Blogging Challenge #8

Quite awhile back, I accepted a blog challenge, but leading up to, and in the aftermath of 4.0’s arrival, I missed a whole lot of posts. Then the challenge took a little hiatus, too. But just in time for Easter, it has been resurrected and we’re both back in action! So here’s what we’re tackling this week:

What’s a movie you can’t NOT watch if you come across it on TV?

Fella is a bit of movie buff. A moldy-oldie sort of buff. So we get stuck to watching some pretty interesting Old Hollywood quite often.

The one he tortures me with …imposes upon me … has goaded me with lately is Mildred Pierce. All because it came on PBS one Saturday night and I said “I just can’t take watching this one,” explaining that I was too tired to watch such a dull sedate B&W movie (that we’ve seen before) that night. Oh how he thinks he’s a laugh riot with his interpretation of that reaction!

It’s a good movie, but in the right context. Totally has to be the right time and the right place. Same with Now, Voyager. We’ve seen that one a lot, too. And Dark Victory. All movies I don’t necessarily choose to watch on a sleep-deprived Saturday night in the dead of winter.

So what movie do I need to watch on a sleep-deprived Saturday night in the dead of winter, were I to stumble across it on the tele? Why, that's easy! There are two options, one “moldy,” one modern.

North By Northwest. Need I say more? OK, but I’ll keep it short. Classic Hitchcock. Archibald at his finest (and I do mean fiiiiiine). And there’s a hot blonde, to boot. Did I mention we stayed at the Ambassador East Hotel the last time we were in Chicago? That’s how much we like that movie.

Sixteen Candles. We physically cannot resist changing the channel to this if it’s on. It’s like our remote is programmed to seek it out from the bowels of our cable lineup. And we are compelled by some force greater than we to watch it. No matter how far into the movie it is we watch. Although I am always a little sad if it’s already beyond my favorite lines: (1) “Fred, she’s gotten her boobies…oh and they are so perky!” or (2) “Voila! Breakfast is ready!”

Lucky for us, it plays on the Encore channels A LOT.

Oddly enough, both of these movies involve a little bit of my hometown. While NxNW is only in Chicago for a blip, Sixteen Candles is my childhood and would have become my adolesnce, had my family not become California transplants when we did.

It’s filmed in my actual hometown (Evanston). In fact, one of my elementary school classmates was supposed to have the movie filmed in her house. Her parents turned it down due to some issues they had with the script. My guess it’s the same reason my best friend and I were promptly dragged out of the theater when her mom had taken us to see it: the shower scene.

Nostalgia aside, these are two great movies, never (ever!) to be missed in our house.

WW Week Wrap Up

This post will wrap up the first two week since I'm just getting around to posting. So here goes!

WEEK ONE: Chips Are Not On The Plan
Last week I started to write about all the reasons why I had a "bad" first week back at Weight Watchers. But before I could finish I realized that all the rationalization in the world wasn't get me to the root of the problem. My problem has to do with a chip.

Not a potato chip or chocolate chip, but worse: a little chip residing on my shoulder.

There are some folks in my @Work meeting who have never been on WW before. They’re come to the table each week with naïveté fresh eyes. They sit there holding their pairs of new discoveries and lost pounds. And I think I’ve got them beat with my Full House of cynicism and years of failure experience. But really, it’s me holding the losing hand.

So my personal challenge after the first week (and no loss) is to not just ante up, but to get my chips all in.

Week 1 Stats: +0.2 lb

WEEK TWO: Little. Yellow. Different. Better.

One out of those four statements are true. This week was better.
OK, so maybe two of the statements because I was also different.

After realizing that I was acting as my own personal sabatouer, I was hoping that I would turn a corner in week two. While I didn't quite make it that far, I did manage to peek around to the other side of said corner. That's progress I'll take!

I contributed to the meeting. And constructively, I might add. SWEAR!

It may not have been all-or-nothing, but it was a step in the right direction.

Week 2 Stats: -0.4 lb

Up To My Old Shennanigans

I'm not just a Weight Watcher, I'm something more. More like a weight stalker, I've been doing the WW program so long.

I'm the girl who, after she found out she was pregnant last year, wouldn't cancel her Mothly Pass for fear that when she had to register again post-bambino, she somehow wouldn't get the same deal. Totally rational.

I'm the girl who should get honorary Lifetime Membership, I've been a member so many times. I think the first time I joined was in 8th grade (although I have documentation of wanting to lose weight going as far back as the 4th grade). And then there was high school...and college...and law school...and well, still today. So I think I'm entitled to something, even just eTools for life.

While I was pregnant, I really thought long and hard about my struggle with my weight and weight loss. And what I came down to was that I didn't want to struggle with it anymore. I don't want to be a mom who struggles to keep up with her kid because she's carrying around extra pounds. And I want to be a good example for my son. But I wasn't sure what that meant and I certainly didn't know what it meant to the status of my WW Monthly Pass.

I guess I figured I would give WW one more chance once I finally decided to get back on the wagon. One last cycle to get my head straight and then plan to branch out on my own. But that wouldn't be for awhile. At least not until I was done breastfeeding 4.0.

When I got back to work, I found out my company was going foster a WW @ Work meeting. This was MUCH sooner than I had ever contemplated drying out again. But this was a no-brainer, right? Stars are aligned, it's there fallen in my lap, I've seen all the signs. WRONG! I wavered right up until the meeting started.

But I pulled the pin. I went to the meeting. I wrote my check. And I stepped up on that scale. Now all I need to do is call to cancel that Monthly Pass that's been collecting dust for 14 months.

And to keep me honest (and I hope you entertained) I'm going to blog about it. The ups, the downs; the triumphs and tribulations. All the gory details.

OK, maybe not ALL of the details. Hell, my husband is lucky (?) that I let him learn how much I weighed during my pregnancy. All you need to know is that my weight is a three digit number. And there's nowhere to go from here but down.

Projections

I have no illusions about this year being a tough one to get "me things" done. My life is all about my family now. But let's face it, I'm also a member of that family and we all have to think about ourselves sometimes, right? Besides, if I keep finding excuses to put aside the things I want to accomplish for another [week, month, year...] they'll never see the light of day.

So I'm going to give it the old college try. And at least I'll be able to say I made some kind of an attempt. I consider this my list of New Year's Resolutions, albeit better late than never.

Writing
I love this writing thing. And I used to write a lot more. When I had a lot more time to write. And what's more, I used to have a lot more to write about. That's a whole lotta mores. So Project One: find more things to write about. Which leads to...

Project Two: Take Project One and Write 'Em

Get Real
If I'm being real here, I admit there's really only one project with sub-parts. Saying it that way just makes me feel more accomplished.

Project One (and Two) Status
So where do things stand on this/these project(s), you may wonder. If you've read the blog below lately, you ought to know that not much progress has been made this side on the New Year. Hell, this side of 4.0's birth!

But you also might wonder if I've already got any newfangled topics selected for the project. Well, yes. And no. It's, as they say, a work in progress. But that's really the crux of this blog anyway, right?

I realized the other day that the more I try to do, the less I seem to get done.

So is less more?

I'm in no condition to wax philosophical, so I'll leave it there.

And be off to do something...more. Or less. Or...else. Something else.

A Baby Saga

Since I don't think anyone has gotten the full story on the events surrounding the birth of JOC:4.0 (aka Jack) here it is for your reading pleasure (to the best of my recollection).


Scheduled for Induction
At my final OB appointment before my official due date, my doc broke the news that things were not progressing. She was reluctant to let me carry on past my due date because he was already a big baby, so she scheduled me to be induced on the evening of October 13th. Some locals may recall that we were having a pretty wicked storm on the 13th, which apparently brought a storm of other babies making their way into the world. Our appointment got bumped.


So we are finally told to report for duty at 07:30 on October 14th.


As it turns out, despite our best efforts (Prego pizza from Skipolini's among others...) our boy was no closer to getting here than a week earlier (two, actually!) and I was still just 50% effaced and 1cm dilated when I showed up at the hospital. So they start me on cyto-something-or-other to get the effacement moving along. In the meantime, they took a quick U/S to make sure our boy was in fact head down (he was).


And four hours later, when there was little progress, they hit me with another dose of cyto-whatever-you-call-it. I had read that sometimes this can trigger contractions to start on their own without pitocin, so I was hoping for the best. But Murphy's Law being as it is, I should have been expecting the outcome.


Bring on the Pitocin
Let the contractions begin. At this point, I was still hoping that I had a high enough pain tolerence to make it through the process naturally. And I was taking the contractions in stride. My doc then broke my water at sometime around 20:00, in further hopes to move the process along. And I'm still taking the contractions like a champ. That is until around 22:00 when I announce: "I think I may need the epidural." Boy was I right.


Then the Morning Comes
We still have no baby. But I have very little to no pain and I am thankful for that. And I am still not progressing as would be expected and we start hearing whispers of C-Section. So they try to position me to target the one side that doesn't seem to be dilating and two hours later, I'm still stalled at about 9cm dilated. So we have the C-Section talk with my doc.


And it came down to this: even if we took the wait-and-see approach, I could still have several hours of pushing ahead of me and I could still end up needing an emergency C-Section. Consider that at that point we had been in the hospital for 26-ish hours. My water had been broken for 14+ hours. Sometime a couple of hours earlier I had spiked a slight fever and was on antibiotics. I was completely wiped out. I didn't think I had several hours of pushing left in me, so I opted for the C-Section then and there.


On the O/R Table
As they were prepping me for surgery, I lay there on the table wavering. This wasn't how it was supposed to be. Early on in my pregnancy I had considered a scheduled C-Section, but over time I settled into the idea that I wanted to give the whole au naturale thing a shot. I questioned again whether I had it in me to call it off and keep trying, but something kept telling me to keep mum.


So Fella joins me and I'm feeling marginally better. My doc gets going and see's little Pal, face up with his umbilical cord wrapped around his neck. Two definite strikes against any kind of smoothe-sailing as far as a vaginal birth is concerned. It's no wonder he wasn't descending into the birth canal enough to help the process along, he was a little tied up!


But at 12:35 on October 15, 2009, my 19-inch long, 8lb 10oz wonderboy was brought into this world.


Hindsight being 20/20, the C-Section was obviously the best way to go. Thank goodness I didn't delay the inevitable!


Swooped Off
Because I spiked that fever, they were concerned about the baby's health, so he was taken off for testing pretty quickly after they got him out. Fella went with him as they drew blood and got all of his stats taken care of.


That is Except For...
Those pesky blood tests. They came back irregular, so a day later they took him away again for more tests and to start him on antibiotics, to be safe. But this time he would be quarantined to the Intensive Care Nursery (ICN, aka NICU in other hospitals).


That afternoon I was outfitted with a breast pump and equipment. And two days later we find out that my boy's blood was tainted with two bacteria, one I can't recall, but the other I'll never forget: E. coli!!! These required a 14-day course of antibiotics, so he was stuck in the ICN for awhile, yet another unexpected turn of events.


But Wait, There's More!
Just as I am getting ready to be released from the hospital, one of my nurses notices some possible signs of infection to my surgical wound. So my doc keeps me another day. Fine, considering that it would keep me closer to the babe for another night. And the next day, she changes my antibiotic, which has a 20% chance of reaction in people allergic to penecillin (of which I am one). So she holds me over yet another night for observation.


And the Hits Just Keep on Coming
They had to open up my wound for treatment because of the complication (which I was preliminarily told was likely caused by staph bacteria that is naturally occurring on the skin). And on my last day, I was assessed by the hospital's Skin and Wound Assessment Team (SWAT).


My doctor happened to show up precisely when I was being assessed and they determined the best course of treatment. Treatment that includes nursing care visits at home every other day and visits to the John Muir Wound Care Center (WCC) once a week.


At my first visit to the WCC, the surgeon assigned to my case decides that the fastest course of treatment would be to use what's called V.A.C. Therapy. Basically I have to tote around a little machine that's connected to a very long tube, that's connected to foam, that's packed into the wound and all covered by this film that creates an air-tight seal and does exactly what you'd expect a vaccuum to do. TMI? My apologies.


Oh--and as it turns out, the second culture that the WCC surgeon took on my wound came back as (drumroll please...) E. coli bacteria. (On a side note, after a little research we have come to find that E. coli is not an uncommon bacteria to be found when such a complication occurs from childbirth).


So in addition to a now 9lb 13oz baby, I've got this accessory to tote around constantly that's close to 5lbs. And after just two days with both, my back is killin' me. Thankfully the doctor said I should probably only need this contraption for 2-3 weeks to get the underlying tissue all good and healed.


There's No Place Like Home
So we're all home and JOC:4.0 seems to be adjusting well (although we are having some latching issues, I think due to his getting bottles in the ICN half the time). So we're troubleshooting those. I've finally got my ankles back (they got HUGE after the birth) and I'm driving again.


And Fella and I are just plain old trying to figure out this parenting thing and hoping we're not already somehow scarring our kid for life. You know, the usual.

I've Been Challenged!

Blog Writing Challenge:
Why do you blog? What do you hope to get out of this challenge?

A high school friend of mine, who I’ve reconnected with through various social networking platforms, including a mom’s group message board, has issued a blog challenge. This challenge is rather timely, as my blog seems to have hit a bit of a dry spell. So, challenge duly accepted!

Why do you blog?
I started blogging during my last year of law school. I jumped on the bandwagon as a way to stay in touch with friends, as an attempt to entertain myself and others, bitch about life, and just plain old pass the time. And I would be remiss if I failed to mention that I like words--reading them, writing them, and crafting them into thoughtful…, well, thoughts.

For a time, I even aspired to be a writer. But I hated journalism in school and frankly, I don’t think I have the chops to be some great novelist or essayist. And in my estimation, if I can’t be great at it, I don’t want to have any part of it. I’m a little faint-of-heart whereas the idea of harsh criticism is more than I can bear and there’s only so much delusion that my ego and I can feign.

I digress.

I’m currently reading Julie and Julia (no, I have not yet seen the movie). I’ve just read Julie’s discussion on the reasons people blog from a 2002 perspective, when blogging was less of a thing. She compares it to the reasons 17th century diarist Samuel Pepys may have kept his 9-year diary. And that Pepys, in stark contrast to bloggers, did not share his diary with the public, that is, until it was published in 1825. Whereas modern day diaries, blogs, are out there for anyone who is so inclined in our voyeuristic universe to peruse.

Brass tacks: I blog for me. It makes me happy to craft words together. But if I just like to write solely for my own pleasure alone, I would keep a private diary, not a blog. So why do I put it out there for anyone to see? Not because I necessarily think I have anything particularly interesting to share with the world, but because I still like to entertain (I also wanted to be a performer when I was a kid, one of those triple threats—actor/dancer/singer). And admittedly, I still harbor teensy, tiny aspirations that my writing turn into more than just a hobby.

What do you hope to get out of this challenge?
Since graduating from law school, life has had this way of interfering with my writing/blogging. And more often than not, I find myself at a loss for entertaining or interesting topics to write about. Because, let’s face it, my life ain’t all that interesting.

So if nothing else, I hope it takes away any excuse I may have NOT to sit down and write at least once a week. I also hope it will bring me closer to the community of women and mothers engaging in the challenge, most of whom I haven’t had the chance to get to know just yet.