It's Vacation!

Even though Friday was my last day of work, today is the first day that I didn't have to go to work! So today is the first day of my vacation. You wouldn't know it from the list I've been working through today. Half of it is probably the direct result of hormones. You don't know what I'm talking about? Well, the urge to clean my house is pretty out of control. I've been getting some pretty serious exercise cleaning my house more thoroughly than it's been in, well.... it might be forever. I spent a large portion of my weekend cleaning like a maniac, and today was the bathroom. Who knew cleaning a bathroom could be aerobic.

I think they call this "nesting."

Roomba got used in a couple rooms, but somehow it still took me hours to "prep" the room for the little robot. And our kitchen was so bad that she actually complained before she was done. Her dirt compartment was so full that she was actually dragging around this big ball of dirt. Perhaps this is more information than you wanted. (Wait until we start blogging about the bowel movements of our new baby! Kidding - I hope we never do that.) Needless to say, our home has recently gotten a "deep" cleaning thanks to the baby.

My mother-in-law is on her way here right now with her sister and her dog. Hopefully Stella will remember the dog and not be so freaked out. It'd be nice if they could just be friends, or sort of ignore each other, or something. I think Stella would prefer to be ignored and ignore, but I think Sierra really wants to be friends. If only she understood the sheer hours it sometimes takes Stella to warm up to other non-human creatures, maybe she'd just give up.

I think my two nieces are going to stay here tonight also. It's going to be a full house! It'll be fun to catch up. I fell like it's been a while. (I hope I don't go into labor tonight.)

Braxton Hicks Contractions

I've had two contractions over the past couple of days. They both caught my full attention. One was a couple days ago in the kitchen while cooking, and the other was when I was almost done hauling myself up the four flights of stairs to work today (my last day for several months!). I'm not really worried or anything because it's pretty normal for bodies to have some "practice" before the final show. In a way, I appreciate the teaser, because it's giving me a glimps into what's coming down the road. I think it'll make it easier because there's just that much less unknown. (And there's still going to be quite a bit of unknown.)

They're different than anything else I've ever felt. They were really strong, but not in a painful way. They were sorta like a strong tightening of everything from above my pelvic floor up to my mid belly. But it wasn't like a cramp at all. I'm at a loss of how to really describe the sensation. And it didn't hurt. I hope labor doesn't hurt either. (haha) I really wish I could describe these better.

As a side, I really liked this article about birth, so I'm putting it here so you too can read it.

Car Seat Training

Becoming familiar with the car seat is one of the remaining things we have left on the birth preparation list that my midwife has. There are some percentages of births where they will transfer you and the baby to the hospital after the baby is born. I'm guessing in those cases it's probably pretty important to be ready to leave quickly and not have to be learning this new device. They're not extremely complicated, but they're a new kind of gadget and not completely instinctual.

Last night my honeypot and I played with the car seat and got it all set up in the car. We even adjusted it for Elmo, who might be about the right size for a newborn. I suppose we'll see.

The Mindlessness of Life

For a while now I've had a hard time standing on my bare feet. Mostly I think it's because of the relaxin; a hormone that relaxes pelvic ligaments and helps prepare my body for birth. I'm pretty sure that this stuff is why my feet are flat now. I've always been happier with arch supports in my shoes, but my feet were never completely flat against the ground when standing barefoot as they are now.

As a result of this, my feet and legs get really painful after standing without shoes pretty quickly. I've always kicked off my shoes as soon as I get home. I like to hang out with socks or barefoot. Well, despite how much better it is to keep my shoes on, for months I've still been kicking my shoes off as soon as I get home. It's so mindless because it's caused me to stop cooking and doing all these other things I love to do that require me to stand. All this, simply because I basically didn't notice that I was kicking my shoes off when I really should have been keeping them on. It's one of those mindless habits that was so ingrained in my life that it's consequences never really occurred to me until recently. This mindlessness has really affected my life by changing the things I would do in my free time. It's pretty incredible to me.

The best part is now that I'm thinking about it and keeping my shoes on at home, I find myself repeatedly starting to take them off. Or noticing that somehow they've disappeared from my feet again. It's so mindlessly etched in my habits.

Baby Shower for Junior

My friends threw me this great baby shower this weekend. It was pretty non-traditional (I think; I haven't been to many "traditional" ones) in that we basically hung out, painted onsies and had a ceremony. And Junior got some gifts also. It was really nice! Thank you for organizing it everybody!

I'm been thinking lately about why I have an instinctual aversion to these types of gatherings (the ones where I'm the center of attention). When Christy asked me if I wanted a baby shower my gut reaction was "No." But then as I thought about it, I do actually want to celebrate my baby and I do like haning out with my friends. I like traditions and I think they're pretty important. Their importance all comes down to my spiritual/universal belief systems. I think it's important to deliberately tell the universe things. And there's more power in doing that as a group.

I've discovered that events where I become the center of attention are really uncomfortable for me. But why is that? I'm fine organizing things and I'm fine expressing myself and arguing points in meetings with upper management. I'm actually find speaking in front of groups when I know the material I'm speaking about. Somehow that's all different. I have an idea as to why this is and it all relates to how I was raised. While growing up, if I was the center of attention it meant that it was very likely that I would get criticized. When I was hiding away in the corners or just being alone I wasn't the focus and so I wasn't getting that negative attention. I can't actually think of another reason why I don't like being the center of attention.

This might also explain why I like to be alone so much. I'm definitely one of those people that "recharge" by being alone. So is this a trait that I had before growing up in the environment that I did, or did I learn it from growing up like that?

Upcoming Father's Day

The other day somebody asked me what I was looking forward to with this new family addition. It's something that I've been thinking about quite a bit since then.

One thing that keeps bubbling to the surface of my mind is the excitement I have at getting to watch my honeypot turn into a Father. I've noticed pretty much ever since I've known him how drawn to kids he is and how amazing he is when playing and interacting with various aged kids. It seems to me that kids are also drawn to him too.

In some ways my honeypot is still a kid at heart. He still has the ability to play, which I think quite a few adults have lost. This ability and attraction to playing still permeates his life in many ways. It's the attraction to exploring new things, and seeking out those new experiences. It's also slowing down enough to mindfully be aware of the little things and enjoy them. In a lot of ways I think this is the source of some, if not all, of his life force. It's still a part of mine too.

I'm really looking forward to watching him help our daughter learn how to explore her world and play with it and us.

The image is the symbol for father on the left and daughter on the right in Kanji.

California Maternity Leave

(Click on the image to see a large/readable version of it.)

I had the honor of attending a Mom's group of women that are going to give birth in the next couple of months using the care of my midwife. (Who is awesome, by the way! I'd like to give a shout out for her apprentice Ellah who I've been working with quite a bit also.)

Here we are, all big bellied women who are scheduled to pop in the next couple of months and there's so much confusion about maternity benefits. In the state of California there are no less than 4 various laws and acts, some federal, some state, specifying what leave you get, if or how much you get paid, and some of them overlap each other. Your leave specifics depend on the following:

• your company size (50+ employees withing 75 miles)
  
• your company classification (manufacturing vs. other)
• how long you've worked for your company and how many hours you've logged
  
• whether or not your company pays into the State Disability Insurance program (SDI). (Which is a company choice.)
  
• what type of birth you end up having (caesarian or vaginal birth)
• and of course if you're lucky enough to work for a company that has their own policy that's more than the state one; lucky you! (like Google with 18 weeks of full pay, where you can take it however you want, like coming back after 3 months and working half time at full pay for another 3 months.)
  

I hope this chart helps you. In all my research, I have found it to be 100% accurate at the time of this post. The gist is that for the state of California and post vaginal birth, we get 4 months off with our job and benefits protected. If your paycheck has a line item paying into SDI, then you'll get 55% of your salary up to a cap for the first 3 months of that. The last month is no pay, just job and benefits protection. This all depends on company size and other details.

Prior to birth you will get paid for 4 weeks off (55% of salary up to a cap), with the first week unpaid through California SDI (assuming your paycheck has that line item). Your company (not you) can choose to use a week of your paid time off, or sick leave, to pay you during that first week, then the next 4 weeks are paid through SDI.

If you don't use this pre birth time off, you lose it. You can not add it to your post birth leave. Also, if you end up going into labor later than expected, and end up being out of work for 6 weeks prior to giving birth, you will only get SDI pay for 4 weeks, after that first unpaid week, and then you don't get paid anything the last week. It's a tricky thing to time, because nobody really knows when you'll go into labor, assuming you're not having a scheduled caesarian.

If you end up going into labor one week after you left work, you will only get paid if your company was going to use your PTO or sick leave for that first unpaid week of SDI. You won't get any of the pre birth paid part of SDI.

It's so confusing. But count your blessings if you live here in California. We have some of the best maternity benefits in the US. Most other people get 6 weeks unpaid, except that their company can choose to bleed out all of their sick and PTO leave to pay them. Can you imagine coming back to work with a 6 week old in childcare where you no longer have any PTO or sick leave to take if your child gets sick? Most childcare places won't take a sick child, so what do you do? I suppose hope that your work is flexible. Which mine is. Ridiculously so, actually. I'm a very luck person to work where I do for a variety of reasons, one of which is how flexible and accommodating everybody is. Yeah for my company! and Yeah for working in California!

Here's another great article about CA Maternity Leave.

Ruffler Foot

I've been sewing so much more than normal lately. Besides making specific maternity clothes, I've made a sundress that I can fit into and made new curtains for several rooms in our house. Most of these projects had ruffles or pleats on them and they take forever to do by hand. I've always known there's such a thing as a ruffle foot and a couple years ago I vaguely remember putting some energy into finding one that would fit my machine. But I don't remember ever getting one.

Well, again I had become focused on finding a ruffle foot for my machine and even went to a sewing store last weekend and talked to them about ordering one. Since I didn't have my machine information I wasn't able to order one at that time, which ended up being a pretty good thing.

A couple days ago I'm looking through this pile of stuff in my craft area and guess what I found?! The pictured ruffle foot! I can't believe it. I'm pretty sure I didn't buy it myself, but I do have some vague memories of asking my honeypot to get one at the sewing store near his work maybe a year or two ago. And it looks like he got me one(!!), and I stashed it and forgot about it.

Well, this thing is pretty fantastic. You can see how complicated it is by the picture, and I haven't yet figured out how to make it gather a particular amount of fabric predictably. I'm sure I just need to play with it some more because there are a lot of parts that can be adjusted and there's 4 settings to choose from. I'm so excited to have this new gadget (that will save me so much time!!)

I'm Like the Big Plane

So about a week or so ago this simile came to me in response to the question "How are you feeling?"

Do you remember the combat game for the Atari 2600? I think it may have come with the game console sometime in the late 70's or early 80's. The cartridge had 30 or so games and one of them looked like the picture. It was a two player game where the big plane and the little planes would shoot at each other. The big plane maneuvered slower, but could shoot farther. The set of 3 small planes (which always flew in that same formation) could maneuver faster, but couldn't shoot as far.

Well, I think the best way to describe how I'm feeling is this:
I'm the big plane
and I used to be one of the small planes. I move slower, it's harder to get up from a sitting position and the insides of my torso are cramped. It's different to historically have been the hyper one bouncing around, and now I don't really do that. My plane is too large, it's too uncomfortable, and I don't really have the inclination or energy anyway. Hopefully, I'll get my physical spring back after birth. Maybe after we catch up on our sleep.

I'm officially 38 weeks according to my midwifery care.

Maniacal Drivers Depend on the Time

Due to my large size, I've been driving to work every day.

The real reason why I drive is that sometimes I can't get a seat on the BART and it kills my feet and legs to stand for 40 minutes. I have lots of opinions about the really rude people who won't give up their seats to the pregnant lady on a subway train. Truthfully, most of the time folks would move when I asked, but there was an occasion when they would not. On that one occasion I sat on the floor, but it's pretty hard for me to get up off the floor these days, and if I stand the entire trip my feet will hurt all day long. And also pretty frequently I don't want to have to ask for a seat nor do I want to risk not getting one at this late stage. So I drive to avoid it all.

Lately, I've been going to bed around 8:30pm or so and getting up around 6am or sometimes earlier. It means I can be at work by 7:30am which has lots of cool side effects.

• The first one is that people don't drive like maniacs this early in the morning. There's still tons of traffic, but it's not jammed up yet, usually.
  
• The bridge isn't usually backed up yet, either. Or if it is, it's a small back up.
  
• There's tons of all day street parking near my work. (I used to have a parking spot in a lot, but our company recently decided to only pay for half of those parking permits. I think they thought we would just pay the other half of it ourselves, but lots of us just street park now and move our cars during the day. Oh, the struggles of becoming profitable.)
• I have hours to work without getting interrupted and asked questions. So, I actually get a lot done early in my day, before all the meetings typically start.
• I get to leave work early enough that businesses are still open, and there's many hours of daylight to do my walk. (I'm still walking about 3mls every day after work. It's getting harder and harder, but I'm trying to keep it up.)
  

The maniac driver thing is a very large, important thing for me. It really makes the difference between being slightly on edge and jumpy while driving to and from work and being pretty chill and relaxed.

When I drive later, say more towards 8 or 9am, you will have several experiences where people will change lanes without signaling into maybe 10 feet of empty space in front of you while the person who is already in front of you is braking. This situation will leave you maybe a couple feet behind them as they slam into your lane and brake hard. It's pretty scary, and annoying.

And it's only worst if you're the kind of mellow driver that I usually am where I leave space in front of me. Then you get these types diving in front of you the entire way to work. Or my favorite is those people who tail you more and more because you do leave that couple car length in front of you and get visibly frustrated when you let somebody in in front of you (which I usually do if they signal.) Like somehow you're making them personally late to get to work or something. It's pretty entertaining to watch and think about, but it's just so weird. If people were just a little nicer and mellower, all of traffic would move better.

I really am entertained by watching traffic. It's almost as interesting as going somewhere and watching a new culture (which I love!) I think I got more into traffic after reading this really surprising book about, well, traffic.

Maternity Clothes

I've been sewing quite a bit lately. Most of it has been making maternity clothes that I like and are comfortable. I had these two pairs of jeans that I was wearing almost every day for a while, but they've gotten so they're a little tight in this one place. It's like there's a tight string right at the join of the elastic top part and the "normal" looking pants part.

Regardless, I've found that the yoga pants with the stretchy knit top parts are so comfortable and great to wear. So I've just made my third skirt with that type of top part and finished it this morning. This skirt (pictured) and the last one are similar in that they're a patterned cotton weave fabric on the bottom, with a stretchy cotton knit panel on the top. I even made the stretchy knit part small enough that I'll be able to wear them when I'm no longer "big bellied." The other cool thing is that they both have pockets too!

The first skirt I made is completely made out of stretchy knit and is solid forest green. It's a little longer than the skirt in the picture, and doesn't flare as much either (because it's just cotton knit and nothing else.) It also doesn't have pockets. I made it pretty fast a couple weeks ago out of desperation of having very few options for what to wear.

This picture also shows how "big bellied" I really am. I was just told that if I went into labor now it would be okay. I guess that means I'm "fully baked" now. Statistically speaking, I probably won't go into labor for another 3 or 4 weeks though. First babies are usually late.

You can also see how much sun I've been getting in the picture. It's been so nice around here. I went on a bike ride and hike today. It will definitely be my last bike ride as I was in some pain with how squished everything was under my rib cage. There just isn't much room to work with anymore. I'm still looking forward to some more hiking, or urban hiking depending.

Learnings about Pregnancy

I really have learned quite a bit about being pregnant. And what I'm about to talk about could probably be applied easily enough to health care in general.

Basically it's this: If you don't take the time to describe your experience to your provider, in detail, they will have no way of knowing if something is wrong or "different." Yes, it really is that simple. I suppose it makes perfect sense, right? They aren't mind readers after all. There's a huge amount of variations in the experience of being pregnant that are completely normal, but there's some things that indicate other potential problems.

Up until several months ago I was all consuming reading books on pregnancy (and then moved on to taking care of a newborn). In reading the details of these wide variations in being pregnant, I really had convinced myself that everything that I was experiencing was "normal."

When my care provider would ask how I was doing I always answered with "good," and that's about all I said. I don't have a need to be one of those people that talk endlessly about my health and body because I really am ok. If something isn't okay with me, and if it's bad enough, I'll say something. But that prevents finding potential issues early on, because the symptoms have to get bad enough that I'm not okay anymore and I speak up.

The issue I found isn't a big deal, but if I had been describing my experience all along I would have beem more comfortable for about the last month. The issue isn't for public consumption here, but for those of you that are worried know this: I doesn't affect the unborn baby, only me and my comfort.

Other than that, all is well. I'm still active (albeit moving slower than before). I'm still working (and will be until my last day of June 26th). I'm still crafting, having fun, and going on bike rides. I've recently rediscovered the ability to sleep through the night again (mainly because I've learned how to sleep walk to the bathroom in the middle of the night). I've been making maternity clothes because the ones I bought don't really fit me anymore and I can't justify spending money on more when I only have a month or maybe 6 weeks left. And the best news of all is that this baby is in the optimal birthing position right now. Let's just hope she stays that way.