sniderkin

Day by day the Bells is getting better, it’s a slow process but a very very welcome one!

Cavan seems to be afraid of Daddy.  I’ll lay in bed and I can feel him moving like he’s all hopped up on juicy juice but as soon as Shannon puts his hand on my belly Cavan stops moving.  So, Daddy hasn’t gotten to feel Cavan move yet - we’ll catch him one of these days!

I feel like my belly is growing outward by 3 inches every week at this point.  I guess we’re in the home stretch now, just 88 days left before I’m due!  There’s still a lot we need to do to get ready for Cavan, a lot we need to buy (mostly small stuff, but $10 here and $20 there sure adds up fast when you’re unemployed.)  I think we’ll be ready in time - it just feels like there’s so much to do and not very much time to do it in!  I’ll officially be full term on January 23, so he could make an appearance anytime after that!

I’ve been applying for jobs, but so far no luck.  I can’t stand for very long so that limits my options quite a bit.  I don’t qualify for unemployment, so my income went from a steady paycheck to zero all in a matter of days, which is really no good for anyone!  I’m trying not to stress out too much about it (a very difficult task) because I know that stress can cause problems for the baby or make him come early - and I want Cavan to be born healthy.  I’m finding it very hard to deal with the fact that I can’t seem to do anything and Shannon has 800 million things to do right now - I feel pretty useless.  Hopefully I’ll be able to find work soon.

I keep telling Shannon how lucky he is that I’m not having hormone swings.  One woman on a forum I read said that the other day she went to Burger King and ordered a chicken sandwich - well they were out of chicken so she literally stood there at the register and cried her eyes out.  I keep reading stories like that and all I have to say is THANK GOODNESS I’m not hormonal like that.  If I do get like that, I think I’ll be tempted to hide inside until my hormones get back to normal!

We had our doctor appointment today, just a standard check up.  The Bells Palsy is slowly subsiding (I can make my face twitch a little now and my vision is so much better!), so that’s good news.  I started noticing improvment with the Bells on Monday, and every day since it has been getting a teensy bit better - I’m so excited to have a whole face again!

I’ve been having braxton hicks contractions for the last week or so, but they’re perfectly normal and not painful so there’s no worry.  My doctor measured me and said I was measuring a bit big - so she had us do an ultrasound to measure the baby and make sure I wasn’t going to have a 20 pounder.

The ultrasound came back perfectly normal (my amniotic fluid is still a little low though).  Cavan is measuring in at 2 pounds 5 ounces, which puts him in the 49th percentile (smack in the middle, or “average” for how far along we are.)  So that’s a relief, no huge baby!  The doctor said I must just be carrying him kind of high and that’s why I was measuring big.

Also, Cavan’s heart rate was 141 bpm, perfect!  He was moving around a bit and it was neat to see him moving and feel him moving at the same time.  Turns out that it’s not his feet kicking my bladder all the time - it’s his head!  He has turned upside down and is hanging out quite comfortably like that.  The kicking I feel around my belly button is his hands and knees, so I guess it’s more punching than kicking.

My doctor appointment for Wednesday was cancelled because my doctor was out for the week, so we’ll be going in next Wednesday.  I’m anxious to get my “everything’s going just fine” speech, especially since my facial muscles haven’t improved at all.  I’ve been trying to massage my face because I read that it helps keep the muscles from permanently shortening, and because I’m sort of paranoid because I’ve talked to a couple people now who said they knew people who never got over it.  I can not deal with this anymore - my eye really bothers me and my vision is unreliable, I can’t even drive, so I’m hoping it will go away soon.  I did start getting a lot of pain on the left side of my face, even just touching it lightly hurts something terrible.  Maybe that’s a good sign that the nerves are growing back.

In other news, Shannon was feeling my belly for Cavan to move (he’s been hiding from Daddy thus far!) and I got a really powerful jab in my tummy.  Well, it was so strong I yipped at Shannon “Don’t do that!” only to discover, it wasn’t Shannon - it wasn’t even near where his hand was so he didn’t feel it.  It was just Cavan showing us that the steroids I was on did indeed make him roundhouse kick like Chuck Norris.  Cavan’s kicking sometimes startles me and makes me jump, but that kick was really powerful - he must be getting to be a strong little guy!

100 days to go!  Time sure is starting to fly by, almost as fast as my belly is growing!

Last week Shannon and I were at a bookstore and I bought several used children’s books as the start of Cavan’s storytime collection.  I can’t believe how expensive children’s books are, so when I saw some used ones for $2 each I snatched them up.  Hopefully we can get a decent book collection going before he’s born if we just keep buying a couple used/sale ones at a time.  Who can afford $10 for a book with 6 sentences?!

Still no improvement with the Bells.  I actually lost my job because of it - I didn’t have enough time accumulated to take the time off I had to, so they basically told me I had to quit or be fired.  I’m having them fire me because I need to get my student loans into deferrment and I can’t do that if I quit.  So, things have been stressful - I’m 6 months pregnant with half my face paralyzed and jobless.  I don’t think I qualify for unemployment because I hadn’t been there long enough - regardless, today Shannon is taking me to the department of human services to see what my options are because frankly - not having an income is not an option unless we want to live in a box somewhere and eat garbage, and how can we afford a baby on a grad student’s income alone?

I have another doctor appointment Wednesday, I’m hoping we get to see Cavan during that one but I realize we probably won’t.  I’m just curious to see how he’s grown!

Just a little update to let everyone know the Bells hasn’t cleared up yet (no improvement at all), but my doctor prescribed me a steroid pack that she says is safe for baby and that the ER docs should have prescribed me to start with so it didn’t get this bad (she actually called them dingdongs for not giving me medication). I’m on day 3 of steroids and no change yet, but I’m keeping my fingers crossed that this does the trick. I can’t afford to be off work this long, I don’t know what we’re going to do if this doesn’t clear up soon.  Today I was informed that I may lose my job since I haven’t been there 90 days yet and have had to take so much time off for this.  My manager is looking into it and I should know by early next week if I still have a job.  Yay for making things more stressful.

In other news, Shannon is convinced that since I am now taking steroids, I will give birth to a miniature Chuck Norris. Cavan has been kicking normally and we go in again Wednesday for a check up, so even though I really hate having to take medication for this it helps to know that my doctor is following up very closely. Plus, she’s a prenatal specialist and the ER docs are just people doing their time after medical school.