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Tuesday, August 28, 2012

Sweet Moment

I've been feeling the baby move around and hiccup for two weeks now which is one of the most amazing things I've ever had the pleasure of experiencing but tonight, for the first time, Jules was able to feel her move and that moment between the three of us was the textbook definition of awesome.

Saturday, August 25, 2012

Family

Sometimes I feel like an alien when I visit my family.  Like I'm from somewhere completely foreign with different beliefs, a different personality and a different outlook on life.

I haven't always felt this way, only since I moved far enough away from them to really take notice.

Jules has always been taken aback by my family and I cannot even count the number of arguments we've had about my family members.  As much as I agree with her on the majority of issues, they still are my family and I am a loyal person so I spend a lot of time feeling guilty and torn.

So, what is it about my family?


  • They swear a ridiculous amount.  Now, I'm not exactly innocent of this myself but my goodness, I don't have to fit it in to every conversation I have.  I'm able to censor myself in social situations and I'm able to have tough discussions without throwing in the f-word several times.  My father and my youngest sister, on the other hand, seem incapable of speaking English without liberal use of various swear words.  My mother is pretty bad too but she does seem to have the ability to censor herself in public.
  • They are loud.  I don't know if it's because there used to be five of us in a small house all trying to be heard but my goodness, I go crazy trying to visit when my youngest sister and mom are trying to tell a story, etc.  And the arguing... oh my goodness, tempers flare very fast in my family.
  • My dad is disrespectful of other cultures and uses derogatory terms.  I cringe when I hear my dad use the word 'retard' or a derogatory name for someone of a different ethnicity from us.  I can see this has rubbed off on my youngest sister, who I think also gets this behaviour from the construction site she works at. :(
  • They feel entitled.  This is, again, my mom and youngest sister as well as my mom's sister.  They work hard at their jobs but they are very lazy at home and complain a lot about what they haven't received or what they think they deserve.  My mom's sister is 57 years old and lives in her parents basement rent free.  She treats my grandparents like they are small children.  The other day she demanded I add her back on as a Facebook friend (I defriended her back in April for a very distasteful comment she made on one of my posts) because she needs to know what's going on with me now that she's going to be a great-aunt.
  • They just don't understand how to think before speaking sometimes.  Especially on Facebook.  This is specifically my youngest sister and my mom's sister as mentioned in the point above.  Re-posting utter garbage with profanity and rude images is just so trashy.  Hijacking someone's post about something is also downright rude, as is making a snide comments that are anything but clever.
There are other things that make me wonder how I share the same DNA as some of them, but I'm too tired (or perhaps disheartened) to list more.  Five or six years ago, I would not have really felt this way because although I tried to avoid my family and stick to myself for the most part, I still did live with some family so I was still 'in it' on a daily or weekly basis.  But now that I've been away from it for years and am in the process of starting a family of my own, I feel a little overwhelmed by what to do once we have the baby.  How do I expose my daughter to this behaviour?  How do I limit her exposure to this without hurting the feelings of my family?  

I really wish Jules' family wasn't all the way across the ocean.  Her parents are such wonderful role models as is the rest of her family.  I wish our daughter could have Jules' parents to visit on a regular basis to know as role models.  

Growing up, I thought my parents were decent (never had curfew, never got grounded, never had to speak to a C on my report card) but it wasn't until I became an adult and now on the verge of motherhood that I realized that what I really ended up with was half-assed parents (see, I can swear too).  I was never taught to say 'please' and 'thank you'.  I learned that on my own as I went through life and now try to teach my family how to do it.  I never had to speak to a poor report card because they never wanted to look at it!  They never wanted to go to a school play and they refused to go to parent/teacher night. I was never asked if I had homework, they just assumed I did it.  My sisters and I never had the structure most kids grow up with.  As an eight year old, my parents just assumed I'd come home for lunch each school day to an empty house and make myself something for lunch.  Never showing me how to make anything, I taught myself how to use the microwave, the stove and the popcorn maker.  I ate a lot of popcorn and microwaved Mr. Noodles for lunch.  I only started a fire on the stove once, I think.

I could honestly go on and on but now I'm even questioning posting this for the five people who read this blog.  Nobody has a perfect family, everyone has family members they wish they could vote off the island, etc.  It's just that sometimes it is harder to take than others, and tonight was one of those times.  And with a new person coming into this family next year, I get worried thinking that it is eventually going to affect/rub off on her too.

Tuesday, August 21, 2012

We're having a...

We're having a girl!

I think I knew that all along, in fact I told Jules as soon as we had our positive pregnancy test that the odds were in favour of it being a girl.  We inseminated 4, 3 and 2 days before I ovulated.  The ovulation test had me on the verge for two days that cycle so I was a day later than usual.  Add to that the company that came to visit on the last day I was going to inseminate and there you go... the girl sperm endured and got in there. (I'm picturing the girl sperm in there like a roller derby... elbowing each other out of the way...)

However, when the ultrasound tech told us, we were both stunned.  We both tried to snap out of it to get through the rest of the appointment because the tech was so lovely and excited for us, etc.  When we left, we both looked at each other and said, 'Wow, I didn't realize how much I was hoping we were going to have a boy until we found out we were having a girl.'

I feel guilty about that.  It took a good four hours after the appointment to come to terms with it.  My family has almost no boys born into it.  It is ridiculous how many girls are in our family.  I think without even realizing it we were hoping to buck the trend and finally bring a boy into the family.

After all we've gone through to get to this point and how blessed we've been to not only find a fantastic donor but also have a viable pregnancy on the second try, it seems so foolish of us to have gotten hung up on the sex of the baby for even one second.

So that's it, we're having a baby girl and it's going to be awesome. :)

Monday, August 20, 2012

A week of rest

This morning when I woke up and used the bathroom I was startled to discover I was spotting heavily.  I haven't seen any spotting since I was somewhere around 9 weeks so it was a bit of a shock.  Immediately I started looking up causes which seem to vary depending on the stage of pregnancy.  One of the causes are UTIs which I just finished a week's worth of antibiotics for so I tried to relax a bit but then I started cramping mildly and of course this is all right before I had to leave for work.  I had a lot of 'must do' things that my back-up-in-training doesn't know how to do yet so I sat for a bit and then got in the car and drove to work.  While at work, the spotting wasn't subsiding so I called the doctor for an appointment and then rushed to get as many 'must dos' done as I could before I had to leave.

My doctor is on vacation this week so I saw another doctor in the clinic who, in my opinion, is now the greatest doctor I've ever had the pleasure of seeing.  She was awesome and thorough and funny and put me completely at ease.  It helped that I got to hear the baby's heartbeat as well.  She declared that my cervix is good and closed and that she's 90% sure that the blood is coming out via my urine.  She sent me off for blood work and a more complete urine culture (the basic one at the clinic showed traces of blood) and gave me a note to be off work for the remainder of the week to rest.  She also had one of the nurses move up my Aug 27th ultrasound to tomorrow afternoon just to cover all bases.  She mentioned that what the 'incomplete' ultrasound we had on the 13th showed was all normal and that the placenta is not low on the cervix or anything so that's good.  Hopefully little baby cooperates fully this time around and shows the technician everything she needs to see (including whether or not it's a boy or girl!!).

I'm not sure what I'm going to do with myself for the rest of the week (besides go crazy from boredom) but as long as the baby is okay, I'll force myself to relax and catch up on some bad tv/movies.

Saturday, August 18, 2012

random bits

We had our second ultrasound on Monday but dear little baby decided to sleep in and not be cooperative for us while on screen so they had us re-schedule for the 27th when hopefully little baby will be willing to flip over to show the tech all she needs to see.  

Of course 20 min after we left the appointment, I could feel all sorts of fluttering.  I'll make sure I drink some juice or something before the next appointment.

Some other notables that have me a bit on edge...

  • My doctor says baby is currently measuring bigger than the 'norm'
  • My doctor wants me to gain way more weight in this pregnancy than I thought I was supposed to... yikes
  • My belly won't stop growing!!  When I read that fat storage would be mainly re-routed to the belly, I don't think I really understood that until now.  I have to remind myself multiple times per day that I have a baby in there and I haven't just suddenly ballooned into someone I don't recognize (which might be a slight exaggeration on my part but then again, I've been faced with looking at my wedding pics on Facebook every day this week... that belly is so not me!)
  • Ended up at urgent care at 1 am the morning of my wedding to get a prescription to treat the sudden onset of a UTI.  That was a fun day...


Thursday, August 2, 2012

Update

I'm eating ice cream for dinner tonight.  Do I feel bad about that?  Yes.  Do I feel bad enough about it to stop eating it and go make something nutritional to feed my pregnant self?  No.  Am I surprised by that?  Yes. 

I'm pretty much completely 'morning sickness' free these days but have not regained the taste for about 2/3 of the standard fare I normally enjoy.  I still cannot tolerate many spices which cuts out almost all of the Vegetarian/Indian/Mexican/Thai/big-batch-save-money-type meals I would normally prepare.  I cannot seem to tolerate bringing raw meat into the house to prepare.  I've gone off eggs and toast.  I can tolerate a sandwich as long as it is on a bun and not bread but it has to have spinach and cheese on it to mask the taste of the bun and meat.  I'm seriously at a loss most days as to what to take for lunch and what to prepare for dinner.  The only things I crave are things I shouldn't have (and usually don't eat) - cheeseburgers and fries, chicken wings, spinach salad, kiwi and orange flavoured vitamin water.  Well... I can't have most of those things every day which leaves me to attempt to plan meals that I have no interest in.  In past weeks I've thrown out so much food that went to waste because plan as I might, every evening I'd look at the food and go, 'Nope... not tonight.'  I don't even know what I have been eating... some nights we haven't even had dinner because I can't think of anything I want to eat.  Other nights I get lucky and have an idea like 'hm, maybe fajitas wouldn't be terrible' and jump all over that before the favourable thought goes away.  I'd probably be better at eating something I wasn't craving if Jules picked up the cooking and just made something but she's kind of dropped out of the kitchen since I've been able to tolerate cooking again.

Anyway, I didn't mean to go on about food... I meant to post about our plans for August.

We decided a few weeks ago that we'll get married on the 5 year anniversary of the day we met - August 12th.  It turns out that even planning a low key, six person event is stressful.  Well, I shouldn't complain too much, I pushed most of it onto Jules to handle because honestly, I'd get married via the internet if I could.  Since Jules' family won't be able to attend (as they are over in the U.K./Germany), I told my family they couldn't either.  Instead, it'll be our donor marrying us, with his partner and two of our other friends as witnesses.  We're doing the ceremony and a nice dinner afterward at a posh hotel downtown.  We haven't decided if we'll get a hotel room for the evening or just go home afterward.  We have the next day booked off from work so we could but we have a 10:30 am ultrasound appointment to come back home to the next morning.

So yes, get married one day, hopefully find out the sex of our baby the next.  Crazy...