How to Have a Water Birth for $50

I promised that I'd eventually post about the birth pool. I think it seems so primary to the process of getting ready for birth in my mind because it was probably the only thing we really did to get ready for the birth that somebody having a baby in a hospital wouldn't have done. The pool setup and a car seat were the only new purchases I made for this kid during the pregnancy. Not that having a baby was inexpensive; take into account my deferred income and she's one expensive little being.

This is kind of like the cheap-but-not-TOO-cheap person's guide to preparing for a water birth.

Anyhow, without further ado:

Selecting a Birth Pool

I had three main criteria in mind. First, that the pool be sufficiently deep (>22" is my minimum, even given my shortish 5'2" stature), and second, that it not have a terribly large capacity. And then the big make-it-or-break-it quality - PRICE. We don't have deep pockets. Particularly after our break-in. I wanted, ideally, to spend less than $40. This automatically rules out pools that were designed to give birth in, like the AquaDoula or Birth Pool in a Box or any number of available (and really good IMO for varying reasons) options. It even rules out rentals, which in my area run $250 or so.

We accomplished 2/3 of our criteria for $29.99 on Amazon (crap, it's even cheaper now!), and our happy little "OMG we're almost ready for a baby" package arrived just two days later.

The pool I linked is actually a little large. At 72-75", the capacity is about 1/3 more than that of the 60" I would have preferred. That pool, though, was for whatever reason a lot more expensive when I was doing my shopping. The price point changes constantly, so if you can get the 60" (still 22"-24" tall) pool, go for it, it will take a lot less time to fill. The larger pool was so big I couldn't even reach both sides at once. This is desirable in a play pool but not so much in a birthing one.

Accessories

Hose - For sanitary reasons, we needed a brand-new hose. For avoiding-disgusting-toxins-in-the-pool reasons, we needed one that was OK for hot water and for drinking water. This type of hose was a tadbit more pricey, but since we could pretty comfortably get away with a hose that was only 25' long (in most houses 50' is the safer bet), it was just $14. After we were done with it, we ran bleach water through it and set it aside for the next time we need to run hot water through a hose.

Adapter - we were going from our shower (we remove the shower head) to the pool. The adapter was a little difficult to find at Home Depot because it wasn't labeled in anything even remotely resembling an obvious way, and I had to bring a shower head and the hose to the adapter isle and find the one that matched. $2.45 (plus $.50 for thread sealing tape). We did a trial run without the sealing tape just to make sure it worked (HIGHLY recommended, since I've seen "universal adapters" fail at births and it's not a good scene).

Liner - painting drop cloth, $1.49. We wound up not using it for the birth (we did in the trial run and it was a PITA and water still got out, so we figured if we were going to have to sanitize the pool itself anyways we might as well not deal with the crinkly). If we were going to be passing this on to another family, we would recommend purchasing a liner made specifically for pools.

Air pump - this is really important, because these pools have HUGE air reservoirs. It took 30 minutes to fill with the pump and would probably have taken way over an hour with our lungs. We had a pump from way-back-at-some-point that is half-broken, so we didn't buy a new one, but we did need to inflate the pool outside using the car adapter. So we left the pool inflated, propped sideways against the closet doors in the bedroom from about 37 weeks on, mainly because we had no desire to stand outside in the rain pumping up a pool again (even if it wasn't in the middle of the night).

Strainer - women poop when they push, it just happens. You need a strainer. We had a metal one that we planned to boil afterwards if we wound up using it, but we didn't use it. I've mostly seen women use fish nets (some birth kits even contain them), which are very cheap too if you can't get over reusing something you've gotten shit on.

Tarp - we didn't have one, but I highly recommend it for others. We didn't wind up making a mess but it's SUPER common for small splashes to get out of these pools during labor. Nothing fancy, and another painters' plastic will work just fine if you don't already have one, so max expenditure here is still just $1.50 and we spent nothing.

Water pump - NOT NECESSARY unless your pool will be below ground level. A water pump will typically cost more than our pool did. We siphoned the water into our garden. It wasn't THAT gross, really. A little bloody. Yay fertilizer! Out-of-doors, the blood gets consumed/broken down really fast, so it wasn't a sanitary hazard out in a garden that nobody was going to be setting foot in for several weeks. Anyway...pump not necessary. We gravity siphoned and it took quite a long time to empty the pool, but it worked well.

Assorted Other Lessons Learned

We started filling as soon as my water broke, before labor really set in. This was a GOOD IDEA because it was only actually "labor labor" for about 30 minutes, which would totally have been enough time if I wanted to soak the bottoms of my feet. The water stayed reasonably warm overnight with just a heavy flannel sheet over the top of the pool, so we had a good volume at a decent (probably about 90 degrees by the morning) temperature when we woke up and started filling the pool for the real deal. As it was, it was still a little on the cool side (more like 96 degrees than like the 100 we were shooting for) when I got in; Francesco added some water in big pots from the stove to boost the temp after Chubble had actually been born and we were sitting in the tub trying not to let her get too cold. The other reason starting so early and covering worked for us is that we stopped filling the second the water started getting cool, so we were covering a 130 degree pool and we could leave it unattended for 10 hours and have it still well over room temperature when we needed it. The worst thing that could have happened is that we'd have had to siphon out a large portion of the pool water and refill with hot water if my labor had turned out to be much longer.

This isn't one I had to learn myself, thank goodness...those almost-boiling pots of water? They're freaking hot! Pour them as far away from the laboring woman (burns in labor! Ack!) as possible without getting the water or the pot directly on the pool plastic (melting plastic! Ack!).

Clean the pool right away. It's just easier. We don't need to elaborate on how we know that, we just do.

Expense

Pool - $30
Accessories - $18.50
---------------------
Birth pool - $48.50

A side note about utilities - we haven't a clue how much they cost us. Our water bill that month was only slightly more than usual, maybe by between $5 and $10, and that's after filling the pool twice and showering at home way more often than usual. Our electric would be impossible to figure out (this is a factor because it took 3 reheats from the water heater to fill the pool) because we set the thermostat much higher than usual in the first couple of weeks after Chubble got here, and because April this year was much colder than April last year (so no good comparison point).

And, we have a happy fully functional birth setup for under $50!

Poor Abandoned Blog

I have good reasons to abandon the blog, but I should also check in because it isn't like I'm keeping a journal anywhere else.

It is no longer winter! WHOHOOOO!!! When I calculated my April due date, way back last August, I pictured myself sitting on a blanket in the sunshine with my infant watching the kids play. I TOTALLY intend to spend as many hours as I can muster doing exactly that. I really, really, really, really (REALLY) needed summer and sunshine. I am really glad it's here.

I decided that "Newbie" doesn't fit the baby. She'll be "Chubble" for now. It's my blog, I can rename her as often as I want. Chubble is now a month old, and closing in on 11lbs. That's over 1/3 more than her birth weight. Crazy, right? Her cheeks are getting chubby and she's accumulating fat rolls. She has a terribly unpredictable sleep (non)schedule. And despite the fact that she's a very noisy/active sleeper, I'm managing to get a decent amount of sleep myself, which probably explains why I'm feeling a lot more mentally "awake" and like myself than I have any right to feel at this point. There's this mental fog that new moms seem to walk around in; it's half hormone and half sleep deprivation. I guess I have the light burns-off-every-morning version rather than the weather-service-warning version. I still reserve the right to revert to full-on mama brain if my baby suddenly decides she doesn't like to sleep at night anymore. Right now the biggest sleep challenge is that I don't know whether she'll be out for the night at 8pm or will cling to consciousness until midnight.

I am having some overly-awake-BittyPrincess (Toddlerness, back then) flashbacks, since Chubble is awake a lot for her age. *THIS IS NOT THE SAME BABY I WILL NOT HAVE TO DO THAT AGAIN*

When I looked back for that link I read a few other posts (because let's face it, saying "fuck" fiftybillion times in that particular post was hardly the high point of my blog), and I realized that my blog used to be more entertaining and had better pictures. Maybe I have had more student-midwife/pregnant/new-mama fog going on in the past two years or so than I was giving myself credit for.

Still, life is looking decidedly normal. Which is a little bit stunning at barely a month postpartum. It's a little different getting around with the baby in tow, but for the most part this has been easier than I had anticipated.

I am VERY MUCH digging the 5 year spacing between Chubble and BittyPrincess. The others are 2 and 3 years apart and that was a lot harder, because there was no such thing as letting them go do their own thing while I dealt with the baby. I can't exactly leave the 5yo home alone or anything, but I *can* take a shower with the realistic expectation that nothing horrible (or even remotely horrible) will happen while I do so.

All three older kids are adjusting really well and loving (sometimes a little too much) on their new sister. At least the loving-a-little-too-much at ages 5, 8, and 10 means they're a little more in her face than I'd like, and are sure that they can get her to stop crying without my help thankyouverymuch, not that they're exploring her eyeballs with their fingers.

OK, I could probably ramble on semi-endlessly, since the baby is asleep and the other three are occupied doing various quiet things around the house, but I need to put bread in the oven and start making dinner.

PS - I suck at taking pictures. Somehow getting out the camera seems like a monumental task lately.

Happy

Oxytocin Makes the World Go 'Round

No really, it does.

If I wasn't so stoned out on that particular hormone, I might post some pictures of the new baby.

She's extremely cute. But then again, she's a bundle of bodily function and love hormone, so how could I not think she's cute?

Elaina's Birth Story

I've been having some trouble writing this story. When BittyPrincess was born, the story was lovely and straightforward. This one winds a bit, and my writing talents veer heavily towards straightforwardness with an occasional sarcasm curveball (not entirely appropriate applied to this particular birth story). Here, about a week later, I'm still of two minds about the whole thing. It was an amazing, wonderful thing. And it was startlingly different from what I'd expected; not in any hugely dramatic sense, although it certainly was dramatic enough for me. In writing I find myself going back and forth from cataloging to analyzing to attempting to explain a phenomenon (the disconnect a really short labor causes) that I'm not sure can be explained unless it's experienced. Nonetheless, here it is.

The very short version is that Elaina Lokelani was born at 1025am on the twelfth into her dad's and my hands after a looong prelabor and extremely short active labor. She was 8lb 0oz, and was (and is) perfect.

The long version ensues...

A week after my big Easter labor fakeout - in fact, matching to the hour when I gave up on labor that particular day - my water broke. I've done that before, the rupturing before labor thing, so we were in somewhat familiar territory. I answered the kids' myriad questions on the topic ("what does it feel like" - "kind of like peeing yourself, only it isn't pee"; "when is the baby coming?" - "Baby didn't decide yet, but sometime in the next day for sure"; "doesn't baby need that water?" etc etc etc). I let Louisa (midwife) know, we filled the tub partway so it wouldn't take too long when we needed it, and when things weren't really picking up by bedtime (contractions still really irregular and not particularly strong) we all tucked ourselves in to bed.

I slept poorly, of course, contracting only every 30 minutes or so but pretty strongly.

We got up around 7 or 8 am and made coffee. I was still on the every-15-30-minute plan. They were BIG LONG contractions, most of them almost 2 full minutes; Louisa and I think they were a last-ditch effort to turn baby into a better position. Didn't work.

At 9 we had a massive breakfast of eggs, bacon, toast, and oranges.

At perhaps 9:30 the contractions started coming closer together, but still, 7+ minutes apart. It was starting to get really difficult to cope. Fran, the kids and I walked around making last-minute prep including filling the pool the rest of the way, and Louisa started heading my direction, but in a "we still have some time" kind of a way.

By 10 things hurt like hell and I had definitely turned a corner of some sort, into actual, "ok the baby isn't turning, lets shift to get-it-out mode" kind of labor.

Unlike BittyPrincess' labor, I didn't feel peaceful, I wasn't getting good calming time between contractions, and I needed a good deal of support from Fran. I taught him how to do a hip squeeze; he did it fairly well a couple of times and then got it exactly right once, and I swear I FELT my cervix dilate when he did it. Like that gave my pelvis the little extra space it needed, my cervix got the full effect, and WOOOSH there it went. Honestly, it scared the crud out of me and I wandered around for the next couple of contractions feeling really out of place and trying NOT to replicate that feeling, including waving Fran away even though the hip squeeze/back pressure had really helped things feel less out of control.

Louisa was probably headed semi-frantically in my direction already (well, she was definitely headed my way, but I don't know how frantically). About the only coherent thing I could get out between contractions was some extraordinarily whiny variation on "I have to push. Call Louisa and put her on speakerphone. Getting in the tub."

I got about a literal minute of relief when I got in the pool, which was long enough for Fran to set up that phone call, place cameras in the hands of the children, and come back to the pool as I lost it in a way that I swear, I haven't in any of the other kids' births. I mean, I got to the point where I was slightly out of it for all of them but BittyPrincess, but this where I was holding on to Fran for dear life and sobbing into his arm, answering questions by wailing "it hurts" over and over again; *that* I haven't done before. The kids were totally unprepared for that; they knew it could and would hurt, but I'd been silent or close to it for all my other births and hadn't thought to prepare them for the fact that I might be crying and writhing and losing my shit all over the place.

I don't really know why it was like that. Some combination, I think, of baby malpositioning making things actually more difficult, and a sneaky labor that hit me suddenly and happened in a hurry. It was rough but it was also RIGHT. I wasn't scared that things weren't going to work out; it just hurt, a lot, a lot more than given my previous experiences I felt like it should have.

At any rate, Fran continued to verbally reassure the kids, keep up a conversation with Louisa on the phone, and eventually, to catch the baby.

Again, even though I only pushed for a short time, it felt like I put in a lot more effort than I had for any except my first birth. Like I felt all of the downward motion happening, the structure of my pelvis moving as the baby came steadily down. Which actually isn't all that surprising, considering that the baby emerged into Fran's hands direct OP and with her right hand nestled against her cheek. I've never described to him what most midwives do when babies stick their hands and arms in inconvenient spots like that, but either it's just good common sense to brace the arm and help ease it out or he has more midwife in him than he thinks. She also had her incredibly long (4' or so) cord around her neck twice. I had a feeling that she was going to be born all tangled up like that, and felt rather than saw the cord through turbulent water, where it was easy to untangle before bringing her out into the air.

Fran most definitely did not lose his shit. I am still not sure how he managed to think of quite literally everything that needed doing in those few minutes. I know he did get some prompting from Louisa, but that was a lot to get arranged and still manage to be there to get squeezed/hung onto/pulled/whined at by your wife. And reassure kids. And act more like an actual midwife than just doing the standard "dad catch" (I don't know if it's going to surprise any dads that might read this, but when you "catch" with the midwife's hands there, usually we're doing all the tissue protecting stuff we think is important, and you're doing the baby-contact part that you think is important, and everybody gets to be happy; but there's more to catching a baby than letting it land, however magically and importantly, in your hands).

It's an incredible feeling, bringing your baby to you for the first time, watching her take her first breaths and start to cry. Finding out she's a girl.

Every baby reacts a little differently to those first moments. This baby wasn't surprised, the way some babies are. She wasn't indignant, either. She wanted to complain about it, and did, but in a "wow something big just happened to me!" kind of way.

I sat in the pool simultaneously overjoyed to be holding a baby and in complete disbelief that I was, in fact, actually holding a baby. Going in about 30 minutes from "ok, we're really going to have a baby today!" to a baby left me confused and out of body for a while. 30 minutes SOUNDS like a decent amount of time. But even if you're contracting every 3 minutes (and I wasn't quite that close together) that's just 10 contractions. That's not enough time to get used to the concept. It's not enough time to set up your coping skills. It's not enough time for your body to realize what it, itself, is doing.

When I tell people that we had our baby before the midwife arrived, I almost always get "good thing you're a midwife, then!" back. But it really wasn't that way. In those minutes I was just as overwhelmed by my body as anyone else, and I'm pretty sure there wasn't anything going on in my head at all other than the complete rush of pain and hormones and OMG-this-isn't-really-happening-is-it. There was certainly nothing going on in my head or body that prompted me to be a midwife to myself in any meaningful way. When I felt baby's head emerge I wasn't thinking about mechanics or keeping from tearing or anything other than some washed-out body-deep construct of "CRAP this hurts." I've only caught a handful of posterior-presenting babies and there really was no muscle memory there, and no brainpower to deal with it. There was some part of me that felt her head, didn't make immediate sense of what I felt, didn't get a strong what-to-do signal from my body (it was still trying to catch up), and got overwhelmed and let Fran deal with it.

A few minutes later (I was totally not paying attention to how long; again, confused and disconnected), Louisa showed up. Girliness got to cut the cord. I passed baby off to Fran, birthed a placenta (an event that almost never shows up in birth stories, which is curious; that process isn't exactly fun either but it IS satisfying to be done with it), and got settled into bed.

I checked out fine with a small tear and fairly minimal blood loss. Baby checked out perfect. Boyness wielded the sling scale and she weighed in at 8lb0oz, politely leaving "biggest baby" title to her brother while at the same time soundly outweighing both of her sisters.

Our little photographers got many wonderful - and entirely inappropriate for common public blog consumption - pictures of the entire process. And a few bonus shots of the walls and lamps and peoples' feet. Boyness in particular took some amazing pictures, and I'm very happy about that because BittyPrincess' birth is almost entirely photo-free. Plus it let him hide behind the camera during the process, which is a coping mechanism I've seen dads use when they're overwhelmed, and I think it really worked for him.

We had a couple of names thought up for this baby, but they really didn't feel right for her once she was actually born and we'd met her. The next morning, we named her Elaina Lokelani. The kids favor "Ellie" as a nickname, but haven't really settled into anything other than "baby" yet. Here on the blog, now that her name has been announced, she'll be "Newbie," at least for a while.

I'm totally smitten and so is the rest of the family. The kids can't seem to get enough cuddle time. We have some things to sort out yet; she needs to get on board with latching more comfortably, and with not waking up in the middle of the night ready to visit. But it's totally completely LOVE.

Easter, and a Big Fat Labor Fakeout. Oh, and the van.

'Twas the night before Easter and all through the house...I was grumbling and trying to sort kid Easter eggs. Sorry, too lazy to make that rhyme.

"You aren't the only adult in this house you know," says Fran, taking charge of some of the Easter prep. In a good way. I was about to start hiding empty eggs by accident.

We settled into bed just before midnight, kid easter baskets perfectly arranged and eggs neatly labelled with initials (we've found this stops the running around like crazypeople trying to outdo each other issue) and hidden:




At which point I start contracting every 5 minutes, like clockwork, and they're all big and pressurey. But not getting worse or closer together, so I decide to go to sleep. Semi-sucessful. I was, after all, REALLY freaking tired.

Every 5 minutes all through the morning egg-finding festivities.




We had planned to go to MIL's for the afternoon, to let the kids get spoiled even more and to have dinner. But I really, really didn't want to leave the house. I figured even if I wasn't in BIG BAD RIGHT NOW labor, I was in labor of some sort. We moved the gathering to our house, because again, not in BIG BAD RIGHT NOW labor. Contractions started showing up every 3 minutes instead of every 5. The in-laws showed up.

My first clue that I was not actually in labor should probably have been that I continued to contract while they were around. Contract, and look like a tired, grumpy hobbit:



Eventually they left, I called L(MW), and we started filling the pool. I was still not convinced I was in BIG BAD LABOR. Even though I was all spacey and the contractions were 3 minutes apart and they hurt. Somehow I knew to hedge my bets. I told the kids the new baby might decide to come today, but if not, we'd have a hot tub party in my bedroom.

Yeah, when L showed up I was all of 3cm with a slightly malpositioned baby. I continued to contract but things slowly let off until by 8 or so it was pretty clear nothing was going to happen after all.

HOT TUB PARTAY!!!!!



So the kids had a great time in the pool. After they got out, I floated around for a little while and then tucked myself in to bed and slept like a ROCK.

Woke up all sick and irritable. Of course.

So that all pretty much sucked. I've done this pregnancy and birth thing before. I even help women decide when they're in labor. I'm reminded that I don't know shit. I also have been reminded by several birth professional type friends that not only am I not the first person to ever pull a complete fakeout, several of them have done it. Must be yet another profession-related curse. You'd think that being out of practice for 8 months would make me immune, but apparently if you conceive while you've been acting as a midwife you get the full-force curse.

We followed Easter up by going the next day to a nice meeting at L's for birth professionals, where I got to hear a pelvic floor specialist talk. Which was great until the van wouldn't start.

L rocks, she let me borrow her car so I wasn't stranded an hour and a half from home. And fed us. And essentially kept me from turning into a complete sobbing mess. We left the van at their mechanic and drove home just 6 hours after we had intended to leave.

Today, we're $1000 (ok, $1052) lighter, with a new instrument cluster and in-dash computer. The lights no longer blink. I'm assured that the van will reliably start from here on out. Or at least, if it doesn't, it won't be for the same reason it hasn't started in the past. I was supposed to stop by the Dodge dealership on the way home and get the new gauges calibrated properly, but even though I made an appointment with the dealership, apparently the guy who knows how to do that particular job wasn't available. THANKS. I thought that was why I made the appointment, to avoid exactly this brand of bullshit? So back to Bremerton tomorrow.

All of this is not the fault of the mechanic we used, who seriously undercharged us for the amount of time and effort he spent on our van and was pleasant to work with. He doesn't have a website of his own, but here's a listing: Mac 'N Jack's Island Svc. Not that I'm going to drive a lot of business on Bainbridge, but it can't hurt to put a plug in when you have a particularly good experience with someone.

Even though (ouch) $1052. Ouch.

Ouch.

Ouch.

(Sucking it up...OUCH...Sucking it up...)

In which the children attempt to redeem themselves

I'm still sick. A whole toilet paper roll full of snot kinda sick.
The kids have lost their snark, though. Events today included:

• Singing Christmas songs while making Easter decorations
• Bringing many extra pillows into my bed to read with me
• Making tea
• And more tea
• Ballet dancing in the living room...to Hootie and the Blowfish
• A rousing rendition of "Food Glorious Food, We Can't Wait to Eat It!" when I set out dinner (a fairly simple mixed-greens salad with homemade vinaigrette, Gorgonzola cheese, and slices of chicken...surprising thing to break into song about)
• Nagging-free kitchen cleaning. Including the one not assigned dishes taking out trash and compost - without complaining! And cooperative pot-and-pan washing!
• Several fight-less rounds of Trouble, Candyland, and Chess

My uterus has decided that now is not the time to have a baby, and has been pretty much quiet all day. The uterus part, that is; the baby has been wiggling and hiccuping away. Perhaps my body has decided that as long as the snot factory/headache/sore throat persists, it wouldn't be a good idea to have a baby. Or maybe it's the fact that I shifted baby higher in my pelvis by semi-accident (I tried to rotate him/her away from being stubbornly posterior, but got "float" instead). I'm already doing most of the posturing things that are supposed to keep this little bugger in a better position; babies fit better when their backs are along the front or left side of moms' bellies, and have the roughest time when their backs are lined up with moms' backs. And yeah, that's where this one is, and has been for a good long time. Boyness came out that way, and his labor was more painful and more confusing than the others. Anyhow, I'm doing the positioning things and they're not working. The latest attempt (the one that resulted in a relative state of "floating" for baby's station=distance from certain pelvic landmarks) involved the ever so comfortable (not) inversions with a little wiggling thrown in for added baby-movement encouragement. Failure.

Waiting for kids to get their little butts abed so I can stuff Easter eggs and stick Easter fun into baskets. I'm feeling really happy with myself for purchasing this stuff a couple of weeks ago while I still had any desire to be out in public at all. And while I was thinking "I'd better do this well, it's likely I'll be ignoring them for a while shortly after Easter."

(Who was I kidding? Like I said before, I will be pregnant forever.)

Tired!

It is going to be winter forever in the Pacific Northwest, I have decided. It is rainy and very windy today. A tree that I keep hoping will just fall and get it over with is resolutely not falling into my backyard, even though some other foliage is out there setting a good example. Our power went out, and back on. Between possible lack of power and tree limbs in the road, it would be a crappy day to have a baby.

So (not entirely due to the weather) I have also decided I'll be pregnant forever. My uterus is being extremely noncommittal about this whole labor-or-not thing, and I think it's just never going to make up its mind. At this rate I'm going to decide "screw it," take a trip 90 min from my house and wind up having a baby in some store somewhere. Last time I felt so full of peace and knowledge about the whole labor/birth. This time I'm just like "shut up uterus, I know you're just kidding again." On the plus side, I guess, during 12+ hours of contractions that were exactly 7 minutes apart yesterday, I accomplished a lot of those silly little last-minute things. Fran came home from work, spotted the baskets of pads and diapers etc, and asked if I wanted to do squats or "something" to get labor going. I promptly laid down in bed and picked up a book without answering him. He asked if he should get labor snacks ready, and all I said was "sorry for the fake out" and fell asleep.

And then I woke up every 30 minutes all night.

Now I have a sore throat and feel kinda spacey. Sounds like what Boyness has; he has spent the last few days whining about his throat, taking his temperature every so often just to show off the high numbers, and drinking Throat Coat tea.

I realize I'm not even to my due date (in fact my due date is about half a month away). I wouldn't mind being pregnant for longer, if my uterus would just stop playing its little "made you look!" game. I don't want to sound like a complete ass to women who habitually wind their way up to the 42 week mark. I kind of do, I realize. I would happily be pregnant for longer if I could do it a little less sick, tired, and contracty.

Oh, and if the kids would stop being complete whinerbaby contentious pains in the ass. All three of them in dish-it-but-can't-take-it mode in a HUGE way. Yesterday we TOTALLY had a bad kid day despite me trying to rally them behind a showing of Star Wars and some ice cream (--> complete "that was my spot" "his foot is in my way" FAILURE). And yes, today may be shaping up towards almost-as-bad status, although I'm not having to step in and yell at them as much. I understand they're as sick as I am and almost as tired. No matter how good my "you don't try to kill people who irritate the crap out of you" example is, the kids seem incapable of following it. Yesterday was one of those rare days where if I left the kids to their own devices I might actually be down a child or more.

THANK GOD for coffee, hot tea, good books, and the internet. 'Cause if I have to go out into humanity again (as I tried to today, and OMG was it torture) feeling like this, I will literally infect humankind with my misery and life as we know it will be ruined.

ETA (edited to add) - allow me to tag on the fact that not all of life is doom and gloom, and that I had way too much fun at my mother blessing this past weekend, which I can blog about (including a few pictures hopefully) when I don't feel like a big fat sarcastic bitch. You know, the sort who answers "uh-oh, you'd better be careful" from some innocent old lady with "don't worry I won't fall on you and squish you." (True story.)

Time Flies

The kids spent Sunday with their Nana; they went to see the ballet in Seattle. They reported that it was very short and I can't tell if they were disappointed about that or not, but since they were all really hoping to see Swan Lake (about 3 hours long) again someday, I'm leaning to "mild disappointment." All three kids have a surprising love of the Pacific Northwest Ballet.

In the meantime, B and I went into Gig Harbor and walked around all the shops full of highly breakable items that I never take the kids into. We came home in the afternoon and it was QUIET. Very nice.

On Monday, we loaded ourselves into the van and did a whirlwind tour of IKEA and other area shopping destinations, including stopping by our favorite garden center and letting the kids pick out plants. I stipulated they had to be partial sun and cool-weather hearty. The kids complied and each picked out three flowers and one herb that met the criteria.

I am apparently running at 30/10 (hct/hgb) = anemic, so we stopped on the way home for more iron supplements, steak, and (not at all productive for iron building) ice cream. I ran the grill, only the second time I've done it. The girls were SURE I was gonna fuck things up...I assigned them to watching the steaks, which apparently in their world included moving them around a lot. They informed me the steaks were ready to come off the grill more than a little early, so it's probably a good thing it took me another few minutes to get out there and harvest them. The steaks came out satisfyingly rare.

Side note: yes I'm pregnant and eating rare meat. If you go online (or in most pregnancy books), you'll receive pretty heavy-handed advice along the lines of "rare is not an option during pregnancy." This alarmist POV is based on the idea that all meat is hiding horrible salmonella, listeriosis, and toxoplasmosis infestations. There are times when you need to be cautious and times when it makes sense not to worry so much. My steak, cut and packed on-site, is unlikely to have much of anything horrible on it in the first place, and if it did it would all be on the surface (cows don't walk around with salmonella or listeriosis infesting their muscle tissue=meat, it's spread around during butchering). Giving the surface of a steak a nice sear is going to take care of that quite well. On the other hand, if my meat is ground, I'm generally going to want to make sure it's well cooked all the way. Particularly if I buy it in factory-packed tubes or somesuch. And I do avoid lunch meat, but that's more an issue of the fact that I always avoid it because I don't much care for it.

I've found it interesting that the more I know about the warnings pregnant women are given, the more likely I am to ignore most of them. Particularly idiocy like not eating spinach (and I've seen lists that basically encompass everything you can get fresh from the ground) because it "might contain salmonella." But you can eat all the twinkies you want, right? Nothing scary in those (I've never seen a pregnancy do-not-eat list that includes them)? No BPA in the cans of beans I'm supposed to be eating? Let's not forget all the tuna WIC wanted to give me last time around.

Anyway, back to the recap. On Tuesday, we went to Nana's for piano and guitar, and saw Aunty B off. Then we went home, and the kids carefully potted their plants:



We had our first backyard fire of the season (no pictures). And a very late night when Fran let the kids stay up and watch Blues Brothers again.

Wednesday was GLORIOUS. While BittyPrincess took FOREVER (all morning and then some) to fold and put away her laundry:



The rest of us enjoyed the lovely 70-degrees-and-sunshine weather outside:



And someone came over to fix our shower, which had been leaking into our den. This apparently had been a problem forever, and a plumber that came by last week was absolutely certain that the plumbing wasn't the problem, the shower door was. So yesterday the handyman (who lives nearby and apparently has a daughter that Girliness plays with sometimes) came by, advised that we could probably get by with caulking things up properly, and then our landlady decided we should go ahead and get a new shower door anyway. It turned out to be a good thing she did, because when the handyman took off the old door, we found out that the installation had been seriously fucked up. Instead of cutting down the rails, some idiot had cut the tile AROUND the rail, so water was literally flowing into the wall straight from the shower door rail through that hole...that yes, OMG the stupidity, runs straight into the wallspace. The wall/subfloor/ceiling would absorb only so much before leaking, which was why the problem was intermittent. Our shower isn't put back together because we hit the end of the day without the necessary supplies to replace the tiles. Handyman dude said it would be possible to patch but the patch wouldn't be visible and would be much weaker than the surrounding tile, so we wouldn't know there was a problem until the walls and floors were saturated again (and then those would need to be replaced AGAIN). So the plan is to replace the tiles and then install a shower door the right way. Hopefully today. I want the shower back.

He seemed enthusiastic about our plan to use the shower as the source of our water for our birth. BittyPrincess showed him the pool and everything. We're sure the whole setup will work. At some point I'm going to catalogue the bits and pieces of what is involved in setting up your own birth pool, including expense. Because I think it's interesting.

Anyway, we also did the Y yesterday. And Fran took the kids to Kids Gig in the late afternoon while I made dinner (and admittedly spent some time sitting outside reading and not doing anything productive).

I'm not sure what today holds, except that it is cold and rainy (yay spring?) and BittyPrincess woke up with a seal cough.

Props to my Midwife, and some minor kid cooperation

On Saturday we headed out to Bainbridge Island, where my former classmate and now midwife had her clinic opening party. Her practice is Gumnut Blossom Midwifery, located on Bainbridge Island, WA. Props to her for getting her clinic space opened, and even more so for not throwing up her arms and quitting the whole deal during the fun newly-opened-practice process she's going through with insurance. The clinic is lovely, the company was lovely, and the kids had great fun running around hopefully not causing too much trouble. Eventually - after the kids had each gone several rounds with the snacks - we extricated ourselves and headed back to Gig Harbor.

It was yet another pretty day, and we couldn't quite bring ourselves to just go home *too* early, so we stopped off at Kids Gig. At first Boyness was heavily whiny about wanting to go home (he's our homebody for sure), but he quickly got over himself, and everyone had a great time. The kids *gasp* didn't even fight. They even *double gasp* cooperated:



Home in time to get the kids ready for the Sunday excursion they had planned with Nana, into Seattle to see the PNW Ballet do Hansel and Gretel. And then to have dinner and a screening of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (another library acquisition). And off to bed "early," at 9:30.

Point Defiance

On Friday we took advantage of the unseasonably warm weather and headed off to Point Defiance Zoo.

The kids were being complete fuckheads to each other again. They actually did fairly well once we got into the zoo, though, thank freaking goodness.

How very, well, like the girls...Girliness' preferred exhibit:


vs. BittyPrincess' preference:


BittyPrincess remains somewhat obsessed with the idea that she will, one day, own her very own baby walrus. Yes, a baby walrus. It will be bigger than her, of course. But still a baby. We caught the trainer talk for the walruses today and she is even MORE convinced. She's sure now that if she has enough fish she can teach her walrus to do all KINDS of cool things. If the walruses there can splash and whistle and roll over, her baby walrus will be able to do that stuff too, of course.

I think it is kind of funny that my fairies-pink-ballerina princess is obsessed (has been for at least two years) with owning her own baby walrus.

Anyhow, we also managed to be there when the interactive zone was open:



Boyness was interested in the crab molts:



After we left the zoo, we went to Tacoma Boys and got a whole lot of produce for a quite small amount of money. Aunty B also picked up ingredients for banana splits, which we happily consumed after dinner while watching the latest impulse grab from the library, The Hunchback of Notre Dame.

Aunty B! Tacoma!

On Thursday my sister (the kids' Aunty B) came into town on the ass-early (red-eye for her) flight. I went and got her and then we waited for the house to wake up.

It was the third Thursday of the month, which meant that the Art Museum, History Museum, and Glass Museum in Tacoma all had free hours. (Art Museum 10am-8pm, History Museum 2pm-8pm, Glass Museum 5pm-8pm.) So of course we decided that was what we had to do. Even though the kids were being punks and kept it up all day. Really, really, really being punks. To each other, to me, to the sidewalk, it didn't matter. Equal opportunity punkage.

We stayed home for long enough to have lunch, and then ventured into Tacoma. Since I'm cheap enough to be unwilling to pay parking rates in the downtown Tacoma lots, we parked at the Tacoma Dome Station (free) and used the Link Light Rail (free) to get into downtown.

A little side-adventure while walking to the light rail stop:


And no, I'm not trying to smuggle a basketball into Tacoma:


On to the Art Museum, where there were no pictures because I stashed my camera in the lockers and because areas of the museum that allow pictures aren't plentiful anyway. So...I have to say that I like art, of course, but in a visual way and not in an artist-makes-a-statement kind of way. And it appears that several of the volunteer I-have-no-idea-what-to-call-them walking around talking to visitors were of the "what's the message" persuasion, and wanted to tell us - including the kids - all about it. Mildly disturbing in the "The Secret Language of Animals" exhibit. The kids then went to the art lab, where they played with materials we already have at home. Stress levels were somewhat high in the art museum but the kids didn't actually step out of line in any institutional fashion. They just fucked with each other the whole time.

On to the History Museum. Again, lots of punkage from the kids. Whining complaining "this part isn't fun" punkage. Rarely two kids whining about hating the same part of the museum, so just a constant rotation of whineage our whole visit. Maybe the only time all three shut up at once was at the Bigfoot exhibit.

Obligatory picture of kids in the wagon (they posed themselves and everything):



BittyPrincess was highly mesmerized by an agriculture exhibit:


I think she might have fallen asleep there if we had left her to stare for too long.

We decided that perhaps part of the reason for the crankassness was hunger, even though the kids weren't whining at all about food (oh no, just elbowing each other and constantly trying to run in inappropriate places, or doing that not-quite-headbutting thing to my arms to express their displeasure at waiting for other people to finish looking at an exhibit they didn't like). So we hiked off to The Rock Pizza, and had an excellent salad and fairly good pizza family style, while the kids happily enjoyed in near-complete silence. So much so that we kind of creeped out our server.

Of course when we left the sibling-poking and running towards roadways resumed with extraordinary promptness.

We decided to go to the Glass Museum anyway, with the understanding that all we'd be doing was watching the glass workers in the Hot Shop. Which worked out fairly well despite Boyness deciding he was bored with it all about 20 minutes before anyone else was ready to leave. The pieces being made were going to be fairly boring finished products, but the whole process was really cool, it was well narrated, and two teams were working at once; there was a lot to look at.

We arrived back home well after 8, me murderously ready to, well, murder the children, and the children ready for round 57 of bothering-each-other. I can't seem to get them to understand that if they're little frigging pains in the ass when people visit, people aren't going to want to visit. Nobody LIKES watching them fight, even though yes, it does get them attention; but the people visiting WANT to pay attention to them, ferfucksake, and would be happy to pay attention without the complete fucktardedness that they display when we have visitors. Crossing my fingers that they pull out of their collective funk.

Morning Musings

I am not a morning person. Back when I had to get up for clinic early-early-early in the mornings, I used to put off getting out of bed until the last second, about 15 minutes before I needed to leave the house; I'd then stumble down the stairs, put on some coffee, shower, dress, retrieve the coffee into a travel mug, and try to wake up and drive simultaneously (no pedestrians, other cars, or wildlife were harmed in this endeavor).

Anyway, there are times when I really hate waking up in the morning. Like when the squirrels that live in the tree right above my bedroom decide to do their morning pinecone-bombing of my roof. I have still not figured out why some mornings at the crack of dawn the squirrels are motivated to throw pinecones at my roof. Most mornings they don't do it. There is no sleeping through it when they get going, though.

Or when I wake up to the melodious sounds of arguing children. Luckily I have two not-morning children who like to sleep in even more than I do. UNluckily I have one morning child who wakes up ready to TAKE ON THE WORLD, usually before anyone else. He likes to lurk in the hallways waiting for any sign of awakeness from anybody else. Again, unluckily, this means that when DD rolls over and rearranges her bedding she's usually confronted with BOYCHILD RIGHT IN HER LINE OF SIGHT waiting for her to show signs she's ready to wake up. And then the "go away" "but don't you want to come have breakfast with me" irritation begins.

Let's not forget those mornings when I wake up sore and still-tired from the pregnant-woman semi-sleep fiasco.

But then there are mornings that are just lovely. This morning it is bright and clear outside. Because my sister is visiting and sleeping in one of the cooler areas of the house, the heat was already turned up. The up-too-early Boyness put off doing dishes last night and is industriously washing away in the kitchen. The coffee is good, the rest of the house is asleep, and I get to hole up in the den and act like it's me, the coffee, and the sunshine. For at least an hour. This is sanity, people.

Yes It's Still Winter (Bonus ants, flowers, sheet music, and a chiropractic visit)

I vacuumed up ants today. They had apparently decided that they liked my subwoofer, despite the fact that we never eat anywhere near the thing, there's no water nearby, we have no ants anywhere else in the house (that I know about), and I can't see anything the least bit attractive about it. I vacuumed them up and then went and took a shower to stop the crawlies, but now I might have to shower again...it's almost as bad as when you start thinking about headlice and get all itchy (glad I could do that for you).

The weather continues to lie to me. Not quite as convincingly as it was a few weeks ago, but still. There are FLOWERS. Not the over-optimistic ones that you plant as bulbs only to watch die a short while later. Ones that usually don't bother until spring.

This has led to garden-bed-preparing on the kids' part:



No matter how many times I tell them it is still too early to plant anything, the girls don't seem to believe me. Girliness is just disdainful of my opinion (happily, or maybe semi-happily, since it means I will have to buy some later, I have none of the soil additives she needed to prepare her beds properly, so she was left with a "when it's TIME we'll get some" answer and half-prepared beds). BittyPrincess was moved to tears by my unwillingness to help her plant flowers.

Semi-dramatic subject shift: I can't tell you how happy I am to see music like this on the piano:



Even if it is a bit of a stretch for Girliness, and even if this particular piece is more than a tad played-out, I love that she's getting more and more capable at the piano. MIL still does the teaching and in my opinion her reluctance to push the kids at ALL past their comfort zone is making for a REALLY SLOW learning experience, but they ARE still learning.

That all still fell into the "lies" category because Girliness is for the most part still playing much simpler music, with this as her more extended work piece. Most of her sheet music isn't nearly so pretty. Yet.

Relevant to previous posts but not at all to this one, I saw a chiropractor yesterday (Wednesday) to highly pleasing effect. Fran made the appointment for me; I suppose he'd heard enough whining? Anyhow, I can put on pants again (whohooo for small victories!) without falling over, wincing in pain, or doing a three-step seated-then-standing operation. Oh, and it hurts WAY less.

Unsprung

It is dramatically not spring yet today.

After so much nice weather, I was really starting to get adjusted to warmer days and higher light levels, and not wallowing so much. Today it is 33 degrees and it has been snowing. The sudden shift leaves my brain confused and unhappy.

I did, however, sleep better last night after pulling our old memory foam topper from where it was stored (memory foam does have a lifespan, and that topper was well past it - we'd taken it off the bed and put it aside in case we wanted to cut it up for camping pads) and cutting it so that I could sleep on the not-so-used-up middle portion. I twice managed to sleep for 2 consecutive hours.

Prenatal sleep deprivation may indeed be an evolutionary advantage because if we are already sleep deprived when we actually give birth, we are less likely to suddenly slip into complete insanity when our babies wake us every 1-2 hours and resort to infanticide so that we can just.fucking.sleep. While we're pregnant, there's not really anyone to take it out on as our waking intervals come closer and closer together and it becomes harder and harder to get physically comfortable. I couldn't kill my husband and get a blissful uninterrupted nights' sleep. My kids have long since transitioned into their own sleep patterns that for the most part don't have anything to do with mine. It's all me and those lovely (not) pregnancy hormones.

Just another excuse for pregnancy space-cadet syndrome.

Continued Doings of Dubious Importance

But first, a little whining (I do that frequently don't I?)...I hate my mattress. This is bleary day #3 after waking up with hip pain at 3am that I just couldn't find a sleep position comfortable enough to alleviate. This despite the small pillow armada now inhabiting the bed with me, and the third-trimester rotisserie process (hourly turning) that I've been doing for quite a while now. I want a new mattress but can't justify it given that in another month it will probably no longer actually be hurting me, and given that even if we had enough money for a new mattress it would be better used paying down our credit cards. It does suck though (it is dipped/compressed into ruts where we sleep most often). /whining

Girliness' ear is much improved. No further high drama necessary, although greater than usual attention/cleaning/treatment continues.

Boyness continues to be a PITA and has had frequent outbursts this week. I think he's cycling. Hormonally, I mean. Like 'rhoid rage or something. Totally punting this to Fran, who says he was the same way as a kid and what I've been doing is not helping. The two of them can sit down and make a behavior/consequence plan and fill me in after. Of course, now that we're on the tail end of a week of this behavior, he'll probably be perfect for the remainder of the month (I really do think he's cycling, everybody has a hormonal cycle, some of us are just more affected than others).

I organized (well, the kids and I organized) our mess of swimming stuff (=stuff shoved under the bottom shelf of the hall closet that in some way relates to swimming). It was one of those 20 minute jobs that I'd put off for a year. Ridiculous.

Baby continues to wriggle about vigorously here on the shy side of 34 weeks. Head down all the time now, though.

I am newly enamored of a pair of shorts that Fran got as a Christmas present from his brother. Yes, I am stealing my husband's shorts. He'll live. It's a testament to how much weight Fran has lost that he and I can wear the same clothing (I wear it under the belly, not over), 'cause we never hit this point last time around (and I'm not bigger or heavier than I was at this point with BittyPrincess). I got a bleach stain on one of the three shirts that still make it all the way around my belly. Damnit.

We have still not decided on a name for this baby, although here in my blog it will probably be Newbie.

Ear Piercing Draaaaama!!!!

As part of Girliness' 10 year birthday, she got her ears pierced (I think I blogged about this, but I might have forgotten...she wanted her ears pierced and a haircut and lunch out with me for her 10th birthday present - awesome). This was over a month ago. As instructed by the woman who did her ear piercing, Girliness has been faithfully cleaning her ears thrice daily with the solution she was given at the shop. Nevertheless, yesterday the piercing in her left ear - formerly just a little more irritated-looking than her right - presented a pretty nasty infection. At about 10pm she came to me with the front part of the earing missing in her ear, because the amount of swelling had pulled it in too far. I have more than the average amount of ammunition to deal with such a situation. But OMG did it ever SUCK. Even with the lidocaine, pulling through the earing to drain and reposition was very difficult for her to get through. There was a bunch of thrashing and "mom my hand just DOES that I can't control it" going on. We had to take a couple of breaks (her excuse was that she wanted to look in the mirror, but it was that she couldn't handle it anymore). And I legitimately thought she'd hate me forever. After everything was drained and back in place and I'd hit her ear with enough antibiotic/sanitizing solutions to treat a small armada of girls with infected ear piercings (and made her take an oral antibiotic as well, although without so much overkill), she gave me a big and very sincere hug. She was eager to head off to bed, but a little shaky still, so a little rescue remedy and a warm sea salt compress for her ear, and she was out in 5 minutes.

I on the other hand am surprised by how much I absolutely totally completely hated this whole ordeal.

In the course of my midwifery education I have found that I am indeed capable of hurting people without feeling bad about it, usually because 1) I have their consent to do something necessary (or they would literally die if I didn't), 2) I know things will improve when it's over, and 3) I do my damnedest not to hurt anyone any more than I absolutely HAVE to.

It has always stressed me out, though. My body is really accustomed to stress hormones now and if I ever did get shaky and out-of-body because of them the way some people do, I don't now. My daughter thinks I dealt with her ear with utter calm and compassion. In truth I am not sure my stress level has EVER been this high, and I've seen some gnarly shit.

It really, really is different when it's your own kids. (Side note: I have SO much more compassion for the EMT dad that couldn't help our birth team out as his wife was hemorrhaging now.) And something nasty happens in your brain when you could just stop and it would still hurt, but not as much as THIS. I wanted badly to foist this off on someone else, but the alternatives weren't attractive (which pretty much sums up other circumstances in which I've hurt my children to provide necessary medical care).

Or maybe pregnancy has reduced my coping abilities to shit. After Girliness was safely and relatively comfortably abed, I proceeded to descend into a ball of horrified hormonal-ness, and contracted regularly for 2 hours until I finally got out of bed and ate a burrito and drank a glass of wine.

This morning, all is well with Girliness' ear. It isn't back to normal but it looks MUCH better and she says it doesn't hurt as much. Thank freaking goodness.

Lessons learned:

1) The antiseptic solution given at an ear piercing isn't sufficiently strong to prevent an infection, much less treat one. When I actually read the label I was shocked at how weak it was; barely enough to make sure there wasn't anything growing in the solution itself.

2) Pregnancy apparently reduces my coping skills to mush. Even moreso than I thought. I have no way of knowing for sure, but probably this wouldn't have been nearly so big a deal (still would have sucked) not pregnant.

3) My daughter loves and trusts me enough that she doesn't hold this incident against me.

In another thank-freaking-goodness aside, I had warned Girliness that this might happen before we ever got her ears pierced. I am SO glad I didn't talk her into it with promises of "it's so easy, no problems ever blah blah blah."

I continue to be horrified with people who pierce infants' ears.

Spring Cleaning. Ish.

Today I engaged in a little of what I like to call "moving day cleaning." You know, that kind of cleaning you only do on the day you move into or out of a house, and then wonder why you hadn't done that at all in the years you'd been there. Like "why did I let that coffee splatter stay behind the coffee maker for three years? It looks so much better now!"

I am well aware that there are many people for whom this type of cleaning does not exist, either because they really are that on top of their immaculate homes or because they don't actually live in their homes. Or maybe because they've never moved, have never in their adult lives had to fully empty out a space they've lived in for years, and haven't a clue how dirty it really is underneath their stoves.

I was relieved to find that there was nothing scary (or living) underneath my oven when I pulled it from its cozy little nook in the counterspace. Some dustbunnies and a long-lost baking dish, and a toy that had to have belonged to a prior inhabitant.

The same cannot be said for the furnace duct that emerges next to the "pantry" (=large L-shaped shelving unit that holds all our dry goods/non-refrigerated foodstuffs). There were formerly-edible things in there that our family has never purchased so I'm pretty sure I'm not the only person who slacks when it comes to removing vent covers and cleaning the scary gaping tunnel that eventually leads to the furnace.

Unfortunately, while I now FEEL cleaner just standing in my kitchen, you can't really tell that big a difference. Except maybe for the front of the dishwasher, which will be dirty again next week I'm sure.

A couple of days ago we did the kids' bathroom in a similarly thorough way. That was downright scary, but luckily I had the messy-bathroom perpetrators to do the behind-the-toilet scrubbing. At one point they knew how to clean the bathroom really well, and would do it when I assigned it once a week or so, but standards had slipped to the point where I saw the same piece of unclaimed missed-the-can trash behind the toilet for four weeks running, and it became obvious that I had to take things into my own hands again. Which in this case mostly meant sitting cross-legged outside their bathroom and directing the Boyness cleaning army-of-one.

Also this week, I went into the garage and found all the boxes of outgrown kid clothes, and sorted them by size. You'd think they would already be sorted, but no...I tend to go through the kids' clothes on the same (or close to the same) day, and during the midwifery school adventure I didn't ever have time to do anything but stick the resulting pile in a box and slap a label on it, so I'd have three sizes in each box.

I have 9 large rubbermaid containers of outgrown kid clothes. Yikes. At least I know where/what it all is. And there is a piece of my decluttering-loving heart that is LOVING the idea of not having boxes of outgrown clothes lying around after this child; this is as-close-as-you-get-to-100% surely going to be our last.

Also since my last update, we completed Boyness' room. He loves it. I am very happy that he loves it and is so proud of his room. The girls, miraculously, cleaned their room very thoroughly and have kept it that way for a week; I had told them I wouldn't even consider rearranging their room until they'd kept it clean for 2 weeks straight, which I thought they would find impossible. I might be stuck rearranging their room.

This leaves the dining area, den, and laundry room to deep clean. And there are bits of the garage left to reorganize, too, but it's gratifyingly easy to walk through and Boyness has plenty of room to use his heavy boxing bag now (vs having to walk through a box maze to get to his mats etc before).

The really interesting thing here (and yes, I consider all of the above highly boring) is that none of that stuff HAD to be done. And indeed, if this was last year, I would not have done it, and nobody would have suffered. Funny how different things become important, how we fill our time. My life came to a screeching halt in early September when I simultaneously ended my midwifery school/apprenticeship obligations and got horrifically morning-sick. And it feels full again right now. I know we're descending into dangerous mommy-wars ground here...but for me it is a truth that this is less fulfilling and satisfying work. Nevertheless, it is where I find myself, unable to realistically work call or do midwifery work of pretty much any sort until a good chunk of time after this baby arrives. So I fill my time with the smaller joys of clean furnace vents and dust-bunny-free zones under the oven. What I was doing when my life was so hectic and crazy was Atlas-important for the women and families I was helping, and this feels...less. Even if it does still feel "full."

I realize I am glossing over the main mommy-war point - that joy I'm supposed to be feeling about spending time with my kids - because truth be told I'm not sure I'm spending that much more good one-on-one time with them (I'm not talking about one me with one child, I'm talking about one me paying 100% attention to any or all three). The kids have been simultaneously enjoying the stability of knowing mom is around almost 100% of the time and missing the chaotic fun of the days that they used to spend at friends' houses. I have been happily allowing them to do projects of various sorts virtually all day (everything from making and racing boats a couple of days ago to identifying birds to doing "art" projects that essentially amount to little more than scribbling on various media) with little input necessary from the mama gallery. I've found the internet to once again be a vital social lifeline when I would otherwise be mostly cooped up at home doing that depressing stay-at-home-mom no-adult-interaction thing (AGAIN no slap-down on the mamas who do and enjoy this. I just don't).

A little over a month until the baby-in-arms part. Probably a couple of months until I get restless enough to start up my midwifery business, and a few months beyond that until things get really interesting when I start attending births.

I feel stalled.

The Boyness Roller Coaster

Boyness has been asking me to help him rearrange his room for at least 6 months. He doesn't like his bed high up, he says. And he doesn't like his bed, period, it isn't comfortable.

So I decided almost completely on a whim that yesterday was *the day* that we were going to tackle the bed thing. I figured it would take a few hours and we could be happily done by the time we were supposed to be at the Y. Plus Fran was home, and I wasn't about to un-loft the bed without another adult to do the lifting.

Semi-predictably, we wound up completely disassembling the bed and moving the entire contents of his bedroom into our room and the hallway so that we could steam clean the carpets. We still made it to the Y, but with the project at 0% completion and the floors wet. Come evening, the floors were still damp and we were back to digging a hallway through our bedroom so that we could leave them to dry overnight.

Meanwhile I got to thinking that Boyness' fancy 100% cotton futon mattress did indeed look kinda funky and flat and uncomfortable. And that maybe 100% cotton plus allergy-boy wasn't a great combo. So today, instead of putting his room back together, we went mattress shopping. This turned out to be a far more onerous task than I predicted, largely because we can't exactly run to Costco and spend $450 on a twin mattress (Holy shit! These must be the same people that buy their BMW and Lexus at Costco!). We wound up at IKEA, where we purchased a rather fancy combo latex/memory foam mattress at 80% discount because the washable outer cover was dirty (it looked like someone had pulled it across the floor of the warehouse pickup area). Right now, the washable outer cover is slowly drying on low heat, but when I pulled it from the washer it looked brand-new-white. SWEET.

And yeah, it's 8:20 and his mattress isn't even back on his bed (at least the frame is reassembled) and his room is still in the hallway and in my bedroom. At least we didn't really have anything planned for tomorrow.

This was NOT supposed to be a three day project. Ugh.

Anyhow, back to why I titled this post "The Boyness Roller Coaster." We swung dramatically from "OMG I'm so happy I am picking out my mattress and you're letting me CHOOSE the one I want!" to "the girls get something why don't I get something" when we stopped at Goodwill (of all places!) and I got BittyPrincess a pair of shoes for $2 and Girliness a *OMG THE EXPENDITURE* wicker basket. WTF?

Sweetness and sunshine on the ride home. OK, well, mostly sleeping on the ride home. And then a HUGE FUCKING BREAKDOWN because his sister wanted more yogurt than he put in her bowl and he was scared we were going to run out. Such a huge breakdown that it only ended when I threw him bodily out the front door and told him that if he was going to threaten the people that I love and live with in my house, he couldn't be in my house anymore.

Tears and reconciliation.

Folding laundry in the living room right now.

OMG PLEASE tell me I'm putting in my parenting duty with this child now and the teenage years will be a breeze. Please. Lie to me, even.

Maternity updates, of a sort

I kind of suck at this whole pregnancy journaling thing. It's pretty easy to see why. Daily updates from weeks 5-26 would have been "pregnancy sucks. I barfed x times today. I can't get out of bed. Oh yeah, and pregnancy sucks." 21weeks x 7days a week = repeat that update 147 times. Then normal life (plus a few added pregnancy-related foibles) happens from 26 weeks until about, hmmmm, now.

Tomorrow I make 32 weeks. For the uninitiated, this means...nothing, really. A "normal" pregnancy lasts about 40 weeks. Or not. It's even more confusing than you think, seriously. The system dates from before anybody really understood the science of conception. Sure, various cultures have had various levels of understanding about how women get pregnant and how long pregnancies should last and how on earth you tell where a woman was beyond "OMG you're huge/not huge/ready to pop/about-halfway-maybe." We're currently operating on something called Naegele's Rule, thanks to a (I'm assuming) well intentioned obstetrician who in the 1700s determined that women deliver, on average, 280 days after the beginning of their last menstrual period.

When I was 1 week pregnant, the baby was not yet conceived.

This system has been in place for so long that it would just confuse everyone even more to start dating from conception.

There's also good evidence that while the 280 day average may have held in Naegele's time, with many grand-multips (moms of 5+) in the calculation, 288 may be more accurate today, particularly for primips (first time moms).

Not that I'm going to nitpick my due date. I almost chose it because I like it. Not quite, but almost. My cycles were wonky. Conception happened sometime "between this birth on this day and that birth about a week later." I've had all my babies slightly before their due dates anyway, so any safe guess will do.

Anyway, bringing the train of thought back in line...

Now is when things start to get interesting for me again. Not in a bad way, or in a good way, really...just MORE.

Today at the YMCA at LEAST 10 people asked me when I was due, prefaced with some variation of "it must be soon." I got my first "is it TWINS?" comment. And two people, one of whom I've never met before, think I'm having a boy.

I have indeed had a growth spurt this past week. I've gained about 4lb and I *feel it.* I'd like to say that the BABY had a growth spurt, but I'd be lying. *I* had a growth spurt, and baby may have incidentally put on a little weight while it was already doing that growing-ridiculously-fast thing that fetuses do. But probably all the weight went to my face and my ass and baby gained it's prim and proper 1/4 lb this week.

Speaking of the Y (just to keep the non-organized unflow of this post going), today was the first day of a new session (=kid swim lessons and classes of various sorts). Our membership cost went up (DAMNIT) but still costs less than anything else I could be doing; even buying a membership at a dedicated gym just for me would cost more, and this way the kids' swimming/ballet/PE/whateverelse lessons are included in the price. Today I put all three in homeschool PE at the same time and spent 45 minutes on the eliptical machine. There is no way that is happening anywhere else. I didn't even have to get up at ungodly-early to do it before Fran had to leave for his own gym-then-work time. TRAPPED.

I came home to find a package (yay!) of the maternity clothes I bought, just a shirt and a sweater. @($*&@#(*$&rs sent the wrong stuff! Like I have weeks to send it back and get new stuff? I told myself I was splurging on a sweater (all of $19) because the maternity sweater that lasted all pregnancy last time was exposing a strip of belly (ugh!) and I still have almost 2 months of cool weather before I have a baby. And then I'll still need bigger-than-usual clothes for a while. Needless to say, I am not a happy customer at the moment. I wanted just one shirt and one sweater that fit, damnit. Just one. Not too much to ask, I would think. The normal clothes I am still wearing (yes, seriously, I'm not wearing pregnancy clothes - I hated them so much I gave them away and I'm GLAD, I wouldn't want to be wearing them anyway) are stretched out enough now that you can see a little through the knit at the belly. You can't see anything important; just when the light catches it right it's like "OH, you can kind of see skin color through that shirt!"

Speaking of belly skin, I thought there was no more uncharted territory on my belly after 3 kids had left stretch marks behind. Apparently there was, a little higher on the right side, where I have a nice little peninsula of stretchmark now thanks to baby trying to push its head into territory I'm pretty sure my liver actually needs to be occupying even now. I think it's ever-so-obnoxious that this baby still hasn't picked a position. Not that it's a big deal for baby still to be flipping around at 32 weeks. It's just uncomfortable, especially since this kid is apparently destined to be a drama queen/king and doesn't just flip, but flips in a BIG OBNOXIOUS STRETCHED-OUT LIMBS-EVERYWHERE kind of way. And sometimes tries to hang out in places where really (seriously kid, why?) the amount of available space is not suitable. I understand that it's roomy in there after 3 other kids have stretched things out a bit, but still, back-up-limbs-down doesn't work at this point; I'm just not that huge. And the ligaments that are desperately trying to keep my uterus from falling off my body *really hurt* when those weird positions and position-changes happen.

This baby is still unnamed. Suggestions welcome.

In which Niki nests...but not in her own home (updated)

Before:

During:

That's me. Hard to see the extent of my belly. That was not an intentional pose; I had just finished using the hammer/prybar to take up some carpet tacking and was thinking about how I was going to haul my quite-heavy rear up off the floor, when ~L~ caught me sitting like that and ran for the camera.

The next day, the only real after-effect is a little tightness in the ass muscles from the squatting/bending. Still, I was happy to move my blanket around the yard (keeping it in the patches of sunlight) and watch the kids zoom around on wheeled objects of various sorts (rollerblades, scooters, bikes, skates) while ~L~ and Mr. P painted the now-bare floor.

More During (I didn't get any pictures of the completely empty room, but you get the idea):







After!





The room still needs rugs to be placed, but the furniture and school stuff is all there! Woot!

I should totally do our own schoolroom/den now, but nah. We start a new Y session today. And I don't feel like it.