39 Weeks

I just got back from my 39 week midwife appointment. It would seem all the contractions I've been having have actually been doing something--I went from just a fingertip dilated last week to a full 1 cm, 50-60% effaced and the bean is at a -2 station. (She needs to move from -4 to 0 and then on to +4, which is at the exit, so she's started heading in the right direction!) I'm fully expecting a long wait, but having a little progress is so reassuring!

I asked our midwife to estimate how big the bean might end up being and she told me 8 - 8 1/2 pounds. Some may think me crazy for rejoicing at this news, but considering I myself was a 10 pounder, 8 pounds doesn't bother me at all. I know the estimate could be off, but I needed to hear at this point that they think she's going to be at least a tad smaller than I was, whether it ends up being the case or not.

So, the plan for next week is to have a non-stress test on my due date. If, for some reason, the bean isn't doing well they'll send me right off for an induction, otherwise I'll be offered an induction for the following week (which I'll decline). Then we'll have more waiting, I'm sure.

We're still keeping ourselves busy with cleaning and working on house projects until the bean decides to show her face. For some reason, I'm procrastinating on finishing up my diaper sewing and putting those last couple items into the hospital bag. I did, however, convince the boy that we should set up the pack and play in the living room, just in case that's what was keeping the bean. Doesn't seem to have had much of an effect, though.

We realized as we were starting to pack our hospital bags that we as yet didn't have a baby book. I hadn't really given this much thought, as I expected we'd pick something up at one of the baby stores. I knew that we'd end up with something that mentioned mommy and daddy, but figured it'd only be one page and we could work around it. Unfortunately, when we started looking at the books, most had mommy and daddy references on every page. That clearly won't work for us, so we explored our options with internet retailers and found this.

This book advertises itself for single, adoptive, and same-sex parents and has removable pages, so it can be customized for most any situation. There is even a page for information about the sperm (or egg) donor, which we thought would be nice for the bean to have. Its not quite as flashy as some of the other books we've looked at; in fact, we both thought we could have made sometime similar ourselves but we also knew it would be a project we'd think about and possibly never finish before the bean arrived.

Still, it will definitely serve our purposes and thank goodness there won't be a lot of daddy mommy references!

38 Weeks

I've been saying this for a while, but I just can't believe how far along we are in this pregnancy. 38 weeks! While I feel completely and utterly ready for this pregnancy to be at its end, I'm also shocked at how quickly the time has passed.

Truthfully, I've been really uncomfortable lately and, though I'm trying to stay positive, I was pretty down today. Luckily, our incredible midwife completely cheered me up at my checkup by joking with me that the baby won't come before I'm completely miserable and reassuring me that just as many women have their babies in the two weeks before their due dates as have them in the two weeks after. I asked her to check me and then lie about what she found and, while I'm typically prissy about talking about such things as the condition of my cervix, I'll share what she told me. The bean is low, although not yet engaged, and I'm a fingertip dilated. Now I have no idea whether she was just complying with my request or actually telling me the truth, but it doesn't matter one bit. I can pin all my hopes onto a fingertip's worth of dilation and that should get me through another week. Hopefully by then there'll be a bit more progress and that can get me through until our due date (at which point I may cry hysterically and beg the bean to please come out, but we'll cross that bridge when we get to it).

Anyway, lets all distract ourselves with some crafty goodness, eh?

First of all, I am more-than-a-little-bit proud to announce that the blanket I have been knitting this entire pregnancy is now complete.



This should give you an idea of the size (it turned out quite a bit bigger than I had planned, but the boy and I both agree that the larger size is better, after all).

And the border. This is the Prairie Blanket by Oat Couture knit with some super soft alpaca yarn we picked up at Rhinebeck last year.

Next up is the Helena sweater

and a Cable Cap

both of which were also knit from some yarn we picked up at Rhinebeck, but I seem to have lost the ball band. I'm fairly certain it was superwash wool, but now I might be too scared to wash it in the washer. I guess we'll see how it wears before I decide.

And finally, a Tri-peak hat.

And I may still owe her a pair of booties, but that's probably enough wool for a baby who'll be born in the summer, don't you think?

I'm still working on all those knit toys I promised to make and, of course, there's always diaper sewing to keep me busy until she finally decides to make an appearance.

37 Weeks

Some time ago, I posted about my worries over the baby's position. She spent a few weeks flipping around and experimenting with being breach, but thankfully she's proven to be very open to my suggestion that she get her head down and start preparing for her exit. She's been head down at the last several checkups, thank goodness!

I also learned at my last checkup that my group B strep test was negative--another relief! No antibiotics for me during labor, thank you very much.

The only small bit of bad news is that the midwives think the bean might be posterior. This means that, while her head is down, she is facing my belly and we'd much prefer she be looking backward. I've been assigned some exercises to do to try to encourage her to turn around, since posterior means painful back labor and let's not forget that I'm trying to do this thing without an epidural. I hope she's open to some more friendly suggestions about her position!

Finally, I keep saying over and over that the bean can come whenever she wants, but we only just got a carseat for her this weekend. The carseat is very important if you plan to actually take the baby home from the hospital. We were lucky enough to inherit a gently used seat from a toddler we know and we spent the weekend cleaning it up and reading through the manual. I'll be taking it to the fire department this week to have it installed and then we're ready. After that, you can come whenever you want, bean, this time I mean it.

Early on in my pregnancy, my mother informed me that she believed all babies come early because all of her spontaneous births were early (there are four of us, my youngest sibling was a planned c-section). I'm positive of this information because I've been clinging hopefully to it for the last two weeks. Yesterday, I decided to confirm with her that my oldest sibling was, in fact, born early as well, since that's the only birth relevant to my situation. Mom has changed her story--she insists I'm confused and it was she herself who was born early, the three of us were all two weeks late. *sigh* I'm hoping her memory has faded and we weren't all THAT late. (For me, I'll take due date or just a day or two after, please!)

Finally, I had contractions all weekend with varying degrees of discomfort, none anything I would describe as painful. I know it doesn't mean that the bean is coming anytime soon, but its still comforting to think that something is going on.

Sleep Considerations

I've spent a good deal of time over the last couple months thinking about how we're all going to sleep after this bean arrives. I know it seems strange, since I've been told that new parents don't typically do a lot of sleeping, but still.

When I first got pregnant, there was no doubt in my mind that we'd cosleep. We planned to use a cosleeper, but the more I researched them, the more nervous I got. They aren't safety rated and there have been recalls on some models that posed strangulation hazards. OK, I thought, we'll put the baby in the bed with us. Where should she sleep? Between me and the edge of the bed and we run the risk of her rolling onto the (wood) floor. So I thought we'd get a bed rail which, aside from making it impossible to get in and out of the bed, are not recommended for use with infants. There is something like this which would stop the baby from rolling onto the floor, but isn't it also a suffocation hazard?

OK, how about putting the baby between the two of us? In that case, we run the risk of one of us rolling on top of her. (If you spend any time googling cosleeping, you'll hear so many horrific stories of parents rolling on top of and suffocating their babies, which is the biggest argument against cosleeping that I've found). I've read that this arrangement is not recommended because (apparently) the mother is very aware of the baby, but the father typically has no idea what (or who) he's sleeping on. I'm not sure how this applies to a two mom family, but I'm assuming the boy is the oblivious father in our case.

In all the research I've done, I've read over and over that cosleeping can be safe if the parents do it in a safe manner. However, when I try to find out what this "safe manner" is, all I can find is that you shouldn't smoke or do drugs (including alcohol) before you sleep with your baby and you should remove pillows and blankets from the bed. And how do we keep the little bean in the bed, preferably without an adult body on top of her? I have no clue.

For a while, we thought we'd leave the baby in the bassinet portion of a pack 'n play next to the bed, which seemed like a nice compromise. But then I got nervous because we spent so much time furnishing the bean's room with all wood furniture and we plan to buy an organic mattress with wool used as a fire retardant to minimize any toxic fumes she might be exposed to while sleeping. Then we're going to put her in a big plastic box to sleep for the first couple months? It didn't make sense to me.

Enter a further complication:


This bassinet has been in the boy's family for generations. It has, apparently, been passed around from household to household as each new baby has arrived. The boy's father slept in it, the boy and the boy's brothers slept in it and, most recently, a niece and nephew have both been in it, one of whom is currently under a year old. Its certainly not safety rated. I'm praying that its been repainted at least once since the days of lead paint. Oh yeah, its an odd size, so there were no organic mattresses to be had that would fit. Yet, there it is sitting in our house waiting for the arrival of the little bean. We're not even sure if she'll stay in it, at least at night, because I'm not sure we've completely given up on the idea of having her in the bed. (I'm still attached to the idea of sleeping, or at least lying down, while nursing in the middle of the night.) We're just not sure exactly how its going to work, which might be appropriate since we're not sure how any of this baby stuff is going to work--we're just going to have to wing it.

Another milestone

Today, the little bean is full-term. I've been saying for the past week that she can come whenever she wants, but its only actually true starting today (I was rounding up). I think we're ready. I KNOW I'm ready although I'm bracing myself for a long wait, since conventional wisdom is that first babies come late.


We opted to spend our last long weekend as a 2 person family hanging around the house, resting and finishing final preparations for the bean's arrival. We talked about just how strange it seems that a new person whom we haven't met will be joining our family in just a couple weeks. There's a bed and clothes and all sorts of stuff just sitting there waiting. It feels strange, but exciting too!

We finished putting together and putting away all the gifts from our shower. I washed loads and loads of baby laundry, so now all of the bedding and miscellaneous towels and blankets are clean, along with enough clothes in different sizes to get us through for a while. I still have diapers to sew (of course) but we have enough to get us through a few months. I've been stocking the freezer with meals little by little in hopes that there won't be too many "what will we eat" crises in the first month and I've been trying to keep the pantry stocked so we won't be rushing to the grocery store in the first week. The boy spent a good bit of the weekend cleaning the house top to bottom, since I've mandated that we give it a good scrub once a week so we have a better chance of it being clean when the bean arrives and everyone wants to come over to see her. We're also trying to start babyproofing by strapping large pieces of furniture to the wall and thinking about moving things to higher shelves. Of course, we have plenty of time for that, but we might as well get a jump start now while we're just waiting.

We still have several projects we'd like to finish around the house now that there's time and energy and we don't have to worry about waking a sleeping baby, but nothing that's necessary before she comes. We're ready. We may still have a month to wait, but now would be good too.

How about some more pictures of the nursery, now that we're all done with it?



The crib still doesn't have a mattress, but we're not planning to put her in it for a while anyway, so we'll get that after she arrives. I hate to admit that we struggled an embarassingly large amount of time trying to install the mobile. Our crib doesn't have straight sides, which is what its designed to hang on. We finally resigned ourselves to hanging it on the wall above the crib, even though we thought it would be out of sight of the little bean. Then we took a trip to the store where we purchased the crib and saw the display model with a mobile attached at the back, like we have ours here. So much frustration for such a simple little thing!



The shelves on these back walls were meant to be filled with knitted toys (knitted by yours truly). Clearly, I'm not doing such a great job in that department, although there has been plenty of knitting. If she holds out a few more weeks, I may be able to get a couple done.

I love our little closet changing station! The garbage can contains a wet bag for cloth diapers and, its hard to see, but we installed a little shelf on the right side to hold lotions and pins and other diaper changing paraphenelia. The diaper hanger is stuffed full of disposables plus there are two more bins full. That diaper cake was bigger than it looked!



I believe I've lost the war on pink. There are a couple baby blue outfits (although you may notice that those are dresses) and one or two things in purple and every single other article of clothing is pink. Perhaps when she's a year old, she can wear a different color?

And the countdown continues

Our little bean is due to arrive exactly one month from today. Of course, we all know that due dates mean nothing to the little babes who pick their own birthdays, but still. We're getting close.
This week, we finish our last childbirth class. In effort to be (over) prepared, I signed us up for 12 weeks of Bradley, 4 weeks of childbirth preparation classes at our hospital along with baby care, car seat safety and breastfeeding. I'm really glad that we tried all these out and a couple of them were really good, but most of them were, well, not. I guess there was no way to know that in advance, but it turns out we could have read all the books that we've already been working our way through and we'd have pretty much the same, if not more, information. We'll see if any of this makes one bit of difference while we're working our way through contractions, though!

The last series of classes we took were at the hospital and as sweetie and I were riding the elevator down to the lobby one evening, we stopped to pick someone up. The woman (wearing scrubs) backed up to let us off and gave us a very strange look when we told her we weren't getting off on her floor. "But THIS is the 3rd floor," she insisted. It took me a few minutes to remember that labor and delivery is on the third floor. She thought I looked pregnant enough to actually be in labor and heading in for delivery. That was a couple weeks ago and while I'm getting anxious for the little bean to show up, she still had a bit of baking left to do at that point. Not that I'm defensive or anything, but I felt an urge to explain to her how far along I was and that my midwife tells me I'm measuring right on target. But yeah, I'm big.

One more month to go . . . it simultaneously seems like a short period of time and an eternity.

Who doesn't love a shower?

I love baby showers. I'm not going to lie--I love seeing all the cute little clothes and fun baby gear and decorations and playing all the silly games (the games are really my favorite part!). I know some people hate going to them, but I've always loved them.


With my family almost entirely 3000 miles away, I knew none of them would be hosting one and no one in sweetie's family had mentioned anything to me, so I was not expecting to have one (although it was odd that the sweetie was so opposed to my buying anything for the baby--even at 34 weeks!). I should also mention that I am incredibly hard to suprise. I (usually) can tell when someone's hiding something from me and I (annoyingly) ask a lot of questions about what's going on, so I make it hard on would-be surprise planners.

Last weekend, we were planning to go to my mother-in-law's house for Mother's day brunch on Sunday morning, but Friday afternoon the boy called to tell me that there was a change in plans and that mother-in-law would like to have everyone over for brunch on Saturday instead. (I'm not sure how to feel about the fact that the boy is getting better at hiding things from me, but I'm choosing to see it as a good thing in this context.)

So, Saturday morning we arrived at mother-in-law's house, walked in, and I immediately see a bunch of stuff in her entry (mother-in-law's house is always exceptionally tidy). I say hello and then all of a sudden a bunch of people come out of the dining room and yell surprise and I realize that the "stuff" in the entry is a bunch of gifts. Yay, a surprise shower complete with the games that I love so much! I really had no idea and I have to say, after experiencing it for the first time, that I'm now a fan of being surprised. It was so much fun!

Opening presents--I don't know where everyone found such cute clothes, but we were given stuff that is so much cuter than what I bought.


Gotta love a diaper cake! Even though we're planning to use cloth, I think we'll end up putting the bean in disposables occasionally, so these are perfect!

Apparently, you're supposed to make a hat out of the ribbons and wear it for good luck.

It was so much fun and so good to see everyone. And now we really do have everything we need for the little bean, we just need to spend this weekend organizing and putting everything away!

California Dreamin'

At my review in January, my boss asked me to attend a two week training in CA at some point during the year and wanted to know whether I preferred to go before or after the baby. At the time, I was only thinking about being uncomfortable on the plane and of how much work we had to do before the baby came, so I decided to put it off. The farther along I got, the idea of being away from a nursing infant caused me to reconsider. So, off I went to the bay area at 32 weeks pregnant. (A lot of people asked me if it was still safe to fly. I wondered the same thing, but its OK to fly up to 36 weeks--I made it just under the wire.)

At the same time, I was complaining to the boy that I was regretting our decision not to take any vacations this year and that I wanted one last weekend away before the baby came. This was the perfect opportunity for the sweetie to fly out and spend the weekend with me for a mini babymoon!

We didn't do much of anything exciting, but ventured to Santa Cruz to hang out at the beach. We stumbled upon a great vegetarian restaurant that had veggie corn dogs on the menu (something I was just telling the boy that I sometimes missed from my meat eating days). We loved the place so much that we came back the next day for a veggie bacon cheeseburger with an onion ring and BBQ sauce on top (another guilty pleasure from the past). The place was like a pregnancy craving nirvana, I've got to tell you.

When I left for the trip I was 32 weeks pregnant, which made our due date seem so much farther away than it seems now at 34 weeks. I came back to a very relaxed partner who was saying, "don't worry, we'll get everything done" so I had to put a rush on things by pointing out that if the baby decides to come at 36 weeks, the doctors won't stop her. Saying that even put a panic into me! Even more scary is that when I asked our midwife about it this week, she said that even at 34 weeks, they'll only do a half ass job of trying to stop labor. I fully expect bean to make a late arrival, but I'd still like to be prepared in case she surprises me! We've been picking up things that we need here and there, but this weekend we'll do one last massive shopping spree and then I'll work on the mad dash to sew diapers.

In addition to time somehow moving faster while I was away, my belly growth seems to have also accelerated. People are now either asking me when the due date is (immediately followed by, "you must be getting close") or just flat out telling me that I look like I'm ready to go at any minute. People at work are also becoming hesitant to plan anything with me because they're not sure I'll be around much longer.

I have to say that there has been an amazing symmetry to this pregnancy. The first couple months were full of worry, nausea and wonder and I could have told you at any given time how far along I was, down to the day (when we toured the birth center, I proudly announced that I was 4weeks 3days). The second trimester flew by with me sometimes forgetting what week we were on, but now I'm back to paying attention to the exact number of days we have left to go. The worry and nausea are back and after having been told that I likely wouldn't be able to get pregnant, I never allowed myself to even imagine what it would be like to be in this position. I just can't believe there's a near full-term baby in my belly! Just a few more weeks until we get a look at this little bean.

32 Weeks

We are closing in on the end of the 32nd week and I have to say that I've been extremely lucky up to this point. Aside from the horrible morning sickness (which we cannot, ever, discount because it really was THAT bad and it lasted well into the fourth month) and the aversion to drinking water that lasted another few weeks beyond that, I've felt really good. I felt so good in the second trimester that I was sometimes surprised to catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror and be reminded that, yes, I really was that pregnant.

I still don't have any major complaints. I'm starting to get a little bit of heartburn (and a couple episodes of reflux) and a little bit of back pain (should be doing more back exercises--shame on me!). My calves have swollen a little bit, but my hands and face look pretty good and I'm still able to wear my rings! The belly has grown to such monumental proportions that I'm no longer surprised when I see it--I'm convinced its an optical illusion. It doesn't feel like this huge bump should be part of me (and it doesn't feel that big from where I'm sitting).

I know there's still time for all the 3rd trimester discomforts to creep in, but the longer I ward them off, the better. Here's the belly at this point, I can hardly fathom it getting any bigger.

Swimming Lessons

Going to see my cardiologist is sort of an all day event. His office is in New York, so getting there requires me to take the day off work and commute into the city with the sweetie. After spending five minutes in his office, during which he gave me my "get out of a c-section free" card, I went shopping. I've been growing out of my first batch of maternity clothes and needed a couple more things to last me through the end. I hope I have everything I need now-I hate buying maternity clothes. I'm too cheap to spend a ton of money on clothes I'll only wear for a few months, and the cheap clothes are all really frumpy looking. I'd much rather be spending the money on bean clothes.

Speaking of the little one--apparently week 30 is the week she learns to swim. I was a little concerned on Monday because I hadn't felt her move as much as usual. The next couple days, where I had been feeling kicks in my ribs, I was feeling them near my hips. I told the boy I was pretty sure she had turned breech and the midwife confirmed it at my appointment last night. I was pretty bummed out, I mean, she stayed head down for all this time just to turn now? She couldn't hold still for a couple more months? Then, later in the night, I felt reassuring kicks at the top of my belly. For a minute. Then she somersaulted back around for the rest of the evening but this morning I think she's head down again. I believe at this point she is just messing with me. I had heard women talk about being able to tell what position their babies were in, but I didn't think I would be able to. The midwife even tried to show me how to feel for the head, but I just nodded along with what she was saying. From the outside, everything feels like one big lump, but it turns out those feet in your crotch are pretty unmistakable.

As promised (at least I think I promised), I finally have pictures of the nursery.

I'm starting to rethink the mirrors on the wall--any thoughts? I wonder if we should just lose them and either leave that wall empty or move the shelf over. Funny story about the diaper bag--I didn't intend to get one that matched the room but, obviously, I love green and brown. I was actually looking for something a little less "girly" so that the boy could also carry it without being embarrassed, but I was informed that its a rite of passage for men to carry hideous girly diaper bags, so the pretty brown and green one it is!

I love these little rug dots. They serve absolutely no function whatsoever, but they're so darn cute! Sweetie still needs to paint the side table--the drawers will all be the same green as the upper half of the wall.

We went back and forth about the changing table a couple times. First, we planned to buy a low dresser and change the baby on the top, but we realized that there's no way we'd fit all that furniture in the room. My frugal side was loath to spend money on a changing table that we'd only use for a few months and, despite being pretty spendy, most changing tables are so rickety that I wouldn't want to put a baby on one anyway. Finally, we found this one at Ikea. Its solid wood and the top comes off so that the bean can use it for a bookshelf or toy storage later. We thought about adding it to the boy's painting list, but since it doesn't really fit in the room anyway, we ended up hiding it in the closet. I think its perfect in there, because we can hang a shelf on one of the side walls and have stuff handy without worrying about things dropping from above onto her head. I'm so happy with how it all turned out!

False Advertising

Even though this blog claims to be all about crafting and cooking, I haven't been making much of anything lately aside from this big belly. Maybe I should change the subtitle to bulleted points on house renovation and Bradley class bitching? Well, at least that should be the title of this post.

• After all my complaining last week, the Bradley class ended up being not half bad. An acupuncturist visited to demonstrate pressure points that ease contractions and it was nice to meet her just in case we need to call on her services for baby turning or induction help later.
  
  
• I needn't have worried about our hospital's birth policies. Last week, we finally met the third midwife in the practice (who we really liked) and she eased all of our concerns. A midwife will deliver our baby at the hospital and the change in location is pretty much the only difference between that and the birth center. (Except that I can't deliver in the tub, but I wasn't sure that was something we'd want anyway.)
  
  
• I "passed" the gestational diabetes test with a result of 113 (anything less than 140 is passing). That's 113 mg/dL of glucose in the blood, if you're curious.
  
  
• We are STILL working on getting this house into shape, although we're hopeful that we can finish this weekend. Last weekend my coworker came by with a helper to install the toilet that had been sitting in our hallway for weeks and to do some electrical work and other odds and ends. Its so nice to have that stuff done and to see this place starting to look more like a home than a construction area.

• The midwives have been hinting that I may need a medicated birth or the dreaded c-section unless my cardiologist gives me a note saying its OK to have a natural birth. I feel a little bit like an 8th grader getting a permission slip signed to go on the school field trip and it actually angers me if I think about it too long. Um, he needs to give me permission to give birth? He didn't seem at all concerned when I discussed a potential pregnancy with him last fall, so I'm hoping there won't be an issue when I ask for my permission slip tomorrow.
  
  
• Finally, there was a huge package of cloth diapers waiting for me when I arrived home today. I always knew that I wanted to cloth diaper, but I had no idea how complicated it was. There are so many options and so many different opinions on what works best. I finally placed an order for 36 unbleached, Indian prefold diapers, along with a couple diaper covers and snappis. We'll use those for the first couple weeks when the bean is blowing through diapers like they're going out of style and it'll be hardest to get a good fit. After that, we'll use pocket diapers that I plan to sew in a couple different sizes. I think the boy is still a little unsure about this whole thing, but hopefully it will work for us and we'll both get the hang of it. For now, the prefolds are in wash #1 out of the 5 they'll need before they can be used. After that, we gotta learn how to actually put these things on the kid!
  

28 Weeks

Apparently, I'm not very chatty lately. I've slowed down considerably in the last couple weeks, so I'm not accomplishing much after work and I can't remember a weekend when we weren't working on getting our new place together. Interestingly enough, the two rooms we aren't using are the closest to being done--the office/workout room in the basement (which is awaiting installation of a new phone line before we can actually use the computer) and the nursery. Sweetie finished the painting, our crib and dresser arrived (yay!) and we put some super cute decals on the wall. We just have a couple more things to hang and then all the big stuff will be done. I'm so happy with the paint job that sweetie did--it looks amazing, so much nicer than I had envisioned. We both keep peeking in the room, just to look at it.

Last night, we took an infant CPR class. I thought we were getting it as part of the four courses we registered for at our hospital but, apparently, I was wrong. We ended up taking it through our town's continuing ed department. Our new town is so small, who knew they even had one? Leave it to the sweetie--those googling skills astound me! Tonight is Bradley class #10 (of 12). I mentioned before that I wasn't so sure about the class but I was trying to keep an open mind. Now, I can say unequivocally that I hate the class. I think that the Bradley method is great and we've gotten a lot out of some written information we've found, but this particular class just sucks. The instructors are very nice people, but not the best teachers and there's a lot of talk about vague "relaxation techniques" or "coach strategies" without any detail. I really thought that was what we would spend 12 weeks learning, but so far . . . nada. I'm also personally a little annoyed because I was told when I registered us for the class that this husband/wife team taught the class together. In reality, the wife has been present for 2 or 3 classes so far and he has taught the others alone. Call me sexist, but I have a hard time hearing that contractions feel like strong menstrual cramps from someone who hasn't experienced either. Oh yeah, not to mention the fact that he just can't seem to bring himself to add "or partner" when talking about the father. The coach is always "he" and the parents are always referred to as "mom and dad" despite the fact that here we are sitting right in front of him with a fetus who will clearly have two mothers. We go back and forth between wanting to stop going and feeling like we should see them out since we've already paid for them. I think we can stick it out for three more weeks and hope that we end up getting a little something out of them, but I'm really starting to resent spending every Wednesday night at these things.

I also have my 28 week checkup today, where I'll get a rhogam injection and my gestational diabetes test. I'm hoping both go well. We are also planning on interrogating the midwife about the hospital procedures, since that's where it turns out I'll be birthing. I'm most concerned about whether there will be limitations on the birthing positions I can use and what procedures are routine and if we'll be able to decline them (I heard that our hospital gives routine pitocin during delivery of the placenta. I can hardly believe that, but if its true, there must be a way to get out of it?) Any suggestions on things I should check into?