36 Weeks

 Here I am at 36 weeks gestation (I am now almost 38 weeks), looking pretty darn pregnant and feeling it too!

 Here is my beautiful henna, courtesy of the lovely Jenni. This is what is looked like after it was applied. It took about 30 minutes to do the design and then another 30 for it to dry. Then it was covered with medical tape and cure for 12 hours before being washed off in the shower the following morning.

This is what it looked like two days later. After two weeks later it is mostly gone, which is sad since it was so beautiful and such a labor of love on Jenni's part.

I have been keeping busy though I am definitely slowing down. To keep myself from going crazy I decided to do a weekly "Countdown to 40 weeks" chore chart. Here is what I have been up to:

Week 8: Prep cloth diapers
Week 7: Cook and freeze lots of beans
Week 6: Finish 2012 digital scrapbook
Week 5: Knit newborn baby cap/finish other knitting projects/ hang pictures in bedroom
Week 4: Feed the freezer bonanza/ make and can chicken stock
Week 3: Finish gathering baby stuff/deep clean house
Week 2: Set up pack and play/baby sleeping place
Week 1: Last big grocery run

This is week 3 and I can tell you honestly that there has been no cleaning going on this week. Whatever nesting instinct is supposed to kick in, it just isn't. 

28 Weeks

Here I am entering my third trimester. Yes, that is a forced smile; I was having a contraction.

Finished Objects: Winter 2012-13 Edition

Given that I was struck down with morning sickness until early January I am amazed that I was able to accomplish as much as I did this winter. First up is actually the last project I completed: My Norway Socks.

 This was such a fun project for me. When I was in Norway last summer visiting friends I met a young woman doing traditional color knitting at the Norwegian Cultural Center. I struck up a conversation with her and she said that color knitting is actually quite easy and that I should give it a try. Encouraged by that advice, my friend Elisabeth took me to a yarn store (quite easy to find in Norway) where I picked up a pattern book and a few skeins of Norwegian yarn to make these socks.

Hey look! I even have a picture! Notice how she knits with one skein of yarn on each side of her to help prevent twisted strands.

It took me months to get up the courage/find the time to start these but in early February I finally did. Despite struggling with the pattern translation, and interpreting Norwegian pattern directions which are much more open-ended than American patterns, I found that it was fairly easy and enjoyable to knit these socks. I am a much better knitter now because of this project and I am happy with how they turned out. I won't be able to wear them until next winter though because my legs have started to swell already and given that they are double thick 100% wool, they will be much too hot.

The pattern is number 20 in SandnesGarn Klassikere but the pattern is not found on Ravelry. The yarn was 100% Norwegian wool, Peer Gynt, in Hvit and Svart. This yarn was so awesome; it still smelled like sheep and occasionally had tiny pieces of grass weaved in.

 This birthday crown was crafted in November with the beginnings of my morning sickness. Apparently morning sickness makes me incapable of focusing the camera. The little girl this was gifted to opened it and promptly threw it in the garbage, much to her parents chagrin. Handmade gifts are not always so well received.

 For Christmas gifts I decided to make herbal healing salve to give to friends and family. This was my first time infusing oil with herbs and making a salve. I am quite happy with how they turned out and the finished product works really, really well!

These socks were made in January for my mom's birthday. I love the rainbow colored yarn and the honeycomb pattern. My mother-in-law, a big fan of my knitted socks, wanted to model these before I sent them to my mom; she also wanted to keep them for herself, but only if my mom didn't want them. These are the November Socks knitted with Jojoland Melody Superwash.

 Another birthday crown was a special request from my daughter's friend who loved Ravenna's felt birthday crown so much she requested one of her own. Weeks before her birthday was to arrive she would remind me to make her the birthday crown. I did a fairytale themed crown and this one did not get thrown out.

She Wants to Be a Midwife when She Grows Up

Trying to find the baby's heartbeat with a fetoscope 

24 Weeks. Yes, I do need to buy maternity clothes. If only this darned winter would finally end!

To WIC or not to WIC?

At 17 Weeks or "The Beer Belly Phase"

I have been dreading this day for a week now. The weather reported ice and I had to drive down to Columbia for an appointment to see if we qualify for WIC. I was nervous that I would miss the appointment because of the weather and have to wait another month, or that I would try to drive there anyway and then crash and die (I tend to think of worst case scenario when I am pregnant), but I was also kind of scared that we wouldn't qualify and it would be a waste of time, but the weather simply rainy and we did end up qualifying. The worst part of it was trying to convince Ravenna to let her finger get pricked for the iron test. For the next year or so I will be on WIC along with Ravenna for a few months until she turns 5 in a few months.

When I first told my mother-in-law that I was applying for WIC she said, "That's terrible!" When I asked her what she meant she replied, "It means that my son can't provide for his family." Well, not quite. On a teachers salary WIC is definitely a blessing for us. Could we live without it? Probably, and I guess that is why a lot of people decide not to use the program. Since it is a supplement the program doesn't provide a ton of food, and it is definitely a big hassle at the grocery store, but the deciding factor for me was twofold: First, using WIC would take a little stress out of our tight food budget; Second, I really needed a lactation consultant after Ravenna was born and then as now our health insurance doesn't cover it whereas WIC provides lactation support in addition to breast pumps, should I need one for a short time as I did before.

Delighted that we qualified with checks in hand I went to the grocery store but while there many times questioned my choice. WIC is insanely complicated, at least for a beginner. I had heard that the grocery store that I shop at has labels on all the WIC items, and they do, but they are very small and often my checks didn't cover the items that were marked. Sizes have to be exact except with cereal? Peanut butter was the worst culprit. I couldn't understand why the "Natural" peanut butter, though the same price and brand as the other WIC allowed peanut butter was not allowed. Why not? Frustrating as well was having to separate all the items on the checks and since both Ravenna and I qualified. I ended up having five piles for the four checks plus my non-WIC items. I definitely held up the line!

What I love about WIC in Pennsylvania vs. WIC in Utah (in 2007-08) was that WIC in PA actually lets you buy fresh produce and whole grains other than cereal. When I was on WIC in Utah we got zero fresh produce except for carrots during breastfeeding and had cereal as our only choice for a whole grain. The bulk of WIC still is and always been milk, cheese, eggs and cereal but in PA you get those AND a whole grain item like tortillas, rice and bread and a dollar amount to spend on fresh or frozen produce which means I also have the freedom to buy organic produce. Also during the summer you get farmers market vouchers to buy fresh local produce (the very best!).

Right now I am feeling relieved that we now have this resource. It would be awesome not to have to use it but I am just glad that it is there.

THIS Pregnancy

I have been pretty quiet about my current pregnancy to this point, aside from announcing it the very day that I saw that double pink line that is. I think after multiple miscarriages there tends to be a fear of  "jinxing it." I had this very irrational idea that if I talked about my pregnancy before "x" number of weeks I would miscarry. Since joining a support group for pregnancy after loss I have learned that this feeling isn't unusual and now that I have reached that magical number, which for me was 16 weeks pregnant, I feel that I can talk about it. Actually reaching 16 weeks wasn't the milestone so much as reaching 16 weeks and hearing the heartbeat and having my midwife tell me the baby is a-okay. So, here is my pregnancy to this point:

I started my pregnancy with very high health expectations, drinking herbal pregnancy infusions, walking for exercise, and eating a rather balanced diet. Well, winter came and with it the morning sickness and I was lost in the land of Sick, Tired and Cranky. These symptoms were probably exacerbated by the fact that in my previous pregnancies I could consume dairy with abandon, which was my morning sickness cure of choice. With cow dairy a no-go and goat dairy a little too strong for my sensitive palate, I was left with occasional cravings for fast food, so long as I ate slowly, and cereal with almond milk. Sometimes I would find a food that worked for a few days but then I would throw it up and that made it inedible. It just became a matter of fact that the moment I walked into the kitchen I would start either dry-heaving or throw up in the sink. Amazingly in the six weeks that I had morning sickness I only lost 8 lbs.

Aside from dealing with morning sickness, one of the things that was very difficult for me was my dear, kind, well-meaning friends would always ask how I was feeling (every pregnant woman hears this a lot) and when I would say, quite honestly, "sick, miserable, etc." they would say "GREAT! That means the baby is going to stay." Here I would just like to make a public service announcement: Morning sickness doesn't guarantee that you won't miscarry. I was sick even with my missed miscarriage where the baby died at 10 weeks. I was sick even after the baby died and it wasn't until a few days before I miscarried, somewhere in week 12, that I was feeling better. It is hard to know what to say to any sick pregnant woman but sometimes "Can I bring you meal?" is the very best thing and is always music to my ears.

Sadly, Pinzey and Posie had to go. Their  previous owner graciously agreed to take them back, so while we were out our investment, I could relax in the knowledge that they were being groomed by someone who had the time, energy and expertise to do a good job. I felt so bad that I wasn't able to give those rabbits the grooming time that they needed and really, if you have angora rabbits, you should be grooming them at least once per week, preferably twice. Andrew and I have decided to make a pact that we will no longer indulge each other in micro-homesteading with animals (aside from the worms, of course) until we have a house with a nice sized back yard and no HOA.

On New Years Eve, at 13 weeks pregnant, we were able to hear the heartbeat for the first time and for Andrew, that was the biggest relief in the world. For me, it just did not feel real no matter how hard I tried, possibly because the worrisome cramping that I had been having the entire pregnancy had continued with no sign of stopping. At week 14 I magically started to feel better. It was like a miracle how much better I felt, and then the little flutters that I had started feeling in week 12 really started to feel like baby movement. During week 15 I felt the baby kick my hand from the outside and it was such a surprise and a delight.

Today my midwife came by for my 4 month check-up and once again we heard the heart beat. More impressive to me was that my uterus had grown so much in the three weeks since my midwife had last visited and the top of my fundus was only two fingers below my navel. I had thought to have been feeling kicks up that high but couldn't believe it since my uterus should still be about 4 fingers below my navel. It was very validating that what I am feeling really is my baby moving about. Also it means that what I have thought of as my "pudge" is actually a baby where I just thought I was bloated. Fun stuff!

There is my pregnancy thus far. I am hoping this winter hurries up and gets over with so I can get on with my spring gardening plans: Potatoes! In just a few weeks we will have our anatomy ultrasound and maybe get a peek and our baby's gender. Things to look forward to.