Lemony Webbles

Billy Billy Billy

I want to give a round of applause here to my husband who I didn't even mention in the last post! He was the ultimate labor helper, being supportive and saying all kinds of good stuff when I needed to be talked through the difficult contractions. And at the end, I was squashing his hand really hard and wouldn't stop even when he mentioned it. I told him I didn't feel sorry for him, and I meant it. He took this in stride, and stayed right there. With no sleep to mention, he's been taking care of our children almost all the time and doing as much housework as he can ever since then. He's doing the job I usually do but without the evening break of a fresh face that he usually gives me. And without the sleep that people generally get when they are doing hard work. This is probably the hardest working vacation he'll ever take. Love love love to you Billy dear.

Teresa Dorothy!!!

In case you missed it in the comments section of the last post, Teresa was born February 20 at 3:05am. It was very cozy and private to give birth in the middle of the night. We had a great experience with the hospital staff- Ray the gentle midwife with a twinkle in his eye, Jessica our doula who sang with me and said all the right things, a spot-on lactation consultant who helped short-tongued Teresa get coordinated for nursing, and many many competent, polite, and helpful nurses. The labor went really well- more on that in another post- with very little fear and lots of good support . Teresa surprised me by being littler than I thought she would be- 6 lb 14 oz, just an oz less than Georgia was- and 19 in long. She came out relatively calm with a few well placed yells of protest. She has dark hair and dark eyes so far, Grandma Amy's chin, my toes and fingers, and Billy's cute nose. She's very healthy and not a super sensitive baby, so she's relatively easy to take care of. She's got a special look of happy anticipation that she gives me when she wants to nurse. It's very winning. Here are a few early pictures:

Teresa Dorothy Baker in her hospital duds

Amia welcoming her new friend (they were born in the same room with the same midwife!)

Liz and Nate oo-ing

Liza welcoming Teresa

Amia, Georgia, Teresa and Liza playgroup

Jessica our wonderful doula

Baby Comin'

Teresa's on her way! Bahiyyih's water broke about a half hour ago (around 8:20), and Zivar and Dan and a passel of Guyots came by and picked up Georgia and Maya.

We'll head off to the hospital in a few minutes -- Bahiyyih's taking a shower at the advice of the nurses at Carle.

still nothing

I was reduced to whining yesterday afternoon with the self-conscious pain of boredom and severe waiting-itis. Georgia looked at me incredulously and said, "Mom, you're whining!". I said, "I know, isn't it awful? Sometimes even grown-ups whine." We had some releif with Liza coming over to visit us for a little while to retreive her Mr. Potatohead's shoes, but for the most part it was a painful afternoon. I've been thinking it's better for me mentally to feel prepared and waiting all the time so that when it is the moment I go into labor, I don't feel shocked, suprised, and then scared. Desire cancels out fear with that strategy. And when I got myself to not feel all wait-y and anticipatory and then I started having contractions, I was terrified because I felt like I wasn't ready and didn't want to be labor or having a baby at that particular moment. But keeping up with the waiting mode is very tiring, especially as the week drags on. Happily it's Friday and this weekend is Cake Night. Hey, Maya was born during a Cake Night (though not AT Cake Night)! I just remembered that! Cool! I'll try not to be superstitious about that though because it could be another long dragging week before Teresa's ready to join us out here.

Today's distractions: Quilting Teresa's quilt more closely now that I have a walking foot, trying to cook roasted potatoes like Zivar does, playing with post it notes.

nothing to report

If I had anything to report, labor-wise, I sure would. My body keeps getting closer and more ready, but it's all that stuff that doesn't set a time for when labor will start, but just means I am, indeed, in the last couple weeks before the birth. Some days I feel really tired and hormonal and enormous, other days I feel energetic and relatively normal. Current distractions from the waiting (besides caring for two little girls all day): knitting, buying Ayyam-i-Ha presents, taking walks.

Teresa treasures

Here's a picture Billy took (thank you for fussing so much to get this just right even though I was non-plussed and irritated at the time by it Billy!) of some of the treasures I received yesterday at the mother and baby welcoming party that Liz and Suzanne threw for me. It was the best party I've ever been to because there was so much love and it was a great bunch of women sitting around telling sweet, touching, and even hilarious stories about life, and being women and mothers. Plus GREAT food and fun crafting- I was in heaven.

In the foreground you can see some of the beads that people gave me. They each brought one and I strung them together while they each told a story about mothers. And the finished product is a beautiful necklace that I can bring to labor to remember all the love and stories from them all. So lovely an idea and finished product! Some of the funky beads, like the yellow one and the blue and black one were MADE by my brother Khalil for my mom and sister to give to me. Many of them were donated by Janie from her amazing bead collection and I took them all home and strung them together over again with all the extras from her and with a clear bead in between each of them so they would stand out a little more. She and Liz had also picked out one each for Maya and Georgia that remind them of their personalities, and the girls were thrilled to get them. They live now in their own personal treasure boxes.

The light brown box contains little messages on gorgeous paper from all the women there, saying what acts of service they are prepared to render our family when the baby is born. That is so precious and really the perfect gift for me. To be able to look at that box and see it's overflowing offers of help when I need it releives a whole category of anxiety that I have about how the whole transition is going to go. It's love therapy.

The dark brown treasure chest is filled with prayer bundles that we each made at the party for Teresa. They contain rose petals, rose oil, and a prayer whispered into each one, then wrapped up tight. What a bountiful blessing she has gotten. She's living up to her name, which means harvester, already. And for a person to have a gift like this that they can keep their whole lives is amazing. She's being boosted onto the shoulders of these great women in a spiritual sense. How high she'll be able to climb, and how far she'll be able to see!

Thank you thank you all you wonderful people for throwing such a meaningful and amazing party for us! I love you!

Here's a clearer picture of the treasure chest with prayer bundles that Liz took:

week in pictures

Here's my 37 week tummy.

Maya with her requested hairdo.

My latest short attention span project. Playing with my new machine and the special feet it has for quilting.

Georgia asked me for a bag of balloons, convinced Billy to get our balloon pump out of winter storage, and the girls spent days playing with them. Great winter entertainment value.

Me and my 38 week tummy, all gussied up for my baby and mother welcoming party. Can you beleive the distance between the front of my legs and the front of my tummy? How can people be so oddly shaped and still walk? It's a miracle.

Lucy and Georgia 'fishing' in the woods.

Smiling Nadine with Lucy peeking in.

Cousins on the stairs that go nowhere

false (pre) alarm

After a long, great day of celebrating the upcoming birth of my baby and the love of family and friends, I was up a good part of the night with false labor contractions (or as Dr. Sears calls them, 'pre-labor contractions', which is more positive-sounding). The reason I know they were not the real thing, besides the fact that they stopped, was that they started in all kinds of weird places and never really got around to my whole uterus. One would hurt just on one side of my lower back, the next in one thigh, the next in one small quadrant of my uterus. It was weird, though painful. They also lasted random amounts of time, and their intensity and frequency went up and down, not up and up. So this morning I'm really worn out and tired. I'm so glad it's Sunday and I can rest up for the week, whatever it brings. One thing for sure is that I need to keep working on my relaxation techniques. I remembered last night what contractions really feel like and how hard it is to stay relaxed when I'm dealing with pain. And I noticed one thing that may have contributed to this bout of contractions- Teresa seems to have changed positions last night! She's either gone from lying on one side to the total opposite side (still head down, thankfully), or she's facing forwards now instead of towards my back. The second one would not be good because it causes back labor and is harder on mom and baby to birth (Maya came out that way and it was difficult). I'll find out for sure how she's lying tomorrow morning at my next midwife appointment.

Vitamin D

Bahiyyih said I could entertain you all with a few recent snapshots. So here we are, doing our best to amuse ourselves this winter.

Bahiyyih industriously quilting a blanket for Maya in November	Georgia in frozen Busey Woods in December
	Maya insisting on that hat in November

faces from a great year

Billy got a couple old slides I had digitized. Here's one of them. That's me peeking out from behind Elin's head, at sixteen years old! (left to right, it's Babak, Keli, me, Elin, Shane, and Tom) The picture was taken in Guyana, South America when I was on my year of sevice- the most fun I've had EVER. I got to live with my best friend and her great family, have a rockin social life with lots of dances and hanging out, and spend my days as a servant to sweet children (doing children's classes and literacy classes) and lots of great grown-ups too (helping in big kitchens to feed everyone at Baha'i meetings). I met so many wonderful people- the group here are the rest of the yo-yos (youth year of service), as we were called. We were spread out around the whole country but came together every month for a meeting and regrouping. The rest of them had much wilder times than I did because they were older and not so sheltered. They got to confront spiders the size of your hand, living like the average Guyanese person (very poor), and being very self-reliant.

Here's a picture of National Convention in Guyana, where Baha'is from all over Guyana came together for a big meeting. There are so many wonderful servants and friends here, their lives dedicated to serving others, sacrificing so much even to be there at that meeting, so many stories behind each face. Beautiful. Some of the people here have since died, children have grown up. What are they doing now? I can only answer that for a handful of the people there.

Week 37

I read on a message board for pregnant women due in February that week 37 is a hard one for impatience, but it gets better. That intensity of impatience is just not sustainable in the face of the reality of continuing to be pregnant day after day. I think it's a hard week for impatience because this is the first week that the baby would be really ok and not even called premature if she's born now. She's all ready to come out developmentally, she's just getting more fat for dealing with this relatively cold world and getting more surfactant in her lungs. Surfactant is this stuff that keeps her little lungs from sticking together inside so they can fill with air when she comes out of water world into air world. That sounds important, but she's been working on that for a while now, and I think she's about done with it. So I don't have to feel guilty or held back from really wishing she would come out anymore because she would (finally) be ok if she came now. So she should come now, right? And yet, I still don't have a bit of control over the whole thing. Oh well, I'm getting a little serenity and letting go going on here so I'll be OK. The discomforts of pregnancy that have stepped up a bit lately are leveling off, so I'm used to it and that helps too. I'm almost ready to wait and not expect her to come until her due date or even after. But I am excited, and there's something compelling about something momentous that could happen at any time.

um..um

OK.. I know there's been a lot going on with me internally, but I can't seem to get it out. What's up..what's up...I'm mostly over that cold from last time. That's good. We just got back from another fun homeschooler's event, this one was a Valentine's party with lots of crafting and really nice kids and moms. I got really into gluing sequins and foam hearts on a wreath and couldn't stop. I would have loaded my wreath with even more little gluable bits if people hadn't been trying to clean up all around me. Oh well. The girls decorated Valentine's boxes and everyone passed out Valentines to each child. They also made candy necklaces and pens with flowers coming out the end. Cute and more cute. And a good distraction from the waiting game of not knowing which day will be labor day. I know it's silly to be thinking about it all the time, but it's very tempting to wonder, 'Will today be the day?'. In stressed moments with the kids (which come often these days due to my physical and emotional condition) I think it would be preferable to be in labor and meeting my new baby, and in relaxed moments I feel like, well this is a good time to go into labor, I'm nice and relaxed right now. That's what it's like in my head these days. Weird logic. I think of myself as relatively patient, but there's always more of a virtue that can be learned. And here I am needing more than I seem to have. I do better waiting for things when I know when they are going to happen, of course. Distractions are helpful when I find myself in these situations, and I mean nice distractions, like fun nights out and enjoyable creative projects. The quilting circle last night was fun! Janie, Liz and I had a very nice time working and talking and laughing together, while Billy sweetly played with kids. We each got a square finished! Just three more from the people still working on them, and we'll have nine- a very nice number for a quilt/wall hanging for the Baha'i Center. That may have been the last quilting circle meeting for a while if this baby comes before her due date. We'll see.

Oh, and speaking of baby, we changed our minds back on spelling issues. it's going to be Teresa- no 'h'- because that's how Mother Teresa spelled it, and also because it's the Spanish spelling (according to Suzanne). I just thought it was a new-fangled spelling like Bhryteny or Gehnyfer. I just hope noone calls this child Terry. I really dislike that name. It's good as a towel cloth name, but that's about it. (No offense to any Terrys out there!) If people need to shorten her name for some mysterious reason, I would go for 'Tree'. Isn't that cute? And as of now her middle name is going to be Dorothy. That's a special one that Mona brought to our attention as a name we should consider using. Of course! What were we thinking? Dorothy Baker was Billy's great grandmother and a beloved servant to the Baha'is and to the world.

If I could think any straighter, I would write a little more organizedly, but for now, this is all I can do.

Here's a picture of Maya playing in the mud with her new mud boots, in lieu of organization:

colds and fieldtrips

Well, I've avoided it so far this winter, but my body has finally given in and I've gotten a cold. I think it's my lifetime record to not get sick in the winter until February. I really tried, with lots of handwashing, vitamins, and eating berries and fruit salad whenver I felt like life was getting too meat-and-potatoes for me. Plus, who wants to be sick when they're already pregnant- no need to compound the discomfort. Oh well. But, you know, cold symptoms are not as bad as pregnancy symptoms (at least with this cold and this pregnancy) so it's more of a distraction, which is a good thing! Trying to stay positive here.

We met with the preschool aged homeschoolers playgroup yesterday (called Home's Cool- cute huh?). That concept seems a little strange- how can you be homeschooled if you're not old enough to be in school? I guess preschool counts as school in this case. Anyways, we went on a fieldtrip to Bender's Mattress Factory to see how they make mattresses. It was really cool- it was basically a big industrial craft project. There were big old Singer sewing machines and sergers, a huge cutting table with a huge rotary cutter, big air staple guns, a sewing machine-type thing that was hand held like a drill, and a huge quilting machine like a loom that quilted the layers of the mattress top together. I wish I had gotten some pictures but I had to carry Maya the whole time (and forgot my camera anyways) for safety. It was really loud in there and we left early and the girls jumped on the beds in the showroom (which they let us do!) while waiting for the tour to be done. Then the group all went to Strawberry Fields for a snack. It's a very sweet group, four families come, and they were very friendly. Hooray! Georgia has wanted to play with other homeschooled kids since we started this, and we finally found them! Yeah!