ME: I think I’m tired.
DANE: Don’t think. Be.

Labor! We’ll let you know when there are results!

~Dane

I feel like I’m living in a cigarette-friendly hotel. Stinky smelly stinky.

I’ve washed about eighteen thousand loads of laundry so far. Sheets! And more sheets! And towels! And pillows! And more towels! And all the clothes we took with us! And half the clothes we didn’t! And diapers! And I’m starting to wonder who the frick invented textiles and why they couldn’t have just left well enough alone. What was so bad about being cold and without fabric? Get a sheep, is all I’m saying.

And in actual news: the air hasn’t cleared enough that we can go outside or open the windows, but the brown haze seems to be turning gray in some areas. I think that’s a good sign.

Maybe you’ve heard that half my state is on fire? (I know, I know, we’re all too busy to read the about page. I live in Southern California. The part that’s on fire. That one.)

We woke up Monday morning to discover that the sky had turned brown in the night. The sun glowed orange, which the kids thought was fabulous, and the air outside was not breathable, which no one thought was fabulous.

After several calls between various family members, several discussions with our midwives, and several reverse 911 calls throughout our neighborhood (that’s where emergency services calls YOU to tell you to get the heck out of your house, and do it now please), we left. The kids thought we were on a fabulous vacation, though they wondered why the adults kept watching a movie about fire on the hotel TV. (Can you tell these are children without television in their lives?)

Our neighborhood is no longer in danger and the air has cleared a bit, so we came home this afternoon.

Our house, it is stinky. Our electricity, it continues to flicker. Our neighborhood, it is sooty and ashy and generally dirty—but not too badly so. With luck, the air will be clear enough that we can maybe open our windows by the end of the day tomorrow.

And the baby can wait to be born until after that. I hope.

We’re sort of crunchy-granola natural-ish around here when it comes to our health. At least I think we are. But you know what? It is way easier to ascribe to a hands-off philosophy when everything’s going well than when things are a little off. I can confidently say, “eh, who needs Tylen0l for a fever, let the body do its thing” when no one has a fever, but the second someone gets sick, I start second-guessing that whole plan. Just for example.

And when I’m pregnant, I’m usually able to look rationally at routine tests and logically decide whether we want them. How accurate is the test? How reliable? Is there some reason to think I might need it? Will the results change the course of care we choose? And then we make a decision based on that information. And that works for us, usually. But usually I’m normal and healthy and boring.

So right now I’m having a hard time figuring out what the logical choices are. We can’t find anything amiss (my thyroid is quite functional, I’m sure you’re glad to hear), but as it turns out—and perhaps you already knew this—no matter how physically comfortable you are (or aren’t), nobody likes to be 43 weeks pregnant, even if you don’t necessarily believe in the numbers anymore. No caregiver, no matter how laid-back and trust-your-body-ish, likes for your chart to read 43 weeks pregnant. Suddenly a whole bunch of new informed consent forms make an appearance; we have to get or refuse tests and procedures we’ve never even been offered before. I’m finding this a little bit stressful.

And one of our midwives is supposed to go away for a month, starting this Thursday. We were supposed to have delivered by now, so she would have had plenty of time to be at the birth and the postpartum visits before taking off on her very-cool-sounding adventure. Except we haven’t delivered yet. And, um, I want her to be at the birth. Sigh.

Today we were joking about having a Halloween baby—it’s only two weeks away! And wouldn’t our older kids be irked! They may end up irked anyway—I’m not taking a less-than-two-week-old out on the town for our usual parade of grandparent visits and parties.

Hmm. I don’t think this post is going anywhere. I’ll summarize like this: I’m cool with letting things happen when and how they happen, but I wish I had some more idea of what that’s going to look like. And I wish I had an alarm bell that would go off if I needed to do something in the meantime. (Does fetal heart rate count as an alarm bell? Because it’s doing just fine. Not alarming at all.)

Dude. You can customize your NaBloPoMo page. Productivity is lost to me for the rest of the month.

I feel like I should give you some kind of exciting pregnancy update, but I’ve got nothing.

We’re way past our due date, which means either 1) the date is wrong, and we’re still waiting because the baby’s not done cooking yet; or 2) the date is right, and there’s some kind of holdup that needs addressing.

So far, we’re cautiously optimistic that it’s #1, but we continue to check regularly for any evidence of #2. And that’s really all the news. I’ll let you know when I’ve got something more interesting to report!

By the way, I’m going to be very annoyed if you all go out and get mom jobs. I do not have the $10,000 to $30,000 to spare to fit in.

Plus I’m pretty sure my body’s supposed to look like this. (Well, maybe not like THIS, with the extra gazillion pounds of baby and whatnot, but you know what I mean.)

And am I the only one who thinks “mom job” doesn’t sound like a plastic surgery procedure so much as a euphemism for… something else? (Yes, I’m probably the only one. Or at least I was until you read this post. You’re welcome.)