Pieces of Anna

How to choose a paint color: marital tragicomedy in three scenes

2018-01-30T23:13:00.002-05:00

SCENE 1

husband: I don't want any blue or gray colors. Our entire house is blue-gray. How about purple?
wife: Purple wouldn't go with anything in our house. How about turquoise, like in our hallway?
husband: Hmm, let's consider it.

SCENE 2

Husband comes home from a paint store with paint swatches: shades of blue-gray-purple.

SCENE 3

wife: But... what about turquoise?
husband: You ALWAYS say NO to EVERYTHING!
wife: <temporarily loses her mind>

Bedroom remains unpainted for three more years.

Two Years

2017-05-25T15:09:00.001-04:00

Two years ago, on the night of Monday, May 25th, 2015, I had a dream. I was driving from Boston to Bangkok to see my dear friend. I was following another car, which my friend's sister-in-law and twin brother were driving. Many people were coming to the same place in Bangkok to see my friend. By the time I got there, there was already quite a crowd. I was in the back of the crowd, and I saw my friend standing in the front with his wife, facing the people who came. It was hard for me to see him, as if he was a little bit out of focus. Then I saw a little boy, about 2 years old, standing next to me. He looked just like my friend.

I woke up at 3 am, with intense pain on the left side of my neck, and all the muscles in my body were very tense and stiff.

The next evening, I found out that my dear friend had died in a horrific rock climbing accident on May 25th. It turned out that he fell, head first and slightly to the left, and sustained fatal injuries. Much later, I also found out that his wife was pregnant. My dream was entirely too prescient.

I miss him every day. I will remember him always.

Birth Story

2015-02-17T21:57:00.001-05:00

It only took me 1.5 years to write this birth story...

Good thing I didn’t have time to write down my birth plan because it would have gone out the window from the start.

I woke up on Wednesday morning when D kissed me goodbye. As soon as he left for work, I realized that my underwear felt wet. We were in the middle of an August heat wave, so I assumed that I had sweated through my underwear. But then it occurred to me that maybe my water had broken. There was no gush, and I felt no contractions, so I was not convinced.

Making the decision to keep going about my day, I took a shower and got dressed to go to work. Then, I made the mistake of consulting Dr. Google. The internet attacked me with scary factoids about the risk of infection, and I decided to call my doctor JUST IN CASE.

After describing my symptoms, I was told to come in to check for amniotic fluid. Still clueless, I asked if I could go to work. “No,” said the nurse. Completely convinced that this was a false alarm, I called D. “So, don’t freak out, but it’s possible that my water broke, and I have to go to the doctor’s office to confirm. It’s probably nothing, so no need to come home at this point.” He quietly pretended not to freak out.

I called my boss and told her that my water may have broken, I wasn’t coming in that day, and I would keep her posted. Little did I know that my coworkers were planning a surprise baby shower for the following day. Surprise! My baby was too impatient to wait another month until her due date.

Off to the doctor’s office I went, completely convinced that they would tell me to go home and wait for contractions to start. The nurse did three tests to confirm the presence of amniotic fluid. Two tests came back positive and one was inconclusive. I held on to that inconclusive result as my last hope that this wasn’t actually happening. So I was surprised to hear the nurse tell me to head to the hospital, where they would be expecting me.

Going to the hospital seemed ridiculous to me as I was having no contractions at all. Nevertheless, I called D and told him to get home because we had to leave for the hospital. He drove home in record time and immediately proceeded to freak out. He insisted on packing a bag and throwing our as-yet uninstalled car seat in the trunk, while I protested that we would just be sent home from the hospital to wait for contractions. Still, I agreed to take some things with us JUST IN CASE.

D had memorized three different routes to the hospital, but the one he chose that day was blocked by construction, and he had to improvise. Good thing I wasn’t riding over bumpy roads during a contraction! We got to the hospital by 2 pm and made our way to the triage room on the labor and delivery floor. As the nurses checked me in, we found out that the baby was head down (I suspected as much from all the kicks to the rib cage), sunny-side up, and I was 80% effaced and 1 cm dilated.

Then, we were told that we were assigned a room and we should get set up there. Um, WHAT? What happened to the whole concept of waiting until contractions were five minutes apart and one minute long before calling the hospital, as we were taught in our childbirth class? As I remained in denial, I told the nurses about the inconclusive amniotic fluid test. They were confused but agreed to do another test that was going to be 100% definitive. My hopes of going home were crushed when that test came back positive.

We checked into our room, a room with a gorgeous view of the Charles river. While we were admiring the view, more surprises came our way. The doctors gave me 12 hours from the time my water broke to wait until the start of contractions. If labor didn’t start by then, I would be induced via a pitocin drip. I was already expecting that, but what came as a surprise was that I wouldn’t be “allowed” to eat after starting pitocin. Um, hell no. I had done my research and concluded that the reasons for not allowing a laboring woman to eat were completely bogus. Also, denying a woman in labor nourishment must be some sort of medieval torture – if anyone needs the energy to keep going, it’s a woman in labor!

It was almost 2 pm by then, and I had only eaten breakfast. Pitocin drip was scheduled to start by 7 pm, and I was ready to eat a cow by then. We technically weren’t supposed to leave the hospital, but our wonderful nurse said “You didn’t hear it from me, but…” She recommended a good sandwich place down the street. Before we could leave, though, the nurses had to put the IV needle with a heparin lock into my arm. Later, it would be used for the pitocin drip, but meanwhile, I was to be administered antibiotics for Group B strep, JUST IN CASE I had it (my test for it was scheduled for the following day, so we didn’t know my GB strep status, which turned out to be negative).

I’d never had an IV before (except maybe during my two major surgeries in childhood, but I was knocked out for those), but I knew that phlebotomists always had a hard time finding my veins for blood draw. What I didn’t know, however, is that apparently I have “bumpy veins.” That means that the nurses blew up three of my veins before finally calling in an IV specialist. Her name was Joan, and she was a little old lady who was all business. I warned her about my “bumpy veins” and she replied that she had been doing this for thirty years, and I should lie down and give her my arm. Two seconds later, she was done.

Four new holes later, I was ready to blow that joint and get some lunch. We called it our jailbreak. It was a sight to behold: a hugely pregnant woman, with a highly conspicuous white sleeve over the heparin lock and hospital tags on the wrists, walking around the city. We made our way to the deli, ordered our food, and ate our delicious sandwiches in the park by the river. We were in no rush to get back to the hospital since I wasn’t feeling any contractions, so we decided to keep walking along the river to try to get things moving.

Jailbreak

The temperature was in the 90s, so despite the beautiful view, it wasn’t the most pleasant walk. Still, it was better than being stuck in a hospital room. We were out for so long, that the doctors started calling our cell phones and suggesting that maybe we should get back to the hospital. It was around 5 pm, and I was in no mood for pitocin. As a last-minute stalling tactic, I suggested that we install the car seat “while the car is parked in a nice, level hospital parking lot.” D agreed, and we proceeded to install the car seat. By “we” I mean that D was doing all the installing, and I was standing around looking hugely pregnant and providing useless suggestions.

With the car seat installed, and no contractions in sight, I was all out of stalling tactics, so we headed back to our room. By 7 pm, the pitocin drip was started. The initial dose was very low, and the nurse was to increase it every half an hour or so, depending on progression. Nothing was happening for a while, and we were getting bored. So, we decided to start a salsa party. D turned on the salsa station on Pandora, and we began to dance. It was a bit cumbersome (you try doing the right turn with an IV drip in your arm and two fetal monitors on your round belly), but it definitely cheered us up. Despite the excellent soundproofing of the labor rooms, we must have been making a lot of noise because our nurse came to check on us and wondered what on earth we were doing. I said that we were having a salsa party, to which she replied that I was clearly not in labor and she upped the pitocin.

There was a change of nurses at some point as our nurse’s shift came to an end. The new nurse was not nearly as friendly, but she knew what she was doing and mostly left us alone, which was fine by me. Sometime around 11 pm (still no contractions), the nurse became concerned because one of the fetal monitors was indicating some fetal distress. She turned off the pitocin and monitored the situation. The real situation wasn’t fetal distress, though. It was maternal distress. More specifically, I was getting hungry and the hospital cafeteria wasn’t allowed to give me food. We did sneak in some granola bars into the hospital during our jailbreak, but they didn’t seem appealing to me. In the greatest irony of the hospital rules, my husband was allowed to order food for himself (this was included in our stay). I told him to order enough for two, and when the nurse left our room, I snuck some of his dinner into my hungry belly. The fetal monitor went back to normal.

The pitocin was restarted around midnight, and this time, the contractions kicked in almost immediately. D fell asleep on the “partner” chair while I dealt with the waves of contractions. Immediately, it became clear to me that lying on my back was uncomfortable. I was having back labor and the only tolerable position was being on all-fours, or some variation of bending forward. The nurse came in, saw me breathing through a contraction, and told me to get some rest. She said that this was the easier part, and I would need energy for when the contractions would get more intense. But I couldn’t rest at all. Perhaps it was due to the pitocin, but my contractions were intense from the beginning. Yes, they got stronger and longer and more painful and closer together as the labor continued, but there was no way I could rest or sleep through any of it. Particularly because I hadn’t learned how to sleep on all-fours in my childbirth class.

The contractions were growing more intense, and more than anything, I wanted to get in the tub. But I was told that I couldn’t labor in the tub because my water had broken (turns out, that’s a bogus reason). Finally, my nurse suggested that I could stand in the shower as long as I kept the fetal monitors on my belly and did not get my heparin lock wet. I was happy to get in the shower to run water on my lower back, which provided a tiny bit of relief from my awful back labor. However, I still had to keep bending forward because any other position was intolerable, and this was causing the fetal monitors to slip off my giant, wet belly. D had to hold both monitors in place from outside the shower. To say that we were both stuck in awkward positions would be an understatement.

Meanwhile, the contractions were becoming REALLY intense and painful. And I couldn’t stand in the forward-bend position any more, my thighs were shaking by that point. It was probably around 3:45 am, which meant that I had spent almost four hours exercising my thigh muscles in that forward-bend position. I decided to get out of the shower.

In intense pain, I asked the nurse how much longer this was going to go on. What could she say? She replied that she didn’t know, and it’s possible that I’m only half-way there. I was crushed and doubted my ability to keep going without an epidural if this was the level of pain that I was experiencing only half-way through labor. I was very set on having as intervention-free birth as possible, and the pitocin was already undermining my plan. D reminded me of my epidural-free plan (as I had asked him to do in advance). The nurse offered the epidural, and I said no. However, we decided to have her check on my progress. The nurses weren’t checking on my dilation progress because my water had broken and they didn’t want to risk an infection. But it was time for me to know how far I had advanced.

I got onto the bed, on my back (ouch!), and the nurse checked my cervix. Surprised and delighted, she said: “You are nine centimeters dilated! You’ve been working hard, kiddo.” Nine centimeters! That was the best news I got all night. I wasn’t halfway through labor, I was getting close to the end! That little bit of information gave me the extra jolt of energy to keep going.

It was around 4 am, and the nurse paged the OB on call to come in. The OB arrived, and suddenly I felt the unmistakable urge to push. In preparation for labor, I had read books and birth stories, and I was always frustrated to hear that one would just KNOW when it was time to push. How would I know? What if I didn’t know? But, now I get it. It wasn’t that I consciously made the decision to push. My body NEEDED to push, and I couldn’t stop it if I wanted to.

The concept of time became hazy. I was almost completely unaware of the people present in the room. It was dark, my glasses were off, and I had only one purpose in mind at that moment. I became vaguely aware of a small crowd of people near the entrance of the room, but I didn’t care about them in the least. (Turns out, they were residents and a pediatrician, and maybe some other people whose function I never learned.) I pushed with all my strength, but turned out my pushing wasn’t very effective. The nurse and the doctor guided me to direct my energy toward my belly, and spend less energy grunting. Somehow, I understood what they meant, and my pushes became more productive.

Suddenly, I felt enormous pressure, and blurted out: “I feel like this baby is going to come out of my ass!” Very ladylike, I know. The nurse replied: “Sounds about right.” A few more pushes (which had to go slow to avoid tearing), a burning sensation, and the head was out. Then the doctor told me I had to stop pushing, and she unwrapped two loops of the umbilical cord from around the baby's neck. One more big push, and at 4:26 am, after 35 weeks and 6 days of gestation, my daughter was born into the world.

That time when I was clueless

2014-06-04T23:49:00.000-04:00

The story in my family goes that I did not sleep through the night until I was three years old. Whenever that story would come up, I would chuckle and comment on how I must have been a difficult baby. That was before I became a mother. Now that I have a baby of my own, I wonder how my mother survived those three years (answer: she had lots of help from her parents as three generations lived under one roof).

The point is, before I had my baby, I was completely clueless about what it's like to be a mother. This was true even despite all the stories I'd heard about my own childhood, despite the stories my own friends shared with me. In the world of science, we talk about the known unknowns and the unknown unknowns. I thought I had prepared myself somewhat for the known unknowns by reading a ton about pregnancy and childbirth, by taking childbirth and breastfeeding classes, and by mostly avoiding extreme parenting books.

But then, there were the unknown unknowns. Which really could have been known to me if only I had paused to consider them. Why hadn't I educated myself about infant sleep, knowing that as a baby, I didn't sleep for longer than 40 minutes at a time? Why didn't I bother to read even a single book about breastfeeding when I knew that my mom had so much trouble with it, she couldn't do it for longer than three months?

I was so stupidly confident that breastfeeding would just work out that I was caught completely off-guard by those first few months. I have to preface this by saying that breastfeeding DID work out for us in the end, and I am so grateful for it, especially knowing what I know now about how difficult of an experience it could be and often is for many moms. But when my preemie daughter couldn't latch on in those first several crucial days, I didn't know that she would lose too much weight and then take a month to get back to her birth weight. When she finally did latch on, she showed strong preference for one breast over the other, and I had no idea that this would permanently make my milk supply lopsided, something that could have been prevented if I had known to pump the unfavorable side until the baby figured out how to nurse equilaterally. And when she suddenly started nursing for one hour at a time, eight times a day, at the age of one month, I almost lost my mind as I was unprepared for nursing being a full time job. If only I had educated myself about how common acid reflux is in premies, maybe we could have gotten treatment for my baby sooner, and both of us could have been less miserable.

When it comes to sleep, I was always playing catchup. It wasn't until I became a mother that I understood what continuous sleep deprivation is really like. When my daughter was six weeks old, I had a breakdown. In the haze of complete exhaustion, I mustered up enough determination to strap her into the carrier (the only way she would fall asleep) and leave the house. I walked to our neighborhood bookstore and headed for the parenting section. There I discovered a number of books about babies and sleep, all of them telling me that babies reach their peak fussiness at six weeks of age. A glimmer of hope appeared on the horizon... until I read that this only applies to full-term infants, and the peak fussiness for preemies occurs at six weeks after due date. I had four more weeks to go. Then I found a book that promised a fool-proof method of getting your fussy baby to sleep. (You can all laugh at with me now.) Apparently, I was supposed to be putting my baby on a strict nursing/napping schedule from day one, and then by six weeks, my baby would be sleeping through the night. The dictatorial tone of the book annoyed me, but in my desperation I decided that I had nothing to lose by trying to put my baby on a schedule as soon as possible. I marched home and didn't waste a second writing out a detailed schedule on the whiteboard on our refrigerator. I announced to anyone who would listen that from now on, we will be instituting a strict schedule for the baby, and no deviations were allowed under any circumstances.

There was a flaw in the plan, though. Turned out my daughter didn't think she needed to be on my made-up schedule, and she was going to be ~~not~~ sleeping on her own schedule, thankyouverymuch. I've learned since then to watch for my baby's cues and respect her internal clock that wires her to sleep at certain hours of the day, which have nothing to do with my desires. I've also learned a ton about infants and sleep and what I can expect in the coming months (the main thing being that once you think you have it figured out, it changes). So you could say that my two original big unknowns, sleep and breastfeeding, have since become "known" variables. But I can't help but wonder what unknown unknowns are not even on my radar as we approach toddlerhood and beyond.

Compartmentalized time

2014-05-03T22:38:00.001-04:00

Parenthood has redefined the concept of time for me in so many ways. In those early sleep-deprived, hazy weeks, the days seemed so long. Getting through the day was so challenging, that I could not fathom being able to get through weeks, months of caring for an infant. Eight months later, the days are still long (though much more manageable). But the months are very, very short. I cannot believe that my baby is approaching the one-year mark, and her first birthday will be here before we know it. She is closer to toddlerhood than to her newborn days, she is starting to wean (a whole other blog post), and she is growing up so quickly that I find myself scrambling to pause and commit to memory the wonderful, fleeting moments we share together now.

So, the cliche that the days are long but the years are short turned out to be true. But time has been altered for me in other ways as well. There are so many every day things that need to be done, items that need to be checked off the to-do list before I go to sleep, and freelance work to be completed before the deadline. In my pre-baby life, my time was structured. An eight-hour work day allowed me to focus on my work long enough to get into the groove of the project and get into the flow that led to an efficient completion of the task at hand. In other words, I had the luxury (yes, I think of an eight-hour work day as a luxury now) to allocate a significant amount of time to a project.

I miss being able to get into that rhythm, the "flow" mindset. My time has become compartmentalized by naps, nursing sessions, playtime, outdoors time, meals, and diaper changes. As a result, even things that I enjoy doing around the house, like organizing a closet, have been put on the backburner indefinitely. I never feel like I have enough time to complete a task in one go, and I don't give myself the freedom to leave a project half undone (the thought of having the closet innards spread out on the floor for 24 hours gives me the hives). And so, I end up not even starting on my to-do list because I am paralyzed by the thought of being unable to finish it.

This is not a unique problem. I have read plenty of advice (and there is SO much advice out there for new mothers, solicited or not) on being efficient and getting as much done as possible during nap time, etc. On a rare occasion, I do feel efficient, like I've accomplished something. But most of the time, shit just doesn't get done. Closets remain messy, blog posts remain unwritten, the pantry remains unpainted, and exercise remains a wishful thought. This is why I can only get my freelance work done at night, after everybody else goes to sleep. I know that I would have a couple of uninterrupted, quality hours to get my work done, and I am able to get in the flow. This is also why I continue to be sleep-deprived.

I haven't come up with a brilliant solution to this problem. If you are a parent, how do you manage to use your time efficiently? How do you get all the things done? Or, do you?

Cloth Diapers

2014-03-07T17:41:00.000-05:00

Before our daughter was born, we considered using cloth diapers instead of disposables. I did not know much about cloth diapering at the time, but I was inspired by this post at Young House Love. There is a ton of information out there on the different types of diapers, and there are even classes one could attend to learn about the different options. I found this 7-part video useful in figuring out what types of cloth diapers would best suit our family. Also, Amanda at Poppies and Ice-cream has a good overview of the cloth diaper options and some of the reasons for using them.

CHOOSING CLOTH DIAPERS

After educating ourselves about our options, we decided that we would go with the bumGenius Elemental All-In-One One-Size cloth diapers. We liked the ease of an all-in-one (AIO) diaper, since it requires no "assembly" or taking apart for laundry. We also liked that the insert inside the diaper was 100% organic cotton. I was also happy to find out that these diapers are made in the U.S. I found many reviews on the internet comparing the Elementals with other diapers, and people seemed to be generally happy with this diaper in terms of its performance (durability, no leaks, no blowouts, etc.). (Note that the Elementals were redesigned in February 2013, so any reviews written prior to that refer to the old version of these diapers. Here is a comparison of the old and new Elementals.)

This all sounded great to us, but we knew that these diapers, despite being one-size (the size is adjustable, as I will explain later), are too large for babies under 10-12 pounds. Since our daughter was a small 6-pounder, we knew we would have to figure out an alternative diapering solution until she grew enough to fit into the Elementals. We decided to start with disposable diapers and switch to cloth diapers when she was ready.

SWITCHING FROM DISPOSABLES

Well, I have to say, it was easy to get used to disposable diapers. So convenient to simply toss the soiled diaper, along with the disposable wipes, into the diaper pail and forget about it (at least, until the diaper pail starts smelling up the room)! But we ran into a problem. Our daughter developed a nasty diaper rash with every kind of disposable diaper and wipe that we tried, and we had to constantly battle this rash for three months. It was painful to see her red, raw bum every time I changed her diaper. We had to use a diaper rash cream at every diaper change, and even that helped only infrequently.

I suspected that her skin was sensitive to some chemicals, either in the diapers or the wipes (which are soaked in alcohol), or both. We brought this up to our pediatrician early on and asked if there would be any benefit to switching to cloth diapers in order to stop this rash. Our doctor told us that usually babies get a WORSE diaper rash with cloth diapers because they are less absorbent than disposables. This made us wary of switching to cloth diapers, but after three months of almost constant diaper rash, we didn't have much to lose (except a few hundred bucks, I guess). We took the plunge and purchased our Elementals. And wouldn't you know it, our daughter's diaper rash disappeared within days! We have been cloth diapering for three months now, and she only has an occasional, mild diaper rash that quickly goes away (usually on its own). I wish we would have switched to cloth diapers sooner.

SUPPLIES FOR CLOTH DIAPERING

Here is what we bought to get us started on cloth diapers. We ordered sixteen bumGenius Elemental diapers in four colors (four of each): grasshopper (green), butternut (yellow), light blue (twilight), and light turquoise (mirror). A couple of months later, we bought four more diapers because sixteen was not enough to get us through two days between laundry cycles.

We also bought cloth wipes (mostly Grovia, but also a few of the more expensive Thirsties), for a total of 30 count. We keep them in two Huggies wipe boxes that we already had from our disposables days.

Unlike the disposable wipes, the cloth wipes are dry. But wipes are more effective at their job if they are moistened. We chose not to use any special wipe solution (plenty are marketed out there for this purpose), and simply use water. We keep a small spray bottle filled with water near the changing table, and spray the wipes as necessary before use. We find that using cloth wipes is easy and convenient, since they go in the laundry together with the diapers and don't require and additional maintenance.

For storage of dirty diapers and wipes, we bought two Planet Wise wetbags in size large (one in Owl, and one in April Flowers). I know some people throw these in the laundry together with the diapers, but we wash them with the baby clothes load instead. We do this because the diapers go through a hot wash, and these bags are not designed to withstand repeated cycles of hot temperature (the lining that keeps the odors in can degrade over time). So we wash them on a cold cycle with other baby stuff.

USING CLOTH DIAPERS

After pre-washing the diapers according to instructions, the first thing we had to figure out was the sizing. AIO means that the diaper has snaps that adjust to three different size settings: small, medium, and large.

Small

Medium

Large

In theory, the small setting should fit babies 8-16 pounds, the medium is for 17-22 pounds, and the large is for 23-35 pounds. However, keep in mind, that these diapers are really too big for an 8-pound baby, and don't really fit well until 10-12 pounds because they are too bulky on smaller babies. Also, as the bumGenius FAQs mention, babies frequently change shape as they grow, so you may find yourself using a larger setting on a younger baby, or a smaller setting on an older one. When we started cloth diapering, our baby was about 11 pounds, and the small setting was too small for her. At 6 months, she is 14.5 pounds, and we have been using the medium setting almost the entire time so far (with an occasional need to use the large setting).

In addition to the three rows of snaps that adjust the size of the diaper, there are two rows of ten snaps that adjust its circumference in order to accommodate the varying shapes and sizes of babies. The nice thing about having two rows is that each row can be adjusted individually. For example, our baby has a smaller waist but chunky thighs, so we adjust the top row tighter than the bottom row (which makes the opening for the legs wider).

After figuring out the size, we had to deal with the absorbent cotton insert. At the largest size setting, the insert is fully unfolded, but at the other two size settings, it needs to be folded in some way.

Unfolded insert

Because we are using the diaper at the medium size setting, we have to fold the insert. We've tried several methods, keeping in mind that (according to bumGenius), it is better to fold the extra fabric toward the back for girls and toward the front for boys. Here is how we fold our inserts nowadays:

We take the extra fabric and fold it approximately in the middle, and then fold down toward the back of the diaper (which is on the right-hand size of this photo). We also tried folding it another way, but found that it created too much bulk in the back for a baby who spends much of her time lying on her back. In this alternative folding method, the extra fabric is tucked in under a fold toward the back of the diaper.

I should mention that all this folding is necessary because the insert is not removable, as it is sewn into the leak-proof cover.

We store our cloth diapers near the changing pad in a pretty box that I bought at Michaels. We used to use the same box for storing our disposables. Our changing pad and all diaper supplies are actually on top of a dresser that we use to store baby clothes (which makes diaper and clothes changes very convenient), so any extra clean diapers are stored in one of the dresser drawers (I can fit approximately 8 cloth diapers into the box). The dirty diapers are stored in a wetbag, which we used to hang on a hook off the side of the dresser. However, we found that opening and closing the bag released the odors into the room, and the odors lingered long enough to bother us, so we moved the wetbag out of the room. For now, it hangs on the handle of the bathroom door until we figure out something more permanent.

The dirty wipes and wet diapers go directly into the wetbag. Before throwing the soiled diapers in there as well, we spray off the poop into the toilet using a diaper sprayer that we installed into the plumbing of our toilet. Spraying the poop off the diaper helps minimize (if not eliminate) poop stains on the cotton insert. By the way, poop stains are just a reality of life when it comes to cloth diapers. If a clean diaper comes out of the wash stained, you can be sure that it is clean and sanitized. The stains can be easily removed by drying the diapers in the sun (the sun does an excellent job of bleaching the diapers), or by adding bleach to the wash cycle once a month.

One other thing I want to mention about using the cloth diapers is related to the diaper rash. On the few occasions that we've had to use a diaper rash cream with cloth diapers, we used the California Baby diaper rash cream because it is safe for cloth diapers. Most diaper rash creams contain petroleum jelly, which covers the cloth diaper insert in a layer of petroleum that causes the diaper to repel liquid instead of absorb it.

LAUNDERING CLOTH DIAPERS

Laundering the Elementals is a long process. The diapers are supposed to go through a soak cycle, a hot wash, and a rinse cycle. Because we have a front-load high efficiency washer, there is no soak cycle, so our first step is a full cold-water cycle with one scoop of detergent. We use Eco Sprout detergent (I like the smell of the Green Tea version), and we are quite happy with it so far. For the next step, the hot wash, we use two scoops of detergent. Along with the rinse cycle, it takes about 3.5 hours to wash the diapers. We then put the diapers in the dryer for 60 minutes on medium heat. Sometimes, that is enough to thoroughly dry the diapers, but sometimes we have to run the dryer for another 20 minutes.

The only minus I could mention about these diapers is that they take a long time to dry. And line-drying them takes forever (but does have the added sun-bleaching benefit if you happen to have a sunny day). In order to speed up the drying process, we separate the two layers of the diaper insert after the diapers come out of the wash, like this:

This definitely helps decrease the drying time. We also tried adding wool dryer balls to the dryer, as they are supposed to reduce drying time and reduce static. However, they were not reducing static or drying time, and instead were leaving wool strings all over the diapers and wipes, so we stopped using them.

TRAVELING WITH CLOTH DIAPERS

So far, we've done only day trips with cloth diapers, taking enough diapers with us to last the day. We usually put the dirty diaper into a ziploc bag while we are out and about. Someday, we might purchase a smaller wetbag for that purpose.

For the one week-long trip that we've done with the baby so far, we were not brave enough to take the cloth diapers with us. We used disposables instead, and of course the diaper rash came back almost right away. In the future, I think we will take cloth diapers with us if we travel somewhere where we can easily do laundry (for example, when visiting my parents).

ARE WE HAPPY WITH CLOTH DIAPERS?

Overall, we are really happy that we switched to cloth diapers. Not only does our baby no longer have a diaper rash, but we are also saving money in the long run, and we feel good about not contributing tons of plastic waste to the landfills. Yes, cloth diapering requires a bit more work than disposables (and certainly more laundry), but for us it is the right choice, and we plan to continue cloth diapering until our daughter is potty-trained.

WAHM

2014-01-14T22:25:00.001-05:00

Remember how I wrote about leaving my job and being a stay-at-home mom for the first year of my daughter's life? Well, things have changed a bit, and as of today, I am working from home as a freelance medical writer. Because I am still taking care of my baby full time, my freelance hours are very limited. Nevertheless, I believe this officially makes me a work-at-home mom!

This opportunity came about when my old company that I left after giving birth offered me to work for them on a freelance basis. This was back in November, and I was not ready then. But they contacted me again in December, and this time I was up for it. This was mostly due to the fact that my daughter was sleeping through the night. I know, I have that unicorn baby that started sleeping 11 hours at night at the age of 3.5 months. But don't hate me yet because she is going through the infamous 4 month sleep regression now, and we are no longer sleeping through the night!

Even though I am now sleep deprived again, I am very excited about starting my freelancing gig. For one, it will be a welcome change to exercise my brain muscle and think about non-baby related things. But also, it makes me feel that my career is no longer on hold, that there is some continuity to it. Lastly, it's always nice to have a little extra income, however small it may be.

Speaking of income: with this freelancing gig, I have accomplished something that I had never done before in my entire life. I negotiated my salary. I was offered an hourly rate that I felt was too low, given my experience, the fact that the company was reaching out to me rather than the other way around, and the fact that they had to make it worth my time, which I could otherwise spend sleeping. Feeling that I had the upper hand, and nothing to lose, I counter offered with a higher rate that I felt was fair. To my surprise, it worked! I got the rate that I wanted without further negotiations! This experience taught me a valuable lesson that I should have learned ages ago - it never hurts to ask.

With this freelance job, I am commencing a new balancing act of taking care of my baby full-time while also working part-time. I'm not the first to manage this, others have done this quite successfully, so I will learn from and be inspired by all the awesome moms around me. How are you maintaining the baby/work/home balance (if it can be called that)?

Baby Gear

2013-12-10T15:53:00.001-05:00

Before our baby was born, we started getting ready for her arrival by spending tons of money on baby gear. We managed to get the basics before her early arrival, and caught up on the rest later. Though it's misleading to say that we "caught up" as we are still hemorrhaging money on baby stuff on a regular basis (my credit card statements look like this: Target, Amazon, Amazon, Target, Target, Netflix, Amazon, Amazon, Target, Amazon, etc).

Here is my review of some of the "essential" baby items that we've purchased:

Baby gear

1. One of the first items that we purchased was a crib. Keeping in mind our color scheme for the baby room (white/gray/turquoise/yellow), we decided that we wanted a white crib with a modern look to it. I searched for a crib that was made of solid wood (to avoid potential fumes from glue used in MDF) and had extra storage (as we live in a small place and always lack storage space). After much research, we decided to go with Babyletto Mercer 3-in-1 crib in white. It has multiple levels for the mattress and converts into a daybed and a toddler bed. This crib is almost entirely made of solid wood, with the exception of the drawer, which is MDF. I made peace with that because this crib was already on the higher end of our price range ($400), and the other options that had the modern look to them and were 100% solid wood were much pricier. We are very happy with this crib, and the drawer provides the much needed space to store extra diapers and other supplies.

For the record, our baby didn't like sleeping in the crib for a long time. I think it felt too huge for her, after the tight comfort of the womb. We borrowed a bassinet from our friends, and she slept in it for about a month until she grew out of it.

2. We splurged on the crib mattress, as we decided to buy an organic mattress that didn't emit crazy fumes from the fire retardant treatments that are sprayed all over baby stuff. During pregnancy, I was like a blood hound, super sensitive to smells of any kind. We bought the Naturepedic Organic Cotton Lightweight Classic Crib Mattress, which is very firm and has the added bonus of weighing only 11 pounds, making sheet changes a breeze. We love this mattress, and our daughter has grown used to sleeping in the crib lately, so she seems happy to sleep on this mattress as well nowadays.

3. I was excited about crib sheets because there are so many beautiful options out there, and this was my chance to bring the yellow and turquoise/aqua colors into the baby room. Besides the colors, I also looked for something that was 100% cotton. We originally bought three crib sheets from Land of Nod: aqua, yellow with white dots, and blue waves. The sheets fit our crib mattress snug (like they are supposed to), and held up well through many washes. However, while these sheets are truly beautiful, I can't really say that they are very soft. That's one of the drawbacks to online shopping: you can't feel the texture of what you are buying. We resorted to putting a receiving blanket over the sheet to make a softer surface for our baby to sleep on. Since it is winter now, we bought another sheet that is flannel, and while it is quite plain, it is also very soft.

4. Funny story about the infant car seat: we bought it in July, but by the time I was admitted to the hospital for delivery, we still had not installed it. We had the presence of mind to throw it in the trunk of the car when we left for the hospital, and D ended up installing it right in the hospital parking lot the night before our baby was born. We bought the Chicco KeyFit 30 Infant Car Seat in Pulse for several reasons. It had good reviews, is known for easy installation (which turned out to be true), goes up to 30 pounds (in terms of baby weight, though I can't imagine lugging such a heavy baby around in a car seat), and has an infant insert, which turned out to hold our tiny baby pretty well. I am generally happy with our car seat. If I were to change anything about it, it would be to give it a larger canopy, but that's a very minor detail. The red color was D's choice, and while I wouldn't normally go for red, I must say that I ended up really liking this color.

5. When choosing a stroller, we kept in mind that it had to be lightweight, easy to fold down and store, and small enough to fit into the trunk of my not-very-big car. We decided that the easiest option for us in the beginning would be getting a stroller frame for the infant car seat. So far, it's been working out really well. The small footprint of this stroller has the added bonus of being easy to navigate on the city streets and in tight aisles of the grocery stores. It's also really easy to snap the car seat into the frame (there is no way to screw it up). The only drawback is that once our baby grows out of the infant car seat, we will have to get another stroller, but that could be a long way down the road since we don't have a big baby.

6. I had two criteria for choosing a diaper bag: one, it has to be practical, and two, it had to look good. Most diaper bags fit the first criteria but not the second. I read a lot of reviews on diaper bags, and it seemed to me that the biggest complaint was that the bags didn't fit all the things that the mamas wanted to fit into them. But as the reviewers listed all the things they tried to cram into the bags, I wondered why they need to carry SO MUCH STUFF with them! You might think that I was naive in my pre-baby way of thinking, but I have to say that the diaper bag I chose had those same complaints in the reviews, and yet I am very, very happy with its capacity and its appearance. The diaper bag I bought is the JJ Cole Swag Diaper Bag in Silver Drop, and I highly recommend it. Yes, it still looks like a diaper bag, but it looks stylish and doesn't break the bank.

7. About six weeks after our baby was born, I felt like I was going to go insane. We hadn't bought anything like a rock-n-play or a bouncer to put the baby in, and she was too small for any carrier at that time, which meant that the only way to keep the baby from screaming her head off was to carry her around everywhere. I learned to do everything one-handed: eat breakfast, fold laundry, make the bed (haha, just kidding! no one made the bed back then). But really, sometimes, I needed a break from being permanently attached to the baby. She was too big for the bassinet (which we used to put on the table in the kitchen and lay the baby in it so she could hang out with us during meals), and didn't want to stay in the crib or play by herself (we later got an activity mat with hanging toys, and she now enjoys independent playtime). So, we finally bought a bouncer. And the baby hated it. I think it's because she was too small for it at that time. I also hated it because it was a pain to assemble, and the vibrations and the tunes didn't even work. The defective bouncer went back to the store. A couple of weeks later, two months in, we bought a different bouncer: Fisher-Price Deluxe Bouncer in My Little Snugabunny. I went back and forth about whether to splurge on the MamaRoo bouncer, but in the end couldn't justify spending that much money on something the baby may or may not like, and something that would only be useful for a few months anyway. In any case, we lucked out with the bouncer we bought: she likes it, and takes really good naps in it during the day. And I use both hands to eat nowadays.

8. Ahh, baby wearing. I must say that I really enjoy it. Before I did any major research into baby carriers, I was mostly aware of two types: a wrap-type carrier and a structured carrier. Turns out, there are many more types of carriers out there. After reading about the many types, I decided that a soft-structure carrier was best for me. The Moby wrap intimidated me, and the slings appeared to unevenly distribute weight to one shoulder (though I never tried them, so this may not be true). I really wanted to invest in only one carrier that would last me a long time. Mostly, I heard about BabyBjorn and Ergo, so at first I wasn't even aware of other options. The reviews and experiences of other parents with these two carriers worried me - BabyBjorn appeared to cause back problems when the baby grew heavier, and the Ergo required an infant insert (which is very warm and would not work for us in the first, warmer months) until the baby was 12 pounds. The Ergo also seemed difficult to put on because it has a strap across the top of the back. I was looking for a carrier that would be suitable for a tiny baby without an insert, would provide back support for when the baby grows, and would be easy to put on. The Beco Gemini baby carrier met all my requirements (it is suitable for babies as small as 7 pounds), and I've been very happy with it. We bought the Beco in Stella color scheme.

There were a few other items we needed right away for the baby: storage for clothes and diapering supplies. We had a dresser that we dedicated for storage of baby clothes and other baby paraphernalia (which means that we currently don't have a dresser for ourselves, a problem that we hope to address once the baby actually moves to her own room). Instead of buying a changing table (for which we have no room), we put a changing pad on top of the dresser. Speaking of changing pads, buying one was less straightforward than one might think. I ordered a standard changing pad on Amazon (I think it was Summer Infant brand, which came recommended), and when it arrived it reeked of chemicals. My then-pregnant blood-hound nose couldn't handle it. I tried to air it out for a couple of weeks, but the stench would not go away. I returned the changing pad and decided that I had to buy one in person, even if it meant spending more money on it. I couldn't risk another odor debacle. So I went to Babies R Us and sniffed every changing pad they had (I will pause while you deal with that mental image). Finally, I settled on a Serta contour changing pad. Sure, I could have bought an organic changing pad that would not have smelled at all, but I wasn't willing to spend $100 on it. It seemed less important to have an organic changing pad than an organic crib mattress, where the baby would spend much of her sleeping time.

I also decided to buy a changing pad cover because my baby did not enjoy being naked on the cold plastic of the changing pad. I bought Aden + Anais bamboo cover in aqua. It is very soft and goes well with our color scheme. However, after three months of many washes, it has shrunk and no longer fits well on our changing pad. I am having a hard time finding a soft changing pad cover that isn't polyester-based and won't shrink over time. In desperation, I've ordered two more Aden + Anais covers, but any recommendations are welcome.

Baby-related expenses are never-ending, and we are buying more baby items as we need them (for example, we just bought a travel crib for upcoming travels), but these are the basics that we found useful in the first several months of baby's life. What is on your list of must-have or nice-to-have baby items?

Maternity Leave

2013-11-25T04:00:00.000-05:00

If I had taken the "standard" 12 week, unpaid maternity leave that is available to (some) women in the United States, I would have been back at work by now.

But, I did not qualify for maternity leave. Instead, I quit my job.

How is it possible that I did not qualify for maternity leave? Well, under the Family Medical Leave Act (FMLA), a primary caregiver is entitled to 12 weeks unpaid leave under some circumstances, including a birth of a child, with a few caveats. One of those caveats is that you had to have worked at your current company for at least 1 year before taking leave. I was only there for seven months, so strike one against me.

Individual states have their own maternity leave policies in addition to the FMLA. In Massachusetts, there is the Massachusetts Maternity Leave Act (MMLA), which allows for 8 weeks of unpaid leave (woo hoo, how generous). My employer told me that to be eligible for MMLA, I had to have worked at the company for 6 months after the probationary period, which was 6 months, which brings us back to the 1 year requirement. Strike two against me. (I just found out that this was actually incorrect information: all that was required was the completion of the probationary period, or at least 3 months, which means I should have been eligible for MMLA. But still, 8 weeks???)

Other than New Jersey and California, I am not aware of any states that provide for any kind of (miserly) pay during maternity leave. However, some people use short term disability benefits during leave. While it does provide some sort of income, it irks me to lump birth and postpartum period into something defined as a disability. Nevertheless, I was told that, once again, I had to have worked for the company for at least one year to be able to claim disability (which, in itself, is ridiculous - what if I had an actual disability develop before that year was up?). Strike three against me.

Given that I wasn't eligible for any maternity leave or pay whatsoever, but I was still planning to give birth and care for the newborn baby, I decided to leave my job. I ended up in this situation because, obviously, we have some family-friendly policies in this country. Instead of being bitter about the situation, I decided to think of it as an unpaid version of the European-style maternity leave (or Canadian, for that matter). I recognize that I am very, very lucky that our family is able to live on one salary for some period of time, and so I decided to take a year off to stay home with the baby before returning back into the workforce. (I have no delusions that it will be easy to find a job in this economy, so stay tuned for that adventure.)

This decision left me feeling very conflicted. I have never envisioned myself as a stay-at-home mom, but that is essentially what I am at the moment. Three months in, I have to say that I have developed even more respect for stay-at-home parents, because it literally is the hardest job I've ever had to do. Things are getting better around here these days (no, the baby is not sleeping through the night yet). But the first 2.5 months were brutal. There were days where I told my husband I wouldn't make it. The continuous sleep deprivation, the constant baby cycle of nursing, refusing to nap, and screaming added up, and there were several nights and days when I broke down. The unsustainable (lack of) routine hit its peak around 6 weeks postpartum. A couple of weeks later, we realized that our baby has acid reflux, but that is a post for another day. Anyway, 3 months in, things are improving greatly, and we are developing a routine with the baby, which helps immensely.

So, on one hand, I was exhausted and had moments where I really, really wanted to be at work and not stuck at home with a screaming infant. On the other hand, my daughter is changing so quickly that on a weekly, daily basis, she surprises me with something new - swatting at toys, chatting, smiling. It is so rewarding to be there to witness these moments, I wouldn't trade them for anything.

On the third hand, we have the issue of the ridiculous cost of daycare in our area. Let's put some numbers out there: did you know that to have your infant (6 weeks to about 1 year old) in a daycare center full time (which could be from 8 am to 3 pm, not exactly coinciding with a full work day) would cost you about $2500 a month? No, that is not a typo. So, just considering the financial side of things, forgetting for the moment about my own feelings and emotions about the situation, I would have to have a pretty well-paying job in order to make it worth my time to work and pay for daycare. Putting the emotions back into the equation, I would have to really love my job to consider shelling out this much money for daycare AND being away from my baby.

(Huge note to the internet: all these musings and considerations are made possible only by the fact that our family is able to survive on one salary for the time being, which I realize is not a situation for everyone, so please don't take anything I say personally. This is just my own thoughts about our specific situation. Same goes for all the emotional stuff I am writing about. I have all the respect in the world for working parents, stay-at-home parents, and work-at-home parents. All these choices require hard decisions and sacrifices, however different they may be individually.)

So, for the time being, I am adjusting to life as a stay-at-home mom, and I am trying to be as grateful about it as possible. It's an uphill battle, but I am stubborn, and I am winning.

Pregnancy and Weight Gain

2013-10-28T04:00:00.000-04:00

If there is one thing I learned during pregnancy, it's that we have so little control over how the body functions. At least, that was my experience. Everyone talks about the food cravings, but I hardly imagined how powerful those cravings would be. In the second trimester, once the nausea wore off, my body craved croissants on an almost daily basis. How convenient it was that my work was located around the corner from a delicious bakery!

Anyway, I would like to talk about pregnancy weight gain, not my cravings for croissants. (I'm sure the two have nothing to do with each other...) According to the Babycenter website, I should have expected to gain an average of 25 to 35 pounds over nine months, almost all of it in the second and third trimester, and the weight gain was supposed to be more or less linear.

That is not what happened.

What happened was this:

True to my nature, I charted my weight gain throughout pregnancy. During the first trimester, I lost a couple of pounds due to constant nausea. In the "honeymoon" second trimester, which was filled with lots of energy and many apricot croissants, I only gained a few pounds. When the third trimester arrived, I started putting on weight like gangbusters (though I laid off the croissants). What I found most mind-boggling was that the weight gain had nothing to do with my food consumption. One morning, I would wake up and discover I had gained three pounds overnight. How did that happen?

I didn't quite make it to the full nine months, as my baby arrived at 35 weeks 6 days, almost a month early. This is what I looked like the day I went to the hospital, at 35 weeks 5 days:

35 weeks 5 days

I was ready to pop, no doubt. (My water broke that morning, so does that mean that I had technically already popped by then?) But even though I looked huge, my total weight gain by the end of pregnancy was 19 pounds. (Note to the blogosphere: Apart from certain pregnancy forums, it appears to be taboo to discuss weight and weight gain on the internet or in real life. But I feel that there is a need to publicly discuss real pregnancies, if only to dispel the illusion of the perfect pregnancy image perpetuated by Hollywood. Every woman and every pregnancy is different, and this is only my experience which I am adding to the conversation.) How did it happen that I gained less than the recommended amount? Well, I was only pregnant for eight months, so I'm sure that had something to do with it, but otherwise, I have no idea. My body did what it wanted, and gained weight when it needed to gain weight. Babycenter kept telling me that I was not gaining enough and was putting my baby at risk of something-or-other. Let me tell you, this kind of language caused me a lot of anxiety. But I was measuring right on time, and my OB was not at all concerned, which definitely helped alleviate some of my fears, and also made me realize that Dr. Google doesn't really know what he is talking about.

Now, if the weight conversation around pregnancy is taboo, it is practically nonexistent when it comes to postpartum weight loss (with the exception of a few wonderfully honest people - hi, Lauren!). Mostly, what I heard was that if it takes nine months (eight in my case) to gain all the weight, it will take approximately as long to lose it. That's what I kept telling my husband, anyway, lest he expected me to bounce back in a week or something ridiculous like that. I also assumed that as I lost the weight, I would slowly get back into my pre-pregnancy shape.

That's not what happened, either.

When I left the hospital, I had only lost 7 pounds (baby + placenta - all the IV fluids they pumped into me that caused my feet to be scary swollen for several days after delivery). I also looked about six months pregnant, except instead of a round, firm baby belly, I had a huge flabby sack and lots of loose skin. I had been warned about this, so even though it was shocking to see my body in such a state, at least I was somewhat prepared for it.

But I was not prepared for what happened next. At nine days postpartum, I was back to my pre-pregnancy weight. It must have been the breastfeeding, because I was eating like a trucker (way more than when I was pregnant) and certainly did no exercising. I can't explain it any other way, the weight just came off. What did NOT come off, however, was my belly. Even though I had lost all the weight, I still looked four months pregnant! This I was not ready for. How do you get back into shape if you don't want to lose any weight?

It turned out, as I learned later, that the uterus takes several weeks to shrink back to its original size, which is why I still wasn't back to my familiar shape at that time. So I calmed down and let my uterus do its thing. But guess what? By six weeks postpartum, my uterus was back to normal. And yet, even two months later, my body still does not look the same. Yes, I can fit into my pre-pregnancy jeans, but they look ridiculous on me. I don't know if I will ever get my old body back, and I don't know if I need to. These potentially permanent body changes were unexpected, and I may have to learn to live with them.

Meanwhile, perhaps it's time to update my wardrobe.

34 weeks - maternity photoshoot

2013-10-01T09:00:00.000-04:00

This post is much belated since I am obviously no longer pregnant, but I wanted to share these photos with you. At 34 weeks, we had our maternity photoshoot (none too soon, as our daughter made an appearance less than two weeks later). My brother-in-law is a photographer, and he did a wonderful job with the photoshoot, especially considering how not photogenic I am. I was going to write this post as soon as we got the photos, but guess what? We got the photos on the day our little lady was born!

So, without further ado, here is what I looked like at 34 weeks pregnant: ready to pop.

Welcome to the world, little one

2013-09-16T04:00:00.000-04:00

my favorite tiny toes

A month before her due date, our little lady surprised us and made an appearance into the world. She weighed 6 pounds 4 ounces, and measured 19 inches long. We are completely in love and totally sleep deprived. Slowly but surely, we are adjusting to our new role as parents.

I have many blog posts swirling around in my head. The trick now is to find the time to write them.

32 to 33 weeks - Forever pregnant

2013-08-05T09:00:00.000-04:00

I hear that when women reach the middle of the third trimester, they either feel like their pregnancy is flying by or that it's dragging on. Turns out I'm in the latter camp, feeling like I will be forever pregnant. Time has slowed down to a crawl, and we are now impatiently awaiting the arrival of our daughter.

Not that we are at all ready for her arrival or anything. I have yet to wash her crib sheets, clothes, and blankets. We still don't have a changing pad. The car seat is not installed (at least, it's been purchased). The house is in a state of permanent disarray, with rooms covered in boxes. Of course, the hospital bag hasn't been packed. You get the picture.

I have to say, though, that aside from the occasional back ache, I've been feeling pretty good. I did notice the need to slow down overall. I walk slower, I can't lift objects I used to be able to handle easily (like shopping bags), and painting any other room is out of the question at this point. But otherwise, the third trimester is treating me fairly well so far.

Here I am at 32 weeks, with my huge and still growing belly:

32 weeks

Nothing like a good haircut to brighten up a pregnant woman's day. :)

Painting the baby room

2013-07-23T03:00:00.000-04:00

As I mentioned in my last post, we painted the baby room. We chose to do it over the long Independence Day weekend because we knew that the prep and the painting would take a couple of days. But first, we had to choose a paint color.

After much discussion, we settled on a potential color scheme for the baby room: gray, white, yellow, and turquoise. Yep, we are having a girl, and there is not a hint of pink in sight! Let's just say neither of us is a fan of pink. We knew that the white color would show up in the furniture, as we planned to get a white crib and a white daybed (the baby room will also function as a guest room). We decided that yellow and turquoise would make great accent colors, and we could bring those colors to the room in a rug, pillows, bedding, lamps, etc. And we thought that a well-chosen gray color would create a serene environment for the baby, and it would make a great neutral background for the bright accent colors.

Finding the right shade of gray turned out to be more challenging than we originally anticipated. As a first step, we went to Home Depot and picked up dozens of swatches. We brought them home and taped them up around the room. Immediately, we realized that the shades of gray we had in mind originally were going to be too dark (of course, they looked lighter in the store). The next thing we discovered was that every gray swatch we considered changed its undertones dramatically in different lighting. Like a chameleon, a swatch would appear to have silver or blue undertones (something we were aiming for) during the day, but the artificial lighting at night would bring out the tans and the browns that we didn't know existed in those grays.

We scrapped all of the Home Depot grays (mostly Behr, some Glidden), and picked up about ten color chips of Benjamin Moore grays. What a difference that made! First of all, the swatches appeared a lot more consistent in their undertones throughout the day (at least on paper). And more importantly, we found about five gray colors that we liked. So suddenly we went from having no appealing options to five awesome swatches! It was a good problem to have.

We ended up choosing a Benjamin Moore gray that was appropriately called Sweet Innocence (and no, we didn't choose it based on the name). It is a light gray color that appears to have a hint of blue undertones. As we found out after we painted, the blue undertones are less subtle in real life than on paper, and there are also some lavender undertones that come out in certain lighting.

Online calculators told me that we would need about 1.6 gallons for two coats of paint in this room, so we bought two gallons in the Natura eggshell finish. The awesome thing about BM's Natura is that it is zero-VOC, which means it doesn't stink! I didn't really believe that the paint wouldn't stink at all, but it really didn't. It wasn't until we got two full coats on that I could detect a subtle paint smell, and that is saying a lot with my bloodhound pregnancy nose. We also bought a gallon of Natura off-the-shelf white in semi-gloss for the trim, which we intend to use throughout the house.

Before we could paint, we had to do some prep work. As you may recall from our house tour, this room has baseboard trim, as well as trim around the windows and the french doors. It also had the most annoying and tiny folding closet door, which we removed because it was causing a lot of grief (we plan to hang a curtain instead of the door down the road). What is not obvious from those photos is that we have a combination of drywall and plasterboard walls, and the plasterboard is in a pretty beat-up condition. It has a lot of bumps, small and large, and there were also holes in the wall left from previous owners.

As our first prep step, we decided to spackle the holes and attempt to smooth the walls by sanding and filling in the bumps. We had some limited success with smoothing down the walls, but in the process, our orange walls ended up looking like they had chicken pox. We also used wood filler to fill in holes in the trim around the windows. Oh, and that weekend was the beginning of the heat wave, and we have no air conditioning, thus the fan.

Prepping the room

We also removed all the switch plates and outlet covers. The prep work took most of the day (there was a LOT of sanding to do). Not only did we have to spackle and sand, but we also had to clean up all the dust afterward. At that point, I was wishing we had a shop vac because doing it with our regular vacuum cleaner took forever. We also followed up with some wet cloths to make sure there was no sanding dust left on the surfaces. My in-laws came to help with prep, and later with painting, which is why we were able to pull this off in only a couple of days. Before painting, I put a plastic tarp on the floor and taped off the floor and the heating baseboard. We chose not to tape off the rest of the trim because my mother-in-law has a very steady hand and could cut in without tape (a skill I have only begun to develop).

Ready to paint!

The next day, we painted. I have to say that when that first stroke of gray covered the orange on the wall, it was the most satisfying feeling in the world. And not only because we were covering up the color we disliked with a color of our own choosing, but also because it really hit me then that we are homeowners. We can actually choose our own colors! How liberating! But also just the process of taking the paint brush to a surface - I feel like I could do that forever.

So we painted the walls gray and the trim white (we got everything except for the crown molding, the french doors, and the interior of the closet). In this photo from our house tour, you could see that above the closet, we actually have extra storage, and we chose to paint those two small doors the same gray so that they would blend into the room better.

And here is what the room looks like now:

Painted baby room

The word that people use most often to describe this color when they see the painted room is "serene", and I think that's exactly the perfect way to describe it. The room is obviously not yet set up for the baby, and it won't be for some time because in the beginning the baby will sleep in our room. Some of our furniture that we haven't yet figure out a place for is temporarily stored here. For now, I set up my office in this room, and it's a great feeling to work in there because it is now my favorite space in the house.

As for the cost breakdown, we had to buy a lot because we had almost no paint supplies, so we spent quite a bit of money. I should mention that this paint required no primer, despite the fact that we had to paint over bright orange. And we also used just over a gallon of the gray paint, so two gallons was definitely an overkill, but I am hoping to use this paint elsewhere in the house. We ended up spending about $275 for paint and supplies, which included:

3 gallons of Benjamin Moore Natura paint (2 gray, 1 white) at $53 per gallon
all the paint supplies, such as rollers, brushes, Frog Tape (totally worth the money, it worked much better than the regular blue painters tape to protect our floors), trays, sanding supplies, and drop cloths

We will be able to reuse a lot of the more expensive supplies (such as the angled brushes, which were quite costly because we splurged on good quality brushes) for when we paint our next room (the living room and the hallway are next in line), so I am hoping that our next painting adventure will be more affordable.

27 to 29 weeks - Hello, third trimester!

2013-07-08T04:00:00.000-04:00

I've officially entered the third trimester of this pregnancy, which means we are in the home stretch now! (And woefully unprepared! We have yet to buy most baby items...)

I have to say that I understand now why the second trimester is called the "honeymoon trimester". I didn't blog much about it and that's because it was mostly comfortable and blissfully uneventful. There were times when I would forget that I was pregnant, that's how normal I felt.

Third trimester has been pretty good so far as well, but I am noticing some differences. My belly is growing larger every day, and it is beginning to interfere with some daily activities, like sleeping, getting (rolling) out of bed, reaching for plates in the upper kitchen cabinets. These are all minor details, though, and in general I'm feeling pretty good!

Here I am at 27 weeks:

27 weeks

This photo was taken in the future baby room, and as you can tell from the swatches, we are planning to paint over the orange walls (which look innocuously peach in this photo, but trust me, they are bright orange). But check out how much that baby bump has grown since my last photo at 19 weeks!

*Spoiler alert!* We already painted the baby room, and it wasn't with any of the swatches you see in the photo above!

On breakfast, elsewhere

2013-07-07T12:33:00.003-04:00

The lovely Amanda, of Poppies and Ice-cream, asked me to contribute to her breakfast club series, and so I happily sent along a recipe that includes some of my favorite foods: tomatoes, bacon, and eggs. :) Check it out here.

26 weeks - The Pregnancy Brain

2013-06-18T21:23:00.000-04:00

Forget-me-nots

Pregnancy brain - a continuous, progressive condition in which you forget what you were thinking five seconds ago. May result in awkward pauses in conversations and poor hygiene. The only known cure is giving birth.

I forgot to put on deodorant this morning. And I did not even realize this until lunch time. This is what I call pregnancy brain.

I have to say that second trimester has been pretty great to me, I definitely lucked out. After the nausea went away, all the good stuff kicked in, sometimes literally. Like feeling the baby kick and having more energy. There is only one part of the second trimester that hasn't been kind to me, and it's affecting my brain.

When I first read about pregnancy brain in my book, it was described as a feeling of absentmindedness. This sounded so innocuous that I mostly dismissed it. As it turned out, though, "absentmindedness" is a severe understatement, at least in my case.

It started out subtly enough. I would find myself forgetting things I did several weeks before. No big deal, I thought, sometimes I forget what I had for dinner last night, even when I'm not pregnant. But as a precaution, I started writing things down at work, creating to-do lists to make sure I didn't forget to finish something important.

This was several months ago, and my memory has been deteriorating ever since. Nowadays, I find myself walking from one room to another, only to stop midway because I can't recall where I was going or why I was going there. About 70% of the time, it comes back to me. The rest of the time, I just give up. Conversations are becoming challenging as well. When someone is telling me a story, not only do I forget what I want to say in response, but also, by the time they finish talking, I forget what they just told me.

This scares me shitless. Especially because I have three more months to go. I might forget my name by that point. My only hope is that this "pregnancy brain" condition goes away right after birth.

First Year of Marriage - A Roller Coaster

2013-06-10T22:11:00.000-04:00

Dancing at our wedding

Yesterday, D and I celebrated our one year anniversary. The weather cooperated with us once again this year, and so we packed a picnic lunch (complete with a quaint basket) and spent the afternoon in the park where we got married.

It has been one roller coaster of a year for us.

In June, we got married and went on our honeymoon to Virginia and Washington, DC. In July, D started a new job, and I got laid off. In August, we celebrated the wedding of D's sister.

My grandmother passed away in September after a battle with ALS. The roller coaster hit rock bottom at that point.

In October, hurricane Sandy hit the Northeast, and my stepdad's mom's house was destroyed. She has been living with my parents ever since (there is just now finally some hope of rebuilding). We also started looking for a house to buy at around that time.

The next couple of months were all about family. My grandfather, having just lost the love of his life, visited me and my sister in our respective homes. There were a lot of firsts for him that month - first time on a train in the U.S., first domestic flight, and first time traveling on his own in this country. In December, we spent the holidays with our families: Christmas with D's family and New Year's with mine. So glad that this is one tradition we don't have to worry about splitting between families, as my family only celebrates New Year's, and his mainly focuses on Christmas.

The year 2013 promised a fresh start for us, and it didn't disappoint. In January, I finally got a new job (which I started in February), and embarked on a new career to boot. That was also the month we found out that we were pregnant.

In March, we made our first offer on a place, but it was rejected. Dozens of open houses and two offers later, we finally found our new home in April. And we also found out that we are having a girl!

Less than thirty days after submitting our offer, we closed on our condo and three days later, we moved in.

So to recap the roller coaster: in one year, we got married, lost a loved one, survived a layoff and a natural disaster, started new jobs, got pregnant, and became home owners. And at the end of the year, our relationship is stronger than ever. Here is to many more years of adventures together, to pulling through the hard times together, and to celebrating all that life has to offer.

Our new house: a clean slate

2013-06-06T23:20:00.000-04:00

So we bought a condo and moved in a couple of weeks ago. But before we moved in, on the day that we officially closed, we stopped by our new place to take some photos before all of our stuff got piled into every nook and cranny. But let me tell you about the place first.

It's a small (826 square feet), 2-bedroom, 1-bathroom condo that is on the first floor of a double-decker. For all of you who don't live in the Boston area, double-decker means there are only two units in this condo association. The house is really old - records say it was built approximately in 1900, which is what usually goes into records when houses are so old that they were built before any record keeping. So it may even be older than that. With age come some issues, but also some really awesome features. We love the fact that our ceilings are 9 feet tall! We also have some really awesome baseboards, chair rail, and trim around the doorways and windows.

Without further ado, here is our condo:

That is the hallway off the main entrance. I love that we have a coat closet. The chandelier is obviously outdated. Another thing to note is that in all of the rooms, we only have three light switches, 100% of which are poorly located. The rest of the lighting fixtures have pullcords.

From the hallway, you can see into the smaller bedroom, which will eventually become the baby room. Off the hallway on the left is the bathroom. I hesitate to show you the bathroom so early on in this "house tour" because it is...well...hideous. Let's just say that it hasn't been updated since at least the 1970s. I suspect that is because it's difficult to renovate a bathroom when there is only one in the house. But I'll just let the photos speak for themselves.

Behold, the avocado green bathtub surrounded by avocado green tile. But wait, there is more!

We also have an avocado green sink! And even though it may not be obvious from this photo, the sink actually overlaps with the toilet. So in order to sit straight on the toilet, you have to slide under the sink. Can't wait till I'm doing this nine months pregnant. Oh, and also, the window is right over the sink, which means the mirror is to the left of it. I wonder who designed this lovely room.

Anyway, enough about the bathroom (and yes, we plan to gut renovate it some day). Here is the baby room.

Although it's not obvious from the photo, it's actually been painted bright orange by the previous owners. In fact, the color scheme in this house needs an update in general. The room is not big, but it's functional and has awesome french doors (both bedrooms do).

The baby room has a small closet (it's not as deep as it looks because the toilet is right behind it). It also has a light that is completely off center. And the light switch is on the wall OPPOSITE the french doors. It makes no sense to me either. Actually, it does - this condo used to have only one bedroom, which was this room, except the room was bigger and had three entrances into it. So the light used to be centered, and the light switch used to be by one of the entrances. Our master bedroom used to be the living room, which means that what used to be the dining room became a living/dining room.

This small hallway connects the main hallway, the bathroom, the baby room (on the left) and the living/dining room. From the living room, you can see our master bedroom.

Don't you love the pink/green contrast? I think that was fashionable with teenagers when I was in high school. Too bad I never caught on to that trend. The bedroom is pretty large, has awesome french doors and a huge closet.

The master bedroom, living room, and kitchen have ceiling fans, which are all different, but almost equally ugly. I may be biased - I don't like ceiling fans. But we are keeping them for now because we don't have A/C and summer is coming.

From the bedroom, you can see the living room and straight into the kitchen. The living room has awesome bay windows.

Here is our kitchen.

The kitchen is a combination of awesome and WTF. It was renovated about ten years ago, and features really cool blue-gray granite. However, it is painfully obvious in this photo that the floor and ceiling are slanted (the cabinets are actually level). The floor has seen better days, and so have the appliances. Oh, also, there is a significant amount of mold in the cabinet under the sink (I think the bathroom and the mold are some of the reasons we were able to afford this place).

The kitchen does have three windows (including one over the sink), which I like.

This is the other side of the kitchen. Unfortunately, there is zero counter space next to the stove. But, we do have a pantry, which is in dire need of a paint job. Through the pantry, you can see the door that leads to our porch.

And that completes the tour of our empty house! Here is D looking very happy to be a home owner. (Sorry for the grainy iPhone photo.)

Three days later, the place looked like this...

We are still working on unpacking those boxes. Meanwhile, we are making so many plans on how to update our new place! Painting, setting up the baby room, and gutting that bathroom down the road are all on our long to-do list. It's going to be an adventure!

Holy crap, we are home owners!

2013-05-24T11:38:00.000-04:00

That's right, we finally did it!

After actively searching for a place to buy since the end of September, we finally found our humble abode that we are calling home. Everything happened rather quickly once we made the offer, and we were lucky to have found this place before our lease ran out at the end of this month.

We actually closed last week and moved in this past weekend. We are now living out of boxes and diving head first into all the aspects of home ownership (seriously, so many things have happened already, and we haven't even lived in our new place for a week).

More details to come on how we found our place, the crazy Boston area market, what it's like to move while five months pregnant (hint: I don't recommend it), and of course, photos! I made sure to take photos of our new place before we moved in while it was still empty, so that we would capture the true "before" look. Stay tuned!

19 to 20 weeks - XX or XY?

2013-05-07T21:31:00.000-04:00

I'm writing in real time now! Yay!

First, I just want to acknowledge that I am at 20 weeks now, which means that we have made it half way through this pregnancy, and that seems kind of unbelievable. The second trimester continues to be much better than the first. I feel a hundred times better, the nausea is all gone, my appetite is back, and sometimes I feel so normal that I forget that I'm pregnant. (At least, until the next time my back starts hurting or I can't get myself comfortable in bed despite the fort of pillows I build around myself every night.)

So, early on in this pregnancy, I got it into my head that we are having a girl. I don't know where this "knowledge" came from, but I was just so sure of it. The rational side of me kept saying that it could be a boy, and I would be happy either way, of course. But my intuition told me it was a girl.

Well, a couple of weeks ago, we finally found out the gender of our baby! And what do you know... we are having a GIRL!!! We got to see our baby girl at the fetal anatomy ultrasound, which was an hour long, and we learned that she is very healthy and measuring right on schedule (even a few days ahead). Those were the best words to hear.

We also got to see our little girl in action, and turns out she is quite the kickboxer. I had no idea because I hadn't felt anything other than bubbles for the past several weeks, but she appears to be quite active. I was beginning to worry about the lack of movement at this point in the pregnancy, but turns out I had nothing to worry about. Right on cue, at 20 weeks, I felt the baby kick for the first time. It's the most incredible feeling - a proof of life growing inside.

Here I am at nineteen weeks, sporting a real bump finally:

19 weeks

Now, we can start picking baby names for real!

13 to 15 weeks - These clothes ain't fitting on me

2013-04-15T12:17:00.000-04:00

I wrote this post on March 31, 2013.

I am officially in my second trimester, and I couldn't be happier about it! First of all, it means that we can finally tell people about the pregnancy (we chose to wait until the end of the first trimester in order to get past the riskiest part of the pregnancy). But even more importantly, I am feeling much, much better these days.

The morning sickness lasted over two months. During that time, I didn't throw up once, but I was constantly nauseous (this is not an exaggeration). I did learn to function with the nausea, but it was hard to eat, never mind enjoy food. The fatigue that I experienced in the first half of the first trimester let up somewhat, so I was able to stay up until a more reasonable hour, but I still got tired faster and easier than normal.

The nausea finally let up a few days ago, around 15 weeks. I thought it would slowly go away, but it was actually kind of a sudden transition. One day, I woke up and the nausea was gone! (Note from the present: I still have mild nausea after I eat) It almost felt odd because I had forgotten what it's like to not be nauseous all the time. All of a sudden, food started tasting good again, and boy, am I taking advantage of that. Oh, I have a craving for a croissant? On a daily basis? Awesome, let's eat a delicious croissant and enjoy the heck out of it!

The fatigue is mostly gone as well, but not entirely. I would get bursts of energy at random times of the day, and have an irresistible urge to take a nap an hour later. But overall, my energy level is on the rise, and I hear that trend should continue, so I am looking forward to that.

Second trimester did bring with it some new symptoms. First of all, the pregnancy brain has gotten worse. I forget what people told me five minutes ago if I don't write it down. It's embarrassing, really. Also, my feet have started to mildly swell occasionally, and it looks like I am in danger of developing varicose veins. Super attractive, I know. I ordered some compression stockings on Amazon to try to prevent that from happening.

Meanwhile, here I am at thirteen weeks:

13 weeks

I finally have a baby belly! And I am wearing maternity jeans! And they are actually super comfortable, I have no complaints about them whatsoever. And I got a haircut! And finally got my hair dyed to cover up those grays (waited until the very last day of the first trimester, per doctor's orders)! In other words, I feel like a human being again.

And speaking of that baby in my belly, I saw it on an ultrasound at twelve weeks, and the baby was so adorable and super active, tumbling around all over the uterus. It actually looked like a tiny human being (at the eight week ultrasound, it kind of looked like an outline of a toy.) And yes, I am referring to the baby as "it" for now because we don't know the gender yet. But hopefully we will know it soon!

7 to 9 weeks - More of the same

2013-04-08T03:00:00.000-04:00

I wrote this post on February 18, 2013.

The blog has been silent for most of the month of February, and there are two reasons for it. One is that I started a new job at seven weeks pregnant. All of a sudden, I have a lot less free time on my hands than I did during unemployment. But it is also the nature of the job - I sit and stare at the computer screen for over eight hours in a row, and the last thing I want to do when I get home is more of the same thing. The eye strain is incredible.

The other reason for my radio silence is the effect of pregnancy. I've actually learned how to function with nausea (more or less), but the fatigue is inescapable. When I get home from work, all I want to do is take a nap on the couch. I've even been going to bed at some geriatric hour of the evening, which is highly unusual for a night owl like me.

I know you won't read this blog post until at least the second half of March, but I hope that when you do, you will understand and forgive my temporary absence from the blog.

Here I am at nine weeks:

9 weeks

Still no obvious baby belly, but that's partially due to my strategic choice of clothing. :) I even went shopping specifically for tops that could be worn by the non-pregnant me now and in the future, but could also work in these early stages of pregnancy. And that cardigan that doesn't close in the front - I plan to wear it for the entire nine months! Talk about a good investment.

6 weeks - To eat or not to eat

2013-04-04T03:00:00.000-04:00

I wrote this post on January 29, 2013.

Week 6 of pregnancy has definitely taught me to take it one day at a time. One day, I feel mostly normal and like my usual self (except for the pregnancy truck induced fatigue), and the next day everything makes me nauseous. I haven't experienced any real morning sickness yet, as I've managed to keep the food down, but it hasn't been an easy task. [Correction: apparently being nauseous counts as morning sickness, even if you are not vomiting.]

Some of my favorite foods, like pork and beets, became surprisingly intolerable at times. But then, on other days, I would eat an entire burger. Go figure. On the worst days, eating bland food has helped. In my case, that was matzoh (my Jewish version of crackers). Keeping pieces of matzoh in a ziploc bag on my nightstand to eat first thing in the morning before I get out of bed no longer seems like a ludicrous idea.

Here I am at 6 weeks:

6 weeks

That's not a baby belly yet, that's mostly bloat and constipation (another fun side effect of pregnancy). Plus, this photo was taken right after I ate. My clothes still mostly fit me, but they are beginning to look awkward over my bloated belly. I didn't expect that to happen until much later in the pregnancy. Just goes to show that I don't know anything about this whole baby making business.

5 Weeks - My milkshakes bring all the boys to the yard...

2013-04-01T03:00:00.000-04:00

I wrote this post on January 22, 2013.

... No, they don't. Probably because I don't have a yard. But ohmygod, holy boobs! The symptom of the week has definitely been a growth spurt in my bbs. That's 'boobies' in pregnancy forum speak, for all the uninitiated folks. By the way, the number of acronyms on the pregnancy and TTC (trying to conceive) forums could easily rival the military.

But back to the boobs. They are in pain and they are growing out of control. I am only five weeks along, and already I am busting out of my regular bras. And those bras had some wiggle room to begin with. I knew that breasts increase in size during pregnancy, but I didn't expect it to happen so early on. What am I going to look like in eight months??? (Update from the present: now that I am in my second trimester, the boobs have grown two cup sizes.)

I should stop complaining, though, because really this is the bombshell stage of pregnancy. The belly bump isn't showing yet, but the increase in bra size is putting me on the path toward Pamela Anderson. Still, despite what all the men might think, this growth spurt is not all good. Not only do the boobs hurt all on their own, but the too-small bras are making it even more painful.

To remedy the situation, I went shopping for a maternity bra today. I started out with high hopes, only to be thoroughly disappointed. This was my first encounter with maternity clothing, and it did not go well. I went to Destination Maternity and the Macy's maternity department (which is just Pea in a Pod, really). What I learned is that:

a) maternity bras are super ugly; but that doesn't even matter because
b) no one carries them in my size!!!

Seriously, what the heck? Do pregnant boobs not come in my size or something? I even tried on the maternity sports bras, which are just S, M, L, etc, but none of them fit either. The Small was too small in the cup, and the Medium was too big in the circumference. So I went home braless. Well, not literally braless, just... you know what I mean.

I was able to find maternity bras in my new size online, but they are very expensive and I just don't feel like I can invest in them just yet since the bbs are likely to keep expanding... For now, I just ordered some regular cotton bras from VS in one size up, so hopefully they will tide me over for the time being.

5 weeks

Here I am at five weeks. Yes, my hair is a mess, and that is what it usually looks like when I just get out of the shower. Welcome to the real life. And I also look very tired. That's because pregnancy hit me like a truck this week (from now on, it will be referred to as the pregnancy truck), and fatigue set in. I'm not always tired, but the exhaustion usually sets in around 4 or 5 pm in the afternoon, and all I can do is lie down on the couch and take a nap.

Aside from the growing boobs and the fatigue, I am not experiencing any pregnancy symptoms so far. Some days I feel so normal that it worries me. But really, I should be enjoying this time as much as possible and thanking my lucky stars for the lack of symptoms. And I am truly thankful. Meanwhile, I have started going to prenatal yoga classes, and I met a girl there (35 weeks pregnant) who told me she never had morning sickness. So now I have this unrealistic hope that the puking won't happen to me either. Keeping my fingers crossed! (Update from the present: hahaha!)