Week 36 and All is Well
All’s well according to SuperStarOB. He’s relieved that Thor’s mighty mighty cranium is now measuring more on the big-but-big/average side than on the OMG-you’re-never-going-to-birth-that-from-your-girl-goods end of the scale.
He said everything’s looking great, BP is still lowish, my weight gain is pathetic, but Thor’s is great, so he doesn’t care. He did an internal – ouch! – and said my cervix is still closed, but that labor can happen fast so that’s not really any sort of prediction. He said at this point they will not attempt to stop labor if I should go into labor naturally (though naturally, they’d prefer him to bake a while longer). He reminded me what my cues are for ‘call the doctor now’. We should get the Strep B results back next week, and I’m to go off Lovenox as of now.
Which is nice.
I asked again about going on Heparin at this point as so many women do, and he told me that he really didn’t like that idea. Remember I have a veiny, prone-to-hemorrhaging uterine wall? The women who still die even in top hospitals during childbirth? A lot of them have veiny uteruses (uteri?) like me. I think he’s feeling that the risk of a blood clot at this point is minimal – especially since we do lots of sonograms that check umbilical blood flow & it’s always been superb – whereas the risk of medication-assisted uncontrolled bleeding if something bad happens during labor is not-so-minimal. I never did have the numbers that showed a clotting factor, and if I’d remained under my RE’s care, would likely have been taken off the Lovenox at about 12 weeks. My OB didn’t want to mess with what was working, but he’s of the opinion that if it was ever needed, it’s certainly not needed now.
This isn’t to say I intend to start subsisting on ice cream or other blood-clotters (in fact, I’ll probably be cooking pretty heavily with garlic for the next few weeks), but I trust my doctor’s reasoning, and I’m happy to follow his orders. He’s been very conservative, very willing to do whatever it takes to keep this pregnancy healthy, and he knows the needles do not bother me. So I don’t worry that he’s putting me or the baby at risk by choosing to stop the blood thinner now, rather than after delivery, out of some misguided attempt to spare me anything. He just thinks it’s healthier for Thor and for me to stop it now and not use any blood thinning agents prior to delivery.
That said, I’ve got 20 or so doses of Lovenox left over and I hate the thought of tossing such an expensive medication in the garbage. If you’re already on 40mg Lovenox (and can prove it to me via a previous-to-today blog post about it!) and your insurance doesn’t cover the meds., I’d be happy to send my leftovers on to someone – you can email me off-blog (ssjett (at) hotmail (dot) com) or leave a note in the comments. I’ll send it to the first person who responds. Leftover Lovenox has found a home – nevermind!
I bought about half of my “embarrassing drug store list of items” and shall make another run for the remainder when I’m feeling perkier. I seem to be good for about one big errand a day before my feet hurt and my back aches and I’m sleepy enough to cry.
But my dog came up and slept with us last night after we turned off the A/C. Which was wonderful, even if I did have phantom itchiness because of it. I think she’s clear, but my brain insists “Bugs!” which isn’t much fun. She’s getting back to her old self, went for a walk with us this morning, and came up to greet me when I got home. I do love my little family so much. And I can’t wait to add to it.
Question for you all – now that I’m no longer worked & therefore doing the housefrau thing for the first time in my life (and really looking forward to it, actually) I’m finding myself in charge of making dinner every night. The Boy would do it – has actually volunteered to continue doing it indefinitely – but since he hates it and I like it, I’d like to get into the swing of it earlier rather than later. My question is – I’ve got plenty of yummy menu items for when it’s cold out. But what, besides gazpacho and salad, do people eat in the summertime? Honestly, it’s hard thinking of what to cook when nothing sounds good, but surely there are some foods out there that I just haven’t thought about yet. We’re very much a healthy food – protein/starch/vegetables kind of family, and the Boy needs lots of food/calories to maintain his scrawny frame. Meat is good (for him) Veggies are good (for me). Nellie would prefer recipes that feature lots and lots of chicken skin, which usually ends up on her plate by the end of the meal.
And I’m SO out of ideas. I miss Gourmet magazine, which always gave me great ideas. I think I need to subscribe to Cooking Light, or even Bon Appetit again, to get me through these spells where I am completely uninspired by food.
But in the meantime, would you do me a favor? Leave a comment with your favorite summertime/warm weather dinner menu (& recipes, if you’re feeling inspired to share with all of us!) The Boy (and eventually Thor) will be delighted to be saved from 4 mos. out of the year when all I feed them is cold soup and salad.
And I think I’m going to have to start planning menus in advance so that 4 o’clock doesn’t roll around again with me having no idea what to put in front of the Boy.
Any ideas?
De-lurking to say congrats and that these are some of our favorites – hope that helps!
http://weelicious.com/
http://www.melskitchencafe.com/
http://stephscafe.blogspot.com/
Susan Reply:
August 19th, 2010 at 7:53 am
Thank you! I’ll absolutely check these out!
What saves me on the cooking end of things: weekly menu planning (I do this on Monday, my day off, and do all the grocery shopping that day too); and Cooking Light. I like cooking but HATE making menu decisions, so if I can get that all out of the way at one time, I’m much happier. And CL has given me a whole bunch of great menu ideas over the years.
Glad all is well with Thor!
Susan Reply:
August 19th, 2010 at 7:55 am
I think I’m going to need to start doing this – certainly once we move north and have to drive to go to the grocery – it sounds so organized and like something I’d LIKE to do. It’s just that doing it? *sigh* I think I have a lot of learning to do!
Hi there, Delurking to tell you that Cooking Light has a great website with all of their recipes on it, along with those of Sunset, Southern Living, and a few others. You can search them by publication, ingredient, or rule out ingredients (if you have trouble with dairy, say). I love it, and I used to subscribe to CL but had to unsubscribe because I felt overwhelmed by the urge to cook ALL of the current issue’s recipes by the arrival of the next issue! This is a better way for me to deal with it!
Susan Reply:
August 19th, 2010 at 7:55 am
This is where I found the quesadilla recipe we ate last night. Thank you!
Hooray for no more Lovenox! (Damn, I hate that shit.)
No recipes, exactly. My favorite summertime dinner is hummus, raw veggies and fruit, with salami for LG. When I ate wheat, pasta with pesto was a summer regular. And we eat a lot of black beans and rice, which can easily be turned into soup or taco filling or a whole host of other things as leftovers. That reminds me…I have no idea what to cook tonight!
Susan Reply:
August 19th, 2010 at 7:57 am
I love hummus and all things cold for summer food. The Boy, unfortunately for me, needs more substantial meals or he drops weight like a – well, like a whippet. I might be able to persuade him to give a hummus platter a try, though…
And yeah – it was so great not shooting up with Lovenox last night!
I highly recommend the eating well website. I have used them for lots of fun recipes like skillet gnocchi with swiss chard, kholrabi and ham casserole… good stuff for summer veggies from the farmers market. I also make a “raw” vegetable lasagna… layer summer squash, zucchine, roasted peppers and tomatoes with seasoned farmers cheese and fresh basil in the middle of each veggie, then finish with sea salt and a drizzle of olive oil and balsamic. I don’t need meat with this but I grill some chicken for Mr. Lemon and throw it in for him. Lastly, Risotto is fun to do it the summer too with lots of random veggie adds and or shrimp/scallops/lobster….
Susan Reply:
August 19th, 2010 at 7:57 am
Ooooh – I don’t think I’ve even heard of that website. On my way over to check it out…
Glad to hear THor is well. I’ve really liked this recipe from the NYT (there are some great surprises in the magazine) from last year: it’s good this time of year when corn is in season. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/06/magazine/06food-t-001.html
Also, as shopping/ errands become harder, consider fresh direct for at least the big stuff, and take a look at their recipes — some are pretty good and it makes shopping SO easy!
Susan Reply:
August 19th, 2010 at 7:59 am
I think we’re going to try this one tonight. Thank you – and you’re right, it looks delish!
We’ve done wraps and Big Salad, as my husband calls it. Neither require any kind of heat, just slicing the contents. Any kind of meat or vegetable is acceptable. For Big Salad, which is just a green salad with lots of other stuff, we’ve included ham, chicken, sliced beef sticks, sunflower seeds, croutons, different kinds of cheeses, tomatoes, peas, sliced mushrooms, any color of chopped bell or sweet peppers, sliced olives – pretty much anything you can think of.
http://www.epicurious.com has both Gourmet Magazine and Bon Appetit recipes for free along with a great search engine. I canceled my subscription when I found this website.
Susan Reply:
August 19th, 2010 at 8:02 am
I should really do more with wraps, but the SW girl in me persists in turning them into burritos – bring on the beans & melted cheese!
Epicurious is one of my favorite websites, I’ve just been singularly uninspired by food this year, and am having a hard time getting excited by anything more involved than, say, rotisserie chicken. Sure hope THIS side effect of pregnancy goes away soon after Thor is born. No fun at all…
Do you have access to a grill? That is my go-to summer food – anything grilled, especially zucchini and red peppers and corn. But my favorite thing is a no-cook pasta sauce, which is stupid-easy, and actually comes from the book “Heartburn” by Nora Ephron. We call it “Heartburn”sauce, although it doesn’t give me any heartburn.
Anyway, here’s a link to the recipe. But I will say I don’t bother to skin the tomatoes, and I reduce the oil by half-ish. And sometimes use only 1 garlic clove. And you must use dead-ripe tomatoes. Yum.
http://cooking.knopfdoubleday.com/2009/10/05/a-recipe-that-wont-give-you-heartburn/
Oh – also to add – do NOT refrigerate this sauce! Leave it out on the counter for several hours. The fridge will kill the yummy tomato flavor.
Susan Reply:
August 19th, 2010 at 8:03 am
Thank you! Pasta is one of my favorite go-to meals, but making the sauce always takes so long in a hot kitchen that I tend to wait until it’s cooler to get back into the pasta swing of things. Shall absolutely have to try this. Thank you!
OK, 2 meals that both DH and I LOVE and are quick (one is 10 minutes, one 20 minutes).
Tofu with Peanut Sauce
- you can grill or sautee the tofu, the tofu tends to fall apart on the grill, I’d recommend sauteeing.
Ingredients:
- extra firm tofu
- 1 green pepper
- 1 red pepper
- 1 package of brown rice
- Several tbsp of House of Tsang Bangkok Peanut Sauce (available at most markets http://www.amazon.com/House-Tsang-Bangkok-11-5-Ounce-Bottles/dp/B000LLMAVU/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=grocery&qid=1282171215&sr=8-2)
1) Sweat the tofu before cooking – basically put it on a plate, put another plate on top with something heavy, like a sugar bowl on top, to bleed out the liquid.
2) Start cooking the brown rice on the side while tofu is sweating.
3) Heat 2 tbsp of oil in a pan, sautee peppers until soft. Add in the tofu, cubed, a cook until browned.
4) Add brown rice to bowl, ladle the tofu and peppers on top and the peanut sauce on top.
This is one of my favorite meals ever.
———————-
This one is a real quickie, all from Trader Joe’s but we LOVE it.
Ingredients:
- one package TJ’s Indian Fare Palak Paneer
- one package TJ’s Indian Fare Dal Makhani
- one package (4 slices) of TJ’s frozen naan
- one package of TJ’s frozen basmati rice
1) Preheat over for 10 minutes for the naan
2) When oven is preheated, place the naan directly on the rack.
3) While naan is cooking, microwave the palak paneer in a bowl for 2 minutes.
4) When palak paneer is done, remove from microwave and then nuke the dal makhani for 2 minutes.
5) When dal makhani is done, cook the basmati rice.
6) Remove the naan from oven, serve all together.
Yum!
Glad to hear that Thor looks great!
Susan Reply:
August 19th, 2010 at 8:05 am
I’ll try both of these – thank you! – and there’s a TJ’s really close by. I don’t tend to go there often because the times I’ve had off-work are the times EVERYONE has off-work, and it’s a madhouse, but perhaps now with my new relaxed SAHM schedule, I can get there during non-prime hours & actually see the products on the shelves.
Mmmm. Frozen naan….
I have probably close to 100 warm weather recipes in weekly menus including shopping lists on my computer. I would hate to post that much in your combox, but will happily forward them to you if you would like. Shoot me an email if you want them.
I’m glad Thor is healthy but not as much of a cranium maximus as he was.
Susan Reply:
August 19th, 2010 at 8:07 am
I would love LOVELOVELOVELOVELOVE your recipes! I’ll zap you an email right away. Thank you!
And yeah, the big-head-that-is-almost-down-to-NORMAL-bigness is a big relief.
Cranium maximus. I like that!
With a heat index of 125 for several days last week, we couldn’t bring ourselves to eat an actual meal. Oy. I brought back a favorite of mine for summer months. It’s my version of the antipasto plate (I don’t really like antipasto). I go to the market and just get a bunch of small servings of cold stuff: pancetta, dill havarti, nicoise olives, cantaloupe, grape tomatoes, hummus, pita, hard salami, red or orange peppers. And so on. I try to get a lot of color in there. And all cold stuff. We plop down with that spread on a beautiful porcelain tray we bought on our honeymoon in Spain, tear off pieces of baguette, and nibble. It’s lovely.
Susan Reply:
August 19th, 2010 at 8:08 am
That sounds lovely – not the 125*, of course, but the porcelain-plated antipasti.
Delurking to say I’ve so enjoyed reading your blog these past months. You sound so content. I’ve just found out I’m pregnant with DE myself so you’ve been quite an inspiration to me.
I’ve gotten some good ideas from the comments above too! http://www.allrecipes.com is my fav recipe website. I suggest chicken salad as a warm weather meal.
Susan Reply:
August 19th, 2010 at 8:10 am
I really should learn to do a decent chicken salad. I like eating it, just too lazy to have ever made it myself. I’ll check out allrecipes and see what they have to offer.
So happy for you! I am such a believer in DE that it’s great to hear of someone else having such good results. Congratulations, and I’ll be sure to add you to my reader so I can follow along! (DE rocks. Should have done this years ago when it first became evident I had a problem!)
OMG! 36 weeks! I’m so excited for you!
So for me with the Lovenox… I did Heparin for about two weeks and it was thinning my blood too much. I had nosebleeds and my site areas would still be bloody 8 hours later. Scary. Then 3 days before I gave birth I went to the hematologist and she checked my levels, which were on the no-so-great side so she took me off blood thinners all-together, but said I’d have to start back on Lovenox after birth and stay for 8 weeks. Then no problems with bleeding with the c-section. Then after I gave birth the OB called the hematologist and convinced her to NOT have me do the Lovenox. I was SO grateful to not be doing the injections. The heparin incjections were 3x a day, which was just too much. I STILL have bruises on my thighs 9 weeks later.
Probably oversharing!
Anyway, my fave summer sandwich: Rustic bread, balsamic glaze, chunky mozzerella slices, farmer’s market tomatos, whole fresh and basil leaves. Easy and fast.
Again, Susan I am soooo excited for you. This has been such a long time coming – I feel this is a victory. Motherhood is so amazing, and I know you will be a great mom. Best thing that’s ever happend to me, hands down.
Susan Reply:
August 19th, 2010 at 8:13 am
Thank you for telling me that – not oversharing at all. I hear so many horror stories about people who had to stop Lovenox, that it’s got me a bit freaked about quitting, despite my trust in my OB. Not that I’m glad you had problems on the Hep, of course, but good to hear the other side.
And can’t wait to start blogging from the other side, as well. It’s been wonderful reading about your journey through, and I’m looking forward to joining you on the fun-part of this ride.
36 weeks is SO AWESOME. Soon you will meet your son! OMG! I couldn’t be happier for you.
When you receive my email with more recipes than you probably wanted, just remember, you asked for it.
But, for those who might be reading your comments for ideas, I highly recommend http://www.skinnytaste.com/ for low cal/low fat delicious recipes (she is a Weight Watcher but do NOT underestimate how good her recipes are). I made her Greek Meatballs tonight and can’t wait to have a pita sandwich tomorrow with the leftovers.
Also, for anyone with kids (or who is a kid at heart), I also just made what I like to call Upside Down Pizza:
http://www.southernplate.com/2009/01/deep-dish-pizza.html.
Happy cooking!
Susan Reply:
August 19th, 2010 at 8:14 am
That email did NOT have more recipes than I wanted, and in fact, I’ve copied a couple of them down already (as well as printing out the 101 summer meals) to add to my inspiration-box o’ recipes.
skinnytaste looks FANTASTIC, and I can’t wait to page through her archives. Shoot – those Greek meatballs just might become a new fave – anything with tzatziki as a recommended sauce is a good recipe in my book…
THANK YOU!!!
(Came back to read the recipes. Also, parenthetically: I’m amazed by how different doctors deal with heparin and/or Lovenox. I was on regular heparin from ovulation through 6 weeks postpartum, even without evidence of a clotting problem [APA diagnosis, yes; clotting times were okay]. My current RE was stunned to hear that and indicated that she thought 12 weeks would have been enough. But PJ, *three* times a day?! Wow! I know my dose was increased throughout pregnancy but only ever did 2 injections. Anyway… Susan I’m glad your doctor is doing something that both he and you feel comfortable with.)
I get a lot of great recipes from here:
http://www.kraftcanada.com/EN/home.aspx