one-year residency in general dentistry somewhere near New Haven, where he is in school, and then we will go wherever his career takes us after he graduates. It's looking like Denver is the most promising prospect for him to get a post-doc and then a job, but since it's a few years away we are not entirely sure yet. He is pretty famous in his field (you may have seen him before on his National Geographic special!), so he shouldn't have trouble finding work-- several institutions have already contacted him about possibilities for the future. And of course, I can be a dentist anywhere, so I have always planned to follow him wherever he chooses to go.

Diagnosis

I debated about whether or not I should blog about this, because I know that some people I know in real life read my blog. But I guess I've blogged about every other aspect of my pregnancy/motherhood, and what I'm about to say really isn't anything to be ashamed of, so, here goes.

I've been feeling really crappy lately. I'm not sure when it started. I was feeling okay for awhile, or maybe I was just too busy and worried about Caroline to notice. I also kind of assumed that it was just a situational thing, because I had to make such a big adjustment in moving from school to staying at home, and all the other changes having a baby brings to your life. And, you know, it's pretty isolating to stay at home with a baby when all of your friends are either far away or in an intense dental program... and none of them are even thinking about having babies of their own.

It wasn't just that, though... ever since we brought Caroline home from the NICU, I've been having nightmares. Horrible dreams that she's dead in the bed with me. I wake up several times a night from the same dream, digging frantically in the blankets for her because I'm convinced that she's in there. And I think about the NICU and the midnight transfer in the ambulance all the time. I still cry about it every day. It was a traumatic experience, for sure, but still feeling like this just doesn't seem normal to me. I was hoping that all this would go away with time, but it just... hasn't.

So, I was going to my OB today anyway because I was having an issue with my IUD. I brought up my concerns with the nurse practitioner and she left the room for a long time. When she came back, she told me that the OB on call wanted me to go to a psychiatrist across the street, and that they could see me immediately. I went over there, feeling kind of like I had done something wrong and lost my recess.

I talked to the psychiatrist for a long time, over an hour. When she was done asking me questions (questions that included things like "can you tell me today's date" and "what do apples and oranges have in common"... ummm... I'm not that far gone, lady), she put her clipboard down and said:

"I think you have post-traumatic stress disorder, and moderate to severe postpartum depression. You went through a very traumatic experience, what with having your new baby in the hospital in uncertain condition, right in the middle of a mess of postpartum hormones and physical pain. You've had to continue struggling with her health and weight gain, and to give up breastfeeding for a much more mechanical, demanding way of feeding her. You're continuing to torture yourself with all this pumping in order to try to live up to this unattainable ideal that our society has of the perfect mother, who gives her baby breastmilk, no matter what. You had to suddenly leave your program and all its activity and human interaction to stay at home with your baby, with no friends who understand what your new life is like. On top of it all, your pregnancy was unexpected, you say you were an anxious person to begin with, and depression runs in your family. How could you not be depressed?"

Well. I have to say, she heard me. It felt like a huge weight was lifted, that somebody understood me. I've sort of brought it up with Tyler and my mom, but Tyler just said "she's healthy now, why is it still bothering you?" and my mom just gave me a look that I couldn't quite read. So, it was such a relief just to have someone tell me that it was okay to feel sad. In general, I try not to think about any of that, because I don't have time for self-pity and it doesn't do anything for me anyway. But clearly ignoring it isn't helping, so I have to try something else.

She suggested that I start two medications, check in with her over the phone while we're in ND, start counseling once we get back, and quit pumping. I told her I was fine with all of that except the pumping, and that I just can't quite do that yet, I'd feel too guilty. She went over to her desk, handed me a picture of a really pretty girl about my age, and said "this is my baby. I had to quit breastfeeding her after one month. And you know what? She's fine. She's great. How you feed your baby is just one tiny part of being a good mother. You've done everything you can for four months... do what's best for you, but also know that maybe it's time to give it up in order to focus on all the other very important pieces of the puzzle."

So, that might be happening in the near future, I haven't decided yet. All in all, I'm so glad that I said something to the nurse at the OB. Maybe the medication will help me feel more like myself. All I can do is try it, right? So... wish me luck!

My body, postpartum (dun dun dunnn)

You knew this was coming from me eventually!

I expected having a baby to totally trash my body. I mean, it sounds horrible, right? Growing a 7ish-pound person in there and then pushing it out your vag, or having it pulled out through a cut in your belly? (Some days I still can't believe I actually did that and lived to tell about it. It's all very Alien.) I've never been good about weight gain. I tend to get very upset, so this was one of the things I was really worried about.

But I came through it pretty much unscathed, in the long run. I obsessed over my weight gain the entire pregnancy, but from the day I found out I was pregnant to the day I delivered, I gained an unexciting 28 pounds. (Keep in mind, though, that I delivered at exactly 8 months pregnant.) I somehow didn't get any stretch marks, even though I have some from puberty so I know I'm predisposed to them. I'm still kind of chubby-looking, but most of the weight has come off without doing anything more than breastfeeding, eating reasonably, and halfheartedly jogging from time to time. (I'm about 5 pounds up from my pre-pregnancy weight, although I've lost a lot of muscle tone so that number sounds a lot better than it looks.)

A lot of the weight comes off directly after giving birth, and then it kind of stalls. I swear, at least 10 pounds of my weight must have been water, because about a week after giving birth I looked at my ankles in the shower and they were THERE again. I almost fell over in shock. They looked like sticks to me. I hadn't seen them in so long.

Even with weight loss, though, your body ends up being shaped totally differently. Your hips spread, at least if you deliver vaginally (I can't speak for the C-section mommas). Weight seems to be distributed differently. Your old jeans don't have a prayer of fitting. I've also still got that sweet linea nigra running down my belly, along with an attractive little kangaroo pouch due to stretching of skin and muscle. Probably nothing that about a thousand situps couldn't fix, if I ever had the motivation or energy to do them (I do not), although my belly button will probably always look slightly weird.

Overall, it wasn't nearly as bad as I imagined it to be. Which is good, because I am very vain and selfish like that. I'm hoping that by summertime I should be able to fit into my old clothes, because I really don't want to have to buy a new wardrobe! (Well, okay, I do, but not because I'm too large for my old stuff.)

Still-- it doesn't help when "friends" say things like "Oh look! You have a butt now! You never used to have a butt." (Insert Death Stare here. I'm getting a lot of use out of that thing lately.)

I'd post a "belly" picture, but Caroline is sleeping in the room that has the full-length mirror, and I don't want to wake the beast. I can tell you, though, that it looks absolutely nothing like this... (Quit sucking it in, you bitch.)

Meet Mirena, my new BFF

Well, yesterday I got my IUD! I was a little freaked out about getting it put in, because back when I was in undergrad I tried to get the Paragard and it hurt when they measured my uterus before insertion (my uterus was too small, so I didn't end up getting it at the time). But my Mirena insertion yesterday went just fine-- a little crampy and uncomfortable, but overall not bad at all. I guess once your cervix has been stretched open to the point that a small person can get through it, sticking a little plastic thing through is a piece of cake.

It is such a relief not to have to worry about another unplanned pregnancy for another 5 years. For the first time in my life I feel like I've found the perfect birth control option: it's long-term, minimally hormonal, safe for breastfeeding, low-maintenance, 99.9% effective (this is crucial... haha), and will make my periods lighter and less painful (like 40% of women stop getting their period at all after a few months!)... I'm starting to sound like a commercial here, but I seriously am in love with this little piece of plastic.

In fact, here's how my insertion appointment went:

My OB (looking at Caroline sleeping in her carseat): She's so good! Are you sure you don't want another one like her??

Me: HAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!! (deep breath) HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!! No, seriously, hand that thing over.

Okay, maybe it didn't go exactly like that...

But honestly I'm not sure I will ever want another child, so the long-term-ness of the IUD really does appeal to me. I love Caroline more than I ever thought I would or could. But the NICU experience was really traumatic, and at my post-partum appointment my OB told me that even with hormone therapy, I'd have a 30% chance of delivering early again. And I'm sure I'd be more likely to have to stop working early once the contractions started up again. But mostly I just feel like my "mommy" urge has been satisfied with Caroline. I guess I would feel badly about not giving her a sibling, but overall I don't really know if I see another baby in our future. I know that for some moms, the love they feel for their first child makes them want another one that much more... but for me, it has made me feel reluctant to take away any attention from her by having another baby.

I know that Tyler wants at least one more (he's always said he wanted three; I always used to want two), so we might have some disagreement over this in the future.

But for now it doesn't really matter because regardless of what happens, we'd want to wait several years. And I realize that I might change my mind down the road when she gets older... and of course I might not have a choice in the matter, just like this time! However. These are my thoughts at the moment.

And it sure does feel good not to have to worry about repeating this whole experience. I wouldn't trade my Caroline for the world, but I won't be playing Russian roulette with my birth control again any time soon.

It's my due date

And Caroline is one month old today! It seems like such a long time ago that I had never met her.

It's weird to me that today is March 5. How many millions of times did I say that date in response to "when are you due??" over the past nine months? I know that only 5% of babies actually come on their due dates, but still-- today is the day I was "supposed" to meet her. Even though her NICU stay was definitely the most traumatic and upsetting experience of my life, I still feel lucky that I got to spend this extra, bonus time with her. I'll always feel jealous of those women who make it to their due dates and who get to take their babies home with them, but I'm sure that missing out on that miserable last month of pregnancy isn't entirely a bad thing either. And I know I certainly will never take her good health for granted!

Caroline decided to celebrate her due date by sleeping a wonderful, consecutive 5 1/2 hours last night. I suspect this had more to do with her new reflux medication (which actually works) than her desire to party it up, but regardless, it was amazing. I feel refreshed today even though I woke up probably every hour, on the hour to make sure she was still breathing. I wondered why she was nursing about every hour yesterday-- she was saving it up to let us get some sleep at night! What a good little baby...

Anyway, in honor of her due date, I'll post her birth announcement pic:

Just kidding. We were trying to take a good photo for her announcements, and that's what we got... haha. Guess we'll have to try again after her bath tonight!

Birth story

But before I get into that, a quick Caroline update-- she's doing great! She just needs to clear the last hurdle, which is getting rid of her oxygen requirement. A chest x-ray showed that the fluid in her lungs is clearing, so it's just a matter of time now. We're hoping just a couple more days...

Here's our little girl, wide awake and gripping her binky that she stole from the first hospital:

So... I didn't wake up on the morning of February 4th thinking I was going into labor. But, I was standing in the kitchen talking to Tyler before he left for school, and I felt a gush of... something. Yeah, gross. I started to panic, assuming that it was my water. I called the doctor and they asked me to come in right away because I hadn't had the Group B strep test yet. Tyler and I went to L&D, but for some reason we didn't bring our bags. I guess we had just had too many false alarms at that point, and we didn't really think we'd be staying.

They tested me for amniotic fluid and the tests all came up negative. They also did an ultrasound to check the fluid levels and they were fine (it also showed that the baby had flipped and was no longer breech!). I felt like an idiot, but I was relieved that it wasn't my water (I was 35w6d that day). My OB said that I could go home, but since I was contracting quite a bit she wanted to do a quick exam. She checked me, looked surprised, and said "you're 3cm and 90% effaced. You aren't going anywhere." Tyler and I were stunned. The irritable uterus strikes again... I was always afraid of going into labor and not knowing it!

They gave me some terbutaline to try and stop the contractions but warned me that if I was in labor, the terbutaline wouldn't work. An hour later, the contractions hadn't stopped and I was 3.5cm and 100% effaced. I was admitted and told that there was a 90% chance that I was in early labor.

Honestly, I wasn't really feeling a thing at this point. Maybe I had just had contractions for so long that I didn't notice them anymore. Maybe they just weren't that bad. Whatever the reason, I stayed at that hospital all day, slowly dilating to 6cm by a little after midnight without even really being in much pain. I am still baffled by this. I have always thought I had a very low tolerance for pain-- I'm a huge wimp. I assumed I'd come to the hospital in labor and be screaming for the epidural by 4cm, tops. But instead, I was just bored. I could sometimes tell when I was having a contraction, and sometimes it would be uncomfortable, but not always. Anyway, my OB checked me after midnight and said I was 6cm, -1 station, and would have the baby by morning. And at this point, she broke my water since it hadn't broken yet and there was no turning back anyway.

This is when I really started to freak out. For some reason, it didn't seem like a done deal until this. I wanted to have an epidural because that has always been my plan and I am reallllly not interested in finding out what transition is like or feeling myself tear, but after she said that, I actually wasn't sure what to do. I'd somehow gotten to 6cm without noticing much (let's all pause and contemplate what may have happened, had I not gone in for the water-breaking false alarm), so I just didn't know if it was worth it to go through the stress of getting the epidural if I wasn't even in pain. In the end I got tired of thinking about it and just wanted to get some sleep if I was really having a baby in the morning, so I went for it. Turns out it only worked on my right side, and I still didn't really care about the pain until I was towards the end of pushing. Very bizarre. So, my conclusion: labor is boring and for some reason, not all that painful.

Before you all hate me, though, let's discuss what happened when I started pushing. Labor might have been strangely easy, but pushing was absolute hell. I started pushing around 3am and by the time 6am rolled around and I was still pushing, I was in a significant amount of pain and was sobbing and saying that I just couldn't do it. They'd been telling me for the last 2 hours that I just had to get the baby's head past the pubic bone, that it was almost there... and finally I snapped and screamed at everyone that I just couldn't do it because I was getting more tired with every push.

So my doctor decided that my pelvic bones were too close together to get the baby's head through without help (looking back, it would have been best to decide this somewhere around 4 am rather than 6) and she busted out the vacuum extractor. Now, I have always been very against the vacuum extractor because it can hurt the baby. Let me tell you, though, once you've been pushing for 3 hours and you are literally so frustrated that you are crying because you haven't made any progress for hours and you are terrified of being threatened with a c-section after all that, that little vacuum sounds pretty good. Anyway, I went for it. The episiotomy too, since my doctor informed me that it was necessary. (Was it necessary to extend it all the way into my rectum? Probably not. Did you really need to hear this choice piece of personal information? Probably not.)

Anyway, our little Caroline was born at 6:08 am after several vacuum-assisted pushes. They put her on my belly and I held onto her slippery little body and just felt kind of dazed. I remember saying "hi" over and over again, but it just didn't seem real that there was suddenly a baby in the room... much less that she was mine. Tyler was crying (do not spread that around or he will kill me) and everyone in the room was beaming at me, despite the fact that minutes before, I had just yelled at them all. They took her over to the warmer and the nurses and pediatric specialist (who was present at the birth, since she was preterm) started doing all sorts of things to her while my OB delivered the placenta and stitched me up. (Side note: I felt so vindicated when they put her on the scale and it said 7 pounds... the entire time I was pushing I kept wondering what was wrong with me that I couldn't deliver a 5-pound baby!) I remember just staring over at her in the warmer and asking over and over in a weak voice if she was okay. I was desperately afraid that her lungs wouldn't be mature enough.

It turns out that they really weren't. We had two things going for us-- the fact that I went into labor naturally rather than being induced, and the fact that she was a girl (girls mature faster than boys in utero). Those two things, both of which should have meant she should be mature enough to breathe well on her own, were apparently not enough. They let me hold her for a little while right after delivery (probably the happiest moment of my life), but a little later a nurse came and took her to the NICU for observation because she seemed to be struggling to breathe. They told me it was just for a few hours, but... well, you know the rest!

I was hoping I wouldn't have to see it

But I was unlucky. I just (gag, TMI alert, warning!) lost my mucus plug today. I have to admit that I'm a little freaked out, beyond the grossness factor. It was a real, physical sign that one day really soon, I am going to go into labor and there will be no turning back. I'll have to go to the hospital and birth a child and then come home with it and try not to kill it. Holy. Crap. It also can mean labor is coming really soon, but I'm choosing to subscribe to the "hey, you could still have weeks left!" school of thought. I know I said I was uncomfortable and over it, and I am, but I have a lot of things left to do!

Let's focus on harmless, happy things! I had my second shower yesterday, it was so much fun. My mom's friends did an amazing job. It had a bumblebee theme (of course!) and there were gorgeous flowers and delicious food and so many gifts that I was almost embarrassed. This baby and I are so spoiled! There are actually gifts spilling out of the nursery. Everyone has been so generous to us! I think we literally have everything we really need except for the diaper pail and the bottle set. It was such a fun time, so good to see all my old friends and my mom's friends... overall, just a really great day. My mother-in-law flew out from North Dakota for it and stayed with us. We had a really good visit, I was a little nervous about how grouchy I'd be, but it turned out to be a fun time. (Full disclosure: I may not have been the best hostess at times, since I was preoccupied with the important questions, like "who is sneaking into my room at night and beating me in the crotch with a baseball bat, and how did I miss it".)

I promise I'll post shower pics as soon as I get some from the girls, but here's my 35 week (well, I guess I'm halfway through my 36th week) belly pic, from the day of my shower:

Still growing! (I promise I don't look that tired in real life...)

35 weeks and a new discovery

Tyler's closet!

Maternity clothes are such a pain. I tried to buy pants wayyyy back when I totally thought I was showing, because OMG just LOOK at this 16-week belly, I look soooo pregnant!! (Uh... no.) Anyway, when I bought them, I tried to think ahead and get pants that would last me the whole pregnancy by getting them in size huge. Turns out I am apparently not ever going to reach size huge, and those pants still look like clown pants at 8 months pregnant. So I've ended up constantly wearing the one pair from the Gap that I bought "to hold me over" until I got into the bigger sizes, and I'm too cheap to buy any more.

Shirts, on the other hand... I have about 4 shirts left that are long enough to cover my belly. Again, I refuse to buy more shirts with just over a month left until my due date. But Tyler's closet has tons of shirts that are definitely long enough, if I'm willing to roll up the sleeves and don't mind looking like I'm wearing a tent (I do not mind. All I do is sit at home anyway). Score!!! Besides, swimming in his clothes makes me feel like a little tiny person again, something I miss very much.

So, 35 weeks. It seems like it's getting so close now! I had one wonderful baby shower that my friend threw for all the dental girls, and a lot of girls came. Her fiance is an amazing cook so the food was delicious, and everyone was so generous with the gifts. Every single thing we got, we really really needed! It was so good to see everyone too, since I don't see them at school anymore. I am smiling just thinking about it. I'd post pictures, but I didn't take any and I haven't seen any on Facebook yet so I'll have to hold off on that. Some of my mom's friends are throwing me another shower this Sunday, so I'm really excited for that. My mother-in-law is even flying out from North Dakota to come to it! She'll be here tomorrow, I can't wait to see her. She's the best... she flew 2000 miles to surprise me at my bridal shower not too long ago, and now she's doing it again for my baby shower! I'll definitely make sure to get some pictures from this shower and post them.

After the shower this weekend, it's go time-- time to pick up anything else we need, make sure we have enough little green and yellow onesies and sleepers, and organize the nursery before this baby decides to make its appearance. 35 weeks marks the end of the terbutaline for me, so who knows when that will be?

Oh. I forgot. We might know exactly when that will be, because my doctor thinks the baby is currently breech. I haven't had an ultrasound to confirm; I will have that at my next appointment if the doctor still thinks the head is up. She said babies can usually flip up to 36 weeks, so I've been doing all sorts of crazy pelvic tilts and positions and bouncing on an exercise ball... we'll see if any of it works (I am skeptical, especially since I can still feel that little head poking up from under my ribcage. Maybe it's a butt??).

So send me some good baby-flipping vibes, because a c-section realllly is not what I'm after here! I'm not going to do an external version (where they try to flip the baby by manipulating your belly) for various reasons, so if the baby is still breech in a week, I guess we will be scheduling that c-section. Until then, here's hoping baby figures out which way is down!

If you don't have anything nice to say...

I've been a slacker when it comes to blogging lately. And I'll tell you why: I feel rotten. All I have to relate to you are complaints, and nobody wants to hear that, right? To be fair, I should have written this in the morning, because then my body is far less tired and sore from lugging my belly around. Tyler calls me Grouchy McGroucherson in the evening. But now that I've started, I can't stop the complaining, so here it comes... like word vomit...

I've had contractions for six weeks and counting. Some days they are better and I won't have a single one; other days I will have them several minutes apart for hours at a time. I wonder if I'll have anything left when it comes time for true labor. I wonder if I'll recognize true labor when it starts.

Sometimes it feels like my pelvis is splitting open. This is probably because it is. I have always had the hips of a ten year old boy (read: nonexistent), and a baby is going to have to come through there somehow, so I guess they are making themselves ready.

Having a big belly sticking out in front of you makes your back really, really sore. By the time nighttime comes, there is no position I can get into without wanting to cry. Right now I have my Snoogle wrapped around my waist, and that seems to be helping, but usually I just end up going to bed because I just can't sit anywhere.

There are other things... I feel huge, I pee all the time, I don't sleep well, blah blah blah. The looks I get from strangers as I waddle past them have slowly transitioned from "awww, what a cute pregnant belly" to sympathy/pity or "please don't let your water break on my shoes." Then again, other things have gotten better, and I should probably focus on those things instead-- less heartburn, less trouble breathing (maybe the baby has dropped?), more rest since I'm out of school, and every day that goes by is one more day closer to meeting my baby. I have to say, though, overall-- I'm kind of over it. I want my body back!

Anyway, on to a different topic that involves less whining and violins. We started childbirth classes about two weeks ago. It's an interesting experience. It definitely makes labor seem like something more real, something in the near future that is actually going to happen to me. Which is good, not bad. I've been putting off thinking about labor because I'm not good with pain (I know nobody likes it, but I'm a pretty big wimp, if you couldn't tell from the first half of this post). At least Tyler isn't like this one guy in our class: we had to go around the room the first day and say what our expectations of the class were, and the guy's wife said something like "to increase my confidence about birth" and her husband glared at her and said aggressively, "we want to go NATURAL. We want to learn how to go DRUG-FREE for our BABY'S sake." And she was just quiet. I felt really, really badly for her-- it's not your body, you jerk! Let her decide for herself! What a nutjob. I do think Tyler thinks somewhat less of me because I've never made it any secret that I plan on getting an epidural, but at least he supports me and lets me make my own decision. (My sister-in-law has had two kids, both with four-hour labors and neither with any kind of pain medication, and I think he thinks I should be like that too, at least a little bit.)

Anyway, I'm rambling so I'd better quit. Goals for next post: sooner than two weeks from now, and to write it in the morning when I'm a happier pregnant lady!

32 weeks: I am hugenormous.

That's a technical term, hugenormous. Learned it in med school.

To show you that I am not even a little bit kidding...

Yikes!! I've been having a growth spurt lately, or baby has, or whatever, but still. My belly sticks so far out in front of me that I'm starting to become afraid that I'm going to tip over when I stand up. I wake up in the middle of the night and whichever hip I'm laying on has either become numb or is in severe pain. People tell me this is from staying in one position for too long. I am not fooled... I know what this is: I have gotten so fat that my body is literally crushing itself under its own weight.

Okay seriously now. You may have noticed that the belly pics have become far less frequent... this is because I hardly recognize myself when I look in the mirror, and I don't like it much. Yes, I know the rest of my body looks mostly the same as it used to, but I still feel like my face is puffy and my arms and legs are chubby and so on and so forth. I could obsess about it forever, but instead I choose to avoid mirrors... and cameras!

Sigh. I've posted about this before, and yes it's all in a good cause, but sometimes when I'm having these growth spurts I get pretty down on how I look these days. It doesn't help when my brother tells me things like "you shouldn't eat so much if you don't want to get so fat" when we're eating lunch together. Ugh. You should never say anything like this to a hungry, hormonal pregnant woman who is only/still several weeks from her due date. It might make her cry hysterically for over a half hour, not that I did that or anything. Hrmph.

The name game

Some couples discuss names for their future children while they are still dating. Or engaged, or just married, or while they're trying to conceive.

Unfortunately, we are not that couple.

We're entering the home stretch of my pregnancy, but we still don't have a name for this baby! We have a few front-runners (see polls to the right), but we probably won't decide on the final name until we actually meet the baby. For some reason, I keep thinking that it's wrong to give someone something as important as a name before you've even seen them in person. What if we settle on Andrew, and it doesn't suit him at all, and he looks like a Ben? (Disclaimer: I do realize that brand-new newborns all look like they should be named something along the lines of... Conehead. Or, Gremlin. Monkeyface. Okay, I'm stopping.)

Tyler has decided that the perfect name for a little girl is Baena, pronounced Bay-nuh. Yes, you read that correctly, no need to go back and read it again. It's after this genus of prehistoric turtle that he studies (Eubaena). I have nothing to say to this except: no, over my dead body, not in a billion years, no. I don't do made-up names, and either way, we are not naming our potential daughter after a dead lizard. However, he has stubbornly referred to the baby in utero as "Baena" for so long that now I think of it as Baena too. Here's hoping that the nickname doesn't still stick once the baby joins us in the outside world.

So, it seems that for now we're going to stay with Caroline Anne or Elisabeth Anne, and Benjamin Ranse or Andrew Ranse. Then we can make the final decision when the baby comes. For what it's worth, my favorites are actually the poll winners-- Caroline and Benjamin (although Andrew is Tyler's grandfather's name, and his health is poor, so we might end up going with Andrew for that reason if it's a boy). It's so hard to pick a name for a baby, though. Names are so huge... what if he or she hates the name later on? I guess you can only do your best and try not to get all crazy and trendy. I've always loved my name, and I want to do the same for my baby! I suspect that naming it "Baena" is not really the way to achieve that goal, though...

...And in with the new

A couple of my college girlfriends came to visit me over the last couple of days (which was so much fun!), but now they are gone and I am here alone again with a lot of time on my hands to think... I wish Tyler would come back from New Zealand.

Anyway, here's what's going through my head...

It's 2009, finally and already. I spent the last few minutes of 2008 lying in bed in the dark with my hands on my belly, feeling the baby roll around in there, and thinking about how one year ago I never, ever thought I'd be where I am. My life was so incredibly different last New Year's. I was just married, and dental school was mostly what took up my time and energy-- I was still in med school classes then. We lived in our old apartment. Babies were the last thing on our minds.

In 2008, I finished med school, we went to the Bahamas and Peru, I took the boards, I found out I was pregnant, we accepted the fact that I was pregnant, and we got excited and got ready. We moved. I developed complications and I left school temporarily. One year later, I feel like I'm a totally different person, or at least I'm in a totally different place-- I'm not even in school, and we're about to be responsible for this little person for a really, really long time, and I'm just as terrified as I ever was that I'm going to screw it all up.

I mean, in theory, I pretty much know what's in store for me in 2009: have the baby, figure out how to be a parent somehow, get to know our baby, go back to school to finish my degree. (Or at least go back by next January... that still hasn't been decided since the dean won't get back to me.) But really, who knows? I thought I knew exactly what 2008 was going to be like. Hell, I thought I knew exactly what the next 5 or 10 years were going to be like. But I had no idea what was coming, and I guess you never really do.

I don't mean for this to sound all melodramatic and depressing, because that isn't at all how I feel. I'm excited and grateful for our baby, even if I'm kind of nervous about how I'll handle things. My main worry is that I won't achieve my goals when it comes to my career, because even though I'm very motivated to go back and finish up (and then start working, because staying at home full-time has never been something I wanted to do), I feel scared that it won't happen, because if there's anything 2008 has taught me, it's that your life isn't necessarily always in your own hands. Is this new person, who we are somehow already in love with even though we've never met him or her, going to make me change my mind? I do still want to be a dentist so badly...

Anyway, I watched the clock click past midnight and hugged my belly and told the baby "I can't wait to meet you this year" before going to sleep. Whatever happens, I know that if we do things out of love, it will all work out. Now if Tyler would just come home...

Nursery photos!

Well, the nursery isn't completely finished, but it won't be until after my shower on February 1, so I thought I'd post some mostly-done pictures. We're in love with it... it's the only room in the apartment where everything matches! Sorry the pictures look so gloomy. It's snowing here yet again, but I promise it's a bright and happy yellow room when the sun shines in!

This is the view from the door.

The wonderful big (and usually very sunny) window!

My nursing glider... I sit in it once in awhile just to look around the room. I made that lampshade, by the way, out of an extra valence that came with the bedding set. (It was a plain white lampshade before.) The little table is just temporary-- Tyler's dad is building us one to match the rest of our nursery furniture.

Changing table with quilt hanging above it and diaper stacker. I found that fold-up travel swing on the right at a yard sale for ridiculously cheap. Actually, everything in this room came from a yard sale except the changing table and glider.

And the crib! The thing hanging on it is a playmat that I made by cutting up the bumper that came with our bedding set. I'm too paranoid to use the bumper since there have been all those studies that show they may increase the risk of SIDS, so we have the breathable mesh kind on there instead. I didn't want to waste the cute bumper, though! I left the ties on the ends to tie rattles and toys to so they don't get away from the baby while it's playing.

So there it is... our bumblebee nursery. It has a bookshelf on another wall that's already filling up with baby books, and a nice big walk-in closet too, which we are in the process of organizing. I love it!!

A quick update on other things: the contractions are somewhat better, I think resting has helped a lot. I still constantly feel like I'm in early labor, though, so that is... exhausting. Tyler is in New Zealand (!) for the next two and a half weeks, on a trip with some other geology and paleontology students. I'm really jealous (and pretty lonely and bored), but he'll be back soon enough. It's weird-- he's been planning this trip for so long that I always think of it as "sometime a long time from now, Tyler will go to New Zealand, and then after that we'll have the baby." And now he's there, so that means baby is coming really soon! Ack! Nine weeks until my due date is not a very long time... here's hoping baby stays put for at least another six.

29 weeks: maternity photos

Well, Tyler and I have been snowed in for the last couple of days, so we've been passing the time by organizing the nursery (pics soon, it's almost done!) and taking a few amateur maternity pics to remember my hugeness by...

I wanted to take them before I got too enormous and bloated, and before any stretch marks developed (I know they're coming, I just don't know when)... we don't want to scare anyone, now do we? :) Seriously though, strangers have been looking at my belly and saying "awww, how exciting, a Christmas baby!" Fortunately, I have so far restrained myself from following this up with a nice big Christmas kick to the shins.

Happy holidays to everyone!

Suddenly a stay-at-home mom...

...at least in the short term. I made a big decision this week. I decided to take the upcoming semester off from school, possibly the whole year.

My contractions have continued since last Friday... now that I have been able to rest a little, it seems like they only start up when I'm active, which stinks because I like to be active, but at least I don't feel like I'm constantly on the edge of going into labor. It's more of an uncomfortable thing, instead of a dangerous thing. I've seen my OB three times this week (getting a little sick of that!) and she says that some women just contract throughout the last part of their pregnancies due to an "irritable uterus", and although she can't predict when I'll deliver, it is likely to be somewhat early and I will just be very uncomfortable for the remainder of my pregnancy. She said I should stop working if I can, so that's what I'm going to do.

Okay, uncomfortable. I can deal with that. Pregnancy isn't exactly a walk in the park anyway towards the end, right? I'll take uncomfortable with my baby still inside me any day over comfortable with my baby in the NICU. I do have the terbutaline, but it doesn't work unless I take the maximum dose, so I just try to rest as much as I can to keep the contractions from starting in the first place.

(Side note: "irritable uterus". Haha. Hahahahaha. Doesn't it just make sense that even my uterus is grouchy?)

So, back to my leave of absence from school. I don't think I'm as happy about it as I should be. I should be thrilled that I can sleep in, and get the nursery done, and read my parenting books, and most of all I should be ecstatic that I get to spend more than 6 weeks with my baby. And don't get me wrong, I am, but it's hard not to feel anxious about missing so much school when I've worked so hard to get where I am. I feel sad about the fact that most likely I won't graduate with my class, and I'm going to miss my friends and just being around people, because this means I'll be alone in the apartment a lot since Tyler doesn't get home until 7:30 at night. I'll miss taking care of patients and being in clinic, because even though it's stressful (too stressful for me at this point, with these complications), I do enjoy it and it really is what I want to do with mylife. I never saw myself being a stay-at-home mom for any period of time because I've always been so focused on my career, but I know that this will be time with my baby that I'll never get back, and I don't think I will regret taking this time to be home. I definitely know that I have to do everything I can to try to keep my baby from coming early, and since it doesn't really matter exactly when I graduate and we don't need my student loan income to live, this is the right thing to do. Tyler is relieved that I won't be running around in the clinic anymore, and as he pointed out, it certainly will make things easier for him now that I'll be home! We won't need the very expensive daycare, for one thing.

I guess this is just one more lesson for me in the School of Things Don't Always Go As Planned. I've always been such a control freak about my life. I don't believe that anything is "meant to be", I've always believed that it's you and the decisions that you make that determine what happens to you, but honestly I'm starting to wonder...

I did need to learn that sometimes you have to work around things that happen rather than working to make things happen, and I have definitely learned that by now! I wonder what else I have in store for me.

Preterm WHAT??

I told this baby a few months ago that I didn't want to go back to L&D until I deliver, but apparently he or she is as stubborn as his or her father... (what?? It's definitely not from my side of the family.)

I woke up this morning around 4 and then again around 6 with intense cramping and, ah, digestive issues. I also had a little bit of spotting, which freaked me out, but I went to school anyway because I had to do a root canal this morning and, oh right, I am an idiot. I guess I went because I felt okay when it came time to go to school, and the spotting was just a tiny little bit and it had stopped. Anyway, I got to school and googled it (FYI, if you are pregnant, do not google "bleeding in third trimester" unless you really want to freak yourself out), and decided I'd better call my OB. The doctor on call said that I should probably go in to get the bleeding checked out, but it sounded like just a GI issue.

So I reluctantly left school a half hour after I'd arrived, and went home to get Tyler before heading to L&D (labor and delivery). By this time I was having some cramping off and on-- it didn't exactly hurt, but it was uncomfortable. I didn't say anything to Tyler, he seemed anxious enough as it was... We checked in and they hooked me up to some monitors, and as soon as the nurse got it on my belly she pointed at the screen and said "look, see? That's a contraction... how far along are you again?"

So, okay, this is something that no pregnant woman and her partner ever wants to hear at 28 weeks. We stared at her in a kind of horrified way and she said "well, we'll just watch it for awhile, I'll go call your doctor" and left the room while Tyler and I silently freaked out. A couple minutes went by and I had a stronger contraction. Another few minutes, and another one. That's when I realized that they were regular and timeable and I started to feel panicky, because that means it's the real deal, not just Braxton Hicks. Tyler started pacing around the room and hovering over me nervously while I stared at the ceiling and tried not to cry.

Soon my doctor came rushing in, and she and the nurse somehow produced this ridiculously enormous spotlight out of nowhere to shine on my lady business while she did an internal exam to see if I was dilated. (My first internal: not pleasant. That's all I will say about that.) She said that the baby was high up and my cervix was still closed, so I wasn't considered to be in preterm labor-- it was just preterm contractions that weren't efficient enough to dilate my cervix. And even though I know that means I could have gone into labor if I hadn't gone in to L&D (and wow am I glad I went in, because I was strongly considering staying at school), I can't tell you how much better that made me feel. She said they'd monitor me for awhile and give me terbutaline to stop the contractions, and she took a swab for a fetal fibronectin test.

The test came back negative, meaning that I have a high probability of not delivering within the next two weeks. My OB said that it was a very positive sign, but that was all they could really tell me for now. Luckily I have my regular appointment tomorrow so I can ask if this puts me at a higher risk for preterm delivery, because I was too scatterbrained today to ask.

Anyway, what a nightmare. To top it off, before we left the nurse told me I should consider this a "wake-up call" and start taking better care of myself... WTF?? I don't know what I could possibly be doing wrong, other than being stressed about clinic, which I really can't avoid. And I guess I should be drinking more water. I eat well, I work out, I sleep as much as I can, and I don't do anything physically strenuous. I didn't really know what to say to her, but it's been really bothering me tonight. She didn't say it in a mean way, but I still can't help but feel like she was kind of accusing me of not caring for my baby. Believe me, lady, I worry all the time about whether I'm doing enough for this child. I don't need your "suggestions" about wake-up calls, and I especially don't need them after I've just had a preterm labor scare. Biznatch.

I'm counting my blessings, though, because the baby is still in there and I didn't get put on bedrest! And I guess I got another day off, too, which is always kind of nice.

I think I'll be needing one of these

Meet the Gopher. I found it while searching for closet organizers on Bed Bath and Beyond online. I'm officially getting so lazy and so large that I can't be bothered to bend down and pick things up when I drop them (which is often)... so this super-duper reaching tool is at the top of my Christmas list.

I'm just kidding. I'm not that bad (yet). In fact, for me, the third trimester seems to have come with a burst of energy... or at least motivation. I'm more tired than I have been, but the fact that suddenly the baby seems right around the corner has jolted me into making endless baby to-do lists and knocking things off of them every day. Just this week, I've cleared out the nursery closet, organized the utility/laundry room, put down a deposit on our daycare, signed up for birth classes, reorganized my spring rotation schedule to allow for my maternity leave (which my school kindly failed to do for me, despite the fact that this was the entire reason I informed them that I was pregnant), revamped our baby registry, put together lists of addresses for my shower and for sending out birth announcements (which I also designed, one for a boy and one for a girl), and researched and bought some nursing bras and tanks.

All this in addition to school and some Christmas shopping here and there... whew!! Now that I think about it, I am pretty tired. :) So it's off to watch a movie with Tyler for his 26th birthday, which is today. Belly pic this week, though, I promise! I have to justify my Gopher somehow, right? And what better way than to post a picture of my hugeness for the whole internet to see?

My patients are trying my patience.

27 weeks today-- I should put up a belly pic, but I am too tired to change out of my scrubs and figure out the new camera Tyler and I bought each other for Christmas. (We figured we should be ready take pictures of the baby with something a little better than our iPhones!) I guess this means I'm in the third trimester now... this is all going so fast!

I have something on my mind today that might offend some people who read this blog, because I know it's a lot of pregnant women, many of whom are all about the birth plans. So, I apologize in advance if it does.

This morning, I had a new patient come in for a treatment planning session, where we do a thorough exam and make a plan for all the treatment they're going to need to fix up their mouth. She's a really sweet older lady, I've seen her before on an emergency basis (in fact, she was my first extraction), but today was the day we were going to figure out everything she needed to get done and get approval from all the different departments. After I did her exam, I told her she had moderate periodontal disease and was going to need scaling and root planing (sort of a deep cleaning procedure) in addition to a few fillings and some crowns on her front teeth. She told me she didn't want any sort of gum therapy, she doesn't like to have her teeth cleaned, and she doesn't want crowns-- she just wants this one filling in a front tooth replaced. I tried to explain that at the school, we have to give our patients comprehensive care, and the faculty won't let us place restorations of a type that are likely to fail, and we can't do any kind of restorative work in a mouth that doesn't have a good periodontal status, because essentially it's a waste of the patient's time and money. Anyway, our goal is to get people to have healthy, functional mouths rather than teeth that look okay from the outside but are secretly falling apart. But she just insisted that she had come to the school to get this filling replaced and that was all she wanted. So I had to let her go.

And you know, it's something I've seen with other patients too, although I can usually get them to see my point of view (and they want to stay with the school because the care is so inexpensive). I think it's a really unfortunate trend these days, that patients think they can and should dictate what care they receive. I get that dentistry is a business, and patients are customers to an extent... but the clinic is not a store, and you can't just come in, sit yourself in my chair, and inform me that I'm going to do this filling and nothing else, and furthermore I'm going to put a pin in it because that's the only kind of filling that will stay in your teeth. I mean, seriously?? Why would you even come to me for treatment if you know better than me, and you know exactly how it should be done and I'm just there to do it for you exactly as you specify? What the hell am I going through all of this school for if my patients are going to expect me to do as they say and forget everything I've learned? The irony is, we definitely spend 90% of our time in dental school learning about diagnosis and treatment planning and the "why" of things... and the remaining 10% is spent on physically learning how to do the procedures. And then patients come in with expectations like that. It's really frustrating.

In my opinion, it's a similar situation with the birth plans that pregnant women write to express what they'd like to happen before, during, and after their labor and delivery. Don't get me wrong-- I have certain expectations and wishes for my delivery. I don't want a C-section or an episiotomy. I want an epidural and I want to breastfeed as soon as possible after birth. But you know what? I picked a group of doctors that I trust, who are against unnecessary interventions unless the baby or I are in danger. Beyond that, I'm satisfied to let their superior education and experience be the guide as to what happens to me and my baby. I'm not going to walk into that hospital and and hand everyone a sheet of paper telling them how to do their job.

Patients should have a choice as to what happens to their bodies, that's definitely a basic human right. But there needs to be some kind of limit to that, and that limit seems to be getting pushed further into ridiculous territory as patients get more "empowered" when it comes to their care. If a doctor or dentist caves into a patient's demands even though they know deep down that it's not best for the patient, they are doing that patient a disservice because they went to school so that they would know better.

Anyway, that's what's been on my mind today... I can tell this is going to be an issue for the rest of my career, so that's pretty frustrating to me.

Greetings from North Dakota

And a belated Happy Thanksgiving! Tyler and I left the pets with my parents and flew out to the (very) rural town of Marmarth, ND this week to celebrate Thanksgiving with his family. I love my in-laws and the rest of Tyler's family, so it's worth the long trip to get out here. Unfortunately, the little town they live in is three hours from the nearest airport... and this time, we bought tickets when oil was super high, so the cheapest flight we could find went from Hartford to Philadelphia to Denver to Rapid City. Yuck. And in case anyone pregnant was wondering, US Airways does not, in fact, supply airsickness bags, which means you may be forced to vomit repeatedly into a Ziploc bag containing Tums with holes in the bottom, while your husband pretends he doesn't know you, and everyone around you looks completely disgusted. Not that this is something with which I have recently had precise experience or anything.

Anyway, we got here and we've been having a great time. It's so relaxing to get out of Connecticut for a change, and I've been needing this break since I started school way back in July! I haven't done a single speck of schoolwork, which has been amazing... and I've been eating ridiculous amounts of delicious Thanksgiving food (I'm not messing around... we're talking entire pies here, people). I love seeing my two little nieces, too-- and watching Tyler play with them is so cute. One of them is almost two, and the other is only three months old. Usually, thinking about my baby seems so abstract and unreal because I don't ever spend time around any babies or kids. But being with little baby Jaxyn is a reality check for me... in a good way. She's a fussy baby and cries a lot, but she's so adorable, and I guess it just reminds me that this is something that people do every day, and it's not some big scary unknown.

So it's been great to relax, especially because I never ever stop and sit around and do nothing for more than a couple minutes at a time... but it turns out, when I'm not distracted by the craziness of school and clinic, I'm pretty uncomfortable! I'm getting bigger every day and I haven't been able to work out here, so I'm sure that's part of the problem, but seriously-- holy. Back. Pain. I would kill for a Snoogle (a pregnancy back pillow). And by that I mean, if I saw someone walking down the street with a Snoogle and they said the only way I could have it was to kill them, I would not hesitate to shoot them in the face, take the Snoogle, and run. Okay, maybe that's a little drastic (except not really, I'd totally do it, and there aren't any cops out here anyway, so hmmmm).

Hope everyone's had a lovely holiday!

25 weeks

Here's me! My first belly pic taken by someone other than myself. Sorry for the bad quality, we are camera-less right now so Tyler took it on his iPhone.