AS THE PREGNANCY CONTINUES

AS THE PREGNANCY CONTINUES
(I really did go four weeks past my due date!)

I have relived this time over and over for thirty five years. It plays differently inside my head than it does written down. I inadequately described the joy I felt the day I was told that, for the first time, I was pregnant.

Right away I bought books on the subject. There weren't many then. It was hippy time and I got a book on having your baby in the middle of the woods in a tent and drinking raspberry tea and naming your baby names like Peaches and Flower. Though they were in their infancy I got the Lamaze and La Leche books. I followed them religiously, practicing breathing and roughing up my nipples in preparation for breastfeeding. (When Lucky was born, there was just one other woman in a ward of 40 new mothers who breastfed.) Everyday I ate the same recommended diet that I remember included an egg, an orange, a tomato and milk. I quit smoking. I had two baby showers, one Hawaiian with poi, opihi and ahi with seaweed. The other in "Ye Olde Plank Inn", a bar at Pacific Beach, California where gifts were piled high on one of the pool tables and food on another.

The gift I remember most was a yellow and white check gingham giraffe diaper hanger from the close friend I named Lucky after. She surprised me by driving down from New Port Beach to attend the shower in Pacific Beach. Remind me to tell you about her.

Well, it seems that looking for old pictures to post has caused me to rearrange my "studio". When we moved in here two years and one month ago, I arranged the two white laminate dressers I use for my "instruments of creation" and other junk, abutting a window wall without realizing that I wouldn't be able to open the top drawer of one of the dressers. I had a love seat for one of my grandchildren to sleep on when they came to visit, next to them. I had already filled all the drawers and the cupboards sitting on top of the dressers, as well as packing to move, going through the snow storm of the century, unpacking and I just couldnn't ......until

To be continued also...