puttering around

i'm still here, and miss millimoosk is as well. she's expanding, and so am i. it's all good. work has been busy -- which i blame for some of my silence. i've also been trying to catch-up on my knitting projects, so that i have a chance to knit something for my own bundle of joy before she arrives. i'm realizing that my first niece will have had the best of my needles because i've gotten less and less prolific with my knitting in recent months (years). i guess if she turns out to be an easy baby (please be an easy baby!), i might have a little time to catch-up once she's here, but i'm not betting on it.

while i continuously knock on wood, i will report that so far, this pregnancy has been relatively uneventful. there was a brief period of spotting in the second trimester, but that was apparently due to some activities her father and i partook in, and had nothing to do with any baby troubles. now she's moving up a storm, reminding me that she's in there and getting bigger and stronger every day. i still love it even though she is capable of a nice kick to the kidneys every now and again. though i still worry that somehow she'll be taken from me, i realize that that fear is mostly irrational. my more realistic fear is that she'll get too comfortable in the transverse position and choose not to put her head where it belongs come delivery time. obviously, this, i can deal with.

oh, one thing that i've realized i hadn't given much thought to before i got pregnant (and perhaps even before being 20 weeks pregnant, since i still didn't quite believe that i might be giving birth) was how and where i wanted to deliver. yeah, i always thought i wanted to try a drug-free birth, maybe in a hospital with a birthing center, but i didn't realize how early on i needed to be looking into this. i really like my ob-gyn -- i had started seeing her shortly before i got pregnant, but now that i'm getting closer to due-day, i'm wondering if she -- and more specifically, her hospital -- are the best fit for me. i just watched "the business of being born," and i realize how much the hospital you deliver in can influence your birth experience. i am not so worried that i want to change doctors and hospitals this late in the game (there are many things i like about both), but i am glad that i have hired a doula who will be committed to my birth plan and my goals for this delivery. it's a bit of an extravagance, but if i am able to have a drug-free birth where i feel in charge of the process, it will be 100% worth it. but i also realize, that if i'd seriously thought about these things earlier on, i could have avoided that expense and hired a midwife at a hospital birthing center instead. ah, well...

ultimately, my primary goal is that baby and i make it though safe and sound, and i think this hospital will be very good in that regard.