labors of love

Poor residents of Illinois. First the tax apocalypse, then the snowcapolypse.  On top of our state woes,  our home experienced a cookie-capolypse last night. My mom and our friend, Jan, get together every year and bake TONS of valentine day cookies to ship to their friends and children. Due to this beautiful tradition, for the past ten years I have always received a box of tasty, pink valentine cookies in February. Even though my mom is gone on her mission this year, Jan and I got together to keep the tradition going.

Cookie-capolypse!

Jan and I are hard at work shaping and cutting the hearts. This is the first year that not a single cookie broke!

I have spent the morning hiding at the other end of the house, trying to avoid the cookies. At some point, I will have to face up to the task of packaging them to give away, and I am terrified that I will eat them all in the process. So I have decided to--once again--use blogging as a means of putting off items on my to-do list.

After Abe's birthday on Friday, we spent the entire weekend in a birthing class learning how to do Lamaze, becoming educated on the joys of epidurals, and, best of all, learning about how husbands can help their wives through labor. The instructor was awesome. A nurse with 26 years of experience, she made all of the hubbies in the room practice massaging their wives and doing all different kinds of pressure-relieving holds to relieve pain. She then repeatedly encouraged the men to practice the massage techniques often, and to make sure their wives are always comfortable.

I married an over-achieving perfectionist, and Abe made that glaringly apparent yesterday by insisting on giving me a massage after working a fifteen hour day. Yay, husband! During the class itself, Abe sat in the front, took copious notes, and asked so many questions that by the end of the weekend, he and the instructor were on a very friendly first name basis. At one point I glanced over and caught him copying this down  into his notebook:

P - Powerful/purposeful
A - Anticipated
I - Intermittent
N - Normal.

Right. I smiled and nodded while the instructor soothingly talked about how pain is healthy and natural, but I didn't buy it. I have met exactly one person who told me that not only did she not mind giving birth, but that she loved it. After three children, she said her births were some of the greatest experiences of her life. She wasn't just talking about the meet-your-child part, either. This woman was referring to LABOR. Suspicious, I asked her if she had had natural births.

"Oh, no!" she exclaimed. "I had an epidural with all three."

In my book, this type of advertisement trumps mnemonic devices any day. Bring on those beautiful drugs!! Except...Abe has a fear of needles, and this could prove problematic. He loved watching the natural birth videos, but he had to leave the room during the epidural birth video. It made him queasy and lightheaded, and ever since that experience he has been ever so gently talking up a natural birth.

This morning at breakfast (a time when he's normally so tired he can barely put single syllable words together) he casually mentioned that he talked to his mom yesterday and discovered that natural births aren't so bad. In fact, the only part of Abe's birth that was unbearably painful to her was when the doctor stitched up a tear sans anesthetics. Abe then proceeded to tell me that he'd support me either way, but if I get an epidural he'd probably be holding my hand more for his own sake than mine. Oh, dear.

So it turns out the choice isn't super easy after all. A) Experience a blissful ride in the "Cadillac of pain relief" and watch my husband pass out in the process or B) Stick it out naturally with the support of a fully-present partner. Hmm....

To make matters more complicated, my heart stopped when the instructor introduced us to the wonderful world of back labor. Back labor is when, as the instructor put it, "Baby didn't get the memo to turn her head to the floor," and therefore the hard skull of the baby is rubbing directly on the mother's tailbone. This is, the instructor slowly explained, a very painful process for the mother.

My heart dropped. Back labor happens to women whose babies "didn't get the memo." Abe and I are two of the spaciest people I know. The only way I made it through school was making responsible friends who could tell me where to be and when after I'd lost my seventh copy of the syllabus. Abe has hilarious stories about forgetting about finals and walking around in his own little world, oblivious to everything around him. The chances of us producing a baby who actually "gets the memo" are approximately zero. I have confidence our daughter will be precious, beautiful, talented, and sweet, but I don't expect her to be on top getting the memo. That appears to be a genetic impossibility. And so I prepare for back labor.

On that happy note, let me leave you with a wonderful chili recipe. I made it last night for the cookie-capolypse with Jan, and the chili turned out terrifically. I got the recipe from this month's issue of Bon Appetite (and if you know how to do one of those accent thingys in blogger, let me know!): http://www.bonappetit.com/recipes/2011/02/black_bean_chili_with_butternut_squash

And since my chili came out monochromatic in color, here's their picture:

Happy eating!