Friday afternoon musings

To start off with, Mel, a doula is like a helpful support person (in addition to your labor nurse and your midwife/OB who help with the delivery but not the natural form of pain management) during your delivery. This is someone I hire, in an effort to keep my birth natural, to help myself and Irish navigate through the hard bits by helping me keep breathing, keep changing positions, keep natural. Apparently, doula's first came into being out here in Seattle although a lot of people don't use them. But the statistics say that doula's help with the birth experience and help keep the level of intervention down if it's not needed by just being supportive. Most people would probably have just their husbands/partners and I'm pretty sure M could manage but on the off chance I have a 30 hour labor, even he's going to need a rest! Of course, it could be so painful that I'm screaming for drugs in the first 10 minutes and then I've wasted a chunk of cash, but there you go. It's worth it to me.

Can I just say what a beautiful morning it is here? As you may remember, I look out at the water from my office and it was quite foggy this morning. As M says, 'we must not have paid our bill because the view is gone!'. But slowly, the fog is changing, it's still hovering over the water but we can see the mountains and islands in the far distance and the blue sky. We can hear fog horns from the ships passing by and that is really cool. What a gorgeous fall day!

...an hour later... returning from a walk down by said water. sigh. What a lovely day.

I'm so mellow now, I don't have much more to say. Have a great weekend!

back on the upswing.

After a week of feeling tired all the time and sick if I'm not stuffing food into my mouth, I finally feel back to normal. Both of things probably led me to a 3 pound weight gain in 3 weeks (I know, I know, I'm pregnant, it's okay) because I wasn't up for the gym AND I just kept eating everything in sight. But whatever I did must've worked because I finally feel better. I was able to get up this morning and go to the gym and I haven't felt the need to eat that last little bit of banana bread that my husband made. Well, not yet. Anyhow, I think it was a bit of sleeping in (amazing what an extra hour and a half does for you) and taking time off from the gym, maybe I managed to avoid a cold or something. Whatever, it's all good.

The weather has been bloody dreary here lately. It's that time of year when the mornings are darker and the evenings get darker earlier and in a place like the northwest where you might get a bit of rain and cloud cover, these days feel even shorter. And it's only September! I remember the days when September was a great month in Washington. Sigh. Now I sound old... "I remember the days..." jaysus!

Besides the sleeping/eating issue this week, we've managed to interview and decide upon a birth doula. I don't know if anyone is familiar with doulas but they are meant to help you through your labor, basically assisting you and your partner in whatever capacity that you need. Because I'm hoping to go 'natural' (a girl can always hope), having a doula increases the percentage likelihood of this happening in a variety of ways. If it's a long labor, it'll help M out as well, giving him a break every now and then too. I don't know why I got so set on doing things "naturally" but there you go. I guess maybe I want to know my body can do it.

Continuing on the same theme, we are meeting with 2 other couples from our childbirth class. They live in our neighborhood and you never know when you're going to need some support or even a babysitter or whatever. They are both due before we are but only a couple weeks. It'll be nice to know someone going through the same thing we are - as we don't have any friends in this stage of life.

So that's it. No much else happening. Oh yay, the sun is coming out. HALLELUJAH!

What a week!

First of all... I got to meet Ang and Colby! I have to say, I *love* when people say 'let's get together' and then THEY DO. It's not just "talk" and it happens. Don't get me wrong, I know things come up and sometimes it's impossible and I wouldn't hold that against anyone, but I truly love it when the stars and planets and people align and it clicks.

Ang and I emailed back and forth about maybe getting together while she was here for 10 days or so. We exchanged cell phone numbers and said 'let's see what we can do'. It truly couldn't have worked better for us. My mom was flying in later in the day on Saturday, we were in the process of cleaning our house (so it looked a bit cleaner than usual), and she called when we were at Costco so we picked up a couple quiches and asked them to meet at our place. Luckily for us, they weren't picky about what they had because they seemed to like the quiche and salad! lol

Delightful couple, I must say. I felt like I knew Ang already, through the various ways our paths crossed online and it was fun to put a face with the name. And no matter what anyone says about showing a different side online, the friendly outgoing side that I know of Ang was there in person as well. Colby I didn't know so much about but I have to say he was incredibly nice. Especially since he was probably wondering why he had to meet these old folks for lunch when he didn't even know them! lol He's one of those people who really looks at you when you're talking and I like that too. They were very cool and I'm glad they stopped by. I hope Ang was able to get a bit of shopping in downtown as well!

Besides that, my mom arrived on us for a few days, which was great. She's a great guest as she kind of does her own thing while we work during the day. And she made food, which we LOVE.
I seriously appreciate having a nice meal cooked and ready for me. M does it all the time so it was nice for him to get a break as well by having my mom cook. Yum! On top of that, she kind of served as the baby stuff advisor. M and I had a carseat and stroller picked out but she gave the thumbs up which motivated us to actually "purchase" the thing. She also helped get all sorts of gear for the wee one together - blankets, bibs, towels, etc. All that stuff you need. Thank god because I'm not sure I could've gotten it together to organize it. When I'm given an overwhelming task like that sometimes I just procrastinate. OK. I'll always procrastinate. The kid would've been arriving home in a pillowcase or something.. lol So that's all set.

Well, I'm off now.

Just call me 'chubby'

I look tired. That's all I can say about this photo. Tired. I don't feel too tired but maybe that day I did. (Obviously I don't get that way from cleaning my room, as you might notice my room is a pit if you were looking past me in the photo!)



All is well out here. We are keeping busy going out with our friends without kids (while they'll still see us!) and picking up the odd kids items from other friends. My mom is coming into town for a long weekend and we are hoping she'll motivate us to pick up some more odds and ends. I'm telling you, the amount of shite that you can buy for a bun is overwhelming. We strongly believe in second hand items but I'm guessing a little t-shirt can only be thrown up on so many times before it isn't any good any more! lol And we're not really fans of the hand-me-down carseat or stroller. Most people have these 4X4 pickup type strollers and we are NOT interested in that so we've been good and said no. Just because it's free doesn't mean we need to bring it home with us!

As for me, I'm still feeling good, most of the time. A little more tired than average but that's to be expected. Going to the gym in the morning still but the heart rate jumps up fast and I feel like I'm moving in slow motion to keep it down to the recommended beats per minute. But I'd rather go than not, it can only help me during labor - at least that's what I am telling myself. Plus, if I don't workout, I drag even more through the rest of my day. So, it's a necessity.

The bun is moving around like crazy, it's like having an almost perpetual upset stomach that you can't do anything about. But 'he' isn't keeping me up at night so that's good. And I'd much rather have him moving than not. But still... I'll be glad to have my body back.

Aside from all things child related, we have halted plans on our remodel. We got the first bid, so to speak, and we started to wonder if it was really worthwhile to change our lifestyles for the sake of some more space. Meaning, it cost enough to make us reconsider. lol We are batting around the idea of re-doing the current space we have, which would cost us considerably less and M could do a majority of the work.. Anyhow, like we don't have enough to think about, now we have that too! Fun, fun!

Oh, I just realized I better take off for my dental appt. I will write more later!! Cheers