except that i havent really felt like doing anything.  the last time i was pregnant was 10 years ago.  not only have i significantly less energy this time around i also seem to have acquired things like “responsibilities” and “obligations” which seem to take up more time than i remember or maybe it just seems that way when you routinely fall asleep at 9:00 every night.  everything else just kinda gets pushed aside.

anyway.  this doesnt matter anymore since im on bedrest now.  i have all the time in the world… (ok the next 3 weeks) do really soak in some doing nothing.  obligations – such as work, grocery shopping, making dinner, tending the garden: gone.  my world is literally my bed.  the couch.  the bathroom.

and it fucking sucks.

now i wished i had taken advantage of my mobility when i had the chance.  taken the dog for more walks.  been more proactive about getting plants in.  gone to more movies.  tried some of the bazillions of recipes i have been bookmarking but not making.  the highlight of my week is going to be going to the doctor tomorrow because i get to go outside and go for a car ride and walk around for a little bit.

nobody reads any of this but me anyway, so I’ll post the story just because im pretty good at forgetting:

this pregnancy has had some complications, so my doctor has been being proactive with testing and cautions and whatnot.  on tuesday (8/24) at my ob visit I hadn’t been spotting for 2 weeks, so she offered me a fetal fibronectin test, which indicates if I am at an increased risk for preterm delivery. apparently a no result is a really strong negative – less than 1% chance of preterm delivery in the next 2 weeks.  a positive result is more difficult to interpret.  the presence of blood would have fucked up the test so it was a good opportunity.  i declined the test and she said ok and that was that.  then all tuesday night i was having contractions and wednesday at work i lost my mucous plug.  so i called her wednesday afternoon and said: you know what, can we do that test because if it comes back negative then i can actually buy a couple weeks without worrying constantly, so i went back in on thursday over my lunch break to have the test done.

an hour later they call me back with the results: the test is positive and the doctor wants me to come in to labor and delivery to initiate steroid injections which help develop the baby’s lungs.  im like: oh… kay. when should i be there? and the nurse says, “can you be here in an hour?” and I said: uh, well I’m at work and she says: ok well can you be here in an hour and a half? and im like: fuck.

so i drive in to the hospital the whole time thinking that its pretty weird they arent just going to give me the shot in the doctor’s office, and i am walking down the hall toward labor and delivery and the nurse meets me and i say: ‘hi, i was told to come down here’ and she says: yes, we’ve been waiting for you, we’ll page the doctor right away, come in this room and put on this gown and id bracelet and it just hits me that moment that they may not be letting me leave.  i mean i left the house that morning to go to work just like any other regular thursday – this was not how i thought my day would end.

They gave me the first injection and checked my cervix and found i was dilated to 3.  They then decided to admit me for at least 24 hours to make sure both injections were given without complication (they need to be given 24 hours apart) as well as start me on meds to stop the contractions.

friday morning, they checked me again and i was 80% effaced, dilated to 4, the baby’s head was bearing down and and my contractions had gotten closer/stronger so they started a course of magnesium sulfate which is supposed to relax the uterus.  the hope was to get through a 48 hour window to allow the steroids to do their thing, plus the magnesium supposedly has neuroprotective benefits.  it as then they told me that i was probably not leaving the hospital.  at all.

That afternoon a nurse from the nicu came and talked with chad and i about outcomes and expectations, which was super upsetting.  she said 32 weeks was actually a really good place to be, and 90-95% of babies born at 32 weeks dont have any developmental problems at all.  if we can hold out another week, then her nicu time will be cut in half, and if we can make it to 35 weeks, she wont have to stay at all probably.  its all good news – or as good as it could be i guess? – but i guess i know too much about outcomes of premature babies and this is terrifying to me.

the mag drip sucked.  They told me that i would probably feel feverish and like i had the flu and that some women vomit uncontrollably through it, but i never threw up although i was super confused and achy and hot all the time.  i did lose vision in one eye for like an hour and was sufficiently out of it that it didnt occur to me that it was at all unusual for that to happen but found out that too was a side effect.  neat.

anyway, on the 28th they turned off my magnesium and re-started the nifedipine and said it was wait and see at that point. the meds/magnesium had reduced the contractions to 1 or 2 an hour and the baby wasnt bearing down anymore.  since we were able to keep the contractions on the DL they let me go home, on bedrest, on the 29th (sunday).

i got home and thought i was taking it easy.  i mean i stayed on the couch most of the time except to refill my water bottle and eat dinner at the table.  but by tuesday night (8/31) i was back in the hospital with strong contractions coming every 3-5 minutes.  another overnight stay, another bruise from another iv, more monitors, another ultrasound, an adjustment of my medication dosage and they died down again.

my doc threatened to keep me in the hospital until the baby was born for no other reason than she would know that my activity would be restricted.  she told chad that she was pretty confident that i could make it to 35 if i stayed down.  so we promised and begged and she let us go home.  and here i am.

its like being in jail.  every couple days i can take a shower.  i do get to brush my teeth at the sink when i wake up in the morning.  i have positioned myself by a window so i can see outside and i can even open it when its nice.  i was supposed to get my hair cut and colored on the first, but i couldnt go to that obviously so i have 1.5″ roots and i hated having my bangs in my face so i cut them myself and not only did i get hair everywhere i super messed up my bangs too so i look terrible.  its easy to feel sorry for yourself and helpless and hopeless to the point that you start to justify ‘well she probably wouldnt be in the nicu THAT long i just wish all this was over already’ then you feel guilty for thinking that but you still wish it would end and 3 weeks doesnt SOUND like that long but it is.

one of the hardest things about this whole thing is the guilt.  like when chad told one of our friends, she commented: ‘wow shes so lucky i wish i could lay on the couch and watch tv all day’. i was so hurt by that because it makes me feel like she thinks that this is just an excuse to be super lazy.  i dont think a lot of people get it.

i spend all day looking up studies and efficacy data on everything from the meds im on and have been given to bedrest, and theres not a lot of research that supports bedrest at all – it’s something doctors do because its what they’ve always done.  i love my ob and i know she makes informed decisions, and she explained it as movement and gravity being 2 things we know work to progress labor, so the opposite should work to slow it down.  but i cant help wondering if all of this is for nothing??  i do know that when i get up or even change positions sometimes i start contracting immediately.  maybe they’re not productive and thats my baseline though?  chad says that if at the end we get a healthy baby girl it doesnt really matter how we got to that point and *rationally* i know hes right but it doesnt make the guilt go away.

some friends came over yesterday to play D&D and they moved the dining room table into the living room so i could lay on the couch while we played and although i felt super self-conscious at first and almost called the whole thing off everyone was super supportive about the whole thing and honestly i think i really needed that because it was the first time i had been around people outside of my immediate family (or medical professionals) and laughed – really really laughed – in nearly 2 weeks.  (my thief died, btw.  rip teegan.  i never really liked you that much anyway).

so we are at 33 weeks now.  i think the plan from here is to stop the meds at 34 and i am off bedrest at 36.  i need stuff to do that doesnt involve refreshing reddit and askme all day.  i bought the BC expansion for WOW and even installed it but cant bring myself to start the subscription.   i cant play any game for more than 15 minutes. i dont have any good books to read – or maybe its that i cant stay interested in any of the books i have.

i did finish a legwarmer.  that should be another post.

it is – after all – doing something.

i was in line at the grocery store today and the guy in front of me asked the cashier what the deal with all the clouds and rain was (he wasnt from here and wondered if this is a typical spring and summer for us).  i couldnt stop myself from snorting.  I should probably keep track – I *want* to say there are more nice years than not but it’s probably split 50/50.

We have the good years that are warm and sunny and clear beginning in may and are just beautiful and make our relentlessly grey pacific northwest winters bearable.

Then we have these years where its 60 and drizzling every day through the 4th of July and everyone just wants to die.

including everything in my garden which is probably a lost cause at this point because (a) i dont have the energy to care that much and (b) come august when it gets hot and im 150 pounds and trying to water and weed i will care even less and (c) nothing is growing anyway so its like the garden doesnt even WANT me to care about it and thats fine.  Just whatever garden.  be that way.  *rolleyes*

the peas were slow to start and are still putting out pods but they’re beginning to collapse under their own weight (or some critter is taking them down) so I’m going to get enough to make MAYBE one pasta dish. The spinach I swear to god put on 4 tiny leaves then bolted.  My mizuna, watercress and arugula bolted before i could harvest it because I couldnt make myself go outside.  My carrots, lettuce, kale, pole beans and cannellini beans didnt even bother coming up.  I cant blame them.  Why even bother, carrots.  even if you do sprout I’ll just neglect you.

I do have 4 lovely heads of broccoli ready for harvest which is neat and I put in 3 tomato plants last month that look great – one has flowers even.  I just today put in some pole bean starts, cucumbers, and butternut squash but thats it.  Im going to overseed the other 2 beds with flowers; maybe they’ll come up maybe not but im done worrying about it.

In other news: 22 weeks.  Over halfway now.  I can feel her kicking and punching all day and night.

chad and eva are out of town for the week (visiting inlaws) and im saving up my vacation so i stayed home.  im bored to tears though and they have barely been gone 24 hours.  So far I finished my book, folded some laundry, took the dog for a walk and played oblivion (which i have installed for the 5th time and have been modding since memorial day and this time i swore to play it for a while before i uninstall it to free up drive space).

its funny i used to live alone and i still covet that time in my life and even fantasize about renting a secret apartment and pretending i still live by myself but these little times by myself make me realize how much ive come to rely on the noise and chaos and bodies around me.

which is good but weird i think but still good.

as of today i am/we are at 11 weeks as of TODAY (i drafted this post a while ago) I am at 15 weeks and i think most of the exhaustion and nausea have finally fallen away (for real). which is good because i got eggs to color and maybe some hot cross buns to make (just because they look delish) (they werent THAT great).  also we just did a cheapie re-do on the upstairs bathroom and i need to go to ikea and get some kind of shelf and maybe one of those little rolling trays for my kitchen garbage can that they are ALWAYS OUT OF (we repurposed a dresser and they were still out of the rolling trash thing ugh).

This weekend (just to make it a real update) I have to make a cheshire cat costume for a parade.  m kinda terrified of that.

Lang:

princess!

lang and smeagol

Smeagol:

shameless

bad hair day

Eleanor:

eleanor plots to take over the world

chair: ur doin it wrong

snuggle buddiezzz:

when elli was just a kitten

mr and mrs santa

welp i took a little break to indulge myself being that the dog was sick and i was sad and then suddenly i was also sick and then the dog got feeling better but i was stuck on “wallow” because of that damned inertia and lookit that i’ve not checked in in a while. so lets remedy this.

Update #1: Lang-dog is doing great tymv

So sometime last weekend i think (i dont remember) his nose stopped bleeding and while that may be a bad sign in the long run it was the one thing holding him back from regular old, ‘in your face’, borderline annoying lang so I think he can now be considered “good as new”.

Except for the room clearing gas he’s developed either because of the meds or the super calorie dense food we’ve got him on to try to gain back his weight.  it’s seriously the most obnoxious stuff ever made even MORE disconcerting by the fact that from a few rooms away it smells like someone’s heating up leftover beef stew.

Update #2: Cooking stuff

I made granola yesterday.  It’s freaking good and hella cheap.  Then I made the mistake of looking up some nutritional information and about crapped myself.

It’s still good.

Update #3: Growing stuff

My arugula is coming up as are my peas.  in your FACE doubters who said i couldnt plant anything in february!  I don’t know that anyone actually sais that but I know for sure that I was thinking it.

Because I am always pushing my luck today I planted some chard and broccoli and spinach.

Also I found out the lovely flowering thing in my backyard is a flowering quince.

Also Also i found im growing something else but im going to wait till my mom comes to visit to talk about it EVEN THOUGH im pretty sure my mom doesnt read my blog anyway EVEN THOUGH i have sent her the link and i know shes not got anything better to do now that shes retired (this is a trap).

Update #4: Miscellaney

final fantasy XIII comes out on tuesday im pretending i dont even care but i know i am going to the game store that afternoon aaaaand i hate myself for that just a little bit.

Lang’s got cancer.  we got the biopsy results a week ago and its malignant.  i dont remember what the vet called the kind of tumor he has but its supposedly really aggressive and the prognosis (while variable) is about 3 months.  The outlook for dogs with nosebleeds is generally worse.  We might be able to buy another month or so and keep him comfortable with a chemotherapy drug and an anti-inflammatory but she said when they go downhill it goes really fast.  Chad’s been reading that there are dogs that live with this for years.  he’s researching all kinds of herbal remedies and calling about different possible medications.  we’ll see.

i think the worst most unfair part of all of this is that otherwise… other than horrible thing growing in his head that will eventually kill him (indirectly since it will almost certainly fall to me to kill him first)… otherwise he is in perfect health.  except for the nosebleed.  which stopped after the surgery but started again last weekend.

So the rugs are up again and i have found this miracle spray that removes blood from everything (i swear to god this stuff is like magic) and we got a couple baby gates to keep him contained in about half the house and now checking for blood and cleaning it up and not getting dressed for work until the exact second you walk out the door has become part of our new “normal” routine around here.

Which i know is weird.  i was telling all this to my hair cutting guy and he was just like: omg why don’t you just put him to sleep?

we had friends over last night for dinner last night and they were horrified by the blood and constant cleaning.  they didnt say anything but they looked SO uncomfortable and poor Lang was so excited to see them but we couldnt let him out of the part of the house we sectioned off and he bled everywhere and gosh even when they left through the back door they saw the whole patio out there literally looks like someone was ambushed and had their throat cut (the meter guy is probably going to call the cops on us) and seeing it through someone else’s eyes just made me think oh god oh god please i hope we are doing the right thing.

but i couldnt i can’t put him to sleep right now knowing that otherwise he is a healthy happy guy who loves treats and walks and laying on the couch and taking eva to school and playing ball in the backyard and begging for scraps when i chop veggies.  when he doesnt like those things anymore then we can talk.  the vet said that eventually the tumor will grow to the point that it will constrict the nasal cavity and the nosebleeds will stop.  i dont even know what to do with that information or how to feel about that.

in the meantime its just a little blood.

• Pasta with walnuts, mushrooms, and broccolini in brown butter parmesan sauce
• Spinach mushroom bacon quiche (mom’s recipe booya)
• Brown rice with eggs and veggies
• Dover sole with couscous and carrots

we also have girlscouts and gymnastics and WALKING WITH THE FREAKING DINOSAURS tomorrow so there’ll probably be a few leftover and beenie-weenie nights for quick easy can we please just go one night without anyone complaining about how they dont really like what i cooked.

I’ve been taking leftovers for lunch (or just being lazy and going to the cafeteria) but its too much heavy food and starting to make me feel like poo so I’m going back to my favorite: fake bento.  which is pretty much just a bunch of snacks crammed in a box.  I have adorable bento boxes that I’ve been collecting over the years but i’ve found that a good leakproof sandwich container works great – especially if you use little silicone cupcake liners to separate out the contents.

I try to have one thing from each category plus one more fruit and/or veggie and pack the box FULL:

• Protein: nuts, hard boiled egg, nut butter, cottage cheese, cheese cubes or a babybel, yogurt
• Fruit: 1/2 of an apple, pear, or orange; grapes, berries, dates, etc
  
• Veggies:  carrots, celery, cherry tomatoes, edamame, broccoli, leftovers (greens/asparagus/etc)
• Grains:  rice balls, whole wheat or wasa crackers, sesame sticks, granola maybe?
  

It doesn’t look like a huge amount of food, but it is filling and satisfying and probably good for you?  Better than chicken fingers, french fries, and a cup of brown gravy to dip everything in which was an actual lunch i had last week (-_-;).  ALSO you can snack on stuff all day and don’t have to feel guilty about breaking into your lunch at 10:30 if you want because youre just going to grab a teeny bite.   i’ve tried to take pictures of my fake bentos before but the morning light is crap right now so id basically be taking pictures in the dark.  maybe ill give it another shot tho.

now, i don’t remember when i put it there.  therefore: mystery chicken.  the internet told me that chicken is good frozen for 9 months to a year and i am pretty sure that it hasn’t been that long.  also growing up we had a chest freezer and used to get a whole hog from the farm once a year and i KNOW some of that stuff was in there forever and ever and none of us ever died so …

i thawed it out. and the skin definitely had some freezer burn, but the meat looked intact. so i said fuck it im going to make a stock anyway i mean worse case scenario it tastes funky and i have to toss it and use boxed stock but at least i tried and really what else am i doing today the weather is kinda crap and the only other real plans i have involve napping on the couch while i pretend to watch the olympics and maybe MAYBE taking a shower so its not like i cant fit it into my day.

and thats part of the magic of soup really.  i mean you can make it into an all day process but most of that is sitting around waiting PLUS soup is almost always freaking fantastic and you get to smell it all day and everyone else thinks you worked SUPER hard all day to make it but they dont know! so you just get to bask in accolades and delicious cooking soup smells and feel like you did something important which is awesome.

anyway i took all the skin and fat off and the drumstick was a little dried out so i just removed that too. it looked and smelled fine (i even brought in a second opinion so i wasnt the only one responsible if we all got food poisoning) so into the pot it went with all my “better use these up quickly” veggies: half a leek, a few stalks of red chard, mushrooms and a carrot. throw in a bay leaf and some thyme and now we’ll just let it simmer for a couple hours and see what happens.

and see thats another great thing about soup: you can cook up all the stuff thats getting ready to go in the compost bin.  my chard was definitely wilty and that carrot was going soft and the mushrooms were drying out but its not rotten its RUSTIC besides a few hours in the pot equalizes everything.

hrmm.

i just made a post on the internet about how i feed my family garbage.  sweet.

and then it hit me.  i just put in late winter seeds.  but my beds dont have any sun yet.  crap.  BUT my summer veggie bed gets some sun now and gets the MOST sun in the summer and since im not planting till like may/june in that bed theres no reason not to start arugula and peas there since they’ll be ready to harvest when the other stuff goes in (THEORETICALLY ! ).  we’ll see which bed does better.

ALSO while outside i found my favorite flowering mystery shrub is flowering again!  this guy showed up last year and i have NO idea what it is or how it got here and my across the street neighbor friend has the SAME MYSTERIOUS SUDDENLY-APPEARING SHRUB and she ALSO doesnt know what it is!  exciting!   and lovely!

i found one thing i wasnt looking for though:

slug eggs.

]]> http://jefais.wordpress.com/2010/02/16/garden-hedging-my-bets-and-learning-about-latitude/feed/ 0 Nublet IMG_2764 IMG_2768 http://jefais.wordpress.com/2010/02/16/tuesday-navel-gazing-and-a-meal-plan-for-216/ http://jefais.wordpress.com/2010/02/16/tuesday-navel-gazing-and-a-meal-plan-for-216/#comments Tue, 16 Feb 2010 20:35:35 +0000 Nublet http://jefais.wordpress.com/?p=171 ]]> i had another post written here and i didnt like it so i am rewriting it.  it was grim and sarcastic and i already have an outlet for grim and sarcastic so instead im going to talk about stuff i unabashedly like:

I like this website where they post a free yoga routine video every week.  i have commitment and follow through problems with most things but exercise in any form is the worst mostly because although i like the IDEA of exercise i hate actually moving my body with any kind of effort for any longer than say… 10 minutes also having to wear special clothes and getting sweaty and having to use an entire hour.  but i guess i can say i hate yoga LESS than say running.  for one: i can wake up and do yoga in my pajamas.

i also like listening to my recommended station on the last.fm iphone application.  i set out to do the dishes today and ended up cleaning out the fridge and organizing a drawer just because i was listening to stuff id never heard before.

i like… not feeling guilty about being lazy in my meal planning:

• chicken enchiladas (leftover shredded chicken from my chicken stock this weekend)
• orecchiete with mushroom (add broccolini and chili flakes)
• yakisoba (because it was so good the other week and i STILL have leftover cabbage)
• tomato soup and grilled cheese (per eva’s request)
• leftovers (whatever else is leftover)