Too much coffee today

So here I am, all strung out on coffee. Let me tell you, I don't usually drink coffee. I'm just not a coffee person. Never really have been, except for a few casual encounters here and there. If anything- one cup. I don't really dig the taste of it, but if I'm tired enough I will chug a cup quickly. But this morning I had company over for coffee (and by company I don't just mean my dog- I mean actual people this time, and if you don't believe me I have the pictures to prove it.), and it ended up that I had three cups of it. Peer pressure, I guess. But that's OK. I've learned that three cups is too much for me, and that's good to know. I'm all hyped up. But that is OK. When you have three kids, being hyped up is not a bad thing.

Lex is already five weeks old. He is doing well, and as you can see- getting bigger. He now tips the scales at just over ten pounds. He is starting to sleep a bit better now- and in fact- last night was his best night ever. He slept from 10-4 and then from 4:30-7:30. So that was good. He is starting to smile a bit now- though he's pretty stingy with the smiles and reserves them mainly for the couch, which seems to amuse him, which I find slightly concerning, but hey, different strokes for different folks, right? If you're into couches, you're into couches. It's cool. And it's not just a couch. It's leather, and you know that leather takes couches to a whole notha leva.

I am adapting well to domestic life. It's not as exciting as my former career. I have yet to see any stab wounds or HIV tests, which isn't a bad thing when you're a stay at home mom, although I could stand to see a little more blood, could do with a few more needles. I just miss that jamming motion. But there are other things to get excited about, I guess. Like the other day I spotted a sale at Wal Mart. Gain on sale for $5 a bottle!! So now I am washing my bedding in Vanilla Meadow. Can't wait to rest my head on my pillow tonight, let me tell you. That is going to be some good sniffing. And I'm also excited about the fact that I have two semi rotten bananas, which I intend to make full use of and make banana chocolate chip muffins for the morning. So that should be an exciting evening for me, and morning as well when I get to eat those delicious little muffins. I might skip the coffee tomorrow, though. Try to dry out for a day or two. You gotta be careful. These addictions can creep up on you. I watch Intervention, so I should know.

And speaking of excitement, yesterday was also a big day for me. I took the kids to see Kung Fu Panda (finally). It was an interesing adventure with a four year old, newborn and 'tween. I don' t think I was the most popular person in the movie theater with Payton's incessant "I need to go the washroom", "I need to wash my hands", "I spilled my drink", "I spilled my popcorn", and Gage's vehement shushing that was louder than Payton ever was and my sweet, shrill voice trying to put the kaibosh on both of them. Anyways, people say that I'm crazy to take three kids to a movie like that. But it's not crazy. It's clever. You see it's a double whammy of motherly weaponry. In the morning, you can use it as a bribe "If you don't smarten up I'm not taking you to the movie!!" And then after the movie, you can use it as a guilt trip: "How dare you talk to me like that when I just took you to a movie!!" I didn't just come in off the turnip truck. I'm getting this motherhood thing down. Not only am I getting it down, I'm pinning it to the ground and making it my bitch.

Settling in and settling down

There was a lot of activity for the last few weeks- starting mat. leave, anticipating the arrival of babe, the induction, the delivery, the homecoming, the visitors, etc. But now we seem to be settling into normal life as a family of five. Generally my days are starting to follow a pattern. The mornings are filled with feeding Lex, changing Lex, feeding Pay, getting Pay dressed, feeding myself, getting myself dressed, then feeding Lex again, then starting lunch. After lunch we generally go on an outing to the park or something to break up the day. Home by two to feed Lex, put him in the swing. Nap time from 3-4, then wake up and start preparing for supper. Not very exciting, but it there is a certain niceness to having a routine. We are even starting to get Payton into a routine of going to bed at 8:30 so that I have some quiet time in the evening. She has been adjusting well to it, amazingly enough.
For myself, at first I struggled a bit with the fact that all the excitement was over and suddenly it was just me alone with three kids and not very much social contact. But I am finding ways of keeping busy- visiting with people, even just going to the park, talking on the phone, internet. It helps to set goals and make plans- having things to look forward to so that the days do not seem so monotonous. I have eleven months of mat leave left and lofty goals:
1. Complete my third novel
2. Continue to try to publish my second novel
3. Try to publish my short story.
4. Take a scrapbooking class
5. Complete a scrapbook for Lex detailing the pregnancy, delivery and early days at home
6. Enroll Payton in dance lessons
7. Paint the upstairs bedrooms
8. Cross stitch something for Lex
9. Take a trip to Calgary to visit Nadine (with Lex)
10. Get involved with the writing community here in Saskatoon and network with other wannabe writers.
Having these goals saves me from insanity. Going from career mom to at home mom is a big change, and I sometimes find the days tedious. There is something rewarding about doing laundry. I love the smell of fresh laundry. BUT, that being said, doing laundry day after day is not very fulfilling or exciting. And speaking of laundry, the other day when I was folding my... shall we say... unmentionables, I noticed (and don't ask my why I read the label, I'm honestly not sure) that on the label it said "wash in cold water, tumble dry, do not iron." And I thought to myself "What kind of a person would iron thier underwear?" But then I started to wonder, is it just me? Am I the only one who walks around in wrinkled panties? I don't even own an iron. I would need to get one. But anyways, what I was saying was that laundry is rewarding in a way, but I need something more... more fun, say. A way of expressing my creativity and also a way of meeting other people with similar interests. It's not easy meeting new people, though. Its something I'm simply not good at. Once I went to a drop in Aquafitness class, thinking I would meet all these other people and I would go every week and have all these Aquafitness friends, and we would eventually wear matching outfits and advance to Synchronized swimming. But, when I went it was mostly fifty something year olds in bathing caps talking about thier bone density and mammograms. Needless to say we did not forge a lifelong bond and my dreams of synchronized swimming went by the wayside, like so many of my other dreams (the chicken farm, or life on the road as a stand up comedian, for example). I'm not sure if I expect much better at Scrapbooking lessons, but a girl can dream.
Anyways, life with three kids is good. I am enjoying it for the most part. It is not glamorous, really, and for the most part I walk around in sweat pants and milk soiled T shirts doling out Apple Juice and wiping noses, but I remind myself to enjoy the little things: the sounds that Lex makes in his sleep, a quiet moment outside with a book, the smell of Lex after a bath (I could sit and smell his head for hours. It's utterly intoxicating.)
But for now, I must go and do the laundry. Again.

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.

Well, how to sum up labor and delivery... not an easy thing to do in one sentence, but I guess if I had to I would say that "it was the best of times, it was the worst of times" is the best way to put it. I mean, there is no feeling more awesome than pushing a new life into the world, hearing that first cry, coming face to face with the little person that you have loved all along. But then, there is no worse feeling in the world than the force of contractions, the pressure and pain of seven pounds of baby being expelled from the body.
Now, just to be clear, I have not been in labor this whole time since my last post. Mostly I have been sleep deprived and otherwise occupied with a kid on my boob, so that is why I haven't written for some time. Alex Reid Makepeace (Lex) was born on July 11th at 0119 hours. He came into the world in a hurry. Well, sort of...
We got to the hospital at about 10:00. An ultrasound confirmed that his head was down, and so we were set to start the induction process. At 1:45 they gave me the medication to start the induction. I didn't know what to expect. I was told it could take days. But it was almost immediately afterwards that the contractions began. Things were fairly textbook for the first several hours, slow and steady progress. At 9:00 pm I was 3cm and fairly uncomfortable, so they gave me some morphine and then I went into the tub. I was in the tub until 11, and while I was in there the contractions were fairly tolerable. As soon as I got out they were noticably worse. Much, much worse. They checked me and I was 6cm, so at that point they moved me over to labor and delivery and got me set up with an epidural. After that it was like labor on speed. Things just got crazy fast. I waited for the pain to lessen, but it continually got worse. Then I started feeling pressure. And then I was pushing despite myself. The nurse kept telling me not to push, but I just couldn't stop. I was laying on my side, all curled up, and she wanted me to move on my back. I honestly felt as though I could not move, but finally she managed to get me on my back so she could check me. As soon as I rolled on my back, there was this gush of fluid and I could feel that little head coming. That's when I lost control and the screaming started. The nurse said "I guess I don't need to check you, the head is crowning." So then there was chaos, doctors rushing in, instruments being set up in haste, and then all of a sudden, there he was. A perfect little round face, a healthy pink hue and a good set of lungs. How to describe those first few moments with him... well, there simply are no words for it. I still look at him sometimes and just can't believe it... can't believe that he's here, that he's ours, that he's so beautiful. He's wonderful, and I just know when I look at him that I have everything I've ever wanted in life: three beautiful children to love. And as tired as I can get sometimes, I never get tired of being a mom. It's truly a blessing.

The best laid plans...

It all started with the Slurpee on Tuesday. I went to the store, more or less just to go for a little stroll. So I got a Slurpee when I was there. The lady in front of me was scanning every single lottery ticket she probably ever bought since 1999. Not only that, but the woman working the till was commenting on every single ticket and conversing to a degree that I felt was excessive given the fast growing lineup. All I had was a Slurpee so I put a toonie on the counter and said that I didn't need my change nor a receipt. She said "You have to wait in line like everyone else," and I reiterated that I didn't need the receipt, and she said all snarky like "It DOEST"T WORK that way". So I put my slurpee down on the counter and said "I'm not going to wait in line for half an hour just to buy a slurpee. I simply don't need it that bad." And I walked out. I am not usually a contraversial person. Not at all, Not in the least. If anything, I'm overly accomadating, people that know me can verify this. If, say, someone cooked something that was terrible tasting, I would eat it just to be polite, even if it actually made me vomit later. This actually happened once. But this time I took a stand. It was an important isssue, I simply wasn't going to let it pass. It felt pretty good. I had a glass of Crystal Light when I got home, which was refreshing all the same and less calories.
That was an ordeal, but I got over it. Little did I know that another ordeal was looming on the horizon, somewhat similar to the Slurpee ordeal but on a far grander scale. Wednesday morning started off well. ("Today's the Day!" I announced as the alarm sounded). We got to the hospital, were seen straight away by the doc, she performed a fairly painful but ultimately successful procedure to turn the baby head down, I was put into a room on Antepartum and hooked to a monitor. They were calling my GP to get the induction started.
And then it just all went to hell. A nurse comes in and just like that informs me that they're discharging me because there aren't enough beds on the unit. I was so upset. How could they do that? They said they'll plan to induce the following day, but I was like "Oh, and this baby's gonna stay like this for twenty four hours?" Highly unlikely. So I basically went through that horrible procedure for no reason at all whatsoever. I'm basically 99% sure that the baby has turned now into a COMPLETELY different position, and that was the whole point in inducing me the same day as the version. But there's no reasoning with those people, they're even less sympathetic than the crazy slurpee Nazi, basically it's "you're turfed. We don't care if you end up needing a CSection or whatever. Bad timing. Toodles." I was bawling. I mean, here I thought we were having our baby, and instead, I was going home. And they can't give me any kind of gauruntees for tomorrow. If there's room on the unit tomorrow they'll call me. If the baby's head is still down they'll induce me. If not, they may try turning it again but it depends, if they don't then they may plan a C Section or then again maybe not, it all depends on which doctors are there and bla bla blah. I'm frustrated. Extremely.
And yet, what can I do? I guess I'll just have to hope for the best tomorrow. Hopefully tomorrow at this time I will be having my baby or close to it, but I don't hold out much hope at this point. Life sucks sometimes, first you don't get your slurpee and then you don't get to have your baby. Anyways, gotta go and try to sleep. Tomorrow's a big day. Maybe.

Times Up

Looks like tomorrow is the big day. The baby is gotten itself into some kind of a crazy position, and they were going to try to turn it twice last week, but it moves so much still that they decided not to bother trying until they could do it in conjunction with a planned induction. So tommorow I go to the hospital at 8:00 and they will try to turn the baby so it's head is down. Once they get it turned, they will induce me into labor so that the baby will hopefully be born before it decides to move again. It seems crazy. At first, I was all excited, thinking "I'll get to meet and hold my baby soon". But now the mix of emotions is complex.

It just seems as though the entire pregnancy has gone entirely too quickly. I can still recall being in the lab at work and peering at a pregnancy test at an odd angle, trying to determine whether it was positive or negative. I tried to quell the stirring of excitement, thinking it was probably negative and I was just imagining the line. A blood test would settle it. So I asked the nurse practioner to draw a tube of blood from me. Nice thing about working with docs and that. So she did and I sent the blood away, awaiting a result. I was expecting the result to be negative. But when I checked my faxes a little later, there it was: Randine Sorowski Makepeace: Beta HcG: 12.

So then my heart does a little flutter, because it's positive!!! But then my heart sinks a bit, because 12 is a ridiculously low number. Here we go again, I think. Another failing pregnancy. But a subsequent reading three days later was in the thousands!! The baby was thriving. At that point the pregnancy stretched before me, it was early November and I wasn't due until July. But the time has flown. Weeks turn into months, and now here I am, mere hours away from (potentially) coming face to face with the little person inside of me. The little person who I have grown so familiar with as it lives and moves within me. The pregnancy has been so wonderful, I think especially so since it was so very wanted for such a long time. Everything was such a high point. Like my first ultrasound, I was so nervous I thought I might puke. But when I saw the little jelly bean on the screen, with a great heartbeat, I was so elated. And then when I was at the end of the first trimester, I used to take the Doppler home from work on the weekends and listen to the baby's hear beating. I could listen to it for so long and never get sick of it.

So tonight as I look at my baby bump, I feel some sadness that soon it will be no more. Well, I suppose the bump will still be there in some shape or form. But no more hiccuping. No more little squirming or nudging. And what makes this particularly sad for me is that I know I will never experience these sensations again.

Am I nervous for tomorrow? Not really. I feel ready. I began this blog on the fifth of January, 2007 as I began this journey. In the meantime, there have been 135 entries, probably as many pregnancy tests, eleven ultrasounds, many laughs and a few tears. The journey has been longer than I expected it would be, but I don't know that I would change it, because it makes this moment in time even more special for me. Tears fall freely from my face as I even try to imagine holding my baby and knowing that he or she is finally here! At times it seemed it seemed impossible and at times we were ready to give up. But now, Times Up. I am ready to begin a new journey as a new mother once again.

32 Weeks

32 Weeks, things are moving along. Me, I am mostly waddling along at this point. I fear that this is going to be a big baby indeed. I'm usually a fairly small preggo person, but with this one it seems like all hell is breaking loose. My weight gain is basically on track, and I measure normally, if anything its on the low end of normal, but still my stomach seems like it could not get much bigger. I'm feeling pretty good, though. A little tired here and there but overally pretty OK. I was at the doctor on Monday and it was good. The baby is still sideways, so she said if doesn't move by my next appointment then we'll talk about what the implications are. I think it will move, though. I've never had problems like that before, so I think it'll be a breeze like last time. When Payton was born it just seemed crazy that you could have a baby and feel 100% before, during and after labor! The labor was just so textbook. I woke up at three a.m, gripped by pain. I shook Geoff awake "it's time to go to the hospital," just like in the movies! By the time we got there I was a cool 4cm, so they put in the epidural straight away. After that it was all smooth sailing, popsicles, ginger ale and Jello.
Well, I'm still aways away from that point, but I have one month left of work, and I am starting to try to slowly organize things a bit for my departure. It is weird that is coming so fast. At first I thought I might miss this place, but now I think I'll be like "so long, suckers!"
Things at home are fairly swell. The van is having some more issues, and is in the shop once again. Hopefully the repairs will not be expensive this time nor take too long. It's hard to say. I've definately been cursed. Whenever we have some cash on hand, things go awry. We have some extra cash now and what happens: first Geoff gets a traffic ticket (don't ask, he's a dumb ass), and then the cat goes in heat so we have to get her fixed, and then the van starts overheating. This is exactly what happened before when we happened upon some extra money when I got my retro pay. The muffler fell off my van and then the damn dog starting vomiting bile and landed up in the vet for three days on IV and needing exploratory surgery. Damn dog. All she does is lay around and yap.
Spring is in the air, and the weather is finally getting better. I don't have the garden in yet, mostly because I don't have a garden, so that seems to be a problem. I do have a flower bed, though, and am thinking of planting some flowers maybe this weekend. Last year I had some good success with petunias and snapdragons. So I shall try that again. I guess I really am getting old because I'm starting to enjoy stuff like that more. Also, I notice that the young folk are different these days. Today, a patient comes into see the doc wearing a shirt that says "Free Breathalizer. Blow Below" and it had an arrow pointing down to-- well, I'll let you guess which body part, but let me say that it was in rather poor taste. Why one would wear such a shirt at all is beyond me, and further more, to a place of business! Give your head a shake buddy. I might have thought that was cool when I was 14. And he wasn't a teenager. He was a grown man. Honestly. Some people just never grow up.

On Being an Adult

Well, being an adult sucks. This I have realized. When I was a kid I had this glorious vision of being grown up, driving around in some really cool vehicle, staying up as late as I want, no rules, no curfews. And here I am. Driving a 94 mini van (how much more uncool can you be??). The cruel irony is that now that I am of an age to stay up as late as I want, I am usually in bed I before my kids are. And now that I am of an age to party as late as I want or with whomover I want, I find that the things that I want are totally domestic boring stuff- like say, watching Robots with the kids. My major excitement for the month is going to see Walking with the Dinosaurs: A BBC documentary. I guess I turned out to be pretty lame, and the child me would be disapointed to see the adult that I have become. I spent my childhood and youth wishing I would hurry up and grow up, and now that I'm grown up, I wish for some of that youthful exuberance I once had. Well, in reality my teenage years were not necessarily always so exuberant. From what I recall I believe I slept until three on most days. These days if I sleep until nine I'm shocked. Today Payto was up at 5:30. The joys of parenthood. But another irony is that I have often found that as I parent, it is my children who give me insight and strength, rather than the other way around.
For example, this weekend I drove out to the lake and back by myself. I have always been able to fanangle a ride with someone else, but this time, there was no one else. So there I was, loading up the vehicle at seven a.m, dragging my sleepy, pajama laden children out into the vehicle, trying to mask my nervousness and anxiety for the kids sake. I feigned enthusiasm as I pulled out of the garage "Let's hit the highway!" I said to the kids, but basically I thought I might vomit. "Fake it til you make it" is a saying that sometimes come to mind. Sometimes you have to pretend to be stronger than you are for the sake of the kids, and then somewhere along the way, you realize that you actually are stronger than you thought! Anyways, my first highway experience turned out to be all right. It is a good feeling to know that I can do it.
And as if conquering that fear wasn't enough, I had to face another one soon upon returning home: The dentist, AKA sadistic, drill wielding mother f'ers. I hate going to the dentist. Even if they don't even do anything. It's just their scrapers and their pickers and pokers and the way gauze feels and tastes in your mouth and the coppery taste of blood in your own mouth. Argh. It makes me uneasy just to think about it. But it was really my children who taught me a lesson. Last month I took the kids to the dentist, and of course, they had cavities, how could they not with the amount of junk food they eat. The ratio is probably something like for every thirty pounds of sugar they ingest, they spend thirty seconds brushing thier teeth. And then I was so nervous for them to have thier cavities filled. Seeing them in the big dentist chair with the overlight glaring into their faces just about broke my heart. I was thinking they were going to cry, scream, try to writhe free. But they didn't. They just sat there. Perfectly calm. And I realized I was the only one who wasn't calm. I was projecting my own fears onto them. So that caused me to think about how irrational my own fears are then, if a three year old can sit there for half an hour and have her teeth worked on with nary a complaint. So this time when I went to the dentist, it was really the image of my kids that kept me in the dentist chair. If they can do it, then so can I. And besides, I got a free toothbrush out of the deal, so it was pretty good. It's a pretty nice toothbrush, and so far it has been working out well, thought I'm not sure about the long run.
Other than that, things are going well with the pregnancy. I am getting bigger, and it hard to imagine that I still have two more months of growing ahead of me. Yikes. But it's all good. I try not to complain about being pregnant. I remember once when I was in Superstore about three days after Payton was born. This chic ahead of my was hugely pregnant and complaining to her friend that "I just can't wait until this baby is born so I can finally get some sleep!" I almost choked and fell to the floor. I just thought "Man. I would switch places with you right now in a heartbeat. Maybe you are sleeping poorly now, but poorly is better than not at all, which is pretty much what you're going to get once that little sucker is born and it's round the clock feeding, burping and diapering." There I was buying Motrin and Tylenol, chocolate and caffeine, trying to keep my poor body going despite seventy two hours of very fragmented amounts of sleep. So, as I said, I try not to complain. The miracle of having a newborn is truly a miracle, but at the same time, I won't overglorify it. At times, it can plain out suck. Well, on that note. I have to be going now.