Still waiting after all these months…

March 18, 2007 Savvy Spoonie 1 Comment

The final weeks of pregnancy are doing something strange to my mind. I am so completely ready to have this baby. I have had visions of bouncing up and down on a pogo stick, going jeeping on off country roads (bouncy ones), and doing just about anything else you can think of to have this kiddo NOW!! (Okay, not anything, but anything healthy and natural.)

Of course, as a serious type A personality and a proponent of natural childbirth, I have been reading several different books on the biology of birth and the history of birth. I have learned that many of the medical techniques used by doctors for the past several hundred years were started not because they were the best thing for the woman or baby, but because they were best for someone else. (Color me unsurprised) The result of all this education? I have come to see my husband as a potential source of labor induction.

Bring on those prostaglandins baby!! (Note: This is not an effective pick up line, though it did make him laugh.)

All joking aside, despite our culture’s reservations about tying anything sexual to the process of birth, women who enjoy an active sex life during pregnancy are more likely to birth close to their due date, instead of going over. (My due date is soon… please god may I birth close to my due date.) This is in part due to the oxytocin released by nipple stimulation, which helps encourage labor, and is also in part due to the introduction of prostaglandins from the semen, which help the cervix soften and efface. Human semen is the most concentrated source of prostaglandins, which is the labor inducing substance synthetically reproduced in Cytotec. However, unlike Cytotec, Human prostaglandins do not contribute to hyperstimulation of the uterus, hemorraging, and at times, death. (Now that’s fun!)

Oh honey… -eyebrow wiggle- What’s a handsome prostaglandin producing man like you doing in a place like this?

Yes, even the largest, most pregnant woman in the world (today that would be me) can drum up a semblance of sexual desire, if it means her term of months may come to an end sooner rather than later. Of course, there are other benefits to natural labor induction, such as sex, so it’s not as though it is a trivail to try this natural method of birth encouragement. After all, it’s what got us here in the first place isn’t it?

Hmmm…. sex AND natural labor induction without the risk of pain or death?? What a quaint notion. Hey honey… let’s go light some candles.

crafts

Shop Therapy and the inherent possibilities of yarn…

March 16, 2007 Savvy Spoonie 1 Comment

We are facing another storm, with balls of ice/sleet/snow falling down and bitter wind whipping through the streets of Red Bank. It is a weather that fits my mood lately, but I recognize the need to cheer up a little. So, while the cold wind blows little balls of ice onto my windows, I indulge in a little American consumer therapy.

Lee and I are quintessential consumers. We can usually be cheered, even if only briefly, by the purchase of new shoes, a new bag, something for our Macs. Today for me, it was yarn. Skeins and skeins of fancy woolen yarn, just waiting to be turned into baskets, bags, hats, scarves, wallets, whatever I want. Blue variegated yarn with a knobby, uneven texture. Multi color yarn, in sea and fall colors, with a steady medium texture. Piles of lovely yarn!!

Hope is a pile of colorful yarn. It could be anything you set your mind to, and there is something really pleasing about that. That may be why I have a tendency to hoard it, I have an increasingly large collection of “potential projects” growing in my craft cabinet. Not to mention the fabric for the other million things I intend to do. (I really should get to finishing those baby blankets.) Yes, I am pleased by possibility, and therefore keep growing my collection of yarn into a smorgasbord of possibility that would take me months to complete. I should never have to go to the yarn store and purchase more, but let’s face it, my stock of opportunity would wither if I did not start out each project with newly purchased yarn. I would also not have the chance to indulge in some shop therapy.

I will inevitably decide to turn all this yarn into christmas presents or some such thing, requiring me to use almost all of it thereby necessitating a new trip to the store for yarn replenishment. It is a vicious cycle.

house"keeping"

Domesticity…

March 15, 2007 Savvy Spoonie Leave a comment

The city of Domestis…

A place where comfort can be taken in scrubbing and sweeping, cooking and cleaning. A place where the effort placed in making a purse from yarn, or turning a dirty room into a clean paradise is valued.

I find it oddly suited to me of late. Hence the new handbag, the sparkling kitchen, and the bubbling pot of spaghetti sauce on the stove. None of these chores will save anyone, I will not have made a difference in the outer world at the end of today, but I will feel slightly more cheerful when I enter the room. I will be happier bundling my belongings into my new woolen handbag than I was into my new Target purse, even though the latter was significantly less costly. My family will eat a hot healthy meal tonight, and we will save on the expense of take out.

It seems intelligent to retreat into my home and try and make some sense out of it, especially since I can make no sense from recent events. (since, sense, events…. a bit poetic.) Maybe tomorrow I will make another baby blanket, or finish the quilting on the blanket I made a month ago. Maybe I will make a wallet to match the handbag… or maybe I will learn how to make an exotic dish.

There is no better healing balm, than domestic bliss.