I am Hippie Chic

(Turns out that the technical problems Blogger has been experiencing the last few days are ongoing, so I can’t get in to finish my almost done posts…again. So instead let me start another!)

As I mentioned earlier, LLL is Western state #4 during our pilgrimage though out the Western US. We moved here from Hell, also located in the Southwest, when I was 7 months pregnant with the Cracker.

Back in Hell, I had a regular OB/GYN. A young, professional, petite woman who I loved because she always let me stay late to ask really stupid questions. A fifteen minute check up was actually closer to an hour, every time. She never rushed me, and treated each concern as a legitimate one. What a gal! Guess that’s why my 4 o’clock appointment never actually started before 5:30. But she was totally worth the wait, and her lobby had some kick ass mags too.

Our first meeting, around 8 weeks, was by far the most fun. We were going to do an ultrasound! Woo hoo!

I lift up my shirt to expose my rock hard abs. “Oh no,” she said. “This is going to be a vaginal scan.”

WTF?

She takes out a friggin dildo and starts to lube it up. My jaw is on the ground. The panties are coming down.

What? Why? Wait…

“The baby is still too small for an abdominal ultrasound. This will provide us with the best view.”

J is dying. Dy-ing. He can’t resist. “That thing doesn’t vibrate or light up does it? You aren’t going to make me jealous?”

Either she’d heard that one too many times before or was totally lacking any stirrup side humor, but the chick didn’t even flinch.

“Are you ready?”

“Ummm...”

And there went the dildo, up my nether regions.

The next ultrasound didn’t go much better. In fact, it was a lot worse. She started out as usual by asking me “how are you feeling?” which, of course, is what any OB/GYN would do. But this was THE appointment, the much anticipated was a penis or a vagina growing inside of me? appointment, and I was there WITHOUT J. I lost it.

What did this amazing woman do? The woman who couldn’t even crack a wry smile at J’s solution to lightening up an uncomfortable situation? She held me…for AN HOUR. She nodded and handed me tissues as I blubbered uncontrollably between sobs.

Between the vaginal ultrasound and now this…I was in love.

J had just moved to LLL, without me. Everyone knew layoffs were coming, but details were, as always, unavailable. But because he was such a good guy, a stellar employee and expecting his first child, someone high up told him that while he didn’t know for sure, he guessed that because J was still fairly new, this time his name was going to be on the list. This wonderful soul also told him that there was an opening in LLL, a better position even, and that J might be able to qualify even though he was still just a babe in his career. J received this information Tuesday, went in and officially applied Wednesday after we’d had the chance to talk, interviewed Thursday, and moved to LLL Saturday. Because everything happened so quickly, I had to stay behind in Hell to get our affairs in order, coordinate the out-of-state move with J’s company, and quit my own job.

I had to go to my ultrasound alone.

Two months later I joined J. Other than one other incident*, I was just fine by myself. J’s company flew him home every Friday night, and he’d go back Sunday afternoon. I had a bunch of wannabe grannies at work who took care of me 5 days a week, J’s mom** in town, and a few friends. I enjoyed the excuse to eat out, and spent the rest of my time dreaming.

When I got pregnant with the Cracker I was in the best shape of my life. My job was basically an excuse to work out 40 hours/week and get paid for it, or at least that’s what it became when they saw I was willing to help out with the heavy lifting. It was the only time in my life that I had a flat stomach, abs to kill, and girly muscles in all the right places. After the first month of it kicking my ass, I became Wonder Woman.

Being unfamiliar with the inside of a gym, the transformation my body made was as much a surprise to me as what happened during pregnancy.

One day, before we learned that J’s boys could swim, I was sitting on the side of our apartment’s pool, swishing my legs around in the water. Suddenly I noticed that there were these weird hard swollen spots on my legs, especially when I tensed a muscle.

“J, look at me! Eew…what the hell is that? Do you see my leg?”

“What?”

“Look, just look!” I tensed my leg.

“Honey, those are muscles.”

“No! No? Really? They’re gross.”

But then I got pregnant with the Cracker. The guys at work who I was lifting with started freaking out if I even dared to reach for a friggin paperclip. These were the same guys that when I’d ask for help with a 200lb marble table top would yell back “don’t be a pussy!” and continue on with their “So I was pounding her in the ass…” story until I went over there and threatened to pound their ass in an entirely different kind of way. I loved the attention they lavished upon me, but it was sometimes annoying.

The wannabe grannies? They quickly figured out that the Cracker really really liked key lime cheesecake. (Honestly, what I wanted was a nap, but I was along for the ride.) And as luck would have it, the employee entrance to my place of employment in Hell was 10 feet from the front entrance of a Cheesecake Factory. Five days a week, before I could even haul my sorry ass over there, these women would coordinate their lunches so that they could get there first and bring it back to me. All I had to do was sit down in the lunchroom, napkin tucked into my collar, and remind them to bring a fork.

Rock hard abs…gone. Ass…growing faster than the baby.


When I arrived in LLL, my hippie chic self was ready to find a new OB/GYN, one who would be hopefully in the same state when the Cracker decided to make his entrance. But in LLL it’s all about the midwives. “That just won’t do!” I told every practice over the phone. Click. I was used to an OB dammit, and only that would do.

Midwife it was.

As I finished my pregnancy, I grew to see that midwives are not the cheap alternative. For me they were actually much better! Women who know women and have BTDT. And so for my next pregnancy I will happily call my midwife and catch up on old times while she brings does what my dear husband can only dream of.

I know what you’re thinking. WTF? What about the DMV? Everyone loves a good DMV story!

Yeah, that’s still not solved. I threw Cracker in front of the TV this morning because DMV business can only be conducted Monday through Friday 10-5. There was no other alternative, like waiting until his nap, because these mo fo’s never pick up after 3. I made a million calls TO THE CAPITAL which meant entering the longest calling card pin that money can buy a gazillion times because I had already learned my lesson last month. Calling out of state? Reasonable. Calling long distance in-state? To the CAPITAL which is only 45 minutes away? A one minute call at 15 cents/minute turned out to be $4.26 with tax. No shit. Fucking Qwest.

Anyway, I check my email while I’m on hold.

Another funny from my dad! Sweet.

One of his best friends has unintentionally raised the hippiest daughter ever. How hippie? She doesn’t believe in diapers, AT ALL. Not just the kind that I use that are killing the planet; even the cloth ones.

“Oh” you’re thinking, “she’s potty training.”

No.

A few months ago she and her 1 year old son came to live with my dad’s friend for some reason I don’t recall at the moment. My dad’s friend and his wife, her mother, were horrified. Their beloved grandchild was running around the house 24/7 peeing and dumping everywhere. And she was pregnant, and didn’t really feel all that inclined to clean up after him. So these wonderful grandparents, who wanted to make sure she felt welcome, went out and bought diapers.

“Yeah, we don’t really like diapers. They seem uncomfortable. He’s fine!”

What the heck do they say to her? She’s pregnant. They love her. And they want to remain in contact with her and her soon to be 2 children.

Anyway, she just had number two, and grandpa has a sense of humor. Names and locations have been replaced to protect their identity.

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Email title: “Don’t Try This at Home, Folks”

Well folks…a bit of news.
Last night my #2 daughter XX and her husband XY gave birth to their 2nd child, a baby girl.
Previously they had decided on a "modern" birth-- midwife (who lives in another town) to deliver at the birthing center in another city. (As opposed to a nice safe hospital name nearby.)
Evidently, they decided to go for an "ultra-modern" process and had the baby AT HOME with XY delivering (showing up Brad Pitt who was scared "shitless" sitting in medical facility sipping oxygen during his baby's birth).
Anyhow, they avoided having to arrange for baby sitting for their firstborn who slept through the event, they also avoided the high cost of gasoline not to mention the bridge toll.
Just 5 days ago their very wise mid-wives had given XY and XX an emergency delivery kit in case they could not make it across the bridge in time.
XX called us last night around 2:00 am while awaiting the arrival of the mid-wife and passed the news to her sister's name omitted. According to sister’s name, her parting words were:
"I've got to go, now the placenta is coming………….. XY!!!!"
Any wonder that what little hair I have left is all gray??
Weight = a good weight
Length = seems normal
Time of birth= last night
Gender = female
Name = who knows

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I wrote back right away. “Dad, don’t worry. I may like midwives, but you won't be getting a call like that from me.” He was probably at least a little relieved.

You see, in LLL, J and I are everyone’s "hippie" friends, just because there aren’t any real honest to goodness hippies here.

A very good friend, my vibrator loving friend in fact, is the one who came up with the term hippie chic, just for moi. I have some of the politics, the ugly comfy shoe fetish, but I still buy my clothes at Target, the Gap and Old Navy. NO REAL HIPPIE WOULD EVER SHOP THERE.


*That a whole ‘nother story, that believe it or not, I am not going to share right now.

**I do like my MIL, but we are not close. She and J = even less close. It got to the point that I was terrified to even do my errands in Hell because SHE LIVED A MILE AWAY FROM US and she still didn't know I was pregnant. We just never saw her, and I had told J he was going to be the one to break the news. So here I am, running around 6 months pregnant, shopping at the same Costco, the same Target as her, and she didn't know. We joked that he'd tell her when we decided to move. Hell was never meant to be permanent, and we knew that even before moving there. But that was really what happened in the end. We suck. "Hi, I'm seven months pregnant. It's a boy BTW, and we're moving to LLL. J is already there. How've you been doing?" I wish it weren't true.