Whoa! Where am I? Can anyone read me? Wow, this is not bad at all! This is history in the making folks. Today is the day I (Chris/ Hubby) make my debut into the blogging world. And to tell you the truth, it is pretty darn easy!

I will be guest blogging for my beautiful wife when Verity decides to make her grand entrance. It is going to be a switch in what everyone expects when they visit this site. I have a tendency to laugh at myself when nobody else does. So you will be reading things that are really funny, but you just may not know it at the time. No, seriously, this is going to be great taking pictures of the baby, mommy, big brother and yours truly and posting them here. I will make sure that you get the latest news on the O family when we are finally complete. Anyway, wife doesn’t know that I am blogging right now, so she will be surprised to see this posted. As I type, she is doing this:

3. K1, *yo, k1, SK2P, k1, yo, k1; repeat from * to end

What the heck does that mean??? Oh well, all I know is that it is some sacred ancient language that when translated, makes it possible to make clothing. Who knew?

After a great day of cleaning up some puke, walking to a great waffle sandwich stand only to find out it was closed, grabbing some Cuban food, walking some more, coming home to see if we can get some more contractions coming, watching the wife knit while on a pilates ball, and then watching our Portland Trailblazers beat Houston, I am going to call it a night while keeping fingers crossed for having Verity arrive in the early morning.

This is Chris, signing off.

Had a midwife appointment yesterday, everything still good. She guessed that Verity is in the 8 pound range now (yay…?) We don’t have another appointment until next Monday evening, at which time we might go into a few more interventions to get things moving because I’ll be encouraged to get another sonogram and schedule an induction at 42 weeks (figure I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it, but anticipate a plan of a written letter opting OUT of that plan so long as mama and baby are doing fine).

Last night we had a little party grow at our pad, kinda organically, made up of all the people adding to our Azure Standard order this week. It was so much fun! But we didn’t end things til around midnight so I quickly went to bed and woke up from a deep sleep 6 hours later with a sore throat. Weird…

Then I had a few hours of contractions this morning and had to have Chris come home from work to help with Ethan. I’ve had contractions and BM’s (TMI?) all day, esp when taking walks, but nothing feels like its getting more progressive so I’m still skeptical of either a loooooong latent phase OR another start/stop labor. Ahhhhh, well, yeah, whatever!

Right now I’m sitting on a yoga ball drinking tea and eating a few chocolate chip cookies fresh out of the oven… mmm… and sometimes bracing the coffee table during the small rushes that come every 5-10 minutes or so.

OKAY, well, stay tuned, I suppose!

Call it nesting, or call it a good night’s sleep, but some jolt of energy came upon me today.

I did some knitting in the sun:

While Ethan played in the water:

Then I began a cooking spree, which started with a Lemon Ginger cooler (with herbs from our garden- lemon balm, mint, pineapple mint). (Hubby’s included Triple Sec )

Then vats and vats of Sprouted Lentil Veggie Stew (this is only a quarter of it):

Then my coconut oil brownies:

Then a new batch of tea for our massive kombucha brewing:

Then Herbed Apple Chedder Scones (with herbs from our garden: thyme, winter savory, and rosemary!):

And with that and a cup of tea, I’m calling it a night!!!

Hey folks, and Happy Due Date Day to ya!

Since these next few week’s could be lacking some content, I’ve created a page just for getting quick updates about what is happening. You might want to click here when you visit, esp because we have planned for a friend of mine who will be here during the birth to update this with the major mile markers of the labor process as it happens.

Verity has been very quiet for some time now; I got a deep sleep in last night– very uneventful, but VERY needed!

Also, here I am this morning, posing with our tulips that have just bloomed this weekend – 40 weeks and counting:

And here are some pics of us this morning at our latest hang out- a waffle sandwich stand down the road called The Flavour Spot. Chris got a nutella/marshmellow fluff waffle sandwich, I got my usual- pb and nutella, and Ethan dared to be different- a pb and lemon curd! All were satisfied

For awhile, having a little baby countdown widget on my sidebar was exciting. I remember watching it breach the 100 days, then the 10 days not long ago. Woo hoo, I thought. Getting closer! And indeed, I was.

But now the very sight of it, mocking me with its reading of “40 weeks! It’s go time!” is just downright uncalled for. I say, “Dude – shut your pie hole! I KNOW this!” back at it. (In my head; out loud would be a little bit awkward.)

After Ethan went “late”, I kinda thought- okay, I’ve paid my dues. I’ve experienced the mind-boggling alternate reality of the Overdue, where lack of sleep, frustrated attempts to “get things goin’”, boredom, and eventually hormonal hysteria, finally leave you actually thinking, OMG. I WILL BE PREGNANT FOR EVER!

It is almost 8pm, pacific time. Unless I go into labor NOW and it lasts less than 4 hours (har har), I will again miss that coveted experience of having the pregnancy shortened and being surprised by a baby earlier than predicted. It’s funny (though not so much when you are living it right NOW) how things like this can take over every aspect of your life in the final weeks of pregnancy (particularly post-term pregnancy). You already know what people keep telling you – that babies come when they are ready, that due dates aren’t set in stone, bla bla bla, but then this nagging voice in your head chimes in about all the things that could be keeping you from your labor of love and you just want to DO SOMETHING about it, for peet’s sake.

Well, I’ve tried everything this week, everything. My legs are sore I’ve walked so much. I have tried every herbal induction tincture under the sun — even did the castor oil thing. Not much luck, obviously. I am, however, super tired. I slept a whopping two full hours last night, midnight to 2am, and took a one hour nap this afternoon. Perhaps that is the hardest part about being this pregnant – the downright physical exhaustion.

Oh well. This will all be a distant memory soon enough. I will be telling other full term moms to “hang in there” and forgetting all about this most undesirable phase of my own pregnancies. Ay mi.

Tomorrow is my due date. Tonight, the only labor prep I’ll do is drink my tea, take my evening primrose oil, knit and eat a bag of cheetos.

(The healthy kind. I haven’t gotten THAT hysterical )

Well, I had planned to post some beautiful pictures of me with my hair newly dyed, a henna pattern on my swollen belly — radiant as the sun in the goddess glow of pregnancy.

But life got in the way.

Despite that I carefully boiled the water, mixed the sensitive ingredients of henna powders today (the hair dye was also henna)- things just did not work out. After an hour with the plastic bag on my head, my hair looks exactly the same. The same premature gray strands are jutting out from my crown, the same golden lackluster hair adorns my tired little head.

The mehndi pattern on my belly came out funky (I guess you’re not supposed to try doing it yourself in a mirror?) and then the applicator bottle got plugged up. Needless to say, that dream ended with an F-bomb of surrender as I trudged to the bathroom to quickly wash off the beginning of my design.

I had myself a good boo-hoo fest before requesting Hubby’s bicycle delivery service to pick up some red wine, cookie dough, and more evening primrose capsules from New Seasons.

Why haven’t I learned by now that somethings just don’t work out the way you want them to? Why are things so searingly disappointing? At least it makes life colorful. I can laugh about this. Some day.

No baby yet, in case you’re wonderin! Though we experienced a 3 hour “practice” labor in the middle of the night on Saturday, which was soooo much fun. Really, though, I’m grateful for it! I remembered those feelings and how the body kinda figures out what it needs. In my case, it was to sit with my back near the heater and hang on to a towel bar during a contraction. Again, sooooo much fun. The midwife speculated that I progressed to 3cm that night, fwiw.

I finished Ina May’s Guide to Childbirth and have officially changed my birth language to replace “contractions” with the word “rush” (cause that is SO what it is like and doesn’t take as much energy to say) and the word “false” with “practice”. I even read that it’s normal to start labor 4-5 times and then stop again (indefinitely) before it comes on strong enough to complete the birth process. Somehow that makes those hours starting/stopping labor seem less futile 

We had a lovely easter: Ethan got a small basket full of organic lollipops (he specified that he wanted FIVE, with an OHMYGOSH-that-is-more-than-I-can-imagine look in his eyes, lollipops from the “easter bunny”), along with his own Sigg bottle and a wind-up catepillar toy- he was totally stoked about all of that. We did the church thing -which, in our case, is really nothing like it sounds, and finally found new training wheels for Ethan’s bike so he was super excited about that.

We then had burritos at Laughing Planet in the EcoTrust building and walked the Pearl and over the Broadway Bridge to the Rose Quarter to pick up the Max to return home. It was like old times, all that walking. There was something nostalgic about how hubby and I’s conversation just went on and on, and Ethan having to pee in the bushes, and all of us bundled together to get relief from the wind. Though at this point our walking also brings on lots of contractions — but I talked through them and enjoyed the “stretch”.

Back home, I made a lamb/asparagus stew (with fresh lamb meat from a local farm selling at the farmer’s market, gotta love it!)  for our community house dinner and we shared a dessert variety platter, courtesy of the Holberts, to celebrate Hubby’s b-day (which is today). There was some lovely Easter viewing of No Country for Old Men, but at some point I knew my limit and retreated to my room to get the senseless killing stuff out of my head! I believe that after a hot shower, prenatal yoga, reading a book, and listening to Shane&Shane, I was able to sleep without thinking about people getting shot up, lol. I’m bad with those movies –way too visually and emotionally involved!

One thing we did NOT do was remember to let the boys run around and find the easter eggs they painted the day before that Hubby hid around the yard. So they did that a day late this morning

I had a midwife appointment this afternoon (last one before official due date) and the hubs and I are going to do something out and about later this evening for his b-day today.

Otherwise my week is pretty darn boring- I have lots of work to do but I’m having to take it a day at a time and see what I can handle.

Okay, that’s the update! Gotta get going!

What’s totally weird?:

• Being down to single digits on the countdown to Verity’s arrival. Tooooootally.

• At last upgrading to the latest Wordpress and updating to a new theme (after doing so for 3 clients already, finally giving a little TLC to my own blog). Kinda “spring”-ish, don’t ya think? Should last a few months, anyway.

• Having nothing, literally NOTHING, else to say right now.

UPDATE: I’ve just gone ahead and updated wordpress and my theme. Please excuse the dust while I spend a wee bit of time customizing! Also, let me know if you are having trouble viewing mamaneedjava in IE! I’m viewing it fine in IE 8.

If any one can help, here’s my prob:

Recently I was notified that my site isn’t showing up in the current version of Internet Explorer. According to an article I read, wordpress.com and photobucket.com (where I create my slideshows to embed here) are both having compatibility problems with IE 8. I want to make sure my blog is basically viewable for IE visitors to see my birth announcement when Verity is born, so I want to try to resolve this issue quickly. I do NOT have time or energy to get the homepage up to web standards because every little plugin and widget I have added over the years technically has some errors in validity. I plan to upgrade my version of wordpress to 2.7 and my customized theme to a web standards compliant, premium theme — BUT, that’s a project for like, maybe this summer, with much more on the front burner right now.

If anyone knows, for real, about why or how to resolve the IE issue quickly, drop me a line (vortecho (at) gmail (dot) com.

THANK YOU!