What to Expect

I'm having a great day. My official work schedule (that I gave myself, of course) is that I have Sundays and Mondays OFF. And therefore, I will not feel guilty about the fact that I still haven't finished my inventory.

I had to give myself Mondays off, because honestly, I need an entire day to clean up after Louis. The guy manages to create more piles of stuff than I ever knew was possible. Add to his piles of paperwork the mounds of dishes and laundry that magically appear on Monday mornings, and there's just no way I can ever get any real work done. Plus, every holiday he gets from work tends to fall on a Monday and it would be nice to be able to do fun stuff together when he's off.

After cleaning up this morning, I got to hang out with my favorite niece, whose dimples I just can't resist. Thanks to her super generous parents, our Abode stash is really growing! I had to pack stuff up (so Louis could spread out on the table), but if everything was displayed again, all the donation items would cover the entire dining room table. Very cool! I'm still planning to take a picture of everything before I take it to Abode. One more month to go.

One of the other fun things I did today was catch up on email, articles, and magazines. I found an article worth sharing: http://commonhealth.wbur.org/2011/03/what-to-hate-what-to-expect/. Actually, it's the comments that I found hilarious. The article is called "What To Hate About What To Expect When You're Expecting," which is a stupid, mainstream book about pregnancy. Midwives hate this book, but apparently we're not the only ones! Here are some of the comments to this article:

I remember, in my first pregnancy 16 years ago, being diagnosed with pre-eclampsia. When I looked it up in my copy of "What To Be Terrified Of When You're Expecting," I basically started thinking I was going to die, or my baby was going to be born brain-damaged, or the baby was going to die, or *I* was going to have brain damage... you get the picture. Since the doctor assured me I was probably going to be fine, as the condition was being managed successfully, that is when I started doubting the advice in this... er, handbook. By the time I was pregnant with my 5th and 6th children, visiting midwives and planning homebirths, I had learned to trust the advice of Ina May rather than that horrible pink book o' cr@p.

I read it when pregnant with my first. And I took the hospital-based "childbirth class". I was completely unprepared for the reality of birthing. At no point did I learn that I could trust my body, my baby and the process of birth. Only that I should call my OB and trust her. Sadly, I did just that. Wound up with a birth that was nowhere near what I wanted, and a baby in the NICU - because of, not in spite of, the medical procedures during her birth.

I used the copy I received from my intervention heavy turned cesarean birth as kindling to start a fire during my home birth. It worked really well for that.

Hee hee. I love how one person said she was going to throw it away and her midwife suggested she recycle it instead. Yeah, that's one book that is not in my lending library.