ksleepy

5 months

Sun, 20 Dec 2009 03:23:27 GMT

How have 5 months passed already??? Fiona has really changed. She is still a chatty baby. She talks all the time; to us, to her stuffed animals, to the dogs, etc. We are in serious trouble when she learns to form words, we are never going to get her to shut up :)

She has been on the same schedule for awhile now. Its nice. I'm sure it will start to change when teething kicks in more. Right now she just drools...ALOT. As in multiple bibs a day kind of drool. We arent sure when teething will happen with her. Since she is a preemie it could be delayed, but so far she hasn't really been delayed on to many other things.

She rolled over for the first time a few weeks ago, and nothing for a few weeks. Now she rolls over more, especially if she is following a toy or wants to see what I'm doing. While we were in Austin she was showing off and rolling over a couple times a day. Speaking of Austin, it was soooo easy to travel with Fiona. She barely fussed on the plane, people were commenting on how great a baby she was. We were worried on the flight back because of her cold, but she still did fine.

I'm really looking forward to christmas with her this year. I know she is too young to enjoy it or understand it, but for me she is the best gift I could have asked for.

Work

Tue, 08 Dec 2009 06:43:09 GMT

For the last month I haven't really done any work. The last week or so I've been feeling out of sorts. I love being at home with Fiona, but I really need to work on balancing being a mommy and being me. Lucky for me one of my clients sent me some work today, and another client has been unbelievably understanding that it took my a little while to complete a project. I have just felt the need to create lately. And its really hard to create when I constantly have another person to take care of. Mark is really busy with work lately and hasn't been around as much as I would like him to be, so I've also been feeling a little lonely. I need to see if I can find a mommy group in the area...hmm I think their used to be a rose garden moms group. I'm going to have to look that up again.

We leave for Austin in a few days. I'm really not excited to go. THe whole traveling with a baby thing, plus Mark will be working so he won't really be available to help with Fiona. So I will just be hanging with Mark's parents alot. At least when we get home it will be almost christmas, and I will get to see some family and friends that I haven't seen in awhile.

4 months

Mon, 23 Nov 2009 07:42:42 GMT

Its hard to believe Fiona is 4 months already. Her personality is really starting to come out, and she is so much fun to be around. She is a total "talker", and will chat up a storm during play time or when we are in the car running errands. Most of the time she is a happy, smiley baby. She is just starting to get into a schedule, which is really nice. She started sleeping through the night when I was swamped with work and she kept it up.

At her 4 month appointment she weighed in at 13lbs 11 oz and measured 24 inches tall. Both of which are in the 50th percentile for her actual age (not her corrected age)! Its amazing that she caught up so quickly. Her pediatrician was impressed with how well she was doing. At the moment she is on target for the normal milestones for her actual age; rolling over, putting weight on her legs, babbling, laughing, etc. Since she is doing so well we get to start feeding her real food, well rice cereal. She doesn't eat much of it, but her dr didn't expect her too. Its mostly just practice with using the spoon. Although she does eat less in her night bottle since we started the rice cereal. Which could be that she is eating a little and feeling fuller or that she changed her schedule a little and is getting a full feeding before bed (if she ate at 8 pm, she would want to eat again at 9pm when we get her ready for bed... and in an hour I wasn't producing much, but she changed her schedule so now she eats at 6 or 7pm which gives me more time to make milk before her 9pm feeding.)

My parents got to meet her last week, it was nice introducing them. And next month we head to texas to visit with her other grandparents. I'm a little nervous about flying with a baby, so hopefully it goes well.

3 + months...how did that happen?

Fri, 30 Oct 2009 20:14:11 GMT

Wow, its been awhile since I've posted. I think I last posted when Fiona was 8 weeks old and Mark was heading back to work. Now Fiona is almost 3 months! First its insane that she is almost 3 months old. Part of me feels like we just brought her home and the other part feels like she has always been here. Fiona is doing great, and is growing so fast! She is almost 11 lbs already, which is insane considering she was due a month ago. She has completely out grown all of her newborn clothes and has even started to out grow some of her 0-3 clothes. She is alot of fun to play with and will "talk" up a storm when playing on the floor or on her activity mat. The smiling and cooing definitely make up for the times when she cries and is fussy.

Oi... I started the above entry almost 3 weeks ago, then I got busy and didn't finish it. The above is all still true. She is a little chatterbox when she plays, I love listening to her talk and coo. She sleeps for longer stretches at night. We aren't quite up to sleeping through the night yet. She normally falls asleep around 10:30-11pm and then gets up around 5am then goes back to sleep for another 3 or 4 hours. We are working on getting her to sleep longer, but for now I do fine with the amount of sleep that I get.

I'm starting to get busier with free lance, at least for the next 2 weeks I'm super busy. When I'm not busy working Fiona and I stay pretty busy; play dates, story time at the library, mommy groups, book club, ect. In another 2.5 months we get to start swim lessons and the 1-2-3 grow class at my gym, I'm looking forward to those!

This is a short drive by post, but I have a client meeting that I need to get ready for (meaning change out of the t-shirt covered in spit up).

On my own...

Tue, 01 Sep 2009 02:07:31 GMT

Its hard to believe that Fiona has been home for over 3 weeks. Mark took off of work for a few weeks and today is his first day back at work. I spent the day meeting friends for coffee, then lunch, then spoke to a potential new client. All while feeding Fiona a million times. Ok, not quite a million, but she seems to be going through a growth spurt and all she wants to do is eat. Speaking of eating... I mentioned before that my freezer was being taken over by milk, here is a photo of my freezer a few days after she came home:

We are running out of room for food in the freezer. We use bottles at night, so I try to use a mix of fresh and frozen milk so that I can go through some of my supply.

Since she has been home we have tried to include her in all of our normal activities. We walk the dogs, and have even taken her on a hike in Muir Woods:

And the other day we took her to see friends in Monterey and check out their new house, which has an AMAZING view. While we were there we took a walk on the beach:

Erica - as you can see we get alot of use out of the moby wrap!

Its amazing having her home, she has settled in to our lives so seamlessly its hard to believe she hasn't always been here. Now I get to work on juggling being a mommy, maintaining the house (at least somewhat), and working from home. I have a meeting with a new client on wednesday, and I've started emailing my old clients letting them know that I am getting back to work. I am incredibly lucky to have the opportunity to work from home so that I can be here for Fiona. Hopefully I will be able to juggle it all and not go insane. I'm sure it will take a little adjustment.

I also get to go back to the gym next week... yaaa!!! I am looking forward to being able to swim again and to get back in shape.

Update

Tue, 25 Aug 2009 03:44:47 GMT

I've been bad about updating lately. Fiona got to come home on August 6th, after an emotional roller coaster the day before. Originally she was suppose to come home on the 5th, she was even discharged but as I was feeding her before we left (in a different position with a very forceful nurse) she had a brady cardia episode that was bad enough that they didn't want to release her. At that point I had complete melt down and cried for almost 45 minutes. All I wanted was my little girl to come home. I ended up staying at the hospital and did every one of her feedings. Since she hadn't had any more problems the next morning they decided to release her. We left as soon as they discharged us, and I FINALLY got to leave the hospital with a living baby. And yes I cried as we left, but they were tears of happiness.

Having her home has been amazing. She has grown so much in the 2 1/2 weeks. She has gained 19 1/2 ounces and grew 1/2 an inch. She is now 6 lbs 7 oz and is 20 inches. She has already outgrown most of her preemie clothes (expect the Jack and Jane ones, those are bigger and are her best fitting clothes at the moment).

I love to sit and hold her and just watch her many expressions, and boy is she expressive! So far she has been a relatively easy baby. Doesn't cry too much; is happy sleeping in her bassinet (most of the time); and settles pretty quickly when she is upset (which is mostly when she is hungry and we are not fast enough in feeding her).

Speaking of feeding... that has so far been the one problem. Not with her... with me. I've gotten mastitis 3 times now. First in the right, then the left, and now the right again. She doesn't like to feed from me when the infection first starts, and I don't blame her, I normally run a fever of at least 102 for a few days. The first time the fever reached 104.4 and I ended up going to the ER. Luckily this time it wasn't so bad. But unfortunately it did decrease my milk supply. At the moment I still out produce her, but I don't know for how much longer. I'm hoping the right side recovers (its the side that keeps getting infected and the side that the milk supply decreased).

I have a ton more to update on and a bunch of photos to upload but it is someones dinner time and boobie (who we joke has become its own entity in the house, at meal time Fiona "battles" boobie... sometimes literally because she likes to flail about and hits and scratches me) is being called into action.

Life has been crazy

Tue, 04 Aug 2009 00:00:39 GMT

Having a new born in the NICU is exhausting. First there is the physical exhaustion of having a newborn. Even though she isn't home I still have to get up every 3 hours to pump. And I'm at the hospital now for the 8am, 11am, 2pm, 8pm, and 11pm feeding, which take at least an hour. So at night I dont leave until almost midnight, I get home, I still have to pump and then get up 1-2 more times (depending on my pump schedule) and then get back up by 7am to get back over to the hospital. Its exhausting! I try to get at least a few minutes nap in, but I can't really nap at the hospital so I only get a nap around 5:30.

Its not only physically exhausting its also mentally exhausting. Everyday you need to mentally prepare for a bad day but hope for a good one. And every nurse has a different opinion on how to do things and how Fiona is doing. I spoke to the neonatologist (for the first time!) yesterday and he says that she is doing really well we just need to work on her gaining weight. Its great to hear that she is doing well, it puts my mind at ease and lets me tune out the more negative nurses.

We are hoping that she will get to come home soon, but we really have no idea. No one will tell us when, because they dont want to get our hopes up if it doesn't work out. But they are starting to prepare us for when she comes home. They told me today to bring in her carseat so that we can fit her in it, and MAYBE do her carseat test (which all babies in the NICU have to pass before they can go home, they have to be able to sit in their carseat for an hour with all of their monitors on and have no problems).

I'm off to pump and squeeze in my nap before I head back to the hospital.

The story of Fiona

Mon, 27 Jul 2009 23:32:26 GMT

So its been a busy few days...

Wednesday morning I woke up when the doctor came in to check on me. I had been having contractions all day on tuesday. Tuesday evening the contractions were pretty strong, but eventually they had tapered off and eventually stopped. I had spotted a wee bit tuesday night, but by the time the periantologist came to check on me I was feeling pretty good. She left and I got out of bed, as soon as I stood I felt wetness. I didn't think too much about it, but it didn't stop. I took the few steps to the bathroom and by the time I did I was covered in blood. It was all over me, in the toilet and on the floor. I pulled the little cord next to the toilet and the nurses and periantologist came running back in. They surveyed the mess and pretty much decided on the spot that I was going to deliver. They were trying to guess how much blood there was, and they were guessing it was about 900cc's. So they called my main OB, and she rushed over. They got me back into bed, and tried to put the baby on the monitor (which was hard, because little miss thing kept squirming all over the place). While they did that, I reached over to call Mark and tell him that he better get to the hospital. He didn't answer his phone so I called his brother and asked him to stick his head into the bathroom to tell Mark to get out of the shower and to head over to the hospital. My OB showed up and did a quick ultrasound to determine how the baby was doing. My ob decided to hurry things up and started preping me for surgery. So I called Mark back (this time he answered) and told him that he needed to hurry up and get here because apparently the baby was coming, and she would be here SOON!

Mark arrived, and they handed him his bunny suit and told him to suit up. As soon as he was done they wheeled me off to the OR with Mark in tow. It was a little weird how fast everything happened. They got me into the OR and the anesthesologist arrived at 9:15 and got to work. The drugs made me feel completely out of it and really tired (apparently they were worried that since I had been calm so far at some point I would freak out so they gave me something to relax me). I remember my OB hugging me as they got the drugs started (which is unusual she isn't the most touchy feel-y of doctors). They laid me back and brought Mark in. He sat at my head and held the camera. he actually got video of Fiona being born! I pretty much laid back and closed my eyes waiting for things to get started. I could feel them pushing on my belly, but I didn't think they had started yet. Then at 9:30 (thats right, 15 minutes after I got into the OR) I heard the amazing sound of my daughter crying. I looked over at Mark and asked if that was her, he was all teary and told me that it was (I'm not sure who else i thought would be crying in the OR). I told Mark to follow her and make sure everything was okay while they finished up with me.

So at 9:30am on July 15th; Fiona Mackenzie Heaps entered the world weighing 4lbs 14oz, and was 18 inches long.

They finished up with me and wheeled me into recovery. Recovery was pretty uneventful. I was thirsty but otherwise I didn't really have any side effects. I sat around chatting and eating ice chips while waiting for feeling to return to my lower body. Mark spent most of the time going back and forth between me and Fiona, he would bring me photos and videos of her so that I could see her. Finally 2 hours after she was born I got to see her. I couldn't hold her but I did get to hold her hand through the isolette. Its a little scary to see your baby in an isolette hooked up to oxygen with probes and iv's coming out of her.

They then took me back to my room where I spent the next few hours. Finally at 3pm they let Mark wheel me back over to the NICU and I got to spend some time with her. The next day at 11am was her first feeding; which Mark and I were both there for.

Holding her was the most amazing feeling and it was pretty much love at first sight.I spent the next 4 days spending as much time in the NICU as possible. My schedule was wake up; pump; order breakfast; sleep until breakfast arrived; eat; go to NICU; go back to my room; pump; eat; go back to NICU... you pretty much get the pattern. I was allowed to be up and walk, so I made the long walk to NICU at least 5 times a day and would spend at least an hour with her.

I dreaded leaving the hospital...once again with out a baby. I know it was not the same situation as Penelope but I would still be leaving the hospital with out her. When the time finally came it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be, but it was still hard. Mark agreed that we would go home get me settled back into the house and we would get a bite to eat (woohoo something other then hospital food!) and then we would head back to the hospital.

Which has been the pattern pretty much since I got home. I try to spend as much time as possible at Good Sam as possible. She has grown and changed so much in the week and a half since she was born. Every day new progress is made and I look forward to seeing her and watching her grow. Even though she is doing great it is still an emotional roller coaster with her being there. We are anxious for her to come home, but at the same time the thought is scary. What if something goes wrong? She still has some work to do before she can come home, but hopefully it won't be too much longer. We will have to learn how to raise a preemie and all of the extra work that it takes. But it will be worth it to hold her in her room (her fabulous room that Mark worked on putting together) and to ahve her home.

still here...

Wed, 15 Jul 2009 00:04:26 GMT

So this morning I had more bleeding/spotting and more contractions. My doctors pretty much told me that I'm not going home. I kinda knew it was coming, but part of me hoped that I would get to go home at least for a few days.

A friend of mine gave me her netflix log on, so now I have more movies to watch. I'm hoping that I will get used to the increased dose of magnesium and the blurry vision goes away, then I will be able to read and play crosswords.

I do think its cute that our little girl already has a bit of a reputation amongst the nurses. The all know she is a night owl and squirmer. The evening monitoring is usually the hardest since she won't hold still. Any time I get a new nurse I will warn her that the baby like to make monitoring difficult, and their response is that they have already heard and been warned :) A reputation for being difficult, and not wanting to sit still before she even gets here! She is so my child.

Still in the hospital...

Mon, 13 Jul 2009 04:44:31 GMT

Well the hopes that I would just be in the hospital a few days have pretty much been dashed. I was looking good I on thursday and there was talk of sending me home. Then thursday night I was video chatting with Mark I blacked out. I was laying down being monitored and the whole room got all weird and fuzzy and I managed to push the nurse call button before completely passing out. I scared the crap out of poor Mark who witnessed me passing out followed by nurses rushing in, oxygen being put on and them trying to revive me. Because of my heart condition they are limited on what drugs they can give me to stop the contractions. The one they used can cause hypotension, which is what happened. My blood pressure dropped and I passed out. During all of this my contractions started up again and were 2 minutes apart. So we pretty much knew I wasn't going home anytime soon.

The next day my blood pressure was still too low so they could not put me back on the medication. So since I was still contracting (and now spotting) a new plan of action was needed. So magnesium was introduced to the mix. Magnesium pretty much relaxes all of the muscles in the body (including things like eye muscles, so blurry vision is a side effect), the hope is that my uterus will relax as well and the contractions would stop. Let me just say that there is NOTHING fun about being on magnesium. It made me really hot, tired, light headed, and pretty much like I had a terrible flu. I would just melt into my bed and attempt to form coherent sentences. Unfortunately it still isn't stopping the contractions. It is slowing them down, but I will still have periods of time where they are only a few minutes apart. At that point we try different positions to get them to stop or I get a bolster shot of magnesium (not fun) to quiet things down.

The goal is still to make it to 36 weeks, and to send me home at some point. But they don't really know if either will happen. Since I'm not really bleeding (just spotting) they will drag out the magnesium (and will keep attempting to wean me off) until 34 weeks. Once I hit 34 weeks they will stop everything and see what happens. However if I starting bleeding plans will have to be changed, and she may come sooner.

Its not horrible being here, and I will happily do what ever is needed to bring this little girl safely into this world. I often wonder why this pregnancy is so hard in comparison to Penelope's. I'm just really hoping that all of this results in a healthy little girl.

The weird thing about being stuck at the hospital is not being able to help with the baby's room. Right now Mark's brother is still living in there. Supposedly he will be out by wednesday and our friends will help Mark prep the room and get everything ready. We are both starting to stress a little bit about the fact that honestly she could come at any time and we have nothing ready. I think Mark will most likely spend next weekend prepping the room and then doing the remaining shopping (like for a car seat). That way we are at least some what prepared when week 34 hits.

So ummm... incredibly long story short; its been an eventful and exhausting week.

Update

Wed, 08 Jul 2009 16:30:30 GMT

So this pregnancy took an unexpected turn on sunday night.

We had a great 4th of July weekend hanging with friends, and I finished cleaning the house. Sunday was pretty chill. I watched Mrs. Potter while Mark played in the Santa Cruz hills in the morning, then we grabbed some lunch and pretty much relaxed.

As you can see from the photographic evidence there was much relaxing and suggling with the pups. I know; isn't tibi just too cute??? She likes to snuggle the belly when she gets the chance.

Anyway so after a relaxing day, I started to get a little crampy after a short walk with the dogs. So I laid on the couch while Mark drove a friend home and made dinner. After dinner I went to the bathroom and discovered that I was bleeding (lots of blood and clots will freak a pregnant woman out!), so I called to Mark to bring me some clean clothes and told him that we were headed off to Good Sam.

We arrived at about 10:30pm on Sunday night, and unfortunately I am still here. Since I have placenta previa they can't check to see if I am dilated because they don't want to risk irritating anything. But I was hooked up to a contraction monitor and a baby monitor. Mark and I were both relieved to hear that she was doing just fine. However I was having contractions that were 40 seconds long and were 2-4 minutes apart. Hello preterm labor.

They admitted me into the hospital; the antepartum unit. I sent Mark home around 3am so that he could get some sleep and I got settled into my room around 4am. They gave me steroids to help the baby's lungs mature, just in case she comes even earlier then her 36 week debut that we have planned. They also put me on anti-contraction meds that I have to take every 4 hours, unfortunately due to my heart problem they are limited on what they can give me, so they have to give me a medication that doesn't work as fast as the normal anti-contraction medication but they seem to be working.

I still have the occassional contraction but they are not regular and they have slowed down alot. I am still bleeding a wee bit everyday, so they pretty much want me to hang out and stay until I haven't had any bleeding for 72 hours. The big concern is that i will hemorage at home, so they really want to make sure the bleeding stops before sending me home. So it looks like I will be here until at least the weekend. Luckily I have lots of toys (laptop, movies, and my kindle) to keep me entertained, and friends have been stopping by everyday to check on me. I know it will be much harder to be on bedrest at home, but hopefully I can convince the occasional friend to run to the store for me or to come over and cook me food.

The goal is still to make it to 36 weeks and 1 day, so either August 10th or 11th. Fingers crossed that she holds out that long!!

C-section

Thu, 02 Jul 2009 16:58:41 GMT

Mark and I had our second ultrasound yesterday to check on the placenta previa. It was discovered at my 20 week ultrasound that I had a complete placenta previa. I has hoping that it would have moved out of the way, but no such luck. The placenta is still chillin right over my cervix. So there is no way that I can have a natural birth. I'm a little bummed about that, but I really don't care how this little girl arrives.... just as long as she does!

The current plan is to go back on august 10th to have an amnio done to check her lung maturity and then as long as her lungs are mature we will have the c-section within a few days of the amnio. Its crazy, in 6 weeks (or less) this little girl will be here.

The doctor also told me that she is measuring large and above average, they currently estimate that she weighs a little over 4 lbs!!! Which is crazy, I have no idea where she is fitting, because at my last appointment I was measuring small.

I'm itching to get into the babies room to start getting it ready, I wasn't sure if I would want to get her room ready. But now that she is almost here I want to get in there and prepare. I am still worried that something could go wrong, but I need to think positively that it 6 weeks we WILL be bringing home this little girl.

Update

Fri, 26 Jun 2009 15:10:26 GMT

I am pretty sure I am in full on nesting mode.

On monday a friend and I headed up to ikea so that she could pick up a few things for her new house; I bought a few things for the baby's room (followed by a few more things at target - although I bought stuff that we don't currently have room for, so at the moment I have an ottoman sitting in my car). Unfortunately all that walking landed me in labor and delivery with contractions and spotting. We are now at least pre-registered :) We were released a few hours later and I was told to rest. So all day on tuesday I sat on my butt watching movies and playing crosswords.

Wednesday I saw my midwife and was allowed to go back to normal activity although I was asked to scale it back a little. So I've cut back my swimming to 1100 meters at a time (I try to go every other day), and the dog walks are broken up as well; 1-1.5 miles in the morning and another 1-1.5 miles in the evening.

Yesterday I woke up and felt the need to CLEAN. Which included cleaning things with a toothbrush, cleaning windows inside and out, and sanding and repainting window sills, doors, and door frames. Even the curtains were pulled down and were washed and ironed. So far the living room is done, and the kitchen is about half done, so I should be able to keep myself busy for a few days. Although at the moment my hips are killing me from standing for so long yesterday so I'm trying to balance resting with my insane urge to get up and scrub the walls.

WWDC Conference

Fri, 19 Jun 2009 17:43:58 GMT

Here are a few photos from WWDC, to prove that I was actually there and witnessed the nerdness.

Mark snuck a quick photo of me before the event opened. I am 27 weeks pregnant (I know I keep saying this, but I swear I'm bigger then I look in the photos... at least from my angle I am!)

Working the conference was nuts. Our job was to get all of the presentations ready for the speakers. Most days we started at 7:30am and I got off around 10-11:30pm. Since I was a contractor I normally got off before Mark. I felt bad that he had to stay and work but I wasn't going to complain about getting a little extra sleep. It was a little uncomfortable being almost 7 months pregnant and sitting in a chair for that long everyday. But I tried to get up and walk around when possible. But the first 2 days of the conference that was hard to do since there was sooooo many people.

I took these photos as we were on our way out on the last day:
This was the hallway right outside of our little room. Any one see any women in the photo? Its the only time I've been somewhere with thousands of people and there was never a line for the ladies restroom.

This was the giant apple on the side of the building; a 3 story tall apple logo.

And this was Mark's team, a fun group of guys that we love to hang out with.

Now that the conference is over I am catching up on some other freelance work. I'm also doing some test files for another team at Mark's work so that I can become a regular contractor with them. I'm so grateful that this opportunity has come up, this way after the baby is here I will be able to work from home and spend time with the baby.

Austin

Thu, 18 Jun 2009 16:39:25 GMT

Its been a couple weeks since we got back from Austin, and I finally have time to update about our trip.

Originally Mark and I were both going to have to work most of the time while we were there, but the day after we landed I found out one of my clients flaked on me (which kinda sucked because it was a good paying gig, but it was nice to suddenly have a little free time). So while Mark had to work I hung out with the in-laws. We went shopping (thats what they do), and we drove out to check out Canyon Lake (one of the many lake around Austin).

This was unfortunately as close as we got, since Mark's mom is still recovering from knee replacement surgery most of the sight seeing was done in the car. But it was still nice to get out.

One night Mark and I headed in to downtown Austin to meet friends for dinner. A few weeks before I had been watching Diners, Drive-ins and Dives on the food network, and one of the restaurants they featured was Cafe Magnolia in Austin. I was sold after hearing "gingerbread pancakes". But since we went for dinner I decided to get the hummus taco...fabulous! Everyone's food was tasty and it didn't cost a fortune.

Down the street from the Magnolia Cafe there was a parking lot full of old Jet Streams and trailers that sold a variety of food. The area was super cute, and there was even a guy playing acoustic guitar. So after dinner we wandered over to check out the options for dessert.

I went with a banana and nutella crepe;

While our friends tried out the cupcakes. How cute is the cupcake jet stream? The giant cupcake on the top even rotated. Here is my pregnant belly at 26 weeks.

Mark got to join us on sight seeing on Saturday. We had thought about driving to the coast, but it was a 3 hour drive and we didn't want to be stuck in the car for 6 hours. So instead we checked out several museums in downtown Austin. I can't remember the name of either museum, one was a natural history museum and the other was a photography gallery. We got to see the worlds first photograph, which was cool but lets just say photography has come a LONG way. You had to stand at just the right angle to see the image on the metal plate. Its crazy to think how far technology has come in 125 years.

The next morning we got on a flight and headed home. Visiting Austin again has not changed our minds about eventually moving there. Although we will have to spend a little more time there to decide on what area to move to.

Clients - Jaminga

Wed, 17 Jun 2009 21:36:56 GMT

For awhile I've been working on branding a baby clothing company in Portland. Mark and I worked on the logo together (I have a cleaner style then what I was going for, so Mark helped push the logo farther and did some cute illustration work. he is a man of many talents).

After the logo came business cards and hang tags. Then we started redesigning the website (which is still in progress of being worked on by the developer), hopefully it will be done soon and I can show off the website. But part of the website redesign was taking some photos for the new home page. Two of our friends nicely volunteered their children and Mark took some AMAZING photos:

Totally cute right?? I finally finished editing a bunch of the photos (there are a ton more) and sent them off, so I figured I would share one of the projects I have been working (and dragged Mark into) on since getting laid off. Now that I'm pretty much done doing design work for Jaminga, I've moved on to doing their marketing as well. It has turned out to be a fun project, and it doesn't hurt that I love the stuff that Jaminga sells so that we worked out part of the deal in trade so that I can get lots of cute baby stuff. As you can see, my new diaper bag made an appearance in the photoshoot (for whatever reason the little girl loved the diaper bag).

Speaking of baby stuff, I went shopping the other day and bought some newborn size clothes (since we mostly had 0-3 from Penelope). It was a little scary buying stuff, but I feel better after I did, like it was a step forward in believing that we WILL be bringing this little girl home. Anyway thats probably stuff for another post.

If anyone wants a promotional code for Jaminga let me know :)

Work

Thu, 11 Jun 2009 20:42:10 GMT

OMG this week has been insane!!! I've been working all week with Mark at Apple's WWDC (World Wide Developers Conference). So far I've worked 70+ hours this week (and its only thursday at 1:30pm). This is the first downtime I've had since saturday when the craziness started. Even though it has been a long week, I've had fun working the event and even made some new friends.

Oh I just got word that we get to go home!!!! I will do another post later, and update on our trip to Austin.

In Austin

Wed, 27 May 2009 16:15:29 GMT

We arrived last night in Austin. I'm never sad to leave the bay area, I was looking forward to a few days of different. The flight was pretty much uneventful, except that we did see a lightening storm somewhere over Texas. I loved it! I love lightening storms, we don't really get those in California. So I was pretty much glued to my little window watching the show. We actually flew through the lightening storm, which wasn't so cool. Once you get in the middle of the storm you can't see the lightening anymore you just see the bright flashes. Oh well, it was still cool.

My clients are seriously lagging so it looks like I might have a day or 2 of free time while I am here. Which would be nice, but it means next week will be double booked. Mark's parents are at a doctor appointment this morning and then this afternoon we might do something while Mark works. He is trying to show his boss that he would not have a problem working remotely, in case we ever move out here.

Belly photos 25 weeks

Sun, 24 May 2009 00:18:05 GMT

The week has been busy as usual. We bought a new laptop for me. I've been doing a TON of work as a contractor for the company that Mark works for. Most of it needs to be done on a pc. We managed to piece together one for me to work on, but it wasn't the best. So we figured since I will be doing this for awhile we might as well buy a laptop so that I could be a bit more mobile. So now we have both a pc and a mac laptop. We got my laptop all pimped out and I've been enjoying working from the couch for the last few days.

Mark and I have been trying to organize a photoshoot for one of my clients and we finally got to shoot it on friday. I will post some of those photos soon, because they are adorable. Mark did an amazing job.

After the phoot I asked Mark to snap a couple of belly photos since a few friends have been asking for them. So here I am just before 25 weeks:

The flowy shirt tends to hide the actual size of my belly:

Less then 3 months to go (that is if I still have to have the c-section, which we find out about in 5 weeks).

This upcoming week we are heading to Austin to visit Marks parents. I'm going to try to meet a friend for lunch at Cafe Magnolia (which was recently on the food network.... gingerbread pancakes...yum!). Otherwise Mark and I will both be working and trying to fit in sight seeing and spending time with his parents. We are both looking forward to something different for a week.

As soon as we get back we start WWDC. Which will be two weeks of insanity and LOTS of time logged in front of the computer. But at least one of those weeks will be spent up in SF at hotel paid for by the company.

I need some help from other moms and future moms

Wed, 13 May 2009 23:28:18 GMT

I'm doing some market research for one of my clients and I'm wondering what parenting, pregnancy, or baby blogs do you guys read? Are there any forums that you frequent?

I'm trying to decide if they should advertise on some blogs, do give aways or where would be the best places to advertise.

Thanks everyone!

Update

Tue, 05 May 2009 21:19:34 GMT

Pregnancy: So everything seems to be fine with the baby. No infection or any thing abnormal. My midwife seems to think I might have strained a muscle. So I've been put on pelvic rest and my workouts have been limited to swimming and walking (which is pretty much all I have done the last week anyway). I think it might have happened when I coughed on saturday, I turned my head to cough (I was swimming at the time), and I remember it really hurting. So hopefully in a week or so it will be back to normal.

Work: So much for having a couple relaxing mornings this week. I got a ton more freelance. Mark's company has been nice enough to hook me up with contract work when ever they have it. One of the teams is working on preparing files for a conference in 2 weeks and needs help. So for the next 2 weeks I hope to get as much work as possible. Which unfortunately means working long hours. Then I have about a week and a half break before another conference starts. Its good money, so I can't really complain.

Other: There pretty much is no other, All I have been doing since last thursday is sitting at a computer!

Baby Stuff and pregnancy

Mon, 04 May 2009 06:55:06 GMT

I'm working on rebranding a baby company is Portland which includes logo, marketing material and a website. To finish up the website we are doing a photo shoot for the home page. I placed an order (the woman was having a hard time choosing what to send so she figured it would be easier for me to pick) for all the stuff that we needed for the shoot and I figured I would buy a couple things for us as well (part of the payment for the design work is merchandise... woohoo "free" baby stuff).

The one thing we never got around to buying last time was a diaper bag. It was always one of those "oh we will get around to it" things, and then we never did. Mark really wanted a backpack style, and I wanted one that could also be carried over the shoulder or messenger style. I really wanted a petunia pickle bottom one, but I decided to look at jaminga.com (the website I'm working on... I promise there will be photos when I'm done!) to see what she had. I found a bag that filled all the requirements and its cute too!

Ta da, our first baby purchase:

And I also picked up a couple organic tees. They are kimono style so I don't have to worry about pulling anything over her head. They are 0-3 months, so I'm hoping they fit her sometime before it gets cold.

I also ordered some maternity clothes awhile ago. I heart gap maternity jeans! They are long and comfy, and I have pretty much been living in them since they arrived. The tops I ordered I don't love so much, oh well.

Otherwise the pregnancy is going well. I freak out if I don't feel her for awhile, I know logically she will have quite times but it still worries me. I post in a pregnancy forum and everyone keeps telling me that I will feel better in a few weeks when she gets bigger and I can feel her better, but I know that I won't. I know what its like to have the baby stop moving, and last time that happened it wasn't a good thing. Sigh.

I've also been kinda crampy all weekend. I called my midwife a little while ago and she said to make sure that I'm drinking enough water and to come in tomorrow for a urine test (to make sure I don't have a urinary infection). But otherwise I just might have overdone it. I have been crazy busy this weekend, although most of it has been chained to a computer. I have a bunch of freelance work right now, which is a good thing but it means trying to get all of my usual stuff done and sit and a desk for 8-10 hours working. I should hopefully have a few mornings this week that I can relax a bit (it all depends on whether I get more freelance work).

Old photos and stuff

Fri, 01 May 2009 20:38:16 GMT

My Samsung is finally repaired (It was such a pain in the ass to deal with Samsung!) so I figured I would get some old photos off of it and post them.

Remember Apron Anarchy? I occasionaly still make aprons. This is my first full length apron. I normally just make hostess aprons, or half aprons, pretty much because that's what I wear. But I friend requested a full length apron so this is what I came up with (ignore the wrinkles, I didn't have time to iron it. I actually snapped the photo as soon as the screen print had dried, and right before it went into a box).

I really like the way it come out. It is super cute. I should make more.

A few weeks ago a friend who works for the Make-a-Wish foundation asked if I would make an apron for one of their charity auctions. So this one is currently waiting to be auctioned off next weekend:

And just because its been forever since I posted a photo of either dog, here is one of Tibi "helping" Mark do the dishes. Mark was sweet enough to wash the dishes after dinner on Valentines day, and since Mark brought in a stool to sit on while he washed Tibi decided to hop up and help, that is if you considering licking Mark and trying to eat the food off the dishes before they got soapy as helping.

Right after this photo was taken is when I dropped my camera, so its been awhile!

I'm a snob

Wed, 22 Apr 2009 18:53:41 GMT

Ugh, since I got laid off we have needed to cut down our expenses a little bit. One of those things that was cut was my expensive gym membership. It finally ran out last week, so now I'm trying to find alternative places to swim. I can do the rest of my workouts at home for now, but I want to be able to swim. Its great exercise, especially while I am pregnant.

Today was my first day trying out 24 hour fitness. There is a location relatively close to my house that has a pool. So I downloaded a 7 day pass and went to try it out. Normally I swim for 45-50 minutes and swim between 1600-1800 meters. I think I might has lasted 25 minutes before I got so frustrated I gave up. First; the pool is small, definitely not the 25 meter pool I'm used to. 2nd; there are only 3 lanes. 3rd; there are signs saying only 2 people per lane, which apparently does not apply to aqua joggers because 5 joined my lane. Aqua joggers are annoying, they flail about splashing and making waves, and they are a pain in the ass to swim around, I kept having to dodge legs and arms that were swimming about wildly. When the fifth aqua jogger got in my lane (and in my way) I gave up and got out. I will give the pool one more try at a different time of day to see if it is any better, but I'm not really holding out hope.

I'm going to try a couple of community pools and hope that they are better.

Its a......

Tue, 14 Apr 2009 19:02:07 GMT

For those of you that guessed girl, you were right! We are having another girl!

Going in to the ultrasound I was a little nervous, I was excited to be finding out the sex, but scared as well. Knowing makes it more real. I love the place we get our ultrasounds done, they have a monitor on the wall so we get to see everything. Mark sat next to me and held my hand while we watched the baby move around on the monitor. After the tech checked that all the parts were there and in the right place he asked if we had any guesses. I was kinda thinking boy... but I thought that last time, so I figured if I thought it was a boy then it would actually be a girl :) So pretty much I had no clue. He told us that it was a girl and I got all teary. I'm excited and terrified all at the same time.

After the tech left the doctor came into review the ultrasound. He said that everything looked great...except that the placenta was covering the cervix which is a condition called complete placenta previa. He said that as the pregnancy progressed that the placenta might move up higher in the uterus but since it was completely covering the cervix that it was unlikely and that I would most likely need a c-section at 36-37 weeks. Not really bad news, but something that we were not expecting. I was looking forward to a natural birth, so it kinda threw me. I have another ultrasound on July 1st to see if the placenta has moved at all, an if not then I guess we pick a birthday for our daughter.

Wow, another girl!