Light and Momentary

Dress-up Fun

Baby girl in handknits -- who knew a person could have so much fun putting clothes on? (Baby Yours sweater and Christine's Stay-On Baby Booties, STR mediumweight in Beryl.)

Baby says it is very tiring to be this cute.

Introducing...

...the baby formerly known as Olga! She was 8#10 and 20 inches long.

We are doing pretty well here. I woke up on Christmas Eve with a cold, which was annoying but not a big deal, and got hit with some GI unpleasantness that night -- also annoying but not a big deal. But I think the dehydration plus my old friend oversupply set me up for the trouble that hit me on Christmas afternoon, which looked alarmingly like a case of mastitis. "This," I thought as I shivered under the covers upstairs, listening to the chaos below, "is exactly why I didn't want to be newly postpartum on Christmas Day."

In spite of a couple of teary moments, it was a very nice Christmas. I am much better after a little Aleve and a lot of Gatorade. And I'm so glad she's here that I can't even begin to complain about the timing of her arrival. :-)

Birth story is in the works...

At Midnight (in Mountain Time) in Piercing Cold

We were praying the St. Andrew novena for a safe and gentle birth. Our answer came earlier than I expected.

She's here. She's perfect. I am on top of the world.

FYI

The disadvantage to spending an entire pregnancy convinced that you're going 10 days past your due date is that when you start having contractions that are 3 minutes apart and you're only 4 days over, you find yourself deeply skeptical that they are going to result in an actual baby. We'll see, I guess.

They also serve who only stand and wait

40w4d today. Still waiting, and thinking of Screwtape -- the sixth letter, which has comforted me more times than I can count. "It is your business to see that the patient never thinks of the present fear as his appointed cross, but only the things he is afraid of. Let him regard them as his crosses: let him forget that, since they are incompatible, they cannot all happen to him.... Resignation to present and actual suffering, even when that suffering consists of fear, is far easier."

Swearing Off

My friends, I solemnly swear: no more searching YouTube for childbirth videos. I just watched one that has me crossing my legs and grimacing sympathetically at its up-close footage of a freshly cut mediolateral episiotomy pouring blood. Eek eek eek. Have you seen this one, though? Love it. Grab a tissue -- the first time I saw it I wasn't even pregnant and it left me weeping.

This afternoon we went to confession together, all six of us. The little guys took along some things to do while they were waiting for us to get through the line, and it went swimmingly. Our parish almost always has long lines for confession, and I was sure they would be huge today since it's the last Saturday before Christmas. When Elwood got home a bit later than planned from running errands (he made an extra stop on one of the craziest shopping days of the year, because he remembered that I was out of red raspberry leaf tea and picked some up for me even though he thinks herbs are a bunch of hooey -- love that man), I suggested that we go to the next-closest parish instead. It was a good call, in part because the pastor there, who wound up hearing my confession, is an especially kind man. I brought up my birth anxiety, which I know is partially normal but which is also partially a control-freak thing, like God needs me to worry about things for him and thus I can interpret "cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you" as "tie yourself into vibrating knots of stressballness and make the people around you miserable."

He had some good advice for me, and a helpful penance, and he said, "May the birth be better than your highest hopes, and as far as possible from your worst imaginings."

Afterward we went to our neighborhood bubble tea shop, which is a cozy place with shelves of games and books. The older boys each grabbed a book, while the younger boys worked a puzzle with Elwood and me and then played a game of chess. (Watching a chess match between a 6yo and a 3yo is not an undertaking for the impatient.) Too often cold and snowy weekend afternoons dissolve into fractiousness, but this was a nice one.

Contractions are ramping up but I don't see them going anywhere this weekend. (Jody asked about the state of the kitchen floor -- it needs mopping.) I am SO grateful that I didn't have any pre-labor action until just recently. With Pete I had weeks of thinking, "Is this it? No. Is this it now? No. Maybe this time? Fooled again." No fun at all. But I can deal with another week or ten days of it. (I think.) And by the end of that window, I should have myself a baby. An actual baby -- imagine that.

In Which I Am Relieved Not To Eat That Particular Slice of Humble Pie

Okay, I'm now two hours or so from the beginning of my 41st week, so it looks like I can skip the placentophagy. I have long labors as well as long gestations, so even if I am felled by a mighty contraction in the writing of this post, I'm going past my due date. Which is good, because a person so confident that she is not no way nohow going to have a baby is a person in a vulnerable position. Humble pie with added homegrown organ meat is not a dish I would relish, personally.

Oh, a funny about due dates: the woman who coordinates music at our parish called me today. She is a very kind lady, if perhaps a bit too heavily influenced by Liberace in matters both musical and sartorial, and she asked me when I was due. "Today," I said. She gasped. "You're so tiny!" she exclaimed. (I am tiny like a beluga whale is tiny. Compared to a sperm whale, maybe I'm tiny.) I told my husband about this conversation and he said, "You mean today's your due date?" Isn't it a little surprising that he didn't know?

A few December knitting pictures, and then I am going to kick back and enjoy the quiet in my house. All my children are sleeping and my husband is out playing poker with the guys.

I'd Hammer All Day

Yesterday I went to the doctor to check on Miss Olga's position.

My Daughter, Olga Korbut

In an attempt to coax baby to get her sideways head down and keep it there, I had been wearing a pair of bicycle shorts purchased when I was 21 years old and a skinny skinny thang. Apparently it's not uncommon to suggest that women wear an abdominal binder when there's concern about baby shifting position? It sounds kind of medieval to me. Tonight baby bounced back to transverse WHILE I was wearing those crazy shorts. Which is a good news/bad news thing, I guess. The good news is I'm not going to bother with the @%#$ shorts if they don't even work. The bad news is I still need her to get her head down and keep it there. At least she seems to have plenty of room in there.

Late pregnancy has never made me physically miserable, though this time around I am hoping for a speedy end to the symphysis pain. Emotionally, though, it smacks me around like a champion boxer in the ring with a meek and helpless bunny. (Don't ask me why the boxer is competing against a bunny. Just go with it.) Coupled with winter blues and Christmas stress, it has left me something less than a font of Advent joy. (<-Understatement alert.)

I have been telling people my due date this time, which was an act of madness repeated willy-nilly. When people know your due date, they expect you to deliver on or near it. They say, "Are you still here?" and "Didn't have the baby yet, huh?" and other questions that -- oh, how to put this? -- provide me with myriad opportunities to grow in charity and patience. 

Must I really grow in charity and patience?

My uterus woke up today, after a long snooze. Maybe as it begins to clamp itself down, the accommodations will get less spacious and my little Olga will not be able to complete any further routines on the uneven bars. Let's hope so.

Elwood P. offered to do the dishes and get the big boys to bed so I could go to bed early. I am going to do a quickie search for a St. Elizabeth novena and take him up on it.

The Merest Whiff of Crazy

Today I got together with some pals for our annual cookie exchange. (Number of cookies I ate while there: 0, and let me tell you I felt mighty impressed with my feat of self-discipline. Number of cookies I have eaten since they entered my house: 10⁴⁷, which is a neat trick given that I only brought home 60. So much for self-discipline.) Our hostess lives in a little town about half an hour away, and as I was driving home I was chatting with my friend from around the corner about carseats.

Earlier this week I pulled the infant carseat out of our little detached uninsulated garage and was so horrified by its accretion of filth and insect egg sacs that I briefly considered putting it on the curb. I did not, because of environmental guilt plus deep-seated frugal instincts. Instead I put it in the basement sink. I worked off its liner and chucked it into the washer with hot water and an extra rinse cycle, adding some dishwasher detergent for the phosphates. (It sat in the garage during the 2006 house-painting, and I was worried about lead dust.) Then I scrubbed the seat and its base for half an hour with hot water and detergent and my husband's toothbrush. (I should really stop calling it my husband's toothbrush here because he is never going to put that thing in his mouth again, any more than he would clean his teeth with the toilet brush.)

But I wasn't happy with the cleaning job, because there were some crevices I couldn't quite plumb with the toothbrush and the thought of insect egg sacs lurking inside them gave me the heebie-jeebies.

"Oh, yes," my friend said helpfully. "They'll probably hatch all at once. While you're driving on a remote road like this one. And it would only take one spider bite to make the baby's throat close." She sounded so earnest that it took me a minute to realize she was yanking my chain

I said, "Noooooooooooo, that is not allowed. You're supposed to help me with the crazy, not feed the crazy. Do you know what my husband will say to you if he finds out you've been feeding the crazy? He will tell you there is quite enough crazy in his house right now thankyouverymuch."

Maybe that should have been my cue to talk about something different, like the madness of Rod Blagojevich or favorite gift wrap motifs. Instead I said, "The idea is just bothering me. I can't think of a way to destroy the egg sacs without running the risk of weakening the carseat. Would it be bad for me to soak the whole thing in bleachy water? Or put it in the oven on low?"

She said carefully, "I wouldn't put it in the oven. You might set your house on fire trying to save the baby from hypothetical insects." I started to laugh so hard I could scarcely drive, imagining the carseat melting like a Dali clock while I was off scrubbing something else. It seemed like such a good idea until I said it aloud. She went on: "How would you explain that to the firefighters? They would take you straight to the hospital. To the third floor. Which is not labor and delivery."

I don't know how funny the retelling will be on your screen, but I can't remember the last time I laughed that hard. I had tears streaming down my face, imagining the firefighters' bafflement as they confronted the deformed carseat carcass. In fact, just now I was typing this up, remembering and laughing (and still thinking, honestly, that it could work to put the carseat in the oven), when my oldest said, "Are you okay? Are you laughing? or crying? or having an asthma attack?" [I don't have asthma.]

I explained the baked carseat idea. He said, "I'm going to keep a ten-foot distance from you until this nesting thing passes." Of course, he had just taken this picture of me standing on the dining room table, obsessively cleaning the ceiling fan blades, so who can blame him?

After a long stretch with her head down, baby turned back to transverse last night. I am not terribly worried but I am hoping she gets the message: fuzzy end goes down, sweetie. Sideways is no good.

Hey!

It worked! My HMO agreed to cover chiropractic treatment for that symphysis pain. I cut out the very goofiest parts of my letter, but it went into the mail with a fair amount of residual goofy. I've been going for regular adjustments because they are helpful and the pain has really been limiting, but I've also been wincing at the out-of-pocket cost. Let's hope they cough up quickly.

The one thing that gives me pause is a bold-faced line in the letter saying that X-rays are required. I expect that they have the sense to waive that requirement for a pregnant woman, but it won't really surprise me if they give me some grief about it. I am giggling to myself, imagining the letter I will write if they tell me to get X-rayed.

Baking Day

Cookie exchange tomorrow; toffee tops in the oven today. Fortuitously, the Faith and Family blog is requesting links to cookie recipes today. Probably scouting out cookie recipes is not the best idea for a very pregnant person who is trying to avoid sugar, but you never know -- there might be a radish sprout/lentil flour cookie recipe in there somewhere.

Chocolate on offer

Saw the OB this morning; declined an internal. He said, "Your prediction [that I would have this baby late like all the others] might be coming true." He said this baby will be smaller than my others, an assertion I also heard when pregnant with #2 (9#6) and #3 (9#12).

My mom says I'm going on my due date (the 18th), and that my baby will weigh 7#1. She bases this on the fact that all my babies were born in the waning gibbous moon. I don't want to know how long it took her to figure that out.

I cannot let myself think that I'm going early; I know from painful experience that it is the direct route to Crazyville. The Concorde route, even. I am guessing the 28th, and I am guessing this baby will be 8#8.

Want to play? I'll send chocolate to the person whose guess is closest. If it helps, my boys were born at 40w6d, 40w6d, 41w3d, 41w1d, and they weighed 8#14, 9#6, 9#12, and 8#0. As of today, all's quiet on the uterine front. I told a couple of people that I wasn't feeling very nesty, but then I realized that I spent an entire twenty-minute phone conversation cleaning baseboards with my husband's toothbrush. Maybe my definition of nesty is a little skewed these days.

...and they said

Pass!

Roads were nasty in the morning but fine by the time I needed to leave. It was much less grueling than I expected. After it was over, my advisor asked me to meet with her in the lab for a few minutes, and when she opened the door there were shouts of "Surprise!" She and my labmates had arranged a little congratulations/welcome baby party. I was floored -- didn't expect that at all.

When I got home we went straight to Mass. Time now to sit down and eat some dinner. Thanks so much for all your prayers and good wishes!

Countdown

Prelim in less than eighteen hours. Precipitation expected, with temps straddling freezing. Here's hoping there's no ice on the roads. Must remember to take a beta blocker along in case my arrhythmia acts up under stress.

It is extremely unlikely that my committee will fail me, but I'm feeling decidedly what-iffy.

O Mary, conceived without sin, pray for us who have recourse to thee.

Term (sort of)

I am 38 weeks pregnant today, which technically means I could have a baby any minute. My uterus is much more quiet this time around than in my previous pregnancies, which is fine by me. With Pete I had so many interludes of regular contractions with a bit of an edge to them that I finally said to my uterus, "I am NOT listening to you, girlfriend. Talk to me when you've got something worth my time." This attitude resulted in my ignoring the first...um...seven? hours of my actual labor (hard to remember precisely because I was la-la-la-ignoring it so diligently), and in my midwife's arriving when I was almost 9cm dilated because I was only just beginning to think there might be an end to that pregnancy. Oops.

I suspect I've got a mind-body thing going, because I really really really do not want to have the baby before my prelim is over, on Monday at 3. No, I'm going to be picky: I do not want to go into anything resembling labor before my prelim is over and I am safely back in my own town. I was joking with my advisor about naming the baby after whichever town was closest when I delivered precipitously on the shoulder of the interstate, but really I'd rather avoid that whole scene.

Yesterday I shipped off the Christmas gifts. (You are only allowed to hate me if you are more pregnant and have more kids than me.) I'm a little worried that I mixed up the two Florida-bound packages, sending the one for my 2yo niece to my 10yo goddaughter and vice versa, but here's hoping I escaped that particular manifestation of placenta brain. I am going to put some knitting pictures down below the cut since knitting isn't everybody's cup of tea, but there are also a couple of full-term belly shots for anyone who's into those. I won't ask whether that's because they inspire pleasant broody feelings (we don't say "broody" in the US, do we? to talk about women feeling that they might like another baby? it's a useful word but I think it's a UK thing) or can't-look-away alarm. Please ignore the toothpaste splatters on the bathroom mirror.