Dang It

This post is mostly about my theories concerning why my nausea has suddenly gotten so bad, with some dabbling at the end with thoughts about how big a family we might have and how closely spaced the kids might be... 

Three days ago when I wrote my last blog post, I was fairly convinced it was some weird thyroid imbalance making me sick. I wasn't certain I had enough experimental evidence to support this theory, though, and so I continued experimenting. I'll admit, my first experiments had too many variables (bad Jenna! bad science!)--quite simply because on the days when I wasn't taking my thyroid meds, I wasn't taking ANY of my meds.

*wince* Oh yes, I know. Bad Jenna. But my nausea was getting so bad that I just had to know if something I was taking was making it worse. I did it last pregnancy, too, coming to the conclusion that none of my daily medications were exacerbating my nausea. Something I'm taking seems to affecting my nausea this time, though.

So, with my initial experiments (badly designed, scientifically speaking)... on the days I did vomit profusely, I had taken my prenatal vitamin, Wellbutrin, and my new, increased thyroid dose.

On the days I did not vomit and felt almost nausea-free, I took none of them.

So yes, further experimentation was needed to confirm it was the thyroid stuff and not the vitamin or the antidepressant that I was taking at the same time.

The results of further testing were not what I was expecting at all. If I take thyroid and Wellbutrin, I am violently ill. If I take thyroid and vitamin, I feel just fine. If I take Wellbutrin and vitamin, I am again violently ill.

I think I might do some more trials. And talk to my doctor and stuff.

The desire to know what is making me sick so I can eat food and drink liquid and therefore NOT DIE is conflicting with my uneasiness about experimenting with my thyroid medication and my antidepressant. These are stereotypically things doctors cringe when they hear about, for good reason. 

If I start going all depressed and anxious again... I don't know. It'd just be bad. I *think* it'd be better than struggling with hyperemesis. The vomiting is just... I'm scared. It is feeling exactly like it did when I was pregnant with Amelia. And that was scary. I need some prayers and such.

One thing to clarify, I suppose...

As for why I'm getting so sick NOW all of a sudden when I had been taking Wellbutrin throughout this pregnancy (even during the low-nausea parts)... and especially since it is almost unheard of for pregnancy nausea to suddenly show up or intensify in the middle of the second trimester (maybe third trimester because of the humongo uterus smooshing up against the stomach). Well, I have some suspicions. 

My gut tells me it's because I stopped nursing Amelia. There is a rumor that nursing during pregnancy significantly decreases morning sickness for some women... unfortunately, nobody has deigned to do a study on this, so no one really knows if that little tidbit is myth or fact. 

I will say, though, that it just happens to coincide with my own experience quite nicely. (Will somebody puh-lease do a study on this?)

Another theory I have is that it is now summer, and since heat is a known trigger, perhaps this is exacerbating it. Only... I've been staying in the air-conditioned apartment all day.With a fan blowing on me at almost all times. I am sometimes cold when I am vomiting lately. So this theory seems a little shaky to me.

So yeah. I need some prayers and such. I am desperately hoping to at least find some way to lessen my nausea to levels I feel are survivable, even if it doesn't go back to the comfortable levels of merely-annoying-nausea I had while nursing Amelia. Perhaps specifically pray that I can remain sane and not get uber-depressed.

I am also worried about the implications of the idea of nursing being the only thing so far that I've found that curbs my pregnancy nausea down to manageable levels. If this is true, this means that my best bet for surviving subsequent pregnancies is to conceive while breastfeeding (can be quite difficult... this one certainly required a lot of effort) and then nurse during pregnancy as much as possible (can be quite uncomfortable, and some toddlers choose to wean due to pregnancy-induced changes in the breastmilk)... 

It also suggests that I should try to space all the babies close together, however many that is. I don't even know how many babies I want can handle. I've always liked the idea of a big family, though I will be the first to admit I may not personally be able to handle so many pregnancies. Maybe I can do four or five. Or fewer. I don't know.

I mean, I suppose I'm not certain that nursing is the reason early pregnancy was so vomit-free this time. But it is looking that way to me. Though, if it is, I should probably get down on my knees and thank God for promptings to try and get pregnant with baby #2 so soon after Amelia finally showed up. 

I honestly thought I was absolutely nuts when, immediately after giving birth and therefore ending nine months of debilitating nausea, my first thoughts and feelings were, Wow. I like babies. I should have another, ASAP. These thoughts and feelings continued and even intensified as Amelia turned out to be fussy almost all the time and needed to be attended 24/7.

I also honestly thought I was absolutely nuts when, with a colicky six-month old, I kept feeling like I needed to start trying for another baby even though I felt like I couldn't handle anything more than crazy Amelia. I hadn't even resumed ovulating yet. 

It took nearly a year before I ended up with another viable pregnancy. It also took all the expertise I had gained from working in a fertility clinic. So it was difficult, I was sure it made no sense, and I was also nearly as certain that--even without nausea--I was going to have an extremely difficult time with pregnancy once I had achieved, simply given the nature of the child I already had.

But now I wonder... If I had waited much longer, maybe I wouldn't have managed to get pregnant until after Amelia had weaned herself. And then, if it was nursing that made early pregnancy so bearable, I would instead have been too sick to take care of Amelia. Like at all.

Today I am too sick to adequately take care of Amelia. She is not feeling very loved today. I am insisting on sitting on the couch (alone) while staring at the ceiling, or perhaps sitting at the computer so I can type a few paragraphs at a time before I decide I need to lie down again. Toddlers were not designed to be ignored all day.

James is on his way home to help out. At the very least, I need to thank Heavenly Father that my nausea did not get severe until exactly when James suddenly had no real obligations at school. Of course, he still needs to do math research. But he can do that whenever he has time, and he does not have any classes to attend or teach, no office hours, etc. He can come home when I need him. Those of you sending prayers our way may want to include him. He isn't getting as much time to research his math because he is helping me, and he could use any divine interference he can get in being absolutely brilliant while working fewer hours.

I did not originally intend this post to be longer than half a page. Oh well.

Love and babies,

Jenna

and Amelia

and Dragon

Tales of a Sciencey Laundress

I don't know why this changed, but I have been extremely ill again... as in, approaching levels of illness I had while pregnant with Amelia.

The only clue I have is thyroid-related. I recently had a dose increase to get my lab results back into the normal range. I was sick enough that I experimented with not taking the thyroid to see if the nausea stopped... it did. Despite feeling obviously hypothyroid, I felt immensely better since I wasn't ill. I started taking it again at the lower dose and the nausea returned within hours. I felt AWFUL.

I felt so much better without the thyroid medication despite the hypothyroid symptoms that I am very, very tempted to just never touch the stuff again.

But then... there's Microraptor. Being purposely hypothyroid wouldn't merely mean having cold hands and feet and constantly feeling sleepy. It would just straight up be bad for little Dragon.

So I guess I should call up the doc or something and see what he says. Or maybe the midwives. Or both. I don't know. I could just cry. Even with chronically heavy eyelids and cold extremities, I just felt SO much better without the unremitting nausea or the extreme heat intolerance.

I wish I wasn't confident they'd tell me to take my thyroid medication anyway.

I take my medication at night so as to minimize nausea, but I could not sleep night before last because I was too hot, even with the air conditioner blowing straight at me. And then I began to vomit bile yesterday morning upon walking into the kitchen. I skipped the thyroid again last night, and again, I feel fine. If I think about it, I notice I am indeed a little nauseated, but obviously, it's not bad.

Sigh. Disturbing trend, this.

Moving on to a slightly less disturbing subject! Amelia's sleep habits!

Recently we got fed up with how Amelia's bed time has been creeping closer and closer to midnight despite attempts to put her to bed earlier. Thus, we began waking her up at about 7am every morning, napping her at noon, and putting her to bed at 9pm. Every day. The first few days went all right, but I could swear that now she is just as resistant to going to bed as she was before. Only change: she is now fighting sleeping from 9pm to 10:30pm instead of from 10:30pm to midnight. This is an improvement. I think. I'm not certain that waking up every morning (mandatorily, even!) is an improvement, though...

Anyway... were you wondering how the cloth diapering transition has been going? No? Too bad! I'm going to tell you.

Amelia likes the cloth ones just fine. She especially likes the cool prints on the covers, though at first she was really confused about why we were trying to put this fluffy thing on her butt instead of one of the disposable diapers. Once she figured it out though, it was great. Usually when it is time to put a disposable diaper on her butt, she runs away and plays hard to get. Most of the time with the cloth diapers, she'll just walk over and sit on the open diaper so we can put it on. We'll see if that continues once the novelty wears off.

[Caution: I am about to get really excited (and nerdy) about laundry. The entire remainder of this post is about laundry. You have been warned.]

Caring for the cloth diapers has been mostly quite simple, though I am still perfecting the routine, which has been less simple. I knew I would need to tweak the routine somewhat because of regional water differences and what my diapers are made of and the idiosyncrasies of this particular washing machine and such, but I am so surprised at how fulfilling I am finding it all to be. But after some thought, it becomes obvious why I am enjoying doing the laundry so much.

Troubleshooting. With science.

Guys, I get to use science. Science! I get to freaking use my brain! And my scientific training! And do practical experiments to test hypotheses! It is so wonderful! So fulfilling!

Laundry science has suddenly become a passionate interest. I can't believe I used to avoid laundry and put it off for as long as possible.Why didn't I ever figure out that laundry is fun? And that it stimulates the brain? Guys, laundry is like my favorite thing!

Ahem. I digress.

And the new detergent we got lots and lots and lots of... Oh my heck, I'm in love.

I never realized how much the smell of most commercial detergents bothered the heck out of me. That classic Tide smell makes me ill. And the new detergent cleans as well as... or actually, better than what I was doing before, even without the scoop of OxiClean and even without the bit of vinegar in the rinse cycle of each load. James' ancient and greying garments are turning white again.

Oh, and I just got some pit-stained white maternity clothes from someone in the ward. One wash in the new, gentle stuff and voilà! Pit stains gone. And that was one cold wash, mind you. Huzzah! (Probably the previous owner had viciously attacked those pit stains with a generous helping of bleach, which reacts with sweat gunk to make an even yellower, even more gross-looking stain...)

Oh, wait. Oops. Excuse me. I digress again. Ahem.

So far my adventures in getting the diapers squeaky clean have been exciting.

I started with the typical instructions: cold rinse no detergent (to rinse out any leftovers on the diapers that didn't get flushed down the toilet), hot wash with detergent, then a second cold rinse in addition to the one normally at the end of the wash cycle. All on "extra-large" capacity, even though the volume of stuff in there would normally call only for a small or a medium load. Theoretically having all that room to move about as well as the extra water helps gross diapers get ungross.

It was fine... only... well, a completely full load with all our diapers in it was rather underwhelming for our top loader. The spin cycle on extra-large was just too fast and every time it would get off-balance and I'd have to go move things around in there so that the washing machine could continue with what it was doing before it freaked out. Lame. Especially because each diaper load involves three spins.

So I switched down to the large cycle instead of the extra-large. That fixed the spin cycle issue. But then--doom! The diapers didn't smell clean after the washing was over with. Doom, doom, doom! Dang it, I did need all that water.

What I eventually did was designate one or two towels to always go into the diaper load and bump the water level back up to extra-large. That fixed the spin problem. And, it probably helps to agitate the diapers that there's a bit more stuff in there to rub against.

The only thing I really wish I could do that I just can't do... Line-dry those diapers, particularly any that have any hint of a stain left. That'd get 'em all beautiful and white. The ultraviolet rays from the sun do a marvelous job of breaking down any organic stains (poop, blood, tomato sauce, fruit juice, sweat, chocolate soy milk, weird yellow underwear stains, etc.).

Unfortunately... this is Oregon. Sunshine theoretically exists here, though, and therefore ultraviolet rays do supposedly make it down to the ground, even through heavy cloud cover. Even in rain or snow. (Though if the snow covers up the item you are trying to stain treat, doom.) In theory, this means I should be able to sun out the stains no matter what, though perhaps it would take a much longer time that it would in, say, Arizona. So I elected to try it anyway.

Worst thing I could possibly have done.

I live in an apartment. It is technically against our contract to leave any of our belongings outside our unit. Bum, grumble, grrr. In any case, pretty much everybody does so anyway, so I left three inserts out in the sun on the pavement in front of our door.

Then wind happened. Even if I clothespinned stuff to a line-drying rack, there is sometimes enough wind to knock that puppy over. Not only does that mean the stain is face-down and not getting any ultraviolet goodness... it also means that the entire item is now completely covered in horrible, evil tan bark. EVIL stuff, this. Think tiny, nearly invisible splinters that get stuck in your skin if you go walking barefoot. Now add these to a microfiber diaper insert.

Disaster! Pure, horrid disaster! This was a Velcro-like reaction. Neither the nearly-invisible bits of tan bark nor the microfiber cloth had any intention of letting go of each other. Ever.

I had the not-so-brilliant idea to just throw those three prickly inserts into the wash with all the others. Surely the agitation during the wash cycle would dislodge those suckers, right?

Um.

Well, yes. It did do that. Kind of. The end result was nineteen inserts covered in tan bark prickles instead of only three. I very thoroughly bewailed my error as I laboriously picked each sliver of bark out of those inserts with tweezers.

Now, you can surely understand why I've decided a nearly undetectable poo stain (that I can't even see except in certain light conditions) is infinitely preferable to even a remote possibility of an insert ending up in the tan bark again.

Feeling determined, though, I again reasoned that some ultraviolet light must filter in through our open windows, so maybe if I just dry those suckers in front of the window...

Eeeenk! Wrong again. I believe this may have worked someplace besides Oregon, in an apartment situated to actually ever receive direct sunlight through one of its windows. Seriously, we get about half an hour of direct sunlight through our back window. Kind of. There is a tree in the way.

Add to that inconvenience the fact that the ultraviolet bleaching process really only works on wet stuff, and the item in question just air-dries before any appreciable difference in the stain happened. Even adding lemon juice (sunshine + lemon juice + water = extremely effective stain eater) was not enough.

The only thing I haven't tried on this front is leaving an insert on the dash inside my car. Only Fred's windows are uber-dark. They were designed to live in Arizona. Fred does not live in Arizona. I suppose some UV would get through the dark glass, but I am not desperate enough to try this unless I have an evil, eye-blinding stain.

...Especially since the stain I was originally worried about has simply disappeared after a few more washes. It may have helped that I switched from cold rinses to warm rinses. In theory, a stain is easier to get out at the temperature at which it originated. Obviously, poo and pee were originally body temperature, which is almost exactly the same temperature as the water on the warm cycle. This discovery was especially prudent given the hydrophobic nature of microfiber and the oleophilic nature of toddler poop. Perhaps cold rinses would have been sufficient if we had spent twice as much and gotten the more hydrophilic hemp/cotton inserts instead.

Enough about diapers, then, I suppose.

But, ohemgee. I just have to digress into another laundry subject. I just cleaned all our towels. They'd been smelling perpetually musty, as had our washing machine, no matter what I did. Well, the new detergent got the washing machine smelling clean again, so I tried it on the towels. GUYS, MY TOWELS NOW SMELL LIKE HAPPINESS! That is all. I promise not to go on any more laundry tangents for the remainder of this blog post.

...Perhaps this goal would be attainable if I stopped writing now.

Longing for the day I have an extensive backyard (without evil tan bark) with lots of space for line-drying laundry and gardening and taking over the world in general,
Jenna
and Amelia
and Dragon

P.S. Anyone in the Eugene/Springfield area interested in a mostly full thingy of Clorox 2 and a boatload of fabric softener sheets? And maybe some Shout stain remover? I do not think I will be using them again.
P.P.S. Donations of baby boy clothes are totally welcome. Also, this would give me an excuse to do laundry.

Baby Stuff

I'm still calling Baby Man "Microraptor" out of pure habit, even if we have picked out a name for him already: James Griffin Dilts. We may have even picked out a nickname for him, courtesy of Amelia. When I asked her what we should name baby brother, she pointed very matter-of-factly at my shirt, which pictured a fire-breathing dinosaur. "Ah, you want to name him Dragon, do you?" And then I made the mistake of publishing that little tidbit to the masses. Now we have a few uncles who are diehard fans of the name Dragon Dilts. Oh well.

Of note... this week is a stay-home-and-excitedly-wait-for-packages-to-arrive week. Huzzah!

The reason we are getting so many packages is that we finally are making the switch to cloth diapers. Yay! We've been wanting to do that for a long time. Why? Well, the main reason is because in the long run, cloth diapering is FAR cheaper than buying tons of disposable diapers, even when you factor in the laundering costs.

I am drooling just thinking about the money we'd save every single month if we weren't buying boxes and boxes and boxes of diapers (and wipes!) all the time. At least $40 a month, methinks. Definitely more once we have two babies. And and and! We could get other cool stuff! Like... sigh. Like, say, a reduction in student loan debt. Or something else just as exciting.

Our original excuse for not cloth diapering was that we did not have our own washer and dryer. I was not particularly fond of the idea of lugging a diaper pail to our apartment complex's lowly laundry room and then tossing the diapers into the community washing machine. And there was already a "no more than two loads of laundry per apartment per day" limit in this little laundry room. Darn. It would be extremely inconvenient. And I shudder just thinking about the sheer number of quarters we'd need... Maybe if I were more hardcore, I would have done it anyway.

One of the less obvious reasons I hesitated to use the communal washers to wash diapers was because I could not control everything that would be entering them... so there would be plenty of detergent residue on the inside of the washer. And actually, every communal washing machine I've ever used is visibly filthy with detergent residue.

This residue, apparently, is bad for cloth diapers, most importantly because the residue makes the diapers less absorbent over time. And ugh! If we want to use cloth diapers primarily for financial reasons, I want the diapers to last as long as possible so we can get the most bang out of our buck. Ideally, we'd want our diapers to last through as many babies as possible, so we'd want an appropriate detergent that would maximize the lifespan of our diapers but still clean them awesomely and affordably, etc.

Anyway, back to the excitement of packages! Packages, packages, packages! Out for delivery this very moment is our massive bucket of new laundry detergent. Yay! We got a lot. It'll cost us about 11 cents per load, which is actually quite good. (If we move somewhere that has hard water, we'll have to add something to counteract that issue so that the stuff in the water doesn't build up on the diapers--again, reducing the absorbency--but for now, 11 cents per load is teh awesome, I think.) Don't ask how much detergent we got.

Also, our diaper pail is supposed to arrive today. We never got one with Amelia. We've been using a plain old trashcan instead and sealing the poopy diapers in old grocery bags so they don't overwhelm us with odor before we take them out. (And actually, for much of her infancy, we used a Costco-sized cereal box as a diaper pail. Heh. Classy, I know.)

On Wednesday, the diapers themselves are supposed to arrive, along with some training pants for Amelia. (And, of course, the ones she picked were pink. Oh well.)

On Thursday, our diaper pail bags and our wet bags will get here. Wet bags are like the bestest things ever, by the way.

Tada! By the end of the week, we will have graduated into full-fledged hippies. We haven't switched to all organic clothing or family cloth, neither are we composting nor have we switched to 100% home-grown food... so don't worry about us getting too hippie. At least not yet. ;)

And the key words here are "not yet". After all, I have already stopped shaving my legs and armpits entirely. (Not because I want to be as hippie as possible. More because (1) I cannot for the life of me figure out how to make the sores on my legs go away, and the only thing that has at all helped is to just pretend I like leg hair, and (2) because my armpits have always hated the shaving experience, and also (3) because I hate shaving and am lazy. I seem to recall growing up that my dad had sores on his legs, too, so maybe I have inherited something evil from him. Curse you, genetics. Or epigenetics. Or perhaps a common environmental factor. Curse you, whatever you are. At least I can and do cover up my hairy legs with leggings.)

All in all, I suppose I am in great danger of becoming an extreme hippie before my days are through. I suspect it would greatly amuse God to arrange for us to live in, say, ultra-conservative Orem, Utah. I can only imagine a typical Utahn's reaction to the idea of, say, family cloth. (Also ... I want a bidet. They sound fun. Can I call it a bum gun?)

Still I am eagerly awaiting the UPS guy. Come oooon, UPS guy. Go zoom, zoom!

Anyway, all these baby-related purchases are practically making me itch to acquire more stuffs for little Dragon. We have practically nothing for him to wear that isn't pink or purple or covered in a girly print. And speaking of pink or purple or covered in a girly print... pretty much every single baby blanket we received for Amelia is pink or purple or covered in a girly print. Wo is us!

I was wise when I acquired our car seats and stroller and high chair and play yard... all is boy AND girl compatible. Huzzah! (And if I'd been even wiser, I would have realized how likely it is that our happy, reliable car will last us until we have three kids, and then purchase seats that'd fit three-in-a-row. Alas, I was not quite so wise. Our car has been so good to us.)

At least when I'm out walking, no one should say, "Aw, what a cute little girl" to Dragon, thanks to a lack of bright pink stroller. ... Though it wouldn't be too surprising if they said that anyway, I suppose. Even with Amelia decked out in a skirt and a pink top, people would think her a boy... simply because she was practically bald. Dang it.

Huzzah! It's the UPS guy! We now proudly own tons of diaper-friendly detergent and a shiny step-trashcan to be used as a diaper pail.

In other news... we just bought our plane tickets to Pennsylvania in December for Ethan (James' little brother) and Joon's wedding in December. Thankfully we had $1500 already set aside exclusively for this purpose, but still. It always hurts a little when you charge $1100 to your card. And then plan on paying another $200 for three weeks of parking at the airport because it just happens to be two entire hours away... Oh well. It is money already set aside for exactly that purpose, so it hurts a lot less. :) ... Ouch. Still hurts.

Speaking of which, I am totally a fan of living on a budget. We had a budget before... kind of. We'd budget imaginary money. It didn't really work for me. Now though, we have enough in the bank that we are budgeting actual money. It means that, despite the massive amount of money we've spent in the last two weeks... we STILL have plenty of money for a medical or automotive emergency.  It is really, really nice to not actually have to be worried about money.

Anyway, I'm tired of writing.

Love and bum guns,
Jenna
and Amelia
and Dragon