Author: eaumaison (Page 147 of 210)

This week brought on a new pregnancy woe – SI joint pain.  It started Tuesday with a little pain.  By Wednesday I was limping, unable to lift anything at work, and struggling to get up out of chairs.  Thursday I missed work (after much ado, argh-I hate our management) because the pain was so bad.  I went to my midwife who diagnosed SI pain.  I got a prescription for Vicodin and a referral for PT, who can’t see me until next week.  The outlook is bad, that this pain will come and go until the end of pregnancy, and return for all subsequent pregnancies.  I found an article here that describes what I have perfectly.  Basically the relaxin hormone is doing its thing to get ready for delivery, but it over-loosened the ligaments surrounding the sacral-iliac joint.

I tried a Vicodin and it didn’t work any better than Tylenol, which is to say not at all.  I’ve had heat and ice on my back round the clock.  I had Jenni give me a massage and Ben bought me a supportive brace.  This morning my pain is still here but only 60-75% of what it was yesterday, so I’ll go to work tonight.  I hope it’s an easy night.  And I hope the weekend is relaxing and makes the pain go away.  And I hope I find time to try swimming at the rec center – I bought a swimsuit two weeks ago and haven’t had time yet.

Last week I put my foot down and said I wasn’t taking call anymore.  It was too difficult for me to have interrupted sleep and to respond to patient needs alone.  I’m so glad I ended it.  They worked out a schedule where I cover evening shifts during the week.  The hours are unpredictable but I get to sleep in every day and that makes a huge difference in my well-being.  I get up slowly and eat a decent breakfast, and even have time for a little leisure and errands.  Well, if this blasted SI pain wasn’t holding me back.

Instead of counting up I’m counting down.  5 weeks until my due date.  The last few days I have felt very pregnant.  Achy in my back and joints, tight in my belly, moody, tired, everything you expect.  I think kickpuncher is going through another growth spurt.  I’m to the point where I’d be happy if he came.  Yes, it’s early.  But I’m ready for him and done being pregnant.  I’m feeling very wistful for the olden days. 

I miss:

• feeling chilly
• my flat stomach
• sleeping on my stomach
• sleeping through the night
• waking up feeling refreshed
• eating bacon
• eating hot dogs
• eating cold deli sandwiches
• eating undercooked eggs
• eating a meal without causing shortness of breath
• drinking caffeine guilt-free
• standing up without groaning
• bending down without groaning
• tying my shoes from a standing position
• clothes that fit
• changing the cat litter (HA!  That one’s for you Ben)

Sadly I realize that most of these will not be resolved immediately upon delivery, or even the next couple years.  Here’s hoping I have a marvelous, fun, exciting, joyful summer.

One of the great outcomes of being pregnant is that it brings out the craftiness in women. I have been slowly working on a knitted sweater vest and already finished two flannel blankets. But I have also received some wonderful handmade items by other women I love.

This is a cuddly soft teal and blue blanket knit by Betty. The amazing thing is she learned to knit just to make this! It’s her first project and I’m super impressed. The model doll is named “Squints” and came from a friend at my shower.

Yesterday I opened a surprise package in the mail and found this beautiful quilt. Grandma Lois made this for the baby to play on. I think it will be perfect for spreading out with some toys. The fabrics have different fun textures too. The model is, of course, Link from Wind Waker Zelda. I couldn’t resist getting him in NY.

Finally, check out this amazing amigurumi set of animals my mom crocheted. They are incredibly darling, but I think the Octopus is my favorite. I don’t know how she finds time to do such things, but these will be treasured for sure.

(Photography by Ben, styled by Rachel and Ben. We used our cool photo studio set-up that Dad got us for Christmas to take these.)

Amanda beat me to blogging our trip, and did such a great job summarizing that I’m afraid I can’t add much to it!  So here are some of my favorite photos with brief explanations.  See Amanda’s blog and the flickr accounts for me, Ben, and Jenn for more travel bits. 

Beautiful produce and crafts at the Union Square Farmer’s Market.  I got some art prints for the nursery from this artist. 

Second breakfast was at Le Pain Quotidien.  Loved their bread and spreads. 

Third breakfast was hot cocoa from Chocolate by the Bald Man.  Next time I’m in NY I’ll have to stop here for dessert.  The waffles and fondue looked really good. 

The Tim Burton exhibit at MOMA was fun, but I think I enjoyed seeing the other classics even more.  And the benches.  I was a big fan of the benches. 

I’m glad we made it to a deli.  I had a rueben in the hospital cafeteria yesterday because I can’t get this sandwich out of my head.  I love pastrami and cole slaw!  Ben attacked a true NY cheesecake and declared it delicious.

Bebe Neurwirth made this show for me.  No one can do isolations like that girl.

Ben and I skipped the second museum in favor of extra sleep the next day.  We leisurely got up and walked to Rockefeller Plaza.  They had Easter lilies and gorgeous azalea trees.

Mavi and Jeff met us at Jing Fong in Chinatown for dim sum lunch.  By the way, I have no idea why I look so grumpy in most of my pictures.  Maybe because my mouth was always full?  I seriously had a great time during the whole trip.  I apologize to my family if I looked like a grumpy toad the whole time. 

After dim sum we shopped around SoHo and got our second round of Pinkberry.  I picked up some beautiful yarn to add to my basket of beautiful yarns with no purpose yet.  Then we had a fancy-pants dinner at BLT Fish.  This restaurant tried their hardest to make me dislike them, but I wouldn’t let them.  First, many of you know I hate seafood.  Yes, all seafood.  Yes, I have tried “this is the best though, it doesn’t even taste fishy” many times as my fellow diners entice me to try again.  I still hate it.  So I ordered the only non-fish item on the menu, filet mignon.  Normally this is no biggie-except for the whole rare meats are bad when you’re pregnant thing.  I had them cook it as much as possible without ruining it and they did a perfect job.  It was still delicious.  Everyone else seemed enchanted with their fish entrees.  Ben got to make up for all the fish-less meals he endures at home. 

After Lend Me a Tenor (which was really good and funny) we found dessert and snacks at Junior’s across from the theater.  I realized that I had ordered pickles and ice cream, how cliche is that?

Here’s mah swag, lots of fun things to take home, aside from my fun memories.  I love traveling with my family!  I hope it doesn’t slow down once we have a kid.  (I foresee a fantastic trip to Disneyland in 5 years or so). 

Just got back from New York City!  My family took a weekend vacation and we had a fabulous time.  Shopping, shows, and lots and lots of food.  I love to visit NY and each trip is different because there is so much to do there.  Tomorrow I hope to do a proper recap of my trip with photos.  Coming home I’m always struck by the wonders of home comforts.  Here are some things that I appreciate about being home:

• Clean mountain air
• Soft 2 ply toilet paper
• Shopping without the crowds
• Mexican food
• My animals

But New York has plenty of awesomeness to make giving these up for a weekend completely worthwhile:

• Pizza.  Seriously, the pizza. 
• H&Ms and giant-sized Anthropologies
• Good live theater every night of the year
• Pinkberrys
• And a new edition to my food-love list – Le Pain Quotidien

I could do a whole list that’s just food.  Looking at my photos, about half of them are what I ate 🙂  Here’s me and Ben in Rockefeller Plaza.  More to come soon.

Just thought I should write about a not-so-bad day at work, so people don’t think I’m a slave to a horrible job.  There weren’t any patients planned at our two smaller hospitals yesterday, so I got to be on call all day instead of starting after my shift.  I slept in until 9, then showered and donned my flannel pants, a t-shirt, and my pager.  I set to work on the craft space and got it completely organized.  I vacuumed the basement and did dishes.  I had a nice lunch at home and did some paper crafts. 

Just as I was wondering what to do with my afternoon the pager went off.  Apparently the doctors forgot to tell us about one patient who needed dialysis, and the nurse was wondering when he would be dialyzed.  I switched to scrubs and got to the hospital by 2 pm.  The patient was fairly stable and the doctors and nurses nice to work with.  I had some machine trouble shooting that delayed my start time, but I was able to leave the hospital at 9 pm.  Not bad at all!  I was able to get a decent shift in, with call-back pay, and now I was anxiety free for a good night’s sleep, knowing that the call 2 nurse would have to get the next page, if there was one (there wasn’t). 

Unfortunately, there were some signs that I’m not as tough as I used to be.  I can’t leave a patient who is on treatment, so I couldn’t go to the bathroom while I was there.  My stomach was cramping up badly and I was trying not to drink so I wouldn’t make it harder for my bladder.  Halfway through the patient’s treatment his blood started clotting the tubing.  I had been giving him saline flushes every 15 minutes but I could see a total blockage was coming anyway.  I rinsed back his blood, clamped him off the machine, and paused treatment to start a new tube set-up.  Normally I hate clotted systems for delaying the treatment but this was a blessing from on high!  I dashed to the bathroom for some much needed relief before re-connecting him. 

But what’s really weird is that around 7 pm I started having cramps again.  After an hour I figured out that these were probably Braxton Hicks contractions and they. hurt. bad.  Remembering that dehydration can lead to cramps I started chugging my water.  Not much relief.  It actually hurt to stand up and walk around with them.  As soon as the patient was transported back to his room I dug out the granola bar I had brought, and gave myself another bathroom trip before finishing cleaning up the room.  They came about every 10 minutes and felt like really bad menstrual cramps, but just on the my right side and back and down my right leg.  I hobbled out to my car at 9 and per Ben’s advice grabbed dinner at McDonald’s on the way home.  I felt much much better as I started eating real (ha!) food and by 10 pm the cramps were totally gone.  I haven’t had any pre-labor contractions yet so that was really weird.  I think I pushed myself a bit too hard at work and shouldn’t have gone so long without eating.  My coworkers have been encouraging me to get a doctor’s note so that I don’t have to do call anymore.  I thought it was too soon but after last night I’m rethinking it.  Today I’m still cramp-free, but I’m having a harder time leaning over and climbing stairs.  I get winded really easily.  It looks like the third trimester is finally catching up to me. 

Miranda posted pictures from the shower on her flickr site.  Here are some of my favorites!

Saturday I had the loveliest of parties hosted by Miranda and Sarah.  They provided delicious and beautiful snacks and desserts, tangerine and turquoise decorations, and invited a variety of friends from all different points of my life.  It was wonderful to see all these special women from school and work over the years, and I’m so grateful to have their influence in my life.  My mom also drove all the way from Grand Junction to attend!  I trust that Miranda will soon post pictures on her site, or email some to me so I can post them.

I feel much better about welcoming a baby into our house.  We got a lot of cute and practical clothes, footie pajamas, and I might venture to say that we have enough onesies. Gasp! I also got a nice start to his library and toy collection. 

My parents helped immensely by shopping for a crib and changing table!  The baby now has a safe place sleep and I feel less anxiety about my lack of nesting so far.  We have a place to sleep, clothes to wear, and a good carseat courtesy of Ben’s parents.  Throw in a pack of diapers and we could be set if needed.  Of course there are many many small things that make life easier.  I have a wishlist on amazon to keep track of all the little things we can pick up between now and the birth.  Sometimes I feel overwhelmed at how much I need to do still.  Here’s a list of things accomplished to make me feel better:

• Nursery room emptied
• Carpets cleaned
• New craft space established
• New couch in the basement
• Finished a handmade flannel blanket
• Toys
• Books
• Queen bed for me and Ben
• DVR and netflix queue for late nights and being stuck at home
• Saved up money to cover the hospital bill
• Got a portable AC to survive the hot summer 
• Registered and toured at the hospital

Things to do still:

• Arrange and fill-in the nursery with supplies
• Find a dresser (maybe?)
• Fix the bathroom sink and fan, and anything else that breaks between now and May
• Paperwork to HR for maternity leave (cannot complete for another month)
• Take a birthing class
• Finish the sweater vest I’m knitting
• Give the bathrooms a deep cleaning
• Pick a pediatrician

So that’s not too bad, right?

But those are curtains from Anthropologie.  Dearie me, I just can’t rationalize paying $200 for curtains. Target and other stores were dead ends.  I’ll just have to make my own.  After an hour staring at the fabric racks in Fancy Tiger I came up with these two:

The consensus so far is for the bird print.  I love the colors and the birds.  But when I hang the two in the room I feel like the teal damask does better over a large space.  It’s also heavier fabric so it would function better than the bird print for drapes.  I’m still mulling it over.  Feel free to drop me your opinion.  My other other decoration for the room is this wall art from blik: