I can’t believe we’ve finally made it to this point, but I am pleased to announce that I am 18 weeks pregnant as of today and more functional than I have been at any other point during this pregnancy. Granted I am still tired all the time and just as scatter brained as ever, but this seems pretty normal for a pregnant woman who’s first born is running head long into the terrible twos. This week’s pregnancy mile marker is accompanied by several other momentous developments. Not only am I unmistakably showing at this point but I am also feeling more and more kicks throughout the day, and a few nights ago Chris was able to feel the baby move for the first time when he put his hand on my stomach. We have an ultrasound scheduled for Monday morning at 8:45 and as long as our little one isn’t too shy we will be finding out the sex of the baby. So that means that prediction time is officially upon us! Chris has been saying for the last two months that it is absolutely, positively, without a doubt a boy. He never refers to the baby as anything but a ‘him’ and has even ventured so far as to use the boy name we have chosen when speaking about the baby. Corbin seems to agree wholeheartedly with his father because every time we ask him if the baby is a boy he says yes and every time we ask if its a girl he ignores the question. My mother and sister on the other hand are convinced that this one is a girl, but my mother has also admitted that this may just be wishful thinking on her part. As for me, I am still pretty undecided. I had an inclination that it was a girl early on, but I would genuinely be thrilled to death with either one. A girl would be wonderful because we would have one of each and I would love to have another chick around here to help level out all the testosterone, but a boy would be wonderful too because I would love for Corbin to have a brother to play and conspire with, and economically it would be quite an advantage since we already have all the clothes and toys we could ever possibly need for a boy. So if anyone has a prediction, preference or inclination we’d love to hear it. If you don’t that’s OK too, but we’d still appreciate your prayers for a healthy baby, which is ultimately all that any of us are really hoping for. We’ll keep you posted!
Archive for November, 2007
Cast Your Votes
Thursday, November 29th, 2007Hunger Strike
Tuesday, November 27th, 2007Alright veteran mommies, I could use a little help here. Corbin has finally hit the stage that many of you have been warning me about. He’s become a picky…no let me rephrase…a NON eater! For the past few weeks my son has been surviving on less than your average sparrow eats, and it seems to be getting worse and worse each day. Not only will he not try anything new or unfamiliar, but he’s even turning his nose up at our old fall backs like sweet potatoes and grilled cheese sandwiches. Other than Goldfish and Animal Crackers there is no way to predict what he will be willing to eat from one day to the next. I used to be able to hide meats and vegetables in casseroles and quiches, but now he won’t touch them. I’ve tried reducing the amount of snack foods he consumes in between meals, but the result is that he still won’t eat his food but his whining is a great deal more desperate and annoying because he actually is hungry. He has become so picky that I’m even having a hard time getting him to drink. He would rather become dehydrated than drink a plain glass of water, and he’s been drinking so little milk that the doctor finally told me to buy calcium and vitamin D fortified juice and let him have chocolate milk just so that his nutritional needs will be met. But I hate the idea of giving him that much sugar each day, and I don’t want to just give up on teaching him to eat a somewhat healthy and well balance diet. So what the heck do I do now? I feel like it sends a bad message for me to make him a separate dish each time I cook, but I am literally sickened by the amount of food that we have been throwing away lately. It also doesn’t really help that I am still not completely over the pregnancy nausea and spending this much time focusing on food is a bit more than I can handle. So seriously, trusted friends and sagely mothers, does anyone have any suggestions for getting my kid to eat without having to spend 80% of my day in the kitchen?
Our Week Off
Sunday, November 25th, 2007I think both Chris and I had some doubts about this past week. He was going to be home for a full nine days, which always sounds wonderful in theory but has occasionally backfired in practice. Its not that we don’t enjoy having down time together, its just that sometimes we have differing opinions on what that really means. I see time at home as an opportunity to do the things that we don’t have time for during the work week. Chris sees it as an opportunity for unadulterated relaxation. By Monday morning I had already made my list of everything I wanted to accomplish before Thanksgiving hit and our out of town guests arrived. My list included but was not limited to, getting the tags renewed on the Pilot, taking the dog to the vet, installing new knobs on the doors, and dusting every ceiling fan in the house. Chris also had a to do list (although he kept his in his head) and it included tasks such as playing four straight hours of video games, sleeping in, updating software on his laptop, and eating breakfast out as often as possible. Now in the past the discrepancies in our objectives might have severely tripped us up. Chris would have begrudgingly performed only one or two of the more high priority items on my list and I would have grumbled and made snarky comments each time he so much as glanced at a computer screen. But I am pleased to say that after three and a half years of marriage, it looks as though we might finally be learning to compromise. We hit at least 15 of the 30 tasks on my to do list, but we also made time to relax and just have fun. And more importantly, we did it without any fighting and very minimal tension. Now that Sunday night is finally here and Chris is preparing to return to work tomorrow, I am realizing that what we have just had is pretty darn close to a perfect week. In-fact, I’ve had so much fun and felt such a sense of team work and accomplishment this past week that I’m already getting really bummed to think that he won’t be here with us all day again tomorrow. Although the daily routine didn’t change that much for Corbin and I, having Chris here made every day a bit more special. Some of the highlights of our week include going on a date to see Fred Clause and eating an unhealthy amount of candy and popcorn, eating at our favorite Japanese restaurant and watching Corbin try to use chopsticks, hanging out with our wonderful families on Thanksgiving, going out for a very special double date with our friends Luke and Alissa to the Melting Pot and to see Anuna at TPAC, decorating the Christmas tree last night after Corbin went to bed and then seeing his excitement when he saw it all lit up for the first time this morning, and getting a Dyson vacuum cleaner as an early Christmas gift and marveling at the astounding amount of dirt that was collected in the canister after running it through each and every room of the house (twice). I am so thankful for such a wonderful week with my boys and I am already getting excited about the 11 straight days that we will have together over Christmas!
Pregnancy Picture
Sunday, November 18th, 2007
OK so in my last pregnancy I was so sick for the first five months that we never even thought to take pictures as my belly grew. (plus we didn’t own a camera until about two weeks before Corbin’s due date) But since we are 99.9% confident that this will be our last biological child, we are trying to get a bit more photographic evidence of the whole pregnancy process. This is me before church this morning. I am 16 weeks along right now and showing just a bit more than I was at six months last time. Its strange how eager your abdominal muscles are to just give up when its their second time to make room for a growing baby. Anyway, as of right now my sick times vs. my healthy ones are about 50/50. Its a blessing to be able to go out and do things once again, but the unpredictability can pose a bit of a problem from time to time. For example, this morning I got up, had a shower, ate pancakes with my boys and headed off to church. Unfortunately, part way through the service my protein depleted body began to rebel. I got so dizzy and nauseated that I had to leave part way through the offering and head for the nearest McDonald’s to get some bacon and cheese on my stomach. I know that sounds totally disgusting (and maybe even a little sacrilegious) but when I need to eat I really can’t think about nutrition…just filling the void and making the spinning stop. So all of that is sufficient to say that we’re hanging in there, but life still isn’t quite back to normal. Chris has this entire week off though (which means so does my mother) and we are just going to make the best out of the good moments for now and hope that we are done with all this pesky sickness business by Christmas!
A Quote as Promised
Thursday, November 15th, 2007I am reading the devotional “My Utmost for His Highest” by Oswald Champers for the first time. My mother has gone through this devotional more times than she can count and quotes excerpts to me so often that I finally decided it was time to read it for myself. I have never been big on daily devotionals. Not because I find them irrelevant or unmoving, but because committing to read something every day seems to shine a giant spot light on how inconsistent my quiet times with the Lord can be. So this time I am trying to allow myself a new kind of freedom. If I skipped a day because I was sick or tired, or feeling well and was out of the house all day, then I am committed to not religiously chastise myself or force myself to do some kind of extended reading penance for the days that I missed. I feel like God is leading me to take baby steps away from the personal legalism that I have unknowingly perpetuating for so long. And I think because I am learning to see this particular devotional as a blessing rather than a ritual, and because it is just so very timeless and true to the gospel, I very often find myself moved, convicted and encouraged by Chambers’ words. Last week I read a particular excerpt that I just keep going back to. Chambers says:
When we preach the historic facts of the life and death of our Lord as they are conveyed in the New Testament, our words are made sacramental, God uses them on the ground of His Redemption to create in those who listen that which is not created otherwise. If we preach the effects of Redeption in human life instead of the revelation regarding Jesus, the result in those who listen is not new birth, but refined spiritual culture, and the Spirit of God cannot witness to it because such preaching is in another domain. we have to see that we are in such living sympathy with God that as we proclaim His truth He can create in souls that which He alone can do.
What a wonderful personality! What a fascinating man! Such marvelous insight! What chance has the Gospel of God through all that? It cannot get through, because the line of attraction is always the line of appeal. If a man attracts by his personality, his appeal is along that line; if he is identified with his Lord’s personality, then the appeal is along the line of what Jesus Christ can do. The danger is to glory in men; Jesus says we are to lift Him up.
What God convicted my heart of as I read this excerpt, is that it speaks not only to the church and church leaders in our current Christian culture, but also to the individual modern day believer. Me. We live in an age where so much emphasis is placed on self. Our accomplishments, our rights our experiences. But that is not what the gospel is about. The gospel stands on its own, and it doesn’t require a fresh spin, or a new program in order to penetrate the hearts of the lost. This means that when we speak about our Savior, we need to step back and allow Him to step forward, because Jesus Christ does not need us to give Him relevance training in order to reach our generation.
Dreams and Therapy
Tuesday, November 13th, 2007Last night I had one of those bizarre dreams that seem to plague my pregnancies. I dreamt that I was at a secret society meeting composed entirely of random members of my high school graduating class. Most of the male members were sitting at long banquet tables that had been arranged to form a large square, but several other female individuals and myself were seated off to the side at the kid’s table. The entire event had the feel of that Simpsons episode where Homer joins the Stonecutters. I even remember hearing the anthem lyrics about keeping the metric system down playing over and over in the background, but instead of the robes and silly hats we were all wearing green and white striped polo shirts. This would have been compliant with the dress code at the Presbyterian school we attended. After we had eaten and one of our musically inclined classmates had regaled us with his jiggy, fast tempo version of Amazing Grace, an injection pen containing acupuncture needles was passed around the table and each society member injected a single needle into the right shoulder blade of the person to their left. When the pen reached me I suddenly realized that I had no idea how or why I was expected to inject my fellow society member. I consulted a male class mate of mine with whom I had been close friends during middle school, but just as he was about to explain the process to me, ‘Brother Wilson’ our guitar playing Bible teacher strolled up behind me and placed his hand on my shoulder. He sternly pointed out that there were at least three empty beer bottles lying on the floor directly behind me and suggested that perhaps if I was not so drunk I would remember the order of ceremonies. I tried to explain to him that I was pregnant and could not have been drinking, but then he chastised me for not doing my summer reading, at which point I woke up.
Now I’m not really one for dream interpretation, particularly since my dreams of late have been incredibly absurd. But I do think I know where my psyche compiled at least some of the material for this particular vision. Before I went to bed last night I saw a commercial for the DVD release of the film, Amazing Grace. I recently signed up for Facebook which has gotten me back in touch with many high school classmates with whom I had previously had no contact, and the Stonecutters song lyrics about the metric system obviously must have something to do with the fact that I’m Canadian. Also, I mentioned recently that I went to see a counselor to discuss my emotional battle with hyperemesis. What I did not mention was what her suggested line of treatment was for me. She told me that she had a friend who specialized in acupuncture and had found tremendous success in treating nausea, pain and anxiety in his patients. Of course it wasn’t until later in the meeting that she thought it prudent to disclose the fact that all of her friend’s patients had actually been horses; but, she assured me, this fact had no bearing on the success rate of his particular brand of treatment. This of course raised a question in my mind concerning how exactly one would determine such a success, seeing as how one can hardly ask a horse where he would rate his post treatment nausea and anxiety on a scale of one to ten. But rather than venture any farther down this particular avenue of absurd and holistic veterinary medicine, I decided to simply cancel my next appointment and personally resolve never to throw a glass of water on my husband again.
So there you have it. I haven’t written in weeks and what do I give you when I finally do? A random, irrelevant and rather disconcerting foray into my own personal psyche. But what can I say? The counseling obviously didn’t pan out so I’m betting that the next best thing is to expose the troubled inner working of my subconscious to the blogging universe at large. Don’t worry, I promise I’ll either post pictures or quotes from other poeple next time.
Catching Up
Tuesday, November 6th, 2007As my health is slowly but steadily improving I feel like I am having to learn how to be myself again, and for some reason the learning curve seems impossibly steep. I find myself in a constant state of exhaustion and am prone to fairly significant lapses in memory. Its embarrassing to admit but I had forgotten how much goes into being a stay at home mom and running a household. I keep leaving the laundry in the washer for days at a time and then having to rewash it because it smells like mildew by the time I remember. Doctor’s appointments are being missed, keys are being misplaced and bills are going unpaid. Corbin’s meals are now anything but nutritious and I’ve gone an entire day without even remembering that we have a dog let alone that he might have a need of some sort. What is particularly frightening is that all of these things used to be so second nature to me that not only could I handle it all, but I had actually come to a point where I felt a need for more responsibility. At the time when we decided that we were ready and equipped to welcome another baby into our family, I was picking up part time work wherever I could and even entertained the idea of taking up a hobby of some sort. Hah! I know that its just going to take time because trying to step back into a role that had become so second nature is unnerving. I find myself looking back at the person I was before all of this started and wondering what the heck I was thinking. I’m way too scattered to take care of myself, let alone two children! But perhaps this is a natural reaction to the realization that your family dynamics are once again going to change. Its entirely possible that I would be feeling this way regardless of whether or not I had been sick and that having another child inevitably means once again re-prioritizing the responsibilities that we bear. Maybe my house will never again be as clean as it was when it was just the three of us. Maybe I, like my mother will become increasingly forgetful of the little day to day things that had previously consumed me as I become more and more consumed with the greater task of loving and nurturing my children. I hope so.