Who’s in a painkilling cloud *now*?

Soo….things have been a little quiet around this here blog, but not for lack of excitement on the home front. A had surgery on her knee two weeks ago tomorrow, and we’ve been a little cuckoo with that. The baby has a room (surely I’ll put up a photo one of these days…). We were experimenting with newborn schedule, what with A’s vic.odin needs, and both of our nighttime pee schedules, and her being in this electronic contraption that constantly iced and moved the joint passively…

Yeah, basically, it was hectic.

And then…get ready, this is a long one. I’m condensing as best I can.

Remember when I went to the hospital for the first time ever? We doubled that.

Sunday, I woke up again feeling a little pull in the belly. I figured it was a straight up ligament issue, the result of sleeping funny or some such — third tri, what’s new, right?

Well, by afternoon, after some tylenol, resting, walking, a warm shower and a warm bath, things escalated. And were distinctly right-sided again. So I called the midwives, who told me to check in with the OB they contract with (who luckily I’d met with two weeks ago, and had told about the previous ovarian issue). She called right back and said she’d meet us in the ER. By then, I was back to vomming. Pretty spesh.

EXCEPT A can’t drive with her knee brace on. So we had to phone a friend. And the OB doesn’t have privileges in the hospital we went to before, so we had to hitch a ride out to the hospital where the zunzun will be born. It was at least less scary, because the pain was identical to before, and thus we didn’t have the horrible unknown to work with. Once there, they gave me an IV with that sweet, sweet painkiller in it, the OB showed up, they gave me an ultrasound to check blood flow to my ovary, and admitted me for observation.

Blah blah blah, I get eventually to L&D, they give me more painkillers, we settle in for an uncomfortable night’s sleep. (Poor A is stuck with her bum leg in the recliner…she slept way worse than me.) By morning, same thing as before: I’m a little sore, but there’s no real pain left. I’m feeling pretty chipper, and figure they will discharge me again. BUT then the OB comes in and says, realistically and after consultation with other, more high-risk OBs and the midwives, that if we’ve had this issue twice in a month, we’ve got no reason to believe it won’t happen again. And, as the baby gets bigger, it gets harder to access the ovary. AND, if the cyst were to rupture, they’d have to do go in for emergency surgery *and* take the baby out while they’re in there.

That was sufficiently scary. She suggested we go in with a scope and get the cyst out under controlled conditions. NBD, right? Within 30 min, they’re prepping me for surgery. I have to go under completely. I make them promise I will still be pregnant when I wake up. A couple of hours later, I wake up. I am still pregnant. I have three tiny incisions in my abdomen. They have gotten all the cyst and left the ovary entirely intact. Baby boy kicked all through surgery (so strange to me). I feel like someone has kicked the shit out of me with steel toed boots.

OB is still confident I’ll be home before bedtime. I’m super out of it. Once back on the monitors in my room, it turns out I’m contracting. Every two minutes. And they get stronger and longer. Our very no-nonsense nurse (love her) comes in to tell me they’re starting me on shots to stop the contractions and on steroids to develop the baby’s lungs just in case. This is the one moment I get freaked out — mostly I’m too high to get emotional. Poor A practically hyperventilates. Nurse feels confident she can keep me pregnant.

And they do. 4-5 shots of the stuff later, contractions slow and become irregular. I’m pounding fluids like it’s my job. They keep us for another night. Mercifully, we have such good friends. One friend arrived during surgery to hang with A. One came later, and they went to our house to take care of cats, to get A supplies for her knee, and — best of all — brought an air mattress for her to sleep on. She ended up getting a much better night’s sleep than me night 2.

Yesterday was much calmer. Another good friend came by and helped A take a shower (no small task, and one I obv can’t help with right now). My parents showed up (they are very task oriented people).

I was discharged yesterday late afternoon, after the third steroids shot and confirmation that I wasn’t contracting. I had to go back this morning for the last of the steroids. We are very glad to be home, and very glad that my parents are sticking around for a few days, very grateful for such good friends and community (how could we ever move away now?!?). We’re a real mess over here. I’m still quite sore from surgery, and A is no less in need of her own care, though she’s proven to be a real moment-of-truther in her physical prowess. I just hope we didn’t fuck anything up about her knee in the melee.

We are now, as you might imagine, feeling very much like our plans mean nothing. So I guess that’s a good lesson for baby-having. A has decided it’s time to consider the hospital bag and the car seat, even though we’re technically 7.5 weeks from due date. I’m certainly not arguing.

Anyway, take away point is we’re all ok, a little worse for the wear, but on the up and up. There are many things to be said, and some real things I’ve been thinking about writing about, but I’m exhausted and emotional and so so behind on so many things. They will wait.

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Breastfeeding

We’re blowing off BF class tonight. It would be three hours. In the suburbs. A is frantically trying to finish some things before her classes tomorrow and Wednesday and before surgery on Thursday. We already had a midwife appointment today, and we spent all weekend in birthing class. We are baby prepped out.

So…we were thinking that between the books we have on the subject, the new moms we know, the lactation consultants at the hospital, and our midwives, we’ll probably be ok. We’re also friends with a former LC, so she can be a resource, too.

Right?

Birthing Class

We’re learning to birth in a concentrated weekend class yesterday and today. Our midwives are not so psyched on this, preferring we do the 8-week thing, but A teaches Mon-Wed nights, which kills 95% of the city’s birthing class options. We promised to supplement with reading. What can you do?

We’re about to leave for day 2 of 2. Yesterday we learned very detailed information about the stages of labor, what they feel like, and what to do. A was given helpful talking points and instructions. I was told to relax, basically, and not go to the hospital too soon. I am practicing relaxing. I suspect I will be most interested in goal-oriented encouragement. I am lucky to have a wife who will not even attempt to talk to me about opening flowers or flowing creeks.

The zunzun was so excited to be learning of his future journey that he spent the 4 hour class trying to push his way out through the front. He’s very strong these days.

My dad is here knocking down walls and putting up new ones. It is awesome and exciting and I am trying to be zen about the layer of white drywall dust covering the house. A is having surgery on Thursday, and will have only one functional leg for the next 6 weeks, so the task falls squarely on me to wash away the dust, amongst other things. I think we will be fine. She’s having more trepidation. I just say we’ll have a few weeks where nobody in this house can bend over, so we’ll have to be good about not dropping things. 😉

“very pregnant”

After the cashier at L.owe’s told me I look like I’m about to pop, I came home and made this side-by-side.

5 weeks — almost 30 weeks.

I look at the early photos and wonder how I ever felt anything but totally skinny. (Kind of how I feel retrospectively about middle school.) And I wonder what my body lot will be post-baby.

Cousins!

Very good friends of ours had their baby girl this morning. We went to meet her immediately. She is a tiny little purple nugget. The zunzun was kind and did not kick her little butt while she rested on my belly. We hope he was also paying attention and taking pointers — baby girl was 5 days early and labor only lasted 6 hours. Some girls get all the luck.

We are slowly but surely making room and preparations for the boy. His clothes are sorted (but not washed), and we bought paint for the nursery, a kind of coral-y/sherbet-y orange. We will try to get my dad to take us to I.kea this week with his big van. We are now so excited to meet him, we can hardly stand it.

Fave things

Fave thing I didn’t expect to like:
Only having like four things to wear. Aka wearing the same thing over and over. So awesome.

Third Tri!

I forgot that I was in the third trimester until Tuesday afternoon, when I sat down for the millionth time to rest and took a look at the baby-growing apps. How strange, to be in the home stretch!

That said, I’m still struck by how this will likely be the longest shortest 2.5-3 months ever. I am definitely third trimestering, complete with disrupted sleep (in addition to mild insomnia, I’m now regularly getting up 2-3 times per night to pee, instead of 1-2), and a pretty rad waddle. I’m getting exhausted much faster, too, which I’m sure is aided by the sleep issues.

The midwife confirmed on Monday that my ute is measuring 2 weeks ahead, like the zunzun himself. She’s not concerned. But she’s also not planning on pushing him out her hoo-ha, so I can understand why her worry is less than mine.

We’re now up to appointments every 2 weeks. Pretty crazy. Next week my dad comes to do a bunch of things for us in the house, including painting the nursery! Which means we need to finish moving things out of the nursery! The last few days, I’ve been working on a little refinishing of a dresser, after which I’ll sort through baby clothes and see where we’re at. I think we might have the sizing all off…how will we clothe this giant baby??