The X-Men is eh, so that's all I'm saying about seeing it.

The cats are psycho today. Our little black kitty is pretty irritated that my lap has disappeared and he keeps walking from the desk, to the keyboard, to the desk, looking for some piece of me to sit upon. The only things available are my hands and wrists and then the keyboard goes ;;;;;;;;;;;;;lllllll00000000 while I try to dislodge him. His brother just convinced him to play run around the house, so I can type freely for now.

We're coming down to the wire of baby-preparedness and so we dutifully went to the Target and the baby superstore. This weekend's prey: baby medicines, diapers, and diaper disposal units.

Before I get to the diaper disposal issue, I would like to address the cloth-diapering issue. I thought about cloth diapering (CD). With the sanitation issues, CD didn't look like it was more environmentally-friendly - all that detergent's going into the water somewhere. With all the things needed for CD (liners, diapers themselves, and diaper covers, regardless of diaper service), it certainly didn't seem cheaper, which surprised me. The research seemed to say that CD kids potty trained faster, but without an environmental or financial advantage, it seemed honestly like too much of a hassle. The easier, the better seems to be the decision-making process right now; we can always change later. I admire the people who are doing it; I just can't be that dedicated right now. There will be enough new things to learn.

So, now that we're filling the landfills with plastic, people seem pretty divided on the topic of diaper disposal. Some people seem to think diaper disposal wonders like the Diaper Genie, the Diaper Dekor, and the Diaper Champ are the best things in the universe and some people think they are absolutely useless and we should just take the trash out. For $30, we figured the Diaper Champ, the highest rated product in our Baby Bargains bible, was worth a shot. It uses regular kitchen bags, so there's no cost on refills. As with everything else, if it doesn't work, we'll figure something else out.

I've gotten recommendations on sizing (S or M, even with humongous breasts) from the nice people at Peanut Shell, but I have to wait to order that until 1-2 weeks before my due date to be able to return/exchange it if it doesn't work. Unfortunately, the closest baby store that carries it is in OC, which is too far for me. The gas will cost more than the shipping.

Oh, and I look huge, say J & T who hadn't seen me for two weeks. Well, to be fair, J said it over and over and T didn't disagree but kept his comments to himself. T is a wise man. I'll have to get Mistah C to take a side view when I'm dressed for the public instead of working at home in my ripped yoga pants.

No baby-related medical appointments this week, but I have a pre-braces-removal cleaning. I would also like to get in touch with the stupid eye doctor to get new glasses before the kid arrives, since I think I'll wear my glasses more often when I'm trying to nap frequently.

The kid is active. Very active. Lots of kicking and wriggling going on.

No TB for me!

Hooray! Yes, I know we were all worried there.

My work currently sucks. I miss my old boss. That's all I'm going to say on a blog.

The kid's getting bigger

The kid spent hours yesterday pressing against my right lung/ribs. I tried drinking juice to get the kid to move, but that only gave me a ten-minute breather. I used to take a walk when the kid was in an uncomfortable place to convince it to move/sleep, but the kid's big enough now that walking is not the massive problem-solver it once was. I'll have to try some pelvic rocks to move the kid.

We don't have anything lined up for the weekend. We've been talking about going to see Cars since it seems like Disney has been massively underhyping it compared to its other Pixar releases and we'd like to support Pixar, but A Prairie Home Companion is also coming out and we haven't seen the latest X-Men flick yet. Maybe we'll try to go to multiple movies.

We also have some baby shopping to do, but we're procrastinating (hey, we've got two weeks until the birth center says we really should have everything in order "just in case").

We've been planning on going to an adult/child/infant CPR class, but since that requires being at the Red Cross at 7AM on a Saturday, we haven't made it there yet.

We're now at 48 hours since my TB test and I have absolutely no signs of swelling at the injection site: not even a little raised bug-bite. I have to look very hard to see where the puncture site is. Googling tells me that this means I don't have TB, but I have to run by the birth center today to have someone medical look at it.

Complete non-sequitur: Does anyone know what a tilapia loin is? I've emailed Alton Brown via Food Network's site, but I'm just curious. I didn't think fish had loins, not a 3-pounder like tilapia, anyway. They looked like filets to Mistah C and me.

Almost-33 Week Prenatal Visit

Let's all do a happy dance. Stupid Bush; stupid midterms; stupid people who really think gay people getting married affects anyone else's marriage. I can name half a dozen heterosexual marriages I'd rather see made unconstitutional so I can stop being lumped into the same category as them, but that would be a truly juicy blog entry, wouldn't it? Constitutional amendments limiting rights never seem to work well - the last one that took was the two-terms limit for presidents and I can honestly say that there are times when I'm just thrilled that amendment is in place (1987 and the current year come to mind).

Anyway, this post should be about today's prenatal visit. We're almost to 33 weeks and are right on track for that for fundal height, 33 cm. Blood pressure was good, weight good, glucose good, protein good. They gave me a TB test since I hadn't gotten one previously; I have to run by on Friday so they can see if I have TB or not. Pregnant women apparently get a TB screening as a public health thing. There's no live culture in the test so it shouldn't affect the baby.

The birth center was calm for all the activity going on there: a birth last night at 3AM, plus another mother was being transferred to a hospital because her labor had stalled. Everyone was quite calm, but the midwives were tired. The midwife measured my fundal height at 35 cm (which would be quite the leap in growth) and then said, "I've been up all night. Let me find the head first and we'll re-measure."

The midwife located the kid's head and the kid is happily head down right where it should be. Mistah C and I both felt it; the baby has a head. There's still enough room for the kid to bounce around in there, but not enough left for the kid to somersault into a breech position. Breech is not good.

The kid is moving a lot; the midwife felt my uterus and said the kid is still floating. I asked if the strange twinges I have been having are Braxton-Hicks contractions since everyone in birth class seems to have had them and I haven't, but the midwife said, no, it's the kid moving. Apparently Braxton-Hicks contractions will make my uterus feel like a board and I could be having them without noticing.

The next appointment is in two weeks and they will be doing my term labs. I'm not nearly as excited about more testing, but I'll have my braces off by then. Less than two weeks, woo hoo!

Bradley Class 9: but really I don't know what technically

Class last night was a roller coaster, up and then down. Way down. Stick your fingers in your ears down. I'm not kidding.

We started off by finishing the Class 7 vocabulary, which was fine. Actually, since we hadn't had class for two weeks, we started by commenting on how big everyone's bellies are getting. Someone even said to me, "Wow, that baby's really growing." I probably still have belly envy, but I'm at least pregnant-looking now.

Then we watched a movie by Suzanne Arms, the author of Immaculate Deception and now an activist for natural birth. Mistah C probably said it best: "They should show that movie at the first class." It was the most professionally produced film we've seen (after all folks, we are in California; production values matter). It intercut film of a natural birth with talking head pieces from doctors, doulas, midwives, and other birth advocate-types. It also presented (woefully outdated but still scary) statistics on birth in this country. While I'm sure it's considered vitriolic, it struck me as a good basic presentation of the reasons why you might want to reconsider trotting off to the hospital to give birth even though 93% of the other women in this country do it.

Then it was time for the relaxation technique, which is a technique I've actually encountered before as part of my wrist injury biofeedback therapy. You're basically supposed to imagine an object that changes colors through the spectrum of the rainbow (and let tension go, and just concentrate on the colors changing, yadda yadda). Well, it turned into brainstorming. "The first color is red, so, oh, I should have brought the red roses from my garden. What else is red? No, not fire trucks. Strawberries are good. Shiny red apples." There were other conversations going on that got woven into this, like email addresses and other weird stream of consciousness stuff. The instructor pretty much gave up on the technique at green, but I also don't think she understood it.

So the relaxation technique wasn't terribly relaxing but we were reclining in the dark with someone rubbing us. Jan started talking about the vocabulary from Class 8, which is on interventions and unforeseen problems (like C-sections and whatnot). As part of that, she started talking about miscarriages, stillbirths, and babies/young children dying. These terms are not actually in the vocabulary; talking about the categorization of a woman based on first pregnancy versus first child delivered (primapara versus primagravida) made her go into a discussion of miscarriages, the grieving process, and all the rest of it. This discussion was longer than the discussion on the actual vocabulary for Class 8.

I had a "What the hell?" moment. I'm pregnant and hypersensitive right now, so I know that I don't want to hear about death, particularly death of babies (in or out of the womb) or animals. I still can't get through the special "Oprah visits Auschwitz" episode on my TiVo; I really can't watch the blood and guts sections of House. I certainly am not watching any dead baby episodes of anything. I don't read news stories about horrible things happening to families or children and I never ever watch the TV news anyway but I would have given that crap up too, stupid news as consumer product. It's not the innate superstition of "If I hear it, it'll come true," but it's just upsetting to me right now and as such, I'm filtering out what I can. At some point during Jan's monologue, I thought about putting my fingers in my ears; Mistah C says yes, I did cover an ear with one hand.

I don't understand how that discussion was educational. It would have been enough to say, "If you've been through a miscarriage, an abortion, or something else that makes you grieve for that lost child, then that's a valid feeling and you should probably talk to someone about it. I've had a miscarriage and you're welcome to talk to me about it, plus I have books and films to recommend to you on the topic that might help." The whole extended discussion of people she's known or taught who have had kids that died or were stillborn was not necessary. I was put out.
I don't know what next week's class is; I think Class 9 was the extended dance mix of Labor Stage 1 techniques, but I don't think we got there yesterday. I've had a prenatal checkup but that will have to wait until I sort through what I'm doing today for work.

Everything's fine, situation normal.

I'm trying to think if there's baby news, but I don't think there is anything grand to about the state of the babe. I have a checkup this Wednesday so there should be more news later this week.

The kidlet is quite a little mover; finally Mistah C has been able to feel some of the major seismic shifts in my innards and it's quite the sensation. Movement is now visible; the kid had hiccups Saturday afternoon and we could see the reverberations. Everyone needs a little John Hurt moment now and again.

I'm pregnant enough that when we went to the cool, hip sushi place for dinner, I had young, hip, cool people stepping out of the way for me like pregnancy was contagious and they didn't want to catch it. I felt like a walking blimp advertising "do you have condoms?" in the meat market. If I'd been dressed as a nun, I would have had the same looks. (Before anyone asks: no, I didn't have sushi; I had gyoza, miso, and truly excellent shrimp tempura. Yum.)

And if the maternity leave hassles weren't enough...

I have been summoned for Jury Duty. I have been summoned once before, but in Colorado, you call a number and they say whether or not you have to come in. I didn't have to serve then. Unlike Colorado, San Diego makes you actually show up in court. My summons date is just one day before I officially roll the 36th week of pregnancy.

In addition to working out the maternity leave issues with HR, I'll be sending them a copy of my jury summons.

Break Time

I have been the Queen Bitch of the Universe today, largely because I've got too much freaking work to do and unlike many women in the universe today, I say no. No, no time for you today; we can discuss tomorrow. No, sorry. No. My boss called this morning to discuss my attitude problem. No, I don't care that people might find it brusque when I say no. I guess I should be saying "No thank you" to be polite.

I am waiting on other people's stuff, so now I have time to blog (and pet the small black cat who just now got out of bed--the life of a cat). I have requested 12 weeks maternity leave and the nice birth center is faxing in my "yes she's pregnant" form to HR today.

Hopefully the workplace will start to realize that I'm not just going on a holiday jaunt to Mommyville and will be back a week or two after birth. The intelligent thing to do would be to hire someone (or three) to take up the 563 project hours I still have left to go in June, but I'm sure that'll be considered crazy talk.

The super news of the day is that our favorite Navy pilot will be heading to sunny San Diego for helicopter training, yay! We're excited.

Memorial Weekend Baby Blog Recap

We had a great weekend. Coming off the high of finding a great pediatrician, we did baby stuff. As a tangent, here is a great picture of one of the coyotes that live in our canyon, as well as a picture of the beastie who lives in our house to scare off the coyotes.






He's pretty vicious-looking, isn't he? The coyotes really do run away when they see him in the window.

We have now acquired the following items for the baby:

• Side-snap T-shirts for awkward umbilical cord period after the baby's birth, Carter's, not Gerber. These were found at the outlets literally at the border. The directions said, "Exit when you see the LAST EXIT IN USA sign."
• Onesies and sleepers to get us through the first month. The woman at the counter looked at the greens, yellows, whites, and multicolored stripes and said, "You must not know what you're having." Can I mention how hard it is to find gender neutral clothes? Want blue without a football? Too bad. Purple without pink flowers? Not happening. Aren't babies cute enough without the appliques? I feel like the little cutesy-crap is distracting from the cuteness I'm sure will be inherent in this child.
• Pack N Play in Sand Dollar, modeled here by the Wonder Twins. The bassinet feature, demonstrated by our odd-eyed super model, will give the kid a place to sleep while we're figuring out if this child inherited Mistah C's charming disposition or my colicky one and buying the crib, co-sleeper, or baby hammock appropriate to soothing the child. Our swarthy dark handsome model is showing the diaper changer, which secures with extra snaps.
• Baby towels
• Baby first aid kit
• Baby nail clippers

We have more yet to go but it was a productive weekend. Now the kid has somewhere to sleep, something to wear, and some way to get home. If we get some diapers, we'll be living large.

No birth class tonight as a carry over from Memorial Day, so I just have to get my maternity leave worked out. Apparently I could take off at 36 weeks, but I don't think we're going to be able to do that. Harumph.

Blog angst

I had a lovely post this morning, with pictures and everything, and it disappeared into the black hole that is our incredibly sucky DSL. So that'll have to wait until I have the tenacity to re-write it.

The latest great news is that I can have 18 weeks of maternity leave. 18 weeks, wow!

Pediatrician Interview

We're zooming along so it's time to figure out who will be looking after this kid during the extensive doctor visits and checkups that are ahead. Since we're giving birth in the birth center, we have to get a pediatrician lined up to do the first full-blown medical exam in the day or two after birth. The birth center does the normal delivery tests but does not do the day-after exam (although they do send a nurse to the house the day after the birth to check on recovery from birth).

I had gotten some recommendations and finally picked one to interview who was board-certified and relatively close to home. Happily, C's workplace of joy decided to send everyone home on a half-day on Friday (even if they didn't want to catch the free showing of The Da Vinci Code) so he was able to make the appointment, which was unanticipated and great.

There's nothing that makes me feel quite so much out of my depth than interviewing a pediatrician. There's not really a good way to ask questions about the doctor's philosophy of health care, vaccinations, circumcision, breastfeeding, antibiotics, etc. without asking leading questions. Happily, she volunteered a lot of that information so I didn't feel like she was just saying what would make me happy. She's got two young kids herself and she breastfed them (for more than six months), so both of those things make me comfortable. She also didn't blanch when the birth center was mentioned, so that upped her credibility with me.

The cool factor: her office-mate was a medical advisor for the X-Files and would review their scripts. How cool is that for your local pediatrician?

I have an appointment with another not-quite-so-highly recommended pediatrician, but I'm probably going to cancel at this point because we were both very comfortable and pleased with this one. June is filled with doctor visits: the prenatal checkups, the dentist, and the orthodontist, so I don't think I need to spend time on a doctor I would have to be just amazingly wowed to use. She would probably have to give away gold bricks to be better.

Other news: we went to get a Pack-n-Play last night after dinner and the one on display was a model year earlier than the other ones we'd been looking at. This means there were no snaps and straps to secure the changing table to the playpen, which gave us pause from a safety perspective. So now we're re-visiting the Pack-n-Play issue (again) this weekend because we want it to be safe but would hope that it wasn't hideous. This poor child is going to sleep in a cardboard box when we get it home - happily, we have those already.

Standard Prenatal Visit, Week 31

There was a long wait this morning for my appointment. Oy.

The GTT came back negative, so good news there, plus they checked my iron levels while they had my blood and I'm good for iron as well. Protein, glucose, and blood pressure readings are all fine. Fetal heart rate is 140-150 bpm. Fundal height was 31 cm, which is exactly where we should be for 31 weeks.

The midwife I've been seeing the most is leaving the birth center before I give birth, so that was a little disconcerting. She's leaving to go to another hospital without 24 hour on-call duties so she can have the reliable time to raise kids, so I can respect that. She hopes to be back at the birth center in a couple years. I met the midwife who is taking her place and she seems friendly. The new midwife will probably still be in an orientation period when I'm due which means I might end up with two midwives for the birth, which is great for me.

Oh, and we tried to figure out if the kid was head down, but the head's not big enough to feel yet. However, due to where I'm being kicked (higher on my side than lower), we think the kid is probably head down. Most kids are head down by 32 weeks, so the next visit should be more informative.

Bradley Class #8, um, #7 extended

Last night's class was once again refreshing. The class is getting more comfortable with each other. We had two birth stories, both of which were uplifting "I did it without drugs in a hospital" stories, although the common theme about giving birth in a hospital without standard interventions seems to be get there as late in labor as possible, completely dilated, so nobody has time to do anything to you.

The funniest comment of the night was from the guy who is a California State Highway Patrolman on giving his wife a heparin lock during labor. Heparin locks are IV needles stuck in your arm or hand that are not attached to tubing. They're better than a conventional IV because you're not tethered, but you still have a needle stuck in your arm when you've got better things to worry about. The nurses wanted to give his (fully-dilated and pushing) wife a heparin lock "just in case" she needed something, and he said, "No, I've seen enough strung-out, neurotic people come into emergency rooms who you give IVs to just fine. She's just a woman in labor. She'll be no problem." After my time in the ER, I have to agree. It was probably most compelling coming from a guy who looks like he could stunt double for Bruce Willis in Die Hard.

Little sparks of controversy happened when we started discussing AFP tests. Jan assumed we would all pass on the AFP test because "those tests are done to determine whether or not people will abort." I had an AFP test, and it wasn't because I would abort. We agonized over the AFP test, both about whether or not to take it and what the results were once we did. Eventually, we decided that since I have a sister who has Down's and was born with some pretty serious (read: life-threatening) birth defects, it was important to get an AFP to see if further (more invasive, more risky) testing was indicated. As much I want to give birth in the birth center and avoid a hospital birth, if we had any indication that the kid required an intensive neo-natal unit, we would switch to the hospital with the best neo-natal facilities in town. Happily, our AFP came back negative. It's not a guarantee of a 100% healthy baby, but it meant that I felt like I was making the responsible choice by passing on amnio. The risk/benefit ratio was just too out of whack at that point.

I didn't talk about all that in class, but I did find out that a couple of people in class have learning disability connections: one of the women in our class who is a kindergarten teacher has her specialty in Special Ed but needs to finish her CA certification before she can teach Special Ed here, and one of the men's mom was a lifelong Special Ed teacher (recently retired). It's interesting what you end up having in common with people.

Class 8 is supposed to be medical interventions in labor, but we still have the last set of vocabulary words to go through from Class 7. I haven't even looked to see what Class 9 is. We've got no class next week for the Memorial Day holiday.

Everything's breaking

Today is a bitch, bitch, bitch day. I have been up and down the stairs at least 12 times this morning to reset the stupid DSL, so God knows if I'll have enough connectivity to post this. C's car broke down in the Whole Foods parking lot Sunday (thanks to J&T who came to save me and my frozen organic mac and cheese); the DSL is breaking today, so now I'm just wondering what else is going to go wrong. Maybe the dryer breaking last month was enough and that makes the "things come in threes" rule complete.

I don't have any baby news. I saw a co-worker of mine and his fam last night; they're on vacation in sunny SoCal and we met for dinner. His wife is currently pregnant with their fourth (fourth!) child; she's due in September. They were the first people who visited and didn't say, "Gosh, you don't look that pregnant," so the belly is getting larger.

Baby acquisitions: We bought some blankets, towels, and washcloths last weekend but could not locate non-Gerber side-snap T-shirts. I'm beginning to think side-snap T-shirts not made by Gerber don't exist, but I think we'll head to the Carter's outlet and take a look again now that we are on the lookout for side-snap T-shirts. Gerber apparently makes crappy clothes.

Oh, my co-worker (who is not the most suave person I've ever worked with) just had to point out my shock of gray hair, which I've had since I was 20 but have restrained myself from coloring with the pregnancy (which I thought was the big tell at Christmas, but apparently not). Maybe I'll just have to get it dyed since we're at 30+ weeks and I know people bleach, color, and tint all the way through their pregnancies. I'm not usually someone who lets vanity win, but maybe the taunting pushed me over an edge.

I can't believe it's already 11AM. Oy.

Happy Independence Day!

It's the (old my gosh) ten year anniversary of my graduating from college today. La ti da. No, I am not heading to Reunion this year, maybe in another 15 years or so. I'm all about the future, baby (as opposed to being about the future baby).

We'll do a little Friday after noon mailbag Q & A:

Q. How are you doing/feeling?
A. Fine.

Q. How are you really doing/feeling?
A. Fine. I'm not trying to be difficult, evasive or overly polite, but I'm really fine. I haven't had horrible aches and pains; I've been sleeping well for the most part. I have some heartburn after I eat tomato sauce so I'm only having tomato sauce with a Tums chaser. I get tired more easily. But I'm not huge enough to be horribly uncomfortable yet.

Q. Can you feel the baby's head or butt yet?
A. I'm not savvy enough to differentiate anything but the kid's back/torso yet. This next week we'll be trying to determine the kid's position, so if I get any insight, I'll share.

Q. How did your GTT go?
A. No idea. Haven't heard, but it took a long time for the AFP to come back. I'm assuming it's a "no news is good news" kind of thing. I still have the last bits of a nasty-ass bruise they gave me from taking the blood - but that usually happens on my left arm.

Q. Are you having any cravings?
A. No, which surprises me because I usually in normal life have a craving from time to time. I'm thinking the craving thing is a scam by less assertive pregnant women. I am a lot of things, but unassertive is not one of them.

Q. How much weight have you gained?
A. None of your business, that's how much. My CNM says the kid looks good and healthy.

Q. Are you going to find out what gender it is?
A. Well, yes. At birth.

Q. Do you have names yet?
A. Yes, my name is Kim, and my husband came with his own, which meant I didn't have to share mine or register for one during our wedding. Oh, you meant the kid. We are waiting to see what the kid looks like when it's born.

Q. How is the nursery going? What colors are you doing?
A. We live in a rental, so there is no painting. We're currently in "by the seat of our pants" method of parenting where we figure out what to do with the kid once it gets here. Right now all the colors we're picking are bright gender-neutral ones.

Bradley Class #7: Planning Your Birth

Class last night was better than I expected, although I'm the only nerdy girl who did all the homework. Last week we had two assignments: one was to define a list of terms relating to birth and the other was to write up what you imagine happening day of birth.

My terms were pretty easy to define, although I will out Mistah C here and say that he had a programming error in execution of his homework. (See, I am not one of those women in class who did the assignment for her husband. He has to do his own homework - not that he would expect me to.) He and his partner divided the list into odds and evens. C had the evens, but he started counting his list with zero instead of one and as such he and his partner defined all the same terms. This was pretty funny. At least Mistah C had lots of good statistics to back up his information.

We spent the class with each person (completely out of sequence to accommodate the two gentlemen who will not be there next week) defining their terms and having a discussion about them. It was a good, lively discussion because everything mentioned was controversial: induction of labor, circumcision, Vitamin K shots, eye ointment treatments right after birth. I like lively discussion.

I was the only one who had done a birth story. I had such a hard time with it that it gave me a headache. I don't like playing "let's pretend" with the whole birth thing; I'm trying very hard to curb my over-planning tendencies to adopt a "go with the flow" attitude for birth. Imagining is partially for me starting to set expectations. At this point, I feel like I'm as educated as I can be on terms, procedures, and techniques, so it's not like writing a birth story will uncover new fun facts for me. I don't think visualization works as a technique here because I find visualization only works with repetitive tasks and I can't practice birth. It's just a tool for figuring out what you haven't thought of, but I really think a lot about this stuff.

Our birth story was very general and non-specific as a result, with no triumphant ending of, "And we held darling Bluto/Beatrix in our arms and wept with joy." Maybe it's easier when you know the gender and have tied all those expectations to the kid already, but we're still waiting to see what happens.

Speaking of expectations, I've been thinking about the effect that gender has on your expectations. It would probably make the shopping easier, but I like having a complete stranger moving in. Plus I've got one of the most non-sexist yet chivalrous husbands on the planet so I'm not concerned about fighting the ill-effects of my spouse. I'm talking about those men in the universe who talk a great game but do very little to fight actual sexism, like those who spout, "You can be President someday, honey!" at their daughters while their wife clears the table of all the food she has shopped for, prepared, and will now clean up and put away. "Now why don't you bring Daddy something to drink?"

I've read recently of a fun psych experiment you can do with your kid that we're going to do (surprise, Mistah C!) at some point. Regardless of gender, take a kid out somewhere public dressed as a boy. The comments will probably be: "What a little bruiser!" and "He's so strong!" You can take the same kid out dressed as a girl and get the, "Oh, how pretty!" "How sweet!" "How quiet!" "So delicate," comments. We'll do a couple control experiments when the kid is a couple months old and then we'll do it again when the kid's eighteen. That should make for a good college entry essay (and grist for therapy, yay therapy!).

One more thing: Bluto and Beatrix are the stand-in names we use when talking about the kid to other people; they are not the actual names in contention. We're just not naming the kid until we see what the kid looks like. Could the kid look like a Bluto or Beatrix? Hmm, good question.

The Braces Are Coming Off.

Glory be, the braces are coming off June 19th. Get the Skor bars and the crusty bread and the pizza crusts ready.

Wowie Zowie!

Yes, it's work-related; just cope. My boss has taken a new job, woo hoo. It's been a long time since I thought she should get herself a new job so I'm pleased that it's happened for her. It's a new position someone higher up who noticed how good she is created for her specifically, which is the perfect job for anyone.

She's leaving in three weeks, which then gives me two months maximum before the kid comes where I'll be in managerial limbo. I'm honestly not concerned at this point and I can only imagine that as we get closer to B-day I will become even less concerned with the politics at work.

We regrouped!

This has been a long day, but we decided on a Pack N Play. It is the Parker (lovely gender neutral blue and yellow) and you can all ogle it here, you looky-loos. We have not bought it but just making a decision is a huge step forward. It took us four years to buy a couch; we would have waffled longer on color but we probably need to pick this before the child enters kindergarten. We'll probably savor the decision making for a while before purchasing.

The other happiness in my day is that Mistah C re-assembled our bed today so that I no longer have to pole-vault into the bed at night. The top of the bed was about hip height for me (I am short, but jeez, I was going to get a stepladder or something soon). Although I know preggos have a tendency to get sore lower backs, I thought maybe hoisting myself into bed every night (and every bio break during the night) was part of the problem. We'll see if having the bed at a lower altitude helps.

Kid news: the kid is big enough that it is pressing against my rib cage from time to time now. I described it to the Boy like having something stuck between your teeth, except stuck in your rib cage. Quite odd. The kid is spending an awful lot of time on my right side, so we're making it watch The Daily Show and read The New Yorker until it gets more left-leaning. No, just kidding. Republicans have a lot of money and generally only want to buy white babies, so we'll make a mint on a little right winger. Oh wait, just kidding again.

Foiled Again!

We ended up back at the baby superstore yesterday to buy a Pack-n-Play and we just were not excited by any of the models. No cool fabrics, blah color combinations, nothing that floated our boat. So we're regrouping.

Baby Product Showcase Showdown

The Boy left for E3 this morning before 0600. I wanted to have breakfast with him before he left since I couldn't have breakfast with him yesterday due to the whole fasting thing. I'm tired, but it's not because of the nap monster.

Finding a Bjorn for the Boy made me jealous that he has a new baby-related toy and I don't, so I actively researched (aka, surfed the 'net) slings, wraps, pouches, and other types of carriers this week. The variety is bewildering. Some of them sound like fruity drinks - the mei tai? Some of them look like you need a Boy Scout badge in knot-tying to get the kid secured, or that you should have been raised as an Indian woman with many saris to be able to get it on.

I've decided on a pouch-style carrier for ease of use. (Part of having a baby is becoming inoculated against the cutesy-wootsy naming crapola that babies seem to inspire.) For your browsing pleasure: right now, the Peanut Shell is winning on the basis of the less complicated sizing; I might consider a Hotsling later once the kid is out and I am no longer increasing in size. The doula who has been coming to our birth classes showed us a Adjustable Fleece Kangaroo Karrier that looked great but maybe it's too warm for August. Their web site has mixed messages about ordering ahead of time versus not ordering ahead of time. They get bonus points for acknowledging that pregnant people like to buy stuff for the baby ahead of time and will allow you to return it after the kid's born (as long as it's not covered in puke or poop), so maybe I'll reward that with my business.

Other baby product research: The next big purchase will be a Pack-and-Play portable playpen with bassinet and changing table. Since I did not take notes Sunday when Mistah C rattled and shook all the units on display in the baby superstore, I cannot give you a specific model to look at. It won't be an Evenflo or an oval-shaped one.

Btw, we are increasingly disturbed that nobody else seems to be road-testing the models in the store. We saw three couples on Sunday with their little scanner gun and all of them seemed to pick a playpen on the basis of looks. We take the item off the little display shelf, shake it like mad, try to take it apart and put it back together again. That seems like a no-brainer when purchasing an item your child is going to sleep in. Nobody else even touched the stupid things; it looked like they were selecting on color: brown plaid, sage green toile, or bright blocks of primary colors?

Maybe we're just anal. I have yet to find my people in a baby superstore. They're probably at home whittling their own cribs from their own home-grown lumber and weaving their own crib sheets from their organically-fed free-range sheep's wool to avoid feeding the baby consumer machine. This is California, you know.

Prenatal Checkups: Now Every Two Weeks

Today was my GTT. The whole glucola thing is overhyped. It tastes like Orange Crush, maybe a little sweeter, but not disgustingly so. The fasting is worse; I miss my tea and toast in the morning.

The prenatal visit was fast, fast, fast. Mistah C dropped me off at the Birth Center and took off to find me some decent high-protein food (Kafir shake and Odwalla) and I was in to see Sarah before any time had passed. I didn't even open a magazine. Bronchitis fine, blood pressure fine, fundal height fine, baby's heartrate fine, weight fine, urine fine. Then I had two vials of blood taken, scheduled an appointment in two weeks, and that was it. I went out to the waiting room and lo and behold, Mistah C is there waiting for me, looking like he's waiting for me to come back from the typical pre-visit urine test and weigh-in. "I'm done!" I say and we leave.

Compared to how worried I was about the AFP test, I didn't even ask when my test results for the GTT would come back. I'd be surprised at this point if I have gestational diabetes, so I guess I'm just not concerned.

Bradley Class #6: Intro to Second Stage Labor

It's early here and if that wasn't enough of a tip-off for you that I might be cranky today, I could paint a picture of one small white cat knocking everything off every high surface in this room to better grab my attention, my being unable to find the cat sprayer to convince him that this was not how he wanted to grab my attention, and finally locking him out of the room I am in because I can't find the sprayer and I don't have the patience to deal with cat + gravity yet today.

Class last night was a grand improvement over the last class. Second stage labor means "the part where you push and the baby comes out." We watched a birth film which made six water births look pretty easy, although I did not care for the New Age-happy music that swelled dramatically after each birth. It was a step away from the pop songs during the credits of Japanese animation. Water births make me wonder when you get to shower, though. Even regular baths leave me feeling like I need a quick rinse; with all the stuff that comes out with a kid, I would want a shower.

I also have a hard time with the "practice" exercises. I have a hard time imaging what a contraction is going to feel like, but since it's the contraction of involuntary muscle, I'm sure it'll be different than tightening up any voluntary muscle in my body and relaxing it. I have mastered the squat enough that I don't like to be leaning on the Boy during a squat; it throws my balance off. It'll be different when there's a kid coming out, I'm sure.

There was another couple with a new baby for show-and-tell last night as well. These people were much more interesting and easy to follow. There was no three-year-old and the baby's daddy was right there (I'm sorry, but that did make it easier to relate). The mother was much more linear and articulate than the previous mother; the father quite pleased and smitten with the kid. The baby was five weeks old and cute. This mom went into labor about 7 days early at her baby shower, which is funny, really.

The father was so filled with fun facts, "Hey men, this woman will not be your wife. Just don't think of her that way for that one day. She's going to say things that you just have to remember, she's not your wife. Oh, and bring a change of clothes, maybe two. Oh, and be prepared early." Yeah, we probably need to get some place for the kid to sleep.

The mom was able to talk coherently not just about the birth, but also about breastfeeding, co-sleeping, slings and the like. She even talked about being at home alone with the kid and being lonely after the baby's dad went back to work. I asked her how long it had taken her to become an adept nursing mom, and she laughed (like she didn't feel adept) and said six weeks was when things started clicking.

I found the two of them to be reassuring because the what to do when you get home is where I'm truly concerned. Yes, birth's hard; it's the rest of my life thing that worries me. I've read enough to be able to say, yes, I want to breastfeed; yes, I want the kid carried around instead of deposited in the infant seat all day, but I still don't know anyone personally who does that. It's reassuring to meet first-time parents who are doing those things.

I would like also to give a shout-out to J & T who took on screener duties last night and watched House then sent me an email saying, no, you don't want to watch it this week. I watched Oprah's Monday show on prostitutes and thought, "Oh God, if we have a daughter, now I have to remember to tell her not to become a hooker." I appreciate the heads-up, especially on the same day Save the Children comes out with a report saying the US has the second highest infant mortality rates among "modern" or "developed" nations, losing the top spot to Latvia.

Return of the Nap Monster

Yesterday we didn't want to do more baby shopping (although we did end up at the baby superstore yet again but didn't buy anything, so it's a wash), so the quest of the day was to find good Chinese food. We ended up with dim sum at the Emerald. It's not the Chinese food I was looking for, but I like dim sum.

I have no idea what half of what we ate was, but it was good (except for the tea--that was oversteeped and bitter! I have no tolerance for bitter tea). Most of the waitstaff didn't speak much English and we didn't get a menu until the people at the next table left halfway through lunch, so it was all a crapshoot for selections. I know we had the lotus root paste rice cake things, little sesame seed-covered buns with red bean paste, pork gyoza and BBQ pork rolls, but past that it's a wash. There was a lot of things with shrimp and scallops in various wrappings (steamed in gloppy rice wrappers covered in soy sauce, deep-fried, steamed in globs upon shittake mushrooms).

Too full to go sit somewhere, we ended up at the baby superstore to ponder sleeping options for the kid and the merits of a Graco Pack-n-Play (and inadvertently consider the merits of a glider-rocker, which has a lot of merits when you've been walking through the baby superstore and you're tired).

We came home empty-handed although I think we decided that we will need a Pack-n-Play. I was tired (I had been tired all day) and just wanted to lay down for a bit to rest. I slept for three hours. I know we just rolled into the third trimester, but my response on waking up was oh no, not again. Not more naps again.

Most recently upset by the pregnancy: Jake the lap kitty who wants to know where my lap went. As I type this, he is astride my knees and the keyboard tray looking for the rest of my lap. It doesn't look comfortable. Poor sweet kitty.

Consignment Store Shopping

Since we officially rolled into the last trimester this week, it occurred to us that maybe the kid will need more than a car seat and our infinite love to survive.

We decided to check out the local baby consignment stores since most of this stuff gets outgrown pretty quickly, so we spent most of yesterday driving around discovering the local stores. We found one good one, one pretty good one, and a couple we probably won't be going back to.

We got some clothes (sleepers and onesies), but the find of the day was the Baby Bjorn.

The carrier issue has been complicated by the fact that we need two. Due to the one foot difference in height between the Boy and me (and the fact that my shoulder width is probably half of his), we need different carriers.

We had checked out the exact same model of Baby Bjorn for him in a certain famous baby superstore the day we got the car seat. This one was in good shape, copyright date on the tag was 2005, and it was $40, compared to the one three times the price at the superstore. Sold.

So now he's got something to cart the kid around on walks and outings and I just need to find a carrier more appropriate for the additional tasks of breastfeeding and standing-to-sitting scenarios. Yes, I know we could both use the Bjorn; that just seems like a PITA to change the straps every time we hand off the kid. For $40, we can afford another carrier and still come out ahead.

You, Employer, are not my favorite charity.

My haircut this morning may have put me too much towards George Clooney (in a bad way), but it grows so fast I don't care.

Work makes it to the blog again! All week I've been waiting for a list of the current projects that are in my queue and I finally got it today. When I added the stuff I knew about to the stuff everyone else apparently signed me up for, I got a whopping total of 322* hours for the month of May.

I could work 14.63 hours every standard work day in May or I could work ~10.4 hours every day in May to meet that.

But I subscribe to the philosophy where giving an extra month's worth of labor away for free is foolish and stupid, especially at week 28 of pregnancy.

Those of you looking for pregnancy news: Kid's been fine and active, woke me up early this morning with the kicking. It's looking like it'll be a hellion.

*The best part is that this number doesn't include the one project I believe people are afraid to tell me about or any productivity time.

Bradley Class #5: 1st Stage of Labor

Last night we were back on track in class, boy howdy. We went through the book (slowly, oh so slowly at times) and answered the questions, then had relaxation time, then a movie.

I think I'm getting better because I am short-tempered, which is always a sign that I'm getting better when I've been sick. Nobody could make me happy last night. The room was too bright; the floor was too hard; there wasn't enough space to lay down without other people touching my pillow with their feet; people were talking during relaxation and the movie. I was aware that I was feeling beastly and so I tried to rein it in.

People are getting more confident in our birth class, though. The horror porn last night was about sweet, young, first-time parents having a natural birth. The movie was pretty benign until the close-ups of crowning came on, and then, oh my (consider this your too much information warning). Watching the top of a baby's head pop in and out of a vagina like a jack-in-the-box is disturbing. The woman looked like she was in intense pain and just couldn't get the gumption up to push the kid past the pain (which of course she did, but by the shots of the clock in the movie, it looked like she pushed for two hours, which is a long time for the top of a kid's head to be popping in and out, I think).

After the movie, Jan asked what we thought of the movie and one of the guys said, "Grody." Then Jan asked if at least it didn't look painful, and I think all the women in the room said, "Oh no, that looked very painful. Incredibly painful." There wasn't even a pause in our responses. "But manageable," Jan says, "and how happy she was at the end."

Yes, yes, everyone's happy with the baby at the end. What's wrong with saying it looks painful? Pain can be managed if you know it will end at some point. The institutionalized birth machine in most US hospitals says that birth is just too painful to endure without drugs/interventions and the natural birth fascists say that birth is just a walk in the park if you just, well, walk in the park during birth. I think the truth is probably somewhere in between. But it's as much of a disservice to tell women birth doesn't hurt as it is to tell women that it is the most blindingly painful thing ever and cannot be managed without meds.

Pregnancy/Birth Reading List

I've been meaning for some time to add a list of the books that I've been reading about pregnancy, but it's probably extensive. I've added it to the sidebar; you can judge for yourself. I think those are all the books; I hope the links work.

The secret decoder ring to the list is that if I thought the book was worthwhile, I found the link to it at Amazon. If I found it just okay but not compelling or outright gross (like that horrible What to Expect drivel or my most recent irritant, The Expectant Father), I didn't bother.

I Love a Crusade

I don't really like to blog about work since I think this way there be dragons (and because I like to keep work and pregnancy in different buckets). But I have been accused of being on a one-woman crusade against stupidity recently, and I would like to point out why.

These are the people I would like to give paper cuts and douse in lemon juice this week:

• People who don't use revision tracking. I know people think their writing is so fabulous and erudite that nobody would ever want to change a single word of it, but when I'm trying to reconstruct what you changed so I can understand what that incoherent babbling you've added was actually supposed to communicate, it adds another step and irritation to my processes. If this is a 90-page document, this takes a long freaking time to reconstruct.
  
• People who don't know how to use the Comments tools. I know it's so easy to write your comments in the body of a document, but there are tools I can use to look at all the comments at once. When I have to hunt through the document for your thoughts, I waste time. Oh, and those of you who feel superior for embedding your comments in someone else's comments? You can cut that crap out too. I see lots of documents a day and trying to decipher whose voice is so rudely clamped onto the end of my chipper little notes wastes my time. At least add your name to the front of the comment.
  
• People who think I'm a moron. Yes, I saw the edits from someone else half an hour ago; yes, I know to incorporate edits from people other than you. I can even go to the toilet without your help, as amazing as that may be.
  
• People who can't think like a customer. All writing should answer the "So what?" question of the cynical customer, not be something about how important you are.
  
• People who are above request forms. No, your time is not more important than mine, sorry. I'm sorry my boss thinks her time is less important than yours, but I want you to fill out the form so I have the information I need to do my job. I will have plenty to do without one more request from you, so it's you who will be feeling the pain.

I've reached the end of my work day and as such I am going to switch crusades from eradicating stupidity to putting the hurt on a pint of Ben & Jerry's Half Baked. Grf!

Weekend Update

Sitting around all weekend is dull. I was allowed out for lunch yesterday, followed by a trip to the bookstore to get some books for my period of house arrest. Plans for grocery shopping after the bookstore were scuttled when I didn't want to browse the bookstore due to being winded.

Today was much better; we accomplished grocery shopping and J&T came over for dinner and a game, which was much better than more TV viewing, even if it is TiVo. We are now caught up on our TiVo backlog and my breathing has improved significantly.

Calls from the ER

The doctor who saw me in the ER Wednesday called to ask how I was doing. I can count on one hand the number of times a doctor has ever called me at home to follow up, let alone an ER doctor.

I told him that I'd gone in for my follow up at the birth center and what my midwife said (which he laughed and said was good advice) and that the inhaler seemed to be helping the most so far. He told me to watch for excessive heart palpitations (110-120 bpm) since sometimes an inflammation of tissues around the heart can develop during pregnancy, but he said he would expect me to be short of breath more than wheezing if that was happening. But that I should be aware and if that happened to come back to the ER.

But I was just amazed that he called to follow up. How's that for an ER experience?

"You're not working today, are you?"

I met with the lovely Sarah this afternoon, and told her the story of the urgent care center that made me cry (which will just have to wait until I get my complaint letter together). She checked me over and said, "You are wheezing just talking to me, do you hear that?" I said yes.

"You're not working today, are you?" she asked.

"Well, just from home," I said. I don't think she was buying it.

Sarah then instructed me to take it easy, be aware of my breathing, stay home this weekend instead of running all over, don't clean, don't shop, and to basically sit on the couch and watch movies.

This is not my typical weekend but I called the Boy to update him on Sarah's advice. Then I did good by not stopping by the Whole Foods on the way home as I had previously planned to pick up a couple things. So now I just need to be a coach potato.

Scenes from the ER

I spent most of yesterday in the ER on the advice of my midwife after I finally called her and told her about my wheezing. My wonderful friend Miss J picked me up and sat with me for 6+ hours in the waiting room, which was greatly appreciated since there were many interesting people in the ER yesterday and she's great at talking to everyone. I checked in at 2:30 PM and was discharged at 10:15 PM.

My vitals showed slightly low O2 levels and slightly elevated blood pressure and pulse rates. I was diagnosed with acute bronchitis and possible but unlikely asthma and sent home with an inhaler and antibiotics. I have a follow-up appointment at the birth center tomorrow at 11:45 AM.

There was just too much to describe, but I thought I'd attempt to give some idea of the flavor of this epic. I was in a locked room for the most exciting thing that happened, a guy going into a seizure and his girlfriend going wacko-screaming-crazy in the waiting room, so you'll have to settle for my boring first-hand experiences.

Vignette #1: Kim and Julie's Coat Check Service
Miss J and I became the coat check service for the ER waiting room yesterday.

• A large disheveled man who smelled of stale alcohol sweat handed me a large clear plastic bag that wrapped a package of grocery store cornbread. "Can you watch that for me? I have to go out for ten minutes. Don't let anyone take that. I need that to eat after my surgery." I place the cornbread gingerly on the seat next to me. He did return later to retrieve his cornbread. "Someone just gave that to me!" he said. He was thrilled.
• The woman next to us who heard voices rolled a cigarette (have you ever seen someone roll a cigarette in the ER?) and then said, "If you hear them call me, then tell them I'm outside smoking. Pauline D."
• Coleman C., the nice 57-year-old former Marine with a bullet in his back from a drive-by shooting last week and a daughter at Penn State, also asked us periodically to watch his stuff and listen for his name.

Nobody's name was called while they were out.

Vignette #2: The Return of Cornbread Man
Mistah C arrived at the ER after work (7:30-8PM-ish) and he brought food. We still had not seen a doctor. Not long after his arrival, we were ushered from the waiting room to a second waiting room which would apparently fast-track us for treatment (since we'd been there for at least six hours at that point, fast is relative). Julie and I regaled Mistah C with stories of the people we'd met, including Cornbread Man. Every time we heard a man speaking too loudly in the hallway, we peeked to see if it was him, but it was not. When Mistah C and I went to the 24-hour pharmacy across from the hospital to get my scrips filled, who was waiting in line before me but Cornbread Man. He waved at me. I waved back at him and said, "Where's your cornbread?" They were keeping it at the front desk so it didn't look like he was shoplifting. No word on his surgery.

Vignette #3: Billy the EMT-in-Training
Billy was probably the funniest thing that happened all evening and bless your heart if you find this, Billy, but it looked like your first day. Once I had finally been taken to a bed in a room with only one other patient, a nurse came in and took my vitals with one of those automated machines. My blood pressure and pulse were back down and my O2 levels were up to 99-98% (probably as a result of the albuterol they gave me in the waiting room). She left and not long after an EMT came in and introduced Billy, an intern EMT who is doing his rounds in ER. He was going to do take my vitals, a history, and listen to my lungs. I had a moment of slight panic where I wasn't about to allow Billy to diagnose me, but that was beyond Billy. The EMT told C and J to give Billy a hard time.

Billy gave himself a hard enough time. He started the standard questionnaire. I told him I was 26 weeks pregnant and he was both surprised and not sure where to write that on the form. At one point, he asked me to rate the pain and I said there wasn't any real pain but just a tightness in my chest when I took a breath. He gave me a 1-10 scale and I picked 1. Then he showed me the form and asked me to pick one of the series of smiley faces to express how I felt, from very smiley to very frowny with tears. This made us all laugh. I picked not super smiley but still smiling.

Then Billy said he'd take my pulse, and I noticed he was kneeling on the floor instead of using the rolling doctor stool. "Would you like to sit down?" I asked, and yeah, he would. He had to find the stopwatch function on his cell phone to get a timer since there were no clocks. Then he had to find my pulse. This took a really long time. Billy then tried to take my blood pressure but couldn't get the cuff to work. "Are they hazing you?" I asked, wondering at this point if they were hazing me. He went and found another cuff. He was reluctant to tighten it up and rated my blood pressure as 130 over 90, which is just off-the-chart high for me. I can't remember what happened, but he did something halfway through that was just ridiculous and we all burst out laughing, so maybe laughing skews your BP.

Back to the questionnaire: What was my complaint? Did I walk in here myself? All the standard questions. Then Billy started asking me the questions I don't think the medical personnel are supposed to ask in their outside voices. "Are you cooperative? Confused? Aware? Will you hurt yourself or try to take your life if left alone? Are you frustrated or angry enough to injure yourself or others while waiting to see a doctor?"

You all think I am making that last question up but poor earnest Billy asked that and my two friends were there as witnesses.

"Well, let me put it this way," I said to dear, sweet Billy, who is learning a profession that is very necessary for society and I would never want to do, "I have been in that waiting room for at least six hours so far, and if I haven't hurt or killed anyone so far, odds are pretty good I can hold out a little longer."

Billy asked at the end of all this, "Is there anything else you would like to tell me about?" This is when Mister C said, "Well, if you were Cameron, you would ask if she had a dog or had just traveled out of the country or something." The poor EMT-trainee had never seen House, which is probably good. But this threw him off. He was relieved that C was talking about imaginary people on TV.

Billy's opinions had no bearing on my diagnosis or treatment, so it was just a charming diversion while we waited. Good luck with the rest of the residency, Billy - you will be a great EMT someday!

Slightly wheezy

Between seeing the ILs off and catching up on work, I did not call the midwives today. I will be calling them tomorrow. I'm going to bed now before 10PM which is super and feels like the first time in a week I've done that.

Wheezy like the Jeffersons Again

Today I worked while my husband and his ILs went out to tour the world. It's almost 6 now and they're not back yet, so I'm starting to wonder where they are. (They have since arrived. They spent the whole day at the Midway, apparently.)

I worked today and went to the eye doctor. The eye doctor was much better than the regular doctor. The eye doctor treated me like an intelligent person, talked charmingly about her four children, and is allowing me to bring a friend back to their office to check out new frames for my glasses. (If anyone has suggestions for frame size/shape/color, I'd love to hear them. I hate picking out frames.)

I got chastized by Miss Julie for wheezing, which I really hadn't noticed but it is true that I am wheezing. Part of it is that I pace around the house like a madwoman on the phone, part of it might be allergies, and part of it might be pregnancy. I'm going to call the midwives tomorrow if I'm still wheezing to see if there's such a thing as pregnancy-induced asthma.

For most of the walking we've done this weekend, the kid kicks and thrashes with a vengeance once the walking stops. Today has been a settling-down day for the kid where three minutes of sitting does not equal an immediate thrashing. I realized this weekend that I can tell the difference between a turning or somersaulting and kicking/punching. Weird.

Other than that, not much news. I am tired.

We have a car seat!

My ILs are in town, which means no time for blogging, but since my husband is now taking my FIL on a tour of San Diego's sources for tar removal solvents since his walk on the beaches of La Jolla this afternoon turned sticky, I have time to update the blog to say that yes, we did buy a car seat.

We bought a Graco Safe Seat in Fusion. We were in hot debate over the Safe Seat (which has greater height/weight limits but no Consumer Reports crash test results) or the Graco SnugRide (which has lower H/W limits but excellent Consumer Reports test results). The Safe Seat won out over the SnugRide because Mistah C is a ginormous person who was 30 pounds at one year of age and as such we're expecting this kid to be on the bigger end of the scale. We had a choice of black/red/gray and gray/blue and we picked gray/blue.

Anyway, we are officially baby product consumers now. Thanks go to my ILs, whose great and recent experience with car seats which made the shopping experience more balanced.

Also, if you can get to a baby store that offers a faux car back seat in the store to try and install the demo seats on, it is worth it, even if you have to tell people to stop touching the seat and helping you so you can actually try it yourself. Plus you might run into someone in the store with a baby in the same exact seat and you can ask them about it.

Bradley Class #4: The Coach's Role

Last night's class, friends, was a disappointment. It was a mild train wreck of a lack of linear thought meeting the indefatigable power of a pair of three-year-olds.

We were having a "show and tell" class on top of the regular class: mom with a month old brand new baby, plus her coach (her mom), plus her three-year-old son. Then we had another new couple who were there not for class but to meet other parents because they were new to this area. They also had a three-year-old son. Two three-year-old boys playing together have a lot of energy, and these were extremely verbal three-year-old boys.

Add to this our instructor who is not the most linear thinker in the world, as sweet as she may be and as much as she may know, and you had an hour that was pretty darn incomprehensible, at least to me. I know it was an hour because this is the first time I've turned to Mistah C during class and asked, "What time is it?" That's generally my barometer of whether or not I'm having a good time (waiting for appointments while chatting with friends notwithstanding).

The mother talked about her births. Our instructor prompted her to start with the first one, but she got a little into that and realized that she couldn't remember all the details, at which point her own mother said, "Talk about New Baby; he's newer." While this is going on, the three-year-olds have discovered that they can bang the toys in the doctor's office against the toys, the walls, and the floor. The parents of the second boy are trying to shush them; Grandma of the speaker's son is trying to convince him to come over and tell his part of the story. He doesn't want to. He's got toys and another boy. At some point, the kids began throwing the toys, and that's when our instructor decided to try and occupy them, but there's honestly only so much muzzling you can do to a three-year-old. We watched a birth movie while the kids were still there, one with a woman with a large supportive family there for everything; more on that later.

I know it's a birth class. I know I'm getting one. I just don't know that it was worth my time to witness that.

When the new mom finished speaking, she asked if we had any questions. The woman of the other new couple spoke up with a comment on her own personal birth. The only question I could think of was, "Where is your babies' daddy?" but since that is so obviously rude and was for my own personal curiosity more than any educational purpose, I didn't ask it. Nobody had questions. I had a hard time following her narrative over the din, so I didn't have enough details to work with.

Then we got to actual class material. The birth movie was hard to follow because of the talking of the three-year-olds, but the plot of these things is always the same, thank God. The woman had an entourage of people - sisters, two kids, sisters-in-law, and her mom and dad, plus hubby all rubbing her and talking in soothing voices to her. In the car on the way home, I said to Mistah C, "I would be looking for a bat with all those people talking to me and touching me while I was in labor." He told me I wouldn't be putting up with lots of people talking at the same time now.

Grandpa in the movie was distinctly there against his will. They had a quote of him after the birth saying: "I've never seen a birth before. I will never forget it." This is a smart guy. He didn't want to say, ew ew ew I didn't ever want to see my daughter's hootch ever again, particularly with a baby's head sticking out of it, but he managed to come up with a line that his daughter could get teary-eyed and nostalgic about when the movie is played but that his friends at the bar will never be able to fault him for saying if they ever hear about it. The birthing mom admitted during the post-birth debrief that she had manipulated her parents into staying, and I thought that was pretty crappy. It's like Bridezillas who force their bridesmaids into blush and bashful dresses because that's what they've always dreamed of, and it's my my my my day. Are there Laborzillas? Momzillas?

Anyway, after the kids had left, we started going through the questions in the workbook. I know I was already annoyed. I'd been up since dawn loading stuff, work is sucking wind again this week, my teeth were adjusted which always gives me some residual pain, and my in-laws were (are) about to arrive which put me in a position of last minute picker-upper and toilet-cleaner with the way our day turned out.

But the questions annoyed me. Questions like, "What strengths do you bring to pregnancy and labor?" Then we're going to go around the room and state strengths. You know what? If you're stupid enough to have gotten this far throughout your life and embarked on bringing up a human being without figuring out what your strengths and weaknesses are and what your spouse's strengths and weaknesses are, I don't want to know about it because you scare the living crap out of me. I don't think you're going to get it from the "suggested answers" in the workbook.

The other part of this that annoyed me is that this is not something I think should be asked in a class after "What are some drugs given in labor that can cut off feeling?" That's heavy stuff. I love my dear husband; I really do. He's the air I breathe and my sanity and my sense of humor. I can't imagine life without him; I can't imagine being sane during this pregnancy - as easy going as it has been - without him. I can tell when I haven't spent as much time with him as I should because my temper gets short and my sense of humor vanishes into thin air. I can only imagine that labor without him would be twice as difficult.

There is absolutely no way to distill that into a ten-word "Strength" answer for birth class.

This was the contrary class for me. The one person who has given birth before said she got "very vocal" during pushing and wanted to know why none of the women in the video had been verbal. Jan said they just weren't. I asked, "Why not?" Jan didn't know and didn't speculate.

Jan also mentioned that some women get PTSD from a bad birth experience. PTSD (Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, although I don't know if it's a disorder or a syndrome right now according to the DSM) is something I know a lot about, and I have read that some women who have had C-sections largely against their consent have had PTSD. It was introduced pretty lightly for how serious PTSD is. "How traumatic would a birth have to be for you to get PTSD?" I asked. Jan went into a segue about prior sexual abuse and the issues that birth may bring up for some women, which was muted and not very informative. I realize this is a hot button of mine, but it drives me nuts when people with limited knowledge of mental disorders start talking about them in an educational way. A little knowledge is a dangerous thing and, in my case, an infuriating thing.

My in-laws are officially on the ground; my workplace is officially running behind, and as such I think lunch will be happening soon.

Moving, Part Deux

The Boy and I left our cozy little place at dawn this morning to pick up a Penske truck to drive to Chula Vista and pick up all the stuff from our storage container. (I must be more pregnant looking because a woman in the office made a point of telling me where their bathroom was. No, I did not ask or do the pee-pee dance to prompt the advice.) Everything went smoothly; the contents were undamaged in transit and our notoriously irksome neighbor did not show his loathsome mug for the 15 minutes the truck was parked in our outrageously difficult driveway. (His car was parked on the street in the cul-de-sac anyway, we knew.)

We dropped off the truck and the nice manager of the local Penske not only added my AAA discount after we'd signed the contract, but he gave us half off the daily rate since we'd only had the truck out for a couple hours. It was the fastest move ever, and the people at Penske are super, so if you need a truck rental, go with them.

We dragged the box spring upstairs and put it on our IKEA bedframe, at which point we laughed and laughed because the bed is now ridiculously high. Then I drove like a maniac to my orthodontist, who told me I'm two visits away from being braces-free, glory be. Now I'm home and all I have to do is work and clean and figure out when to go shopping before we go to birth class tonight (#4, the Coach's role) so that we can get to sleep at a decent hour before my in-laws show up tomorrow morning.

Maternity Clothes

We had a huge meal for Easter, most of which I did nothing to cook and nothing to clean up from afterwards. I must say, if you can get your friends to show up with delicious food in tow, it's a coup. We had ham and pierogies and Parker House rolls, which were notable in that they were the correct size and not the tiny 1-inch kind we had at Thanksgiving.

Saturday we went to the outlets in Carlsbad in search of yoga pants. We ended up in a maternity clothing outlet that I don't want to give any press to, largely because I suspect they're going to put me on a mailing list even when I specifically stated that I did not want to be on any mailing lists (I gave them an incorrect name to see). Also, their return policy (store credit only, no exchanges on sales items) sucks but I was so desperate for pants that fit that I didn't care.

I did find two pairs of yoga pants, one slightly too long and one just right (probably meant to be crops or capris on a normal person), so we'll see if they survive the washing machine. I also got a wrap-style tank top to wear to class, so hopefully I won't feel quite so much like an ogre next yoga class.

Cute petite maternity clothes are hard to find. I am not a pastel person. I am not a flowery-lacey person. I love dresses, but not ones that look like an English sofa threw up on me. I think I'm going to have to scout more consignment stores around here for cute, sexy tops. Otherwise, it'll be me in my Old Navy tees from here until B-day.

It's raining. Maybe that's why I'm down on shopping.

Maybe it's the fact that I'm having a hard time finding non-ugly petite maternity clothes.

We are currently underwhelmed by the prospect of shopping for the kid. It's come up now because we're in month six and month six was the mythical line in the sand we'd set for ourselves to start the process of acquiring all the things we need to have a baby. Now that it's here, I'm still not excited.

Going to a baby superstore just makes me feel icky. At some point after the confirmation, we went to a certain very well known superstore to check things out. The sheer volume of things for sale was astounding. We ran. We ignored shopping until month six, and now, here we are.

I don't know why I thought the passage of time would make me feel more cheerful about the outbreak of consumerism in this country.

We've been asked about registering for stuff, and it just seems like registering for paper towels or milk. I would rather be surprised by the kindness and ingenuity of people.

The most extensively detailed list I have right now is the list of books that our child must be exposed to, and past that, I'm just not attached to the stuff. Stuff doesn't make good parents. Once the kid is here and has interests and I can find stuff that meets those interests, then I'll be excited (as I am now when I find the perfect gift for someone), but for right now, it's just stuff.

Maybe you should wear something larger, like Wyoming.

My friend Miss J has possibly hit upon the source of my belly envy. She claims that after checking out the other women in our birth class, she realized why I look small-bellied: it's the breasts. Yes, the same breasts that are muddying my cute yoga cami shopping waters are apparently minimizing my belly size. I am reminded of Steve Martin in Roxanne saying, "You could always accessorize with something larger to de-emphasize your nose, like Wyoming." She has urged me to look at the hip-to-belly size ratio next class, so I will do that. It's all very What Not to Wear.

Everything's A-OK

This is pretty dull, but our prenatal visit this morning went well. They had the extended dance mix urine test strips in the bathroom this morning, so I found out I have normal urine across some 18 categories instead of the normal two glucose and protein tests (and the pH of my urine was 7). I've gained a couple pounds in the last month and my fundal height is dead-on exact for 25 weeks. The midwife says (again) not to worry about not gaining 18-25 pounds since I'm not vomiting or unable to eat.

They gave me a bottle of glucola to take for my glucose tolerance test for gestational diabetes four weeks from now. It's orange-colored and I don't have to drink the whole 100 mL bottle, just half. If that test spikes, I have to have another test. I will be taking a protein-heavy snack to eat right after they take my blood.

After the next visit, I'll be on the two-week appointment schedule instead of four weeks, wow! That's come up faster than I thought it would.

General Tao's Chicken

The Canton Palace in Loveland, CO, makes the best General Tao's Chicken ever. I met The Boy at the airport with a cooler to put his precious cargo into. We ate it for dinner last night with sticky rice. I was just happy, the Boy's back and I'm eating chicken.

The proprietess called to congratulate me on the pregnancy and give me parenting advice, the best of which was don't let the kid have a choice of food. Never ask a little kid, "What do you want, honey?" You're the boss and you tell them they're eating what you're eating. She has great kids and this makes sense to me, so I'm inclined to try and remember that.

There's enough left for me to have General Tao's Chicken today for lunch and maybe tonight for dinner. I'm so thrilled.

Birth Class #3: What Does Pregnancy Do (Besides Producing Babies)?

Yesterday was just an odd day. Mistah C headed to Colorado as previously announced, so I ended up getting my lovely friend Miss J to go to birth class with me so I wouldn't look like an abandoned wife. Miss J is usually up for most things and she offered to take scrupulous notes for The Boy so he would not be behind in classwork (I will use these notes to recount the class).

First of all, we got our diet tracking sheets back. I was expecting a lecture on the evils of Pop Tarts and Cadbury cream eggs, but instead Jan wrote a lovely card thanking us for tracking our foods (us nothing, snort), listing all the good foods she saw that we were eating to help the baby and make the uterus strong. Since I was expecting a little bit of a scolding, it was a sweet surprise.

We met Latia, who is a doula-in-training. She told us the story of her home birth, which was very quick and sounded great. She was a L&D (that's labor and delivery) nurse in a hospital which is when she decided she didn't want to give birth in a hospital. I found her story reassuring and normal-sounding (well, not normal in how fast she gave birth, but normal in how normal the process of birth is). I would have liked a Q&A session here, but I thought it would be rude to ask questions about something personal like birth when questions were not invited, even in a birth class, even with a doula-in-training.

We went over pregnancy vocabulary, including hyperventilation and fetoscope. They talked about babies being born with the "bag of waters" still intact, which is what I believe I would call a caul. Babies born with a caul are supposed to be gifted, either just plain lucky or have second sight. If we have a kid with a caul, I will spend time periodically thinking, "Can you hear me? HEY!" to see if the kid jumps. Maybe teaching the kid to buy lottery tickets and gamble if s/he never responds to telepathic thoughts or sees dead people.

There was a section on "issues with pregnancy" which nobody seemed to be having. Everyone else seems to be having Braxton-Hicks contractions, but I haven't had any yet. Now I can have contraction envy in addition to belly envy.

The doula in training said the C-section rate in San Diego is currently 31%. Nationwide last year, it was 29%, according to Jan. Those are scary numbers.

We watched two movies: Gestation: the First Days of Life and Natural Squatting Birth. The second one was a birth movie where the five-year-old sister of the baby being born attended, which was highly amusing because she made comments like, "Gross!" and "Why is he all bloody?" and "Can Mommy feel anything?" while the baby's head was crowning. "Yes, she can feel that," Daddy says while Mom grimaces her way through crowning.

In between the movies, we did a relaxation exercise in which Miss J rubbed my back like nobody's business (note: if it's relaxation time, the horror porn can't be too far behind). At some point (after the second movie, I'm guessing by the notes), we also did some ice breaker type things where we all lined up by name, zip code, due date, etc. Miss J took notes which I will find so helpful when I try to remember the names of the new people in class.

Miss J said she really enjoyed the class. The people in our class are really great, which helps. I was worried that it would be horribly dull to someone not currently gestating, but I was really glad she went. I see by the notes that next week we are having a show and tell, otherwise known as a baby and birth story from previous Bradley Class students. Next week's also about the coach's role, so that should be interesting.

When we got home, the Boy called to say that all tasks in Colorado had been accomplished and things were going well, so that made it a lot easier to deal with the fact that he wasn't here.

It's good that I didn't get a lecture on Pop Tarts, because I woke up this morning to make my own breakfast (usually the Boy makes us breakfast in the morning) and there was no bread for toast and no milk, so I had Pop Tarts and a yogurt smoothie with one of my horse-size vitamin pills and felt just fine about that, thank you. Otherwise, I would have been eating leftover penne with vodka sauce or leftover sirloin stirfry.

20 Hours in Colorado

Wrists are getting significantly better, due to the fact that our website sucks more than a vacuum cleaner factory so I can't be mousing all day loading pages into it. I don't know what's going to happen when the go-live date happens, but I'm guessing that'll just suck too.

The Mistah is experiencing 20 hours in Colorado, packing up the last of our belongings there and with Mr. "Saves Our Bacon Yet Again" Bump, having them shipped to sunny San Diego. Sniff. I've tasked him with bringing home my favorite Chinese food (see, the kid just whacked me, as if to say, "Don't think about Chinese food when I know we're having mac and cheese for lunch").

I got up at 5am this morning (well, woke at 4:30) to get him to the airport on time, and now I'm tired. I can't even take caffeine since I went to my maximum limit of two cups of tea (and there's something odd about caffeinating myself to stay awake for birth class). I can't complain since I'm not the person who has to lift a box spring this afternoon.

While I'm thinking about it, I'm going to go move the alarm to a more reasonable time than 5am.

Yoga kicked my butt

My butt is sore today. That means I did yoga. I'm sore in different places than when I do the prenatal yoga DVD, so that's good.

Yesterday morning I went to prenatal yoga. This was sadly my first class although I've had the gift certificate for months (sickness, then cleaning, then visitors, then lack of parking...). I'm at 24 weeks and I've got 8 weeks of class, so I think that should work out very well.

The instructor was friendly and took note of my bad wrists by offering me alternate positions throughout class as well as coming over and showing me how to take weight off my hands in certain postures. I came with my own blocks and strap and mat, but all those things and thick blankets were provided. I found her instructions relatively easy to follow and the series of positions themselves good. [The other people in class were quite jealous of my gift certificate.] I still have extremely open (that's flexible and without tension for non-yoga types) hips, which is good from a yoga point of view (and a birth point of view).

I can't do a tree pose. This is where you stand on one foot, hold the other foot high against the inside of your thigh, and put your arms either folded over your heart or spread out. I was the only one who couldn't do it and it made me feel like an inept little fat girl, but I calmly just put my hands over my heart in mountain pose (standing with two feet on the ground) and breathed. The instructor was savvy enough to tell me I could lean against the wall for balance, but there was still an element of "I want to crawl away and hide," fighting against my yoga-centered, "I am embracing me with all my flaws and getting embarrassed over a thirty-second pose is anti-yoga."

Besides, if I could do tree pose and didn't have open hips, I'd probably be worse off for birth than having open hips and not being able to do tree pose. Everyone uses their hips to give birth, but even with all the reading I've been doing, I've never heard of someone delivering a baby standing on one foot. I'll have to ask my midwife this week.

Other problem: fashion. [Boys, this is probably a little too much information for you, even if it is about breasts.] The other people in class have these cute little maternity yoga camis and yoga pants, and I have huge breasts right now that will not be tamed by the cute maternity cami shelf bra. I can't wear a shelf bra normally. Pregnancy has added two (and I'm suspecting recently three) cup sizes to my already ample charms. When your cup size runs beyond letters used in passing report cards, it makes the cute maternity cami impossible and bra shopping in general quite difficult. I have workout maternity clothing angst.

The kid slept through most of yoga and woke up distinctly when a fire engine with sirens wailing went down the street outside: nothing, kick kick kick kick KICK. I put my hand on the kid and thought, "Calm down, it's just a fire truck, you're fine," (which is exactly what I would tell one of our cats who was similarly agitated) and the kicking subsided. Coincidence or mother-baby mind link? I've been reading about babies in the womb who seem to react to their mother's thoughts, the most clear example being babies of smoking moms who get agitated when their moms think about having a cigarette, so it's possible the kid understood me. The kid doesn't always stop kicking now when I put a hand on it, so there's something going on there.

Musing on mousing

Last night I woke up with intense pain in my right arm. This happens when I've been mousing for long periods of time, and I pretty much just used the mouse for 9 hours yesterday with the stupid website file loading debacle. I took a Tylenol, that's how bad it was, and I hate taking anything when I'm pregnant. I really do. I've been trying to give it a rest but I'm right-handed. Estimated pillow count for sleeping this evening: six.

After errands this morning, we ended up at home, me quilting (what a bad aunt) and the Mistah doing taxes. The fluffernutter came and sat in my folded-up, tailor-seated lap at some point and began purring. The kidlet began kicking at the cat, pretty darn hard.

Today's also the day where the Mistah asked me why I was holding my belly as we drove around. "I can feel the kid hitting my sides on the curves," I told him. "It's like sloshing pickles around in a jar." This is the first time the kid's been big enough to do that, so that's why it gets blogged. (The bridge to Coronado was beautiful today: clear, blue, breathtaking view.)

Please let's all remember that it's Friday.

It's been a week here. Work this week sucked - there was just nothing enjoyable about the week at all. Usually I have one little thing that I can say, "Whee, I did this," or "We figured out this," but since I am currently only halfway through uploading the 250 files to the work website that I am reloading because none of the files saved before when I uploaded them, I really have nothing to show for this week but higher blood pressure (which we all know is bad for pregnant ladies).

This has been the first week in a very long time (at least since we moved) that I can remember thinking that I needed to have an honest-to-God drink. And I'm pregnant, darnit. Plus I only drink hard liquor anyway. The most forgiving medical professionals will allow a glass of wine or so for celebration, but I'm sure a nice shot of Southern Comfort is completely out on the Brewer diet.

Toreador! Please don't grope me at the opera.

We went to see Carmen last night, since we were given tickets by friends who could not go due to a scheduling issue. They were really good seats, right on the edge of the upper loge. I haven't been to the opera since I was a teenager, and C had never been. It was just the thing to top off a day of high melodrama. [Thanks to J&T for the tickets and the advice that C not read the synopsis - I think he felt just the supertitling alone was too intrusive.]

The kid maintained a moderate level of activity throughout the performance, in decreasing order of activity: Act I, Act III, Act IV, Act II. [Act II was my least favorite too. The Gypsy dance should make you want to get up out of your chair; nothing really perked up until "Toreador" and that was because a wave of recognition went over the auditorium.] The movements were not quite as violent as they were during the last (bad) musical theater we saw, so hopefully that was approval.

I would also like to note my first "Oh my, you're pregnant," moment with a stranger. At the end of the second intermission, I needed to use the facilities and walk around a bit. As I was making my way down the stairs (which were not super steep but my balance has started to be a bit wonky so I was being cautious), there was an older woman who was leaning against the wall on the stairs. To be fair, throughout the night she seemed to be taking care of a much older woman and she looked at this moment like she was having a breather.

Mistah C (who had been walking on my left) steps ahead of me and down since there wasn't enough room for us to walk two abreast on the stairs with this woman leaning on the railing. I take my right hand off the railing, stepped to the left around the woman (which was not the most graceful movement with the balance issues in heels), and stepped carefully back towards the wall to my right. Once I pass in front of her, she has this panicked look of, "Oh, you're pregnant - and you're wobbly,"and makes a grab at my hand to steady me. Unfortunately, I am just stepping onto the next step down and she grabs my right breast instead.

"Oh, no thank you, that's very kind, I've got it," I say while she's grabbing at me, slip out of grasp and plod down the stairs. While on line for the restroom, the woman sees me and shrinks away, embarrassed. I tried to give her a benevolent smile, but my face might have been frozen into its "Will you be QUIET?" glare. (I do have a good look of death. Itchy woman with the loud pants behind me began a conversation with her neighbor during the start of the third act, and I turned around and glared so hard he stopped mid-sentence.) Honestly, she did mean well so I hope I did manage a forgiving smile at her.

So I apparently looked pregnant or klutzy or both. The poor woman.

Bradley Class #2: Are You Poisoning Your Baby with Pop Tarts?

I will have the verdict on my diet next week, although Jan said, "Not much green veggies, which is pretty normal." There two other women there last week are health food people; one of them told Jan that she only ate organic, free grazing, hormone-free beef and one of them asked for forgiveness for her slice of chocolate cake because "it was from Whole Foods." I fear my Pop Tart is going to come up pretty poorly in comparison, not to mention my Cadbury cream egg.

There was no horror porn in yesterday's class. We talked about nutrition; aside from the protein fixation, you know all this already: green and yellow veggies, fruit, milk, no junk, yadda yadda. I found the movie a little condescending and the characterization of soda, chips and candy as "death and disease" slightly over the top. But I also had a Cadbury cream egg, so I'm reckless. I might even serve this child a cookie someday.

One of the other women in class has been referred to a dietician due to her weight gain. She's due two weeks after me (I'm just about to roll 24 weeks) and she's gained 25 pounds, which the dietician claims might be too much. (She's the one who had one slice of chocolate cake.) She's just a tiny slip of a thing and she loves spinach - Jan was happy about her green veggie intake. (My God, is this how I'm-a-better-Mommy-than-you starts? With the veggies?) She looks fine. But even though her midwife said she was fine, she was looking for some assurance. As outspoken as I am, I just couldn't say, "Hey, I wish I had gained some weight." But she looks great, and as my midwife said, "Everything is normal." I hope she doesn't go to the dietician; he sounds like a fascist.

The portion of class normally reserved for horror porn was used to show us a placenta, an actual, honest-to-God placenta that came out of someone's womb a couple days ago. It was about the size of a dinner plate and a couple inches thick at the most with the umbilical cord still attached, slimy smooth and veiny on the kid side and rather like a chopped beef steak on the mother's. It was still bright red. The instructor gardens (which is one of the reasons why she had a placenta), but Jan thought we should see a placenta since we may be preoccupied with our babies at birth and less interested in the placenta. It was a little much for me, but I'm the one who looks away when Chase, Cameron, and Foreman are doing all the nasty procedures on House. Nobody wanted to touch it.

Tonight we are going to the opera. We'll see if the kid likes high culture more than bad musical theater.

Protein tracking

The Bradley Method is big on nutrition. This means eating enough amounts of the nutrients a growing baby needs, specifically protein (80-100g per week) without regard to weight gain or salt intake. This is based on the work of Dr. Brewer, who found that high protein diets for pregnant woman prevented pre-eclampsia and other nasties. I've had to track my diet for the last week as homework. I am not eating enough veggies (but I knew that), but I have protein covered in spades. Counts for the week are:

Wednesday: 110 g
Thursday: 93 g
Friday: 129 g
Saturday: 70.7 g
Sunday: 85 g
Monday: 101.5 g
Tuesday: (early estimate) 93 g

I'll let you know what my teacher thinks. This made me feel better about my lack of massive weight gain. I already had an unhealthy dose of padding due to my new job of sitting on my butt and not having to go anywhere. First month, I lost five pounds, most probably from my concerted efforts to "eat right" and my sudden aversion to fried food (after all, my first hint that I might be pregnant was eating In-n-Out and feeling sick). I didn't really make it back to my starting weight until the second trimester.

The last couple visits have been up a pound, down a pound. My midwife is not concerned by any of this (if I was vomiting or not eating, she would be). Most of the books say I should be packing on the pounds by now. I have read this week that some overweight women don't gain much due to the changes in diet and exercise, so I'm satisfied with that for right now. I haven't been consciously trying to gain or lose weight; keeping sushi and Brie out of my diet is enough trauma without eating rabbit food and ignoring chocolate.

Tired. Tired. Tired.

Not sleeping is bad. That's what I'm going to say right now. Discovering your antivirus software is out of date and taking three hours to troubleshoot all the spyware on your machine is also bad.

Statistics and weekend updates

The kid has gotten to the constantly active stage. No, that's inaccurate. The kid sleeps when I walk (or I can't tell if it is moving when I walk) but if I'm sitting for any period of time (drive in the car, eating breakfast, resting for a moment on the docent tour of the art museum) the kid bounces around. It actually got a little tiring Saturday morning when we were catching up on our TiVo from being constantly poked and jabbed.

It's gotten a little easier for Mistah Hoovah to feel the baby, but he still has to put his hands so low on me to feel it that I'm not comfortable inviting others to feel it yet. Once the kid's kicking somewhere higher than a bikini line, it'll be fine.

Other news: There's an article in the NY Times I read this morning about the prosecution of midwives in Indiana for attending home births, which had this interesting factoid: 99 percent of all births in this country are in hospitals. That's 99 freaking percent. Of those who deliver in hospitals, 8% are attended by midwives. What about the other 1%? Quoting the Times now: "Two-thirds of the remaining births are in homes, and the last third in freestanding birthing centers."

I feel as stunned as I felt when I heard that only 7% of people in this country with TV have TiVo or DVRs or the like. [This also came from the Times, and I don't know if it includes non-commercial solutions like D&L have or just subscribers to DVR/TiVo services.] It seems like most of the people I know have some form of DVR/TiVo, and it just boggles my mind that more people don't have a DVR. But then maybe we're moving in privileged circles.

3 of 4 couples in our birth class are giving birth at our freestanding birth center, and those are all the pregnant people we know right now. I know that from my research when we were still in Colorado, the nearest freestanding birth center was in Boulder, which was a good 45-minute drive from our house (and caused some minor speculative discussions about what driving to Boulder in labor would be like and what delivering in Hygiene, CO would be like since that is where our damn cars always broke down on the Boulder-Loveland drive). So maybe it's a question of access/availability of birth centers.

But maybe it's just the fear - all the 'what ifs' that Silverstein sung the praises of. Someone in a white coat says, "But you wouldn't want anything to happen to The Baby, would you?" and off you go. I'm not discounting hospitals for people who really need them - if you are high-risk and you need a neo-natal unit there ready to go, then get yourself to the hospital. But until someone tells me I'm high-risk, I'll be in the birth center with the people who just birth babies and will let me stay in one room from the time I check in until the time I go home, aren't interested quite so much in throughput/yield/scheduling, and don't have an OR in the next room.

One of my midwives told me at the last visit to enjoy pregnancy, and I've been thinking on that a lot. Early on, I thought there was something wrong because there was nothing wrong: a little nausea, but no puking; the work-then-nap-then-dinner-then-nap pattern of late November-December; no cravings; no gargantuan belly at this point. There's something messed up when I'm thinking there's something wrong because there's nothing wrong. It's been fun recently to have a little jostling presence to remind me, I'm here and boy, I am a mover and a shaker. Hopefully it'll continue to be fun.