Monday, April 22, 2013
Pregnancy thing I never realized
Here's a minor thing that makes a lot more sense to me now: You know how tv likes to show pregnant women always touching or rubbing their bellies? I do that all the time now. I don't even always notice I'm doing it, although I try to avoid it when I'm talking to my boss or whatever. Turns out a baby pushing hard against your guts with her foot is pretty uncomfortable, so pressing back, at least gently, provides some counter-pressure and makes it a little less uncomfortable. How about that shit.
Thursday, April 11, 2013
We have a "for sale" sign in our yard.
First, an update on my last post: Our friends found out that their foster son didn't die from SIDS, as was originally assumed. The poor thing had an undetected hole in his stomach that let formula and stomach acid into his abdomen, and the resulting infection is what led to his death. Obviously this doesn't make the situation any easier, and it's especially shitty that our county assured them that they were in no way at fault but still removed the other twin from their care. Please continue sending positive thoughts their way.
Second, an update on selling our house: We have the "for sale" sign, but the house isn't going to actually be listed until Saturday. It is a lot of work to get a house ready for sale, if you have any interest at all in getting a good price for it. Andy is shampooing carpets while I type this, no joke. We're having an open house next Sunday so we're living in this weird limbo of "where are the tissues?" and "is the blender already packed up?" and "is it worth the effort to fetch the coffeemaker from the garage to make a pot then bring it back out there?" (Answers: top shelf of the linen closet; yes, and at my mom's; nope.)
Third, an update on my pregnancy. I'm seven months pregnant now, which seems kind of nuts. Besides the exhaustion and occasional OH THE FIRE heartburn, I've been feeling fine, so it's been easy to float along like this isn't a huge deal. I just signed us up for childbirth classes through the hospital, and this weekend we're doing a tour of the birthing center therein, and now all of a sudden it's a lot more real that in short order I will be producing an actual human baby. In the last three days, four different people have commented on how much bigger my belly suddenly seems (THANKS GUYS) and I do have to say that things like settling in on the couch or even sitting in the driver's seat comfortably are a big production now. My weight gain is still on the low end of the scale* (get it?) (but not in a concerning way) so I guess I just forgot that all of a sudden I wouldn't be able to do things like tie my high-tops easily or shave my goddamn legs. Oh, and I passed my gestational diabetes test (which was as disgusting as they all say it is) and they found out I'm slightly anemic, so now I'm on an iron supplement that contains a stool softener and life has gotten more interesting re: bathroom time.
*This is not deliberate. I had two donuts and a huge glass of whole milk for breakfast. I think it's mostly attributable to the fact that I don't ever really feel that hungry, since my abdomen isn't large enough to contain my basketball-sized uterus and also a full stomach. I don't snack much, and when I do it's usually fruit or a handful of peanut m&ms.
Fourth, an update on M's case. Her dad got a new job a few weeks ago, which meant moving her visits until late in the afternoon, in a way that was guaranteed to disrupt evenings. The timing also meant he wouldn't be out of work early enough to be in the building early like they had been requiring, so they decided to give him a shot without that. Well, as of today he'd missed three out of six visits at the new time, so they're telling him he has to be there early again. In the short term, that means there won't be visits for a while; I don't know if he'll try to change his schedule or what, but they won't be bringing M from daycare to hang out with the worker without the dad there anymore. I fully expected the dad to be on his best behavior this month because tomorrow marks M's 15 months in care (!!) and I know he has been told this. The worker told me today that they haven't even pulled her files to write the termination paperwork, but they could file any time after tomorrow, legally. In reality it's likely we won't know a thing more about where this is heading until after this new baby arrives.
I sure hope y'all like hearing about foster care and me being knocked up and selling my house, because I do not have the energy for pretty much anything else. These are the makings of an exciting blog.
Second, an update on selling our house: We have the "for sale" sign, but the house isn't going to actually be listed until Saturday. It is a lot of work to get a house ready for sale, if you have any interest at all in getting a good price for it. Andy is shampooing carpets while I type this, no joke. We're having an open house next Sunday so we're living in this weird limbo of "where are the tissues?" and "is the blender already packed up?" and "is it worth the effort to fetch the coffeemaker from the garage to make a pot then bring it back out there?" (Answers: top shelf of the linen closet; yes, and at my mom's; nope.)
Third, an update on my pregnancy. I'm seven months pregnant now, which seems kind of nuts. Besides the exhaustion and occasional OH THE FIRE heartburn, I've been feeling fine, so it's been easy to float along like this isn't a huge deal. I just signed us up for childbirth classes through the hospital, and this weekend we're doing a tour of the birthing center therein, and now all of a sudden it's a lot more real that in short order I will be producing an actual human baby. In the last three days, four different people have commented on how much bigger my belly suddenly seems (THANKS GUYS) and I do have to say that things like settling in on the couch or even sitting in the driver's seat comfortably are a big production now. My weight gain is still on the low end of the scale* (get it?) (but not in a concerning way) so I guess I just forgot that all of a sudden I wouldn't be able to do things like tie my high-tops easily or shave my goddamn legs. Oh, and I passed my gestational diabetes test (which was as disgusting as they all say it is) and they found out I'm slightly anemic, so now I'm on an iron supplement that contains a stool softener and life has gotten more interesting re: bathroom time.
*This is not deliberate. I had two donuts and a huge glass of whole milk for breakfast. I think it's mostly attributable to the fact that I don't ever really feel that hungry, since my abdomen isn't large enough to contain my basketball-sized uterus and also a full stomach. I don't snack much, and when I do it's usually fruit or a handful of peanut m&ms.
Fourth, an update on M's case. Her dad got a new job a few weeks ago, which meant moving her visits until late in the afternoon, in a way that was guaranteed to disrupt evenings. The timing also meant he wouldn't be out of work early enough to be in the building early like they had been requiring, so they decided to give him a shot without that. Well, as of today he'd missed three out of six visits at the new time, so they're telling him he has to be there early again. In the short term, that means there won't be visits for a while; I don't know if he'll try to change his schedule or what, but they won't be bringing M from daycare to hang out with the worker without the dad there anymore. I fully expected the dad to be on his best behavior this month because tomorrow marks M's 15 months in care (!!) and I know he has been told this. The worker told me today that they haven't even pulled her files to write the termination paperwork, but they could file any time after tomorrow, legally. In reality it's likely we won't know a thing more about where this is heading until after this new baby arrives.
I sure hope y'all like hearing about foster care and me being knocked up and selling my house, because I do not have the energy for pretty much anything else. These are the makings of an exciting blog.
Tuesday, April 2, 2013
If you pray
...would you please direct some prayers towards friends of ours who are foster parents?
They accepted a new foster placement last night: newborn twin boys.
Then this afternoon, one of the twins died of SIDS while he was napping in the same room where the rest of the family was hanging out. The county has placed the surviving twin in another foster home at the request of the bio-family (the county does not suspect that our friends did anything wrong; this is just to simplify the situation).
Obviously our friends are devastated and I have no words to express how incredibly awful this must be. If you believe in a god, please ask him or her to be with our friends. If you don't, maybe just send them some healing thoughts.
Fuck, man.
They accepted a new foster placement last night: newborn twin boys.
Then this afternoon, one of the twins died of SIDS while he was napping in the same room where the rest of the family was hanging out. The county has placed the surviving twin in another foster home at the request of the bio-family (the county does not suspect that our friends did anything wrong; this is just to simplify the situation).
Obviously our friends are devastated and I have no words to express how incredibly awful this must be. If you believe in a god, please ask him or her to be with our friends. If you don't, maybe just send them some healing thoughts.
Fuck, man.
Monday, April 1, 2013
I haven't slept through the night since October.
The title of this post isn't an exaggeration. I got knocked up again in September, and I started waking up every night to pee in early October. In fact, for a few solid months now I've been waking up two or three times a night. It is some bullshit. Other than that, the pregnancy has been kind of awesome, but it is pretty grating to never feel like I've gotten enough sleep.
Things are progressing smoothly with the house. Our realtor had an interior designer come over on Saturday to help us stage the house. She had a lot of good suggestions along the lines of "Move that lamp here! Put some houseplants here! Take out that bookcase and shift that one over here! Try centering the kitchen table like this!" It was really interesting and I think it would be kind of awesome to hire an interior designer to come do a consult like that after we're settled in a new house. Some of the suggestions definitely make things look better but make the house slightly less comfortable to live in, like how the lamp that used to be right behind the chair I'm sitting in is now across the room. She wants us to get some accent pillows for our bed, which I think is silly because I am NOT into spending money on pillows that will sit on the floor most of the time, especially since they cost like twenty bucks a goddamn pillow. Did you know that? Throw pillows are fucking expensive! And stupid!
I've got a friend who works for a children's book publisher, and I do some occasional freelance work for them. I just signed on to work on a year-long book project and they want me to come to Pennsylvania for training on Wednesday and Thursday this week. So that should be fun and not at all overwhelming to add an overnight business trip midweek while six and a half months pregnant and putting my house on the market.
Hope y'all had a lovely Easter and the like!
Things are progressing smoothly with the house. Our realtor had an interior designer come over on Saturday to help us stage the house. She had a lot of good suggestions along the lines of "Move that lamp here! Put some houseplants here! Take out that bookcase and shift that one over here! Try centering the kitchen table like this!" It was really interesting and I think it would be kind of awesome to hire an interior designer to come do a consult like that after we're settled in a new house. Some of the suggestions definitely make things look better but make the house slightly less comfortable to live in, like how the lamp that used to be right behind the chair I'm sitting in is now across the room. She wants us to get some accent pillows for our bed, which I think is silly because I am NOT into spending money on pillows that will sit on the floor most of the time, especially since they cost like twenty bucks a goddamn pillow. Did you know that? Throw pillows are fucking expensive! And stupid!
I've got a friend who works for a children's book publisher, and I do some occasional freelance work for them. I just signed on to work on a year-long book project and they want me to come to Pennsylvania for training on Wednesday and Thursday this week. So that should be fun and not at all overwhelming to add an overnight business trip midweek while six and a half months pregnant and putting my house on the market.
Hope y'all had a lovely Easter and the like!
Sunday, March 17, 2013
Updates on three things
1. We met with our realtor for three hours on Thursday night. She wants us to have our house listed in two weeks. We have so many little projects to do, and most of them are things I can't do while knocked up. Andy and my dad spent the weekend working on two good-sized projects while my mom and I wrangled M and did things like cleaning out the linen closet and coat closet and packing a huge amount of various nonsense. Basically, our house should be as close to empty as it can while still being livable - like a hotel, really. My parents have a huge empty basement, so much of our stuff will be being boxed up and sent there for storage until this place is sold. It is very frustrating to me to be tired out so quickly. I know that if I don't take adequate rests, I'll burn myself out and either get sick or be unable to be productive, but it makes me feel like a dick to be sitting on the couch sipping water while Andy and my parents bust their asses.
2. M's dad has attended two visits out of eight since court. Tuesday marked 14 months since M entered foster care, and in our state they can file to terminate parental rights at 15 months. We'll see if this goes anywhere. M is the funniest, silliest little girl and has turned into a very small scientist with very bad methods: What will happen if I hit the dog in the face with a bamboo coaster? What will happen if I keep trying to close this door, even though I am fully aware that my fingers are preventing it from closing? What happens if I drop this cloth toy into the dog water bowl I'm not supposed to play with? Let us find out what Mama will do if I maintain eye contact with her and do exactly what I was just told not to do. She does all these naughty things with this look of intense concentration and really seems to be trying to find out how things work. It's a good thing that she is absolutely precious, because the kid is exhausting.
3. I'm entering my third trimester this week. The baby inside me is now approximately 15 inches long and just over two pounds. She's big enough (and I'm small enough) that I can frequently see her moving around, and I'm starting to be able to tell what's what - like oh hey, that's her foot that she keeps pretty much permanently lodged in my bottom right-hand rib. I find myself doing that pregnant lady thing where I am frequently touching my belly without noticing it. I'll just look down and find my hand there, even when I'm not thinking about the baby or pregnancy or anything. I find myself thinking thoughts to the new baby, as if I'm talking to her, which is bizarre because as far as I'm aware pregnancy doesn't come with any sort of psychic/ESP abilities. My belly button is getting more shallow by the day and there's pretty much no chance I'll make it through the whole nine months with an innie.
I'm planning to go to bed at 8:30 tonight, which is pretty exciting. Living my best life, and all that. This year's St. Patrick's Day was a little less exciting than some I've lived, but I really like where my life is right now. ...I do miss Smithwick's a lot, though. And lots of other beers. I miss beer.
What tips do you have on selling a house? Any advice on dealing with a very intelligent boundary-testing toddler? Is that "talking to the fetus" thing totally normal, or am I a weirdie?
2. M's dad has attended two visits out of eight since court. Tuesday marked 14 months since M entered foster care, and in our state they can file to terminate parental rights at 15 months. We'll see if this goes anywhere. M is the funniest, silliest little girl and has turned into a very small scientist with very bad methods: What will happen if I hit the dog in the face with a bamboo coaster? What will happen if I keep trying to close this door, even though I am fully aware that my fingers are preventing it from closing? What happens if I drop this cloth toy into the dog water bowl I'm not supposed to play with? Let us find out what Mama will do if I maintain eye contact with her and do exactly what I was just told not to do. She does all these naughty things with this look of intense concentration and really seems to be trying to find out how things work. It's a good thing that she is absolutely precious, because the kid is exhausting.
3. I'm entering my third trimester this week. The baby inside me is now approximately 15 inches long and just over two pounds. She's big enough (and I'm small enough) that I can frequently see her moving around, and I'm starting to be able to tell what's what - like oh hey, that's her foot that she keeps pretty much permanently lodged in my bottom right-hand rib. I find myself doing that pregnant lady thing where I am frequently touching my belly without noticing it. I'll just look down and find my hand there, even when I'm not thinking about the baby or pregnancy or anything. I find myself thinking thoughts to the new baby, as if I'm talking to her, which is bizarre because as far as I'm aware pregnancy doesn't come with any sort of psychic/ESP abilities. My belly button is getting more shallow by the day and there's pretty much no chance I'll make it through the whole nine months with an innie.
I'm planning to go to bed at 8:30 tonight, which is pretty exciting. Living my best life, and all that. This year's St. Patrick's Day was a little less exciting than some I've lived, but I really like where my life is right now. ...I do miss Smithwick's a lot, though. And lots of other beers. I miss beer.
What tips do you have on selling a house? Any advice on dealing with a very intelligent boundary-testing toddler? Is that "talking to the fetus" thing totally normal, or am I a weirdie?
Thursday, March 7, 2013
I still hate titling these.
Hello, hello!
We spent last weekend in Maryland hanging out with my sister and her family. Her new baby is so lovely and snuggly and perfect, and my twenty-month-old goddaughter is spunky and so freaking smart and very awesome indeed. It was a very nice visit, if way too short, except that a cousin we saw while we were there managed to spread his cold to me and M and the new two-week-old baby. Being pregnant suppresses the immune system, so a cold I used to be able to shake in three days now hangs on for two weeks, and M is also cutting some molars, so she and I are not at our very best right now.
Nothing new to report with M's case, other than that her dad has attended two out of six visits since court. Oh, and the worker told us she was chatting with the law guardian, who reported that she loves working with us and wishes she could clone us (which was nice to hear). Our worker gets my sense of humor, so I told her it was nice of her to say that, but we've actually been working on a plan to flee to Canada with M really soon, and in the meantime we're just really good at getting the white people in charge to trust us. The worker yelled, "I knew it!"
We're starting to look at houses again. I don't know if I've mentioned this, but we live in a Cape Cod, and our upstairs is two huge bedrooms and one very small bathroom, and the downstairs has a whole bunch of cramped rooms, including two very small bedrooms and a narrow living room. When we moved in it was just fine, but it's hard to entertain since everyone wants to hang out in our (small, eat-in) kitchen, and if we continue to foster it will be weird because opposite-sex kids can't share a room after age three in our county. So we're starting to look at houses that would suit our needs a little better. We've narrowed our search to two towns not far from us. I have to admit that I have no visual/spatial intelligence, so it's hard for me to look at bad paint or really outdated decor and see past it to the bones. Luckily Andy's good at that, so I'm confident we'll find something that works!
I'm pretending that the idea of doing the minor things we need to do to our house to make it more marketable (almost entirely cosmetic) and then packing and moving while pregnant or with a new baby isn't freaking my shit out. Was it convincing?
We spent last weekend in Maryland hanging out with my sister and her family. Her new baby is so lovely and snuggly and perfect, and my twenty-month-old goddaughter is spunky and so freaking smart and very awesome indeed. It was a very nice visit, if way too short, except that a cousin we saw while we were there managed to spread his cold to me and M and the new two-week-old baby. Being pregnant suppresses the immune system, so a cold I used to be able to shake in three days now hangs on for two weeks, and M is also cutting some molars, so she and I are not at our very best right now.
Nothing new to report with M's case, other than that her dad has attended two out of six visits since court. Oh, and the worker told us she was chatting with the law guardian, who reported that she loves working with us and wishes she could clone us (which was nice to hear). Our worker gets my sense of humor, so I told her it was nice of her to say that, but we've actually been working on a plan to flee to Canada with M really soon, and in the meantime we're just really good at getting the white people in charge to trust us. The worker yelled, "I knew it!"
We're starting to look at houses again. I don't know if I've mentioned this, but we live in a Cape Cod, and our upstairs is two huge bedrooms and one very small bathroom, and the downstairs has a whole bunch of cramped rooms, including two very small bedrooms and a narrow living room. When we moved in it was just fine, but it's hard to entertain since everyone wants to hang out in our (small, eat-in) kitchen, and if we continue to foster it will be weird because opposite-sex kids can't share a room after age three in our county. So we're starting to look at houses that would suit our needs a little better. We've narrowed our search to two towns not far from us. I have to admit that I have no visual/spatial intelligence, so it's hard for me to look at bad paint or really outdated decor and see past it to the bones. Luckily Andy's good at that, so I'm confident we'll find something that works!
I'm pretending that the idea of doing the minor things we need to do to our house to make it more marketable (almost entirely cosmetic) and then packing and moving while pregnant or with a new baby isn't freaking my shit out. Was it convincing?
Sunday, February 24, 2013
Two home visits and a pregnancy update
Happy weekend, dudes! Here's what's been going on with us.
1. On Tuesday we had a home visit with M's worker. She was out of town for court so we talked at length about how things went. She's still very pragmatic about our future with M: the dad, realistically, doesn't have all that much that he needs to do, so she doesn't want us to think that the outcome of court was an indication of how things will go. However, the judge straight-up lectured the dad about how he needs to attend all of his visits, consistently, and then the dad missed BOTH visits this week. Yeah, we know that he still has way more claim to M than we do, but the judge was not happy to hear how inconsistent the dad has been with his visits and then the guy went and missed two in a row.
2. On Thursday we had a visit with M's law guardian, who is a lawyer who is appointed by the county to advocate for the best interests of M. We talked to the law guardian for a while before court and filled her in on the major event that showed a huge lack of parental judgment on that dad's part. Because it was declared unfounded, she hadn't been told about it, but obviously was very glad to have the information. She was due for a visit (she hasn't seen M in about eight months) but of course we chatted about court and all. We feel confident that she'll really be a good advocate for M.
3. The pregnancy is moving along happily: I'm nearing the end of Week 23. I'm still having a really hard time getting enough sleep, which just feels mean. The next coworker who joyfully chirps, "Get used to it! HA HA!" when I say I'm tired is getting punched in the throat. The baby is now moving at predictable times, so I expect to feel her wiggling about half an hour after I eat, especially when I'm sitting at my desk at work, and also sometime between 3:30 and 4:30 in the morning, when she gets super active and kicks me in my fucking ribs or bladder for a while. Other than the exhaustion, I've been feeling fine. I'm definitely getting bigger and my balance is shifting, which makes it weird to do stuff like carry M up the stairs. We're starting to talk about hiring a doula, and I'm planning to schedule our tour of the hospital's birthing center for early next month. I'm having a hard time really feeling prepared for the future, because part of the way I do that is to imagine all the various ways it could be. Realistically, one version of our future doesn't have M living with us, but I honestly cannot picture that without feeling like throwing up, so I mostly just avoid it. This afternoon we're heading out to a fancy yarn store about half an hour away to look for lovely yarn so I can start a blanket for NewBaby, so that should be fun.
What's new with y'all? Any questions about either M's case or the pregnancy?
1. On Tuesday we had a home visit with M's worker. She was out of town for court so we talked at length about how things went. She's still very pragmatic about our future with M: the dad, realistically, doesn't have all that much that he needs to do, so she doesn't want us to think that the outcome of court was an indication of how things will go. However, the judge straight-up lectured the dad about how he needs to attend all of his visits, consistently, and then the dad missed BOTH visits this week. Yeah, we know that he still has way more claim to M than we do, but the judge was not happy to hear how inconsistent the dad has been with his visits and then the guy went and missed two in a row.
2. On Thursday we had a visit with M's law guardian, who is a lawyer who is appointed by the county to advocate for the best interests of M. We talked to the law guardian for a while before court and filled her in on the major event that showed a huge lack of parental judgment on that dad's part. Because it was declared unfounded, she hadn't been told about it, but obviously was very glad to have the information. She was due for a visit (she hasn't seen M in about eight months) but of course we chatted about court and all. We feel confident that she'll really be a good advocate for M.
3. The pregnancy is moving along happily: I'm nearing the end of Week 23. I'm still having a really hard time getting enough sleep, which just feels mean. The next coworker who joyfully chirps, "Get used to it! HA HA!" when I say I'm tired is getting punched in the throat. The baby is now moving at predictable times, so I expect to feel her wiggling about half an hour after I eat, especially when I'm sitting at my desk at work, and also sometime between 3:30 and 4:30 in the morning, when she gets super active and kicks me in my fucking ribs or bladder for a while. Other than the exhaustion, I've been feeling fine. I'm definitely getting bigger and my balance is shifting, which makes it weird to do stuff like carry M up the stairs. We're starting to talk about hiring a doula, and I'm planning to schedule our tour of the hospital's birthing center for early next month. I'm having a hard time really feeling prepared for the future, because part of the way I do that is to imagine all the various ways it could be. Realistically, one version of our future doesn't have M living with us, but I honestly cannot picture that without feeling like throwing up, so I mostly just avoid it. This afternoon we're heading out to a fancy yarn store about half an hour away to look for lovely yarn so I can start a blanket for NewBaby, so that should be fun.
What's new with y'all? Any questions about either M's case or the pregnancy?
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