My Mother Thinks She Is Funnier Than She Really Is

My mother very nicely cooked a turkey dinner for my birthday celebration. She also got me a few tops as a present. Unfortunately, she bought them at a plus-sized boutique. Not a maternity boutique. While I actually am fat, I wanted to say to her, "look, lady, I'm not fat, I'm pregnant!" But, of course, I'm both. So, I told her I was going to look into getting a refund and buying actual maternity clothes in plus size at a different store. Lord knows I need a pair of pants and some undies!

But, this sort of demonstrates something about my mum. She is incredibly loving and generous, but sometimes she doesn't really think before she does something. Sometimes it is offering advice that was unsolicited and unwanted. She was trying to a helpful and loving mum but her effect is to make you mad at her. Sometimes she says something that she thinks is funny, but at the expense of someone else.

And that reminds me of the day I went into labour with Kieran.

My water broke at 9am. Around noon I made it in the midwife's office with my sister and husband and they verify, yup, that's amniotic fluid. Since I wasn't really dilated or effaced or anything, they recommended I go home and rest. At 5 pm they would have me to a non-stress test at the hospital, which basically meant I had to wear a monitor for 20 mins so they could see where the contractions were at.

This was at 36.6 wks, so they didn't want to let me go too long without delivering. Well, the contractions are tiny, weak little things and my midwife keeps saying that they aren't contractions and the OB on call says "let's just book an induction for 9am in case". I told the OB, "you don't need to bother, I know this baby is coming before that," and he looks at me like I'm a crazy lady. The midwife keeps looking at me with a sort of sweetly condescending look but I know what's going on in my body.

We go home where my sister tidies up my fantastically messy apartment (we were in the middle of putting three IKEA dressers together, so there is wood and tools and dust all over the living room!) and makes me a couple of microwave cannelloni. My mum arrives a little while later. Instead of resting, I'm so fantastically excited, I can't do anything but hang out in the kitchen gabbing with my mum and sister.

My mum starts to tell me about the day I was born. Feb 23, 1971. The night before there had been an ice storm and everything was covered by an inch thick layer of ice. She said that the trees and everything glittered so that the world looked like a fairy city. When she went into labor my dad was at work. She called her mother. After she arrived they decided, after talking to the OB, to head straight to the hospital.

My Granny called a cab and ran down the stairs to get into it. My parents lived in a second floor flat of a house and my mother was having a little trouble waddling down the long flight of stairs while contracting (she had a precipitously fast labour and was already at least 5 or 6 cm).

My Granny was at the door of the cab, impatient, not wanting the driver to wait long and shouted, "Run Donna! The cab is here!" My mother described feeling so angry at her mother that she could've throttled her! Imagine telling a woman in full labour to run for a taxi! Down a flight of stairs!

Fast forward to 2003. We all laugh heartily at this story and within a few hours I'm in a good strong labour pattern. I have to move, I can't sit and I can't talk through the contractions any more, except, of course, to yell at my husband, who decides to try to rub my hip as I try laying on my side on a bed, "Don't touch my ass! Don't touch my ass!" It wasn't a great position for me to be in.

After a few hours of standing and pacing and swaying and moaning like a deranged cow, we call a cab to the hospital. It's only a 10 minute walk from the house, but it's after midnight, and my mum and sister will continue past the hospital in the cab home.

Oh, and, did I mention, despite it's being the first week of April, there was a freak blizzard! We got a few feet of snow that day!

So, the cab arrives and, guess what, my spry mother is out by the cab well ahead of me. I was frantically trying to make sure I'd remembered everything (I didn't, I left the paperwork for admitting behind and my husband had to walk back home to get it while I stood in maternity trying not to panic and make it through active labour!). So, my sister is already in the cab, my mum has the door open and I'm waddling slowly out the front door and my mother yells, "Run Leanne! The cab is here!" and as if that wasn't bad enough, she starts cackling at her own joke, loving every ironic moment of it!

I finally got in the taxi, but couldn't even sit, I had to elevate my butt off the seat with my hands because it just hurt to put pressure on my butt/pelvis/cervix. I turned to mum as the taxi pulls away and say, in the deepest, growliest, we-are-definitely-not-amused voice I could muster, "It wasn't funny then and it isn't fucking funny now!"

My mum laughed and then cried, because, well, as long as your're not pregnant, it IS funny, but at the same time, just as her mum rode with her to the hospital in a taxi to the birth of the first child/grandchild of the family, so too was my mum taking her first born to the hospital to have her own first born child.

What a crazy, beautiful night!

Lucky for us, we shouldn't be needing any cabs for our July homebirth. And, I'm making sure I warn my mother well in advance to lay off the jokes if she wants to see her next grandchild born!

Check out Maya's Mom, the online community for parents and keep an eye out for their Blog Carnival. If you decide to join, let me know!

Playing In The Snow With Kieran - Videos!

Last weekend, after the big snowfall that dropped a couple feet of snow on Southern Ontario within two days, Kieran went out with his Aunty Julie, Uncle Marshall and their dog Choco for a little snowy fun. Here are a couple of videos of Kieran on the slopes.

If you listen very closely, at about the 17 second mark, Kieran can be heard saying, "trudge, trudge, trudge" as he made his way up the hill. Much to my amusement, he wipes out a few times.



In this video, Kieran comes down the hill on a tube as his Aunty Julie fears for her life behind the camera.

It's My Birthday!

It is my 36th birthday today. Whee!

Last night, in anticipation of having no time today (between work, attending hockey and playing hockey), Sean treated me to giftees and yummies. I got:

1. Battlestar Galactica, Season 2.5
2. An Evening With Kevin Smith, Part 2
3. Lucinda Williams, West
4. Jeff Buckley, Grace (previously we only had it on cassette!)
5. Medium Dairy Queen Blizzard w/pecans, only, left chunky (my absolute fave illicit treat!)

We still have the rest of the day to get through. If I know them well, and I think I do, there may be a little loving going on with the season's ticket holders at the hockey game. The folks we sit with, for nearly three years now, are always a kind and fun loving bunch with a slightly naughty streak. So, someone may have made me a cupcake but it's just as likely that I'll be covered in silly string within seconds of the puck drop.

Last year, I wasn't having a great birthday. I was working - ultra briefly - for a terrible employer and woke up with a growth on my nose - which might have been cellulitis, a fairly serious condition. Today I am pregnant, struggling to build my own business, hanging out all day with a boy who makes my heart melt and cuddling at night with a boy who owns my heart.

I'd say life is good. In fact, I think life is better than before, from my perspective.

In a way, I can't really believe that I'm 36. It seems such a crazy number. It's easier to accept now that I'm a mom. But, to echo my grandmother, I feel much younger than I am.

My grandmother, a delightfully crazy and sweet woman who I am very close to, claims that despite being in her early 80's, she feels like she's 16. I agree with her. Except, I think that she and I are experiencing slightly different versions of 16. I've no doubt her version involves the vigor, the wonder and the excitement of being almost an adult. For me, 16 was full of self-doubt, awkwardness and the deep angsty emotions of teendom.

Even at 36, I still actively struggle with my place in the world, issues of independence versus the safety of belonging, self actualization and identity. Sometimes I catch myself identifying with the concerns of college age kids and then I have to remind myself that it's been a long damned time since I've been one of them. That I've actually attained part of my lifelong dream: find my soulmate and make beautiful babies!

And, yet, there is so much farther still to go!

In my 36th year, I want to love on a new baby. I want to birth that baby in a place of personal safety surrounded by love and warmth. I want to realize more success with my business. I want to learn how to drive. I want to get my finances in order. I want to be more patient.

So, here's to another productive year!

Bedtime Story

As we snuggled up in my bed together, Kieran said he wanted to tell stories. So, interested in what was going on in his nearly 4 year old brain, I asked him to tell me a story. Here it is:

"There was a Prince and a beautiful* Queen. They lived in a beautiful castle. I went to visit them. I looked at their jewels. I didn't steal any; I just admired them. I put the jewels back and I went back to my lab. I'm a scientist-detective. I looked at stuff with my magnifying glass. The end."

*Kieran describes many things as beautiful. It is one of the more complex ASL sign language signs he knows how to create - though, to be honest, he does it backwards, making the sign facing away from his own face instead of into his face. A friend of ours who specializes in autistic toddlers and preschoolers has been teaching Kieran and I a few new signs each time we go to our hockey games and Kieran loves learning them. I think it's sweet and funny that he uses the adjective beautiful so often now that he knows the sign for it.

Exciting Things!

Gosh! It's been quite busy and frantic around Casa Momcast. We've hardly had a moment to relax between pregnancy related appointments, freelance writing (and the blessed eating out at restaurants that goes with it), in-law visiting, snow shovelling, hockey games, client meetings and the day or more of preparation that goes into creating a childbirth education course on the fly... I could go on, but I'm sure you get the idea.

I credit tea with my dear friend Robyn for keeping me grounded.

So, let's see, what to talk about first? How about this:

Can you read the first line of that ad? It says, "I'd like to extend my thanks to Leanne Kemmler [that's me and my maiden name, which I publish under for View Magazine] for the beautiful review in her Edibles column, as it literally brought tears to my eyes."

Here is the review she is referring to: Rebel's Rock Irish Pub.

When Sean showed this to me last week, well, I did more than get literal tears in my eyes! It is profoundly gratifying to know that I've made an impact on people through my writing. Whether it is here, at Hamilton Birth Revolution, or through my restaurant reviews at View Magazine, I am deeply touched to learn that people have paid attention to something I've said and were changed in some little way by it.

Once, when I criticized a particular dish at a new restaurant, the owner emailed me to let me know he'd been having trouble with that dish and my review cemented his decision to take it off the menu. And, further, he let me know that based on my experience with slow service, he'd had a staff meeting to discuss ways in which to ensure a more efficient delivery of food in future. Talk about having an impact.

My very first review was for a lunch counter that had been open for only a month. A letter arrived a week after the review ran saying that they'd had a marked uptick in business since my review ran and they thanked me for being key to their early success. It's enough to make a girl weep with joy!

So, even when my freelance cheque is late and my column contributions get cut down to bi-weekly, I love doing this job.

Another job I love? Being pregnant!

OK, it's not exactly a job, but, well, when I spend half my toothbrush time gagging so hard I cry and pee myself, it seems like a chore. There are definite perks to being pregnant, though, that make up for all that darned peeing oneself.

We are currently halfway through the pregnancy. Time has gone so quickly! One of the coolest things about this time is that I now regularly feel Shrimpie kicking and punching his or her way around my tummy. I know it won't feel so awesome later, but boy or boy do I love feeling this little one inside me!

The other cool thing about this time of the pregnancy is the mid-term ultrasound!

I can't believe how clear this image is! Taken at 19 weeks and 3 days, this awesome profile of dear little Shrimpie, who is only measuring about 6 inches long from head to butt, shows off his or her little chin, nose and mouth very well.

I'm assuming that everything is going to be OK with the U/S results as the tech showed us everything from the heart and spine to the stomach and brain. All were well-developed and measuring properly. We'll hear the final verdict from the Radiologist in a couple of weeks, but I'm not expecting to hear and negative outcomes.

While we were ogling Shrimpie via the miracle of sound waves and a very full bladder, the baby decided first to tuck up into the, uh, fetal position, and then, later, while we were checking out the profile, began masticating. Shrimpie's hand had been up near his or her mouth, so maybe a little thumb-sucking was in order.

It was a really reassuring process for me. I've written previously about not feeling able to trust this pregnancy after losing the last one. But, this seemed to sweep all that out the door. I'm feeling again like I can trust the baby to grow the way it needs to grow and I'm trusting that my body will care for this baby and birth it exactly the way it's encoded into my DNA.

Now we just have to begin preparing for our homebirth. I can't wait!

I'll Love You Forever And Forever

I was watching American Idol last night (eh gads, yes, I've become an Idol watcher - it's like a gruesome train wreck!) and one of the young men on the show just broke my heart.

He was explaining how his mother, upon being told he'd made it to Hollywood, told him she loved him. He remarked, "She doesn't really tell me that a lot."

My heart started to break.

Then, he described returning home after the successful audition. His mother greeted him at the door with a hug. He explained, "She never hugs me."

My heart broke into a million little pieces.

How could a mother, hell, how could a parent not hug their child regularly? How could they fail to profess their love for their children regularly? What sort of emotional cripple do you have to be to not express love to your child?

I turned to Kieran and said, "Kieran, I love you. I hope you never ever stop hearing that from me." He walked over to where I sat on the couch and gave me his serious/sincere look and gravely responded, "I love you, too, mummy." And then he hugged me. And I gave him a great big squishy hug back.

Sean, picking up on the exact vibe I was feeling, echoed my sentiments. He beckoned Kieran over, told him he loved him and gave him a little bad news, "I don't care how old you get, your mummy and I are always going to give you lots of hugs."

Kieran looked up at his dad with deep affection and said, "I know dad," closing his eyes as if to emphasize how serious this moment was.

Whether he is awake or dreaming, I tell my son I love him many times a day. I hug him and kiss him and try to physically connect to him as an expression of how important he is to me. I have no doubt I will do this with the new baby when they arrive.

Days after Kieran was born, sitting in my old Sklar '50's era rocker, watching TV, I heard the Beatles sing I Will. The chorus stuck in my head and became Kieran's lullaby. As a baby, just humming it was enough to soothe him. It served me like a meditative mantra, too. And, even now, when we are cuddled and quiet and near sleep, I'll still sing it to him.

In the end, however, the phrase "I Love You" is a pale imitation of the feelings I have in my heart for my son. They just don't make words powerful enough.

Who knows how long I've loved you
You know I love you still
Will I wait a lonely lifetime
If you want me to I will

For if I ever saw you
I didn't catch your name
But it never really mattered
I will always feel the same

Love you forever, and for ever
Love you with all my heart
Love you whenever we're together
Love you when we're apart

And when at last I find you
Your song will fill the air
Sing it loud so I can hear you
Make it easy to be near you
For the things you do endear you
To me ah, you know I will
I will
The Beatles

Is It Still Training If He Taught Himself?

We've had three dry nights in a row. No, we haven't had a problem hitting the sauce - unless, of course, it's a problem that I can't have any "special sauce". I mean, Kieran has woken up three mornings in a row without having wet his pull-up.

I wasn't even trying.

OK, I sorta tried. Before he went to bed, I made Kieran go to the bathroom and have a pee.

And, uh, it works!

I thought potty training was supposed to be hard!

Yeah, I know, I still haven't forgotten the Poop-splosian Extravaganza of 2006 and it's subsequent two months of messy undies that gave me Poop Fingers. It's long behind us now, though.

About a month ago, I read a post on Parent Hacks about potty training that gave me a brilliant idea. The discussion was about non-candy rewards to promote potty performance. When we started, as you may remember, we had a program that involved two kinds of stickers rewarding sitting on the potty and peeing on the potty. It was very, very successful - probably mostly because we waited until Kieran was 3 1/2yo when he was very ready to learn to go on the pot - except for pooping, which you also may remember. The suggestion, from one of the parents, was to reward the child with a beloved toy.

Hmmmm, thought I, would Kieran poop on the toilet and without accidents in his pants if he got a Matchbox car each time he performed? I asked him and he said he would. And he did! He still only poops every third day - when he was an infant and only breastfed, he only pooped once per week - but since the Operation Poop For Cars started he has NOT HAD A SINGLE ACCIDENT! NOT EVEN ONCE!

Through Operation Poop For Cars, Kieran has received 7 Matchbox trucks and two Speed Racer DVDs, one of which comes with a wee Mach 5 racer. The program has now completed and I have no doubt that Kieran will continue his excellent work.

And then there is the peeing at night thing!

A few weeks ago he slept over at my mum's and, despite not ever pressuring me or even saying anything to me, she thinks it's high time for Kieran to night train. Since I hate laundry, I have not wanted to even go there. I mean, sometimes, in our financial feast/famine cycle it's hard just to keep everyone in cleans socks and undies! So, I was content with letting Kieran go to sleep in a pull-up.

Not so my mum, who tried having Kieran go to bed commando and woke him up twice in the middle of the night to pee. Now, when I heard that, all I had were nightmare flashbacks of not sleeping for nearly two years while Kieran and I had marathon middle of the night nursing sessions. It's bad enough that I have to get up in the middle of the night to pee, I wasn't exactly keen on waking my 3 year old and dragging him around in the middle of the night, as well. And, besides, that night my mum attempted to night train Kieran, despite peeing on the toilet twice in the middle of the night, he STILL PEED in her bed around dawn!

Yeah, not my cup of tea.

But, the other night, after Kieran had drank a big cup of water just before we were going to sleep, I made him take a pee before climbing into my bed with me. He was wearing a pull-up, but I still wanted him to void his bladder before bed. It's just healthier.

And he did. And he woke up dry. A fact I can verify due to the nifty little marks on the inside of the pull-up that disappear when peed on.

The next night, I made Kieran run off for his pre-bed pee. Again, he woke up dry.

And, again, last night, off he went to the toilet and in the morning he was yet again dry!

So, I'm marking the calendar with stickers to see how many nights we can go pee-free. I haven't decided on a reward, but I think we should have one. And I'll have to think of it soon. And I'll have to figure out a way to protect his double-sized bed against a near future commando sleep attempt. (I'm thinking fleece backed cheap vinyl table cloth)

It's been a long journey, with lots of ups and downs, but overall, looking back over our progress and our challenges, I think things have gone quite well!

It's not quite over yet, but the end is in sight. Just in time to start the diaper circus all over again from scratch! Hey, have I mentioned I'm thinking of doing cloth diapers? Haha! Yeah, that's a discussion for another day.

More Great Health News, And A Story

I forgot to mention in my last post that the results from my pelvic exam had come back in time for my last midwifery meeting.

And my Pap? It came back clear!

I was so happy, I almost cried.

You see, a few months before Kieran was conceived, my sister was told that she had an abnormal Pap. A colposcopy and cervical biopsy was ordered and my sister informed me, in shaky voice, that she was diagnosed with cervical intraepithelial neoplasia - CIN II: moderate to marked dysplasia, high grade squamous intraepithelial lesions (HGSIL).

What that means is that, if my sister didn't remove the offending cells from her cervix, she would develop cervical cancer in another few years. If THAT wasn't treated quickly, it would eventually spread into the rest of her reproductive tissues. She was booked for a LEEP (loop electrosurgical excision procedure). My sister recommended that I have a Pap to check for abnormal cells.

I did the Pap and it came back abnormal. I booked a colposcopy and biopsy. The day before my appointment, I got my period. I called to see if this would interfere with the exam - it would - and book a new one. The new test was booked for on month and one week hence.

So, exactly one month after my previous appointment day, I was nervously awaiting the arrival of my period. I certainly didn't want it to be late and force another cancellation - I wanted the examining of my cervix to be over with! The day after my period was supposed to arrive, I felt impossibly tired, nauseous and dizzy. I told Sean and he told me I was pregnant. Was that possible?! Oh my goodness!

Just two short weeks previous we had made the giddy decision to forego birth control in the hopes of getting pregnant. But, neither of us really thought it would happen so soon. A pregnancy test confirmed that Kieran had joined us and was little more than a furiously expanding lump of genetically differentiated person material.

I went to the colposcopy and the specialist agreed that my cervix looked like that of a prgnant women, ie. soft. He confirmed the presence of extensive abnormal cells and biospied me.

The biopsy came back, a few weeks later, the same as my sister's: CIN II, HGSIL. It was not a threat to the pregnancy. I did, however, have another colposcopy to check on the health of the cervix before delivery. Thinking back, I wonder if the vinegar that was sprayed on my cervix for the exam (it turns abnormal cells white and visible to the naked eye) didn't irritate it and contribute to my going into labour 3.1 weeks early?

At 6 months postpartum I had my LEEP. A few follow up exams showed my cervix was fine. Against advice, I didn't have routine 6 month paps there on out, due to a problem I had with the specialist.

So, I was a little scared to see what showed up on my prenatal pap. HPV is one of those kinds of STDs that is frighteningly common and can recur indefinitely like Herpes, in some cases. Would I be doomed to repeat the CIN II cycle again in my lifetime due to my exposure to HPV? Did I have active warts on my cervix that could complicate whether I could could continue to receive midwifery care or risk me out of my dreamed of homebirth? Would my pap come back with a secret message: you are dirty and diseased?

Nope! All clear! Hallelujah!

If you haven't had a pap recently, please go have one. Be in control of your health care - for you and for every woman.

Happy News!

Things have been chaotic in our lives recently. We've been having trouble getting our freelance cheques, my only regular, however minuscule, source of revenue. This has messed up our bill paying and we have gotten in a bit of a sticky corner of constantly robbing Peter to pay Paul and then trying to catch up to overdraft repayments... blah blah blah. I'm not poorer than many, but it goes from (relative) feast to famine in sharp and fast cycles around here that are hard for us to negotiate with grace.

So, having said that, we were very lucky to have finally gotten the freelance cheques due January 1 on the second of February. This is especially lucky as, after paying rent, it allowed us to do groceries, pay for a restaurant review (I'll get reimbursed for that next month, or a month later, depending on the publisher's whims)and give ourselves a little treat (woohoo for BSG, Season 2!).

On Saturday night Sean found a computer listed on Kijiji that was ridiculously cheap to our minds. Over the last 6 months, our old G3 iMac has been dying a slow death. Well, actually, the computer was fine, it was the monitor portion that was dying, by getting progressively dimmer. It was so bad that the screen just wasn't visible anymore if the kitchen light was on. I felt like a hermit living in a cave!

So, we decided we should look into the computer. It wasn't until Sunday morning when the urgency hit: our old iMac wasn't just dim, it was flickering. And when Sean rebooted it, the image was so scattered, we couldn't actually read anything on the screen. It took 20 reboots before the screen resolved into anything legible and by then there was a permanent black line running through the middle.

We double checked that we could check the computer out that afternoon, hauled out the coin jars, double checked our bank balance and drove off to buy our new computer.

The computer innards are roughly equivalent to our iMac. This too is a G3, but it's the tower model. And the monitor? The monitor is a hulking 21 inches! Yes, that's right, my monitor is larger than some toddlers and weighs as much as a teenager! Sean almost wasn't able to lift the darned thing into the car and then from the car to the house!

But, the screen is gigantic and bright! The first thing I did when I set it up was to look at my photos on flickr and marvel at how bright and vibrant they were. Then I went and poked around on this very, very funny Geico Caveman flash timewaster. On the old computer, it looked as if the lights in the Caveman's apartment were off! Imagine my surprise when I looked at it on the new monitor!

So, despite the kitchen being in turmoil from having to move furniture around to accommodate Giganto Screen, all is well with the world.

And, after a midwife appointment yesterday and a phone call from the midwives today, all is even better.

First, I'd just like to brag that I didn't gain a single pound in the last month of pregnancy! I'm holding steady at about 5-7 lbs gained total in 18 weeks! I've made a few changes in my eating habits that have helped my goal of minimal pregnancy weight gain:

• Snacks now consist of crudite and dip or pita and baba ganouj and hummus
• I'm drinking slightly less soda than before
• I'm restricting my portions a little and trying not to clean off my plate
• Desserts must include fruit: apple sauce, frozen fruit with ice cream, fruit smoothies, jello with oranges, tinned fruit cocktail...
• Splenda instead of sugar in my tea
• Exercising a little self discipline when dreaming of thinks like Cinnabons and Double Double Butter Kernals popcorn.

With just these few changes, which aren't drastic at all, I'm seeing slow but steady results. Now if I could just get off my rump a do a wee bit of exercise!

Other great news from the midwives: Shrimpie is still with us. And s/he has a strong heartrate in the 150's. My own heartrate and blood pressure continue to be absolutely, stunningly boring.

I'm starting to feel kicking now. And, just like last time, the kicking is really predominant late at night. I find this so thrillingly reassuring I am continually awed with each recognizable baby movement. It is perhaps the reason why I'm extra dopey.

And, finally, the midwife called with my Maternal Serum Screening results. For a woman of my age, it is projected that I have a 1 in 320 chance of creating a child with Down Syndrome. My screening says I have a 1 in 2400 chance of being currently pregnant with a child who has Down Syndrome! I have similarly long odds of having a child with Neural Tube Defects.

Yay me! And yay Shrimpie! So, my instincts about the wellness of this child and this pregnancy were right all along. Or, well, they are most likely to be right.

Next week we go to our midterm ultrasound where we will further check for fetal wellness as well as placental wellness. We will not be finding out the sex of the baby at that or any other time, except, you know, when Shrimpie pops out of mummy's hoohaw and makes it's sex known to us! I do look forward to getting a glimpse at Shrimpie's heart and bones and strangely alien-like skull. I'll let you all have a look after I do.