Harry Potter & the Deathly Hallows - or - Priorities, Priorities

Well, I've had very strong theories about what's going to happen in the last book(s) for ages (saw Harry and Ginny hooking up pretty much from the first time the boy got on the train, sorry all you Harry/Hermione shippers out there). I just haven't had a chance to sit down and write them where other people could access them for a while, but figured I better get to it, and trying to get it done before Liam wakes up (Del's in a sling on my chest as I type as he's having a fussy morning after a fussy night - reflux and/or indigestion I think from all the grunting). People who have had Harry Potter conversations with me know these aren't things I'm making up after reading spoilers or something (I've actually read no spoilers, mostly from lack of time - I read spoilers for the last two books judiciously).

Should be no surprise that I'm racing to get this up when I still haven't written up Del's birth story yet to people who know me, right? *blush*

I'm posting the theories as the first comment to this post so it doesn't potentially spoil anyone who stumbles upon this and doesn't want to read that kind of thing (but wants to read my other random ranting for some reason? Must be a relative looking for baby pictures - haven't updated those in a couple weeks either, sorry!).

edit: wow, even trying to keep it short, typing up my Potter theories in Word (so I could spell-check and auto-save in case Del projectile-spit-up on the keyboard or something) wound up being 5 full pages at 12 pt font with 1" margins... so be prepared for a very long read before you go read the theories I posted as the first comment to this!

personality matrix

Sabrina did one of these (not sure if she wants random folks who read my blog adding their insight into her personality, so I'm not linking to it) and so I did a new one (apparently I did one as "Ahmie" but then forgot to tell people was there - from the words selected I'm *pretty* sure that was me too). So I did a new one as dragonmama that reflects how I'm seeing myself right now as opposed to whenever the heck that was.

No more time to type right now.

edit because I don't feel like making a new post: went to the LCs at a nearby hospital today to buy a Medela nursing bra off them. Weighed Del. He's now 9lbs 9oz! Eek! He was 9oz even 6 days ago at his 2wk checkup.

edit because of MFB - he was 9LBS not 9OZ at his 2wk appointment. doh.

ok ok i'll post something postpartum

baby is here (in my lap as i type)... little baby boy Del (short for Delano, like the president) was born on 6/27/07 at 7:17am after 3.5 days of labor and close to 10 hours of on and off pushing (back labor and psoas muscle issues are a nasty combo). he was born at home, Garvin caught him. 7lbs 12oz, 19in long at birth. 9lbs and 20.5in long at his 2wk checkup this past Wednesday. breastfeeding like a champ, obviously. saw his first movie on Wednesday evening (HP&OOTP, what else?) with Auntie Serena, our family doctor and her family, and the family of one of the other doctors in the practice (10 seats, 11 people including Del, all together). i'll be posting the birth story on the yeungs.us website and putting the link in under the link to family pictures to your right, so it doesn't get buried as I get back to posting more regularly. pictures of Del and the rest of us are already up in in the family gallery tho I haven't added any in about a week now. Will try to add more later today. Need to make some phone calls to settle travel arrangements for Prophecy before I space out again.

Awake too early and really pissed at my spouse

You know, there's a REASON I tell the guy to do things a certain way. Like advising him to discuss Chinese names for this baby back in late February, before his father went to visit his brothers (who speak English better than he does), instead of being an idiot like last time and avoiding the subject until my last month of pregnancy. But no. Mister Conflict-Avoidant couldn't quite seem to bring up the discussion until the last few days, when I'm even CLOSER to my due date than I was when we had the big blow up about Liam's Chinese name (for those who don't already know, the first time they got Garvin's cousin to email me an attempt at spelling it for the birth certificate, the email I got said my firstborn son's name should be Charmin. Yes, exactly like the toilet paper. And it resulted in a big screaming argument over long-distance phone lines and me throwing slippers and such at walls until *I*, in all my resplendant late pregnancy patience, suggested we go with the Mandarin spelling and pronounciation instead, which is how the child came to have Zhuo-Ming on his birth certificate instead of a brand of toilet paper since his DADDY wouldn't fucking stand up and say "NO" to his grandfather about this).

So what's the problem? This time the suggestion for the second character (first is determined by generation) is Yin. For boy or girl. The way that the English-to-Cantonese websites spell the boy version is Cheuk-Yin. Not so bad, right? Here's the problem. When my fluent-Cantonese-speaking in-laws say Liam's name in Cantonese - Cheuk-Ming - it sounds to my English ears like "Chirk-min(g)" (the g is barely there). Now let's say it together with Yin instead of Ming... "Chirk-yin"... sounds an awful lot like "chicken" to me, especially after watching way too much Robot Chicken before going to bed last night (hey, it was the Star Wars special. Twice) and waking up to release a lot more liquid than I usually do into the toilet at 5am, making me wonder if I've sprung a little bit of a amno leak. Then going back to bed and having the baby get the hiccups... which distinctly felt like pecking at my lower uterus.

So I kicked Garvin out of bed at about 5:45 in tears after repeatedly trying to go back to sleep only to visualize giving birth to a baby boy covered in downy little white feathers every time I closed my eyes (ah, the joys of a pregnant brain). His dad is usually up at 5am anyway, I told Garvin that if *I* can't sleep because of something that is quite distinctively and avoidably his fault, there's no fucking way in hell he gets to sleep in either. He's downstairs now talking to his dad (maybe his mom too, don't know if she went into work early today or not). I don't feel the need to be part of the conversation but I swear, if he doesn't come back with some acceptable-to-English-ears options, if this baby is a boy his middle name will be Charles (after my grand-uncle who was the family photographer - sorry, Uncle Chuck, but I don't like your name enough for a first name). And I'm NOT going through the fuss of changing the name birth certificate later. The argument last time about "It's a good name in Chinese" stamp-stamp-stamp-pout-pout (from Garvin's father's end of the conversation - that was about all he'd say on the subject) doesn't hold water. They call Liam by his Cantonese name in public pretty much at every opportunity. I'm NOT having them call my second son what sounds like "chicken" in public. The kid's not growing up in Hong Kong, it's growing up in a ~95% native-English-speaking suburb of Cleveland (and that other very small minority of non-native English speakers are mostly Spanish speakers - if there are more than a handful of non-US-born Asian families in Lakewood I'd be surprised, from what I remember the census said there were ~800 Asians total in the suburb, quite likely including hapas like our kids).

The fact that Garvin's parents WON'T be refering to a second grandson by his English nickname doesn't help matters at all - the name we have picked out is Delano, Del for short... well... Del sounds like the Cantonese word for "throw away" (aka disposable). So they'll likely be relying on the Chinese name even more than they do for Liam (who I'd estimate gets called Cheuk-Ming about a quarter of the time by them, when they're just around the house... when we went out to lunch with their Cantonese-speaking friends from church, it was more like 80% of the time at least).

I consider myself a very patient preggo that my husband is not severely bruised at this point in time. I didn't even smack him repeatedly with the pillow. Especially considering that Liam was projectile vomiting last night for no decernable reason, setting off the mama hormones and preggo nose quite nicely, part of the reason that I didn't get to sleep until after 1:30am in the first place... so all this is on about 3.5hrs sleep (minus a bathroom trip and wake-up-in-pain-with-a-shin-splint in there somewhere).

No, I'm not always as calm as I sound over the phone

Didn't want this to be in the same post as saying welcome to the baby, even tho it's triggered this post directly. Now that he's out and from the sounds of it healthier than they even expected while Kathryn was laboring, I can let my breath out a little... Yes, Sabrina, I was containing my impulse to go spaz and I hid it from you because I knew you didn't need the extra stress, but someone due almost exactly when I am going into labor has/had me a little freaked out - in ways that are entirely MY issues and not anything to do with what Kathryn's family was dealing with. No, that DOESN'T mean you shouldn't have called me, I just tapped into my other supportive friends here (THANK YOU SERENA AND CLARE!!!!!!) and of course, Ravenclaw that I am, research research researched issues. The fact that we're planning a homebirth makes premature/preterm labor a bigger deal than for someone who had been planning a hospital birth all along - if this baby comes before June 9th (the day after school is out and when I am "officially" 36 weeks), it'll "have to" be in the hospital. I was watching Liam's birth video (finally figured out where it was on the computer - in a completely logical place that required I used the system search to find it of course) and while able to see that it was a really good hospital birth, there were so many unnecessary things that happened during it (including the nurse-midwife's verbal play-by-play commentary - yes, dearheart, I do have nerve endings that are firing just fine since they're not medicated, I know the head is out, if you don't want the rest of the baby flying out at warp speed and doing a bunjee jump toward the floor please shut your mouth, get your hands in position and STOP DISTRACTING ME! --- then the TWO times the suctioned him even tho he was crying quite lustily and not a gurgle to be heard, nice and pick, and BOTH times it interrupted him as he was just about to nurse... the fact that there were more strangers in the room than people I knew [5 hospital nurses vs. the CNM, my hubby, and my 2 friends], the big bright light they turned on in my face and having to rush to put plastic under my butt and move the bed/chair AGAIN right in the last few pushes... none of this was for my or Liam's benefit and it was REALLY annoying). As good as it was, as compared to the American standard of birth told via TLC's a Baby Story, it was still so disrupted and manipulated. The only way I'm letting that happen again is if there is a real medical indication (such as premature labor, or signs that the baby or I need closer monitoring). Yes, I'm going to pre-register at the hospital and make sure they have all the records accessible just in case, but I'm doing everything in my power to avoid going there. And I'm still freaking out about Garvin being more than 30 minutes away from me. And I'm having mild panic attacks about going into labor (early or on time or late!), being alone in the house with Liam and not being able to reach ANYONE on the phone to help except the 911 operator. I really need to get to know my new neighbors better. I swear, I'd catch the baby myself if the paramedics could hold Liam back from climbing on me while I pushed if there was no other medical reason to be at the hosptial, but the idea of birthing ALONE with the 3yo ANYWHERE (hospital or home or whatever) has me bugging out. Damn pregnancy hormones.

In other news, pictures from Liam's birthday party Saturday are up on our photos website (link at right). He and the other 2 kids that went to the movie (via the public transit train, no less) did REALLY well at the movie. I actually had less audio/focus difficulties than I did when Clare, Bryan, Garvin and I went to see Ghost Rider (when some old lady behind us kept saying "what'd he say?" every 2 minutes and "is he still the ghost rider" in between, totally disregarding the death glares I kept shooting her way). The movie is cute, but the plot is much less solid than the prior two movies. I do really like the resolution of the movie, and the kick-butt princess part is by far the best part of the movie (it comes near the end, of course). Large (diet) movie soda + popcorn + 8mos pregnant = very surprised that I made it through the movie without mad-dash to the bathroom (which was upstairs and on the other side of the lobby - eek!). Really proud of my son making it through his first feature-length in-theater film without running circles around the seats. He hadn't been into a theater since Goblet of Fire (I took him to a "Mommy & Me" screening of it with a friend), the last movie he'd SAT through in a theater was Shrek 2, funny enough (he was a couple months old at the time and incapable of independant locomotion - that helped). We may actually take him to see Order of the Phoenix the second time we see it in the theater (must see it without toddler distraction the first time, hopefully I'll have a newborn distracting me by then tho as it comes out a week after I'm due... I WILL see it opening day even if I'm still pregnant tho!).

In the last week (including yesterday) I actually broke down and created baby registries at Babies R Us and Target too, in case any of my dear readers are curious. The Target one should be extra amusing to look at - yes, every item on there DOES directly benefit the baby, you get to guess how... Especially since there's a toilet seat on the registry. I'm not joking, I'd actually really like to receive that particular item as a gift, and I'd put every single thing on both registries to use. At least at this point, every item is directly related to this birth/baby. Since I found out Target also does what Babies R Us does (which I didn't know about when I was pregnant with Liam but Clare says they did it when she did her wedding and baby registries) and gives the registry-maker 10% off items they purchase themselves after the "event" that they didn't receive as gifts, I may add a few more items that are less baby-related, but they are housewarming type things. In other words, don't be surprised to see power tools and adult-sized towels get added. Other things the baby could actually use are soft leather shoes (I found two pairs at Target yesterday that I could scan, but more would be nice) in solid neutral colors (cream, black, browns especially) - I didn't figure out the use of infant shoes until Liam was over 6mo and got really dilligent in his I-will-remove-these-socks efforts, but given that I'm now going to be outnumbered by kiddos while Garvin's at school (and Liam's enough to keep 5 adults busy and distracted at once all by himself), it makes sense to try to keep feet covered on colder days and such. Robeez is a good (if pricy) brand - the all-leather sandals Liam wore were that brand and the soles wore better than the ones from Target that I got him. Aside from the plain ones, this pair of course really caught my eye. I think the harliquin ones were Starchild shoes - that's a UK website, not finding a US one (I bought them off of a local mom who resells them. This particular pair off their website would likely be very popular with Garvin since he loved the 50% mommy 50% daddy outfit Liam had when he was tiny so much (and *I* like that the "50% mum" is on the RIGHT shoe ;) LOL). Too bad it's international shipping, not sure what the monetary conversion rate is right now. I'd be tempted to get them myself, even with international shipping and a less favorable exchange rate. We also stumbled upon what in the US is called "gdiapers" and I'm fascinated - this looks like a REAL eco-friendly diapering alternative because it minimizes washing (which is why in real examinations of the enviornmental impact, cloth diapers don't come out much ahead of disposables) and the "disposable" part is flushable/compostable. Very cool stuff. And it means if I forget the darn thing in the diaper bag after a change, it's not nearly as likely to be a problem as a full-cloth diaper (this was the major barrier to even really attempting cloth when Liam was small, I'd leave things in the diaper bag for a month at a stretch and that would be BAD with a dirty cloth diaper!) - the non-disposable part that can come in contact with pee/poop is supposed to air-dry in 10 minutes, and it's small enough to stick that bit in my pocket instead of the diaper bag or clip it to my purse or something while it dries if I need to rinse it out in a public bathroom instead of falling into the bowels of our "kiddos" backpack (ah, the unmentioned joys of breastfeeding and not needing an insulated obviously baby-specific diaper bag).

Piglet Movie is not distracting Liam anymore at the minute, better stop typing.

Fetal Pornography

Well, went for the mid-semester ultrasound today. Different tech but she agrees with the first trimester tech (who is on maternity leave) that I'm due more than a week earlier than I think (conveniently enough they gave me a due date that exactly matches up with ovulating 14 days after my LMP - exceedingly unlikely given I've never had an unmedicated regular menstral cycle, worse since Liam was born, and my "average" cycle was around 40 days, hence the Dollar Tree ovulation predictor tests we were using to concieve this kidlet). Luckily my doctor, who knows me well and knows that I do keep track of things such as this (I bring in the calendars, dude), set the due date in my chart to a mid-point between what going by the ovulation test says and what the US says, hence we have 7/7/07 as the due date for the ticker above. I just really don't want to get nagged about getting induced when I don't even think my due date has passed yet.

On to the fetal pornography promised in the title. The tech also claims that this is a male fetus. Personally, I think she got a shot of the umbilical cord (she was shooting directly down from the butt on a rather elderly looking 2D machine - I'd date it as minimum 5 years old, being generous - she said the machine was capable of 3D but really didn't do it well, 3D has been available since 1987 according to wikipedia so the darn thing could be well over a decade old). To support my hypothesis, I present the "money shots" from this fetus and from Liam - note that I am allegedly more than 20wks now (I say 19wks 2 days) and Liam's ultrasounds didn't give us a conclusive gender until 36 weeks (the scan was done exactly a month before he was born, when I was sent to confirm that he was, in fact, head down as I had told the midwife I was positive he had been since the last time they scanned me at 29 weeks, which had been to get a clear shot of his face, since he hadn't cooperated at the 18wk scan - kept his arm in the way and wouldn't roll over - and had been too small at the 6wk scan I'd had to figure out my due date THAT time since LMP would have had them pushing me for an induction by HIS actual due date).

Here is Piglet's money shot (the bright white labels are mine):

And here's Liam's:

(the penis is the little round thing directly to the left of the word "penis")

So why am I so certain that the first one is umbilical cord? Well.... let's just say that none of the males in my family that I've seen nude (including my two younger brothers) would qualify as having porn-star potential, and the proportions indicated in the Piglet's ultrasound are *ahem* greater than the proportions Liam gets when he has a full-on toddler boner.

I'm not saying that it's definately NOT a boy, just that I'm pretty sure that's not a penis even if there might be scrotum next to it... and the tech didn't really get a chance to conclusively rule out the other bits being labia - Piglet wasn't being cooperative (kept laying with hir back to my front and refusing to turn).

Anyway, here are the more general-interest images...

Profile (face is on the far right of the triangle area, for those completely unfamiliar with reading these blots):


Another profile, with fist in the shot (especially for "mean, angry" Uncle Eric):

And here's what I look like as of about 2 hours ago:




The most important thing verified in this ultrasound (apart from all the necessary-for-life-and-health bits being present) is that there is, in fact, only one fetus present. I'm showing as much now as I was at about 7 months gestation with Liam which had me rather worried!

new ticker, which you probably already noticed

Since it's colorful and ABOVE what you're reading right now, you've probably already spotted the change I made to this blog's header - very cool little tool I stumbled upon with my regular (well, for me in my non-linear way of being regular as in being my regular self) googles for week-by-week pregnancy pictures and such. Maybe I'll actually visit my own blog occasionally ;) Oh, and Sabrina, hopefully this is enough to tell you to show Katherine the tool in case it would also amuse her - you'd just gone off to bed when I found it and I'm likely to forget to tell you verbally. You know how it is... ;)