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July 14, 2003
36 Weeks
I had a dentist appointment early last week that I forgot to write about in my last entry. The appointment went really well, I was in and out in just over an hour and had two fillings done. My dentist is really great – careful, caring and efficient and the hygienist is quite wonderful too. She has a son and talked a bit about her experience at the hospital, and this time around, because it was a different hygienist, had really positive things to say both about her pregnancy and about her labour :-) In actuality, going to the dentist was one of the best things that I could have done right now, because when you sit in the chair, they elevate your legs and drop your head. So, I was able to sit for about an hour in the best position I could be sitting… Or do you call that sitting at all, because it is actually much more like lying… Details! :-) So, because the two cavities were on either side of my mouth, I had to have freezing done on both sides… Fun. I informed my dentist that it usually takes quite a bit of freezing for me to feel numb and once again my opinion of him was re-affirmed when he took me seriously. So many times I have had dentists not take this issue into consideration and start to drill only to stop when I let out a blood-curdling howl of pain. Ha – now they knew I was actually *serious* when I told them! No such experience this time, the freezing took quite well and lasted well until after lunchtime. Which made Simon laugh when I tried to eat a little bit at lunch, because my mouth and face were *apparently* quite funny-looking. And for which I love him more, because who else but a best friend can laugh at you under such circumstances? :-)
Next appointment this past week. I had mentioned a couple of entries ago that I had just had some orthodics made up for me. I have been thinking for a couple of weeks that I wanted them adjusted a bit, my appointment was this week. I didn’t bother bringing in my running shoes with the orthodics, what is the point when there is not a hope in hell that my poor swollen stump-feet will fit into them? I purposely made the appointment with the same woman (I really ought to know what the proper term or name to call her… orthodicontist?? Dunno) She immediately exclaimed about my huge feet and laughed when I said there was no point to me bringing in my shoes. Once again, she was great and told me that if I found that the adjustment was a little too much after my feet had lost some of the fluid postpartum, that I was to come in and she would adjust them again, free of charge. So, now I have some great orthodics… but nothing to wear them in until the middle or end of August :-)
Yoga has switched to Wednesday nights now, which is great because it really frees up my Saturday now. Because it is a new session however, there are all these women with tiny, or nonexistent bellies there. I am BY FAR the largest belly in the class right now, and it’s quite funny to me, because for so long I had felt that I was the smallest belly in the class, now that role has reversed! LOL The other thing that I noticed with this class is that I am having to modify the poses somewhat because my belly has become so large. Isn’t that great? :-) I wonder how much more I will have to modify poses in the future, as I continue to grow outward and more outward… It is also taking me longer and longer to move from one pose to another, say from Table to sitting or sitting to standing – too funny in my eye :-)
I am done my thesis. Or, so we thought about mid-week. We took it to the printers to get copies made and I went in to drop off one to my advisor, who then complained that I didn’t print it off double sided and was therefore wasting paper. Well, thanks. I do believe that if I had printed it off double sided, she would have complained that there was nowhere for her to write notes, if she needed extra room. It seems to me that I really can not please this woman. This is after she complained that the document I had emailed her earlier this week was too large for her to print off at the school, too much of a waste of paper. I had specifically told my committee members (there are only two) that I would be giving them a hard copy but if they wanted to print off the emailed version to get a head start, they were welcome to. My supervisor did just that, not even considering that it was a large document (about 120 pages) and said not to bother express posting him a hard copy, he would come by the house to pick it up from me instead of me paying to mail it to him or driving out just to drop it off at the office – another example of how… I don’t know, easy it is to work with him. Anyway, we were feeling really great about how I had gotten it printed off and everything, and how it was all sort of falling into place. I could defend in two weeks, get the revisions done and be done with the whole thing by the beginning of August. The plans of mice and men…
I got an email from my advisor on Sunday, and I just had this really strong sensation that it was going to bear bad news, so I didn’t even bother opening it until Monday morning. In 10 point font, it was a page and a half long, single spaced, no paragraph spaces. I was informed that I required an external reader, who would then need about 2-3 weeks to read the thesis before it could proceed to defence. And she also wanted to know about my thesis proposal. She hadn’t submitted it to the faculty yet, because it apparently needed more work. I had actually worked on it for the remainder of the week after we had printed off my thesis, ready to hand it in to her on Monday, so at least that was okay. But the thing is… WHY couldn’t she have told me about the external reader back in January, when I had asked her about what requirements I would need to meet regarding my thesis committee?? WHY?? I mean, isn’t that the sort of respectful, responsible thing to do to a student who is asking *specifically* what needed to be done in terms of procedure for a thesis?
So, Simon and I have talked about what this means for my thesis and have decided that it is just *not* going to be able to be finished before the baby comes, not with this new requirement. I have scheduled a meeting with my two committee members for later this week to get their edits and to go over every point that my advisor had written in her email. We have made the decision that I will go to the meeting, then file all of my thesis stuff in our thesis file box and forget about it until the end of September. I will then start doing some of the editing and rewriting at that point. I could potentially defend in the end of October by just doing a couple of hours of work every day – no more than that. I am certainly not going to push myself at all, after all, I will have way better things to do than stress out about not doing three or more hours of work a day, right? It will get done in its own time.
We went shopping this week for baby things… boy, did we go shopping :-) Or at least, it felt like we did a bunch of shopping, compared to what we have been doing so far! We returned the items that we felt we didn’t need that my mum had given and bought a whole bunch more stuff. Essentially they were the strict essentials however. No little tiny outfits or anything, the closest we came to something cute like that were the little mittens and flannel booties that we bought and even then it was only two pairs of each. What did we buy then? Well… we completed the receiving blanket layette, bought unfolded diapers for burp cloths and other uses, fitted crib sheets and some onesies to tide us over until we know what size the Little One is going to be, then we will buy some more in whatever size we need. We also bought some of the bottle feeding stuff, like the breast pump set and one pack of bottles. I plan on breastfeeding for over a year and also plan to pump and use bottles. I have chosen to use the company Avent because of a number of reasons. I really like how all of their bottles can be used with the pump, there is no conversion piece needed and I like the nipple shape as well, it seems much more natural and like my own nipples than many others I have looked at. As well, they are not affiliated with any formula company, like so many other bottle companies out there, and I have heard nothing but good reviews of their support services as well. We had a really good time actually, it felt good to be able to buy some of this stuff because it lessened our restlessness we had started to feel a bit more of late :-) Oh, one of the other things we bought were stroller weather shields. We bought three from Sears to try out on our stroller, intending to return the ones that didn’t fit. Well, as it turns out, they all suck. They are each made for strollers that have separate handles, not the bar that goes all the way across, which sucks. I know that Graco makes a weather shield and that Toys ‘R’ Us carries it, hopefully it will fit a little better.
When we got home, we unwrapped everything and I went to town snipping off all of the washing labels on the all of the cloth items. There is no point to having those on there and they end up just scratching the baby because the tag is made of such a rough fabric. Then came the washing and folding – I have to say, it was quite a big load. I finally figured out a way to fold the blankets and such so that I could fit them into the drawers in the nursery (I am slightly an organization freak) and it looks SO good to open those drawers up and look in to find all these little baby things neatly folded away… Sigh… Can’t wait to use them! :-) So, the nursery is shaping up more and more and more, I love going in there now and not really doing anything, just opening a drawer, looking inside… How many more weeks? LOL
Another thing we bought was a baby doll. This is strictly for the kids, for them to get a little used to something small being around the house. It came with a little baby monitor that played four sounds, a laugh, a cry, mama and dada. Brook and Scarlett were a little cautious of the noises at first but have since become quite used to them. We placed the doll in the baby carrier and sat it on the floor in the living room. Brook was invited to see what it was and she was quite sweet actually, sniffing and looking at us for approval, gave a little lick and that was about it. So, the carrier is sitting on the floor, with the baby in it and we press the monitor every now and then when we are in the living room with the kids. Lastly, we bought some of the disposable diapers that we will use until the Little One weighs enough to fit into the cloth diapers that we are going to order soon. We also bought a diaper hamper (actually a kitchen garbage pail) and nylon sack for the cloth diapers, Simon wants to hold off on buying a clothes hamper for a little bit to see how we end up doing our laundry with the Little One.
This weekend we had registered for a first aid course that was supposed to teach us about newborn and child first aid. It was to run from 8:00 to 5:00, which both Simon and I found slightly suspicious, because it was so long. Suffice it to say that basically the entire day was a complete waste of time. The instructor was beyond dumb. She repeatedly gave us misinformation and what is worse, information and techniques that would *further* harm the patient, not help them. For instance, she didn’t teach us how to landmark to find the point on the chest where we would do chest compressions for CPR. This, after half of us in the class had told her that we had had no first aid training at all, and therefore, wouldn’t know what a landmark was from a 4-slice toaster. I managed to figure out what the heck she was talking about eventually, but that isn’t really the point, is it? Then, when we were practicing on the dolls, she wasn’t paying attention to the fact that the great majority of those who were in the classroom were inflating the ‘lungs’ way, *way* too much, and compressing the chest so much that the infant or child would have multiple cracked ribs. Poor Simon, who has done innumerable first aid courses and certifications, was becoming more and more livid as the day wore on and she kept giving this type of information. Essentially, by the time that we left both of us were at our breaking point. Who was the agency offering this course? St. John’s Ambulance, a group that I had respected before, but am totally disgusted with now, if this is the type of instruction that they give out. SO disappointing.
What else did we do this week? Oh, we installed, or tested out how it will fit, the baby carrier car mount thingy. I am sure there is a name for this thing, but I think you all understand what it is. We can’t put it in the middle of the back seat because we own an Outback and one of the design features is this plastic contraption built into the seat back which is supposed to hold the seatbelt buckles and such to keep it neat, except that it is a good theory, not good in function. The buckles don’t fit quite right because the belts aren’t quite long enough for all of them to fit etc, so we are left with this plastic thing with no use. So, anyway, the mount has got to go on one side or the other and because our car is a 1999, it doesn’t have the LATCH system. I got out the instructions on how to use a shoulder belt to secure it, but it doesn’t seem right – there is still quite a bit of movement even after Simon has ratcheted down the seat belt as per the instructions. I think I’m going to have to contact the police station to find out where I can get it tested to see if it is secured right. So, that was yet *another* thing we did this week. It really feels as if we did almost nothing BUT baby stuff this week :-)
Symptoms: I have been feeling what I have been referring to as Braxton Hicks much more this week than last. Still not sure if they even ARE BH contractions, but definitely noticed that they are occurring more this week. Not in any sort of pattern however. One thing that I have been feeling more of as well is the pelvis separation. Yowzers, it’s getting quite annoying. Like a really strong ache right in between the pelvic bones whenever I lift one leg or the other, and particularly at the end of the day it is much worse. I have noticed it when I go for walks, which means no more walks for me, it is just too dangerous for my pelvic health so to speak. I do NOT want to be one of those women my physio was telling me about who had to walk into admitting with one of those granny three-sided walking braces :-) Oh! The Little One is moving TONS! LOL My belly is just like a regular roller coaster ride, watching it gives me no end of pleasure as it rolls and pokes and makes odd shapes. I love the different sensations of pressure and such as the baby is moving and shaking around down there :-) My stretch marks now go all the way around my lower belly – a serious indication of how much the Little One has grown over the past few weeks. I have noticed that when I put on lotion after a shower that the skin is quite sensitive there as well, from the stretching damage that has been done – I have to gently rub it in as opposed to just being able to rub vigorously like on your arms or legs. Lastly, I have had heartburn like clockwork at night lately. I wake up from 2:00 – 3:00 to go to the bathroom, but also because of the heartburn. I find this quite funny actually, because it has been four or five nights in a row where this has happened… Is this to become another part of my nightly routine? :-) I wonder…
**Talk to Me**
When did you start doing major shopping trips for baby things, and how did it make you feel after you were done?
Did you have any troubles installing your car seat mount, did you get it checked by any agency and if so, who checked it?
Did you have heartburn late at night, were you like me where I have had it come and go?
Namaste, Laura and the Little One
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