Oliver Robert

Born 11/4/2009 at 11:31 AM
Weighing in at 8 lbs 5 oz
21 inches long
chest 13 inches, head 14 inches

 

halloween and false labor

The joy of being on maternity leave is that the days sort of bleed together. The downside is that it seems like time has slowed down at this point.
The past week has been nice. I’ve been taking a nap from 1pm to 2pm almost every day, and this has been heavenly.
Friday night we had a good game, and the potato soup I made was very tasty.
Saturday was Halloween, and we went over to Landon’s cousin Chyna’s house to celebrate her birthday and trick or treat. Landon spent the night at Grandma’s, and we picked him up Sunday morning from Grandma’s house.
Today I took Landon to the zoo in the hopes of bringing on labor via walking. So far it has not worked. We also took Landon to the park, and then had family movie night. We watched Ice Age with the dinosaurs. Landon picked the movie and seemed to like it.
He did not nap today, but he totally crashed out at 7:10 when the movie ended.
I had what I can only describe as false labor last night and it sucked. I’ve been taking evening primrose oil, and the last 2 nights I also inserted some. Last night I tried to sleep, but was having contractions every 10-15 minutes. They were only mildly painful. Honestly, I might have been able to fall asleep despite them except for three factors. The first factor was that Ollie DID NOT LIKE THEM. I would know that they were coming because right before I’d have one, Ollie would start kicking, then he’d stop while I had the contraction, and once it passed he’d spend the next five minutes getting comfortable again, rolling around and kicking me. The second factor was that they made me feel like I needed to pee, so I was getting up to pee after almost every contraction. The third factor was that because they were semi-regular and I wasn’t timing them exactly, I started to think they might be REAL LABOR and got all excited.
It was only around 2AM when I gave up and tried to walk around and get exact timing on them that they finally slacked off. I was able to sleep around 3AM, but I got up with Landon and 6:30AM. I tried to take a nap after the zoo, and got about 30 more minutes, but my phone kept ringing and Landon was awake and calling for me instead of napping.
I am just so done with this pregnancy. I’m hoping to bribe the midwife tomorrow into sweeping my membranes. We’ll just have to see what she says.
Hench-o-ween, Halloween, and the zoo:

Hench o Ween 09

 

Busy weekend. Friday we went to Landon’s fall festival, which was interesting, but nothing amazing. They had each classroom turned into a game or activity for the event, some were neat, some were not. They had a ton of food, but none of it was worth the risk to Landon or Bobby, so we just ate before we went. Landon got some candy and had his face painted. Overall, he had a great time.
Saturday we relaxed in the morning and then took Landon over to Laura’s. We left him there with Courtney and headed out to a good friends wedding reception. The reception was beautiful. Afterwards we hit Margaritaville because we were over on that side of town. Dinner was wonderful, but I was sad that I couldn’t get a drink. It ended up being a good thing, because Bobby’s drink hit him a little harder than expected, so I drove us home.
Sunday we went to the State Fair. We got there just after they opened. Overall, it was probably not worth the money. The place was dead, which was nice. Landon really enjoyed riding the rides. I was floored that he wanted to ride the ferris wheel. He doesn’t like heights. He loved the ferris wheel though. I thought for sure I was in for a panicked child once we got off the ground, but he was all smiles. He also rode some other rides, including driving kiddie bumpercars by himself, and riding one of the kid rollercoaster things.
The food was only okay at the fair, and there just wasn’t a ton to do. And the rides and games were very pricey!
After we finished at the fair (about 3 hours spent there in total) We went out to Grandma’s house for a little while, which Landon loved. He did not want to come home after!
On Monday I picked him up at 10:30 and took him for an H1N1 vax, then returned him to school. Bobby and I have already had the vax.
Today I had a midwife appt and then had lunch with Laura. Tonight night I am planning to go protest the raising of daycare licensing fees. Weds Landon and I will hang out and have some fun. Thursday I am hoping to get my car in for service, it needs an oil change. Friday we have game.
I would really like to go into labor today. I don’t expect to go into labor for another few weeks though

Basically Ollie might be “too early” to be born this week. I don’t want him to come before he’s ready, but my god, I am so ready. And this week works better for birthdays anyway. And then he’d be more than 6 weeks come Christmas. *sigh* nothing to do but wait though. Waiting for Labor just might be the worst part of this.
36 weeks. Of course, now the doctor says I’m full term using their due dates.

My midwife was running about 90 minutes behind schedule today. Turns out the other midwife is out of town, and she had THREE babies born last night! Anyway, so after much waiting around, I had a quick U/S to confirm Ollie is indeed head down. 1 cm dilated, 25% effaced. However, my boy is at station -4, so his head is not engaged in the “pelvic region” where it needs to be.
Still, for being 36 weeks by my count, that’s not too bad. I’m hoping Ollie comes soon. I have read online that often second babies don’t become engaged until Labor starts. Everything looked great.
Had lunch at Red Robin with Laura, which was fun and tasty. I also hit Babies R Us and grabbed a few things with the gift card my work gave me.
We’re going to a meeting tonight to protest the sudden jump in licensing fee taxes for care providers (including childcare, after school programs, and adult day care centers). Should be interesting.

 

weekend update, midwife appt.

Overall, a very good weekend.
Friday we gamed. Saturday we had the baby shower, and Sunday Bobby put up the first wall in my library. I had today off and got some shopping done for Ollie and for Christmas. I think I overdid it, I’m wiped out.
The baby shower was truly amazing. I have such wonderful friends and family. I did not expect to get the Joovy caboose stroller, the baby jumperoo, an infant swing, and a changing table. Not to mention lots of other cool stuff, including a video of advice from the hench for Ollie. And the amazing Bear cake! We played a couple baby shower games, including a clothes pin game, where you couldn’t say the word Baby without losing a pin. There was guess the baby food by smell game, and lots of good company. I can’t believe how loved and blessed we were.
In other news, I think Ollie has dropped some. He is sitting lower than he was. He dropped on Friday. Today I had contractions on and off too. This kid is going to come early, I’m almost sure. I’m also pretty hopeful.
Baby Shower Pics:

Baby Shower

So I had a midwife appointment yesterday. According to them I’ll be “full term” (37 weeks) on Saturday (10/24). According to me it’s full term on Nov 2nd.
My blood pressure was fine, I actually hadn’t gained any weight in the past week. All my vitals were fine, Ollie is measuring on track for their due date still. His heartbeat was in the 140-150 range. I got the results back for Group B Strep, and I’m still negative, as I was for Landon. This is good news, as it means they won’t push me to put in an IV until I’m ready for it. The midwife did encourage me to get a hep lock, but I told her I wasn’t going to until I actually needed the IV. They had me sign some papers stating I understood what a midwife does, and at what point a doctor is needed. For example, if I want a C section, I need the doctor, of course.
I got all my documents filled out and turned in for my maternity leave; at least I hope I did. I got the H1N1 flu shot as well. So I’ve gotten both flu shots and so has Bobby. Landon still needs the H1N1, but I’m trying to hold out for the actual shot for him, rather than the flumist. Bobby got the flumist and ended up with a runny nose and some achiness from it. So far, other than my arm feeling a little bruised, (which is my own fault) I’ve had no side effects from mine. I always tense up and jerk a little, which causes more soreness than if I could just relax and get the shot. I managed to get it without anyone having to hold me down though. When I got in the car after the appointment, I did have an attack of the shakes, but I waited till it passed and then went and got some food in me. Post needle traumatic stress or something, I really hate needles!
So I’ve got my all my ducks in a row for Ollie’s arrival at this point. I think I have everything ready both here at home and for in the hospital. I’ve got my pump packed, I made sure it worked, and all the supplies I need to feed Ollie if BFing fails for some reason. No formula for this little dude until he’s at least 6 weeks old.
Friday night Landon’s school is having their fall festival, so we are attending that. Saturday is a wedding reception for a good friend, and Sunday we may hit the state fair. My leave starts on Monday, so no more work for me after Friday. I’m trying to leave the rest of my schedule open and flexible, so that I can give birth to this boy whenever he’s ready.
Had a weird dream the other night that I gave birth to Ollie and that he was a she. Bobby and I then proceeded to have a huge fight over what to name Ollie.

 

Behold, 30 U.S. senators who don’t give a d*mn about battered women

I think there are about 30 senators out there that need to be impeached, right away. And unfortunately, 2 of them are for my state. Why should they be removed?

Because of this: The gang rape and the Republicans / Behold, 30 U.S. senators who don’t give a damn about battered women

From the above article:
Here is freshman Minnesota senator Al Franken’s first-ever legislative action, a relatively simple, almost laughably surefire bill requiring the Pentagon no longer do business with any contractor — hi, Halliburton! — that requires its employees to agree that she cannot sue said contractor if she is, oh let’s just say, gangraped by its employees .
You read that right. It’s a can’t-sue-us-if-you’re-raped clause. In a U.S. government contract. Aimed squarely at Halliburton.

What are their names? Glad you asked:
NAYs —30
Alexander (R-TN)
Barrasso (R-WY)
Bond (R-MO)
Brownback (R-KS)
Bunning (R-KY)
Burr (R-NC)
Chambliss (R-GA)
Coburn (R-OK)
Cochran (R-MS)
Corker (R-TN) Cornyn (R-TX)
Crapo (R-ID)
DeMint (R-SC)
Ensign (R-NV)
Enzi (R-WY)
Graham (R-SC)
Gregg (R-NH)
Inhofe (R-OK)
Isakson (R-GA)
Johanns (R-NE) Kyl (R-AZ)
McCain (R-AZ)
McConnell (R-KY)
Risch (R-ID)
Roberts (R-KS)
Sessions (R-AL)
Shelby (R-AL)
Thune (R-SD)
Vitter (R-LA)
Wicker (R-MS)

 

pumpkin patch and relaxing

Friday morning I dropped Bobby’s van off for service at the local dealership, it needed an oil change and one of the headlights burned out. I hate it when one burns out, it means the other one is going to go in the next few weeks. Work was dull, but I got out early to go get the van, and then we had a nice Thai dinner with Dirk and Laura. Bobby ran the last of his game for now. I fell asleep again. I have no energy. Bobby’s game went well, and we are on hiatus from that gaming group until January. They are going to play a game without us in the meantime. With Ollie coming so soon, I feel like we need the break, and I can’t seem to stay awake for anyone’s game anymore.

Saturday was supposed to be my nephew Van’s fourth birthday, but he was ill, so it was canceled. We did have a good lunch with Uncle Jack and Uncle Sam (my brother). I hadn’t seen Sam in a while, so it was good to catch up.

Saturday evening we had some people over for ROCKBAND BEATLES! And we finished the game, in the sense that we have played every song. We need to go back and unlock everything still. We had a blast overall though! Emily and Landon had fun playing together, and we put them down to sleep in Landon’s room.

Sunday I slept in, which was wonderful. Bobby got up with Landon at 5:30 in the morning. At some point before I awoke they went to the park and home depot. Landon brought me home a very pretty plant with pink flowers! Landon and I did some grocery shopping while Bobby worked out at the AJ house. We met for lunch at Rubios and then went over to Mother Nature’s Farm – Pumpkin Patch. Landon had a lot of fun picking out a pumpkin, riding the tractor ride, and decorating a pumpkin. (pictures at Landon and Ollie)

We had a lazy Sunday afternoon after nap, and we got in the spa for some swimming. Overall it was a pretty relaxing weekend.

I’m back at work today, but only two more weeks to go (counting this week) until I start my vacation and maternity leave! I’m 34 weeks pregnant today by my calculations. The doctor says I’m 35 weeks 4 days. Either way, I’m planning on Ollie arriving, at the earliest, three weeks from today, and at the latest, seven weeks from today. If we get past the seven weeks, (and into December) I will most likely consent to an induction at this point. So I’m hoping Ollie will be an early bird, unlike Landon, who was LATE!

 

Dumptruck Mommy!

Good Weekend overall. Game Friday, breast feeding class on Saturday followed by a Landon free date night, Jamie’s birthday party was Sunday.
Rick made us spicy pork for dinner for game, and it was TASTY. Game was good, our characters are now going into space!
Saturday morning I got up and went over to Baby, Mother, and More for their free breast feeding class. It ended up being run by the LC who works there, which was one of the three LCs I saw when Landon wouldn’t breastfeed. One of the ones who told me I was doing everything right. *sigh* It was a good refresher, but overall, I just am hopefully Ollie will be a better eater than Landon was.
Saturday afternoon Bobby’s mom offered to take Landon, so Bobby ran out to Christine’s house to fix her computer while Landon napped. Once Landon woke up from nap, I ran him over to Grandma’s house, and then met up with Bobby at Oreganos. Dinner was super tasty. We came home and FINALLY watched “”Watchmen” which of course, felt was overtly depressing. We weren’t fans.
Sunday morning the grandparents dropped Landon off with us, and said he had been very good, but had coughed a lot. We knew he’d picked up a cough from Thursday night dinner. He was a little clingy but doing okay most of Sunday. We had a blast at Jamie’s birthday party (see pics at link below) , but I was wiped out after. Apparently, I wasn’t the only one. Landon came home and fell asleep on the couch a little before 6. He did not want to wake up, so we put him down early and caught up on Supernatural. I love that show.
Landon then woke up at 9pm, 10:30pm, and midnight. At midnight I did something I haven’t done before. I moved him into our bed. He slept, we didn’t sleep so well. He tossed, he turned, he woke up and talked, and overall kept us from sleeping. Not to mention the kicking and cuddling he did.
He didn’t want to go to school today, and he cried when I left him, although part of that was because I messed up his routine. See, normally I drop him off at 6:30am, and I drop him in the Monkey room. (Landon is a jaguar, the 2 year old room is the monkey room). About 6:50, the first jaguar teacher shows up and takes him to the jaguar classroom. Since I had today off, I let Landon sleep in a little, and we got to school at 7. Walking past the monkey room to the jaguar room was just too much of a change for him. He cried for the monkey room. Weird child.
Landon went with us to pick out Jamie’s present; we got Jamie a dump truck toy at Costco. Landon loved it. I told him to ask Santa for one (wink wink). Anyway, he has been obsessed with it, and when I picked him up today he asked if we could go to Laura’s so he could play with Jamie’s dump truck.
I ran some errands today and wrapped Christmas and Hanukkah presents.

It feels like I’ve been pregnant forever at this point. 4 more weeks to the “safe zone” I’m really looking forward to the baby shower in two weeks. Is it weird that I sign cards/presents/gifts to people “Love, Landon, Ollie, Bobby and Jen”? given that Ollie’s not born? What about for the Christmas gifts I wrapped? Sometimes I worry I am cursing something to go wrong, by having already wrapped and addressed presents to Ollie.

Jamie's 4th birthday

 

9 and a party

Weekend was good. We had dinner with friends Friday night at Spinatos, one of my favorite places to eat. Saturday we went to the castle. We let Landon have $12 this time, and he won almost 400 tickets.
After lunch we went to Jesse and Gabe’s joint birthday party, which was fun.

Gabe and Jesse's party + Oliver's room

Saturday night I felt ill, so we watched Supernatural, but went to bed early. Sunday morning Bobby took Landon over to play at Emily’s house, so I had time to myself. I went out and did some Christmas shopping. It was nice to have some me time. I also finished reading “An Echo in the Bone.” I was not thrilled with it, especially the end. Especially since it’s going to be another 3-4 years before the next one comes out.
Sunday evening we got in the Spa, and after Landon went to bed we caught an episode of Fringe.
I have today off, so Bobby worked from home and we took a lunch break to go see 9. Again, I liked it, but I was disappointed with the ending. Also, post apocalyptic steam punk is weird.
I’m so ready to have this baby. At the same time, it seems almost surreal that it’s almost time to have this baby. My belly seems huge, and I keep bumping into things. I’m in some amount of pain as well, although it’s normal preggo pains. I can’t sleep for more than 4 hours without a bathroom break. FIVE MORE WEEKS TILL FULL TERM! (full term is 37 weeks, normal term is 40 weeks.)

 

pregnancy is so much fun

Well, it looks like we are going to the “Castle” tomorrow. Landon managed to go the whole week without tears when being dropped off at school, so Saturday we will take him to Golfland and let him play in the arcade for a while. He was a bit of a pill getting ready for school on Tuesday, but Thursday and Friday morning both he was happy and well behaved, with no outbursts at all. I’m very proud of him.

I have exactly one week and one month until I reach “full term” on Oliver. By my due date calculations Nov 2nd would be the first day of the 37th week. I know my doctor has me with an earlier due date, but I would be worried if Ollie came before Nov 2nd. I’m getting more and more uncomfortable with each passing day. This morning while helping Landon get dressed, I bent over too far, and ended up with a stabby pain around the round ligament area. It hurt so bad I saw stars. I sat up and it went away completely. I have got to stop bending over.

I’m going to have to go back and see if I felt this done with Landon at this point. 9 more weeks of pregnancy seems like a long time right now. I am looking forward to the baby shower though!

Ollie has been transverse a lot at night. I’m concerned (only slightly at this point) that he’s not head down. He’s still got a lot of room to move it seems, despite me feeling like I’m the size of a house. He just did a major shift from left to right as I was typing. It’s still weird to me to watch my whole belly shift like that.

I’m going to lunch with a friend and getting a free milkshake at Red Robin. Yum.

Another friend of mine, who works for the public school system, got her Swine Flu (H1N1) vaccine yesterday at work. If you guys hear of anyplace local giving the vax, let me know? I can’t find it yet, and I know I’ll feel better once I’ve had it.

 

lack of sleep, watch me go!

Landon went to bed with a fever last night. I gave him some motrin at bedtime and he slept till about 2am. Then he was up every 5 to 30 minutes for the rest of the night. He seems better today, so I’m hoping he can go to school tomorrow. I had some vacation to burn, so I was taking today off as an Ollie and Jen day. I was going to do a little shopping, watch some TV, and work in the nursery a little bit more. Since I ended up keeping Landon home from school, the only thing on that list I accomplished was the TV during nap time. I watched Vampire Diaries and 2 episodes of Babylon 5 season 1. I borrowed the whole series from a friend, and my goal is to get through it all before I go back to work from my maternity leave.

Landon does not like staying home. He keeps asking to go to the store, the park, the castle, and even to school.

We had a pretty laid back weekend. Bobby went to a Thai cooking class Friday night and had an interesting time, although he was not impressed overall with it. Landon and Emily got to play while we gamed at J&G’s place.

Saturday we were lazy and didn’t do much other than get in the pool. Sunday we took Landon to see Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, which he was rather well behaved for and seemed to enjoy. It’s a little sad to me that we’re just getting to the point where I feel okay about taking Landon to the movies for G/PG flicks, and we’re about to add Ollie, so it’ll be three more years before we really can reliably go see flix at the movies.

I babysat Landon and Emily Sunday so that some of our friends could go rock climbing at the phoenix rock gym. I know they had a great time! Maybe after I’ve had this baby I can go if they go again, and I can find a sitter. Okay, so more like six months from now is the earliest I could do it, but still!

Landon’s school did school pictures this week. His first school pictures! My goodness. Also, his first ever scholastic book order went out this week. I ordered enough books to cover me for Hanukkah, so I won’t have to worry about buying him anything for that now. I just need to pick up a couple of board books to give Ollie for Hanukkah now.

I’ve started Christmas shopping already as well, although I haven’t gotten very far on that front. It’s hard to do this early, plus, as always, I plan to order a bunch of things off Snapfish with pictures on them, so I have to wait till Ollie is here to even work on them. (I need Ollie photos to complete things)