Ruminations on Parenthood
Originally posted on Pagan Families, 7/5/11. Midway through the second trimester, my ribs started hurting around the bra line, like something was cutting into them. It wasn’t my bra’s fault, though, because taking it off didn’t help, and changing bras didn’t help. It messed with my ability to exercise and cook dinner, and after a …
Continue reading “What Color is Your Pain? Magic for Pregnant Aches”
Rebecca spent much of the week before Sibyl was born having diarrhea and occasionally throwing up. I spent much of the week cleaning up after Rebecca, having a nasty cold, and thanking my lucky stars that I didn’t have a newborn yet. Then a day and a half before my due date, my cold turned …
The museum’s animatronic Tyrannosaurus has spider webs between its teeth. I just noticed them yesterday. They’re hard to see unless you’re at the right angle. Beckybean met Tyrannosaurus Rex last Friday. Her Gaga reports that Rebecca was so scared they had to detour around the dinosaur, but that afterward she wanted to go back and …
Before anyone gets excited, let me note that this pregnancy ended in a miscarriage a couple months ago. I’m not currently pregnant. “Maybe,” then “probably,” and at that point I joined the April 2012 birth board on BabyCenter. I’d fantasized about the moment I found out I was pregnant again. My face got hot when …
…I give you the link to a short piece I wrote for my friend Sarah‘s Pagan Families blog.
I have a piece on dealing with pregnant aches up at Pagan Families. It expands on part of my earlier post about birth prep. If you try it, let me know what you think! As with the sleep posts, it’s geared toward motherhood but applicable to other situations. … I have dried purple roses lodged …
I revisited BabyCenter’s natural unmedicated birth group a couple times around Rebecca’s birthday. Like usual, people are asking how to prepare for a natural birth. Which methods? What are you doing? Like usual, the responses give sensible and encouraging advice, but I can’t get past how narrowly practical their focus is, as if birth were such a specialized activity that getting ready for it nowhere intersects with the rest of your life. (Note to elder family members: this post includes sexual content!)
I used to collect realistic looking stuffed animals, the kind you buy at specialty toy stores, who aren’t always soft enough to cuddle and whose fur is thick and hard to clean. Up until sometime in middle school, I slept with one of them every night anyway, on a rotating schedule so that none of them would get jealous. We talked telepathically as I fell asleep. They kept me company and kept the dark safe from witches. When I went to college, they went into plastic bags and didn’t come out again until twelve years later, after my mom died…