Finally~

Finally to so, so many things. But today, finally a happy Mother’s Day.  Exhale.

Introducing the Fabulous Miss E.  She was born on March 21st, an Aries (missed Pisces by a few hours). She was 21 inches long and weighed 9 pounds 1 ounce.  Thirty six hours of labor.  That’s right.  Thirty six.  I am woman! 

Words cannot describe what motherhood has meant to me. Perhaps in the coming months, once I am able to come up for air a bit more, I will be able to share some of that with you all.  For now, here she is in all of her fabulousness.

More Than Two Months Worth of Ket-Chup

Man, have I ever been a blogging slacker. Not in the lurking/reading department- I have been faithfully stalking all of you, and you know who you are. Or not, since I have been skulking around not leaving comments as well. Now, due to my procrastination, I will have to do a massive bulleted update of what has happened since the beginning of December, and try to keep it short, sweet and readable.  That is, if I even have any readers left after not posting for so long.  Serves me right.  Anyway, here goes:

• First, a baby update (I know that’s why there’s even a slim chance that you are still coming here). She is doing just dandy.  I am currently two days away from being 37 weeks pregnant. Miss E (Ahhhh….. a clue as to her name, and possible new blog acronym???)  is still 2 weeks ahead in size, and as of last Friday, was estimated to be about 7 pounds 3 ounces.  I really don’t know where the time has gone, but already I am preparing myself to mourn my pregnant self. I have loved every second of being pregnant, even the aches, pains, nausea and massive anxiety that went along with it. To be able to experience this most wonderous of biological events is more than I could have ever dreamed, and for that I will be eternally grateful to the universe. Even this far along, I am still in awe with every little (or really, mostly big!) movement that I feel from her. I will miss the closeness of her living inside of my body, but I do look forward to each new day and stage as it comes.
• We met the Great and Beautiful Snowflake from Cavatica’s blog. She IS as cute and wonderous in person as she looks on the blog, even more so!! We have actually met up a couple of times, once with us going out to lunch from their house (Snowflake does indeed have impecable restaurant manners), and another time they came to Casa De Pushy and Snowflake met her first dog and had some fun trying out her piano virtuosity.  We are so blessed to have met such great friends through this crazy blogging world.  I am really looking forward to our girls finally meeting and having some rockin’ playdates!
• Christmas came and went with nary a hitch. We had 15 people here for Christmas Eve dinner. For the first time in my perfectionist brain, I cried Uncle- the entire dinner was ordered ahead of time from Wegmans. All we had to do was heat it up. This pregnancy is changing me in ways that I never forsaw, and mostly for the better!  I actually was able to enjoy spending time with the family, instead of being relegated to the kitchen, or stressing myself out for weeks ahead of time.  Lesson learned.
• In January, I switched OBs and hospitals.  There is a lot involved in this story, so I will keep it to the bare bone facts. Basically, I want a less Medically-driven delivery.  Not going to happen with my old OB and hospital.  They were definitely going to be the ones in control, and most of the steps that would be taken during labor were things that would give me a much higher chance of being induced, getting an epidural, or having a C Section- all of which I would like to avoid if possible.  I am now under the care of a Midwife based practice, and will be delivering in a much smaller and personable hospital (it’s in the middle of Amish Country- should be interesting!)  We also hired a Doula, who we absolutely love.  I have been very satisfied with all of the changes so far, and hope that I will be granted the birth experience that I hope for.
• My BFF, Zoe, and my mother threw me a Baby Shower towards the end of January. It was very nice to have family and friends there together, and we received many wonderful gifts for the baby. I must say that it was a little surreal for me. Again, I had given up hope of ever being pregnant, so to be that far along in a pregnancy and opening up presents for a tiny little baby was sometimes much more than I could take in and process. I still haven’t put everything away yet, but I did finally get all of the thank you cards out. I am still a massive procrastinator- pregnancy has not changed that one bit unfortunately.

So, those are the highlights of what has been happening here. As for now, I am getting very large in the belly area, making it difficult to do a whole heck of a lot. Not that I am complaining about laying around watching tv/ surfing the net!  Starting last Thursday in the middle of the night, I had a few contractions- the real ones, not the Braxton Hicks practice kind. That just means that my body is preparing for the Labor ahead, but not really giving me any clue as to whether it will happen in a few days, weeks or more than another month. Therefore, I do need to get my butt in gear and finish the baby’s room (so I can post some photos here- it is turning out so pretty), pack my hospital bag, and finish about 25 other things on my ToDo list before the baby arrives. 

Another thing that has changed since I’ve been pregnant- I am coming to the understanding that those “other” 25 things that are constantly on my ToDo list are probably going to get done sometime around the year 2025!  And that’s just fine.

Some photos for your viewing pleasure~

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Drumroll, please

We had our ultrasound on Friday.  The baby looks good, healthy as far as everyone can see. It has moved from the 95% in height and weight to the 74%, weighing in at almost 2 pounds. They said it is very normal for a baby’s size to fluctuate like this, especially during this time in the pregnancy. Don’t worry- soon we’ll be stabilizing out to some sort of regular growth pattern, where I hope to have a better idea of the baby’s estimated delivery weight. While I don’t have a strong desire to have a baby on the small/normal size (they always look too delicate and fragile to me), I would be a little relieved if the baby didn’t come out on the 10 pounds plus side.

Oh- did you want to know the sex of the baby??? Weeellllll, when we first went in for the US, the baby had not only it’s legs crossed, but it’s arms crossed as well! However, we had a very determined US Technician, and she looked and looked, trying to get the baby to move around at the end for about 15 minutes. We didn’t tell her what the 1st ultrasound results were, as we did not want to sway her judgement in any way. Finally, her perserverance paid off. We saw very clear shots of it’s reproductive organs not just once, but 5 times!!! Each time she would freeze frame the shot, and point out exactly what we were seeing. And while the first US results were inconclusive, they were in fact, a very educated guess~

If you look closely at the photo above, you can see that the baby is looking right at you! They have their face looking toward the ultrasound wand. It looks a little squashed, as the baby is pressing right into the walls of the uterus to try to have a good look at what’s going on outside.

I think she’s trying to tell us, “YES, I am in fact a GIRL!!! Now stop disturbing me with all of these ultrasounds and let me get back to my swimming around.”

We can’t wait to meet you, Baby Girl.  Mommy and Daddy love you so very much.

A Quest For Balance?

Turns out, I am just not very good at balancing managing my time so I regularly blog and my daily obsessive mind rants about the pregnancy. Please bear with me until I find my rhythmn. Although I’m sure by the time I find it, I will have had the baby, and a whole new obsession will start. Sigh~

Let’s see, where to begin… I’ll start by passing the writing/ reading responsibilities over to someone else for a minute! I have been “guest posting” on another blog. Since the original author cannot access WordPress in China, they have been emailing their posts to me, and then I am able to post them on their blog. That’s right, our dear local friends from the blog Bing Bing Blog are currently in China adopting their daughter, Snowflake. No worries, that is not what they decided to name her, but rather a pseudonym for her on the blog, referring to her given Chinese name. She is just beautiful, and we couldn’t be happier for them to finally be together. Come home soon- MooseARoo can’t wait to meet Pickles!

MooseARoo- our new nickname for our baby! Why, you ask? The answer is two-fold. First, our baby is the size of a small moose, measuring in the 95% and being 2 weeks ahead in development. Secondly, the baby likes to be in an upright position, meaning head up by my ribcage and feet down below. While in this position, the baby finds it just delightful to hop up and down, using my bajingo for a trampoline, much like a kangaroo! Hence the new nickname. Thankfully, the doctor has assured me that I will not be seeing a foot come out of my Vajayjay any time soon, even though it feels like I should! It’s quite amazing what your body can be capable of handling, while all the while you are tiptoeing around, nervous about carrying a load of laundry lest it ‘hurt’ the baby. As for the sex of the baby, well… that’s another story, closely related to the baby swag that I received.

The bag of swag that I won from Celebrity Baby Blog arrived, and it is great. One of the things I received that I love already is a blanket & teddy bear set from Gus & Max. It is Super Soft, and I would love one for myself. I will keep you informed about other things I receive that are must haves or absolutely nots as time goes on, and I actually have a baby to field test some of these items. One thing that I definitely used already from the Giveaway basket was the Intelligender Predictor Test, AKA the glorified Draino Test. We were so excited to get some confirmation on our botched chance to find out the sex from our first ultrasound. Instead, more confusion. Of course the test results indicated that we are having a boy, the opposite of our US Tech’s best guesstimate. I went online and did a little research about the accuracy of the highly scientific pee test. Turns out, if the results come up ‘girl’, then there is a 90% success rate. If it comes up ‘boy’, then the rate of success is only 50%. Like flipping a coin. Or, in other words, not really knowing the sex of the baby! So, we’re back to square one on knowing the baby’s gender. Our next Ultrasound is Friday, so hopefully we will be able to get some conclusive evidence then. And I think it goes without saying- Intelligender- not worth the $30, at all. Glad mine was free.

My husband and I also took a couple of long weekend trips in November. We went to our old stomping grounds in Rhode Island for 5 days, and had a fabulous weekend in the Poconos reconnecting with a dear friend from college. Even Bogey had fun, perhaps finding a love connection with his new friend Roxie! Mr P also had almost a week of vacation around Thanksgiving time, where we stayed home and worked on some home projects, including putting the baby’s crib together and giving some color to our first painted room in this new house, a half bathroom. I’ll save the home projects for a bigger discussion on another post. For now I leave you with some photos from our mini-vacations. Hope everyone had a nice Thanksgiving!

If You Guessed Boy….

…. Then you only have a 30% chance of being right!!!! Read on~

We had our ultrasound on Tuesday. First and foremost, the baby received a clean bill of structural health! All organs are intact and fully functioning, the baby is very lively, and BIG!! The Technician said that the baby is still measuring about a week and a half ahead of schedule, to which she then looked over at Mr P and said ‘But I think I can see why!’ If you’ve ever seen my husband, you would know that the baby has to get an early start to accomplish all that height.

Overall, the experience was very surreal, like much of the pregnancy itself. I was not a crier, like some are upon viewing their living, moving baby for the first time. I think that I had too much anxiety built up around this event, poised on the edge of my seat, desperately hoping that the baby would be okay.  The process took about 30 minutes, which in some ways went by very quickly- “what is THAT?”  “suuure, that’s the lungs if you say so”- lots to look at. I enjoyed looking at the heart and the brain, as they actually were identifiable, and you could watch the 4 chambers of the heart pumping away. In some ways it went by slowly, as the tech really doesn’t say much- they have to wait for the doctor to come in at the end and interpret all of their findings and measurements. It’s torture looking at your baby and not knowing if things are okay or not. Everything looked good according to Mr Doctor. Hallelueh.

About the sex of the baby… turns out I can’t give you a definitive answer today. Tech asked at the end if we wanted to know- YES- and when she went to look, the baby had crossed their legs and wouldn’t uncross them! She said that while she was looking at other things earlier, she thought that she saw a labia a couple of times, and gave us a 70% likelihood that it’s a girl! We’re not going out to buy all pink just yet, though. I’m hoping that the next ultrasound will solve the mystery. Also, any day now, I should be receiving my basket of swag, and there is a Gender Predictor Kit in there. It says it has a 90% success rate if you are beyond 10 weeks in your pregnancy. Might as well try it and see what happens- hopefully it won’t confuse me even more!

I leave you with some pictures of our not-so-wee one. We have a profile shot of the head. For the full body picture, the baby flipped over, so we have a nice Halloween-themed shot of the spinal cord.

                                    

OMG!!!!!!!

I won!!! I can’t believe that I actually won!!!!  The dear editors/ writers/ contest winner pickers over at Celebrity Baby Blog have chosen me and my little blurb that I wrote about why I ‘deserved’ to win the gift basket (as if anyone could actually lay claim to this awesomeness)!  OMG!!!!!! And they mentioned my blog, which is crazy, as I now feel compelled to be writing all sorts of really profound things if lots of people are going to be checking me out.  I’m sure all of you clicking over here after seeing that on CBB are very impressed with my mastery of the English language, what with all of my abbreviations and exclamation points on this post. Did I mention that I can’t believe I actually won!!!!!! Check out the bag of swag!!!

Of course, I do have to post my picture with my gift on CBB/ Mom2B. To that I say, get thee to the salon, and fast! I can barely see out from underneath my bangs, and this complexion that I’m sporting right now… well, let’s just say it’s not so much a pregnancy glow, but rather a return to adolescence.

 OMG, I frickin won!!!!! How awesome is today?!

Didn’t Mean To Make You Worry

I didn’t realize soooo much time had gone by since I last posted. We are in some definite need of catching up. I’ll have to resort to the bullet technique-

• The Pregnancy-  At 20 weeks exactly today, I’m happy to report that everything is still going very well, although even saying that makes me want to knock on wood, throw salt over my shoulder or participate in whatever crazy superstition will make it remain so. There was a small issue with my bloodwork, causing a lot of anxiety and a trip to the Rheumatologist. Everything turned out Completely Fine, minus the 3 weeks or so of debilitating worry. I have started to be able to feel the baby moving around in there, and there are no words to describe the emotions that well up when that happens. No major kicks yet, just a lot of moving around and swimming. This baby is a Pisces after all! We have our Big Ultrasound this coming Tuesday. Please send your happy thoughts to us- this is a big hurtle for us, as we are getting the full work up on the baby (standard procedure). We opted for no genetic testing, so this will be our first look to see how the baby is developing. On a much lighter note, we are also hoping to finally see if the baby is a boy or a girl. Any guesses based on the way that I’m carrying?
• The Dog-  Bogey ripped one of his nails off while running around the driveway like the crazy dog that he is. It looked very painful, as the nail ripped off, but the quick was hanging out, completely exposed. I kept thinking of how it feels when you clip your nail a little too short, much less lose the entire nail! The Vet stuck a needle in his foot to numb it and cut the rest of it off (the quick, not the foot!). He had to wear a green bandage sock for a week, and of course take 2 prescription medications daily. That all being said, it was only $$, Mamacita.
• The Husband- We celebrated our 6th Wedding Anniversary, and Mr. Pushy had a Birthday last weekend. I love him so- what else is there to say?
• The Pickle- At least that’s what we’re calling her. We are so excited for our friends over at Cavatica’s blog to have finally received their referral for their beautiful baby girl. We can’t wait to meet her, and have our little Pisces playgroups together! 

Since I am not able to download any photos right now, I am going to ‘treat’ you all with a lame-0 Rock You slide show! I may have to throw some random photos in to make it worth your while-

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Metal in the Wind

Let me start by apologizing for the long interval between posts. Fifteen must have apparently been  my lucky week, as finally (!), I seem to be done with the constant nausea!  I have a whole new lease on life, and because of that, I have been using my renewed energy to play catch up on the many things that I have let go for months. Things including general hygiene, having clean clothes for more than a two day stretch of time, and trying to slowly tackle my giant ToDo list that has been creeping up to impossibility. So with laundry basket in hand, I welcome myself back to the land of the living.

 Last Friday, I had my monthly check up for the pregnancy. Let me start off by saying that monthly visits are completely unacceptable in my world. When you are under the care of a Fertility Specialist, you become accustomed to a level of treatment and attention, which I found out very quickly, is not given to you when you are pushed out of the Infertility Nest and shoved out to the real world of “the regular doctor”. During my time at the REs (Reproductive Endrocronologist), I had an appointment and ultrasound every week from week 4 through week 10. I could barely make it to my next appointment, I was so sick with worry that something had gone wrong. Thank goodness that I only had to wait 6 days to feel that sweet relief again, even if it only lasted while we were physically standing in the doctor’s office. Then the cycle would start over again. Now that we have been discharged to a regular OB, we have to wait a MONTH in between visits!!! Outrageous!!!!!! AND, get this, NO ultrasounds, except our 20 week one!!!! Oh, the horror when we found this out. Surely there must be a mistake? Don’t they know who I am or where I came from?!?!  I require weekly visits and weekly pictures!! I’m going to need to talk to a manager about this-

So, you can imagine the anxiety that builds up in me by the time that I get to my monthly appointment. I come armed with a huge list of questions, the content of which stems from my wild imaginings and horrific scenarios that I have concocted while waiting for my next appointment. The nurse practitioner, Robin, who has become my savior during this transition, patiently answers everything with the vast source of her knowledge, and a little humor sprinkled on top to help talk me down from the tree.

Then the end of the visit arrives, the most anticipated part of all. She takes out a doppler wand and we listen to the baby’s heartbeat. On our first visit, it took a breathless couple of seconds to locate and hear the heartbeat. On this visit, it was immediate. Our baby is still swimming around in there, still measuring about a week ahead, and it’s sweet little heart is beating strong and loud.  The heartbeat sounded to me exactly like someone taking a big piece of sheet metal and flapping it back and forth in the wind.

It was the most beautiful sound that I’ve ever heard.

~~~ For those of you who like to keep up with what the Old Wives Tales are telling us, the baby’s heartrate was 140. According to the OW’s, if the heartrate is above 150, it’s a girl. If it’s below 150, it’s a boy. They’ve gotta be right at least 50% of the time, yes?~~~

And Now For The Reveal…

…. Just another Meme. Or is it???? Read on~

I was tagged by Cavatica a little while back for the 7 Ps Meme (If you read the tag, that in itself is a clue to my Wordless Wednesday, if you haven’t already figured it out).  So now that I have had time to think about it, I guess that I could come up with maybe a few words that start with P that I would like to talk about.

Pregnant: Since I’ve kept you waiting long enough, let’s get it out there right away- Yes, I am pregnant!!!!  I am 14 and a half weeks along, and my Due Date is March 14th. After almost 5 years of trying to conceive and a never ending trek through the Carrot-on-a-Stick China adoption process, it looks like our dreams to start a family are finally coming true. Or so they tell me. Which leads me to the next P…

Petrified: I have never been so petrified of anything in my life. It is paralyzing, the fear that comes up when you realize that all of your hopes and dreams are an actual living entity that you have total responsibility for right from the start. With the adoption, whatever was going wrong, making me sad, angry or frustrated, I could easily blame on others- the CC@@, the Agency, my slow Social Worker. Though it made me feel helpless to be completely at the mercy of a faceless beuracrat, it also took some of the building pressure to ‘get this party started’ off of me. With a pregnancy, I never anticipated the overwhelming terror that comes with being your child’s lifeline. Everything that I do, from the food that I eat and the face wash that I use, right up to the side of my body that I sleep on determines whether my baby will survive, and what their quality of life will be, if in fact they do make it that far. The Perpetual fear of *cue ominous music* something going wrong is all consuming for me. After so many years of something going wrong, it becomes very hard to reconcile in your mind that perhaps, just maybe, something is actually going right for a change.

Process: If I’m going to hang it all out here, you should know that we did not conceive the Old Fashioned Way. I had reached the end of my rope with the adoption (read: massively depressed with no end in sight). I finally decided that it was no longer healthy for me to sit around with my uterus being held hostage, feeling helpless, out of control, and about as far away from starting a family as possible. So I did something about it, even if it was more to feel like I was moving forward, killing some time in the neverending wait. Imagine my surprise when I actually found out I was pregnant. I don’t GET pregnant!! It took me about 9 weeks to even be able to say the words “I’m pregnant”. Now that I’ve reached that milestone, I am trying to wrap my mind around the fact that there will actually be a baby at the end of this pregnancy. After all this time and waiting, it seems like such an abstract concept to me.

Pee: and nausea and heartburn and fatigue. I’ve had it all. At 14 weeks, I still have it all. But in a very disturbing way, it is extremely comforting to me that all is going well.

Perserverance: The amount of this quality is staggering amongst my blogging buddies and myself. Very few of us have ran short sprints to have our babies- most have run marathons that defy physical and emotional ability to get there. Infertility and adoption is not for the faint of heart. You are my heroes and my support system in a world full of Olympic speed racers.

Precocious: Dr ‘Godly’ called our baby this when we had our second ultrasound done. The baby has always measured BIGGER than normal, and is usually fairly active. Mr P’s family loves this, as they can’t wait to have another 10+ pound (!) baby in the family. I can.

Pisces: Many years back, I had a tarot card reading done (my only psychic reading to date). I was engaged to Mr P at the time and in the throes of planning our wedding. I had gone with 3 other girlfriends, and was the last to have mine read. The other 3 readings were spot on, and she told them some very revealing things that she could not have known about. When it came time for mine, she didn’t really tell me anything that at the time I thought was true or even good.  She told me that someday a Pisces would come into my life, and that person would be the greatest love of my life. Being engaged to Mr P, a Libra, I dismissed her as not being able to read me very well. Guess what sign our baby will be born under?

Photograph: Since I kept you all waiting for so long, here is a bonus ‘P’- a photo of my current pregnant state. The ultrasound picture was also really mine, but it was the baby at 9 weeks, so it’s getting a little outdated. I’m sure it’s about 20 times larger now, at least according to Mr Ps family!

Wordless Wednesday