Epilogue

We’re home. After a lot of discussion, we decided it was time. We booked our flights, got (most of) our papers in order, and we traveled back to the states so Piglet could be near the rest of the family and be baptized at our home church. International travel with our three-month-old was surprisingly easy, once we got him out of Peru. He slept soundly on both flights. The initial immigrations stuff was more exciting than we were counting on: nobody at the US embassy mentioned it, but it turns out that if you have a baby in Peru, the baby will need a Peruvian passport to exit the country, even if he is also a US citizen with a valid US passport. Fortunately, you can pay 50 soles and get an emergency passport at the airport’s immigration office in a remarkably short time. I’d advise giving yourself more than ten minutes to do this.

Anyway, now that I’m no longer pregnant, and no longer living away from my home continent,  it seems like a good time to wrap up the blog– otherwise it can only become the Dreaded Mommy Blog. There’s nothing wrong with blogging about Mommyhood, of course. I just happen to be bored out of my mind by most Mommy Blogs, and see no reason to add to the noise, now that I am surrounded by other mothers who speak English, and I can actually talk to them about the things I would otherwise blog.

DIY Moby Wrap!

Today, in my quest to try out every buckle-free baby-carrying option, I made my own Moby Wrap. It’s just a long piece of stretchy fabric, right?  I went to the fabric shop at the mercado, picked up five metres of T-shirt cotton in a pretty teal color, and when I got home with it, immediately realized it was way, way too much fabric. It was the right length, but much too wide. So I cut it down the center and now it is perfect. It can do all the things a Moby can do, but I didn’t have to figure out where to buy one of those suckers in Lima. It is, admittedly, a bit warm for this climate, but so much more comfortable than my other sling, which is a one-shoulder deal. It also helps that it’s stretchy. It is fantastic for carrying him around, despite the puddles of sweat on my belly, but the boy doesn’t like it when it comes to nursing, so I have to take him out of it and rearrange to feed him. But I had to do that anyway with the other sling, so… no harm. Maybe with some practice?

I did screw up on one count, though– I was brave and wore my nursing tank with it. I don’t like things that show so much skin, normally, but the wrap covered my shoulders so I felt comfortable in it.  And I got a pretty good v-shaped sunburn on the uncovered portion of my upper back. I keep forgetting this is the tropics.

31 Weeks: I don’t want to jinx it, but my joints have stopped hurting!

For a while there, my hip joints and my left-side round ligament had me seriously hurting whenever I stood up, sat down, rolled over in bed, walked, got dressed, put shoes on, took shoes off…  it was irritating, to say the least. My husband kindly made a few grocery-store runs for me on the really bad days. But the last week has been brilliant. I don’t know what changed, but unless I do something stupid like lie on my back for a long time, it doesn’t hurt anymore. Over the weekend, I walked to church, and then down half of La Marina, and all around the zoo. We left when we both had sore feet. But my joints and ligaments were fine!  Yesterday, we walked down to the cliff by the ocean and back, down and up a pretty steep incline. I was tired, but not in pain. I sure hope it lasts!

Finally finished translating the doctora’s information packet. I’m glad I didn’t wait ’til the last minute– I will have a lot of questions about it! There seem to be two different long lists of necessary supplies to procure– one for birthing at home, and one for birthing at the casa de nacimento. I think. Definitely need to clarify that before we start buying iodine foam and sterile gloves. I’m having a hard time picturing us hauling all that stuff off to Miraflores with us in a taxi while I’m in labor…  awkward!

Just Wow

Still watching my way through the natural childbirth videos on YouTube, with a bias toward the ones where women are not shown lying on their backs. I came across this one today, and it is breathtaking.  Clearly, this is just the final ten minutes of a much longer saga: the baby comes out face-up, and I’ve never heard of that being an easy, short, or comfortable labor. It tends to be many hours of stop-and-go labor with intense back pain. Possibly the baby’s posterior position explains the odd-looking lopsided squat she’s chosen; the benefit to doing it without the drugs is that you’ve got raw animal instinct on your side, and that instinct can do a really good job of telling you the best way to get the baby out.  This lady makes a posterior delivery look almost easy.