Wednesday, August 22, 2007

So long, farewell, until we meet again... in three years.


I'm, uh, no longer pregnant, rendering my pregnancy-related blog useless. From this point forward, all blogging will merge onto my other site, Prose and Converse. You are cordially invited to join me over there...

Alright, so I'm done with the preggoblogging. Next up? Getting me out of my maternity clothes.

Monday, August 20, 2007

How they get you.

Scenario A:
Cranky baby. Cries for hours. Unappeasable.
Renders mother inable to sleep and/or function, due to constantly tending to baby.

Scenario B:
Sleeping baby. Content for hours. Too good to be true.
Renders mother inable to sleep and/or function, due to constantly checking on baby to make sure they're alive.

Sunday, August 19, 2007

Just another manic mom day.

It's been a long day of being a slave to a three-week old. This is nothing new for me, it's my third time, but my brain refuses to go back four years ago, seven years ago, and I feel no more prepared for this than someone going through it for the first time. The fact that I've parented two children already does nothing to ease my mind or boost my confidence- if anything, it compounds the frustration. Why am I not better at this? Why isn't this easier? Why am I overwhelmed by this tiny little person?

My days are easily categorized into two outlooks: I am either enraptured or despondent. The majority of the time, I float around rhapsodically, doting on the baby, my husband, the kids, and the clean house. When things are going well, the bliss I feel is nothing short of euphoria. As soon as that starts to slightly shift, though, I snap. A crying baby presents such a schism to my perfect world that if I can't quickly regain harmony, I'll break down. My mind doesn't want to accept that my baby is anything less than an angel. She can't possibly be cranky- I must be doing something wrong. The fact that she's so freak-of-nature mellow 90% of the time makes the other 10% absolutely unbearable for me, when in reality, I should be thanking my lucky stars that I have it so easy.

Today was a hard day, harder than most, and every minute that passes in silence is like a little gift wrapped up and hand-delivered by an angel. My peace is contingent on the baby's peace, and seeing her lay still and satiated, her long eyelashes resting shut on plump pink cheeks, I can feel the frustration drain and the euphoria wash over me once again.

Something you're never prepared for enough as a mother is how viscerally you will react to every emotion your baby expresses. When your child is happy, it is nearly impossible to be anything but. An unhappy baby makes you want to hurl yourself out the window. These tiny little screaming people, weighing less than a bowling ball, are much worse than your cranky boss, the bully on the playground, that girl who stole your boyfriend in high school, or any petty argument you've had with your spouse. It's like your mother, saying, "I'm not mad, I'm just really disappointed in you." Only she's screaming it. In your ear. For five straight hours. And as much as you'd love to walk around with them some more, your body really isn't being cooperative since it's still mad about the severe trauma it went through to get that baby here in the first place.

So it's almost 10, the baby is finally asleep for the first time all day, and here I am. What you can't see is the bottle of beer and huge stack of candy in front of me. The house is finally silent except for the rattle of the washing machine (baby spit up on the sheets) and the hum of the dryer (baby poop on my favorite blanket). After being on the brink of a meltdown all day, I don't think I'm going to empty the dishwasher, or fold the laundry, or pay the bills. I am just going to sit, greedily, in silence, and just finally relax.

Or not.

Hubby just called to say he was on his way home, and the phone woke the baby, who is now half-grunting, half-crying, and wholly making me want to grunt and cry as well.

...back to the drawing board...

Thursday, August 16, 2007


Reagan was officially liberated of her uterine confines July 29th at 12:47pm...

I promise to get back on track soon.
Well, soonish.
I'm trying, I really am!!!

Saturday, July 21, 2007

The only time I've used the metric system all year.

According to Wikipedia:
A centimetre (American spelling: centimeter, symbol cm) is a unit of length in the metric system, equal to one hundredth of a metre, which is the current SI base unit of length. It can be written as 10×10− 3 m (engineering notation) or 1 E-2 m (scientific E notation) — meaning 10 × 1 mm or 1 m / 100 respectively. The centimetre is the base unit in the now deprecated centimetre-gram-second system of units.

Though for many physical properties, SI prefixes for factors of 103 are often preferred by technicians, the centimetre remains a practical unit of length for many everyday measurements. A centimetre is approximately the width of the fingernail of an adult person.



Other fun facts about the centimeter:
That's precisely how dilated my cervix was, as of yesterday.

Wish me luck of the "quick and painless labor" variety, and shoot up a quick prayer in the "healthy baby" category...

Friday, July 20, 2007

Reagan needs...

...to get out of my belly.

I told her if she can make it out before my birthday (on Monday), I'd get her
this. It's got a little ruffled butt, I think it's a fair trade/bribe/whatever.

Tuesday, July 17, 2007

Further evidence that this baby has taken over brain as well as belly...

Someone has a birthday coming up next week OK OK IT'S ME! IT'S ME! but I completely forgot about it until Chris asked me if there was anything special I wanted. The first 8 things that came to mind were from My New Favorite Baby Website and, um, not exactly for me.

The perfect present this year? (Get your insulin shots ready...)
A healthy baby!

Or, um, a healthy baby AND one of everything from here!

Friday, July 13, 2007

Update...

My NST went alright today... the baby didn't respond until the very end, but be that as it may, all signs point to a healthy baby. Phew.

In other news, I finally finished Reagan's wall hanging- you know, the only productive thing I've done all year? Yeah, I'm kind of proud of that. :0)

The Finished Product:

Reagan's Wall
You know the Blogger drill, you best be clicking the picture to see the whole thing...


And let me pose a question to my lovely readers:
Is it just me in all my hormonal glory, or is the song "Isn't She Lovely?" by Stevie Wonder impossible to listen to without crying? It's been stuck in my head all day, and I'll start singing it to myself, only to have tears fall down my cheeks before I get to the "less than one minute old" part. I am so ready to have this baby!!!

And now, home made tacos and cartoons with the kids...

Thursday, July 12, 2007

Non-Stress Test? Can't I just eat more ice cream?

I went to the doctor today, hoping to be greeted in the exam room with a bottle of champagne, a box of See's candy, and a bouquet of gerber daisies from my nurse practioner as she exclaimed "SUPRISE! We're going to induce you today!"

And then I woke up.

In reality, the visit started off business-as-usual. I was strapped up to the monitor by two thick velcro bands that wrapped around my belly, each with a different sensor being pressed against my skin. For forty five minutes, I laid in various positions on the scratchy white paper that covered the examining table, with the whoosh-whoosh-whoosh of Reagan's heartbeat nearly lulling me off to sleep. A strip of pink paper was feeding out of a printer showing the steady rise and fall of Reagan's heartbeats in perfectly even waves. There was a line on the other side of the paper with jagged peaks spaced between straight lines, like a seismograph, that was tracking contractions. Between the two was a solid line, straight with a few very small bumps.

It was the middle line that concerned the nurse. She had me roll over to my side, and then the other side, and even gave me some Hershey's Kisses to eat. The center line, the line that is supposed to track fetal movement, stayed placid. It was very uncharacteristic of Reagan, who usually acts like she's already going to be one of those chronic pencil-tappers or foot-bouncers, the people who annoyed you in class because they just can't effing sit still for thirty seconds. Every time the doctor pushes on my belly, Reagan usually pushes back. If they've got the Adult Contemporary station turned down in the examining room, you can barely make out Reagan taunting "Wanna wrassle?" into the Doppler monitor. A mellow Reagan is just not a Reagan.

Because of that, I've got to go back to the doc tomorrow for what's called a Non-Stress Test, which is basically where they monitor the baby to see her heartbeat responds to stimuli. The name comes from the fact that it's a non-invasive procedure which doesn't stress the fetus.

Oh yeah, non-stress! No stress at all! My baby's not moving, no big deal. THAT'S ABSOLUTELY NOT STRESSFUL AT ALL FOR ME. Of course I'm concerned about the baby's well being, but what the hell kind of stress could Reagan be under? Maybe she's getting a little worked up over the fact that a bunch of strangers are going to see her bare bum when she's born, or she's really sweating the decision of which parent to puke on first? (For the record, I nominate Dad.)

Maybe that last part was a bit too cavalier. I'm extremely aware of all the things that could go wrong at this point, all the ways that a fetus actually can be under stress. I've worried about all the what-if-she's-being-strangled-by-her-umbilical-cord and what-if-they-need-to-do-an-emergency-c-section, but the doc assured me that her heartbeat is strong so she's ok, she was probably just sleeping, but they don't want me going through the weekend without a double-check.

I still walked out of the doctor's office and cried to Chris on the phone, scared and stressed and exhausted and grumpy all overflowing from my tear ducts and reducing me to a sniffly whiner. I hung up the phone and was in the process of wiping the wet mess off my face when, like a little whisper of reassurance, I felt a flutter in my stomach. There she was, just a little kick, a little "Hey Mom, don't worry!" I smiled and teared up again, calmed. Then she proceeded to do an entire breakdance routine, causing extreme discomfort and being more than a little show-offy. I called Chris back, to tell him that not only was his daughter fine, but also a bit of a punkass.

At first, I thought that strange quality in his voice was relief, and then my Wifey Radar was able to hone a more accurate description: it was pride.

"Oh good, I'm glad she's moving now. You had me so worried!
(Pause.)
Yup. She's definitely a Cantwell."

Wednesday, July 11, 2007

Self-fulfilling prophecy

Many moons ago, Chris started calling me "Penguin" as a term of endearment. I have no idea when it started exactly, and if it was contextual to anything at the time, but it stuck. It took about 9 months, but I've grown into my nickname, a fact that was documented by my daughter today as we were walking through a parking lot.

"Hey Mom, when you walk fast like that, you remind me of a penguin. But penguins are cute."

"What do you mean 'But penguins are cute'??? I'm cute!"

"Riiiiiight. It's a different kind of cute, though. Penguins are like, "Awww, it's a penguin!" You're like, "DANG look at that huge wobbly lady!"