Why Yes, It Is 3:31 am

 Knocked Up Again  10 Responses »
Aug 302008
 

Not only is it 3:31 am, it is also the day we go into the hospital to have Esmerelda Freugenspeigel.

Apparently my body thinks that the only way to give birth is while sleep deprived. I’ve woken up every 1-2 hours since going to sleep around 10:30 pm. The last 2 times were with hideous reflux.

However, I’m amusing myself by the fact that I was able to pull on my favorite t-shirt from college, yes college!

We had them made as a fund-raiser to go to the 1989 March on Washington for Women’s Lives. It reads “Not Government Property” on the front, and while visiting Carrie a few months later, I attempted to tie-dye it. My mostly unsuccessful efforts now look like a soft mix of light blue and pink.

OK, going to go visit with my future BFF the couch and see if I can eek out another hour or so of sleep before getting up and heading hospitalwards.

 Posted by Liza at 2:38 am

36 Hour Countdown

 Knocked Up Again, Opinion  5 Responses »
Aug 282008
 

In approximately 36 hours, we’re going to have a new baby!

Noah has been explaining to anyone who will listen that he is also going to the doctor’s this weekend to have his baby sister taken out of his tummy. Also, his baby sister is a boy, whose name is “Noah’s Baby Sister.” At day care pickup this afternoon, 3 other toddlers informed me that they had babies in their belly buttons too.

That was right after Noah admitted to biting Savannah while they were fighting over a book. Noah did say he was sorry, and he and Savannah had a hug.

Between now and 9 am on Saturday, I have my exit interview from work, a last pregnant lunch with the boss, my ex-boss, and a few of my co-workers, Grandma arrives, and Jill goes to see the Regeneration Tour.

And day care is closed tomorrow, so all I’m doing at work is going in for the the above — I expect to leave the house around 11 am and be home by 2. I also expect to do a light dinner at dinner time and another one shortly before bedtime, since I’m not allowed to eat anything at all including water after midnight. Crank. Crab.

Speaking of cranking and crabbing, I have a post up on the Deep South Moms blog about unsolicited medical advice provided by Starbucks employees.

Also, I hate the new Google Suggest feature, where suddenly my screen is filled with the most popular things people have searched for that start with the same letters I’ve just typed. Fortunately, you can turn it off under preferences if you login to use Google. But I think if you search anonymously you’re SOL.

 Posted by Liza at 8:42 pm

Crazy With The Nesting

 Knocked Up Again, The Real Live Boy  3 Responses »
Aug 272008
 

Painters painted our bedroom and bathroom yesterday, and are coming back for a second coat plus some smaller spaces downstairs today.

The paint fumes exiled both of us from the room, me to the fold out bed in the baby’s room, and Jill to the soft couch of sweaty sleep downstairs.

Also, since Noah managed to leak through 4 or 5 layers of sheets and pads this week, I had to re-make his bed and took the opportunity to mix-n-match some of the absorbent between-sheet layers between his bed and the crib. So I stripped and re-made the crib as well as remaking Noah’s bed.

Layered sheets is my absolute most favorite parent hack ever!

Changing wet or vomited-on sheets in the middle of the night is tiring and awful and slow. Pulling a layer of wet or gross sheets, or even two layers, takes much less time and much less work, particularly in the middle of the night.

We have two “really” waterproof layers, both lanolized wool. One is on the next-from-the-bottom layer, both to protect the mattress and to provide the alert that there can be no more putting off remaking the bed.

The other layers are more intended to be absorbent, so they can protect the next layer down of sheet. We use some of our many, many, many cotton flannel and jersey receiving blankets. I try to make sure there are two layers of fabric in the middle of the bed where leaks are most likely to happen. This is medium-effective. The wool is VERY effective. (One of the wool pads from Noah’s bed needs to be washed.)

Remaining must do tasks before Saturday morning around 6:15 am (when we leave for the hospital):

  • Re-check main already-packed hospital bag.
  • Pack prescriptions.
  • Pack snack bag, mostly for Jill, including big container of apple juice, mostly for me. Last time the hospital ran out of the little cups of apple juice. Also include the little packets of dehydrated citrus juice.
  • Pack “electronics” bag: camera & charger; laptop, charger & wireless dohickey; cell phone charger.
  • Unpackage the dump truck and digger presents for Noah from mommy and baby sister and pack them too.

Thing I am contemplating doing but will probably not do unless I *really* can’t sleep:

  • Gathering all of the small and most of the medium empty plastic bins that seem to be in almost every room of the house.
  • Sorting the large bins of Noah’s toys into the smaller bins.
  • Labeling the smaller bins with pictures and words, ie cars, trains, track, musical instruments. (Need large sticker labels. Do we have large sticker labels?)
  • Putting the smaller bins on the lowest bookshelves.

Very excitingly, we found out yesterday that one of our friends who moved away will be back in town from Weds evening until Saturday afternoon! So she will get to meet Esmerelda Freugenspeigel! And take pictures back to her adorable twins, who met Noah when he was still just a few weeks old! I suspect they will all be surprised to find that “baby Noah” now outmasses both of the almost-4-year-olds by 5-10 lbs.

 Posted by Liza at 9:51 am

Our Last Weekend as a 3 Person Family

 Knocked Up Again, The Real Live Boy  3 Responses »
Aug 242008
 

It is so strange to think about — this was our last weekend as a family of 3. Next weekend, there will be 4 of us. I’ll be in the hospital, Grandma will be visiting, and we’ll all be plunged into the crazy chaos of life with a newborn.

We tried to make this weekend fun. Saturday, Noah and I went to the mall and bought him Big Boy Shoes, read stories at the bookstore, ate treats at the food court, and then hit Targ*t for diapers, diaper pails, soap, and a few other odds and ends. Including a train, because I am a sucker.

After a nap for Mommy and quiet time playing in his room but not napping for Noah, the whole family went out for pizza at a local place with a fountain. Noah got soaked, cleaned up, ate pizza, and then we all went for ice cream.

Today, everyone slept in — for the first time since Noah was born or at least close, Jill got up before anyone else! We all went to church together, and we all stayed for lunch after church.

Afterwards, Noah went down for his nap as close to willingly as he gets, and I did too. Jill continued working on the house. We had a quiet late afternoon of Handy Manny, Noah’s favorite television program du jour, and a relatively easy bedtime. Not that Noah is sleeping yet. But at least there was minimal screaming and crying.

Esmerelda Freugenspeigel’s room is ready enough to be functional. There are a few more details to work out, but we’re 90% there. We showed Noah her room today, and explained where she’ll be sleeping when she first comes home. He was sweet, and curious, and claimed two of the toys that were there for her. I think the next step is to ask him to pick a few toys for her.

Speaking of Esmerelda Freugenspeigel, she’s certainly been making her presence known all weekend. She’s kicking the hell out of my side, leaving me uncomfortable and breathless. The BH contractions are in full swing on a regular basis.

AND we finally have an emergency backup plan just in case she decides to appear before Grandma arrives. Some friends from church offered today, even assuring us that they already have an extra car seat installed in their car. Icing on the cake, they are barely out of the way between our house and the hospital!

 Posted by Liza at 8:21 pm

Guessing Game Time

 Knocked Up Again  11 Responses »
Aug 222008
 

Inspired by my bloggerific friend Molly, who is anticipating her baby girl in just a couple of weeks, I want to throw open the guessing game for this baby.

Since the DOB is pretty well set as 8/30, that doesn’t seem like a fun guessing game — although if you think Esmerelda Freugenspeigel will be making an early appearance, feel free to say so. But her real name and her weight/length are fair game!

Edited 8/25 to Add: At the final prenatal appt. this morning, the doc who will be doing the c/s offered the opinion that this is also a big baby, but probably not as big as Noah.
Facts that may be helpful: Noah arrived at exactly 41 weeks, weighing 9 lbs, 7 oz, and 21.5 inches long. On 8/30, I will be 38 weeks & 4 days pregnant.

(For those of you who worry about these things, that is the absolute earliest that my health care providers would consider scheduling a c-section, absent a specific and compelling medical reason to do it earlier. We negotiated such an early date for immensely complicated reasons balancing health, insurance, layoff, the freaking holiday weekend, etc. Their regular practice for scheduling a c-section is between 39-41 weeks.)

Anyway. How big is this baby going to be, and what are we naming her?

 Posted by Liza at 9:32 am

Shockingly Empty

 Knocked Up Again, Personal, The Real Live Boy  1 Response »
Aug 212008
 

Packer/Movers came to our house today.

They spent 5.5 hours packing up and moving roughly 3/4 of our stuff.

The house looks crazy empty. Noah’s room is the only one that was left untouched. (We’d already mostly emptied out his closet, after a tantrum in which he removed all the contents he could reach and flung them around the room.)

Noah was pretty surprised when he got home, but since there was more room to spread out his toys, he was ok. But at bedtime, he took it out on Jill, acting out all his upset and refusing to settle down. He was still up, and fussy, when I got home from a church meeting at around 9:30 pm.

Aside: We got a letter of support for Noah’s adoption from one of the other moms on the committee. She and her husband had the whole family sign the letter, including their daughter who was in my Sunday School class last year, and their 3 year old son. I was so moved that I almost cried, and I’m all teared up again as I write this.

I am wiped out. (Another shock, right?) 

 Posted by Liza at 9:34 pm

Heh. Of Course.

 Knocked Up Again  5 Responses »
Aug 212008
 

Yesterday, I went to lunch with the same people I’d gone to lunch with on Monday.

Since one of them has a wife who is almost exactly as pregnant as I am — due with their first the day after Esmerelda Freugenspeigel is due — I regaled them with the story about being asked if I was having twins. They were appropriately amused and horrified.

When we got back to the office, the first person we saw loudly asked, “Are you having one, or two???” Naturally, she also followed it up with, “Are you sure?”

Had she not been someone from whom I need a favor, I can’t swear that I would have successfully managed a polite reaction.

And while commenters Stacey and Carrie are right, that’s a better question than being asked if you are pregnant when you’re not, it still isn’t good. The I-thought-it-was-cute sweater that I wore the day last year when someone asked “when are you due?” was, like Carrie’s dress, donated to Goodwill almost immediately.

Random baby update: More BH contractions, weight officially up 26.5 lbs from pre-preg as of 37w1d (meaning I remain confident in my total of 27-28 lbs estimate!), all other health related tests had good results, Esmerelda Freugenspeigel has a great heart rate, and it seems unlikely that she will decide to join us out in the world before her scheduled c-section date.

 Posted by Liza at 10:15 am
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