Don't mind while I do...

...take a break from regular blog posting. The little guy now has acid reflux, and every day is a new adventure with what and how much medication, what to feed and how much, and whether he is sleeping or playing enough. Yes, you can tell this is my first child and he is one grand science experiment (as my mom says).

Anyhoo, here is the picture I used for his birth announcement. I hope you like it. I took it myself. :) I had to take like 80 pictures to get 2 good ones.

Ta daa!

May I introduce to you, my new son, Ryan?!

He was born after 17 hours of hard labor, and a C-section. He was 8 lbs, 12 ounces, 22 inches long, head circumference 14 inches, and feet over 3 inches long. He is a big boy! In addition to his size, my sacral region was shaped slightly flatter such that a vaginal birth would not have been possible. But this is something the doctors don't know until they go in. That is why after the induction we waited so long before doing the C-section. No amount of picotin made my body progress with the labor (though the doctors, nurses and doula DEFINITELY tried), and he would never have been able to make it through anyway. All I can say is that modern medicine is a miracle, that we are able to have babies under difficult physical circumstances and have both the baby and the mom survive. It is a blessing. I wish this was the case in every country. And I don't feel any less of a mother for not having a vaginal birth. It was just not meant to be. I guess our combined family genetics leads to huge babies! :)

All of his nurses thought he was the cutest. And he really is.

I am healing well, but I really should rest more than I do. I am going to try to force myself to rest more today. My feet are swelling so huge that they are scary looking.

He has feeding problems, so we are working with training him to eat faster, more aggressively, stronger. All I can say is, moms, trust your instincts. Even when the doctors and some nurses think nothing is wrong with your baby, pursue it. I ended up eliminating sources of fussiness until I got down to the fact he was probably not taking in enough milk...so back to the lactation center I went. Fortunately, there I found a nurse who figured it out right away and helped us with a concrete plan. I highly recommend using lactation specialists, especially those who support both breast and bottle feeding. The ones I use are wonderful nurses, some with master's degrees, and IBCLC certifications and experience. Their knowledge of breastfeeding led to the diagnosis of his problem (which extends to both breast and bottle feeding). Even if you don't think you need help, chances are that YOU WILL. So try to reach out for these resources in your community. My lactation center understands that we have to use a bottle as part of the baby's therapy to become stronger. Because if we don't use a bottle, he would take so long to eat enough that the feedings would blur into each other and we would never sleep! He may never fully take to breast feeding, but we will try a little every day. But all of this is okay, as we are doing what we can and what is best for him to grow and thrive.

Okay, enough gabbing. I really need to get ready to feed him again and get back to sleeping. I have only slept about 5 hours. And I still need to catch up from missing sleep for about 5 days! Ah, well one more thing. My husband can't handle the sleep deprivation as well as I. It is really quite funny. All of that GREEAAT Arrrr-my training in sleep deprivation has finally paid off in my personal life. I didn't hallucinate once. I have not fallen asleep on the job (though you ladies who breastfeed know that breastfeeding and pumping do their best to make you fall asleep while you are doing it). And I would let my husband sleep whenever he could while we were in the hospital and at home. He is better at powernaps than I. And since I can't drive, we have to keep him in the best shape we can.

Okay, that is all for now. I really must go.... :)

Still preggo....

The baby is nearly a week past his due date. If the hospital has a bed available, we will induce tomorrow.

Wish us luck. :)

On the crafty front, I finished my hooter hider. Yay!

Driving for the hoop....

That is what the baby is doing. I have exactly two weeks until my due date, and the last few days he has been so active, trying to push down that it is kind of funny and scary at the same time. It is endearing, but then you don't want him to come too early. Again, he kicked where the ultrasound monitor was placed on my belly. He always makes the nurses and doctors laugh. My son will have the protective instinct from the womb. :)

One of the things that is so frustrating right now is finding baby products that do not contain bisphenol-A (BPA). Baby bottles are easy, it is the teething rings and other gifts people gave me that are hard to tell. Some you just have to check with manufacturers or guess by how soft or hard the plastic is. For those of you in the same predicament, this link is good to use. Between this and lead paint in everything from China, what the heck are parents supposed to do nowadays? You are basically left with cloth items being the safest toys to use. I guess that is good for a knitter.

I have worked a little farther along on the Baby Surprise Jacket, but not much farther. My back has really acted up this week, so I have been focusing on chores and getting my back better. I was so happy to hear my husband say this morning that he feels this weekend is "...going to be a nesting weekend. I feel like I need to nest." Yay! Hopefully I won't have to remind him 10 times to do the chores we need to get done! :)

If it wasn't for the baby...

...I would have given up by now. Pregnancy makes me stupid. As in, I can't follow directions for anything other than assembling baby gear. (And thank goodness I can manage that, as my husband cannot. He has NO patience for it.) I had to frog back the Baby Surprise Jacket *yet again.* Someone shoot me now. I managed to catch back up to where I was today, sitting on the back porch and knitting in the nice weather. It is too hot for a pregnant lady to be in the sun, but the shade was not so bad.

I also managed to make it up to the Northwoods Fiber Farm sale. I bought some plain old cascade 220 in hopes of finally doing a Noni bag pattern that I bought back at Stitches East, and some Manos del Uruguay in lilac/lavender color to do a sweater vest for myself.

Edited to add: And thanks to my fellow veterans. Thank you for your service to our country. I will never forget you.

I just have to say...

...thanks. It is so nice that my different knitting buddies have been so positive and supportive to talk to about the pregnancy. Especially the NwAnon group. It is nice to be around other women who are positive mommy role models, and who give positive advice. It truly means alot to me to be surrounded by optimistic people.

I have to admit that I am really lucky and have not ran into TOO many negative people, but there are some out there. Like the woman who told me that children never get better after the newborn/infant stage. Yah, thanks for that one. Thanks for making me feel like I am sentenced to prison for 18 years. And then other people who (alternately) complain strongly about their kids in private, but do nothing but laud them in the public arena like they are saints. Which is it? I know it is both, but don't act like it isn't. I know I didn't always make my parents smile. :)

I don't know, I guess it is hard for me to understand because I tend to be an optimist. Even when things are really cruddy in my life, I don't stay sad for long.

Ring Momma Administrivia: AlaskanKnitters RingSurf

I hate to be a negative ring momma, but I had to finally crack down and delete some sites out of the ring. This is because for days, weeks or months now, these websites have failed to carry the ring code. If you are interested in rejoining the ring, life is simple:
1. Add the ring code back to your MAIN blog page.
2. Request to be added back into the ring.

Alright, easy then, huh? And if you need help, let me know. The only thing is, I am about 3 weeks from my due date (I am pregnant), so I may not have the speediest response time anymore. Just be patient with me. :)

In the interest...

...of full disclosure, I forgot to say in my last post that things have also been just crazy IRL (in real life).

Family issues, vehicle issues, etc.. So that is another reason why I have been away so much. I have to take time out to handle family issues and to handle business. I know you all understand what that is like.

When will these crazy winds die down? I need to clean my back porch, but it is no use if the wind is just going to blow the red clay dust back into my face! :)

I will be volunteering at Paris Mtn Park tomorrow, for Music in the Woods. The concerts are free with admission into the park. Come, hang out and knit!

One month to go...

...until the baby (should) be born. It is so hard to believe I just let time slip by so much between updates for my blog. But I have had to realize in the last few weeks that I need to slow myself down. I am so freakin' independent and headstrong that I am always trying to do so many things. But my body is telling me, woah. I was getting nauseous just grocery shopping today (after other errands of course). But it is getting tougher and tougher to get stuff done.

In the last few days, I can feel the baby starting to push his head down (the beginning of lightening). It is right on time, according to baby websites.

A friend of mine in one of my knitting groups told me about the hooter hider. So I am going to try to make one. Let's hope my sewing curse does not rear up.

I did finish DH's socks in time for his birthday. I have put away my camera so it is ready to go to the hospital. Let's just say he was thrilled. He has waited WAY too long for those. AND I have frogged back the EZ baby surprise jacket for the 7th time or so, and it is slowly going. It is hard to knit as often when my most comfortable prone position is to lay down on my side.

The nursery is pretty much done. It is time to put away the power tools and set up the lamp and air purifier. :) Maybe then it will be picture worthy.

And here I was...

...thinking that I was only one week behind in posting to my blog. Man, how time flies. This morning I went to the SC Native Plant Society Sale and bought Darrow's Blueberries, Coral Trumpet, PeeWee Hydrangeas, and Crested Irises. Only the weather is supposed to get really cold at night for the next week. So I will have to make DH help me on his BDay weekend next weekend to plant them all then. I hope that my blueberries really do grow. I recommend trying to find organizations such as this in your area, so that you can learn to landscape your yard with more native plants. Not only will you be working to preserve local wild beauty that is often destroyed by urban growth, but the plants will be much more tolerant of severe weather, frosts and drought in your area. Also, many of the plants are lower maintenance, which is nice if you have a busy lifestyle or physical limitations. Okay, enough of that PSA.



I am also taking a beginning scrapbooking class today. I know a little, but I figure I need to be schooled before the baby gets here. I want to do things right so that I can print out all of these digital pictures I have accumulated in a form where I can actually share some of them with people in a nice format.



Right now I am drooling over the following Fuzzymitten patterns, because I am such a fan of Little Cotton Rabbits. But, I can never seem to get in on purchasing any of Little Cotton Rabbits' productions. My husband is a huge fan of bunnies, and I don't know if you have noticed, but these days EVERYTHING in the baby store that has a bunny on it MUST ALSO BE pink. It is sexist. So anyway, I am drooling over the little floppy-eared bunny (because again DH loves floppy-eared bunnies) to knit it up for our (expected) baby boy.

In the comments to my last post, Tiffany asked if this was my first Baby Surprise Jacket. Yes, it is. And I honestly have not picked it up again for the last two weeks. Bad momma, bad momma! What little knitting I have been doing has been on my DH's sock. Admittedly, I am reading a lot of baby books and doing GRFB chores. So maybe I am not such a bad momma. :) In one book I am currently reading, I actually read a story where one set of parents did not even realize they needed to set up a changing station with all of the supplies, and the crib with all of the bedding, before their baby was born. I can't believe that. You would think some things would be so basic and intuitive. But maybe they work at jobs that take up all their time and stress them out, like I used to. I should pat myself on the back for having two changing stations set up already (on both stories of the house), and all of the same supplies in the bathroom to be used for bathing. And the crib has been ready for a month. I just installed the carseats last week, and will get them inspected this week. I am trying to be ready if the baby is premature. Because that has happened to two of my friends.

Well, I better run and eat something before my scrapbooking class.