snow

This morning the roof of our tent garage broke because of the weight of the snow.  And I don't mean the tent material, I mean the metal beams that held it up bent and broke like greensticks.  The garage is apparently guaranteed to withstand hurricane weather.  Hahahaha.  MrH had to shovel snow all day long to unearth my car that was parked inside.  Luckily it was just the windshield that got scratched from the broken metal beams, but otherwise it seems ok.

Following this learning experience, I see that the neighbours across the street are cleaning their garage roofs.

I have never seen so much snow in my life, and I have not been living in Mexico so far either.

deja-vu

Four years ago, on Dec 27, I went into the hospital with amniotic fluid leak and was found to be dilated.  Five days later I lost Adrian.  It was at the exact same gestational age that I am now, and at the same time of the year, and even in similar circumstances (I had also just gotten off a flight from Vancouver, where I had spent Christmas with my parents).  I even had a similar pedicure.  Everything is so similar, that it is bizarre.

I had a dream today that I was fully effaced and one fingertip dilated.  I am obviously worried, at least subconsciously. Hopefully this pregnancy will go well.  It is just so weird to be experiencing sensations of deja-vu.

update 19w5d

Here is a quick update after my ultrasound and my OB appointment.  The cervix is holding well, but I do have a low lying placenta, which should not be a big deal given that I am having a scheduled C section.  So far, it is 1 cm from the internal os, but I think it will move upwards as the uterus is growing.  The length of the cervix is 3.6 cm, not much changed from the 16 week ultrasound.  The baby looks good as well, no problems with the anatomy, and he is growing according to the number of weeks (he was 4 days bigger than the actual date).

However, the OB asked me to simmer down with the lifting and activity level.  I have been carrying on so far as if I were not pregnant, not resting, and picking up Emma all the time, carrying groceries, and even shovelling snow.  Apparently all of that needs to stop, since I am putting too much pressure on the cerclage and he is worried it could tear.  I did have a tear into the uterine wall with the last pregnancy, so really, who am I to argue, hence we all decided that it is time for me to quit work and get benched for the duration of the pregnancy.  My work is very active, constantly sit/stand every 2-3 minutes, and in addition to that, getting to work means carrying Emma to the car as she hates walking in one foot of snow and tends to just sit down at -30C and start screaming that it is "too cold" (duh!).  So, I am retiring for the year.

It was quite a mental adjustment again.  My work is important to me, and I enjoy the social interactions, and the brain usage that comes with it.  I am very good at keeping busy though, and I have decided that this pregnancy I am learning German.  I have wanted to learn German before, but just never really applied myself, but my goal is to learn enough to perhaps understand some of the youtube videos in German, and then to maybe take a few classes with a live teacher while I am in Vancouver.  My other goal is to have enough time to teach Emma more Romanian.  I tend to speak English with her, as I can see how fast her vocabulary is advancing and I love teaching her new words, while as in Romanian I have to start from the basics again, but with more time on my hands spent with her I can switch more to Romanian without worrying that she is missing out on developing her English vocabulary.

I can only count my blessings and particularly be happy about not being on strict bed rest, because that is the hardest part of pregnancy for an active young (?) woman who likes to go go go.

If anybody with an abdominal cerclage could tell me how you handled work and lifting your toddler, that would be great!

my little collector

I have noticed that, for the past few months, Emma likes to collect things, and she does not let go of them.  In fact, if she wakes up from sleep, she asks about those things, and if she cannot find them, she starts bawling and I cannot put her back to sleep until I look for them.  I guess she decided that safest is to go to bed with whatever the object of interest du jour is.  In the past week, she has gone to bed with the following: two rolling pins from the kitchen (night one), a sieve and a funnel (night two), a stuffed ladybug and a stuffed horse (night three), a baloon (night four), my makeup brushes, etc.  She prefers to have two of whatever in general, one on each side.  The rolling pins were especially memorable because they stuck into my ribs all night long, as we still sleep together, and every time I tried to remove them, she woke up and held on tight.  Cannot interfere with her treasure, that's for sure.

Anyway, tomorrow is ultrasound day.  Update afterwards.  Merry Christmas in anticipation! I have a mixture of feelings of hope that this pregnancy does not end shortly after Christmas, like Adrian's did, and wanting to believe differently and to relax about the holidays so that I can enjoy them.

18 weeks tomorrow

Whoa, it has been a whole month since I have last posted!  Where did life run away with me?  Emma is keeping me very busy for sure, but I think the main culprit is the low temperature in winter, and the snow with its worries.  It takes an inordinate amount of time and effort just to keep the stairs and alley in front of the house clean, and we have had so much snow that we don't know where to put it anymore.  The very cold weather (-22C all the time) makes it difficult even to just get out for a bit: one cannot just put on shoes and go.  It takes a whole snowsuit into which I must coerce my daughter, running after her, pinning her down, etc.  You get the idea.  Then, just as I think I got it all done, she takes off her hat and throws it somewhere, preferably somewhere hard to find and/or reach.  Like behind the bed, where only she can fit!  She can be very naughty-sweet.

She is getting over her third or fourth ear infection of the year.  On top of that, we have decided to stop the night milk bottles, because she was getting up four times a night in the last month, and I was getting very tired and cranky.  She is still throwing a tamper tantrum every night at 3:30 am on the dot, but things are getting better.  Even though she is awake for about 20 min, and us with her, it sure beats waking up four times a night!

Baby-in-the-belly looks good on the ultrasound, and the cervix at 16.5 weeks was 3 cm long.  Not stellar, but also not worrisome.  The placenta was awfully close to the internal os, about 9 mm away from it, but I think that it will move as the pregnancy progresses.  I have another ultrasound scheduled on December 24, and then I am to see the OB on Dec 25 (he is on call so I guess it does not matter to him).  I am getting a little more nervous as we approach the date where I lost Adrian.  I noticed the amniotic leakage on Dec 27, and lost him on Jan 2.  So, as long as I get past these dates, (preferably by two months or more) I will feel better.  I am nervous again because this is a new cerclage, so it was not "tried and tested" with Emma.  But it was well placed, so I don't see why it would not work.

Emma is very cute and bright.  She sings a lot of songs, and likes to dance, and play on the piano (just pressing the keys, but I swear it sounds like music!) and to finger paint.  We are doing a lot of brush painting, but it always ends up with her putting her fingers in it, so I switch to the finger paint because it has been known to end up in her mouth a couple of times.

She is still very picky about food, but is not skinny, rather muscular and well built.  She likes stuffed cabbage leaves so I had to make some today, because I ran out of the frozen stash that I brought over from my mother.  These are not the easiest food to master, because although making them is not hard, making them well is an art form that took my mom many decades to tweak.  I am getting most of her tips, but I still feel like mine today turned out an 8/10.  I would have liked more tanginess, so next time I am putting lemon juice in the water that I am boiling them in.  Anyway, I digress.  Emma liked them a lot, and she will be eating them for lunch for the next week, so we are all happy.

So far I have gained 10 lb.  It is not too bad, but I fear the HOLIDAY WEIGHT MONSTER.  I am very bad at restraining myself in social situations, and most of the Romanian meals are very full of goodies.  Proof of my weakness is that yesterday, when we had our Christmas office party, I gained one pound for sure. Maybe more.  I really have to remember how hard it was to take off 30 lb that I have gained with Emma, and to never never never have to go back to that again.  I am just not ready for that kind of effort again, not with a toddler and a newborn in tow...

Anyway, I will try to post more regularly.  I write posts in my head, usually at 3 am when Emma wakes me up, sometimes chuckle to myself at something funny, and then forget about it when I wake up in the morning.  That is life.

PS.  Emma loves the Christmas tree.  Every morning she points to it and says:" look, mama maked it!"  I pointed out that papa is the one that went through the effort of bringing the tree in and installing it, I just decorated it, and then she says "look, papa maked it!" Such a cute little girl, love love love her.