…love Jillian

It is true.  I’ve pretty much stopped blogging the last couple months.  And the emails and questions about when I’m going to start again proves my lack of posts have not gone unnoticed.  But in my defense, have you seen Little Stuff?  Who has time to blog when they could be holding the best baby in the world?  Look at that face:

And this one:

What’s that?  You’ve read my Tweets about how the wee one sleeps through the night?  Oh, Ok.  Then, let’s just be honest  about my lack of blogging.  I’ve been a little bit torn on the content and direction I want to go.  See, having a baby makes you crazy hormonal and in my personal experience I have no business posting my crazy hormonal thoughts for the world to read.  Cause seriously, after you post something on the interwebs—it’s there forever.  And the things that have been on the forefront of my mind are not the types of things I want to post for my family, friends, and co-workers read. Or more importantly, the coworkers of my family and friends.  Some things are best kept to yourself…at least for now.

Also, since Little Stuff’s arrival I’m in crazy “get things done and organzied” mode.  And this blog is messy, unorganized, and I want to basically scratch the whole thing and start over.  If you could see the list of random tags/categories I have made and the 40 started but never finished post you would understand why the new OCD me wants to start over…also, I want a new layouot.  So, perhaps there will be a jillianranee.com facelift coming soon!  

In the meantime, I AM going to start posting baby updates again.  I can talk for hours and hours on the joys of motherhood and how much I love Little Stuff.  For instance, did you see my sweet little girl sitting in a bowl of candy on halloween:

I love how she could care less about how awesome it is to be sitting in an actual bowl of candy! 

Or the family photo we captured on Thanskgiving:

You want blog posts?  Well, you better prepare yourselves for baby overload!  

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 My due date came and went with very little fan fare.  Actually, now that I think about it, ”very little fan fare” is the understatement of the century.   It was just so anticlimactic.  No baby, no contractions, just more days of work and waiting for this little person to make her debut.  So, now, we’re just waiting in limbo.  

I went to the Dr on Tuesday and he basically said, “Let’s do an ultrasound and if everything looks good let’s give her another week.”  So, I went down, got my ultra sound and baby is looking good so she has free reign til next Tuesday when we will do another ultra sound to decide if she gets another week or is getting evicted early.  Obviously, I’m still hoping she comes out before my next appointment on Tuesday.

So, here we are 4 days after my due date and I have tried all the old wives tales: walking, sex, spicy foods, drinking cold water, and wearing myself out but nothing seems to be working.  I’m starting to think she is teaching a me a very early lesson in parenting; you know the one where I resign myself to just getting comfortable waiting—waiting on her to arrive, sleep, wake up, eat, pee, poop, ect ect ect. 

I think Baby Elizabeth is letting me know something very important; I may be the mommy but she is the boss!

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This morning I received a note from one of my non parental friends about why am I so anxious to get The Wee One out.  Her exact words: “Isn’t your life so much quieter and convenient without that crying poop machine on the outside?”  I suppose the short answer to that particular question is:  yes, of course it’s “quieter” and “more convenient” to keep her on the inside but how dare you catorgorize Baby Elizabeth as nothing more than  a crying poop machine!  (Clearly my hormones have gotten the best of me.)  Which got me thinking about how I felt about pregnancy before I was actually pregnant and I realized—I knew very little.  (And I probably owe my friend an apology as I’m totally not the type of person who lashes out at people for not being in the same place in life) so I thought I would list a few things that I never thought about BEFORE I found myself in the throes of pregnancy: 

• This baby is growing bigger by the day and the bigger the baby gets the less and less room there is for other things; like food and you know, my vital organs.
• I want to meet this tiny person.  Sure, she might poop and cry but after you spend 9 months changing everything about your life and lifestyle to accommodate this tiny idea growing inside, the anticipation of meeting her is all consuming.   
• I need to know what this baby LOOKS like–I’ve been envisioning her for 9 months.  I’m ready to see if she ended up with straight hair (please please let her have straight hair) or unruly curls that I will need some sort of tutorial on how to properly care.  I want to know what color her eyes are and if she will have my nose or daddy’s.  I mean, it’s amazing how much you can love something and not have any idea what she even LOOKS like….it’s unbelievable. 
• I miss being able to do the simplest tasks.  Like picking up my underwear and being able to roll over in my sleep.  Somewhere around 30 weeks (or 7.5 months for all my non parental friends) I turned into a turtle and the simple act of rolling from my left to my right became impossible.  And since my arms usually fall completely asleep it normally takes a good 2-3 minutes to wake them up, then go to the bathroom, and then settle in on the other side.
• At around 35 weeks (8.5 months) by belly started getting bigger than my body is consciously aware and I started bumping into people and things.  Hugs get more complicated and you just generally feel large and not so much in charge.
• I’m ready to eat the stuff that I love.  Somehow Baby knows just the foods that make me happy and can ruin them without notice.  You like lemon cake?  Acid reflux so bad it will make you hurl.  Pork chops?  Oh, they taste like hot dogs.  Chinese food?  Don’t even think about it?  Meat on pizza?  Hello cold wash cloth wiping the puke off your face.  It’s the weirdest thing in the world…these pregnancy eating idiosyncrasies. 

The list could go on but I do have some work to do today so I will leave you with the primary point of this post:  Stop judging me.  I’m ready.  Let’s do this Baby Elizabeth!

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I have found myself surprised by a couple of things as this pregnancy draws closer and closer to the end. 

First, I’m not exactly sure when the acronym BF transitioned from boyfriend to breast feeding but I was reading an article the other day that used the abbreviation BF and I immediately thought breast feeding when in fact they were talking about boyfriends.  It definitely caught me off guard and I thought, “WOW.  My thought process has definitely shifted.” 

Secondly, when I first got pregnant I thought BFing was something I was going to try.  I was going to see ‘how it went’ and as long as Baby Elizabeth and I were both willing and able I would do it as long as possible (aka The Wing It Method.)  What I’m finding about myself now that The Wee One is almost here is that the need to breast feed has found it’s way to the top of things that I NEED to do.  Sure, I’ve heard it can difficult.  I’ve even heard it can be painful.  But isn’t Baby Elizabeth  worth the pain and hassle?  I think so.  So, my new plan is as follows: to promptly stop calling the lactation specialist at the hospital the “breastfeeding nazi,” spend as much time as she is willing to give soaking up all the BF knowledge she can provide.  Sure, up until now my lackadaisical attitude toward all things breastfeeding has been my primary platform to deflect any and all judgment to date but from now on I’m just going to own my new found desire to feed my baby the natural way.  (Not that I’m judging the moms that choose not to BF because I’m still of sound mind and body and I wholeheartedly believe everyone has a right to choose their path.  I’m just saying that for right now, the need to BF our baby has jumped to the top of MY priority list.

As with everything else in this pregnancy, I’m yet again shocked at how my thought processes have shifted; I haven’t attended any classes (especially the ones that brow beat the breastfeeding school of thought) or had anyone (that I care to hear from) push their beliefs on me–I’ve done my own research, read the books and the blogs, Googled, and finally resigned myself that as long as I can BF (or at very least  pump) I will.

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So it appears Baby Elizabeth is going to camp out until she is evicted…or so it feels.  When I had my doctor’s appointment last week he was shocked The Wee One was still cooking.  He was sure she would have made her move since I had been ‘thinning’ so quickly.  Unfortunately, we are embarking on yet another week of cooking the baby/working.   Sure, I’m technically only 39 weeks but something inside me (and the doc) said she would come early—which doesn’t appear to be the case…

In all honesty, I’ve really been fine.  Not too uncomfortable or miserable.  The 100 degree temperatures have subsided and all in all I’ve been holding up pretty well.  Everyone has been asking me when I’m taking off work and my standard response has been, “if I can work, I want to work.  I’m not wasting any time off before Baby arrives.”  But then this morning, I was standing in my closet trying to determine what I was going to wear to yet another week of work (another week I was planning on spending cuddling with our new addition) and I was trying to decide if I could get away with wearing yoga pants and at that moment a light bulb went off—THIS is why women take off early!  I’ve always been pretty good at getting dressed for work.  I like getting dressed up and being around people but today all I wanted to do was be comfy—not my usual self.  I opted for capris and a cute shirt but if Baby Elizabeth makes me work next week too; my co-workers might be seeing me in yoga pants….

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So, yesterday was my 36 week checkup.  And everything is looking great.  Baby Elizabeth is growing right on target and I’ve been feeling pretty good.  When the doc checked for “progress” I was kind of surprised to hear that I’m 60% effaced and dilated 1 cm.  What?!?!  The Wee One might be making her move…

Other than that, there is not too much to report.  We all ready and waiting!  And it sort of sounds like she will be here sooner than later!

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For some reason blogging has fallen way down on the ole priority list.  And the longer I go without blogging, the harder it is to get back into it.  It’s not that I haven’t had anything blog worthy to write about; I think I’ve just been a little bit overwhelmed with life.  Baby Elizabeth is due to make her debut in a few weeks and it seems like there are a million things that need to be done.  I have a new job and A LOT less time on my hands.

A couple weeks ago, my Mom, Sister, and two besties threw me the most lovely baby shower ever!  I felt incredibly loved and and lucky to have some many people in my life that understand just how important this new addition is to our lives.  I really do have the best family and friends.  My mom has spend the years storing and keeping all the important stuff from my childhood…all the way down the onesie I wore home from the hospital.  I can only hope that I will be organized enough to do as many things for our little girl as my Mom did/does for me…

After the baby shower my mom and sister came over to help me organize all the new baby necessities.  I loved having them here.  (I’m also sort of surprised at how much I LOVE folding baby clothes.  I HATE doing laundry but knowing that those tiny pink clothes belong to our little girl make folding them bearable if not enjoyable.  Perhaps Baby Elizabeth will wake an organized OCD version of myself that has long been repressed whilst throwing my underwear in a drawer and then rifling through them while I look for the perfect pair each day.)  I know everyone was here to help ME but it felt like they were here for Baby Elizabeth and that made my heart all melty.  I can only hope that Miss Elizabeth and my mom are as close as I was to my Grandma.  My Grandma and Grandpa were a HUGE part of my life and I look forward to the day she is old enough to let my Mom paint her toes and follow my Dad around in the yard…maybe not at the same time but you get my point!

Anyway, we have a few weeks to go and I’m so ready to meet our little one…I hate waiting.

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Yesterday a co-worker invited me to be friends on The Facebook.  Now usually, I try to avoid being friends with people I work with on FB for various reasons but mostly because some things are best left out of the office. Sure, I have no qualms about blogging for complete strangers, acquaintances, and lord only knows who else but work people? Not so much. (Don’t roll your eyes, I know my logic is dumb—ANYONE could find and read this blog but for some reason, I’m thinking the majority of people I’m not interested in sharing my life with have better things to do than track down my tiny corner of the interweb : )
Anyway, I do like this particular work friend so I decided to peruse my status updates to see if there was anything incriminating on there (you know, like taking off at 3 or complaining about things that shouldn’t be complianed about) before I accepted and do you know what I found? I’m Baby Elizabeth obsessed. I cannot stop talking about The Wee One. 
I always thought I would be the type of mother who stayed the same. The mother that would have a little one and my outlook and priorities would stay pretty similar. But I’ve already turned into the mom that can’t think about anything else.  Her movements mark my day (I fully enjoyed feeling her hiccup on cue for 3 straight hours yesterday) and it’s apparently obvious that I can barely talk about anything else….
So for all you readers that miss the snarky comments and ridiculous stories, the only left to say is this: My name is Jillian and I’m obsessed with my baby.

1 Comment | In: Baby, Baby Bump, blogging | | #

Oh, I can’t believe I forgot to put this late night conversation in my earlier post.  Last night I was totally cuddling with Hubs INSTEAD of my body pillow for once; we were spooning with my belly on his back when I was woke up:

Me:  Wait, What are you doing?

Hubs:  I’m just rolling you over

(I’m a lot like turtle these days)

Me:  Why?  I was sleeping sooooo good.

Hubs:  Well, you’re a furnace and it’s hot

Me:  But I was cuddling with you

Hubs:  I’m sweaty and Baby Elizabeth keeps kicking me in the spine.   

Me:  You’re complaining about baby kicks?!?!?!??!  Oh brother.  You know that’s how I sleep every night?  Right?

Hubs:  Yeah, I wasn’t complaining. It was totally special.  It’s just hot.

Me:  (rolling over to the body pillow and probably rolling my eyes as well)  Suuuuuuuuuuure.   

I’m thinking Hubs might be a prime candidate for one of those preganancy suits….

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The weekend was full of things I love…Baby Elizabeth, family, and a 3 day weekend!  Although, it was also full of things I hate:  Fireworks and 4^th of July.

On Friday I went in for my 28 week check-up and everything is looking good–nothing exciting to report.  I suppose at this stage of the game no news is definitely good news.  Then, Hubs and I went in for our pre-delivery visit at the hospital.  It was kind of nice to see where we will be when the baby comes.  At least I can envision what it will be like a little better now.  We filled out all our paperwork and put a rough plan in place.  If you can call, “trying not to get an epidural but we will see how things go” a plan.  When we started to talk about how we were planning on feeding the baby, I told the nurse about Hubs’ infamous babies are mammals comment and she totally looked at ME like I was the crazy one.  So, I back tracked, saying we would breastfeed as long as we could.  She totally nodded in approval saying, “3 years of breastfeeding would be perfect!”  WHAT?  YOU’RE A CRAZY LADY!

Saturday morning we got up early and went to see our sweet Baby Elizabeth in 3D.  It was so exciting.  She seriously had her right leg/foot up by her head the entire time and there was no amount of pushing, jumping, and jiggling that could get her to put it down.  At one point she even put her other leg up—giving us a great look at her lady parts—she is definitely a girl!   We really didn’t get a GREAT picture of her but it was so sweet getting to see her.  Grandma and Grandpa came and I think they really enjoyed it too.  As well, as Hubs!  We made it through the entire hour without one tear!  Here are some of my favorites:

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