Yay Me!

15 weeks to go! Ish.

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 00:22:34 GMT

I keep meaning to post and not having time. *shrug*

The day after Halloween, I was asking SAM if I could have a piece of his candy, and he said he was all done with it. He didn't want it any more, and he agreed to having it put away for future car trips. Win! :)

I'm 25 weeks pregnant now! That means I'm past the age of viability, even if I count from ovulation. Yay! The baby is probably around 1.5 pounds by now, and producing surfactant and brown fat. I'm gaining weight faster with this pregnancy than I did with SAM *sigh*, but I'm also trying harder to eat protein, so maybe that's why. Oh well. I've started feeling like I'm accomplishing a few things in preparation for the birth, finally. I got the baby wishlist set up in what I hope is a comprehensible way for my cloth-diapering-innocent family, finally. My birth pool arrived! I still need to pick up a hose and faucet attachment, then we can have a test run, that should be exciting. :)

The baby is kicking harder and harder. :) It makes it a lot easier not to worry. I'm starting to feel like maybe I can enjoy the rest of the pregnancy.

Happy Halloween!

Sat, 31 Oct 2009 22:29:25 GMT

SAM and hoshiadam just left a little while ago for trick-or-treating, with a big group of neighbors. It's my turn this year to stay home and hand out the candy - hoshiadam has always done it before. No sign of other kids yet, though, I think they went a bit too early. Hopefully people will be ready for them, but at least it's not raining too much right now.

I was surprised that both parents from two of our neighbor houses went with them. I suppose they didn't want to miss the fun part, but I always enjoyed both roles. I always like to see the costumes that show up. :)

And ahah! I see a little bee with an umbrella approaching! Time to don my fancy cloak (lazy costume) and grab the treat bowl. Huge prizes this year - I provided fruit bars and raisin boxes (and yes, people do take them), and hoshiadam put in sidewalk chalk, chinese yo-yos, little foam airplane flyer thingies, and chocolate coins. :) We always overdo it, but at least this year maybe we won't be forced to eat huge amounts of leftover candy.

Ah, now we've had a Princess Leia and an Elizabethan lady of some kind, middle-schoolers from down the street. :) People are shy about taking more than one thing, we're never going to get rid of all this at this rate. :) (Except the bee, he took five chinese yo-yos and nothing else, heh.)

Time to cook some pumpkin seeds while I see if anyone else will show up! Still not dark, of course. Perhaps the pumpkin seeds will keep me from pining for candy. I shall take my toll when SAM returns with the loot. :)

Wed, 28 Oct 2009 20:58:37 GMT

<lj cut text="That book meme.">

Bold means I've read it.
Italics means I own it but haven't read it.
~~Strikethrough~~ means I read it and can't really recommend it.
Underline means I've read other works by that author, but not the one specified.

1. Lord of the Rings, Tolkien
2. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, C.S. Lewis
3. A Wrinkle in Time, L'Engle
4. Alice in Wonderland, Lewis Carroll
5. Starship Troopers, Heinlein
6. Dune, Herbert
7. I, Robot, Asimov (Foundation series too)
8. Dark Tower: The Gunslinger, King I read Talisman, and own some others I haven't gotten to yet.
9. Sandman, Gaiman
10. Farenheit 451, Bradbury
11. Snow Crash, Stephenson
~~12. Lord Foul's Bane, Donaldson~~ Actually I only read half of it, I hated it so much.
13. Childhood's End, Clarke I read 2001, maybe 2010.
14. The Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Adams
15. A Spell for Chameleon, Anthony
16. The Dragonriders of Pern, McCaffery
17. The Sword of Shannara, Terry Brooks
~~18. Watchman, Moore~~
19. Neuromancer, Gibson
20. Pawn of Prophecy, Eddings
21. Hogfather, Pratchett
22. Ringworld, Niven
23. Nine Princes in Amber, Zelazny
~~24. Jhereg, Brust~~ I'm not sure if it was Jhereg or one of his others, but I was underwhelmed.
25. Dragons of Autumn Twilight, Weis and Hickman
~~26. Brave New World, Huxley~~ Not a bad book, but... meh.
27. Watership Down, Adams
28. Once and Future King, White
29. Ender's Game, Card
30. The Eye of the World, Jordan
</lj cut>

I guess I'd better go get Snowcrash. :)

Woot!

Sun, 25 Oct 2009 01:03:47 GMT

Look what I just won on ebay! http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=120481905063

:) In labor with SAM, I never felt particularly inclined to get in the water. I didn't even get in the shower. I think it had a bit to do with not feeling 100% comfortable with someone else's shower, in that case, and also it was winter. But everyone and their sister keeps saying how great it is, so I figure it's worth a try. My midwife even lent me a whole book dedicated to waterbirth. And since it's $100 to use the midwife's pool, I figure getting my own is worth it, especially if I use it in more than one labor. Plus this way I don't have to call the midwife to come over if all I really want is her pool. :) And SAM can play in it. Now let's just hope the floor is strong enough to hold it up! It can go in the basement if not, but then the likelihood of me using it is a good bit lower.

Wow, good deal.

Sat, 24 Oct 2009 00:24:46 GMT

If you have an Earth Fare near you (they're in TN, GA, NC, and SC, and we have two in Knoxville), check out this deal: http://www.southernsavers.com/2009/10/earth-fare-free-pantry-make-over/
You can take in your unhealthy food products (listed on the site) and trade them in for a healthy alternative, even if there's just a little bit left. :) I wonder if hoshiadam would be mad if I switched out his peanut butter.

He has NPCs planned out too. :)

Fri, 23 Oct 2009 16:19:18 GMT

While we were getting hoshiadam ready to leave for Eclipse, SAM started telling him about KG - sounds like he's ready to monster! He said, "At King's Gate, I play the biggest bag guy! He can cast Ball of Flames! And he can burn you up to dust! And no one can defeat him ever!"

So I hope you are all ready for the November event, now you know what you're up against. :)

SAM's character.

Tue, 20 Oct 2009 01:01:40 GMT

Lately SAM has been telling us about "his character" - for a LARP, I assume. :) At first he was pretty normal, he had two swords and could cast Fireball. He's really been fleshing out this character over the past week or so, though. Yesterday, this is what he told me. The character is a giant robot, who looks like a wolf, and can throw fireballs. He has a sword and a chainsaw, and is very strong, so that he can whack down trees with two hits of the sword. He can also fight with the chainsaw. He can use magic. He can fly because he can turn into a comet - he can also transform into ANYTHING, such as a sign or a street. (We were in the car at the time.) Oh, and he has prehensile ears. :)

Self-sufficiency.

Fri, 16 Oct 2009 15:38:13 GMT

I went to go get dressed this morning, and when I came back, SAM had gotten himself some yogurt and eaten it. Then he had gotten himself a bowl, and was serving himself some ice cream when I came back into the kitchen. :) I told him he could get himself healthy foods whenever he wanted, but he needed to ask before having desserts. Later on, I went downstairs to plan lunch with hoshiadam, and when I came back, the boy had gotten himself some cheese and a very long, sharp knife (I think he got it out of the sink, the knife block is on top of the fridge for this reason), and hacked some chunks of cheese out of the middle of it for himself. :P So we had another talk about things he can do on his own... His reasoning was that since he didn't cut himself, it was okay. *rolls eyes*

Overall, though, it's nice that he's starting to be able to do these things on his own. I was especially impressed that the ice cream went into a bowl instead of straight onto the table - he didn't even eat it out of the container. :)

Strange little boy.

Thu, 15 Oct 2009 18:15:18 GMT

I think we're going to move from half-hour naps to hour long naps... at SAM's request. :) He almost never sleeps, just plays in his room while I sleep, so it's more for me than him, though maybe it at least gives him unpestered relaxation time. So today I was about to set his timer, and he asked for an hour. I made sure he knew that was longer... but he still wanted to go for it. Works for me! Afterwards, I asked him if he liked his longer nap, and he said very enthusiastically, "I loved it! It was terrific!" lol He says he wants to keep them that length... no arguments here.

I meant to post about the weekend when it wasn't almost the next weekend, but I hardly get my computer turned on some days. Hoshiadam was at KG, but my mom is busy all this month (so no babysitting for Eclipse either, and for that matter she's gone for the next KG as well), so I stayed home - after a manner of speaking. We were busy! We went to the corn maze, where we did EVERYTHING. (Except the hayride to the "pumpkin patch" where they've scattered pumpkins from Walmart around on the ground. This year we got ours from the farmer's market, yay!) SAM was a bottomless well of energy (the cotton candy might have helped with that). We did all the mazes. Just the two big ones are supposed to have 4.2 miles of trails, so even though we didn't walk every dead end, that's way more distance than I expected SAM to be able to do. I almost couldn't do it, because of the incredibly slippery mud that covered every trail. I waddled my way through, though, and managed to keep SAM in sight most of the time. :P And we finished all the checkpoints, at which you get differently-shaped holes punched in your map (cheating, I know), for the first time ever. Yay us. :)

Last week we happened to mention the Smokies, and SAM complained that we never go there! So on Sunday we went. :) Cades Cove was extremely crowded. I forgot about the fall-color seekers. So we skipped the loop and found a nice 1/2 mile trail near the campground, as well as a waterfall beside the road to climb down to. The trail ended up being more vertical than I was expecting, but I should have realized that we were in the mountains. Again, SAM showed me that he has really been growing. Last time we tried to hike, we had to wait and wait on him, but this time he had to wait on me. :P It was very peaceful once we got farther away from the road. Sometimes I think I forget what real woods are like when they aren't full of monsters. :) We saw a deer.

In pregnancy news, I'm now 22 weeks along, at least if I go by the standard calculation method. The record for babies being born early and living is 21 weeks 6 days (two babies have survived). It's a bit morbid, I suppose, but it's nice to know I'm getting into the theoretically possible survival range. I'm not there yet if I go by ovulation, though. I'm not feeling that great... just uncomfortable a lot of the time. No complaints, though, as long as time just keeps passing.

Finally thinking....

Tue, 06 Oct 2009 02:28:21 GMT

Heh, I just realized one thing I left out of my baby checklist post - picking a NAME! That's kind of important, I guess.

CURSES! Somehow LJ, in cahoots with my new noscript banner blocker, just deleted my entire evening's work on this. :*( I'll see how much I remember, but if something completely doesn't make sense, that's probably why. Especially don't rely on the percentages, they and every other bit of actual fact are from my sleepy memory. VERY annoyed.

I'm rh-negative. Quick rundown on what that means for pregnancy - if I have an rh-positive baby, and its blood mixes with mine, I can become sensitized to the rh antigen and produce antibodies against it. Then, the next time I was pregnant with an rh-positive baby, if my body noticed the rh antigen, I would again produce antibodies, which could cross the placenta and attack the baby, causing bad things to happen. I would know if I got sensitized early in pregnancy, since it's one of the things they test for in the standard blood lineup, so then I would have to spend the rest of the pregnancy getting blood tests to see if my antibody titer was increasing. If it didn't, great, but if it did there would be more interventions to save the baby, possibly even prenatal blood transfusions and early c-section. That would be bad. :(

Blood mixing is not uncommon during birth, and pretty uncommon during pregnancy. You can decrease the risk of blood mixing during birth by having a natural, gentle birth, without induction, pitocin, instrumental delivery, rushing the birth of the placenta, etc. However, there's not much you can do to prevent silent blood mixing during pregnancy, besides avoiding car wrecks, external versions, amniocentesis, etc. Getting a Rhogam shot is very effective in preventing sensitization - the Rhogam destroys the baby's blood cells in maternal circulation before the monther's body has a chance to notice them.

Rate of sensitization without Rhogam at birth or pregnancy: 7-16%
Rate of sensitization with Rhogam at birth but not pregnancy: 1-2%
Rate of sensitization without Rhogam during pregnancy, only at birth: 0.7-1.8%
Rate of sensitization with Rhogam during pregnancy and at birth: 0.1-0.2%
(It's important to remember that these statistics come from births and pregnancies within the medical model. It's quite likely that the prevalence of invasive procedures has artificially inflated the percentages. A gentle pregnancy and birth might make the chances of sensitization vanishingly small.)

Rhogam ingredients: gamma globulin (active ingredient), sodium chloride (salt), polysorbate 80 (an ingredient of some ice creams, but also considered a low-risk carcinogen, neurotoxin, and reproductive toxin), glycine (an amino acid). No more thimerosal for several years! (But it never hurts to check the package insert just in case...)

Risks of Rhogam: Infection at the injection site (not worried about that). Allergic reaction (not worried). Exposure to polysorbate 80 (supposed to be a low risk, not happy but not too worried). Being exposed to a blood product taken from many different people and maybe getting a disease - Rhogam is screened for HIV and such and treated to destroy some diseases, but can still transmit Creutzfeld-Jacob disease and other things (the risk is small, not too worried). Having the rhogam cross the placenta and attack the baby's blood (this is the main thing that worries me). Rhogam is a class C medication in pregnancy, which means there have been no studies on its safety - there haven't even been animal studies in this case. We know from giving it to millions of pregnant women that it doesn't usually cause catastrophic problems, but we have no idea whether it rarely causes catastrophe, or whether it causes more subtle long-term problems like low-level brain damage. This is yet another case where we have to make decisions based on inadequate data. *sigh*

Other tests.
High throughput fetal genotyping: This is a brand-new test on maternal blood which indicates fetal rh status. No risk to the baby. It's 95.7% accurate, but only has a 0.16% false-negative rate, which is the one that could be dangerous.
Kleihauer-Betke test: Identifies how much fetal blood is present in maternal circulation. No risk to the baby. If there was none, I would know I didn't need Rhogam at that point. The chance would still exist that blood mixing could happen the next day or something, so I'd have to think about that. But sometimes women become sensitized despite a Rhogam shot because there's too much fetal blood for the standard Rhogam dose to take care of. This test would tell me if I needed a bigger dose. I can't find info on the rate of false-negatives here. Most doctors who post about it seem to consider the test very reliable, but I found some studies that showed it may not be able to accurately detect very small bleeds.
Eldoncard - Postnatal blood test on cord blood to determine baby's blood type. Hoshiadam says it's accurate, I couldn't find any statistics. We could always do two cards, since they're cheap, and also compare the results with the results of the fetal genotyping.

My midwife doesn't routinely do prenatal rhogam, but she'll have it at the birth. Postnatally, things are easy, we just do the Eldon card and I get the shot if the baby is positive. No risk to the baby. Prenatally, it's more tricky. The risk is quite small, even in the medical model - some countries don't even routinely do the prenatal dose. After my false alarm earlier in the pregnancy, though, I'm nervous about it. Getting sensitized would be pretty horrible next pregnancy, and I don't want it to happen. I also don't want to risk exposing the baby to something just for paranoia. Anyway, I'd like to have the fetal genotyping done. If the baby is negative, no more worries. If the baby is positive, I'll get the Kleihauer-Betke test. If that comes back positive, I'll know how much Rhogam to get and won't have to worry that the standard dose wasn't enough. If it comes back negative, I have to think again. On the one hand, I would have to be quite unlucky to be one of the people who gets a false negative, AND one of the 1.8% or less who get sensitized without rhogam. But I still might worry. Another wrinkle might be that the OB could be unwilling or unable to perform the tests. But I'll ask the midwife about that on Wednesday.

So, I have to think about that last bit some more. It's frustrating to do all this and still not have a firm decision all the way planned out. :P But now that I have the info, I can set things in motion. I don't have to have that last bit decided, since it will take forever to get an appointment with the OB, and anyway they don't do rhogam until 28 weeks.

On an extended-breastfeeding note, the kitten is now more than a year old, and bigger than his mother. But yesterday I saw him still nursing. :)

I think SAM is weaned. Every time I get ready to post that, he'll ask to nurse again... but it's been about twice a month for a while now. And even those times, he's not been really nursing, it's like he forgot how. *shrug* Some people get sad about weaning, but I don't think I am - especially since he just doesn't care. :) We'll see how he reacts to the new baby, but I'm not anticipating problems. I think he's associated it with a baby-mammal thing at this point, and he considers himself a BIG BOY now. :)

Oct. 1.

Thu, 01 Oct 2009 16:55:07 GMT

Today would have been my due date. :(

Twenty weeks!

Thu, 01 Oct 2009 01:29:30 GMT

Halfway there! You know, give or take. :) I feel like I need to start actually preparing or something... I need a list...

1. Figure out what to read.
2. Read it.
~~3. Find a carseat to put on Wishlist.~~
4. ~~Ask midwife questions.~~ Think of more questions.
5. Make a 4-year-checkup appointment for SAM and ask the pediatrician about the new baby.
6. Talk to the birth center about coming in for the PKU after the birth.
~~7. Ask my mom again about watching SAM during the birth.~~ Backup person if she isn't in town?
8. Order birth kit.
9. Contact cord blood donation place & get kit.
~~10. Decide about prenatal Rhogam.~~ Call OB.
11. Make a birth plan.
~~12. Go through baby supplies and see if we need anything else. Diapers!~~
13. Practice relaxation with hoshiadam or at least figure out some kind of plan. Hand signals!
14. Show SAM some more birth videos.
15. Get birth supplies together in one spot. ~~All cloth stuff is ready.~~
16. Clean.
17. Finish making birth playlist.
18. Resew old diapers.
~~19. Order honey straws!~~
20. Get more cloth pads for postpartum.
21. Oh yes. NAME! :P
22. Kegels. Bah.
~~23. Check out spinningbabies.~~
24. Birth pool.
~~25. Finish wishlist.~~
26. Order Vitamin K.

That would take me to 36 weeks if I did one thing a week...(or it would have before I added more stuff.) I still feel like there's more to do though. I feel disorganized. *shrug* Last time I felt like I had everything all planned. Anybody know anything I've left out?

The baby has been wiggling a lot more. I'm finally sure I'm not imagining it, which is nice. Hoshiadam even managed to feel it the other night. :) Sometimes I even think I can tell where the head is. I'm hoping the baby will decide to be head-downwards this time. It would be nice to have a vertex birth just to see what it's like.

Still keeping up with my exercise! Yay me! I'm still extra tired from it, but I had a couple of hints that it may be paying off. It was something I noticed before when I was exercising regularly. Just walking around, I feel strong, like my muscles are the way they're supposed to be. I had forgotten about that feeling, and then the other day I suddenly felt it for a little while, and remembered how nice it was. It's hard to explain...

When do preschoolers move out of a carseat and into a booster seat? I need to look this up.

The other day I randomly asked SAM if he could spell "no", and he could. :) That was pretty awesome. I need to teach him French, I've been very remiss in my duties. And tomorrow I shall give him the Dick and Jane (See Spot Run!) book that his grandma gave him. Heh.

Also need to go through winter clothes from last year and see what we have... And get out Halloween decorations! And still must research the swine flu vaccine like I told my grandmother I would. *sigh* I've been putting it off because it wasn't available yet.

Exercise.

Fri, 25 Sep 2009 16:32:00 GMT

This week I did my 30 minutes of exercise on the Wii Fit every morning! That makes me happy - also extremely tired. I should probably try to eat even more protein. I'm hoping now that I can start feeling more in-shape again. Most of the exercises are still a good bit harder than they used to be, and it isn't only due to being off-balance with a large belly - but this is the way to fix it. :)

I need to get back on the "keeping the house clean" bandwagon, though - for the millionth time. *sigh* I have more energy than I did last trimester, by a lot, but I'm using it all on exercise. Off to mop...

Weekend pretty good.

Mon, 21 Sep 2009 21:05:02 GMT

We went to the TN Valley Fair, and only realized when we got there at 1:30 that it didn't really open until 3. However, the animal exhibits were open, so we walked through them slowly, and only had to wait around afterward for a few minutes. SAM always has a fun time at the fair. He rode rides and we all ate junky food. :) (A caramel apple is healthy! I even got mine with peanuts on it!) They have the usual UT Vet exhibit of a cow giving birth. This is creepy to me, since they put the poor thing in a strange stall with a bunch of people staring at her and making noise, and then induce her labor and expect things to work out somehow. *sigh* But I thought it would be a pretty neat thing for SAM to see. We didn't bother to run across the entire fairgrounds when they announced that things were starting up, but as we were leaving there were a bunch of people around, and they said it shouldn't be much longer, so we stayed to watch. SAM was tired and interested enough to stay put longer than usual, but we were still about to give up and leave by the time a hoof appeared. :) That got everyone's attention again. The mother wasn't pushing very often, though, and things moved along very slowly. (Not as slowly as MY pushing phase...) Eventually she got both forelegs and the nose out, but by then her 20-minute timer had run out, and they put chains on the calf's feet and pulled it out. It was still pretty neat for SAM to see, and I'm assuming he won't be expecting chains when our new baby comes along... I'm not sure if he even noticed, he was just talking about the new calf being all shiny (because it was wet). Also, there was another new little calf nearby, all dry, so he got to compare. :) First time I ever saw a calf born - and to my surprise, it was my dad's first time too. His grandfather had beef cattle when my dad was a kid, so he has a lot of stories about chasing the cows and calves around, but it sounds like all theirs just gave birth at night in the woods, and he never saw it happen.

I finished The Thinking Woman's Guide to a Better Birth by Henci Goer. It was less of an amazing revelation than I had hoped, after hearing its praises from so many people, but I guess you can't spend four years learning everything you can about having babies and then expect to be surprised by one book. :) It was still quite good - I liked it better once I got to the study summaries in the back. She wrote each chapter just giving out her conclusions on the worth of various birth alternatives, then put her evidence at the end. I suppose some people don't want to read all the numbers, but I like that sort of thing. :) There were even graphs. I didn't think her chapter on breech birth was as complete as it could have been, but then, it was written ten years ago, and I have a special interest.

Saturday I drove around with my mom looking at garage sales, but didn't find much. We tried to go to GreekFest, but when we saw the people parking and walking from a good ways away, we turned around and went to a very nice Indian buffet instead. :) Then in the afternoon hoshiadam and I got to see a movie (9, interesting but I wasn't satisfied by the ending), and go to The Melting Pot for my birthday dinner. :) Always nice.

Piano!

Wed, 16 Sep 2009 19:54:01 GMT

I gots me a piano! :) I almost got one last year, but got bogged down with transportation complications, and spent too much time looking for free ones on craigslist. :) Free ones do pop up quite often, but they're usually snapped up instantly. This birthday I was determined, and on Monday a good piano for a decent price popped up on craigslist. I still wasn't sure how we were going to get it loaded and into the house, but I figured we could go rent a uhaul for the transport, at least. Happily, the people were willing to deliver and even unload it themselves. Huzzah. :) It's very nice, only a little scuffed (which SAM would have done anyway) and in need of tuning, as all pianos are after being moved.

SAM starts real Awanas tonight. We'll see what it's about - I'm going to start really teaching as well, but I haven't yet seen an actual lesson book. :)

This morning we got Wind in the Willows from the library - yay, new reading material! He liked the first (long!) chapter. I am thinking we might try Alice in Wonderland again after this. He wasn't ready for it last year, but if he can get through the dense language in this book, Alice shouldn't be any more difficult.

For guys in the Knoxville area, Medic Blood Center is doing free blood tests for prostate cancer during their blood drives: http://www.eddiecheck.org/ Plus you get to give blood! :)

FETN.

Mon, 14 Sep 2009 19:30:43 GMT

Fun Event, Tired Now. :)

Are you a Goer? Do you Go?

Thu, 10 Sep 2009 16:16:28 GMT

Sorry, old SI joke that never made much sense. :) I borrowed The Thinking Woman's Guide for a Better Birth from the midwife yesterday. I figured so many people kept recommending it, I ought to actually read it sometime, for the sake of being fully educated. :) It seems very research-based so far, I like that. It's sad, though... She writes about the c-section rate being so unacceptably high, and I think it was only 25% or so when she was writing. It's, what, 31 or 32% now? I wonder how high it will get before we manage to change things. *sigh*

I reached Overweight on the Wii Fit yesterday! :P And then I set my weight goal for even higher... Oh well. :)

As I mentioned a few weeks ago, SAM stopped wanting to wear diapers for a while at night - instead he wanted me to wake him up to go potty. We had limited success. A couple of weeks ago he asked to start wearing the diapers again. *shrug* But whenever I ask him, he still tells me he wants me to take him to the potty in the night. Crazy little boy. Some night I just don't ask him, because I don't feel like getting up. :) Bad me. But last night he woke himself up twice and came into our room. He wasn't especially enthusiastic about being taken to the potty instead of getting to stay in bed with us, but stayed dry all night! :)

I'm so out of shape for Eclipse tomorrow. The monsters will not fear Quinn the fat and slow... until I Fire Lance them into the dirt! :) I have gotten back up to 20 minutes a day on the Wii Fit, finally... When I first started doing the Wii Fit, the stepping game was too easy for me, even on the fastest speed. It didn't seem worthwhile - but yesterday when I tried it I felt some exertion. *sigh* Don't like being out of shape!

Now to go make birthday cookies for myself. That will help me get in shape, cooking is exercise! :)

Hey, are you using those?

Thu, 10 Sep 2009 01:51:00 GMT

If you don't think you'll be wanting your organs after you die, donate them! I was just making sure I was signed up for this the other day - since donating blood makes me feel very good about myself, and I don't expect to care, I might as well help some of the many people who are waiting for organ transplant. :)

For those in TN, here's a sign-up form, if you haven't filled one out when getting your driver's license: http://www.donatelifetn.org/

For those in GA: https://www.donatelifegeorgia.org/register/

Other states: http://www.organdonor.gov/donor/registry.shtm

There's also the Body Farm for those within 200 miles of Knoxville - the site says you can still donate your body there after organ donation. If you donate to a medical school, you usually can't be an organ donor.

Just a fun happy thought for your day! :)

On an unrelated but amusingly juxtaposed note, I've just learned that heating lunch meats gets rid of the listeria risk, so I can eat them in pregnancy (um, more than I already was...)! Good to know - I'll still have to watch out for nitrates, but turkey, yum.

Ugh, in the past few days I've had TWO KG dreams, in which I forgot my fangs and scar and half my costuming, and spent half the event talking before I remembered I couldn't do that. :P Throw in a high school dream (in which I always wander the halls wondering why I don't know where my classes are and how I forgot about school for the first month of the semester), a zombie dream, and a dream where aveareya and co.'s neighborhood was rumored to be destroyed by a tornado while we were all at an event, and I get the feeling that something is going on in my head. Bah. Makes me grouchy in the morning.

Week 17 today, according to standard reckoning. Had a midwife appointment. Turned down the Doppler heart-listening, since I'm not assured of its safety - and anyway if we didn't manage to find it this time I'd be all miserable. :P I think I'm feeling movement, but it's still too easy to convince myself that it's just my imagination. I used to think I felt all kinds of moving around when I was pregnant with SAM - but when I kept feeling the movement after he was born I kind of lost confidence in my detection abilities. :P

SAM had a "class" at the zoo yesterday, and got to see a tarantula and pet a giant African millipede. I've signed him up for one class a month, but now he wants to go every week. I'm not sure if my schedule can handle it! I did surprisingly well with our marathon day, but I don't think I want to do it every week. Maybe once the CSA winds down, we can make Tuesday zoo, and zoo only, day.

Also today, I got rear-ended. :P Luckily it was just a small bump. I lost a flake of paint off the bumper, but that was all. *shrug* We saw a car wreck just the other day, it seems to be a theme. At least I wasn't talking on my cell phone. :)

Yay!

Thu, 03 Sep 2009 20:42:52 GMT

As of a few days ago, this pregnancy is officially longer than the last one. Finally! I feel like I've been pregnant for eight months already. Oh well. Now that I've reached this point, I am starting to feel like I can get back into the pregnancy, and start reading pregnancy books again, and all that sort of thing. :) I've been kind of coasting on my eating habits, too - I have a general feel that I'm eating well, but haven't been writing anything down to check or adding up protein, etc. I'll start doing that tomorrow. I've had to struggle with my water intake, as usual, but I'm doing well now. And I've started exercising again. I'm still horribly out of shape. I haven't run at all since the last Eclipse event. I'm afraid Quinn is going to be rather slow next game... :P But I'm back up to 17 minutes a day on the Wii Fit (adding a minute each day) and it isn't making me super tired the way it was when I first started back up.

SAM is a smarty-pants sometimes... Yesterday we were coming home rather late, and he reminded me to turn on my headlights. I had forgotten, so I turned them on and said, "Good, now the other cars can see us." He said, "Not the cars, really, but the drivers!" Heh. Literalist.

The reason we were out so late is that SAM is starting Awanas on Wednesday nights. He's been lonely, and they needed another teacher, so it seemed like it would work. It's very odd having somewhere we have to be in the evening, but so far it's worked out. And only one kid has had the swine flu so far... :P

Today I made toast with Canadian bacon, creamed greens, scrambled eggs, tomatoes, and swiss cheese all in a stack. It was very tasty, even if it did take me until lunch to get it cooked. :) I still need to finish cleaning the kitchen.

On Saturday we're having an Animal Encounter at the zoo - SAM and I are going to go in the cage with the giant tortoises. Should be pretty neat. :)

End of an era.

Tue, 01 Sep 2009 15:35:51 GMT

Our last fish finally died last night. That fish was so very old! It was older than SAM - so really every day it was still alive was a surprise to me. All the other ones died a year or three ago. I'm pretty sure he must have been one of the second generation... I'm looking back at pictures to figure out just how old he was. I got the tank at the beginning of 2004, and the first batch of babies that we raised were born a few months later. So looks like he could have been five and a half years old - not quite as old as I thought, but still pretty good for a fish that was only an inch and a half long. Crazy.

Here are some of the tiny new fish.

Speaking of other things that are incredibly old, I got my Ecosphere in December 2004:

There are still two tiny red shrimp living in it today.

I didn't expect SAM to really care, but I guess this was concrete enough for him to understand. He burst into tears when we told him. Poor boy. :( Today he seems fine though, he talked about the new fish we're going to get perfectly cheerfully. So that's good.

Speaking of new fish, I'm thinking a pair of cichlids would be cool. Salt-water tanks are awesome, and someday I want some anenomes, but they take too much work for right now. I'll have to do some fish-research.

In unrelated news, there's a new study on homebirth safety! Looks like it was well done, they were specifically trying to avoid some of the weaknesses of previous studies (small sample size, having sicker people self-select the hospital and skew the results, etc). http://www.cmaj.ca/cgi/rapidpdf/cmaj.081869

No KG.

Thu, 27 Aug 2009 21:32:32 GMT

I'm not going to the KG event. It's paranoia, but this weekend I'll reach the point in this pregnancy where I miscarried last time. And anyway I'm still feeling moderately horrid most days. So, staying home. I keep having LARP dreams, though - for some reason, mostly with a Western theme. :)

Yay!

Mon, 24 Aug 2009 18:54:39 GMT

Wednesday before last I got the standard pregnancy blood tests done when I was at the OB office. The results came Saturday - most of it was fairly routine and unsurprising (I don't have HIV and am still immune to rubella), but I was very happy to see that I'm not rh-sensitized. :) I was a bit worried about that, since last time I gave blood they picked up the antibody. We thought it was probably just from the Rhogam shot after the miscarriage, but I was nervous anyway. So that is very good. The test did pick up a very slightly elevated white blood cell count, but I'm thinking just living with a small boy is probably enough to explain a two-point rise.

In other news, a month or two ago SAM decided that he didn't want to wear diapers at night any more. I figured that was a good sign, so we started letting him sleep without them, and just made sure there was a waterproof mat on his bed. After the first two nights, though, he's hardly ever been dry. Some nights he'll wake up when he's wet, but other nights he doesn't seem to care. Occasionally I've tried waking him up to take him to the potty, but I think I would have to do it three times to keep him dry all night, and he doesn't appreciate it much. When I just asked him, though, he says it makes him mad, but I should start doing it again. :) So who knows.

Announcement again.

Thu, 13 Aug 2009 19:48:54 GMT

Baby!

With heartbeat! :) Yay!

I'm feeling greatly reassured. I've been trying to tell myself this whole pregnancy that there's no reason for things to go badly twice, but it's hard to really believe that. Yesterday I had my first midwife visit - mostly we just talked, but at the end I let her talk me into trying to find the heartbeat with the Doppler. I knew logically that I had little to gain from the attempt, but I really did want to be reassured... so I let her do it, and she couldn't find the heartbeat. I was rather perturbed. *sigh* But I had my appointment today with the back-up OB for the routine bloodwork (plus testing for rh sensitization), so I had them do a quick ultrasound too. And there is a heartbeat! The machine was an old clunky one, and you couldn't see much, but the baby has a head, and arms and legs, and we saw a little bit of moving around at the beginning. :) So that is great. Now I can start really feeling like I'm actually pregnant. I'm still only 13 weeks by LMP, 12 weeks by ovulation, so I have a few more weeks until I get back to where I was last time... but I think my belly is bigger than it's ever been at this point.

Now I have to figure out how to scan these little pictures. :)

Adoption.

Wed, 12 Aug 2009 21:45:49 GMT

Just in case some of my f-list hasn't heard yet, a couple of my friends are looking to adopt a child. If you know of someone who might know of a child who needs adopting, check out their website and get in touch with them! :)

http://www.geocities.com/ashscottadoption/main

Wedding!

Mon, 10 Aug 2009 15:47:29 GMT

My brother Ryan got married this weekend, yay! The bride's name is Ami. Eventually there will be pictures. They are off on a Carribean cruise now, and when they get back we must all plot to lure Ami into LARPing somehow. :)

In other news, we left SAM in Memphis with my parents, on the spur of the moment, because they're coming up here today anyway. Much easier than trying to get him out of the pool and into the car. :) Thus hoshiadam and I got to go see G.I. Joe (stuff blew up), and I got to sleep in this morning until the incredibly late hour of 9:30. Yay!