Book Review, 2013

Top 2013 Books I'll have to qualify this one a bit. For one, these are books that I read in 2013. Not books that were published in 2013. For two, I guess I didn't even read 10 books in 2013. And the books that I read are really not that great. Really. So feel free to pass jUgdegment--I know I would. -Orange is the New Black by Piper Kerman -The Girls Who Went Away: The Hidden History of Women Who Surrendered Children for Adoption in the Decades Before Roe v Wade by Ann Fessler -sisterland By CUrtis Sittenfeld -Special Topics in Calamity Physics Marisha Pessl -Once Upon a Secret: My Affair with JFK & its aftermath by Mimi Alford -The Power Broker by Robert Caro *did not finish -The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt *Did not finish -The Magic Room by Jeffrey Zaslow There you have it. OF the 8 books on my list, I didn't even finish 2 of them. I definitely plan to finish "The Goldfinch" but after about 500 pages, I skipped to the end. This book, plainly stated, is just not good. While it certainly seems realistic and it is well-written, there's just nothing in it that compells us to care about the protagonist. A terrorist attack, a wealthy family, an antique dealer and a seedy underbelly of Vegas lifestyle keep us going, but even that wasn't enough to keep me from skipping to the end to see what happens. The protagonist inadvertantly steals a painting from an art museum and keeps it hidden throughout his life. This is the theme that ties the story together, but honestly, his logic for holding onto it isn't compelling enough to care about him. Donna Tartt doesn't bring the mystery to this book like she did in "The Secret History." She does bring the drugs, though, and that nearly makes it a turnoff. The other book I didn't finish was "The Power Broker" by Robert Caro. I definitely wanted to finish this book, but it's over 1,000 pages long and I only get 3 weeks to check this out at the library. Ain't gonna happen. It talks about the creation of most infrastructure in New York and how Robert MOses built it without a care for anyone besides himself, and how this consequently affected mass transit & many population's continued disenfranchiesment in the city. What does that leave us? THe best book, of course, was "Orange is the New Black". It isn't too much like the TV show, but the TV show has created the same characters from the book, obviously. MOstly this shows all of the despondency of federal prison, but the most pivoting scenes haven't happened in the TV show yet. There is no secret revelation behind "Crazy Eyes" in this book and there's a lot more subtle mistreatment of inmates. I vaguely felt sorry for people in prison before, but now I really feel sorry for most of them. Even people who deserve prison aren't receiving the rehabilitation needed and the programs preparing people for the real world are described here. And good grief, we should be outraged at the great disservice happening here. I spent my Freshman English class reading books about prison, books like "Prison Journal: An Irreverent Look at Life on the Inside" and "Newjack: Guarding SingSing". We discussed the merits of prison rehabilitation vs restitution, and determined if prison really serves either angle. At length. So I guess it was time to revisit those topics again. I definitely suggest this book to you. To everyone! IN the middle are then "Sisterland" and "Special Topics in Calamity Physics" I loved the author of Sisterland, Curtis Sittenfeld. I love almost all of her novels, mostly because she writes very plausible, real, and very weak female characters. It's easy to chart their mistakes and draw their flaws, if you're looking closely. But this book was a little too close to home. No, I don't have a psychic twin sister. But the book centers a great deal around motherhood & nursing babies, which is what I spent my year doing, and I wondered if perhaps I identified too closely with this main character to see her weakness, and if I couldn't see her weaknesses as plainly, if it meant that I then had the same flaws. This was a cute book, but it wasn't as literary as the rest of her novels. The ending, though, is killer. Special Topics In Calamity Physics: I don't think I can summarize this one. I think you'd be served just as well by reading an online review of the book. EXTREMELY picturesque speech. Each line is quoteable, forever, but that's part of the problem. Sometimes you just want a memorable line once every few pages, so that these lines stand out more. That brings me to the most easily disregarded book: The Magic Room. I checked it out right before or right after I had the baby, and I knew it would be the biggest bubble-gum book ever. But when you've just given birth, the crazy post-partum hormones can send anyone into tears, very easily, so I knew I needed a bubblegum book to hold me over until the first few days of sentiment pass. I'd say if you were going to read another book on my list this year, you should definitely read "THe Girls Who Went Away." The Institutional coercion of sending unmarried women to a birthing center and quite nearly forcing the women to relinquish their children is just horrifying. This book is a collection of each woman telling her story of how she got pregnant, how she ended up relinquishing her children, and then, in some cases, how they found their child later. There are so many lies in this system of adoption, from "convincing" the women that their children were better off being adopted somewhere else, to falsifying records, manipulating signatures and then covering up the adoption records later, making it very difficult for a legal search to take place. I read this book in the first few weeks of bringing Esme home and it was a heartbreaking read. But I felt it must be done, in order to fully understand the plight of these women forced to give up their children. WHile this practice has hopefully ceased (mostly?) in the United States, it still occurrs internationally. (like the story of Philomena, the movie) That's all I've got, folks. Thanks for reading!

Princess

OH yes, there's a perfect princess in my life. I didn't think I'd ever call her a princess, I thought stuff like that was dumb. But slowly and gradually, it built on us until we were calling her a Princess all the time. Around 4 months of age, I bought a baby carrier for her and we took some walks with her sleeping in the carrier. It was always nice to hold your own snuggling and sleeping baby girl. We took a walk nearly every night this summer, and most of the time the baby would sleep in the stroller, nurse on me a little at home, and then sleep. Lately she has been sleeping after work by just crashing in the carseat as soon as Dan gets her from daycare and then staying asleep until the next morning. We will wake her to give her a bottle, of course, and then let her sleep for the rest of the night. At first, I really, really hated that routine because I wanted to spend time with my little baby and play with her. I didn't want to have her best hours be at daycare and then to only get to hold her at night while she slept. To make up for it, I held her sleeping body a lot longer than normal. After a few weeks, I started to get used to it, though, the free-time and freedom I had to actually eat an uninterrupted meal. :) And now for the last two days, she's changed her baby routine and does not want to sleep. Even though she is very, very tired. Instead, she crawls for me into my lap, and we read stories together. Just in the last few weeks, she's started to understand storytime and doesn't try to eat the book. Her attention span isn't very long, but she does like to read and listen to me talk. She also likes pingpong balls. Around 9/28, she really started getting on all fours and wiggling back and forth to crawl, and then about 10 days later, she started crawling like crazy, and at the same time, she decided she could pull up on things and stand. So she's been doing all of those things, but no independent walking yet. Which is ok. I know this is a disjointed blogpost, I just want to write a little about the things she can do/does do. She smiles the second Dan or I come into her room. She holds her arms out to be held and picked up. She loves me the most and it's adorable and wonderful.

Here we are!

Baby Esme is about to turn 7 months--in about 3 days. It's wonderful & I miss her terribly all of the seconds that I am away from her. I definitely elieve women should have a year off to spend with their babies--12 weeks is just not enough time. As it turns out Esme is a pretty small baby. She is still at the 13% for weight, though she did end up getting longer. It's even harder to leave a tiny baby behind, only because they are so fragile. In retrospect, now that she is 14-15 lbs, it still seems weird to remember her at only 7 lbs. It took us 12 weeks to get her up to 9 lbs, and she was always drowning in her 3 month clothes. Thank goodness for the newborn sizes! Here's a recap of her last several months: Day 1 home from the hospital happened around 2-3 PM. The radio was playing "Diamonds on the Soles of Her Shoes" on the drive home, which I found adorable. The whole world seemed different to us, everything was white, there was no traffic, and the house had somehow altered upon our return back home. We decided pretty quickly that I would just stay up with the baby at night when she cried, because it really wasn't worth it to make both people tired when only one person can meet the baby's needs. And that was me! We were able to get a really decent latch going when we got home & nursing didn't hurt at all. (Still nursing now, at 7 months, though I must supplement with formula a lot) I still recall that odd feeling of isolation on the first night, though. Dan was asleep, I'd turned off all of the lights, and then...waited for my turn to sleep. I vowed that I would always keep the baby in her back, in the crib, and never co-sleep, but even by night 2 I realized this was futile. Around week 4 or 5, we figured out side by side nursing and never really gave it up. Esme just kept nursing and nursing and nursing, even when it seemed like she was asleep, her jaw was still munching. Even when other people held her in her sleep, she was still munching. I figured I'd place her in her bassinet for her 2 hour long nighttime snoozes, but she instantly woke up as soon as placed down. But I could hardly complain about holding a sleeping baby and keeping her close to me. And still, it was lovely. On our second or third day, a visiting nurse came to the house to weigh the baby and examine her. I showed her the latch & Esme's sleeping habits, and it seemed that Esme was still swallowing milk, even though she was asleep. So I continued to nurse her, even if she wasn't eating, because I didn't have a way to tell if she was eating or not. Esme never really adjusted to the bottle--we waited until 4 weeks of age to try----and she hated it. We tried again and again and again, and she would scream and cry and fight, until I gave up and nursed her. Consequently, I learned how to nurse in a lot of new places: The bank The skyway Front seat of the car on the toilet every restaurant, etc But it was still lovely. Esme gained compliments and attracted people wherever she went, including 1) Grocery store, where someone asked if she was a real baby 2) Ice cream parlor, where a woman could not get over her perfect features and perfectly shaped round head 3) doctor's office, where a woman in a wheelchair desperately wanted to hold her 4) Mall of America, where many, many people admired her again 5) any place at all, where people would tell her that she was the cutest baby they'd seen that day, more beautiful than the other babies, and confide in us that not all babies are cute, but we were able to get a cute one. I often heard that she looks just like me. On the second week, I stared at her so much--she really did look like me as a baby. A lot. It was unsettling to hold yourself as a child, to be honest. But still it was lovely. My biggest memories back then were 1) How bulky I was--I am still 1 lb away from pre-pregnancy weight and thus lumbered around like a whale. 2) How small she was 3) How lonely I seemed, without a TV to watch while nursing, i was just watching junk on Netflix. I quickly tired of the selection and gave up & cancelled my subscription. I managed to catch a few things, though, like "House of Cards" on Netflix. awesome show. And even now, Esme is still lovely.

Another Birth Story

Wowzer, time flies with a newborn. This is literally the first time I've been able to sit down with a sleeping baby AND have access to a computer. On Esmé's 10th day of life, someone broke in to our house and stole our laptops and kindles, so typing has been a bit belated.

ANYWAY! I was going to tell you the story of Esmé's delivery. 
**********Don't read this if birth stories gross you out.**********

Well, the first night, I was just waiting for my cervix to dilate, and while doing so, was connected to an IV of morphine, which meant we had to be on fetal monitoring overnight. I was sleeping on my side (poor Dan had to sleep on the most uncomfortable & drafty bed, ever) and the baby kept moving away from the monitor. So about every 20 minutes, a nurse would come in and reattach the monitor and search for the baby. Luckily her heart rate was always strong. It was hard to sleep and as I mentioned, we watched a few episodes of Firefly. Also, Lord of the Rings was on--which was lovely. It's been so long since I've seen it, I kept forgetting about each scene in the movie. 

During the insertion of the foley bulb, the nurse mused the mthat my pain tolerance seemed quite high and i tried to say that it was orphine, but in reality, I was in a great deal of pain--but didn't want to admit to it.

 Around 4:30 in the morning, after being awakened a bazillion times in the middle of the night, the nursemidwife came to check on the foley-bulb, which is something they insert to quicken the dilation, and my water broke. I'd also made it to 3cm, which was where I needed to be to begin the  contractions.  I didn't want to forget what time it had happened, so I sent myself an email: water broke.

At this time, I had one more quick IV of morphine and then we began the smallest dose of pitocin. I was very *anti*pitocin--it's like the EVIL DRUG of birthing--at least that's how it's portrayed these days. However, there was no choice--the baby needed to come out now that her amniotic fluid had broken. At this time, I also had an IV of pencillian since I was Group B strep positive. (yuck/>)

And so we began contractions. One every 5 minutes. I thought I could handle them--but I couldn't. A doula was sent in to help. I was struggling a LOT with the pain. Dan helped me a lot, but if he wasn't with me during the contraction, I got scared. I didn't know how to breathe through it. I panicked each time. 

Our doula came and really got me through the next 4 hours of contractions--she helped me breathe each time. I tried to walk around and nearly fell asleep standing up. I lost track of every single conversation we were having. I talked about imaginary people (the doula's sons? She doesn't have any sons.) My teeth started chattering uncontrollably. I drank orange juice, water, and had some food. Still chattering. I was shaking. Around noon, I asked for an epidural. Then I recanted. "I don't need the epidural!" Then I'd have a contraction and decide I wanted it. 

Finally, around 3 PM, I'd had enough. Yes, yes, yes, I definitely wanted the epidural. I had to wait for the IV to come so I could have enough fluid to accept the epidural. We also had to find someone to administer it--and it turned out to be THE DIRECTOR of the anesthesiology department for the whole hospital. The poor man took about 3 phone calls (and mentioned he'd have to do that) before we could administer it. During that time, we checked to see how many cm dilated I was. The answer: 4 cm. After nearly 11 hours, I'd only gone up one centimeter. Ugh. It solidified my decision to go for the epidural. 

It was wonderful. I didn't feel anything for awhile. I could take my nap. The nurses bumped up the pitocin for me to increase the contractions, which displayed on a pretty board for me to watch & not feel.

Around 5:45pm or 6pm, though, I started to feel a lot of pressure. It felt like...well, it felt like it was time to start pushing. I mentioned it to the nurse, who said that it wasn't likely that I'd feel that so soon. I said that I felt something, though, and gave myself another dose of the epidural medication. (Push this button!) The nurse did check and was surprised that I was at 9 cm already. 

I was sort of surprised, too. Poor Dan had snuck off to a corner to try to get a nap as well, since he really needed it. The nurse said I could start pushing as much as I felt like--and they would get set up for delivery. I remember they moved a bunch of stuff around, but I was just focused on pushing with the contractions.

And I really started to feel it. I know I had the epidural, and they said I'd feel the pressure, but not the pain--yet it seemed I was feeling both.

Nurse change-over in the hospital is from 6:30pm-7pm--so both nursemidwifes were in the room with me. I felt bad, I wanted to delay the delivery for them until after their shift, but there was really no stopping it. I said a lot of weird things while pushing. 

"I'm afraid of the dark!"

I asked for the forceps and extraction. They were, of course, denied, since they weren't necessary. I started crying, twice. I was ordered to stop crying, since that could make me hyperventilate. Of course, that made me angry, since I didn't cry tooooo much while pregnant, I felt that at least I should be able to cry during delivery. But I needed to save that energy for pushing. 

The TV show "The Family Guy" came on in the background and I asked Dan to turn it off. The doula, Hawa, also went to turn it off, and thus the Family Guy came back on. I really just didn't want the baby to be born with that show on! Luckily the TV stayed off the second time.

And so I just had to keep pushing. I was to hold each push for 10 seconds--and even getting there was hard. Dan encouraged me, he said I was getting closer, but I felt like he was lying. How did he know?

And then, after more pushing and after I swore a LOT, Esme was born. 6:55 pm. 6.5 lbs. 

I got to pull her up right away, the nurse allowed me to do it right away. They cut the cord while I was wiggling her up my abdomen and I got to stare at my crying bundle wrapped in a receiving blanket and full of afterbirth. I told her that I loved her and that I've been waiting for her for so long, and for some reason started talking to her about her college account. 

"college?" the nurse laughed.

She's the class of 2031, we calculated.

After a bit, they took her with Dan to be bathed and weighed and measured and listened to her lungs. I couldn't walk, so he took the photos for me of her first bath. 

And then it was just all of the normal-post-delivery recovery. You feel so uncomfortable, there's a ton of blood, but you don't care beause your baby is with you. Esme was born the weekend of a massive snowstorm. 

Inducement

I want to finish thr rest of the birth story before we get too far.

 Eventually, the nurse told me that we were going to induce because sending me home would probably just result in the later development of preclampsia. Since  we were already past the due date, inducement wasn't the worst choice. They walked me down the hallway to a very large birthing room. I almost gasped. "wow, this is beautiful!"
Nurse: "Yes, it is, isn't it. This is our largest room, we call it the ballroom, since it's so large."
me: : "Well, I feel really lucky that we get to have it."

By this time, Dan had gone home to grab the birth bag and other stuff (Food! Movies! And letting the doggie outside) . I sincerely did believe that no matter what happened, I would have time to go home and get my stuff and pack a few things in it. Wrong-o. :) I went straight from work, as mentioned before, which also resulted in my car being stuck in the parking lot near my office.

At this point, the nurses warned me that inducement would take a long time. It could be 3 days, they said. I agreed. Since  I wasn't dilated at all, and only 90% effaced, there was a lot to do, naturally.

Please note: if you don't want to read about birth, the cervix and what-not, skip out now!

We used cervi-pro to begin the dilation. I was given morphine via IV (They said it would be like a cocktail, which was exciting. "I haven't had a cocktail in nearly 9 months!" Which of course, isn't entirely true, I had a few sips of alcohol the whole time)
Then they used (for lack of a better term) the "cervical gun" to begin the dilation process.

Eventually Dan came back--stressed and hurried. He was trying to get everything and do everything without forgetting anything.  Since I was on a morphine drip (I really didn't know this would be necessary during dilation, but ok...),  I was also connected to the fetal monitors. Dan and I settled in for awhile and began watching a tv show while we waited. The nurse was even kind enough to angle my bed so I could watch Firefly on the DVD.

And thus began our long night of fetal monitoring.

A Birth Story--part 1

How is babby born?  (internet meme)

The day was 2/7, a Thursday. I was at work, near the end of the day and....I was dizzy.  I thought maybe I just needed to eat something, so I did. On the brief walk to the microwave,  the world spun  & back at my desk, my vision blurred, too.

uh oh. Normally, I'd do nothing; suck it up and go home. Yet at 40 weeks + 1 day, just ignoring it was a bad idea.

"Hi, I am over 40 weeks pregnant and just had some symptoms..." I said to the nurse-line at the hospital.
They asked if I could have my blood pressure taken at work. I said yes, and went to the nurse in my office. Taken twice, my distolic was still in the 90s, we called the hospital and they said to come on over.  (My dystolic bp is usually in the 70s.)

My company placed me in a taxi and refused to allow me to pay for the short cab ride to
the hospital. (5 blocks). When I plodded into the 4th floor of the  hospital, we connected to some monitors and they said I would probably go home after a few hours. I called Dan anyway and told him what was happening. He left work a little early and came over. Meanwhile,  I enjoyed the marvel of watching the Big10 network and CSPAN on cable and the hospital provided dinner for me.

"Dinner? I feel guilty eating dinner here if I am going home," I thought to myself.

You know the end to the story already--I did not get to go home. My blood pressure kept going up and since I was already passed the due date, they decided it was time to induce me. I walked down the hall to the midwife unit while Dan raced home to grab the official baby bag + other stuff we might need.

Swiss Cake Rolls

So the Obama Administration wants to fix the a la carte options in the lunch room. No more fatty foods, blah blah.

I agree with this, but I'm totally having flashbacks to 8th & 9th grade, where my entire lunch was one swiss cake roll package and maybe a granola bar. Swiss cake rolls were $.30. That's 30 CENTS. Granola bars were .$70. I ATE LUNCH FOR $1.00. It must have been subsidized or something. T'was awesome & extremely unhealthy. Of course, I was so skinny it didn't matter.

Anyway, from now on, I have to be really careful about what I eat. No more guilty indulgence ice cream. No more Sprite, either.  I've been good the last few weeks, mostly, with more salads and lots of broccoli.  This is what I'll be eating for the next year or two, until I can get skinny again. The baby is still in the 6-7 lbs range.

Yes, the baby is still inside of me. She has 3 days until she hits 40 weeks. Of course, from May 2nd-May 16th, she wasn't really created yet, so we'll say she's been in there for 38 of a normal 40 week pregnancy. I am the last hold-out of our friends, who have all seemed to have their babies early through bad luck, random chance, and doctor-intervention.

Every day, I think about calling the work in early. I'm ready to stay home, sit on my ass and sew her baby blanket until she arrives. But I shouldn't skip out of work now. I should go until I have contractions at my desk and my water breaks at work in the elevator, because that means more time spent with the baby later.  Plus if I really do go to 41 weeks, that would mean only 11 weeks with the baby and one week spent at home, sewing her blanket.

But (and this is more of me whining) who wants to get dressed daily? Tying my shoes takes 30 minutes. Getting in the car is impossible.  I really shouldn't complain, though.

An AMerican civilian was captured in Afghanistan in October, while she was 5 months pregnant. She was due in January, and since it's February now, her baby has either been born---or it hasn't.
It's terrible to imagine being pregnant in the mountains of Afghanistan while captured by the Taliban.  I can't imagine giving birth in those conditions, either.  So I will suck it up.

aughghghhghghg.

After I was scheduled to leave for the day, but still at work, wrapping things up, I got an email that said that the HR team did not have my FMLA paperwork. This was the very first form that my boss and I completed, and I faxed it in on 1/3 (we carefully waited until after the first of the year and then waited one more day to let everything from 2012 wrap up)

My boss and I went over it a few times (checking vacation, PTO and unpaid times to use) and a couple of days after we sent it, the HR team notified him that they had the paperwork to begin the claim.

I just had to fill out a medical form from the health care provider explaining if a C-section was planned and what kind of recovery time would be needed, which I faxed in a few days ago to the alternate claim provider.

Quickly, I replied to the email saying that I had already sent that form and that they should have it. The the HR person calls me directly, insists that they didn't get the form that I first sent with my boss on 1/3. They need a new copy or to re-send the original. I've been keeping the original in my pending hanging file, but on the phone with HR, I couldn't find it.  (I have a *ton* of paper pass through my desk daily and I now sadly realize that I may have shredded the original or taken it home or just placed it in a different paper pile, since right now there's a million things on my desk.)  At least I have a digital copy, which of course, is not signed by my boss. Under most circumstances, I can usually just walk over to my boss and get it signed.  Except my boss is on PTO today. When he's back in on Monday, he can fax and resubmit this.

I know it's not a big deal. It's a piece of paper. I can refax this piece of paper into the office.
It's just that I thought everything was taken care. I started filling out this form months ago, when I first found out I was pregnant. I called all of the HR departments (3 of them!), wrote everything down, took wonderful notes. We were being so careful and it still got messed up.

The HR lady insists that I must have sent it to the wrong number or faxed it upside down. I know that I didn't do that. I even had the confirmation page stapled to my original copy. *sigh*

So I confess that I started crying. At work. I haven't cried at work for a couple of years. I put the phone down and just cried for 3 or 5 minutes while the HR woman tried to tell me what she needed. I know she could hear me crying, but I don't think she realized that I wasn't listening to anything she was saying because the receiver was on the desk. Anyway, I will try to hold the baby in this weekend so that I can go to work on Monday, find the proof I need to show them that my boss and I did fax this form and then call the other 2 departments to be sure they haven't messed anything up.

God knows if my claim gets rejected, I am going unpaid for my leave and I'm not going to let that happen. 




 

38 weeks pregnant

Here we are, still holding out for the bitter cold part of February, when the baby will finally come out of me.
Soon I won't feel her every last movement. I won't feel her baby hiccups. I won't always know the second she wakes up and moves around.

But I'll get to hold her and see her baby face and breastfeed her and change her cloth diapers and rock her and bounce around the house listening to silly music.

Which one is better?

At any rate, while 38 weeks pregnant, the nursemidwife told me that I could still be pregnant for another 4 weeks. Which I knew. But it's not possible for me to go to 42 weeks, is it?
They said yes, yes it is.
Which I knew.
But seriously?

Everyone else in the February birth club has gone early. My cousin was due on Valentine's Day and she had her 5lb baby girl on Martin Luther King Day.  I was jealous, because I love MLK Jr & having a baby on that day is awesome. But 5 lbs and 1 month early isn't good!
Yet I am not jealous because of all of the March of Dimes stuff I keep forcing myself to read regarding the 39th & 40th week development list.  I keep reminding myself that babies with more development suck better, which is good for both of us.

And guess what, internet! I think I put something plastic in the oven. Ugh!

Crying

If you'd asked me this morning if I thought I was that crazy hormonal late stage pregnatn girl who cries because someone looked at her sideways, I'd have said no.

If you asked me that now, I'd have ...probably started crying.

Not sure what has sparked my grumpy and teary state, I took a nap and then woke up from it. Normally I can snap out of a bad mood pretty fast. I can force myself to be happy around people.
But right now, I cannot force myself to do anything other than sit on the couch and watch old movies from HS on Amazon prime.

Which means that I am skipping out on something I'd really like to do tonight, which is hang out and meet more of Dan's coworkers. :sigh:

37 week check-up

Note to self: Do not schedule appointments at 4 PM with someone who seems like they've been in nursing for a bit too long.
I just really hope this nurse doesn't end up delivering for us--if she does, I'm out! I will go home and deliver the baby in my living room. (probably not, but.... wow, I might also strangle this lady if we meet while I'm in a lot of pain)

At any rate, she asked me if I wanted to be examined this week. The midwives don't usually do pelvic exams unless there's a reason, which is actually nice. But I thought I was getting tested for group b strep, so I mentioned that.
The nurse said "oh, yeah... I guess we could check for that."
When she was done, she asked if I wanted her to check my cervix.

Since I can't really do that myself, I said "well, yeah, I guess I'd like to see if anything is happening yet."
She sighed and then did it.

Ok, lady. I don't want to stick my hands up someone else's vagina at 5 PM on Wednesday night, either, but....that's kind of why I'm here.

At any rate, when I asked for advice, she said I should try to have a lot of sex and go to the movies a lot since I couldn't do that soon.

That's not really the advice I was looking for, but I guess she was being practical.

I'm sort of torn on this. On one hand, I'm really happy that the center I am using will use all-natural methods, provide my own Doula, give me a water birth option and definitely not do anything stupid like episiotomy  or cesarean when neither would be needed. 
On the other hand, seeing someone who doesn't care at all is annoying. I don't want to be a drama queen or an attention whore, but some empathy might be nice. 

OH yeah, the point was that I was in a typhoon

I was trying to get to the part in my last entry about the typhoon!
 First I'd decided that I'd sleep indoors during the day before work on (US Time) Monday and that on Tuesday, I would put a beach towel over my head and fall asleep on the pool deck outside for awhile, just to see how it felt.

Except Tuesday it was raining, a LOT. The treadmills were full because no one could go outside.
And then came the storm.

A real, true Typhoon: Nestat, as the Asians called it and Pedrig, as the rest of the world called it.
I took a taxi to work since it was raining so much and then it got worse. The rain came more and more, and my coworkers started telling me stories about the typhoon that came the year before. It was (essentially) the equivalent of Hurricane Katrina. People who were not affected by typhoons in the past had their house flooded. People walked for 24 hours to get home. There was no transportation. The trains were flooded, hotels lost generator power, people staying in their hotels ran out of fresh water and food.  They lost everything. It was true, I'd talked to a lot of people who were flooded and ruined in the year before.

So the stories scared me. Friends from work told me to stockpile bottles of water and food as soon as I could.

And then we walked home from work, back to the hotel, in the typhoon. For reals. The taxis were hard to come by and it wasn't a long walk by any stretch, so we walked. Even though all of us had umbrellas, we were still 100% drenched. It was literally like just walking in a shower. I know everyone has gotten soaked in the rain at some point in their lives but it's scarier with Hurricane force winds.

I didn't want anyone at home to worry about me, (though the travel alerts I received were pretty frightening, for someone who has never been in a hurricane). I guess it was a lot like a more powerful thunderstorm. On our walk home, the wind blew parts of scaffolding off of buildings right by us.
I treated my walking partners to breakfast, warm and hot, at the hotel, (which removed my perdiem for the day!) and they decided to find their own ways home. Then I tried to figure out what to do with myself for the day/night.

Back to Manila!--Typhoon!

There's still more to document with the trip to Manila.
I'll skip ahead; I transferred hotels.

Try living in a hotel room, making it your home for a month, and packing it up in 30 minutes.
That's what happened to me on a weekend when I fell asleep. I had mostly packed everything but I was dozing off and my doze turned into a 2 hour nap. When I woke up, I had to stuff everything into a bag and I left a few things behind.

Like an envelope carrying $100 for a coworker's friend as a wedding gift
Like a bottle of wine (no big deal)

Well, it was a good effort. The taxi took me on the 40 minute ride across Manila and I ended up in Makati, the expensive, rich district of the city. I checked into "The New World Hotel", which was a fancier place. Every guest was searched. Dogs guard the hotel. The lobby was 3x the size and full of businessmen in suits.

http://www.hoteltravel.com/philippines/manila/new_world_makati.htm#gclid=CO3H9Lmf1LQCFe5FMgodGTIAQQ

Blessedly, this time, my room was at the end of the hallway, with no neighbors. Even if I had neighbors, it was very quiet and the noise did not travel. This was a huge bonus from Richmonde Hotel.  My minibar had American Pringles (yum!) and way more TV channels.
I guess when you're living out of a hotel room, sometimes American TV is all that can sustain you.

The breakfast there was phenomenal, I developed a love for Congee, got to read some more English-Asian newspapers and stare at the business travelers in our section. There was an American volleyball team in the lobby, also, which was sort of wild. I didn't talk to them--though I'm not sure why. 

The first thing I did was check out the gym there, since we'd been on a big fitness kick. TV TREADMILLS! With HBO! A beautiful outdoor pool!
So I jumped on the treadmill and made it my goal to walk/run for an entire HBO film.  It was pretty nice outside, but I knew I had to sleep during the day, so I sent myself upstairs instead of into the sun, which would naturally awaken me.

Feels like Sunday!

But it's really Tuesday and I go back to worky-land tomorrow. Which is ok, really, since there's a bit of activity tomorrow to break up the monotony, like going to my "35 weeks pregnant" visit.

Tomorrow's appointment re-sets the deductible and the  insurance that I have, with higher premiums.  It's still about $120 to sit in a room for 20 minutes while someone monitors my blood pressure, heart rate, listens to the baby's heart rate and measures my belly. Thus far, all measurements are normal, which is a blessing.

Right now I should be at a New Year's day party, but it seems so distant and impossible to make it there when you need a nap and had two crap-tastic pancakes at the local diner for breakfast. And when you stayed up until 130 AM....


----

Vladimir Putin prevented Russian adoptions, which is a huge blow to everyone who was in the middle of the process or for everyone who had it finalized but hadn't received their children yet.

I can't say that it's entirely bad that the Russian adoptions are stopped, though. Russia sucks at taking care of their own children and it's terrible to imagine all of these children completely neglected by the system.
Isn't it also terrible to see all of the kids in the US who need homes? Often at a fraction of the cost, with an agency that isn't really all about making money, but instead is truly hoping that the children will find a good set of parents?
And is it really fair to bring over hundreds of Russian children with special needs and send them through the American infrastructure for special needs children?

I don't want to sound Xenophobic, like "We should help American kids first!" --but I do think that Russia needs to develop their own system for taking care of their problems instead of exporting their neglected/disabled/ FAS children while adoption agencies profit on it.

I hope America stops doing this for other countries as well--(and continues the adoptions in the countries that run their programs properly, however few there may be)