bring me some joy, please
My mom says that when she was in high school (a girls Catholic prep school in the late 50s), one of her teachers was called Sister Gonzalez. Most of the time, Sister Gonzalez kept a statue of St. Joseph in a place of honor at her desk at the front of the classroom. However, you could always tell when Sister and St. Joseph were on the outs, because she would turn the statue to face the wall. And if she was really upset with him, once in a blue moon you might come into the classroom and discover that St. Joseph had been put into the back corner of the room like a naughty child in time out. Generally it was a good idea to be on your best behavior on those days.
If I had a picture or statue of Sts. Philip and James I might have been tempted to do something similar, because it was really disappointing the way everything seemed to line up to give birth on the 3rd (I had over 12 hours of irregular contractions starting Tuesday night) and then died away.
I've pretty much been in "early labor" ever since, with some respites, and I'll be honest, it really sucks. It's like having a mild flu or a bad period--achy, irritable, crampy, appetite is poor, etc. And additionally she's SO low now that I have to prop my belly up with a pillow when I sit in certain positions because it just hurts otherwise.Thursday night was actually the worst--I was thinking that if this went on, I could not take it--but a hot shower and a massage eased things up so I actually got some sleep. Basically as long as I can sleep they're letting me go without interventions.
My midwives have been predicting that she's going to come soon ever since Tuesday. The one hope I cling to is that all of this preparatory activity will make the active labor easier, but I think I would have rather had quick and intensely hard labor than this uncomfortable indefinite stretch.
Anyway, Beatrix/Beatrice is currently first place in my baby name thoughts because it means "woman who gives joy/woman who blesses". Cuz it's gonna give me joy when she actually comes out.
Wikipedia is irritating me because they're saying it just means "blessed". It does not mean blessed. Beata would be "blessed". The -trix is not there just for show, people, ok? It's like execute, executor, executrix. Or hell, dominate, dominator, dominatrix. (It's interesting that Firefox spell check knows dominatrix but not dominator...) "Female who [verb]s."
In this case, the verb in Latin is beare "to gladden, to make happy, to bless".
Anyway, we're still not going to pick her name until we meet her. So who knows.
If I had a picture or statue of Sts. Philip and James I might have been tempted to do something similar, because it was really disappointing the way everything seemed to line up to give birth on the 3rd (I had over 12 hours of irregular contractions starting Tuesday night) and then died away.
I've pretty much been in "early labor" ever since, with some respites, and I'll be honest, it really sucks. It's like having a mild flu or a bad period--achy, irritable, crampy, appetite is poor, etc. And additionally she's SO low now that I have to prop my belly up with a pillow when I sit in certain positions because it just hurts otherwise.Thursday night was actually the worst--I was thinking that if this went on, I could not take it--but a hot shower and a massage eased things up so I actually got some sleep. Basically as long as I can sleep they're letting me go without interventions.
My midwives have been predicting that she's going to come soon ever since Tuesday. The one hope I cling to is that all of this preparatory activity will make the active labor easier, but I think I would have rather had quick and intensely hard labor than this uncomfortable indefinite stretch.
Anyway, Beatrix/Beatrice is currently first place in my baby name thoughts because it means "woman who gives joy/woman who blesses". Cuz it's gonna give me joy when she actually comes out.
Wikipedia is irritating me because they're saying it just means "blessed". It does not mean blessed. Beata would be "blessed". The -trix is not there just for show, people, ok? It's like execute, executor, executrix. Or hell, dominate, dominator, dominatrix. (It's interesting that Firefox spell check knows dominatrix but not dominator...) "Female who [verb]s."
In this case, the verb in Latin is beare "to gladden, to make happy, to bless".
Anyway, we're still not going to pick her name until we meet her. So who knows.