Other than that, there isn’t a whole lot to prepare for. The hospital bag is packed and names are picked out. Greg’s parents are booked to arrive two days before my due date (on Vera’s third birthday, no less), and some very sweet friends of ours are throwing us a baby shower in about ten days. As for Veronica, I’m not sure there’s much more to do to prepare her for the coming changes. We’ve read several books over and over about becoming a big sister, and we talk about the baby every day, if not hourly. She still goes back and forth all day long about whether she wants a baby brother or sister and I’m just glad she’s not stuck on one or the other. Glad that I’m not either. At this point I actually feel really exited about having either a boy or a girl.

Also, I’m feeling much better about giving birth. There were a couple of weeks last month when I experienced some serious anxiety about going through the experience again, but something has shifted and I’m actually starting to look forward to it. I had a fantastic birth with Veronica. I had been very focused on having as natural a birth as possible (i.e., laboring without pain medication and birthing without serious medical intervention) and I achieved that goal. I just started to read Vera’s birth story and couldn’t make it through without welling up with tears, so I’ll just let you read it instead.

I’ve been reading that French parenting book, Bringing Up Bebe, which I find totally fascinating and great. The way American parenting looks from the standpoint of this book comes across as pretty silly, and I really agree with a lot of the author’s viewpoints, even realizing that they were some I already shared previous to reading. One paragraph stuck with me the other day though, and it was about how in France women generally welcome an easy, relaxed and medicated birth. For the very first time I saw how working so hard for a natural birth might be a little dramatic. Or at least the book made it seem that way for a brief moment.

However, I still stand by my intention to labor and birth naturally. The experience I had the first time around was profoundly hard and wonderful, and I don’t think I’ve ever been proud of anything else I’ve done (aside from writing a book, maybe). Just in the last week I’ve felt this renewed sense of bravery and ferocity well up in me — perhaps it’s just part of the normal stages of pregnancy that prepare us to do these things — and I’m feeling ready to take on this experience once more.

It’s such a tricky subject though. Natural birth, that is. I want to be clear that I would never look down upon a woman’s decision to go a different route. Giving birth is an extremely personal and individual process and all woman should feel good about how they choose to go about it. We all know what’s best for us and how we need to work with our own bodies. This is just how I want to go about things on my end.

On that note, are you excited to hear my news? Feels like I’ve been blogging about this pregnancy FOREVER. What do you think I’m having?

–

The Hardest Job I’ve Ever Had, an essay I wrote on being a caregiver, for Maria Shriver’s website

Did you get my Letter in the Mail from The Rumpus this week? What did you think?

Upcoming Events:

May 15 at 7pm, Pen on Fire Writers Salon: An Evening with Memoirists Claire Bidwell Smith, James Brown & Dinah Lenney

May 31 at 7pm, Reading & Launch Party for Wedding Cake for Breakfast at the Santa Monica Barnes & Noble

Want to buy my book? Do so at any of the above!

We spend a lot of our weekends this way now. I terribly miss the scope of our weekends pre-baby though. I miss sleeping in, late breakfasts, movies in the afternoons, last minute naps, spontaneous evening plans, drinking more than I meant to. Every single one of those pretty darn impossible with a baby.

Greg and I have a sort of tag team approach to ensuring we get at least some of that done. For instance, Saturday is his day to sleep in. I typically go to work for several hours on Saturday mornings so I have to get up early anyway. Veronica and I do our best to play quietly in the living room while Greg gets an extra hour of sleep…and he repays the favor on Sundays.

Yesterday, after spending the morning as a family, we divided up the afternoon. I went to the coffee shop for a couple of hours to work while Greg stayed home with Veronica. And then when I returned Greg went to the coffee shop while I went out to run errands with V.

It's not the same as life used to be, but it works. I actually got an amazing amount of writing done in those two hours yesterday and came home feeling light and pleasantly sated, ready to devote myself to time with my little Bug.

Now, if we have another kid it'll be a WHOLE different story. Therefore, we WAIT.

Anyway, it's Monday, I have to run. We have music class and then I have to get to work.

Couple of fun things:

My friend Zora is 16 weeks pregnant! And blogging about it, thankfully.

My amazing doula had her third baby a couple of weeks ago and is blogging too! Read the awesome birth story here. Yay for natural birth! Couldn't have done mine without her (even though she yells at me when I say that and reminds me that it was all me).

I went for a check-up with my midwife last week and told her about some cramping I was experiencing so she sent me for an ultrasound to check things out. Being who I am and having the family history that I do, I got a little over-anxious.

On Friday, during the ultrasound, the tech spotted something small on my remaining ovary. Even though I knew it could very well be nothing to worry about I couldn't help but dissolve into a mess for the rest of the morning. I immediately thought about all the worst case scenarios.

The first one was that I had ovarian cancer and would be dead in 6 months and my little girl would never remember her mother.

The second was that I would have to have my ovary removed and would never be able to have any more children. There are a lot of variables to work with in this scenario but it still felt like a pretty terrible idea.

And finally on Friday, after I'd cried in bed for an hour, I took a shower and decided to stop worrying about it. And I really did. I hardly thought about it all weekend or yesterday. And this morning when I drove to the medical center to see the midwife I just felt sure that everything would be fine.

And it was. I most likely have another small dermoid cyst, but it's so small that it could even be an old, collapsed cyst or even just a follicle. It's certainly nothing scary. I go back in 3 months for a follow-up ultrasound to see if it's gotten any bigger.

The funny thing is that Greg and I both wondered if the doctor might tell me that if I want to have more children I should start trying right away. And we were both like, okay. And I meant it. If I'd gone in this morning and the doctor had told me that I would have come home and started trying tonight! But that said, I'm relieved that we can wait a while.

In the first 6 weeks after V was born I remember thinking that I didn't want to have another baby for a LONG time and that I could even understand why some people just have one. But now, 5 months in, Veronica has won me over so much that I can say that I absolutely want to have more babies and would be really devastated if I found out that I couldn't.

I can certifiably say that having my daughter has been the best thing I've ever done. (And that I'm really relieved that I'm not on my deathbed.)