Grandma's Gone Wild!

Avraham Yosef

Today was my son's bris, and he fared much better than I. He cries more when I try to nurse him- and he sucked on the wine-soaked gauze for 15 minutes after the cut.

My son's name is Avraham Yosef. He is named for his two great-grandfathers, who both passed away while I was pregnant. My blessing for my son is that he may demonstrate hachnasat orchim as Avraham Avinu did, and may he always experience the love of his parents as Yoseph did. May he be a peacekeeper like Avraham Avinu and like Yoseph, may he never forget his heritage. May he have my father's father's longevity and capacity for personal growth even late in life, and my mother's father's passion for life and love of yiddishkeit. And may he grow to acquire Torah, Chuppah and a life of Ma'asim Tovim.

T-minus 3 hours

AnonAbba is soothing AnonyBoy back to sleep after our 4:00 a.m. nursing, and I'm trying to cope with the fact that my son will be circumcised in about 3 hours.

Someone tell me that hundreds upon thousands of little boys have been circumcised before him, and hundreds upon thousands will be circumcised following him- tell me this makes him part of a chain of Jewish men following the laws and traditions of his forefathers- tell me he will be proud to circumcise his son one day, and to be the sandek while his grandson is circumcised - Lie to me and tell me he won't be in pain, because I'm freaking out.

Wake This?

The pediatrician is concerned that AnonyBoy isn't gaining weight as quickly as he'd like to see, and has 'ordered' me to wake him every 2-3 hours to nurse if he doesn't rouse on his own. I find that I have to start psyching myself into waking him up. See, it takes us about 20-30 minutes to get him to sleep, but once he's asleep he'll sleep for a good 5 hours if I let him... So the prospect of rousing him in order to nurse him is along the lines of activating a time bomb in order to defuse it. You know it has to be done and that you'll be better off for it in the long run- but it doesn't make it any easier to do.

Eat, Sleep, Feed and Bathe

Understandably, life has taken a new hectic turn and my blogging time has been severely curtailed. I'm under the pediatrician's orders to do only four things: Eat, sleep, feed and bathe. My family is holding me to it, also, and I have had to bargain my computer time- I think I may have found a way around them, however. As hard as they try, apparently I can out-awake them all, and at 4:30 a.m., nobody's checking to see if I'm not at the compy. So, I have time to type out a post and check my email.

Baruch Hashem, I feel wonderful. Absolutely incredible. Giving birth without drugs was the most intense, important and empowering experience of my entire life. I'm in the middle of composing my birth story, which is already nearly three pages long (hey, it was a 41-hour labor after all). I doubt I'll actually post the entire thing here, unless I make it a PDF and post a link. I'll at least post the timeline and some highlights, as well as a top 5 or top 10 list of things that made a drug-free birth possible. I already know that #1 on that list is constant and competent support. My midwife was incredible, my labor nurse was an angel, and my husband and sister were more supportive, loving and patient than anyone has business being for that long. I owe them all a deep gratitude.

I'm also starting to think about closing up this blog- Being a topical blog specifically about pregnancy, I think I'd like to start a new blog about parenthood. I have found a lot of solace in sharing my story, anonymous though I may remain, and the journaling has brought comfort in a year desperately needing it. IY"H, I will have the opportunity to reopen this blog when the time is right again. I haven't yet decided to make the parenting blog personal or anonymous. If I decide to make it anonymous, I will link to it from here. Either way, I'm not quite finished here, yet.

Fresh From the Strawberry Patch

It's A Boy!

I'm very thankful to G-d and my entire family, and extremely proud to announce the birth of my son. He was born yesterday, on the 16th day of Tevet (January 16th) at 2:16pm in Evanston. I pray to G-d that my amazing wife and I can raise him to a life of Torah, Chuppah, and Good Deeds.

For the ladies, because I know they like this stuff:

• head - 13.25"
• abdomen - 11.25"
• length - 20.25"
• weight - 8.0#

We Have White Smoke

I believe I can officially say I'm in labor, and have been for approximately 16-18 hours, now. Since just about the end of Shabbat, I've been having contractions lasting about 45 seconds, approximately 10 minutes apart, and yes- it continued throughout the night, and into today. I was able to sleep about as much as I usually do, but did wake up this morning with the pain in my back. Without being TMI, I now have unmistakable 'proof' (besides the contractions) that I'm in early labor. It was destined to happen this way- 'cause Anonymousister left an hour ago to go back home, as she starts the new semester bright and early tomorrow morning. It's Murphy's Law.

I'm raring to go, very excited. Let's see how long that will carry me.

Wishful Thinking?

Starting last night, I was feeling some very low back aching each time I woke up to go to the bathroom. Today, I had more aching, mostly a constant dull ache, with intermediate periods of intensification. Then, tonight as of about 4:30 or 5:00, I started to feel the back pain intensify with stronger contractions that feel like Braxton Hicks, though stronger and lower in the front of my abdomen. I don't usually get menstrual cramps, but the few times I have they've been of the shooting variety. The contractions I'm feeling are strong tightening sensations that feels uncomfortable and I certainly don't like it, but I wouldn't so much say they're like menstrual cramps.

We've started to time them, but I'm trying to decide if I think this is for real or just wishful thinking...