Friday night was our Halloween party. I was the Joker and K was Two-face. I cooked a decent meal mostly from scratch. I stayed up late and had fun. We went to bed at 1:30am. I'm a pregnant lady that is used to going to bed at 9pm. This was certainly my latest night in a long time.
Saturday I made up for my lack of sleep. I got up around 8:45am to go out to breakfast with K. Then I went back to bed until 12:30. I woke up for lunch, then back in bed by 1:30. At 3:30 I woke up and thought, wow, I need to do something. All I've done today is eat and sleep! Pretty insane.
We went to drop off our dry cleaning in a nearby mostly Hispanic neighborhood. Outside the dry cleaning place was a pupusa truck. I got a cheese pupusa for $1.25. They should put these trucks everywhere. Fulfilling the needs of a hungry pregnant lady for only $1.25 - amazing!
We went to Target for Halloween clearance and bought some stuff our baby for next Halloween - two Halloween onesies, Halloween booties, and Halloween barrettes. Next year's Halloween will be so much fun!
We stopped by J & S's on the way home, hoping to see the kids before they went to bed, but we missed them. So we stayed and talked to J & S for hours, until midnight. I guess the all day nap gave me the energy to stay up late. S said I was looking big and pregnant. I'm only 11 weeks! How can I already look big and pregnant? They mentioned that they had a lot of baby stuff in their garage. Their youngest is 6, so they've been holding onto these things for a while. They want to give the stuff to us! Awesome!
They recently discussed with their kids about sex and where babies come from. K and I wanted to make sure the kids didn't think that I had to have sex with a man to have this baby. J said no, they've already explained all of that to the kids too. They are such great parents! J said when talking to the kids about our sperm donor, she explained that we used sperm from a man who was Indian so that our child would look like K. The older child said, "But K is African American. She has dark skin and curly hair." Interesting.
On Sunday was the baby expo at Shady Grove Hospital, where we will be giving birth. They had lots of vendors giving away free stuff. We got booties and a swaddling blanket and kit kats, amongst other things. We learned about breast pumps and car seats. But most importantly, we toured the labor rooms and the delivery rooms. The labor rooms were fine - basically what you would expect from a hospital. The nice thing is that they are all private and you get your own bathroom with a jacuzzi tub. I thought the rooms were a little small for the pacing and stuff that I expect to be doing, but otherwise, all to be expected.
The postpartum rooms are awesome! Every room is private with a private bath. For vaginal births, you typically stay 2 nights, 3-4 nights for a c-section. Each room has a fold out sofa-bed and the baby stays in the room with you, so basically the three of us can sleep comfortably for two days. Each room has a TV and DVD player, and both K and I instantly thought 'Arrested Development!' There's a family lounge with sofas and a dining table and kitchenette, where you can greet your guests if your room gets too crowded. And best of all, there are classes - breastfeeding and infant care - and there are support groups. And there are consultants to teach you things. I feel like after those two days, we will be ready to go home. We'll have baby practice with others around to help us. Just being sent home with the baby would be so scary but now we have the transition period. Also, I think I'll be able to sleep better at the hospital there knowing that there are nurses watching over the baby. At home I think I would be too nervous to sleep. After seeing the postpartum rooms, I feel really comfortable and peaceful. I'm still super-scared of labor but now I'm comfortable with the part afterwards. Soon I'll work on getting comfortable with the idea of labor...
We had our pregnancy support group last night followed by a dinner celebration of L's 30th birthday. I asked L what it felt like to be 30 - he said it felt like death. Great - something to look forward to. We met A, one of the guys L is dating. As soon as I met him, he pointed to my stomach and said, 'This is exciting!' I was like, 'wow, is it that obvious?' but he said that L told him already.
L said that if Amendment 2 passes in FL, he is leaving FL for good. Finally! Come to DC forever, L! We told him that if he's still here in May, we want him to attend the birth and he was really excited. I hope he can make it work.
I was up late again - in bed around 11pm. This morning I considered sleeping in and calling in sick, but figured I should save my sick leave for when I'm feeling really horrible. Right now I'm just feeling tired.
7 comments:
So you're going to go with Shady Grove? J and I now get to figure out if we want to go hospital/OB vs. delivery center/midwives and I'm having a tough time with it. Ugh.
There aren't a lot of birthing centers. The closest for us is in Annapolis which I think is too far away. We are doing a midwife birth in a hospital, but it's a nice hospital that works well with the midwives. It's a nice compromise. The hospital makes me and K feel comfortable, and going with the midwife lets me know we'll be able to do the natural birth that we want. It's really the best of both worlds.
Yeah, we're likely going to be touring the one in Annapolis next week, but it is so far. We're going to tour the one in DC, too, but we haven't gotten the greatest vibe from it.
Can I ask what midwives you're working with who'll do a hospital birth? I'm just totally overwhelmed with trying to find somebody. Ooof.
Midwifery Care Associates in Bethesda. They only do hospital births now and have a really good relationship with Shady Grove. The nurses let them run the show and they do only the minimum monitoring and you are encouraged to move stay off of the bed. It seems like it will be a good experience.
Thanks. :) We've got appointments to tour other places, but they've got an orientation tomorrow, and they're so close to our house, I think we'll go.
Sorry for the 20 questions, I really appreciate it, though.
Are you worried at all about the hospital being Adventist? We asked our RE about them, and he said that they definitely WERE, and took it into consideration in their care, which made us a little hesitant.
Hmm, I guess I hadn't thought about it. I wonder what it means in terms of care. I know that Holy Cross is Catholic and I've heard things about how that affects their care.
J knows more about it than I do, so I may have to refer to her when it comes to that, or I'll do a little research tonight after we get home.
Thanks again. :)
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