 | Diary Navigation:
|
November 4, 2001
November 4, 2001
19 Weeks +
Hello everyone,
I hope everyone I doing fine this week and feeling well in their pgs. For those still trying, I hope to hear a lot of positive news this month.
I can’t believe I had the nerve to bug my friends incessantly that I couldn’t feel the baby moving. I actually told one of my girlfriends that I thought the baby might be limbless because I hardly ever felt any flutterings. WELL, I needn’t have worried because this baby is now moving almost all the time. I take that back, if I am moving around, I can’t feel the baby moving at all. But if I am sitting, driving or lying down, I can feel very definite kicks. The flutterings are gone and it feels like someone is poking me from the inside. The kicks are the most noticeable when I am starving as well as right after I have eaten. It’s like the baby is telling me: “Feed me already!” or saying “Ahh, thank you, that tasted good.”
This past weekend, Charles and I celebrated his 39th birthday. Four days later, we celebrated our anniversary. It is weird because this will be our very first and last anniversary alone. Last year, I was commuting back and forth from CT to VA when Charles had been transferred here before me. We were unable to spend our very first anniversary together so this year was special for many reasons. What was also so “neat” about it is that for Charles’ birthday I gave him both a card and a gift from “the baby” which he really liked a lot. He thought it was very special. For our anniversary, Charles gave me a new wedding band since neither my current wedding band or engagement ring fit any longer. It’s not engraved yet but we plan on having he baby’s birth date etched on the inside. : )
For our anniversary, we didn’t do anything special in the eyes of most, but we still had a great day. We went “baby shopping,” again and had fun choosing and researching all the stuff we think the baby needs. That evening (Halloween) we went out to dinner at a restaurant we had been itching to try called “The Melting Pot,” a fondue restaurant. Being part Swiss and having had authentic Swiss fondue many times, I personally couldn’t wait to experience what I thought would be a great fondue.
First of all, I must have been crazy to think that Americans could recreate a traditional Swiss fondue. That would be like craving a real NY pizza and instead ordering a slice from a local Italian restaurant in Idaho. Of course, I wasn’t looking for perfection, but something close to reality would have been nice. Note to all chefs out there: Swiss fondue does not call for celery, cauliflower or green apples as dipping items. It’s either standard French bread or nothing!
There is a point to this story and that is: never rely on a pimply faced waiter with breast milk still under his chin to know about the true effects of heat upon alcohol. I stupidly let this waiter tell me that the fondue (made at our table with a half glass of white wine) was perfectly safe for me to consume as a pg woman, that the heat from the burner would negate the ill effects of the alcohol. I completely realized this was untrue when after finishing my meal, I started getting that nice, warm feeling in the pit of my stomach, sort of like when you have a sip of brandy. Never did I feel so GUILTY. I should have known better! Of COURSE a little heat wouldn’t kill the effects of the alcohol, what was I thinking???? As soon as I got home I ran straight to my baby book and it said that if a pg woman is to consume a dish prepared with alcohol, the alcohol should simmer for at least an hour to negate its potency. An hour? Our fondue barely cooked for 10 minutes. Oh what a bad mother I already was, inebriating my poor little child, committing it to AA and God knows what else simply because I just had to have cheese! My fears were soon quelled later that evening. Charles and I were on the couch, me lying down with my legs in his lap, his hand on my bare stomach. All of a sudden, I felt the baby kicking, very strongly and rapidly. I didn’t say anything because this was becoming a normal occurrence and I knew Charles couldn’t feel it yet. Then Charles says to me “Umm, is that the baby?” I said, “You can feel that?” Charles said “Yeah! Is that the baby?! Oh my God, I felt that!!!!” For the next 15 minutes we played this game of “Guess the Kicks,” and every time the baby would kick Charles would yell “I feel it! I feel it! I feel it!!!” He was right every time, he always yelled in perfect time with the kicks. What an AMAZING experience.
So, I guess the half glass of wine didn’t hurt the baby at all, either that or our baby likes wine just as much as we do. Regardless, I will not be consuming any food prepared with wine again until AFTER the baby is born.
This morning I was lying in bed and I started to feel the kicking again. I immediately put my hand to my stomach (my now favorite pastime) to feel the kicks. To my delight/horror/shock, I felt the baby really MOVE under my skin. What I mean is, instead of a tiny poke, I felt what seemed to be the rolling movement of the baby under my skin, almost as if some part of the baby were grazing the inside of my stomach, not just poking out one little spot. Do you all know what I mean? It was such a distinct feeling, wonderful but creepy just the same. I guess the reason I use the word creepy is that it scares me to think that something that delicate, with its tiny little bones can cause so much motion all the way through my big belly. You would think the bones would just snap from the slightest pressure. But, God knew what he was doing when He made us all, I guess He just wanted to create a unique way for Mother and Child to be “formally” introduced for the very first time. : )
I had two very weird dreams this week. In one of them, I dreamt I had a miscarriage and that all that came out of me was the placenta. The other dream was longer and more vivid. I dreamt that I went into labor at my old job back in CT. In my dream, a nurse brought me to a birthing center that was located right in my office - very weird. I was made to squat on the floor and push the baby out onto the cold tile below me. The labor was over within minutes but I never got to see a baby. I kept asking where my baby was and no one would tell me, they just told me to get back to work. I went back to work and everyone kept asking me where my baby was and what I had. I hadn’t even thought to ask! Out of nowhere (as often happens in dreams), the nurse appeared and I asked her where my baby was. She told me to check my duffel bag (I don’t carry duffel bags), that they had packed the baby in there. I went to the duffel bag, opened it and in it was a little boy. I kept saying “I had a boy? This is a mistake!” All I remember about the dream is that after I “gave birth,” I felt so sad and depressed because my pg was over. I didn’t want it to be over. And then I woke up. How incredibly awful. I was so happy to know that my pg was still ongoing but on the other hand, I felt so terribly guilty that I was annoyed in my dream about having a boy. I would never be like that in real life, I would be ecstatic to have a son, so I wonder why I had that dream?
I finally gave in and tried one of those Chines Calendars to predict whether I am having a boy or a girl. Well, there are all different kinds of Chinese Calendars and I found that with 3 of them, they all said I was having a girl. One of them indicated that I had a 48% chance of having a girl, 53% chance of having a boy and one just said I was having a boy, period. These calendars are all a crock of ---- anyway, but it’s still interesting to try. I normally would never have tried this ridiculous method, but a girlfriend of mine went ahead and did it for me and then TOLD me, (though I asked her not to and TRULY did not want to know), that her calendar said boy. Because I wanted to then check her calculations myself, I looked up these calendars and was presented with a whole bunch of different ones, all rendering the above results. Bottom line, I get what I get and I will be happy no matter what. God, just let it be healthy!
I don’t have much else to add this week except for one tiny little topic, my “rant” for the week, if you will. This topic concerns the issue of home births and after watching a recent episode of Baby Story where a HB was featured, I have plenty to say on the matter.
I don’t begrudge anyone the right to do what they want with their own bodies, it is certainly a free country. But, when you potentially and indirectly endanger the life of an unborn child for your own sense of satisfaction and “wholeness,” I simply can’t take it.
This week on one of the Baby Story episodes, a woman was having her second baby at home. She and her husband were like something out of the 60’s, complete flower children. They looked like they probably conceived their child with a commune of hippies in Haight Ashbury. Anyhow, the couple ordered (from God knows where), this “birthing tub,” that was about the size of a home Jacuzzi and about as flimsy looking as a styrofoam cup of coffee. I wouldn’t have washed a stray dog in that tub, let alone bring a new life forth in it, but fine, whatever works for you. During their personal interview, the woman and her spouse indicated that if the HB did not work out for them, they would be very upset and feel like they had failed somehow. I must stop to ask everyone out there: is it a different baby, a lesser child, if it is born in a hospital? Where is the failure? I must have missed something there.
So, labor day comes and this woman is in this tub in some incredible amount of pain. The woman is screaming in pain, I mean, she is in agony, sounding (and looking) like a cow tied to a railroad track. Among the various onlookers, were a number of other fruits and hippies, the spouse/father-to-be, AND their 2 year-old daughter. As the mother was still screaming bloody murder, the 2 year-old is playfully splashing around in the “pool” which is now filled with blood, gook and other drippings. As an aside, I completely disagree that a child, especially such a young one, should be exposed to such a scene. It could be traumatic for the child to see their mother suffer, although in this case, it probably was therapeutic.
So, getting back to my story, the midwife is desperately trying to get the baby out but to no avail, no progress is made. Finally, it is determined that the baby is in fetal distress with the cord wrapped around its neck and that if they are not rushed to the hospital immediately, the baby will die. As the mother is delivered this news, news that her baby’s life is in serious jeopardy, her only comment that comes to mind is “I’m so SAD!!!! I wanted this baby to be born at HOME!!! Waaahhhhh!!!” Instead of hurrying to get to the hospital, the woman just continued to wail, whine and drag her heels, sniffling over their “failure” to deliver this baby at home, all the while further jeopardizing the child. My harsh response - get a life!
I’m telling you, if I could, I would have reached through that set and slapped some much-needed sense into that crackpot. Can you even imagine?????? This poor baby is near death and the only thing this moron can think of is her stupid pool and the baby’s location as it enters this world?!?!?
I tell you, I take offense to this sort of scenario. As I said in the beginning, you want a home birth - fine. I think it’s risky, dangerous and selfish, I would never consider such a thing, but that’s what you want, great - it’s every woman’s choice. However, I cannot see how one can fail to see the significance of the situation and become near hysterical when it is possible that your baby could die! Is this woman for real?! There are millions of women out there who would be ecstatic just to be able to HAVE a baby, period, to carry it themselves, even if delivery meant having to have it cut out of them with no anesthetic, and this idiot is upset because her baby won’t be born in a pool? Ugh - it is simply disgusting.
Well, I am sure I have offended someone out there, so go ahead and let me have it.
Until next week,
Corinne and her baby
 |  |
|
want to keep a diary on iParenting?
Authoring a diary on the iParenting network allows you to chronicle your family's story, preserving it for years to come. It's also a great way to get the most out of the iParenting community. Click here to start...
|
The iParenting Media Awards program helps parents find the best products for their families. 
