Warning: This is not a happy post. This is a sad and disappointed post about miscarriage. I still want to share, but you don't have to read it. Do what you need to do for you ( Read more... )

Trying to get pregnant is a giant game of waiting around for the right moment to rush. First you wait to ovulate. You count the days, you measure, you interpret, you wait. Then there is a brief moment of rushing, of inseminating (although that too involves waiting). And then you wait to see if anything happened. If hopes are growing. The waiting is ( Read more... )

Growing up, I thought there was only one radio station. My parents played CBC on the kitchen radio in the morning, on the car radio whenever we drove anywhere, and well, anytime the radio was on. For me, CBC One was radio. Okay, that's not quite true - I know that there also was the BBC Worldservice, but not having shortwave this was something I ( Read more... )

For many people, this would be a conversation about how to prepare the person in labour, and how to physically go about the transfer to hospital. For me, this conversation was about how to prepare the hospital. Apparently, transmen having babies is not the norm around here, and a pair of transmen, one pregnant, one not, are, shall we say, unusual ( Read more... )

I've developed an incredible frustration with both sides of the birthing divide. I feel like there are two narratives out there;

Narrative one: All births should be a homebirth. Ideally you would have an unassisted birth, but seeking the support of a midwife is okay, in particular if she is a homebirth midwife. You should "trust birth", "trust your ( Read more... )

Today is our theoretical due date. I've been saying it like that for the last couple of weeks. Most people talk about having an "actual due date" but I've been pretty adamant that the kid's numeracy skills are pretty low at this point, and besides, there are no calendars in there, and even if there were, it's too dark to read. Noting that only 10% ( Read more... )

We live in a culture that values count downs. Big things like space ships get count downs, every day things like movies get count downs, and in this season, the stores are full of advent calendars when one can count the days down to Christmas, one crappy chocolate at a time. Around here we still count sleeps - as in how many sleeps until something ( Read more... )

Being a keener, and being away this weekend and really busy all next week, I decided that I should get my H1N1 inoculation at the earliest possible opportunity, which in Halton was last Wednesday. I'd looked up the clinics well in advance, noted that the clinic ran from 2:00 - 8:00 at the Halton regional building. I wrote that down in my day-timer ( Read more... )

I've been wearing a great many hats of late, because my hair had grown unreasonably long*. You know, the "hat as hair hider" thing. Unfortunately however pregnancy makes me warm and wearing a hat amplifies that effect, making me very warm. Clearly the time had come for a hair cut ( Read more... )

The teenagers I work with report that high school sex education says basically this about pregnancy: "Don't get pregnant.". They describe it as a little hysterical and one of them reported that the teacher actually said "Don't French kiss - you might get pregnant.". I have to say, it has occurred to me that you have a far more effective anti- ( Read more... )