The Family *roll

One of the more aggravating aspects of being pregnant is having well-wishers and other interested parties inquire into your status as you approach, then pass, your due date.  Sandy and Sarah have come up with one way of answering the question, “Is Perquacky [their baby's fetonym] born yet?”

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It’s 11:51. The midwife gave Emily Cervidil about two hours ago. Cervidil ripens the cervix and, in doing so, can induce labor. So far so good — Em’s having pretty steady, painful contractions. So no sleep. Instead, we’ve been lying in her bed listening to Bill Evans’ albums (Solo Sessions Vol.1 & Waltz for Debby) [...]

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Claire sent me the following excerpt from an article by Tova Mirvis: If I’ve learned anything in ten years of motherhood, it’s that the way our children are brought into the world means very little for how they live in the world. Nor do the intense hours in which we become mothers shape the months, [...]

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We are headed to the hospital in a couple of hours. A great deal of our childbirth education and midwife appointments focused on staying at home as long as possible  and postponing going to the hospital where you have much less control over things and are more likely to require interventions you hadn’t planned on. Therefore, [...]

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We’re still waiting. But Birdie’s time is almost up: if Em isn’t in labor by Monday night, we head into the hospital for an induction. The good news is that the midwives have a very “conservative” (as my father puts it) approach to induction: pitocin + bag breaking is the last thing they’ll do. The [...]

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The flock of grandparents-to-be is gathering in Chicago. My parents and Emily’s mother are here. Em’s father arrives on Friday. Everyone, including us, is waiting for Birdie, but it has been very nice having our parents around pre-Birdie since we’ve been able to do stuff that will be off the table soon enough. So, the [...]

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We had a midwife’s appointment this morning. Sadly, the midwife who went on record as saying she’d be “very surprised” to see us back wasn’t there. To make matters worse, today’s midwife was very noncommittal (if totally honest) about my impending labor: “days to another week”. Oy. Birdie and I had another “non stress test” [...]

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Several months ago, Dorothy asked me to help her coordinate the fantastic project of making a quilt for the baby composed of squares designed by the important women in Emily’s  life. In late December, when Dorothy was visiting Chicago, 20 packages of material and instructions made their way through USPS to Toronto, Israel, Vancouver, New [...]

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