The Bad Wednesday

Did I ever get blindsided yesterday. I had my glucose screening at the birth center. I went in there, all innocent and cheerful, not knowing what was about to hit me. I drank this big bottle of orange liquid sugar: "Chug it," she said. Then we had to wait in the waiting room an hour until they would take my blood. I wasn't feeling so good in the waiting room. The staff put Madagascar on the bigscreen and I could barely lift an eyelid at it. I kind of keeled over on my side into the couch pillows. I was feeling nauseated and the baby felt like it had been given a stimulant (which it had) bopping around in my stomach. The midwife touched my shoulder finally and we went back for the blood draw.

On the drive home I felt like vomiting was imminent. That horrible feeling when it's kind of heaving up inside you but you can't actually do it. William stopped for breakfast burritos and a paper bag (since I had been fasting for the test). I couldn't eat, however. We got home and I collapsed upstairs. I finally was able to throw up and felt a little better for a moment. That passed. I lay like a corpse most of the day feeling sick. Then, strangely, the sick feeling went away and I immediately felt hung over. William said I was crashing from all the sugar. I didn't feel any better until about 9:30 at night.

No one told me there could be side effects from the gluscose. Not happy about that. I also feel like I never want to take that cursed test again. I looked it up and the only flag I have for gestational diabetes is being over 25, so I'm hoping we can bypass this thing next time. Ugh.

It turned out I was feeling better just in time. William got a call from his sister that his mom had fallen and hurt herself. We got out to Georgetown to look after the kids while Tammy took Linda to the emergency room. They were gone a while--after a couple of hours William looked at his phone and realized Tammy had been calling him. She left a message that they'd just gotten out of the emergency room when Linda, on pain medicine, had fallen again right outside the hospital and hit her head pretty hard. So they'd gone back again to fill out a report and get a CAT scan. What a night for Linda! Luckily she didn't have a concussion, though she did break her nose. There's some surgery she could have on her foot that might help her maneuver better. Tammy's going to try to get her into a orthopod this week.

I'm feeling much better today. I bet Linda's feeling pretty darn crummy, though.

Pamper Yourself, Chefs!

Registered at Target and Babies R Us. William and I both exhausted by walking around scanning stuff all day and trying to find the rare gender-neutral items. Doesn't sound like it would be so tiring, does it? We tried to find a kick-ass going-home outfit for the baby but no such luck. The closest thing was a black onesie with an environmental slogan on it in sequins. Maybe will have to look online, or William's suggestion, Hot Topic.

We had our Pampered Chef party yesterday and it was wonderful. Great to see some people I haven't seen in a long while, such as Lena from Barnes & Noble days. Wren is looking awesome after losing all kinds of weight on Atkins. She brought some excellent chocolate crinkle cookies for all the rest of us to eat excessive amounts of. I overdid the cleaning on Friday and was so exhausted Saturday morning I didn't know if I'd make it through the party. But I got a second wind from all the great people and felt fine the rest of the afternoon. I hadn't slept much on Friday night and Saturday morning I thought, "One of God's worst punishments has got to be making you unable to sleep when you're tired." To lie there, exhausted, but so far from sleep, is torture. Last night I slept. Thank God.

I wonder if I'm going to be able to resist seeing Fast & Furious?

Happy Thursday

Yoga this morning. I was going to buy an unlimited monthly pass, but it turns out they were having a special last month when I inquired about it and now the special is over, so I will go weekly instead and pay as I go. Lots of the women in the class are having sleep trouble. That made me feel better about it. Yesterday I aggravated my hip while I was cleaning and it's bugged me since. I'm hoping the yoga helped some. The teacher, Alice, also gave us some poses specifically to help sleep. I'll try them; I'll try anything!

William and I had a nice lunch at Satay. I'm logging all the food I eat this week for the Bradley class. I think my diet looks pretty good. They want you to eat between 75 and 100 grams of protein a day, which is a lot, but I'm on target. The record does help me decide what else to eat to help round out my day. I'm a little low on eggs and green vegetables.

I got to sit in on part of one of William's meetings at work today because I was waiting for him and the meeting ran over, so they asked me in. It was very interesting to see some of what they do. It reminded me of when I worked at MCI. I got to meet his boss, Donnine, who was down from Dallas. It's pretty exciting what they're trying to do with the company. Apart from considerations of William's job, I hope they succeed because I like rooting for the little guy with the big idea. They have also been very good to William and are much more thoughtful than most of the companies I've worked for. They seem to care about him as a person, not just a cog in the works. That's a long-sighted view that should serve them well.

Our Pampered Chef party is coming up this Saturday. We should have ten or more people. I kind of hurt myself cleaning the bathroom yesterday (hip) but I have the other, bigger bathroom to clean today or tomorrow! Bathrooms are the most cleaning-intensive rooms in the house.

It's been beautiful weather lately. And they even stopped hammering on the new roof down the street so it's very peaceful at the moment.

Bradley Birth Class

We finally had our first birthing class. I really like the teacher, Karina. It's almost a little more intensive than I expected (going back to school) but I think it will be very helpful. There's a lot of homework! I am waiting for her to assign back massages to the husbands. There's a relaxation part at the end which is wonderful. It's great to see all the husbands there supporting their wives and wanting to be so much a part of it, even the disagreeable parts. We're the only couple from the Birth Center, which surprised me. Also the only ones who haven't found out the sex. We saw a lovely video about a Mexican midwife giving birth at home. Her husband was a sculptor from Japan and they lived in this idyllic hilly, lush, green paradise. It's such a relief to see a birth without screaming and running around, the movie and TV staple. Her baby looked very Japanese and was adorable, with enormous chipmunk cheeks. I hope our baby has enormous chipmunk cheeks.

I saw the doctor today (my doctor, not for the baby) and she's happy with how I'm doing. She doesn't think my current sleep issues are related to the insomnia I've had in the past, since I feel so good otherwise, she thinks it's just pregnancy stuff. I've taken Valerian tincture the last three nights and it has helped. I'm also planning on starting yoga again so that will help, too. In general I feel pretty groovy.

Blah Blah Blah

Went over to Kim and Alan's last night and watched Twilight again. I liked it even better the second time. Kim made some really good chili, too. William opined it wasn't true chili (after the workshop we took on chili-making) but more like a stew; whatever it was, it was very good. Today it's a gorgeous day and both William and I are dragging because of staying up late last night.

We got a couple more maternity things yesterday, two pairs of pants. I'm excited to have some more pants that fit. One pair of jeans and a pair of poplin khakis that will be good in the heat that's coming. I tried on a couple of bathing suits and was underwhelmed. We got a nice cinammon candle fromt he Yankee Candle Shop, too. The mall is funny, with all its crowds of people wearing mall clothes and mall jewelry and mall hair. If you don't go very often it seems like another planet.

Countdown to birthing class!

Hail and Africa

We start our birthing classes tomorrow night. I've been telling Willliam I hope they have a prosthetic belly so he can wear it. What I'd really like to do is have him wear one and then get him to lie down and try to get up again. It would make me feel good.

We had monster hail the other day. I've never seen hail like that in my life. Although it was very cool to see, it did do a lot of damage. It wrecked our roof and the windows of two cars, as well as a headlight. I wonder how it would feel if you were standing out in it!

I had a big rant about the pope saying condoms cause more problems with AIDS than they prevent and the answer to the AIDS problem in Africa is abstinence and then faithfulness within marriage. But I didn't write it when I had a big head of steam worked up. The British journal The Lancet is asking for him to retract his statement as it is scientifically incorrect. As if men need more reasons not to wear a condom. "The pope said so." What does the pope want the people who already have AIDS to do? Are they condemned to a life without sex, or is their partner condemned to getting the virus? And that got me thinking about the family planning method condoned by the church. Why isn't it wrong to prevent more children with the rhythm method, if one doesn't believe in birth control? How is that any different, in that it is preventing possible children from being born, than using another method of birth control? I respect the opinion that all life is sacred, including lives of people on death row (the previous pope impressed me when he persuaded the governor of Missouri to pardon an execution) but what about when other factors, that have nothing to do with preventing pregnancies, come into play, as in the case of condoms preventing AIDS? I also had a big problem with the pope praising Cameroon for refusing to sign the African pact to allow women to have an abortion in the case of danger to her life. Is it more important for the fetus to live than the mother? Is this some doctrinal thing to do with original sin?

I guess I did have enough steam.

A Briefer Post for the Follower

I have only one follower of this blog (although other people than the follower read it) and he complained about the length of some of my entries. Am I writing tripe? Will have to consider this.

Walked around Town Lake on Sunday. The longest Town Lake walk ever, or so it felt. Between my injured toe and carrying around this baby disguised as a bowling ball it felt pretty far.

I decided the sensation of the baby kicking is most comparable to melted chocolate in a saucepan slowly boiling. You know how it burble burbles, popping bubbles every now and then? That's what it feels like.

William and I went to a birthday party the other day. One of the women asked, "Are you expecting?" I'm sure she was just being cautious and nice but when your belly is out to here and you look like you swallowed a watermelon whole it's kind of an odd question. She kept looking at me and laughing uproariously at some joke only she could understand so I mostly avoided her.

The assassin story is going well. I have many more ideas for this than I did for Audra. Maybe the assassin could take out Audra, and that would be an ending for that story.