1.  Made it through the day yesterday without going into labor.  Given the day, this was a good thing.

2.  The flea program seems to be working.  Found a single baby flea on Nellie this morning, so I’ll re-do, but seriously, it’s so much better that I have great hope that we’re going to be able to get rid of this problem once and for all.  Having said that, I’m pretty sure Nellie faked the whole thing so that I’d never send her to a kennel again for the rest of her life.

Such a smart dog.

3.  Speaking of Nellie – she’s BACK!  Sleeping on my head.  Howling when she wants to get my attention for regularly scheduled treats or a walk or just a cuddle on the bed.  She’s putting on weight like a champ, and she’s looking good enough that no one has asked me if she’s a rescue in at least 24 hours.  All is well.

4.  The woman selling the Perfect House is really really nice.

5.  The Boy drove both ways to NH yesterday without complaining.  He fed himself last night while I toppled into bed, and he brought me a fresh bagel this morning when I finally stumbled out of bed, 12 hours after I fell into it.  The Boy is The Best.

Thank you for the Capstar recommendation on how to deal with fleas.  Frontline simply wasn’t hacking it, and I’ve been spending too much time “primating” – (picking fleas off of Nellie) for my sanity or good health.  It’s funny, but Capstar’s hard to come by, here in NYC where you can get everything.  Everything except flea medication, apparently.  For those of you who are also not in-the-know, it’s an oral medication that can be taken every 24 hours if necessary, but it basically kills all adult fleas on the dog within half an hour or so.

And I got an aerosol spray from the vet instead of the powder I’d been using that seems to be much more effective (and is CERTAINLY easier to deal with).  Hoping to see the end of our flea drama soon.  Fleas suck.  No, really. I woke up at 3am trying to strategize how to best get rid of the critters once & for all, and didn’t settle back in until 5am when the dog came on the bed (I know, it makes no sense), whereupon I slept for another 2 hours.

In other exciting news, once again, I pushed myself way too hard today, walking a few too many miles to try to track down some Capstar.  A vet I’d never been to took pity on my rotundity and called around til he found an emergency clinic with Capstar in stock, and he set it up so I could buy it over the counter from them without bringing in my dog.  Pregnancy benefit.  Waddle around an Italian neighborhood while 8 mos. (and looking 10 mos.) pregnant, and middle-aged men will do anything to try to help.  So far today, I’ve had funeral directors stop traffic for me, I’ve had butchers offer to let me into their meat locker to cool down, and I’ve had ladies pushing strollers offer me water from their own bottles.

As far as productivity goes, besides the flea-related errands & cleaning chores, my paperwork for ‘short term disability’ pay through my union has been mailed off, two co-pays for sonograms & exams are on their way, and my extra Lovenox is, at least, boxed up and READY to be mailed off.  The postman failed to ring the correct bell while trying to deliver Thor’s car seat, but these next few days should be filled with fun deliveries – it’s sort of like Christmas every day from here on out.  The Boy spent much of the morning schlepping items from the basement to the 2nd floor, and items from the 2nd floor down to the basement.  We still need to buy a crib, and get a bassinet & changing table, but I think we’re pretty well set on everything else.  I still have to call my insurance company to see if they have any breast-pump coverage, because that will likely affect which pump I end up buying.  Otherwise?  Pretty much there.  Just waiting for the kid to make his appearance.

29 days til D-date, and all I can say is that I hope he doesn’t make me wait any longer than that – I’m so eager to meet this little man that I can barely sit still.

I’m also looking forward to having functional hands & feet again.  And a waist (eventually).  And ankles.  All things to look forward to.  But mostly?  Mostly I can’t wait to be a mom, instead of a mom-in-waiting.

Now.  Must go buy dinner groceries…

And popsicles.

And dog treats.

And take a nap…

Zzzzzz.

1.  SuperStarOB told me yesterday that if I go into labor they won’t do anything to try to stop it.  Which means he thinks Thor is capable of doing just fine on the outside.  Which is an awesome and completely humbling thought.

2.  My dog is recovering.  She’s moving slowly still, sleeping more than usual (which is a lot, given that she typically sleeps 19 hours a day!) but she’s interested in going for walks, and accepting of as much cuddling as we can give her.  When I went to lie down in the middle of the day, she hopped up on the bed, fit herself around me and the pillows that prop me up, and sighed like all was right with her world for the first time in a long time.  So glad she’s doing better.  (And we’re hoping for a completely flea-free day today!)

3.  All of your meal-planning suggestions were wonderful.  THANK YOU!!!!  (And, OMG, thank you for the emails with SCADS MORE RECIPES!)  I found a quesadilla recipe on cookinglight.com and am happy to report that it was tasty – I think I liked it more than the Boy, but that’s ok, since he often makes things he likes more than I do.  Fair’s fair, and he doesn’t mind, so long as he doesn’t have to cook.  Perhaps tonight we’ll go for that red shrimp chowder…  It’s fun to plan out meals – I’d almost forgotten how much I enjoy this part of real life.

4.  There’s a farmer’s market today, though it’s all the way up by the courthouse, about a mile away.  I may not actually be up to walking there & back, loaded down with tomatoes, but the thought of fresh tomatoes is so tempting, that I might just do it anyway.  Since I also want to go by the stationer’s store to buy some heavy paper for the birth announcements I’m making, maybe I’ll multitask…  Hmmmm…..

5.  I started working on my book again yesterday.  It’s overwhelming, starting a new draft of an old book, trying to fix the things I know are wrong with it, while being open to the fact that I KNOW I’ll find more things that need fixing along the way.  Still, it felt good to be doing something creative, to be working on the thing that my heart tells me I need to be doing with my professional/creative life.  I’ve got these few years of freedom-from-a-paycheck coming up, and I want to be able to use them to advance my creative life as well as my family life.  Yesterday felt like a very good start.

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?

1.  My husband voluntarily brought out his baby books when we were at his mom’s, waiting for the dog to be dropped off.  Inspired, I bought a baby book.  For my baby.  Who’s going to be here soon.

Holy shit.  I’m the luckiest woman in the whole world.

2.  Nellie is feeling much better, as evidenced by her spending much of yesterday cadging treats and other food-goodies from both the Boy & me.  More of a relief than I can express.  Now if I could just stop feeling phantom nasty-critters on my poor swollen feet, that’d be great…

3.  Had a wonderful lunch with my MIL yesterday, followed by a delightful shopping excursion where she bought me the stroller of my dreams!  I am officially a spoiled yuppie. We also cooed over baby clothes and agreed that we cannot wait for Thor to actually arrive so we can play dress up with him for a solid 3 months.  She’s so much fun to be with, and again, I say – as far as my in-laws go?  I am the luckiest woman in the world.

4.  Today’s big plan is to get to the drug store and buy all the embarrassing things I’ll need in the next few months.  Nipple cream.  Depends.  Saline enema.  KY jelly.  Condoms (dear lord, we’re going to have to use condoms again!)  I figure, do it all at once, and just overwhelm the cashier with my high levels of general discomfort.  Which should be fun in a weirdo sort of way.  Yeah, I’m easy to amuse…

5.  Is it wrong that I just love spell-check?  I do, you know.  For all that I’m a hard-core snob about poorly edited writing in general, I can’t spell for shit.  Spell-check is the best thing ever.  At least in the world of computers.  And I don’t know why people are always complaining about it.

Sew their.

The good news is that Miss Nellie is going to be fine.  The bad news is that I’m not particularly impressed with the level of care she received while staying at this very pricey doggie spa.  The owner told me when he dropped her off that had they not been on vacation, she would likely have received better care, but still -  since I paid them a hell of a lot of money while I was on MY vacation so that she WOULD receive better care, I’m not impressed with that excuse.

She came home covered with sores of an unknown nature.  They took her to the vet two days ago, but besides putting her on antibiotics, they still aren’t sure what caused them.  I have my suspicions, but suspicions are all they are.

She is 5 documented pounds skinnier than when she left us (We’re talking, like, 20% of her body weight, here).  I know it’s tough to make her eat when she’s sad, but we did ask them to keep food in with her at night and they did not accommodate her in this rather reasonable request.  I am disappointed.

She seems to have a bad case of diarrhea (which she stepped in and then tracked all over the house immediately upon coming home.)

Best of all?  She is utterly and completely infested with fleas.

Now, in the name of full disclosure, I HAD found a flea on her the day we dropped her off.  We assume she picked this up during Petunia’s ill-fated stay with us, since that’s the only time she’s ever spent enough time around another dog to pick up a flea, and puppy breeders have a notoriously hard time eradicating fleas entirely.  However, since I told the kennel about my icky discovery when they picked Nellie up – again, in the interest of full disclosure – and told them I’d pay for a flea dip for her, both pre & post stay so that she wouldn’t infest other dogs, and since she came back literally crawling with critters, I can only assume that they did not dip her either before or after her stay, and really, that level of non-sanitation sort of bothers me – as much for the other dogs that Nellie probably gave fleas to, as for her own sake.

The sores could be from flea bites, but two of them – the two worst – look to be on her hind hocks in the exact same place.  It makes me wonder if she was rubbing them raw on her crate, somehow – like bedsores.  Because the crate possibly wasn’t padded adequately?  I don’t know, but I’m not happy.

And the fleas.  Oh, the fleas.

So I spent her first day back in my maternity bathing suit, bent over sideways, shampooing a very unhappy, skinny dog in the bathtub (a procedure which did nothing for my happiness level either, let me tell you,) and going over her with a flea comb and vacuuming her favorite areas of the house with flea poison. And doing laundry.  Lots and lots of laundry.

Not exactly how I envisioned spending my first day back home.

And now I itch.  And probably will continue to itch until it’s been weeks since I’ve seen a flea.

Yuck.

1.  Either today or tomorrow is my last day of shooting up with Lovenox.  Ever. May it also be the last time I ever have to inject myself with ANYTHING.  How cool a concept is that?

2.  Being home is splendid, even if I’m not spending the first bit of time at home doing quite what I expected.  More on that to come, but it IS lovely being home, surrounded by home comforts.

3.  I actually accomplished quite a few things on my list yesterday.  I paid for it (as did the Boy) last night by getting myself so exhausted that I was quite the snarly bitch.  But still, I was an accomplished, snarly bitch, so that’s all right.  Nothing a cool 10 hours of sleep didn’t take care of.

4.  Cicadas.  I love their high, shrill screech, and I love the way their noise takes over just about any summer day.  I hope there are cicadas in New Hampshire.

5.  The Boy’s going up – without me   – to have The Perfect House inspected by an engineer this Friday.  Make sure it’s in the good shape we expect it to be in, and hope nothing weird shows up in the testing. Because then?  Then it’s all a matter of just getting it done, and then we are homeowners!  Woohooo!!!

Italy was wonderful – beyond wonderful – but I am SO glad to be home.

I think that had this trip been planned for even a week later I would not have been able to enjoy it anywhere near as much.  I had a much better sightseeing experience for the first week than the last.  That said, I had a splendid ‘relaxing’ experience during the last part of the trip and the place we stayed was totally conducive to just kicking back and taking it eeeeeaaaaassssyyyyyy.

Which I did.

But the trip back home.  Oh my.  It was pretty brutal.  There’s a lot of difference between a 7 & 1/2 hour trip to Europe & a 9 hour trip back home.  Especially when one’s doing the first as a relatively svelte 34 weeker & the second as a rotund 36 weeker.

Weirdly, I gained no weight while there.  Not complaining.  I was really afraid I was carbo-loading the little guy and he was going to pay me back by being born with a handful of spaghetti carbonara clenched in one chubby fist.

Good news is that although he’s still measuring in the 82nd percentile overall, his head is a bit more in proportion now – at 89% rather than 97%.  More good news is that he passed his first NST with flying colors, and the sonogram tech estimated his weight at a perfectly appropriate 6.5#.  Even better news is that my godawful case of Italian constipation seems to be resolving itself.  Seems my poor innards like the comforts of home over the lap o’luxury.  Actually, I suspect they like the pomegranate juice I’ve been chugging as well as the coffee from D’Amico’s that should be marketed as a regularity aid.  Anyway – too much digression into poop talk for my taste, but it was the one black mark (so to speak) on my trip and it’s a relief to feel happier internally than I have for a while.

Less happy was I with the note I got from the kennel – Nellie was taken to the vet two days ago for an outbreak of little cuts or skin eruptions.  They think she cut herself running in the woods (super common for whippets, who have insanely thin skin) and then since she’s under a lot of stress, developed a bacterial infection.  She’s on antibiotics now, and she did lose at least 5 pounds (from 30#, she’s down to just under 25#)  The kennel owners feel just horrible, and they’ve taken Nellie into their own home instead of keeping her out in the kennel with the others.  “She sure does like down comforters, doesn’t she?”  was the funniest comment.  Um, yeah.  She pretty much owns ours, these days.  We’re leaving to pick her up in about an hour and I’m as excited to see her as you can imagine.  I have missed that dog something terrible, photos via the internet notwithstanding.

Other exciting news, I got to speak with my folks last night, which was great, though I’m not sure I held up my end of the conversation, being nearly comatose with exhaustion.  I can’t wait to see them in early October, and my mom told me she’d bring some of my baby books for Thor – I didn’t even know she’d saved any of them, so I’m just giddy with happiness.  Realize that a large number of my baby-raising fantasies have to do with me reading quietly to Thor.  This is likely because being read to – and then reading to myself – was such a HUGE part of my childhood, and forms such a large part of my happy baby memories, but it tickles me to think I’ll be reading books to him that I was read to as a little girl.

Can’t.  Wait.

Not a whole lot else going on.  No, that’s not true.  As my first day of SAHM-ing, I have scads of plans – most of which probably won’t get done today, tomorrow, or even this week.  (But I can plan, and oh boy, it’s good to make lists!)

• finish pre-registering at the hospital
• file for short-term disability through my union
• order a carseat online
• clean up my desk/office space!
• finish the baby sampler I started a couple of years ago – it’s just waiting for his name & birthdate.  Can’t fill in the birthday yet, obviously, but his name is good to go…
• finish a baby sweater I started then forgot about.
• cook dinner for my darling husband
• do another couple of loads of laundry, including, perhaps, a load of baby things!
• watch the Boy finish moving his office items out of what will be our bedroom.
• direct him in moving things from our old bedroom to our new bedroom
• go buy a crib & changing table & possibly dresser for nursery.
• assemble same, since we’ll likely be buying at IKEA.
• buy wall decals for nursery & stick ‘em up.
• buy these wonderful felted bird rattles I saw on Etsy so that I can turn them into a crib mobile that will be disassemble-able in a few months whereupon Thor can gum them into shapelessness.
• take a belly photograph, since I vaguely remember promising my mother last night that I would do so.  She is a cruel, cruel woman…
• pack my hospital bag (which will involve going to a drug store for items I’ve never before bought – Depends, hemorrhoid wipes, etc.)
• download all my Italy photos and label/PS Elements them into webbable photos

Wow.  Quite the list.  And I didn’t even have to think about these items.  There will be many more to come over the next couple of weeks, I’m sure.  Enough to feel overwhelming and exhausting, I’m sure.  But for the moment?  For right now, I’m feeling giddy that I can concentrate on these things and not have to try to squeeze them in to my previous 2.5 free hours per day once work/commute was done.  Woohoo for free time!

1.  Home.  Did I mention how happy I was to be home?  I am.  Happy.  Home.  Whew.

2.  Picking up Nellie today.  OMG, I am looking forward to getting that dog back underfoot where she belongs!

3.  Had my first 8 mos. doctor appointment this morning, and the Boy woke up at the crack of dawn with me to go to it (not super-typical behavior for him.)  It made me very happy to have him there grimacing at Thor’s outrageous bigness right along with me and the U/S techs.

4.  This is my last day of vacation, and hence, my last official day of work.  Hah!

5.  I am feeling SO much better than I did yesterday/last night.  The plane ride back was awful, and the wait on the tarmac was hideous, and I was so bloody tired I thought I was going to die.  But today I really feel ok.  Which is odd – I figured I’d be a wreck for days.

1.  Home.  Home home home home home.

2.  Home.

3.  Home.

4.  Home and still pregnant.

5.  Home and my dog’s coming home tomorrow.