February Mamas August 22-28

[Lousli]

Hello all, time for a new thread, so I took it upon myself to make one. I hope everyone is enjoying the second trimester and that this week brings a lot of good news to all (thinking of you Tug and Shannon).

Kater07 February
3 Little Birds due Feb 1
Chiku due Feb 1 birthing center
Parker'smommy (Heather) due Feb 1
Lisashepp (Lisa) due Feb 1
Sadkitty. Due Feb 1st
Dandylion (Stephanie) due Feb 2
Truvie due Feb 2
PeacefulVegan (who also answers to Tracie) due Feb 3
Lou due Feb 3
Orange due Feb 3 Birth Center with OB
Twin Mom (Deb) Due Feb 4, VBA2C homebirth
Free Thinker (Mandy) due Feb 5
HelloKitty (Kitty) due Feb 6
Letabug (Arleta) due Feb 6
LianneM due Feb 7 homebirth
TexasSuz (Susan) due Feb 7
Happymamajenni (Jenni) due Feb 7 hospital/OBGYN
LesleyLuu (Lesley) due Feb 7 (or 9th?) hospital/OBGYN
DeirdreAlison (Deirdre) due 1st week Feb homebirth, maybe waterbirth
New Life Due Feb 8
Shannon 0218- due Feb 11 hospital birth with great OB
ella-makes-3 (Jasmine) - due ~ Feb. 11 midwife/natural birth at birth center
Tug due Feb 12
Firefly due Feb 13
Christi due Feb 14 hospital birth with fab OB
Periwinkle (Karen) due Feb 14
Fairymomma (Pamela) due Feb 14
Jorie (Margorie) due Feb 14
AmBam (Amber) due Feb 14 homebirth
Wtchyhlr (Joy) due Feb 14
rose angel (Karen) due Feb 16
mama2m&m (Denise) due Feb 16
HydeParkB due Feb 17
Karennnnn (Karen) due Feb 17
Coopsmama (Kristen) Due Feb 17
Shyly (Monica) Due Feb 17
Gretchen Due Feb 18
weesej (Jen) Due Feb 19 homebirth
Ekblad7+ (Amy) due Feb 20 Homebirth
heveasoul due Feb 21, h/b with m/w
mehndimama (Stell) due Feb 22 unassisted homebirth
Mainemon (Susan) due Feb 23 homebirth w/midwife
woolfairy (Elle) due Feb 27, baby #2 homebirth
KateSt. Late Feb. Homebirth
Chloe'sMummy #2
4Given (Stacey) due end of Feb.

[Periwinkle]

14w+6d

Subscribing...

[TwinMom]

I'm still here and still nauseous. I'm ready for this to be over!

Today is my son's 3rd birthday, which is very bittersweet for me. I'm so glad he's getting older and more independent, but I miss him being my sweet little baby. He insists he's still a baby, though. I don't know what he's going to think when he realizes there's going to be another baby!

[Christi]

subscribing

[shannon0218]

Hi everyone!!
Better day today. Mark is awake. His mom let me talk to him for a bit, I asked him how he was and he said "I've got a killer headache" Then I told him I so wanted to be there to see him and I felt bad, but that for the sake of the pregnancy I had to stay home, he told me that the baby was the most important thing and followed with "You know, you could send your love in the form of homemade cookies" So tomorrow I guess I'll do some baking. It's nice to see he's the same old smart ass he's always been.
Bp is still up, it's weird though, my top number is normal, it's only the bottom number that's high-unfortunately that is the more concerning # to be high, but they are afraid to put me on meds for fear of bottoming out my top #. I'm going to ask her tomorrow about my maybe hitting the gym, perhaps if I'm in better shape things will improve, it's just wether or not I'm already too high risk to be working out IYKWIM.
Well, off to make dinner....

[mum5]

Sofia have a great time on your camping trip. I am so envious I love camping and it sounds as if you will be in a beautiful part of the world.

Ekblad, I have been thinking about that poor little girl and her family all weekend, how terrible.

Tug, glad to hear that that the ultrasound went ok. Best of luck for the next 3 weeks on bed rest and hoping that everything resolves itself.

Lesley, love the name Hazel. That's one of the reasons that I am apprehensive about finding out the sex of the baby. You get alot of unwanted input about what people think of the name that you have chosen to call your own baby. It sent my blood boiling last time, and we didn't find out the sex, so I guess people will give their rude opinions anyway.
Wow, venting!!!

Shannon, thinking of your bp and of Mark, and sending good vibes to you both. He must be feeling ok, hence the request for cookies!

A good friend of ours came to visit with her 6 week old yesterday. It was so great to see her and her baby and it broought it all back to dh and I, so now we are so excited to meet this new little one.
I met with my new m/w on Friday and all went really well. She will be there for the birth of our new baby, which is awesome, and has all the philosophy's that you would want from a m/w. So I am happy!!
Ok, got to go and lie down. We just went to a Greek festival and i ate way too much!

[ekblad9]

Middle of the night hunger

OK, so I'm trying to eat a snack before bed. Something that will stick with me like cheese and crackers. God knows I eat enough for twenty people during the day. Why do I keep waking up at like 3 am starving? This has never happened to me before. And if I don't eat then I can't go back to sleep. Ugh! Anyone else going through this?

[milk_maker]

Ekblad, I feel your pain. It's usually around 2 or 3 for me too, in between my fifteenth and sixteenth bathroom visit...sigh. I usually make some peanut butter toast and munch on that then go back to bed. I have such a hard time falling back to sleep though. Actually I slept in today and I'm going to be late for work...but I don't care, I have a week left there...what are they going to do, fire me? LOL.

[AmBam]

Good Morning everyone! Thought I would say hi!
Things are good. I've been busy. My house is a mess!! Trying to get on top of that today.

Shannon~ Glad to hear Mark is awake. Good luck with your blood pressure. It's too bad I can't borrow some of it!!

Sofia~ Have a great time! Sounds like a blast!!

Tug~ Sorry you have to be on bedrest. That would be soooo diffucult. Good luck~

Twinmom~ Sending feel better vibes! Happy Birthday to you ds!!

Hope everyone has a great day. It is raining and cold here. So I guess that is a good reason to get my house in order!!

[tug]

monica and ekblad - eat what you want! my theory is that i get to do whatever the heck i want right now. i will note, however, that having read that a study showed that babies of women who ate chocolate while pregnant were happier in general, i am FORCING myself to eat chocolate for the baby's sake!

shannon - so glad to hear about mark seeming to come out of it pretty well so far!

e-m-3 - yeah about finding such a great midwife!

deb - i know what you mean. my ds has just started pointing to himself and saying "baby, baby." it's so cute but it makes me a little sad too 'cause he won't be the baby of the family for long anymore...of course, the other possibility is that he is actually saying "pee pee, pee pee" 'cause they're kind of hard to tell apart!



hope everybody has a good day. i have another doc appt (these are getting endless) and i have to do some work (ugh!! clients have the nerve to expect me to work!). i'm starting to like this lying about sleeping and reading stuff....

[ekblad9]

Well, I scheduled my ultra sound for Sept. 20. I can't wait. Seems like a million years away. I just want to see that everything is OK with the baby!

[milk_maker]

I've got my u/s scheduled for 1 October and I can't wait. That's where we're hopefully going to find out the sex of the baby. Either way, he/she is going to be wearing a lot of yellow anyways since I bought all that stuff.

Are any of you really starting to shop? I mean really starting? I spent a lot of money this past week. Granted, I got great deals and all, but I kind of feel guilty spending at all. I also went out and bought myself that Kitchen Aid stand alone mixer I've been lusting for since it was on sale and I'm about to lose my income...I figured I'd better get it while I still can. I'll tell you, that accessories catalogue is like porn for me...lol. So I've been a pretty bad girl w/ spending this week. It's going to slow down a lot I hope or else my nice little nest egg I've set aside will be gone before the baby gets here.

Tug, I like your chocolate idea. I guess I'll just have to break down and buy some Godiva chocolates and make myself eat them...sigh. Life's just so unfair sometimes....lol

[ekblad9]

I'm all for the chocolate idea. I love chocolate normally but it hasn't appealed to me this pregnancy.

This is baby #6 so I have bought nothing! Lots of everything around here. I did, however, buy dd2 (who will be 4 in a few weeks) a wooden kitchen. I've been drooling over it since dd1 was 3 years old. Should have bought it then. Family "went in" on it so it didn't cost us that much.

[Lousli]

I bought some comfy bras for me (maternity/sleep/nursing) because I'm so sore! Also bought the Hypnobabies home study course (yay!), a few diaper covers, and a coming home outfit. All of this since finding out the health & gender the other day. Then I bought a few scrapbooking items, so that I can create a scrapbook for DD#1 (in all my copius free time, LOL) before DD#2 comes. Wish me luck...

Oh, and I started a couple of registries, one at the admittedly evil Babies R Us because I wanted to register for a carseat and double stroller and the other at Natural Babies for some cloth diapers and stuff.

[milk_maker]

Kitty litter

I'm so mad. Obviously I'm off litter duty for the next several months. We have three cats...they eat and process a lot of food. They also drink a lot of water. When I had my hypersmell working, I could smell the pee or poo as soon as they went and would make DH clean the box ASAP or else... :Puke Hey, it was up to him. So he did a great job of keeping it clean. Lately, my sense of smell has gone out the window as my allergies have kicked in and my nose has plugged itself permanently. So I haven't been able to smell anything...even cat pee which is beyond overwhelming to me. I hate the smell!

Well, my nose was pretty clear today and I noticed that there was a strong odor of cat urine wafting from their room. I went in and poked my head inside the tent. The smell was overpowering. I took the litter box out of the tent and threw the tent away. I was pissed off because 1. the tent was broken from some fat cat trying to get on top of it and 2. that thing cost me about $40 (made for the automatic scooping litter box) 3. DH didn't even tell me that it was broken. Well I started cleaning up in the room. DH hadn't put the rug that goes under the box down and litter was all over the carpet. I pulled out the vacuum and was starting to go at it when I noticed a spot. I got down on my hands and knees and gave a cautious sniff...pee. Great! So I cleaned it up (not an easy task) and I think I got rid of the smell. Now I'm on the hunt because if one cat's peeing outside the box, the other two are too. So I look around and sniff around and viola...there's spot two and spot three! Clean them up. Now I'm pissed and I'm moving this small table that goes in front of the litter box so the cats can access it (it's up high to keep the dog away from the delish tootsie rolls) and there's what looks like poop stains. Now one of the cats had been ill the other week and had made a small mess in the room. DH was wonderful and cleaned it all up...except this spot. He cleaned it up, but didn't wash the spot...so now I have a big brown spot and two smaller ones to accent it. I'm beyond seeing red right now! I'm not supposed to be cleaning litter boxes. I'm certainly not supposed to be washing cat poo out of the carpet, but if I don't do it it sure as hell isn't going to get done! What am I supposed to do?!

I'm so scared to go visit my family now. I was planning on going all next month, but I might not because I am terrified to even imagine what I'm going to come home to. If it got this bad with me here to monitor, I can't imagine what's going to happen when I go out of town.

Anyways, I confronted him and asked him why he wasn't cleaning the box. He insisted he was so I told him that there are two options here.

1. He's not cleaning the litter box well and the cats are pissing on the floor and god knows where else...he needs to pick up the pace.

or

2. One, two, or all three cats have bladder or kidney infections (which I seriously doubt) and they're all going to have to go to the vet. Big bucks.

He doesn't want me to take them to the vet, but he's insisting that his litter cleaning skills are not to blame.

I'm fixing the problem. I'll be sleeping on the futon in the cats room from now on. That way I'll be able to monitor what's going on with the litter box. I never let it get smelly and I certainly won't now.

This is just the tip of a very big iceberg. DH has changed so much since I've become PG. I've never felt dislike for him and now it's gotten to the point where I don't even want to be in the same room as him. He wants me to be a SAHM, but now that I'm quitting work (he wanted me to work through my whole pregnancy) he's starting up on the snide comments about him providing food and shelter and blah blah blah. I just want to leave so bad sometimes.

I'm sorry, I don't know any of you and I'm not a very active poster here. I just need to vent to someone and I don't feel comfortable complaining to my friends because most of them are DH's too and I don't want to put them in an akward position. I just feel so lost and helpless and I just want to get away from him. I am just so unhappy right now.

[shannon0218]

Monica, I certainly know your pain! It's like our hormones turn them stupid (er) The last time I was in the hospital, I was in for 4 days and I came home to the spagetti sauce we'd had for dinner the DAY BEFORE I went into hospital, still sitting on the stove and covered with mold, he hadn't done one single dish while I was gone. He did however find the time to oil his boots and hang the new towel racks in the bathroom--which of course looks like hell because he didn't bother to paint as well, so there are just big holes in the wall.
When I freaked about the spagetti sauce he said he didn't notice it, meanwhile the smell just about killed me when I stepped in the house.
I think the wanting them to just go away is normal (blame it on the hormones) I remember around7 weeks one day, dh was doing me a favor and when he went to leave he went to kiss me goodbye and I had this overwelming desire to smack him rather than kiss him.
Hang in there!!!

[ekblad9]

Yes, I know this feeling well. I've gotten it the last four pregnancies. I don't want to be around dh at all. When he tries to kiss me goodnight or goodbye I want to throw up on him. Now that I'm feeling better I've been working my tail off cooking, cleaning, organizing, undoing the unbelievable mess that has become of my home in the past 15 wks. Have I gotten a thanks or the house is looking good? No way! And he did nothing to help make it nice when I was sick. Friends came and cleaned and cooked. Ds1 (12) cleaned bathrooms, cleaned the kitty litter box, changed diapers, etc. Dh read a lot of good books, though. It's so frustrating. I try to remember that he works all day long but he really does nothing around here ever. Something I never really notice unless I'm sick and/or pg.

Sorry to steal the ranting!

[wtchyhlr]

I'm sorry i haven't posted lately.... darn work thing...

Shannon - I'm so glad Mark is coming out of it. Did you bake him some yummy cookies?

Tug - Shopping. Not in real life except for bra's. Does making registries count? I have one at BrU, one at Diaper Safari, one at Natural Babies, and one somewhere else thats escaping me at the moment - but they've all been online.

Ekblad - woohoo on scheduling your ultrasound. Does your midwife do them, or do you have to go to an OB for it?

Shyly - I'm sorry you're having DH (dorky husband) syndrome (i stole that from Heve, btw) I think we've all been there. Are there any teenagers in your life that might like a bit of extra cash for taking care o the kitty litter for a couple of months, or would that send your dH over the edge>?

My allergies got outta control the last couple of days. I forgot how bad they can be - not congestion at all, but intense sinus headache accompanied by my eyes swelling shut. I did the hot shower, neti pot, sleep, acupressure, reiki, eucalyptus oil things yesterday. Did it go away. No. Took tylenol, slept, STILL had it this morning. Talked to my friendly pharmacist, who says i can take my Allegra if it gets bad like that... and that benadryl is okay (thankfully because i caved this morning at work when the swellnig started again), and he gave me eyedrops that are antihistimine... which aren't absorbed as systemicaly as pills. I was a good girl and made sure there's not thimerosol in them. So i'm sure the midwife will disapprove, but please, i have to function, i have a mortgage to pay.

[mum5]

Hmmm, chocolate you say? Well, just might have to go and check out some quality chocolate sources in my neighbourhood!

wtchyhlr- that sounds awful. Hope you can find a common ground with your m/w on something ok to take.
I have had a headache on and off for the past 4 weeks, and will not take tylenol for it. I guess it's not bad enough then, but it does feel kind of sinusy, so I sympathise with you and feel your pain, just a lot less!

Shyly - I am understanding your pain on the smelly litter box. My nose has become super sensitive too. Wasn't like this last time. The litter is just awful, even though it is cleaned out at least once a day. We only have 1 cat too!
AS far as venting on this board, there is so much support here, even though we have never met, though maybe will one day!

Ekblad- sounds like you are feeling much better. Very glad to hear it. I totally admire you for having your 6th child. I think that is terrific. I love big families. I always wanted 6 children, when I was younger, but I'm 31 and working on #2 now, so I had better have triplets along the way to help me along!!

Tug - just bought some jeans that fit really well, and some huge bright pink undies that have flowers all over them to cheer me up! I do want a good bra ( maternity/nursing ) that fits me, but my DD's are a little to small ( sore nipples! ) so I have to go with a E cup, and they are so UGLY in big sizes that I refuse to wear them.
Apparently Nordstrom has a great nursing bra but it is $50 , which I don't really want to spend on just one bra right now.
But yes, I do need to go shopping for a car seat , as the one we used with dd was in an accident and we also unfortunately need a new bigger car.

Lesley - good luck with the scrapbooking. I bought a kit to do for dd#1 and have finished 2 pages! I just need to get my but in gear in the evenings, but I'm just so tired that I'm in bed asleep by 9pm! Loser!

[ekblad9]

vitamins

Anyone else feel overwraught by vitamins? I'm taking the Rainbow Light Complete and you are supposed to take six of them/day. Plus, I take floradix three times/day. My midwife wants me to take a bcomplex and cal/mag. I'm dieing here.

And my allergies are terrible right now. I've relented and have taken my clariton a few times. I can't take the headaches, itchy eyes, runny nose, etc.