2011 - Talk Birth

Belly Cast (2011-01-12 13:21)
I feel like I have about 15,000 blog posts that I want to write before my new baby is born! I’m also trying to
add content from articles that I’ve had published over the years—some of my best stuff is in those articles
and I feel like sharing the pre-print versions on my own website at last! Those things can obviously wait, but
the posts that I have swirling around that have to do with pregnancy, I want to post NOW, while I’m still
pregnant and while the feelings are fresh, not as retrospective posts later. It has been a different experience
to blog while pregnant and it has definitely shifted the direction and tone of a lot of the posts I make to this
blog—much more personal and less educational. I’ve also found that family and friends have begun reading
my blog during my pregnancy, when they didn’t before, so I also like sharing things with them in this way.
Since I only have about 20 minutes right now, I’ll go with the shortest subject first, not the one I most
want to write about (which is my blessingway last week—however, I think I feel a little too filled with emotion
over it to really write about it the way I’d like to do, but I do have plenty of pictures I want to share).
On Sunday afternoon (38w1d), we made my belly cast! I seriously underestimated what a chilly experience
it would be to make a
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Trying to look enthusiastic despite the trickling...
belly cast in January! Yikes! My only other casting experience was in May (2006)—very different. For
this one, we decided to make it with me standing up (for fullest shape) and so I stood in front of the furnace
vent, but it didn’t help much. Even though the water was warm, it quickly chilled down as soon as the
plaster was applied and ran in slow torturous trickles into my underwear and then
down my legs and into my socks. My heels also started to feel stone bruised from standing on the hard
floor without moving (I did stand on a towel, but it didn’t help much!). If I shifted
them, Mark would complain that it was messing up his sculpting!
I’m really glad we did it and I’m glad to have an accommodating husband who doesn’t think something
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