Smoothing out the Bumps

Thanks to everyone for the support during our bumpy ride.

A birth center doesn't feel like the right option for me. I'm hypertensive. I'm fat. I'm a worry wart nurse who would feel better knowing that if I crash there's help nearby. And I may be too high risk for a birth center.

And things are better now.

After being bummed out all day, M. and I met with the last doula we were interviewing. We fell in love with her and by the end of the conversation we were refocused on being where we need to be about the birth. It's about what we bring.

And we've found our doula.

As we were sitting talking, M. and I were actually able to visualize and get excited about the birth. We both were almost crying. That's when we knew she was the person we wanted at our birth.

So we're feeling okay if we have to go to Big Hospital of Interventions. We're going to have our doula. We're going to bring a labor tub. We're going to have my acupuncturist. Barring complications, we're going to have a midwife of some sort. It's going to be okay, no matter where it happens, or how it happens.

And we're going to request NO RESIDENTS. Big Hospital of Intervetions is a teaching hospital. My hospital is a teaching hospital. We share docs. The last thing I need is to realize that the new docs on the Med C team were looking at my hoo-ha at some point.

Insurance SUCKS

Our beautiful birth plan has hit a snag. Seems my insurance company has been dropped by the hospital we had planned to deliver at. This is the best hospital in the area with a birth center IN the hospital and a low level of interventions.

Our midwife does deliver at another hospital...BUT...because of my DVT history (HISTORY, as in the past, not now, six years ago and counting) she doesn't think hospital number two will be willing to take me. She's going to confirm that they won't take me, so that still may be option.

Bottom line? We are probably going to have to not only switch hospitals but switch midwives as well. And we're down to only two hospitals that would take me.

Hospital #1 is the biggest baby factory in the area and does not allow midwives to practice there. With my weight, we'd have a huge risk of c-section. Nix on hospital #1.

Hospital #2 is the high risk, high intervention hospital, but they have a midwife group we could go to. This would reduce our risk of c-section. I've made an appointment for us to see them in a couple weeks.

It's been a hard day. Both M. and I are still in shock over having our plans ripped out from underneath us. We feel like we are about to be plunged into the world of risk averse OB that we were working so hard to avoid. This makes our doula search even more important, because it's turning into the single thing we actually have control over.

Under Pressure

One of the really fun things about being pregant and being an RN is you get to be acutely aware of everything that can go wrong.

PIH, gestational diabetes, blood clots, preterm labor. All the ingredients you can throw into the pressure cooker of pregnancy.

Every guilt-laden bite of sugar is a step toward the inevitable. I get a little pain in my thigh and I start mentally going through the signs and symptoms of a DVT. A headache is the onset of PIH. Preterm labor is lurking around the corner.

Knowledge is power? Knowledge is a heavy weight when you carry it around every day.

Sometimes I wish I could be blissfully ignorant, sitting in a semi-comfortable office chair with enough time to spend 1/3 of my day surfing the 'net, cover my ears, hide in a corner, stay in bed with the covers over my head.

Instead I'm constantly immersed in the fraility of the human body and it always comes back to remind me that in the end, it's my body that has to do this.

My imperfect body.

Just me.

Little Fish

Dear Blogosphere,

You haven't heard from me for quite some time. That's because Sacha is a funnier writer, so I usually let her entertain you. But, she's been so tired lately that I think I may have to start pitching in here a bit. Yes, it's possible that I'll bore you, but I suppose that's better than no updates at all, no?

Now, I don't think Sacha's sufficiently kept you in the loop and answered Traci's question. Yes, she is feeling movement from the baby! She thinks it started possibly as early as 13 weeks but the first flutters and taps were so very light that she wasn't sure. But as of 16 weeks, she was pretty darn sure and she's felt movement several days since then. Today the little fish is swiming around nearly all day. I can't contain myself! I so can't wait until I can feel shim move from the outside. I think I'm almost more excited about that right now than I am about finding out the sex in a few weeks. Hmmm....I don't know though. So much to be excited about these days!!

We have our next prenatal on Monday and I'm sure hoping it includes another doppler of the heartbeat. And, we've been meeting with several doulas to get settled on one early. I feel so grateful that things have been going so well so far.

Oh, and my words for Anonymous..."WHATEVER!". Why do you assume someone is not a Christian when you don't even know them? And, if you wanted to have a real dialog you wouldn't be so chicken and would use your name. And, what could you have possibly hoped to accomplish with your comment besides just spreading ill will? Break up our child's parents before they are even born? Yeah, I can see how that would be best for everyone...you're right. Oh, and please don't say you don't judge us, because that's exactly what you're doing.

Has anyone ever received a nasty comment like this, EVER, that didn't contain typos/words spelled incorrectly? Hmmmmm.

Dear Anonymous...

Whatever you do, please...PLEASE...do not pray for me. I don't mind prayers but I don't really want yours.

M. and I are not going to delete The Comment.

People are certainly entitled to their own opinions. I am very grounded in who I am and what I do with my life. The only motivation I can imagine in leaving a comment like Anonymous chose to is a midguided belief that somehow that one person's voice is going to influence me to turn my back on the wonderful life we have made for ourselves. How egocentric and self-inflated can a person get?

So don't pray for me. Your prayers are prayers of self-righteousness, just another way to elevate yourself and reinforce your self created delusion that you are somehow better than me.

Pray that we'll stop killing innocent people in Iraq. Pray that we will bring soldiers home to their families. Pray that we will have healthcare for all. Pray that we will have no more mentally ill on our streets. Pray that children will always feel safe and loved and will never have to worry about being physically, sexually or emotionally hurt. Pray for the end of genocide, for world peace, for no more violence...

Do NOT pray for me.

I want none of it.

Assembling Team Baby

Well, M. has started working full time for just a bit. Good for the wallet. Bad for actually seeing her. Wah. I'm entertaining myself by watching all the seasons of 24 I missed. That would be any season after season 1. Jack Bauer KICKS ASS! And thensome. He's kind but ruthless. And he's going to look you in the eye and tell you that YOU can stop a bomb or war. Yes, only YOU. And you. And you over there. I love this show.

We're also working on assembling Team Baby. It's quite a project. We have our midwife. We are currently interviewing doulas. I just asked my accupuncturist if she'd be willing to provide labor support and she gave me a somewhat teary 'yes'. We've contacted Lawyer Lisa to start the adoption proceedings.

It took a village to make this baby. It's going to take another village to get it out.

I feel like maybe I'm starting to crawl out of the first trimester hole. That means I haven't been nauseated for an entire day for almost 72 hours. The hungries are setting in. I eat, a couple hours later I eat again. Then again.

Haven't popped yet but I'm still getting those wee flutters in my abdomen. And I've decided that perhaps the baby is trying to crawl through my belly button. At least that's what all that pressure down there feels like.

Seventeen weeks yesterday and three more until we find out the sex.

WOW!

M. is almost home and I'm glad to have her back for even a few hours. I'm becoming a lonely housewife. All for you, my wee one, all for you.

The Psychic

Firstly, we are still here. I was hoping for that blissful second tri and I'm not getting any let up. Well, just a little in that I'm not as sick as I was, but the exhaustion is getting to me. Work and the baby are sucking the life out of me. Big picture, both M. and I are so excited that this has finally happened. Small picture, the day to day stuff, is brutal.

So, yes, we're here. If something bad happened, I promise that our readers would know right away. I've always intended to not withhold the bad on this blog. Nothing bad had happened, I just have formed a very intense relationship with the couch.

The Psychic

When M. and I first started trying, way back in those heady days when we were sure we would be pregnant in a matter of months, M. asked a psychic when we would get pregnant. She answered maybe summer.

SUMMER?!?!

At that time summer seemed at least one, if not two, eternities away. Surely we would pregnant before summer. Really, we expected to be hugely pregnant by summer. Summer was inconcievable.

The months started rolling by. The BFNs started coming, one after the other. We finally came to try number seven. We would start our try in the spring and test in the summer. That was it, M. and I thought. Summer, which had seemed so outrageous in January, had finally arrived, and so would our baby.

BFN. Again. Probably the worst of them all.

The funny thing? We did get pregnant in the summer. The very next cycle, the very first ALL SUMMER cycle, our little Cletus the Fetus graced us with its presense. And we LOVE the psychic.

Now we want to know the sex. We only have four weeks until we find out, but we're both starting to climb the walls just a little bit. I think it's a boy. M. doesn't feel either way. We asked the psychic again today...

She said she doesn't have a strong feeling, but maybe a girl. Hmmmmm. Considering that she was right about summer....

Hugs to all our readers. Me, the little monster in my abdomen, and M. are hanging in there.

The Activism of Motherhood

It's kind of fun being pregnant sometimes. It gives you an automatic conversation topic with any woman who is either pregnant or has given birth. It's a universal experience that cuts across all boundaries. It's the great equalizer.

Which is why I think M.'s sister has said not a single word since we told her.

As I've blogged in the past, M.'s sis holds herself as superior to us simply because she is heterosexual (the penis factor). Well, we finally have the one thing she has always held as her own: we have invaded the private territory of the heterosexual; we have taken ownership the inherent right of sperm to meet egg that is assumed with heterosexuality.

We have motherhood.

The greatest enemy of our enemies is inclusion and acceptance. It is the complacency of society about having homos at the PTA and in the pews, working in the cubical next to them and talking about their partners openly, that truly frightens those who believe that THEY are superior and that WE are inherently inferior.

Babies bring inclusion and acceptance. Parenthood is universal. Which is why we will win our fight for inclusion through our families and why THEY will constantly try to tear down our right to have one.

Sometimes it's not bad to be part of The Club. If you can grit your teeth through all the stroller talk and Oprah adoration, it's yet another quiet form of activism.

Saving the Environment, One Baby Item at a Time

When we told M.'s mom we were going to start TTC, she questioned whether or not we had enough money to have a baby because "when it's your baby, you're going want the best for it."

The guantlet was thrown down.

M. is probably one of the feistiest people I know and her mother's assumption that we would only want the nicest things for our little bundle of joy was like waving a red cape in front of a very pissed off bull.

From that moment, M. became determined that our baby would NOT have the best. No high-end expensive crib. No plush play pen. No super frilly, extra cute crib set. I mean, put them in a cardboard box with a sheet and call it done. Toys? Tin foils rolls into a nice ball. Shoe boxes can be very fun.

Enter...CRAIGS LIST.

Which is why we are spending the entire day that was originally scheduled for sewing running around picking up used...you heard me, USED*...baby items.

*M. wants me to make sure everyone knows that she is highly responsible and has made sure everything we're picking up is safe and appropriate.

Belly Shot #5 14w0d

I finally got the belly shots up on Flickr so they can be compared. The belly shot gallery is up and running. We took a full body shot at fourteen weeks that I think is pretty darn cute.

What happened today? I got pegged as pregnant by a complete stranger for the first time.

A woman I was working with asked me if I was pregnant and it took me completely by surprise. I had to ask her how she knew and she told me that my back was swayed like someone who is pregnant. The funny thing is I'd just been noticing that my back was getting swayed a couple days ago.

And yes, we didn't get twelve weeks up on babycakes but it is in the belly shot gallery.

M. and I are on our long break and I need it. I'm on tired puppy.

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Ten Weeks
Seven Weeks
Four Weeks

Elvis has Left the Pelvis

THE BABY IS A-OKAY, in case you thought the post title meant otherwise.

I have been a bad blogger as of late. Pregnancy is totally kicking my ass.

We had our appointment with Sally Midwife. Everything is fabulous. The highlights:

• I've officially gained three pounds in my first tri. Right on schedule to keep my weight gain in control.
  
• My uterus has officially left the pelvis, which means...
• We heard the heartbeat. Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh. He he. 148, baby.
  
• I'm off the junk, i.e. progesterone.

I cannot tell you how much better I feel. I'm going on six days of not feeling like total crap. I'm still exhausted and still getting nauseous on occasion, but not like before. I don't need to feel 100%, just better.

Yay!

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The Baby Book

My mom wanted to buy something for the baby, so I told her that we'd love this beautiful, EXPENSIVE, baby book I'd found from Molly West. (We even went to Crane's to look at it IRL to make sure it was neutral enough for same-sex parents.)

Well, seems the price has come down since the books are no longer 'lovingly hand bound' and I ordered it today.

It's the blue and green one, Periwinkle Polkadots.