22 1/2 weeks

Adi asked me to be better about updating everyone on the pregnancy. It's hard! My body does change every week, but I don't find the joy in it that some women describe, and I don't want to be a complainer. The truth is that I feel very heavy and off-balance, and if I am not incredibly conscientious about my eating, I feel sick all the time. I know that my belly looks beautiful, and I am very much in love with the life growing inside me, but being pregnant hasn't exactly been "fun." Teaching surly seventh graders hasn't helped! Two things that have helped are our meetings with our amazing midwife, Amrit Khalsa, and new friendships with pregnant women in our neighborhood. If all goes well, Amrit will deliver our son into the world in the comfort of our own home in Berkeley, just as Cristina my sister and I entered the world in my parents' home in Cincinnati in the late 70s and early 80s. I know this could be considered a controversial decision, but Mike and I feel very comfortable with it, and would appreciate if you do not try to "talk us down" from it! Amrit has being delivering babies at home for 40 years, and has attended about 1,500 home births, an average of 3-4 per month. She is a force of nature and we trust her implicitly!

What else can I tell? I have surrendered my full time position at Prospect Sierra School for next year and hope to find a way to work part time, either there or elsewhere. It will be a financial stretch for us, but Mike and I want for one of us to be present for those precious first months of life of our first-born! We can only guess at the ways in which our lives will never be the same!