Breeder Beware

 I am  delirious with exhaustion.  We were up at 8, out the door by 9 30, OB appointment at 10 30,  let Peter take his million lap walk around the ob's office( he loves that we do it every time) home by 12 30,  ( yes, he  ran around outside the office for THAT LONG, imma die) Mom and Rosie were here by 1, I cooked and cleaned while Peter napped.  We went trick or treating after he got up, we handed out candy and then had dinner.  And then cleaned up and put Peter to bed and then it was 8 30 and I have not moved from this couch for a whole hour. 

My OB is very happy with my weight gain, 8-9 pounds so far, my blood pressure, and my blood sugar.

We both agreed that this pregnancy has been easier so far.  Mostly because I can feel the baby move and so am not constantly afraid.

OMG.  Time for bed.


*I came back.  Because I had to share the hilariously passive aggressive thing Mom said today.  Normally I try and give them dinner early because my Mom acts like the PA/NJ border will close if they leave after 4 30.  Anyhow, what with Peter's late nap, and cooking( shepherd's pie and pineapple upside down cake) and tidying and setting the table and trick or treating ETC, we did not have dinner till 6 30.  So I said I was sorry and that I knew she liked to leave earlier and then my sister said 'yes, Mom I am surprised you are not  complaining too" and Mom said " Well I know we are celebrating Halloween and Peter is trick or treating, and we are also celebrating my birthday and so I will save my complaining till later." And she was not being ironic.  TA DA!  That's my Mom.

Jesus Christ.  If I do get gestational diabetes am I so fucked.  I started monitoring my blood sugar a few days ago to see if I need to worry yet.  I can take the fasting blood sugar no problem, and the one after dinner no problem. Because hello, my husband is home.  But everything else has been somewhat disastrous.

Yesterday I brought the kit with me to take it at the grocery store but I forgot, and then I started to get shaky by the time we had checked out and got to the car.  I got Peter into his carseat and my blood sugar was 74, maybe 2 and a half hours after I ate breakfast.  I felt awful.  I had a truffle in my purse so I ate that and felt a little better, but I still had to get Peter home, unpack the car, feed him and get him to nap.  Then I had to eat.  Then I rested for a bit because I felt like crap.  I started dinner and got as far as browning the stew meat and chopping the onions when Peter woke up furious and also after only about an hour( after waking up at 6 30 a.m.) and sooooo I brought him downstairs where he had a 45 minute tantrum of epicness.  At some time during that point I should have tested my blood sugar.  Obviously that did not happen.  Then it took me about two hours to peel and cut the carrots and peel and cut the potatoes.  Freaking FOUR carrots and FOUR potatoes but Peter was not behaving and I could not leave him alone. 

I was completely worn out and so put on a farm show on Net.F.lix to distract him while I cleaned out the sink before the potato peels got all nasty.  Peter was so excited by the farm show that he kept trying to climb into the tv.  So it was not as restful as I had hoped. By this time it was a quarter to six and I was pretty sure dinner was not going to be ready on time.  Soooooo Mr and I conferred and ordered take out while the delicious scent of stew dic.k tea.sed us. 

Peter would not eat, and  had another tantrum at the table and then while Mr. and I tried to eat, Peter tried to climb the living room walls.  Then it was thankfully, blessedly bedtime. 

Today was somewhat easier and Peter slept till seven, ( I hear him awake now and he has only been napping freaking half an hour OMG I still have laundry and dishes and etc PLEASE BABY, PLEASE GO BACK TO SLEEP) and I set the stove timer to remind me when to check my b/s.  I was only a bit off.  Then we went for a walk.  No snack.  I should have because I was all shaky again by noon when I was attempting to feed Peter lunch. I say attempting because he hates to eat real food.  And really if I have a small snack while feeding him and then my real lunch after I put him down, when do I take my b/s?  From the small snack?  From lunch?  Will I be chasing Mr. Cranky at testing time anyhow so it does not matter? 


Uggggghhhhhh. 

This weekend we are doing some Christmas shopping, and it will be our only in person shopping this season.  Everything else will be online.   I need drugs.  AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

Yowie.  The baby is moving every day and it makes me so happy.  I cannot begin to compare the difference between this pregnancy and my pregnancy with Peter.  It is very reassuring to know at least a few times a day that everything is fine. 

We have another batch of apple butter on the stove and this coming weekend( we decided only to can on the weekends) I am making carrot cake jam.  It sounds AWESOME.  It has carrots, pears, and pineapple in it and the spices you would use in carrot cake.  Then the week after we are making either a cranberry mustard or ketchup depending on how much cranberries cost in November.  And then pear-ginger jam and lastly blood orange marmalade.  If I can find them.  Otherwise I might make a citrus blend with grapefruit and clementine and naval oranges.  But I really want the last two because the colors will be so pretty.  So far everything we have made is brown.  Tasty, but brown.  We are leaning to making everyone gift baskets with the jams and stuff and spiced nuts.  Yum yum. 

I am really enjoying canning, I think it is partially me and partially a pregnancy thing.  I never did any nesting at all with Peter, but maybe that has something to do with it.  I love choosing the recipe and shopping for the ingredients and cooking it and using the food mill and then canning it is interesting too.  And then you have the fun of looking at everything you made. 

We told Mom yesterday.  We stopped at BRU and got Peter a Big Brother shirt and of course Mom did not notice so we had to tell her to look at his shirt.  She asked" Why is Peter wearing a big brother shirt?"
 That's my mom.
And she immediately got on my nerves too.  Mr. and I were talking about it on the way home because I snapped at her twice.  She asked me "how do you feel?" three times in four hours. Which certainly sounds innocuous when I type it out but we agree that her tone sounds dire/pitying and she seems ever so slightly let down when I reply that I feel fine. I actually felt tired, but if you tell her that it feeds into it.  After the third time, followed by her saying well of course I must have had miserable morning sickness( nope) and are they monitoring me Very Closely??? I snapped that I did not have cancer.  And then Mr. told her that he treats me exactly as if I were not pregnant because anything else irritates me.

Which is mostly true.  If I need help I ask for it and if I am too tired to do something I tell him. But I don't mind other people asking me how I feel because when they ask it is just a question.  When Mom asks, it is so laden with subtext that you could choke.  But at least telling her is done.  Yuck.  I think I could have hidden it a bit longer, but it really depends because my body looks more or less pregnant depending on the time of day and where the baby is.  Mainly I needed Mr. there because I could not stand the idea of telling her or having her figure it out(unlikely) alone and having no one to deflect her smothering away from me.  Plus she made me crazy by already saying that when I am pregnant I am crabby.  No.  I am just less tolerant of your bullshit.  I am ALWAYS as aggravated by it, but when not pregnant I can hide it better. 

Anyhow, Mom is annoying yadda yadda.  This is a really disjointed post because I get up every two or three sentences to stir the apple butter. 

It's my birthday this week, I will be 37.  Mom and my sister are coming for lunch and my Dad and stepmom are coming for dinner.  Which is nice.  Peter will be so excited.  As berserk as Mom can make me, Peter loves her and she loves him.  ( Side note- when we were visiting them on Saturday Mom complained that Peter was ignoring her.)

Speaking of being older and decrepit, my sister asked on Saturday if the baby factory was closed.  I did not say anything and Mr. said he was not sure.  He said it would all depend on what happened with this one.  If the third trimester is very difficult with a c-section than most likely we are done because it would be too hard to do it a third time with two children at home.

We have talked about it some, and though I am most concerned about my age ( best case scenario I would be 40) he is more worried about money and a bigger car and would we need to move and then the whole I am old, OLD, OLD thing. 

So on the way home I told him that it was completely up to him and that he would be the one deciding all by himself.  Because I am thrilled at the miracle of a second child and would love a third, something I was certain was beyond our reach.  We agreed that we would not use an RE.  I told him that while it would suck that I might not be around after the last child hit forty ( because my family is FULL OF THE CANCER and it makes sense to be realistic) I told him that probably no one wishes they had never been born just because their parents are older than most or because their Mom passed away when they were 45.  But no matter what I told him it would be 100% his choice because I did not ever want him to feel that I had pushed him into such a huge decision.  And that my big fear was that if we did have a third child and something went wrong that he would blame me.  He said he would never do that, but you can't help what you feel. 

And so  that is the last I am going to bring it up to him till I suppose this baby is weaned and getting pregnant becomes a possibility and then we will have to choose a birth control(  the idea that we might need b.c. always makes me laugh).  Struck by lightening twice?  Riiiiiiiiiight.  So all we have decided is that we have not decided. 

I love our life, but I hate that infertility made choosing our family's size a bigger deal than it is for most people.

True story.  We figure I will be big and cranky by December- best case scenario.  Worst case being bed rest.  Either way, not a very jolly place to be when you have a lot to do.  I recall (and Mr. VIVIDLY recalls) what it was like trying to cook and bake and clean and shop for Christmas while pregnant with Peter.  Exhausting.  SO hard.  Sooooo we have started pecking away at our Christmas stuff. 

We are canning this year instead of making pineapple vodka or fudge. So far we have made 8 jars of apple butter and as we speak I have about 8 jars of peach/mango ketchup cooking away on the stove top.  We are also making  8 jars of cranberry ketchup, 8 of orange marmalade and 8 more apple butter( Saturday night), 9 of pear ginger jam, and 4 of one that is super intriguing and called carrot cake jam.  It has pineapple in it.  I am only making a little of the carrot cake jam because I figure not everyone will want to try it though I think it would be great over baked brie or or as a cake filling.  I hope everyone likes the stuff we are making.  It is great because we will be able to have it all made by the end of November before I get too unwieldy. 

The other awesome thing about canning is that since I did not choose expensive things like apricots or raspberries, it is much cheaper than making fudge or heaven help us, vodka. Next year should be even better since we will have our own strawberries and should have enough to make jam.  It takes a lot of time, but we have that.  Sort of.  I mean it isn't a picnic to stay up this late and cook but since we are canning no more than one or two things a week it is not awful. 
I am still going to make sugar cookies and rugelach and some quick breads, but not our usual holiday craziness.  I can make the cookie dough and the rugelach dough ahead in November and then even make the rugelach and bake them as needed. They are a huge HUGE pain in the ass to make and take a long time and make a big mess, but they taste amazing.  And I can decorate the sugar cookies sitting down.  Once we finish the canning I will start the cookie dough.

All our shopping is going to be online this year, except when we go to the Sugarloaf Craft Festival at the end of this month.  I am ordering a lot of stuff from Etsy this year because someone I know has a shop and makes very nice things( she is linked at the top of my blog- I am ordering bags) and I am looking forward to supporting her while getting cute things for my friends and family. 

It is a quarter to 12, I hope we can be finished before one a.m.  I thought this recipe would go faster than the apple butter but I had enough ingredients to make a double batch (initially I was only going to make four jars and just keep it for us since it is supposed to be popular with kids and I hoped Peter might eat chicken or something if he can dip them in this) and so it took longer to chop and cook and FOREVER to puree, I had to first put it through the food mill and then through a fine mesh sieve because tomato seeds are GROSS.  Ick. Seeds. 

Team Blue!  Peter will have a little brother in March.  We are very excited though we both admit to a slight wistfulness about how a girl would have been nice.  But I know we would have felt that either way, and really all we actually care about is that the baby looks healthy.  I talked about it more with the doctor, and he said the odds of Down Syndrome or the other one( I forget the other) is 1/6000 so that is great.  I do think a brother will be much more fun for Peter and am trying to get my husband to call me Queen of the Sausages.  In fact, the high risk dr said everything looks so good that unless my blood pressure or GD comes back I won't have to go to their office again. 


Are we taking bets on my GD coming back?  Because hello, I am assuming it will.  The scan took a long time and Peter had to go out to the hallway with Daddy for a while to run amuck.  We had poor Peter up at 7 a.m. and out the door by 7 15. That is not far off from his usual wake time, but I think he was still tired.   He was in a fine state by naptime.  Hopefully he will take a long nap and wake up happy.  Or at least less miserable.  The baby was really high up, right below my rib cage. I told the u/s tech that I thought my uterus was supposed to be just level with my belly button now but she said it can be different with your second baby.  The great news is that my placenta is at the top of my uterus, and so hopefully the baby will use the front door and not the window to come out.

I am way stoked to be dodging a second baby shower, which I feel would be really tacky since I had a huge one for Peter not too long ago.  I have to go move the car, it's two feet from the curb because Peter was crying too loudly for me to concentrate when we got home. 

Tomorrow we are HALF BAKED!  It is very exciting.  And Wednesday is our big ultrasound.  Oh little person, we can not WAIT to see you!

It  should be somewhat of a  circus, in that we have no one to watch Peter so we will have him up and out the door by 7 15 and then he will have to be there with us.  He was pretty good at the 12 week ultrasound, and did not get crazy till the end. 

I can't believe we have made it this far.  I am going to have some cereal and go to bed.  Last night I fell asleep sitting on the couch playing on FB. 

It feels like December 22 and we are jumping around waiting for Santa.

Mom was not that mom-like.  I mean, she turned down the lunch I had preplanned and made two phone calls and three emails about and she pouted because Peter would not do all the dancing and animal sounds she wanted.  Soooo I told her he was not a trained dog.  But really on a mom-scale it was very calm. 

They had a good time and Peter was sorry when they left.  I was happy, because I was tired of pretending not to be pregnant.  Mom cast a few suspicious glances at me, but since I purposely chose a very unflattering shirt she might have just been thinking that I looked WAY DUMPY.  And I so did.  But Mission Averted!  My sister asked me if I was going to tell Mom that day and I breathed Fire Onto Her and said NO.  She can wait till after the gender scan.

Peter was up six times last night between 9 30 and 6 30 .  Awesome.  On the plus side, I'd be up that often to pee anyway.  We think he is constipated, but the suppository we gave him this morning did not work.  Hopefully the cider and miralax I just gave him will.  Otherwise I am gonna have to go to the store and get an enema.  I don't even know how to use one of those.  But he has been trying to poop for two days and it has been...not that productive.  I suppose I could pick up some corn today.  He would not eat his carrots last night.

Wow.  I do feel some movement every day and I am so thankful for it.  We have just ten more days to go till the next ultrasound.  We are very excited about it.  We have two front runners for names, and now that I feel the baby move a few times a day- usually at night, I am not so filled with fear.  There is still fear, kind of on the edges but it isn't how it was with Peter. 

The big black cloud on the horizon is LITERALLY on the horizon, Mom is coming over tomorrow.  Which means that it is better than likely that she will notice something.  I spelled it out VERY CLEARLY to my sister tonight that she was not to drop hints or anyfuckingthing.  My hope is that Mom will be too self involved to notice.  That way Mr. and I can tell her together after the big ultrasound on the 19th.  Not that I'll want to tell her then either, but at least I'll have gotten through half the pregnancy without her nagging. 

I am not looking forward to it.  Not one little bit.  Well, except for the part where I can wear maternity clothes all the time instead of wearing the dumpiest thing I can find to hide the baby from her.  SHE IS NOT TOUCHING ME. 

*A very special note to people with uncrazy mothers:

I'm sorry that you have no idea how to process this.  Hopefully you have been reading my blog long enough to be familiar with my Mother and perhaps it has made you appreciate your uncrazy mother more.  Yes, it's true that some people actually dislike their mothers.  HI.  My mom is a self centered, narcissistic, loon and she loves me in her own way and thinks we have a good relationship.  Which I am fine with.  But I won't pretend here.  I love her, but I do not like her, and she is more of a burden and a responsibility to me than anything else.  Occasionally I can enjoy time with her, but mostly I am stress eating and snapping at her passive aggressive/low self esteem/black hole of emotional needs. 

Dear Baby of the Future,

I'm sorry your 19 week post sounds so weird.  Your Grandma loved you, but made me batshit crazy.  I promise you'll never feel quite the same way about me and that the worst I will ever to do you is sing loudly in front of your friends. Unless the YMCA is playing, in which case I will also dance.

love,

mama

I had my ob appointment today.  I have gained five pounds total so far, which is pretty good considering I have been eating and eating and EATING.  Last night I had dinner, and then a bowl of cereal and THEN a tomato sandwich.  And I was still hungry. 

My blood pressure was good, and the baby sounded good.  My poor ob's( there are two in the practice) son was sick so we were waiting over an hour for our appointment.  Peter was really good, but got understandably crabby. He has only been taking 45 minute naps each day and is up from 7 a.m. till 8 p.m.  I am a tired woman. 

I was given the ok to go to my parents new house as long as we stop every two hours for me to walk around.  I described this weird thing I have been feeling and the ob said it was contractions but not to worry about it unless it does not stop.  She said it is normal with all the activity I am getting and with lifting Peter. She said she wants me to keep getting all this exercise.  Then she said I would just feel them more and more. 

When we take our walks, and especially if I have to carry Peter or pick him up my uterus feels like it turns into a hard ball, it's weird.

Anyhow, I have to go because Peter is OF COURSE, awake.  I tried to get him to nap after our appointment since I know he is exhausted but he is not having it.  So I am sure he will be in a stellar mood for the rest of the day.  My next appointment is on Halloween.

I know it is the baby moving.  I know it.  It's so comforting. And relaxing. I did not feel Peter move even a little till I was a month more pregnant than now.   It's wonderful. We're going to bed.

Holy Bananas!  I can't really believe it but tomorrow marks two weeks to half baked.  We still have not told Mom or in fact many people.  My neighbor that knows told me yesterday that I only have a few days left before I can't hide it anymore.  I would happily let everyone find out in a birth announcement if I could.  Except then I would create a huge mess of hurt feelings. And while I don't really care about that, I do care that I would have to listen to people go "blah blah blah" about it.   How about my feelings? Even if they are irrational, they are still mine. (I feel like that sounds selfish and whiny, but if I can't be selfish and whiny here, where then?)Well either way, we'll be telling general people after Thursday I suppose.  I would really rather wait till after the 20 week ultrasound, but I say that about every ultrasound and every doctor's appointment. How messed up is my relationship with my Mom when as SOON as I get pregnant I start dreading her knowing? 

I'm trying to decide if I should put it on Fertilitybook.  I have one infertile friend who is at the beginning of treatment on FB. I have not told her yet, though she does not seem to harbor any bitter feelings about other people being pregnant.

If I put it on FB, then I can tell a bunch of people at once, which is the cowards way out.  And looking pretty appealing.  Will people be mad?  Do I care?  I don't know.  The big bad is telling Mom.  UGH.  I always hoped she would have died before I had kids, I am sure that is hard for people with normal relationships with their mothers to understand, but it's true.  No matter how much she makes me crazy though, she adores Peter and is a very good grandma.   I am glad they have each other and glad for her that she has lived long enough to enjoy Peter.  Peter is always thrilled to see her.

Annnnyhow, I still think I am feeling the baby maybe once a day.  The baby WANTS PUMPKIN.  So did Peter.  Pumpkin anything.  I made a pie and am making pumpkin bread tomorrow. 

We had EXTREME POONAMI PART TWO on Friday.  Worse.  Worse than anything poo related I could imagine in my germaphobe ly.sol loving heart.

Peter had a blowout with diarrhea, and it went down his leg to puddle on the rug.  I smelled this awful smell that I thought was an electrical fire or something.  I went around sniffing and unplugging things and smelling outside to see if it was a neighbor.  Then I saw the puddle and thought it was cat puke.  Then I realized it was NOT cat puke.  And while I was looking for the nonexistent fire Peter tracked poo all over the carpet.  So I had to be calm-ish.  Indiana was sniffing it because he thought it might be fun to eat.  HOLY BALLS NO! Then, I took Peter upstairs and bathed him and put him to sleep and then it took two hours to clean and shampoo the carpet.  Which took all weekend to dry because it is a really dense rug.  It took hours and hours to clean the collateral damage.  Poopy laundry and the poopy tub and wash the floor and clean the carpet cleaner and scour the sink that I cleaned the carpet cleaner in, and take out the poopy smelly garbage and go buy more lysol and etc etc etc.  It was every bit as bad as you can imagine.  Should you in fact choose to imagine something like that.