All right, but what does it do?

We're all five at home.

Baby C is still Mlle. Sleeps-A-Lot and Chebbles and Gigi vacillate between interest and shock.

Going home

When my annoyance with nursing staff interruptions surpasses the comfort the staff provides, that's a good indicator that it's time to go home.

I'm still in a fair amount of pain, but that will linger for a long time, nothing to be done but take pills and wait it out.

So Baby C and I are getting in our last solo snuggles, our last luxurious naps together, and a few more episodes of The Colbert Report before Hub-D arrives to carry at least one of us over the threshold.

Pain and squeezes

The night shift nurse just gave me another honking Motrin to help combat the rough pain that has started along my incision.

I guess it's part of the healing process -- I'm regaining sensation along the traumatized bits of my skin, and so it hurts. But between the Vicodin and the Motrin, I'm tackling it and feeling OK for now.

I keep starting work on a Health.com entry, but I don't know what to focus on. I think that the drugs are addling me a little bit, and it's hard to specify just one bit of my experience over the last five days here in order to make it readable and within 700 words.

Hub-D came by today. I told him that I think he's busier nowadays than Barack Obama. Although he has been working his tail off -- caring for our nutball/gorgeous older children, keeping the household in order, finishing up our taxes AND taking care of the business -- he told me that he thinks Obama might be even busier than he is. Yeah, but the president's daughters are older, and they probably don't misinform their father that they are indeed allowed to wear a swimsuit to school.

Baby C rewarded his hard work by giving him a long look in the eyes. She has such a sweet disposition, and it feels like a tremendous glow emanates from her when she stares up at us. We could be blinded by the yellow jaundice on her face (not to worry Baby C fans, her bilirubin levels are OK), but I think there is something in her soul there too.

Baby C has also been wearing the same T-shirt since the day she was born. When you're so cute you can get away with stuff like that.

And regarding the picture at the top of this post, part of the reason I love it is how Hub-D has posed with her. When we were first dating, I noticed that he is something of a champion picture poser, expressing sweet affection in an earnest way, just at the right moment. I loved that about pictures with him. He'd always be kissing me or holding me especially tight.

And now he does the same thing with our girls, giving them that wonderful picture squeeze. Lucky Baby C.

It does her body good

My milk came in. Like "Pamela Anderson" came in. I'm just so proud of my body!

Not only was the umbilical cord one of the thickest, healthiest ones they've seen, and the cord blood collection kit was fuller than ANY that Dr. W has filled in 21 years. But now my milk is coming in with a vengeance!

And Baby C is loving it. She is filling up after just 15-20 minutes of nursing -- there is suddenly so much creamy milk available to her -- like her own soda fountain of lactational goodness.

It was a disappointment to me that Gigi and I never really got off the ground with good nursing, but Baby C came out determined to make this thing work. She is certainly "barracuda"-ish and I've also decided to let my boobs kind of suffer through these first few weeks -- applying lanolin only seems to increase their sensitivity and prolong the process by which my boobs toughen up.

So it's back to "basic training" for them -- using my own milk as the only lotion and allowing the bloody blisters (sorry folks, but that's the reality) to heal on their own. Yes, of course it's painful, and YES the latch is great and YES we're alternating nursing positions and we know what we're doing around here -- it's just that anyone who tells you that nursing "shouldn't hurt" is a total liar.

After a few weeks, it won't hurt. But now my boobs are doing push-ups at 5am.

And it's so worth it. Look at how satisfied that baby is! As soon as all of this voluminous milk came in, she became a generally satiated, super-sleepy baby. She's had a touch of jaundice, and she's gotten down to 8 lbs. 11 oz. -- all normal. But I'm guessing that once she starts gulping down this massive quantity of mama milk, she'll start porking up quiet substantially!

And the economizing part of me thinks, "Hooray! We're going to save a bundle on formula!"

Planning

I'm not sure how the next few months are going to go, but I'm not scared. I'm not pregnant anymore, so I feel a lot more physically competent to take on the highly athletic task of taking care of three little kids. I'll need to keep Baby C safe and warm and fed, and well, the same thing for Chebbles and Gigi.

The task starts on Sunday morning -- my plan is to arrive home Saturday night after the "big girls" are tucked into bed, and then on Sunday morning we can start getting to know Baby C as a family member.

And plus, it's not like I'm doing this alone. I have Hub-D shouldering the heavy lifting, particularly when it comes to wearing out the kids in the trampoline or wrassling them into summertime tiredness. And I've got wonderful friends who are ready to take on one or two children, or some errands, in order to make things work.

I worry that I won't be able to hire a night nurse this time around, but the indications so far are that we don't have another Gigi on our hands -- she was a troublesome infant when it came to sleeping, and this one? Well, I'm holding out hope that we have a different model here. I'm also more experienced, which might account for something, right?

When I was pregnant (you know, back in the olden days), people would raise their eyebrows when they saw me, toting Gigi, and with Chebbles in tow. "You're going to be one busy mama!" they'd say, with a tinge of pity to their voices. But I don't think I need sympathy. This is my dream come true.

And I suppose that's a healthy outlook since I won't get much actual dreaming done for a few months here. If I got Chebbles and Gigi on a 7pm-7am sleep schedule, I sure as heck can do it again with Baby C -- not tomorrow, not by the end of the year, but sometime in early 2010, it might occur.

But I do think I need to make some sacrifices in order to make things work logistically. One of those things is my posting on this blog. I think I might be more occasional rather than daily for awhile, at least for the summer. I need to stay away from my computer -- nothing hugely important occurs over e-mail, but I sometimes check it obsessively when I feel like escaping my kids for a few minutes.

But I'll do better to just leave that alone, just separate myself and perhaps even keep the computer OFF during the daytime so I can focus on the many tasks at hand...

Speaking of which, Baby C would like some lovin'. Have a good night, all.

Chebbles + Baby C = Love

It was a big day for Baby C. Not only did she produce four impressive meconium poops (I'll spare you the photos I took of that), and my milk started coming in, but she got to meet her biggest sister CHEBBLES.





It really is remarkable how gentle and caring Chebbles is with babies, particularly her own. She's not into dolls, and repeatedly asks to be a baby herself, but when she is with a baby sister, she transforms into the most nurturing three-year-old I've ever met.




She gently stroked Baby C's feet and cheeks, and cradled her attentively. Of course we adults hovered over the scene, particularly careful of Baby C's big ole post-birth soft spot on her head -- irresistable to the hands of preschoolers.








Hub-D reports that Chebbles was kind of sad when she returned home, without her new baby sister.

Chebbles, the feeling is mutual. Baby C wants to know when she gets to be with you too.

Introducing...

Scrub-D!

"All right folks. Let's do this thing."

All is well, except the baby is swearing

I haven't been to this hospital's postpartum ward for exactly 15 months, and they have really spruced things up around here... they've even installed wifi! So I'm delighted to be able to post. As soon as I get my mitts on a USB cable, I can start posting even more pictures of our gorgeous new daughter.

(It helps ward off the narcotic-based delusions that still keep cropping up... like, uh, the singing flowers. They're not real. Right?)

As for my C-section: Hello! That was easy. I mean, compared to last time. It was still strange and unsettling, but the spinal block was MARVY compared to the cranked-up epidural of yore

Hub-D and I left the house at 5:45am. I drove us to the hospital, so excited to "get the show on the road." Plus, it was my last chance to drive for two weeks -- after a C-section, you're not allowed behind the wheel for a full two weeks.

After I got lost for a few minutes, and wigged out with excitement in the parking lot, we got into the hospital.

Then we had the worst part of our day: an annoying nurse who couldn't start my IV to save her life. I have the big purple bruises to prove it. She even tried inserting the IV right next to my tenolysis site on my left wrist (she'd never heard of tenolysis) and the pain was downright excruciating.

After crying hysterically for a few minutes, I let her try ONE MORE TIME and we finally got an IV working in the back of my left hand. Everything went great from there on out.

I WALKED into the operating room. Isn't that a hoot? I just strolled in, like, "Hey boys, anyone want to take this baby out of me?" They helped me climb my big pregnant belly onto the operating table, and I lay down on my side while the anesthesiologist numbed my back and inserted the spinal block medicine.

What a huge difference! It was like sitting in a hot tub, the warmth filled my lower extremities, and while I could feel pressure and general movement, I couldn't feel any pain. Then, someone turned on Frank Sinatra, and Dr. W got to work.

Hub-D sat next to me, the anesthesiologist sat behind me, and I didn't know what to think about. I felt a little bit mellowed by the spinal, and I just kind of counted the minutes until Baby C (TBFMA "Leafy") was in my arms. I just wanted to hear her cry.

It's just creepy, there's no way around that, to have two men messing around with your internal reproductive organs. But Dr. W and a mystery doctor who assisted him worked swiftly during this part of the procedure, and within seven minutes of the first cut, we were listening to Baby C's cry resonate through the operating room.

She was born HUNGRY, my friends, and hollering about it. And if I didn't have Gigi already, I would say that she had a lot of hair. She's just one big gigantic hunk of gorgeous, but I didn't get to scope her out for several more minutes -- while they suctioned her off and cleaned the chunks of gore out of her hair and ears. They weighed her -- 9 lbs., 5 oz. -- measured her -- 21" -- and wrapped her up so I could give her some smooches.

It must have been a cakewalk for her too, compared to her sisters' birth experiences. One minute she was taking a little snooze in utero, and the next minute, she's out, looking around for her pals, Boob #1 and Boob #2. "Where ARE you guys? HELLO! Hungry girl here!"

There were no 40 hours of contractions and slow passage out the birth canal as for Chebbles. There were no fevers, tachycardia, half-labor then -- PSYCH! -- emergency C-section as for Gigi.

It really was "Bada-Bing-Bada-Boom" and then we were in the recovery room, the three of us, falling in love with each other like crazy. (This was despite the presence of the annoying nurse, who -- thank heavens -- was replaced by a much more competent nurse in a crisp little green sweater who tsk-tsked when she saw my crappy IV and gave me some sound advice about caring for the baby.)

After a few hours of swooning together over the BEAUTY that is Baby C -- little flat seashell ears, deep-set eyes like Chebbles, pink complextion, ridiculously chubby cheeks and little swirls of dark hair around her head -- Hub-D headed home to relieve the babysitter.

Baby C and I just sat here and nursed. I'm willing to bet that's going to be my primary activity for the next four days: boobin' the C. She is a true champ at it. It makes my boobs want to *step up* to the task, rather than flapping around incompetently as they did at Gigi's newborn hunger. My boobs are behaving MUCH BETTER this time around.

I wonder why the boobs are snapping into action so much better, giving Baby C not just a milk moustache, but a milk BEARD? I'm inclined to believe it's something chemical between me and the baby, some kind of physiological compatibility. Because it was this easy with Chebbles too.

I don't agree with those who posit that my infection during labor with Gigi and the resultant isolation from each other and narcotic festival had anything to do with it. Because this whole pregnancy was different -- from 18 weeks onward, I was much less nauseated, and I even had spurts of real energy. (With Gigi, I was tired, sick and upset for pretty much the whole 9 months.)

Don't get me wrong, Gigi and I have found that we have very compatible personalities and we plan to be BFF's for the rest of our lives. It's just the whole "Gigi Being Dependent on Mama's Body For Sustenance" gig that didn't work out.

So I'm happy to report that it looks like Baby C and I have a good nursing career ahead of us.

I know it's too soon to tell what her personality will be, as she's feigning newborn fatigue (what could possibly make you tired, child? you didn't have to DO anything!) and has dropped a few ounces as she embarks on her quest to eat as much as humanly possible and catch up with her sisters -- but she's a remarkably mellow human being so far. She's charming, and she studied her daddy's face for a good long time yesterday, soaking in all of his glory -- and vice versa.

She's also already asked Daddy how SOON they can go to Disneyland AND she somehow picked up the word "bullshit" from someone (they've got to watch their mouths around here), and she's throwing it around left and right, as in:

"What? You have to stick my heel for another blood sugar test? This is bullshit!"

Or, "Why do you have to remove me from my mother's breast??? Because she has to go to the bathroom? Bullshit, people!"

I'm going to try to catch some Z's now while she's sleeping in her little plastic rolling bassinet.

Good girl. Good times. All is well.

Leafy's debut and life at the house of Mama

Hi all...Z's mama here! I wanted you all to know that I spoke to shakenmama today and all is well in the land of Leaf. She is a champion nurser and I got to hear her demonstrate the strength of her lungs over the phone. Her mama is resting comfortably and enjoying her meals in bed.

Many thanks to Mr. Shakenmama, who took a moment between visiting with his new daughter and taking his two elder ones to the park to send along the following photos of Leaf's first hours in the world. I knew that you all would want to see them! Needless to say, she is absolutely beautiful and she looks like her sisters.

Mama is spending lots of time pondering her new addition...

...and Daddy is loving the newest guest at their "my little pony party"

In other news, all is well at the house. Z and I stopped by to visit the girls and we all had a birthday party for the new baby, complete with the cupcakes that Z insisted we make this morning for the occasion. Everyone is in great spirits and Z and the Chebs were very happy to share the news of "their" new sister:

Welcome, Leafy!

Stella Haven here, with the honor of announcing the entrance of Leafy into this world at 8:37 a.m. today, weighing in at 9 pounds, 5 ounces, and stretching 21 inches long.

Shaken Mama says she is just beautiful, and pix will follow.

Meanwhile, Chebs delivered an inspired impromptu ballet recital after breakfast, smartly attired in a pink dress and sequined tutu. Asked what names she preferred for her new baby sister, she offered, "Christmas," "Stroller" and "Grassline."

We're off

It's another terrific morning, the birds are singing their heads off. Hub-D is eating breakfast (I'm not allowed to eat or drink until postpartum), then we're out the door.

Could I sleep? No! We're beside ourselves.

1

It's a beautiful day. The weather, after two days of mysterious cold winds, is sunny and perfect. Hub-D pushes Gigi and Chebbles on the swings and I finish my lukewarm breakfast tea, wearing my long nightgown for the last time in a long time.

I'm auxiliary to this scene. Both girls are focused on Daddy and laughing out loud.

I can go now. I can leave for five days and undergo the surgery that will result in the birth of our third daughter, the safest passage we can create for her.

I'm running the dishwasher -- one last time. I'm running a load of diapers -- one last time. I'll be back by Saturday night, but it feels like an eternity, never having been away that long. And we'll be different when I'm home again. There will be five of us.

2

I finished the "Twilight" series! Now, the baby can be born. And not be named Bella. What a RELIEF to dispatch that feisty set of vampires from my life, and just in time.

Hub-D asked me today what he could do to stop my constant complaining. "Get this baby out of me," I said. And in that moment, I think he was wondering how he might actually be able to do that -- right away -- in order to put an end to the preggo whine festival happening in our house.

He then whisked both of our children off to the Oakland Zoo. All hail Hub-D!

Our children continue to be fabulously behaved. They self-entertain so well. Chebbles threw a HUGE sleepover party for a lot of imaginary friends in the family room today. She kept cautioning the attendees NOT to get so excited, because the party wasn't happening just yet, but apparently the attendees were beside themselves with anticipation. She laid out a bunch of "beds" and apparently everyone had a really good time.

Gigi is also amazing at entertaining herself, which I think is remarkable for a child of 14 months. She'd always rather be involved in a group activity of some kind -- jumping on the trampoline with other people, or swinging on the swingset with her sister -- but if there is nothing going on, she redirects herself to another activity, one that usually results in a lot of sand in her diaper or dirt on her pants, but I'm so grateful for her ability to do that. She goes through clingy phases when she's ill, or cutting a tooth, but in general, she's got her own set of projects going on.

I'm going to miss these kids when I'm in the hospital, just 38 hours from now, but I've started to focus pretty hard on Leaf.

She's coming.

We can't wait.

3

You may have noticed that Stella's profile is now linked to this blog, as is Z's mama. They are the ones in charge of updating everyone while Leaf and I are in the hospital.

Chebbles gave me a bunch of pieces of paper with random letters written on them yesterday. "This will tell you how to take care of the baby," she said as she carefully handed them to me. Then she read each one to me individually. "This one says, 'Give the baby two cups of milk,'" and "This one says, 'Put a blanket on her so she is warm,'" etc. etc.

I know it's primarily a heartwarming gesture, but something about her lack of confidence in my ability to remember these details makes me wonder just how neglected she and Gigi have been throughout this pregnancy.

(This photo is a Chebbles original drawing. From the first time she put pen to paper, it's all been Miro.)

4

I vacillate between feeling unusually calm about the imminent birth of this baby, and wracked with desperation to finish the 1200 things that I'd like to wrap up before she arrives.

To that end, my last pre-baby Health.com post is now ready for your enjoyment. It's the one about skin and pregnancy.

Anyway, I confess that my patience level is at an all-time low. I'm still able to muster patience with my hilariously beautiful children, who are obedient, clever, and getting along wonderfully. But everyone else? Screw off!

I'm slightly sad about not giving birth spontaneously this time around. It doesn't seem fair, evicting Leaf two weeks earlier than Chebbles and Gigi were born. But would it be more "fair" to risk uterine rupture with a 41-week VBAC instead? And my head will certainly rupture well before that point anyway.

AND we might have a name for this child. For a long time, we were going to name her "Margaret" (with "Gretchen" as a nickname) but it just didn't stick. It felt somehow not exactly right for her. It could still happen, the Margaret option, but it's a dark horse candidate at this point. We've been erasing names from our list on the refrigerator, and one name (not Margaret) has outlasted the rest -- it keeps resonating. Even Chebbles has conceded that it's the least "plain" name on the list.

I got our oil changed today, and our wheel covers installed, so Leafy isn't driven home in a smoke-spewing hoopdee. But I still haven't managed to set up the bassinette, or the swings and bouncy chair, and I haven't chosen a location for the stack of pink Bumgenius 3.0's I bought for The Leaf. It's still a mystery as to where this child will sleep.

I do wonder if there is any sort of ritual I could perform to ensure that the new baby's a better sleeper than Gigi was. The first six months of Jeege-sleep was H-E-L-L, because she would nap for just 20 minute spells during the day, then stay up all night hollering and making our lives hellish.

In retrospect, I wonder if it was all something digestive with Gigi. Now that I know how much goat milk calms her down, and how dairy makes her intestines do the lambada... perhaps I could have done something different with her that would have made her a calmer baby?

What am I talking about? No way. The kid was just hyper-alert from the moment she was born, and it took her longer to have the "long sleep" neurological mechanism kick in.

Let's just say a prayer together that we have more of a Chebbles model brewing here, and less of a Gigi Parade of Sleeplessness ahead.

5

My phone has just stopped ringing, ever since we blocked our neighbor's calls. I hadn't realized how much of a pest she'd become, and how reluctant I was to ever get up and get the phone -- so many times it was her.

Living large, lumbering around, feeling generally discontented but enjoying these last few days with my children, before I'll be at the hospital, meeting their little sister!

6

Why do so many people keep saying that I'm going to have this baby before Tuesday? Perhaps it's wishful thinking on their parts -- no one wants to deal with the gargantuan bitchy pregnant woman anymore.

I had my pre-op appointment with Dr. W. today. It might be the last time I drive up to his office pregnant, and I cried joyful tears as I parked the car.

This was an especially momentous occasion because I have driven up to his office about 1,500 times in the last two years, almost always pregnant. So many times I have pulled up into that little parking lot and said a prayer or a reassurance or "what the HELL?" to myself before opening the car door and trudging upstairs to his office.

So many times I had discovered blood in my underpants or on toilet paper at home, and his staff were always ready, once I'd arrived at the office, to escort me quickly to the exam room and set up the ultrasound machine. Only one time was I diagnosed with an actual miscarriage, and I'm scheduled to give birth to that "miscarriage" in six short days, so I have come to believe that Dr. W.'s office is somehow charmed.



In other news, Gigi and Chebbles have reached all new heights of playing together and enjoying each other. I can leave them alone together and they will inevitably end up laughing about something -- usually something naughty -- until I come and break up the party.

I wonder if they've developed a solidarity due to my short temper. Each morning, it seems like I wake up with a finite amount of patience, and if that gets used up before bedtime, watch out. Hub-D gently suggested to me this morning that Gigi's crying was accelerating because I was reacting so negatively to it.

"What NOW? JESUS, Gigi! What in the HELL!???" -- apparently these are not the most effective ways to calm a frightened, injured, and/or generally pissed off baby. He posited a theory that if I were to react to her cries with calm reassurance, I might experience a more favorable result in my relationship with her.

Yeah, whatever. SHE STARTED IT!

When do I get my Vicodin?

Oh oh, and in other news, I just finished hosing off the entire play structure, which Gigi had managed to cover in feces.

I had just bathed her and Chebbles (a feat unto itself for a woman with 50 pounds of pregnancy preventing her from bending down), and I got the sleeves of her PJ's on, and her diaper, when she darted out the back door for a few more minutes of emergency playtime.

Faster than a vampire in the "Twilight" series, she ripped off her diaper, skedaddled to the top of ladder, entered the clubhouse and crapped all over it. From the top of the slide to the far corners: poop-mania. Too amused to be angry, I re-bathed The Jeege and tucked her into bed. Then I snuggled down with The Chebs and got her off to sleep.

After both girls were snoozing, I attacked the play structure with the hose, squirting at the poop mercilessly, much to the chagrin of the dozens of flies which had taken up residence on the Gigi-Poop-Buffet.

Thank goodness I'm not hosting playgroup tomorrow, as originally planned. AND thank goodness we're allowed to water our lawns on Thursday mornings in my neighborhood (water conservation measures), otherwise I'd have a hard time explaining the sudden population of flies so interested in the grass beneath the play structure.

At least it won't cost me $50 to have the carpet guy come back.

Finally, a special treat for all you music lovers out there. Chebbles and Gigi put on a performance for their grandfather this weekend, and Hub-D captured this little video. Six days to go! Really!

7

There is such a deep, great satisfaction in having blocked my nutty neighbor's calls (regarding her ongoing conviction that I am starving my cats) today.

She had tried to call me five times by the early afternoon when I asked my friend A. if she knew if it was possible to block a "Private Number."

In fact, it is!

A. fiddled with the phone company for a little, and VOILA! No more calls from this woman. EVER. Of course, she lives next door, but she's afraid of people, so she won't come over. In the five years we've lived here, she's never come over.

Just the calls: First it was an occasional call with a seemingly legitimate concern about our cats. Then she decided to start FEEDING our (chubby) cats, then she decided that I was taking advantage of her, and asked me for money for feeding our cats, etc. etc.

WOMAN! LEAVE MY CATS ALONE! I told her that several times, but still, the calls... ("Hello. Your cats are on my porch again and they seem very hungry. Can you call them home and feed them please?")

I stopped answering the calls, and she stopped leaving messages, but she kept calling, and calling, and calling, and it was sucking out my soul. But now she can *never call me again*. If she calls, she'll get a message that we're not accepting calls.

The satisfaction runs deep. I'm lumbering around the house with a smile on my face.

8

Bitchin-R-Us...

My GOD were my children loud today. I should have worn earplugs, I would have been a much calmer mother. Between Gigi's screams of fatigue/hunger at 5pm (think about the loudest smoke alarm you've ever heard), and Chebbles' encounter with an unfriendly bee, plus some bathtub shouting, I am pretty sure I've gone deaf. So I guess the problem is solved forever.

We had the carpets shampooed today too. It's an organic cleaning service, and the guy was nice enough to work on the crayon stain in the car as well. The most expensive part of his service was the $90 I paid him to clean our (idiotically purchased pre-children) beige couch. Just hours after the man left, Gigi jumped out of the bathtub, ran to the sofa, crawled up onto it and pooped right in the middle. A big, stainy POOP.

Finally, my nutty neighbor has gotten obsessed with the notion that I'm not feeding my cats, and has been calling me THREE TIMES A DAY about this. In fact, I AM feeding my cats, plenty of "holistic" cat food, dry and wet. But they enjoy hanging out on her porch like the gang from "West Side Story," seeing if they can scam some dessert from her. If she would only STOP FEEDING THEM, they would go away forever, but she is convinced that she is the only thing between these chubby felines and imminent starvation.

So I never answer the phone when it says "Private Number" because it's always her, trying to complain to me about my shameful neglect. And she never leaves a message. But she keeps... calling... all... the... time. The first time that the phone wakes up Leafy, I'm going to pop a blood vessel about this. But for now, it's still vaguely amusing.

And Braxton-Hicks. Enough. Enough already.

9

Thank heavens for central air conditioning. It's extremely hot here -- I only go out before the sun comes up, or after it goes down (speaking of vampires). Otherwise, I'm soaking myself, and my children, in cool water every minute of the day.

Nine days until Hub-D and I will be at the hospital, poring over the sweet little body of our new daughter, and probably still debating names.

I feel kind of "let off the hook" by another mom in Chebbles' dance class, whose son was born mid-March, and they still haven't named him. I mean, if she's in no hurry, why should I stress? Don't I have enough things on my plate without sitting around mulling over alliteration and familial connections? Then must I undergo the inevitable contemplation of potentially devastating nicknames our unborn daughter might acquire?

It's all I can do to keep track of the million ESP "conversations" taking place in "Breaking Dawn," the last book in the Twilight series.

Family photo

It's funny to me that this is the calm before the storm. Here I am with this giant pregnant belly, with a preschooler and a rowdy toddler in tow.

My favorite part about this photo is Hub-D's hand around me, resting on Gigi's leg. I am crazy about that man.

But anyway, a thought...

If it weren't 100 degrees, would I be so obsessed with counting the days until Leafy finally makes her exit?

Or am I simply looking forward to being hospitalized? To be perfectly honest, that's where I've had the best sleep in the last four years or so -- the hospital. And breakfast in bed! Lunch in bed! Dinner in bed! Everyone wants to know about your pee!

So I know this is a little nuts, but it could be that I'm looking forward more to the coddled air conditioned hospital situation than the reality of becoming a mother for the third time.

10

Welcome to another exciting edition of "Is it diarrhea, or is it labor?"

...in which you'll hear Mama say, "No, Chebbles, I can't get off the couch. You'll just have to take care of yourself."

Gigi's Purse

Gigi has taken to carrying a purse with her everywhere she goes. For example, if she's sitting in the swing in the backyard, she probably has a purse with her. And as you can see in this photo, she has happily hung it on the handlebars of a tricycle that she cannot actually move, but that's beside the point.

She would prefer to sling the purse over her shoulder, but since she is 14 months old and her shoulder is about 9mm across, this is not always feasible.

This evening, as I was straightening up, I got curious.

What is IN Gigi's purse?

I know that a mother shouldn't pry -- I should have a relationship of trust with my daughters, and I should be able to ask them about their lives and have open conversations with them instead of rooting through their purses. But since Gigi can only really say "Mama" and "barrette," this limits my ability to really connect with her in this way.

So now, I share with you the contents of Gigi's purse:



* One Ariel purse, co-opted from Chebbles' collection. Tags still on.
* One dried-up piece of lavender from the backyard
* A magnet we received for Christmas three years ago, featuring a couple cute kids she's never met.
* One beaded bracelet (also co-opted from Chebbles)
* One tiny baby doll from the otherwise-never-played-with German dollhouse
* One red marker
* One toothbrush (also not hers)
* $10 in pretend money
* Two Breathe-Right Strips

From this, we can deduce that she is concocting an elaborate escape plan. She's grabbing a few momentos, some money, a toothbrush, a marker with which to pen her goodbye missive, and a photo of a better family, one that might allow screeching past 8 in the evening. You know, something to shoot for.

Things Oma Told Me, Volume 2

"I wanted to be a boy," Oma told me. "Boys always seemed to have more fun."

This photo is of Oma and her cousin Ilse, dressed in the style of the "French Underground," and doing what Oma called "Apachu dance."

Oma is the "boy" in this photo. Ilse was her cousin, but genetically, her half-sister, since Oma's mother and Ilse's mother were identical twins.

They spent a lot of time together, living at their grandmother's house together during WWI and making up lots of music and dances. Ilse was just a year older than Oma and they stayed close until Ilse's death.

It was just a twenty minute walk between their houses. They were both close with Opa's family, and they were thrilled to be invited, as young teens, to their fancy New Year's Party.

Oma needed a dress, and got some material from an Indian lady. Ilse made a dress for her that was so tight the she could barely breathe. It was a pretty white, pink, and black print dress, with a big black bow like a corsage that Ilse made for Oma.

"Don't breathe," her cousin told her.

Ilse and Oma did things "smart and fast" -- they had another cousin, named "Erni," but they didn't have much patience for her. They just didn't include her in their games, she couldn't keep up. Erni also wasn't very attractive, and became a surgeon. (She couldn't have been that slow...)

The existence of Erni was scandalous itself.

The Büxenstein's (The family of Omimi, Oma's grandmother) had a teenage son, Walter, and a very attractive maid. Omimi's mother-in-law, Alma, came to visit and said, "If I had a young son in my house, I wouldn't have such a beautiful maid."

Her words would prove prophetic after Walter was sent to Chicago to "learn how to be an international salesman," and the maid followed him in secret.

While in Chicago, Walter kept asking Omimi for more money because he had secretly married the maid, and they had baby Erni -- the child was kept secret. When they came back to Berlin, "Erni couldn't really count socially, and Omimi was very mad at Walter."

Eventually, though, Walter's sister took pity on the young family, and they stayed in contact. Walter worked in a casino in Zoppet, and Oma's family visited them during their summer vacation. (I think this might be Sopot, Poland now.)

Apparently Omimi wasn't a fan of her daughter Lieschen's marriage either, as she ordered them to divorce early in the marriage, and "saw to it" that Ilse hardly saw her father.

Oma thinks that her grandmother just didn't like Lieschen being married. (This is a photo of Oma's mother, her mother's twin sister, and their children. Ilse and Oma are on the left.) She also thinks that Lieschen was, most likely, a lousy wife.

Lieschen had been especially coddled since she had had an infectious lung disease when she was young. For example, she and her twin sister Gretchen were given golden balls at some point. Lieschen bounced her ball on the sidewalk and it got messed up. Upon observing this, Omimi made Gretchen switch balls with her sister.

And when the girls were served eggs for breakfast one morning, Omimi noticed that Lieschen's egg was smaller than Gretchen's, so she switched the eggs.

This favoritism carried over to the relationship between Lieschen's child, Ilse, and Gretchen's child, Oma. For example, they were divvying up some Greek photos that their grandfather had, and Omimi gave Ilse the prettier pictures. When Oma protested, Omimi said, "Ilse had no father... she gets what she wants."

What Omimi didn't know is that Ilse did see her father -- but in secret. He even gave her a pretty bracelet during one of their visits, the origin of which Ilse and Oma kept a secret.

As for Lieschen's short stint as a wife, Oma tells me that on the night of Lieschen's wedding, she sat in the hotel room with her new husband, Hans Marheine, and watched her parents and her sister leave the reception below. And she would tell of how much she wanted to be with them instead of with Hans. Oma says that her aunt was a "spoiled brat" as a result of Omimi's favoritism.

Lieschen was supposed to be taking cooking classes prior to her marriage, and the maid would escort her to the cooking classes. But then the maid would simply let her hang out with her boyfriend instead of attending the class, and Lieschen flunked out of the cooking school.

As a result, Lieschen couldn't even make coffee. This came to light when Marheine invited a colleague over unexpectedly, at a time when the maid was out shopping. They asked for some coffee, and Lieschen absolutely couldn't do it. The coffee was horrible. So Marheine was unhappy, and he voiced his opinion about this.

Lieschen accused Marheine of saying bad things about her, and she did this in front of Omimi. So... in due course, Omimi apparently arranged for a divorce.

And Ilse's next father was good looking, and held a bank job where he only appeared briefly each morning. But Ilse kept her secret connection with Marheine.

There was one small way that Oma and her mother "trumped" the Buxenstein's family attention -- despite Lieschen and Ilse being the favorites for so long.

When Opa proposed to Oma, the news overshadowed Ilse's getting her medical degree. Oma's choice, marrying into such a good family (with a three story house! with an elevator!), apparently captured Omimi's imagination more than Ilse's accomplishment. It might make up for the big egg, the golden ball, and the Greek photos...

11

"No that's OK, Mama, we'll just feed ourselves."

Why is it that each day, when I am one day closer to not being pregnant, it feels that much further away? I know this isn't logical, but I'm tired.

I can't believe I lasted until my 42nd week with both of my other term pregnancies. I guess I just hunkered down for a long wait. Maybe there is something psychologically undesireable about knowing the precise hour one is scheduled to give birth.

It's good that I have "Lost" and "Twilight" to obsess over. Otherwise, I'd probably sit around cooking up C-section complications to worry about.

As for "Lost," I watched the season finale last night (spoilers to follow).

Although I recognized that Sawyer and Juliet were a very nice, mature match, I'm glad to see that she's finally served her purpose on the island and we can dispense with her Gelsey Kirkland pout once and for all.

And I posit that the very GREATEST line ever uttered on the show "Lost" -- even better than anything Hurley has had to say -- was Rose telling Jack, "We're retired."

It's been so long since I laughed that hard at a television program.

And yes, I think the bomb did go off, and yes, that was probably "The Incident," as Miles theorized. And I adore the fact that Locke is really dead, and that Jacob's nemesis took Locke's bodily form (as well as that of Alex) in order to manipulate Ben into killing Jacob. That fact kept me mightily entertained when I couldn't sleep in the wee hours last night.

I find it very courteous of the "Lost" producers that they are now going to take a long, long break before the last season. This will afford me time to give birth, probably wean, and possibly get my new baby in a good sleeping routine so I can devote maximum mental capacity to that final season. Thanks fellas.

12

My new Health.com post is up for all to enjoy.

It's a pretty gross one, I mean, compared to the image of a lovely glowing pregnant woman cradling her belly. This entry conjures up the snoring, crapping, chunky mess that we preggos really are.

I wish I had something more attractive to share. And yet, this post...

13

I had my last "normal" appointment with my OB this morning. He measured the fundus (still measuring two weeks ahead of schedule), listened to Leafy's thrumming little heart (the best sound in the world), checked my limbs for swelling, my pee, my weight, and how I'm feeling.

Next week is my official "pre-op" appointment, when he'll listen to my heart and lungs and deem me ready to go under the knife on the 26th.

I told him, "Dr. W., I have only one question for you this time."

"You? You have ONLY ONE question? Am I in the right room?" He asked, looking around in confusion.

"How LONG can I stay in the hospital?"

"I can keep you there until midnight on the 30th, before I'd start having to cook up excuses to keep you. Like maybe your uterus looks bad."

And I'm so horrible that I thought, "OK, we'll go with the bad uterus excuse."

Because I want to have this baby, I want to meet her and hold her and nurse her and get to know her. But I don't necessarily want to bring her home. It's germy here. It's chaotic here. There are two other kids who are going to want a big fat piece of ME when I return from the hospital. And I just want to be ALONE with my new love at first.

Maybe I could make it gradual, say, move to a hotel after the hospital, and come visit my house for a few hours every day. Then sleep over one night a week, and gradually re-enter my current crazy kid-feeding, boo-boo-comforting, princess-book-reading lifestyle, over, say a period of six months.

It ain't going to happen. Hub-D, Chebbles and Gigi will hog-tie me and bring me back to my rightful place in the home. But a mama can fantasize, can't she?

Things Oma Told Me, Volume 1

People said that my Oma and Opa were destined from a young age -- they said this to Oma's mother.

Opa was born in 1901 (He is about 20 in this photo).

His family vacationed at the same place as Oma's mother's family, so he met his future mother-in-law, Margarethe (Gretchen), when she and her twin sister (Lieschen) were just 16, and he was just a little boy. The families shared a table d'hote, and became friends. The twins were the same age as Opa's sister Martha, who had died of appendicitis, and this touched Opa's family, to connect with these girls.

Opa had had a crush on Gretchen since he was a teenager, but she was eight years older than him. So he married her daughter, who became my Oma.

Opa proposed to my Oma in Berlin in 1935, when he already had a PhD from Ohio State University, and a Master in Soil Science from the University of Edmonton in Alberta, where he had made money by teaching German.

By the time he proposed to Oma in Berlin, he had made his home in Coshocton, Ohio.

It was a full moon the night he asked her to marry him, and the date of their engagement is engraved in her wedding ring.

That October, a proposal was brewing but Oma didn't know it yet. Oma had just gone on a paddle boat trip (Padelbootfahrt) with other students to Bremen, but heard from her mother, who said, "I think you should come home as soon as possible."

Opa came to visit Oma at her mother's home in Berlin with two bicycles and they went out for one long day, swimming in the Havel River (it runs through Berlin).

Oma says, "When we were out (of the water) and drying ourselves, Opa had these short arms and he was trying to dry himself. I took pity on him and dried his back thoroughly. I gave him the towel back while we talked about something else."

On this day, they ate at a local restaurant, and Oma noticed that Opa had money loose in his pockets. Oma thought that he must be rich, because he could "lose a little money."

The proposal happened when they took a break from riding their bikes. The conversation went like this...

Oma: I would like to visit you in America.
Opa: You would? Well that would be wonderful.
Oma: I hope that doesn't make an American girl unhappy.
Opa: How about this, that we get married?

(This is their engagement photo, from October 1935, on the Havel River.)

My Opa wanted to leave Berlin (and did in 1926). His parents didn't want him to.

Opa's parents were very conservative and prudish (I imagine this was a Victorian-era thing.)

Their son Hans fought in WWI, he was just old enough, and died.

When Opa sent his parents a picture of his young bride in a very un-revealing 1930's swimsuit, he received an admonishing letter in return from his mother, saying, "I don't like naked pictures."

Martha, his sister who had died so early, could write in English perfectly. (I've read her letters myself.) And she was shocked at a performance by Isadora Duncan, saying it was much too "naked" for her taste.

When Oma wrote a friendly letter to her mother-in-law, she included mention of a baby who was kicking in her belly as she wrote. She also received a harsh letter in return: "We don't speak of the unborn children."

Opa's family never told a lie. It was their trademark.

Opa's father, Ludwig, was called "Louie." Oma told me that Louie was named after Louis Napoleon.

The famous story about his refusal to tell a lie goes like this:

Louie and his employer were standing with a customer, having a conversation. The employer said something to the degree of, "If you don't believe me, why don't you ask Louie? He never tells a lie."

So Louie did tell the truth, but it was an unfortunate truth for his employer. He was apparently dismissed from his job, but he got a much better job with that same customer. So good for Louie! (This is a photo of him from 1899.)

Opa's family never even told white lies to spare someone's feelings. It was just their style.

They lived in a fancy house on a street in Berlin called Winklerstrasse. And when guests hung their coats, the family had a gadget -- a big soft brush for brushing the dust off of their coats. Oma remembers this.

They also had a dog named Kora. She was a good guard dog but she bit people easily. The dog held Oma's arm to stop her from running through the house when she visited as a little girl.

It was Ludwig who went with Oma to the embassy in Berlin to apply for her immigration visa to marry Opa. She didn't plan to work in America, so the visa was easy to obtain.

"Opa had to state that he was going to look after me, and not let me become a public charge."

Ludwig was an ambassador at the German embassy in Rostov-am-Don (sp?), a "more important town in Russia," where he had lived for more than 20 years, importing the "wonderful wheat they grow there."

So he vouched for Oma and the visa was obtained.

In the embassy were about five Jewish people, also trying to get visas. As Oma walked out of the waiting room with the visa, they looked at her enviously.

"Then I was in America," Oma says. "I was lucky."

14

Chebbles had a royal cow this morning, starting at 7:02am and lasting about until 11. She hasn't had such a terrible time for so long, I'd become complacent. But out of six possible magnets, she'd already lost three in the first hour of our day. (The Tantrum Magnet, The Respectful Tone Magnet, and the Quiet-All-Night-Long Magnet)

It kind of sucks when she loses so many magnets so quickly, because then I lose the leverage associated with that magnet.

But now she's evened out. Hub-D theorizes (correctly, I think) that she's adjusting to the imminent arrival of the new baby. I told her that Daddy was also starting to worry that the new baby is going to take all of my attention away from him.

"Daddy," she said, in her usual authoritative voice.

"Yes?"

"You're going to have to have THREE ARMS to carry all of us."

"How am I going to do that?"

"Well. You're just going to have to grow one. Like an alien."

So I guess that's settled.

15

Odds that this new baby will resemble me in any way whatsoever? Not so good.

My column kept me up past 11pm, and my hips woke me up before 5:30am. This whole "motherhood past the age of 35" seems really stupid sometimes. Why didn't I do all of this when I was 18, and I could stay up drinking and then be reasonably functional in class, having eaten one Hoho and taken a shower?

Anyway, I'm crabby. And my kids don't look like me. They SING like me, but that's about it.

16

I celebrate Mother's Day this year on the exact day that Leaf is "term." Yes, I'm 37 weeks today, so she's "cleared for take-off," although there are 16 more days of taxi-ing down the runway for us.

I took this photo so you could see what I saw. I went in to get Gigi after her nap and caught my profile in the mirror. Holy CRAP, people! We have officially gotten to the "ridiculous proportions" part of the pregnancy.

To that end, my belly cast is scheduled for tomorrow afternoon AND apparently the moms at Chebbles' preschool have a pre-baby event of some sort scheduled for me tomorrow morning.

Maybe all of this celebration and excitement should frighten me, maybe it's taking too much for granted, the idea that I might have a live infant in my arms 16 days from now. But at this point, I think the odds are with us.

Happy Mother's Day!

17

We were off-line for the day, because we went down to party in Seaside with our cousins. It was our last chance to do something "crazy" like that before the baby gets here.

And I really don't want to turn everything into a third trimester bitch-fest, but my hips hurt like crazy lately. Unless I make a conscientious effort to sleep on my back, but with my belly tilted a little bit so that the fetus doesn't cut off circulation through my vena cava, I'm just screwed. The hip pain builds and builds while I sleep, eventually waking me, then eventually convincing me to rearrange my droopy body parts into a more comfortable formation.

Then I can't get back to sleep because I have to pee, or get a drink, or obsess about baby names.

I did get to sleep with Chebbles at our cousins' house, and that was such a treat. It's so unusual to have that opportunity, and she's so beautiful and peaceful when she sleeps. She has the same exact expression she had as a newborn, just bathed in contentment. That is, until she woke up from a nightmare, yelling, "NO! That's MY lollipop. MY LOLLIPOP!"

I even scammed the chance to hold her hand while she slept, her little limp fingers resting in mine. Oh sweet baby #1! (Another vintage Chebble photo above...)

Don't mess with our sleep

OK, I confess, I have some PTSD about sleep.

After Gigi was born, she barely slept more than 2 hours in a row for SIX MONTHS. I was in a world of pain, and I was almost GLAD when the sleep consultants and night nurses that we hired out of desperation threw up their hands and said they were just as baffled as we were.

Gigi was a crap, crap, crap sleeper for those six months, capped off by our adventure in Germany, when she slept for, say, 45 minutes at a time.

I have to keep reminding myself that Leafy is a different child, an unknown quantity at this point. I don't necessarily have to brace myself for night after night of shitty sleep, of living in a world of fog, of HATING MY LIFE.

Back then, I would look at moms whose kids slept more reasonable hours and I would seethe with jealousy. I also think that the lack of sleep delayed my "bonding" with The Jeege.

Then, almost as if by magic, she started sleeping much longer stretches after she turned six months old. And now she sleeps through the night -- as soon as I started giving her goat milk instead of dairy -- every single night.

So now I have two kids who do not pester me from 7pm until 7am every day. They may stay up a little later than 7pm in their beds, and they may wake up a little earlier than 7am, but they know that there will be no interaction with Mama until 7am.

Leaf totally doesn't know this rule. Where will she sleep? How will she sleep? I'm officially petrified of the co-sleeping that made the early days of Chebbles so bearable -- my pediatrician, who once was all for the co-sleeping arrangements, has backed off on that position due to the latest research on SIDS. Damn!

Will she breastfeed OK? My boobs are already rarin' to go, and they are so swollen that I dream at night that some merciful child comes and empties them. So maybe things will go better with Baby Leafy. It would be hard to do worse.

19

Today's post on Health.com is different from my other ones -- it's more of a book review of a brand new pregnancy nutrition book, "Feed The Belly."

The last recipe in the review was so terrific -- I can't wait to make it again. I'm not even daunted by the prospect of having a chicken hacked up into parts in front of me again. It's good enough to merit that kind of a trip to the butcher.

Not getting the picture, Otto brought home a little wren this morning. No, Dodds, I will NOT hack this up and stew it for you. Now get it off my porch!

20

This is a vintage Chebbles shot from May 2007. La Chebbelle! She's grown so much, but that impish "something" has been in her eyes from the start.

(She still hasn't figured out how to open the car doors. Thank goodness, really.)

And I? I need someone to save me from myself.

I'm taking on an entry for Health.com, this time about skin cancer and pregnancy.

If a woman has even an INKLING of hypochondria, she should NOT write for a health publication.

Because now I'm just SURE I've got some kind of terminal skin cancer. I have an appointment with my dermatologist in a couple of weeks which should go far toward eliminating my obsession about this subject, but JEESH! Why can't I just write about fun things?

We're 20 days away from meeting our new little girl. Tonight, Hub-D pushed Gigi, Chebbles and me on the swings before bedtime. It was fun to think that all of his daughters were aloft by his power at the same moment -- one of them just happened to be in utero.

21

Three weeks and counting! Three weeks from now, if all goes as planned, we'll know what this child looks like.

I wonder, does anyone else fancy the idea of LOOKING at a kid before deciding on a name? I'm wondering if that might be our best option at this point. We could bring the list of top five names to the hospital and then give her a good once-over and decide then.

In other news, today we did a Music Together make-up class. It was fun to bring Chebbles, as it's usually a Gigi-n-Me experience. But there was a kid in there, a 4-year-old, who was so incredibly disruptive to the class, it actually gave the teacher an eye twitch of stress. This kid was horrible -- screaming, running in circles, inciting the other kids into various forms of riot. He was horsing around so much that he finally hurt himself and screamed, "I want to go HOME!"

And I think there was a big psychic wave coming from all of the rest of the parents in the class: "PLEASE, YES!"

But the mom, who acted oblivious to her son's effect on the whole class, kept him there, inflicting his mania on the rest of the group.

Afterwards, the teacher was just gasping for breath, as he told me it was the worst day of this kid's behavior yet. I really wonder in these scenarios -- we had a similar one with that crying child in Chebbles' ballet class -- what in the WORLD is the parent thinking? No one is having fun, and your kid is clearly making everyone else miserable.

I think it's one thing if you have a kid with legitimate special needs, and you work in advance with the teacher to make sure that the class will be appropriate for them, and that the teacher is prepared to help out with the child's special needs. It's QUITE ANOTHER when your kid is an obvious horror show, and you sit back and wait for the teacher to handle the whole thing.

(And the teacher, fascinatingly, was experiencing a return of his latent Tourette's Syndrome, as a result of the stress caused by this one kid. No really!)

Anyway, three weeks of bitching left to go!

23

Hub-D saved us all from ourselves today.

I took the girls to the Farmer's Market this morning, which was a fun but exhausting outing for us, in the rain, trying to keep Gigi from shoving whole cherries in her mouth as she found them on the ground.

But then when we got home, Gigi started her Fire Engine Cry. You haven't heard anything like this unless you've stood directly next to a fire engine at full blast. It is truly deafening, and I wouldn't be surprised to learn that this particular noise makes dogs throughout the county howl with grief and misery. She employs this awful technique only when she's insanely tired. So instead of feeding her lunch, I just warmed a cup of goat milk and tossed it in the crib with the Fire Engine herself.

Then I took to my bed for the majority of the afternoon. The man dealt with toddler poop, Tinkerbell-related requests, bike rides, wagon rides, swingset visits and every other random thing that our children threw his way, while I slept blissfully, THEN I read a few more chapters of "Eclipse" because, I mean, what's going to happen with the werewolves and vampires?

I got up, only to somehow incite both children into additional crying/tantrums, then while Hub-D did all of our grocery shopping, I stayed home and whipped myself into a martyrish frenzy about being nine months pregnant and how I should NOT be expected to clean sticky floors. (No one expects me to. I'm just mad at how someone might expect me to.)

After hosing off the children and wrestling them into bed, I lurked around, completely not preparing dinner for a deserving Hub-D, but micromanaging the way he chewed food anyway.

And he still lives here! He did not pack his bags and go buy a bachelor's condo in Las Vegas this evening! Strong man, that one.

Whereas we put our mouths on stuff

Hey, if you need me for anything, I'll be over here Braxton-Hicksing.

The number of days between today and the day we meet Baby Leafy has dwindled to 24! Time is starting to get all Steve Miller on me.

In other news, Hub-D picked up this flyer on BART (our subway) yesterday:

"IMPORTANT INFORMATION ABOUT THE SWINE FLU...

"We are providing cleaning supplies and masks to our employees and encouraging them to disinfect their work areas as a way to maintain a healthy work environment. We are also reassigning our staff to clean hard contact surfaces such as fare collection equipment, escalator hand rails, elevator controls, and multiple contact surfaces aboard the trains."


OK, so on an ordinary days, cleaning supplies are NOT available to BART employees, and they DON'T clean the hard contact surfaces unless there is a potential PANDEMIC afoot?

Ew! How many times did I take Chebbles on BART when she was Gigi's age? And she would, despite my efforts, gnaw on every hard contact surface she could get her tiny baby teeth around? No wonder she has such an amazing immune system.

Speaking of which, I woke up with a sore throat this morning. Totally swine flu! I've got to stop licking BART myself, I guess.

And the above photo is Hub-D in "formation" with Chebbles and Gigi. The Jeege rides in the backpack and Chebbles clobbers him from the front. Where will Leafy ride, his head?

25 Days to Go

My computer and my camera have stopped speaking to one another, I'll post new photos of my ex-uteros once I broker a truce.

But in the meantime, allow me to wax poetic about my unborn child, due to arrive in 25 days. She's awesome! She's strong! She's hilarious and beautiful!

I just know it.

Today I had some really bad abdominal pain which sent me back to the OB's office for an emergency visit. The culprit? Round ligament pain, possibly exacerbated by my previous C-section. I get to take 3-4 Motrin every 6-8 hours if I want, but the pain has subsided and I'm not going to bomb this little gal with any more drugs than absolutely necessary.

Dr. W. kind of manhandled my stomach as he tried to figure out what was going on, and he was affectionate as he grabbed her tiny little heiney, as it poked out of the top of my abdomen, "Big Baby!" he said, wiggling her around a little.

If all goes as planned, he'll be the first to grab that heiney as it comes out of my gut in 25 days.

I can't wait. I can't wait. I can't WAIT!