Leftovers

Whew. The family left this morning, and so I think it's now safe to report that no one died, bled, or puked. My three-year-old neice bit her tongue when she fell down at the bowling alley, but that didn't really rise to the level of last year's string of agonies. Success!

Oh, for the agony file, Mr. Newt also reports that the little dog experienced a bit of a stomach issue after I fed her some turkey, but I think if she could talk, my dog would affirm that it was worth it. And the turkey was not less than a blind dog of advanced age deserves, especially after three days of putting up with the sincere but clumsy demonstrations of affection offered by my three preschool-age nieces and one toddler nephew. She loved their tendency to drop food on the floor, but alas, I would say the little dog is unenthusiastic about the prospect of a permanent child in the household. Fortunately, she doesn't get a vote.

Wait, why am I writing about the dog? I should be saying that it was a lovely holiday. Since most of my family lives relatively close together in the upper Midwest, Mr. Newt and I have always been the ones to travel on holidays, because the math just makes much more sense that way. But this year, since I'm waddling heavily through the holidays, my family packed up the little nippers and flew down here. There were twelve of us milling around our little house. It was noisy and grubby and fun.

We had a delicious Thanksgiving dinner (well, I didn't eat the turkey, but the pie was delicious), the kids painted pictures for me to hang in the baby's room, and Mom and I even made it to a women's basketball game.

While they were down here, my sisters also threw a baby shower for me and Mr. Newt on Saturday. I gave them a longish guest list, because most of our friends are university folk, who travel during the holiday break. Surely our response rate would be low, right? I figured that with ten of my own relatives in town, the hosts would almost certainly outnumber the guests.

I figured wrong. We ended up with thirty-four people milling around the house. And it was super-duper noisy and grubby and fun.

My sisters promised me there would be no shower games, but they couldn't resist one small contest, because we are slightly competitive people (for the record: over the course of the visit, I won Trivial Pursuit, came in second in Scrabble, creamed the six-year-old in Elephun and Go Fish, and also got the most pie). So at the baby shower, my sisters presented all the guests with a baby-movie trivia contest. I accidentally won.

I mean, I'll take bragging rights and all, but I can't exactly take the prize at my own baby shower, right? I already get to open the big pile of gifts in the corner.

And I really should have reined in my reckless demonstration of pop culture expertise, sitting, as I was, in a room full of college professors. If the questions had all been about Latin or Marxism or something, I think the assembled company would have done much better. But asked the name of the little girl from Monsters, Inc., our poor friends were really out of their depth.

And I think my near-perfect mastery of the baby movie may not reflect well on my scholarly seriousness. This could come up at the next faculty meeting. Oh well--I couldn't stay in the closet forever. The lovingly framed Weekend with the Babysitter movie poster in my den probably aroused suspicion about my scholarly seriousness before the contest even started.

So it is with great relief that I report it was a lovely holiday, and I'm so touched that my family came out to my remote location (I'm like the Newt family's Dick Cheney out here) to celebrate and see my house and throw a party for me and Mr. Newt. And now I'm going to try to figure out what to do with the leftover turkey that is currently cluttering up my vegetarian refrigerator. Apparently giving it to the dogs is not the right answer.

Oh, internet, you want to try your hand at the hardest question on the baby quiz? It's based on the Kevin Bacon game:

In three steps or less, connect Baby Mama's Amy Poehler with the actress who became both a mother and a grandmother in Father of the Bride II.

I managed an answer, but it was hard. Amy Poehler really should make more movies.

Thanksgiving Week 2007

The Saturday before: BFP at 9 days post-ovulation! Confirmed with a digital.

Monday: Blood drawn for betas.

Tuesday: Get results just as Mr. Newt and I are packing to leave town (how does that always happen?).

hcg: 13
progesterone: 14

Shit. Pack up the heavy pads and whatever painkillers I have left over from the d&c. Hope I won't need them. Fly to Indiana to in-laws' house.

Wednesday: Drive over to Ohio to see Grandma at hospice. She recognizes me. We talk about when my mom was a little girl. I say goodbye. Spotting and cramping begin on the drive back.

Thanksgiving Day: Start heavy bleeding in the morning. What am I thankful for? I'm thankful that I knew it was over before the big meal, so I can drink as much as I want. I do.

Friday: Phone call from the kennel: my big dog won't eat. Might be nothing; there's a German Shepherd he doesn't much like in the next run. Has he ever acted like this before? No.

Saturday: Fly home and pick up the dog. He still won't eat.

Sunday: Take dog to emergency vet, who can't find anything wrong with him.

Diagnosis: Stress. (Oh, stress! I think I've heard of it.)
Treatment: Take him home and offer him turkey. He only eats a little.

Monday: Dog still won't eat and starts vomiting rancid turkey. Take him to his regular vet. Get x-rays.

Diagnosis: Piece of plush toy lodged in his intestinal tract.
Treatment: Emergency abdominal surgery.

Tuesday: Grandma dies.

And...scene.

So, um, happy Thanksgiving, internet. I'm setting the bar low this year: I will be thankful if no one is dying or bleeding or puking today.

(And just between you and me, I'm prepared to compromise on the puking.)

XX Marks the Spot

Another exciting childbirth class last night. So much to learn!

Each of us made a closed cervix out of Play-Doh, and then stretched it out so we could see that it will have to thin as it opens. Mr. Newt (who is a show-off) gave his yellow Play-Doh cervix a pink Play-Doh mucous plug. Auntie Moonbat was very impressed.

Then we watched a video explaining medical interventions that might be necessary, and Auntie Moonbat kept apologizing for "scaring" us. Dude, scaring us? Bring on the medical interventions! That epidural thing seems like one of the great blessings of modern science. I'm ready to get mine right now. Oooh, maybe Santa will bring me one for Christmas.

I don't know, maybe I'm a freak, but I'm fascinated with the medical stuff: the vacuum extractor, the c-section bikini incision, all of it. It's so amazing what they can do. I would love for my body to take care of this labor thing competently on its own, but I'm thrilled to know that there is an army of people and skills in reserve if it doesn't. Nothing short of thrilled.

(Although, for the record, I'm also thrilled that my doctor's practice doesn't do episiotomies except in the most extreme emergencies--and I don't want to know what those are. That ain't science; that shit looks medieval.)

So anyway, after "scaring" us with all the ingenious wonders of advanced medical care, Auntie Moonbat clearly wanted to bring us back to a crunchier level of consciousness, so then we watched a nice happy video about breastfeeding. And I hate to say this, internet, but it sent me into a complete panic.

I am more than convinced that breastfeeding has many many health benefits for the baby. I will gladly do whatever it takes to boost Lil Dub's immune system and digestion and whatnot. If I had to feed him standing on one foot in a tub of jello with ice cubes up my nose to give him the best start in life, then I would do that, without hesitation. Because I had to, not because it brought me satisfaction to suffer through it.

But ye gads, internet, I'm supposed to let the baby suck on my breast every two hours? Really? Why couldn't people produce milk in some less private place--like our pinkie fingers or something? Baby could suck on that all day, no problem. I don't know why I never really thought about this before, but suddenly the whole idea of breastfeeding completely baffles me.

And it wasn't the video itself. That was full of soothing music, and blissed-out moms smiling down at their babies, and reassuring doctors explaining that if you get a good latch it doesn't hurt. Actually, I think what freaked me out was the complete absence of fathers in the video.

I've had this baby in my belly, his little life entirely dependent on me, for seven and a half months now. I've really been looking forward to sharing him with Mr. Newt soon. And it's not even that I'm tired of the physical drain and need a rest. I'm happy to get up in the night, and be available whenever the baby needs me, and even to share my body for a while longer. But when the baby cries in the middle of the night, I don't want him to be crying for ME. I want him to be crying for US, his parents. Is it weird that I don't really want to be a mom so much as I want to be a parent?

When the video talked about how the baby should spend at least an hour pressed against the mother's naked body immediately after birth, this ran directly counter to what I suddenly realized I was most looking forward to immediately after birth. (A martini! No wait.) I want them to hand the baby to his dad. I've been holding him for months on end. It's his dad's turn soon. I don't want their time together cut short so the baby can smell me or whatever he has to do.

And in the baby's first months, when I'm tired and run-down, I don't want Mr. Newt to feel like he has to take care of me so I can take care of the baby (like he's been doing so diligently for seven and a half uncomplaining months now). I want him just to take care of the baby. Full stop. Because that's got to be more rewarding than being an eternal member of the pit crew.

I suppose I've never been one to accept the realities of biological sex differences gracefully. Even at five foot three, I would rather climb on a chair than call Mr. Newt to grab something for me off a high shelf. I have never in my life claimed to have PMS. I have often guiltily wished I could pee standing up (OK, actually I just think it must be neat to be able to pee your name in the snow). Alas, life isn't fair. X chromosomes are different from Y chromosomes and alla dat. But honestly, how are two parents ever to achieve equality, or even harmony, in their parenting if one of them has a monopoly on providing for the baby's most pressing and emotionally satisfying physical need?

So internet, help me out here. Am I reading too much into this? I'm sure I'm asking for trouble even bringing this up. For the record, I fully plan to breast feed. I just want to be honest about my extreme ambivalence. Because I have extreme ambivalence. Or maybe PMS--hell, I don't even know anymore.

Pee-piphany

Hi internet! I am sure you will be thrilled to learn that I have more or less perfected the ability to stay half-asleep when I get up to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night. If there's one thing in this world I have a genuine knack for, it's sleeping. You know how Mr. Newt is the Michael Phelps of giving advice? I am the Michael Phelps of losing consciousness and staying that way.

So I hope I'm not bragging too much to say that here in my third trimester of pregnancy, I can make up to five successful nighttime runs to the bathroom without ever either 1. waking all the way up, or 2. stepping on one of the dogs. (The dogs tend to array themselves perilously about the floor at night, creating an obstacle course for bathroom-bound humans. They have perfectly good dog beds, in cozy little corners of the room where they face no danger from people stumbling around in the dark, but I've given up trying to reason with them. Good practice for children, I suppose. Can't be stepping on children, either.)

So anyway, bottom line: I have this nighttime peeing thing down to an art. But last night, during what I think was bathroom run number two, I was suddenly gripped by a thought that startled me into actual, troubled consciousness: How did women ever survive pregnancy before the advent of indoor plumbing?

I've often felt bad for women who gave birth in the bad old days before hand-washing and epidurals. I've occasionally also felt jealous that they got to drink, subject to no Surgeon Generals' warnings to the contrary. But a nice glass of mead or whatever really pales, when I think about it, next to the ways childbirth in the olden days was not unlikely to lead to actual death--mine or the baby's or both. There are days when I think I might kill for a beer, but there are few when I think I would die for one.

So anyway, maudlin asides aside, in the wee hours of this morning I started thinking about the horrors of a toiletless existence. I started visualizing what it must have been like to pull on a coat and some boots to tromp through the mud and the snow to the outhouse or the ditch out back and take another damn piss up to five times every night. The misery! The inhumanity! Not even I could sleep through that.

I climbed back into bed thinking that when my family gets together for Thanksgiving, and we all start talking about what we're thankful for, I will have to add "indoor toilets" to my list of "Mr. Newt," "modern medicine," and "fat baby." Should make for a heartwarming family meal. My parents love it when their thirty-five-year-old daughter starts talking about personal bodily functions at the dinner table.

So anyway, I got up this morning, still gripped by my horrifying vision, and explained my epiphany to Mr. Newt. We have toilets! Isn't that amazing? How did pregnant women ever survive before?

And Mr. Newt, hardly looking up from the sports page, replied, "They would have had chamber pots or something."

Oh. Right. So, there you go. There's a moral here and it is this: never trust a middle-of-the-night epiphany. Brain not work so good.

(I'm still thankful for indoor plumbing, though. It's nice to be able to flush.)

So, happy Sunday morning, internet!

Unrelated side note: Hey, is anybody on Twitter? I put the link in the sidebar, if anybody wants to tweet with me. I just got going, and it's kind of fun to write in sentences instead of paragraphs. (I know, I know. I have a low threshold of fun.)

Carpe-ing the Diems

Hi, internet! Sorry about the long silence. Combination of fatigue, late-semester miscellany, and the onset of basketball season. Still, I shouldn't neglect you. For the record, the brownies came out great, I currently have six cupcakes left, and the baby shower was lovely. Here's a record of the week so far.

Sunday: I never had a wedding shower, so I wasn't entirely sure what to expect or how to act at my baby shower, but I think I muddled through OK. We mingled, ate, and opened gifts. I tried not to say anything too weird, but I did mention that the baby has an abnormally large head. There was some modest frowning, but I think nobody has called social services yet.

We were really overwhelmed by people's generosity. I can't find the camera, but I'll try to post pics over the weekend of some of the adorable stuff we got. At the risk of obviousness: baby stuff is just so cute. I could spend hours just looking at that little rubber duckie that lets you know if the bath water is too hot. Dude, that is cute on a stick.

Monday: Prepared Childbirth class with Auntie Moonbat! We learned several new, important, and mildly gross things.

1. I should be doing kegels basically all the time or risk a lifetime of incontinence and sexual dysfunction. Any minute not spent clenching the muscles of my pelvic floor is a minute wasted.

2. Mr. Newt is instructed to do kegels, too! Apparently they help fight prostate problems. He's still trying to figure out exactly HOW he's supposed to do this, as neither of us has ever heard a whisper of male kegel exercises in our combined seventy-three (holy shit) years on this planet. But it's nice to know I'm not the only one subject to this rather intrusive mandate.

3. Contractions are a piece of cake. In order to train us in how to breathe through contractions, Auntie Moonbat gave each person in class a hinged clothespin and the instructions that we were to attach it to one ear. Then we waited a minute, and were allowed to remove it.

Now I suppose that putting a clothespin on my ear hurt maybe a little more than I expected it to, but seriously. Puh-leaaaaaaaaaase.

It's not that I want her to pull out something really painful next time ("All right, everyone take off your shoes and socks, and attach these electrodes to the soles of your feet--we're going to practice breathing through the pain!"). But I am afraid that the ability to breathe through a minor annoyance is not exactly the life-changing skill that will permit me to maintain bodily control and emotional equanimity during real-life labor pains. Just a guess.

4. Amniotic fluid has "a sweet and musky smell." Some people don't like it, but Auntie Moonbat finds it pleasant.

Tuesday: No particular excitement. My belly button is now officially an outie. It shows underneath my clothes, like a slightly obscene little tumor.

Wednesday: Doctor's appointment in the city. Fundal height, weight, and blood pressure are all fine. My cup of pee is apparently fine as well. My OB seems unconcerned about the baby's giant head or his propensity for evil. Next appointment in 2.5 weeks.

Thursday: Three-hour nap. The third trimester is starting to wear me down. I wake up long enough to watch The Office, and then go right back to bed.

Friday: Basketball game tonight! At the last game, Mr. Newt and I noticed a lot of babies and little toddlers in the crowd. This makes us optimistic that we will be able to begin Wiley's connoisseurship of NCAA division I women's baskeball at an appropriately early age.

We have bought the baby several little outfits to display his team loyalty, so we can start bringing him with us immediately after birth. Looking at the schedule, we notice there are home games Jan. 4 and Jan. 10. If he comes on his due date (Jan. 5), we won't have to miss any!

Promptness runs in my family, but not Mr. Newt's. Here's hoping our son takes after my side. (In this one thing, anyway. I wouldn't mind if he misses out on my laziness gene, or heaven help him my nose.)

And, I guess that brings us up to the minute. It's now 2:40 Central Time, and I'm down to five cupcakes.

The Case of the Calamitous Cupcakes

My baby shower is this afternoon, and I know I'm not supposed to bring anything, but I volunteered about a thousand times, so the hostesses finally agreed to let me bring cupcakes. I haven't made cupcakes in...twenty years? So I forgot that they are harder than real cakes. Harder to figure out how much batter to put in each slot, harder to ice, harder to store. Also, by some masochistic impulse, I decided to make chocolate ones with white icing.

Do you smell what I'm cooking? It smells like tragedy.


Behold the baked goods of woe. The desserts of despair. The cupcakes of catastrophe.

I can't possibly take these out in public. I've got some brownies in the oven now.

So the good news is that I won't be shamed in front of my friends. The bad news is that I'm worried that this baking fiasco, falling inauspiciously on the day of my baby shower, is a very poor omen for my maternal skills. Internet, I failed at making cupcakes. This doesn't bode well for the whole kindergarten experience.

On the upside, they taste really good--and now I have 22 ugly cupcakes to polish off. Unless of course I burn the brownies. And I think we all know that's not out of the question.

Wunderkind

We had another growth ultrasound this week, with doctor number eight for this pregnancy. Lucky number eight. If you count the anaesthesiologist (whom I intend to befriend immediately upon being checked into Labor and Delivery) I think we're a lock to hit double digits before the baby is born. My uterus is an object of real fascination to modern science, I guess.

No new worries, we are just keeping an eye on Wiley's growth because of the MSAFP results. He's still looking great--four pounds five ounces now. With eight more weeks to grow, I think he's going to be a nice little porker.

Unfortunately, the baby's head (sigh) is still outpacing the rest of him by about two weeks. Two weeks! I don't know if I'm more worried about having to push this melon-headed baby out my favorite bodily orifice or about having some kind of supergenius giant-brain child who will start correcting my grammar before he's out of diapers.

I suppose a genius-baby would be all right, as long as he isn't an evil genius. Of course, the photographic evidence is not promising on that score.

Here's my little MENSA chairman in a 3/4 face view.


It's fun that his little face is filling in a lot more. But while he is looking a lot less like Skeletor, my son is developing an uncanny resemblance to the torturer's baby mask from Brazil:


Why does my baby always remind me of movie monsters? Sigh. Oh well, if he's an evil genius, I guess we'll just take away his laserguns. No chemistry set for you, J-dub. You'll play with your marshmallows and like it.

Tell me what to do about hating to be told what to do.

Hi internet! Thanks for all the thoughtful comments on my last post. I'm so touched that you are willing to enter this conversation with me, and share your thoughts, and help out. Even when I'm being a big old crankypants.

Anyway, it occurs to me that I was a little lacking in self awareness when I wrote that this rocky road to pregnancy has made me unable to accept advice gracefully. Mr. Newt would laugh if he read that. I have NEVER been able to accept advice gracefully. If you were to make a list of all the things I cannot do gracefully, in order of most to least graceful, I think accepting advice would fall well below, say, tightrope walking in a pair of Jimmy Choos. I just can't do it.

This is kind of funny, because people come to Mr. Newt for advice all the time. He gives great advice. Long lost friends who are having trouble with their jobs or their children or their spouses will call us up, and tell their troubles to Mr. Newt, who will help them navigate any complicated emotional, social, or intellectual terrain in the world, gently and thoughtfully and without judgment.

You know how Michael Phelps is the Michael Phelps of swimming? Mr. Newt is the Michael Phelps of useful advice. And he marries the one person in the world least willing and able to appreciate this talent. Ah, irony. My old friend.

He learned early on that I will not be bossed or advised. I don't know what he said that set me off the first time--probably something terribly invasive like, "You might want to put on a jacket. It's cold today." But whatever it was, I must have set him damn straight, because for four years now, Mr. Newt has regarded it as a cardinal rule of the household that he does not boss me. Ever. Or even give suggestions for things I might want to do. And if he ever forgets, I am careful to help him out.

Last month, for instance, there was one Saturday when he got out of bed very early, and I was half-asleep, but kind of stirred like I was going to get up, too. Mr. Newt came over to my side of the bed, leaned over to kiss me, and then whispered in my ear, "It's only five-thirty; go back to sleep." I am not kidding when I say my foot shot out from under the covers, and pushed my sweet husband away from the bed. "Don't boss me," I said, resentfully. I did this without thinking--without really even being awake.

And then I'm pretty sure I went back to sleep until eight or nine.

Anyway, I'm pretty obsessed with my independence, is what I'm saying. So this has Mr. Newt kind of worried about the whole labor experience, when he's supposed to be gently holding my hand and reminding me to breathe. There is no way in hell he is going to lean into my face during what I hear is a pretty painful experience, and tell me to do anything, even a harmless, life-sustaining bodily function. He's no fool.

We've laughed about this together, but in all honesty, we have no idea how to implement all this birth training stuff. Am I really going to need him to remind me to breathe? Is the pain going to make me grateful to have someone tell me what to do, or will it make me so angry that I will break his fingers with the death-grip of my disapproval? I don't want to break my husband! I need him to help me with the baby.

I suppose drugs really are the only answer. As is so often the case.

Nine little words.

Sorry, internet, but last night's childbirth class was canceled. You'll have to wait until next week for more Tales of Auntie Moonbat. We were disappointed, too.

So instead, I will have to tell you about something that happened last Thursday and has been stuck in my craw ever since. I would rather write something funny, but it's looking like a ranty kind of day.

It all started when I went to get a flu shot on campus, per my doctor's orders. The nurse was making small talk, asking about the baby, and I asked her if she had kids. She said she had four, all grown now. I was impressed, and said something like, "Wow, four! Pregnancy is hard. You're so tough to go through it four times." She looked surprised. "What's hard about it?"

Well, I wasn't really in the mood to tell her about all the miscarriages, the lost twin, the anxiety, the test results, the waiting, the social awkwardness, the massive team of specialists, the tears, the bills, the mistrust of my body. This poor woman was just helping me avoid the flu, not offering to become my full-time therapist. So I ended up giving her a list of the banal stuff instead: debilitating nausea in the beginning, fatigue, joint pain, not being able to sleep, not being able to exercise or do work around the house, gaining weight I am not sure I will ever lose. She looked dubious. Hell, I would have looked dubious--that's some trivial shit right there. That's what I get for letting the cat half out of the bag and then squashing her unceremoniously back in. A very unhappy cat.

So...then the condescension set in. "You should write this all down," she said, "because once you hold that little baby in your arms, you're going to look back and say, 'That was nothing.'"

I smiled weakly and thanked her for the shot. I managed not to say, "Well, duh." I managed not to cry.

I know she meant to be comforting. I know I didn't tell her the whole story, so there's no way she could understand that Mr. Newt and I have moved heaven and earth to hold this little baby in our arms and know it has all been worth it. I know she is used to college students as patients, and probably they need a little mothering once in a while.

But at a distance of four days, I'm still very sad about this brief little exchange with a woman I probably won't ever see again. I was projecting my experiences onto her, being shocked and maybe a little resentful that she could have four kids. And she was projecting hers right back, protecting her cherished memories of carrying her children against my petty complaints. I get it. It just makes me sad.

It makes me sad that this pregnancy has done more harm than good to my relationships with other women in the real world. I can't be candid, I can't take advice graciously, and I always feel condescended to. Always.

I feel like I have to carry the burden not just of my pregnancy, but also of other women's hopes and memories about their own pregnancies. If they ate soft cheese, they find it absurd that I won't eat it. If they avoided caffeine or aspartame, they are scandalized that I'm drinking a diet coke. If they have happy memories, they are horrified by my expressions of discomfort. If they have difficult memories, they one-up my nausea with their tangerine-sized hemorrhoids or full-body rash or vaginal delivery of a 15-pound monster baby.

And I know that what I see is just the proverbial tip of the iceberg, just what people are willing to say out loud. When women don't talk to me about my pregnancy, I always back off and hide, wondering if they are dealing with or have dealt with infertility or loss. I don't want to be the pregnant woman who reminds them of what they are going through, who complains about trivial things without appreciating what a gift it is to grow a child inside your body, like the world's most miraculous science experiment.

I just feel like there's no "right" here--no perfect way to do this, to be considerate of everyone's feelings and true to my own. I guess it's not surprising that the conversation about, you know, starting a new life would have weighty consequences. But I regret how the community of women is such a double-edged sword, that we run around hurting each other all the time.

The truth is that pregnancy is better than I expected right now. I can still tie my own shoes if I sit in the lowest chair in the house and spread my knees apart. I still have ankles. I can still walk to school. My blood pressure and weight and glucose are all in healthy ranges. I get an ultrasound once a month. I can poop (knock wood). The baby is a little kickboxer, to my infinite delight. We keep plenty of Oreos around in order to facilitate my milk consumption. I can justify a lot of naps.

If I were going to write something down for the purposes of reminding my post-partum self what I've been through, I don't think it would be a list of discomforts (I have that; it's called a blog). But post-partum self, here is your note from the past:

Let other women have their own pregnancies. Or non-pregnancies. Back off.

And strike this phrase from your vocabulary: "When you hold that little baby in your arms..." Babies are great; babies change your whole life. To think that someone needs to be reminded of that fact is to call her an idiot or a monster or worse. Have a little trust.

I also have a feeling I need to develop a thicker skin through all of this. If pregnancy is a touchy subject, surely I'll be feeling the cold light of other women's judgments all through motherhood. What kind of feeding, diapering, nap, and daycare routines are you using? Oh, you're doing it wrong.

Clearly I should just go live in a cave.

So internet, any help? Have you felt this way? Is it going to last throughout the baby's childhood? How can it be that I have such a happy relationship with the women of the internet, but so much tension with the women of the real world? And how can I fix that? I would really like to fix that.

Oh, and if you could solve this problem for me before this Sunday, that would be a big help. I have a baby shower coming up, and I worry that the above conversation will be played on continuous loop for the entire two-hour event. (And then after that, for the rest of my life. Fun times.)

Sunday Show and Tell

Nesting update:

Holy smokes, we finally got the spare room cleaned out. Let me just be a complete attention whore and show you the before picture.

And, the after (a scant two months later). Look at that floor. It's so visible. It's like house cleaning porn:


And get this...here it is painted.


I am the nesting queen. I'm not normally keen to shill for household products (and what person is insane enough to take the mouse-piss lady's advice on anything?), but I really loved this low-VOC Pittsburgh Paint from Benjamin Moore. Almost no smell, and it went on very easily.

(Maybe this is the next phase of nesting, gushing over household products? I want to go back to the part where I just cry at dog food commercials.)

Next project: putting the furniture back without lifting anything over 25 pounds. Don't worry, internet--I'll just use the powers of my mind. The force is strong with this one.

Ginormity update:

I can no longer tie my own shoes.

Mr. Newt seems to have cut off the picture below my boobs, but I'm also happy to report that I'm now a C-cup.

Unfortunately, my belly is now so big that the underwires on bras cut into the top of my bump. It's like one of those fabled devil's bargains, like when you wish you were rich, and the devil makes you rich but then everybody hates you and you're lonely and there's no beer in the house. Irony, is what I'm saying. I've got the boobs, but I can't hold 'em up so well.

Also, I'm starting to wonder what happens to my new boobs after the milk has come and gone. Do I want to know? I'm guessing the answer isn't that I will stay a C-cup, and have happy perky boobs forever, and bras will fit again fine. But I choose not to entertain other scenarios.

Awesomeness update:

I saved the best for last. Dr. Girlfriend sent Yoshimi some pink robots to battle!


How cute is that little felt robot? She made that herself. Those little dials kill me. I am so not letting the baby spit up on either of these things. He can battle the pink robot from across the room.

Remember, Remember the 4th of November.

I wasn't going to comment on the election, because this is my blog about cervical mucous and whatnot, and I'm not foolish enough to think that anyone comes here for my perspective on world events. But you know, something big happened yesterday.

I often think of how I'm going to look back on this blog as a record of my pregnancy. Will I show it to Wiley someday? I don't know, maybe the non-pornographic parts. But whether or not he reads it here, I think it's part of Wiley's story that my baby was born into a historic time.

So if you're looking for stories about farting, etc., I promise I'll be back with those tomorrow. And I won't mind if you want to skip this one. I might just be writing this for myself.

Because, although I don't presume that anybody cares who I voted for, and you all know that sentimentality gives me hives, I feel like it would be dishonest not to make some record of this day. So here's my record:

On November 4, 2008, when I was thirty-one weeks and one day pregnant with my son John Wiley, Barack Obama was elected to the office of President of the United States.

And I cried.

Granted, I'm pregnant, so tears come easily these days. In fact, I have frequently found myself getting choked up about this election, most recently when I stumbled on this photo, from photographer Callie Shell, that was published in a beautiful Time Magazine photo essay of the Obamas on the campaign trail.


This picture makes me tear up, and I don't think it's the hormones. My cynical heart is almost embarrassed to confess that I am inspired and profoundly touched by these two people. Maybe it's because I always feel tired these days. And I can't even imagine how hard these two have worked for all these months on the campaign trail.

Or maybe it's because I feel a little shiver of exasperation that Barack here is reading the paper, instead of taking a little nap like he needs to do. Husbands, I swear.

Or maybe it's because I like to lean on Mr. Newt just like this at the end of a long day. I've rarely seen such a vivid portrait of marriage, love, and partnership. Flowers make me sneeze. This, to me, is love.

But mostly, I think I get all misty over this photo because Barack and Michelle Obama move me. Their story moves me, their family moves me, and their work moves me. My stars, they have worked hard. And sweet as last night's victory must be, it also means that their road just got a whole lot steeper.

I am so grateful that Obama is willing to take on the burden of leadership in the middle of a recession, a war, and an energy crisis. Just thinking about it makes me want to fake a migraine and retreat to my bed. But this guy didn't even take a day off. After last night's party in Grant Park, a historic triumph, Obama was up this morning for a quick workout and a long day of setting up his new administration.

I wish I could thank him for that energy and diligence and responsibility and focus. I am grateful for myself, for my baby, for my country. Maybe motherhood is making me sappy, but every time I think of this historic election, I think about my child, and my hopes and fears for the world he will grow up in. Today, the hopes are winning.

So I don't think it's just the hormones talking when I say my heart is full today. My son will not be able to remember a world where there had never been a black president of the United States. He won't find it the slightest bit weird that his president's middle name is "Hussein." He will grow up seeing pictures of Sasha and Malia playing with their puppy on the White House lawn.

I can't wait to sit with Wiley and watch the inauguration in January, and explain to him that he is witnessing a beautiful moment in the history of his country. He won't remember it, so I will remember it for both of us.

Or Maybe Teen Spirit

Hi internet! We just got back from our first childbirth class at the hospital. Our instructor is a very adorable flaky grandma lady, a doula and retired maternity nurse--let's call her Auntie Moonbat. She might be crazy.

Auntie Moonbat thinks everything about childbirth is one big orgiastic miracle. There was talk of how beautiful and ruby-red the placenta is. The words "ruby-red" were actually used, for what might be the first time in history outside of fairy tales and grapefruit juice containers.

There's something about earnest people that really brings out the evil in me. (In all fairness, the evil isn't buried very deep.) Fortunately, since I'm sober ALL THE TIME nowadays, my ability to repress is in tip-top shape. So when Auntie Moonbat asked, in hushed tones, if anybody knew what the baby SMELLS LIKE when she exits the birth canal, and the answer "Pussy!" immediately and insistently entered my skull, I was able (with substantial effort) to keep it to myself. This sobriety thing is a real party pooper.

Apparently the answer was "amniotic fluid." Who knew? Well, maybe everybody but me. And what does amniotic fluid smell like, children? According to Auntie Moonbat, it smells like boobies. So somehow you're not supposed to let the medical staff bathe your baby because it has to smell its own fists and get used to the smell so it will eventually find your boobies.

I'm not sure any of it is true, but if it's not, this old broad has one hell of a vivid imagination. One class down, six to go. Can't wait to learn about how beautiful meconium is when it glistens in the morning sunshine.