so, the last two midwife appointments we had discussed birth kits. i remember looking into them when i was a mere 9 weeks and to tell you the truth haven't thought about it since. but apparently, its something i should really get on if not now, like soon as in tomorrow or something.
the standard birth kit usually has the following items, which costs about $25-35, depending on where you buy them:
10 – Deluxe Underpads 23" X 24"
5 – Deluxe Underpads 23" X 36"
2 – Plastic Backed Sheets
12 – Gauze Sponge, 4" X 4", 12-ply, sterile
15 – Alcohol Prep Pads
1 – OB Adhesive Pads (dozen)
1 – Peri Bottle
1 – Scrub Brush, Hibiclens, sterile
1 – Povidone, 4 oz.
1 – Bulb Syringe, 2 oz, sterile
2 – Cord Clamps, plastic, sterile
6 – Lubrication Jelly, 3 gram pkgs.
2 – Straws, flexible
1 – Stretch Briefs
1 – Infant Tape Measure
6 – Glove, sterile, single (S, M, L)
3 – Gloves, sterile, pair (S, M, L)
1 – Infant hat, 100% cotton
luckily, my midwife said she may have some donated unused items to make a complete birth kit without having me purchase one, so thats good. but as i looked up birth kit and supplies on her site, i apparently need to also have the following things handy:
- Olive oil, sesame oil or grapeseed oil, unopened
- Plastic cover for the mattress (shower curtain liners or painters drop
cloths are great)
- Clean linen: 1 good set on bed, plastic sheet, old set on top.
- Food for attendants
Items for the labor room:
- Broths, teas, Popsicles, juices
- Large bowl
- Crockpot
- Small and large trash bags
- Humidifier
- Wash cloths
- 10 receiving blankets, wrapped in aluminum foil
- Camera with NEW batteries-optional
- Two combs-optional
- Heating pad
- Oral thermometer (digital is great)
- Oxyclean-(powdered)
- Rubbing alcohol
- Extra long sanitary pads
- Gel-based alcohol hand sanitizer (Purell or generic brand)
Items for the baby:
- Blankets
- Diapers
- Undershirts
- Socks or booties
- 2 Newborn hats
wait, receiving blankets wrapped in aluminum foil? hmm, maybe they're gonna bake the blankets before using them? hmmm...will have to google it.
yes, once again no belly pictures this week. which for the record, i now regret not being more diligent about especially after seeing this. how beautiful and adorable is that woman?
this past weekend was pretty eventful. for one, i made some marmalade, in honor of my mom and printed the labels today. you can see it on my other blog. second, i got to see my friend lori and her family and we talked and hung out for hours and the time just flew by. her baby boy (5 months old?) is so adorable as is her 2 year old daughter. the sight of the two of them together interacting had confirmed my decision to have at least 2 kids (yep, its set in stone). and third, my friends Amy, Roz and Roz's sister Renee (who just moved here from Phoenix) took me out to a lake in livermore and we had a picnic and went swimming, sort of. but most importantly, i not only feel the baby move like crazy now, but i can distinguish body parts AND the baby even pushes back!!! it is so weird and cool at the same time.
the first such episode was when i was sitting on the couch with cw and we were vegging out in front of the tv. all of a sudden i feel this major movement, sort of a nudge. i placed my hand over the side of my belly and yep, he moved again and so i pushed on it a little and what do you know, he elbowed me back! it totally freaked me out and i was screaming with delight. cw just thought i was weird and couldnt grasp the idea of just how outstanding and creepy it all was. and it was certainly fun. i couldnt stop laughing. here i was playing with my son in utero. it was amazing. if i could bottle up the feeling - that moment - the excitement and manage to sell it - prozac would have nothing on it.
so yeah, im at my 33rd week. my friends are all in fear of me going into labor whenever i am with them. i still am inspired to try and tag myself along to things and outdoor events that i love - like camping, swimming and the likes - but i know it wont be for awhile. at this week, the baby is supposedly a little over 4 pounds and is about 17" (though I doubt this, he's probably more like 15") and his skeleton is hardening except for his skull. so they have this thing called fetal kick counts, but my baby doesnt really kick he just squirms around a lot. oh and elbows me. but every baby is different so, whatever. maybe in the next few weeks he will kick me..which i am going to assume might not be as fun and exciting as i think it sounds.
everyday i wake up with numbness in my hands. my hands also feel as though they suffer from arthritis. I cant even make a fist these days! and my feet only swell up if ive been on them too long or its hot. i pretty much only wear my flip flops.
i got my first batch of ordered books, so i'll be busy with that and trying to follow thru with writing a manuscript.
It’s been a really rough couple of days recovering from a tragedy that occurred the previous week. My mother took her own life a mere week after my baby shower, on July 12th. It was devastating to say the least. I had received an email from her only a few days before she went missing and never showed up for work. Nothing was amiss or out of the ordinary and there were no indications of what was to have happened next.
But my Mother was bipolar. All her life before being diagnosed manic depressive in 1994, after what I had thought was her first attempt at suicide, had always suffered with bouts of depression and dissatisfaction of her life. I wrote more about it on my other blog (*which I've sort of abandoned since having a baby).
Since this is my pregnancy blog, I’m gonna try and focus on the effects of this on myself as a mother to be and my growing family. I may occasionally write an open letter to my mom like I started to on my other blog. I am looking on joining a local support group and reading a couple of books, like Mothering Without a Map: The Search for the Good Mother Within and Motherless Mothers: How Mother Loss Shapes the Parents We Become. I find it very therapeutic to publicly write about this even though it is so personal, but in doing so I have already connected with 2 wonderful people who shared their own life experiences with me.
I of course was stressed and didn’t sleep much during the week of July 13th, having to take command and take care of whatever was necessary to get a proper service for my Mom and to handle whatever it was that follows after something like this, because it was the most natural thing for me to do. I was basically running on autopilot, something I had experienced before when something traumatic happens in my life. My Mom had left letters – one to each of her children, one to her husband, one to her sister, one to her mother and even one to my Dad, her ex-husband. She also had two brothers – one older and one younger and well…I’ll just leave it at that.
I suffered only two major breakdowns during the first week, like I said I was running on autopilot mode and being “strong” and mindful of others. The first time I really cried was when I saw her for the first time laid out in her casket. It was uncontrollable and exhausting. My brother was by my side and held me together. The second time was returning home and walking into the nursery room. It was all too much. Baby clothes and diapers that my Mom had given me and then the thoughts of my son never having the chance to meet her. My son would have been her first grandchild and how I regret I never said to my Mom that because of this new stage in my life, the birth of her grandson carried the hope that we would have the relationship that we had both wanted for years.
I took home some of my Mom’s belongings; she never liked to throw anything away it seems. We still haven’t unpacked everything from the car. I know from this day forward I will encounter many questions and a lot of pain over this. Some of which I will not have the answers for at least not right away nor handy coping techniques. Thru all of this Amy and my husband have been a great source of support. Thank you Amy for dropping everything that day and putting your life on hold to drive me down to LA immediately after I heard the news. And thank you to my husband who continues to be my rock during this difficult time. Thank you to the friends and family who sent their love, thoughts, prayers and support. It was all appreciated and needed.
Also to let you know that baby wagner is ok. he is doing well, still head down and healthy. A perfect little petite baby (what our midwife has said). Heartbeat is as strong as ever. I worried that all this would cause terrible repercussions down the line for my son. Would he come out completely unhappy and stressed? Would he ever smile? Etc. Our other midwife had made a great comment about my worries, I only wish I could remember it fully and repeat it here. But they said not to worry, as long as I remind myself and him (while rubbing my belly, of course) that he is loved and safe.
oh, my baby, you are loved and safe. You are loved and safe.
so tomorrow im 31 weeks. today we had our midwife appointment and it felt like forever since the last time we had our check up. we should have had a check up on the 3rd - but we went to LA instead. i love our midwives, yes plural. we actually have 3, well technically one of them is an apprentice learning how to become a midwife. and from now on our appointments are going to be more frequent which tells me - wow, baby's due date is almost here! we will start to see them every two weeks and then every week. this is to check and see baby's position and also my blood pressure - because a change in those will help determine if any complications could arise and or be prevented.
anyway, all was good. great even. both cw and i were able to feel what was supposedly our baby's head (i could feel hard bits but i really couldnt tell ya if it was a head). The baby is head down already! so it gives us a very very low chance of a breech baby once i am closer to my due date, since well he still has time to move around, but mason said there is little chance he could turn around to be breech now. he definitely kicks a bit more and always on my right side so perhaps he is in a left occiput anterior position, in which he is head down facing my back, with his back on one side of the front of my tummy, as in the photo above. mason said he is very compact and perfect. phew, good to know.
cw was great after venting all my recent frustrations and like i said to amy, i know its difficult for him to be able to transition to the new stuff. he doesnt like to get hung up on the future and likes to be situated in the present - which is what makes him so even keeled and less vulnerable to paranoia and worry like i am. so despite the fact that change is afoot and i am the one worrying about things, cw just kind of takes it in stride and let its roll off of him which in turn has me get all bitchy. he does go out and gets out of the house, more so than i really can. like i said he has commitments outside of our home and stuff and is usually out of the house for a few hours every day - yes everyday, even on saturdays and sundays. at least it isnt to go out to hit the bars to get away from it all (from me) and talk shit about our relationship and his impending new role. and dawn's right he should be able to get out. he isnt a prisoner and soon we wont be able to get out much either, at least not for awhile.. but man, i remember my past relationships before cw and boy did i ever talk shit about those relationships, yet i still found myself in them? hmm..go figure. its cause back then as much as i wanted and thought that my partner at the time was the problem and should change to make the relationship better, it was really me who needed to change to make my own life better. and it did change. i changed, especially once i got rid of the emotionally unavailable bad boy types and my attraction to them.
anyways, i think the best thing i have with cw that far surpasses any of my previous relationships is how we handle our arguments or our worries or feelings of inadequacies. we handle it by doing this thing called talking about it. sometimes its hard for me to initiate the talk, so i vent thru a blog (not so productive i know) or i write it down or i email it to him first- just to get the emotions out before we actual face it head on and talk about it face to face. that way im not so intense and wrapped up in my emotions or crying or yelling and not being able to say what i really want to say. we've actually never yelled at each other. well, once i think cw did raise his voice but we dealt with that. when he came home last night, pretty late but i knew he was going to be. he came home and went up to our room and laid down next to me just to say hi. he held me for a long while and it was nice. i couldnt go back to sleep though so i got up and we both helped each other to clean the living room and kitchen before our midwife appointment today. You can really accomplish a lot when you do it as a team.
anyhoo..off to have a celebration dinner tonight with my boss and his wife. maybe after this dinner i will actually feel as if the exam and its importance is finally behind me cause HELLO, i passed! wtf? yeah, i still come home sometimes and lounge around and then all of a sudden i feel like - shit, aren't i supposed to be doing something? nope its done, remember? over with! let it go damn it. yeah the thing you need to be worrying about is trying to freaking relax and just be pregnant, woman!
also my friends want to throw me a baby shower here which is great but we have so much stuff already and i know how much people are strapped for cash these days so i kind of want to do something else. maybe if we can all manage to go escape for the weekend like a camping trip, where there is a free hot springs and a nice cool lake to swim in too. and if we all chip in on gas and food we'd save some money. id rather do something like that then get another blue onesie with a dog carrying a football on it saying daddy's favorite with a matching bib. our midwife also suggested to have a baby shower at one of those make ahead meal places so that i will have frozen dinners ready for us postpartum which will help tremendously. i never even thought of that but it was such a good idea - but then again, how much is that gonna cost?
okay, i really should get back to work..break time over.
How baby is doing:
The baby's about 15.7 inches long now, and she weighs almost 3 pounds as they say, imagine a head of cabbage . The forums and week by week peeps, always compare the baby to some kind of fruit and sometimes it doesnt even make sense cause one week the baby is the size of a lime only after being a size of a pomegranate? About a pint and a half of amniotic fluid surrounds baby, but that volume will decrease as baby gets bigger and takes up more room in the condo, the uterus. Baby's eyesight continues to develop, though it's not very keen; even after he's born, he'll keep his eyes closed for a good part of the day-which tends to fool new parents to the thought that - hey, see, the baby sleeps, no problem. This parenting thing is no problem. yeah, um just wait.. When he does open them, he'll respond to changes in light but will have 20/400 vision — which means he can only make out objects a few inches from his face. which happens to be the perfect distance from mother's face to baby's face at the boob, you know when he's dining out feeding.
How my life is (still) changing:
Feeling a little tired these days, especially since i hardly get any sleep from the normal discomfort of oh say the weight of a large watermelon on you 24/7. They say you are also more prone to being a klutz, which is perfectly understandable. again imagine a watermelon tied around your belly and you try walking around with that thing, let alone even putting on socks - yeah, just socks. its an effort, i tell ya. so with that watermelon out in front of you, the weight and center of gravity plus hormonal changes making my joints looser and ligaments more lax are the culprits of the klutz in me now (although i have always been accident prone, but lately i guess because i know im carry a wee little one in me, im a bit more cautious these days with only a few minor um, set backs). And for awhile people kept asking me if i had to get bigger shoes or if my feet are swollen these days, and if you had asked me before this 4th of July weekend, i would have greeted you with a wide grin and said nope not at all, at least not yet..well, it has begun. due to the 7 hour car ride down to LA, my feet and dare i say it, cankles were a ridiculous and uncomfortable problem.
And mood swings. now i would want to say that i havent succumb to it but last night i completely did when cw didnt come home at a time I had anticipated. he came home around 11:30 pm and since i am not only a light sleeper, but having issues with finding a comfortable position to sleep, i was, to say the least, a bit pissed off when he came home (and no amount of tip toeing would really help that fact) and only was able to sleep cause i cried a little. i know its difficult in a different way for cw because i know he wants to help me in my discomfort but there isnt usually anything he can do. but i guess i also never voiced that just the fact of him being there, being present even if we aren't really doing much, helps me. its the support i really need right now and definitely when the big day comes. cw has some commitments he needs to attend to occasionally outside of our home and is also one to show support of his friends oh say when they have to speak at a place (but if this said friend has a few decades under his belt AND he being the social extrovert that he is, i think one less friend will be okay with him, just this one time) but sometimes i think he needs to remind himself and or his friends that wait, i have a very uncomfortable pregnant wife at home that could really use my support right now and that our house is in shambles. maybe i should just make it up to said friend - cause god knows there probably isnt any making it up to a very uncomfortable pregnant woman having to tidy up, do laundry and make dinner, right after she spent 9 hours at work dealing with horrendous people..anyways..again, i probably should tell him that 1) remember you have commitments at home to think about too 2) that just being there, even if we dont do anything, or even if its only an hour of conversation or interaction before going to bed, that it helps me - that its the support i need. its the answer to his - "is there anything i can do for you?"
anyhoo - the mini vacay was great. i got to practice my tagalog more and speak it constantly - sorry cw. we had great company and wonderful gifts. and i also got to indulge a bit on filipino food, but by the time we were heading back all i wanted was rabbit food - salads and fresh veggies. the heat was great cause i knew by the time we got back to oakland it would be a different climate. oh and swimming. swimming was the BEST. i didnt even feel pregnant. I loved it.
as i sit here on my lunch break (all glorious 30 minutes of it) eating a left over zachary' pizza slice, i started to read the poop and lo and behold there's a prego pizza??
the legend goes -
In the spring of 1981, a woman desperate to give birth after a trying pregnancy, wandered into Skipolini's Pizza in downtown Clayton. Jokingly, the woman demanded that the manager give her a pizza that would make her have the baby soon. Seeing her desperation, the manager concocted a pizza with just about every known topping in the restaurant.
The masterpiece had thirteen different toppings including extra onions and extra garlic. The pizza was loaded with fresh vegetables and six types of meat. The creation weighed over four pounds and could have cured the hunger of several small countries. The results were amazing. The woman left the restaurant after eating the "Prego" pizza and went into labor that same evening. So began the amazing history of the first ever, the original, "Prego" pizza.
After years of success, the "Prego" pizza has been growing in popularity. It has been recommended by doctors and OBGYN's everywhere. The pizza gives hope to pregnant mothers who are just ready to put a happy ending to a long nine months. The "Prego" pizza has been recognized by newspaper, magazine, radio, and television programming alike. In the early years, radio personality Dr. Don Rose first helped publicize the pizza on the radio station KFRC. The successes of the "Prego" pizza have been documented in the Contra Costa Times, Pizza Today magazine, Diablo Magazine, Gourmet Magazine, and many other local publications. The popularity of the "Prego" has also been enhanced by short clips aired on KTVU channel 2, Evening Magazine, CNN, and KPIX, channel 5 news.
WOW! seriously? Mental note - if i go past my due date visit Skipolini's pizza, pronto. Check out their success stories here.
im almost 30 weeks (this saturday), which means in about 8 weeks i start my maternity leave (which means at about 10 weeks, i would have reached my due date!!). oh and remember that exam i was talking about putting a heavy burden on me? well, i PASSED it! woo hoo..although up until this morning, it still didnt feel real or right. like i was gonna get an email stating that there had been some kind of mistake and a malfunction with the computers caused some who failed to erroneously receive a passing score. seriously. this is perhaps why i was still having my headaches and still kind of feel like crap. but this morning i received this short but sweet confirmation:
Cherlyn,
Your results for the following exam have been posted:
Exam Type: LEED-NC
Test Date: 6/30/2009
Eligibility ID: 1XXXXXXXX
Result: Passed
Congratulations on your accreditation!
- GBCI
Woo hoo, now i can go off on our mini vacay happily! My family is throwing me a baby shower on the 4th and it will be so hot down in LA - that i cant wait to go swimming and eat myself some lechon (roasted suckling pig), oh and see my family and friends..and you're invited, just come on over and bring a towel and an empty stomach, don't worry there are other more traditional (normal) dishes if youre scared of that sort of stuff..
