Leslie Lee’s Weblog

So this whole bedrest thing SUCKS!! Like super big time. You would think that I’d write more, not being able to do anything else and all, but I just can’t to it. I have been such a bummer, I can’t gather my thoughts enough to write them out. It would just be a long, nonsense filled depressing blog. So feel thankful I haven’t written in a few days.

But here’s my attempt to write a post.

I hate it. I cannot wait until I am not pregnant anymore. It’s been over a week since I’ve been on bedrest, well, since I was admitted to the hospital. I was released on Saturday, early afternoon. We headed straight home, I showered and immediately went over to the baby shower. It was really nice. I have great friends. By the end of it, though, I was absolutely exhausted. Sleeping in a hospital bed is not a good nights sleep.

John had to work Saturday night, and I didn’t really want to be home alone with Olivia that night, so I stayed at my mom’s house. Plus, nobody takes care of you like your mom. I passed out on the couch in the living room fairly early, and in her living room, the ceiling is all the way up to the second floor, and I guess I was snoring like a fog horn, and the high ceilings didn’t help. Hahaha, how embarrassing! But I was tired!

So part of this pre-term labor thing is that I’m on meds to stop the contractions – every 4 hours! I have to set my alarm, and take a horse sized pill at 7am, 11am, 3pm, 7pm, 11pm & 3am – isn’t that a lot?? It’s nifedipine (a dihydropyridine calcium channel blocker. Its main uses are as an antianginal (especially in Prinzmetal’s angina) and antihypertensive, although a large number of other uses have recently been found for this agent, such as Raynaud’s phenomenon, premature labor, and painful spasms of the esophagus in cancer and tetanus patients. It is also commonly used for the small subset of pulmonary hypertension patients whose symptoms respond to calcium channel blockers.) And it gives you wicked, wicked headaches. I think that that’s been the worst part, I’ve never had headaches like this before. But I think I’m finally getting used to it, they haven’t been as bad in the last 2 days. It does still make my heart race once in a while, I have a pretty high heart rate anyways, so this doesn’t help that. I was given a prescription that will last 20 days, that doesn’t sound too long, but you should see the bottle! I didn’t know they made prescription drug bottles this big!! (the bottle was full of pills when I got it)

So, back to how crappy my week has been going….so I went back home on Sunday, and haven’t left the house since. It’s depressing. I normally wouldn’t really care, but I’m uncomfortable and grumpy and bored. Like last year, when I was with pregnant with Olivia and I was on (not as strict) bedrest, which only last 2 or 3 weeks, I think, I still did stuff, like organized and did crafty stuff . But, I don’t know, it’s different this time. Not just because I have Olivia to deal with, but this baby thinks that the inside of my belly is a mosh pit or something. Seriously, she is so freaking active, it scares me sometimes. She extends her body parts so that my belly has a good 2 inch thing sticking out – it is seriously the freakiest thing I’ve ever experienced. I’m a good 20lbs lighter than I was when I was pregnant with Olivia, but my stomach is waaaay bigger. John thinks that maybe it’s like this because I have less belly fat to cushion the movement. I don’t know what’s going on. All I know, is that I look like I am due any day now, but technically I have 7 more weeks – YES, SEVEN MORE WEEKS!! There is nooooo way my body can handle this baby growing for 7 more weeks.

Here’s my warning….below is a picture of my gigantic belly. I don’t want to say that it’s naked, but it’s not covered up. I can’t believe I’m posting this, but if I were reading your blog, I’d want to see – but then again, I’m a little weird like that. So anyways, look if you want to…

I told you it’s huge. And this is at almost 33 weeks. (A woman is pregnant for 40 weeks)

Anyhoot, so I’ve been feeling sort of paranoid lately. I think I know what the problem is. Because I was pretty relaxed when it came to going into labor with Olivia. I think I was so pleasant and relaxed because I wasn’t expecting any of it. With pregnancy #1, I was only 36 weeks – so I wasn’t expecting to go into labor yet. I had visited the dr the day before and she said I was high & thick, and that the baby wasn’t coming any time soon. The next day, my water broke. That’s the other thing, my water broke. That can’t really be mistaken, so I knew that it was time to go to the hospital, this time I know that she’s coming early, it’s just a matter of when. I’m really nervous. Way more nervous than I was last time. I’m already 4cm, and I have no idea how I got here. I didn’t feel a darn thing. So, omg, what if I get to, like, 8 or 9cm and i don’t even know, and then stuff starts happening, and it’s at night, and John’s at work, and I’m home alone with Olivia and the baby starts coming fast….okay, OR what if I start having hurty contractions, and John is around and we make it to the hospital, but I’m too far along for an epidural….OR what if this baby NEVER comes!! What if I’m pregnant FOREVER?!? I don’t know, I’m just scared that I’m not going to know if I’m in labor or not. I should feel better that we’re so close to the hospital, about 7 minutes, but, no, I don’t. You know what I think the problem really is? I have too much time to think about this shit. Stupid bedrest!!

All this anxiety has turned me into a super psycho bitch, too. In moments of clarity (very rare) I feel really bad for John, because he definitely gets the brunt of it, and then I try to be really nice and tell him how much I appreciate all that he’s doing. But then I realize that I’m the one that has to push a human being out of my vagina, not to mention go through all this physically draining pregnancy crap, so dealing with my ridiculous overreactions once in a while constantly, is a picnic in comparison. Deal with it, dude. (I don’t really mean that)

So with all this anxiety comes paranoia. I had a little bit of a breakdown today, and so I made an appointment to see the dr today. (I don’t have another appointment until next Friday) My regular doctor didn’t have an appointment available this afternoon, so I saw some other dr. My first time seeing a man dr! No biggie tho. I was just nervous that I had dilated more since I left the hospital last weekend, I hadn’t been checked out since then. But everything is fine. He said that I’m still at 4cm, the baby is high and my cervix is thick. (yuck, I know) He also said something that I’m sure that I am misinterpreting – “Well, you made it another week, and this week is much  better to have a baby than last week.” I’m taking that as, “Have the baby already! She’ll be fiiiine!” I mean, he did say that after he confirmed that I got those two steroid shots (to help out the baby’s lung development), but yeah, yeah. I know what he really meant, the longer the baby stays in, the better – but that’s not what I want to hear, so I’m just going to ignore that voice of reason.

So what did I do? We left Kaiser, and I wanted to get something to eat – and John’s cooking, not so great, I’ll have to tell you the oatmeal story another time. So John, just trying to keep me from yelling at him, took me to Panda Express for dinner, because that’s what I wanted! Why would I want Panda?? Because the night before my water broke with Olivia (the day that my dr told me she wasn’t coming for a while because baby was high & cervix was thick – yuck) I had Panda’s Kung Pao Chicken. Soooooo, I’m trying to recreate that. I want this baby OUT!! If my water doesn’t break tomorrow, then I’m headed to Queen House, in downtown Mt.View for their Spicy Garlic Eggplant. I’ve heard that spicy gets baby’s wanting out, as well as eggplant – so I figure that would be a perfect combo to get this thing going. And if still no baby, then I am just going to switch back and forth between Kung Pao & Garlic Eggplant until I’m not pregnant any more!

Omg, the thought of having a normal body again is like a fantasy. It’s like a unicorn, or a pot of gold at the end of a rainbow. It just doesn’t seem possible…

I can’t really believe that I’m saying this, but I can’t wait to go for walks. Gawd, remember last August/September?? That seems like a lifetime ago! I would walk to Starbucks (about 3 & 1/2 miles) pushing that heavy ass double stroller, like three or four days a week. I had never felt better. By October I was down 82lbs from the day before Olivia was born. A week before I found out I was pregnant again, I squeezed my fat ass into a size 8 pencil skirt! Pre-pregnancy #1, I was in a size 14! I just want to get back to that place already.

I just want to feel good again. I just want to get back to living life again. I just want to hold this baby in my arms already!

Olivia is bored with bedrest too…

Oh yeah! Gawd, I’m so selfish! This post was all about ME, ME, ME! But there is new Olivia news! She has sort of started walking! More detailed updates to come, but if you want to see her in action, just go visit my Facebook page. I put up a video of her first all alone steps on there, I wish I knew how to do that here, but I don’t. Sorry!

I am more than irritated. In fact, I think that I’ve surpassed irritated and have delved right into depression. I don’t want to give a whole feel sorry for me schpeel, but I am not having fun.

So as you might know, I’ve been in the freakin hospital since Thursday afternoon. I am so over it, honestly I don’t know why I am here. I mean, yes I dilated to 4cm way too early, but me being here isn’t really doing anything. It’s frustrating. See, I’m so frustrated that I can’t even explain what exactly is going on….let me gather, deep breath….

Okay so – Thursday into Thursday night into early Friday morning I was in a labor and delivery room, the room where the bed breaks apart and lights come down from the ceiling, and they have that creepy mirror on the rolly pedestal so that when you’re pushing your baby out of vajayjay you can watch (no, thank you, btw!) That was the most uncomfortable nights sleep too, that bed is not comfy without an epidural! Anyways, so I was put on nifedipine (which is actually a blood pressure med that has been found helps stop contractions - I don’t have high bp) and all night I was hooked up to the contraction monitor, but no contractions. The doctor came in around 5am and checked my cervix, I was still at 4cm – no change, that’s a good thing. I found out that once your cervix has dilated it doesn’t get smaller, so just as long as it doesn’t get bigger, that’s a good thing.

Around 8am Friday morning, I get moved to a Mother/Baby room (with no baby), it’s a nice room; I have a nice comfy bed and my own bathroom with a shower. I was told that I need to atleast stay until I get my second shot of steroids for the baby, at 8:30pm.

I’m only being “monitored” 2x a day for an hour each, which means that I get two little disc-y monitors strapped around my belly, one keeps track of baby’s heart rate and the other one does contractions. It doesn’t seem like very much to only be monitoring this only 2 hours a day. So pretty much all I’ve been doing is sitting here. Doing nothing.  I feel trapped and neglected.

It’s now 8:20am on Saturday morning, I’m still here. My stupid cervix hasn’t been checked since 5am on Friday. I had an ultrasound yesterday to measure the baby, she’s a chubette. Since the baby is so big, they can’t do a head to toe measurement, so they have to measure her parts individually; her belly measures in at 35 weeks, her leg and head at 33 weeks. The dr. estimated she weighs about 4lbs.14oz – not bad for a supposed 32 weeker. But over 6lbs would be better. So this kid’s gotta hang in for a little longer.

Anyways, so I’m sitting here waiting to be seen by a perinatologist, who doesn’t even get in until 9am. I had better be first on their list! I just want to get out of here! I miss Olivia soooooo much, this is the longest I’ve ever been away from her! And, today is my baby shower. At 11am! Yeah! It’s kind of funny, so our good friends, John & Janet are throwing this coed baby shower, and they wanted to do it last year when I was pregs with Olivia. So John sent me an email with the idea and date and wanted to make sure it worked for us, I was sitting at the computer (remember this was last year) reading it, I hit reply, but before I started responding I got up to go to the bathroom, and my water broke! Needless to say that this coed shower/bbq never happened because then Olivia was born! Now this year, they planned it a good 2 months in advance, and look. I’m stuck in the gawddam hospital! WTF?! So I don’t even know if I’m gonna be able to make it. How much does that suck?? Figures.

Well, cross your fingers that if this perinatologist ever gets here to check me, that I haven’t progressed any further and they’ll release me. Hopefully in time to go home, take a shower and make it to the party and see my Olivia! You have no idea how lonely I am without my bubba!

Actually I don’t really care if they release me, if I’m still at 4cm, I’m going home! I learned a new acronym last night from one of the RN’s here - AMA – Against Medical Advice. Yeah, I don’t care. If I’m not dilated any more, I’m leaving. I can see my doctor on Monday. For $200/night, I could be staying in a really nice hotel with better food. Not being ignored by really nice nurses and okay doctors. I will give Kaiser that much, everybody here is really, really nice, just busy, and unforch, I don’t think that I’m a priority. So I’d rather be ignored in my own bed with my own sheets and cable.

Although, it does kind of suck, because for the rest of this pregnancy I am now on strict bedrest. I don’t know how I’m going to deal with that. Come Monday life goes back to “normal”. My mom goes back to work, Jodi goes back to work, John goes back to work. Spring Break is over. I think that for all the money we’re paying for health insurance, a personal assistant should be covered for situations like this. Is that too much to ask?

* * * * * * * * * *

UPDATE

Yay! I’m outta here! The perinatologist came in, checked me, I’m still at 4cm, I’ve been stable for the last 72 hours (yeah, duh!) so I’m free to go! Now, I’m just waiting for the GD discharge papers. Let’s hope that that doesn’t take FOREVER.

But I am on strict bedrest, I’m not supposed to get out for bed unless it’s to eat or go potty. And most likely this baby will not make it to full term, but we want her to hold out to atleast 35 weeks, although 36 would be better. That’s only 3-4 more weeks! And I’m on bedrest?? John is gonna be busy!! Nothing is ready for this little girl! Oh well, the only thing that will matter is that she arrives healthy, but I can already tell from all her activity inside, that she’s a tough little thing. I’m not surprised that she’ll be born in late April/early May, I definitely think that she’s a Taurus, already stubborn inutero!

Okay, well, keep us in your thoughts and wish us good luck!

I am so happy that this little chapter of pregnancy #2 is over!

wow. so where do I begin? well, first before I dive into it, let me start by saying that if this actually gets posted on my blog, I am pretty darn cool (in terms of technically saavy) because I am writing this post from my cell phone! aw, man, now your gonna know all the words I can’t spell because of the lack of spell check!
so why am I writing from my cell phone? and u might have noticed, why am I writing at 3am? Because hospital beds in the labor & delivery dept at Kaiser aren’t very comfortable…
yep, I’m in the gawddam hospital, overnight. I had yet another drs appointment this afternoon (well, I guess that was yesterday). my mom was coming over to watch Olivia while I went, & Lisa & I were going to hit up the farmers market here at kaiser (which is mini, btw) before my appt, so she drove me & we were hella early – my appt was at 2:10, we were in the waiting room at 1:35. anyhoot, long story short, I was dilated 2cm. Eh, whatever, right? I mean the same exact thing happened with O – at 31 wks I dilated to 2cm also, and stayed there until she was born. now with #2, I’m 32 wks & dilated the same, no biggie, right? Well dammit. My dr calls L&D (labor & delivery) & I get sent over there. atleast kaiser is all nicely put together, so the drs clinics are just down the hall from the hospital. So poor Lisa (who has been waiting forever for me because thiese appts usually are really quick, but today has taken well over an hour) & I head over to the hospital wing. I’m pretty confident I’m going to be released relatively quickly like last time (see “Dry Run”, Feb or March 2008)
After filling out the admission papers & waiting for an observation room, I finally get in, gowned & monitored. they watch for contractions, which were very minimal, & then they check my cervix again. by this time it had been about 2 hours since I saw my dr & I’ve progressed to frickin 4cm! WTF?!? 4cm?? That’s like almost half way to baby! So I was officially admitted, taken out of the rinky dinky observation room & put in a L&D room, stuck.

Today was one of the best Sundays we’ve had in a while. I know, I know, I said in the last blog that I’d finish telling you about her birthday week. But it seems like a lifetime ago, so I’m just going to move on….

So today, we went to the Campbell Farmers Market with some friends. It was a lot of fun, the weather was really nice – it was actually hot, a pleasant surprise. I thought it was supposed to rain today! We got our lightweight double stroller last weekend, and I’ve (we’ve) been looking like a crazy person taking it all over with only one kid in it, but it is so much nicer than any of our single strollers and so much more comfortable to push, so I sacrifice my looking sane for that. But our friends have a 3yr old, so for a little while today I looked like I had a full load with two of them in the stroller. It was cute, Olivia just sat there looking at Natalie, like what are you doing sitting there in my stroller? But in a nice way, it was funny, she would shyly reach out to touch Natalie’s arm, but never actually got the courage to do it.

We all had lunch together, I bought some super delicious organic strawberries (which I have to say that spending the extra money for organic strawberries is well worth it, they are waaaaaay better than regular ole strawberries – try them, you’ll see a difference) and some veggies and flowers. Then, since it was such a beautiful day we decided to spend some quality FamiLeezy time together. Olivia was looking tired so we took a nice drive to Stanford Mall so that she could get a nap in the car.

It was so much fun. I hadn’t been to Stanford in a long time, I forgot how nice it is. And the weather made it so much nicer. There were a ton of people, lots of kids and lots of dogs – one couple even had their cat on a leash! Bizarre. But MissO had a blast, she got so excited over all the dogs! She’d start laughing and squealing and bouncing, she made it exciting for all of us. As we were walking around we stumbled upon the Easter Bunny! I could not believe that taking a picture with the Easter Bunny had completely slipped my mind! I mean, I was the Easter Bunny once (yes, my senior year in high school at Oakridge Mall), how could I forget to take my daughter for her first Easter? So it was lucky we decided to go. She was all happy to see the bunny, she would point and “wazzat!?!” When it was our turn, John went and “introduced” her and she even gave him a kiss. He put her on his lap and sort of stepped back, she wasn’t too thrilled about that, she almost started freaking out, but then I pulled a banana out of my purse, and you know how she loves bananas! All smiles for the camera…

Had I known that we were going to see the EB, I probably would have dressed her up a little, but a white T and jeans is cute enough I guess. After that we went to downtown Palo Alto, which wasn’t as fun as we thought, so we headed back to our area, to Santana Row to get ice cream. We got there, John was hungry so we got a few taquitos from Wahoo’s and hung out on the lawn where there were a ton of other kids and dogs and music. We let O out of her stroller and let her crawl around on the lawn, and EW!! In a matter of minutes her hands and the top of her feet had turned black! No exaggeration, BLACK!! Disgusting! I can only imagine all the nasty, dirty yuck that all that black was. I cringe at the thought…

By the time we were done there, it started getting chilly & I wasn’t really hungry from the taquitos, so I didn’t even get any ice cream and we headed home. It really was a lovely day. We came home ate dinner, had strawberries for dessert and put Olivia to bed. It was a nice, long day, hopefully she’ll sleep until like 9 o’clock tomorrow morning – now that would make it a perfect day!

So, my first year as a parent is done! This makes me officially a pro, right? Ahahaha, yeah right! I still have no idea what I’m doing, and am absolutely terrified of becoming a parent of 2! Especially having them so close together. But I’ll survive, right? Right??

So, this week has absolutely just flown by. I don’t know how it’s already Wednesday night. Olivia’s birthday was last Friday, we didn’t do too much to celebrate on the actual day, actually it seems like it was a lifetime ago… but Friday night I worked on making/decorating over 60 cupcakes, a big 12″ #1 cake and a mini-tiered personal cake for the birthday girl. I was up until after 3am!

Saturday was Olivia’s birthday party at my mom’s house, it was a crowded house, and lots of fun. It was really nice to see family & friends that I haven’t seen in a while, and a lot of them hadn’t even met Olivia yet.

She did so good that day, too. I left early that morning to decorate and set up, so Daddy was in charge of getting the guest of honor ready for her big day. She napped good, and he bathed her and even did her hair pretty decently. She wore her cute little birthday onesie and a fluffy pink tutu. We played a fun little game, Olivia Trivia, we had cake and opened presents.

(Olivia with my mom’s friend Linda)

She was so funny when it came to the cake, she’s so dainty! It took a while for her to really get into it, she did not like all that sticky frosting all over her hands. She didn’t want to touch it, so I thought I’d feed her a bite to let her know what it was, and instead of digging in herself, she just did the sign for more. It was funny. So then we brought her a spoon, but I guess she really was watching me frost the cakes the night before, because she just used the spoon to “frost” her cake. Finally after some coaxing from the audience she started diggin in. Omg, it was a MESS! Since she hated it all over her hands, she was trying to wipe it all off on her legs…

She definitely had a little sugar high goin on afterwards…

She didn’t even nap that afternoon!

Poor John had to work that night, and I was so exhausted that I decided to just stay the night over at my mom’s house. It was a nice little sleep over.

Anyways, there’s just a little glimpse of what’s happened in the past week. There’s so much more to tell, but I’m going to bed now….maybe tomorrow.