Something's Happening...

I haven't posted in over a month. Sorry about that folks. I've kind of been in a not-so-bloggy place lately.

First the big news - I'm pregnant! I'm due Jan 9th or thereabouts. Part of the reason I haven't blogged is because at first, I was having really bad doubts about this pregnancy. I had pains that I thought might mean it was ectopic, and I just had weird emotional stuff that didn't let me believe it was ok.

Then I went to a doctor who I decided I don't like so much, and he almost refused to do an ultrasound. I basically had to tell him that I thought it might be ectopic. He refused to take a measurement, so I almost missed my chance to do a neuchal translucency. Fortunately, that was taken care of, and the numbers are good.

Lately, I've just been extremely tired, and while I have a lot to say, I don't seem to be able to organize it into a blog post.

And then, Kinneret turned one!

She's so sweet. Here's a picture of her enjoying her new tricycle (a gift from Aunt Rachel and Uncle Ohad & family).
Also visible is Poofy, who is a big fan of Kinneret's newest trick - giving all of her food to the dog instead of eating it. Fortunately, she does seem to be getting enough into her mouth - her face has thinned out some, but she still has baby-folds in her arms and legs!

In other exciting news, Rachel Inbar has moved her blog to here.

New on the blogroll is Chez Perky, with 1 midi perky and 3 mini perkies for four times the perkiness of the other leading blog!

DrSavta (and RabbiSaba) are doing a coast-to-coast tour of the USA.

A Mother in Israel is way more ambitious than I'd ever be. She's even washing her floor!

And that's pretty much all the news for right now... so stay tuned for the next exciting adventure of.... trrrrriiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiLcat!

Smells Like Pre-Labor

I'm apparently in the early stages of labor. Contractions every 6-7 minutes. They started around 12 hours ago, at around 11 minutes apart...

Everyone said it hurts... but they didn't mention how long the pre-hospital hurting is!

B+

Everyone keeps telling me to be positive. Admittedly, I'm a bit of a pessimist by nature, but honestly, I'm just having a little difficulty overcoming that at this point...

Pollyanna is a nice fairy tale. I don't think I'd ever be able to "just be glad" that I got a pair of crutches instead of a doll, for example, even if it does give me the opportunity to be happy that I don't need crutches. (Yes, that's an example from the book... I don't think I ever saw the Disney Movie.)

Anyway, so, I'm not exactly a natural Pollyanna... More than that, I'm in the midst of a hormone storm. Add the fact that my pelvic bones seem to be adrift, causing seriously bad pain whenever I walk, change sitting position, or turn over in bed, and the mood is just not so good.

So last night, I had contractions all night - starting at 11pm. The problem was that they were not consistent - I had three in a row 3 minutes apart, then one 7 minutes later, another one 5 minutes later, and well, you get the point... so they're not getting longer, stronger, and closer together (which they're supposed to do) so I'm sitting here pondering what to do. Husband came home at midnight, exhausted out of his gourd, and knowing he had to go grocery shopping at 7:45 (b/c that's when he could get a ride) and that he had to go to work today.

So I was on my own. He had to sleep. So I got busy - I packed a bag for Poofy, (the dog's gotta eat, right?) I finished packing my bag. (I added a robe, some socks, stuff like that. Most of the stuff was already there.) I took a nice hot shower. And then the contractions had kind of eased up. So I tried to go to sleep. I managed to sleep, but I had horrible dreams about the baby having a shark in there with it, about going into labor and not being able to find the ward and having to climb up a wet slide to get to the nurse, about Yaakov not being there with me... just bad dreams that make me fairly certain I was having a lot of pain but was managing to sleep through it.

In the morning, I went to the women's clinic here in town, and they put me on a monitor. The contractions were way lighter at this point, and the doctor didn't even bother to look at me. He just told me that nothing was happening, and that's life. I was crying. I just felt like "I worked soooo hard all night, and you're telling me I accomplished NOTHING?!"

I know it's irrational. But it's how I feel.

Anyway, my parents are back! I thought I'd go to their house and they'd cheer me up. Instead, I got a lecture on being positive. Strangely, this lecture led me to cry much more...

It's really awful when you're doing your best and feeling miserable and basically you're told that you're doing a crappy job because you're letting a whole boatload of frustrations and annoyances get you down.

This is not the first time people have told me to be positive...I'm thinking that next time someone tells me to be positive, though, I will positively punch them in the stomach and ask them how positive it makes them feel!

Belly Brain!

A week or two ago, Yaakov was asked to perform and give a speech at City Hall in Jerusalem. Those of you who know Yaakov well know that public speaking in Hebrew is not something that comes naturally or easily for him.

Actually it's the Hebrew that doesn't come naturally or easily for him. When he was a kid, he studied acting, and even did some acting, and he has natural performance ability - something I completely lack.

At any rate, he's happy to juggle for anyone and everyone, but the speech was another story... so I offered to come and give the speech for him.

So my mother caught me on a chat (from China... they're still there) and I tell my mother this - about how I will be speaking in front of Mayor Lupolianski (or however you spell it)... We go on to talk about other things, including the fact that I keep having contractions, apparently still Braxton-Hicks (or Mason-Dixon, according to a friend who teaches Poli Sci) and that I have an appointment with the doctor to find out how things are going on Thursday.

So this morning, I wake up to see an email wishing me good luck for today, to which I automatically respond "my doctor's appointment isn't until Thursday, but thanks."

I am SUCH a belly brain!

The Cute Doggie!

I don't blog about Poofy very often, but last night, he was so sweet that he merits an entry on my blog... For those who are curious, he also has his own blog called Give a Dog a Blog.

Anyway, lately, I've been sleeping on our (new) couch a lot, because it has a layer of down which makes it softer than the bed. It also has a back to lean against.

Apparently, last night Poofy was unhappy with this arrangement. As soon as I settled down on the couch, he came over to me and stood next to me in an impatient stance. After a few minutes, I got up. He walked back towards the bedroom, stopping to make sure I was following him. As soon as I got into the bed, he curled up next to me. I think he really wanted me to sleep in the bedroom with Yaakov.

It was amazing watching how clearly he communicated when he can't SAY anything.

Oh... by popular demand, here's a current picture so y'all can see how big I'm getting.

Parents off to China Again!

I've seen this thing where they start an episode from the end, and then they get back to the ending from the beginning... you know what I mean? So I'm going to try that.
My parents left for China this evening (Motzai Shabbat).

2 days earlier...
Yaakov had a cold, and felt seriously icky, so he came home early. I let him sleep until we had to get up for our prenatal class. We finished our prenatal class on Thursday evening. We opted to have someone come to our house. It might be a bit more expensive, but we really wanted the 1 on 1 for several reasons.The woman who taught us (Libby Z., for any Modiin residents out there who are interested in prenatal classes) was really great. She's pretty practical and (I think) realistic. I just hope that I'll hold up okay during the birth...

After Libby left, we realized that we didn't have any chicken for Shabbat. So we set an alarm for bright and early, and called B.E., who totally saved our lives by taking Yaakov to Kiryat Sefer for grocery shopping.

Friday, I slept a lot of the day. I seem to be doing that a lot - sleeping all day and being up all night. At night, I tend to be too hot to sleep. I'm not sure why this happens, but... it just does. I end up taking a cool shower almost every night, and sometimes it helps. Mostly my palms are the problem. My face sweats, but for some reason the hot palms bother me much more.

I used the easiest Shabbat food recipe in the history of the world - Potatoes and chicken with granulated garlic in a clay pot like the one to the right. Actually, ours was cut into pieces, and I couldn't be bothered to put in any veggies. I had some fruit after dinner, and I pretended that that counts as veggies.

By the way, I love the clay pot. It's made by a German company called Romertopf. My mom got one when we lived in Germany (around when I was born), and I've never had chicken or roast better than my mom's made in it. The clay keeps all the moisture in! That means that even though I totally overcooked the chicken this week, it was pretty decent. The potatoes were great. For lunch, I had cold chicken, and Yaakov had cold cuts.

After lunch Shabbat morning, we took a nap, and then we went to my parents' house. They had my middle brother's 5-year-old twins over for all of Shabbat. My sister has also sent her almost 11-year-old twins over to help out. It was good that we brought Baby G's twin too... (a watermelon...) We also brought Poofy over. Menachem (5) was very excited and Yael (also 5) went back and forth between being very excited by Poofy and acting afraid of him...

My sister's 11-year-old boy decided that Poofy once bit him. I'm 100% certain that that never happened, because I remember being terrified that he'd bite the kids. He once snapped at a kid who pulled his tail (put his teeth on him, but didn't bite down), and once bit me to blood, when I grabbed his scruff while he was trying to mount a female. He's growled at kids a few times, and walked away countless times, but he's never bitten a human other than me, and that was so long ago that he still had baby teeth. I wonder what my nephew thinks he remembers...

Anyway, the kids drove Poofy completely nuts, so he decided to make himself scarce. He generally likes to go to my parents' sunroom anyway, because sometimes there are cats that he can see and growl at. (He can't get to them, b/c they're on the other side of the glass.)

Later, my sister's 13-year-old came over, but she had to leave a bit after that with her sister. They belong to the religious scouts in Modiin. They seem to be having a lot of fun at scouts. I think it's really great that they get this opportunity. I wanted to be a Girl Scout when I was a kid, but I couldn't because the meetings were all on Saturday, and the food wasn't kosher, and it was just generally impossible to work it out as a religious Jew. My dad belonged to a kosher Boy Scout troop when he was little. The way he describes it, I feel like I missed out on so much. I hope the religious scouts will do well here, so that our kids will have the opportunity my sister's kids have. (Her son decided he doesn't want to go.)

Meantime, Yaakov took the other kids to the park.

After the girls left, Yaakov brought the other kids back, and then we had dinner. While we were eating, my sister came with her husband and her two youngest daughters (2 and 1). The girls are soooo cute. The 1-year-old is just starting to walk, so it's very cute to watch her. Both girls were pretty fascinated by Poofy (he deigned to be petted by them, but he' s generally distrustful of short humans.. he finds that they're sometimes not so gentle).

When it started to get dark, my sister took whichever of her children who were still there, and went home. My dad came home and made havdala. The 5-year-old twins were still there, so my mom sent them upstairs to pack, and they brought their bags down. Then we asked Yaakov to put on a video for them, and hang out with them. I helped my parents (a little) to get their things packed and ready to go. They're taking a lot of supplies for the trip to China, although officially, they're going as tourists and not as guides this trip. I actually kind of think that it's annoying how much work they had to do for this trip when they paid close to full price anyway, but such is life. My mom is excited, because they'll be going to a whole bunch of new cities this time, and this will put them in a position to lead this trip (called China 2) in the future.

Anyway, they packed something like 6 suitcases with g-d knows what. I think my mom took 4 shirts, 2 skirts, and a sweater for herself... not really, but they were basically able to pack all of their clothes into a single gym bag each.

Meanwhile, we still have these two kids who need to be picked up and taken home... And my parents had to leave, so Yaakov and I stayed after my sister's husband came to pick them up and take them to the airport (strangely, since this leaves him with my parents' car - meaning that he and my sister will not have to share the car for the next 2.5 weeks - he doesn't find this a terrible hardship. Actually, I think he'd do it anyway - he's a very nice guy.)

After my parents left, I went around and tried to clean up a bit so that they'll get back to a decent house. I made their bed, and I unloaded the dishwasher and put new bottles of diet coke (one with and one without caffeine) in the fridge so they'll have cold drinks right when they get back. I didn't find much else that I could do without a lot of bending, which I don't do so well these days.

Then I sat downstairs and waited for my brother to come pick up his kids. He must have hit bad traffic or something, because it took him an hour to get from Beit Shemesh to Modiin, a ride that's usually about 25 minutes. I started to get kind of worried. The road is an awful road, and I couldn't get my brother on the cell phone. My brother-in-law came back from the airport and was going to give Yaakov and me a ride back home, but we still had the kids. I asked him to lend us cabfare, and he was about to leave when my brother arrived.

In the end, my brother-in-law took us home, which was really nice and helpful.

When I FINALLY got home, I took Poofy for a walk, and on the way into the building, my neighbor said that they'd been wondering if everything was ok. I gave him the super-short version, and said thanks, everything was fine, and baby isn't going anywhere...

If only I weren't having quite so many contractions... ugh... they're not serious, I know, but they hurt just enough to make me crabby all the time.

I just hope that they stay not serious until my parents get back... I really don't want to think about the logistics of labor & delivery and getting a baby home and all that without my mom to help us through it all...

t.c.

My Trip to Rehovot

Yesterday, my parents told me that they were going to Rehovot to visit my oldest brother & his adorable wife and (6) kids. Since I hadn't seen them in a while, I took the opportunity to visit them as well.

My brother's oldest, Tzvi (13), had a meeting to go to. He's participating in some kind of Torah-learning contest, I think. I didn't get the details.

The next three, Elisheva(10), Avital(9), and Dina(7) put on a show for us. In the first act, the three sat in a cave, (a sheet draped over two chairs) next to a small campfire (made of paper), dressed as cave-dwellers, and the dialog was as follows:
Dina: UGGGH!
Avital: UGGGH!
Elisheva: UGGGH UGGGH!
Avital (to Elisheva): Why do you always change the subject?!


They then did a brilliant imitation of a silly argument between my parents... (my father singing a song that doesn't end, and my mother trying to get him to stop...)

It was very cute.

Baby G. got excited and started dancing, so I called the girls over and had them put their hands on my belly to feel the movement The next one, Elihu (5), also wanted to feel. After feeling a kick, he said;
"Your tummy's going up and down." He started showing me how he could do it with his tummy too.
"But there's a baby in there," I said.
He sat down on the couch in stunned silence. His mom, Ilana, said "Elihu, is t.c. a mammal?" (no, she doesn't really call me t.c.) Elihu was still too stunned to answer.

A little while later, he decided he wanted to feel again. He put his hand on my breast....I jumped a bit before I said "no, down there" and put his hand safely on my tummy... I forgot that little kids do that and have no idea why there's an issue ;).

After careful consideration and another round of "there's a baby in there," he asked me "Is that why you're so fat?" to which I responded yes... (hey, at least now I have an excuse).

Later he asked "when the baby's little, will you bring it here so I can see it?"
I told him I'll see, but that I'm sure he'll see the baby. He might have to come to Modiin, though.

The youngest boy, Amiel (2), is just starting to talk. He says lots of things - "Mommy" and "Daddy" and "Tal" (for Avital). He can tell you where his shoes and eyes are. He can dance. He's very cute. He also gives VERY nice hugs!

There's lots more stuff I could tell, but I'm trying desperately to avoid whining...

t.c. Goodman

Home Stretch?

I've completed 33 weeks of this pregnancy. That means that my baby should weigh almost 4.5 lbs, and that in another week, the lungs should be fully developed. It means that my baby is packing on fat nicely. It means that the future of this baby looks very very good.

Unfortunately, it also means that I'm in the end phase. I'm in the phase where my body is completely unwieldy, where I have one t-shirt that fits me for sleeping in, where my whole tummy and everything else itches fiercely. I'm at the point that even if I weren't choking on the allergens in the air, my lungs are already too squished to breathe comfortably. My back is well beyond the point of being able to support my weight. I'm exhausted. I'm uncomfortable in every position. The palms of my hands and soles of my feet feel like they're on fire. My face sweats no matter what I do.

Oh, and I'm so hormonal I can barely even get out a simple sentence without breaking into tears.

I've gotta tell y'all... this pregnancy thing is not easy. And I still have 7 weeks until the due date, not to mention the fact that if I'm like my mom and sister, then I've got 9 weeks before they induce me to get this child out.

I'm starting to break down. I mean, I really feel like I'm beyond my limit. I know that this is nothing - I should be happy that this pregnancy is basically free of complications. The nausea is long-over, I don't have gestational diabetes, significant swelling, bleeding (or even spotting). This is about as easy as a pregnancy gets. So why am I not glowing? I just don't know... I don't even have half of the things that my pregnancy book warns me are totally normal and expected, not to mention the scary awful ones...

Do other women really go through this and then CHOOSE to have more children? And why did nobody tell me how difficult pregnancy really is? Would it have made a difference? Probably not, but... I wish I'd known what I was getting into. Then again, it might have made it all that much worse. I don't know... I'm so confused.

Everyone tells me that after the pregnancy is over, I'll forget how bad it is, and I'll be willing to go for it again. I hope so, I guess. I did plan on having more than one child, but the way I feel now, I just can't imagine going through another pregnancy...

Okay, enough whining for one day. I have other (semi-interesting) things to write, but no patience to write them... so Shabbat Shalom for now.

t.c.

Lack of Anonymity

A lot of blogs are anonymous or close to it.
Mine isn't. Not only mine isn't, but people including my husband's manager, my mother, my neighbors, and my father-in-law read it.

Which is mostly really cool. It gives me an easy way to keep up with people, share experiences, etc.

On the other hand, when I really want to rag on someone, I can't. When I want to share some juicy gossip, I have to be aware that even if I don't share the person's name, someone will recognize the situation and know exactly who I'm talking about...

All of this is why I haven't shared a lot of the details of my pregnancy. In an anonymous blog, you can tell people all about the messy stuff - the internal exams, the kegels, the works. But here, I really don't want all my friends and neighbors to know that the Dr. did X or that I'm having Y problem... And it's kinda hard when all I want to do is whine!

That said, I'm now going to indulge in a little bit of whining. Those of you who don't know me very well can assume that I'm censoring myself somewhat because of my aforementioned audience. Aforementioned audience: feel free to skip this part...

I have asthma and I feel like it's killing me. I keep coughing and coughing and well, if you've been pregnant, you know that coughing can have yucky side effects. And I don't mean just the incredibly painful tearing sensation in my abdomen.

A few weeks ago, when the wheezing was very bad, my doctor gave me a prescription for a nebulizer and some medication that goes into it. The stuff pretty much works. Not perfect, but it helps a lot. I ran out, and asked him to prescribe more, and he didn't renew the prescription. (I have to ask him to call me tomorrow to tell him that I'm wheezing again). I went to the other dr in the clinic, and he said a regular inhaler is plenty. However, the regular inhaler seems to do zero. As in, I feel absolutely no difference at all.

So now, I'm coughing and coughing, and I'm out of medication that sorta works and all I have is stuff that doesn't work, but I'm still taking it in case maybe it has a cumulative effect or maybe I would actually be worse without it.

But I'm thinking jeez. I have another 9 weeks to go before the due date, and my mom and sister pretty much consistently went over, so I could have as much as 11 weeks to go. How am I supposed to live with coughing, difficulty breathing, wheezing, and that tearing sensation in my side for the next 9-11 weeks?!

And let's just say, for argument's sake, that I somehow live through this (not like I have much choice, unless I choke to death)... How am I supposed to get pregnant ever again, knowing that pretty much as soon as the nausea ends, the asthma begins?? I don't know if I could handle this again?! I'm just crying my eyes out with frustration and pain, and Yaakov asked if I wanted to go to the ER, but ... I can't go to the ER every time I have an asthma attack - I'd have to take up residence there. I just can't stay like this. I don't know what to do!

There, whine over... thanks for listening.

t.c.

Ten Good Things to do While Your Wife is Napping

10. Teach the dog to "speak."
9. Practice your yodeling.
8. Install curtains.
7. Clean out your toolbox.
6. Vacuum the keyboard.
5. Wash the bedroom floor.
4. Install a doorbell.
3. Make the bed.
2. Practice your juggling routine (complete with music and comedy routine.)
1. Prepare to be a Baal Tekiya for Rosh Hashana.

Who's the Baby?

On one of my recent posts, a friend commented on the fact that we've chosen not to know our baby's gender.

The comment was "seems odd to me. You have soooooo many surprises in line for you, and I'm not talking about the color of hair and eyes, I mean will that kid like reading or playing ball, will she be curious, mathematical, spiritual, difficult or easy? will he have good or bad coordination, will she be a picky eater or not? The very least you can do is at least know the gender so you can prepare the clothes, crib color and all :-)"

Well, here's the thing. Actually, some research has shown that parents who *do* know the gender before birth have difficulty bonding with their babies, because they have more of a picture in their mind of what "a girl" or "a boy" should be. Oftentimes, their particular girl or boy is not at all like what they expect. My husband, for example, thinks that girls like to organize things and put them away neatly. He obviously never met me... He thinks boys like to take everything apart and leave a big mess. He obviously never met my oldest brother. So that's one argument against knowing.

Secondly, I'm not a superstitious person, but I do subscribe to the tradition of not buying things for the baby before the baby is born. Most of my readers are now saying "yeah, right, you're not superstitious. uh huh! we know all about you." My mother, on the other hand, is probably nodding her head.

Many years ago, my father had the experience of visiting at the home of a bereaved couple after a stillbirth. There was a perfect nursery, with sweet curtains and a crib and pastel-painted walls. There were teddy bears and rattles and pacifiers. And there was a huge empty space that should have been occupied by a baby. It's unlikely, but it's not impossible. These things happen.

On the other hand, the room we plan to use for the baby has already been painted as a baby's room - the previous owners had two children in that room. We also plan to have the baby in a bassinet in our room for the first few months. We'll use that time to finish any decoration of the baby's room.

Next comes the very basic issue of the fact that ultrasound is only about 85% accurate. Which means that if you are "mentally prepared" for one or the other, there's a 15% chance that you'll have to make a pretty radical readjustment.

Finally, in some ways, we'd like to know (although we have possible names picked out for both a boy and a girl) but we don't want to tell other people. If we know, one of us (the one who has the baby inside of her) has a slightly big mouth... and probably we would end up telling everyone else... so we're going to stick to not knowing.

And one more thing to the guy who asked me... If you've never been pregnant, you really don't know how it feels. I didn't know how it felt until I was pregnant. I always assumed that most women wouldn't want to know, but I was told by the dr who did my ultrasound that about 90% of women he sees *do* want to know - and honestly, I understand the wanting to know. It's just not for me.

Shabbat Shalom,
t.c.

Movin' Right Along

First and foremost, since Passover is around the corner, I need to encourage you all to watch a silly Passover video. This will help those of you who are miserable about your Passover cleaning to realize that you're not alone. Here's a link to the original Margaritaville song by Jimmy Buffett.

Second, yesterday was the first time that there were kicks visible through the skin. I was at my neighbor's house, and all of a sudden I realized that I actually could not just FEEL Baby G., I could SEE my dress moving. It was INCREDIBLE! It wasn't easy to see, and it only happened a few times (my neighbor kept missing it), but I felt my baby and I SAW him/her.

In case anyone is wondering, we don't know whether it's a boy or girl. The doctor told us that he knows, but we have chosen to keep it a surprise. Lately, I've been feeling like it's a boy, but before that I felt like it was a girl, so I'm not giving my gut too much credence at this point.

I guess that's it for now.

t.c. Goodman

What's 3 Inches Long and has the Hiccups?

If you're expecting me to say "I don't know either, but it's crawling up your leg," then you're out of luck.

Actually, it's a baby. Well, okay, I think the technical term is fetus, but seriously, it has a head and a body and s/he's so cute!

I had a test today called a neuchal translucency. The test isn't very thrilling. They measure the fluid at the base of the spine, and if it's a lot, then there's a higher risk of serious birth defects. My risk of having a baby with Down's Syndrome (G-d forbid) has been assessed to be about 1 in 2000, which sounds pretty good.

The exciting part of the test is that to measure this fluid, they do an ultrasound. So here's what happens. I go into the office, and the doctor puts the probey thing on my abdomen. At this point, I mention that I have a tilted uterus, so he's probably going to have to do an internal thing. He kinda shrugs, and starts moving the probe thing around, and all the sudden, I can see a head, and a body and all kinds of moving parts.

So I go, "Oh my gosh! It's a person! Holy cow, it's moving. Oh my G-d! Oh my!" and the doctor is laughing. My mom and sister (Yaakov couldn't make it) are standing there in awe. It was incredible. The baby was moving around a lot. He (this reflects the fact that there are currently more girls than boys in my family, so the [faulty] statistics indicate that I should be having a boy, not any actual knowledge) seemed to have the hiccups, and he was moving his arms and legs a lot. I could see such cute eyes and a nose and mouth. I'm in shock. It took more than a little convincing to believe that the images I was seeing weren't a video put there to make me happy, but now, I really believe there's a baby in there. He's only three inches long, but he's really there! And he's beautiful.
Sadly, this is the best picture the doctor was able to capture, because the baby kept moving!