March 2008 Archive
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March 29, 2008
Pregnancy Update
So we are into the third trimester (I'm at about 30 weeks) and entering the homestretch, so I figure it's time for a pregnancy update here. I am, of course, keeping a pregnancy blog with all sorts of icky details, but that is closed to all but a select few. If you're interested - particularly if you're pregnant, or thinking about it, or have recently been pregnant, drop me a note. I do think it's important to talk about these things more than we generally do, but don't feel the need to share details of my bodily fluids with the entire Internetz. Anyway, here's some of the scoop so far.First, and least attractively (hehe), if you want to help us prepare for TheLittleGuy's arrival, we have created a couple of baby registries. One is at BuyBuyBaby (what a horrible, horrible name for a store) and the other is at Amazon. Search on my name (or TheGuy's name should get you to the right place, too.) Several people have asked what our color scheme is for the nursery. I say "Nursery?" "Color scheme?" "Buh??" Oh the poor kid, with a pragmatic geek for a mama. First, he'll be sleeping in our room for awhile and he won't be able to see well for months, so we're not fussing too much about a nursery (although we're obviously clearing space for his endless piles of stuff.) Second, we'll wait until he has an opinion and can verbalize it to think about what sort of colors to do his room in. (When I was a child I got to pick a color for my room and chose dark purple - it stayed that way for more than a decade - hope the kid chooses well!)
When TheGuy and I got married, we were all modest and stuff and didn't register anywhere (we were old, too, didn't need a toaster). We even suggested a couple of charities people could donate to. But I am feeling no such nobility with respect to the child. He's going to need a lot of loot! We're fortunate to have super-generous friends around who are helpfully loaning us things, but there's always more that's needed. Hence, the registries. I am finding it very hard not to buy loads of stuff for him -- but we are being disciplined and not buying much of anything until after the baby showers. In particular, I keep seeing plushies I want to get -- but he has a plush bear from his Aunt already for Christmas, and I just must restrain myself!
While I have not enjoyed being pregnant at all, really, there has not been a whole lot of drama so far with one exception. We found out a couple of weeks ago that I'm a cystic fibrosis carrier. There is no history of it in my family, so that was very unexpected. (Given that we, uhh, weren't really working very hard to conceive, there is no way we would have been tested pre-conception.) So, we had to have TheGuy tested. He's not a carrier - at least not of the most common genes - so TheLittleGuy only has about a 1/1000 chance of having it. I figure he's got a 1/1000 chance of any number of weird things just by virtue of being human, so I can now put this back into the set of background worries. But it was a very stressful couple of weeks.
Other than that, and apart from the first trimester puking and general exhaustion all the way through, the worst physical thing for me has been terrible hip aches. (I just try to tell myself this is a productive pain and will make for an easier delivery as the bones are moving apart.) We bought a thick memory foam topper for the mattress, which has helped, but I'm still pretty uncomfortable. And it made me start moving pretty slowly even before he really popped out belly-wise. Emotionally, I find the whole process to be fairly high-stress and high-anxiety -- it's a by-product of being over-educated, I think -- I know far, far too many things that could go wrong at every stage. And my training in software makes me obsess a bit about edge cases and boundary conditions. But thus far, all is checking out pretty normally, although I hold my breath at every appointment until we get the all-clear. At this point, the major thing to worry about is blood pressure/pre-eclampsia. So far, so good, but it can happen suddenly. Rrrrr.
As for TheLittleGuy himself, he's not so little! We've had 3 ultrasounds and he's measured ahead of dates at each one. At the last one they said he was measuring about 2 weeks ahead. I don't have gestational diabetes (which can cause large babies), but I and my sister were both big babies (I was more than 9 pounds and 22.5 inches long when I was born, apparently), and the men in my family are all built like football players, so it looks like we're building a little linebacker. Aside from the whole inflection point of delivery (stretch, little pelvic bones, stretch!) I don't mind - big babies always seems less fragile to me. He has periods of interactivity and he and TheGuy have played pattycake together a few times. But, if it's possible to attribute personality based on the very scant data I get from him moving around, he seems like a mellow kid. (Please, please, please....) He's not kicking and punching the crap out of me like I hear some women talk about. He's just moving and flexing and trying to get comfortable, I think.
TheGuy is managing everything (loads of house stuff/baby-prep and an occasionally sobbing wife) brilliantly so far. However, he did grow his beard out in January and it came in mostly white! I half-way attribute that to an after-effect of the shock of our mutual fertility (after all, who knew???). He's also taken over all of the cat-care duties (including a few vet trips) and various routine activities around the house. For awhile, I couldn't feed the cats because the smell of their food made me puke. Then I was having some reflux issues, so I didn't want to bend over, and now I just plain can't bend over comfortably - so the cats' loyalties have shifted to TheGuy. They even sleep on his side of the bed, now - I probably toss and turn too much for them.
Speaking of the house, we are racing the clock to upgrade a few more appliances and furniture pieces before TheLittleGuy arrives. We just figure it will be easier to deal with all of this before there's an infant in the house - otherwise we'd have spread much of this (and attendant expenses; sigh) out over a year or two, I suspect. The two big things that won't get done are new flooring and interior painting. Those are now deferred for at least a couple of years (unless we move). But, we have gotten a new washer/dryer (to deal with the upcoming piles of laundry), a new hot water heater, and are planning to add a freezer downstairs and replace the range. Oy. And that's just the appliances...
If TheLittleGuy sticks to his schedule, we've got just about two and a half months to get as ready as we can before the massive sleep deprivation begins. Tick, tock. Tick tock.
<=> | in: Journaling
3 Comments --
Lyn,
Long time since the Ivy League. I still check your site on occasion and was shocker to learn of your breeder status. Been working on some breeding myself. My first son Zachary (2 years) was 11.5 lbs, but they only estimated him at 10.5 lbs on the sono. You'll be surprised at how heavy a baby can be. My next two sons, twins 2 month olds were 8 lbs and 7 3/4 lbs. Much lighter, but when you consider they shared a room for 9 months, it was nearly 16 lbs of baby.The sleep deprivation is the worst part in the end.
Posted by: Mike Cosh on March 31, 2008
well, you're almost there. my hips killed me both times. i don't think i got any sleep the last month.
i'd love to read you're preggo journal too. i think once one is a mom one is iresistably drawn to all things pregnancy/baby related. :)
i'll check the registries, but do you have a sling/pouch picked out? it's my signature baby gift, but if you already have one it doesn't make sense to duplicate it.
Posted by: toni on April 1, 2008
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March 25, 2008
Virginia for the Haters
There is a lot TheGuy and I like about living in Virginia, but sometimes some of the idiot haters down in Richmond remind me of some of the things we really don't. The latest "conservative" display of bigotry and hate here in the great Commonwealth is rightwing Attorney General McDonnell claiming that state universities in Virginia do not have to offer in-state tuition to U.S.-born students whose parents happen to be undocumented immigrants. The ACLU of VA's Executive Director says:Under the AG’s line of reasoning, a U.S. citizen born in Virginia and who has spent his entire life here could be denied in-state tuition because his parents are not lawfully present. That’s patently unfair and a bit preposterous, if you think about it. At the very least it violates a fundamental tenet of U.S law -- that you do not punish children for the actions of their parents.It's not only bigoted, it's anti-American, and anti-education. But, I'm not really surprised.
These days, of course, stuff about education is starting to become personal for us. If we still happen to be in Virginia when it's time for TheLittleGuy to go to college, I will certainly encourage him to consider some of Virginia's fine colleges and universities to help save his poor parents some money. (I'll be suggesting options outside of VA too, I'm sure.) Hopefully, whatever wingnut Taliban-types are in office at the time won't be trying to deny access to education to my kid simply because his mother has some trait(s) they find undesirable. But, you know they would if they could.
<=> | in: Civil Rights & Feminism / Parenting / Religion & Politics / Republicans / State & Local
March 20, 2008
Oh, Never Mind
So I had this long post written about Obama's pastor, Clinton's campaign tactics, the media getting ready to turn like jackals on Obama, the super-delegates, and various other such primary-related things. But really, what's the point? I lamented to a friend of mine across the pond (in the UK) the other day: leave it to the Democrats to find a way to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. It is just too annoying for words. Why waste the electrons?<=> | in: Democrats / Federal Politics
1 Comments --
Ha. That spam comment up there, along with your post, sums up my feelings about the presidential election completely. I will dutifully vote for whichever jackass the Dems wind up nominating (Obama, I suppose), but I am very angry to be thinking of it this way, because a couple of months ago I didn't consider either candidate to be a jackass. I guess that's how the Dems campaign, though.
Posted by: Beth on March 26, 2008
March 4, 2008
Just Read Digby
I'm somewhat bored with and not paying much attention to the primaries right now. Although, if I'm honest, I'm probably paying significantly more attention than the average person, given that I'm such a nerd. For all your important political commentary, though, as usual, Digby has been excellent. This post in particular sums up many things extremely well. It's long, but just read the whole thing.Ohhhh, fine. Here are a few pull-quotes of note:
The sexism has been obvious to anyone who can see and those who insist to me that it doesn't exist remind me of nothing so much as Bush supporters who repeatedly exhorted critics to believe Junior or believe their lyin' eyes. I wasn't crazy then and I'm not crazy now. I know what I see [...]The comment thread on this post is interesting too.
Everybody says they want a fighter. Regardless of who you vote for, the woman deserves respect for refusing to back down from that lizard brain sludge.
And I would warn that if unfair and biased press coverage is now a disqualification for elected office, then I think we'd better think long and hard about whether the Democrats are going to be viable as a political party. Bad press for Democrats is part of the package. ( I would also add that I think it was part of the Netroots job to help fight back media bias against all Democratic candidates, even if as individuals we were pulling for a particular one. That did not happen and I think the Netroots failed miserably in one of its primary missions this time out.) [Ed - it was the job of anyone who calls themself a liberal/progressive/Democrat to push back against this nonsense... whether you like the 'netroots' moniker or not..]
Aside from the big 527s we know will be out there impugning Obama's patriotism, there are countless small wingnut welfare operations that have been waiting on the sidelines for eight years for their chance to make big money sliming a new Democratic administration.[...]
There are many wealthy, powerful interests out there that do not want a liberal Democrat to have the power to withdraw from Iraq or renegotiate trade deals or create universal health care and they will not make it easy for Obama to win. Those interests also run the media and a fund a fully functional right wing infrastructure that works to guide the election narrative.
Perhaps it won't happen this time. It's possible that the era of GOP smears is over or that Obama has personal characteristics that render them impotent and useless. But considering the egregiously sexist Clinton coverage in this campaign and the history of terrible coverage for Democratic presidential candidates since 1988, I think the Democrats would be foolish to assume that. The Republicans are very good at feeding these narratives to the press and the press has always shown itself very eager to gobble them up.
<=> | in: Federal Politics / Media Dysfunction
2 Comments --
If all you can find to post about at this point is recycled teeth-gnashing about the presumably sexist coverage Clinton's been getting, then it's true: You're not following very closely.
Posted by: Kevin on March 7, 2008
If all you can find to post about at this point is recycled teeth-gnashing about the presumably sexist coverage Clinton's been getting, then it's true: You're not following very closely.
Yes, because addressing institutionalized and structural sexism is such a silly thing to worry our pretty heads about, I know. So trivial in the grand scheme of things.
More substantively, I guess you weren't paying attention to Digby's point that OBAMA is at risk from the media's love for stupid narratives about Democrats. And it's already starting -- why am I supposed to care what Obama's pastor said, again? Oooo.. let's talk about the scary black people Obama knows?? WTF is that? It's only going to get worse for him, you know. And it's not a competition - structural and institutionalized racism may manifest differently than sexism, but it's still there. Obama's not magically immune from it.
Digby's post concluded by talking about effects on Obama's candidacy -- perhaps it's kind of difficult to see how all of these things are connected, but, really, they are.
Posted by: Medley on March 20, 2008
Hi, Lyn! I tried leaving a comment back when you made your announcement, but I guess you got overwhelmed with "congrats" and your puter gave up:-) So I try again-CONGRATS! Very exciting stuff. I hope that all is going well and if you should feel I am worthy I would love to join the select few who get to see your preggo diary! I love the gory details!!:-)
TYL,
Becky
Posted by: Becky Nelson on March 31, 2008