In any case, I figure it was as good a reason as any to start actively blogging again. Kind of like tucking my sharpei belly into a slick little running number after many pregnant months of sedentary life and one too many frappaccinos and yelling MARATHON BABY…GO!

I am nothing if not overambitious. Or insane. Take your pick.

I mentioned that I’ve gotten completely sucked into the incestuous vortex that is Facebook. I’ll tell you, the snappy, third-person, one-line statuses seem juuuuust about my speed at the moment. There’s no commitment, no effort. And it goes great with my severely amputated attention span, which has gone from reading heady literature and lengthy Merchant Ivory-type movies to reading style magazines and watching Tim Gunn’s Guide to Style. Send help. Also wide leg, summer-weight wool trousers and flirty secretary blouses.

The other day, I had a few hours to myself, which started out with a short list of “fun” things I wanted to do, but which actually ended with me riding around my favorite parts of Lancaster County, Sarah Harmer on the iPod and a complicated coffee drink in my hand. As I rode around, I just let my brain relax, not worrying about the kids, my job, my post-partum flab, the household budget, our future plans…nothing. I felt some heavy door open up in my brain, with a puff of dust and cobwebs and an agonizing screech of protest. And this overwhelming stream of thoughts and ideas started streaming in, so many things I have wanted to capture and write about, not for my blog, not for anyone else, but for me.

I’m doing a horrible job of explaining what I mean. When I sit down to write, I just can’t get to that place I was in. Having a screaming three-month old in the other room, and a toddler 15 feet away watching Noggin and asking questions every three minutes doesn’t help. When I have distractions and stress, I completely shut down everything but the most essential functions.  Work. Care for children. Clean house. Maintain sanity. That’s about all I have capacity for.

Michael tells me I should start carrying something to write on wherever I go, to capture those moments when they come up. Such a simple solution, something so many people already do, something that I’ve started doing. I am desperate to tap into this deeper part of myself, I need to drag it to the surface, untangle it, hold it up to the light and figure out what it all means to me. There’s a large part of me lying dormant, my spirituality, my creativity, and I’m starting to feel like I can’t get enough air.

Since I didn’t think my team would appreciate Smithwick’s-fueled emails from me at 11 am, I trundled off to a local coffee house - one that makes the most awesome lattes and quesadillas.

They are awesome because they are flavored with the power of God Almighty himself, amen.

It happens that my favorite haunt is a Christian Coffee House. Yes, with initial caps. They are as common as Starbucks in San Fran around here and come in many kinds of flavors. This one is the full-on, no holds barred contemporary Christian stereotype – extraordinarily bright and cheery decor, perky, well-scrubbed staff, Christian pop piped in via satellite radio (where every song sounds like a cheap rip-off of an existing song), flyers about upcoming youth revival events and uplifting signs with many exclamation points.

(I have to interrupt my cynical rant as the perkiest of the staff came over to ask how I was doing. Or maybe it was “how strong is your personal relationship with Jesus?” I was too distracted by her apple-pink cheeks and gleamy, perfect teeth to know for sure.)

This is so completely not the place I would normally haunt. I am illogically tempted to start an idealogical argument, come in wearing an “if you can read this shirt, the bitch fell off” biker shirt and respond with a “fuck, yah” to a question about whether I would like whipped cream. The unctuous ooze of religious sincerity and fervor, and the dogma it is based on, are things I would normally, and instinctually, run far, far away from.

But weirdly enough, I really love this place. I think it is because coming here, for a minute or a few hours to work, are just…soothing. I don’t have to think, I can simply let the bright candy-coating of cheerfulness wash over me. When I tune out the actual content of the message being communicated here, its buzz provides a pleasant escape from the real world. I feel like a bit of a fraud, this is not my home turf – and my own well-scrubbed cheeks are pink from cosmetics, not a belief in the afterlife.

So I’ll save my religious naysaying to my husband, close friends and the occasional conversation with my born-again sister in law. In the meantime, as long as they don’t start infusing my lattes with ground-up scriptures or asking about the state of my soul, I think I’m content to enjoy the coffee and the free interest service. It’ll be our secret.

Simply put, it is a two for one special here in Crazy Town every night. And I am stunningly underslept. I can’t imagine why.

YOUR PATHETIC ATTEMPTS AT COMFORT ARE FUTILE. FUTILE, I SAY!

I will be back soon, with real text and sentences that make sense. For now, I am spending any free second I have to eat fingerfuls of whipped cream out of the can and feeding my second addiction to the incestuous kiddie pool that is facebook. Holy CRAP.

I’ll put together a birth story over the weekend, but I’m pleased to say everything went extraordinarily well. I went in for an induction Thursday night, had my water broken late afternoon Friday, ordered an epidural at 5:30 pm and started pushing at 10:04 pm.

Wilder Wellington was born 20 minutes later.

At a jaw-dropping 10 lbs. 8 ozs. The general consensus among the doctors and midwives was 9-9.5 lbs. I made the nurse weigh him twice to be sure. Despite being almost 2 lbs. heavier than Emerson, he was a lot easier to birth. Thank god for that. If I would have known the size going into the delivery, I think I would have gone on strike. Or on vacation. Let somebody birth the Christmas turkey.

He is lovely. I don’t know what else to say right now. He is just simply gorgeous. He looks a lot like his brother, but with darker skin and more hair. (And a smaller head, for which my nether regions are grateful.)

It is a week later and he has already gained his birth weight back. After several nights thinking our house was an all-night afterparty, Wilder slept 11:30 pm to 6:45 am, only waking once at 3 am to gorge himself at the milk bar. I forgot how heinous the whole “milk coming in” process was. Picture flaming hot coconuts. Now stuff them under your skin. Comfy? Now attach a vacuum lined with tattoo needles to your nipple and turn to “puree” for 25 minutes every three hours. Joy.

For me? I’m doing so much better than last time that I could burst with it. Despite a belly that looks like Laura Flynn Boyles’ alien at the beginning of MIB 2, I feel great, taking some iron for anemia, and have dropped 25 lbs of fluid already. I think I spent an hour yesterday just getting reacquainted with my ankle bones. (why hello, you’re so…so, delicate and boney, aren’t you?)

All in all, despite the nonstop bitching about the heat, I would totally recommend summer babies. Sitting on the porch swing, rocking the baby in the breezy, dappled sun, watching Michael draw chalk trains on the driveway with Emerson, drinking iced coffee…not a terrible start.

My two boys. I foresee a future that is lightly perfumed with sweaty athletic socks.

People keep asking me if I’m excited. Not yet. I know what I’m in for this time and I just want to get through the labor and delivery. Then I’ll be excited.

Here’s the final belly photos. Holy stretch marks. And chubby cheeks...thanks to 45 lbs and copious amounts of ice cream. Yeesh.

I would officially be 40 weeks tomorrow.

And here’s Emerson being “sweet” to his baby brother.

See you guys on the other side!

I’m sitting here with a slightly rumpled piece of paper that was tucked into one of those “Seventy billion perfect baby names” books. The paper starts conservatively, with a long list of neatly typed boy names, then spirals downward into a mess of blue, felt-tip madness – scratch-outs, additions, comments, doodles and even a game of tic-tac-toe and hangman.

It is this list we chose Emerson’s name, and it was flat-out war. Michael and I, knowing how opinionated and picky we are, started out early. After battling from 25 to seven names, we wrote them all out with the middle name (easily chosen from a tradition in Michael’s family) and each of our last names. We agreed that our children would have each of our last names – mine as a sort of second middle name, and then my husband’s surname. I never gave a thought to changing my last name when I got married. Hell to the no. And I decided that I wanted to balance the traditional patriarchy with the practicality of having a single, consistent surname for our kids. (People used to ask me if Michael minded about keeping my name. My standard reply is that if he would have minded, I wouldn’t have married him.)

After we had snug, final few names…Michael decided, at 3 am about a month or so before I gave birth, to insist on a new favorite – Emerson. I wasn’t sure I loved it at first, but some time, convincing, and the promise of naming rights for all future children sealed the deal. And, of course, we love it.

My parents, however, were not sure and were, let us say, they were pretty direct in their opinion. To say they pretty much abhorred every name we picked was an understatement. Maxwell, Beckett, Jamison, Bowie, Whitman, Sawyer…HATE. Even though as an expectant parent, your heart knows naming is absolutely your right and final decision, it was pretty demoralizing.

I think they love the name now, I knew to gird my loins for the onslaught this time around.

Naturally, we went right back to the short list to name Pilot Fish. Again, we’d already picked out a middle name – Wellington – which is a family name on my side. Michael’s last name is short and very common (at least around here) so the two names sound quite good together. Especially with MD, or PhD, or even Nobel Prize winner attached to it. Not that I’m thinking about those sorts of things.

Being the good book-dorks that we are, we wanted to stick with a literary name. We knew right away which one. We hunkered down over the name, knowing that once again we would be faced with vocal protest of my folks (and, funnily, other people of my parents’ generation). And we were not disappointed. I did manage to stem the flow a bit at one point, telling my father,that upon hearing I was getting my crap about the name we chose, my uber-conservative, 86-year old grandfather (my dad’s dad), yelled “It’s none of your parents’ damned business what you name your kid!” Go, Poppop.

To date, my parents still choke when they try to utter this baby’s name. Emotionally, I’m large unaffected. I know can’t win, and I don’t care. I’ve bluntly told them to get over themselves. We love it, we hope the child will love it and they will do and say nothing to make our son feel awkward about his name EVER.

In the meantime, we’ve been coaching Emerson on the name of his new baby brother. He’s got the hang of it now, but is more likely to call him “What-to-wear”, “Underwear” or “Wonderwear.” Unfortunately, some of those are starting to stick. Underwear – what a hell of a nickname.

So how about something totally unique…say a pregnancy update? No! you say…really? Because you having been talking about that at all! I mean, at this point, what’s there to say beside…am big and fat, swollen ankles, holy hell, is this baby ever going to come?  Here is one more thing.

Am being induced late Thursday afternoon. Which is, like, TOMORROW. Holy yay. Pilot fish should be here Friday or (if the universe hates me) Saturday. I’m fully expecting another marathon induction, wherein my labor is as easy to start as an open, honest dialogue on birth control with John McCain. (wha?) Easier second-time labor, my ass. This baby is still tucked up around my larynx, with no sign of dropping, and my cervix is playing completely dumb (baby when? Due date what? Are you expecting something? *blinkblink*) This boy is absolutely going to be bigger than Emerson. I have the horizontal stripes across the middle of my stomach that tell me so. I went to the grocery store last week and the sight of me carrying a watermelon under my arm nearly made my husband pee his pants with laughter. If he didn’t give such orgasmic foot rubs, his ass might be buried in the backyard right now.

Ok. So, I know it’s the way big medical practices work these days, but I hate having to see whatever doctor or midwife is available. You can’t get to know a single provider, which means I have to retell me life story every visit. I also have to account for my choices and decisions (last week…induction a go! This week…why induction? Why not wait it out?), convince every person I see that I am a thoughtful, well-informed and rational patient, not a hysterical, hormonally imbalanced pregnant woman who just wants this baby out already. Every provider I’ve seen has had a different opinion about risks, procedures, things to watch, etc. Fluid too high! Fluid fine. Induction reasonable! No, no, let’s wait and see. Baby is going to be 9 lbs or more! Nah, will be normal. Gaining too much weight! Weight is absolutely fine. You need an ultrasound! Ultrasounds not necessary.

Come The Fuck ON already. I’m sick of it.

It’s no secret that the United States is not high on the world’s list of countries that mandate some sort of paid maternity leave. In fact, according to a link from the article, the United States is “…one of only five countries that does not provide or require employers to provide some form of paid maternity leave.”

While there is FMLA, or the Family and Medical Leave Act, which requires employers to give most workers (not just mothers) up to 12 weeks of job-protected leave for births, adoptions and certain other medical care, that leave is wholly unpaid. So while you are guaranteed your position back after 12 weeks, unless you have private or employer-provided short/long-term disability insurance, those 12 weeks come at your expense.

There are a few states that do provide some amount of short-term disability for maternity leave. Pennsylvania is not one of them. California is, and I believe Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York and Washington either do or are considering it.

Working in a global consulting firm, I have colleagues spread out across virtually every continent. Many of them are women and the majority of those women are mothers. I am wildly envious of the support their governments and/or employers provide to women in the UK, France, Germany, Canada, Sweden and Australia, to name a few. Paid leave can extend (in decreasing percentages) for up to a year in some cases, with additional unpaid leave available. 

My colleagues are shocked to discover that not only does the United States not have a mandated policy on paid maternity leave, that even the most generous employer (like mine) will provide only a limited number of weeks, which often needs to be augmented by saved vacation and sick time. But that paid leave only applies to full-time, salaried employees, of which I am not.

While I work a full-time gig at this global firm, I am a contractor, meaning I am actually an employee of a contracting agency, not the firm, and paid on an hourly basis. My agency takes care of taxes, has benefits and a 401K available, but there is no coverage for maternity leave. There are no paid sick days or vacation days in my job, and very few paid holidays. The six weeks of maternity leave I am planning to take starting July 28 has been meticulously scraped from my weekly paychecks during the last several months. Fortunately, my compensation has enabled me to save enough to cover all bills and expenses through mid-September in the absence of a regularly scheduled active paycheck. I’m already thinking I’ll try to work 10-15 hours a week after the first few weeks off, just to keep a little money coming in. When people ask me why I’m not taking more time off, I respond, “I simply cannot afford to take any more time.”

But I am absolutely unable to tell my housecleaner that her current work just isn’t all that great. Today I had to ask her to actually MOVE things when she dusted and I wanted the floor to swallow me whole.

WTF is up with that?