More weird dreams.

I was warned about pregnant women having weird dreams. It's in all the books. But I have been having some seriously weird dreams.

Last night I had a dream that I gave birth to our baby two months early. But the baby was over eight pounds. And my milk wouldn't come in, but I kept trying to nurse him because I so desperately didn't want to use formula. And in my dream? Breastfeeding was hella weird, guys. Almost creepy. I distinctly remember being a little creeped out by it. Um, that will pass, right?? And while I remember being scared in my dream because it was so early, I also remember being relieved. I can remember having the thought, "No wonder I looked nine months pregnant for so long! That kid would have been huge if he had gone to term!"

I think I'm feeling a little self-conscious about my baby-belly. I'm just barely four months along now, but I look like I'm five or six months. I know women show at different rates, but since I came a little pre-padded, well, I guess I'm feeling like I shouldn't be showing as much as I am. On the one hand, I'm super proud of the belly and love showing it off in maternity clothes. On the other hand, I'm vaguely embarrassed by how big it is. I know, I know. It's only going to get bigger! But at least then I'll be farther along!

Also, I feel like time is flying by all of the sudden. Waiting to get through the first trimester was agony. It felt like it took forever. And now, time is suddenly speeding up. Passing without my notice or approval. I think it hit me the other day when I said to Allen, "You know, we're going to have a baby in five or six months." It took us both by surprise. We have so much left to do! Ahem. What I mean is, we have so much to do that we haven't actually started yet. Better get on that, huh?

Hypochondria at its finest.

I wrote this post a few days before I found out I was pregnant. Reading it now is pretty hilarious.

One of the problems with not delving far into infertility treatments and diagnoses is that I still have this vague notion that I could get pregnant. And with every bump in the adoption road, I am reminded that birthing my child would be infinitely easier than adopting it. So every month, any little ache or pain gets blown way out of proportion. Slept badly and have a back ache?! Could be pregnant! Have to pee all the time?! Of course it's not all the extra water you've been trying to drink - you could be pregnant! Every little "symptom" gets over-analyzed beyond all bounds of reason. And then, when I get my period, I have a little pity party. It's ridiculous. Even more ridiculous is how I over-analyze everything as a possible miscarriage. I am like super-hyper-aware of any little twinge that could indicate a miscarriage. I am terrified of having another miscarriage - that was one of the worst, darkest periods of my life - but I don't want to go back on birth control. 1) It's expensive. 2) I'm not a big fan of pumping my body full of hormones. 3) It seems unnecessary since I'm not getting pregnant anyway. 4) If I did (miraculously) get pregnant, we would welcome that outcome. But a part of my brain realizes that going back on BC would short circuit the pregnancy-hypochondria-theater that plays out each month. But it feels a little like damned-if-you-do-damned-if-you-don't.

An easy decision.

Well, we loved the Birth by Design group. Loved. Loved them so much in fact that I signed up for my first prenatal visit with them on the spot. And they were so excited for us to join their practice. They made us feel so welcome and spoke with us as though we were embarking on an amazing journey together. Which we are. The vibe was totally different atmosphere than the GW group. Where the GW group was strident, these ladies were gentle. Where the GW group was defensive, these ladies were open. They have a lot of the same philosophies - I think all midwives share much of that in common - but the difference is in the delivery. (Ha - no pun intended.)

The GW group seemed more transactional in comparison to the Chantilly group. The Chantilly group seemed more like they were interested in you as a person and in building a personal relationship with you. They have a lot of the same nutrition and exercise guidelines, but they are much more gentle about the whole thing. I keep using that word, but I think it's an easy way to sum up how I think my experience is going to be with them: gentle. Which is exactly what I was looking for.

Now: the birthing center. These midwives will do home deliveries, but they also just opened a brand new birthing center last month. We originally thought we wanted to do a home birth, but after much consideration, we decided that there was really just too many cats and too much clutter in too small a space for a home birth to be practical. Not to mention all the freaking stairs in our house. We'll probably invest in the home birth kit just in case there is another snowmaggedon, but after seeing the birthing center, there is no question that we are going there to have our baby. Let me tell you, this place is deluxe. I forgot to bring the camera, so I don't have any photos to share, but when I go back in two weeks for my first prenatal exam, I am definitely going to snap a few shots of each birthing suite. Yes. Suite.

Each room looks like it belongs in a posh resort hotel. I don't just want to have my baby there, I want to live there. Each room had a different decoration scheme, but all had the same basic elements - a sitting area with couches and/or armchairs, a huge, plush, queen sized bed, a huge, deep birthing pool that could easily fit both a laboring woman and her partner if need be, a large bathroom with walk-in shower, and lots of little touches like ceiling fans, soft lighting, and iPod docks so you can play music. The birthing pools are actually deep, luxurious bath tubs rather than the Aqua Doula tubs that most birthing centers use. I really loved that aspect. They went out of their way to make it a pleasurable experience in terms of sensory input, and I really think that's going to make a big difference when the time comes. When I go into labor, they'll let me have my choice of available rooms, so I'll be spending the next few months trying to decide which is my favorite. It's going to be a tough choice.

But the easiest choice of all has been to join their practice. I'm really excited to have found midwives that I have such a rapport with already. And to know that they are going to fully support me in having a normal, natural childbirth with no unnecessary interventions is such a huge relief. I can't wait for my first prenatal visit!

Midwife meet and greet: round 1.

Last night we trekked up to Foggy Bottom to meet the midwifery group at GWU Hospital. The info session was packed, but we luckily got there hella early and so got good seats. I have very mixed feelings about this group. On the one hand, their core values and ethics seem to be perfectly in line with mine. On the other hand, they seem to be a little bit defensive and I'm starting to get the feel they don't like me very much. Not exactly the relationship you want with the woman who is helping you deliver your baby...

I've had several email exchanges with this group. They seem to be very accessible, though they weren't super great about answering questions/addressing concerns via email. They sent me their packet of info - all about nutrition, exercise, their values, etc. - but wouldn't address any specific questions. Instead, I was told to come to the info session. I mean, I get it. Their practice is overwhelmed. They take 30 deliveries per month, they have four midwives on staff, they need to hire another, and they operate in a teaching hospital which means they are mentoring both midwifery students and med students, not to mention quarterly lectures to OB/GYN doctors in the hospital on the benefits of natural, physiological childbirth. So maybe they would answer all the questions I cared to ask if I were a patient of their practice? I'd like to think so.

We didn't get to tour the delivery rooms, so I don't know what those look like. If GW is still on the table after tonight's meeting in Chantilly, that is next on our to-do list. The good news is this group still has openings for February. Though, given the turnout at the meeting last night, I'd bet that isn't going to last very long. They also told everyone several times that we could donate to their group, which I thought was a bit much, but not a deal breaker.

So, the meat of the meet: They have been in operation at GW for just over a year, though each midwife has over 20 years experience. They have a 3% c-section rate. This is very encouraging. They have had a lot of success with things like VBACs (2 c-sections and 12 vaginal births after cesarean), which, while it doesn't apply to me, is also encouraging in that they want to support natural childbirth as much as possible. They have one labor tub for water labor and a second one on order, and they highly encourage hydro-therapy (laboring in water), though not necessarily water birth. They are very serious about proper nutrition and exercise. The head midwife explained that birth is an athletic event and you have to train for it. She also felt very strongly that you should only be eating food that people 200+ years ago would recognize as food. No packaged, processed, fake foods. I couldn't agree with this sentiment more. They are strict in their requirements for who they'll accept in their practice - only healthy women with normal, low-risk pregnancies, who will adhere to their nutritional and exercise guidelines. (To the best of your ability, obviously. They aren't policing you after all.) It's more about accepting women into the practice who are committed to the same goals and ideals.

I asked why they chose to operate in a hospital setting rather than in a birthing center or home birth setting, and the answer I got was one of the things I liked most about the session. The midwife responded that hospitals are where the majority of births are occurring and hospitals are where the most change in how childbirth is handled is needed. They feel a moral and ethical obligation to operate in a hospital and provide access to midwives to women who might not otherwise have considered it. "Every woman deserves a midwife." It was a powerful message and one that I could not agree with more.

I also asked during the session if they could address the difference between Certified Professional Midwife and Certified Nurse Midwife. This is where they seemed a bit defensive. They didn't want to discuss that particular topic during the meeting ("it's not really appropriate to discuss that here" - I'm not sure why. It seems appropriate to me.), though they did go out of their way to say that they were all CNMs, and that 95% of midwives are CNMs and 90% of CNMs work in a hospital environment. After the meeting, they told me I could look on midwife.org for a paper outlining the differences between the two, but it basically boils down to training. CNMs are trained as nurses in nursing school, and CPMs are more "direct entry", I think. But in the Commonwealth of Virginia, both are legal and both have certification standards. At any rate, I mentioned that I had read that sometimes CNM can be subject to doctors orders (I may have used the word "subservient"...). The head midwife responded that it was certainly true that some midwifes practice "med"wifery rather than being truly dedicated to natural childbirth. She then said that if I was concerned about that, maybe this wasn't the practice for me... This is the second time she's told me this, so maybe she's trying to give me a strong hint that I'm ignoring?

I don't get the impression that these women are subservient to the OBs on staff - quite the opposite, in fact. But her defensive attitude at what I think are perfectly valid questions put me off a bit. We've backed off the idea of having a home birth, so GW isn't a bad option for us, but I am still a bit wary about being in a hospital setting. Though the midwives support natural childbirth, the hospital still has strict regulations on how the infants are cared for after the birth. They are required to go to the nursery for evaluation during the postpartum phase (about an hour if the parents go with the baby and/or monitor the nursery staff. This seems ridiculous that you have to follow your baby around to make sure they are doing anything you told them not to, and to make sure they give your baby back in a timely manner - my Mom had just this problem with hospitals and nurseries when my brother was born and I do not want to repeat that experience), and there have been some struggles over the nursery staff giving the newborns bottles and such. They also have to go back to the nursery to be given a physical before discharge (about another hour). The midwives say they are happy to release the mothers from the hospital early - say within four to six hours, but that the pediatricians don't want to release the newborns that early. I'll say this much: no one is telling me I can't take my baby home when I want to. Childbirth is not a pathological occurrence and I will not be treated as such. There's no reason to delay me from taking my baby home just because they want to poke and prod him/her some more. No way, Jose. (end rant) The midwives did also say that they go out of their way to make it happen if you want it to, but that it's one of the ongoing growing pains of having a midwifery practice in a hospital.

So, overall, I'm feeling so-so about the whole thing. I love their commitment, their attitude about natural childbirth, their ideas about health and nutrition. But I am wary about the hospital setting and the possible undermining of my wishes by OB staff. And I'm not super happy about the baby being taken away to the nursery and being held against my wishes. I also get the feeling that I am just educated enough to make them defensive and as a result, I get the feeling that they don't like me very much. That may just be pregnancy hormones though... Oh, and I'd have to go up to GW for my prenatal check ups, but it's super close to the metro so not that big of a deal. I'm going to keep in touch with them and make my final decision in the next week or so. I also have one more appointment with my regular OB, but that's just to tell her that I'm moving to a midwife practice for the birth.

The last nice thing about GW is that it's a lot closer than Chantilly, though still a pain to drive. We'll see. I'm looking forward to the info meeting tonight. Hopefully that will help cement my decision one way or the other.

"Do you know what this means?"

It's 7am on a Saturday in early June. I get out of bed early because my period is a day late and I know if I don't just take a stupid pregnancy test, I'll obsess about "Am I or am I not?" all freaking day, and then when I get my period later, I'll have a little pity-party and I just want to short circuit the whole thing. We have one test left in the house from when we thought getting pregnant was a foregone conclusion.

After the deed is done, I set the test on the counter to wait the requisite three minutes. After about 15 seconds, a second pink line pops up, clear as day. "Wait a minute," I think, "it's supposed to take three minutes. Why is there a second pink line?"

"Maybe it will disappear? I should just wait the whole three minutes before I freak out. Deep breath."

Those may have been the longest three minutes of my life. Trying not to stare at that stick. Wondering if the test is broken or expired. The lines weren't supposed to show up that fast!

After three minutes, it's official. That little stick is showing two bright pink lines and it's starting to sink in that maybe, possibly, I could be pregnant. But how?! (Well, I know how...) We haven't been "trying". No timing, no Clomid, no fertility predictors, nothing. How is it that after two years of trying, the month where we put no thought or special effort into it is the month when I get pregnant?!

I walk back to the bedroom, shaking and crying a little and wake Allen. "I need you to come look at something in the bathroom right. Now." Allen is bleary eyed and not really awake, a little flustered at being shaken awake so early by a clearly upset wife, and not wearing his glasses. I shove the stick in his face and demand, "What do you see?" "Um... Is it two pink lines?", he asks, squinting. "It is. Do you know what that means?" "...No..." "It means I'm pregnant." And then I burst into tears.

If I haven't made it abundantly clear on this blog and in my daily life, Allen is an amazing human being. He held me, walked me back to bed and we laid down for another hour just marveling at the possibility. Neither of us wanted to get our hopes up too much, so we decided to treat it as a "definite maybe" until I could get to the doctor. Our final, official, this is absolutely happening confirmation didn't come until 4 weeks later, when I had an ultrasound at eight weeks pregnant. Seeing the fluttery little contractions of our baby's heartbeat was the finest sight these eyes have seen. The technician turned the sound up and we heard the rushing thud of the heartbeat for the first time that day. It was a sound like galloping horses and pounding surf at the same time. I'll never forget that whooshwhooshwhoosh sound as long as I live.

Even now, at 15 weeks, I still marvel every day that there is a tiny human growing inside me. I strive every day to be the person our baby needs me to be. I think I make it most days, minus a pint of ice cream here and there. And though I am completely, totally, 100% over the moon excited about this new and unexpected journey, I feel a small sense of sadness about putting the adoption paperwork on hold. But I remind myself that in the end, we will have the children we are supposed to have. We have to wait a little longer to meet them, maybe, but they will still be ours and we will make one, big, happy family.

Earthquakes.

Dear Butterbean,

Today we had a 5.8 magnitude earthquake near our house. It was totally unexpected - who would guess an earthquake would hit DC?! Your great-aunt felt it all the way up in Massachusetts. I lived in California for three years and felt several small earthquakes while I was there, but this was the strongest. The cats all bolted to hide under furniture while I headed for the nearest doorway.

Everyone was fine, there was no damage. It wasn't a big deal in retrospect. But at the time it was scary and I am a little shaky now from the adrenaline let down.

Your dad thinks the adrenaline rush will give you super powers. If it does, you can look back at this and know the reason why.

Love you,
Shaken-not-stirred Mama

Too many reruns?

Okay, maybe it's because we've been on a Star Trek: The Next Generation rerun watching marathon lately, but I absolutely love this onesie:

Don't lie. You totally love it too. It's okay to admit it.

Rescheduled.

I got a call yesterday at 3:45 pm, just as I was rushing out the door to pickup Allen and start our trek out to Chantilly. Our meeting has been rescheduled until next week. There were two women laboring in the birth center last night and apparently they don't appreciate strangers gawking at them. Fingers crossed for next week.

Meeting the midwife tonight!

I'm pretty excited about our meeting tonight. Having said that though, I am concerned about a few things:

1. The birthing center is 45 minutes away from us. Without traffic. I don't know if any of you have seen this area during morning or evening rush hour, but it ain't pretty. And rush hour is really rush hours. like three of them at least. So there are six hours out of every day when driving to the birth center will be agonizing. I'm a little concerned about being in labor and stuck in a car for that long. (Plus, pregnancy bladder precludes long car rides without stops...) This is another strong case for home birth, but I'm just feeling like our house is a little too cluttered with stuff and kitties to make that an enjoyable experience. The good news is they will do all the prenatal visits at our house instead of us having to drive out there a million times.

2. There's a lot of Jesus on their website. While I have no ill will towards people who are religious, the fact is that we are not. I am wary of being preached to or being asked to pray during my birth experience. Most of the references to God were from people who have used the midwife group, which is understandable given that the majority of home births are in religious households (Amish, Mormon, Fundamentalist Christian, etc.), but they did have books like "Jesus Centered Birth" on their website. Maybe they just know their audience? I'll reserve judgement until after the meeting. If there's a prayer circle, though, I just don't think that's the right environment for us.

The other bit of good news about the birth center is that it's only three miles away from an awesome vegetarian restaurant. Yum! I guess it says a lot about me that I am planning the birth of our child relative to good vegetarian restaurants...

Something's not quite right here...

I've been doing a lot of research on childbirth in the US. I obviously have a vested interest. In addition to watching "The Business of Being Born", I've also been reading a lot of literature on the subject. "Pushed", by Jennifer Block, "Birth", by Tina Cassidy and "Get Me Out", by Randi Hutter Epstein.

Let me preface this post by saying that c-sections are an incredible medical advance and have saved many babies and mothers since its invention. There are definitely cases where c-section is the safest way to deliver a baby. Having said that, however, I'd also like to say that women, biologically speaking, are designed to bear offspring. Our bodies aren't just capable of it, they are built specifically for it. Leading women to believe that they are no longer capable of this most basic of abilities is one of the great crimes of modern medicine.

The statistics are terrifying. I grew up around midwives and homebirths, so I've never feared them, but I know that if something goes wrong, it's a very long ride to the hospital. I always assumed that with all of our modern medical advances, it was just preferable to give birth in a hospital nowadays. Wrong, wrong, wrong. The statistics speak for themselves. The US cesarean rate is 33% nationwide. A "normal" rate is somewhere around 10-15%. Birthing Centers and midwife practices regularly report rates of less than 10%, with no higher (and in most cases, lower) rates of infant and maternal mortality.

The rates of induction, epidural and episiotomy are higher and frightening. Studies have shown again and again that in a normal, low-risk pregnancy, natural labor and delivery on the baby's time are best for both mother and child. Speeding up that clock with drugs and surgery is detrimental to both. There are no long term studies (as yet) on the effects of Pitocin, epidural drugs, ultrasound and the like, which is cause for concern. There does seem to be some indication that babies born with "interventions" have a more difficult time breast feeding, have lower Apgar scores, and potential have developmental problems associated later in life. Mothers of these babies generally report having a harder time bonding with their new babies. The US is 32 out of 33 industrialised countries for infant mortality. We're 33rd for maternal mortality. (All stats quoted from "Pushed".) Like I said, terrifying.

So, as you know from my previous post, I'm having a hard time finding a midwife who will deliver at home, and the birthing center (and midwife practice) near me is full for February births. I really like my OB and I trust her, so I thought, "Well, if I have to deliver with her at a hospital, it wouldn't be so bad. I'd just need to lay down some ground rules." I'm still wary of that and would prefer not to have to go that route, but I decided some investigation into the local hospital system (Inova) was warranted.

I checked their website first, and as it turns out, there are several midwives who are licensed to practice in the Inova hospital system. That's a good sign, right? They don't work for the hospital, but they are affiliated with it. Then I made some phone calls...

First, it took me 4 transfers to even find someone who could tell me anything about the rates of c-section, episiotomy and induction. It turned out to be the charge nurse in the labor and delivery ward. She said that about 40% of women who come in get c-sections. "I don't know... A lot.", was her answer when I asked about inductions (Pitocin or Cervadil, specifically.) But she qualified it by saying that the majority of those were patient requested. She said "very few" episiotomies were cut. She also said that if any "interventions" were given (inductions, for example), fetal monitoring was required. Otherwise, fetal monitoring is "intermittent" - 20 minutes out of every hour. For the record, in my research I've found that fetal monitoring has done nothing to improve rates of birth defects caused by the birth itself, such as cerebral palsy (oxygen deprived to the baby during birth). Fetal monitoring, in my opinion, seems to be a placebo at best, and at worst a leveraging tool used to force women into unnecessary medical interventions. The nurse said that women can stay in the L&D ward as long as their insurance will cover - generally 2 days for a vaginal birth, 3-4 days for a c-section, but can leave in "as little as" 24 hours. She also claimed that women weren't confined to bed and could labor and push (deliver) in whatever position they wanted. The one bit of good news? Babies room in with their mothers rather than going to a nursery.

There are some troubling things about this information. First, why did she have to guess? Why aren't these numbers published somewhere for public access? Second, what, exactly, is "patient requested"? In my research, I've discovered that just agreeing to a procedure recommended by a doctor constitutes "patient requested". Third, I find the bit about being able to deliver in whatever position you want to be highly suspect. For starters, if you have any "interventions" you are hooked up to IVs and a fetal monitor, and you absolutely can't move around with those things attached. (Specifically the fetal monitor.) I have never seen or heard of a hospital that allows that. Any hospital I've ever seen makes you lay down on a bed and push flat on your back. Which is well demonstrated as the absolute worst position to try to deliver a baby. Maybe Inova is different, but somehow, I doubt it. Fourth, why does Inova have a 40% c-section rate? Are women in the DC metro area just incapable of giving birth on their own?

I think not.

After talking to the nurse at Inova, I started doing some Internet research and found a website called The Unnecesarean. This website publishes rates of c-section by state and by hospital within each state. Virginia is high on the whole, but the metro area of Northern Virginia has some of the highest rates in the state. The hospital closest to me reports a rate of 43.6%. Yikes. That percentage is indefensible in my opinion.

Graphic from theunnecesarean.com

I again want to point out that c-sections and other advances in obstetrics have saved the lives of countless mothers and babies of the years. I know a few personally, in fact. I'm not anti-cesarean. I'm anti-cesarean when it is not medically necessary. I think most doctors would argue that the c-sections performed in hospitals today are almost always medically necessary (except the rare instances when women schedule them in advance for convenience), but the research shows that to be categorically false. C-sections become "necessary" when you have cascading interventions. The birth process requires no intervention in all but a few cases. I should also make it clear that I am not intending to engage in any behavior that will risk either my life of my child's. If it becomes necessary for me to have a c-section, I can guarantee that the midwives will drive me to the hospital (or call an ambulance). This is not about doing something dangerous to prove the system wrong. This is about doing something normal and natural, and showing that the "system" isn't always right. My goal when I started this research was to stay out of a hospital. After my phone calls to the local hospital, I think that goal is one of the most important of my entire pregnancy.

Finding a midwife is harder than I thought.

There is a midwife practice that is literally one mile from my house. I always assumed that if ever I were to get pregnant, this group is who I would see for the birth of my baby. Allen and I haven't wanted to get too far ahead of ourselves with this pregnancy, though. I had a miscarriage in the past and I didn't want to make plans if this was going to end badly.

Happily, we've made it through several milestones: seeing (and hearing!) the heartbeat on ultrasound, hearing the heartbeat with a Doppler machine, and making it out of the first trimester. So, I called the midwifery practice to make my appointment to tour their facility and join their group. Then I found out that they only take 25 deliveries per month. And February is booked solid. In fact, I'm number nine on the waiting list, so there are 33 women ahead of me who are having babies in February! Who are these women who so cavalierly make midwife appointments before the first trimester is over?? Probably women who have either had no problems, or who use that practice as their regular OB/GYN care... But seriously?! I called just before I hit 12 weeks, so a bunch of these women must have called at week 8... Or 4! I'm wishing I had right about now.

The only other midwife practice I could immediately find in the area is affiliated with GW University. I had to leave a message on an answering machine, which doesn't fill me with a lot of confidence. It's also kind of far from us (but at least metro accessible), and seems to be part of the physicians group at GW. It's also a teaching practice, from what I can gather... I don't really have a problem with that aspect, but I like to minimize the number of people who stare at my lady-bits. (Probably have to get over that for birth in general, though, huh?) Since I don't trust voicemail - it seems to be a dumping ground for people who never actually get a call back nowadays - I sent an email as well. I got an email back with attachments to read over to help me determine if I was a "good fit" for their practice. While I generally conform to their health guidelines, I found the experience a little off-putting. And when I emailed back to ask questions about occurrences of c-section and such at their practice and at GW Hospital, the response was "you are asking the right questions. I don't think our practice is for you but come to our info session." Um... Thanks but no thanks.

Once I actively searched Google for 'CPM' instead of 'CNM', I found a few more practices. (CPM is certified professional midwife, CNM is certified nurse midwife.) One or two were a little to crunchy for me, given their websites. The third looks promising. They opened a new birthing center in June, have operated in the DC metro area since 2005 (when legal statutes changed to allow midwives to practice in VA), called me back immediately when I called, and in general seemed really responsive to my questions and concerns. They were also really surprised and amazed that I was a homebirth baby. We're going to an info meeting at their practice on Thursday, and I'm hopeful that they'll be the ones we'll end up with in the end. Otherwise, we're kind of running out of options...

Open letter to Ricki Lake and Abby Epstein: I know you guys are making a sequel to "The Business of Being Born", and I think you should come to DC and help me find a midwife!

Well, that was unexpected.

If you look back through a lot of my posts on adoption, you'll see that I have frequently touched on the topic of the well-meaning people who say things like, "Just wait, as soon as you get that paperwork sent in, you'll get pregnant!" I understand that these were meant to be helpful and hopeful comments, so I tried not to take offense, but to instead point out that I really didn't know anyone that had happened to, and I didn't anticipate that being our experience. 

This is the part where I eat my words...

As it turns out, I'm pregnant!

I'm obviously totally thrilled about this turn of events, as is Allen, but I do feel a little bit weird about being "that couple" who got pregnant in the middle of adoption paperwork. A happy ending is a happy ending, though, so I'm not complaining. The other good news is that our adoption agency is great and essentially put our paperwork on hold. We can pick it up again when we're ready with very little hassle. (Hopefully the CPS clearances will have come in by then...)

So, my apologies for being an absentee blogger these past few weeks. I was running out of things to talk about that weren't pregnancy related, and while our CPS clearances still hadn't come in by the time I was eight weeks pregnant (when we put the adoption paperwork on hold), I didn't want to tell outright lies about what was happening there.

I've been incredibly lucky so far, knock on wood. I have had almost zero morning sickness. A bit of vague nausea here and there, but nothing like what everyone warns you about. My biggest challenge is going to be keeping my weight gain within reason. I'm already a bit, um, well-fed, to put it politely, so I really should only gain 20ish pounds. I've only gained two in the first trimester, so I'm feeling pretty good about that. I just have to keep it reasonable and not gain over 30 if I want to a) grow a baby that is appropriately sized (though I have 'child-bearing hips', I am terrified of a 10+ lb baby!), and b) avoid complications like gestational diabetes and pre-eclampsia. The only problem with that plan is that I am having a wicked sweet tooth. I already loved sweets to begin with, and now it's out of control. I have had to work really hard to stay out of the ice cream aisle at the grocery store.

I'll say this though: being pregnant totally changes your relationship to food. I had a pretty good diet anyway, but now I am even more thoughtful and careful about what I put in my mouth. I'm feeding another person, after all, and what goes in my body ultimately has an effect on their development. It's a huge responsibility. I'll have more words on that in a later post. For now, the important thing is I'm pregnant!

I'm 13 weeks along, and now officially in the second trimester. I'm due on February 17, so everyone start beseeching the weather gods that there will be no snowmageddon this coming February...

A cliffhanger...

This blog is about to take a sharp left turn...

Stay tuned.

High chairs.

I am a girl caught between worlds. I love antique furniture. I love anything with a sense of history. One of my favorite things is touching something old and hand-made and thinking about the person who made it - what they were thinking about as they carved or sewed - and all the people who have touched it and used it and loved it before me. But I am also a girl who loves modern and minimalist design. Clean lines, uncluttered spaces. A very Japanese aesthetic, if you will.

So what to do about a high chair? Do I go with the antique style wooden one, or something more modern (and easier to clean)? Right now, at the top of my list is this one:



The Boon Flair. It's kinda pricey ($230 on the website), but it's all one piece, easy to clean, comes in fun and funky colors, and has a clean, modern aesthetic that really appeals to me. Plus, one of my favorite Mommy-bloggers, Melissa at Dear Baby, swears by it. It also has a pneumatic lift so you can adjust the height easily, and the tray inserts fit in (and are safe for) the dishwasher!

Granted, I still have a lot of time before I need to make this decision, and a lot of other options to explore, but right now, this high chair is tops on my list. Anyone else have a high chair recommendation? Anyone else use the Boon and love it - or not? Do I even need to worry about a high chair right now?! We don't even have the kid yet, and presumably, we wont' need a high chair until they start on solid foods which is around what? Six months? Eight? Maybe I should find that out first before I go buy a high chair...

P.S. If anyone from Boon reads this and wants to send me a high chair to "test", I'd be happy to! :-)