Twenty Weeks, Five Days

I should probably be starting a pregnancy blog much sooner than halfway through the pregnancy, but it's taken me this long to decide definitively to do it.

A brief exposition:

• I am due 19th October 2005
• I have two daughters, Bobbie who is three, and Linda who is one.
• I have had 2 c-sections, so this will be a VBA2C. Both girls tried to walk out into the world, and it was only very recently that I discovered (though the news really shouldn't have surprised me) that the problems with birthing footling breeches vaginally are caused by doctors, not any inherent danger in the presentation.

• I am avoiding a repeat c-section by going commando this pregnancy. I am doing my own prenatal care & will be my own birth attendant. But wait, you say, isn't it true that prenatal care is the biggest predictor of a good pregnancy outcome? Well, yes & no. If you've got high risk factors, then prenatal care is a lifesaver. But the truth is that true complications are such a tiny part of reproduction that most of us are fine with minimal prenatal care. When I have had it, it has consisted of being weighed, having my blood pressure (which is always normal) checked, my uterus measured, & the heartbeat checked. And exactly which of this did the doctor do? Um, NONE. Frankly, this is all stuff any reasonably intelligent woman can do on her own.

So, what am I doing to prepare? Reading, reading, reading. I am reading every bit of information on normal birth I can get my hands on, every bit of information on freebirthing I can find, every freebirth story I come across. I am eating well, I am exercising as much as I can manage (as I tend to go straight from morning sickness to physical pain, this isn't a simple task). I am getting in touch with my body, I am reveling in the utter lack of stress that goes hand-in-hand with avoiding the medical establishment.

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Baby likes to play. I like to spend some time on my back, with my hands on the most obvious tummy bulge. Usually, I am rewarded by a kick or a rub. Push back. Pause...What's that? Wait...Wait...Kick back. Push again. Pause...There it is again! Wait...Wait...Kick back. Lather, rinse, repeat. It's fun.


Bobbie is everything I could hope for. She realizes much more this time what's coming. She tells me sometimes she's got a baby in her tummy too. She is always trying to kiss the baby in my tummy, or tickle it. Once she even tilted her sippy cup up to my belly button to offer the baby a drink. You have to love that.


She has taught Linda to smooch the new baby too. Linda doesn't really understand it yet. Which is one reason I'd wanted to wait a little while before getting pregnant again. Best laid plans of mice and men, yada yada. (Which, btw, my friends and I were using long before Seinfeld.) But I keep telling her there is a baby coming and that this one is hers like she was her sister's.


And I must confess. I want a girl. Very much. I am just SO FUCKING SICK OF PEOPLE TELLING ME "MAYBE THIS ONE WILL BE A BOY". Yeah, maybe. So fucking what? Do my daughters have no value because they have vaginas? Am I a failure as a mother because I cannot produce a boy? (And what fucking biology class did you sleep through to get the idea that I am the one who determines that?) I am sick of it. Fucking sick of it. I don't want to have a boy so I can be petted and congratulated. "Oh lucky you, you finally had a boy." Not that I have anything against boys. Not hardly. But really, people, come into 1980s already! Didn't we realize a long, long time ago that women are as valuable as men? If I have a boy, then all well and good. But I want a girl, just as a sort of cosmic "Fuck you, you moron" to our families.