Breastfeeding Woes

I have been so frustrated these past two days as Sofia has not been latching on to breastfeed. I put her up to the boob, then she shakes her head and screams at the top of her lungs. When she does put the nipple in her mouth, she sits there lazily moving her mouth but not really sucking or she falls asleep. Also she's been sleeping waaaaay more than what seems normal. She'll sleep five to seven hour stretches. No joke. I am worried about her.

Tonight after my millionth attempt to breastfeed her, Robert and I were so frustrated that she wasn't eating. Finally we decided to pump some of my overabundant milk supply and try to feed it to her with a bottle. That did the trick. I felt this immense guilt at giving in to a bottle, but at least my baby ate. And she was famished. I feel like a horrible mother. I feel like I was starving her. I used Avent bottles. Thank God for all the shower gifts! Hopefully she's not ruined for breastfeeding. I really want to be able to breastfeed.

Oh, the trials and tribulations of a wannabe breastfeeder. Why is it so hard?

Man, I hope Kelly and the family is okay after Katrina. I can't imagine having to deal with evacuating with a new baby and all the pets. Scary.

Mi'ja

Sofia Elisa arrived August 24th, at 7:06 pm Wednesday evening after about 16 hours of labor! She is absolutely beautiful, with a full head of hair! She weighed 7 lbs, 11.4 oz. Robert and I were in the hospital until Friday around noon when they discharged me. I had a good labor, no complications. Just painful. More details on the whole hospital experience later. My Sofia is healthy and I couldn't ask for more.

My mom, my sister, and my brother-in-law are visiting for the weekend (my mom is staying for the week too) and have helped out with dishes and such while Robert and I adjust to this new beautful little daughter. Our cats have been put out of the bedroom for an undetermined amount of time and my Buxy seems to have taken this very personally. He scratches and cries at the bedroom door all night. I'm just not comfortable having a 17 lb cat around my almost 8 pound baby. Also with guests in the house, we're keeping our bedroom door closed and if we let the cats in the room they wouldn't have access to their litter boxes. Whiskers has been sleeping with my mom in the living room, and Trouble has just been hanging out like she always does.

Sofia spends most of her time sleeping, eating and dirtying diapers. Robert and I catch sleep when we can. Unfortunately she seems confused about night and day and sleeps more soundly during the day. She likes to spend her nights crying and refusing to go to sleep. I've already been in tears with the breastfeeding. In addition to the sore, cracked nipples that were originally my cause for tears I'm now afraid that we've given her a case of nipple confusion by using the pacifier. After reading more about it, I'm hoping we can correct this. My milk came in yesterday and is quite painful. She is acting frustrated when I put her to the boob and only eats 12 - 15 min total off both breasts. This is usually after trying for an hour. She gets to the boob, latches on, then shakes her head and screams at the top of her lungs.

Robert has been an amazing husband and dad through everything. He was amazing during the labor and by my side every minute. He has been incredible with the baby and I can't believe how lucky I am to have such a wonderful husband. Sofia is the luckiest little girl in the world to have him as a dad.


More details to come later. Right now I'm going to try to catch some sleep while she's asleep. My sister is bringing me breakfast from IHOP.

Is this it?

Been having contractions since about 3:30 am this morning, and they haven't stopped. They're kind of irregular, so I'm not sure what to make of that. I know they're painful. That's for damn sure. I have a doctor's appointment at 9:45 am today, so we'll see what the doc says. I did notice more mucous this morning. Bloody stuff. Gross. Robert's all ready with everything in the car. Man, am I scared...

'Bye 'bye Plug

I lost my mucous plug today. Well, at least part of it. There I was at work going to the bathroom to pee every ten minutes or so. One of those trips yielded a surprise while I was wiping. I was like, "ewww, what's that?". And it was all mucousy, and I knew: That was my mucous plug. No, it wasn't bloody or anything. It was just clear. I called Robert right away to deliver my news and he was very excited. I guess labor's closer when the plug is pink or brown or something. Anyway, I was very excited about this new development. I also had some severe lower back pain today. That wasn't very exciting, but there it was.

Last night Robert took it upon himself to pack my hospital bag. I was really tired when he came home last night and ready to go to bed so I did. He, on the other hand, stayed up hours gathering all my stuff for the hospital and packing it in a small suitcase along with some stuff of his. I was very impressed because I checked it this morning, and he did a really good job! He even packed our new diaper bag with stuff for the baby. I was very moved. He packed diapers and diaper stuff, a variety of outfits from which to choose for her journey home, and some other goodies. I love him so much.

I still want to get some music together so we'll have something nice to listen to at the hospital. Not sure if I'll burn a CD or just take several. We also have yet to master the workings of our car seat. A very giant detail.

Happy Anniversary to Me

Today is my sixth wedding anniversary. And my husband is at work. That kind of sucks. Although if he were home I think we would probably spend the day watching TV and Six Feet Under season two DVDs. We didn't have any plans. Oh sure, we'll probably go out somewhere nice to eat this week to celebrate, but we've never been really big on celebrations. Still, I always feel happy knowing we've reached another milestone. I still love him more than ever. He really is a great husband.

Yesterday my mother-in-law came to visit. Robert cleaned a good amount on Friday, so the house didn't look too bad. I'm really happy she came. She helped us whip the baby's room into something pretty and organized. Where before it was just a big storage closet full of gift bags. I didn't realize just how much stuff we have for our baby until we started opening stuff and washing it and organizing it. Our little Sofia, who's not even here yet, has more clothes than her mommy and daddy combined! We finally put the pack n play up in our room too. We even did some shopping this weekend and bought a diaper bag and the baby bathtub we didn't have yet. We hardly spent any money either because we had all these great gift cards! It feels good to have everything ready finally. Oh sure, there's always stuff that needs to get done, but for the first time I feel like the house is almost worthy of her. Robert helped out a lot organizing all her stuff this weekend. He's very sweet. I know his mom was very proud. Baby even got a couple of new gifts from her grandma's friends, which is really cool because we don't even know her friends.

My mother-in-law left early this morning, so we had a really short visit. But it was nice. She got to see where we live now and see the baby room and help out. I know it made her happy. And it made me happy too.

Looking at all the new babies online is amazing. I hope my little one comes soon. I'm really anxious for her arrival. I know it won't feel real until she's actually in my arms.

Please Advise

Oh, how the hell do I keep spammish comments off this blog? Does anyone know? Anyone?

Gestational Diabetes?

I thought I'd give a little recap of my yesterday...See, yesterday I had to go to that diabetes education class that my doc sent me to because I had a high blood sugar reading at my last appointment. Well, once again, I was having a shitty day at work. I was running around frazzled trying to pull a presentation together that I ended up not even having to do, and I had to leave early just to go to this stupid class that is only offered once a week on Thursdays from 2 - 4 pm! I ended up being late of course, because I had yank myself away from work and drive across town to get to the hospital to take the class. Then I couldn't find off-street parking so I had to park in the garage and pay a whopping eight bucks for two and half hours. Thieves.

So I walk down into the dungeon of the hospital where the "learning resource center" is located and into a class of a bunch of pregnant women. The instructor starts teaching the class. Apparently this is a class of full-blown gestational diabetic women. I am sitting there confused because my doctor said that this class was about eating right and he didn't want the baby to gain a lot of extra weight the last few weeks of pregnancy and blah blah blah. He never told me that I had gestational diabetes. Furthermore, I didn't fail the test when I took it way back when. So I'm sitting there feeling a kid who gets drunk once and is forced to go to AA. And perhaps a one time reading of high blood sugar is cause for alarm, but my stupid doctor didn't convey this to me properly. He didn't tell me that the class I was going to was to learn how to strictly monitor my diet and TEST MY BLOOD SUGAR. What the fuck. So I'm kind of confused and pissed off. And the video they make us watch is really fucking stupid. It had this woman who spoke with a Spanish accent (I took a bit of offense to this because all the literature we were given stated that Hispanic women were more prone to gestational diabetes, which may be true, but the videos shown in class don't have to portray them as idiots) and was talking with her doctor and asking really stupid questions in that really overdone accent. Questions like, "can my husbahn catch eet from me?" and the like. I was already irritated and quickly became disgusted. Anyway, I sat through the whole thing. We had the hospital dieticians come in and talk to us about the strict diets we had to maintain and carbohydrate exchanges, etc. Then, at the end, the instructor gives us all glucose monitors and shows us how to use them. My interest was piqued for the first time, because I love little gadgets and stuff. These little gadgets came in a box with blood test strips, tiny little lancets for drawing blood, and the little contraption that's used with the lancets. They were kind of cool. I'm sure my insurance will be charged up the ass for this thing, but at least I have a new toy.
I tested my blood sugar and it was a whopping 75. Anyway, so I sat through the whole class and was still frustrated and pissed off when I left.

So I called my husband, because not only was I frustrated and pissed off, but I was hungry! I had eaten a tiny lunch earlier and was starving. Robert said he'd meet me somewhere to eat and for me to pick a place. I suggested we go to this awesome little bar called P.J.'s. P.J.'s is a tiny little dive of a bar and every Thursday, P.J. grills steaks. The bar offers a special. Get this: two steaks, two baked potatoes, two salads, and a pitcher of beer for only $23. That's right. And the steaks are grilled to perfection. P.J. knows how to grill it up right!

That's right, folks, I just got out of my gestational diabetes where we were warned about the dangers of carbohydrates and big meals and I want steak. Robert's all about the steak so he meets me there and we pig out. No, I didn't have any beer. Robert got the whole pitcher to himself (I can't wait to have a drink!). I was pretty sad when I called him, so he anxiously just wanted to comfort me. That and I think he (rightly) felt bad for ditching me on Wednesday when this whole little high blood sugar thing started. He had all these questions and all I could tell him was, "well, maybe if you had gone to the doctor you could have asked that."

So after all that was over, we headed home. I tested my blood sugar just to see what it was after a huge steak dinner. It was a whopping 102 two hours after my dinner, which is NORMAL. Then I ate ice cream before bed. I tested it this morning when I got up and it was 88, which is NORMAL.

Today I actually tried to eat low-carb type stuff, but didn't quite succeed. I tested my blood sugar again after lunch and it was normal again. I had a bowl of Quaker Oat Squares the morning I went to the doctor and was tested about an hour to an hour and half later, and I'm convinced that this is why there was sugar in my urine and why my blood sugar tested high. That cereal has 44 g of carbs per serving! More than regular sugary cereals like Frosted Flakes and stuff. Who would have thought? I don't know. Maybe I'm just bitter that I had to go to that class (well, I know I am), but I don't think my blood sugar is a problem. Maybe I'm just in denial. I'll keep testing it here and there, but I'm feeling a lot more calm now that I see it coming back normal everytime I test.

On an unrelated subject...My mother-in-law is coming to visit tomorrow (driving in from San Antonio) She wants to help with cleaning the house and setting up the baby's room. This will be a blessing, but I hope she doesn't make any remarks about my dirty house. I really don't think I can deal with those.

Congrats to Kelly and The Husband!

Kelly had her beautiful baby girl yesterday! Wow! She was a big baby. Anyone who comes across this blog, go congratulate her! Unfortunately, I don't think anyone reads this but Kelly. Adelaide is beautiful, and I'm glad everything turned out okay. Best wishes to the family!!!

Crappy day

I went to the doctor this morning for my weekly appointment. Husband and I were all set to go in separate cars again like we usually do. He said he had to stop for gas, so that I should go on ahead. I agreed since we were already running late. About ten minutes into the drive he calls me to tell me that he's on the road. But then he says, "would you mind if I skipped this appointment? I have a lot of stuff to do at work." I was a little annoyed, but I figured the doctor would just be checking me, telling me I wasn't dilated, and sending me on my way so I told him it was fine.

Well, the doctor did tell me that I was dilated, but he also told me that I had sugar in my urine. What the hell? Sugar in my urine? Then he has the nurse do a finger prick test to check my blood sugar. This reads a 172, which he says is very high. He asks what I had for breakfast. I had Quaker Oat Squares. Not too sweet. Just a little. Not like Frosted Flakes or anything. I didn't even have juice like I usually do. I had a Dr. Pepper last night. Maybe that was it. He didn't seem to think so. I didn't 'fess up to having Popeye's fried chicken and lots of french fries for dinner because he didn't ask. He seemed a little concerned and said he wanted me to go to the diabetic education (?) class that's offered at the hospital once a week. Whatever. I said I'd go. Turns out they only offer it on Thursday afternoons from 2 to 4 pm. Whose brilliant idea was that? So I'm going tomorrow.

I was a little upset on the drive to work because that's the first time anything has actually been "wrong" at one of my visits to the doc during the pregnancy. And then my husband decided to ditch me on this particular day. So I called him as soon as I got out of the doctor's office to give him an update and get some sympathy. I was feeling a little sad about it. He's at work already and won't answer his phone (I figured he was on his work phone because the voice mail kept picking up right away). And he wouldn't answer his cell phone. So FINALLY he answers his phone all flustered about all this work he has to worry about. I tell him about my blood sugar and he doesn't say much. I ask him to look up a little info (since, you know, he's in front of a computer) on this high blood sugar thing and tell me what he finds. He's annoyed because he's just received some assignment and doesn't have time to do anything (apparently) but that, so I get annoyed and tell him that I'll talk to him later.

I continued to get sadder as I drove to work. He finally calls me back when I'm already sitting at my desk at work. And THEN he starts being sympathetic and asking all these questions. At that point I didn't want to start talking about it because I didn't want to start crying at my desk (yes, I was emotional, but I don't care). Anyway, the day didn't get any better. It just really sucked. I did have dinner with an old friend, which was nice. But my day in general was one I could have done without. Now I'm terrified to eat anything with sugar.
I hate days like this.

Highlights of my day:
The doctor said he could feel my baby's head.
I had Thai food for dinner.

Finally

Yes! I finally did some of the baby's laundry! Not all of it, of course. Just a couple of loads. I kept having this recurring thought that I would be at home in my dirty house with nothing done and my water would break. I would then be compelled to do a few quick loads of laundry so that we would have something clean to bring the baby home in. Thank goodness that won't happen now that I've done some of her laundry. Robert also set up our cheap little desk so we no longer have the ghetto set-up for our computer. Things are looking up. Now all we have to do is assemble the pack 'n' play and figure out how to work the car seat...oh and buy a diaper bag and sheets for the pack 'n' play...

I wonder if Kelly had her baby. She didn't post today...

Last night and today

Last night I actually took it upon myself to comb the bedroom floor (and other floors) and do all the laundry laying around. This ended up probably being clean clothes mixed with dirty ones, but I washed it all. I did lots of loads last night. And now my back hurts from carrying the damn laundry basket from the washer/dryer to the living room. When I was finished? Most of the clothes were husband's. But he says that I'm wearing his t-shirts all the time so that I'm getting them dirty. This is partially true, but the amount of his t-shirts I washed was ridiculous. I washed about 35 of his t-shirts . This means he has well over 50 of them. Who owns that many? It just doesn't seem normal. Especially since they are not undershirt-type t-shirts, they are concert t-shirts and the like. He has a Democracy Now t-shirt. All kinds. And yet he's always insisting that he needs more.

I talked to my manager today, and he didn't seem too keen on the whole working from home idea. What a punk. Hopefully I can work on him so that he'll see the light.

Daycare woes and my first contraction!

Yes, I admit it. I've been too lazy to write. And tired. I swear this pregnancy makes me want to only eat and sleep. These last few weeks kind of remind me of those first couple of months where all I wanted to do was sleep. Of course, I'm a lot bigger now. And I didn't realize how miserable the heat was until yesterday. I mean, walking from the parking garage to my desk at work seemed like hell, but yesterday Robert and I ran some more errands (I skipped work) and being out in the sun was horrible! Again, we weren't out there for great stretches of time, but just walking to and from your car is enough. The whole feet swelling thing takes on a new meaning in this heat. My feet were disgusting yesterday and are only just recovering today. And then I made the mistake of walking through Foley's today and passing by the shoes. Everything seems to be on a sale, and I can't buy a single shoe.

Anyway, I had another doctor's appointment on Wednesday. I've lost track of how many I've had. But the doc says everything is still fine. My BP was fine, I gained one pound (will I lose any weight? I keep hoping I'll lose a pound or two in these last few weeks, but I guess at the rate I'm eating that's impossible), baby's heart rate was 150 bpm. I have not dilated at all. Doc said "sorry, baby's not coming today." I figured as much. I have another appointment this Wednesday.

Yesterday I'm pretty sure I had a contraction! It felt like this intense menstrual cramp, and it lasted a few minutes. It was a single one. Robert and I were at the car dealership waiting for our car (we took it in so they could diagnose the stupid 'check engine' light), and I felt it. I told Robert, and he got really excited and kind of freaked out a little bit. Now he won't stop saying, "you need to pack a bag for the hospital", which I already know. Again, just too lazy to do it. He, by the way, went to the System of a Down/Mars Volta concert tonight with a friend. I opted out of it because one, I don't really like System of a Down and two, the music would have been way too loud for baby.

I'm happy we took the car in because they gave us a new stereo. Well, our CD changer has been broken for months, and we just never bothered to get it fixed because we figured the car warranty wouldn't cover it, but apparently it did. They diagnosed the problem to be a messed-up spark plug wire, but Robert opted to fix it himself rather than getting charged up the ass for it. So he went and fixed it today, but the light (check engine) is still coming on. What the hell?

So I still haven't cleaned the house!!! What is wrong with me? We went to Ikea yesterday to buy this chest of drawers because we have no drawer space and I think that's why our clothes keep ending up in piles all over the floor. I was really upset that the Houston store didn't carry it! I mean, at 40 bucks, I was willing to buy two! We really need drawer space. But we didn't get it because they didn't have it and so we still have clothes all over the place. On the floor, overflowing the hallway in the laundry baskets, hanging on the ironing board, on the chair in the bedroom. It's a mess. We did buy a this cheap desk from Target yesterday though for $40, which I was very happy about. We currently have our computer monitor sitting on a file cabinet with our keyboard on a TV tray. Yes, it's this ghetto setup and I'm not very happy about it, but we didn't have a desk. At our old apartment we had a bunch of cinderblocks set up with a large cut piece of plywood, which looked pretty cool and worked well as a desk, but we didn't set it back up once we moved into the house. So I'm happy we got this new desk. Now all we have to do is set it up.

We looked at four more daycare centers yesterday. Some of them I really liked, but oh my God, they are so expensive. There was one which, also a Montessori school, was $210/week! I almost fell over. We looked at some others too that I really liked, but I may have to see about working one day a week from home or half day or something just to afford the part-time daycare price (the three days a week option). We'll see, we still haven't looked at any home based daycares. I had one all set up to go look at yesterday in the morning, but then the lady called me and said she had a family emergency come up and if we could do it another time because she was calling all the parents to come get their kids. This whole process is turning out to be pretty crazy. All together we've looked at 10 daycare centers. Am I overdoing it? I just want to feel comfortable where I'm leaving my baby. Can anyone offer any advice on this daycare thing?

Well, here I am alone at the house. Alone at the very dirty house. I would love to be inspired to clean, but Ray is on HBO tonight and I haven't seen it yet, so I doubt I'll be doing any cleaning or any baby laundry or any of my laundry tonight. I really need to get my act together. I don't think I could deal with having to bring my baby home to this mess, and yet I can't bring myself to do something about it. What is wrong with me? I feel so guilty.

Small victories

I almost forgot, I successfully painted my toenails last night, and I am extremely proud! It was difficult and quite a challenge, but I got it done. Husband offered, but I knew that would have been an even bigger disaster, so I stuck it out and got the job done.

37 WEEKS

I am 37 weeks today!!!! Yea me! This means my little Sofia - if born now - would not be considered premature. This is very exciting. Everyone at work keeps asking me when the due date is. I've already told everyone a million times, but no one seems to remember. I still haven't begun the nesting thing. I'm waiting for the urge to kick in. It's getting a bit ridiculous. We don't even have the pack n play set up yet. We haven't even bought sheets for it! Oh, I got another baby gift today at work from two ladies that I used to work with. It was a bunch of stuff off my Babies R Us registry. I never get tired of the gifts for baby. Anyway, it was very sweet.


I'm really sad that Peter Jennings passed away. He was my favorite anchor for the evening news. I always had a crush on him and would tell everyone that he was my boyfriend. The husband says he's quitting smoking now, which I'm really happy about. Hopefully he can do it. I really don't want him smoking once the baby's here.

The "check engine" lights are now on in both of our vehicles. What a pain. I really hate having to take cars into the shop. It's such a huge inconvenience. Especially because we work so far from each other. Hopefully when we get around to taking them in, it won't be too expensive. I keep thinking of all the expenses we'll have once the baby is here and it's making my head spin. Thank God I plan on breastfeeding. That'll save us a pretty penny. I just hope my nipples forgive me.

Thank Goodness

I'm so relieved and happy about
this!

Pancakes

This morning I wanted pancakes, so where did Robert take me for breakfast? Waffle House. I wanted pancakes, not waffles. They don't make pancakes at Waffle House, only waffles. He even asked for me after he saw that I was really annoyed. I am determined to get some pancakes in the near future. Anyway, I ended up ordering one of those huge breakfasts with sausage and hash browns and eggs and a waffle and I'm sure there was more, but I don't want to think about it. I ate so much and felt pretty sick afterwards. I haven't quite felt right all day. Not sick exactly, just kind of yucky. Probably all the grease. Gross.

Random

Just got home from work. I had to stop by the grocery store and get the cats some food because they were completely out and acting all pathetic. Anyway, I didn't really have a weekend because I worked up through Thursday, took Friday off, then worked Saturday and Sunday. And I begin the week again tomorrow. Work was pretty dead, since I don't work shuttle stuff. I work station stuff, but we're still working 24/7 until the shuttle lands. Our coworker who got the new job is now offically gone. His last day was Friday, so the rest of my group will have our work cut out for us until my manager hires someone. It'll get really bad when I have to leave for maternity leave, but oh well. I'm entitled to many weeks off with my new baby. I'm almost at the 37 week mark, which is very exciting for me. Now whether she will come soon after, I doubt it, but I don't know.

So we ended up checking out about six daycare centers on Friday. Three I didn't like at all. The other three were okay. I think we'll try to go check out some more next Friday. They range from $150/week to $195/week. I did come to the conclusion that I like the ones who deal with the same kids everyday best. I didn't like the ones that had different babies on any given day. We gotta figure out which one will work best for quality, price, location, etc. Jeez, I hate thinking about it. I want to be sure that the people I'm leaving my baby with will take good care of her.

There's something funny I saw a few days ago that I keep forgetting to mention...There is this raunchy-looking strip club off the highway between where I work and live. Some of the raunchy guys at work actually go there on their lunch breaks. Yuck! Pathetic. I pass by it everyday and it's called Heartbreakers. Anyway, there is a billboard right behind it that is for some church, but it says in big letters, "Jesus heals the broken-hearted". I thought it was pretty stupid and funny at the same time.

I missed Six Feet Under and Entourage tonight. I may just catch them tomorrow instead of trying to watch the repeats. I can't believe Nate is dead. That sucks. Oh well, it is the last season and all.

So I think the reason that this nesting syndrome hasn't kicked in is that I've just been too busy with work and stuff. Robert keeps telling me to hurry up and nest and I just keep telling him that I'm not a bird, and why doesn't he nest. That little punk. I secretly keep hoping it will kick in and put my ass in gear, because God knows I need it. Our house is a wreck, and I have a feeling that any postpartum depression will be a million times worse than normal if I have to see my house in its current state. Robert's mom was going to come visit us this weekend, which would have been both a blessing and curse. A blessing because she would have helped out with doing the baby's laundry and straightening up and the company would have been nice. A curse because we would have had to find a way to clean the house before she got here. She's not coming after all, so maybe this weekend we will actually get some cleaning done. I can only hope.

My little one has given me some pretty significant rib kicks today. I'm proud of the strength in that little one. They actually hurt!

Lookin' for daycare

Today Robert and I began the harrowing experience of finding a daycare center for our baby. I figured we should at least start it now rather than later, because I don't want to be checking out daycare centers with my brand new infant in tow. I may end up doing just that, but if I can at least start looking around before then I will. I'm taking tomorrow off since I have to work the weekend. Robert has Friday/Saturday weekends, so we'll both be off tomorrow to scope out some daycare centers. All the ones I called have open door policies, so we didn't have to set anything special up. Thank goodness. I heard a few baby screams in the background of one of the places and at another the lady that answered the phone sounded really wiped out. Even though she answered with, "everyday is a great day at X daycare, how can I help you?" I just didn't feel it in the delivery. When I told her my story and that I was expecting and would be needing infant care in roughly three months, she kind of stammered and said that they wouldn't be accepting infants anymore as though the thought of another infant was almost too much for her. Poor lady. I'm sure that's how I'll sound once my little one gets here.

I also searched all over the place for information on what to look for when choosing a daycare center. I didn't want to do this with nothing to go on. I mean, whoever we choose will be spending an enormous amount of time with my little, tiny baby. I can only hope that we choose a good place. I know it will tear me up inside to leave her at first too. Anyway, I found this website for childcare resources and referrals which points you to local centers in your area. You can print out checklists and stuff for what kinds of questions to ask, what to look for as you're looking around, etc. I found that website because I first found this Talk of the Nation clip on the web that also discussed child care. I listened to the whole thing at work like a big dork.

Oh, my mom ordered me a couple of nursing bras and they arrived yesterday. I was very happy to get them, as I have not bought a single one. And they fit too! Well there was a little bit of room for extra boobage, but I figure that it will get used up once my "milk comes in" or whatever. Robert got a big kick out of the holes for the nipples and kept asking me to leave them open when I tried them on. He just thought it was funny. He really is scared to have sex with me, I think, now that I'm a giant pregnant monster. He said he videotaped me snoring last night. I'm sure he did too.

I broke down today for the millionth time and got ice cream from the vending machine at work. No wonder I'm fat. My stretch marks seem to have multiplied. They're really kind of gross. I can't believe there was a time when I actually thought I might not get any. Ha!

Another visit to the doc

Went to the doc today. Everything is going well with the baby. The only thing I was a little disappointed about is the fact that I'm not dilated at all!!!! I'm 36 weeks and 1 day and I was hoping for something. Oh well, maybe next week. The swelling in my feet won't let up, so I've been wearing flip flops to work everyday. I've stopped caring. Oh, and I somehow managed to gain three pounds in one week. How is that possible? I guess it's all the cookies and chips I ate last week. And then I had buffalo wings tonight. Hammm, that can't be good.