Month: August 2011

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Love to Zaria

Yet another tear-jerkingly sad baby story, but I just can’t ignore it and not pass it on. I found Zaria’s tale through Jenny at What the blog?, then clicked over to read about her myself.

I can’t even imagine her parents’ pain. To have one of their twin daughters stillborn at 21 weeks, cling to the hope of the other’s survival for a month, then face the indescribable pain of losing her as well, all too soon.

I really have no more words – I can’t seem to think of anything quite fitting for the loss of such tiny little souls. So please go read about Zaria. Suzanne is hosting a most excellent fundraiser for the family, and all you moms-to-be out there could have a chance to win some pretty sweet gear. Or if you are so inclined, give a little something to the March of Dimes, an organization dedicated to helping families like Zaria’s through their struggles and giving those tiny ones a fighting chance.

Love to Zaria!

 

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Wordless Wednesday

How to keep a toddler from standing in her chair

She wasn’t the biggest fan of the straps, as evidenced by the blur factor below. Chairs are for sitting, young lady.

C'mon, Mom!

 

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Advice needed

Ok kids, time for a “help SM” day again. I’ve really been harping on myself lately for not at least trying cloth diapering. Why now, a whole year after D was born? I have no idea. Maybe it’s the 3 pack of reusable diapers I ordered before she appeared that has just been sitting in the drawer taunting me, or maybe it’s hearing about so many other people who can do it, so why can’t I? I don’t really know what the impetus has been lately, but I feel like I might want to give it a shot.

So here’s where you come in. I need help with these questions:

  1. How often do you do laundry with cloth diapers? Like I said before, I usually only do laundry once a week – 1 load of our stuff, 1 load of D’s or a combo load if she doesn’t have much that week. Having to face 4+ days of laundry is kind of off-putting right now.
  2. What kind do you use? There are so many brands out there, I have no idea where to begin. I don’t even remember what kind I have at home (gro-Baby? is that one? that might be what they are). And does each brand have its own corresponding inserts, or are inserts universal?
  3. Do these things size like regular diapers, or are they all adjustable up to a certain weight? I know the ones I have are adjustable, but again, I have no idea what the upper limit on them is. My luck we’ve already outgrown them anyway.
  4. How much money do you think you’ve really saved by using cloth diapers over disposables? I’ve signed up for monthly auto-delivery of 7th Generation diapers through Amazon, and with that we spend just under $30/month on diapers (more, obviously, if we have to run out for extras for any reason). I’ve also set up auto-delivery of 7th Gen wipes through Amazon, which come every 3 months for $25. I doubt we’d use cloth wipes if we ever switched to cloth diapers. Let’s not get crazy here.
  5. For anyone out there reading this and thinking of answering – do you work or SAH? The reason I ask is that I know our daycare does prefer disposable diapers. If you send your little cloth-bottomed one(s) to daycare, how did you get around this, or does your daycare just not care? (i think ours might allow them, but they do prefer disposables)
  6. Do you use cloth all the time, or do you go with disposables for certain occasions – travel, errands, etc.?
  7. How did you convince your partner to give cloth a chance? Or was he/she on board from the start? I have a feeling R will not be too keen on the idea when I bring up that I have a hankering for trying cloth.

See – I’m kind of at a loss here. So any help anyone can provide will be greatly appreciated!

 

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I pretty much rock

You guys, I don’t brag about myself much at all, but I just have to let you know about this one. Tonight, to begin my workout with my trainer, I did 5 pull ups. I repeat – 5 pull ups!! I haven’t done pull ups since before I was pregnant, let alone 5 in a row. And these were full on, from a dead hang, no leg swinging to cheat pull ups. Yes, I did do them underhand grip instead of overhand, which is harder, but still. I was aiming for 3 (but I really was only expecting 2) and my trainer was aiming for 2, so we were both pretty stoked.

The last time I did 5 pull ups was on my 30th birthday, a little over 2 years ago. So there’s my personal pat on the back for tonight. I’d better get it in now, because I have a feeling I won’t be able to reach around and touch my back through the pain I’ll most likely be feeling in a matter of hours.

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Things they don’t tell you about pregnancy – #11

Ok, this one is about something that can be both a very sensitive subject and very frightening, but I’m just gonna put it out there – not all bleeding during pregnancy is a bad omen.

Now I am definitely not implying that you should ignore it if you start bleeding at any time throughout your pregnancy, but just know that it doesn’t always signal the worst. Certainly call your doctor if you see anything more than some light spotting (or even if you do see spotting and it makes you nervous, for that matter) just so they are aware and can direct you if anything needs to be done. Let me give you my little example…

When I was about 4 months along, I woke up one Sunday morning to some nasty bleeding. I thought oh my god! What is that?? What’s happening? What’s going wrong? For I had zero pain or discomfort whatsoever and had done nothing strenuous at all in the days prior. It was just all of a sudden there when I first went to the bathroom that morning. So I went into a mild freak out and called my doctor’s after hours line, it being 7:30am on a Sunday and all. The on-call doctor with whom I spoke didn’t seem concerned since there was no pain associated with it, there appeared to be no lumps in it, and it was more of a dark red than a bright red. He told me to just lay low and relax that day, and try not to do too much physical activity. Ok, done. I sat in bed all day watching tv. This was actually what I would have done most of that day anyway, since R and I had gotten in a huge fight the night before when I picked him up from an all-day bar crawl, he slept on the couch that night, and I was going to generally try to avoid him all day Sunday even without these new doctor’s orders.

And things seemed to be clearing up just fine. There was no more bleeding that morning and into the afternoon. About 3pm, however, it was back. Shit! I called the doctor again, and this time he wanted me to go into labor and delivery at the hospital just so they could check me out and do a little investigative work. Double shit. I almost had a panic attack. I was so scared. If something happened to the baby I didn’t know how I was going to be able to handle it. Everything had gone so wonderfully in my pregnancy up until that point I hadn’t even thought that losing the baby was still a concern for me. But what else could all this blood mean? Plus I hadn’t said 1 word to R that whole day and now I have to tell him that I’m going to the hospital because I’m bleeding and I don’t know if there’s something wrong with our baby? Oh god, I can’t do it. So I went out in the living room, sat down on the futon to put on my shoes, and he looked over at me to see what I was doing. I told him I had to go to the hospital and instantly broke down in tears. It was the scariest day of my pregnancy, my husband and I were mad at each other, and I thought I was going to have to hear the news every pregnant woman fears most all alone. I broke. R immediately flew off the couch and into action to get ready and take me. I told him he didn’t have to come and he told me not to be ridiculous. I was so relieved. I thought he was just going to be more mad for some reason, hence me not even wanting to tell him where I was going. I honestly thought I was just going to walk out the door without saying anything to him. How awful would that have been?

On the way to the hospital I did one of those sniffle-sobs where you’re really just breathing in, but since you’ve been crying it gets all jumbled up and noisy. You know what I’m talking about? When R heard this he grabbed my hand and held it the rest of the way. I felt so much better. Still scared shitless about what was going on inside me, but at least our fight from the night before was instantly a distant memory. When we arrived at the hospital they showed us up to l&d, and I explained to the nurse at the window that I was the one with the unexplained bleeding about whom the doctor had called in to them. They showed us to a room where I waited to be examined. The nurse had me change into a gown and asked me to describe what had been going on and if there was any pain, blah, blah, she hooked up an ultrasound machine and placed it on my belly, and right away we saw the baby in there, swimming away totally a-ok. Oh thank god and all things holy! You have no idea how relieved we were. Awesome, fantastic, whew! But where was the blood coming from? They weren’t sure. The nurse did an internal exam and said it was old blood, so it could really have been caused by anything – maybe I strained too hard in a movement and it escaped, or it may just have been hiding out in my va-j that whole time and got jostled out somehow, she really wasn’t sure. All right, fine. As long as the baby is ok I really don’t care. I had another ultrasound scheduled with the perinatologist for a different reason a few days from then anyway, so they told me to just take it easy until then and he would be able to get a much clearer picture of what was going on in there. My god was that ride home a bazillion times better than the one on the way to the hospital.

At my next ultrasound, the doctor found the cause of my bleeding – a low-lying placenta, otherwise known as placenta previa. This is a condition where the placenta does not grow up and into the uterus as the baby grows, but rather stays down near the cervix, either partially or completely covering it. If it stays down there until it’s time to deliver, it almost always results in a c-section, since a vaginal delivery would be much too dangerous for both mom and baby and would entail a ridiculous amount of bleeding and tearing. Yee-ouch and yikes! Fortunately mine was about the least severe classification possible – my placenta was just barely touching the cervix, not covering it, but it was still close enough to cause that blood to come out. So I was placed on a 6 week no sex, no heavy physical exertion restriction, in the hopes that the placenta would just naturally correct itself and move up. And fortunately it did. At my ultrasound 6 weeks later everything looked great, I got the all-clear, and I didn’t have to see the perinatologist again during my pregnancy. He’s a nice guy and all, but I’d rather know everything is healthy in there than continue to have to see him.

So you see, as scary as it is when it happens, bleeding doesn’t necessarily mean everything’s going wrong. Like I said, absolutely call your doctor if you do start bleeding, but please try not to assume the worst. I know I’m a bad example since I obviously failed at that, but after going through my little experience I now know that there are so many other causes, and hopefully if it happens again during any future pregnancies I might be able to stay a little more calm until we figure out what’s really going on in there.

 

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Waxing nostalgic

I found this beautiful post the other day on BlogHer Moms and it almost brought me to tears. Not because I can relate to lemead’s summer camp experiences on Cape Cod, but because I, too, look back on my childhood summers with such aching fondness. The long days of play, hearing the cicadas and crickets on hot summer nights (i hate bugs, but that sound always takes me back), the hours my sisters and I would spend making up languages and forts and engaging in general make believe, the utter lack of responsibility save putting away toys at day’s end, and an overall age of blissful innocence that only children know.

My sisters and I never went to summer camp, but we did have Canada. And I wouldn’t swap those 2 for anything. When we were younger there were years when we were able to spend a good couple weeks up on the island, and it was pure heaven for us. For during those long stays we usually overlapped with my mom’s entire family, spending days and nights on end with our grandparents and all of our aunts, uncles, and cousins, some of whom we never saw except up there. We held countless diving contests off the dock, swam in and across the lake (but not through the seaweed, ew!), made treasure maps and turned the island into our own coded little world, read stacks of old comic books, set up tents and “camped” in various spots on the island, had water fights, made up songs, played endless games of cards and Scrabble and bingo, listened to old-time records every night at cocktail hour (one of my favorite traditions that still lives on), roasted bags of marshmallows and popped nightly bowls of popcorn, awoke each morning to the smell of bacon and a fire in the wood-burning stove in the kitchen, and fell asleep in the loft each night listening to the grown ups reminiscing about when they were our age and always trying to sneak peeks through the blankets over the railing hoping we wouldn’t get caught and forced back into bed. They were the best days of our lives, and the countdowns to the next summer’s trip usually began on the way home. I still get butterflies of excitement the night before each trip to Little Pine Isle.

Canada has always been a family place for us, though, unlike a summer camp full of outside friends. Not that others aren’t welcome, by any means. And some groups of family do take friends when they go, when there’s room enough without too many other family members already there at the same time. I think this is kind of what made it special for us, too. We bonded so strongly with our family when we were up there and loved spending that time with them. What could be more fun for kids than playing with their aunts and uncles who always gave in and let them get away with stuff that their parents never would? Granted, as we’ve all gotten older (and bigger) it is kind of nice when the island isn’t crammed full of people anymore, but as kids it was wonderful.

Much like lemead’s summer camp, our island is littered with these boundless memories and happy ghosts from our pasts. And now I am thrilled to be able to take D there and let her create her own lifetime of memories as well. She only has 1 cousin right now, but I know they’ll be joined by many more and will probably explore every nook and cranny and play every island game imaginable, just as we did. Now we will be the adults in the living room reminiscing each night while they try to put off sleep as long as possible up in the loft. And I hope she falls as deeply in love with the place as we have and makes boatloads of memories there with her own children and their children someday, too.

Me & my sisters in Canada ages ago
Crushing cans in Canada while rockin' a bikini. Awesome

 

p.s. totally unrelated, but i wanted to get my run stats from this week down. tuesday i ran 3.57 miles in 31:41 for a 8:51 pace, and last night i ran 2.86 miles in 24:04 for a 8:25 pace. my time from last night is only 4 seconds off my fastest time ever for that particular route, so i was pleased. both runs felt pretty awful, but i was very happy i got more than 1 in this week.

 

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The wonders of nature

When we were on vacation in Canada last month, I witnessed both the brutal and wondrous sides of nature. There was a little bird’s nest above the steps leading down from our boathouse to one of the docks, and when we arrived on the island there were 4 brand new, tiny baby Phoebes in it. A few mornings later, we opened the boathouse doors to find that the whole nest had been knocked down onto the steps, and the poor little babies were splayed all over the place. Unfortunately 1 of them did not make it, but the other 3 were amazingly still showing signs of life. So my sister M found a smallish cardboard box, put on some gloves, scooped up what remained of the nest, and fashioned a new little home for the surviving babies in that box. We put a rock in one end of it to weigh it down and placed it just off to the side of where it had fallen, in the hopes that the parents would come back and be able to see that there were still some of their offspring in there. Come on, Phoebes, your babies still need you!!

We watched that box from afar that entire day, hoping and pleading with the parents to come back and feed the youngsters in there, and lo and behold, they found it! We were absolutely thrilled. They were pretty tentative at first – like what in the world happened to our home? Where are our babies? Oh wait, they’re in this box now? Is this a trap? They would perch in the tree closest to the box and just hang out for a bit, singing their little Phoebe song, and then you’d hear the babies start peeping away. Feed us! Feed us!

Unfortunately, 1 of the 3 remaining babies perished within that first day. He was the worst-off of the trio, and M finally removed him and laid him in the garden area with the other one who didn’t survive. It was pretty clear that he wouldn’t live much longer even with the parents’ feeding, so we didn’t want them to reject the entire box nest if he was still in there. So those 2 received a nice little burial on the island, yet far enough away from the box to hopefully allow the other pair to thrive.

By the end of our stay, the Phoebes appeared to be a happy little family once again, even if reduced in members. The parents made regular trips into and out of the box, and you could see them removing the babies’ poop on their trips out, too. (i had no idea birds did this, the nest cleaning, but it makes sense. why would they want to sit in their poop all day?) It was so heart-warming to see how this little pocket of nature flourished in the face of tragedy, even if it was with a little help from us humans. The box babies would huddle together and peep when the parents were near, and it was the cutest thing ever to see them in there, heads tucked against each other, sheltering one another from whatever lie outside that box. They looked good when we left, so I sure hope they continued to grow and have maybe even moved into nests of their own by now. Or at least out of the box.

Baby Phoebes in their box nest

 

And another wonder of nature – human babies!! I finally met one of the 2 newest additions to our group of friends last night, Baby S, one of the most adorable little boys ever! It’s so fun that our kids will now have so many “automatic” friends with whom to grow up. I can just picture it now – the kids all corralled together playing while all us parents sit around with some drinks, most likely watching a Badgers, Brewers, or Packers game.