Posted: Eviction Notice

Dr B. has planned an eviction. Nugget’s getting relocated August 4^th whether he/she likes it or not. The rent is no longer being paid and it’s time to move on. Eek! Eviction—sounds harsh, doesn’t it? Hubby’s boss called it that and I thought it was a) funny, and b) appropriate considering they are non-profit lawyers who deal a lot with people getting screwed out of money and/or housing. So anyway, this babe’s got an expiration date and I am a-ok with that. I am quite curious what “real” labor would feel like, so I am rooting to pop before then, but that’s still a week early so I suppose nature says it’s not very likely. However, I have learned not to rule out things which are not very likely, so I keep hoping.

Perhaps the next post will involve good tidings of great joy? Not to compare this wee one with Jesus or anything, but it sure is going to feel like a miracle. Yippeee!

more birthday news

Wyatt’s birthday ended up being great. I had a little boo-hoo toward the end of the day, but mostly it was just a great day of hangin’ with Hubby and Pup and being together. We did some errands, which sounds horribly un-birthday, but they kept us busy. We also went on a hike, seeing a rattlesnake, which is quite exciting and also kept us busy in a different way. Hubs made a deeelicious homemade cake, we put a big “1” candle on, lit, and sang happy birthday around. That was a little sad, but then we ate the cake which helped to make up for it. One Wyatt birthday down, only every other one for the rest of my life to go…

Today is MY birthday. I’d rather have a poopy baby’s birthday to celebrate, but whatever. I actually had a much bigger cry today than I did on Wyatt’s big day. It’s my party and I’ll cry if I want to, right? Only I didn’t really have a party. I did get a massage, go out to breakfast, have a good doctor’s appointment, watch a movie on the couch, and diddle around relaxing and doing whatever I wanted. So that’s good. And of course we made new cake, which always helps. It killed my last year’s birthday, if that matters to you. 

About that doctor’s appointment: we set an induction date. If Nugget BabyHood2 doesn’t come before August 4^th we are going to go in there and get it on out. I can’t wait to find out if it’s a boy or a girl; saying “it” is getting kind of creepy. Oh, and I can’t wait to see a living newborn squiggle onto my chest, hear a living newborn’s cries, look into a newborn’s—my newborn’s—open, confused eyes, and hopefully bring one home. It’s going to be so hard, but it’s going to be so amazing. Extra amazing because of Wyatt. I’ll keep you posted. 

while I don't really care, I wouldn't be
sad if my newborn baby was as cute as this one

Happy birthday!

Happy birthday to my angel baby Wyatt! I can’t believe he would be one year old today! We’re having cake tonight, let me tell you.

So far he has received a donation to the Children’s Hospital, a donation to the Family Crisis Center in Hubby’s hometown, a donation to the Walk to Remember “goody” bags service that helps local families like us when they have sad times for their babies, and a donation to the Denver Children’s Advocacy Center. I sure wish we were buying lots of dumb toys and cute clothes instead, but it makes me appreciate what we can really do to help. We don’t need more stuff, we need love.

More to follow as I see how the day goes. 

Sausage party!

No, not that kind of sausage party. It’s really an individual event, and I wouldn’t say it’s much of a celebration. The kind of sausage party I’ve been having involves my fingers, my toes, 100 degree Colorado heat, and pregnancy. Mix together and poof! Swelling to the max. My fingers literally feel like I imagine sausages feel. They’ve got a tight casing and you can see the insides pressing on said casing (the insides are not spicy, cheesy, Italian-y or otherwise delicious sounding though). They feel so damn tight when I put them in a fist I can barely close my hand.  It’s almost to the point where the tips of my fingers don’t touch when the bottoms of my fingers do. And I can’t even begin to describe my toes…Yikes. Luckily, Dr. B said it would be completely weird if I made it through this kind of weather with my rings on. It’s just uncomfortable. In fact, I want to stop typing now. 

hand me downs

Oh man, we just got a bucket load of hand me downs. It is so exciting. It was pretty fun to go through it all and just see all the cute stuff I never would have thought to buy or never would have bought for myself. There are some REI pants for a 6-9 month old that have those zip-off leg-parts, can you even believe it? Everything is of the “gender neutral” variety too, so we don’t have 8,000 pink things stuffed in the “in case it’s a girl drawer” (which we don’t have anyway). We basically won’t have to buy any clothes or toys for at least a year. At that point I imagine the grandparents will have sent us enough stuff to last way beyond that anyway! It’s also nice not to have to think about shopping. How do I know which toys are age appropriate? How do I know what size winter clothes to buy this baby? I don’t know, and now I don’t have to. Someone just gave me a wide variety, from a baby born just about this time last year, and we’ll see what works. Plus, your very own Average Joey got some sweet camouflage Capri maternity pants thrown in for free. Yipppee!

A very nice aspect of this handing-me-down was the time I got to spend with the mama getting rid of all the stuff. She kept asking me if we had certain things, from Wyatt, and wanted to know about important things like did I already have maternity bras if my milk came in last time--things like that which people either don't know to ask because they never had babies or don't want to ask because they feel sad and weird. It made me feel very justified as a mum, and sharing baby clothes felt like a very normal, mum thing to do too!

conquering newborns!

I did it—not only did I meet and hold the newest baby on the block, but also I babysat her for the first time her mom left her. Not too shabby, right? We were pretty proud of ourselves when we realized mama hadn’t been away from her babe yet. But it was her birthday, and she needed a fun drink, dammit.

Anyway, my newborn anxiety was gone by the time I met her. I think I psyched myself up so much last time that it just went smoothly this time. Even though we never made it over to see her after all that psyching up, it still was effective: it got my jitters out I guess, despite the time lapse. She was just this tiny little girl. She had those newborn white bumps on her face and sounded like a puppy when she slept. She was her own little semi-person and didn’t remind me of Wyatt at all. I guess I just thought it was going to be worse, like I was going to feel guilty and sad and think about all the things Wyatt would have done when he was 9 days old. But I didn’t. Maybe because I’ll never know what he would have done when he was 9 days old, maybe because every little baby is different.  I just sort of held her and let her sleep on my lap, did some homework while Hubby took over, and kind of waited around for our brother and sister-in-law, the original babysitters, to come over. We gave them crap about being terrible godparents, the boys had beer, we read some book about baby poop, and came home after about an hour and a half. I felt so triumphant, so proud of myself. I played it cool though, no fist pumping or anything embarrassing. It was fist-pump-worthy though. And the best part is, now I’ve done it!

Observation

Well, I suppose we couldn’t expect to make it all the way without a hiccup. Our hiccup was stressful nonetheless. We went in to the non-stress test, no “non-stress” test, as usual and ended up in an Observation Room at the labor and delivery ward. Yikes! At the doc’s I got my belly hooked up to the monitors and everything regular and normal like that. But when Dr. B came in to take a peek he kind of poked around, fiddled with some extra paper coming off the chart, and when he finally looked at it turned red and said “Well, the baby’s got a low heart rate so let’s just get you over to labor and delivery for some more observation.” He still had the kind smile, but he was definitely in serious mode. We didn’t even get the pink paper to give the receptionist, and I sure didn’t get to tinkle in the cup because we were being ushered out of there so fast. Talk about unsettling!

On the ten minute drive—thank goodness it wasn’t longer—I basically psyched myself up for an emergency c-section. What’s the big deal about surgery when you can get a living baby out of it? (Once I settled on an emergency c-section being okay I started to worry about everything that could possibly be wrong with Baby2…but that’s another tale). The only reason I didn’t think the baby was dead and have complete hallucinogenic flashbacks of Wyatt’s death was because it was kicking the crap out of me the whole ride. So that was nice. Of course when we got to the hospital nothing was wrong. They hooked me up to some more equipment and we watched HGTV for an hour while they monitored the nugget. Since absolutely nothing was wrong, there was no low heart rate at all, they then let me go (after signing some papers—silly lawyers). So, panicking for nothing—phew—and thankful the doctor is on his toes. And maybe Nugget is just practicing it’s resting metabolic heart rate for when it’s a world class athlete?

newborn anxiety...

New babies are obviously good, but it some ways they are also bad. Hubby’s boss had his baby—they went in to get things going at 8 days late and finally she came out 36 hours after that. Guess she wasn’t really ready! She got to go home 12 days after her due date. Sheesh! Boss-man and his wife are also friends (if you remember, Hubby and Boss are the only two working together and do things like “work” at the ping-pong table, stop for bike-breaks, and visit the beer garden during business hours), so naturally they have invited us over 700 times to meet the baby. Well, I was able to get out of going to visit in the hospital because I was at work (and they would have understood if I was sitting on my couch at home, just boycotting, but still I felt badly), but there’s kind of no excuse anymore now that they’re home and the baby’s staying  there too. Hmm. I got all worked up about it this morning, just thinking about how I haven’t seen a newborn since Wyatt was born. How can I expect myself to go see this little nugget when it’s just going to remind me of all the great stuff I never go to do with my first son? For example: wipe pee off the walls, clean up spit-up from all my clothes, worry about his breathing, curse him for keeping me up, have extreme nipple pain…etc., etc.
But we set a time to go over, and I psyched myself up (it helps to know you can run bawling out of the house and the people inside will totally understand). Then, they cancelled. So now I just hope my jitters are out, even if I haven’t met her yet, or I’ll have to re-psych myself up. It’s like a boxing match for cripe’s sake: I’m sweating, agitated, wide-eyed, rarin’ to go. I hope I don’t get punched in the face too badly. But I’ve gotta start somewhere!