Food Fail

This past Saturday I really wanted to do something homemade.  Since we're gearing up to move, we haven't had many really good home cooked meals lately.  I saw a cooking show where they made spicy deviled eggs and slow cook "cowboy" beans with canned beans and I thought, sure, let's make baked beans on the stove and deviled eggs.

Instead of "cheating" and using canned beans, I decided to go full homemade and do real beans.  I ran to the grocery to pick up essentials between DS's truck errands (fixing a truck is an all day thing with multiple trips to and fro).  I knew I'd need a pound of navy beans, eggs and an onion.  Everything else I already had in stock at home.

Saturday night, I put the navy beans in a big bowl filled with room temp water to let them soak overnight.

Sunday around 11 the beans had been soaking at least 14 hours, so I swirled them around to check for bad beans and drained them.  There wasn't a single floating bean so I thought they must have been freshly bagged.  I looked at a few "on the stove" baked bean recipes to get the gist of cooking times, which seemed to be generally around 2-3 hours.  I started cooking.

3/4 pound bacon, chopped while partially frozen and rendered
used 2 Tbsp reserved bacon grease to saute 1 medium onion, finely chopped
added the bacon back to the onion 
add 1 12 oz can of tomato sauce
add 3 cans of water (using the tomato sauce can)
add 1 12 oz can light beer
add 4 Tbsp ketchup
add 12 dashes of Worcestershire sauce
add 3 tsp "bar-b-que" seasoning 
add 3 tsp garlic powder (we like the garlic in our house)
1/4 cup brown sugar (my 1/4 cup was heaping since I like them a little sweet)
add the beans and stir

It looked like a thick soup at first so I brought it up to boil and reduced it to a simmer.  I checked back every now and then and stirred it around.  I cooked it until the liquid began to thicken and it had reduced a lot.  It ended up cooking around 4 hours.

I also made deviled eggs toward the end, nothing fancy.  Boiled the eggs, cut up some sweet baby gherkins since I'm obsessed right now and after slicing and separating the eggs, stirred mayonnaise, mustard, the pickles, pepper and a tsp. of pickle juice (I just saw this on the  aforementioned cooking show).  Stirred it all up and....it was egg yolk soup.  

Ok, so the eggs turned out runny but tasted a.ok, so we ate them.

The beans...did not cook all the way!!!!  The flavor was awesome but we could not get over the texture.  Not hard, but way too al dente.  DS and I could not figure out how they were not cooked through since I had soaked them overnight AND cooked them for 4 hours!  I will not be making baked beans from homemade again!

*******EDIT:  I put salt in the beans before cooking, which is a GIGANTIC no-no!!!  That is probably why they were a little too hard for our taste.  Do not put salt in them and they may turn out wonderful.

Let's talk nipples!

No, not the baby bottle kind, those I haven't even started looking at yet.  Let's talk the real thing.  The double wham-o's.  The two pieces of anatomy on my body that I don't even recognize anymore.

Everyone knows pregnancy changes your body.  Some changes are small and some are really big and make you question...who's body is this???

I don't recognize my stomach.  I look a bit like a sick albino tiger.  I had some stretch marks before becoming pregnant but whoa-my-gosh, things have escalated quickly.  I apply "belly" lotion every night now but I feel as though it is in vain...some people get marked, some don't.  I've been marked.  Maybe if I had started earlier on this stuff, I'd be in better shape.  Who knows.

It smells good and at least things can't get worse by using it.

We're all told "your boobs will change" and it's true, they're growing, have on and off bouts of tenderness, and are sometimes itchy.  I had large breasts to begin with so while I have noticed some overflow on my bras, I've been able to move the clasp in the back to accommodate the growing thus far.  All of those changes are "doable".  The one thing I cannot get over...my nipples.

My nipples are no longer my nipples.  They are larger, darker, always "hard", very sensitive, sometimes painful, more dimply and dry/chapped.  I haven't had any leakage yet so I have no idea why they are already dry and chapped.  My nipples are not my own.  I fear they will never be what they once were again.  

DS has been really supportive on this.  I berate my stretch marks, bigger booty, and nipples almost daily but he has been a trooper and has stuck to all of the good guy scripts.  Not once has he agreed with my self-deprecating.

I guess if I can get over this monumental body change, I can handle all of the rest...right?

Getting ready for baby

Turns out, there is quite a lot that needs to be done before baby gets here.  There are general guidelines as to what needs to be done, but really the get-ready list is catered and specific for each expecting couple.  

Here's what DS and I have to do to prepare:

-Gather addresses for announcements.  Fortunately for us, my mom is on the ball.  I called to ask her to keep a list from the shower including both of our families and we would use that plus whomever else we'd like and she said she was planning on working on announcements for us while she was staying with us when little G gets here.

-Pick out our announcements.  I think we're going to go through tinyprints.com for our announcements and pre-pick which design we like.  That way, once we have the perfect pic of her, we can upload it and have them at our doorstep within days...then mom can get to cracking on addressing and sending them out.

-Waterproof the homestead.  Not for the baby, but for me.  We have a Cali King Tempur Pedic and I shudder to think of the damage my water breaking on that bad boy would do.  I have a gift card for Bed Bath and Beyond, so we may end up with this one:  Leakproof.  

-Pick a pediatrician.  Luckily for me, I work in the hospital that I'll be delivering in, so I can get clinical opinions of where little G should go.

-Pre-wash baby clothes.  I want everything to be ready before little G gets here, so I need to pre-wash all of her clothes and blankets.  I'll wait until after the baby shower since little baby clothes don't take up much in the washing machine and we don't have a full load of tiny clothes/blankets yet.

-Buy a nursing bra.  I have a night sleeper nursing bra that would only be for night.  Not a ton of support, but keeps the boobs in general position.  I also have a great roomy sports bra that I can easily whip 'em out of.  What I don't have are nursing bras that I can wear during the day...in public.

-Attend classes.  Since I work at the hospital I'll be delivering at, you'd think I'd already be signed up for all the classes, but I'm not.  I want to do a Lamaze class just to see what it's all about and maybe a swaddling/diaper change class just to get a last practice in.  I seriously need to get on this though because those classes fill up fast.

-Think of a birth plan.  We haven't really put anything down in writing yet.  I know most birth plans fly out of the window, but DS needs to know what to do just in case there's an emergent situation and he has to make the decisions.  Plus, if we know what we want going in, it'll be easier for him to advocate for me.  I liked this template on thebump.com.

-Get a baby notebook with a folder.  Since I've already started printing things like a birth plan template, I'll need a folder to keep everything in.  

-Get a baby book.  Actually, we got one this weekend and we are so excited to start filling it in.  Also, we will be packing it in our bags for the hospital trip because it has a place for her teeny footprints.  Ask the hospital you'll be delivering at if their nursing staff will help you with this.  Usually, if you have it available, they'll go ahead and stamp while they stamp the hospital paperwork.

-Stock up on hand sanitizer.  You will need this if you plan on letting a lot of people touch your baby after delivery and once home.  Our family will all want to hold her, so everyone will need hand sanitizer.  You'll want something gentle and unscented.

-Pack 3 bags.  2-3 weeks out from due date (this will depend on your doctors plans as well), pack three bags...one for mom, one for baby, and one for dad.  DS will need to bring electronics to keep entertained if it's a boring and long labor.  He'll also need to bring snacks and camera equipment.  My sister will be taking tasteful delivery and baby photos so we will need all of the batteries, lenses, etc. ready to go.

Of course we have to get the nursery ready.  We're moving into a new house within the next few weeks so nursery time will start then!

 Anything I've forgotten???

All the other pregnancy things

Now that I've gone into polite details of my morning sickness, I thought I'd make note of all the other bits and bobs of pregnancy.

Other symptoms of pregnancy:
-Exhaustion.  I am tired all of the time.  I have a bit more pip than I did first trimester, but overall still ready to lie down at all times.  Forget standing for any period of time.
-Food aversions.  I hate peanut butter.  First trimester I hated ketchup, now I want to drink it.  Meat...I want nothing to do with it.  Raw white onion...red's I'm ok with.  I could care less for sweets in general, other than an occasional hankering.
-Food cravings.  Nothing major.  Currently I would stab someone for a shrimp cocktail, but once I get it I'll be over it.  A few weeks ago I needed a Caramel Frap but after I had it the craving ended and hasn't returned.  I have consistently wanted apple juice for the past week or so, so we'll put that in the craving category.
-Food preferences.  I can eat Mexican at every meal.  What's for dinner?  Probably mexican food.  Chips and salsa, yes please.  Bean burrito from taco bell?  Drool, but hold the onions, please.
-Other things.
1.  In the very wee early stages when I was nauseous/vomiting, if I ate anything, it was strawberry icecream.  I could keep that on my stomach with no issue.  Now I really want nothing to do with icecream.
2.  My eyes are 473x bigger than my stomach.  I eat up to half of anything I order/make/have.  DS has gotten really used to eating for two and only occasionally complains that I'm making him fat.
3.  I get random bouts of heartburn 3-4 times a day.  I have found this to be when G (I will lovingly call her G in this blog) is moving around.  Generally after heartburn I get hawngry, which is my term for starving-need-food-right-now.  Cheese crackers help me out a lot.
4. Constipation is a real thing but not a permanent thing.  My body will swing from one extreme to the next over two days.
5.  I have found that leaning all the way forward when I pee empties my bladder completely so that I don't feel like peeing again as soon as I get up.  On this same note...pregnancy and coughing strenuously do not mix with a full bladder.  There was an incident, I don't want to talk about it.
6.  Mom, do not read the rest of this paragraph.  I have a crazy sex drive.  It started about two weeks ago and thankfully, DS has welcomed it.

One week ago yesterday we felt a flutter for the first time.  Actually, DS felt it first.  We were laying in bed and he had his hand on my stomach.  He told me to quit shaking my foot (chronic habit of mine) and I wasn't...it was G rolling around in there.  Last night I was trying to fall asleep and I felt her kick for the first time and then about 6 times more.  DS missed it, but I've felt her several times today so he will feel her soon.  I'm very excited to finally feel her move.  They're not pronounced jabs yet, kind of like a blunt rippling nudge.  Nonetheless, she's moving in there.

So this is morning sickness...

Since about 4 1/2 weeks I have been sick with what I eventually found out to be morning sickness and not an imbalance of "gut" bacteria.

Turns out, for me, morning sickness is an all-day-and-night-no-matter-what-you-do sickness.  I lost 14 pounds my first trimester.  Thankfully I had weight to lose, so my OB wasn't too concerned...I would regain to my normal and put on a few extra for baby eventually.  I, along with my OB's nurse (who is an absolute life saver!), had a heck of a time trying to find something to relieve me.  None of the usual wives-tale aides were helping.  Ginger anything: nope.  Lemon: nope.  Crackers before sitting up: nope.  Crackers in general: nope.  Broth: nope.  Peanut butter: gigantic nope.

The doctor calls it hyperemesis gravidarum and it affects less than 2% of all recorded pregnancies.  Think morning sickness on the scariest crack you can imagine.  A lot of vomit.  I even had an exorcism moment...absolutely horrendous.

In short, nothing was helping.  Finally turned to medicine and neither helped:  phenergan was basically a sugar pill and zofran provided a small amount of relief but caused horrendous charlie-horses in places I didn't think possible.

An ER trip later for dehydration and something had to be done STAT.

This is where the nurse really came through.  Reglan.  It was a saving grace.  I was on the max dose (one pill four times a day) until 16 weeks.  I was feeling so great, I tried to ween off of it around 14 weeks..that was a mistake.  So I continued on full dose until 16 weeks, then dropped down to three, then at 18 weeks I dropped down to just two a day and I've been sitting pretty.  I did miss a day about a week ago and felt like crap all day, so I can't come off of it completely.

So Reglan is my life saver.  At 20 weeks I still battle nausea and occasional vomiting, but it is nothing compared to what I was dealing with.

Biggest news ever!

Let's recall my biggest news ever...I'm finally going to be a mom!!!

I know, I had convinced myself that it would just never happen, but it did!  I was convinced that I was just too old and past a "good" age to start having children.  I was content with DS (the beau) and our two fur babies, Sheldon and Massimo.

I realized how much I had settled into the idea of never having children shortly after finding out we were expecting.  It hit me like a sledgehammer one day in the car.  I was pregnant.  I was pregnant.  I was going to bring a life into this world and be responsible for it and be a mom and...shew.  It was a lot to take in.  I realized I truly believed that it would never happen to me.

But it did and I'm so thankful and happy.  It brings happy tears to my eyes.

So, my pregnancy story.  How it all happened.  We weren't planning it.  We had talked about it and had decided if we wanted it, we would wait for about two years for me to finish school (more on this later) and then we could talk about it.

Life has a way, you know?  It does what it wants and takes you in directions you never saw coming.  Turns out antibiotics work in much the same way...taking you in directions you never thought and counter-acting on your meticulous birth control consumption.

In August I was sick...like bronchitis sick.  My doctor had to put me on an antibiotic and z-pack.  Thought nothing of it...continued to take the trusty birth control (hey, it hadn't failed me yet), and DS and I went about life as normal.

In September I was sick...like not able to eat, keep anything down, generally felt like utter crap.  After two weeks of being miserable, I went to the doctor again.  Here's a brief script:

Do you think you're pregnant?  "No...I haven't missed a day of birth control in like 5 years."
When was your last menstrual cycle?  "I take my birth control continuously so my last period was about 6 months ago (I did this for medical reasons...it is completely safe and was doctor recommended for me)."
Ok, what's going on today?

At which point I described the anguish I had been enduring for the past few weeks.  Horrible nausea/vomiting, exhausted, unable to eat...yadda, yadda, yadda.  Truly, I felt like death.

My doctor is amazing and has been seeing me for almost four years now.  She knows my body pretty well and knows I have the crappiest immune and "gut" health ever.  So, she ruled that the antibiotics I had taken for bronchitis had wiped all of the good bacteria from my gut and had caused an imbalance that was making me very ill.  This had happened once before about three years ago so it didn't sound so foreign to me.

I would feel better in no more than two weeks, she claimed, and wrote me a script for probiotics and enzymes to re-boost my "gut".  I was ready to feel better asap so I immediately filled and began taking said meds.

Early September, I had bronchitis AGAIN so I was back on antibiotics.  I was super sick for DS's 30th birthday which was super sad, because it was such a fun day.  Train ride with picnic for lunch then dinner with friends: Sonic ice cream and dancing that evening.  He had an amazing day.  I was still sick to my stomach.

In October I was still battling the nausea/vomiting/weakness but life must go on so we went on a bourbon tour to celebrate our anniversary early.  Our very first date was at Woodford Reserve so we thought it would be fun to go back and do a tour.  It was so fun and special to commemorate our first year the same way we started, and I think we will make it a tradition.  It's just so beautiful there in the fall.  Anyways, we were in the mashing room (technical term for bourbon lovers) and I almost lost my ginger ale.  Made it to the cellars and the cool, crisp air made me feel almost normal again.  I decided to celebrate by tasting the special select bourbon and bourbon balls they had for our tasting.  So one shot and one bourbon ball later we were leaving the tour area and I jokingly turned to DS and said "Well, if I'm pregnant, it's either drunk or going to die".  Retrospect:  poor choice of words, it was a joke, don't jump down my throat.

The whole ride home I couldn't stop thinking about what I said and the thought of "what if I am pregnant?" kept rippling through my mind.  I had to know for sure.  This was the first day the thought of possibility even came to mind.  I had been sick for WEEKS at this point...could it be?

As soon as I got home I went upstairs to use the bathroom and found an old pregnancy test shoved in the back of my hair products drawer (remember that menstrual cycle I mentioned 6 months ago...yeah, google made me test it).  I took the test, waited patiently for a whole 30 seconds before both strips were blue.  Both strips were blue.  Ripped the box from the trashcan to double check and make sure.  Gulp.  I called for DS to come upstairs in sheer-panic-voice.  He didn't even make it to the top before I was holding the test out for him to see.  Then: gut wrenching sobbing and wailing.  We weren't planning this.  I was in shock.  I had had bourbon!  Suddenly my joke was no longer a joke.

I have to hand it to DS, he handled the situation with grace and man-strength.  He held me, comforted me, let me sob.  He was amazing.

We bought a second test the next day and I took both only to find the first was not faulty.  Monday we called for an appointment with my regular doctor to have my HCG levels checked.  Friday we found out I was about 7-8 weeks along.  The next week we went to an OBGYN and had our first ultrasound.  I was 9 weeks and due May 12, 2015.  I had never seen DS smile so genuinely than when he saw the first images of baby.  A tear rolled down my cheek.

Here we go.

Well hello there!

Since I am my only reader, I don't feel guilty when I go over a whole year without blogging.  I love writing, and find myself to be quite hilarious, but when it comes down to it, I'd rather live life than sit at my computer and write to myself.  Sometimes by "live life" I mean sleep...but hey, sleep is a luxury and why not indulge.

Exciting things have happened in well over a year.

I met the love of my life and we have been living happily together for a year and three months.  

If you read some of my previous blogs, I was convinced I would be forever alone, but DS came along and we've been inseparable.  I can't imagine life without him.

Wow, it has been ages since I've blogged.

Biggest news ever...we are expecting!!!!!!!

I am 20 weeks yesterday and we are so excited.

We couldn't wait for our normal scheduled ultrasound appointment (which isn't going to be performed until week 22 ...hello, at 17 weeks, this was over a month away), so we went to an independent baby salon and found out she is a girl!

Georgianna Isabelle Stone

I have two more blogs planned for sure.  One explaining my pregnancy so far and one with general life updates.

Such excite.