This is day number 231 and you're 33 weeks pregnant!
You have 49 days or 7 weeks left, and are 82.5% of the way there.
Baby's age since conception is 217 days or 31 weeks. You are due on 8/10/2008.
Fetal Development
Your baby is now 19.4 inches from head to toe and weighs about 4.4 pounds, and you are probably both very aware that it is getting more and more cramped in there. Your baby's adrenal glands have grown and are producing hormones that stimulate you to lactate.
seven weeks left, and i hope that the past week of hundreds of degrees was the hottest we will see for the rest of the year. seriously, feeling more comfortable sleeping siting up in a wooden chair on the balcony than in the stuffy room on my bed is just WRONG! but i did sleep sitting in a wooden chair on the balcony for awhile last night after i woke up at 1 am cause i was too hot and gross to stay asleep. the breeze coming down off the hills was about 90 degrees still, but at least it was moving air. we had a power outage that lasted all through the night, so our fan wasn't working, and i was REALLY bummed that i couldn't open the freezer to eat my melting ice cream on the day when i needed ice cream the most. but i did enjoy the candles, the stars, and the quiet. also eating leftover bean salad which, thomas confessed this morning, repelled him from wanting to cuddle last night... well! it had raw garlic in it! i am a picture of radiant, garlicky health! besides, it was too damn hot to cuddle.
segundo is doing well, i love her little kicks and feeling her limbs poking out, which they do quite often. did i say little kicks? scratch that, this one is VIGOROUS! she kicks me so hard sometimes that it really really hurts! the midwife confirmed at the last appointment that she is definitely head down by now, and a few weeks later they said the same thing at life network, where i had volunteered to get a free ultrasound as they were training new technicians. we were watching her flip around in there, but she is only flipping from back to face and vice versa, not doing tumbles or somersaults. good girl.
so it looks like thomas will be in san francisco during my due date, which is smack dab in the middle of his next feldenkrais training session! he is due to be gone about aug. 3rd thru 24th, and that is going to make it a "push" for me to have this one while he is around! i'm not gonna sweat it, though, cause he really can't miss another session--he already has to miss one in january, and we both really want him to be able to complete the training and get his certification as a feldenkrais teacher! but since these sessions happen 3x per year, i guess we should try not to have any more babies in the next 4 years, eh? anyways, i will be able to call him when i go into labor, and chances are he will be able to make it down, or maybe it will be on a weekend when he is here anyways. i also have a good birth support team going on: ander and two doulas, and possibly holly lomelino too.
i am also praying and praying for a way to get my sister out here for pretty much the whole month of august to help me: i KNOW i am going to need a live-in person with a bunch of time on their hands for a couple weeks after the birth, to look after sparrow and the household while i am sitting on a donut pillow nursing for 8 hours a day. how divine would it be to have my sister around! i thought about it a lot when it became clear that thomas really did have to go, and although i know i have great friends here who will be willing to help out, i know they all pretty much have jobs and a life too! just not the same as family who could be here on vacation just for that specific purpose.
but what's up with ticket prices?!!?? 1300 dollars for a ticket from germany?!? and that's with like 3 stopovers, too! didn't holly tuggy just go to the philippines and thailand for 800? crrayssy. i can definitely NOT afford that. i know gas has been going up about 2 cents a day, but that price is like double what it was a year ago! yeah yeah well it'll all be ok when osama or obama or whatever his name is saves the world, right? i'd like to ask him what he plans to do about gas prices. certainly i pray he is at least AWARE of them, unlike our lovely mr. bush who was--blissfully and unabashedly--unaware that they were going to rise to 4 dollars this summer. yeah, well now that they're at 5... maybe in some twisted way he meant that he was unaware that prices were going to CAP at 4 dollars...
but the one good thing about gas prices being so high is that now a large latte is cheaper than a gallon of gas! it really makes you feel like you're being thrifty when you get that irresistible medium mocha in the morning. score!
but no more of this gas nonsense. this was supposed to be a pregnancy entry, and other than the frequent shooting back pains, the pregnancy is going great. pilates and all. i should have a dang strong back by now with all those hip lifts i've been doing.
here is a draft of my birth plan. anna bunting, the awesome midwife, and another midwife at the clinic both advised me not to put too many preferences re: the labor/ birth process in writing to cottage hospital. that way you don't get the nurses on a defensive attitude right away, and i guess this reasoning makes sense to me. now that i know you can verbally refuse any procedure in hospital, i will just train my birth team on exactly what i want and DON'T want, and try to handle the labor part mostly that way. the cottage hospital birth plan, i hear, should be focused mainly on baby's aftercare, since it is not a "baby friendly" hospital. apparently their baby dept. gets a lot of money from formula companies, so they will basically want to whisk baby off and paraben-hose her immediately while giving her a bunch of herpes vaccinations, followed by nestle sugar formula out of a bisphenol-a laden bottle. THAT'S where that expression comes from: "the minute you're born you start to die." so. without further ado, here is my draft:
Doris McDonnell—due Aug. 10th, ‘08
Birth Attendants
Thomas McDonnell—husband
Ashley Hyder—friend
Holly Lomelino—friend
Doula 1
Doula 2
Tara Jones—photographer
The following is a loose plan for our baby as long as everything progresses without complications.
We would like to keep this birth as natural as possible. Our 1st baby came in 2006 with a rather fast labor, and everything went great without artificial labor augmentation or pain medication of any sort.
Please discuss with us and/ or our doulas in advance any procedure that is recommended.
After Delivery
Please allow one or both of us to be with the baby at all times.
If possible, place baby directly on my abdomen after delivery and do any
necessary suctioning or procedures there.
Delay weighing, measuring, etc. for bonding, as long as the baby is fine.
Thomas or one of our birth attendants will accompany the baby to the nursery
when necessary.
When washing the baby, please use the soap we have brought along, no other
foreign substances
Please do not offer bottles or pacifiers of any sort, so baby can breastfeed.
We will opt out of eye drops and the vitamin K shot—approved by baby’s
pediatrician Dr. Vic _______
Please do not administer the Hep B or any other vaccination. Initialed by
Dr. Vic _________________
In the Event of a Cesarean
Please allow Thomas and attendants to be present throughout
Epidural preferred over general anesthesia
Thomas to accompany baby at all times
Baby brought back ASAP
Baby to breast in recovery
Baby to receive breast milk only
Thank you, Cottage Hospital and staff!
Doris and Thomas McDonnell
Sunday, June 22, 2008
Saturday, June 14, 2008
sago gago--sparrow's quotes
(she turned off my movie inadvertently while playing with the remote. i was semi frustrated cause i couldn't get it back to the place where it was.) Sparrow shrugs and says:
"oh well."
hahahaha! -may 22
"i can fall asleep all by myself." -may 22, getting more and more used to her new bedtime setup.
"and you can hear me, and i can hear me, and you can hear you and you can hear me!" -every night she is saying this because i tell her when i leave the room, "i will leave the door open so you can hear me and i can hear you." so whenever i leave, she launches into this big monologue as seen above, trying to get the order of the words right, and she just keeps going! "you can hear me and i can hear me!"
"oh i'm sorry, i bonked your head on it!" -may 23, when she bonked her piggy's head on a toy truck. then she of course kissed piggy's head
me: "sparrow, what are you eating? a pretzel stick?"
sp: "a number two." -mid-may
(it was one of her letter/number fridge magnets, but it wasn't a number two, it was a capital T! so funny that she was so sure what it was. she didn't even hesitate.)
sp: "i'm gonna snuggly."
me: "oh yeah? you wanna snuggle?"
sp: "no, i'm not gonna snug." -may 28
"this is not quinoa! this is not oatmeal! this is not a butterfly!" -june 3rd, looking at her rice at dinner
me: "it's past your bedtime."
sp, announcing to melissa: "lissa! it's past our bedtime, lissa!" -june 3rd
sparrow: "i need to cut my fingernails."
me: "oh yeah? you wanna cut them again?"
sparrow: "yeah. and my finger-foots."
(she was trying to make a compound word!!!)
-may 26
dad: "do you love mommy?"
sp: "yeah."
d: "do you love daddy?"
s: "yeah."
d: "do you love Jesus?"
s: "yeah. ...and i love the baby too!"
d: "oh yeah? and what's the baby's name?"
s: "if it's a boy it should be named youngblood." -june 6
(i had told her a few days before that my current best name choices were golden if it was a girl and youngblood if it was a boy. she remembered exactly, and has repeated this to me several times since.)
"actually i already ate a bagel." -early june, when i tried to give her some cereal after work
"ohmygunness! it opened up and it got a roly poly bug!" -june 5, playing with a blue ball. so imaginative. the ball had neither opened up nor had a roly poly bug...
"i did sleep good." -june 8th, in the morning. we hadn't even asked her yet.
when i got her her tutu to put on,
"daddy! mommy did get my tutu!" -june 8 (i like how she says "did get" instead of "got." she can say "got," too, it just depends on the day and what happens to come out.)
-she calls ravioli "grabioli."
"daddy, we went in the alligator and pushed all the buttons!" -late may, referring to the elevator.
"i wanna hear the perfect little sound!" -june 13, trying to play a button/noise book that was running out of batteries
(she has finally taken an interest in her old pacifiers. too bad all we have is a newborn size! she never liked them when she was little!)
sp: "mama, i want my binky."
me: "oh sparrow, i'm sorry, i really really don't know where it is!"
sp: "can you go get it though?" -june 13
(sparrow not minding me very well this morning, saying "no" to something i had asked.)
me: "sparrow, what do you say to mommy?"
sp, running over and hugging me and thomas: "yes jesus! yes mommy and daddy!"
trying to recite her sunday school bible verse,
"the lord chickens when i pray!" (the lord listens when i pray.) -june 12
(singing)
"my owie is so big, so strong and so mighty..." -early june
"but we can't go home because there are sirens tonight." june 10
(where does she get these ideas?)
"sago gago, i love you!" -june 14
(something she made up and was saying over and over to me at bedtime. another good one she made up is "noggy." so fun to say!)
"mommy, i want to cut my banana with a knife." -june 14
(i am still always amazed at how exact and articulate she is.)
"look! the birdies are going tweet tweet!" -june 15
(first thing she said when she woke up from her nap and heard the birds singing)
"i wanna watch fighting bears dadda! i wanna watch more fighting bears!" -june 15
(thomas watches some interesting animal clips with her on you tube sometimes.)
"the man fell down--and he was SO sad!" -june 14
(telling me about her day when i came home from work. they had seen a drunk man on the sidewalk that day.)
"the nest fell down and the birdie fell down and--poor boody." -june 16
(she was saying this sentence over and over again, knowing she was mispronouncing SOMEthing in there, and she kept on trying to say it right, but every time she got to the end, she would say again, "poor boody!" and i would repeat, "poor boody," which would make her launch into it again! sooooooo funny!)
"I wanna go to peets and taste the latte." -june 15 (i LOVE my 2-year-old!)
"mom, the bunny is doing a susu! the bunny is doing the splits!" -mid-june, playing with a little stuffed ballerina bunny
"there is a very very dangerous spider." -june 16
(looking at me earnestly. apparently she and thomas had seen a black widow that day.)
me: "sparrow, soon we will have a whole other person in our family."
sp: "we're gonna have a person and samuel will have a person and jesus will have a person."
me: "yes, jesus is a person."
sp: "you're gonna be a person and daddy's gonna be a person and i'm gonna be a person and holly's gonna be a person..." -june 16
(she was playing with my necklace.)
me: "gentle, don't pull on that, it's very delicate."
sp: "i love your delicate necklace." -june 16
"my God put fire on it!" she said last sunday, excitedly (june 15) right after dinner. huh? what?... i thought, "well maybe she learned about elijah on mount carmel today." sure enough, we got out her sunday school art work, and it was elijah with a flaming altar. wow! she really loves sunday school and remembers things! i was a little sketched about sunday school at first--the crafty "artwork," the condensed bible stories... but i can tell how much she loves it cause she talks about it all the time, and sings the songs she is learning, and her teacher says she is so self-assured and doing great. so i am sure it is worth it!
that same night, at bedtime, she said, "God likes me." sigh. i love that she absorbs these things.
"mom, i wanna go to modern class." -mid-june (thomas has taken her to see some classes at ucsb a couple times.)
"look, dadda! it's a little perfect little bed!" -june 18
(during camping, when we were setting up an air mattress in the tent)
sp: "up, up, up!"
i was carrying a bunch of bags in my arms, so i told her to stop whining and "look at mommy. can i pick you up right now?"
sp: "no."
me: "why not?"
sp: "because mommy has a big, big, big belly." -june 18
i think it's the funniest thing that she is saying "OK?" nowadays. ex: "i'm gonna eat my yogurt, ok?" "i'm gonna jump in my bed, ok?" oh yeah, this was a good one:
"we're gonna go to IV, and then we're gonna go to DP, ok?" -june 20
i put her in the car yesterday (june 21) after taking care of the bunnies at the house in IV where we are house sitting. she began to get really upset that we were leaving and cried, "i wanna go back to IV!" (she thinks the house is called IV.) i said, "sparrow, that's fine, we can keep playing there, you just have to tell me," and i got her back out. then she says, "ok. sorry for crying." she is the best!
"that was a good one!" -june 21, clapping vigorously after a number in the dance recital we were watching.
"he did really good, dadda!" -june 22, clapping for barishnikov dancing on tv
"i NEED some ballet slippers!" -june 22, in church during end worship. she's never had ballet slippers yet, but she knows what they are!
"oh well."
hahahaha! -may 22
"i can fall asleep all by myself." -may 22, getting more and more used to her new bedtime setup.
"and you can hear me, and i can hear me, and you can hear you and you can hear me!" -every night she is saying this because i tell her when i leave the room, "i will leave the door open so you can hear me and i can hear you." so whenever i leave, she launches into this big monologue as seen above, trying to get the order of the words right, and she just keeps going! "you can hear me and i can hear me!"
"oh i'm sorry, i bonked your head on it!" -may 23, when she bonked her piggy's head on a toy truck. then she of course kissed piggy's head
me: "sparrow, what are you eating? a pretzel stick?"
sp: "a number two." -mid-may
(it was one of her letter/number fridge magnets, but it wasn't a number two, it was a capital T! so funny that she was so sure what it was. she didn't even hesitate.)
sp: "i'm gonna snuggly."
me: "oh yeah? you wanna snuggle?"
sp: "no, i'm not gonna snug." -may 28
"this is not quinoa! this is not oatmeal! this is not a butterfly!" -june 3rd, looking at her rice at dinner
me: "it's past your bedtime."
sp, announcing to melissa: "lissa! it's past our bedtime, lissa!" -june 3rd
sparrow: "i need to cut my fingernails."
me: "oh yeah? you wanna cut them again?"
sparrow: "yeah. and my finger-foots."
(she was trying to make a compound word!!!)
-may 26
dad: "do you love mommy?"
sp: "yeah."
d: "do you love daddy?"
s: "yeah."
d: "do you love Jesus?"
s: "yeah. ...and i love the baby too!"
d: "oh yeah? and what's the baby's name?"
s: "if it's a boy it should be named youngblood." -june 6
(i had told her a few days before that my current best name choices were golden if it was a girl and youngblood if it was a boy. she remembered exactly, and has repeated this to me several times since.)
"actually i already ate a bagel." -early june, when i tried to give her some cereal after work
"ohmygunness! it opened up and it got a roly poly bug!" -june 5, playing with a blue ball. so imaginative. the ball had neither opened up nor had a roly poly bug...
"i did sleep good." -june 8th, in the morning. we hadn't even asked her yet.
when i got her her tutu to put on,
"daddy! mommy did get my tutu!" -june 8 (i like how she says "did get" instead of "got." she can say "got," too, it just depends on the day and what happens to come out.)
-she calls ravioli "grabioli."
"daddy, we went in the alligator and pushed all the buttons!" -late may, referring to the elevator.
"i wanna hear the perfect little sound!" -june 13, trying to play a button/noise book that was running out of batteries
(she has finally taken an interest in her old pacifiers. too bad all we have is a newborn size! she never liked them when she was little!)
sp: "mama, i want my binky."
me: "oh sparrow, i'm sorry, i really really don't know where it is!"
sp: "can you go get it though?" -june 13
(sparrow not minding me very well this morning, saying "no" to something i had asked.)
me: "sparrow, what do you say to mommy?"
sp, running over and hugging me and thomas: "yes jesus! yes mommy and daddy!"
trying to recite her sunday school bible verse,
"the lord chickens when i pray!" (the lord listens when i pray.) -june 12
(singing)
"my owie is so big, so strong and so mighty..." -early june
"but we can't go home because there are sirens tonight." june 10
(where does she get these ideas?)
"sago gago, i love you!" -june 14
(something she made up and was saying over and over to me at bedtime. another good one she made up is "noggy." so fun to say!)
"mommy, i want to cut my banana with a knife." -june 14
(i am still always amazed at how exact and articulate she is.)
"look! the birdies are going tweet tweet!" -june 15
(first thing she said when she woke up from her nap and heard the birds singing)
"i wanna watch fighting bears dadda! i wanna watch more fighting bears!" -june 15
(thomas watches some interesting animal clips with her on you tube sometimes.)
"the man fell down--and he was SO sad!" -june 14
(telling me about her day when i came home from work. they had seen a drunk man on the sidewalk that day.)
"the nest fell down and the birdie fell down and--poor boody." -june 16
(she was saying this sentence over and over again, knowing she was mispronouncing SOMEthing in there, and she kept on trying to say it right, but every time she got to the end, she would say again, "poor boody!" and i would repeat, "poor boody," which would make her launch into it again! sooooooo funny!)
"I wanna go to peets and taste the latte." -june 15 (i LOVE my 2-year-old!)
"mom, the bunny is doing a susu! the bunny is doing the splits!" -mid-june, playing with a little stuffed ballerina bunny
"there is a very very dangerous spider." -june 16
(looking at me earnestly. apparently she and thomas had seen a black widow that day.)
me: "sparrow, soon we will have a whole other person in our family."
sp: "we're gonna have a person and samuel will have a person and jesus will have a person."
me: "yes, jesus is a person."
sp: "you're gonna be a person and daddy's gonna be a person and i'm gonna be a person and holly's gonna be a person..." -june 16
(she was playing with my necklace.)
me: "gentle, don't pull on that, it's very delicate."
sp: "i love your delicate necklace." -june 16
"my God put fire on it!" she said last sunday, excitedly (june 15) right after dinner. huh? what?... i thought, "well maybe she learned about elijah on mount carmel today." sure enough, we got out her sunday school art work, and it was elijah with a flaming altar. wow! she really loves sunday school and remembers things! i was a little sketched about sunday school at first--the crafty "artwork," the condensed bible stories... but i can tell how much she loves it cause she talks about it all the time, and sings the songs she is learning, and her teacher says she is so self-assured and doing great. so i am sure it is worth it!
that same night, at bedtime, she said, "God likes me." sigh. i love that she absorbs these things.
"mom, i wanna go to modern class." -mid-june (thomas has taken her to see some classes at ucsb a couple times.)
"look, dadda! it's a little perfect little bed!" -june 18
(during camping, when we were setting up an air mattress in the tent)
sp: "up, up, up!"
i was carrying a bunch of bags in my arms, so i told her to stop whining and "look at mommy. can i pick you up right now?"
sp: "no."
me: "why not?"
sp: "because mommy has a big, big, big belly." -june 18
i think it's the funniest thing that she is saying "OK?" nowadays. ex: "i'm gonna eat my yogurt, ok?" "i'm gonna jump in my bed, ok?" oh yeah, this was a good one:
"we're gonna go to IV, and then we're gonna go to DP, ok?" -june 20
i put her in the car yesterday (june 21) after taking care of the bunnies at the house in IV where we are house sitting. she began to get really upset that we were leaving and cried, "i wanna go back to IV!" (she thinks the house is called IV.) i said, "sparrow, that's fine, we can keep playing there, you just have to tell me," and i got her back out. then she says, "ok. sorry for crying." she is the best!
"that was a good one!" -june 21, clapping vigorously after a number in the dance recital we were watching.
"he did really good, dadda!" -june 22, clapping for barishnikov dancing on tv
"i NEED some ballet slippers!" -june 22, in church during end worship. she's never had ballet slippers yet, but she knows what they are!
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