Atomic Tonic

When I was pregnant with Matilda, I lost the ability to hold onto things. I'd pick something up only to watch it drop to the floor. That's stopped. Good thing right, else I might drop the baby. Now, I forget what I've done with things. Example A: My eye cream is no longer in the medicine cabinet. I have no idea where it is. Example B: There are two Twix bars in the kitchen somewhere, but I don't know where. I moved them on Sunday from Known Location A to Unknown Location B. I'll be sure to let y'all know when they show up.

Matilda is six weeks old today. Thankfully, I'm still here to enjoy it. (Not dead yet!) I spent yesterday alternating the baby and a heating pad on The Clogged Milk Ducts That Ate Staten Island hoping to avoid mastitis. My left breast resembled how I imagine Pamela Anderson's chest to be constructed: Angry hot rocks shoved under the skin and stapled shut. Sexy! Or, a whole new realm of feeling full.

Anyway, at six weeks old, Matilda is at the peak of Crank. This according to her pediatrician. Apparently, babies go bonkers around this time on account of rapid brain growth. Earlier, she was asleep on my legs, alternating between smiling and crying. Her face was on a see-saw while her brain was in the REM position. Last night, she was crankier than usual and still awake and kicking, literally, at 11. While that was a bummer because along with Strick Couch Rest, the lactation consultant I spoke with told me to get some sleep, in general, Matilda's pretty easy to deal with.

She continues to gain weight. Her cheeks are getting rounder. Her legs are filling out and her belly is downright bloated. Her pelvis, however, is skinny and narrow. Ain't no way that pelvis could hold up the heft of her torso. While she still doesn't know that her hands are hers, she is now aware of being uncomfortable. If she needs to burp, she gets cranky. If she's about to poop, man, she gets cranky. She smiles now and then, but we've yet to really figure out what makes her smile. And until you've tried to make an infant smile, YOU HAVE NO IDEA HOW LOW YOU CAN GO. Or how high your voice can get.

I have no idea how to jump in here, after the bouts of silence and site removal. We've had a hectic year. We've been in court. It was four years in coming. It was miserable. We felt exposed and it was not our fault. We were in a bus accident. Niclas was hurt. We live with that pain everyday. And we still got reamed, pretty much.

So we took the site down for a bit to breathe. But now we're back. I wish it was because everything is great. Things are currently holding, and under the circumstances, that's as much as we can ask for.

I requested an internal exam at my last OB appointment for this pregnancy. I was 31 weeks and 5 days pregnant. There is no reason for an internal at that time. Turns out, however, that I was 1cm dliated and my cervix was soft. Lab tests came back positive for impending labor. I was given a round of steriod shots 24 hours apart. Monitored. Sent home to bedrest. Started having organized contractions at 32 weeks exactly. More monitoring. Discovered that I was 3cm dilated, 80% effaced. Was given drugs to stop labor and sent to Boston via ambulance as our local hospital is not equipped to handle the respiratory requirements of a 32 weeker.

I'm still here. 32 weeks, 3 days. On bedrest, holding pattern. Still 3cm and 80% effaced. My short-term goal is to still be pregnant at 34 weeks. Then I will let them transfer me back home. Either to the hospital I started at or our couch. I'll deal with that when we get there.

I'll continue posting hopefully terribly boring shots of the insides of a hospital room here with updates.

Merry Christmas.

Also, home. Got home on Thursday. A week after this whole thing started. It's very nice to be home, although it's hard to look around at all the things that need to get done and know I can't do any of it. But Matilda is endlessly funny and tantrum-prone (welcome to Two), which makes the days much easier to pass.

33 weeks 1 day today and it's New Year's Eve. Looking like I'm going to enter 2007 pregnant. Kind of amazed by that. Also kind of amazed that I managed to get a 15-second camera phone video of the new kid rolling under Matilda's new tea set. (Probably best watched with the sound off as the background noise of dishwasher and Monsters, Inc. isn't exactly an appropriate soundtrack.)

We had Kerry, Dan and Jack and Allison, Jesse and Sam over last night for New Year's Eve. We ordered Indian food.

The toddlers had some fierce naked time that resulted in the night peaking, excitement-wise, around 7. They were having a blast with the jumping and screeching and running. But then Sam took a dump on the couch and things got REAL fun for a bit. He did it all stealth-like and not one of us noticed. But then he told his mother he pooped just as Matilda jumped up onto the couch and missed sliding face-first into it by about 2 inches. And this was no small event. It was a steaming pile (with corn). We all put our hands to our mouths in shock. And then Niclas stepped on a wine glass (broke the glass, red wine all over the floor and Sam's clothes) when they were rushing to clean it up. It was hazmat material. Up in arms for a good 20 minutes.

Then things settled down. Sam went to bed around 10. Jack soon followed by falling asleep on Dan. Matilda, however, is made of nuclear powered non-pants and almost made it to midnight. I took her to bed at 11:30 and that was the end for both of us. But apparently the rest of the adults made it well past midnight (high fives, guys) and by the time Niclas got in bed, he even smelled like a distillery. Success!

I'm 33w2d today and still pregnant, so so far, 2007 is shaping up. Our living room, however, has seen better days.

We're well into the toddler body obsession over here. It's Naked Time all the time and lately we've been discussing how everyone poops. Mama poops! Papa poops! Dampa poops! (Sorry Dampa.)

The hippos poop. The meow poops. Yup.

Toddlers are not for the squimish.

In other news, I'm 34 weeks pregnant tomorrow. This pleases me greatly as 34 weeks is a milestone in terms of preemies. 34 weeks sees less respiratory and sucking/eating problems and even better chances of survival. It's still premature. Its still got a list of problems and hurdles and I'm still hell-bent on making it to 37 weeks, but 34 weeks let's us breathe a tiny bit easier.

I'm usually a glass half empty kind of person, but in this situation, I can't bellieve how lucky we got. If I hadn't had contractions one night during week 31 that made me call the doctor on call and if I hadn't requested that the midwife give me an internal at 31w5d and if she hadn't given me the fFn swab test, I wouldn't have known I was in danger of going into labor and I wouldn't have had the steroid shots. And I probably wouldn't have paid so much attention to the contractions that sent me to the hospital.

If I hadn't paid attention to those early contractions, by the time it became impossible to ignore them, it would have been too late. We could have a 32 weeker right now that would not have had the benefit of steroids. And she probably would have been born at our local hospital that does not have a NICU capable of handling a 32 weeker.

Things could be very different right now.

But everything lined up just right and tomorrow I am 34 weeks. And we're not safe, not entirely, until I hit 37 weeks. And 37 is really only considered term for twins. She is not. But we made it two more weeks. That's something.

I've joked with a couple of people over the last two weeks that men would be much better at bedrest than women. They tend to take it easier in general so being "forced" to lie around on the couch wouldn't be so far from what they like to do anyway.

Haha.

The reality is, this is hard. It's depressing. It's only been two weeks. I know I'm lucky across the board here. We caught things in time and avoided full-blown labor at 32 weeks. The longest I could be on bedrest is another three weeks, five in total. I'm already 34 weeks and if I go back into labor now, we've managed to avoid the really bad statistics and the worst of the possible preemie issues.

But it's still getting to me. I have no idea what's going on in my house. I haven't seen the insides of our fridge since the night before I had the contractions. The majority of our Christmas decorations are still up. I don't know if we've got more toilet paper in the basement or not. My mother is here on the weekdays to help and clean and cook. She's put her own life on hold to manage mine. She's the reason why a portion of our Christmas stuff has been put away. She bought more toilet paper. She cleaned out the old food in the fridge. She's doing double time everything. I hate that I need that help. I hate that when she asks me where something is, I now have to say I have no idea.

I had Niclas go to IKEA yesterday to pick up the remaining stuff we need to finish the new kid's room. He managed to get some of it but not all (Why? Why is it impossible to get everything on your list in one trip to that place? Maddening). He showed me his purchases last night, including a rug and drawer pulls. I had to fight the urge to go upstairs and set things up. I can't even see the drawer pulls in place, assuming he gets around to putting them on the dresser today, until I go upstairs to bed tonight. I spent a lot of time in the first and second trimesters getting the new kid's room together as much I could. It's still not finished. At this stage, I need to accept that it's not going to get finished. That is hard for me.

I can't finish packing my hospital bag. I can't get myself a bottle of water. I can't pick Matilda up. She hardly ever asks me anymore. She didn't want to get in the shower with me this morning because she knew I would not pick her up and hold her in the stream. She choose to wait and get in the shower with Niclas.

Lying all day is uncomfortable. My backside hurts. I'm getting towards the end of pregnancy so I'm big and unwieldy and prone to getting stuck if I roll onto my back anyway, but I spend my days lying down or at least propped up. Moving requires more effort that I care to admit. Getting up to go to the bathroom is slow and calculated and I hate feeling the weight of myself. I'm going to end up heavier at the end of this pregnancy than I was with Matilda. I was lighter at the start of this one than I was with her. I'm not going to be able to walk around the block, nevermind join my running club for 8 miles on a Saturday. I am, quite literally, a human incubator and nothing else.

I'm not a superstitious person. I'll walk under ladders or step on sidewalk cracks or do nothing more than shrug if I break a mirror, but I'm hesitant to admit that I just don't like being pregnant this time around. I didn't mind it with Matilda. It was all new and exciting and I had time to read weekly pregnancy growth charts. I had time to sleep. But this pregnancy has just been kicking me in the face from the start. I felt like I had the flu for weeks. I never had a second-wind or a rush of energy in the second trimester. I've just felt run-down from about week seven. I've bitched a lot about pregnancy this time around. I am looking forward to the day when I'm not pregnant anymore. There is not one inch of me that wants that day to come before at least January 27th, but I am looking forward to the end and my recovery like a kid looks forward to Christmas morning.

Which, speaking of, is something I didn't get to see this year. I did not see Matilda on Christmas. It was my choice as I didn't want to drag the poor kid into a hospital on Christmas. She spent the day and night at my parent's house. She had a great time and I am glad, but I'm sad for myself. This was the first year where she got the concept at all and I didn't get to see the culmination of it.

She's out with Niclas right now, running around Target or going to the museum. The weather is Spring-like and lovely (which does not bode well for the future of humanity). I am lying on the couch like Jabba the Hut. I am sick of myself.

35 weeks, 2 days pregnant and winter is finally showing some leg around here.

My parents arrived this morning to pick Matilda up for the day and girlfriend could not get out of the house fast enough. The second my mother put Matilda's bag down by the door the child was all, "BYEE!" "...BYEE!" "...BYEE ALREADY COME ON!!"

The kid, she loves to leave. Always up for a short good-bye and see you later alligator. All smiles and big waves and one foot out the door before she's even got her shoes on. I can't blame her as our living room currently looks like, well, a hospital room.

And what fun is a parent that can't chase her around the kitchen or get down on the floor and throw Smurfs off her barn or, you know, get off her fat ass at all? It's getting to her, this sentence of bedrest. Much like it's getting to me. I'd have been just as excited as she was to say bye and run out the door this morning.

I won't go that far, but I will admit that I've been planning my bathroom trips around other things I can pick up/put away/grab from the fruit bowl. On my way to the bathroom for a shower this morning, I stopped in the doorway of the new kid's room to check out the progress. While I was waiting for the water to heat up, I cleaned the toilet. Yesterday, Matilda and I were downstairs alone for a bit while Niclas got some stuff done upstairs and took a shower. Matilda wanted a yogurt and instead of calling up for help, I got up and got it for her myself. And then I went to the bathroom. But then I sat right back down. I promise.

I'm officially off bedrest as of midnight. Unofficially, I got off bedrest two days ago as it was driving me up a tree and right back down again. All that resting was working a little too well. Not only had the real contractions stopped ages ago, but the Braxton Hicks ones had pretty much called it off as well and seeing as I'm hugely pregnant and also just plain huge, I didn't want to take it so easy I'd end up being pregnant for another 6 weeks.

So I had my 37 week check-up today where I had to request to be checked. Niclas and I both decided beforehand that there would be no change (see above re: all contractions coming to a full stop) and we were right. 37 weeks pregnant, 3 cm dilated, 80% effaced and given the greenlight to resume normal living, including exercise. Aside from the smallish human being I'm carrying around doing a number on my back, the idea of exercising actually sounds great. Wonderful, even. I've been having pretty elaborate fantasies about running. I see the streets and the corners and the turns I used to make on my runs flip through my brain like flash cards. I can almost taste the end of a run. The endorphins and my body at peace. How deserved some stretching and a shower feels.

Unfortunately, the reality is that walking up and down the aisles of a drugstore makes my back sore and my inner thighs throb with pain. And because I can hardly waddle up down the candy aisle, my muscles are tense and wound-up and restless. Because I am 9 months pregnant, I cannot sleep. Going for a run would help all of these problems immensely. And therein lies the rub. I'm not physically capable of running right now. I haven't been capable of it since sometime around week 25.

I've been on bedrest for 5 weeks. I am very grateful that I did not give birth at week 32. I'd be even more grateful to give birth now, soon, very soon, before next weekend, ANY DAY NOW, now that I'm in week 37.