spregnancy at 32 weeks (out of 40)

I reckon it's about time to give an update on the spregnancy. The short of it is this: movement in and out of and around bed is comedic, tying shoes is darn near impossible, and I get winded climbing one flight of stairs. Shoot, I get winded getting out of the car. Who am I kidding? Also, all muscle tone has left the building. The whole body over - legs, arms, toes, eyelids -zero muscle tone exists anymore. And I still have two months! I just might turn to mush.

It was only a few weeks ago that I was at the chiropractor explaining to him a pain in my lower back. As happens, I couldn't get the pain to appear when I was actually in his office. I bent this way and that, twisted my legs around, stretched into awkward positions to reproduce the pain. I guess I was a little too animated, because he said, "Um, first off, stop with all the acrobatics." I'd like somebody to walk by now and tell me to stop with all the acrobatics. Instead, they'd probably say, "Hey, are you alive over there? Maybe you should move around a little more."

In the first trimester, when I felt tired, I simply laid down. I was my same old self, same shape, just tired. Now I'm tired but can't get comfortable and don't feel as refreshed by rest. Know what I mean? In fact, sleep has continued to be my chief complaint throughout it all. I'm also getting way less motivated mentally about the tasks on my "Crud To Do Before the Baby Comes" list. Now then, don't get me wrong; I have had a beautiful and fulfilling spregnancy, probably even considered easy, but at this point I am simply ready to have and meet the baby. Jason and I were talking about how funny birth is, like, "We're lonely. Let's create another companion." And then zippo-presto - a human being! Except, the zippo-presto part is taking forever.

My mom thinks I should go with what I feel each day and not worry about tasks until a moment of motivation. I tend to agree, because tasks go so slowly when you aren't feelin' it. But what if the motivation never comes, and Jason and I find ourselves sitting around with a diaper-less, name-less, dirty baby, all of us starving because I didn't stock enough backup meals in the freezer? It could happen. (I'd love to hear from any of you recent moms and what you did to consider yourselves "ready.")

But all of that is just me!

The baby, according to the midwives, is right on track for growth and is head down. The heartbeat is good and strong, and (s)he started hiccuping on schedule. Interestingly, in regard to movement, (s)he does sort of a one day on, one day off thing. (S)he'll be rolling around like a dog in horse doo all day, then very very quiet the next. A very noticable pattern is that if I am quite busy for a stretch of days, especially around other people, the baby lays low. Around the time of Rachel's wedding, it hardly made a motion for the main four days of preparation. It really worried me. But the day after the wedding, when all obligations were met and we were just chillin' with the wedding party, the baby sprung back into action.

So there! 32 weeks and counting down.

the last month in a long nutshell

In bulleted form with photos interspersed, this is a huge catch-up blog. You may have to take it in small doses over several days. Not that anyone would be ill-affected to remain uninformed about any of this, but hey, blogging is a luxury sport in the first place. So, I indulge. My one regret is not having the computer stamina to do a separate entry about each thing, with the thoughts and details that accompanied each. I don't know if it's the spregnancy or what, but I feel physically gross these days if I spend much time a'tall at the computer screen.

• We had visitors in mid-September for several days: Jeff and Kezia from Portland! Wow, was that fun. Kezia and I can usually chat non-stinkin'-stop about psychology and paradigms of thought and personal growth, but now with babies on the way (!!) we can also think about application to our very own offspring. We took it easy while the boys climbed around on mountains, shot the bow and arrows, rode horses, and so forth. Kezia is quite a woman just doing life things, but for work she's a play therapist for kids with emotional and behavioral maladies, and is a long-time nanny, which make her an incredible resource for understanding babies and other humankind. We're getting to know Jeff better via political discussions, shared ideas for living more sustainably, being passengers in his car, and picking his engineering brain for how the Hungry Horse Dam works exactly. That's a dam up the road, and I'll tell you, it's one thing to look it over as a garden variety citizen and simply be amazed. It's another to have someone who knows what's up tell you about the concrete that's still curing in the bottom of it after decades of time. Dam straight.

Little Pink Riding Hood eating an apple and simultaneously making an excellent pointobserving the dam over huckleberry milkshakes

• Jason's summer job in Glacier Park also ended in mid-September, and that evening, we moved all our crud from the Park apartment to our new home - the basement apartment of my folks' place. As we moved in, Jason said, "So what? Lots of our friends live with their parents. So what. This is no big deal." Funny thing, people in many cultures wouldn't understand that reference, because they wouldn't blink at living multi-generationally. But in our ridiculously individualistic culture, it takes some getting used to.

• The next day, Jason left with my dad, brother-in-law Cameron, two other guys, and a string of horses for a one-week elk hunting trip in the Scapegoat Wilderness. Here they are packing up and weighing each box.

• Meanwhile, I got to see two of my old high school buddies who were briefly in town, Nate and Gabe, and their families. I miss those characters. They are the ones I've blogged about before - always planning or carrying out shenanigans in their youth like train-hopping (which Gabe succeeded at), small airplane building and wrecking (which Nate succeeded at), sneaking into the chip mill by dark of night and rolling down chip mountains (which we all succeeded at) and crawling through the air vents at school to pop into an unsuspecting classroom (which Gabe succeeded at to a degree, but the ultimate and unlived plan involved wearing sombreros and popping into Spanish class). Here some of us are - me, Nate, his wife Nicole, and Gabe. Gabe's wife, Lori, had already left to get their kiddo to bed.

• That weekend, my cousin's husband, Brad, passed away in Anchorage. His death wasn't a complete shock, as he'd battled cancer for four years, but the manner of it was: he simply didn't recover from a surgery meant to prop up his remaining good lung. None of my immediate family could go up for the service (including Jason and Dad, who were in the boondocks out of phone contact). We scraped enough mileage together from Mom's and Jason's mileage plan accounts for me to go, and I'm so glad. The Alaska wing of my extended family means a great deal to me, and it hurts to see them lose someone. Brad's service was the kind we'd all wish for - very personal, with warm words spoken by his strong wife, three handsome sons, and all manner of family and longtime friends. He was a cowboy of the old style: traditional, not too wordy, a hard worker, a man concerned about doing the right thing.

Brad and Lonita's three boys, Caleb, Levi, and Dakota

• On the way up, I'd had a long layover in Seattle, and it just happened that my aunt and uncle and grandparents from my mom's side were coming to the airport anyway to pick up my cousin, Connor, arriving from a moose hunt in Alaska. Weird timing. They drove in early so that we could dine and chat and pass the time together. Here I am with Aunt Melody and Grandma Louise.

• Though it was a hard reason to be back in Anchorage, I so enjoyed getting to spend a couple days with friends and take in the crisp, colorful autumn that hasn't hit Montana yet. I struggled with guilt over not getting to see everyone, and those I did see, I hardly shot pics of, which is weird for me. I guess I was just soaking in their presence. Elisha sent me home with lots of clothes for later spregnancy and adorable baby sockies (and tried to send more, the crazy lady, but I had no space). Jess sent me with a bunch of canned stuff like jam, smoked salmon, and honey straight from their new bee hives. Only days after I got home, she shot a moose, so they're set on winter meat too. Jason says our new definition of subsistence is "living at Kevin and Jess's house."

me at 30 weeks, Sonya at 23, and Jess at 12

Chloe looking for ducks at the Potter Marsh boardwalkLilli in new boots caring for her baby
a freshly engaged-to-be-married Jannell Nic and Autumn being lovebirds

• The day I flew back to Montana was quite possibly the longest day on my life's record. Flying isn't too comfortable at seven months pregnant, and having a five-hour layover in the Seattle airport is even less so. To pass the layover time, I stretched shamelessly across three seats in a boarding area for a nap (it was nearly empty anyway), ate an amazing fish taco, read the latest Mother Earth News magazine, and eavesdropped into some delicious conversations. My fave conversation was the guy whose friend offered him M&Ms. "No thanks," he said. "I'd have some if they were dark chocolate M&Ms. I just LOVE dark chocolate M&Ms. I don't eat M&Ms ever, unless they're dark chocolate. You know, you can get those in dark chocolate." I about stood up and said, "Buddy, either stop talking about dark chocolate M&Ms, or get off your picky ass and go find me some. By now, they're all I can think about. Jimminy crickets!"

• I had a slight fatigue and hormone induced emotional breakdown when Jason picked me up at the airport and got me home around 1 am the next day. It's pretty pathetic; I don't know how I'd make it as a military wife, or as a sloper wife, whose husband works up on the oil fields of Alaska. I know people who do each, and they must be made of steel. I just really like Jason, and I really like me and Jason together in the same location. It's not so much fun being apart, although admittedly I accomplish more tasks when he's gone. But tasks are totally over-rated.

• We had a week of getting settled, making morning fires in the wood stove, Jason hunting for meat and hunting for work, and things being relatively calm. Here's Jason shoeing a horse, and then my Pops and him leading everybody back to the corral one morning when the whole herd had gotten out of the fences the night before and wound up in someone's field 1/2 mile away.

• And finally, toward the end of last week, we got a phone call asking if Jason would come up to Anchorage and help remodel some burned up apartment units. So, as of yesterday, that's where he is and is slated to be there for a couple of weeks at least.
  
  

Otherwise, aint much going on here...

brotherhood

All day, since your haircut in the morning,
you have looked like a painting, even more than usual.
We are in the wind, planting the maples.
We meet an older man who seems to know
I miss my dad.
And he smiles through the limbs.
We talk easily with him
until the rain begins.
This is the brotherhood of man.
- 1st verse of "Brotherhood of Man" by The Innocence Mission


These are some events over the month that have me thinking of the brotherhood of man, and more specifically, of strangers.

• A jovial older gentleman in the Super 1 grocery store said to his shopping companions and to all within earshot, "Oh, I can't buy green bananas anymore. At my age I don't know if I'll still be around by the time they ripen."

• Garage sales in general are one of the most brotherhoodliest of all experiences to me. Sure, there can be some less than desirable price negotiating, but otherwise they're rad. There's a vulnerability in laying out all your crap for other people to see, right? Even if it's crap you're done with and that, somehow, no longer defines you. I bought for $5 a simple trunk to be our coffee table from a lady who'd used it to tote her possessions from one end of California to the other when she went to college. At the next house, I bought for $1 the most adorable little body suit in the world for our baby. It has a bum hatch that the mother whose baby had outgrown it made sure I'd seen. Nothing says humanity/we're-all-in-this-together like a bum hatch.

• I listened as Jason and Bill, a fellow Biology-lover and 70-year old Interpretive Ranger in the Park, had the following conversation about the Latin names of plants:

Bill: Gawd, I love names that just roll off the tongue like Vaccinium globulare.
Jason: and Erythronium gradiflorum
Bill: Pinus contorta and Epilobium angustifolium
Jason: Oh! You know they changed that last one to Chamerion angustifolium?
Bill: Yes, those buggars! Can you believe it?! I was heartsick!

• I saw a young gal on the side of the road, cigarette in hand, eyes red from a long night, or crying, or both. One of us was disheveled of clothing and crumpled of spirit, and the other had an open vehicle and an open day. We found ourselves traveling together to a nearby town, talking of our enjoyment of camping and also of common bygone experiences in the state of Arizona. It's tough to say which was the helper and which was the helpee. We all need the chance to be in each role, to be co-habitators of an experience. Maybe the problems come when we find ourselves always in one role or the other. I wonder if this is a bit of what the apostle Paul meant when he talked of becoming all things to all men. On this journey of aiding one another toward wholeness, of spurring each other on toward love and good works, we have to be willing to assume the role that both parties need at that moment. As badly as she needed a ride, I needed to embrace someone from outside of my tiny world.

• A young highway patrolman was killed while in pursuit of someone not far from the Park. A man and woman in another vehicle were also killed, so that the only one who lived was the unknown fleeing driver who had caused the two cars to collide. Since my dad does chaplaincy work with the Whitefish Police Department, he was at the patrolman’s funeral, and that night around the supper table recounted his experience. What seems to have touched him the most was simply the presence of nearly 1,000 law enforcement officials from multiple agencies and all of the surrounding states, as well as the Canadian Mounted Police. It was such a show of camaraderie in the face of apparent meaningless tragedy - to his widow, to his parents and comrades, to each other.
  
  At the end of the graveside service, which immediately followed the funeral, everyone turned up their handheld radios. Across the waves came a dispatcher’s voice:
  
  “Status Check, Zero Three One.”
  [Silence.]
  “Status Check, Zero Three One.”
  [Silence.]
  “Zero Three One, you are released from duty. Go now to your Heavenly Father.”
  
  And my dad could hardly get through the telling of it. Why go through that ritual, I ask? Why call forth a dead man on the radio, knowing full well he ain’t answering? For the sake of the living, to be sure - both those who had and hadn’t previously heard the live, appropriate response to Zero Three One’s status check. But what does it do for us? Maybe nothing more than serve as a tangible way to acknowledge in each others’ presence the sense of loss at hearing no response. To listen together to the gap, the empty air space when one of us goes.

she's got rhythm

A couple weeks ago, I started feeling a very rhythmic, light pounding in my belly. At first I thought it was the baby's heartbeat at an exceedingly slow rate, somehow feel-able by me for the first time, and I was very worried. Very worried. Jason could feel it too, from the outside. But it kept going, and I figured a decreasing heart rate would do just that - - keep decreasing. And the baby's movement otherwise wasn't changing. The beat was right down near the head and arms, so I eventually concluded that this child has rhythm like nobody's business. I made a mental note to enrole her in drum lessons just as soon as she's sitting up, so around 6 or 7 months.

Yes, in this post I am referring to the baby as a she. That is what I have suspected the strongest over the last few months, but Jason thinks it is a boy, and like a magnet to a compass, his guesswork is messing up my intuition, so now I keep switching back and forth. Actually, in my first trimester I too suspected a boy, but it was a different feeling. When the baby does emerge, I will be able to compare the two sensations I had and determine which was truly intuition. Then I'll have intuition totally classified and figured out.

Anyway...

Then I got my weekly email update from babycentral.com or wherever, and they said I should start feeling hiccups about now. Ohhhhhhhh!

maiden voyage

Jason and I have been eyeing a certain Native brand tandem kayak/canoe hybrid thing all summer, unable to bring ourselves to purchase it new. A few weeks ago we were third on the list to purchase a new one at a good end-of-season price, but someone ahead of us took it. We thought our chances were done. But last week we happened upon the end-of-season sale of their demo boats! There were two left the day after the sale started, only possible according to the salespeople because of the crumby weather for the past couple weeks. Otherwise, people literally line up at 6 am to get such boats. Long story short, we got one! Man. It sucks to watch yourself get really excited about material possessions. But this is something we will make use of, I tell you. Use of. More than we would that silly paper money we spent on it.

Anywho, we've been in plenty of small boats, but neither of us have operated a kayak-like contraption. Getting it into the water on our maiden voyage into Lake McDonald, we looked like the two stooges. First, we nearly got into the water without our paddles. While Jason went back to the van to fetch them, there gathered on the once-empty nearby shore a small crowd of people, out to observe the nice sunset. Feeling the pressure, since we were the only moving things to look at (the sunset was rather still, and there weren't other boaters on the lake), I started giggling uncontrollably and so could barely lift my end of the kayak over the dock. We soon realized we shouldn't be using the dock at all, so we sheepishly walked down the dock and dropped her in directly from the shore. It was wigglier than we expected and it surprised us to be right down in the water. More giggling and goofily balancing ourselves. Afterwards, when we loaded up the boat into the van on our way out, we overestimated the van's length and pushed the boat into the front windshield. Maybe insurance will cover it.

We went on another trip last night, and things went much smoother. Here are some shots from the two evenings.

We're thinking, "Green Lily" for a name, but it's not settled yet. It's a good green color, and Lily is reminescent of the Glacier Lilies around here. Plus, lily pads. It's low to the water and looks like a lily pad...with two humans on it hurling sticks around.

and on the way home from Ekalaka,

on the recommendation of Nic's mom, we stopped by this adorable little restaurant in the middle of nowhere, the name of which escapes me. Known for their beans. No running water. Outhouses around back. We knew when we arrived and saw more vehicles at this place than we'd seen on the highway all morning, something major was up. Turned out to be the annual dance for anyone over age 65 in 150 miles. Or so. They were having a blast and were really fun to watch. I swear, unplanned moments like being in the presence of thirty dancing senior citizens, are the very best.

Ekalaka

Last Thursday we drove to Ekalaka, Montana for a wedding reception for my cousin, Autumn, and her new husband, Nic. They got married in Alaska a couple months ago, where she's from and they live, but his family wanted to throw a special party down here. We had an absolute hoot meeting and hanging out with his family. I especially loved the couple days we were there before the crowds arrived, when we got to be part of their immediate family, playing cards, eating meals around the table, and exploring the countryside.

the nearby Medicine Rocks

Jason and Nic posing for a rock album (pun intended, sadly)

The sunset turned everything and everyone bright red.

big farm stuff of Nic's best friend, Jason

getting a handful of grain out of the combine to chew on

Nic's family is comprised mostly of proud Norwegians, so we got to hear Norwegian folktales of witches who hide and wait for passing children, as well as the family stories of growing up in farm country. My favorite family story was told by Nic's uncle, Smoke, and he had a slew of them. When Smoke was a boy (everybody has nick names, including Smoke, who arrived at his by yet another story), one of the school's administrators had a speech impediment in which it took her awhile to get words out. Smoke asked his father about it, and his father said that on the way to the outhouse when this woman was young, a mountain lion jumped into the path and scared the voice right out of her. Smoke says all the kids in the school assumed this to be true for many years. What I love is that his dad was pretty dang sly. I'm guessing the kids were less apt to make fun of her knowing she'd arrived at this impediment by surviving a hairy ordeal.

Nic, his sister, Valorie, and Autumn

The shindig itself

Ekalaka is in the southeast corner of the state, and it was trippy having family and friends arrive from North Dakota, South Dakota, and Wyoming, knowing they all actually live relatively close to each other.

Autumn with a bunny in her pocket

Norwegian wedding cake

pitchfork fondue

(these two shots were taken by Autumn)

bean bag games

This was a great trip not only for seeing a little town on the exact opposite end of the state from us, but for getting to know Nic better, seeing him in his original context. We'd only had a few months with him in Alaska this spring. Though he is a grown man and has been away from home for some time, I still enjoyed seeing the interactions of his family members with each other and their influences on each other. Families are cool. We are so happy for Autumn and Nic. They are dreamers and life-seekers and they're good to each other, and we're anxious to see what adventures they embark upon together.

Labor Day

This long weekend was so great. We got to spend a lot of time with my folks doing laid back activities. Jason hadn't had time off in a couple weeks, with his regular work and the lost hiker search (see post a little further down), so he went leisure-crazy with my dad, shooting arrows with their bows, riding horses, Jason getting thrown from a horse (it bruised up his knee and thus slowed him down quite a bit, ultimately rendering it leisure), and looking at maps of hunting areas.


On Friday I walked upstairs to the living room in a bit of a grog and was awakened to John McCain announcing Alaska's Governor, Sarah Palin, as his running mate. What a shocker. We had followed and voted in the race for Governorship back in Alaska a year and a half ago, and had attended a debate in Anchorage between Palin and the two other candidates. I called up to some peeps, and everybody there was in equal shock. It was and still is surreal seeing her and her family in the national limelight all of the sudden. Alaska has this weird relationship with the rest of the States. Lots of people there tend to feel removed from life down here, because frankly, geographically and fashion-wise, they are. So having all eyes turned that way for a minute, whether or not you agree with Palin's politics, brings up these feelings of "Hey, cool! Alaska is in the news!" and then, "Stop looking at Alaska! Go back to whatever you were doing before."

On Friday evening we ate Chinese food with my grandparents before they headed out on a month-long travel about, and last night we watched "Squidbillies" with Luke and Heather (bro and sis-in-law). Um, I could be really out of the loop, but I hadn't been aware of the existence of a cartoon about hillbilly squids. It is South-Park-esque and sacrilegious and ridiculous. The characters are horribly drawn. It is also riotously funny from time to time.

Today, Heather, Mom, and I went to a pottery shop in town and painted stuff. It was so much fun!! Naturally I chose to decorate a deviled egg platter. Mom painted salt and pepper shakers, hoping that after they are fired they will be the colors that the examples showed, rather than staying what they are now, a light blue and purple that she dislikes. Heather painted a snack plate.

rubberbands of anxiety

I was in an office supply store the other day, and as I browsed the shelves I was inexplicably drawn to the rubberband balls. I needed rubberbands but didn't end up buying a ball because of the practical consideration that all its rubberbands were the same size. Instead, I bought a variety pack. But I almost bought the ball simply to look at.

A week later, I was contemplating the various anxieties we're facing as the baby's birth approaches - the birth itself to a degree, but also housing, money, job, the allegedly big stuff, which become bigger when grown, capable adults aren't the only ones affected. All of a sudden I remembered the rubberband ball and realized why it had been so appealing. It was neat, together, organized. Every rubberband had a home on that ball, and new ones could be added and others taken off without disrupting its overall shape.

Here's how our rubberband ball looks these days:

* * * * *

But these are some thoughts that have been of comfort to us:

When you are in doubt, be still, and wait;
When doubt no longer exists for you,
then go forward with courage.
So long as mists envelope you, be still;
be still until the sunlight pours through and dispels the mists - -
as it surely will.
Then act with courage.
-Ponca Chief White Eagle (1800's - 1914)


Surely I have composed and quieted my soul;
Like a weaned child rests against its mother,
My soul is like a weaned child within me.
- Psalm 131:2


Let the shadow fall from your window
Let the morning light fill your head
Stand up and let the wild wind blow
Right into your soul till the night is dead
See the dawn break gold and the night is dead
- David Gray, "Lullaby"

so....what's happening to the food I'm ingesting by the bucketful?!