The local Kroger recently started carrying red raspberry leaf tea, so I bought a box even though I’m not sure it’ll have time to do much for me at this point.  I had started looking for it a while ago, having read about it various places and then seeing an article about it on Serious Eats, but I couldn’t find it easily in the local stores.  I wanted to wait until the third trimester to start drinking it anyway, but never did order any online.  It’s surprisingly tasty, in an herbal-tea kinda way: A little more full than some herbals.  I figure anything that might make labor easier is a good thing.  And if nothing else, it may be good to have around postpartum, since it should help things get back to normal.  I was reminded I wanted to say something about it when I saw that Kacie mentioned drinking it on her personal blog.  It would be nice if it really does help, but if not it’s a nice relaxing little cup of tea.

I woke up from my latest nap at about 8, so I figure I’ve got another hour or two max before I conk out again (I’m already yawning).  At least it’s a nice lazy Saturday that I can get away with this.

(And yay for Pat White!  Go WVU!)

At my doc’s appt it appears that my blood pressure is creeping up week by week here at the end: 132/80 this time.  So next week’s appt will start with a NST: basically a test where they attach something to my stomach that measures the fetal movements and fetal heart rate and makes sure they make sense together.  This is just too make sure baby is still doing well in there (though since she still moves a lot the consensus is she’s probably doing fine).

Other than that, all is pretty normal.  No dilation has occurred despite my random aches and pains.  According to the various baby sites, baby should be about 20 inches and 7-7.5 lbs.

The closer I get to the end of this pregnancy, the less nervous or fearful I am about actual labor and delivery.  I suppose that’s not surprising: Even though there will certainly be a recovery period, it also means I’ll get my body back to myself, and lose some of these longer term aches and pains and discomforts.  I find I’m looking forward to that almost as much as I am looking forward to meeting baby!

Of course, it would be great if there were a formal study to tell us how much alcohol is okay, but it’s difficult because of the ethics of testing on pregnant women (”Here, drink this every day and let’s see if your baby has problems later” — funny how that doesn’t gain a researcher accolades from his peers) and because if done on a volunteer basis, people tend to lie about their habits (part of where we probably get the idea that “just one drink” can do damage — when the truth is that the person in question really may have had oh say a twelve-pack).  Also, I’m sure it doesn’t help that alcohol has such individualized weight and tolerance-dependent effects otherwise: if people metabolize it differently I’m sure the amount considered “okay” would also need to differ for each individual, and that makes guidelines difficult.

So here’s a new study for me to stew on later: One that suggests that by NOT indulging in light drinking, as I might have preferred, I may have neglected to give my child a benefit.*  Doesn’t that just figure?

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*Note as well that one of the challenges of the study will be separating the effect that alcohol had from the effects of having a relaxed and positive home environment: “‘The reasons behind these findings might in part be because light drinkers tend to be more socially advantaged than abstainers, rather than being due to the physical benefits of low-level alcohol consumption seen, for example, in heart disease,’ said [Dr. Yvonne] Kelly [the lead researcher}. ‘However, it may also be that light-drinking mothers tend to be more relaxed themselves and this contributes to better behavioural and cognitive outcomes in their children.’”  I think this is probably an excellent parental lesson for me to take away from this: Not being too uptight about things has benefits. Who knew?

“You’re getting sick of the scenery around you — it’s time to make travel plans.”

Ice cream is nice, but what I’m often wanting is not ice cream itself so much as something really cold: I think maybe I also want something a little sweet.  Frozen fruit has wound up being an excellent snack: while I’m sure that you could buy and freeze fruit yourself for less, I’ve discovered that just buying fruit already frozen at the store is fine.

My particular favorite has been frozen wild blueberries, which I can buy in a little plastic pint at Kroger much like you’d buy ice-cream.  There’s something just perfect about their tiny size and the way the inside of the blueberry crystallizes when frozen that makes a really satisfactory frozen treat, and with the dark skin I feel like I’m getting some happy polyphenols I wouldn’t otherwise consume.  Strawberries are also tasty, but since I’m eating right from frozen rather than thawing they have a tendency to break apart and not really look like strawberries so much as some kind of crystallized fruit ice (though the taste and consistency is still good for a frozen treat).  Frozen mango (sold in a little resealable bag instead of a plastic container) has worked better, since it is cut into more solid little chunks than strawberries tend to be, though it doesn’t crystallize as much internally as the other two fruits.

As much as I enjoy blackberries and raspberries typically, I don’t recommend them as frozen treats.  I found the seeds to be too difficult to deal with when frozen, and they didn’t give me the right mouth-feel.

I still haven’t tried pineapple chunks or cherries frozen, I’m not sure the size and consistency will be appealing.   I’m definitely buying more blueberries, though.

If you’re looking for more dessert-y taste, I found that the occasional jolt of whipped cream on a bowl of frozen blueberries could be quite nice.

I also started putting the occasional sprinkling of frozen blueberries into my cereal, as it helped keep the milk chill and added a little treat.  This morning I had frozen mango chunks in my cereal, which were very excellent.

Since we’ve had so many oddly warm fall days it’s been great for experimenting with the frozen fruit.  Right now as I’m looking outside at a second morning of big white fat flakes of snow, I’m wondering if my cold treat cravings will continue even though it’s now definitely cold outside.  Guessing by how good that frozen mango is sounding even hours later, I’m thinking the answer is yes.

People keep asking Sean or I if we’re ready.  We love that question.  We have no idea if we’re ready: We’ve never done this before.  We do know, however, that we’re ready to stop waiting, that we’re ready to meet this baby, that we’re ready to try.

I keep hoping I’ll be a little early.  Not too early, just have her during the 39th week instead of the 40th, say.  Feeling the way I do right now, I think every pregnant woman might think this.  I’m also hoping she doesn’t put on too much weight in these last few weeks, hehe.  It’s okay with me if you’re a little small, honey, really.

It’s hard for me to make the mental switch to seeing myself as a parent.  It’s such an all-consuming label, it feels like it adds a facet to every other part of the “me” definition.  I think it’s something I won’t be able to fully appreciate until after baby is here.

She’s still kicking and squirming: sometimes it looks like a scene from Alien is being reenacted on my stomach.  She’s got some strong little punches and kicks!  I’ve read about how inactive newborns tend to be, and I find it hard to reconcile with the restless creature inside of me.

I keep saying it, but it’s still true: I can’t wait to meet her!

I love that people want to help us out though, and Sean’s mother suggested that we could have a nice family dinner together, since Sean and I aren’t planning to go up for Thanksgiving, and they could have a family shower for the baby.  So we went up to visit last night.  His mother invited my mother up as well, and we had a lovely family dinner, with not only his parents and my mother, but with other siblings, aunts and uncles, nieces and nephews…

I am amazed at the amount of baby stuff they gave us.  We have clothes and clothes and clothes; and lovely bath things (I love hooded towels); and a baby carrier sling; and several blankets, including two that were hand-made for the occasion (and one Sean’s mother made which has pieces from a blanket that was Sean’s when he was a baby); over a dozen pretty colored prefolds and about two dozen white ones (cloth diapers); a doorway hanging jumper swing — just about anything left I would have considered getting, they’ve provided.  I’m a little floored, as I never expected that.  (And, of course, I’m grateful as well, but right now I’m still mostly stunned.)  I now have an 11 x 17 x 9 tub full of freshly laundered tiny newborn clothes.

I know baby probably needs more things than I think she does, especially as she’ll be going through a lot of clothes in a day at least at first, but I think we’re about as ready as we can be.  37 weeks tomorrow; I’m looking forward to meeting baby!

You can read its farewell “guest blog” entry at Gizmodo here.

This final entry is one that I asked be posted after my mission team announces they’ve lost contact with me. Today is that day and I must say good-bye, but I do it in triumph and not in grief.

To piggyback on the message in that final guest blog, MarsPhoenix’s last official tweet was “01010100 01110010 01101001 01110101 01101101 01110000 01101000 <3″ which I thought was absolutely adorable [it says "TRIUMPH ♥"], but then, I am pregnant and somewhat over-emotional at the moment. You can still follow the feed for updates on what’s come out of the mission.

RIP Phoenix.

First let’s fill in what I mean by broken: On Saturday night, we noticed that the back of the toilet just stopped filling with water.  It would trickle, or drip a bit, but not run the way it needed to in order to actually flush.  Our temp fix for this was to repeatedly dump water from a two-quart pitcher into the back and into the bowl of the toilet to create a flushable environment, but since the bathroom sink is too shallow to fully fit the pitcher, and the only other source of bathroom water is the shower (stand up, no spigot) dumping quarts of water into the toilet for 10 minutes in order to flush became painfully tedious for someone who can now pee 15 times in an hour. (Hey, even if I only flush every fifth time I will have spent half that hour in the bathroom dumping water into the toilet, right?)

So at some point in the wee (hah) morning hours I broke, and searched online for information on why a toilet would just stop filling.  One of the possibilities was a bit of debris clogging the fill valve.  I had noticed several little rust flakes and whatnot in the tank, so I figured I’d found my solution, but I still couldn’t figure out how to fix it.  I found a great “Yahoo Answers” on the topic, talking about (after shutting off the water) removing the cylindrical top of the fill valve by twisting the top counter clockwise, and then using a coat hanger to clear the inflow and replacing the top: except that no matter how I tried, I couldn’t get the top of the fill valve to twist off.

I noted that I did indeed have the “Fluidmaster” sort of toilet innards that were being discussed, and googled that line specifically to wind up at a rather awesome troubleshooting page.  With a little daring, I discovered that on my toilet to see the part that could be twisted off I could pop off the black cap on top (this was luck and intuition, I could potentially have broken something doing this–but it seemed to want to come off).  I think maybe this piece would twist and come off attached to the inner piece you remove, but since I didn’t know what I was doing it was easier to pop it off separately so I could see the way the inner plastic pieces fit together in order to twist the correct bit.  My problem had been that on mine you needed to lift the “arm” up before twisting in order to clear some of the other plastic pieces.  Also the little illustrations on that troubleshooting page were very helpful.

Anyway, I got the piece twisted off I was supposed to, covered the pipe with a cup as the site suggested and tried turning on the water to see if there was a clogged line there.  Water came shooting up with impressive force, and I figured that maybe removing the top had already cleared the debris.  I replaced everything, turned on the water, and the toilet filled great!  I was so proud of myself.

Then I flushed the toilet, and again there was only a bare trickle coming out to fill the tank.

Annoyed, I again took apart the toilet.  This time when checking the intake I forgot about the cup, and managed to douse myself and a section of the bathroom with the rather solid stream of water that shot into the air: still no clog there.  But again, when I replaced the pieces the flow became sluggish.  I noticed that it seemed the rubber seal inside the valve was what was actually blocking the flow, so I tried removing the seal and putting the toilet together without.  Without the seal the toilet filled with rapid speed, and I would have rejoiced except that without the seal, the flow NEVER stopped.  And it seemed a bit splashy and messy.  So that was no solution, and I was back to where I started.

Dripping only slightly I returned to the computer and examined the Fluidmaster troubleshooting page I had found, and I’ll bet you’ll never guess what the only other suggestion was on the page for why a toilet might not fill as quickly as it should, something called a “swollen” seal.  That very same seal I’d noticed and been messing with.  Solution suggested by the site?  Duh, get a new seal.

So I knew what I needed.  And I headed to Lowe’s.  And you know how much my new seal cost?  $2.  All is fixed.

And now the townspeople can sleep easy, knowing when they wake with aching hips there will be a working toilet to use.

I feel oddly accomplished today.