Tag Archives: Pregnancy

Three Weeks In…

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The hard part about all of this is, you think you notice a pattern, and then baby switches it up on you. She’ll sleep through diaper changes one day (awesome!), then scream through them the next (damn!). For a couple of days, she was nursing for about 20 minutes on each boob, then 2 days later was doing 10-minute spurts. She certainly is keeping us on our toes, and it’s a constant learning process to say the least.

I’ve started walking the hill regularly and working squats back into the exercise routine. I lost about 9 pounds after giving birth, and weighed about 132 pounds in the first couple days after returning home from the hospital. I’ve been eating normally and lost another 7 pounds over the next 3 weeks. 16 down, 14 more to go. Yet, all the weight loss in the world won’t do anything for my angry stretch marks, which are worse on my left side because Little V threw most of her weight on that side when I was pregnant. It’s amazing how they seemingly developed overnight. I had not a single stretch mark up to week 38; they seemingly appeared out of nowhere and then exploded with the fury of a thousand suns.

I started this post a week ago, and I write this now, I realize stretch marks were the least of my problems. Late last week, I developed mastitis, and had all kinds of horrible symptoms like terrible breast pain, body aches, chills, hot flashes, and a low-grade fever. I’ve never received a flu shot because I honestly cannot remember the last time I had the flu, and this experience confirmed my decisions. They say mastitis causes flu-like symptoms, and I felt weak and horrible in a way that felt quite unfamiliar. I was like oh shit, is this what the flu feels like? What the fuck. All I wanted to do was pound ibuprofen and sleep, but Little V wanted to feed nonstop from 8:00 p.m. to 1:00 a.m. that night and I definitely cried.

Fortunately, antibiotics acted quickly. I took the first dose at 9:00 p.m. and felt better by Saturday morning. Just in time for an old friend’s wedding reception/anniversary party. This is a friend with whom I’ve made trouble since sophomore year of college, and I had been looking forward to this celebration for some time. The event was held at Syrah, where I had spent many a drunken night, e.g. Halloween, New Years Eve, birthdays, and plenty of times for no particular reason, including one night during law school when I took too many tequila shots and fell asleep briefly in the adjoining parking lot at the end of the night.

In what seemed like a wonderful alignment of lucky stars and good teamwork, my dad was able to watch Little V at a friend’s hotel room only 2 minutes walking distance away from the party venue, Little V caught onto bottle feeding after having been introduced to it just 2 days prior, I felt much better, and we were able to make an appearance and celebrate. I fed her in our friend’s hotel room right before we left, and Husband left the reception an hour in to bottle feed her. All in all, it was a highly successful evening.

Little V Makes Her Entrance

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Little V was born on September 2, 2017 after 30 hours of labor on Labor Day weekend (ha!). I say 30, which includes only the labor that required concerted physical and mental effort, but I was having contractions since Monday and she wasn’t born until Saturday morning. The total number of hours is only useful for satisfying morbid curiosity.

I noticed a friend on Facebook had a recent home birth. She posted about her 45 hour labor, which she counted from first contraction until delivery. Well, if I did that I could literally claim like 100 hours of labor. In sharing her birth story on Instagram, she was glowingly positive but felt the prolonged labor altered her plans and her mindset such that she felt deprived of the experience of falling in instant love with her son. Apparently other women with negative labor and delivery experiences report feeling similarly robbed, but I’m not the type for falling in love at first sight anyway so I can’t say I relate.

When I left off my last post, I had seen the doc in the morning at 2 cm dilated and 80 percent effaced, and my contractions had started to speed up on Thursday night, probably in part as a result of the membrane sweep. By 11:59 p.m., they started to become seriously painful enough to be the real thing, and we started our Hypnobirthing skills, exercises, meditations, and tools. I felt most of the contractions in my low back/sacral area, which has been a completely new sensation for me, as I’ve never had any significant back pain my entire life! Until contractions started, low back pain was something totally foreign to me, and the sensations of being hammered in the tailbone were quite awful. Husband was totally amazing with pressing on my back at the right times, reminding me to eat, and lightly massaging my back. After about 3 hours, the contractions were coming faster than the 5-1-1 rule, and we went to the the hospital around 3:00 a.m.

The hospital ride was uncomfortable to say the least, and I tried to continue breathing and moving on all fours in the backseat during the 25 minute ride. Unfortunately, when we got to the hospital, we were surprised to find I was still only 2 cm dilated, despite the intensifying contractions and hours of seeming progress. They sent me home, and advised me to try and sleep. I declined Ambien, as at this point, I was tired enough, but my major problem was pain. I have never needed help sleeping, as I am a champion sleeper.

At home, I tried to put my champion sleeping skills to work. I took a couple of Tylenol PM and we “slept” in 5-minute chunks between contractions until the late morning. Husband had equally poor sleep because he was amazing enough to wake up every few minutes to massage my back. Not wanting to risk being sent home from the hospital again, we continued the home labor activities until late afternoon and returned to the hospital around 4:30 p.m.

The good news was by the time we went to the hospital for round two, I was 7 cm dilated. My water had not broken yet and the midwife observed I had a bulging amniotic sac. The bad news was I stayed at 7 cm for literally eight more hours. I think I probably stopped keeping track of the time at this point, as it was too devastating. The midwife explained the bulging sac may be blocking the baby’s head from descending, and suggested the option of breaking the water to allow things to speed up. We considered it and in the mean time, Husband motivated me and walked me around the hall twice, and helped me breathe through some contractions on the birthing ball. There didn’t appear to be much change after these efforts and we decided to go ahead with breaking the water 1-2 hours later. The pace did pick up indeed, along with the severity of contractions.

Yet, the bumps in the road were not over for us. I pushed for 2-3 hours (who’s counting?), in different positions, including squatting, on all fours, on my side, with a squat bar and Rebozo. I ended up pushing the traditional way and could not help but constantly feel like I could not take much more. I found comfort in growling like an animal to control my breath (but my throat hurt the whole next day).

After being encouraged that I was “very close” and just a “few” pushes away (and boy, did I need the motivation at this point!), Baby V was born at 6:00 a.m. Again, I don’t know about “instant love” but it was a very overwhelming, exciting, and incredible feeling when I saw her emerge from my body. I baked a little hooman! Holy shit! As soon as they placed her on my chest, it was just as a friend had told me – all the pain and discomfort leading up to it became negligible.

I previously thought having a whole baby come out of my vagina was going to be the most painful and difficult part, but as it was happening, I observed it mostly felt like an uncomfortable stretching that slightly burned. It was the contractions that continued to be totally killer. Maybe I got lucky and had a baby with a smaller head. I didn’t tear, but had some mild uterine bleeding and received some Pitocin and Cytotec. Afterwards, our nurse, who by now was accustomed to me refusing all kinds of meds, came by to persuade me to take pain medications. To her relief, I did not put up any resistance to a some Ibuprofen.

Honestly, these were some of the most miserable hours of my life, but they were met with great reward. After this experience, I’m also fairly convinced Husband is the best husband in the world.

 

Week 41!

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Fetus is still in there, having a grand old time! She is 4 days past due now, and I’ve been having contractions for 3+ days. They are mild to moderate in nature, and not very painful, but enough to be uncomfortable and tiring. They started out spaced quite a bit apart, and progressed to every 30 minutes, then 20, then 10, and even 5, but varies and returns to a rate of every 30 minutes and/or 20 minutes with complete lack of predictability. I can sleep through most of them, but wake up to it 3-4 times a night.

I’ve been lounging a lot, but also doing some walking and yoga stretching. I did do 35 squats with a 20 pound weight after walking a short hill yesterday, but that turned out to be a big mistake because I felt grouchy and tired the rest of the day. Husband has been very patient and nice with massages when I wake up in the morning with a kinked spine and foot massages when we watch TV.

Also had my fair share of pineapple cakes. Bribing Fetus to come on out and join the human world of delicious treats. In fact, she’s been bribed this whole week, with Chinese home cooking, including tomato beef noodle soup, mapo tofu, zha jiang noodles, etc.

I had a doctor’s appointment today, and I’m currently 2 centimeters dilated and 80 percent thinned out, so I guess the last 3 days have not been in vain. The non-stress test results were fine, and the amniotic fluid still looks good, so my doctor did not think it’d be a problem to wait a little longer, though she wanted to have a game plan for potential induction if I went past 41 weeks. Potential induction would involve use of Cytotec, a synthetic prostaglandin. In the meantime, she offered to strip/sweep the membranes, which basically involves insertion of a finger into the opening of the cervix, and moving it around to separate the amniotic sac membranes from the cervix. This causes release of prostaglandins which may speed up labor. However, I did not recall what any of my classes and/or reading material had to say about this procedure, and I was undecided on it, so we held off.

After Husband went to work, I went home to consult some books along with Google. It seemed to me that membrane stripping was relatively benign, with minimal risks, compared with some of the horror stories one of my books seemed to suggest about Cytotec. I really hope to avoid being induced to begin with, and although I think some of the hippie set tend to overstate the risks of Cytotec, both Google and Expecting Better seemed to indicate there’s evidence membrane stripping is relatively safe and and up to 25 percent effective, so I called the doc’s office back to see when I could come in to get it done.

I went in basically as soon as I hung up the phone, and was seen within 5 minutes. The sweep itself lasted probably less than 20 seconds. She literally just poked her finger up in there and swished it around a little. The internet said it could be crampy and uncomfortable, but it was even less so than I imagined. It sort of felt like my bladder was being poked a little, but otherwise was entirely bearable. I felt like contractions began to speed up within the hour (after a pretty slow morning and early afternoon), but who knows if this is coincidence. Stay tuned.

Week 40

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My mind is tired, perhaps because I did not sleep well the night before, or maybe just general fatigue from feeling like a really fat old person, huffing and puffing up hills and “ohhhhh my bones.” I did some yoga on Monday, followed by triceps dips and wide squats with a 20 pound weight.

Packed 3 conference calls in on Tuesday. I may schedule some things tentatively for after my due date in the (likely) event Fetus is late.

8/24/17

Thursday, while on a conference call at 5:00 p.m., I felt some a sudden onset of low back pain and tightness and thought I’d better wrap a couple of things up in case I was going into labor. It was better by the time I got home, so I did some light yoga to stretch things out, and then we walked the hill across the street a couple of times. Some variation of this sensation continued throughout the night, but with less intensity (woke up a few times but slept through most of it).

8/25/17

When I woke up in the morning I thought I better not go into work and just do some work from home instead. I had just one major thing to finish up, but I felt it would be just fine quickly wrapping it up from the comfort of home. Of course as soon as I sent out an email saying I was working from home, I stopped feeling anything for 2 hours, remote access to my work computer failed to initiate, and I found myself twiddling my thumbs (writing this) at the kitchen table with a cat glued to my lap. Very good use of time.

So I dumped Yona off my lap, swept the floor, took out the trash, and put away some dishes. On my way back from the dumpster, our neighbor gave us some cat toys that his cat did not happen to fancy, so I came back and entertained Yona with them.

I ended up putting in a full day of work, and we did some hill walking at night.

Weekend

The weekend was a bit of a blur. I started to have sort of minor contractions, that felt like a combination of cramps and back pain, which woke me up a few times at night, and then started happening every 20, then 10 minutes. I used this as an excuse to be lazy. We took a really brief walk on the beach and did some meditation.

The Waiting Game

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I’m on day 2 of week 40. Home stretch. At least, hopefully. I really don’t want her to be too late, but if she does not come by her due date, I’m working from home until she does. All my friends’ babies (all five of them) this year came early. Although there are only 5 days until my due date, according to this neato labor probability calculator, the odds of me giving birth by my due date is a mere 20.34 percent. The odds of me giving birth by week 42 is actually not that high either, at 85.03 percent! Ugh! I barely feel capable of making it through this week, much less 3 more.

On the other hand, as impatient as I am getting, I’m also nervous about labor and birth. Maybe this is the mental dissonance that is causing me to lose sleep in the middle of the night.

My parents arrived over the weekend and I was showered with more cute baby clothes, pineapple cakes, organic snacks from my Aunt Sylvia (dried pineapple, dried guava, glutinous rice with dates, almond tea, etc.), and chicken soup from my Aunt Amber and Uncle Alfred. All the way from Taiwan. I’m very excited about these foods, which are supposed to be good for the postpartum period so at this point I’m excited to give birth just so I can start eating these things.

I’ve developed a bad sweet tooth. I was in an irritable mood the other day and self-medicated with a pineapple cake and strangely felt better immediately after eating it. This has never happened to me before with sweets. Maybe with a beer, but never desserts. People give alcohol a lot of shit, but drinking an IPA after a crappy day costs you 140 calories, and you get some antioxidants in the mix. Eating cookies/cakes/creme brulee costs a fuckload more calories, sugar, and fat. I hope this is a phenomenon limited to pregnancy because otherwise, it is extremely dangerous.

I had a relatively smooth third trimester for the most part, but first trimester seems to be repeating itself in these final days. I randomly feel nauseated during the day, and wake up in the middle of the night and can’t fall back asleep for hours. I woke up at 3:00 a.m. on Tuesday and could not sleep so I finished up some laundry.

Week 39

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Monday

I met a friend, who is also pregnant for lunch at Panera. She’s in the process of switching over to my OB-GYN because she was somewhat displeased with her (mine has been awesome up to this point!) Work flew by because I charged through a couple of projects I wanted to wrap up before leaving. After work, I did a couple of yoga videos.

Tuesday 

Work went by fairly quickly again, and I met another friend for lunch. I don’t usually eat out for lunch very often, but I figured now is the time to make last-minute time for good friends before Fetus makes her appearance. (Hey, think of all the money I’ve saved by not drinking alcohol these past 9 months!)

I’ve been trying to eat healthier, but I decided YOLO and suggested Persian. It’s not that Persian food is necessarily unhealthy, but I love it a lot and tend to go overboard. We met at this place with a sweet ass lunch special. They give you a small basket of bread and olives as soon as you are seated, and then the salad bar alone is glorious;  I treated myself to cucumber and tomato salad, tabouli, dolma, pickled veggies, and dates. The two of us shared the eggplant stew and a koobideh kabab that came with the usual roasted, juicy tomato and buttery saffron rice. Yeah, you try ordering this stuff and not going overboard.

The lunch was so lavish and abundant I even had leftovers to take home for husband, who enjoyed it as well. To think, there once was a time he hated Persian food! I’m glad I turned him away from a life of sure deprivation.

This put me in a great mood the rest of the day, and I compensated after I got home with some weight exercises (triceps dips, wide squats with a 20 pound weight, wall sits, bridge lifts) and a little bit of yoga.

Wednesday

Very tired. I successfully limited my liquid intake after 8:00 p.m. the night before and did not wake up much to pee… but did wake up for no reason at 3:00 a.m. and could not get back to sleep. We went to a doctor’s appointment, and I’m not dilated, though she said this is not any kind of predictor as to when I would go into labor. I was not particularly motivated to exercise after work, but managed some triceps dips and about an hour of yoga.

We went through a big box of baby clothes our neighbor kindly gave us, and sorted them by size. Most of them were boy items, but it’s not like babies really care. Girls can dress up as frogs and bears too. Although the onesie that says “Lock up your daughters!” really might be a little odd.

Thursday

Had lunch with boss and clients at Bentley’s. I ordered a Cobb Salad with the Mandarin ginger dressing instead of bleu cheese dressing. It came in epic proportions, but I think with the hard boiled eggs, grilled chicken, and veggies, it was still a healthier choice. On the other hand, the baked Brie appetizer with onion dip and berry jam were not.

After lunch, I stopped by Champagne Bakery, located in the same shopping center. I used to go to the one in Irvine all the time in high school, when a friend of mine worked there. I’d hang around and chill toward the end of his shift and wait for him so we could hang out. He introduced me to French desserts such as Creme Brulee, for which I have developed a lifelong love, meringues, and custard brioche. He eventually was fired for stealing from the cash registers, but my best friend in high school later also worked here, so I continued to be a regular fixture for some time.

On this occasion, I stopped to get desserts for our wedding anniversary. Although I had planned a trip to the Cravory, which has oddly flavored cookies that are amazingly tasty (e.g. balsamic rosemary – who knew this could be so delicious?), I changed my mind and was drawn to Champagne instead. I got husband a slice of Princess cake and a berry tart for myself. It was tough choosing between the berry tart and Creme Brulee. Creme Brulee usually wins over all else, but maybe pregnancy has had an effect on my taste? Also, the berry tart is just aesthetically quite a bit more pleasing. I also bought a raspberry macaron for myself and ate it on the way back to work. Stayed tuned for weight gain.

We walked a nearby hill 3 times for exercise, then rushed to the Bahn Mi place for dinner before closing time. The sandwiches were delicious and we could not believe we’d taken so many years to finally try this place.

Weekend

Friday, I went for a foot/body prenatal massage combo and it was amazing. There’s a place I’ve gone to a couple of times now that is sort of a good mix between discount massages and a spa experience. It’s more money than a cheapo Asian place, but the skill level and atmosphere are also better. The atmosphere is not quite at the level of a more professional spa, as I’ve never been to a luxury spa where the masseuse is wearing shredded denim capris or smells vaguely of cigarettes, but I’ve seriously gotten two of the best massages ever here, irrespective of price, so I’m a fan.

Saturday, I did some stretches and we did the  steep hiking trail hill by our old house once, which was nice. Later in the day, we went to the beach and did some meditation practice and I did some more stretching on the beach. I haven’t gone to Yoga class since I finished up my 10-class package, but a lot of the poses and stretches I learned in class have been immensely helpful, particularly toward the end of the third trimester.

Sunday, I walked the same hill twice and it was a big mistake. It tired me out for the rest of the day and made me grouchy. For the future, I will remember the oft-repeated advice regarding not pushing yourself too much during pregnancy. It is not the time. I think it’s good to push myself to get some type of exercise even when I’m feeling lazy, but maybe not to push it to uncomfortable limits e.g. long hikes, too much cardio, too much heat. Certainly it’s not harmful and it might be helpful for staying in shape, but the toll it takes on the rest of the day and sometimes the day after is not worth it. Sort of like a bad hangover. Except I didn’t have the pleasure of drinking, and instead of dehydration and a headache, I’m grouchy, irritable, and tired.

Henna Part 2

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After waiting about a day and a half for the dye to release, I tested the henna on my hand, and it stained an orange color, as the instructions had indicated. I used an applicator bottle that came with different sized tips, and after experimenting with the thickness and speed of the dye coming out of the tip, I initially chose one of the thicker applicator options, but felt the lines were still too fine, so I went for an even thicker one and from there just went for it freehand. Maybe a little risky, but it’s temporary and all for fun anyway.

 

The paint dried a dark greenish black color and looked really cool, but once the dried henna peeled off (all over the house, every time I bent over or brushed by something, oops), the end result was pretty light. To contrast, the henna I did on my hand was much darker and noticeable, perhaps because the skin on the palms is thinner/softer?

  

Week 38

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Monday

I woke up 3 or 4 times to pee the night before, and the 4th time, I think my body was like, “Oh, you keep waking up. I guess you don’t really want to sleep, then!” and I was unable to fall asleep for over an hour. It was pretty lame and I was pretty grouchy and tired all Monday so after work, I completed a short prenatal yoga focusing on leg and core strength, did some meditation practice, and we ate leftovers for dinner.

Tuesday

I woke up 4 times to go pee the night before, but at least I had no issues falling back asleep each time. Anyway, it was still a tiring day and I was not capable of much beyond some yoga. I did a power yoga video, and called it a day. It was actually pretty hard.

Wednesday

I drank my regular 80 or so ounces of water a day but did not drink beyond two sips of liquid after 8:00 p.m. the night before and only had to wake up twice to pee! Victory is mine! It was a good morning. We had a doctor’s appointment and it was all good news. Fetus is still head down despite her totally insane movements that make me feel like she’s doing acrobatics, grating on my spine, and trying to punch a hole through my uterus. Again, I think of aliens inhabiting people’s bodies and trying to burst out, like this:

Unfortunately, the decadent eating and Taiwanese bakery treats caught up with me and I somehow gained 2 pounds overnight. Literally. I was 139.6 pounds on Tuesday morning, and 141.6 pounds Wednesday morning, which made me really irritable as my thoughts immediately floated to thigh cheese. The good news is, in the absence of freakish weight gain in the next 3 weeks, I should still fall within the recommended weight gain range, and will be successful in heeding my mother’s warning to avoid gaining 45 pounds as she did.

I went to Lazy Acres for lunch to switch things up a bit, and had an amazing salad with salmon poke, beautiful purple radishes, beets, peas, garbanzo beans, sweet peppers, and greens. Yeah yeah yeah. Raw food is so unbelievably delicious sometimes, especially in summertime.  I have not been very fond of cooked salmon since eating it while having morning sickness, but that slight distaste has not translated into the raw version. I thoroughly enjoyed the buttery, cool, cubes of salmon in my salad and savored the lovely texture.

Thursday

I woke up at 3:00 a.m. and could not sleep for 2 hours, so that blew balls. This day sort of sucked so I treated myself by skipping my workout to go shopping after work. I tried to return some baby clothes, but they said I had to exchange the clothes that day and use store credit. The whole point of returning the clothes was because I believe we have more than we need and I did not want to buy more clothes without really knowing how many of each type of clothing is necessary, so this was a fruitless endeavor. I browsed some winter coats and was enamored by this faux suede, faux fur-lined hippie vest,  but it was $32! As if!

I also looked at some baby accessories, but the only thing I found useful was a pair of infant sunglasses, which were $10. They were tortoiseshell patterned and cute as hell, but I was like fuck this… $10 is like what I pay for my own adult sun glasses the fuck am I going to pay $10 for infant sunglasses? Ridiculous. No!

Later in the evening, I mixed some henna powder to prepare for use. The directions I found online said it may take 24-48 hours for the dye to release. We’ll see if I can execute this successfully.

Friday

The no liquids after 8:00 p.m. thing really does work. Only woke up twice to pee again, which I consider the second win of the week. I wake up feeling like a rock every morning because my bones feel tight and heavy. I also found stretch marks on the underside of the left side of my belly which was really sad and awful.

I was angry and and sad so I did some sprints, followed by triceps dips and then some prenatal yoga focusing on leg strength.

We don’t have any more major baby preparations or purchases to make, but I am trying to squeeze in some more piano, another massage, and a pedicure before she comes. My wonderful husband has asked me if there are any fun things I’d like to do before the due date, but La Traviatta and Magic Flute aren’t playing at the opera this season, I can’t find any recent Swan Lake performances, and anything else I can think of probably involves drinking. Regardless, it will be nice just to take it easy and spend some time together over the next two weekends.

 

Taiwanese Bakery Treats

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We celebrated our 12 year anniversary together by going to an amazing Russian/Georgian restaurant in North Park. We actually also celebrated our 7 year anniversary here. Afterwards, I was craving 菠蘿麵包 (pineapple bun), so we stopped in the Convoy area to get some yummies at 85 Degrees c. They did not have anything labeled in Chinese (not that my Chinese is that great), but it gets confusing when every Taiwanese bakery insists on naming the damn 菠蘿麵包 something different. It was “Bolo Bread” at Sunmerry in Irvine. Here at 85 Degrees it was “Boroh Danish,” which was particularly confusing because I do not associate it with Danish-style pastries at all, and there is no filling inside. I also saw 太陽餅 in the check out line and had to have that too.

The 太陽餅 was awesome, the 菠蘿麵包 was not as good as the Sunmerry one. Maybe it has to do with being pregnant but I’ve really had a tooth for Taiwanese bakery treats recently. Too bad all the good stuff is a 30-minute drive away from our place. Or maybe that’s a good thing. I really think Asians are increasingly starting to move into San Diego County, but it still feels like this: