Maternity Leave

I have officially been on maternity leave for one week and I have to admit, while I love being at home with the baby, I am a tad bit bored! Partly because until a few days ago, I really didn't feel well enough to do a whole heck of a lot. The main thing I had to do last week was finish my Ethics paper, so that's pretty much all I did when I had time. Now that's done. The hubby is holding me to that 2 weeks of no driving after the baby that the Doctor advised...personally, I think it's silly...why can't I drive? I am looking forward to getting in some workouts, but I know I'm not quite ready for that yet. The kiddo and I have been taking little walks to the mailbox in the afternoons, but that's about it.

So, in my boredom I have discovered once again that I hate daytime TV. I love watching Ellen, but I can no longer tolerate the soap I used to watch in college. I have watched the last few episodes of The Hills, so I'm finally all caught up with that. Speaking of The Hills, it looks like Heidi is pulling a Lauren and throwing away a great career opportunity for a loser guy. What is it with those girls, anyway? Am I the only 30-something who actually cares? The preview for the next season looks like it's going to get really good!

So now, I have 4 episodes of ER that I still need to watch. After that, I'll need to find out where all my books are packed, because I have quite a few to choose from for some leisurely reading before the summer session of school begins. After school starts, I have a feeling that between that and the little bit of work I am doing from home, my maternity leave will fly by faster than I'd like.

Of course, it is fun when the baby is awake. I love to watch the little faces he makes! Here's the latest pic of him:

He's Here!

After posting on Friday, I managed to get in a hour nap before the hospital called. They told me that I could come in around 11 am! Woohoo! Okay, the next paragraph may contain TMI...so skip it if you don't wanna read some childbirthing stuff...it's not bad, I promise.

We arrived and were greeted by our nurse Angela, who had just started her shift and would be with us for the "long haul". She was awesome. She started the pictocin drip around 11:45 and said I was about 2 cm dialated. My doctor came in to see me around 12:45, said I was at 4 cm and broke my water. My parents arrived next and about an hour later I could really start to feel the contractions. Enough was enough, so I asked for my epidural before they got any worse. About 5 minutes later, the epidural man (aka "my saviour") arrived and administered the drugs. Around 3 pm, my parents left to pic up the kiddo from school. DH & I decided to dim the lights and take a nap. Next thing I know, I am waking up to see Oprah on the tv. The epidural was working really well, because I couldn't feel the contractions at all...but, I could feel pressure...major pressure. The nurse had already gotten all the necessary tools out and came over to check on me. She looked a little suprised and said, "the baby is ready! I'll call the doc!" In came the doc and 2 sets of pushes later....





Baby Joseph Christopher was here at 4:45 pm! 8 lbs, 9 oz and 21 cm long.

Here's the proud Big Sister:




The 1st night in the hospital is the worst...you don't feel so great and you constantly have people coming in and out of your room all night. Naturally, they all tell you to "try to get some rest". Yeah right.

Here's the proud Daddy...



The 2nd night, we let the baby stay in the nursery so we could try to get some "real" rest. Of course, nothing is as nice as being at home in your own bed.

Here we are leaving the hospital.


So now we're at home. Trying to get some rest and just enjoying finally having the baby here. He's a sweet little guy...and he has some great lungs! :-) He does have his days and nights confused, but we'll work on that. Big Sis is so excited to have him here and wants to show him all her toys.

Babywatch cont'd

Well, I called the "Charge Nurse" this morning at 5 am and was told there was no room at the inn, um I mean, hospital right now. I am supposed to wait until the day Charge Nurse arrives at 10 am to call back if I haven't heard anything.

Soooo....it's almost 9 am now. Keep your fingers crossed that the nurse says to come right in. :-)

Until then, I think I am going to catch a quick nap...it might be a lllloooonnnngggg day!

And, thanks to everyone for their kind words, thoughts and prayers!

BABY UPDATE!

I had my regular, weekly Dr's visit this morning. Here comes the TMI part.....

I am 2 cm dialated & the baby has dropped (as if I couldn't tell my the increasing pain and pressure in the crotch area that has been especially bad this week!).

The doc is going to try to get me into Women's Hosp tomorrow to be induced! When she asked me about this at my appointment today, I decided to take her up on the offer (rather than play the ol' "wait & see" game until next week). She made the same offer with Riley and I panicked and said "No!"...which resulted in me having to wait another week and two days beyond my due date to finally be induced (and resulted in an 8 lb 13 oz baby!).

There's still the chance that because this is an "elective" inducement (meaning I'm not overdue or have any health risks), that the hospital will be too busy to admit me. If I can't get in, I will have to wait until Monday (unless little Joseph decides to come earlier). Soooo...if you think about it, please send me some prayers and "easy labor vibes" tomorrow! :-) Hopefully, we'll have a healthy baby boy by the end of the day!

Thank God I took my MIS final yesterday!!! Now, I just have a few things to finish up at work....

Still here...

I had my regular weekly dr's appointment yesterday.

There's no new news..she just did her thing and said, "Yeah, I'll be seeing you again next week." So that's it...another stubborn baby. Well, that or I just have a stubborn cervix/uterus/whatever. So, it looks like I will be taking my MIS final as planned next week...although after reviewing my notes and study questions, I am sooooooooo not ready. Let's see if I can perform a miracle over the weekend with some heavy cramming. Damn, and I can't overload on caffiene in my state for those late night cram sessions! Ugh!

Lemme tell you, once this baby is here and my semester is officially done, this girl is having one of those Cyclone Anaya-sized margarita's! I think it will be well deserved!

Here I am..

just feeling a bit in limbo...ready to have this baby, but still so much work and school stuff to do! Yes, I realize I will never have everything done...but, I'd like to be as close as possible.

Naturally, I am excited to finally meet the little guy I've been carrying around all these months. But, the other thing I am really excited about is working out again!

Not the pansy ass little neighborhood walks...I'm talking REAL WORKOUTS.

The legs and arms like jello, achey muscles the next day, kick my ass kind of workouts. :-)

I am undecided on the running though. My 1st goal will be to lose the baby weight. Sure, running will help me burn calories and all that, but I also want to focus on strength training and getting my core stronger. Before I found out I was preggo, I was having a lot of issues with my lower back...the PT hottie said it was all about building a stronger core. I really want to vary my workouts though - some bike, some swimming, some running. To be honest, I miss my bike more than I miss running. Probably because it was still new to me when I had to stop...kind of that "honeymoon" phase. The running had gotten old...partially because I was burned out from the same old routine and not having enough time to really dedicate to it. The good news is that as of August 16, I will be done with school (not that I'm counting the days or anything)!!!!!!!! Yes, I will have an additional child, but I will have a bit more time to dedicate to working out again. Wooohooo!!!

So, I am up in the air - join a gym? get a trainer? try a new home routine (maybe the P90X? TurboJam looks fun too.)? With the recent move (and the increase in gas prices), I am tinkering with the idea of joining Woodlands Fit....although, I'll admit that the entire time I've been in school I've been wanting to try Kenyan Nights (the morning program doesn't work with the hubby working nights) or a Bootcamp at Memorial Park in addition to Houston Fit. I dunno, I guess I'll wait and see. I may have to eventually change the name of this blog though. :-)

ETA: Just for Jamoosh, I changed the comments so that you no longer have to worry about the word verification...which, as he pointed out, it pretty pointless when your blog is password protected. So now, my 1.8 readers have it easier! :-p

Showers, Hockey and KFC

I am beat. I wished I had stopped at Starbucks this morning, because I am soooo sleepy.

This past weekend will hopefully be the last crazy, back-to-back activity filled weekend before the baby is here. I do have tons of school stuff to take care of, but I want to relax as much as possible over the next couple of weeks.

Saturday was nutty! I had class in the am, then had to head home to change and get ready for another baby shower for the munchkin. It was awesome! This one was mostly family with a few friends mixed in. The munchkin received lots of cute clothes, diapers and even a few items that didn't even exist when the kiddo was born! It's amazing how much things have changed in 3 years. The kiddo even received a few gifts from her grandparents...lemme tell you, we found out on Saturday that the kiddo is a natural born entertainer. I wasn't going to bring her to the shower, but I am so glad I did! She helped me open the presents and put on a little show for the guests between each gift. I'm talking about dancing around the room with tissue paper, doing "ballet" turns and just being silly. Talk about comic relief..she had the room rolling.

Afterwards, several family members came by to check out the new house. Then, the hubby and I were just sitting around with the kiddo on the back patio when my mother-in-law asked, "Are ya'll still going to the wedding?" We looked at our watches and it was 6:25....my friend's wedding was starting at 7 pm! Thank God, I was pretty much ready, the hubby can get ready pretty quick and the location was not very far...we made it to the wedding with about 3 minutes to spare. We did get home in time to relax a bit. We watched American Gangster, which I had already seen. The hubby liked it, but apparently not as much as I did.

Sunday was pretty much just as crazy. Grocery store in the am, followed by a birthday party for one of the kiddo's school friends at Monkey Bizness, followed by the Aeros game with the GSA (Graduate Student Association, not the Girl Scouts of America...hehehe) from school. In between, there was a little time for sorting through baby clothes, decorating the nursery a little, but that's about it. Last night at 10:30 pm, I finally got to sit down on the couch and do nothing. Then, I realized that I should probably just go to bed. :-)

Today is work and then school. We're supposed to be getting our final paper topics in my Ethics class, so my goal is to get to work on it asap. I have two other assignments due in that class before the final, so I hope to get all 3 done by the end of this weekend. In MIS, the prof gave us 18 sample essay questions to help us prepare for our final. The final will have 7 of those questions and one "wildcard" essay question....we're supposed to write 4-5 pages on each essay topic! Ummmm, 32 pages to write in 4 hours...I can't wait. Not. Ummm, yeah, so much for the relaxing thing I was talking about at the beginning of this post.

By the way, did I ever mention that my prof looks like Col. Sanders of KFC? True story.

Workout Stats

Friday, 25 minute slow walk in neighborhood

Update

Well, I went to the doc today for the 1st of my now weekly visits. Everything is good...no sign of any progress being made, the doc isn't worried about the size at all which means no 37 week ultrasound, and I actually LOST 2 lbs! Considering all I've been eating lately (pretty much anything in the fridge that doesn't have mold on it), I don't know how in the hell that happened. So that's it. My doc is actually out of town next week, so I don't even have another "weekly" appointment until the 24th. I am so ready for this child to get here. The 1st time around, I was still enjoying being pregnant at this point. This time, I have been ready for a few weeks...of course, now that the doc is going out of town, I guess the baby can wait a little longer.

Honestly, I sort of wished she would have said, "OMG, this baby is ready to come out...you start your maternity leave tomorrow!". LOL. Seriously, I get tired out early every night which makes doing homework after the kiddo is in bed very difficult, I am having trouble concentrating while at school and work, I get sleepy in every meeting and class I have (and even sometimes when driving home)...I just feel so out of it and soooo inefficient. Not to mention the crotchy pain, round ligament pain, crappy sleeping due to the hip pain, the fact that my feet barely fit into my shoes, and all that stuff. Sigh.

Sorry, the intent of this post was not to have a big pity party. I'll stop now.

In other news, my preggo hormones are making me one mean, ol' biotch on the roads. Probably due in part to my new triple the distance, double the time commute. Seriously, people on the roads have been pissing me off lately, so here's a little vent:

• Look lady, the speed limit is 65 on the toll road. Why are you in the left lane doing 50 when there's no one in front of you? Move your ass over to the far right lane! Better yet, take your ass to the feeder road.
• Dude who insisted on tailgaiting me yesterday...traffic was bumper to bumper and moving at about 50 in all the lanes. I'm sorry, but I simply cannot go 80 if there are cars in front of me and on both sides all going 50, now can I??? So why, why, why do you insist on riding on my ass? Yes, that's right...you keep doing it and I will slow down to 50 and maybe even 45 mph.
• Okay mo-fo's, there are signs MILES back telling you which lanes go to which highways in which direction. So why in the hell do you insist on waiting until the very last minute to try to merge in front of me? People like YOU are the reason the traffic is backed up for miles in the 1st place. Oh, and when I am nice and I do let you in, you don't even have the courtesy to wave a thank you! What happened to common courtesy anyway? That's it, I'm not letting anyone else in. Screw you.
• Lady on the cell phone - I have nothing against people talking on the cell phone and driving...IF and ONLY IF they can stay in their lane at the same time. Apparently you can't, so you need to get off the road or get off the phone.

Well, that about sums it up. I feel better already. :-)

March Showers...

Bring many goodies for the munchkin!



My awesome co-workers hosted a shower in honor of the munchkin yesterday. Talk about some great co-workers...check out all the food and loot. Oh, and check out my big buddah belly. :-) This is the 1st time I've seen myself in a picture since Christmas...let's just say I will be purchasing a more flattering outfit for the shower that my family is throwing this weekend, lol!

Here's me...hey, don't mess with my food!

The cute cake that goes with the baby's safari-themed nursery...

A basket made of diapers, with all kinds of cute baby stuff...

Woohooo, diapers and butt paste...the 1st time around, I wasn't sure how to use this. Now, I'm an "old pro"!

The Countdown Begins!

I am due 1 month from today!



Of course, if this little guy would like to make an appearance a teeny, tiny bit early I would have no problem with that. :-)

I have about 10 more pages to write for my MIS paper, a term paper for Ethics (only 5 pages) and my MIS final. Plus, we need to finish getting everything ready in the nursery...looks like the month ahead will be a busy one!

Thanks!

Thanks to Marcy and Viv for the encouraging words about this big 'ol baby!

Honestly, I think I am destined to have big babies no matter how active I am. I am sure everything will be fine!

Now, if I could just stop feeling so sleepy all the time! Honestly, I have felt drowsy and groggy for the past few days. It's making it very hard to concentrate at work...thank God I don't deal with any life-threatening situations or drive heavy machinery. LOL! Shhh....I actually broke down and bought a Mocha at Starbucks this morning - the 1st one since I found out I was preggers.

Let's keep that between us. Okay?

Oh Baby!

We'll the little guy is measuring big, but my doc is still not concerned.

I am!

He currently weighs 5 lbs...I have 5 more weeks. Ack! They tend to gain about 1 lb per week at the end! And, to top it off the doc said, "He's in the 63rd percentile, so he's not that big. (pause)Well, his head is big". Um yeah, not exactly what I wanna hear. Seriously, I could have done without that info. I'd rather go into labor & delivery blindly on that one. LOL! I'm like, "How big? Abnormally big? Huge-mongous big? Yep, I am concerned...my va-jay-jay is too.

Workout Stats
25 minute neighborhood walk w/the kiddo in the stroller. Good times!

Ps...Pony, I will post some pics of the house and neighborhood just as soon as I get some new batteries for our camera. I can't find the rechargeable ones...well, that and the cord that lets me download pics. Doh!