On the Launch Pad

"You're on the launch pad, but his finger is on the button," our doctor told us at our most recent appointment on Monday. Apparently I've made some good progress with dilation and effacement, but nothing that would require us to check into the hospital, grab a stopwatch or even call our doula. So the past few days I've spent over-analyzing every odd feeling or dull ache (and I have had some). Google is an amazing tool, but - like most things - it can become evil with overuse. And in the past few days, I have most certainly been abusing it, googling things like "what do contractions feel like?" and "how do I know I am in labor?" and then spending hours reading through the varied experiences of other women and the advice of so-called "experts". This kind of thing is useless, because I already knew that everyone is different and it's futile to try to draw comparisons. He could decide to push the button now, or in a week from now, or even more than that. Yet I kept going with it, and when I realized that I spent an hour looking at images I found by googling "mucus plug", I knew I was officially out of control.

And so I will approach today (and each new day that does not bring launching) with a different attitude. No more googling for me. I'm going to enjoy the peace of these mornings and the calm of these afternoons and evenings. With each day that passes, the rhododendron and wisteria blooms in our backyard become more full and beautiful to greet Tadpole when he arrives. That's not such a bad thing.

Perhaps most importantly, I realized that this serves as my first in what are surely millions of lessons in learning to trust that my son knows what's best. His finger will press that button when he's most ready (regardless of how much raspberry leaf tea that I drink). My learning process has already begun, and it looks like he decided the first one will be one in patience.

Beautiful Mama

 

We've been taking pictures every couple of weeks. Here is a montage of the progress that Mr. T has made with an assist of course to his beautiful mama.

The first photos were from early December the last photos were from April 18th.

You Are Getting Sleeeeepy

And while I have been getting sleepier much more frequently throughout the day, that's not what this post is about. Last week brought another milestone in this 40-ish week journey: we completed our birthing classes. We are not doing the Lamaze or Bradley methods of childbirth, or even straight-up natural childbirth. Come on, we live in Eugene, OR now, where midwives and naturopathic doctors are as common as chiropractors or dentists. Home births are very common here, but I am too chicken to go this route.

We decided - at the suggestion of our well-liked OB - to pursue the Hypnobabies method of childbirth. Maybe it'd be more accurate to say that I decided to pursue this, and Ryan graciously agreed to come along for the ride. After looking at the hypnobabies website and viewing a few of their calm and relaxed youtube birthing experiences, I was sold. Briefly, hypnobabies is a natural childbirth method that relies on self-hypnosis and deep relaxation to have a more relaxed and comfortable birthing experience. I contacted the doula who teaches it here (who we later hired to be there for birthing time), and signed us up for the 18 hour class, taught once a week for 6 weeks.

Cramming for a really big test

The past several weeks I have been thumbing through books trying to figure out how to be a good dad. Often one has to look at mom books to get any real clue and, honestly, most books don't really offer much satisfaction to those suffering the anxiety and excitement of quickly impending parenthood. They are either too serious or overly clinical when I want a book that is educational and funny: I want to be edutained with some acknowledgment that this experience is emotional and awesome/confusing and scary.

Making Things

Because I am not teaching this quarter, my work duties are significantly reduced. I'd planned on using the time between teaching and Mr. T's arrival to get out a manuscript for review and work on transforming my dissertation into a book. I fantasized about this time all last quarter, while I was in the thick of work that comes with teaching two new courses. But now that this much-anticipated time has arrived, I realize that I neglected to take into account the extreme fatigue, distraction, and sometimes frenzied worry that comes along with an impending baby tsunami, that could - as my doctor recently said - come at any time now.

I decided a few days ago to stop beating myself up about not accomplishing these research goals. I trust that these will get done in due time. The present is an exciting time, and there really is a lot to do to prepare for baby's arrival. There are obvious things: the nursery (check) and baby basics (car seat, some clothes, and a diaper plan...check, check, check). But one thing that was high on my priority list was to paint him a painting. I began this late last week:



and finished today. I hope he likes it.

Another task I've been wanting to take on is making pierogies.