One foot in front of the other

It was gorgeous weather yesterday - not as gorgeous as today though! - so I did a fair amount of walking around, hopping from writing location to writing location in the afternoon. It was great to get fresh air, but I made the mistake of not packing along crackers or anything and didn't really think about the time until 4:30. So I didn't eat for about 5 hours straight.

Paid for it last night too. Funny how the advice to eat frequently seems too basic to make any difference, but as soon as food hit (chicken with spinach and onions, one of my favourites but perhaps not the mildest choice) my stomach my stomach said: what! is! this!

It also tired me out. In a good way, but it makes me feel like such a lump, or an invalid. It reminds me a lot of this time of year most of my childhood - I had pneumonia nearly every Christmas and January and February were always low-energy, recuperating times, of skipping gym class on a doctor's note and turning down invitations to skating parties in case I got wet and cold.

I had nightmares about c-sections; probably because I got a book about them. I'm trying to chill out on that decision, but it is tough. The book says that there's very little increased risk (and in fact some decreased risk) to the baby for the first c-section; to the mother it's the usual infection/incision issues and some risk of pelvic floor damage (i.e. incontinence, which is also a potential side effect for labout).

The risks are all in later pregnancies really; the chances of stillbirth about double, the chances of all kinds of placental problems go up fairly dramatically, all probably due to the scar tissue. And most recommendations seem to be that if you have a c-section, one more pregnancy is not a huge big deal (although the chances of deliverally vaginally are lower) but any more really are. Because you've turned a muscle into scar tissue, basically.

I don't know how I feel about later pregnancies. I'm 34, so it's not like there are going to be a slew of them. On the other hand I think - and this is dreadful; I just know I'm going to have to destroy this blog before any child of mine that might make it learns to read - I have sort of come to a little is that if we're going to have any number of children, we might prefer that the number be greater than one. In meeting bereaved parents we have seen that kids die at all kinds of ages and it's always devastating, but the perhaps most awful devastation is when one's only child dies at 17 and it's too late to have any more (although fostering and adoption are of course always possibilities) and suddenly there is no generation there where there was.

Also, when one of us dies, I think we are appreciating that having siblings around for mutual support to each other might be nice.

On the other hand, all your kids can grow up to hate you, so you don't ever get to see them on holidays either. Or you can be like Carl's cousin's wife: there were 6 kids in the family and all 8 of them were on a holiday and had a car accident, and only the father and the one daughter (now the wife) survived. I mean there are no guarantees.

Still, it's something I want to go slowly with. Back when we couldn't conceive or carry past about 3 weeks (I really do wonder at this point what changed) having no kids of our own didn't seem like such a big deal. And with Emily I admit most of my thinking was that one kid might be a very nice number and that at the very least, having one and just seeing how that was would be a good start. But now I feel all these ramifications around death.

On the other hand, again, I just have no idea how we could possibly go through another labour. The more I have read the more angry I am that I pushed for almost 3 hours with contractions less than 30 seconds apart for the last hour and a half. And that for the last hour it was killing Emily. And although I really, really want to be able to find my way through the minefield without just giving up, I am not sure how we could do that again.

The dark humour side of me says I should just go out to Carl's other cousin's wedding in Kelowna BC in August; certainly I'd just go into labour on the plane or on some mountain top and then I wouldn't have to worry about any decision making. (Of course having seen the necessity of all that Equipment I would never do that, but the image is tempting, no?)

I found this very optimistic quote in The Glimpses of the Moon:

However inadequate Grace Fulmer's bringing-up of her increasing tribe had
been, they had heard in her company nothing trivial or dully: good music,
good books and good talk had been their daily food, and if at times they
stamped and roared and crashed about like children unblessed by such
privileges, at others they shone with the light of poetry and spoke with
the voice of wisdom.

Wouldn't that be nice? :)

So, food - gosh it's a bit of a blur. Toasted whole wheat buns with tomatoes and cheese for breakfast; bananas and grapes for snacks, and the rest probably came up. Gingerale. This morning was an inner-kid-fest with Boca "Chik'in" nuggets (go soy protein) and a lovely deep purple plum.

I am concerned with this fondue party tonight; if it's the cooking kind I'm not sure whether that's bacteriologically all that safe for the baby (I admit that when pregnant, I am a little picky about these things. I was with Em too.). But if I stick to veggies I'll feel sick. Probably the best thing to do is have a little something before we go and then be pretty choosy about what I eat.

Well that's my 30 minutes of pregnancy obsession that I allow myself for the day over so I'll stop it there.

Shandra