Urgent--I need a Hamilton-style pregnant silhouette

Dear pregnant readers--I need your help! I need a photo of you, with your gorgeous pregnant belly, posing like Alexander Hamilton. Posed just like this, or as close as you can get and still clearly show off your belly.

Tight-fitting clothing is best. Bonus points if you are wearing tall leather boots!

I need a head-to-toe shot. Doesn't matter what's in the background as long as it's easy to distinguish between you and everything else (I will be turning it into a black-and-white silhouette).

To be used for an awesome project TBA.

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A request and some interesting things to read

First off, a blog reader is looking for a home birth midwife in Cochabamba, Bolivia. If you have any suggestions, please comment or send me an email. She's 7 months pregnant, so she needs your help quickly!

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 Now for your enjoyment:

1. School lunches around the world (in pictures...note the difference between France and the U.S.)

2. What Ruth Bader Ginsburg taught me about being a stay-at-home dad

3. Pregnant doctor finds intense pressure to have a cesarean

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A few things

The world is "so shocked" by Kate Middleton's post-baby belly. Well, I think that's a bit presumptuous. Ask any mom and she'll tell you that you still look pregnant one day after having a baby! But the article made some good points about post-baby invisibility. Another similar article is at The Daily Beast.

source: The Daily Beast

Looking for a great initiative to support? Try The Barefoot Bus, a mobile clinic providing prenatal care and health services to underserved women.

An unusual story of having a baby (unusual for some people, that is). Filmmaker James Colquhoun (Food Matters & Hungry For Change) tells the story of his family's journey through pregnancy and birth.

Ivy is 4 months old today! Will update shortly...

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Birth options and recommendations in the D.C. area

A blog reader recently asked me for recommendations for providers and birth locations in the Washington D.C. area. She lives in Falls Church, VA and is open to considering all of her options, from home to birth centers to hospitals. She had her first children with epidurals and would really like to have her next baby unmedicated (although she's a bit nervous about how she's going to do it!).

Please add your recommendations in the comments or, if you'd like to keep things more private, via email.

Thanks so much!
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Christmas wish list

I'd love to get a female pelvis model and cloth doll to practice & study the cardinal movements. Anyone selling a spare set? What suppliers sell the best cloth dolls?

A good portrait lens with a low aperture setting (1.4 or 1.8). This one would work with my  camera. I like bokeh!

The book Making More Plants

A Yepp Mini bike seat. It mounts on the front of the bike, right on the handlebar stem.

And this GMG Junior bike seat for the back of one of our bikes Too bad it isn't sold in the US! Maybe a Dutch reader could help me buy & ship a used one? They are everywhere in The Netherlands. I'd probably need the adapter too.

The WeeRide Co-Pilot bike trailer looks like fun!

I'd like to watch the documentary Catching Babies.

What's on your wish list? 
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Some fun ads

This ad made me laugh. There are quite a few in the "First Kid, Second Kid" series, all quite clever.



For the record I cloth diaper 95% of the time. I use generic store-brand disposables when we're traveling.

I saw this ad for RONA tools when I was in Canada this summer. I love anything to do with power tools. The last two I bought were:

• Rockwell Sonicrafter
• 1/2" dual speed Milwaukee hammer drill

What are some of your favorite ads?

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Anyone in the Seattle/Tacoma area?

A reader from the Seattle/Tacoma area of Washington State has a few questions. Can anyone help her out?

• Are there any online resources to help find a VBAC-friendly doctor in the area who might take a referral on short notice? (32 weeks pregnant) 
• Is there a consumer-supported database for people looking for natural birth friendly doctors?

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Unsolved mysteries

Mystery #1: Dead Birds
When we came home from France, there were two dead birds in our house. One was in the entryway, the other upstairs in our bedroom. I checked every single door and window, and all were closed and sealed tight. I have NO idea how these birds got into the house.

Mystery #2: Itchy Rash
I got a strange, horribly itchy rash when I was in France. I visited the doctor twice, took 3 prescription & 2 OTC medications, and spent almost 2 weeks in misery before it started to clear up. I suspect it was an allergic reaction (possibly a photoallergic eruption) to a sunscreen. Here are my reasons:

• the reaction showed up only where I applied sunscreen (face, arms, chest, and back of the neck) but not on any other part of my body
• the reaction wasn't immediate 
• I got a rash, which took a few days to appear, when I applied sunscreen to my torso as an initial test

To test my hypothesis, I drew 3 circles on my leg with a marker and applied each of the 3 sunscreens I had been using. Then I sat in the sun for a good half hour.

look at those lovely original "tomette" tiles in our apartment!

A rash started appearing 2-3 days later in the top circle, where I had applied Equate Kids Lotion. I compared its ingredients against the other two products I did not react to, but I wasn't much closer to a solution. Each sunscreen had 20-30 ingredients and very few were the same! I haven't solved this one entirely, but I've been staying away from any Wal-Mart brand sunscreens. So far haven't had any reactions to Coppertone brands.

Mystery #3: Early Miscarriage?
The day we flew home from France, my period was due to start. I had saw some red spotting before I got on the plane and figured that was it. But then, for the next 6 days, I only had very light spotting. I figured it had been a really weird period.

Then a week after I got home, I got a really heavy period. Torrential is a better word. I was completely filling a Diva Cup every 2-3 hours. My flow continued for 9-10 days, and spotting continued almost until the 14th day.

I took a pregnancy test a few hours before the heavy flow began. It was negative, but that doesn't really prove anything either way. I strongly suspect this was an early miscarriage based on the timing and volume; my cycle is always regular within +/- 1 day.

So, what do you think about these three unsolved mysteries? Any additional ideas?

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New blogs

My blogroll is in serious need of updating. Part of the problem comes from me constantly discovering new blogs that I have to follow. Like the wickedly funny Labor and Deliverance, written by an OB practicing in the South. His recent post Is a Cesarean right for you? Of course it is! was spot on. Then there's The Many Colors of Changing Woman written by a Native American CNM. It's as serious and reflective as Labor and Deliverance is irreverent. (Recently many of her posts have been disappearing; they show up on my Google Reader but are gone from her blog. What's up?)

I read a lot of things besides birth blogs. I just added Design Seeds and the affiliated fresh news for color inspiration. I like Little eco footprints for ideas and inspiration about living more lightly on this earth. And Mother Wheel for the fun to seeing what happens when you mix Paganism & Mormonism.

So tell me, what blogs have you recently fallen in love with?
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News and updates

Clearing out my bookmarks (a.k.a. procrastinating grading my freshman composition papers):

CDC to support Baby-Friendly Hospital Initiative
This just out: the CDC has dedicated $6 million to help more hospitals adopt the Baby-Friendly initiative! Dr. William H. Dietz, MD, Ph.D. and director of the CDC's Division of Nutrition, Physical Activity and Obesity, commented: “We know that breastfeeding rates are higher in Baby-Friendly hospitals, yet only 5 percent of babies in this country are born in these facilities. We need to help hospitals improve their maternity care to better support breastfeeding. This project takes steps to do that, and it offers real solutions to improve the health of mothers and babies.”

Birth as Performance Art?
Brooklyn performance artist Marni Kotak plans to give birth in her art gallery, and the public is invited. From an interview with The Village Voice:

My performance at Microscope will begin as I install the show, setting up my own home-birth center in the space, and will span the entire duration of the exhibition. Part of giving birth is the mental and physical preparation for the event. A lot elements go into a traditional home-birth, and I received a whole list of necessary supplies from my midwife. I will be installing an inflatable birthing pool and a shower in the gallery, along with my deceased grandmother's bed, the rocking chair that my mother rocked me on when I was a baby, shag carpeting, a surround video projection of ocean waves crashing on the shores of my favorite Cape Cod beach, artwork made by my husband and the child's father, Jason Robert Bell, and a small kitchen area for food and drinks.

All of these elements are incorporated to make the labor process as smooth and as comfortable as possible. As this will take place in front of an audience, rather than in the privacy of my home, I am doing extra mental preparation at the advice of my doula (who along with my midwife will be present at the birth) to let go of my mind and totally go into my body. She told me that once I really enter active labor the body just takes over and I won't care at all what is going on around me. My focus will be on having my baby. I know it will be challenging, but I think if people give birth in the completely inhospitable environment of hospitals, hooked up to IVs and monitors and strapped with stirrups into a bed, I can give birth in an art gallery. And in giving birth in front of the audience, I am showing them, as in my previous performances, that real life is the best performance art, and that, if our eyes can be opened to it, all of the meaning that we seek is right there in our everyday lives.

Read the rest here.

Live home birth
Another woman, Canadian chiropractor Nancy Salgueiro, will be live-casting her birth. She's currently 41 weeks pregnant, so it should happen any day now. If you want to watch, you can register here.

Two VBAC stories
Accidental unassisted birth (caution: will probably make you laugh) and a hospital VBAC with a midwife & OB teaming up.

Birthing in Zion
If you're an LDS birth worker, there's a new online directory called Birthing in Zion organized by WAVE (Women Advocating for Voice & Equality).

Baby Style
My friend Desiree just wrote about baby style. I agree 100%. No rhinestones or tutus or butt pants on my little girls! My own style--if I can call it that, since 99.99% of my kids' clothes are second-hand--leans towards the slightly feminine but not girly. Some of my favorite girl's outfits are jeans and a peasant blouse. Of course, my kids wear a lot of mixed-gender clothes too! Zari's summer sandals are used boy's sandals with footballs and baseballs, and Dio's sandals are pink leather hand-me-downs.

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Journal of Perinatal Education

The new edition of the Journal of Perinatal Education (volume 16, no 4, fall 2007) has several very interesting articles, many based on the Listening to Mothers II survey. Articles marked with a blue "F" are free to the public. If you are affiliated with a university, you can probably access the other ones through your university library.

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