to the limit

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09-tanie-gwen

Well we’re really getting down to the wire here folks. Today I’m 38 weeks and 5 days pregnant, which is PRACTICALLY 39 weeks which is PRACTICALLY 9 months. Am I done now? Can I be done? I mean after this last week of work though. I have been super anxious that the baby would come early and mess with all my carefully-laid plans but I saw my obgyn last Friday and she said I was 1cm dilated and not effaced at all so I relaxed a bit. Then on Sunday afternoon *SORRY TMI ALERT* I lost my mucous plug and I kind of had a nervous giggle fit about it? For like an hour haha. With Sym that happened on a Saturday afternoon and on Saturday night my water broke, and with Gwen it happened a few days before I went into labour. God babies are so mysterious; you never know WHAT sort of shenanigans they are gonna get up to. All my research has told me is that if that happens (which it might not) you will probably go into labour either immediately or within two weeks, which is super helpful, with the most average amount of time being 3-5 days. So let’s hope for five? I’m seeing the doctor again on Thursday afternoon and she’s going to TMI ALERT AGAIN sweep my membranes so I like really really hope I will have a baby this weekend! Or maybe mid next week so I have a chance to go to Ikea and look at all the new stuff first. Priorities, okay?

ANYWAY the Sunday event really lit a fire under my (and Taylor’s) ass to finish up the last few baby-related things, like sorting out the EXCESSIVE amount of Gwen’s stuffies that were filling the baby’s crib, getting the rest of the baby stuff out of our storage room, and finally reading the instruction manual on the automatic baby formula machine Taylor’s moms got us. I am really, really, really hoping it works well as mixing up bottles of baby formula is such a pain in the ass but as someone without other options for keeping my babies alive, it’s a pain in the ass with which I must live. Remember when I was preg with Gwen and went to see the fancy head doctor at the special breastfeeding clinic for boobs and she was like “DO NOT EVEN TRY TO BREASTFEED, YOU WILL DO YOURSELF AN INJURY AND MAKE YOUR BABY CRY, PROB DON’T BOTHER PUMPING EITHER,” that was a pretty great day for me, filled with vindication. I was actually so relieved I broke down crying and the doctor thought I was upset that I COULDN’T breastfeed haha. TRULY THE OPPOSITE, MA’AM.

One thing I have not done yet that I am dreading is packing my hospital bag. I just like, really hate doing it? I don’t have many clothes that fit me right now and I’m pretty loathe to pack them up for how??? long??? And in all likelihood I’m only gonna be in the hospital for a day or two so I also don’t wanna buy like a toothbrush and deodorant to bring with me. It just seems like a waste! And my pillow! The hospital pillows are awful so when you take the maternity ward tour they are like “you should prob bring your own pillow” but I need it to sleep at night! So far all I have is mini bottles of shampoo and conditioner, a scrubby puff, and a bag of lollipops. Idk, maybe I will just make a really good list and pack only when I absolutely have to. It’s not like the hospital is far from here (I google mapsed it last time, it’s literally a two-minute walk).

Unrelated to baby: last week I finally got these new super cool iridescent blue-green crystals I ordered way back in mid-August and the first tiara made with them is available in the shop here.
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38 + 1

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Here is me yesterday at 38 weeks pregnant. I am SO RELIEVED to be SO CLOSE to the end of this pregnancy, like idk if I’ve mentioned it but it has been very physically taxing (jk I know I have talked about it basically NON STOP oh well). Right now the hardest part is I am often too tired and sore to play with Gwen or take her out places and I have a lot of guilt about it. Yesterday when I finished work she really wanted to go outside to play and I was like “mum’s too tired” but then I think she didn’t burn enough energy during the day and had an atrocious sleep last night. It’s hard though because going out for big adventures (ie walking two blocks to the church playgroup one morning a week) with her PLUS the daycare kids pretty much kills me, and by the end of the day I’m usually also killed even if we’ve only gone for small outings.

A friend of mine said yesterday this seems like the Longest Pregnancy Ever and igss I have been pregnant ALL YEAR but tbh it has pretty much flown by THANK GOODNESS.

Also yesterday I ran into an acquaintance I hadn’t seen in months and she was like “wow you’re having another! when are you due?” and when I said “in two weeks!” she replied “but you’re so small!” and in spite of what the above pic shows I really really am! I feel like after I give birth I will weigh less than I did in January because THE BABY ATE MY BODY. It makes me wonder how big the baby will be, like with Sym I gained about 30 pounds and she weighed 6lb7oz and with Gwen I only gained 19 and she was 8lb2oz (or maybe 4oz? is it bad I can’t remember?). I don’t actually know what I weighed before I got preg this time so I don’t know exactly how much I’ve gained but I know it’s not a lot.

My wedding ring still fits???

My belly button hasn’t fully popped out yet, maybe like 1/2 or 1/3 popped but not the whole way.

We still can’t think of a middle name to go with the girl’s name we have picked, like we are not even close. Of course we didn’t settle on Gwen’s name until she was a few days old so it’s not really a big deal.

I still have no idea if this baby is a girl or a boy. People always ask and when I say I don’t know they like commend me for my brave decision to keep it a secret/surprise? lol I just have an uncooperative baby and I don’t care that much what form it takes, I’m just happy to have gotten any baby.

Including today I have 6 more days of work left (pray for Tanie that the baby does not make an appearance before those days are up).

splish splash

First of all, I just want to say thank you to everyone who reached out to me after my last post, I really appreciate all your messages and comments. And for what it’s worth, I don’t actually think I’m shitty or a bad mom, I’m just tired of people’s reactions making me feel like I am? Plus writing all that out was pretty cathartic and now I’m just like… I’M OVER IT.

Anyway. Before lunch today I took Gwen to the wet, rainy park to break in her new boots & coat. Of course, by the time we made it outside it had stopped raining, and then when it started raining again the sun had also come out so it was steaming hot. IDEK, what even is weather?

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She found this one small puddle to jump in and I couldn’t get her out of it.

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Gwen’s coat is from the Gap, her boots are Hunters.

Put Up or Shut Up

little-gwen

When you are pregnant people ask you a lot of questions about your baby plans. Some of these questions are pretty innocuous (“when are you due? is the baby a boy or a girl? do you have any names picked out?”) and some are way too intrusive (“are you planning on breastfeeding?” FROM TOTAL STRANGERS, like no I don’t care to discuss my boobs with you), but no question has come to inspire more dread in me than “when are you stopping working?”

In Canada we have 50 weeks of paid maternity leave. I assume many people take it, at least some of it. I took it with Sym and I took it with Gwen, and everyone expects I will be taking it with this baby. But the thing is, I’m not. I’m using my vacation days to take the first two weeks of October off work and basically keeping my fingers crossed (and my legs uncrossed?) and hoping this baby is born during that time because I really don’t want to stop working at 9 months pregnant and start working at 9 1/2 months pregnant. Based on my previous births (Sym 4 days early and Gwen right on her due date) and the fact that this baby just FEELS like they are gonna be ready on time, I’m pretty confident that I have nothing to worry about. I have to be, because what else can I do?

But when I tell people about my plan, the look they give me is just like… SHOCK and HORROR and DREAD, like I’ve said I’m planning on idk, having my baby in a public bathroom and leaving it in the trash? Like not taking maternity leave is literally the most appalling thing people can think of. They always shriek “WHAT???? HOW IS THAT EVEN GOING TO WORK?????” like people have never had a baby and then gone back to work soon after. Newsflash: people do it all the time! And there are lots of different reasons why they might do it. Maybe they really love their career. Maybe their partner is going to stay home with the baby while they work. Maybe they don’t have a choice. Maybe life costs money and they can’t afford to stop working for a year, or even a month.

Something people might not know about Canada’s 50 weeks paid maternity leave is that the government doesn’t just give you your whole annual salary in a shower of loonies and toonies. The benefit is 55% of your regular income. So like… cut your paycheque basically in half, and add diapers (and in my case, formula) to your monthly expenses. You still have to pay all your bills, your rent or mortgage, loan or credit card payments, car payments, whatever. Everything you were paying before, but do it with half the money. Or depending on your income, less than half, because there is actually a maximum amount the government pays, and it’s $537 a week. When I took my maternity leave with Gwen I was getting nowhere near the maximum amount, and were I to take it this time I’d be getting even less, and here’s why:

I’m self-employed. As a self-employed person I am eligible to take paid maternity leave, because I’ve opted into it. But since I don’t have a paycheque from an outside employer to base my payments off of, instead they calculate it based on my net income from my previous year’s tax return. Gwen was born in late 2012 so they calculated my maternity leave benefit off my 2011 tax return. In 2011 I was working a lot and earned a pretty ok amount of money, but for this baby my benefits would be calculated using my 2015 return and let’s just say… it would not be a lot. It basically wouldn’t be anything. So while TECHNICALLY I can take the time off, I can’t afford to take the time off, and unless people are keen to give me many, many, many tens of thousands of dollars to live off of for the next year I would appreciate it if they would shut up. Actually not even the next year, the next year plus however long it would take me to once again rebuild my business from nothing. Because if I take a year (or even a few months) off work, I will lose all my clients and when I start working again I will have to find brand new ones. So let me reiterate: unless you want to give me all your money, I don’t want to hear your opinion on my not taking time off of work. Tbh I probably don’t want to hear your opinion anyway so maybe just keep your mouth shut while your hand over that cheque/click that paypal link, mkay?

The other thing people like to bring up when I say I’m not taking leave (and I think this one is very stupid) is HOW am I going to keep working at my job when I’m up all night with a newborn baby?!?!?! I will never get any sleep! It will be so hard! Obviously as an almost-40-year-old-woman having her third child I have no idea what I’m doing! I’m dumb, so fucking dumb! Well. Here’s how I’m going to work at my job when I’m up all night with a newborn: I’m not. After the baby is born Taylor is going to work from home for a few months, and since he works nights he will be awake and available to tend to baby needs while I’m sleeping. How do I know this? BECAUSE IT’S EXACTLY WHAT WE DID AFTER GWEN WAS BORN. When we had her Taylor took a week? two weeks? off work entirely, and then worked from home until January. I got 8-9 hours of sleep every night and there was actually only one time when he had to wake me up to look after Gwen , and that happened at like 6am anyway. It worked for us before, and it’ll work for us again, and even if I do sometimes have to get up during the night and then work the next day like… ok? Like millions people before me, parents and non-parents alike, I will suck it up and do my job while I’m tired, wow, what a novel concept.

Do I sound bitter about this? I’m sure I sound bitter, and the reason why is yet another reason I wish people would stop judging me for not taking time off after having this baby: because I’m already judging myself enough, thanks. I feel super guilty about it all the time. I’ve cried about it. Hell, I cried about going back to work when Gwen was one because I didn’t go back to work until Sym was three and I felt guilty that I couldn’t take that much time off for Gwen as well. So how do you think I feel, knowing that I can’t really take ANY time off with this baby? I feel like a piece of shit, and the only way I can make it through most days is to try to stay positive and confident and believe that my plan, our plan, the plan my husband and I came up with because ours are the only opinions and concerns that matter, will work and I’m not going to ruin my baby’s life. So when I have people act all horrified and disapproving that in their opinion I’m making the wrong choice it is pretty much devastating because I am already devastated. So like congrats on making a pregnant woman cry? Nice work.

And like… obviously I can’t KNOW that everything will work out. There are a lot of unknowns when you have a baby. Sure, I don’t know the baby’s sex or the exact day they will be born, but I also don’t know if they will have a serious health problem that hasn’t been detected, or if they will have special needs. I don’t know if they will be a very colicky baby who cries all the time and no one will get any sleep. Like you can plan for things but life doesn’t always agree with those plans. I don’t know that I won’t go into labour right now. I don’t know that everything is gonna be okay and the truth is NO ONE DOES. We just have to believe things will work out and they probably will, maybe not exactly according to plan but we all just do our best with what we have (and if what you have is lots of money please feel free to send it my way).

september

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I read a quick little article the other weekend about how the Friday before, August 26th, was it for summer weather in Vancouver and WOW was it ever true. Since then it’s been cloudy & rainy on and off, and even when it’s sunny the air has that fall crispness to it. It really seemed to happen overnight but speaking as one who is eight months pregnant, I can’t really say I’m mad about getting a break from the heat.

Today is the first day of school and Sym has been up since 7am complaining that she doesn’t want to go. But like. It’s ONE HOUR today. All she has to do is show up at homeroom at ten, have her attendance taken and pick up her schedule (istg if they have stuck her in wack electives again this year I’M CRACKING SKULLS) and then she can come home. Actual classes don’t even start until tomorrow, and LET ME TELL YOU I’m really looking forward to that complaining session.

Taylor and I (and Gwen) spent most of the weekend working on getting the house ready for baby. We put together the crib, I sorted out and washed all the teeniest-tiniest baby clothes, we threw out a bunch of old junk that had been cluttering up the place and took some things out to storage. After we put the crib in place Taylor looked at it and was like “wow, shit is really getting really now” and I’m just like OH MY GIANT EIGHT MONTH BABY BUMP DIDN’T TIP YOU OFF?? Honestly. Anyway having gotten some of this work done I’m feeling a little better about the FOUR AND A HALF WEEKS we have left until baby comes, although we still haven’t received the toy shelf I ordered and so most of Gwen’s toys are in a heap in the baby’s crib, haha. It’s fine, the baby won’t really be using it right away, we still have time. That is the new mantra around here btw: IT’S FINE, WE STILL HAVE TIME.

five faves

ooak nursery illustration by The Disaster Life
ooak custom nursery illustration from The Disaster Life

Happy long weekend Friday! After realizing I was a whole week more pregnant than I’d been thinking this weekend I REALLY want to get some stuff done in the little kids’ room: tidy up Gwen’s toys as best I can (& pray that shelf I ordered arrives sooner rather than later!), set up the crib, put up some of the artwork on the walls and most importantly, start getting out baby clothes so this little one has something to wear when s/he arrives in just over a month!

this week’s faves…

Gwen’s new look for rainy days this fall is gonna be a bright yellow rain coat with bright red rain boots*.

We already have too many mugs I feel like I could really use this bear one, and hey why not throw in a bear infuser too?

I really feel like the little kid’s room needs some custom artwork like the one above from The Disaster Life, oh and this weekend get 50% of orders from her shop with the code “laboryay”

One thing we still need to get for the baby is a special bedtime cuddly toy. I really like this little deer one but doesn’t seem to be available in Canada (or with reasonable shipping to Canada, I’m not about to pay £15 shipping on a £14 toy).

The other weekend we got this faucet cover for our bathtub and Gwen LOVES it, both the way the water pours out and the built-in, self-foaming bubble bath dispenser. She is so eager to have her bath after dinner now we actually have to be careful to make sure she doesn’t climb into the tub & turn on the water on her own.

*I wasn’t planning on getting Gwen new Hunters after she outgrew the secondhand pair my friend Katie sent her, but with a new baby on the way to accept hand-me-downs, well that’s enough of a reason for me!