Wednesday, March 18, 2009

Prenatal, 32 weeks

According to my midwives, I'm fully at 32 weeks, which means scary week 31 (when we lost Day) has come and gone. It's kind of hard for me to believe--by one measurement, I'm still in the midst of week 31--but it is starting to feel like there is some light at the end of this tunnel of anxiety over another stillbirth. I'm already feeling a little less worried, and more excited and focused on the fun end-of-pregnancy stuff, like ordering my birth kit and finding a cool new diaper bag and thinking about where to set up the tub and that sort of thing--things that actually indicate there's a baby on the way, which, believe it or not, I have yet to entirely embrace (out of fear and worry and superstition, mostly, but also just that disbelief that all pregnant women have: "no way there's a BABY coming at the end of this! how is that possible!").

Anyway, I'm doing well: plenty healthy, plenty big, everything as it should be, and getting close to entering the final stretch. Hurray!

I have another prenatal, just a brief one, next week, mostly to assuage my fears (and because my primary midwives and Rob are all away and so it's a touchy time), and then we're on to the biweekly and then weekly prenatal exams where actual fun stuff starts happening: newborn protocol handouts and supply lists and home visits and all the rest. Woo-hoo! I love homebirth!

Tuesday, March 17, 2009

More small town/rural life moments

Found poem from The Sap Pail, the local rural paper put out by a young back-to-the-lander, from an ad for Second Wind Farm, Nigerian Dwarf Dairy Goats:

FREE Advice.
FREE Manure.
(might be the
same thing)

Tuesday, March 10, 2009

a few new photos

Here's Willa and Rob at the Owl Head's Transportation Museum this past weekend, working on Willa's foam glider, which she named Liliya.



Willa's hair is long enough for ponytails!

Monday, March 2, 2009

Baby update

We had a prenatal appointment on Friday and everything seems to be going well--I'm measuring a bit ahead, which is normal for me and could mean the baby might come a bit earlier than its due date, and my blood pressure and the baby's heartbeat and all of it are right on target.

And I'm feeling a lot of movement these days.

Even so, this is a worrisome period for me. I'm 29 weeks, and Day died at 31. Every day I feel a bit fearful and anxious about whether or not this baby will make it. I have it in my head that maybe I will start feeling "safe" again when I get to about 34 or 36 weeks...basically, the further I get from 31 weeks the better I think I'll feel. We'll see. In any case, the next 5 weeks or so feel dicey, and those 5 weeks include some travel for me, a trip that takes Rob away for 4 days, and a 10-day vacation for our midwives, so all of that just contributes to the worry. Send your most protective thoughts!

In other news, we are in the midst of yet another snowstorm bringing a foot of snow. Another snow day for Willa. I think it's our fourth such snowstorm in as many weeks. I think we've had about 85 inches so far this winter!

Spring has to come eventually. And hopefully, with it, this baby, alive and well. Both things feel somewhat unreal.