weighty matters

While I'm on a kick of telling everybody more about my pregnancy (and birth) experience than they want to hear, I feel compelled to inform you all that all my weight-management efforts for this pregnancy have gone out the window. After managing to stick pretty well to my plan, and recently hovering for a few weeks at about the same weight (to the point that I actually started worrying that the baby might not be growing enough), I suddenly gained four pounds in a week. That wasn't so great. But the baby seems to have been doing some serious growing, so it's not really grounds for concern. Except that today, two days later, I seem to have gained three more pounds. I didn't even know that was humanly possible. Even allowing for water retention and variation due to shoes and clothing and whatever, I have gained in ten days more weight than I gained in the first 21 weeks of the pregnancy. Yikes. Time to be a wee bit more thoughtful about what I eat.

My other (related) landmark is that I can no longer tie my own shoes. Okay, I can, under duress, but it's really hard. This morning I sat on the couch, attempted to reach my laces, and announced to Cook that "It's happened!" He, poor man, thought I meant that I had gone into labor, and came tearing out into the living room in a panic, much to my puzzlement and Dutch's. I will be wearing slip-on shoes for the next two months.

Otherwise, all is well. I have more energy than I did in weeks 20-30, and feel better overall, in spite of being approximately the size of a baby killer whale* and woefully over-committed and under-rested.

Now I'm done blogging about pregnancy for a little while. I'll try to think of some good themes in weather and politics.


* Usually 300-400 pounds, in case you're wondering.

(Some) scientific support for my prejudices!

Remember my rant about strollers? Well, it turns out that some British teachers are accusing forward-facing strollers of diminishing children's linguistic abilities! Ha! I knew they were no good. It must have been all that slinging and Ergo-ing that made Dutch into the non-stop-chat-machine that she is today.

Don't read this if you're grossed out by childbirth.

There's something about this pregnancy that I haven't posted about yet, because I was slightly nervous about responses from you, my cherished six readers... We're planning for this baby to be born at home. I know that home birth makes lots of people worried; I fear, actually, that Broken-Butt Lawyer's parents, who have known me since I was 13, will call me and try to convince me to change my mind, purely out of loving concern for me. I also know that lots of my friends, some of whom read this, have given birth at home and are totally supportive.

Anyway, it's a kind of delicate thing to talk about. But I feel weird not mentioning it. It shouldn't be something I have to hide so as to avoid worrying people who care about me. Don't be scared.

So now that that's out of the way, I can tell you that I've got this hilarious list of home-birth preparations from my midwives.* I am instructed to supply the home with a range of items ranging from the cozy (candles)** to the practical ("several bendy straws" and "6 bottles of Gatorade") to the extremely practical ("2 large black garbage bags" and my favorite, "gallon sized plastic baggies for the placenta and other items").***

But back to the home birth choice - since the last birth happened so fast, and the worst part by far was the trip to the hospital (with me kneeling on the back seat, unable to sit down because there was a baby wedged in my pelvis) and the subsequent argument with the emergency room admissions guy who insisted that I had to sit down in a wheelchair to be taken to the delivery ward (with me leaning against a column in the middle of the lobby, lowing like a rabid heifer, because there was a baby wedged in my pelvis)****, this seemed like a no-brainer. Plus, I found it totally crappy to be woken up every hour to have my blood pressure and whatnot checked after I finished pushing a baby out of my pelvis, and I'd rather eat my own food and sleep in my own bed.



*For you worry-ers out there, there will be at least two midwives at the birth, trained in all sorts of handy medical skills, equipped with oxygen. They're even CNMs, if that makes you feel better. I have no plans to deliver the baby myself (and neither does Cook), and we will not hesitate to zip off to the hospital should the need arise.
** Based on my first birth experience, which happened at high speed and included lots of vomiting, I think candles would actually be dangerous, as they'd just get knocked over during my frantic scrambles for the bathroom.
*** WHAT other items!!!???!!
**** I'd just like to point out, as a matter of pride, that I was the one who resolved this ridiculous crisis (between contractions) by suggesting a compromise of having me kneel in the wheelchair. I think I should be able to put this on my resume: "Able to problem-solve with a team even while in active labor."

I have a deadline in 4 hours. I'm procrastinating.

Lately, we've been preparing a bit for the impending baby. We've bought a used bouncy chair and some diaper covers. We've cut up old t-shirts to make butt-wiping rags.* We've bought disposable diapers and wipes** for expeditions and emergencies. I started putting together my going-into-labor bag.

So... this baby really is coming. It really is. Also, I feel like the baby has GOT to be at least eight pounds already, given the way it's throwing its weight around in my guts, so I keep being surprised by the memory that it's not actually scheduled to be born for another two months.

***

*I hesitate to confess this, but it occurs to me that it might be a little creepy that I'm not spending my incubation period curled up under a quilt, maternally MAKING things in preparation for the baby, but am spending my spare time DESTROYING things in preparation for the baby. All this baby's handmade stuff comes from other people who are more creative and nurturing than me. You can call me Kali.
** They were on sale...
*** It's hard, taking a self-portrait of your belly. Also, I realize that all the photos I post have heaps of laundry in the background. Sorry, we're slobs.

Republicans...

...are a bunch of old mean guys afraid of doing anything other than what they've been doing all their lives. Even the ones who aren't old.

Change is really hard; it's not easy for humans to do. I spend lots of time wrestling with this. Urban planning is all about thinking about change, and then trying to convince people that they can figure out a way to change that works for them. It's the second part that's hardest.

This week I interviewed a guy who specializes in How To Plan For An Aging Society. He said the hardest part of what he does is dealing with the fact that nobody really believes that they personally are going to get old and die. He said that he gets best results when he tells communities that they need to plan for old people (ie have houses with one accessible entrance, have sidewalks, include social gathering places within walking distance of residential areas, etc.) because old people might visit them.

Republicans are like that. If we just keep doing what we are doing, except cut government spending more (except for spending on war, of course), everything will be fine. We're not going to get old and die. Oh, no.

Survival

Last night Dutch fell asleep sitting behind me on a chair, leaning against my back, at 6 PM while I conducted a phone interview for a school project and Cook made dinner. She woke up at 7:30 and acted totally crazy (we're pretty sure she was still asleep) until we finally gave up on her and tucked her into bed to sleep for 11 more hours. She's all better now. It wasn't dengue fever after all, or sarcoidosis.

I, on the other hand, have slept only 10 hours in the last two nights, which may not sound that bad to you workaholics, but isn't really enough for me even when I'm not pregnant and stressed and sleep-deprived already. I'm barely functioning. Which begs the question of why I'm blogging at the moment and not doing something more useful, like sleeping on the floor of the computer lab.

Why I should spend more time in the real world

As I was procrastinating actually doing my schoolwork, I asked the internet what could be wrong with Dutch (she has bloodshot eyes and flushed cheeks along with her fever, which is new for her, so I figured I should at least look up the symptoms of consumption), and this is what it says she has:

http://medical-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/Besnier+Boeck+disease

Fever

Dutch is home sick. I'm home with her. I should be using every precious moment to do school stuff, instead of blogging. Dutch is almost never listless and sleepy when she's sick, so she requires lots of attention. Last night she woke up at 11:30, 4:30, 5, 5:30, 6, and finally at 6:30, each time awaking with some sort of chipper announcement like "Mom, I'm full of green soup! I had green soup and that bread we made for dinner!" and a desire to chat. Consequently, I am worn out and not exactly primed for a long day of Florence-Nightingaling my feverish girl. She's sitting in my bed right now, playing with her favorite doll, but I doubt that she will stay occupied long.

She's such a drama queen, this kid. As soon as I told her she was feverish, she went into nineteenth-century-novel mode. "My legs hurt! My belly hurts! Now my forehead hurts! Mama, when will the hurting stop!?!?!?!!" She said she wanted breakfast in bed. I said no. She said she wanted French toast for breakfast. I said no. (I think it's my job to keep her from going all Emma Bovary.*) If it turns out she's actually fatally ill (with consumption, probably, or some other high-quality nineteenth-century illness**), I will feel very bad about this. But I think she's going to be okay.



* By which I do not mean that I expect her to commit suicide. Just the drama queen part of the character.
** It's pretty clear that Dutch subscribes to the Jane Austen school of disease, in which getting caught in the rain is extremely dangerous, and getting cold means you will surely at least come very close to death from a cold.

An appreciation (another list)

Things Cook has done this weekend:

1) Cleaned the bathroom

2) Scrubbed the kitchen floor

3) Closed himself and Dutch in our bedrooms for four hours while I had an endless group meeting for school in the living room

4) Played "horsie" and "black-stripe pirates" and "the English girl from South Arabia" and other weird games for many hours

5) Made three tasty and healthy 

dinners

6) Made bread with Dutch

7) Reassured me, with patient kindness,  that I'm not going to fail one of my classes

8) Grocery shopped

9) Washed lots of dishes

10) Bathed Dutch

11) Made me laugh a bunch of times

12) A billion other helpful, joyful, thoughtful things

He has lots of faults (which, in other moods, I'd surely be happy to list*), and he knows all my faults, but in the end, I find myself awfully happy to be married to a man who says to me from the kitchen, where he's making yet another meal,  "No, wait, I'll take the laundry down. Why don't you sit down on the couch for a little while?" 

It's been a long few weeks. Or wait, maybe a long month. But I'm feeling lucky today.

*For example, he cannot learn to put his glasses in one place consistently, and we're always having to scramble around to find them at the last second. Yesterday I heard Dutch telling him firmly "Daddy, you shouldn't leave your glasses on the floor; somebody might step on them!"

Things (that people have actually said to me in the last week) that are okay and not okay to say to a pregnant woman.

It's okay to say "When is the baby due?"

It's not okay to follow that question up by saying "Oh! Is it twins?"

It's okay to say "You look great!"

It's not okay to ask "Are you married?"

It's okay (but a little weird) to ask "Can you HEAR the baby?"

More joy

Tonight, my little angel is sitting at the dinner table enjoying the handful of tiny candy bananas she got for dessert (Valentine's Day loot!). She lined them all up, and is savoring them one at a time. Each of them cries something along the lines of "I'm gonna die! Wah! I'm really gonna die, I'm in the MOUTH!!!" and then gets crunched.