leo rabbit with sheep ascendant

So yes, we have a second daughter, to be known here as Deuce unless I think of a better pseudonym. She is now on the verge of two months old. Here is one of the hospital photos:



Here is a more recent one:



I think she's going to be pretty darn cute as well, says the doting mommy.

eventful

So, our first daughter was born at the beginning of October 2008, and our second daughter is due to be born next week. It appears that the impending birth of a child to M and I has some correlation to stock market crashes and general economic turmoil. I'm not sure why we shake the world in this way, but my apologies to your investment portfolios.

Into the third trimester

Hm. It's been over three months. I really ought to post something.

Over the past week I seem to be getting more than the usual number of "My, you're big! How far along?" comments. I didn't think there'd been a super drastic change, but of course when one is oneself all the time, slow changes can go unnoticed. I'm due in August, so I'm officially in the third trimester by now; it only gets more waddly and awkward from here.

Deuce (as I shall call her here unless/until thinking of a better pseudonym) has also begun squirming in more uncomfortable ways. She hasn't picked a favorite rib yet, like Una enjoyed pushing against for the last month or two, but I think it's only a matter of time for her to grow up enough to reach that far. Last night she just felt like pushing straight out a bit starboard of my belly button, as hard as she could. Which is getting to be pretty dang hard. also, ow.

I am happy to be pregnant. I wish to be pregnant for exactly as long as I ought to be. But I will be really really happy to be done with it.

PS: yes, apparently another girl. Sisters! Ability to reuse all pink and girly apparel! Cuteness!

missing

I went back and forth a bit about whether to put this out online. I've decided to go with it for a couple of reasons. The primary one is that the subject is something that seems like it may happen to people more than may be apparent -- it's not a casual conversation, so you often don't know that you don't know. In my case, feeling a bit lonely and apart from the world for a while when it happened, learning that I was not maybe as singular as I felt was comforting. (I wasn't completely lonely anyway; I had M and especially Una, ...but.) A secondary reason was that I had started to tell some people, notably at my high school reunion last summer, that I was pregnant. Anyone remembering that bit of information amid the whirl of talk and smiling faces might eventually start to wonder what was happening with that.

What happened, about a week after the reunion, was that I had a miscarriage, at about 11 weeks along.

It wasn't completely unexpected. I'd gone to the ER with some bleeding on July 13, a month to the day beforehand. Diagnosis: subchorionic hematoma, which means bleeding where the placenta attaches to the uterine wall. Often, apparently, it goes away on its own, but sometimes it doesn't, the placenta slowly detaches, and there is not really anything anyone can do about it except for me to rest as much as possible and not lift anything heavy, like a 1-year-old daughter.

It was a bit reckless to tell people I was pregnant with this hanging over me, especially since bleeding had continued now and then, off and on, but I think it was partly an attempt at magical thinking: if I say it, it will work out. But: no.

I'm OK now, and have been for most of the time since. Certainly physically: the doctor did not seem at all concerned about future possibilities. No one appears to know what causes subchorionic hematomas; they just happen sometimes. No indication of any underlying difficulty. It was also very helpful to already have Una, and know for sure that my body is capable of doing this thing.

Every now and then I do still think about the person who briefly could have been. It was not far enough along for us to know whether "he" or "she". I wish we'd gotten the chance to know that person...

...except, I'm pregnant again, due in August, and I'm now entering the second trimester with no apparent problems so far. Now, if all goes according to hope, we will get our "second" child, and this one would almost certainly never have existed if the other had survived. Once this one (whose pseudonym here will probably be Deuce) arrives, we will be so glad to have him or her, and not be able to imagine life without. But we will still visit the burial place, and tell Una and future child(ren) of the existence of the missing one.

There is a name we use. But that, I am going to keep between us.

Baby Una, 18 months old

This is actually from about five days before she turned 18 months old, but close enough.

I'm going to call her "Una" here, although that is not her real name, because I like Tomato Nation's method of using pseudonyms for people. And she is our first, so: Una. At some point we hope to have a second, so I guess he or she will be Secund(us/a), or maybe Deuce. Then I guess, if applicable, Terti(us/a) and Quattr(o/a). Or perhaps more obvious pseudonyms will present themselves. I could also call Una "Pumpkin," since we do all the time and she was born in October, but I like "Una" better.

first tooth

Right lower front. Emerged last weekend, seen here on Tuesday in a lucky photo. It's becoming more and more visible above the gum now. Bother, I think this means I have to start brushing it soon.

iconic

the travails of mr. penguin

o, the fickleness of young girl's heart:

four months

of CUTENESS. Not that I'm biased or anything.

since the eagles weren't in it

We all wore Steeler yellow on Sunday, although hers took the form of teeny yellow flowers, which I suspect is slightly atypical as Steeler fan-wear goes.



It is now a trend that when a new generation is born into my husband's family, the Steelers will win the following Super Bowl. It happened with him, and now with our daughter. Steeler Nation: you're welcome.

libra rat with sheep ascendant

This is our daughter(!!!)'s seventh week.



Although these pictures were not taken this week, she still looks pretty much like this.

one week late

Another nonstress test yesterday. Another round of happy (?) wiggling. I am getting contractions more often the last few days, but nothing has ended up coming of them yet. We set her a deadline, though, for later next week. If she's not out by then, we're a-gonna get her out.

I hope she decides to appear before then though; I'd rather she picked her own date. I know I don't like being interrupted when I'm in the middle of something.

Too bad she didn't pick yesterday; it would have been M's grandfather's birthday, who died just before we discovered I was pregnant. Of all the potential "target" dates in these couple weeks (and there are surprisingly many), that would have been particularly poetic. Ah well.

zero plus four

This would be a fun date for her to pick also: our engagement anniversary. But still no particular signs. I don't think Braxton-Hicks contractions count.

She was perfectly happy (nice and wiggly, anyway) during the nonstress test yesterday. Which is good. At least one of us is comfortable. :p

zero plus two

I confess to harboring a secret hope that she might be born on Bilbo and Frodo's birthday. I know I would have enjoyed that for myself, although I'm happy with my actual birthday which is also my dad's (and a great-grandfather's!). But still no signs so far that she's going to make it out today.

Turns out that those who care as much or more than me about such things have figured out that, due to differences between the hobbits' Shire Reckoning calendar and ours, September 22 in our calendar isn't actually their birthday anyway -- it was September 13, this year (due to this being a leap year). Oh well.

Shire Reckoning, by the way, has always seemed eminently more logical than our cobbled-together Gregorian, but the hobbits' old-school season-based holidays (Midsummer, Yule) that don't belong to any months would, I suppose, confuse too many people used to our modern three-day-shopping-weekend system.

zero hour

So today is/was the due date. So far, it doesn't feel like anything's up today. Considering I myself was nearly two weeks late, this does not greatly surprise me.

I am really rawther ready for her to be out though. She's getting ... big. I am ready for my ankles not to puff up anymore, for it not to be such a chore to roll (literally) out of bed or get up from a chair, for visits to the bathroom to become less frequent, for my regular clothes to fit again (I know I've got a few months yet on that one). I don't know if I'm ready for one or two hour blocks of sleep, or diapering, but ready or not...

At least the house is more ready for her now. Bedrooms were painted several weeks ago. Nursery is ready. Crib, dresser with changing top, glider chair (I'm actually looking forward to trying the nursing, providing we both can get the hang of it OK), a few toys already in the closet along with diapers and various other gear. Clothes, blankets, check. Stroller, car seat, check.

But most of all, it's just the curiosity. I am so very interested to finally meet her.

sock it to me

Baby's getting bigger. Not actually sure where six-ish more weeks of baby/me growth is supposed to go. But I guess this is how it works.

Bigger stronger baby is good, but it does mean that she has begun actually kicking or prodding me in my lower right rib, from time to time, in a rather painful way. As in IT REALLY HURTS. I don't want her to come out until she's ready to, but I am very ready for her to BE out, if you follow me.

...well, except that the nursery's not quite ready yet. We've been playing musical-furniture with the house while we reshuffle and reorganize, and fix things that need fixing, and figure out where everything is going to go. Today we're getting our internet cable moved from the front bedroom (formerly our computer room) to the familyroom, where for the next indeterminate length of time, our computers/desks will sit in the corner all "um, hi, pay no attention to us, just go ahead and watch the TV to your right there, enjoy." Meanwhile M's 40+ shortboxes of comics on their utility shelving are camping to the left of the fireplace, which situation may or may not be altered by the time cold fireplace-using weather arrives. Anyway, after our internet is moved and functional, we can paint the front bedroom. Then we can move our bedroom stuff into it. Then we can paint the nursery-to-be, formerly our bedroom. Then we can move the nursery furniture in and put the crib together and be finally ready.

The plan is for this all to be done by sooner than six weeks from now, so that paint fumes have time to dissipate properly. Seems a reasonable period of time, doesn't it? I think we can, I think we can...

tickled

I'm not one to go overboard on the saccharine even though we're having a girl. It's just not me. But when I was poking around on a forum and saw someone with a ticker similar to this one, it was the pea-in-a-pod "marker" that hooked me and made me want to make one. I'm unlikely to use it as a sig anywhere, but I had to succumb to the cuteness at least this much:


It's mainly the "ta-da!" of the pod-pea. Seems appropriate, since baby is big on making her presence felt, lately. oof. (It's a good thing.)

boom de yada!

I didn't get last Friday's XKCD until I read this post from someone who'd been in the same boat, who found out what it was: a Discovery Channel commercial that is 31 flavors of awesome. watchy watchy.

Apparently there are already people making other riffs on it. Note that since I have now discovered this meme, it must be at least half over, but I will be enjoying it for a while because I like the song so much. Another interesting bit of information from that forum thread was that the tune is from a children's song called "I Like the Flowers."

I have a strong suspicion that baby will become quite familiar with this tune in some version or another.

wiggle POKE

For many weeks now I've been able to feel baby moving. It's a bit odd, hard to describe (but here I go, trying). There's the flutter, faint enough that I'm not always sure it was her. On the other end of the spectrum, there's the kick or punch that can make me say "guh!" out loud, like she's doing right now to my right side as I type. She seems to be over there a lot today. It doesn't hurt, exactly, it just feels reeeeallly strange (and also tends to take me by surprise). In between are a variety of things that feel kind of wiggly or gurgly or like a popping sort of sensation. There's also a thing that started more recently that I guess might be her turning around, a sort of tight feeling of slower constant movement for several seconds.

...dih. there she goes some more. liking the right abdominal wall this evening, yes indeed.

She seems to wake up and get moving somewhat consistently around 10-10:30 pm (among other times), when I tend to be going to bed. I know this is only a small hint of the battle that shall be waged against my sleep patterns (and won, by her) starting around three months from now. .... whee. but she will be cute and worth it.

12. What do you eat for breakfast?

Since I have learned, in convincing and well-documented fashion, that carbs are evil -- and (most) fat is not -- we have tended in the last several months toward eggs and bacon. It is very hard to give up bread completely though, and we haven't. In fact, we had (wheat sourdough) toast and bacon this morning, and I had milk and orange juice (separately, not mixed -- pregnancy hasn't deranged my tastebuds THAT much). M did not have orange juice because of its sugar levels. I am pregnant and OJ has folic acid.

Of course, ice cream does not have folic acid, and I have been using pregnancy to justify Haagen-Dazs dark-chocolate-covered chocolate ice cream bars once a week or so. What can I say? Baby wants ice cream.

Not at breakfast, though.