Wine Please

Posted By Colleen on March 8, 2010

After a nice vacation from my hormones, where I had nice skin, relatively low amounts of heartburn, was tolerating nearly every type of food, and was feeling pretty chipper.
Then about three weeks ago, all hormone hell broke loose. Heartburn is threatening to burn all the way up to the bottom of my eyeballs; my skin is getting tempermental; most beef is off the menu (again), and in fact, I feel like I’m having some sort of cardiac event after nearly every meal. And? I’ve turned into a Psycho Mama with an itchy trigger-finger. Or itchy cry-trigger. My kids would rather ride in their daddy’s truck, and it makes me burst into tears. My husband makes a remark comparing my current style of laughter with that of an imaginary fat guy in a red outfit that smells like reindeer farts, and I want to choke him with his iPhone cord. A certain, unnamed extended family member sends me an email full of blantant, bold-faced lies (or maybe this person is just ridiculously deluded), and I feel like putting polls here and on Facebook to find out how many other folks remember things exactly like I do. Because it would be hilarious to see all the people respond. But I digress.
So you get that I’m feeling a bit off-kilter as of late, and besides having a racing pulse pounding in me ears after every snack or meal (which makes me dizzy, too, just for kicks), I’m feeling pretty healthy. I’m eating better (healthier) than I have with any of my previous pregnancies, no swelling (yet) or water retention, I actually passed my 1-hour glucose screening (that in itself is a miracle), and due to my visits to the chiropractor, my sciatica and other back-pain has been kept in-check. My only real concern at this point is my weight gain. With both Gavin and Cooper, I had gained a total of 37 pounds each. This time, I’ve already gained 30 and still have about ten weeks left to go. In fact, the weight came on so fast that I didn’t believe my bathroom scale. So much so that I thought it was going bad and bought a new scale….which gave me the same feedback, except in much larger and digital numbers. So then I blamed it on the fact that I hadn’t pooped in two-and-a-half days. After a few hours, a large bowl of frosted shredded wheat, and a trip to the bathroom, I only lost about two pounds.

Now, my belly is sticking out the bottom of my shirts and I’m pulling out maternity clothes that I typically don’t wear until the last month or so. Except that I’ve got more than two months to go.

Note the maternity shirt struggling to cover maternity belly, the under-belly pants with their strangle hold on my abdomen, all necessitating the maternity support tank-top to prevent random, unplanned flashes of maternity butt and belly. And making this sweaty pregnant woman hotter. I’m thinking that maybe a mu-mu might be ideal at this point.

Category: Pregnancy | 7 Comments »
Tags: baby, milestones, pictures

Posted By Colleen on February 11, 2010

*pay no attention to the negligent mother hiding behind the computer screen*

I really and truly have been meaning to post these. But I really and truly did have an issue with my scanner. I would attempt to scan the images and it would say “uh, I’m sorry, which computer would you like these sent to?” and I’d remind it nicely that it would be for my cute little laptop. Then the scanner was all “whatever,” and wouldn’t send the images to my laptop. So I tried to dupe it by triggering the scanner remotely from my laptop (instead of the scanner itself), and I’ll be darned if the thing didn’t holler out at me “B**** please! I can see you in there!” and wouldn’t send me the images. So I was forced to ask Justin a few times to scan the sonogram images for me. I think I literally heard the scanner purr “oh, the Apple wants some images scanned? Sure! Whatever you want, sweetie!”
Good thing Justin brought that rotten Apple with him to MacWorld or else I’d be interrogating it right now to find out what it’s slipping to my scanner.

Category: Pregnancy | 7 Comments »
Tags: baby, Kids, pictures, technical garbage

Posted By Colleen on January 13, 2010

I had my regular OB check-up two weeks ago. Of course, even though the radiologist’s office is only 20 minutes away from my OB’s office, they didn’t have the sonogram stuff yet. No biggie. So I told her we were having a boy, and that the baby’s measurements were indicating a due date closer to May 17th. I then asked her since my due date had been pushed up to the 23rd back in September after my initial sonogram, did she think there was a good chance that my due date would be pushed up to the 17th or so? She looked at me oddly, glanced at my chart and said, “we still have your calculated due date as May 19th. Who changed it?” I told her it was the sonographer I saw in the office back in September. She explicitly told me that I should consider the 23rd as my due date instead of the 19th. My doctor then muttered, “we need to remind her to quit saying that,” and went on to explain that their feeling is that unless there are extenuating circumstances, they do not change due dates if sonograms are giving alternate due dates up to a week early or later.
So may date is back to the 19th. And we’ve still got a 39-week induction penciled-in my chart in the event this child refuses to come on his own like his older brothers, or is the size of a hippo…which is highly probable since I’ve gained 7 pounds since that check-up two weeks ago. Five of those pounds were in one week. I blame the vitinnis I made for New Year’s Day. Or maybe the homemade fudge. Or the sugar cookies. Or the cheese (dear Lord, the cheeeese!!!).
Meanwhile, I have not gotten back to wrestle with my scanner to make it work so I can share the scant images of our baby. No joke. With Gavin and Cooper, we walked out of the radiologist’s office with 10 or more images of them. This kid? We got about five. This recession is really starting to suck.
So, since I don’t have the sonogram images to share (yet), I’ll instead sacrifice my self-respect and share this with you:

And yes, I am a huge “Chuck” fan and was beyond thrilled to come across a “Chuck” marathon on the SyFy channel over the weekend to get me prepped for the premiere that started this past Sunday. After getting a good 6-plus hours of “Chuck” into my system over the past several days, I’m finally feeling as if the world is in balance again.

Category: Pregnancy | 8 Comments »
Tags: baby

Posted By Colleen on December 28, 2009

It’s another boy!

From what I can tell, with all my layman’s knowledge of radiology, the baby seems healthy. I’m also basing that assumption on the fact that I did NOT hear any “hmmmm’s” or “uh-oh’s” or sucking in of breath that might indicate the sonographer saw something bad or unusual. Of course, we’ll find out for certain after the radiologist looks at all the images, and my OB looks at them all and they make their final educated guess. The sonographer did mention the baby was measuring bigger than my current due date of May 23rd, and that the measurements were suggesting a due date of May 17th (a mere two days prior to my original due date of the 19th). However, again, the doctor will need to decide if they will move my date back now that this little boy is measuring 2 days bigger than the calendar-calculated due date like his older brothers did. I sure hope she does decide to push back the due date because this kid appears to be on-track to be another 8+ pounder.

Meanwhile, I’m thinking of soothing my mild disappointment with a little retail therapy. Considering how many hand-me-downs this boy is destined to get, I’d like for him to have a few new items bought just for him.

p.s. I promise to add in scans of the sonogram pictures as soon as I can get my scanner to cooperate.

Category: Pregnancy | 13 Comments »
Tags: baby

Posted By Colleen on December 28, 2009

This morning we will (hopefully) find out what we’re having. As most people know, I’m really hoping this baby will be a girl because it will be nice to have some pink and lace around here. I mean, the dogs are both girls, but their inability to see most colors makes them less excited about pink (oh sure, that shade of grey is prettier than that shade of grey), and they tend to chew up lace. I think Justin would like to have a girl, mostly because I would like a girl, but I think, again, he’s the better parent and is more interested in having a healthy baby, regardless of gender.

So I asked the boys a few months ago if they’d like a little brother or a little sister, and I got these responses:
Gavin — I want a little sister since I already have a little brother.
Cooper (in his squeaky, Elmo voice) — I no wanna sista. I wanna ‘former! (translation: I don’t want a sister. I want a transformer)

Apparently, though, when other people have asked Gavin what he’d like to have, he’s told them he’d like another brother. Although one time he said he wanted a fish. Cooper, however, has been pretty consistent with his wish for a Transformer, despite getting one for Christmas.

Last night, Justin was putting Gavin to bed and was reminding him of our appointment this morning, and he again asked Gavin if he’d like a little brother or a little sister, and Gavin answered, “well, lets just find out tomorrow.” Justin was surprised at this sudden burst of diplomacy, so he prodded him again, and again Gavin answered, “I think we should just find out tomorrow.”

So here we are. It’s tomorrow. Either I’ll be going nuts in the girls section of the store on the way home from the appointment, or I’ll be trying to figure out what clothes survived Cooper and can be used again for Baby #3.

Category: Adventures, Pregnancy | 4 Comments »
Tags: baby, Cooper, Gavin, Justin, memories