One Year Ago...

...on this very day, I was driving to Nashville to meet Rob and celebrate Christmas with his family. He'd been there for a week doing research. I was driving with a very big secret that only I knew.
I had ordered a gift for him quickly 5 days earlier when I saw this:





Luckily, the postal service came through so before I left for Nashville, I took a photo of my gift:




Rob took the news really, really well. In fact, I'm pretty sure he became more excited than I was.
One year later, we are staying in St. Louis to enjoy the holidays with this:


Merry Christmas!!

Growing the Boy

I don't think I've mentioned much about the breastfeeding. I always assumed we'd do it and that there would be some bumps in the road along the way because, well, everyone seems to have some problems or challenges breastfeeding, especially at first.
Henry and I have gotten really good at nursing. It was never as hard as some have it for us. I never had any pain or blisters or any problems getting him to latch on. Our main difficulty was my inability to sit comfortably and subsequently my inability to figure out how to nurse lying down.
Henry hasn't had any formula and I'm pretty proud of that. He has learned to take bottles of expressed milk at daycare but at home he only nurses. In the last 2 weeks, he has gotten distracted by the other happenings in the room. For his first 3 months of life, when I put him to breast, he was focused and completely absorbed by the eating process. Now he's learning that there is a big exciting world around him and sometimes he is as equally interested in his surroundings as the eating task at hand. He will pull off and look up at me, look over at Rob, look at the dog or the lamp or ceiling fan, or sometimes he just pulls off to grin at me. That melts my heart, but sometimes we are in a bit of a time crunch and I need him to eat. That is precisely the time he will decide to check out the room around him.
I really have grown to enjoy feeding him. I find it a quiet, peaceful time even if in the middle of a chaotic day. He clasps his hands together and then tries to stuff both fists against my skin or under my shirt where it is warm.
I also have to spend quality time with my pump at work. This is not so quiet, peaceful, or sweet. Fortunately, I have been able to get enough milk each day to get H through daycare the next day and at the end of the week I've had a little milk leftover to freeze. It would seem that breastfeeding would be intuitive, but there is a lot to learn. We seem to have it down pretty well now, though. I hope to keep it up with nothing supplementing him until 6 months. Then we will reevaluate whether he might be ready for some solid foods or not. I want to breastfeed him for a year, but will take each month that he gets my milk as a huge success. I really love that time with my boy. It is something no one else can give him.

Henry

There have been so many parts of this having a baby process that are inexplicable. I try to explain but words fall short. Falling in love with this little baby is yet another example. As Henry grows and changes and learns new things, he just becomes more and more his own person and so completely amazing. I love him more than I thought possible. I want to be with him whenever I can. I miss him when I am at work and I think about him all day long. Rob and I both have a fascination with watching him, just watching. He is so bright, so alert and has been since the moment he was born. He watches us intently, he really seems to concentrate when you play him music or talk to him. He smiles at us, sometimes he makes sounds while smiling that come close to a laugh. He reaches out to touch your face, though at this point his motor skills aren't so refined that you could be certain he is doing that on purpose.
He is such a cuddly little guy. He will hold your hand and curl his body up and rest his head on your shoulder. If he's hungry, even a little, he might try to latch onto your shoulder- or your nose, chin, or finger!
I think about him too much. I worry about him too much. I want to know what he will be like when he is older yet I want him to stay little for as long as possible. He is the most interesting and beautiful little person I've ever met.

Back to Work

I have been back to work now for 2 weeks and a few days. Dropping Henry off at the home daycare we found and going to work that first day was the hardest thing I've had to do in years, possibly ever. I was so very sad to be handing him over. The days since then have gotten better but are not yet really fun. I miss my little man so much and think of him all day long. I like the daycare provider and her home seems to be a very happy, warm and safe place. I think she likes Henry a lot and that he has a good time there. He sleeps away most evenings now and I imagine this is because he had a long day of activity and attention. That is a relief to me; I know he is well cared for. Then again, evenings are my only time now with him and it is a little sad when he is asleep for most of it. On the third hand, I have gotten holiday baking done because he is sleeping! I love the weekends. I want to hold him or wear him in the Moby wrap as much as I can.
The schedule is tough now also. I am working 8-5 in order to have a day off every other week. My days begin (sort of) around 6 when the H man wakes up very slowly and wants to eat. I feed him while half asleep and we both doze off until 6:30 and I have to get up. Henry stays in bed while I clean up and get dressed, then he usually is awake enough to get changed and then sit on Rob or on his Boppy while I gather his daycare necessities, my pump and all the parts and bottles that I've washed the night before, and maybe throw in a load of laundry. I feed him one more time and we are out the door by 7:15. I drop him about 7:30 and cry my way to work. Once there, I am OK and go about catching up on all the work I didn't do for 3 months. I'm not terribly good at this and not particularly enthusiastic about work because funding cuts have really decimated some of the services my clients have relied on and I hate being the bearer of bad news- and having gather the same amount of data for much reduced services. Then there is political drama, cliquey crap, questionable supervision from higher up than my office, holiday activities that are at times enjoyable and others more trouble than they are worth, and worries about money and funding and how clients will swing utility bills in a harsh economic climate this winter. I sometimes go to feed him at lunchtime, that too is a good break in my day.
The best part of the day is 5:00, really 4:57 as this is generally when the 5pm exiters move towards the elevators and out the doors. I head towards my baby and really nothing makes me happier.

Measurements

Henry had his three month appointment today and he has gained exactly 5 lbs since his birth. He is now 14 lbs 7 oz.
He has also grown exactly 5 inches (!!!) since birth. He is 26 inches long.
He is in the 97th percentile for length, 75th for weight, and 99th for head circumference. We grow 'em big here!

Three Months with Henry!

This is probably the last month I will be able to lay my boy down side to side in his crib!

12 Weeks and Back to Work

The weeks have flown by. Three months seemed like a very long time, more than adequate to be away from work and to get myself and my baby to a place where we'd be ready to be apart for some hours most days. It turns out that 3 months is not long enough. I am so, so not ready. I don't think I would like to stay home every day and just care for Henry, but I do think I could use another month or two or three just with him. He's so small, he's just beginning to know who we are and to interact with us. He has had so few bottles that I worry he won't take one when I am away from him. I still have the crazy crying hormones, or maybe this is just my new normal. I don't know how I'm going to drop him off at the home daycare we've chosen and then walk to my car and go to work. I can't really get past that moment. I think he will be safe and cared for in his daycare setting, I just feel sad that someone else gets to hold my little guy and play with him all day and it can't be me. He's only small once and I am enjoying him. There is no option here, I am our main income and will be for at least another year or two, probably longer. Rob has to write, we all have to have health insurance and eating is good too. I am just so sad. I never imagined I'd feel like this, but there are 1000 things I never imagined I would feel that have come up in the last year or so. Surprise! Life is unpredictable.
I also lament that our lives are going to get so much more complicated. I feel as though things have been so simple for these months. Daily tasks are mundane and small: some laundry, a shower, load and unload dishwasher, stuff diapers, change diapers, bathe Henry, rock him to sleep, maybe some simple errands. Working again means having to organize many things to take to daycare:outfits, diapers, wipes, bottles, milk. Do I give her instructions on how to care for him? We don't have much of a schedule.
Every morning, we/I will have to have this ready and also have Henry properly dressed for the weather, clean and fed to make it to daycare so I can get to work on time. Most mornings, I will also be properly dressed, clean, and fed. I will be at work and pumping 3 times a day to supply milk for the next day. At the end of the day, I will get Henry (this will make me so happy!!) and head home where we will have a few short evening hours to eat, clean, enjoy our boy, talk to each other, care for the dog, do laundry, and any other errands that need to happen.
This all sounds hopelessly complicated. How, exactly, do people make time for themselves, time to exercise, time to walk the dog, to clean, to socialize, to keep up your relationship with your partner, and also find the time to eat and drink after a baby arrives? I am not sure how it will work. Then again, I thought between H's 1st and 5th weeks on earth that we'd never sleep again. I suppose things just fall into place and you adapt.
This is a lot of rambling. I am just sad. I am going to miss this little guy so much.

10 weeks

New Tricks!!

Henry learned to roll over! He is 5 weeks now and can roll from his belly to his back.

One Month with Henry

Henry is a month old! I have no idea why these photos posted sideways, but you get the idea anyway. I measured him at 23 inches so I have my doubts that he was just 21 inches at birth. Ah, well, he's a long baby boy and growing longer every day!

We're Breaking Out!

The three of us have gotten to be pretty good at getting out of the house! The weather since Henry's birth has been nearly perfect, maybe a little humid but overall just beautiful. This has led to us leaving the house at least once daily for the last 2 weeks. It is a new experience, leaving the house with a newborn, but it is so nice to be out amongst those in the "real world" since our world at home sometimes seems confining. Henry has been to Target, BabiesRUs, to the German festival Strassenfest, out for Thai and Ethiopian food (those were both just yesterday!) to Fenton and to Kirkwood to visit his grandparents, around our neighborhood in the stroller several times, and into a few grocery stores. His ideal mode of transport right now is a ring sling that the Foys handed down to me. I got some tips this week at Kangaroo Kids who make the sling (oh, Henry has also been to Kangaroo Kids!) on how to put him in the sling and make him comfortable there, and have used it daily since then. This allows me to carry him and still have my hands free and seems to make him feel secure and calm and he usually falls asleep.

The sling and the baby it contains are likely going to be making an appearance at a Cardinals playoff game very shortly. We have been offered 2 tickets from Andrea who has been my baseball game partner for more than a decade. Henry will be 5 weeks old when the Cardinals begin the National League Division Series and probably will be attending his first Cards game.

I need to post photos of the first three weeks of Henry's life. Posting photos is easier to do one handed than blogging, so I will do it shortly when he's back with me feeding. At the moment, he is asleep on Rob's chest and this is one of Rob's favorite things about Henry. Mostly it makes me uneasy because this is daytime and I don't want him sleeping too much during the day even though its freaking adorable to see his tiny little arms folded up under his head lying on his dad. But you cannot wake a sleeping baby no matter how much you badly you know the night ahead will go. Instead, you do laundry, vacuum, or blog because you have two hands totally free.

And you look over at 2/3 of your little family and know how lucky you are.

Life With Henry

It has been 2 and 1/2 weeks since we became parents and just over two weeks since we brought our little Henry home. Life since then can only be described in a series of cliches. Time is flying by and yet very little goes on. He's gotten bigger already, we love him so much, and we get very little sleep. Nothing can prepare you for this- yes, cliche and so true. Days move very slowly and we do very little. Henry needs to eat every two hours. This does get a little frustrating but then you have to remember that in utero, he never had hunger. It simply does not exist. So outside, for the first time there is this inexplicable ache or empty feeling and as a person that gets testy when blood sugar is low, I have sympathy for this hungry little baby. That would really suck to never feel hunger and all of a sudden to have it hit you like a ton of bricks about 12 times a day. Also breastfed babies apparently metabolize their meals faster than formula fed babies so they need to eat more often. This means he won't be sleeping through the night anytime soon, but the tradeoff is the health benefits of breastmilk, the convenience of never having to prepare and warm milk or clean bottles, and probably most critically: his food source is free.

Rob has 3 weeks off his office job, this week is the final of the three. I'm already missing him and he's not even back to work yet! This is really a two person job and I cannot imagine how single parents function with a newborn. It enforces to me the need for BOTH parents in two parent households to get parental leave. The first week after Henry was born was probably the most difficult of my life and I COULD NOT have begun to handle it alone. I was a bundle of hormones, very weepy even though I was not truly as sad as I sounded. I was also incredibly sore and having to nurse the kiddo sitting up since lying down did not really work out for us. The sitting was excrutiating and all I had for pain was ibuprofen. After 36 hours home from the hospital, I had to call my doctor's exchange for something stronger. Rob did so much of the care for Henry and I in that first week. He can't feed Henry, but he brings me food and drink while I feed him, cleans up after all the meals, gets up in the middle of the night for diaper changes, and kept watch over both of us when Henry refused to fall asleep anywhere but in my arms while nursing that first week and I was so exhausted that it was a real possibility that I would have tipped over on him. Rob has also done most of the grocery shopping, the housework, and put up with my weird and unpredictable weepiness.

The second week was much, much better. I am hardly sore anymore at all, we have been getting out of the house regularly, and I've resumed several household tasks in between marathon nursing sessions. Henry is so alert and bright eyed. He does not yet smile, but will watch you when you talk or sing to him. He is sleeping usually for 2-3 hour stretches at night and will usually fall asleep in my arms and allow me to transfer him to the co-sleeper. This is serious progress.

Our days begin with a migration from upstairs in the bedroom to downstairs, where we camp out for most of the day. There have to be supplies on both levels, including baby clothes, diapers, wipes, the boppy, the Itzbeen, a blanket or two, and my giant water bottle. Life is simple, we eat, talk to Henry, watch MSNBC off and on, I read, change some diapers, take a walk, maybe shower, possibly get to some small chore like vacuuming, Henry naps, wakes, eats more, naps again, we check e-mail, maybe a visitor or two stops by, we run a load of laundry, and migrate back upstairs for the nighttime routine.

I get a little cabin fever daily and Rob says he loves this. Life is slow and simple and it won't be like this for very long. Soon there will be more outings, things that have to be done, Rob will have to go back to work, Henry will be more alert and get bored just chilling at home, and things will change. For now, it's not too bad. I have never been this still in my life. It is good for me. The world has gotten very small for just this very short time.

Henry's Birth Story

Henry Joseph Hawkins was born on 9/2/09.
I went to work on 9/2, my due date had been 8/30. I was already on maternity leave as of 8/28, but by just going in to work that day, I was able to extend my maternity leave by a week J
So I was at work when I felt what I thought might be a contraction. I had not felt any before, some Braxton Hicks but nothing painful at all and no other signs of labor. This was at about 1:30 pm.
After a couple of these contractions, I started using the contraction monitor I’d downloaded to my phone. It began to show a pattern of 12 minutes apart. I figured they would slow down or stop shortly, after all it was my first baby and the first contractions ever, things were bound to slow down. I finished up what I was doing and decided to go home, thinking that I’d maybe be starting labor later that night and was excited and a little nervous. A co-worker asked me a question when I was gathering my things and I had to breathe in the middle of answering her. I told her I was having a few contractions. She insisted on driving me home, another co-worker following in my car. I thought I could drive, but it was good I did not as the intensity was really picking up quickly. This was at about 3:30 pm.
Rob arrived home when I did, I had called to tell him something was happening. We thought we’d have all this time in early labor, had snacks ready, I had a pool to sit in, we had talked of going to a movie or walking around our neighborhood. Certainly it involved texting or calling a few family members and friends!! None of that happened.
All I wanted to do was get in the shower. After a few minutes, I decided to fill the tub and sit in the water. Rob took over the contraction monitor on the phone and I’d tell him when to hit the start and stop. Contractions picked up to 5 or 6 minutes apart, so Rob decided to call our doula, Grace. This was at 4:15 pm. I was still in denial that this was it, surely I was going to have some false labor, right?
I told him to tell her to not hurry, we had time. She promised to be there in 20-30 minutes. By the time Grace arrived, I had to breathe and moan through the contractions. She took over timing them while Rob threw some last minute things into bags. He knew this was for real, I was still in denial.
After a few more contractions, Rob was pouring water on my back and Grace was rubbing my back and I’d learn forward on the back of the bathtub and moan during the intense parts. Grace also continued the monitoring and said after about an hour that they were 2-3 minutes apart and we should move to the hospital. The drive was awful, but I just knew that I only had about 5 contractions to survive in the car because the hospital was close. I only had 4, so I felt lucky!
Rob nearly lost it and almost jumped out of the car to beat up a driver who passed us on a one-lane street near our house because. The passing guy ended up just one car ahead of us at the next light, which infuriated Rob even more! I tried to tell him it was OK, but talking was almost beyond me and I knew he was nervous.
I stopped talking when we got to the hospital, didn’t say anything until right before our baby was born. Grace and Rob advocated for me in the L and D check-in and initial monitoring, declining an IV and heplock on my behalf. I was checked and found to be 6 cm with a bulging bag of waters. This was at about 6 pm.
I got into a room, moaning my way through contractions the entire time. I was supposed to have 20 minutes of every hour on a heartrate monitor and I could see that when the monitor was on, the baby was looking perfect but I’d lean over the bed or Rob during contractions and displace the monitor so they kept restarting it. After a while, a nurse came in and said my OB had called and cleared me to get into water which is what I most wanted and I could be off the monitor, even without the 20 minutes.
I had reserved a birthing tub with my OB, Dr. Turner. I was supposed to be able to both labor and deliver in this tub if I chose. When we arrived, Grace and Rob began inquiring about the whereabouts of the tub. We had, as instructed, purchased a hose to fill and empty the tub before and after our use. Rob carried this brand new garden hose with him into the hospital. After some consultation with staff members, a nurse told us that the two rooms that were big enough for the tub to be assembled were both occupied. I was disappointed about that, but there was still a Jacuzzi tub in the room we now were assigned. I would be allowed to labor in the tub but not to deliver in there since it is small and honestly I am too tall to fit in in comfortably, never mind that an OB and maybe Rob would have needed to be near me during delivery.
I got into the Jacuzzi tub and Grace and Rob helped me again by pouring water on my back and rubbing my back. I was totally into my own head, having very coherent thoughts but unable to speak. I thought of food, of trips I’d taken, of all the things I’d read and heard about labor and had little debates with myself about which parts were true. One thought was that after having seen Orgasmic Birth, and now experiencing labor that there was no WAY this was orgasm producing, not to me at least!
After an hour or so, the nurses needed more monitoring so I got out of the tub. I was ready for a position change anyway, so this was good. I stood in the room naked for the rest of labor. They were so good to me, I could not keep the monitor in place as I leaned over the bed during contractions, so a nurse got under my belly and held the monitor in place for 20 full minutes. When her hands started shaking, the other nurse relieved her. No one asked me anything or told me to do anything, they just let me be. At one point, my doula asked if I wanted to be checked again and I didn’t because I didn’t yet feel like pushing so I knew I was not complete. I think she was concerned I was nearing the end and needed to let the OB and nurses know. I finally agreed, and the nurse (again, what a wonderful nurse!) checked me while I stood by the bed in my most comfortable position, leaning forward. She found I was 9 cm with a slight lip in the back. She said she’d come back shortly and to let her know if I felt like pushing. Almost as soon as she left the room, my water broke all over the floor. This was it! I was really glad to have that moment, again I said nothing but knew that pushing was close. This was at about 9:00 pm.
My OB came into the room, I think she wanted a better view of things so she suggested I kneel on bed with the bottom half lowered so I could lean onto the upper part of the bed, kind of like a table top. This was a great position for me since my knees were getting tired. Rob sat on the top half of the bed, and during pushing I leaned against him, pulling on his shirt or his skin, whatever I could find to get leverage. He was so encouraging!! My OB sat down at the end of the bed, watching my progress. At one point she told me she could see the baby’s head and it had hair on it! I always thought I'd have a bald baby. I wanted her to support my perineum and managed to get something like that out but only later realized I was not quite that close to delivering that she was worried about that. When it got close, she did really support me and I could tell the difference as I felt the baby’s head coming out. I never felt the “ring of fire”, more of a bumpy, uneven pressure coming out and later I found out my baby was born with his left hand sticking out next to his face. Grace at one point said “Do you want to feel the head? Its right here” and I said back, “Oh, I can feel it!!” and I could but my arms were holding me up and keeping me in my best positions so I didn’t want to move them. Pushing was just as hard as the contractions but somehow more satisfying because I could feel things changing. Rob said I started talking just a little and making eye contact and so he liked pushing better. He was battered and bruised I think because I just pushed and pulled on him the entire time, but he never complained.
Henry was born while I was on all fours. He just slid out on the bed between my legs. I always hate when moms say “Can I touch him/her?” after their babies are born because it is YOUR baby and of COURSE you can!! But I did that!! I knew I could but someone had to tell me it was OK. He looked remarkably clean to me, and was so soft and just leaned right on my chest when I picked him up. This was at 10:14 pm.
I sat down on the bed in a better position, the nurses collected cord blood for donation and left Henry, Rob, and I totally alone to meet each other. My OB suctioned him before I even noticed, he was breathing perfectly and so very alert, giant eyes looking around immediately. A nurse helped me figure out how to put him on my breast to feed and that worked somewhat, though he was mostly looking around and not terribly interested in the nursing process until later. The OB delivered my placenta after some uterine massage, this took probably a half hour and she never gave me pitocin or anything else. Our birth plan had been followed to the letter which I never imagined. I had some tearing, I did not ask for a degree or how many stitches but the OB was working for a while and despite the local anesthetic, this was pretty uncomfortable. Having Henry on me was wonderful but did not take away that kind of discomfort.
We held Henry for at least 2 hours before someone suggested I get up to use the bathroom and maybe get something to eat. I was so thirsty, got some juice right away and then realized how hungry I was. Grace brought us some pizza from the cafeteria and I think it was the best pizza I’d ever had in my life. This is Rob and I enjoying our pizza:When I got up to go to the bathroom, a nurse weighed Henry and he was 9lbs, 7oz. I was so surprised he was that big! Everyone told me throughout pregnancy how small I looked and I knew we had a family history of big babies but this was a really big boy!
We were all taken to a room a few hours later, Henry left us briefly for a pediatrician check but was returned to us shortly and never left our side again until checkout day for his hearing test. We went home about 36 hours later. I hate hospitals but this time would have voluntarily stayed another day or two because moving around for me is still pretty painful. Things are getting better every day. Henry is great at breastfeeding and had regained 4 of the 8 ounces he lost in the days after birth as of Tuesday, September 8.
I think, in hindsight, that the birthing tub may not have worked for me. I will never know, and would liked to have had access to it, but I got relief from leaning forward onto people and things- Rob, the bed, the towel bar, etc. If the walls of that tub were not really solid, I am not sure I could have done what I needed to do in it and with Rob and I being both so tall, I don’t know if he’d have fit in the tub with me. Also, the softness of the bed under my knees felt really good when I moved there.
We are adjusting to life as three and learning to live with less sleep. We think our big eyed, big “little” boy is really the best and we like to watch him staring at us and at what must be a very strange new world around him. It was a birth experience that I didn’t know was possible. I am grateful it was so fast, and feel that Rob, Grace, my OB and the nurses were absolutely the best and the reason that I got through all of it.

Henry is Here!!!

Maternity Leave

The 40 week mark has come and gone and I am now officially on maternity leave. I had initially planned to just work until labor started, but as time went on it became more obvious that I had to give my clients and co-workers a date I'd be leaving. It was unfair to have clients with open-ended issues and timelines and one day I'd just not be there, and probably even more unfair to have things unfinished that my co-workers would have to clean up if I suddently just did not show up one day. Rob also pointed out that if I'm hoping to have an unmedicated, easy labor, I would start out at a disadvantage if I kept working and then went into labor one night after a long day on my job.
So I left Friday. I finished up most of my work, there are a few things I'd like to have done but it is what it is. If I have no baby or labor by tomorrow, I am going to put in an appearance at work and this will mean I don't have to go back until the Monday after Thanksgiving. If I have a baby today (!!) I will have to go back the Monday of Thanksgiving week since that will be a 12 week leave, the maximum allowed by my agency policy, even though its just a 3 day week AND I have ample sick and vacation time to take it and get paid for it.
At this point, it would be worth it to not have a baby today for that extra week off! Maybe later tomorrow?
I'm so ready. Yesterday was a day of walking and little household items. I have a list, slowly working through it but they are small things that don't really have to be done before baby comes. The "must dos" were done last week.
My OB predicted last Thursday that I'd have a baby on the weekend- LAST weekend. She knows what's up, so I must be ready. But my body has not cooperated so far. It is 5 days later and there are no signs of impending labor.
So today is a day with gorgeous cool weather and I have a plan for walking, walking, and walking. I am also going to make some overripe bananas into banana cake, vacuum the living room and pay some bills. Good times. Come on, baby.

Forty Weeks!!!

I hit the due date!
I have completed 10 full months of pregnancy and August 30 is here. I can hardly believe it!
The next few days will be exciting I am sure, and for the first time I am really getting nervous about the labor part of things. This is a new thing, I used to worry about whether we'd have the house together, how we'd cope with a life outside of an infant, money, the baby's health and well-being, but never labor.
The house is in order for the most part, all clothing and newborn diapers, blankets, and sheets are washed and ready to go. Our hospital bag is packed, birth plan is written, relaxation CDs burned onto the laptop, camera batteries charged, birth tub reserved, doula on-call, snacks at the ready, baby is moving around well, and I suppose we are as ready as we're going to be!
And I'm getting nervous.
Rob will be great, Grace will be amazing. Can I do it?!

I sure hope so.

39 weeks

Anyone who has not seen me has been asking what I look like. Well, according to strangers who have to make comments in grocery stores I am "too small" and "there is no way" that I am expecting a baby in a matter of days. So I offer you photos, you can decide. It must be noted that at 6'1", I have more than adequate torso space for a full term, possibly large fetus to spread out and be comfortable.

Home Stretch

I am just a few hours from my last day of work for 12 weeks and 3 days from full term: 40 weeks. I can't believe how the time has flown! I am feeling great. I am not uncomfortable when awake almost ever. Sleeping is a bit more challenging but not nearly as painful as it was when my ribs still hurt. They magically ceased to hurt about 3 weeks ago. It was a great discovery, suddenly no pain! I think my ribs (alternating with my back for the first 2/3 of the time) ached for 16 straight weeks.
I survived, and know there are worse things. But I'm very happy to report weeks now of pain-free existence. The exchange was having to get up at night to use the bathroom. I had escaped that little annoyance for 36 or so weeks, now it is nightly. Sometimes it is twice nightly.
We've moved some of Rob's things to the basement for a pseudo office. Half our basement is finished and I use that term loosely. It is drywalled and carpeted, while the other half is cement walls on cement flooring. It was his idea to move a desk and bed down there, so we cleared out our boxes, steam cleaned the carpet, and put furniture in the room. It became a remarkably cozy little living space. Since it was hot, and since our air conditioning does not reach the second floor well, we started sleeping in the much cooler basement area. The temperature is wonderful, even keeping the AC on a relatively high temp kept the basement nice and cool. The down side is the urge to pee that hits me about 3 am every night now. Our only bathroom is on the second floor. I have to REALLY need to go before making the half asleep trek up two levels to the bathroom. What usually goes through my mind first is that I could hold it, sleep a while longer, and sometimes I do that. Then I wake 30 or so minutes later having to go even worse. Then I think of the unfinished half of the basement, just a few steps away and how there is a drain in the middle of the floor. It tempts me most nights. But I also go through the details in my head and squatting is not that easy anymore. Then there's no toilet paper, what if a cat follows me in? And really, I can just upstairs, right?

So I do. I have yet to wet the bed or succumb to the temptation of the drain. And yet I admit to pondering it.

37 Weeks and a Wedding

Lynn at full term!

August 8 has been this milestone anticipated since sometime in late January. That is around the time that my sister picked her wedding date and I got on a calendar for pregnancy and realized that I'd be 37 weeks that day. Thirty seven weeks is considered full term, or when the baby is about as developed as it can be. No medical professional will try to stop your labor after you hit this magical 37 week point. It was also the date I set for myself to have a glass of wine. I figured I'd be just ginormous and it would be scorching hot and I would have deserved a beverage after 9 months of no wine or beer. In the end, 37 weeks seemed to come quickly and I'm not that ginormous. The scorching hot prediction came true with a vengeance. As the wedding party posed for outdoor photos after the 1:30pm wedding, the heat index was 105 degrees. There was no shade in the park where the photos were taken. I participated in about 2/3 of the photo shoot, then hung it up and went back to the air conditioned bus to cool off.

The wedding was a lot of fun, it was a weekend of activities that mostly went off without a hitch except for my parents having a flat tire on the way to the reception and ending up there almost an hour late. Selfishly- and of course I'm writing selfishly, this is my blog after all- one of the best parts was the opportunity to swim in my sister's new inlaws' in ground pool. I submerged myself on Friday night before the wedding when guests at the post rehearsal dinner party jumped in and again on Sunday during the post-wedding brunch/pool party. It was heavenly. I stayed in the water for hours, and it was totally worth it even though for some odd reason I have become allergic to sunscreen (every brand I've tried, even the all natural stuff!!) and have itched myself into a rash for the rest of the week following my layering of the stuff on Sunday. It was worth it.

I did have my wine!

Hilarious (Oh, and Beautiful too)

This is what Rob called me tonight. I was trying on some shirts, I think, as a few no longer fit and a few more are very close to not fitting. He was amused. I have to agree about the hilarious part. This giant ball of a belly is attached to my body and its f-ing weird. And hilarious. I'm not too sure about beautiful. Hiroki, my 18 month old nephew, saw me this weekend and his mom told him that there was a baby in my belly. I patted my belly and invited him to do that too, if he wanted to. Hiroki said "Ball ball". Yep, pretty much.

New York - Long Overdue Post...

It has been a long time, yes. One month and one day since last checking in here. Many things have happened, lots of great travel and then lots of working on our house. New York was wonderful, as usual. Rob loved it which was good for me because I have always loved that city and find it crucial that he at least appreciate it and my expectations were far exceeded. We had a perfect place to stay in Brooklyn, about 3 houses away from a subway stop. We walked and subway-ed all over Manhattan, the Bronx, Queens, and Brooklyn and even made a trip to Staten Island one day for lunch. I held up just fine, walking on average probably 4-5 miles a day. It was the first time (I think anyway) that I looked visibly pregnant and New Yorkers gave up their subway seats for me every single time I got on the train without exception. It was kind of unbelievable. I lived there for a year and saw people carrying groceries, small children, boxes, people with disabilities, the elderly, and rarely saw anyone offer up a seat. But for me, they jumped up as soon as I got on the train and motioned for me to take their place. One man actually apologized for not having seen me sooner- and I had just walked onto the train!

I appreciate it, but for the most part I could have stood up. But who am I do deny them their good deed for the day? Way to go, New Yorkers.

Some photos from the trip:

Rob hearts public transportation (really, who doesn't?!)

Lynn and Rob under the Brooklyn BridgeGround Zero as it is now...
Historic Battery Park is totally transformed. It used to be a lawn and I once saw Ani Difranco play there. Now it is a sculpture and walking area, very fancy!






This is the photo that looks like we are at Sears and someone pulled down the "sunset on the water" cheesy background for our photo. It is really the Hudson River and that big pirate ship in the background? It is a bar. We had a great night out with some of Rob's friends.

30 Weeks

This is it, the final stretch! TEN more weeks, and summer has hit St. Louis. Heat indices are over 100 daily and everyone who sees me now has to make some comment about how poorly I planned for the heat, or how I have so much further to go in the summer. I am visibly pregnant, no doubt about it. No stranger has even had to ask, they just assume. And they are correct. Yes, I am aware of the heat and the pooor planning and how much further I have to go to get through a hot summer carrying an extra 25-30 (or more!!) poorly distributed pounds around. Yes, I know. The thing is, I am fine with it! I really enjoy having 10 weeks left, I don't feel ready for having a baby yet. The baby is certainly not ready to be here either. A co-worker has a friend who is just 2 days ahead of me according to due dates and who began pre-term labor a few weeks ago. She held off delivery until this weekeend, and at 30 weeks had a 2lb, 9oz boy. I do NOT want a preemie, I don't want months in a NICU, and I want to be giant and fat and still healthy with a large healthy baby inside.

There are no 30 week photos of me for two reasons. First, and primarily, because until yesterday we were without a camera. My nearly 6 year old Canon bit the dust, I helped it along a bit in March by leaving it out in the rain. It had a short revival and functioned moderately for another couple of months before mostly petering out. The time has come for a new camera, hopefully one that will last another 6 years. So I spent the last 2 weeks researching and asking for advice and checking sales. My deadline was yesterday and I ended up with this camera:

The camera has come just in time, as I am leaving for New York City tomorrow! Actually, I am leaving in just a few hours, I am blogging instead of sleeping. I could not visit NYC without a camera, especially when Rob has never spent much time there. He's been there a week already and reports that his research is going better than he'd imagined and he may have time to hang out with me and explore the city. It will be good to see him and the best news of all is that the average temp over the next week in NYC is 10-15 degrees cooler than it is here.
I am so looking forward to getting back to the city I love. This will also be my last flight before being grounded by pregnancy, and the last vacation unencumbered by baby gear. To remind me of this, here is a photo of the corner of our living room. This is just about all the baby gear we have acquired in the last few months. Most of it came as gift or hand-me-down, the swing was a bargain purchase. This is the first photo taken with the new camera.

It will be a reminder of how things will be changing.

So on that note, it is off to New York!!!!

Don't Rent this Place!!

The crazy landlord has placed an updated ad for her accomodations!! This must be posted, it is too good to pass up. The photos would indicate that some cleanup has been done, but this is still a good representation of the bedroom where Rob had to stay. There was more clutter, but the bedding remains. By remains, I also mean that it is unlikely to have been washed since Rob left. Also, please enjoy the description of the apartments and the offer of "high tea". I fear this post may be taken down so I may be doing some cut and paste soon.



For now, though, check this place out. The best part of the whole ad (and there is much to enjoy!!) may be that it is on a bed and breakfast website:

http://www.airbnb.com/rooms/6367

Travel (Now Updated and Finished!)

Its been a while since I've posted, but travel has been keeping me from writing and its time for a brief update. Rob was accepted to present at two conferences in June, one in Chicago and one at Notre Dame. He did not anticipate that both proposals would be accepted and in hindsight wishes he'd only done one, but he was accepted and when this happens you don't turn the opportunities down. He left for Chicago on June 2 and did research in Chicago for the 10 days in between conferences, then went to Notre Dame to present. He'll only be spending 4 nights in St. Louis during this entire month.
I went to Chicago the first weekend Rob was there to visit, then went back last week to drive him to South Bend. I tried to helpfully find Rob a place to stay in Chicago a month or so in advance, as hotels for 10 days are out of our budget and we don't currently know anyone who lives in Chicago proper who could host a guest for 10 days. I located a place on Craigslist in Wrigleyville that was affordable and showed a decent one room apartment with a private bathroom and a kitchenette. We reserved that and Rob set out for Chicago with a plan for long hours researching and quiet nights in this small rental space.
It turns out that we found the nut house. If the Craigslist ad had not expired, I'd post the photos of what Rob expected. It was quite a misrepresentation. The photos showed a small place with floor to ceiling Cubs decor, not bad even if you dislike the Cubs. The reality was a filthy little place that was barely private as the door leading to it was glass. The private bath had a temporary shower stall in it that appeared ready to fall over at any time, with a shower curtain balanced precariously on the top. The "decor" the landlord had bragged about on the phone actually appeared to be others' used household items- half empty bottles of lotion, dirty wine glasses with plastic flowers in them, several dirty towels draped around the bathroom. The landlord herself was quite a trip. We learned from some friends in the neighborhood that she is a fixture around Wrigleyville and is commonly assumed to be a homeless or mentally ill woman that parking lot owners hire during Cubs games to collect parking money. It turns out she OWNS the building and parking lot where she collects money and is not homeless. Mentally ill is a strong possibility, however. The junk in the room Rob rented included what is obviously to someone else some art installation. What it really resembles is a Cubs fan in a casket at a funeral.

This decor was unique and what happened on the Saturday of my visit was even more, well, unique. Rob's rental space was at the back of the first floor of this three story building. The rest of the first floor is zoned for commercial space, so the only entrance into the building that he had access to is an empty storefront with all glass looking into it. The space is yet unused, though one of the tenants of the second floor (also rental space) said he has plans to turn it into a bar. The man, Marcos, was doing construction much of the time we were there, and during the days there was a table saw going most of the time. Marcos was friendly and he and Rob became casual pals even though the table saw also started up sometimes at night, (once as late as 1 am which Rob appreciated very much.) The Friday evening before this unique incident, Marcos said that the next day a photographer was coming to use the storefront space for a photoshoot. The walls in the storefront area are painted a deep red and Marcos said the photog wanted that color as the background for his shots. We didn't think much of this.

Rob and I went out to breakfast the next morning and then wandered around the neighborhood on Saturday for several hours. The weather was cool and overcast and Wrigleyville is a great walking area with plenty of eclectic little places to shop and eat. There, of course, is also Wrigley Field but there were no games while I Rob was in town, which is probably a good thing. The place moves from "eclectic" and "pleasant" to wild and drunk when the Cubs are in town.

So we returned to the apartment to shower and nap before going out for dinner with friends. When Rob went to key into the storefront entrance, we noticed there was a sheet up over the glass door. I said to Rob that this must be due to the photographer working inside. When Rob turned the key, a man's voice called out "Just a minute!! Just a minute!" and immediately came to the door. When he saw that we had a key, he backed away, and said "Oh, sorry, come on in". The man had a large camera with a long lense attached. A few feet away was a young woman who was wearing nearly nothing. Rob and I averted our eyes, apologized to both of them while trying to keep our eyes on the floor and hurried to the back of the room and into Rob's rental apartment.

We shut the door and Rob said "Was she wearing pants?!" I said I had no idea but I did not think so, I did not pause for a good look. As I have mentioned, the door to Rob's apartment was glass and we had hung a sheet over that when I arrived. As I have not mentioned, I am very nosy so of COURSE I had to sneak a peek through the door of his place. I watched as the photoshoot resumed and the answer is, yes, the young woman WAS wearing pants but just barely. She wore sheer lingerie and as the photoshoot continued, it came off in pieces. The walls of the apartment are paper thin and we could hear the photo encouraging her "Be sultry baby!!" "Yes, you look so turned on, that's it!" and then his splashing water on her "to make your nipples hard". I watched for a while, then got bored and took a nap.

What I want to point out is that supposedly they wanted to use the red walls as a backdrop for the "shoot" but there were white sheets taped up both behind the young lady and on the floor where she stood/laid/kneeled for her poses.

I wish I'd had the chance to take even a discreet, distanced photo of the scene since it just caps the weekend in Chicago, but I thought that would be rude. The woman obviously now has quite a portfolio anyway, so perhaps the photos can be found elsewhere on the internets.

And that was my trip to Chicago. Rob had to stay there for 5 more days, poor guy. The house of crazy gave us many good stories but we would not recommend it for lodging purposes to anyone we care about in the least.

26 weeks

I didn't put up any photos of just me, sideways view and that seems to be a popular request. So here you are. There is no need for me to post them weekly, things just don't change that much!

Lucky

We're really lucky. On so many levels, so very lucky. I am reminded of that when something like the ruling on Proposition 8 comes down as it did yesterday. Rob and I had the right to marry if we wanted to, or the right to not if we had chosen not to. We will be recognized by society and the law as mother and father to this child, and we did not have to use extraordinary measures to conceive this child. We can give the baby either of our names or some combination of them, both of our names can go on the birth certificate, and we are both its parents without having to pay tens of thousands in legal fees for some judge to declare that so. We won't have to carry guardianship papers if we travel, and though we will take legal measures to make sure our child is protected in case of either of our unexpected death or disability, we do not have to do this to make sure our child will stay out of foster care. We can add the child to either of our health insurance policies if we choose,
I try to never take any of this for granted. I have witnessed the difficulties that very good people around me have had in planning and conceiving their children, the money and energy and emotion expended in working towards what came easy to us is staggering and humbling. The additional resources some of them will have to expend to gain the same legal rights is downright unjust. Some will go without those rights due to cost and just hope that either thing change soon or that they never encounter situations that would challenge those rights. Things may change soon, we're seeing progress at a rate that no one predicted but is it really fast enough?

In the meantime, no matter how much my ribs hurt or how much time we spend worrying about money and daycare and taking care of a newborn, I have to remember how very lucky we are. We did nothing to deserve what we have, so luck is really the only word to describe it.

Weekend o' Weddings

This is a hectic time, I have hardly been near the computer and very little baby related is happening. This is good, as 26 weeks is a good time for no baby related news at all.

Rob is preparing for a June in which he'll be away from St. Louis for all but about 5 nights in the entire month. He is presenting at 2 conferences in 3 weeks, the first of which is coming up this weekend in Chicago. He will spend 2 weeks researching in Chicago, then I will go up to meet him for a drive to Notre Dame where he'll present again and then we return to St. Louis where Rob hangs out and does laundry for 2 days then flies off to NYC for research. I will be meeting him in NYC for the second week of his trip. His days have been filled with writing and complaining about writing and begging people around him to never allow him to try to present at 2 conferences so close together.

We each had friends who married this weekend, so the weekend was full of some good friends, good food, good music, and thankfully very good weather too. I have photos to share, more to add later since everything I have from Jenny and Ned's Saturday wedding are not with me at the moment.

Sunday was Josh and Allison, Rob and Josh are colleages in American Studies. The wedding was at the Botanical Gardens and very beautiful and simple.

The Botanical Garden hosted a Chihuly exhibit last year and were gifted several pieces from generous donors. The most impressive was also the one most unlikely to be taken down, it is monstrously large and hangs above the entrance to the main building leading into the Garden. It is stunning and I have never seen it at night.

The climatron is in the background of this photo, as are a few more Chihuly pieces floating in a pond. It was very picturesque, the photo does not do it justice but here we are just the same...

The Best OB

I still wish there were options for birthing in Missouri. I wish I could have a midwife and choose where I give birth. But that is not the case.
I posted before about choosing my OB and I have renewed confidence in that decision. Usually I see the Nurse Practioner at my doctor's office. I have for years, and she is very competent and open-minded and I have learned she over-discloses personal details of her life. After at least one annual visit for 7-8 years and a few in between for follow-ups, I have learned about her sex life, her birth control history, her children, and many other details. The nature of an annual exam at an OB/GYN office is rather personal and intrusive, so sometimes it seems only fair that an NP poking around your nether regions and asking who you sleep with, when and how also lay some personal information out there and put you back on semi-equal ground. I like her.
But last visit with the nurse practioner was at 21 weeks pregnant, not an annual exam. Right off the bat, she reviews my chart and says my weight gain is "thumbs down". I gained 8 lbs in a month. I know you should not gain 8 lbs EVERY month, but my god, I was still hardly showing! I'd just had the ultrasound a week earlier and the results showed the fetus itself was ONE pound. Add in the extra blood I'm producing, the fluid the fetus is living and thriving in, and yes that I am probaby less active than usual, and 8 lbs is not terribly much. She encouraged me to watch my diet and exercise more.
I have never in my life worried about my weight, or even thought that much of it. But it worried me all month long. What if I gained ANOTHER 8 lbs and earned another "thumbs down"?!

This month, at my 25 week appointment, my OB was our attendant. What a difference a month makes. She told me I'd gained 6 lbs. I cringed, waiting to hear her say that was not good. She said, well you are up 20 total, not bad. I thought she'd only wanted me to gain 25 total and asked her about that. She said, eh, no worries. WHAT?! I told her the NP had commented that the 8 lb gain last month was not good. My lovely OB said, well how tall are you? I told her 6'1" and she said, well you were pretty skinny to start with. Look at you, you barely look pregnant now. You're fine.

I love her! Then she reassured me that my back pain was normal and that I am carrying an extra 20 lbs exclusively in my abdominal area so of course my back is going to have extra strain in adjusting to this and I should do whatever works to get relief. We discussed the size of the uterus and the baby, both of which she proclaimed to be "average" at this point and not a concern. I told her of Rob and my family history of big babies: between our two mothers there were 6 full term babies, 2 of whom were 10 lbs and the other 4 all over 9 lbs. She smiled and said, "Wow, big babies! Well, that means your body is built to deliver a big baby and your pelvis can handle it."
What a positive way to look at this history! She said several times in her calm way, "You can do this" and not in an encouraging, pep talk way, but in a reassuring, "of course you can" way. She encouraged me to try the hypnobabies I am thinking of, told us a positive story of a first time mom who arrived at the hospital already dilated to 8 after walking around WalMart and Babies R Us laboring with her sister (I'd pick different locales but I like the idea!) and generally put both Rob and I at ease. Of COURSE I can fly at 29 weeks to NYC, of COURSE I should get more exercise but don't worry about my weight, of COURSE I can deliver without a million interventions.
I asked her about being overdue and how she'd handle that if I were. I know the average first pregnancy is over 41 weeks and last appointment when I'd broached this topic with the NP she was not reassuring to me, saying the OB "does not life for moms to go overdue because the placenta can calcify". She mentioned the "I" word (induction) and I did not like that answer. Most women with uncomplicated pregnancies who don't go into labor before 41 weeks have no placenta issues at all; their babies are just not ready to come. There are simple tests to make sure baby and placenta are find and usually sometimes after 41 weeks, labor starts on its own.

At this visit, questioning the OB herself, I heard a different song. She prefers that women not go over 41 weeks, but takes each situation on a case-by-case basis. She also finished this explanation by saying, "But you won't go overdue. You'll be fine."

This is why I picked this doctor!! I walked out feeling very confident and much better about everything. I'm not sure what I'd do if I'd walked out doubting myself. Fortunately, I don't have to find out. I am very lucky to have her.

Moving Around

The newest development in pregnancy this week is that I can see the fetus move- from the outside. This has happened several times since Saturday, which was exactly 24 weeks. It is very, very strange.
If you've never had one of these pregnant bellies before, you should know they they are hard and not jelly-like. I always wondered that, now I know. It it hard like a mostly inflated volleyball and does not go much higher than my belly botton. It is not rock hard, you can push in on it and there is very little resistance. When the fetus moves around, I can feel some waves of hardness, probably a back or head or butt moving against the walls of the uterus. In the last week, a body part will be extended quickly, then pulled back in and my outer belly skin actually moves. This freaked our friend Mike out last weekend, he said that is the creepiest thing he can imagine about pregnancy. I can think of a few others, but acknowledge that it is weird. I expected something like this later on, when the kid is more like 5, 6, or 7 lbs and doesn't have much space in there to move around so the ineveitable arm, leg, or elbow will jut out as he or she makes themself comfortable. I did not expect it when the fetus is 1-2 lbs!!

No one else has seen this besides Rob and I, but I'm guessing it will happen again. I wish I had a photo of Rob's eyes growing into saucers the first time I pointed it out to him. Just wait.

Name that Kid!!

This weekend the new Social Security administration's list of most popular names in the US was released. Naming your child is one of the most important jobs you have- screw the name up and your kid is already at a disadvantage in life before he or she has done anything else except breathe. I have been known to be pretty mean about mocking stupid names. I find it hard to feel bad about this. Why would you give your kid a stupid name?

This is touchy, because judging names can bring out some really nasty prejudices around culture, ethnicity, religion, etc. There are plenty of unusual names that are culturally acceptable, family names, celebrities trying to be creative, names that mean something to you or your partner, and I'm not calling them stupid. (OK, Apple is kind of stupid.) But I take more of a "to each her own" about creativity or cultural acceptability.

Stupid names to me are misspelled names. Names that are otherwise common in the United States, or at least heard from time to time, with random a random "y" or "h" thrown in to make the child "unique".

I'll give you some examples. I'm on some message boards currently for parents or parents-to-be, mainly women. There are many topics you can peruse and if you want, you can make a signature for any postings you might make. Just from the signatures alone, I have gathered a short list of the most horrendously misspelled names that these parents either have named their new children or plan to name them when they are born in the coming months. Poor kids. Here is my very mean list:

Evahlyn
Ellexis
Baleigh
Emercyn
Peiyton
Raevyn
Khenedii
Acelan Caedeau
Braytlee
Chloeigh
Kharleigh
Lyliann and Kaelynn (sisters)
Rymington
Blakesley

All I can really say is WTF? Does throwing an "e" and a "y" into Raven really add some uniqueness to your new daughter? Or does it just destine her for years of having to spell that name for every teacher, coach, and potential employer she meets, right before she takes her seat next to another person with the exact same name just spelled correctly? Could you really take "President Evahlyn" seriously?! Is Braytlee really a family name if all you have is that Grandma's maiden name was Lee?

Misspelled names are so common that the Top 1000 baby names on the SS website actually include many misspelled versions of common names. Abigail makes the top 10 names from 2008. But also included in the top 1000 are Abagail and Abbigail. If you want creativity, you might also try Abigayle or Abbygaihl.

But in the end, you have still given your child the 8th most popular name in the country for the year in which she was born. I'm not knocking popular names, either. Some of them are really nice names- especially for boys. Jacob and Ethan are really strong, lovely names. I only want to point out that making them Jakeb or Ethyn don't change the name, they just make me question how bright your parents are.

As long as I'm on the judgemental soapbox, I'll go ahead and point out that the female name Nevaeh (Nuh-vay-uh) is one of the weird recent and relatively popular creations of what I'm guessing are very young parents and is meant to be "Heaven" backwards. A recent birth at the hospital where I work part time yielded this name- but spelled "Neveah". This is not Heaven backwards. I just have to get that off my chest.

Happy Mother's Day!

Rob made breakfast this morning, a rare treat since I am the weekend breakfast maker (though he makes most of the rest of the meals because his culinary skills far surpass my piddly ones) and he brought it to me in bed! That was a first for me. It was very sweet, and I have said all along that I am not a mother, I have not mothered anything but some furry little beasts that leave hairballs on my carpets and puke in my car, but it was nice just the same. He then sent the link to this blog out into the Facebook universe so now I'm feeling pressure to post all kinds of interesting, grammatically correct, and amusing things in case anyone decides to check it out. Thanks, John Barleycorn!!

Score!!!

This week we have gone from owning nothing baby related to acquiring a number of important items, most of which we did not have to pay for! It is very exciting to get hand-me-downs. I have no shame in accepting others' cast-offs and in fact probably have more enjoyment from receiving them than I ever would if I had to shop.

Traci and Jack gave us a car seat their little guy D has outgrown. It is practically new, and should accomodate our little person for his or her first year. This was the highlight of my week because I have been worrying a great deal lately about our ability to fit an infant seat rear-facing (as required by law for a year) into our one reliable car. Each time I've ridden in a car that has also held an infant, the front seat in front of the baby seat is pushed up almost to the dashboard. Rob and I, at 6'1" and 6'3" cannot push either of our seats up to the dashboard, and we are not looking to take on a car payment on a newer/different car. I have lost sleep at night worrying that we will have to choose between keeping our car or our baby. Fortunately, with the aqusition of the car seat (THANK YOU, T & J!!!) I was able to test it out and we can keep both the vehicle and the infant. Whew.

So about more gaining of important baby stuff:

Kendyl alerted me to a big sale at Cotton Babies and I picked up 8 cloth diapers today. We're sampling 2 different types in a few different sizes. If they work out, this could be almost 1/3 of the diapers we need and I paid 40% less than they are worth. All but one are new (CB also sells use diapers), but "seconds" or slightly irregular. I have no idea what makes them "seconds" but they appear to be completely normal diapers.
Tonight we had dinner with Kevin and Kathryn and Mike and Dana and K and K offered us several of their used baby items and my favorite thing to acquire secondhand: clothing for me from other tall women!! YAY! We now have bedding for a crib (no crib but maybe later...), a plan for some maternity clothes and a baby sling, and several outfits for little people that they apparently barely used as a number of them still have tags attached.

If we can get away with buying nothing new for this child, I will be so, so excited. Cloth diapers don't count. YAY for hand-me-downs!!

A first for me!

Today at work a volunteer who did not know already that I was pregnant asked me if I was. I told him I was, and I was glad he noticed but that probably in general it is not a good idea to ask women that question.

This is the same volunteer who asked Kendyl if she was pregnant many months before she actually was. I forgot that at the time he asked me and thought it was cool that someone who did not already know had noticed! But then later, talking with Kendyl I remembered their unfortunate conversation. After she said, no I am not pregnant, the man did not become embarrassed at all. In fact, he would not back down and insisted she must be pregnant. Kendyl repeated that no, she was not and she would certainly know if she were.

So maybe I should not be so encouraging of this particular commenter. Ah, well, it is too late. And the first "stranger"- or person not in the know has asked me and that was nice!

This is me at halfway between 23 and 24 weeks!

23 weeks

A baseball/pregnancy comparison occurred to me today as I was doing hours of yardwork, hoping to have a Cardinals game to entertain me while I raked, turned the garden soil over, and painted my clothesline poles. The game never began due to rain in DC. I thought of how an official baseball game is 5 innnings, a little more than halfway through. If it rains or for any other reason is called off before the 5th inning, all statistics from the first few innings are wiped off the books and the game does not count.



The point in pregnancy where things are "official" is 24 weeks, a little more than halfway. At that point, if born prematurely, a baby has a better chance of surviving than not- albeit with many medical interventions. It is not good, and there will possibly be longtern affects, but survival is very possible, in fact, it is probable. I will be reaching that 5th inning/24th week point next weekend.



Here are a few photos of what I am looking like now, one week before this kid could live on the outside. That is not what anyone wants, though. I'd appreciate a full 9 inning game!

I don't want to leave Rob out just because he is not currently growing a fetus. He has been very, very good to me. We had a great camping trip last weekend near the town where he went to undergrad, so we visited the campus . This is a photo from Westminster with a piece of the Berlin Wall.

The Business of Being Born

As I've written several times, there is much to be done in planning out the next 4 months. There will be a list shortly of the things that must be accomplished, but at the moment they make my head spin so I won't bother with that list in a post- not today anyway. They are all things that are doable- cleaning up the house and purging junk from our basement, figuring out which carseat works in small car, which diapers to get, who will care for the kid when I return to work and Rob is writing, which insurance to put the kid on, that sort of thing.

But one that I feel creeping up as a pressing issue is the labor and delivery part- or the actual having of the baby. I really, really wish there were more options involved. There are not. In Missouri, midwifery was just legalized last summer. There is one birth center, and it is a wonderful place from what I hear and from the information I read online. But it is 135 miles away, and if delivering there all prenatal visits are done there too. So this makes for a 270 mile roundtrip each visit. This is not a big problem for the first 6 months or so of pregnancy, when a woman with an uncomplicated pregnancy (which, thankfully, mine so far is) typically sees a doctor or midwife once a month. But the visits increase in frequency, to the final month or so when your doctor or midwife wants to see you once a week. This would be 1080 miles in just one month- and that is if nothing comes up in between routine visits. Then tack on the drive when you are actually in labor, or an extra one or two trips when you think you might be in labor as is apparently common for first time mothers-to-be.

So that is the first downer, and the second is that the birth center does not accept either my (out of network) insurance (or Medicaid), requiring full payment out of pocket. This is the same scenario if we were to consider a homebirth with a midwife. I have not done extensive research, but have learned that a homebirth would cost between $2500 and $4000, the birth center probably around $3000 not including fuel costs of all those road trips. This is just not feasible for us at this time. There are currently no midwives doing hospital births in St. Louis. Rob is also very uncomfortable with the homebirth idea.

This leaves unassisted homebirth (see the last sentence above and multiply that times 1000) or a hospital birth with an Obstetrician. I chose my OB/GYN carefully 5-6 years ago because of her progressive beliefs and practices. At the time, the progressive practices I valued in my new doctor involved being open to every kind of birth control and reproductive choice. I'd just experienced my longtime gynecologist first diagnosing me with some issues that could be resolved only with treatment that she refused to prescribe, offering no other options for relief. So I left her practice and found my new OB/GYN. (This is a long story that many of my friends know, feel free to ask for more detail. It is really quite appalling and is an hourlong blog post in and of itself!! I also happily also share her name as a doctor to avoid.)
I have been satisfied with my doctor selection since that time, and now am happily learning that the progressive practices of birth control and choice in this practice also extend to some progressive views on natural childbirth as well. This OB, Dr. T., offers VBACS (Vaginal Births After C-Section) when many OBs no longer do, is open to alternative pain relief measures in labor (like water submersion, walking around, sitting on a birth ball) when many OBs prefer and strongly recommend chemical pain relief and lying in a bed, and she even allows women in labor to rent her personal birthing tub for labor and, if you feel comfortable in the tub, a water delivery. This is the only OB in the St. Louis area who will allow this. She also encourages doulas and laboring at home as long as possible to minimize the chances of premature hospital interventions.
But Dr. T, awesome as she is, still only delivers in the hospital surrounded by an environment that is very open to and friendly to interventions. And she is still an obstetrician, not a midwife and practices a medical model of care, not the midwifery model of care. I really prefer the midwifery model of care.

So I, as an educated person who really would like to keep this whole labor and delivery business as natural and intervention-free as possible, have to have my ducks in a row and a good plan for making this natural birth happen.

This is not an easy task, and I hardly know where to begin even after having read extensively on the topic and assisting at around 10 births as a doula myself so far. Being in the birthing situation is very different, I am discovering, and puts one in a vulnerable spot. Who should help me/us during this time? How much"practicing" can one do to prepare for something you've never experienced? Can I REALLY, truly be prepared to handle the unexpected, and who should I/we trust if interventions are needed or recommended? Should I/we be taking classes on Bradley, Lamaze, Hypnobabies, Hypnobirthing, or just wing it with what I know and have read?

I feel like a confident outlook on my abilities to handle labor and birth, a healthy lifestyle in general, and a lack of fear are the biggest components of childbirth preparation, but is that enough? Am I strong, healthy, and confident enough? Would I know if I were not?