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| Belleville |
Well, I know you've heard me say it before, but I am really pregnant at this point - 31 weeks, and I just realized that bending over to tie my shoes is becoming increasingly difficult. Time to bust out the slip ons I guess. Sheesh.
I had some false labor this week - first time in this pregnancy I've ever had to call my midwife after-hours, so thank goodness for that I guess, but because everything with the baby has been so normal these actually-very-normal Braxton Hicks contractions freaked me out. I had also been having some pelvic pain (sorry to get graphic on you so early in this letter...) so I had this fear that I was dialating or the baby was descending early and they'd have to put me on bedrest for the next 6 to 8 weeks. That was really my fear, the bedrest. I already feel so much less mobile that I think I might go crazy if I had to stay in bed - But, I've known so many women that this has happened to that I have had it in the back of my mind since I hit the second trimester.
But No! Once again, clean bill of health at the doctor's this week- No pre-eclampsia, no dialation, just some normal warm-up contractions and a baby who continues to be in breech (we think ... hard to tell), though from what I'm feeling, she is moving all over the place and flipping about so who knows where she will settle down. Of course, the other thing that I realized with the false contractions - we had NOTHING in the house if the baby were to be born early. Well, I have some diapers I bought on sale a few weeks ago. But no baby clothes, no crib, no car seat, nothing. Of course, we have like 8 -10 more weeks, but all of a sudden that didn't feel like so much time ....
So this week we went to Sauvel Natel, the big discount baby warehouse in the outskirts of Paris, and bought a stroller and a crib, and tomorrow I'm picking up a car seat. And my friend Maya is arriving this week from the states with a supply of baby clothes from my shower (thank you again, everyone), and from my mom (who I think at this point has bought everything this kid will need for the first 6 months - go mom! - except that all of it is in the US and she's arriving just a day before my US due date ...;). Whew! I feel way better knowing we will have most of what we need for the first few months in the apartment shortly.
Matt was like a machine at Sauvel Natal too, I was really impressed. I of course have been doing all this research on strollers and baby stuff and what not, so I could at least orient him to different brands and what's popular, but he was like a homing beacon. He picked out our stroller in like 10 minutes - (a maclaren quest - not a radical choice, but the lightest city stroller and it will fit through metro turnstiles here) and it was good to have some decisive energy there since I was just overwhelmed.
I have a questions for the parents out there - the last thing we need to get is something for baby to sleep in near our bed, for thethe first few months. Can you let me know what you liked using? We have (as I've also mentioned I"m sure) a pretty small place, so we are looking at various things like Moses baskets, bassinets, carry-cot type things - something we can maybe rest on the dresser next to our bed or put on a stand nearby. But I'm curious if other people did this and what they or the baby seemed to prefer -
Okay, I will leave the baby stuff for now - Other than that, not too much to report. Kind of happy not to be in the US for the 10th Anniversary of 9/11. Have very mixed feelings about all commemoration events. Not necessarily negative, just can't decide what I feel about it. As some of you know, I was in Washington Square when the first tower fell, on my way to work. It seems both so far away and so recent - I haven't actually thought about the day very often in the last few years, but this week of course I've been remembering it - and myself - at that time. I spent most of the decade in New York, but 9/11 was one of my first experiences as a New Yorker (I moved to the city in July of 2001) - and it was my first and most extreme experience both of difficulty of living in that city and the sheer resilience and toughness that New Yorkers have. Two hours after the towers fell I was walking up to Grand Central with friends to try and get a train to their parents house in Connecticut, and I remember running into another group of friends already waiting in line to give blood at a hospital in Gramercy, in a line that stretched around the corner and that they'd already closed because they had too many people who wanted to donate. And next to us on Third Avenue were people in suits and ties covered in ash and debris, walking up from downtown. But I saw no violence, and actually very little despair or hysteria. People took in the emergency and then held it together and did what they needed to do to get themselves to safety, or to be helpful if they could be. It was impressive.
Well, now I live in this new city, which has been around for a 1000 years and seen all manner of sacking, revolution, disease and destruction. But which is still here, one of the most beautiful and livable cities in the world. And where it is raining today, and I can just see the top of the Eiffel Tower out my window as I write this, in the middle of slanted Parisian rooftops with round clay chimneys, poking up into the grey sky.
And I think I'm going to close on that this week. Love to everyone, and more to come next week -
Love,
Claire
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