Preggers Photos

I think we're well overdue for some preggers photos, so here are some that were taken today:

And, as a bonus, something we can never have too many of, a cute picture of William:

Isn't it wonderful that what fits in my belly one day, will soon become an independent little human? Just call me a cuteness factory.

How to make a pregnant woman uncomfortable (and hopefully put her in labour).

On Sunday my family (plus sister-in-law Eireann) went to the zoo. If you've ever been to the Toronto Zoo, you know that it involves a lot of walking. If you've ever been in the middle of winter, than you're just as crazy as I am. As a rule, if you're eight and a half months pregnant, and it's really cold out, you probably shouldn't spend the day at the zoo. Having said that, I thoroughly enjoyed myself, especially with Eireann there as an extra toddler-chaser.

The next day, as Adam was leaving for work, he casually announced that our cordless phones weren't working and I needed to plug in a land line. Once he had left, I began to panic. I didn't know where the corded phone was. What if I went into labour? What if I had some other emergency for which e-mail was too slow? Unfortunately, the phone was where I thought it was: in the crawl space. As the name suggests, the crawl space is a space that can only be accessed by crawling (or bending over at an odd angle). Ours takes up half the basement and is, especially for someone in my delicate condition, a back-pain-inducing nightmare. I totally blamed my husband for making me do this. I'm going to go into labour right here, thought I, won't Adam feel bad then! After I plugged in the phone, I decided I was going to totally overwork myself and put myself into labour, just to show him! So I put away one load of laundry, then got tired and lazy and went on the computer.

Today, to add to Sunday's excessive walking, I went to the mall with William's good friend Aedan and his family (Aedan's parents have been my friends since kindergarten). The good thing about toddler-malling with a gang is that there are plenty of toddler chasers. And of course, in my delicate condition, it's perfectly acceptable for me to walk at a leisurely pace, while others take on the task of running after my son (who has only two speeds: sprinting and dead stop).

After all this walking and crawling and walking, I now feel excessively pregnant. My gigantic uterus is sore. It hurts when I walk, stand up, or when a certain toddler takes flying leaps at my belly. When I was pregnant with William, I didn't feel like this until after my due date, fairly close to the time I was induced. At the time I blamed my doctor for doing a membrane sweep and bruising my insides. Now I have noone to blame but myself.

My friend Becca (Aedan's mommy) recently directed me to a site that boasted "Jump start your labour cookies". When I mentioned this to my Mom, she said "Ahh! Don't do that. If something is wrong with the baby you'll never know if that was why." However, having very low hopes that a cookie recipe (one that contains no cocaine or pharmaceuticals) will have any effect, and taking my current discomfort as a sign that labour is imminent, I made them anyway. They're basically ginger cookies with a little cayenne pepper in them to make them spicey. So if I do go into labour in the next 24 hours, I'll totally credit my baking (or, you know, the hours and hours of walking in the last few days.)

Yawn.

This afternoon I felt exhausted. This may have had something to do with the fact that I spent the morning taking William to the fall fair run by the early years centre. Lots of chasing William around, then carrying him around, then bouncing him on my hip because my baby loves to dance. There were also some raffles that we paid for but didn't win (at least I think we didn't win, perhaps they just haven't called the winners yet) and also some animals that kids could take turns holding and petting. William doesn't quite get the concept of taking turns so he would start to cry as soon as his turn was over right up until the next animal landed in his lap (it was nap time).

Soon after I got home I went out again to help my brother and his wife pick up some new furniture. Of course I didn't physically lift anything (that's for non-pregnant people), but they needed me to chauffeur their new endtables because our Forester has the largest trunkspace of anyone in the family. Not an overly difficult task, but afterwards I was ready for bed (it was 3 pm).

I would have been tired anyway, but I also felt that pregnancy-related tiredness, where all your bones hurt, especially your hips, and your whole body feels like jello.

I told my husband this and he said "If you were jello then you would have no bones so they couldn't hurt." I get the feeling sometimes that Adam doesn't understand the depth of my exhaustion. So I complain more. Also I got him to take me out to dinner and then watch William while I took a bath. That last part is especially difficult because William loves baths so much that when he hears the water running, he runs to the bathroom door and screams until someone lets him in, or someone forces him to go somewhere else.

Anyway I felt much better after my bath and I put William to bed and everything was peachy. Adam unfortunately had to go in to work, even though it's Saturday night, and he worked until past nine pm both yesterday and the day before. Late-night graphics emergencies happen more often than you might think. (Hence why I'm awake writing blog entries at midnight, instead of sleeping).

My hip hurts

Whine. Whine. Whine. My hip hurts. My left hip, to be exact, at the back just above my bum. It doesn't hurt all the time, only when I:

-sit for a long time
-lean forward while sitting
-cross my legs
-stand up from a sitting position
-bend over
-pick up something heavy
-turn around in such a way that I pivot on my left leg
-sit on a cold hard surface (like a bathtub edge)
-walk up or down the stairs without concentrating on not moving my hip
-do any of the above while carrying a toddler

The pain ranges from "how annoying" to "Waaaaaaaa!" I'd go to the doctor, but he'd just diagnose me with pregnancy. Unless you need antibiotics or have cancer, doctors are fairly useless. I vaguely recall having some joint pain when I was pregnant with William, but I don't know if I had it this early or not. It wasn't nearly this bad, but then again I didn't have to chase around a 16-month-old.

In related news my little genius has recently learned how to climb onto the kitchen table and onto my computer desk. "Giggle, giggle."

December 20th

I finally got my official due date from the doctor today and it's much earlier than I thought.  I've been telling people "Early January" and the above pregnancy ticker (now updated) was previously counting down to January 4th.  Now suddenly I'm 13 weeks preggers and I have a baby due before Christmas!  Gah!

William was 11 days late, so maybe if my doctor isn't too induction-happy I can still have a January baby.  Perhaps she(or he) will even be the first baby of the new year.  Wouldn't that be exciting?  (Though highly unlikely).

My ridiculously early due date was about all my doctor had time to tell me before he had to run and meet some paramedics who were whisking away an emergency patient.  He was kind enough, however, to send me down to the basement to feed the vampires.  Pregnant woman blood is their favourite flavour.

Super Happy Fans

My biggest fans Kate and her Mom, just sent me this picture of them wearing their Super Happy Fan T-shirts. You too can purchase one here. I think the dog needs one too. I assume the pooch is in the picture because he is a big Super Happy Fan as well. Wow, a dog who can read and use the internet. You guys must be so proud!

This picture brightened my day because lately I've been feeling all pregnant and gross. It's not fair, you feel the most pregnant when you're not even showing yet, and nobody pities you at all. Later, when you have a nice preggers belly and are feeling fabulous, everyone starts opening doors for you and offering you somewhere to sit. I went to the doctor's yesterday, but because of the long weekend, he hadn't received my ultrasound pics yet and couldn't give me a due date. (The doctor's office is in the same building as the ultrasound place, so apparently it takes them 4 days to carry a file up a flight of stairs). Instead I got the fun of having my vagina poked and swabbed.

In other news, it's my favourite (also my only) brother's birthday today. This means we're all going to dinner tonight at my parents and having cake with little peanut butter bears on top (Craig's favourite). Not having to make dinner makes me super happy. This also reminds me that I'm looking forward to my brother's wedding in August. (Yes, this August, they're speedy, what can I tell you?)

My inability to keep a secret

Lately Adam and I have been hoping to have another baby. Thus, with baby on the brain, I have the urge to take a pregnancy test every month just before my period arrives. Now those things are darn expensive. I've heard rumours that they can be purchased at the dollar store, but I've yet to find one with a family planning section. Anyway, I found a box at Zellers that came two in a package, so I felt I could test this month AND next month, every time I felt the urge. Well, the second one was a waste, because I took one this Friday morning and it came out PREGGERS.

Now last time I found out I was pregnant, I told everyone I knew three seconds later. All the baby books say to wait three months because before then your baby could disappear and you'd have to tell everyone the pregnancy is cancelled. I obviously don't think that will happen, but there's another drawback to telling people early. That is everyone thinks that you've been pregnant FOREVER. If most people tell at 3 months, then most people only have to wait 7 months for their friends to have a baby (yes, I realize that's 10 months. They lie about the 9 month thing). For this reason, Adam and I decided to wait until after we move, in June.

Secret keeping Day 1: Friday I went to the Early Years Centre and told none of my mommy friends.
Secret keeping Day 2: I hid my prenatal pills because I knew my brother and sister were coming over to babysit, but neglected to close babynames.com where I had been browsing for name ideas. My brother noticed and teased me that I'm pregnant. I totally lied and said I was "naming a character."
Secret keeping Day 3: I went to my inlaws house and didn't tell anybody. Although my mother-in-law would later tell me "I was thinking that you were pregnant. Because you looked different in your face."
Secret keeping Day 4: Today. I talked to my Mom on the phone. She must have asked me "what's new?" six times but I evaded the question easily because she rarely gave me time to answer. Then I went to my parents house for dinner. My appetite was feeling a bit off and I made the mistake of saying so. This prompted my mother to ask "Are you pregnant?" Instead of a quick "no" (which would be the right answer for a secret-keeper) I blushed, and finally admited that, yes, I am pregnant. So 4 days is officially how long I can keep a secret. And now I'm telling the world (because I already told the McNicolls, which is pretty much the same thing).

Just a warning though.... I will be pregnant forever.

Super Happy Mom

I know you're all dying to hear about my motherhood experiences. I tried blogging about them a couple of days ago but couldn't get past one sentence before William demanded my attention, loudly. Loudest baby in the hospital ward. I'm so proud.

Not sure if I'll finish this entry before feeding time, but I'll try. I've had so many of those life experience thingies people talk about since I last posted.

The Labour

Since I've been blogging about my labour terror for ages, I'm sure at least five of you are dying to know how it went. All of the following statements are true: It wasn't that bad. It sucked. It was the bizarrest experience of my life.

Everyone always asks how long labour was. I can't really answer this because I'm not sure of the official beginning. I woke up at around 3 or 4 am, with mild contractions, but was I officially in labour? I dunno. I went to the hospital at 8 am, my induction appointment time. The moment we got there my contractions had miraculously stopped and I was like the girl who cried labour.

So my doctor stuck his finger way up where a finger should never go to check my cervix. Just to put things in perspective, I find these internal checks to be way more uncomfortable than contractions. Anyway I had only dialated a finger width, not offically a centimeter.

So he put in some magic gel to get things going, meaning he had to keep his fingers up my woohoo for an extra long time. Fun. After that my contractions started up again with gusto.

Be right back... I gotta go check on my baby. Still sleeping soundly in his rocking swing. Now where was I?

Contractions. The are like strong period cramps (if you're a guy, period cramps are somewhat similar to bowel cramps). The pain is not as bad as the marathoness of them. They come every 2 minutes, last 30 seconds, and it goes on like that for hours. After the gel they monitered my contractions for a bit using the same contraption used for the non-stress test then they sent me home.

A few slices of pizza and some episodes of Voyager later we went back to the hospital. They had told us to come back at 4, and it was only 2:30. But my contractions were so ouchie that I felt better being at the hospital. I watched some Deep Space Nine on a portable DVD player and got visits from my entire family. They checked me and I was 2 centimetres.

Gotta check on baby again... That swing is brilliant.

The contractions stayed pretty regular and didn't really get worse, but I started to feel uncomfortable between them. And I got all shakey. And I puked up the pizza (which is good because I found out later that you aren't supposed to eat during labour. Something about choking yourself with vomit in the event of a C-section).

I think it's time to feed the baby. Before he starts wailing is good...

...Well that took a long time. Like, hours. I basically just spent the entire day with a baby at my boob (more on that later).

Five hours went by. I was so fed up with the contractions that even Star Trek trivia and Deep Space Nine couldn't console me. The nurse checked my cervix and I was still only 2 centimetres! Then the doctor's intern checked and she said I was 3 centimetres. It had been forever and I hadn't progressed more than one centimetre! I was so discouraged, I thought the baby would never come! This is when I asked for the epidural.

They had to give me an IV for the epidural. So they bruised up one arm trying to get the needle in, and ended up putting it in the other arm. Now I have a hideous, and unnecessary, bruise on my wrist. No biggie.

Adam had to leave the room for epidural time and the nurse and anesthesiologist and I had to wear shower caps, so I knew this was serious business. I sat on the edge of the bed with the nurse sort of holding me while the anesthesiologist washed my back, then she (the anesthesiologist) stuck me with a needle. This was the freezing needle. She said it was going to feel like a bee sting. It felt like a needle, which when you think about it is really the same thing. Then the nurse and the anesthesiologist made a big deal about how I wasn't to move while they put an even bigger needle into my spine. Duh, thought I. So in it went. I flinched. I couldn't help it. It hurt. The anesthesiologist got a bit annoyed at this. She had to try again. Don't flinch, I told myself, then flinched anyway. Finally it worked, and caused no permanent paralysis I might add.

For any of you ladies who are about to go through this process, I gotta tell you, get the epidural. Get the epidural as soon as you can. Like, if you can get it a month or two before your due date, go for it. But seriously, the moment that epi kicked in I wanted to kick myself for not getting it earlier. Whoever invented this stuff is a genius. It numbs the pain from the belly down, without taking away the feeling. As a test, Adam put an ice cube on my leg. I could feel it, but it was like it was mad of plastic or something because it didn't feel cold.

By this time I was so tired I was able to sleep even though I had more tubes coming out of me than a borg drone. Since I couldn't feel any contractions at all, the doctor chucked some magic juice in my IV to turn them into super duper kick ass contractions. A glance at the machine that was monitering me told me that my contractions were off the scale, with barely any time between them.

They woke me up at about 1:30 am to check my cervix. Do what you like, said I, I can't feel anything down there anyway. I was 8 centimetres. Sweet! Around this time I started to feel like I had to take a big poo (only it was really a baby, disguising himself as poo).

Dinner time... For me not baby. Back to blogging later...

Ah delicious manocotti courtousy of Mom (or should I say Omi).

Anyway a half hour later they checked my cervix again and I was ten centimetres. Five hours to dialate one centimetre, half hour to dialate two. Thank you magic juice. For those of you who have never watched television, ten centimetres is when it's time to push out that baby.

I really really felt like I had to go poo. I didn't feel that urge to push people talk about, though. Think about it, no matter how badly you have to go, most people don't feel the need to go all over the bed when they can't make it to the toilet. So I didn't push until the nurses told me too. When it was time to poo out the baby, the nurse brought in a big mirror so I could see what was going on. Odd. I have never seen myself from that angle before. But then, oddness is the name of the game at this point. Giving birth is by far the bizarrest experience of my life.

As I started pushing I could see a little bit of hair, presumably the top of my baby's head. I knew it was a baby coming out, but in the same kind of back of my mind way that I knew all through pregnancy that he was coming out my woohoo. The kind of knowledge you have without really believing it. Anyway. I looked away from the mirror a moment and closed my eyes and pushed. When I looked up again there was a head between my legs. A whole head. A real human head sticking out of my privates. Surreal. I don't really remember pushing the rest of him out, I must have because he isn't there anymore. Seeing that head was just too bizarre.

Afterwards a bunch of stuff happened. I birthed the placenta. I got stitches in the naughty area. Turned out the sneaky student doctor cut my woohoo with scissors when I wasn't looking, that made me sore later, let me tell you. My doctor came in five minutes after the kid was born and pretended he had delivered the baby. Anyway the whole time all this was happening I was watching my baby being cleaned and carried all around while he screamed and screamed. I kept telling myself, this is my baby, this is my baby. But it was all too surreal.

Okay, so I was going to blog a bit about motherhood, particularly William and my difficulties with boob feeding, but I'll leave that for another time. Mainly because this blog entry is getting to be almost as long as the labour itself! In the meantime check out www.filipowicz.ca/william for some pics of my new kid. Oh, by the way, William was offically born at 2:41 am on February 15th.

Non Stress Test

So I've been having this pain ever since I went to the doctor's on Thursday and he poked up my woohoo. The pain could be from that, or it could be from walking too much in the last couple days, since I walked all the way to the supermarket on Wednesday and yesterday I walked Sputnik and my parents. The pain is sort of at the bottom of my belly and it only hurts when I get up, bend over, walk, cough, laugh, move, or the baby moves. Of course when people hear I'm having pain, and I tell them how preggers I am, they get all excited and say "Oooh! ooh! You must be in labour" even though this is nothing like any labour pains I've ever heard about.

So yesterday Adam was all worried about me cause I was hurting so I finally agreed to go to the hospital to get checked out. I went to labour and delivery and they asked if I was in labour. I said no, I just wanted to be checked out. So they hooked me up to a monitor to do a non-stress test. This test is to make sure the baby isn't all stressed out from being cooped up in the womb too long. Honestly, I could come to the hospital with a severed arm and as long as the baby was okay noone would care. Well my baby isn't stressed. He loves the womb. He's never leaving.

The test also confirmed that I am still not even a little bit in labour. Duh. But I still have ouchies.
So today's project to take my mind off my fun new pain, and impending labour, is to create a flash representation of the non-stress test. Here it is:



The number on the left measures the baby's heart rate. The number on the right is meant to measure contractions, but since I'm not having any it only jumps when the baby is kicking. As you can see, I have a gameshow buzzer that I'm pressing every time I feel the baby move. Insead of buzzing, it marks a musical note on the paper. The baby's movements match up with a rise in the heart rate, because he's having fun doing his excercise routine.

Dr. Cervix Poker

So I went to the doctor today and he had a gay old time poking around my cervix to see if it was "ready". While this might seem like a party, it actually isn't very pleasant. Anyway, he told me he thinks that I'll go into labour this weekend. So of course I got all freaked out and got into to one of my "I'm so terrified of labour that I'm going to cry" moods. Adam had to drop me off at my Mommy and Daddy's house so I could get hugs.

I'm out of that mood now and I'm onto the "I hope I go into labour this minute, but I don't think this pregnancy will ever end" mood. My mother-in-law's birthday is Saturday, so that might be fun for him to have the same birthday as his grandma.

Well maybe by Monday I'll have some baby pictures to post. Of my own baby, I mean. No promises, just hopes.

Aedan and His Parents

I told you I had photos of Becca and Drew's new baby. Here are a few:




Isn't he adorable? And doesn't Becca look pretty? She just gave birth to a nine pound baby and still manages to look glamourous.

In other news. Today is my due date according to my obstetrician. My family doctor originally told me the 5th. Nobody knows what my baby thinks the due date is. I'm hoping he'll come sooner rather than later. Not only am I super excited to meet him, but now that Becca's had her baby I have nobody to be pregnant with!

Becca's in Labour!

My friend Becca is in labour at this very moment. She got some gel put on her and her water broken with a rug hooking needle, which is cheating, so she didn't technically win the baby race. When Adam and I went to see her Becca was doing a super great job of pretending the contractions were "not that bad". She seemed very relaxed and happy, without the aid of drugs (so far). Of course, this doesn't mean that labour will be a piece of cake for me. Becca has this way of turning even the most unpleasant situations into the best experience, whereas I just tend to complain or make jokes or both.

Anyway I'm so proud of Becca for doing so well, and so excited to meet her baby. Congratulations Becca! (Congratulations to you too Drew, good job being a supportive labour coach/husband)

This week and beyond

Tuesday

My last prenatal appointment, my obstetrician had to rush off to an emergency C-section. My husband and I were in the waiting room with two other ladies. One came in before us and the other came in after us. The receptionist was sending people away and telling them to come back in the afternoon, but she didn't say anything to us until one of the other women said "Excuse me, is he still going to be able to see us?" That's when the lady who came after us was told to leave and come back later. About a half-hour later the lady who came in before us was told to leave as well. She was having a test done that was going to take longer than my five-minute measure-the-belly-and-hear-the-heart appointment. The woman had already been waiting an hour but she was very gracious. So the doctor called us in, took my blood pressure, measured my belly, listened to my baby's heart, and asked if I had any questions or concerns. My biggest concern at that point was that some poor woman was waiting on an operating table for him to cut her open! I wish that woman and her baby good health and I certainly hope everything went well.

Yesterday

My friend Becca is going to have a baby in less than a week. Her due date was January 27th, but the pushed it back to the 21st because her baby was measuring large at her last ultrasound. So technically she is now overdue. Anyway, yesterday she went in for something called a "membrane sweep" that's supposed to get things all kick started. As far as I understand it, the doctor reaches up where the sun don't shine and separates the membrane from the uteran wall, kind of like separating the skin from the shell of a hardboiled egg. This should put a woman in labour in anywhere from six hours and 3 days. Becca and Drew (Becca's husband) came over after the sweep. I was hoping that Becca would go into labour right there. I'm thinking it's like yawning. If two pregnant women are together and one goes into labour, then the other one will too, right? Well nothing happened. If nothing happens by the 31st they'll induce.

After Becca and Drew left we went over to my Mom's house for some homemade chinese food. My Mom makes the best wonton soup ever. My nephew was dressed like a penguin, complete with orange ovenmitts on his feet.

Today

Today is my last Writer's Group for a while. We meet every two weeks to one month to comment on each other's writing and drink tea. I'm hosting tonight because the group doesn't want me driving all the way to Mississauga or Etobicoke so close to my due date (visions of me giving birth by the side of an icy highway in the middle of the night). Since there's only 3 people in our group it will collapse when I'm not there. We'll do it over the internet for a while (no tea) and when I get settled with the baby and stuff we'll start the group up again. Who knows when that will be. I'm going to go by milk because normal people have milk in their tea and don't, like me, turn it into lemonade by adding half a lemon and three spoons of sugar.

In T-minus...

Check out the countdown on my husband's blog to see how long I have until my baby is born, right down to the millisecond. At the time of this entry I has 9 days and 11 hours to go. If only things were that exact. Of course, I'll probably still be pregnant on V-day. If I am, Adam and I will go out for a romantic dinner at a Mexican restaurant.

Still Pregnant

I'm at work today in the flourescent pink dust cloud. Apparently my dad, who also works here, has started an office pool predicting when I'm going to pop. Someone here is going to make 100 bucks. Not me, I'm just going to make a baby.

There are bets marked down for as early as this Monday. That would suck because it would leave me with one shift to go before I make my 600 hours. I'm not too worried about it though, I'm sure I'll still be pregnant on Valentine's Day.

Pregnancy Party (aka Baby Shower)

First a little test: which of the people pictured above are genuine pregnant ladies, and which are wearing baloons under their shirts? (Answer at the end of this entry).

Today was shower day. My mother-in-law always goes all out every time she hosts a party and today was no exceptions, egg salads and crab salads and chicken wings and chicken fingers and cream puffs and my mother-in-law buzzing around going "Does anybody want ice cream? Does anybody want tea?" My mom made the ultimate carrot cake. There was a good mix of my friends and Polish folk, cousins-in-laws and the like.

And of course presents. My son will be nicely well dressed for his first year of life. The gift opening was accompanied by a rousing game of "Gift Bingo". This idea was shamelessy swiped from my friend Becca's baby shower and I highly recommend it for any gift-giving occasion. Before present unwrapping begins everyone fills out bingo cards with items they think might be in the gifts (bottles, stuffed toy, wipes, etc). Then cross them off as the presents are received. If someone get a line, she yells BINGO! and wins some trinket. This makes your guests less likely to have their eyes glaze over while you open your twentieth baby-blue bag full of blankets and onesies.

So a good time was had by all. Though when I got home I was disapointed that it was only 6:50pm, and nowhere near bedtime. I feel a wee bit sleepy.

Answers, from left to right: genuine pregnant lady (my friend Becca), balloon-wearing imposter (my nephew Hunter), balloon-wearing imposter (my sister Robin), and genuine pregnant lady (it's me!)

Belly shot

Now that I have a cool camera, I can take my own preggers belly shots. This is how my son's house looks when I'm looking down on it. Luckily, all my stretchmarks are on the underside of my belly so I can pretend they aren't there (until they start itching). They ominous shadows of my breasts, however, are always clearly visable.

In other news, I've almost got the 600 hours I need to apply for maternity benefits. I've been scraping together hours by working at a temp agency and at my mom's friends business. I have 33.5 hours to go and only 4 weeks left of pregnancy. Now it's a race.

And I know some of you care, so here's what kind of camera I have (based on what's printed on the outside of the thing). Let's see. It's a Lumix, made by Panasonic, DMC-FZ7. It's got a 12x optical zoom (to get super close-up goat pictures). It also says that it's 35mm equivalent, but it's digital (obviously). It takes rechargeable fancy batteries (instead of AAs). It's not an SLR but it sort of looks like a cute miniature version of one. Well, actually it's quite large compared to other cameras I've had.