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August 2021 Moms
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Weeks 1-2 (8/1-8/14) Check-in 4/25
pickle-chips
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Estimated Due Date/Weeks + Days:
Team Green/Pink/Blue/Finding Out:
Interesting Baby Fact/Baby is the size of:
Upcoming appointments:
How are you feeling?:
Rants/Raves:
Questions:
GTKY: In honour of the Oscars tonight, what’s the WORST movie you have ever seen?
Re: Weeks 1-2 (8/1-8/14) Check-in 4/25
Estimated Due Date/Weeks + Days: 24+3/Aug 12
Team Green/Pink/Blue/Finding Out: Blue!
Interesting Baby Fact/Baby is the size of: a cantaloupe
Upcoming appointments: Next one isn’t till May. I have to do more bloodwork and the glucose test at the next one though. Not really looking forward to it!
How are you feeling?: Generally good.
Rants/Raves: On Friday we found out we’re having a boy! We are super excited and also very stuck on names. We had a girl name picked out (before I was even pregnant) but boy names are much harder.
Questions: none
GTKY: In honour of the Oscars tonight, what’s the WORST movie you have ever seen? Maybe Blade Runner 2049...it was so long and so boring and I felt like it went nowhere. Oh or The Lobster which was just weird and depressing, I can’t even remember why we decided to watch it but we must have been really bored that night.
Estimated Due Date/Weeks + Days: Aug 4, 25+4
Team Green/Pink/Blue/Finding Out: 🫑
Interesting Baby Fact/Baby is the size of: 🍆
Upcoming appointments: Mid May for Rhogam and TdAP
How are you feeling?: Good. Sleep is becoming a little disturbed. I had horrid heartburn/gas last night. Hopefully not a sign of things to come.
Rants/Raves: Guh so many. We're having a pretty significant outbreak here and I'm so worried. Our province is now one of 2 which doesn't prioritize pregnant women for the vaccine. My SIL is a totally selfish person who cares more about a hockey tournament being cancelled than me going to work scared of covid. And she didn't even care enough to respond to my messages.
Rave: I just scheduled my maternity(ish) shoot. It will be boudoir and I'm so excited. Need to find stuff to wear though!
Questions: NATM
GTKY: In honour of the Oscars tonight, what’s the WORST movie you have ever seen? Oh God there are probably so many that I can't think of. I'll blame pregnancy brain for that.
@dancingnarwhal so exciting you found out about your boy, congrats! I agree, boy names are impossible.
Estimated Due Date/Weeks + Days: 24+5 days
Team Green/Pink/Blue/Finding Out: Pink
Interesting Baby Fact/Baby is the size of: Ear of Corn, apparently
Upcoming appointments: Friday, for my glucose tolerance test. It's early in the morning and I stupidly scheduled something important for work afterwards so hopefully I won't feel too terrible.
How are you feeling?: Physically I still feel pretty good - definitely some aches and pain and trouble sleeping, but much better than the first trimester. Mentally and emotionally, I am pretty overwhelmed. It feels like there is so much to do before baby arrives!
Rants/Raves: Starting to experience some restless leg syndrome, leg cramps and swelling. Luckily my compression socks are on their way!
Questions: NATM
GTKY: In honour of the Oscars tonight, what’s the WORST movie you have ever seen? Hmmm...maybe Cube. My friends and I used to watch it in high school and mock it.
Estimated Due Date/Weeks + Days: August 6th. 25+
Team Green/Pink/Blue/Finding Out: Pink
Upcoming appointments: We have an appointment with a maternal fetal medicine doctor tomorrow to get better pictures of baby's heart. I'm hopeful that it goes well. Then, I won't have an appointment until late May.
How are you feeling?: I'm pretty sure I post this every week...sore hips and lower back. Feeling much bigger these days.
Rants/Raves:
Rave: My husband was able to feel Baby Girl kick for the first time this weekend! His face lit up which was so touching to see since I've been concerned that he's having difficulty connecting with this baby.
Rant: TW: Pet Loss/Family member loss
Last week I took my 15 year old cat to the vet due to concerns over the amount of weight he has lost recently. A blood panel and a couple hours later revealed that he most likely has some type of internal cancer. We opted not to do any exploratory procedures but to take him home and make him comfortable. This guy has been with me for every adult milestone I have had and I know that it is going to be very difficult when we do put him down. I'm also wrestling with how to tell my kids (6.5 and 3.5) about what's going to happen to him.
To add to this dilemma, we've had bad news re: my husband's grandmother. She's was diagnosed with dementia about a year and a half ago but is rapidly declining. It's unlikely that she will live a week or two more. We are 8 hours away so the kids will not see her before she passes, but we'll likely travel for services later. These two losses will be the first that my children have experienced. Any advice? Or book recommendations for them?
Questions: See rant above...
GTKY: In honour of the Oscars tonight, what’s the WORST movie you have ever seen? Oh, man. We stumbled upon an old Tom Hanks movie, Bachelor Party. It was so odd to see one of America's best loved actors in such a terrible raunchy movie.
When Dinosaurs Die is a really good book to explain just the concept of death to children. I'll try to think of some others, but that's a common one we recommended to parents at the hospital where I worked.
In the pre-Corona times, most parents I know did not have to deal with talking to their young children about death. Unfortunately this is a skill I’ve had to learn all too well. Most of the resources out there are for tweens and teens, and there is very little available to those of us with young kids. I think there is a natural desire to shield your kids from as much of the bleak reality as possible. In my experience, this leads to more questions than answers and a lot of anxiety, so a direct and honest approach works best.
On the other hand, my child’s acquaintance with these topics have actually been a really awkward part of parenting for me socially, as my daughter had questions that other parents haven’t had to deal with much. “Yes, she’s potty trained, but she’s worried I’m going to die, have you guys dealt with that with your kids?” (They hadn’t.) It can be lonely to deal with these issues, and having your kids shielded makes it worse. When your kids see you breaking down, they are learning how to express emotions and allow their feelings to be present. It allows your family to grieve together over the loss of your old life and gives you the strength to accept the new reality.
My daughter had a lot of questions before I came clean. She would ask why Maddy couldn’t play with her, or why she had to have surgery. She once famously asked my wife “Where’d boobs go?” By the time I explained to her what cancer was, she was relieved to hear an explanation and wasn’t upset. It did lead to more questions, but all ones I could handle. In general it is pretty common for younger kids to absorb the information and move on, and ask more questions over the coming days.
When my mother in law went into hospice, I had to explain death to my daughter. A friend whose mother had also passed away from cancer had gifted me Lifetimes, a book about death and the cycles of life for children. I can recall tearfully reading this to my daughter the day after my mother in law went to hospice. It was a helpful framework for how to talk about this part of life. I explained that when people are old or very very sick, they die, but you can still remember them and see them in your dreams. For days after she asked me if her other grandparents would die soon, or if Maddy would die because she was sick. We worked through her fears and discussed each question as it came up. Later that week we flew to California to say goodbye to her Grandma. Although she was mostly out of it, she was aware my daughter was there and they shared some sweet final moments together. My daughter was completely untroubled by the experience, and remembers it fondly. My mother in law, who had barely spoken in two days, came to enough to say “I am released” from seeing her granddaughter. It gave them both the closure that we all crave when we lose someone, and wasn’t scary for my daughter because she understood what was happening and why.
The best thing to do is prepare your child well before death touches your life. When speaking about death and illness, be honest and avoid euphemisms. Make sure they understand that most people can recover from illness, but that death is a natural part of life. I would suggest several conversations with your child over many days so they understand and can ask questions after they’ve processed the information. Prepare your child for what they may see or hear from their ill family members or at a funeral. Be honest with your child about how you are feeling so they can share their grief with you too, but don’t be surprised if they seem to take things in stride. I noticed my daughter often had her follow up questions many days or weeks later as it sunk in that those that had died were really gone. Overall, the most important thing is to be honest.
Estimated Due Date/Weeks + Days: 25+3
Team Green/Pink/Blue/Finding Out: pink
Interesting Baby Fact/Baby is the size of: today the baby weighs as much as an iPad
Upcoming appointments: nothing till week 28. Looks like I passed my glucose test!
How are you feeling?: not bad! chiro has been helping my back stuff.
Rants/Raves: work is going through a lot of changes and growing pains and I just don't have the energy to deal with it. It's mostly just getting me down.
Questions: how will I get all the house stuff done before I have a baby and can never do anything again? Lol
GTKY: In honor of the Oscars tonight, what’s the WORST movie you have ever seen? Rollerball with Chris Klein. Couldn't even sit through it.
I couldn't fully grasp my grandparents death, and I remember trying to play and have fun at the funeral, my older cousin trying to keep me calm. I don't know how the conversation with my dad went, but I know they explained it fairly adult-ly to me. I also remember times when I would go to my neighbours and tell them they're going to die soon because they're old
Maybe he was too open with me, but now I have those same conversations with my husband and we are able to understand and connect on things like that. It feels very healthy as an adult.
Estimated Due Date/Weeks + Days: Aug30 22
Team Green/Pink/Blue/Finding Out: Finding out
Interesting Baby Fact/Baby is the size of: coconut
Upcoming appointments: 05/03/21
How are you feeling?: Energetic and anxious and insomniac
Rants/Raves: My mom came to stay with us because I was having a hard 1st trimester,she and I are not always on best terms but in our culture we don't say things like that everything is brushed under the carpet. She is narcissistic and has mood swings so this brings up a lot of childhood trauma ,she always belittled me when I was young either I was not fair enough ,skinny enough ,I was straight A student yet she was ashamed because I sometimes got A- , she used to hit me when she had a bad day, my brother is her favorite child and the list goes on. So I really do not have an ounce of respect for her , but I need to put up with her. My in laws are going to join later half of pregnancy and I am stressed more than anything they are nice people but 6 mos they are going to stay with us and they also hail from a mentality where women are expected to be nice and calm.
Questions: Good recommendations for carseat and stroller ,budget tips ,diaper etc