Pregnant and new parent Doper redux #2

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
21

Nutty Bunny, the album’s not coming up for me.

Had my 34 week appt yesterday - I’ve actually ended up seeing two new midwives, as my old midwife is in the process of moving to South Carolina at the moment. I was a little worried that I wouldn’t like them as much, or that they wouldn’t be as into the natural birth that I want, but we met the second one yesterday and are incredibly relieved - both of them are fantastic and will support a water birth (or laboring in water), drug-free. They’re both very hands-on (ElzaHub spent two minutes feeling the baby’s head yesterday, which was very cool), and both have taken my concerns about a fast labor seriously (since the women on my mom’s side have extremely quick labors). I’m very comfortable with them. And baby boy has turned out of the posterior position that he was in, still head-down, so it looks like all is go for my natural birth - provided he doesn’t decide to do a backflip at the last minute.

I did get a little freaked out after calling my mom yesterday - turns out she never really knew she was in labor with me or my brother…she thought she was having a few contractions, but nothing major, and when her water broke, both of us were born within 1-2 hours. Apparently, my cousins and my aunts have had the same experience, for the most part. So with the hospital 35 minutes away, that’s making me the tiniest bit nervous. Everyone says first babies take forever, but I’m having a hard time believing that with my family history - which is why both midwives have told me to CALL the instant I feel a contraction. So we’ll see. As long as I don’t give birth in the car… :eek: .

Also - any suggestions on sleeping less painfully? I wake up with both of my hips horribly sore every morning, and they stay that way for several hours. I’m not sleeping well, but I kind of expected that at this point. Still, it’d be nice to be able to walk in the mornings. I have a wedge pillow that I put under my hips, and I’m going to get another one to sleep with between my legs this weekend, but the one under my hips doesn’t seem to be doing a whole lot of good. Any suggestions?

E.

22

I’m terrible at working these internets. Okay, let’s try this again.

Here’s Susie.

The email is **johnstanchuk@hotmail.com ** and the password is kristabean.

I’m starting to feel jealous of her babysitter. When I bring Susie over in the morning, she gives her more smiles than I seem to get. And almost every morning before I leave them, Joanna will say, “Okay Susie, time for some snuggles.” It makes me so sad that I only see my little girl in the morning for a half hour when I’m trying to get ready for work and for 2 and a half hours in the evening, when we have to eat dinner, wash bottles, take out the garbage, etc. The only quality time we have is bath time at 7:30. I don’t get much snuggle time with her.

Does anyone else feel a little jealous of their babysitter or am I being silly?

23

[QUOTE=Nutty Bunny]

The email is **johnstanchuk@hotmail.com ** and the password is kristabean.

[/QUOTE]

This is my husband’s email, so please don’t send any email to that address.

24

[QUOTE=Nutty Bunny]
Does anyone else feel a little jealous of their babysitter or am I being silly?
[/QUOTE]

Yes, both. It’s totally natural to feel jealous of the babysitter, especially with how little you get to see you baby, AND you’re being silly. You’re still Mama, and will always be Mama. It’s great that you have a great babysitter who your baby has attached to, but she’ll never replace you.

But do be aware that it might get worse as she gets bigger and starts hitting those milestones. When the babysitter is the one to see her first sit up, first stand, first steps…it can be heartbreaking to hear the gleeful announcement and know you missed it.

sigh That’s just the price of being a working mother. Sucks, I know.

25

How long is maternity leave in the U.S.?

We get a year here, most of which we can share with our hubbies if we so choose.

26

[QUOTE=Stainz]
How long is maternity leave in the U.S.?

We get a year here, most of which we can share with our hubbies if we so choose.
[/QUOTE]

It honestly varies - mine is based on short-term disability, but my company doesn’t have paid maternity leave (I don’t know many that do, to be honest, and I work for a great company.). For a vaginal birth, I get 6 weeks paid - 2 weeks at full pay and 4 weeks at 75% pay (I also have to take a week of vacation before the STD kicks in, so technically, I’ll be taking 7 weeks of paid leave). If I have a C-section, it’s 8 weeks of paid STD - same division as vaginal birth, but with the extra week of vacation before the STD kicks in, it’s 9 weeks total).

We have FMLA, which allows you to take up to 12 weeks unpaid (and that includes things like birth of a child, adoption of a child, ill family members, etc), but you must be at your company a year before you can take it (in other words, before your job is protected) and your company must have 50 employees within a 75 mile radius.

E.

27

Wow … do you have the option of taking ‘unpaid’ leave, with your job being protected the whole time?

I cannot imagine going back to work after 8-9 weeks :frowning: … HUGS TO ALL THE U.S. MOMS!!!

S.

28

[QUOTE=Stainz]
Wow … do you have the option of taking ‘unpaid’ leave, with your job being protected the whole time?

I cannot imagine going back to work after 8-9 weeks :frowning: … HUGS TO ALL THE U.S. MOMS!!!

S.
[/QUOTE]

FMLA covers unpaid leave up to the 12 weeks, and your job is protected in that 12 weeks.

Yeah, it sucks, but it’s better than our options years ago. I’d love to have a maternity leave program like Canada.

E.

29

My wife is due in late August - early September. Ironically, the offical due date is Labor Day. We’re having a girl and probably naming her Lilly.

The discussion about maternity leave is interesting - Just this morning, the doctor told her she shouldn’t be on her feet so much at work. (She works at a membership discount store and greets people at the door.) The doctor thought that she could get some sort of light-duty work where she could sit down, but instead they told her to start maternity leave effective tomorrow. The doctor wanted her to go on short-term disability and offered, in her note, to file the paperwork. Maternity leave is six weeks at 50% pay and six weeks no pay. I’m searching for jobs but probably won’t be able to start until mid-September, and we’re going to be stuck if we’re packing up, moving and taking care of Lilly withouth any income. Does anyone have advice for what the actual rules are for short-term disability vs. maternity leave?

30

Well it doesn’t sound legal to me, but things could be very different here. I would check with the Labour Board (or whatever it is called down there).

Gee I’m a big help hey?

31

Okay, so I’m a little delayed in responding to this post. Blame new-baby-syndrome. :slight_smile:

RuffLlama is now 15 1/2 weeks old (born April 3) and is a beast: 17lbs and 26 1/2"! He’s 95th+ percentile in both height and weight–no surprise as DeathLlama is 6’4" and I’m 5’7" (and my grandmother was 5’10"; great-grandmother was 6’ in 1910!).

He’s sleeping better, about 6 hours at a time (the other night he did 7), but we are yearning for the time he sleeps the 10-12 hours at night our friends’ (12-15 month old) babies are. I miss uninterrupted sleep, though at the same time, I hardly remember what it was like.

We are having a blast with him–he laughs, coos, giggles, snorts, and is experimenting with his voice in most humorous ways. I actually had to pause in the writing of this post to go check that those squeals I was hearing were out of play and experimenting, and not a call for me. He also has a new Big Boy toy: an Exersaucer! [Here he is enjoying it for the first time the other day.](

http://pic20.picturetrail.com/VOL21/73667/11505312/169031815.jpg

) What a face!

A link to his photo albums:
Pregnancy and newborn pics

About age 4 weeks to current

32

Dammit…let me try that link again:

Here he is trying his Exersaucer out for the first time the other day.

And again, since I had to come back here anyway and fix the code…might as well add another pic!

More piccy goodness

33

Does Jett like his Bebe Pod? Spencer is 12 weeks old, and could use some help with his sitting up.

34

Ruffian, He is gorgeous and so expressive. What a handsome little boy! I love his sad face. The sad faces are heartbreaking, but oh so cute.

My Susie will be 4 months old on the 23rd, so our babies are not too far apart, are they? Mine was born at 5lbs. 6oz., so she’s soooo much smaller than Jett. She’s eating 6 oz. at a time and getting bigger, but then I see other babies her age or younger and I forget that she’s small. My husband is 5’6" and I’m 5’2", so there you go. We’re tiny. :shrug:

A few days ago, my babysitter called and told me she rolled over from her belly to her back twice. I was happy, but also sad that I missed it. We tried it later that night and she had her arms, head and legs off the ground and her back was arched. It was so cute. It was like she was trying to figure out what she did to turn over earlier, but couldn’t do it. It’s amazing because as of last week, she HATED tummy time and refused to lift her head (which I knew she could do, she was being stubborn :wink: ). Now she’s a pro at lifting her head up off the ground.

35

As in this thread, things are not going well right not but I really wish the best for everyone.

36

There is a little Female Nobby on the way come November, hopefully she will not require a chit!

I’ve just started to feel her kicking in better half’s stomach, thats a wierd feeling. (Guess its more wierd for her!)

It is my first and all a bit scary, looking forward to it in a kind of fatalistic way, she shall be named Molly…

37

What a bunch of cute kids!

My little Dudes turned 9 months on Friday and had their checkup the same day. Liam is 20 lbs even, and James 5 oz more. They’re both sitting up on their own and crawling, which keeps me mighty busy hauling them out from under my desk and other places I’d prefer they not go.

Once Liam figured out how to climb up the step from the family room into the kitchen (which happened while I was on the phone with my sister–I was saying, “Given how long it took him to get from hands-and-knees to crawling, it’ll probably take him a little while to figure out how to get up that step…oh, crap, he just did it.”), we put up the baby gate, so now when I’m in the kitchen, he grabs the bars and looks at me all forlorn. Hubby says we need to get him a metal cup to bang against the bars.

They often look at each other and just start laughing. Not even a year old, and they already have in-jokes. :wink:

I’ll be uploading some pics as soon as I clean the spit out of the USB cable–amazing how they can get their hands (and mouths) on things you think are out of reach.

38

Just bumping this back up…37w5days here, but I have a feeling this little guy’s trying to make his appearance a couple of weeks early (typical in my family). Yesterday morning, I got to work and started having the worst cramping - it felt like AF cramps. Then around 11:30, I started having contractions about 5 minutes apart, but they weren’t really painful. Called my midwife around 12:30, who told me to go home and get in a warm tub. Did that, helped for about 30 minutes, then the contractions and cramping started up again. Had a 3:30 appointment, so I headed in for that. Did an internal, and I’m about 1 cm and somewhat thinned, but the internal hurt SO badly that she couldn’t really get up there to see (I was 20% effaced last week, so she thinks I made some more progress).

Still had cramping last night, but the contractions tapered off around 7 PM. Went to bed, but the cramping woke me up several times during the night because it was just so painful. And this morning, it’s been non-stop.

Thing is, he still feels pretty high up (I think she said he was around -2 station), and the contractions have stopped, but the cramping is seriously annoying me. Did anyone have cramping for a day or two before going into full-fledged labor? I’m really going to be frustrated if I have another 2 weeks of this cramping.

Bad news is that I tested positive for Group B Strep, so I will be getting an IV no matter what. I had originally requested no IV except in an emergency, but looks like I don’t have a choice now:(.

E.

39

This sounds contradictory to me. IIRC cramping = contractions. Just monitor them casually. You already know what false labor is - when the contractions go away. If they don’t, then it’s The Real Thing, and we’ll expect to hear from you in a couple of days with a birth story and stats. :smiley:

FWIW, I never felt like I was having cramps - not even in full labor. My Braxton-Hicks contractions were pretty painless. I had to put my hand on my stomach to feel them for weeks. My contractions felt like someone was pushing down on my cervix and then up the front of my abdomen and out to the sides.

Also, a cervical check can “trigger” a contraction, which is probably why it hurt. It will hurt much worse when you’re in labor. Also, I believe that the antibiotics for GBS only take 30 minutes to administer, so you shouldn’t have to be attached to the I/V for the whole labor. Also, if baby is still high, he’s probably at a +2 station and not -2. (The scale is +4 [head not in pelvis] to -4 [damned near crowning].)

It sounds like you are planning for a med-free delivery. Have you taken classes or been practicing anything in particular?

40

[QUOTE=Avarie537]
This sounds contradictory to me. IIRC cramping = contractions. Just monitor them casually. You already know what false labor is - when the contractions go away. If they don’t, then it’s The Real Thing, and we’ll expect to hear from you in a couple of days with a birth story and stats. :smiley:

FWIW, I never felt like I was having cramps - not even in full labor. My Braxton-Hicks contractions were pretty painless. I had to put my hand on my stomach to feel them for weeks. My contractions felt like someone was pushing down on my cervix and then up the front of my abdomen and out to the sides.

Also, a cervical check can “trigger” a contraction, which is probably why it hurt. It will hurt much worse when you’re in labor. Also, I believe that the antibiotics for GBS only take 30 minutes to administer, so you shouldn’t have to be attached to the I/V for the whole labor. Also, if baby is still high, he’s probably at a +2 station and not -2. (The scale is +4 [head not in pelvis] to -4 [damned near crowning].)

It sounds like you are planning for a med-free delivery. Have you taken classes or been practicing anything in particular?
[/QUOTE]

I thought it was the other way around - then yeah, he’s probably +2 (I swear she said -2, though…).

The thing with the cramping is that it’s not timeable…it’s just a constant cramping, sort of like menstrual cramps. And when I did feel contractions yesterday, they were very noticeable and more painful than the cramping - they were right across the front of my lower belly, lasting about 45 seconds to just over a minute.

That’s good to know about the IV. I really didn’t want one, but whatever it takes for a healthy baby, obviously. And yep, still planning a med-free delivery (I’m not opposed to Nubain or something similar if I need it, I still just don’t want the epidural). We’ve got our breathing exercises down, I’m planning to labor in water, and I’ve been doing lots of reading about hypnobirthing. So we’ll see how it goes. I’ll admit, I’m starting to get a lot more nervous about things as it gets closer. If I end up with meds, it won’t be the end of the world for me.

I don’t mind if he stays in there another week or two, even, as long as this damn cramping goes away. Everything I’ve read says it’s a sign of early labor, so if it continues, I’ll hope that the real thing starts pretty soon:). (And then I’ll be back with stats and a birth story:)).

E.