september 29th
so the ultrasound pictures are up, and we've spent the last 5 days going from our daily lives - social engagements, work, home - to me lying on an ironing board doing deep-breathing exercises while fred holds a smoldering moxa stick close to my foot, all to try and get this little guy/gal turned around for the big day, and whew. it's getting tiring. i'll be happy to go to the midwife on wednesday and see what other possibilities are in store for us. or maybe, just maybe, i'll get an extra special birthday present this year and the guppy will point head down and stop all my nailbiting. stranger things have happened...
in other big news, exhaustion is setting in as 2 of the last 3 nights of sleep have been more lying in bed staring out the window then snoring away peacefully. if i did dream at all, it was about seeing the clock everytime i woke up, at 12:35, 1:15, 2:48, 3:02, 4:14, 5:30...
also having those warm-up contractions in a big way, they're not supposed to be painful, but frankly sometimes they are. maybe they just seem so in the middle of the night. undoubtedly the lack of sleep makes everything seem so much more... pronounced. in any case, all is still well and it's good to know that all this is just normal. the bean is moving around ALOT today, and sometimes i wish my belly were a fishtank that i could just look into and see the little feet staring at me, or the butt or something. it's odd to feel these weird movements and not know exactly which body part is making them.
in other exciting news - tomorrow is week 9 of our 10 week birth class, and wednesday is our last 2-week appointment with our midwive. so the acceleration begins. hopefully this is like a shot of espresso for me, or a double-latte maybe, in the continued saga of all that is "nesting". our to do list gets bigger, but nothing has really gotten crossed off yet. fred has indicated he's got some things in mind, given that we're having houseguests this weekend, but i fear for my room. i managed to get all my non-wearable clothes bundled out of the way for now, and sadly packed up my dance trunk, but another several weeks of micromanaging 2x2foot sections might get me close to having it be somewhat manageable.
we went over to saskia and scott's for dinner last night and, bless their souls!, came home with still yet *more* clothes and toys - we're now the proud owners of two little plastic ride-um toys, in addition to a car seat. i would say that it feels like christmas, but it feels more like halloween coming up, or my birthday - it feels like that perfect time of year where the sky and the light in it changes, and the air is crisper and there's a sense of impending change.
all my life i have loved this time of year and now, even more so, as i struggle to really be *myself* and to be present here, i feel the comfort of being bathed in this universal shift of matter and energy. i could not have scheduled a better time to be entering this home stretch. despite the lack of sleep and the awkwardness and the discomfort, it seems right to be heading into my own transformation as the days get shorter and the pumpkins start appearing on the doorsteps. soon, so soon, we'll have a pumpkin of our very own.
today is a big day. we go for our very first, and hopefully only, ultrasound - right across the street from my office. the three midwives at the birth center couldnt quite agree on whether the bean is head up or head down and apparently my pesky stomach muscles are preventing a unanimous opinion. so today fred is meeting me and we'll get to see the bean for the first time.
honestly, we're very excited. of course, this *would* be an opportunity for us to find out the sex if we wanted too - and yes, it's very tempting... but! i think we're hoping to draw out the suspense as much as possible. goodness knows, for the rest of it's life it will be gender stereotyped one way or another, we can at least for the moment just let it be a baby with no strings attached.
that having been said - i'm a little nervous about this ultrasound. mainly, because it's really the first intervention we will have had (i.e. the first time we could be told "oh my god... it's got 3 arms!"). although everything has been normal so far, the heartbeat consistent and regular, lots of movements (in utero kung fu, perhaps??) it's hard not to be a little worried. but then there's just the silly practical side - i've got to drink 4 glasses of water and then wait an hour to then lie on a table and have my belly prodded for 20 minutes. oh lord. when describing my own personal hell... there's definately a huge area in there for having to pee really really really bad and not being able to. taking just a few sips of water in the last couple of months has made me feel like i just drank a gallon - i'm having a hard time envisioning how i'm supposed to walk across the street to the appointment even :)
sigh!
stay tuned for my next entry. it may well have funny tales to tell about being the first woman to actually explode all over the nursing staff. i'll chalk it up to my first real introduction to humility and being a parent...
well the bean is on the move - seems to be turning it's little head quite often. how do i know? because the head has been directly below my right rib for about three weeks now- it's hard and when it moves it feels like a softball under the skin. pretty weird. i think it likes performances of any kind as in both the fatchance show we went to last night *and* last week's mayoral candidate debate, the little frijole was moving around quite a bit. maybe trying to get a good seat or something.
so this means at the moment, s/he is in a breech position. there are a number of natural approaches to turning a breech baby. while the bean will still likely make his/her descent on its own (97% of all babies turn head-down by 37 weeks, so says
parentsplace.com), i'm at the right time to try some other methods to help it along, mainly using different positions. abigail (the groovie new-age midwife) mentioned it in last week's appt, saying that if by next week there hasn't been any big movement, we'd talk about some options.
Here's some quick links about what i'm talking about:
as for me personally, last night we went to see the fatchance performance - the first big FCBD production since i left. definately it was a weird feeling sitting in the audience and watching it but i have to say that it was a really nice show, well paced and thoroughly enjoyable to watch as an audience member. i tried to sit and really watch and enjoy it, to not think too much. i took lots of pictures with the camera.
on reflection, i'm a little sad at seeing it from the outside, after 9 years of my life revolving around doing it, i'd be surprised to be feeling otherwise. tobias (one of the musicians) commented to me afterwards "so, i bet it's been a long time since you actually *saw* a fat chance performance" and i think that about sums it up. even when i started taking classes, it was about six months before i had ever seen a troupe performance, and that was a small restaurant gig.
having seen so many people leave the troupe, i've been on the inside of watching the group sort of close up around itself to redefine itself by who is there, not who *was* there - and how odd to now be on the outside of it, regardless of whether that will last. funny how just a couple of months will chance your perception of so many things. <--- note to self: check back on this understatement in 2 months!
it is now 7:15 in the morning - i've been up since 5:30 writing. i couldn't help myself getting up this morning, since last night i slept all the way through until 5:30 so i feel comparably pretty rested. the last 3 or 4 nights i've gotten up about 6 times in the night (in addition to the whole "waking up for the production of rolling myself over to the other side and repositioning all the pillows" which happens easily as often as getting up to pee) and although i haven't been completely exhausted during the day, nor have i been taking naps, it was starting to get frustrating.
all this interrupted sleep is good practice, i'm sure. fred is a gem, wakes up at the drop of a hat (or a heavy sigh) and makes sure that i'm okay. he tells me to wake him up whenever i get up but i just don't have the heart to do it. considering how much he loves sleep, it would be a crime to wake him up just to say "honey, i'm uncomfortable again". i think maybe i just don't want his tolerance to lower, i'm strategizing for when the bean arrives. our friends saskia and scott told us that when their son was first born they had a great technique when he woke up in the middle of the night - scott would take care of the diaper and then give him to saskia to nurse. that sort of 'shared labor' sounds great to me, though, as they cautioned, it does result in two completely exhausted parents instead of one. fred seems up for it, and as our first test way back with adji the cat on her "raging bull" starvation diet proved, he was a champ at functioning while still asleep.
in a few hours we'll be off to orr hot springs, stealing probably our last quiet night under the stars, and then hopefully popping into ukiah to take mom out to dinner to celebrate her first week of her new job. should be a lovely 36 hours. (we're having to acquiesce to the cabin instead of the tent due to my sleeping problems but we've got a cabin right next to the pool) i'm looking forward to swimming in the cold pool all day while fred zips from hot tub to sauna to cold plunge to stream room, ad infinitum, and naked to boot! i'm a happy wife, that's for sure. it's been a weird last couple of weeks with work at all. i'm relishing the opportunity to relax and reflect on how very 'quiet' our life is right now.
Glory be to God for dappled things--
All things counter, original, spare, strange;
-Gerard Manley Hopkins
wow. it's been a few weeks since i've written. work is hectic and although i've certainly not been as busy as i might have been otherwise, it's sometimes hard to concentrate. after a whirlwind trip with sandy, aka mom-in-law, fred and i had a completely non-eventful weekend in which we arranged the house, watched movies and worked on our latest past-time: puzzles.
as for the cleaning, we have stepped up the pace by starting to pinpoint specific areas in the house to clean. what an amazing difference it is psychologically knowing that the hall closet that has been full of crap the last 8 years is now actually housing only an ironing board and two irons. i guess this would be the nesting phase. i'm hoping desperately that it kicks in a little harder in the next month or so so that i actually clean my room. a herculean task, as many of you could attest to.
we also went to a movie with another couple from our birth class. it is certainly nice to get to know peers who are in the same boat and see how they're handling the various challenges we're all facing now. it's a little odd to be bonding with people just on the basis that we're all procreating, but certainly one can never have enough friends, especially friends with kids! we're about to be in the minority with that one!
must run back to work, but tonight's class should be interesting. all about the epidural. wheeeeeee. oh yes, and at our midwife appt last week we discovered that i am rh negative, and fred is positive, thus a shot of rogam for me, and the bean has gone through a growth spurt of late, it appears. s/he is still turned with the head up so if the bean doesn't rotate in the next week or so, we'll be doing some interesting exercises to see if we can't persuade the little one to line up into position. more on that exciting development next time...
september 24th
september 13th
For skies of couple-color as a brindled cow;
For rose moles all in stipple upon trout that swim;
Fresh-firecoal chestnut-falls; finches' wings;
Landscape plotted and pieced-fold, fallow, and plow;
And all trades, their gear and tackle and trim.
Whatever is fickle, freckled (who knows how?)
With swift, slow; sweet, sour; adazzle, dim;
He fathers-forth whose beauty is past change:
Praise Him.
september 9th