Month: December 2009

Now, I know what you’re thinking: your baby is the best new person of the year! While this is most definitely true — goodness knows I’m just about as proud as can be when everyone tells me what beautiful babies I make — I have to sing the praises of another person who came into my life this year. Debbie was simply a name thrown out by the women in my local ICAN chapter at the start of the year. Debbie is about an hour’s drive from me, so she wasn’t the first midwife I interviewed. Luckily the first midwives I interviewed didn’t want to touch me with a ten-foot pole, and even more luckily the midwife who trained Debbie during her residency happened to be at the clinic I go to for well-woman care when I went to at least try and initiate some sort of prenatal care with anyone who could at least do so. (It may have been my third go-around past the 6 week mark, but that didn’t mean I felt like I could go it alone like some women do.) That midwife reassured me that she’d trust Debbie with the delivery of her grandchildren, so I went straight home and left her a voicemail. She called back within 15 minutes and set up our first appointment.

We met in mid-May, and she made sure to do all the vitals — and find the heartbeat on the fetal doppler since I was extremely anxious to hear it. See, I have this thing about hearing the heartbeat that makes me feel like, “ahh, it’s alive, all is well.” I suppose that comes with the territory after you’ve had a few miscarriages, even if the last pregnancy resulted in a full-term, healthy baby girl. She was very nice, she gave me some encouragement that she had given birth naturally to two 9lbers herself, and we made plans for when the next appointment would be.

She really showed how wonderful of a woman she is by making the trip up to me for all the prenatal appointments and taking me to the consultation to get my sign-off. She really never brought up issues about my prior c-sections or things like that — it was noted in my chart, sure, but it wasn’t a constant theme of my prenatal care. She treated me like a human being, like a normal pregnant woman (“because you are a normal pregnant woman!” she said to me once). Every other care provider I’ve ever dealt with always fussed over the fact that I’ve got this scar on my uterus. Somehow that scar on my uterus made me less of a person to nearly everyone else in the world. Not Debbie. Debbie could see past that horrible reminder of what happened to me when I was still just barely an adult, a reminder that I was treated as an ignorant child who deserved to be sliced right before dinner time. She could see that I was still a woman with a strong will and determination. She didn’t judge me based on my past naïveté. She judged me for my character and personality, for the faith and desire I had. I wasn’t some terrifying leper. I was just a normal pregnant woman.

On November 3rd, she helped us welcome our sweet little pumpkin into the world. She told me how proud she was of me and how she can’t help sharing my story with others (she’s got my full permission to do so as I’m so proud to be on the encouraging end of the spectrum now). She has helped us in so many ways, and I would love to ramble on all about it. Instead, I will wrap this up by saying I’m so incredibly glad I decided to interview. I’m so glad I was encouraged to give her a call and look past that hour’s distance. Long distance worked out for me before (in fact, today marks 9 years since I met my husband online), and it worked out for me again. While she can’t stop bursting with joy about how beautiful my HBA2C was, I can’t stop bursting with joy about how wonderful Debbie is as both a midwife and a human being. She’s my heroine of 2009!

In keeping with my whole issue of having my “bests” all be about the same thing, here’s a little about the car ride from my best trip of 2009. On the drive to Winter Park, Debbie and I talked about where she grew up (she’s from Newfoundland), a vacation she went on a year or two ago, and other such things. We stopped to pick up Lauren, another client of hers who also needed to get a VBAC sign-off/ consultation. Lauren was a very nice person with very interesting stories of her own. She lives down in Hommasassa, which I know best for Hommasassa Springs State Wildlife Park.

I had packed a healthy lunch and some healthy snacks as the consulting OB had already spoken with Debbie and me about cutting out bad carbs to help keep the baby from getting too big (because, lo and behold, sugar will make a fetus get chubby, too!). We did stop for lunch, though, because Debbie and Lauren hadn’t brought any lunch. Believe it or not, I was strong enough to abstain from lo mein that day — even though Debbie offered to buy me lunch. If you know me and my noodle-loving ways, you’ll realize that I had strong willpower that day. I love pasta, I love Italian food, and I love greasy, salty, yummy lo mein noodles. Anyhow, they did offer to let me steal a bit of theirs, and I gladly snatched a couple bits of broccoli from Lauren. I may have snatched some chicken from Debbie, too, but I can’t remember. Anyhow, we sat in the little Chinese restaurant and ate (I had a peanut butter and jelly sandwich on whole wheat — I said “no bad carbs,” not “no carbs”). Then we headed down the road to Kelly’s house for the consultation.

At the end of the consultation, we headed back on the road. The sun was beginning to get lower, and we had the joy of heading back west while watching the sunset. First we dropped off Lauren, and then we headed back up to my place. I got to learn a lot about both my midwife and another like-minded person. (I’m sad that I didn’t give Lauren my email address instead of telling her that I’m the only one with my name on FaceBook — I had forgotten that I opted to keep my profile out of the search feature on there, so I’m guessing she didn’t find me. That sucked because I don’t know her last name. Such is life, right?)

This morning was a bit hectic. I hadn’t gotten to bed until after midnight because I got a late start baking all the cookies I had prepared the couple days before. I kept needing to reorganize the fridge because the cookie doughs began to take up a lot of space and made it difficult to remove anything else. The baby was a little bit fussy, so I knew better than to lay down and try nursing him to sleep — no, this was a job for the rocker recliner. I lulled him to sleep and got some sleep myself. This morning was a mad dash out of the house to get to the bus stop on time (during the winter break, the bus service is reduced down to every half hour for my particular route — it’s only one bus going around). However, I was pleasantly surprised to see Lori on the route instead of the usual guy. He’s on vacation, so Lori’s taking over the reduced service for the next couple of weeks. She’s not pleased about driving it as early in the morning as it starts, but I’m sure glad to see her. This means she’s going to be looking out for me to make sure I’m not left behind to either wait half an hour or walk (and trust me, sometimes I’d rather just walk so as not to feel like I’m just wasting time). I am so grateful to have her driving for the next couple of days before the university closes and throws us out for our mandatory vacation.

I’m also quite grateful that I got my Christmas cookie baking handled. I’ve got a few batches packaged up and awaiting pick-up from our FedEx driver, and I’m even hoping people I have spoken to in a while get to enjoy some cookies. I guess I’m just feeling very good about life right now — but that might be the extra sugar and chocolate talking!

RIP Pip

The beginning of the year found me desperately trying to replace my mp3 player, Pip. Pip was a Philips GoGear Hdd6330 30GB Jukebox that I had saved up many gift cards from my birthday and Christmas back in 2005, and I happily purchased him in 2006. I took Pip everywhere with me — riding the bus to classes, riding the bus to work, riding the bus to the store, riding the bus…. See a pattern here? I couldn’t leave my home by myself without my trusty little Pip tucked neatly into a pocket or bag. He gave me so much ear candy and musical love, and I loved him, too. Toward the end of last year, his battery began to wear down. He wouldn’t hold a charge for quite as long as he did in the past. I searched for battery replacements, but sadly his creators did not build him for battery replacement. Instead, I found ways around this dilemma and made sure Pip always got recharged after every use (well, mostly). Then one day in January or February, I noticed he wasn’t showing the recharging info while being plugged in. Odd, I thought to myself. He’s always on when he’s plugged in. I tried switching him on only to discover a screen saying something about no information being found. File corruption! My beloved Pip had died. Anxiety crept over me. Where would I get my musical fix from every time I left home? What was I to do? Sit quietly and listen to conversations on the bus? Potentially get roped into conversations with some of the interesting locals?! I was terrified.

So, I took to the internet to search for the best deal on a replacement. Now you need to understand something very, very important: I am anti-iPod. iPods require you to use iTunes from everything I’ve heard. What happens with all the music from my CDs then? Instead of leaving it up to chance (and forking over my cash to Steve Jobs), I go with anything else that has a good review and price. Wal-Mart and Target failed me. This isn’t so bad considering Wal-Mart has rubbed me the wrong way on several occasions. So that left Amazon.com. After careful consideration, I decided on the Creative Zen 8GB with an expandable SD slot. The reviews seemed good overall, the price was right, and it has the ability to cheaply get upgraded to 24GB with a 16GB SD card. I haven’t been disappointed with my purchase. (Please note: I’m not getting paid to endorse this product. Should Amazon or Creative Labs wish to change that, though, I do accept paypal. 😉 )

The orders didn’t stop there. My laptop battery needed to be replaced, so I found a good solution on Amazon. Then my laptop power adapter needed to be replaced. Then… I was hooked. I was so hooked that practically all my Christmas shopping was done on Amazon.com. I have some stocking stuffers to purchase still — uh-oh, I need to hurry up! — that wouldn’t be worth paying shipping and handling for. I stopped just short of joining Amazon Prime. Maybe I should reconsider, though.

SURPRISE! That’s just about how I felt most of this year. My January started with a surprising sense of accomplishment. We had done very well for Christmas. Then came the realization later in the month that my mini-pills were the cause of a very cruel and unusual “cycle” (let’s just say I felt like I’d been attacked by vampires, leeches, and mosquitos over the course of three and a half weeks). I threw caution — and my pills — to the wind, took extra iron supplements, and tried my best to bring myself back from the undead.

February brought a sizeable tax return that paid down a lot of credit card debt. My card balances were all at 35% or lower. One day, my mp3 player suddenly stopped working (RIP Pip). Surprise! It was time to buy a new one. I decided on the Creative Zen 8GB model with an SD slot. Then we found out my in-laws’ van was out of commission. Surprise! It was time to return the favor for helping us out financially many times. We forked over about $800 of our return.

On Valentine’s Day, Brian and I decided we’d try the whole “nice, quiet, romantic” evening thing again, barring any more stupid neighbor incidents. Luckily, the evening came and went over dinner, a bottle of wine, and quality time — no flames shooting out of sliding glass doors or standing outside in the cold in tears with scared children. However, an odd feeling of “uh-oh” crept over me for the next two weeks. Ten days later… SURPRISE! — I got a big, fat positive. The biggest surprise of the year was coming in the form of a human baby. About that time, a mixed feeling of excitement and panic set in. I’d been through two c-sections and wanted no part of another. I had tried for a VBAC with my daughter in the hospital, but it just wasn’t meant to be. I had almost come to a place where I would be at peace with just the two kids. After all, we had one of each, and the economy certainly didn’t look good. Yet here we were, having a little boy who just wouldn’t allow us to recind our promise to have a three-child family.

March came and went without much ado. I interviewed a pair of midwives who practice out of Gainesville and were rumored to be VBAC-friendly. I knew they weren’t my only option because I’d also heard of one who practiced out of Dunnellon, but they seemed more practicle for my needs — they lived right here in town. By April — SURPRISE! — I found out they didn’t want to take me on as a patient so as not to risk their reputation with the hospitals in case of transfer. Feeling rather jaded, I was about to abandon all hope of avoided an unnecessary repeat surgery and the opportunities that come with having a natural birth. No doctor in town would even entertain my aspirations, and the doctor who performed the surgery at my daughter’s birth wouldn’t even take me as a patient (I guess a scarred uterus is a scary uterus in the big world of ligitation and liability).

Luckily, one lovely day in April we saw a Pandorus Sphinx moth hanging out on our balcony. We had no clue what this surprising visitor was, so I set to work searching through several google search results. I really don’t know how I’d survive without Google — or the internet for that matter.

(SURPRISE! I need to get a new layout with good coding because this image isn’t embedding into the text properly. Fortunately, this will look better at a later date, but for now I’d like to at least get through this post before making any drastic alterations. I needed another set of coding in my style sheet to make this picture with caption look presentable.)

At the end of April, my doula contacted me with some very interesting news. SURPRISE! She got one of those positives, too. I swear, something’s been in the water because people have been conceiving babies around here like crazy. After encouragement from one woman who had a great experience with my midwife, I called her and asked for an interview. Guess what? She surprisingly didn’t see any reason why I wouldn’t be a good candidate. Talk about a relief! So, I hired her in the middle of May.

In June, Brenda Della Casa shared a link to Goldin Universe, where I took the colorgenics test. My result was an eeriely accurate description of my life and my thoughts at the time. Several of my friends noticed the same thing. It’s amazing how a sequence of colors can tell so much about your life.

July brought a couple of surprises. First, I had that home birth consultation and sign-off, where I was surprised to meet an OB who practices evidence-based medicine (as opposed to defensive medicine). By this time, we still could not think of a good girl’s name in case the baby was a girl, and we were going to wait until birth to find out. Instead I went for an ultrasound to both locate the placenta (I wanted a medical reason to do so, and that was a good enough reason) and find out what we were having. SURPRISE! We had a baby boy on the way. The stars must have been aligned perfectly because we had two boys’ names and a girl’s name picked out before we had our kids, and we got exactly what we wanted.

In August, we realized that next August won’t be a good time to move. Brian Jr. will only be about 9 months old, and it’s just too much of a hassle to even think about moving with a baby, let alone a baby and two older kids. So I asked our property manager if we could go ahead and resign for another year at that point even though it was still a year away. She gladly drew up the lease renewal addendum and signed us in at a great discount — $120/month less. It was a fabulous deal.

September brought the unpleasant surprise phone call that my mother-in-law was rushed to the hospital after collapsing. She had the flu and got pneumonia as well. The doctors weren’t even sure she’d make it. Luckily, she not only pulled through, but she also quit smoking. The doctors warned her that she couldn’t start smoking again after leaving the hospital, so she’s been smoke-free ever since.

Obviously, November brought the biggest surprise of the year — all 8.5lbs of him. Brian Jr. was proof that the consulting OB knew what she was talking about when she recommended watching my bad carbs for the duration of the pregnancy. He’s been a very welcomed, pleasant surprise, and I’m so glad he decided for us that we were going to complete our family of five after all. I sure hope those beautiful blue eyes aren’t going to hypnotize me into buying him everything he wants because I just might be in huge trouble if that’s the case!

Now that this surprising year quickly comes to a close, I can only wonder what 2010 will bring.

It’s truly disappointing that I can’t just use the best packaging from 2005 because I would absolutely love to showcase the pill bottle I received from the pharmacist after my cat bite incident. The pharmacist so cleverly added “MEEEEOUCH!” to the label on the bottle, and I’ve kept it even after using up the prescription as a momento. So, I just skipped the best packaging prompt (kind of like I’ve done with about half of the prompts so far).

I gave up caffeine when I got pregnant. I did the same when I was pregnant with my daughter simply because I’d just prefer not to risk a negative outcome. (I had three miscarriages between my first two children. So when I got the hoped for positive when we got pregnant with my daughter — the only planned baby of the family — I was decidedly terrified she wouldn’t stick.) No caffeine meant no regular tea. Now, I cannot start my day without my cup of tea. I wake up feeling like a frog’s jumped down my throat and beated up my vocal cords. I could realistically call someone and pretend to be well into my senior years. The warm fluid clears everything up, and I return to sounding like Minnie Mouse. The caffeine is a help, but it’s not as important as the warmth. Most herbal infusions don’t really suit my tastes for the morning. Luckily, I knew about white tea, which is mostly caffeine-free (whatever’s left is even smaller than the amount in the approved two cups of coffee per day). When brewed properly and sweetened with a small spoonful of orange blossom honey, it’s a very delightful drink. For many months this year, white tea accompanied my bowl of cereal every morning.

In light of recent discoveries, I really need to stop and appreciate the brighter side of life right now. It feels like my life just got much more complicated, even if it’s just something from the past. Let’s see what I have to be grateful for today…

1. I am grateful that Lori got her bid to do the same route again approved. She’ll be back in the spring semester to serve as my silver lining.
2. I am grateful for leftover ice from the holiday party. There’s nothing quite like ice cold water.
3. I am grateful that next week is Christmas. I’m particularly eager to see my daughter’s reaction to the dress-up trunk and shoes she’ll be getting. She absolutely loves dressing up, and I get to play along with her. That’s not to say I won’t enjoy watching the boys enjoy their gifts, though — and it’s our first Christmas as a completed family.
4. I am grateful that the weather’s cooled off again.
5. I am grateful for the food I got from the holiday party. That delicious, gooey brownie might be sticking to my thighs right now, but it was so worth it.

It looks like these topics are going to be revolving around the pregnancy and birth of my son or my job. There are just too many moments from 2009 from those two categories that rank as bests, I suppose.

“Rush”: noun a sudden feeling of intense pleasure or euphoria

The moment my baby was placed on my belly, wriggling and confused at the cooler, brighter, airier surroundings, all pain and discomfort instantly faded away. I was aware of the profound accomplishment that childbirth instills upon a woman. I was amazed that my body had completed the greatest biological task — after all, we are biologically meant only to be born, grow, procreate, care for our offspring, age, and die. All else is secondary and manufactured simply by our inate human desires to occupy that time with other activities. I was in awe of the vernix-coated baby staring up at me. Love at first sight — perhaps this is not a true feeling that happens between two partners, but it certainly was a true feeling for this mother when she saw her baby. I examined the creases and folds in his skin. I marveled at the full head of hair. His tiny little pinky nails seemed barely existent. This small baby boy was the final addition to our family. Nothing else really mattered at that moment. The only important things were that he and I were both alive to live that blissful first moment of mother and child as two distinctly separate entities. He and I were no longer separated visually by my flesh, yet he and I were still connected by the cord for the last moment or two. (I was so in the moment that I didn’t really notice Brian cutting the cord with Debbie’s directions.) I pulled him closer to me, cuddling him to keep him warm and to assure him that he was loved and treasured. No feeling could ever compare to such a beautiful moment. That rush must be the reason why the Duggars keep having children (mind you, I do not have the patience or desire to raise that many children — three is my limit, thank you).

Two years ago, I was considered an entry level worker. I was two days away from celebrating a year since college graduation — and feeling very bitter about the piece of parchment that took a lot of pain and effort to earn. (Life isn’t always very kind to a young mother determined to complete her education regardless of the circumstances.) I had spent the prior 3.5 months unemployed due to an ugly situation instigated by a person who thought they were doing me a favor at the time. In the long run, I do thank said person because it was a favor in the long run. In the short run? Said person had no idea what a rotten “favor” that was. My family was teetering dangerously close to the nightmare many families are living in these dark economics times, and I was an emotional wreck in the inside. Still, I’d slap on my plastic smile every time I landed an interview and moved forward hoping for the best.

Everything changed one day when I got an interview at the University of Florida’s Department of Materials Science and Engineering. That interview earned me the desk I have so happily come to inhabit Monday through Friday. It’s the desk with huge glass windows looking out into the hallway and through the glass front doors — the view out to the top of Ben Hill Griffin Stadium. It’s a building that afforded me the opportunity to meet The Tim Tebow last year (I absolutely had a fangirl moment as I saw him walking down the street, and I had no alternative other than to stop him and shake his hand.) I once saw Tebow and the Pouncey twins walking back from practice.

As a not-so-good Catholic, I felt it was more than a coincidence that my now-boss is a very devout Christian. It was as though a light was shining down on me saying, “this is meant to be.” My boss chose my résumé over all else because I wasn’t a student who’d leave after a semester. I had a family to help care for. I had that “stick in one place” quality. I knew deep down that I’d need to make this job my stepping stone from “entry level” to “experienced.”

Here I am now — I’ve gotten my two years of experience listed proudly on my résumé. While working here, I’ve had the opportunity to learn new things and validate skills that come naturally. I’ve been given the wonderful opportunity to work with family-oriented people who share very similar values with me. I’ve been privledged to work in a family-like atmosphere. I’ve found a job I’m happy to go to day in and day out. Sure, I have “menial” daily tasks, but the routine allows me to mostly run on auto-pilot for the more exciting tasks — like last minute projects that pop up, or working on the newsletters and publications. I’ve always got something to do, and I’ve formed a bond with my co-workers, the faculty, and the students.

I have no idea where life will take me in the future, but I’m glad to have the last two years in my memories. Here’s to many more!

We had been sharing our bedroom with our daughter at the start of the year since she was still breastfeeding — trust me, it’s much easier if you’re both in the same room when it’s the middle of the night. Our third bedroom was a computer room meant to become her room whenever she weaned. Well, getting pregnant initiates a series of hormones that made breastfeeding absolutely irritating. Let’s just say tender, sore, and swollen do not make for an enjoyable latching experience. So, I weaned her. However, her bed was still in our room, and a certain daddy was not too pleased with the little wiggle worm who’d come invade the bed every night. (There was also that whole issue of needing her to move down the hallway before Brian Jr. was born, but this was several months before his birth.) One weekend, he moved everything out of the computer room, thoroughly cleaned it up, and moved Tati’s stuff down the hallway to her own room. Tati and I were both upset at first. I’d grown very attached to my little girl curling up in bed with me, as had she. She cried the first couple of nights (I did, too). Then a wonderful thing happened — she began to enjoy her very own room, all meant for her girlie-girl self. Now, she’s as happy as can be and will play around instead of napping most of the time.