Baby Pictures

The picture above is how we announced on Facebook that Dan was going to be a big brother. He normally loves reading books, but when we took this picture it was later at night and he was getting ready for bed. The look on his face was perfect though! (Side note: that is my Dad's - Dan's grandpa's - sweater. I'm pretty sure my Grandma knitted that, but I could easily be wrong on that. She did know how to knit so I have that going for me!)

When we were expecting Dan, we were much better at getting those early weeks documented by taking belly pictures. With this pregnancy, I decided that I wanted to compare the two with one another. We didn't take our first belly picture until a few weeks ago when I was 18 weeks pregnant.

My pregnancy with Dan is on the left and the current pregnancy is on the right. It does seem like I'm carrying a little different. Not sure if it's a baby gender thing (myth of carrying girls high and boys low), me knowing how to use my core muscles more efficiently, or if there's something else at play. I will say that this pregnancy is different than Dan's in regards to aches and pains. With the two pregnancies being so close (and my body knowing how to BE pregnant), the relaxin hormone is in full force already. This is making my hips ache and creating challenges when teaching and practicing yoga. Thankfully I am very in tune with my body and how to properly practice yoga that the hip aches are tolerable.

Just a few days ago we went and got my mid-pregnancy ultrasound to check the fetal anatomy. I'm happy to report that baby looks healthy! Yes, I said baby. We did get the gender information, but it is sealed in an envelope. We do NOT yet know if we are having a boy or a girl. We do plan on finding out with a gender reveal party with family. I have a guess as to whether Dan will have a baby brother or sister, and I have a 50% chance I'm right!

Profile

Feet

Arm

One big difference between the two ultrasounds (the one with Dan and this one) is that we actually got good 3D pictures! With Dan, he was snuggled into my placenta when we tried we only got one good side of his face. When one side looked good, the other was hidden by the placenta. When we moved further down and got past the placenta, the other side then looked like a skeleton. Definitely not cute. It is so neat how technology has advanced so we can not only check to see that everything is developing normally with baby, the umbilical cord, and placenta, but now we can even get 3-dimentional pictures as you would with a normal camera!

I think they're a keeper :)

I really enjoy being pregnant. I enjoyed Dan's pregnancy and I'm enjoying this one, too - achy hips and all! Coming into the second trimester makes it even more fun as baby is getting bigger and you can start feeling them move. With Dan, I felt him move for the first time around 15 weeks. This baby, my first flutter was around 12 weeks! Yes, crazy! At this point I'm feeling movement almost daily, especially when I take a few moments and focus on baby.

Elsewhere with the family, Jason's basketball team came in 2nd place in a tournament last week! This was the first year he was in the winners bracket. I'm so proud of him for coming in 2nd place! He will grumble about it as the kids weren't playing the best they had been, but this is the first time in 6 years that he made it to the winners bracket. That is something to be proud of.

Dan is still doing his thing. I'm really hoping that he'll start getting words out. He's babbling quite a lot, and does know some sign language, but he is getting frustrated that he can't communicate well enough what he wants without me having to guess what he wants. He has been so physical - crawling at 6 months, walking at 10 months - that the language has been a little slow to develop. Nothing to really worry about, just would be nice if it would come in soon so we both can reduce our frustration in our communication!

That's all for now. I hope everyone is doing well! Take care.

New Year, New Opportunities

Yes, it's been a long time since I last posted. I apologize for that. Things have been rather crazy over in the Pollard household. We've seen Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Years Day come and go. So let's recap...

November:

November was really stressful for me professionally. At work this was the second year that they were mandated ALL employees regardless of patient contact get the flu shot. I had been working HARD since September to get an exemption. I was granted one for the 2013-2014 season by way of me nursing Dan. He was under the age of 6 months throughout the flu season and there are zero flu vaccines that are approved for under the age of 6 months.

So what? Dan wasn't getting the vaccine.

Well...indirectly he would be. We are told as mothers that everything we ingest can make its way into breast milk. So giving the vaccine to me would be giving it to Dan. Am I being paranoid? Possibly, but for good cause. While I don't want Dan to get sick, I also don't want to expose him to unnecessary toxins that can have long-term negative effects.

I figured this year it would be even easier to get an exemption, specifically a medical exemption. Why? Well, in September we found out that Dan is going to be a big brother!

Wait - doesn't the medical community recommend all pregnant women, regardless of trimester, get the flu shot? Yes they do. I don't agree with the recommendation. One: there have been no studies showing the safety or efficacy of the flu vaccine in pregnant mothers. Two: there have been no studies determining whether the vaccine is carcinogenic or mutagenic. That means they don't know if the vaccines can cause cancer or mutations in the DNA. So knowing that, why would I inject myself with a vaccine that may or may not work, that may or may not be safe or effective, that has the possibility to cause cancer and mutations when I am nurturing a growing fetus? Especially during the first two trimesters when cells are dividing rapidly and differentiating into all the tissues of the human body.

I submitted three medical exemptions. The first exemption was based on allergy to the ingredients of the vaccines and a history of autoimmune diseases in the family (my mom and two of her sisters all have autoimmune diseases). This is important to note because there is a condition being recognized in the medical community called ASIA: Autoimmune Syndrome Induced by Adjuvents. Adjuvents are the "inactive" ingredients in vaccines that help induce an immune reaction to the antigens present in the vaccine. This was denied because I don't have documented allergies to the adjuvents.

Once that was denied I went with the pregnancy exemption. I had a family physician sign the exemption form. This was denied because even though he was an MD (which was a requirement for the medical exemption) he was not an OB/GYN. I asked if my midwife could write a letter. This request was approved. So I submitted my midwife's letter and that was denied. The reason I was given was because she was not the "right kind" of midwife. The medical director wanted a certified nurse midwife and not a certified professional midwife to sign off on it. It didn't matter that all midwives need to be state-licensed in order to practice in the state of Wisconsin.

At this point I put together a religious exemption form. This was also denied. No reason given. I can't tell you without going through all my emails how many people I contacted and asked to get the reason. All I got was "it is not policy to give out the reason why religious exemptions are denied." Can we say lawsuit? I couldn't even get a copy of the policy that states that they don't give out reasons why a religious exemption was denied.

Needless to say, I contacted the EEOC office in Milwaukee and filed a complaint. I also contacted HR and filed a complaint with them as well. HR found there was no discrimination that happened. The EEOC found otherwise and has filed a charge against my former employer. My last day of work was the day before Thanksgiving. My official last day was December 1st. The communication with all the people involved was abysmal. My supervisor even went down to HR and directly complained to the guy who looked into my discrimination complaint over the lack of communication. The only reason my supervisor knew what was going on was because I was keeping him informed of the progress. It's pretty sad when the supervisor doesn't know what's going on except from their employee.

We went to see my side of the family in Minnesota for Thanksgiving. That weekend away visiting family was very much needed. We went to see my sister's new store that she's managing. If you want to check it out (please go and check it out!) she is working at The Dance District at the Mall of America. While at the Mall of America, we also checked out the Sea Life Aquarium and took Dan on the Merry-go-Round. Before we left, the entire family stopped by Rachel's house to help put up her Christmas decorations. Dan did pretty well not throwing anything around. He did want to play with her cat, but the cat isn't a fan of Jason nor myself. We smell like the dogs.

Funny story while decorating Rachel's place. My Mom had found some battery operated candles at a local thrift store. We pulled them out of their packaging, put in fresh batteries, and turned them on. They had a setting for a steady light and one for a flickering light. Neither one really worked very well. I don't remember who figured it out, but it was a good 20 minutes before we realized that there was a light sensor on the base. When the sensor was covered (thought it was dark out) the candles worked exactly how they were supposed to! Yeah, we all felt a little dumb after that.

November was also the first weekend of my prenatal yoga teacher training. I had gotten into yoga in the first place because I knew when I got pregnant for the first time I wanted to take prenatal yoga. During the months that we were trying I fell in love with yoga and became a certified yoga instructor. The last months of my teacher training Jason and I got pregnant with Dan. I had expressed interest to complete a prenatal teacher training and thankfully other yoga instructors also were interested. There is a total of three training weekends that I must complete (with the required homework) followed by 30 hours of prenatal yoga classes and I can then officially upgrade my qualifications to include prenatal yoga through the yoga alliance.

December

December brought my first days of being a stay at home mom. I did have a couple of interviews the first week of December. The first one was with Bankers Life and Casualty. This was a sales position selling life and health insurance. The second was with American Publishing and Marketing. This was also a sales position that catered to small businesses selling various advertizing opportunities. For a while I was pursuing the sales position at Bankers Life and started working on the classwork needed to take the state licensing exams. Over the next few weeks I decided that the position just wasn't going to fit with what I was hoping for in a new job. The position required three days of traveling. Granted, it was all local which wasn't terrible. However, I already hated my drive to and from Milwaukee and I really don't want a job that requires travel even one day per week. Another reason why I decided not to pursue the position is that in less than 6 months I'll be delivering our second child and taking at least 2 months off to recover and adjust to life as a family of 4. That would mean less than 6 months on the job, 2 months off, then trying to get back on the saddle in a field that I'm not familiar or very interested in.

Early December I also took a Reiki level I training with one of my dear friends. I had been having Reiki sessions with her leading up to and throughout my pregnancy with Dan. It was through one of those early sessions that I learned that our first pregnancy that ended in a miscarriage that we were pregnant for those few short days with a little girl. She was being held by my Dad, which most of you know passed away back in 2008 after a car accident. Both were smiling and very happy. Once my homework is done, I can offer Reiki to close family and friends.

Between November and the end of December, Dan cut 6 new teeth. By the end of December he now has the four lower center teeth, the four upper center teeth, and two upper molars. There were quite a few nights when the teeth were cutting where Dan could not get comfortable. Thankfully during the day he was mostly fine. Looking back at the early pictures it's so strange to go back and forth between no teeth and teeth.

Jason had to work Christmas Day and the day after Christmas this year. So our plan was to visit my family the weekend before and visit Jason's family the weekend after. We ended up in Minnesota for almost a week, which was really nice. We didn't see all the family, but it was nice to get together and enjoy the holiday (and not worry about how many cookies I was eating!). I think we went to the Mall of America at least 3 times while we were there. One of the times was just to mall walk with our good friend Jac. She had flown in from Oregon to spend Christmas with her family in Eau Claire. We said we would pick her up from the airport so we would spend some time with her. It had been a while since we last saw her so we weren't upset when the flight came in at 6am.

Christmas Day I made supper for Jason, his brother Joe, Dan, and myself. Last holiday meal I made I ended up in the ER as I had plunged a steak knife through my left index finger while shutting our busted silverware drawer. I can proudly say that there were no injuries this year!

Unfortunately we didn't end up visiting Jason's side of the family in Indiana like we had planned. Jason came down with a nasty cold on top of some of his family being gone over the same weekend. It was a good thing we stayed home. We were able to get stuff done around the house plus take care of our sniffles. I ended up catching Jason's cold a few days after he came down with it. Dan never caught the cold, but he did end up with a 36 hour fever New Years Day. Poor kid was so miserable. He didn't eat much, but thankfully took in plenty of fluids. He's still nursing a few times a day, but that weekend when he had his fever I really wanted to stop. Major mama guilt going on as nursing not only comforts him, but it also was giving him plenty of the nutrients he needed while his appetite was suppressed. After his fever broke he really only nurses to sleep. He's been fighting nap time lately and that's the one way I can get him to fall asleep. Otherwise he has water in his sippy cup. I'm still working on getting him to drink the milk I pumped for him while I was working. So far it's a battle I'm losing. Next trick is to get smoothies made using the milk.

January- so far

The first weeks of January have been uneventful and a little crazy at the same time. Basketball season has started and I'm teaching yoga 2 nights a week. By the end of the month I'll be adding a third day of teaching yoga with a prenatal yoga class! I'm really excited about that. I have one I'm teaching now, but I've been having trouble getting mamas to class. So far there has been work conflicts, a miscarriage, and a baby who wants to come out too soon. I have a few more ideas to try getting mamas coming in before I scrap that class.

The sitter that we had while I was working doesn't want to do evening hours so finding an evening sitter has been challenging. I did get some numbers from friends of ours so hopefully one of them will work out. Dan has also cut 2 more molars on his bottom jaw since Christmas. That makes a total of 12 teeth! He's also been eating like crazy. One of these days he is not going to fit into his 12-18 months clothes and will be solidly 18 month. Oh, and his feet. Yeah, he's wearing 2T-3T size socks. Crazy! So even though nap time has been frustrating most days, he is a lot of fun. He gives hugs, kisses (open mouth to your nose), waves "bye" when leaving the room, HAS to have the gate shut at the bottom of the stairs, throws his head back when he thinks something is REALLY funny, loves the theme song for "The Big Bang Theory," and loves books and throwing balls. Oh, he also likes chasing Trooper with some of his toys. He gets a big laugh when Trooper (or Khail) run away from him.

I have my second weekend training for prenatal yoga coming up this weekend. One of the things I had for homework was to watch the documentary The Business of Being Born. It was a pretty decent documentary. Nothing that I didn't already know through my own research while I was pregnant with Dan. I did appreciate the OB/GYNs that agreed to be interviewed for the film. I felt sad that they were so dependent on technology that even the thought of not having continuous fetal monitoring was scary (even though the studies conclude that continuous fetal monitoring does not improve outcome). Anyway, it was a good documentary to get anyone started into researching current maternity care practices in the US. When it comes to evidence-based practices, I've seen numbers as high as 90% showing that most hospital policies are NOT evidence-based. It's rather sad especially considering how poor the US mortality and morbidity rates are for women and babies in the first year. They do touch on those stats in the documentary.

Next Tuesday we go in for our ultrasound! I've had two prenatal appointments already with my midwife and everything is looking and sounding great so far! I'm using the same midwife that I had when I was pregnant with Dan. If all goes well I'm planning for another home birth. Less than a week and we will know whether Dan will have a little brother or sister to terrorize! Any guesses? You have a 50% chance of getting it right!

Anyway, I guess that's plenty to catch up on for now. Sorry for the lack of pictures. We have been taking them, but just not as many as I would rather be present with Dan and Jason while making memories. I hope everyone is doing well and enjoying the snow!