High-Low

With only one week to go until baby day, I had my final doctor's appointment today. I've also been helping Misterpie with the classroom all week and finding myself slower and slower, as I seem to be winding down. Perhaps work was keeping me going? Perhaps it's just that I'm getting that much more large and awkward and tired. Whatever the case, I'm feeling like there are certain things that I am really looking forward to about not being pregnant now that the end is in sight (though I still haven't quite wrapped my head around the baby part of this...).

Tonight at dinner, for example. I was eating a rather messy pasta dish - the type where you like to have your mouth as close to the edge of the table as possible. Which is not all that close when you have a massive watermelon of a belly between you and the table, and end of sort of hunching awkwardly over the bump, knowing that anything that drips will be landing smack on that belly, anyhow. Nice. Overall, it is just in the way. I can't tell you how often I have bumped, nudged, and scratched or scraped it. It will be nice to some day be able to bend over and pick something up, though it will take a bit to get there after recovery.

This final appointment and the impending end, though, have got me thinking a bit about this pregnancy and what I've liked about it, what I have not liked about it, and how it compared to the last one.

I was definitely more angst-filled from the start, knowing as now I do people who have had various surprises and challenges along the way, knowing how many women lose pregnancies, knowing more about the possibilities. I waited much longer to tell people because of this and the combination of a new workplace with new people who I didn't know as well. We also waited quite a long time to tell Pumpkinpie, until we knew that everything was as okay as we could know about and the sex of the baby.

I was sicker this time, too. Last time, I was able to keep it down to liveable with the application of crackers and arrowroot cookies, and by about week 12 or 13, it had disappeared nicely. This time, I cried uncle and took Diclectin until five months, when it slowly over a month or so became liveable and then faded away. So tougher on me for a while, tougher to try to keep going, as I prefer to do.

Of course, all those crackers translated into a fifteen-pound weight gain over the first trimester last time, helping me reach that 50-pound mark I hit by the end. This time, at this last weigh-in, I'm at 36 pounds. I was hoping for something in the 35-40-pound range, thinking it would be easier to take off and that I might even be able to push down below the weight I've been settled at for many years now if I follow the same daily walk routine that took off the 50 for me last time. We'll see.

I've also, since the nausea passed, had more energy this time around than last, and felt more capable of keeping on. Which is good, since I've been busier. Last time we bought a house and packed to move, waiting through a long closing and finally actually moving when Pumpkinpie was about three months. Which sounds a bit stupid and ambitious to me now, though I know tons of people who have done it. But I think this renovation business is going to look even stupider a year or two down the road, because it has been a major pain in the ass. Still, it's been good to feel more active and able this time, and I always love the sense of accomplishment that comes with these things.

For all that feeling healthier and more active, though, there has been more "watch your intake of..." warnings. Water retention started way earlier, but my being careful and limiting salt and making a point of drinking water seems to have worked, because while I was fighting it a little bit all along this time, last time I blew up in the last month with water, and this time, with one week to go, I still have ankles. Not totally slender ones, but not that swollen, either, most days. For all that, this time my feet have grown already, whereas last time, they waited until after Pumpkinpie was born, oddly enough. I'm hoping they are done, since at this point, I have some shoes I could keep, including my most beloved embroidered Fluevog Mary Janes.

My sleeping habits have been way weirder. I blame this partly on having to share our bedroom with the living room, since often enough, we have fallen asleep in front of the television, waking to the endless loop of news or something decidedly weird populating the airwaves in the middle of the night. I also put some of the blame on blogging, since once I'm up, I am not tired enough to go right back to bed, but instead find myself up for two hours reading, commenting, and so on. Like, er, right now... However, while my hips atill grow uncomfy with one position for two long, while I still deeply miss sleeping on my back, I may be slightly more comfy in bed, since I seem to be making do with only one body pillow this time. Which I'm sure Misterpie appreciates, since last time he was basically clinging to the edge with his fingernails. The cramped conditions in our bedroom, though, are making getting out of bed at this point way harder, so I totally can't wait for the furniture move - should be this weekend? Please?

It has been a bit smoother this time, too, in that I haven't had any scares. Last time I had a bleed at one point, and fell down my ice-coated front stairs, literally flying through the air and landing on my back on a frosty February morning. I'm happy to have avoided those, though I am on high alert for signs of a fever with this listeriosis business. You see, it can show up anywhere from 3 to 90 days after eating the product, but apparently, as long as I show no signs, The Bun is okay, too. So I am to take my temperature every day and monitor myself. At this point, I suppose if I do start to show some sign of illness, they could remove Bun in a hurry, as we are into full-term here. Not what I want, but good to know.

This baby, too, is making things different. He is way more active and squirmy that Pumpkinpie ever was. Pumpkinpie would stretch in a leisurely fashion, a large, unidentifiable bump morphing my tummy to one side or the other - always the sides - and then receding a few minutes later. This one has been a mover and shaker, with smaller knee- or elbow-shaped bumps moving and shifting as well as pushing outwards or into my body in all different directions. Pumpkinpie never took my breath away by stretching up into my ribcage as The Bun does. It scares me, this greater level of activity, but is also oddly fascinating, as I watch the surface of my belly heaving and rippling over this creature more intent on making his presence known. Int he same vein, Pumpkinpie never had hiccups. I had heard about this from a friend of a friend, but only when Bun hit about 7 months or so did I feel that strange, rhythmic bumping that felt as if I had minor hiccups myself. It's making me laugh, the hiccuping.

I am, in many ways, less prepared for this baby. Work and house stuff and classroom setup have conspired to keep me from my checklist. I have bought way less, having some left over, but really need to get to he business of sitting down and figuring out what I have and where the gaps are, and then filling those. I guess I can be more relaxed, knowing I am pretty sure to have at least the basics. I am, in fact, far more relaxed now, thought the house is not finished, just knowing that there is now a room for the baby that is not finished and perfect, but has a ceiling, paint, and curtains, and is now clean and dust-free. So in a pinch, I could send Misterpie out on a few errands and have a place to sleep with the baby for now, until things get settled.

I think the fact that I am not totally prepared is part of being, in general, more relaxed, more experienced, more prepared, even though it feels like I am less prepared. I have not, for example, cracked a book this pregnancy. I've looked up one or two specific things online or in one book, but have not consumed information in quantities or agonized over any of it. Part of which may come down to being too busy, but I think I have, in some says, more trust, even as I worried abut some things more. The things I have been careful to prepare about are mostly things that might help make this a bit easier, I hope. Things like a cosleeper, a sling, and comfier nursing bras, all of which I hope work out to make this just a little bit less tough in the first six months or so. Things like a nice new nightie and slippers to make me feel just a little more human and comfy, too - small luxuries can make a big difference some days.

My preparations have centered as much around Pumpkinpie as myself, too. I have taken care to prepare her for her stay at her grandparents, to talk about what babies are like so her expectations might be more realistic, to ensure she has some fun new goodies to take with her for her stay, to buy her a baby doll of her own so that she can mother alongside me, as she tends to do with her doggie babies already. I have taken care not to put too much emphasis on doing things because she's "big" now, hoping to avoid some of the regression that is common among new siblings and not wanting to push her too hard on that point just now, with both the baby and the start of school coming. She has big changes ahead, and both are going to call for big-girl behaviour, but I am trying to hard to focus on the behaviour, not on her being big, so that she doesn't just decide that being big isn't worth it. I will already have one baby on my hands...

With all that, even though in many ways I feel like this pregnancy has been in many ways a better experience for me, it has certainly had it's rougher patches, too, and I can't say I'm sorry I wont' be doing this again. Instead, I am finding that I am trying to get mentally ready to not be able to accomplish anything for the next few months except for getting through the next few months, and moving into the rest of forever, with this final look back. Knowing it can be a rough, tired road, I'm glad Misterpie will be at a closer school, glad Pumpkinpie is in a daycare she loves with good friends, glad I have all of you, so I may be a little less alone in my days and my complaints.

I think I might just be ready by next Friday. Or close enough.

Weekend Update

So things are carrying along. We are getting closer and it seems like it might wrap up. Wanna peek?
Yes, the room still needs windows (today!), french doors, paint (Wednesday!), trim, electrical fittings and light fixtures, a railing, speakers embedded in the ceiling, a bit more scrubbing on the brick, and finishing touches like cleanup, furniture, curtains, and mirror ball installation, but we have come a long way in the last few weeks. It is shaping up, alright.

Meanwhile, the rest of the house is an embarrassing shambles because of the dust and the fact that there is literally not one closet in the house that hasn't been ripped up, blocked in, or removed in all of this, so my clothing storage looks roughly like this:

le sigh.

Still, the baby room and living room are also now plastered and just need paint and furniture arranging. I bought curtains and rods for the third floor and baby room this weekend. Hurray for Ikea - I even had meatballs! We have to go back later this week to buy the bed for the baby room and are committed to taking Pumpkinpie, who missed out on the ball crawl action for going too late in the evening, but who we did discover is now officially tall enough to try it out next visit. She is way excited.

Of course, she is also excited about this hideous lamp that she deemed beautiful and I thought was beyond awful and refused to buy her, poor put-upon child:


Does Tink look a little demonic, or is it me? Perhaps it's all that fairy dust she's been inhaling?

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This morning we had a chimney sweep in so we can get our fireplace ready to use this winter. I suppose they aren't really called chimney sweeps any more, but somehow it just sounds so hilariously, deliciously Victorian to have a chimney sweep, and even though they do use nice new technology like a vacuum (thank god), their other main tools remain those odd, long-handled brushes. So it looks like it needs a little repair around the damper, but otherwise we are off to the races on having a fire to sit around this winter. Cheery! May have to have some of you closer girls over for wine around the fire once the weather turns good and wintry, then. Like apres-ski with the ski part.

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May I say here how awesome people are, too? Not only a few of you bloggirls, but also a neighbour and a friend have all offered to hang out with me in the hospital while I get prepped until Misterpie arrives. So nice. So appreciated! I actually asked my friend Sportypie because not only have I known her for so long I don't really mind her being about while they run lines into me, but she also works in a hospital doing patient care, so she is fine and comfortable with that stuff. She's a good lady, that one. She's even offered to provide the sushi platter for the next night. Can't beat a friend like that!

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And finally, because life does not contain enough stress of our own making, I am getting outside help. There is a listeriosis outbreak in Ontario right now, stemming from a meat plant that provides sliced meats in packages, but also to deli counters and restaurants. I have, in fact, eaten sliced turkey breast and sliced ham in the last month from our grocery's deli counter. Yay. And listeriosis? Is that bacteria responsible for us preggy ladies not eating unpasteurized cheese and runny eggs and so on. Because it's a nasty one, resulting in miscarriages, stillbirths, or critically ill babies. Delightful! So now I'm spending part of today calling around trying to figure out whether it might have come from that company or not, and whether my doctor would recommend doing anything about this. Meanwhile, I'm biting my nails and making myself crazy tracking baby movement. Making me glad this guy's a mover, but still, does not assure health. Gah! With less than two weeks to go, not needing to worry about losing the little Bun, thanks.

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It'll all be over soon enough, everyone, and then I will have new topics to ramble on incessantly about instead of boring you with my renovation woes. New topics like the joys of baby poop and sleepless nights. Oh god, I'm really doing this, aren't I?

Laughable Quotes

Pumpkinpie has been picking up some knowledge about pirates at daycare and from the other kids lately. So what has she learned? Well, pirate wear apparently includes pirate suits and pirate hats. And, of course, there is pirate talk -

"argh, matey"

And our current favourite mis-quote, so funny we havent' bothered to tell her what the real words are:

"Shimmery Timbits."

(Which may fall flat with my US friends - timbits are what our biggest donut store chain calls donut holes.)

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She is also into mini-wheats for breakfast these days and has declared strawberry mini-wheats "yummier than ice cream sundaes." Which is pretty big talk for someone who lights up over sprinkles.

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The adult turns of phrase these days are cracking me up, especially in her small, sweet voice. It seems like her language has taken a sudden leap in maturity, somehow, and it is also often accompanied by a gesture, look, or head tilt that only make it more comical.

Msterpie to Pumkinpie: What would you like for dinner tonight, sweetie?

Pumpkinpie replies: What were you thinking?

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Leave My Daughter Out Of It

I swore, I wasn't going to pass on my stuff to my child. I don't mean art and furniture and jewelry and whatnots, I mean my weird little fears and neuroses. The stuff that makes you crazy. That stuff. There is plenty of time and opportunity for her to develop her own issues, thankyouverymuch.

So I was matter of fact about vaccinations, not making any big deal out of them, never suggesting that there would be anything to worry about, just having it be part of the routine of going to see our lovely doctor. I never mentioned the words fear or hurt, because why would I unless there was something to fear or hurt involved? I explained that the nurse was going to put medicine in her arma nd what it was for. When we got flu shots, I went first and made a stringent point of not showing anything, though I had been a needle-phobe of long standing. we thank the nurses after needles, and so get hot chocolate to celebrate. So far, so good. The nurses are always delighted at a child who shows no fear, barely flinches, never cries, and thanks them.

Likewise with spiders. I have made a point of not talking about them. I have made a point of not pointing them out or flinching. I will resolutely ignore a spider in the room and calmly do away with it. (Yes calmly - I am pretty accustomed to killing my own spiders, actually, unless I simply can't reach them.) Last summer, I saw her getting ready to flip her hoodie on, when she noticed something on it as it lay on the floor. She was ushering it off of her hood, flicking at it with her finger and saying, "Shoo! Shoo!" It was a spider. She didn't seem freaked out at all. I stepped on it, but said nothing more than that they did not belong in the house. So far, so good.

Until just the other night.

3 am. Pumpkinpie comes down the hall, crying, climbs into our bed. There is a spider in her bed, "next to her Groovy Girl." Despite our usual policy, we are too tired to deal and leave her in our bed for a bit.

3:30 am. She will not stop talking and thrashing. Misterpie goes spider hunting so she can return to her own bed. He finds nothing, but tells her the spider is now dead and in the garbage and there is nothing to worry about, tucks her back in.

3:45 am. More footsteps, more crying. Bad dreams or spider worries or something. No sleep is being had. We again let her try to sleep between us.

4:15 am. No dice. Kid tried for a while, but just can't be quiet or stop moving. Back to her own bed again.

4:30 am. Footsteps and crying again. Argh. She crawls back in the middle. More thrashing. More talking.

5:00 am. She finally kicks me right in the belly. Last straw. Misterpie takes her to her own room again. She goes hysterical. Neighbours are probably dialing 911. He is growling at her to stay in her bed. Everyone is too tired to deal well with any of this, so I wander down the hall to listen to what is happening from outside her door and go to the bathroom. Soon, it's quiet.

8:00 am. I wake. I should be out the door for work right now. The drywall guy should be at the door right now. Pumpkinpie should be waking to get ready for a field trip right now. It's quiet and dark. Misterpie is not in bed. I sneak into pumpkinpie's room, spot him curled up in the story chair sleeping, her sprawled on her bed, covers thrown aside. I whisper his name, he comes out, and we decide that she should get up and go on the trip, risking meltdown, as otherwise, meltdown is assured when she misses it.

8:20 am. She is dressed in record time - I did all the laundry this weekend, so choosing clothes is easy, for once. I dress quickly while Misterpie feeds her.

8:40 am. We let in the drywall fellow and Misterpie drives me to the subway and Pumpkinpie to daycare. I ask him to call work and let them know I'll be late, dash down the stairs to the platform, sink into the subway seat, and let out a sigh of relief.

Sometimes, maybe twice a year, we have a week or two of bad nights. I think we were all slightly tense about that possibility. Before bed, Misterpie and I had a strategy session about how to handle it if she woke again. I said I would go sleep in her bed with her, where she slept more soundly, surrounded by her doggies and in her own space. Before that, at dinner, Pumpkinpie asked, "What if I have a bad dream again?" I told her, my tone light, that that was last night's dream, and now it was done with, and she would have a new dream tonight. Would she like to dream about puppies? Maybe unicorns? No, she thought maybe no dream. Fine with me.

She seemed unsure about whether it had been a dream or reality, though, telling me that she had felt the spider on her neck and it had woken her. I picked up a lock of her hair, joked that it was probably her hair tickling her, wiggling it under her chin. No, she was sure it was real.

All I can say is spiders, just because I am too busy to notice you, it doesn't mean you should go after my child to get my attention! Buggers.

Fortunately, to everyone's relief, she passed the night asleep.

Go Jump In The Pools

So I'm taking bets now. Pick your positions:

- I will / will not hold out on dropping this kid until the scheduled date.

- I will / will not get the third floor all done by the end of next week.

- I will / will not get the baby's room done to at least basic satisfaction, and stuff sorted out and put away for him.

- We will / will not get a name chosen before The Bun appears.

- I will / will not forget something major that we need for the baby.

- Pumpkinpie will / will not settle into kindergarten with relative ease so I can go off and have a baby relatively free of stress.

- I will / will not get the third floor mostly settled - at least furnished and roughly ordered - before The Bun arrives.

- I will / will not have time to see anyone before The Bun shows up. (Misterpie wants to stage a series of barbecues. ?!?)

- I will / will not get slightly hung up on choosing paint colours now that Misterpie has suggested we should, in the interest of expediency, just buy paint instead of trying to figure out if the cans in the basement are okay, meaning options are WIDE open.

- I will / will not get any relaxing in before I am launched into the not-so-relaxing territory of dealing with a newborn.

- I will / will not at some point come to full realization that I actually have a baby on the way. (This is only even beginning to dawn on me, actually, like just this last day or so.)

Put down your markers, bloggers. I'll fill you in on results as they come in.

Something Works!

So I went to see the OB last week (and I am going to write more about doctors soon, but another day, when I have time and brainpower) to check in with her and about scheduling my baby removal date. She is lovely (but that for another time). And! The best thing of all! In a summer of slipping timelines and growing add-ons and all the rest, we managed to get something scheduled for the absolute perfect time. Like, the time we had said would be ideal, and floated to her as "if there is any way...," fully expecting that there would not be. So good. The only thing that is not perfect about it is that Misterpie will be at school until 3:30, and I am booked for 4, but have to be at the hospiutal for two hours of prep beforehand, so I will have to sit alone and wait anxiously for him to show up while they do all that pokey, probey medical stuff to me, like IVs and catheters and needles and whatnot. God, I hate that stuff (well, doesn't everyone?). They always take several tries on the IV, so I think I'm going to have to be a bit pushier about getting their best nurse in for it right off the bat. And I guess I will need a book to read. Maybe some sudoku. Hey, anyone around that afternoon with nothing better to do than sit in a hospital with me until Misterpie arrives?

And she can do my tubal at the same time. But do you know, she told me how they do it, removing them to the outside, tying them in a loop, then cauterizing the ends to seal them, basically doing everything in their power to destroy their function as tunnels of conveyance, and they still have failures? I knew that if they just tied them or just snipped them, there were some times when they body healed itself, and I knew that vasectomies had some failure rates, but wow, is mother nature ever one determined bitch! It is, at least, a rate somewhere between 3 in 1,000 and 1 in 100, so I have good odds, but she did note that if I ever feel like I might be pregnant...

Afterwards, I told Misterpie that while he was off the hook for now (and that his testicles could thank me later for not having a scalpel and an ice pack in their future), if there was failure, he'd be next up to bat. And that as a thanks, I'd accept jewels for sparing his jewels.

So anyhow, if the next two weeks come together and The Bun stays put where he belongs for the interim, this will all happen. Keeping my fingers crossed (though typing is awkward this way) - won't you join me on that?

BUT - not everything.

With all the pounding on the third floor... guess what? The ceiling in the baby room, an old plaster ceiling of dubious stability anyhow, but holding steady up til now, began to crack. And bulge. And crack more deeply and hang in an ominous fashion. So we finished emptying out the room of all of its contents (and this was the office/library/everything else room, so lots of contents), and today, Misterpie went in and brought down the ceiling so it can be drywalled along with the third floor and the duct run on the first floor.

We had had a pretty successful dust containment system going up until today, but now the entire second floor is coated with a fine layer of grit. By the time the drywall people get to the sanding stage, the wall in the first floor should accomplish the same thing down there. Meaning that my entire fucking house will be covered in dust and crap. All books. All clothes. All furniture and carpets and surfaces. I am so completely unimpressed.

Anybody have a spare bedroom?

More Randomness Than Anyone Could Bear, Oh

Okay, Spiders, that was a new low. I was packing up boxes and moving things around, and when I started moving shoeboxes around in a pile to make them fit together better? A large one ran out and made full use of the uneven staircase of boxes to hide where I would have trouble whacking him with a book. (Thank you Misterpie, for not being too squeamish to squish him with your bare fingers! *shudder*) Seriously. The shoes? Is nothing sacred?

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Our third floor - the one you may have heard something (endlessly, sorry, will be done soon) about? Has insulation! I know, it's just one step and we still have a lot of work to do and only two weeks to get it done, but it's amazing how much more room-like it looks up there. Something about the difference between dark rafters with dark gaps between them and having now a light-coloured filler makes it look like there are actual walls and light can bounce around a bit. And then today, the roofers came and finished that, and drywall has arrived in the house! Not on the walls yet, but one can't have everything, I am learning. We still need drywall installers, painters, flooring guys, and window installers, as well as Misterpie getting the door in some time soon, the two of us getting the rest of the old flooring ripped up before the flooring guys come and finishing off the wall. But still, progress! I also spent a bunch of time packing in the middle room (of the second floor - future baby room) this week and will continue through the weekend so it can be ready for drywallers to make a mess in and for moving upstairs as soon as we can. Boy, I hope we have some good friends we can line up for moving...

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Oh, and I am becoming one cranky pregnant lady these days but seriously, must everyone ask if it's my first, when I am due, and if I know what it is? (Um, a baby? Human, I hope?) And to top it off, can people please stop asking me if I'm sure it's just one? I know it's a big ole belly I'm packin' here, really, I do. I feel it by the end of every day. And the fact is that having gained 29 pounds at the end of 34 weeks, I don't think I'm doing that badly, really. It's just, er, prominent is all. So yes, it's just one, it's big, I know these things, but pointing out the magnitude of my girth isn't helping me here, okay? I already know I could pass for a small sea-faring vessel and should maybe be sporting some red and green lights on my posterior. Sheesh.

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Turns out it's pretty darn funny to hear your husband being catty about somebody's overly tight pants...
Misterpie: Um, Home Depot called? They want their paint back.
Trust him to work Home Depot into it somehow.

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It must be nice to live in my mother's world, where by simply denying something or arguing about it, you think you can actually change reality...

Mother of 'Pie: Well, I'll be home Saturday, so you could come by...
Kittenpie: I have to work Saturday.
MoP: No! No, you don't!
KP: Um, yeah, I do...
MoP: No-oh! No, you don't!
KP: I really do. I have another week after that to go, in fact.
MoP: Ach. Well. [changes subject]

It's just a cruel myth that people become their mothers, right?

A, B, C-Section

A while back, Joy asked us to tell her friend about why a c-section was not the end of the world, for the poor woman had been told it was a high possibility for her and was already feeling both scared of the dreaded c and robbed of her perfect childbirth experience as she had imagined and visualized it. In a stunning example of bloggy love and support, some 99 people left her messages. (Gotta love the bloggers, really.)

My first response was to tell her that it was not so bad. The recovery was not awful, no worse than some women I had known with serious cuts or tears, really. In cases where it's safer for both mother and child, my pragmatic self doesn't have a big problem with it, in fact - like in my case, where Pumpkinpie was not coming out. I wanted to tell her she was not alone in going that route, and that it wasn't so scary as all that, it would be okay, though I understood a bit about how loaded it was.

And then I thought about it some more. I started thinking about all the guilt and shame and helplessness associated with it now. About how I always feel like I have to point out that my first c was an emergency, and not a case of "too posh to push." That I always feel now like I have to justify my decision to have a second c rather than trying a vbac. I started to feel a bit angry about this. Don't we women these days have enough guilt heaped on us over every minute aspect of the business of birthing and raising children? Really?

I started thinking about c section rates and the history of birthing and of sections and about fistulas and about all the ways in which women are made to feel bad today about something that is not entirely new, and I thought of those historical references to c-sections [remember in Macbeth, how MacDuff was "untimely ripped from his mother's womb?"] and about how women used to just die when things went wrong. I thought about how much I would rather have a c-section than a dead baby or a dead self. About how humans have had troubles in birth for millennia because of our larger brain capacity and head, and about how many, many, women and children have died over the years. And about how now that we are not dying in the same numbers, we are being made to feel guilty instead, and how very very unfair it is to lay this on our own doorsteps.


That was a lot of stuff jumbled in there - so it is with my brain. Let me back up and give you a tiny bit of background first on the history of the c-section, gleaned from a few sources, but summarized nicely and most extensively in this work written to accompany an exhibition on the history of the cesarean section at the National Library of Medicine (phrasing my own, but information drawn from that source).

Sections were, in early days (and I am talking early here - ancient times and then following through the Middle Ages), a last resort to save a baby if it seemed it might lived and the mother was nearing death or already deceased. They became the rule for those circumstances under Caesar, when the Roman Empire wanted population. There are a few (very few) reported cases of women surviving these, but they are largely doubted. The only one that is given any credence at all is of a farmer who is said to have performed one on his wife - and the reasons given that may have allowed for success was his greater knowledge of anatomy due to his animal husbandry and the fact that they were not in a hospital, where infections were readily spread in those days without an understanding of germs. Still, it is doubted that she would have lived.

It was not until the 18th and 19th century that surgeons began to make some discoveries that would allow women a greater chance of survival. These revalations included the use of anaesthetic (reducing shock), the principles of antisepsis (greatly reducing the leading cause of death - infection), and a means of suturing internal organs (before which some women had bled to death internally following "surgery"). During this time of innovation and exploration, one doctor noted the operation being using successfully in Uganda by practitioners who used wine to cleanse the belly and their hands, as well as pinning the uterus closed until healing had taken place. Another doctor who made some great strides was a British army surgeon who was discovered upon "his" death to have been a woman.

Once these advances had taken place and the surgery was becoming safer, the so-called cesarean section became less of a last-ditch effort to save a living child from the body of a dying or dead mother and more of a replacement for the alternative solution, the killing and removing part-by-part of the baby to save the mother. In more and more cases now, both women and children were surviving, leading doctors to suggest that waiting until the mother or baby were in serious distress would in fact lower the chance of a successful outcome.

So yes, now cesareans were being performed earlier in hopes of improving outcomes and reducing maternal mortality, the newer focus in obstetrics. Following this, refinements in technique were made, including the lower transverse (bikini line) incision typically used now, which reduced chance of future uterine rupture. Even into the early 20th century, though, doctors in Britain would more likely opt for the destruction of the child over a cesarean section. It was in fact changes in living circumstances and a corresponding dramatic rise in Rickets disease and malformed pelvises that lead to a marked rise in c-sections before the 1930s saw improvements in food safety, particularly milk. Up to the 1940s, the operation was becoming more and more safe, with greater emphasis on saving both mothers and babies.

After this, when prenatal care and better nutrition reduced the initial risks of needing surgery, though, the rate did not decline, but continued to rise. The 1970s and 80s, though, saw the greatest rise, from 5% in 1970 to 24.7% in 1988, and a drop to 23.5% in 1990. Currently, rates are reported as roughly 1/4, not a significant change from 20 years ago. It is this rise that has prompted current criticism of the practice as overused. Part of the rise in surgeries, though, has to do with changing attitudes towards the unborn as ultrasounds and other tests have made the fetus "more of a person" and a more important factor in deciding when to choose surgical intervention, especially now that it is possible to detect early signs of distress.

The fact is that today, women's expectations of the birth experience are significantly different than those of even one hundred years ago. Today, we expect to emerge from the event healthy and living, with a healthy, living baby. We expect the experience to be a positive one in the end, whether we opt to dull the pain through anaesthetic or not. Though there are good reasons to question the high rate of surgerical intervention in recent times, it is also clear that the development of the operation has changed outcomes dramatically.

So. Outline of history laid down, back to me:


In other words, we, in current conditions, in developed countries, have now the luxury of worrying about the how children are birthed, with a positive end result (ie. living mother and child) more assured. Me, I will take "unnatural" over dead.


Even in situations where the mother doesn't die, results can be pretty horrifying. Have you heard of fistulas, for example? Women in Africa and other underdeveloped areas who have trouble delivering often have to wait until the child dies and shrinks within her until she can deliver it in this smaller form. Even worse for those women, the days of pushing before the baby dies can open a hole between the birth canal and either the urethera or the rectum, resulting in urine or feces dribbling out of her vagina and making her an outcast in her village. This would be a simple enough thing to fix with an operation, but we are talking about nations where that care is simply not readily available - if it were as simple as getting a surgery performed, the whole thing - the dead child and the life-changing fistula - could be avoided by a c-section. I'll take a live baby over the horrifying experience of having my child die within me any day. Need to gut me like a fish to make that happen? Carry on.

As I said to Joy's friend:

I just think we lose sight sometimes of the fact that this [complications in birthing, that is] is nothing new, nothing that humans haven't faced even in the absence of hospitals for eons. We just like to load stuff up with guilt now, whereas before, it was tough to make the dead mom feel bad. And can you imagine how the moms whose babies needed to die to come out must feel? Honestly, nature isn't kind to humans, because all the progress, all the evolution, has left us with brain cavities too big to deliver easily and naturally, so we have to just stop comparing ourselves to animals who whelp themselves alone in the wild without complications. We are a whole different creature, and it's in fact quite natural for us to have trouble in birthing.

I told her, too, that I'd be a worse woman for letting my baby die, that protecting her and myself made me a good mother, not an inadequate one. I believe that, absolutely. But the more I think of this, the more I think we are lacking in perspective when we heap ourselves with concerns over what we've missed, over whether or not we are doing what women "should be able" to do.

I'm not saying we shouldn't question what doctors want to do and why, to accept passively the upswing in medicalized births. I'm not saying we shouldn't seek to take back some control over our birthing experiences, or hope to do things in a way that seems more right or more natural to us. If that all works, so much the better. But it doesn't always work, and I'm glad we have other options.

What I am hoping that a longer view, a different perspective might help some people be easier on themselves, because mothers we are, no matter how we get there.

I've Got Questions

You know when they tell you that what you have in this jar is clover honey or buckwheat honey or orange blossom honey? How do they know? They can't follow all those bees and know they only touched clovers. There are lots of different kinds of blossoms in a small range. How do they know? Are they guessing? Oh - this one I actually asked someone about! And I'll share the answer with you in case you are curious now, too. He said that roughly speaking, different crops bloom at different times, so if a beekeeper changes out the frames in the hive at the right time, s/he will have a good sense that a particular lot of honey will be abiout 80% or so made up of that crop. So it's not completely surefire, but mostly. So now you know.

You know all those colour last names that are common English last names? Black, Brown, Green, White? Given that only White makes sense for the notoriously pasty British, how did all the others start? I mean, it's not like surnames like Baker or Smith, where you know where it came from. The origins of these baffle me.


If you use more gas going faster, but it means you are driving for less time... are you really using more gas or less? By the same token, if moving faster means you hit more raindrops, but also means you arrive home faster, are you going to be drier by running or walking? (Misterpie is sure they did this one on Mythbusters, actually, but they seem to have covered that one twice, with different results each time, from what I can find, so I'm still wondering.)

How about you? Any nagging wonders out there?

If Wishes Were Horses

I wish this weekend hadn't been so rainy - not just so I hadn't gotten so soaked, but also so we would have brought the camera with us and you could have seen an 8-months-pregnant woman clambering over fallen trees and mossy rocks in the wilderness. I'm betting it was a pretty ridiculous sight, between having no balance and the complete inability to bend in the middle. How do pregnant sasquatches ever manage?

I wish we had had a bit more time or slightly different timing so I could have perused more antique shops - we are hoping to find a large grate to cover an air return, and really don't want to fit some ugly, flimsy thing from Home Depot in there if we can find something older, more solid, and more fitting with the character of the house.

I wish this kid in my belly was not so intent on pushing his boundaries, because he is getting very uncomfortable! Not only the sudden shortness of breath or painful pressure out the side wall, but simply the way my skin is stretched so taut, my muscles so strained, that by the end of the day, my tummy just hurts to even brush lightly. Around my belly button, the skin takes on a slightly numbed but tingly quality that is especially creepy, and feel like I'm about to burst wide open. Eek. Still, I am not ready for him out, so we are holding in some sort of uneasy truce for now. I just hope I can hold off until Pumpkinpie has been in kindergarten for at least a couple of days.

I wish I didn't have this brutal pain in my pelvic bone, too. Have any of you had this?

I wish trades would stop sliding on the renovation - there is no room in our timeline for later! We are tight, tight, tight even without the movement. How this and the classroom will ever all come together, I just don't know. But what else do you do but try?

I wish the liquor stores weren't being so tight with their boxes so I could pack up the middle room and get it ready for moving upstairs, which would help and at least feel like something helpful I could do on the evenings when I manage to stay awake. I like my neighbours, so I can't go working on the wall at 10 p.m.

I wish the business of naming were easier. We are down to four now, having put one back on the list. In fact - here, help me out internet people - we put Pumpkinpie's top pick (which is the same, three months later!) back on, but we have a dilemma about it. She likes Max, which I think is cute, but we are struggling with a longer form, which I do think we need for the rhythm of the full name to work. Give me everything you've got that might work for a long version, won't you please? You never know, she might just get to pick yet. Four weeks or so to go.

Mostly, though, I wish I had time. Not just for the reno and the blah blah I know I can't stop talking about this stuff, but also because I would so love to have time to have a bunch of people over. I've wanted to have the group from my old library over, would love to have a blogger gathering, have a whole host of friends and neighbours and daycare parents I'd like to see before things get even crazier with a new babe in arms. Basically, before my life is completely taken over, I'd love to have time to be able to have a series of small last flings with people I like, but I just don't have the space in my brain and schedule, and it sucks. I will miss seeing them all, you all, have missed seeing them with being busy all summer, and it won't get better for a few months, at least, I'm guessing.

Yes, I'm preoccupied with the same few things and have little room in my brain for much else. What a delight I must be to be around these days... Oy.

The Screaming of the Lambs

Most days at the library are normal - quiet times, busier times, children in and out of the department over the course of the day in varying numbers. Normal days. We may have a programme or a class visit with a corresponding rush of people, and then the crowds dissipate and we have a small handful. Normal.

Some days are oddly quiet, with few children visiting. These days seem lnoger in some ways, but do allow for getting some other work done that slides at busier times.

And some days... Well, today, for example. Today is the Day of the Screams. We have had young children and babies screaming the most ear-splitting screams out of the blue. Screams that rattle your nerves, make your muscles all clench tight, and turn your brain to jelly. By the time one family departed, I was a wreck. They weren't the only ones, though. We've had screaming and crying and loud voices and running around and butting in virtually all day, or at least since about 10 a.m. I hate to appear annoyed, because in most cases, the caregivers are trying. Some kids are just screamers. Some others are not attempting to contain behaviours, true, but the ear-shattered screeches came from a toddler whose mother was on him, stopping him right away, until the next unpredictable outburst. So I'm not saying that the caregivers are always at fault here.

No, I'm saying I'm tired and strung out and clearly not cut out to handle this today. That it is an extraordinarily busy and loud day today, likely because the onimous weather is driving people indoors. That really, I just want to go home and bury my head in my pillow and admit no sound or light for a few hours. I think I might be starting to count down my days left at this point...

Down and Out in Riverdale

Around the corner and about a block down, I keep seeing her. Perhaps it's not a her, but something tells me it is, I'm not sure why. What I am sure of is that she has had a hard life, a life that has taught her about pain and hunger and abandonment, and most likely she has seen cruelty at times, too. She walks head hung, slowly, beaten down by this life she has led. She is thin and dirty, battered-looking, her fur scraggly and grey-brown where I suspect it should be white, her tail dragging low.

She looks at me warily as I watch her sadly, wondering what, if anything, I can do for her. I see her with Pumpkinpie at my side, and am hesitant to approach. I know that a creature with this history is not likely to be trusting, could easily lash out in fear or pain or anger. I don't know how to explain to Pumpkinpie in a way she will understand why I can't put out a hand in kindness to this poor crushed soul and expect it to be accepted with gratitude. Why the potential for her to react fiercely means I don't want to put my child in her path. I wrestle with this, wanting to show her kindness, wanting my child to see that example, and knowing that kindness is not always seen as such, that good intentions do not guarantee good outcomes to an interaction. I watch her, sadly, from a remove, as she eyes me and crosses the street in search of something. Shelter? Food? A quiet place to be left alone? Something I can't give her on my way by.

I think about how like this are some homeless people, too. Not the affable student-aged young man asking for coffee, or the native man who blesses everyone with a good day outside of our liquor store, but some people with longer, sadder stories, who wear their defeat in their eyes and postures, who have long since stopped trying to create a good impression in aid of their panhandling or newspaper-selling. People who, like this cat, have become matted and scraggly, who wander seemingly aimless, swallowed up in their own pain and distrust, as often as not pushed farther from others by the demons of mental illness or addiction. People who fight with themselves or retreat within. People who, like this cat, may well strike out in fear or anger.

I think how I smile and greet our familiar, friendly homeless people and try to explain to Pumpkinpie about how lucky we are to have a home and work and healthy bodies and brains that allow us to do that work. This much is easy enough.

But as I watch this cat turn her torn ear towards me as she puts space between us and I do nothing, I wonder. Could I, would I approach a person like that? How do I try to explain to Pumpkinpie the balance between letting such a person know that you see them as human, yet keeping your safe distance, in case they feel threatened or their internal monsters drive them to react with anger? How do I explain, how can I show her to have compassion, yet protect herself? How do I balance that myself?

I have no answer for this yet. Only a sad smile and words that are inadequate. So very inadequate.

It's a Spider-Eat-Spider World

So I have just run out of time and steam and headspace for keeping up this year's spider count, which stalled abruptly some time back. The dozens involved in the moving of rubble and bins with the renovation would have seen me lose count, anyhow.

Crazymumma noted in comments that BFF was lacking in a spider event, though I did have one in my shower on the Friday morning, so proximity was there, anyhow.

I'm still seeing spiders, I'm just not noting them down, is all. Except for this arachnoid real estate transaction...

The basement window beside the laundry has always been prime territory, particularly in the lower left corner. It gets more sun, and I suppose that translates into more bugs to eat, and it is always occupied by a large basement spider with the long limbs and nearly-clear colour of a cave-dweller. Occasionally, the spider will disappear for a while, and then reappear or perhaps be supplanted, I'm never sure which, as I do not take the time to tag my spider residents.

This basement location has always been a place of compromise for me - I don't kill those spiders, since I figure I only go down there a couple of times a week to do laundry, and I'd rather they stay there than attempt an excursion upstairs. So I watch them come and go out of the corner of my eye while I am there, instead.

And recently, I noted a rather gruesome changing of the spider in process as one spider sat in a sparse web. What was attached to it? Not attached. Being eaten. He was in the process of sucking dry the carcass of another spider, folded into a small bundle of jointed legs.

And you people wonder why they creep me out so.

Sweat

Some people prefer to sweat in a gym, chasing numbers on scales or barbells, uncovering sculpted muscles though hard work.

Some people run, counting off miles and achieving a high based a personal bests and endorphins.

Some dance, expressing a passion, aiming for form and grace, their sweat more a byproduct than a goal.

Some thrill to sports victories in the form of goals, best times, or high scores, sweat a part of the game.

Me, I prefer to sweat in pursuit of a tangible goal. Pounds don't motivate me. Repetitions bore me. The delight of ball swooshing past net is too rare and too fleeting to bring me back to try again. No, I prefer something I can step back and see, show off with pride as what I've accomplished with the sweat that comes as I swing my arms and mop my brow.

Me, I've been sweating in the heat this few weeks to bring down a different kind of opponent, chip away at a different kind of goal. A thousand repetitions of hammer meeting chisel, hours of sore muscles and sweat dripping in my eyes have brought me this far: