Defiled and it feels so good...

 Not really my filing cabinet but it was close to this!

No, nobody touched me inappropriately if that's what you thought!  I just wanted to lure you in with an enticing title...and it worked, right?! 

What I really mean is every Sunday for the last month has magically turned into some sort of preparation for Hazy's room.  One weekend we bought the dresser and moved other furniture out of there to make room for it.  One weekend we picked up the crib and dumped it in the room in about 8 pieces where it sat for another week.  This last weekend B put the crib together and I cleaned out the filing cabinet with years and years of old bills, old car insurance info on cars long gone, old tax records, old health insurance records from jobs long gone, random very old pay stubs, old parking tickets (why?), etc.  It was a MESS!  Almost all of the papers were from between 2003-2009 ish.  2003 was a long ass time ago, my friends!  Nothing was really filed in an organized way and it hasn't been a functional filing system for a very long time.  It was just a place I would stick important documents and know that if I really needed to find them I could clean out the filing cabinet and fingers crossed, I would probably come across them.

The thought of cleaning it out and dealing with all the papers was very overwhelming for me.  I am not good with papers and organizing and I tend to just let them pile up and ignore them for long periods of time.  By the time I get around to forcing myself to deal with them I find that I can throw away about 90% of the papers as they have become so out of date they are no longer current issues to deal with.  It's not a good habit, I know this.  I'm trying to work on it.

Anyway, my desire to have the crib and dresser in the right spots with as much shit out of that room as possible trumped my habit of procrastinating and I faced the file cabinet of doom.  I totally de-filed that shit!   Just like I thought, I was able to throw away about 98% of the papers.  98%!!!  It made me realize that now in the age of paying bills online and online banking you really don't need to save records of bills you have already paid...it's so easy to look it up on line now.  I have learned that I really never have a reason to save pay stubs, it's just unnecessary to keep years worth of them in a drawer!  All I ended up keeping were copies of my SS card, copies of our marriage certificate, a manilla envelope with papers and diagrams of our wedding planning (I should make a scrap book out of it but I don't do that), copies of our taxes from 2007- now and two binders full of teaching curriculum and lesson plans.  That's it!  I got all the drawers completely cleaned out and B moved the cabinet down to the basement.  It feels so incredibly good to have it taken care of!  I have always felt like there were important things in that file cabinet that I should be dealing with and because I wasn't dealing with them I was an irresponsible person and it made me feel bad.  Now that weight has been lifted and it feels amazing! 

I am not going to share photos of the progress we have made so far on Hazy's room because I am planning on shocking you all with the before photo and the final, finished after photo when it is truly all done.  (It really wont be that shocking)  That wont be until June so you have a while.

Next week I will tackle the bookshelf that is going to stay in her room.  I have been using it for all my Pilates manuals and DVDs, our photo albums and office supplies.  I will have to clear all of that stuff off of it and figure out new homes for all of them.  This will then force us to go through all of our books, CDs, VHS videos (yep still have some) and DVDs and see how much we can get rid of.  We also need to go through our clothes, shoes (gulp!), various closets and the storage room in our basement to see what we can live without.  I really want to get rid of as much shit as possible.  The last couple of years living in the house where we are now it seems like we have let our new found space get cluttered.  That is not what we wanted to do so this is a good time to go through everything and really consider if it is crucial enough to keep and if not, it's gone!

Hazy has decided to keep torturing me with her lack of movements.  I don't understand why I felt her so clearly two weeks ago for two days and since then nothing.  It stresses me out.  In fact I am going to check her HB right now, hang on a sec.

Okay she's still in there with a HB in the mid 140's.  I swear she just punched the doppler when I finally found her...she has totally moved over to the other side!  Still doesn't explain why I haven't been feeling her but hopefully everything is fine.  I am starting to get very anxious for our anatomy scan on March 14th.  It still feels like it's forever away.

I think I forgot to post that Mo has agreed to be our doula!  And for a crazy low price since she knows us and she will be able to use our birth towards her doula certification.  I am so excited!  B and I are going to meet with her soon to talk about of birth plan and all the other things one talks about with a doula.  It's such a relief to already know I feel comfortable with her and that we don't have to shell out another 2K to have the support I want to have during the labor.

Okay, I guess that's it for now.  I am going to enjoy my last morning off from nannying since my nanny family went to mexico last week.  I'm gonna go make some pancakes and poke my belly until Hazy moves!

Ps. the dress came and it is actually more of a red color than a coral so it will not work for the wedding.  I am keeping it anyway since it is very light weight and I am sure I will be glad I have a cute, summery dress that I can easily nurse in for August and hopefully most of Sept!  Still on the hunt for a dress for the wedding though....

Hello baby girl! Good bye money.

18 Weeks, 1 day.  So close to the halfway mark I can taste it.  I finally felt the baby moving last Tues!  She moved all day almost every 10 minutes and then the next day was less and then the next day was less, etc.  Now I still occasionally feel her but it much more muted.  I can only assume she was in a really good position for me to feel it on Tues and now is in a different harder to feel position.  It bummed me out when I couldn't feel her as much after that first day but thank god for the doppler because I have checked her HB every few days and it's still nice and strong.  I am looking forward to her getting bigger and me being able to feel her more reliably.  

We accomplished a few baby preparations two weekends in a row.  The nesting instinct is setting in.  Really I just have the kind of personality where if I have an idea of painting a wall or rearranging a room then I just want to do it already!  Whenever I have moved to a new apt/house I want to get all the boxes unpacked and put everything in it's new spot immediately after moving all the boxes in.  I don't like to wait until the next day to slowly put books on the book shelf or dishes in the cabinets, I want it done NOW!

Last weekend we bought a dresser for the baby's room.  Maybe you remember my last post, this one, where I talked about how B and I always talk ourselves into buying more expensive items that we maybe don't really need?  Well, I know us well.  It happened.  Luckily we don't regret it.  We went to go look at two dressers that this lady had on craigslist.  Of course it happened to be the morning after we got about an inch and a half of snow for the first time in two years.  Fortunately the roads were totally drivable.

The lady had two matching dressers for sale.  One is called a triple dresser, it's long with three rows of drawers.  The other is a counter height dresser with just one row of drawers.  We went with the intention of buying the counter height dresser not for Hazy's room but for a child proof bar solution.  As in where we keep our liquor.  Totally necessary, right?  Not.  This was not really an immediate problem that we had to fix.  Our current bar situation would have been fine until Hazy starts crawling which wont be until next spring so we had plenty of time to deal with it later.  The problem is we fell in love with the dresser on craigslist and talked ourselves into grabbing it while we had the chance.

We also loved the triple dresser but I thought it was too low to work as a dresser for Hazy's room that we could also use as the diaper changing station.  Well, I was wrong.  I was optimistic enough to bring the diaper changing pad that I bought a few weekends ago and we were able to throw it on top of the dresser and realize that it was actually perfect for us.  B and I are not very tall people so I suppose if someone over 6 ft has to change Hazy's diaper they will have to bend over while they do it but for us it totally works. 

The dressers are mid century and hard wood which I love!  They have a few tiny dings but are freshly painted already and all I have to do is find some contact paper for the drawers.  I did talk the lady down $100 so we bit the bullet and bought both.  We basically paid three times as much for two dressers as we had planned to spend on one dresser for the baby's room.  This is what we do almost every time we make a large purchase.  A couple of years ago we almost talked ourselves into buying a brand new $30k car (in cash!) before we came to our senses and instead bought a used version with more features for almost $10K less.  Thank god. 

Anyway, we justified the purchase because we are getting so many baby items for free from my nanny families and friends who are already done having kids.  One of the perks of being infertile and taking four times as long as everyone else to start having babies.  Also the two pieces match so 5 or 10 years down the road if we are in a different space and everything gets rearranged we can use them for different things in different rooms or in the same room quite easily.   

This weekend we picked up the crib that's being handed down to us from my nanny family that I've worked for for 7 years.  It is white which I probably would never pick myself but a free crib in good condition is a free crib.  Plus the dressers that we got are painted white on the top and sides but the drawers are just stained wood so the crib matches the dresser but the drawers balance out all the white in the room.  It's a win win in my book.

 

 Mama and Papa's new bar in our dinning room next to the dinning room table.  Bar 

glasses are in the top drawer and I will use the other drawers for bibs, wash clothes, etc.  

One of B's paintings in the background.

Hazy's new dresser in her room, diaper pad and pile of baby clothes on the top!  Still have to

figure out what to do with the cable hook up/modem on the left...it's not staying there! 

The crib is still sitting in about 6 pieces which is driving me crazy!!!  I wanted B to put it together immediately after hauling it through the door but he is more laid back (lazy) about setting things up.  We also attempted to bring home a really nice armchair glider but 1) it wouldn't fit into our car and 2) it might be way too big for Hazy's room so we need to think about finding something smaller.  Bummer because this chair was really nice and I know it was expensive and it was/is ours for free!  So hard to turn it down but whatever rocker/glider we get has to fit in the baby's room and that room is tiny. 

Buying the dressers and getting the crib forced B to move the desk out of the office (hereby known as Hazy's room) and into the basement.  We also moved the dog kennel out of Hazy's room and into our bedroom which required us to then move my dresser over a couple of inches and move a storage ottoman to a different spot which then required us to move our night stand a few inches.  It's a chain reaction.  We also moved two really tall CD racks to a safer place where hopefully when Hazy starts crawling around she wont be able to knock them over on top of herself.  We still need to move a filing cabinet out of Hazy's room and sand and paint a bookshelf that is going to stay in her room.  It's very slowly starting to take shape.  If I had my way we would have it all done in one weekend.  But that's not going to happen.

Because I love spending money I don't have I started to look online for nursing dresses that I could potentially wear to my sister's wedding which at worst case scenario will be less than 3 weeks after I give birth.  Maybe if she comes just a little early I will have a month to deflate.  God, so depressing.  Anyway, I found a few websites that have some cool nursing clothes.  Figure 8 Maternity and Milk Nursing Wear.  I actually bought a nursing dress that I really liked from Figure 8.  I am not sure if I will wear it to my sister's wedding, it kinda depends on what my other sisters end up wearing because I want to be similar to them for pictures but I really liked it and I will wear it for the rest of the summer even if I don't wear it to the wedding.  I had no idea what size to get so I got the size I would normally wear if not pregnant which is a huge gamble.  Considering that I am at least 20 lbs heavier than my normal pre-pregnancy weight already and I still have 20 something more weeks to go, one could bet money that I won't be fitting into this dress 3 weeks after giving birth.  But I liked it so I bought it.

Sorry they are blurry but you get the picture.

I think with cute jewelery and cute heels it can work for a casual summer wedding, right?  Hopefully my sisters decide to wear pink, green or coral! 

I also created a baby registry at Target for essentials.  Mostly crib sheets, G diapers, baby gate, diaper changing pads etc.  Nothing too exciting but a lot of stuff I will be happy that I didn't have to buy myself!  One of my closest friends is arranging to have my baby shower at her dad's condo's event room which is super classy and nice.  It's in downtown Seattle which is a perfect neutral location because my house, while centrally located, is way too small for the 30 plus ladies I will be inviting and my sister who is hosting also has a small house and lives just about as far south as you can get and still say you live in Seattle.  Not very convenient.  My friend had her bridal shower in the event space at her dad's condo and it will be perfect for my baby shower.  I have decided that I am limiting the attendance of children to my baby shower to "babies 1 and under welcome."  All my friends have one to two kids a piece and there would literally be 20 kids running around if they all came.  Every time B and I throw a party at our house no matter what the occasion it always feels like it turns into a kids birthday party.  I don't want that vibe for my baby shower.  I know it's totally selfish and self absorbed but I want the shower to be about me and MY baby not theirs!  Already one of my friends is acting insulted and trying to manipulate me into letting her 9 year old daughter attend, it's strange how people cant respect other people's boundaries.   

Alright that's all I got for now.  I am posting my 18 week belly pic on my Belly Pic Page if you want to see my fat in all it's glory. 

Hemorrhoids, PUPPP and Doulas, OH MY!

Okay, so I was thinking about hemorrhoids and realized that I didn't know exactly what they were.  I knew that they involved a painful itching swollen asshole but I didn't know why or how.

So I googled that shit.  It's about what I thought.  It's when your blood vessels in your anus get swollen and inflamed due to too much pressure on them.  There are internal hemorrhoids and external hemorrhoids.

So then I google imaged that shit.  Holy mother of god!  Go google image that shit right now!  I was dying laughing in horror of what might happen to my poor little butthole.  It's horrifying yet strangely I couldn't look away.  My husband was disgusted with me.  Seriously go look at some pictures, I'll wait.

In other pregnancy horrors I noticed on Thursday night that I had some sort of rash all over the backs of my thighs and knees when I got out of the shower.  It was little tiny bumps and red streaks.  It kind of felt like having a very mild sunburn.  I googled that and self diagnosed myself with PUPPP.  The google images are monstrous.  It's a rash that usually appears in the last trimester (I'm only 17 weeks!) for unknown reasons.  While it's horribly itchy and disgusting to look at it is completely harmless to the baby and goes away after the baby is born.  I was freaking out.  I texted my mother to see if she had experienced this with any of her pregnancies and neglected to tell me.  She hadn't.  She did tell me to calm down and just use calamine lotion and to not use hydro-cortisone.  I still emailed my midwife and told her about the rash and that I thought it was a mild case of PUPPP.   She emailed me back and said she didn't think it sounded like PUPPP and that when you are pregnant your immune system changes and you can all of a sudden have a reaction to hot water!  She told me to use a moisturizer and keep and eye on it.  It has calmed down but now I'm afraid to take a shower.

Last week my friend from this blog post had her baby and I went to visit with her and her new baby the next day.  I also had to bring her her baby shower gift because I was miraculously still out of town for Thanksgiving during the shower.  Remember this post?  Admittedly it was much easier to go ooo and awww over her newborn daughter now that I am pregnant with my own daughter.  I enjoyed hearing all about her labor in great detail.  This is the second baby my friend has had with the help of midwives at a birthing center.  I found out that her really close friend who I will call Mo has been going through Doula training and was her Doula for her daughter.  I am not really friends with Mo but throughout the last 12 or so years I have seen her from time to time at BBQs, Birthday parties, etc.  We were both bridesmaids at my friend's wedding.  Mo was in the group of ladies who I went with to see Madonna in Oct '12.  Mo and I spent a good portion of our prefunk drinking commiserating how much infertility sucks.  She already had a daughter but was at the time struggling with secondary infertility including a miscarriage.  So although we are not really friends we are friendly and I like her.  She actually just gave birth to another baby girl in the beginning of January.

So it dawned on me that it would be great if Mo would be willing to be our Doula for a more affordable price than the ones I've been looking at on line!  I FB messaged her today and asked her what her rates are and if she would be willing to do a trade for Pilates sessions for part of the cost.  She got back to me that she was about to run out the door so couldn't write a full message but she is so excited that we are finally pregnant and that we should chat about Doula stuff.  I thought it was a really positive message and that she basically had said yes but then B pointed out that she didn't actually say yes, just that we should talk.  So now I'm nervous.  At least she sounded really positive and will possibly be a good resource to help us find a different, cheap Doula if for some reason she declines.  For some reason though I have already latched onto the idea of her being our Doula and it just feels right.

What else, I had my second midwife appointment on Thurs and met the other midwife that could possibly deliver Hazy.  I liked her a lot too so that's a relief!  We just chatted for about an hour and listened to Hazy's HB.  It was right around 150 like it has been.  I was able to correctly guide the midwife to the spot where I thought she would find the HB and sure enough we heard it right away!  I scheduled our anatomy scan for March 14th which seems like a hundred years away from now.  Really it's about 5 weeks away and I will be 21 weeks, 5 days by then!

We are still on the hunt for a dresser for Hazy's room.  I have just been searching Craigslist.  As soon as we find something then it will force us to really start working on her room.  The problem is so far I haven't had luck finding a dresser that I like, that has the number of drawers that I want, that is also the right height to use as a changing table.  And we keep finding dressers and cabinets that we are in love with but that we really don't need.  For example we are going to look at a dresser (and most likely buy it) this afternoon that doesn't work for Hazy but we decided it will look fabulous in our dining room.  Ridiculous.  Like we have money to buy pieces of furniture that we don't really need.  In some ways it is practical because we can put our bar glasses in the drawers and move our liquor to the top because right now our "bar" consists of a retro rolling cart that is definitely not safe for when Hazy starts crawling around.  And I can use the other drawers for washcloths, bibs etc.  At least this is how we are justifying it. 

We also have to replace our glass topped coffee table with hard corners with a soft ottoman that has storage space for baby toys and get a new rug in the living room. We also need to get a new storage cabinet for B's CDs which are currently in tall, skinny, free standing shelves that refuse to bolt to the walls.  Super dangerous for when we have a baby crawling around getting into everything.  I was all proud of myself for getting all the baby hand me downs from all my nanny families and friends but it looks like we will be spending plenty of money on getting the rest of our house ready instead! 

Alright that's it.  I did update with a new belly pic last week that I think I forgot to mention.  I'm only doing even weeks for suspense.  Just kidding, I'm lazy.

If you still haven't google imaged hemorrhoids go do it now!

16 weeks, 3 days

Today marks 16 weeks, 3 days!  I still haven't felt her move yet.  I can't wait to feel her!

 I snapped out of my blah mood from last week and had a pretty nice weekend.  I had lunch with my sister and we went to a Thai restaurant I used to go to all the time when I lived in that neighborhood.  We actually stopped going there because we thought the food was going downhill but this weekend it was so good!  Hands down the best Tom Kah soup I've had in years!  I've been dreaming about it ever since.

After lunch we picked up one of my other sisters and went to Babies R Us.  Seriously.  We did.  The whole drive there I felt uneasy and nervous.  Not that I would have any problem picking things out...I have a pretty good grasp on what I need and what is completely unnecessary.  It was just the idea of me, an infertile, being granted the right to go inside a place like that and buy things for my baby like I was a normal person.  Crazy.  It was also a little cringe worthy.  The years of failure at conceiving has left a bitter taste in my mouth (heart) for all the obnoxious ooing and ahhing that goes on in these places.  Yeah, it's a fucking baby blanket, get over it.  That's my attitude.  Babies R Us is like shopping at a baby themed Walmart, teen moms, white trash moms with cigarettes behind their ears threatening to spank their toddler in the middle of the store, toothless grandmas...they are all there.

Still I did feel slightly victorious as I walked out with my handful of purchases.  I got a diaper changing pad because B and I started looking on Craigslist for a dresser for Hazy's room.  Because her room is small my plan is to throw a diaper changing pad on the top of the dresser and have that be our changing station instead of trying to cram an extra piece of furniture in there.  The people I nanny for do just that and it works great.  I wanted to get the pad so when we go look at dressers I can bring it with us and we can make sure it will work the way we want it to.  I got a cover for the diaper pad that I really liked and also picked out crib sheets that I loved.  My sisters and I looked through ALL the baby clothes.  Girls and Boys.  Most were horrible, Winnie The Poo (sorry I hate it!), Curious George (also hate), Mickey, Minney, Tigger...the gang was all there.  GAG.  But I did find a very cute ruffley onesie that's almost like a dress that is navy blue with little white polka dots.  It's going to be the back up outfit at my sister's wedding in case Hazy decides to have a big blowout in whatever her real wedding outfit is going to be.  My sister gets to pick that outfit, it's her wedding.  She is letting me wear whatever I want and for that I am eternally grateful!  I will be about 3 weeks postpartum, give or take, by her wedding (due date July 20th, wedding Aug 22) and I anticipate being a fat, saggy bellied, giant leaky boobed hot mess who has to breastfeed every hour.  Sexy.  I was supposed to wear the same dress as all my other sisters but I don't think there's any way in hell that will be able to happen. 

I also got a a snoogle pillow to help me stay on my side at night.  I ended up getting the Babies R Us brand because it was 4 bucks cheaper and it came with a washable zip cover that had a palatable design.  I actually love it!  It is so comfortable.

So the Superbowl happened.  And I live in Seattle.  So EVERYBODY was completely wigged out of their minds about the game.  B included sadly.  He is not normally a sports freak but this season he has been following the Seahawks religiously every week.  It's been a strain on our relationship.  Not really.  It's just annoying.  I keep asking him, "Who are you?  This person screaming at the television is not the man I married!"  Anyway, I made the best of it and made some seriously kick ass blue and green cupcakes with a cream cheese, coconut frosting....amazeballs!!!  I made 36 of them.  I've been eating an average of two a day since Sunday.  I did take them to the Superbowl party that we manipulated our uninterested friends to host and I gave 6 to one of my sisters.  But I have eaten the lion's share.  And I don't regret one bite.

Tomorrow I finally have my second midwife appt.  As I stated last weekend I am pretty sure it will be anticlimactic although I am looking forward to chatting with my midwife and getting to know her better.  I might even meet the other midwife who could very likely deliver the baby depending on who is available.  I just checked Hazy's HB before I wrote this post so I wouldn't get any nasty surprises during the baby checkup.  Her HB was pretty easy to find and is still sitting around 150.  I think she will give us the info on where to make our anatomy scan appt.  Equally terrifying and exciting since I haven't seen Hazy since our last US at 10.5 weeks.  She will have changed so much and she will look like a baby!  Hopefully, gulp! 

Alright, that's it for me but I want to encourage you to go send a message of support and love to Mrs. B at Fertility Schmertility.  She is waiting on a diagnosis of one of her twins and needs all the love we can give her! 

Also Lamenting the Lentil could use some love too.  She is stuck in the hospital trying to buy her twins more time before they arrive.  I imagine she is alternating between terror and boredom so drop her a message!