It’s a Girl!!!

At around 1 am March 2nd Tuesday morning we had our baby. She was a girl we named Fiona Olivia and she weighed exactly 7 pounds. We are exstatic to say the least. She is healthy and beautiful.

I will be recouperating and I expect to not be able to update this blog during the next 2 weeks or so. I will be posting a long detailed account of our wonderful birthing experience, but it will probably take me to mid April to complete.

37 Weeks Pregnant; Loss of Mucus Plug

This morning as I layed in bed, I thought I felt almost as if I were going to pee my pants.  I got up and looked at the bed to make sure I had not broken my water yet.  Nope, no dampness. But then when I went to use the bathroom, I heard and felt a small thud. No, it was not a bowel movement. I had just lost my mucus plug or had my bloody show as some people say. I wish this meant labor was immenent but it still could be 3 more weeks or so. I still feel excited as loosing the mucus plug means labor is coming, I just still don’t have any better idea as to when. I would like to think it will happen today as my whole lower half of my body is acheing as we are shopping for some last minute baby prep items like diapers. It would also work out great as my husband is off work for the next 3 days. Oh well, I guess we’ll just have to wait and see.

36 Weeks Pregnant; Pelvic Bone Softening

This week marks my 36th week of pregnancy.  This is probaby the first week that I have felt uncomfortable, well aside from the 6 weeks of nausea during the first trimester but that was different.

Sunday night I was unable to sleep at all.  I had a sore throat and a congested head.  This was either caused by a head cold contracted while going out to the movies the day before to see ‘The Wolfman’ or it was just due to my sinuses being aggrevated by the low humidity caused by unseasonable low temperatures over the past weekend here in southern Florida.  Either way not sleeping Sunday night left Monday a long tireing day of a sore throat and congestion that also prevented naps.

Tuesday I awoke to my aching pelvic bone.  I felt as if I could barely walk.  It was quite odd to go from walking 3 miles a day and doing pre natal yoga to feeling like I could barely walk.  Oh and when the baby’s head would move and accidently get too close to my pelvis, it felt like it’s head bones were knocking into my pelvic bone and the pain would just echo through my already achey bone.

I of course had to google pelvic pain during the third trimester and found some scary posts.  Some people and posted on forums that they began having pelvic pain at 30 weeks of pregnancy and that it did not end until they delivered.  The pain was bearable and I knew that it was a result of hormones being released that were softening my pelvis so that it could streatch and open up to allow the baby out.  I am a big fan of the pelvis softening for passage of the baby as opposed to the alternative.  Not being able to walk and to feel immobile was much more freightening.

Luckily the pelvic pain subsided the next day.

35 Weeks Pregnant; Preparing for Labor

This week marks my 35th week being pregnant.  I have really started to notice that the baby is getting a lot bigger.  I really feel like I am busting out.  Up until last week I was quite comfortable.  I can’t at all say that I am miserable and hopefully we won’t get there.  It is getting harder to find a comfortable position to sit in.  I also know need to sleep on my side laying into 2 pillows with the lower half between my legs.  Before I was quite comfortable with just one pillow.

Preparing for Labor

I find myself now quite occupied with preparing myself for labor.  I am trying to do this physically and mentaly. Physically I am keeping up with my PreNatal activities; those being pre natal yoga, swimming and walking 3 miles.  I try to do all three of these daily.  This is not always possible, but I always do atleast 2 activites.

Preparing mentaly is challenging as I have no idea what I am in for as this is our first child.  For women who had a natural/ unmedicated childbirth experience their description of the pain varies greatly.  Some women have reported it feeling orgasmic while others report it being the worst pain in their life.  Other things that I have read imply that the woman’s attitude shapes her pain experience.  It is extremely painful because she expects it to be.  What I am trying to determine is how you can expect it to be orgasmic and still prepare for it to be quite painful so that if you do feel some pain you don’t loose your head and get swallowed up by the pain.

Instead of deciding on the best way to prepare for the pain, I have decided it would be better to focus on the point of labor; the baby.  I am going to try to see the pain as secondary and just something necessary to the process of birthing my baby.  My idea is to follow the flow of my body and feel it out and try to relax and work with my animalistic instincts.  Giving birth is not something you need to think your way through but you do want to try to keep high stress and anxiety away.  Those 2 are never a good thing to have.  I have been trying to visualize the baby inside of my uterus and then I try to visual the path it will take to be born.  Hopefully if I focus on the baby and the amazing process of giving birth, the pain, if any, will be very tolerable.

Installing Ubuntu 8.04 on my HP 2133 Mini-Note

As it had been over six months since I had installed windows on my HP 2133, it was time to wipe the drive and re install.  Since my Ubuntu is set up to dual boot on this machine, that also meant I had to re install Ubuntu.  The best way to wipe a drive is to wipe everything and re partition.

I started by using gParted and setting up a partition for Windows so that it would not just install and take over the entire drive.  You have to keep your eye on Windows.  After installing Windows on the first partition, I was ready to install Ubuntu.

Ubuntu 8.04 was the version of Linux that I had previously installed.  I had wanted to install the latest version of Ubuntu, which as of this post is 9.10, but I just did not have much success installing the updated distros.

When installing a distro of Linux, sometimes you just have to go with what works best on your hardware.  I downloaded the .iso file for Ubuntu 9.10, 9.04 and 8.10.  I burned the live CD for each of them and proceeded to test them out on my HP 2133.  My biggest obstacle with these Ubuntu versions was getting the wireless hardware to work and jump on my wireless network.  As the HP 2133 Mini-Note is a small laptop made to be portable, the wireless working was essential in my case.  I also knew that I did not have the time nor the Linux know how to figure out a work around for the more recent versions.  As no one had of yet posted a fix online, I opted to reinstall Ubuntu 8.04.  I knew this version worked great on my hardware.

Install Ubuntu 8.04 on HP 2133

• Review, read and follow this wiki
• Download Ubuntu 8.04 .iso here
• Burn .iso to CD or DVD creating live CD, (windows or mac)
• Boot from Live CD
• Press F6 to bring up boot options line
• Type ‘xforcevesa’ at the end of the line and hit enter
• This should start the installation process
• Follow the prompts during installation to establish time zone and the computer name etc
• After installation is complete take out Live CD and restart
• Connect to internet with network cable
• On top right click on System> Administration > Update Manager and download and install the updates and restart
• To get wireless working, click on System> Administration> Hardware Drivers and from here you should be able to activate/ enable the wireless driver and then restart
• Now you can click on Applications> Add/Remove to install more software and set up you machine how you like.
• The webcam is the only thing I have not gotten to work properly so far.

The Importance of an Emergency Fund

As children when we receive money as allowence or cash birthday presents we tended to save enough to buy something we wanted.  We focused on our wants because our needs like food, shelter and clothing were taken care of by our parents.  At least that was the situation for those of us lucky enough to have caretakers that took care of our basic needs.

As we enter High School and develop through our early twenties, we have to start taking on the responsibility of taking care of paying for our own needs with money we earn from a job.  Hopefully by our mid twenties we have figured out how to pay all of our basic needs and also have some idea how to save up for our wants.  Not all of us get to this point. Ever.  Some blame it on the credit card they receive their freshman year of college and others just live paycheck to paycheck regardless of how high their income rises.

Growing up as far as personal finance and money is concerned we tend to figure out the difference between spending money on our wants versus our needs.  What is more subtle and thus harder to realize or figure out is how money, at its best, is a resource.

The most essential resource and the first thing necesary to establish once you start earning money is an EMERGENCY FUND.

How to Start an Emergency Fund

• Look at your spending, determine what is a necessary expense i.e. what you would still have to pay for after you lost your job, and add up those expenses for the month
• Suze Orman recomends that you have 8 months of living expenses saved.  That is definatly a good start in this market.  So say you need about $2,000 a month to live off, just multiply that by 8 and you arrive at $16,000.  And thus you should stash 16,000 in a savings account that you can access easily but you only use for emergencies; like getting laid off.
• Realize that it will take time to save up that initial amount for the emergency fund.  The best advice is that you live on the minimum amount you can, delay buying a new iPhone or computer or anything else unnecesary to survival, and stash everything left over each month into that emergency fund savings account.
• Enjoy the fact that you have established an emergency fund.  You are using money like a resource instead of it working you over.  If you lost your job tomorrow, you would have 8 months to find another source of income.
• Remember to replace any amount of the emergency fund that you use for emergencies.

Once you have established an emergency fund, you should feel that stress and tension leave your body.  You have just given yourself 8 months; time to look for another job, or come up with an alternate plan or develop additional income streams.  Had you not had the emergency fund, and you lost your job, everything you had would come falling down like a house of cards.  Aside from losing all those things you had accumulated, you’d now have to worry about where your next meal would come from.

Do yourself a huge favor and maintain an emergency fund.

Relaxing at the Beach

I spent most of yesterday (Saturday) relaxing at the beach. I hope I never take for granted how close we live to the beach.

Exercising During Pregnancy

Atrophy

At some point during recent history it was decided that pregnant women were fragile, well at least in North America and other “industrialized” countries.  This lead to women not exerting themselves the entire 9 -10 months of pregnancy.  Then after all the atrophy labor began and kicked their asses.  I imagine it is like not running for 9-10 months and then going out and running a marathon.

Preparation For Labor

Later some people made the realization that since labor and giving birth were very physically strenuous activities, maybe it was good for pregnant women to get some activity.  Scientific studies were done and now it is widely accepted that some exercise is good for pregnant women.  Those that actually follow/ study or have experienced childbirth believe that exercise prepared them for labor and made their labor shorter.  Looking at nature, animal giving birth, human anatomy and physiology it all makes common sense.  In order to prepare for my labor I have made it a very important point to keep exercising.

Exercising

Luckily we live in Southern Florida so we are able to go for a walk most everyday.  6 days of each week we have beenwalking 3 miles.  Strangely walking feels very comfortable while I have a hard time finding a comfortable sitting position on the couch.

I have also been doing pre natal yoga most days.  It takes some effort most days.  Poses are geared towards working the back and legs while involving various labor poses while mixing in some kegels.  For a few weeks it was quite hard to do the pre natal yoga because I always felt so full.  I had been advised to eat more and get more protein which was difficult with the baby higher in my abdomen and feeling like the head was resting on my stomach.  About a week ago the baby turned and is now head down.  This makes eating a lot easier.  Especially during the downward facing dog pose I no longer feel as if my last snack is trying to come up the back of my throat.

We have also done some swimming during this pregnancy.  Since I was a competitive swimmer in junior high and high school I never feel like swimming for half an hour is a workout since I used to be in the pool 3-4 hours a day.  It doesn’t matter that for me it may not be the best aerobic activity because after swimming I feel so great.  I feel so light and like I have so much more room in my abdomen.

Doing activities where you don’t notice the bowling ball in your abdomen, I would highly recommend.

33 Weeks Pregnant and an Ultrasound

This last week marked 33 weeks pregnant for me.  Sadly it also marked a frustrating week with my ISP who happens to be Comcast.  Magically or suspiciously the internet would go down between 10 am and noon and come back up sometime after 5 pm every single day this last week.  I suspected that in the process of remodeling an apartment in our building it got shut off each day but when I asked some of the remodelers they claimed that they did not shut off anything during a remodel.  Maybe they meant to say that their official stance is no but they do it anyway.  So the last week was spent trying to figure out what was interrupting our service.  A Comcast technician is coming on Monday between 2-5 pm and hopefully he/she will be able to solve the problem.  If not maybe we will only pay half of our bill when it comes.  Thus this is why I am writing about the 33rd week of pregnancy on Saturday the end of the week.  Apparently you need an internet connection to post.

Ultrasound

In the midst of my ISP issue we had an ultrasound done.  Our first ultrasound was done at 14 weeks and we could not see any anatomy so we opted to have another ultrasound done.  We did not want to find out the gender of the baby, we wanted to see the anatomy like the heart and the kidneys.  It was so amazing.  The technician was very nice and personable.  He would tell us when he was getting close to showing the gender so we could turn our heads away.

Good Anatomy

The kidneys were so neat to see and the four chambers of the heart as they pumped blood.  A week before at an appointment with our midwife the baby was not turned head down yet, but on the ultrasound the baby’s head was way down.  This is probably the reason I was able to eat a bit more this last week. I had a lot more space for it as the baby’s head was down and lower allowing some room for my stomach to expand.  We were given a DVD of the ultrasound but the technician advised us that the video does show the gender so we have chosen to wait until after the baby is born to view the DVD.

Gestational Diabetes Test

I also had to partake in the 3 hour gestational diabetes test.  I don’t recommend it at all.  I had to fast the night before and then skip breakfast.  I arrived at the lab at about 8:40 am.  They drew my blood when I first arrived, then at 9:40, 10:40 and 11:40.  That makes FOUR times total.  The first drawing resulted in a nice hematoma so on my left arm I could be mistaken for an intravenous drug user.  GREAT.  It did give me a lot of time to sit and read ‘Husband-Coached Childbirth’ by Dr. Bradley since I was there for about 3 hours.

Natural Childbirth Preparation

I have been consuming myself with ways to prepare for natural childbirth.  I will be writing and posting a rather long post later as to what I have been investigating and then I hope to post after giving birth providing some evidence as to what worked and what didn’t.

The Origional Photo……

Black and White Effect on Photo by Photoshop App for G1

Installing OpenSUSE 11.0 KDE on my HP 2133

Since it has been over 6 months since I had installed a windows os on my HP 2133, problems started showing up clueing me into the fact that it was time to wipe the drive, reinstall the os and start all over.  My previous set up on my HP 2133 was a tri boot of Windows Vista, Windows 7 (release candidate only), and Ubuntu 8.04.

Windows

Once all of the service packs were installed Vista actaully worked quite well.  Although maybe I think that because there was so much negative said about Vista.  I really only use Windows for those few websites that my work or my husband’s work require IE and Windows OS to access.  And I also use it to run Skype as the video conferencing does not always seem to work right on many of the Linux distros I have tried.  Damn the man you can’t ever fully get away from Windows.  I don’t want to install it on my Mac, YUCK.  I did like testing Windows 7 but not enough to run out and buy it for over 100 dollars.

Linux; Ubuntu 8.04

I loved running Ubuntu on my HP2133.  The built in wireless card and web camera worked wonderfully.  You have to love it when all you have to do is install from the live CD and practically all of the hardware works without having to search for how to set it up and use the terminal and search for drivers.  The only drawback was that Skype did not work too well.  Well the IM function worked great but video calls did not.  Ubuntu is a great Linux distro to start using if you are new to using Linux or if you just want to get going after an install.  In my case there even was already a wiki on how to install Ubuntu on my particular netbook.

Linux; OpenSUSE 11.0 KDE

Because Skype was the only app that did not work quite right in Ubuntu I kept searching for a good Linux distro for my HP 2133.  I discovered some posts about OpenSUSE 11.0 KDE running well on the HP 2133.  Reading the directions and notes associated with these posts of successful installation would have made things way too easy.  I downloaded the iso, burned it to a CD and installed in on my HP 2133.  I did not even re partition the hard drive.  I just wanted to see how it would work.  I like OpenSUSE.  I used to have it installed on an old Dell laptop.  Sadly the wireless card and web cam did not work right after installation.  So this will take some tweaking.  The last resort; I guess I will go back and read some documentation.

32 Weeks Pregnant; Bring on the Protein

This week marks my 32nd week of pregnancy.  Today I was paging through the notebook where I had taken notes about my symptoms and feelings during the first trimester.  As I stared at my own handwriting, it sort of transported my back to that time period and I could have never imagined myself this far into the pregnancy.

Looking back it does not seem like I have been pregnant that long.  But while I remember the first trimester, it does seem like a lot of time has passed.  It may seem like a lot of time has passed because a lot of things have changed in my life since I found out we were pregnant in July 2009.

• I gave notice at my full time profesional position
• My husband and I packed everything we owned into a U Haul and moved down to the south eastern coast of Florida
• We replaced the transmission on our vehicle
• I started a new part time very un glamorous job
• My husband started a new full time good money job
• We drove the second vehicle down after a visit at Thanksgiving
• We changed the direction of our pre natal care from OB to Midwife

As I am in the third (last trimester) protein intake is very important.  The baby is building its brain.  I am supposed to eating 60-90 grams of protein everyday.  I have never eaten so much meat and high protein items in my life.  I think I have eaten eggs and sausage everyday for that meal in between breakfast and lunch.  That is another thing, I feel like I am eating all of the time.  Since there is not much room for my stomach to expand, I have to eat smaller more frequent meals.  Some days I feel like all I do is; prepare food, eat food, clean up and then repeat.  I guess this is preparing me for when the baby comes only it will be the baby breast feeding all of the time instead of me.  At least with breast feeding there are not any dishes to clean up.

The Benefits of a Small Apartment

When we moved to Southern Florida about 5 months ago, we moved into a small one bedroom apartment.  We had moved from a larger apartment and we did not get a garage with the new apartment.  We did get rid of a lot of things before we moved.  Which I do suggest because the more you have to move the more it sucks.  With a baby on the way I assumed the apartment would start to seem way too small way too soon.

As I am imagining having a newborn I am thinking the small apartment will be excellent.  I mean I can clean the entire apartment in less than 2 hours.  As I will soon be spending a lot of time breast feeding and changing diapers, the less time I have to spend cleaning the better.

If I could only find a way to get the laundry to do itself.  It always seems so tedious to put it in the washer, then the dryer and then hang it up in the closet only to wear it and dirty it again.  I was thinking how much easier it would be if I only had a few outfits.  Would people even notice if I wore the same cloths all of the time?  I think what stops me from getting rid of a lot of cloths is that I think I may need it later and I hate re buying  what I already owned.  I know I will use that heavy fleece jacket when I travel to cooler climates.  Just because I never use it in Southern Florida where I live isn’t always a good reason to donate it.

Another good benefit of living in a small space is you don’t feel the need to buy things to fill in the empty space.  If we had opted for a 2 bedroom apartment we would have just bought more stuff.  As we are planning to buy a house in the next few years, I know that once we got the house the stuff that we had in the apartment would probably not fit in the space well or we may want to buy nicer more quality furniture for the house.

Living a minimalist lifestyle makes things a lot easier.  It takes less time to clean everything and keep track of it all.  It gives you the opportunity to save money as you are not always buying things.  A smaller space usually costs less so you can save money in that respect.  Saving money and time probably also allows for a lower stress level.  Now I am wondering how do people live in mansions?

31 Weeks Pregnant

I am now in week 31 of being pregnant and that translates to “Oh Sh#$% that means only 9 weeks left, If I in fact make it the entire 40 weeks!”  Next Monday I will enter the EIGHTH month of pregnancy.  When I look at the numbers, I think I should be more anxious and freaked out.  I am very surprised that I feel really calm about it all.

Anxious?

It is my husband and I’s first child so we have no idea as to what is in store for us when the baby comes nor do I have a clue as to what labor and delivery will be like.  Yet I find myself feeling quite calm.  Why am I so calm?  Why do I not feel anxious?  I am actaully rather enjoying this moment in my life.

Why Not

I think I am not anxious because I physically feel quite well.  Being almost 8 months pregnant isn’t what I imagined or read about.  By now I thought I would be uncomfortable all of the time. Nor have I suffered all the little things I read about in “What to Expect When you are Expecting” book.

The reasons that I don’t feel uncomfortable all of the time; I have a very supportive and knowledgeable husband, I am not working full time, and I have not gained a lot of extra weight.  It is amazing how much of a burden it takes off of your shoulders to have a competent, helpful, supportive partner.  I hear other people talk about their unsuppportive partners and I appreciate my husband even more.  If you want to make your life a whole lot simpler, don’t get financially entangeld or have children with someone who does not help you out.  Not working full time and being able to sleep in when I have been awakened every 2 hours to urinate, or being able to eat small meals all day and being able to lay down and put my feet up whenever I want really helps create an environment of very little discomfort.  Up until now I have only gained maybe 25 pounds, and compared to the 60 or so pounds that other women talk about gaining, it feels very managable.   Don’t get me wrong, it is still uncomfortable to get up from laying down or bend over and tie my shoes.  But my husband and I go walking for 3 miles each day and that surprisingly feels great.

Third Trimester Protein Intake Increase

One big change in this third trimester is eating more protein.  During my last visit with my midwife, she advised me that I need to be eating 60-90 grams of protein everyday.  Protein? I asked her, why?  She advised it is because so much of the baby’s brain is being developed during the last trimester and nuerons need protein.  The next day I kept track of everything I ate and by the end of the day I had eaten 107 grams of protein.  Not to say that I didn’t change my diet and just kept track of everything I ate, I purposely added protein heavy items to my diet.  The first day I may have gone a little overboard.  Since then I have kept my protein intake between 80 and 90 grams.  It is necessary to eat fiber like apples as you increase protein intake, otherwise those bowel movements will not remain regular.  Being regular is great.

Cakewalk

All in all this pregnancy is not what I expected after doing research before I got pregnant.  Aside from the nausea during the first trimester, it has been pretty much a cakewalk.  We will see what the end has in store for me.  I will continue to expect the worst pain imaginable during labor.  Hopefully I will be pleasantly surprised.

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