The Talented Mr. E...

He loves bath day (notice daddy holding a diaper in the firing range; Ethan is a pro at the suprise pee attack)...
He sleeps like an angel (for about 45 minutes at a time)...
He ponders the meaning of life (until he gets a bit gassy; then he just fusses)...


What I really want to share with you, but I can't, due to technical limitations and a serious lack of timing, is our favorite thing that Ethan does. We need a video camera and an entire day to roll film, just in case opportunity presents itself in order to bring this to you--it is the SneezeScream and it makes me laugh so hard I think my incision will bust...

We know it's coming when Ethan starts to get a little squinty-eyed and scrunches up his face--we know it's either the SneezeScream or a big old fuss-fest coming on. We pray for the SneezeScream.

After the initial expression, the cartoon-like inhalations start as he gears up for the sneeze. There are usually two or three good "ah-ah-ah"'s before the "CHOOOOO!!!"

And then it happens. A look of complete confusion and the scream. I don't know whether it's fear, indignance or what, but he lets out this seamless, squealing scream right after the sneeze. He doesn't cry; he doesn't fuss. He just lets out one solitary scream as if to say, "HEY!!! WHAT THE HELL IS THAT??? KNOCK THAT CRAP OFF!" And then he's done. Peace is restored until the next sneeze sneaks up on him and rocks his world. Husband and I fall all over ourselves laughing when he does it--it is the funniest thing I have ever seen and heard.

It is the final straw in our decision to buy a video camera. I have to capture that SneezeScream before he figures out that a sneeze is just a sneeze and ceases to punctuate it with the indignant wail of "what the???!!!" I can't bare to think that I might forget this if I don't have it saved forever.

The other "skill" that my son has exhibited is the ability to hiccup, practically on demand, and for seemingly hours on end. And not little dainty, baby hiccups, either. No--I'm talking loud, juicy, hear-them-downstairs-without-the-monitor hiccups. They come out of nowhere and possess his entire little body until I think he is going to just explode. They don't seem to bother him at all, but they make me writhe in agony--I hate having hiccups. But as far as hiccups go, this little man could win awards--and probably not just in the newborn category, either!

Tomorrow we hope to add a new skill to our bag-o-tricks--breastfeeding. The lactation consultant is coming over to tortu--uh, I mean teach us how to get it right. I am so hoping that it works; life will be easier when I can just whip out lunch for the little man without a moment's notice. Right now, with the pumping and storing and re-heating and bottle, it is like preparing a 4 course meal as opposed to pulling up to the drive-thru window...i love a good drive-thru. Wish us luck...

Three weeks & a day...

The funny thing about preemies (or maybe all babies--I only have experience with the preemie kind) is that they are born with all this hair. Not necessarily the hair on their head, although Little Mr. E was born with such a full head of hair at 34w that had he gone to term, he would have been a long-haired hippie freak when he came out.

No, I am talking about the hair that covers my little boy's shoulders and back. Not light wispy hair, like earlobe fuzz or anything like that. Long, full, dark hair. Like he should be on a beach in the South of France, sporting a Speedo and wearing a gold chain & medallion. This image frightens me to no end. When will this newborn Guido hair fall out? I hear my son's first words, "Foggetaboutit" and I cringe. I want to hear "mama", not, "How you doin?"

But Little Mr. E continues to amaze and astound. Aside from being impossibly gorgeous (biased? perhaps), he has the sweetest nature we could hope for. No, he doesn't sleep through the night or giggle while we change his diaper, but he only complains when something in his little world warrants complaining about. He lets mommy & daddy sleep at least a couple of hours at at time and seems to really like anything that vibrates, so the Pack N' Play and Aquarium Bouncy Seat are big hits in our house. At first I worried we were scrambling his little preemie brain, but the pediatrician laughed at me, and I guess he'd know. So buy stock in Duracell; we'll be single-handedly keeping them in business until this little man reaches 20lbs.

As for me, I have been slowly reacquainting myself with the world outside. I've been out to dinner with my best friend, taken money out of the ATM, and gone grocery shopping in the past week. Ah, the romance of all those things I left behind. They'd be a lot more fun if I wasn't in a constant state of achiness from my breasts and my gut. I got about as far as the cereal aisle this afternoon before I really REALLY wanted to just sit down and pay some shmoe to do the rest of my shopping for me. Seriously, I had a well detailed list; anyone could have followed it and met me at the checkout in a matter of minutes. But considering there aren't random volunteer shoppers roaming the aisles of Harris Teeter scoping out those too tired or sore to fill their own carts, I was pretty much on my own. I made it through, but was thrown by the remodelling of the frozen food section--I almost didn't go into that area of the store at all, but I needed frozen mixed veggies. You wouldn't think they'd go remodelling an entire section of the grocery store while I was sitting on my ass for the past five months, but they did. Just to mess with me, I imagine.

When I was first "grounded" by Dr. Dark Cloud, I read an article that said some women on bedrest for long stretches of their pregnancy have a tough time readjusting to life in the "real" world; the article specifically cited every day activities like grocery shopping as becoming overwhelming experiences for some women recovering from bedrest. I thought that was very silly--imagine being afraid of grocery shopping. But this afternoon, when I turned the corner and the frozen food section was different, I definitely had a moment. My cart stopped. I looked around to make sure I was in the right place. The person behind me kept going and bumped into me, making for that fabulously embarrassing "oops, sorry. My bad," moment. I had to actually make the decision to go into the "new and improved" chilly sector of the store. And I was so thrown by the experience I forgot several items on my list that came after the frozen food section. Good lord. I can't imagine what my first trip to the mall will be like.

Of course, part of the distraction is that Ethan is at home. Not with me. Until he gets his 2 month shots, we've been told not to take him to malls, grocery stores, etc. So while I am waiting for the lady in the paper hat to slice my deli meat for me (and this could take HOURS...) I am obsessing about what Ethan is doing. Is he sleeping? Is he gassy? Is it time for him to eat? When did I pump last? How much tummy time did we get in today?

Of course, this is not to say that I didn't thoroughly enjoy grocery shopping--I love driving my car again, I loved being around people and walking around (in spite of the aching) and actually DOING something for my family instead of depending on everyone else to do for me. And after the millionth dirty diaper (okay, I know we're nowhere near that yet--I like to exaggerate), it IS nice to have a moment or two in the day just for me (ugh--I feel guilty even typing that).

And now, it is time for a nap...normally one wouldn't nap at 7:15pm, what with it being so close to "bed time", but in this world I live in now, there is no such thing as bed time, just 2-3 hour increments of time when one isn't feeding or changing a baby. You sleep when you can get it...

Energy burst...

So, it's 10am and so far today I have managed to shower, do a load of dishes, put away two loads of laundry (all right; my mom actually DID the laundry, but if I hadn't put it away, it would still be sitting on the chair downstairs...), made the bed (pulling up the duvet counts, right?), fed the cats, fed the baby and pumped breakfast #3 for little Mr. E. AND I have company coming at 10:30 am.

I fully intend to crash by noon. I was going to go to a breastfeeding support group this afternoon, but considering I am not actually breastfeeding, I'm at a loss as to what kind of support I would get. Next week we are going to introduce Mr. E to the breast and hope that pure chaos and desperation does not ensue. Then I will need a support group (or my own round-the-clock therapist), but today I think napping is probably more important.

stolen moment...

that's pretty much all I have right now while little Mr. E snoozes briefly.

Many things to report. I am happy to announce that I still know how to drive. Clearly not the most important development in the past few weeks, but it is reassuring to know that as incompetence abounds in other areas of my body, my brain is still relatively sharp (if remembering how to drive after 5 months as a passenger qualifies as an IQ test).

Little Mr. E is apparently not looking forward to being called a "4lb, 13oz weakling" on the beach this summer (chicks don't dig the chicken legs, you know), so he has shot up to 5lbs, 3 oz in just one week's time. The pediatrician (hello, cute Jewish doctor who is definitely younger than me--ugh!) was very impressed not only be Ethan's cuteness (I choose to believe his reaction was unique to my baby, not just his regular routine), but also with his growth. He is, according to the dr. "perfect"---we like this doctor. He knows his stuff...

What is NOT perfect is the fabulous gas that Mr. E endures about an hour after every meal. So now, not only did I have to restrict everything I put in my mouth during my pregnancy due to the GD, now I have to cut out anything that might upset the little senor's belly because I will tell you---there is nothing worse than the "I"m in pain" cry, especially when you know it's your milk that did it. I'm telling you, the mommy guilt never ends!

Oh and sleep? Hmmmmm, I have a vague recollection of sound, undisturbed sleep. It is a lovely memory and I hope that sometime within the next few years I will be able to revisit such bliss. Yesterday, I actually rejoiced in a 25 minute nap between 3:15-3:40. Ethan enjoys the sound of his voice, even in sleep. This makes for many "what was that?"and "Is he okay?" moments for mommy and daddy throughout the night. Sometimes I just end up awake and staring at the little man while he sleeps. How can I bare to sleep through his babyhood? I fear I will wake up and he'll be going to college.

And my son, aside from being a good eater, is freakishly strong--at 3 weeks (and 5 weeks early, so really minus 2 weeks!), he is already lifting his head up and looking around during tummy time and exerting his will by wriggling indignantly out of every swaddle we can fashion. It is truly astounding that his father can wrap him so tightly I wonder if the little burrito will be able to even breathe and then---poof! 30 seconds later he is waving his hands and taunting us once again. Unbelievable. We have our work cut out for us...

My work for right now is to try to grab a nap, whether it's for the next 10 minutes or an hour. One never knows what the little man has up his sleeve...

technical difficulties...Ethan's birth story is two entried down...

Sorry--pregnancy brain has turned into new-mommy brain; I seem to be getting dumber as the days go on and posted incorrectly...

oh how I miss the blog...

I have a snippet of time while the little man sleeps on one side of me and the big daddy sleeps on the other...I miss the opportunity to write, but these days I am far more focused on trying to master the art of the swaddle (you need a freaking degree, people!! A degree!!), examining poopy diapers for just the right color/consistency combination and hooking myself up to a fabulously torturous device to literally yank the milk out of me until Ethan has figured out that the Avent bottle isn't actually where his food comes from. One of the joys of preemies is the limited ability to latch on and eat at the boob; hence I spend a good portion of my day with my pal the pump.

But all in all, life is wonderful and blissfully sleep-deprived. Don't forget about me--keep checking in; I will be back!!

And so the adventure really begins...

8:45am, Friday, May 5th. You know that feeling right before you get your period where you're achey and crampy for a few minutes and then---woooooosh?! Well, that's how I woke up, but I was pretty sure, considering I was 34w5d pregnant that I wasn't being visited by Aunt Flo...

Indeed, I was not. I was being initiated into the fabulous world of labor and delivery. And I hadn't even packed the all-important hospital bag yet. As a small ocean poured out of me, my entire focus became that bag--where was my bag? Where was my collection of travel-sized toiletries?? I need my toiletries!!!

That is what was going through my head. Where was my mini bottle of pantene??!! Interesting how your brain shields you from the overwhelming. Like the fact that my cervix was trying to dilate with a big old piece of fishing wire wrapped around it. Oh yeah...there was that.

Which I think is why the contractions started right away. My poor cervix , it was so confused. And, as for the stupid Lamaze DVD lady Husband & I were watching for a couple of weeks before this--she told me I would have hours of "hey, this isn't so bad" type contractions before I started feeling any serious "discomfort". Lying bitch. I hate her and her New York accent.

One of my favorite memories of the day was walking into the entrance of the women's center of the hospital with a giant bath towel wrapped around my waist (how much water is IN there??!!) I must have looked like such a dweeb, especially as the contractions hit while I was registering at the front desk. Yes, people were staring. And nope, I didn't care.

I also loved the fact that Husband double-parked in the entrance and was just as jittery as one would expect to see in a sit-com. He wasn't quite Hugh Grant in "9 Months" (we didn't hit any pedestrians or give anyone a heart attack) but he was still pretty tightly wound.

Let me say one thing about the epidural--i love it. I listened to people for months tell me that I did or didn't need one, that I could deal with the pain, or that I couldn't, that it only got so bad and then plateaued, I could deal, yadda yadda yadda...and yes, had I not had a cerclage holding my cervix closed, I might have made a valiant effort to forge ahead for as long as possible without the assistance of pain meds. But the doctor assessed me and decided that I was not a good candidate for unmedicated cerclage removal...let's just say that when in pain, I am not good at holding still. And a writhing patient is really not the patient you want on your table when you are trying to snip a stitch from a cervix with a pair of scissors. So epidural it was....thank god. And immediately following the removal of the cerclage, I dilated to about 4cms.

I had about 2 hours of pain and then the epidural kicked in. From 11am until 4pm or so, I dilated from 4cm to 9cm without so much as a cramp. Around 9cms, I started to feel pressure. And then it all stopped. No more dilating for me. My cervix, in its infinite incompetence, after trying to dilate for almost 4 months, came to a complete stand-still at 9cms and refused to budge. Not only did it refuse to budge, but the little man, who had been so mischeviously pushing on my cervix for months, now refused to make friends with the cervix and kept floating back on up...are you kidding me, kid???!!!!

To make matters even more fun, Ethan's heart rate decided to yo-yo into dangerous territory and the doctor started in with the "c-section" talk. I don't remember a lot of it--was I freaking out and shutting down or just super mellow? Not sure. But at that point, I just wanted Ethan out, whether it was me pushing or them cutting. I didn't feel frantic, I just wanted to meet him, already!!! Enough with the drama!

And so, c-section it was. Husband, who carried the burden of the panic on his own shoulders, signed the consent form and away we went. My parents had been in the delivery room with me up until that point, apparently taking turns at kicking each others' asses at Texas Hold 'Em over by the window while I napped on and off. I remember saying, "bye" to them and then it was all bright lights and blue paper sheets.

Husband and I had our final, "what are we naming this kid?" conversation to distract me from the surgery. Here's where the boundlessness of my body's incompetence becomes almost comical--turns out the c-section was far more necessary than any of us realized when the decision was first made. My uterus is nearly as incompetent as my cervix. I recall hearing the description, "as thin as wet tissue paper." Ah, the poetry of it all...yes, my uterus was barely doing its job and apparently, had I been allowed to push, it could have been super ugly (haven't really discussed it in detail with the doctor yet, but in my daze I heard the words "could have ruptured" in there somewhere...)

Discussion of the recovery doesn't really merit any space here--recovering from major abdominal surgery sucks and I dont' want to remember it as I look back on the blog in the future.

If I were ever to do this again (don't get me started), I would actually like to pursue the whole idea of the "quiet birth" that was made infamous by Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes and the birth of their daughter, whose name, by the way, does NOT mean "Princess" in Hebrew (um, that would be Sarah, dumb-asses). I say this not because I am considering a conversion to Scientology, but because some of those L&D nurses are LOUD!!!! I had one woman who walked in every 15-20 minutes and yelled in an Asian accent, "YOU FEEL PRESSURE LIKE YOU HAVE TO POOP??!!" Um...in front of my dad. No, lady, I don't feel pressure like I have to poop, but thank you for asking again. And again. I think the idea of just shutting up and letting the woman "be" is a pretty nice idea. I found the experience to be very relaxing (pre-c-section)when I wasn't being yelled at by some crazy nurse about the state of my bowels.

The other thing I noticed about the nurses is that all of them seem to have taken, and passed with flying colors, a "How to Distract the Patient from the Current Situation" course in their education. Every single nurse from triage to the OR and recovery said to me, "Wow, what a lovely manicure you have!" EVERY SINGLE ONE. And honestly, it wasn't that great of a manicure, for god's sake; I did it myself!! By the time I got up to my room on the baby floor, I could almost see the nurses scanning me for something innocuous to pleasantly comment on (I haven't had a haircut since December, so it wasn't going to be that!). Very bizarre.

So now, here he is. Little Mr. Ethan, after 9 hours of pretty mellow labor and one rocking c-section, made his way into the world, kicking and screaming, all 8& 9s on his apgars. We spent 8 days in the NICU, being the big old bruiser on the block. Compared to some of the little peanuts in there, Ethan looked like a linebacker at 4lbs, 13oz, which was reassuring to us, but it also made going to the NICU difficult and made me sad for other parents. I cannot begin to express my gratitude to the universe that I got to 34w.

Little Senor update...

Little Senor and Big Daddy's hand. Pay no mind to the little white velcro pads on the side of his head; they are to hold his "Joe Cool" sun glasses while he hangs out under the phototherapy lights getting un-yellowified.




The aforementioned "Joe Cool" glasses--I really need to bring those fashion statements home with us for the old scrapbook. He actually loves them--he claims they help him get a good night's sleep, the diva....


While I am really looking forward to writing the mother of all birth stories, I am dividing my time between sleeping through the "discomfort", pumping milk and driving back and forth to the NICU to visit the little senor (he was born on Cinco de Mayo, after all....)

So instead of the great American novel of childbirth (stay tuned--there is more fabulous irony from the woman of unflinching incompetence...), I will simply let you know that the baby is doing great! He is still in the NICU, but has moved from the "not so healthy" baby room to the "much healthier" baby room. He was eating and breathing on his own from the get-go, only needed help regulating his body temp for a day or two and has a touch of jaundice. His numbers are going down every day, though, so they are talking about sending him home sometime within the next few days. He just has to get through a day outside the isolette without the phototherapy lights and then pass the carseat test--piece of cake!! :-)

To tide you over, here are some pictures of the little guy--fear not the wires and all that hullabaloo; they aren't in him, just on him, monitoring his breathing and whatnot. Of course, I wanted the pictures down here instead of at the top, but I still don't know how to do that and have no time to learn now...back to sleep for me.

Friday was interesting...

Considering I had a baby. :-)

My water broke at 8:45am. Hmmm...nothing like waking up from a dead sleep to dash to the bathroom with warm water rushing out of your body. Scared the hell out of the cats, I can assure.

The story is long and I'm exhausted, what with the major abdominal surgery and all. When I am feeling less overwhelmed, I will tell you the whole story from start to finish. Suffice it to say that Ethan Jacob, formerly known as Peapod, came into this world, kicking and screaming at 5:24 on Cinco de Mayo. Mom and baby are doing quite well--him moreso than me, I think! He's in the NICU, but he's regulating his own temperature and eating on his own, for the most part. I, on the other hand, am very whiney and busy experimenting with a variety of drug cocktails to alleviate some of "sting" involved with a c-section...

Okay--must pump & sleep...

What is the world coming to?

I am shaking my head in disgust at the world today. As I lounged in bed this morning watching Regis & Kelly (I lead a life of tremendous importance and dignity), I learned that Judge freaking Judy has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Now, as cultural and/or historical landmarks go, the Walk of Fame is perhaps the least significant and shallowest of them all (hello, Gettysburg, Mont Vernon, even Graceland (maybe) rank way higher in importance), but has Judge Judy REALLY done anything to merit that honor?

She yells at yokels about how stupid they are for lending their toothless roommate a clunker of a car after the roommate drives it into a lake. She says "witty" things like, "Don't pee on my leg & tell me it's raining". Is this talent? Is this icon-making material? Do we, as a culture, really want to immortalize Judge Judy? Am I going to take my son to Hollywood one day, point at her star & say, "This is Judge Judy, honey. She yelled at dumb-asses,"?

She said in her interview that she had hoped to have her star somewhere near Sidney Poitier's. Sidney Freaking Poitier!?! I can't stop shaking my head. Its as if my little 5 lbs, 12 year old kitty just turned to me and said, "You know, I think I'd like to move out of this dump, head to the jungle and run with the big cats"...Aside from the fact that in that scenario my cat starts speaking to me, it's just ABSURD. Sidney Poitier??? Did she SEE, "To Sir, With Love"?! He makes no analogies to pee and rain in that movie...

I always thought that the Hollywood Walk of Fame was reserved for our legends--our Katherine Hepburns and our Gregory Pecks; people who made Hollywood a respectable, iconic mecca of talent as opposed to the sess-pool of "white-trash made good" that it is today. Or at least today's Walk of Fame stars should have contributed in some way to----uh, HOLLYWOOD. Your Julia Robertses and your Tom Cruises (before he went insane), or your Charlize Therons (just for ability to ugly it up when the role calls for it!) At this rate, they're going to give Lindsay Lohan a star for "Herby--Fully Loaded". How can I bring a child into a world where Lindsay Lohan gets a star for "Herby--Fully Loaded"??!!! Oh yeah, and where you need to refinance your house to fill your gas tank, there's terrorism, mad cow disease, bird flu, war, unchecked genocide & a president who says, "nucular" instead of "nuclear"? These things concern me, too.

Speaking of the little man--he is fixing to bust out of me in whatever manner possible. I don't think he's received any formal training yet on the whole, "you leave via the birth canal" tradition and is currently testing out the idea of coming out through my side, just under a rib, or burrowing his way out via my butt. The side exit seems pretty obvious--he likes to kick and punch and he's really strong. I'm not entirely convinced that at some point, I won't look down after a vigorous punch and find a teeny little fist sticking out of my body. And my burrowing through the butt theory is due to the fact that my tailbone feels like it is slowly being cracked in half, as though somehow the little guy smuggled in a chisel and is hammering away in there at this pesky piece of bone that is keeping him from the outside world. I particularly like it when the pain radiates up my entire back and down my thighs--that's a party. Thanks, kid.

I am also taking a lot of grief from my belly button these days. Apparently, prior to pregnancy, it went all the way to China because it has yet to pop out at almost 35 weeks. However, I have started to notice that it's on its last "legs" so to speak, in the "innie" department. That really isn't a big deal to me, cosmetically speaking. I have no deep connection to my innie, nor am I losing any sleep at the thought that if it pops out, it might never go back in. Please, I'm losing sleep over about a million other things right now--this doesn't even rank.

What is unexpectedly disconcerting about the shallowing out and disappearance of the belly button is that all the skin around it now has previously been sheltered from the harsh world outside my belly button by being IN my belly button. What they don't tell you is that all that skin is very sensitive and not at all happy about being rubbed by the fabric of your clothes or the constant finger poking by your husband who thinks it's "so cute" to try to push that little bit at the bottom back in. No, friends, my belly button is not happy. And if my belly button's not happy, then in some small way, I'm not happy...because it's always a bit achey and nagging.

Today the chauffeurs will escort me to another growth scan of the baby (perhaps I will be able to catch him red-handed in the act of demolishing my tailbone with his little chisel). My fingers are crossed that he has cornered 5lbs at this point, since that seems to be the 'magic NICU' number. Of course, I am also hoping that he's not pushing 8 lbs or anything obscene like that. Monday is the big meeting with Dr. Dark Cloud to discuss the removal of the old cerclage and the "planning" of....gulp, labor. I feel like from here on in, my life is going to become a blur. Hopefully a very happy, happy blur. Thank goodness I took the opportunity to bitch about Judge Judy while I still have the chance...

The Week in Review...

So I haven't posted for awhile because I've been out bungee jumping and mountain climbing. Ha ha.

Actually, last Friday I started this long rambling entry about leaving my career behind and how it is changing my sense of myself and whether that's for the better or not, considering the abruptness with which it all took place. It got long, convoluted and pretty pointless by the end, even though I tried to re-work it two or three times. The thing is, it can all be summed up in one sentence: I don't miss working & I don't think that makes me a bad person. Judge me if you must. Ahh, that was easy.

Now I have some random highlights from the past several days.

My "research" in life as a quasi-handicapped person continued on Saturday morning as Husband took over the role of wheel-chair pusher and, as anticipated, did exactly the same thing my mother did just days before as she wheeled me around Babies R Us. We went to a baby specialty store to peruse the over-priced crib options available to us. It was fine while we were in the furniture showroom, amidst a 100 little nursery set ups--everything was right there and easy to see, what with my spectacular periphery vision. It was when we went through the aisles of sheets and bottles and clothing that I noticed it. Husband pushed me two feet farther than anything I wanted to see. It truly is a phenomenon of perspective. Again, no fault of his; just the effect of not realizing that someone in a wheelchair is just a bit ahead of & below you.

Anyway, in spite of my having to crane my head to see anything of interest, we did indeed pick out a reasonably priced crib made of something other than cardboard and duct-tape (which is what you are basically getting unless you cough up the serious dough). And news of news, it was in stock and slated to be delivered a week from today!!! No waiting for months for our fancy Italian crib to cross the ocean and sit, rotting on a dock in customs! No sir; it was just sitting in their warehouse waiting to be picked.

The other joy of Saturday was that, sorry Mom, I snuck out to dinner with friends. I had no intention of doing so; I was actually pretty tired by mid-afternoon. But after lounging for several hours in bed, I felt refreshed enough to have Husband drop me at the door of a restaurant about a mile from our house, and while he went to park, my other pregnant friend and I schemed a way to get seated more quickly---

I went to the maitre d, rubbing my belly and asking how much longer for a table for 6. The man was made of stone, people. My gigantic pregnant belly and weary look did nothing to melt his stern and fair seating plan. Damn him. I haven't had a chance to get seats on subways or adoring little "ah, the circle of life" looks from strangers in the store--I wanted an opportunity to get some mileage out of this bump before it's gone! Alas, we waited for about 25 minutes on bar stools until they seated us at a table that, I swear, had the most uncomfortable chairs I have ever encountered in my life.

Is my ass so spoiled after fifteen weeks in my bed that it can't abide a regular restaurant chair? The answer to that question, my friends, is "yes". I now possess a very particular derrier.

Truth be told, I noticed it on my first foray back into the caffeine mecca that is my local Starbucks. What once was the joy of sipping coffee, filling in the crossword puzzle and lazy people-watching became an aching guanlet of "ouch, my butt!" and "ooooh, that hurts" as I shifted in the cold, unforgiving wooden seats I had never so much as noticed before. And it's not because of the baby or because I should get back into bed and need my rest, yadda, yadda, yadda. It's because I now have a snobby, prima donna butt....

I can see myself now--a la Joan Crawford, "I said NO WOODEN CHAIRS!!!!!"....really, though. They are evil and uncomfortable. Think about it the next time you sit down in one. Wouldn't you rather be on a cushion?

Cranky, sore butt aside, dinner out was lovely and well worth it. To sit among people in a normal setting and have a regular old conversation about something besides my cervix was just fantastic. It's so nice to know I'm capable of being social still. I have had nightmares during the past 15 weeks about turning into wacky recluse woman who speaks in broken sentences and points at things as a primary form of communication.

On Sunday, Husband ripped the built in bookshelves out of our guest room to make room for baby's bureau/changing table. I swear, the people who lived here before us had a love affair with built-ins the likes of which this world has never seen before. They are in the basement, they were in the livingroom, they were in our bedroom AND they were in the guest room/nursery. Gladly now, with Husband's handiwork, they are only in the basement at this point.

Not that I can't appreciate a good built-in bookshelf--I dream of a living room that looks like a library (even one of those groovy ladders would be cool). But these were, let's say, one step below Trading Spaces built-ins; thrown together in 24 hours and installed by morons.

My staff of personal shoppers, chefs, chauffeurs, house keepers and contractors have also been busy this week. They prefer I just call them "Mom" & "Dad". Thanks to them, tonight's dinner is already made, the grocery shopping is done, the laundry is clean, and the nursery is painted the most precious green and light yellow. Tomorrow they will be driving me all around town (okay, to Target and Babies R Us), so I can take care of some last minute purchasing. I say last minute because even though I am only 34w, the doctors have told me that anytime after 35w is a possibility.

That about catches us up; athough I am haunted by a dream I had on Sunday night. There's not a lot of sleeping going on here, as Husband & I seem to be locked in an unconscious battle of wills with the snoring. While he snores, I am awake, grimacing and sighing. Apparently at some point, I manage to fall asleep, commence with the crazy pregnant lady snoring and wake him up...it's funny to laugh about in the morning, but it makes for a pretty miserable night.

But anyway, I dreamt that I fit into my pre-pregnancy jeans only days after giving birth. Sigh. What are the chances? It is occurring to me that I will only be pregnant for another blink of the eye and then all eyes, when they aren't staring adoringly at my child, will be focused on how fast I can get my body back into a shape that looks anything other than "marshmallow-y"....ugh. I hope breastfeeding is the diet plan it promises to be....

One of everything, please...

So today my mother pushed her invalid daughter (that would be me) around the local Babies R Us in a wheelchair for about an hour. Her application for sainthood should be arriving in the mail any day now (Do they cannonize Jews? No? Oh well...) After my shower on Sunday, I was thrilled to realize that there still plenty things on my registry that I could go out and purchase myself (no sarcasm there--I was bummed out by the prospect of getting everything on my list and having no excuse to roam the aisles of the baby mecca myself).

Between breakfast and snack (ah, the life of the diabetic), I made my escape. I even slapped on a fresh face of makeup, because let's face it, after 105 days in bed, shopping for breast pads is a luxurious treat worthy of foundation, blush, mascara and a kicky lipstick.

Before I even get to the store, let me say how fabulous it is to step outside into spring and feel normal enough to say, "Gosh, Husband really needs to mow the lawn." Or, "Neat, somebody returned our recycling bin!" (who temporarily absconds with a recycling bin and then returns it under cover of the night? And what where they doing with it when they had it? I shudder to think...) I am in love with spring and the fluffy white dandelions choking our "lawn". I'm glad my front porch is inanimate and therefore incapable of suffering from allergies, because the layer of golden pollen on our red concrete is about 2 inches thick and I know I'm not getting out there to sweep anytime soon...

Let me say this about the whole wheelchair experience--while I am eternally grateful for the full use of my lower extemities and would never wish to rely on a wheelchair for mobility, it truly kicks ass to be wheeled around a big old store like Babies R Us. I've grown quite fond of allowing someone else to push me from one place to another (if you recall, I truly enjoyed my wheelchair trips in the hospital to an almost amusement-park like extent).

Although, I felt badly for my mom; I was a bit snippety about where she stopped me (mid-aisle, faced away from products, two feet past something I wanted to see, etc.) but it occurred to me--if you're not the person in the chair, it's really hard to get the perspective of the person in the chair. I felt like Tyra Banks putting on the "fat suit" and going out into public to do an expose on what it's like to be obese. Only in this case I was faking paralysis, not being fat----I AM fat, no need to fake that one, sister!

We printed up my registry so I'd have some idea of what I still "needed." Let's be clear about this--what I "need" is some diapers and a boob. End of story. Baby would survive quite nicely with just those accomodations, thank you very much. BUT, how do you resist the lambie mobile for his crib or the tiny boppy pillow for "tummy time"? How could I roll on past the multi-pak of hooded bath towels when I only received a quarter of a million of them at my shower??!!! It can't be done. And of course, baby needs at least one bib for every color of the rainbow and bottles with every conceivable type of nipple for seemingly every day of development. Sheets for the crib mattress we have yet to purchase. Closet organizers for the towels and blankets and clothes. These things mysteriously jumped into the mini-cart attached to my two-wheeler hot rod.

Truly, the only thing that brought our little spree to a close was the fact that we ran out of room in the tiny little cart that was attached to my chair. That seemed entirely unfair. Other women were strolling the store with their full-sized carts and they got to spend way more money than I did, just on volume alone! This would definitely be part of my "expose" on having to shop in a wheelchair...spending power discrimination. Believe me, after almost four months in bed, I was ready to spend!!! My piggy bank is spilling over with change right now and I wanted to give it all to Babies R Us...but as soon as we had to start setting things in my lap, mom called our aisle-hopping to an end. Sadly, I had to concur, because I was going to have to start holding things between my teeth otherwise (oh, and because she was pushing me around and with the cart full, I was incredibly trapped--I couldn't just get out and run away from her!)

So then we drove home and I was ordered back to bed while she unloaded the loot and stacked it neatly somewhere downstairs. Later on, when no one is looking, I am going to sneak downstairs and ohhh & ahhh at it all again.

I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings...

Now that I am allowed the occassional taste of freedom, I find myself that much more...irritable, we'll say, when I am confined to my bed. Mind you, if the pseudo-medical professionals in my life (read: mother and husband) had their druthers, I would still be on round-the-clock supervised bedrest (envision armed guards and the like).

So far, I have ventured to Target (as described in a previous post), Starbucks (ahhhhhhh...) and the airport, to pick up Jennifer who came up for my shower (didn't even get out of the car for that one). I have also seen the downstairs of my home daily since last Thursday. In a few hours from now, Husband & I will be leaving the house to interview a potential pediatrician for the little man. Every day is an adventure!

A quick word about my shower--it was magnificent! I rebelled against all things bedrest and diabetes related and somehow managed to keep the baby in my uterus. Imagine that. I even indulged in a hunk of chocolate cake that should have sent me into the glucose stratosphere, but it did not---two hours later, I got a 113 reading; better than after your average tuna sandwich. Go figure. I guess the glucose-gods were smiling on me Sunday afternoon. In addition to the good fortune of tolerating tasty food, I did not turn into the socially-incompetent freak I feared I would, not having been around that many people in so long. I think I held my own.

I want to post a picture of myself looking all fat & happy at my shower, but for some reason, I can only get the picture to post at the top of the page and that's not what I want...so, you'll have to use your imagination. And in your imagination, please picture me as all belly & only 15 pounds above my original pre-pregnancy weight. We'll all be happier that way.

A few days ago, my pregnancy soul-mate, Amy (see Spreng Bling Bling), "tagged me" for a "meme." Being the blogger virgin I am, it took me awhile to figure out that means I have to share things about myself that are not immediately evident through reading my blog...in her blog, she did 6, so that's what I'm going to do, although I have no idea if that number is a requirement or not. (Damn it, I should be more blog-savvy!!!)

SIX THINGS YOU MIGHT NOT KNOW ABOUT ME...

1. I have a psychological twin. I met my friend Karen back in my junior year of college, during my semester in London. We went to the same school for undergrad, but lived in different dorms, had different majors, so we never met until we were 1000's of miles away from home. It became quickly apparent that although we don't look the same, sound the same or act the same, our psychological make-up was, almost eerily, identical. The exact same things made us happy, angry, miserable, hysterical. We can anticipate how the other will handle a certain situation, almost down to the word, because we would have the exact same reaction. We even went so far as to marry men who are practically the psychological twin of each other...it never ceases to amaze me.

2. I am an English teacher who sucks at Scrabble. I cannot win a game of scrabble. Against anyone. An illiterate monkey (is that redundant?) could kick my scrabble-impaired ass into next week with nothing but a smattering of X's and J's at his disposal. Of course, I rarely have the chance to compete against said monkey. Usually, I am whipped senseless at the hands of my own father, who isn't happy unless he beats me by at least 100 points.

Actually, that's not fair at all; he's been known to offer me advice and free turns. I still lose. He even traded his high point letters with me once, and instead of waiting for a good chance at a triple word score with the W & the X, I wrote "waxy" on regular old no-extra-point squares. I am a disgrace. I comfort myself with the idea that it's stategy and luck I lack, not a basic handle on the English language. I can explicate Shakespeare, damn it!! Certainly I must know some big words!!! *hanging head in shame*

3. I wanted to be a massage therapist. Or a yoga instructor. A few years ago, after teaching for two years at a high-stress, high-pressure private school where students and teachers alike were known to have nervous breakdowns and parents were known to buy their students' grades, I decided it was time for me to get out of "the biz". I was so tired and stressed out from teaching that I couldn't bear the thought of standing in front of a class for one more day. I developed a fascination with becoming a massage therapist, did all the research on schools in my area, even interviewed at one. I envisioned opening up a wellness center with massage therapy and yoga classes (I took yoga for years & was signed up for a pre-natal yoga class which was to start the day I ended up being sent to bed for good)

Then I got scared. Teaching, while it will never make me rich, paid well and provided great benefits and stability. I decided to keep teaching. But far, far away from that snooty, pretentious awful school. But you never know...perhaps I only need one post-natal yoga class to shift my perspective again. Here's hoping...

4. Going apple-picking in the fall is one of my favorite things ever. It's a little "Laura Ingalls Wilder" of me, I know. But there is something about driving out to the country on a crisp fall day, walking through the orchard with the bag-o-apples in my hand, dodging bumble bees and climbing into the trees to get the biggest apples that just makes me to-the-core (no pun intended) HAPPY. Poor husband has been subjected to this two years in a row (yes, I kept it a secret until I knew I had him hooked). He seems to enjoy it, too, but it might be an act, or he might just like seeing me childishly giddy for a few hours.

I do next to nothing with these apples--I don't create culinary delights of any kind. I honestly don't know what to do with an apple. Once, in college, I thought I was making an apple pie, but I ended up with something more akin to apple/cinnamon stew in a soggy graham cracker crust. Now, they sit on our dining room table in a lovely bowl & we eat them until they rot. It's not the apples I love---its the picking them!

5. I drove across country in '98. My pscyhological twin and I (the aforementioned Karen), hopped in my teal Toyota Corolla the Monday after the 4th of July and drove from Cape Cod, Mass., to San Francisco, CA and back again. It took us almost 7 weeks, and it was 7 of the best weeks of my life. We camped under the stars in the Bad Lands, YellowStone Nat'l Park, and Santa Fe. We lived it up in San Fran, Vegas and New Orleans. We slept in a rest area in South Dakota, and we had to stop 1/2 way through Kansas because we were too hung over to drive a mile further. We rode horses in Wyoming and saw a real live cowboy in New Mexico. We sat in our car for over an hour while a "traffic jam" of bison crossed the road and we pulled over to watch three little bear cubs eat berries on the side of the road. We drank wine in Napa & Sonoma. We drank one of everything in the French Quarter. I don' think we ever got lost.

6. I have no "poker face". I cannot hide an emotion. Husband has informed me of this on many occassions. I think I am doing an impeccable job of hiding my irritation or annoyance at someone or something, but apparently I have "ugh--I hate you/this" written all over my face. I have no idea how I am so disconnected from my facial expressions, but it is something I have been working on. I would hate for everyone to know when I am annoyed at every little thing---that's so intimate. I like to think that perhaps Husband just knows me so well he's the only one who can see it.

But since I've been made aware of it, I sometimes can catch myself in a frowny, furrowed-brow "are you kidding me????" expression and realize, alas, he is not speaking just for himself, but for the entire seeing world.


So that's it; my "meme". I would be tagging Becci next, but Amy got greedy and tagged her, too! :-) I don't know of any other bloggers who read my blog on a regular enough basis for a tag to do anything but gather dust and sound like tumble-weed blowing around out in cyber-space...

Let the Learnin' Begin!!!

Or continue, as the case may be. My friends often tease me that when this pregnancy is all said and done and someday I decide to rejoin the working world, I really should consider being involved in some way with the world of high risk pregnancy. Not sure what a girl with my background (English education) is going to be able to add to that particular arena, but I DO understand all the fancy terms....quiz me. Ask me what a Fetal Fibronectin test does.

Within the past week I decided it was time to dig into the nitty gritty of childbirth and breastfeeding. I hit 33 weeks this Sunday and Dr. Dark Cloud said anytime after 35 weeks was a "go", so I figured I couldn't put it off any longer. As you might remember from my entry, "Lactating, Lamazzing and Lovin' It", I ordered a DVD on Lamaze and was fortunate enough to have a lactation consultant send me her course via powerpoint/DVD.

First stop---breastfeeding power point. Holy moly, there were a LOT of boobs in those slides. Not to sound like a 12 year old boy, but I would be lying if I said I didn't giggle a little when I first started watching. Two thousand slides of breasts aren't something you're exposed to every day (unless you look at a lot of internet porn, but these were NOT your standard porn-boobs) But it's important to know what "good" breastfeeding boobs look like (thankfully, I possess two such gems), and what the proper latch looks like, etc., so all boob shots were entirely necessary & not simply for entertainment value.

So there I sat with my computer and my notebook, diligently taking notes on how to breastfeed and all associated information. I learned all the different "holds"--my personal favorite being the "football" hold---this will be a Sunday and Monday night standard in our house during the fall and winter.

After two and half pages of notes and countless slides, all I need now is the baby, and his 140 degree latch.

Next stop--the stupid Lamaze lady and her smiley face belly DVD. Tons of good information once you get past the "introductions" of the 4 couples she finnagled into "starring" in her DVD. I don't know who these people were, but she went around the room and asked each person, "Why are you here?" Husband and I listened to each of them explain, in different words, "um....to learn how to have a baby." Really--when you sign up for a Lamaze class, is there much question as to WHY you are there? I don't think it's for the juice and cookies.

The woman is clearly a frustrated stand up comedienne and everyone knows there's nothing funnier than childbirth---in the first lesson she insinuated that she would be "discussing" the likelihood of pooping on the delivery table in a later lesson. I can't wait for her hilarious take on that mortifying humiliation. Should be a hoot...

Husband and I looked at her charts and graphs, listened to her explain the anatomy of the woman's reproductive system (duh) & the six signs of impending labor (some are quite icky--can hardly wait!!) We are now experts at effacement, stations, dilation, Braxton Hicks, etc, and that was just the first 3o minutes. Next we will be watching "The Beginning of Labor"--I can only imagine what fabulous one-liners she'll have for us in that lesson.

For a girl who hasn't left her bed for almost 100 days, I'm thinking I'm pretty "academically" well-informed and well-prepared for this. All I need is a few hours of cardio kickboxing to prepare my body for the actual labor...

Free at last!!! Free at last....

well, sort of. I am, relatively speaking, "free". Yesterday I would have described myself as being on "strict bedrest" and today, I am magically just on "bedrest". Ahhhhhhhh, how I love getting rid of the word "strict".

Today the nice doctor told me that I can go out (yes, leave the house!!!!!!) a couple of times a week and that I am free (there's that word again...so pretty) to move around the house a bit more. I'm not to take up jogging or anything like that & I have to check my blood pressure after any activity to ensure that going from 0-25mph doesn't send me into a pre-eclamptic frenzy. That seems fair to me---I can comply with that. Thank you, nice doctor!!!

First stop---Target. I needed something to wear--the last item of clothing I bought was in January; you can't wear a sweater in DC in late April--unless you want to sweat and be smelly. So I needed a bit of Liz Lange to get me through the last few weeks of this chapter in my life. I knew I was going to be wheelchair-ing it, but I had no idea what was in store for me...

Repeat after me: Motorized, sit-down shopping cart. Oh yeah--I highly recommend it. After I got over the feeling that I should be wearing a sign around my neck that said, "I'm not lazy, but my cervix is!!!" so that people wouldn't judge me for being a fat, lazy bum, it was really fun to zip around the aisles.

Of course, there was one huge draw-back to the cart. Much like a giant truck, it makes a deafening "beep beep beep" noise when you back it up. As if I wasn't already aware of the size of my ever-expanding body, that "watch out!!! watch out!!! fat lady coming through!!!!!" warning really felt goooooooood. Because nothing boosts self-esteem like the knowledge that your hulking form in the aisles of Target poses the danger equivalent to a 2-ton truck on the road...yeah. That's great. Thanks.

But I did get some clothes for me and a few things for the little man. It was brilliant. I never would have thought a trip to Target would feel so fulfilling--and next time I'm going to make a list....I will be unstoppable!!!

I am already planning outtings for the next couple of weeks. Babies R Us, a manicure (dare I dream???!!!!), Starbucks (brings tears to my eyes just thinking of it!!!!) and of course, the back yard.

Husband and the parents aren't entirely thrilled with this new development. They're happy for me, I'm sure, but fretting. It's like I'm a baby who's suddenly learned to walk and now they are going to have to chase after me, making sure I don't fall and bump my head. It was easier when I was stationary and safe and easy to keep track of....I'm sure. I feel for them, I really do. The next few weeks might be a bit of challenge for them. Sarah's on the loose!

An Open Letter to My Placenta...

Dear Placenta,

First of all, let me start by saying I appreciate you and all you do. You've got a round-the-clock job and you've been an incredibly hard worker these past several months. Words can't express my gratitude for taking such good care of the little man.

However, since you've seen fit to afflict me with gestational diabetes, I have one minor little request that I think might make life easier for both of us. Could you maybe COOL IT on the hormones a bit? You wouldn't have to work as hard, and I could eat the same meal more than once without my blood sugar levels being totally out of whack from one time to the next. When you look at it that way, we both win.

Really--what is it about having a tuna sandwich one day and getting a 102, then having it a week later and getting a 130? Not very consistent performance, Placenta, now is it? I would appreciate a little more clarity in the Do's and Don'ts, and you keep changing the rules on me. Not very thoughtful of you, really. Do you WANT me to have to go on insulin all day? Isn't it enough that you kick my pancreas to the curb every night? Do we really need to make it a day time issue, too?

We have a few more weeks to get along, you and I. For the sake of the little man, could you try to tone it down on your insulin-blocking hormones? It seems you are thus far shielding the little man from the affects of your little feud with my pancreas, and I do appreciate that, but it is difficult for me to play a positive role in all of this if you keep flip flopping on what I can eat and what I can't.

Soon enough, we will be out of eachothers' lives forever. Perhaps you are feeling a bit smug because right now you hold all the cards. I hate to be threatening and I didn't want it to come to this, but keep in mind that after the little man is born, you are going to end up in a big old red bag marked "medical waste". And then the baby and I, we'll be eating whatever we want.

Sincerely,
Sarah

Getting itchy....

This is the one where I freak out my parents when I say that I am seriously battling urges to get up out of bed, do a couple loads of laundry, walk around the block, go shopping, drive myself to Starbucks for a giant caffeinated, sugary beverage and try a couple of cartwheels in the backyard...

All of the latent rebelling that I DIDN'T do as a teenager (you've never seen such a goodie-goodie) is starting to chip away at my resolve to be the good bedrester. I have been in bed for 13 and a half weeks at this point and I'm not sure how much more "resting" I have in me.

My shower is this Sunday and I have already announced to anyone who will listen to me that I AM going to be spending most of the day downstairs, on the couch, out of bed, and I AM going to eat whatever I want, at least during the few hours I am being social. Part of me feels guilty and bad mother-ish for that declaration, but one afternoon, when weighed against the past 98 days during which I have been so good, really isn't that big of a deal (as long as I don't go into labor at 4pm on Sunday...)

Truly, I don't know how much more of the whole 45 degree angle crap I can take. The more they allow me up for doctor's appointments and the like, the less I understand why I'm not allowed to sit on the damn couch, either in my house or at a friend's house. It's still sitting!!!!

My fingers are crossed that the doctor is going to start loosening the chains after this Thursday's appointments. Even my hyper-cautious, nervous nelly perinatologist (who I have avoided like the plague since getting out of the hospital) told me that by 32 weeks they would start loosening their vice-like grip on me. Well, I'll be almost 33 weeks by Thursday. Something's gotta give.

Happy Freakin' Nesting...

A sure sign that husband & I reside in the 'burbs is who inhabits the abandoned house next door to us.

When we first thought of entering the bittersweet world of home ownership, we dared to dream big and imagine we could afford a house or condo inside the city. When we awoke from our fantasy, we realized that one could only afford to live within the city limits if one :
a.) had bought their home while husband and I were still in diapers
b.) didn't mind living next door to a crack house, or
c.) was a rich, gay man, combining one's income with another rich gay man.

Husband and I meet none of these criteria, so we packed up our bags, and with our combined salaries that in other parts of the country would buy us 5 acres of land and a 4 bedroom McMansion, we purchased one side of a quaint little 2-bedroom duplex just outside the city.

Our neighborhood is in "transition". That means we spent a shitload of money on a house in a neighborhood that 5-10 years ago, no one wanted to live in. It means that 1/2 the houses are owned by young, yuppy-esque types like husband and I, with our stainless steel and granite kitchens and our Crate & Barrell, and the other 1/2 are owned by people pushing 100 years old who haven't been outside of their homes since the '80's and whose kitchen appliances are still of the avocado and marigold variety. It's pretty easy to tell, just by looking, which houses belong to whom.

The house next to us is the stuff that childrens' fantasy novels are made of. It is old, brick, boarded up on the ground floor, and broken-windowed on the top floors. It wouldn't surprise me one bit if someday, Boo Radley walked out the front door. Husband and I turned up our noses when we first saw it right next to our potential new home, but the truth is, we couldn't bear to lose another bid and figured, "what the hell--at least the neighbors won't disturb us"....so we bought it.

It didn't take us long to realize that the abandoned house (still owned by some fool who keeps paying the taxes on it, so it can't be auctioned off or anything like that), is actually occupied. Not by way-ward homeless (they stay mostly inside the city, although I have seen a few "regulars" in our Starbucks) or by tweekers seeking a new location for their lucrative meth lab (also more of a city phenomenon--the previous owners of our house had the city board up the downstairs to discourage that sort of industrious, but deadly behavior).

No, the house next door is occupied by an entire village of squatter squirrels. They run across our roof, jump into the tree separating our houses and then scurry into the broken attic window of the house next door. I can only imagine what the scene is in there---it must be a veritable garden of Eden for those little critters. It's a 3 story home, for cripe's sake; a whole world by squirrel standards!!! I shudder to think of what will happen someday when this house does get put back on the market. I hope we've moved on by then, as I imagine the equipment required to gut a home is big and noisy. Besides, I don't want to see "squirrel eviction day". Imagine the carnage...

Generally, our squirrel neighbors wouldn't really be blog-noteworthy, but as it is spring, and I think there must be many, many baby squirrels just making their way into the world inside that house, I have noticed a flurry of activity outside my window. For the past 3 or 4 days, one little male squirrel in particular has been defying gravity and flinging himself all around the tree branches that are just now starting to bud in a herculean effort to gather leaves and twigs for a nest. Ah, the beauty of nature. Ah, the mockery of it all....

Yes, that's right. Not only am I forced to watch spring from the confines of my bed, now I have to watch a daddy squirrel (I know it's a "he"; the branches are very close to our window and he's pretty shameless when he's dangling from a limb) "nesting". At first I thought, "Oh, how sweet" and all that "circle of life" crap. Then I realized, "hey--that's what I want to be doing!!!" Of course, I don't want to be dangling 25 feet up by my toes or anything, but I DO want to be preparing for the arrival of my baby, making him a lovely little "nest" and whatnot. But of course, I have the cervix of incomparable incompetence, and so here I sit...forced to watch this little rodent mock me with his industrious zeal, creating the perfect little home for his baby squirrel.

I am trying not to be too bitter about it; that's just silly and sure sign that I am losing touch with my sanity more and more on a daily basis. I am perhaps equally as disturbed by the fact that my cat is not the slightest bit interested in this creature, only inches away from the window screen. The first day she got all up in the window, intense and chattering like "Let me at him!!! This is my destiny!!!!!" But after 12 years indoors, I think she realizes she would have no idea what to do with him if she actually did get him (she is known to just watch an ant walk across an entire floor rather than actually attack it), so she has gone back to curling up on the bed and watching the squirrel's acrobatic antics as her own form of "kitty TV" or something.

I guess all in all, they make pretty good neighbors. No loud music, no car doors slamming, good family values...

a day of needles and very big heads...

So husband and I took turns stabbing each other today. Wait. Before you look for us on the next installment of "COPS", let me clarify. I had an appointment with the nurse at the Diabetes Center and she has to show me how to inject my "wisp" of insulin. Rather than have me drop my drawers in the office, (What? Someone who allows me a wee bit of modesty??!!! That's unheard of!! I'm pregnant--I'm used to being on display to anyone in a white coat!), she had husband and me practice injecting eachother in the tricep.

I had to go first, to "get the feel" of breaking through the skin with the teeny weeny needle. The feel is icky. And I would rather have done it on myself--there's nothing quite so icky as piercing your spouse's skin with a needle. It's not romantic. There's no Barry White song about this experience...

But after husband stuck me, I realized it was no big deal--it feels like nothing. How is it possible that a needle going into one's flesh gives next to no sensation whatsoever? The mind is a powerful thing, though. Even now that I know it is no big deal, the thought of it and the sight of the needle still makes my heart race a bit and my gag reflex recoil a little. Once again, happy reassurance that I could never be a druggie.

So onto my next experience of the day. Two days ago, I called my OB office with a question regarding the growth and size of my little man. I was told by the tech that 3lbs, 9oz was in the 25% percentile for his gestational age and that is enough to put a mother into a neurotic tailspin. I have since done enough research and received enough reassurance from others that this is indeed no big deal....so it was pretty much out of my head.

Today the doctor called to share with me that all looks good. He did assuage my fears about the weight, saying that was a perfectly acceptable size and that actually, the little dude has a pretty big head. While his femur and abdomen measure about 31 weeks, his head is looking more like 32-33 weeks.....ummmmmm. This gave me an entirely NEW thing to tweak out about and I bombarded the doctor with "Is that normal????" "Is that okay?" in as many different ways as I could word it and as many times as possible without sounding like a mental patient reciting code.

Apparently at this point in pregnancy, especially when the baby is head down, it is hard to get an exact measurement, so he supposes it could be off a bit, but even if it is the actual size of his head, he says it's fine. No sign of cysts or abnormalities---just a giant head. He reassured me by sharing with my that his grandson has a big head. I'm sure the kid is thrilled to be grandpa's point of reference when calming neurotic pregnant ladies about their infant's super-sized skulls. "Yeah, sure. Tell everyone I have a giant noggin, Gramps! Thanks!" But it did make me feel a bit better....

After I hung up the phone it occurred to me just what my child is preparing to do to me. Notice it's not his feet that are big. Noooooooo, that would be too easy for mommy. Let's make sure the part of your body that is already the biggest, that is already going to rip the living daylights out of me, is just a bit BIGGER. Mmmmmm...something to look forward to.

Perhaps instead of giving out celebratory cigars in the waiting room, husband will hand out bauble-head dolls.

Song of the Day....

Ever have that day when you wake up, or you're in the shower, and there's already a song running through your head? If you're lucky, it's not the theme from "Sanford & Son", or "the Girl from Ipanema", as having either of these songs stuck in your head is guaranteed to turn you into a foamy-mouthed lunatic by lunch time.

When I could classify myself as part of the working world, I relied upon this daily soundtrack to dictate the tone and mood of my day. For months, I drove to work listening to Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young's "Suite Judy Blue Eyes" just for the bounce-in-your-seat ending, "doo doo doo doo do, doo doo, doo doo doo do, etc."

I even learned to time it so that the song was just coming to an end as I pulled into the parking lot of the school. You can NOT have a bad day when that is the last piece of music you've heard. A kid threw a desk at me once on a "Suite Judy Blue Eyes" morning. I ducked, picked the desk up, set it upright in a new place in the room and made the kid stand for the rest of class. "Whatever, sucker!!! You can't rain on my day!!! doo doo doo doo do, doo doo, doo doo doo do!"

As a teenager, I remember spending hours copying poignant and poetic lyrics from my favorite songs into my journals and verbally bleeding my angst onto the page. Doesn't every teenager do that? As a teacher, it is hard for me to know how to deal with the teenage angst I see expressed in my middle schoolers' writings. On the one hand, I know that 99% of it is self-imposed and pretty ludicrous to begin with. On the other hand, I was the exact same way.

Point being, music has always spoken to me in some way, whether it was to cheer me through the first years of teaching or to validate the "all in my head anyway" misery of being an adolescent. In recent years, though, I have listened to more NPR in the car on the way to work than music, and I've grown all "fat and happy" in my life, and have lost the need to connect to music the way I used to. Until I got pregnant....

There is one song I consider to be the soundtrack to this pregnancy. I tried to write this entry several weeks ago, when I was in the hospital and anticipating the dangerously premature birth of my son. I couldn't get through the writing of it and deleted it before I even posted it. Now I think I can deal...

The song is called "Fix You" by Cold Play and it seems to have followed me throughout my pregnancy, forcing me to listen to it and understand it as a parent's promise to his/her child.

Fix you
When you try your best but you don’t succeed,

When you get what you want but not what you need,

When you feel so tired but you can’t sleep

Stuck in reverse.

And the tears come streaming down your face,

When you lose something you can’t replace.

When you love someone but it goes to waste,

Could it be worse?
Lights will guide you home,

And ignite your bones

And I will try to fix you.

And high up above or down below

When you’re too in love to let it go,

But if you never try, you’ll never know

Just what you’re worth.
Lights will guide you home,

And ignite your bones

And I will try to fix you.

Tears stream down your face

When you lose something you cannot replace.

Tears stream down your face

And i…

Tears stream down your face

I promise you I will learn from my mistakes.

Tears stream down your face

And i…
Lights will guide you home,

And ignite your bones

And I will try to fix you.

The first time I remember hearing the song during my pregnancy was on my birthday. I was seven and a half weeks pregnant, and I started bleeding. As I drove myself, crying and praying to the doctor's office, this song came on the radio. I remember singing it to try to calm myself, realizing as I went that this could be me--I could at that moment have been losing something I could not replace. I changed the station--it was on another channel. I couldn't stop listening to it and there seemed to be a reason why the universe wouldn't make it go away.

After the reassurance of an ultrasound showed me for the first time my baby's heart beating (what better birthday present could a parent ask for?) and the bleeding stopped, I heard the song again. It ceased to be about ME losing something I couldn't replace, and became more about my child and my hopes and anxieties for him.

This song may be a love song from one partner to another; who knows? I didn't write it. But to me, it epitomizes a parent's loving angst--doesn't every parent want to "fix" whatever is hurting their child? Whether it is the pain of teething, or that first heartbreak, or losing the big game, or dealing with death for the first time-- a parent's primary urge is to prevent pain and suffering for their child, to fix it and make it go away. Or protect them from ever feeling it all together, which I know is impossible. And as first time parents, husband and I spend hours contemplating the ways in which we might "mess it up", but all we can do is promise to do our best and learn from our mistakes...

I have heard this song a million times since that first scare; through the second scare, the cerclage, the hospitalization and all of it. It still makes me cry big, sobby tears. But now they aren't tears of fear; they are simply because I am overcome by the awesome realization that from now on, I will always be someone's home.