Liz Lemon says hi.

Jack says, "Halp me!!"

Bought a new dryer yesterday. Now I can actually get laundry done! Our old one was taking forever and a day to dry stuff, to the point where we could not keep up with our laundry mountain. Since we'll be using cloth diapers, and also washing baby clothes, we needed something more efficient. We found a slightly damaged Samsung steam dryer at Lowe's for 50% off. They delivered it today and so far, so good! I may actually be able to turn the mountain into a molehill! 

Not going back to work til after I have the baby. Foot doctor wants me to have physical therapy three times a week! We'll see how long that lasts. Meanwhile, the pregnancy edema has started, and of course my injured foot is severely angered. +3 on the left, +1 on the right. Gross. My hands are swollen too and I had to pry my wedding ring off before I cut off the circulation in my finger. I ordered a cheap blingy replacement on eBay several ring sizes bigger. My finger doesn't like being naked.

Baby shower!

Considering I am not supposed to be walking, I have been very busy in the last week! My foot feels (and looks!) so much better. I don't see the specialist again til next week and I'm assuming he will clear me to return to work. Joy. I've only had ONE doctor appointment this week and that has been a nice change of pace!

Over the weekend, Mark's family came to town for my our baby shower! It was nontraditional in the sense that it was coed. His friends came up from Naples, so it was nice that he got to visit with them for a while. We got some great stuff and it was nice to have the baby be celebrated! Mark's mom bought our crib, his dad got our crib mattress, and my parents bought our baby bedding, car seat, mini crib for our bedroom. We are almost all set with "big" purchases!

This week, we really got to work on Lily's room. It is finally painted and we will be installing the wood floor tomorrow! As soon as the floor is done we can assemble the crib. The crib sheets are on back order from PBK, but the crib skirt came and it is super cute! I've painted her name letters to go on the wall in the room, and the curtains are coming tomorrow from Amazon. I also finally ordered a dresser! Is it sad that this is one of the things I am most excited about? I can't wait to start putting her clothes away! I have been looking for a dresser forever and I have been concerned about off-gassing of formaldehyde and other chemicals. I never actually looked at the matching furniture that goes with the crib until last night, as I hadn't heard anything good about it, but they claim it is free of formaldehyde, pthalates and lead and has a non-toxic finish! So I ordered it from Amazon, of course, and it will be arriving next week.

I really want to get rid of some stuff (plus make some extra $), so I found a few things to put up for sale on eBay, and started taking some pictures so I could list them.

No, he's not for sale, he just decided he wanted to get in my way! He got right up on the table and made himself at home. Typical Jack!

Fuck

I went to a sports medicine doctor on Monday in an attempt to obtain a sexy walking boot. Unfortunately, I got more than I bargained for: my sexy boot, extremely evil crutches, and a note essentially barring me from work for THREE WEEKS: "Must remain non-weightbearing on crutches at all times until seen for re-eval".

I will admit I am completely non-compliant with the crutches. I'm almost 33 weeks pregnant and I honestly think giving them to me was some kind of cruel joke. As evidenced by my injury, regular old walking is extremely dangerous for me, so throwing crutches into the mix is a recipe for (even more) disaster. On the positive side, the boot helps tremendously and I do attempt to stay off of it as much as possible, though that gets boring really fast.

I was only going to take off 8 weeks with the baby, so being forced out of work for 3 weeks really complicates things. If I had the money, I would have taken the full 12 weeks with Lily that FMLA grants me. Now I lose those 3 weeks, so even if I realized I could have taken them, they'll be gone. This is one very shitty aspect of America. I'll probably see if I can get my foot re-evaluated after 2 weeks though. Hopefully he would clear me to work.

Yesterday as I was on my way home from the doctor, I watched a car accident happen literally right in front of me. A car was T-boned trying to cross a main road from a side street. I'm not sure she stopped at the stop sign, but it was her fault regardless. Both cars ended up in my lane right in front of me, so I am very happy I hadn't been going even a tiny bit faster, or they could have hit me too. I stopped and let one of the drivers use my phone. Everyone seemed ok for the most part. Sooo freaking glad it wasn't me though.

Sad Foot Saga

Working Friday night was apparently a bad idea. When my shift was over, my foot looked like this:

I couldn't believe the bruising at the base of my toes. Where did that come from?! Not sure what I'm supposed to do about working this week. Because walking really sucks, and my job = walking, a lot. I want to get one of those walking boot things, I figure that might make it hurt less? I'm guessing that obtaining one will require another doctor visit though.

In cuter news, here's Jack.

Keeping with the trend of WTF ultrasounds this week, I had my first repeat AFI this morning, and the tech got 19 for her first measurement, which technically is polyhydramnios (excess fluid, and the opposite of what my supposed issue was on Weds). She redid it (Lily was really active and that can skew the measurements) and got a little lower (in the normal range) but essentially, she was totally wrong on Wednesday with everything she told me. She also redid the fetal weight estimate and got 3lb12oz, down from 5lb2oz!! So now, I have my next repeat on Tuesday and we'll see how things compare. But right now it's looking like everything is fine and my baby is not a giant quite yet. Hopefully she will get to wear some newborn-sized clothes after all!

Now I get to take a nap and go to work for the first time in...6 days? It's hardly felt like time off. And now I have my gimpy foot that will make work soooo much more pleasant. :/

Ow

Just for a fun comparison, here is my stupid foot 3 days later.

Hospital Week

Well it's been somewhat of a craptacular week. Of course when shit actually does happen, it takes a while to post about it!

So, Sunday I actually got canceled, and that was fine but in the end it is kind of what sparked Monday's incident, as Sunday night I got bored and went to bed early. Mark and I got up early on Monday and decided to run some errands together. We were going to stop at my work so I could go to HR and get my FMLA papers, and then go to Home Depot and also finally quit my freaking gym that I've not gone to in almost a year. For our first stop, we went down to the hospital, and I started to walk toward the HR entrance, slipped on the curb, sprained my ankle and fell on my side on the concrete. :( I was a crying mess and we went right over to L&D so I could get the baby checked on. I was monitored for several hours and they did an ultrasound and some bloodwork, and everything checked out fine with the baby. We were there for about 5 hours, but at least everything is ok.

My foot is sad. And puffy. That bruising has faded, but also spread to the base of my toes. Awesome.

Tuesday, I debated all day whether or not to get my foot looked at. For reasons past my understanding, they couldn't get a portable x-ray done during the 5 hours I was in the hospital on Monday. I figured it was most likely just a sprain, but it was pretty blue and swollen, and I was a little concerned that I might have a small fracture somewhere. My PCP couldn't see me and they recommended I go to a walk-in clinic for an x-ray. I wasn't a fan of that idea, but eventually I decided to go for it, and we went at the worst possible time. We waited there in the tiny, hot, packed waiting room with a bunch of sick people for over an hour. Finally I got taken back, got it x-rayed, and it's fine, of course. The doctor recommended I not work for a week, but I really can't afford to do that considering I'm about to miss 2 months of work pretty soon.

Yesterday morning, I had a regularly-scheduled appointment for an ultrasound to check on how big the baby is. The ultrasound tech spent quite a while looking at things, and then said she said my fluid looked really low. She also said the baby was over 5 pounds. I got pretty concerned about the low fluid. Where did it go and why?? I didn't have an appointment to see my doctor, but they called her and she asked another doctor to "check me" to make sure I wasn't leaking fluid. Luckily, it didn't look like I was, but since it was really low, she sent me to the hospital for more testing and IV fluids. I was absolutely ok with this plan as I would much rather err on the side of caution. Low fluid could be just dehydration, or a problem with the placenta or issues with the baby's kidneys, and a complication of it can be compression of the cord, reducing or even stopping bloodflow to the baby. However, I really was not a fan of this doctor.  I am so thankful for my doctor who essentially has taken me on as a private patient. Anyway, we left the office and Mark and I stopped at home quickly, grabbed a few things and headed to the hospital.

After I got into a room, the first thing they did was another ultrasound to check the bloodflow through the umbilical cord (cord dopplers) and a biophysical profile that basically assesses fetal wellbeing. Part of that includes looking at fluid levels, and she found plenty! This ultrasonographer got my level to be 12.6cm which is absolutely, completely normal (essentially exactly what it should be right now) and a huge change from the 4cm the first person got 2 hours prior. Everything else looked great with the baby, and she also did a quick fetal weight since I was really not believing the 5lbs (totally gigantic) the other woman told me, and she got 3lbs14oz (completely normal). My doctor was notified of the correct fluid level, she came over to see me and sent me home!

So, that is 2 trips to the hospital in 3 days. Thankfully, everything looks good. I'm supposed to have repeat ultrasounds tomorrow and Tuesday and I'm waiting for my doctor's office to call me with the appointment times. Hopefully they will actually do that today, as you know, Friday is tomorrow.