clearbluecup

(this is tom posting. already the proud father... ready to bore everyone with pictures!)



this is a scan from this week. you can see the nose, eye, and the babys arm

covering the cheek.

Well, I'm still pregnant, and entering the longest two weeks of the entire pregnancy experience. At least I know it is a finite two weeks, as I will be induced at the hospital 10 days post due-date if baby doesn't make his or her appearance before then. However, that fact is somehow not as reassuring as one would think. Starting monday I'm going to work my way through every natural labour inducer known to womankind: bumpy car rides, spicy food, long walks. Come the following monday we bring out the big guns: castor oil. I pray that labour begins before we get to that stage, as drinking castor oil sounds nearly as vile as having a synthetic oxytocin drip in my arm.

We have also decided to move to Vancouver, arriving around the 1st of October. Yes, this seems like a crazy thing to do with a baby due to arrive any day now, but we're just two crazy people I guess. So while I sit around waiting for baby I am also getting ready to move, trying to get quotes from moving companies and sorting out all the stuff that's not worth shipping across the sea. It's a very strange headspace, I have to say. Nesting instinct pulling in one direction and moving instinct pulling in the other. And it's not signed and sealed yet either, as we are still waiting on a corrected contract for Tom. Every now and then I get all tearful and blubbery at the thought of losing my support networks here, and at the thought that I somehow won't be able to cope with a newborn. And then I go for a walk and remember that all these things that are happening right now are good things, and they only seem scary because they are all happening at once.

I have this niggling thought though, that something is still not quite right. Like I'm waiting for one more piece of the puzzle to fall into place before I can say, 'yes, I am ready for this baby to arrive'. I thought at first that it was the decision itself, that once we made the decision to move or not move that I would be settled and ready. But that was a week ago now and still no baby. All our supplies are in place for the birth, so it's not that. Baby's in a good position, head engaged, and as far as we can tell he or she is ready for birth. Thesis is coming along at a good pace, but I don't think I could really wait until it was finished to be ready for birth. I have cleaned the house till it was spotless more than once, stocked the fridge with groceries and sorted my sock drawer, and it felt good to have those things done but still no baby. I finished my baby quilt, called friends I haven't spoken to in months, made another sling and dealt with the infinite beauracracy of the irish immigration system as best I could and still no baby. I thought maybe I would go into labour on the full moon, yet that was wednesday and I felt not a single pang of pain. Maybe it's psychological housekeeping I should be doing instead of all this physical, tangible stuff.

while I wait, I've been trying to keep busy by scanning some of tom's old family photos. Here's a small selection:

Tom's dad working as a cameraman

The boat his family lived on for a year docked in Kinsale

Family friends relaxing on the grass

A young Tom wearing his rupert trousers

And the horrible shorts I've been wearing day in and day out. They get washed occasionally, I promise.

The last instalment of belly shots will be coming soon...

Ariel voted Shambhala the best festival she's been to in the last 10 years, beating out Love Parade, Burning Man AND Glastonbury.

Sigh. I bet it was fabulous.

What if I am the one freakish woman who never actually gives birth? who simply remains pregnant forever and grows to be the size of an elephant?

I am ready to have this baby.

and by that I mean we're still waiting.

after waking up and feeling very sorry for myself that we had arrived at friday when I was SURE I was going to have this baby by mid-week, I moped about the house for a bit while trying every yoga posture said to open the pelvis and encourage baby to drop lower, drinking uterine toning tea and rubbing contraction-encouraging aromatherapy oils on myself. I ended up hydrated, flexible and smelling very strongly of jasmine but no closer to having the baby.

with all of our best natural-induction efforts seemingly having as much effect as drinking a glass of water, I was feeling rather frustrated and sorry for myself until we went to our friends wedding this afternoon. It was a beautiful, simple ceremony in the registry office, and even though I was totally hormonal and over-emotional and clumsily tripped over my own feet walking over there, it made me realise that I was glad to have been able to be there with them. they are having a party this weekend out on an island south of cork, and even if baby had arrived before now we wouldn't have been able to go, but today we could at least be there for the formal ceremony.

so, I feel more chilled out now. waiting for this birth will take as long as it takes, and I will not know when it is going to happen until it is happening so there is NO POINT in waking up and thinking that surely I will have the baby by tomorrow, or the next day, or the end of the weekend because when it doesn't happen I have only made myself more anxious and dissapointed. which is no way to spend our last days as a child-free couple. baby will arrive when he or she is good and ready.

clearbluecup has moved house!

I'd been using greymatter as my blogging software since clearbluecup was started four (four? yes, four!) years ago, but in the last week several things happened that made it clear that greymatter was no longer working out for us.

first, I discovered RSS feeds. how could I have been ignorant for so long? Feeds are brilliant! so much time that I used to spend typing in website addresses is now free to be redirected into other things, like twiddling my thumbs waiting for this baby. I decided that I wanted to have a feed for my site, and discovered that it was an enormous PITA with greymatter.

second, one of the scripts that ran my site went haywire and our host suspended any updates on my site. so basically I couldn't write any new posts until it was fixed and the trouble that it would take to fix it was almost equivalent to the time and effort it would take to transfer my site over to another blogging program. So we shifted everything over to movable type and here we are!

I'd like to get a new template up soon, but that will depend on how much time I have left before baby. maybe lots, maybe very little. In any case, welcome to the new era of clearbluecup.

Here's the last set of belly shots. well, the second last I suppose. we will take a final one as I go into labour, but these are all the remaining ones from the last nine weeks. we got a bit lazy in terms of taking the photos at the same time every week, so some weeks have two and others none, but you get the idea all the same. I'm freaking huge.

33 weeks

35 weeks

37 weeks

38 weeks

38 1/2 weeks

39 weeks

40 weeks - I'm done!

40 1/2 weeks - nope, not done yet. still pregnant.

perhaps some more words. she was born at 4:40am, in the caul, after a relatively short labor. michelle did an awesome job, with our very supportive midwives.

(i just fixed the photo link, click below)

edited again to say we've added a few more photos to the album below...

it's hard to know where to start.

we have gone back to the very basic things of life, back to where pooing is a big event. back to the very fundamentals, eat sleep poo clean up repeat. and not just for Beatrice, (Beatrice Marie Youngson Carchrae, but more on her name later) but for all of us. after the soaring giddy heights of the birthing high, this is a little humbling, but it is good.

i am so thankful to have all the wonderful support that is around me - from friends sending reiki and a monastery full of nuns praying for me during labour and delivery, to tom who has been waiting on me hand and foot and repeatedly sending me back to bed to lie down. I felt like I could do anything after giving birth, why not just stand up and walk to the kitchen for what I needed? the mind is strong, but the body needs time to recover.

her name is a bit unusual, but something about it just clicked. I adore the meanings - bringer of blessings and joy, and it's a classic name. we sung all the names we were considering to her one evening while dinner was being cooked, and beatrice got a big smile so we thought she must like it too. marie is my mom's middle name, so she has a family connection on my side, and youngson is a name that has been passed down onto the firstborn of the firstborn in tom's family for several generations. we decided that if there is indeed the inheritance of a castle in scotland attached to the name then beatrice shouldn't miss out just because she's a daughter.

we are settling in, routines are being established (by beatrice, of course) and we're all getting just about enough sleep to function. when I let go of whatever ideas I might have had about how life with a newborn should be and take my cues from her everything goes so much better. the little things make it all worthwhile, like a fleeting smile at 5am when I kissed her nose. i'd give up several hours more sleep for that smile.