Still Pregnant

What else is there to say? Doesn't the little bugger know that 19 is a very good number??? My body tricked me this morning when these hard contractions woke me up. It's a very strange thing to be anxiously awaiting pain! All through the breathing, I was hoping, hoping, hoping that today would be the day. Nope. I did, however, ask my subs to take over my classes. I need to not worry about school right now. Of course, I also need to worry about the job market. Sigh.

I hope to have good news soon, my friends.

Waiting Game Stats

• 3 job applications out
• 0 baby arrived
• 4 days overdue
• 2 friends of friends given birth on or since my due date
• 2 feet of unusual size
• 2 medical practitioners telling me to be very careful about what I eat because I wouldn't want the baby to get huge while I'm overdue
• not anywhere near enough contractions
• not 1, but 2 giant stacks of paper to grade not to mention the little stacks that students would really like to get back asap
  
• 1 grumpy absent-minded pregnant lady who feels like a pink hippopotamus: you know, sorta cute, but in an ungainly dorky way
  

Still Here, Still Pregnant, Still with Elephant Feet

I know I should be updating the world -- especially about how I have these fabulous friends in Grad City who totally surprised me by loading two boxes full of stuff that I then got to open at my shower, some 1,800 miles away. They are so sweet. As is One Tired Ema, who sent me a wonderful package as well. I, however, am not sweet. I am big and pregnant and grumpy. I am sick of myself and of being the hugest person alive. I just sent Absurdist Lover for chocolate -- no better direction than that. I don't know what I hope he'll bring back really, except that it should be chocolate and there should be a lot of it. According to the midwife, I'm due a week from today and look like I will go to term. I'm also uninducable at this point, at least as of Wednesday. I get non-stress tests all the time now and checked every five or so days. I'm ready to be done. I also spent a big part of the day in Grading Jail. Waaaaaaa. I'm just too grumpy to post right now. Did I mention that I'm also preparing job materials? Teaching two classes of unmotivated students who think they are still in high school? See why I don't post more often? I hope I'll have something nicer to say soon. Until then, I should probably only talk to the two people who can deal with me right now. Absurdist Lover will soon lose his patience. And I can't blame him. I'm awful.

Quick Reflection on the First Week of School, Other Goodness, and One Worry

So I've noticed how high I get after teaching! Sometimes I'm super-tired, to be sure, sometimes cranky that it didn't go better. But I love talking with students about intellectual work! Love it! So much better than teaching the SAT! I've already started getting the pesky emails that do exactly what I told them not to do (don't send me emails without your names, because fabdancer211 doesn't tell me who you are; don't demonstrate to me that you haven't checked in with colleagues about your emergency absence before you email me) -- and I'm sure that I'll hate teaching again very soon. After all, I only have letters to read, nothing to grade, though that too will change soon. Both classes are very structured with coordinators who gave me varying amounts of materials. Both classes have way more individual assignments than I EVER give in these kinds of courses. So I'm teaching differently, but I thought with the pregnancy and impending baby it's probably better not to try to reinvent the wheel, try to figure out how much wiggle room there was, etc. So I'm basically following other people's syllabi, though I already ran into another adjunct who asked if I was following Totally Overamped Coordinator's syllabus; when I said yes, this adjunct said that he found that it had way too much busy work -- so it's nice to know I'm not insane. He also said that by midterm I could expect huge numbers to drop. Both a blessing and a curse. (Overamped Coordinator has been coordinator of this class for a long time; maybe it's time for some rotation to occur.) I have to work on the schedule for this class over the weekend, because I didn't get it done during the week, so maybe I'll tone things down a bit.

In super-fabulous news, we found a bed. Literally. Found a queen-sized mattress and boxspring on the sidewalk a block up from our apartment. After a couple days of drying it out (it had been on grass) and fixing it up, we are now happily sleeping on it, grateful to get off the sofabed after three-and-a-half months of back pain and bed squeaking. Which has also meant that we can actually use the bedroom as more than a storage room. It is now voila! a bedroom -- and I can imagine now how all the baby things are going to fit in there with our stuff. We've been able to close up the sofabed, put in a desk (also found with the bed) for me, and now have voila! a living room. It's like having a whole new apartment, really. I celebrated the oddness of the new house by immediately sleeping on the bed, while Absurdist Lover was so weirded out he stayed up plunking on the computer and moving things around. It's wonderful and also occasionally disconcerting. Things are in totally different places -- and we have so much more space! Plus, we have the sofabed for my mom when she comes to help with the first couple weeks, which she has confirmed she will do. That, and the fact that my stepmom is going to throw me a shower, makes it seem like when this baby decides to be born, we might actually be ready!

There is only one wrinkle: all of the sudden I've really started swelling up. As in, there is no bump where my ankle should be. As in, I deformed this sweet silver ring I had on my finger until it almost broke. Parts of me really look like I have elephantitis. Now, this may be normal swelling in the heat and accompanying weight gain (5 pounds in 2 weeks). Or it may be the first sign of preeclampsia (pregnancy-induced high blood pressure). So far, I don't have the other signs (protein in the urine and high blood pressure), but because preeclampsia can have a really rapid onset and can be dangerous for the baby (not getting enough oxygen and nutrients to the baby because of the high blood pressure actually blowing out the fully-dilated blood vessels in the placenta, leading to placental "dead spots" that don't help anyone), my midwife wants to see me again next week -- and I've got an ultrasound for them to check out the baby and the placenta the following week. There's the possibility that if I have preeclampsia, I may be put on bedrest (how do I teach???) or even be induced or scheduled a c-section (heaven forbid) earlier than this baby's Oct 10 due date. Since my shower is on Sept 27, it's totally possible that in the event of preeclampsia, I'll have the baby before the shower! But, as Absurdist Lover says, I shouldn't worry about all this right now. Right now, I should put my elephant feet up, be sure to drink enough water, and rest. Of course, not worrying is not my long suit. On the other hand, we have plenty of good fun things we want to do this weekend. And I've been working on my article, thanks to Hilaire turning me onto the Academic Book Club. So that's the haps. Cross your fingers that I'm just swollen rather than preeclampsic, please!

A Photo-Essay of the 34-1/2 Week Belly

I call this big belly with slouch. This is what I mostly look like on the street (though in more structured clothes), since holding my back up and straight is not easy or painless!

This is the close-up belly when I'm actually standing up straight.

This is the belly lying down. Here you can see that there is more bulk toward the bottom than the top. My midwife says Absurdist Baby is starting to move down.

Telegram from the First Day of School

First day teaching at Community College. STOP. Teaching totally different classes than I first thought, including 8am class -- UGH. STOP. Barely have a syllabus together and no schedule; amazing even that since I got precious little info from Coordinator of new class. STOP. Have never been to this campus -- not smart. STOP. Don't have parking pass -- not smart. STOP. Don't know how long to drive there. STOP. Also need to work on revision of article this week. STOP. Must go to office job after working out tangles like no books, ordering of books, parking pass, finding out where my mailbox is. STOP. AM SO PREGNANT -- 34 weeks and still not ready as in no car seat. STOP. Wish me luck. STOP.

Over and out. Make it STOP.

Absurdity: Example Number 4,326

A number of moons ago, when we moved into this apartment, we were told that the painters would need to come in to fix some water damage in the baby's room and the dining area. I was assured the maintenance people were very prompt and thorough (a claim almost instantly disproven by a number of instances involving standing water and broken air conditioners). The maintenance people called me and told me that I should be expecting a call from the painters. Never received a call. When I faxed subsequent maintenance requests (basically the only way they'll take maintenance requests -- what if I did not have access to a free fax at work???), I always included the fact that the painting had never been completed. They never addressed it. And in the course of life, I let it go.

Fast forward to this morning. There I was slowly waking (also known as fretting about how to pay the rent, the storage unit, and the bills this month, not to mention the IRS, figuring that I have no choice but to cash in my fledgling 401K), when I smelled paint. There were also voices very close, as if the cops were about to barge into my apartment. I got up -- there was a guy painting the ground outside our patio door, the fumes coming in the open window. We were not notified by the maintenance people to expect people literally on our doorstep. We had not moved the copious little things we keep out there, including a stool so Absurdist Lover can smoke out there, a bunch of herbs, and a couple rugs we need to get drycleaned before we can bring them in the house (do I even have to say they've been out there for months because we cannot afford to get anything drycleaned? on the other hand, a sweet neighborhood cat likes to sleep on them) nor did we know to keep the window overlooking that patio closed. It still smells like paint in here.

This happened at 9:30, when all the maintenance and official offices I could call were still closed. I was incensed. I called and left messages everywhere. We can get spontaneous painting done, but not painting promised to us when we moved in. Now they're dealing with a very pregnant woman in the advanced stages of needing-to-nest (which is different from nesting, because of course a nesting person would actually have the things she needed for the baby by now, rather than a panicking person who still doesn't know how she's going to get the rent together for the month, plus the stuff for the baby). I would say these people are screwed, but let's face it -- they haven't called me back either. I'll probably get no traction on any of it, because, though the apartment is pretty and the managers pretend at being high-end and responsible, the management has proven itself to be slumlordish.

Still have not heard from DC. Must call. What's the point of going to some coordinator's house if I'm not teaching at CC anyway? Must find out. Am s.t.r.e.s.s.e.d. and I don't like it.

It's Real: The Week Before School Starts

Well, it's dawned on me that I have a ton to do this week to prepare for my classes. Moreover, I have to get as much Job Market Prep done as possible. (Sorry, Sisyphus. I put it off as long as I could, I swear!) I want to use the mornings before I go to work to get things done. Today, I spent the last almost three hours on emails to recommendation letter-writers alone. And that's all I've done. Sigh.

Can I just say that I don't know if I get an office, where the copy center is, which books were ordered for my second class that may well get axed today anyway, where to get a parking sticker, where the department office and mailboxes are or anything at this Community College? The website doesn't list such details, and the email I've sent to the no doubt incredibly-busy Department Chair has gone unanswered. These are mysteries I must figure out this week. I'm not panicking, but only because I've taught enough to wing it -- and maybe because I'm in pregnancy-induced denial. There's no doubt in my mind that this semester -- with teaching, working at the office, pregnancy/having the baby, and the job market -- is going to be one.wild.ride. Hang on, folks!

PS Our new lady cat is indeed a tortoiseshell, or so says Wikipedia. So Ms. Tortoise it is. Photos forthcoming.

Great News, with Inevitable Mindmeanderings on Money and the Academicness of this Blog

I don't have gestational diabetes! Apparently, the official number of diabetes for a glucose tolerance test is 140 -- and I'm at a meager 99. Ha! The midwife is genuinely surprised, considered the diet of lattes and ice cream I showed her. (Of course, the diet didn't show that I was eating reasonably healthily when I was still going to the farmer's market -- until my CD player died and I lost my inspiration, which was Barbara Kingsolver, et al's Animal, Vegetable, Miracle. My CD player died like 2 months ago, I think.) When I showed her my new diet sheets, she was also impressed and said it was a good diet, except that I need to eat more protein, which, I have to tell you, is not easy when you're poor and trying to eat organic or at least natural food. (One of the supplements she put me on cost me a whopping $150! I have bills for things like power and cable that total that much that I can't afford to pay. But trying to explain to people who'd drop $20 for themselves on lunch what $20 is to people like me is sort of the continuing saga of what's going on between my family and me. Case in point: my step-mother continues to prod me to go to Ikea to buy baby furniture. She tells me how the furniture is actually better built than it used to be and "so cheap!" -- just $150. Now, of course this is cheap for furniture. Of course, it would be great to have a chest of drawers for the baby. But we don't have $150 for anything, except, apparently, supplements, which I took out of the health fund from Grandma, which is now totally dry. But I don't want to make this post about money, because money so absolutely runs Absurdist Lover's and my life at this point -- and I have to remind myself that most of the really wonderful things in life do not depend on money. I say this on a day when he ran out of the house at the prospect of his dad being able to give him some money. Oy vey.)

So I am to drink some protein shakes with low-glycemic fruit! The midwife thinks I don't have to worry about having a big baby or anything (since what causes the huge baby syndrome is unrestrained sugar in the blood kickstarting the baby to become bigger -- to get unrestrained sugar in one's blood, one's insulin/pancreas has to not be working well, a typical problem during pregnancy, hence gestational diabetes) -- and I asked her about eating granola with yogurt to satisfy my sweet tooth cravings and she said yes! And I probably will go ahead and give myself one latte a week anyway. I'm okay! The baby will be okay! Life is good!

Another piece of great news is that when I was waiting at the birth center for my appointment with the midwife (I love that she's always running late -- she's like me that way), I started reading the article that I need to revise and get to my collaborator. I had some new ideas and got all fired up about revising it! So today I'm going to Nearby Research University to poke into their library and snag some quotes from some books that, sadly, I have locked away in a storage unit in Grad City. Now, I realize that it's already well into the afternoon. But Absurdist Lover has only recently left -- and I'm going to go to the library and work -- and it's all good! I'm excited! I wish I had a library card there so I could get the books and come home, but I don't and can't afford to buy the card for community members and it will be fun to be sitting in a nice cold library working again in any case, even with my belly so huge and this baby having the hiccups. I want to work! I feel clearheaded enough to work! I feel motivated to get over to the library whose parking costs too much in order to work! How often does this happen! I've got to harnass it and get this article revised! Wooohooooo!

(Who'd a thunk last year when I was revising my dissertation for my readers that I'd ever be so excited to work on anything. It does happen, folks! I would not have put money on it, but it does happen!)

P.S. Absurdist Lover brought home his cat from up north. Apparently, she was living in a garage with four kittens (not hers), all of whom she hated. So now she's in our apartment. Mr. Tabby is surprisingly not so worried about her. The first day we kept them separate. But now the door is open between them -- yet she still pretty much stays in the bedroom/baby room, where we don't sleep. (We sleep on a fold-out in the living room, ironically imitating our camper life where bedroom, living room, and kitchen were all connected.) I haven't yet come up with a good blog name for her. I keep thinking of calling her Ms. Thang, since every time she sees Mr. Tabby, who has much more reason to be affronted by her presence that she does, and hisses at him. She's sort of black and orange, not striped, but just mixed in a way that looks just sort of messy. I don't know -- maybe she's a tortoiseshell? Then I could call her Ms. Tortoise, which fits her personality as long as the tortoise is grumpy to her own kind and likes people. Help me out people!

P.P.S. I swear when I started this blog, I thought that "absurdist paradise" referred mainly to academic life. Now I realize it refers to my life. Two totally impoverished adults, one of whom is ridiculously overeducated and underpaid, barely scraping by in one of the most flashy cities in the world that lots of people would like to visit but which the two adults really dislike, living in an overpriced (but cute!) fly-ridden one-bedroom apartment with not one, but two old curmudgeonly cats and a baby on the way. No one could make this stuff up. My life is absurd! Sorry to those who came here looking for good academic kvetching, when this blog has definitely taken a turn toward a mom blog (when I first saw my blog listed on another blog's "mom blog links," I was surprised, even alarmed -- maybe just to think of myself as a mom, though maybe that this blog has become a mom blog). I think I always just felt I was focusing on important things in my life -- and whereas those things used to be the academy because I was very much in the academy, now they are not. But I still think that this is an academic blog to the point that I hold a more academic point of view than your average person, so when I encounter websites that infantilize pregnant women or everyday marginalization and bias against those who don't have enough money to buy the latest baby gadget or academic book, I think I look at it as an academic (a certain version of an academic) does -- an academic loose in a crazy consumerist culture trying to get back into the academy. (There's no doubt that this digression was inspired by Dr. Crazy's discussion of blogging and the comments to that post. Ooh, I see she's put up another post about the comments to that post. Gotta go read that! Then, I really must go to the library already! Bye!)

The Good News and the Bad News, or How My Morning Regimen Means I Get to Be a Lazy Head

I have been up for an hour and a half doing the various morning things I have to do -- and now when I could almost be ready to go and do something or get something wonderfully productive done, I don't want to. The morning regimen is already enough -- like since it's the weekend I should get to relax already. Absurdist Lover is away for the weekend, and I had planned to do many many things that are more difficult to do when he's here and we want to spend time together on the weekends. There are many things I should do, such as work on the article that could contribute positively to me on the job market this year, call my grandfather, and go out and buy a number of little things that would make life around the house easier (including flypaper, which I have been having a hard time finding and which we desperately need because for some reason our apartment is a daily fly convention), not to mention work on another thing that I realize now I should tell y'all about.

So let me explain my good news and my bad news first.

The bad news (let's get it over with) is I had my nutritional consult with my nutritionally-oriented midwife and she was basically appalled at my diet of lattes and ice cream. She said that the amount of sugar in my diet had probably already led me to gestational diabetes and could lead to hypertension, a big baby (which means a more problematic delivery), and all sorts of bad high-risk things. So now I'm on this no-sugar, no-caffeine, low-fat, low natural sugar, low-fun diet. Today is Day 3, and I don't feel as terrible as I did yesterday when I moaned to my co-workers and Maude that I was going to die. (Something to remember about radical diet changes: Day 1 is not so bad because you're still full of juice about how you're going to change your life and "it's going to be great"; Day 2 is frigging awful because your body is in total withdrawal and you think you're going to die and you wish you could spend the day sprawled on your bed with the clicker exactly like those hangover days, which, sadly, you now remember fondly; Day 3, so far, is not so bad.) In fact, the rest of yesterday wasn't so bad; I went to El Pollo Loco after work and ate a huge-but-didn't-break-any-rules meal to make up for the fact that I had not eaten lunch (a big no-no) and managed to feel pretty decent the rest of the night. Basically, the midwife has already put me on the gestational diabetes diet, so if the tests come back next week with gestational diabetes, well, I won't be surprised and there won't be anything to change. But please cross your fingers that I don't have gestational diabetes, because that means that for who knows how long there has been rampant un-insulin-controlled sugars kick-starting the baby's growth hormone, leading to a huge baby, making a vaginal delivery increase in potential ickiness. Since we're at 32 weeks (if you can believe that), this is the time of rapid growth, so maybe, just maybe, I can nip that one in the bud by reducing my sugar to practically zero. We'll see. The one thing about being pregnant that really sucks is how I feel already like I've already ruined this little person I love. It's ridiculous, I know, because my mother ate whatever she wanted (though she doesn't have a sugar-sensitive body either and I do), smoked, drank, etc. I figure the smoking probably kept the birth weight down, evening out the all-fast food diet. Ugh. If this baby has anything wrong with him/her, I know that I'm going to blame myself for all my bad pregnancy behaviors. I have to remember that while some of this is productive and will keep me on my diet, some of this is totally nonproductive too -- and hubristic, as if I have all the answers and am totally in charge of how this baby turns out.

So, along with the new diet, there are tons and tons of supplements. In the morning, there are not one, but two different things I have to mix up and drink, plus so many pills I inevitably have a bad time getting them down. At night, I now also have a bunch of pills and one thing to drink -- and she encouraged me to order this other supplement -- so as of next week, I'll have yet another thing to mix up and drink three times a day. So when I say I'm done with the morning regimen, what I mean is that I've taken all my morning supplements, given the cat his medicine, brushed my teeth, and cleaned out the cat box (with a mask and gloves, of course). I haven't, for example, eaten breakfast. But I don't feel hungry because my stomach is full of Vitamin C drink, Cal Mag, and pills, pills, pills. (Part of the point of eating the low-fat, no-sugar diet is to get all the bad stuff out of the way so that my body can actually process the good stuff, including protein and supplements, that will make the baby and me strong for birth.) On a positive note, I don't feel bad or caffeine-deprived, no matter how much I really want a latte. We all know the caffeine-withdrawal headache. I don't have that. I think the reason why I felt crappy yesterday at work really had to do with my blood sugar being way too low -- and not having any quick way of fixing it. Though it was probably also withdrawal.

So on to the good news! On Thursday, Chair of English Department at New Community College offered me two classes: one that he's pretty sure will run, one that is sketchy right now. So I emailed the coordinator of Pretty-Assured Class and got a bunch of materials. There is even a meeting for the instructors so I may get to lobby there for someone to take over when I give birth and definitely need to be out. As much as starting something new when I'm about to have a baby, a new lifechanging event, is a lot, there are a few reasons why this is totally fabulous news. One, definite pay for 3-4 months at a higher hourly rate than SAT company gives me (though of course they don't pay for prep and we know how it happens that we end up spending way way way more time than they ever pay us for). Two, a college that I can put on my CV for going on the market. No matter how I talk about SAT Company and how I've learned a great deal that will help me be a better college teacher in the future, I figure there is nothing better than having some actual college teaching on my sheet. (I have more than five years already, but still.) I also feel like the community college experience will help me be a better, more well-rounded teacher. I realize that universities often don't care about this, but I do think that teaching the SAT and the writing courses I've done recently, plus community college teaching will make me a better teacher -- and a better, more thoughtful scholar. This way I can see a bigger picture rather than just what we do in our classes or our programs. I can see how students are prepared to get into those classes. I have to remember to talk about this is some sort of smart way in my letter. GAH! I have to rewrite my letter! Oy gevalt! Breathe, breathe deeply. Three, I like college teaching better than SAT teaching. No matter how stifling the set curriculum (and so far, it doesn't seem awful), at least I will feel like I'm doing what I'm best at or at least what I've sunk my higher education into. I just plain feel better about myself when I'm doing something that feels like what I'm meant to do. (One of these days I have to explore why it is that teaching writing to others feels so much more important than writing myself. When I visited my grandmother a couple weeks ago, she told me how well-written she thought my writing was. Why don't I write more? Why, why, why?)

So, of course it would be a great idea for me to look more carefully through all the things that Course Coordinator sent me, figure things out, come up with questions, etc. And yet. I'm not excited enough about the class to actually go and do that. In some ways, I realize it will be very much like the teaching at Adventure U, which totally didn't fit me. But really it's not that I'm in some working mood, and I just don't feel good about this situation. It's that I'm totally NOT in a working mood. Since my last class with Summer Program for SAT Company ended on Thursday, I just want to enjoy not working two jobs -- and today I want to enjoy not working, period. I want to get lost in a book or something. Or watch TV and movies and do cross-stitch. I want to be a big old Lazy Head.

I thought blogging might help me get in the mood, but I see this post is one big rationalization for not working at all -- on the article or the new class. The new class I figure I can work on during the week, when I would've been working that second job. The article? Well, I have no excuse. Maybe later in the day when I've wasted too much time I'll feel more like a wastrel and get into it. (I should at least make myself work long enough for a ten-minute freewrite.) But for now I'm going to think about the things that have to be done today, such as renewing my library books. Tomorrow, I figure I'll wake up, go to the farmer's market (good healthy food for me, plus I also have to bring snacks to Tuesday's birth class), and then go over to my folks, where I can pick up the bathing suit my step-mom bought me, maybe go swimming if the suit fits (which seems highly unlikely since I'm a beached whale), and call my grandfather on their far-superior phones. Which means today, I can lounge about, post-renewal of books.

I hope y'all out in bloggerland are having a more productive time of it out there! I never did understand how people work all week, then get up early on Saturday to run errands. I just want to sleep and do nothing. August as the month of getting down to business, my foot!

I had a bad dream

last night that I was a lawyering imposter who was working on a big case for the city. Everyone, including my step-mom and dad, had things to say that I totally didn't understand. I lived in a big ritzy apartment, and there were weird people half-coming on to me who just traipsed into the bathroom as if it were their own. I knew I was going to have to sub in some help in order to get through the whole thing. When I woke up, I was so relieved to be teaching writing, something I feel well-qualified to teach, even if I'm teaching it in a summer program to high school students who are worried about their SATs and personal statements. What a relief! Then I went over to Writing Maternity and read a post on Writing Studies and immediately wanted to weigh in, happy to be in my element. YAY! Now I have to get myself up and into the shower. But even if my life is totally absurdist and weird and sometimes seemingly impossible to navigate and pay for, at least I get to spend some of my time doing the things that I love and am good at as opposed to doing the secretarial work that I'm not really good at or pretending that I'm something I'm not all the time. Compared to the panic of having to teach myself the law profession well enough in a short period of time to do a big public case for the city with a bunch of other lawyers all as stakeholders watching me, being pregnant, underemployed, and seriously impoverished doesn't look so bad. (Not to mention, as much as I like nice clothes and nice things, I don't need a ritzy apartment or to spend my time wearing high heels and skirts. I don't want to yuppify myself and have the latest everythings. I want to be my slow weird intellectual self, spending myself on my boyfriend, baby, cat, garden, writing, and students!) After a lot of complaining last night to my mom about how the world treats pregnant women and me in particular (my niece and nephew, both under ten years old, told me this weekend that having the baby "was going to hurt." Who nobbled them, I wonder?), my wonderful brain reminds me to count my blessings. It could always be worse. Much worse.

Today is Maudie's defense day! YAY Maude! In a few short hours, DOCTAH MAUDE!

Belly Photo, Finally, and a Rundown of the Week

This photo is actually from a couple weeks ago now, when Similarly Neurotic Fabulous Friend (who really needs a better pseudonym) asked for pictures. Please ignore my giant fat arms.

Much is going on here -- both good and bad. Here's the good: my fabulous grandmother (the same one who has breast cancer and had a lumpectomy and lymph node removal in the last few months) fronted me the money for the birth center. So we're a little less freaked out over here at Chez Absurd about money. Of course, next week things may be very different -- but I'm totally pleased that we're going to be able to go to our midwife and birth center with no problems, especially since we've just started our birth class there (which seems to be more information and education than sitting around doing deep breathing exercises and singing kumbayah, which I'm sure would be good too -- my apologies to Bradley and Lamaze classes for characterizing them that way -- I could do with someone telling AL to massage my back even more). Other good: Absurdist Lover's job is officially set to launch on Monday. That is, the call center will be working and he's all scheduled on their list and hopefully they'll call him a lot and send him to fix computers a lot! Not only will this really help with money (assuming he gets a good amount of work), but equally important, he will feel more productive and happy with himself. He's not the type who sort of falls apart and gets depressed and hopeless when not employed, but working will really make him feel better and stronger. More good: Grandpa is getting better, though he is quite tired. Even more good, though strange: a state university has called me about coming in to interview for adjunct work. I don't know exactly where the u is and cannot make the interview times they mentioned on the message, so I'm not exactly thrilled yet, but it's nice to know my CV is still academically viable -- I'm so swiss-cheese brained that I feel like I'll never get hired again.

The big bad is that a professor I know was, I believe, found dead in Grad City early this week. The details are really unclear to me but it appears now that he killed himself. Or at least that's what the police have determined, which I think means that there was no note. He was a good man who cared a lot about grad student issues, and I had a good working relationship with him. I'll miss him, though of course it feels only vaguely real considering that Grad City is so far away. Every day I've looked for info and obits, but similar to last year when a friend of mine killed herself, the newspapers there are not very forthcoming in cases of suicide. (Can I just stop here to focus on me and say that I really don't like this particular pattern? Three people I've known in Grad City have killed themselves in as many summers. I don't like this, not one little bit.) The most pressing issue about all this is that Maude's defense is in a week or so -- and what do you do when your advisor checks out right before your defense? I want to call the department and make sure that it's going to happen, to beg my advisor to please sit in (though Peppy Advisor is in a totally different field and is not Maude's fave person) or something! Not that she can't do it herself, of course, but. . .I just want to do something.

In other news, I'm starting to research vaccinations, because Absurdist Lover is adamantly against them; my view in the past has been that I would really rather not have my child contract polio, but now that I see the sheer volume of vaccinations we're talking about -- it's just alarming how many times medical science advocates poking a child. A vaccination for chicken pox? Uh, I had the chicken pox as a kid, and I don't think there's any reason to take a shot for it. Having chicken pox is uncomfortable but that's not a good enough reason to potentially mess with the development of a baby-child when I swear we really don't know enough about child development to really say whether all these vaccinations are completely safe. Flu shots? Easy. They don't work anyway. I'm pretty skeptical of what the medical establishment thinks it "knows" about childbirth and child development -- I believe it's perfectly possible that the mercury in these shots may cause autism in mercury-sensitive children and the medical establishment just hasn't caught on yet. (Though avoiding fish -- I just can't do that, can't condone that. We ADDers NEED our fish oil omegas!) After all, the medical establishment hasn't caught on to the idea that important hormonal bonding happens between mother and child in the first hours after childbirth (which is why rooming-in is important) or that epidurals and pitocin are bad for the mother and baby (oxygen-deprivation risk to baby, not being in touch with your body during, arguably, the most important physical experience of your life, drugs passing to the baby) or that sugar metabolism, g-i tract problems, and one's reproductive cycle are related. So I'm trying to do somewhat balanced research, distrusting the extremist alarmist views (as is my wont) and evaluating the science, while of course taking into account the views of the granola set with whom I often agree. Sigh. Parenting has more contested issues in it than anything I think I've ever been a part of. (Circumcision, schooling, diapers, vaccinations, staying at home versus working -- as if I have the choice -- gah and double gah!) Oy vey.

Today I only go to the office, thank goodness, though I'm having a good time teaching as well. And this weekend Absurdist Lover will be at a meeting on Saturday and then going to see his children on Sunday, so I will get some time to myself and obsess and worry focus on other things -- me things, like maybe the academy and writing. I am not going to obsess and worry about AL. I simply refuse. Maybe I'll continue reading Middlemarch (the authorial commentary and intrusion annoys me so it's been slow going) or maybe I'll watch all the movies that I don't watch when AL is here and work on this cross-stitch project. Or maybe I'll just play WoW. Let's face it -- I'll probably blog. Woohooo!

Monday Monday

Let's face it -- I'm much better at getting myself to write a post in a couple minutes than I am when I have great big swathes of time. This is an ADD thing, I'm pretty sure. Also, can I just say that I should be in the shower if I really want to leave in 20 minutes? But this is so much more fun!

So today I start a new class in another one of these summer programs. This one is all about writing -- and should be so much nicer than teaching the SAT! Though, who knows how the students will be -- and that can make or break the experience. Then I have to go to the law office. Then I really should go visit my grandfather -- who is no longer jaundiced and can speak and is much better, or so I've heard.

Over the weekend, Absurdist Lover and I celebrated his birthday as I was on a sugar fast, which totally sucked. So no birthday cake. No ice cream. No doctored coffee. No scones. No nothing. On Sunday, when it was over, I went to Starbucks, but am proud to say that I did NOT consume any Ben and Jerry's. My baby will not be made of ice cream after all! I had to go on a sugar fast for reasons that I'll spare you, but it all came out of seeing the midwife, who is awesome. She asked me all about my medical history, and I put things together that I would never have put together before -- though much of it I've been wanting a doctor-type to take in and make something of for years to no avail. Western medicine is just too compartmentalized to see a relationship, apparently, between sugar intolerances, digestive trouble, and reproductive health. Whatever. At least now I have someone who sees the whole -- and will explain things to me.

Last week, I also had an interview with a community college -- and it must've gone well, because the chair called me and basically said that I'd be in the pool for the fall. We also got to talking and found we knew some of the same people in the neighborhood where I grew up and he now lives. Very strange. But cool. And so when I go out on the market, I figure I will have had this great experience of teaching high school students and getting a real feel for who at least some of the rich kids are and how they prepare (and how the SAT makes them think about what college must be) and teaching community college students and seeing who they are. I realize that universities often care only about university teaching, but I think I will be much more well-rounded as a result of these experiences. At least that's the story I'm telling myself. The focus on the transition to the university should be made easier by actually knowing something about who these students are before they get to the university.

I have not worked on revising the Never-Finished but-hopefully-to-be-finished Article for weeks. I've been too busy with cross-stitch, WoW, searching for stupid things on the internet, dumb things like work, and being very big and tired to actually focus on something so productive. Not good. But AL will be gone this weekend (and I will no doubt be very nervous all weekend because it didn't go all that well last time), so I should be able to get something done. Money is ridiculously tight, though I just got paid. Crap, it's 8am. Didn't I want to leave now? Oy vey. See y'all later.

Shortie Post on the International Day of Absurdist Lover

So of course I'm going to write a shortish post for now when I could've written a longer post a few days ago, but I was. . .you guessed it -- too tired. But here are the things I promise to write about soon: my visit to the midwife on Wednesday and my interview with Community College on Tuesday. Here's a preview: both went really well. The midwife took the most complete medical history of me ever taken -- and she had some new ideas for some old problems (g-i tract problems, blood sugar troubles) that were really interesting. When I was sitting and talking with her, I thought that I may want to go to her even when the baby is done and out. She's the teensiest bit alarmist, advocating no alcohol, but I think it's not that it is bad per se, but that we want to maximize our chances of a happy and easy birth center birth rather than having to be carted off to the hospital where the attitude in this town is that Caesareans are easier and more efficient.

The interview at Community College went so well that I'm pretty sure I'll have some teaching for the fall. I know it sounds insane, but I said I'd need two weeks out for the birth -- now I know this sounds ridiculous to many, but remember that it's not a full-time gig or anything -- I won't teach more than two classes -- and I may well be able to teach and everything pretty soon after the birth. All the chair said was that if I need more time to keep them informed. So if anything goes wrong (knock on wood that Absurdist Baby and I have an easy birth and that AB is healthy and happy) or I'm exhausted or whatever, then I'll take more time. (I mean, I'm sure I'll be exhausted. On the other hand, we really need the money and I'd rather teach at CC than the SAT Company, just because I'd rather teach in my field than the SAT! Not to mention that I'd rather know I'm getting paid for four months rather than six weeks.)

But today is Absurdist Lover's birthday! And since I just got paid for all the crazy work I've been doing at SAT Co (with no more to come because my class next week was cancelled and now I just have a short writing class in another summer program -- yippee!), we have some money! AL, who had boringly said all week that "it's just another day," wants me to get to work so I can get home and we can have some fun! YAY! So I'll post this weekend about the midwife, the complete sugar fast I'm on and how much it sucks (which tells me how incredibly toxic I am, because at my most gorgeous and healthy, I didn't eat sugar or dairy), and Community College coolness. And I hope I'll also get some work done on this huge cross-stitch project I have for Absurdist Baby, which at the rate I'm going I might just be able to get done before he goes off to college.

Quick-Fire Bullets

I'm in such a hurry this morning, but I really want to write something here because I think it will make me feel better -- more like a person to be in touch with my blogworld. You know what I mean?

• After posting a comment on Ianqui's blog about how my family isn't into my pregnancy, something that has really been bugging me lately, my step-mother offered to throw me a baby shower. Now, I know about six people here in Urban Home City so it will be the tiniest shower ever, but still I feel bad that I characterized my family that way. I know that everyone has other things going on, especially related to bullet number 2. I just wish that I felt like there was going to be this warm happy set of people to surround this baby with. Maybe everyone feels this way.
• My grandfather is still in the hospital, recovering very slowly from abdominal surgery. He has colon cancer that they figure is fully treatable, but we're very concerned that he has already given up no matter what the prognosis.
• I have an interview tomorrow for an adjunct position at a community college that I applied to ages ago back when it was virtually the closest around. Now it's a bit of a hike and there are definitely closer ones, but then they called me for the interview. The HR person was talking about how there was a "topic," which I think means a teaching demo. I haven't received the "topic" yet, so they are going to get the shortest prep time on record, since today I have to go teach the college admissions class, go to the office, then go teach the essay class tonight. It's the last of these crazy days, thank goodness. Of course, this also means less pay for less crazy days. And Absurdist Lover is still not working yet for the new job -- in fact, he's nervous even about the background check, though he's got nothing to worry about. Money is the single greatest stressor here at Chez Absurd. We don't have a toaster, an air conditioner in the bedroom (which is the baby room and where we don't sleep anyway), a new bra for me, nothing. We're basically at the starting point like a couple in their twenties who has nothing. Our bookshelves are broken cast-offs. Meanwhile my family is about to go to Honduras while their upstairs gets remodeled. It's really hard being so broke and watching other people spend so much money just on lunch. Sigh. I hope to soon not be running around so much -- and able to focus on the impending job market. Anyway, I don't know if the community college will want to hire me when I'm due in October and would definitely have to be out for some length of time, but I figure it's worth a try, especially because teaching this essay class has reminded me how much I love teaching writing.
  
• I'm also mad at my SAT prep company. On Friday, the teacher of the other class called me an hour before class and said that he was sick and could I please take his class? Well, of course I want to help out and how could I say no? I totally refigured what I was doing in my class so I could present things the other class hadn't already done when I put the two classes together -- and it was a zoo, I tell you, a zoo! Too much! When I called SAT prep company and asked if I would get additional compensation they said no because I hadn't worked any extra hours and "thanks for teaching a larger class today." These classes are not like the SAT classes, structured and set by the SAT prep company at every step. These are more like regular classes where you have a certain amount of material to cover, but how you do it is going to be different from the person down the hall. I realize I didn't exactly sub a class that wasn't mine -- or work extra hours. But getting nothing is like them telling me that it was nothing for me to have an hour to figure out what on earth to do! I'm really upset about it, but though I intended to deal with it on Friday by asking a trainer I know what to do, then I went and saw my grandfather in the hospital and tried to convince him that life was worthwhile and that frankly sapped all my energy.
  
• I'm also really angry at my doctor's office. I need my records because I'm going to see the midwife on Wednesday. (YAY!) I've never had a doctor's office balk at faxing the records, but they are. They want me to go over there (which is a total shlep into a different area with a lot more traffic and a pain to boot), sign a form, and give them $25. Now, I'm angry at SAT company for not giving me another hour's worth of my salary, which is little more than $25. I'm poor and think $25 to be a lot of money. I wish I didn't. But this feels like extortion. I looked up the statute for the Stupid Overpriced State Health and Safety Code and it does say that doctors can charge up to $.25/page plus reasonable costs in attaining records (I take this to mean charging if people need to go into storage). I've been seeing these numbskulls since May or so -- there is no way that my file is 100 pages long. I'm ready to write a letter to the editor over this one. This really pisses me off because when I had to get a mammogram in a country typically thought of as third world they gave me my own films because, their thinking was, who is going to take better care of your records and be more interested in your health than you? Here in the U.S., we think that people aren't responsible enough to have their own records -- or often be told exactly what their test results are beyond whether there is a "problem" or not -- and then we charge them just for getting them! It's totally ridiculous. That $25 charge is the bra that fits instead of me squishing into an undersized old bra every day! Grrrr. I'm too poor, tired, and pregnant for all this.
• I'm 27 weeks as of last Friday, which means I'm officially in my third trimester. Please, please, please dear G-d and heavenly minions let Absurdist Lover's job start up in a real way so that I can stop working so hard and relax a little before this baby is born -- and not have to put the baby in daycare as of Day 1.
  

RBOC

All I can manage right now is a bullet list. Here goes.

• I'm starting a college admissions and essay writing course in a summer program tomorrow. GAH!
• My grandfather is in the hospital, recovering from major abdominal surgery. The blockage he had in his small intestine looks like it's cancer.
  
• My mother had a seemingly serious g-i tract problem of her own, where she was telling me how alone and isolated she felt. (She lives in a faraway city without family, or, as far as I can tell, many friends.) She was totally going nuts, ending up in the hospital, but then even though there were no tests performed, no answers about her condition, she just decided that she wasn't going to take it very seriously. That is, she's not going to deal with it or get the tests that a few days before she believed were crucial. She had completely whipped me into a frenzy, getting me to rally the other kids into supporting her with phone calls. And then she decides she's just going to wait for her low-income city insurance to kick in rather than ask her mom for the money for a really good specialist. She should be able to have her test in one-four months. After me really taking a lot of time and energy out to support her, I am just not amused. She whips me into her drama, then when she decides that the drama should end, she wonders why I think she's being ditzy and irresponsible about her potentially-serious condition. We are not amused. I want those days back where I tired myself out worrying about her.
• I still don't have the whole birth center/insurance thing worked out. At least I can now ask my grandmother because I know she's not going to be tapped for an expensive specialist and tests by my ditzy mom.
• My intensive SAT class ends tomorrow.
• I have an editing job due Tuesday.
• I'm 26 weeks pregnant and getting big and uncomfortable, especially since I have still not been able to afford a new bra. (I tried to go and get a maternity bra, but apparently dumb stores like A Pea in the Pod think that all women start off as A- and B-cups, so we all have double Ds when our boobs have inflated like balloons. Uh, someone ought to explain that some of us girls have. . .well, big girls to begin with. Even online, the prospect of decent support for these pregnant super-boobs is not good. JC Penney's seems to have bras. But by the time I did all this research, the money ran out.)
• My laptop is screwy, just dying and overheating and turning off in the middle of working. It clearly needs to be fixed. But that requires. . .
• Money that we don't have. The money crunch over here at Absurdist Household continues. Even working two jobs. Even with Absurdist Lover having gotten hired last week -- at a start-up company that hasn't yet really started up. Oy.
• We got library cards. Woohoo!
  

Done!

This morning I couldn't sleep so I went to the Coffee Corporation and finished up the article that should've been done earlier in the week but I just couldn't do it and so emailed for an extended deadline on my revisions. (Lost points for professionalism there, but I'm pregnant, tired, working two jobs that take up my whole day, and stressed about money, love, and all the above.) Now, the article is done. DONE!!!! Sent off. This is my first academic publication. (Can I just say how stupid I felt writing up a contributor's bio when I'm not actually in the academy at the moment? Oy.)

I am now free to think about all those other articles I should be writing in preparation for being on the market in the fall. Ah, to be so free. (Gulp.)

I have other immediate projects, like the campaign to borrow a family member's credit card so I can put the birth center expenses on it and thus begin decent and humane midwifery supervision of this pregnancy. At 5am, this seemed simple -- that I had made it into a bigger project than it is. But now, tired and sleep-deprived, it seems impossible. How can I make people understand that birth center and midwife care is just plain better for me than dealing with doctors and hospitals?

In other news, my mother is sick and doesn't know what she has and on a city health care plan where she is getting few answers and feeling cut off from the world. Not good. Must remember to 1) call her on Sunday; and 2) spread the word that she needs some TLC.

Am huge. Should post belly pictures documenting this.

Am sleepy. Can no longer think in sentences.

Over and out.

Reverse Psychology

So blogging the sick is not like blogging the lost: my sore throat has blossomed into full-blown ickiness. On the other hand, practically right after I wrote about how sweet Absurdist Lover was, we began to have problems. It's as if writing it down and pressing publish puts an expiration date on whatever's going on. So maybe by saying that we're having problems and I'm sick and feel like crap, everything will get better.

In other news, today I'm not teaching my class but instead am going to a training in another part of town. It's actually kind of funny and kind of sad (yes, a Tears for Fears reference) because I'm going to a training so I can get certified to teach for SAT Company what I've already taught at the college level. That is, I'm going to a three-hour training to specialize in what I have a PhD in. Oy. What a strange world. Of course, techniques for a test are different. And I'm glad to get certified in something else. This way I can teach some specialized courses. Maybe I can also tutor in this field. But oy, I wish I didn't feel like crap nine ways to Sunday today.

The air conditioner people are here, and it sounds like they are ripping things out of the wall. Absurdist Lover is out there taking care of it, and I'm hiding in the back room, surrounded by used tissues. This is not good. I'm living for the weekend -- when I have to work on my article revisions, which, surprise surprise, I have not worked on since Monday. I want to sleep for a week. Or at least get summers off.

The doctor's office called me, I think because I cancelled my genetic counseling appointment. I thought it was the amnio -- in fact I'm still not sure! They also did not even tell me that they'd made an appointment for me specifically for genetic counseling nor did they say anything about why I would want genetic counseling. I hate the medical profession, where they just send you in for stuff without telling you a damn thing about it. Also, this particular office is really disorganized, hence the lovely birth center that I have not been able to fix the money for because I am tired and sick and working basically all the time. Yes, I'm grumbly. I want to just curl up like Mr. Tabby (on my suitcase, if you can believe it -- as if he's saying: you're not going anywhere without me!) and sleep through everything.

Blogging the Sick

which I hope is like blogging the lost.

Last night, my throat got sore on the left side. It actually started when I was in class, teaching the first real day of an intensive SAT class. And it got worse until this morning when it has exploded all over my throat. I think I'm getting sick.

It's not at all surprising. Right now, I wake up, rush over to the office, do whatever is needed there (lately I've been compiling the expenses on one account with a grumbly customer -- a bit stressful since everyone is stressed there), and then rushing off to teach my intensive SAT class -- an everyday sort of affair. It just started, but already I can't wait for the class to end. In addition to teaching, of course, I have to prep (daily) and do homework (daily). I also have my article revisions due next Wednesday. Oh no, only a week. I want to go to back to sleep. I'm exhausted. Last night, I had these pains that must've been Braxton-Hicks contractions because while I've certainly had gripping pain before, this didn't feel digestive in nature. The baby was kicking like he was going to come through my belly alien-style. When he (85% says the doctor, so I call it a "he" -- besides, if I end up having a girl, I won't be disappointed or anything) really gets going and kicks hard, it doesn't exactly hurt, but doesn't exactly feel great either. Maybe I'm just touchy right now. But it was scary to be gripped by pain and have to breathe through it because I thought maybe something was wrong -- no contractions at 23 weeks, thank you very much, no matter how much Absurdist Baby wants out. No Baby, we don't have a car seat yet. Forget it.

But he's going to be a handful, if his uterine antics are any indication. He'll be one of those toddlers who scoot across the room before you can say Jack Robinson. Oy. I hope I feel better then than I do now.

On the plus side, even though going from the office to teaching the SAT causes me mental whiplash, it's good that I have something going on besides that office. I was getting way too into its madness, coming home and telling Absurdist Lover all about the bs, from the boss who gives me his personal business to sort out to the idiot assistant. . .who is just an idiot. (By the way, I hereby make this proclamation: no more sports. I don't want to hear about whether "our team" will pull it out and "show up," and I don't want to be forced to listen to golf all day. Luckily, Absurdist Lover has no interest, even less interest than I do considering that at least once a decade, I get into watching NFL, but only West Coast offense, because to me a well-executed play looks like choreographed dance, which is also how I appreciate Jackie Chan films.)

Suffice it to say, I'm grumpy. That about covers it. And Absurdist Lover is asking me whether I want him to go out and get me food. Who is this man? He also made dinner last night as I was taking a break from homework to do battle with Word to format his resume nicely. When I complain about working so much and just being tired, he says he's trying to find a job. Of course, I want him to find a job and any job he gets (even some minimum-wage job) would make a big difference in our money situation, which would reduce our stress overall. But when I complain, I swear, I'm just complaining. Really I want to stay in bed all day. I'm exhausted. But it must weigh on him something awful.

We're also in the middle of a heat wave, and our air conditioner decided to give up. The maintenance people are supposed to come today and install a new one. For some reason, after a sweltering day, it decided to work again last night. I think it gets overheated and swoons, personally, which is what we all do once it decides not to work. Watching Tick stick his belly on the floor and pant is so sad!

All this said, the world has been very good to us lately. On Saturday, we were garage-saling and running some errands. We were hot and sweaty and weren't even in the mood to spend any more money. That morning, I had had a bout of terrible pregnancy insomnia, where I woke up at 4 and couldn't go back to sleep, an unfortunately all-too-common occurrence. (I swear it's having to get up to pee all the time!) I had looked online at baby furniture, including changing tables. So we were hitting this last garage sale only because it was a block or two from our place. When there was a traffic on a side street and I was struggling with some bad parallel parking (mine), Absurdist Lover said he hoped all this was worth it. As we approached, we saw a changing table. I jokingly said: is that for us? In fact it was. The woman there told us it was $100, out of our price range. (We had spent $6 on rugs earlier. Not that the changing table wasn't worth $100, but I wasn't really thinking we'd buy one right then. I figured that we'd pick one out and my folks would help us buy it.) Then she saw that I was pregnant and pulled me aside, saying she'd give me the changing table without the super-duper pad for $30 as a gift. I saw instantly that this was one of those times when the world was giving us a gift and we'd be stupid and ungrateful to not take it. She also threw in one of those baby rocker things that supposedly put babies to sleep (as featured with a vibrator in a Sex and the City episode, my friends) and a baby bath stand. When Absurdist Lover went back to pick up the changing table, she gave him the super-duper pad for $10 and threw in a shirt for me and a couple bibs. All I can say is that I realize how blessed we are. If you saw the room that we don't use right now, you'd think there was a baby explosion, complete with handmedown toys and a bassinet; in total, I think we've spent $43 on the whole thing -- $40 on the garage sale bounty and $3 on a little green sleeper that I had to have from Target. The generous woman's name was Valerie. THANK YOU VALERIE! THANK YOU GOD AND GENEROUS WORLD! THANK YOU ABSURDIST LOVER FOR GOING OUT AND GETTING ME FANCY COFFEE AND A BAGEL.

I have nothing to complain about. But of course that's never stopped me before. I totally recognize that I'm often one of those people who start to obsess about something because I need a focus. (Totally ADD.) What will become of Absurdist Lover and me is my latest obsession.

Oy gevalt. I just received a message saying that I had an amnio and genetic counseling appointment, the first one my doctor's inept office made for me before I insisted that they go somewhere else because it was going to be too late (this is before I thought better of the whole thing and felt more assured that an amnio wasn't really necessary). It took three people to cancel the damn appointment! You'd think I was trying to get out of paying a traffic ticket! If one more stranger says something like "you have to understand" about this pregnancy, I may scream. Well, that sense of peace and gratitude didn't last long, did it?

Cross your fingers I don't get full-blown sick. I need this weekend to work on the article and send Absurdist Lover to see his kids without having a nervous breakdown. (Let's just say that the last time he went and came back, things.did.not.go.well.)

Here's Absurdist Lover with my food. What a sweetie. No wonder I'm so afraid of losing him. Sigh.

Coming soon: an exploration of why my family's craziness makes me so ridiculously bonkers. Also, I'm sure, more blogging about the evils of article-writing.

No Amnio for Me!

First of all, I want to thank y'all for the support. Absurdist Lover and I went in to the doctor's on Monday and expressed our concerns about the amnio. The doctor affirmed that the only reason he was advocating it, since we have no intention of aborting, was because "it's good to know what you're getting" -- that is, if the baby is going to need an operation or neonatal intensive care, then one can make better choices about where to have it. This is the only reasoning that made sense to me, which left me in a conundrum. But that morning I had made an appointment to have a tour through one of the only birth centers I could find in this town (so strange to me since this state has such a granola-y reputation, yet birth centers have gone by the wayside big time here). So I called them and asked about whether because I am thirty-five they'd have reservations about my giving birth in a birthing center. They said that if I were really worried about the baby that I could have a 3-D ultrasound, something my doctor hadn't even mentioned! The people at the birthing center told me that if the state had found my AFP test to be abnormal, even they wouldn't send me directly to have an amnio, which costs between $2,000-3,000 -- the state would get me a 3-D ultrasound next and only if that showed bad findings would I get an amnio. But my AFP was completely normal, and the state isn't advocating or paying for any further studies. "It sounds like your doctor is just advocating a very invasive procedure," the birthing center people said. Yes, yes, and yes. I know he's doing his best, but going through an amnio because I'm thirty-five and this passes some artificial line in the sand is ridiculous. I cancelled my amnio.

Absurdist Lover and I went to our tour appointment today -- and this birth center is pretty wonderful. The birthing rooms basically look like bed and breakfast rooms. It's pretty amazing how totally different the center is from the doctor's office. We spoke with the midwives and others -- it looks pretty wonderful. Of course, we have to figure out the money. Absurdist Lover is being pretty amazing about the whole thing. Though his other two children were born in hospitals, he is totally supportive of me having the experience that I want to have. He doesn't demean my intensity about finding an "alternative birth" at all, which I find amazing because a woman I know well has told me that the birth experience really doesn't matter at all -- at the end of the day you have your baby. A friend of mine said that she wanted to have her baby at home, but her insurance wouldn't pay for it -- and it wasn't worth it for them to pay the extra $4,000. I must be a class A bangladeshgranolahead, because I think it does matter. I think the baby will have an easier time of it if I'm as mellow and relaxed as possible. It's my body that this baby has to get through and if I'm tense and worried and scared because I've made this kind of huge compromise and feel I'm out of control and in the hands of over-zealous doctors who look at me as just another pile of flesh, well, I just think that the baby will have a harder time. Whatever. No one else really has to understand, except that we're going have to borrow the money to pay the birth center upfront and then get reimbursed (somewhat) by the insurance. But I'm not going to deal with that today. Too tired now.

But here's an interesting scary disgusting fact: the midwife said that as of June 2008 Urban Home City has a 70% Caesarean rate. (Can I just say that both of the women I mentioned earlier had Caesareans? One had an emergency C-section and then a second scheduled one, by her own choice because she could have tried for VBAC. The other had a C-section for her second baby with a vaginal delivery for the first.) Even if that figure is totally high, 30% would be too much. I've read some articles on the internet about the vast popularity of C-sections, as a choice! Oy! Not what I'm looking for. Not if it can be avoided.

(I guess I find a lot of this just shocking. I grew up in the 70s, and I guess I expected that once we'd started figuring out that there wasn't better living through chemistry that we'd continue on a natural, organic, green path. Organic is so trendy now, but natural childbirth is somehow out of fashion. It's more fashionable to schedule your C-section around your travel schedule. You can go to Whole Foods on a regular basis, concerned about your health and the environment, but birth centers are closing. Gas prices are through the roof, every other car is a Prius, but people are going crazy and declaring it an "epidemic" that tomatoes farmed in industrial pesticide-laden big business farms have been swimming around in vats of salmonella'd water. Don't we all know that we should be eating local organic produce anyway??? That the tomatoes making the news are not from your local farmer's market. I'm so confused.)

In other getting-our-shit-together news, Mr. Tabby has an appointment with a new doctor, recommended by my sister. Strangely, he does not seem to be excited about this news. Can't say as I blame him.