blackmoondog

As of tomorrow, we'll be at 22 weeks! Today we had a prenatal visit and toured one of the local hospital birth centers.

I really liked the birth center we saw today. Their rooms are spacious and labor-delivery-postpartum is all done in the same private room. Babies almost always stay in the room with you and you are welcome to have as many or as few visitors as you like. Partners are totally welcome to stay overnight (though the sleeping accommodations are kinda akin to camping). The basic room comes with a half bath but they also have two rooms with AquaDoula (www.aquadoula.com) labor tubs and two have showers in the bath. This also happens to be the hospital that my midwives prefer (of all the births at this hospital, they attend nearly 50%). I can see why.

I've seen the postpartum rooms at the other local hospital and most if not all of them are (potentially) shared with a roommate. It is also definitely less home-y and more hospital. Since I'm rather anxious in hospitals, more home-y is a plus. We do our official tour of that hospital on October 1st but unless the baby comes at or before 36 weeks (as they have the local neo-natal intensive care unit), it is unlikely we'll have a compelling reason to have her there.

On that note, baby sounds like she's doing just fine and we're pretty much on target for January 10th-ish based on the abdomen measurement today. Her heart rate is good (140's), my blood pressure looks great (110/78), and so far there is no sign of gestational diabetes (though that usually develops after 24 weeks from what I've read). She is pretty active and I can feel her larger movements. They're supposed to get strong enough to feel from the outside over the next 4 weeks.

I've gotten the OK to start prenatal yoga classes at the adult school next Monday, which I'm very much looking forward to. I've also been seeing Mark's chiropractor (she's great) to help with the aches in my back as my center of gravity shifts and my joints loosen up. We pretty much spend the whole appointment talking about babies while she's working on me. :)

We did have some bad news today on the insurance front, as it appears the OB/midwives office split has resulted in me using a non-network provider. That means we're hit with a $1000 out-of-network deductible (separate from the $250 in-network deductible that I've already met) and they pay 80% rather than 90%. Bleah. When I first checked to make sure they were on the list, the office hadn't split yet and they still have the OB listed in the network directory but it is under his old information. The other crappy news is that they've denied the claim filed for my visit to the endocrinologist (she charged $500 for an office visit!) so I'm not sure where that is gonna leave us. It may account for part of that nasty out-of-network deductible though. Oh joy. I just realized that if the baby is born in January, both the damned deductibles will likely roll over so we'll have $1250 out-of-pocket. At least then maybe we can work it into our FSA withholdings.

I definitely have no love for this insurance plan. At least the perinatologist who did the ultrasound is in-network. Oh, and it appears that only the hospital we toured today is on the list. The other one is out-of-network so it is in the $1000 deductible, 80% reimbursment list. Baby girl, you better stay put until full term.

Wow, what a downer to end on. I'll fix it.

I'm really getting excited to meet our baby and now that I've settled into being pregnant, I have moments of utter joy just knowing that she's in there. Kicking the cat. :)

So the mystery tomato plant seems to have become inhabited with tomato hornworms. Now these suckers are ugly. And usually pretty big. That's expected but this guy is the biggest freakin' hornworm I have ever seen:

It is about 3.5 inches long and nearly the diameter of my thumb!

Also, I still have no idea what kind of tomatoes are on this plant. I suspected Brandywine for a while and then the darn thing turned bright orange. Definitely not Brandywine! I finally picked the first fruit (which took *forever* to get ripe) today and will likely taste it some time this evening to see whether it is worth waiting for the rest of the fruit to mature.

I'm still kinda bummed that I never got around to planting pumpkins this year. I guess planting early wouldn't have been such a bad thing after all. Maybe next year...

UPDATE: I have tasted the tomato and it is too ... fruity. It doesn't taste or feel like a tomato. It might be usable in place of fruit in a fruit salsa but I have to say I'm fairly disappointed.

This baby is trying to demolish the central tenant of my personal regligion: Thou shalt not get out of bed before 6:00am.

I've been dealing pretty well with the having to get up and use the bathroom in the middle of the night (for the first time in my adult life) and most nights I go right back to sleep. Lately, however, I have been having an increasing number of early mornings where I wake between 3am and 5am and just can't fall back into slumber. Sometimes I just start thinking and totally wake up. Others I just cannot find a comfortable position. This morning I woke around 4:30am ravenously hungry. I'm hoping that the silver lining in all this is that it will ease the transition into the Land of the Zombies (aka parents of newborns) but I guess only time will tell.

In other news, some friends invited us over for dinner last night and sent us home with a ton of baby stuff. The back of the Prius was so full that the rearview mirror was totally unusable. From what I remember offhand, we came home with a Pack 'N Play, a swing, a 2nd bouncy chair (sis-in-law had already handed one down), a Bjorn and a couple other styles of wearable carriers, a box of 0-3 month clothes, a box of 3-6 month clothes, a box of receiving blankets/burp cloths/bibs, 3 baby gates, and some other assorted accessories. And that was only a fraction of what they had for us to look at. Some other friends who just had their 3rd baby (but 1st girl) were over as well and they took home most of the 6-9 month clothes.

I have to say that being on this circuit of baby hand-me-downs rocks. Most of the time those doing the giving think of it as *us* doing *them* a favor ("Get this out of my garage/attic/etc"). Sis-in-law has already given us a co-sleeper, a bouncy chair, an exersaucer, a couple of wearable carriers, a Moses basket, and several bags of clothes. Heck, a gal I've never even *met* gave a friend some bags of clothing to pass on to us!

The only major purchases we've made so far have been a comfy armchair (which we got on mega sale Labor Day weekend) and a dresser from IKEA. OK, and technically the supplies to re-paint and re-floor the baby's room. We also just bought a new entertainment center via Craigslist but that is only kinda related to the baby, as our current set up is a death trap for children. Which reminds me... I better get started clearing stuff out of the way for the big switcheroo today.

Ugh. Yesterday the smoke from the Day fire in Ventura county started creeping northward. Today it has totally blanketed the southern half of SLO county. This morning when I left there were fine bits of ash on my windshield and the sunlight today is a sickly orange color.

My sinuses are going bonkers. The 2 minute walk from my office to the car resulted in a headache. I am seriously starting to consider getting some kind of mask to wear when I go outside. Normally, I might just tell myself to suck it up but I don't have any idea what effect, if any, this might have on the baby. :(

Before the weekend, the fire was about 30,000 acres and 30% contained. As of this morning at 7am, the fire had grown to over 74,000 acres and dropped to 15% containment due to the very rough terrain and the offshore (aka Santa Ana) winds that were whipping around. So there is really no telling how much longer we're going to be breathing horribly smoky air. It is scary to think that for once I'm going to be relieved to get to the Bay Area for the weekend because the air quality will be *better*.

You may remember a photo showing my first sock in progress. That sock is no more. I ripped back the entire thing and the yarn is waiting to be chucked on the ball winder. I have not given up on socks, however!

Second Sock has been much more successful, as I have given it more careful attention (especially during the increase phase) and it has made it to the heel point with the correct (even!) number of stitches. I've been kinda nervous about working the heel and since I didn't really remember much about how to do short rows, I decided to do a practice run using plain 'ol worsted weight acrylic and larger needles. I am SO GLAD that I did a practice heel. I now have the hang of doing the short row stuff and am looking into how to keep the gaps at bay (the knit side looks great but the purled side is, um, lacy).

In the meantime, I found a pattern for baby's first sweater. The Baby Yoda Sweater is described as "a simple, quick to knit wrap sweater for babies newborn to six months...knit in soft, machine washable yarn of 100% cotton (Young Jedis prefer natural fibers, you know. Acrylic interferes with the force.)". The original pattern used Mission Falls 1824 Cotton and since I've had mixed results with substituting yarns, I will be using it as well. Rather than the grey of the original, our baby will have the Little Miss Mace Windu version in Lilac. :) The yarn arrived in today's mail and I worked out the gauge this evening so I expect to get started on the sweater some time this weekend.

Oh! I'm also anxiously awaiting the arrival of Natural Knits for Babies and Moms: Beautiful Designs Using Organic Yarns. It may persuade me to use the organic cotton yarn that I purchased almost a year ago.