Red Raspberry Leaf Tea

At 6:30 AM the day after Christmas, the whole family sleeps. I would sleep, too, but I can only lay down for about half an hour to an hour at a time. Of course, I can only lay on my side, and it causes a horrible burning feeling down the sides of my legs. Naturally, I can't sleep through the burn, and I found myself squatting on the floor next to the bed, composing the first lines of this post in my head while I waited for the burn to stop. "Why not?" I thought. I haven't actively avoided the blog; I've only been lazy.

By the way: I think making teenage girls watch labor is not the best form of birth control. They should have to watch a heavily pregnant woman get out of bed. First, I use my husband's formerly sleeping form as a kind of wedge to keep from falling onto my back. If I end up on my back, I lay there like an oversized, upended bug, all my limbs waving at the air in futility. So I start with a funny backwards shimmy that lets me roll onto Mark. Then, I use my hands to fling the covers off myself with as much force as possible. This must be done with force. If I fling them away but they don't completely clear my [useless and constantly pained] legs, I will be trapped. Mark will have to get out of bed to rescue me, I'll fall on my back in the process, and we'll be back to the Palmetto Bug Pose. Once free of the covers, I use my legs to kind of bicycle the large pillow I have to use for my lower body out of the way.

All the foregoing only clears the obstacles; still I must somehow get my body out of the bed. Please understand, I am not a giant fatty. I've only gained 14 pounds since the day I found out I was pregnant. My face, arms, butt, thighs, everything is smaller than it was the day I got pregnant. Unfortunately, I'm carrying Hercules the Mighty in my uterus, and nothing works right.

From here, I have to wriggle and squirm for several minutes until I'm close enough to the edge of the bed to fall out of it. Sometimes, like this morning, I can slither off face up so I land in a kind of stable squat. Other times, earlier in the night, I just have to roll off and pray. Sometimes, when my bladder is really full, I give up and say, "Mark, I really need to pee." And he gets out of bed and helps me stand and makes sure that I'm over the tile before falling back in bed. Can't have urine in the carpet.

I lurched into the kitchen and turned the heat on under the tea kettle. Tea is so boring. It's bland; it doesn't bring any kick. I insist on using a real teacup and saucer if I'm to punish myself with tea. And today, I will punish myself with tea. Red raspberry leaf tea. I don't hate it, but I wouldn't notice if it never appeared in my life again either.

I gathered my cup and saucer, my spoon, a little brown sugar, and the tea. The tea almost has finished steeping, and I'll drink it. Bitterly.

Honestly, I wonder why I bother with the tea. It's good for the uterus. It's good for the pregnancy. Blah blah blah. Thing is, I'm going to be pregnant forever. The baby will keep growing past his anticipated 8.5-9 pounds (as of the 23rd), and my cervix will hold firm. I will walk 5,000 miles (and I will walk 500 more), and he will stay put. He's comfortable in there, curled up like a gargantuan elf, kicking me when he's hungry (or when I've just eaten), punching my bladder for fun, sucking his thumb and enduring the hiccups like a proper boy. Red raspberry leaf tea will not coax him out. And it's boring. Why bother?

I think I'm a bit of a spoiled child. Laundry bores me too, and no matter how many loads of laundry I process, still more will be required. Talk about why bother. I just started the washer on the third hot cycle to prepare the cloth diapers that Dad and Gail, his wonderful wife, sent me. I'm excited about diapers (for now), and still my Little Voice is whining and throwing a temper fit. "Isn't there something more exciting to do? I wanna surf the web! I wanna knit! I wanna go into labor! I wanna do something FUN!" GAH. Blah blah blah! Shut! UP!

Even when I'm doing things I like, I'm whining on the inside. Like knitting. I made Burgundy a really awesome pair of knee socks with a matching beaded cowl. It's gorgeous and presented a real and legitimate challenge to my knitting prowess. I know it's bragging, but I'm a pretty good knitter. Most projects get boring fast. This one took almost an entire sock to bore me! I think I had six pattern repeats done before I memorized it enough to go mobile without a copy of the pattern. And boy once I hit that? Whining non-stop. "This is boring. This is stupid. I want to be finished with this project. They're not gonna fit anyway. I wanna go play! I wanna bake! I wanna do laundry! I wanna go into labor!"

I swear to God, I'm never going to have this baby because I am FOUR YEARS OLD. No four-year-old should parent a child. So God in his infinite wisdom has decreed that I will never go into labor. I'm doomed to sleep in 2-hour fits tapering to 30-minute dozes, to waddle and lurch from bed to bathroom to kitchen to laundry room, to whine and moan and sulk for the rest of my born days.

And that is why I got up and opened the blog. Turned the heat on the kettle and set out the damn teacup. Turned the washer on for the third cycle of clean diapers and started to type. I found my big girl panties, and I'm wearing them [yes, Little Man, I know you're in there; thank you for that lovely punch. I'll go put on a clean pair of big girl panties now]. I know this post is the longest, whiniest rant in all of history, but I'm banishing the whiner, too. She has to shut up or have a different conversation.

I'm 41 weeks. Women all over the world are wrinkling their brows and saying, "What? Only one week overdue? I went two weeks over! My Aunt Sally's cousin, Billy Bob, got some poor girl pregnant, and she went four weeks over!" Well, more power to Billy Bob's girlfriend and to you. I have had enough. This little man is coming out; I plan to serve the eviction notice in just a little while in a form that only a gestating baby will understand. Castor Oil.

The midwife said not to take it in the afternoon and not to take it before noon Christmas Day (she had family in town), and as an act of love only (simple obedience could not have induced me to wait), I waited. As soon as my family arises from their gilded sleep (grumble grumble), I am off to Walgreens.

I know it will be nasty. I don't care.
I know I will miss visiting with my friend from North Caroline, who's here for one day. I don't care.
I know I will miss the Doctor Who Christmas Special over at my friend Christi's place tonight. I don't care. Uh, yes I do. I care about the Doctor and one last hoorah with my knitting friends. If it was earlier in the day, I might care enough to wait on the castor oil, but it isn't, and I don't.

I made cinnamon rolls and bread yesterday. Neighbors brought veggie and meat/cheese snack trays and a plate of cookies and fudge (I'm borderline gestational diabetic, so I really can't eat that stuff). I made gift bags and mailed them for all our close family (I made marshmallows. You should have heard the four-year-old whining on that project), and I have a few undelivered under the tree; those people will want to come see the baby anyway. My kitchen floor is clean (thanks to the awesome teenager), the living room and library are passable; in short, it's time. So I'm going to shower and wake my husband, and we're going to buy some castor oil. Wish me luck.

Bad Dream

I dreamed terrible things last night.

I think I was at a picnic. I know I was somewhere outdoors. I began to bleed. Because I'm past 17 weeks now, I didn't worry at first, but then I began to cramp. I felt dread creeping in, and I shoved it down and ignored it. After the third bout of finding blood with worsening cramps, I admitted that something was dreadfully wrong, and I called my midwife, Jackie.

Suddenly, Jackie was there at the picnic with me, and she told me that she needed to examine me right away. She wanted to check for a heartbeat. She told me that her backup physician's office was closer to us than her birthing center, so we began to go there. I think we walked. On the way, she asked me questions.

"When's the last time you felt the baby move?" I haven't felt the baby move at all, and in my dream, I realized that this should have worried me. I should have been worried long before now not to have felt the baby. In real life, this would not be cause to worry. Just so you know.

"When's the last time you had caffeine?"

"This morning," I told her. Her expression changed to alarm and shock, and I began defending myself. "But I only had like half a cup," I pleaded, "And I never have more than one cup in a day." I felt a knowledge that the caffeine had poisoned my baby. Jackie's disapproval and judgment confirmed it. I slipped into a denial and began shouting the facts that I know: Nobody knows how much caffeine is too much, and most experts agree that a cup a day or less should not hurt the baby. Jackie just watched me, then disappeared. I was at the doctor's office.

I went in and explained to the doctor who I was. He led me into a glass-walled exam room, put me on the table and in stirrups, and two interns came in. They looked like rednecks, hard day laborers, rather than physician interns. The doctor told them they should leave. He explained to me that we'd need to wait for Jackie so she could examine me. The interns protested, so I sat up, looked the beefy one in the eye, and said, "I don't want you in my room for this exam. Get. Out." The doctor looked smug and justified, and the interns left, all dejected.

I removed myself from the bed and stirrups while I waited for Jackie, and people began pouring into the room. The doctor and all the visitors were watching a Discovery Channel show about flowers. I wanted them to get out. By the time Jackie arrived, 20 or 30 people lined the couches, chairs, floors and walls, and more poured in by the minute.

Jackie looked at me and said, "I think the baby stopped growing. You should be showing more by now."

"But I AM showing," I yelled, "Look at this," and I pulled up my shirt. "The fat is covering my baby, but I'm showing, I swear." And then we sat on the couch and talked, and I woke up never knowing whether I'd killed my baby with coffee or whether my baby was dead at all.

I woke Mark and said, "I had a horrible nightmare. I dreamed I was bleeding, and I think the baby was dead."

He rolled over and opened his arms and said, "Come here, Baby," and he cradled me until I fell asleep again.

Underwear, Spinach, and Sausage Gravy

We leave this morning for a long drive to Mississippi. I'm frankly dreading it. Once we get there, we'll have a lovely time with my sister, her children (including the wee niece I haven't met yet), my father and stepmother, and all my father's family. They're a delight, let me tell you.

We spent most of yesterday and last night getting ready. I think I washed, dried, folded, and put away (or packed) at least five loads of laundry. That's six loads more than I really wanted to do. I also ran out to the maternity store because certain of my few remaining non-maternity clothes felt rather uncomfortable. Turns out that my, um, girls have grown about 4 sizes. The store doesn't carry anything close to my band size in the appropriate cup size, so we had to go up TWO band sizes and buy the largest cup in that size, then fasten it on the tightest clip. We're barely hanging in here. Now I understand why I've felt so uncomfortable.

I also bought a pair of maternity spanx. I don't know what they're actually called, but whatever. I have a couple of really cute maternity dresses, but wearing any dress or skirt without shorts or something underneath is for the birds. And I bought a couple of belly bands (some of the maternity pants are too big, and none of my non-maternity jeans are comfortable) and an adorable navy blue sweater dress with a white color.

The upside is that compared to the same bunch of purchases in a normal store, maternity clothes are pretty cheap. Bra was half what I expected, dress was $15, belly bands were less than half-price; only the spanx really cost what I expected.

Anyway, yesterday ended on a very productive note. I slept like the dead for once, truly exhausted, and woke as usual at 4:30 this morning cursing my body for waking me.

And a story to underscore that I am definitely pregnant:

This morning, my tummy started rumbling, so I walked down to the cafeteria to grab a bite to eat to tide me over. The table of offering looked less than thrilling, so I ordered a sausage biscuit with gravy. The man served it to me in the to-go container, but before passing it over the counter to me, asked, "Anything else?"

I said, "Well, only if you have some spinach."

"No," he laughed, "Well, actually, I do have some in the back. Do you want some?"

"Is it cooked?" I asked, because cooked spinach is re. volt. ing.

It must have shown on my face, because he said it was raw and ran off to fetch what turned out to be about a half-pound of spinach leaves.

Thus I find myself at my desk this morning facing a styrofoam tray of spinach, gravy, and a biscuit with sausage. I don't want to like the spinach; I really don’t. But I want it.

Dreaming of the Doctor and Dirty Socks

Yesterday was a bad day. I woke feeling well enough, but after a breakfast of junk food and orange juice, I began feeling sick to my stomach almost immediately. Throughout church, I felt waves of nausea alternating with waves of heat, and I had to leave the service a couple of times.

Mark took us out to IHOP after that, and while I appreciated the break from trying to cook in the kitchen, I feel I can say with fair certainty that IHOP is not a good choice for alleviating nausea.

We dropped Burgundy off with Tabby for a babysitting job, and I slept for the rest of the afternoon. I felt a bit better for having slept, and we had spaghetti for dinner.

I went to bed around 9:30 and slept fitfully until about 4:30. After that, I couldn't even doze. I dreamed ridiculous things and tried to ignore the aching in my belly and the itching. Every time Mark touched me or the sheets shifted against my skin, I would come fully awake, itching like mad.

The itching had me dreaming of laundry as I somehow convinced myself that the problem was dirty sheets (even though I wash them every week). I dreamed I took all my knitted socks into the shower with me, and later I dreamed that this caused some kind of alien problem that required Dr. Who to show up and fix the damage. Sadly, this dream did not feature David Tennant in my shower.

That leaves me at my desk at work at 7:00 in the morning, still achy, nauseous, and now quite unable to focus on the myriad tasks at hand. I can't recall the details from last week, the plans I made while discussing transition with L, the plans for addressing disconnects that I formulated with K. I'm just here, lost, and you have the privilege of reading the most boring blog entry ever written.

Except for David Tennant in my shower with my hand-knit socks.

Why Homebirth, Part I

So I'm pregnant. Very exciting news, isn't it? Even more exciting is the news that it's sticking (for now); we're officially out of the first trimester, making it much easier to grin and announce the coming baby with gratitude and joy. That trepidatious sense of impending doom recedes a little more each day, and as my tummy begins to grow (only the faintest hint right now), so does the thrill and anticipation. Soon I'll feel movement (the quickening), and soon after that, Mark and Burgundy will be able to feel it from the outside. I'm making a baby.

Given how long and dearly we've wanted this child, some people have asked, all incredulous, why we would take the risk of a homebirth attended by a midwife. After all, isn't a hospital safer? Isn't a doctor more knowledgeable? For those who have been in my home, there's the gingerly asked (and possibly quite valid), "Um, is it sanitary enough?"

In a word, No, No, and NO. I mean Yes. The answer to the last question is definitely YES. No Freudian slips here; move along.

I want to spend several posts exploring these questions and the scientific evidence in favor of midwifery care (as opposed to obstetrical care) and home or birth-center-based labor and delivery. Childbirth is one of the most important rites of passage in our culture, and the way we approach care for this event in a woman and family's life has implications for safety, maternal and infant morbidity rates, cultural assumptions and attitudes toward life and toward the value of people. Childbirth is a fine example of the interconnectedness of life, love, science and progress. Childbirth is my soapbox, my love, a saving grace (for me). Healthy, normal childbirth is a passion, its promotion almost a mission for me.

These posts might be far between because I want to present them in a way that demonstrates the interdependencies of the childbirth process (for example, the well-documented "cascade effect" of our technological advances that has lead to our inexcusably high Cesarean rate in the US). I often find that when a person asks me about one thing, for example, electronic fetal monitoring, I don't do a very good job of presenting the big picture, the whole argument.

I begin discussion logically enough. Unfortunately, as I connect the dots mentally, I get a little rabid. I stumble over my own words; I get "Libertarian Eyes" (a term for the slightly wild-eyed look of a zealot in full-on Preach-the-Gospel-of-My-Cause mode coined by my friend Hannah in discussion of, um, excessively passionate people), and apparently, I lose my ability to form a coherent sentence.

When I come back to my senses, I'm out of breath, spluttering, and whomever I've just assaulted with a vitriolic denunciation of anything short of squatting in a rice paddy backs away slowly and refuses to return my calls for a month. As they back away, I follow them, saying things like, "And that's not even the half of it! I once discovered a coven of obstetricians mired in a Ritual Cesarean chanting insurance codes! I DID! And they are the reason that our society is crumbling! It’s the Demonic Obstetricians of DOOM! You must birth [spittle flies on the heels of birth; I pronounce it like a televangelist] NAKED! Do it for the CHILDREN [I begin to shout because they're running now]! JESUS WANTS YOU TO RECLAIM YOUR FEMINIST POWER! WHEN YOU BIRTH YOU BECOME A SUPER WOMAN; YOU ARE CAPABLE OF ANYTHING!"

So yes, I want to write something coherent and accessible. I want to write something that friends can read without thinking, "Christ on a cracker, don't tell her you're pregnant!" Most of all, I want it to be effective. I want people who read me, who stumble on my journal, to understand that there is a better way than epidurals, episiotomies, and cesarean sections. A safer way, a gentler way. A loving way.