It's a boy!

It's a baby boy for Michele! Baby Hudson was born on Saturday afternoon. Mommy and baby are both doing well.

Induction - and not into a hall of fame!

My husband made me apologize to our fetus yesterday.

"Say you're sorry," he told me over the phone when I called him a few minutes after leaving my final appointment with the Ob/Gyn.  "It's not his or her fault."

Fine, I answered sheepishly. I'm now five days overdue and apparently not going to have this baby without medical intervention. My cervix of steel just won't efface (get thin and soft) or dilate (open up!) on its own. So the baby, which has dropped "as far as it's going to go short of being born," my doctor said, can't really get out just by knocking its head against the lower portion of my body. And the hormones bumping up and down inside of me have proven no match for my iron innards. 

"You're a tough nut to crack," the doctor said. I'm still laughing at that remark. I've always been stubborn. Shoulda known!

Induction. I've heard about it. I've read about it. And now I'm about to experience it at some point in the next day or two, which is great - because I'm getting antsy in this crazy pregnancy-mom-to-be limbo!

While I have only little clue as to what to expect - gel, then an IV drip (needles - damn I hate those!!) - I am so thankful for modern medicine. Would I, and or the baby, have died in childbirth 100 years ago??

How would the baby have gotten free? Or, would my ridiculous combination of genetics ensured that evolution weeded out my family lineage long, long ago?

Crazy stuff. Not that I'm religious, but thank god I don't have to worry about any of it. 

So, I'm told that sometime before the end of this week I'll be holding my baby. And I'll never sleep again!

Still waiting....

We've tried reverse psychology.

"Okay, baby, don't come out for another several weeks," my husband told my stomach yesterday. He put his lips close to my belly button and made grand facial movements as he spoke in a high, but authoritative voice. 

"We'll just enjoy all your toys on our own," he said. "Wee! We'll sit in your stroller. We'll swing in your swing!"

And.... nothing. 

I feel perfectly fine three days after my due date. Way too fine. 

I thought I was overtaken by the nesting instinct a couple of nights ago - I got some energy and wanted to put the dishes away - but that quickly subsided. And now it's totally gone. And the dishes are still out drying on the counter top. 

Every now and then I poke at my stomach when I feel it has been too long and the baby hasn't moved. Fetuses this late in the game can get lazy, my doctor says. But then again, I've read everywhere, they sleep 9/10ths of the time!

Lentil seems to sleep during the day and be awake all night - a harbinger of things to come no doubt (if, that is, he or she ever decides to be born!). 

I'm also gripped by the Baby Kaylee Baby Lillian saga. A terrible ordeal for new parents and tiny babies - and probably not a good thing for an overdue expectant easy worrier almost mom to be reading, but it's fascinating. The Star and Ian Brown, of the Globe and Mail, have written some poignant stories about it.

And now it's Monday morning. I'm sitting at home eating crackers in bed and trying to figure out which portion of the city to traipse around today.

Over the weekend my husband and I went for long, long walks.  We even zipped around the AGO. I walked up and down the massive, wooden staircase. 

Walking works about as well as reverse psychology to induce labour, I've decided.

Nonetheless I'm off to the races once again!

So, anyone know how to induce labour? For real though.

Raspberry leaf tea. Sex. A bikini wax. Curry.

I'm sure I'll try all these things at some point in the coming days....

But just in case this baby decides to surprise me sooner than I think, I would like to thank everyone for riding along with me on this pregnancy roller coaster.

Your comments and patience (as I didn't have as much time as I wanted to blog between my full time job, column for the paper and general pregnancy fatigue) have been much, much appreciated.

And to all my fellow moms-to-be: good luck!! I wish you, your newborns and your families health, happiness and success. If you have time - please tell me how you're doing. And I'll be sure to let you know when the Lentil makes its debut!! 

And if he or she looks like a Lentil (gee, I hope not!)!!

My bags are packed...

I'm ready to go.

Any time now... just say when tiny fetus!

So, this is what I packed: 

For me:

- cracked nipple cream (because I bought it and didn't want to leave it at home)

- nursing pads (though I have no idea what they're used for at this point)

- panty liners, thick ones (because women have to wear diapers too, I hear)

- Vaseline (because everything goes better with petroleum jelly?)

- A couple pairs of my husband's pajama pants (for me to wear, of course - they're loose and comfy)

- two zip up sweatshirts (easy access to boobs)

- a long t-shirt that I don't look awful in (so guests won't recoil in horror when they see me)

- DVDs and laptop (cuz man will Ted and I be bored if we're in labour for hours)

- old yucky underwear (...)

- flip flops (yeah, like I'll be able to shower!) and slippers (because hospital floor is cheap linoleum!)

- cord blood kit (because I was crazy enough to spend money on lightning-strike insurance)

For the baby:

- cute, tiny little diapers (I am shocked that the hospital doesn't provide these!)

- receiving blankets (washed and folded!)

- burp cloths (because I hear babies like to spit)

- newborn nail clippers (because children come with claws?!)

- warm blanket and clothes for baby to wear home (home?! like it's going home with me?!)

- wipes (the hospital doesn't provide these either?! Well, what the hell does it provide then?! Sheesh!)

- Vaseline (because you can never have enough petroleum jelly - see above)

God I hope I'm not missing anything.... but I'm guessing I am?

Breastfeeding before the baby. Not a bad idea.

So everyone's making fun of me. Not that this is new, but this time it's a bit different.

My husband and I decided to take a private breastfeeding class with a lactation consultant. Yes. That's right - before the baby is born. If you wish to laugh at me, go ahead! I can take it!

The session was quite helpful as was our baby CPR class. Thankfully, my husband isn't trying to practice breastfeeding like he is baby CPR.

"Get your hands off that teddy bear, you look like you're hurting it," is something I routinely say now, since the CPR class. "Stop with the compressions already!"

My husband is a very diligent man. He loves to practice. To my amusement and annoyance! He also loves swaddling the bear and fastening and un-fastening the carseat straps around its furry limbs (I'm lucky. Especially because I won't remember anything after I give birth and he'll already have all this stuff rooted firmly in his brain). 

I digress. 

Seconds after walking out of the breastfeeding class - where we discussed the size of a baby's stomach (a chickpea at first!), the colour of baby poo (black, and all shades of green), how to latch (boob feeding not nipple feeding) and how to clutch a baby (like a football) - I ran into a friend on the street.

"Really? You took a class already? Amateur!" she said smugly, then laughed. 

But I don't care. One less thing for me to panic about! Since I know what's coming, I'll be less inclined to give up early.

Now all I need is the baby!

The waiting game! Not as much fun as it sounds!

In a bid to be spontaneous for the last time, my husband and I dragged ourselves out of the house at 10:15 p.m. one night last week and headed for Baskin Robbins. 

That's right. We needed ice cream. 

Wearing pajamas, we drove a few blocks down the street to our conveniently located purveyor of lactose and all things fattening and shared a massive sunday. 

I haven't slept since. Tiny fetus was so active after that I felt it was trying to crawl out my neck or break a rib. And it's been pretty squirmy for the last while. Problem is though, it shows no signs of wanting out. 

T'was only a few weeks ago I was begging the Lentil to sit tight until the due date. But that's tomorrow. And, now I feel like I'm finished being pregnant (especially because of the sleeping sitting up!)! Let's get this show on the road already!!

"If I had to guess," said my Ob/Gyn, a man with more than 35 years of experience who has delivered (probably) more than 1000 babies (I think), "I would say you're going to be a few days late."

Almost fully engaged, but no wedding, I guess!

What is it about babies and their due dates?! Why do 95 per cent of fetuses defy them??

So now I wait as if on borrowed time, watching very closely - too closely - for signs of labour. 

And I haven't had a normal conversation in days. "Have you had the baby?" "Is there a baby" "Baby???" is all I get asked.

I don't mind. But, I feel like a failure every time I say "no. not yet."

Argh. I'll just go eat some ice cream!

Is pregnancy beautiful?

"Don't have your baby right here!"

"Oh my god, your water better not break in this office!"

"You look like you're about to pop!"

What? I'm a pregnant woman - not some ticking time bomb! And, as I've been told by many many preggos there is no gushy Hollywood water breaking scene either. Time doesn't stand still and I won't leak in a pitifully embarrassing display on a friend's thousand dollar Manolos.

Public misperception is yet another reason I don't particularly find pregnancy beautiful.

A very articulate reader submitted a comment to one of my blogs, noting she'd like me to talk more about the nicer, more beautiful side of pregnancy.

Well, I have found this nearly 10-month experience to be fascinating, eye-opening, jarring, a bit gross at times and utterly miraculous. It's amazing how one human body can create another human body, brain, kidney, personality, life, out of so little. It is baffling to note how my body has changed so rapidly to accommodate a tiny creature who will one day contemplate life, the universe and its own existence. And when the fetus started communicating with kicks and squirms - well that just made it completely worth it.

But I certainly have not found pregnancy beautiful.

It's been difficult. Abusive to my sense of vanity. Hard on my energy levels and motivation at times. Irritating, nerve wracking, painful, debilitating, emotionally draining. Life changing. And until I became pregnant myself I had no idea the yuckier sides even existed.

None of my friends ever told me about the bad stuff. They just kind of suffered in silence. It's tough to spend an entire night throwing up, peeing repeatedly, sleeping sitting up near the end (because lying down with a seven pound fetus squishing your lungs just isn't comfortable) and then be expected to perform superbly the next day at work.

It's been rough, for me, to contemplate taking a year away from a job, which I love. And it's frightening to think I'll have to reforge part of my identity.

Don't get me wrong. I'm not suggesting it's okay to whine through the entire experience (although I do love to complain and fancy myself quite good at it as evidenced by my blogs) or stay home and feel sorry for yourself. I certainly haven't done that. In fact, I plan to work up until a few days before my due date.

And I don't believe in taking anything lying down!

But, I felt very alone at the start of my pregnancy because I didn't realize something so common could be so hard. So why sugar coat it?

It was my choice to have a child. And I'm tremendously excited for the end result of this pregnancy. That's what will be beautiful: my baby.  

Fetuses are painful.

At the start of this pregnancy my husband Ted came home one day and told me that some fetuses - at some point in our evolutionary past - would kick the crap out of their moms-to-be from the inside.

A portion of these mothers - thousands of years ago, of course - died from internal injuries inflicted by their overzealous hulk-like progeny-to-be, my husband said, to my dismay. Those babies didn't end up in our current gene pool, Ted assured me however, because neither they, nor their moms, survived the ordeal.

Well, I feel like some of those aberrant genetics sneaked into modern times.

What's worse than the strong fetal kicks of month seven? The painful stretches and knee and elbow rolls of months eight and nine! The baby limbs might look cute already - squished inside my belly - but they sure feel lethal!

And I swear the baby has decided to use my bladder as a pin cushion undoubtedly to free its tiny hands while it practices kitting a sweater!!

"I'm finished," I told my Ob/Gyn the other day. 

"Congratulations," he said. "Now sign this."

As I inked my signature on documents giving the hospital permission to care for me during labour, the doc explained that the baby hadn't dropped yet and I probably wasn't as finished as I would like to be.

Right then and there I made a decision: I just might be one of those moms who is always telling her kids how much she suffered during labour.

"Eat your broccoli little so and so," I will say with a pleasant smile. "I suffered for you my darling and the least you can do for your poor mother who suffered through the pain and agony of pregnancy so that you could be alive today to even so much as look at broccoli, is to eat your green vegetables." 

A small gripe:

A small gripe:

My two lovely younger sisters bought our bundle-of-joy-to-be a happy-looking, music-making, newborn-soothing swing a few weeks ago and paid for its delivery from the uptown store to our downtown home (this is not my gripe). 

But when I called the store to arrange said paid-for delivery, the salesperson informed me that they only dropped off items on Wednesdays and Fridays between 9 a.m. and 12 p.m.

"But I work during the week!!" I shrieked hormonally into the phone. "Who the hell can be home at those ridiculous hours?? People who have money to buy things, like this swing, have to work during work hours to make money to buy them!!!!"

Needless to say the phone call ended shortly thereafter and I picked up the swing on the weekend. 

When I finally calmed down it occurred to me: Once I pop this creature I will be home during the day, specifically between 9 in the morning and noon. 

Oops!