PIE

it came out super duper beeeeyoootiful!  can't wait to eat it.  even i am going to have some pie today... gestational diabetes be hanged!

happy turkey day

waiting for pie dough

ahhh

sitting up waiting for pie crust to "rest" before i can bake the pie, so i thought i would drop in.  the pie is all ready, just chillin in the fridge for what they say should be an hour, but methinks will be better as a half hour since it is now 10:17 and we are only 17 minutes into our pie naptime.  considering it needs an additional 45 to 55 minutes to bake.

today i had another meeting with lovely Sue Baelen, my midwife extraordinaire.  it's so cool that she comes over to my house, and we talk and visit and do all the prenatal stuff for an hour and a half.  she checked my blood pressure as usual, and it was stellar (108/58) and felt my belly.  the fundus is now about midway between my pubic bone and navel.  then we listened to the heartbeat with a doppler, which was nice and reassuring even though i hadn't been worried.  it was fun for Ava too.

Sue brought me a book for Ava about a little boy whose mom has a homebirth, told from his perspective with beautiful watercolor illustrations.  Ava has already had me read it 4 times this evening.  She told me the other day that she wants to be there for the birth, which i feel like would be nice.  I think I will know better when we get closer to that time.  Perhaps i can find a way for her to be somewhere else while i labor, and arrive for the birth.  Perhaps she'll be in school, anyhow.  Luckily it is right across the street and someone could fetch her for the birth.

we went out for vietnamese food tonight, as Matt had cooked all the food for tomorrow today and we wanted to eat something really, really different than we'll eat tomorrow.  it was great.  Beef Pho.  mmm.  spring rolls, the cold kind with mint and lettuce and noodles inside.  mmm.  Ava was super psyched about the Pho.  She was eating mine all up.

ok.  pie naptime OVER.  mama bear is tired.

good MaryStarr

today I went to Ballet class.  good girl.  it isn't really so bad, it's not like I totally suck the way I imagine that I do in my head when i talk myself out of going.  it's not my best subject, so to speak, but if I went more it would be easy to get my chops up.  so i am recommitting to attending ballet class at least once a week, and more while Kathleen is gone and I don't have her class 3 days a week.

perhaps if i can't keep anything else, I can keep my feet ;)

won't be able to see them, of course, but I'll know they are rockin a serious articulated pointe...

round TWO

well, today i am officially 14 weeks pregnant which means hello second trimester.  woohoo!  nice to now be able to have all the nervous nellies stop sweating me about having talked about my pregnancy since day one.  although of course, one of my clients DID have to point out yesterday that one of her friends just miscarried at 16 weeks and nearly died... terrible drama of hemmoraging in bed at night, fainting and bing rushed in for a transfusion and a d&c.

as always, THANKS FOR SHARING.

feeling great though, here.  all's well.

hum sa... so hum... so hum... hum sa

I Am You

You Are Me

I Am You

You Are Me

I Am You

You Are Me

I Am You 

You Are Me

Last night my friend Sarah, from my old babycenter group who I have been conversing with almost daily since december 2003, posted some sad news.  She was also expecting a baby, due in May like me.  Sarah and I are the only ones of the group not to have had another baby since our september 2004 babies were all born.  Several of the gals have had 2 more.  Anyways, at her 16 week ultrasound they couldn't find a heartbeat.  She is going in for a D&C today I think. I am very sorry for her.  She was doing fertility treatments for three years to concieve after her daughter who is Ava's age.  So sad, and it seems like it isn't meant to be for her, you know?

So now my mind is pondering the nature of it all.  Because I have no such fear or concern with my pregnancy.  I believe very much and have all along that this baby will grow fine and be born fine and be just fine.  I ahve had not a shred of doubt of this since day one and still do not.  I am a lucky woman to conceive so easily and carry and birth babies so well.  I am thankful to this soul who chose me for making me a sacred vessel, and I am thankful to god and all that is for the grace i am given in this precious arena of my life.

I guess we all have our challenges along the way, and I have certainly had many in my life so far.  It would be nice to think i had burned up all my bad karmas early on in my life, but i am sure this is not true.  I am just glad that i have this place in my life to experience a blessing.  My blessings are many now, and I am thankful for them.  I pray that when hardships come to me I can remember my blessings here.

slacker, i know

yup.  so I haven't written here in so long that i think my own blog forgot me.  forgive me?  I am going to try to be better about it.

So now I am thirteen weeks and a bit along in my pregnancy, next week i will be officially in my second trimester.  I am feeling much, much, much better.  I wasn't sick really, but I was super irritable and generally filled with ennui.  I decided to bail on my concurrent care with Kaiser around 10 weeks.  It was redundant and annoying so I have only been seeing my homebirth midwife, the marvelous Sue Baelen, and I am SO HAPPY.  This means that I have to pay for my own glucose monitoring strips, which are expensive, but it also means that I will not be subjected to any more tests, vaginal exams, mandatory peeing in cups and getting weighed, waiting in waiting rooms or counseling about genetic testing that I do not wish to have.

See, I had thought I would do concurrent care at Kaiser along with my homebirth prenatal care so that I could have all the testing that was necessary covered ad so that in the event that a transfer was necessary during labor they would not necessarily label me high risk because they would have their own records.  But after being informed that they wanted to re-do my 3 hour glucose test every four weeks to "monitor" me and being given a "standard procedure" 8 week vaginal sonogram with no discussion of whether or not i wanted one I realized that i was denying myself a true homebirth experience.  DUH.  It has been a really great choice. I really feel so different i can hardly explain it.  I am definitely owning my own pregnancy.  Talk about a weight being lifted.

Sue gave me a great book, called the Natural Pregnancy Guide by a midwife named Aviva Romm.  Tons of great info on making herbal infusions for nutrition during pregnancy, as well as herbal remedies for stuff.  And dietary info and just a great, feminist and woman centered approach to health self care during the childbearing year.  Highly recommend!  She also wrote one called raising children naturally that I have coming from Amazon as we speak.  Am thinking infusions would be super for Ava to drink instead of so much cows milk... so long as they were of the proper sort for kiddos.

Have started to show, which is good.  I was just looking chubby.  Today I had a nice thought as i was resting after lunch, that soon i will lay in my bed and nurse my baby while i stroke it's little ear.  sweet thing.

MaryStarr