So, let's cut to the chase: We went to visit Mark's parents because it was his paternal gran's 90th birthday party this weekend. His paternal gran is a hoot and very feisty. Warty, Mark's mom, not so much. Here's a list of things she did to piss me off:

- Breastfeeding. I feed Bert on-demand. However much he wants for as long as he wants and usually just on one boob. She does not think I should feed on-demand. She kept bringing it up the whole time I was there. She thinks I feed him for too long and too often. Obviously, she would know about his eating habits more than he would. She says she fed her kids 5 times a day for 10 minutes on each boob, but she also fed them ONCE during the night for the first few weeks.
After I left the room to feed Bert once, she announced, "She'll learn her lesson about feeding on demand soon enough!"
She would NOT let the subject drop about breastfeeding!!

- Baby carriers. She apparently was going to buy us a stroller/pushchair and was really mad when she learned we didn't want one, so the whole time we were there, she nagged about my not having one for Bert and kept posing these ridiculous scenarios where I might need one or have too many kids for my arms and how I'll be tied down to the house without one and even though loads of other cultures don't use them to this day, it won't be easy not having one. So? I don't mind the extra exercise.

- His name. Bert was named after Bertie Wooster from Jeeves and Wooster. "An affable half-wit," she kept saying. She hates Bert's middle name. Affable half-wit, eh? That's one up on you, Warty, at least he's affable.

- Birth pains. I know some people have a really awful time, but I didn't. Childbirth is hard and painful, apparently, and having a birth plan doesn't matter. Sorry, I thought I was the one who just had a kid, not you. And I'm saying it wasn't so bad for me.

- Feeding Bert solid food when he's old enough. I don't want to feed Bert food that he knocks on the floor. I worked in the food industry and am kind of OCD about hygiene. She insisted that I would and that, despite my claims to good hygiene almost to an obsession, she'd seen my apartment in Portland and I could never care about hygiene. There's a link between cleaning and good hygiene, despite their being obsessively clean and having the worst hygiene habits ever (this was sparked by Mark's dad eating a crumb Mark dropped on the floor and my closing my eyes and trying not to gag).

Not to mention, she totally wasn't sympathetic when I mentioned my favourite grandmother just had a second stroke and is not exactly in the best condition. I just found out they gave her 3 weeks to live, although it's been 3 weeks and she is doing a little better.

We call her Warty because her hands are COVERED in warts. Like, at least 8.

I have MORE to say, but I need to go feed Bert (even though it's doesn't fit into Warty's schedule because I fed him less than 4 hours ago).

P.S. HEY WARTY, GUESS WHAT? MY SON PEED ON YOUR UGLY DUVET!

Indigenous to the shores of Loch Long, the native Belly Baby has the ability to blend seamlessly into any background.

I forgot to add that after hours of patiently helping me deliver my baby, the midwife made Mark and I toast and tea. It just doesn't get any better -- or more British -- than that!

There are some photos of the little doodlie here and we will be posting more every few days, I'm sure: http://flickr.com/photos/nightingales/sets/72157605399919342/

Okay, I am going to get going. I did laundry, folded the laundry from yesterday (we started him on cloth diapers yesterday and obviously cloth dialers + baby laundry means washing more often -- also, the cloth diapers give him a total puffy-butt, which is really funny), and am all caught up with everything -- except for last weeks episode of Lost (the season finale) that I missed because I was busy giving birth.

Also, the stitches I got aren't a bother at all as long as I stay hydrated, but my haemorrhoids -- my god, today is the first day I've been able to sit at my computer (with a pillow under my butt). They are really my only post-partum complaint. I looked at them in the mirror the other day and, like I told Josi, it looks like my asshole is wearing one of those Mickey Mouse ears hats! The 'Anusol' (that name cracks me up) I got at the hospital hasn't made a difference, but one of the midwives that came to visit brought me a gel with cypress and geranium oils in it and that is helping a lot. If I ice the buggers down, it feels like I have a massive wedgie. Seriously, one of the haemorrhoids is bigger than my son's wee schmeckle.

Congratulations to jdm13 from livejournal who nailed it with her prediction stats.

Also, good guess, Braxto, who sent me a myspace message saying I would give birth on 30 May and then got the phone call that I'd popped.

5 days late, labour was an uncomplicated 13 hours, he has a decent amount of dark hair, weighed 6 lbs 13 oz, and he has slate blue eyes (which will change to brown or brownie-green soon enough). I swear no one in my family had blue eyes at birth (although suddenly my mom says my little sister's were when I totally remember them being black), maybe it's Mark's anglo blood.

Anyway, labour kicked off at about 10 minutes to 2am (I told you I'd start going before I got a chance to get any sleep). Contractions were 8 minutes apart straight off the bat. After an hour, I phoned the hospital to ask when I should go in, they said to phone once contractions were 5 minutes apart. I thought I'd take a bath, but Mark had taken a shower and there wasn't a lot of hot water and even after 3 teakettles of hot water, the bath wasn't doing much for me and contractions were 5 minutes apart anyway. The hospital said to come on down, so we phoned an ambulance (you can do that in the country here) and by the time we arrived at the hospital (a) I was huffing on a little gas and air, which only took the very edge off contractions, but was great at keeping me focused (b) having contractions every 2-2.5 minutes. It was maybe a quarter to 7am at this point.

I'd been having reservations about giving birth in a hospital, but this was a great place -- my whole labour was midwife-led and no doctors were involved (they were on-hand in case of an emergency, but I only ever saw them in the hallway). The midwives were REALLY respectful of my birth plan and when shifts changed or new girls came in to assist or give other midwives a break, the more particular bits were pointed out (no episiotomy under any circumstances, no injection to help deliver placenta faster). The first thing they did was offer me a bath. My contractions were coming on hard and strong and -- okay, I wussed out on the original plan and took a morphine injection in the ass, okay!? I was shaking and mildly panicking from the strong and fast contractions. Anyway, they monitored the baby's heartbeat and the morphine (not to mention all my contractions throughout the labour) had no effect -- he was going strong.

Here's the thing about morphine -- like gas & air, it doesn't take the pain away at all, but takes the edge off it. I'm not sure it even took the edge off it in my case, but it helped calm me down from mild panic (I wasn't expecting the contractions to come on so hard and fast) to just gimping out over being in labour. Plus, it wore off in a couple hours. My next injection was due at noon and I didn't get one (although I would have taken one if offered). I was fully dilated by then and they had me try out a bunch of positions to get the baby further down the canal. The one I hated the most, left-side, worked the best. Those contractions were really painful and hurt my hips.

Eventually, it was time to push. Yeah, they really don't call it the ring of fire for nothin'. It was scary, but once his head started to poke out and they let me touch it (and that head of hair -- partially-birthed baby heads feel like boiled eggs), I started feeling a little more hopeful (I'd been pushing for a while -- it is exactly like taking a big shit). I was on my hands and knees when the head popped out and the umbilical cord was wrapped around his neck twice so they had me flip over and sit up for the rest of the delivery. But really, once the head is out, it's all downhill. He looked a lot cuter than I thought he would. I'm not saying he's the cutest baby ever, but I've seen some downright scary newborns and I was expecting to have one of those. ;p

While Belly Baby and I did some skin-to-skin contact, the midwife helped deliver the placenta and Bertie took a big poop on me.

Other than that, my nipples are a little sore (the midwives say it's normal as I get used to breastfeeding and that he has a good latch), I have 2 VERY angry haemorrhoids, and a wiggling son who poops a lot.

Newborns don't have very good vision, but they do like high-contrast shapes and patterns. I figure my baby might like something interesting to look at, so I crocheted this for him. It's a little wonky on the upper-left, but he's a newborn and is hardly in a position to critique my handiwork.

It's the first blanket I've ever made! Now that I'm done, I can go into labour. ;p

Based on the patterns for a mobile from sleepingbaby.net.


Fully pregnant. I'm due today. This photo is from yesterday. Not the most flattering photo, but I figure everyone's looking at my belly and not my face so I don't need to wear make-up for all my photographs. ;D

I like big guts and I cannot lie.

We went down to the beach today and saw this beached whale.

Since I'm due in ~ 2 weeks but could really pop at any time (a friend of mine from GCC was due the same day and popped last early last week!), I figured I would make a few predictions:

He will be born late. (I would love to be wrong on this one, but statistically, first kids are late.)
Bald, but eventually brown hair (which will likely start off light, like mine did).
Brown eyes (possibly brownie-green, but never ever blue).
He will weigh between 7.5 - 8.5 pounds.
Labour will suck, but be relatively uncomplicated and last no longer than 18 hours.


I had trouble sleeping this morning because my trackball hips were a little achey (they get like that if I lie down for too long sometimes) -- okay, it was just the left hip joint.. I was a teeny wee bit concerned that our weekly 3.5 mile round-trip walk to the paper shop would do a number on my hips, but I actually feel a lot better after the walk! Actually, I felt better as soon as I got up, but the walk was very invigorating!

I'm glad the clowns didn't attack me in my sleep! ;p


Also, I spent a small fortune sending flowers and a plant to my awesome German paternal grandmother (who is in a nursing home after a stroke) through FTD.com because they took paypal and because they said all paypal members get 20% off. I didn't get the 20% off, the "brimming with hope" rose plant I ordered had 2 rotten brown roses on it instead of lots of yellow ones (hardly 'brimming with hope'), and the vase for the orchids was broken on arrival. I emailed them asking for a refund on the rose plant and a partial refund on the orchid vase. My aunt, probably the most positive person ever, is the one who told me about the vase and rose plant -- if she says the plant looked bad, it must have been REALLY bad -- I'm not sure I've ever even heard her say anything negative before! My aunt had another vase on hand for the orchids, thankfully.

This morning, I received an email back ignoring both the vase issue and my lack of a 20% discount issue saying that in order to replace the rose plant, they would have to refund my paypal account and charge a credit card. Okay, first of all, I picked them because I wanted to pay with paypal I'm not giving them my credit card number. Secondly, I asked for a refund and not a replacement on the rose plant -- I worked in a flower shop and we would have been raked across the coals if anything like that would have left our shop and we always rectified broken vases and offered refunds and such (even though florists are notoriously cheap).

At least the orchids turned out splendidly, despite the vase issue. You can always count on orchids and tropicals.

Week 39 starts today.

Dang, Mark phoned his mom and she's seen the flickr photos, said I was looking really big (no kidding), and asked how much I weighed. So Mark said I weighed as much as him and when she asked how much that was, he said, well, mom, how much do you weigh? She didn't want to say and Mark said, it's only fair for you to disclose your weight if you're asking our weight. We weigh 6 pounds more than she does. But Mark's mom was all, oh, well, I didn't weigh this much when I was pregnant.* And Mark was all, Oh, well, you must be getting fat then, letting yourself go! ;p
Mark is my little hero. I thought that was a pretty awesome comeback. I mean, sheesh, lady, you're feeling competitive weight-wise with a pregnant lady, what the heck is wrong with you!? Not to mention, I'm probably going to give birth to bigger babies than she did. Mark was like 5.5 pounds. Even if my kid only weighs 7.5 pounds, that's 2 more pounds. I was 9.5 pounds.

*Which is a lie.

Did I mention Mark's maternal grandparents phoned a couple weeks ago saying they wanted to get us something for the baby, but said they heard I was being very strict and picky about what we want? I'm sure I mentioned it. I asked for a diaper bucket and they said just to buy one and they'd pay us back. Well, we got the £5 cheque, but they also enclosed a letter saying that they didn't think the baby would appreciate a nappy pail and here are 2 stuffed animals, we got them second hand (they like second hand as much as I do and both volunteer in second hand shops) and they have been cleaned and even though one of them doesn't have the child-safely label, it should still be safe.
*SIGH*
This is exactly what I was trying to avoid! I have a HUGE box of my old toys my mom sent me -- so many, I had to lay down the law and tell my mom not to send us any more toys. (Of course, she had to send us ONE MORE, but it was different, because...)
I'm sure you're wondering what they got. One was a wee teddy bear, which is cute, except I have been given at least 4 of those by now. The other is a chain of 3 terrifying stuffed clowns with x's for eyes. I HATE CLOWNS! THEY CREEP ME OUT!!

I am going to donate the scary clowns to charity.

Also, I would rather my kids didn't have stuffed animals until they are past the 'I CHEW ON THINGS' phase because stuffed animals (at least the fuzzy ones) are good at catching dirt and fluff and dust and such. I know that is a particular Chloe-hang-up (thinking stuffed animals are kind of grotty), though.
SCARY SCARY CLOWNS!!!

I think from now on when people ask if they can get us anything or if we need anything for the baby, I am just going to say no. At least with older people. People closer to my age seem to be better at sending practical things and more understanding about my fear of too much stuff. Then again, I have loads of baby stuff, I don't think I need any more (other than diapers (both kinds), because I am a posh cloth diaper (and wrap) addict and don't have enough in all the right sizes and will be using disposables when I travel anyway).

X-EYED CLOWNS OF DOOM!!!

They say some pregnant women just glow. I don't think this is what they meant.

The shirt says, "If my mom calls, I'm not here."

I'm popping out of the bottom of my maternity shirts. I weigh 132 lbs -- as much as my husband (I've gained 34 pounds so far). Week 38 started yesterday. You can really see how much the baby has 'dropped' in this pic!

Also, I've made a preggo photo set so you can see the progress of my magical expanding belly.