Dumb Spotting

I had a really bad night's sleep last night.  Maybe 4 hours total.  I just spent way too much time lying awake.  I noticed at one of my many bathroom breaks that I had spotted (which I am still doing several times a week), and that in the dark it looked like it had a tinge of pink to it, instead of being all brown.

Then at 6:25am Noah decided to scream his head off for about 20 seconds (and then go back to sleep), so that woke me up and I went to the bathroom again.  There was more spotting.  A lot more than I've had in the past couple of months, at least.  I didn't go back to sleep of course.  I mean, who needs more sleep when they've already got a whopping 4 hours??

I'm not "worried," per say, but I am a bit concerned.  I don't really get it.  I mean, my last ultrasound back at 28 weeks (I'm 34 weeks now) didn't show any signs of spotting.  There was no evidence of a fibroid anymore, and no more evidence of any placental abruption at the edge of my placenta.  No more subchorionic hematoma.  My placental is far away from my cervix, and has been since they checked it again back at 23 weeks.

I'm not really understanding why I'm still spotting.  I don't really expect anyone to be able to give me an answer, either.  Not my midwife, not an OB, and not an ultrasound.

The only thing I can think of is that I've been doing alot lately.  I haven't stopped organizing, purging, and cleaning since last Friday.  5 straight days of a lot of movement.  I'm certainly not 'taking it easy'.  Maybe I should be?  Maybe all the physical stuff has caused another minor abruption at the margin of my placenta?  Maybe all the contractions (I'm quite sure I get at least 100 every day) have caused some minor dilation, which is causing the spotting?  My cervix has been super soft and not tightly closed during this whole pregnancy, so I'm hoping it's just the dilation thing.

I don't get why it only ever happens overnight while I'm sleeping.  It's not correlated with sex, so that's out.  But I think I've only had 1 or 2 incidents where there was actually a tiny bit of spotting during the day - all the rest of it has been overnight.  When I'm lying horizontal.  Isn't that weird?

I should probably call my midwife to tell her, because that's what she would want me to do.  But I am the opposite of an alarmist.  I never call the doctor about anything unless I am seriously concerned and think I need actual intervention.  In 2.5 years of Noah's life, the only time I ever took him to see the doctor outside of regular checkups was when he broke his leg.  He was sick a lot in his first 18 months of life, but I never took him to the doctor over it.  I was always sure it was just a virus and that there was nothing the doctor could do (my doctor friends applaud me for this attitude, by the way).

With this pregnancy, I don't want anything to be wrong, obviously, but I don't want anything to be "fake wrong" either.  I don't want to have to have extra appointments, extra ultrasounds, or have to go see an OB for his opinion, all for no reason.  At the same time, obviously I don't want there to be something actually wrong and to be ignoring it.  Although if there's something actually wrong, I feel like there would be more evidence other than some minor spotting (even though it's more spotting than I've been getting lately, it is still minor).

I'm sure I'll get a ton of comments telling me to call my midwife.  But I've been spotting regularly since I was 9 weeks pregnant, my midwife is aware at each and every appointment (and it's written on my chart), and my last ultrasound showed no reason for it, even though it was still going on.  I'm not really sure what else can be done about it at this point.

Maybe I will just try and take it easy.  Thankfully, in the past 5 days there has been no room, closet, cupboard, or drawer that has been untouched by my organizing and purging.  That's a house with a kitchen, 2 living rooms, 2 full bathrooms, 10 closets, a laundry room that doubles as storage, a small crawlspace/storage space, a playroom, 4 bedrooms, and an office (that's actually a bedroom but we use it as an office)... that's a lot of ground to cover.  Many a bag of donation and garbage has made it's way out of my house.  I feel like I am constantly doing this.  I'm just about done this round, so I can probably ease up now.

My remaining job is to create a filing system for all the paperwork we need to keep.  Our current one is despicable and impossible to navigate, because it was "set up" by my husband when we first got married.  Everything is in an unlabeled folder.  Some things were kept in the office, others were kept in our bedroom closet.  I don't know why I haven't done something about this earlier, because we misplace important paperwork on a regular basis due to our lack of a filing system.  All I can say is that I just didn't want to have to do all that extra work to fix what he didn't start (not trying to bash him here... I've accepted that he's a man, and his many strengths definitely lie in other areas).

Filing isn't physically strenuous, so I'm good to go there.  I'll try and spread out my housework throughout the week so I don't have any days that are really housework-heavy.  I should be able to minimize my errand running soon, and maybe I'll stop going grocery shopping.  And I'll be careful to add more protein to my diet (as per Dr. Tom Brewer), because I've been slacking in that department for the past month or so.

I guess we'll see what happens.

Tuesday Tidbits

-I'm glad most of you found humor in my last post.  While I do get totally irritable when I'm very pregnant and sleep deprived, that post was not meant to be taken too seriously.  Although I meant everything I said in it.  Seriously, people, HASHTAGS DON'T WORK ON FACEBOOK!

-I am specifically writing this post because people have expressed concern over whether I'm okay, since it's been almost a week.  This is sweet... and funny.  I guess if you write a big rant and then don't have anything else to say for 6 days, people might get concerned.

-This morning I was so incredibly productive simply because I actually wrote down a To Do list.  I rarely do that, I usually just keep things in my head.  But man, I should really write things down more often.  My living room looks fantastic!  The hardwood floors are gleaming, I actually moved furniture away from the walls to wash underneath the couches, and I rearranged the layout!  I'm loving it in there, now.  

-It's great that I got so much done this morning, but now I'm exhausted and contracting like crazy.  I need to sit down for the rest of the day, otherwise I'm going to give birth to this baby 8 weeks early.

-We are in the middle of a wave of cool, rainy weather.  A huge difference from our 100% humidity, feels like 120 degrees everyday, no rain weather we've been having this summer.  I am definitely not complaining, as I love having the windows open and being able to walk out my door without feeling like I'm hitting a brick wall (am I the only one who feels that way when leaving the air conditioned house and entering the insanely hot, humid weather?)

-The downside of this cool weather is that our pool went from 86 degrees to 76 degrees in less than a week.  And that was with a solar cover on it 24/7.

-I wrote a 30 week pregnancy update 2 weeks ago... and I never posted it.

-We finally landed 99% on a name for the baby (Noah's name was only ever 99% too, until he was born... I just can't decide 100% until the baby comes out).  It's the same name we've been pretty sure we would use ever since I got pregnant.  I had several dreams in my first trimester where I gave birth to a baby boy and named him this.  However, I kept waiting for something else to come along, something that I would love as much as I loved the name Noah.  Nothing has come, though, and my husband is obsessed with this name, so I finally decided to just embrace it.  I'm sure I will start to love it as much as I love the name 'Noah'.  There isn't another name I like more than this name, so we're going with it.

-Sorry, we're not sharing the actual name:)

-I am renewing my obsession with cloth diapers in preparation for this little nugget's arrival.  I found the renewal to be necessary considering Noah has been potty trained for 3 months now.  This means I am spending some more money.  My stash is seriously out of control already, but I just keep searching to find the best system for us.  That means many different diapers for many different situations.

-Don't believe me that my stash is out of control?  I have:

58 pocket diapers

60 fitted diapers

24 diaper covers

10 wool covers

141 inserts and doublers (many of these are hemp or Flip inserts, so they make up their own diapers)

60 prefolds and flats

45 fleece liners

-Granted, not all of these diapers fit all throughout the baby's life, nor do I like all of them.  I have a lot of newborn diapers, and I have a lot of diapers that won't fit a newborn.  That's a big reason why my numbers are so high.  Take the pocket diapers, for instance.  Of those 58 diapers, 9 of them will only fit a newborn up to about 4 or 5 months old (I don't make small children), 3 of them will only fit a toddler, 10 of them I'm not a big fan of so I rarely used them, 10 of them I really hated and never used... really there are only 10 that I fully enjoyed and used in each rotation between washes.

-Yes, I am buying some more.  I want to finally buy some bumGenius 4.0 pockets, a bumGenius Elemental and a Freetime (those will be my first forays into AIOs), and I'm going to buy 3 more Flip covers, since I love them.  There are sales going on on both those brands right now, so I'm going to take advantage.  I'm also going to buy some more Thirsties hemp inserts because they're so flippin' absorbent.  Last thing I want is a super soaker leaking out of all his diapers.

-I should really just write a cloth diaper post, updating what is going on in that situation.  But who knows if/when I'll get around to that.

-I could probably add a lot more bullets to this post, but it's time to put Noah down for his nap.  Hopefully I have assured you all that I am perfectly fine:)

The Life of a Mom

I originally titled this post "The Life of a SAHM."  But then I realized that working moms probably have the exact same problem, it's just not an "all day long" problem, it's an "everyday after work" problem.

Maybe some moms don't have this "problem" at all.  If you don't... well, I don't want to hear from you!  (I kid).

So, anybody with children, especially very mobile children, has probably made the observation that it is incredibly hard to keep the house tidy (nevermind clean) when you are home all day.  This might seem counter-intuitive, because if you're home all day, you have all day to tidy and clean.  But seriously, a toddler makes messes much faster than you can clean them up.  At least MY toddler does!  And I don't really have any desire to be walking from one room to another putting things in their proper places ALL DAY LONG.  I would literally never be able to do anything else.

Probably one of our biggest problems is that we have an open concept house, and Noah is allowed to go anywhere.  Sure, we gate off the stairs so he can't sneak downstairs while I'm cooking or showering.  But other than that, there is no good way to keep him contained, and there never has been.  He's been opening doors and walking through them since he was 12 months old, so things are constantly ending up where they don't belong.  I always have random items, like stethoscopes, play dishes, play food, magnetic letters, and puzzles pieces in all the bedrooms and bathrooms (almost everyday when I'm in the shower Noah brings me a bowl of cut up wooden fruit and says "Here you go, Mommy!").  And things like toothpaste, tooth brushes, salad tongs, potato mashers, and mixing bowls end up on my living room couches.  (Yes, those things are kept in drawers, but our drawers and counters are arranged so that it's no possible to install those latch thingies.  I tried.  I guess all our counters jut out too far.)

There aren't many things I miss about being childless.  But a house that stays tidy for more than 2 minutes is definitely one of them!  Even when my entire house is clean I feel like it isn't because it's so hard for it to stay tidy.

Today I had one of those days where I was cleaning, tidying, and doing laundry all day long, but I felt like I was walking on a treadmill - as in, I was doing these things, but felt like I wasn't moving forward because there were so many things still left to do!  Vacuuming the whole house, cleaning both full bathrooms, washing the floors, stripping beds, washing/drying/folding 5 loads of laundry, unloading dishwasher, loading it back up, feeding the child several times, and constantly putting things back where they belong.

I am not even really complaining.  I'm just stating facts.  I am actually thankful.  Noah is much more obedient than he was 8-10 months ago, and doesn't touch the things that he really shouldn't touch.  So it's not like he's scattering the vitamins and medications from my bedside table throughout the house.  He's not pulling clothes out of our drawers (like he did A LOT from about 9 to 15 months).  If the lower kitchen cupboards are unlocked, it's not like I end up with unopened salad dressing and BBQ sauce bottles in the bathroom.  He doesn't go in the fridge because he knows he's not allowed, so I no longer get bags of bloody ground beef lifted onto my duvet cover.  But in the interests of encouraging toddler creativity and independent play, unless he can hurt himself, break something, or end up wasting a lot of money (like dumping out a 500 count bottle of digestive enzymes), he is allowed to have access to most of the stuff in our house.  Besides, there's not really a lot of places we can hide these things, since we can't lock our drawers (he would figure out the locks, anyway, even if we could).

But man, I really do wish that I had a magic wand... I would walk into each room, wave it, and everything would fly to the room it belongs in, and settle in its proper place.  That sounds glorious.

Okay, off to fold my 5th and final load of laundry.  And watch TV.  Before I collapse into bed.

The daily grind can be just that - a grind.  But since everyday is filled with multiple spontaneous hugs, kisses, and "Wuv you Mommy"'s from this adorable kid...

It sure is worth it:)

Dear Weather: Please Look at the Calendar

Seriously.  It is April 3.  Maybe,  just maybe, IT'S TIME TO STOP SNOWING!!!

I was pretty ticked off when I looked out the window on this otherwise lovely Sunday afternoon and there were enormous, gigantic snowflakes falling fast and furious.

Alright, I live in Canada.  I get it.  But every single time we have a thaw and have a yard that is free or almost free from snow, it freakin snows again!!!

I need for the weather to warm up.  Along with the organizing streak I've been on, I'm on a furniture refurbishing kick, and when paint is drying - at least the paint I'm using - it needs to be at least 10 degrees (50 F) while you're painting and for at least 48 hours afterward.  This weekend I started refinishing some hand-me-down coffee tables we have that I was not in love with.  I was able to prime all three of them and paint one coat on one of them, but I'm using oil paint and it's a longer dry time than latex.  So I couldn't move the table into the house where it's warmer, because the paint stays tacky for a really long time.  I have an insulated garage, but it's expensive to keep electric heaters going constantly to keep the temperature at 10 degrees.  Plus, my garage is also a gym where my husband trains clients and works out himself pretty much every day of the week. 

I don't know when I'll have time to paint a second coat on that table, much less paint the other tables!  Patience...

In the meantime, I am still organizing.  Here's Noah helping me:



He's carrying the attachment to my dustbuster. 

Here's my closet before I got at it (it's totally embarassing, I can't believe I've posting this):

Here's my closet after:

Here's Justin's closet before:

  

Here's Justin's closet after I removed the strange objects piled underneath all that clothing, threw things out, and built him a "shelving unit" (I use that term loosely):

The wire shelving unit in there was something I've had since high school.  I used it in university, but for the past 4+ years have had no idea where it was.  When I was cleaning out Justin's closet I kept thinking of how perfect it would be for him in there.  I really didn't know where it was, though.  Then we were cleaning out our crawl space (a whole other story), and in one of the boxes I found it!  I was thrilled.  It also reinforced why I have such a hard time getting rid of things... I always find I really need them later on!

And while I'm at it, I'll show you my new arrangement under the kitchen sink.  Unfortunately, I didn't take any before pictures.  If I had, you might realize just why I keep opening up my cupboards to look inside.

The bins stacked on the left are containing all of our plastic shopping bags that we reuse as garbage bags.  Before I reorganized, they were just strewn all over in there.  Just a messy mountain of tied up plastic bags.

And here is with the garbage can in:

Sigh.  I love organizing.

My Birthday

My birthday was great, as I anticipated. 

I was supposed to go out for lunch with Erin and Aubrey, but I had been babysitting Aubrey the day before, and she unfortunately ended up fulfilling my diagnosis of having the flu.  She was very fussy all day Tuesday, wouldn't eat much, and threw up the small amount she did eat - but the amount of barf was small, and could have just been spit up.  So when Erin called me a few hours after picking her up and told me that Aubrey threw up her entire huge dinner (and proceeded to spew enormous amounts of vomit all night long), I was sadly proven correct.  We appropriately cancelled our lunch plans on Wednesday, and I have been living in fear ever since that one or more of the three members of this family - two of whom were exposed to Aubrey for a good 8 hours while she had the flu - would get sick and start throwing up.  Again.  Seriously, I wouldn't be able to take it.

It's Friday now, and she was here on Tuesday... I think we're in the clear, yes?  Happy birthday to me!

So lunch was cancelled, and I just spent the day hanging out with my best little dude.  Noah was lots of fun, of course. 

My parents came over at about 2:30 and stayed until 5:30 (my Dad was working nights that night).  They brought dinner and a cake.  Justin trained a client until 4:30, then had to shower, so we ate as soon as he was clean.

After my parents left I was suddenly inspired to clean and reorganize under my kitchen sink.  This necessitated me cleaning and reorganizing the bottom of our bathroom closet.  This might sound like a horrible birthday project, but I am obsessed with organizing and cleaning right now, so it was actually perfect.  And I am so happy with the organization under my kitchen sink that I just keep opening the cupboards to gaze lovingly at its neatness (this is annoying, considering we have child-locks on our cupboards.  If not for those, I would probably gaze into those cupboards about 4 times more often).

While I was finishing that up, Justin bathed Noah and got him ready for bed.  I nursed him to sleep, and then Justin and I hung out for the rest of the evening, as per usual.  Honestly, I have no clue what we watched on TV or what we did, other than eating our favourite ice cream.  I think this is weird, because it's only been 2 days, but whatever. 

So yeah, good birthday.  It's not so much that so many outstandingly wonderful things happened.  It was pretty much a normal day.  And I suppose there was even the "disappointment" of a cancelled lunch date.  It's just that after going through infertility and then being blessed with Noah, I feel like I've lost any sense of "entitlement" on my birthday.  I just don't feel like it has to be this perfect, special day that's all about Lauren.  Heck, I'd make my own birthday dinner and cake.  I really don't care.  I'm just happy to spend the day with people I love.

And I did that:)

(Please excuse my appearance, I wasn't really camera ready:)