Escape from Naomi: Maya's progress

All week Naomi has been having cramps becoming stronger and stronger with each day. At her midwife appointment today, she was checked to see what was going on. She is 3 cm dilated and 70% effaced. The head is at -2 station so it's not completely engaged but can be felt through the cervix. As for the size of the baby, all she would say is that it is very long, especially its torso. But now it is almost impossible for the baby to turn around and become breech. As for when she will appear, could be tonight or could be 2 weeks. All I know was by the time I got to 3 cm, a very slow painful experience in which no drugs were offered as it was 'too early', I went from 3 cm to 10 cm in about 3 hours.The baby is now considered full term. We had the 'nice' midwife today and made 2 more weeks of appointments with her as she seems to fill up fast. Maybe we won't use those appointments at this rate.

Yesterday she took a breast feeding class. Young moms have a very bad track record of actually doing it but she seems committed to it. Unfortunately the hospital staff generally isn't too helpful. Shanna's pediatrician (who she later got rid of) was trying to get Shanna to introduce formula via bottle to stem Oliver's weight loss during the period Shanna's milk was coming in. Shanna refused saying she wanted to establish the breast feeding. She was then told that this wasn't about her but the baby, which got her mad as she was trying to do what was best for the baby. Few young girls have the balls to stand up for what they think is right. The public health nurse who visited us Wednesday (the State gives us 10 visits) said that if they insist on formula, have them introduce it by dropper so the baby won't get used to bottles. Nurse Ann seems to be a good fit for Naomi and will be especially useful when the baby actually comes. She could have social worker visits too but at this point, it was decided that the nurse would be most useful.

One of the joys of motherhood is watching your child play on various athletic teams. At one point, Naomi was playing soccer, softball, volleyball and on the swim team. At other times, she did travel basketball and cross country. Josh usually was playing basketball and baseball until he was in high school and concentrated on soccer. He went to a small technical school which had no varsity sports though he cleaned up in the inter fraternity leagues. In the summers, he played soccer on an adult league and later at work softball far away from here. After Naomi graduated, no more teams for her. But now Josh and his buddy have joined a half-field soccer team. His friend played on a select team with him since they were 8. Both guys, although really superb athletes in high school, haven't kept up. Last night, his friend's mom and I went to see the boys. We were the only moms of course (don't these other players have moms?). I missed the first game as I was in transit but the friend's mom provided cookies embarrassing her son. This mom also is an ice skater mom with her other son being on the ice dancing Olympic team. She's invited me to to watch them practice. At the same rink are the other members of the Olympic ice dancing team and the Canadian champions so lots of talent in our little corner of the universe.
As for Josh, he became winded very easily and with no subs and lots of humidity, was not a hap py camper. Until he gets his act together, he no longer is the star of the team (his usual position in about any sport). But I enjoyed my return to soccer mom.

I had taken 4 days off from running. Sometimes I wonder what good is it as I am so clearly overweight. How can I run so far and still be fat? What kind of a cosmic joke is being played on me? I guess I can eat faster than I can run. But if you were to see my legs, I have no visible veins or lumps of fat. They are are as smooth as a teenager's. I have good muscle tone and am not easily winded. My resting heart rate is between 55 and 65. But I have running quotas, silly as that may be, and I get annoyed when I don't reach them. I've been cramming in a weeks worth of running into 4 days-not fun in this humidity. I had to get up extra early today to be finished before Naomi's appointment.

More gardening needs to be done. My coreopsis seemed to survive its trip from NJ. It has the unfortunate name of 'tickweed'. Coreopsis meaning bedbug's view in Greek. My lilies are now starting to bloom and my new container of pale lavender petunias are especially fragrant.

And for those who are interested, I finally finished yesterday's blog about our weekend after I finished this one. Who said I have to do things in order?