Weird Bird in Love

I’m tired. I’m going to be good and ready for this little chicken to make its appearance, by four or five weeks from now. By the time I finished cooking dinner this evening, whatever overstretched architecture holds up my belly was feeling very stretched and sore. And we’ve still got a ways to go.

The most disconcerting thing is the way I just don’t have my usual reserves. I run out of energy – physical, emotional – much sooner than I usually would, and I can’t get used to it. I feel like a car with a broken gas gauge; you think you’ve still got a quarter tank and suddenly the car sputters and rolls to a stop. Only the “rolling to a stop” takes the form of suddenly (I mean, really suddenly) being so exhausted that I start to cry.

It will be lovely to have a new baby. It will also be lovely to begin the long, slow journey of reclaiming my body (… at least somewhat; I do plan to breastfeed!) and getting back to some kind of normal biochemistry.

Several days ago, after learning via Facebook that Mary Travers, of Peter, Paul, and Mary, had passed away, I dug through Rise Up Singing to pick a couple of their songs to sing to Zag at bedtime. A little tribute, if you will. Turns out I don’t actually know very many Peter, Paul, and Mary songs (casting serious doubts on my parents’ hippie ’70s parent credentials).

I do know “Puff, the Magic Dragon,” and offered to sing that to Zag, warning him that it’s kind of a sad song. (For those who somehow don’t know it: boy meets dragon, boy and dragon have wonderful adventures, boy grows up and abandons dragon, dragon tries to understand what the hell went wrong.) He wanted to hear the song anyway, and has asked for it each subsequent night, remarking that it is kind of sad but he likes it anyway. (more…)

Julie, the discovery of whose blog was one of the bright spots of the whole placenta previa business, has a wonderful post from a few days ago reflecting on parenting a (second) baby in contrast to parenting a preschooler. Her Charlie sounds so much like our Zag – they’re pretty close in age; I think Charlie’s about six months older. I’m tickled and touched by what she has to say – and comforted to hear, again, that it really is easier the second time. (Extenuating circumstances aside. Yes, I know that raising my baby brother was quite an adventure for all concerned.)

Now that I’m no longer too fearful to think about this baby as a real person, now that we’re getting used to the idea that we will have a second child in six weeks or so, I’m indulging myself in some extensive online browsing of baby gear. Partly this was inspired by the request to put together a registry for a baby shower held by the church… partly, well, I just enjoy it. I mostly manage to keep myself from impulse buys (especially expensive ones), so I don’t get myself in too much trouble, but…

One place I’m suddenly putting in a lot of time again is The Babywearer (TBW). (more…)

We had another ultrasound this morning – our third. The lower edge of my placenta is now 4 cm away from the cervical opening. Our wonderful high-risk OB says I’m in the clear and we only need to come back to him (& plan a hospital birth) if we really really want to.

I’m still pretty confused by all of this – not by where we are now, which seems clear enough, but where we’ve been. I wish that we’d been able to see an image of what was going on in there when I got that first diagnosis of complete placenta previa. We tried hard to find good information on the Web – & the information we found suggested that complete placenta previa (unlike partial or marginal), diagnosed at 20 weeks, is not terribly likely to resolve – and that the placenta is unlikely to move very far once we get much past 30 weeks, especially if it’s on the back of the uterus, as mine apparently is.

I don’t know if I’ve just beaten the odds, or the information we found isn’t very good, or if there just isn’t very good information on these issues. It does seem like all these matters of placental position are being pretty actively studied, so maybe the state of medical understanding of placenta previa is just not that good yet? Or maybe I’m a freak. The good kind. I don’t know.

So suddenly I’m 33 weeks pregnant, which is pretty darn pregnant, with an apparently healthy baby and no particular risk factors. We’re thinking pretty seriously about returning to our plan for a birth-center birth – especially since the local hospital just changed their visitor policy for the maternity ward to exclude anyone under 18 (H1N1 control, allegedly). It would be pretty stressful for Zag, I think, to have me and the baby in the hospital for potentially a couple of days (the hospital doesn’t spring you that quick, even when things go well) and not be able to visit us. We’re still absorbing the news & haven’t made any decisions yet, though…

For a while there I was assuming I’d be having either a C-section or a very medicalized birth, and mentally placing the project of getting this baby out into the world in the hands of medical experts. Now that it looks like there’s no need for that, I’m realizing that the responsibility for that project shifts back to me (and my birth partner Tilt). Instead of treating myself as fragile, it’s time to affirm and develop my strength. My body and I, we’ve got work to do in 7 weeks or so.

Now that I know I’m allowed to walk (waddle?) in the woods, I want to take some walks in the woods and think about what I’ve learned from all this. How it’s different to be here, 33 weeks and all systems go, than it would  be to be in the same place without having had the whole previa detour.

Zag started school this week. He’s going to a Montessori preschool/kindergarten just up the road – slightly too far to walk, but a very quick drive. It’s run by a woman who’s in my prayer group at church, & who is a genuinely good soul. It’s a great school, and a great place for Zag – we feel really blessed that it’s right here. This past week he just had two short mornings – 2 hours, instead of the usual 3. Apart from one brief balky moment the first morning, he’s been very enthusiastic about it all. I’m sure there will be adjustments to come, but so far his formal education is off to a great start.

For about two years now, we’ve been explaining to people that Zag can’t say the “j” sound. He pronounced all his j’s as hard g’s – “gump” for jump, “Geesus” for Jesus, “Gools” for our friend Jules, etc. There were other consonant sounds he had trouble with, too – he pronounced “ch” and “tr” both as “k” (”kirts” for church, “kuck” for truck). (more…)