Anxiety

The diapers arrived this morning. I have 80 small prefolds, a diaper can with liner, 2 brand new Snappis, a tiny bottle of baby powder, a little tin of diaper salve, a new cloth shopping bag, and a thing. It's a little wafer of something in a plastic package. I'm not sure what it is; I should probably email the nice lady from the diaper service about it...

Eighty diapers is a lot of diapers. I had to do some serious rearranging of stuff. But I also now have diapers so I packed the baby's hospital bag.

My hospital bag is already in the car. I'm bringing my own johnny coat. It's been washed so many times that it's super soft, unlike the new ones that hospitals stock. I've also packed my black wrap dress, old but clean panties, the super soft and comfy sleeping/nursing bra that Bryn's mom sent me, toothbrush & toothpaste, Tylenol, comb and hair ties, and the really sweet pj set my mom got me. I probably won't wear all of the set - I'd hate to get it messed up with bodily fluids, but it has a short nursing top and a jacket for keeping me warm.

We have a cosleeper, we just have to set it up. We have a cradle in the living room, we're just waiting on a mattress for it. I found the Amby and washed all the bedding and set it up in the living room. I took it apart again because it takes up a lot of room. Push comes to shove: the cradle can go into storage and the Amby can go where the cradle is now. So we do have a place for the baby to sleep if he comes this afternoon.

We have diapers, clothes, a bed, a sling, I'm making colostrum (I leaked a bit last night)... Why am I so scared?

The midwife and my therapist both say it's because I've done it before. The first time, you don't know what to expect. What does a contraction feel like? How much could it possibly hurt? How long could it possibly go on? Women have been giving birth for millenia, how hard could it be? And that's just labor and delivery stuff. That doesn't even include the baby stuff.

I think I've mentioned that Bryn is looking for work. His contract wasn't renewed, so he's on unemployment. But that didn't kick in until last week because he had to go through an adjudication period before his waiting period. My ex-husband hasn't paid child support since May. The Office of Child Support sent me paperwork about taking him to court. Again. My loan disbursement isn't due for at least another week. This all might have something to do with the anxiety, on top of the stuff I know to expect.

I will not have Pitocin this time, so that should make my contractions more bearable. The lack of pitocin should also make my labor more productive. Since I won't have the pitocin, I won't need the Stadol, which should mean that the baby won't have a slow heart rate. Hopefully, this time there won't be meconium in the waters. Hopefully, this time I won't need an episiotomy. Hopefully, this time the baby will cry and I'll be able to hold him within an hour of birth.

I'm just anxious. I was up for over an hour last night just trying to breathe and stop crying. We all know everything is okay. Bryn tries very hard to soothe me. Alex is excited. Why can't I stop panicking and enjoy this?

Diapers 101

I went to the Cloth Diapers 101 on Saturday. Boy, are diapers complicated! Jessie is really sweet and really knows her diapers.

A few of the things I learned Saturday:

1. I can't do pocket diapers - my hand gets stuck trying to re-tuck them.


2. Pre-folds are probably the way to go until the baby starts crawling.

3. Number 2 means that I'm going to need some more diaper covers.

4. All-in-ones, which I thought I'd never want, are really cute and probably a good idea if I leave the baby with people uncomfortable with cloth diapers.


5. Given that I can't customize cycles on the machines at the laudromat (just rinse, just spin, etc.), I may be better off using a diaper service. Lots of wasted water and energy - and $3.75 for one load of diapers to get washed appropriately seems excessive. It is cheaper than the diaper service, if you don't think about the cost of the detergent and the time that goes into it (3 cycles x 38 minutes = nearly 2 hours of washing).

6. I get $10 off my first order through Jessie if I use the code she gave me at the class. That makes the class free, essentially. Or I could just get a really cute cover for cheap!

7. I can add stuff from Diaper Days to my Amazon Baby! Wishlist.

I really liked the class and Jessie. It was nice getting out and thinking about baby stuff by myself. I love doing the baby thing with Bryn; but I'm not sure I would have played dress-up with the doll quite so long if he'd been there.

Baby Stuff

The last post was really light on baby stuff. I'm going to try to make it right with this post.

Today was my glucose test. With any luck, good results will be returned to us on Monday. I failed the one hour with Alex - but passed the three hour; so I'm a little nervous. I ate a good breakfast of tea, eggs, and toast - no jam, juice, honey, or sugar, so I actually felt nearly human when I arrived at the office. The blood draw went scary. The first nurse checked both my arms and called in the other nurse. The second nurse got one good vial and then I just stopped flowing halfway through the second vial. Hopefully, they have enough for the tests they want to run. 

On the 25th I got my hemoglobin tested and it was 12.4 - my goal was 11, so my iron levels seem to be good. I am producing about two pounds of blood this trimester, so I need all the iron I can get. It also ups my clotting factor...

Twenty-nine weeks today. 

My appointments will be every two weeks from now on - and I've scheduled all of them! I'm getting scared. 

The baby is moving like crazy. I get to watch him move. He can stomp on my bladder and elbow my lungs at the same time. He has woken me from a sound sleep. Bryn giggles every time the baby wiggles under his hand. Alex has only felt it once. There is something about her hand that just calms the baby right down. 

I mentioned a box from a friend a while ago - more clothes and diapers have arrived. My sister-in-law sent over a few boxes - and there are a lot of woolly knitted things. Then a friend sent over more clothes and diapers. Seriously, I am ecstatic! I don't think I'm going to need any more newborn diapers. I have more clothes than the little booger could wear before he outgrows them. Now all I have to do is wash them, organize them, and figure out where the heck to put them. The apartment is looking kind of small but a lot of that is camping stuff, baby stuff in bins, and bags full of Alex's stuffed toys. Once the lice scare is over, the toys will go back to her room. The baby stuff needs to find a home. The camping stuff needs to find a home. The rest of the place needs to be cleaned up. 

I've wanted comfort foods lately. Pierogis. Mac and cheese. Graham crackers. Chocolate. Ice cream. Warm and creamy is the ideal, but ice cream is the exception. And I want a lot of ice cream. All the time. 

I've registered Alex for a Big Sibling class. They will tour the maternity ward at Fletcher Allen, learn to diaper and swaddle, and they are going to make birth day cards for the new baby in their family. 

Bryn and I still need to register for birthing class. Insurance will pay for the 10 hour long class, it will not pay for the 5 hour refresher... The one weekend long class is the weekend before I'm due. The other option is five Wednesdays in a row (or Tuesdays or Thursdays, etc...). This is not going to work out well. Bryn and I need to go to Canada for a week in July. No matter which course we register for, we will miss one class because we'll be out of the country. We're also going to need a babysitter for Alex. I'm starting to wonder if I really need to do this... I know I do. I just hate that nothing has been easy lately. 

Nothing ever is though, is it?

Baby Registry and Shower Thoughts

A friend of mine asked me yesterday if I was registered anywhere. No, I'm not. I have a baby wishlist at Amazon. I have a few links here on the blog with neat baby item ideas (if anyone wants to spring for diaper service, I'll name my third child after you). I just... This isn't my first baby. I have some baby stuff. Registering feels like asking for presents. I don't do that. When asked what I wanted for Mother's Day, I asked to sleep in and have a nice breakfast. I'm not good at asking for stuff.

That said, I lost a lot of Alex's stuff in Tropical Storm Irene. My mother's basement flooded. I was mostly freaked out about my books, at the time. I wasn't pregnant and wasn't thinking that far ahead. Yes, we were trying, but I lost books my grandmother gave me. I had donated a lot of Alex's layettes to the Katrina relief efforts. I had maybe a handful of really cute, absolute favorites that I kept - the rest all went to NOLA in September of 2005. I lost that remaining handful in our flood.

I also fear and hope that I won't have a baby shower. Alex's father's family threw me a shower for Alex. It was very sweet, but my mother had no idea about it and felt left out. I would kind of like a shower, if only to have friends come and hug me, but no one wants to come to a shower empty handed and I don't want to ask for stuff, despite the fact that I do indeed need stuff. Bryn knows how I feel about the shower thing. He worries that no one would throw one for me and has offered to figure out how to throw one for me. I told him he was terribly sweet, cried all over him, and told him not to bother.

I'm not sure why, but I feel like baby showers are the sort of thing you do for the first baby. I feel the same way about bridal showers, even though I never had one the first time around. I know the etiquette about not mailing registry cards with wedding cards; it's tacky. I feel the same way about registries in general. But I still want stuff. I still need stuff.

I'm not sure what to do. For the time being, I'll just keep adding to the Amazon list, which has a link in this blog's sidebar and hoping for the best. ...yeah, I'm pretty damned passive.

Diapers, diapers, diapers...

I have a very sweet friend who just mailed the baby a HUGE box of baby clothes. There is a gallon zipperbag full of tiny socks. Lots of bitty booties, stacks of clothes Newborn through 12 months, hats (some with tags still), and diapers. Four different types of diapers. Lots of velcro and snaps.

Alex was in disposables. There was no diaper service and the washing machine was on its last legs. When I moved in with my mom there was no way I was switching to cloth. The idea of a diaper bucket in her house made me want to gag and she had horror stories about my bitty butt to share.

Apparently, there was a diaper service in the area when I was a baby. It was cheap, it made Mom feel good about her rustic lifestyle, and I was so allergic to the diapers that we were both in tears on a regular basis. She would put me in disposables to let me heal, so she could use creams and such on my bum, but when she would switch back the rash would come right back. So she gave up on cloth. We had the same conversation about IUDs a few years ago. She hated hers; I adored mine. I hope diapers go the same way.

Anyway, this box of baby goodies that arrived on my door-step had gDiapers, Litewraps, and Flips in them. I read about all of them. They each sound really great. Yay economy! Yay environment! What do you mean I swish poo in the toilet? And then I keep a bag of these wet things in my house? Dirty? At $1.25/wash at my local laundromat I go through about $40 worth of laundry a month as it is. That's not including detergent. Now I need to add about two additional loads a week and each load needs to go through the machine 3 times? That doesn't sound economical or environmentally friendly. I wash our clothes in cold water. Not only does it save energy, it's better for the clothes. The diapers have to be done in hot. The hot water demands more energy consumption and three cycles through for each load (2 per week x3 cycles each x4 weeks a month = 24 additional (just diaper) loads/month) is a lot of waste water. The sheer wear and tear on the machine was what kept me from cloth diapering Alex.

I did all this figuring when I was pregnant with Alex. Basically, it came down to what was better for our situation. Yes, I had my own washer, but it was 35 years old and we had a septic system and we paid for our hot water which was heated with oil. It was just as bad for the environment (carbon footprint-wise) as the disposables. I had no guilt. The only thing that would have made me switch was an environmentally friendly diaper service that used earth-friendly vehicles and machinery.

Viola! Smarty Pants! I'm kind of in love with their website. I've been "friends" with them on Facebook since before Bryn convinced me we needed a baby. Now I need to figure out if the diaper service is worth $15/week to me. It will cost me $10/week to do it myself; is it worth the extra $15 (total of $25/week) to have someone else deal with the diapers? Until the kid is on solids, the whole diaper goes in the pail - I don't have to do a thing. Once a week I put out the stinkies and they deliver folded perfectly ph-balanced and washed diapers. $100 per month - $40 I would do myself = $60 for not having to swish poo. I wish I had an income. Being broke makes this a hard choice.

I know me. I am lazy. I hate laundry day. I don't want to get lazy, but what if I do? What if I skimp on the cycles and the kid gets a rash? I'll switch to disposables until the rash is gone and then - will I go back to cloth? Remember, I'm lazy. Gah! There are people here in our little community who cloth diaper. I need to talk to them. I have also pre-registered for Cloth Diapers 101 towards the end of the month. I wish cloth diapering weren't a lifestyle choice. And don't tell me it isn't. Cloth mommies terrify me and I was an AP mommy who breast-fed on demand for 27 months.

I think the only thing that is really keeping me from just saying "Screw it!" and buying Pampers (which I found fit the Alex perfectly for the first 3 months) or Huggies (which fit best the rest of the time before she potty trained) is the endocrine disruptors. Don't call me crazy. I've read a lot of things about fertility issues and chemical burns and for some reason Good Guide, my usual savior when it comes to this kind of stuff, has no information health-wise for diapers. Seventh Generation diapers have their ingredients listed, and there is nothing bad in them. The Pampers Swaddlers, that I used on Alex, rank almost as high, but there is no list of ingredients. The major brands claim proprietorial privilege. Coke still has to list its ingredients and no one has gotten that right yet... 100+ years later.
Out of curiosity, I checked the new Huggies. The list of ingredients is a lot longer than Seventh Generation's and there is only one thing that raised a red flag, though tentatively. Not sure I feel much better, but at least if I back slide I know that it's the bleaching process that causes infertility and the absorbing agents that cause chemical burns - I keep getting those two mixed up. ...should I stop bleaching Hubby's under-roos?

If anyone has any ideas, insights, good jokes to snap me out of this - feel free to leave a comment.