Archive for July, 2009

07-03

2009

Losing My Mind

I don’t understand why I am at a loss at purchasing things for the baby. I know logically what I need (car seat, baby tub, newborn cloth diaper stash, clothing, blankets for swaddling, etc) yet here I sit, staring at the screen and feeling confused. I suppose part of it is that it’s been almost a decade since I was pregnant with my oldest son, or that I still have about 3 months to go (I am just now starting my 7^th month), yet I have the money put aside to stock up on baby goods and unsure of WHAT to buy or WHERE to buy (would prefer online as much as possible). The only thing I have no worries about is feeding the baby (breastfeeding FTW!).

The products I need help with would be:

cloth diapers (with my son I didn’t start until he was a year old, used pre-folds and covers)
car seat (unsure of where to buy a quality one that isn’t Babies R Us or where to find safety reviews)
clothes (my son was a January baby, this one is late Sept/early Oct)

Aside from that it’s fairly easy as I solely breastfeed (no pacifiers, no bottles), I co-sleep, no vax, no circ, carry the baby everywhere (although this time around I want a sling or as suggested by midsummerblue a Moby wrap), etc. I just can’t see myself prancing to a Target or Walmart or god even the mall to purchase everything I need for the baby. You would think living in Des Plaines (like 30 min from Chicago) I would have more options (which I guess I do except those options are hellishly expensive!). With Danny his biological father and I bought most of his clothes from a baby resale shop, that was about it.

I am getting worked up here over nothing, logically I know this, I think it’s my form of “nesting” or something heh.

archived under: AP

{5 comments}

07-08

2009

Mainstream Medical

Right now I am on hold with my previous Midwife’s office, ironic since the office just left me a voice mail yet… they have kept me on hold going on 5 minutes now.

A bit of back story, when I first became pregnant I first went to an OB office that my twin sister used during her pregnancy. I should have known better considering she had the classic mainstream “do as the doctor says without question” pregnancy and labor. After a hellish time there I switched to a midwifery practice around 16wks. I had some issues with the medical care but it was better than the OB office at the time.

A month ago they brought up the glucose test. I denied it right away. I did not take it with my oldest and considering the sheer amount of false positives with the test, didn’t feel it was in my or my unborn son’s best interest to take the test. Two weeks ago I went for what I thought was my “regular” prenatal visit, instead I am accosted by a receptionist, two nurses, and the midwife about taking the glucose test. I am given scare tactics right away, I explained my reasoning behind my choice, then the midwife and I came to a compromise, if sugar started appearing in my urine dips, or any other symptoms showed up I would then take the test. Mind you, the test can be taken at ANY point during the pregnancy, it’s just simply most taken around the start of the seventh month. About four hours later as I’m at the store with my son, I get a phone call from the midwife I saw hours earlier telling me the male OB that I’ve never met decided that either I take the test, be treated as a diabetic for the duration of the pregnancy (including but not limited to testing my blood sugar 6+ times a day), or be “fired” from the practice.

I was very upset by this of course, at that time I was almost 7 months along (starting my third trimester), and really didn’t need more worries. I told them to cancel the next appointment I had because I was not willing to take the un-needed test nor was I willing to be treated like a diabetic, also that I needed a copy of my records. So after being on the phone for close to 20minutes just now, the woman who did not identify herself tried to argue with me that “we never said that”. No YOU didn’t say that, the midwife “Wendy” and the male OB “said that” to me. Then I am told I can only have my records from when I started using their practice, but can’t have the ones I brought over from the previous OB office. So I somehow have to fight (seriously the first OB office is THAT bad) to get a copy of my records from 4wks — 16wks of pregnancy, and then obtain the secondary set from 16wks — 26wks from the midwife practice. I also somehow have to find a NEW practice to not only accept me but that also shares the same birth/pregnancy values as me… which isn’t so easy to do when you’re 7 months pregnant.

If I wasn’t so worried about it being a VBAC I might even lean towards finding a home birth midwife, but as it is I don’t think they would be covered by state insurance.

I am at my wits end.

archived under: Thoughts

{7 comments}

07-14

2009

Random Words Put Together

I’ve reworked the previous design, yet again. Thoughts? It’s a work in progress as I would like to vamp up certain areas. The comment link is now at the bottom of the entry as well as a new “tweet this” link if you want people to know what you’re currently reading. Updated the info/about page!

We finally purchased the baby’s infant car seat and bathtub last night (we have wee tiny sinks). Just need to get clothing and diapers at this point I believe. We still have no names or possible names. I really want a more “nature” sounding boy’s name this time around.

If I have enough mental energy, I am going to backup/format my laptop later. Maybe install Windows 7 (thanks to Jenn for her review on the new OS!). It appears to be raining, which would explain the sudden migraine I got last night.

I think I just want salad for dinner, any suggestions for toppings/dressings?

archived under: OSN

{8 comments}

07-20

2009

Overwhelmed Indeed

As you can hopefully see, I’ve made yet more little changes all over the place. I would super appreciate your feedback. Granted it will look awful on IE, but here’s hoping the majority of my visitors don’t use that browser heh.

I am really at my breaking point lately, nothing has changed on the medical side of things (still looking for a HCP, trying to get my records, etc) with the exception of a new condition called Symphysis Pubis Dysfunction or SPD for short. Basically it started in my 2^nd trimester and has gotten worse since then. It’s very painful to roll over in bed, walk, lift my foot an inch off the ground, etc. Makes for one sleep deprived and cranky pregnant chick. I rarely DO anything because it’s just too damn painful. This has been a pregnancy full of complications hasn’t it!

It’s also hit me that I am only 10 weeks away from my estimated due date. Ahh where has the time gone? I found out I was pregnant at 3 1/2 weeks, had it confirmed at 4 weeks… I remember being told often that this would be “such a long” pregnancy. Like anything else involving children, the time just flies by.

My father had recently spent some time with my oldest son and told me he may assist me in purchasing cloth diapers for the new baby, I emailed him about it a few days ago and haven’t heard back. It would be such a financial and emotional relief if he follows through, I really am not looking forward to putting this baby in ‘sposies for any length of time and financially it wouldn’t be until he is 3 – 5 months old before I can build a stash that would last the diapering years.

Onto other things, I have my sleep schedule completely backwards from my son and my boyfriend, I’m up all night until 8-10am, sleep until 9-10pm, where as they go to bed no later than 2am depending on the day’s activities. I think because I am in the bedroom most of the time (I can not express how much it physically hurts to do anything but sit or lay still), that I don’t get the sunlight I need to function like a day person (I so wanted to say day-walker lol).

Curious, generally what do you make each week for dinner? I have what the boyfriend calls “anti-cravings” to food, hyperemesis will do that to ya! We need to make a grocery trip badly and would like any new meal ideas you may want to share!

archived under: Thoughts

{5 comments}

07-26

2009

Changes and Rainbows

First off, after five years, I have switched my CMS from ExpressionEngine to WordPress. The switch itself didn’t take long, only issue I’ve noticed is that it didn’t import commenter emails so I am going to figure out a way for those who frequently comment to get that into the database manually.

The basic reason for the switch is because I was simply unable to do, what I wanted to do, with EE. Even after posting on their support forum, I was told that unless I personally figured out a solution or paid someone to create a plugin, I was out of luck. Granted, WP tends to have more of a “fanbase” thus most of the features I wanted are already included in the WP software or already available as a plugin.

However I do miss some features of EE, such as the membership module, templating system, and the weblog system itself (easy to have MANY weblogs even on the index page, trying to figure out how to have a “mini” blog interspersed through the regular entries at this point with WP). Those features were not enough to convince me to keep paying yearly for software that was not able to do what I wanted to do “out of box”.

Since the switch I’ve made some minor changes in the design, in the top header you can now see my RSS subscriber count and my twitter follower count. I’ve also added a sidebar that includes my recent tweets and flickr uploads. I’ve updated the info/about page, the links page (by the way if I somehow forgot to link you back, let me know!), and ever so slightly the comments (I’m still working on that one lately). I also enabled a mobile version of OSN so you can view it super easy if you’re using your iPhone or Blackberry to view the site for example.

Onto other things, as you can see at the bottom of this entry, a ton of photos. Yesterday we (my boyfriend, my 7yr old, and my practically 8month pregnant self) decided to take a drive, the drive took us from the Chicago ‘burbs, up through Wisconsin. I think my boyfriend drove 10 straight hours (aside from bathroom breaks) since I wanted to take photos. We saw FOUR rainbows! It rained on and off, but thankfully wasn’t muggy or hot out. It was really nice and everyone enjoyed themselves. Granted we got home at 1am or so, and my son is still sleeping, but he loved all the rainbow sightings, the many dairy farms, and just the drive in general. The photos are also in order, via the time they were shot.

After we got home and ate dinner, I noticed right before bed my feet were extremely swollen which made me freak out a bit as I was very swollen for a very long time when I was pregnant with my oldest and had some high blood pressure issues at the time, thankfully it turns out that sitting in a car for over 10hours straight and paying more attention to rainbows rather than hydration, caused the swelling.

Onto other baby stuff, we still do not have a name, I would really appreciate any boy name suggestions at this point, I had wanted something more nature based but can’t think of anything really. Also, per my previous entry, it appears as though we will not be getting any help in purchasing cloth diapers for this baby. Meh. Not surprised but it sure doesn’t make me happy to have this happen less than 9 weeks before my due date!

Well off to eat something, I think we are having BLT’s, yum!