New Craziness on the Way

[July 1, 2009]

Last night the first signs of weirdness arrived. I got home from work after 8 and I found Carey reclined on the couch with my Macbook near her face. Nexulous or whatever that Facebook scrabble game is called appeared on the screen. She apologized for not having dinner ready and complained of strange sensations in her lower abdomen. Not cramps, but just an unusual discomfort. Naturally, as to be expected, I beat her for not having my dinner ready for me hot and on the table as soon as I got home... She looked lethargic. I prepped for dinner (microwaved) while she tried to get her mind off her pain by video chatting with Dan & Toby. She pulled up her shirt and flashed them. A few times, actually. She took it a little too far, in my opinion. Kind of like drunk behavior. We ate dinner on the couch because she only felt comfortable lying down. After dinner she passed out on the couch while I watched the early 80's classic TV show Square Pegs (thoroughly disappointing). The next day she made me aware that in the morning her bowel movements are of monster proportions. Consistently. I guess I needed that information...for what, though I don't know. These mood alterations continued. She's been sometimes acting sullen, depressed, quiet and not moving around so much and then to the other extreme. Yesterday morning she frantically ran around the house yelling at the printer/copier for being too slow. As if she had smoked some crystal meth and became angry at the slow pace of the world in comparison to her racing, stressed out mind. Even this morning she seemed distant, slow, not really her perky self. She admitted to being worried about losing the baby cells (as we prefer to call the pregnancy right now). The day before she lifted some chains at Home Depot (for her work) and feared that this might have dislodged the egg from its attachment to the uterus. I tried to calm her with the knowledge that at this point, the growing baby cells are tiny like an orange seed (actually just repeating back to her what she'd explained to me earlier).

Carey told Josie the news because she needed to tell someone. Other than that we are keeping the pregnancy on the down low.

Sunday night we watched the documentary The Business of Being Born. I freaked out. Sunday nights are not a good time to be introducing new and really intense pieces of information. I'm worn out from the week and weekend by then. The footage of natural birth showed women in equal parts terror and euphoria. The pain and impossibility, the suffering of child birth these women shared. Yikes! is an understatement. However, the Oxytocin rush seemed to compensate for the long, long horror of labor pains. Still, I don't know how they handle that for 12 to 24 to 36 hours. I realized how unnecessary men are in pregnancy and birth. As a dude you deliver your seed and then you are done. Deposit the goods and then become the sole changer of the cat litter. The film made me think about the future of sexes. From an evolutionary perspective, perhaps the male sex will not be needed if females can produce sperm (I think I heard that they already can? Scientists in England or something?). At any rate, the movie was eye-opening. I especially liked the expose of crooked hospitals, intervening and impatient doctors, the corrupt AMA, and the blind ignorance of America in regards to midwifery especially in comparison with the rest of the world. I used to be under the false assumption that midwives were all hippy-dippy crap. And it's true that the hippy communes practiced midwifery but only as mimicked from immigrant culture i.e societies that have been around much longer the the good ol' US of A. Turns out most of the world accepts midwifery as a viable option. So we're going natural. I'm down with that, but I'm not looking forward to labor.