One of my midwives came to my house for a prenatal today. Mark wasn’t able to come to the last couple of them, so he made sure to come home from work for this one, which was nice.
Things are looking very good. My blood pressure is great, something that I am trying not to take for granted. The baby is head down and has got his body out of the posterior position; he still hasn’t rotated his head properly or tucked his chin yet, so he hasn’t descended much. Accordingly I am measuring a precocious 40 cm.
(H. and me on Monday, matching.)
I described having difficulty sleeping and was advised to drink tea made from hops. (“Wouldn’t a nice IPA work?” I asked. Indeed it will, but I guess it is more advisable to binge on hops via a herbal infusion.) I described having difficulty consuming green vegetables and was advised to blend extra spinach into my V-8. “A pregnancy speedball,” says Mark. “You could put hops and liverwurst in it too.”
All I want to eat are liverwurst sandwiches and ice-cold grapes and apples. And ice cream.
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While we were going over the birth supply list it occurred to me what we home birthers should be saying to the hospital birthers that is the equivalent of “But if you give birth at home, who cleans up the mess?”
It is this:
“But if you give birth in the hospital, who will make all the frozen herbal compresses?”
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I had a lot of anxiety prior to my last two births, throughout the whole of the pregnancies. I have not had much this time around, but I can’t escape it entirely. Now that we are coming down to the last six weeks or so, the “I am going to have to do this thing again and it might really suck” is starting to throb in the back of my mind.
The midwife says cheerfully, “Well, you are committed, and it’s going to happen and you’re going to do it, so you might as well not worry about it now.”
Mark says, “Wait till after Christmas to think about it. It will still be there to think about after the holiday is over.”
Then I start worrying about when I am going to find time to put up a Christmas tree.
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I am grateful to my oldest child for having basically figured out how to keep up with his schoolwork with only minimal interaction from me. I am grateful to my second child for making bread, shoveling snow, and cleaning the kitchen as well as having an insatiable appetite for science and history documentaries. I am grateful to my third child for being able to read well enough that she can do lots of math independently via khanacademy.org and lots of other studying via Quizlet. I am grateful to my fourth child for entertaining himself happily with Legos and toy cars and blocks for hours on end.
Sometimes it all comes together really well, and when that happens, I get to take naps. This has been a slow season for schoolwork. Mark sternly instructed me to prioritize gestating over formal schooling, and i have obediently focused on eating, sleeping, and pelvic exercises while letting a lot of other things slide. I think we are hitting the minimum, though, and I am really pleased by how well my eldest has stepped up to the plate and independently kept up with his subjects. It maybe will turn out to be a good dry run for the start of high school work next year.
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