19 weeks

husband went thrifting with me this weekend and those of you that know him will find that...well, unusual. which was hard for me to comprehend at first because it's absolutely one of my favorite things to do on a rainy weekend afternoon. i think it's the musty smells and pushy people that start to get to him after awhile and he's not a big shopper type anyway, but finding something special from someone else's discarded trinkets just makes me positively giddy. i definitely always saw it as more of a treasure hunt. several months ago when my mom was in town visiting she and i definitely hit every thrift store within a 30 mile radius. it was on this trip when i discovered, by far, my most treasured find to date: a holga camera with film still inside AND only half exposed. seriously, i may have startled the people eying up the other electronics when i let out a very audible squeal. for all i knew there was nothing salvageable on the film but that didn't stop me from happily plunking down 3 bucks for it and taking it with us to portland to use up the rest of the shots on our trip. i really need to post the shots on my photography blog sometimes soon and link to it here - ok, adding it now to my already growing to-do list... needless to say, i was very happy with the results. whomevers camera it belonged to took some beautifully saturated architectural shots before deciding they no longer had a use for it anymore and i added a few shots of portland and my family to the mix. plus, extra holga camera - win, win wiiiiiiiiiiin. really makes you wonder though why someone would only take a handful of shots and then discard the whole thing...conspiracy theorists start theorizing.

anyway, ND had come thrifting a few times with me begrudgingly but i just sort of stopped asking because i could take my sweet ass time when i went by myself and run my hands all over as many dusty, grimy knick knacks as i wanted without him looking at me like i had just contracted the plague. but the man never ceases to amaze me and he actually SUGGESTED hitting up a few goodwills this past weekend. i don't think i've ever showered, dressed and grabbed the car keys faster in my life.

after a few duds with little luck on any baby furniture that wouldn't put our future child in major harm of a catastrophe that would probably end up on the nightly news, we found a great one in Renton that was well lit and astonishingly clean. again, the furniture was all crap but the majority of the baby clothes were in impeccable condition and even though we're finding out the sex tomorrow (!!!) i just couldn't resist picking up a few unisex things. ND disappeared a few times and came back with some scored adorable onesies and a caterpiller jumper that is just too cute for words. plus i found a vintage brownie hawkeye camera for mommie to add to the collection. total bebe/momma scorage: <$20. super weekend all around.

i can honestly say this baby thing is becoming more and more real now as the days pass. i mean, c'mon, we actually picked out little person clothes and have been trying to figure out furniture options - this is really happening. and as if right on cue, that night in bed, i really felt the little darlin' kicking up a storm. i had felt little gurgles and slight motions for the past week but i wasn't completely sure it wasn't just my own digestion. this time it was unmistakable. it's so wild - like nothing i've ever felt before. i keep trying to find the words to describe it and i fail miserably. the closest i can say is that it really is like a little baby bird flapping its wings inside of me. or little butterflies. or bubbles popping. ND put his hands on my belly and we both held our breaths - trying to distinguish any movements from our own. and then you kicked me...and we both felt it...and it was incredible.

hello, little person. i think i might just be ready to meet you in about 20 more weeks or so.
love,
mom

soft little embroidery details.

sweet little stripes. 

giraffes and alligators and lions, oh my!

eric carle's very hungry little caterpillar.

the spoils of our thrifting expedition complete with the brownie hawkeye for the mama.

and of course since our cat is a cat he just has to get in the middle (or in this case, on top of) whatever it is that i'm working on. good thing i haven't washed everything yet.

pregtober

kind of in denial that i'm actually going to look like this by the end. whoa baby!

17 weeks

i've been devouring this book - Ina May's Guide to Childbirth - based on the recommendation of my trainer and friend, linzi. i don't remember the exact moment that i decided i wanted to attempt a fully natural birth away from hospitals and epidurals and the white walls and florescent lights (and jello and horrible food) but it started to form early on in the pregnancy. having no previous knowledge of birth myself, i started to go off of stories i had heard from friends and family members (most of all whom had experienced hospital births). i started to ask my mother, my husband's mother and even my husband of what he remembered from the experience since his two teenage children, my stepchildren, were both born at the hospital. i was actually slightly surprised to learn that my mother went completely without drugs for both my brother and i. not that i doubted her strength as a woman whatsoever, completely the opposite, i had just thought perhaps 31 years ago that she wouldn't have been allowed as much say over her own body and what she wanted out of the experience. she did mention that she had asked for the epidural when delivering my brother (since it was heavily back labor and horribly painful) but it was too late by that point and she went without. it was liberating hearing this from her - having just this tiny piece of knowledge. there are so many studies out there arguing nature versus nurture and i tend to stand directly in the middle of the spectrum, but just knowing this genetic bond that we share and that my mother delivered her two children naturally gave me a lot of mental strength.

looking to my husband's mother, i learned that ND, the oldest of four, was the only one born at a hospital - the rest were born at home. there are times, like this one, that i really wish we weren't living so far from family at this point in my life - i would love to sit down with her and pick her brain for hours - but for now i'll have to settle for phone calls and emails. ND grew up almost completely off the grid at a time when i was watching cartoons and playing atari games. after he was born, his parents joined a community/commune where they all supported each other and lived off of the land. natural childbirth and midwives were simply the norm. however, his own experience with the birth of his own children in the hospital setting was very different and highly unsatisfactory. he told me he didn't feel a part of what was going on at all. it was a very distanced sort of experience and he even felt primarily "in the way." it made me really sad to hear that.

then i started to read articles upon articles about the rise of c-sections in the last decade (c-section rates higher at for-profit hospitals). how they corresponded and peaked with the for-profit hospitals and shift endings for doctors that couldn't be bothered to wait the course of a natural birth... i really felt as though this was a slightly revised version of my college pro-choice activism days all over again - something similar to "keep your laws off my body" only now it was "keep your revolving door birthing procedures and drug cycles off me and my baby and if you come near my vagina with a knife i will fucking kick you in the teeth".

suddenly i was terrified of giving birth. of not being listened to - of not being taken seriously - of being just another faceless patient to cut open, take money from and then shove out the door. in my 30+ years i have learned to trust myself and listen to what my body is telling me. i feel like a woman who is not allowed these things has part of her experience taken away. how quickly do we blindly follow what a doctor tells us is right because we doubt our own instincts? it makes sense though - this person has had more training, more life experience in this field - OF COURSE they know what they're talking about and what is best for me. but when does that line of blind acceptance become fuzzy when something in the back of your head starts telling you "i don't agree with this, this doesn't feel right"?

sometime in the early weeks of my pregnancy, ND and i met linzi at greenlake park in seattle. the loop is on a gorgeous little lake and one lap is 3 miles. that day we easily did 9. linzi was simply ecstatic with the news that ND and i were going to be parents. she hugged us and got all misty - it was adorable and more than a little reassuring since at that point i was still completely wigging out. the fact that someone thought we would be wonderful parents (more importantly that i would be a good mom - ND is already an incredible father) was really nice to hear. she told us all about how she had her first child in the hospital, the second at a birth center and the third at home. the home birth of her son took place in their bathroom with her husband sitting behind her, straddling her, his arms around her as she gave birth. how it was exhilarating and peaceful at the same time. how she reached down and felt his little head and pulled him up to her chest. it sounded amazing and beautiful - how a family is made. and all complications aside, it's how i want our family to begin as well.

the business of being born.

from IMDB:

"While the United States has perhaps the most advanced health care system in the world, it also has the second-highest infant mortality rate of any industrialized nation, and many have begun to question conventional wisdom regarding the way obstetricians deal with childbirth. While midwives preside over the majority of births in Europe and Japan, fewer than ten percent of American mothers employ them, despite their proven record of care and success. How do American doctors make their choices regarding the way their patients give birth, and who is intended to benefit? Director Abby Epstein and producer Ricki Lake offer a probing look at childbirth in America in the documentary The Business of Being Born, which explores the history of obstetrics, the history and function of Midwives, and how many common medical practices may be doing new mothers more harm than good."


this is the documentary i've been meaning to watch based on the recommendation of a pregnant friend. i waited until ND had gone out to run a few errands and i grabbed my laptop and did a quick search. i managed to find a working link within a few clicks (naughty naughty, i know - but having watched it i would certainly buy it and recommend it to any friends that might be considering a natural birth). it wasn't something i thought my husband would get into which is why i looked for it in the first place when he wasn't around but i should have known better. ND is and has always been supportive and open minded - we may not always agree on everything but he really listens to me and genuinely wants to be involved with the things that interest me. when i first started talking about wanting a natural birth, he not only respected my thoughts but applauded me for my research and determination and is standing by me 100%. he loved linzi's home birth story as much as i did and has been really looking forward to being an active participant in our child's birth. so when he came home that night, he got as sucked into the film as i was and insisted i start it over from the beginning. it's not a perfect portrayal and not to spoil anything for anyone but i was disappointed that the producer had to be rushed to the hospital at the end after her child was found to be breech - but at the same time it drove home the point that you can plan and plan and have your heart set on something but it might not go the way you want. i not only have to prepare myself for the birth itself but also for any pitfalls along the way. we took away a lot from this film, though - the first actual birth scene of the woman in the birthing pool in her living room made us both gasp out loud and i nearly started crying - it was so incredible and beautiful and not at all the scary, screaming, horrible depiction that so many television shows and movies would make you believe. perhaps for some this is not a spiritual experience - it is simply something that must be done in order to have that cuddly baby in your arms - this sin of eve and the hardships of childbirth. i won't fault anyone for thinking that way but it's not for me. yes, there is pain involved but this is life, miraculous and strange, and i believe there is a spiritual connection to be had - with this new person, my husband and the world in which we live.

at this point a home birth would be ideal but our location is not. we've already discussed the fact that a home birth in our particular apartment complex with thin-ish walls and locked hallways (if the midwife had to run out to get something - ND would have to leave me to let her back in) doesn't seem conducive to privacy or smooth sailing. if we owned a home or lived in a place that we were planning on staying for many years then that might have swayed us - but as it is, we're planning on moving shortly after the baby is born. secondly, i'm starting to love the idea of a water birth and a warm, clean environment where we wouldn't have to worry about the cat crying (or barfing) or loud neighbors partying or the multitude of other things that can happen when you live in a building with lots and lots of other people. so we're leaning toward a birth center run by midwives - still weighing our options this point but i'm that much closer to an informed decision based on everyone i've talked to as well as everything i've seen and read. i have to make an appointment with another midwife operated birthing center since the first one we checked out wasn't as highly recommended by a doula that i work with but it really feels like we're at least on the right path.

i guess the bottom line about planning our birthing experience as a whole is taking to heart something that you should go through your every day life with - hope for the best and expect the worst.

the name game

your kids' names are stupid.

this article made me laugh today. especially since husband and i are still arguing about boys names. we had a few fun, unique girl's names picked right out of the park but when it comes to little boys we just can't agree on anything. picking a boy's name is harder, in my opinion - it feels like there are just physically less to choose from and when the baby books try to get creative, they just end up being variations on a theme: aiden, jaden, caden, cayden....you get the point. few names, lots of different ways to spell them or sound like them.

i should really go through and count the text messages back and forth that just have names in them from ND and i. i'll be sitting at my desk at work, working on something and suddenly....buzzbuzz...(text from husband)...i glance at it....make a face and quickly text back "veto". same goes with me as well. i'll get some kind of what i think is an eureka! moment during the day and i'll lunge for my phone....typetypetypetype....seconds pass...buzzbuzz...(text from husband)..."no."  back and forth, just like that, forever and ever. le sigh.

to his credit though ND came up with THE.MOST.AWESOME. way to choose a first/middle name yesterday (which i'm keeping secret for now) but we found that it quickly lends itself to mostly girls names. foiled again. i think we're actually ever-so-slightly in favor of a girl at this point just so we can stop arguing about it and get on without all the "NO!" texts back and forth. :)

trying to get some help from family now - delving into family trees - both his sides and mine. literary references as well - i think it would be cool for my son or daughter to pick up a book one day and have their mom tell them their name was chosen from it because it was a book that i so loved and cherished growing up. i'm holding fast to a boy's name that i chose for this very reason and at first ND was on board but as time passes he's apparently becoming less so. the middle name is proving to be more difficult with this particular first/last name combination and that's where we keep getting stuck. we both have a boy's middle name that we LOVE but then i'd have to relent to another first name and i'm just not ready to let go yet.

i think the solution is to put all this banana-fana fo fanna stuff to the back burner for now and let it start to develop once we actually know the sex of the baby instead of arguing over names now that might be a complete non-issue in a month.

16 weeks

le bebe neutral avocado.

a bit disappointed yesterday with the 16th week check up due to a misunderstanding. i ran around the house the night before happily squee-ing that "we get to see the baby! we get to see the bebebebebe tomorrow! the peanut! the wee darling! the wittle bitty bumpkin!"...and other things of that nature. lies, all lies. this was one of those in and out appointments where they just needed to stick me with more needles, draw more blood, and have me pee in a cup for the hundredth time. somehow in my second trimester/new mommy haze i had been under the impression that every doctor visit was a sonogram visit. au contraire. and thusly boo and hiss. poor ND was standing there looking at me like, "that's it?" you see, there was a very specific reason we were hoping to see the kiddo yesterday but i need to back up to the previous weekend to explain...

last saturday was my college best friend's baby shower but she lives in san diego and i'm here in seattle. certainly not worlds away but there was enough distance that buying an airline ticket just wasn't feasible given the short notice and the costs involved. darling that she is, convinced me that she had enough frequent flier miles to cover the trip and she really wanted me there. plus, YAY! adorable friend preggo photography pictures to take! so flights were booked, bags were packed, and much happiness and gratitude was gushed over the phone and by text. shortly after i arrived and she got home from work, she informed me that her good friend is an OB and if i wanted to know what the sex of the baby was they could sneak me into her clinic for a quick peak. apparently genitals can be see as early as 11 weeks and her friend has a 95% accuracy rate in predicting that early on in the pregnancy. ooooh, the temptation..... but no, i couldn't. could i? i certainly could. but no, this is my first (and very possibly only) child and i couldn't find out without ND being present. that would just be wrong. but maybe i could keep it to myself and act surprised at 20 weeks! no, bad mama bee. very bad bee. le sigh. turns out a quick breakfast turned into a several hour long wait and then with the shower and all the present transporting there just wasn't time anyway. but back in seattle, armed with my new-found knowledge of genital formation viewability, we went to our appointment yesterday thinking maybe we could bribe the sonogram attendant into spilling the beans a little early. no such luck. i got a flu shot and a waiver and that was all.

another whole freaking month to wait to see if it's going to be "a little bebe squirrel or a little bebe flying monkey." (i have no idea which of those is a boy or a girl but it's something ND has been saying all week and it cracks me up). honestly, we just want a little healthy rugrat. boy or girl has no importance to either of us - it would just be nice to know because shopping for gender neutral anything is a humongous pain in the ass....because it's all about buying the cute baby clothes, amirite ladies? kidding, kidding. actually we plan on raising our child fairly gender neutral but the mass population still colors everything pink and frilly for girls and blue and manly for boys. i want our little girl or boy to grow up with trucks as well as dolls, with tool sets as well as tea sets. but most importantly, hopefully they will someday share in our love of the outdoors and music and the arts. that would make me the most happy. if our little girl insists on pepto bismol colored walls and bedding and dresses galore, i will cringe silently inward but i will do my best to comply with her budding tastes and aesthetics. same goes with a mud pie making, spitting and crotch scratching little boy. but as long as they can find joy and some spirituality in the hikes, camping trips, museum visits and rocking out to something on KEXP, i will be ecstatically happy.

i think mostly i just want to stop calling our baby "it"....probably hence all the funny animal projections. even all the baby blogs and books switch genders week to week - and we've been subconsciously doing the same at home. ND's sister and i were talking about morning sickness awhile back and how my morning blechs suddenly flipped to right before bed blechs and since she went through the exact same thing and she has a beautiful baby girl she was predicting the same for me. i could get on board with that and after the mere suggestion i was fairly certain that's what we were having. a few months later i'm talking with my mom and she had discovered a calendar online that predicted the sex of the baby based on mom's age and month she conceived. since i'm not sure if it was in late june or early july i thought that would throw things off but either way it apparently and clearly states we're having a boy. now the spooky part: she took it around to all the moms in her office as well as all her sisters and the cousins who have had babies in my family (that's A LOT of people, fyi) to find out it's accuracy....almost 100%. one of my uncles was supposed to be a girl and one other woman in the office who has a small litter of children had one that wasn't correct. eerie. so yup, i guess it's going to be a boy.

(i need to find the link for the website - chart your own little one and let me know).

15 weeks

husband (ok don't gag, but my heart does this little flutter every time i get to say that: "husband". just makes me so happy that ND and i are on this journey together).... anyway, yes, husband (eep!) is gone for the weekend - biking and camping with buddies - and among all the editing i have to do, i found myself in my first real burst of nesting insanity. though i seem to be doing it all wrong because while the kitchen, bathroom and bedroom look lovely and fresh, the living room and dining area look like my hamper and work piles exploded into an entropic disaster area of emergency evacuation-type proportions. total nesting fail. maybe the proper nesting hormones haven't kicked in completely - maybe they're only halfway engaged at this point in the pregnancy - hence the entropy. honestly i really think that it's not the nesting instinct yet at all, i actually think i'm just tired of the piles of things that have been adding up around the house and before i can concentrate and get any work done i have to be in a clean, organized environment. which is hysterical because my artistic leanings lend to all sorts of collecting and hoarding and pile dumping and i almost never have a completely clean, organized home. husband was such a minimist before he met me - ah, sometimes i really feel sorry for all the chaos i tend to bring with me.

so despite the nesting fail, i did get to be all stereotypically barefoot and pregnant this weekend as i whipped up a batch of homemade banana bread. it might be all gone before ND gets home....there's still half of the loaf left so who knows, he may get lucky. ;) i've been talking a lot with a friend over email about the series 'Mad Men' and how strange is it that not so long ago a woman would have smoked and drank, quite extensively, throughout her pregnancy, a la Betty Draper. doctor's opinions now range from abstaining completely to a glass of wine here and there is acceptable. i haven't partaken (partook?) because i don't feel the need to and ND never drank unless i did so there's no temptation now either. (ok, so one night we made virgin margaritas mostly because they just go so well with the tacos i made and it started to be a little tradition of ours - only with lots o' tequila - but without they were completely disgusting. seriously, barf. i need to look up some some good virgin recipes). other than that i don't really have an opinion one way or the other about what's right for a woman's body concerning alcohol as long as it's within reason and you don't overdo it. a half a glass of wine might be nice with dinner some night but i don't feel like i'm missing out on anything. same with caffeine. i thought i was really going to miss my coffee in the morning but i don't. i might be a little more nostalgic for it once the temperature drops and we're cuddled by the fire but i'm not craving it at all and i can always make cocoa or something decaf and delicious to warm me up.

10.07.10 update (just found this article which is kerrrazy): seriously? children of "light drinkers" were 30 percent less likely to have social or emotional difficulties than those whose mothers didn't drink at all.

the end of the nausea of the first trimester has been weird for me because without it i don't really feel pregnant at all right now. save for a little heartburn (ok, a lot of heartburn) and my pants getting tight (i think it might be time to break out the belly bands), i would have just thought i'd put on a little weight. i have a lot of vivid technicolor baby-themed dreams as of late which i guess helps with the "not feeling it". last night's was a bit frightening though... something about a late term sonogram that showed i was expecting not one but two babies. i woke up in kind of a panic, racking my brain about the actual last doctor appointment and finally reassuring myself that we are, in fact, only having one little darling. perhaps part of the not feeling pregnant has to do with our current living situation. we weren't planning for a baby when we moved into our current apartment. it's a one bedroom + den and the den is already filled to the hilt with my books, art supplies and studio equipment. we do have a small storage space in the parking garage but it's filled with things from his two children that they didn't take back with them to wisconsin when their mother hurriedly whisked them away. understandably, ND can't bare to part with all of it just yet. our baby is due in march but our lease isn't up until may. that leaves two months of complete limbo. (i don't even want to start thinking about moving with a newborn right now, but that's a reality i'm going to have to come to grips with sooner than later). do we clean out the den to the best of our ability and start making room for baby things or do we wait completely, live in limbo for a little while, and hope we find a bigger place in may? ....i think i'm going to attack the piles in the living room rather than think about this right now.

ignore the messy bathroom (pre nesting cleaning frenzy) but here's my first belly pic. 

after i "popped" ND and i have been quoting Pulp Fiction:

Fabienne: I was looking at myself in the mirror. 

Butch: Uh-huh? 

Fabienne: I wish I had a pot. 

Butch: You were lookin' in the mirror and you wish you had some pot? 

Fabienne: A pot. A pot belly. Pot bellies are sexy. 

Butch: Well you should be happy, 'cause you do. 

Fabienne: Shut up, Fatso! I don't have a pot! I have a bit of a tummy, like Madonna when she did "Lucky Star," it's not the same thing. 

Butch: I didn't realize there was a difference between a tummy and a pot belly. 

Fabienne: The difference is huge. 

Butch: You want me to have a pot? 

Fabienne: No. Pot bellies make a man look either oafish, or like a gorilla. But on a woman, a pot belly is very sexy. The rest of you is normal. Normal face, normal legs, normal hips, normal ass, but with a big, perfectly round pot belly. If I had one, I'd wear a tee-shirt two sizes too small to accentuate it. 

Butch: You think guys would find that attractive? 

Fabienne: I don't give a damn what men find attractive. It's unfortunate what we find pleasing to the touch and pleasing to the eye is seldom the same.