geminigirl: (Default)
My apologies for the poor quality-they're taken with the camera phones
I am a helpful cat:



meow )
geminigirl: (Family)
My Mom sent the baby a Valentine's Day card.

She got a very cute First Valentine's Day card with Big Bird on the front, and wrote in "almost" in, so that it said "Happy Almost First Valentine's Day" on it.

Very sweet. I saved it and will put it into the baby book.
geminigirl: (Default)
pregnancy stuff that I'm putting out in public cause I need more feedback than the filter would get. :)

First off, more recent fetus-photo...


More here

I'm fine. Heartbeat at 155. Referral to pulmonologist, and I called and they squeezed me in for tomorrow morning at 8:30. Which will make me a cranky woman because I'm not a big fan of morning and because it will involve rush hour traffic to get to this place for an 8:30 appointment. But if it means breathing better, so be it. The OB suggested the possibility of supplemental oxygen, but I'm really hoping I don't end up going that route. I'd be fine with nebulizer treatments or a long acting bronchodilator or something (can't do inhaled steroids, I end up with thrush and coughing blood every time I've tried.) We'll see what the respiratory therapist and NP have to say tomorrow.

I scheduled the rest of the OB appointments through my estimated due date today. This is overwhelming. And scary. And I feel totally unprepared. And I just hope that I'm good at the forthcoming job.

We started a registry this week (someone at Cayne's office asked, which means I assume a shower is in the works somewhere.) No you can't see it yet...it's not done and I'm not happy with it, I need to make more changes first. If you do want to see it leave a comment to that effect and I'll comment back when I'm more settled into what's on it. This is not a request for stuff. This is an "if you wanna look at it you can tell me cause it requires that I disclose my name to you. I do not expect stuff from anyone for this.

So, with today's OB appointment, I was cleared for delivery by whoever is on call, rather than whichever MD is on call. What that means is that assuming that everything continues to go smoothly, if it happens that a midwife gets to me first when I'm in labor then a midwife gets to deliver the baby. This is a very good thing. Which brings me to the public-reasoning for this post...we started talking very vaguely about birth plans at today's appointment. And the doctor asked what I wanted...and my answer was "as low intervention as we can." Dr. P is fine with that. I threw out examples like "no continuous fetal monitoring" to which he said "no problem, unless we've had to use Pitocin," and I'm apparently allowed to wander around as much as I want if I'm comfortable, whether or not my water's broken, and use the tub and so on and so forth. But, I'm looking for birth plans. If you've written one when you gave birth (or you've got a partner who has written one) please share it. Links here are fine, e-mail to username at livejournal is fine, and so on. But the more I can read actual real ones that people I like have written the more able I think I'll be to craft my own.

Here we go.
geminigirl: (Umbrella)
I've taken to using this as a spot for just dumping things...I save them up and then make posts that are a collection of all the various things that have been going on.

Things like the weird dreams I've been having-most of them are about places that I used to have to go, like junior high school, where I had to talk about the people I had crushes on back then, or high school where I forgot my locker combination. And then there was the airplane dream. No one needs to tell me that the airplane dream was a birth dream....I dreamed about airplanes, on the ground, rolling through tunnels and into hangars that were smaller than their wingspans. Yeah, that was a birth dream.

There was the strange experience this morning. I got up and got out of bed and heard noise. Before I went to the bathroom or brushed my teeth, I went to investigate what it was, thinking that Cayne had left the TV on or something when he was getting ready for work, only to discover Cayne sitting on the couch watching TV-about an hour later than he usually leaves for work. I asked him what he was doing, and he responded "Sitting on the couch." I asked if he was taking the day off from work and he said "No, it's Saturday." I reminded him it was Friday and he looked shocked. He scurried off, got dressed very quickly and sheepishly headed in to work.

We got the second trimester screening results back-this looked at the risk of Down's Syndrome-1/3000, Trisomy 18 (Edward's Synrome)-1/10,000 and Spina Bifida-1/1600. That of course still means that there are plenty of other thing that could go wrong, but at least that's somewhat reassuring.

We bought a chair last weekend...it arrived the other day and is in a box in the living room, on it's side. It will probably stay there until we figure out what to do with the two chairs it's replacing (one spot is getting a chair, the other is getting a new filing cabinet, but I need to decide if I'm going to Freecycle or Craig's List or what with the old chairs.) But the box is right where a coffee table would go if/when we buy one for the living room. And it's become a hot spot for cats to nap in lately. I wonder if the same thing would happen with a coffee table.

The craving for salty foods is going to drive me crazy. I really wish I could cut back on them, but I can't get enough pickles. I'm going to go open another jar when I'm done with this post.

I hope the writer's strike doesn't mean that the new shoes I like on TV disappear. Not much in the way of new shows that we're watching, just Big Bang Theory and Chuck, I think. And on the subject of TV...NBC Universal has been going on and on this week about all sorts of environmental stuff. They also sent correspondents to the Equator, the Arctic Circle and Antarctica. And my first thought when I heard about this was "I wonder if they accounted for the environmental impact of moving crew and equipment there, and what they did to balance it."

We've both been reading Scott Westerfield's books-in particular the Uglies series. I finished the first one about a year ago, on one of our winter trips, picked up the second one months later and caught the third one on a remainder table at Borders recently. They're adolescent fiction, so they're quick reads, but they're pretty good. Someone at Border's suggested them to me last year. I gave Cayne the fist one when we were traveling recently and he liked it, devoured the second and third within a matter of days, and insisted on having the fourth one, which had just come out in hardcover, and between a coupon and a sale, it was reasonable. The third one felt unevenly written, but the fourth one, the writing has gone back to what we expected, but the concept is really interesting. I'm enjoying the concept of a reputation economy, though I'm wondering how different some of that is from the way adolescents currently live today.


And the links, since I collect them.

This one talks about post partum sex...someone fears that her vagina will be too loose after giving birth. And also on the subject of vaginae, [livejournal.com profile] slinkr pointed me at The New York Times on the word Va-jay-jay.

This one (text follows behind the cut) is about a woman who was asked to cover up or leave Universal Studios because she was breastfeeding. (The end result, by the way, is that Universal apologized to her, because Florida law allows her to breastfeed in public.)

The Cut )


There's also Abstinence Doesn't Curb Teen Sex

Read about how abstinence fails )

Has anyone looked into Sony's Digital Book Reader? Despite his hatred of Sony, [livejournal.com profile] zedrikcayne has suggested that if I want one, I should get it. I haven't really investigated it much yet, but the idea of being able to read while nursing late at night in the dark if I'm awake, for example, is kind of appealing. It's bigger than a Palm, which is also appealing, as I've always found reading on my Palm screen rather irritating. Does anyone know more about it than I do?

We're also starting to shop for cameras-it's amazing what's become lumped in with "baby expenses" even though they really have very little to do with the baby. The two things that first come to mind are more life insurance and the camera. We're looking for a point and shoot, throw into the diaper bag kind of camera. I bought Mom a Canon of some variety last year, and the camera that I'm replacing (nothing wrong with it but the LCD screen is shot, and frankly, the cost of the LCD replacement isn't worth it) is also a Canon.

In case you haven't read about it already, comment editing is in place for paid users. Can't edit a comment that's already been replied to, but it was nice when it helped me correct some bad HTML today.

Okay, that's enough. It's time for pickles.
geminigirl: (LJ)
(not directed at anyone here btw)

Why is it that when you post a query about something to LJ you get all sorts of information not relevant to your question?

Other question, is related to birthing classes/birth preparation so it's back behind this cut tag )
geminigirl: (Fertility)
17 week, 1 or 2 day (depending on who you ask) ultrasound (my OB says 17w1d, my perinatologist says 17w2d.)

The pants thing, by the way, refers to the fact that today's ultrasound was abdominal, rather than the transvaginal ones that I've been having up til now.



More pics if you click the photo.


The baby has genitals. When I walked in, I told her that I figured she could probably see something at this point, and if she could, to please not tell us anything but whether or not they looked normal. The tech saw them, and said they looked normal, and teased us by telling us that she knew what we were having. I was tempted to ask, but I didn't. I'm glad I didn't. But the more time I spend communicating with expectant mothers, the more distressed I get about the obsession with what bits the baby has. As [livejournal.com profile] baratron said earlier today, "it says A LOT about how obsessed we are with binary sex, yes." So my baby has bits, but I don't know whether they're innies or outies.

other stuff about today's visit and ultrasound )

Maybe one of those ultrasound photos should become a pregnancy icon. Or something, since I've yet to find one.
geminigirl: (Fertility)
So about seven or eight weeks ago, we started a new family tradition here. It's really pleasant, and I'm enjoying it, a whole lot.

On Monday nights (usually) we sit down and read out loud, a chapter of a book together.

Our current choice for Monday night reading...Your Pregnancy, Week by Week.

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