Pee, boobs, and more pee

Got “the call” from the midwife today saying they want me to do a 24 hour urine collection test to get a better picture of what’s going on in this whole protein in the urine thing.  It’s frustrating because the only thing I can find online about this either doesn’t apply to pregnancy or is all about pre-eclampsia, which, considering I’ve never had high blood pressure, I don’t think applies to me.  Anyway it must not be that serious if they want to discuss the results at my next appointment two weeks from now.  So I’ll just do the darned test and try not to hold the cup too far back and then pee all over my hand (apparently, much like an eight-year-old boy, I think girls pee out of their vaginas, not their urethras).

So next week is my breastfeeding class.  We are supposed to bring a baby doll or a stuffed animal for practice.  I don’t technically have either – unless you count the baby chick stuffed animal that still has one of my childhood nosebleed stains on it.  Will I be the most ghetto person in the room if I bring this…?  Probably.  But I’m used to this phenomenon, believe me.

I read a lot of the new mommy blogs and of course have had countless conversations with mothers about breastfeeding.  And you know I plan on doing it because I know it’s best for everyone, and luckily Kaiser has many, many resources if I run into trouble and I intend to use them, ie, I don’t plan on giving up easily if it just isn’t working out at first.  However, I will say this just one time.  Breastfeeding, despite being wonderful, sounds like a HUGE PAIN IN THE ASS.  I always pictured it would be like The Blue Lagoon – you go to cuddle your baby and he just magically latches on and drinks, and you look at Christopher Atkins in wonderment and walk off into the South Pacific sunset.  I don’t know a single person for whom breastfeeding was a breeze – everyone seems to have awful problems with it, and is subsequently made to feel guilty, and wants to give up.  Now for the record they usually managed to overcome these problems.  But I will say it sounds horrendous.  The not latching, the not producing enough milk, the baby losing weight, the leaky boobs, the cracked nipples, the pumping, the mastitis, the being tied down to every two hour feedings – ugh.  Let’s just hope it’s the awesome bonding experience people say it is, because from an outsider’s perspective it sounds pretty terrible.

Today I couldn’t get up in time for my prenatal yoga class and am feeling horribly guilty about it so I am going to do a light hike instead.  Honestly the cardio would probably be better for me right now, since I get almost none of that. 

I am experiencing a steel cut oats fail.  I picked up the steel cut variety because I thought they would be healthier – but for the life of me can’t figure out how to cook them.  Usually I just nuke regular rolled oats for about five minutes and voila.  But this kind appears to need to be cooked in a pan for an astounding half hour before being palatable.  Which, honestly, doesn’t work for me.  Cleaning out scorched pans and waiting a half hour to eat breakfast isn’t my idea of a good time.  So unless someone has some trick to these suckers I think I’m back to my rolled oats, stat.

Yesterday out of nowhere the dog took a huge piss on my fabulous art deco Chinoiserie rug, right in front of the front door so it’s the first thing you see when you walk into my house.  I was so angry I could hardly see straight, and am still pretty annoyed with her.  She did this right after running around outside for about a half hour so there’s no way she had to go “so bad” that she couldn’t hold it – and she came in of her own volition, as well.  I don’t think she’s mad about the pregnancy – it’s just about once a year that she’ll randomly pee somewhere like the couch, the bed, some rug – and I can never figure out why, since it’s never related to anything like my being out of town or changes in her schedule or something upsetting happening.  Personally I think it’s just that she has the occasional accident – she is pretty old – and that’s it.  But does it have to be on my most prized rug right in front of the front door for crying out loud…!  When my sister comes I will ask her to help me rotate the rug so at least this huge stain is under the couch, because I absolutely can’t stand looking at it.  I know, I know, get used to everything getting ruined.  But I figured I had a few more months before that starts happening.