Hey everyone.
I think I'm dying.
Like seriously I feel like death.
Death that is really really tired.
I'm not sick. I don't have a cold, a sore throat, or any symptoms of being ill.
I'm just dying.
My last week as been non-stop craziness. Mostly just with work. Well really only just with work and than my crazy hormonal emotions on top of that. Before I go anything further I would like to say I have not been crazy hormonal in this pregnancy at all. I'm not a crazy hormonal person. I don't have crazy mood swings like a lot of women do. And I'm not just saying this to "toot" my on horn. You can ask Eric. If I'm pissed off it's because I genuinely have a reason to be. I don't just jump down peoples' throats for the hell of it and I don't get all "silent treatment-y" because I feel like it. The one sort of hormonal thing that I think freaks Eric out is animals. I have a tendency to cry in pet stores (the ones that actually sell pets) or cry when there are ads about animal rights. He's more or less accepted this and quite often when I feel too emotional to go into a pet store (likes yesterday) he'll go in for me and "check-in" to make sure that all of the animals are okay. Okay, so maybe I am hormonal, but not the crazy psychotic woman hormonal - which I hope NEVER to be.
Anyway, back to work. For those of you who have facebook, I updated my status several times this week about making it through my killer 4 night shifts (at 12 hours each) and even before the night shift madness begun I had an eight (which was extended to 9) hour shift to get the ball rolling. So I did some stupid amount of hours in a 5 day span that mostly were between the hours of 1930-0730. Normally that would be okay. 4 night shifts.. no problem. WELL that is before Eric and I got the great idea of me growing a baby. Which by all definitions of the word parasite, is really technically a parasite. Don't get me wrong. I LOVE our little parasite. But it is a parasite. So shift one was fine until the last 10 minutes of my shift. When my natural childbirth patient who had been 4 cm dilated (you want to get to 10cm) decided to get grunty. She was re-examined and was found to be 10cm. The baby was having pretty decent decelerations in the heart rate so the doctor slapped a vacuum on the baby's head and out came baby. Literally a minute before I was supposed to leave to go home. Thank goodness I could give my report off within 10 minutes and would just need to catch up on all of the charting involved with having a baby (which there is A LOT) so sat at the desk and started charting. That was until they decided to call a code 333 (Obstetrical Emergency - aka Emergency C-section - aka Splash n' Slash). That was fine. I volunteered to stay at the desk and man the desk while I finished my charting. Really the baby would be out in 5 minutes and things would resume to normal. NOPE. Next a patient rings, she's a breech 25-weeker who has been contracting for sometime and rings to say she thinks she broke her water. Go into the room, pull back the sheets and there are handfuls and handfuls of clots. Sooo I ring out for her "real" nurse and say "I think there may be an issue" needless to say that baby delivered within the 5 minutes it took them to deliver the baby in the OR - the difference? One had doctors and the NICU team, one had every other Labour and Delivery nurse who wasn't in the C-section present. Luckily with the skill and talent of one of our nurses that baby was delivered (full on breech) and ran down the hallway by another nurse to the NICU. Needless to say I knew the next 4 shifts could possibly kill me when the first shift started off like that. Within an hour that night we had 4 babies delivered and although I left around midnight I really don't think it slowed down much....
I find it hard to tell stories about nursing because they are such interesting (and sometimes gory) stories that I have to limit the content that I am letting the world in on because of confidentiality laws. So there are so many more details that would paint such a better picture of that night, but I have a fear of stepping out of bounds and losing my license.
So Nights 1, 2 and 4 were absolutely crazy. I'm pretty sure Night 3 was crazy too, I remember having an awesome natural childbirth delivery. The couple was such an amazing team and they had a BEAUTIFUL baby. But besides that - it's really all a blur. Night 2 was really hard beause a 24 weeker came in with bulging membranes and wanted a termination. That was difficult to swallow because just the day before I made 24 weeks and looked at it has a HUGE milestone. It meant my baby can live. She wanted to terminate while she "still could" because she did want a preemie baby. And to be honest, I DO understand what she's saying. I really really do and I'm not going to judge her for saying it or give her anything but the best nursing care that I can, BUT I am just so grateful to be at the point were my baby could live - two polar views.
March has been our busiest month by far. In January and February they were canceling nurses, this month (and I'm full time) I've been called to come in on ALMOST everyone of my days off if only for a 4 hour shift. It's all of the "summer-loving" babies as well as the people who took 6-8 months to get pregnant and decided to "start trying" in January. Also the people who know they're super fertile and wanted a spring baby. And don't forget about the oopses.
I want to establish I am not just whining, really I'm not. I LOVE night shifts. They're my favourite. BUT 4 in a row is rough on the body AND our next door neighbour (aka the people we share a wall with) are building a new deck. So bang bang bang and SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSsssssssssssssssssssss (saw sound) and more bang bang bang. So I was averaging 5.5 hours of sleep before my lovely 12 hour shifts. Which are all over with (for now).
Anyway, thanks for listening to me vent. I didn't really tell you much about baby. He/she is moving around TONS and you know those sappy movies where one person puts their hand on one side of a glass window and the other person puts there hand "on top of" that persons hand. Well I think baby and I were doing that but through uterus, and fat and skin instead of a glass window. I would poke baby and he or she would poke back. It was really endearing. Minus that it was happening at 430am when I would have liked to be asleep. Oh well. Like the title says I'm in sleep deprivation training. I will (at some point in time) post more pictures of my growing belly. Which is looking less like mine day by day. I still am impressed that when I step on the scale I'm not seeing some huge number that I'm not used to. Assuming a stick to a pound a week until a deliver I'll end up somewhere around/under 150lbs. But there are still 15 weeks left.. anything is possible! AHH only 15 weeks. Better get back to preparing....
Thanks all for reading!!
Take care,
Beth
Tuesday, March 30, 2010
Wednesday, March 24, 2010
I can do it.. I can do it... I can do it... (23 weeks and 6 days)
Hello everyone!
So I'm sorry I've been a terrible blogger. I haven't really been contributing to my blog for one main silly reason: Eric and I have yet to take belly pictures. Well I guess that isn't ENTIRELY true. We spent one evening taking a couple and then we spent more time taking pictures of him mocking my belly pictures. AKA: him standing there blowing out his stomach pretending to be pregnant. It was quite the enjoyable night, but I didn't like any of the pictures. So last night my sister Jill and I were talking and she said I should send her a picture so I took one in the bathroom with my iphone and felt like it turned out relatively okay, so here is my belly (at 23 weeks and 5 days):
And a picture of Eric at about 22 weeks:
As you can see he's carrying a little higher than I am...
As some of you may or may not know that with the amazing advancements of medicine and technology babies can live outside of the womb as early as 24weeks, this is known as the age of viability. Don't get me wrong, I would really like my baby to stay in until 37 weeks (any time after that I'm willing to have this baby!) BUT it's a little reassuring to know that in 2 days my baby would be able to survive outside of my uterus with the appropriate medical care.
Anyway, moving forward. This past week Eric and I did our "spring cleaning". Washed all of the linens, vacuumed the whole house, cleaned the bathrooms, purged. Did all of those fun things and labeled it Spring Cleaning. We also bought a new front load high efficiency energy star washer and a new front load steam dryer. I LOVE THEM BOTH. I've probably done more laundry in the last 5 days than I had in the 3 months leading up to this purchase. On Sunday, following raking the yard and doing some more fun and interesting housework, Eric and I decided it was time to assemble the current baby items we have at our place (stroller, car seat, playyard). So we spent Sunday afternoon fighting with baby stuff to get it all assembled nicely and by the end we were successful. I know how my car seat clips into my stroller and how to attach the bassinet and change table feature on to the playpen. And both Eric and I feel competent in being able to remove and replace the car seat in the car. The crib is pretty much ready to go, it's really just a matter of assembling it, but we don't have anywhere to put a fully assembled crib (at least not yet as for the time being we still need to use the guest bedroom as a guest bedroom!) so we'll be holding off on finishing that project. HOWEVER, it just means we're going to start the next one: dresser/change table. I'm pretty excited about this one because I will move it up to the "nursery" as soon as it is completed so I can get the drawers all filled up and ready to go! We're still gathering things, but have slowed down our pace a little bit. Cory, my mother-in-law, picked up the baby swing for us in pretty much the nick of time! The pattern Eric and I have chosen has been discontinued and there were only a handful left in North America. The next things we're looking at are diapers (we've decide to do cloth during the day and disposable at night.) I have a pattern for cloth diapers and my mom and I are going to sew a handful; however, I also intend on purchasing some tried and tested ones. Eric and I are still trying to decide on a theme for the Nursery. I really was like an animal theme, but Eric has mostly vetoed that. So who knows. I think it'll just be a matter of looking around and finding something that we love. There is this bajillion dollar rug that I adore that I would love to make the "centre piece" of the room, but like I previously stated it's a bazillion dollars. This is it: (yes more animals, but I LOVE animals so what are you expecting??)
The "designer" is called Oopsy Daisy and I love the simple art work for children, that not too complex designs. I thought if we could get this we could get simple bedding in one or two colours and than decorate the room with paintings of the animals in the rug. Eric likes the idea too, but the actual rug may be out of our price range.
Well I KNOW there was so much more I wanted to include in this post, but I can't remember any of it for the life of me (placenta brain). SoooOOoo I'm just going to take off. I promise not to go 3 weeks without blogging again! Only 16(ish) more to go and Eric and I will have a little bundle of joy to show off to the blogosphere. I'm SO excited!!!
Take care,
Thanks for reading.
So I'm sorry I've been a terrible blogger. I haven't really been contributing to my blog for one main silly reason: Eric and I have yet to take belly pictures. Well I guess that isn't ENTIRELY true. We spent one evening taking a couple and then we spent more time taking pictures of him mocking my belly pictures. AKA: him standing there blowing out his stomach pretending to be pregnant. It was quite the enjoyable night, but I didn't like any of the pictures. So last night my sister Jill and I were talking and she said I should send her a picture so I took one in the bathroom with my iphone and felt like it turned out relatively okay, so here is my belly (at 23 weeks and 5 days):
And a picture of Eric at about 22 weeks:
As you can see he's carrying a little higher than I am...
As some of you may or may not know that with the amazing advancements of medicine and technology babies can live outside of the womb as early as 24weeks, this is known as the age of viability. Don't get me wrong, I would really like my baby to stay in until 37 weeks (any time after that I'm willing to have this baby!) BUT it's a little reassuring to know that in 2 days my baby would be able to survive outside of my uterus with the appropriate medical care.
Anyway, moving forward. This past week Eric and I did our "spring cleaning". Washed all of the linens, vacuumed the whole house, cleaned the bathrooms, purged. Did all of those fun things and labeled it Spring Cleaning. We also bought a new front load high efficiency energy star washer and a new front load steam dryer. I LOVE THEM BOTH. I've probably done more laundry in the last 5 days than I had in the 3 months leading up to this purchase. On Sunday, following raking the yard and doing some more fun and interesting housework, Eric and I decided it was time to assemble the current baby items we have at our place (stroller, car seat, playyard). So we spent Sunday afternoon fighting with baby stuff to get it all assembled nicely and by the end we were successful. I know how my car seat clips into my stroller and how to attach the bassinet and change table feature on to the playpen. And both Eric and I feel competent in being able to remove and replace the car seat in the car. The crib is pretty much ready to go, it's really just a matter of assembling it, but we don't have anywhere to put a fully assembled crib (at least not yet as for the time being we still need to use the guest bedroom as a guest bedroom!) so we'll be holding off on finishing that project. HOWEVER, it just means we're going to start the next one: dresser/change table. I'm pretty excited about this one because I will move it up to the "nursery" as soon as it is completed so I can get the drawers all filled up and ready to go! We're still gathering things, but have slowed down our pace a little bit. Cory, my mother-in-law, picked up the baby swing for us in pretty much the nick of time! The pattern Eric and I have chosen has been discontinued and there were only a handful left in North America. The next things we're looking at are diapers (we've decide to do cloth during the day and disposable at night.) I have a pattern for cloth diapers and my mom and I are going to sew a handful; however, I also intend on purchasing some tried and tested ones. Eric and I are still trying to decide on a theme for the Nursery. I really was like an animal theme, but Eric has mostly vetoed that. So who knows. I think it'll just be a matter of looking around and finding something that we love. There is this bajillion dollar rug that I adore that I would love to make the "centre piece" of the room, but like I previously stated it's a bazillion dollars. This is it: (yes more animals, but I LOVE animals so what are you expecting??)
The "designer" is called Oopsy Daisy and I love the simple art work for children, that not too complex designs. I thought if we could get this we could get simple bedding in one or two colours and than decorate the room with paintings of the animals in the rug. Eric likes the idea too, but the actual rug may be out of our price range.
Well I KNOW there was so much more I wanted to include in this post, but I can't remember any of it for the life of me (placenta brain). SoooOOoo I'm just going to take off. I promise not to go 3 weeks without blogging again! Only 16(ish) more to go and Eric and I will have a little bundle of joy to show off to the blogosphere. I'm SO excited!!!
Take care,
Thanks for reading.
Wednesday, March 3, 2010
All gold stars! (20+6)
I had another doctor's appointment today and everything with baby received gold stars:
IPS (checks for chromosomal issues such as monosomies or trisomies and other issues): GOLD STAR! - came back negative!
Morphology (the ultrasound between 18weeks-20weeks, picks up chromosomal issues the IPS may have missed AS WELL as any growth issues baby has): GOLD STAR - baby has a bladder, 2 kidneys, stomach, heart (with everything where it belongs and blood flowing in the right direction!), nasal bone, brain, 5 fingers on each hand, and 5 toes on each foot, oh and femur. And although we didn't find out the gender, the genitals were where they belong as well (aparently!)
Heart Rate: GOLD STAR - 150's!
Growth: GOLD STAR- 69th percentile, as per ultrasound and my fundus is 22cm (I think)
Movement: GOLD STAR- especially between the hours of 10pm-midnight.
Not trying to break it's way out yet (aka, contractions, bleeding, rupturing my membranes/breaking my water): GOLD STAR - although during the ultrasound it seemed like baby was trying to dig it's way through my placenta...
So check, check, check. Everything was clear with baby. And on my end:
Urine dip (for protein, white blood cells etc): GOLD STAR!
Blood Pressure: GOLD STAR! (well for me, it may not be a gold star for everyone though... it is a little low)
Weight Gain: GOLD STAR! - finally gaining some weight!
Baby Bump: GOLD STAR! - It's definitely there now. Much more challenging to hide, still fitting into my jeans.. with the button done up... It wont be much longer.
Sorry if that's too much information (like the urine dip) BUT for those people curious as to what goes on at the prenatal check ups it's definitely nothing to be afraid of! Anyway, I also LOVE my nurse and doctor. Shout out to Franky and Dr. Attie. If you are pregnant and in Ottawa I would highly recommend Dr. Attie's office. The staff there are super super friendly. And Franky is pretty much a rockstar. As for Dr Attie, she has a bright smile, she's full of information and also has a good sense of humour. She's a great obstetrician!
Well that is pretty much a full on baby update. Besides work driving me crazy I don't have much to talk about! Things are good. Oh I bought a baby girl outfit... THIS DOES NOT MEAN I'M HAVING A GIRL. We have NO clue what the sex is. We weren't told and don't plan on finding out. BUT I was in Children's Place trying to get an idea of how to decorate the baby's room - I was really hoping they would have crib bedding sets (which they didn't) Anyway then this dress just spoke to me. So did the cute pink matching shoes... Luckily Eric really liked the outfit too. But, AUGH-I spent another hour trying to choose a boy's outfit so that I wasn't leaving only with a girl's outfit but all of the boy stuff was a bit heavier (more for Spring rather than Summer) So I will return and find a boy outfit when the seasons change and they have their more Summery stuff. I'll also pick up bathing suit stuff at that time. The boardshorts were stinking cute and there were little rash guards too. I told myself I was allowed buying 1 outfit for a girl and 1 outfit for a boy before they were born so that it could be there "going home outfit". Regardless, I need to reign in the shopping a little bit. I keep being told to go out and pick up what I need after the baby shower or after people give their gifts, but if you know me at all you'll know that the nursery will be sitting pretty and ready for a baby in it by the end of May at the latest (and I'm due mid July). And the drawers will be stocked with cloth diapers, and bottles will be cleaned and ready to go. Any baby clothes I have will have been washed, ironed and in their rightful home. I just can't help it. I like having everything ready. There is way too much unexpected out there that the stuff that you can be prepared for, I like to be. AND it will let me just focus on gardening, landscaping. The things I can't do now because it's too cold/early I can do then, because everything for baby will be set up. Maybe next blog post I'll tell you all about the "list".
Anyway, I shared WAY too much of my neurotic side with the internet today. So I'm going to just leave it all at everyone thinking I'm a bit nutty! And hopefully I can redeem myself a little bit in the next post (where I will ACTUALLY include the most recent ultrasound pictures; as well as some baby bump pictures!)
Take care blogging world!
Thanks for reading!
IPS (checks for chromosomal issues such as monosomies or trisomies and other issues): GOLD STAR! - came back negative!
Morphology (the ultrasound between 18weeks-20weeks, picks up chromosomal issues the IPS may have missed AS WELL as any growth issues baby has): GOLD STAR - baby has a bladder, 2 kidneys, stomach, heart (with everything where it belongs and blood flowing in the right direction!), nasal bone, brain, 5 fingers on each hand, and 5 toes on each foot, oh and femur. And although we didn't find out the gender, the genitals were where they belong as well (aparently!)
Heart Rate: GOLD STAR - 150's!
Growth: GOLD STAR- 69th percentile, as per ultrasound and my fundus is 22cm (I think)
Movement: GOLD STAR- especially between the hours of 10pm-midnight.
Not trying to break it's way out yet (aka, contractions, bleeding, rupturing my membranes/breaking my water): GOLD STAR - although during the ultrasound it seemed like baby was trying to dig it's way through my placenta...
So check, check, check. Everything was clear with baby. And on my end:
Urine dip (for protein, white blood cells etc): GOLD STAR!
Blood Pressure: GOLD STAR! (well for me, it may not be a gold star for everyone though... it is a little low)
Weight Gain: GOLD STAR! - finally gaining some weight!
Baby Bump: GOLD STAR! - It's definitely there now. Much more challenging to hide, still fitting into my jeans.. with the button done up... It wont be much longer.
Sorry if that's too much information (like the urine dip) BUT for those people curious as to what goes on at the prenatal check ups it's definitely nothing to be afraid of! Anyway, I also LOVE my nurse and doctor. Shout out to Franky and Dr. Attie. If you are pregnant and in Ottawa I would highly recommend Dr. Attie's office. The staff there are super super friendly. And Franky is pretty much a rockstar. As for Dr Attie, she has a bright smile, she's full of information and also has a good sense of humour. She's a great obstetrician!
Well that is pretty much a full on baby update. Besides work driving me crazy I don't have much to talk about! Things are good. Oh I bought a baby girl outfit... THIS DOES NOT MEAN I'M HAVING A GIRL. We have NO clue what the sex is. We weren't told and don't plan on finding out. BUT I was in Children's Place trying to get an idea of how to decorate the baby's room - I was really hoping they would have crib bedding sets (which they didn't) Anyway then this dress just spoke to me. So did the cute pink matching shoes... Luckily Eric really liked the outfit too. But, AUGH-I spent another hour trying to choose a boy's outfit so that I wasn't leaving only with a girl's outfit but all of the boy stuff was a bit heavier (more for Spring rather than Summer) So I will return and find a boy outfit when the seasons change and they have their more Summery stuff. I'll also pick up bathing suit stuff at that time. The boardshorts were stinking cute and there were little rash guards too. I told myself I was allowed buying 1 outfit for a girl and 1 outfit for a boy before they were born so that it could be there "going home outfit". Regardless, I need to reign in the shopping a little bit. I keep being told to go out and pick up what I need after the baby shower or after people give their gifts, but if you know me at all you'll know that the nursery will be sitting pretty and ready for a baby in it by the end of May at the latest (and I'm due mid July). And the drawers will be stocked with cloth diapers, and bottles will be cleaned and ready to go. Any baby clothes I have will have been washed, ironed and in their rightful home. I just can't help it. I like having everything ready. There is way too much unexpected out there that the stuff that you can be prepared for, I like to be. AND it will let me just focus on gardening, landscaping. The things I can't do now because it's too cold/early I can do then, because everything for baby will be set up. Maybe next blog post I'll tell you all about the "list".
Anyway, I shared WAY too much of my neurotic side with the internet today. So I'm going to just leave it all at everyone thinking I'm a bit nutty! And hopefully I can redeem myself a little bit in the next post (where I will ACTUALLY include the most recent ultrasound pictures; as well as some baby bump pictures!)
Take care blogging world!
Thanks for reading!
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