sage

as expected, given murphy's law, etc., my friend amy had her baby pretty much the minute we left town last week. she and her husband, kelly, are the proud parents of a cute, healthy baby boy, william sage. don't you just wanna eat these cheeks?

here's a full body shot in case one look at him isn't enough. :)

roadtrippin' with the critter

here's some cuteness to start off with, and then i'll tell y'all about our trip. expect this post to be peppered with random pictures of the cute that may or may not have anything to do with what i'm talking about. :)

so--we went on vacation last week, a big road trip north to see family and friends and just hang out. the critter did WAY better than we thought he would with all the car time. i think the key was to have low expectations, not try to adhere to a schedule, and to be willing to stop when he needed to. the kid's got some kind of cracker barrel radar--i swear every time he started to fuss in the car, we were right next to a cracker barrel. HIGHLY recommend stopping there with little kids on the road--they are super kid friendly, have clean bathrooms, and are reasonably quick. plus--hello? bacon!!! just sayin'...

we stopped at our friends ralph and mary's for the weekend and just hung out--very low key and pleasant. they are just easy to be with. they had a fit over the critter, fed us delicious things, and took supremely good care of us. they are the kinds of friends who make you feel more like welcome family than guests in their house. love that. they loved kieran, of course, and he got lots and lots of good attention from them. i think it made them miss having a baby in the house--their youngest is 9 years old.

after the weekend, we made our way to the farm up in pennsylvania where the hippie's family lives. we tried to take more advantage of the area this time around. i keep thinking about eating more local foods and less things shipped from half way around the world, and it was really cool to be in farm country where the local foods are plentiful and readily available. we went to a local butcher shop that gets its meat from the cattle and hog farms in the area; we bought steaks, bacon, and chicken salad. the bacon was some of the best i have ever had--so good that we brought a bunch home--and the steaks were delicious as well, grilled up with just a little sea salt and pepper. the only difficulty was in getting them to cut the steaks thick enough for us--the woman at the counter looked at me like i was insane when i asked for inch and a half thick steaks. we also spent some time rumaging around in a crazy antique store that seemed to go on forever and was filled to the brim with all manner of Thing, everything from wrought iron gates to garden statuary to books to milk bottles to doll houses to marble topped wash basins to silver spoons. and more... we bought four books, including a french-english phrase book from WWII that was issued to american soldiers going to france (it has phrases in it like, "run for your life!" and "my leg is injured, and i will need stitches."), and two lovely silver serving spoons for ten bucks. ten bucks!!! if we had had the hippie's truck, we would have come home with a lot more... we also stopped in at this lovely little tea shop that was such a fabulous experience for me that it will get its own post later.

in addition to exploring the area, we spent a fair amount of time just chilling on the farm. i picked blueberries every day for breakfast, even when it was pouring rain. i petted little kittens and played with the dog. i walked up and down the lane with the baby in his sun hat. sadly, i didn't take many scenic pictures this time like i did last summer--i just kept snapping pics of the baby!

the hippie and i also took an evening to go visit his friends from college, clay and heather. clay has been to our house many times, but this was the first time i had met heather and their beautiful daughter, carlee. oh, and dora, the bassett hound--such a cute puppy--she licked the baby's whole face in about 3 nanoseconds. you should have seen his expression! heather and clay are about to have their second baby (next monday!), so we didn't stay too late, but it will still awesome to see them. heather is definitely My People, and if she lived closer, you can bet she would be getting added to my sunday, come-over-and-do-your-thing thing we've got going on.

on the way back, we stopped back in at ralph and mary's for one night, which turned out to be filled with people and drinking and the lovely chaos of a house full of boys (plus one girl)--so fun to watch! they were up and down the stairs, playing 20 games at once, lighting things on fire (literally), and just having a good time. it was like looking into kieran's future or something. i really can't wait till he's big enough to rage around with the big boys. as a thanks for being our hotel on this trip, i brought mary a bunch of stuff from the farm: blueberries, milk, bacon... i think her son had a religious experience over the whole fat, straight-from-the-cow milk. it really is pretty awesome!

last, but not least, the critter had his first trip to ikea on the last day of travel. he loved it, of course. or maybe that was me, and i'm just projecting onto the kid. either way--he did great, and we acquired many kid-related items for him as well as many storage related items for us. i really do love that place. swedish meatballs for lunch, shopping, and a nice, relaxing place to breastfeed the baby before getting back on the road. they have an awesome baby care room, which has chairs and pillows for breastfeeding as well as a changing table, a sink, free diapers, and toys for any older kids you have to play with. it was even nicely decorated and had a mobile hanging over the changing table. figures that this kind of attention to detail is found in the US only in a store based out of another country. that's a rant i'll save for another time, lest i digress... i heart ikea.

anyway, the trip was good--better than expected with that baby on the road. still, i am also glad to be home. now if i could just get caught up!

ps--updated critter pics in the set if you click here, and more to come...

brother, sister, sorta

we are really lucky to have some fabulous childcare. my friend jennifer has been a nanny for years, and has a wonderful way with children. her own child started kindergarten a couple of weeks ago, just as i was coming back to work. perfect timing for jenn to take on a new baby. serendipitous, if you will... and the baby so far has been easy with this transition--happy and healthy. he will sleep anywhere and eat anything you put in his mouth. he's laid back and awesome. and his peace of mind with jenn makes it SO much easier for me to come to work in the morning, let me tell you! i know she will treat him like her own baby, and i trust her completely.

what's interesting about our arrangement is that it's providing the critter with a surrogate big sister, jennifer's daughter, gabriella. i suspect that their relationship will be long and sibling-like, which is fine by me. i love that, whether we choose to have another baby or not, kieran is in a position to take advantage of our chosen extended family. and this will be good for G as well. she's adorable with him, and has been from day one. she held him in the hospital before he even came home. and once home, she asked a thousand questions about him every time she saw him. she strokes his head and plays with him and makes him smile. she loves him to death and is possessive of him when other children are around, but she also wants him to go home at the end of the day and give her mama back to HER. she asks those questions that a big sister asks--do you still love me as much as that baby? jenn was telling me that G came home from school the other day to find the critter napping in HER room--a clear territory violation. she finally decided that this arrangement was ok as long as jenn promised never to change a poopy diaper in her room. i am still laughing about this. but how cool is this--it's like jenn and i are sharing our family with each other. our baby is surrounded by people who love him, and so is gabriella. it's cliche at this point to say that it takes a village to raise a child, but man--our village rocks.

bros

just hangin' out...

note: forgive the poor quality--this is a phone pic.

adjusting...

i have been in a bit of a funk lately, and not much in the mood for writing. i don't know, something like a shortening of my fuse has occurred, and i am less tolerant of things that never used to bother me before. i don't mean to sound like a am complaining here--i mean, i am lucky as hell really. i have a healthy and happy family, excellent childcare, a house and neighborhood i love, and all kinds of things for which i am grateful every day. but still i have these moments of selfish frustration. i want a day to myself. i can't remember the last day i had to myself, and i won't get one until i am done breastfeeding. not that i begrudge the critter his lunch, but still... you know what i mean. i am trying to make myself take time to do a thing here and there that's just for me, but it's hard to fit that in. i have so little time to get anything done that needs doing--i tend to prioritize house and family and yard and work stuff higher than my need to go knit with friends or get a pedicure. but you know, the time away is getting more and more important for me to take. i swear, i think a happy mama is the key to a happy family, and i have to learn to take better care of myself in that area. i have to stop feeling like knitting a washcloth is too self-indulgent. or drawing a picture. or taking pictures of my dinner. i'm on my way back to normal i think--i am just having to make a few adjustments along the way...

all smiles

man, it's hard to walk away from this every morning.

back to work...

in a word, bleh.

written at one month...

...but it's taken me till now to get his one month pictures cleaned up and posted. anyway--here's the one month post, complete with images at last:


how to structure this? i was thinking i would write monthly updates on the baby in the form of letters to him, but that's dooce's thing, and i don't want to copy the master... so, i think i will just give a progress report.

yesterday was the end of our first month with baby kieran. he's a total cutie, and, for the most part, a pretty laid back baby. of course, as i write this, he is sleeping on my chest because today, he's needy and won't tolerate being put down even for a second. i think we are entering a new phase. but then, that's what you are always doing with a baby, right? just when you think they are settling into something resembling a routine, everything changes.

for the first couple of weeks with the baby, we were in hardcore survival mode--doing well to remember to eat. it seemed like all i did was breastfeed and take him to the pediatrician's office. he wasn't gaining weight in spite of eating all the time, so i ended up supplementing with some formula a few times a day, which i am still doing. he's a huge eater, and i am just not making enough milk for his voracious appetite. the lactation consultant at the pediatrician's office made me feel like a total failure--she's NOT my favorite person. the consultants at the hospital were all fantastic, so her attitude and poor advice were a bit of a shock. i admit that i cried my way through the baby's first bottle, but man--i am so over it now. anyone who says breastfeeding is not a full time job has never done it. i want the baby to get all the benefits of it, so i keep on truckin' with it, but i keep feeding him formula, too. at some point in the next week i will try to start pumping some of the time as well in preparation for going back to work in july. not looking forward to that AT ALL. but i digress...

so the baby started gaining weight and has not looked back. he's getting rounder and chubbier every day--i swear he visibly grows with every nap. he does all the things babies do--eat, poop, sleep--lather, rinse, repeat. he has long periods of being alert and checking out his world, and has from day one. he sleeps for long stretches at night, thank goodness, so i am not as sleep deprived as i expected to be. when he does keep me up at night, i just nap with him during the day, which seems to work out. his favorite place to sleep is on my chest. he has learned the sound of my voice and his daddy's voice, and he has come to smile when he hears us or we talk to him. that's awesome! he is cooing, gurgling, and laughing more and more every day. and to keep things balanced, he has also become more needy and fussier. he still has that newborn cry, which has to be the sweetest cry on planet earth. i will be sad when it's gone. he's beginning to lose his newborn reflexes, although he still sleeps in a curled up little bean when he sleeps on my chest. he's cuter every single day. (maybe i am a little biased?)

for me, the hardest part of this whole thing has been a lack of contact with this hippie. the hippie and i are cuddlers--we sleep curled together and we hug and touch each other a lot. and with the baby here and demanding so much of my time and attention, there has been a lack of physical contact with his daddy. it's wearing thin. the other night, i put the baby down in his basket, and he was content there for a few minutes. the hippie hugged me and just being held by him without the baby between us made me cry. don't get me wrong, i am not depressed or anything. i love the baby and could not be happier with how he turned out and how he's growing and developing. but i am definitely still hormonal and in need of some physical comfort myself. that part's kind of hard. but we will adjust, and the baby will become less needy--i know this.

i am a lucky woman. i have a happy, healthy baby. i have a man who loves me and the baby both. i am healthy myself, and my recovery from the surgery has gone far better than expected. we live in an awesome area to bring up a baby. all is well here in new baby land.

ps--here's a link to the updated set of kieran pics. enjoy! :)

birth, one month later

i wanted a natural birth, but things just don't always happen the way you want them to. medical complications arise, making me thankful for modern medicine. there are so many women i know who would have died in childbirth a hundred years ago who, today, were saved by intervention and are now heathy mothers of healthy children. i guess i am probably one of these.

the hospital called us at 5am to come in for the induction. i admit i ignored that call in favor of a couple more hours of sleep. after waiting literally all night for them to call, i decided they could wait for me for a couple of hours. starting labor pissed off and exhausted just seemed like a really terrible idea. we slept till 7, took showers, ate some breakfast, and went for a tiny short walk. i was still having irregular contractions, but nothing steady. we got to the hospital at about 8:30 am. they checked us in, iv'ed me, hooked me up to the worst, most awful blood pressure cuff in the history of humanity, and broke my water. the hippie and i walked. and walked. and walked the halls, to no avail. nothing happened. so at around noon, they started a pitocin drip--a very, very low dose of it, which was all it took. somewhere in the transition phase, i had a hit of staydol, which the hippie said basically turned me into that college roommate who gets drunk and doesn't know when to shut up about his girlfriend. i do NOT like that shit, man. the good thing is that it let me rest for a second between the nasty contractions, but that was not worth the feeling of being unfocussed and out of control it gave me. thank god it wore off pretty quickly! by 5:30pm i was 9.5cm dilated. by 6, i was pushing for all i was worth. when i started pushing, the baby was at 0 station. after two and a half hours of pushing, he was still at 0 station. absolutely no progress whatsoever. the doctor told me i could keep going, but that he was pretty sure the baby was stuck and was not going to descend on his own. so. we ended up having a cesarean after all that.

they turned off the pitocin, and everything intensified--my body would not stop trying to push the baby out, and i could not stop pushing any more than i could stop breathing at that point. those few minutes between realizing i wasn't going to deliver the baby on my own and arriving in the O.R. are probably the worst of my life. the details are blurry, but i recall offering the anesthesiologist a couple hundred extra bucks to hurry the hell up, and i am SURE i was screaming obscenities in the hallway as they wheeled me out. my mama would be so proud. once we were in the O.R., it seemed like it was all over in about 4 minutes. the hippie's favorite part of the whole thing is where i mistook him for the anesthesiologist and was all concerned that he had missed the whole thing. he was right there by my side the whole time, and i was just too out of it to realize it. ugh.

the recovery seemed to take a hundred years. the baby was born at 8:49pm, but we didn;t arrive in the postpartum room until after 1am. i have never been so tired or so hungry in my life. they would only allow me liquids, but i was so hungry it was all manna from heaven to me. i was all--yay chicken broth! yay jello! yay lemon ice pop! i ate every bit of what they gave me and drank about 8 cups of water. and i stared at the baby for half the night, exhausted but too wired to sleep. the hippie and i both tried to sleep, but between the extreme heat in our room, the newness of the baby, and the nurses coming in to check my vitals every 20 minutes, there was little sleep to be had. to me, the worst part of the whole experience was being confined to the bed and unable to move around--i was unbelievably relieved the next day when they finally let me get up! and can we just say--UNHOLY HUNGER?!! i have never eaten so much so fast in my life, and i was still hungry.

anyway. the birth was not what i had hoped it would be, but i really feel like i did everything i could to get that baby out without help. i don't have that feeling of failure or disappointment in mysefl that some women feel when they have a c-section after labor. if we ever decided to have another baby, i can tell you that we would just schedule a c-section. the liklihood that i would develop the exact same set of problems the second time around is just too high to go through all that again. that's just life i guess--things don't always happen how you want them to, and you just have to be flexible. and you know--in the end--the healthy baby is worth whatever it takes, right?

that's enough for now--i will post some new pictures and a baby update tomorrow.

baby

apologies to all for my prolonged absense--i am sure you all know how this goes. i have been trying to get something posted for days, but my time is just disappearing in a sea of feedings, phone calls, people visiting, feedings, laundry, feedings, and napping when i get a chance. we are doing well. the baby is beautiful and i could not love him more. here are the stats:

name: kieran grey coposky
arrival: april 29, 2008 8:49pm
weight: 8 lb. 13 oz.
length: 24.25 in. (not a typo--he's the longest baby i have ever seen)

there's a little set of pictures on flickr here.

the phrase that keeps running through my head is this:
daughter to a father, lover to a fighter, mother to a son.

i am simply stunned.

waiting...

and waiting...

having contractions that won't regulate, although they are fairly steady. as of 8am this morning when i went for my regular doctor's appointment, the baby was fine and i was fine. things are progressing normally for a first time labor--that is, slow as shit.

meanwhile the hospital was supposed to call me at 7am to tell me when to come in for my induction. no one called. at 8pm i called them, got put on hold forever to learn that there were no beds open and there are many deliveries in progress as we speak. so. someone is supposed to call me by 10pm to tell me when to come in. nothing like going in in the middle of the night when you aren't exactly in labor yet.

although who knows, maybe it will give me enough time to go into labor on my own. i am half way there anyway. i am going to go take yet another walk to keep from losing my mind. then i am going to eat everything in the house since the hospital won't let you eat anything once you check in. plus, i have been inexplicably starving all day.

my blood pressure is fine. everything's fine. we're just waiting...

ps--if you've called and failed to reach me, please don't be offended. i just can't face being on the phone right now. i will let everyone know once there's something to tell.

UPDATE 11:27pm--no call from the hospital. fuck 'em. i'm going to bed. this baby's going to come out on his own anyway--contractions are getting closer and stronger without interference, so i am just going to go sleep while i can. sometime soon we'll have a baby, but god only knows exactly WHEN at this point.

happy due date to me!

40 weeks. hard to believe. and now all i want to do is get this baby out asap. come on baby! go go go! all of y'all, light candles, build altars, pray, and hope with me that this baby comes out this weekend all by himeself.

and since i am tired of talking and thinking about my pregnancy, here we feature the finished baby bolero, the only newborn sized garment i have knitted for the baby. and soon, he will be in it, stylin' and looking all cute. the pattern is from leigh radford's one skein book, and i knitted the body of it in about a minute. I changed the top shoulder seam from a real seam to a 3-needle bind off, and i had intended to change the sleeves from the way they are written to top-down and in the round. however, i stalled on that, as it required thought and math, and i just decided to go for the easier path and make them as written. i have read before that it was difficult to attach the sleeves, and i think the cause is generally that the row gauge is different for so many people. but me and leigh radford--we have identical gauges. always. in every pattern of hers i have ever touched. so anyway--this is one skein of blue sky alpacas organic cotton in willow, knitted with 8's and 9's. i love the little motif on the back, and i love how well it came out. i think it's going to fit my baby for maybe 5 minutes, but that's ok. i wanted him to have something to wear that i had made for him from the beginning. :)

as for the bottom picture, that's my belly eclipsing the bolero being modeled by my favorite of the baby's toys so far: abima. he's one of two uglydolls we've gotten for the baby, and i LOVE him. he's coming to the hospital with us...

knowledge is power

so i had another doctor's appointment today, and it was with my favorite doctor. and well--he kind of brushed off my concerns and questions and didn't tell me a lot. he talked about scheduling an induction for me for next week, and i was like--why so soon? a month ago, the same guy was talking about letting me go for two weeks past my due date. and the explanation was the same as i keep getting from all of them: we don't like to let hypertensive patients go too far beyond their due date. to which i ask--why? what can go wrong? if the baby is fine and i am fine, then why interfere? and he didn't really answer these questions--all they tell me is that i could develop complications. and i have to say, duh. you can always develop complications--why am i any different than anyone else? no one at the practice has ever really answered that.

so he went ahead and scheduled an induction for me for next monday night, when the doctor from monday will be on call. i objected, of course, but was over-ruled with this assurance: don't worry--he's a good deliverer.

frustrating.

so.

i came home to google. and after reading a LOT, i think i actually finally understand the concerns they have. and after understanding the concerns, i actually AGREE with the doctors. this baby needs to come out soon.

here's the thing: i have chronic hypertension--i have had it since i was 17 years old, and for the past 6 years (since a VERY scary BP spike that gave me an unstoppable nosebleed and a trip to the emergency room where my BP was still 172/120 two hours after the bleeding stopped--this was later described as a stroke in my nasal passage), i have been on medication for it. it's well managed. when i got pregnant, the first thing i did was change medications, and all was well. in the past month and a half, the BP has been very slowly creeping up. they upped my meds, but it's had little effect. and while my BP is still in the non-dangerous range, it IS still going up, and what's key here is the difference between what it was early in my pregnancy versus what it is now. from reading this awesome (although scary) page that actually explains this, it seems like i am developing gestational hypertension on top of my chronic hypertension. this is actually a worst case scenario for both me and for the baby. it means that in addition to the complications i already know about (pre-eclamspsia, low fetal growth, premature aging of the placenta, low amniotic fluid levels), none of which i have at all, there are also a host of complications that can develop in the 11th hour, even if my whole pregnancy has been nothing but healthy and beautiful. these are the Bad Ones (HELLP, eclampsia, and the like) that can cause seizures, liver and kidney failure, and death of me or the baby or both. the more my BP goes up, the more likely these complications become, and the longer i remain pregnant, the more my BP will go up--it's on a very predictable curve right now. the cure? get the baby out. so. yeah.

you see what i mean? what a difference it makes to know and understand that! it really IS dangerous for me to continue this pregnancy much longer, in spite of the fact that i feel fine--great even. hypertension is a hidden dragon, and if it strikes--it can happen so fast that there's no time to react.

why is it i have to figure this out for myself instead of getting it from my doctors?

and so--to that. the interesting thing here is that my monday doctor, who i still believe royally screwed up, is the only one who listens to my questions and answers them seriously. and looking back at my conversation with him after The Incident, i now get that he was actually starting to explain all this to me. he was saying that they would want to induce me soon after my due date because the complications that could arise in a case like mine were fast and unpresictable. and i think he could tell that i was too upset at the time to really hear him. he said--i think i am getting ahead of myself trying to discuss induction when you are so upset. and he was right. i just wish my doctor today had really explained the WHY of things to me better before just going ahead and scheduling the induction and kind of railroading me. all i need is communication and understanding. and oddly enough, i think i am more likely to get it from the monday doctor than from just about anyone else. so maybe the fact that my induction is scheduled with him on monday is a Good Thing.

i have been a good patient with these guys, and very cooperative. i have done EVERYTHING they have wanted me to. i have asked a ton of questions the whole way through. i have gone to every appointment, missed none, been late for none, taken the recommended classes, read the recommended reading, monitored my blood pressure at home religiously. it's a little sad that things with the doctors have become so tense and difficult here at the end. i feel like they are communicating things worse now than ever before, when i am actually developing some potentially very serious complications that, to me, warrant more explanation, not less. now is no time to NOT take the time to explain things to me. i still believe that the doctors in the practice are good doctors. i believe that they will take good care of me and the baby, no matter what happens. i just wish they would communicate my care to me better.

sometimes it is pretty hard not to look at doctors and say--i am as smart as you are, man. my degrees are just in different subjects. and it's MY body and MY child's body on the line, and you need to make me understand wtf is up. maybe i should try that...

anyway.

the bottom line here is that i am feeling awesome, and the baby is doing great for now. i am having some contractions, but they haven't regulated. i am hoping and praying that i go into real labor asap and that this baby gets a chance to come on out on his own. i am hoping and praying i will be able to help him out with that without drugs or intervention of any kind. but you know what? if not, then well--he's still gotta get out of there. and if that means induction on monday, then ok. and if that means i have an emergency c-section because that induction doesn't work out, then ok, too. i just want a healthy baby and a healthy me.

and i am pretty calm. my BP is holding steady and i am checking it evvery couple of hours. i am packing things to go to the hospital as soon as it's time to go. i am hanging onto images of putting the baby's fat little feet into the sand, images of him sleeping like a bean on my chest, images of him walking unsteadily across the floor scaring the crap out of the cats... everything's gonna be alright.

better day

i REALLY appreciate all the comments and stories from yesterday, people. it makes me feel so much better to know that others would feel (and have felt) similar rages over things like this, although it deeply saddens me to learn how common such things are. of all times to feel like the doctors aren't listening to you!!!

just for a quick update, i wanted to let you all know i feel SO MUCH better today. the bleeding i have had since The Incident on monday has finally subsided, and the cramping has tapered off, and i am actually back to feeling really good physically. the baby's low, and i have some pressure, but now it's back to me being able to read the signals my body is sending me. my head is in a much better place as well--after an hour and a half on the phone venting everything out to my best friend, i feel like i am mentally ready to face whatever comes. i am guesiing that this baby is going to be born pretty soon, although probably not in the next 24 hours. tomorrow i have the second of my two weekly doctor's appointments, and it's with my favorite doctor in my pracite--the one i trust the most and the one whose treatment philisophy is most in line with what i want and feel is right for me and our baby. i am actually looking forward to seeing him. today is a way better day...

ps--jackass goes off call at 5pm tomorrow. think good thoughts for me having this baby friday night when the fave doctor's on call. :)

invasion

what do you do if a doctor you have known and trusted for years tells you he's "going to do a quick cervical check" on you and then starts stripping your membranes without thought, warning, discussion, or consent and against your explicity stated desires? if you are me, you throw the biggest fit you have ever pitched in a public place and become so angry you can't stop shaking and crying and screaming. i am still so angry about this, i can't think or talk about it without my face turning red and my eyes tearing up. he didn't get far, due to me realizing somthing was up, asking questions, and writhing away from him across the exam table the second i knew what he was doing. and he surely will not be doing anything like this to me again since i plan never to see him again--ever. this is just too much of a trust violation for me to overcome. now i am doing everything i can to avoid going into labor until he's safely off call at 5pm on thursday--we'll see how that goes. i am sitting or lying down all the time, not lifting anything at all, being as still and calm as i can be, considering how horribly angry i still am.

i know that to some women, stripping of membranes is not a big deal, but to me, it is. and i have made that known. to have it done without my knowledge or consent or even any warning that it was coming is a violation akin to rape. not to mention how painful it was. the ONLY good thing i can say is that the doctor admitted fault, admitted that my anger was totally justified and did not try to minimize my reaction in any way. he admitted that he still had a lot to learn.

i had a whole discussion with him afterward, through my weeping, in which i made it very very clear that i want NO invasive procedures, NO drugs, NO anything done to me or the baby without discussion, strong medical need, AND consent. i thought i had already made that clear, but apparently not. it sucks that we live in a society where you have to defend yourself, your body, and your unborn baby against the people who are supposed to be taking care of you.

you know, the thing is--i am not against medicine, and i am not against intervention. thank god that intervention is available when it's needed. what i AM against is intervention when it's unnecessary. and it seems to me that the doctors are so afraid of being attacked for not doing enough that they end up doing TOO MUCH instead. for me, if i am ok, and the baby is ok, then get your goddamned ungloved unsanitized fingers the fuck away from my cervix.

the worst part is that now i am filled with dread about going into labor too soon when the doctors i don't trust are on call. and here at the end, when i have been feeling so good and loving my belly, i should be excited and filled with anticipation. instead, i am angry, frustrated, depressed, and i feel like i have lost control of my experience before labor has even begun. i am worried and filled with anxiety. i am cramping and bleeding, when i was totally great right up until he started messing with me. it sucks and it's not fair, and it makes me want to become an advocate of medical rights.

anyway--enough ranting about it. what will be will be. i am going to go lay quietly on my side, neglect all the things i would be doing were i not afraid of going into labor before 5pm on thursday, and just try to be calm. i need to let go of all this anger, but i am not sure how to do it.

39 weeks

i feel like a ripe peach. i look down at my body, and i feel like i must resemble one of those african fertility goddess statues i have seen carved from soapstone and tiger wood and the like. it's so odd. amazing and cool, but still odd. i am not tired of being pregnant. i am not dying to get the baby out. i feel pretty good, even though he's lower down now, and things are moving. as of last monday, i was 85% effaced and dilated 1 cm. i'm having some contractions here and there, but nothing regular yet. this baby could come today, or he could come in a week. it's unclear. the only clear thing is that my belly is a big ol' thing now:

wait, there's one other clear thing these days: i am damned tired of going to the doctor's office. i have been going twice a week for a few weeks now, and i am kind of done with that part. DONE. i am sick of the two idiot nurses and wish i could somehow guarantee that i could get the Good Nurse every time i go in there. i am tired of the one doctor i don't like who over-reacts and talks too much about invasive and unnecessary procedures and uses words like fetal demise in my presense. in fact, i told them flat out i do not want to see her anymore. she stresses me out. i wish i could talk the baby into coming when one of my two favorites is on call, but i am well aware that the little beastie will come when he's ready, not when i'm ready. that said--this weekend would be awesome--one of the favored two doctors is on call all weekend, plus bonus--meredith will be here. nearly ideal.

anyway. the baby is doing great. i am doing great. in sppite of my high blood pressure, which continues to creep up, there's no sign that it's negatively impacting either me or the baby. good. keep that up, body. the two doctors i love are on board with us just letting things unfold as they will. the other two like to talk about inducing me and stripping my membranes and all kinds of things there's no reason to do. don't get me wrong--if this baby goes into distress of any kind, or if i start demonstrating any signs of problems, then by all means, interfere! get the baby out if we need to. but as long as all these tests i keep having every 5 minutes say everything is fine, then you know--shut the hell up, medical people, and let me just do this. and quit running negative scenarios for me, too. i can read, and i am reasonably intelligent, and i know the scenarios. i can run them just fine for myself, thanks.

yeah--i think i am getting a little grumpy over here. it's been a long week. people i need keep flaking out on me. i am so happy it's the weekend. i want some Down Time, and some time away from people constantly asking me, "when's your due date? do you know if you are having a boy or a girl? what will you name him? are you miserable yet? are you just ready to get that baby out?" somewhere areound 32 weeks, i should have just had some shirts made up with the answers to these questions on them. (yep. definitely grumpy.)

in other news, it's going to be something like a month before i get my car back. boo.

in still other news, it's friday, and i think i am going to go home early.

jeez...

i don't know what could be better than wrecking your brand new three-week-old car two weeks before your due date, do you? i mean really... is there a better way to spend a glorious and blindingly sunny spring afternoon than dealing with police reports and broken cars? i can't think of a SINGLE ONE. *sigh*

the good news is--no one was hurt unless you count the cars themselves. the baby's as kicky as ever, so he's fine, too. mostly, i feel like an asshole as it was definitely my fault. but i am trying not to beat myself up about it and just file it under the "shit happens" category. the cars will get fixed and i will deal with the subsequent rise in my car insurance and all that. just not a good time for me to be adding any more pain in the ass factors to my life.

by the way--the irony here is that i was in the location of the accident because i needed to stop by the car dealership to show them a little missing pin from one of the car door seals. i had been there at the new car joint literally 15 minutes before i calmly drove the car into someone else's new car. life is often just totally ridiculous.

sweet face

this is from the march 25th ultrasound. the tech was nice enough to turn on the 3D imaging for us so we could see the baby's little face. he looks just like a real baby!

full term

today is the end of week 37, which means that if i go into labor now, they won't stop it from happening. from now until may 10th, it's all a waiting game. that said, this baby is up in my lungs and hasn't dropped a bit, so i am nowhere near delivery yet. and he better not come in the next couple of weeks until i can get my temp trained to take over! (hear that, baby? don't be born till the 26th!) people keep asking me--are you miserable yet? that's how they ask. not--how are you feeling--but--are you miserable? and the truth is...no! i feel better now than i have in ages. no coughing. no sickness. the baby is high and active, and i am loving watching my belly pitch and roll every time i sit still for 5 minutes. he's so active that i have become something of a rock star at the doctor's office. all the doctors and nurses ooo and ahhh over my nonstress charts, and how much he moves, and how well his movements match up with his increases in heart rate. as of next week, i will have one ultrasound and two nonstress tests (NSTs) a week till he comes. this is utter overkill, but it's the doctor's office protecting themselves agains malpractice.

this week's appointment was anything but non-stressful. when i have an NST and a regular drive-by exam scheduled, the entire visit should take about 30 minutes. this week it took over two hours. i waited 40 minutes to have the NST, and then the nurse left me alone for the 20-minute test--for 45 minutes. after 30 minutes, the baby flipped over and the fetal monitor lost his heartbeat, so i rang the little bell she gave me to call her in in case something was wrong. no response. rang it again. no response. 5 times. then the alarms ont he fetal monitor went off because it thought the baby was dead since it's gone with no heartbeat for so long. loud beeping went on for 10 minutes. finally, i just gave up. i unstrapped myself from all the stuff, lumbered up out of the recliner, wiped the goo off my belly, turned off all the monitors, and went in search of the nurse. she was up front checking in new patients. further, she failed to keep an exam room open for me, so my doctor ended up doing my drive-by in the testing room, which was both weird and awkward. lord, but i was ANGRY! i have to say that if they want me in there twice a week--they are going to have to be more efficient. i am all for my doctor, but i am not loving his negligent nurse. anyway--both of next week's appointments are with different doctors who have different nurses, so we'll see...

all tales of medical woe aside, i can tell my body is getting ready. it's pretty amazing. aside from all the physical stuff you expect at the end of a pregnancy, i think something in my head is working on getting ready, too. i have been having dreams about birth. not stressful dreams, but more like rememberances from past lives or something. last night i dreamed i gave birth alone in the woods. i was leaning up against an enormous tree with these huge gnarled roots--half leaning and half squatting in between the roots. and the baby was a girl and she fell a few inches when she was born into this pile of leaves i had made for her. i picked her up and used my hands to clean the gook out of her mouth and pat her on the back so she could get started breating on her own, and then i lifted her up onto my chest and leaned back against the tree with her on me. it was messy and earthy and felt unbelievably real. i woke up and my first thought was--oh, that was that other birth. bizarre, and oddly, kind of cool, too.

hats, hats, hats

i have the attention span of a gnat lately. hats are perfect for this. i've made many, and have many more in my mental queue. here are the hats of the year, so far...

this is the third umbrella hat i have made. the pattern is from leigh radford's one skein book, and i just love it too much to stop making it. the yarn is malabrigo in the colorway called molly. somebody needs to have a little girl soon so i can give this hat to them. i had no reason at all for making this other than the fact that i fell in love with the color of the yarn. does that happen to everyone?

this is the foliage hat from knitty.com. also malabrigo, in the colorway polar morn. this one's for me! i am trying to learn to keep a few knitted items for my own self, and i really needed a winter hat. i am fast coming to the conclusion that malabrigo is the best hat yarn of all time. it's so soft, and the colors are fabulous. plus--two hats from one skein--can't beat that!

this is some yarn i got at earth guild, a store up in asheville, a few weeks ago. it's a blend of wool and soy silk, but i can't remember for the life of me what it's called. i will have to find the label and come back to update this. i can't even find it on ravelry, so you know it's something weird. the woman at earth guild was telling me she got it to try ti herself, and i decided to do the same. it's not the best to work with--it fuzzes up in your hands pretty badly, and i think it's going to be pill-y as all hell. but it's soft and pretty and will look good on some baby's head. it's just a little beanie hat loosely based on the gauging and decreasing in the ann norling fruit hat.

and last but not least--one foliage hat is not enough when you can have two. this yarn is the hippie's, but he got too busy with work and more work to make this hat--he asked me to make it for him. and since a) it's malabrigo, and b) i loved this pattern, i jumped on it and knitted this up in like two days. i did a better bind off on th is one than i did on my own, which is good because mine would be too tight on anyone other than me. i love this color of yarn, although i have no idea what it's called. the only downside is that the pattern is far less clar with the variegated yarn than with the semisolid above. still--i am pretty pleased, and so was the hippie. maybe some day, we will get it into the proper recipient's hands...

that's all you get for now, as i am off to meet my friend emily for dinner. there's other knitting in the works, but alas, you must wait for it. life is just too rushed lately for words--literally.