Not in Kansas anymore October 27, 2006

Wow. I almost forgot how to blog. It took me four tries to get that Dilbert comic to post.

Good news! I’m eating again. A few days after that last post about feeling ucky I was feeling too weak and lightheaded to drive to work. I called the nurse and she ordered me to go to the ER. I had become so dehydrated that I was stuck in a vicious cycle and was not keeping any food or liquids down, not even the fig bars and lemonade! Mike and I spent the whole day in a hospital room watching tv and napping while I soaked up some fluids through the iv. After that day I have been steadily improving, and can almost eat whatever I want. Yesterday I ate four delicious homemade blueberry muffins (thanks, Heather!), a chicken sandwich, and three bean burritos.

Also since I last blogged I have had two ultrasounds (I’ll post pictures here and on my pregnancy blog once I get them scanned in). The first one showed the baby was bigger than the doctor expected based on my given conception date, so he had me do another one two weeks later to make sure it is growing normally. It is growing normally, all is well and healthy, and my due date is actually sooner than I thought. May 19, 2007 is the new due date, and as of tomorrow I’ll be 11 weeks along. Baby Richmond is now officially a fetus… go figure. I’m looking forward to finding out if it’s a boy or a girl so we can settle on a name. Mike says if it’s a boy I can pick the name, but I have to pick it from the Detroit Tigers Roster. I pick Placido.

Because I’ve been so sick and this baby thing is still sinking in, these last several weeks for me have just been about baby, baby, baby. I’m looking forward to getting back into life and the real world out there. I’ve got board meetings and committee meetings and socializing to catch up on and holidays and classes to plan and gosh… it just feels good to feel like a real person again. Enjoy it while it lasts, kid, cuz this baby is gonna take over everything. I’m a little worried about that. It’s already weird to think of having two beating hearts inside me, and it’s weird to think that my belly will expand the way it will, but it’s really weird and somewhat scary to think of what life will be like after baby comes. We have become so comfortable with our life thus far that I wonder how prepared we really are for this. I guess you can never be fully prepared. We’ll just have to take one thing at a time. Baby steps, ha!

Debating on the internet October 27, 2006

UCK October 10, 2006

Blogging has not been on my mind much lately. I’m in survival mode at this point - Survival of morning sickness (the 24/7 kind). I had no idea it could be this bad. The nausea, the vomiting, the hunger. I’m on a steady diet of lemonade and fig bars. Fig bars – who knew? I have never liked fig bars and now they are the only food I can keep down. It’s difficult having to go to work every day but I have a feeling I would be just as miserable lying around at home all day. At this point I go to work at 8 am and I work as long as I can. Yesterday after pukey #3 I asked to go home at 3:30 pm. The boss is very understanding and I think he feels bad for me. Stupid me, I brought this on myself, didn’t I? What was I thinking?

Mike and I are going for an ultrasound today to hopefully hear the heartbeat. He keeps asking if I’m excited. He’s excited. It’s possible that I’m excited, but it’s hard to tell with all this ucky feeling overshadowing everything. I am hoping that when I hear the heartbeat it gives me some hope that all of this is going to be worth it. You know, I was never one of those women who just wanted to “know what it’s like to be pregnant”. I just wanted to be a mom. Oy, this blasted curse of Eve!

I’m a moron, my husband’s a genius October 6, 2006

I went to the park yesterday to take a short nap. It’s not the first time. Sometimes I’ll take my lunch with me and sit in the truck. If time allows, I’ll let myself nod off for 20-30 minutes. Then I wake up ready for the rest of the day. Sometimes I leave the truck running but sometimes I turn off the engine and just listen to the radio. Yesterday I chose to turn the engine off. I managed to sleep for about 20 minutes. When I awoke I sat up and turned the key to start the truck but nothing happened. No turning over, no noise whatsoever. Crap. I ran the battery down by leaving the radio on. I called my office, which was just up the road, to see if anyone had jumper cables and could come down and bail me out. Only one person was left in the office, and he had no jumper cables. He actually had a set in his truck for about six months but a few days ago decided to take them out since he hadn’t used them in so long. He was able to pick me up, however. He had some important work he needed to get done before 5:00, so he offered to take me to buy jumper cables afterwards. My other problem with the truck was that I couldn’t pull the key out of the ignition, so I had to take the key fob off the keychain in order to be able to lock the doors before leaving it unattended at the park (didn’t want anyone stealing my sweaters and books).

Five o’clock rolled around and Dan and I headed down to the hardware store to buy jumper cables. Ten bucks later we were ready to go. We arrived at the park and Dan attached the jumper cables to his truck’s battery, and then to mine. He noticed when he attached them to my battery that he got a charge right away. Yet when I turned the key, still nothing happened. I waited a few minutes and tried again. No go. I called Mike on the direct connect to see if he had any clues, since he’s a Chevy man and all. He brought my problem to the service department (along with his phone and the entire conversation on speaker phone). The winning question? “Is the gearshift all the way in park?” Yes, folks. I had parked the truck, turned off the engine, and left it in drive. With a quick lift of the shifter the truck was running again in no time. As the entire service and sales departments laughed their rears off, I offered Mike and the boys my thanks and I was on my way.

The whole fiasco only cost me $10 for the jumper cables and a little bit of dignity.

Women actually agreed to this? October 2, 2006

I am absolutely appalled and disgusted by this! Television producers have sunk to a new low. 

Live Childbirth on TV

This sounds a lot like The Baby Story on TLC, except that it does not allow for editing of complications, and it sounds like it will be much more graphic. I have not experienced childbirth (yet!) but I can’t imagine I would want the gory details videotaped, much less broadcast on live television! Childbirth is such a highly vulnerable time for the woman in labor. As it is, I’ve already decided to be pretty selective about who to let in the room.

Does anyone else see a problem with this or is it just me?