Novembe12

November 12, 2001

Week 26

First of all, happy birthday today to my OLDer sister, Nan! She's even closer to 30 than I am! (But not as close as Phil.) Haha..

It's been an interesting couple weeks. Most importantly, we're finally getting things worked on in our house! Two weekends ago we spackled and sanded our kitchen walls. The weekend after that, we primed the walls. Last weekend, we wallpapered! The walls aren't completely finished yet, but they are close. After we get the last of the wallpaper up, I think I'm going to get some more ivy like I have strung over my living room windows and pin it up as a border around the walls, along with some pink flower accents just like in the living room. The blue stripes really turned out nice, but it definitely could use some softening up with a border. After the walls are all finished, we'll be moving Phil's office stuff down to the eat-in kitchen area, and we'll be starting on the nursery. We're going to be painting the walls a really light taupe, and then put up a Noah's Ark border that I found online. (Mom's buying the border for us!) Then we can start moving in some furniture, including the crib and the changing table that friends from church have offered us. Another lady from church gave us a really cute teddy bear last Wednesday too, in the perfect colors for the nursery. She makes them by hand, each bear unique because she uses upholstery scraps for the cloth. We were going to buy one from her, but then suddenly ran into yet another money crunch: last week we discovered that a water line broke out front of our house, and now we are going to have to get our whole front yard dug up to fix it!! We were so irritated, we noticed that there was a little bit of water pooling up on the lawn, almost like the lawn had just been watered, but we knew neither we nor the neighbors had watered the lawns since around August or September. So the city of Gahanna came out and determined that yes, the pipe was ours, and it had to be replaced within two weeks. That's okay, we really weren't trying to save money for anything coming up IN THE NEAR FUTURE anyway!! Especially after just making the big purchase of the kitchen wallpaper, it was a real shock to have this happen. We've since found out that lots of houses in our development have had the same problem with their water pipes in the last few years, apparently the whole community was built with shoddy pipes and it was just our house's turn to go. What fun. So anyway, we couldn't spend money on a teddy bear right now. When we got to church on Wednesday, she came up to us with the bear (we had told her we'd buy that one when she showed us them on Sunday) and we explained what had happened. She handed it to me and said "Here's your first baby shower gift." It's such a cute and cuddly bear, and Phil fell in love with it even more than me I think. So, pretty much our entire house (and yard!) is under construction now, which makes me happy in that at least progress is being made toward the goal of being ready for this baby in about three months from now. We're so happy with how the kitchen turned out - the walls had been completely bare since we moved into our house, so it really looks like a whole new room!

I ended up "getting out of" wallpapering this weekend, though. Mom wallpapered with the help of Phil. I sat either on a chair (to "supervise") in the kitchen or on the living room couch the whole time. I really did want to help, but I had to stay sitting down. About two weeks ago, I went to see my medical (as opposed to Dr. Teague) doctor because my left ear had been clogged - I could hardly hear out of it - and it was hurting quite a bit. She told me it was probably just allergies, which I've always gotten but tend to get worse during pregnancy, and she told me that I had fluid in my inner ear which wasn't infected but it could get that way. Since it was nothing yet, she just had me take Sudafed to try to clear it up. It didn't really go away, but the "clogged" feeling came and went all the time so I knew it hadn't all gone away. But that's typical with allergies, it wouldn't just clear up suddenly. On Thursday at around 4:00, I was sitting at my desk at work and suddenly I started feeling REALLY lightheaded. I felt like I was going to fall over just sitting in my chair. At first I thought it might just be low blood sugar but I've been eating all afternoon so that couldn't have been it. After eating a candy bar and then waiting a little longer, I called Dr. Teague's nurse, and after asking a lot of questions she said it sounded like whatever it is that's been wrong with my ear for a couple weeks had gone into my inner ear and had maybe gotten infected. She told me I should get in to see Dr. G, my medical doctor, as soon as possible, but in the meantime I was to go on modified bedrest (in other words, couches were okay) and I couldn't drive home. So Phil had to drive all the way across town to come pick me up (at least he got to experience my FUN commute!). The nurse told me that what was wrong with my ear probably wasn't related to the pregnancy and it wouldn't harm the baby, but as long as I was feeling really dizzy (and I'm off balance enough as it is now anyway!), the real danger was just if I fell down. When I went in to the doctor on Friday morning, Dr. G said it looked to be a viral infection of the inner ear, which was not something I could take antibiotics for since it is viral not bacterial. She told me, unfortunately there's nothing we can do about it but just wait it out, since the one kind of medicine normally prescribed for it wasn't safe to take during pregnancy. So all weekend long I just sat around, I couldn't drive anywhere and whenever I had to go up or down stairs, Phil had to follow behind me in case I started to fall. I was really lightheaded and dizzy, though, so I wouldn't have wanted to take the chance. I'm feeling better today than I was this weekend, but still not wonderful. At least I haven't felt so dizzy that it makes me nauseous though, that's a good thing. :) My doctor said that these kind of ear infections usually last around 2 to 4 weeks, so I'm hoping I'm toward the end of that range by now, if that's what I had a couple weeks ago when we thought it was just allergies. Of all the "complications" I could have had by this point in my pregnancy though, I'm glad it was just having to go on a weekends' bedrest because they were afraid I might fall down and go boom.

The last bit of news, brand new from today, is that I got scheduled for a childbirth education class and a breastfeeding class. And none too soon either, I ended up having to take the childbirth class at Mt. Carmel East, even though we are going to be delivering at St. Ann's. I KNEW that I'd been putting off scheduling it for way too long, and I was right. They were all booked up, with the exception of a class that ended on February 20th, which cut it WAYYYYY too close for my comfort. I know in my family that everyone tends to go about two weeks late, but I just have a fear that I'd schedule this class and then go into labor two weeks early, and I would go to the hospital without a clue as to what to do! So after a few frenzied phone calls this afternoon, we got scheduled for a class that will run for four weeks on Mondays, starting January 7 and ending January 28. I think that should be early enough to calm my nerves, yet not too early that I'll forget everything by the time I go into labor. The breastfeeding class is a one-time class, which will be on Tuesday Jan. 8th. I've been reading a lot about it in all my books, but I still think it will be helpful to get some actual instruction. The only other thing I still have to schedule is a maternity tour of St. Ann's, in which they give you a detailed tour and tell you what to do when you come in to the hospital in labor. I can't schedule that for another month since the 2002 schedule hasn't come out yet, but I shouldn't have a problem getting into that.

That's about all that's been going on around here. I'm in week 26, which, according to MOST of the calendars I read (some of them vary a little bit) is the last week of the second trimester. I just can't believe it's already been that long. At the same time, I can definitely feel a deadline looming now - three months goes by so quickly. At least I'm not having nightmares or waking up in cold sweats anymore because of the lack of activity! Oh, I did find out that my two sisters are planning my baby shower for me, for Saturday January 12. I'm trying to collect names and addresses for them, but I don't know anything else about it yet except that this one will be for family and friends, specifically, non-Easton Worship Center friends. I'm not sure yet when the church shower will be. I'm really glad my friends/family shower is no longer a "surprise" though; I also now won't be having nightmares about showing up for my baby shower in sweatpants and bed hair! :)

My next doctor's appointment (OB, hopefully I won't be having anymore visits for my ear!) is scheduled for December 3. At that one I'll be doing the gestational diabetes glucose test, what fun! Hopefully that will come back all clear, I really like my fruit juices and candies an awful lot these days, it would be hard to give that up. Though I read this weekend that babies are growing their sweet tooth right now, so that's my excuse, I'm just giving Natalie what SHE's wanting! After that appointment, I'll be going every two weeks instead of once a month! February is coming up quickly!



	November 12, 2001 Week 26 First of all, happy birthday today to my OLDer sister, Nan! She's even closer to 30 than I am! (But not as close as Phil.) Haha.. It's been an interesting couple weeks. Most importantly, we're finally getting things worked on in our house! Two weekends ago we spackled and sanded our kitchen walls. The weekend after that, we primed the walls. Last weekend, we wallpapered! The walls aren't completely finished yet, but they are close. After we get the last of the wallpaper up, I think I'm going to get some more ivy like I have strung over my living room windows and pin it up as a border around the walls, along with some pink flower accents just like in the living room. The blue stripes really turned out nice, but it definitely could use some softening up with a border. After the walls are all finished, we'll be moving Phil's office stuff down to the eat-in kitchen area, and we'll be starting on the nursery. We're going to be painting the walls a really light taupe, and then put up a Noah's Ark border that I found online. (Mom's buying the border for us!) Then we can start moving in some furniture, including the crib and the changing table that friends from church have offered us. Another lady from church gave us a really cute teddy bear last Wednesday too, in the perfect colors for the nursery. She makes them by hand, each bear unique because she uses upholstery scraps for the cloth. We were going to buy one from her, but then suddenly ran into yet another money crunch: last week we discovered that a water line broke out front of our house, and now we are going to have to get our whole front yard dug up to fix it!! We were so irritated, we noticed that there was a little bit of water pooling up on the lawn, almost like the lawn had just been watered, but we knew neither we nor the neighbors had watered the lawns since around August or September. So the city of Gahanna came out and determined that yes, the pipe was ours, and it had to be replaced within two weeks. That's okay, we really weren't trying to save money for anything coming up IN THE NEAR FUTURE anyway!! Especially after just making the big purchase of the kitchen wallpaper, it was a real shock to have this happen. We've since found out that lots of houses in our development have had the same problem with their water pipes in the last few years, apparently the whole community was built with shoddy pipes and it was just our house's turn to go. What fun. So anyway, we couldn't spend money on a teddy bear right now. When we got to church on Wednesday, she came up to us with the bear (we had told her we'd buy that one when she showed us them on Sunday) and we explained what had happened. She handed it to me and said "Here's your first baby shower gift." It's such a cute and cuddly bear, and Phil fell in love with it even more than me I think. So, pretty much our entire house (and yard!) is under construction now, which makes me happy in that at least progress is being made toward the goal of being ready for this baby in about three months from now. We're so happy with how the kitchen turned out - the walls had been completely bare since we moved into our house, so it really looks like a whole new room! I ended up "getting out of" wallpapering this weekend, though. Mom wallpapered with the help of Phil. I sat either on a chair (to "supervise") in the kitchen or on the living room couch the whole time. I really did want to help, but I had to stay sitting down. About two weeks ago, I went to see my medical (as opposed to Dr. Teague) doctor because my left ear had been clogged - I could hardly hear out of it - and it was hurting quite a bit. She told me it was probably just allergies, which I've always gotten but tend to get worse during pregnancy, and she told me that I had fluid in my inner ear which wasn't infected but it could get that way. Since it was nothing yet, she just had me take Sudafed to try to clear it up. It didn't really go away, but the "clogged" feeling came and went all the time so I knew it hadn't all gone away. But that's typical with allergies, it wouldn't just clear up suddenly. On Thursday at around 4:00, I was sitting at my desk at work and suddenly I started feeling REALLY lightheaded. I felt like I was going to fall over just sitting in my chair. At first I thought it might just be low blood sugar but I've been eating all afternoon so that couldn't have been it. After eating a candy bar and then waiting a little longer, I called Dr. Teague's nurse, and after asking a lot of questions she said it sounded like whatever it is that's been wrong with my ear for a couple weeks had gone into my inner ear and had maybe gotten infected. She told me I should get in to see Dr. G, my medical doctor, as soon as possible, but in the meantime I was to go on modified bedrest (in other words, couches were okay) and I couldn't drive home. So Phil had to drive all the way across town to come pick me up (at least he got to experience my FUN commute!). The nurse told me that what was wrong with my ear probably wasn't related to the pregnancy and it wouldn't harm the baby, but as long as I was feeling really dizzy (and I'm off balance enough as it is now anyway!), the real danger was just if I fell down. When I went in to the doctor on Friday morning, Dr. G said it looked to be a viral infection of the inner ear, which was not something I could take antibiotics for since it is viral not bacterial. She told me, unfortunately there's nothing we can do about it but just wait it out, since the one kind of medicine normally prescribed for it wasn't safe to take during pregnancy. So all weekend long I just sat around, I couldn't drive anywhere and whenever I had to go up or down stairs, Phil had to follow behind me in case I started to fall. I was really lightheaded and dizzy, though, so I wouldn't have wanted to take the chance. I'm feeling better today than I was this weekend, but still not wonderful. At least I haven't felt so dizzy that it makes me nauseous though, that's a good thing. :) My doctor said that these kind of ear infections usually last around 2 to 4 weeks, so I'm hoping I'm toward the end of that range by now, if that's what I had a couple weeks ago when we thought it was just allergies. Of all the "complications" I could have had by this point in my pregnancy though, I'm glad it was just having to go on a weekends' bedrest because they were afraid I might fall down and go boom. The last bit of news, brand new from today, is that I got scheduled for a childbirth education class and a breastfeeding class. And none too soon either, I ended up having to take the childbirth class at Mt. Carmel East, even though we are going to be delivering at St. Ann's. I KNEW that I'd been putting off scheduling it for way too long, and I was right. They were all booked up, with the exception of a class that ended on February 20th, which cut it WAYYYYY too close for my comfort. I know in my family that everyone tends to go about two weeks late, but I just have a fear that I'd schedule this class and then go into labor two weeks early, and I would go to the hospital without a clue as to what to do! So after a few frenzied phone calls this afternoon, we got scheduled for a class that will run for four weeks on Mondays, starting January 7 and ending January 28. I think that should be early enough to calm my nerves, yet not too early that I'll forget everything by the time I go into labor. The breastfeeding class is a one-time class, which will be on Tuesday Jan. 8th. I've been reading a lot about it in all my books, but I still think it will be helpful to get some actual instruction. The only other thing I still have to schedule is a maternity tour of St. Ann's, in which they give you a detailed tour and tell you what to do when you come in to the hospital in labor. I can't schedule that for another month since the 2002 schedule hasn't come out yet, but I shouldn't have a problem getting into that. That's about all that's been going on around here. I'm in week 26, which, according to MOST of the calendars I read (some of them vary a little bit) is the last week of the second trimester. I just can't believe it's already been that long. At the same time, I can definitely feel a deadline looming now - three months goes by so quickly. At least I'm not having nightmares or waking up in cold sweats anymore because of the lack of activity! Oh, I did find out that my two sisters are planning my baby shower for me, for Saturday January 12. I'm trying to collect names and addresses for them, but I don't know anything else about it yet except that this one will be for family and friends, specifically, non-Easton Worship Center friends. I'm not sure yet when the church shower will be. I'm really glad my friends/family shower is no longer a "surprise" though; I also now won't be having nightmares about showing up for my baby shower in sweatpants and bed hair! :) My next doctor's appointment (OB, hopefully I won't be having anymore visits for my ear!) is scheduled for December 3. At that one I'll be doing the gestational diabetes glucose test, what fun! Hopefully that will come back all clear, I really like my fruit juices and candies an awful lot these days, it would be hard to give that up. Though I read this weekend that babies are growing their sweet tooth right now, so that's my excuse, I'm just giving Natalie what SHE's wanting! After that appointment, I'll be going every two weeks instead of once a month! February is coming up quickly!