How did I get here?

So wow, I'm 39 weeks, 3 days pregnant. I can't believe I've made it this far. I swear to you that I assumed all along my body being what it is was going to give in long before now. I thought I was a sure fire pre-eclampsia candidate, that bed rest was going to be assigned to me... you name it, I figured if anyone was going to get it, I was. (Okay, so I *did* get the swine flu but that's that bitch in the row behind me's fault) But no, I have gotten nothing. Ok, so I do have cankles and big round puffy feet but otherwise I'm healthy. I've had weekly doctor appointments (both in OB and endocrinology) for who knows how many weeks and ultimately weekly non-stress tests at labor & delivery that have all been completely flipping normal. I am more than thankful for the excellent care I've gotten, especially after the rocky beginning with getting my insulin dosages to where they needed to be.

But now here I am, four days before my official due date. Healthy and still very much pregnant. I've been getting checked for a couple of weeks for progress and there hasn't been any (no dilation at all of my cervix) and until like last Thursday, I didn't have any Braxton-Hicks contractions. So very boring! How the hell did I get to be so boring?! She's at least dropped so there's that, but I don't know that it's brought me any dilation since my last OB visit.

But life is good. I'm ready for Weenuh's arrival, well as much as any new parent can be. I'm actually scheduled for induction on Wednesday (yes, that is not very far away at all) and I'll go in tomorrow afternoon at 4pm for Cervidil to be applied, then Wednesday morning around 6:30am I'll call into L&D and make sure they can take me in for the Pitocin induction. Hopefully the induction will work, but yeah, I will be 39w 5d at induction and Weenuh's going to be a big girl. So I haven't given up on having a c-section, I still think the odds are high that I will have one. But really, I don't care how she comes into the world. I just want her here and healthy and whatever gets me to that point is all right by me.

And before I go, here I am in all my glory at 39 weeks. Such a sexy beast, no?

Nursery flooring done!

New flooring for the nursery was installed yesterday while we were at one of our baby classes. Man do I love it so much. It is so beautiful. Now I want my entire house done in laminate flooring (thank you Costco!). Except I have a lot of shit to move around. Not so likely to happen with Weenuh's impending arrival but I'm motivated now for sure to get the rest of the house done.

As you can see in the photo, the room is now painted too though the moulding around the bottom needs to be re-attached. But with the walls painted and the carpet extracted, the nursery is now officially de-funked! There are no more smelly remnants of my father living in that room for what, 5 1/2 or 6 1/2 years? Hooray.

Next up besides re-hanging the closet doors and adding the trim back in the room is assembly of the crib and the purchasing of the rest of the nursery furniture (i.e. a glider and dresser at least)! Oh and hanging a curtain over the window since we trashed the mini-blind that was hanging in there (god was it filthy).

Still Percolating

Ok so I've apparently lost all sense of time passing. I haven't blogged for nearly 3 months, I've considered it but haven't been moved enough to do it apparently. Everything is going well, my blood sugar issues have leveled off thankfully. The DMV let me keep my license, I just have to submit an update in the next two weeks and given that I haven't had any episodes since like early April, it should just be a matter of signoffs on the paperwork.

Things have definitely been changing in my world. Besides my fat belly becoming a round baby belly, I can happily say that after 7 1/2 years my father FINALLY has moved out of my house. And most of his funk has been removed from the house, though we need to rip up the carpet, paint and re-floor his former room. It is finally OUR HOUSE. I can't stop saying it to hubby. We're over the moon we're alone at last. The little things have been so pleasant. Having a room for a nursery is so so exciting.

While I have been enjoying the miracle of being pregnant, I think I have still been holding back my true comprehension that the odds are looking really good now that we will come home with a healthy baby girl. With my dad leaving, it has really finally been able to sink in somewhat that we're about to have our own little lovely family. And holy crap, in under 60 days I'M GOING TO BE A MOMMY. Crazy. I have so many medical appointments it's making me crazy. But they are all for the greater good so I can't complain. And it is reassuring to get constant checks that Weenuh is healthy and everything is progressing as it should.

I have boatloads of photos to upload and all that but it's way too early to do that now. Just thought I'd take a moment between trips to the bathroom to say everything is good, still pregnant, still able to work (after Friday I have just 4 weeks of work left in 2009!), enjoying my vacant house. About to celebrate 10 years of marriage to my hubby. (Yes, that's right. 75% of our marriage has been spent with my asshole father living in our house. Hubby is a saint.)

More will come later, perhaps even with pictures!

It's a.....

So today was the magic day. The big level 2 ultrasound. In the end, I wasn't terribly nervous but I was very relieved when they said they saw nothing wrong with Weenuh. Huge relief. I have all the fancy measurements they did but they are in my car right now (yeah, still at work ugh) and I'm not going to go out to get them because I'm lazy and if I walk out the door now I'm sure as hell not walking back in again. They didn't get a good view of the heart but that's alright because I'm already going on Monday for a fetal echocardiogram. And I'll go back there in 4-6 weeks for a follow up ultrasound to just verify the growth curve.

And the ultrasound technician thinks Weenuh's a girl. :)

Where the hell did March go?

Wow, I totally didn't blog in March did I? Sheesh, I didn't realize it's been 2 months. I knew it had been a while, but not necessarily that it's been this long. Been busy growing a human, yunno? Oh, and working too.

Well, there is some knitting going on, a lot of which was done while I was dealing with my dad's most recent health issues. He had three trips to the VA Hospital in two weeks, two of which were in ambulances after 911 calls and two hospital stays. Nothing really came of it, they aren't going to do anything proactive about his cardiac issues because of the state of his kidneys. Which is really annoying, seems like they are just waiting for him to have a massive episode before they do anything for him. Lame.

And I've been having quite the time with Weenuh. My blood sugars have been quite the crazy ride. Mostly low, which is good for Weenuh but not so good to me when they get into the 20's. Unf. My dad's final trip to the VA ended with me in the bed he'd vacated after I basically passed out in the hall outside the ER because my blood sugar was down to 24. (I also got my first black eye. It is SO SEXY being pregnant with a black eye, just in case you were curious.) And then like 10 days later hubby had to revive me in the morning with a Glucagon shot because he noticed I was excessively sweating in my sleep. And then two days later we went to dinner and as we were about to pull into the parking lot I realized I wasn't feeling good, tested and discovered my blood sugar was 27 (which if it said 27 on my meter it probably means it was lower but I don't really know how low it actually was). I ate a pack of my glucose tablets and sucked down a glass of OJ in the restaurant and then proceeded into loopy land and instead of enjoying my entree and dessert, I was visited by an ambulance. (Why yes, it IS terribly embarrasing to be treated in the middle of Coco's.) I realized as I was coming around and looked at my vomit covered t-shirt that it was the SAME shirt that I was wearing the night of the incident at the VA. Needless to say I came home and promptly threw that one away. Which was sad, I really loved the fabric that shirt was made out of and it was a maternity shirt, something of which I can't get enough of these days. But that's not enough for me to dig it out of the trash and give it a third try. Two is enough, thanks.

I had my driver re-examination hearing yesterday in regards to my January accident. It went okay, they didn't suspend my license yet because they hadn't received my doctor's response that I gave to her a few weeks ago. Not sure what is up with that, she's usually really good about processing stuff like that. I kept a copy of the form at least so I faxed that to her nurse today and hopefully she can fill it out on Tuesday when she's back in the office. If the DMV doesn't get her response by next Friday, my license will be suspended for the rest of the pregnancy automatically. Though honestly, I don't know that I *should* be driving with the way my blood sugar levels have been. Thursday night I tested myself at 5:10pm and my reading was 134 (which is a little on the high side for how long it had been since I ate) but then when I tested before dinner at 7:20 it was 46. Yeah. Awesome. That was the first real documentation I've had that I'm going off these "cliffs". It's seemed like I have been but I haven't had numbers like that show up in my testing.

Sorry, a lot of blah blah blah. I did go to Linda's 40th birthday party 2 weeks ago. I have some great pics to post, but that would require me getting my camera cable out and downloading the pics from my camera. And dudes, that is a lot of effort. Maybe Sunday. We'll see.

Big day coming up next week. Wednesday is my level 2 ultrasound where we will finally get to learn if Weenuh is a boy or a girl. I am SO excited. Though I am nervous too since they will be looking in great detail at how Weenuh is developing. I want to know that Weenuh is healthy and doing well, but I'm terrified that they will find something that shows there's something wrong. I know, I know that's normal. But it's still scary. I haven't knit anything for Weenuh yet (though I have bought some patterns and kits for stuff to knit), not that I think it is bad luck or anything, I'm just still scared that there won't be a happy ever after. But provided there's a good outcome at the Level 2 ultrasound, I'll feel better about the likelihood that I'll actually wind up with Weenuh at home in my arms.

And on Thursday I'm off to St. Louis to attend The Loopy Ewe Spring Fling. I'm looking forward to the trip. I think it will be tons of fun AND I will get to meet an online friend that I've known for what, like 8 years now? Something like that anyways. She lives a couple hours away from St. Louis and is driving down to hook up with me. Yay. I'm so excited about that!

I became a great aunt again on April 3rd. My niece had her third baby, another boy (yes, all 3 are boys, yikes!). She sent a picture of him last weekend and he is beautiful. I totally need to still send her a gift but I'm lame and haven't yet. I have a couple of ideas, I think I'll make a few cute things out of some dishcloth cotton. At least I don't have to go shopping for that! teehee

Anyways, that's about all I can yammer on about for now. Sometime I'll stop being lame and post pictures again. I will post for sure on Wednesday afternoon/evening after the big appointment!

Holy crap, there's a baby in there!

So today was OB visit #2. And everything looked awesome! The heartbeat looked strong and I even got to see a HAND! Weenuh was very wriggly so we didn't get a super awesome shot (the hand was only briefly on screen while she was getting the magic wand situated) but I thought this one looked pretty baby like. (The head is on the left.)

So effing cool. Here's to staying knocked up! Woohoo! Go Weenuh!

Introducing Weenuh!

So in the past couple of months I haven't been knitting too much. I've been spending the majority of my free time either reading my Kindle (I've purchased like 87 books on it, so my total read book count is like 111 since early September!) or napping. Napping? Yeah, it's been a new hobby of mine. I loooove the naps. Lame, huh? Well, I'm sure I can be forgiven since I've been busy growing another human. :)


I'd like to introduce to y'all my latest project, introducing baby Weenuh (props to Abigail for the nickname, I love it)!



That's the picture from my 8 week scan (yeah, it's kind of a crappy image but hey I took a picture with my iPhone, I am that lazy. Isn't it cute how it looks like a smiley face though?!), but I'm now 12 weeks pregnant and I am finally coming out of the first trimester fog. I'm not entirely immune to naps yet, but I am definitely improving the number of hours I'm spending awake on the weekend. I even did ALL my laundry this weekend, something I haven't done in like 2 months. (I've been doing just enough to have enough to wear for work, mostly stuff that can be tossed in the dryer!) The scan was pretty awesome though, I can't gush enough about how exciting it was to get to see the heartbeat on the ultrasound machine. That was really amazing.


I've had a few losses in the past and I am definitely a high risk pregnancy, so I am still cautiously optimistic about this but not enough to keep quiet about it. (Really, it was all I could do to wait until now) This is definitely the longest I have been pregnant by probably ~4 weeks. I think the major difference with this time is that I've got some hormonal support since I've not had that in my previous 2 attempts via IUI.


I am still knitting, just not too much. I'm mainly knitting my February Lady Sweater from the yarn I got at Jeni's going away party before she moved to Nebraska. I'm nearly done with the increases (damn there are a lot of them for my fat size, I am not likely to become a mass sweater knitter any time soon lol) and I am happy with the way the Knit Picks Merino Style feels. I think it will be a very comfortable sweater, though it will be a pain in the ass to wash since it's not superwash. I really don't mind though. I really love the February sweater's lace pattern and I know I will be proud of my accomplishment when I'm done with it. I just need to be awake for more than a couple of hours during a weekend! Soon, there will be more time. Soon.


Anyways, the pregnancy is the cause of my changing insulin dosages and with the fluctuations in hormones and growth of the baby, my needs are changing and I am working very closely with a nurse practicioner and my endocrinologist to keep things in line. I'm definitely struggling but I haven't been having nearly as many lows as I had been having when I had my accident. I am still amazed that nothing happened to me or Weenuh or anyone else. And the new PT is a dream to drive. I still miss my old car, but the new version is pretty freaking awesome. Plus it has the new car smell! And built in satellite radio! Yay, no more radio clipped to my vent! (Yes, I have ditched terrestrial radio. The local Bay Area radio station options are pretty dismal.)


I have my second OB visit tomorrow and I suspect there will be more pics. I think that with this being a high risk pregnancy I will have lots of opportunities for scans. Which is good, because I am so scared that I am screwing this kid up. At least this time I ought to see more of a baby instead of just a blob with a heartbeat. Fingers crossed, I should have new images tomorrow of Weenuh. Yay! Weenuh!


Oh and I am 12 weeks from my IUI date, though my due date after the first scan is September 4th, which is 4 days later than the due date based on my IUI date. I won't go past September 4th, and it isn't highly likely that I will go a full 40 weeks but hopefully it will be close to 40.

Back in the saddle again

The Story

Ok, sorry to post the photo (I swear I posted the damn thing, I guess I have to edit the post and link the image from Flickr since Picasa seems to not want to load it) and no story. I was out running errands with my husband and it's kind of a pain in the ass to type a bunch of text on my iPhone.

So last night I had dinner plans with a former coworker that I haven't seen in quite some time. I was really looking forward to seeing her, we've been trying for a few months to get together but our plans kept getting scrapped for one reason or another. So finally last night was the night and I was eager to get out of work and meet her for dinner at 6pm.

So, for those that are familiar with the area, my work is at 237 and 101 in Sunnyvale and I was heading to Menlo Park to meet my friend for dinner at Su Hong. Easy peasy lemon squeezy, right? Yeah, not so much.

Well, normally it's an easy thing, though possibly filled with cars and traffic at 5:30pm but I can't really tell you what traffic was like last night. I'm not really sure what happened between my office and El Camino Real at Roosevelt in Redwood City. Except some really bad shit that ended with my very very beloved 2002 PT Cruiser being totaled today by my insurance company.

So at 1:30pm yesterday, I had an appointment with a nurse practicioner in the Endocrinology department at my medical clinic. My regular doctor is on vacation but because of a current, um, medical condition she wanted me to see the nurse practicioner while she is out. So I've been having some problems lately with my insulin dosages. I had to double my intake and now I need something considerably less than that, so we worked on the dosages and then we talked about the need to incorporate some snacks in my day to keep my blood sugar in a range where I'm a sane person with good judgement. But the appointment was after lunch and since I was leaving early to go to dinner at 6pm (yes, that is a sad statement I know. 5:30pm should not be leaving work "early".), I didn't really want to take the time to run to the Lucky that is across the street from my clinic to get some fruit or whatever to snack on in the afternoon. I figured that it was just something that I'd take care of over the weekend when I had more time. Yes, I know I'm a dumb ass.

Anyways, I was working at the end of the day with one of the other employees in my department trying to train him how to process cash receipts so that he can take over posting them instead of me. I was pretty punchy because even though I'd self-reduced my lunch insulin dosage downward, I apparently didn't reduce it enough nor did I eat enough carbs at lunch to use the insulin that I did take. One of the gals that sits next to the guy I was training made a comment to me that I sounded weird (I think she recognized a change in my voice from previous low blood sugar incidents at work) and I said that no I was fine, I needed to go to dinner with my friend. She got me to eat a couple of candies that were at her desk, but I didn't eat nearly enough of them to do anything to my levels. I didn't test my blood sugar level either, but I wasn't exactly thinking straight before I left. So I went back to my desk, sent a quick email to a friend (wow, that email was REALLY special English too. I should paste the text of it. It's really bad.) and then shut down my computer and headed out the door. I then proceeded to get behind the wheel of my car and headed towards Menlo Park.

So yeah, I don't REALLY know what happened between my office and, oh, about Woodside Road in Redwood City. (Yeah, I totally missed my exit.) I remember a few vague things. My glasses came off at some point, though I don't know if that was because I took them off or if they fell off. I remember vaguely some sort of impact though I don't know what I had hit. I remember the squishiness of my brakes (because as you can see in the photo the entire left front tire is GONE) as I was at the light at Whipple from the exit ramp. I had a hard time seeing out the front because of the damage to the windshield and I somehow made out that I was at Woodside Road so I knew I needed to exit at the next exit and head back down El Camino to get back to Menlo Park. So I made the exit, drove across Whipple and stopped at a few red lights there. Turned left on El Camino and made it down El Camino past Sequoia Station and finally came to a stop just before Roosevelt on El Camino in front of this auto dealer that sells specialty cars when I saw the lights of a police car in my side mirror. So I pulled over and rolled down my window to talk to the officer.

He asked me what happened and I told him I didn't know because I had really low blood sugar and I didn't remember anything. He asked me who I hit (he suspected at first that I had hit a person) and I told him no one, then I think he must have summoned paramedics for me and we talked some more about what happened. The officer that pulled me over was a Redwood City police man I think, because later on I was dealing with a CHP officer. Anyways, the police officer had me move over to the passenger seat because the drivers side door wouldn't open and when the paramedics arrived they tested my blood sugar and it was... 30. Which is super low. SUPER low. Like it should be more up between 70 and 90. Ugh. So the paramedics couldn't let me leave the scene without my blood sugar being over 80. So I had to drink this nasty orange soda-esque sugar drink. They tested again and I was only around like 42 so I had to drink another bottle. Ugh. Talk about nasty. The next time they tested I was at like 86 so I was free to go. They recommended that I go get checked out but I denied being transported in the ambulance, I was able to get my friend to come pick me up and she took me first to dinner and then she brought me home to my hubby who took me to the ER.

The officers explained to me that I went from the far right lane across 101 and hit the center divide (where this was, I have no idea) and apparently I wasn't pulling over for officers on the freeway (though why they would stop pursuing me I have no idea). I don't remember that at all, I don't remember seeing any lights until the officer that got me to stop on El Camino. They suspect that possibly a sign on the freeway (like a carpool lane sign) must have fallen down when I hit the barrier and that's what made the sharp indentation in the windshield and dented the roof (and made the little pod that had the overhead light/compass/thermometer pop out of the roof). I don't believe that I hit any cars (the body damage doesn't look that way either) thankfully and I checked out alright at the hospital. I feel fine today, I stayed home with hubby today to take care of everything. I called the insurance company and they got my car towed over to the body shop where it was later totaled. So I'm getting a piddly amount of money for my car and now I have to figure out what I want to get. The photo I posted was the one I took at the body shop, I have some other photos on my camera that my friend took before the tow truck took my car away last night. I don't know if I'll upload those, I'm sad enough already.

Anyways, that's the sordid tale of my stupidity. Like I said, I'm alright. Everything is okay and I am working with my new insulin dosages. Hopefully I will get that sorted out soon and I can put this all behind me. I'll see what the DMV does to me, I'm not sure that I'll get away without a license suspension but we'll see. Ugh. Makes me not want to get a new car if I will have to look at it sitting on my driveway. My work is on the way to my husband's office, so he might just drive me to work and I'll have to brown bag my lunches. We'll see. I could rent a car too but I dunno. I'll have to figure it all out.

Bye bye Teenuh mobile

I'm going to miss you. :'( Thanks for keeping my stupid ass safe.