Dammit Dammit Dammit

And so, there’s another job I’ve been tipped off to. DAMMIT.

The pros:

  • If I were EVER to work in a school again, this would be the ONLY position I’d take.
  • It’s in the Middlest of Middle schools (waves to mainegirl: RB)
  • It’s in THE school that Marilyn has said, since I’ve known her, that I would LOVE and would love me
  • It’s an academic year schedule
  • The district is the 2nd or 3rd highest paying in the area. 
  • I have connections & references familiar with the school: Marilyn and at least one classmate

The cons:

  • It’s a school job. I’d be making just 5k more a year than I did my last year teaching.
  • It starts in September.
  • Which means infant daycare, which is ~ $500 a month, so after that, it’s less than what I would be making compared to my last teaching salary.
  • 4 months seems so sooooon to leave the baby for full time work. Because it’s a school job, there is no option for flex time or working from home; it would be 5 days a week. Childcare would have to be paid even on the weeks I didn’t work, and I don’t even KNOW how summer vacation would work, but I would imagine I’d have to pay to keep whatever spot I had in childcare.
  • Schools seem to be really hard for pumping purposes. You don’t have an office, you don’t have a lunch hour, or the ability to take 20-30 minutes to find a private space to pump. That’s really, really important to me.

I guess I just wish it was a year from now, I feel like at a year I’d be able to not pump, childcare would be less expensive and easier to find, I will know what motherhood has done to me and my brain to know if I’d want to even have this job. I mean, another district just axed their tech people, who are really great at what they do, and have the experience already, so who knows if I’d even GET IT. But this would be such an easy decision if it were A YEAR FROM NOW. Just like the last job that I was tipped off to, if it had been even 6 months later, I would have applied. (That one was doing prof dev with teachers, through a private company, so it would have certainly meant starting before September, and running inservices over the summer…. but that one was part time/flex and I probably could have found a private room to pump in.) 

I know people do it, all of it, all the time. There are lots of people that have to take their babies to childcare at 6weeks, 16 weeks should be Just Fine, right? But I just don’t know how it would work for US.

I mean, I need to do my resume anyway, for a class, so I might as well send it in, interview, see how it goes. Finishing my degree in the fall would be fine, the practicum is usually done concurrent with a teaching job ANYWAY, I’m sort of an odd duck that I’ll need a placement.  The other class is an evening class, so it’s not a concern. I would finish my degree.  Anyway. I just wish it was a YEAR from now! Sigh.

Amping up, winding down

It’s just so WEIRD, this part. I’m so tired, it seems, all the time. I’m at school right now, two cups of tea into me and could just PASS OUT at my desk if I allowed myself. And yet, i’m getting so excited to get to the end of the pregnancy part, and start with the parenting part.

The weather has been glorious, and I remember anticipating this spring, last fall, and how it would be such a great time to have a baby. The weather this week ismaking that all the more real to me. I wonder if any of the bulbs I planted last spring will pop up this year.

Yesterday, I met a local mom from ADL at the bagel shop, which was very cool. It was the first in person, local conversation I’d had that I didn’t feel like a freak. She is using a sling with her 4week old, and apparently gets lots of comments, and one of the downtown shops (that really, I thought would know about them since the one wrap I’ve ever seen in use was on one of their former buyers…) apparently wants to start stocking them after seeing it in action. It was also neat to look at the litle 4week old and think that I am really close to having one of those myself. It seems so far off and weird and surreal, and to be at the bagel shop as such a …. grown up — me, all pregnant and the mom with her tiny baby, as opposed to the way-back days of hanging out in a large group of high school kids that may or may not be skipping school at any given moment.  I also got the scoop about the hospital, and that there’s at least one great nurse, and one annoying night nurse. 

After the bagel shop (mmmm), I went to the Y for the aqua class. I was sort of dreading it, the warm weather had me feeling hot and sticky (HOLY SHIT, am I glad I’m not pregnant in the summer…) and the pool is always soooo warm, but the thought of weightlessness for an hour won out. Amazingly, the pool was cool and refreshing. Not that they’d changed the temperature, but just that the relative temperature to outside or the individual or whatever makes it just-right. After the pool, I ran out to get my mom’s birthday present, and ended up crashing on the couch for a half hour or so, until my parents showed up at the door. We went and got my mom a new digital camera (hers, whichis exactly like mine, went haywire over the weekend and she wanted a smaller one anyway, but it now has me all paranoid that my camera will die at the WORST POSSIBLE TIME ever. Of course, I would imagine I could probably get hooked up relatively quickly by my dad. BUT STILL. PARANOIA.) and then took her to dinner at the Texas Roadhouse, where, I hate to admit it, I actually enjoyed the food. I evenhad — gasp! — steak. I last had steak in, oh, September? When we told my folks about the widget? and before that, yeaaaars ago. Anyway, the steak was good, and the house salad was really one of the best house salads I’ve ever had. usually they are limp white iceberg lettuce and some carrot shavings, but this had great greens and tomatoes and hard boiled egg and cabbage, and YUM.  My folks took me home, Dave came home from his dinner out with friends and we hung out a bit before his gaming night, and I went to bed relatively early.

Today, i was supposed to teach one of my prof’s classes, as he was supposed to be going to Penn State for a conference, buthe had to back out when he had a major plumbing emergency at his house, so I’m here, in a windowless room on a gorgeous day, trying desperately to stay awake. I have class tonight, and tomorrow I have a GD appt, but my numbers are really good (steak, salad, and steamed veggies are GREAT for the GD diet, apparently…) so I hope I dont have to argue too much with the nutritionist.  I also plan on running some errands — getting groceries, getting my oil changed, cleaning out my car and maybe vacuuming it (there’s still pine needles in  the cargo area from our christmas tree….) getting the dishes done and such… and then Amy will be arriving to help with the baby room, which will be SO WEIRD, and again, making it feel like it’s coming at me like a train. The shower is Sunday, which I’m looking forward to, and from that point we’ll know what we need to buy ourselves. That sounds sort of greedy, but that’s how it is. My wedding gifts were luxuries, nothing we needed, but stuff that replaced or supplemented what we had. We NEED onesies, you know? And a swing and packnplay (and now ten people will say, "no you don’t!" but the one piece of advice Dave got at work was "GET A SWING," so for him, we NEED it, and for us, the PNP is to be our downstairs baby station, since we don’t have a bathroom on the first floor, etc, I NEED a place to plop the baby when I’m running to the bathroom, or changing laundry, or what have you.).

I also want to get to Portland one last time before the widg arrives, to see Amy’s boys, to have one last night away, alone, and for one last run to the real BRU, just in case there’s something I can’t get here.

Oh, and then I hve to finish all my school stuff, too.

Good lord, i just want to nap.

Seminar Update

I presented my seminar last night, which is a major project taken off the table. (Of course, I still have to write the follow up paper, but I have my articles and resources and such already, now.)  My topic was hard to untangle into a single topic; I ended up calling my presentation "Local and Global community in the age of the internet."  It was interesting, because it just wasn’t a linear topic, and the components weren’t linear, which is exactly what the internet is, too, you know? Anyway.

I had posted one of my articles for my classmates to read and comment on before I presented, to just sort of tease the topic, and it was interesting responses — no one else participated in any online communities outside of emailing friends and family, and maybe IMing with them. I definitely felt like I was about to out myself as Total Freak heading into it, but inthe end, I think people were enlightened more than anything. 

I started by talking about what community is, exactly, and how social networks have evolved, using an article by Barry Wellman, who talks about social networks used to be place-to-place, you sent mail to someone’s house from your house, or you called a number and asked for a person, whereas now our networks are person-to-person, based laregely on technologies that make it so. We have individual email, phone numbers, etc. (Except my parents, who share an email address, which is really frustrating at this time of year when they both have birthdays, argh.) I can remember having a party line for telephone service until I was probably 7 or 8; our ring was long-short-long, but people ALWAYS listened in (especially 7-8 year old kids) and there was always the picking up the phone to check that it was free to make a call. We have a landline here, so if the phone rings, I might answer it and it’s for Dave, but I spend a few minutes talking to Tom anyway. Caller ID has even changed this, my mom calls ALL the time, so often the phone will ring, and dave will look at it, and hand it to me to answer… person-to-person.

I went from that discussion, to saying "for the last three months or so, the only mail we’ve received that’s not junk or bills, has been gifts for the baby….. from my internet friends." And oh, the jaws dropped. "INTERNET FRIENDS? What if THEY’RE PEDOPHILES?!" was the basic thought, I’m sure.  I highlighted a few other internet-friend experiences ("When you get to the city, my doorman has a key for you, let yourself in!" or "Sure, come stay with us and our 4 month old baby, even though we’ve never met in real life!") and then started to explain how my internet friendships have evolved.

That part was interesting, for ME, to try to map it out. I really tried to make a diagram of internet & IRL connections, and I couldn’t do it, because it’s so intertwined in many cases. And thinking of how I got there — I talked about starting (to finish) my undergrad, and being much older thanmy classmates, and then moving to grad school and being much YOUNGER than my classmates, and in both cases, not having many ongoing life experiences happening at the same time as anyone. (Which is just about right; I started at Digs and Dland in summer 2001, and started back at UM in fall 01, so…) Or, how my real life friends have finished having kids, years ago, and I’m just starting, etc. They (like I said, they are all much older than me, for the most part) started to ‘get it,’ at that point, I think.  I talked about how when my back was out, my IRL friends were the ones that brought me milkshakes in bed, and my online friends were there for me to ‘talk’ to when no one else was around.

That led into "glocalization," another Wellman word, and I used examples of that — when Muse sent my kids the box of books, and how my global community impacted my local community. Or, starting the bangorbaby blog after helping an internet acquaintance with bangor-specific advice, and realizing it could be a resource for others…. my global community is impacting my local one in that way.

It then diverged into the ‘revenge effects’ of technology, and internet addiction, the signs and solutions, etc… and the best irony ever… we want to switch from Verizon to MidMaine for a cheaper DSL/Landline package, BUT, to do that we have to shut off Verizon DSL before calling MidMaine, and then MM has to get us to sign a paper authorizing that they can provide us DSL. ANYWAY, it apparently means that we’re out of internet for 7-10 days, and I literally was like "SHIT, i can’t do that now, I’m working on my internet community/ internet addiction presentation!" And even after that, trying to figure out 7-10 days that I could live without internet is um, really challenging my psyche. Take my phone, take my tv, but damn! I use the internet for everything! Not just ADL and blogs, but like, BANKING! How will we transfer money in that time, or know if checks have cleared?! It’s really intimidating to think about. Too bad we weren’t going on vacation soon. Or ever.

Throughout the whole presentation there waslots of discussion,and afterwards my prof confided that she had her own online friendships, so she found it really interesting to hear them analyzed in such a way.  It was a really good topic for me to do, I think, just based on my own experiences and interests in the way the internet connects people of like minds.

Then, I came home to find my first issue of People Magazine waiting for me, which was part of an unbelievable gift from one of my oldest internet/IRL friends (A six month sub, the perfect nursing magazine, no doubt — when I told Amy, she even freaked out — People is just the best ever, and I have NO SHAME, man) and this morning UPS dropped off a box with a boppy from yet ANOTHER old internet/IRL friend, and man, I am just so blessed to have stumbled across these people, in whatever way that I did. I know that, every day, but to see the widget being welcomed so warmly, too, oh, it just makes me all mushy. Who knew that the cold, hard internet would make me so soft?

Hockey! Weekend!

Yay! UMaine is in the Frozen Four. As the most unlikely hockey fan, ever, this makes me happy.  Of course, watching the game the announcers from the regional ESPN channel that was being fed to the local station were obviously incredulous of Maine’s victory — they beat the #1 East seed, Michigan State, but really, when the score is 4-3, the right words are "Maine is leading" not "Michigan is almost tied up!" Maybe it was like "oh, shit, our script is all fucked up, this was supposed to be All Michigan!" Anyway, yay, Frozen Four, and we got to watch the victory with time left to spare to get to the hopsital for our last CBE class.

This class had the much-awaited tour, and that was neat. I was really surprised to see that the L&D rooms were so …. small. Like, that’s all the room you need for bringing forth a new life? Wow. Our bedroom is certainly bigger, and we have a small house.  Saw the ‘shower unit,’ which they hype on their website, and seriously? It’s a closet they turned into a shower that they stash wheelchairs in. If I want it, I’ll ask for it, but I was really hoping that their mention of the word ‘showers’ on their L&D FAQ meant that each ROOM had a shower… not the case. Hopefully, if I want a shower, I’ll still fit into the cubby that holds it.  The L&D rooms overlook the Penobscot, and the Waterworks (yay!, well, what’s left of them) but like I’ll give a rat’s ass what the view is when I’m there for real. They have birth balls, and squat bars, and there’s at least a bathroom in each L&D room.  We walked by the nursery and saw a brand new baby with lots of dark hair and heard about that, and then we visited a postpartum room. Unfortunately, all of the single rooms were occupied, so we saw a double — they put women into singles first, then start putting women in doubles, and only when all the doubles are occupied with at least one person do they start with roommates, so that’s good. I guess it’s fairly rare to have a full house, though. Postpartum rooms seem to have a view of the parking lot, and the Standpipe.

In the core of the floor are the operating & OR recovery rooms, and the NICU. The NICU is literally right outside the L&D stretch of rooms, and from the postpartum side, it’s all glass windows with curtains, and the eerie blue glow of what I assume are UV lights? coming through the fabric. Knowing what a NICU is intellectually, and peripherally of people who’ve had kids in it, it just made my stomach clench a bit in fear for myself and empathy for whoever was certainly in that eerie blue light behind the curtains.

I also felt, again, totally validated that I’m in the right practice. A woman due a few says AFTER me has already been scheduled a C-section, because the baby is breech. Well, so what? She’s 33 weeks pregnant, almost, was scheduled LAST week at 32, and given the option of delivering at 38 or 39w. She also talked about the other things that really bugged her about her doc, like that he never had time to answer her questions so she was always calling a friend that’s an NP to get clarification. and even said "I’m an educated person, and I can’t imagine what it must be like for someone who doesn’t have the resources I have…" I mean, scheduled C! by 32 weeks! In the discussion of breech babies, it came up that my practice is the only one that does external version, and I feel QUITE confident that I would never be scheduled for a C for a breech at 32w baby.

In other news, the hallway is doooonnneeeee. Pics soon, but the paint is up, the trim, the finish nail holes filled in, tape removed, etc. Next steps are to clean (de-dust) the hall closet, and de-dust the baby room and work on getting the last of my crafty/not-baby related stuff packed up.  Dave will put together the changing table this week, which will relaly be key in getting everything to fall into place, I think, because then I can get my diapers set up and all of our little health and beauty stuff (lotions & creams & stuff) sorted.

Tomorrow I present my seminar, which is, err, in progress. The deal is that I do my presentation, and then write a paper (due in May, like everything else!) with more details, and I definitely have enough for my seminar presentation, and have lots of great articles for my paper, so I at LEAST have that. I also find it fascinating, because I have found internet social connections so natural to create and maintain, and it’s not that I don’t think I am too shy or otherwise incapable of forming local social connections, but that it’s certainly hard to find like-minded people with my geographic limitations.  Especially when it comes to the advent of new motherhood — I’m sure, or hoping, that that experience in and of itself is enough to have a common ground, but all of our CBE classes have only really reinforced that we have pretty different beliefs than most of our peers — even the pregnant ones. Not that breastfeeding, or wanting to have the least interventions possible, or being anti-circ or any of that makes us BETTER or WORSE, it’s just … it makes me feel very much like I’m one of Them and they aren’t. Or vice versa.  I do plan on going to the local support groups, like the postpartum and breastfeeding ones, or LLL, but I wonder how many people actually go to THOSE, you know? Anyway.

Childbirth Education — check. Hallway done — check. Nursery arrangement on deck, shower next weekend, and it’s all downhill from there, right?

Just some new geek/baby stuff

So, I’m obviously a fan of the internet. What I am NOT a fan of is the internet resources available for local mamas-to-be and new moms. It’s CRAP. Our Parks&Rec website, instead of having a great page showcasing the really fab stuff in the area, like the amazing pool facility, the magic that is City Forest, the great playgrounds that abound, etc, has a text-only webpage, with all the links being PDFs and Word docs. I mean, SERIOUSLY. Pool hours & fees could so EASILY be a simple html page, with pictures! Of the awesomeness! But no.  The hospital website has a search engine from 1993, that pulls up ads (HELLO, you’re a HOSPITAL) and I have (seriously) yet to have it actually WORK for me.
(I’m not kidding. I knew I’d STUMBLED across a page with all their support groups listed on it, but this is the search result searching for ‘support groups’ –no quotes — I mean, really. It’s embarrassing. Especially when you look at all the occurrences of the words "support’ and ‘groups’ in the actual page.) Plus, the indexing sucks. CROSS REFERENCE, PEOPLE. Put the info about twins/postpartum/breastfeeding support groups SOMEWHERE near the LDR info. Seriously.

Anyway, in my frustration at tracking down all this info (the Laleche league publishes their meeting site in the paper, but not on the website, for instance) I decided to compile it once and for all. I’ve also used it as a chance to play more with WordPress.com, a free blog hosting service that is almost as good as Typepad. A quick rundown: it’s free, you can import Blogger or MT/TypePad blogs into it, and has no ads and okay templates. Over Blogger, it has categories (WHY, does google not implement categories, when their whole world is built on indexing and finding shit?) and a calendar archive. It has ‘previous entries’ (much like LiveJournal does) but not full on previous/next buttons for chronological reading, so TypePad wins there. Of course, this project isn’t about chronological reading, so it’s not a huge deal. The categories are, though.  The interface is super easy to use, rich-text editing, easy links (actually, I like the linking better than TypePad’s, because it allows you to add alt-tags and specify which window to open in) and FREE. No domain mapping yet.  Also, what’s free now will stay free forever.

SO! On that note, the BangorBaby blog can be found here:

http://bangorbaby.wordpress.com

So far I’ve added info about Y classes, EMMC offerings, Bangor Public info, and the consignment store… I plan on adding info on changing table availability (as soon as I start noticing them more), parks and playgrounds, and other mama/baby friendly stuff to do here. Not that I have many local readers, but remember, my fair city is on the way to one of the most visited national parks in the US, so if you’re passing through and need to know where to go to blow off steam or something, it might be helpful. I only wish I could get course credit for this pet project. 🙂

The other thing I’ve been playing around with is Google’s Pages Creator. It’s in beta, and makes your gmail address totally readable to bots, but since I set myself up with a bangorbaby gmail address, I thought I’d test drive Pages as well. It’s actually not bad (once you get past the bot thing, so you’d want to use your very much not-primary gmail account) for a basic web editor. They have templates as well, 100mb of storage, pretty step-by-step instructions, so it would be hard for a newbie to fail. It would be a great way for a non-techie to play around with web pages.  Mine is at http://bangorbaby.googlepages.com , and again, tooootallly just a sandbox right now. (If anyone wants a gmail invite to play around with it, let me know. The signup page says they aren’t opening new accounts, so get on the waitlist, and I was on the list for less than 24 hours, FWIW.)

Anyway. Yeah. Can I just do some independent study on blogging or something? What with my bangorbaby project, and my mainetech project, and just my REGULAR bloggy projects…. seriously, 3 credits would do. Sigh.

Blah Blah Pregnant Blah

The Violent Femmes show was great.  Jenne and I drove over and had pizza at the Bag (yum) before walking to the show. My parents’ place is in the most convenient building to the hub of activity on the mountain, so it was literally a few steps away. We could have technically watched (and probably heard) the show from the locker room of their building.

The opening act sucked, and we both sort of wished we’d just waited til we knew the Femmes were playing, which, again, would have been an easy task — stick head out window, listen —  but alas, we didn’t. There were no chairs (i know! I’m old!) but there were stacks of them in the back, and I asked a guy if he could please get us two of them, the whole time, my belly stuck out and rubbing it. I haven’t used the belly to get shit done until that night, and it worked fabulously. I mean, who’s going to ask the Very Pregnant Lady at the concert to STAND? We sat through the opening act, but when the Femmes came on, we abandoned the chairs and worked to avoid wildly careening drunken ski bums. Oh, and I danced as best I could, which meant holding my belly with at least one hand most of the time.  It was great, the third time I’ve seen them, and a great Baby’s First Rock Concert,if I do say so myself.

I used the belly again to try to get out the side door after the show; the setup to get in was that we had to walk all the way around the base lodge to be admitted, but the side door is the one that looks directly at the locker room of my folks’ building, and you know, everything is covered in snow, I’m pregnant, etc. I asked the security guard if we could slip out the side door, and he said "NO!" and I did the stick-out-and-rub-the-belly thing again, and said "Please? I’m staying G-Village, right there…" and while I was batting my big pregnant eyelashes, other attendees just threw open the door and started filing out, so I guess I functioned more as the distraction than anything. It was cool, though.

We drove back the next day, and even took the time to find Wire Bridge, which is one of those things that I drive by the signs but never actually have visited. It was neat. Wood and wire, and we drove across and back before heading to Skowhegan and stopping for breakfast at a place that makes it’s own biscuits and donuts. YUM. 

Dave had primed the hallway while I was gone, and we picked out colors — a buttery yellow for the bottom of the chair rail, and a more neutral yellow for the top, which will (eventually) wrap around and through the stairs.  We had another CBE class at the hospital, where I realized I find the intervention videos make me cringe more than the labor/delivery videos do. Also, I find myself trying really hard NOT to cry watching all that hot, hot, birth action. Crazy what a placenta does to your emotions.

I’ve been really surprised at how mentally taxing pregnancy has been. I feel stupider. (see?) I feel like it takes twice the brainpower to do half the thinking or whatever, and it SUCKS, because I’ve always considered myself fairly intelligent. Feeling stupid sucks, especially as a freaking GRAD STUDENT.

Other than that, things are good. Dave and I are talking a lot about the postpartum period, and what we worry about and are trying to prepare for (PPD, mostly), and we both agree that May is probably a great time for me to have a baby. (Convenient, huh?) The improving weather at that time is always energizing, and Dave really wants to sling up the baby and get outside as much as possible — walks after work, etc — because we want our kid to know the outdoors. To that end, last night he even donated money to the fire department in exchange for tickets to a BFD/BPD baseball game that’s happening in June at the stadium 3 blocks from our house. (Plus, as Dave’s biggest fear in life is to lose everything he owns in a fire, he thought it would be good to have the FD know where we live. Heh.) I’m especially excited about that, because I’ve been wanting to go to a game over there since we moved here, but we never have as Dave is more of a homebody. I’m excited to see him already thinking of things to do as a family in the big world beyond our backyard. We have a great yard, for sure, and I can see lots of quality hammock time in our future, but we do live so close to cheap/free activities, I’m excited to take advantage of them.

Poll!

Anyone want to help a grad student out? I wanted to have more responses than those from just my classmates, so I’ve posted this at ADL as well. It’s only 16 questions. Feel free to pass on the link or post it in your own internet communities, or whatever. It’s totally confidential. Thanks!

I’m getting my M. Ed in Instructional Technology, and my research topic for my seminar class this semester is about the effect of internet community on local community.  To that end, I’ve created a simple poll, and am looking for people to take a few minutes to answer the questions about their internet social lives and real-life social lives. All responses are confidential, and if you’d like to add comments, there is a place to do that confidentially as well.  Thank you!

http://www.misterpoll.com/2702569308.html

32 weeks

8 weeks left?! Holy cow! ANyway.

Last night was the newborn care class, which was the best one so far. Dave found it especially useful, since the other classes are very mother-focused, and how he can support me through labor//delivery/recovery/breastfeeding, but the actual physical care is something HE can actually DO, just not cheer on.  He has no experience with babies, so he feels much better about diving in head first now that he’s learned to swaddle and change a diaper. Heh.

The instructor was GREAT, for us anyway, her motto was "less is best," ("Don’t get that 30 dollar plastic baby tub! You’ll use it three times and put it in the attic, use a rubbermaid tote! Or a dishtub!" Hee.) and she included homemade wipe solution and breastfeeding in that equation.  She even asked if anyone was planning to use cloth diapers, and Dave and I moved another step away from everyone else in the direction of ‘crunchy parents,’ when we were the only ones to raise our hands.

At this point, everyone in these classes I’ve seen elsewhere — last night there was a girl from the Y and her mom (her husband is in Iraq), two couples that are in our Sunday class, one couple that was in the GD and breastfeeding class, and us.  And in all those classes, we’re the only ones that are breastfeeding, aiming for unmedicated delivery, not circumcising, and cloth diapering. FREAKS! And it’s weird, because, seriously, Dave and I are not that crunchy! We don’t eat an organic vegan diet, we watch tv, we shop according to price and not principle, for the most part. But DAMN, compared to the rest of the pregnant population, we are like the Hemp Barons of the Queen City or something. So …. odd. I digress.

Baby care class had a doll about the size of a 4 month old to work with, so part of the class was to observe a newborn sponge bath on the maternity floor.  We all trooped up, and a family had volunteered their 2 day old daughter, Gracie!, who was all red and wrinkly and 8lbs, 13 oz of baaaayyybbeeee.  We took over the waiting room, and the nurse-instructor lady wheeled in Gracie, along with her 5 year old sister and parents, and we all circled round to get a good view. Gracie was so obliging as to actually produce an informative diaper — as it was removed we got to see the elimination of meconium AND urine, LIVE. The nurse also pointed out what to leave behind in a girl-baby, which was really good to know, as my recent experience has been with baby boys.  The whole time, the 5 year old big sister was right there, handing stuff to the nurse, just BEAMING with excitement. While Dave was all touched by seeing a tiny baby, I kept looking at Big Sister and remembering when Daed became a Big Brother, and I got all choked up, because now Daed is all BIG and shit, and in middle school, and his little brothers are big too!

We went back to the classroom to see a video and discuss other newborn care things. One was circumcision, and everyone there but one is having a boy (and we don’t know, but we doknow our position on circ’ing) and they are all planning on circ’ing, and the instructor did a whole presentation on "the AAP doesn’t recommend it, only 2% of the population of the world IS — the nation of Israel, and the US –, it’snot covered by your insurance so be sure you know that, etc" and then handed around a book of pictures of the procedure, and everyone was cringing… she was very obviously anti-circ "but, it’s up to you…" She asked if anyone had any experience caring for intact babies, so I shot my hand up and brought up that I couldn’t think of a baby in my circle of friends that was circ’ed, and from age 12 on down, none of the intact babies had had any problems that they say might happen.

On the way out, a couple that is taking all the same classes as we are asked us about the cloth diapering thing, with the ‘you’re so BRAVE!" and I did my spiel about liners and it being a financial motivation (the instructor must’ve CD’ed, because she laid out the expenses of disposables when she talked about the expense of formula), and gave her a few websites to look at. So I guess we aren’t TOTAL freaks, if someone else at least expressed interest…

You know, a lot of these classes aren’t new information for me, they really aren’t. People were asking about what kind of carseat they should get (and we’re all due in May), and I’m biting my tongue from being all "The Graco Snugride is the highest rated infant seat!  But you need to make sure it’s installed correctly for it to be most effective!" because I’m just SUCH a researcher, as you all know.  Dave felt he learned a lot about breastfeeding that he didn’t know, and saw what it looked like, which, I forget, he really hasn’t had any exposure to that, whereas I have seen tons of women nursing in front of me.  What I am finding, though, is that I’m feeling more at ease about the hospital I’m delivering at. I do wish they had tubs, dammit, but I feel like I’ve been steeling myself up to defend our choices, and that’s okay, I’m a stubborn woman. But the more I hear from the educators, who are also nurses or former nurses on the floor, I think that MY wishes will be supported completely, especially when it comes to breastfeeding and rooming-in. I’ve had this idea of all the nurses being owned by Enfamil and trying to sneak formula into the baby while I’m sleeping, and if anything, if I were planning on formula-feeding, I’d be feeling a little intimidated by the classes. Every instructor/nurse has been all about breastfeeding, walking the line of "it’s your decision" but adding "But even if you just nurse after birth, or for a day, just to get the colostrum, that’s a benefit… but it’s your decision…"  And with circumcision, two of the three educators have been very obviously anti-circ, and the third has older teen boys, so talked about it being unnecessary, but probably DID circ because that’s just what you did. That’s the vibe I got, anyway.  It’s just — weird, to find that we are allied with the hospital staff more than the other classmates, you know? And knowing that, it makes me feel much better about having to deliver there.

Betting is now open

On a much, much lighter note, I set up one o’ them thar baby pools at expectnet. It’s in my Babyish links on the left, enter the name ‘gretchen’ for the game name, and have fun guessing gender, delivery date, weight and length and stuff.

FWIW, I actually HAD a gender dream, finally! I’ve had lots of monkey dreams, and dreamed of both genders, but all the other babies I’ve dreamed of were not MINE. i’m holding them, or putting them in a carseat, or whatever as through they WERE mine, but I know that they aren’t, And those dreams have involved both sexes. The last one was that I was taking care of the moominbaby, who is a girl IRL, butin the dream, was a boy, and either way, it wasn’t MY baby, I knew all the way through that it was M’s.

So, in my dream two nights ago, I woke up and had had the baby in my sleep or something. It was very odd. My mom was there, as was a baby in a bassinet, and I said "but, that’s not MY baby, is it?" and my mom insisted it was, so I walked over and read the wrist id label, and saw what it was, and what it weighed. I’ve told Amy (AMY, don’t spill, since I want to see what others guess) and Dave of course (but he doesn’t wander this way) but other than that, I’m just interested in what the internet thinks. My family and Dave’s family thinks BOY, in a big way.  Uni people think boy because I’m carrying high and because I’m carrying low. (Seriously, got that pair of comments in ONE DAY.)  All of the "answer these ten or so questions about cravings and headaches and stuff" quizzes come out, I’m not kidding, 50/50.

So, go ahead, guess!