Today I had my 38 week appointment and all is well. I gained 4 lbs in one week though. That's the most I've gained between appointments... even when I was just going monthly! I saw a midwife that I hadn't met with before and I hope I don't have to see her again! She was trying to give me a reality check (I think?) about labor and delivery and instead she just irritated the heck out of me. Then she went into a whole, "Its so empowering" type thing which really really irritated me because, well, I don't know, it just did. If I wanted a full discourse on the subject I would have asked! She didn't offer me a cervical exam and I wasn't about to ask so my curiosity was not satisfied, although I know that progress is being made.

On Tuesday we went to the Kangaroo Farm in Arlington with Ethan's pre-school and had an interesting time. It would have been a downright fun time had it not poured the entire trip, which really made things hard and icky. Ethan got off to a bad start because he didn't win a little contest at the beginning to feed the lemurs (for the record, he didn't even participate, but whatever) and so he pouted and whined most of the way through the park.

Check out the lip! I was trying to be the "Oh, isn't my son just dah-ling when he's all pouty" instead of showing how I really felt which was pretty darn frustrated at him getting all moody after being there 10 minutes!


Gwen posing


One of the kangaroos, Jack. I believe he's their oldest kangaroo (around 7 years?) and still has about another foot to grow. That's a wallaby in the back, huddling under a heat lamp.


The owner (a very eccentric fellow) warming Jack up. We were the first people there and with the weather being chilly, the animals weren't too hip on being active.


A cavie (?)... they were really cute actually. The third largest rodents in the world.


There were a great many wallabies around... some behind fences, some not. This one was behind a fence because she has a joey. After some prompting, the little guy stuck his head out. So cute!


At the end of the tour, you can come into the cabin and hold a joey. Since they breed wallabies for pets at this farm, all the joeys are brought into the house at some point and tamed and such. They are soooo cute and soft!

Ethan was improving in mood at this point...


Gwen was declining...


This would be a cute pic, if Gwen didn't look so miserable!


We also saw a pair of emus, an ostrich, an alpaca and some llamas, turkeys, peacocks, and the typical farm animals as well.

All and all, this is a place I think I'll want to visit again, but only on a sunny warm day! I was really impressed by the care and love that the owners have for the animals and the tameness of the animals. You could walk up to any of them and they would eagerly and gently eat from your hand and were not afraid or beaten down looking, like many "petting zoo" animals seem to be.

On a totally unrelated note, does anyone know what is wrong with my sugar snap pea starts? The leaves have started to yellow and they are looking sickly! At first I thought it was that they were over-watered, as we've had a lot of rain since I put them in, but I moved the boxes a few days ago to a covered area and they haven't perked up in the slightest. I don't want to lose them!

Wow, its been a long time since I blogged. We've been kinda busy, and I've not been feeling up to saying much.

I'm plodding along now... finishing the endurance race. Everything below the waist hurts. Every single stinking thing. It leaves me very unmotivated to do things, though I'm making an effort so that the house doesn't fall into major disarray.

I had a nice Mother's Day. The kids and J got me a planter of tulips and very sweet cards. They also got me doughnuts and coffee on Sunday morning. Yum! We went over to my Mom's and had a fun family get-together later in the day too.

Today Mom and Jenni are coming here at 8:30am to carpool with us to the Kangaroo Farm (technically called Outback Christmas Tree and Kangaroo Farm) up in Arlington. Ethan's pre-school has a field trip up there today. It should be fun and I just hope that the rain holds off. I'm taking lots of pictures too.

Last night, for the second night in a row, I did not sleep well. I've been having strange dreams about labor and while the dreams are not exactly positive, they are not negative either. They're full of imagery. Not really of me just pushing out a baby, but symbolic of that. Strange stuff. Then I wake up and I can't get to sleep and I toss and turn for hours. My body is definitely getting ready. The baby is moving much less as she runs out of room, and all the early signs of labor are there. If I can get to this weekend, it would be best for everyone... well, meaning Jas and my midwife, both of whom have major things going on this week.

Full-term today. YAY!

Had my 37 week appointment and got quite a mixed bag. Firstly I had another cervical exam (yes, I know its not necessary, but I'm so insanely curious about such things) and she said the inner part, near the baby, is still a stretchy 2 but the outer part, farthest from the baby, is a 3. That is progress, though I'm not sure what it all means exactly, if anything. She did say that I won't make it to my due date at the rate things are progressing. Which of course means she jinxed me and I'll go like 3 weeks late! Haha. Not funny.

I do have GBS (group b strep), which is not a huge deal, but kind of a pain. When I arrive at the hospital, I'll have to have an IV to get a dose of antibiotics. Then they'll take the IV out, which is good. I really don't want stuff taped to me and I don't want anyone hooking me up to fluids or what not.

My blood pressure was moderately high (130/80) compared to my previous readings, and because I've had a persistent and painful headache all day they wanted to draw blood just to make sure all was well. I fully expect it to be. I'm not in the slightest bit worried about the blood pressure stuff, especially from a single high reading.

Oh, I also did my first day of getting more than 4,000 steps on my pedometer. I'm feeling it, oh heavens am I feeling it, but I'm rather proud. I wasn't even trying! I'm only 600 steps away from 5,000 so I'll likely pass that milestone today too.

We're in the clear. All healthy. Not even runny noses (that hasn't happened since last year sometime). Thanks the heavens, thanks the heavens.

Despite our improved health, I'm having a hard time catching up with things. I'm wearing out so quickly. I have a 1,001 things running around in my mind that need to be done and I get almost nothing accomplished every day. Frustrating. I need to hire an assistant. Someone who is willing to clean out my fridge, look for the pack 'n play parts, vacuum out my car. Someone who will, oh this would be nice, put away all the laundry! I'm a great washer and dryer... its the putting away part that gets me. I'm a bit anxious about going into labor and my house being embarrassingly cluttered.

The kids are highly impatient for the baby now. They ask me nearly every day if this is the day the baby will come out. I have an appointment tomorrow and they want to know if THAT is when the baby will come home, since I'm going to the hospital. I tell them that we'll have to wait and see, but oh man, how I wish the day would come. I'm ready to be able to roll over in bed without pain or big productions. I'm WAY ready for the heartburn to stop. Pregnancy has never agreed with me from an emotional or practical standpoint. In and of itself, I don't really get much from it. I feel way worse than I usually do and it seems like a very long endurance race. I envy women who enjoy every moment. That is just not me.

On a related note, did you know that cabbage is known to help with heartburn? The last two days have been excruciating for me. I happened to have some red cabbage in the crisper and googled it to make sure that it wouldn't make my heartburn worse. Imagine my surprise to read that it actually can help a great deal! I braised it with some cream and hit it with a splash (ONLY A SPLASH) of wine vinegar for lift at the end and it tasted great. Not only that, but after I nibbled on some raw cabbage while prepping, my heartburn went away and didn't return the entire night. For the first time in probably months I didn't have to take Tums or Maalox. Half the cabbage is left and I'm going to nibble on some every day.

Off to start my day. I have exceedingly simple goals. To make the house decent for Grammy tomorrow. Lets see if I can do it!

So I'm cautiously optimistic that we might be getting a bit healthier. Yesterday everyone was sluggish and out of it for most the day (we watched two movies which is something we never ever do). When the sun broke out in the afternoon, we forced ourselves outside to absorb some sun and that seemed to help.

I got my plants started (see previous post) and a wee bit of weeding done. I also put some chicken manure around my rosemary plants to give them a boost. Yes, chicken manure. I bought it at the whim when I was at the gardening place. It lends a rather... uh, unique odor to our yard. Not offensive, but not entirely wonderful. In any case, I've read its very good for plants and I'm trying to be a good plant Mommy.

Oh, and just an FYI, dogs like to eat chicken manure which is really irritating not to mention GROSS.

This morning the kids are definitely feeling better. For the first time in almost a week they are both running around, playing games, doing their make-believe stuff. Gwen got a cute swimsuit and hula skirt for her birthday and she's wearing it now and Ethan is naked (guess he likes skinny dipping) and they are playing "beach". I brought in our little plastic pool and they put blue blankets in it for water and are floating, lounging, fishing and just having a good time. I love that they have such an active imagination and its great that they are showing some energy and life! Poor Jason is still under the weather. You could tell he was extremely reluctant to go to work today, but we have little choice... we have to conserve days off for when the baby is born.

Today I'm going to catch up on laundry again, find a hospital bag and get the stuff that I can packed up and then put the list of the rest of the stuff on top of it. I'm also going to set up the pack 'n play in our bedroom with the bassinet attachment for the baby to sleep in (use will depend on how co-sleeping goes) and also get the basket I bought for the baby to use when she's downstairs set up too. I cobbled it together and it needs some finishing work. If I'm feeling particularly good, I'll go and re-arrange the seats in the car too.

Here's a picture of my square foot garden, modified to work with the only sunny place on my property! We have a very shady yard and the best place for sun is on the front porch. So I got two square foot boxes and that's where we'll grow our tomatoes and snap peas. I considered letting them vine up on the railing, but went with a trellis instead. We'll see how that works out. In that big blue pot, I have mint from last year. Shoot, that stuff is HARDY. It grew all winter with zero tending, and now that we've had flashes of sun and warmer temps (for those not in the Pacific Northwest, that means anything above 50 degrees), its been growing like crazy. I'll pick a handful one day and the next day you can't tell I picked any at all. Good thing its contained to a planter because I hear it can take over a garden in no time.

This has seemed like the longest weekend.

Friday was a hard day. Both the kids were sluggish, as was I. I forced myself to get stuff done for Gwen's party, but felt sicker and sicker the whole day. Eventually it ended up with me laying on the couch around 5pm, having excruciating back and stomach pain and doing almost nothing the whole night. Except for when Gwen threw up again and I had to bathe her. Ugh. I actually thought I might be in early labor Friday night because of location and type of pain, but now I think I might of had a stomach bug and that, along with the back pain from all the work I did, triggered some strong Braxton-Hicks. The back pain lasted well into Saturday and even traveled down my leg, so I did something real bad to it on Friday!

Saturday we finished getting the house ready. No one was feeling great, but we weren't feeling sick. Gwen fell asleep on the couch at around 12 and we had to drag her up when people arrived at 1 for her party. She was out of it and didn't even speak or smile until a good hour after people showed up.

Opening gifts is hard for the non-birthday sibling. Despite Gwen's bland expression, she loved all her gifts!


Apparently she didn't like our singing!


She refused to blow out the candle, so eventually Ethan did it for her.


Later she perked up and was goofing around with Grandpa. This is the dress I made her!






We all hung out visiting for awhile and it was nice, though I wish I could have seen more of my family. There are so many obligations right now for so many though. It was extremely difficult to find even one weekend when a majority of people could make it to a party.

Jason unfortunately started feeling sicker and sicker and was totally down for the count by dinner time. The kids weren't doing so good either. We nibbled on popcorn and apples for dinner, then went to bed early. Jason was sick all night, but the kids did ok. Ethan woke me up at a 5am to throw up, but seems to be fine now.

Honestly, I'm really really tired of this stuff. I feel like there is so much to do and accomplish but we can't when no one is well. Either we're actively sick, or we're recovering or coming down. This morning I did kinda get up in a bad mood because of it. Its like how many loads of laundry do I have to do? How many bodily fluids do I have to wipe up? How many bowls to wash? I'm just so over it right now.

Earliest blog ever?

Gwen came into our room this morning around 3:45am whining incoherently about.... something. When she's whiny and tired you can't make heads or tails of what she's talking about. She got into bed with us, told me her nose was wiggly (that means runny) and that she was hungry. 30 minutes later she's still tossing and turning and then she starts coughing and my brain starts thinking... "Hmm, that cough, sounds familiar... what does it mean again? Um.... OH CRAP". I jerked myself up and asked her if she needed to throw up, but it was too late. She puked all over the bed and herself.

There was really nothing we could do but get up at 4:30. Jason took her into the shower with him and rinsed her off, I took off all the sheets and such. She's back asleep on the couch now (lucky girl).

This was a fluke. We had no vomit yesterday so we're done with that. This was a fluke, we're not going to spend all day today being sick. Nope, no, nu uh.

So I just got back from my midwife appointment and am feeling pretty great about how it all went down.

My blood pressure was low, actually the lowest reading I've had all pregnancy. 112/70. It really surprised me as my home cuff has been returning higher numbers.

I had my GBS test done (i.e. a swab) and then asked if she could check my cervix. She did, and said I'm a stretchy 2, with a very soft cervix and the baby very deep in the pelvis. She commented that I must be having a lot of hip pain and I was like, "Heck yes woman!". I can see my Bradley coach wagging her finger and saying, "Don't let dilation numbers get your hopes up. They mean nothing". Well, very true indeed, but its good to know from a physical standpoint that all this pain I've been in is contributing to making my labor a speedy one. Woo!

The midwife I saw today, Rebecca, is the other midwife that I wanted to deliver our baby. They had put a note in my file and she was absolutely thrilled that I wanted her there and said she would have the hospital page her when I arrived. This made me feel great, because I wasn't too hip on having a stranger coming in to deliver with us. Having her there will put my mind at ease a bit.

Then I gave her the birth plan which I was hesitant to do. We are declining a lot of things (hospital PKU, eye goo, Hep. B, fetal monitoring, IV, etc). You're never sure about how all that will go. She nodded her head through the whole thing and said, "Good! Good for you. You've made some wonderful and informed decisions and presented them clearly. Excellent. This is what a birth plan should look like". I was so relieved! I must give thanks to my two online friends that I stole it from though. We basically lifted the entire thing, changed names and made minor tweaks.

Anyway, I left just feeling very good about the whole thing.

Oh, I did finish Gwen's new dress this morning and I think its possibly the cutest thing I've ever made. Its still not perfect, but its very close to perfect, and I took a lot of time with finishing seams, top stitching and all that. I'm going to hold off on a picture though until her party on Saturday. That will be her debut day ;)

Today is my Grandpa's 72nd birthday. He was so young. We sure miss him.

Yesterday was quite the day. The kids threw up all day long. They also sat on the couch all day long and did nothing but whine. Poor things. They would literally scream and beg me for water and food and I'd give in (how can a person say no to that?) and then they'd throw up. Rinse and repeat... all day!

I mostly tried to stay on top of the laundry and because I was tired and needed something positive to do, I started a new dress for Gwen. This one is SO cute! Except I got a little caught up in adding tiers and I realized at 9pm last night that the dress was long enough to cover her toes. Oops! Today I'll be ripping some seams and adjusting :) After this, there is no more tiny projects being snuck in or anything... the sewing stuff is being re-stashed and not taken out until after the baby arrives.

Today I have my 36 week appointment (all appointments weekly after this!) and Jason will be coming home early to watch the kids while I go. Afterwards I'll do some grocery shopping and start thinking about getting the house readied for Gwen's birthday party on Saturday. I had totally forgotten about it!

Ethan isn't going to school today because, according to him, "Its just too much for me today Mom". Both kids are doing better. Gwen hasn't thrown up since about 6:30 last night and Ethan since midnight (though he didn't really throw up anything, just dry heaved). Both look better, though still peaked and pale. They ate some oatmeal and toast for breakfast so we'll see how it stays down. Lord, I hope they're over this.