Awake Again

It's 3:20 in the morning and I've been up since about 2:45, sick again. I was up at 11 and made the last post and figured I should post when I'm awake if for no other reason than to keep track. I didn't keep down what I first tried to have at 2:45 so I'm trying again with cottage cheese and fruit. I am so so exhausted and I know I'll be up again at 6, either with Grady or just on my own. Last time around I could nap. This time it's a bit more complicated.
Let's hope I can be back in bed in another 10 minutes or so and stay there.
1/2 bagel
1/2 c cottage cheese
sips of water

Misery!

Note to any mums out there who've been through hyperemesis gravidarum once: it will happen again. Word to the wise: be prepared. Mentally. Because while the first time was rough, the second isn't any easier. I have nothing more to say about it today.

How many more weeks?

I'm really struggling to keep food down and I don't think I've felt 'normal' for longer than 20 minutes for at least a week. The timing of this pregnancy is somewhat convenient because I can review the last one nearly to the day and see how I was feeling. This is both good and bad, since I now see that the month of February will go by pretty much without me being productive in any way. Thank goodness I am able to have help with Grady because I would probably be showing him Elmo dvds back to back for 8 hours a day if I were alone with him.

Officially, please do not ever ever let me entertain the idea of doing this a third time. I am so glad I'm able to have children and so far the one I have is a healthy, joyful, charming and all-around #1 guy (just like his dad) but this has to be my final one. I never imagined a big brood or fielding a soccer team with my family, and I don't believe that I need to have many children to spread a certain faith or take care of the chores around the house/farm. I simply cannot imagine being this incapacitated again, with two others to care for. Grady will have a sibling. We could adopt more, but this is the end for me. ((Sorry Grandmas))

Redux

That's right, we're back on the queasy roller coaster of morning sickness and general misery. Today is the start of week 7 for our #2 and final. Don't let me even entertain the thought of a #3 after this, since "every pregnancy is different" but all mine seem to be the same.

We haven't told many people so if you're reading this you may be in the know, or maybe you're very sneaky, or just happened to stumble upon this post. We felt that it was important for my sister, who is 39 weeks pregnant, to have the baby spotlight to herself for a bit longer, at least until her little one arrives and the pregnancy glow from her face is replaced by sleeplessness.

Regardless, we're happy we have a new little bundle for Grady and Pattie to play with in September. Ironically enough, Grady might have to share his birthday.... due date is Sept 18!

Waiting...

After a full weekend of activity, we are still waiting for this baby. It's not even that late, but I am definitely ready to get this part over with. So ready in fact, that on Saturday we went to try THE SALAD. Sure, it's an urban legend, but what did we have to lose? Local lore says that ladies from a birth class were eager for their babies to come and went out, ate the salad, and voila... baby time!

So we drove 30 minutes away to Studio City and found Caioti Pizza Cafe, home of THE Salad. It was a nice little outing. And the salad was tasty! Unfortunately, it did nothing but give me gas.

Now we wait some more. C'mon, baby!

EDD: Come and gone!

Today was the estimated due date. Unless baby comes tv-style in the next few hours, it will officially be late.
And the waiting continues. The only problem with this is discomfort. Ok, and anxiety and the chance for self-doubt to start creeping in... but generally, it's the discomfort. I'm definitely getting bigger-- into the "not so manageable" size, which means I have started to run into things. I've actually scratched myself for the past two days. Yesterday a friend asked if I was bleeding and I told her I wasn't sure, simply because I couldn't SEE my stomach to check out the damage. I had bent over some plastic packages that were in a bag in my car and knew I had grazed them, but didn't know that I had indeed scratched myself. You'd think I would have learned from that... but today I opened a door and did it again. I'm just too wide!

The best nation is a donation

There are very few helpful or constructive things I've been able to do over the past 8 months. Maybe more than a few, but I wouldn't be able to name many. I recently cut off a lot of my hair to donate to people who need it and in the coming week (I hope!) I'll be donating our baby's cord blood to a cord blood bank.

There are plenty of blood banks, but many are for-profit banks that parents have to pay for. This means once a baby is born, a doctor or midwife collects samples of blood (they really want the stem cells) from the umbilical cord and the samples are shipped off and stored for safekeeping and possible future use rather than discarded.

Cord blood banking is generally controversial because the major banks are privately run for-profit ventures. They're very expensive, and some say that these companies prey on the fears of new [and affluent] parents. The processing fee alone for cord blood banking on one privately run website is $1920. Storage will run a family another $125 annually after the first year. There is no way of knowing if a baby (or sibling) will need the stem cells or even if a disease that they may have such as leukemia, a blood disorder or other condition would respond to cord blood stem cell therapy.

I don't know what's going to happen in the future, but I would like to think Trouble will be nothing but robust. And if Trouble's robust, then why keep the stem cells? Could other people use them instead? Rather than privately banking our baby's cord blood, I called the Carolinas Cord Blood Bank at Duke University a few months ago.
I had read an article about the pilot blood bank program at Duke and felt it was a good option for us. If Trouble DOES need his or her stem cells and they are available, great. If someone else needs Trouble's stem cells, they could use them instead. While there are some public cord blood banks, there's no national cord blood registry. If the Carolinas program is a success, it's possible that there will be a national registry open to anyone, similar to an organ or blood donation list/bank.

After answering some screening questions and asking my doctor if she would be willing to participate (she needed to complete an on-line training), I received a kit in the mail. It's really a win-win and I'm glad that this option exists. There's an alternative to the pricey cord banking-for-something-we-may-never-need and a way for us to bank the cells in case we do need them-- or that perhaps our baby's cord blood will help save someone else's life some day.