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Eek!
I was sitting on the couch earlier today, watching TV. An interesting show called 'DIY Births', meaning reenactments of strange situations where babies have come into the world in unexpected places and how the parents dealt with it. As I watched, Jake was playing with some toys and all was well.
Then the ads came on. As I've mentioned before, our little guy is a huge fan of the ads and he will always stop what he's doing to give the TV his fullest attention while they're on. He's adorable; he just stands there smiling at the TV!
All of a sudden, Jake turns toward me with what I call 'the silent scream' look. You can just tell that a huge wail is about to erupt from him. At first, I had no idea what could have happened to cause it. I jumped up and grabbed him just as he let rip.
Then I figured it out; the ad for Nicorette was on. It depicts a woman smoking a cigarette. As she taunts the guy to smoke again, she turns into this little, ugly monster-thing. You know, like a nicotine monster or something. It sort of growls at the guy, but, of course, doesn't talk him into another drag.
Jake had seen the monster and it had scared him. The poor kid! He was terrified! By the time the next ad was on, he was over it, thankfully.
It reminded me on the other ad that terrifies him: It's for some ice-mint gum. A guy and a girl in a cab and the guy chews the gum. His head freezes solid and falls off in her lap. She screams, the cabbie screams. And, well, Jake screams.
Huh?
I wrote yesterday about Jake being absolutely terrified by the Nicorette ad on TV. Well, today, we got the same terrified screams when he was watching...
Bob The Builder!!!!
9 Weeks... My Appointment
I had my first appointment with my midwife today at 1pm. Her name is Veronique and she seemed great. Very friendly and knowledgeable; two things I deem to be important while choosing a health care provider. She's a year younger than me and has no kids of her own.
We talked about my pregnancy with Jake, our moving plans and about the role the midwives play in Canada. I felt like I had pretty good knowledge of how it works in the UK, but here, I felt fairly clueless. Veronique told me that they don't have pregnancy notes for expectant mothers to carry around with them, like in the UK, but that they are trying to get that implemented now. She also told me that one scan is the norm over here, at between 18 and 20 weeks, where they can check pretty much everything as well as, hopefully, tell us the gender of the baby. We could have another scan, between 11 and 14 weeks, but that one is a screening test for Down Syndrome, Trisomy 18 and Open Neural Tube Defects. As we wouldn't consider an abortion, we will possibly skip that scan altogether.
The interesting part of the visit came when Veronique wanted 4 vials of my blood. That I can recall, I've never had troubles with my blood being drawn before but this time was different.
"Wow," she said, "you've got small veins."
Bad sign. She tapped and poked my left arm and got one vial of blood. Then between apologies, she tapped and poked my right arm. Didn't get the vein. Looking a bit embarrassed, Veronique told me that I was only the 4th person she'd ever had trouble getting blood from. Lucky me!
She called in Celine, who crouched down to give it a try. She tapped my left arm again, feeling around for a vein. "I can feel a vein here, but I can't see it," she told me. "I can TRY here or I can take it from that great vein in the back of your hand... but that'll hurt more."
So I opted for the back of my left hand, as I wasn't keen on being poked more time than necessary. Sure enough, the back of my hand did the trick and 3 more vials of blood flowed. But it did pinch a bit more than my arm did.
Tomorrow, I'll be sporting 3 fresh bruises!
10 weeks, more big gifts
The nausea is subsiding... but only just. For example, I feel pretty sick right now. But on the whole, I'm having fewer sicky episodes than I was, which is good. Also, I can no longer sleep on my stomach and have already resorted to sleeping with a pillow between my knees. It's wonderful because it stops me from rolling onto my tummy which, in turn, wakes me up. This way, I normally sleep fairly soundly. Although I'm having horribly vivid dreams of spiders and other crawlies again.
Also, I've contacted my doctor for an appointment because I feel quite breathless. I'm uncomfortable and I feel like I have a weight on my chest. He can't see me until Wednesday so I'll hold out until then. I've been feeling breathless on and off for about a week now. I have VERY mild asthma and my pump doesn't seem to be doing the trick.
We went to my Mum's for Mother's Day and had big, juicy steaks on the BBQ. Lovely! With baked potatoes, corn on the cob and homemade cookies from my sister for dessert.
As you can imagine, Jake didn't come away empty-handed, as he never does. He got Spiderman pyjamas, a big jar holding 240 chocolate coins and a tractor. Yup, you read that correctly: a tractor. Here it is:
My Mum, never one to give small, inexpensive gifts to the "best grandson in the world", went and bought him a tractor. Hell, it even has John Deere on the side. It has pedals and a steering wheel and the dumper thing at the front really works. Not that Jake realizes that at just over 2 years old.
She also got him a motorcycle, but that stayed at her house.
Mum!! We have no space left in our house!
So simple really
I saw my doctor yesterday for this breathlessness issue. He asked me loads of questions about my supposed-asthma (I say that because I always doubted actually having it), what brings on these "attacks" of breathlessness and what - if anything - helps me out of them. I told him how I'd been given asthma medication on numerous occassions throughout my life, but that I always doubted needing it. The pumps were always prescribed to me when I had a chest infection or bronchitis or something, never for general wheeziness. Unless I'm sick, I never use it!
I told him how these recent breathless episodes can come on anytime, even just sitting on the couch, watching TV. I feel like I have a weight on my chest and, because it is sometimes accompanied by what feels like heartburn, I'm starting to worry about my heart. Are these breathless episodes an early sign of heart trouble? I'm overweight and I don't get the exercise I obviously should.
So after sharing all this, the doc started checking me out. Blood pressure? 112 over 70. Very good, especialy for a pregnant woman. Heart? Fine. Neck, ears, throat and sinuses? All seem fine. Lungs? Well, deep breath, please... There's the problem. I felt it before he said it. When I took a deep breath, I felt a rattle or wheeze in my lower right back.
By my doctor's reconning, I don't take deep breaths enough. The lungs are made up of little bubbles that fill with air when we inhale. Emphysema is an illness that starts to kill off those bubbles, causing you to have a smaller lung capacity. My doctor says that perhaps I have been "splinting", meaning that I didn't like the way the wheeze felt and was subconsciously not taking deep breaths. This causes the bubbles in my lower lungs to collapse and, in turn, gives me a lower lung capacity. The good thing is that, seeing as I don't have emphysema, my bubbles can be re-inflated by taking deep breaths.
The doc suggested deep breathing exercises. As he found no signs of infection or asthma, he didn't think it necessary for me to continue using the pump.
So I've been deep breathing and I feel much better. I was breathless last night before bed but that was the only episode since I saw the doctor yesterday. Let's hope that solves things.
So simple really.
Catching Up
Yup, I'm still around. I haven't fallen off the face of the earth or anything. I've simply had very little to write about. Now that my nausea has passed and since there's little apparent bump, I've all but forgotten that I'm pregnant. I have very mild reminders every once in a while, but, for the most part, I'm just plodding on without really thinking about it. That's not to say that I'm not thrilled about it still.
Stephen and I took Jake for a long walk yesterday. We estimate that it was about 4 miles, which is a lot for me. Without really thinking about it, I chose not to wear a hat or sunscreen and I suffered for it. It was a warm but breezy day yesterday, so it didn't occur to me that I could get a sunburn. But that I did. It's not a bad burn. I've simply got a pink nose, forehead and arms. And I spent last evening feeling tired and drained, like only the sun can cause.
And I've spent the last few days scanning and uploading loads of pictures from when I was in high school. I graduated class of 1991. Want to see?
My friends and I, back in 1990. That's me in the red bandana. We were so cool:
My high school graduation photo, back when I used to wear blue eyeliner and pink lipstick:
And me, the day after the Motley Crue concert, 1989-90:
Big Brother
I'm addicted to Big Brother UK. Here in Canada, we get BB from the Internet, as it is not televised. When we lived in the UK, I watched the BB series where Nadia won, but I'd never watched one before that. So this is only my second BB series. And I'm loving it.
Because we're getting it online, I'm one day behind you guys in the UK and I find myself looking at the BB website and finding out things before I've watched them. It spoils the surprise a bit, but I'm enjoying myself.
I was shocked as hell when Bonnie was evicted and pegged Nikki as the favorite to win. It just shows how differently people are seen in the house as compared to how they are portrayed on TV. Putting on my best whiny voice: "I can't believe you're making me sleep in my mascaaaaaraaaaa!" Nikki is very annoying and I can't see her lasting. Strangely, the housemates seem to think she's "dead sweet". Yikes!
George: boring. So boring. Mr No-Personality.
Richard: I liked him at first. (He's Canadian, by the way.) But now he's full of cliches and cheesy lines. To mushy and well, blah.
Imogen and Sezer: Yuck.
Grace: A bit loose, playing everyone.
Pete: When we first saw Pete and were informed that he have Tourettes, I wonder whether putting him in the house had been a wise idea on the part of Channel 4. It wouldn't have been right if he'd become the laughing stock and I felt for him. But you can see why he, over anyone else with Tourettes, was put in the house: his love for the word "wanker". With his affliction and his lovable personality, he's a huge hit with the housemates and with us on the outside too. Will he win? Probably.
Lisa: Scary. Butch. Will she end up with Pete? I'm not so sure he's interested. Can you blame him?
Shabaz: I felt so sorry for him. He was soooo annoying, but then completely bullied. And the silly man never once helped his cause. When he left though, the house wasn't nearly as interesting.
Mikey: Wouldn't miss him if he disappeared.
Anyway, I'm loving it. All those two-faced people under one roof. Amazing.
I'm a wreck
There's a song from my teen years called "When The Children Cry". It's a ballad-y kinda song from the 80's "hair" band White Lion. I liked the song when it came out but I can honestly say that the lyrics never really interested me, even though I could sing it word-for-word. Strange how sometimes you know the lyrics but never really considered the meaning.
Well, now I'm a Mum and a Mum-to-be and I easily weep at the thought of children crying. I can no longer watch the ads on TV about famine in Africa and I can't even discuss anything to do with Jake's safety without imagining him gone or hurt. It can be quite crippling!
We downloaded and watched Ant and Dec's Soccer charity thing the other day. You know, with Robbie Williams and Gordon Ramsay? I choked back the tears during their plea for donations, showing starving kids in Africa.
All this came on suddenly with Jake's conception. From that moment on, I've been a wreck.
Anyway, see for yourself. As you read, imagine me sitting in front of my laptop with my headphones on. I'm doing a puzzle online (http://www.jigzone.com) and I'm listening to music. Does the song make me cry? You bet. I'm such a wreck:
Little child dry your crying eyes
How can I explain the fear you feel inside
Cause you were born into this evil world
Where man is killing man and no one knows just why
What have we become just look what we have done
All that we destroyed you must build again
CHORUS
When the children cry let them know we tried
Cause when the children sing then the new world begins
Little child you must show the way
To a better day for all the young
Cause you were born for all the world to see
That we all can live with love and peace
No more presidents and all the wars will end
One united world under God
CHORUS
What have we become just look what we have done
All that we destroyed you must build again
No more presidents and all the wars will end
One united world under God
When the children cry let them know we tried
When the children fight let them know it ain't right
When the children pray let them know the way
Cause when the children sing then the new world begins
Too hot!
The horrible days of summer are here. 32C today in Eastern Ontario, but with the humidity, we are warned that it will feel more like 40C+.
Drinks lots of water, people, and find a cool basement. I know I will.
