Sunday 3 December 2017

Getting ready/Not ready

One of the things I struggled with in my pregnancy with AJ, even after reaching third trimester, was having the confidence to get ready for an actual baby. A month or so from delivery, I needed a push from my mom to go buy baby clothes.

With regards to clothes at least, I've gotten over this aversion. I have organized AJ's tiny stuff with the intention that Sprite will wear lots of hand me downs, but I want her to have things of her own, too. So I took a few minutes one day and bought some "going home outfits:

Kitty cat ears are a thing...and yes those are AJ's toes...


We are also on a schedule, and (were) mostly sticking to it, to get the house ready for a second baby. We already have all the major baby items (furniture, stroller, bassinet, highchair etc.) so not much needs to be done there. Most of the work involves tidying and reorganizing the house to free up the extra bedroom. AJ's baby furniture will move into her sister's bedroom and she will get big girl furniture. Mr. Turtle and I will get a new item or two as well as we move clothes and other possessions into our master bedroom.  Sounds simple, in reality it's actually a lot of work.

I was anxious to have these steps done as I wanted to focus on nesting in December, and Christmas stuff, not on house jobs. But seeing as it is December already, this is not likely going to happen. My visions of peacefully making batches of Christmas cookies with AJ and adding sentimental touches to Sprite's room on peaceful weekend afternoons as the Christmas music plays and snow falls softly outside.....natch. For one thing, we keep getting sick. Weekends arrive and one or more is down for the count and the other staggers around in a daze trying to get enough done to survive and be sort of ready for Monday. My Christmas hat and apron is lost somewhere at school, misplaced on an afternoon when things went south (see below for more on that). Hopefully not irretrievably lost.  I've also been diagnosed with gestational diabetes and not sure anymore if I'm managing it well enough through diet.  I'm still hoping to make some cookies, but I bowed out of a cookie exchange with a friend and her friends. I'm sorry about that because I'm really trying to do more play dates and social things. But it just ain't gonna happen. Also, immersing myself in sugar and baking is probably not the best thing for the GD.

I also need some time to be mentally ready for a baby.  I had a reminder of that a couple of Fridays ago, when I had some unusual symptoms, possibly related to the gestational diabetes. I had an ultrasound at 30 weeks that showed Sprite exactly on the 50th percentile, healthy and practicing breathing.  Also, my initial tracking of the GD showed it under control. So that was all positive.

Usually the GD is symptomless, but this particular Friday I drank part of a juice box (not my usual behaviour: long-ish story involving various events at work leading to self-neglect and dehydration). A few minutes later, after the students had left for their gym class, I found I was having trouble seeing the words on my phone and computer screen. After 10 minutes of shaking my head and squinting, I realized something was kinda wrong. A google search revealed that blurry vision can be a symptom of high blood sugar. I didn't take a blood sugar reading (why not? No idea. I'm not always logical).  I went to the office so I would be around people if I passed out or something. I ate protein and the blurriness eventually went away...but then I developed a headache. After a few phone calls, I ended up in labour and delivery to be "checked out." I think this was mainly because my regular doctors were not in the office to see me (being Friday afternoon and all) and the nurses on the health help line almost ALWAYS tell you to go to emergency or the hospital.....sigh.

So, I spend several boring hours in L&D. I was hooked up to a heartbeat monitor. Sprite kept moving around which didn't make it easy to get the readings. I was also tracking movement with a button. I had blood and urine tests. It all checked out fine, other than showing I was dehydrated. My blood sugar was fine by the time I got to the hospital. I think the  reason they kept me so long was my symptoms were similar to those of serious conditions like high blood pressure (which I didn't have) or pre-eclampsia (nobody mentioned that but I googled it, ha).

I consider it a good sign of my mental health that I was not freaking out about being in L&D. I can imagine if this happened during my first pregnancy I would have been terrified. But mainly I felt bored and wished I could get out of there already. I also saw women in labour coming in and others leaving with new babies. I definitely do not feel ready for that! Maybe in a month, maybe after meeting with out doula....not now!  I was so desperate to be OUT OF THERE.  Luckily we had a date to go to a long time friend's open house (they are moving out of town). Albeit arriving late we had a good time there, played silly games and enjoyed some laughter therapy.

So, overall things are fine. My early Christmas wishes are for 1) better health in general for our family and 2) time and energy to accomplish things. It's frustrating to feel stagnant and like things are piling up around me, while I drag my butt around.  It remains to be seen what happens with the GD, but I hope I can keep my good attitude.

On a positive note we went for maternity photos a few weeks ago, and they turned out lovely. Since we had these beautiful photos, I did something I have not done before and officially announced the pregnancy on Facebook. The wave of support and happiness resulting has cheered up a dreary weekend. And it was nice to see what a few hundred dollars to professional photographers/hairdressers could do for our image. It's worth it.  A few examples that are sufficiently anonymous for the blog follow: