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Baby Girl Brown

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Children Mentioned

Labor Day – or not

In the U.S. today, it’s Labor Day. Guess where I don’t live? That’s right. No labor day here.

I had my three-hour, 100 gram glucose test this morning. I took my laptop with me to watch movies and pass the time, which made things go much more quickly. The worst part was trying to get comfy on the seats in the waiting room.

It would appear that I passed. My numbers were:

• Fasting: 81 mg/dl
• 60 minutes: 135
• 120 minutes: 106
• 180 minutes: 72

And then I was starving and we went to the mall to get pastries and lunch (yes, in that order – it’s a kosher no dairy after meat thing). After lunch, I was so tired, we hopped the bus back home and took a nap (if you can call it a nap when you sleep from 12:30 to 4:30).

This means shoulder dystocia shouldn’t be a concern for us. In other news culled from the medical community, care of my referring physician Dr. Google, women of Nordic descent (I’m half Norwegian) have ridiculously large hips in proportion to the kids they create. They are the least at risk for cephalopelvic angst (I think it’s actually disproportion, but angst sums it up better to me). As the doc doing rounds put it to me last Friday: “You don’t want to push out a 5 kilo baby. But if anyone could do it, it would be you.”

Thus far, no contractions or major news to speak of. I am crampier – basically, it’s feels like I have a really bad period. I’m feeling a lot more pressure in the general area and it feels as though the baby may have moved down a little further (though I’m not sure). She is still kicking really well and very active (at least someone enjoyed the 100 grams of sugar at 7:30 in the morning).

We’re going for dinner with a couple friends at a new restaurant in Modiin tonight. It’s a sushi-noodle place called Met Su Yan (which means “excellent” in Hebrew) and should be very yummy. After that, assuming I’m not too tired (where does the energy go?), I’d like to try and take a long walk after dark tonight to see if I can motivate my reluctant home seller to move on.

I gave my belly a tour of the would-be nursery today in an attempt to show her how much nicer it would be to sleep in her crib instead of having my kidneys as a mobile above her bed, but I’m not sure she was listening. She already shows a disturbingly acute ability to tune me out.

I was hoping she just liked the color navy blue like her mom and therefore was holding out to be born in September so she could have sapphire as her birthstone. It could still be the case, but perhaps she hasn’t checked the calendar in there?

Tomorrow morning, it’s back to the women’s center for more monitoring and another scan. I am still holding out for labor starting tonight (no, I have no good reason to suspect that it will) and that she’ll show up tomorrow afternoon. The weird thing is that, like all other issues you face in pregnancy, you finally begin to accept this as the status quo. She’ll come when she comes, it’ll hurt as much as it will hurt, and God willing, we’ll all come through it unscathed.

But it would be lovely if it could be tonight or tomorrow, no?

Extra innings

Still pregnant. More on that in the next post (coming as soon as I find the power brick to charge the laptop), but!

Time to pick new due dates on “The Price is Right.” Since we all picked dates too early.

My guess: September 2nd in the p.m.

Much ado about nothing

And today, just for fun, we had a little scare.

Starting yesterday afternoon, I stopped feeling the baby move. Not entirely, which would have sent me into hysterics and the hospital – just a lot less than the vigorous kicking that results in my tummy looking almost square, an elbow here and a knee there.

I did not panic. I drank some really sweet mango passionfruit smoothie juice thing and waited. There was a little more movement, but again not up to the usual antics. I thought I would sleep on it and see if she woke me up in the night like she usually does. I went to bed around midnight.

At 7 a.m., I woke up desperately needing to use the bathroom, but again, without the movement. I stayed up for a couple hours and had some homemade chai tea with milk and sugar, hoping to spur her into action.

Nadda. I still didn’t panic. In fact, I went back to sleep (there goes my mother of the year award).

I got back up around 11 a.m., still feeling exhausted despite having got a good night’s sleep. We puttered around the house, doing odds and ends and chores and such.

Still, not a lot of movement. Despite soda and caffeine and sugar, she just wasn’t her active self.

I panicked a little. And, as I always do when I panic, I called Rachel. Or, more specifically, I had my secretary (previously known as “the hubby”) call Rachel.

Rachel said there was likely nothing wrong (for the record, this is why you call Rachel) but that we should go to the women’s center for a scan and monitoring and would we like a ride there? Cause, you know, in her free time when she’s not raising six children and finishing seminar papers for college classes and being a work at home mom and blogging, she does things like wait on panicky pregnant women hand and foot.

She even called the women’s center for us on the way over. All the more reason that you call Rachel in these instances. They had a doctor in and agreed I should come in.

And so we went. I was put on the monitor (happy strong heartbeat between 140-165, plenty of activity that I just couldn’t feel), given a scan (uh, not sure what we were looking for, but she’s still in there?!) and a consult with a doctor (lay down for 30 minutes three times a day and do kick counts in a nice, quiet room without my husband or telephone – yup, he actually said that) and all is well. I go back Thursday morning since I will officially be overdue.

Cause it just wouldn’t have been a fulfilling pregnancy without a little drama toward the end.

One year later

A year ago yesterday we boarded a charter flight to move to Israel. We were a little sad and a little scared and mostly just exhausted.

What a difference a year makes. The hubby has learned a ton of Hebrew and Arabic (and English, but that’s just because he has to write highfalutin papers now). I have a new career that I really enjoy and that offers me a perfect balance between compensation and flexibility. The hubby and I see each other everyday and eat many dinners together – something that didn’t happen when I was in journalism.

And we’re about to add to the family. We’re surrounded by friends who are like family. And we’re happier than we’ve ever been.

Even if we do miss Target.

A must read

Two! Count’em two posts today! Don’t forget to check out my lame update below!

This, however, is a must read.

Just no. Never.

Topping the list of things I would never let my daughter have…

Heelarious: Her first high heels

Not even if she asks nicely. Not even if she masters language at three months just to beg.

Especially since that would mean she got her first pair before I did. I’m more of a crocs – tevas – uggs kinda girl myself, depending on the season.

In other news, 30 weeks.

Have had bronchitis for three weeks now. Also pee a little when I cough too hard. Not a good combination. I never thought seven months pregnant would find me relying on maxi pads.

just testing

this is a test to see if I can post a photo

I can haz cold front?

So.

Pesach touring was fun. We had a great time swimming in the waterfall pools at Ein Gedi. The only downside was the heat wave that hit most of Israel last week. The high temperature near the Dead Sea during our visit last Thursday was 115 degrees. What’s crazier is how hot it was in the North.

Somewhere in there, there is a belly. I know, it’s tough to see when you are blinded by the vast whiteness of my thighs. I have ordered a maternity swim suit (read: tailored Coleman tent) from the kind folks at Old Navy. The white thing to my right is the hubby. Funny how I’m still picky about covering all of my hair when I’m half naked.

Amazingly, I felt fine and doused myself repeatedly in SPF 60 like it was going out of style (which is, in and of itself, amusing since I doubt SPF 60 was ever really in style) and came through without bug bites, sunburn or dehydration. I was just good a sleepy for a couple days afterward, but I think that’s just par for the course in heat like that.

IKEA is on my shit list, but that’s another post for another time. I will conquer them if I have to build and stain the damn Leksvik crib from the bleached bones of their employees. Do not mess with a pregnant woman. No, I am not nesting. I think I’m just bitchy.

And then! An amazing thing happened in Israel! A cold front moved in. We got a little bit of rain (which I’m told is pretty unusual after Pesach) and its been chilly and breezy at night.

Right now, I’m going to go and toss on a sweatshirt while I “work from home.” The sheer thought of it gets me a little klempy in the corner of my eye.

And finally. The kid has started kicking so hard that it’s visible from “the outside.” Outside here having the meaning “my nekkid tummy” and not “beneath the many layers of the cantilevered pregnancy skirt that supports my flubber.”

I’m not sure a kevlar bullet could get through that padding.

****

Dear God,

Thank you, thank you, thank you for the week of cool weather.

Sincerely,

A fairly pregnant woman in Israel (you know the one)

Eyes wide open

A little more than a year ago, I joined this community known as the infertility blogosphere. Since then, I’ve followed the stories of more than 100 couples trying to become families, families trying to find a sibling and more. Stories of ART. Of pregnancies. Multiple births. Adoptions from near and far.

And I decided to contribute my story to them. They became my friends inside the computer. I cheered for them; I cried with them. Some of them I met in real life. Others I hope to. Others remain good friends but far away. They have enriched my life in a way they cannot understand; I only hope I can do the same for others.

But it’s a tenuous thing to enter the infertility blogosphere. Not so much because you post so much of your life online. But because you share in the lives of others. Their gains. And their losses.

Just skimming the blogs of those around us opens one’s eyes to the fragility that is pregnancy and birth. And joining the community means learning the hard stories, too: when a baby is lost at 36 weeks gestation; when triplets are lost after every effort is made; when a would-be mother faces ending a pregnancy that cannot end in a healthy child; a baby girl arriving without her baby brother.

In much the same way that getting pregnant was harder for most of us, so too is reaching the end uninjured. And though we knew, through the magic of statistics, that these stories could also be ours, they were easier to face when they were just numbers. They are much harder when they have names, and stories, and often photos. When they are the stories of those we know and love. When there are faces, ultrasounds and belly pics.

This community comes with infinite wisdom, stories to make the most skeptical hopeful and support to rival any other. But it comes with the lingering knowledge that this, too, could be your story. As Julie once put it, “I’ve learned alot … but I’m not sure it’s worth it.”

May we have only simchas.