Meridian June Snyder is here!

Born on Friday, March 18, 2011 at 4:42 pm (close enough to the supermoon to count ;)) after a rowdy natural birth at the birth center, weighing 8 lbs 6 oz! Birth story to follow when we've had more time enjoying her :) 

She has been a dream baby so far: full of personality yet calm; adorable; a great sleeper; a great nurser (voracious!); wise; and loving!

In a nutshell

Summary of today's midwife visit:
Don't hold your breath. ;)

It's in her hands now :p

I haven't taken a picture yet, but I might later....if I feel like it :p

We've finally reached the point where we're getting slightly impatient waiting for Meridian. ;) According to my calculations, I'm 2 days "overdue," but my midwives have calculated today as my due date. *Shrug.* Either way,  babies come when they're ready, not on a schedule. I'm leaving it up to her. :p

So even though we're very, very ready to meet her, I'm kind of just interested in seeing when she wants to come out--I'm not too eager to jump on the intervention bandwagon to cajole her out. I definitely don't want to be induced with pitocin, and even "natural" inducement with castor oil, etc seems too rowdy to me. However, acupuncture to induce labor is an option that I'll consider, because a) I've always wanted to try acupuncture, and b) it's more about helping me make sure that there's nothing in my mind or body that's blocking her arrival, rather than trying to push her out before she's ready. (It doesn't hurt that I can try all this for free with our healthcare ;)). I have a midwife appointment tomorrow morning, and I'll see if she gives me any referrals or anything. But midwives are pretty low-intervention, too, so I'm guessing she won't recommend any course of action just yet.

Also, Meri might be waiting for the vernal equinox on the 20th or the supermoon on the 19th...so I'm just gonna sit back and wait.

Ian, meanwhile, has to go back to work tomorrow because he can't start his paternity leave until she's born, and he doesn't want to use any more vacation days right now, so I think he might be a little more anxious than me, even. ;)

Flashback to cuteness

 Imagining what Meridian looks like....

Here are a couple of her daddy's baby pics for clues (thanks for sending them, Grandma!)

The quality isn't too great because we don't have a scanner so we just had to take pictures of pictures, but you can still see the cute little features. :) These pics are all of Ian, Jyota, and their mom, from 1987. Ian is the tiny be-diapered one :)

Gettin' close

It's week 38! There's not much new in the way of baby development--she's pretty much a regular baby now, just amphibious until birth. :) I'll have another appointment this Monday, so if anything changes, I'll know more then. 

In the meantime, fun stuff! We got Meridian one of these contraptions this past week:

This is exciting for 2 reasons: First, they're awesome. Last weekend we had dinner with Rob and Lili (aka the henna artist who did my belly blessing--we've become friends with them, and they treated us to an awesome vegan meal by chef Lili :D). Anyway, while we were at their house, we got to play with their 8-month old daughter, and she had one of these Jolly Jumper things, and she was just having a blast bouncing and swinging from a doorway. I decided to look for one on Craigslist, and lo and behold, I found one. :) Which brings us to reason #2 it's awesome: I communicated entirely in French to get it! The Craigslist ad was only in French, so I figured it was best to respond in kind. We exchanged a few Francophony emails, but the real test was calling the guy on the phone to set up a time for me to come get it. It went off without a hitch, practically....well, there might have been some hiccups in my speech, but since successful communication was made, I'm still proud (and the guy said my French was très bien :p)

I actually just finished my French course yesterday, and I did really well on the final test! It's so crazy that it was 6 weeks ago that I was talking about starting the class because it feels like yesterday--this pregnancy has been flying by, seriously! :-o

We've also been collecting some French kiddie books for Miss M since she'll be bilingual (She's already so much more worldly and cultured than us :p). Reading them is also good practice for me. It's probably no surprise that French books seem to be rowdier than English ones (at least English books sold in the US). Here are a couple pics from her books:

First, a nip slip:

 And then this, whatever is going on here :p

Like I said, she's gonna be worldly, so things like this won't phase her. ;)

And then I made this moon pillow for her. I thought it would be so cute to see her snuggling into the moon, and although it didn't turn out exactly how I had envisioned it, it's still gonna be super cute with her in it. :D It has a little face stitched onto it, but you can't really see it. 

And then there's front-heavy me. My cheeks are permanently ruddy from this pregnancy; it seems to be my only weird side-effect, but I'm not complaining. :p

So anyway, it's just a waiting game from here on out. Ian did decide to take the week of March 7th off, so depending on her status (whether she's by land or by sea at the end of that week), he'll either return to work on the 14th until she comes, or he'll slide right into paternity leave if she comes during that time. Either way, he'll get some much needed home time! 

à la prochaine fois! ;)

Baby development weeks 28-37

Get your kicks...in week Thirty Six

It's week 36--9 months! Meridian's kickin' and squirmin' around as usual. I feel her squirming consistently right before I go to bed and early in the morning , so I assume she's just rowdin' it up all night, although it doesn't keep me up or wake me up at all. I'm still feeling great--strangely sprightly and limber for such a preggo. I was almost worried that maybe my belly wasn't as big as it should be since it isn't cumbersome at all...until I saw the following pictures:

Now I understand why Ian never shared that concern ;)

(We don't have a full-length mirror, if that helps explain my surprise at my appearance ;p)

Also, we did finally get the bassinet set up, and it's really making it hit home how close we are--just having this bassinet sitting there, empty, ready for a baby. Actually, I put a curtain over it so Tooters wouldn't lie in it, but I'm worried it's a lost cause--should I be worried that he'll try to sleep in there with her? Any advice?

Edit: I just realized I used the word "worried" 3 times in this post....but actually I'm feeling A-OK about everything. I'm so excited for the birth (and of course everything that follows)  :)

35/35

Friday marked the big 35/35--35 weeks down and 35 days to go!

We're both sick with colds right now, so I'm not too keen on posting a pic yet :p, but maybe in the next couple days. Other than the colds, things are going well, as usual! It's hard to believe that everything is happening so fast--I'll be full term in 2 weeks! The other day I bought soy yogurt that expires on my due date; it's weird thinking that within the amount of time it will take for a carton of yogurt to expire, we could have Meridian!

We're planning to set up the bassinet tomorrow :)

Sunday morning at the Snyders'

Here's a video about Meridian's current progress:

I guess I'm a week behind with my pictures--I'm 34 weeks today, but this is my 33 week picture. I guess I'll have to do another one tomorrow :x

So this pic is from last Sunday-- 33 weeks 2 days-- and there's really no explanation--this is just a typical day here :p

Things are going really well with us! I've started my French class, and I'm actually feeling like I'm making progress this time. :) I've also still got the nesting itch, and fortunately Ian is cooperative and handy. We've been really busy setting things up in the "nursery"--well, more like playroom since she'll sleep in our room. We're doing all kinds of small tasks like bolting furniture to the wall, installing shelves, updating smoke alarm batteries, etc.

We've been looking for a good wardrobe since our apartment is Old-World style (no closets), and we found this bad boy at a thrift store (a small step up from our usual curbside-chic taste, eh?)

Oh, and this is another toything I made for Meri. It's my first finished knitting project! It looked kind of boring, so I embroidered some stuff on it, which was fun. I guess it's a tiny blanket. Once I expand my knitting repertroire, I can start making normal-sized baby blankets. But I'm assuming she'll accept this for now :p

Anyway, Meridian seems to be doing well, too. She squirms around frequently, and I can see her move from the outside occasionally, but it's nothing compared to some of the videos I've seen on youtube. Sometimes she kicks at me if I have bad posture, but that's understandable :p Overall she seems to have a pretty chill personality :) 

I'm still going strong with my patience--not yet tearing my eyeballs out waiting for the birth. I think I'm becoming less high-strung, perhaps due to her influence :)

Oh and finally, Ian found out that he has 11 vacation days to use up (they'll expire in June), so we decided that he'll probably just go ahead and start his paternity leave on March 4, even if she's not born yet. Or maybe we'll wait and see how close I am at that point. Then again, she might come early...      Edit: Well that's pretty ambiguous-sounding. I guess that means we really haven't "decided" anything. But it's exciting knowing that he could be off work that soon!

Appointment update and some more little toys

We had another midwife appointment today, and Meridian and I got a gold star-- good blood test results, good baby position, etc :)  I've already set up my next 2 appointments, which will take us through week 37!

I've also finished a couple quickie toy projects from recycled onesies. The first one came from a onesie that we inherited, but that I'm not down with using for Meridian. The front says, "Does this diaper make my butt look big?" Yuck, what an awful message to send to any girl. So, I got my scissors out :)

Before:

 ...Add in a breakfast bar wrapper (washed, of course) to make crinkly noises...

After: Tada! It's a crinkly pig :) I also added some elastic for the legs, from a stroller toy we'll never use. She can pull on those, and play with the snaps on the snout--well, once she can manipulate her fingers like that, I guess :)

And here's a lumpy ball made out of 2 onesies that seemed uncomfortable. It's not much to look at, but I stuffed it with a rattle from the stroller toy mentioned above, so it makes a satisfying rattling noise :)

Week 32, and we wrote a book! ... kind of :p

32 Weeks: 

By now, your baby weighs 3.75 pounds (pick up a large jicama) and is about 16.7 inches long, taking up a lot of space in your uterus. You're gaining about a pound a week and roughly half of that goes right to your baby. In fact, she'll gain a third to half of her birth weight during the next 7 weeks as she fattens up for survival outside the womb. She now has toenails, fingernails, and real hair (or at least respectable peach fuzz). Her skin is becoming soft and smooth as she plumps up in preparation for birth.

Things are carrying on as normal :) Hard to believe in 5-10 weeks we'll have Meri here on the outside! 

I've been having fun making baby toys--I guess it's how I nest. (What we really need to be doing is figuring out how the car seat and baby carriers work, but toys are more fun ;) )

So I wanted to make a felt book of colors for her, with rhyming couplets. I asked for Ian's input, and suddenly it had to have a medieval theme ;) So, we put our heads together and came up with this: 

Sorry, folks, she's gonna be a Canadian--we had to spell it like that, eh? :p

The marker on the white page bled a little, but it just looks more wizardy that way... right? xD

Heeheehee :)

Belly Blessing

I came across an opportunity the other day to have a local henna artist do a belly blessing, where meaningful symbols are painted on pregnant bellies to welcome babies into the world.

I brought Ian with me, and we had a really good time hanging out and gabbin' with the artist, Lili Sweet, in her cozy home studio while she painted the henna on me :) I think Meridian really felt the love--during the blessing, I actually SAW her moving around for the first time ever! Ian kept missing it, though ;)

So, thanks Lili, for making Meridian's entrance into the world extra special! :)

Here's the mega-belly shot (31.5 weeks!)

And even MORE mega:

P.S. Sorry, Mamah, if I gave you a heart attack if I implied it was permanent--it was too tempting ;)