Being Strep B positive while pregnant

No, my throat doesn't hurt. Apparently if you are Strep B positive it has nothing to do with having strep throat. Last week I was the lucky recipient of a Strep B positive result at my now weekly appointments. And by lucky I mean cursed. My vision of my delivery was shattered. Okay, I'm being pregnantly dramatic, but I guess my vision (if you can have a vision of your delivery) was clouded.

See, I envision hanging out at my house until my contractions are about 3 minutes apart, getting a few last minute things done like organizing my sock drawer, and then driving to the hospital to have a baby. I like the au natural sort of delivery, sans drugs. I don't like hanging out at the hospital being prodded and stared at and monitored. But I also don't like the idea of screaming from the bathroom for Mike to call 911 while Kenzie and Hannah stare dumbfounded at their mother delivering a child and Ellie cries hysterically and tries to crawl in my lap while I'm pushing.

This laboring mostly at home but finishing at the hospital is a fine balance that we've managed three times so far. I was hoping for a fourth, but thanks to my Strep B results I'm supposed to be at the hospital 4 hours before I deliver the baby so that they can stick an IV in me and run penicillin through my body. Fabulous. I have never been to the hospital four hours before I've had a baby. I just don't figure out that I'm in labor soon enough to get there that early.

When I expressed displeasure to my midwife at having to have an IV, she said, "Yeah and penicillin is one of the more irritating drugs to the veins." Thank you. She also gave me a little print out that assured me that I did nothing to contract Strep B and that being Strep B positive was just like having freckles, only more dangerous and scary for your baby. The little printout also assured me that most pregnant women do not have any symptoms of Strep B. But when they do it includes frequent or urgent urination.

Oh.

Well in that case, all my doubts about the validity of the Strep B test are gone. Because I definitely have that. In fact, I've probably had it every pregnancy. I'm surprised they haven't caught it sooner.


P.S. I found the pig! It was tucked into Kenzie's bottom drawer in a tangle of pants, probably courtesy of the Ellinator. I know that if Kenzie knew it was there she would have brought it to me because I offered them a dollar if they found it. Instead I'll be paying that dollar to the library. I think we have financed the purchase of a few new books with the fines we have paid to that place. Sigh.

Look who turned 200,000!

On January 19, 2012 Mike called me from work. 

"Steph, can you drop the girls off at your Mom's and come eat lunch with me? The car's going to turn 200,000!"

Mike wanted to eat a romantic picnic while we drove around the flight line of Hill Air Force Base watching as the odometer turned to 200,000 on our little Chevy Prizm. (We go for broke on our dates these days.)  So I packed Hannah and Ellie up to my mom's and we celebrated our car's mileage birthday with a little reminiscing.

Our car is like our marriage. It just keeps going. Ummm, that doesn't sound right, does it? Well, how about this: It just won't quit! It may have a few breakdowns, but it always makes a comeback. Or, "200,000 miles later and surprisingly it's still going strong." Okay, I give up on the clever slogan comparison. But it is a good car. A great car. And it is a good marriage. A great one.   

One day in October 2001, Mike and I bought a car together. It was $8,000 (the most I had ever spent at one time and Mike too). We bought it from my Uncle Norm. I remember going to his house with Mike to look at it. We weren't engaged yet, but I do think we had secretly set a wedding date for the next June.  The white 2000 Chevy Prizm had about 30,000 (Mike says 20,000) miles on it and seemed to be a good, clean car. 

The day we signed the loan papers we walked across the street from the America First in Ogden and went to a Kmart photo booth to take our picture together, and Mike taped one of them to the dashboard. We both look young and a little clueless (see above, bottom left). We were. 10 years later and we're still a little clueless, but we are older.

When we got our license plate I made up a funny acronym to help us remember it. We'll always be able to remember our license plate number. I would share it here, but it's not really appropriate for viewer consumption. :) Plus I'm sure psychos would somehow find this blog post, use our license plate number for bad and ruin our lives. So, sorry, no slightly off-color license plate acronym for you. 

Until 2010 this was our only car, and we drove it everywhere. It's seen more trips to St. George than we can count; it's carried our bikes all over; we've taken it to Moab; it's been driven to California a few times; and we once drove it up the coast from Cali to Seattle (we were childless at the time). We also forded a small river in it and have driven on many four-wheel-drive-only tracks. 

We've put one major repair into it. When we were living in California for Mike's UCLA internship we had to replace an oxygen sensor. That's it. Oh yeah, and we had to replace a back window and the faceplate on our stereo when some punk broke into it while it was parked in Salt Lake. 

We've added a few upgrades, the radio that played Mp3s (so novel in the early 2000s), a clicker (that Mike wired in to unlock and lock it) and we've (Mike) replaced the door handle once many years ago.  In October of this last year, for safety and emissions, we did have to tape the passenger door handle on. Isn't that how a car should work? The door handles break before the engine.

Here's to another 100,000 miles little Chevy Prizm!

Look at this cute guy. I'm so glad I bought a car with him. 

If you look close, you can see our 200,000 milestone! (And a zit on my cheek. Thank you pregnancy.)

How a Pig Ruined My Day

Today, success was based on whether or not I could find the number two pig from that stupid toy we borrowed from the library.
FAIL. Of course it's due tomorrow (and someone has it on hold) and I have scoured every inch of my house looking for the &*% pig. I have vague memories of the pig in various areas of my house (did I allow Ellie to take it in the van? Why, for the love, would I do that? Didn't I just yell at my children for putting it in their dirty laundry?); but none of these have panned out. And today, that makes me feel like a failure. Let's face it. There were a whole lot of other things that happened today that made me feel like a failure, but the pig--oh that stupid pig--- I think it sent me over the edge.

I'm 8 months pregnant and a pig is unbalancing me. I know I should be sitting here counting my blessings, but that pig, the one with green overalls that built a house of twigs, is ruining my otherwise cheerful recollections of the day. Like the recollection of Ellie sobbing hoarsely ALL MORNING, and wiping snot all over the only clothes I have that cover my belly. Or the fond recollection of having my mother-in-law bring Hannah home from tumbling early because she refused to go. Or the cheery memory of me accusing Kenzie of nefariously ripping the name off of Hannah's new box of crayons so she could steal them (I was wrong).  Or the happy reminiscence of Hannah yelling at the top of her lungs that she was NOT GOING TO! as she kicked at Ellie and Ellie screeched loudly in response and I locked myself in my room. Or the exciting recollection of trying to decide whether moving from the couch caused such pain because either A. The baby has lodged it's adorable head in my pelvis, or B. I kicked a kickball with Hannah two days ago. (I'm going with B since I still have about 5 weeks to go.)

Yeah, that stupid pig. It totally ruined my day.

We've come a long, long way together

Let's pretend our children are Chinese food. Kenzie is my Sweet and Sour. Just like in the dish, I'm not sure where the sour comes in, because she's been sweet. She's been easy (and I am seriously throwing salt over my shoulder and knocking on wood as I write this, because I know I am cursing myself.), most the time. This is lucky for her, since she's the experimental child. Being a experimental child myself (firstborn), I can pretend that things will turn out alright, even though I make lots of mistakes.

Hannah is Szechuan. I love Szechuan, but sometimes it's a little on the spicy side. It can give me heartburn. Today, it gave me heartburn. But, but, I'm making an effort right now to think about the good things. Because we've come a long, long way.  I think. Sometimes. And then I think maybe we haven't come a long, long way. I think maybe it's not temporary heartburn. Maybe she's so spicy it's not heartburn, it's heartbreak, permanent style. Maybe it's a horrible underlying chronic condition and something is HORRIBLY, HORRIBLY wrong. And then I start hyperventilating and I become convinced that her entire future hinges on my giving in to her wanting one more minute before she does her chore. So I am firm. "No Hannah. No more minutes." And she throws a fit, and I tell myself not to give in because if I do she will end up staggering homeless through an alley, high on some illegal substance and cursing me and God.  All because I gave her one more minute too many times.

Deep breath. Deep breath. I'm just going to have to make a list. Lists always tend to calm me down and give a little perspective to my heartburn induced nightmares.

Bad things: Hannah told me a blatant lie about using soap to wash down the counter. "I didn't," she said furiously wiping soap bubbles from the counter. "It's not soap." (This was the second lie she told me today. The lies, about stupid things, seem to be increasing lately).  Hannah yelled, "I hate you. You're not a good mom," twice.  She refused to have her hair done until I threatened her with toy loss. She refused to go to school until I took her there. She refused to do her chore until I threatened toy loss. She refused to practice her piano until I threatened toy loss. She kicked Ellie. She made Kenzie cry. She had five timeouts for various infractions of our home rules.

Good things: Hannah played nicely with Ellie until quiet time. Hannah had a great time at school and loved telling me all about it and showing me her papers on the letter P. When I came upstairs from putting Ellie down for a nap, Hannah was sitting quietly on the couch, ready to play reading games. While Hannah was in timeout she chose to make me birthday pictures, coloring and cutting out cakes and making them "chocolate," my favorite. Hannah made me a birthday crown. She practiced her piano. She did her chore. She ate her dinner and lots and lots of corn. She helped Kenzie find some of her jewels. When Mike took the girls to his parent's after dinner, she said sweetly, "Mommy, do you just need some alone time?"

See. It was a good day too. That Szechuan is wonderful stuff.

Ellie is Beef and Broccoli on Noodles. With chopsticks. She is slippery and everywhere and wonderful and messy and sometimes frustrating.  She's still mostly mild, but has the potential to be spicy too. And sometimes the beef can be a little tough.

Mike gets to be the fortune cookies, and I'll just keep trying to be the ham fried rice. Actually I think we're both the ham fried rice--- the thing that pulls the meals together, the essence of the meal.

Fashion Philosophy

So far I have three girls. I suppose that some of my motherly responsibility is to teach them things like "dressing yourself" and "personal hygiene."  The problem is that for girls these categories have all sorts of nuances and subcategories. Categories that have always escaped me. Categories like "fashion" and "matching" and "style" and "coordinating jewelry" and "accessorizing."

It used to be that my whole fashion philosophy could be summed up in two words, "blend in." I suppose you could throw in the subcategory of "be comfortable," but mainly my goal has been to not be noticed. That means I try to strike a happy medium between over-done and under-done. Mostly I think I succeed, but sometimes I border on the noticeable spectrum, and not in a "I want to dress like her" manner-- more of in a "Did she look in a mirror before she left the house?" manner.

Occasionally I wish that I could be trendy and fashionable and wear jeggings with fashionable boots, and have my girls in perfectly coordinated outfits with awesomely coiffed hair, but then I remember that this involves shopping, possibly at the mall, and cold shakes envelop my body and I decide that I will just stick to my blend-in tactics.

But as my girls grow and are off to school, I've had to develop another prong to my fashion philosophy. In the interest of teaching them to "blend-in" I have banned some clothing to "play clothes" only status and I drop an occasional, "Go put a different shirt on. Blue stripes do not go well with a pink polka dotted skirt." And I do make them comb their hair every day too.

For a week or two Kenzie was doing her own hair in all sorts of new-fangled fancy styles, some of which went way outside the norm. Mike and I smiled and told her she looked fantastic, because she did. She was bursting with pride at her 5-bow, 3-ponytail creations. This definitely did not fit into my "blend-in" fashion philosophy, but I checked the urge to correct or stymie her style. "Confidence" I told myself. "She's developing her style and needs support and love. She'll build confidence." (Or be crushed by the mean comments of other children, I thought to myself hopelessly.)

So, I keep my critical comments mostly to myself and when I do offer some advice and Kenzie huffs madly at me, folds her arms and says, "No. I like this" when I tell her something doesn't match (one of those subcategories that I do have a nominal knowledge of), then I shrug my shoulders and let her wear it to school.  I pray that despite a sometimes cold, cruel world of other people's opinions, my girls will develop confidence, enough to be able to have their own style and feel good about it--whether it's blending in or standing out.

So now my fashion philosophy is "Blend in. But if not, stand-out with confidence." I am trying to desperately to drum up some confidence since my "blend-in" style is not working out so well these days. With a seven-month pregnant tummy that sticks out and visibly moves, I'm getting a lot more stares. Plus, I'm running out of clothing options. Nothing fits over my protrusions. The only bras I have that fit are pink. And my shoes? I'm having trouble bending over so my brown slip-on boots are about all I wear these days--even with gray and black pants. So when you see me parading about in a flowing white shirt with a pink bra underneath and gray pants with brown boots, one leg tucked in and the other untucked, know that I am employing my second philosophy of fashion---Confidence.   

After all, "Beauty is in the eye of the beholder and it may be necessary from time to time to give a stupid or misinformed beholder a black eye."  (Miss Piggy)

I'm so Excited for the End of the World



Since the world is ending on Dec 21, there's really no sense in making any real resolutions. But, I guess there's always the chance that the Mayan prediction will be as wrong as every other one, so I'm going to hedge my bets and keep trying to beat my laundry into submission. 

#2 (see #1 above): Dominate the Lost Socks. I have a box for lost socks and it is constantly overflowing. I hearby resolve to match (or perhaps just throw away) every sock in that box.

#3: Have a baby. At the hospital. Stay at the hospital as long as possible. 

#4: Finish writing my book. Currently my main character (and the plot) is stuck in a hotel in Idaho. It's kind of depressing.

#5: Don't sign up for any crazy races until next year. Next year. Seriously. I mean it. No, a half marathon in November does not sound good. No. A 5K might be okay. Really. A 5K. In October. Alright.

#6: Organize a closet (shoot for the moon, I say).

#7: Teach Hannah to read, Teach Ellie to pee (in the toilet) and teach Kenzie to run.

#8: Start a family book club.

#9: Study scriptures at least 5 times a week.

The end.     

Emotionality

I wanted to write a list of things that have made me cry while I've been pregnant, but I think a shorter list might be "Things That Don't Make Me Cry While Pregnant."

I realized that perhaps I have become slightly over-emotional when I walked into Kenzie's first grade class as a surprise guest and got all choked up seeing her happy, toothless grin of excitement. She was sitting on the floor, surrounded by her classmates, and she looked so grown-up. I didn't want to embarrass the poor girl, so I managed to keep it together, but seriously, who cries just because they see their kid at school?

The next hint that perhaps everything is not right in the hormone department came while I was driving home from shopping. "Home" by Dierks Bentley came on the radio and I cried real tears when he started singing the chorus. "From the Mountains high, to the wave-crashed coast, there's a way to find better days I know. . .This is still the place that we all call home."

"Oh," I sobbed aloud to my empty car. "America really is great."

Now that heartburn is settling in (Just in time for the holidays!), perhaps I will become a little more angry and less sensitive.