Peace out

I've been going to a dentist who is totally overhauling my mouth.  Before I got pregnant I would get gassed like crazy before I would let her work on me.  Now I squeeze a stress ball and try not to scream in terror.  It's been ... fun.

I've gone in for work several times now and every time my dentist has remarked on how groovy my teeth are.  It was only today when I was walking out that I realized (rather sadly) that she has been saying my teeth have a lot of grooves and not that my teeth are really radical and hip.

:(

Catching up

What's new with me? A few things. Someone needs to invent a thing that takes the blog posts out of your head and types them out.  If I had that I would update my blog a dozen times a day.  Since there is no such thing you get this list of news items instead.

1. Baby A continues to be awesome.  I had another ultrasound and she is bouncing and behaving.  I will have another ultrasound in a few weeks to find out if she really is a she.

2. Yesterday was the 10th anniversary of the day we adopted Joseph.  That's pretty cool.  When he headed downstairs to go to bed last night he said "Good night!  I love you! I'm glad you adopted me! I like being part of this family!"  He might have said that because we had pizza for dinner and gave him some money to buy music on his ipod.  I'll take it though because that's just darned cute.

3. Elle had a couple of scary days of bad stomach pain. I ended up spending two days in the ER with her as doctors tried to figure out what was wrong. At one point she had to have a procedure done that was really uncomfortable and the whole time it was going on I was holding her hand and the nurse was telling her "It's almost done! After this you'll be all done!" and then we had to re-do the procedure and Elle looked at me with big, sad eyes and said "But you told me there wouldn't be any more uncomfortable things!" and then my heart fell on the floor and broke into a million pieces.

I think future teenage Elle will appreciate me not sharing all the details of her ER visit so I will keep some of it private.  The long and the short of it is that sometimes shit happens.  And when it doesn't happen you might need to stay in the ER for a while. And sometimes there are bladder infections.  (Sorry future Elle.)

4. My first surrogate baby turned 4 the other day. Nothing really else to add to that.

5. I got a Vitamix blender.  It's the best thing in my house.  I even like it better than my family.  My family can't make fancy coffee drinks and the blender doesn't leave it's shoes randomly scattered all over the floor. I'm not being paid to say this or getting anything in return for mentioning it.  I just want you to know that you need one of these blenders.  They're a little expensive (unless perhaps you have a very generous intended mother who buys it for you) but it's worth every penny and then some. Fair warning though, if you get one you're going to want to spend all day making smoothies.

What the hell is happening on PBS Kids?

I've been thinking a lot about what will happen when this baby is born.  Now that there's just one now I figure I have a pretty good shot at a VBAC.  That makes me pretty darn happy.  Since this will probably be my last birth* I want to try and make it as good as I can.

I'm thinking I want the kind of birth I had with Little A.  (Not to be confused with Baby A.  Or A, one of my IFs from last time or A, my IM from this time.  I wish people had considered using other letters of the alphabet when naming all these people.)  The parents were there, Jesse was there, my doula/best friend was there.  I felt so happy and supported and when I did the whole thing without an epidural I felt like Super Woman.  I would like all that again. And maybe with one more little addition.

I think I would like Elle to be at the birth too.  Joseph is out of the question.  He could never handle seeing me in pain and he hates the sound of babies crying.  But Elle is different.  She loves the surrogacy process.  She goes to ultrasounds and lab appointments with me.  She watches when I gets shots and puts a band aid on me after each of them. She likes to lay her head on my tummy and talk to the baby.  I think she would really like to see the whole thing all the way through.

I asked her today if she thought she would like to be there when the baby is born.  The answer was a very enthusiastic "YES!"  Of course I explained that nothing was for sure and we would have to see how things went but that if she was interested we could talk about it more.  Then I told her that she would need to know that sometimes when the baby comes out it hurts the woman but that the woman is ok and will feel better after the baby comes out.  Elle rolled her eyes and said "I know that! I saw a show on PBS Kids and there was a woman having a baby and she said it really hurt."

So apparently she's all ready to be there at the birth.  PBS Kids has taught her well.  Or something.

*Probably.  Maybe.  Perhaps.  I don't know.  I really do love doing what I do.  This pregnancy has not been easy or smooth but damn, I love having babies.