Happy Birthday, Scout!
scout as maid of honour III - isn't she prettier than a picture?
"Aleta is so easy!"
That shouldn't be my favourite comment of the week, but I am who I am.
I had the world's shortest midwives appointment yesterday. We've pretty much talked about everything, and it's just a big waiting game now. I had exactly 2 questions:
- where do I go to get my car seat installed by the police? and
- after 2 weeks of showing my cloth diapers to everyone and hearing their conflicting views on installation & wear, I'm hopelessly confused. Should I go back to the store with a pencil & a pad of graph paper for diagrams?
The answer to these questions were
- call the police for information, and
- the midwives will help with diapering.
Then they measured my belly, checked my blood pressure & felt the baby's position. The Sprout, although not yet "dropped," has been sinking head-first into my pelvis for the past month. By now, baby's head is almost three-quarters submerged below the top of my pubic bone. Exciting stuff. And the hands-and-knees exercises I've been doing almost every day seem to be helping as the Sprout has stopped resting Sproutback-to-my back. (Why is this important? Because birth is a lot like a ballet, and we want to encourage Sprouticus to lie facing my back so that the hardest & largest part of his/her head emerges first.)
Everything being a-ok, I walked out the door 20 minutes after I walked in. It was kind of a let-down; I love my midwives appointments. It's one of the few times in my life when I can look forward to just being pregnant. When I'm in the office, no concern is too mysterious or childish, and I can connect to the Sprout through touch and heartbeat flutter and growth rate. 20 minutes seems kind of a cheat...but what would we talk about to fill the time? All of the horrible things that might happen? It's best not to go there.
Unfortunately, my thwarted need to be baby-focussed for another half-hour led me to the ultimate evil: I watched 2 episodes of "A Baby Story" and immediately regretted it. The couples were so well-intentioned, but so powerless. I watched them undergo ultrasound after ultrasound with no reason given. Every baby on ABS was induced, one because it might be "too big" and the other because labour "wasn't progressing" (they admitted the mother in the first stage and immediately gave her an epidural that kept her in lying flat in bed - no wonder labour slowed.) The doctors appeared like magician's rabbits, absent for the labour but catching the baby & whisking it away for a good long while before finally delivering a washed, blanketed bundle with all pomp & circumstance to the mother. The nurses were discouraging and frankly judgmental of the progression of labour, implying that the mother was at fault for every stall. Induction aids were applied liberally. After the birth, every baby on ABS wore disposable diapers, and every baby on ABS was bottle-fed from the moment of emergence. It was an interesting snapshot of contemporary American obstetrics, and it made me depressed as hell.
And then there was the sequence when the soon-to-be-mother encouraged her dog to "give kisses to your little brother," lifting up her shirt so that the golden retriever could repeatedly lick her still-swollen belly. Ugh. Where's Jocasta's brooch when you really need it?
Following a suggestion in The Hip Mama Survival Guide, I've been trying to note special things about each day in case the Sprout is born precipitously. Yesterday I was wholly bewitched by my mid-morning drive in the rain: the subtle euphoria of finally leaving the apartment on my own, the gentle drumming sound on the roof, the shine to the streets, the coolish feeling in the air, and the under-sea rumbling of Tom Waits on the stereo as I meandered to my midwives appointment. It was even nice without the roof; I spent about 10 minutes walking to a convenience store, and I returned to the car with my hair dripping, my glasses opaque and my heart at utter peace.
Today the sun came out. I'm sitting in the study I once thought I'd clear out for our Sprout, and looking out the window. The sky is that special kind of heartbreaking blue that will glitter mercilessly in a few short months. The nearly naked tree in the back yard looks like it's trying to think of something to say. The birds, hopping from vine to clothesline to vine again, are waiting patiently for the tree to figure it out.
I think I'm going to buy comics.
Speaking of comics, ever since I started reading Kavalier & Clay, I've been doing a lot of thinking about golden ages and such. Last night, before we went to sleep, I told the Boy that I thought our relationship was currently Silver Age. He shifted uncomfortably.
"Not Golden Age?" I thought about it for awhile.
"No. Golden Age was the wild infatuation, crazy sex, totally obsessed stage. Golden Age isn't very stable. In the Silver Age, you know who you are. Your sales have peaked and they're holding steady. You get a sidekick, like a monkey or a wise-cracking orphan. Silver Age is the perfect time to have a baby."
"Hmm. You know, I think you're right. I think that having a baby in the Golden Age turns it into the Bronze Age very quickly."
"Good thing we'll never know," I said, snuggling down.
Booty Call: Day 258 - I should never watch "A Baby Story."
5 years ago today: the end of greek drama,
the beginning of i put a spell on you
