you remind me of the babe....

So I have heard when you are pregnant you are prone to a bunch of crazy dreams generally involving the baby. Apparently your subconscious and your hormones mix to cause all kinds of F*cked up in your head while you sleep. Once again, I am going to have to say I have lucked out!!. Since becoming pregnant I have had an increased number of dreams~yes, however they have all included Jareth from the 1985 Jim Henson movie Labyrinth. SCORE!!!!! Hormones keep em coming!!!!.

Pre-baby game plan...

So I'm pretty sure there are two trains of thought every woman has when the piss stick gives them the green light on pregnancy.

Train A: fear, concern and worry about how they are going to raise their child.

Train B: I'm going to parent better than any other parent in the history of parenting :).

I'm sure one or both thoughts are perfectly normal...at least I hope so. I find myself moving onto platform B these days and the perfect image of my life is forming in my mind. Oh sure I worried a bit at first but now that I'm at the halfway mark I am planning like a mofo!. The rational me knows things are not likely to stay on the right track for too long but the daydreamer in me has a dream of my new life as super mom!!!. Hell, why not strive for super mom, goals are good right?. So as far fetched and over the top as it all may sound I will introduce you to my Martha Stewart/ Stepford wife stay at home mom fantasy!! ( moms with experience feel free to laugh loudly)

My ideal birth will be me handling my contractions like a pro at home, I will wait until the absolute last minute to check into the hospital and ask the doctors to take a step back unless I need their assistance for emergency purposes. In fact, I plan on underplaying my contractions for the nursing staff in an attempt to do the whole deed on my own and have the doctor pop in after for the check up. Also if its a boy hes getting the snip while we are there, no hooded turtle heads living under my roof.

I'm not planning on co sleeping, there is something a bit creepy about it to me (sorry co-sleepers) I'm not opposed to a bassinet for the first few months, nothing is wrong with keeping baby close~but at some point it becomes smother motherish .Two things have always struck me as being a bit more for Mom's comfort and security than for babies~ breast feeding and co sleeping. Don't get me wrong I know the benefits of breast milk, the feeding process just grosses me out. I plan on pumping and mixing up babies routine with breast milk and formula. Formula is supposed to take a bit longer for baby to digest so it will be the before bedtime meal in an attempt to reduce night time feedings. Also whats the point of weaning a baby twice from boobie-bottle than bottle-solids. I will wean once bottle-solids while still giving baby the essential nutrients required, plus I don't have to be my babies hostage~anyone (Chris) can feed the baby if I'm needing a bit of a break.

Television is going to be a big NO for baby and highly restricted for a toddler and child. I have already nabbed many Jim Henson classics such as storyteller/ Muppet's and I plan on getting classic Sesame Street from the 70's and 80's. You know shows where the characters actually spoke the F*cking English language, Not this 'Teletubby'/'Boobah'/or 'In the night garden' gibberish.

BTW am I the only one who thinks the Boobah's look like glittering hairy sacs with unfortunately tiny little pecker heads?. If your able to find them in the toy store take a good look ~their eyebrows are even ribbed for her pleasure.

Or worse still the shows like 'Max and Ruby' or 'Caillou' where the characters all talk slow and simple like they are recovering from a bloody stroke. Children are sponges looking at the world around them for guidance on how to behave and become normal functioning members of society, If you only expose your children to morons and simpletons you'll get what you put into their learning experience. I think I would rather take my kids to the public library instead, encouraging an early love of books can only be a benefit down the road anyhow.

Brightly colored tacky and useless toys (sorry Fisher Price)~Nope!. Automated toys requiring batteries that move/ talk and make other loud annoying sounds will be a no. I'm so glad Chris and I agree on this point. We would rather give our kids toys that force them to use their own imagination in game play than toys that pretty much do all the playing without the child's assistance at all. Some Lego/ action figures/ rubber dinosaurs/ puppets/ play dough and other classics should do the trick, Tickle-Me-Elmo's of the future need not apply. Also for no real reason at all other then it randomly annoys me I'm putting a ban on toy cars/ car outfits and any other baby grease monkey gear. My kids can have cars when they get a damn job and buy a real one, maybe it will act as a super motivator for them to find that first job as a way of "rebelling" against me.......one can hope!. I would also rather they played with toy swords and knight style warriors than soldier toys and toy guns. In a weird way I find it disrespectful to those who have died in wars like WW1,WW2 defending peoples rights and freedoms and to those families who have lost loved ones in Iraq/Afghanistan to make a game of modern war and death. As for ancient warfare, those people don't have any living relatives still mourning their loss.

To work or not to work? Ideally I will not work or only work one or two days for some spending $$$ but only if Chris is able to watch the children on those days. If I'm making shitty customer service style wages I refuse to pay some baby sitter full time. I certainly wont miss out on raising my own children to bring home a piddly $2-3 dollars an hour after childcare and commuting costs. Maybe I will even take in a child or two and watch them with my own to make some extra $$$ while I'm at home. But that will have to wait until my own child is a bit older and more eager to try his/her hand at some Independence, I don't want to sacrifice prime baby-mom bonding time to wrangle other peoples kids.

I think being a homemaker will be fun, keep the house clean, make healthy food for me and the family, spend more time with the baby and puppies. No more being friendly to arseholes I would rather bitch slap in the customer service industry. I would love to go full on Stepford, sew some cute 50's style frocks to wear around home, accessorised with a cute apron. Make awesome Bento style lunches, throw fun little dinner parties every so often to showcase my newly well honed culinary skills :).

I am also in love with the idea of Homeschooling. I know three teachers out here pretty well and have spoken briefly to a few more and the general consensus is children these days are horrible little self absorbed terrors. The Maritime School system is a complete joke, they don't do spelling tests, they are not allowed to fail a child for fear of "hurting their feelings", they were even talking about removing french from the mandatory curriculum because kids found it too hard. The parent who advocated loud and proud for this on the local news was a mother of a highly Autistic child~ so apparently ALL the children have to have school dumbed down now so the few special needs kids can keep up. Not to be a huge bitch (sorry P.C world)~ but how many of the special needs children will be entering the work force full time and paying taxes, as opposed to receiving government assistance to live off of?. Should an entire generations education suffer to avoid hurting a handful of kids feelings?. Fucking hippies running this country on 'the happy face sticker system' I cant wait until people with some common sense take charge again, if not humanity as a whole is doomed.

So in a nutshell my goal is to bring back the good old fashion era of parenting, you know the one where you taught your kids empathy, manners, responsibility. Techniques included: quality time where you teach through personal example instead of letting some underpaid immigrant clean your house and raise your kids for you. Discipline when your child acts out of hand rather than negotiating and pleading with your child when they act out ~If they want a democracy they can get one when they pay taxes and contribute to household bills like the rest of us!. Chores, learning how to cook and clean will only help your kid when he/she is college age and moving out on their own, macaroni and cheese should be a choice not a forced lifestyle condition due to lack of proper skills. It also wont hurt your kids to earn an allowance or a toy through hard work, good work ethics never go out of style and handing your child everything for free is not a helpful life lesson for the real world. Last but not least lets not let classic parenting phrases go the way of the Dinosaur thus depriving future generations of great sayings such as...

"don't make me come back there!" or alternately "so help me God I will turn this car around".

"Who do you think I am David Rockefeller?" or the classic " I'm not paying to heat the whole neighbourhood close that door"

"If you keep it up I will give you something to cry about"

Honestly ask yourself this question can future generations possibly thrive successfully without these parenting staples? I say take a look around at today's kids and you'll find the proof is in the pudding!.

Can you feel it?

So what has been happening in the last few weeks? Well as of tomorrow I'm 20 weeks along~halfway through my pregnancy!!!. Around the last half of my 18th week I started to feel very definite movements in my belly. The best way to describe how they feel would be to compare them to being flicked, but from the inside rather than outside (when I told my sister this her exact response was Eeeeeeewwwwww). They have been located on the left side or lower abdomen more than the right. About a week after I started to feel them Chris was actually able to catch one while laying in bed with his hand pressed firmly onto my belly. It was so cute, the first night I started to get a few in a row I told Chris, he jumped up right away all excited "Can I feel it too?". Unfortunately it wasn't until a few days later he could join me in the excitement.

The other day while walking through Staples we heard a *tink...roll* on the floor in front of us and looked down to see my coat button laying there. It was indeed the button near my belly, I turned to Chris and laughed " I guess the baby kicked it off". He started to laugh and said "Whats the baby doing kung-fu in there?". This made me laugh even harder and I told him "yup, I guess its the reincarnation of Bruce Lee".

Today was the big day~our ultrasound!!!! I had no idea they take so long, I thought it would be a 20 minute thing. We arrived at the hospital at 8:00am and didn't end up leaving until about 9:30am. I had to go in with the ultrasound technician alone for the first hour while she took about 140-150 pictures of the baby~who apparently wasn't cooperating for the important shots!!!. For half of that time I waited patiently staring at the ceiling while she probed my belly, but when she found some good angles she turned the monitor so I could watch too. While watching all our baby shows on TLC, when we see women crying after their babies are born I laugh and call them pussies. Shhhhhhhhh don't tell Chris but I got a little choked up when I saw our babies little face for the first time on the monitor, but for the record I sucked it up and kept myself composed~thank you very much!!!. My baby has all its fingers and toes!!! cute little ears and its heartbeat was around 134 bpm today. The tech was not allowed to tell me the sex of the baby...booooooooooooooo. But she did tell me to look at the screen when she had a good shot from below between its legs....unfortunately what I saw could have been the bottom view of either testicles or a little va-J-J. That's okay in a month or two we are going to do the 3D ultrasound in Halifax anyhow so all is well.

I had to do the near impossible take a short pee halfway through my test to try to readjust the babies position but I wasn't allowed to take a full pee...asking a pregnant woman to do that an hour after consuming a full litre of water is just sick I tells ya sick!!!. But I managed. Afterwards we got the ever illusive spinal shot. I watched the baby move around a bit including open and shut its mouth and throw its arm over its face in the ever dramatic pre-faint pose seen on soap operas. After all the medical shots were taken Chris was able to come in and he pulled up a stool and held my hand while the technician explained all the bits and pieces to him. He was pretty excited, It was a great moment to share with the man I love so much!. She got a few more pictures for us and despite the fact she was only supposed to give us one or two images she gave us four...SCORE!!!.

As I ran into the little bathroom to FINALLY take my real pee I could hear Chris asking a whole bunch of questions about the machinery...ahhh that guy is just so fascinated with his technology :). Apparently the machine she was using was pretty new because instead of getting the frail heat sensitive prints from the machine she was able to burn our images to a disk for us!!. Which we promptly took to Walmart to mail out some images to the Grandma squad and Auntie Tracy.

At last ......drum roll please.................May I present to you MY FETUS!! TADA!!

18 weeks and counting....

(oh hahahaha I just realised my title was an accidental parody of 18 kids and counting)Today I went for my 18 week check up. Since I became pregnant 18 weeks ago I have put on 9 lbs. So 1/2 a lb every week....not too shabby~ especially given all the junk food cravings :(. My uterus is 17 inches long (I believe that's what she said?), My prenatal serum testing came back good and my babies heartbeat is strong and steady. It was a good day and I have to say a weight has been lifted off my shoulders after my maternal serum tests came back negative!!. I am supposed to be feeling the baby soon, I'm not sure if the random abdominal twitches I have been getting are it or not?, although I had a stomach twitch when the doctor was giving me my Doppler test and she replied that she could see some strong movement~so maybe its not wishful thinking on my part after all.

I have exactly 10 days until my first ultrasound at the hospital. I have been told that they wont tell me the sex of the baby, But I'm still going to try to get it out of them......maybe slip them a $20.00 :). If that doesn't work all is good as I plan on making a trip up to Halifax to do the UC baby 3D ultrasound this January or February!. Am I hoping for a boy or girl?, I don't care as long as the baby is healthy and normal. But if I had to guess what I'm having I'm going to guess boy. I may be one of those out of touch Moms with no sense of motherly intuition on the matter ~but that's the gut feeling I am getting about it....that's okay, boys can play with Unicorns too right?.

In two more weeks I will be halfway through my pregnancy~wow time flies!! especially when you have so much to do to prepare for the arrival of a baby. The downside of this week is everyone is commenting on how pregnant I'm looking including the neighbours I barely talk to. So I'm feeling a little fat~ but only in the stomach, its like I went on my three day break and came back with a Cornish hen in my belly. But at long LOOOOOOONG last my boobies have arrived!!! I have only been waiting for these girls to show up since I was 12!. That's right ladies and gentlemen I have bounced out of the lightweight B division into a respectable C cup at long last!!!. Hello new bras, goodbye my pert and perky friends~these babies got some weight to them!!!.

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!!!!.