Adventures with Hodgkin's

I was pretty sure this little girl was going to come this weekend. I started having irregular painless contractions on Saturday night, so Kevin and Conor couldn't go on their ski trip to Tahoe. But, no progression. I'm still having those irregular contractions, and at my weekly doctor visit I was told that I'm going to have a baby. But it's not "imminent". There really is no level of precision in this whole endeavor. They checked my progress, but I'm not sure you can call it progress, actually. Part of me thinks I will progress further, but part of me thinks that this baby is in the same situation as Conor--she can't descend any further, so she's just getting squeezed!

This week was also the Childbirth Refresher course, and there have been some changes since we took the course five years ago. One significant change is that the video you watch has non-hippie-looking couples *and* computer graphics. Something that has not changed is that there are still only two ways to deliver a baby--neither of which is appealing at this point.

The video was better, and worse. While it was nice to see couples that you might actually see on a street other than Haight, the computer graphics made both Kevin and I claustrophobic. There are many things about delivering a baby that I will never see, but thanks to this video I have some cheesy graphics to help me visualize a very small human being forced out through a very small opening. And I thought spelunking made me claustrophobic.

Since it was a refresher, we all told our birth stories and got some advice. Kevin and I were among the C-Section/VBAC couples who were asked to stay after class to get more specific help. Each couple was given some positive news based on the reason for the C-Section. Except us. My cause was "failure to progress", and apparently there's a reason the word "failure" is in there. The instructor actually said, "I don't have any advice for you."

I was so startled I refrained from asking why we had to stay an extra half hour to hear that.

I've been honored! A former boss (from Schwab), Ron Lichty has been participating in the Leukemia and Lymphoma Team in Training events, and this year he honored me. He completed a 25K cross-country ski race (in wet snow, no less, which he likened to skiiing in stiletto heels). His story is here, and you can see the bracelet he wore with my name:

At nine months, it is a race to the finish. Me and my expanding belly versus five-year-old elastic. Despite the style issue, I am wearing maternity clothes from a friend who has a child Conor's age. Of course, she splurged on her clothes, so they are nowhere near as outdated as mine. (I can only stand to wear one or two things of mine.) Mixing in some new things helps. While I definitely prefer the new maternity clothes, they do have tend to expose your underbelly because the pants below the horizon, and the shirts are not the long shirt-dresses of yore--they often are juuuust long enough to hit your butt in the back, which means that in the front, especially during this last month, there's just not enough fabric to keep everything covered. Fortunately, this baby is keeping me warm enough to think that draft feels good!

I went to a breastfeeding refresher course last night. This made my mother laugh out loud. Apparently, us paranoid over-compensating way-too-prepared moms are quite amusing to her generation. It was amusing to me, too, especially since I had my second conversation ever about my nipples.

The useful bit, other than reminding me about what breastfeeding entails, was pointers to decent information on breastfeeding and radioactivity. The man who wrote the book, literally, on breastfeeding and drugs is from Texas Tech and is supposed to be nice enough to respond to random questions from the general public. My oncologist wants another PET scan, my final one, in June, and I have to figure out how to do it safely since I'll be breastfeeding.

Nesting has kicked in, and it apparently includes getting rid of things. I have a trunk full of things to go to Goodwill. I have bags of things to go to a friend with twin boys. I called JunkAway.com to get rid of our sofa sleeper, since no one seems to want a cat-scratched sofa sleeper, not even the Salvation Army. I vacuumed under the bed. Hung curtains. Bought a new bedspread. And blackout shades. And wood putty to repair a window sash that's had a hole for two years. (The latter two are not for me, and Kevin is just thrilled to be included in my nesting projects.)

I have also started stocking things a baby needs--I bought diapers. I've been going through baby clothes and am preparing to wash everything. (Although I'm not sure I'll buy Dreft this time!)