Sigh.

Here's what has happened to me this February:

1. I got food poisoning. I always thought that food poisoning was when you ate something and a couple hours later your stomach hurt--you just took some Tums and got over it. I learned that that is not exactly the case after throwing up for five straight hours and being taken the ER. There is nothing quite like vomiting into a plastic bag while a handsome male nurse is pushing drugs through your IV line--and then becoming completely overemotional and crying about how grateful you are for modern medicine. There is also nothing quite like being bedridden for nearly a week while your stomach continues to attempt to empty itself of everything you ingest. Thank you, salmonella.

2. Attempting to get my academic life back on track after missing a week--disastrous. Well, I say disastrous, but in reality that's just the neuroticism acting up. I still feel like I'm behind, but I guess I'm really not.

3. Pax's nine-month doctor's appointment happened. He is HUGE--over 20 pounds and 30" tall. He also eats like a pig, although we're still working on "real" finger food (i.e., not puffs/wheels). The main problem is that Pax loves to shove as much food as possible into his mouth and attempt to swallow without chewing, so everything is a choking hazard. Actually, we spent a lot of time rescuing things from Pax's mouth, food or not... he is really very fond of picking up animal hair and scraps of paper from the floor. He's also starting to look less like a baby and more like a toddler, as evidenced by this photo of my darling son in a bear hoodie:

4. Someone please tell me all of the things ever about Willie Bester. I'm doing my seminar project on him and my research is going too slowly. I have books requested through ILLiad that have somehow vanished from the face of the Earth, and I need those books for the project to be any sort of success. HALP.

5. Doing the student bit with the mother bit is continuing to wear me down to my last bit of sanity. Paxton doesn't think that long-winded scholarly articles on geometry in classical Islamic art are nearly as interesting as I think they are, so I almost never get to actually read what I'm attempting to read on a daily basis. Coupled with an online class that I swear is going to give me an aneurysm by the end of the semester and four summer internship applications that are 50% finished and due by Thursday, I'll be lucky if I'm still alive by spring break... in two weeks.

So, there you have it. That's been my entire month! Hopefully, March will be a bit easier to handle...

The First Snow

It finally got around to snowing in Cleveland a couple days ago. Up until last week, we'd been having unseasonably warm weather... I mean, really, ridiculously unseasonably warm weather. When it is 62 degrees and sunny in northeast Ohio in December, something has got to be wrong.

Inspired by another mom from WTE who lives in the NEO (how's that for acronyms, BTW?), I wanted photos of Paxton outside in the snow. There was one problem with this: the child doesn't have mittens.

We went to Babies 'R' Us, loathsome, soul-sucking store that it is (obviously my feelings about the store have not changed since before my pregnancy) to seek out baby mittens last night. When we finally found the one, teensy rack of winter gear for infants, they only thing they had that was not pink and covered in pom-poms was a powder-blue hat/mitten set, sized 3T/4T. We did not buy it. Babies do not need mittens that badly, I decided.

So this morning, I bundled Pax up and brought him outside. I made my husband take pictures of us in the cold. Less than five minutes later, we were inside, enjoying a warm bath.

Worth it? Oh, yes. Look at his cute little confused face:

For the record, Pax was wearing his footed Superman PJ's underneath a pair of fleece footed pants, insulated jeans, a hoodie, hat and coat. This is proof that babies look cute in pretty much anything, whereas their mothers don't fare so well in winter gear, which only makes them look chunky. Therefore, silly moms like me go outside for photos in what they deem to be cute "wintery" outfits (made up of yoga gear, Wellington boots, skinny jeans and matching accessories), sit in the snow and freeze their butts off:

Now that the novelty has worn off and the photos are taken... is it spring yet? Three days and I'm already sick of the cold and snow...

Thanksgiving

The House of Nerd enjoyed a good Thanksgiving last night. Grandma and Grandpa came over and joined the Nerdparents, Pax and the pets for turkey, stuffing, veggies and pie...

...after a series of small disasters, of course. After all, it wouldn't be my life without some minor crises! First, the turkey did fit into either my mom's roasting pan (brought over by my dad at 9 AM) or my roasting pan. I wanted to use my mom's because it is slightly larger (by virtue of being an oval instead of a rectangle) and it has a lid. The turkey was having none of it:

After wrestling the bird between the two pans, it ended up in mine. I then had to call my parents again and my dad brought me a roll of aluminum foil at 10 AM, since I'd run out. I got the foil tented over the turkey and went to put the 21-pound fowl into the oven... when the pan got stuck in the oven rack somehow and I spilled the turkey. I had broth in the bottom of the pan and it went EVERYWHERE. My husband helped clean up and the turkey made into the oven without incident on the second attempt. It was worth the effort, as it came out fantastic:

Of course I had a couple of helpers for dinner:

Here's my "tablescape". Doesn't that sound fancy, "tablescape"? It's a fancy word for being motivated enough to actually set the table properly for once in my life.

This stuff makes my holiday: jellied cranberry sauce from a can. It's so wrong, but oh so right, and I always, always make sure that it comes out in the shape of the can. It wouldn't come in a can if Ocean Spray didn't mean for it to be served that way.

Here's what our meal looked like, pre-gravy and sans-cranberry. Oh, and sans-Swede. Have you guys heard about Swedish turnip/Rutabaga? It's a vegetable, a nasty, nasty vegetable. My father likes it and no one else in the family will touch it (including, now, Paxton).

Oh, and this is still a parenting blog, so you'd better have some baby:

I hope everyone else (in the US, at least) had an excellent Thanksgiving! I got up insanely early today to do some traditional Black Friday shopping with my BFF/Pax's nonbiological aunt and we got some pretty good deals. :)

I decided to let Pax try writing an entry.

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The Halloween Costume

My husband and I had a wonderful costume planned for Pax. Really, we did. See, the geekling has terrific crazy hair. David Tennant hair. So it made sense to dress little Pax up like the Tenth Doctor.

Well, fabric and patterns were acquired, but midterms got in the way. Basically, Pax's costume ended up being a pair of black Chuck Taylor socks and a onesie with a blue tie.

We'd say that we dressed him up like a nerd, but that'd be too obvious.

Oops.

Sometimes I don't post very often.

Oops.

Here is a picture of a baby.

Enjoy.

I'll post soon. I think. I've kept busy. :)

Meet Paxton!

Today is my original estimated due date. After my successful induction last week, Paxton is six entire days old.

And boy, is he ever cute.

No, really. I made a really cute baby.

After being given the Cervadil on Monday night, I started cramping mildly around 9 PM. I reported the official start time of labor to the delivery nurse as 1 AM, as that is when I started to have regular contractions. My husband had to get up, unplug me from the monitor and help me to the bathroom a couple times, and at 5 AM I woke him up for good as the contractions were becoming painful rather than just uncomfortable. He and the nurse got me situated on a yoga ball to take some pressure off of my hips, and shortly after 6 AM I was allowed to get off the monitor for a little bit to "prepare myself for labor".

The nurse checked my cervix before I headed for the shower--2 cm dilated and 75% effaced. Not bad, considering that I'd been completely closed for business when I was given the Cervadil. I managed to last ten minutes in the shower--standing up seemed to make the contractions ten times worse. When my husband had me toweled off and re-gowned, my cervix was checked again and I was at 3 cm and almost fully effaced. Seriously, guys, ten minutes. Ten minutes.

I begged not to have the Pitocin drip. The nurse called the OB on call and it was agreed that since I was already in crazy labor, the Pitocin wouldn't be needed. Thank god, because I can only imagine how much worse labor would've been with the Pitocin.

That was about the time that the contractions got really bad and I started getting a little crazy. I wanted an epidural right then, but I couldn't have one until I got to 4 cm. The contractions started to hit hard, and soon I couldn't even breathe through them. I don't remember exactly when I started with the uncontrollable screaming--this is where things start to get a little fuzzy.

I remember my water breaking. It was right after the nurse had checked my cervix and I had just scooted back up in the bed. I felt a giant rush from between my legs and, in my panic, I might've screamed the words, "what was that, what was that, what the hell was that?!?!?!"

I use simple words when I'm hysterical.

You know in movies, when the pregnant lady gives birth and it is all very dramatic? Like, she's screaming, the husband is helpless, the nurses are giving each other nervous looks? Everyone says that's not realistically what labor is like, but that sure is an accurate representation of mine.

I was having contractions on top of contractions with very little or no time in between--often I'd hit two or three peaks before coming down, and then I'd only have about twenty seconds--yes, twenty seconds--to "prepare" for the next. There is no "preparing" for that outside of maybe taking a nice, deep breath so that you can scream more profanity. I felt like someone had my entire torso in a very fast-acting vice. Not good.

The nurse waited almost an hour to check me again. I'd gone from 3 to 6 in a snap. That was probably when I really started demanding the epidural. I remember screaming at the nurse to quit effing touching me because I swear she had her entire hand up my junk and it hurt like hell on top of the contractions (which also hurt like hell). (By the way, I did not use the word "effing"--I used the less family-friendly version--and there may have been other nasty words involved. And maybe flailing and/or a weak-willed attempt at pushing the nurse away. Very embarrassing.)

6 cm meant the anesthesiologist could be called. By the time the anesthesia cart came into the room, I was in full-blown shock. Literally, I went into shock from being in labor--I was shaking, almost completely incoherent, and unable to control my body. It was scary. It was very, very scary. The nurse checked me one last time before the epidural and I was at 9 cm.

The epidural took awhile to get in... mostly because I couldn't keep still. The nurse was trying to have me balance on the edge of the bed and arch my back, but the contractions wouldn't let me keep my shoulders down. They finally got the catheter in... and ten minutes later, I was (more or less) in control of myself again. I apologized to the staff. I am still really embarrassed about how that all went down, but it was really uncontrollable. Uncontrollable, but rude and embarrassing nonetheless.

The nurse checked me again after the epidural took effect and announced that I was ready to push.

Um, what?

I didn't even get to enjoy my epidural. I tried pushing, but I didn't really know what I was supposed to be doing and my pushes weren't effective at all. They let me rest for a few minutes, but then... they started the Pitocin drip to encourage me to push.

Just a little Pitocin. Not a whole lot.

Just enough to negate my effin' epidural.

I pushed for what felt like the longest, most hellish 45 minutes of my life. I was attended by the nurse, a nursing student, the resident doctor for the floor, and my husband--who, surprisingly, got really into the whole thing. This is the guy who feels faint at the sight of blood and can't stand even looking at a needle. Suddenly, my pansy husband was replaced by a guy who thought it was really cool that he was able to see a head coming out of my downstairs. The words "I wish you could see this" actually came from his mouth (I still did not wish I could see it, for the record).

The OB almost didn't make it to the room in time to catch Paxton. She and her team bustled in about two seconds before Pax's entire head made an appearance in one push. She tried to tell me to "hold on", but you try holding on when there is a half a baby hanging out of your lady parts. It's not possible, there is no pause button. One more push and he was out.

By the way, I was back to having full-blown hysterics at this point.

The OB told me to look down, I looked down, saw Pax, and--this is vaguely reminiscent of my water breaking--screamed, "oh my god, did I just have a baby?"

No shit, Sherlock. Like I said, I say dumb things with simple words when I have hysterics. The vocabulary center of my brain shuts off.

Anyway, from start to finish--less than 12 hours. It was awful, but it was over quickly. And we got a cute baby out of it! What marvels me is that Pax weighed a scant 7 pounds, 10 ounces--way under what the doctor's had supposed my overweight, diabetic butt would turn out. APGARs were 9 and 9, no blood glucose issues, he's a perfect little guy.

Perfectly cute, that is. <3

Diabetes... for real this time!

Finally.

Three weeks ago, I went in for my usual appointment and my OB/GYN and I did our little dance about my weight gain. The tape measure came out, and my OB frowned. Apparently, I was suddenly measuring a month ahead, and my scheduled 36-week growth ultrasound became a surprise 33-week what-the-eff-is-wrong-with-you ultrasound.

Thankfully, nothing is wrong with Pax except that he is freaking gigantic. Why is he freaking gigantic? Well, that's my fault. That's my big, fat diabetic fault.

It took the attending OB for the ultrasound all of five minutes to check over my glucose tolerance scores and diagnose me with gestational diabetes. Why no one (besides myself, of course) could've figured this out sooner still baffles me. A pregnant lady presenting with inexplicable weight gain, a family history of Type II diabetes and borderline glucose intolerance... what part of that doesn't scream "please treat me, oh please, oh please"?

Anyway. I will climb down off my soapbox now...

The fun doesn't end there. I am currently living off a limited supply of glucose test strips given to me by the kind people at the endocrinology center, since my extremely crap-tastic health insurance is giving me the runaround on paying for the damn things. They denied my pharmacy claim, then, when I called, the customer service rep told me that test strips are "over the counter items" and the insurance won't pay for them. The HR manager at my husband's work contacted the insurance rep, who replied that the insurance will cover the test strips if I buy them from a medical supply store, since they will then be billed as DME. The problem now is that there is still a $100 deductible for DME and the nearest medical supply store is not exactly "near".

These are the same strips that are available at the pharmacy. I don't see why I need to order them from some specialty store a million miles away and drive forever to pick them up when they are available at the local CVS.

We'll see how this plays out.

BTW, the photo above is Pax at 33 weeks. He's already larger than my cousin's newborn, who coincidentally, arrived at 2 AM this morning. :)

Paxton Alexander.

Surprise.

After weeks of ranting, whining and moaning about how I wanted a girl and if it was a boy I'd be so fucking disappointed, the day of our anatomy ultrasound finally came.

It's a boy, of course.

I did manage to control my complete and total psychological breakdown until about 10 PM, when my husband had to pick my sniffly ass up off the bedroom floor and assure me that people have male children all the time and it is not, in fact, the end of the world. However, this does mean that I only get one more shot at having a female child--and, as I've warned my family over and over again in the past few days, if genetics sees fit to "bless" me with two boys, I'm adopting a foreign import with the correct anatomical bits.

The boy presented another problem--my husband suddenly decided that the name he'd been pushing at me for almost five months was no longer an option. I'd tried explaining that people would naturally assume "Torsten" was a combination of the names "Tori" and "Tristan", but he'd ignored me. Upon finding out that everyone in the known world does, in fact, assume that Torsten is a combination of Tori and Tristan, he threw a small fit and we went about trying to find a new name.

We've finally decided on Paxton Alexander, which is about as far away from the original names (one first, two middle) we had chosen as you can possibly get. It's very satisfying, though, and I like saying it because I feel as though it's got a nice ring to it, what with the two "x"s and all.

My dad likes it because of this. Go figure.

27 Weeks To Go

Well, technically, right now, I have 23 weeks to go, but I've neglected making this entry for almost a month.

Here is the baby again. It now looks considerably more like a baby and less like a dinosaur, which I suppose is a good thing. I could also do without the cutesy text the ultrasound tech put on the image--I am not a cutesy person.

The good news here is that the NT measurement was 1.6 millimeters. The acceptable range is 2.2 millimeters to 3.something millimeters. My age alone (I guess I'm considered pretty young for this sort of thing) lowers the risk of chromosomal disorders significantly, to a factor of about 1 in 700. The results from the ultrasound and bloodwork (always with the bloodwork) skyrocketed those odds to 1/9000 for Down's Syndrome and 1/10000 for Trisomy 18. Those are good odds--I'll take them.

I need to get more blood drawn for an AFP on Tuesday to test for spina bifida and neural tube defects. Always with the bloodwork. I'm not going to have any blood left by the time I have this baby.

Yes, I know blood regenerates, I'm just a pansy. Hush.

My OB/GYN is probably going to yell at me again about my weight. I have managed to not gain any weight whatsoever. Of course, I look like a complete cow at the moment (a fat, pregnant cow) but the scale has, so far, refused to budge.

Here's my question: if I'm expected to eat healthy food and exercise, how am I supposed to gain weight? I don't exercise and I love junk food and restaurants, which is how I got fat to begin with. So now I'm supposed to eat vegetables and start taking walks and gain weight? I didn't think it worked that way.

Also, I'm still sitting on my ass all day. It's almost December, and this is Cleveland. If anyone thinks I'm going out for long walks in the freezing cold, they're wrong. Also, I hate vegetables. I have made concessions to this whole "pregnancy diet" thing by trying to eat bananas on a regular basis. My OB/GYN said that bananas are good because they don't contain a lot of sugar--I think bananas are the blandest fruit in the entire world and I don't particularly want to eat one everyday.

The whole "three meals a day" thing has always escaped me, except now I guess I'm supposed to be eating six meals a day. Three big meals, six small meals--what's the difference? You're eating the same amount of food, right? I've never been able to eat before 11:00 AM, which is when I try to eat the banana and have some tea or something to tide me over until around 1:00, when I start to scrounge around for lunch. If I force myself to eat in the morning, I feel completely sick for the rest of the day and don't eat anything at all, which I think is probably worse than my weird, off-kilter eating schedule. Dinner usually takes place anywhere from 6:30-9:00 at night and consists of meat and maybe some sort of excuse for a vegetable--usually a potato or sometimes broccoli. I like broccoli and potatoes, except my OB/GYN told me not to eat a lot of potatoes. Carrots are okay, too, but if it's not a potato or broccoli or a carrot, I'm probably not very interested in eating it.

I think my OB/GYN is just out to ruin my fun and my food and my entire life for nine months. I can't wait until this is over and she goes back to just being the woman who saved me from cancer instead of the woman who scares/harasses/coaxes me into eating vegetables and peeing in a cup each month.

Congratulations... you're having a dinosaur!

I dragged my husband to our first prenatal appointment on Tuesday. It was awesome (except for the terrifying part at the end).

Anyway, we showed up at the Clinic a little early to fill out paperwork. The only paperwork involved was this little survey that asked a) if I were being abused, b) if I was a drug addict, c) if I was an alcoholic, d) if I were dying of a genetic condition, etc. I swear to god, there was nothing positive on that survey. I did have to check off some of the things (being neurotic and at risk for diabetes--thanks, mom!) but some of the questions were just really... really?

It got better when we actually made our way into the exam room and the nurse started asking the standard pre-exam questions, which include doozies like, "do you currently have any personal safety issues?". That's Clinic-speak for "are you being abused?", and I was kind of nonplussed because my husband was sitting two feet away. Really, lady? If he was beating the crap out of me, would I tell you about it right now?

Then my doctor came in, and we got down and dirty right away. I don't think even five minutes went by before the ultrasound wand was up my junk.

And this is what we saw! THAT'S A BABY IN THERE, Y'ALL. Specifically, it's a nine-week-old baby. It's got a big head and it's got arms and legs. Well, I guess that technically it's got arms and legs... at this point they're more like tiny little stumps with joints. But it's definitely a baby, and it's got a heartbeat (175bpm, like an effin' hummingbird) and it wiggles. Seriously, guys, it wiggles.

I also think it looks kind of like a baby dinosaur. Actually, it does look considerably more baby-like than some early ultrasounds I've seen. I guess that's a good thing.

So... that was the fun part. We got a free bag of stuff... the stuff wasn't very interesting (flyers, parenting magazines, a coupon for free birthing classes, pamphlets on what to eat/not etc, boring stuff like that). The bag is pretty cool! It's one of those cheap reusable shopping bags, except it's Clinic blue and it's got "Fairview Hospital Birthing Center" written all big on it.

Look at me, excited about a cheap, free grocery bag. I can take it shopping and everyone will know I'm pregnant! Not that they couldn't figure it out by the size of my stomach and the contents of my cart...

Anyway. The terrifying part. I know you want to hear it. I got a flu shot and then I had to go over to the lab and get blood drawn...

...I do not do well with IV needles. Vaccine needles are fine (as evidenced by the flu shot above), tattoo needles are great, sewing needles are perfectly harmless. IV needles? Forget that shit, I'm out the door and halfway down the block. I have blood-injection-injury phobia, and I will do anything to avoid IV needles. When I was 18, I tried to punch a nurse for attempting to give me an angiogram (true story, and no, I didn't actually make contact... I only succeeded in shoving her. She was a bitch anyway and had it coming.)

Even more terrifying is that the last time I had to have blood drawn, the tech spent fifteen minutes rooting around in my arm, searching for a vein. Really. Fifteen minutes and three needles before she actually hit something. Apparently I have deep veins or something and the needle she was using wasn't long enough. (That's just what I needed to hear, that she had to stick a bigger needle in my arm.) The tech also kept asking if I wanted lay down because she thought I was going to faint. I don't faint, I panic, and her repeated asking of "do you want to lie down?" was just about enough to make me rip the needle out, throw it at her and then run like hell.

So yeah, the last time I went to the lab did not go all that well.

This time, I got this tech with some sort of heavy eastern-European (or maybe Russian) accent. I couldn't really understand what she was saying, but I am not the most communicative when needles are being stuck in my veins anyway. I managed to get out the story of what happened last time, and when I finished she gave me this look, stuck a little butterfly needle in the top part of my arm (not the elbow, like last time), immediately hit a vein, took about six vials of blood, bandaged me up and shooed me out the door. It was like magic. It lasted three minutes and she never asked me if I wanted to lie down even though I was shaking and making tiny noises of distress. I am never going to the lab again unless that lady is working. Ever.

My next appointment is at the Independence office for a NT scan. The NT scan determines the chances of your kid having Down syndrome or other chromosomal issues based on the amount of fluid that accumulates at the back of the fetus' neck. I'm not expecting any problems... I just want another ultrasound. :) I also think there is... gulp... more blood work involved. I wonder if they'll let me drive back to the Strongsville office to wait for eastern-European lady?