On the Today show this morning, I happened to catch a segment about the burgeoning rates of c-sections for pregnant women.  It blew my mind.

Way back when I had Lily, I remember our Bradley instructor talking about how many OB/GYNs were quick to wheel a laboring mom into the operating room.  She felt the rates were rising because so many doctors were in a hurry, and weren’t willing to “wait around” while letting nature take its course.  I also knew some mothers who chose c-section because it made it easier for them schedule friends and family.  I knew some people who were induced to accomodate either their own schedule, or their doctor’s (because god forbid, who wants to go into labor at 3 AM???). 

The news this morning featured an OB/GYN who decided to have a c-section with her first baby because, in her words, she “didn’t want to risk problems with urination after childbirth.”  My mouth literally fell open.  Okay, so sometimes after childbirth you might pee when you sneeze or laugh for a while until your pelvic floor muscles tighten up.  The alternative?  Having your baby cut out of your stomach?  Oh my god. 

It’s no big secret that I had a tummy tuck last June.  So I’m not unfamiliar with elective, invasive, and major surgery.  But the only person my surgery affected was ME.  I think it’s just difficult for me to accept that we are now so concerned with timing and everything being perfect that we, as women, are more prone to scheduling the one thing that was never meant to be scheduled:  the birth of a child. If I took one thing away from Bradley class, it was that children will be born when they are ready.  That might be 39 weeks - it might be 42.  Trying to force a baby before they’re even born to conform to a schedule - yours or your doctors - is about the most selfish thing I can think of. 

And what next?  To avoid stretch marks in pregnancy, we’re going to start removing the babies at 20 weeks and incubating them elsewhere?  Come on.  It’s just ridiculous.  Having children changes your life drastically.  It changes your body, too.  Faking yourself out before your baby is even born that you can control everything is laughable.  And talk about reality when you realize you can’t get the sleep you used to! 

Before anyone flames me on this post, I’m speaking only about elective c-sections.  I’m not talking about emergency or medically-necessary.  Before I realized what I was looking for in an OB/GYN, I went the traditional route with Lily.  I had a well-respected OB who consistently warned me (during my 15 minute, cattle-call appointments in her office) that all of us “natural mothers” who were intent on having the least medical interventions were always the ones who ended up with c-sections.  I always thought it strange that she seemed to enjoy telling me that.  Much to my joy, I escaped both a c-section and an epidural.  And when pregnant with Arden, I switched to a hospital that was friendlier to non-medicated childbirth AND had the midwives help me through it all.  The difference between a midwife and an OB was huge.  I still actually miss them all - but not enough to get pregnant again. 

I finally got around to taking pictures of some of the renovations and upgrades we’ve done on our current house.  They are now posted in the gallery.  It’s also a great place to check out some of Steve’s work - my brother, the renovator.  I’ll take some pictures of the landscaping Mike has done when we’ve mowed the weeds from the grass. 

I decided to try to document our usual bedtime routine tonight. Mike and I discovered that unfortunately trying to take pictures of the girls, with a digital camera, is nearly impossible.  There is this annoying delay on our camera so that by the time the camera captures the image, the girls have already moved on to the next greatest thing.  With Lily it’s less of a problem because she’s a total ham and loves to look at the camera. 

However, before I forget - Suite C (which is where Right Angle lives along with Top Dead Center Design and 2D9) launched a group blog recently.  You can keep up with what’s happening in our world here.  Phil did the design.  It’s lovely. 

So here’s the best I could do with the camera.  First I took some pictures of the girls in the tub.  All of the ones of Arden ended up being the back of her head, so Lily was the only one cooperating. 

After, we wrap the girls in their awesome animal towels.  I purchased my first one at Bizarre Bazaar the year Lily was born.  They are the best.  If you like them and covet them and want them for your own, the woman who makes them can be found here. 

Lily is learning to brush her teeth all on her own.  I had some difficulty teaching her the whole “swish and spit” portion of teeth-brushing but she’s finally getting it.  Sometimes she gets overly-excited and ends up spitting frothy water all over me or the mirror, but that’s okay. 

After, I ask her to use the potty so I am not greeting in the early AM with wet sheets.  She still is so small that she nearly falls into the toilet.

After, we always go into Arden’s room to play.  This includes Lily running around naked, throwing her pajamas and underwear into the air while trying to catch them, and Arden trying to walk and wrestle while sucking her thumb and holding her cuddle cloth. 

Arden also gets really fired up if Lily tries to take anything from her.  Following are two pictures - one of her face immediately after Lily stole something from her, and one of her getting ready to attack me while I was trying to take her picture. 

Arden also wrestles with her dad a lot.  Eventually she wears herself out and passes out on the floor, which is how we know wrestle time is over.  The final moment?  Arden, happy in her crib - and ready to go to sleep. 

Finally, everyone has been asking about a house update.  We are pretty much down to two options.  One is to build at Oak Park - a house similar in size to the one we have now, but with a drastically different floorplan.  Option 2 is to build a house at Founders Bridge.  The one builder out there we love doesn’t build homes in our price range.  There is a second builder we like as well, who theoretically could build in our price range.  We’re waiting on information from them.  We have a few weeks before the final price comes back on the Oak Park house and we have to sign a contract.  In the meantime I’ve driven Tim crazy making him show me a bunch of crap production houses that have 3400 square feet and are hugely ugly to match the square footage.  I’m a bit burned out on it.  Everything in Richmond looks the same.  Well, stuff that costs $1M probably doesn’t - but that’s a bit over the price range for the Del Bueno Family.  More about all this as it becomes available. 

I am finally catching my breath from the weekend.  Alex and Sybil were here from Pinehurst, celebrating Hayden’s 4th birthday.  We dragged them to Oak Park Saturday only to find that the model was closed, for some unknown reason.  Mike took them back on Sunday to see it.  Friday night we had a family dinner at Mama Cucina, which was nice.  Saturday we had Alex and Sybil over for lunch and had our uneventful trip to Southside.  It was great spending some time with Sybil and getting to know her better.  She’s one of those people you just immediately love - she’s calm, warm, and kind. 

Yesterday I decided to start preparing the house for sale by tearing up the guest room.  I have more arts and craft scrapbooking crap there than I know what to do with.  I threw out a huge garbage bag full of stuff and even organized my paper by colors.  The goal was to remove the hulking dresser from the closet, donate it to Goodwill, and actually set up a usable area where I might be able to see what I have to work with.  Container Store has my dream craft area - but so far I haven’t saved money for it. 

I also began a list of things to do with the house before we sell it.  It was fairly long.  I’m going to be calling Sara before too long to help me think about staging the house.  When it’s your house, and you live in it every day, you don’t see the crap anymore.  And after looking at some houses this weekend, I really saw the importance of staging.  We looked at some houses that were in really bad condition.  Everything about the house said, “I was not taken care of.”  One house had a huge princess/castle mural on the wall.  Complete with a dragon, knight, and some blowing clouds.  It wasn’t well done in the first place.  All I could think was, “This house needs Kilz in the worst possible way”.  The other room had a Nascar theme.  I managed to hold down the retching. 

I finally got around to posting a picture of Risa’s new baby boy.  Here he is.  She says she’s going to get him looking better - he was eating some skanky food and she plans to feed him the high-octane stuff.  I hope Speck is adjusting to his new roommate.