Tom, my midwife, my doula, and I met Saturday (was going to be Thursday, but my midwife got sick). Here’s the lowdown:

My hemoglobin, as Tom mentioned earlier is up from 7.8 to 9.1. Yea! Thank you for your prayers on that one. She will check it again next Wednesday.

Pollywog’s heartbeat is 144.

My belly is 37 cm.

Urine looks fine. No excess protein.

My birth kit doesn’t include all the stuff that my midwife will bring with her, such as oxygen, drugs to stop hemorrhaging, narcotics (for emergency only), etc. But she put together from the birth kit what Tom will need if my labor is so swift that she can’t make it.

She also told Tom what to do in case I wake up in the middle of the night thinking I need to have a bowel movement, and once on the toilet I realize that it’s a head emerging rather than poo and there’s no time for our midwife to get here. First thing is to get me off the toilet so Pollywog doesn’t fall into the toilet water and/or hit his head on the porcelain. Next is to put some soft things under me so that he doesn’t hit the ceramic tile floor either. Tom should grab a towel for catching the baby as he will be pretty slippery. We should NOT call 911 (unless I’m hemorrhaging or something else is going very wrong.) Apparently, we’ll end up with five fire trucks, six police cars, and any neighbors who are first responders descending upon the house and trying to get to me so that they can catch the baby and get a special pin saying that they’ve delivered a baby. Never mind that I’m the one delivering the baby.

I need to buy food for labor. Fruits, vegetables, easily eaten and digested foods. (BTW, a lot of hospitals won’t let you eat while in labor. All that work and no nourishment. And we know how much I love to eat.)

As my daytime schedule has cleared some, I checked out the YMCA class schedule to see if there was something low impact to get my body going. I do much better getting myself to exercise in a class setting than on my own. So - I saw that on Wednesdays there’s a Chi-Gong class. I got very excited - I’d get to move my body and move some energy too.

I went today, and just about passed out twenty minutes into class. Really. Stars and head swimming and crazy heat radiating from my body. The instructor said that with pregnant women there’s already a whole lot of chi-gong going on in the body, that my blood pressure had probably dropped, gave me some pressure points to work on and said that I needed to learn to breathe more deeply…but that it’s fine to come back next week - we’ll work on all that - and his students who have taken his class before birthing believe that it made a world of difference.

I brewed the New Mommy Stout today. All-grain, dry stout, with herbal additions to support lactation, uterine contraction, and post-partum hormonal balance. This was a special request for Kathryn, who selected the herbs.

I used 8 Tbsp Fenugreek Seed, 5 Tbsp Red Raspberry Leaf, and 2 Tbsp Blessed Thistle, all for the last 10 minutes of the boil. I emphasized the Fenugreek some because it has a subtle maple flavor that will complement the roast barley if it comes through.

Brew went fairly well, with some sparging difficulties. I need to rethink my mash/lauter tun. The hose braid trick isn’t cutting it. I also oversparged slightly, ending up with 6.5 gallons of yield at 1.044 instead of 5.5 gallons at 1.051. I could have boiled it another hour to hit my target, but it’s intended to be a session beer for the wife. She’s enough of a lightweight not to care, and the extra gallon is more important to me than the extra gravity for this one. I also chose to underbitter this one some. 27 IBUs from the hops. This was because Kathryn’s not a hophead, and the Blessed Thistle is intensely bitter, so I wanted to leave a little extra “bitterness headroom” to accomodate it.

Recipe follows: Read more »

The midwife, Tom and I met yesterday. Everything looks good EXCEPT that my hemoglobin is quite low. I’m to get some nettles and be better about taking my supplements (like more than once/day) then we’re going to recheck it in two weeks. And then if it is still low, I will be administered B-12 shots.

My blood pressure is 100/60, I’ve gained some more weight (I was holding at a twenty pound gain for a long while), my belly measures 31 cm. Pollywog’s head is just above my pubic bone; Tom got to feel it - I hope he didn’t squeeze too hard - he doesn’t know how strong he is after pounding metal and playing with big power tools all day. His rear end is a bit below my ribs. Sometimes I can poke at it and feel it bounce back at me.

My midwife says that as I am carrying so much in front that I should really do a belly cast around 37 weeks. I’ll see if I can get a picture up soon. I’m really not that huge - it just looks that way in comparison with the rest of me that is still pretty much the same size. Except for my boobs. I have some now. They’re still small, but now they exist.

I bottled the tomato wine today. 3.5 gallons. Mmmmm…

I would have liked to give it another racking and a month or two more in bulk aging, but I had to empty a carboy in preparation for New Mommy Stout, this next week’s brew. It’s a dry stout fortified with an herbal cocktail that supports lactation, uterine contraction and hormonal balance.* It’s Kathryn’s idea, and my first foray into medicinal brewing. It’ll have red raspberry leaf, blessed thistle, and fenugreek. I might go extra on the fenugreek, it’ll give it a maple flavor. I think that would be nice against the roast barley and the dry finish. I’ll post the recipe when I brew it!

* Note: This statement has not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration, and should not be construed as medical advice.

I just received my first non-recorded campaign telephone call. I’ve gotten two recorded phone calls for Hillary and one for Romney. This one was live, the lady was super nice; it was for Mike Huckabee. I told her I wasn’t sure for whom I would vote on Tuesday.

I keep hoping that it’s the doctor’s office, but no luck there yet. My midwife said that she got me an in with the OB that clandestinely backs her up. Tom has really been wanting me to find one in case we have to transfer, but it is near close to impossible to find an OB in Georgia who will see you after you’ve told her/him that you are planning to birth at home. The chiropractors I’ve been seeing for my pregnancy (I love Mia, but pregnancy isn’t her thing) declared at a screening of The Business of Being Born that they were compiling a list of OBs that would see women planning homebirth. They spoke too soon. The screening was in December. Guess how many doctors are on their list. Zero.

And I should add here that it’s not because homebirthing is unsafe. Statistics show that it’s much more dangerous to give birth in a hospital. But that’s a post for another time. I WILL say that the C-section rate in the Atlanta area is 31% or 1 in 3. The World Health Organization says that it should be no higher than 10%. Homebirth midwives generally have a rate below 3%.

Update: just got a recorded call for the McCain campaign. I told it by pressing 1 that I am going to vote for Ron Paul.

I have caught a cold. It’s all running down the back of my throat, making it very sore, and my midwife has advised against drinking Throat Coat tea because of its high licorice concentration.

Funny thing is, I’ve been working at the chiroprator’s this week because her receptionist guy caught a cold. But he feels too bad to come in. Guys are wusses about being sick.

Good Omens by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman - tongue in cheek apocalypse

Active Birth by Janet Balaskas - it is what it sounds like

Portrait of a Lady by Henry James - car reading - I think I’m on disc 5 of 18 and it currently isn’t boring.

In other news: I have several free tickets to a screening of The Business of Being Born this Saturday in Marietta. Let me know if you’d be interested. Last I heard, the group sponsoring the screening was talking to Ina May Gaskin about whether she could be on the Q&A panel.

Seems that my abdominal muscles are going on holiday. But mainly in ways connected to my legs. Such as when trying to carry a box while half stopped through the attic. Or pushing the box of clothes stored under the bed back under the bed with my foot. Very bizarre. And it’s a strain to lift my legs to put on my shoes. Chrystal (sister-in-law) says it’s my adductor muscles.

Kathryn’s and my first Intuitive Birthing class was today. It was a snoozer for Kathryn and I, all about nutrition. I understand the need, but it was hard to smile and shut up since Kathryn knows more about nutrition than the rest of us in the room combined and squared. The teacher was sharp, though, and the next eight weeks should be good.