and… Pinky
after reading the post below, if anyone’s thinking about getting us some baby clothes, a little brown, red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple, black, white, grey (ok, not grey) or plaid might be a nice contrast to all that pink!!!
Pinky!
Well, as many of you whom have visited or spoken with us recently may know, we became obsessed with pink the day we discovered she was a girl. And, because I kept slipping on the name when feeling her kick, Peter implemented the womb name “Pinky,” in honor of one of his favorite Ms. Pac-Man ghosts, and also for the pink color we imagine she will be when we first see her (outside of the womb, that is). So, we had both grandmas visit in the last month and each contributed a bit to Pinky’s pink wardrobe. Whenever anyone comes over I run them down to the basement (remodel done!) to show them all Pinky’s clothes. I keep remembering the time when I was hanging out with my sister before the twins came, and we were folding and putting all their little newly-washed outfits into drawers. She said, “I just want them to hurry up and be born so I can dress them!” Now I fully appreciate that sentiment, although Pinky has a little longer to incubate (3.5 months! That’s it!) 
This is how we’re looking around here in Portland- pretty preggers! Holly has only 6 weeks to go. Wow!
Pole Cat
alice is now an indoor cat because of her antics back in december…
however, today she escaped out the side door and ran up a post in our backyard and would not come down.
Five Egg Day!
the girls have been busy!
and they were well rewarded for it with leftover rice and a muffin
The Business of Being Born
We saw this truly excellent documentary on thursday. for anyone who’s having a baby, thinking about having a baby, knows someone who’s having a baby, knows someone who’s had a baby, was ever a baby… wait… anyway, this movie is relevant to anyone who is interested in how political and economic forces work together to affect our available choices in giving birth in america. they have the effect of enforcing the idea of birth as a medical process, rather than a natural experience. there are two themes that are repeated throughout the movie:
- it’s not whether natural birth is better than medical birth (or vice versa), it’s that expecting parents are not getting all the information they need to make an informed choice about what type of birth is best for them.
- if natural birth is chosen and the venue is the hospital, the odds are against that actually happening.
watch the trailer below for a nice little preview. -peter
You can also order the video from netflix, “The Business of Being Born.” It basically echoed all the information I had been gathering from my informal interviews of friends and any woman I met with a kid really. I had started to sense a very strong theme among all these women, that once in the hospital, they were first given a reason why they needed the drug pitocin (often a pre-risk of a risk??) which led to very strong contractions and the need for an epidural, and in some cases, while induced contractions were possibly overly strong, cervical dilation had still not occurred, creating a “need” for other interventions: vacuum, forceps, episiotomy, cesarean. How would birth have been for these women if their natural contractions/dilation had been allowed to progress without drugs/interventions… Hmmm…. Anyways, the US cesarean rate is now nearly 40%. Most doctors have never even witnessed a “natural” birth. But– they’ve seen lots of surgeries. U.S. mother/baby death statistics are also among the highest of industrialized countries. One percent of births here take place at home with a midwife. In Japan, for example, that number is 70%. Anyways…. If any of this information has ever caused you to wonder, as it has recently to me, renting the movie is a good idea. I can also reccommend some great books. -Erin
By any other name…
so now that we know we’re having a girl, we’ve come up with a few names. i’ve associated a picture with each name so you can know what we’re thinking. let us know what you think, or if you have any ideas of your own!
tipper cowan?
that’s so irish, though, and we’re not very irish.
madison “maddie” cowan
but madison is insanely popular right now.
holly cowan?
pretty, but one of our closest friends up here is named holly.
frida cowan?
my mom and sister suggested that one, my guess is they thought it sounded like frida “kahlo”.
sacred cowan?
ok, sacred’s not even a name, but if it was sacred cowan would be awesome.
Half-Baked
Well, a little more than half, if you can believe it! We’ll be at five months next week, wow! You know what that means, yes, four months to go! I think when I first found out I was pregnant, I thought, well, it’s such a long ways away, nine months. I can think about it later…. Then all of a sudden, I’m looking at the 3/x/xx in the date and thinking that 3 is actually not too far from 7. The good news is, she still needs all the time to grow, and, we need the time to finish the house! Peter has been moving along at an amazing pace, and, we’ll have the satisfaction of having a completed basement (missing only new windows) in the next few days. Also, we should have the bathroom done by about Easter. Then– it’s on the baby room- finally! And for those of you who don’t know, I start my new job Tuesday, teaching 3rd grade. I’m looking forward to it and I’m going to take all the stress in stride. Just breathe… exercise, breathe. I will add I’m pretty proud of myself lately. I’ve been walking, doing yoga, and swimming on a very regular basis. If I can keep it up, I’ll have no regrets!
A Womb with a View
Last Sunday as many of you know, Peter and I headed up Mt. Tabor with a little envelope containing genitalia photos (which felt rather scandalous). We found a nice spot to sit overlooking the reservoirs and city, and opened the envelope… “I M A GIRL!” – it said. We were ecstatic. In fact, we’ve been in a state of bliss ever since, as we realized after reading the note; we had been unconsciously hoping for a girl, but not wanting to put our hopes either way, since we knew we’d be ecstatic in both cases. Early on, (i.e. the first week we knew) in the pregnancy, we noticed we’d been referring to her as “she.” We both were convinced she was a girl. Then, once we told our families, and input began to seep in, we were given a majority of boy feedback. We began to doubt. I also began to feel that I needed to entertain the possibility of our baby being a boy, as until then that reality had really never entered my mind. But…. here we are, with our baby girl growing strong. I immediately found I was in love with pink. I had visions of dressing her like Strawberry Shortcake until she’s old enough to protest. We gave her a name. Suddenly, she has an identity, a personality. It was strange to realize that I couldn’t really envision my baby until I knew which gender to expect, but, such are the realities of socialization. Since last week, I have also been feeling so many of her movements inside me. She is very active when I first wake up, during a bath (heat and light?) and at around 8pm in the evenings. I am thinking she may be a bit of a night owl like her papa. Peter has felt her twice now, the first time while we watched, “The Other Boleyn Girl” (good movie), and again during last night’s movie. I think she also likes movies. Anyways, belly photo up next, as we are now officially at the halfway point!
note from peter: when we got our ultrasound last week the technician kindly recorded a 9 second clip and put it on loop for me to film. if you watch the whole thing, there is a belly shot and other fun stuff further in. last year i sat down at the piano and just sort of played a song that came out of nowhere. it kind of sounded like a lullaby and seemed to fit with the ultrasound video, so i just hit record on my laptop and played along while i watched it. if you look closely you you can see shorty’s heart beating pretty much at the tempo of the song!
On cat torture…
I just looked at that picture that erin posted of me and alice playing the piano, and felt a little bad; i wanted to make it clear that i really like to never, ever torment or tease our cats. I actually was genuinely interested in seeing if alice or jane had any inherent musical ability (for the record, jane has a little more talent, but not much). And just for the record, in case anyone thinks its ridiculous that cats might have musical talent, well, i got the idea from a little cat named nora:
