As I type this, I have just taken my second dose of cervix-ripening Cytotec and the nurse is preparing my IV. It's 8:25 p.m. Ish and I are in our very comfy hospital room. I'm hooked up to a fetal monitor and something else that's supposed to gauge my contractions, were I having any.

We called the hospital this morning to find out what time we'd need to come in for our final check-up/potential check-in. They said they were crazy busy and to please call back at noon.

Hey -- when you're ready to go at 37 weeks and then almost 2 weeks overdue, what's another 4 hours, really?

We were told to come in by about 2:30 this afternoon. We figured this had to be it, and packed our stuff up with more care than ever before...remembering all the things we forgot and/or decided not to bring on our four prior trips, when we weren't sure we'd be staying. I even had a bit of an emotional good-bye to the kitties and to Sherlock in particular, since he was, really, my first baby.

-- Hold for setting up the IV --

That took longer than expected. It's 9:30 now.

Anyway.

They did the non-stress test and then decided to give me a cervix-ripening drug and monitor me for a few hours to see what would happen.

Can you guess what happened?

That's right. Not a damned thing.

So we met with the doctor at 6 p.m. She said that we could go home if we wanted to, let the Cytotec "simmer" in my system, let me go a couple more days and see if this baby would come of her (mostly) own volition. Or, we could stick with the Cytotec tonight and keep going and get the labor going.

We chose the latter. Neither we nor the doctor think that much would happen over the next two days without help.

So here we are. FINALLY.

I don't think I technically qualify as being "in labor" at this point, but I'm not sure. I'm having tiny contractions -- which, believe me, are plenty uncomfortable -- but they're going to try to have me sleep tonight (I get a sleeping pill, even!) to get as much rest as possible.

I guess we're all hoping I'm in active labor by morning. Which would rock. Although at the same time, I know this can be a one-to-THREE-day process, so it's anyone's guess.

OH. And speaking of guesses...

No one has guessed the name yet! Feel free to re-enter (post below)!

Lastly. I don't even know how to begin to express how amazing and special it has been to share this experience with you. I think it would have killed me to have gone through this waiting game without having a way to express my fears and frustrations. Your support, advice, warmth, care, and thoughtfulness has helped calm me more than I could have ever guessed.

I am so lucky.

Labels: final countdown, plus-sized pregnancy, pregnancy will never end

It's on! Almost!

It is 4:45 p.m and Ish and I are home from the doctor again, after loading up the car again, thinking we might go to the hospital and not come home empty-handed again.

But we were wrong. Again.

Yet...could it be? Tomorrow will be lucky trip #5?

The doctor we met with this afternoon basically said it's time to induce. Hooray! News of SOME SORT!

However, the hospital's birthing center is -- awesomely -- tiny and busy right now, so she said we should call them tomorrow morning to schedule a time to go in. Boo! News that basically equals MORE WAITING!

But still, we have motion. We will call, we will find out what time to go in, they will do some more tests, and then in all likelihood: begin the process.

*cue trumpets*

So instead of yammering on about how completely weirded out I am mentally and emotionally (because I'm both totally feeling under-prepared to have a kid and also TOTALLY READY RIGHT NOW I'M SO OVER THIS OMG), I thought hey! Let's have a contest!

I mean, Ish and I have been thinking about doing one, and seriously -- now seems as good and fair a time to take bets on when she'll be born as any. Your guess is as good as ours.

The first person who comes closest to her actual birth date and time will get a lovely boozy prize of some sort. Napa Valley wine? One of my favorite sparklings? I'll discuss with the winner. Note: Everyone, including my close friends and relatives, is welcome to join in the guessing. Let's say that you can guess until 5 p.m. Pacific time tomorrow.

I will also give a prize to the first person who correctly guesses her first name, since I'm amazed to report that she finally has one.
Note: my sisters and the handful of people who may have accidentally heard and/or finagled the "short list" out of us are not eligible to win. Duh. This guessing will stay open until she arrives.

Good luck!

I'm also thinking this will probably be my last post for a while, unless something weird happens and we are not able to begin the whole process tomorrow. Otherwise, I'll just plan to fill up your Twitter and FB feeds with waaaaaaaaay TMI. So that'll be fun for us both.

Here we (hopefully) go!

* * * * * *
Update: If you're really invested in this (which is sweet but totally not expected) here is my post about what kinds of names we're considering. I think the name we've chosen fits most of these guidelines. But I also realize there are still like, a billion to choose from and so I'm not really being helpful at all. Sorry!

Labels: baby names, giveaways, napa, pregnancy will never end, wine

I totally think it would be awesome if, somehow, this baby decided to shoot out of me before the end of the day.

Really -- it would be great fun to share this birthday with her, since it's a really fun birthday to have. Everyone's already celebrating, there are plenty of bbqs and parties and fireworks and good times to be had. Plus people tend to remember the date. Fun all around!

But, well, that's not going to be the case.

We went to the hospital yesterday for our routine check-up, and discussed our options with the doctor. He was all ready to start inducing us (4th of July baby!?)... until he saw the ultrasound. Not only has my cervix not budged from its high-and-tight position, but the baby hasn't even, uh, dropped. She's in the right position and she's close, but there's a big ole' gap between her head and my cervix.

For those of you with more than a passing interest in the mechanics of this, the "gap" means that even if they gave me drugs to ripen my cervix and/or start contractions, this wouldn't necessarily do anything. Except make me miserable. (And until she's where she needs to be, it seems no matter of home remedies is going to spark labor. It's almost like there's nothing to spark yet. Which is crazy, but there you go.)

So the doctor said we could try that. He said we could monitor my drug-induced crampy-contractions for four hours while the baby potentially stays exactly where she is -- which, hoo boy, sounds like fun! -- or we could wait.

We opted for "wait."

Let me state for the record: I am not opposed to inducing labor, I just don't want to until we have to.

But here we are, 9 days late. And if I don't go into magical, turn-on-a-dime labor by Monday, we go back to the doctor (and back to the hospital) Monday afternoon. And that, I believe, is when we reach "have to."

In the meantime, you should be happy to know I am doing what little I can to shake Peanut loose.

Yesterday, our friends Ben and Emily decided to come up to visit us, figuring they'd either help look after our house while we were at the hospital, or keep us company while we continued our waiting game.

At some point, we got the notion to start listening to records (yes, records), and that resulted in me deciding I should dance. Not, you know, a LOT. But I needed to get up and sway. And what better song to sway to than "The Lonely Goatherd" from The Sound of Music? NONE!

So if you will, please picture Ish sitting on a chair, watching as Emily (who is 16 weeks pregnant herself) and I and my eeeeenormous belly dance our version of The Preggo Shuffle to The Lonely Goatherd. It involved a lot of step-touching, arm-waving ridiculousness, and actually felt pretty good.

Sort of like this:


By the time we finished the rousing last bars of "Odl lay odl lay odl lay!" I was exhausted. Em was collapsed on the floor in a heap of giggles.

Ish just looked at the two of us and said, "That was the worst lap dance ever."

Labels: lapdance, overdue, pregnancy will never end, the lonely goatherd, yodeling

No. No labor.

I know many of you are following along on Twitter and/or Facebook, and I'm doing my best to provide regular updates of, well, all the nothing that's been happening there. We do *plan* to Tweet the birth, as much as possible. (Please be sure to follow @Ish in particular, I don't know how much tweeting I will be able to do myself...)

But let me just add for any of you who AREN'T on Twitter or FB or whatever, if you scroll down on this very page and look to the right under where it says "I TWITTER"

-- wait, hold on, here:


well, that's where my tweets are.

Not that they are, by any stretch, uh...interesting. But at least you'll know that something is going on without me having to write yet another blog post that says a whole lot of nothing.

* * * * * * *

Thanks for all of your suggestions on how to induce labor. I would far rather one of these tactics work than have to be induced through drugs in the hospital, etc.

However, I feel compelled to say that I don't think any of these tactics will work if my body isn't ready to start the process. And, while I can't really speak to this for sure, I just don't think it is.

BUT. Well. Feeling as unready (bodily speaking) as I do concerns me, given that the doctors are already speaking of inducing. So I have decided to schedule an acupuncture appointment for tomorrow morning. Because you know? I'm pretty sure that will do something. If it doesn't send me into labor directly, I suspect it will at least bring my body to the next stage of readiness.

Should be an eventful 4th of July weekend!


Oh, and by the way: I haven't posted much about this at all, but the first month I went to see an acupuncturist -- I was hoping she could help me get my wonky cycle "worked out" -- I got pregnant. So, right. "Worked out." HA!

I decided to continue to see that acupuncturist through my first two trimesters. I have no idea if it's the acupuncture that made those first two trimesters so incredibly easy (and don't want to count my chicken before it hatches), but it certainly didn't hurt. And if tomorrow's session "works," you will be hearing me sing some serious acupuncture praises indeed.

Labels: acupuncture, i'm still pregnant

We had a routine check-in at the doctor's office this morning, which means we had the conversation. Again. The one that starts with the doctor/nurse making a meaning-to-be-kind joke about when is this baby going to get with the program?, all happy-funny-like. The one that goes from happy-funny to oh-crap the moment they ask me the questions they have to ask me. Have you felt any... Did you see any... Has the baby...

No. Nope. Not even a little.

Quite frankly, I'm rather calm about this. She's not going to stay in forever. She'll come when she wants to, and who am I to tell her different? So far I feel fine, IF A BIT ANXIOUS, YOU KNOW, and so whatever, I wait and make jokes at the doctor's office.

So today -- perhaps out of hope, perhaps out of disbelief that a woman 5 days overdue could have a sense of humor about it -- my nurse took a long time to find the heartbeat with her baby stethoscope thing while I tried not to panic.

(I don't care who you are or how many times you've done this, I think every time you don't hear your baby's heartbeat, your own heart stops.)

"I think she's riding high," I offered, because that was the case last week.

But even still, even after checking and seeing the image on the screen, the nurse seemed determined not to place the stethoscope above my belly button until she got desperate. Because that's not where a baby who is getting ready to be born should be.

But that's where she was.

After our check-up, the nurse said we should head to the hospital for another round of non-stress tests (NSTs) like we did last week. Guess it's SOP for when you're overdue. So we scheduled another appointment with a delivery doctor for Monday -- if we haven't had the baby by then, we should be prepared to make "a plan" then.

We then went to the hospital and listened to the baby for a half-hour. Everything looks perfect, and my blood pressure is back to normal. We scheduled our next NST for Friday. But the nurse at the hospital said we should pack our stuff for Friday's appointment "just in case."

So hmmmm.

At this point, I'd be shocked if she arrived before Friday. I'd also be surprised if they felt the need to induce me Friday if I haven't made any progress. Which is all to say that if she doesn't come in the next 24-48 hours, they might induce on Friday. Unless they don't. And then if she doesn't come after that, they'll check me again on Monday and induce me then. Unless they don't.

It's quite scientific, you see.

* * * * *

As I was walking down the hospital corridor on my way to the maternity ward for the third time in a week despite non-imminent labor, I honestly wanted to throw open the door and yell, WHAT IS UP, MA BITCHES!?!?! But I'm not totally insane and didn't. Instead, I Tweeted as much. No one seemed to think it was funny, but I think it's hilarious.

Labels: ma bitches, pregnancy will never end

****************************
UPDATED:

Oh, Anonymous.

I'm not sure, but I don't think my job here is to entertain you.

Posts about my relationship with Ish -- especially the ones where I'm happy -- never garner much response. I understand this. I mean, what are you supposed to say? How great for you?

At the same time, it's important to me to at least mention our relationship every now and again. It's not action-packed or self-deprecating, but my marriage currently makes up most of my life. After a bad divorce, relationships that didn't work, dating "challenges" and plenty of general misery, I really enjoy having a husband I like to write about.

No, perhaps following this meme structure wasn't riveting, but I thought the questions were good. I like reading other people's answers to them, anyway.

So you know? I don't blame you if you don't find the day-to-day aspects of my life interesting. Please feel free to read someone else's drama instead.
****************************
ORIGINAL POST

I have nothing to complain about. Today will be the third day that I -- or rather, our daughter -- is overdue. I'm not comfortable in any bodily way, but you know? If I manage to give birth to a healthy child, it will have been worth it. Plus, seriously. I have air conditioning, ice cream, wifi, and a doting husband who does more housework than I do when I'm not pregnant.

I've been thinking a lot about that last part. That "doting husband" thing. I never write about it, and I'm not sure why. Maybe I'm reluctant to write mushy posts about how fabulous Ish is because I'm reluctant to write mushy posts at all.

But I do realize there is good, meaty stuff to write about him, and us, and how we went from dating to living together to getting married to where we are now. We're in the best place I could ever imagine being. We're beyond happy and googly-eyed about this kid, and sometimes I feel I almost need to pinch myself. Hey, I got to marry Ish!

And yes. "Got to" is exactly how I feel about it.

So last night when I was busy lying (laying? gah, I will never get it right) in bed NOT going into labor, I remembered that meme that Dooce did a while back, and thought it might be fun to try myself. It's not about Ish alone, but touches on many aspects of our relationship. (And I thought that following a structured Q&A would be nicer than rambling aimlessly.)


Insert Some Facebook Meme Title Here, Like "All About Your Marriage"

What are your middle names?
I'm always leery of these types of questions. Does anyone really care, or is this just phishing for personal information? Well, whatever. My middle name is Jane, after my mom's sister. Pete's middle name is Randolph, after his grandfather.


What is your social security number?
Ha ha, just kidding. They didn't ask that.


How long have you been together?
Our first date was Saturday, August 6, 2005. So almost four years.


How long did you know each other before you started dating?
That really depends on how you define "know." Pete answered my Craigslist personal ad on the afternoon of Friday, August 5th. The answer is therefore either "24 hours" or "we didn't."


Who asked whom out?
I thought my Craigslist ad had expired, so I was surprised to get his email. But it was cute and funny and he totally got what I was trying to get across. We had a brief but amusing email exchange, culminating in his saying he wanted to buy me a drink and our exchanging phone numbers. So he asked me out, but I made it easy for him.


How old are each of you?
My birthday is in July, his in August. I'm currently 33, and Pete is 40.


Whose siblings do you see the most?
Hmm. My sisters live in the Northeast, and we see them about twice a year: once for Christmas, once for some inevitable other event in spring/summer (weddings and births, for example). When we're visiting, we live together, so we spend ALL of our time together.

Pete has one sister who lives in Arizona. We get out to AZ more than twice a year (it's closer and easier than getting to New England), but our trips are much shorter, and we stay with Pete's parents -- so we don't see Whitney or her family 24/7. Altogether, it probably comes out pretty evenly.


Which situation is the hardest on you as a couple?
I don't know how to answer this. Pete and I don't really argue, so we don't have any topic that comes up time and again. I think what's hardest on us as a couple is what's hardest on us as individuals.

He had a really rough end to his first marriage. I am NOT the same person I'd be if my parents were alive and well. That's our baggage.

On a day-to-day basis -- and when we look at our future -- we're in very similar boats. We are frustrated that we don't do more with our creative passions; at best, I'm a part-time writer, he is a part-time comedian. We berate ourselves for this, but when push has come to shove, we've both ended up following a safer (corporate/suburban) life path. We both wonder if this will always be the case, and both hope that it won't.


Did you go to the same school?
No, not even a little bit. I grew up in CT, then had one totally false-start semester in Delaware, but ultimately went to and graduated from UCONN in 1997.

Pete grew up in CO and AZ and had much fancier college-ing than I. He went to Middlebury for a year, then transferred to UPENN (class of '90) and got his MBA from Stanford in '96.


Are you from the same home town?
Oops, I accidentally answered this above. But you know what's interesting? Or, okay, you know what's interesting to me? Pete's parents and grandparents grew up in the Midwest. My mom grew up in Minnesota, and both her parents AND my dad's parents were from Minnesota. I think that there are likely many ways that Pete's mom's upbringing was similar to my mom's, and his dad's was similar to my dad's, and that there's some kind of familiarity/understanding/way we connect that has something to do with that.


Who is smarter?
This is a tough question. If you were to ask, say, "Who has a greater capacity for learning and retaining information?" I would say that we're about evenly matched. But there is no question: Pete knows more than I do about almost everything...from trivia, to history, music, geography, politics, art, architecture, all things financial and mathematical, and even fucking vocabulary.

It's annoying, but I love him for it.

Pete also has an almost idiot-savant-like ability to remember faces and names (first and last).

Despite this, I do not feel intellectually inferior. I can go one-for-one with him in the clever department (or at least, we amuse each other). I know a subset of pop-culture, literature, and history that he doesn't.

I daresay my "emotional intelligence" quotient is higher, but not by a lot.

I can, however, out-focus him any day.


Who is the most sensitive?
I don't even know. If I had to pick one of us, I'd lean toward saying Pete.


Where do you eat out most as a couple?
We haven't found a regular spot in Napa yet, because the places are either really low-end or really expensive for what they are (e.g., $20 burger places). This isn't to say there aren't plenty of restaurants that aren't worth the expense, we just can't eat there all the time.

I'd say Taylor's Automatic Refresher is our current go-to. It's designed -- in looks and menu -- like an old-fashioned burger joint, but the food is updated, fantastic, and affordable. And in addition to offering root-beer floats (OM NOM), they have a decent wine list (including sparkling).

If we were gonna step it up, I'd say Thomas Keller's Ad Hoc would be our desired regular destination.


Where is the furthest you two have traveled together as a couple?
Our trip to Paris and London. I never finished blogging about it, did I? Note to self.


Who has the craziest exes?
While this might depend on a very, very nuanced definition of "crazy," I'm pretty sure any way you slice it, I do. This is probably why I'm still friends with so many of them.


Who has the worst temper?
Definitely Pete. He gets very angry at the cats ("It's like negotiating with terrorists!") and at bad drivers. Surely I get annoyed with these things, too, and lots of things will make my blood boil, but I don't have the kinds of outbursts he does.

Ask me again after we've had a child.


Who does the cooking?
We both do. I probably cook more often, but that's because I'm home more. We both enjoy it, and Pete's got some great recipes. My stuff tends to taste better, but that's because Pete errs on the side of "healthy" where I err on the side of "needs more butter."

Regardless, we still get take-out a LOT.


Who is the neat-freak?
HAHAHAHA. It is a struggle for me to keep anything clean. I WANT things clean and organized, I MAKE things clean and organized, but it is a constant internal struggle for me to do so. And there are plenty of days where I just let things go.

Pete, on the other hand, can't sleep if the dishes aren't done. Who am I to stop him?


Who is more stubborn?
Me? Maybe? To be honest, stubbornness has never been an issue in our relationship. We're more likely to have issues over who's being more sensitive about something. It's a sappy mess when one of us hurts the other's feelings. Not because of the person whose feelings got hurt, but because of how bad the hurter feels.


Who hogs the bed?
The cats.


Who wakes up earlier?
Pete does because he has to for work, but I hear that this baby will change things a bit.

But if you must know, we're both morning people. Don't hate.


Where was your first date?
We agreed to meet at the Nob Hill Tavern on California St., near where I used to live. From there, we wandered down to the Crepe House on Polk for a bite to eat, then walked around some more, chatting. We dropped into The Bell Tower (where we had our first kiss), then back up to a dive bar that used to be called Hanuma Bay (it's changed owners and names twice since then), and ultimately to my apartment.

Despite what it might sound like, I barely drank at all that night. Pete left before dawn, though barely. And we saw each other again the next day.


Who is more jealous?
After four years and much empirical data, I would say that neither of us is the jealous type. At least, not of/about each other. Of other people? And their stupid blogging/writing/comedic success? We're both on the same page, there.


How long did it take to get serious?
The fact that Pete was married-and-separated (3,000 miles separated, mind you) when we met posed certain obstacles to our being too serious. My relationship with him was something totally outside of his relationship with his wife -- totally outside his relatioship with everyone and everything in his "regular" life, actually -- and never the twain shall have met. Or something like that.

We had fun and were good for each other and that was it for a long, long time. Six months after we started dating, he decided to go ahead with a divorce. The divorce wasn't final until a year-and-a-half after that. All the while, he kept me at arm's length.

For example, Pete was good and kind and supportive enough to travel back east with me for my father's funeral. (We'd been dating for under two years at that time.) That seems like something someone in a serious relationship would do, right? But then after the funeral, I flew back to San Francisco alone, while he went to visit his not-yet-ex wife.

Ouch. But also, totally understandable.

I guess in the end I would say that we were always a little serious; otherwise, what would have been the point? Why would I have bothered? Why would he? But it wasn't until we moved in together that we were officially "serious," and I don't think my full-on, THIS IS IT kicked in until he proposed.


Who eats more?
Pete.


Who does the laundry?
We both do, but this is new. Until we lived here, Pete did all the laundry. Now I do it, unless I'm 8+ months pregnant, in which case I do one load and then it's three days later and Pete decides he may as well just finish it.


Who's better with the computer?
I'm pretty sure that I know more about computers and the Internet than Pete does. I certainly have been playing around with them longer and in more ways than he has.

That said, I think there are many men about Pete's age (who don't work in the tech industry), who learned a lot more than they'd care to admit by having an interest in online porn.


Who drives when you are together?
Pete does. For a long time this was because he had a car and I didn't. Once we both had cars, it was because if we were going somewhere together, and it was somewhere social, he'd be willing to be the designated driver a lot more readily than I was.

Now that it's easy for either of us to drive, usually he does. This is because he often confuses my not knowing where things are with an inability to drive. I can drive, I just don't know how to get there! He likes to remind me to do things like "signal" and "get in the left lane if you're going to turn left." And then I have to reply, with as much indignity as I can muster, "I KNOW HOW TO FUCKING SIGNAL. WAIT, WE'RE GOING LEFT???"


* * * * * * * *

Labels: i don't know where anything is, Ish, marriage, second marriage

It is totally weird and surreal that the huge annual mega-amazing BlogHer Conference is going to happen and I'm not going to be there for it.

It's best this way, I'm pretty sure. I knew I couldn't personally handle being the Conference Manager while a) being this pregnant and then b) with a newborn. The job is far too demanding (mentally, physically, emotionally).

That's why it's a great job.

But I took it a step further. I also decided I couldn't really even GO to the event, "just" as an attendee, with a newborn. Oh, women do it. It's baby-friendly for sure, and seriously -- when are you going to be around a more supportive group of strangers in your life?

I also know, though, that BlogHer is an immersive experience...and I have no idea what kind of post-partum person I'll be. Maybe I'd be totally fine, but maybe I wouldn't, and I decided to just not worry about it this summer.

(Of course, part of me can't help but think that it's impossible that the event can even exist if I'm not there. You know? Sort of like how I am always shocked on Facebook to discover that people I haven't seen since high school ALSO grew up and got older and didn't just freeze in time. Weird!)

In the meantime...I am incredibly touched and honored that last week, BlogHer selected me as their "BlogHer of the Week."

Labels: another post that's about my ass, BlogHer '09, BlogHer Chicago, I am so professional

Because I? Was in the hospital hooked up to a bunch of wires and monitors listening to my baby dive-bomb my bladder with a blood pressure thingy on my right arm and my iPhone in my left hand going "Wait, WHAT?"

So, no. I guess I CAN'T go around saying today was a no-news day just because I didn't happen to go into labor.

I mean, whoa. Huh?

We did go back to the hospital this afternoon for the aforementioned follow-up tests, but they were (thankfully) rather boring. Everything seems fine, and/but/despite that there remain zero signs that this baby has any interest in being born.

I'm really okay with this, though. Not just because I have long suspected she'd be late, but because -- as a friend of mine pointed out -- there seems to be an extra lot of celebrity souls floating around out there lately, and I'd like to avoid any run-ins. You know.

Today was an absolutely insane day online. Twitter basically exploded this afternoon. As fellow blogger Anissa tweeted: Farrah and Michael just broke Twitter, which might be the most socially relevant things either one of them has done in a long time.

Aww, too soon? Well, it got worse, fast, and I participated as much as anyone. Because inappropriate laughter is my solution to everything.

It's all just very strange and sad and notable. I have no deep thoughts on the subject (well, none that I feel the need to share: you don't really care what I thought about MJ's "issues"), but I DO think the only way to properly honor the deaths of pop icons is to join in the pop discussion using pop tech tools. And then make fun of it all.

I mean, the stuff almost writes itself. Michael Jackson became a trending topic on Twitter instantly -- faster than I've seen anything trend -- but for the first hour, the name Michael was SPELLED WRONG.

What do you even do with that?

In fact, the first couple hours after MJ arrived at the hospital spurred a flurry of weird online activity. Do you remember those first hours of 9-11? When there were unconfirmed "reports" of DOZENS of planes that were off the grid and supposedly flying into buildings in every major US city? Today was like the Celebrity 9-11 version, where suddenly everyone was squealing about other dead celebs who aren't, actually, dead.

Note: Jeff Goldblum is NOT dead. He did NOT fall off a cliff in New Zealand. I swear. And I know this because Kevin Spacey told me so.

(That's true. But also? Weird.)

I think my bottom line here is that I'm glad I didn't give birth in the middle of today's media circus, even if it did have its moments of redeeming funny. And, because it's late and I'm tired and hormonal and totally unfocused, I'm just going to share with you some of my favorite Tweets from the day.

@Ish: Mark Sanford is SO wishing he'd come back a day later.

@kristysf: Is there a "feathered hair" avatar overlay?*

@jimmywee: Farrah Fawcett is the Mother Theresa of this situation.

@kristysf: Apparently death is the new spray-on tan. #celebritytrends

@btemps: Easiest job ever: Michael Jackson's mortician.

@missycorbett: Ed McMahon. Michael Jackson. Farrah Fawcett. I bet Patrick Swayze is breathing a sigh of relief.

@Ish: So now when the baby comes, I practically *have* to dangle her over a ledge, right? As a tribute?

Pretty good, huh? And while there were faaaaaaar more tasteless Tweets floating about that I won't republish here, you gotta love TheOnion.

@TheOnion: BREAKING: Last Piece Of Michael Jackson Dies

Although this one was pretty good, even if it did take me a few minutes to get:

@giromide: BRUCE WILLIS HAS BEEN DEAD THE WHOLE TIME!

* * * * * * * *

I'm not sure how this post went from being about major celebrity deaths to my non-labor to my simply posting tweets from earlier in the day, but oh well. I thought I should post SOMETHING today.

It's probably time for another popsicle.



*For those of you who do not use Twitter, one of the things that has happened recently is that people have changed their profile pictures ("avatars") to have a green colored overlay. This is to indicate support of a free Iran.

Labels: i'm still pregnant, michael jackson died, weird shit on the internet, what did you do today?

Yesterday afternoon I had my regular weekly check-up. There was a slight rise in my uterine protein (words I'd never uttered before yesterday, mind you) but more notably, my blood pressure had risen enough to warrant concern.

For those of you with even a passing familiarity with Bad Things That Can Happen During Pregnancy, you have heard of preeclampsia. It is most commonly detected -- and characterized -- by high blood pressure. So though my blood pressure hadn't exactly "spiked" into the OMG range, I think we can all agree that it's best to err on the side of caution, given I'm due, like, now.

Thus, my doctor sent me to the hospital to have lots of labwork and monitoring done.

Just in case. And just in case my blood pressure stayed up, or got higher, and just in case my labs weren't great, and just in case anything else could be un-good, my doctor said it was possible that this trip to the hospital might result in an induced labor.

So Ish and I (and PinkJaime, who was here visiting for the day) returned home to gather our things for our first official We Might Be Having A Baby Now trip to the hospital.

I would like to point out that my hospital bag was, in fact, packed. (I shall not mention that it had been packed for less than 24 hours. Whatever.)

But so off we went. To the hospital to maybe give birth. Or not.

We arrived and they took more urine --

Ladies, as an aside, if you have not been pregnant before but will be someday, here is something NO ONE told me: you will pee in a cup at every doctor-related office you go, every single time. So much so that I instinctively looked for a cup at our lawyer's office's bathroom a couple weeks ago out of habit. HA!

-- and several vials of blood. I got set up to the fetal monitor again. And a blood-pressure reader that took my levels every 15 minutes.

It was really quiet. The maternity ward up in St. Helena is really small, and very private. It was relaxing, actually, and will no doubt be great when I'm actually in labor. However. Yesterday's visit, with its "you might be here to give birth or you might just go home again" waiting, really kind of sucked.

Thank heaven for Facebook and Twitter.

But sure enough, after a couple hours, I was free to go. The baby's movements are great, there's enough amniotic fluid, my proteins and platelets and whatever else are, I guess, fine. My blood pressure hasn't gone back down, but isn't so scarily elevated as to warrant staying.

So I'm home again. And under what the nurse called "House Arrest."

I should note that prior to being sent to the hospital, my OB determined that my cervic has not budged, and not only has the baby not dropped, she's actually repositioned herself far higher than she's been in weeks.

I go back Thursday for some follow-up testing. In the meantime, I'm watching a lot of Law and Order (Criminal Intent and SVU) and trying to take deap, cleansing breaths...in between stuffing my face with Ish's homemade chocolate-chip cookies.

Labels: i totally have a thing for vincent denofrio, preeclampsia, pregnancy

Did I fool you? Did you think this post was going to be about my labor? Or about how amazing pregnancy has been? That perhaps I'd finally speak fondly -- or at least humbly -- about the power and natural beauty of the human body and spirit, as it magically reveals itself through nine months of gestation?

Ha ha, no.

(Especially not at 39 weeks when my mini-watermelon spends her days head-butting my bladder and the act of inhaling and exhaling is like performing an ab workout.)

No. Labor is not imminent. In fact, there are zero signs so far. I've always thought she would be at least a little late, so I really don't expect her to arrive before her due date of Thursday.

Anyway. This post is about, well...

Do you know what I did last weekend? I went to a wedding wearing pantyhose.

Wait, hold on. Let me write that again in case you didn't fully appreciate the gravity of my words: WEARING PANTYHOSE. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

You wanna marvel at the human condition circa ready-to-pop pregnant? Watch an otherwise already uncoordinated pregnant lady attempt to shower, shave her legs, and get herself into pantyhose. Because THAT is an incredible journey if ever there was one.

I don't want to get too graphic (I think my photo below is graphic enough to last us the rest of my pregnancy, yeah?), but let's just say that currently, my access to areas of my body below my knees is rather limited. Putting pants on requires a lot of blind stepping, mashing, grabbing, wobbling, and -- ultimately -- LOLing at myself. Because I miss the holes a lot.

So, since about the 6-month pregnancy mark, I haven't been too concerned with shaving my legs. (Pregnant ladies, I'm not alone in that, right?)

But last weekend I had to go to a wedding, and the only dress I have that I fit into is knee-length, and I realized that presented quite a problem. I can't very well show up at a wedding with leg hair so long it flaps in the wind.

And leg hair was only half my problem. I know that it's not necessary to look tan all the time anymore, that milky-white skin is perfectly attractive, that bare legs in June are totally acceptable. But, let's be honest here. My legs are so pale they're practically blue. And rather splotchy. (Why? From what? I have no idea. Bad skin has plagued me all my life. In the last five years, my legs -- one of my only body parts I never felt self-conscious about -- have developed random red spots and pronounced veins. I keep telling them I'm 34 not 84, but my legs don't listen.)

So I couldn't do it. I couldn't show up at this wedding with camouflaged-by-Sherwood-Forest legs, and I couldn't show up with blinded-by-the-glare-pale(-except-where-totally-discolored) legs, either. I had to shave them, and I had to cover them.

Sometimes being a woman is really stupid.

The fact that I didn't kill myself during the shaving process is testament NOT to my coordination, but to my knowing myself really well. First of all, I had Ish on stand-by, keeping watch to make sure if I fell over or maimed myself with my Venus razor, he'd spring into action immediately.

I started off by trying to use the built-in ledge in our stand-up shower. I mean, that's what it's there for, right? But it turns out that having all this baby stuff in the way not only makes it difficult to reach your ankles, but also REALLY messes with your center of gravity.

Eventually, I gave up and decided To hell with it and sat my ass down. In the stand-up shower.

I sat Indian-style. And sideways. And both knees up, and one up/one down, and quite possibly developed a few new poses that either Tyra or a Pilates instructor would be impressed with. It took a LONG time.

Now, I won't lie to you. I was damn PROUD of myself for having done it. I even felt a bit sexy when I dried off and moisturized. (Well, sure, I only moisturized where I could reach, but still; every little bit helps).

So after the shaving ordeal -- which I should also mention involved having to figure out how to stand back up again in the shower, an event which took great patience and humility -- I got dressed. I did my makeup and hair and packed for the drive to the city and prepped what I needed and made sure everything was done before conceding that it was time to try and fit myself into the largest sized pantyhose I could find at the store.

I realize I should have searched for maternity pantyhose online and purchased them well in advance, but I didn't think that far ahead.

Anyway. The process began as it always does. Getting my feet into them wasn't SO so bad. I'd scrunched up the hose (as you do) so they could unfurl as I stretched them over my legs. The only difference between this unfurling process and all others is that I didn't so much do it from a sitting position as from a rolled-onto-my-back-on-the-bed position.

Oh, it didn't start out that way. I tried to sit on the bed and bring my hands and feet together, but I nearly fell head-first onto the carpet. So then I kind of had to let my body do what it needed to do in order to allow hand-feet contact. Turns out, when you sit on the bed and bend your knees and let your body go, you roll over backwards. (Or at least, I roll over backwards.)

Forgive me for not having the energy to draw this, but please just picture:

Me, in full makeup and curled and tousled hair, rolled onto my back on the bed, my dress hiked up to expose my rear-end, my giant belly impeding my every move, my legs flailing in the air -- knees bent and OPEN, the only comfortable position I could manage -- while I try not ONLY to "catch" my feet in the bottom of the hose, but to not snag them in any way.

When I managed, somehow, to get the hose as far as my knees, I sat up again. Exhausted.

At that point, I felt like I needed to set up base camp, like I was halfway up a mountain climb. I adjusted each leg, so that the nylons weren't twisted or bunched. I smoothed my dress and hair. I caught my breath.

I stood up.

I then commenced with the shimmying.

At first, it was the usual pantyhose dance. Up a little on the left, up a little on the right, left, right, left, right, till the waistband gets to just under the butt. (Did I mention how being a woman is sometimes stupid?)

Then we got to a critical juncture. I decided I'd hike the (reinforced, I'm no fool) "waist panel" over my ass first, before trying to get it over my frontal mass. Because, I reasoned, my backside is currently smaller than my front side (for like, the first time EVER) and I figured that getting the waistband up and over my ass would help keep it in place as I tried for the front.

Whereas if I tried to get the front up first, the whole thing would certainly just snap back down again before I'd have time to reach around and pull the waistband up over my butt.

So with my butt covered and the waistband in place, albeit precariously positioned, I pulled the front of the waist panel up.

And realized that no amount of modern engineering could have made this work.

I don't think they make a pantyhose waist panel large enough to stretch comfortably all the way up and out to where my belly button is currently located. Perhaps it's physically impossible to create such a thing, or perhaps the pantyhose engineers of the world think that pregnant women -- especially chubby ones -- would never be stupid enough to try and fit themselves into such antiquated funnels of misogyny. Who's to say.

But since not wearing pantyhose was not an option, I soon realized I had, basically, two choices.

Choice A: I could try to convince the pantyhose to stay as far up my front baby bump as possible. This might require constant vigilance and adjustment, but the upshot is that I could convince myself that the pantyhose actually sort of "fit." Downside: any lack of vigilance on my part would result in the waistline rolling down again. Possibly as far as my thighs if I tried anything tricky, like dancing.

Choice B: Understand that there is no physical way for hose to stay up, so just keep them under the baby bump in front. Upshot: would not require constant adjusting. Downside: uncomfortable, because the waistline of the hose in front would be buried under my flap of tummy/pouch - possibly irretrievably so. Also, since the hose are up past the butt on the back end, they're effectively sitting at a 45-degree slope. That can't be good for the longevity of the hose.

I opted for A. Maybe if I gave them time to "stretch" they would give up and hold me in?

I hoped so. I hoped the long car ride would be just the ticket. I carefully positioned myself in the car, and we headed for the event.

An hour later we arrived at the wedding. The drive hadn't required too much movement and the hose felt like they'd basically stayed in place, so I was thinking that maybe they had stretched enough to stay put.

Of course, the moment I stood up out of the car, I immediately felt my pantyhose roooooolllllllllling all the way down in front and in back. I rushed myself to the ladies' room as elegantly as possible, which is to say "not elegantly at all," seeing as I basically had to waddle like a penguin to avoid having the hose roll any further down, like, say, past my hemline.

In the ladies' room, I took great pains to adjust myself from toe to waistband and, still set on Option A (more out of stubborn determination than rational thinking), spent the rest of the event with my arms firmly planted on my sides to try and keep the pantyhose waistband up.

I was not successful.

The battle raged until it was time for us to leave. I can't tell you how many times I lost track of what conversation was happening because I was focused so intently on trying to catch my waistband and re-roll it upwards in a breezy fashion.

But you better believe that when we got into the car to go home, I pulled those suckers off as quickly as I could. It was dark, and we were on the highway, and I don't know how completely batshit crazy I must have looked, contorting myself and shimmying this way and that, pregnant and seatbelted in, but it was totally worth it.

And now I'm not sure how to end this entry. There isn't really a lesson to be learned, because most people wouldn't have been as stupid as I was in the first place. I guess next time I'm in the position of having to expose my legs while pregnant, I will either rethink dress pants, or invest in professional spray-on tanning.

One incredible journey is enough.

Labels: everyday, i have issues with pantyhose, i have no idea what i'm doing, plus-sized pregnancy