March 11, 2010

Posted by: Sarah at
12:14 PM
| Comments (17)
| Add Comment
Post contains 40 words, total size 1 kb.
March 06, 2010
I am feeling much better and ready to face another sleepless night.
And as requested...a photo with cute feet.

Posted by: Sarah at
10:49 PM
| Comments (13)
| Add Comment
Post contains 125 words, total size 1 kb.
And it was a post about how every minute in the day is precious and can't be wasted because there's too much to do.
Seriously, I could just cry.
Posted by: Sarah at
10:54 AM
| Comments (5)
| Add Comment
Post contains 67 words, total size 1 kb.
March 05, 2010
When I find time. Which has proven to be phenomenally hard so far. I haven't even found the time in two whole days to take a sitz bath -- something I desperately want to do -- because I feel like I am constantly starting or ending a feeding. I haven't taken a single nap. And most days I forget to take my medicines too.
This is chaos. I am still figuring it out.
Has anything happened in the world? Baby watched O'Reilly with my mom last night, so she's more up to date on current events than I am at this point.
Posted by: Sarah at
01:29 PM
| Comments (7)
| Add Comment
Post contains 140 words, total size 1 kb.
March 03, 2010

I had my 39 week appointment Monday morning. I had been having contractions over the weekend, but nothing that I felt was enough to warrant going to the hospital. At my appointment they determined I was already 5 cm: halfway there! And that I was having regular contractions. It was news to me, as I was feeling fine.

They admitted me at about 1:00 and started me on penicillin because I was GBS positive. I would need four hours on the IV in order for the baby to get all the meds. They decided to break my water at 3:30, figuring I'd have plenty of time before baby arrived. I assumed she'd get here around midnight...
As soon as my water broke, the pain kicked in, and I started dilating fast. I finally decided I wanted an epidural, and they checked me as they called the anesthetist. I was already 10 cm. So I just decided to go for it.
They set me up to push and I closed my eyes and pushed with everything I had. I was concentrating so hard and was in so much pain that I never knew what was happening: the baby's heart rate went berserk. The midwife grabbed the scissors they use to cut the umbilical cord and started cutting me in all directions, while the doctor grabbed the vacuum. She came out and they whisked her away to check her out. I didn't get to see her for the first hour, which broke my heart, but thankfully her Daddy and Gramma got to spend the time with her.

Meanwhile, I had to get put back together again. And let me say, I never really understood the gravity of the words "tear" and "episiotomy." I do now.
She looks just like her Daddy, which I love. We are working hard on breastfeeding, with about 85% success. We got home this evening and Charlie went bonkers. He wants to lick her constantly. She squeaks, just like his toys.
We are happy...

(Daddy just said that he hopes her SSN shows up soon so he can open her accounts. "She's been alive for two days and she doesn't have any money yet." And then Charlie licked the top of her head. I love my family.)
Posted by: Sarah at
07:11 PM
| Comments (40)
| Add Comment
Post contains 382 words, total size 2 kb.
March 01, 2010
Yay!
Posted by: Sarah at
08:34 PM
| Comments (58)
| Add Comment
Post contains 16 words, total size 1 kb.
The news is that Sarah is in the hospital and getting down to business. And doing quite well, apparently! It was reported to me that she's got the "best contractions in the ward."
And I'm totally not surprised by that at all. More to come soon - BabyGrok is on her way.
Posted by: Sarah at
01:00 PM
| Comments (17)
| Add Comment
Post contains 121 words, total size 1 kb.
February 27, 2010
Sarah: You do?
Husband: Yes, and so does everyone else on the internet. Then again, everyone on the internet thinks Ron Paul would make a good president so...we'll see.
My husband is getting impatient. He wants to hold her and be with her. Me, I just feel nervous. I have begun to get frightened of the pain. I am in a cranky mood and want to be simultaneously left alone and completely taken care of. I hurt a lot of the time. I want the hurt to turn into labor, so I try to stoke it. But it doesn't; it's just pointless pain.
I am not nesting so much as freaking out that I have wasted the past eight years of married life. Why didn't I clean the garage or finish that quilt or sort through worthless old college textbooks? What if today is the day and I still haven't gotten the oil changed in my car?
I don't feel like a good mom. I feel like I'm already starting out on the wrong foot.
Posted by: Sarah at
09:17 AM
| Comments (6)
| Add Comment
Post contains 189 words, total size 1 kb.
February 24, 2010
Posted by: Sarah at
06:58 AM
| Comments (1)
| Add Comment
Post contains 93 words, total size 1 kb.
February 23, 2010
Posted by: Sarah at
07:57 AM
| No Comments
| Add Comment
Post contains 51 words, total size 1 kb.

OK, Republicans, take a deep breath. Or at least I need to take a deep breath, before I slap you senseless.
Scott Brown? Really? Really?
Hey, Obama sucks because he wasn't vetted and he'd only been in government for five minutes. He just won because he was charismatic and had some good slogans during the campaign. Hey, I know, let's do the exact same thing on our side! Let's get behind the flavor of the month!
I don't even think it's possible to type the amount of sarcasm I want this post to be dripping with.
Maybe Scott Brown would make a fine president someday, I don't know. But not now. Are you people insane? Does the entire electorate just get distracted by something shiny and lose their everlovin' minds?
I can't help but feel lately that we're all as dumb as the people of Springfield. We're all set to spend our money wisely to fix potholes when the flashy monorail salesman promises us hope and change.
And then we just follow like lemmings right off the cliff.
Well, except we don't even have the fix-the-potholes plan. 42% of us have no idea who we'll support next. It's a pretty barren field.
But not Scott Brown, for heaven's sake. Just let's kill that idea right this instant.
Posted by: Sarah at
07:42 AM
| Comments (9)
| Add Comment
Post contains 238 words, total size 2 kb.
February 22, 2010
I am stuck at the same dilation and effacement that I was at two weeks ago.
And really, other than the fact that life is exponentially more painful now than it was then, I guess I am OK with that.
Last night I had a bit of a freakout. I somehow feel like I am still not ready. I don't feel anxious to get the baby out (other than because of the pains) because I am still scared to death of having to take care of her. I feel like everything I've read about labor and newborn care is not enough and I still feel overwhelmed and unprepared. I am feeling the weight of the awesome responsibility that is motherhood, and I am OK with postponing it for another week or so.
Plus we still need to paint her bookshelf. And a million other things.
Posted by: Sarah at
02:10 PM
| Comments (13)
| Add Comment
Post contains 165 words, total size 1 kb.
February 20, 2010
I stayed in bed until the very end. He was supposed to arrive late Thursday night but ended up here Friday morning instead. I passed many excruciating Hours In Between dreaming crazy things like that his flight had been diverted to Cincinnati or that he had to hitch a ride on Noah's Ark to get home.
When I saw him, I thought his beard looked a lot nicer in person than in pictures. He thought my belly was much smaller than he imagined it would be.
He likes getting kicked. But he says he's ready to meet our baby on the outside already.
I got out of bed after two weeks, and my legs are weak. The baby also seems a lot bigger and heavier than she did previously. I can't believe how much she's grown while I was just lying there.
And I now officially understand lightning crotch. I wish I didn't.
But I promise I won't complain. I got everything I wanted: a healthy baby, a safe deployment, and my family all together again before baby arrives.
I will remind myself of that when my legs go numb with pain.
Posted by: Sarah at
08:21 AM
| Comments (22)
| Add Comment
Post contains 203 words, total size 1 kb.
February 18, 2010
I only have to hold out a little longer...
Posted by: Sarah at
07:10 PM
| Comments (2)
| Add Comment
Post contains 14 words, total size 1 kb.
So why do we continue to base policy on it?
The White House says the $300 billion spent from the stimulus thus far has financed as many as 2 million jobs. Maybe. However, the private sector now has $300 billion less to spend, which, by the same logic, means it must lose the same number of jobs, leaving a net employment impact of zero. But the White House’s single-entry bookkeeping simply ignores that side of the equation.
Even Washington’s transferring money from savers to spenders doesn’t create demand, since the financial system already converts one person’s savings into another person’s spending (as I detail here). A family might normally put its $10,000 savings in a CD at the local bank. The bank would then lend that $10,000 to the local hardware store, which would then recycle that spending around the town, supporting local jobs. Now suppose that the family instead buys a $10,000 government bond that funds the stimulus bill. Washington spends that $10,000 in a different town, supporting jobs there instead. The stimulus has not created new jobs. It has merely moved them to a new town.
Posted by: Sarah at
09:10 AM
| Comments (4)
| Add Comment
Post contains 273 words, total size 2 kb.
I really feel this is the task I was born to undertake.
First, Smart Women
[...]
I raised two fine sons and ran a household well and efficiently. And my support enabled my husband to have a family and concentrate on his career. A lot of folks sneer at that sort of thing, but I always wondered why society would want only the "stupider" sort of women to raise the next generation.
Second, at The Thinking Housewife (a site I might need to read more of).
And thirdly, from an anecdotal history of Abigail Adams:
[...]
Abigail never doubted that women were men's intellectual equals. ... Unlike the radicals, she believed that women found their highest fulfillment within marriage and the family. With a better education, she said repeatedly, a woman would be a better wife and mother and contribute more in the long run to the well-being of the new nation than if she were uninformed. Well-educated women, she insisted, could help their husbands safeguard republican liberty; they could also rear boys qualified for leadership in the young republic and girls who in turn could become the devoted mothers and wives of patriots.
Posted by: Sarah at
09:03 AM
| Comments (10)
| Add Comment
Post contains 435 words, total size 3 kb.
February 17, 2010
I must be putting out some major vibes, because I've stressed the dog out so much he got sick. Poor thing.

Posted by: Sarah at
04:55 PM
| Comments (4)
| Add Comment
Post contains 31 words, total size 1 kb.
It started with a broken garage door. Two days before bed rest started, the garage door decided it likes going up but not down. And then I ended up in bed before I could fix it. Luckily I haven't needed my car in two weeks. Unluckily, the door is still busted.
Then my mom arrived to help me. My mom with the broken foot who moves at half her normal speed and has trouble getting up and down stairs, which is the whole reason I needed her help. She's still doing it, bless her. I am not picking on her, just stating a fact. Of all the times for her to break her foot...
And then the dog. The first day my mom was here, the dog ate her meds. She had to induce vomiting. And now, the dog is mysteriously sick. We can't for the life of us figure out what could've made him sick, but he has had diarrhea and vomiting for three days. The first night, I tried to take care of him, but after going up and down the stairs six times to let him out, I knew I had to relinquish the chore to my mother or else the baby was gonna fall out on the stairs. So now the dog wakes me and then I wake my mother so she can let him into the backyard. And he probably needs to go to the vet by now, but that means sending my mom with him. Of all the times for him to get sick...
And you know, I don't remember having any moral qualms about letting my mom take care of me when I had my wisdom teeth out at 18. She fetched and comforted. But it's a whole different game for me as an adult. I hate asking her for help. I hate it. I hate waking her in the middle of the night so she can wipe my dog's bottom with toilet paper to make sure he doesn't soil my bedspread again...since it's had to get washed twice already in the past two days. It's one thing to have her go make me a sandwich -- and believe me, I don't like asking her to do that either -- but it's a whole nother thing to make her take care of my dog's vomit and poop.
We're both exhausted and stressed out. And unfortunately, this story won't end with a nice vacation and a long nap; it will end with a crying baby who needs even more attention than the dog.
I can't believe this is how I'm spending the end of my pregnancy.
Posted by: Sarah at
06:16 AM
| Comments (10)
| Add Comment
Post contains 478 words, total size 3 kb.
February 15, 2010
Effectively, our love was transacted like a pound of butter on a grocery counter.
We sat there in his dorm room, and he said that after much thought, he agreed that we ought to be together. And we looked at each other shyly and said, "OK then, I guess we're dating." And that was that.
Today he finally got access to a webcam and skype. For the first time since July, I got to see him. His appearance was shocking; I am definitely not used to the beard. Or the muscles. And on the flip side, the size of my belly blew him away.
Ten years.
And I get to see him in person soon.
Posted by: Sarah at
09:16 AM
| Comments (6)
| Add Comment
Post contains 208 words, total size 1 kb.
February 14, 2010
Even though we're apart, I will still participate in our traditions. And look forward to tomorrow, an even better day for us to celebrate.
And soon we'll do all our celebrating in person.
Posted by: Sarah at
07:51 AM
| Comments (1)
| Add Comment
Post contains 61 words, total size 1 kb.
Powered by Minx 1.1.2-pink.











