On the mend (and 39 weeks and Kael is cute)
I thought things were bad when I last posted, in terms of health and lack of sleep. Things managed to get worse. The flu, or whatever it was, has the feature of a persistent cough with no apparent way to relieve it. A cough that serves no other purpose than to exhaust you with coughing fits and keep you from getting more than an hour or so of sleep at any given stretch. Oh, and to make your throat more sore. I wound up staying home Wednesday under pressure from Geoff because I was so tired and clearly not better. I think it was Wednesday night that my eye decided to fall apart, getting red and swollen, and weeping like crazy throughout the night (I have sensitive eyes, but this was a lot worse than usual). That, coupled with coughing, being stuffy, and being pregnant, did not help with sleep. I then made the mistake of going into work Thursday, not feeling remotely better (probably feeling worse, honestly). Things can always get worse, it seems. For the second time in just under a year, I wound up with an inner ear infection. Like the last one, it decided to make its appearance late at night, going from nothing to stabbing pain in a few hours' time. Which is how I wound up at the ER at 3 am Friday morning. No exciting descriptions like "rip-roaring" ear infection, but they gave me drugs, which is all I really needed.
Needless to say, I stayed home Friday, on Vicodin and feeling like various different kinds of crap. But sometime over the weekend my immune system finally managed to pick itself up and do some work. I managed to sleep uninterrupted for over 7 hours Saturday night, even with Kael sleeping in our bed and alternately kicking and cuddling me, followed by another couple hours of sleep after Geoff gallantly took Kael downstairs when he woke up chipper and alert at 8 am. My eye got better, my ear (though nonfunctional) stopped hurting, my cough stopped being so soul-destroying. The fact that I woke up with fairly bad mid-back pain (I guess from all the coughing?) seemed barely worth noticing. I slept well again last (er, the one before last) night, in spite of Geoff apparently coughing like crazy. And in spite of Kael crawling into our bed at some post-midnight hour to cuddle with me (he got kicked out after a bit). I'm still tired, but I feel so much better with even a little quality sleep. I was starting to feel hopeless about ever recovering, and increasingly desperate about how I was going to manage labor when so exhausted to start.
I still can't hear out of my left ear, my back hurts a fair bit when I cough (which I still do, if not as badly as before), and I could definitely use more sleep. But I'm enjoying feeling as good as I do anyway :-)
Standard disclaimers of me being biased, etc. etc. Kael is still a 2 year old, and very much has challenging moments (and sometimes much longer than moments). But, when he's not unusually difficult, his cuteness more than makes up for it. A couple nights ago, Geoff and I were watching a show that wound up having a little violence in it. It was relatively minor, almost cartoonish (though unintentionally so), with one person hitting an armor-clad person with a (dull) sword. However, Kael got concerned over this, saying something about somebody hitting someone, and then came over to me to cuddle. He proceeded to spend the next 10 minutes or so informing me that "I won't be scared", "bunny won't be scared" (he was playing with a small stuffed animal rabbit), "mommy won't be scared", and "daddy won't be scared". At one point, "backpack won't be scared", too. Toddlers can be very earnest when they want to.
We took Kael to one of the Lake Washington beaches in Kirkland on Sunday, actually as a result of one of Kael's difficult "moments". He showed up in our room Saturday morning and wound up throwing a tantrum over not being allowed to have my throat lozenges. I'm not very good at letting him cry it out, so after 5 minutes of him sobbing on the floor, I gave up and picked him up. I wound up distracting him with a print of Haystack Rock on Cannon Beach, where my family used to go on vacation when I was a kid. I told him about how the water is cold, and only crazy children try to swim in it. I told him we'd probably go there some day. Kael latched on to that promise, and started talking about going to the beach, saying it's cold and has rocks. I concluded, it being March, we could certainly deliver a cold beach. And so we did. Just to make sure we hit the "irresponsible parents" nail on the head, we stopped by Ben & Jerry's first to get ice cream*, which we proceeded to eat while sitting on a bench at the beach, in 40º weather on a windy, overcast day. Kael immediately requested to sit on my lap, and gladly accepted the offer of a blanket. But in spite of his chilled state, he insisted on eating his entire (kid-sized) scoop of strawberry ice cream.
*We don't normally get Kael his own dessert, but as this had the potential of being his last weekend alone with his parents, I figured splurging a bit was okay. Geoff thinks we were acting out of guilt. Take your pick.
After ice cream, we let Kael play on the nearby playground equipment for a while, where he progressed from red-nosed to chattering jaw to full body shivers. But whenever we offered to go back to the warm car, he turned us down, usually insisting on more slides. Then he wanted to "go to the beach". So we led him the 20 feet or so from the playground to the beach sand, and up to the water's edge. I'd initially thought we might let him dip his toes in, knowing he would find it too cold to stay in. But the water was choppy, and, well, it was so cold, even I figured it was a bad idea. Apparently Kael is his mother's son, though, as he again declared his intention to "go to the beach", and started taking off his jacket. This is about the point it dawned on me that going to the beach apparently meant swimming. Geoff and I stood there in dumbfounded horror for a bit as our shivering two year old made as if to strip in order to give himself instant hypothermia in the water before we were able to talk him down. Actually, that's not quite true. We made sure to capture Kael's insanity on video. Parents of the year, I tell you.
We promised Kael we'd go back to the beach sometime when it's warmer, but he was still disappointed when we carried him away. Children are crazy.
I've been doing this pregnancy thing for nearly two weeks longer than last time at this point. I've noticed some things that I didn't notice last time, mostly in the aches and pains department, but in some ways I almost seem to feel better. At least, when I went to the gym yesterday, after over a week and a half off and while still recovering from being sick, I found myself wondering if the machine I was on was broken, as it felt too easy. And it claims I burned more calories (by a significant amount) than I have ever done before at that, admittedly wimpy, setting.
I'm still suffering under the delusion that I could go into labor at any point. Strictly speaking, yes I could. Well, not any point - I won't be going into labor in 2 years. Or any time after probably 3 weeks from now (not sure when the must go into labor or we'll induce you cut-off is). Anyway. It is possible that I'll have this kid before 40 weeks, just as it's possible I'll have her after 40 weeks. It turns out I handle the not knowing better when I'm not sick and very sleep-depped, though, so while I still find myself getting hopeful over what amount to random twinges, I'm not sorely disappointed (nor surprised) when they do amount to nothing. Things can always change, of course. I could stop being in a good mood and get grumpy with impatience again. I could hit 40 weeks and get increasingly frantic each day that passes without me going into labor. Geoff's mom and sister are in town for the next couple weeks, so I feel a certain anxiety to perform on their behalves. Not that they'd want that, I know, but it's hard not to want to make their trip worthwhile, especially for Ginny, who flew a long way to be here for this.
I can't wait to be the future me who looks back on my journal and alternately rolls my eyes at my past self or cringes on behalf of the poor people reading my blather. I can hear my thoughts now: "Good grief, would you just get over it? It will happen when it happens!" I'm always glad to provide amusement to my future self ;-)
My checkup today didn't show much progress on the fundal height measurement, so I'm scheduled for an ultrasound on Thursday. I'm really not worried, nor does the midwife appear to be. This is more a "may as well"/"better safe than sorry" thing than a necessity. I admit to being in favor of an ultrasound if only to get another look at our kid, since she's not obliging us any other way. And to get a third (probably equally inaccurate) guess of her size. Though despite those irresponsible wants, I do also want to make sure she's okay. It's just hard to be worried about that when a) she's still reasonably active, if not as active as a few weeks ago, b) changing position and reduced amniotic fluid can reduce fundal height measurements, and c) not gaining weight at this point is not unreasonable (again with amniotic fluid reduction being a reasonable and non-worrisome possibility). Anyway, now I have one more thing to be impatient about. Assuming she doesn't make an appearance before then and make this moot (as I was saying about still being delusional...).
I'm getting increasingly strange looks at work, or so it seems to me. I'm probably just being paranoid. But it kind of amuses me :-) Assuming I continue working past 40 weeks, I'm going to have fun responding to queries of my due date with "yesterday", or "last Wednesday", just to see the horrified looks on their faces :-)
In other news, I really want to be able to go running again :-( That's one of the somewhat more ridiculous reasons for me wanting to have this baby last week: the sooner I have her, the sooner I can get back into running shape. I discovered a few weeks back that I really, really want to be able to run the mother's day half marathon, but that's just not a realistic possibility at this point. A certain wise individual named Ben pointed out that trying to squeeze that kind of training into a 6 week (less, at this point) period is a really great way to get an injury, and what's even more depressing than not being able to the do the half marathon would be not being able to do Ragnar. I love Ragnar too much to take that kind of risk. But if nothing else, at some point I need to start training for Ragnar, and the training schedule is already in its third week. I think I can skip the first month or more of the novice training, but the less I have to cut off, the better.
Needless to say, I stayed home Friday, on Vicodin and feeling like various different kinds of crap. But sometime over the weekend my immune system finally managed to pick itself up and do some work. I managed to sleep uninterrupted for over 7 hours Saturday night, even with Kael sleeping in our bed and alternately kicking and cuddling me, followed by another couple hours of sleep after Geoff gallantly took Kael downstairs when he woke up chipper and alert at 8 am. My eye got better, my ear (though nonfunctional) stopped hurting, my cough stopped being so soul-destroying. The fact that I woke up with fairly bad mid-back pain (I guess from all the coughing?) seemed barely worth noticing. I slept well again last (er, the one before last) night, in spite of Geoff apparently coughing like crazy. And in spite of Kael crawling into our bed at some post-midnight hour to cuddle with me (he got kicked out after a bit). I'm still tired, but I feel so much better with even a little quality sleep. I was starting to feel hopeless about ever recovering, and increasingly desperate about how I was going to manage labor when so exhausted to start.
I still can't hear out of my left ear, my back hurts a fair bit when I cough (which I still do, if not as badly as before), and I could definitely use more sleep. But I'm enjoying feeling as good as I do anyway :-)
Standard disclaimers of me being biased, etc. etc. Kael is still a 2 year old, and very much has challenging moments (and sometimes much longer than moments). But, when he's not unusually difficult, his cuteness more than makes up for it. A couple nights ago, Geoff and I were watching a show that wound up having a little violence in it. It was relatively minor, almost cartoonish (though unintentionally so), with one person hitting an armor-clad person with a (dull) sword. However, Kael got concerned over this, saying something about somebody hitting someone, and then came over to me to cuddle. He proceeded to spend the next 10 minutes or so informing me that "I won't be scared", "bunny won't be scared" (he was playing with a small stuffed animal rabbit), "mommy won't be scared", and "daddy won't be scared". At one point, "backpack won't be scared", too. Toddlers can be very earnest when they want to.
We took Kael to one of the Lake Washington beaches in Kirkland on Sunday, actually as a result of one of Kael's difficult "moments". He showed up in our room Saturday morning and wound up throwing a tantrum over not being allowed to have my throat lozenges. I'm not very good at letting him cry it out, so after 5 minutes of him sobbing on the floor, I gave up and picked him up. I wound up distracting him with a print of Haystack Rock on Cannon Beach, where my family used to go on vacation when I was a kid. I told him about how the water is cold, and only crazy children try to swim in it. I told him we'd probably go there some day. Kael latched on to that promise, and started talking about going to the beach, saying it's cold and has rocks. I concluded, it being March, we could certainly deliver a cold beach. And so we did. Just to make sure we hit the "irresponsible parents" nail on the head, we stopped by Ben & Jerry's first to get ice cream*, which we proceeded to eat while sitting on a bench at the beach, in 40º weather on a windy, overcast day. Kael immediately requested to sit on my lap, and gladly accepted the offer of a blanket. But in spite of his chilled state, he insisted on eating his entire (kid-sized) scoop of strawberry ice cream.
*We don't normally get Kael his own dessert, but as this had the potential of being his last weekend alone with his parents, I figured splurging a bit was okay. Geoff thinks we were acting out of guilt. Take your pick.
After ice cream, we let Kael play on the nearby playground equipment for a while, where he progressed from red-nosed to chattering jaw to full body shivers. But whenever we offered to go back to the warm car, he turned us down, usually insisting on more slides. Then he wanted to "go to the beach". So we led him the 20 feet or so from the playground to the beach sand, and up to the water's edge. I'd initially thought we might let him dip his toes in, knowing he would find it too cold to stay in. But the water was choppy, and, well, it was so cold, even I figured it was a bad idea. Apparently Kael is his mother's son, though, as he again declared his intention to "go to the beach", and started taking off his jacket. This is about the point it dawned on me that going to the beach apparently meant swimming. Geoff and I stood there in dumbfounded horror for a bit as our shivering two year old made as if to strip in order to give himself instant hypothermia in the water before we were able to talk him down. Actually, that's not quite true. We made sure to capture Kael's insanity on video. Parents of the year, I tell you.
We promised Kael we'd go back to the beach sometime when it's warmer, but he was still disappointed when we carried him away. Children are crazy.
I've been doing this pregnancy thing for nearly two weeks longer than last time at this point. I've noticed some things that I didn't notice last time, mostly in the aches and pains department, but in some ways I almost seem to feel better. At least, when I went to the gym yesterday, after over a week and a half off and while still recovering from being sick, I found myself wondering if the machine I was on was broken, as it felt too easy. And it claims I burned more calories (by a significant amount) than I have ever done before at that, admittedly wimpy, setting.
I'm still suffering under the delusion that I could go into labor at any point. Strictly speaking, yes I could. Well, not any point - I won't be going into labor in 2 years. Or any time after probably 3 weeks from now (not sure when the must go into labor or we'll induce you cut-off is). Anyway. It is possible that I'll have this kid before 40 weeks, just as it's possible I'll have her after 40 weeks. It turns out I handle the not knowing better when I'm not sick and very sleep-depped, though, so while I still find myself getting hopeful over what amount to random twinges, I'm not sorely disappointed (nor surprised) when they do amount to nothing. Things can always change, of course. I could stop being in a good mood and get grumpy with impatience again. I could hit 40 weeks and get increasingly frantic each day that passes without me going into labor. Geoff's mom and sister are in town for the next couple weeks, so I feel a certain anxiety to perform on their behalves. Not that they'd want that, I know, but it's hard not to want to make their trip worthwhile, especially for Ginny, who flew a long way to be here for this.
I can't wait to be the future me who looks back on my journal and alternately rolls my eyes at my past self or cringes on behalf of the poor people reading my blather. I can hear my thoughts now: "Good grief, would you just get over it? It will happen when it happens!" I'm always glad to provide amusement to my future self ;-)
My checkup today didn't show much progress on the fundal height measurement, so I'm scheduled for an ultrasound on Thursday. I'm really not worried, nor does the midwife appear to be. This is more a "may as well"/"better safe than sorry" thing than a necessity. I admit to being in favor of an ultrasound if only to get another look at our kid, since she's not obliging us any other way. And to get a third (probably equally inaccurate) guess of her size. Though despite those irresponsible wants, I do also want to make sure she's okay. It's just hard to be worried about that when a) she's still reasonably active, if not as active as a few weeks ago, b) changing position and reduced amniotic fluid can reduce fundal height measurements, and c) not gaining weight at this point is not unreasonable (again with amniotic fluid reduction being a reasonable and non-worrisome possibility). Anyway, now I have one more thing to be impatient about. Assuming she doesn't make an appearance before then and make this moot (as I was saying about still being delusional...).
I'm getting increasingly strange looks at work, or so it seems to me. I'm probably just being paranoid. But it kind of amuses me :-) Assuming I continue working past 40 weeks, I'm going to have fun responding to queries of my due date with "yesterday", or "last Wednesday", just to see the horrified looks on their faces :-)
In other news, I really want to be able to go running again :-( That's one of the somewhat more ridiculous reasons for me wanting to have this baby last week: the sooner I have her, the sooner I can get back into running shape. I discovered a few weeks back that I really, really want to be able to run the mother's day half marathon, but that's just not a realistic possibility at this point. A certain wise individual named Ben pointed out that trying to squeeze that kind of training into a 6 week (less, at this point) period is a really great way to get an injury, and what's even more depressing than not being able to the do the half marathon would be not being able to do Ragnar. I love Ragnar too much to take that kind of risk. But if nothing else, at some point I need to start training for Ragnar, and the training schedule is already in its third week. I think I can skip the first month or more of the novice training, but the less I have to cut off, the better.