Week 38: Segulah Time

Well, I'm thank g-d in my 38th week and it's getting down to the wire. The Dr.'s say that I can have the baby any day now, but only the Lord knows when the baby is going to decide to come. As for me, well, let's just say I'm doing my best to hurry the process along.

Last week was all about the Segulah's for an easy birth combined with "natural" ways to bring about labor. On Thursday, I decided to bake Challot as the Hafrashah on the Challah is a segulah for an easy birth. Now, I had heard that unless you're baking Challah with about 14 cups of flour, you don't make a bracha. And, since the recipe I used called for only 2 cups more than a kilo, I did the hafrashah, burnt it in the oven and didn't say a bracha. I hope that still counted as a segulah for an easy birth. On Wednesday, I finished phase two of the Esrog liquor. I have no idea how my Grandfather Z"L used to make it, but it was a very messy process with the powdered sugar and pouring the liquor out of the bottle with the esrog rind and into two whiskey bottles. It now needs 6 weeks to ferment but I'm thinking, as soon as I get any twinge of real contractions, I'm taking a shot. Figure the alcohol will help relax me while the esrog will hopefully act as a segulah for an easy birth. On Friday, before I lit candles, Pidgeon gave some Tzedakah and then last night, after we had date night and picked up some dinner at Waffle Bar, we came home and ate with Melavah Malka in mind.

Aside from going to the Mikvah, that's pretty much all the Segulot for an easy labor that I know of. As far as natural ways to get things moving, I ate fresh pineapple for dessert on Friday night, I did a lot of walking/standing on my feet and we also made sure to have at least 2 meals last week that had plenty of spice to it.

Nada is going on, I hate to admit. I honestly thought, as soon as I finished Melavah Malka last night, that I would go into labor and the baby would be here. My Dad said that I made such a nice home for the baby, that it's just not ready to interested in coming out.

I don't know about that theory. I mean, when I feel the hiccups that the baby has inside of me at like 3:00 a.m., I'm wondering if the baby really wants to be in there any longer. I mean, doesn't the baby want to be here so that Pidgeon and I can help with those hiccups?

Well, I'm just going to continue to do what I can do to help move things along. In the meantime, it's now once a week appointments with Dr. Yanai to make sure that the uterus is still a good home for the baby and that the baby is still thriving.

I can't help but wonder when it's all going to begin. I spent last night, when I couldn't fall asleep, reading the community boards on the What to Expect When You're Expecting website. I kept reading all these women's personal birth stories and they were fascinating. I realized that every single story was unique and so I have to remind myself that there is just no way to prepare for this. Elizabeth, a friend from high school, is an OBGYN resident in New York and yesterday we e-mailed back and forth on Facebook. I asked her for some advice and she basically said not to come with a birth plan because she sees all these women show up with plans and then end up with C-sections and they get very upset and disappointed.

The only "plan" I have right now is to try to go as long as I possibly can without an epidural. I am thrilled to know that the option to have one is available to me, and I'm praying that my contractions won't be so difficult as to need drugs right away, but I'd ideally like to try to go without it. It's funny, but I'm really not a martyr. I'm the first person to down 6 Advil's a day when I have very bad cramps, and I loved the laughing gas when I got all four wisdom teeth pulled, but when you experience 2 painful and complicated LP's you just don't want to run and have a big needle jabbed into your back. 

So, aside from an extremely relaxing Shabbos with Pidgeon, and a really fun date night that included a movie at Rav Chen and take out from Waffle Bar, today is all about the new cleaning lady. I am not going to say anything more because it looks like I keep jinxing myself with cleaning people. Today's will be my 5th cleaning person in 2 years, and that's just really not a normal turn over rate. I have no idea why they all keep leaving me! I pay well, I'm really nice to them, and I make sure the apartment isn't too much of a wreck. Well, I told my baby bump not to make an appearance until after the apartment is clean. I want to make sure this place is in tip top condition before we bring a baby home! Here's hoping today's cleaning person will take care of all that for me.

I'm hoping that she's so good that, when she P"G comes back next week, I can have her spend time cleaning out the fridge and the stove. I'd really like to do both of those appliances before the baby comes. That being said, if they're not done before baby,  it's not as bad as all the copulating dust bunnies I've got in the apartment.

I was just so excited about the new cleaning person, that I slept fitfully last night. Fortunately, it's Sunday, which means that I can just sit back and relax today. I'm actually hoping to work on one of the thesis stories as I still have 4 more to write and not much time to write them in! I'm ready for this Masters to be over and done with, and since I think Bar Ilan is a backwards and low tech institution, it's time for me to be finished with everything and just move on to the next phase of our lives.

Well, I'm off to go do some writing - or snoozing on the couch - whichever comes first. 

Yom Tov from Baka!

Airport Bound

For the life of me, I have absolutely no idea what happened on Thursday so I can't even recap for you what I did. Chances are, it involved errands and loads of TV. Friday, pidgeon headed out early to the office and I got cooking for Shabbos. We were invited out for lunch, so I just had to made dinner and I had a plan all figured out. That is, until the chopped meat that I had defrosted from the freezer turned out to be a brisket. I still have no clue how I made that mistake but I tried to roll with the punched. So, I was forced to pot it and prayed that it turned out okay. Fortunately, it was delicious and pidgeon loved it! Anyway, I also made artichoke's and asked pidgeon to show me how to eat one.  A few months back, right after we were engaged, pidgeon and I were at his parents for lunch and the appetizer was artichoke. Well, I had never eaten one like that before (I get my artichokes from the jar people) and so I mimicked their movements as best I could until I get to the heart. I had no clue what to do, so I handed it to pidgeon and told him I didn't want it. So, this Friday night, I asked him to finally teach me the proper way to eat one so I wouldn't have to embarress myself if we ever were in that predicament again. And, would you believe it, but the people we went to for Shabbos lunch served artichoke for first course? I kid you not - I told them the story and we all got a good chuckle.

So, pidgeon and I decided to keep shul hopping in Baka and we tried this new shul in Pelech, which is a high school for girls. Interestingly enough, pidgeon's cousin is a student there and it's also literally 2 blocks from the apartment. Friday night was nice and uneventful, but I somehow managed to get myself there for Shabbos day and the davening was very nice. The best part of the shul was what happened at the kiddush. Normally, when we shul hop, we don't go to the kiddush because we feel bad and don't want people to think we're freeloaders who just come for the free food. Anyway, it turns out that pidgeon's cousins daven in the shul as does his Uncle's brother, so we knew a bunch of people. His cousin insisted we come up to the kiddush so we joined them and immediately three strangers came over to introduce themselves to us. That is exactly what I've been looking for in a congregation and I was so happy that they did that. Pidgeon really liked the shul and so, for now, we've decided that we're going to start davening there. They also gave pidgeon an Aliyah, which was really nice, so I think this is going to be our home for a while. It's exciting, especially since there are a number of Anglos, and I'm looking forward to hopefully meeting lots of new people.

Jtownunderground pick for a great shul that gives you a warm welcome and that small-town feeling: Pelech. You heard it here first - at the underground.

Anyway, Shabbos lunch was great; we ate at our neighbors house and they are lovely people with a gorgeous home. The food was good too, as our host was a vegan, and pidgeon and I really didn't miss the meat too much. We slept the rest of the weekend away and then Saturday night we saw The Golden Compass. Well, that's two and a half hours we're both never going to get back, but it was nice to just get out of the house and relax at a movie. Because of the Chanukah vacation, the theatre was packed, and people were a bit unruly. But, you gotta love the seats at Rav Chen theatre. It's worth the mob.

Sunday, pidgeon spent the day out of the house working and doing errands and I too had loads to do. My blow dryer literally blew while I was drying my hair for Shabbos and I silently thanked g-d for my two wigs so I didn't look like a complete moron over the weekend. So, I went to buy a blow dryer and, while I was at it, I picked up an iron. See, dry cleaning in this country is unbelievably expensive! In fact, my dry cleaning bills are more than my food bills, and that says a lot. So, we decided to invest in an iron to cut down on our cleaning bills. Hopefully it will work, although I'm not sure as I've never ironed before. I decided to finish my errands and then get home and try it out on some of pidgeon's shirts. There's also a great ID Design in Talpiot and they have some really nice stuff. Unfortunately, they didn't have the furniture I really need so I left empty handed. A quick trip to the drugstore at the Hadar Mall for some sport socks for pidgeon and I headed back home. I was so sweaty from exercion when I got back to the apartment that I literally peeled myself out of my clothing. I decided not to be lazy in the afternoon and tackled our junk room, trying to throw things out and organize the mess. I think I made a pretty decent dent actually, and you can see some of the bed in the room. That's good as my folks are coming in a few weeks and I don't want them complaining that we live in a pig sty.

Last night, pidgeon and I did a low key night at home and just had left overs for dinner and watched some TV. We were just about to go to sleep when his Mum SMSed us from London to ask us to pick pidgeon's brother up at the airport this morning. His flight was landing at 5:15 and he had no luggage with him, so we SMSed back that it would be our pleasure and set the alarms for 4:30 a.m. That was an hour I was really hoping never to see in a long time - but his brother is one of the nicest guys I know and he deserved to be picked up at the airport. So, pidgeon and I called it a day and we tried to go to sleep early. Hopefully, getting up before dawn won't totally mess up our body clocks.

Uh-oh, pidgeon just told me that he feels like he's coming down with something. Crap, I hate when he gets sick! Hopefully it's not really anything and he'll be fine in the morning. I'm really praying people!