Goodbye 2008

I guess this little boy isn't going to be a tax deduction for us this year.

Ah well. I am, somewhat, being able to lean on God, and trust that He knows what He is doing.

Bright and early on New Year's Eve morning, I blew into the chiropractor's office. And I do mean "blew". Goodness gracious, it is blustery, cold and windy here. Gale force winds. Whew.

Anyway, got a good adjustment (and maybe some baby clothes!) from the chiropractor. And then I waited and the acupuncturist fit me in. Stuck some needles in certain points of my hands and feet and hooked me up to the electrodes. Supposed to start labor. Maybe.

I did feel quite a bit of movement. Which then stopped the instant the needles were removed. Oh well.

And so this evening we moved back to spicy food. Indian this time. Oh, and a good foot rub by the husband on all those pressure points.

We shall see!

Happy New Year's everyone!

...Or Not.

So, the baby is still comfortably ensconced inside me.

I am determined not to be annoyed. God knows when this baby needs to be born.

I have packed the bag, talked to the insurance company, pre-registered at the hospital, etc. Friends and family are all prepared to come running at the phone call.

We have packed little presents for our toddler to open when he comes to see the baby.

Now we wait.

Mexican food Saturday night, Cajun last night, Thai tonight. If this baby doesn't come, we are bringing out the big guns and having Indian tomorrow night.

I have been admonished by more than one person to trust God in all of this, especially regarding timing. Ok. Ok. I get the message.

This is the day!

Well, at least in MY mind. I have decided that today I am going to have this baby. I don't know what he has planned, but that is what I have decided.

And, generally, in spite of the lack of sleep, and the toddler being up several times, for long stretches, last night, I have a surprising amount of energy, emotional if not physical. Some of it has to do with the Christmas season. We had a glorious Advent, and our church has some lovely Christmas traditions. We went to the Family Service on Christmas Eve, because of the time, and the fact that there was child care. It was really nice. And we had a really low-key Christmas Day here, just the three of us. Jonathan doesn't really "get" Christmas yet, and since none of the rest of the family were here, there were only a few presents to open, so it wasn't the chaos that some experience.

I did bake a ham, which, when pulled apart, is apparently going to feed us well into the baby's second year. And then we went out to the Festival of Lights at Bull Run. It is a bit overrated, but we knew that Jonathan would enjoy seeing all the different things, and, indeed he did. And, shockingly, he fell asleep on the way home, and we just put him in bed when we got here. At 6:30 p.m. Did you see that, people? My hubs and I got a surprising Christmas present....several HOURS in the evening all to ourselves. Nice.

And we have run all of the pre-baby errands that seem to need to be run: Costco, Babies R Us, the grocery, etc. All of the people who are on-call for labor are back in town, clothes are being washed as we speak, etc. I think we are as set as we are going to be for this new arrival. We went to church last night for Lessons and Carols. What a worshipful time it was for me. Just what I needed.

And now we wait. I am not as anxious as I was, probably because everyone has been praying for me. And, as I said, I have a shocking amount of emotional energy. Not that I am going to channel it into cleaning bathrooms or anything, egads. (Oh, speaking of bathrooms, our master bath toilet decided to start leaking like a sieve on Christmas. Lovely. So, we have the water turned off. Good thing we have other bathrooms in the house.)

Actually, my emotional energy is high enough that I almost titled this post "Good Morning, Good Morning, Good Morning" and started the body of it off with "It's time to rise and shine..."

Does anyone remember that from the 70's? Mom used to come into our room and chirp that to us to wake us up. Needlesstosay, we found it annoying at best. But that is the chirpy mood I am in. Which may change on a whim.

So....I will post the birth story stuff here.

If you want a more timely announcement of the baby, you can follow me on Twitter, or send me an email, and I will put you on the "announcement" email.

As Tigger would say, "TTFN: Ta Ta for Now!"

Almost Christmas!

Well folks, I have been tired. I have about a week (give or take) to go in this pregnancy, and I am tired. And, my 2 y.o. is sick. Coughy, snotty, can't breathe, can't sleep kindof sick. And so, we generally haven't been sleeping, any of us.

Somehow last night it all caught up with us, and we all slept, including the sick toddler. He slept for nearly 12 hours. Groaned once or twice, and we heard a couple coughing fits over the baby monitor, but he never really woke up. My husband actually went in and got him up just before he left for work. Poor little guy.

But this post isn't really about sickness, though that has figured prominently at the house recently.

This post is about cuteness.

My son, who is two months shy of being "Two and a HALF", loves Christmas carols. All music really, but Christmas carols figure prominently in his repertoire. His favorite is "Hark, the Herald Angels Sing". I have been singing that to him as one of the lullaby rotation, since he was born. He now knows the entire first verse, and some of the other ones. He sings it atonally, but at the top of his lungs. We, of course, think it is terribly cute. No one else really knows about his penchant for carols, but check out what he received for an early Christmas present from a friend of mine: a plastic snow globe that plays Christmas carols at the press of a button. For five days he has carried it everywhere with him, on errands, into bed for naps, etc. To nearly all the carols, he sings the words to "Hark". Except for Jingle Bells, to which he sings at least part of the first verse. All of this is quite funny. We have a video for posterity. One of these days it might actually get downloaded to the computer!

Another vignette:

My husband puts Jonathan to bed at night. Once he was weaned, Marcus took over. First there is the bath, then the bedtime stories, then the prayers and songs. It all takes about 45 minutes. I am so pleased that Jonathan and his dad pray together. Marcus told me last night that for several weeks, after the obligatory "Now I lay me" prayer, he does a general, "God, please take care of Mommy and Daddy and Jonathan" prayer. And Jonathan has been adding names (and things, like cars) to the list for Marcus to pray about. But last night, Jonathan made it very clear that daddy was not to pray, that "Jonathan [would] do it." And this is the prayer that Marcus recounted to me, "God, take care Jonathan and Mommy, and Daddy and Mommy. And the peoples, and the girls and the girls and boys. And the cars and the fire engines. And Miss Judith (babysitter). Amen."

Priceless.

I don't scrapbook, so this blog will have to do for some memories.

Christmas for us is going to be very low key. We did go to a living nativity the other night, so that we could see the "baby animals". We have a Christmas tree up, and a winter wreath on the front door, and a small nativity scene. And that is it. Jonathan has enjoyed the large-ish Mary and Joseph and Baby Jesus scene at his preschool. We are looking forward to the Christmas Eve service at church. We may get take out for Christmas dinner. There are some presents for Jonathan, but we are saving most of those for when the baby comes. Some of this is the theory that we don't want to train him to expect presents at Christmas. Part of it is sheer laziness/tiredness on our part. We want Christmas to be about the Christ Child, and about family, not "stuff."

We are still in our own personal "advent", waiting with expectation for the arrival of this second baby, and that has eclipsed most Christmas preparation, especially since all of our family will be elsewhere, and not making a special trip until the baby comes. Also, we tend to celebrate Christmas, starting Christmas Eve, and continuing for the twelve days following. This year that nicely coincides with the expected arrival of the baby, so celebrations will be had later.

I will be trying to update this blog when the baby begins his arrival, so y'all can check here. I will also send an email. And, if you are desperate for real time info, you can follow me on Twitter. Merry Christmas everyone!

New Post......

Ok people, I have been so bad at posting this week.

The breech baby is no longer breech!

I was scheduled for a 'version' this past Wednesday, in the early afternoon. I went to the chiropractor in the morning for my regular (in this pregnancy) adjustment. She was happy about the version since it would improve my chances for a VBAC.

Anyway, after I left, I felt odd. Just different. I couldn't have told you exactly what was different, but I described it to my doula as feeling looser as well as fuller.

Hmmm.

So, went to the hospital, got myself admitted. Thankfully the OB ordered the sonogram before the I.V. Lo' and behold, the baby was vertex!! Thank God. Seriously. There has been so much prayer surrounding this issue. And, I am very happy with the chiropractor, too!

He flipped on his own. And, as far as we can tell, he is still head down! I know this because I am much more uncomfortable. And I can't bend over at the waist. So, aside from the complaining, we are very happy! It is very good that he turned on his own and the doctor didn't have to encourage him. So now we wait.

Seventeen days and counting.

Meanwhile, there are good posts up at the Advent Blog from our church. Go read and be blessed!

About being pregnant...and cuteness from the toddler

When one is in the last month of pregnancy, it is really hard to think of anything else other than being pregnant. Seriously. Even though Christmas is almost upon us, and there are a million things that I could/should be doing, this all about being pregnant.

So, I tried to "turn" the baby myself last night by doing some pelvic tilts on the floor, with some support. They say to get your hips 9-12 inches higher than your head. Doesn't sound like much, until you do it. ACK. Couldn't breathe. Said to hold position for at least five minutes, not more than 15. Not bloody likely.

Anyhoooo, so I was thinking about what I like and don't like about being pregnant. The latter list will be longer.

What I like:

1) Good hair, skin and nails. Really good. And that is important, because when you feel like a whale, it is good to know that you glow. (And thanks, S, for the compliment today...sorry I totally brushed it off.)

2) Ability to eat more than usual (though not much, because there is no room in the belly.)

3) Excuse to sit. I know I am supposed to exercise more, but I count chasing Jonathan as enough exercise for anyone.

What I don't like:

1) The constant urge to find the nearest restroom, only to find that the result did not warrant a special, emergency trip.

2) The inability to turn over in bed, or get out of a couch, without ropes and pulleys.

3) The sieve that my brain has become.

4) The disinterest in this holiday time.

Both lists to be continued.

*****

Funny Jonathan story.

Yesterday, he and his dad were "working" in the basement. Jonathan was playing with a portable radio, and using it like a phone. And this is what I heard, verbatim, from the top of the stairs:

"Hell-wo Little Bear. I am going to pick up acorns and sticks outside. Yes, I am fine. Now I will talk to Mother Bear. Hell-wow Mother Bear. I am going to pick up sticks. Goodbye Mother Bear. Now I will talk to Father Bear. Father Bear, I am going to pick up acorns and sticks outside. Yes. Thank you. Ok, Good-bye. *kissing noise* Good-bye."

The boy is only 27 months old.

Version 1

So, the baby is still determinedly breech. And not buttocks down, but feet down. (How do I know this latter fact, you ask? Let me just say this, I KNOW!)

So, on Wednesday at 1:00 p.m. my OB is going to try to turn the baby.

They give me some meds so my body doesn't try to fight it.

Sometimes it works. Sometimes it doesn't.

'Twould be an appropriate time for prayer, if you feel so inclined. Thanks.

What is impossible?

a) trying to keep a 2 y.o. clean while "decorating" sugar cookies.

b) trying to roll over in bed, while being 8 mos pregnant AND wearing velour pants.

c) keeping the kitchen clean when one hates to do dishes.

d) putting up Christmas Tree decorations when one has a cat who likes shiny objects.

e) having an adult conversation with a friend when the kids are around. Well, the conversation happens, but in small chunks, and with frequent stops to keep children from getting into the food coloring, cleaning up random amounts of vomit, rescuing the cat from kids with sticky fingers, etc.

f) avoiding eating said "decorated" sugar cookies.....

Oh, help....

In the midst of the frenzy of Advent (and more prominently in the Western World, decorating and preparing for the gift-giving extravaganza that has become Christmas) it is easy to forget that there are wounded people in the world, and that evil does still exist.

Frankly, that is why we wait for Jesus to come. To set things right.

Sherri has it right today.

Sometimes when faced with objective evil, all we can do is hope and pray.

"But I know we have the promise of the resurrection, and I am sure that all those little humans are at rest in paradise, awaiting that day when their humanity and ours is fully and finally restored."

I will just requote what she said. Come Lord Jesus.

Come, Thou Long-Expected Jesus

Hey there......

NaBloPoMo is officially OVER as of today.

But never fear, for those one of you who read this blog, I am participating in our church's Advent Blog, Rejoice to Behold His Appearing, and my first post is up today.

Check in and comment!

Advent Blog

Tomorrow is the First Sunday of Advent. The time of the year when we anticipate the birth of our Savior. It is a season of anticipation, and preparation, and adoration.

Our church has a new blog to celebrate this season.

Go look.

When it rains, it pours

So, today being Black Friday, my husband had found several items at the WalMart that he thought we could use and that were a good price. So, he set the alarm for 4:30, to get there by 5:00 (which turned out to be too late, but that is the subject of a different post.)

So, we were planning to go to bed early. Of course, the baby decided that he was having a difficult time sleeping and went to bed nearly an hour late. Which meant that we needed a bit of time to decompress before we went to bed. And then my child, who has been sleeping for 10 hours at a stretch for nearly a year, decided to get up at 1, and 3:30, and then at 6, for the day. I woke up when the hubs left for Walmart, and never went back to sleep.

Why is it that the babies know when you have something odd going on, and decide that then is the best time to have a messed-up schedule?

So, today has been spent trying to catch up on sleep, for all of us. But it has been satisfying to be with family. AND, we have gotten a little bit of shopping done. YEA US.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Hope everyone is having a grand time with family and friends.

Odd Sight

I saw something odd today on our drive down to Gramma's house for Thanksgiving.

A pearl white Cadillac Escalade was tooling down the road in the middle lane. As I passed it, I noticed the bumper sticker. (As an aside, I enjoy reading bumper stickers. I also enjoy putting them on my car. My husband does not like bumper stickers at all, so I am a bit restricted.) Anyway, the bumper sticker said:

"Pay no attention to the car. My treasure is in heaven."

Hmmmm.

So many ways to come at this: 1) if passers-by really are not supposed to pay attention, why draw attention to the excess? 2) If you don't care what people think, then don't apologize; 3) If you feel guilty, a bumper sticker affirming your spiritual stance isn't going to make you really feel better. Etc.

The dreaded email....

So, I got the dreaded email today from the pre-school:

"dear parent,
One of the children in your child's class....."

Sigh.

This is not about lice. Even typing the word makes my head itch.

No, this is about "hand, foot and mouth disease" or HFMD for short.

It seems as if every kid gets exposed during the pre-school years. And most parents are immune since we probably all got exposed during OUR preschool years.

But, you know, I am pregnant. And the only time that this is apparently risky for the baby is if the mother contracts it close to the delivery date. ACK! I am five weeks from delivering. Give or take.

So, there is a lot of handwashing going on here at the house of Maher. And I am trying to convince my son that kissing me on the mouth is a bad idea.

Well, I suppose that the upside is that when I go for my next OB visit in 10 days, I will probably know for sure if I have it or if he has it, and since the OB is testing me from Group B strep then anyway, I can just add this to the list.

Oh. Whine whine....the baby is still breech. Though he was flirting with the idea of turning this past couple of days.

Off to pack up for going to Gramma's tomorrow.

This post is untitled.

Today was a good day and I have nothing to write about.

Well, I could write about how the president-elect hasn't gone to church since the election. Or, about how his kids are going to one of the most prestigious private schools in D.C. but he doesn't believe that private schools can teach kids any more than public schools and doesn't believe in allowing a voucher system that would enable poor parents to send their children to the same school that Obama has chosen to send his girls to. And I don't want one person to tell me that it is about security of his kids. Because that brings up all sorts of issues. What? Don't you think the Secret Service can protect your kids in the big bad inner city schools of D.C.? Don't you think that your girls can get a good education in the public school system?

Ok, I am already frothing at the mouth.

So I should write any more about that.

Or how about how he appointed as the new communications director the woman who is the director of Emily's List, a group "dedicated to building a progressive America by electing Democratic pro-choice women to office." And, how the first thing that he is going to do is sign the Freedom of Choice Act which will federalize the right to abortion. FEDERALIZE!

Argh.

Shoot. That didn't stop me from frothing at the mouth.

So, I think I am going to go back to talking about my son and my unborn child, that latter of whom is quite the active little guy. Flipping and swimming and stretching to the limit of my body. Looking forward to meeting this little guy in just a few weeks. (We are rooting for December 28!!)

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas!

Well, two weeks ago it was more than 70 degrees here and I had all the windows in the house open. Today it was barely 30 degrees all day.

And, as we have established, I have a baby coming in just a few short weeks (and we know that the weeks between Thanksgiving and Christmas go by really really fast) and so I am thinking that I am going to be less and less interested in the "decorating" thing as times go on.

So....hubby indulged me and put up the tree yesterday. And we turned on the fire, and listened to Christmas music. My two year old said, "oh the tree, it is beautiful, daddy!"

'Course, we still haven't finished raking the leaves. Ah well.

And this week we get to "go over the river and through the woods, to Grandmother's house we go."

Update and more doula thoughts

Well, for those (one) of you who freaked out at my last post, everything is A-OK. Apparently, for this pregnancy (which is different from the last one, so you people who are on your first, don't think you know everything now....things can be verrrrry different) the end of the day is hard on my uterus. Or something. Didn't matter what I did yesterday, my insides were practicing for labor. Which should still be five weeks away.

Anyway. Lying down settled everything, mostly. Now, if anyone can give me a fool-proof way of getting this baby to turn, THAT would be helpful.

Ok, onto the doula controversy.

My doula says that the ban on doulas at Reston Hospital, referenced in my last post on the subject, has been in place for a few years now. However, in her experience (13 years), she has never heard of a situation in which a doula got "between" a doctor and a patient in a medical situation.

There are several tracks one could go on with this: 1) railing at the way the medical system treats birth as a disease to be managed rather than a normal process of life; 2) the condescending view of many physicians that a medical/surgical answer to anything is the quintessentially "right" answer; 3) the fact that the trial lawyers and massive litigation has made it impossible for doctors to exercise judgment and true patient care in any particular case; or 4) the insurance companies (both mal-practice insurance, which is a boondoggle to lay directly at the feet of the trial lawyers, and health insurance, which demands certain standards of care unrelated to specific patient needs) have made health care workers extremely twitchy.

I am sure there are more, but those are the four that come to mind.

It is much more fun to rant and rail on 'tracks' one and two. It is fun to pick on doctors. Just like it is fun to pick on lawyers. But since I grew up with the former, I sometimes feel compelled to defend them. And since I am one of the latter, I choose to pick on my own. Though frankly, I sometimes think it is not so much the lawyers' problem (massive lawsuits with big money, which drive up insurance rates, which cause insurance companies to require doctors to jump through stupid hoops, etc.) as it is the public. Lawyers are opportunists. And they are ethically required to represent their clients zealously (ok, fine, I know that there are many lawyers who go waaaay beyond zealous, but still). It is the juries, which are made up of ordinary people, just like you and me, who award these big huge verdicts in med-mal cases.

So, what is the real problem? Our sense of entitlement of a "good" outcome in any given situation. We can talk about tobacco (you smoke for 40 years, get lung cancer, sue the company that makes the ciggarette that you CHOSE to smoke for 40 years, even though EVERYONE knew that cigs were unhealthy....don't tell me they didn't. If my 86 year old grandmother who grew up on a farm in central Virgnia called them "coffin nails" when she was a teenager, EVERYONE knew they were bad for you....just like we all know that french fries are bad for you). We can talk about firearms (no, don't get me started on that one). We can talk about worker's compensation, etc. etc. etc.

And medicine is the same thing. Doctors practice medicine with one hand tied behind their back, because they are afraid that if they take any risks, or do anything that is creative, they will get their pants sued off. And they are right.

And birth is no exception. It used to be taken for granted that babies, and mothers, died in childbirth. And it was sad. With the advent of better hygeine and sanitation and pre-natal care, those numbers dropped drastically. And using surgery judiciously prevented women with placenta previa or transverse breech babies from bleeding out and dying. All those are good things. But still, with all of our technology today, reproduction is still a bit of a mystery.

Someone told me a long time ago that 30% of babies who are conceived are miscarried before the mother even knows she is pregnant. And another significant percentage are miscarried early in the pregnancy. All in all, I read that every woman who is sexually active and of childbearing age will have some sort of pregnancy loss in her lifetime, at least once. And THAT is WITH all of the good healthcare we have now.

Nevertheless, people believe that they deserve (are entitled to) a healthy baby. And if they can blame ANYONE other than themselves, for a result other than what they expect, they will. And somehow over the years (here I blame the lawyers), that "blame" has become associated with monetary damages. As if any amount of money can make up for a life lost, or damaged.

As I sit and write this, I am five weeks (plus or minus) away from giving birth to my second child. Doctors say he is a boy and apparently healthy. We pray that they are right.

And I am trying for a VBAC this time. And I have a doula to help me through some of my labor b/c while I have a great doctor, he only is going to be there for the last three minutes, not the rest, and I didn't go through labor the first time (breech baby that we knew about, scheduled C-section before I went into labor). She will be with me in labor, and at the hospital, until after the baby is born.

If something, heaven forbid, goes wrong, I know that I have a crack medical team standing by. And a husband and doula who have mine, and the baby's best interest at heart. And if the result of all of this is something other that what we expect, we will all want to blame someone. That is just human nature.

So, for now, not only do I have to trust God for the rest of this pregnancy, and this child, I will have to trust Him for the outcome. And we all know that doesn't stop with birth, eh? I have to trust God every minute of every day with my two year old (who is quickly learning to test the limits of his physical abilities). I need to learn, in the words of my obstetrician, to "stop trying to control everything." Because I will drive myself crazy otherwise.

Anyway, somehow this post morphed into a "Trusting God" post rather than a rant about the silly ban of doulas. Maybe that is shere it was supposed to go. Hmmm.

How do you know....

....the difference between Braxton-Hicks and "real" contractions?

Doula controversy?

After Motrin gate, you just knew there would have to be something else. So, now doulas are a big controversy. On the Today Show, TODAY no less, there was a bit about the 'problems' with doulas.

There was a part where they interviewed an OB at Reston Hospital, in Virginia. And she talked about the dangers to the mother when the doula gets "between" the patient and the doctor, sometimes making the patient 'question' the medical professionals. And so for "liabililty reasons" the hospital has banned doulas. (One does wonder what the trial lawyers and insurance companies have done to us....)

I was unable to find any information at the hospital site. (There is a weird link to a Denver hospital, but Reston is in Virginia, so that doesn't make sense. Anyway.)

There was a lot of emphasis on making sure that your doula has the right kind of 'training'. The implication was that if the doula was a labor and delivery nurse or a midwife, then probably she would be "ok", but if the doula just has the 'certification' from DONA, might be a little more suspect.

Wow.

There is so much here.

More tomorrow.