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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.