Becky's Diary Entries Diary Navigation: Choose A Diary Entry -------------------- Latest Entry: 2/16/04 -------------------- 2/4/04 1/27/04 1/4/04 12/16/03 11/30/03 11/12/03 10/30/03 10/7/03 9/30/03 9/9/03 9/4/03 8/27/03 8/19/03 8/10/03 8/1/03 7/31/03 -------------------- Becky's Introduction

Introduction

Where to even start? A lot has happened since my last entry.

Prenatal Classes
We started our classes at the clinic. We’re sort of doing them out of order, because we couldn’t make the normally scheduled Monday classes. So we went to the breastfeeding class first, and then the Newborn Care class. Next Saturday we have the preparing for labor class. Our doula teaches several of the classes, so we’ve gotten to know her better, which is nice. At the breastfeeding class, the men asked more questions than the women. I suppose they haven’t read up on it and talked to all their friends about it like women probably have :). The information at the breastfeeding class did convince me that I should try to nurse for at least 6 months. I had originally been going for at least two (my maternity leave) but after talking to a coworker of mine who had a baby recently and is nursing, I think I can do it. The only problem might be when we hit deadlines 6 months after the baby is born, I might be too busy to pump. (Since I am usually to busy to take a break for any reason.)

Windfall at Work
I work for a publisher, as an editorial manager. It’s a great place to work, even though the upper managers and decision makers change their minds constantly. So much that if we didn’t change things mid-season, we’d all be bored. (And happily leaving work after only 8 hours each day.)

For once, one of these mid-season changes went completely in my favor. They had put more books on the schedule than we could reasonably handle with our current staff. So there were some books we hadn’t even started production on. The company decided to start those books, and postpone a bunch of other books, including the two longer ones that I was editing. I was getting pretty stressed about how to fit a five-month schedule into a three-month schedule so I could get them done before I take my maternity leave. (Mostly I felt bad for anyone who would have to take over when I left, as they were complex titles.) So now I am just doing management things and offering to help anyone with small projects that will save them time (since they all still have editing assignments). What a great way to relax into when the baby comes. I’m sure things will pick up again once I get back to work.

Pregnancy Update
I am hungry all the time now. Even though my belly still isn’t huge, the phrase “hungry, hungry, hippo” comes to mind a lot. And sweets, while I love them and they are at work all the time during this holiday season, only give me energy for about 10 minutes. I have to eat real food. Mostly this is strange to me because I’ve always had a small appetite, and eaten small portions. Now I still eat the small portions, but I snack quite a bit more frequently. My belly is also big enough to use as a table if I’m sitting on the couch, which is very strange to me, having always been fairly slim. And it’s getting harder and harder to bend over to tie my shoes.

The baby is growing and moving a lot, especially when I’m sitting down. I can tell now where some of the parts are. The baby seems to be in a diagonal position across my belly, with its head at the lower left and feet at the upper right. It gets the hiccups a lot, so we joke that the baby takes after Daddy, because my husband gets the hiccups a lot.

Holiday Observations
I would like to thank my families (even though most of them don’t read this diary) for being so understanding at the holidays. When my husband and I got married, we said we’d go to one family for Thanksgiving and one family for Christmas. We try to switch off every other year, unless other family members’ plans affect us.

The reason I bring this up is because trying to schedule things during December is impossible! Previously we didn’t do much in December anyway, but we’ve been branching out more socially. Last Saturday we hosted a Lord of the Rings viewing party to watch movies 1 and 2 before the 3rd one comes out. We invited a ton of people from work (expecting maybe a fifth of them to attend, because not everyone likes Lord of the Rings.) There were at least five people who wanted to come, but couldn’t make it because they had to go have “Christmas” with their in-laws. My husband wanted to know when the calendar had been changed, because Christmas was two weeks away! And then our doula called and had to reschedule our meeting for the same reason—her inlaws wanted to celebrate Christmas early. The Lord of the Rings party turned out to be better with a small number of people anyway, because our TV room isn’t huge, and with the number of people who came and a few extra chairs, no one had to sit on the floor.

So I guess Jason and I are blessed with understanding families.

I hope they continue in that spirit next year when we invite everyone here so we don’t have to travel with the baby. A baby might be enough pull for people to come visit here; previously we’ve always traveled for the holidays, except for the one year we tried to invite my husband’s family to come here (Jason’s cousin lives in town, and more extended family were meeting at her house, we were all supposed to join together for one big happy gathering.) They got about 1/2 hour away and turned around and went home because of the snowstorm.

My own personal baby warmer
The best thing about being pregnant right now is that I am warm all the time. I only need one layer of clothes, unless I wear short sleeves and a long sleeve jacket or sweater for more flexibility. And we are actually having a “real” winter here. Winters have been so mild since I moved to southern Minnesota, I’ve felt gypped. Last winter there wasn’t even enough snow to shovel. This winter is going to be great. Not as cold as North Dakota, where I grew up, but maybe bordering on it.

If possible, I’m going to plan any future babies to have winter birthdays also. If I were this warm in the summer, I would be so miserable that no one would want to be around me (and I wouldn’t be able to breathe in the heat.)

I will try to update my diary again before Christmas, but in case time gets away from me, Happy Holidays to everyone!

Becky
(6 1/2 weeks to go!!)