Ready to go!

preggo 2
Originally uploaded by dina the m and o.

Really shouldn't have had that extra piece of pie......

One day left ....

Dear Pumpkin,

As you can see from the counter above, you have one day left to come out on time. Your mommy is a stickler for being on time, we come from a long line of sticklers who are always on time. Your daddy is also exceedingly punctual, and your brother was so early that I didn't have time to sit around and contemplate his arrival.

Now I realise that good things come to those who wait, but enough is enough my little friend. Kindly quit the premises so that I can stop getting up to pee and stretch and sit up awake half the night wondering when you are going to appear and what exactly you are doing in there with your limbs because it hurts!

Everyone is waiting, now stop being such a diva and get out here. We don't do fashionably late in this household.....

Lots of love,

Mommy

Still nuthin'

Nuthin' happening still. My doctor is calling this baby laid-back. I have to go back in on my due date if pumpkin doesn't arrive before then and have an ultrasound to make sure that everything's fine and dandy. Until then, there is more waiting and more lunches!

I took my car in yesterday to the autobody shop. They've given me a crappy neon until my car's ready. I negotiated to get some soon-to-be-rust areas dealt with at the same time. I'm going out to lunch with Maggie today - hopefully the indian food will be spicy today and shake pumpkin out of its daydreaming state and out of my body. What could it possibly be doing in there that's so important? Everybody think kindly eviction notices!

Sob!

IMG_7427
Originally uploaded by dina the mundane and oblivious.

I thought that the truck was letting me in to his lane, he didn't see me and didn't notice that the light changed - smoosh, scrape, ugh!

Tee hee

Leave it to the Germans to come up with an incredibly straightforward approach to where babies come from.
Via Drawn!

And still waiting...

Still nothing to report on the baby front. The baby is very much in front actually, my shape seems to have changed again and I'm more pointy. Thursday and Friday the sun was out and so were we. Ben enjoyed some quality outdoor time and we ran errands. I made some chili last night, super yummy! It ranks up there with my carrot-ginger soup for being perfect Fall weather food. That and some hearty homemade bread-mmmmm! I'm still hoping to get some muffins made and maybe a couple of casseroles. Ben and Steve are going to head over to park so I can get some cleaning done this morning. Ben likes to "help" vacuum. This generally involves turning the vac off and trying to retract the cord, or ride the vac while we try to pull it around the rooms. He's getting more interested in household chores. Last night, he wiped up some water he spilled on the floor with a tea towel. Ben also likes to impress you with his door-opening skills when you are in the bathroom. He often lets himself in when we are showering and whips open the curtain to have a chat. A couple of days ago, he appeared wearing my underpants around his head - too bad our camera's not waterproof, it was priceless!

temporary pillow

temporary pillow
Originally uploaded by dina the mundane and oblivious.

Ben's using his sibling already....

Still waiting

Yesterday we went out for lunch with Adriana to a new indian place on Monkland that does veg and non-veg thalis - it was yummy! Afterwards, we headed home and Ben went down for a long nap and I watched Steve play a game. Today, I went to my first playgroup day with Ben and Steve and Ben ran around and I talked to mommies and had coffee and had a pretty good time. It's once a week in a church basement and there are toys and slides and trikes. It's a perfect way to blow off some energy, especially when the weather's crap. The dreary weather continues and it's sapping me of all my energy. I have lots of cleaning and baking that I wanted to get done if time allowed, and now that I have that time, I'm wasting it falling asleep on comfy chairs under blankets. I know that rest is important, but I feel a bit at loose ends.  Hopefully the sun will come out again soon and I'll be recharged!

The birth that was

So on the verge of a brand new birth story, I'll recap the previous one. I had a pretty good pregnancy with Ben up until the final couple of months. I was diagnosed with gestational diabetes, and the hospital had me going in for tests that ate up an entire day at the hospital every week, most of that time spent waiting around in uncomfortable chairs. The tests said that I had diabetes, the dieticians were changing my diet every week, the interns doing the ultrasounds were freaking me out telling me that the baby was way too small, the endocrinologist was confused because GD babies are supposed to be big, and the doctors were concerned that I was losing weight. I was kinda fed up with the lot of them. Oh, and of course the icing on the cake was that Ben refused to turn head down. My doctor (a bit of an arrogant prick) told me that the baby wasn't going to turn and went ahead and scheduled a c-section without even consulting me on the date. I was upset about having to have surgery and my doctor's lack of sympathy about the situation. I wanted the surprise rush to the hospital and the "normal" birth experience. Three weeks before Ben's due date, and two weeks before the scheduled c-section, I went to work, left at 5 saying "see you tomorrow" to all my colleagues, went home, had dinner, watched tv and went to bed. I had some minor gas pain, but nothing out of the ordinary. I woke up at 4am when one of the cats jumped up on the bed and I felt a tiny trickle of water, so I jumped up and went to the washroom. Now, I'd watched enough tv shows to know that when your water breaks it's supposed to be a big, dramatic gush. Of couse, I had low fluids, so I didn't get the big gush. I thought that I may have just lost my mucus plug or something. I woke up Steve and had him call the hospital and ask. He wasn't making much sense, so the nurse asked to speak with me, and she told me to come in just in case. We hadn't packed, so Steve hurried around and I got a few things together. He wanted to take a cab, but I figured that we were just going to be sent home, so I said that I'd drive. Before we left, I had another gas pain, but nothing major. On the way to the hospital, I had two more. After the last one, I started watching the clock and figured that they were about 15 minutes apart. When we were parking, I told Steve about them and he freaked a bit. We were told in the birthing classes that you were in labour when you couldn't talk through the contractions, apparently this is not true for everyone. We got to the birthing centre, the nurse informed us that I was definitely having the baby, they hooked me up to monitors and Steve and I waited for the intern to come and examine me. We read the paper and chatted. Steve called our folks and let them know. I got bored and walked around. When the intern came in to examine me it was 5:30 - I was 5cm dilated and fully effaced. The nurse came in right after and said, "you don't look 5cm dilated". I was taken into the operating room and they were wonderful and talked me through the epidural and joked with me. They raised the curtain between me and the surgery when they saw how tall Steve was. He sat on a stool next to my head and we talked about more stuff, and movies, and then the doctor (who was not my actual doctor) keeping us updated on the proceedings, told me that I would feel some pressure, and then we heard the sound of a very angry, red, beautiful little man being removed from his warm nesting place and straightened out (he was folded in two like a cellphone). I liked that doctor so much that she's my doctor this time around. She came to visit me in the ward after and said that she had called her brother that afternoon and informed him that she had just delivered her first baby who shared his name - pretty good considering how long she'd been at it. Despite the technical difficulties, I couldn't have asked for a better birth, virtually pain-free and still incorporating that element of surprise. Here's hoping the second time around is surgery-free, but just as smooth.

Waiting

So I made it through the weekend! Didn't do too much, ran some errands, napped, and went to bookclub on Sunday night. Today I enjoyed my first day of maternity leave. I slept in (thanks Steve), and had lunch with Maggie, went to the EI office to file my paperwork (that took forever!), and hung out with Ben and Steve. Ben was in fine form all afternoon and evening. He now likes it when you make blankets into makeshift tents. He happily played under a fuzzy blue blanket most of the evening. I've had back uckiness all evening, so now I'm starting to wonder if something's going to happen tonight. Of course, it could just be my bad posture. Still, we are packing up some everyday toiletries just in case.

Last day

Today was my last day of work, and I actually made it! I thought for sure that something was going to happen Thursday night, but no, just my paranoia and aching back and twinges. I had to pack up my office, put all my files into storage, brief people, and throw all my personal crap into a box to take home. I also had to clean out my laptop, you can really accumulate a lot of personal junk on your work computers. I went to see my doctor this afternoon and she was as surprised as I was that I have managed to hold out this long-then she told me to hold on until Monday because she's not on call this weekend. The only reason that she's my doctor now is because my doctor with Ben was on vacation when he was born and I liked her as soon as she stuck her head into the room and we swapped a few casual jokes in the operating room. It would be nice if she was there for the delivery, but I know that it's not unusual to not have your doctor there for the final moments. As far as I can tell, if you have a fairly regular delivery, it's the nurses and interns that do most of the nitty gritty and the doctor comes in for the catch.

It's all starting to get a bit unreal - I'm starting to have that, "I'm going to have a baby - oh my God" feeling. I'm excited, but it's starting to freak me out a bit.

Three days

I made it! Yet another day to sit at my desk and get through my list. Now I have to make it through today and tomorrow because my doctor celebrates Yom Kippur. Everyone keep your legs crossed for me!
Have you ever thought to yourself, "gee, I wish I knew more about Quantum Theory"? Well now you can! You also have the option of only listening to the audio.

Countdown

So my last day is this Friday. Last week, the department took me out for lunch and gave us a really nice gift. I work with fantastic people. They decided not to tempt fate and have the lunch earlier. I thought that Sunday night might have been it. We had my folks in for Thanksgiving dinner and that night I was feeling decidedly unsettled. Turns out it was just too much turkey and my brain playing tricks on me. I was up in the wee hours this morning - now a usual occurrence. Today at work was hard, the walk to the copy room is getting longer and slower. I'm now grateful for the maternity parking too.

Many things were marked off my to do list today - hooray! I'm purposely ignoring some things just because I know that trying to get information from developers will make me look more stupid than, well, something that's really stupid. I'm hoping that I can pass that off on someone with a smidgen of intelligence. Will I make it through another day? We'll see!

Update

It's been a long week. I'm trying to finish my work and clean up all my projects and organize things in case they actually do manage to replace me at some point. Of course, everyday some new thing ends up in my lap and my to do list keeps getting longer. I keep warning my coworkers that I could just not show up tomorrow and be gone for a year, but they don't seem to believe me. I find this strange, because that's exactly what happened last time, when Ben arrived three weeks early. My brain is melting at an alarming rate and I'm losing my ability to concentrate on just about everything. I've developed a full waddle now, my back has started to get achy, strangers are nice to me, and the people I work with have started to fear me. I'm afraid of my water breaking at work-there are some things that I do not want to share with my colleagues.

We went to see Serenity Tuesday night, great movie if you were a fan of the cancelled show. Ben started eating with a fork sporadically last week and has become super duper attached to his stuffed hippo, Buddy. He's now started getting mad when we refuse to let him bring Buddy into the bathtub and take him away when we're eating meals. He brings him to you for kisses and hugs too which is adorable. My folks are coming in for Thanksgiving dinner, I have decided not to be more than an hour away from the hospital. Steve's got all his dinner stuff ready in the fridge.

I'm reading Eats, Shoots, and Leaves, what's the big deal about this book? It's not that informative, and if they formatted it without all the extra whitespace and small pages, it would barely be a book. I think I'm just jealous because I didn't write it.

That's it!