July 10, 2011

Time Flies When You’re Growing A Person: An Update

by Alison Friedman in Mommy's Musings, Pregnancy

It’s been a while since I’ve written, so here’s a little potpourri of updates from the last few weeks.

Happy to report that since this neurotic first-time mom’s frantic post about the breech baby, Internet turning vibes worked and we’ve got an obedient kid who went south for the summer! Baby Friedman is head down and while I so not appreciate the added pressure on my bladder, I really do appreciate the fact that our C-section odds are virtually slim to none.

The baby had another photoshoot at 35 weeks! The ultrasound studio promised us free return visits until we were all satisfied with Baby’s position and poses. Because of her breech position, we could never get a really good shot of her whole face without other body parts covering her up in typical acrobatic fashion. Third time really was a charm, and we got some awesome photos of her face, which, like her mama’s, is alllll cheek! We caught her mid-yawn which is also really cute. You know, because it’s a rough and tiring life being warm and cozy inside a uterus. We are already so proud of her and all she did was turn her body!

BABY GIRL_15.JPG

BABY GIRL_17.JPG

BABY GIRL_18.JPG

I think I even felt her turn, which is so bizarre. My mom and I were having lunch with our mother-daughter friends, Michelle and Stefanie, who I’m so excited to be reconnected with after so many years! Stefanie has an adorable 3.5 month-old daughter, Brielle, and it’s been so fun to see her as a mommy and she’s been so helpful with all of her advice and perspective having just gone through this adventure. We were all sitting around catching up on the couch for a few hours, and when I stood up to leave, I felt a very different sensation in my tummy area. I suddenly felt super heavy below my belly button and even a little off-balance. Nothing bad; just different. We were crossing our fingers it meant that the baby had turned, but I had no idea it could happen so suddenly in one big sweep like that! Sure enough, the sonographer at the ultra sound studio confirmed that’s what it was the next day. And a week later, at my appointment with Dr. Fiiiiiine, she confirmed that the munchkin had swooped directions. Lots of cheering!

Dr. Fiiiiine also did a little check-a-roo and remarked that I have a soft cervix. Why thank you! I had no idea what this even meant, but she commented that it’s a good sign for a vaginal delivery. Alright, I’ll take it. High 5 to my body. She’s also monitoring some slight puffiness in my face to make sure there are no preeclampsia-type situations, but she doesn’t seem too concerned. Nothing like waiting on the butcher paper table for the doctor and the first thing she says when she walks in is, “You look a little puffy.” Hey, no hard feelings. We learned that the weekly appointments that lead up to the last four weeks of pregnancy are actually not to monitor for labor, but to check for this very attribute: puffiness. Who knew?! She did say it was super normal and as long as I’m not having any other weird symptoms (I’m not), then we should be all good. Right, but that still doesn’t change the fact that I’m going to be a hippopotamus at my high school reunion this coming weekend. Never thought that on graduation day in 2001, I’d be pregnant at my 10-year. Funny how timing works out.

In the past month, the nursery has been painted mostly decorated. The furniture arrived just before and the room is really coming along. I will definitely post pictures once all the finishing touches are up. Princeton has already discovered he likes to hang out under the crib. I wonder if he’ll still enjoy this lounge location even when there’s a crying baby above him! He has sniffed around the room and explored all the new smells and pieces. I often try to get in his brain and figure out if he has any idea what these changes mean. I hope he’s not having a “Lady and the Tramp” moment, when Lady starts to feel unimportant and worried when the baby preparation happens. I love our little Princeton too much, and I want him to feel included. He’s part of the family! Does anyone have experiences with the family dog and a new baby in the house?

Comments (3):
  1. marilyn schilling
    7/13/2011 2:51 PM

    Can’t believe the ultrasound pictures. Things have sure come a long way. She sure has the chubby cheeks.

    Cousin Marilyn

  2. Mom/ Sharon/Mimi-to-be
    7/10/2011 9:58 PM

    Hearing about and seeing the changes you have gone through during these past almost 9 months have been very entertaining and exciting BUT I will never forget the look on your face when you stood up, grabbed your lower part of your belly and exclaimed how something “feels different!” And then you twisted from side to side and said, “I feel somethng sloshing around in my belly!” Then we all concluded that maybe Baby Girl Friedman turned. The look of realization on your face was priceless! xoxox

  3. Char
    7/10/2011 12:49 PM

    Love the pictures! The last one looks like she is singing….shocker! Glad to hear that she is ready for her grand entrance!

June 30, 2011

Great Big Stuff

by Bryan Friedman in Daddy's Corner

45675.jpg“Everybody’s got a little place for their stuff. This is my stuff, that’s your stuff, that’ll be his stuff over there. That’s all you need in life, a little place for your stuff. That’s all your house is: a place to keep your stuff. If you didn’t have so much stuff, you wouldn’t need a house. You could just walk around all the time. A house is just a pile of stuff with a cover on it…and when you leave your house, you gotta lock it up. Wouldn’t want somebody to come by and take some of your stuff. They always take the good stuff. They never bother with that crap you’re saving. All they want is the shiny stuff. That’s what your house is, a place to keep your stuff while you go out and get…more stuff!”

-George Carlin

I love this routine. (I recommend you watch the whole thing because it is truly a great piece of stand-up comedy.) I’ve been thinking a lot about “stuff” lately because, as you know, we’ve been acquiring quite a bit of it over the last few weeks. I know a lot of families live in a very small place, and while our little condo definitely does not fall into the “large” category, I consider us to be very fortunate that our daughter is able to have her own bedroom, her own bathroom, and a “place for her stuff.” The problem is, we are running out of places for our stuff.

More from George Carlin:

“Sometimes you gotta move, gotta get a bigger house. Why? No room for your stuff anymore. Did you ever notice when you go to somebody else’s house, you never quite feel a hundred percent at home? You know why? No room for your stuff. Somebody else’s stuff is all over the…place!”

I posted a status on Facebook the other day that said “It looks like somebody named Graco moved into my house, labeled all of his boxes and left them in my garage.” It’s true. We have boxes all over the place containing lots of things the baby will need during all her various stages of growth for the next 6-12 months or so. Also, while she hasn’t even arrived yet, she has already completely taken over our former office, which was also the place where we put everything we didn’t know what to do with. (Though the nursery is really looking great thanks to my talented wife. I’m sure she’ll share it here soon.)

I knew we’d get to this point and for the most part I’ve felt prepared to handle all the new stuff that we’d be accumulating. I pride myself in taking after my Grandpa Bobby who could incredibly maneuver things around so that he was able to fit entire piles of seemingly endless items into very small spaces. I guess he had to…he had so much stuff! But even with my grandpa’s genetics and the fact that we’ve been purging stuff for months, I finally looked around last week and came to the conclusion that we just didn’t have the room we needed. Our garage had gotten to the point where it was housing almost all of the overflow, but the stuff we need regular access to was being blocked by boxes or furniture, and it’s like one giant fire hazard in there. So, as all dads need to be able to do, I came up with a solution and moved it into action quickly: overhead storage.

image.jpg

I know it’s not exactly rocket science I came up with there, but solutions don’t need to be original if they are good. And this one is. I now have almost 2,500 cubic feet of storage available above my head in our garage. I literally cannot wait to put all our never-accessed bins of stuff from college, high school, and past relationships up there and start using the garage more efficiently.

My grandpa would be proud.

Comments (4):
  1. Mom/ Sharon/Mimi-to-be
    6/30/2011 2:45 PM

    Great! Now you can come over and take all of Alison’s boxes of little girl “stuff” out of OUR garage! I’m sure there are lots of goodies in those boxes that Baby Girl Friedman would like to have now!

  2. Bryan
    6/30/2011 1:13 PM

    No, but we did consider leaving Princeton in there while we’re gone.

  3. Grandma Ellen
    6/30/2011 12:46 PM

    Yes….Grandpa would be proud indeed. Now, good luck storing all that “stuff”!

  4. Stuart
    6/30/2011 12:11 PM

    Have you considered using the storage devices as multiple playpens, leaving you that room for stuff?

June 22, 2011

Turn Baby Turn

by Alison Friedman in Mommy's Musings, Pregnancy

Yesterday I had my 33-week appointment with Dr. Fiiiiine and if I had the cast of GLEE following me around to convey the soundtrack of my life a) Bryan would hide under a rock and pray for an avalanche and b) Mr. Shu’s kids would be singing the 1960s tune by The Byrds, “Turn Turn Turn” and Finn would have a solo because I think it’s funny that he looks constipated when he sings.

Why “Turn Turn Turn?”
BECAUSE THIS BABY NEEDS TO TURN OR WE ARE GOING TO HAVE ONE FREAKED OUT MAMA.

Okay, so we have time. A little bit of time, but time, nonetheless. Dr. Fiiiiine said she’s not going the C-section route just yet and this baby could decide to nose dive in the next three weeks, leaving us in good shape. Baby is doing some crazy ass Cirque Du Soleil shiz and is currently in the Frank breech position, which means her tushie is down and her feet are up by her ears, making a V. Our daughter has a future in yoga, apparently.

I asked Dr. Fiiiiine if when we reach 36 weeks and baby is still Frank, which, would frankly suck, does she subscribe to the turning method whereby she, or the perinatologist, literally turn the baby from the outside through some hard-core massage and other probably-unpleasant-but-worth-it techniques. Normally yes, she said, but it looks like I’ve been harvesting an anterior placenta and baby-turning is much less risky with a non-anterior placenta.

Record scratch.

Say what?!

So not only is this kid being difficult in her freaky position, but on top of that, I have an anterior placenta which pretty much guarantees a hell-to-the-no in regards to any doctor attempting to turn the baby due to probable rupture and separation of the placenta during such efforts. I get it. That would majorly suck. Look, I’m all for keeping things in tact for the sake of everyone’s health, but I’m still not liking the cards I’ve been dealt and would not take myself to Vegas right now.

We left with the plan that if by 36 weeks, baby has not moved, we book a surgery for 39 weeks. And if in that time between 36 and 39 she does move, great. And if not, I go under the knife. Dun dun dun.

So here’s the part where Alison cries. A lot. The thing is, I really don’t want a C-section. I know plenty of people who’ve had them and say it’s fine. But for some reason, I don’t want to miss out on this overly-hyped female experience of having a natural-but-with-drugs labor and delivery. Apparently, my radical hormones have made it so that I desperately want hours of pain, a needle in my back, numbness in my legs, likely damage from — as my friend calls it — the hoo-ha to the brown-eye, swear words, screaming, poop on the table, bleeding, ice packs, and that super sexy hospital underwear to keep it all tucked in. Yes, I crave all that instead of having an appointment and popping out a perfect kid in under 10 minutes. What is WRONG with me?!

Dr. Fiiiiine also informed me — after I sheepishly asked — that she’s not a VBAC-er, so that means that for any future kiddos, they also come out via surgery. So I quickly calculate that that means I’ll never know what it’s like to deliver a watermelon the old fashioned way (for which most normal people would say “lucky you!” but because of my insanity, I mope).

What can I say? I just always imagined a delivery like the ones in the movies: I am reading in bed, and Bryan is watching TV (or probably, more likely, he is playing Angry Birds on his iPhone while listening to something on Food Network), and suddenly my water breaks, we look at each other and laugh — ha, ha, ha, ha! — and we time contractions and then go to the hospital where he feeds me ice chips and holds my hand and tells me I’m still sexy despite the sweat mustache and perfectly messed-up ponytail and then the doctor comes in and I push three times and out comes a perfect baby and you never see the afterbirth or hear about the episiotomy and, oh yeah, my makeup isn’t smeared and there’s no double chin in our first family photo. That’s how it’s done in the movies.

Hollywood is on crack.

So whether it’s the real-life version or the Hollywood version, I’m still delusional enough to want a vajayjay delivery (in real life, by the way, I have no problem saying “vaginal” but I fear mockery from readers if I type it. I have some strange neuroses I need to get over). So here’s the deal: I’m going to choose to now believe in the power of Internet vibes and ask you to send all good turning energy to this baby. She’s strong and she’s stubborn, but I’d like to think if we all will her to aim her keppie to my crotch, she will obey. Otherwise, she is SO grounded and will have a 7:00 curfew on Saturday nights and not be allowed to have a CD player in her first car (oh wait, that was me).