Ideal plans....

So I know as well as anyone that life doesn't always go according to plan, but if we never made plans or had goals we would accomplish nothing. I wouldn't call myself a control freak, but when I get an idea of what I want I can be pretty damn stubborn until life finds a way to accommodate me. The process of pregnancy so far has been pretty good, in fact better than I had ever expected it to be. I was convinced being pregnant would be a nine month exercise in human suffering and endurance~ in fact I would laugh at women who claimed they "missed" being pregnant or had enjoyed the experience. But as my belly gets a bit harder and more rounded I find myself doing the absent minded belly stroke and (I cant believe I'm saying it) I am actually enjoying the process.

Now that the pregnancy is becoming more real everyday I find myself trying to come up with a game plan, how do I best tackle the whole birthing dilemma?.

Am I scared? not really, its not like I'm going to be doing it in a shark tank. Hell if 13 year old sluts can give birth why cant I?. Your talking to a chick who has given herself a full Brazilian wax on more than one occasion. If you can muster up the courage to rip off that wax strip you earn your 'warrior' badge.

I have been trying to do some research on the subject which includes watching a few documentaries, reading some articles, I'm going to be getting a few books on Amazon this month (including 'birthing from within' Mrs. Diva ;) ). From what I have seen the only thing that bothers me about the process is the Doctors. I wont lie to you, I hate the hospital, I don't trust pharmaceutical companies, I have not gone for a single flu shot ever, nor will I go for the H1N1 vaccine. The less I associate with medical professionals the healthier I have been. So the whole concept of putting my faith into a group of sterile, strangers I don't want to be associated with bothers me.

Living in a small and highly unevolved town my options however are limited as the nearest midwife is 5 hours away in Halifax. I also see no point in paying a Doula (should I find one) to fight for me in the hospital setting as I have no problem giving any doctor or nurse a verbal episiotomy of the asshole should they cross my boundaries. With my limited options and medical trust issues there is an idea which seems so highly appealing to me I find it hard to dismiss.....wait for it.......unassisted home birth.

http://www.unassistedchildbirth.com/uc/

I have been doing allot of reading up on the subject and it sounds utterly perfect for someone like me. No doctors/ nurses/ no epidural/ no fetal monitors/ no episiotomy/ no forced inoculations (due to hospital policy)to the baby, some possibly containing thimerosal. No one trying to rush your labour for their convenience with the use of drug inductions, no one telling you to push or to stop pushing against your bodies own natural urges. Just a woman giving birth the way nature intended it. If the show "I didn't know I was pregnant" has taught me anything (other than the fact that there are allot of stupid women out there) is that babies can be born all over the place, bathroom floors/ toilets/ bedrooms/ without any prenatal care and still come out healthy and normal.

The only concern is what happens if you DO have complications, breached baby, unstoppable hemorrhaging, umbilical cord knots. The small percentage of people who experience these problems didn't see them coming until they have already begun to happen. That is when a medical professional is absolutely mandatory. Lots to think about anyhow.....nature vs. science. The only thing I know for sure, I'm doing this thing MY WAY whether it means being the she bitch from hell in a hospital setting to ensure it does or whether I take matters into my own hands.

Advice to live and grow by...

That's right all you moustached babies, Im on to you!!! I know for a fact that guns dont kill people, people with moustaches do!!!.

Looks just like.....

So I have a few parental pet peeves, nothing I would lynch anyone over but little things about new parents that I hope I never find myself doing or saying. The list:

1 - Babies are precious and a huge monumental life change for people, they are however not 'miracles'. Child bearing is a part of nature that occurs every day all over the world. The only time a child should be allowed the title of miracle is if it has survived despite all odds stacked against it. Lets not dilute the meaning of the word to an average life occurrence that millions experience.

Miracle: dictionary.com

"1. an effect or extraordinary event in the physical world that surpasses all known human or natural powers and is ascribed to a supernatural cause.
2. such an effect or event manifesting or considered as a work of God.
3. a wonder; marvel.
4. a wonderful or surpassing example of some quality: a miracle of modern acoustics."

~Chris and I do not agree on this matter however!

On a related note naming your child :Angel or Faith etc. is really corny, in fact its so sickeningly sweet it threatens to put me into a diabetic coma.

2- Looking at a newborn baby and making physical reference descriptions, "Oh wow he/she looks just like his father/ or uncle Herbert etc.". If I were to guess the paternity of most newborns by the way they look Walter Mathau would have allot of explaining to do. Newborns look like....wait for it...... newborns. Unless your comparing them to your wrinkled pucker faced 90 year old grandfather they will not start to develop any recognizable genetic facial similarities for a few months. Their nose/chin and round little head will all grow and change as well as their eye color and hairline. If you tell me my newborn looks like me, I will take it as a hint that a face lift is being recommended.

3- Naming your baby after the father. Lets see: Mom gets to go through 9 months of discomfort including: morning sickness, stretch marks, hemorrhoids, hormone induced breakouts, gestational diabetes, extreme fatigue, weight gain, depression, shortness of breath, the mask of pregnancy (rough scaly skin patches that sprout up in random blotches on her face), skin tags, migraines, the list goes on. On top of the fact she is allowed little to no medication during the pregnancy to alleviate many of the symptoms, then here's the kicker, she gets to go through hours of painful contractions and stretch her poor lady bits to kingdom come, sometimes resulting in perennial tearing to bring the baby into the world and~wait for it..... DAD GETS THE EGO BOOST with junior taking HIS NAME!!!!.

Naming a son after his father has always struck me as a desperate way for women to attempt to force a connection between father and child. If your hubby/ boyfriend etc. cant love the baby as an individual but needs to love it as a narcissistic extension of himself is he really the role model you want in your kids life?. Hell while your at it why not give the guy a cattle brand and let him sear his dominance over your uterus once and for all.~ Not to mention any name that is eventually shortened into the kids first initial followed by .J, is kind of unfortunate especially if the poor kids name is Bob or Billy.

4-Last on my list but first in my heart on issues that bother me when couples become new parents, good-bye 'Mittens' and 'Rover'. So as a couple you set out to add to your family before you were quite ready to take the parenting plunge. You brought home a furry little bundle of joy. You raised this furry step child, teaching it what it needed in order to be a productive member of your family, you loved it and it loved you unconditionally.

Then one pee stick and nine months later your surrogate child takes a back seat in your heart and your life. Walking the dog is not on your to do list anymore your to busy watching the new baby drool all over himself. Playing with the cat is irrelevant now that your new baby is shaking his rattle on the floor. In fact maybe a few months have gone by and you decide hell, even feeding and grooming my once beloved best friend is too much effort. Time to set up a freebee add on Kijiji~ yours to take one forgotten and formerly loved family member, now that we have a REAL baby our family member is no longer required to fill that missing gap in our hearts. Thanks for the loyalty, love and memories but sayonara sucker!!!!.

what a sad world.....

So through some random web surfing I stumbled across a little documentary called "Consuming Kids". I highly suggest anyone with Children or planning on having one watch it. You can watch the entire thing on Google video. Its pretty disturbing the extent of marketing corporations gear towards kids. Its little wonder we have 10 year olds dressing like hookers and children so self absorbed and materialistic these days.

I can guarantee after watching this that cable will only be available to mommy and daddy after the kids are in bed in my house. I also can guarantee for the sake of my Children's childhood there will be pretty monitored Internet and media access as well.

Wow I never thought I would be one of "those" parents, but looking at the way the next generation is behaving I think its time to bring back some good old fashioned values. It may sound hypocritical of me as a frequent user of this technology, however when I was a little kid I was not exposed to as much as these children are. I had a chance to grow up and appreciate a day at the beach with my family, Now kids spend more time in front of the computer/ cell phones/ and television than they do with their families. What kind of childhood memories are an Xbox 360 going to create?. What kind of values are children being taught by their families?, I can guarantee not as many values as the corporations are stuffing in their little spongy brains.

~Looks like parenting just got allot more complicated.

Maternity wear, Nightmare...

So living in a small town has its draw backs, especially when looking for maternity clothing. I checked out both Walmart's, and the pants they have available look like granny slacks with a a super huge stomach (the interfacing comes right under my tits/ think Steve Urkel extreme). I couldn't help but think, If I'm old enough to like the style of these things I am WELL past menopause, in fact I'm most likely spending my pension at the bingo hall. My next trip took me to Zellers, which used to have a decent sized maternity section, now absolutely nothing, the entire section has been removed. At this point my regular jeans are beginning to make me feel like an over stuffed sausage so I'm trying desperately to find some options.

As Chris and I hit the mall we see mannequins in the Ricki's window with the full maternity gear on and the clothes are pretty cute too!. We walk in take a look at the $80.00 price tag on a pair of jeans I will only wear for a few more months, then walk out. Online I notice Old Navy's maternity jeans look nice and are half the price. So I plan to send Chris up to nab me a few pairs on his next business trip.

This Friday after dinner out, I convince Chris to let me browse at my favourite store V.V boutique, better known to the world as Value Village and lo and behold I hit the mother load (pun fully intended!). A modern Mom must have recently shed her baby weight because before me is a rack full of nice maternity jeans (Gap/Thyme maternity) and Thyme maternity t-shirts in relatively new condition. I stock up and manage to get half a dozen jeans and an armful of shirts for $100.00 bucks. On top of that I find an awesome snugli carrier for the baby at $5.00. SCORE!!!~man do I love a good deal. The icing on this cake is the vintage solid wood high chair we found last week for $35.00 tax included!, I have been looking for a decent one on ebay for weeks. As I know first hand from my time baby sitting a few years ago these modern "lazy boy" chairs with their waterproof cushioned padding glued down to the chair are a nightmare to clean. All the seam grooves are the perfect place for crumbs to find their final resting place. This way I will just make a few baby cushions to tie down to the back of the chair that can be untied and thrown in the wash if they get too gross.

I'm slowly starting to accumulate a stash of goods for baby and Chris's Mom will be shipping me out two rubber maid bins of cute baby stuff I have been collecting over the years. Its hard not to want to tuck something away for your future when your out browsing gift ideas for friends babies :). So I'm hoping my recent haul and the arrival of a few more items should curb my urge to splurge at least until after my ultra sound when I know for sure if its a girl or boy.

Its Alive!!!!!

Today Chris and I went to the doctors office together for our regular check up. I put on three pounds since my last check up about five weeks ago (better be in the baby areas and not my ass!!!). The highlight of my visit and my week for that matter was we were able to listen to the babies heart beat for the first time!!!. That was pretty exciting, especially since my symptoms have been so mild, somedays it feels more like Im getting better from a cold and its easy to forget Im pregnant. Hearing the baby and being reassured by the doctor that his/her heartbeat is strong made this process a little bit more real to me, there really is someone living and growing inside of me, its not just my imagination.

Later I asked Chris why he doesnt seem as excited as I do about the baby and he laughed at me telling me he is just as excited, but that I probably dont think anyone is as excited as I am about it. As Im the only one really experiencing any of the babies growth/symptoms right now. He then told me the baby is like an imaginary friend to him at this point. He believes its there but he cant see it or feel it because its "hiding away in Narnia, but once Mr.Tumnus decides to come out and say hello he will know for a fact hes real". I had to laugh, this whole time I thought I was having gas pains turns out it was really an epic battle between good and evil in my womb a.k.a "Narnia"!!!

where is the love????

Read the following article and then read the rest of this post!

TomCat

I'm not sure whether or not this article should make me sad or just pissed off~lets go with pissed. What the hell is wrong with the world today?, since when was having a family about how many millions you could collect for subletting your womb space?. As a soon to be future mother stories like this make me mad, there are so many people in the world who love each other and want to have a family together but are just not able to for medical reasons, then there are those who CAN and treat the process as a commercial venture.

People like this should be sterilized, There is no way a child can be brought up in this type of atmosphere and receive genuine love from both parents.

"Mommy, Daddy, how much do you love me?"

"Oh honey, the reason Mommy had you was so she could afford more Prada bags, so your right up there with fashion on my love scale!"

"And Daddy loves you 11 million dollars worth, dont believe me? read the fine print son!"