Week 18 Day 1

   Games to (not) play with your pregnant wife:  Find the Fundus. 

   Our midwife showed me how to do this and it’s pretty cool.  As the link above explains, the fundus is the top of the uterus and it gets higher and higher the further along the pregnancy progresses.  To find it, you dig your fingers into the abdomen of your wife and feel around until you come up against something that is denser.  I was being too gentle on my first attempt and the midwife encouraged me to really dig around.  You have to push down a good 2 inches or so before you feel it.  If it hurts, your partner will tell you.  A suggestion:  don’t just dig in like I did.  A couple of small test pushes goes a long way to preparing your wife for further prodding.  At first, I wasn’t sure what I was feeling.  But it slowly dawned on me that my baby was only a fraction of an inch away from my fingertips.

   First thing in the morning is not the best time to play this game as the bladder may be full.

Week 17 Day 7

   In planning for the baby’s arrival, my wife and I are trying to figure out parental leave.  By law, the United States must allow 12 weeks for both mother and father.  However, this is all unpaid.  We therefore must use vacation pay or take the time off unpaid. 

   Studies now indicate just how important bonding time is during the first 12 weeks for both the mother AND the father.  So kudos to America for giving this time to both parents.

   However….

   Not a lot of people have a full 12 weeks of vacation pay saved up and as I’ve been told again and again, our expenses will go waaaaaaay up after having a child.  So it is really impractical to take all 12 weeks.  Everything I’ve heard about the first months indicates that we really “aren’t going to get much sleep” and we’re going to be “tired all the time”.  Other people seem to take delight in telling us this. Thanks.  But we’re aware of this and know we’re going to be so tired during these 12 weeks that I’m not sure how much use we’d actually be at work. 

   So let’s compare.  Here is a PDF of a study showing the parental leave of 21 developed countries.  It’s a little wordy but if you skim down a few pages you’ll get some informative graphs.

   And I just went to Wikipedia and am now ashamed and appalled at the lack of paid support in the USA.  Assuming this is accurate (it is after all Wikipedia) the United States is the ONLY country listed to NOT give some financial support to parents.  This includes the less wealthy countries in Africa and Asia.  Is this upsetting to anyone else?

   And an article in USA Today adds a more personal touch.

   Way to be an ass, America.

Week 17 Day 6

Weeks 7 through 17!

Ok.  I know everybody else does this.  But that shouldn't keep me from doing it, too.
   Here's what the last 10 weeks look like for us!  It's real easy to forget just how drastic the changes are when we live with it every day.  And this just shows the changes on the outside.  Imagine what has to happen on the inside in order for the body to allow something like this to happen.
  This is a pretty amazing thing.  And again I ask "What are we doing?!"

Week 17 Day 5

   It’s our 11 year anniversary and we just got back from Ashland to see some great theatre at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival.  And the city of Ashland is awe-some.  We again ate at our favorite restaurant, Tabu, where we.. ahem, shared a glass of wine.  Apparently, at this point in the pregnancy, a glass of wine once a month, week or even a day does not hurt the growing fetus.  (As stated in this article.)  I was completely unaware of this and was immensely scared that should even an ounce of alcohol touch the lips of my wife, our baby would instantly develop some horrible deformation like 3 eyes or 17 tails. (That would actually be kind of cool).

   Anyway, this appears to be common knowledge outside the good ol’ US of A.  So I find that among this, and many other things (like cesarean sections and home births), we are slightly behind the curve.  I find myself wondering again why this is.  I think my wife summed it up best when she said, “We are living in a country that loves its family values but doesn’t value its families.”  Ouch.  To the point and absolutely correct in my opinion.

   But I digress.  What I originally was going to say is that in my previous declarations to forego alcohol in solidarity with my wife… I was apparently being an ass.  Cheers!