La la la la 31 weeks!

How 'bout a general update? Great.

• I basically felt like weak, fatigued crap for most of last week (Mon-Thurs). I was couch-bound for a lot of it, and even walking down to Piedmont Ave. (incredibly close to my house) caused me to feel exhausted, and made my legs feel a bit tingly. I started getting a bit freaked out that this was my new condition, that I'd turned some kind of shitty 3rd trimester corner and reached the end of my whole blissful feeling-great thing, that I was in for two months of barely being about to hoof it to the store. So when I saw Amrit last Thursday (who had just returned from a 3-week sojourn to Baja, where she rested and relaxed and kissed a baby whale) the first thing I brought up was my mysterious sickness—was it the heat, an Ivy growth spurt, something else, or just the reality of the third trimester? And all I had to do was mention my luxurious weekend in the sun, on the river, and my Monday morning nausea for her to say, simply, sagely: "You were dehydrated." Oh. Yes. We went on to discuss the necessity of drinking epic amounts of fluids, especially at this point of baby growth. I do drink a ton of water, but in retrospect, didn't drink as much as I normally do when I was up in Healdsburg. I was probably sweating a lot, as I sat/napped in the sun for many many hours. I've now done some reading on dehydration in pregnant women and it's no joke—it's the leading cause of fatigue, and many women end up hospitalized, with an IV to replenish fluids. Freaking glad as hell that it didn't get that bad. So. Moral of the story: Pregnant women need to drink tons and tons of water! It means that you pee ALL THE TIME but it also means that you don't feel sick and your baby is happy! The rest of the visit with Amrit was great; all my ph levels are normal, blood pressure's great, baby heartbeat is on point. Ivy is currently head-down, as she's been for a while, and she dramatically favors curling up on my right side. I can often feel her butt, and I feel her elbows on the right side and her kicks on my left.
• Now, a week after the dehydration episode, I feel great again—pretty energetic, and definitely able to walk to the market no problem. I do feel the increasing weight of this baby, but in such a wonderful way. I'm going on a mellow hike this Thursday with one Jen Loy, who is also preg, and though we're gonna take it pretty easy, I'm looking forward to seeing how I fare. Do not worry: I will bring ample water supplies, and am definitely not going to push myself.
  
• I am, however, feeling some pretty rocking heartburn the past few days. I think she just readjusted my stomach significantly, as oooo, it's not feeling pleasant. Wolfing the Tums, trying to do small meals and avoid acidic foods, but oy, it does not rule, this heartburn.
  
• I've put in a call to the woman who will most likely rent us our birthing tub. She's a local midwife who owns a few and rents them out—we get it for a month, and will probably pick it up in early June. This means that, if we want to fill it up, we can have a wading pool/hot tub in our house for June. If the weather returns to hotness, this might be very awesome for me (and Jason!) The water has to be changed every three days, so I don't imagine we'll keep it consistently full until we get closer to go time, but we'll see.
• Jason has now been gone for a week, and gets home tomorrow night. Though I have enjoyed this time to myself, I miss him terribly and cannot wait to see him. No more business trips from here on out—he's sticking close to home until baby.
• And finally, Baby Center email today tells me this: By now, your baby weighs 3.75 pounds (pick up a large jicama) and is about 16.7 inches long, taking up a lot of space in your uterus. You're gaining about a pound a week and roughly half of that goes right to your baby. In fact, she'll gain a third to half of her birth weight during the next 7 weeks as she fattens up for survival outside the womb. She now has toenails, fingernails, and real hair (or at least respectable peach fuzz). Her skin is becoming soft and smooth as she plumps up in preparation for birth. Toenails! Real hair! Respectable peach fuzz! Soft and smooth and oh my goodness...
  

Fruit

Lately I've been craving fruit, especially strawberries. Yesterday I bought some huge green grapes and they are so so good. Today I've been reading Sheila Kitzinger's The Complete Guide to Pregnancy and Childbirth, which is pretty good and thorough, and I came across two quotes that I like. Both happen to reference fruit, but in very different ways.

From the introduction:

"Pregnancy and childbirth are normal life processes, not illnesses. You feel the surge of life moving inside you, the ripening of your body heavy with fruit, and then the flood of vitality as labor starts and your uterus contracts in wave after wave, bringing your baby into your arms. It is awe-inspiring and deeply satisfying. At the same time, you grow up a little and learn more about yourself and your partner."

I like the simplicity of this statement, as well as its eloquence. Pregnancy and birth are not illnesses, yet we pathologize them in myriad ways. And I do indeed feel heavy with fruit. Both literally, cuz I drank a big strawberry-filled smoothie this morning, and figuratively, cuz this little melon is putting on the ounces.

The other quote is decidedly less pleasant, but it's the best description I've read thus far of what "transistion" feels like (transition is the phase of labor that happens when you're between 8-10 cm dilated; it's basically insane hell-time, contractions are super close together and intense, you can't push yet, you're on fire, etc etc):

"The surest sign [that you're entering transition] is feeling that you have a large grapefruit pressing against your anus or that you want to empty your bowels."

I'm a big fan of grapefruit, but I imagine I'll look at them differently from now on, imagining one inside of me, pushing against my ass.

(Ok, sorry to get all graphic, but let's be real here: a baby is going to come out of my vagina. Milk will come out of my boobs. All kinds of crazy shit's gonna go on with my special parts. And I shall not refrain from discussing it. So be prepared. I'm talking to you, Uncle Howard! I am truly sorry if I've just ruined grapefruit for you, though.)

Slices of life...

Henry had to wear a plastic collar after his snipping. Talk about adding insult to injury.
Imagine when there's a baby in this mix too!
Aubs and I took Barb to the Claremont for her birthday. Twas delightful.
Aubs and mom with champagne and yummy in-room snackage.
Hi Mitch and Lara at the As game! Lara is preg, too, due about a month after me. Our little summer girl-babies shall be great friends!
More baby-stuff donations from friends = more places for the cats to hide/sleep.

I'm feeling hot hot hot

Ruby and John's turtles have a special relationship.
The husbands built a pizza oven while the wives lounged and ate.
This is how mama kicks it on some hot days. On other days, she is inside, w/ fan. The beer's pretty much a prop, though I did have some fabulous sips.
Me and Ruby in her glorious yard.
Can you believe that my friend owns the house that has this yard? Oh and look, my big preg
belly.

Me, Jason and Buzz at the dog park.

We seem to be having a heat wave, and I am realizing that perhaps heat and the 3rd trimester are not very good friends. I generally adore the heat, cannot get enough sunshiny summer weather, but oh is it making me lethargic! Luckily there was a delightful river (the Russian) to keep me cool this weekend, as we spent a blissful time up at Ruby and John's domestic paradise in Healdsburg; now back in Oakland I do have a wondrous fan that Jason bought me last night before he left for his absurdly long White Whale New England Tour '09 (he's not coming home for a week!)

Yesterday I was straight up sick, as in barf followed by extreme lethargy, but today I definitely feel better. Still taking it easy, and sticking close to the fan. And lots and lots of water and cool foods like grapes and cucumbers and popsicles. In addition to the heat, I think I'm feeling this way because Ivy is having an epic growth spurt—I'm going to confirm this with Amrit when I see her in two days, but she me at our last appointment to expect some fatigue around this time, cuz baby does some major growing around 30-33 weeks. Or so. I can definitely feel that she's bigger—I can locate her parts more distinctly, and her movements feel more intense and defined, and, in general, it all just feels bigger and heavier.

In other news, I have ceased my kickboxing activities and increased my swimming, which is so so delightful. I love being in the pool, cruising in the slow lane. I miss kickboxing though—especially the fact that class is always at 6. It's much easier to motivate when there's an actual time attached to the exercise event.

But anyway. There's a fly in my office and the neighbor's cat is hanging out with me. Earlier it was the other neighbor's dog, who looks exactly like a gremlin. And looooves to bark. I'm going to make a salad and convince Aubs to come over and watch American Idol. It's disco night, apparently. How fabulous.

I don't write poetry but

I tried to write a fiction

about celebrities and death.

With characters and paragraphs but

I can’t

because

it seems

your brain has begun

to take on a wrinkled appearance because of its rapid growth

and the wrinkles are called convolutions and a convoluted brain

contains more brain cells than a smooth, nonconvoluted brain

and is

potentially

more

powerful.

And.

You may have a callous on your thumb.

You can register information from all five of your senses.

Your toenails are fully formed. Your head grows,

your brain pushes out and folds in on itself.

Eyelashes. Fingernails. Controlled body temperature. Muscle tone.

New fat. Smooth skin. More hair. Brain waves.

Your brain your brain you have a brain.

Your iris, your eye, beginning to respond

to the intensity of light, to the sight of less light

Opening under dim circumstances,

closing under bright.

You are practicing looking.

Soon you will see—

there is a difference.

And should you need to,

you can breathe air.

And that is all I need to know

today.

Baby Tips Pt. 1

“You're gonna do great! A friend told me no matter what you read... nothing brings you the knowledge that just naturally comes after your baby is born! I didn't believe it until it happened! You just know! You know what they need and why they're crying.”

A few months ago, once I started feeling actually pregnant, and this whole thing emerged as a stunning and wild reality, I began to realize that we will need to buy/borrow/steal 'things' for the baby. That babies require things, special things, objects and tools and items designed to help everyone involved. I also realized that the Baby Things Market is insane, and that there are like 10,000 different organic hemp baby slings and 10,000 kinds of strollers and diaper options and omg. I knew we wanted to remain low on things, and not get cluttered with tons of plastic crap, and an object for every single moment and occurrence (Organic Baby Face Wiper Stick, for when your baby has food on her face and you can't wipe it off with your own spit-soaked finger). BUT! I also knew that there were many good, helpful, legitimate things we would appreciate, and so I send out a call to the mamas and papas that I know on ye old Facebook. And wouldn't you know it, those mamas replied with a wealth of great advice, info, tips, and suggestions (the dads mostly wrote back and said "Get lots of sleep"— thanks dudes).

Yesterday I finally compiled all the info from all the messages into a word doc so I could send it to my preg friends. I organized it into categories, and since it's a lot of info, I'll post it as a series. We begin with General Tips and Baby Care Items!

*And of course, this list is no where near complete (I don't think that's possible). So if you have anything to add, leave a comment, and I'll just keep expanding the list until we all collapse from Advice Exhaustion. That'll be ok, because when we recover from said collapse, we will have tons of epic advice.*

(And thanks to Julianna, Jenny, Jenn, Jen (!!!), Taryn, Bonnie, Laura, Lisa, Shefa, Vicky, Candace, Rachel, Phil, Mark, and Angela for all your awesome advice!)


GENERAL!

• Make sure you have a lot of certain things and always keep the supply stocked and clean. Those things are bibs, burp clothes, diapers, wipes, onesies, bottles, pacifiers, and patience. You never want to go to grab something have it not be there, so that is why having a lot is important. Everything else is less important.
• Have friends volunteer ahead of time to make meals during the first few weeks. Some people made freezable things ahead of time. Others cooked and dropped off food after she was born. Sooo helpful.
• I found doing the dishes completely overwhelming for the first month or so. Ask friends to volunteer. Or eat off of recycled paper plates for a couple weeks.
• I can't say enough about craigslist. So much of this stuff is indispensable, but only for a couple months. We cycled through a bouncy chair, doorway jumper and walker this way.
• Try to find a good resale store in your town. This is such a great way to shop for clothes and gear.
• A rocking chair with a FOOTSTOOL is very, very nice to have
• Screw the rocking chair, get a yoga ball! This was completely critical to our operation for the first year. I can't even guess the miles we must have logged in bouncing her on that thing.
• Yoga ball!
• We couldn't live without the cloth diapers as burp rags (Bradley spit up a TON, so these were priceless). You can never have too many.
• Lots of soft, absorbent burp cloths.
• Check out the comment section on the Babiesrus registry It's mainly commented by moms and the items are rated.
• Happiest Baby on the Block! Get the DVD. It's all in the swaddling!
• A journal to record random things about baby’s birth and first year.
• A belly cast kit
• Make sure to take lots of random newborn photos. You’ll be surprised how fast they change.
• The one thing that's come in handy for us a surprising number of times is a passport. We had them made for the girls when Natalie was only about 3 months old. It all seemed crazy at the time, but the passports have come in handy more than once, especially with all the inane, ever-changing security rules at airports. We once had to prove Natalie was actually under 2 because she was so big and talking so well (kids under 2 fly free, so we didn't have a ticket for her -- luckily we were able to produce a passport to prove it).

BABY CARE ITEMS
• baby bathtub
• chemical free bath products (I love all the Burts Bees or California Baby)--bubbles, shampoo, lotion
• little nail clipper
• a good digital thermometer
• that booger sucky-thing and some saline nose drops for stuffy nose mornings (I think called "little noses")
• Gripe water--he only needed it maybe three times, but the three times he needed it (when I ate something that did not agree with him when it passed into my breastmilk) it was like MAGIC: red-faced screaming baby one second, silent cooing sleeping baby the next second.
• infant Tylenol, infant Motrin
• little comb! little hairbrush!
• butt products: I like A & D and Burts Bees diaper cream; the sensitive wipes from Target are the best and cheapest
• babyproofing: cheap and wonderful babyproofing at IKEA, don't bother with the other stuff!

Stay tuned for BOOBS n BOTTLES, BOOKS, CARRIERS, CAR SEATS and more!

The Dude Who Named The Thing I Feel

(This post title would make a pretty sweet album name, no?)

So I am now experiencing what are known as 'Braxton Hicks contractions'—painless uterine contractions that can begin as early as the 6th week of pregnancy, but are generally not felt until the third trimester (many women feel them earlier; some don't really feel them at all. Thus is the idiosyncratic nature of preg). I was having them before I felt them, as my midwife informed me when she touched my belly and felt the muscles contract. Now I can detect a sensation that can best be described as a tightening—it's subtle and totally painless and is my body's way of preparing my uterus for the insane contractions to come. They also function to prepare the baby for the insane sensations to come—a gentle ramping up, if you will, a training session. Like maybe if you were preparing to walk on hot coals you might start off by holding your feet near a fireplace, or if you were going to run an ultra-marathon you might begin with a jog around the block. Point is, it's a cool thing that the body does to get in shape for the real deal. BH contractions tend to remain pretty mellow, but as the due date approaches, they can get more intense, and are often confused with real contractions—what people call 'false labor'.

This is all well and good, you're thinking. How interesting, how neat. But perhaps you're wondering where this phenomenon got its name? Who or what was this "Braxton Hicks" and how did such a name become affixed to such a physical process? Guess.

GUESS.

Was it a pregnant woman with a hyphenated last name who published an article about her tightening belly? A collaborative effort between two midwives? Is it Latin for "painless uterine contractions"?

Ok, I guess the post title gave it away. But even without it, I'm sure you would've guessed that, obviously, none of those are correct, because, as with most Things in this world (cities, countries, medical procedures, buildings, whathaveyou; not so with ships, 50% of hurricanes, etc) Braxton Hicks contractions are named for...a dude. A British dude. A 19th century British doctorman discoverer dude. Yes, Dr. John Braxton Hicks, the Columbus (or Vespucci, take yr pick) of my uterine contractions.

The American Pregnancy Association puts it this way: It all started in 1872 when an English doctor, John Braxton Hicks, described the contractions that occur before real labor. Can you imagine constantly thinking,"This must be it," and then it wasn't? Doctors and pregnant women have Dr. Hicks to thank for clearing up all the confusion.

So, thank you Dr. Hicks! I'm sure that women all over the world breathed a collective sigh of deep relief when Dr. Hicks announced this incredible description, thus alleviating their immense, centuries-old confusion—as certainly no pregnant woman had ever described them before! Thousands of years of pregnancy and birth and all these baffled ignorant women, unable to speak the name of their helpful contractions. Without you, Dr. Hicks, I would be all like "what is this strange sensation that I cannot describe or understand and what can I possibly call it?" Ah, medicine. Ah, obstetrics. I can't imagine where we pregnant women would be without the brilliant men who have described, dissected, and determined our bodies and births. Probably in some forest hut surrounded by witches, in some icky primitive position—like a squat!—grunting and pushing out little heathens.

Ok, I know, men have made Very Important Contributions to the field of Obstetrics and Gynecology. I am but a hysterical (see: Freud, 'Anna O', etc) pregnant feminist, annoyed that I have to keep using some dead white doctor dude's name to describe this cool new feeling that me and my daughter are experiencing.

Perhaps I shall act in the grand tradition of feminist name reclamation, and reject the patriarchy! Take back my painless uterine contractions, and re-christen (see: Christ, Jesus H.) them. Announcing: Kate Schatz contractions!

Happy Birthday Mom! Also, The Culture of Suck Vs. The Culture of Yay

Baseball has started—hurray for that!

It's raining-ish. As in, not actually raining right now, but looking like it's about to.

Henry got fixed and wore a plastic collar; it's off now, and he's just as insane and cute as before. Now with shaved balls, though.

I finished my teaching stint at Oakland School for the Arts. The students seemed very sad to see me go, and gave very positive feedback about the class. I also brought them cookies (a terrible breach of the schools no-food-in-the-classroom policy, I learned), which may have made them more prone to enthusiastic praise.

Ivy's movements are changing—I can tell that she's bigger because in addition to feeling her kicks and punches, I feel this incredibly strange and cool sense of her kind of rolling around, turning, shifting. Like she's trying to get comfortable in an increasingly shrinking space (which is exactly what's happening, I assume). Some of her movements are so strong and intense—yesterday I was lying on my side on the couch and I swear, I felt the length of her entire leg. As in, my hand was resting on my belly and suddenly her leg was in my hand, but beneath my skin. Ah! Amazing and freaky!

I'm officially in The Third Trimester. The homestretch. Well, I have a few months before it's really the homestretch, but this is the part that people like to tell you will really suck. In fact, people like to talk a lot about the aspects of birth and child-rearing that suck or will suck. And I'm really not a fan of this Culture of Suck. Don't get me wrong—in two months I might look back at this post and cackle at my naive optimism as I groan in pain and massage my spider veins and elevate my swollen cankles and curse at the world in general and beg the gods to get her out of me already! Maybe that will be the case. But dudes—maybe it won't! I'm not assuming I'll be in blissful comfort the whole time, but I don't believe I have to be miserable. That's what I'm going to focus on, hope for, intend for myself and Jason and Ivy and everyone around me. Birth will be painful and crazy and intense and who fucking knows, and all I can do is accept that, and believe that my body knows what to do. Intellectual Thinking Processing Experiencing Kate does not "know" how to have a baby, but Animal Primal Physical Human Woman Kate sure as shit does.

And the same goes for once she is here, in our arms, with us in this world. I know we will be tired and overwhelmed and maybe freaked out but we will have a magical little creature! And of course birth is painful and of course having an infant is hard and crazy because we have not done either and you can read a million books but nothing prepares you for the moment like the moment itself. Nothing can really teach you about your baby but the baby itself. As the wise wise Nancy Bardacke always said, your baby is your teacher. I think Jason and I—chronic knowledge-hoarding know-it-alls that we are—are both looking forward to being humbled, to being instructed and guided by this wise and fragile force. And so when people offer us their 'advice', their oh it's so hard and god you'll never sleep and say goodbye to your lives cuz you're never leaving the house again and blah blah blah the difficulties!, we both just kind of smile and nod and shrug and inside we're both thinking yup, it'll be hard. No shit. But we're actually pretty damn excited. It's like the Culture of Suck is about this common suffering, this complaining and compulsion to 'warn' people about what they're getting into and, ok, I know it's easy for me to criticize this, as I'm not there yet, but a) We've already gotten into it. So the 'warning' is a bit beside the point. and b) I don't really want to bond over the negative aspects of this. I'd really rather bond over how awesome it is to be pregnant, and to have the opportunity to have this baby together. The same goes for birth: women are taught to fear it, to expect unbearable pain,, intolerable pain. It's been pathologized to the point that it actually seems impossible for many women. And it is scary—it's totally insane to think that this big ass kicking moving baby is going to somehow emerge from my vagina. I mean, WTF?! BUT. I know I can do it. I know it will hurt. I know it will happen, I will endure it, I cannot begin to predict what it'll be like, or plan it, or design it. All I can do is believe it will work, that we will all get through it, it will end, and we will have a baby. I don't need it to be orgasmic and blissful (though I would not mind) but I'm not giving into the total terrordreadanxiety of it all.

I'm being harsh and crabby here, but I do think this is part of a larger cultural compulsion to connect with others based on hardship and things-going-wrong. We like to complain about work and love and the weather and money and our families and the economy and our health. I do it too—I'm not a total Pollyanna hippie. But I'm seeing it in a new way now. I get these emails from babycenter.com, which I like because they're weekly updates on the approximate size and development of the baby, but which I dislike because that info is inevitably followed by a laundry list of things that are probably making me miserable—veins and hemorrhoids and mood swings and barfing and fear and relationship problems and all this shit that is totally valid, and which happens to many, many women, and some of which may certainly happen to me. And it's important that women get info about it all—but it's also nice to get some love and support, some yay you're doing it, this is so amazing! They once had an article on "Things I Wish I'd Known About Pregnancy Before I Was Pregnant" and they had this immense list of awful shit that women hated about being pregnant. There was like one quote that was actually about how nice it was to be pregnant. And this week's email had the subject heading: "7 fears expectant fathers face" followed by a list of 7 pretty obvious things that a dude might be worried about (with little to no actual advice about how to manage these fears). But is there is companion list of "7 things expectant fathers look forward to"? Or "7 awesome things about being a dad"? Nope. What To Expect When You're Expecting (which should be retitled What To Be Totally Freaked Out About When You're Expecting) does the same thing—for each month of your pregnancy, you get a chapter filled with questions about all the things that can go wrong with your body and mind. So yes, I know that I'm having a very privileged pregnancy in many ways, and I'm lucky to be in such a good place, but that's exactly the point. It does not suck for everyone. And I have no shame in being blatantly, publicly happy about it all.

The other night Jenn was talking about this exact thing, as she relayed the fear she had about raising Arlo as a single parent—so many people 'offered' her sympathetic words of 'advice' about the challenges, the struggles, the misery, the exhaustion, all of which led Jenn—uncertain about her pregnancy in the first place—to develop a lot of fear around having him, sure that there was no way she's be able to work and raise him and stay sane. And as she says, YES, it's been hard and YES it's been challenging but oh my god she has the most wonderful intelligent awesome son that she loves to death and when she was up at 3am nursing him instead of sleeping she was tired, sure, but she was nursing this incredible baby that smelled so good and was so sweet and loving.

And so, there's the trade-off. That's the shit. It will be hard and awesome. It will be crazy and beautiful. It will overwhelm and overjoy. It will change us. Our lives will be different. Things will never be the same. Fucking duh.

It will blow our minds, in many ways. And I do believe we are ready to have our minds blown.

Ok. Rant complete. I am playing Fleet Foxes through the tiny ipod speaker next to my belly. I think she likes it.

Happy birthday mom! Thank you for making me, raising me, loving me, supporting me. Shit, now I'm going to cry.

And things, they do just grow

Everyday now I get bigger; this is not—as I pointed out last night Jason, Tonya, and our wonderful new friends Lara and Mitch—going to change. As in, every time you see me, every time I see me, I'll look bigger. Wonderfully crazily bigger. And all because there is a tiny creature growing inside of me. And growth just happens, and it always surprises us. And tends to humble, too.

A few days ago I went outside to salvage scrawny lemons from our tree, and I perused our 'garden', which is currently an overgrown wild winter zone (last summer my neighbors and I had little plots; mine was a failed struggle that did yield some good salad greens, and tiny tiny chard; Suzannah grew some happy-seeming herbs; and Melody—who sheepishly soaked her stuff in Miracle-Gro—had a freakishly abundant explosion of everything). Amongst the weeds and things I found all this mint, oregano, and parsley; pea shoots everywhere; my chard thriving against all odds; and a few other leafy shoots that look like comeback kids from last year. And I thought, now isn't that just so amazing! No one is watering or tending or caring about this area, and here is all this life sprouting up, just doing its own thing. And then I looked around at the rest of the yard, filled with grasses and plants and trees and flowers, some of which I can identify—rosemary, oak tree, bamboo, palm, agapanthus, cala lily, lavender—and much of which I cannot—especially that shrub/tree with the year-round lavender flowers and soft leaves that yellow after a while—and I thought Well shit, I guess things do just grow. No one's tending anything in the wild yard that we share with our neighbors—though Dina did just mow down at the tall weeds and grasses, hurray—and it all just blooms and dies and blooms again, or blooms and blooms and blooms in the case of many perennials.

And so of course I then look down at my belly, bigger than it was the day before, and the day before that, and thought I know that her growth and health is inextricably linked to my own health, my own care taking of my body, I'm not actually doing much to facilitate her growth. Certainly, my body is doing unbelievable magical miraculous things as it divides cells and creates an entirely new human, but what am I, as the sentient, thinking actor in this equation, doing? I eat food, I drink water and tea and juice (and wine), I take prenatal vitamins, I exercise, I sleep, I rest, I laugh, I think and talk and do basically everything that I normally do—and even when I am not tending my belly, staring at it, talking to it or about it, she's doing her thing, growing and stretching and just being made. In the same way that the good earth is facilitating the mint and the parsley and those little pea shoots, my body is building a baby, whether I'm paying attention or now. And that is humbling and beautiful.

Family pics from the last few days...

This is not our baby. Don't be alarmed. This is Beau Jr., the 5-week old son of Jason's brother Beau and his girlfriend Rebecca. We got to meet him in Nevada—we both did a lot of newborn- holding, which was terribly exciting.
Barb, Doug and I in Doug's garden. Today he was weeding.
Gramma Judi, me, and the bebe
Gramma Judi listening to Ivy
She got to feel some pretty epic kicks

It's Not ALL About the Baby...

Buzz and I at Crissy Field. He's telling me how much he loves nice weather.
Henry sleeps on his back, just like my husband.
The Holy Trinity of Cute