It's totally not contradictory to want to smother child in kisses at one moment and then the next moment- just want to smother them.
(Don't worry I'd never actually smother him.)

LLuc El.liott C H
2/25/2010 8:28
7.5 lbs 21 inches



After 3 sleepless nights
nearly 48 hours of fairly intense but irregular contractions
13 hours of active labour at the hospital (successfully fighting off the only drug happy midwife in the whole damn hospital and a pissy epidural/oxytocin pushing obstetrician).
Our son arrived! With his tiger yowl and a perfect 10 apgar.
And now we're all at home.

I've been having contractions for the last 12 hours, but not at a steady pace- I'll have them every 15 minutes for a couple of hours and then every 7 minutes for a while and then tapering down to every 4 minutes for about an hour but then suddenly back to 7 minutes back out to 15 minutes. I'm 80% effaced and 1.5 centimetres dialated loosing my mucus plug gradually.
Apparently I'm a wussy because although the contractions feel intense to me they register as pretty light on the machine. But of course the other factor is that when I arrived at the hospital the contractions totally slowed down anyway.
They said it could be anywhere from several hours to a couple of days.
The contractions felt intense but cool, fascinating, hopeful before i went to the hospital. But now that I know that they've done so little they feel much more painful and lot less cool. How can i get back into my zen dilation mindset?

First of all my bathroom is totally fucking awesome now.

And now I have almost a full complement of cloth pads for my soon to be christened lunchbags.

The three pairs on the far left are 100% lambswool heavily treated with lanolin to act as soothing medicated pads.
And I made a deluvial mama cloth system that I'm hoping can contain my post partum flow. Maybe I'm overreacting, but I usually have such a heavy flow the first 3 days and nights of my regular period that I'm afraid that my post partum bleeding will be a flood of biblical proportions.

I'm going to take a bath now.

I seriously can't take it any more! I want my uterus back. I want to see my son's face, and feel his little toes with my fingers instead of my rib cage. I'm crawling out of my skin.
What if i ate a whole pineapple while jumping up and down and pinching my nipples? I'll do whatever it takes.

BN- I was really hoping that motorboy would have made his appearance by now, but there's nothin' goin' down at donutland. I guess I know that pregnancy is not like an easy bake oven- the timer does not just ding at 40 weeks and let you take out you your delicious piping hot son, but i still feel vaguely disappointed.
GN- With every day that passes the less i feel scared and nervous and the more I feel anxious and excited. I guess those affirmations are good for something, because I'm starting to get the feeling that giving birth is gonna be great!

FIrst of all a serious taints up for motorman. I'm so glad that i'm having a baby with him! For so many reasons that are only becoming more and more evident as we're getting closer to our birth oddyssey (sp?).
Anyway- I asked him for a indoor laundry drying system for christmas and told him more or less how i wanted it and he whipped this puppy up for me between other serious remodeling work.

Remember the white baby bassinette? This is my bassinette makeover-

this is my son's face at 36 weeks.

(33 weeks 4 days)
That should be enough said...
But wait there's so much more!

You wake up to pee for the fourth time at 6 o'clock on a sunday morning, and as you're trying to fall back asleep you remember you got the mother of all toaster ovens for christmas. And suddenly all you can think about is cornbread. So you get up and mozy into the kitchen and as you're pulling out your baking stuff you notice that the peanuts and carob powder in the cupboard are screaming at you. So you whip up an improvised carob cornnut bread. And your husband who hasn't slept right (between your incessent peeing, massive leg cramps, and crazy dream talking in your sleep) in weeks, doesn't wake up once- not even when you're smashing the peanuts with your morter and pestle- even though your kitchen shares a door that doesn't close right with the bedroom. And then you eat half that carob cornnut bread all by yourself within ten minutes of pulling it out of the mother of all toaster ovens, only to be reminded that eating too much makes you feel like your stomach is trying to hop right out of your esophogus.
But you can't help but feel that it was sooooo worth it, since apparently the new carob cornnut bread recipe is a keeper, and the rolling baby who keeps trying to stick his something or other in between your ribs seems to agree.

I'm feeling kinda lonely as a pregnant lady. I have all of 0 friends with kids (not that I have many friends to begin with). My dh has lots of friends with kids, but not that i've really made great connections with. So i have really been looking forward to my birth prep classes. I was hoping to find some people i could commiserate and swap complaints with, but no such luck.
The ladies at my birthing classes all seem to be beaming with pre-maternal satisfaction and when asked how they're doing they all smile sweetly and affirm that they're feeling really great, or maybe they have some ¨mild discomforts¨. I've never seen such a group of Mary Poppins in my freaking life. I'm afraid to even begin to vent with these people.
Is it really possible that I'm the only 8 month pregnant lady who is scared shitless and sick to f*ing death of living the miracle of pregnancy? I mean are these other ladies not waking up with serious leg cramps- on top of the increasing everyday aching leg and feet sensation. Are they not losing sleep anyway on account of their burning indigestion, crazy kicking fetuses, and even crazier flood dreams? Do they not have burning uncomfortable noses that they blow crusty scabs and bloody snot out of all day? Are they not having difficulties tying their shoes and picking up things from the floor? Do they not have increasingly leaky cooches and get sweatier and smellier everyday? Are they not incredibly tired and find themselves capable of accomplishing less and less everyday and spontaneously weeping intensely over the plight of the polar bears?

Before I start i just wanted to say that today i talked to my boss about how worried I am that they haven't found an appropriate substitute for me yet, and she said ¨But you're planning on having the baby late- right?¨. I shit you not.
Umm, what answer was she expecting for that? ¨Ummmm, ok, why don't you tell me what day works for you and i'll just put a cork up there until then.¨????
I know i shouldn't worry about it, but if they don't find a good sub they'll try to guilt me into doing the summer camp in July and I don't want to go back to work until next school year in September.
Right, so away from my work life and into my real life.

This is the belly a week ago, at 31 weeks and the super curtains that I made to stop some serious drafts in my living room.

I even got the doctor on my case, because I gained 5 pounds this month which she thinks is too much. My total weight gain at 28 weeks is 18.5 pounds. Which i (and my mama and the midwife I talked to) think is just fine for weight gain at the beginning of the 3rd trimestre. I think the doctor was just pissed at me because i refused to take the sugar shock test.

By switching continents. Here in spain they just don't do baby showers, and I haven't been able to drum up much interest in adopting the custom when talking to the few (although very good friends) that I have here. Apparently, my family is also unwilling to host a party in my absence and send me the plunder (which is understandable).
But at least we have the trading fair!

I can't sleep because of this whole long story with the neighbours and the cops coming, but that story is way too long and complicated and it looks like it's all going to turn out in our favour in a bigger way than i expected (fingers crossed for that) and I don't really feel that I need advice about the situation. But i just keep going through my head and practising conversations to have with these neighbours if they try to get all uppity and in my face. Which I know is not the best way to be passing my time at 2:30 in the morning... especially since after what the cop told me he was planning to say to the neighbours- I don't think they are gonna want to talk to me or get in my face anyway. It's just when i get flustered my catalan doesn't come out as good and it gets all mixed up with spanish and it's really frustrating. But if i practice things i can say i don't get as flustered.
Right, anyway... Something i could use advice about. My mom offered to buy me a pack and play. Which (for anybody who might be out of the loop) is a playpen with a bassinet attatchment and a little changing table that you can set up on it for the early baby months. My sister used one of these instead of a bassinet or crib for her kids to sleep in, and apparantly was very pleased with this setup.

I've been home sick with sinus congestion that my doctor was concerned could turn into an infection. In between neti pots and steam treatments I've managed to convert three t-shirts into two maternity tops and 4 more t-shirts into a knockoff baby buddha carrier.

This is the first maternity top that I made. The weird white spots were actually on the camera lense and not on the top itself (woops).

Motorboy has got me gi-normousized.

I'm having a hard time re-adapting to my school schedule. I'm teaching classes that I never taught before (but i always do every year), and I'm stuck with a lot of low motivation classes because I had to pass off all my exam prep courses so the students would have consistency up until and after their first exam attempt. I have a lot of classes with really small children 3-6 yrs, because it's becoming all the rage to get the kiddos started on english at a very young age- which is really fun but also really tiring. (i have to dance and jump my preggo belly up and down get my freakin' chucky cheese on for a whole hour).
So part of it is circumstancial. But, even though i feel like a rotton feminist for admitting it, part of it is definately my brain. I feel slow- like really slow. It takes me forever to think of how to explain things. And I feel really scatterbrained. I forget things that i used to be on top of. I forget what I'm doing in the middle of doing it. I'm having a hard time concentrating. I hardly even feel like myself. I mean I know i am an intelligent on the ball kind of lady- what's happening to me?
And I am starting to have crazy dreams, and then I wake up really tired because I did all this crazy stuff in my dreams. Like last night I had my baby and suddenly my breasts filled in with milk super fast and they were gi-normous and I fed my own baby and they were still all full and I realized that i could fly. So I took my baby and flew to an orphanage and breast fed all the babies at the orphanage. I became a breast feeding super hero flying from orphanage to orphanage with my own baby on my back breast feeding all the little motherless babies in the world.
I'm definately losing my edge. Possibly going crazy.

I read that the secret to seeing the babies genitals for sure was having a lot of fruit and fruit juice 1/2 hour- 1 hour before the ultrasound. So motorboy was SO hopped up on fructose that he wouldn't stop kicking me, which the ultrasound technician thought was funny and irritating, because he kept having to look and look for the things he was trying to measure. For me it was also funny and irritating because my bladder was about ready to explode, and as trippy cool as ultrasounds are i kinda just wanted to get it over so i could take a freakin' leak. It is awesome to see the baby in action tho.

Tomorrow we've got our 20 week ultrasound.

Things we allready know about the bean:
s/he's got the right number limbs and only one head.
s/he's got a complete spine and normal nuchal transparency.
s/he had a normally developing brain and heart at 12 weeks.

Things we would like to know about the bean:
s/he has the right number of appendanges.
her/his vital organs are all on the right track.
Which gendered pronouns would be appropriate to use for him/her (at least until s/he is old enough to tell us what s/he identifies as).

Please s

I've been trying to video call my mom all night and we keep having these stilted conversations that have long time lags and keep collapsing. Anybody know which of the other free internet video call services works better? I need to talk to my mama.

My mom wanted a belly photo so I decided to try my hand as a maternity lengerie(sp?) model.

Sorry about the blog barrage, but since my other blogs are more about things that i'm doing and thinking about. I just wanted to tell you that I'm FEELING GREAT!
I'm energetic and positive.
I'm really hungry and food tastes so so good.
I'm really happy to be in the new place even if it isn't finished yet.
Sometimes I think I feel the bean. But sometimes when I think I feel it I fart pretty soon afterwards, so I don't think that's it. I'm not sure that I'm actually feeling the bean instead of the beans (we are still on a bean budget haha).
Emotionally, I totally feel the bean. I'm over the fear of losing him/her and at the part where i'm really excited about meeting him or her, and sort of tripping out on the idea that our bodies are doing something so amazing (i can't take all the credit, since beans doing alot of the work).
OK, it's time to get back to unpacking, or maybe i'll make banana pancakes instead.

My obstetrician called me yesterday, but i missed the call and they left me this message saying ¨please contact us tomorrow morning at 9 oclock about your blood test results¨. So I was all wound up because the doctor told me that if they didn't call that would mean everything was fine, but if they did call that would mean that there was a risk that the baby had a genetic problem.