Light at the end of the tunnel

For work reasons, Ben and I both would love it if I could stay pregnant until March 8th. Since this is still 10 days before my "guess date," and Coop was a 41-weeker, I think this is a good goal. Ben has speeches in his comm class, and I have 2 parts of my students' final research paper coming in on Feb 28 and March 7 that I would like to grade before I have a 4th child to juggle.

BUT, I am 37 weeks-- full term!!!!-- on Monday, not 36 like I said last time, so, really, we need to be prepared to have the baby at any moment.

Unlike my last pregnancies, though, I am not in a hurry for this one to end.  I will miss feeling her bounce and kick and roll in there.  I will miss having such a taut stomach (seriously-- it's all jello belly again as soon as she's out).  I will miss the shape of my body and the way even the most lazy task-- lying on the couch eating Taco Bell and reading natural birth books, for example-- feels special because I am also GROWING A PERSON while I do it.

Amazing birth partner (he would reject that label because he is not a guy who wants a doula to feed him a sandwich, and I think he would rather gnaw off his own arm than climb into the birth tub naked like a guy I saw on Baby Story last week) that he is, Ben solved all of my birth fears the other night without even trying.  I looked up from my HypnoBirthing book (which?  really?  surges?  no pain at all?   no pushing? I am going to try these visualization and relaxation techniques because I remember the panicked tensing I would get at the start of every contraction from about 7-10 cm because I knew what was coming, and I do think it would be more comfortable if I could stay relaxed and limp) and asked for reassurance that everything would be all right, and he gave me the weirdest look.  He said he thought I was manufacturing a problem, and I got all pissed off, but then he went on to say that I was so calm and in charge during Cooper's birth and it didn't seem to be a big deal at all (ha! HAHAHA!), so he could not understand my anxiety.  When I realized he wasn't fucking with me, I felt tons better.

He also reminded me of my 2 favorite things about Cooper's birth:  1.  Our nurse thought Ben was extremely NOT FUNNY.  Every time he made a bad joke, she ave him the most awful, withering look.  I forgot about that, but it was delightful even at the time.  When he told me to man up, I thought her head would explode.  2.  When I was all set up and ready to push with the lights on and the bed elevated, I wasn't having a contraction, and it was SO AWKWARD to be lying there with my ass in the face of 2 doctors, who were staring at it under bright lights.  I said, "So, um, what's everybody doing?"  They were shocked that I was making a joke during a med free birth, and I was so proud of myself for having my shit together enough to feel self conscious.  This sounds like an odd hallmark of a successful birth experience, but go with me.

We also want the baby to stay in because THIS GUY, this skeptical little shopper in a taxi cart (we are having some heated double stroller debates-- Cooper freaking hates strollers, but how the hell do you wrangle 2 under 2 w/o a containment device for both?) is going to be a big brother?!

I love how mad he is here-- the neck cords!  All the teeth!  The jazz hand!  The clenched fist!  Even his hair looks pissed off.

It is both terrifying and thrilling that by around this time next month, we will be done with pregnancy, you know?

Natural hospital brth-- not an oxymoron

When I was about this pregnant with Cooper, Ben and I went to a wedding.  I remember feeling super cute despite the humidity, my hugeness, and the bad hair cut I recently got.  We saw Ben's old boss, a stick skinny, tall woman, who said to me, "Wow, I bet you can't wait to lose that weight!"  At the time, I was totally bummed and thought who the fuck says that to a pregnant woman?  But right now?  I totally get it.

I am, in fact, ready to lose that weight.

In Happier at Home, Gretchen Rubin writes about not eating ANY holiday desserts because she says it was easier for her to abstain completely than to worry about moderation.  This made total sense to me, and I have decided it is the attitude I am going to take toward sweets after I have the baby.  I will already be cutting out chocolate, since all 3 other kids were sensitive to it, so I think this time I am going to go whole hog and stop eating sugary crap, too.  I already abstain from artificial sweeteners of any kind, so I don't have to worry about falling into that trap.  I am going to extend the ban to all flavored lattes, but I am going to eat the organic yogurt I love, even though it is sweetened with organic cane juice. (And don't tell me to eat Greek yogurt instead because I have tried, but it tastes like puke).  I am also going to keep eating jelly on my toast, but no more cinnamon sugar on cinnamon swirl bread, no more cookies, cakes, pies, muffins, scones, brownies, candy-- you get the idea.  I don't want to go crazy and restrict calories until breastfeeding is well established, but I do need to kick the junk habit.  Our family ate 4 dozen cookies in less that 24 hours, and I made another 4 dozen tonight.  AND I ATE HALF BY MYSELF.  This is not good.

Today, I read a fabulous book, Natural Hospital Birth by Cynthia Gabriel.  She is a professor at EMU with a PhD in medical anthropology, and she is also a doula.  Apparently, the 2 natural hospital births I have had are rare.  Jack's birth-- arrival at the hospital at 7 cm and no real time for intervention-- is the way most natural hospital births happen.  One like Cooper's-- arrival at the hospital in early labor, freedom to move throughout, occasional use of hand-held monitors, nurse willing to monitor the baby wherever I happened to be in the moment, infrequent vaginal exams, hydrotherapy, lots of walking, nurse-coached breathing-- is less common.  My only complaints about Cooper's delivery (besides, of course, the horrific pain) are that I had to deliver him lying down, that he pooped in the womb and needed to be whisked away and suctioned out, so I could not hold him before Ben cut the cord, and that a resident with a terrible bedside manner kept trying to give me an amniotomy.  First of all, no, dude, I don't want an intervention, and I am pretty sure my labor is speedy enough as it is (last woman of the morning into a birth suite and the first one out, baby).  Second, anmiotomy, really?  Put down the textbook, Doogie, and just say you want to break my water. 

But the pain thing.  I think that's the whole reason Cooper was so late-- too much fear and adrenaline to let any oxytocin in my body.  I remembered enough of Jack's labor and delivery to know that I had never in my life felt so amazing as I did the moment he was out and the pain was gone and I knew that I could leap out of bed and walk to my recovery suite that very minute, and I knew I wanted that feeling again.  I also, though, remembered how bad it hurt to push him out without any drugs, and that part really scared me as my due date drew closer.  This time, I want to be more zen and want to know that I can stand another day of body-wracking pain because it is short-lived, normal, and the means to a completely transformative end.

Harry's birth was a stereotypical slew of interventions.  My water broke before I started to feel contractions, so I came in to the hospital "on the clock."  He was 37 weeks, and I hadn't gotten my group B strep results back yet, so I was treated as if I had it and immediately hooked up to an IV.  Since I was already in bed, I was hooked up to a fetal monitor, and I couldn't really move around. OF COURSE I wanted an epidural in that situation, especially since Ben was not there right away.  The epidural worked great after a super scary blood pressure situation at first, but I hated the after effects of the catheter; my nurse did some stretching of my perineum that really hurt in the recovery phase (although she did prevent me from getting an episiotomy which the doctor suggested so that the student doctor could get to practice one-- what the fuck, dude?-- by shaking her head emphatically over his shoulder until I got the message), and I was left to labor down for so long that my contractions stopped, and I had to push without them for a LOOOOONG time-- also hard to recover from.  The best part of his birth was that I got to hold him right away on my chest while he was still connected (and the doctor was strangely delighted with his placenta and made Ben pose with him and it in a picture).

I missed out on the holding the baby on my chest moment with both other kids-- Jack was blue and wrapped up in his cord and yanked away quite dramatically.  The doc on call was letting the resident handle the delivery until she saw how blue the baby's head was.  Then she body checked that poor girl out of the way and got Jack out in a second-- I am still not sure how.

I know I should avoid A Baby Story and the medical model of L&D that show portrays-- one slippery intervention slope after another-- but I have reached that point in pregnancy where I can't look away.  So, I am trying to surround myself with positive stories, too.  I want a natural birth, and I want to not be afraid of it.

I am 36 weeks on Monday, and as this birth draws near, I am increasingly preoccupied with how I want it to go, and I don't want my anxiety to interfere.  Up next, a book on hypnobirthing-- I'll keep you posted.

Our afternoons

Today, Ben surprised Harry and Jack with a trip to the circus after hockey. Cooper and I abstained because I think circuses are gross, trashy (but in a sort of fabulous way) and horribly unethical-- do you think that elephant wants to stand on that ball?

The circus was, (is, actually, because they are still not home, and Coop and I are enjoying some quiet playtime) of course, right up H and J's gross, trashy, unethical alley.

Here are the pictures and accompanying captions Ben texted me throughout the show:

"Jack during the national anthem"

"They R so happy"

And, a little later:

"The kids r so fucking sticky"

During intermission, I got this picture and these texts:

"They have elephant rides and shit at intermission"
"The kids are really bothered because I said no to things like light up things and things like not going on the dirty elephants"
And, my favorite, "They just announced that a kid is lost and Harry said see that's why we didn't go down there.  That could be me."

"That's a guy flying out of a cannon"

While that nonsense was happening, Cooper and I went shopping for some crucial baby items:
A baby bag:  (I have been carrying my white Coach Lindsey bag-- not big enough, also, white-- or my giant LV Never Full tote-- too nice for the rigors of (literal) baby shit and already kind of stained inside from (figurative) big kid shit).  I almost bought the Gucci diaper bag I have been dying for forever, and then its exorbitant price tag made me thing Coach baby bags are pretty cheap, but in the end, I went with the old standby Vera Bradley.  It's washable!

 A baby book:  (I might not ever turn my dissertation into a book, but damnit, all 4 of my kids will have complete baby books)

 And a Sleep Sheep: (Cooper took out the noise machine inside the sheep and hid it-- it was really hard to find).

 He also threw the baby's clothes out of her crib and tried to climb in:

Happy Valentines day!

I love Vday.

Harry is writing a story tomorrow in writer's workshop about all of the heart-shaped food he consumed.  He is organizing it chronologically starting with the toast and cookie he had at breakfast, then the pb&j and strawberries in his lunch, followed by the cookie he had at his class party, and topped off with the heart-shaped meatloaf Ben made for dinner.

Next year, he would like everything shaped like real hearts, not love hearts.  Erm.

Ben sent me a dozen gorgeous long stem roses to my office last week because he was a jerk, and I was hormonal, and they died yesterday on our kitchen island, but the garbage man didn't come for some reason, so I left them there because our trash was bulging.  This morning Harry said, "I think dead roses are even more beautiful than alive ones."  Emo?

Jack loves to go into the baby's room and try on her things.

 Cooper is a monster.  To get through grocery store #2 on Sundays, he needs a donut.

 Harry and Jack assembled their Vday goody bags on Sunday night.  It was quite the process-- I would not hire them to work on an assembly line.

 Harry wanted a new blazer and fancy shirt.  Mission accomplished.

 Cooper has recently discovered his love of crayons.

 He is very serious about them.

 And they taste delicious.

 I decided to be a MOTY for real this year for Vday-- I made cookies for Jack's class and cookie decorating kits for Harry's.  Organic cookies and organic frosting dyed with beet juice (and decorated with tons of HFCS and other chemical crap-- oops).

 This was my kitchen at 11:00 last night-- being a MOTY is hard work.

 Cooper had a yogurt incident at hockey last night

 Jack on Vday morning

 Cooper happy to see candy first thing in the AM

 Harry, very methodical.

 A cookie for breakfast?  You bet.

 Somebody lost another tooth

 The finished product at Harry's first grade party.  Totally healthy, right?

 As an added bonus, it was the 100th day of school today.  When I stopped in to drop off the cookie stuff on my way to the OB so the teacher could set it up while the kids were in art class, the kids were LOSING THEIR MINDS.  What a day to be a first grade teacher (the woman is a saint).

Looking forward to a time in the not so distant future when my thighs no longer rub together

As I type this, the elastic sleeves of the summer dress I have stretched across my body and paired with maternity skinny jeans that have just about lost their will to stay up over my belly mound are cutting into my massive upper arms, reminding me that I should rummage through my closet for a sweater that looks like it might still button over me to hide my arms before I leave the house.

 If I leave the house.

(Not that I will button the sweater, but it has to look like I can if I wanted to.)

Yesterday, the chafe marks from my tights lasted for hours after I changed into yoga pants and a nursing tank (looked as dreamy as it sounds).

On the up side, my chocolate chip cookie craving has subsided, and I cannot stop eating salad-- two big tubs of Earthbound Farms organic spring mix this week by myself.

This morning, we blew up the bouncy house before school

Ben spent a refreshing 45 minutes shoveling the driveway AGAIN after shoveling it last night because it won't! stop! snowing! here.

Cooper was unsupervised long enough to go into the boys' room, get this stool, bring it back to the family room, set it up, and climb.  But the joke's on you, baby, because that dimmer switch doesn't do ANYTHING.  I seriously don't know why we have it on the wall, and I met with the electrician about switches, that I do remember.

Harry did 100 jumping jacks and then some sit ups.

There was much wrestling

They really wanted to sit on it while I unplugged it, just like they do with the air track at Little Gym.  Whatever.

The other day in my rhetoric of reproductive rights class, we were reading about the Voluntary Motherhood movement at the end of the 19th century, and a lot of the rhetoric of that time exalting motherhood (for middle class white women) sounded to me like the mommy wars rhetoric of today, so I asked my class about it.  This turned into a fascinating discussion about childcare situations/SAH parents from their own lives.  Right after a student talked about always being the last kid picked up at daycare and having all of her earliest memories set in a child care center-- which she loved and credited for her own outgoing personality-- another student made a comment about having a SAH wife because he didn't want to drop his kid off at daycare for someone else to raise where they would probably only change the baby's diaper five minutes before he got picked up to look like he was being taken care of all day.  To ease the tension, I said that my own baby would probably be changed MORE OFTEN at a daycare center than he is by me and and Ben.  He'd probably be learning stuff there, too.  

At home with us (Ben 2.5 days and me 2.5 days), he hangs out in his PJs, is rarely changed if he's not poopy, and plays by himself an impressive amount of time.  Today he read himself a pile of books-- "This?" he asked himself on each page and answered "This!"-- and sang along to his Sesame Street alphabet bus, for example.

He also drinks coffee.

And about 10:45 every morning, he passes out wherever he is.  On the couch enjoying chips and salsa with Ben, sitting up against my ginormous belly while we both lay on the floor and read, or in a pile of chaos of his own making.  We can only let him sleep for a few minutes because we'd rather eat our own arms than screw up his one and only nap (i.e. the only chance I ever have to work out and take a shower), but it's one of my favorite parts of the morning.

I also love when I tell him it's time to go get Jack right before lunch, and he drops what he's doing and runs up the stairs.  Today, I had to wear him the Ergo because the city didn't plow the crosswalks and curbs going to school (WTF, city?  Our snow removal has been so bad this year that I am going to VOTE REPUBLICAN rather than re-elect this mayor).  He liked it, but it killed my back.

Now Jack is back in the bouncy house, and Cooper is still wearing his pajamas, and I might not even change him when he gets up from his nap.

Randoms

• In the background, I am watching the best documentary on the Pill.  It's called, um, The Pill.  I initially wanted to show it in class for Margaret Sanger day (one of 2 Margaret Sanger days), and I think I will, but it is even MORE interesting than I thought.  It makes me want to go across the street to the Historical Society and delve into the papers of Katherine McCormick.  Did you know she used her McCormick reaper fortune to buy Gregory Pincus?  Gave him a check for $40,000 to start making the Pill-- and her papers are in our Historical Society because of the reaper fame. She and Sanger were old feminist buddies. So cool.

• My office is a mess of paper piles, and it makes me a little nervous, even though I know exactly where everything is.

• Went to the OB yesterday.  Gained 6 pounds in 6 weeks, meaning I am up to 27 pounds in 34 weeks and have surpassed my highest weight ever by 6 pounds.  Awesome.  (That's a sarcastic awesome, by the way).

• The kids have been cute lately.

School dance-- it had a pajama theme, and these are the only pictures I thought to take because I volunteered in the kitchen all night long because 3 separate kids puked in 3 separate spots, and I figured the kitchen was the safest place to be.

Not sure how he ended up on the floor.  Jack had a black eye the next day because he kept throwing himself face first on the dance floor and sliding.

Cooper insits on drinking from an open cup.

Going to school in the morning is brutal in the sub-zero weather.  Cooper hates getting bundled up.

Yep.  It's a hat, not a cereal bowl.

• I just ordered the coolest computer case ever.
• I need to stop typing and start writing a rec letter.

100 Books: January Update

I have been a reading fool, which is part of the reason I haven't been around much lately.  This month, I have read 14 books, but I have high hopes to tear through another one tonight-- either the trashy thriller I snagged at Walgreens the other day when I realized I wouldn't be able to make it to the library (and good thing I did because I forgot to bring my library books with me today-- maybe I'll remember tomorrow, but it;s only going to be 6 tomorrow, so I may try not to go ANYWHERE) or Love Is a Mix Tape which I just this second found on my office shelves.  (I have read 250 pages today for my class next week, so I am thinking the mix tape book which is much slimmer).

Getting a PhD in the humanities will make you a fast, fast reader (I used to read 1500 pages a week-- usually more for my classes), and I have loved  having time this year to curl up with a good book.  Swearing off the e-reader has made me go to greater lengths to find books-- the library, Walgreens, my own neglected bookshelves, as well as Amazon and Barnes and Noble-- but I have been lucky enough to find a good book at my fingertips whenever I want without resorting to downloading.

Here are the 14 books I have read so far, in order from least favorite to most favorite (but really, there hasn't been a bad book):

Brave Girl Eating by Harriet Brown:  I read this memoir of a family's struggle with anorexia during a single nap, so it was certainly interesting, but it effected me the least of all the books I read this month.
Dumping Billy by Olivia Goldmsith:  A cute book, and I LOVE Goldsmith, especially Flavor of the Month.  This particular book was released posthumously, after she died of plastic surgery complications.
My Latest Grievance by Elinor Lipman:  Engaging story, badly drawn characters, but a terrific narrator.
Knitting Under the Influence by Claire LeZebnick:  As the name suggests, this is total schlocky chicklit, but still funny and fun to read.  That's how I feel about all of her books-- good when you want something mindless, though-- fast plots and terrific dialogue.
Happier at Home by Gretchen Rubin:  I liked this book, but it was a kind of slow read for me, and I was totally overwhelmed by Rubin's inability to examine her own considerable privilege.  It didn't sound hard for her to be happy.  Being a pretty privileged person myself, though, I fond some great tips.
The Litigators by John Grisham:  Ben likes Grisham so much that he buys him in hardback.  He urged me to read this one when my first stack of library books didn't last a whole week, and I was skeptical.  But I really loved it.  The plot was engrossing and the end was really satisfying.  I smiled the whole time I read this thing, even on the elliptical.
The Chocolate Money by Ashley Prentice Norton:  Sad! Funny!  Awesome narrator!  This was another fast read.
The Foremost Good Fortune by Susan Conley:  An excellent memoir about a woman who gets breast cancer while living in China with her husband and 2 sons-- beautifully written, haunting.
The Middlesteins by Jami Attenberg:  I loved this book so much I tried to send it to Sarah, but I used the self-serve machine at the PO and the book has since vanished.
Great House by Nicole Krauss:  A beautiful book.  I just finished it at lunch, so it might be higher on my list if I had more time to process.
The Round House by Louise Erdrich:  The second-to-last line of this book is the most perfect thing I ever read.  It made me burst into tears on the elliptical because I loved it so much.
The History of Love by Nicole Krauss:  OH MY GOD this book is amazing.  If you haven't read it, you should RIGHT NOW.  I cried and cried and cried at the end, but they were good tears.
Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn:  Yup.
Elsewhere by Richard Russo:  Russo is my favorite living author, and I have read everything he has written, so I knew I would love this book.  If this baby were a boy, in fact, he would be William Henry with the nickname hank after my favorite character is all of literature from Straight Man, my favorite book in the world.  Reading this made me want to reread Russo's entire oeuvre.

I got 6 of these books from the library, 5 from Amazon, 2 from Barnes and Noble, and 1 from  my own bookshelf.  Next month, I want to check out more books instead of buying them, but I also want to read Jen Lancaster's new book and John Irving's among others, and there's NO WAY I'll be able to fight through a wait list to get new releases from the 'brary.

I'd love any book suggestions you have, too!