Archive for the ‘Pregnancy’ Category
January 11, 2009 @ 12:33 pm | Filed under:
Pregnancy My traffic has been through the roof these past few days, and while I’m sure much of that is due to the magnetic allure of Angelica’s milk-white shoulders, it dawned on me that a sizable number of the hits are from friends dropping by to see if there’s any baby news. This became all the more apparent when I switched the glitchy Twitter widget (which scrolled my tweets in the sidebar) to a just-plain-Twitter-button, and the outclick rate to my Twitter page quadrupled. May I just say it is awfully sweet to know how much y’all care? 🙂
But there’s nothing to report. Great checkup at the OB on Friday. Baby’s got plenty of fluid, excellent heart rate, is a happy camper. If nothing happens before Tuesday, I’ll go back for another round of checking up.
BUT SOMETHING IS BOUND TO HAPPEN BEFORE TUESDAY.
Ahem.
Meanwhile, my mama is spoiling me rotten, doing all my household work PLUS beautifying the backyard in the most magnificent way. She is a treasure, my mother, let me tell you. My daddy is pretty swell too—and it’s nice of him to part with my mom for two weeks so she could come entertain my younguns and do my dishes and fill me full of cornbread and ham.
Anyway, all’s well, and I’m in good hands, and we’re all hoping this little person decides to join the party very soon. As in: today would be nice!
During the long months of this pregnancy, I have been blessed with the companionship of a few special friends. We used to see each other only once a month, but lately we’ve been able to get together once or even twice a week, and how eagerly I have looked forward to these sweet moments of fellowship with women whose joy in motherhood outstrips even my own!
I realized today that our time together is drawing to a close…very soon (very, very soon, do you hear me?) it will be time to go our separate ways, and we shall see each other only once a year or thereabouts. Ah, dear friends, whatever will I do without you? Fortunately I happened to have my camera in my bag at our visit today, so I was able to capture a few treasured snapshots of these fair and tender ladies I have come to know so well.
Here they are all together with their precious infants, the whole beautiful bunch of them. Aren’t they lovely?
So serene, so gentle, so rouged.
I have learned so much from these ladies. For example, here I am about to give birth to my sixth child, and yet until I met Angelica would you believe I had no idea it was advisable to blow-dry one’s hair to a silky sheen, tie back a few glossy locks with a ribbon, don a ruffly off-the-shoulder gown, and apply several coats of blusher before sitting down to breastfeed one’s baby?
This is going to make a real difference in my next post-partum experience, let me tell you. Angelica always looks so calm and well rested. I realize now that my customary get-up of hastily scrunchied ponytail, spit-up-stained T-shirt, and no makeup whatsoever has been at the root of the exhaustion I typically experience during those first weeks with a new baby. LOOK beautiful and you’ll FEEL beautiful is Angelica’s motto.
Elspeth has a similar philosophy about pregnancy. I understand now that in banning white clothing from my wardrobe several sticky-fingered toddlers ago, I have been depriving myself of a kind of delicate radiance that would surely have blessed the child in my womb and all in our presence. And that band of pink ribbon below her bosom—how beautifully it offsets her the rosy glow of her lips. Every word that comes out of a mouth like that is pure honey, I suspect. (I can’t say for sure, because demure Elspeth never utters a word. But you can see just by looking at her that she is full of warm and soothing thoughts.)
As for our ringleted chum Swoozie, I admit I worry a little about her sometimes. Those raw bruises on her cheek…the dark rings around her eyes…her habit of staring off into the distance, lost in thought, absently feeding her infant without even looking at him…I have some concerns about her home life. But she has never uttered a word of complaint, so perhaps I’m mistaken. Possibly she is only thinking about when to get her next perm.
Oh, dear friends, how grateful I am for the many times you have entertained me while I waited for our obstetrician to amble into the exam room! It is very good of you, all of you, to have kept such a patient vigil with me as the long, long minutes ticked by.
You will be sorely missed.
Some days you’re just too tired to make it all the way onto the sofa.
(Or, apparently, to wash your feet.)
This photo could be called “Like Mother, Like Daughter,” because the fatigue displayed by my lass here matches exactly how I’ve been feeling lately. Utterly wiped out. Which is to say: the pregnancy is proceeding exactly as it should. 🙂 I’m 15+ weeks now, so I should be climbing out of the nausea soon. SOON, you hear me?
One of these days, I might even be up to giving Rilla a bath.
Scott’s in charge of baths around here. You can blame those dirty feet on him. After all, who’s the one who let the child run around barefoot in the yard all morning?
Oh, right, that was me. (Technically: that was I. Doesn’t the correct grammar sound awfully stilted in this case? What is one to do?)
Except for the occasional bouts of violent nausea, it’s been quite a mellow week around here. Possibly a little too mellow for a couple of my big girls, after the fabulously exciting week they had with my parents and sisters and niece in Colorado. But they haven’t complained, probably because they are so relieved to have missed the massive cleaning out of their closet I undertook while they were away. Let’s just say it was a good thing for all concerned that I tackled that job while they were in another state.
I need to tackle my in-box next. It has moved from embarrassing to downright shameful. If I owe you a reply, please know that I’m working on it. Trouble is, I need to be upright to type. Rassafrassin’ laptop battery gets too hot for me to recline with the computer on my lap. Especially with someone trying to, you know, develop organs and limbs and things in the vicinity of my middle. And these days, the vertical position simply does not agree with me.
Fortunately, experience has taught me that one can remain a decent mother while sprawling on the couch for much of the day. No, really. I’ve already read the boy’s beloved Octopus Book aloud six times this morning. (Then dad got up and mom became chopped liver. Who can blame the kid? I’d rather hang out with Scott too.) So I’m sitting up for a while, balancing the laptop on the arm of the couch. It’s 7:30 a.m. and all four of my daughters are still asleep. Smart girls.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to go over to Herding Turtles and feast my eyes on Sarah’s beautiful new baby some more. Have you ever seen anything more scrumptious? I’ll take one of those, please.
