Because I Need More Drama...

Perhaps you will recall an off-hand mention of bunnies in our backyard. The backyard in which our dog roams free. The dog who is a beagle, a breed that is bred to hunt rabbits.

I'm happy to say that we believe our baby bunnies all made it out of the nest in our backyard. However, I'm unhappy to report that we--who am I kidding--Londo has discovered a few dead bunnies and one dead bird in our backyard. We had been keeping our dog on a leash in the backyard to prevent her killing of bunnies, but somehow dead bunnies (and the dead bird) ended up in our yard anyway. Who knows what killed those unfortunate animals (if Londo suspects anything specific, he does not tell me, and I'm glad).

Our neighborhood is literally infested with bunnies. They. Are. Everywhere. Lots of people in our pretty, suburb neighborhood have lovely flower or vegetable gardens in their front and backyards. In fact, the house to our left has had a vegetable garden in their yard since before we moved in and the house to our right just planted one this spring. Which puts us and our beagle in the yard between to very delicious gardens.

Did you know that bunnies love gardens? If you don't believe me, just ask Mr. McGregor. Did you know that the best way between two gardens is through our yard? We suspect we will have bunnies coming and going for the rest of the summer at the least.

But we can't live our lives in constant fear of the dumb bunnies. A huge reason we bought this house was to have a yard for the dog and us. We don't want to have to walk the dog anymore, especially with a toddler and a new baby. We want to sit in the backyard and enjoy ourselves, as we have before.

This past weekend, Londo spent a good amount of time cleaning up our yard, mowing, trimming and making sure there were no defenseless animals in the yard. There was a bunny, but that one was very capable of hopping through the fence to the neighbor's yard. We decided to let our dog back out in the yard without us again. We knew that she would sniff around like crazy (scent hound, you know) and probably get some good chasing in. But even when she had a baby bunny cornered a week or so ago, she just kind of nosed at it and kept it cornered until Londo could get her back from it. After all, she wasn't bred to kill the animals, just find them and corner them and alert the owners that she found them. Which she did.

Yesterday, I had a very emotionally draining day, which followed a very emotionally and physically draining weekend. As Londo was putting the Pumpkin to bed, I fed the dog and cat and let the dog out. She was taking a while, and I figured she was sniffing around the whole yard, maybe eating bunny poop (a favorite of hers). I was tired and just wanted to go to bed.

WARNING: This next paragraph is not for the squimish.

I opened the door to call her in, and she was at the bottom of the steps. As the light shined full on her, I saw a bunny hanging from her mouth. The legs were definitely bunny legs. It was not moving. And as I shrieked, my dog started to wolf the bunny down.

I will not go into more graphic details, because I can't even think about it! Ugh, I want to throw up just writing what I did!

I slammed the door because I couldn't watch or deal with it. I knew exactly what the dog was doing, because I watched her do the same thing to a dead bird I was trying to get from her once many years ago. That's the kind of image that sticks with you.

I screamed for Londo, and he came scrambling out of the Pumpkin's room and hurried out to take care of the situation. By the time he got out there, there was no situation to take care of. In fact, he wasn't sure I'd even seen a bunny. Dude, trust me. She was not across the yard in dim light. She was within a few feet of me in full light. I unfortunately know exactly what I saw. I know she left no evidence of what happened, because the same thing happened with the dead bird years ago--which I watched in horror as it happened.

So this was a long, gross post that I'm sure everyone is glad I shared. But I need to exorcise this story, and I do so by writing about it. I also wanted to point out that a woman who is 37.5 weeks pregnant is only emotionally and hormonally capable of handling so much. I think I'm at my breaking point. Let me please suggest to everyone who knows me to please just tell me good news, be supportive of me even if you don't agree and encourage me to put my feet up and rest a spell. And for goodness sake, don't let my dog loose in the backyard. I'd also love any volunteers take the dog out on a leash even in the backyard, or even just check the freaking yard for me before the dog goes out.

Question of the Week - Share a Story

The Pumpkin is having one of those weird mornings where she is having fun and we're laughing and then you ask her something, and there she goes. She gets her pout on, nothing is right and she refuses the thing she just wanted. I call The Twos (and I'm not the only one calling it that). I also call it not getting enough sleep.

Luckily, we did have a lot of fun for the most part. Partly that is because I have a doctor's appointment this morning and didn't have to hurry and get ready to go to work while watching her this morning. And Londo is working from home today. So we had time to let her fuss and cajole her out of it, as needed. We also had a few funny moments that I thought I'd share. Because when you are dealing with The Twos, you need to write down, revisit and hear from others all the cute moments you can!

Which is why this week's question of the week is:
Do you have a cute story to share?

Here are two of mine from this morning.

At one point, Londo and I were sitting on the couch with the Pumpkin between us drinking her milk. We were all watching a Blue's Clues, giving Londo and I time to drink a little coffee and wake ourselves up a bit. This morning, the clues were animal footprints, a tail and animal ears. We had the following conversation:

Londo, to me over the Pumpkin's head: It's Batman.
caramama: Batman doesn't have a tail.
Londo: We don't know what's under that cape.
The Pumpkin suddenly pipes up: I have a tail.

We burst out laughing. It was just so unexpected and cute. Then I said something about how she's good at wagging her tail. And sure enough, she started wiggling as if wagging her bottom while sitting. It was so cute.

The other story from this morning was me really entertaining myself while playing with the Pumpkin. I got her out of one funk by suggesting we build towers with blocks. We went from towers to a house to a car to a bridge. In fact, here was a cute exchange:

caramama: What should we build now? How about a bridge?
The Pumpkin: Good idea, Mommy! Good idea! Let's build a bridge!

So I we built a bridge, and I pretended one of the single blocks was a guy going over the bridge. The Pumpkin looked around and picked up one of her little stuffed dogs to go over the bridge. As she made the dog start to go up the steps to the bridge, I pulled out a single yellow block, and I sang, "I'm the grumpy old troll who lives under the bridge. I'm the grumpy old troll who lives under the bridge.* If you want to go over the bridge, you have to answer the following question. What is your favorite color?**" The Pumpkin looked at her toy dog, and after thinking for a minute, she pointed to the dog's back and said, "It's brown." I chuckled, very amused, and let the dog pass.

So those are a couple of cute moments from this morning. It's often the little things that get me through the more frustrating moments. Three days in a row of no napping does take its toll on all of us.

But I could use more cute moments. What have you got?

Name That Reference game:
*Which TV show reference is this?
**Which movie reference is this?

(Another) One of Those Days

I was writing this post all about the cute things that the Pumpkin says, but then my nanny had to go home early because she wasn't feeling well. So I got home during what should have been nap time, but as soon as I walked in the door, Londo told me that she was awake so I didn't have to tiptoe in. They were cuddling on the couch watching Wonderpets, and she was looking sooooo tired. But apparently, he tried to put her down for a nap, and was unsuccessful. Big shock.

I decided to take a stab at it. I brought her upstairs and had a very frustrating hour trying to get her to nap (and get in my own nap!). I gave her a bottle, which almost worked... if only there had been another ounce or two of milk in it, it might have worked. I tried cuddling her, telling her that we could nap together. I tried getting her to help her baby Pooh and baby Tigger lie down for their naps by lying down with them and closing her eyes. I tried being stern. I tried being silly. I had a very long talk with her about why naps are important for recharging our batteries, about how being tired with no nap affects us later, about how everyone she knows is napping during nap time, about how she would nap for the nanny so she should nap for Mommy*, and about how I was tired and so was she and that we both needed to nap. Finally, I tried bribing her to try to lie down, close her eyes and try to sleep by promising her a sticker (I got the furthest with this one, as she actually lied down on her own for a while).

After just about an hour, I finally told her that Mommy was feeling frustrated and sad because it was nap time and the Pumpkin wasn't sleeping. That didn't work, either, but it made me feel better to voice my frustration in ways I'm learning from the parenting books I've been reading and respect. The Pumpkin was sweet, and gave me a hug and kiss, telling me it was okay and asking if I felt better. Then, she went right back to bouncing and jumping on the bed.

My pregnancy crazies are not limited to being weeping. I also get frustrated pretty easily and can feel completely out-of-proportion anger at the drop of a hat. I was pretty impressed with how well I handled the hour with her. But at the end, I was AT. THE. END!

Luckily, Londo was here to take over. Now, I am sitting in bed (with five of my pillows) calming down a bit before I have to get more work done. Londo is downstairs playing with the Pumpkin and her moodiness due to tiredness (and due to receiving my genes).

I think I'll nominate Londo for sainthood. Especially if he would possibly let me stay in bed for the next 2 or 3 days and shut out the world until maybe I can get some sort of handle on my emotions and reactions...

(Oops! I just heard Londo let out a little bit of frustration himself! I guess I won't be getting those 2-3 days.)

*Why oh why is this the case? The nanny gets her to nap almost every single week day. But weekends and other days when it is up to Londo and me to get her down for a nap, she almost never takes a nap! What magic does that woman have? We do the exact same things, but it does not work for us!

Re-Planning the Boy's Birth

So I had that whole post about how I was leaning towards trying for a repeat C-section over my original intention of trying for a Vaginal Birth After Caesarean (VBAC). I thank you all for the wonderful responses I received, and I want to especially thank Ruta who gave me some good research which was really helpful and sent me down the right path for looking into both sides of the choice. I'll just say upfront, that we are going back to the original plan of trying for a VBAC if I go into labor prior to my due date. In fact, we will schedule a C-section for 3 days after my due date just to give us a window for trying for the VBAC.

Because the thing about looking into and asking about the risks associated with a VBAC is that you learn the risks associated with a VBAC. If you don't also look into and ask about the risks associated with repeat C-sections, you won't learn the risks associated with those. (This article Time magazine did on repeat Caesareans was really interesting (and spoke in layman's terms), if you are interested in some history behind VBAC vs. repeat C-sections.) Now, I've actually been able to look into both, and I truly feel that the risks are comparable. Let me talk about some of them.

The risk of uterine rupture is not to be ignored when trying for a VBAC. However, my research has now made me pretty aware of what the signs would be, and I do think the doctors and nurses would be able to tell that something unusual is going on. The window for reaction, as Jan commented about, is not a long one. Apparently, this is why the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) changed their recommendation from having doctors and anesthesiologists "readily available" to "immediately available." Where I live and the hospital where I will labor and deliver has a doctor from my practice there 24/7 and anesthesiologists there round the clock as well. So they are immediately available, which should cut the risk down.

In addition, there is apparently no conclusive evidence that a larger baby makes the risk of a uterine rupture greater. Although there is evidence that inducing labor can make the risk greater.

The risk of a maternal infection is always higher with a C-section. Although I know stories on both sides of the infection from family members and close friends, the stats show that it's higher with C-section.

The risk of hysterectomy is the same with both. How about that? I never really thought about that risk as something with a vaginal birth, but apparently it is.

Um, that's all I've got off the top of my head (and my memory of a goldfish). But overall, I just feel that there are risks on either side and the risks mostly are comparable based on my eligibility for a VBAC, my going into labor naturally (not induced) and my general health.

So then, it boils down to choice.

Londo is a big planner and wants to minimize serious risks to me and the baby, as well as any discomfort to either of us. He does feel that a repeat C-section would do this. He also feels that the doctors we've talked to and the research he has done supports this. BUT he has said this whole time that it is my choice. I know he will support me in the thick of things even if he would prefer I deliver another way.

So then, it really boils down to MY choice.

It's not just the research that leads me to want to try a VBAC. It is partly what the birth advisor we met at the hospital said: For me, it's less about wanting to try to deliver vaginally than it is my not wanting to go through another C-section if possible. That's absolutely true. Sure, I think the experience of a vaginal birth would be pretty cool, as well as really hard and exhausting. The idea of having my baby right there immediately after birth is so appealing that I just melt thinking of it. Being able to fully experience what my body was built to do also sounds fulfilling to me.

But even more, if I have the opportunity to avoid major abdominal surgery, it's direct recovery, it's mid-term recovery and it's sucky long-term recovery... Well, I'd like to try to avoid it. I've been comparing it to if you had to have major knee surgery, but a couple years later the knee is acting up again. The doctor says that you could try physical therapy and there is a 60-80% that it will be successful, or you could go directly to major surgery again. I think that most people would opt to at least give the physical therapy a try, right?*

Finally, my gut, my instincts, that tell me to try for the VBAC. If it doesn't happen, at least I tried. But I really feel like it's the right thing to do for me.

So the final plan is back to the original plan. We will schedule a C-section for June 22, the day my primary OB is at the hospital. If we go into labor prior to then, we will try for a VBAC. All our family and friends are in on the plan and will move on a dime when we give them the word that I'm in labor, or we tell them that we're heading in on the 22nd for the planned C-section. Either way, we'll get that baby out and have a beautiful boy within the month. Yikes!!!

I doubt anyone read this whole post, but I think this post is more for me to get all these thoughts and feelings on the matter written out more than anything else. I haven't been able to write much lately, and I think it's because I've been holding all this in... Okay, that's not exactly true, because I've been talking about it a lot. But the writer in me needs to write it out. So there it is, and now hopefully I'll be able to write about all the cute Pumpkin things that are going on and how much fun I had at the DC area May meet up!

*I gave this example to my dad, who jokingly said just hop using the other knee. I responded, "Well, I've got only one uterus!" We laughed, but we have the same sense of humor.

Question of the Week - And the Living's Easy...

What a fantastic weekend! The meet up at the At Play Cafe was so much fun (I'll definitely write up a post about that soon)! I had a lovely Sunday getting some good nesting in, the culmination of which was a cleaned out and organized linen closet (which I'd been meaning to do for months). And Monday was spent at the pool and relaxing at home. I do love summer time, especially long weekends with fun plans.

This week's question of the week is:
What summertime activities do you look forward to doing?

For me, it's the pool, the lake, the beach. Basically, hanging out in the side beside and in water.

This year, Londo, the Pumpkin and I will not be able to make our annual beach trip to the time share with my parents. Even though the beach is only 2.5 - 3 hours away, the trip would be... hmmmm... I think next week. And I am in no shape to do any car trip over 30 minutes. Plus, Londo kind of wants to keep me near our doctors and the hospital. Cause, you know, I could pop any minute.

These limitations also interfer with any trips up to my cousin's lake house, which is 2.5 - 3 hours in the other direction. The house is so relaxing, and although the lake is really cold it is beautiful. But the best part is zooming around on the speed boat, something I am totally not up for.

Which leaves the pool. The wonderful, cooling, just-down-the-street neighborhood pool. Where I can feel almost normal again and can carry and play with the Pumpkin in the big pool. Where we can come and go so easily from our house when the mood strikes us.

We'll also blow up the fun baby pool in our backyard and play back there a lot during the summer. We would have done that this weekend, but our beagle discovered a nest of baby bunnies* in our backyard**, so we are trying to keep toddler and dog away until either the mama bunny moves them or we figure out what to do with them. This also cuts down on Londo's favorite summertime activity, which is grilling while the family is hanging out in the backyard.

Those are the things I look forward to about summer. I'm a water sign, so what do you expect? Of course this particular summer, I'm also really looking forward to the birth of our son!

So what about you? Do you love summer like I do? Even if you don't, what fun summertime things are you anticipating?

*Unlike the baby birds' nest which is up too high to disturb, this nest is in a shallow hole right in a main part of our yard. It's like we are some sort of animal habitat or something. What's going on?

**For those who don't know, beagles are actually bread to hunt out rabbits. You'd think the mama bunny would have been smart enough to not build a nest in the backyard of a beagle! But our neighborhood is totally overrun with rabbits, so we guess that they are just out of room and finding any place. Dumb but cute, those bunnies.