Baby heads

I admit it, I hardly read the famed "What to Expect" book, recommended by 3.5 billion mothers-to-be and handed down to me from a very sweet co-worker. By the time I got it, I felt like I mostly knew what to expect and that I'd look up anything unexpected as it arose. It was kind of boring and I am a loyal patient of Dr. Google.

I've also read the first half of the first Touchpoints book, which is very good, but after I hit Chapter 9: Month 9 of infanthood, I found I could't remember anything from Weeks 1 through 12, so what was the point?

Harder to admit is what I have read. That is, among other fairly inane things, "Belly Laughs" by Jenny McCarthy, of Playboy, boobjob, MTV, and Jim Carey fame. I read it right after I got pregnant, I think, assuming it would be at least mildly entertaining, which it was, and take 10 minutes to read, which it did.

About 6 of those 10 minutes, however, were horrifying. Had I read it pre-bun-in-oven, I'd likely be 40 pounds lighter and windsurfing right now, as I most assuredly would not be pregnant.

McCarthy (not me, the taller one) must have had every ailment in the What to Expect book, including the freakish ones, like having her ribs constantly pop out and have to be reinserted by her doctor.

WTF?

Well, that was a hell of a long wind-up for what ultimately I wanted to say today, which is:
GOD I WISH MY RIBS WOULD POP OUT.

This baby's giant head is wedged firmly inside my right rib cage. I can't lay down and breathe at the same time. I can't sit up without leaning to the left to give her head some space. Obviously, I can't sleep. And frankly, it hurts a little. Constantly. I think I should just name her Relentless.

Can I go 5.5 more days without laying down, sleeping, or breathing full breaths?

Speaking of baby heads, I just did a Baby Sock and Baby Hat inventory (because this is who I am now....Teensy Clothes Counting Lady) and I report that friends and relatives have given the fetus 18 hats. That's right, 18 fetus hats.
How's a newborn to survive with only 18 tiny hats? (Especially when shes' been wearing mommy's ribcage as a hat, day and night, for months.) Guess we'll have to go buy more this weekend.

File under: Careful what you wish for

When I first considered baby-makin', and for the first few months of baby-buildin', I worked pretty hard to figure a way to find a great doctor who would be pro "elective C-section" and also make me feel like s/he had my best interests at heart. (In my own heart, I figured c-sections were probably a bad idea if not medically necessary. But I also didn't care; i wanted one ,and I wanted someone smart to tell me that was a fine choice.)

Why did I want one so bad? Birth simply seems horribly unpleasant. Important, sensitive parts are left mangled. And I dont like surprises. Or pain. Pick one.

I tend to the first: Birth is icky.

Then at my first ultrasound, I was diagnosed with placenta previa, which equals C-section, but which could easily correct itself. No one made it sound scary, so there was hope for a little surgical out for me.

At the second ultrasound, I still had the previa. Then they said she was was transverse (laying sideways instead of head down). This explain why, for a while, i looked so very "wide."

At my third ultrasound, I was still previa'd. Then they said she'd also moved from sideways breech. Breech + Previa = Definite c-section, because you can't try to coax a fetus to flip around without risking ripping off the placenta. Whoops!

(I doubt she would have complied with any requests for repositioning. I know her, and she's stubborn). Her breech position also further explains my inability to breathe -- her baby head is wedged in my right lung. The fun continues.

At my fourth and final ultrasound, she was practically standing straight up, like she was gonna walk right out the front door. I then learned that I not only have placenta previa, but that it's a double-sided placenta (neat!? no.), which isn't totally weird but weird enough for me. I also learned that I have excessive amniotic fluid (which further explains my giant belly and my inability to breath), a condition that exacerbates the risks of the previa.

So, it seems little Lyric has had HER heart set on a csection since Day One, because we've got just about every medical reason available for no babies to be exiting this body via the established tunnel system. Sheesh, she kind of went overboard though. Just like mommy---she does nothing half way.

So now, I'm just plain worried. This is a lot for the doctor to have to pay attention to at one time. I keep reading about the frequency of c-section hemorraging. I read about how excessive amniotic fluid could mean she's not swallowing like she should. I read how even with a c-section, the breech position isn't a good way to come out.

I know, I shouldn't read. But as mentioned, I don't like surprises.

What I like even less are the the lectures, wagging of fingers, citing of statisics, and shaking of heads I get from so-called feminists, granola-crunchers, men, and other people who assume I am having that unnecessary csection I'd quietly wanted, that I am avoiding the "realness" that is natural birth, and that am somehow wimping out.

It is necessary. It's . And I wish I was just wimping out, as planned.

Preparing for the onslaught

I'm sure le enfant will be cute as hell, fun, exciting, crazy, amazing, intriguing, and totally weird. Ten days to go and I'm ready because I'm pretty sure you're never really ready.

The "onslaught" I refer to in my headline actually is the odd arrangement of people who already have started creeping more deeply into my life because of the baby. Back in the day, before I had a vested interest in things fetal or knew what a "onesie" was--you know, about 8 months ago--I tended not to have conversations with people who could locate their own placenta.

I admit it, I probably avoided them if they could only speak "Baby." (Luckily, some of my good Baby friends had lots of other things to talk about.)

Now I'm one of the Baby People, trying not to make my non-baby friends yawn incessently or avoid me. Talk of breast pumps and cradles is just painful unless you own one or are shopping for one.

Of course, I now think childbirth is simply the most fascinating thing to ever happen to anyone ever--or in plainer terms: "it's all about me." Now I am far more social with people I have nothing otherwise in common with. Because on the face of it, producing offspring gives us something in common, right?

In a word: Nuh-uh.

Totally the opposite, it seems. All the baby-in-common thing does is further expose when two people have evidently incompatible natures, values, personalities, and approaches to life.

Those people who like to talk about how other people "should" do things--well, they now seem to hallucinate you've paid them a fat consulting fee to blather on about how *you* should be doing things...with your baby.

People who think they have earned some sort of privilege to interfere in other people's decisions and plans, become far more vocal....about your decisions and plans.

And people who need to feel better about their own weird decisions by spewing about how that's the *only* and *best* way to do it--and thus criticizing all other ways--well, they are at least the most transparent.

In summary: Name your kid what you want, live where you want, let your kid sleep where you want, and make them go to sleep however you want. But try not to sound like you run the World Organization for Names, Sleep and Housing Configurations. Exercise polite restraint and do what I do when other people explain their plans or decisions: say "really? great!" and move on. Courtesy, mommies.

I have opinions, too. I frequently have nothing but opinions. But in Babyland, I'm open to most anything, and we're playing it by ear. And my follow-up to that is "And I think Lyric will be better off for our flexibility."

No single decision we make--calling her Sarah or Moon Unit, living in a city flat or in the 'burbs, sleeping with her on my belly or in her own little princess mansion--is going to create Lyric The Adult.

Although being an example of a chronic Know It All...well that kind of personality shit rolls down like genetics.

Sure, we're interested in hearing different approaches, but soon as someone starts to intimate that their way is *the* way, chances are, I've stopped listening.

It's funny to me that anyone would go that route in a conversation, but I suppose it exemplifies the core difference between my friends and my acquaintances. Friends support what you do and recognize it as separate--not necessarily better or worse--from what they do. Acquantainces, well, they don't get to hear what I do, want, think or believe.

From what I hear, having a kid means bumping into these people left and right from now until...forever. Sigh. And I thought I wasn't a people-person before...

End rant. Lyric is swimming around like she's in training for a synchonized swimming meet, so I need to poke her a little.