Baby on wheels

So I went for a bike ride on Monday night, 20 miles, and it was really really hard. I spent the first 10 miles pretty depressed, mentally beating myself up over how I was just a fool for even trying and it was ridiculous for me to even consider Ragbrai. But the return trip was much better, as my legs loosened up and I rediscovered some muscles (a few). I figured I'd better go again tonight, just to see if was still awful, and it was really pretty good. It's incredible to think I'm carrying 20 lbs more than I was a year ago at this time, so I'm clearly not going to try to push myself as hard as I was last year. That would be stupid! But I feel like I'm able to gauge how hard my body is working, and push a little, but still feel comfortable going for a long ways. This might work after all. I think a big difference tonight was that it was a lot cooler than Monday. I hadn't been considering the weather to be a major factor in how much I bike of Ragbrai (other than wind) but if it's super hot it's probably not going to work out, no matter how much I've prepared. :(

It's also getting quite crowded on my bike, and I'm doing my best to not pedal knees-out like an old fat man. I've noticed in the last two weeks that I've really picked up the pace of weight gain, and although I'm eating mostly healthy foods, I'm eating a lot!! My stomach is so cramped for space that it can't tell me when it's empty, and instead my body responds with a low bloodsugar shakiness that actually comes on pretty quickly. So I have to eat more frequently, which means I eat lots more, unless I plan carefully. *sigh*. I've stashed some snacks at work, and I'm being more careful to make time to eat during the day. I think it was Tuesday that I carried a banana around with me for almost an hour before I had a free minute (and clean hands) to sit and eat it. And as soon as I sit down - my belly comes to life!! I can actually watch all the activity, and I found myself being self-conscious of all the motion during a meeting the other day. That's silly, I know, but it really does feel like an incredible amount of motion from inside.

I'm pretty tired tonight, after being run ragged for yet another day at work. It's not the biking - it's running around the plant for 9 hours a day that wears me out. The pace that I have to go at in order to keep up is incredible - I think I would be tired if I weren't pregnant, too!

And I miss my hubby. He called today and he's feeling good about the trip, and that it has been worthwhile for his career, on many fronts. And I know how much he loves German-speaking countries so he's having a nice time. I am too, actually, but it'll be great to have him back.

Goodnight, all.

A lonely week ahead

This weekend was very fun. Travis and Dan and I drove to Michigan to attend my cousin's wedding, so Friday night started off with a nice 8-hour drive. Saturday was a relaxing day, though, spent chatting with lots of family. My parents were there, and my sister and her family only had a 90-min drive to get to the event so that was a nice change for them since the trip across Illinois is normally on their backs if they attend a family event. The weather was beautiful, and the bride and groom thought of everything. It was really impressive - a pinata for the (many) kids in attendance, cute bride/groom games, and sparklers to send off the newlyweds after the dance, which was actually quite rockin' for being booze-free. My family stayed up late afterwards, laughing and talking with my aunt and uncle who were relieved to have the wedding over (apparently, a bride who thinks of everything tends to be a Bridezilla from time to time). There were only two things that kept this weekend from being completely relaxing and enjoyable - the 16 hours in the backseat of the Jetta, and having to say goodbye to Travis for a week.

That's right, he's in Luxembourg as I write this. This time he's traveling for work, although the jetlag is the same no matter what the reason for travel. His plane left Grand Rapids at 7:30 Saturday, so he went to the ceremony with my family and then we took him to the airport on our way to the reception. I'm really sad to spend the week without him, and it was hard to have him go in the middle of the wedding activities like that. I pick him up from the Des Moines airport on Saturday late afternoon, and I am so looking forward to it that I have renewed respect for people live away from their spouses!!! Awful!!! :( In the meantime, I have decided to take this lonely opportunity to accomplish a list of things while he's gone (energy-permitting):

Go biking 3 times.
Unpack from the weekend
Send in contact lenses rebate
Mail another wedding gift
Clean the spare bedroom
Clean out the closet in what will be come the baby's room
Put all the baby stuff we've acquired into that closet
Start boxing stuff up that's scattered about the office in the basement due to the water issues we've had this spring.

I'm guessing I might get 6 of those 8 things done, but the items that fall into the "nesting" category are tricky. The reason stuff is scattered about the house is because I don't care to organize it and pack it away carefully in the first place. And that's really going to be necessary if I'm going to get these tasks done with any chance of ever being able to find anything in all this stuff. So again, i wonder: How did i get so much STUFF?? if I'm drowning in it now, what's it going to be like in 5 years??? Augh!!!

My whole body is aching from the trip: my back from leaning to the side in order to hear the front seat's conversation, my ribs and sides from the poor posture, and my head because I didn't drink enough water this weekend in attempt to avoid pitstops every 100 miles. I am actually so dehydrated that I feel hung over, it's very weird. But the trip was totally worth it because the wedding was beautiful and my extended family had such a great time together. I got in on some hilarious quotes from my nieces, a long chat in the car with my brother and my dad (on the way home), and I got to show off my belly to my mom and my sister, who got to feel kicks! And it was all such an easy stress-free weekend that we could really just enjoy laughing with everybody together. Awesome. :)

This fun weekend will be contrasted by the cruelty that is Work on Monday morning. But I made the list of stuff to do at home this week so that I wouldn't get the depressing mentality this week when 5:00 rolls around and "there's nobody at home to cook for or be with, so I might as well stay late..." That's a BAD Kristin! Don't think like that!! Go home and start nesting!!

almost 25 weeks

This is getting to be ridiculous. wow.

Trip Pics

I'll try to limit this to just pictures and brief discriptions, and keep the babble to a minimum. I know you're really wanting to see the ultrasound pics from the previous posting anyway. :)

The town of Inveraray, Scotland. Yes, that's the whole town. Our hotel is the white building closest to the water.

Did I mention that it rained very sporadically in Scotland? This is from the "car park" by our hotel (that's our car in the pic). The rainbows end in the loch. :)

We walked down this trail, maybe a mile, to have lunch in an area that had just been logged, looking over the sea on the northwest coast of Scotland. No picnic tables, just tree stumps, and we ate sandwiches and grapes and cookies from a gas station. Only simple thrills for me!

Near Inveraray, Scotland.

One of many amazing views on the beautiful drive from Inveraray to Edinburgh.

That's right, I climbed way up THERE! Beautiful view of Edinburgh from up there, although a better picture is this one, taken from yet another hill on the other side of town:

The Royal Mile is on the left, culminating in the castle at the top. Down there somewhere is a memorial to Sir Walter Scott, who I supposedly have somewhere on my family tree.

The old jail in Cork. Funny, we don't have many pictures from Trav's birthday or the day after... :)

Fort George, near Kinsale. Built in 1600's, in use until 1921 when Irish Revolutionaries burned it. Occupied by hippies for a while, now a national park site (or something).

Trav and Mark, trying to see who can fall in first.

A dreary day on the Ring of Kerry. :(

After this point it rained so much that the pictures are unremarkable, although it's Ireland so it was still a pretty view at the time. Fun to look back on these, but nice to be home!

Ultrasound pics

I'll work on posting trip pictures tomorrow (I know, I'm reeeeally slow!!), but here are ultrasound pictures tonight. :) Meet Baby Sullivan:

Aren't those amazing?? That's really my baby! We got to actually watch little video clips that the first four pics are stillframes from, so we could see it move its hand and squirm around. Travis thinks it has my chin. :) I'm just pleased that the likelihood that I'll have an ugly baby seems pretty small - isn't he/she adorable already?? Those of you who are aware of Trav's head size may be as relieved as I was to hear that the baby's head is a normal size, and that it weighs just under 1.5 lbs, also normal. I mean, since this is mine and Travis's kid there won't be many things growing up where he/she will be considered normal, so we should celebrate them, right?? I'm already feeling apologetic towards Baby for the wacked-out gene pool we provided. :)

Travis and some friends went canoeing this afternoon and camping tonight, but I stayed home to nurse a sore back and recuperate a bit. I just wasn't up for spending the day in the sun, watching other people get wasted and play with fire, and then sleeping on the ground tonight. I did get some stuff done around here, but mostly just relaxed. It was great after a very hectic week of 10-hour days at work trying to get back up to speed after vacation.

Speaking of work, I did finally get my promotion, the day we left for our trip. It's a relief, but frustrating still, because on the one hand, it's a substantial payraise that makes it even harder to consider actually walking away from that kind of money this fall. On the other hand, it's incredibly depressing to think I should've been making that salary for at least the past year if not 3 years. I asked for some validation from management that I had adequately been doing higher-level work than I'd been paid for all along, first monetarily (they say women don't negotiate enough, so I tried!) but then just verbally, and got neither. Jackasses. And, my new boss is a micromanaging nerd. It's an interesting yet irritating combination, so fun times lie ahead, for sure. I can tell he's a nerd even though his Texas accent flavors everything he says with a hint of stupidity. But, now that that major exasperation is past, I will do my best to not drag down this fun blog with more boring work details! I've got way better stuff going on this summer.

:) Happy weekend, all.

Photos, etc.

So I will give you a brief overview of our trip, and then tell a very funny story.

I believe I left off with Travis's birthday. Wow, what a night that was. Travis and Mark had identical Drunk Sullivan grins on their faces for the entire evening, culminating in piggy-back rides at the bar. They had a LOT of Guinness. It was a very fun time, and we got to feel very old when we met Mark's friends, who were a lot of fun but I'm sure viewed us like a couple of college wannabe's. The next day was a quiet one, and we wandered around Cork during what turned out to be the nicest weather of the whole trip. The next day we took off for Killarney.

Killarney is actually near the area where the Sullivan family name originates, so we saw lots of O'Sullivan businesses, including the place where we rented our bikes (more later on that). It's on the edge of a national park, and is the most inland portion of the Ring of Kerry, which is just a beautiful coastline drive around the peninsula. Or, rather, it's beautiful when it's not raining / foggy and WINDY. We spent a day doing that drive, and Mark kept telling us what a nice view it would be if only we could see it. There was still plenty of beauty to take in.

After three nights in Killarney, Mark went back to Cork on a bus and Trav and I went on to Shannon to catch a plane early the next morning. We spent that day taking the scenic route up the coastline, through Limerick, and then on to Shannon. We had actually seen some of this area last year so it was an anticlimactic way to end the trip. Our B&B in Shannon was really nice, especially after roughing it in a hostel in Killarney, and we got to watch some Gaelic football (wild!) and rugby the night before our flight home.

Okay, now the funny story:
There are two lakes near Killarney, and two of the most popular ways to see them are to rent a horse and carriage or take bikes. We opted for bikes and decided to try out a ~25km ride, which is down the same path the horses take (and where there are horses, there is horse shit. Fun!). I got a hybrid bike with dorky fenders and a rack to carry the water bottle, while Trav and Mark got sleek mountain bikes. The day was bright and sunny, so we were having a nice time. The trail led us past a house that apparently some rich person lived in and we could've paid 7 Euros to tour, but I thought it seemed like MTV Cribs 1850's style so we passed. The grounds were beautiful, though, so much in bloom, and the lake was still and gorgeous:















We started to get a little lost, though, because the map we had didn't line up with the maps that were marking the trail along the way, so we ended up taking a walking trail that was so hilly that I had to push my monstrous bike up the hills. Riding down was perilously fun, though. That's about when it started sprinkling, but we thought we could probably make it to a nearby cottage that was at about the halfway point of our loop. We were wrong. It poured, and the trees we stood under were only good for a few minutes before they were dripping on us too. Turns out we were very very close to the cottage after all, but the only thing there was a coffee-shop and we didn't feel like we should break out our picnic lunch that we'd brought in their restaurant. Neither could we eat in the still-dripping outside, so even though it was after 1:00 at this point we decided just to push forward, get back to town, and then eat. So as we biked, I was thinking, "Wouldn't it be nice to not be cold, wet and hungry on my vacation??". Here is a picture of us after the ride:















And now, remember back to the key details I mentioned about the horses, and the bikes we had. Those of you who have biked in the rain know that the tires kick up water on the road onto your backside. Now remember that it's not just water on the road, and here is the result: (remember, I had fenders ;) )















After the ride, I was feeling pretty smug because I wasn't covered in horse shit. But the joke was on me. Most likely, while I was huddling near a tree for cover during the rain, a tick crawled onto my leg and decided to nest itself in to my ankle:










Yeah. OW. I didn't see this until the next day, when I noticed something black on my ankle in the shower and it seemed sore. But I didn't have my contacts in yet so after I got dressed and put on my glasses, I took a look and totally freaked out. I cried, I worried about my baby, and I cried some more while Travis dug it out of my foot. Then it was really really sore for the next two days, but fortunately they were spent mostly in the car anyway. And apparently it's incredibly rare for Irish ticks to have Lyme disease, so I'm not so worried (neither is my doctor). It seems to be healing up fine. How's that for a funny story??

This entry is getting quite long, but I will devote a few more lines to another pregnancy-related emotion: identity crisis! As I'm walking up hills and trying to keep up with two boys on bikes, and worrying about that the tick might hurt my baby, or ordering flat 7-Up instead of Guinness, I'm thinking that every single thing I do now is affected by my pregnancy. For some reason, several times on this trip I got really upset - on the plane, after the tick, in the rain - and just couldn't stop the tears. I knew that this baby would (will) change my life, but I didn't expect that it would already affect who my person is. It's hard, because after 25 years of building up self-confidence in myself, suddenly I have limits and exceptions that I have to follow, and painful burdens to bear (These sideaches just do NOT QUIT!). And yet, Travis is the same, only perhaps more watchful of me. He's really very understanding that I am more fragile than ever, physically and emotionally, so I'm very, very lucky to have that support. But I never pictured myself becoming this fragile, or needing so much help. It's not the requiring support that bothers me, it's that I didn't expect to, if that makes any sense at all.

Anyway, if you're still reading to this point of the blog, you are one crazily devoted friend and I love you that much more!!

Home Sweet Home

Okay so I've been hyping a new blog entry about the Ireland leg of our trip, and I feel I should not disappoint, but this particular entry is not going to the spectacular picture-laden, story-telling entry that I have mapped out in my head. I am too tired. Yesterday was a 30-hour day, and I was awake for over 21 hours straight. I am pooped. It sure was easy to get up at 6 to go to work, because it felt like I had slept until noon, but now it feels like 3 AM, and after a full day of work and laundry and unpacking and grocery shopping, I am very close to falling asleep as I type.

I must say that traveling while pregnant is tough. The plane trip back from Shannon to Chicago was torturous because Baby has decided to push all of my innards up against my ribcage, causing constant pain much like sideaches up under my ribs. The only relief is to stand or sit with my back very straight, neither of which is an option in a tiny coach seat. Then my headphones didn't work, the lady in front of me was wearing way too much nauseatingly floral perfume, it was hot and stuffy and I just wanted to be home. Being hormonal and overtired on top of it all meant that I was not emotionally equipped to handle the situation (read: I got mad and cried). Then, after landing in Chicago, we had nearly 5 hours of layover, moving from gate to gate like well-behaved cattle. I swear they change the gates just to keep people from getting restless and stampeding. I was so glad to finally land in Des Moines, until I realized it meant going to work today. And all I have to say about that: yuck!!!!

Exciting thing tomorrow, though - Ultrasound!! I really do intend to post amusing anecdotes and breathtaking pictures from my trip at some point, but chances are that tomorrow I will be too distracted by having seen my baby for the first time. Only G-rated stuff, though, to keep the surprise intact, of course. ;)