cindy's world

I’d thought her “witching hour” was getting shorter and more occasional, but I was wrong. She’s witching away right now. She’s tired, but instead of sleeping, she’s fighting it and screeching in between sobs. I don’t know how to get her over it. Some experts say that babies need to burn off energy before sleeping, and that the way to do it before naptime is to cry because that’s the only way they have to expend energy. Since her fussy time is about 2 hours before her 9pm feeding, I’m going to try to advance her bedtime feeding to 8:30p to see if that would help. Maybe she’s hungrier earlier because supposedly milk supply wanes in the evening; maybe she’s sleepy earlier than we’ve been putting her down. Either way, an earlier bedtime feeding should do the trick. I hear some people put their babies down at 6pm and the baby sleeps through till 6am.

I learned from talking to Payroll downtown that I can use any benefit time (vacation, sick personal, special paid leave) for my CFRA baby bonding time EXCEPT sick time…unless I am personally sick. I don’t have enough benefit time to cover the time I have off for CFRA, so since I have the days off already approved (they HAVE to give me up to 12 weeks by law), whatever I can’t cover will be taken without pay. My OB and my family doctor, whom I saw on last-minute apptmt last Friday, both referred me to the psychiatry dept, so I made an appointment for their earliest available day in early February. I hadn’t wanted to take the time for counseling when my OB recommended it because I didn’t have anyone to watch Allie and I knew I didn’t want to get on psych meds anyway due to my breastfeeding, but now I’m thinking they can give me the medical note for work to say that I DO have postpartum issues and that I need the time off, which would then qualify me to use sick time. BTW, my family doc diagnosed me with “adjustment disorder with acute anxiety.” He said my auditory hallucinations (hearing a baby cry as I drift off to sleep, which wakes me up with an adrenaline jolt so strong I’m laying there gasping for air with my extremities tingling) are symptoms of the anxiety. He didn’t want to put the label of “depression,” postpartum or otherwise, on me without my seeing the psych department for it. I did tell me about work stressing me out on this issue and he said the counselor should take care of that and get me off for longer if I need to.

My moods are getting better, though. Her inconsolable crying isn’t getting to me as much anymore, probably because I now know and finally believe that it’s temporary; she’s sleeping pretty solidly at night in a predictable pattern (she goes down after her 9p feeding and wakes up sometime between 4a and 6:30a for her next feeding) so I’m getting a nice block of sleep at night as well. After I put her down in her crib and turn out the lights, I’ve gotten into a habit of hanging out in the dark in the recliner next to her, texting my cousin Jennifer or Diana asking about how each others’ evenings went, how the babies behaved. I’m there just in case I need to pacifier-plug her to help her sleep, but I don’t usually need to. She frets a little (not cry, just sorta whines), but within minutes to maybe half an hour, will fall asleep. I usually fall asleep in the recliner when she does, checking on her here and there through the camera app on my phone since it has infrared, and waking up at 11p-ish and going to bed myself. If Mr. W is going to work in the morning, he gets up between 4-5a which is when Allie gets up, so I’d do a feeding, then I’d pump and/or hang out with him downstairs a little and have a little breakfast, then I may go back and nap until her next feeding between 7a-8a. Mornings when I’m alone with the baby is hard cuz I have to fit in my breakfast, pumping, storage, cleaning out pump parts, all before she wakes up for the day.

Going out with her is becoming less anxiety-ridden for me, though. She’s usually good unless she has an extremely dirty diaper or she’s hungry. If I have to, I’d feed her in the car or the drive home is pretty hellacious. She cries in the carseat and even tho she falls asleep with the car moving, she’ll wake up and continue crying where she left off when the car has to stop due to a red light/traffic. Saturday, we met up with my cousin Jennifer, her husband Brad, and baby Alexandra at Downtown Disney. It was a long day for us; we went out at noon to buy a new baby carrier wrap (Baby K’tan) that we liked so much we bought one for each of us, and that was when my cousin contacted me. We then had lunch out, I fed Allie in the car, then we went to Downtown Disney. Mr. W wore Allie around in the Baby K’tan and thought it was the best thing invented:

Funny; when Allie was up and gazing around, Alex was dead asleep in her stroller. When Allie fell asleep and Mr. W wore her facing in, Alex woke up so Jen wore her around on their Ergo carrier. The two are rarely both awake at the same time. We didn’t get home until close to 6p and it was a good day out, altho she came home and still had her fussy time before her last meal.

Today is Asian New Year’s Eve. We met Rebecca at Seal Beach for lunch and she got to meet Allie for the first time. Allie loved her right away, must be the calming presence. Allie nearly fell asleep just with Rebecca holding her, and before we left, she and Rebecca had this whole conversation. It was adorable, with Allie cooing and smiling at Rebecca in response to Rebecca’s questions and comments to Allie. I told Rebecca that when I’d first met my cousin Diana’s daughter Elle at 2 months or so (Elle is now 2.5 yrs old), I felt like I knew her when I held her. After that, my arms felt empty, which had never happened before, not that I’d ever held many babies. And then when I spent a little time at Elle’s house for the first time a couple of weeks ago at the Cousins’ Day Out at the Park, Elle came up to me despite having nearly no contact with me, and wanted to hug me. I lifted her up on my lap and she chatted with me, then kept handing me all her favorite toys. Her grandma and my cousin Jennifer were surprised, commenting on how much Elle apparently likes me. Rebecca said that Elle and I have had past lives together; we were sisters in one and in another, we were mother-daughter, altho she wasn’t sure which one was which. I got excited and wanted to tell my cousin Diana, but was afraid it’d freak her out. Rebecca said that yes, it would, and Diana and I have had a past life where we were sisters, too, and there were some jealousy issues that she’s not sure if Diana ever resolved so it may still be something remaining in this life, so to not tell her at this point. I could understand how, even without her having past life jealousy toward me, it could be awkward, too. I mean, this is HER baby, and her baby and I shared a past (or two)? Okay, so I’ll keep it to myself. But it’s kinda cool to think about how some souls know each other and just keep incarnating together to meet up over and over again.

Then in the evening, my parents and maternal grandma came over. It was a very lucrative New Year’s for my baby’s first time. We are now leaving the Year of the Rabbit (Allie’s year) and entering the Year of the Dragon (my year).
“MY red envelope!”

There’s a school of thought that says Allie’s too young to be “sleep-trained” just yet, but there’s been signs that she’s ready for SOME parental influence in the sleep-training direction. The fact that she sleeps more easily in her crib in her room at night instead of in our room with us, for example. How amenable she is to going right back to sleep after a feeding at nighttime. How easily she went into the eat-play-sleep pattern in the daytime, which is a pattern recommended by the book “Babywise” to get baby to sleep through the night (7 weeks on, it says, and she’s at 7 weeks already). Maybe the constant holding earlier helped, because she’s secure enough to be on her own already at night and during the short naps she takes in the day alone. So far, half an hour to an hour is it, and in her swing, but that’s more than I had before. She’s asleep in her swing right now. I’m hopeful that times like this will increase in duration.

One of the biggest fallacies I’ve found about infant care is “when the baby sleeps, you should sleep.” I’m sure all babies are different and some people can actually do this, but I can’t. I’ve spoken to many new moms and their experiences are the same as mine — when baby naps, baby demands to be held, so you hold baby and can’t sleep yourself, unless you’ve somehow mastered sleeping while sitting up with a baby over a shoulder. I can’t; I can’t settle my mind down and plus the position hurts my tailbone. When she sleeps, sometimes I can do things one-handed, and throughout the day there seems to be an ever-gathering list of things I must do, increasing in urgency in my head like unrelieved urine (which is sometimes really on the to-do list), so when I get a moment of peace, I’m more about “What can I do off this list? What’s the most urgent or important?” than about napping. I’ve made many phone calls while she was asleep cradled in one arm, and ate many breakfasts and taken many vitamins with her propped up on one shoulder, bouncing her and walking around the room so she doesn’t get tired of one view and start fussing. I haven’t figured out how to pee holding her, yet. Or pump and clean pump parts. *sigh*

Another challenge I’ve had is that due to my baby inexperience, I didn’t know what to do with her as her waking and alert hours increased. I know I’m supposed to interact, but how? So I’ve been attempting some minimal tummy time (it lasts probably 10 seconds before she tells me in no uncertain terms she’s getting pissed at me), I’ve shown her colors around the house, I’ve propped her up in a Boppy when she’s tolerant enough to and read a couple of children’s books to her while she looked at the colorful pages and tuned me out. I’ve danced with her to my Labor Music playlist as I sang the lyrics I remembered to her (“Oh girl I think I love you, I’m always thinking of you, I want you to know I do it all for love; I love it when we’re together baby, I need you forever, and I want you to know I do it all for love…” That’s often made me cry, I’ll blame hormones cuz the Color Me Badd song’s SO upbeat), narrated what I’m doing as I did small amounts of housework I could do one-handed, massaged her and sang children’s songs with her propped up in front of me so I could “help” her do the hand motions and as she smiled her big open-mouthed smiles I’d laugh with her. She doesn’t track rattles and things all that well, but based on her solid tracking of people she’s interested in, I think it’s just a lack of desire in tracking toys. What she seems to enjoy quite a bit is when I sit her up over my shoulder and take her for a little walk around the back yard so we can say hello to the squash vines, Mr. Avocado Tree, all the pretty white roses contrasted against their deep green leaves, and then we walk through the gate to the front yard, and we greet The Magnolia Tree and ask for it to produce some big white flowers so that Allie could sniff them. We wave to The Bonzai Tree at our front yard, walk a few houses down (being careful her face isn’t in the sunlight much, or she flinches in the sudden brightness), meeting palm trees and other front yard gardens. Then we come back through the gate, avoid the mean hummingbirds guarding their precious feeders, she looks around and looks up at the blue sky, and we come inside.

Stroller walks with her are touch-and-go, as with car rides. She doesn’t like the confinement, especially when the straps are fastened, and she pushes against them and cries. A car moving does usually lull her to sleep, but the moment we hit traffic or red lights, she starts crying. SoCal traffic really ticks me off these days. Last week I ambitiously took her way out on a stroller walk around the neighborhood, planning to get to a local park with a playground, but halfway there in the neighborhood, she’d had enough and started wailing. I realized then that I’d forgotten to bring her pacifier, so I had to turn around and hustle back through residential streets of people coming home from work looking at the lady pushing the screaming baby through their neighborhood. I could see them wondering why I wasn’t able to do anything about the crying, or, at least, that’s what I saw in my head.

Last Friday I had a cousin outing and cousin Jennifer, her 3.5-month-old girl Alexandra, her mom, my mom, my cousin Olivia, her two elementary-school-age daughters, myself, and Allie gathered at my cousin Diana’s house with her 2.5 yr old daughter Elle (where sisters Diana/Jennifer’s mom was babysitting), with plans to have sandwich lunch at the house and a walk to a nearby park. Allie was fine until Olivia and her 2 daughters got there; then the noise level of shrieking excited girls/women got to her as she was passed to Olivia and she started crying in the unfamiliar environment with the unfamiliar people and unfamiliar sounds and smells. I took her upstairs into a quiet room and Jennifer came up to keep me company, force me to eat (I was stress-nauseated and had no appetite at this point), comfort me. She brought me Allie’s pacifier and soon Allie fell asleep in my arms. I stayed up there until it was time to walk to the park. Half the people went on ahead and some of us stayed behind while I breastfed Allie, then we went. The rest of the day was decent, and I was happy to let my mom hold Allie and comfort her, doing her grandmother thing as Jennifer and I played like children on the playground at the advice of my mom. Even with random bouts (brain fart: that word looks weird) of crying, my mom and aunt thought Allie wasn’t acting abnormal or badly. Maybe it’s just me. Maybe I’m still traumatized with her first weeks of colicky behavior.

She took awhile to be put down last nite, cried, but I was feeling better and happy that it didn’t emotionally tear me up. Ultimately, after her 9pm feeding, she was asleep solidly by about 10:30pm.

These are some photos from the Cousins’ Park Day on Friday. My mom told me in the car on the way back that I should wear some makeup so I don’t look like a “yellow-faced mama,” whatever that means in Chinese. I told her I don’t have time to spend on luxuries like that, and she said letting Allie cry for 2 mins while I made myself look decent wouldn’t kill her. Looking at the photos, I guess she’s right. Jennifer had time to look cute.

Olivia & Allie

The scene:

Being kids:

Alex: “hello, a camera!” Allie: “zzzzz”

(rest mouse pointers over photos for captions)

One of the most memorable things from this park day: Cousin Olivia came up to check on me and Jennifer after the Allie Overstimulation Meltdown, and stayed and counseled me about my postpartum crap. She said, “Of course when they’re older, you have to take some of their preferences and personalities into consideration, but right now, you’re boss. Don’t revolve your life and day and [tiptoe on eggshells] around her. Still do what you need to do; if she cries, that’s okay. Babies have starved to death, frozen to death, been overheated to death; no baby has yet cried to death.”

I’ve gotta learn to blog more concisely with such limited time these days.

Today is Mr. W’s first day back at work, so I took night duty last nite. We switched sides of the bed so that I was by Allie’s rocker sleeper. Putting her down was challenging; she was fussing for awhile and I couldn’t get her to stop crying even though I was holding her. I finally had to use all five “S”s: I swaddled her, turned her on her side in my arms, kept a pacifier in her mouth (sucking), shook her to and fro gently, and shhhh’ed her in her ear. It worked! Thank goodness, because I had run out of “S”s. Keeping her down was another challenge. She basically woke up twice an hour and I had to shhh or rock (often both) her back to sleep. Mr. W didn’t sleep as well as he wanted but better than when he had night duty.

This morning, Mr. W got up at 4:10 am, got ready and left. I noticed that Allie was putting herself back to sleep even tho she was up often with all the morning noise, and I suspected it was because she had worked her right arm out of the swaddle (I could hear her struggling with the swaddle every time she’s swaddled) and had it by her face or head. It seemed to comfort her.

I didn’t know what to do with her while I got ready, so I put her in her cosleeper, turned on the vibration and music, and begged her to just hang on for 10 minutes and not cry too much while I brushed my teeth, washed my face and went to the restroom. I could hear her moving around a bit, but when I peeked in pensively, I saw this:

Wha-? Why can’t this happen at night? She stayed there probably a good half hour while I ran around getting dressed, ready, and cleaned up a bit downstairs, got all the baby stuff in the car. I emailed the photo to Mr. W at work and he responded, “She is so cute when she sleeps unexpectedly.”

I was able to get ready, get her ready, and be out the door at 9am for her 10am lactation appointment. As soon as I got her in the car, I felt great. The sun was shining, and I am successfully mobile. After parking, I couldn’t figure out how to unfold the stroller, tho…none of the buttons and latches worked. So that was my only frustrating point in the day. I finally hand-carried the carseat carrier with her in it to the appointment and got quite the workout.

At the appointment, she was THE PERFECT BABY. I was happy to see the same lactation nurse I’d been with the other 2 times. I pensively showed her 2 photos of Allie’s second poopy blowout from yesterday. The first was yesterday morning when I was at my doctor’s appointment. As relayed to me upon my return, Allie had her very first shower with Mr. W because that poopy squished out the diaper; he said she enjoyed the shower and was happy and smiling. The second blowout was yesterday evening; Mr. W thought it was diahrrea because it was mucousy and very very liquid. The nurse said I can email the photos to the pediatrician to make sure, but in her heart of hearts, she thinks the poopy is fine, not diarrhea, and wet/mucousy is within the very wide range of acceptable breastfed normal poopies. She said Allie looks so robust and healthy that she really doesn’t think something’s medically wrong. Allie drank 4 oz of breastmilk while there and was a happy camper, smiling and not fussing the entire time. It was like a totally different baby today. She fell asleep on the walk from the clinic to the car and stayed asleep for hours in her carrier. Before we left, the nurse took her measurements:
* weight: 11 lbs, 2.3 oz (85th percentile)
* length: 23.9 inches (off the charts; past the 95th percentile, the nurse was impressed and said this was really rare for her to see)
* head circumference: 38.2cm/15 inches (65th percentile)
So she’s tall and lean, according to the nurse. She said if Allie were her family member, she’d be very proud at how healthy and robust she is. She told me I rock, and look at how “in love” Allie is already with me, the way she looks at me! I said Allie looks at everyone like that; the nurse said, “She didn’t look at ME that way!”

I asked when I should stop swaddling; she said, “Oh, she’d HATE to be swaddled now.” She explained that older babies like Allie want their hands free to put at their faces; some babies even hide their eyes with their arm. She said it makes them feel very vulnerable to have their hands locked down by their sides in swaddle. That would explain this morning. I have yet to tell Mr. W this. His theory is that having her hands free makes her feel insecure and wakes her up as they move in her nocturnal jerks and swings.

I asked when I should start pumping to prepare for my return to work. The nurse seemed alarmed and told me I should’ve started already. “You don’t know how many phone calls we get in here from mothers saying they have to get back to work but their baby won’t take the bottle!” So apparently by this point, I’m supposed to be pumping and storing after one morning feeding, and replacing one afternoon/evening feeding with freshly pumped milk bottlefed to her by someone other than me. Getting one bottle a day lets her know others can feed her in other ways. “Especially with how much she’s in love with you already, she will definitely prefer your skin to a bottle if you don’t get her on the bottle once a day now.” So I did the evening pump today and Mr. W fed it to her. Unfortunately, babies are more efficient than pumps so I only got 60 ml (2oz) out for her. She’ll be hungry again soon.

After the appointment, I went to part 2 of my day: visiting at my cousin Jennifer’s. The two babies were both asleep when we first got together; Allie slept in her carrier for HOURS. It was great chatting with Jen and my aunt. (Jen and I were deeply in a conversation about how to store pumped milk in bags when my aunt, her mom, turned to us and said, “You two are so BORING!”) We hung out all day, my aunt cooked a healthy homemade lunch for us, and they were GREAT at relaying their experiences and counseling me about my neuroticism. I was in such a good mood all day, Allie woke up, ate, went back to sleep for HOURS on my shoulder. The whole day everyone commented at how beautiful and easy/quiet Allie is. Wow. Jennifer also observed Allie looks at me with an enamored expression on her face.

Mr. W seemed to have a pretty decent day at work. I am so grateful to him; what a trooper daddy he is for the past 6 weeks of baby duty and mommy training me. He does/did more than any father I have ever heard of. But we both came out of his leave okay, I think. I’ll be taking night duty daily now that he’s back at work; I hope Allie’s behavioral changes continue in the positive direction.

Christmas was spent at home in our pajamas. Allie was getting better with her screaming in that she still fussed but did it less often, with less severity and for much shorter periods of time. But as soon as Christmas Day hit at midnight, she wailed and screamed and cried and wouldn’t settle down for hours on end. This continued through Christmas Day until we were just exhausted; Mr. W made a few too many half-jokes about giving her away, putting her in foster care until she was older, or handing her over to other family/friends to care for until she was old enough to stop screaming. She finally settled down after a feeding, falling asleep in my arms, when my parents came over as they often do these days with box dinners for us. When she awoke, she got crabby again.

Two days before Christmas, I had managed to go alone to the mall to get my parents two sets of double-walled glass teacups that they’d liked. While I was there, I also got Mr. W L’eau Par Kenzo cologne (he’s a cologne fiend) and a waffle recipe book so he could get more use out of the waffle iron he’d recently acquired. I was wondering how to secretly wrap this stuff while caring for a baby and with Mr. W also home when I stumbled upon a donation-run giftwrap station in the center of the mall, so I gladly handed the stuff over and was done with everything as soon as I walked out. The mall was getting crowded by the time I left.

We exchanged gifts on Christmas evening, with Mr. W looking surprised when I brought a box out from under the tree with a card and handed it to him. We had somehow developed an unsaid understanding that we weren’t getting each other presents. Then he got up and went to the tree, dragged out a large “prop” box that was supposed to be empty, and handed it to me. Everyone loved their stuff; he got me a super-nice sheet set that I had fallen in love with at our massage place the moment I laid down in the luxury. I had considered buying it from the massage spot, but the price tag turned me off. He spoils me. And speaking of spoil, my parents got me a denim Coach bag and an “Allie” necklace with her birthstone and my birthstone; they got Mr. W a Coach wallet-slash-cellphone-holder and a Coach beanie. My mom proudly announced she did all her Christmas shopping in one store.

Today, Mr. W got up at 7am after Allie’s morning feeding and went to the gym. Allie went back to sleep and seemed to wake up a few times, making her usual gurgles, fist-in-the-air stretches, squeals, bicycle legs, all with her eyes closed, and falling back to sleep each time. She slept so well I managed to go downstairs and have some breakfast on my own before the cat did his yowling thing and woke her up for good. I had just finished feeding her brunch (which she asks for by peppering her cries with “le! Lehhhh!” It sounds very French) when Mr. W came back and suggested I get ready for an outing so we could have a bite out and take Allie for a walk.

It was beautiful outside today, sunny, although a little arid for my tastes. We drove to San Juan Capistrano and had a nice lunch al fresco at Sundried Tomato Cafe. Allie woke up in her stroller and fussed. Once the pacifier lost its power to console her, I decided to take her into the restroom and change her, as she was squirming something wicked, too. My first public changing experience with her was pretty unpleasant. There was no changing table, so I had to place her on the marble counter between the two sinks on her changing pad. She screamed and scratched and writhed the entire time, probably because she was uncomfortable as it was freezing in the bathroom. Then I couldn’t find the diapers in the daddy diaper backpack Mr. W brought. I must’ve unzipped 7 compartments before I found an inner pocket. She was meanwhile sliding off me as I had to hold her with one arm, and clawing my chest and neck to ribbons and deafening me with her wails. Finally, the deed done, I exited the bathroom, rather embarrassed as I was sure people in the restaurant were wondering who on earth was killing a baby in the bathroom. Thankfully, the bathroom stayed empty while I was in there (I wouldn’t go in if I heard that, either) and the moment we walked out into the warmer restaurant, Allie was silent.

We then braved the mall again to return a set of the glass teacups; my parents took the gift home and found a crack in one. Allie started crying her “Le! Lehhhh! Le!” in the car so I fed her in the backseat really quick, Mr. W put her in a harness-type carrier, and wore her into the mall. We bee-lined to the tea store, did the exchange, and bee-lined back to the car. Allie slept in the carrier the whole time. Whew.

And with that, we concluded our first Christmas holiday with a baby.

I never thought I’d be one of those women who would be delivering AFTER her baby’s due date, altho statistically, it’s not surprising. It might be surprising how surprised I am.

The OB did one of those uncomfortable/painful cervical checks again, and said there’s definitely progress. Allie’s head is straight on against my bladder, and engaged at 0 station. I’m dilated to 1 cm. Effacement is almost complete. (I think the LEEP helped.) He updated her expected arrival date from “due date” to “the week after her due date,” which is what gave me the clue that I didn’t progress as far as he’d expected me to by now. He later confirmed that (without knowing) by telling me he can’t do a membrane sweep this week because 1cm is too small for him to fit his finger in, but that by my appointment next week (the day AFTER my due date, wah!), he could do it if I want. He said there’s no reason to induce at this point, Allie’s measuring a perfectly normal size and doing well, but if she doesn’t come at 41 weeks, then we can schedule something. He noted that recently, he’d scheduled 4 patients for induction after they passed 41 weeks, and by the 42nd week, 3 of them naturally went into labor before the scheduled induction date. I guess the threats helped the kids decide to come on their own. =P

I explained that my concern would be that I wanted to deliver a smaller baby to avoid complications, and I’m afraid that the longer I wait, the more there is a chance that Allie pops out a 8.5 lb baby. He was very unconcerned about that. “Her size is already pre-determined. Remember how in the 2nd trimester, we had talked a lot about your weight gain and nutrition?” OH yeah. “That’s to prevent the baby from being oversized. Women who birth a very large baby were already making their babies large early on. There’s nothing you can do at this point that would suddenly make your baby gain 3 pounds before you deliver, while it’s true that babies do gain weight toward the end.” I felt just a teeny bit better about the odds and ends of Halloween candy I’d had a couple of weeks ago. Darned lazy neighborhood kids didn’t feel like ringing our bell much this year. “Do you have any other questions or concerns?”

We certainly did. Mr. W brought out his FMLA forms for the second time to this doctor, and explained all the stress this was causing us and showed him the rejection letter from the Kaiser Disability Department. The OB already had his pen out before Mr. W even finished talking. We explained that all Mr. W’s work needed was a signature from my doctor certifying that yes, I really am pregnant. My OB had originally thought we needed to start the FMLA process with him, which meant that he had to do write-ups and diagnoses which he didn’t have time to do, but when he realized it was only a signature on Mr. W’s work form (which Mr. W had already filled out except for the physician signature section) and he didn’t have to do a separate FMLA packet, he readily wrote “wife is pregnant, EDC 11/21/11″ and signed off on it. And then he apologized for all the stress we’d been undergoing while we were running in circles and hitting walls on this requirement in order for Mr. W to get FMLA. On the way to the appointment, I was visualizing the OB taking the paperwork and signing it, no conflict, and he did. One huge hurdle…uh…hurdled. Good thing, too, cuz when Mr. W emailed his superior the rejection letter from Disability, the response he got back was to the effect of “Yeah, that sucks, but we still need our form signed to give you FMLA; what you’d turned in before from her doctor still isn’t good enough.”

I had lower abdominal cramps on and off all day and night after my appointment. The doctor had asked me about symptoms, and I told him periodic cramps that felt like menstrual cramps, with lower back soreness. He thought those may have been mild contractions. So hopefully, I’ll have gradual, relatively painless contractions until I hit the transition part of labor, and then I’ll deliver.

I’ve had pretty heavy munchies for the past few weeks. I’ve been trying to get myself to reach for healthier alternatives to chocolate, cookies, etc., so when I stood in front of the open refrigerator, I’d reach for an apple daily. Mr. W has been buying Fujis and recently, a new crop called “Honeycrisps” from Costco, so I’ve been eating those. It wasn’t until the other day when I was crunching into one and looked down to see the mostly-green skin that I had a small start. At a private reading at least 6 months ago, Rebecca had asked me if I liked “green apples.” I think Granny Smith apples when I think “green apples,” so I said no. She said she could see me eating green apples late in my pregnancy. I thought that was unlikely. I don’t like sour stuff or hard chewy stuff and Granny Smiths were both. But these Fujis and Honeycrisps are 2/3 to 3/4 green-colored, and depending how I’m holding them, they look as she described: green apples. Mr. W noted how she’d been wrong about every delivery date she’d foreseen for Allie. I said that the doctor said over and over again that we now know the baby decides when it’s going to come out by releasing labor hormones when its ready, and that Rebecca can’t see clearly things that haven’t been decided yet. It’s possible that her “as early as the 7th to as late as the 23rd” is the range of days that Allie would be fine coming out, but Allie had decided she wasn’t quite ready, yet, when those dates came and went. Nevertheless, Rebecca saw this as my delivery scenario:

Rebecca: Cindy, I think Allie will make you think nothing is happening. Then, bingo, everything will be hard and fast and it will be over before you know it.
Me: uh-oh…that sounds like Pitocin usage. =/
Rebecca: Nope, I don’t think so. I think you may be one of those lucky women whose contractions aren’t that painful until you are in transition. And transition goes pretty quickly.
Me: I would be SO grateful if that happened! Louise has been sending early prayers and putting me in bubbles of pain-free light.
Rebecca: And Louise does good work with those bubbles
Louise: Sweet prayers to you with all the warmth and comfort the Universe has to offer. You’re so strong. Just breathe and focus.

So I was SO comfortable…that yesterday, Mr. W and I went to see the newest release of the Twilight Series, “Breaking Dawn, Part I.” It was the most well-done of all the Twilight movies so far, and very well adapted from the book, but I still wish that Kristen Stewart had the acting capacity to truly capture Bella’s character. Bella has a very cute, quirky and funny side, and Stewart plays her one-dimensionally. All angst, kinda annoying. As usual, Taylor Lautner did awesomely. He was just like the character of Jacob at this point in the books, and created the same feelings of irritation (for his constant running-off tantrums) and grudging compassion (cuz I’ve been thru that unrequited love frustration) from me that I had for Jacob in reading the book. And after the movie, I was tricked/dragged to going for a walk and early dinner at Dana Point harbor. Hubby is so restless.

I’ve had a good-busy week so far (as opposed to bad-busy), starting from last Saturday, when Ann threw me the classiest, most beautiful baby shower ever with about 15 of my closest friends and family at her beautiful new house. It was in the traditional non-co-ed style, or she would’ve had to find a bigger venue elsewhere. I discovered while putting together the guest list that I have WAY more male friends than female. We’ll have to use THAT guest list for something else later on. It was great seeing people I haven’t seen for a long time. That’s one of the cool things about celebratory events: it gets (most) people together in a jolly mood to celebrate. My parents-in-law and sister-in law (Gamer Bro’s wife) even drove down from Vegas and spent the weekend with us to attend the shower. I’ll post photos when I get a moment to sit down in front of the computer and compile photos. My mom sent me a slew of photos she’d taken the same night. I’m hoping others will process and make their photos available soon, so I can steal some. (How did we ever survive without digital photos and the internet?)

Vanessa was out of town on the weekend of the shower, but still wanted to celebrate with me, so we met up on Monday at The Melting Pot in Brea. It was her first time there, but she did great with the fondue dinner. This was also the first time I’ve seen her since she’d gotten engaged, so there was lots to talk about. Like, how she’s planning on making Allie a little playmate in 4 years. Yay! It’s funny when I think back to how early on in this blog, when I’d first met her in jujitsu, I’d referred to her as Navy Girl Vanessa to give her some form of identity. I’d also called Ann “Commenter Ann” or “Commenter A,” because that was how we interacted in the beginning — she commented on this blog. And now the both of them have larger-than-life presence and their names alone hold enough meaning and identity to be simply “Vanessa” and “Ann.” Meet my friends, Vanessa and Ann. Of course you know them, I talk about them on the blog.

Tuesday was supposed to be my down-day of the week. I’d planned to do my laundry and get the photos organized to post on the shower. However, one load of laundry in, and the washing machine gave out on me. It refused to spin or drain, so my clothes were just sitting in a vat of dirty water. I turned the dial back a bit and re-ran the last portion of the prior cycle. That worked, but the darn machine stopped again when it got to the same point of the wash.
Mr. W had just received a phone call days before from his tenant describing the exact same problem with the washer at the rental place and Mr. W had given the tenant permission to call a repair guy over and fix the problem on Mr. W’s tab. Mr. W was understandably concerned with how much it was going to cost him, and now this was happening at our house, too. After an initial freak-out period where he exercised his yelling, cussing, hitting and kicking muscles, Mr. W went online to see if he could troubleshoot and find a decent fix. Turns out this is a common problem and most of the time, the issue is the lid switch. In the next half hour, Mr. W took the washing machine apart, found the problem with the lid switch, and FIXED it! We have a working washing machine again!
Of course now it was too late to do the rest of my laundry loads, but it does show one thing: there’s a reason for everything. “WHAT ARE THE ODDS of this !@#$ happening AT THE SAME TIME as the !@#$ at the condo?!” Mr. W had lamented. “WHY would this happen to everybody?!” Apparently, it was to answer his prayer about having to spend hundreds on getting a professional out to fix his tenants’ washing machine. I encouraged him to contact his tenants to see if they’d gotten someone to fix their machine yet, and if not, to see if we (Mr. W) can go over and do it ourselves (himself).
He texted his tenant the next day, turned out the tenant hadn’t gotten anyone yet, so after work and my chiropractor appointment yesterday (Wednesday), we went to Mr. W’s rental property and he FIXED THAT WASHER, TOO! Same part, same problem. On the drive home Mr. W spoke of how he didn’t have the confidence to attempt to fix a washer at someone else’s home, but because it had happened at our home, he was okay to attempt it first on his own. That then gave him the experience and confidence to try it at the tenants’ place. The total cost for the repair at the tenants: $45 for a new lid switch. They were happy, we were happy. I was happy cuz while Mr. W was spending half an hour doing the fix, I hung out with the tenants’ two very nice young adult daughters and played with their two cats.

Today, childhood friend Sandy (she still needs that title to distinguish her from coworker Sandy) and I had made plans to meet up. She moved to Texas about a year and a half ago, and I hadn’t seen her since. She flew back to CA to attend my shower and was staying a week, so we wanted to take advantage of the opportunity of being in the same state, and she wanted to come visit Dodo. Because I’ve known her from age 6, I figure she won’t find it rude if I do the rest of my laundry while she visits.

I pretty much only come here to write a post if there’s a lot of stuff I want to say and document. Otherwise the short little ditties just go on the social networking site. I feel a little bad about this, cuz blog readers don’t see my quickies and I lose out on the daily documentation. Stuff like:

Today: “Cindy woke up this morning on her stomach, with Allie trying to tap out. Oops.”
“Cindy indulged in some yummy Japanese treats for breakfast. Thanks, Lauren [court reporter's daugher working for Disneyland in Japan], Danielle [court reporter's daughter visiting Disneyland sister], and [court reporter]! =9 Allie’s all happy and bouncing from it right now.”

Yesterday: “Cindy and hubby got Allie what will be the most expensive furniture in the entire house. =P http://www.babyappleseed.com/beaumont-crib.htm”
“Cindy dreamt Riley came out instead of Allie, but as a talking intellectual small child. He had to wear Allie’s pink ‘coming home’ outfit that was too small, but when asked why he hid his gender behind his foot at the last ultrasound (preventing proper clothes from being prepared for him), he wouldn’t give a straight answer.”

Sunday: “
Cats find their sunny perches anywhere, so watch where ur steppin when one’s around.”

Saturday: “Cindy is among a throng of 2000 (& growing) ppl for the raffling of lake spots for the B52 concert tonite. Not feeling optimistic. Come on, blue-8.” (along with a whole album of photos, posted later, of the resulting surprisingly decent spot we snagged on the sand at a diagonal to the stage, but front-center for the fireworks show after the concert, and photos of us there with our guests, Coworker Sandy, her hubby Rich, Gym Trainee, and my growing-like-a-week godson, Gym Trainee’s now 14-yr old high school kid.)

Friday: “Cindy wonders if she should alert plaintiffs’ counsel to the difference between ‘skim’ and ‘scan,’ as he keeps telling witnesses things like, ‘This is a half-inch document, if you could just scan this briefly?’.” Comments on this one were amusing.

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.

My old friend Edgar and his long-time girlfriend of 13 years Ruby just got engaged last nite. I’m going to tell this story, cuz it’s not the kind of engagement I’m used to seeing and it’s cute.

The two have been dating since Ruby was in high school, and they’ve managed to keep a teen-love-esque charm in their relationship. For example, because they got together November 20, they always make a point of doing a mini anniversary dinner or just something special every month on the 20th. Yesterday was also a 20th, so it wasn’t unusual when Edgar told Ruby he was going to make dinner reservations for the two of them at a favorite restaurant, Owen’s Bistro. (BTW, I Yelped this place and it’s got one of the highest ratings I’d ever seen in local restaurants.) Then, shortly before they were to leave for dinner, Edgar received a planned call from a buddy. I can’t remember the buddy’s name, so we’ll just call him Steve (wouldn’t it be funny it if actually WERE “Steve?”).

Steve claimed he’d tripped and injured himself while on a hiking trail behind Edgar’s neighborhood, and wanted to know if Edgar were at home so that Edgar could go get Steve and help Steve to his car. Edgar explained to Steve they were on their way to dinner reservations, but that they would go help Steve before they went. Earlier, Steve and Edgar had already set up 300 LCD tealight candles on a part of the hiking trail so that it spelled out “WILL YOU MARRY ME?” The words were clearly visible from an upper section of the trail that looked down over a drop, and that overlook section was cemented with a railing, like a balcony. That was the proposal site, and when Edgar and Ruby got on the path, Edgar called Steve to let him know they had arrived. That was when Steve activated the hidden camera in the bushes pointing at the balcony section of the trail. Steve then ran and hid. The plan was for Ruby to get to the balcony section, look down to look for Steve, see the candles, then turn to Edgar. Edgar would then be on his knee with the ring out. (I’d told Edgar to spell out “Ruby” with the candles, too, so she doesn’t assume it’s someone else’s proposal, and so others on the hiking trail didn’t think their significant other were proposing and then have an awkward moment. He didn’t do it, and apparently there WAS a couple that crossed that section shortly before they did, and it did create an awkward moment between them. Ouch.)

This is what I saw on the video of the proposal (no sound, as I watched it on the camera): Ruby comes on the scene (balcony) on a cell phone talking to Steve, as Steve tries to tell her where he is (allegedly) sitting so that she would look over the balcony railing and see the proposal candles. She has a concerned look on her face as she looks around the place in a circle. Edgar appears on the video as Ruby’s back is turned, and stealthily takes out the ring box, making sure it’s facing the right way in his hand. Ruby walks to the balcony railing and looks over. Edgar positions himself on his knee behind her. She turns back around, still on the phone, still looking concerned. She sees Edgar and stares at him in confusion. He appears to be saying something. She starts laughing, then doubles over laughing with her face in her hands.

Okay, so what happened was that she was so busy looking for Steve that when she looked over the balcony, she completely missed the candles. Edgar meanwhile assumed she saw the candle proposal, so he was making his verbal proposal. She couldn’t figure out why he was on his knee, and appeared to be proposing in the middle of their hunt for their injured friend. What odd timing. Awkward! What about Steve? And she also wanted to know who the guy was who was standing behind them on the hiking trail, staring at them with his mouth open. This whole thing was a set-up? So Steve’s okay? Is that guy part of the proposal? What’s his role? Edgar turned and saw the guy for the first time shamelessly taking in their personal moment. Ruby wanted to know if this whole thing was a joke, and whether Steve was really okay. She was so distracted and confused that she forgot to say “yes.”

So Steve soon appeared (walking just fine!) and helped put away the tea light candles, then agreed to join Edgar and Ruby for dinner. Meanwhile, about 16 additional friends of theirs (us, included) were already at Owen’s Bistro waiting in a private room. Ruby walked in the room for their private reservation, recognized everyone, looked confused, and suddenly looked a little tearful as her hands went up to cover her face again. We swarmed them and congratulated them, she got to show off her ring right away…

…(superb quality round brilliant center stone with many smaller glittering rounds down each side of the platinum band, very nicely designed by Edgar), and we all had a very nice 3-course prix fixe dinner that Edgar REFUSED to let any of us pay for. =P

Mr. W and I sat at the end of the long table across from Eddie & Michelle, who had just returned fairly recently from their 2-week Paul Gauguin cruise to the French Polynesian Islands (same cruise we went on, only twice as long and with huge raving reviews from us). I felt slightly antisocial because the 4 of us (Eddie, Michelle, me and Mr. W) mainly just gushed about our experiences on this amazing cruise (see our series here!), but we had been waiting to hear about this cruise and were excited and jealous the entire 2 weeks they were on it.

I didn’t have any photos of Edgar & Ruby’s engagement or dinner at the time I first wrote this post, but I did have these! =D


But I digress.

Congrats, Edgar & Ruby! It’s not everyone who puts so much effort into proposals anymore. Aside from boys trying to be creative to push the odds in their favor when asking a girl to Prom, this much work in popping any question is virtually unheard of, and we’re so happy to have been a part of it.

Wednesday, I had a tremendous tire adventure. I changed all 4 tires for the first time on the Lexus, pretty good considering the car’s 5 years old and has 32,300 miles on it. Apparently those high-performance stock tires were only meant to last 15,000 miles. I’d brought the car into the dealership for a recall check, and they observed that my rear tires were almost bald and the fronts were worn pretty badly on the insides (normal wear on sports suspension, which tilts tires inward in the front for better traction). They quoted me $885 for the 4 tires including mounting and balancing, plus $169 for alignment. I don’t know whether this would include the mandatory tire disposal fees and taxes, and it was already too big of a number for me. I’m used to the Accord Coupe’s tires costing $110 each.
I left to go shop around, and after researching, ended up buying the exact same tires (Bridgestone Potenza RE760 Sport) from Discount Tires, and they installed, mounted, balanced, disposed, taxed for just under $850. Their inspection revealed that my suspension is perfectly fine, so because they saved me an alignment, I was fine paying an additional $70 for their replacement program on all 4 tires. I never thought I’d think a grand on tires is a good deal, but that appears to be the norm from my research, and I got away with really good, high-performance, higher-wear tires for under a grand, and if anything happens to them for the next 3 years, they’ll be replaced for free.
The young guys working at Discount Tires/America’s Tires were very knowledgable, friendly, and professional, and many of them have those same tires on their own cars, which they take on the race track on weekends and drift. They must’ve looked at me and my old tires that lasted 32K+ miles and thought, “Man, this car’s wasted on her, the old folgie.”

After my tires were done, I drove my suddenly quiet car over to Ann’s new house and she, her hubby Mark, and I went to the Orange County Fair. The goal was to let her try this year’s new gimmick, deep-fried Kool-Aid balls. When I saw this in a news article, I’d sent the link to her, and we’d been talking about it since. Last year, I’d discovered a deep-fried butter article and sent that to her, and she did go to the fair and try that, too. I wonder what they’re going to deep-fry next year. But anyway, we weren’t sure we’d find it since a friend was just recently at that Fair and had never heard of the Kool-Aid balls. As luck (good or bad, I’ll let you decide) would have it, it was one of the first things we came across. Ann spotted a giant sign immediately:

(BTW, at 5.5 months pregnant, I weighed myself this morning and I weigh 131.6, up 0.1 lbs from what I weighed 2 weeks ago, when the doctor told me to watch the weight gain and restrict it to half pound per week from this point on. Yay.)

There were a lot of large people in the fried foods line, we observed. I lined up in a significantly shorter line farther down for crepes, and ordered a grilled chicken pesto salad crepe, and noticed that everyone in line in front of me was fit or slender. Interesting. Anyway, I didn’t try the Kool-Aid balls. Ann wasn’t too impressed, saying the fried butter last year was better. The Kool-Aid balls were apparently just donut holes in which red punch Kool-Aid powder was mixed into the dough, then deep-fried. She said the doughy innards didn’t have much taste, altho the more fried outside seemed to have been sprinkled with Kool-Aid powder and did achieve more tang of flavor. She felt sick after eating those and some globules of deep fried zucchini strips, and didn’t eat anything else. Mark had a giant hot dog in a giant bun buried in giant amounts of condiments. I’d never thought of mayo as a hot dog topping. At one point Mark got up and left the table to look at some exhibits, and Ann and I were approached by an elderly couple, the woman in a wheelchair. The gentleman asked politely if they could share our table (I guess the farther back ones would make for difficult wheelchair maneuvering) and I told him of course. It then occurred to me I didn’t even check with Ann, but she didn’t seem to mind. The couple had purchased deep-fried Oreo cookies and offered one to me as I was curious to them. I did not allow Allison to have that, but the two of them said it was good and showed me a cross-section of one they’d bitten into. It looked like fried yellow cake (batter) with a doughy black center (Oreo). Ann said she’d had it before and the oil makes everything soggy inside.
It was fun wandering around the fairgrounds with them, people-watching, exhibit-examining, animal-observing. At the livestock section, a goat had just given birth to two little does about 45 minutes before we’d gotten there. She had already licked her girls clean, altho her rear was still seeping some bloody goo. Animals are so resilient. Mama goat doesn’t even look tired, and the baby goats were already walking their tiny, wobbly fuzzy bodies to mom’s teats and nipping at them, eyes open and everything. Farther down in another pen, some giant sows were laying on hay sleeping on their sides. Their tender sat on the gate, explaining to a bunch of onlookers that the sow behind him is expected to give birth the next day, signs being the changes in her behavior, teats, and she’d begun lactating a bit. Mark leaned against this gate and watched the sow, as Ann and I wandered around all the pens and looked at other goats, chicken, chicks, etc. We returned to the sow section a couple of times and had a good laugh at how many people were gathered around the pregnant sow, just staring, when she was on her side asleep the entire time. What are they looking at? Nothing was happening or going to happen, apparently, until the next day.
Anyway, I think I’m now vegetarian again. The Fair does this to me every time.