For a while, I thought I was going to be a member of the adoption club. It’s a pretty exclusive club, one that requires money, stamina, faith, and due to it’s relatively small size, it’s members are pretty close. But instead, now I am a part of the regular-moms club. The one that everyone belongs to. The one that begins with pregnancy and ends with a horrific 48-hour labor. For most, admittance is easy and free. Members spend lots of time sharing symptoms, stories, complaints, weight-loss tips, and clothes. With my now-prominent belly, people think that’s the club I belong to. The truth is that sometimes I feel like I’m stuck in a bad scene from Maid in Manhattan, where JLo is somehow passing as, well, not the maid. Don’t get me wrong, sometimes it’s a relief to just play along, agree that pregnancy is physically taxing, and listen to another gory I-was-in-labor-for-48-hours story.

But that morning, since B doesn’t know our story, I can only imagine that she probably thinks we chose IVF over adoption. And that made me feel guilty. Like I had somehow abandoned the difficult path she had chosen. I felt guilty that I had what I knew at some point she had wanted. But I know these are only projected feelings, that they belong to me and not her. After all, wasn’t she pushing a miracle in that stroller?

We recently got some very sad news about someone we love going through a very hard time. It’s not my story to tell, but the heartbreak of the situation has been colored by a past of infertility. Last night as Matt and I shed a few tears together, I was struck by how our infertility chapter never really goes away. Perhaps we’ve closed the book, or written the next chapter, but it will always be part of our story. It changes us in ways that we may not see for 20 years. When we look back on ours, what will we say? Of course we pray that we are 5-10 weeks away from our happy ending, but will it really be that, an ending?

Somebody thinks the toys are for her!

Also, I am getting a kick out of that little ticker on my sidebar that currently reads “sleeping most of the time”, because little boy does everything BUT sleep these days! I can now distinguish little limbs poking through and it is SO STRANGE and COOL.

Ladies and gentlemen, that’s what 30 pounds looks like. We made some serious progress on the nursery this weekend, hope to have some photos of that soon!

So posting around here has been pretty sparse. I have been at such a loss for meaningful topics. I am really starting to feel like the Infertility chapter of my life is coming to an end. I know it’s something that we will deal with again – as we consider the possibility of having more than one child, we will have to make some decisions about pursuing adoption or ART. Because of that, the issue of having another child will not be a matter of do we want one or can we handle it, but can we afford it. But I don’t think we will approach the situation with the same sadness and bitterness we did the first time around. We are thinking and talking about just being a family of three. That’s something we never thought we would ever consider before. Ultimately, we don’t know what the future holds, so we aren’t making any plans.

So I suppose I will continue to post boring pregnancy updates for the next 7-12 weeks, and then what this blog becomes is up for consideration. I guess I could spice things up a bit and start talking about my opinions on related topics like Breastfeeding, Cloth Diapering, Vaccinations, Circumcision, Daycare, Working Mothers, Homeschooling, and Natural Childbirth. But the truth is, I find those topics all to be a little personal. I know, here I was being all raw and uncensored about Infertility and Adoption, and I won’t even tell you how I feel about how I plan to keep my child’s poop contained. I guess I just don’t need anyone’s opinion on it. We did our research. We had our discussions. We made our decisions. We are already getting lots of people weighing in on those topics, and it’s getting a little tiring.

We are in a mad rush around here to finish some home projects and make the baby’s room less of a dumping ground for power tools and more of a habitable area. I am trying to stay positive about the last weeks of pregnancy despite being rather uncomfortable. I am fantasizing about my first postpartum run and wearing my skinny jeans. And drinking wine and eating sushi.

This past weekend was pretty special. My sisters and mom came in to town to throw us a baby shower. We had it at a local bake shop and it was fantastic. Many friends came to help celebrate and the outpouring of generosity was overwhelming. I am pretty sure baby boy has a completely stocked wardrobe for about a year. We got so many cute and creative gifts, but I just wanted to show you the most memorable. A friend got wind that we are using Pez as our nursery theme and so she happened to find this steal at a yard sale:

About 100 Pez figures, old and new. This about doubles my collection! As you can see, I was in total shock. What a cool gift! Matt made a Pez display shelf for me years ago, and along with my current collection, it has been languishing in our basement for the last 3 years. Our plan was to put up the shelf and collection (which just fits on the shelf) in the nursery. I think we’re going to need a bigger shelf! I have NO idea what I am going to do with all these new pieces, but it’s going to be fun figuring it out!

I am not a big fan of being the center of attention, so I sort of felt like I was getting married again. It was a beautiful day but kind of a blur! We are traveling to Matt’s hometown this coming weekend to attend another shower there. It’s incredible the amount of support and love there is for this baby!

I think it’s safe to say I am going to be huge.

I am feeling pretty good, mostly just enormously exhausted. There are days when I consider taking 2 naps. My headaches are under control and my joints are on their way to becoming jelly. What I am losing in running fitness I am gaining in swimming stamina. I savor my 45 minutes of not feeling pregnant every day. We had a great first prenatal visit with a midwife at the birthing center last week. I am measuring a little large, but I seem to be having a very uneventful and healthy pregnancy thus far. I love feeling the baby move more forcefully each day, and I am no longer wearing a training bra!

We have several other daycare options to look at. Just last week I put our names on a waitlist for the rather prestigious facility at the University where I work. Now, I didn’t even bother to “interview” this place, because I actually worked there all through college. And we will probably be on the waitlist for at least a year before even a chance of opening exists. Most people put their names on the waitlist at 6 weeks pregnant (!). It costs more monthly than our mortgage payment. It’s the kind of place that serves spinach pesto for lunch, plays Enya at naptime, teaches children how to count in Japanese, and has art classes for their 6-month-olds. It operates on an Italian early educational model that closely resembles Montessori – encouraging creativity and collaboration. Anyway. It’s probably our “first choice”, but the cost, location, and waitlist make it sort of unattainable at this point. But anyway. We have a few more solid options that I will tour, and we also hope to look at some “nanny” options. Whew, what a hard choice!

And now on to the Birthing Center. I will admit I have been skeptical of the whole concept, of not giving birth in a hospital, attended by physicians. But after our last experience with the hospital, we both felt strongly that we needed to explore our options. The orientation did a good job of expelling our fears. They have very low hospital-transfer, episiotomy, and c-section rates. My two biggest hesitations in choosing a Birthing Center with midwives has been 1) safety and 2) pain management. I am really beginning to understand that society, movies, tv, and even many of the infertility blogs that I read have led me to believe that giving birth is scary, unnatural, dangerous, and life-threatening. No doubt that it’s painful, but it doesn’t have to be any of those other things (assuming you are having a safe and uncomplicated pregnancy). I am still terrified of the pain, but last night made me realize that birth can be a calm, beautiful, empowering experience. It’s what your body was meant to do (except for the pain part, thanks a lot, Eve!) You don’t have to feel neglected, confused, and coerced!

And. It’s a LOT cheaper than a hospital birth and the nurses make you omelettes when you are done! How cool is that?

** I should insert here that I really do like doctors. I didn’t feel like any of the doctors and nurses I saw over the weekend didn’t care about me. They are just operating in a rather broken system that makes for some rather unfortunate experiences. I know they are doing the best they can. We have lots of family and friends who are doctors, and we love you! **

Well. I woke up Sunday morning feeling a little off, just kind of crampy and uncomfortable. I figured it would pass with some breakfast and a walk. After church I felt pretty bad so I decided to have a real rest. It didn’t help and I spent the next several hours groaning on the couch. Most of you are probably thinking why did you wait so long to do something!? The truth is it really just felt like bad gas cramps, except nothing was uhhh, passing. I tried walking, every conceivable laying position, drinking tea, sitting on the toilet. Matt was getting concerned so I went ahead and called the OB on call. She didn’t seem terribly interested, told me to call back in a few hours if I saw no improvement. I still felt lots of kicking, so I really wasn’t worried myself. With no change I called her back around 7pm and she instructed me to just go to the hospital. Ugh. All I could think about was how pointless this was and how expensive it would be.

It was a little weird being in the L&D department of the hospital where we were told we wouldn’t be able to conceive. I felt a little victorious, actually. Take that, suckers! But anyway, we got checked in fairly quickly and I got hooked up to the monitoring machines. The baby’s heart rate was good and I didn’t appear to be having any contractions. The nurse left and told me the doctor would be in shortly.

We waited, and waited, and watched the World Cup, and waited. They had me laying on my back (ummm, I thought that was a no-no?), and I was just so uncomfortable. The room was tiny, the bed was uncomfortable, there was a fly buzzing around, the paint was peeling, and our room was right next to a hallway door badly in need of some WD-40. A nurse came in about after about an hour to give me my allergy bracelet and told me there was a delay due to an unexpected delivery next door. Ummm, aren’t they all a little unexpected? The only reason I agreed to go to the hospital in the first place is that I have no sense of what normal is anymore. I feel like I have lost touch with my body, it’s doing things it never did before, that working through pain is no longer a good idea, and how the hell am I supposed to know the difference between a contraction and a gas cramp?

We hit a turning point when my machines started beeping and an error message on the screen read “FHR=0″. Ok, I am no doctor, but I knew what that meant and I sort of lost it. I called the nurse, who took her time in arriving, and she just blew me off:

“It’s beeping because of your finger.”

“What does that mean?”

“Your pulse ox.”

“What does that mean?”

“It just can’t detect a signal.”

Oh Lord. She was basically telling me that the machine was not terribly accurate and that if I had actually been in my room dead, they would not have gotten any sort of error message at their station, or would have blown it off due to frequent mechanical failure. I asked when we might expect to see a doctor, as we were going on two hours with no pain improvement, she reminded me about the woman giving birth. Yeah, I got it.

I took all the machines off and rolled over on my side. Apparently the monitoring equipment was for my own amusement and I was no longer amused.

When I was finally seen, they felt my abdomen, checked my urine, and told me I was probably just “backed up”. I thought that rather unlikely, but hey, they’re the doctors, right? They gave me a script for some laxatives, and just as we were leaving, the doctor came back and and said, “you know what, we better check your cervix for preterm labor”.

Uhhhh, shouldn’t you have done that WHEN I FIRST GOT HERE!?

We stopped at Wendy’s on the way home and I got a huge, greasy, bowel-moving burger and fries. I guess I would feel good about this being a “false alarm” sort of incident except that when I got home last night the Wendy’s took effect and it didn’t really make me feel any better. I did, however, learn some valuable buzz words for getting taken seriously. Things like “preterm labor”, “pelvic pressure”, and “abdominal cramps”.

Oh yeah, and it’s pretty unlikely that the hospital birth I was planning on is going to happen.

The last 5 years is more than I could have asked for. If you had told me 5 years ago that this is where we would be now, I would have laughed in your face. So I am not going to try and imagine what the next 5 years will be like. But if it’s with you, I know it’s going to be fun.

Thanks for making me laugh every day, for being my taste-tester, for your incredible hard work, for giving me the good seat on the couch, and for being willing to see Eclipse with me (thanks to Carrie for giving you an out!). Oh yeah, and thanks for knocking me up!

I don’t know that I would call it a good idea, but it was certainly an transformative few hours for me. As the name suggests, Ricki Lake takes you on a little behind-the-scenes tour of the baby-birthing industry, from the perspectives of OBs, mothers, midwives, and researchers. Yes, the movie was a bit slanted in favor of midwives and the natural, at-home birthing option. Now, in a previous post I mentioned how I was not really interested in a doula, midwife, or birthing center. I guess I just feel very comfortable in hospitals and have a lot of faith in doctors. I do my research, ask a lot of questions, and consider myself a fairly informed patient. But what this movie really made me realize is that being born is a business, and sometimes, decisions are being made for financial and convenience reasons. And when I am in the heat of the moment, in the worst pain of my life, am I am really going to be able to sort through what the doctor is telling me about what our next steps should be? Who is going to help me stick to the plan? How am I going to avoid unnecessary interventions? Obviously Matt will be there, but he won’t be able to tell if the forceps/vacuum/epistiotomy/c-section is really necessary, or if the doctor just wants to get home to that game of golf.

I do believe I am getting adequate care from my OB. I like him, his assistant, and his nurses. They take the time to listen to me. But they might not be with me in the birthing room. I don’t think a birthing center is right for me. I want to have the option of pain meds. But I want someone with me there at the hospital, reminding me that this is what my body was designed to do. That it knows what to do. I made an appointment for us to attend an orientation meeting at the nearby birthing center where many of the city’s midwives practice. I am hoping that I can find a way to make this whole labor thing slightly less terrifying. I mean, women have been doing this since the beginning of time. Piece of cake, right?