A Little Present For Me

I didn’t get myself a yarn present but I did order a “Learn To Spin” kit from Golding.  Yes, not the cheapest spindle out there but in two months it is my birthday and I thought maybe this would be a good time to take up another calming hobby.  Plus, I have a lot of fiber and a wheel but don’t know how to spin really.  The wheel is a bit awkward to take with me but a spindle isn’t.  It isn’t like I am going to buy myself clothes for my birthday or something like that.

My pregnancy is high risk now for sure because in addition to the other things I have gestational diabetes.  Yes, life just seems to get better.  I did find leads on some spinning instructors in Alberta which is why I thought getting a spindle now was a good idea.  I do have a cheap one but the hook isn’t brilliant so it isn’t as balanced and I just gave up rather quickly.  When I started crocheting I ordered a set of hooks from Turn Of The Century. Having nice things makes it just that more enjoyable to use them.  Maybe this will help take my mind off of things.

I have started packing.  The trip is around 2700 km I think.  That is a guess.  I am starting with the baby stuff as that is the easiest to pack.  Then my post partum stuff (oh the joys of having a post partum figure) next.  The in-laws are coming next week.  This means getting the house decent looking.  Brendan’s mom is going to help me wall paper the kitchen with some paintable wallpaper.  The wall isn’t in great shape so I think this is the best option.  I have some wallpaper for one wall in Hannah’s room which isn’t in great shape either.  That is just regular vinyl I got at a garage sale.  Little by little things are getting done.

Crochet wise I am just working on WIPs.  The Pepper Pants are almost done but I think I may have made a mistake.  There was a section for the rear extension that said to decrease on row, work even the other row and do this 10 times (between the *s)  I repeated the two rows 10 times and maybe I should have only done 10 rows as it seems rather large and the pants rather shallow on the top but I guess maybe we will see.  I am not about to frog back as I am about to start the waistband and want to just get things done.  Eva is about 3/4 done.  It is capelet size right now and I am about 3/4 done the yarn.  It is an indie dyed yarn so one skein is all I have.  It is looking very nice.  That leaves the sweater for Rhys (no longer a birthday present), the slippers, and the two afghans I think.  The slippers will be next as they are from a cone of yarn and that is more awkward to pack.  Plus any new mother can use slippers especially in the hospital.  My much darned ones are nearing their end I think.

Hopefully I will have some crochet pictures soon.

4 Weeks! Nesting Kicking In….

My mom and I were talking last night and came up with a plan that she fly up on the May long weekend (May 16-19) and we drive my van down with the kids together.  One doctor recommended I go down at 32 weeks and the other said up until 36 weeks.  This way I will be 34 weeks.

I went to bed feeling pretty good.  I woke up this morning and realized I have 4 weeks to get ready for this baby!  I thought I had more time.  I have to find the baby stuff and pack it.  Go through the kids clothes and see what I should bring (I will probably be gone for 2 months) and I have WIPs to finish.  Otherwise I have to bring them or I might forget what I was doing.  Pack baby diapers (I use cloth) and toys.  As the nesting instinct kicked in I thought I really need to completely organize the house and maybe paint the bathroom and kitchen.  Brendan came over today to see the kids and was shaking his head.  This is the third time this has happened and as any seasoned father will tell you there is no stopping it.  A nesting pregnant woman is an unstoppable force.  The more kids you have the more you realize that being completely prepared for a baby is rather impossible but still you need to cover more and more angles with each child.  Memories of what you missed last time spring to mind and you try to fix things so things go more smoothly.  Men will wake up at 3 am to find women make casserole dishes to freeze for after the birth.  Other women do yard work knowing it will be harder to get to it once the baby comes.  The house is painted because you won’t have time after the baby comes.  Cleaning is a major one with most women.  Walls get washed and basements cleaned out.  Closer to the time you keep on top of the laundry and cleaning in case you go into labour and you won’t be home for a while.  Lists too are important.  You have to make lists for everyone so they know how you do things.  Keeping a pen and paper next to the bed is helpful when you wake up at 2 am with something else you have missed.  You can just write it down for later.  This doesn’t always work for those incredibly urgent things like baby proofing the kitchen even though the baby won’t be mobile for months.  Despite the fact you know you won’t be sleeping for quite awhile after the baby is born you can’t stop yourself.  It is almost instinctual.

So today I am washing as much laundry as I can so I have time tomorrow to go through boxes of baby clothes and organize the basement.  4 weeks is not a lot of time you know……

Going To The Doctors

So yesterday I went to Whitehorse to see two doctors. I had my regular appointment with my GP and then I had to see an Obstetrician because I am having another VBAC. They have both recommended that I go “down south” for the birth because I have support down there for childcare and anything else I might need. I would probably drive just because I would be gone a month or two and the sheer volume of stuff I would have to bring for the baby and kids makes it easier. Also there is the problem of my van being left at the airport and not having transportation while I am away with my family. As soon as I hit the Alberta border I have friends and relatives so it is just getting through the Yukon and B.C. which would take 2 or 3 days of driving. About 2000 km to get to Alberta and then I have to go to the other side to get to my mother’s house. The doctor’s say that medically speaking my pregnancy is fine. It is just all the “what ifs” that they are worried about. Doctors up here have to look at the whole picture as many people live in remote places without any facilities and in this case they just want to make sure I have the least amount of stress possible.

So I took some pictures of my trip to Whitehorse. I only go through one town so it is just the highway. It is the middle of April so although it is “spring” that means something different. It is a time of changeable weather. Basically it snowed for parts of the trip.

This is the highway from the side of the road. This is heading in the direction I needed to go.

Here it is the other direction with the sign indicating where to turn to get to Faro. It wasn’t snowing at the time that was just what was left from winter and from the night before.

The Robert Campbell Highway. There aren’t any shoulders and in the winter when you never see the highway (they don’t clear down to bare road) you drive down the middle of the road until you see an oncoming car. They sand the middle of the road only in most cases.

On the left is the beginning of Little Salmon Lake which is frozen. It thaws out sometime in June. The road begins to wind around the lake for about 35 km.

This is the unpaved bit which doesn’t look much different except there aren’t any lines. There isn’t a lot of gravel on it but it wasn’t as rough as it can be particularily at the end of the summer.

Then it started to snow.

The Klondike Highway. This is the second major highway of the Yukon after the Alaska Highway. The snow had stopped obviously.

This is another frozen lake called Fox Lake. The rivers are starting to break up a bit but the lakes are pretty much frozen over still.

After my appointment I decided to drive back but around Whitehorse it was snowing quite a bit. That cleared up a ways out of town and was pretty much a repeat of everything above. I only saw one animal on the drive and that was a moose outside of Faro. I couldn’t find my camera before she (?) ran off.

So there you go. That is how my trips to the doctor go. It is 350km but pretty much looks much the same with different mountains and lakes as you go along.

Problems Making Homemade Home Products

I used to make a lot of my cleaning products and beauty products.  I became interested in it again recently and went to Cranberry Lane a Canadian company that sells ingredients for soapmaking, beauty products etc..  So I ordered a bunch of ingredients thinking I could make all this stuff.  Well there is a tiny problem.  Not really a problem but more hesitation on my part.  Here is an example of recipes I am talking about.  Now if you look at the antibacterial spray and so forth you see one of the ingredients is vodka or ethanol.  I do have some isopropyl alcohol kicking around but to get vodka I need to go to the liquor store.  Not a problem right?  I am in my 30s but I am 28 weeks pregnant.  In the Yukon every bottle has a label saying you should not drink during pregnancy and there are signs all over the store.  I am not a drinker anyways.  Maybe 4 or 5 in a year and definitely not vodka.  I know I shouldn’t feel hesitant to go into a liquor store obviously pregnant but I ended up asking Brendan to go in and get me some cheap vodka.  He thought it was funny.  I will let you know how things turn out.

I Got To CIP (Crochet In Public)!

Today I had to go into the nursing station and have a screening test for gestational diabetes.  It was just a precautionary thing.  I had to drink this sickly drink and then wait an hour and give blood.  I do live just blocks from the nursing station but to go home again and have the kids complain when I left again wasn’t what I wanted.  I had asked Brendan to come over and watch the kids.  Of course Hannah decides to sleep the night through for maybe the 3rd time in her life and on top of that sleeps in.  My son slept in too.  My living alarm clocks didn’t wake me up until 15 minutes before he got here.  I got ready and grabbed my Eva shawl.

It is so nice to work on a crochet project when waiting.  Normally I have kids to watch so I hardly ever CIP.  It gave me a glimpse into the future when I will be able to crochet without being on the constant alert like I am now with small children.  I can’t wait in some ways although I do love the hugs and cuddles I get from my small children.  They will stop doing that too soon I think.  However on the crochet front I am sure I will be more productive.

Giving Birth In The Yukon

My blog is mainly a crochet blog but believe it or not there is more to life than crocheting.  The doctor’s office phoned today about my next appointment and I thought maybe I would do a post on giving birth up north.  This is my first birth in the Yukon as I moved here in April 2006 when little Hannah was 5 months old and Rhys was 2 almost 3.  I had them in Germany.  I can tell you how much fun it is to give birth when you don’t speak the language very well (German grammar will be a mystery to me for the rest of my life).  Sign language only goes so far.  Obviously, if I am bent over in serious pain and heavily pregnant that it probably means I am in labour but other than that I had problems telling people what was wrong.  English speaking people were always busy it seemed.

Ok so getting back to the Yukon.  The Yukon has one hospital serving 483 450 km2 and a population of 32 355 people (in December 2006).  The hospital is in Whitehorse.  Most of the communities have a nursing station which employs a practice nurse and some other nurses.  A practice nurse has special training to work in these type of conditions.  Faro, used to have a doctor who covered the two communities closest to here (Ross River and Carmacks) as well but after the old one left a replacement hasn’t been found.  There is a volunteer ambulance service which will pick up the person with the medical emergency and take them to the nursing station (or health center as the one here is technically called as there are only 2 nurses full time).  The nurse is the one with the authority to call the medi-vac  people to come and get the person and fly them to the hospital in Whitehorse.  The ambulance takes the person to the airport.

Women who are 35 weeks and up deliver in the hospital here.  If the baby comes earlier than that you need to be flown to a bigger hospital down south.  Women outside of Whitehorse are asked (told more like it) to come into Whitehorse 2 weeks before the due date to wait in a hotel or wherever until you deliver.  First Nations benefits cover the expense if you are First Nation but if you are like me then you are supposed to come up with the money yourself.  Not only do you have to stay in a hotel room but you get two or more weeks of trying to entertain your other children while heavily pregnant in a hotel room.  I sense some good times ahead.  There is a room in the women’s shelter for a woman on her own to stay in if need be.  I am not leaving my kids for a couple of weeks of course so a hotel room it is.

I asked how long I have to stay in the hospital.  Apparently, if everything goes well then only a couple of days if my mother is there to help (normally it would be a husband but in a case like mine she said she needs my mother to be there).  This is to be a second VBAC.  Like I want another c-section!   One was one too many in my opinion.

So that is how it goes apparently.  Seems to be a bit more work than it needs to be but that is the way they do it around here.   As time goes on in the next 13 weeks or so I will keep you posted on how things are going.