32 Weeks Pregnant

I just googled "32 weeks pregnant" to see what developmental milestones Meatball and I are reaching this week. Here's the first line I saw:

"Your baby can now produce sweat."

Um.

Yay?

Why is a baby sweating in the womb, anyway? Another, apparently less headlining-grabbing feats this week is that the baby has a fully functioning digestive system, which he'll need to eat my "cooking."

As for my milestones, I am "supposed" to be gaining a pound per week and looking foward to increased constipation, shortness of breath and moodiness. Without giving the details, let's just say I am on pace for my milestones.

Little Meatball moves all the time and wakes me up at night with his jabs. I love it. The other day he jabbed me so hard when I was walking around that I lost my breath. He's lucky I am a fan of aggression.

We are meeting with a doula on Saturday to go over our birthplan, which includes trying to reach the holy grail of vaginal birth after C-section. My doctor is on board, though she did have a discussion with me about all the things that "are not in my control." She must have sensed I was hoping to exert control over the situation in ways that may not be realistic. I have no idea where she got that idea. Maybe when I told her that I was going to have a pain-free vaginal birth after pushing for approximately 47 minutes.

Oh, Dr. Gupta, you have no idea. You simply have no idea.

Baby Brother

Sadie is doing her training for being a big sister. She has fully mastered the art of hugging and kissing and being gentle. While she does not always heed our pleas to be gentle, she has proven she does know how. We have about 8 more weeks to work on her big sister training. I think I am going to get her a baby boy doll and a little mini-stroller, so she can get excited about the prospect of having a little baby around. I will try to work on teaching her the concept of FOREVER, since that's how long her baby brother will be staying with us.

Though, to be honest, the real training is for me to learn how to prepare Sadie for who's coming and how to transition from a one-child household to a two-child household. I can say without any shame that I have no idea how to do that, but I am not above asking people with close families how they do it.

This weekend holds big milestone events for our household. I believe the crib will be put together. I have done several loads of laundry for Mr. Meatball and we may pull the trigger on the mini-van. There is still a little issue of the double stroller and a few other pieces of equipment, but we are over the hump and moving fast.

Speaking of equipment, I have done some research on vaginal births after a C-section and I am working on getting my equipment in shape. I talked to a doula today with whom we will have a meeting to talk about our birth plans. I only cried 3 times during our 10 minute conversation, so I am sure she has a very good idea what kind of condition I will be in as this birth gets even closer. She really understood that the C-section was traumatic for me and said that her goal, regardless of what kind of birth I end up having this time, is for me to be safe and NOT traumatized.

I hate that word: "trauma." I hate that trauma had anything to do with my experience of birth with Sadie. I don't believe it has affected our relationship negatively, but it's a huge regret that simultaeous to meeting Sadie my guts were splayed out in an operating room, which was all followed by a panic attack. The doula I spoke to today told me about the results of two studies: In one study, they surveyed people living in Manhattan shortly after the 9/11 terrorist attacks and found that 9.5% of experienced being traumatized. In the second study, they found that in sample of women (unrelated to the 9/11 attacks) surveyed about their birth experiences, approximately 9.7% of them reported feeling traumatized.

I feel validated by that data and happy that my there are doulas out there who understand what kind of emotions might be coming with me to the hospital when the time comes.

In other news, I pee about 3 times every hour, which means at all times, I must be wearing comfortable shoes. I saw a friend today during lunch hour and he said my shoes reminded him of the nuns from Catholic schools. Naturally, I took offense and pointed out that my very comfortable shoes (that actually do have a little wedge heel) have a darling little flower near the buckle and told him that if he could find a nun wearing a shoe was cute as mine I would return to the Catholic Church as a full tithing member this Sunday.

Don't EF with me and my shoes.

New cravings have crept in as well. Everyday this week for lunch I had at least one serving of baba ganoush. I can't seem to get enough of its eggplanty goodness. And wheat toast, pita, bagel products. Good lord, if there is something tastier than toasted doughy wheat products with butter then ship it to me C.O.D. I am hungry all the time. Meatball is on pace to gain about 3-5 lbs from here on out so it makes sense that I am going to have to do my part.

Peeing. Eating wheat bagels. Interviewing doulas. Supervising the nursey preparations.

It's a sweet, sweet life.

Tory, Sweet Tory

The Tate-Ellis roadtrip across the great southwest was perhaps too aggressive, which we discovered about 48 hours into the trip. In hindsight, we have great memories of the things we saw (the Grand Canyon, rainbows over Sedona, fresh produce in November), the things we heard (Sadie's anguished cries in the car, the sounds of a Las Vegas casino, snow tires grinding through Flagstaff), and the things we ate (Cracker Barrel biscuits, thousands of pretzels and puffed rice on the road, and a pluot from the outdoor market in LA that brings tears to my eyes to remember). I will sort through the pictures and post highlights when I get organized. Come to think of it, however, that may never happen, because with the trip now behind us, we are staring into the deep abyss of ABOUT-TO-HAVE-A-SECOND-BABY-NESS and I can't string two thoughts together very coherently.

Yes, tomorrow is December 1, which means Baby Boy Meatball Ellis is due is about 2 months. I am going to need an oxygen mask as the weeks close in and I think about what that really means. This morning I made a to-do list and it all looks manageable on paper, but the minute I step away from the notepad, I start to hyperventilate thinking about the curtains, the crib, the clothes, the little issue of the VBAC I am dreaming of, the bottles, the pumping, the diapers. Even now, if I was standing up, I would swoon.

But, before I leave the subject of our trip out West and dive face first into panic about being a loving and sane mommy to two beautiful children who deserve my love and attention (and sanity), let's talk about a highlight of the trip that was all about Mommy. Mommy and her BFF, Tory Burch. It all started on Thursday when we showed up at the family Thanksgiving gathering to celebrate with great food. The minute I walked in (after one of Jeff's aunts greeted me with "Hey, Chubby!" which, I have to say, may have been warranted) I spied my sister-in-law JoJo wearing the CUTEST EVER Tory Burch ballet flats. They were shiny. They were colorful. They were from the outlet mall only 15 minutes away from our Friday night plans for Hannukah.

Hmmmmmmmmmm.

Only 15 minutes.

Well, you can see where this might be going. I happened to google the outlet malls in Camarillo, CA and see that they happened to be open until 10:00 p.m. on Friday. I may have mentioned that to Jeff. Then, when we got to his cousin Lisa's house on Friday night (only 15 minutes from the Tory Burch store at the outlet mall) I saw JoJo had on ANOTHER pair-- these more colorful and happy than the ones the day before.

I won't mention that Sadie was screaming her head off from the time we set out from Lisa's house to the the moment we hit the outlet mall perimeter. It started out as one of those amusing, "Can you believe our baby cries so dramatically when everything is fine," but it ended up as "I am pretty sure I am abusing my daughter so I can get some (still) overpriced pink flats at an outlet mall." But, I was swept up by the support of that shoe-temptress JoJo and Jeff, who drove the get away mini-van. And, even though I am a very committed shopper, I have never done any black Friday extreme shopping until 2010. We got to Tory's store at about 8:30 p.m. ish. The entrance was roped off and a security guard told me I had to wait until someone left before he could let me in. In about 2 minutes JoJo and I made it in and cased the joint for colorful patent leather flats. They just happened to have my size in the magenta ones pictured above. There were tourists in there from foreign countries running up tabs to the tune of $758.00. Thhe woman in front of me barely spoke English, but she spoke fluent fashion because she appeared to be buying "one of each."

I am proud to report that while it would be fun to also have the orange, gold, blue and green shoes, I limited myself to the pink ones. The best news of all is that Sadie had fallen asleep by the time I got done and doesn't appear to be too scarred from the tragic ride from Lisa's to Tory's. The next day she shuffled around our hotel room wearing the new shoes, which I took as a blessing from her. I am sad she had to learn at such a tender age that one must suffer for fashion. But, damn, those shoes are cute!

Tummy Time

While there may be slightly fewer pictures of my belly this time around (and I am not sure why that is), there are some floating around. This is picture proof that Baby Meatball is growing and filling out the womb amply. Sadie is holding most of the obsession with my tummy these days. She wants to see my belly all the time. It's not like it's hard to miss, but she wants to see the skin and my belly button. I tell her to get a good look now, but it's likely to disappear in the next few weeks. At night when I am putting Sadie to sleep, she's taken to trying to rest her head on my belly, instead of on my shoulder where she put it for months. I wonder if she can hear her brother in there and if they are plotting to take over our household in the coming months.

It's incredible to be 29 weeks pregnant again. I seem to have developed some third trimester nausea, which is not uncommon. I am feelings shades of what I felt back in the first trimester, except now I have the extra weight to keep me company while I hold back my hurling on the CTA. I gave someone the stink eye this morning for not giving me a seat on the train. My sense of entitlement is not pretty, but neither is regurgitated Raisin Bran on the train floor.

So, a little nausea won't kill me. I am committed to crawling back to survival mode. The good news is that we have a family vacation coming in about 26 hours, where we will descend on the great American Southwest territory with our intrepid 15-month old. Jeff and are of the same mind about this trip: equal parts excitement and terror. The terror is not knowing how Sadie will enjoy and embrace the less relaxing parts of travel or being out of her schedule. The excitement is getting out of town, seeing new things and experiencing our family SADIE MOON!

Be on the lookout for tales from the trail.

Mama's Roadtrip

Yesterday I spent 8 hours in my car alone driving from Chicago to Springfield, Illinois. After all that solitary time on the road, I have several observations.

• In rural Illinois, the only music on the radio stations is oldies, Christian rock and Glen Beck's radio show.
• In really rural areas, it's just you and Mr. Beck.
• I was sure that listening to Mr. Beck would be better than letting my thoughts run amok for 3 hours.
• Turns out, I was wrong. There really is something worse than my own unstill mind: Glen Beck.
• From my tiny slice of Illinois-Americana, I noted that there was not one single fit person in Springfield out on the streets yesterday. Do rural dwellers not believe in the power (and compulsion) of physical exercise?
• Ironically, the third largest building I saw in Springfield was a gargantuan Gold's Gym.
• If you listen to enough Christian radio (I listened to a segment about how "green" activitists are defying the word of God by proclaiming that population control or protecting the Earth is a good idea, since God himself said Man shall have dominion over the earth), when you finally do get back into the City, you will feel grateful to be back where you belong. Even if you spend about 45 minutes on the parking lot known as 90/94.

God Bless America.

School Days

I caught a glimpse of my future today when I went to speak to a fourth grade class about being a lawyer. As part of a program my firm participates in, we went to do an exercise designed to show the students how lawyers have to think to win cases. I was really distracted for the first 5 minutes because I was cruising around the room looking at all the boys' names written on their name tags. I didn't find a winning name, but I confirmed that Jacob and Max are really popular, because there were two of each in a class of about 25 students. I was enchanted by little Filippo, but not sure that Filippo Ellis is going to pass any of Jeff's tests for a baby name.

These students were definitely still kids. It was refreshing to hear some of their honest comments and they seemed pretty respective of each other, of us and of their teacher. Our exercise was called, "No Pets Allowed," and we asked them if that was a fair rule for a landlord to have, generally. Then, we switched up the facts and asked what happens if a blind tenant wants a seeing eye dog? What if a lonely bachelor wants a parrot for company? What if a kid has an ant farm for a science project? And, my personal favorite, what if someone wants some tropical fish to make her living room more interesting?

The kids had hilarious reasons for why pets should or should not be allowed. I appreciated the very rule-oriented little Victoria who said that a "rule was a rule," so there should be no pets, not for the blind lady, the lonely man or the decorating-challenged woman. I asked a little boy what was so wrong with having a few fish, especially since they don't make a mess and they don't hurt anyone. He disagreed. He told me that flying pirranha fish could leap out of the tank and kill tenants. I humored him and told him that was a very good reason to bar fish from the fictional housing complex.

My colleague who conducted the class with me was less humoring of some of the students' answers. We asked if a police officer could bring his drug-sniffing German shephard home for a night because of a kennel closing. This wide-eyed little boy said that would be ok since a police dog would be well-trained and well-behaved. My very liberal colleague was aghast that little Kamilliam thought that police dogs wouldn't hurt anyone. My V.L.C. referred young Kamillian to the 1960's southern race riots when police dogs savagely attached "black" people. I won't lie. I was uncomfortable that my V.L.C. explained this to the only back student in the class. Still recovering from that little "educational" exchange.

Anyway, I am happy I think older kids are cute and endearing. The highlight of the whole exercise came at the end, when we were wrapping up and saying our goodbye's to Miss Hartman's fourth grade class. One little girl raised her hand and said, "Now, what was the point of you coming here today?"

You gotta love a direct question.

Sugar Mama

Glucose Test v. Christie:

1 : 1

Passed this year.

Paging Ben & Jerry's.