Little porker

That's what we're calling Noah now despite his being in the 30th percentile, because that was an impressive weight gain. I suppose I can lay off the protein powder a bit now. It'll be nice to taste milk and not milk/soy/weird again. :)

I think I'd underestimated how braced we all were for Something Awful to occur, because most of yesterday I felt almost high on the prospect of not having to go through a NICU experience. Today I'm crashing slightly and I'm rather glad that tomorrow is not a work day (at least not officially; I'd better do a few things from home or next week will be awful).

Of course now the panic over labour can begin. I mostly packed my bag last night - all the necessities, but none of the kind of accessories like the iPod and that kind of thing. I called to register for a hospital tour, which we should have done already but hey. I had to leave a voicemail, so we'll see what happens there. We know where to show up anyway, which is the important part. :-)

I also called to see if we could register for an infant & child CPR class on Aug. 18. Why not? It's been years since I was certified in anything and although I brushed up on it before having Emily by rereading my old stuff, I am sure things have changed. I was sure then too but never actually got into a class. Once again I got voicemail so we'll see if the trend of full classes continues. It may be a bad idea to go into a class about how to preserve breath, but we'll see.

Carl replaced light switches and outlets galore and we're both fussing about the house now. I'd say that subdued panic is about the right phrase. 3 weeks! 3 weeks! When did that happen?? I was so focused on eating that I seem to have missed how close we are to due. And I don't think they'll let us go past due (if we made it; no female in my family has ever made it past the due date). This panic was not eased by a series of Braxton-Hicks last night that lasted almost 3 hours. The nice thing about having been through labour once though is not having to worry if they're "real" contractions. Real contractions hurt. A lot. :)

The bad part is knowing what's coming. I really do wonder how we'll manage. Sometimes you know you're going to be triggered and tramatized all to fuck and none of the tricks are going to work in the slightest. This is one of those times. Pain is increased by stress (oh joy); we're kind of waffling on the epidural that really helped with the physical-trauma aspects of the last time. Both those things probably mean that this time, it will hurt more. Which is making me wince.

The epidural thing is a hard one. It did really help us, as people who've been badly raped, to calm down and be present. But it slowed labour down and may have been a factor in our being able to continue *too* long.

All the predictions (except for Noah's head measurements) are that our second labour should be fast, and so why have the epidural and slow things down (says my granola-leaning nurse)? And aren't we going to be a wreck anyway, and a fast wreck might be better than a slower less-painful wreck? And, you know, maybe it will be the magical change that makes Noah come out okay. Plus real women don't use epidurals.

On the other hand, I may have forgotten some of the specifics of the pain but I very clearly remember how overwhelming it was - and we were actually in a pretty good headspace. In the headspace we'll be in remembering Emily's labour, I dunno.

So we'll decide along with Carl at the time, I guess. But I'm sort of stumped in a catch-22 on this one. At least the c-section decision is made: yes, if there's a medical reason or if pushing isn't going that well. No otherwise.

Lyria went to therapy yesterday (last session before the baby I would guess, since Anna's on holidays for the next few weeks) and cried the whole time. That was a pretty major breakthrough on the grief front. Everyone grieves at his or her own pace is true enough and when it comes to Lyria, she's been sort of in the same place for a long time. We all have our up and down times but she's felt kind of stuck. So movement is good. It's something that is a big loss in our system, that Lyr hasn't been quite as involved in this pregnancy. And once we're on baby time it would be really nice to have her around: she isn't as scheduled as many of us and that I think is a boon in those days when you just have to go with the flow.

But mostly it's being glad she's getting some support, for her own self. But this is the baby blog!

The baby is squirming today, not so many kicks. A lot of what I interpret as hand movements down low, feeling his way around. Oh kid, there's so much great stuff out here to handle and kick, and you're almost ready to come see. Hope you're not too squashed in there.

Shandra