Finally, one morning almost two weeks past the due date, I started having stronger contractions. I waited for a while to see what was going to happen with them; finished up chores and ate lunch. I was having to stop what I was doing and breathe through contractions, and it was annoying to have to deal with the children. I set them up with a video to watch. I knew MFH was busy with work, and didn’t want to interrupt him, so I sent him an e-mail saying that I might need him to come home in the afternoon. Then, at his lunchtime, I decided that I did want him to come home. Even if this labor fizzled out again, there was enough of it that I needed help with the children. He had a few things to wrap up first, he said, then he’d be on his way. I was uncomfortable enough that I started shedding clothing.

About half an hour later, I was standing at the bathroom sink, when my water broke. But it was brown and full of meconium (newborn poop), which sometimes means a baby in distress, and also sometimes gets down in the lungs and causes breathing problems. Oh, crap.

Time to call the midwife. She said we could meet her at the hospital, or she could come straight to me and check the baby’s heart rate. I chose the latter, because it made more sense logistically. I called the sibling doula, and called MFH to tell him to come home now. Then I did a few final tasks (contractions still going strong) to get ready for a birth. I moved our hall storage bench (which I like to sit on in active labor, with my elbows propped up) into the bedroom, and put a chux pad from the birth kit on it. Then I parked myself on it. The cat was hanging around, looking freaked out (as she has in previous labors). The baby was moving vigorously.

MFH arrived a few minutes later. In between the “Daddy! Daddy!” demands of the children, I had him set up the bed with a plastic dropcloth and birth sheets. I got too hot, and shed the rest of my clothes. A few minutes after that, the midwife and the sibling doula both arrived. The midwife used her doppler to check the baby’s heart rates, and pronounced them good. So we stayed home.

The midwife was hopping to get her equipment set up. MFH was hopping to get out all the birth supplies we had ready. The midwife’s assistant arrived, and helped MFH set up the birth tub. I stayed on my bench and started moaning through contractions. After a while, I started moaning through and between contractions. I could stay on top of things and ride them out by breathing through them, but it took a lot of concentration. I noticed that I wasn’t having any back labor, so apparently the baby had managed to turn.

Before long, I started feeling like pushing, and wanted to move to the bed. The birth tub was ready by this point, and I almost decided to use it, but it was two rooms away, and I didn’t feel like going that far. So the midwife helped me over to the bed, and moved the bench onto it so I could kneel and lean on it.

Pushing took a little longer this time than in previous births. The contractions slowed down some, and there was a lot of poop that had to come out first. When the head got low I did a lot of panting to slow things down and give myself time to stretch. This went on for several rounds of pushing contractions. Finally I couldn’t hold back, so I started really pushing the baby out. The head took a few good pushes, and the body a couple more. Then the baby was out–cried right away, and had a good color, no problems breathing. The midwife passed him around to me, I got him and laid down. This was only about an hour and a half after MFH got home–total labor was about four hours. I noticed that I wasn’t nearly as tired out as I had been after TLG’s all-day labor. After a little coaxing, the baby latched on and had a good nursing.

I didn’t really notice the size of the baby until I tried to move him over to the other breast; I could barely heave him across myself. Later, before he was weighed, everyone was trying to guess his weight. I guessed he was at least ten pounds. Actually, he was eleven pounds even, and had a head circumference three-quarters of an inch larger than TLG’s huge head. This birth wasn’t any more painful or difficult than the other two had been; in some ways it was the easiest of the three. Earlier in the pregnancy, I’d prayed for the baby to be wise about his position, and he was: he stayed posterior until the end to hide how big he was.

I think I’ve said before that I have absolutely no idea how anyone manages to give birth in the hospital, with or without drugs and with or without surgery. It’s difficult enough to do at home. I have no idea how anyone endures having monitors strapped around their tummies in labor without ripping them off and throwing them across the room. Or dilation checks–I’ve never had one in labor.

MFH fixed up my computer–it was the video card, not the monitor–to keep it going a little while longer, but it’s still on the verge of dying of dust and old age.

I did get out last evening and do some running around. Not that there’s much open around here on a Sunday evening. I went to Walmart and found that they got rid of the enzyme carpet cleaner that I wanted–the only brand that admits right on the label that pets aren’t the only creatures that might pee on carpet. (Similarly, about nine out of ten baby gate labels will have a dog in the picture.) I bought six pounds of lard, for making another batch of soap sometime. The previous batch came out somewhat irregular in texture, but usable. Beyond that, Walmart seemed overheated, and full of Things That I Don’t Buy Anymore. I also went to Menard’s (which is the only place I know of around here to buy straight lye), but only for a few minutes before they closed. This store was just remodeled literally from the foundation up, and it is huge.

I made a fair amount of progress on my hooked rug. I’m filling in some of the background, in a fairly disciplined manner because I know I’ll run out of the color, and have to switch to different colors for the rest.

Yesterday I made a big batch of oatmeal chocolate chip cookies. Most went into the freezer. The rest are gone now.

I got my fiddle endpin that I’m whittling out and worked on it on the playground yesterday. It is coming along.

Both children slept in very late this morning, which was good because I am not very energetic today.

I hear OLC yelling out the window to kids outside. That probably means that she has the window open too far.

TLG learned how to open the refrigerator a while back. We bought a fridge lock, and it took him less than a day to figure it out, and for half of it to fall off the fridge anyway.

I’m moving slowly today; I slipped and fell onto a snowbank while getting TLG out of the car yesterday. Strained a couple of muscles. Baby is fine.

Our Kitty of Little Discretion continues to meow loudly every time I get out of bed (to alert me that her food bowl is perilously close to half empty), and to be exiled to the bathroom.

MFH introduced me to Swipe Four. As far as I can tell, the best strategy is to try to maximize your points in the lower levels, before you get stuck in a level with Z, J, X, etc., and only one vowel.

I updated the static blog page for my book (link is in the sidebar to the right). It’s available from Lulu.com now, and should be available from Amazon within a month or two.

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It sort of started Easter evening, I was feeling “broody” and did a few of my Monday chores early. Had some twinges in the tummy, but went to bed and to sleep.

I woke up at about 3:30 in the morning (as usual for the last weeks of pregnancy) feeling a little crampy and like something was up. Had the beginnings of bloody show; decided to let MFH keep sleeping; took a bath.

MFH woke up around 7, I told him what was going on, and he decided to go into work for a while and wrap up some loose ends. He gave our midwife and doula (for OLC) heads-up phone calls first.

The day went on, the contractions gradually got a little stronger and settled into kind of a pattern; coming about every 10 or 15 minutes by mid-morning. I tried to rest and eat as much as I could. Spent a lot of time in the bathroom.

MFH got home around noon or so, bringing home some labor food for me and the helpers. I did some walking around the apartment. Mid-afternoon, we did some contraction timing, and they were coming every five minutes or so, on average. But still mild, nothing really painful. A few that I had to stop and breathe through, maybe. I thought about going for a slow walk, but when I stood up I had a stronger one, and decided to stay home and walk laps around the apartment. Somewhere in there my water broke. MFH gave our midwife another call.

Since things were still going slowly, we started watching a RiffTrax. I was happy to feel a few baby kicks. About halfway through the movie, MFH announced that our midwife had pulled in the driveway. I was not ready for her to come, and not happy with him for not telling me she was coming already. If they had asked me, I would have said that she could wait a little longer.

She did a quick heart tone check with the doppler right away. Her assistant/backup midwife soon arrived, and they quickly (and very wisely) decided to go out for dinner.

While they were gone, MFH and I worked on getting a few last chores done around the apartment. I washed up the dishes, contractions were still light enough that I could work through them. But after that, things seemed to pick up a little. We decided to call the sibling doula and have her come. When the midwives got back from dinner, I was definitely more in labor. Walking around the apartment, mostly. They went off into the bedroom and left me to it. Soon the doula arrived and took OLC for us.

About this time, I decided I wanted some yogurt. MFH had brought me one from the co-op. I opened it, licked off the top, and…..tasted mold. There was a big mold spot on it; I only got the outskirts. I tried rinsing out my mouth, but that didn’t work. Then I threw up. (Ironically, that was what probably got the labor really going. Providential mold–I’ve never found mold in my yogurt any other time.)

After that, things picked up. When I walked around, the contractions were a little too intense. I was feeling a little too tired to be on my feet all the time anyway. When I sat down, the contractions were a little too light. So I went back and forth for a while. MFH laid down trails of rugs and towels around the apartment.

Just when I was starting to want the birth tub, MFH told me that our midwife hadn’t brought it, because she had had to drop off her kids on the way, and couldn’t fit it in her car. I was again not very happy with him. The contractions were starting to get pretty strong, even sitting down. When I stood up, they came almost one on top of another.

Lacking a birth tub, I decided to try the shower. Verdict: two big thumbs down. Not enough water, not in the right places, and not enough room to move around and get into a semi-comfortable position. After a few minutes, I was out again and had MFH walk me to the bedroom. At this point, I wanted him close by all the time.

In the bedroom, I sat on my sweater chest, on elbow on the bookcase, and one on a laundry basket, and leaned back against the wall. Started moaning my way through things. Told MFH I wanted “calm and quiet energy” in the room, and that I wanted him to stay with me.

After a while of this, I had him go get our midwife. I sat and moaned for a while longer. Contractions strong but not bad, so long as I could focus and breathe. But any little distraction was a disruption, and then I had to re-center. Told MFH to keep OLC out until after the placenta had been birthed. I’d hadn’t been sure before whether I wanted her present for the actual birth or not.

After a while, things kicked up another notch, and I moved to the bed. Hands and knees position, but I wanted something to lean on, so they brought in my exercise ball. It was a little too low and unstable, and it was hard to keep my arms from sliding off, but good enough. Still moaning. Anything that I had to say came out in single, short sentences.

I had a lot of pain in my lower back, and wanted it rubbed constantly. The midwife said it was from the baby making its way down, and she provided some good counterpressure where I needed it. I was feeling more tired, and like I needed to be careful with my energy to have enough to finish.

Before long, I was definitely pushing. The baby moved down slowly. I definitely knew it when the head was starting to be born: the Ring of Fire! And lots of it. (With OLC, I only had a few seconds of it before I got a nice, big tear and she came flying out. But I paid for it with a hour of stitches later.) Contraction, push, OW, pantpantpantpantpantpantpant, let baby back off a little, and repeat a bunch of times. With vocalization. I knew that the ring of fire was really a good thing: no tear yet. Finally, there were a couple of big pushes, and the baby’s head was out. I was hoping that it was all of it, but no, just the head. The next push, I pushed hard, and out came the rest. MFH said the baby did a somersault out onto the bed. I laid down, in great relief, and the midwife passed him up to me. A little boy, with a great big head. Within a couple minutes, he was latched on and nursing as if he had been doing it his whole life. (He nursed for about 45 minutes straight.)

A few minutes later, there were a couple more contractions, and out came the placenta. Much, much more quickly and easily than last time.

Then came a bunch of cleaning up and stuff. I had some nasty afterpains and threw up again. The pains eased when some largish clots came out. I had a couple of little tears, but nothing that needed stitches (YAY!!!). By the time we were ready for OLC to come in, she had fallen asleep, though the doula told us later that OLC had heard the birth and the baby’s first cry.

It was a long, long day of labor (baby was born at about 9 pm), but the Real Work part of it was only three hours. The baby: a boy, 8 pounds 15 ounces, 21 inches long, and with a head circumference in the high 90s, percentile-wise. I got to spend a whole week in bed, eating beef stew and crackers and other good things. I didn’t even make it out to the living room until the third day. My milk started coming in at the end of the second day (another YAY!!!, compared to Day 5 with OLC). The baby turned a little yellow, but nothing to panic about. (After our ordeal last time, it was been so nice to be able to evaluate the jaundice by looking at the baby, rather than at the number from the lab.) OLC did all right with her new little brother, except that she didn’t want to share her dad with him at all.

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Looking back, I think the differences between OLC’s and TLG’s births were mainly because of their head sizes. OLC had a tiny head (circumference in about the fifth percentile), and I think she basically needed an extra week or two in the womb for it to grow big enough for her to be born. TLG was born almost on his due date, had a huge head (long, not wide), and I think he basically had to be born before his head got much bigger. Not that the Bell curve for baby head size is all that wide, but we could definitely see the difference. In both labors, I had a 10-cm wide paper circle (that MFH colored for me) to focus on in labor (”All I have to do is dilate to 10 cm, then I can push the baby out.”) After OLC was born, we compared it to her head, and they were about the same diameter. TLG’s head, on the other hand, definitely extended beyond the circle, particularly in the front and back.

And here’s one more reason to not buy a newer house: modern construction is so flimsy and flammable that firefighters are pushing for mandatory sprinkler systems in new single family homes, to give them time to get to a house fire before the floors start falling in. A structure that is burning to pieces within 10 or 15 minutes probably wouldn’t hold up the weight of all our bookshelves anyway. (This reminds me of some account I read of robbers who didn’t bother breaking in through a door or a window in a newer house, they just bashed their way in through an exterior wall.) We will need one of those old houses that were “built like tanks”, as my uncle once put it.

Many of the BoingBoing commenters essentially used this argument: Vaccines come from Science, Science is Good, therefore people who don’t get themselves or their children vaccinated must be Stupid, Ignorant, and/or Evil! Only a few demonstrated any understanding beyond this level. So much for real scientific literacy.

The Vox Day commenters, on the other hand, demonstrated a much better understanding of the scientific and political issues behind current vaccination policy, and brought actual scientific evidence into their arguments.

In my book, I based my discussion of vaccines on information from the Centers for Disease Control website. I used their healthcare provider information pages, because their parent information pages are dumbed-down to the point of being painful for me to read. Straight from the CDC (which is thoroughly in favor of vaccination) I learned:

1. Some vaccines are only 80-90% effective. That’s a 1 in 5 to 1 in 10 chance of receiving absolutely no benefit from the vaccine.

2. Vaccines can have serious adverse effects in some individuals, and if there is a severe reaction, further vaccination with that vaccine should be avoided. (With so many vaccines being given at a time, and in combination shots, it’s basically impossible these days to isolate which vaccine caused a bad reaction.) So it is well known that vaccines are not 100% safe. The federal National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program has paid out over $1.8 billion, over about twenty years, in claims and legal costs.

3. The vaccine schedule is constantly being revised and extended. One of the goals of the schedule is to maximize vaccination rates, so most of the shots are stacked up in infancy, when doctor’s visits are more frequent.

Since it can take several doses of a vaccine to build up full immunity, often an infant ages out of the danger zone for a disease before they are fully vaccinated for it. I’ve read, but not confirmed to my own satisfaction, that the whooping cough vaccine doesn’t prevent transmission of the virus, but only provides enough immunity to take the whoop out of the cough.

No one has done any real research into the effects of the full vaccine schedule on infants. It is known that children’s immune systems are not fully developed when they are born. Vaccines have been linked to various auto-immune disorders, but there has not been nearly enough research on this.

There is some scientific and medical bias in favor of vaccines, which probably tends to exaggerate the benefits, and underestimate the risks. There are definitely cases where severe vaccine reactions have been pooh-poohed by doctors, and never reported to the Vaccine Adverse Effects Reporting System.

I have a Time-Life Health and Disease book from 1980 which admits that it’s simply not practical to vaccinate for every disease under the sun, and particularly not for diseases that mutate easily and have many strains in circulation.

As Vox Day points out, vaccination is as much a political issue as a scientific one. Vaccine manufacturers are protected from litigation. Use of their products is practically mandated for the mainstream; guaranteed customer base and profits for vaccine manufacturers. So the trend has been to create vaccines for more and more diseases, and to hype the risks of these diseases to boost vaccination rates. There is also the issue of individual rights versus public health, and whether vaccination should be an individual choice or not.

I am not totally opposed to vaccines. I don’t know enough about the Wakefield case to know whether his research was fraudulent or not. There are definitely some authors and lawyers who benefit financially from opposing vaccination. Not every case of getting sick after getting a shot was caused by the vaccination itself; doctor’s offices are full of very nasty germs.

Like Vox Day, my preference is for selective vaccination, based on potential benefits and risks. That’s not easy when most of the information provided to parents is vastly oversimplified, and strongly biased in favor of vaccines (to the point that some doctors will drop patients for not vaccinating).

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Now transitioning to thinking about more mundane illnesses like colds….

I’ve read a few accounts recently of people living in total isolation. They were remarkably healthy until outsiders came to visit. In the case of the discovery of the New World, the outsiders brought smallpox and other diseases that decimated the population. In the case of the suburban family who went to live in the Canadian wilderness for a year, contact with civilization reliably brought colds and sniffles. And a similar story for modern small-island populations…when a ship comes, it brings the latest cold viruses, and everyone gets sick. Then somewhere yesterday I read a comment from an old guy who said, “I haven’t had a cold in years, because I had them all when I was younger!”

I’ve begun to suspect that our family schedule of staying home during the week and going out and about on weekends is suboptimal. I’ve had to practically plan my weekly schedule on the assumption that some of us will be sick by Tuesday or Wednesday. I think we’d be better off either going out every day and taking in a more constant bombardment of germs (since one generally only gets sick with one bug at a time; the ramped-up immune system disposes of the rest more easily), or staying home for longer periods.

I have the taxes all figured out. I firmly believe that income taxes should be doable on paper, without a paid preparer or tax software. This year was hard, because the IRS stopped mailing forms and instructions out, and Democratic foot-dragging last year lead to printing delays this year. I’ve had to use the PDF version of the 1040 instructions, and it’s far inferior to paper, especially for the worksheets. Next year, Minnesota is also going to stop mailing out paper forms. Minnesota has very feminine tax forms: pink, with a pretty layout, and simplistic instructions that piggyback heavily off the federal forms so no one will have to wrestle too hard with icky numbers. All sugary sweet, until you get to what you owe at the end.

Yesterday we got out to the arboretum and saw an orchid exhibit. After reading so many Nero Wolfe mysteries, it was nice to see what a Phalaenopsis actually looks like. I didn’t see any Cattleyas there, though.

I’m waiting on a review copy of my book.

I applied to another teaching position as well. This one is somewhat less of a long shot, but it’s still a medium-range shot because of labor supply and demand in the field.

I’ve been sleeping a little better lately, but still not all that great. I’ve entered the phase where I have to get up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom. The baby continues to be a strong kicker.

This weekend, I saw TLG jump off the coffee table and land on the floor on his feet. He’s not even two yet!