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Friday, December 28, 2007

Ouch everything hurts and I can't sleep

I slept last night. Yes, I actually slept last night. For the past 2 weeks I have been exhausted but not able to get a good night sleep. It seems that my body has started producing increased levels of Progesterone and one side effect of this is it relaxes smooth muscles, which helps keep the uterus quiet (non-contracting) as the baby grows. Progesterone also relaxes the ligaments between joints so your pubic bone can separate. For people like me that already have joint pains it can make your joint pain worse.

So evenings have been as follows: I am tired at the usual time of 10 pm, go upstairs, change in my pjs, arrange my 4 pillows. One for under my head, a large square pillow to elevate my feet (if your feet are elevated it helps with swelling of the ankles, which can irritate the joints, so I don't want to risk it), a long body pillow between my knees and a second pillow to hug (I used to hug Geoff but with the thousands of pillows Geoff can't even find me in bed if he tries, you would have to send in the army to dig me out.) Then I sling the blankets over me to get nice and warm. Fall asleep, wake up 15 minutes later because my joints are starting to hurt. I slather Absorbine Jr. on my ankles, knees and wrist. On really bad days I put on my wrist brace (I can't stand it most of the time because I can't flex my wrist). Get back in bed with the same pillow ritual. The Absorbine Jr works for about 15 minutes, so as long as I can fall asleep I am usually down for a bit, until baby kicks my bladder and I need to go to the bathroom and everything starts over again. This usually happens 2 or 3 times a night. Sometimes other things are added on top that wakes me up, for example the cats or Geoff.

Now last night was different, my naturopath gave my this drink to have before bed and said it should help. I don't know if it was that or the fact I went to bed at 1:30 am and was very tired, but I am well rested and feel like I will have a productive day. Yippee for me.

That is all my lamenting for now; I just needed to complain a bit. You have to admit that I have not done much complaining since the beginning of the pregnancy, so I am entitled.

Wednesday, December 26, 2007

Christmas Day

Christmas day was tiring, but fun.

We woke up early, opened presents, brined the turkey, had breakfast (pancakes, and maple/elk sausages for me), watched Ratatouille (one of our presents), made some lunch (salad, eggs), then spent the afternoon preparing dinner.

The turkey came out well, although it confirmed what I thought was already true - my probe thermometer is out to lunch. Fortunately, I had both timed it and used a pop-up timer since I'd already thought the thermometer wasn't working properly.

In any case, with all that backup turkey-testing, I was able to get the turkey properly cooked, and it was one of the better ones I've done. The gravy was good, but not exceptional. I haven't made the stock yet, but that'll come. We also had orange beets, carrots, beans, purple and sweet potatoes, stuffing, apple pie and ice cream. Yum. We also tried a tofurkey, which was unexceptional; we probaby won't bother again.

After dinner, we had coffee and played Monopoly. I wasn't doing very well (almost out of money for several rounds), then finally made a good trade and everything suddenly turned around, and I spent the rest of the game collecting everyone's money and building houses.

Actually, one of the things that playing Monoply makes me realize, is that I wouldn't be a good exploiter. Even in Monopoly, which is clearly a game, I have a hard time taking people's money when I know it's going to cause hardship, even in-game hardship. It's hard for me to watch friends and family mortgage all their assets in order to pay my exhorbitant rent, even in a game. That's a little silly, but I can't seem to switch off the empathy just because it's a game.

Anyway - it was a good night.

Moms' Most Useless Baby Gear Items

I had a blast reading this article I found on Baby Zone today.

Please, no one buy us: a wipe warmer, diaper genie, bumper pads or bottle warmer. These seem to top the list....

Monday, December 24, 2007

Christmas Eve

I can't say I don't wish I was out east today with my family but I have to say it was nice waking up in our comfy bed this morning and watching TV in bed with geoff while munching on a few chocolates from our stockings. Typically we would be in Moncton by now but as I started my third trimester today and there is controversy over flying when you are in your third trimester I decided to stay in Toronto for the Holidays. Better be safe then sorry. Like I tell everyone it's only 9 months of my life I can make sacrifices for baby. We are planning on opening our gifts tomorrow morning. (mostly sent to us via mail by my family - Thanks mom, dad, grandma and sis you help make the tree with all your presents :-) We will make sure to take lots of pictures to send back to my family.

Baby has been good he is getting more and more active, I typically feel him kick every hour if not even more often. This made me worry a few days back when I realized I did not fell him all day. I was probably just to busy and did not notice him, because as soon as I lied down to do a kick count he started moving about. My midwife said if i don't remember baby moving around I should have something sugary and citrus like orange juice and lie on my left side and count how frequently baby kicks. Supposedly sugar and citrus foods then to excite babies. Mine definitely like clementines but even more then that caramels... He is definitely enjoying his morning chocolates we had today as i think he must of kicked at lease 40 times since I started writing this.

Happy Holidays to everyone and I hope you all have a great time with family and friends over the next few days.

Thursday, December 20, 2007

Toronto Christmas

Well, this will be our first Christmas in years that we won't be in Moncton. As a result, we've finally gotten a reasonably-sized tree (still narrow, but tall),
and gone for a full decoration.

We've also got a pile of presents here rather than waiting for us in Moncton.

Happy holidays, everyone; whether this is just time off, time with family, or something more for you, enjoy it.

Tuesday, December 11, 2007

Eventful Day II

I was scheduled to go to New York yesterday evening, spend a few days there getting the NY developers up and running on automated builds, and so forth. I had lunch with Pierrette, said goodbye, then went to the TD Bank to get some US$.

I waited in line for ten minutes, and then as I was third from the front or so, I suddenly felt as if I'd lost all the blood in my head -- vision went black, "closing in" for about a half second, then came back, and my heart was racing, both fast and strong.

Possibly because I was a little disoriented by that, I finished my line, did the cash exchange, then went and sat in the chairs. I was still feeling like my heart was racing, and I was sweating a little. At this point, I wondered if wearing a blazer and a winter jacket in a bank line was the only source of all this, or if there was somethign deeper, so I went down to the Shoppers one floor below and got my blood pressure checked. The Pharmacist said that my pulse was a little high and my pressure a little low, and that I should take it easy, but that nothing was necessarily wrong.

I walked (very slowly) back to the office; that took maybe 20 minutes, at which point I was still feeling like my heart was racing, so I called TeleHealth. They suggested that I should probably go to emergency, just to get checked out, so I let my colleagues know that I wasn't going to NY, went down, got in a Taxi, and went to Toronto General.

It took about 15 or 20 minutes to see the triage nurse, who I guess decided I wasn't critical, because it then took another four hours or so before I got in from the waiting room. (Whee). During that time, I cancelled my travel arrangements and then Pierrette arrived. Within about half an hour of waiting in the emergency room (sitting, in a chair), I felt pretty normal again. Pierrette brought me some fruit and water, which helped to stave off hunger. The moving sign said I shouldn't eat or drink before seeing a doctor, which in the modern system of long wait times at the hospital seems like bad advice, so I didn't take it.

When they finally let us in, they hooked me up to an EKG machine, took my blood pressure and some blood. After analyzing the results, I am apparently fine, so they decided that I had a small bout of vasovagal/positional presyncope, which apparently means, in this case: you came in from the cold to a hot area, wearing two jackets. The heat made your blood vessels dilate. You stood in line for a while, causing the blood to pool at your feet. The combination of these factors lowered your blood pressure, causing dizziness/faintness (pre-syncope), which your heart tried to compensate for by beating faster.

It's a "rational" explanation, but I haven't heard anyone else relate to me the time they were hot in a bank line and felt faint, so I have to admit I'm not very satisified by the explanation: it doesn't give me much to go on, or to do. So, yes, I'm going to set up an appointment with the naturopath and with Dr. Sood and see what they have to say. In the meantime, I'm going to take it easy and hope that I don't see any further signs of something being off.

Fingers crossed.

Eventfull Day

Yesterday was a long day.

It started with me having to get to work for 7am to prep for a 9am meeting. See, on Friday I needed to leave work at 6pm and had a topsy-turvy day so some of my stuff did not get done. So, my plan was to come in on Sunday and get it done. When I showed up at work Sunday, the elevators were not working so I wasted an hour and a bit of my day.... I guess me being trapped out of the elevator is better then if I would have gotten in and the elevator jammed with me inside.

I had a pretty jam packed day on Monday with lots of work-related meetings. Around 2pm Geoff calls me while in the elevator so I only hear part of what he was saying but enough to hear that something was wrong. As I started getting that sinking feeling and panicking; baby started kicking he probably could tell there was something wrong. Geoff finally got to the bottom of the elevators which seemed like the longest 15 seconds ever. He was feeling dizzy and and a bit of a black out and was heading to the hospital. He succeeded to convince me that I did not need to meet him right away (I am still not sure how he did that) So I finished up as quickly as possible what I was doing and headed down to the hospital around 4pm. As I spent the day worrying baby did also - he has never been this active.

Once we got to the hospital to make a long story short, we waited forever then saw a nurse and doctor that said Geoff most likely overheated and was standing too long. I think that is there way of saying they don't know what caused it. Geoff is going to make an appointment with both our Homeopath and Doctor just to be safe.

So at this point we are told not to worry but it's hard not to wonder what was the underlying cause.

Friday, December 7, 2007

Heartbeat

Pierrette recorded the doppler heartbeat for me this morning; she had her prenatal diabetes test, which is a long appointment, and we weren't sure when the important part of the appointment would be, so rather than miss an entire morning of work, I went to work.

That also means we have the heartbeat to share, which I wanted to do anyway. Since Blogger doesn't host audio files, I've put it on archive.org (media page with downloads and player, direct link to mp3). Happy heartbeat.

Why would you even think of cooking at night?

Last night started perfectly. I went to bed at 10:30pm, Geoff kissed me and baby goodnight. We put headphones on my belly so baby could listen to Mozart. Geoff went off to do a bit of work in the nursery before coming to bed... so I thought.

At about 1:30am or 2am don't really remember at this time. I wake up to a sweet and spicy smell. Geoff was cooking. Let me give you a bit o background: Geoff likes making his own lunches that involve meat. However he tends to cook them late at night. We had went through this same issue a little while back and he promised he would not cook in the middle of the night.

When I initially woke up, the smell not that bad -- last time he did this I thought I was going to puke, because the smell was so horrible so I tossed and turned for a half an hour but could not fall asleep. Now the late night tumble-effect kicks in...

I get heart burn at night but don't notice it cause I'm sleeping, my joints ache at night but I don't notice it because I am sleeping. It's all about getting to sleep before all of this kicks in; but after a half an hour of tossing I now need to go pee and that is the trigger for everything else. (See it had been 3 weeks I had successfully slept through the night).

So I crawl out of bed, make it to he washroom get woken up by the lights still on in the hallway. However I do notice the nice progress Geoff made with the home reno. I crawl back towards the bedroom, call out Geoff 4-5 times he is in the basement don't really want to go all the way down there. He comes up and says: I hopped it would not wake you up, well he was wrong and felt it for the next 2 - 3 hours with while he tried to get me back to sleep, ease my heartburn, rub my back, numb the pain in my joints...

I am still tired this morning and don't like what he did last night but love him dearly. He is a sweetie.

Hopefully he wont try this again and hopefully I wont be as sensitive to smells once baby is born.

Thursday, December 6, 2007

Midwife visit

I am at the midwife clinic patiently waiting for the second half of my glucose test. They need to draw blood 3 times... seems a bit excessive for someone that hates needles. I started by fasting from midnight last night still have not had a bit to eat. When I got to the clinic Mehran (my secondary midwife) gave me by glucose drink. I tastes just like orange crush. Now I need to wait an hour before the next blood work test.

Mehran checked my fundus height, blood pressure and the baby's heart beat all is good. I got the baby's heart beat on a recorder since Geoff could not come with me this morning. Once I figure out how to post an audio file I will add it to the blog. It's amazing how fast Mehran found the heart beat this time. Last visit they had to chase around my belly to find something.

Blood test number 2 completed need to wait another hour, then the last test.

One of the things that happens at every midwife visit that I have not talked about yet is that you need to check your protein levels in your urine. This supposedly helps detect if I have a urinary track infection or a condition called pre-eclampsia. At every appointment i need to pee on a stick. Such excitement.

Monday, December 3, 2007

Nursery Flooring Reno

Still working on the renovations in the nursery. The crown molding is almost done; the splices have been patched with wood filler (yellow), and the corners and top and bottom seams are caulked (white). The caulking might not be necessary if the ceiling was level and walls flat, but, well, welcome to the joys of an old house.

If the crown wasn't high up, I might need another round of wood filler to get it really perfectly flat/smooth at the splices, but it's good enough for something that'll be painted and well above eye-level. Still another coat of trim paint required, but getting close.



I cut the carpet into strips. Underneath that, there was foam underpadding, which I also cut into strips. The foam underpadding seems as if it as made by chopping up a bunch of different kinds of foam and then recycling them into a new sheet of foam - there are all sorts of colors and textures in the one sheet. Rolled both the carpet and the foam up into cylinders, tied them at the ends, and put 'em outside.



Underneath that, there's a layer of faux-wood vinyl tiles. You can see these layers here.



The tiles are pretty ugly, but I guess that comes with age. They came up relatively easily: I inserted a thin prybar under each tile, shoved it around to loosen the adhesive, then lifted. Some of the edges were stuck a little more firmly with the adhesive, others nailed down with a few finishing nails at the edge, probably because they started to lose their grip over the years. All in all, it could have been worse.



The adhesive is a thin coat over some kind of wood - I'm guessing this is the sub-floor, but I'll know better when I can see all the layers -- which should be possible where the layers reach the stairs. If it's the subfloor, we'll clean up that layer a little and then lay the bamboo down over that. If there are more layers under that, I might still have some more demolition to do.



Two or three tile sections had some kind of marking on them that's held up over the years, as if it's heat or water damage. Not sure what caused them, but it doesn't matter since the tiles are coming up anyway. The floor underneath doesn't show any sign of damage, so whatever it is, it's a surface thing. I'm curious, but not curious enough to try and dig any deeper.



The carpet was held down at the edges with tack strips, like the one pictured here. "Premium Carpet Strips," they're labelled.



The carpet strips held one last surprise -- beside a good five-foot stretch of the carpet strips were a family of little wormy bugs, and some discarded wormy skins. Not sure how they were surviving down there, since nobody eats food up there, and underneath a firm layer of carpet, doesn't seem like there'd be much to survive on, but ... well, I guess that's one more reason not to have carpet. Just hope there's no little family of worms living under your carpets, I guess.

Baby Wiseman 2nd Photo


This was taken over a month ago I just have not had a chance to scan and upload yet. Baby Wiseman's second photo.

The nursery


Geoff working hard on the nursery. On the weekend he started the floor. The painting is almost all done, just needs to touch up the trim once the old floor is ripped out.

On the other hand, I have been sick now for a few days. I missed work on Friday and then again today. This morning I felt like a truck ran me down. I am starting to feel better. My head is all stuffy and my muscles are a bit achy. Not much you can do other then sleep and rest. Most drugs are bad for baby unless you have a fever and thank god I never developed one. Baby's temperature is higher then yours so a even a slight fever can be dangerous to baby.

Thursday, November 29, 2007

Frustrated

I need to sleep.


I hate heartburn....

Tuesday, November 27, 2007

Sleep and Heart Burn

Well last night it took forever before I could fall asleep I kept on waking up and tossing and turning (as much as you can when you have this big belly). Once I finally crawled out of bed to do a few stretches I figured out what was the matter I HAD HEART BURN. That's hat I get for eating fried rice for supper. So I made my way to my kitchen and took some Genestra Cal Mag Liquid it works wonders for heart burn and its all natural. If anyone is interested you ca get it in Toronto at the big carrot dispensary. It tastes minty. Crawled back upstairs did a couple child poses (this is a yoga pose) and a few squats to stretch out my legs and arms that were also tight and hurting; drowned my ankles, left knee in Absorbina Jr. (pain killer for joint pain) and crawled back into bed to snuggle with snoogle. I think it probably took 5 mins after that for me to pass out. It's amazing how heart burn can be so annoying.

Baby says hello this morning as he is tumbling around as I am writing this.

Monday, November 26, 2007

Prenatal Classes

We went to some prenatal classes put on by our naturopath this weekend; they were good. Informative, and some experience-sharing, in a relatively small/intimate setting so that it was more of a discussion than a 'class', which was nice.

Deanna (naturopath) is opinionated (pro-breast-feeding, anti-vaccination, anti-formula, anti-circumcision), which has its moments, although she's mostly pretty good at differentiating between 'general information' and 'my opinion', which is important.

I haven't read up on vaccination, I know it's controversial for some, so I don't really have an opinion on the subject, but I mostly agree on the other points, at a high level. I'm pro-breastfeeding, but I also know from some of the experiences that others have had, it doesn't always work out the way one might like, so it obviously depends on your experience. That said, there's an argument to be made that some of the problems that can occur are brought on by the way the birth experience goes for the baby.

Babies who are medicated (e.g. mother gets epidural, which gets into baby's blood) and who are separated from the mother right after birth seem to have a harder time triggering the instincts, which can lead to some early formula-feeding, which leads to nipple confusion, etc.

It seems that like the epidural cascade, the farther you head from a simple natural birth, the more other kinds of intervention you're likely to be forced into employing, so I'm hoping we can stick to the former as much as possible.

Visitation
By the way, just to get some of y'all prepared now, we're planning on doing a little of the babymooning approach - spending a fair amount of the first days and weeks in close quarters with the baby without too much outside influence, and bringing family and friends in for short visits independently of each other to keep the stress on everyone low.

That means that many of you can expect you're not going to see the baby in the first week, and that when you see the baby, it may be a short visit at our convenience, and could even get rescheduled a few times. I know you're all busy, but the first few weeks at least will be all on our schedule.

So if you were thinking otherwise, now's a good time to start readjusting expectations. Doesn't mean we don't want to see you, doesn't mean we won't try and make it happen, just means that we're not going to be pushing to get everyone in quickly, we're not going to throw a big bash with all friends and family, and we'll play it by ear a lot.

Speaking of babies, I hear Shawn's in Mtl until the twins arrive. Good luck, Shawn!

Dreamming about the big day

I started having the prenatal dreams that you hear about were you go over the birth or getting ready for the birth at night in your dreams. Last night I dreamt that we were getting ready by grocery shopping. We were making sure the fridge was stocked with all sorts of great foods and that the house had enough junk food to feed an army. Our shopping list was a bit like this: cookies, cookies, cookies, juice, strawberries, raspberries, cookies, chocolate, ice cream, pancake, more strawberries and cookies and for some strange reason quiche. This list is not 100% accurate but does include many of the items we will actually by to have in the house during the birth. i think I was also in labour while we were shopping I think we will make sure that in real life the groceries are done well in advance.

I also dreamt that the baby was here and Geoff, the baby and me were all on our bed resting and celebrating with a glass of champagne. That one I want to do right after baby's born I would like to pop open the bottle of champagne our friends Stacey and Brendan gave us for our wedding that we were going to open on our first anniversary but did not because I was pregnant. It's seems to be a meaningful bottle to share with people at the birth.

Sunday, November 25, 2007

Mom's shared items

I added to the right hand side of the blog a shared items list from my Google Reader. I figured since these days I then to read a lot about babies, kids and parenting that some of you may be interested in the tidbits I found most fascinating or useful. Hope some of you enjoy this...

Thursday, November 22, 2007

Yoga, sleep, birthing info night

Last night I started yoga again. I had stopped for a few weeks because I found it too difficult to get to class on time. I found a different class that starts 30 mins latter. This gives me enough time for a bit to eat. The instructor is this sweet lady for scotland, it's her own business so it's also nice to be supporting a independent teacher rather then a huge studio. The classes are held in the basement of a church near Queen and Carlaw, so I can get home fast afterwards.

That said because I yoga'ed last night I actually slept the entire night :-) It's amazing what a little exercise and stretching can do for one.

On wen. we when to a home birthing information session. I am seriously starting to think about doing a home birth. Alot of the myths and worries I have about home birthing are gone now. I am planning to do a drug free labour so why not do it in the comfort of my own home. My grandmother did it? Some of the things I was worried about was the cats - they said most of the times animals just hide or watch and you can always lock them up somewheres. I was also scared I would not have enough space but my midwives seem to be convinced that there is tones of room. All you need is a bed, shower/bath, long dresser and small table. Christie (my midwife) also mentioned that it would probably be much easier to try alternative methods if I was not dilating fast enough or wanted pain relief at home because there would be no medical staff to interfere.

Got to go I have a dentist appointment.

Sunday, November 18, 2007

THE NURSERY

After spending the day fixing all the gaps in the moulding in the nursery Geoff discovered there are 2 kinds of caulking one that is paintable and one that is not - the hard way. He had to remove all the caulking today and clean everything up to accept new caulking. :-(

We did some testing with the furniture in the room and it looks like the room is too small for the change table dresser crib chair and shelf. So we will most likely get one of those change pads you can place on top of a dresser and pass on the change table.

I will try to take some pictures of the progress and post to the blog this week...

Sunday, November 11, 2007

The registry

Some of our family members have already started purchasing presents for baby. To ensure that we minimize the chance of getting duplicates or if some of you are wondering what to get for baby please check out our registry:

http://www.findgift.com/cgi-local/Registry.cgi?m=View&rid=31911224163438437293029


You can also get to the registry by clicking on the registry button on the right had side of this blog.

here is the quick tour as to how the registry works.

1. The item description is in black bold
2. The store were we saw it at is in black
3. The blue lettering is additional information that you may find helpful
4. In red to the left hand side you can see the quantity we want of an item
5. If you click the buy online button this will bring you to a link with an image of the item you do not need to buy it from this place this is mostly to make things easier by helping you out with a visual picture
6. The price you see indicated in brackets after the store is an estimate only
7. THIS IS THE IMPORTANT PART ONCE YOU DECIDE TO SPOIL OUR BABY AND BUY SOMETHING PLEASE COME BACK TO THE WEBSITE AND CLICK ON THE SMALL SQUARE TO THE LEFT HAND SIDE OF THE ITEM. THIS WILL BRING YOU TO ANOTHER PAGE WERE IT WILL ASK YOU TO ENTER THE QUANTITY YOU PURCHASED AND A CODE WORK THE CODE WORD CAN BE ANYTHING THIS IS JUST SO YOU CAN COME BACK AND UNDO WHAT YOU JUST DID. ONCE ALL IS FILLED UP CLICK ON SHOW GIFT AS PURCHASED BUTTON. DOING THIS WILL UPDATE THE REGISTRY AND ENSURE OTHER DON'T GET TEMPTED TO BUY THE SAME ITEM AS YOU.

I would like to point out that we don't expect anything for anyone we just want to make life a bit easier for those of you who want to spoil baby.

Feel free to pass the registry info along to anyone that you know that is inquiring about baby gifts.

Thank you in advance if you plan to spoil our little one.

Love Pierrette, Geoff and baby.

last day with no daddy

So we survided 1 week without Geoff. I was amazing at how well I slept I was sure I would be up all night as in the past when Geoff was gone for a night. I think snoogle help a lot. I used to sleep cuddled with Geoff but since I have been pregnant he has been replaced with snoogle. He does not blame when I am not in bed I often find him snoogling too. I also think keeping busy helped a lot, it's weird how when you spend all your time with someone that you don't know what to do with yourself when they are not there. For example I could not sleep friday night so I when to do the groceries at 11:30pm just so I did not have to watch TV alone.

Yesterday Brenda and I went to the Baby and Toddler show downtown. It was interesting I was able to learn a lot about products I was interested in like breast pumps, diapers, strollers. I think i figured out the diapers we are going to use. I am going to order a sample from them so Geoff can take a look at them but other then that I think I am sold. Its the All in One by BayBee. I really like the fact that these are cotton or cotton/hemp or cotton/bamboo blends on the inside which is the important part because that is what will touch baby's skin. The fact that they come in a variety of fun colors is nice too.

Brenda picked up a few presents for baby. Thank you grandma. Same as for me. But we were all very good and did not spend too much money.

Today I am to Brampton for lunch with Roy, we are planning on going to look at a few baby (oh there goes baby he is kicking around) stores before I have to go pick up Geoff at the airport.

Wednesday, November 7, 2007

weird dreams

They say being pregnant often means you will get strange dreams. Well last night I had this dream that I received a carved decorative cucumber for Xmas from Jen (an old friend I have not seen in ages) The artist was her husband and this was his new form of art. I also had another ream that geoff was away on business (he sorta is right now) and that his boss I think witch was a mobster decided to pay for us our 10 children and the wives and children of his other employees all to fly down to see there husbands. It seemed that he had been away for 5 years or so. I hope this is not a sign of how many kids we are going to have I don't think I can handle 10 :-)

I find I have been dreaming more and more I have always been a vivid dreamer but now it seams like every night I have 5 or 6 different stories in my head and all of them are crazy.

Tuesday, November 6, 2007

21 weeks

I think I hit this great easy stretch in the pregnancy. I am sleeping well, eating well, my joints don't hurt as much.... However I am starting to feel fat. According to the scale I am not really that fat I only gained a few pounds from my conception date weight. This is probably due to the fact I exercise and cut down on the amount of junk I eat. However I still feel fat. It's probably because bending down is getting more complicated ( spread your legs then bend need to make room fro baby ) The other day I was vacuuming our vents; what was normally and easy thing to do, turn into this acrobatic feat. (Thanks Lisa for helping) First you sit down because crouching over for that long doesn't happen; then you do the semi splits with the vent in front of you then you can start doing the work. Another thing I have realized is carrying large things get odd you need to make sure it hangs below your belly. Which I find strains my little arms.

On another note I am eating more and more I think I need to be fed at every hour on the hour or I start getting nasty. I am just like a newborn baby don't get fed start crying. No it's not that bad but get what I mean.

Tomorrow I have my next midwife appointment it will be the first one that Geoff misses he is San Fran this week at a tech conference. It will weird not having him there as he has been to every doctors visit with me so far. Last night I called him to say good night to me and the baby. He is going to be such a great dad I held the phone to my belly and he talked to baby.

Oh and I have my car back yippy - it only took 2 weeks.

Wednesday, October 31, 2007

Just an update

Our little guy is definitely busy and active. I feel him every morning, evening and sometimes in the afternoon. I guess unborn children do not need sleep :-) For the first time in like forever I slept perfectly on Sunday and Monday, I must figure out what was different.

Geoff started working on the nursery on Sunday I am hopping he can get all the painting done. the next step after that will be the floor will most likely that 2 weeks. Calling all help :-) If anyone wants to donate there time let us know we would appreciate it.

Last weekend I got a bunch of cute little clothes for baby and a few toys at this great baby bazaar that is held by the Toronto Association of Multiple Births. I also got this cutest Calvin Klein outfit, little jeans, a one-zee and a hoodie. I also checked out the Value Village in our Area and Kim and Danielle are right there are lost of great buys there. I also made my way to the Blinds to go to start looking at a blind for the nursery I think we are going to get a fabric roller shade that has a black out material pasted on the back, once Geoff is done with the painting we will go look a them together.

Well Happy Halloween - So how much candy is an unborn baby aloud to have?

Wednesday, October 24, 2007

hello from inside

I have tones to share as I have not written in over 2 weeks. My parent were in town for 2 weeks and a bit so we were pretty busy and when we were not we spent some family time or just vegged in front of the TV. My dad (love him to death) spent most of his time working on my house, always making sure to talk to me fist to ensure that nothing he was doing was bad for baby. On the house front for those of you who have seen our house you will not recognize the front half, paint has gone up, some mouldings, some carpet has been removed.... It's now up to Geoff to do the floor and finish the rest of the mouldings. The living room feels so much bigger now and I have lights in there. Yeah for lights. I can't wait to spend evenings rocking our son in our new glider in our new living room.

Yes that is what I said our son. It's was confirmed on October 22nd that we are having a boy. Time to shop :-) My mom calls him his little wiseman (ha ha) I think she may drive both him and me crazy with that and Geoff can probably relate. For some strange reason from day one I called baby a he, it's like you know what is inside you it's very strange.

Other then the house we have been out shopping started to by all sorts of sweet little outfits and toys (mostly gifts from memere) However I found these great little pjs that say cranky on the front and on the but an could not resist.

Other interesting news is that I am turning into an absent minded crazy person to say the least. Every time I try to open a door I drop my keys. I probably forget to do something somewhat important everyday at work (need to write everything down), and I succeeded to be involved in 2 collisions in less then a month (baby and me are fine as they were both at sub 10 speed). The first one was with a parked car and the second one not as forgiving to my car was while changing lanes in front of a parked transport truck that decided to move forward into me. So I guess I am no longer aloud to drive at speeds slower the 40 and then everything will be fine.

about 2 weeks ago a milestone in our sons life happened I started feeling him move. At first I was not sure what it was and I could only feel him when I was sitting or right after meals it felt like he was tickling me from the inside right behind my belly button. i immediately had to itch my belly it was quite annoying yet pleasant because i knew it was him. After about a week I started feeling it much more often and the feeling changed it was more like a small firework because it was a sharp point with tingling all around it almost like a singular pin from having pins and needles in your leg because it feel asleep. I now feel him everyday many times almost every-time I am sitting still or lying down. Another feeling of almost a round pressure has been added sometimes when I lye down which makes me think that this is him turning maybe his back against me. Geoff is always asking baby to move a lot as he wants to feel him to but not yet he needs to grow a little more first.

I will let Geoff write about the (oh there goes baby I can feel him wiggle around) ultrasound as he was able to watch the full 1 hour and I only got a 15 minute tour at the end.

That is it for now my son and I say by by.

Saturday, September 29, 2007

Saturday morning

Went yard sale shopping today. We found a great dresser, needs a a bit of love, but it was free and it's made from nice solid wood and the shape and style is what I wanted. We also got a shape sorting toy, a french book and a rattle. It was fun making baby's first purchases.

Friday, September 28, 2007

Bionic Mom

The same nose that will make me want to strangle Geoff in the middle of the night for cooking meat also made me discover that diet pepsi and jolly ranchers smell like a wonderful field of flowers with angels dancing around eating lollipops. I think I am going crazy or that some spiked my sparkling water at supper. In short I have this new super-sonic nose. Baby has also given me the best fingernails I have had in my whole life, you would swear that they are fake. I can eat dairy without having any reactions and I have really hot hair. What will morph next...

Sunday, September 23, 2007

................

I find these days I get exhausted faster then I used to. I also discovered the hard way that I no longer have ab muscles. I stretched the other day and I swear it felt like my stomach was ripping open. I also had my first bout of morning sickness, I was under the impression that once you were in the 2nd trimester you were all clear for that. I guess I'm special. Basically the taste of toothpaste turns my stomach. I have also discovered that absolutely nothing is ever appealing to eat. It's not that I feel sick, it's just I open the fridge and nothing tickles the taste buds. I feel like I have to force myself to eat. Other than all of that, and only being able to sleep 1 day out of every four, life is great. I am amazingly chipper and baby is fine.

I have been spending time working on the decor of the house. I think I have finally chosen all the paints for the living room, hallway and nursery. I need to go out and start looking at floor types, we are probably going to put in a bamboo floor, don't know yet if we are doing it ourselves or hiring someone...

Geoff wants to know what I am doing: I told him it's a secret he he he.

Well that's it for today, other than: if you are pregnant do not venture off for a one hour walk, hunting a restaurant that may or may not be closed because by the time you get there and it is closed you may just attempt to eat your husband to survive. Luckily Geoff quickly found a sub place to ease my hunger and stop me from passing out.

March 16th, Part II

After talking with Christie, she said:
  • Ultrasound is only week-accurate (at the time of our ultrasound), so if we think we had a good idea of the date, we may well be right. As long as the ultrasound estimate isn't radically off, there's no sense in changing our own understanding of the time.
  • Later ultrasounds will be even less accurate at predicting baby age, so we've got all the information we're going to have.
  • Our date was five days later than the Ultrasound date. Doctors will choose to induce if the baby is ten days late, so if we go with the ultrasound date, we may end more likely with an induced birth that wasn't necessary.
So we're sticking with the March 16th date. Obviously that doesn't necessarily say much about when the baby will come, but it does at least predict the date at which induction becomes more likely.

Thursday, September 13, 2007

Trying to guess if it is a boy or girl

What do you think: boy or girl?

My mom says: a girl.
Lisa says: a girl.
The chinese gender predictor says: girl.
If we go by the heart beat, it's a girl.
According to the old wives tale questionnaire, there is a 55% chance it's a girl.

However none of that is science and I am still calling baby "he" and they often say a mother's intuition is the best. Or maybe I am just preparing myself, since I said my whole life I wanted a girl. We will just have to wait and see until ultrasound number 2 on October 22/07.

Midwife Visit II

Yesterday we had a second prenatal visit with Christie. She is really great and makes me quite comfortable. We got to hear baby's heart beat for the for the first time. I have to admit I had a tear trickling down. I can't believe there is life inside of me. She said that at every visit we get to listen to the baby's heart :-).

On another note I don't know what happened last night but I slept the whole night, did not even wake up to go pee. I must have been wiped.

Got to finish breakfast and go off to work.

Oh. for anyone wondering baby's heart beat was 150 - Christie said that was great.

Monday, September 10, 2007

13 weeks 6 days

I have been ping-ponging back and forth between cloth diapers vs disposable diapers. I don't like the idea of the amount of waste that is created when using disposable diapers but on the other hand don't like the idea of using bleach on something that touches chou chou's little bum. Tonight at Yoga Class the pre-class discussion was on diapers and after hearing someone else experience and that they did it all without using one drop of bleach it's making me want to do cloth. Tara has a bunch of cloth diapers we can use so cost wise it wont be too much if we use hers. She has some new ones and some used ones I think I will only take the new ones since I know she washed hers with bleach. That's it, I think I convinced myself we are going to try cloth.

For those wondering baby is doing well we have our second midwife appointment on Wednesday. On the other hand mama feels like she needs a bit of pampering so tomorrow night we are going for a manicure and pedicure.

Sunday, September 9, 2007

Registry

Well, we've toyed with a few different registries, and for now I think the one Pierrette likes best is findgift.com, so we've added that on the right. No need to run out and buy stuff, by all means, but if you're looking to do so and want to know what we're currently interested in, it'll show up there.


We've done some stroller shopping. The Stokke is nice, but i'm not yet sure if it's $1299 nice. I haven't yet seen either of the Bug models in person. Quinny Buzz and Uppababy Vista are both markedly cheaper, and relatively decent. The quinny's still too new, so there's no carseat match or enough accessories, but that may change before we have to buy.

I'm kinda hoping that something really feels like "the one". So far, I think the Stokke is still probably the one that's most interesting, but ... it didn't give me a feeling of total satisfaction. It's all made from plastic; high-quality plastic, I'm told, and durable, but ... it doesn't have that "rock solid" feeling that I would have hoped for, for the price.

Thursday, September 6, 2007

13 weeks 2 days

It's so neat to have a picture of your baby before he is even born... It feels so real now.

I find i am feeling LOT better on average. Unfortunately i have a migraine today and i think i might be getting sick. Hopefully lots of rest will get me by without getting ill since baby does not like medicines.

Tuesday, September 4, 2007

Ultrasound

Well, there we go. The first shot of Baby Wiseman, as captured by Mount Sinai.

I think it speaks for itself, really.

Saturday, September 1, 2007

March 11th?

Using ultrasound measurements as a basis, the hospital informed us we were 12 weeks, 3 days along, farther than our current estimates. Hard to say which is more predictive of our due date, but if I use this as a basis then our due date is 11-Mar rather than 16-Mar.

I've updated the ticker accordingly and added a visual Flash ticker that Pierrette and I found on notcot.

Today's been a busy day of renovation. Lots of mudding and sanding, and a trip to the grocery store. Tomorrow I'll try and get some more paint on the bathroom door, and do still more mudding and sanding.

12 weeks 4 days

Geoff beat me to the punch to share the news about the ultrasound. I have to admit I had a tear trickling down my face while looking at "mon petit choux-choux" on the monitor during the ultrasound and was quite upset when I could not bring a picture home.

Baby and me have been doing yoga twice a week now and I find it it's been helping a lot with sleep and sore joints; also there is this pose called child's pose where you are down on your knees with your toes touching and the knees brought apart, then you stretch down until your butt touches your feet and your arms are on the floor far ahead of you. I find this pose so stress-relieving.

I have to say, a lot of the craziness that made me feel beyond pregnant a few weeks ago are mostly gone. I can stay up till 10pm again: no more 6pm betimes. I do not feel like I am going to hurl as soon as you place pressure on my belly. Smells, however, still bother me, Geoff was cooking ham a few nights ago after I went to bed and it woke me up and after that all hell broke loose as I could not fall back asleep. Things that I would have never smelled before drive me nuts. Yesterday we when to a vegetarian restaurant especially for me and I did not want to eat my food cause it smelled funny. I also learned the hard way no eating supper after 7pm that will result in a sleepless night on the couch watching TV. Geoff says I now have "Sebastian Supper Times".

Today I will be off to Grandma Wiseman for the weekend while Geoff does work on the house.

Friday, August 31, 2007

Ultrasound & Chaos

An eventful day. Pierrette almost didn't make the ultrasound appointment because she was stuck on the DVP which was closed down to allow the passage of a carful of bombs. Really. And the dude they arrested lives on Ashdale, a few streets east of here. Is someone trying to tell us something?

But she made it, and we got an ultrasound. No multiples, just the one baby. So far, so good.

Surprising how much he or she (we don't know yet) moves around. Pierrette can't feel it yet, but she's an active little guy. He rolled over on to her side and onto his face several times during the ultrasound. We could see arms and hands and a spine, and a little tiny beating heart. Well, ok, we could see a little patch of pixels twitching, but the ultrasound technician tells us that was a heart.

Having seen a lot of static ultrasound pictures before, I hadn't realized how much the 'motion' helps you to really see the baby. It felt, for those moments, very real, although it's gone back to being somewhat abstract.

There was some irritating mixup with our ultrasound photo. It wasn't ready with the ultrasound results, so they said to come back after we drew blood. It wasn't ready when we came back from the blood, so they called up again and then said to come back after the genetic counselling. When we left the genetic counselling office ... the ultrasound desk was closed and locked up. Gee, thanks guys, not like we WANTED our copy of the first picture of our baby. Nooo, not at all.

Anyway -- guess we'll have to bug 'em to get it now. So I don't have any pictures to share.
Yet.

We saw Cirque du Soleil tonight; it was great, but most of the acts were high up in the air and we were very close, so I've got a sore neck.

Thursday, August 30, 2007

Ultrasound and Gear

We have our appointment for an ultrasound tomorrow; imagine that'll make this all seem more "real" and less abstract.

Since Pierrette has some history of twins on her side, it'll be interesting to finally get some sense of 'how many'. I imagine 'one' is by far the likeliest, but in some ways, twins would be neat, and useful given the size of our house.

We've been talking about strollers and slings/carriers, but haven't settled on any of the above yet. I had saved a great no-burp bottle from Cool Tools, but with the advent of the whole no-plastics-or-at-least-safer-plastics debate, I'm not sure if that bottle has kept up with the times.

Also read a little about the Baby Plus prenatal education system. Sounds interesting, and mildly plausible, but also sounds like something difficult to prove. Are you spending $200 for what amounts to some in-flight entertainment for Baby that could be replaced by a $20 mp3 player and $20 headphones, or is it really a reliable way to improve your baby's earlier years? Hard to say.

Sunday, August 19, 2007

Counting Down

Well, I guess I've gotta use these web mad skillz for something; I put a little countdown timer on the right-hand sidebar. Sadly, that took about an hour of messing around in Javascript, it's just been too long since I've spent any real time in Javascript.

But it's done, it's up. I might take a look at the css for the page as well.

Day 70

This morning we bought a rocking chair for the nursery. It's a bentwood chair with caning on the seat and back, it came with a cute bamboo foot stool.

Some you have been asking me if we are going to register, we have not decided yet mostly because we have not yet seen one store that has tons of items that we want. However I have started a list on "wishlistr" to keep track of items that we are interested in:

http://www.wishlistr.com/baby-wiseman


My extreme fatigue seems to be gone unless I have a bout of insomnia.

Baby and me are well and off to do some organizing in the basement.

Thursday, August 16, 2007

9 weeks 5 days

I started charting the food I eat to make sure I get the correct amount of each food group and the proper amount of servings. I also signed up for Yoga Classes every Monday; I start next week. I think I might try to see if I can find an aqua-fit class to sign up for also.

I was very happy when our midwife said that acupuncture is OK at this point, since my joints are killing me. Can wait to be poked by Julie :-)

I was talking to mom last night and she asked me what was the probability for twins, I said I don't know but they should be able to tell by my next appointment. She told me that both of my grandmothers had twins I always though only memere Arsenault had twins... Should I be scare? Should I be excited?

I find I am slightly less tired the before but still exhausted, I think watching what I eat carefully is probably helping.

Je t'aime mon petit, I decided soon you will no longer look like an alien.

Wednesday, August 15, 2007

Midwifery

So, we met our primary midwife today; she delivered Sebastian: Christie (sp?). Our alternate midwife was Kim and Jamie's primary. So, all in all, I guess we're in good hands; Sebastian seems to have come out ok. ;)

Also discovered that the Ella Centre for ... well, whatever the rest of the name is ... is closed 'til 2008, sadly.

Picked up a Le Creuset casserole so that I can do no-knead bread and casseroles when 'mommy' is getting 2h-stretches of sleep.

Saturday, August 11, 2007

Busy Weekend

Busy weekend so far; I've been priming and painting the bathroom door, and working on applying and sanding drywall compound. In between, I went up to the Taste of the Danforth, had some lunch, stopped by Home Depot on the way back, and watched The Prestige from TMN.

Tomorrow, more sanding and drywall compound to apply; if the door's dry, I may take it out back and apply more paint (once it's out of the house; Pierrette's coming back tomorrow evening, and we'd prefer not to subject her to paint fumes).

9 weeks 1 day

I finished sorting all the items placed aside by Tara for us. We have one large box of boy clothing, one large box of girl clothing and one large box of unisex clothing. Also some infant toys, a play pen, a beautiful crib, a small tub and many more miscellaneous items...

It's about 8:30 pm and I'm starting to get tired got to remember to move the car back into the driveway.

Friday, August 10, 2007

9 weeks

I started going through the items at Tara's. She put tonnes of stuff aside for us. It's great because we won't need to spend quite as much money on baby stuff. However, it's a bit surreal.

A Weekend of Renovation

I'll be renovating this weekend. Not that that's much different than any other weekend, but Pierrette is aiming to spend the weekend at my Tara's (my sister), so that I can focus on renovation and painting without any VOCs or other such toxicities affecting her.

That means I should be able to get more done than usual, assuming I don't tire myself out too quickly. Fingers crossed. I'm hoping to finish most of the mudding (drywall compound) and sanding, and paint the bathroom door, but ... we'll see how it goes.

Wednesday, August 8, 2007

A mommy to be diary - 8 weeks 4 days

Geoff says I should contribute to the blog. Since I guess the Wiseman Conspiracy is inside me that probably makes sense. Everyone keeps on asking me how I am doing. Overall pretty good if you dont count the constant tiredness, feeling ill if you put any pressure near my stomach, a sudden new love for lemonade ( I hated lemonade most of my life), thinking everything including the dish towel smells funny and I wont even go into the strange things my body is doing. Now that I am done ranting I am excited about going to Tara's next weekend she has been stock pilling everything and anything to do with kids that hers have outgrown so I will be sorting and choosing some items for my alien ( that is the nickname I gave baby).

The Secret's Out

Pierrette joined a few pregnancy-related groups on Facebook without managing to hide the join messages from her contacts.

So she signed in just now and had some inquiring messages from those of you who noticed.

I guess that means the secret's out. No sense trying to control the flow of information anymore:

Yes, we're expecting.

If you're interested in keeping up to date, this is the place to do it. Of course, you're welcome to talk to us directly, but in terms of a 'broadcast medium', I think we're going to try and put the information here.

Thanks for all your well-wishes. If I'd previously asked you to keep it on the down-low, you can ignore that now.

Tuesday, August 7, 2007

First Round: Family, Closest Friends

Roy came down on Saturday, so we gave him the news.

That's the last of the parents, so I went ahead and told Jamie and Michael this morning over IM. Jamie told Kim, and I imagine Michael might tell Danielle, but both are aware we're still controlling the information flow for now.

There's only so long I can keep that under wraps, so we might set up a dinner with a wider set of friends to let 'em know, and send emails to those who can't make it. I dunno, we'll figure it out.

Kim says this is still within the period where the fetus can 'detach', so she's sending us "Sticky Vibes".

Thursday, August 2, 2007

The News Spreads

Pierrette has told her parents, and we've told my mother and sister. My father is next; we're seeing him this weekend, so we can spring the news on him then. Pierrette's also told Lisa, I think she was the first to hear.

We'll have to tell the rest of our friends soon enough, but I'm not in any rush.

The baby is now seven weeks in; his or her heartbeat would be detectable on ultrasound, I'm told.
It still feels a long way away, but it's exciting.

A Discovery

Wow.

So this is it.

We're pregnant. I say 'we', but obviously it's Pierrette.

This is not a complete surprise, as we were trying for this very result, but it's still a lot to absorb.

Pierrette took this test on 10-Jul-2007. We've since had blood work done with her doctor, and Pierrette's expected due date is 16-Mar-2008.