TheLionRampant.net

Today I am 28 weeks, which means I’m officially in the third trimester of pregnancy. This, itself, is a significant milestone, but 28 weeks has held a rather interesting place in my mind since we found out we were expecting.

It always was a big deal to me that I was born early, at 28 weeks. I can’t imagine the fear and worry my parents must have gone through driving to the hospital when I was on the way three months early. Thankfully after a three-month stay in the NICU my lungs had developed sufficiently and I had gained enough weight to go home. I’ve asked both of my OBs and our childbirth instructor about preterm labor and they all assure me that it’s not hereditary. In fact, I’ve learned that diet is the number one way to prevent preterm labor (particularly making sure one gets enough protein, calcium and fluids) and so I’ve acted accordingly. So I haven’t haven’t been *worried* per se about having a preemie, but it’s always been in the back of my head.

Of course now that I’ve reached that elusive 28-week mark, my pregnancy worries haven’t entirely dissapated. But I know that a baby born now has a 90% chance of survival (my mom’s nurses told her I had a 50/50 chance!) and so that eases anxiety. I’m happy to say that my baby is gestating longer than his mother, so well done son!

May is quickly drawing to a close and I’m trying to start gearing up to work on my PhD. It seems a bit daunting as my brain hasn’t been in high gear for the last few weeks as I’ve been grading and getting my courses more in order for the fall. I hope to get one chapter revised and another written before Baby Hales makes his appearance towards the end of August.

In other news, life continues on quite normally. We still seem to be a bit amazed at the pace of southern California life. It’s somehow “cool” to be super busy, I guess. I miss the opportunities we had for casual get-togethers, dinners with friends, going to the pub on a whim, and probably most of all, the chance to think and reflect while walking the thirty minutes to Uni each day. I’m not sure if the busyness is some sort of prerequisite to life here or if it has more to do with living in LA versus living in a city center. LA is so spread out and there are millions of people living here that it takes so long to get anywhere. Plus we’re all holed up in our cars (of course only one person in each of them) with our air conditioning and our music and we’re so far away from creating community.

I guess that’s my vent for today. We’re trying to integrate many things we liked about living overseas and living in a city with our life here, but it needs to be a corporate effort. And that’s the hard part, I think. If there aren’t a few people who are willing to shirk busyness expectations, actual, open and authentic relationships really have little chance of growing. I realize that people around us are in different stages of life — getting married, having kids, working 80 hours a week, and so these make it difficult to even meet with one another. But c’mon, if life is more than work or family, more than the isolated houses we like to separate off from our neighbors, than surely we could give up some of our “responsibilities” that we so cling to in order to really grow a community?

Go read the whole article. My favorite is the final line.

So you can all see how huge I’ve become and how huge I have yet to get!
Here I am at almost 26 weeks pregnant, roughly 6 months. Baby boy is due on August 23rd.

Feel like entering a contest if your a mom? Check this out! (I entered the contest for a Mei Tai baby carrier; there’s also a giveaway for an iPod).