baby dance

Vanessa and I went to a house concert yesterday, we saw KC Clifford, she was great and I think baby think she was great because he danced the whole time there and later that night when I went to bed.

36 weeks visit

Tuesday we saw the doctor for the 36 week visit. We were going to have an ultrasound and knowing Vanessa was very curious about all this, I invited her to join us. She took some pictures... Ben wasn't very awake....

  

  

Results: I am 2cm dilated, cervix very soft. Doctor says I'm ripe! So in other words I can have this baby tomorrow or in 5 weeks...

Prenatal Yoga Teacher Training

Last week, I spent 5 full days with some wonderful women learning about prenatal and postnatal yoga. I learned so much, not only as a yoga teacher but also as a pregnant woman and as a future mother. Women from all generations were there sharing their stories. Some were trying to get pregnant, some had lost their babies, some had 2 year-olds, some had 20 year-olds.

The teacher showed us some movies about birth and labor, which made me cry pretty much every time. One of them was about the story of women giving birth throughout the ages. There was an aztec statue of a goddess giving birth with a crazy face, called  Tlazolteotl featured several times during the movie. 

The next day, one of the ladies said she had something to show us, she had bought a replicate of that same statue in a Mexican market many years ago. So it became our mascot for the remaining of the training (in the middle of the picture above).
At the end of the training when we took our little shrine down which included objects that women had brought representing birth and womanhood, a little baby gecko came out of it. 
The teacher thought it was so curious she did some research on their symbolism.
"Geckos are a symbol of change such as transformation, death and rebirth. 
"Lucky charms carved in their likeness were said to preserve eyesight and worn by pregnant women to insure a safe delivery of a happy healthy child."

When I told this story to Vanessa, she said she was going to paint a henna gecko on my belly...

Friends

My friend Rose and Kathleen organized a baby shower at our house a couple weeks ago. We had a Taco & Margarita party to make it less cheesy and include the boys. It was so nice to have these two wonderful ladies come to our house and take care of everything. I will never be grateful enough for all they did that day.

Everyone got to draw on onesies and burp cloths.

Some were very creative!

I am not sure if it's the hormones, but I feel so happy, content and grateful for all that we have, our friends, our home, our family, and our little boy growing and moving inside of me.

Practice makes me laugh

Child birthing classes are a mixed bag. Informative, preparatory, silly, gross, dumb, and eye opening. We've had a great experience at the St. Davids hospital in Central Austin. Very knowledgeable and kind instructors, and also very progressive it seems. We were taught meditation and were heavily pushed towards natural birth and breast feeding. Steph and I have a well established hippie side to us, so there was not a big need for persuation when it came to us, but considering the varied demographics in the classes, I was a bit surprised, in a good way. Does it help the hospitals bottom line to pump out healthy babies?

Here's a shot of Steph in class. When in lecture, we sit in the back and snicker at the gross pictures. But we do our share of tearing-up as well.

Backyard on Sunday evening

Steph and I love our neighborhood. Its a bit rough, but the characters and diversity is so nice to have around to remind us of the different ways to be in this world. My neighbor yesterday said that the heart beat is strong here.

In the background of the posted video you hear a big party a couple houses over. Full mariachi band. There're a Mexican family who are super nice and wave to us with smiles everyday...don't think they speak a lick of english I think.

Steph is cooling off in the "pool", watch her belly closely for a kick!

Cooling off

It might not have be a good idea to conceive in November. Especially considering Texas is in one of its hottest and driest summers in over 50 years. Steph has been a trooper I must say, but geesh, she's dealing with an extra 20+ lbs (?, I really don't know how much) and an internal dancing parasite. Its a sure test of her patience and our AC. Here's a couple pics of our method to cool down this summer. And a bit of a showoff of the new deck....yes the guard-rail is coming.

Counting down

So we're about to have a baby! This website is to document our adventure and share with others. We're excited and struggling to get everything ready on time....not really "struggling", but worried.....well I'm worried, Steph not so much. She's always been great under pressure. I remember our wedding day. I lost soooo much hair that day and Steph was cool as lemon pie.

Tonight we started to pack our hospital bag in preparation for the arrival of ? Still not decided quite yet on a name. We have a few ideas....but to commit! So hard, such a big decision. Too weird? Not weird enough? Will Blake and Amy's kid Reed beat up our kid because of a sissy french name? Maybe.

Ok, good for now.