The Bump Chronicles- week 31

Somebody asked me if it takes me a long time to write each Bump Chronicle since they tend to be so in depth and usually long. I have no idea how long it takes me because I never write it one sitting. Do you really expect me to remember to talk about 10 different things at once?

Each entry is gradually written over the span of 1 week, as I feel the need to point out/comment/ rant about something I’ll write about it and save it as a non-published post until my next day off from work in which I usually publish the full entry.  I don’t have the attention span to spend 4 hours compiling an entry at once.

When I first moved to Port St Lucie I used to be amazed at how nice and courteous everybody is.  Coming from the dog eat dog environment of Miami, I wasn’t familiar with things such as customer service and somebody giving you the right of way just because.  Lately though I notice a more selfish environment out there, don’t know if it was always there and I just didn’t notice or if more people have moved up here from Miami after I did but I seem to notice it now that the bump is obvious.

People at stores will slam doors in my face, I don’t expect them to hold it and wait for me but if they obviously saw me approaching you can just let go of the door and let it work on closing itself.  Cars will accelerate when approaching the crosswalk that I am already in the middle of crossing as if they want to run me over.  People will light up their cigarettes right next to me when there’s plenty of open space where they can keep their cancer stick smoke away from my baby.  Old Navy customers don’t acknowledge the right of a bump to wear a bikini, I was repeatedly blocked or pushed while trying to look at the racks during their swimsuit sale, and no the store was not the least bit crowded.

I’m not trying to cry bump discrimination or anything but this is when I started to notice that pattern, very weird.

Last weekend we took our childbirth preparation class, it was a sort of labor bootcamp.  I did learn some things while in there but I am glad that I had done a lot of previous reading and research before hand as things were so rushed most things were just skimmed over and some (like birth plans) didn’t get covered at all.

Thankfully I’m pretty well informed about what a birth plan is and what mine will have, I just need to write it down.  And no I’m not going to be married to the birth plan and disappointed if labor and birth don’t go according to my preconceived notion.  To me a birth plan is like a wishlist, a sort of “if the universe allows, this is how I would like my birth experience to be”.

Something that I did learn from the class even though it was not part of the curriculum per se, is that I have an emotional wound that is not fully healed yet and I am glad that I got this recognition now and not on baby’s birthday.

One of the exercises we did was to submerge our hands in a bowl full of ice and water for 90 seconds to relate to the pain of a contraction.  As I did that, I started to freak out, not because of the physical pain, it freaking hurt but I was managing that just fine with my breathing but because the pain triggered a flashback memory of my emergency room visit for a miscarriage last year.  The emotional pain made the 90 seconds seem like an eternity and it was nearly impossible to hold back from crying in this room full of people.

Knowing this now lets me know that I definitely need to schedule that EFT session soon and this is the first blockage to tackle before I go into labor.  This is now on my to do list as soon as I have the spare money for it.  As I had mentioned on an earlier bump post, EFT helped me tremendously to  get through the first trimester anxiety and fears, I am blessed to have discovered a practitioner that specializes in EFT for pregnancy and birth and I plan to use her again.

Lately I’ve been losing my appetite quite a bit, part of it is the hot weather but it seems that part of it is the occasional blues, I noticed that lately when I get hormonal I don’t get bitchy, I just get sad and when I do, I can’t eat.  I’ve stopped watching most videos online because I never know when something usually funny will make me cry instead and that is not a good excuse to not eat.  Even commercials on TV can trigger waterworks.

I  need to resume my food diary to keep better track of my intake, I’ve been having good nutritional days and bad nutritional days.  Yesterday was a bad one with breakfast being the only real meal and everything else being small snacks as I had no appetite.  My hunger returned at 3am and would not let me sleep so I’m trying to make up for it today, so far I am doing way better in the intake department.

Speaking of foods, hubby introduced me to my new favorite healthy snack “buddy fruit”, it’s quick, convenient, easy, no high fructose corn syrup or other stuff that grosses me out.  Since we only go to the grocery store twice a month we do not have the luxury of having fresh fruit on hand everyday, this is something that I’ll probably stock up on as b-day approaches.

A pregnant friend on Facebook was showing me pictures of the diaper cakes that she hopes she gets at her baby shower, good for her.  On my part, although I don’t expect gifts from anyone, I know that some people will feel inclined to get something for baby Fox so I must clarify to avoid any oops situations.  We are not using disposable diapers so PLEASE do not get us a diaper cake. The thought will be appreciated but the gift would end up being donated to charity or a mom in need.  If I do end up using a disposable diaper at some point you can bet that it won’t be any of the brands that diaper cakes use.

They do sell cloth diaper cakes but they are more expensive since the diapers are not thrown away after a couple of hours of use and nobody needs to go through that expense, if you really want to help with diapers, get us a gift certificate to CottonBabies.com or GreenMountainDiapers.com, or Etsy.com the last 2 sites is where I’ve blown most of my paycheck so far.

Yes, I admit that I have developed an obsession with cute cloth diapers.  Etsy is dangerous for this!

So far we have a decent stash to start with, we have:

• 1 dozen cotton prefolds- newborn size
• 1 dozen unbleached cotton prefolds- infant size
• 6 diaper covers- (5 small, 1 one size)
• 2 fitted diapers- infant size
• 15 Bumgenius one size pocket diapers
• 1 Fuzzibuns pocket diapers size small

So we can easily get started with this, it would be good to have another dozen or 2 of prefolds to not have to wash everyday, specially during the newborn stage when baby will go through about 12 diapers per day so I hope to order more before Baby Fox’s arrival.

Below is a sample of the designs that we have so far to illustrate how easy it is to go overboard with the thousands of cute designs available out there.

Those that know me know that I love anything and everything with dragonflies so it’s no surprise that I become obsessed with dragonfly baby stuff.  I HAD to get the dragonfly diaper cover in the picture above, it matches the diaper pail liner and wet bag, all that I am missing is the darned portable changing pad to have the complete set.

Everywhere that I look it’s out of stock, even from the manufacturer.  Green Mountain Diapers seem to think that they will get some again but not for at least 2 months.  So if in your travels you come accross a Mommy’s Touch Diaper Changing Pad in the Flights of Fancy design please let me know ASAP as you’ll make this mama very happy.

I was amused to discover that Huggies has released a jean disposable diaper product

Does it look cute? yes, would I buy it? no.  I can always get a WAHM in Etsy to make me jean cloth diapers if I really wanted.  When I see this I wonder if disposable diaper companies are trying to capitalize on the cute potential that cloth diapers used to be the only one able to offer…

On other news, I am able to hold bowls and glasses on the belly, amusing and convenient but potentially messy when baby decides to kick it off.

Here is a crappy shot of the week 30 belly, it’s what we get when taking a quick picture early in the morning when leaving for work but it will had to do until next time.

In the past week it seemed like my belly dropped overnight, the usual kicks are now felt a couple of inches lower and there is the extra bladder pressure making for more frequent trips to the bathroom.  I tend to be fine while sitting, but if I lie down, stand or walk I feel like I have to go at all times, add to that the fact that baby refuses to allow me to sleep past 8am on my days off and I end up already missing sleep.

You know that you’re really tired when everybody you work with starts commenting on how tired you look and how much slower you’re walking. Yes, ever since the seeming “belly drop” I find that although I have more lung capacity, there has been a shift in weight that slows down my walking and I just end up dragging feet. But I keep on moving… at least at work, at home I don’t want to move unless I must!

So the latest at work is people trying to predict the gender by how my belly looks. There is no consensus, some are convinced that I’m having a girl because I’m carrying high, others say that I’m having a boy because I’m carrying narrow.  If there was any accuracy to this people would not pay for ultrasounds to find out the gender so I mostly ignore the predictions.

On an online birth community that I visit there is a very active thread where pregnant women confess the bad things that they are doing/ have done in pregnancy.  I am no pregnant saint but I must admit that I’m doing pretty darn good compared to the mothers that have never taken a prenatal vitamin, drink coffee and soda daily and haven’t quit smoking.  Prenatal vitamins is something that I’m actually very religious about.

These are the confessions that I was able to come up with:

1. I confess that I am dreading hearing everyone say, “sleep while you can, because you’ll never sleep again.” I want baby to be well fed, clean diaper, and loved…but I am NOT looking forward to running on 2-3 hours of sleep at a time.
2. I have no motivation to keep up with a prenatal yoga or a kegel routine
3. As much as I try, I don’t always drink as much water as I should, specially on hot days
4. I confess that I’ve been slacking on the nutrition department, particularly on the veggies and fruit every day aspect, some days I also don’t meet  the number of calories that I should be consuming
5. I’ve eaten more desserts and sweet foods in the past 5 months than in the past 5 years combined. Thank goodness I passed the gestational diabetes test.

So my biggest sin is nutrition and that is something that I am aware of and working on fixing. It hasn’t been a problem all pregnancy long either, I actually did very well during the first trimester and most of the second so I know that I can do it again.

Puerto Rican Breastfeeding PSA-  Giving breast is giving life

But I’m GLAD that I’m not pregnant in Puerto Rico, with a 48% C-section rate and 20% pre-term birth rate (highest in the US and apparently highest in the world) I feel like the scary odds in Florida are way easier to deal with. I am a C-section baby and there are several preemies in my family but until I saw this article I didn’t know the epidemic rate of these.