Maternity Left

Suddenly I only have a week and a half left of maternity leave.

I know I'm very lucky that I got to take ANY maternity leave and get paid for some of it, given the experiences of so many. However, (1) my leave sucks when I compare it to Niall's sisters' over in Ireland and (2) I'm still sad that it's almost over. I've wanted this baby FOR FUCKING EVER and it just seems unfair that I have send him to full time daycare before I'm ready.

I know HE will be just fine. He's little enough that he won't remember, plus he's getting to an age where he probably could do with more stimulation and interesting things. The daycare we're sending him to is local and really nice. On his first day they had a little welcome sign up for him and I do love seeing his little cubby with his name on it and all the cute little things they have there. So far he has been to four days over the last 2 weeks. I go back to work on March 8, so we are easing in. That's all good and fine [weep].

Now that it's mostly slipped away from me, I did not realize how much of maternity leave I would spend physically recovering from Baby Clover's birth. As someone who had never given birth before, I sort of thought that as long as I could avoid the major surgery option of baby removal, the recovery wouldn't be so bad. Ha. Ha ha.
After 43 hours of labor, with two nights of painful contractions that went away by dawn tacked on before that, my body was wrecked by the time Baby Clover made his debut. And I didn't realize it.
It felt SO GOOD to have the baby out and to be sitting up on the bed, holding my wee babe while Niall fed me my breakfast tray that I didn't so much notice the steady increase in pain and exhaustion until WHAM it hit me two days later. My whole body hurt. My arms and legs and back and business district. And I hadn't slept for a week before Clover was born, so I was already starting out sleep deprived.

I just hadn't realized how hard that would all be, even though everybody warns you how sleep deprived and exhausted you will be. It also didn't help that certain family members of mine have repeatedly told me that I have an easy baby. Oh, great! So it's me, then. I'm just a failure because I feel like this is hard.

I think I finally felt mostly physically back to normal after about three months. Clover is four months old now and seems to have started in on a sleep regression (?), but can it really be a sleep regression when his sleep has NEVER BEEN THIS SHITTY BEFORE? He has started waking up about every hour or so and I just want to cry. It's suckey but fine for NOW, but when I'm expected to function at work I don't honestly know how I'm going to do it. It's a good thing my job doesn't involve life or death situations! Oh, wait.

I suspect that he also might be teething because he is drooling all over the place and gnawing on everything.
He has also discovered his toes, which is just about the cutest thing ever.

And he babbles and laughs and holds his head up. He loves his bath and he hates his car seat to the point where he arches his back and scootches down to avoid being buckled. He's a tiny little PERSON with opinions and having him is everything I ever dreamed it could be and more. Going back to work full time is going to suuuuuuck.

Baby gadgets

OHMYGOD OHMYGOD OHMYGOD EVERYTHING IS TERRIBLE.
Deep breaths. Wait, no. That's a lie. I'm taking shallow, panicked breaths over here.

Shall we think about something other than the rapid dismantling of human rights that is happening before our eyes?

Clover is 3 months old (and change). I am happy to report that I no longer have scary late night thoughts about dropping him or him getting hurt. I still go extra slowly and carefully when I'm carrying him down stairs, but that's just good sense.
Also, today I realized that maybe the reason that I'm shedding SO MUCH HAIR is that I didn't shed any for many months and it's all coming out now. That's a thing, right?

How about some baby related items! It seems like every time I'm around my parents or sisters they make some comment about how there are so many more gadgetty things these days than there used to be. It's hard not to take this as "you have it so easy with all of your THINGS," but I don't think they mean it that way (and that's a topic for another day).

Anyhow, a few things I like (that you definitely don't NEED, eyeroll) for a baby are:

The Puj tub. It's a little squishy, foldy uppy insert that goes into your bathroom sink. I love it. My actual bathtub is a shower/tub combo with a glass door so that means that the door and the runner thingies for the door are in the way. Plus, why would I kneel in front of the bathtub when I can stand at my sink? I dread the day my baby gets too big to bathe in the sink. But when that day does come, the Puj tub stores nice and flat!

The Binxy baby shopping cart hammock. This thing is adorable. It's a little hammock that goes in your shopping cart. It's really nice when I am buying more things than can fit in the stroller and it is RIDICULOUSLY cute. People stop and exclaim how cute my baby is, which I definitely don't mind. I mean, look:

Oh, hey also, how about that bear suit? It's adorable and soft and it fits over Clover's clothes and is easier than a blankie to keep him warm. It seems to be on clearance at Target right now. I bought one in every size.

night owl, bookworm

Let's see, it's about 2:30PM and I've just gotten up. I mean, I've sort of been up and down all morning-- feeding the baby, changing his diaper, pumping. But right now is when I can call myself FULLY up.
Baby Clover was up nursing several times in the night. He sleeps in a little buzzy chair that's attached to the pack n play right next to my side of the bed, for easy access purposes. He wakes up, I'll nurse him, and put him back in the chair. But last night was one of those nights where he was nursing so much that I would just doze while holding him, which meant that the sleep I DID get was not exactly the most restful.
So then Niall got up verrrry early to catch a verrry early plane for a business trip. And Clover and I stayed in bed, because he is currently still at an age where his favorite things are: nursing, kicking, his hands, and being held. At about 11:30 it was time for his morning nap (I *think* I can say this now- Baby Clover usually takes a morning nap for a couple hours at around 11:30ish. Now that I've said that it'll probably change, right?) so I swaddled him up in a nice cozy blankie, gave him his soother, and snuggled him up on Niall's side of the bed. We both fell asleep and woke up a couple hours later. It was heavenly. And now we're up up. Clover is on his play mat, cooing at his toys and sucking on his hand.
Today is one of those days where I think we'll just be staying in our jammies all day. It's lashing rain (don't you love that expression- Irish people and their delightful sayings) and we've got nowhere we have to be.

Clover is 3 months old, which is apparently the time when I feel it makes sense to start reading to him. He has some delightful board books (such as The Very Hungry Caterpillar and Jamberry) that we've been enjoying. He definitely likes it, but I'm sure he just likes the fact that I'm talking to him. Yesterday I took my car in to be serviced and they gave me a ride to the nearby mall. There was an actual real life bookstore in that mall, so we hung out in the children's section for awhile. We bought Llama Llama Red Pajama and The Runaway Bunny. And today I went on Amazon and ordered Is your Mama a Llama? (Apparently we're going with a llama theme here), The Carrot Seed, The Happy Egg, and I am a Bunny. I went on there to buy the Hillary Rodham Clinton: Some Girls are Just Born to Lead book, which led me to The Story of Martin Luther King Jr. board book and Of Thee I Sing: A Letter to my Daughters by Barack Obama (those should arrive on the 20th, so I suppose I'll read the book about Hillary Clinton and then Obama's book and then have a good long cry).
I'm planning to buy some more classics like Ferdinand the Bull and Where the Wild Things Are. And I also want to somehow get my hands on that tiny book Juniper by Robert Kraus, which seems to be out of print. It was apparently previously in this Bunny's Nutshell Library collection, but I associate it with other tiny books like Chicken Soup with Rice. And I just figured out why- apparently THAT was part of another Nutshell Library collection, which I have now added to cart. A HA! Any other book recommendations?

Baby Clover

Baby Clover was born on October 14 at 9:36AM.
He weighed 8lbs 6oz and was 20 and 3/4 inches tall.

Now that he's out in the world, his name is Tiernan. But I think he will always be my Baby Clover.
I love him so much.

Undignified

And now I shall discuss some of the less dignified side effects of pregnancy. As a sidenote, I hope this post doesn’t sound too complainey. I’m SO thrilled to be pregnant and I haven’t forgotten how lucky I am. Just want to make that clear before I dive in.

Pretty much from the moment I got a positive pregnancy test I started feeling a low-grade queasiness throughout the day. It came and went, but was mostly there all the time. An undercurrent of nausea peppered here and there with instances of feeling okay and bouts of puking.

Maybe I should have kept a better timeline of my symptoms because when I describe them I find myself using a lot of wishy washy language, but alas. From around week 6 to week 14 I was puking nearly every day. Which, I didn’t think was a huge amount since I’ve heard so many stories of pregnant ladies puking, like, every HOUR or something. I would usually just feel kind of mildly queasy all day and then have one big session of puking in the evening after dinner. It was, on the whole, a rather frustrating existence. I would battle against the nausea to eat something and then either throw it back up or not, but either way I would be hungry again in like an hour and a half. Second verse, same as the first.

Once in awhile I would puke at work. Like this one day I felt like I really wanted to eat a cucumber, so I walked to the fruits & veggies stand down the road and bought one. Then I brought it back, sliced it, and ate it at my desk with a side of ranch. I was so smug and proud of myself like Look at me and my healthy snack! Gold star for feeding my baby VEGETABLES! And then as soon as I finished it I had to run to the bathroom (AT WORK) to throw it all up.

I’ve found that puking at work is especially miserable. Afterwards I usually do feel better, but I also kind of want to lie down and feel sorry for myself for a little while, which is difficult/impossible to do at work. Plus, it’s just grosser to get sick in a public bathroom rather than in my own at home. PLUS, sometimes I would be puking so hard that the toilet water would SPLASH ME IN THE FACE.

At weeks 14 to 18 ish the puking dwindled down to maybe two or three times a week. And at about that time I also started having, erm, accidents while I was puking. I would throw up and sometimes ALSO PEE MY PANTS, which just feels like a new level of undignified. This is my first baby! I thought incontinence issues weren't supposed to start until one has already given birth!

I brought an extra pair of undies and leggings to keep in my desk drawer at work, just in case.

Plus, there was the exhaustion. The entire first trimester I was JUST. SO. TIRED. So tired! How do women do this with other children? I don’t understand. It was literally all I could do to make it through the workday, get home, battle with my stomach for dinner, and lie down for the rest of the evening. AND the first trimester is traditionally the time of pregnancy when most people try to keep things quiet for one reason or another. So I was miserable and tired and pukey at work and I didn’t even feel like I could tell my coworkers. Of course, knowing I was pregnant since week THREE made the first trimester go particularly slowly and I ended up telling my coworkers I was pregnant when I was at week nine + change. Some of them had already guessed after seeing me run to the bathroom wearing my anti-nausea wristbands and looking all ghostly white and sickly.

Things that are especially wretched to throw up, an incomplete list:

-          Cucumbers
-          Sushi (hold your fire! It was just and avocado/rice roll) & soy sauce
-          Tuna sandwich
-          Fries & ketchup
-          Ramen noodles
-          Tomato soup
-          Potato soup
-          Caprese salad
-          Popcorn

Things that actually aren’t so bad to throw up:

-          Waffles
-          Ice cream sandwiches
-          Chicken tikka masala (surprisingly!)

At this point (21 weeks) I’m feeling a bit better. Within the past few weeks I haven’t puked nearly as much and I haven’t had that continuous undercurrent of nausea [*knocks on wood*]. I hope I didn’t just jinx that. I did recently vomit popcorn in the Target parking lot and the chicken tikka masala episode was last night, but really it hasn’t been so bad. I feel better overall. I am also starting to feel a big squished. And in the afternoons I’ve started getting heartburn pain in my stomach which later turns into feeling the hot stomach acid in my THROAT.

Oh, and I’ve been waking up for the past week all gross and soaking WET because apparently pregnancy NIGHT SWEATS are a thing. I don’t feel overheated, I just wake up in a puddle and it’s so gross and undignified. I just ordered a waterproof mattress pad from Amazon and I’m regretting getting rid of all my flat sheets because having an extra sheet or two would be useful right about now. I'm basically a hot mess. Well no, not a hot mess. Just a sweaty one.

nesting and resting

The nesting instinct is strong right now. I want to get baby Clover's room ready for him! I want to start folding and putting away baby clothes and organizing all of our adorable baby things (which is like four things at this point, but STILL the need is strong).

Here's the deal: Clover's room is our spare bedroom, which used to have a desk and some miscellaneous shelves and a bed in it. A friend was getting rid of her really nice gently used crib so we took it off her hands for practically a song. We got rid of the desk (and by that I mean we put it in the garage) so now the room has a bed, the crib, and some miscellaneous shelves.

I went into Clover's room full of purpose today, armed with trash bags. I was going to donate, toss, and recycle as much stuff from those shelves as I could!
But then I got in there and I sat down on the bed and I realized there really isn't that much stuff on those shelves. I have some little file boxes (not just regular cardboard boxes, the decorative looking ones) and those should go in my bedroom. And nearly everything else is office supplies, which need to be consolidated and also probably put in the bedroom, but right now there isn't room in the bedroom.

So I went into our bedroom to clear some space for the file boxes. But then I realized that the tall skinny bookshelf next to my side of the bed is kind of the perfect size for this weird tall skinny closet we have in the hall that has no clothes bar (we've been awkwardly piling things in the closet but that doesn't really make the best use of the space). So really I should move the tall skinny bookshelf into the hall closet and move then one of the littler shelves from Clover's room into my room to hold the file boxes and whatnot. And Niall is out of town for a few days for work and I probably shouldn't be moving furniture by myself (because (a) my arm muscles are purely decorative, and (b) all of my innards seem to be getting rather squished and I think my lung capacity is suffering from it (I got out of breath just from hurrying around the grocery store the other day)). So, okay. When Niall gets back, we (he) will move the shelves around and THEN I'll really do some organizing and move things from Clover's room into our bedroom.

But I really wanted to do SOMETHING, since I had been so full of purpose earlier. So I ended up cleaning out my nightstand. I cleared everything out of it, tossed a few things, moved a few things to other places, and put things away properly and neatly in the drawers. And after that I was exhausted and had to have a little lie down.

Precious Cargo

One of the reasons that Niall and I decided that now was the time for me to get a new car was this:

That right there is a BABY BUMP.

CAN YOU BELIEVE IT? ME NEITHER.

Baby Clover (nickname) is due October 16. And if I know anything about babies and due dates, I’m sure that baby Clover will arrive PRECISELY on that date. Har har.

So that makes me 20 weeks pregnant right now. This ish is getting real.

I’ve known I was pregnant since the first moment it was possible to know. I took a couple of those discount peestick tests from Amazon a solid 6 days before my period was due and got the faintest shadow line possible.

Do you see it?

So then I drove to Target and got an actual pregnancy test with, like, a plastic holder part and everything and the tiny line appeared.

How about now? Do you see it?

And it kept appearing and getting darker all week! Niall may have gotten a little weary of me waving peesticks in his face LOOK AT THIS DO YOU SEE A LINE I THINK I SEE A LINE.

HOW ABOUT NOW?

Anyway. We’ve been to the doctor, I’ve had blood tests and ultrasounds and whatnot and it looks like there’s a real actual BABY in there.
And we just found out last week that it's a baby BOY.

Baby Clover

I get to have a baby.
I get to have a baby with somebody who loves me and wants a baby, too. I got married last year and now I’m having a baby.
How on EARTH did I get this lucky?