Of Bathrooms and Bladders

Either Panera needs a sharps container or people need to stop shooting up in their bathroom. This is what I saw all three times I visited the potty today....in a 2 hour span of time.







Dear Louisa,



Thank you for trying to rupture my bladder on several occasions today. I admire your strength and determination, but please......stop.



Love,

Yo Mama

Adventures at childbirth class

Okay well, not really adventures, but a little bit of inappropriateness.

Danny and I had our 7.5 hour childbirth class marathon today. Overall, it was really good. I was familiar with 90% of the stuff we talked about, but there are some things you don't learn about in medical school. KU's L&D is pretty old school.....very old school....so we never get to see patients use the bathtubs or the labor balls. There is no room for either at KU. There is barely room for mom, dad and a doctor at KU. Also, most of the patients at KU deliver without much in the way of pain intervention, so I didn't see many patients deliver the way that I want to deliver. Drugs please :)

During the class we learned about different postures and positions to try with our "support person" to relieve the pain of contractions. At the end of class, we had to try out four different positions for one minute each. This is where it gets fun. Danny and I started out in a position where my back was to his chest. I leaned back into him and he was supposed to massage my belly. We made the mistake of facing the rest of the class so Danny couldn't help but see all of our fellow students in funny poses as well. Lights are dim, relaxing music is playing.....my darling husband can't stop giggling. Things were going well at first, and then I feel Danny's whole body start shaking. Then I hear this muffled snorting noise coming from his head. He couldn't stop. For most of this exercise, instead of relaxing and actually practicing these techniques, I myself was trying not to laugh. At one point I had tears running down my face because, 3 minutes after the initial giggling episode, Danny was still shaking and making grunty/snorty/giggly noises and I could barely keep myself from busting out laughing as well.

Hopefully we can take things a little more seriously when I'm actually in labor.

Another fun Danny story from today: we're watching the birth video and the husband is being all supportive of his wife who has chosen to have no pain meds. Under his breath I hear Danny say, "suck it up...." Ah, August 17th could be a long day.

Nursery (with pictures)

Louisa's nursery has finally started to take shape. For the longest time, all we had was the crib, which was jammed into our former office along with an oversized desk, several book cases and an assortment of other random crap.

(yuck....look at all that clutter)

We sold the desk and chair on craigslist (so handy) and moved everything else out. I want to have a garage sale later this summer to get rid of all of the displaced things that are now taking up our entire basement, but we'll cross that road when we get there. If anyone would like to come over and give me cash, I will let you take things from my basement.....pretty much anything you want.

So, without further ado, pictures of the nursery:

1) Super girly curtains

2) Crib and Quilt

3) Mabel Jane modeling Louisa's chenille carpet

4) Aunt Becca's chair - we're in the process of having this reupholstered. Know anyone who reupholsters furniture?

5) This really doesn't have anything to do with the nursery, but it's pretty cute.

Tomorrow we have our all day birthing class marathon. Danny is less than thrilled. I wonder if they'll make us watch the birth video that we all had to watch in middle school...... Why am I all of a sudden hungry for cherry cobbler?

Changes

So....things are a-changin' around here. First of all, tomorrow will be the first day of my fourth year of medical school. Freaking CRAZY! It seems like just a few days ago I was starting my first year, scared to death, in over my head, contemplating the hours I would spend crying in the bathroom. And now I'm almost done with medical school. And no crying in the bathroom to speak of. I took the clinical skills portion of Step 2 in Houston last week and I'm pretty sure I passed....based solely on the fact that I speak English....I kid you not. Step 2 Clinical Knowledge (CK) will be August 7th, assuming that Louisa decides to hang out into her 38th week. My worst fear right now is not sitting through an 8 hour test with a near-term infant in my belly, but going into labor in the middle of it. That would be badness. I might have to have some alcohol on hand, for the tocolytic effects. Clearly.
Other things are a-changing as well. Our once cluttered office is now transforming into a nursery. I found myself washing onsies last night and organizing some things in Louisa's crib. Mabel, Charlie and Mickey all decided to pitch in and help. Charlie tried to make off with a stuffed rabbit at one point, but I reminded him that it was Louisa's and he dropped it. I may have smacked him on the butt too. Danny has shown moments of handy-man-brilliance over the past few weeks. He patched some cracks in our walls and did a fantastic job of painting. His next job is to fix up an old dresser at my grandma's house. More brilliance to come, I'm sure.

Well, it's way late (10:30 - I usually go to bed at 9:00 - because I'm street like that), so I'm going to sign off. Maybe I'll post some nursery pictures soon....if I feel like it.

I can't wait to....

Things I can't wait to do again:
1) Roll over without it being a 5 minute ordeal requiring the use of a crane
2) Go 2 hours without a trip to the bathroom
3) Use my abdominal muscles (not for working out per se, but just for general purposes, like sitting up)
4) Sleep through the night without hip pain, leg pain, belly pain, back pain, GERD, urinary FREQUENCY!!!
5) Sit in my reclining deck chair without cutting off blood flow from my IVC, and feeling like I'm going to pass out
6) Walk for 5 minutes without my round ligaments yelling at me
7) Drink a glass of wine