Lopsided.

For whatever reason, this baby (who is the length of a spaghetti squash this week!) prefers the lower right side of my belly far better than any other location. To the point where if I have on a tight shirt, there is a clear bulge on just my right side, and I look noticeably lopsided. When I do manage to shift her over to a more comfortable position, she always ends up working her way back over to the right side, back pressing out against my belly (so much that I sometimes think it's a contraction when it's not), and feet kicking me in the bladder. But as long as she's comfortable, I guess it doesn't matter so much if I am!

So I'm starting to notice a pattern to my mood and anxiety levels in correlation to my doctors appointments. After the appointment a week and a half ago, I was PSYCHED at how well things were going, and felt pretty good about the situation and about the (very) small things I was now allowed to do around the house (like stand long enough to make Owen a can of spaghettios, and take showers longer than 5 minutes, etc.). But as the excitement from that appointment wears off, and the anticipation of the next appointment grows (its this Thursday morning), I find myself reverting back to just being anxious and nervous all the time. Is it bad that I left the house TWICE yesterday? Should I not have folded all that laundry and put it away on Friday? Is the fact that I've been up more this past week going to result in a bad diagnosis at my appointment on Thursday? And then I come to the decision that I should probably just not get out of bed for the next few days until that appointment, just to be sure.

It's an emotional roller-coaster, to say the least.

Not a shabby Memorial Day.

I started off today feeling more "woe is me" thoughts, as I was headed out the door to drop Owen off at Aunt Sue's for a day of parades and pool-time fun while I stayed at home on the couch. But my day actually turned out pretty great. Every window in my house was open letting in a nice warm breeze, I finished another vampire book, I even laid out on my back deck for about 20 minutes to get some SUN. I would have stayed out there until I fried if I wasn't so afraid of cooking the baby - it was seriously hot out there today! I've been taking prescription Vitamin D supplements due to a very low level of vitamin D (thank you, horrible Michigan winter and spring), and I swear I could feel my body soaking up the vitamins in the brief time I baked in the sun this afternoon. Hopefully I can stop taking the supplements soon, if we start having more days like this!

This afternoon I went over to Aunt Jan's to pick up Owen, and got to spend a glorious hour with my family, who I have missed! I got to watch Owen run around with a bucket of pool water and cool off all our toes with it, had some dinner, lounged on a chaise lounge in the back yard with my aunts and Nana Pat, and even had a sip of someone's Summer Shandy, which tasted... like summer. Thanks to Aunt Sue Sue for showing Owen such a fun time today (he talked about it the whole way home), and Happy Memorial Day!

Vampire Porn.

My cousin Sarah sent me a boxed set of the first 8 of the Sookie Stackhouse (TrueBlood) novels for some light, summer-time, bed rest reading. I've never seen the HBO series, nor was I familiar with the books or storyline. And, well, its murder-mystery-vampire-porn. But I'm not gonna lie - it's super entertaining and each book is a fun, easy, fast read, which I'm really liking right now (I will admit to not wanting to spend this summer really "thinking" about what I'm reading - just give me something light and entertaining to take my mind off all the madness!). I started the first one a couple days ago, and I'm already halfway through the second. I have also already added the first two seasons of TrueBlood to my Netflix queue. I'm hooked!

Day 30.

It has officially been 1 month since I had the cerclage and was put on bed rest. I continue to feel SO LUCKY that I am able to take this time off work and do what is necessary to carry this baby as close to term as possible. However. It's been THIRTY DAYS. And today I FELT it. Probably because I've been alone since last night, I'm sick with a sore throat and cough, I was supposed to be wandering NYC with some of my favorite people this weekend, and there was no break in my day today - I was just bored out of my mind all day. I read an entire book between yesterday afternoon and lunch today. I've watched more episodes of Veroncia Mars on Netflix than I care to mention, and I've flipped through the same In Style so many times I now have a mental list of about 6 beauty products that I'm certain I "must have" this summer, despite having nowhere to go requiring me to wear a new Chanel lipstick. Wah wah, woe is me. I've resigned myself to having both good days and bad - and this one just kind of sucks.

Okay, snap out of it Prowse!

Eric and Owen should be home within the hour, just in time for Owen to hit the hay for the night. I'm looking forward to tomorrow morning when hopefully the three of us will make some pancakes and hang out for a bit (maybe watch some Super Why or Dinosaur Train?!), before Eric takes off for the new house again and Owen spends the day with Papa Ron.

I feel that I should state, for the record, that our new home is AWESOME. We consider it "move-in ready." However, the city of Clawson is using this opportunity to require us to get a Certificate of Occupancy before we can move in (likely triggered by the utilities having been shut off for more than 6 months as it was a bank-owned property). So far that means we've had to pay $200 for the initial inspection, and we now have a 2-page list from the city of all these things that need to be taken care of before they'll let us move in. And some of them are RIDICULOUS. Most of them are things we would have eventually done anyway (like repair the retaining wall out front and replace the warped siding on one side of the garage). But several of the items are expensive and time-consuming projects and shouldn't (in my opinion) prohibit us from living in our new house. That being said, the list from the city is going to take us (okay Eric and his friends and my dad) several more weekends to complete, and we may not get it all done before moving weekend. Hopefully we don't have to petition for a "temporary" certificate of occupancy, but if we do, I'm hoping they'll allow it, given our current situation and all... (Yes, I'll use this baby as an excuse to skirt the city rules if necessary)!

I'll have to take some better photos (inside and out) now that the weather isn't so dreary!

I'm hoping I can make it out to the new house again sometime in the next week or so. It feels so strange to me that I haven't really been there except once for a few hours since we closed almost a month ago! If my appointment next Thursday goes well, maybe I'll try to sneak by next weekend...

Prescription: Fatten up!

I had my once-monthly check-in with my midwife today. We are still planning on having the birthing experience that we want with this trouble-making baby - hopefully one very similar to what we had with Owen (although a shorter labor would be nice, thanks). So for us this means still having a midwife deliver the baby and manage my care while I'm in the hospital. We followed my midwife, Trish, from when she left Providence right after Owen was born and went to Henry Ford. And so far I couldn't be more pleased with the folks at Henry Ford, especially the midwife care I've received on the few hospital visits I've already had. But I'll save my ramblings about how much I love midwives for another post.

ANYWAY, my appointment with Trish today went well. I'm measuring perfectly and baby sounded great. However, I'm not really gaining any weight. Only about a pound in the last month. Apparently one of two things happens when you're on bed rest. Either you gain a LOT of weight because you're not burning any calories, or, like me, you lose a lot of your appetite from the inactivity, so even though you're eating well-balanced meals and snacks, its not enough to really put on any weight. So my prescription today: snack more, and eat more protein. Being a vegetarian I do have to pay attention to how much protein I get. Its not hard to do, it's just something I need to be more cognizant about. Its also a license to have a peanut butter and banana smoothie every day, which is my new favorite snack!

Here's the VERY simple recipe courtesy of VegWeb.com:

1 banana

1/8 cup peanut butter

1/2 cup soy milk

2 Tbsp honey

Blend, and enjoy!

Thank you Craigslist.

I think I should hire myself out to take photos of people's stuff that they're trying to sell on Craigslist. I took some great photos of our bedroom furniture, and within 3 hours had 12 people willing to come and get it that same day. I don't know if you've spent much time on Craigslist (I'm home all day and in the market for furniture for a new house, so I've spent a pretty good amount of time perusing the site), but it's all about the photos, people. If you have no photos or crappy photos, I'm going to blow right past your listing.

Anyway, our bedroom furniture, although I love it, was way too big (tall) for our new bungalow master bedroom, what with it's sloping walls/ceiling and all. So we sold it to a nice young couple from Lake Orion, who picked it up tonight and left me a fatty envelope full of cash that will pay for a good portion of the new furniture I've had my eyes on.

The downfall - it sold so fast that I didn't think about the fact that we now don't have a BED until we move. It's flashing us back to our U of M days, when I first met Eric, and he (like most classy fraternity boys) had nothing but a mattress on the floor of his room at the Evans Scholars' house (I mean, is it any wonder I stuck around?). The good news - its gonna make it much easier for me and my pregnant belly to get in and out of bed 5 times a night!

Bed rest is hard on sick kids.

My poor little man has what appears to be a bad case of spring allergies. He has a cough that just won't quit, and today was prescribed 3 different prescriptions to get him through the next month, which is supposed to be laden with pollen. I wish I could pick him up and hold him, and sit in the rocker with him and spend my days baking him cookies (because cookies always make it better)! But instead I will settle for him sitting next to me on the couch while he gets his breathing treatments (which luckily after 2 years of respiratory issues, he's a champ at), and reading all the books he'll bring to me to read him while we cuddle.

I know he won't even remember this summer, or the fact that I was laid up for its entirety. But it still breaks my heart when he comes up to me and says: "come play trains with me momma," or "come outside and play on the swing with me, momma," and I have to say that momma needs to stay on the couch and rest, and that the baby needs me to rest. Sometimes he gets mad (how much can you really expect a 2-year-old to understand about the situation?), but sometimes he looks at me and says "okay, momma," and then tells me he wants to give the baby a kiss and a hug. This is, by far, the sweetest thing I've ever seen him do. I'd let him do it all day if he wanted to.

Also, I'm aware that this is quickly turning into the Owen blog. But he is pretty much the sunshine of my life right now, and his sweetness and (mostly) unconditional love power me through my most boring, stressful and anxious days. And that is really important when you have as many boring, stressful and anxious days as I do.