cindy's world

Monday brought me to Week 28 of my pregnancy, so I started recording “kick-counts” at my OB’s direction. The object is to see how long it takes Allie to move 10 times. If she takes longer than 2 hours to move 10 times, I’ve been instructed to call the hospital. “An active baby is a healthy baby,” my OB had sung.
Monday, it took her about 13 minutes to jolt me 10 times. Tuesday, under 10 minutes. Wednesday, under 10 minutes. She must be healthy. 😛 Her movements are still relatively gentle, mostly taps. She’d only brought me pain once last week when she did something weird that felt like she was jabbing me out my right side. We were at Maggie’s progressive dinner fundraiser with Edgar and Ruby and I straightened up, giving her as much room as possible, and she stopped.

Speaking of Maggie’s progressive dinner last Saturday, it was fun this year like it was the last time we went, and Edgar and Ruby enjoyed themselves on their first progressive dinner. Mr. W and I, learning from our engorgement last year, paced ourselves and didn’t overeat this time. I wasn’t able to drink this time, so being the kind man that my husband is, he made sure he had enough alcohol for the both of us. What a sacrifice on his part. =P

Monday, Mr. W and I both took the afternoon off work so we could go to my dental appointment at 1pm in Pasadena. After the appointment we explored a new-to-us VIP-style theatre called Gold Class Cinemas. Mr. W had a $75 gift card from his coworker, which we figured would be plenty to pay for our movie tickets and a dinner there. This theatre is larger and fancier than the VIP theatre we’re used to going to near home, the service is excellent, food was pretty good, but after 2 tickets for “Our Idiot Brother” (wait for the rental), two specialty savory martinis for Mr. W, truffle fries, flatbread pizza for me, and 3 filet mignon sliders for Mr. W, we were out an additional $60 + tip. “This movie cost $150,” Mr. W said incredulously. I had to laugh. Our evening continued with a walk around an outdoor mall nearby the theatre, and a visit to Eddie & Michelle’s home, where we got to see their Paul Gauguin cruise photos. We reminisced about our cruise as we saw their pictures and listened to their stories.

Yesterday, our marriage turned the ripe old age of 3 years. I had some fun banter with friends on the social networking site about what to get Mr. W. 3 years is leather (traditional) or glass (modern), according to Claudio. After much back-and-forth, Claudio and I decided the perfect gift would be a gift certificate for getting a hearing aid (it’ll improve our marriage when he can actually hear the sound of my melodious voice instead of my having to constantly repeat myself after his “I’m sorry, what?”s), gift certificate for getting glasses (it’s glass! and it’ll improve our marriage if he can see me clearly and read my expressions of irritation from having to repeat myself too many times), and a leather wallet for all the money he has collected after being with me (Asian –> thrifty). A female coworker disagreed with the gifts, romantic as they are, and said, “I have the perfect gift: you may allow him to continue worshipping you as the goddess that you are. That’s what I get my boyfriend – my continued indulgence of his presence.” I ended up getting Mr. W the latter suggested item. He got me the same thing.
We had a nice low-key evening, dropping by a local Elephant Bar on our way home to share a shrimp noodle in lobster sauce entree and a giant slice of mud pie made with Starbucks kona coffee ice cream, and caught up on the latest episode of “True Blood.” The celebration continues tonight, as we have our second annual co-anniversary dinner with Tom and Maggie. We’re meeting at Andrei’s Conscious Cuisine after work.

I had a breastfeeding class after work yesterday at Kaiser, so I took the opportunity to do my lab tests at the same time. The results are already back — I am a bit anemic, which my OB already told me I would be because apparently all pregnant women are. He already instructed me to take iron supplements (I’m taking the non-binding liquid vegan iron supplement “Floradix.” Just 10ml a day. Yummy), and it would only be a source of concern if I’m extremely anemic and need more intervention. I’m not drastic, I came out close to where I was on my last iron test in April, when I wasn’t supplementing. I’m also NOT diabetic. Yay! I don’t know why I was actually worried about that. I guess cuz it would force me to change so many things. I don’t eat a lot of sweets, so if I had gestational diabetes, I’d have to cut out what little sweets I do eat — fruit, the occasional bread item, yogurt, juice. That would suck. But according to results, I tested better now than I did on my gestational diabetes test in April.

Now, the breastfeeding class. I want to write this stuff down cuz the 2.5 hours turned out to be SO much more informative and beneficial than I’d expected, and I don’t want to forget stuff. Mr. W and I know next to nothing about breastfeeding, since his kids’ mom didn’t do it (I don’t think she had the patience or the information), my mom didn’t do it, his mom didn’t do it, and neither of us have sisters we could’ve learned from. He thought it was an important class for me and encouraged me to take it, altho he expected to be bored out of his mind there. “I’ll probably be the only guy in the class,” he griped.
I perked him up with, “Think of all the boobies you’re gonna see in the presentation!” It was a full class and just about everyone, with the exception of maybe 2 women, came with their male partners. Some of the male partners had more questions and concerns than their female counterparts.

We learned (and practiced with infant dolls) three holding positions: cradle hold, cross-cradle hold, and football hold. Baby should be turned on its side, stomach facing our stomach, with baby’s top ear, shoulder and hip in alignment. Baby should be nose-to-nipple, so that it has to tilt its head back to suckle, which encourages better drinking positioning. If the chin is closer to the chest, it causes dribbling and poor latching. (Poor latching apparently hurts.) On the cradle-style holds, if the baby’s nose is pressed too far into the breast, we can wrap baby’s legs around our waist which tilts the baby’s upper body so that the face is away from the breast and it can breathe properly.

Proper latching is, surprisingly to me, a very wide mouth covering much of the areola. Some areola may be visible above the baby’s upper lip. I always thought babies latched onto the nipple, but not so. The nipple should be well deep inside baby’s mouth in the curve of the roof of the mouth, and breastfeeding doesn’t hurt or crack the nipples. If it cracks and hurts, the baby’s been latching too shallowly (at the nipple instead of at the breast). A proper latch will have the baby’s nose tip and chin making contact with the breast. Baby’s lips should be out and not pulled in. If a poor latch is established, we break the suction by gently inserting a clean finger at the breast and sliding it into baby’s mouth, and relatching baby. Oh, and don’t latch baby until its mouth is wide open, which can be encouraged by touching the nipple to its upper lip. When the mouth opens wide, pull baby onto breast quickly and fully for a proper latch.

We were shown how to recognize signs that the baby’s hungry BEFORE the baby’s a crying hysterical mess. We’re told to feed on the baby’s hunger schedule and not by timing a clock. If baby starts sucking on its fists, or starts “rooting” (turning toward your body and appearing to look for a breast with its face), or does an open-mouthed sucking expression with the tongue slightly out, feed it. The baby cries as a last resort when it’s hungry and frustrated that it can’t find food. When the baby’s in the hysterical crying fit, it often is so worked up it doesn’t even realize when it’s got food in its mouth and will refuse to feed, so we’re told to calm the baby down first (skin-to-skin contact, maybe putting the tip of our finger in its mouth), and THEN feed it.

Once every 24 hours, probably in the wee hours of the night (when the baby is used to being awake in utero), the baby will likely go thru a “cluster feeding.” This freaks out a lot of new moms cuz they don’t understand why the baby is being so fussy — it wants to feed, and when done, it’s still clingy, then it wants to feed again, and you can’t take it off you, and it keeps doing this marathon feeding thing. Supposedly this is normal, and the consolation is that after a cluster feeding, the baby takes a long satisfied nap.

No pacifiers or bottles for at least the first month of establishing proper breastfeeding. The human breast is designed to nurse the baby until the baby is satisfied. The rate at which milk is delivered is identical to the needs of the baby to get the “full” signal from its stomach to its brain. Baby learns that to get the milk started, it needs a few shallow tugs, then when the milk starts, it does its deep pulls. Bottles don’t do this, and deliver milk way too fast, so the baby ends up full before it realizes it and will overdrink, then associate the overfull feeling with normalcy, which studies have shown may cause them to gorge themselves later on in childhood/life, too. Pacifiers train babies to make shallow short sucks, which is not how you want them to learn to take milk, which is wide open-mouthed deep sucks. So giving them pacifiers at the same time you’re trying to get them on proper latching technique works against some babies.

I used to think that direct breastfeeding would be too rough on my body, so I didn’t have a problem conceptually just pumping and delivering the breastmilk (full of nutrition and antibodies) via bottle. However, I learned last nite that a properly latched baby has so little contact with the nipple, which only serves to deliver the milk and is not the point of interaction, that it shouldn’t cause any discomfort or soreness. And, the Montgomery’s glands at the areolas keep everything antibacterial and moisturized. (For sanition, therefore, only gentle cleansing once a day with mild soap and water is necessary.) If there is some soreness for some reason, no ointment is really necessary; some of your own breastmilk can be rubbed onto the area and allowed to air dry for the best moisturizer and anti-bacterial treatment properties.

Yes, you can and should breastfeed even if you’re sick (assuming you’re not on meds that doctors tell you not take while breastfeeding), because the baby gets your immune defense immediately. This makes the baby even less susceptible to getting the bug that you currently have. However, if you have some alcohol, it’s best to pump and dump, cuz that gets infused into breastmilk. Even tho you can return to some of the food you had pre-pregnancy like sushi while breastfeeding, you should still avoid the high-mercury fish because mercury also goes into breastmilk.

Apparently for the first 1-2 days after birth, the baby’s stomach is the size of a marble. Therefore, your breasts produce quality over quantity. A thick concentrated breastmilk called colostrum, dense with nutrition and antibodies, is made during that time to feed the baby. At 3+ days, the baby’s stomach is slightly bigger, and your body is simultaneously making transition milk. It’s a blend of more liquified mature milk with colostrum. After that (which I think is around the 2-week point), your baby’s stomach is the size of chicken egg, and can take mature milk. The milk breasts make is now plentiful and very fluid to match baby’s needs. (This is so amazing.) Apparently each breast makes enough milk to properly feed a baby, so 1 baby + 2 breasts means more than enough milk. You can encourage the milk flow by pumping in between feedings. A baby will feed 8-12 times a day, so we’re told to make sure to switch breasts and empty out the breasts to encourage proper milk production (supply vs demand). I guess a lot of new moms don’t realize that they’re not gonna make mature milk immediately, so they think they aren’t making enough milk and just give up. Or they don’t want to pump to keep supply up, or find it too inconvenient to breastfeed 8-12 times a day, so they start supplementing with formula. After that, because demand on the breasts drops, the supply drops off correspondingly.

We’re also taught how to check for signs that the baby’s getting enough to drink. (Breastmilk exclusively for the first 6 months of life, no water or other foods until after, for proper GI behavior.) The first day, baby should make at least one poopy diaper and 1 wet diaper. Day 2, 2 wet and 2 poopy diapers. Day 3, 3/3. Day 4, 4/4. Day 5, 5/5. Then it will even out about that time. The first couple of days’ poopy diaper mess is going to be black and tar-like; that’s the bilirubin and amniotic fluid stuff the baby has in its system from the womb that it needs to expel to prevent jaundice and other complications. Next couple of days, poopy diaper is now greenish, as the last of the bilirubin stuff comes out. After that, poopy diaper is now mustard-colored, the proper color of processed breast milk. If the baby is making less than that, especially by beginning guidelines, we’re told to bring them in to the hospital to see if the problem is with lactation, or with feeding, or with baby. (Yes, we were shown photos.) We were also taught how to chart/track these diapers to make sure baby’s on the right track. Just for the first few weeks.

Apparently, dairy products make the baby gassy or colicky. If you’re giving the baby exclusively breastmilk and the baby’s having these problems, cut your own dairy intake cuz cow’s milk stuff is getting into your breastmilk and affecting baby’s sensitive GI tract. We’re also taught about burping the baby, and told that breastfed babies may not have gas (no air in breasts to transfer), so if we’re patting for 5-10 mins and nothing happens, we can assume the baby doesn’t have an air bubble.

We’re also told how to manage sleepy babies. Some babies are so drugged up when they’re born due to the epidurals and other stuff administered to mom during delivery, that they aren’t as responsive and sleep the day away. This is not good, because they need to eat. We’re taught how to wake them up, establish bonding, how to burp them in a way that doesn’t put them to sleep, how to encourage sleepy babies to feed.

And apparently, some women leak and some women don’t. The instructor told us not to buy a ton of breast pads unless we know we’re the leaky women. (Did not know that.)

Also interesting, babies are not designed to be away from mom. They’ll go into complaint mode and cry for mom, then if they don’t get mom, they go into despair, and then they eventually shut down and metabolism drops, vitals drop, etc. This is nature’s way of protecting them; baby will cry for mom to let mom know it’s lost or abandoned, and mom’s supposed to find the baby. If mom and baby aren’t reunited soon, baby goes on shut-down to keep it alive as long as it could until mom can find it. Babies are supposed to be with mom at all times until they can survive longer periods of time without mom (we see this in animals all the time), so Kaiser doesn’t put them in nurserys away from mom anymore; if mom so desires, the baby is in the room with her until discharge. That way bonding can be encouraged between mom and child, and mom can start learning her baby’s body language for hunger or loneliness or sleepiness, etc.

They really put things into perspective by saying that babies only need 3 things: to feel its presence is acknowledged, to be fed, to be secure. All the other stuff out there is just marketing.

I just got back from the OB. It’s pretty obvious now that I’m going to blow the 24-lb limit. If we use my one-time abnormally low weigh-in as the starting weight (120), which is on my OB’s record, then I’ve gained 19 lbs as of this morning’s visit. If we use the highest weight recorded by Kaiser within the few months before I got pregnant (127), then I’ve gained 12. Either way, with a whole 14 more weeks to go before delivery date, there’s no way I’m only gonna gain another 5-12 lbs in that time.

My OB brought up the point that my build/genetics isn’t designed to comfortably carry and birth a large child, but since Allie’s father is “a strapping tall Caucasian man,” and we can’t alter either party’s genetics, the only thing I’m able to do to help make delivery uncomplicated as far as baby size is concerned is to mitigate weight gain. He said ideally the baby’s weight would be in the high 6s, low 7s (lbs) at birth.

On the brighter side of things, Allie looks “happy” and “healthy” on her ultrasound. I asked my OB if he could confirm her gender before we buy too many girl items. He tried, but Allie was laying on her side with her legs in a semi-Buddha pose so that one foot clearly and completely blocked her genitals and we couldn’t see anything there. The doctor thought the position was a little odd, saying “that’s weird, it’s not quite cross-legged,” but it makes sense to me cuz I’ve laid that way comfortably since childhood, with the lower leg’s foot propped up on the upper leg’s raised knee. (Mr. W once called it weird, too, when he walked in on me lounging that way on the bed.) Maybe this means Allie and I can do yoga together, I dunno.

Other random stuff I learned about being pregnant:
* It’s not that my boobs are sagging; it’s that the stomach is now rising to meet them. =P
* Moving around during the day lulls the baby to sleep with the assistance of the amniotic fluid, but when I’m laying motionless at night, she wakes up in the stillness well-rested and full of energy to play and dance. Rocking myself to and fro on my side lulls her back to sleep.
* People see what they want to see when they look at me. Just about everyone complains I’m “teeny tiny,” barely showing, especially when looking at me straight-on or from behind. This could be because they expect/want to see me looking very obviously pregnant at 6.5 months along. I’ve seen photos of friends’ friends who at this point have their bellies extended way beyond their breasts, belly button popped out (neither is true for me, and I’m still smaller than some coworkers who are not pregnant). But there were 2 people, a female coworker and our pilates instructor, who both said that it’s obvious I’m carrying a girl because I’m very wide out the sides and back. The two accounts are contradictory. *shrug*

Sometime this week, Allie decided to have a growth spurt. Not only does my stomach feel tight the moment I eat a bit of food, but her movements are so distinct and coordinated that I now know she’s a night owl like her mommy (“owl” in Mandarin, by the way, literally translates to “cat-headed hawk”). She’d wake me up dancing at around 3am. If I curled up in fetal position, she’d waste no time in tapping against each of my quads (with perfect aim, one thigh after the other) until I lowered my legs and gave her extra space. I wish a fetal psychologist could tell me whether she’s tapping me in play (Mr. W: “Like how if you put your hand up on the glass, a monkey would put up its hand to match yours”), or being a spoiled brat and pushing away anything that infringes on her personal space. I tend to think it’s the latter, cuz she pushes away anything — my arm, the stethoscope head, my purse, my magazine, the pillow. Oh well, good thing I’m always up at night anyway cuz I sleep like a donut (with a hole in the middle), and Dodo does his territorial yowling thing around the same time as Allie’s dancing (they’re on the same schedule), so looks like the three of us will be up together often.

For the past 3 days, if I ate a normal-sized meal, I’d feel like I want to burst. I also would have trouble getting air into my lungs, but gasping repeatedly for air hurt my abdominal muscles and would give me minor sharp cramping sensations all over the area between my belly button and my ribcage. I remembered learning that at this point, the stomach is pushed up into my diaphragm and cramped, so anything more than a small meal IS very hard on my upper abdominal muscles/lungs/diaphragm. I finished a meal at dinner with hubby and the stepkidlet this evening (she’s back from Haiti now, armed with photos, stories, inspiration, and appreciation for life), and wobbled away from the table, gasping for air, thinking that if something accidentally went into my mouth now, my stomach would explode and Allie would fall out onto the floor. Mental note: no more full meals; stomach capacity has shrunken this week due to increase of uterus size.

People have been asking me for Allison’s middle name, and I tell them it’s undecided. Mr. W decided unilaterally today that it should be Allison Catherine. Why? Allie Cat. “Don’t do that to her!” Stepkidlet said. Coincidentally (or unfortunately), while we were shopping for my cousin Jennifer’s baby shower gift earlier in the week, I bought a really cute cat ensemble for Allie.

Allie’s wardrobe is growing…she got some cute onesies from her Auntie Jordan in Florida, and yesterday, I received a strange package in a manila envelope through courtmail. Turned out it contained a cute little ruffle dress with matching bloomers from her Auntie Erin in Beverly Hills Court. Thanks, Aunties! Now, I just need some place to put Allie’s stuff until we replace the guest room with her room.

(…like our late President FDR’s Fireside Chats, as I’m likely drinking as much coffee as he was sitting in front of an actual fireplace on air.)

WORK: I turned in my doctor’s note about the driving and public transportation restriction yesterday. The “powers that be” here at work kept me in the building, telling me to cover for a late-arriving clerk in Family Law in the morning. I went in there and was a fish out of water, but I was going to fudge my way through it. Luckily, a floater clerk heard about my being in there and came up of his own volition to relieve me, since he was trained in Family Law and I wasn’t. I totally owe my awesome coworkers. I ended up getting caught up on desk work in my own courtroom. We’ll see what management decides to do with me today.

PREGNANCY: I’d always wondered why pregnant women rub their hands and fingertips repeatedly on their swollen bellies. I’ve never gone up to a pregnant belly-rubbing woman and asked, but I’d filed the question away in my mental filing cabinet in a section called, “You’ll find out when you get older.” My mom started that file for me when I was very young. “You don’t need to ask me about grown-up stuff. You’ll find out/understand when you get older.” I’d put tons of stuff in there in the past, like the lyrics to “Star-Spangled Banner,” or why it was inappropriate to share a bed with one’s stepdad (thank you, soap operas that play when 6-year-olds are home from school). Now that I’m 6 months pregnant and definitely “popped,” I pulled out that belly-rubbing question again. I still don’t get it.

PHILOSOPHICAL PONDERINGS: I’m having an e-mail conversation with Dardy, and we’re discussing expectations leading to disappointment. This applies to anything, from my let-down trying a Magnum ice cream bar for the first time after seeing the most incredible advertising for them, to his meeting people face-to-face for the first time. His perspective is that generally, he’s learned to stop having expectations because those can skew how one perceives an otherwise perfectly fine situation. He brought up as an example, “that damn 99% rottentomatoes rating made me think that _toy story 3_ would blow my mind, but it didn’t, so i walked out disappointed despite it being a perfectly decent movie.” So it made me think a little.
I think anticipation is natural and kinda fun, but I do agree that expectations ruin a lot of things. We as humans can’t be so cocky as to think we know exactly what would and what should happen in our paths. When we get cocky, the Universe decides to show us a thing or two. 😉 I think rolling with the punches is an excellent skill, as with being able to see beyond the mismatch of expectation-to-reality, so that instead of griping and being upset that things weren’t as we’d wanted, we can see the beauty of things being MORE than we’d anticipated. There are learning experiences everywhere, and not everything is a black mark just because it wasn’t what we’d expected. That’s one of those things I seem completely incapable of teaching some people, as those people are continually aggravated by things not being exactly as they’d expected/wanted them to turn out. I can’t seem to make them see that the way things do turn out is still okay, and in some ways better, and in some ways needed in order to improve oneself. I think one has to be open-minded and introspective to see that.

Flip Flop Girl gave birth today. Congrats, Flip Flop Girl (Christi) and Wilco (Mike)! Kyden gets a baby…uh…sister? Brother? They posted photos of the baby wrapped up burrito-style, but still won’t tell us the gender! By the way, the parents themselves didn’t know until the new baby showed up, having instructed their doctors not to reveal the gender to them on ultrasound and other test results.

About 10 hours ago, when Christi was in the hospital (actually, she’s still in the hospital), she posted a question on her social networking site. “Drugs or no drugs? …that is the question.” I know that when she was in labor with Kyden, she had tried to hold off on getting the epidural as long as she could, hoping that if she stalled in getting to the hospital, etc, it’d be too late to administer the epidural so it wouldn’t be a choice she’d have to make. However, the labor ended up being so painful that she took the option for pain control once she was in the hospital. I don’t know which way she ended up going with Baby #2, but as she was laboring away, her question brought about a flurry of opinions online. 10 women (and actually, 1 man) emphatically encouraged her to get the drugs. My position is that she should do what she wants and make the decision based on her personal reasons, but that as she is aware, my decision for myself is to go without to avoid potential side effects to mom and baby. Apparently this is a hot topic and made some people unhappy with me, and argue that the possible side effects I briefly referred to (spinal fluid leaks, colicky baby, less responsive baby, lower IQ later on in life, prolonged labor, which are based on studies I’d read before I made my preliminary decision) are not conclusively proven. (I later elaborated on what I’d referred to by quoting study results, but I’ll save readers the long quotes.) One friend made a point of telling me details about her own labor experience, which sounded painful and atypical in that she had complications with her delivery, which resulted in a long labor ending up with epidural and c-section. Her logic was, would I opt for open-heart surgery without pain medication if I was told I’d recover faster afterwards? Also, is it really necessary to have super-smart Einstein children anyway, even if it were proven conclusively that epidurals do affect the baby’s future mental development? The other women’s logic in response to Christi’s question were based on things like “why suffer?”, “no need to traumatize yourself with screaming pain.” I think my friend’s situation is something separate, but the other women’s reasons are very mother’s-comfort-oriented (which is the point of administering the typical epidural, anyway.)

It sounded like from the tone of my friend, who shared her painful labor details with me to make her points, that she took offense from thinking I’m condemning mothers who get epidurals, told me not to “knock it,” and defended her son’s IQ (in that her labor is not responsible for a baby’s IQ). Another mother on Christi’s conversation thread who used an epidural also defended her toddler’s IQ by saying how many words he knows at his age.

I get where they’re coming from: they feel that someone (me) saying she doesn’t want an epidural because it can potentially negatively affect the kid’s development is the same as me saying because they used epidurals, I’m saying they are bad moms or have dumb kids, but that’s not what I’m saying at all. I said multiple times on Christi’s conversation thread that it’s each mother’s personal decision. Some women have paralyzing fear of pain and WOULD be traumatized without major pain control. Others have extreme situations, like my friend, which cause doctors to have to intervene and perform emergency surgery so that the mother and baby wouldn’t be endangered. Others have low pain tolerance, period. These people understandably get epidurals because the benefits outweigh the cost.

What I’m saying is, I’m not one of those women, unless something unforeseen happens during delivery and the doctors have to intervene (in which case I’d give them carte blanche to do whatever is necessary to save lives). I’m someone with high pain tolerance, who doesn’t take pain relievers generally, so assuming delivery is normal, I would make the choice to go without. Like I told my friend:
“I’m not knocking it. She asked for for or against, and she knows my position for my personal decision. I explained that it was a personal decision for both her and for me and that I’m not telling her to do or not to do. I’m not saying across the board there is no reason for someone to take pain meds for any given situation. Obviously your situation called for pretty severe intervention or it would’ve been impossible. Open heart surgery is not the same thing as natural childbirth where it’s an option to go natural or not. (BTW, I don’t consider your situation to be an option, it was a requirement given what was happening during your labor.)
Given a choice when an epidural is being administered simply to take away mom’s pain during labor, my decision is that given the risks involved in an epidural for both mom and for baby, I would rather take the pain to prevent the POSSIBILITY of problems. I didn’t say the studies were conclusive or that I believe every woman who uses an epidural is wrong or will have a negative outcome with her child. If someone has pain phobia or high sensitive to pain/shock/trauma, obviously it would be better to have an epidural. I am not one of those people. I choose to suck it up in order to give even a smidgeon of extra possibility of advantage to this child. To me, all the comments of “why suffer?” do not hold a candle to anything I can do for the benefit of this child. I will suffer, I will sacrifice, I will go natural, I will get over it. That isn’t important to me. This doesn’t mean it isn’t important to other women who do NOT want to feel pain if anyone can help it, or women in your situation who have complications and need intervention. But like I said repeatedly, it is a personal decision, it was yours, it is Christi’s, and it is mine.”

Stats show more than 50% of laboring women opt for epidurals. Where are the other 50%? There was ONE woman on Christi’s conversation string who opted to go without an epidural. She said she liked being able to get up right away afterwards (epidurals numb the bottom half so that walking afterwards isn’t going to happen) and liked that she didn’t need an IV, but that others told her that it was worth it to them to sacrifice those things just to avoid labor pain. I don’t disagree with any of them on their decisions; it was their decision for their delivery style. But it’s not my decision. I don’t know why it seems that women who use drugs seem to want (pretty badly based on other responses to Christi’s question) other women to use drugs, but those who don’t really don’t care despite having their own reasons for their choice.

Besides, if a doctor could guarantee me that my child’s health would magically benefit if I got open-heart surgery without meds, I would seriously consider doing just that.

Something new I read in re-researching this today, some other study found a correlation between epidural use and that child’s future (teen/adult) addiction to drugs. I tried to find this study to be more accurate in saying what kind of drug addiction, etc, but couldn’t find the study, so for now I’ll disregard it. Another new thing: studies seem to point to correlation between epidurals and hyperactivity in kids for up to the first 7 years of their lives. This is the stuff that scares me, altho I realize that website isn’t exactly impartial.

I don’t remember well which week of pregnancy I’m in. I don’t know how other women answer immediately when asked. I need to use the due date calculator each time. This is for today:

Today is Monday July 18th 2011.
You conceived on Monday February 28th 2011
and your due date is Monday November 21st 2011.

140 days have passed since the conception,
and you are 126 days before your due date.

You are 22 weeks into your pregnancy,
and you have 18 weeks to go.

You are in the 2nd trimester.

53% of your pregnancy has passed, there is 47% left to go.

Last weekend, I was sitting at our Lake listening to an old-school R&B band perform, tucked into a low beach chair, when my right arm was pushed away from my side where it had been pressing. Simultaneously, I felt the now-familiar internal muscle spasm sensation where my arm was pushed. And that was when I realized, what I’d been feeling inside since like week 15 can now be felt from the outside. Maybe it’s because of the deep bass vibrating my insides, but she kept up her rhythm movements through the rest of the concert. It still kinda wigs me out a little, cuz it’s so similar (identical, except for location) to having a gas bubble moving around.

It took until last nite before it occurred to me to actually put my hand on my abdomen to feel for the jolts externally when I was feeling them internally. As I sat in my big plush La-Z-Boy rocking recliner reviewing some Escrow refinance docs with Mr. W on the computer, Allison continuously broke my attention by her attempts to dance a jig. I pressed a hand gently on the area she was jostling around in. She responded with a movement every 5-8 seconds. I mentioned this to Mr. W, and asked if he wanted to feel it. “I don’t think I’d be able to feel that,” he said, but I pressed his hand onto the same spot my hand was, and for a moment, I thought Allison wasn’t going to cooperate. Then she gave her daddy a high-five, in two different spots, one right after the other. Mr. W’s face lit up. “That’s neat!” he said. Then we both turned back to the Escrow docs, altho Allison really did not settle back down for more than 20 minutes at a time the rest of the night. Last nite was her most active night; usually she’ll move a bit after I’ve had something sweet, like fruit or juice, or if I’m laying in a way that puts pressure on a part of my abdomen, cuz she’ll gently tap at the pressurized spot in protest. But last nite, she was just rockin’ and rollin’ all on her own for a long time.

I told Mr. W that I wish I had an ultrasound machine so I could see what she was doing in there. She doesn’t just poke at one area like she used to; now it’s a tap on the left side, then almost immediately, a brush in the middle above my belly button, then a tap on the way left side of my abdomen. What movements is she making? Supposedly at this stage, we can hear her heartbeat with a stethoscope on my stomach, and she’s having sleeping/waking cycles. Maybe she’s an active dreamer.

Official music video by one of my fave indie artists, David Choi. “By My Side,” new, and relevant. 🙂 (By my side, by my inside, same diff. haha)

The cutest video I’d seen in a long time, and I have yet to come across an original song by David Choi that I didn’t immediately love.

Mr. W expressed a concern last week that I was “gaining too much weight too fast,” which put me in a paranoid tizzy. He said he based this opinion on the fact that pregnancy weight gain guidelines tell new mothers to expect a one pound per week weight gain toward the latter part of pregnancy. My usual weigh-in is morning just after I use the restroom, and based on that, I’d put on 8.3 lbs at almost 21 weeks along. Given the 20-lb limit the OB placed on me for total pregnancy weight gain, and the fact that I have 19 or so more weeks of pregnancy to go, at this rate it looked I would blow past 20 pounds. So I was totally bummed.

At the OB appointment last Friday, I voiced this weight gain concern to my doctor. He didn’t seem particularly troubled, saying that a jump in weight gain at this point IS expected. Then he looked at the numbers on his record for me. The bizarre thing is that altho Allison was conceived on Feb 28 with my weight in the mid 120s (and all medical records around that time verified this weight), on May 3 when I had my first visit with this OB, I weighed in at 120. So of course he recorded that as my starting weight, which isn’t accurate. The appointment on Friday was in the afternoon after lunch, and I had come from work and was in full work clothes, so I weighed more than I normally did on my morning appointments, and it made it look like I weigh a few pounds heavier than I really was. So the doctor was a TAD more concerned that at 21 weeks, I appeared to have a 14-lb weight gain. =P He basically told me not to diet or lose weight, but to get some exercise in daily, and to not eat out much, to avoid juices and sugars, and to cut down on carbs and increase protein. He increased my total weight gain goal from 20 lbs to 25 lbs, cutting me some slack, and told me to make efforts to not gain more than 1/2 lb per week from this point on. So I was totally bummed, feeling like a failure when I left there.

Yesterday at my parents’ house, my mom, totally uncharacteristically, made mention of her opinion that I appear to not have put any extra weight on my person, that only my stomach got big where the baby is. Mr. W pointed out that the doctor said I gained 14 lbs. Mom reiterated that none of the weight gain was on me, she said she could tell. She’s usually the first to point out when I gained a couple of pounds, so I hope she’s not just being nice for nothing now. Meanwhile, I’ll work on diet and be more stringent with cutting carbs and stuff, and try to get more exercise in. I was able to take a brisk hilly 3 mile walk over the weekend without panting myself silly, so this must mean my extra blood supply has finally kicked in. I was getting tired of the breathlessness I’d get from even short spurts of minimal physical activity, like climbing a flight of stairs.

P.S. In good news from the OB visit, my 2nd trimester screen test results are in, so compiled with the data from the first screen, my odds of having a Down Syndrome baby went from 1 in 400 to 1 in 10,000. Everything else came out within normal or good ranges, too.

Mr. W has been going around introducing people to “Allison” already. I’ve had greetings aimed at my stomach. My mom asked if he was disappointed, and without hesitation, he said “no” with a big smile. I kinda believe him. In the car coming home from the gender-revealing appointment, he had looked over with affection and patted my knee a few times, and I know he was thinking about his upcoming daughter. Back before we had decided on the method of conception, and before it was confirmed that Mr. W was still producing live sperm, we had considered alternative methods of bringing forth a child. I didn’t want to get too hopeful that Mr. W could genetically father anyone at that point, so I pretty much made myself okay with the probability that the child would come from donor sperm. I had already talked way back in the blog about how his Gamer Bro had generously agreed to donate his swimmers, which was something Mr. W had discussed with him hypothetically out of my presence. Mr. W saw it as a way to at least “keep it in the family.” But I didn’t like that idea so much because I think it would really confuse relationships and identities of too many people later on for the kid. I liked the idea of an anonymous sperm bank donor, because there are so many genetic tests and background checks done on these donors and their “product” that I would be pretty much guaranteed better DNA (or at least, more defined DNA) than if I were to haul some guy in and offer up his goods to the fertility doctor. It wouldn’t be hard to beat Mr. W’s genetics, I’d told myself, considering I can screen out people with a family history of heart disease, high cholesterol, hypertension, etc. But it’d be hard to beat Mr. W’s looks. =P Seeing how Mr. W has responded so far to this pregnancy, how he’d light up when he saw my stomach (up 8 lbs now), how he spoke of Allison, how he’d gently pat the bump when I went to bother him when he’s on the computer, and then turn to smile at me contentedly… I’m really glad I don’t have some random guy’s kid in here.

By the way, the name Allison (and Allie/Ally) appears to be quite the hit.

OH. Some people have asked how the stepkidlets are handling it. The stepson asks to see his dad’s iPad application that shows how big the baby is (life size) anytime he’s over, and had expressed his hopes that it be a boy. The stepdaughter was so excited that she called me the evening of my diagnostic ultrasound last Wednesday to ask for results. I told her it appears to be a girl, and she was SO excited she kept laughing into the phone and saying, “YES! Haha! I was telling people this is my LAST CHANCE to have a sister! Yay! Does [stepson] know? He was telling me that you guys find out the sex today.”
I said, “No, I was afraid to tell him. You can tell him so you can rub it in.”
She said, “Yay! Okay! Now I’m gonna go tell everyone I know!”
Later, the stepson texted his father.
“Grrr, I was hoping for a boy.”
Mr. W responded, “Well, it MIGHT be a boy…without a penis, scrotum, testicles, etc.”
Stepson texted back, “Well, in that case, I guess it’s better that it’s a girl.”