Takin' what they're giving ...

... cause I'm workin' for a living.

As a freelancer/contract employee, I don't really technically get maternity leave. I'll get paid the same for the year no matter what. It's nice, but at the same time I don't want to completely leave my employers out to dry, especially at this uber-busy time of the year. So when boss man called me up 14 days post-partum and asked if I felt up to editing some stuff for the first football game, I said okay. In retrospect, I have a feeling I agreed more in an attempt to get some normalcy in my day. It was also a good justification for the purchasing of the MacDaddy computer last spring. This is why we got they computer - I can work at home. As my deadline was approaching and my baby cried all afternoon yesterday I was very much regretting my decision to take on anything other than my full dance card of diaper changing and boob-offering. But Hubs came in last night and took over baby girl and I got some work done. And it did exactly what I had hoped: I felt so normal. I enjoyed my work. I still had a bit to finish up this morning, and baby girl wanted to be held - like every parent in the history of the world has done, we figured it out.

We finished up, headed over to the stadium and did a little more work. In related news, I love our Baby Bjorn.

Fun for baby AND dog!

Day 18

We may have some colic. Or perhaps our baby turned into a howler monkey between 6 pm and midnight last night. I also discovered that the combination of laying her on my shoulder while I sob (not so) quietly will put Megan to sleep in about 5 minutes. Either way, she hasn't started up yet tonight, but we are still bracing a repeat performance. Once she calmed down last night though, we had some pretty good stretches of sleep and it was the pain of my overly full breast ready to explode that woke me up at 9 this morning, not my child who was peacefully headed into her fourth consecutive hour of sleep.

Per my husbands orders, I left the house today and got my brows waxed. That always helps me feel like a new woman and today was no different. Post-dinner I took the dog out for a long long walk. That combo makes me feel ready for tonight. Ask me again how I feel at 1:30 and I may have a different answer.

The Moby in action

So a few weeks ago I practiced using my Moby Wrap with my 25 year old stuffed Wicket the Ewok. It is much more satisfying using your very own baby!


notice the awesome framing job of the PhotoBooth photo, which cuts off my eyes and my sweet under-eye circles. Pro-fessional!

Megan Hamil is here!

Okay, so about 24 hours after that last post I was admitted to the hospital, getting ready to birth a baby. The whole process was actually a great experience, and I am quite thankful to have had the good time that we did. And in all honesty, I felt worse after I ran the half marathon than I did after I gave birth. I will say that drugs do help though.

Our great experience in the hospital kind of makes up for how shitty things can be at home with an 11-day-old baby that you have no idea what to do with. But seriously though, our little girl is great and we love her to death.

The temp was down today and the humidity was low so we all ventured out for a walk today. Loved being outside again, and depending on the night we have tonight, we are shooting for a longer walk tomorrow morning.

Here's our girl (sleeping in a laundry basket)!
and now for her close-up!

Well, my fears of birthin' while the hubs was out of town never came to fruition. Due date is rapidly approaching and baby is still snug on the inside. I am making a real effort to not get too complain-y until my actual due date. And aside from what adds up to about 2 total hours per day, I still feel pretty good.

Day 2

I will start this post by saying that I actually did get up before the alarm at 6:30 yesterday morning, walk the dog, shower, PUT ON MAKE UP, wear real clothes, and go to work for a few hours. I was spent by noon though and came on home. Times like now I am rather thankful I have a redonkulously flexible job.

I lunched, napped, walked the dog again, paid several bills (which I did online - not a very strenuous task). THEN the boredom hit. So I went up to the bebe's room to see if there was any errant tag I may have missed, a manual yet to read, or a gadget yet to be fiddled with. I opened the closet and spotted the Moby Wrap. I have no clue where the name is from, but I am thinking it has nothing to do with the musician.

It's basically a long-ass piece of stretchy fabric. And I'm pretty certain the technique is centuries old. Even my rudimentary sewing skills could produce this product. But I registered for it anyway. I've heard it can be quite confusing, but trusty youtube had some instructional videos and I figured it out on the first test drive:

(yes, those are the same clothes as the picture from the day before. And those are the end credits to M*A*S*H*).

So I got the thing on, but then there are a bajillion different ways to insert your baby. You can go with the Hug Hold, as shown above. There also the Lotus Hold, Kangaroo Hold, the Hike Hold, the Cradle Hold, etc ...

Wait a second, I don't have a baby yet! How was I able to pull off this practice session? With a 26-year-old Wicket the Ewok stuffed animal!

(new episode of M*A*S*H* starting in the background).

Behind closed doors

Left all alone for the weekend as her husband flits off to Nashville for a swim meet, the 37-week pregnant woman gets a bet bored. I'm never up at 11:23 pm, but I am afraid to go to bed. Afraid I will be awakened in the night by some sort of pregnancy/impending delivery pain, only to reach for hubs to say "honey, it's time" (just like in a 1950's sitcom, right?) only to remember that he is in a hotel two hours away. I promise I will do my best to reference this post and laugh heartily about my paranoia in 4 weeks when I am well-past my due date.

Okay, I had a doctor's appointment yesterday and she assured me that bebe would be on the inside for a few more weeks at least, and to confidently send my husband away. But I have an over active imagination even when I'm not at the end of a pregnancy, so it's like 15 times worse now.

How am I staying busy? I just polished off the leftovers from my dinner. PastaRoni. Yeah, I guess if anything, I've had cravings for over-processed, easily-prepared, cardboard-boxed dinners. Man this stuff is good. And I've taken all of 3 pictures of my belly this whole pregnancy. So I put the handy-dandy Photobooth application to good use. That's Good Eats on the Food Network on in the background. AB is making a yellow cake ... mmmm, a yellow cake. You know, there is a 24-hour Wal-Mart (literally) about 1 mile from my home.


Well, Unwrapped is on now and they are touring a Milky Way candy bar factory. I'm set until midnight now at least.

Grounded

So last Monday we took a little trip to Labor and Delivery, for what turned out to (thankfully) be nothing. For a while the possibilities of what ailed me went from appendicitis to kidney stone to "you are contracting every 3-5 minutes to "you are closed up tight as can be - it's just growing pains." The whole thing was never really scary or anything, but the after effect is that I have had to slow down considerably from what I was doing a mere two weeks ago. These "slow down" orders are more from the Hubs than from the doctor, but there might be something to it. I made a somewhat involved dinner last night that required quite a bit of time on my feet in the kitchen, and I was so knocked on my ass when I was done that I almost (only almost) opted out of eating my gourmet creation.

I mean, I am almost 33 weeks pregnant so this is not unexpected. I think the rapid deceleration of my activity level surprised me though. I am missing my workouts. Not so much that I actually miss the workout itself, but I am missing how I feel when I'm done and I think I have some more pronounced mood swings as a result. Le sigh. I have a doctor's appointment tomorrow (my first since last week's hospital visit), so she might be able to give me some guidelines to follow. OR she will probably tell me that is just part of the whole show and I'll just have to deal.

Of course that would be the perfect excuse for me to spend lots of time lounging at the pool.

30 weeks today. Most likely anywhere between 8 and 12 weeks (please be 8 weeks, please be 8 weeks) left to go. Still feeling really good. I have discovered that I actually need to get a workout in to keep up this whole feeling good thing. That, or I have to do absolutely nothing all day. If I just have a normal day, sans workout, I feel like ass by bedtime. BUT if I get 30-40 minutes on the elliptical in there somewhere, I feel okay. Also, if I get that workout in, I don't feel guilty when I have my daily milkshake. And I have my daily milkshake no matter what.

I decided to hop on the treadmill today, just for old times' sake today. I really didn't want to run (too much weight up front to jostle around), but I was a bit bored with elliptical. I had seen a "sure to burn away your fat butt" kind of routine in a Prevention Magazine that I picked up at the doctor's office a while back, so I kind of tried that out. Walk slow for a 5 minute warm up (I went at a 3.8 pace), then jack the elevation up to 15% (also called "as high as the machine will go"), take the speed down to 2.0 pace and do lunges for 2 minutes. Then take the elevation back down a bit, speed it back up and walk at a brisk pace for 3 minutes. Lather, rinse, repeat that routine a few more times. I thought it would be a pretty easy workout. Well I had the jelly legs when I got off the treadmill. I looked kind of like Simon Pegg's character from Run Fat Boy, Run after he does the spin class with Hank Azaria. I'm sorry I doubted you, treadmill. I won't make that mistake again.

We go to a childbirth class tomorrow. Some friends of ours went to this same class a few months ago and they assured us that it wasn't too boring, and that there were plenty of snacks and free stuff. We are really just excited that there is a Chick-Fil-A across the street and we will stop there for probably both breakfast and lunch. I may have two milkshakes tomorrow.