I had some bizarro dreams last night. First I dreamt that the way my doctor delivered my baby was by cutting all around my belly (a “c-section”), and opening up the flap, then pushing the baby out the normal way.  Apparently there was a zipper in my belly, because I’m pretty sure she used that to open it.  Tim wasn’t there, and afterwards I was recounting it to him and said, “I was disappointed because she acted like they were all anti-c-sections and then when I got in there they just cut me open!  And I had to go through both kinds of birth”.  It was bizarre.  and gross.

My other dream involved going to see a movie with Tom Cruise in it.  I was enjoying the movie, but Tim tricked me into leaving early because he was not enjoying it.  We drove for a long time and finally I was like, “where are we going?”  And he was like, “we’d better head back because I need to make dinner”.  We were driving through the middle of nowhere and along the way there were two dogs that had been fighting and some fur was missing from one of the dogs and they had a gaping wound.  Disturbing. 

So those are my weird dreams for last night.  Last week I dreamt I was driving in a car with Laura Bush, but that I couldn’t drive it properly.  I have lots of dreams where I can’t control a car, which apparently is a stereotypical pregnancy dream because it’s a metaphor for not being able to control this huge belly.

I’m training my replacement for work, so unfortunately, I’m actually having to work!  Working constantly all day, plus explaining everything you are doing is exhausting! 

The baby dropped yesterday afternoon, I could totally tell because suddenly I could breathe and I didn’t feel little feet right under my ribs, it was much softer there.  Also, my belly is “lower”.  So far it has resulted in a little more hip pain, but I was already peeing constantly, so it’s not really worse in that department.  I went to the doctor, and she confirmed that the baby did drop (last time I was at -3 and now I’m at -2), but still no progress in the other measurements (you ladies know what I’m talking about).  So I guess I’ll be going back for at least one more appointment (probably more).  My doctor said, “most babies are born either the week before or after their due date”.  And two people (men), have said that women are more likely to go into labor on a full moon.  Well the next full moon is March 15th, so we’ll see.  I wouldn’t mind seeing little Eunice Tallulah a little early!  I’m jealous of all the women who are having babies on my birth board right now, although I know it will be here before I know it. Time is just dragging these last few weeks!

So I am over the anxiety I had last week and now just ready to get the show on the road.  Even though I know I most likely still have a few weeks left.  I am totally sick of work.  Luckily I only have 2 weeks, 1 day and 5 hours left.  But it seems like they have decided to just annoy the crap out of me so I am really excited to be leaving rather than sad.  Things that annoy me:

1. I have had to move to the other side of the office, in the back, in a little cubby where I have to have my back to everyone and can’t see the front door so that there is room for both my temp and I when I train her tomorrow.  No more view of sixth street.  I have a window, but it looks out on an alley.  Also, I had to move everything myself on Friday.  Our sys admin helped me move my monitor, computer and printer, but everything else involved 10,000 trips across the office.  No one offered to help, just sipped their beers and watched the lady who is 8 months pregnant move all this crap across the office by herself.

2)  They are not having a party for me.  I’ve worked here over 2 years, but, as Tim pointed out, office managers never have parties for themselves because they are always in charge of organizing the parties.  One of the managers said he’d, “be sure they threw a shower for me”.  Obviously he forgot that promise.  I’m shocked.  Not.  This is the guy who can’t tell the other women in the office apart and admitted as much.  One has brunette hair a little past her shoulders and is named Deborah, the other has long blonde hair and is named Lisa.  They look nothing alike.  Also, Deborah dresses more like me, jeans, t-shirts, tennis shoes, and Lisa is always dressed to the nines: skirts, slacks, heels, etc.  They could not be more different looking. 

3)  Even though we have already hired a temp to start tomorrow, I have to interview someone else tomorrow because my boss wants to have a back-up lined up in case the first temp doesn’t work out.  This bothers me for a few reasons:  1)  I have a lot to do and taking an hour out of my day to interview someone is not really something I want to do.  Plus I hate interviewing people.   2)  I think it is very rude to interview someone else right in front of the temp.  I have been a temp and understand they are supposed to be treated like dirt, but I do not like to treat people like that.  I think it’s wrong.  I told my boss that I felt really bad about it and he basically said, “but you’d feel worse if this temp wound up not working” or something like that.  So as irrational as it is, I am ready to have this baby and not have to work anymore.  Even though if I did not come back tomorrow, work would be screwed because no one has a clue how to do my job.

4)  I came in this morning and someone had drawn on the easel in one of our empty areas (a large area that anyone coming into the office would see):  two hedgehog-like creatures sniffing each other’s butts with the caption “Sniff”, a horse’s ass, and a penis and a set of hairy balls peeing.  (Just the penis was peeing.)  I ripped it off the easel immediately of course and threw it away.  This perplexes me because, while I work with very immature guys, this seems below even them.  I’m not sure what is going on.  Very bizzarre.

5)  When I came in this morning, there was a dead fish floating on top of the fish tank.  Eww.  Luckily we employ people to maintain the fish tank and they will be coming out today to take care of the fish.  But still, eww.

We went to our baby care basics class yesterday and the instructor was so great about making everything seem easy.  So I think both Tim and I are much more confident in our baby caring skills now.  We also toured the hospital again, and realized we could be back there any day now.  That caused a little wide-eyed apprehension in us, honestly.  I also packed my bags yesterday, which I’d been procrastinating, because it means No Turning Back.  But I’m proud for having done that finally.  Although I’m still missing tons of stuff, which I need to go get this weekend. 

Due to baby overload, Tim and I took saturday off completely from doing anything baby.  It was awesome.  We went to breakfast, went to check out some thrift stores and look at houses in the neighborhood around South Congress, and then we went out to dinner at this fantastic new place called “The Veranda” in Northcross Mall where Hooter’s used to be.  It was delicious, I highly recommend it.  Then we watched The Purple Rose of Cairo, which is probably my new favorite Woody Allen movie.  It was so good, even though I cried like a baby at the end (hormones), and Snatch, which was basically a pale re-working of Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels.  So see Purple Rose, skip Snatch and watch Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels.  It was a nice weekend and I really dreaded coming back today.  Oh well, I’m almost done!

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Comments

Kate

2006-02-28T00:58:35.000Z

You need a ticker to count down the time till you’re done with work.  Ugh.  Making you feel wanted and needed and sad to leave, right?  Blah.

Last night I just started having the worst anxiety come over me.  It’s quite unpleasant.  We found a temp who will start on Tuesday and that caused me anxiety because what if she sucks?  Plus, I HATE training people, I actually haven’t done it in about 6 years, and I know that is what I will be doing for the next 2 weeks.  And I have to move from my nice desk with the view of 6th street to the other side of the office so that there is room for both of us to sit.  But it’s more than that.  I’m suddenly nervous about getting no sleep after the baby comes.  We took a breastfeeding class Tuesday night and the whole “bf every 2-3 hours for 40 minutes at a time” thing really hit home.  How do you work sleeping into a schedule like that?  Tim thinks a big part of this sudden onset of anxiety is due to the fact that we have spent way to much time in baby classes lately.  We had a dr’s appt. Tuesday morning, then the breastfeeding class Tuesday night, and then the last childbirth class last night.  And, unfortunately, we have a Baby Care Basics class Sunday!  Ugh, too much information, and too much reiteration of:  your life is going to change like you can’t imagine, you will be exhausted and cranky and crazy.  I’m ready not to be pregnant anymore, but not sure that I’m quite ready for baby.  Perhaps I could just not be pregnant for the next 6 weeks and then she could be dropped off by the stork?  That would work very well.

Perhaps I just need to go spend some time in the nursery gazing at her adorable little clothes, then I’ll feel ready again.  That seems to help a lot.

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Comments

Ashmita

2006-02-24T19:06:46.000Z

Maybe your monkey will like to sleep a lot!  And you can sleep when she sleeps. Also as you two become breastfeeding veterens the baby will spend less time feeding at each session - so the 40 minutes, or hour, or more only goes on for a little bit, not the whole length of your breastfeeding career. One day while eating she will look up at you and smile and it will make it all worth it.  I promise.

Tarv

2006-02-24T22:12:30.000Z

Just think of it as an extended tech week.  You work your ass off and don’t get much sleep, but you have a big goal in mind, and at the end…well, rather than a play…well it really doesn’t just come to a halt with a flapping of curtains or a raising of lights, but…okay, so this is a shitty analogy.

Kate

2006-02-25T00:41:59.000Z

I think this is totally normal anxiety.  I don’t know how you make it through the beginning part where you’re learning everything and not sleeping much, but there’s a reason they’re so cute.  :)  And why God invented coffee.

And if all else fails, Auntie Kate can drive up even for a few hours to watch the monkey or take her out so you can sleep or shower or just watch TV or whatever you need.

I really wish it had iced today.  Because I really wish I’d just stayed in bed.  Today has been one giant bowl of suck.  First, I get in, and my computer will not turn on.  Turns out it’s toast.  So I’m using some crappy substitute computer and don’t have anything off my hard drive and so am therefore completely lost.  Then, the heat is not working in my building.  Basically, any time the weather the changes, the needed temperature controller breaks in my building.  So last week when it was in the 80’s, our A/C didn’t work.  This week, now that it’s in the 30’s, our heat does not work.  We are all freezing.  I’m currently wearing my coat and scarf, which actually is a little too much because my coat is super-warm (sidetrack:  I love my coat.  My Mother and I bought it at Dillards (or Foley’s?) in Highland mall just after I moved to Austin to attend college.  The idea was to get me a hardy coat I could wear while shlepping all over campus.  It has served me well for the last 10+years.  God, I just realized I am wearing a 10 year old coat.  Of course, in Austin it rarely gets cold enough for me to wear it, so it’s in incredible shape.  Although I’ve replaced the buttons.  It also survived a trip to NYC where it came in contact with God Only Knows What Germs.  It needed a good dry cleaning after that.  But this coat is also the only pre-pregnancy thing that buttons over my belly.  And it’s a size 10, a size I haven’t worn since high school, so that makes me feel good too.  Anyway, just suffice to say this coat is heaven).  But I’d rather have heat.  And since it’s so cold outside, I can’t walk.  And I wasn’t able to walk Saturday or Sunday because of the cold.  So I’ll probably have gained a bunch of weight when I go to the doctor tomorrow.  Hopefully not though.  Not that I care.  I’ve kind of just said “screw it” since I only have 4 weeks to go.  It’s hard to be obsessively healthy for 9 months!

Speaking of 4 weeks to go, I have FOUR WEEKS TO GO!  OMG.  I freaked a bunch of my friends out Saturday night by telling them I was “due four weeks from tomorrow”.  I spent last week and the week before thinking I’d never be able to make it through the rest of the time and hoping I go early, but now I’m like, no, please just come on time, I don’t have everything done!  Not to mention the fact that I’d like to also get some relaxing time doing fun stuff for Tim and I in before she comes.  I want to be exactly on time, which never happens, but would be great.  Or she could be born 2 days early on St. Patrick’s day, which would really piss Tim off because of his unnatural hatred for the Irish.  But I think it’d be great because when we celebrate her birthday each year we could have a kid’s party during the day and then go out drinking at night for the adults.  Genius, right?!  Anyway, I’m fully aware she’ll come when she comes, but I’m excited about tomorrow because I’ll have my first doctor’s appt. where the doc says, “you’re such and such dilated and such and such effaced.”  I know from too many women this doesn’t mean a damn thing, but I can’t wait to find out anyway!

Oh, Olympics postnote: the new judging system has really revved up Ice Dancing!  This was my favorite sport before, but now it’s even more thrilling to watch because they do lots of crazy lifts and handles and things that look sort of nasty and make Tim and I giggle.  And Tim will even watch it now.

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Comments

Kate

2006-02-21T21:53:14.000Z

A good coat is a wonderful thing to have.  Unfortunately, my college coat get ripped to shreds— or at least the lining did from being pulled off the back of chairs.  Plus, I guess I used it a few more times in E. Lansing than you did in Austin.

I’m so excited about meeting the monkey, but I can understand your desire to wait a little bit and enjoy your pre-baby quiet for a little while longer.  How did the dr. appt. go?

Hugs!

Kate

So I’ve got less than 4 weeks until my maternity leave starts (3 weeks, 3 days, 7 hours and 16 minutes to be exact), and I am finding it increasingly difficult to work.  It just seems hard to concentrate.  I really should be writing directions for my successor, but really, who wants to write down instructions for what they do? 

Speaking of successors, we are trying to find a temp to take my place while I’m out on maternity leave.  I’m involved in the process, which is difficult to say the least.  You want to see the resume that looks exactly like your own and then you’re like, “Ah ha!  That’s the person who should take over my job, my clone!”  I’ve only seen one resume (which is pretty bad since they want this person to start in a week and a half), but it just wasn’t up to snuff.  Especially at the outrageous rates the temp agency charges.  It kind of makes you feel like you might be overqualified for your own job:)  I hired my successor a few years ago at another job and had to train her and could see she was clueless even then.  Sure enough, she only lasted about a week after I left.  But the company wanted to save even more money (they paid me peanuts, which I had to fight for) and went with an even cheaper, less qualified replacement. 

I’m also distracted because the monkey has decided she really favors the right side of my stomach, particularly right under my rib cage, and likes to jab body parts (probably a knee or one of the giant feet I’m sure she has), out the right side of my body.  It doesn’t “hurt” exactly, it’s more like an unsettling discomfort.  Last night I discovered that if I put my seat back a little bit in my car, I can breathe much easier.  I was very grateful for that discovery, because driving is definitely the most uncomfortable thing I do these days.  Tim had never felt one of the monkey’s body parts and last night put his hand where she was sticking her knee/leg/foot out the right side of my body and his eyes got all big and he was like, “that’s a body part!”  It was very cute:)

Did anybody watch the Men’s Figure Skating last night?  That sucked!  How can silver and bronze both fall in their routines and gold be won by a guy with all the grace of a WWF wrestler?  Blech!  Although we did discover the Coolest New Olympic Sport:  Snowboard Cross.  4-5 Snowboarders race through a difficult, tight course to the finish line.  Two top finishers advance to the next round.  It was awesome!  It was amazing they didn’t run into each other more often.  It was definitely the most exciting Olympic sport I’d seen in a long time.  In case you can’t tell, I LOVE the Olympics!  Every 4 years when I was a kid, all activity would stop in the Winston Household and we would watch Olympics 24 hours a day until our eyes popped out of our head and hung there limply.  Luckily, I married a man who shares my love of the Olympics, although we Tivo it and only watch the parts that interest us.  I’m just a lot more busy than I was when I was a kid!  We realized something scary last night:  next time the winter olympics are on, our little Monkey will be nearly 4 AND we’ll probably have another kid!  Scary, because it doesn’t seem that long since the last winter olympics, but I guess a lot happens in 4 years.  4 years ago I had just started my job from hell at Silent Partners.  Ah, memories…

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Comments

David

2006-02-17T17:44:52.000Z

Marsha and I agree on the whole figure skating thing.  In fact Marsha regularly rants about the new scoring system.  Weeee i can do a bunch of quads and then gyrate in some sort of scary fashion and win the gold!  As for the snowboarding, I want to see more interesting contact then, “Oops, did I just slow down unexpectedly and make you crash into me and fall, teehee?”.  Like, give them bats or tennis rackets and give the guy who makes it to the finish line with both legs intact a medal.  Or make them hold a glass of water and the one who spills the least wins.  Now that’s excitement!

I heard Dynamite Hack’s cover of NWA’s “Boys in the Hood” Thursday, and I have had it stuck in my head since then!  Everytime I wake up at night it is in my head.  It is so annoying.  Argh!

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Comments

tarv

2006-02-15T15:18:48.000Z

Songs that most commonly get stuck in my head as of late:

- Theme to “Rocky” — The other day, I ran across the page about “Rocky” in this movie book I have, and it’s been stuck there ever since. 

- That Suzanne Vega song…”Tom’s Diner” I think it’s called?  I get this one stuck in my head about every few months or so, then it goes away.  Damn that song to hell.

- The music they use on 101X for the sports segment.

- “I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry” - the Johnny Cash/Nick Cave version, although Hank Williams makes an appearance sometimes too.

tarv again

2006-02-16T19:28:51.000Z

Just great!  Now I’ve got “Lump” by the Presidents of the United States of America stuck in my head!  Just the chorus over and over again!

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2011-09-18T07:08:17.000Z

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http://www.world66.com/myworld66”>create your own personalized map of the USA or check out ourhttp://www.world66.com/northamerica/unitedstates/california”>California travel guide I really need to get to more states.  The problem is that Texas is so friggin huge! I feel a bit embarrased that I do not recognize where these states go on the map.  I really did not excel on Geography.  I’m staring at the map going, “what state is that way up there?  When did I go there?”  But I might be able to pick up a few more states because Tim and I are thinking we need to visit his relatives way up in Michigan with the Monkey in the fall.  And we’re not sure which is worse:  to fly with a 6 month (or so) old or to drive with one.  If we drive, we pick up lots of states though!  Although our baby’s going to be a saint, I already know, so it doesn’t matter;0

I’m not even going to bother with the world map, because I’ve only been to the UK.  It is unfair, but Wales and Scotland do not count as separate countries on this map.  This might be a tad upsetting to those two countries.

I discovered my First Stretch Mark this morning!  Actually, I first noticed it yesterday morning, but wasn’t sure that’s what it was.  When I looked again today, it was still there and it’s definitely a stretch mark.  It’s a tiny purple line less than a quarter of an inch long, to the right of my belly, so perhaps I should not worry too much.  It doesn’t look like much of anything in comparison to the white stretch marks that linger from when my hips exploded in puberty.  But I put extra cocoa butter on this morning, just to make myself feel like I was doing something.

We also had our first Childbirth Class last night.  It was okay, although there were a lot of “hick” seeming guys in there for some reason.  I think the stereotype of North Austinites vs. South Austinites holds true.  And I got annoyed with people who would ask questions to which she had just given the answer and I guess they weren’t listening.  Or questions to which they already should know the answer if they’d read absolutely anything about pregnancy.  But a lot of it was really informative.  And of course we watched The Video.  For some reason, it looked like it was made in the 70’s with a bunch of poorly dressed hippie women and their really geeky husbands.  I guess no one else would be insane enough to allow someone to film their birth.  It was okay, although there were some parts we snickered at, until we got to “The Moment”.  There was no warning or anything, suddenly there it was!  We all made horrible gasps and I think I heard at least one “Oh My God.”  I guess we all knew this was coming, I mean we figured out how to get the baby in there, we had to know it needed to come out, but wow, that was a bit shocking.  Although it was also funny because the woman giving birth said, “that doesn’t look like a baby!”  WARNING: THIS PART GETS KIND OF GRAPHIC SO YOU MAY WANT TO SKIP.  Then they showed the placenta being delivered, which, honestly, I’m feeling light-headed just thinking about right now.  See, I get sick at the sight of blood.  And there was LOTS OF BLOOD and then the doctor put the placenta on a table and started poking at it.  It was totally gross.  I had to close my eyes and start fanning myself to keep from fainting.  I will definitely not watch that part again.  I mean, ewww.  OH, and the faces the women made!  Think the worst O-face x 10,000!  No one is getting anywhere near me with any sort of photographic device during the entire process.  I think this video was made by the epidural companies to sell you on epidurals because, let me tell you, if you had any doubts about getting shot up with pelvis numbing goodness before watching this video, they had completely evaporated afterwards!

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Comments

Ashmita

2006-02-10T19:01:34.000Z

I didn’t even feel or see the placenta coming out (this was without numbing drugs too) nor did I see it get poked at.  In fact I didnt see it at all ever and I dont think Travis did either.  We were too enthralled with the mewling creature in my arms.  Honestly I dont remember seeing much blood at all. 

It was towards the very end that all my stretch marks showed up and just a few months later they are already fading.

kelli

2006-02-10T21:19:30.000Z

Most hospitals won’t let you take pictures of the actual birth even if you want to, so don’t worry about that.  And you won’t see the placenta or any of that stuff unless you keep a mirror there.  Which I DO NOT recommend. 
The part that felt the strangest to me was the moment when all of her actually came out.  Have you ever dumped out a bowl of Jello?  That kind of wiggly, splatty thing?  It sort of felt like that, and I could actually feel my internal organs moving back where they belonged.  Very weird. 
Take drugs.  Then it won’t hurt.  You’ll do fine.  :)

Marsha

2006-02-11T14:54:29.000Z

I actually asked to see my placenta.  The midwife brought it over and showed it to us.  Then she offered to let us take it home. David and I sat in confused silence for a moment.  David asked, “Why would we want to do that?”  Midwife explained lots of parents bury it in the backyard and plant a tree over it to commemorate the baby’s birth.  More stunned silence on our part.  Then David said, “Uh, no. That’s just weird.”  Course I realize now that a placenta would be kick ass fertilizer for a baby tree.  But still.  Not carting home the placenta.  Just not doing it.

So I heard the new Yeah Yeah Yeah’s song and it sucks!  I’m so disappointed, I love “Fever to Tell”, it makes me wanna’ break stuff and shake my butt in people’s faces.  Or something like that.  But this new song sounded like Cat Powers, who I can’t stand, crossed with “No New Tale to Tell” by Love and Rockets, with a little “I wanna’ be Siousxie Sioux” thrown in.  I think they said they “want to go in a different direction” which is understandable, but can’t it be a good direction?  Don’t throw away everything that made you interesting.  Anyway, maybe this song is a fluke, although I doubt it.  I also just missed the new Morrissey song, which made me sad.  Morrissey is headlining SXSW, which I can’t go to, which makes me sad, although I saw Morrissey in London in the best concert ever, which real English soccer hooligans singing along to every word and chugging pints behind me.  I also went to Manchester and got to experience first hand exactly what made Morrissey so depressed.  So really, missing him at SXSW is not that big of a deal.  Plus, I’m still pissed at him for cancelling the show at the Backyard I had tickets to year before last when the bastard ticket agent didn’t refund any of my fees.

On a completely differerent note, we start Childbirth Classes tonight.  Seinfeldian question:   why is it called childbirth when you give birth to a baby?  I guess “baby birth” sounds funny.  Anyway, I’m looking forward to it, although I’m afraid they will show videos like the ones Ashley’s class watched which will scare and frighten me.  Right now I’m excited about the whole “childbirth thing” it sounds really neat and exciting that one moment your kid is inside you and the next it’s out in the world, crying its first audible cry.  I don’t want to be a whiny butt and I want to have nerves of steel and not scream and cry.  Drugs should help.  Anyway, I’m trying to be optimistic, because I figure that certainly can’t hurt, right?  Plus, I’ve got hips the size of a Buick, which I always thought would come in handy some day;)  Anyway, we’ll see if they can scare all the confidence right out of me tonight.

I had a dream last night that I’d had my baby and I was taking her out shopping and she was very cute and I was changing her diaper, and then some sort of alien came in and pricked her and me and we started oozing this white goo.  And then my dream turned into an episode of the X-Files, except that it was the “first season” in my dream, and in that season they had different actors and Samuel L. Jackson was either Mulder or Mr. X.  I am such a dork, I actually looked up that guy’s name b/c I could not remember it, but I knew it was played by the guy who was on 21 Jump Street.  Thank God for IMDB!