pregnancy journal entry 7

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