Here Comes The Panic

I’m almost into count-down mode. We get possession of our house 3 weeks from today. And I’m starting to get worried. Why, you ask?

The mortgage broker’s assistant emailed today asking for 2 things that we’ve already given them. One I faxed them on October 10th – I still have the fax cover sheet to prove it. The other was an amendment to our offer to purchase, which we signed the day after we signed the offer to purchase. So now I’m a bit worried about them. Is it just a lack of communication between our broker and her two assistants, or what?

I’m worried about our down payment. We’re withdrawing money from Court’s RRSP at work, and they neglected to tell their contributors that

1. there are blackout periods where you can’t withdraw funds
2. that there is a total pool of money that employees can withdraw from, and each employee only gets a certain percentage. In this case, it’s less than half of what we had planned on
3. it takes the RRSP provider an inordinate amount of time to get your request processed and get the money to you. We asked for our money for Nov. 12 and they said they’ll try

I’m worried about packing. 760 square foot house with 3 people, a dog, and way too much crap, and I’ve packed a total of 4 boxes. OK, 5 but the last one’s not taped yet. Oh yeah, and we have extra stuff in our basement that’s not ours. And there’s a bunch of crap to get rid of. Luckily, we’re doing a dump run the week before we move so we’ll get all that out of the way. I want to get packing but with Court sick it’s hard. I want to pack during the day but I don’t want Penny downstairs, and I can’t leave her alone upstairs. I had planned to start packing in the evenings this week so Court could help then the big lunk went and got sick.

So, um… EEEEEEEEEEK! This is our first home. I know it’s normal to worry, but I’m not usually the worrier. Court decided to wear those particular pants long before I ever met him.

Anyone have tips on packing everything in 3 weeks? =D

Memoirs of an 11-Year Old

When I was 11 I was a trouble-maker. I stole. I stole food. I stole postcards. I stole coins.

In my memory, I stole the food because there was only enough food made at supper for my dad to have seconds, and for my step-brother and I to share a second helping. I was still hungry, so I’d come upstairs at night and make myself a peanut butter sandwich.

I stole postcards in my desire to get my Collector’s badge in Girl Guides. Needless to say my dad pulled me out of Guides because I obviously couldn’t live up to the ideology they were trying to teach little girls.

I stole coins from my dad’s change jar and bought massive amounts of candy with it. And I stole coins from my step-mom’s collection of coins from around the world – because they were cool.

We had just moved in with my step-mom, step-brother and step-sister the year before when my dad and step-mom got married. I didn’t get along with my SM (step-mom for short – gonna get sick of typing it). It wasn’t an issue of her replacing my mom as my mom and dad had been divorced for years, I hadn’t lived with my mom for years, and she had just passed away the year before. It was probably something like I just didn’t want to share my dad, since I’d had him to myself for so long.

I started Grade 7 on a Thursday. A new school, since I was in Junior High now. New school, new people, a whole new routine. I honestly don’t remember what I did that weekend that got me in trouble. Whatever it was, my dad had had enough. He didn’t know how to deal with me anymore. He packed up my stuff, packed me in the car and drove me 3 hours away to my grandma’s house. I lived with her for the next 15 years. It was explained once upon a time that in a few years I would move out and live my own life. My dad would be with my SM forever. He made his choice to be with her and save their relationship by not having me there.

17 years later, I’m still facing the actions of a lost kid and her frustrated parents. When I see my parents now, I still feel like I did when I was 11 and on my way to my grandma’s. I feel like no matter what I do, it’s wrong. I feel like I can never to anything to please my dad, and I can never live up to his expectations. I still feel like a disappointment to him now.

It doesn’t help that my dad and SM are very critical. They have very high expectations of their children. They have sharp tongues and a pressing need to make us learn through their experience. They have done better than most people in life, and they wish that for us kids too.

Combine my 11-year old mentality, and the whip-fast lash of their tongues, and I leave their presence almost every time upset and wondering why I let them get to me. They like to share their advice with us, about absolutely everything we could face in life. But their advice comes across as demands, and ‘this is the way it must be.’

I have been told not to let Penny play with pots and pans, or she they will always be toys to her. I’ve been told not to let her play with her food or it will always be a toy. She’s not allowed to play with phones or remotes either. I’ve been told (before Penny was even born mind you) that I should wean her by 9 months. And I got eye-rolling tonight when I was talking about co-sleeping.

Their advice isn’t limited to my parenting either. We walked through our new house today and received quite a few comments there as well. I commented that it didn’t look like there was alot left to do, that it shouldn’t take the builders another month to finish. My parents started listing off all the stuff left, and how long it takes to install individual pot lights. They act like we should know this information, and you can hear the unspoken question in their tone of ‘are you stupid?’.

Last summer, when I was still pregnant, the conversations with them revolved around Court getting his drivers license so he could drive me to the hospital. Every time we talked to them, every time we saw them, it was brought up and hashed over yet again. My dad would look at me and ask me when Court was getting his license – with him standing right beside me. It was a major point of contention, and the way they hounded us about it upset me every time. Eventually during one visit with them, as soon as they asked about his license I explained that it was a subject that greatly upset me and I’d prefer we didn’t discuss it. You see, I thought I was doing the mature, adult-like thing by saying this. And let me tell you it took ALOT of guts to be able to say it. And needless to say I stormed out in tears because they brought it up again a while later and wouldn’t drop it. In the end, Court never got his license because as soon as he does, our insurance doubles and we can’t afford that.

I don’t know how to deal with this problem. I don’t know how to say to them that we do value their advice. They have more experience than us, they’ve been through things that we’re just starting to experience. They have valuable information to pass along to us. But advice is meant to be taken or ignored, depending on the receivee’s viewpoint. I want the freedom to ignore the advice if that’s what we choose to do. I know we’d be more receptive to what they have to say if they’d just word it differently, if they’d use a less critical tone of voice, if they weren’t oozing condescension. I don’t know how to approach them about this and not have it taken as an attack on them. I don’t know how to diplomatically tell them to *@&% off. Sometimes I feel like telling them if they want to raise a kid so bad, go have their own. And today my grandma said to tell them when we get to be their age we’ll have that much knowledge too. I don’t know how to say what I want to say, and be treated like a mature adult while doing it.

I just know I’m hurt and upset after almost every encounter with my dad or my step-mom. I dread going to see them, but know that I can’t avoid it. It feels poisonous. I don’t want Penny to pick up on those feelings from Court and I, and I’m not sure what to do.

Advice is welcome and solicited, but may be ignored.

Late Night Ramblings of an Upset Parent

I’ve realized a couple of times lately (but haven’t said anything to anyone), I am now older than my mom. Sound weird? My mom committed suicide when she was 5 months past her 28th birthday. She will never be older than that, but I will continue to age, hopefull WELL past there. I am now 28 and a half. The last 2 years or so I’ve lived with a completely irrational fear that something would happen to me while I was 28 where I would commit suicide too. There’s no evidence that would make me think that, hence ‘irrational’ fear. I just thought it would happen because it happened to my mom. I know some of you who read this will be able to understand why I would think that, just as some would be ready to call the police thinking I am suicidal. I’m not. I don’t want to end my life, I haven’t thought about it, haven’t dreamt of doing it. There is absolutely no reason in my life to want to.

But thinking about my mom, that fear creeps in. And when I realize my mom just didn’t have those maternal instincts, I start to wonder if I’m not the same as her in other ways too. See, my mom realized when I was quite young that she just didn’t have it in her to be a mom. Or not a full time mom anyway. She knew, somewhere inside her. So after letting my dad have custody of me, she got pregnant again when I was 6. Rather than deluding herself, she knew right off the bat that she was going to give my sister up for adoption. Long story short, my sister’s aunt and uncle adopted her and we’re still in contact now. But knowing that she couldn’t be, or didn’t want to be a mom, makes me wonder now.

I’ve always wanted children. Way back when I was 17, I wanted a baby SO bad. I wasn’t stupid enough to get knocked up, but I wanted one. I’ve always thought I’m meant to be a mom – both in physical aspects and mentally. So how is it that one little 20 pounder with the cutest little vampire teeth and most infectious smile can make me doubt myself, doubt what I’ve wanted for so long?

In the last month we’ve been having such horrible sleep problems. Just when I think I’ve figured something out, Penny switches up how she’s screwing with her sleep patterns. Whatever. She has sleep problems. And I’m trying to fix everything. But missing even one nap throws us into this painful spiral of tears and frustration. I can’t stay cooped up at home all day, every day in fear of missing one of her naps! But I’ll tell you, I can’t go on with life the way it is at the moment either. Something’s gotta give, and I don’t know what.

This isn’t the ramblings of a sleep deprived parent. I’m frustrated beyond belief. Between Penny going for half hour ‘naps’, being awake for 5 or 6 hours at a time, back arching, refusing to be held yet screaming when you put her down, constant nipple pain from breastfeeding, a desire to see my family, a wish that I had a backbone to tell my family to stuff it, and an utter lack of sex (sorry if that’s TMI for you. It’s a fact, and it plays into my frustration too) I’m really starting to wonder if I’m cut out to be a mom.

Just when I think we’ve put Penny down for the night successfully, half an hour later she’s crying and standing up in her crib. Half an hour is enough to keep her going for another 4 hours. When she’s standing it means she’s awake. It’s not as simple as putting her soother back in to get her back to sleep. She won’t let me cradle her to rock and walk her, she won’t lay down, carrying her upright facing me just makes her straight-arm away from me. She throws herself backwards, she arches her back. She cries and whines and grumps, and spits out her soother. And it all makes me want to run away, as far as I can and as fast as I can. Court has moved beyond patience with a hint of annoyance, so full blown frustration as well. And I can’t be bothered to soothe him anymore. When he gets upset, I just get this feeling of ‘about time you had to deal with her’ and an overwhelming urge to leave the house and just make him figure it out.

Penny wakes up happy in the morning, and when she’s happy Court and I just look at each other and say “she’s so cute!” Then she gets tired and my entire day just goes downhill from there. I can’t deal with these sleep problems. I can’t deal with Court’s frustration – I’m trying to get a handle on my own. I can’t deal with the criticism advice that’s dished out to us. I can’t tell anymore when Penny’s teething, or if she’s just tired. I can’t snuggle her, but I can’t get away from her.

I just don’t know what to do anymore. I no longer feel like a proud parent. I’m sick of rocking and shushing. I want to give up on breastfeeding because I can’t deal with the pain anymore. I just want to give up on all of it and walk away.

Changing Penny’s Sleep Patterns

I bought the no-cry sleep solution by Elizabeth Pantley, with the goal of changing Penny’s sleep patterns. Of course the first step it lists is to have the desire to change them. The author asks you to really look at yourself and the situation and decide if you want to change how your baby is sleeping. I had already decided this well before I bought the book.

Most people who read this book will be looking for ways to get their child to sleep through the night. I honestly don’t care whether Penny sleeps through the night or not. I don’t mind getting up to feed her. Now if we were getting up and it took an hour to get her back to sleep, I might have a problem. Luckily when Penny cries when she wakes up, I grab her from her crib and take her to our bed, and nurse her – all while she’s not quite eyes-open awake. When she’s done, I simply re-wrap her, shove a soother in her mouth, and put her back in her crib. I want to change how she gets to sleep in the first place, and at what time this happens.

Goals

After reading the book and implementing what is in it, I’d like Penny to go to sleep at 9, theoretically sleep till between 7 and 9 am, and wake up twice. She should be down to 2 naps during the day, so I’d like her to go down twice. She should be getting 2.5-4 hours of sleep from her naps, but because we get up so late, there’s no way she’ll have a long nap in the morning. I think an hour in the late morning, and a two hour (or more) nap in the late afternoon would be good. But as I’ve heard, the mistake most parents make with children is that they “plan.” My goal is not unreasonable – Penny just may not conform to what I want. That’s fine, and I get that. But it’s still my goal, it’s something to work toward.

Naps

According to the book, for Penny’s age she should be getting two naps for 2.5-4 hours total, and 11-12 hours of sleep at night. In the 24 hours that I logged, Penny had 3 naps for a total of 4 hours, and slept for 9.25 hours at night. Her naps should be mid-morning and early afternoon. Yesterday they were late morning, early evening and late evening. The late evening nap wasn’t intended as a nap – I had hoped when she woke that I could convince her to go back to sleep after feeding her, but it didn’t work. Luckily she was only awake for 2 hours after waking, instead of 4 or 5.

Prebedtime

One of the first things to be done is to track the hour before Penny goes to bed. What kind of activities are being done? How loud are they? How bright are they? For the 2 hours before Penny went to sleep last night, we rocked her and played music for her in her dark bedroom. I nursed her (twice) in our dim bedroom. We gave her a shower, which was the brightest and loudest activity we did – although our bathroom light is on a dimmer so we had the light turned down. And I read to her about Nutkin the Squirrel. Normally the time before bed wouldn’t be so dark and quiet for her, but we’ve been making a conscious effort to help Penny get to sleep. Court had started a bedtime routine with her last week, consisting of a shower, pyjamas, reading a book, and music. We will continue with that routine for now.

Night Wakings

Next was to log Penny’s night wakings. Too many… Penny still wakes up almost every 2 hours. Again, I don’t mind feeding her at night, but I would like to see the number of night wakings reduced. Last night she woke up 3 times (I think. I forgot to right everything down till this morning and I vaguely recall. But it seems like there was one more wake-up in there where I convinced her to go back to sleep right away). I can’t really say how long she was awake at each one because she barely opens her eyes as I move her and nurse her. Then she falls back asleep while nursing. I am learning that if I go to her while she’s still in the whimpering and grunting stage, I can potentially get her back to sleep without getting her up. The first time she woke up last night I managed to do that. She’d scooched herself up in the crib so her head was against the bars and she was grunting and getting upset. I went in and slid her back down away from the bars, put her soother back in, and folded her blanket back over her. And she went back to sleep for almost another 2 hours. 4 hours is about her limit though, then she needs to feed. Up until now if she made any noise I would just get her and feed her. Now I will make the effort to see if her soother and her blanket will help get her back to sleep. Also, I know I need to feed Penny more calories during the day so she doesn’t need them at night. We’re working on that a little at a time and it’s VERY slowly progressing.

What I’ve Learned So Far

Now that I’ve paid attention to when and how Penny sleeps (or doesn’t as the case may be), I can continue reading the book and start implementing some of the ideas and suggestions. From what I understand, the author will outline a number of different steps to help your child sleep longer at night, and you take what you want to implement and make a game plan from those. Then it will take a few weeks to a few months to get your plan to work. While I’m still reading and until I come up with my plan, we’ll focus on a few things:

• quiet time in the hour or 2 before bed
• dropping her early evening nap or discouraging it
• getting her naps under control – putting her down around the same time every day, and not being out running around all the time
• eating more during the day

Our House

Our house is a very, very fine house
With two cats in the yard
Life used to be so hard
Now everything is easy

Our house. It's a side-by-side, and we're on the left side with a little porch and everything!

Have I mentioned we’re building a house? There isn’t two cats in the yard… yet. Today we got our official notice of our possession date – November 26th. So much to do! Mortgage broker appointment, lawyer appointment, walkthrough appointment, schedule utilities connections and Shaw (phone, net and cable for anyone who doesn’t know Shaw). And maybe I’d better start packing.

For the record, this is what the showhome looks like, with the same layout as ours:

Living Room

HUGE Powder Room

What the builder calls a 'tech nook' - we're making in a gated play area for Penny

A little cranny off the kitchen. We're putting a countertop in to match the kitchen and the computer goes there.

The kitchen - minus the bar. I hate bar counters.

The kitchen/dining room. About the same area as the whole house we're in now! Not really... but close.

Sleep… It’s All The Rage!

So why isn’t Penny doing it?

Months ago, Penny evened herself out during the day. Our days went a little something like this:

• 9:30 – wake up
• 11:30 – 1/1.5 hour nap
• 3:00 – 1/1.5 hour nap
• 7:00 – 1/1.5 hour nap
• 11:00-midnight – bedtime

This varied a little each day, meaning I didn’t go put her in her crib at 11:31 every day. Some naps she slept for 45 minutes. Some she slept for 2 hours. Occasionally she slept for 3 or 4 hours. But this was generally the routine we followed.

Now a couple of weeks ago we had 2 very busy days in a row. It seemed like every time Penny fell asleep, I woke her up. You know… doctor appointments, grocery shopping, etc. I TRIED not to wake her up when transferring between car and stroller or into the house. Or if she did wake, I really tried to get her back to sleep – usually unsuccessfully.

Since those 2 days, we’ve had nothing but problems. There was the day she wouldn’t sleep. Literally! Between 1:30 pm and 1:00 am she slept for a grand total of 1.5 hours. She was miserable, crying at everything and everyone. I was at my wit’s end and didn’t know what to do. Court was on-call for work and had a number of phone calls to deal with that evening (due to some moron rolling out a software upgrade and leaving on holidays the next day). He couldn’t help, on the day when I needed it the most.

Now she’s changed up the game plan again, and if nothing else she’s staying consistent. She won’t go to bed before 2 am! She still naps around 11:30 (unless we sleep until then because of being up so late). She still seems to get a nap in around 3 and around 7, just like she normally would. But come bedtime, we start fighting. After a shower with daddy, a new diaper and sleepy-time outfit, and a book or two, we try to put her to bed. Bedtime may or may not correspond with feeding time, but in the end I try to feed Penny to get her to sleep too. Sometimes swaddling her helps, sometimes she fights as soon as you start wrapping her. We figured out that she automatically cries if we close her door all the way, so it stays open a bit now. Sometimes she likes having the light on (it’s a dimmer light), but it’s overhead and then she fixates on it. So I bought her a blue glowing night light. I’ve tried walking her, and rocking her, singing too. She fights sleep like it would be the death of her to close her damn eyes. She’s SO obviously tired! She rubs her eyes. She cries if you put her down. She cries if you pick her up and hold her too tight. She cries if you give her the wrong toy. She cries if you take away whatever ‘toy’ she did find. And mommy cries.

It feels like a never-ending battle the last 2 weeks. Penny won’t sleep, and that means I can’t sleep. Court can’t be expected to get up in the middle of the night when she can’t sleep. He needs to get up at 6:30 to go to work. That’s sort of important… we’re building a house and get possession in November. So nevermind bills to pay now, we need to pay down a bit of debt and not dig ourselves further because we have a mortgage to sign next month. So when people suggest that he help, between him and I, that’s not an option. I’d love the help – really I would. I’d love to sleep while he stays up with her, in all her fickleness. But financial stability means more to us right now.

So, after describing my battlefield, I’d like to ask you, my fellow moms and friends, for advice. First, how can I get Penny to sleep before midnight? I’d like to get her to sleep earlier than that, like 9pm. But right now I’d be happy with before midnight. How can I transition her to sleeping earlier? With an adult you’d normally progressively move bedtime back half an hour or an hour a night (or over a longer period of time) until the desired bedtime is reached. I did read to do that with an infant too, but um hello? If she doesn’t want to go to sleep half an hour earlier how do you enforce it, how do you make it work? It was suggested last night that I tweak her nap schedule, but I’m unclear on what to change. This is the schedule she’s been following for months and it’s worked until now. And before you say it, I realize most babies get up before 9:30 and go to bed before midnight. We are night owls, these are the times that work for us. At the moment I simply don’t want to be getting up at 7:00 in the morning.

Please, for my sanity, leave your thoughts, comments, suggestions and links to resources here! Keep in mind that letting her cry is not an option. I think I’ll be buying that Baby Whisperer book later but have read that it takes time to work. I’m thinking more immediately right now, or we won’t make it to the long term!

Me Time – It’s All The Rage

I don’t get any Me Time. Why is that?

I am not overly controlling when it comes to Penny. I’ve accepted that Court puts her diapers on differently than I do. I know when he changes her clothes, chances are they won’t be a matching outfit. I know his version of “getting up with Penny on the weekend” entails Penny falling back asleep in her bouncer chair while Daddy plays Wii. And I know that when he feeds her, not one drop hits her bib, and the dishes are empty when they’re done. I’m ok with all of that, because I know to stress out about any of it will just drain me more than I already am drained. I do admit though, I let him swaddle her to go to sleep, and I let him do it his way. But after 3 or 4 attempts where she just won’t go to sleep, I’ll go and swaddle her my way. It works – most of the time.

I don’t have too much of an issue leaving Penny with babysitters either (babysitters being Nana and Grampa or her other Grandpa or Grandma). I don’t feel the need to leave them with 600 instructions, although I might leave a few. I’ll point out if she has a diaper rash, or let them know where the food is. I don’t try to tell them how to feed her. I don’t panic when we come home while she’s eating and – heaven forbid – doesn’t have a bib on. They’ve all done this before. Court and I both survived, so that has to stand for something.

So if Court can handle being alone with Penny, why don’t I get any Me Time. And if we can handle leaving Penny with grandparents, why don’t we get any Us Time?

I know why I don’t get any Me Time. But I don’t understand why. Why is it that I feel like I need to be SuperMom? I have this obsession with proving to everyone (who everyone is, I’m not sure) that I can do it. I can hack being a parent. I can take Penny and do groceries without any help. I can do all the running around that needs to get done. I can do the housework… oh who am I kidding? I don’t do housework. I do some laundry – when it gets hard to climb Mount Laundrynus to get into the bedroom, or when the lack of clean underthings becomes an issue. But why do I need to prove this to everyone? No one has ever said anything to me to the contrary. I’ve never felt awash by someone’s doubt that I can be a good mom.

Because I need to be SuperMom – I need to carry Penny in my mei tai, and have 16 grocery bags on my arm, and the dog on the leash, and that 20-foot high ball of laundry from the commercial is chasing me down – I don’t get Me Time.

I want to go swimming, just for something to do. Actually it’s one of very few things that I can envision myself doing sans baby or husband. I honestly don’t know what else I would do without them. Maybe I’d consider taking some classes at the University and start on a degree in HR. It’s hard to justify that though when the classes are in the $400 range EACH and you need like 30 of them for the degree. We’re building a house right now, people! $400 is 1/3 of a mortgage payment! The only other thing I could see myself doing alone is shopping. Ah, Retail Therapy. Nothing can beat spending money, especially on wants, not needs. Although if it’s needs we need, then by all means therapy away! But then again, we’re building a house here, people! Hmm, not so much retail therapy then.

Going for a walk by myself is not a Me Time option. I feel bad because the dog could be walking with me. If I take the dog, Court feels guilty for not taking her for a walk, and then he has to come too. And if the dog and Court come with me, well… Penny has to come too. Strange how that works.

I know I need Me Time. And after 6 months of not having any Me Time, I sort of need it desperately. I just don’t know how to get it or what to do with it when I do have it.

Body After Baby – Week #2

Week #1 Review

Oh crap. I suck in the motivation department. Last week, I made goals of:

• Eating breakfast every day
• Walking the dog every day
• Doing a 10-minute FitDadSays.com workout
• Doing a Wii cardio workout 3 times

And I can happily say that I got tons of footrubs last week! Meaning… not so much of what was on my goal list. I ate breakfast most days, usually a bowl of Cheerios. I missed a couple of days though. I think the problem I have with breakfast right now is that I don’t get up until about 10am, and by the time I feed Penny and pour coffee into me, and decide I’m actually hungry – it’s lunch time.

We – as in Court, Penny, Hershey and myself – went for a walk around the block the other night. But that was it in the walking department. In my defense, 30 degrees Celsius is NOT conducive to walking outside until the sun goes down. And by then I’m so tired I can’t be bothered to move. I also blame this partly on Court. Of course, none of it has to do with me! (Yes, I’m not stupid. I know it’s all me. Stop making excuses.) But Court has plantar fasciitis (sp?). He was supposed to see the PT on Thursday, but they were sick, and he’s rescheduled in for tomorrow. His feet have been absolutely killing him. It’s really hard to get all of us up for a walk, when I know walking hurts him. But last night he soaked his feet in a big tub of hot water, and said it helped a bit. And he goes to the PT tomorrow. So hopefully we’ll get our family walks in here pretty quick.

I tried the FitDadSays.com workout. Once. And I couldn’t do 8 burpees. But I did the rest! And wasn’t gasping for breath like Court does (give him a break, he’s asthmatic). It seemed simple enough to do. But I think I need to do it when Court’s not around. He’s ok doing it (and did do it almost every night), but I feel like an idiot flopping around trying to do things like burpees. Don’t know what a burpee is? Click here. If a 10-minute workout sounds good, hope over to FitDadSays.com’s YouTube Videos for his many 10-minute workouts.

And did I do my cardio workouts on the Wii? Well, yes. Once. It’s Gold Gym’s Cardio Workout for anyone who was wondering. Mostly you shape box. While rocking back and forth from one foot to the other. It’s actually the rocking that keeps your heart rate up, and boy is it hard to do! Especially with the speed they have it at.

So for Week #1′s review, no I didn’t meet my goals. I didn’t even come close. BUT…it is definitely better than I was doing before we started.

Week #2 Goals

I’m going to continue with last week’s goals, mostly. But I’m going to work on getting up earlier so I can make eating breakfast at breakfast-time my goal. So this week, I want to get up by 9:00 every day (weekends don’t count), and eat breakfast within a half hour of getting up. I still want to walk the dog every day, but I’m going to try to do it in the morning. I’m still going to try to do my 10-minute workout every day, but I’m going to check some of FitDadSays.com’s other videos because he has some aimed at abs. And this baby-tummy needs work. And… I’m still going to do the cardio 3 times.

I am off to a good start for this week. I bought breakfast (a bagel from Tim Hortons… it’s still breakfast!), but didn’t get a chance to eat it until about 12:30. And I took Penny and Hershey for an almost hour long walk at the off leash park. Hershey got to run off leash for the first time, which let me focus on walking and making it count. And I learned that 10-11am during the week is a great time to go to the off leash park! I’m going to finish posting this, and do my 10-minute thing, and I think I’ll even turn the cardio workout on until Penny wakes up (which should be anytime now).

For the record, I didn’t lose any weight, and I didn’t gain any weight. But this afternoon, I feel good!

Go Team Magenta!

Samantha @ MamaNotes is hosting a Body After Baby Challenge, with a new sub-challenge of 8 weeks to be fit by Labor Day.

So many moms and even 2 dads have joined! Samantha had to split us into teams so that we can cheer on our little group. On Team Magenta is me, my husband Court, Srr, Heather, and Danielle. We’ll be cheering each other on for the next 8 weeks through various goals.

What I intend to accomplish over the next 8 weeks is just a split-off off my long term goals.

8-week Goals
Lose 15 pounds of baby weight (to get back to prepregnancy weight). To accomplish this, I will:

• Do a 10-minute workout from Fit Dad Says every day (the one we’re working on right now is 30-second mountain climber, 15 reverse lunges per leg, 12 pushups [I do crunches], 15 overhead squats, 30-second plank, and 8 burpees). Fit Dad Says has videos of how to do everything. Right now I can only get through the list once. Actually, I can’t even finish the burpees right now. But that will get better the more I do them, and then I should be able to do 2 sets in 10 minutes, maybe a bit more.
• Use my cardio workout on the Wii 3 times this week
• Take the dog for a walk every day, even if it is just around the block
• Eat breakfast every day (I’d better get on this one. It’s 12:30 and I haven’t eaten yet)

Srr, Heather and Danielle, I’ll be visiting you shortly to say hi and leave some words of encouragement! Go Team Magenta!

My birth experience

We didn’t plan to get pregnant. But Penny wasn’t an accident either. I stopped taking birth control 6 months before we got married. I’ve heard it takes 3 months to get birth control out of your system, and we figured even if I got pregnant right away, 3 months pregnant at the wedding was acceptable to us. I didn’t get pregnant until 7 months after our wedding.

For the first time in a few years, I’d actually motivated myself enough to go to work out with my best friend. We were talking about if I could be pregnant. I was having pain in my lower stomach that felt like the day before I’d get my period. I always had bad cramps, and the day before I’d start getting a dull ache. That’s what it felt like all the time. And my breasts were very tender. I had 2 pregnancy tests that I had taken about a week and a half before, which showed up with VERY faint pink lines. I chalked it up to the fact that they’d been sitting just inside an open window all winter. The day after exercising with my friend I went and bought a pregnancy test. And it was positive! Court was cleaning the litter box when I tapped him on the shoulder and held up the test. He kind of shrugged and said, “Yeah? And what does that mean?” I laughed and told him I was pregnant! I was due December 24th (of all days in the year…)

I was late (according to the doctors). But I was going to a Low Risk Obstetrics Unit, and one of the doctors explained that if I refused to be induced 10 days past my due date, I would be considered high risk and wouldn’t be able to give birth there anymore. Court has had 2 day surgeries at their hospital and we really liked all of the staff and how friendly they were. We told them we’d be back to have our babies there. I tried…

We drove to the hospital in High River (an hour away) for 8am Saturday morning, January 3rd, to be induced with Cervadil (to ripen the cervix and hopefully get me dilating). Before we left, they said I was having contractions about 11 minutes apart, but I couldn’t even feel them yet. We went home, putzed around a bit, then I had a nap. When I woke up I was having contractions, but wasn’t too sure they were contractions. I didn’t want to get Court worked up for no reason, but they seemed pretty close together, so I asked him to time them. 2 minutes apart and lasting a minute each! I called the hospital to ask if I should come in. Of course they said yes. It just seemed strange to me that there was no build-up, so I didn’t really believe I was in labour. Once we got to the hospital they checked me out and unfortunately I still wasn’t dilating very much. They also had 3 women in their delivery rooms already, with only 3 rooms in the hospital.

They kept me overnight, using morphine and laughing gas to get through. Because of the cervadil, at one point I was having 4 or 5 contractions one on top of the other, with no break in between. I remember trying to push my head through the bathroom wall because it hurt so bad. I remember vomiting once because of the pain. But they’re distant memories now. The morphine might have slightly helped, but not so that I’d remember it now. The laughing gas was interesting! I would use it all the way through a contraction, and the next, and the next, until I’d just about pass out. I had to start using it for the contraction, then switch to oxygen in between. Trying to get comfortable and get some sleep was not fun. I am not a back sleeper, but every time I tried to lay on my side the contractions would get stronger. I should have clued into this at the time, but hindsight is 20/20! The next morning my contractions were down to 20 minutes apart, a little bit more dilation (but still only 3 cm), and I wasn’t hurting during the contractions. At one point the nurse asked me if my water had broke. I said no, but she said my bed was wet. So I’m one of those lucky ones whose water broke and didn’t even know it!

After the anaesthetic guy, obstetric surgeon and on-call doctor had a talk, they decided that for a number of reasons, they didn’t feel safe delivering Penny there. Mostly because of how much water I was retaining would make it hard to put any drugs into my spine. They shipped me off to the Rockyview (allowing us to get ourselves there, not by ambulance).

Rockyview was also very busy and we had to wait for a delivery room. But I did get some measure of priority because I’d already been in labour overnight and my water had broken the night before. We got into a delivery suite about 8pm, got on the epidural and oxytocin and started from there. Sometime between midnight and 7am (I’m not too sure when…it was pretty boring) they got me started on pushing during contractions. It feels like it was only maybe 10 contractions, but they told me it had been two and a half hours. The doctor was concerned because I wasn’t progressing at all and started talking about vacuum extraction. I had let my epidural wear off a bit so that I could feel the contractions and push, and all of a sudden the doctor said yep, we’re doing the extraction. I didn’t have time to get the drugs back up so it hurt like hell. Penny made her very delayed appearance at 7:26am on January 5th. For those keeping track, that’s 47.5 hours since I was induced with the cervadil (but about 24 hours of labour, and maybe 3 or 4 of active labour).

They got Penny out and took her to clean up and I guess I just lay on the bed for about an hour and a half while they stitched me up, pulled my placenta out for me and dealt with a major hemmorage. I knew something was wrong but they didn’t say anything, so I didn’t even want to ask. Court just stayed with me and held my hand and talked me through it. I had to make him go take pics of Penny.

My birth experience didn’t turn out the way I’d wanted it. I didn’t want an epidural, but I wasn’t against pain relief. I know that if you get an epidural, you’re more likely to need other forms of medical intervention, and I just didn’t want to go down that road. I wanted to deliver in High River, and ended up in Calgary instead. I wouldn’t have opted for a vacuum extraction (who would?), but it is better than a cesarean. Since Penny was born, Alberta has started covering the cost of midwives ($3000-$3500). Midwives have hospital privileges, so you can have home birth, in a birth centre or at a hospital with a midwife. This is the route I’d like to go for the next time. I’ll also look at having a doula, but they aren’t covered so I’ll start saving now.

I want to move around, I want it to be more natural than it was. But more than that, I’d like to be in the comfort of my own home for the recovery. It was more of a stress for me to be sharing a room with a screamer who wasn’t getting enough to eat, and having a migraine that the hospital couldn’t give me any drugs for. I want to prepare myself better for the next pregnancy and birth, including yoga to limber up, and hopefully having less of a pre-pregnancy weight than I did this time. It’s a process I’m going to start now, in hopes of having an experience I want next time.

This post naturally leads into Breastfeeding Failures and Success (which was written first)