Quack Quack

I get why pregnant women waddle. I tried not to. I really did. But it's so much more comfortable to walk with my legs just slightly wider than I normally walk. Guess my hips are spreading.

I waddle. I hold my back sometimes while I'm walking or standing. My ankles and feet are swollen to incomprehensible proportions. I can't walk 10 feet without getting out of breath. And my maternity clothes are too tight.

I'm such a freaking stereotype.

Help JDRF

Besides the fact that my stepfather is diabetic and has been since he was a teenager, my friend Kris also has a daughter that's a juvenile diabetic. Hot Sam, from Top Chef, is a contender for Hottest Chef in the below contest. Just for participating, Glad is donating $5000 to the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation. But, if Hot Sam wins, they get an additional $25,000! Please read the following and vote...many, many times, for Sam.

Vote for Sam Talbot in Glad’s “Steamiest Chef” Contest!
The Glad Family of Products is conducting a fun promotion with JDRF Celebrity SpokesChef- Sam Talbot. He is vying to be America’s Steamiest Chef, as part of the launch of Glad’s new SimplyCooking Microwave Steaming Bags, and part of his success relies on us!

Please go to www.glad.com/steamiestchef to vote. You can vote as many times as you would like (daily, hourly, or constantly!). The stakes for the JDRF are big, too - as Glad will donate $30,000 to JDRF if Chef Sam wins. Be sure to tell your friends and family about the voting - let’s win!

27 Weeks

I had my glucose tolerance test this morning. The drink wasn't too bad. It really just tasted like orange soda without the fizz. They had to draw my blood three freaking times, though! The first time she got 2 vials and then the needle fell out. So she stuck my other arm and got the vial she needed. I went to the front to check out and she came running out because she forgot to get the antibodies vial. So I had to go back there for a third stick! I look a bit like a junkie.

I was surprised it wasn't just a finger stick like my stepdad does when he checks his blood sugar. But I guess they also do other screenings at the same time, so that's why they take a bunch of vials. I still hate it but I've gotten pretty used to getting my blood drawn.

My weekly belly shots:



My butt just looks flatter and flatter the more my stomach sticks out. Damn FBS (Flat Butt Syndrome, for those who aren't "in the know").

Oh, and congratulations to Chris and his softball team for being in first place in their league!!

Doctor's Appointment

Today was our monthly doctor's appointment. Well, one week earlier than a month, but whatever.

Blood pressure is awesome, total weight gain is now 10 lbs and everything looks great. They did an ultrasound to check to make sure my placenta moved up and away from my cervix and it did. My cervix is nice and thick and the Turkey's not going anywhere anytime soon. Head, stomach, etc is all measuring perfectly.

Then it was time for our 4D ultrasound. First, the Turkey was upside down so we tried a few tricks and he moved into the right position after a while. BUT...he brought his umbilical cord with him and held it in front of his face the whole time! Sneaky little guy. We did get confirmation that he is, indeed, still a boy. I won't embarass him any further by posting that pic, nor will I let him know that his family and close friends have already seen it. Tee hee!

We got a few pictures to take with us but his cord's in every one of them. This one's my favorite, mainly because you can see the cord so clearly but you can also sort of see his face. I think he has Chris' nice full lips. I hope so!


Since we couldn't get any good shots of him, we're going back next Thursday for another try.

Tomorrow I go for my glucose test, and then my Rhogam shot after my 4D ultrasound next week. Great...

I'm now officially on a two week schedule for my doctor's appointments. Welcome to the third trimester!!

Embarassing moment of the day...

The Glider's Here!

Yep, the room's so small that you can see part of the crib when the glider's on the other wall.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!

Happy Birthday, Girl!!! I hope it's your best one yet!

Rough Week

This week pretty much sucked.

My grandmother had a stroke. She's in rough shape but I think she'll be okay. She has a lot of paralysis on her left side, and it's very difficult to understand her when she talks. They put in a feeding tube the other day because she couldn't swallow correctly. It's just sad. I feel bad for her because it must be so frustrating to have your mind working perfectly fine but not able to express yourself. She's doing rehab now and hopefully they'll get her back to using her left arm and speaking better. It's hard seeing somebody that's ALWAYS been healthy sick like that. My grandmother has never been a very affectionate person. You always knew she loved you, but she's not the huggy, kissy type. But when I saw her at the hospital, she rubbed my belly for a while and really seemed happy to see me pregnant, and that touched me.

On top of that, Chris' friend Tim died suddenly last week and we had his viewing and funeral this weekend. As a Jew, I'm not used to viewings. We don't do them. Before Chris' grandfather died last year, I had never seen a dead person. It was a very strange experience. In comparison to Pop-Pop's viewing, Tim's was a very different experience for me. First of all, everyone filed in and waiting in line to walk past him in the casket and then greet his family. It wasn't like that at Pop-Pop's. Second, I just don't think it looked like him in that casket. The only thing I recognized on him were his fingers. I remembered his bitten-down fingernails and for some reason, that vision stuck with me, and that's all that really resembled Tim for me. Third, it just seemed very unnatural. Pop-Pop was sick for years. He was older. It was sort of expected at some point. I thought he actually looked at peace laying in his casket. Tim was 25. People that young shouldn't be in caskets and it just didn't look right.

I'm hoping this week is better than last. We have our 4D ultrasound on Wednesday so that'll be a lot of fun. Plus, after several miscarriages, my friend is pregnant again and she's now made it to 6 weeks. That just thrills me. I love her dearly and just want her to have a baby so bad. She was amazing when I had my miscarriage (she had just had her first) and it's been a long road to get here. I can't wait until she gets an ultrasound next week and sees that little bean's heart just beating away!

26 Weeks

And now for something a little different....

I get it now

My upper chest cavity feels like it's being burned with acid. Just thought I'd share.

And, yes, I took Tums.

Self Esteem

For the most part, I feel good about myself these days. I hate the acne that I've had since I got pregnant with the Nugget back in October, but I think it's finally starting to get better. Other than that, I feel as comfortable in my skin as I ever have. I love not feeling like I have to suck in my gut and being embarassed of my FUPA. I love that this child has grown straight out, instead of to the sides, and that my love handles grew out with him. And I love that my husband loves the changes to my body also.

And then today, my aunt (one of many) commented that my face has changed. I said, "Besides the acne?" and she said yes and then puffed out her cheeks and made a chipmunk face. Family always knows just the right thing to say....

Ack!

99 DAYS TO GO!!!

Happiest Smurf on the Block

We watched the Happiest Baby on the Block video tonight. That man is amazing! He's like the Dog Whisperer for babies! We both learned a lot and now I'm definitely going to get the book.

Look what a good swaddler Chris is. Mine was a disaster. I think Murphy was too floppy for me to work with. Yep, that's my excuse.

25 Weeks

Unfair

I find it completely unfair that it's so expensive to have a bris. Seriously. Not only do you have to feed everyone that comes, you have to pay the mohel an astronomical fee to perform a 20 minute ceremony and do a 3 minute procedure. Unbelievable.

Viability

I never thought I'd get here, but it seems that if our baby were to be born now, he'd have a great chance of surviving. I feel so relieved. Of course, I'd like him to bake for several more months and be as healthy as possible, but it's good to know that he's got a good chance now. He's about 13.5 inches long and 1.5 lbs. Way to grow, big guy!

Look what came in the mail today!

Before:



After:

Weekend

Saturday was Chris' mom's birthday so we headed out to Leesburg to hang out with her and Bob. On our way, we stopped at BRU to get our mattress since we were hoping to put together the crib sometime soon. Two of Debbie's sisters and her brother-in-law drove in from Delaware to spend the day, which was so nice. It's a shame they couldn't spend the night, though. It's a lot of driving for one day. We had dinner at our new favorite place, Clyde's in Ashburn. Soooo good! And then Chris' Aunt Anne made her famous German Chocolate Cake so we had that for dessert. For those of you who were at our wedding, you may remember that Chris' groom's cake was Anne's German Chocolate. She's one talented baker!
Today was our day to finish painting the Turkey's room. We had done two walls a few weekends ago, but needed to do the two large walls (we were doing two different shades of green and needed the first walls to dry so we could tape them). A few action shots:


After the painting was done, it was crib time! I've heard so many horror stories about how annoying and difficult it is to put a crib together, but we had no trouble at all. It was super easy. As soon as Chris started opening the package, I got all teary-eyed about it. Stupid hormones...

A pic of the finished product (and you can sort of see the two tones of the walls):

Our changing table/dresser should be in next week, and it's almost guaranteed that'll be way more difficult to put together. I can't wait to get that done and start moving stuff into that room!

Miss Shirley Rules

In my opinion, Miss Shirley's is the best breakfast in Baltimore. Everything is just so yummy. Take a look at this deliciousness:

This is their German Apple Pancake. It's enormous. And freaking fantastic!

We were in Baltimore this past weekend because my grandparents were in town visiting from Florida. It was nice that this time they were able to stay at my parents' house, since they moved into a condo without any stairs. Saves them quite a bit of money. It was good to hang out with them and I think they really enjoyed seeing me pregnant in person. I wish the Turkey would have cooperated and let them see or feel him move around, but he wasn't having any part of it. He was keeping to himself. My friend Sarah got to feel him, but he hid from everyone else.

My niece, who has taken all of her 4 years to warm up to me and Chris, was very excited about the baby. She kept asking questions and taking pictures of him (my belly) and would even include him in her magic tricks. I'm just happy she's finally speaking to us!

24 Weeks

Doctor's Appointment

Had my 24 week appointment this morning and all went well. I'm measuring perfectly, baby's heartrate was good, and my blood pressure was low (110/65). Surprisingly, I've only gained 6 lbs so far this pregnancy, which is amazing considering I have an ice cream a day habit. Woot!

I asked the midwife about these sharp pains I've been having off and on for about a week now. They feel like really intense gas pains that last about 3 seconds, and then subside a little for a few minutes and then hit again. I've never gotten a read on timing them though. She told me that those are contractions. Um, I thought Braxton Hicks were supposed to be painless??!! Those suckers hurt! Guess it's just a coincidence that the Gas-X helped. :-)

She gave me my orange drink for my glucose test in a few weeks. Looks...um...delicious. The worst part of it, I think, is that I have to drink the full 10 oz in 5 minutes. I can't dilly-dally. Boo. I'll just have to get it as cold as I can and chug. Yuck.

In other news, our little guy kicked his daddy in the ear the other night. That's my boy!!

Did we move into the GHETTO???

So I came home last night with the Company Truck and decided to check my car out, which was parked in the VRE Train Station lot. I had parked close to the baseball fields and don't like to park that close, due to errant pop-flies coming into the parking lot. As I was driving towards my car, I noticed that the Rear/Driver side window had been busted out. I was HOT!!! Seathing and almost foaming at the mouth!!!

I called "Ranting Radish" to get the phone number to the non-emergency portion of the Fairfax Police Dept. She called them at 6 p.m. and came out to the scene of the crime. And here she is ready to pounce on the perps if they showed back up. I am glad that she came out to protect me!!! I had all but taped off the area...well not really! We took pictures as we were waiting for the police to show. Around 7:15 or so, I called back to check the status of the police coming out, and they said that the cops were busy and would get to my "Glamorous Case" (my words, not their's) when they could. So finally around 8 p.m. with no word from the police I called again and they told me that the complaint had been cancelled. So once again I was HOT!!! Apparently the cops had gone to the next VRE Train Station over from the one I was at and proceeded to cancel the complaint without calling me to ask where I was. So finally around 8:45 the cops showed up and took my report...getting me home by 9:30ish. What ever happened to "Protect and SERVE"!!!

Anyway, the perps tried to bang out the front window about 5-6 times, cause there are scratches and dings on the doors, cause they weren't strong enough to get through the window. The best part of it was when I found that they had cut themselves on the broken glass, cause there was blood on the collapsible sun shade in the back seat, but of course the cop wasn't going to take it as evidence! The only thing that was stolen was a pair of sunglasses, so perps watch out...I am keeping my eye out for those Oakley's.

My car will be in the shop within the next hour or so, so I am hoping that I will have it back before the turn of the century!!!

Slacker

I'm such a slacker. I've been meaning to post about our Minnesota trip for over a week now while it was still fresh in my mind, but never did. So, now you get the short version.

We got there on Friday (7/20). Our flight was really good. I'm a VERY nervous flyer so I'd been anxious about this trip for months. But there was very little turbulence and takeoff and landing were just about perfect. I only shed a few tears just to get the anxiety out when we started moving toward the runway, but after that I was pretty okay. The Turkey seemed to enjoy the flight. He bounced around quite a bit.

That night, Chris's dad was in a parade that was part of the county fair, so we did that. It was pretty cool. The weather wasn't too bad and we had nice chairs to sit in. Plus, the parade people were giving out candy so I got to eat some yummies. The kids around us sucked, but that sort of thing happens. Here's a pic of my father-in-law in the parade. He's second from the end (in front of the lady with the black and white horse).

The next day, a bunch of family came over for a barbeque. It was so cool meeting the people I'd heard Chris talk about for the past five years, but had never seen pictures of or seen in person. I wish I'd thought to take a group photo. Maybe next year.

Sunday was the day of the Demolition Derby! I was so looking forward to that. In the morning/afternoon, Chris and I took the four-wheeler out to explore the property (it's pretty damn big). I was scared but trusted that Chris knew what he was doing and wouldn't hurt us. I clung to him for dear life. Here's a pic of him getting ready for a joyride after he dropped me off. Next thing I knew, I saw him zooming across the field at a million miles an hour. Glad he didn't do that with me on there!

We headed out to the County Fair in search of some funnel cake. There were a few places that had them, but we weren't hungry yet so we figured we'd have some a little bit later. Turns out, by the time we wanted them, the shut down the funnel cake thing. Damn them.

Then...Demo Derby time! It was freaking awesome! I had so much fun. I don't have any super great pics but, just to prove to my doubting relatives and friend that I was actually there, here's one:
That pink car was amazing. Their entire back end was flattened and they just kept going. It was great.

And, no trip to Minnesota is complete without a visit to the Mall of America. It was big, no doubt about it. I wasn't interested in shopping so much as being able to say I was there, so I took a pic of the indoor amusement park, we walked around a little, and then called it a day.

Since my father-in-law works for the airline, he was able to secure passes to go to the gate with us while we waited for our plane. I thought that was cool that we got to spend a little more time with them. I'm sure they were bored sitting around, but so were we! :-)

All in all, it was a great trip. I survived the flights, the Turkey got some presents, good food was eaten, and I had a nice, well-rounded Minnesota experience. I'll end with a pic of one of my sisters-in-law:

23 Weeks

My too-short tank top's hot, huh?

Team WhyMommy

Any friend of Canape is a friend of mine. WhyMommy has a form of breast cancer that was not found by her monthly exam and feeling a lump in her breast, like most of us would think. Hers was more subtle than that. This is her story:

We hear a lot about breast cancer these days. One in eight women will be diagnosed with breast cancer in their lifetimes, and there are millions living with it in the U.S. today alone. But did you know that there is more than one type of breast cancer?

I didn’t. I thought that breast cancer was all the same. I figured that if I did my monthly breast self-exams, and found no lump, I’d be fine.

Oops. It turns out that you don’t have to have a lump to have breast cancer. Six weeks ago, I went to my OB/GYN because my breast felt funny. It was red, hot, inflamed, and the skin looked…funny. But there was no lump, so I wasn’t worried. I should have been. After a round of antibiotics didn’t clear up the inflammation, my doctor sent me to a breast specialist and did a skin punch biopsy. That test showed that I have inflammatory breast cancer, a very aggressive cancer that can be deadly.

Inflammatory breast cancer is often misdiagnosed as mastitis because many doctors have never seen it before and consider it rare. “Rare” or not, there are over 100,000 women in the U.S. with this cancer right now; only half will survive five years. Please call your OB/GYN if you experience several of the following symptoms in your breast, or any unusual changes: redness, rapid increase in size of one breast, persistent itching of breast or nipple, thickening of breast tissue, stabbing pain, soreness, swelling under the arm, dimpling or ridging (for example, when you take your bra off, the bra marks stay – for a while), flattening or retracting of the nipple, or a texture that looks or feels like an orange (called peau d’orange). Ask if your GYN is familiar with inflammatory breast cancer, and tell her that you’re concerned and want to come in to rule it out.

There is more than one kind of breast cancer. Inflammatory breast cancer is the most aggressive form of breast cancer out there, and early detection is critical. It’s not usually detected by mammogram. It does not usually present with a lump. It may be overlooked with all of the changes that our breasts undergo during the years when we’re pregnant and/or nursing our little ones. It’s important not to miss this one.

Inflammatory breast cancer is detected by women and their doctors who notice a change in one of their breasts. If you notice a change, call your doctor today. Tell her about it. Tell her that you have a friend with this disease, and it’s trying to kill her. Now you know what I wish I had known before six weeks ago.

You don’t have to have a lump to have breast cancer.

P.S. Feel free to steal this post too. I’d be happy for anyone in the blogosphere to take it and put it on their site, no questions asked. Dress it up, dress it down, let it run around the place barefoot. I don’t care. But I want the word to get out. I don’t want another young mom — or old man — or anyone in between — to have to stare at this thing on their chest and wonder, is it mastitis? Is it a rash? Am I overreacting? This cancer moves FAST, and early detection and treatment is critical for survival.

Thank you.