Day 2 early labour

Today has been much different then yesterday. ( I would have posted earlier but I was having server issues with blogger).

I slept all morning once I woke up I tried to track the contractions but there was nothing to track. Then the midwives came over to check my BP once again everything was normal. Around lunch the contractions started again but this time they were extra week and all over the place. After lunch I lied down and they stopped.

I spent a relaxing day until around 7pm (supper time) the contraction started again this time they were about 10 - 25 mins apart however they lasted each time over 5 mins. A little more intense then yesterday but still not painful.

Tomorow morning we will try some natural techniques to encourage labour but for now I am going to go try to sleep.

sleep was great

Just got up and ate some food, will try to sleep some more.

Can't sleep

I am not sure if it is adrenaline, nerves or cramps but i cannot seem to sleep. My knees are bugging me, me ankles and driving me nuts ( nothing more then a normal night ). My back is achy. So i decided to take the midwives advice and had a few tylenol to see it helps. Nothing is painful just twitchy and uncomfortable.

Update on prep Geoff came home with enough food for an army. We also set up the bed with plastic sheets just in case.

well lets try sleep again.

Update - Early Labour

I just had a hour long nap now I am hungary and waiting for Geoff to get home. He went out to pick up some groceries so we would have some food in the house as I was planning on going grocery shopping tonight.

Since the last post the midwives came by my BP is fine however they will re-check it tomorrow morning to be safe. The contraction that I once did not even notice are now accompanied with back ache and mild cramping.

Around 8pm or so we called Christie because I had some "bloody show" so she came to check on me once again. BP still fine now 3cm dilated and 65% effaced.

The Birth pool arrived I will ask Geoff to post a picture if he has time. They came in to do an emergency pool installation for us. The couple that came to install the pool was very kind and so far I would recommend them to anyone. You can get more information about there pools here.

After the pool was installed Geoff when off to pick up some groceries after I made a list will all my special request and he also stopped by Kim and Basil's to make sure the car seat is properly installed.

The midwives want me to try to rest, when I am not resting try to time the contractions and count babies movements.

Well I am off to see if I can have another nap.

Midwife Homevisit

We had a very eventful day today.

Both Sarah and Christie arrived at our house this morning at 9am for my home visit. The first thing we talked about was Group B Strep because I tested positive for one of the strains that is resistant to just about everything except penicillin and Vancomycin. Since I had some sort of reaction to penicillin as a child that only leaves one option Vancomycin. This being an extremely strong antibiotic that can not be administered at home. We are probably going to treat based on risk factors, there are a few things that can happen that makes it more likely for baby to get sick from Group B and if any of those variables happen we will be off to the Hospital. If I don't get anibiotics baby will have to get antibiotics so we will have to go to the hospital after the birth for baby so he can get a combination of ampicillin and gentamicin about 4 hours after he is born.

After that slight disappointment that at this point I have almost forgotten about; we went to the bedroom so I could lie down and they could mesure baby and check his heart beat. The heart beat was very low so they listen a bit longer and it came right back up; however they wanted me to go to the hospital for a fetal stress test that bay passed with flying colours.

The test monitors baby's heart beat and if there are any uterine contractions. Almost as soon as the monitors were on Christie asked if I had a Braxton Hicks and I said I don't think so. The monitor was registering contractions, that if I stood really still and paid close attention I could notice them. They kept on coming and have been there all afternoon now. Very mild I barely feel them.

Since I had more them one Christie wanted to check to see If I started dilating and by gosh I have today around noon I was 2-3cm dilated and 50%effaced. So this may be early labour, who am I kidding it probably is early labour, however early labour can last for any amount of time even days.

Christie will be coming by again at home in 30 mins or so to take my blood pressure, because in all of this my blood pressure is also high, high enough to make the midwives worry. If it is still high I will need to go back to the hospital and get some blood work done.

Will keep on positing as long as I am able to :-)

clue # 3

Pregnancy Rant

Now that I have past the 8 month mark I am going to share all the things I have learned and discovered about being pregnant. (Well at lease for me because I am led to believe the experience is different from person to person.

WARNING - some of you may think some items are gross or to descriptive...

• Minty toothpaste can make one want to puke, all natural toothpaste is much better
• Lemonade - yummy
• Heart burn - not so yummy (Can you believe I never had heart burn before)
• Cal Meg by Genestra is a great remedy for heart burn until you experience the evilest of heart burns then Tums become your best friend
• Smoothie Tums taste better then all the others
• Scrambled eggs - yummy
• Scrambled eggs with vegetables (kinda like a deconstructed omelet) - YUMMY
• Sacrificing things you love because you know there is another person inside of you
• Unconditional love for someone you have not even met yet
• Crying for no apparent reason
• Crying for what seems to be a good reason at the time however your husband thinks you have gone mad
• long soaks in the tub are amazing
• The feeling of a little person kicking you in the ribs (somehow this makes me smile even though it hurts)
• Restless legs syndrome - RLS (now I understand how Geoff often feels)
• Magnelevures by Unda is amazing for RLS - however very expensive
• That raspberry leaf tea taste pretty good; however after 2 months of it its the worst drink on earth
• A re-appreciation for raspberry leaf tea once my naturophath switch me to raspberry leaf tea extracts
• When you are pregnant you always seem to drop everything (force the lady with the big belly to bend down)
• Pee pee pee that is all I have to say
• Yeast infections (would you believe I never had one until I was pregnant)
• The stomach flue is never fun however; it is really bad when you are stuck on the bathroom floor and can not get up due to the combination of a big belly and no energy.
• Extremely cut little boys clothing
• Everything in the world seems to have toxic chemicals in it
• Baby toys are fun and cute and expensive
• That everyone wants to touch your belly
• That everyone has something to share about there experience with children, even people who do not have kids
• The whole world is pregnant (every wheres I go I see women with swollen bellies; I guess you just don't notice them until you are one of them)
• Pillows lots and lots of pillows are the only way you can get comfortable
• Carpal tunnel syndrome and how to cope with it
• Hip pain ( I guess this is a good pain; since your hips need to widen to let baby threw)
• Maternity underwear rule they are so comfy (I think I may even continue wearing them after)
• Yoga is a saving grace
• Shiatsu is complicated when you have restless legs ( it's hard to stay still for the therapist to work)
• Not to be afraid to ask for help
• How much my husband really loves me
• Having a TV in the bedroom is really not that bad even though I fought it for 7 years.
• There is nothing good on the after midnight
• Doing dishes when you are "fat" hurts your back
• I can no longer reach the bottom of the washing machine
• Watching other peoples kids make me smile
• Finding baby clothes in my laundry is neat
• Opening and installing your car seat kinda makes everything feel real
• Having a car seat in your car is weird
• Selecting items for your wee one is made way too complicated by an over saturated market full of junk and useless items for babies
• Everyone and there sister will have an opinion on a home birth ( not always a positive one)
• Midwives rule
• One can never drink enough water
• Seeing your baby for the first time (ultrasound) is the best feeling in the world
• Leaky breast
• No belly button
• Confirmation that the brown spot at the bottom of my belly button is really a birth mark and not dirt stuck there for 29 years (oops I just gave away my age)
• Spicy foods give you heart burn however I crave them so I seem to forget this one over an and over again
• Anything related to babies on TV will make you cry
• Sore shoulders from sleeping on your side
• Nesting
• Lopsided bellies - this one makes me smile
• It is amazing how much energy you can have when you are an insomniac; however eventually you crash and sleep.
• That good friends are hard to come by and we are lucky we have a few (you know who you are)
• How much Geoff's family is really mine too
• How much I miss my mom and dad
• That the world does not stop if you leave work at 5pm
• How to say no (sometimes)
• A stuffed up nose - all the time
• Being able to eat all sorts of things that I used to have intolerances too, baby gave me super stomach .

I am sure I can go on and on forever but we will end it here.

December Renovation Review

Back in December, we were still doing some tear-down. In the upstairs hallway, I'd peeled back the layers 'til we got to this nice plank subfloor. A little squeaky, but authentic. On top of it was really thin 1/4" ply with some strips around the edges, which I decided to replace:


Downstairs, we still had linoleum and carpet, which we'd just gotten clearance to replace without worrying about asbestos, which was great news:


Mostly, pulling the linoleum was as simple as sticking a prybar under it, hitting it with a mallet, and then prying:

Although you had to be careful not to lose a cat into the cold air return where they could go climb into the furnace ...
Once the linoleum was pried up, I cut it in strips and sealed it with duct tape to be trashed.


The carpet was broadloom rolled-goods, held down with a transition strip that was no match for a prybar:
Although the underpadding revealed some more of our friendly neighbourhood carpet-wormy things.
At the transition to the kitchen, I discovered that the kitchen may have a layer of christmas tiles, red and green. I'm not sure who thought that would be a good idea.
The subfloor was covered with ply, and the ply had some crusty layer of paint or possibly adhesive that I could easily scrape off with the prybar:

So, that's where we were in early December. Things have come a long way in the last month or two.

Clue #2

Wanted: Artificially Manufactured Potatoes?

Agriculture Canada has unveiled some new cross-bred potato varieties. It was the comment from the producer that stood out for me:

Jeremy Rood, a producer from Grand Bend, Ont., said companies like his are always looking for potatoes that have a nice appearance and a high yield.

“We look for a potato that has no marks on it and almost looks artificially manufactured,” Mr. Rood said.

Do you know what is in your Cosmetics?

I found this interesting website called "Environmental Working Group Skin deep Cosmetic Safety Databse". It's an on-line database that lets you search products or ingredients and rates them from 0 to 10 for safety.

I spent a good 2 hours today going threw all the cosmetics and beauty products in our washroom to see how they rated.

This is an image of all the products that we decided were not safe enough for us to continue to use.



These are images of the products that were safe.






This is an image of the products that were not listed in the database and had no ingredients listed on the containers. How knows whats in them?



Take a moment to look up whats in your bathroom and you will be shocked.

Damages

Wow; just finished watching the first episode of Damages on Showcase. Very ... Cinematic. Impressed with it so far, we'll see where it goes. There was an artful cut early in the show where a lawyer, told that the defendant spent three hours in a spa, asked, coyly, "what was he getting waxed?", followed by a quick zipper noise and a very brief closeup of a tongue licking red lipstick'd lips.

Close is a good actress, and so far, so's the rest of the cast, but we'll see how it goes. Worth a look.

More presents up...

I designated the bottom shelf in our bathroom to baby, that way all his little things will be handy. Like towels, washcloths, soap, shampoo ect. Thank you to everyone (Annette, Gerry, Shawn, Rebecca, Sharon, Nev, Stefan, Lisa ) that contributed to these items in the form of gifts for baby Wiseman.

For any mom to be out there check out Babywrappers. These are baby towels with a rope so you attache them to you (mom or dad) then pick up your child. They are suppose to help keep you dry. can't wait to see what baby Wiseman thinks. They also make coordinating washcloths, very important to make sure everything matches :-)

Can you guess baby's name Clue #1

On the weekend we got some wooden letters that spell out baby Wiseman's name. Yesterday I painted them blue, pink, yellow and beige. I will post them one by one (in no particular order) to the blog over the next few weeks until someone guesses his name.

Surprise - Baby Shower

On Saturday (February 9th) my mother-in-law and my sister-in-law threw me a surprise shower. I was a bit suspicious, since no one had mentioned they were giving me a shower, that this might be one, but I kept on telling myself that it was not going to be one, just in case it wasn't. I have to admit that deep down inside, I wanted it to be a shower I am guilty of this.

When we got there, I saw my friends car and it gave it away, but I did not mention anything to Geoff. However, when we got to the house I was overwhelmed as to how many people were there: the house was full to brim. Thank you all so much for coming.




Both Geoff and I had a great time. As we place all the presents in their rightful place in our house we will post some pictures, so all of you can brag about the wonderful loot you got baby Wiseman.

On the weekend we positioned the Frog Pod, a very fun contraption to place Baby Wiseman's bath toys and shampoo away in.

What would a baby shower be without games? Tara had a few up her sleeves, a very fun crossword puzzle that I still think to this day is unsolvable, however I did give up halfway when Rebecca and Steffan came down with the little one. She is so adorable.


I also judged a blind-folded diapering contest. There were three teams: young men, young ladies and relatives. The boys gave the ladies their moneys worth.


However it was Danielle for the young ladies that came out on top. Recent years of tons of cloth diapers on Morgan and Leah paid off:



Thank you all once more for a great day. Like every good baby shower, it ended by rolling up a small child in a carpet:
Barbara has already posted her photos of the shower to her Flickr account; Geoffrey's will follow soon.

Frog Pod

Boon makes this great caddy called the Frog Pod for bath toys and bath supplies. Sharon, Nev, Rebecca and Stefan (baby's relatives on Geoff's side) decided to spoil baby with one. Doesn't it look great in our shower.

The only thing I have to say is if anyone out there is planning on getting one don't expect the suction cups to work. We had to use the double sided tape; however it seems like it will be up for life.

Midwife visit - week 35

I am now going to see my midwives every week since as of next week I am term, that means baby can come anytime but will most likely not come till his expect due date of mid march. Because of that I now have a binder with my records that I need to carry around just in case I get swept away to the hospital because baby decides to come early.

The big news this visit is that baby is engaged or locked and loaded as I like to say; this means he has dropped and is in line with the birth canal ready to come. This would also explain my increasing waddling and hip pain.

Christie also gave us our home birth bag it's a few items that are handy to have at home for the birth that they like sending in advance. Here is a picture of the items from the bag.



In 2 weeks Christie and Sarah are going to come do a home visit to make sure we know how to set up the place and to make sure they know how to find us on the big day.

Next visit is my Strep B test we will wait till then to tell you all about it.

Finishing the Living Room

I've been working on the living room for the past few weekends. On February 9th, I was almost finished, but we had to go off to a shower (more on that later). When I sink a cleat flooring nail most, but not all of the way into a board, it's very difficult to remove without damaging the flooring, and they're very difficult to drive all the rest of the way in with a nail set, so I'd struggled with a few of these before Shawn suggested that I use a Dremel to cut off any exposed nail surface. That has worked fairly well, so I've been using that strategy ever since. It throws a lovely shower of sparks. I'm not sure what causes some of the sparks to fork in mid-air, but it does make for a good picture.

When you can use the pneumatic flooring nailer, it makes fairly quick work of installing flooring. I'm able to do about three courses in an hour in the living room, and I'm still pretty new at it. When I can't use the flooring nailer, it takes a lot more time. As you get close to the wall, you run out of room, and you need to use another strategy.

Initially, tried using Shawn's brad nailer for this, but it's just not accurate enough for my tastes, and at times the brad nails deflect. Perhaps with a very accurate sense of where the nailer will drop the nail (or a nailer that makes that more apparent) and fewer deflections (better nails? better nailer? not sure...), I'd go this route.

For my uses, though, I only have so much flooring to do, and I found it simpler to pre-drill, put in a spiral nail, and nail-set it. Takes a while, but it takes longer to brad-nail a strip of flooring and then take it out again when it gets screwed up.

Preparing for a home birth

At my last midwife visit they give us a list of supplies for the home birth:

• 2 large garbage bags
• Bowl for placenta
• Board/cutting board or cookie sheet
• 12 cotton flannel receiving blankets
• 4 old towels
• thermometer
• feminine napkins (heavy duty)
• hot water bottle
• cloth for baby
• 3 prong extension cord
• food and drinks
• extra pillows
• mirror
• camera 
• music and player
• notebook and pen
• gravol
• ibuprofen
• epson salts
• arnica
• rescue remedy
• 2 sets of sheets
• lots of drop cloths
• and the bag of supplies they gave me at the last visit

My task this week is to assemble all of this...

socks?

I don't know if this is a weird pregnancy thing but I used to not be able to fall asleep unless I was wearing socks; now the workd has flipped if I have socks on it drives me nuts...

Blowfishin'

Oh, hai. I's in your blog, writing your posts. Can I has macbook?

Tiling (22-Jan)

So, although we'd been prepping for it for a few days before, on Tue 22-Jan-2008, we finished the tiles. I wasn't expecting it to be noisy, so I started them after work. Unfortunately, in order to set the tiles in place, they suggest that you whack them with a mallet, which is, perhaps not surprisingly, noisy.

So we checked with our neighbours to ensure that it was ok that we continue despite the noise, after the noise limit (7pm). It mostly went well, other than one tile that cracked as we tried to set it, and required a last minute replacement. We were also not able to get the first two tiles completely level, as I probably used a little too much mortar on those. It's also surprisingly difficult to lift a tile from mortar to put it down. It's suggested that you periodically lay a tile then lift it up to check coverage of the mortar, but that's difficult to do when it feels like it's being held down by super-powered suction cups.

Still, all things considered, I'm happy with the results. This is the tiles laid, in mortar, no grout, with tile spacers.

Here's a closeup of a tile spacer in position between four of our tiles:

And finally, my loving wife, with mortar on her knees, threatening to step on the tiles before they're set.

This post is a little late, but I've been busy doing the work instead of posting about it.

Drywall anchors

As we are preparing the house for baby one of the items I needed to do was hang a few shelves on the wall.  I bought these ez-anchors for drywall and I will never go back to those annoying little plastic things.  Anyone that has ever mounted anything in drywall has struggled with getting those stupid little pieces of plastic in the drywall with out bending them.  Well the ez-anchors (that I bought from Home Depot but I am sure you can get anywheres) screw in; no fuss; no mess; perfect in the first shot. You could even do this when baby is sleeping, since no hammering equals no noise.

Your trash is our treasure

I present baby Wiseman dresser.  We picked this up in the summer on the side of the road, it was in pretty good shape someone had taken the time to strip most of the paint from the dresser however there were holes in 2 drawers.  So we changed the bottoms of the drawers, repainted the knobs in fun colours, gave the dresser a few coats of white paint and then sanded some off to give it an aged look, lined all the drawers with mac-tack and voila a new dresser is born. (the kitty model is Baby Bo on of our 4 loving cats)

Happy Chinese New Year

Today marks the Chinese New Year. 

I was born in the year of the Horse, Geoff was born in the year of the Tiger and baby will be born in the year of the Rat.

Horse: Hard working, my own-person, very independent, intelligent, friendly, strong guard against being egotistical.

Tiger: Sensitive, emotional, loving, stubborn, hothead, rebel. 

Rat: Imaginative, charming, generous to the person you love, quick-tempered, critical, opportunist.

Check out this site for all 12 animal zodiac descriptions: Chinese Zodiac does your sign match your personality we think both of ours are pretty good.

Phthalates

I already knew I was not going to use your typical baby products bought at the Pharmacy or Grocery store now with the new information released on phthalates it just reinforces my decision. Our reason at the beginning to chose products that are more natural then the typical ones found in your pharmacy our drug store were as follows: both Geoff and I have sensitive skin which probably means baby will have sensitive skin; mass manufacturing companies tend to put to perfume and dies in there products; I don't believe in purchasing a product knowing it was tested on animals; buying organic is better for the environment. Now we add to that list phthalates free.

Phthalates are derived from phthalic acid and are used in many ways: the dominant plasticizer in PVC; as a solvent in perfumes and pesticides; as a finishing lure in nail polish, adhesives, caulk and paint; in the production of low end sex toys (if you own a rubber sex toy that did not say phthalates-free always use a condom to protect yourself from your toy); modern electronics such as computers, cell phones and MP3 players; and in beauty products to stabilize fragrances.

According to the interview I was listing to on CBC radio last night there is no law in Canada or the US at this time that forces manufacturers to disclose if they are using Phthalates in beauty products including those for children and babies. CBC also reported regarding phthalates: "In the study, they were found in elevated levels in the urine of babies who'd been recently shampooed, powdered or lotioned with baby products"

Now why should we as parents be concerned; well in laboratory testing it was proven that phthalates cause damage to the reproductive system. I know I would like my son one day to be able to give me grand kids.

So the moral of this story is read labels make sure everything you buy is phthalates free; don't trust labels because they don't need to disclose if they use phthalates; don't buy PVC toys especially ones that will end up in the little ones mouth.

If you want to read up more on this subject here are a few interesting articles I found:

Wikipedia Definition

Phthalates found in Baby Care Products Linked to Infant Deformity

How to avoid Phthalates

CBC news article re Phthalates and baby products

CBC news article re Phthalates and obesity

CBC news article

it's 3am and I'm starving

I am officially 34 weeks along. 6 more to go wow. My frequent trips to the bathroom in the middle of the night are calming down from 8 to about only 3 on average however a new habit is forming - hunger.  Almost every night I wake up around 3am starving and craving carbs.  This probably started about 2 weeks ago.  If I do not physically get up and eat i am unable to fall asleep again. Is it stress, is it baby, is the fact I am eating smaller meals due to heart burn who knows.  I think it all of them combined.  Tonight on the menu is homemade rosemary bread with butter.  

Well almost done my bread so I should be back off to bed.

Snow Day

My first day of my last month before my maternity was to start turned into a snow day.  We dug out the car and started driving to work however I got stuck trying to go up the hill under the bridge at Greenwood.  It kinda freaked me out considering that the bus in front of me could not get up the hill either and cars were fishtailing all over the place.  We figured it was best for me and baby to stay home for the day;  Geoff took over the wheel and got us home safely.  What would have been a 5 min drive on a beautiful day took 30 mins.

I decided to make the best out of my day at home...

1 st project:  finishing putting our custom mirror together.  Almost done just need to let the paint dry and then place the hanging brackets on the back. (Before any of you freak out the paint we are using is zero to low VOC and I called mother risk and they said it was perfectly safe to paint as long as I wear a mask.)

2nd project: Baking, I made 2 kinds of coconut macaroon style cookies, rosemary bread and in the bread machine there is sunflower seed bread.

3rd project: cleaned up email, google reader, finished adding the last few items we need to our registry, filled stuff electronically.

4th project: dishes; this quickly got changed into unclogging a sink that took about an hour.  We used 1 cup backing soda and poured vinegar on it until it stopped fuzzing chased it down with boiling hot water and then used the plunger to clear everything up.  Repeat a few times until problem solved.

5th project: dishes once again...