i'm asleep. go 'way.

not waking up yet.

Not much comfort now, but my sister was more than two weeks late and it was all fine in the end.

Oh man. For better or for worse, I think my induction-happy OB would shit a brick before letting me go that long. We've settled on next Thursday as a deadline, which is 9 days or 11 days over, depending on whether you're counting from when I ovulated or the onset of my last period, which were not perfectly spaced two weeks apart. (This is a point of contention.) Too much information? I think not!

Nevertheless, every single goddamn appointment he has forgotten all of our induction conversations and brightly asks if I'd like to induce today or tomorrow.

First time mothers are on average seven days late. Since you are the most average person in the world, only three days to go!

The fact that the date you are on average most likely to deliver is not the same as your "due date" is a concept provided by medical science to enable spiritual contemplation.

I thought the average for first-time moms was only 4 or 5 days late? Is it a full 7?

HBGB, did you explain to your OBGB that you're always right? Because he seems to be a little on the unbright side and may need that pointed out to him.

Also, the song? Adorable, but in a good way.

Well I heard it was 9 12 17 days!

That's what our midwife, who's delivered eighty gazillion babies, told our. Our daughter was exactly 7 days late.

Are you grading papers, heebie?

Got em all done! Submitted grades last Saturday. Just yesterday OFS e-mailed me to inquire why she got a D.

Just yesterday OFS e-mailed me to inquire why she got a D.

We can help you right the reply!! If ever there were cause for an Orange Post Title, this is it!!!!!!

full seven if you include the weekend

I just came up with a song. Well, actually only alternative lyrics:

You spin me right round mommy
Right round
Like a hippie mama
Right round
Round round

I think singing that should help your situation, heebie.

4: Fascinating, isn't it. While I'm all about the modern medicine, there's something screwy about defining the average length of gestation as worrisomely abnormal, and anything even a tiny bit longer as a real emergency requiring intervention.

Um, "write the reply", is what I meant. Extreme excitement interferes with spelling skillz.

Just yesterday OFS e-mailed me to inquire why she got a D.

When she wins the Fields Medal in 10 years for discovering and alternative algebra, she'll publicly thank you.

First time mothers are on average seven days late.

My oldest was six days late. The next one (different wife, her first kid) was born exactly on his due date.

Um, "write the reply", is what I meant.

I figured that if I send her the components of her grade breakdown and then say "weighted according to the syllabus" that that might leave her deliciously puzzled.

I didn't have a due date exactly -- my midwives had one date based on LMP and another from my ultrasound. I think Sally showed up inbetween the two dates.

But seriously, 80% effaced? Last you mentioned, you weren't effaced at all, so progress is happening. You could go into labor any minute.

BOO!

20: True. That was as of yesterday morning. But only 1.5 cm dilated.

Mostly the leaning forward and sleeping belly downish has gotten really, really uncomfortable lately, but as of Friday morning she was still posterior, so i'm sticking with it.

Did that do it?

21: You're my boo, too, Apo, but this really is Jammies' baby.

It is kind of fun to answer "Four days ago!"

You should try looking all insulted and say "I am NOT pregnant, thank you very much."

"This is from BEER, thank you very much."

As far as I can tell, they look at the ultrasound to guess when you got pregnant, and then add 40 weeks to that.

22: But dilated some! This is early labor right now!

(Silly question -- how do you know she's posterior? OB feeling your belly?)

Also, just to keep bitching, it's very tiring to have parents in town, even though they're by and large totally reasonable people who I enjoy very much. They haven't even been staying with us, because dad had a cold and felt it was better to stay at a hotel. But it's been a solid week of Mom and Dad, which is a very, very long visit.

This is early labor right now!

Yeah, it really is. Heebie's going to have a baby on the internet!

how do you know she's posterior? OB feeling your belly?

No, from the ultrasounds. He's also insanely ultrasound-happy and gives them every. single. visit. (Which occasionally gives me tinges of concern, just because we don't totally know if there's any effects of performing one million ultrasounds on a fetus. But with the (mild, mild) complications I didn't quite have the gumption to do more than voice my concerns weakly one time.)

We seriously have a goddamn flip-book of photos of the baby's face. She has my nose.

No one is ever pregnant forever. It just seems that way.

Induction is done for the convenience of the doctor and the staff. My Upper East Side hospital has a slot for 6:30am, 9am, noon, 5pm, 9pm, and midnight. The doctor who signs his patients up earliest gets the 9pm and midnight (for Cervidil) and the 6:30 and 9am the next morning (for Pitocin), as well as the 7:30 and 9:30 scheduled sections. That way everyone due that week delivers on the day he doesn't have office hours. Thus, we already have women scheduled for "postdates" induction in June.

We always ask women if there's a reason for the induction when we admit them, and the most common is, "my doctor told me to come." Second is, "I live in New Jersey."

Mmm. I remember having to burst into tears to get my mother and sister to go away and let me sleep the day after Sally was born. (Oh, saying "I want to go to sleep now, go away" would have worked to, it just didn't occur to me.) Once the baby gets here, you really want to get it clear in your head that your family is there to coddle and take care of you rather than to be treated as guests. Release your inner princess, at least for the first couple of days.

The fact that the date you are on average most likely to deliver is not the same as your "due date" is a concept provided by medical science to enable spiritual contemplation.

So great.

26: I know just how you feel.

Ya know, the longer the kid stays in there, the more likely she is to have an awesome immune system. So just figure you're shaving off many future days of wiping noses and buying antihistamines for each day over the due date you run.

max
['Always look on the bright side of life...']

Good luck Heebie - she's on her way now and don't even think about induction because you're not going to need it.

My friend who was due last weekend is in labour right now - she has a horde of people waiting eagerly for an announcement. Not sure whether that's good or bad.

Yep, I read recently that 41 weeks is the average length of gestations for first time white mothers. My first was 'officially' early, but looked over, and the next 3 were 41 - 42 weeks. I lied about my LMP with no.4 because I didn't even want to have a conversation about induction.

the longer the kid stays in there, the more likely she is to have an awesome immune system

If that is true, and the statistic about first children being on average 7 days late is true, does that mean that first-born children have better immune systems?

37: Heebie is white?

Heebie is white?

Where it counts.

Like my T-cells!

40: You're saying white people are better at math? Racist.

I lied about my LMP with no.4 because I didn't even want to have a conversation about induction

I would totally do this next time. Although I kind of totally adore the pediatrician that we found, who is a family practitioner/ObGyn, so I may not feel the need to do so with her.

38 - pure anecdata, but subsequent babies seem to tend to be even 'later'. And, more anecdata, mothers seem to breastfeed longer with each child. So the firstborn might end up with the worst immune system. (Though these were both true for me, and yet my firstborn is the one who never gets ill.)

That was as of yesterday morning. But only 1.5 cm dilated.

If it helps, I was less than 2 cm dilated as late as two hours before Rory emerged. So really, you might already be in labor and just not know it yet.

I do like hearing anecdata supporting that I might be way far along without realizing it. That would make this whole thing easy.

i hope you walk a lot, i think i told about my coworker's friend who was an ob-gyn and made his wife to walk up and down the stairs the last two or so days before the birth, and she delivered herself and very easily

I have definitely been walking a ton. Mom's a big walker and we've been taking long strolls through the park, as much as my back can handle.

I do like hearing anecdata supporting that I might be way far along without realizing it.

Okay, I have one for you: 3 days before my son was born, I went for a prenatal appointment and there was hardly any sign of any progress at all, and he was already a few days "late". I started worrying about induction and etc, and then I went into labour and all was fine, and he was born exactly 7 days after the official due date.

Hooray!

First time mothers are on average seven days late.

Or one dog day, but they only count those in summer. [ba-dump]

you really want to get it clear in your head that your family is there to coddle and take care of you rather than to be treated as guests

Specifically, to clean your house and cook your food and do your dishes and laundry. It's amazing how many people don't figure this out on their own.

Should we be taking bets on this thing?

I believe that there is a slight correlation between left-handedness and ultrasounds, but that's it for long-term effects.

I thought later babies came earlier, and that's how they came up with the 40 week average.

The 40 week thing seems to be fairly arbitrary, and from what I know, not even in use everywhere. I don't actually think it's an average, just something some bloke came up with as it's a nice round number.

According to the Awesome Power of the Internet the average actually is 40 weeks.

The Internet is just another tool of the induction-mongering medical patriarchy. Fight the Power, heebie!

Is that just baby websites saying that, or did you find any actual data?

I had a vague memory of France being longer - this journo thinks so too. D-day in France is assumed to be at 41 weeks. So heebie can tell people she's due in 3 days' time.

I was 2.5 weeks early according to their calculations. Since the analogy ban left with ogged, I figure wombs are like ovens and babies are like cakes. Sure, it might say 350 degrees for half an hour, but your oven might run hot and the cake might be done in 28 minutes and everything will turn out fine.

Wouldn't it be odd for the average to be exactly 38 weeks? (From conception - and of course, even if you know when you ovulated, fertilization wasn't necessarily immediate.)

To understand the thinking of the induction-mongering medical patriarchy, I went to the local med school library and read one of the OB textbooks. On the first page of the relevant chapter, there was a U-shaped curve, with mom/baby medical issues on the Y-axis and time on the X-axis. The minima of the U was somewhere around 40 weeks.

Correlation, causation, etc., but that helped me understand where they were coming from a little.

Dr. Rumack: I just want to tell you both good luck. We're all counting on you.

(Speaking of the Awesome Power of the Internet, it says something about it (or us) that the first 3 Google results for "Airplane" concern the movie.)

I just want to tell you both good luck. We're all counting on you.

Fuck!

Yeah, and I was 3.5 weeks late.

I'd better go and do something else before I start getting all militant.

I'll just leave with a plug for my favourite internet pregnancy and birth authority.

38:If that is true, and the statistic about first children being on average 7 days late is true, does that mean that first-born children have better immune systems?

So I have heard. {shrugs} The big issue seems to be that prematurity is the big problem with regards to immune systems. Underweight plus shortened development time == ungood. I have been paying attention to this subject off and on because my ex-person was a preemie (two weeks) and has an immune system much like Poland, or Belgium, or maybe Luxemburg. Her brother (first-born, two weeks late) has a crappy immune system as well, but not near as bad as hers. They seem to have had a combination of a bad genetic roll plus early movement (from OK to UK and then back) that didn't allow for development of resistance to the peculiarities of ANY locality.

At any rate, my thinking is that, absent nefarious influences, kids tend to show up when they're ready, and that's usually the optimal outcome for long-term health, so you prolly ought not mess with it if you can avoid it. At any rate, I'm just going to root for the best health for kid and mom over all other priorities, particularly since that mysterious bleeding thing has been involved.

max
['Was my thought, anyways.']

hang in there, heebster! and if you get desperate you can try my mom's solution for when my brother was two weeks late: chopping wood. I have a great picture of her and me from that day, her holding the axe and looking ludicrously, amazingly pregnant. they were both fine.

Good luck, Heebie and little Heebster.

Don't forget that vigorous screwing can induce labor.

Good luck!

29: But it's been a solid week of Mom and Dad, which is a very, very long visit

After our first was born, I got to spend a lot of quality time with my Mother-in-Law—a woman who never missed an opportunity to use "must" where "should" would have sufficed. We waged a stealth passive-aggressive war over melons and cantaloupes, which I liked to keep in the refrigerator. She'd move them out onto the counter when I wasn't around. I'd move them back when she wasn't.

Yeah, my brother was nearly 4 weeks late. He was pretty big when he finally came out. 10lbs 9oz or something like that. All that extra cooking time, I suppose.

65: After 25 hours of labor, my ex-wife woke up after five hours of sleep and started chopping wood. It's just an all-around tonic.

No one is ever pregnant forever.

I know someone who was pregnant for over 15 months.

Continuously!

Release your inner princess, at least for the first couple of days.

This is great.

Good luck, heebie! Relax, don't fret. Remember the breathing and all that.

71: Were they an elephant?

After the 14th month, pretty much.

my friend had two close pregnancies, the second one when she had a 7 mo baby
we say 'oroikhon garaad shiruukhen dairah' means start later and forward faster, like in sturm und something, forgot
so her kids now grow very conveniently together, she's in Australia now for her PhD's, missing her kids, 6-7 yo

74: heebie's careful reluctance to assume the sex of the pregnant person in question is touching!

But neb. 15 months? What are you saying?

I just want to tell you both good luck. We're all counting on you.

We waged a stealth passive-aggressive war over melons and cantaloupes, which I liked to keep in the refrigerator. She'd move them out onto the counter when I wasn't around. I'd move them back when she wasn't.

Your mother-in-law was right, Stormcrow. Cold fruit is an abomination.

My mom tells me I was over a month late. My own theory is, my parents were using the rhythm method, had a(n unknown-to-them false) pregnancy scare, then just went at it whole-hog, and that I'm the result of month-later prodigious sex-having.

79: I knew I could count on the hyper-opinionated foodophiles here to weigh in. Thank you, I will ignore your opinion with great relish.

Pushy gynos are really frustrating. As is being really uncomfortable and sort of just sitting around waiting. All my sympathy.

You realize that someday you're going to have to tell them this theory, Stanley. It's part of growing up.

with great relish

Cantaloupes don't go well with with relish.

84: I am surprised how few results (and how tame) a Google search of "savory melons" returns.

Your mother-in-law was right, Stormcrow. Cold fruit is an abomination.

So we can keep the plums in the icebox safely while Megan's around.

Stanley, William of Ockham just emailed me to suggest you might have been a bit late.

Y'know, I once had one of those passive-aggressive fruit-related refrigerator arguments with a friend I was staying with. I kept putting the bowl of freshly picked strawberries and raspberries in the fridge, and he kept taking them out. They began to become melty on the counter there like that!

Finally he caught me, as it were, putting them back into the fridge, and explained that it had something to do with the nature of his fridge, it didn't want to have exposed moisture in there. I remain stumped, but at least had the presence of mind to blurt out, "Well, you should have told me! And now you just have!" Weird, overall.

Ignore Megan. She throws burning couches off rooves.

I still don't understand the intimation that throwing burning couches off roofs is wrong. If you were on a roof with a burning couch, which you could safely toss over the side, would you refuse? "Oh no. I couldn't. It would be too sparkly and crashy and exciting and the pieces would explode all over the ground."

In this I agree with Megan.

I never realized it was Megan who threw the burning couch &c. Obviously the burning couch is safer on the ground than on the roof. I may have to remain in the dark as to why the couch was burning in the first place.

Pregnancy tests consistently showed her to be pregnant for quite a long time. She was not ever actually pregnant.

92: I have a friend whose pregnancy tests proclaimed her NOT pregnant for several months in a row, however . . . (This was really a double-plus ungood situation all around.)

I haven't actually thrown a burning couch off a roof, although I surely would. I've thrown things off roofs for fun, and burned things for fun, and those got conflated in a long miserable thread a couple years back.

But if the couch were on the roof, and it were on fire, and you had provided for the safety of the people below, wouldn't you want to throw it over?

94. I'd be more concerned for the safety of the people on the roof (e.g. me) in case the sparks and general disintegration when it landed set fire to the house.

94: Oh.

Of course I'd throw the burning couch off the roof!

If you had a ground crew (at a safe distance) with fire extinguishers?

I have more cheerful anecdata, but I can't remember the details perfectly. But with Sally, I went in for an appointment in the morning, and was told I was a couple centimeters dilated (can't remember exactly how much, but certainly less than four and I think two) and she was born at 8:45 that night.

In my experience, the circumstances of a situation like being on a roof with a burning couch don't include abstract concepts like "ground crew", "safe distance" and "fire extinguishers" (at least in their role as tools of fire extinguishment).

This hypothetical is getting out of hand. Has the Heebster slid out to have a baby since comment 50?

What I think makes you different from many here, Megan, is that you seem to think that spending hours getting a ground crew ready and making all the other preparations to safely throw a burning couch off of a roof would be worthwhile. A lot of people think this way, which is why burning man exists. But to the rest of us, it all seems weird.

Is Tweety the one here who is a regular Burner? Ruprecht?

100: No, I'm certain if she were in labor she would live blog it.

Knecht hasn't been to burning man, as far as I know.

Couches don't usually burn very entertainingly, do they? Too much fireproof and/or chemical gnarliness involved.

Just chuck it off the roof and then set something else on fire, is what I'm saying.

It's Tweety, plus maybe some others.

Anyway, stop giving Megan a hard time. Fire is hypnotic and excellent in the way in which only fire can be.

101, 103: Ruprecht?

As an honorary fellow of the Grant Avenue Institute of Higher Studies in Couch-burning Behavior in Crowds.

It isn't that hard if all you're doing is throwing flaming stuff around. But yes, I'm willing to do the pre-event work, and think that it is worth it. Sometimes that is fun too, if you and a couple other friends are enjoying the anticipation.

We can go back to the original topic if you like. We've hashed this out before.

106: A more artistic treatment.

The couch! The couch! The couch is on fire!
We don't need no water, throw the fucker off the roof.

A couch on fire would be really stinky, in a bad way, as Tweety notes. Bad couch!

Throwing a burning couch of a roof doesn't seem fun enough to actually do pre-event planning. Burning Man is a somewhat different scale of cool.

I do have friends who keep a car on fire for the whole event, just in case you want to throw something flammable and/or explosive into it at some point, but that's just being ready for contingencies.

Pregnant for 46 Years ...Discovery Health Channel

We are civil engineers. Pre-event planning is our way of life.

I believe that the typical pregnancy test failure to say not pregnant when you are pregnant.

I think that positive pregnancy tests are almost always correct.

We once had a long extension cord attached to a tv and threw it off the roof.

Also, many in our office were fascinated when we discovered youtube videos of people blowing up two liters bottles with aluminum foil and drano. So easy! So fun!

115: Rock stars at play.

Keith Richards in this case. I had always heard Keith Moon credited with the plugged in TV drop.

I think that positive pregnancy tests are almost always correct.

Optimistic pregnancy tests are almost always positive.

my friend had two close pregnancies, the second one when she had a 7 mo baby
we say 'oroikhon garaad shiruukhen dairah'

cool, now I know the Mongolian for "Irish Twins"!

I think that positive pregnancy tests are almost always correct.

Really? Perhaps statistically. Maybe. I had a false positive once that freaked me out, persisted through 2 further tests, over months, garnered a lecture on birth control, alas, from my doctor, and, well, turned out to be false. Of course that doesn't mean that this is common. One hopes it isn't.

Couches don't usually burn very entertainingly, do they? Too much fireproof and/or chemical gnarliness involved.

What about a Stickley settee upholstered in natural fabrics? Think outside the box, Sifu.

We don't have a problem with refrigerating fruit at the moment, because apparently we need a new fridge. Fuck.

Couches do burn very vividly if you soak them in a can of lighter fluid. As it is possible that I was an accessory after the fact and not a bystander, I'm not going into detail. But, this did get a very large reaction, mostly because of where they got the couch and where they put it.

we need a new fridge

But in the meantime, up to the rooftop with the old one! Someone assemble the groundcrew.

I'm on it!

Off topic, but awesome:

Remember Jason Fortuny?

The Craigslist "prankster" who posted hardcore kink ads to CL and then posted the responses he got--including face photos, home and work telephone numbers--to the web? Some of his victims sued him and a default judgment was just issued and Fortuny is facing fines of $74,000. Couldn't happen to a nicer guy.

Link.

Fire: The Untamed Element, Oldest of Man's Mysteries, Giver of warmth, Destroyer of forests, right now *this* buildingcouch is on fire.

Most berries (and most fruit actually) taste markedly better if you don't refrigerate them. If you buy them already refrigerated, well, then I guess it doesn't matter. But freshly picked ones? Don't chill them unless you've got more than you can possibly eat that day or the next. Chilled melon is actually quite good though.

Also, it's the polite and thoughtful thing to do when a guest in someone's home to respect the hosts' preferences as to what gets refrigerated and what doesn't. It's one thing to think "oh, they forgot and left something out of the fridge" and put it in (especially if it's something like milk or meat). But to go back and forth with them, undoing what they've done? Um, that's assery. Even if they are married to your daughter.

Irish Twins
the saying is said in all cases when one starts doing something late and accomplishes a lot during a short period of time

125 is one of the great movie quotes.

126: Jeez, okay. Agreed about (against) refrigerating fruit in general.

I chill my fruit after setting it on fire.

Setting shit on fire: fun.
Setting couches on fire: fun, but potentially dangerous due to foam. Depends on age of couch.
Throwing shit off roofs: way fun.
Pre-planning: OK in small doses for small events.
Pre-planning large engineering projects: excellent.
Leaving redundant language in my comments: SUCKTASTIC.
Fixing overly small 50x15 unfogged textarea box with extensions, plus overriding goofy-ass 11px Verdana font: MOST EXCELLENT.

max
['I can see!']

I let my fruit salads sit out on the counter for at least two days. Ripening.

132: I do the same, except not on my own counter. I go over to friends' houses and leave them there.

133: Comity!

I'm developing a hankering for fresh berries now.

I let my fruit salads sit out on the counter for at least two days. RipeningFermenting.

Yum!

I like to refrigerate the couch.

So, like, if you guys are ever guests in heebie's home, just respect her refrigeration wishes with respect to the couch. I'm sorry if your ass gets cold sitting on the couch in the evening.

Doing okay, heebie?

My ass is pretty cold, but other than that I'm okay.

Your ass isnt getting warm anytime soon. Soon it should be sitting bare on the edge of a bed for a couple hours.

Yay.

125 is one of the great movie quotes.

And one of the few funny things in that movie.

Uh, 140 to 138.

138: Don't they know that a woman's ass is the coldest part of her body?

126: Um, that's assery. Even if they are married to your daughter.

Yeah, of course we both knew that it really wasn't about the fruit. Actually, we generally got along, she just had some control issues. The combination of an extended stay and the emotions associated with the first child/grandchild made us both dig in our heels a bit more than usual.

First we cook our fruit, then we chill our fruit.

$240 worth of fruit?

Why do you chill fruit against me?

There's a proverb, "If the mother-in-law leaves the fruit out, the compote will be funky".

It's sort of a sucky proverb, not one of the best by any means, but I do fear for JP's marriage.

just got back from a wedding anniversary party (not mine)

guestA was present on her due day -- she looked anxious (but sh always looked anxious)

guestB was present w.her handsome little son now two and a half ish -- she was a week prem, her contractions began in the middle of the night, she woke up, thought about it a bit, decided she need the sleep more, slept soundly till morning still contracting, got up, WATCHED SOME SOAPS, and then drove herself to hospital

(i think her other half was away for the weekend on some unavoidable thing and missed the entire business

actually it was more than a week prem, it was a lot

Both of mine were five days late, and they were both born on the birthday of one of their great grandparents. I was lucky in both cases that I had a date to shoot for and that I managed to will them to come out on schedule. The second was posterior up until a few days before birth. My midwife set me up with a masseuse who had a pregnancy massage table (basically a massage table with holes cut out for your belly and breasts). I spent a couple of hours on the table here and there during the last week and he turned (not sure if he turned on the massage table or during birth, I can't really feel to that level of detail). I've read that many many posterior babies turn while they're coming out, and a posterior birth is not the worst case scenario in any event. Good luck!

Ours hit when we were watching SNL. Al Gore had just come to Weekend Update. It's on in 3 hours in case it wasn't just a coincidence. (I don't mean we had the baby at home while watching TV. I mean that is when the definitive 'go to the hospital cue arrived.)

Of course, Tina Fey is gone, so it wouldn't be the same.

149: That's not that crazy. For the first-time mom, having contractions off and on for 24 hours is not that unusual.

When my wife had our baby, we were trying to go to the hospital as late as possible (I get the impression that if you're there too long they'll try to induce just because they get tired of having you around). We had a doula who came to the house for the early part of the labor. Since the doula was the expert, we were expecting her to know when we should go to the hospital. We waited at home for about six hours. Over the course of the six hours my wife went from being relatively normal, to acting like someone who was drunk, to some strange and distant place. At that point I said that we should go to the hospital. The doula said no, she thought it would be a long time yet. I overruled her, and we went right then. My wife gave birth an hour later. The midwife got there barely in time.

fast forwarding >
babies grow too fast! the other day my 2 yo niece asked whose meem (breast) he's eating? after watching through skype her 10 mo cousin's breastfeeding

154: Wow.

My only experience of this was as the birth coach for a friend a number of years ago. She'd elected to be a single mom, had broken up with her boyfriend shortly before she learned of the pregnancy.

I was staying with her, and as soon as her water broke, we and her mother headed to the hospital, which was admittedly 2 hours away, and she gave birth some 7 hours later. It was the wise thing in her case, as she was was an older mom, in her late 30s at the time, and it did gradually become clear to me that the nurses were especially attentive because of that.

154: I get the impression that if you're there too long they'll try to induce just because they get tired of having you around

That, and because hospitals are dangerous so the less time spent in one the better. Dealing with a resistant bug is not an amusing experience.

126: But to go back and forth with them, undoing what they've done? Um, that's assery. Even if they are married to your daughter.

Unless, you know, it's rotting and nasty. My cousins have this problem with their Dad. His house is so gross that they just want to clean everything. He gets sort of upset by this, but it makes visiting him inside the house extremely unpleasant. The last time they were here, they were concerned that they'd have to go to the airport without a fresh change of clothes and a shower.

158 was I.

Irvine Welsh's "What to Inject When You're Expecting" should be on the nightstand of every expecting parent.

A pregnancy thread seems like the right place for this question. I picked up Robin Baker's Sperm Wars and am finding it fascinating reading. But am I falling for a bunch of just-so stories?

I'm reassured by the fact that he published a heavily-footnoted academic book on the same topic, and that he's described as an evolutionary biologist rather than evo-psych. More important, I have a reasonably good baloney detector and so far I think he's doing a good job of separating out the plausible-but-unproven from the empirical-data-exists parts.

But I have no professional background in biology and don't want to get too confident. Has anybody else read it?

(More entertainingly, he has an anecdote about doing a U.S. media tour in 1996 when the book was first published, and being forbidden to say the book's title on radio shows in non-coastal states.)

157: Biohazard, that's frightening, though I understand it. I still think of hospitals as my friends, though.

And Chávez said of Obama: "I think President Obama is an intelligent man, compared to the previous U.S. president."

Hospitals are definitely not your friends.

Since the doula was the expert, we were expecting her to know when we should go to the hospital.

Sounds like we had the same doula. Mine was convinced that I would just "know" when it was time to go in. Um, no, that's why I hired a doula (which, in retrospect...well, let's just say I now shake my head in bemusement). So I ended up going through transition in a cab, an experience I would not recommend. I was in this strange, almost hallucinatory state, it was as though I had left the social world. But was also, oddly, highly conscious of certain details of my surroundings (so, for example, when the cab driver got lost, I remember looking out the window and asking, "Why are we in Alphabet City?"). And when I got to the birthing centre, the midwives told me, "Well, you're ready to give birth," which came as a surprise and also an enormous relief (but according to my doula's earlier miscalculations, I still had hours to go...though at some point she did realize her error, and I think was a bit freaked out because she thought I would give birth in the cab).

However! It all worked out, Heebie, and everything went smoothly and without complications, as it generally does go.

164: Saved my life, though.

Taxicabs are statistically the safest place to give birth. Fact.

I'm sure I've told this here before, but I came within 12 minutes of having to play midwife in a cab. I'm not sure the cab driver really grasped what was happening until close to the end, when I literally threw money at him and bounded out of the cab to grab the hospital security guard.

All ended happily, though. The father even got there in time to cut the cord.

167: I've been told that -- the explanation was that a labor that's going quickly enough to surprise you with a baby in a cab is one where everything's fine.

168: I do not believe you have told that story here before. Wow.

Man! You can do just about anything with logic and reasoning!

167: Yeah, I've heard that. But no way did I want to give birth in a moving vehicle on the streets of Manhattan. And the cabbies don't like it when you make that kind of mess.

If you give birth in a cab you save enough money to tip the cabbie very well indeed. Unfortunately, insurance doesn't cover cabbie tips.

A friend of mine almost had twins in a cab. They're the same twins who are waiting for the Exxon Valdez settlement they inherited from their father. The Exxon Valdez settlement will probably be passed down through the generations forever, like an indigenous land claim or an immortal lawsuit.

Um, no, that's why I hired a doula (which, in retrospect...well, let's just say I now shake my head in bemusement).

At a party a few years ago I met a woman who was in training to become a doula, and it was all she could talk about. But she didn't seem to know pretty basic things about childbirth. Then a pregnant woman showed up, and the doula-in-training glommed on to her and would not stop pestering her about how she should have a water birth. I could not imagine that woman's presence at a birth being helpful in any way.

That I guess just to say that it seems like the qualifications of doulas vary a lot.

So I ended up going through transition in a cab, an experience I would not recommend.

What it this 'transition'? (I'm nulliparous and I'm not a doula! How would I know?)

the cabbies don't like it when you make that kind of mess

Amusingly, one of the thoughts that ran though my head when I thought she might give birth in the taxi was, "At least it's winter. I'll spread out my coat and the baby won't have to be born on this dirty seat."

But regardless, it's a bloody business, this birthing process.

Transition's the middle stage of labor, and the one that hurts most--dilating from 7 to 10 cm. Once you're all the way dilated and pushing the baby out, it's (at least IME) much less painful.

What it this 'transition'?

Transition is the most difficult but shortest phase of the first stage of labor. Contractions during transition are stronger and longer than earlier contractions, and they serve to finish dilating the cervix. These transitions will last between 90 seconds and 2 minutes, and they will be two minutes or so apart, leaving you little or no time to relax between contractions. Transition typically lasts around half an hour, but may be as short as 15 minutes or as long as 2 hours.

(Try to ignore that this came from a site called AmazingPregnancy.com.)

It doesn't count as pwnage when you add value.

Birthing is relatively easy the majority of the time. Push, catch, cut. It can be done anywhere by anyone. (LB is correct about the cabs.)

51: Should we be taking bets on this thing?

Yes, of course we should, but there is no market-maker. Me, I'm betting on an anti-christ.

Put me down for 8 lbs 1 ounce.

I found out only after my grandmother died that she had been the most highly trusted midwife in our area for decades. She had never attended a birth in my lifetime because everyone went to the hospital by then.

That is very cool, Blume. It would have been cool to go with here one time.

As a young kid, I loved hanging out with my father at a home delivery, talking with the family.

I've got a baby that won't go to sleep! Good times!

I used to know an MD of French Canadian origin who rode a dogsled to a home delivery. It was not a happy memory for her; she was terrified by the prospect of something going wrong with no possible backup.

it seems like the qualifications of doulas vary a lot.

Indeed. I'm sure there are some wonderful doulas out there, but I have to say, mine was a bit of a flake. And the thing is, after meeting with her a few times before the birth, I did have some serious reservations, but by then I thought it would be too awkward to, you know, fire her. I recall her waxing enthusiastic over some wonderful birthing custom that we wished we would all reclaim, and it all sounded a bit dubious to me, so I asked her, "Oh? Where was this?" "Where?" was her vague response, "Well, it was...it was in the past." Ah yes, in the Land of the Past. So, like I said: flaky! She was a nice lady, but she didn't know fuck-all about timing contractions.

That sounds a lot like the kind of vague ideas this doula I met had.

Oops! "we wished" s/b "she wished"

So what is the difference between a doula and midwife, by the way? From the sound of it, the latter is a professional and the former is a more-or-less informed coach. Or -- actually, I can't tell.

181 is a pussy bet, and we're not even betting on that yet. So far it's anti-christ or non. What kind of odds will you give me?

Put me down for "devil child."

A midwife is generally a state-certified medical professional who is there to deliver the baby, and secondarily to help the mother through the birth process.

A doula is someone who is often not required to be certified (depends on the area), who is there primarily to help and support the mother through the birth process.

Doulas often have longer-tem engagement with the family, as they can be around more leading up to the birth and/or as supporters and caregivers after the fact.

Doulas are there for emotional support; certified midwives know, as the program here says, "how to help people out."

Most doulas bring crystals and speak of chakras.

More on the differences. Specifically:

Doulas do not perform clinical tasks, such as vaginal exams or fetal heart rate monitoring. Doulas do not diagnose medical conditions or give medical advice. Doulas and midwives often work together as their philosophy and practice is complementary. At times, midwives need help because of the complex course of labor or the competing needs of more than one woman, which makes the doula-midwife team a wonderful option.

I hate hate hate this kind of thing. Any evidence, no matter the topic, starting off with "the ancients . . ." or "the Indians . . ." is practically guaranteed to be ill-founded bullshit. A typical exchange:

New Ager: "The Indians use to do X."

Me: "Oh really, which Indians?"

New Ager: "The American Indians."

Me: "Okay. That narrows it down slightly. Which tribes or which regions are you talking about?"

New Ager (suddenly losing that blissful self-satisfied look): "Um, it was very widespread . . . "

Me: "Hmmm. I've never heard of that. I mean, I know that some of the riverine tribes in the Mississippi basin did various forms of Y, but not all of them, and Y is pretty different from X."

New Ager: "Um, uh, I really need to some more hibiscus tea!"

Well, the Apache wedding ceremony is very specific, Mr. Hatey-boy.

Oops, meant to include the below quote in the above comment.

I recall her waxing enthusiastic over some wonderful birthing custom that we wished we would all reclaim, and it all sounded a bit dubious to me, so I asked her, "Oh? Where was this?" "Where?" was her vague response, "Well, it was...it was in the past."

"This dance form was invented to help women in childbirth."
"It was invented by an American in 1975."

200:

mr. Roboto?

"This dance form was invented to help women in childbirth."

Add claims about origins of yoga and of belly dancing to MM's list.

198: Oh really? Which Apaches?

203: Those rain- and cold-repellent ones.

Is somebody bugging you about the ancients or the Indians, M/tch?

199 to 205.

199 answers my 205. Nevermind.

204: You mean these Apaches?

202: It was indeed belly dancing of which I was thinking.

m/tch is such a sensitive young man.

So doulas are there to provide a focus for your anger, so the midwife can do their business without being yelled at? Makes sense to me.

From the sound of it, the latter is a professional and the former is a more-or-less informed coach.

Yeah, that sounds about right.

My medical attendant was a nurse-midwife: a licensed nurse with some extra credentials in labour and delivery. And she was great: very calm, and calming, and she struck what was for me just the right balance between medical expertise and a commitment to non-medicalized birth as a goal/option. My doula was basically a childbirth hobbyist, I now think, though I suppose she had passed a course or something. I suspect I would have been better off just having my mother there in place of the doula, I'm sure my mum would have had a better sense of the timing.

It's funny how noone is prepared to bet against the absolute certainty that HBGB's child shall bring about the end times and usher in Satan's reign.

They're basically just there to help as a woman's sisters would have in the days of old; I imagine the amount of crystal-worshiping/chakra-snorting completely varies by practitioner.

Probably why BR never wanted kids. I can imagine her sister, jones for a cigarette, saying "Jesus!!! Stop all of your whiney and push the damn thing out so I can go smoke!"

Heh. An hour or so after delivering me unmedicated, my mother schlepped out to the nurses' station and bummed a cigarette off a nurse (in the 70's, apparently nurses smoked in the hospital).

It's mainly the "We revere the Indians/Ancients! So much so that we can't be bothered to actually learn fact one about them!" thing that really, um, tans my hide and uses every single part of my body (just like the Indians did with bison! Except that no, actually they didn't).

It's very similar to getting pious lectures from devout Christians who haven't even bothered to read the Cliff Notes to the Bible.

Heck, the Lamaze classes my friend and I took when I was her labor coach had their fair share of what began to seem like chakra-snorting. We wound up ditching a number of classes, because they were becoming just too silly, and we couldn't control our giggle-reflexes. I feel badly about this in retrospect; surely we were more grown up than that, plus we're both not unfriendly to the hippie way anyway. Probably those classes were better for a mother-father pair. It seemed to be chiefly about making dad part of the process.

Sadly, the link in the apostropher post cited in 217 no longer leads to the wonderful Poorman post. I blame Sifu.

216: Ha! When my mother was carrying me, she used to go see her OB/GYN and they would both light up in his office. He used to light her cigarette for her, presumably as a courtly gesture, and in deference to her delicate condition.

166: If you need to be in a hospital then that's the place to be. I have no argument with that. However, hanging around one without a solid set of reasons isn't good, as any number of recent studies have shown.

I spent a good part of the Sixties and Seventies reading the lit on labor and deliveries. Despite all the stuff about a delivery being "natural" and therefore "good", the best option for a non-complicated pregnancy was to be near enough to a well-equipped hospital so IF something went wrong it could be dealt with in a serious hurry. Something going wrong was a low probability event but devastating when it happened. I doubt that's changed any at all.

I don't know the current state of the art but we had a couple of "birthing rooms" set up. No muss, no fuss, quite friendly and sort of home-like, nurse-midwives in attendence, etc. but very close to all the high tech gear and very experienced MDs anyone could desire. That's the best of both worlds, I think.

That was the setup where I delivered my two -- midwife-staffed birthing center on the twelfth floor of a hospital, with the regular labor & delivery floor one flight up. It seemed like a great idea to me.

217: as the bible says, M/tch, it's the thought that counts.

221: Thanks for saying more about that, Biohazard.

220: I had an aunt who says she was told to smoke while pregnant. Apparently the theory was smaller baby = easier delivery and there were problems (nothing permanent) with an earlier one.

I've never actually met or talked to any new agey types of people who go on about the ancients and such in the way that's always described and mocked. I sort of thought it was just a stereotype.

223: If I recall correctly, the original at the Poorman was citing a Kaye Grogan column, wherein she claimed that the Bible admonished us all: "neither a borrower nor a lender be." It made me want to come up with a huge list of non-Biblical Bible quotes and start spreading them around on the internet.

"And they who are dudes shall abide, always"
Deuterologyy 13:7

"And as it has been prophesied, someday a real rain shall come and wash from every street all the filth and the scum."
Hexodus 7:15

"And they shall all become as one nation, under a groove."
Hecubah 13:29

etc. etc. etc.

226: Can I have your contact info? The next time I meet one, which will be soon (not only do I live in Austin, but I'm heavily involved in the gardening / local food / environmental scene, which is full of great people but also has a pretty large share of cranks and flakes), I'll refer them to you.

To be fair, we all have areas of knowledge/belief that we accept pretty uncritically because it just fits in so well with our particular world view. It's the urge to proselytize and the inability to brook any real questions/criticism about such claims that bugs me.

227: I thought it was "To thine own self be true", but yeah.

229: I think you are correct sir.

226: It may also be that I just happen, primarily by happenstance, to know more than your average bear about the actual customs/traditions/lifeways of many actual North American Indian tribes.

And so, regarding non-actual "the Indians", which are often cited as a source of wisdom by New Agers, my bullshitometer is more finely attuned, and I'm less likely to let sloppiness on that particular topic go by unquestioned.

228: I believe you that there are these people. Of course I do. It's just embarrassing to me that they're so flaky and so apparently prevalent. You know by now that I have a tendency to defend hippies, and then I hear this sort of thing, and it's just embarrassing.

In the gardening/local food/environmental scene around here, you're more likely to run into privileged people who participate (minimally) primarily because it's healthier for their kids. SWPL types, not starry-eyed new agers. These SWPL types are likewise unable to field questions. So, different environment.

218: My childbirth class was at once highly useful and also embarrassingly cheesy. I like to make fun of the crystals and the chakra because that's just how I roll, but if I had to choose between the white-coated doctors who fancy themselves the high priests of Science and Rationalism, and the Birkenstock-clad Earth Mothers whose chants and prayers to the Goddess make me cringe and squirm in discomfort, no question I'd make a beeline to ye olde anciente birthing hut. I remain convinced that most women, at most times, can or could give birth without the intervention of the medical experts, but I'm also aware that when things do go wrong, they tend to do so quickly, and quite scarily and dramatically. Biohazard in 221 is quite right about striking the right balance, I think.

I'm so glad the link in 208 is to what I thought it would be.

My doula is wonderfully non-hocus-pocus. I did talk with a few other doulas that I couldn't stomach before we found her, though.

In the gardening/local food/environmental scene around here, you're more likely to run into privileged people who participate (minimally) primarily because it's healthier for their kids. SWPL types, not starry-eyed new agers.

The overlap is pretty strong. The store on Maui where I saw this sign is like an upscale Bay Area grocery store transported several thousand miles west.

In the gardening/local food/environmental scene around here, you're more likely to run into privileged people who participate (minimally) primarily because it's healthier for their kids. SWPL types, not starry-eyed new agers. These SWPL types are likewise unable to field questions. So, different environment.

Oh, there are plenty of these too. And, as Josh said, plenty of starry-eyed new agers, and hippies, come from and partake of enormous privilege, so there's overlap too. And as I said, plenty of great people too. It's just there are of course idiots, and they do stand out.

Hippies are wicked swipple.

237: This is undoubtedly going to devolve into a "but not real hippies!" type argument.

And as has been said here in previous discussions on the subject of DFH, plenty about hippies makes me cringe, but the vast majority of the time they're on the right side of most issues I really care about. Often for dumb or inarticulate reasons, sure, and I hate that they are often taken as representative of all supporters of a particular issue, but still, an ally is an ally.

239: Patchouli still stinks though.

239: oh no fun jumping right to comity.

241: No, it's incredibly fun jumping right to comity, you idiot!!!!11!!

242: oh yeah? Well you're right about that, pal.

240: Um, for diplomatic reasons, I am forced to say "no comment".

243: No I'm not, jerkface!!!

I'm still pregnant.

Speaking of patchouli . . .

246: no you aren't!

246: Yeah yeah hippie. Whatever.

248: Yes she is!!!!

She'd better be, anyway.

And I'm complainy.

You know, 247 isn't nearly as good as I remembered it, though. I blame Sifu.

251: Now what do you possibly have to complain about?

Hippies are wicked swipple.

I'm not going to have that argument.

And M/tch, dammit, whatever DFH you know who are dumb and inarticulate are crowding out the ones who are perfectly articulate! (Frustration, man, seriously.)

I agree that it's a drag that hippies are taken to be the principal representatives of any number of social and political positions.

Comity?

One of these days I'll just commit to previewing before posting.

"Wicked swipple" reminds me of the 50/50 poison apple from sleeping beauty, but I can't quite put a joke together.

251: Now what do you possibly have to complain about?

For starters, I can't even put a joke together.

257: I think that's what we have to complain about, heebie.

And, um, was the poison apple in sleeping beauty only 50% effective or something? Was this a version of the story written by Schrödinger?

Wicked swipple, my nipple.

I wondered about that: what's this 50/50 poison apple?

(Patchouli does stink, also.)

252: I wonder if that movie would still be funny? I thought it was the first time I saw it, but I absolutely hate the book and, you know, maybe it was the Cusack field?

No, the witch takes a bite out of the healthy half to prove it's not poisonous, then offers the poisonous half to Sleeping Beauty. The way our copy was illustrated, the apple was half red and half green and I always wondered why Sleeping Beauty wasn't a tad thrown by that bizarre coloring.

Maybe she spent the last few years building up an immunity to poison apple?

261: I recently re-saw some of Pushing Tin and while objectively it's not a very good movie, Cusack sure can sell a role. So I'm sure the Cusack field enters into it. But I also seem to remember it being pretty well done. Also, great soundtrack.

||

Oddly enough, the show I'm currently watching just featured a main character adopting the name "parsley" and joining a hippie Yeti forest cult. Take that as you will.

|>

265: Yeti? Probably doesn't know the difference between curly-leaf and flat-leafed parsley, anyway.

'night, all.

266: it turned out to be an elaborate Yeti mating ritual, and he escaped by means of an overstuffed suitcase. So the parallels are inexact at best, not to worry.

261: What's to hate about the book? I mean, I'm glad I'm not the person I was when I first read it and identified with it, but I still appreciate the fact that Hornby so totally nailed a certain type of guy.

268: I couldn't fucking stand the narrator. I just wanted to slap the guy, pretty much every page. I took absolutely no joy in his alleged "growth" because he was such a tool.

||

"I was protecting you, 'cuz I thought we were bongo brothers."

ttaM was right: The Mighty Boosh rules!

|>

269: How old were you when you read it?

Ironically, my appreciation of the movie has been soured in retrospect by, well, Jack Black's entire career since then. Talk about someone you want to smack...

271: 22, I believe.

Huh, there goes my theory out the window. Either way, I figure the book's one of those things I should just leave in the past, 'cause I suspect now I'd have the same reaction you had then.

(Sign I'm getting old: "Institutionalized" came on the radio today, and during the last verse all I could think was, "Dude, your parents probably *do* know better than you what's in your best interest.")

Maybe I was just prematurely old?

I just felt like the women in the book were so completely two dimensional, probably as an intentional narrative choice, and I dunno: just rubbed me the wrong way.

My record collection is organized in a fairly idiosyncratic way, though, so maybe it was just too familiar.

But I think mostly the guy bugs me.

I don't mind patchouli, actually.

And I think John Cusack's sister Joan Cusack is pretty fabulous, and highly under-rated.

And actually there are plenty of other books with cartoonishly flat female characters I've enjoyed, so that doesn't seem like quite it. Who knows. I slot him right next to Klosterman in my index of dudes who bug the shit out of me.

Klosterman would bug the shit out of me if I took him at all seriously. As long as I avoid that, though, and don't read too much of him at one sitting, he's entertaining enough.

Hornby... I liked Fever Pitch a lot, in part because he was so completely honest about the unpleasant aspects of his fanaticism (like missing his friend's wedding). I don't actually remember much about About A Boy (although I thought the movie was great, again because they didn't try to make the characters more likeable) and I haven't read the rest of his stuff. His association with The Believer makes me a bit sad, though.

Speaking of Cusacks, I was pleased to see that Grosse Pointe Blank actually held up quite well to re-watching years later.

Cusacks are awesome. No argument with Cusacks.

I have a cousin who looks so much like John Cusack it's almost uncanny. And yet, while John Cusack is good-looking, sexy, glamourous, talented, and so on, my cousin is, frankly, none of the above, even though he's a dead ringer for the famous actor. Funny that. He (my cousin, that is) married the daughter of an undertaker, and is now a highly successful funeral director in Edmonton, Alberta.

279: that's the Cusack Field in action. I mean, look, take Say Anything: dude who's into martial arts and trenchcoats holds up a boombox playing Peter Gabriel outside a girl's window: tell me that's not the creepiest thing ever. Yet it lands him Ione Skye, and it's totally believable. Cusack Field.

Looking thru his career, I guess I have arguments with Cusack. Likable enough, but Grace is Gone was a real disappointment, and 1408 just ok. Just a bunch of at best 3-star movies, with mistakes like Identity

Max, Jack Bull, Malkovich are great.

Cusack is like Spader, I have always liked them so much I expected masterpieces, and didn't get them. I got masterpieces from Downey, or master performances.

Spader is awesome. Loyal lefty, too! And his mom (now deceased) was a treat.

Under the shadow of maternity is an interesting paper about the bad old days when women bonded together over the birthin' o' babies.

Me, I know nothin' about birthin' no babies, but I hope the wee-heebie makes an appearance soon, and in a smooth and orderly fashion.

no longer leads to the wonderful Poorman post

The internet is forever, M/tch.

Man. He's so good. That I ever was allowed to post at that blog? He has a kid now! Kid tries to breastfeed off of him. True story. Hey, I would, too.

@149: yes the medical science element of the story is not especially remarkable (everyone's difft, sometimes 24 hours etc) but i still think guestB's superhuman insouciance during the process is, for a first-time mom

re 262: "the apple was half red and half green" -- in the old days when you got apples off a tree instead of off Big Pharma this was very normal, a red/green apple would be one just ripening from too tart (all green) to too sweet (all red)

obviously in the very old versions of the story, the prince wakes sleeping beauty bv [redacted]

I suppose the world is still short one Austoniangirl. Good luck, HG.

We didn't have anyone involved who couldn't have been around when June and Ward had Wally and the Beav. I did more myself that Ward would have. No regrets on either count.

284: Apostropher is teh hero!

And 285 gets it exactly right. At least about the "so good" part. I can't vouch for that stuff about the kid.

273: I have long wanted to write "Institutionalized: The Mother's Reply," in which "get your own fucking Pepsi" would figure prominently.

The apple was for Snow White, not Sleeping Beauty, after the poisoned comb and laces failed.

Geez, what does a witch-queen have to do to get a little respect around here?

the seven dwarves represent the DFH who resist and critique Big Pharma and the Globalised Terror State by singing songs about Not Going Galt (Hiho!)

Where's Heebie? Anybody heard anything?

And I don't care how low this fruit hangs, how does Sifu know Spader's Mom?

Why is it so quiet? You guys are all at Heebie's bedside, aren't you. I have to go to Toronto today, I'm going to miss this whole day, dammit.

People only here comment from work.

I keep forgetting that.

neither a borrower nor a lender be.

What makes me smile about this quote is how often it's quoted as wisdom when it's said by a silly old man in the play.

I hate Angelina Jolie's shameless, unceasing publicity stunts. Now she's pregnant again, as though she were Catholic or Muslim or something.

You know Heebie just got knocked up to get attention from the Unfoggetariat.

I only comment from home, because I don't have a computer at work. and I don't actually work all that much. but, hey, is there a baby yet? isthereisthere?? heebie's got a lot of babies to procure if she's ever going to catch up to angelina jolie, y'all.

I got masterpieces from Downey, or master performances.

you should see Tropic Thunder if you haven't already. I'm really looking forward to Sherlock Holmes.

Downey has now claimed that he is "not a liberal", leaving the alternative unspecified.

Last post on her blog was last night a little past midnight, and she was complaining about being way uncomfortable. I'm guessing that she was in labor, but it was still too diffuse to be perceived as contractions.

On that front, how do people measure "I was in labor for X hours?" With Sally, a midwife told me I was in labor at about 10 in the morning, but I wouldn't have thought so without being told -- I didn't start timable contractions, where I was sure what was happening, until a little before five in the afternoon. I think of myself as having been in labor for about four hours total (a little before five to a little before nine), but I dunno if there's an objectively ascertainable starting point.

Forget about the baby. The real question is did M/tch make waffles?

I just want to tell you both good luck. We're all counting on you.

303 is great.

302: There may be some other medical definition, but for conversation purposes, I don't really buy any definition of labor that doesn't start with apparent contractions. I've known women who had the early stuff - baby drop, noticeable loosening up, if you will - happen a week before birth, and they were plainly not "in labor" for a week.

No one wants to know when, medically, things got underway; they want to know when you started to feel it.

Some of you may recall AB's timeline, in which she awoke around 7 or 7:30, could tell things were happening, but not enough to do anything yet. She let me sleep another hour while she showered and finished packing. When I awoke at ~8:30, she told me what was up, and we started timing contractions - 3-4 minutes apart and closing! At 9 she was still smiling and cheerful, but by 9:15 the contractions hurt, and at 9:30, when I hustled her into the car, she didn't want to move. Kai came at 10:34 and probably could have come sooner, but AB was holding back, waiting for our doctor.

yeahyeahyeahfinesure...Baby?

307>305

302 - they talk about 'active labour', but it's a fairly subjective call, I think, though your definition is as good as any. I guess it's a sort of point of no return - when anyone can confidently say that this is it. E.g. with my first, my waters broke about 9pm, and I started having ctx about 11pm, and I was pronounced to be in active labour about midnight.

297: That was my first real intro to literary ambiguity - I knew some of that speech as "wisdom" before I read it, but he's plainly a buffoon, but some of it is plainly actual good advice. Confusing! At least, confusing to an earnest 16-y.o.

301: Yes -- he's said he's "not a liberal," and that this is an insight that he gained while in prison. I find that depressing.

230.2: Which Indians?

310:Buffoon mixed with some good advice, pretty much exactly how you'd remember your parent saying goodbye for the last time that neither of you know is the last time.

I guess "neither knows", sorry Ben.

Bye all. Good luck, Heebie!

312: Cleveland's, would be my guess. Did anyone happen to see that 2nd inning yesterday? Hilarious.

Anyway, childbirth, schmildbirth. You want to talk about something really difficult? When was the last time you had to get a new fridge?

When was the last time you had to get a new fridge?

About 1.5 years ago.

Has anyone linked to the stew recipe yet? Heebie is going to need it soon.

Physician Quality Report on Dr. Rumack. $12.95 cheap.

316 - why is it so hard, Jesus? (A question I thought I'd never ask!)

Just drive around your neighborhood, Jesus. A lot of people around there have cheap refrigerators out in their yards.

The real question is did M/tch make waffles?

No!! I was forced to eat shredded wheat and chocolate cookies for breakfast. But he's out doing righteously good deeds, planting a food garden for someone. And he made coffee.

285: "the Book of Dennehy or II Piscatawayans"

Awesome.

Hey, I have an Unfogged meetup idea.

M/tch could come to our house and demonstrate how to plant a fabulous kickass garden. Unfoggeders could watch.

261: 252: I wonder if that movie[High Fidelity] would still be funny? I thought it was the first time I saw it, but I absolutely hate the book and, you know, maybe it was the Cusack field?

It has held up well for me in several subsequent viewings with my kids (and I also really did not care for the book one bit, which I read subsequent to seeing the movie). Like anything you see multiple times, certain bits wear a bit thin, but overall I enjoyed it (and my kids all loved it). Almost all of the record shop scenes continue to work (the "patchouli stink" one really needs the built up tension of Rob's neuroticism to provide much of the humor, which seeing it in isolation on Youtube does not provide ).

The first Cusack the kids really glommed onto was Better Off Dead. "Two dollars"!!

324: Unfoggeders could watch and opine.

320: Because they're unconscionably expensive, so I'm determined not to buy a new one. And if something's not worth problematizing, it's not worth doing at all.

324: Unfoggeders could watch and opine kibbitz.

Anti-semite.

And if something's not worth problematizing, it's not worth doing at all.

Too long at Unfogged, I think!

A friend of mine bought a condo about a year or so ago in Dorchester. A friend of his who now has a regular IT job had taken over the family business. They were buying up properties, fixing them up and then selling them. When things started to go bad, he had some kitchen appliances to get rid of.

He managed to convince my friend to buy a gray (stainless steel set (dishwasher, oven and fridge). Eventually, my friend got some sense and sold off the oven and the dishwasher, but he kept the fridge. These were brand new. There might be similar deals in Portland.

Jesus, There's this one in Beaverton. Not brand new, but it's only a year old.

325:More John Cusack!!

Better Off Dead is hilarious in spots, but I claim The Sure Thing as Cusacks's breakout movie.

And before that, I remember him very vaguely as a sidekick #2 in Sixteen Candles. He was good enough to move immediately to leads. The movie has a little racism and sexism, but I like it better than Breakfast Club

I remember Class although I wish I didn't, but don't remember Cusack. Poor Virginia Madsen had to build a career by gratuitously flashing her tits. (There's a hilariously snarky user review of down a ways at IMDB)

I keep checking for a baby. Somebody kidnap one from a grocery or something.

I am unable to hear any lines from Polonius' speech without hearing them in my head set to Toreador from Bizet's Carmen. Because I am that cultured.

Thanks, BG. I'm kidding (but only sort of) about the fridge problem. It's mostly wandering around craigslistland that has me cranky, and having to take care of this on a weekend when I was planning on getting some actual paying work done. Also, there's this aspect of buying a used fridge that's kind of like buying a used toothbrush, if toothbrushes were really expensive. Clean your fridges, people. You're grossing me out.

Toreador-ah don't spit on floor
use the cuspidor
that is what it's for.

Because *I* am that cultured. Probably the second most profane" bit of classical music after "Dance of the Hours".

profane" s/b profaned ... sheesh

I first heard of that ditty in a kids book that I wish I recalled the name of but cannot. The protagonist was a smart-ass semi-fuckup pre-teen who gets warned by a teacher that some day he will get his "comeuppance*", and as I recall he does.

*I think it was the first time I had read/heard that word as well.

Of course, I hope heebie the best of childbirths, etc. That said, goddamn, straight people have to put up with some weird shit.

335: Me too! Also, whenever I hear "Habanera," I sing, "I ask, to be, or not to be; That is the question that I ask of thee."

336: I must say I'm relieved. I was a little concerned if Jesus had decided not to have a fridge.

Pretend that's grammatical.

335/40: My absolutely favorite episode of Gilligan's Island.

335/40/43: Another lacuna in my pop cultural experience exposed! This seems to be the relevant parts via YouTube.

I read the book in 338, whatever it was.

345: Well good, we'll form a fucking League of Readers of the Forgotten Book. (Actually, thanks, I was not sure if I was just conflating stories.)

When the bell rang for recess, Otis followed George around, singing: "Toreador-a, Don't spit on the floor-a, Use the cuspidor-a, That's what its for-a."

we'll form a fucking League of Readers of the Forgotten Book

I'm so down.

347: Bingo! Thanks fm. Otis Spofford, by Beverly Cleary and originally published in 1953.

While Otis's pranks are typically innocuous, near the end of the book he finally "gets his comeuppance", as Mrs. Gitler has long predicted: on a dare, he cuts off a chunk of Ellen's hair, which she had been painstakingly trying to grow "long enough for pigtails". This act turns nearly the entire class against him, and for the first time Otis does not relish the attention he receives from his actions.

348: It was Anna Karenina. The name of the kid who gets his comeuppance is "Karenin".

originally published in 1953
meet

always laced his shoes with the kind of laces that glow in the dark-pink for the right shoe and green for the left

349: Who also wrote the "Henry Huggins" series, another name from the past that I had forgotten (I think it got crowded out between "Homer Price" and "Henry Reed"). I'm happy.

There's a Dvorak tune sung with the words "Gentlemen will please refrain, from flushing toilets while the train, is standing in the station, I love you".

352: and Socks!

To emerson's 145 in the other thread: no they shouldn't.

goddamn, straight people have to put up with some weird shit

Newsflash, RMMP: Lesbians have been known to give birth, too. Not to mention gay men who hire surrogates or otherwise involve themselves in pregnancy & birth.

I recall Otis felt a lot like being me in the 4th grade, but without any of the socio-economic "justification".

356: take it to standpipe's natural birthing center!

||

Given who we're talking about, I'd say masturbating to JG Ballard is probably still okay.

|>

Ballard grew up amongst the ex-patriot community in Shanghai.

I expect better from the BBC.

Lesbians have been known to give birth, too. Not to mention gay men who hire surrogates or otherwise involve themselves in pregnancy & birth.

I'm sorry, Sir Kraab, I can't hear your humorlessness over my own squeals of, "Ew! Ew! Ewwwwwwwwwwww!"

349: Who also wrote the "Henry Huggins" series, another name from the past that I had forgotten (I think it got crowded out between "Homer Price" and "Henry Reed"). I'm happy.

We've just been (re)reading Homer Price this very week. Forty-two pounds of edible fungus!

361: Perhaps it refers to no-longer-patriotic subset of the expatriot community.

a

362: Oh come on, we haven't even mentioned the really gross parts of childbirth. No one has used the term "prolapsed uterus" for instance.

I expect better from the Jesus.

The wikipedia for expatriate is a little magical, in that wikipedia way.

Lochea, meconium, and colostrum.

a: yes, expatriate is the spelling
b: and COLONIAL is the fact -- little ballard grew up in the 30s in the international settlement, which was variously policed by the brits, the americans, the japanese i think*

*i know as much about it from tintin and the blue lotus as i do from ballard

Damn it. Too much cutting and pasting in a single stupid sentence.

torn perineum

361 - the BBC 'news' website is a pile of shite.

360 - it's especially okay if you masturbate imagining him having died in an RTA. (I read that book at a VERY impressionable age. And then got into trouble for lending it to someone at school.)

337: I thought it was Chico Marx.

373: Really? I had just started switching from the NYT to the BBC as my mainstream-news source.

Rob, I think for mainstream news, it's reasonable, but in their haste to produce huge amounts of it constantly, there's a lot of bollocks lurking there too.

Oh come on, we haven't even mentioned the really gross parts of childbirth.

Nor have we shared placenta recipes.

As a baby shower card, we gave heebie & Jammies a picture of a kitten with the caption "I CAN HAZ PLASENTA?!"

"The Lurking Bollocks" would be a great pseud, if anybody's still shopping around.

Nor have we shared placenta recipes.

True, but the archives include other things one can do with a placenta.

249: Wow, I haven't thought about Beverly Cleary in a million years (give or take). I'm kind of bowled over that you guys were talking about that. Her, that is. I seem to have no memory of her works beyond the fact that I read all of it ("Henry Huggins," right!), and it was on the recommended reading list in the youth library.

OT: I'm selecting a new computer system for the shop, and the available monitor sizes go from 15" to gargantuan. I'm thinking that 24" (I am not actually looking at the choices right now) would just be annoyingly large. I figure 19" is fine for any rational person. Yes?

249 s/b 349 there.

I've never found a computer monitor annoyingly large, but 19" should be fine, unless it's got some crazy aspect ratio.

382: But are you a rational person? Do we really want to be "rational people"?

I'll have to go check out Making Light or just go looking around. Ballard's short stories were massively important to the development of SF as selfconscious artform aesthetic integrity and the 60s New Wave. I can only imagine his centrality to the early 60s British SF community.

384: I may not know what an aspect ratio is.

When I've used larger monitors, I've sometimes found myself having to lift up and reapply the mouse to get myself from one corner of it to the other. That's what I've found annoying. 19" it is.

363: Forty-two pounds of edible fungus!

Indeed.

The "large" in "large monitor" can mean two things, mind you; it can refer to the physical dimensions, and it can refer to the resolution, i.e. the amount of screen that fits on the monitor. If your resolution is higher than you like, then you'll get the mouse moving issue. But the physical size doesn't matter as far as that goes. (But sometimes a large screen will have a super-high resolution.) Stick to 1280x1024 or so, and you'll be fine. Or if it's a widescreen, 14xx by 768.

390: Thanks. The "widescreen" thing had been puzzling me.

I'd rather have two 19"s at 1280x1024 than one 24". It's nice to be able to have two applications maximized when I have to deal with both at the same time. The less messing with scroll bars the better

At work I have two 1440x900 widescreens. Okay, but not what I'd choose for myself. The movie screen aspect ratio doesn't buy me anything if I can't watch movies.

I have a 1680x1024 at work, some 22", and I normally use the right edge for our phone line program and treat the rest of it like a normal monitor. I rather like it.

Ballard's early apocalypses are among the first SF I remember reading (I also remember the Heinlein juveniles and Andre Norton). This would be around age 10. Ballard may have ruined me.

Here's a good review of The Drowned World

Indeed, Ballard has created in this novel a most pervasive demonstration of the frailty of "technological" man. He diminishes man in the face of the natural universe by establishing that he has no control over either the outer or the inner world. A tiny but implacable change in cosmic terms finds man all but destroyed by natural disaster and struggling against the mind.

The most pessimistic sentiments possible gradually revealed in a prose that ascends from the technological narrative to the lyrical interior. The end of the world was never more beautiful. The apocalypse was orgasmic, transcendant, Wagnerian. Makes Conrad & Kubrick look like bourgious apologists. (Recollection makes me wonder how much Disch stole from Ballard.)

Ballard may be one of the greats of the century. Nobel material.

http://www.jgballard.ca/criticism/milicia_drought1985.html

A review of The Drought

Where is the baby?!?

I had a baby

but I eated it.

Where is the baby?!?

That information will cost you $10.95.

How gullible are you people? There is no baby. There never was any baby.

Kobe has the baby. Duh.

374: 337: I thought it was Chico Marx.

Apparently Chico sang a song "I Want My Shirt" to the tune of the "Toreador Song" in Cocoanuts. Perhaps that is what you are recalling. The origin of the cuspidor version is apparently not known and was a "barroom favorite". It appeared "Bart the Genius", first regular episode of The Simpsons.

Baby! Baby! We want a baby!

402: sometime between 1880s and 1920, I'd wager.

399:
"He's my baby!"
slap
"He's my Jammies!"
slap
"He's my baby and my Jammies!"
. . .

--It was an easy birth...

--Oh, Martha; no. You labored...how you labored.

--It was an easy birth...once it had been...accepted, relaxed into.

WE HAZ BABEEEE!!!

I have knowledge of the baby, but am not sure if it's kosher to reveal it at the moment.

406: Um, just to be clear, "WE" s/b "THEY". No need for an Amber Alert, people.

I am, like, so totally trafe.

THEY IS WE!!1! WE IS THEY!!1!! BABEES IZ XCITING!!!!

409: You can't help it. God hates crabs.

So there is, or is not, a new model small child?

max
['Out goes JG Ballard and in comes...']

Well, let's get the kid commenting, here. What's the hold up?

Help me. My mommy is already mad at me that I don't know how to simplify 1^n.

Don't forget you like cats, kid.

max
['No slipping.']

414: as well she should be.

Yes, heebie baby is born.

2:22 p.m.
7 lbs 12 oz.
Everybody's good.

That has got to be the biggest violation of the sanctity of off-blog communication in the history of blogs.

418: Wait'll you see the birth video.

406-411: Performed.

Why are there no baby pics in the Flickr pool yet?

420: You sir, are an artist.

I especially appreciate how you eschewed making a marijuana joke and instead used 420 to make a more powerful statement.

Does it preternaturally speak Latin???

Also, HBGB++, woo, etc.

Congratulations!! L&HG&J!!!
We say in this case to get one's feelings calmed after 2 bones separated happily 'hoer yas salaad sanaa amrah'
I'm in Denver btw
This autocorrect is strange, it edits what I wrote in my language

The world is one geeblet richer. Hooray for everyone!

Yay Heebie! Yay Jammies! Yayyyyyyyy babies!

Welcome, L!

Speaking of which, tomorrow is April 20. NPR is doing a news piece imagining that marijuana has been legal for a number of years and they're interviewing various people about what has happened since legalization. I know, and cashier at the farmstand for, the (vegetable) farming couple who portray the pot farmers in the piece. And, I played a small but crucial role in getting them interviewed*. Haven't heard the piece yet, but am looking forward to it.

*NPR Dude: Hey, are Larry and Carol Anne around? I'm here to do the radio interview.

Mitch: Oh yeah, they're right over there. They're ready whenever you are.

NPR Dude: Thanks!

Congratulations to all three of you! You have our best wishes.

How is babby blogged???

429: Thanks! I'll pass that along to Larry and Carol Anne too.

A New Texan! Yeeehaw!

Congratulations.

Yes, heebie baby is born.

Yay! Thanks, Kraabicus.

max
['No Wisemen, Wisewomen, or just really magical hippies showed up, did they?']

Congratulations!

Hooray! Congratulations!

Thanks, everyone, but really, all I did was point the interviewer over in the direction of the interviewee. No biggy.

436: hey, don't sell yourself short. That interview's your baby.

437: They can't prove that!

Awesome! congrats to Heebie & family!

woohooo! yay heebie and jammies! yay giblet!

m/tch, we're preparing a plaque as we speak.

430 should read "Congratulations!", I think. But really, where is the liveblogging? Isn't a birth the sort of thing twitter was invented for?

Yay for the baby! And I'm holding a baby as I type, so my congratulations have added authenticity.

W/tch out M/tch, Alameida is giving you the plague!!!!11!!

"Wai-tai-chi-chi-bitch out Mai-tai-chi-chi-bitch"? That doesn't even make sense!

440: What, no statue?

But really, where is the liveblogging?

This should be your first clue that the entire thing is a hoax.

446: Precisely. The "moon landing" wasn't liveblogged either.

There was a moon landing?

In my pants.

See, now I know you're lying. If there were a moon landing in your pants, you would have liveblogged it.

apo just tweeted me:
rite now moon is landing n my pants

YAY!!

YEAH MOON!

One small step for pants, a giant leap for pantskind.

Yayyyyyy baby!

Hooray for the heeblet-geeblet, and for the HG herself.

Welcome to the sprog! And huzzah, Heebie, Jammies, and Hawaiian Punch!

All hail the glorious exponentiation of the Hill Country Mineshafters!

Woo hook 'em baby!

Mitch: Oh yeah, they're right over there. They're ready whenever you are.

But M/tch, I thought you said you were involved.

I've decided that my comment 396 is what provoked the birth.

Less silly, congrats heebie-geebie!

Congratulations!

Woo, Heebie-Beebie! Congratulations!

Congratulations.

I'm amazed there are no google results for "baby-geebie" or "heebie-baby" (well, one for the latter, but not our heebie).

your google-fu is weak, Minivet. try geebie of lothar.

What a good way to start my day :)

Congratulations to Heebie and Jammies :) Wishing all three of you all the best.

Phew. Congratulations to those involved.

466: I don't quite follow - I'm looking for the specific nicknames, not the threads.

But M/tch, I thought you said you were involved.

Actually, nosflow, I said I played a small but crucial role.

Congratulations on the baby!

>a small but crucial role
O, M/tch the sp/rm.

Congratulations.

Congratulations....

A friend of ours recently had a charming little boy, who they gave a name to that makes him sound like the Lord Mayor of Bradford, probably because her husband actually comes from the same cranny of the Yorkshire Dales as me. Unfortunately, the planned "natural birth" didn't go well, and after 19 hours they had to persuade the highly committed midwife who vigorously resisted, that this was getting natural in the same way that smallpox is natural.

So, comity on the discussion above (221, 222) regarding need for a meeting of minds yadda yadda. Strangely enough, according to French people, the knit yer own patchouli/medical techno-bastard binary division is unknown in France and seems to be anglospheric.

OMG, a baby!!! Congratulations!

Yay baby! Yay heebie! Yay Jammies!

(And I totally spotted that she was in early labor Saturday night. Preen, preen.)

That was me. New browser.

"Strangely enough, according to French people, the knit yer own patchouli/medical techno-bastard binary division is unknown in France and seems to be anglospheric."

What do they have instead?

Baby!

What do they have instead?

A flexible compromise?

My Czech midwife was kind of non-binary that way. Very medical-professional-sensible, but there was a funny moment on a tour of the birthing center with a bunch of other couples: some woman who seemed disappointed about the non-hippieness of it all asked what she thought of herbal remedies in childbirth. And Anna looked sternly at her and said "Ve do not generally use such things." And then cracked a big grin and said "But vhen it is necessary? Ve have zhat knowledge."

I just want to tell you both good luck. We're all counting on you.

477: New browser? Congratulations!!!

O, M/tch the sp/rm.

No offense, Sifu, but your slash fiction is kind of creeping me out.

TittiesBaby! Hooray!

Congratulations to HJ&L.

Congratulations Heebie!

Yay baby!

Where's the official photographer? This isn't just any old baby. The media have to be fed.

MEDIA EATS BABIES! FILM AT 11!

Congrats, Heebie & Jammies! Welcome, Geeblet!

Yay Baby! Congratulations!

Oh, congratulations and best wishes.

O frabjous day!

I've been internetless all weekend, pretty much, and wondering non-stop (well, more like a couple of times) "Has Heebie had the baby yet?" And now you have. Hooray! Congratulations! It couldn't happen to a nicer person-I-know-vaguely-from-the-internet!

The heebling! The geeblet! The little, tiny weeblet!

Congratulations!

Hooray for Heebie baby! Go HJ&L! Woohooo!

Welcome Heebie-Geeblet!

Congratulations and here's wishing they have a good-sleeper.

Congratulations!

It took me a while before I considered the possibility that birth had actually transpired. Until 440 or so I thought people were just bouncing lolbabby jokes off each other. This is a black mark of the credibility of Sir Kraab, MM, and any other Texas residents around here.

First decision: Baby slanket or snuggie?

This is a black mark of the credibility of Sir Kraab, MM, and any other Texas residents around here.

What? We've lost the confidence of Cyrus?? Oh noes!! Whatever shall we do?

I posted 2 photos in the Flickr group. I hope heebie doesn't mind my presumptuousness.

First decision: Baby slanket or snuggie?

Well, the peekaru is totally creepy and the slanket feeds and changes the baby, so no contest.

502: Or Jammies.

Sexist.

Not to mention Lorraine.

Ageist.

504: I'm pampering heebie's inner princess, as directed. LB didn't give any instructions about Jammie's internal royalness.

Clearly they're hiding something under that yellow knit cap. Horns, perhaps?

I'm pampering heebie's inner princess

And we all know how much princesses crave presumptiousness.

Pampresumptuousness?

Jeez you two, get a chat room.

(nice pics, though)

502: That is indeed a baby. I was going to wait to offer congratulations until H-G actually made it back here, but since everybody else has rendered theirs: Hooray for the Heebie-Jammie-Geebies! Here's hoping for a sound sleeper.

Quick everyone! Let's all jump off a cliff and see if apo will do it too!!

502: No way that dude is Jammies. Clearly not a cat, but I appreciate him helping out HBGB, even if he was getting a little fresh.

No way that dude is Jammies.

Yeah, that's some white guy. WTF?

512: OMG I CAN FLY!

515: Already celebrating April 20th?

I am a little disappointed that we are just getting pictures this morning.

517 to 419.

I should have known that Sir Kraab wouldnt let me down.

Are you disappointed or not, will? Make up your mind!

Angelina Jolie is still ahead, though.

The media are just barely satisfied with the two pictures.

521: So's your mother, pal.

MORE PICTURES!!

The pictures should have been posted with 10 minutes of crowning.

I understand that the video might take a day or so before you post it.

My mom was a real ham. She should have stopped with me, but she craved attention so it was just babies babies, babies.

Emerson's mom would be famous, but "Septomom" just doesn't have the same ring to it.

Can we get pics posted here or at heebie's blog at some point? I don't have access to the flikr pool. I keep meaning to ask for it and forgetting, but even if someone posts or e-mails me about that flikr is blocked at my office so it wouldn't help me until I get home at, like, 7 p.m. and I don't want to wait that long. Because I'm impatient and nosy.

We could just describe the baby to you: She is very small and still a little wrinkly. She has tiny little eyes and a tiny little button nose.

And she probably smells fabulous, but it's hard to tell from the photos.

I understand that the video might take a day or so before you post it.

Also, they got Richard Linklater to shoot it and he used that rotoscope technique from A Scanner Darkly, so it might not be quite what you expect.

You know they market newborn baby smell, just like they do new car smell. You can spray it on an older baby to make them seem fresher.

I understand that the video might take a day or so before you post it.

Aaaaand ACTION!

(I'm having entirely too much fun with that site.)

529:She is very small and still a little wrinkly. She has tiny little eyes and a tiny little button nose.

But does she have that aura and halo that indicate she is the reincarnation of one of the Enlightened Ones, back for their last lifetime?

max
['Does she turn the chrome to gold?']

Welcome Of Lothar! Congrats Heebie and Jammies!

528: heebie maintains anonymity, so we can't post the pictures publicly. Quick, someone send out the bat signal for Armsmasher and get Cyrus in the pool.

The video.

Congratulations! I'm delighted to hear that babby has arrived because "We've got a baby / Who's never coming out!" was making me think of that Law & Order: CI episode about the woman who was obsessed with the fetus she never gave birth to and that is some creepy shit.

as pere ubu convincingly* sang "these are the best times, the best times of all"

*ok they didn't sound very convinced actually, but this is a cover version and it does

Many, many congratulations. And a round of sleep for everybody!

533: That website may be the best internet thing ever. Holy shit.

I may now have a good way to preserve the funny things that Iris says.

533: Do they have any avatars that look like orcas or lions? Just asking.

Contratulations! Enjoy the next few years of changing poop.

You've got quite a way with words, Spike.

Enjoy the next few years of changing poop

...into financial security! Learn how now at www.cash4poop.com, or call toll-free 1-877-POOP-590.

Apo has changed his dream: from a pot-crapping dog to a cash-pooping baby.

I tried that cash4poop thing, it was rippoff. Much better to sell through a reputable poop dealer.

Congratulations! Great news.

546: If you could get a baby that would poop a pot-pooping dog, would you really need cash?

Congratulations on the Heebie Beebie! See, it only takes late-night blogging to induce labour.

Keep an eye out for the rare meconium. Not poop!

543 makes me think Heebie and Jammies will spend the next few years solemnly scooping old poop out of Geeblet's diapers and replacing it with fresh poop.

Yeah, meconium is way better than regular poop. That's why it commands such a premium price.

< flyby>
Congratulations to L., H-G. and J. !
< /flyby >

(bounced off h-g site hoping for news of arrival. yay!)

It came up the other day that AB is still kind of resentful that they whisked away Kai to clear the meconium out of his passages - she feels like they took forever, and ALL SHE WANTED WAS HER BABY IS THAT SO WRONG.

Me, I'm kind of glad there's no meconium inside his sinuses. But you know how women get.

Are you sure they were telling you everything, JRoth?

In the USA, the results of meconium-testing run on a newborn can be turned in to child protective services and other law enforcement agencies.[*]

[*] G.B. v. Dearborn County Div. of Family and Children, 754 N.E.2d 1027 (Ind.Ct.App., 2001).

shamelessly stolen from wikipedia.

It is annoying. They ran off with Sally to kick her tires (I'm still not sure what they were doing with her) and I ended up stashed in a room with nothing to read, no TV, no food, for what seemed like hours and was probably about an hour; I wasn't expected to be bored and annoyed immediately after giving birth. Buck eventually found them with Sally warming up under a heat lamp (I have no idea at all), and managed to point out that there was a blood relative who hadn't really met her yet perfectly willing to share body heat, and returned her to me. And then went out and got me food and a beer. (Yay, Buck!)

Do they have any avatars that look like orcas or lions? Just asking.

No, but...

557: Damn. Me too. Except UNG didn't get me any beer.

The wikipedia page for meconium has two large photographs of the stuff.

After a baby's been under a heat lamp for a couple of hours, you really don't want to eat it. You really want them fresh and not all dried out.

Hmm, it cut off the end. Oh well. I'd have put more dancing in it, but it was already right up against the length limit (or, apparently, over it).

How anti-climactic.

soup!!

Sir Kraab!

Give heebie & the geebies my best when you see them next, please.

Sure thing. Will we be seeing more of you around here anytime soon?

559: The beer also came with comedy -- trying to find a bottle opener on a maternity ward is surprisingly difficult. I think we ended up prying them open on some part of the bed. (And handing out the other four beers to other new parents who had lacked Buck's forethought. Who needs cigars?)

With all that tubing, you could have made a very nice beer bong.

Is 565 an implicit threat?

558: Holy fucking shit.

Sir Kraab: (meeting delay, sorry) I've been in pretty serious submarine mode, hopefully come up for air when term finishes and some papers are finished. It's been crazy. So short answer is not for a month or more at any rate.

562: Can't watch it here at work, but am very much looking forward to doing so when I get home.

From now on, I'm not going to read threads. I'll just wait for the highlight reel from apo.

WTFA.

With all that tubing, you could have made a very nice beer bong.

||
Any of the Chicagoland crew up for a Memorial Day weekend meetup?
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566: I once knew a guy who could take the cap off a beer with a lighter. Also, you can use pretty much any countertop that you don't care if it gets scratched. Grab neck firmly, put lip of cap on the counter and slam your beer-holding hand with the other hand.

The media need more pictures.

In for a penny in for a pound I say. I'm waiting for something to print anyway.

I once knew a guy who could take the cap off a beer with a lighter.
There was a time when pretty much everyone I knew could do this. Product of smokers drinking beer outside/walking/standing around a lot. I guess. Counters are hard to do without scratching. There's a trick where you can do two at once against each other, but it's hard to do without making mess.

Oh, and teeth work too (probably depends on your incisors) but it's a bad idea.

575: The buckles of motorcycle jackets can remove beercaps. As can Ptolemy stones.

577: Yes, I stopped using counters when I started living in nice enough places that somebody would notice the marring. I have never in my life been able to open one beer with other successfully (i.e. without losing at least 1/4 of one beer).

Joe Charboneau would be good to have around. He can open beer bottles with his eye socket.

Your reappearance is nearly as exciting as the beebie's arrival, soup - do remember us in a month.

The lighter as bottle opener thing isn't that hard, once someone shows you how to do it. For teeth, molars are better, and the trick is to do it very very slowly, just bending up the lip around the edge of the cap until it releases.

581: So that's where soup's been hiding out . . . in heebie's uterus!!!

I developed some improv beer opening skills in the Peace Corps (you can whack a beercap right off with a metal spatula), but then found they weren't transferrable -- beercaps in Samoa seemed to be made out of softer, bendier material than US beercaps. Trying to show off when I came home, I whacked the neck, rather than the cap, off a couple of beers.

Trying to show off when I came home, I whacked the neck, rather than the cap, off a couple of beers.

This trick works better with a champagne bottle and a (cheapie) chef's knife.

"All I know is, she went to Fiji or someplace for a couple years and she comes back all crazy, smashing everyone's beer bottles for no reason."

I learned a neat trick for removing the bottom of a beer bottle recently, but it already needs to be open for it to work.

584: When I was in China my friend who was also over there found a bottle opener in his apartment that kind of popped the caps off of bottles in a very cool fashion.

He still has it to this day. Neither of us have ever seen it here in the States, but we used to talk idly about finding the Chinese manufacturer and starting an import business.

I just googled to see if I could find anything similar and apparently someone stole our brilliant idea:

http://www.bottlepopper.com/

585: I've seen it performed with a cavalry saber (using the back of the blade, not the sharp side).

So that's where soup's been hiding out . . . in heebie's uterus!!!

Heebie is the new Tia.

583:When I was in Australia, the natives were in awe of my beer-opening abilities. I attribute this to a)the lighter trick apparently dispersing slower than I did and b) there being nothing more Australian than cracking a beer, new methods thereof provoking a sense of patriotic wonder.

hey, it's nice to be missed (Or was that more "forewarned is forearmed"?) I'll expect I'll come back 'round when things are less hectic here.

58: That two step process looks easy enough for even a biker to master. But it's nice that they have a visual.

I once knew a guy who could take the cap off a beer with a lighter.

I'm amused to think of this as a rare skill, rather than something my redneck better half does as a matter of course.

I learned a neat trick for removing the bottom of a beer bottle recently, but it already needs to be open for it to work.

I think I saw that on TV.

hey, it's nice to be missed

Evidence.

I knew a kid in eighth grade who could bite the caps off beer bottles. He also brought hardcore porn to school. I suspect that no good came of him.

The doohickey that the door of my pickup latches on is very handy for opening beer bottles, but the door has to be open, so it's difficult to use when you're driving.

What a bunch of prisses. Just smash the neck of the bottle against whatever's nearby and drink from the jagged opening. Chicks dig that.

594: I know it isn't a rare skill, but it was one I never could master, so I was always impressed. Right now I'm not trying anything that might break the bottle as I'm a mature adult to all external appearances and, because I'm trying to support local breweries through the recession, I'm finding beer expensive lately.

597: You want non-prissy? I just bite off the neck of the bottle with my teeth.

And swallow it.

599: That's nothing. I smash the whole bottle on my head and consume the liquid via osmosis.

600: I'm assuming the result it that you get insane in the membrane?

I pour the beer down the sink, grind the bottle in a molcajete, and consume the glass.

602: The actual tradition involves pouring the beer in a glass and giving it to a guest before molcajeteing the bottle, racist.

600: Like with coconuts.

I would do that if I ever had guests.

Here's the radio story mentioned above in 428. I haven't listened to it yet.

605 to 604.

When I was in Australia, the natives were in awe of my beer-opening abilities. I attribute this to a)the lighter trick apparently dispersing slower than I did

Well, I don't know how quickly you dispersed, but we've known the lighter trick for a long time. But generally don't need it now as most of the big brands come in twist-tops.

most of the big brands come in twist-tops.

Wow, I never expected Australia to go priss on us.

Rather belated by now, but congratulations heebie and Jammies and little one!

609: we can out-priss anyone!

611: Yeah, I've heard many of you guys have taken to calling a night out on the town "getting prissed".

If we can't get the thread up to 1000 for the Heeblet, won't that be terribly insulting?

You know what is insulting. I slave over a hot oven all day to make cookies for "To Catch a Predator". The guest always run out before they can even finish one.

I'm thinking that the Heeblet will be a calm and imperturbable infant who won't need our validation.

Congrats heebie.

Incidentally, if Armsmasher ever reads this, could he send me the Flickr password?

Incidentally, if Armsmasher ever reads this, could he send me the Flickr password?

Ditto.

You need to send 'Smasher your Flickr ID, I think. He then sends you an invite to the pool.

The other admin for the flickr pool is ogged. Probably it would be a good idea to create new admins, who, you know, ever read the site.

Careful, neb.

Thanks, I know I've been told that before but it doesn't seem to sink in!

582 is dangerous misinformation. The trick to doing a bottle cap with your teeth is to press down in the center, releasing the lip slightly and making it easier to pry off. It's still a stupid idea, though.

The trick with a lighter is... really people don't know how to do that?

The video in 558 is great. But no-one should miss this other apo masterpiece.

621: Really! I can never seem to get the leverage right. I'm admitting I'm an idiot, ain't I?

582 is dangerous misinformation.

Geez, Sifu, can't a guy have a little fun anymore?

But seriously, it is a bad idea, but the method I described actually works if you have enough control to do it incredibly slowly so that the bottle doesn't slip and break off a part of your tooth. So, definitely best to have a bottle opener handy if you're having more than one.

623: The right grip is key.

And I think I've told this here before, but one time in Mexico we found a beer (brewed by the Corona brewery but dark, and in a dark bottle, so it actually was pretty decent) that came in these squat, returnable bottles and in the bottom of each bottle was a round indentation that functioned as a bottle opener. It was very cool, and opening the next bottle with the previous one was reminiscent of chain smoking.

in the bottom of each bottle was a round indentation that functioned as a bottle opener

The genius of that. The genius.

627: Indeed. I've never been able to find the right combination of google terms to locate a picture or description, more's the pity.

626: You should tell that story more as a counter to the whole "Mexico is falling apart" thing.

626: Negra Modelo?

Negra Modelo?

And was this little Mexican hole-in-the-wall called Taco Cabana?

And was a Mexican guy there enjoying a chicken salad pita in between laps at the pool? I mean, seriously, this story's not holding up at all, M/tchy p/e.

608: Well, this was in 1999, and I think they'd gone soft. I think non-canned beer confused them, and they were happy at any remedy. I spent a good deal of time in rural bars, so that may explain it. I cannot tell you how many times I heard, "Llava skuna'av vay bay"

P.S. You know why it says 'XXXX' on the side of the bottle, right?

a round indentation that functioned as a bottle opener

Glacier Bay, this super-cheap beer we drink a lot of during college, had this feature.

634: I like to imagine that "drink" was used intentionally there, as your beer drinking in college is something that you experience perpetually, much like Dr. Manhattan.

Corona, check; lighter, check; bottle opener on bottom, check. And yet, I sense that I am still missing something.

635: Heh. I'm not sure they even make Glacier Bay any more. Haven't seen it in a store in years.

The mighty internet says no.

626: Negra Modelo?

Nope. It said "Corona" on the label. It turns out Corona's a decent brewery (or was at the time, about 1987 or 88), with a number of different brews (including an annual Christmas beer), they just export all the crap to El Norte. The bottles were squat and stumpy, similar to the bottles Session comes in.

The bottles were heavy gauge returnable ones. I'm not sure the thinner glass used on non-returnable beer bottles would be up to the task, although apo's experience with Glacier Bay may indicate otherwise.

Corona may not have been owned by Grupo Modelo at the time. I'm not sure when the big consolidation happened in Mexico.

621
582 is dangerous misinformation.

What other kind of advice on opening a beer bottle with your teeth is there?

What other kind of advice on opening a beer bottle with your teeth is there?

The don't do it kind?

My advice is to only do it when you're too drunk to heed good advice.

643: That's good advice, JP.

Clearly, M/tch needs another drink.

Aposhphroter is the hero!1

What other kind of advice on opening a beer bottle with your teeth is there?

Only do it if you don't mind losing a tooth. I speak from experience.

I gave it up right around the time I gave up cracking walnuts on my forehead. Dunno what the connection is.