Day 211 of Vomiting

[WARNING: there are like 4 different things in this short post that could leave you uneasy, not excluding a face in a placenta, and my cervix. Whoops! Well, there; you've been warned.]


...and we are on day 234 of the year. That's 90% of 2012, so far.


I worry my gag reflex is going to be permanently changed after this journey through the dark jungles of pregnancy-long morning sickness. (Insert jokes here.)  I feel like I should be reading some Sartre, but I think it could be psychically bad for the baby...and probably me.

I watched some videos of people on ayahuasca. They were comforting. From now on, I'm going to pretend that I'm knocking on the door of the spirit realms when I'm hunched over not keeping my food and drink.  Each puking session could be an opportunity to encounter my true Buddha nature within...? When I see the sparklies floating in my field of vision, I'm just going to tell myself that I'm reaching towards sacredness.

Ok, all this lemons-to-lemonade is making me nauseous now.

As of Thursday, the kid should be baked enough to be a fine human being on his own. We've made it this far.  I can do anything for 1 to 4 weeks.  May the spirit of earlyish babies in my family run strong in me!

As of last Thursday: 
1 cm dilated
50% effaced
baby is locked and loaded in the head-down position.

Hopefully his face's love affair with the placenta is still raging strong, and he'll come out face down as he should.  (Srsly, every ultrasound he hides his face in that thing. I think of them as being besties.)


(36 weeks, 5 days pregnant)

Beaten to the Punch: Baby Dictators

http://urbantitan.com/unique-baby-dictator-clothes/

At that link, you will find a delightful series of baby dictator photographs by Danish artist Nina Maria Kleivan.  My idea to do this series, sadly, was not original it seems. Of course.  But! Look how fun these are. And by fun, I mean amusing while managing to agitate several different levels of discomfort and critique.  I like to remember, also, that her baby is a girl.

                                                       Baby Stalin; Baby Pinochet

POOF!

Seriously, the issue of object permanence (or lack there of...lols) is one of the funniest things about babies to me.

A Quick Note to My Perineum

Hey there, P...how's it goin'?

Listen, lemme start by saying that you've brought me three decades of excellent service--truly above and beyond level, yo. From my being a potty training superstar by 24 months, to an ease with mula bandha control any yogi would be pleased with...you have not once let me down.

But, ahead we have our most harrowing trial yet.

I'm gonna need you to really dig deep and find all your strength and power. Babies run big in my family, and the Buddhism + middle America protestant work ethic of my grandmother + a lifelong fondness for cultural and physical anthropologies are all somehow conspiring to convince me of a drug-free birth experience. So please, for the love of all things holy, please let's keep this an incision-free happening.

Between you, our komrades the extra-wide and flexible hips, and my knowledge of 7 different forms of meditation--y'know, I think we can do this; we can make this happen.

Go team!

<3
--.k.




Note to self: get a small framed picture of an Amish woman plowing...


(33 weeks pregnant...1 month, 18 days 'til D-Day)

The Need to Nest

It's totally bizarre that I have this deep, primal urge to buy/organize/set-up things. I organized a closet the other day that both the husband and I have been avoiding since we moved in almost a year ago...and I enjoyed it. I was gleeful, in fact. For people who know me, the idea of my gleefully organizing my own cluttered space is...completely foreign, I think.

Really what I want to do is open up all the baby things we have (and then buy even more), put them in their places, set up the baby spaces. It's KILLING me.

But, we're Jews, so we don't set up the nursery before the baby is born (long story short: bad luck). So, I'm channeling all this nesting energy into other, totally not as satisfying pursuits. And, I'm trying to only spend money on things we really need.

Luckily, we have a lot of cluttered spaces, and I think everyone would be happier if there were fewer :)

...I'm not going to go to the level of playing with dolls, though.  Nope. Samantha is not coming out of storage. I'm decidedly above that.

*sigh*


(32 weeks, 6 days pregnant....or, 1 month & 19 days to D-Day)

First Baby Shower -- Cirque du Bebe

                                                                                     Mother and daughter

My first baby shower...both as an attendee and as a mom-to-be.

The lovely Tricia Noyola and Kendra Herring, aka my OG homegirls, threw me a lovely shower in San Antonio titled Cirque du Bebe! It was French circusy :) GORGEOUS.

My mom, Aunt Sherry, sister, and brother's girlfriend all came up from the valley. Ellen flew in from Chicago...or really, from Brussels...for the event and a bit of a visit.  Even Nana--Kendra and Tricia's grandmother--came in from Amarillo!

The shower ritual is an interesting one....games, snacks, passing around gifts...it's all about female bonding, it seems. Everyone is there to applaud your motherhood?  Regardless, it was a great time, even if I did get woozy and tired at certain points.

The whole group

                                         Aunt Sherry and I...the 32 weeks & 3 days baby bump

Naked as We Came

                                                                    Sally Mann, Goosebumps

Magic Man and I have differing views on clothing and nudity.  I hold degrees from 2 schools that are clothing-optional campuses; I think that makes my views clear.  He sees getting up in the morning and putting on public-ready clothes as a natural part of life.  Even if you're not going out in public, the clothes are a healthy and necessary reminder of civilization, he asserts. 

I don't 100% disagree--giving up on getting dressed can be a sign of depression or other illness.  But, I also think that one works hard in life so as to be able to NOT wear pants (or anything else), if one chooses. There is nothing "natural" to me about clothes. ESPECIALLY in the Texas heat.  I do appreciate a good bra, being of the larger breast persuasion...but outside of that, the rest is mostly optional in my mind, and I have spent chunks of my life happily wearing clothes only part-time. As a result, I have also enjoyed far fewer body image problems than a lot of women I know, especially considering that I've always been a chubster (or Rubenesque, as my mom puts it).

I have no intention of forcing my kids to wear clothes when we are in the privacy of our own home. It is incredibly important, obviously, for them to understand conventional social rules around bodies, privacy, and audience. Home alone with your parents is different than at a friend's house for a birthday party. But, as long as that understanding and respect of culture is there, I see no point in forcing them to stay dressed all the time if they don't want to. There is nothing wrong with their bodies, and making them anxious about covering themselves all the time only increases early-sexualization of their bodies. I think it brings shame into a place it does not belong...possibly making it harder for them to hold clear boundaries of body safety later on.

 TBD's body is his body. It's not mine (even now while still totally encapsulated by my body.) If he doesn't want to cover it, within the safety of set boundaries, I think that should be his choice.

Magic Man and I haven't come up with set rules yet. Seems a little premature.  But, I have full faith that we will find a happy medium. He has no desire to have kids who are anxious about their bodies, just as I have no desire to have kids who can't function in public life. 

Here is a solid post on the subject by Shannon Hayes (author of Radical Homemakers). I agree with so much she is struggling with here. 


Ugh...ok, back to sipping this nausea tea. Yes, I am still vomiting.

(29 weeks, 5 days pregnant)