1st Baby Class: CPR

Jen and I had our first class tonight, infant CPR. They recently revised the CPR procedure to 30 compressions and 2 breaths, then repeat. Turns out its the same sequence for infants, kids, and adults... the only thing different is how you do the compression. We got to practice on some dummys. They also showed us how to handle a choking infant too. There were two other couples, with both expecting mothers near 30 weeks.

The class was good. My parents are taking a gardening class this month. It's interesting how there are some very practical classes, as opposed to the four or five years of college which did not often seem practical until you began to use it out in the real world. I wonder what difference it would make on high school or college graduate rates if a greater effort was made to show kids the relevancy of what they were learning. I know it made a big difference for me, but I had to go searching for the relevance.

On an amusing note, this morning I called a coworker at JPL to ask him a question. He answered his cell phone, listened patiently while I asked my quick question, and then replied that he probably couldn't help much since he was in the delivery room. Delivery room! I quickly got off the phone after wishing them good luck with their firstborn. Who answers their phone there, especially since he probably knew it was me calling?! Later during the telecon today everyone was laughing because this guy keeps calling people to check on some things around the office, and we're all like, dude, go have a baby!

I laugh now. I'm sure when our time comes this summer I'm going to be completely wired and will do some amusing things too.

Full Throttle

I had a fabulous weekend. Flying and more flying.

Saturday, I got to sleep in to start the morning. I was kind of bummed because it was really rainy out, and I thought my flying lesson was going to get canceled. However, shortly after noon the clouds started to break. It was looking good, so I headed out to the airport. Things cleared up just enough for my second stalls lesson. I did power-off stalls (pull the throttle out to idle and then pitch up until the nose drops), turning stalls (same as power-off, but banking while doing it), and power-on stalls (slow way down and then push the throttle all the way in and pitch up). According to everything I’ve heard, most people are more uncomfortable with power-on stalls, because you have to pitch the nose way, way up to get the stall and you’re lying on your back with nothing but sky in the windscreen. I didn’t have any trouble with those, though. I’m not so good at the turning stalls, because once I bank I forget to keep pulling back. :P

Anyway, it was especially cool because there were broken clouds at about 2000 ft, so we’d go hunting for a large hole in the clouds to do a stall in. Then we’d do one or two in there and go find another one before ascending again.

Then Sunday, I got to go again. This time the weather was crystal clear, if a bit windy. More stalls, steep turns, instrument work, and a slip. And a very messy landing. My favorite from this lesson - steep turns! 1.5 Gs for 360 degrees! Very, very fun.

Flashback #9

October 23, 2006 8:00 PM

I went to the doctor today, expecting just an exam. Instead we ended up with a picture of our baby!



It’s pretty early for an ultra-sound, but it was so unbelievable to get this visible evidence of the thing that’s making me nauseous, bloated, and sleeping 10 hours every night. Baby doesn’t look much like a person yet, but I think s/he’s beautiful.

I’ve been feeling pretty good so far. No vomiting episodes, yet! Gavin is highly amused by the fact that pregnancy and flatulence are related. He doesn’t even have the grace to pretend to blame it on the dogs...

Buzz

My computer at work has a fan issue. It is loud. It is annoying. And because it doesn’t affect the actual functioning of the computer, I have no idea when it will get fixed. I just called to check up on the ticket and got “I can’t say when he’ll be able to get there, but I can call and tell him you called to ask.”

It’s not so bad for me - I won’t be in the office much over the next couple days. I feel pretty bad for my office mates, though. I could just turn the machine off, except all my e-mail folders are stored on the hard drive because there isn’t enough room on the network drives for e-mail. So, if I turn my desktop off, I can’t get to my personal folders.

On a related note, I just took our IT training for 2007. One particular section struck me. There’s an entire new section in the training module about backing up your computer, and how you’ll lose everything in your hard drive fails and your computer isn’t backed up. It kind of says “don’t come crying to us.”

I think I should wait another 6 months and then pluck the huge stack of CDs I’ve been using to backup my data down on somebody’s desk in IT. And ask, are you really saving money?

Not so Itsy Bitsy

I must have woken up 20 times last night. I worked about an hour more than I put on my timecard Friday, so I was feeling like I could be a bit late this morning. I finally dragged myself in to work this morning at 9:45 AM, only to find that I have no access to e-mail or any external web sites. There’s not a whole lot I can do this morning without e-mail.

I’m a bit scared about the rest of this pregnancy. I’m already finding it hard to sleep well, digest food comfortably, etc. Last week I was so excited about reaching the halfway mark, but I’m already starting to think that 4 1/2 more months of getting bigger is a bit scary.

Sarah is swimming tonight, a type of exercise that’s really good for pregnant ladies. So, I decided to go with her. That necessitated finding a swim suit that I could wear, though. I found that I can still fit in to one of the ones that I have - mostly. I’ll be sporting a little sliver of bare belly. It also shows just how pregnant I really am. Another couple weeks may require some other solution.

Top 10?

The new version of Blogger has the ability to label posts. That's a feature I've found really useful on other people's blogs, so I'm going to try to go back and label all the old posts on this one. It will take a while. Hope somebody uses it. I guess at the very least I will use it someday to go back and read my ranting about different things.

I have this vague plan to create a "top 10" posts list for the categories. Off the top of my head, I'm thinking that the button incident probably takes first place. People still talk about it. He hasn't learned his lesson either. Just yesterday, for instance...

Gavin and Jen wait in the exam room for the OB/GYN to come in to do the ultrasound

Jen watches in fascination as Gavin examines and then very carefully pushes the red buttton on the light that the doctor uses to, well, examine people.

G: I was pretty sure that was a light.
J: What if it wasn't? What would you have done if it started whirring?
G: Turned it off - quickly.

20 Weeks

I have to admit to being slightly disappointed at today's ultrasound. It wasn't as impressive as the last one. I don't know whether that's due to the baby being in a worse position or just being bigger and not fitting all on the screen as much. I thought the last pictures were cuter, though. Maybe it's that I'm looking forward to 4 1/2 more months of the heartburn I've had for the last two days. Or maybe it's that the last time we had a lot of fun watching the kiddo litterally bouncing around my uterus. It looks a lot more cramped in there now. Can't imagine how much more so it's going to get before baby's born.

Anyway, the important part is that baby seems healthy and is growing right on schedule. This scan put my due date on June 5, one day before the one we had been told 12 weeks ago. Here's a "video" if you're interested. WARNING: 7+ MB file for 3 seconds of movement!

Baby M - 20 weeks

Flashback #8

October 4, 2006

Two lines.

For those of you who may be unfamiliar with First Response pregnancy tests, that means positive. I got that result last night after waiting as long as I could make myself. By the time I took the test, I was fairly sure it would be positive. I just knew. Of course, I have to go to the doctor tomorrow to get it officially confirmed. And, I’m still nervous that he’ll tell me I’m imagining things. That the second pink line was too light and I’m not actually pregnant. That the bloating is pre-menstural rather than pre-natal. I couldn’t actually be pregnant, could I?

It seems so surreal. We’ve been trying for so long, and now all of a sudden I’m pregnant. I don’t feel any different yet. Well, I feel different, but it’s all the same kind of stuff that I’ve felt before that just turned out to be PMS.

The secret blog is going to be going on for a while yet, as I don’t think we’re going to tell anyone except family for a couple months. It’s a good thing, though, that I’ve been shunning alcohol on and off for months, though, because nobody even batted an eye when I didn’t drink wine at fish night tonight. Wonder how long that will last.

Pam

Note to self:

Must remember this for when the time comes....

Look What We Bought

Confidential

I had an interesting day at work today. Unfortunately, I can’t talk about it much. But, let’s just say that I ended up on the 8th floor of a 9 floor building where you can pretty much assume that the higher up you go, the more important people you’re talking to. I also know that people in other places had to go up to their “8th floor” and tell their bosses about the same thing.

It’s a three day weekend this week, and we don’t have anything special planned. We should really do something. Anyone interested in a “game afternoon” on Monday? Gavin, Becca, and I learned how to play Puerto Rico on New Year’s Eve, and I really enjoyed it. Or we could go back to the old standbys.

Flashback #7

October 1, 2006 10:03PM

So, long time, no baby news. Since the last time I wrote, we went to Patagonia, Gavin spent 4 months in California, and I worked two Shuttle missions. I was under so much stress before STS-121, that my body celebrated basically declaring a forced moratorium on baby making for a month. I won’t gross my male readers out with the details, but take my word for it that there was no chance of getting pregnant that month. All this combined in such a way that the chance of getting pregnant any time in the last 8 months was vanishingly small.

Now, with everyone living in Houston again and no trips in company during the critical week, we’re in waiting mode again. Even though we haven’t been able to try like we’d like for the last half-year-plus we’ve been getting frustrated as we’ve been at this for a year. So, I broke down and started using the pee sticks to detect ovulation. As a result I know that with a 14 day cycle between when the pee stick says I probably ovulated, I am 1-2 days late.

It’s probably nothing. We’ve had enough disappointments at this point that I’m not rushing out to buy a pregnancy test yet. I’ll give it a couple more days. And think about it the whole time.

Ballooning

One of the new outfits I bought to accommodate my growing belly is a dress that has an empire waist with elastic under my chest. I wore it yesterday for the first time. I might as well have worn a sign that said “Hey, if you didn’t know yet I’M PREGNANT”. It was very obvious. In fact, I think it emphasized my belly to the point that it looked like I was due in a couple months rather than 5.

So today in a much more de-emphasizing button down shirt, before I can even sit down at the table for lunch, Sarah asks “Jen, what did you wear yesterday?” Apparently it was a topic of conversation before I got there. What can I say? Although I do admit, I think that the thing shrank a bit in the wash because I don’t remember it being quite so short when I tried it on in the store. I’ll have to remember not to bend over when I’m wearing it.

Top Bunk

I was going to post another baby blog flashback today. However, I realized that the next thing that should have been blogged about, wasn't blogged about at the time. So, I'm going to write about it now.

In mid-February of last year, we were setting off for another South American adventure with Becca, Sarah, and Karen. With Gavin set to go to California basically as soon as we returned to the USA, we had one more shot at getting pregnant before he went. Of course, the four most likely days for conception were the day we flew to Buenos Aires and the three following. Maybe this fact being at the forefront of our minds is enough of an explanation for what happened next.

We dutifully arrived at the airport 2 1/2 hours early for our international flight. As a result, we had tons of time to sit down and eat a high-quality airport dinner after getting checked in and through security in about 45 minutes. It was a very interesting meal. It started with Gavin and I finding out that Sarah and Jose were actually, officially dating. (But he wasn't her boyfriend yet!) With that auspicious start to our dinner conversation, it's probably no wonder that things got a bit racy.

Anyhow, to the best of my recollection, the conversation went something like this. I may have some details off...

G: So, which nights are we getting our own room?
B: Well, you'll have your own room in Buenos Aires. And I think in El Chaltan, too. I'm not sure about the hostels in Torres del Paine. I think we'll be in bunk beds.
G: Well, if we are I call top bunk.
J: It's OK, Gavin. Even if we're not in bunk beds, I'll give you top bunk anyway.
S: *BLINK*
B: Well, I think they'll be bunk beds.
S: TMI, TMI!
J: *Laughing harder since B still doesn't get it*
B: Oh...

And thus, "Top Bunk" Mendeck was born. I wish I'd remembered to write about it while it was still fresh, but all the awesome stuff we saw over the next couple weeks kind of put it out of my head.

Rude Welcome Back

I've had a rude welcome back to work this week. I had two simulations that were pretty tough. They were both 4 hour morning deals. This meant that after two weeks of working graveyard shifts, and one and a half weeks where I shifted back to a late morning schedule (sleep 1 AM to 10 AM - or later), I had to come in two days in a row at 7 AM. And then I get out at between noon and 1PM, eat a very late lunch, and then feel wiped out for the rest of the day. You'd think that this would mean that I could cut out early today, but I have a meeting scheduled at 2 PM that I'm sure will go to 5 PM or beyond.

Now that Christmas is over, I'm starting to think about all the things we need to do before the baby comes in June. List so far...

1) Find day care (there's one at work, but the waiting list is years long)
2) Get a financial planner and reinvest all our money
3) Wills
4) Find a pediatrician
5) Take CPR and childbirth classes
6) Buy/acquire all the STUFF (furniture, feeding gear, clothing, etc., etc., etc.)
7) Set up maternity leave at work
8) Change life/health insurance

I’m sure there’s a bunch more. Whew.

the vindauga is back open

Sorry for not posting much over the holidays. I went back and put up 12 pictures for your enjoyment.

Flashback #6

January 3, 2006 10:25PM

Trying to get pregnant in December is not as easy a thing as one would think. What to do when you’re ovulating during the week you’re spending in your parents’ house? Pretty tough to keep up the proscribed every-day or every-other-day pace.

My sister was pretty sure she’d gotten pregnant this month, again. :) It’s pretty amazing how all the symptoms of pregnancy are also symptoms of PMS. Nauseous? You could be pregnant – or PMSing. Tired? Same thing. Sore boobs? You guessed it. So, basically all those woman hormones work the same way.