Esther Brady Crawford - faintstarlite

44 days to go… and I’m thinking the next 6+ weeks will involve a lot of, “Am I in labor yet?”

I swear, I pay disturbingly close attention to every bodily function. For instance, we learned in our Bradley Method classes that diarrhea is an early sign of labor – so when I woke up with runny poo a few days ago I internally had a little freak out wondering if it was that time. And ever since I learned about the mucus plug, I can’t help but inspect my underwear and toilet paper for signs that it’s dislodged. Too much information, I know.

I’m assuming this neurosis is common among first-timers… even my dreams now frequently play out possible birthing scenarios. The odd thing is that I don’t have a lot of fear about the birth process – it’s so clear that women’s bodies are designed for pushing babies out – but I think it’s the inability to control or predict the when / how of the process that makes me anxious. I want to have a natural and beautiful experience, but I don’t really get to choose how things go down.

Tomorrow is my next pre-natal visit with my midwife, and I’m curious to see if anything has changed from 2 weeks ago when she warned me about the protein in my urine and the edema in my left leg (two of the more minor signs of pre-eclampsia). I feel really good so I’m pretty confident those minor issues have or will work themselves out without medical intervention… and it’ll just be a relief if I get a totally clean bill tomorrow. Fingers crossed.

Nick & I decided to throw our hat in the ring with other internet geeks, and create a video application for the Ford Fiesta Movement – a contest where the new car will be given to 100 Fiesta Agents to drive around for six months, performing missions and sharing those experiences through social media.

I think we have a good shot: 1. I’ve got millions of video views and tons of experience video blogging; 2. I’m a pregnant woman – c’mon.. that’s got to score me at least a few points since I’ll have a cute baby to cart around;  and 3. I’m a Social Media nerd and have been an early adopter in the space since like ‘96. But, nothing is ever guaranteed .. even if our video did bust out the “that’s what she said” line (which by the way, that take was totally spontaneous – it wasn’t until everyone burst out laughing did I realize the joke, and knew right away it had to make it into the video). In the meantime I’ll watch other entries and read tweets from those who are being chosen… and hope that the Ford gods shine down and award us a lovely new car to jet around in for the summer.

7. Go the hospital in the early phases of labor. Get there realllly early so you feel a lot pressure to perform, even though you know that labor is usually a slow process. The earlier the better so you can get tagged with ‘failure to progress’ and get started with a series of medical interventions that’ll often end in a c-section.

6. Don’t eat or drink during a long labor. Just wear yourself out completely and then complain loudly of fatigue. This will up your chances of medical personnel suggesting the solution.

5. Get an amniotomy too soon. Once they burst your bubble you’re now on the clock for a cesarean. If you manage to move along at a snail’s pace you’re sure to end up under the knife!

4. Accept pitocin to induce or stimulate contractions. Since fetal distress is associated with the drug, you’ll have to have continuous electronic fetal heart monitoring which will immobilize you. Good call! The less you move around the better – that’s sure to slow the train. Plus, the drug-induced contractions are so strong you’ll be screaming for an epidural in no time.

3. Request an epidural. Now you’re totally immobilized, yay! Labor’s progress will likely slow down even further and pushing effectively will likely be much harder since you can’t get into any vertical or squatting positions that would work in your favor.

2. Accept hospital staff’s comments on lack of progress without challenge. Once they start complaining that you’re poking along and taking up space, get discouraged and give up. Turn all decisions over to them and you’ll be wheeled away in no time.

1. Just ask! Oh yeah … these days you don’t actually need to go through the hassle of labor at all. Just call up your OB and tell him/her you’d like to schedule your baby – the whole pushing a baby out thing is so inconvenient and last millenium. Your OB will probably be relieved anyways because you’ll be one less lady who might interrupt a good night’s sleep.

*A note on this list: Clearly there are real medical emergencies that can happen, and in those cases c-sections can be true life savers. However, the sad fact is that most cesareans are not done for legitimate medical reasons and in the last decade the number of c-sections has doubled to over 30% of US births. It’s not surprising that so many doctors are in favor of elective cesareans – after all, it’s certainly more convenient and they get to charge lots more $$$. As for us moms who get to make this choice – my feeling is that many women are just not well informed about the risks … because make no mistake: a c-section is a major abdominal surgery and poses significantly more risks to both mom and baby.

And since I like to end on an upbeat note, I wanted to share the cartoon above because it accurately reflects my feelings at this stage. :)

Awhile back Dr. Marcus Borg and Dr. John Dominic Crossan agreed to sit down and let me ask them a few questions. They both belong to the controversial Jesus Seminar and are two of the most renown Jesus scholars in the world. In fact, they just released another book they co-wrote called The First Paul … and although I haven’t read it yet, I guarantee it is packed with interesting commentary because every book I’ve read from either of them has always challenged me to reexamine my theological constructs in light of the historical information they surface.

So why did they let me shoot them with my crappy little video camera?

I’m one of Dr. Borg’s former students – actually I took more classes from him than anyone else during college. I was lucky enough to sit down a bunch of times and pick his brain over the course of those years, and it just so happened the timing worked out where we were all in Portland at the same time… so that’s how the video(s) came to be. (Yes, there’s more footage to come!)

On a recent episode of NPR’s radio program This American Life an informal survey of 100 people was done. They were asked who considered themselves to be on Plan A for their lives, and one woman raised her hand. She was 20.

It got me thinking about my own situation – the visions I’ve had for how life would turn out so far and how that differs from what’s actually happened.

Without going too far back, I’ll just say that I distinctly remember a conversation when I was 15 taking place between my best friend Katie and myself. I generally have a terrible memory, but we re-hashed this topic over & over that year: what would we be doing in 10 years? Well, it just so happens that it’s 10 years later so I can’t help but think back at my 15 year-old self and wonder how she’d feel about me today.

I told Katie at 25 I hoped I’d be getting married… maybe even having a baby… have bought a house… and would be settled into a career path. About halfway through at age 20 I revised the timeline and thought hitting those milestones by 30 was actually more realistic, which I think is true for most people. But then, Nick happened. And we’ve been plowing through that list on overdrive – buying a house and getting pregnant faster than we’d planned.

Only four years ago I had decided I’d spend most of my life living abroad – probably somewhere in the Arab world, which is why I put so much energy into learning Arabic. After Nick & I started dating it took probably 2 years for the realization to sink in that being with him meant that instead of the Middle East, I’d probably wind up in the Midwest. Rather than giving up my dream entirely, I set off for England where I got my Master’s degree in International Relations & Middle Eastern studies … but as the program wound to a close I knew I had a huge decision to make – stay with Plan A and pursue the career I’d imagined, or come up with a Plan B that involved heading out to Wisconsin indefinitely.

Plan B it was.

The truth is I’m past Plan B – it’s more like Plan X, Y or Z. I’ve always been a free spirit and believe in walking through doors as they open, but for the past few years I haven’t been able to predict which doors those would be. Even now I’m not entirely sure what career path I’m on – it’s not like I planned to work in social media, I’m just nerdy enough that the opportunities came to me.

Sometimes the things that impact us the most are the variables we hadn’t calculated for at all. I know there were several life-changing decisions that came about in the aftermath of my Dad’s death. It was his passing that really mended my heart to Nick’s – his love was a major source of comfort, and it’s what led me to take the leap of graduating a semester early to head out to Wisconsin for 6 months before grad school started. I just had to know if the chemistry we had online and over the phone could be translated into an in-person relationship.

Some of the last words my Dad spoke to me were about living life to the fullest, which helped push me over the edge towards getting healthy and finally losing the extra weight. And in turn, I ended up connecting with and inspiring thousands of people through my weight loss video blogs. Definitely not something I had planned.

There are too many unknown variables to make a wager on a person’s future. Sure, I could make an educated guess what I’ll be doing in 10 years, but it’s likely to be wrong … perhaps the field I’ll be working in doesn’t even exist yet, or a side project* will suddenly alter the path I’m currently on.

Life is full of surprises.

* This video is Evan Williams (founder of Twitter) talking at TED ‘09 about how his side projects have consistently turned out to be more valuable than his ‘real’ work.