Baby's Cry Cartoon

Labor Humor

3 days or less left!

Checking in mighty early this morning. I've been up since 4 am with cramping type pains, enough to not let me sleep.

Not sure if today is the day or not. I'm having trouble deciding if this is from me needing to possibly poop or if it's headed for contractions. The pain does seem to change, etc. At any rate, i'm feeling SOMETHING this morning. Considering with Kaitlin it really wasn't a normal labor, etc. I'm just not sure what to call this. I haven't started timing anything yet since I'm not sure what to time. Like I said the pain seems to change.

In other news, I made another hate for miss Emilie last night. Not sure i like it. I think I need to work on making them much bigger than what I am :\ But soon enough I'll have her head to go by so I can make more :)

Don't think I'm going to bed anytime soon so off to make a cup of decaf coffee :) Did I mention that even after she comes I'm stuck with decaff? Apparently it can decrease your milk production...so if I want soda again ever I need to con't with the decaff coffee :\ But then again I'm so used to decaff...it's probably healthier, oh well the sacrafices ;)

I wish!

Eating the placenta....

Here's what a guy wrote about his wifes request to eat her placenta:

There is so much you can't know about your spouse when you get married, like that one day she will want to eat her placenta. But there are two things you don't argue about with a pregnant woman: what she eats and that being full of life indeed looks sexy. So when Cassandra told me that for $275, a woman would come to our house, cook Cassandra's placenta, freeze-dry it and turn it into capsules to help ward off postpartum depression and increase milk supply, I said, "$275 is a bargain compared with the $20,000 I'll have to spend to tear out our kitchen immediately afterward."

Most mammals, Cassandra explained, eat their placentas, to which I countered that most dogs eat their poop. I stopped arguing there, figuring that like many of Cassandra's hippie ideas — the compost bin, rubbing lemon on her underarms instead of deodorant — she'd give up on this in a few weeks. Even as the due date approached and she was still set on eating her placenta, I couldn't imagine that she'd remember to request it from the doctor after the most physically draining experience of her life. This is a woman who, 9 times out of 10, forgets the bag of leftovers at the restaurant.

Though I am exceedingly squeamish, when my son was born, I was shocked that I saw only the beauty of childbirth. Until the placenta came out. There are many normal human reactions to seeing a placenta, ranging from screaming to vomiting to warding it off with a cross. For those of you who have never seen one, the placenta is to the baby what Stephen Baldwin is to Alec Baldwin. It's what your liver would look like if it got into an accident on the autobahn with one of those aliens from Mars Attacks! and their bloody carcasses threw jellyfish at each other.

When the placenta did come out, Cassandra, dazed from 21 hours of labor, somehow made sure the nurses delivered it to us in a flat plastic container, which I put into an ice-filled Monsters vs Aliens cooler I brought. When I asked if I could keep the placenta overnight in the refrigerator out in the hall, the nurses looked at me like I was crazy. When you gross out people who work at a hospital, you have accomplished something.

In a fog, I drove the placenta home, where I wrapped the container in a bag and wrapped that bag in a bag and wrapped that bag in every remaining bag we had in the house. I slept at the hospital that night, grateful that my son will never remember what his parents just did.

The next day I drove back to the house to meet the placenta lady, Sara Pereira. To my surprise, Sara did not look unkempt, frumpy, heavy or in any way like a Wiccan. She got into placenta-cooking after taking a Chinese-medicine course and has already prepared more than two dozen placentas this year — and orders are picking up rapidly. When I asked Sara if her parents were embarrassed by what she does, she told me that her father sells bull semen.

By law, Sara has to cook the placenta at the placenta owner's home. But to my great relief, she brought her own equipment, gloves, sponges and even more detergent than I'd hoped, scrubbing constantly as she worked. If I ever kill a man in my own home, I am totally calling the placenta lady.

As she steamed the placenta with some herbs, the kitchen got that ironlike smell of cooked organ meat, with vague undertones of a consciousness-raising group and a Betty Friedan rally. Sara said Cassandra had a particularly robust placenta, and she hoped to get 120 pills out of it. As she sliced the cooked organ and put it on parchment paper in a dehydrator, she told me that some people drink the placenta raw as a smoothie. "I do this for a living, and I couldn't do that," she said. The pills, she explained, were superior, since Cassandra could stretch their hormone-rich benefits much further, perhaps even freezing some for menopause. Sara did not understand that when Cassandra's looks fade in her 50s, there's no way I'm putting up with this crap. (Read TIME's 1933 article "Medicine: Protective Placenta.")

I drove back to the hospital where, thanks to my experiences, the food looked good. When we got home the following day, Sara gave us a truly beautiful placentapill presentation: a pretty glass jar, a card, a CD of lullabies and a satin pouch. In which was part of my son's umbilical cord, fashioned into a heart. When I asked Sara what the hell I was supposed to do with that, she said people often use it to keep a baby's first tooth and lock of hair. That's when I realized that placenta-eating is really just the beginning of how gross we humans are. And I went to change my first diaper.



(JUST for your information this is NOT something I intend on doing. They can just toss it away. I prefer to just eat red meat for my iron and take pills for what that doesn't give me, lol...no offense to those who might want to do this...but *yuck*)

A Freezer Full :)

So not that it's great food that we are going to be excited to eat, but we have food that has been premade and will easily be able to be cooked or warmed for meals. I imagine after a child arrives you really just want to eat something and it doesn't matter what it is, since it might be your first meal of the day, lol. It also doesn't mean we won't put Rossi's (local pizza joint) on speed dial, lol.

Thus far I have a meatloaf, skillet lasagna, lasagna, chili, boiled dinner, cooked boneless chicken and about 3lbs of browned hamburger. There is also a skillet dinner and three chinese frozen entree things. Our freezer doesn't have much room left for any food we might want to keep now, but eh I would rather cook fresh. Oh there is also some predone taco meat and we have lots of spaghetti sauces and pasta. I'm going to pick up more mac & cheese, couscous and anything else I think we might be willing to eat that comes from the pantry. I'm trying to do all this with my fussy husband in mind...so it gets hard to try and figure something out.

I also already told Jason that many of our first nights will probably be ordered out. Since not only do we have many places that deliver, but Friendly's and Applebees both do to go things. All the times I didn't send him out while pregnant will be used up I'm sure when I'm not pregnant ;)

Not that I'm expecting it to be too bad. I have talked to a friend who just a little one over a month ago and really other than your place gets a little cluttery and you get VERY tired, you make it. It's an itty bitty baby against Jason and I, I'm pretty sure we will win since so many have done it before us and will do it after us :) I tend to overprepare so I'm guessing I already have everything we could possily need if there were a nuclear explosion the day we brought the baby home and we all had to stay indoors for two weeks. Jason might have to learn to eat things he's not the happiest about, but I know I would live ;) Now if the internet and the tv were to go...that might be a different story :) hehehehe

So now we are just sitting back and waiting for the kiddo to come. Oh also according to Jason I need to stop putting things in the car to take to the hospital. But who wouldn't want to bring thier boppy?

OH and since it seems I haven't used on these in awhile...for your enjoyment :) Which has totally been how I've been feeling the past few days!

And after trying to find a cute anniversary outfit...I can relate to this cartoon!

The Birth Plan...

(from the sarcastic journal)

Somewhere along in the Grand Scheme of All Things Vagina Related, a person came up with the idea of having “A Birth Plan.”

For those of you who have no idea what I’m talking about (I guess you’ve been staying away from those pregnancy message boards like I told you to!) a birth plan is basically self-explanatory. It is a plan on how you want to give birth.

The births of my two children couldn’t have been any more different. When my daughter was born in July of 2004, I had suffered through a long and stressful pregnancy. My plan was this: Have a baby with the least amount of pain possible. In fact, if I could have the baby while asleep, that would be great.

I did no research on the topic of baby-having. Why would I? I wanted to have an epidural the first second I felt any discomfort. Needless to say, when I did start having contractions, I totally freaked out.

With my second child, I tried more advance planning. I researched things on the Internet. I read books and went to message boards where women discussed the pros and cons of having epidurals. I learned about the types of drugs available. I listened to Hypnobirthing CDs and tried to put myself in a good frame of mind.

I even wrote a birth plan. Basically it went like this: I want to do what I want to do and you can’t stop me!

I know of many women that were a little uptight with the planning of their births. They wanted copies printed out and handed off to nurses at the hospital. They drilled their doctors during checkups on what was and wasn’t allowed.

Here’s what it boils down to, especially if this is your first child: It is good to have wishes. It is GREAT to educate yourself on the process of birth and what is or isn’t available. But, when a human being is coming out of your “vajayjay,” things get messy. You might want drugs. You may decide you want to squat on all fours and bark like a dog. You may decide to denounce all men for their ability to produce sperm.

When you are down on all fours, barking like a dog, handing out said birth plan will probably be one of the last things on your mind. And? That’s okay. Just bark at anyone who doesn’t do things the way you like. You might get known as the “Crazy in room 203,” but heck, at least you’ll get things done the way you want.

3 hour GD test today...will update when I know the results.

How Twins are Made ;)

This was just too funny to keep to myself. (Thanks for sending it Aunt Lisa T.!)

Ever wonder how twins are made?