Category Archives: Brain Dump

Most days I am too distracted or too tired or just too uninterested in soul searching.  I know that if I sit and reflect upon my life, I will be discontented (or worse) with myself.  Oh, not in my life — most days I float along, content.   But when I take a look at myself, I know that I am not living my life, giving to my life, creating the home, the parent, the wife, the cook, the gardener, the friend that I want to be.  I buy hordes of books on various topics. I formulate grand plans.  I make lists, which I somehow expect to resolve full bloom into results. 

This year for New years I consolidated piles of my lists into my Grand Plan (It’s the mother of all lists – a five page list of lists).  And my resolution focused more on spending some time every day working on something on the list.  And in truth, I’ve done a better job at that than I might have expected.  I comb through it every week or so and cross off the items that I’ve manged to conquer.  But its a slow process, and it’s difficult to be patient with myself. 

I don’t have to be perfect.  I don’t have to be a Martha Stewart, a Katie Brown, or even a SouleMama.  I don’t need to live as though every single moment is elevated, sacred.  But I am tired of living as though no moment is.

Posted by Kristen in Brain Dump

An OB visit of ups and downs this week.  Results from the last ultrasound are very good.  Baby is the perfect size, right in the middle of the range, all important organs visible and looking well, heart rate spot on, etc.  Good news, of course.  Except that because things looks so great, doc can’t justify an ultrasound this month, so no other chance to peek at gender until April. 

Ah well.  We’d pretty much given up waiting on gender to start in on the nursery (or at least figure out the list of things to buy and do to get it ready) and since I really didn’t want to go with simpery pastels that baby coudl outgrow too quickly, I went looking for a gender-neutral pattern in some kind of bright color combonation.  This is more difficult than you might imagine.  I finally found a pattern that I liked, by Babylicious (“Happy”) — Only to discover that the pictures on Amazon and other sites were old and outdated.  The set used to include an additional pattern — a large lime green and white check, which I thought was really appealing — but no longer does.  Ah well.  It’s still the best option I could find.  It won’t be outgrown as quickly as most of the cutesy baby bedding out there, and we can girl it up or boy it up with accessories later.

 

I need to finish cleaning out the room (still is mostly set up as my Mom’s room from when she was living here) and decide what to do with the walls.  They’ll have to be painted; while I like the sagey green in general, it doesn’t suit the look I want in there at all!

Posted by Kristen in Brain Dump

People have been asking over the past few weeks about the baby moving, and all I could say was that I wasn’t really sure; that I’d felt the occasional little twinge, but for all I knew it was just a gas bubble ;)  Well, let me tell you, once it actually starts really moving, you couldn’t mistake it for anything else.  It would be very hard to describe, but believe me, you’d know when you felt it!

And now that it is moving, it just won’t stop.  Hour upon hour it is moving around, and kicking and kicking.  (kicking way down low, below my belly a most disconcerting sensation!) And seemingly, mommy wanting to take a nap or go to bed at night is the cue to really get going.  Still three months to go — I sure hope a person gets used to pounding from inside, because so far, its making me a little bit crazy! 😉

Posted by Kristen in Brain Dump

Today was our freebie ultrasound at the vanity place.  We’d paid to go there after the *last* ultrasound was a no-go on gender, and since they couldn’t tell there either, they had us come back for another visit a month later without charge.

Sadly, I have no confidence in anything this tech says.  First, I think the equipment is less sensitive.  Her normal zoomed out view seems to have less resolution than even the zoomed in view of the perinatal place that my OB uses.  It seems to be more suited for gross anatomy views than anything really detailed.  At the official place they can zoom in and look at the various organs wth good detail, etc.

So although this tech saying “I can’t really tell, but I’m leaning towards boy” and pointing at a vague black blob gives me pause (I would have liked to have a second person saying the same thing to give me a little confidence!) about buying little girl outfits, I don’t really believe its a boy anymore than I can be sure its a girl.

Sigh.  Yellow and green, here we come 😉

Posted by Kristen in Brain Dump

Whеn уоu nееd mоrе thаn twо ultrаѕоundѕ durіng рrеgnаnсу
Sоmе раtіеntѕ mау hаvе thеіr first ultrasound prior tо 11 wееkѕ. Thе ѕtаrt of аn іntrаutеrіnе рrеgnаnсу is vіѕіblе аrоund 6 wееkѕ, ѕо аn ultrаѕоund thаt оссurѕ аnу time аftеr six wееkѕ іѕ gеnеrаllу rеlіаblе fоr dеtеrmіnіng hоw fаr аlоng a раtіеnt may bе. If уоu hаvе аn early ultrаѕоund, you ѕtіll wіll nееd an ultrаѕоund аt thе 11 tо 14 wееk реrіоd tо properly аѕѕеѕѕ development.

If any аbnоrmаlіtіеѕ аrе detected durіng either of thе routine ultrаѕоundѕ, уоu mіght need mоrе, ѕауѕ Chasen.

Fоr еxаmÑ€lе, thеrе are complications thаt may оссur wÑ–th thе Ñ€lасеntа, Ñ•uсh as placenta Ñ€rеvіа. ThÑ–Ñ• is when a wоmаn’Ñ• Ñ€lасеntа covers the cervix аnd can blосk the fetus’s path thrоugh thе birth canal during lаbоr.

In thÑ–Ñ• саѕе, your obstetrician wÑ–ll Ñ•uggеѕt at least one аddÑ–tіоnаl ultrаѕоund to see if the Ñ€lасеntа rеоrіеntÑ• аnd сlеаrÑ• thе wау. If Ñ–t dоеѕn’t, a сеѕаrеаn dеlÑ–vеrу is required.

Whаt to еxресt durіng a nоrmаl рrеgnаnсу
Truе tо its nаmе, аn ultrаѕоund wоrkѕ by ѕеndіng and dеtесtіng sound wаvеѕ. A tесhnісіаn uѕеѕ a dеvісе саllеd a transducer to send ѕоund wаvеѕ thrоugh thе skin іntо the wоmb. Thе ѕоund wаvеѕ bоunсе оff the fеtuѕ, whісh thе trаnѕduсеr detects. Then, the machine converts the ѕоund wаvеѕ іntо an іmаgе.

Whіlе the baby іѕ thе mаіn ѕtаr of thе show іn аn ultrаѕоund, dосtоrѕ аlѕо use thаt tіmе tо examine the uterus, рlасеntа, аnd аmnіоtіс fluid.

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Posted by Kristen in Brain Dump

Something I never knew about pregnancy is that it can really increase your sensitivity to smell.  And not just to odors that would normally make your nose wrinkle, but everyday smells that you might ordinarily notice but dismiss suddenly become beyond offensive.   Roasting Fish.  Perfume Counter in Macy’s.  BBQ Sauce.

Of course ordinarily foul odors become even more so.  Doggy Poo.  Garbage Cans.  Shudder.

Posted by Kristen in Brain Dump

Kiddo turns five today.  After debating a number of gifts (He loves the few video games that are playable and suitable for his age that are made for the xbox360, so we were really thinking about a wii), we decided on legos.  He likes building toys, and enjoyed his old toddler sized ones (oversized, easier to stick together) for a long time, and recently was telling me that he doesn’t want to play with “baby legos”, and wants some with “little dots”.  At preschool they have a drawer of regular legos set aside for the older kids who don’t take naps or for when they are ill; they are a special treat.

So, I went in search of legos.  Something has happened to those old primary colored blocks in the many years since my brothers and I dug through them happily building away.  Finding plain vanilla legos proved to be an adventure.  Want to build a deathstar?  a pirate ship?   Spongebobs underwater home?  Then legos are apparently for you.  Boxes of complex designs, blocks of specialized shapes and colors — what happened to my legos!  After a trip to my local “one stop shopping store” (a few feet of aisle devoted to legos), then to Target (an entire aisle), then to Toys R Us (2 aisles), and then finally to an entire Lego Store I recalled seeing in the mall (I’m not much of a mall shopper), I eventually found a box of simple legos instead of sets that won’t require mommy and daddy to sit down sweating over design plans.  Well, OK, there were two.  One box with just plain old blocks, and one “starter set” in a tub that must be at least half non-blocks with windows and doors, etc.

For me, a box of legos (or tub of lincoln logs or tinker toys) is supposed to be an empty canvas, an invitation to imagination.  There is just something sad about all those lego sets, confined to pattern, closed to creativity.

Posted by Kristen in Brain Dump