Perfect Mother Magazine

We are coming to the end of my busy season at work and it could not come fast enough.  As I was finishing up a long day yesterday, missing my family and wondering if I would ever have a social life, a joke popped into my head.  It was one of those online lists: "How to balance kids, work, and marriage while still having a social life! Just follow these 73 easy steps!" Once I thought it, it was stuck. The other ridiculous standards we are held to kept popping into my head. All of the different miracle methods and divisive issues that define the Mommy Wars soon joined.  It kept me up all night (with some help from E). So here you have the product of insomnia, cynicism, and a day off.

By the end of this project, I was feeling a little guilty.  I have a great group of mom friends and we vary pretty wide on our parenting choice/styles. We are able to have conversations and accept each others' differences. We try to support each other when things get tough, and we have a safe place to say those hard truths that our culture pretends don't exist.  I didn't want anyone to feel like my satire was directed towards them. They lift me up and inspire me to be a better parent, but to also forgive myself. This cover is for them. I only wish we had a picture with all of us!

How Do You Due?

Tomorrow is my official "Due Date".  Really it is called your estimated due date or EDD. I have decided that having a due date is just cruel and they should be done away with completely.

"How do the estimate it?" You may ask.  There are many ways.  

1- The most basic is 40 weeks from the first day of your last period.  There are many problems with this.  It assumes conception occurs on day 14 of a 28 day cycle.  It is common to have bleeding in pregnancy that can be mistake for a period.  Some women just don't keep that good of track. 

2- 38 weeks from conception. Yeah, most people don't know this one. Fresh swimmers can live for up to 5 days in ideal conditions and an egg can live about 1 day, so sex isn't even a real indications. However, if you are like us and using a frozen donor and tracking a million different signs, you may actually know this. 

3- Ultrasound dating. The earlier the better.  They measure different things depending on how far along you are.  At the 20 week anatomy scan I believe it is based on femur and head measurements. (Late ultrasounds can be off on estimating weight by up to 2 lbs either directions! Yikes!)

So, you can have many due dates.  These are ours (corresponding to they way they were determined):

1- August 27th

2- August 31st

3- August 30th

Notice how none of those are tomorrow?  The midwives have a little wheel that they can put in a date for the first two options and it will tell them the EDD.  This wheel, however, doesn't have leap years, so we got an extra day. So yes, we have 4 due dates because we are just that awesome!

We are okay with the extra day because if you go past 41 weeks you are considered past term and become high risk which means no birth center birth.  As it turns out, most births occur after their EDD (I believe 60-65%, depending on your source). Only around 3% actually happen on it. Although with 4 option, our chances may be higher.

This brings me back to why they should do away with due dates.  After your EDD is calculated they count backwards 40 weeks and that marks the beginning of your pregnancy (so yes, you are pregnant for two weeks before conception.  Scandalous, right? It created a lot of controversy with recent abortion legislation, but that is a whole different can of worms).  You are considered "Full Term" from 37-41 weeks.  So you are actually "due" for almost a month.  Having a specific date just makes average babies seem early or late and average pregnancies seem short or long.  Even with this knowledge, I have September first in my head as when everything needs to be done, rather than when she was actually full term.  It is very hard to not fixate on the date.

Lately I have be extra sensitive about this because everyone's new favorite follow-up to "When are you due?" is "Are you going to be induced?"  Um... no.  Why would I? She will come out when she is ready! Convenience inductions are leading to more and more babies being born pre-term. Even with 3 ways to calculate the due date, sometimes the doctor is just wrong. On top of that, induced labors can be much more  intense and carry more risk that spontaneous labors. She will come out when she is ready!

As the last of my 4 due dates approaches, it is becoming harder and harder to remember that.  Repeat it with me: "She will come out when she is ready!"  This doesn't mean that every night that I am woken up by a contraction I'm not disappointed when it is the only one. Lately I'm even more disappointed when I'm woken up and I don't have a contraction! It doesn't mean I'm not ready and A isn't ready and our families aren't answering phone calls with "Are you in labor?!" We are all ready, but it isn't up to us!

I always told myself she would probably come after her due date and I was prepared for that.  Until 2 weeks ago.  That was the first time I woke up with a contraction that wasn't the same as a Braxton-Hicks.  It was followed by lots of nesting and the dog following me around looking worried all weekend. I felt like she just may be coming sooner than we thought.  However, here I am, still pregnant and trying to get back in the mindset that she may spend another week in there (hopefully not more...).

With that said, our fingers are crossed that our Little Evie will make her grand appearance tonight, because how awesome would it be to tell her she was born on a Blue Moon?  

Here are some pictures of the moon from last night-

And here is my 39 week photo.  In the nursery with the full moon/owl night light my mom made-

I have a midwife appointment in 2 hours, so maybe they will have some good news, but most likely they will just say I shouldn't gain any more weight and that everything else is normal. Very exciting.

A baby shower and an update

A few weekends ago was our baby shower!  It was a tad later than is considered "normal" to have a shower, as T was 35 weeks (at the time...), but our schedules and family schedules have been crazy!  Our good friend Deb offered to host the shower when we had just barely told her we were having a baby, and she lives in this awesome community where they have a kitchen and common room for large gatherings.  She put up with all our control issues gracefully and provided fantastic food and wisdom for us.  Thank you, Deb.  You've been an incredible friend for many years, and I count us as extremely fortunate to have you in our lives.

Our shower was full of love and laughter, carnitas tacos and chocolate buttermilk cupcakes.  Everyone gathered together to share food and stories and the atmosphere was thick with the love everyone has for us and for Evie.  It was nothing short of incredible.  I doubt I could ever thank the people who attended thoroughly enough for their generosity - especially the family and friends who came from a distance to spend the evening with us in celebration.

Many people wrote to Evie in her leatherbound "Love Letters" book that we've been writing to her in since her conception - I cherish these little notes.

We also had a table set up outside, where everyone rubber-banded onesies (and some shirts and socks) and tie-dyed them!  Check out what they all look like together:

Amazing, right?!  We love them, thanks to everyone who made one!

Not only did we come away from the shower with our hearts and bellies full, but our CR-V was full of gifts for Ever, too!  Wow, everyone.

There's just... it's overwhelming.  Whoa.  I can't help but feeling that everyone overspent, shouldn't have spoiled us so entirely.  Don't get me wrong, we are intensely thankful but at the same time, we just aren't accustomed to being so thoroughly at the center of so many presents and so much attention!

Now, T is 36 weeks 5 days.  Time continues to slip through my fingers and we find ourselves only one more day from the date that marks our Evie as "full-term".  I think I've spent much of T's pregnancy in a state of amazement, in awe of the human body and in awe of her body, specifically.  The creation of new life - what could be more impressive?

Since the baby shower, we've dropped off in our blog writing, in our social media participation, in many aspects of keeping in touch.  Our apologies.  The days have simply been packed full of things to do, places to go, and jobs to work.  The whole pregnancy, we've been saying that we need to clean out the office and make it into a guest room.  Of course, the nursery also needs finishing, and on top of those things we'd hoped to get all our carpet steam-cleaned.

Maybe there's always things that don't get accomplished on everyone's "Before Baby Comes" list.  Or maybe everyone else is less ambitious.  Or maybe they all had their houses in order before they got pregnant.  Or maybe they care less.  Who knows.  I am certain that there aren't enough hours in the day.  It gets quickly overwhelming when I think about all the little things I'd hoped to get done before little girl arrives, but I'm doubtful now.

Thankfully, the office/guest room is nearly finished.  Just in the organizing phase now, which is annoying and time-consuming and I can't watch the Olympics while I do it. The nursery is so close to being done, just waiting on some photographs for the walls.  (Her dresser is pleasantly filling up with clothes!  Amazing!)

Now for what you all want to know about: T and E!  T is exhausted much of the time now, and I keep trying to tell her that her job is only to keep cooking Evie and stay rested.  She is the eternal "do-er" and seems intensely frustrated by her tiredness and physical limitations.  Pregnancy isn't for the faint of heart, as it turns out.  Soon you'll be done with this part, love, and you can climb all the ladders and carry anything you want. Evie seems to be doing just peachy, she's very active and enjoys torturing T by stretching, punching, and kicking everything and everywhere.

At our most recent Centering class, the midwife mentioned that Evie had descended down into T's pelvis some and was positioned well.  We are so thankful she's head-down!  T's Braxton-Hicks contractions have been growing more and more intense, and it seems that her body is doing a lot of exercise in preparation for birth.

Last weekend we took some belly photos, I'd like to share them with you all:

And a couple teaser nursery photos!

The photographs on the wall are all courtesy of my mother, who spent all day watching her poppies blossom and taking amazing photos of them.  We are so pleased that all the photographs going on the walls in Evie's room were taken by my mother or T's mother; Evie has such incredible grandmothers and we are so glad for them.

Until next time... I hope life finds you all well.

If You Give A Pregnant Woman A Steam-Cleaner...

She's going to want her wife to steam-clean all the carpets in the house.  Hey, we should start in the living room!  But before we can steam-clean the carpet, we need to shove all our furniture into our combination kitchen/dining room.

While her wife is steaming, the pregnant woman will reconsider the arrangement of the living room furniture.

Once the carpet is dry, she'll want to try out some new furniture scenarios.  But in order to try new things out, it involves moving the television and entertainment unit to a different wall, requiring that the cable for satellite TV be run through a different exterior wall.  Which will require a masonry drill bit.  Which the steam-cleaning wife and the pregnant woman don't own.  Then the lucky father of the pregnant woman gets to come save the day by assisting the pregnant woman in running the new cable through the wall.  Then, the rotten father of the pregnant woman will suggest that in addition to vacuuming, wiping, and zip-tying all the cords at the back of the unit together, she should also cable-staple said zip-tied cord bundles to the back of the unit in accordance with the brickwork-style compartments in the Ikea unit.  Because everyone hates seeing cables behind entertainment units stuffed with electronics and children's DVDs and toys and books.

If the furniture gets rearranged, then all the previous decorations in the living room will need to be altered.  The new space on the walls will of course need new things to occupy them, including MORE photographs than already adorn our home.

And once all that is accomplished, there are of course more rooms to rearrange, redecorate, and steam-clean.


Naturally, I trust you all understand my tongue-in-cheek humor here!  Truthfully, I've found T's new nesting instincts to be rather charming and adorable - likely because I know they aren't here to stay!  I've enjoyed helping out, and I absolutely don't want her doing anything chemical-ish anyway so I'm the first one to volunteer to handle these things.

As I would hope you could tell, nesting has set in for my wonderfully pregnant wife.  Things I don't think I'd ever expect to come from her mouth have been issuing forth at a somewhat alarming pace.  To mention a few:
"I'm really tired of the hard water stains on our dishes.  I think I'll soak the dishes in vinegar and rub the stains off. "
"I feel like I NEED to clean out the junk drawer.  It's driving me crazy."
"Next time most of the silverware is out of the drawer, we should put the plastic divider into the dishwasher."  (This one I actually agree with, lol.)
"The linen closet really needs to be gone through and reorganized.  I think I'll wash everything in there after work tonight."
"Would you mind dusting and then wiping down the ceiling fan blades and housing this weekend?  I really want to balance it better so it STOPS CLICKING ALL THE TIME."
A couple weekends ago I even caught her dusting the fire extinguisher.  (She doesn't seem to appreciate the humor in this that I do.)

To her immense credit, she's been very productive.  She did clean out the junk drawer, she did clean out and reorganize (and label) the shelves of the linen closet.  She's been going through old documents that we tend to neglect by leaving in giant piles and discover again two years later.  Not to mention that she's already washed and put away the baby clothing she received at her surprise work shower in June.  And we've finally cleaned out the cabinet in the kitchen that was devoted to our foster kids - kid dishes, sippy cups, baby food, formula, bibs, meds, you name it.  Haven't even looked in that cabinet in seven months, but now it's been cleaned out and reorganized as well.

The biggest thing left on our list is to clean out the office and create a guest bedroom in its stead.  This is on my To-Do list for this weekend while T handles a huge Catholic youth convention ... I'd rather be me than her this weekend, and that is saying something because the office is a huge undertaking!  Once we can get the guest room going, we'll be able to finish up Ever's room and then we'll be much closer to ready.

Speaking of ready.  I've spent much of my time lately occupying that place of total delight in the idea of meeting my daughter while simultaneously being in denial that she's really going to be here sometime in the next three to seven weeks.  Same old story, right?

In the next couple weeks we'll be doing a casting of T's belly, too, and I'm pretty stoked about that.  Also, my lactation induction protocol is about to change majorly!  I'm stopping the birth control after tomorrow, and beginning to take breastmilk production enhancing herbs and starting to pump.  We'll see in the next couple weeks if we've got any luck!  Let's see, what else... Oh, we took some cute photos!  And T got a new lens for the camera for her birthday, and we're really excited about that.  Photos from the new lens to come soon, hopefully.  Here are the cute ones we took from last weekend to tide you over:

With our dog, Manni!

Knitting Evie's newest beautiful hat.

Caught her stretching - whoa, lookit that belly!