Team Fox

Apologies in advance for any worse than usual grammar and story fragmentation, I am not in a mood to play editor and proofread…

After crying a few months ago about the changing pad that I wanted being out of stock everywhere I finally found a store that just got it back in stock and had to spend money I really shouldn’t have ordering it!  I can’t resist, it’s got dragonflies and it matches the wetbag, pail liner and one of the diaper covers!  It brings me joy

Whereas most moms have a shopping obsession with baby clothes, my obsession is with cloth diapers, I have more than enough diapers to work with but when the consignment store announced they got a bunch of new ones in, I had to go in and it wouldn’t be me if I didn’t buy the tie dye diaper they had.  So yes, I have spent more on cloth diapers than I could have but I’m still hundreds of dollars ahead of the game than if I were to buy disposables for the first year alone.

Huge bump at 40 weeks

Apparently I look “like I’m about to pop” because anytime that I leave the house I’m approached my more strangers than ever saying “soon?!” or asking about my due date and then I get to watch their eyes pop out of their heads when I respond “last Thursday”.  Then I get the pity look and the “aaww, you look so tired!” or “you must be exhausted!”  thanks for stating the obvious!

Yes, I am freaking tired most of the time but I just take it easy and be patient.  I am not going around screaming “get it out of me!” so I don’t understand why others are so intent on rushing the process.

Now everybody and their mother has an unsolicited opinion on what we should do to induce labor.  Because they just assume that since I’m “overdue” that I am anxious to try everything to evict this baby and because they think that until they came along I would have never known that I should: be having sex, eat a pineapple, drink castor oil or ::insert one of dozens of induction methods here::  It’s a repeat of the whole fiasco of everybody saying “put your feet up” when I mentioned the swollen feet.  Haven’t you all learned by now that I read almost as much as I breathe and therefore would have at some point stumbled upon that nugget of knowledge?  From now on I’ll take these suggestions as insults to my intelligence, give me some credit!

The funny thing is that my husband gets most of the advice, the poor guy;  although perhaps he may not deserve so much sympathy given as to how he will go out of his way to announce the bun as running late.

Please remember (or learn) that the average human gestation period is 37 TO 42 weeks and that an Estimated Due Date is just that an ESTIMATE and not an expiration date!

We appreciate people’s concerns and we may explore options if we get closer to 42 weeks at which point the state imposes a deadline for me to pop by.  Your suggestions for induction options are not needed, we have a long list of things to try and Google can add to that with a simple search and whatever that goes beyond the basic stuff like walking and eating pineapples will be in consultation with our midwife.

“The first intervention in natural childbirth is the one that a healthy woman does herself when she walks out the front door of her own home in labour.”

— Michael Rosenthal, OB/GYN (from Midwifery Today E-news 7:24)

I haven’t really touched this topic on this blog as people tend to be very passionate about it and therefore get their panties in a twist easily yet are unable to intelligently defend their opinion with valid reasons but this is my virtual home and I can say whatever I want in my house and I just need to vent somewhere…

What are some of the other reasons we humans disfigure our children? Religious and cultural…of course.

Religious: Well, I guess if you are Jewish, and dinky dissection is something you really believe your God wants, then go for it. Personally, I can’t figure out why God would want you to cut off something he just gave your son, if he did not want it there why put it in the first place?  But I respect your faith and keep my mouth shut.

Cultural: “I don’t want my son’s penis to look different than mine” or “I don’t want my son to feel different in the locker room” are shit reasons. To all the dads out there: Get over yourself! Just because your parents mutilated you doesn’t mean you have to pass on the love.

I really feel that parents who would sooner subject their children to an unnecessary medical procedure rather than educate their children on health issues are the same shitty parents who use the TV as a baby sitter, and candy as a pacifier.

Ultimately, little boys are human beings, not property. I say teach them the options, and let’s see how many 18 year olds choose to go under the knife.  On a personal note, I have met only 1 man that consciously chose to get circumcised as an adult to please his wife and years later he is still living with regret over his decision and wishing that he could go back in time.

It’s not unexpected for parents who circumcise to be defensive about what they did. To be fair, things are far different now than they were decades ago. At that time, circumcision was nearly universal in the United States. There was much less information available, and there was no internet where one could go to easily access it as well as hear innumerable personal experiences.

Parents decades ago can be much more easily excused than new parents of today. But I also think those who circumcised decades ago should recognize the importance of openly re-evaluating their decision in light of current knowledge, including the regrets of their male children. Not only because it’s the honest thing to do, but also because it’s meaningful to those who lost an important part of their body and can’t ever get it back.  Just because you did it to your son shouldn’t automatically entitle you to pressure others to do it to theirs.

And to those that think that it’s just a tiny piece of excess skin… It’s actually up to 50% of the skin (unfolded on a grown man measures the size of a 3×5″ index card!), and 80% of the nerve endings. The foreskin has 20,000 nerve endings (compared to 4,000 nerve endings in the glans).

Just because you are responsible for your child’s well being until they are old enough to run their lives in my opinion doesn’t automatically grant the authority to perform a procedure that is NOT recommended by any medical organization in the world, that has very serious risks of complication including possible death and that at the very least is not reversible should your boy grow up to decide that he wants his foreskin after all.

And if you are dead set in getting your buy cut, I just hope that you’ll take the time to watch an uncensored video of the procedure from beginning to end without closing your eyes, turning your head or throwing up and make sure you are in the room when the doctor puts the clamp on and takes the scalpel to your baby.

And I agree with the sentiments of an online blogger:

“My heart aches for the parents that circumcise and then later regret it. My head explodes for those that have a chance to know better and don’t take it”

So yes, I’m an intactivist and that shouldn’t surprise you.  I’m sure that some people will want to throw shit my way over this and that’s fine, just remember that this blog is my house and I don’t throw poop at you when you say what you want at your own home so chances are that it will be ignored.  And if someone wants to learn more,  visit www.savingpenises.org for a Prepuce Information Pack.

On things that make me roll my eyes and shake my head…

A new mom in one of the forums that I frequent is whining about how her baby is allergic to regular formula and can only tolerate a special kind so she now will have to buy a fancy formula that costs $59 a can while in the same conversation she complains about how painful it is to wait for her milk supply to dry up.  WTF?

ACOG (American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists) is now supporting VBAC (Vaginal Birth After Cesarean), this is great news overall but I can’t help but feel a  sense of “wait and see” on what it’s actual effect will be.  I would love this having an effect in reducing the epidemic c-section rate in this country but that may be too optimistic on my part.   It’s not the first time that ACOG changes its mind about something but it doesn’t really lead to the expected change in hospital practice.

I recall food and drinks in labor being a recent reversal.  The old standard of nothing to eat and nothing to drink during labor, which-is-likely-the-most-physically-challenging-and-intense-thing-you-will-do-in-your-lifetime-and-you-get-nothing-to-drink has been reversed.  This was reversed a while ago.

Yet, side note, a friend just emailed me the online description of her hospital’s maternity ward (Yes, I have friends who birth in hospitals). It flat-out says that the expectant mom shall have only clear broth and ice chips. It strictly forbids food and water for the expectant mother (Can one go to jail for drinking water while in labor?)

The other thing is the wording on ACOG’s new statement. It’s tricky.

Here’s the gist of what they say: Yes, they will encourage VBAC mothers to have a trial of labor (but then what? “Oh sorry dear, You tried and failed, like we anticipated, so we are prepping you for your second (or third or fourth) c-section. Good effort though.”)

But at least it’s a step in the right direction.

If ACOG reversed its decision on food and water and now on VBACs, is it possible to think that they may one day reverse their stance on other issues… such as homebirth?  Not holding my breath but I do believe in miracles.

The latest example of how some medical professional use a patient’s ignorance for their convenience…. a couple of days ago woman is in labor at the hospital, she is progressing well but since she is going through it natural she is making some noises to handle the contractions.  She had been lying on her back for several hours (known to put pressure on  which can reduce oxygen supply to the baby), baby’s heart rate slows down as a result.  Nurse tells her “you have to get an epidural or we will have to do an emergency C-section”, she didn’t know any better so she got the epidural and the nurses didn’t have to deal with her making noises the rest of the night while her dream of natural childbirth was flushed down the toilet and she needed to have a vacuum assisted delivery because she was too numb to push effectively (while still lying on her back).

Now she’s kicking herself because she didn’t realize that if she just changed positions baby’s heart rate would have normalized on its own (which it did when she had to sit up to have the epidural needle inserted but by then she had been scared by the nurse).

So remember, there are great doctors and nurses out there but you can’t count on them being on call when you show up to the hospital, you don’t have to go to medical school before getting pregnant but make sure you have a solid foundation of information so that you won’t have your naivete used against you!

So Baby Fox seems to enjoy the cozy accommodations in my uterus as I have made it to 40 weeks with him/her not hinting at being in any rush to come out.

Making it to this point is a huge thing for me given my family history (nobody that I know of in the current generation made it to their due date), I was born about 2 weeks early. I admit that due to the somewhat traumatic experience of my cousin I did have a fear of pre-term labor for a while, I even used EFT to overcome that anxiety.

From the “due date clubs” that I check out in various internet sites, I seem to be one of a small handful of moms that have reached a due date and do not have a scheduled eviction, I mean induction appointment made.  I had to roll my eyes when another mom-to-be that was also due today was crying because her induction scheduled for today was postponed because 2 other women went into labor spontaneously, wtf?  I must remind you that these are healthy women in low risk pregnancies with no medical reason to rush the baby out.

Things have been quiet on the labor front for days, I used to have signs of prodomal (sp?) labor a few weeks ago but they have all but vanished. I know that a lot of my contractions were stress induced so I think that not having to deal with work drama has certainly helped in that front.  In a sense I think this is a good thing because when some action does happen I will be more likely to pay attention and less likely to chalk it up as “more of the same”.

I’m happy to report that the feet swelling is not being so scary anymore. I still swell daily starting the second that I get out of bed but at least unlike before, most of it is going away while I sleep.  This usually means that I go to the bathroom 15 times instead of 5 during the night to get rid of all of the excess fluid but it’s worth it to have it be less uncomfortable the next day. I credit the massaging that hubby does right before bed with helping with the drainage, it’s not as long as I would like but I see it making a big difference and even though I still don’t fit into any of my shoes, my feet look almost human again.

My sleep patterns are going back to normal again, I get tired easily but no longer feel the need to sleep the day away.  My productivity is limited in capacity though, if I don’t get something done before noon chances are that it won’t get done at all as I notice that I get very drowsy in the afternoon although not enough to sleep it off.

All systems are go for Baby Fox’s arrival, it’s only a matter of waiting to know when it’s time to call the midwife and fill up the tub. For someone that can be OCD about scheduling (just ask my husband), it’s kind of fun not knowing when baby Fox will decide to make an appearance.   It makes every day somewhat of an adventure, although I notice that I don’t wake up thinking “maybe today is the day”, I just wake up and go around the day knowing not to get attached to any plans I may want to make.

Some people say that I will “know” when it’s going to happen soon, all I have to say about that is that it either won’t be anytime soon or I’m just out of touch and clueless.  Meanwhile I try to rest when my body asks for it and be semi-productive and entertained the rest of the time.

After months of research and consideration we have opted to skip the Vitamin K shot at birth unless baby has a hematoma or another reason for it. I was originally going to administer the dose orally but even that felt unnecessary if everything was healthy so I have been taking the vitamin K myself so that baby will get it through breast milk but I’m willing to give it to baby directly if it feels right. I must admit that I feel more safe giving those vitamin K drops to baby than infant formula as all of the ingredients are completely natural, not synthetic and all ingredients are pronounceable. I can’t say the same about the formula in the supermarket shelves.

A short commercial break with the trailer for a very interesting documentary on breastfeeding that I want to watch:

So here I am about to have a baby any day now and I don’t know any lullabies.  It’s ok, I knew about this for months, I could have tried to learn some but like with prenatal yoga, I just never got the motivation. I’m not concerned because baby will just care about hearing mommy’s voice and won’t know the difference between a lullaby and a Counting Crows song.

I had received a magazine in the mail from the people from theknot.com called “The Nest”, I wasn’t particularly interested but I did flip through it and saw an article about a married celebrity couple (a drummer and actress, have no idea who they are) and their green living tips and instantly noticed that there was no mention of the cloth diapers that their baby is obviously wearing in one of the pictures, a few months ago I would have never noticed something like that, lol.

Yesterday I saw a blog posting from another mom about what she carries in her diaper bag, the entry had a picture with everything laid out and numbered and she gave a list of the whole inventory. This made me curious and I did some research into what some other people carry for comparison. It is amazing to see how some people seem to come close to packing the whole nursery!

I can see the relevance of many items but I wonder if the rest is just there for peace of mind and never get used. I plan to start basic and add things as I find myself needing them because I don’t want the bag to weigh more than baby!

My poor husband is constantly intercepted by people at work asking “no baby yet?”, none of them seem to consider that he would not be at work if there was a baby. That man has gone to every single prenatal appointment with me, why in the world would he go right back to work as soon as he cuts the cord? He doesn’t get to have a paternity leave but you bet that he deserves a few days to get hang out with and get to know his child. I’m just glad that I’m not at work because heads would have already rolled from people asking questions and making comments, he’s got way more patience than I do.

thankfully people know not to call me

People do seem to be way more interested than I am to know how many centimeters dilated and what percent effaced I am.  Why do they care if I don’t?   Those numbers mean nothing unless I am in active labor.  I can be 4 cm 80% effaced for 4 weeks or not be dilated or effaced at all and have a baby before midnight.    My midwife only checks by request and I have no interest in knowing before show time.

The major development of this week is the fact that I have officially started my maternity leave and ahead of schedule.  The original plan was to work until I went into labor and it could have been done but not without a great health cost, specially to my emotional and mental health.

My work performance was being affected and I was having a very hard time completing my shifts.  On Tuesday I found myself feeling both physically and mentally unwell and the pressures at work were making things worse.  Thanks to my experience with social anxiety disorder I could tell that I was exhibiting all of the physical warning signs of an anxiety attack and that it was only a matter of time before I snapped.

It would have been easier to stay if it wasn’t for the people.   These are nice, well meaning people that just happen to be highly irritating by being nice.  When it’s not even 9am and I have over 10 people saying “how are you feeling?”, “you look ready to pop!”, “any day now” and “you must be exhausted!”, I had to run to the bathroom and have a mini breakdown to release the tension and avoid letting hormonal bitch respond to them.

I was so on edge all day that it was hard to keep it together and I knew that I couldn’t hide my general discomfort and that would just trigger more “how are you feeling?” questions that were now coming from more and more different people, including men who had never cared before and employees from the other side of the building that had never ever talked to me.

That’s when I decided that it’s best to start my leave early even if it means a potentially larger financial impact than risk getting fired for workplace violence for biting some innocent soul’s head off for trying to be nice.  I am glad to have my husband’s support in that decision as I felt very conflicted about it at first.

Communication channels were not on my side to have a smooth transition though, the head of HR was not available to see me, my direct supervisor had the day off and the program manager was too busy to talk.  After sticking it out for over 3 1/2 hours just waiting to do the right thing and talk to someone I ended up just giving up and sending an e-mail to the HR manager, dropping my leave paperwork in her inbox and sending an e-mail to the program manager after I got home.  I didn’t even say goodbye to my agents as I couldn’t handle more of the same that made me want to run for the hills, as far as they were concerned I went on break and didn’t return.

After all that communication still sucked and I end up getting a text message from my boss the next morning asking if I was coming to work today because apparently nobody got the memo or if they did they didn’t bother to tell her.  Geesh!

Within hours of leaving I felt validated in having made the right choice, after taking some time at home to clear and relax all traces of anxiety and fears of looming panic attacks dissipated and I feel so much better on all levels, physically, mentally and emotionally.  I don’t care about the cankles anymore, I feel better and even people now comment about how good I look.  I feel happy, relaxed and I am even able to sleep better.

Speaking of sleep, I mistakenly thought that I would have more energy now that I’m not working full time but it’s been the opposite!  Despite sleeping more hours at night I’m also becoming short of narcoleptic during the day being hit by sleepy spells that naps don’t fix.  It’s a miracle that I haven’t napped yet today but it certainly isn’t for lack of sleepiness!

It almost feels like baby is readjusting my sleep patterns to train me for what’s to come as I now wake up once or twice a night and have insomnia for 30 mins to 1 hour before going back to sleep and have become more reliant on daytime naps as well.

So apparently I’m next in line as being due for the midwife so she waits for my call in between our weekly appointments,  the birth tub is set up so it’s only a matter of filling it up once I go into labor… whenever that is.  My due date is 1 week from today but I could go over 2 weeks past that and only Baby Fox knows his/her birthdate.

But if the departure of National Geographic nipples and the gradual return of the normal ones I remember in addition to suddenly having a teenager’s skin complexion are any signs of impending labor then I must be getting close!

And yes, there will probably be an update on Facebook once labor starts but it won’t be until things are well underway, I don’t plan to be posting things like “could this be it?”, that way anybody that cares can be informed when it’s showtime and we don’t have to activate a phone tree as that is so 1990.

Another recent physical change has been on my belly.  After 9 months of smooth skin I have now started to get stretch marks.  Everything was fine as long as my belly was stretching outwards but when the dropping started that’s when they showed up.  So it sucks that I ended up getting some marks after all but I’m not heartbroken, as far as I am concerned these are similar to battle scars and I’ll wear them with pride as badges of motherhood.

It’s kinda funny how people that don’t know me comment on how high I carry as I still looks that way but I have indeed dropped quite a bit in recent weeks, I just have a tall belly (midwife thinks that I’ll be pushing a decent sized baby).

In addition to the stretchmarks this is evidenced in the fact that my belly button now tries to look down instead of straight ahead and the fact that any elastics roll off my belly until they come to rest on my pubic bone, lol.  This means that I either have to wear maternity clothes with a full belly band or make sure that my shirt is long enough to avoid a case of peek-a-boo bump.

I do regret not getting more maternity clothes earlier in the game, it’s now too late  to do anything about it short of wasting money but I wasn’t warned about maternity clothes being irremovable stain magnets and didn’t plan on so many dresses and tops being unwearable as a result of the fact that pregnancy clumsiness results in the belly catching food drips because it gets in the way of the napkin placed on my lap for that purpose.  I even tried to put the napkin on the bump itself but it would just fall off.

I tried to do the oxy spot cleaning but either those stains are permanent or I just don’t have the interest of putting enough elbow grease in the process.  It’s ok though, I don’t have that much left and I no longer  have to worry about work dress codes so I don’t have to worry about wardrobe crisis when we get close to laundry day.

I thought that being at home would allow me to nest but I guess that I still have a backlog of exhaustion to recover from as I haven’t been able to be anywhere near as productive as I’d like, my body just wants to sleep and eat but I don’t want to spend all day in bed either.  Striving to find balance…

On the activism front, I’m finding that I can’t stand women that are not honest with themselves and others.  When a woman is unwilling to breastfeed, but tells people she was unable, it inflates statistics and seeds fear in other women that breastfeeding is an unreachable ideal for most women.

Bottom line, if you choose not to breastfeed, be proud and own up to your decision, don’t be making lame excuses to get others off your case or try to get sympathy from them by lying.

A recent incident has reawakened the activist letter writer in me as according to Lisa from the “Russ and Lisa Radio Show”, breastfeeding mothers need to take their hippie granola nonsense to the bathroom.

Maybe you’ve heard about this piece of work online already, but for those who haven’t, here is a transcript thanks to “Code Name: Mama” from the broadcast about seeing a mother discreetly nursing in a Chick-Fil-A, and how Lisa felt about it. And here are a few excerpts if you’re not up for reading the whole thing.  Try not to have a stroke, it sure was a conscious effort for me.

“It’s just bad manners as far as I’m concerned to hike your blouse up and have a baby’s head underneath, even if you’re not exposing yourself.” (I think it’s bad manners to nosh on some fast food but expect an infant to be denied HEALTHY food)

“I hate it. I just don’t understand why in a public place you want to – and she was covered by the baby’s head, you know her shirt was partially – I just, to me it was sorta just in such bad taste”

Why is this not indecent exposure? And I don’t mean that she had her breast out and that you could really see it”

(Even nursing covered isn’t enough for Lisa.  I guess we should all just hole up in our homes until our children are off the boob.)

There was more, including Lisa’s opinion that even covering up the baby with a blanket it not “discreet” enough – she wants it to be completely out of her sight. She went on and on, but I’m sure you get the idea

The actual broadcasts of this show used to be online, but the station has taken them down. I heard much of it myself, and she truly is as awful as the quotes make her sound, and then some. I am all in favor of freedom of expression but still find it incredibly saddening that people like her have the public’s ear.

I sincerely hope that no women were listening to her and were impacted in a way that would harm their current or future breastfeeding. Imagine a new mom staying shut in her home for fear of bitches like Lisa, or maybe even never nursing at all!

What disappoints me most is that these comments come from a woman, I guess I’m used to men being insensitive and ignorant pigs when it comes to this and to them I can just say “I grow people and food, what’s YOUR superpower?!”

I think that’s why I enjoy going to La Leche League meetings so much, it is the only place that I can go to and not have to be on the defensive about subjects that I am passionate about and instead get to meet and share with mothers that have similar parenting styles to mine.

I feel that just like any parent considering circumsicion should watch from beginning to end at least 1 video of the procedure being done without looking away, closing eyes or throwing up.  I feel that any woman considering feeding her baby formula should attend at least 1 La Leche League meeting.   Radical? yes, doable? unlikely but since people are so lazy that they don’t bother to make informed decisions  I would like to find a way in which they can put just as much effort being informed about things that impact their current AND future health as they do in researching what hotel to stay at at their next vacation.

Time to roll up the ranting carpet, at this rate this is going to turn into a book!

Sorry there is no new belly picture, we should fix that soon while there’s still a belly to photograph!

“no baby yet?” that seems to be the question du jour, usually coming from the masters of observation mentioned previously, if I’m still walking around with a basketball under my shirt the answer to that question should be pretty obvious.  It makes me wish that I had ordered a t-shirt that says: “No I haven’t had the baby and I’m not in labor.” or even better, one that says “it isn’t over until the fat lady isn’t fat anymore”

still "fat" on the 38th week

I made the mistake of sharing a link that I found interesting/amusing on Facebook about how people swear that a dish at a certain restaurant is guaranteed to induce labor within 48 hours.  Several different people took it to mean that I wanted to eat the dish to induce myself, quite a jump in logic!  Specially when I’m the one regularly ranting about how one shouldn’t induce labor unless medically necessary.

And since everything is healthy, the only time I would consider induction is if I’m overdue which I am not (yet).  Yes people, please remember that I still have almost 2 weeks to my official “due” date or as I like to call “guess date”.    And if it comes to that, then I’d rather try the natural tricks before I check myself into the hospital for a pitocin drip at 42 weeks.

As much as we’re excited to meet baby Fox, I am not trying to dictate when he/she should make his/her appearance.  In a sense I would probably miss being pregnant as I’m still enjoying it all when I don’t count the cankles.  I do hope that this isn’t one of those “cool babies” that insists on being fashionably late for it’s debut but baby will get to pick the time it considers best and we’ll adapt to that.

I guess this is another aspect of being a granola mom in a fruit loop world.

Thinking about fruit loops, it saddens me to see so many other new parents putting so much focus on the theme and color scheme of their nursery and not on other more important (in my opinion) decisions.  But I notice that this is because there is hardly any mention of the important  decisions to be made since most people think they have no choice and go with the “standard” procedures.

I am referring to things such as where to give birth, how to give birth, who to give birth with, which classes to take, whether to have a doula, which prenatal tests to take, to eye goop or not,  whether to vitamin K shot or not, whether to delay vaccines or skip them, whether to circumcise and most of this is just the “medical” side of it.  There’s still the decisions on parenting style and everything that comes with actually bringing the baby home.

It shocks me how often I hear somebody saying that they just did things that way because “that’s how everybody does it”, “that’s what my doctor told me to do” or “I didn’t know there was an alternative”, has anybody ever heard of the concept of INFORMED decisions?

In non ranting news, this week we had a belly cast made of the bump, it didn’t come out perfect but being Daddy Fox’s first job as sculptor it’s pretty good, it wasn’t hard to do and aside from having a waterproof belly and boobs from the vaseline lubricant it wasn’t as messy as we feared.

Now it’s a matter of me getting the chance to try to sand it a little and figure out how to decorate it after a trip to the craft store for ideas and supplies.

belly cast in progress

I had been having trouble sleeping for a very long time and something as simple as flipping sides was being torture, this was in part because we have a tiny bed and Daddy Fox is a giant and I’m not so pixie sized with the bump so there isn’t much room for movement and positioning.  Apparently Daddy Fox got tired of my whimpering and swearing throughout the night and he started to sleep on the futon in the bedroom and suddenly the room to spread and move in bed has allowed me to get the best sleep in months.

It sucks that it’s harder to fall asleep without him as close and  I can no longer sneak in middle of the night cuddles without getting up but at least I’m starting to get some decent rest again.  I appreciate his sacrifice and it’s cool that our room is big enough to fit 2 beds so that he doesn’t have to be all the way out in the couch.

An unexpected side effect to this pregnancy is that I’ve developed a sensitivity to certain food ingredients.  In the past all I had to do was avoid seafood and I could eat anything else without remorse but in recent months I find myself having reactions to MSG and other food additives used in many popular restaurants.  Now I get sick after every time I eat at Golden Corral and the other night I had an allergic reaction to food from Chipotle that was bad enough that required me breaking out the benadryl to avoid skinning myself alive.

Back to ranting… This hasn’t yet made a big stir in the news but it may, there is a peaceful “nurse in” being staged tomorrow at a park in Orlando to protest the discrimination by a lifeguard against several breastfeeding mothers and I’m cheering for them from afar.

A lot of people seem to be getting their panties in a twist over this ranging from “breastfeeding is gross” to “I don’t care what you do but I don’t want to see you do it”.  A lot of this stems from the taboo over breastfeeding and the over- sexualization of breasts.  I roll my eyes at the prudes that don’t want children to see a woman nursing a baby, they will never grow up to learn what breasts are truly for otherwise since media and society emphasizes a completely different purpose for them.

Normalizing breastfeeding means more people, adults and children, must be exposed to it on a regular basis in the course of their everyday lives.  Breastfeeding is not something to be embarrassed about. In cultures where breastfeeding is the norm, children simply don’t ask what mothers are doing with their babies, because they already know what breasts are for. And parents understand the dual purpose they can serve without embarrassment.

I’ve got nursing covers and if I use them it will be for my benefit and not anybody else’s and if baby doesn’t like them or it’s too freaking hot or inconvenient to cover up while nursing people can choose not to look or put the cover on THEIR head.

I believe in people’s right to be offended but that doesn’t entitle them to interfere.  There are many legal activities I witness in public that personally offend me and when I don’t like it, I stop looking and continue about my day.

Regardless of the many benefits of breastfeeding and its promotion by medical and governmental organizations, Florida law protects a child’s right to nurse but most people don’t know about this. Florida enacted Fla. Stat. § 383.015(1) (1993), which reads:

“A mother may breastfeed her baby in any location, public or private, where the mother is otherwise authorized to be, irrespective of whether the nipple of the mother’s breast is uncovered during or incidental to the breastfeeding.”

Why should we stand up for our breastfeeding rights?  Because the next breastfeeding mother might not know her rights, she might not be confident enough to stand up for herself, she might even be discouraged enough that she stops breastfeeding.

On the getting ready for baby front, the stereotypical nesting instinct of wanting to clean and disinfect everything including the screws in the cabinet hinges has been non existent for me.  The house needs a good spring (or in this case summer) cleaning but the best that I can do is try to keep it from getting worse, oh well…

I have been doing some last minute shopping for miscellaneous items that we still don’t have, most of it would be extras (more towels and washcloths) or luxuries (fox crib mobile and wall decals) but it brings me joy, still dreaming over that fox themed bedding set that is out of my current financial reach….

I have printed a sign to be posted in our front door in case I get loud at odd hours while in labor and somebody calls the cops.

Think it gets the point across?

This has been an interesting week, Daddy Fox behaved and waited until I reached the official 37 week mark to start with the “is it time yet?” jokes, if I go overdue I’ll be VERY sick of those jokes…

The pregnancy newsletters that I subscribe to have shifted from talking about ” this week baby developed …” to ” cope with labor by…” or “things to take to the hospital”.

At least my body has been showing signs that it is getting ready for labor but nothing definite, it could still be weeks.

At work the boss looks at me like I’m a ticking time bomb, at least they finally started to plan for my leave.  Work has been particularly hard this week due to fatigue, swollen feet and sporadic contractions.  But despite all that I found myself nesting at work, since those are the hours in which I have energy and I’m stuck in there I end up cleaning my desk and reorganizing my filing cabinet.  It sucks that I don’t have the same energy by the time I get home, or if I do, by then my feet are so huge that I have no choice but to get off them.

Yes, I have elephant feet now, they are HUGE!  And the swelling doesn’t go down after a good night’s sleep either, they may shrink a little but it’s still super inflated.  But my blood pressure is good and it’s only my feet so I don’t have to worry about pre-eclampsia.

I am hard pressed to put my feet up often due to work and lifestyle but yesterday when I finally did get the chance to put my feet up for most of the workday I found that it didn’t help one bit, my feet kept swelling at the same pace as if I had been walking all day.

I’m drinking the water, moderating salt, trying to rest, trying to do some light walking (or in my case waddling) all to no avail.  I freak out every time I look at my feet.

I just hope that I don’t end up like my mother, her pregnancy edema is still with her 29 years later.

I admit that swelling is the only symptom that is making my life miserable.  Heavy belly, minuscule bladder capacity, low heat tolerance, pelvic pain, contractions, cramps… and anything else that I forget at the moment, they’re all manageable, constantly swollen feet that don’t fit into anything but flip flops = grrr.

We are in the final readying stages as we enter “safe dates”.  We have the birth tub at the house, the labor day supplies are all ready in a box and I struggle to keep the house clean or at least semi decent.

Daddy Fox finished assembling the nursery furniture and I love it.  Cherry is my favorite wood color so I’m glad that we got this set. It was super cute to have Daddy Fox channeling Martha Stewart last night as he applied the decorative decals to the walls.

Aside from some clutter reduction and floor cleaning the nursery is almost done!

Nursery Decorations

My placenta brain doesn’t let me remember that I still need to get the empty gel caps to encapsulate my placenta, agh! I’m pretty sure that I am forgetting other things as well but my placenta hasn’t allowed me to remember what those are.

I have already acquired the belly casting kit as it was on sale at a decent discount, now I’m trying to figure out when to do it.  I would like to wait until close to 40 weeks but with the whole “it can happen at any time” I don’t want to risk going into labor and missing out on the opportunity so I may end up doing it sooner rather than later.  It’s up to Daddy Fox now as he will be playing the role of “sculptor”.

Hubby finds it amusing that I seem to have developed what he calls a “reckless” attitude, I call it “who the hell cares”, this is seen in me being too tired to try hard at anything anymore, lol.  Didn’t park exactly parallel to the lines? don’t care, didn’t meet my quota for quality evaluations at work?… don’t care, used the wrong word?… don’t care.  I dropped something on the floor?… don’t care.  I have stopped being an overachiever at work until I return from maternity leave.

One thing that I’ve been ranting quite a bit elsewhere online is the fact that most people think that natural birth and vaginal birth are synonyms.  They don’t seem to realize that one can have a very medicalized vaginal birth (examples: induction, artificial membrane rupture, pitocin augmentation,  epidural… you get the point).  I don’t know about you but none of that seems natural to me.  Perhaps the new natural should be called drug free or intervention free.

Vaginal, natural…who cares? I guess I care.  I’m willing to concede that one can still have a natural birth with artificial membrane rupture provided that it’s done while labor has already been off to a good start,  there are some natural induction techniques that can be considered as well but pitocin, epidurals etc fall way out of that scope.

And  I think it matters because the pendulum about childbirth is swung so far out that, in general it has become an undefined mystery and it needs clarification, if only to let others make up their own mind of what seems normal and natural to them.

Will I get the natural birth I want?  I don’t know… I hope so but will I strive for it?  that’s what I’ve been doing for 9 months!

I leave you with the heavy bump and cankles at 37 weeks:

36 weeks. According to most people baby is now considered a fully baked bun if it decides to pop out of the oven so even though I technically have almost 4 weeks left we have entered the “any day now” stage.

First time moms are notorious for going overdue but the general consensus with the exception of 1 person is that I won’t make it to my due date.

I’m not one for competitions but I’m curious to see what the online consensus is, if you have an opinion, post a comment with the day you think Baby Fox will debut to this world along with your gender prediction.  If you feel really psychic you can also add other information such as time of birth, weight and length.  I’m curious to see if the online opinion varies a lot from the people that have already expressed their “knowing”.

I don’t care when baby decides to show up as long as it waits until next Thursday (the 37 week mark at which point it is legal to have a homebirth in Florida).  That is a big difference to most moms in the online message boards that I visit which are bragging about their baby “having an eviction date”.

Last Monday we had the home visit with the midwife, this means that she knows how to get to our house and won’t be accidentally knock on the neighbor’s door at 2am.  She loved my meditation bench, something I’ve had for years that allows me to meditate in the lotus position for hours while keeping good posture and preventing my butt from falling asleep.  It looks like a mini kneel cushion as seen in Catholic churches, apparently midwives can sometimes spend hours on their knees during a birth so it’s good to know that she won’t have to worry about sore knees at mine.

“If you really want a humanized birth, the best thing you can do is stay the hell out of the hospital.” – Marsden Wagner former director or the World Health Organization (Women and children’s health) and author of Born in the USA

We are thinking about printing a sign to put on the door for when I’m in labor just in case I am in the backyard and decide to get loud and somebody calls the cops thinking that somebody is dying, it would be nice if I could find a template online though, lol.

Mentally and physically I’m as ready as I’ll be, not saying I feel 100% ready but it’ll have to do (and I’m sure it WILL do).

On the house front we are not fully ready but we’re way closer.  Last week we had a baby shower hosted by MIL and SIL co-conspired with hubby, I didn’t know any details until a few days prior and it was better that way.  We got a lot of very needed items, baby is all set for clothes, bath items and we even got a nursery furniture set!  Out of town family and friends that couldn’t attend sent gifts from afar.

I feel very grateful and blessed for the generosity of family and friends, we certainly wouldn’t have been able to buy all of this on our own.

Now I feel like I’m on a time crunch to get the thank you notes done and sent before baby arrives, yet another deadline!

Now I’m in the stage of buying the last minute must haves, found a good deal on the sling I wanted online, got a changing pad for 1 of the 2 changing tables that we now have and other minor items.  Still pending… a diaper pail.

I can’t stand Diaper Genie, most diaper pails are designed for disposable diapers, I was looking into just a kitchen trash can with a step but haven’t found the right one so I’ll probably end up ordering online.

Still looking for a carrier that Daddy will like, it looks like it will be an Ergo which is on the pricey range, specially if he will use it before 4 months because we would need to buy  the infant insert.  I’d rather spend the money in the Ergo than go cheap on an Infantino or Baby Bjorn for him, heck I would use an Ergo once baby is older.

I have finished sorting through baby’s clothing just to separate the newborn and 0-3 sizes to wash those first, baby has a lot of clothes!  More than mommy, lol!

Thanks to grandma Fox the clothes have been washed and the cloth diapers are being prepped which is great for my peace of mind and also a huge savings of $ and time at $2.90 per load (wash only) if we had gone to the laundromat.

While my nesting urge involved laundry and shopping, Daddy Fox’s nesting urge involved clearing and setting up the nursery.  One day he just HAD to clear the room of anything not baby related, that same night!  So here we are in the middle of the night relocating computers, desks, etc.  not a bad thing except it happened on the same day that I was trying to get the house cleaned and organized but relocating things meant we first had to create chaos, rearrange furniture and then… we could clean, so that was annoying for me but we got past it.

Daddy Fox’s second wave of nesting entailed getting the new furniture assembled, he pulled an all nighter going to bed at close to 5am and although not completely done he made a decent amount of progress.  It’s funny how our nesting urges seem to take turns, now that he’s slow down on the nursery setup I’m starting to get itchy about getting it finished, lol.

Daddy Fox getting started on his all night project

So formula companies seem to realize that they’re dealing with a hippie and now they have started to market ORGANIC formula to me, they just don’t give up!

On other marketing news, Amazon.com seems to know that I want a camcorder to video tape everything baby because they have been sending me sales and discounts on camcorders for weeks, unfortunately I can’t splurge on such a luxury when we still have baby stuff to buy so I probably won’t be able to get one until well after maternity leave is over.

Yesterday I had my 36 week appointment with my Primary Care Physician/ Breastfeeding Specialist/ Baby’s Doctor.  As usual it was great, we (meaning I) took almost an hour of her time with a long list of questions on breastfeeding, cloth diapering, vitamin K for newborns, etc.  I’ve never before had a doctor not rush through things and take the time to give honest answers in plain English.

When she asked me how I was doing and I said “good, aside from the swelling”, she immediately offered to write me a note for work to allow me to wear non-restrictive shoes for the rest of the pregnancy.  This is welcome as right now flip flops is the only thing that doesn’t torture my swelling feet.

I did find some slippers at Wally World that feel very comfortable and although they’re not designed for work, they do look like ballerina flats from afar so I hope that upper management won’t mind, I’m sure that they’ll rather have their supervisor wearing that than flip flops.

I find it half amusing/ half annoying when several people demonstrate that they are masters of observation and state the obvious with comments like “that belly is getting bigger!” I usually smile and give a slightly sarcastic “I think it’s supposed to do that, I would worry if it was shrinking“.  I really don’t understand why people get so shocked at the bump doing what it is supposed to do.

And yes, I know that my belly has been getting bigger, I live with it 24/7, there is no way I could have missed that, I even wrote this list:

You know your baby belly is big when…

- you keep hitting it with doors, including car doors, fridge doors and cabinets, when you close or open them (ow!)
- you instinctively turn sideways to squeeze through a narrow space, only to end up more stuck
- you can use it as a table when your sitting down.
-  your maternity shirts don’t fit so well anymore
-  you knock things over with it!
- you have trouble getting in and out of a public bathroom stall…why do those doors have to swing in??
- It’s an act of congress to flip over in bed every night!
- when you have food stains in the same spot on all of your shirts
- when you drop something and debate on whether or not it’s worth it to pick it up
- you walk down the stairs and can’t see the steps below
- you bend over to tie your shoes and it sounds like you’re dying.
-  you can’t sit up straight to eat anymore, so you lean back and put the plate on your belly.
- you try to cuddle up to your hubby and kiss him and you’re still WAY too far away!
- you snap the elastic on several pre-pregnancy skirts that you were trying to wear
-  in the middle of the night you have to wake up to get momentum going in bed to flip to your other side.. then when you do and finally get comfortable again… you have to FRIGGIN PEE!!
-  you are eating and the food didn’t just fall ONTO the belly – it bounced OFF the belly and hurtled ACROSS the room at great speeds
-  you feel like a turtle on its back trying to get out of bed and your husband makes that your new nickname

On the evolution of the nesting instinct….

So at first I had no nesting urge, then it showed up in a weird way by making me want to throw away anything not baby related and go shopping for baby stuff. By now it has evolved into a must get everything baby washed, sorted and organized!

It sucks that we don’t have a washer at home or I would already be done…  that would have been a great way to satisfy the urge and deal with insomnia at the same time.  Sadly the nearest 24 hr laundromat is in Ft Pierce and hubby doesn’t care for that area during the day so he wouldn’t approve of his wife going there by herself at 2am.

The prefold cloth diapers have to be pre-washed 4-5 times to make them soft, quilted and absorbent and that would be an expensive and time consuming endeavor at the laundromat so I need to get started now if I want to be done before baby gets here.

I thought that the nesting urge would come with a surge of energy but it looks like the energy part called out sick. My brain is spinning with all it wants to do but my body is totally uncooperative, add to that the fact that we’ve had a very busy week with minimal rest and I have gotten very little accomplished.

Daddy Fox finds my nesting comments cute and amusing but has no idea to what extent it bugs me. Before I would be all “I still have a month to get it done” but now I’m feeling like I’m running out of time, like I have to HURRY! What if baby arrives next week?! I don’t have the cloth diapers ready! I don’t have a sling yet! aaahhhh! Yes, this has triggered insomnia and dreams on the topic once I do fall asleep.

On epic swelling…

Swelling has now become the most stubborn third trimester symptom. It started with me having to take my wedding band off because it didn’t fit anymore and by now it has evolved into permanent cankles and giant feet. I even had to enlist hubby’s help in removing my toe rings as they were starting to make indentations in my toes and it felt like blood circulation would soon be compromised.

This is the first time in approx 13 years that I don’t have anything shiny on my feet. The swelling has gotten so bad that I practically live in flip flops now, I can’t fit into most of my shoes anymore, not even my boots! And those that barely fit feel like medieval torture devices. I even ended up having to make an emergency shoe shopping run midweek to get elastic sneakers that I could wear to work.

I do pretty good on the drinking fluids part but I don’t have the luxury to put my feet up often. By now the swelling is such that even though it gets better after a night’s sleep, it doesn’t fully go away and I’m starting to forget what my feet used to look like.

On parenting…

People have commented on how they think that my parenting style is weird with the whole baby wearing, cloth diaper, elimination communication, etc.   it’s actually not as weird as you might think.  I have found myself identifying with the Attachment Parenting model and I have come across a lot of people that follow it as well both on the internet and locally, it is refreshing to see that I’m not the only crunchy mama in the Treasure Coast.  Obviously I’m adapting some of their principles to suit our lifestyle but it pretty much summarizes how I feel, you can see the 8 principles of attachment parenting here.

Even if I didn’t know of attachment parenting I would still wear baby, strollers have an useful place for certain scenarios but I don’t think that they should be the primary mode of baby transportation.  I find it funny that people complain about baby wearing being complicated when to me a stroller is more complicated!  I agree some slings are easier to learn than others but it’s a matter of finding what works best for you and after the initial learning curve it is easier, faster, a lot less bulky and a lot better than a baby stroller.

Another thing that some people complain about is why we have an Amazon registry, some don’t even consider it a registry and like to say that we’re not registered anywhere (wtf?).  Why would I be so “inconsiderate” and not register at Babies R Us or Target?  Various reasons, first an foremost because they simply do not sell most of the things that we need/want and I hate to be limited by a store’s inventory, I haven’t found a single store that remotely comes close to having every item that we would want.

Amazon offers an Universal Registry, meaning that we can add items from ANY online source, including handmade one of a kind items made by WAHMS, I wouldn’t be able to add Etsy items to a store registry.  Their prices are lower in general than Babies R Us and Target and most things come with free shipping if Amazon itself sells it.

We do have a handful of Babies R Us items in the registry to please those people, if you want to pick up something at the store, I can simply mark the item as purchased in the registry and Amazon doesn’t complain about it not being purchased from them (unlike Babies and Target).  So it’s not like anybody is tied to anything.

week 34- first family photo

Today we went to the beach since it’s the first time we have a common day off in a while and due to the environmental sadness we decided to take advantage of something that we have been taking for granted while it’s still available to us.  It saddens me deeply that baby Fox may not have the opportunity to enjoy the ocean right where we live.

I don’t have a maternity bathing suit and wasn’t going to waste money on something I would use once so I dug up my old bathing suits, sadly because I don’t use them often enough I only found one matched bikini set in the my drawers.  This is from 2007 and 60 pounds ago so the bottom was tighter than it should have but it got the job done.

So I now present to you, the bump- bikini edition…

week 35- belly getting tanned

We had a good time while we were there but as the sun kept rising the heat started to get to me and I had to seek shady shelter but not before we went into the water and the waves massaged the bump.

While we were in the water daddy Fox yells out “holy $hit what is that?! watch out!”, by the sound of his voice I would have thought that there was a shark right behind me.  I turned around to see this big dark mass coming up right behind me under the water so I announced “it’s just a manatee!”.  The sea cow swam over to check us out, got pretty darn close stuck its nose out of the water, turned around and swam back the way it came.  Odd. I have encountered manatees before but only in rivers,  never before in the ocean.

That’s a story that we’ll be telling baby Fox about his/her first visit to the beach…

week 35- bikini edition

We also took an Infant CPR class courtesy of a friend who does that for a living.  I hope that I never have to use what I learn but must admit that it was simpler than I feared.

I’ve reached the conclusion that tv shows like “A Baby Story”, “Deliver Me” and “Birth Day” should be renamed “Fear Factor” because they play on a woman’s often natural concerns about the birth by portraying the whole process as highly dramatic, with a woman strapped down and hooked up, by a doctor gowned and gloved like an alien visitor and often highlighting very anxious family members.  Sure a woman has fear, fear that something is going to happen to her or the baby, fear of pain, fear of failure, that she just won’t be able to “do it.”  Add in snarky, cynical nurses and doctors who ridicule anyone who seems to want to be in charge of her birth (after all we’re the experts)…limited labor support or assistance in the form of doulas…restricted mobility, lack of food and drink…and almost endless interventions and you have potential for trouble.  We have cultivated an environment that this is normal, and somehow now some women even find value in being “risky.”

And here I was thinking that movies were the only mass entertainment media that did a disservice to natural birth….

This comment was overheard in an online group that I was participating in: “I should have booked my scheduled c-section date today!”   WTF?

This was in reaction to the fact that her “preferred” date has been taken by another to be induced mom to be and how horrible such a tragedy is.  This came from a 23 year old first time mom with zero complications and no medical reason to be induced or have a C-section. To me having an induction without a legitimate medical justification is the equivalent to evicting your own child, extremely selfish and not at all a sign of love.

And the above are just but samples of society’s distorted perception of what is normal and safe for pregnancy and birth.

And that’s why when curious minds inquire about why I’m not picking dates or seeing an OB or taking tours of a hospital, I want to quote the statement so eloquently written by the founder of the “Bring Birth Home” website:

“As soon as the standard medical model of care in hospitals today pays more respect to the sheer and awesome power of women’s bodies, we will continue to give birth at home.

Until hospital staff can completely and totally honor a woman’s wishes to birth naturally, without interruption, with or without food, able to move, able to moan, able to labor over 24 hours without hearing the words “induction or cesarean section,” we will give birth at home.

Women birth at home to avoid so many of the often unnecessary interventions that take place in hospitals today. We are not treated like customers – the nurse and doctors do not aim to please us – we are told to be quiet, we are strapped down and plugged in. We are cut, drugged and lied to.

And until that stops, we will give birth at home, under the experienced and caring hands of midwives who LOVE their jobs, love our bodies, love our children, and this big world that we’re bringing them into.”

On matters closer to Baby Fox….

While shopping at Babies R Us for somebody else I decided to look into the Rewards program that I signed up for but never use.  7 out of 8 of their rewards promotions required purchasing disposable diapers or cans of formula, yet another confirmation that I am NOT their target audience.

And Enfamil still sends me e-mail reminders to print their coupon to bring to the hospital to make sure that I get my breastfeeding kit and diaper bag when I have the baby…

Recently I received a package from my parents containing an assortment of baby clothes.  As I added them to the clothes that we have already been very generously given the first thing that comes to mind is gratitude and the second thing is that this baby needs tie dye!  I really need to look into ordering some tie dye shirts and onesies.

I am officially in the stage that people think I am a ticking time bomb and only my midwife seems to think that I’ll carry to term or very close to it.  I am not one to place monetary bets but if other people are going to start guessing on dates when baby will come they might as well be contributing to his/her college fund.

So I am 34 weeks and baby doesn’t have a decorated or furnished nursery, the room is still our computer room and a big mess after my failed attempts at moving stuff out of it, it sucks but I don’t see it as the end of the world.  It’s not like baby is going to sleep in there anytime soon.  Baby doesn’t have furniture or a crib, it’s ok, we’ve got the Arm’s Reach Co Sleeper to get us started.  We don’t have a changing table, we can use the bed, we don’t have a diaper bag, we can use a backpack….

This is how I feel about a lot of the stuff that we don’t have, it sure beats freaking out about it when I don’t have the savings account to go on a shopping spree for those items.

Now that I have all of the prefold diapers I had ordered in bits and pieces, I need get started soon on the process of pre-washing them along with everything else.  Right now the diapers are in a pile overflowing out of a box because I don’t have anywhere else to put them, soon I hope to have cleared out enough space to improvise some shelves for them.

The nesting urge just hasn’t been there!  Instead my exhaustion and fatigue waves are arriving earlier in the day and hitting me stronger.

There are some things that I do still need and can’t avoid such as a breast pump which is  the big ticket item in this category.  I can get an used model but it will still cost me more than I can spare right now as I just finished paying bills and shopping for father’s day and a certain father to be’s birthday.

But it’s ok, I’ll start to freak out once I hit 36 weeks….

week 33

On reasons why it rocks to have a midwife and not an OB…  at our last appointment she really took the time to not only talk about the physiological aspects of pregnancy and upcoming birth but also to check in with us emotionally and discuss any fears and anxieties, we were never rushed and the appointment lasted for over an hour.  I have yet to have anybody I know tell me of anything even close with an OB.

It actually reminds me of when I saw an OB last year for the miscarriage and when things bordered the emotional he said “you look like a strong woman that won’t crumble at the receipt of bad news but if you are let me know and I’ll give you a referral to a psychiatrist”, that was part of the 3 minutes I spent with the doctor at that appointment, how different right?

Another major impressive thing about our midwife, when Daddy Fox asked about what the plan would be if a hurricane comes, without hesitation she responded that if she checks me and see that I could go into labor soon she would come and stay at our house during the storm.  I didn’t expect to hear that for a response, specially coming from someone with a family of her own, but apparently she has been known to drive in the middle of a hurricane when not even cops are out on the street, pissing off her husband but making sure that she was there to catch a baby.  Now that is what I consider commitment to one’s calling.

From people that I know, their OB’s tell them that if a hurricane is coming that they need to check the hospital and unless they happen to be on call they wouldn’t leave their family to attend a birth. Can’t exactly blame them but in my opinion it defeats the purpose of building rapport with a provider during pregnancy just to have a stranger present at the pivotal moment.

I had the opportunity to share the final drafts of my 2 birth plans with the midwife and she was 100% cool in supporting our home birth plan.  For the “in case of hospital emergency” plan she was kind enough to point out which hospital in the area would be more likely to do what and which requests had a higher chance of being ignored but she still encouraged us to leave it as is and not change any of it.

baby and I enjoy hugging trees

I feel so blessed to be having such great supportive and caring providers on this pregnancy and into labor.  Today I had an EFT session with the practitioner that I have mentioned in previous postings and it was AMAZING!  If budget allows I may end up booking another session in the next month before baby arrives.  She is so good at intuitively getting the nuggets hidden in my words to discover the true emotional roots that need to be worked on and does it in such a gentle and effective way.

I was delighted to discover that she offers labor consultations at no charge to current clients!  It is good to know that if I’m freaking out in the middle of labor that I can call her cellphone day or night and she will work with me on the spot.  I almost feel like sessions with her should be part of standard prenatal care.

week 34- do I look like I am about to pop?

I have now booked the 36 week appointment with my primary care doctor who will also be baby’s doctor and breastfeeding support if needed beyond the scope of the La Leche League leaders.  I am really looking forward to that, she’s such an amazing doctor and so different from the standard of Western Medicine even though that is what she practices.

week 34

Yay for hormonal waterworks! sometimes I feel like I need to drink an extra glass of water per day just to avoid dehydration by crying. Anything can trigger waterworks, oftentimes it’s the unlikely stuff. Hubby took me to watch Sex and the City 2 for my birthday and I stayed dry during the whole chick flick but I couldn’t say the same about the Google commercial that played during the previews.

Another common thing I deal with is what a former coworker calls the “pregnancy dumbs” and is usually referred to in the internet as “placenta brain”.  I sometimes feel like instead of making his/her own neurons baby is just stealing mine.  It is now the norm for me to have to turn around at the driveway when leaving the house because I forgot something.

I keep getting annoyed at the amount of solicitation and coupons that I get from formula companies.  While commercial infant formulas are commonly perceived to be the medically recommended second choice infant food after breastfeeding, the World Health Organization (WHO) states: “The second choice is the mother’s own milk expressed and given to the infant in some way. The third choice is the milk of another human mother. The fourth and last choice is artificial baby milk.”

The fourth choice people! Then why do so many women automatically default to formula as their first and second choice? I’ve heard a variety of excuses from several moms I have met and they just made me want to cry and scream at the same time.  It’s so hard to not climb on the soapbox on them for this one!

I am a formula fed baby, and although I don’t know what excuse my mother used to not breastfeed (we’re not close enough for me to consider asking), I have a feeling that it was the common society “perception” of baby feeding at the time and expensive formula company marketing.

People say “but look at you, you turned out fine!“, I may have but I also can’t help but wonder how much better I would have turned out, how much healthier I would have been while growing up, how much closer I could be to my mother if I had been breastfed. Although I don’t blame my parents for their decisions, they were doing what they felt was best at the time; I can’t help but feel shortchanged and that’s a feeling that I don’t want my baby to grow up with.

On the progress front, we have finally settled down on a name choice for both gender scenarios.  One name had been pretty much chosen for months, I just had to grow into it, and the other one was just a matter of selecting from 2 finalists. Credit for both names goes to Daddy Fox, he seems to have a stronger opinion on the subject than I did.  And no, we’re not telling what the names are…

I do have a belly picture to post this week (technically it’s the bump at week 32) and when I look at it all I can say is… I’m huge!

I have given up on wearing sneakers, I did pretty good at being able to tie my own shoes for longer than my pregnant friends and technically I still can but that entails finding creative angles and positions to reach them which usually result in a tiny foot under a rib so I’m sticking to sandals now.

I am already starting to get the “haven’t you popped yet?” questions, I’ve never understood that one,  does it look like I have?

The look on peoples faces when I tell them I still have 7 weeks to go, obviously they think I should be having this kid tomorrow.

Since it’s been a while since I’ve posted a list of pet peeves, in addition to the popping question here I have the latest ones…

- People who say, “Your lives are going to change!“  Thanks for the newsflash.

- Men that think they know more about pregnancy than I do because their wives went through it.  Really?  You might know a lot, but you don’t know what it feels like, so shut it.

-”You look so good now.  You should try not to lose all the baby weight.“   I didn’t realize I looked so bad before!

- “You look exhausted” … no kidding, just wait and you’ll see me wearing a whole new level of exhaustion soon.

Internet pregnancy forums tend to have these “due date clubs” for people that are all due at around the same time.  It’s weird to see so many July due babies being born already, agh!  That seems to be my biggest reminder that the light at the end of the tunnel is no longer a dot!

It shocks and amazes me how much ignorance is out there and how much damage it is doing.  I have added the Craigslist Baby stuff for sale RSS feed to my Google Reader for about a week now, I haven’t come across anything I’ve wanted to buy yet but something I do notice is the large amount of recalled products that are posted for sale and I cringe to think at how many unsuspecting people innocently buy these.

I’ve also discovered a LOT of ignorance in whom I would have considered experienced mothers.  For example at work I talked briefly to a woman pregnant with her second baby that had no idea that ultrasounds were optional if there were no complications.

Or the mother of 3 that didn’t know that homebirth is an option.  And don’t get me started on the lame excuses that I’ve heard for why they had a C-section.

When I come across these people I just shake my head and lament.  I don’t expect everyone to be as research minded as I am but when something as major as pregnancy and motherhood presents itself in your life I would have imagined that they would at least be interested in learning a little bit to make informed decisions instead of jumping on the bandwagon of doing what their doctor (oftentimes chosen for convenience of location/insurance coverage and not for merit) tells them.

And this is why quotes like this are scary, sad but true:  “Even though it’s neither an illness nor an injury, childbirth is the nation’s leading reason for hospitalization. It accounts for six of the 15 most commonly performed hospital procedures and $80 billion a year in hospital charges“  (Josephine Marcotty,  Star Tribune)

Moving on to brighter subjects, baby seems to have gotten mommy’s sense of rhythm with some dance moves that almost seem choreographed to music I can’t hear.  It’s super cute… except when I’m trying to drive.

On funny stuff, a website held a contest for a homemade video explaining why people should use cloth diapers.  I have no idea who won the $1,000 prize but my favorite is this entry below.  I would love to see an ad like this on a shopping channel or late night tv someday…

As time starts to run short I start to think about the fact that I want to have a belly cast made and trying to decide about when and how to go about it.  I see overpriced kits online but it looks like I can get it done cheaply enough, I just don’t have the help for it as I can’t cast my own belly.  I have several friends in Miami that would be perfect for the project but I’m not motivated enough to spend the gas and battle I-95 for it.

I may end up having to break down and pay someone locally to do it.

And this week’s last funny…. I wouldn’t be surprise if I see this happening in a few months….

Dear United HealthCare,

I do appreciate you taking the time to call me to check on how my pregnancy is going. However just because I have had several Braxton Hicks contractions in the last 4 weeks is no reason for alarm, so please don’t tell me that I should call my doctor and head to the hospital or proceed to transfer me to the nurse hotline when I say that the contractions are normal and nothing to be worried about.

Perhaps you’ll want to consider offering some training to the phone representatives that you assign to call pregnant women on the same basic stuff that is covered in the pamphlet that you sent me by mail when you first found out I was pregnant, this will hopefully prevent them from trying to scare paranoid and ignorant pregnant women in the program about emergencies that are not there.

Sincerely,

Your insured member  (not by choice)

This letter above summarizes how I feel about my health insurance company, I give them points for effort in offering a Healthy Pregnancy program which I thought was a good idea at the time so I signed up. But have been disappointed to see how they will call me regularly for “follow up assessments” interrogating me about a long list of symptoms to see if my pregnancy is not healthy.

I work at a call center (and for a health insurance program at that) so I know that the training that these people get is minimal at best but I really wish that they weren’t trying to dig so hard for an excuse to transfer every caller to the nurse hotline, do they get a bonus for transfers?

Since they couldn’t find anything abnormal with my pregnancy, they determined that the “practice” contractions which are common and to be expected are signs of preterm labor ::rolls eyes::  I have obviously done more studying than these phone reps, plus I know my body and I can assure you, if I am not worried… neither should you.  I’ll call you when my practice contractions get a regular pattern getting closer together and stronger, then I’ll be ready to talk to your nurses.

On other controversial news… I have been called a lactivist!  Aka. breastfeeding activist, I take it as a great complement.  Yes, I have never breastfed but I do fully plan to.  I know that I’m not guaranteed a perfect experience and that is why I have armed myself with backup support for the unexpected.  My midwife is supportive of breastfeeding, I have been attending La Leche League Meetings, La Leche League counselors are just a phone call away, I have contact information for  a lactation consultant from the Health Department and my primary care physician is a breastfeeding specialist.  In addition to research I think that I have done everything in my power to follow through in my desire to breastfeed.

I wish that all new moms knew that there is so much help and support available, it saddens me so much when moms give up so easily because breastfeeding didn’t seem easy or didn’t happen automatically.  Or even worse, get discouraged by the social stigma that is placed on breastfeeding as perverted instead of natural.

I continue to be horrified by the over commercialization of the baby industry, I am sick of getting e-mails from Babies R Us offering overpriced things that baby doesn’t need.  I have unsubscribed from so much baby spam that my e-mail inbox is now losing weight while I am gaining it (more on that below).

I got a booklet of coupons from Publix Supermarket’s Baby Club and surprise, surprise! not a single coupon that is of any use to me.  It’s all discounts on disposable diapers and formula.  Sad.  What about some coupons for nursing pads? or nipple cream?

On the bump development front, I had a near freakout at my last prenatal appointment when I got on the scale and saw that I had gained 11 pounds in the last month!  That’s my largest weight gain this whole pregnancy, midwife is not concerned so neither am I.  I’m not bursting out of my pants or bras so I know that it’s all belly (and some water) weight.

Here I am 11 pounds heavier at 31 weeks…

One of the things that I love about my midwife is how she takes common pregnancy discomforts that a regular doctor would just dismiss as  ” normal” and actually points out why that discomfort is a good thing.  In this case my swelling, I’m having normal third trimester swelling, nothing to be worried about, just annoyed by. I have now learned that apparent the fact that my the cool design of my wedding band is etched on my finger is something to rejoice in.  This means that when I bleed as much as I’m supposed to after birth, I will not need an IV because I have enough fluids in my body.  Let’s get a yay! for one less needle!

Midwife is “guess-timating” that baby will be about 7.5 pounds at birth, given that she’s handled hundreds of bumps I tend to trust her judgment.  I’d rather have that than a giant 10 pounder unmedicated! lol

No, I can’t say I feel too good, I just found this funny.  I have gotten mostly used to the usual discomforts, I may not move as fast or get as much done at the house but life still goes on rather normally.

The energy has been gradually shifting towards preparation for baby Fox’s arrival.  Last week I oxy-cleaned and hosed down the used co-sleeper bassinet that I had purchased.  I have ordered the last of the prefold diapers needed for the infant stage.  Baby Fox is set diaper wise until at least 18 pounds.  I’m waiting for that last shipment to arrive so that I can prewash the whole stash and get it ready for use.  Still keeping my eyes open for a cheap used washer on Craigslist.

On the baby wearing update, apparently I have expensive taste in fabric.  I haven’t been back to Jo Ann’s yet (waiting for the next 40% coupon to arrive in the mail) but so far everything that I like elsewhere has such a high cost per yard that it’s actually cheaper to buy myself a ready made Moby Wrap or similar.    I keep checking out the local consignment stores for used wraps as they tend to have good deals, sadly I was stupid enough to delay in buying the Maya Wrap in my favorite pattern before it sold so I get to wait and see again.

I have started to gather the supplies needed for the homebirth, have almost everything in the list given by the midwife save for some minor miscellaneous items such as extra towels and bed sheets.

I have also started to finalize the detail of our birth plans, I use a plural term as I have written a birth plan for home and a separate document in case of an emergency transfer to the hospital.  Leave it to the geek to have 2 separate sets of bullet lists!

Our home visit appointment is less than a month away on June 21st and that will mark the beginning of weekly prenatal appointments and with it the knowledge that Baby Fox can choose to arrive at any time after that.  Talk about approaching the home stretch!