We moved to Iowa City a couple days before New Years. Days later, we decided to move out of the rather dumpy place we had chosen from a distance, which entailed a lot of headaches and stress, but thankfully we were able to pay to get out of the lease and found a temporary place. Now we are moving again, and we sure hope it’s the last time for a couple years….lease signed until August 2013! This is where Cricket will be born, and we couldn’t be more excited about that. The one bedroom house on a gravel road in town backs up to a beautiful cemetery and park, and was actually featured in a painting by Grant Wood. It was built in 1848!
Between Texas and here we had quite the adventures...first selling our car in one day on Craigslist after having packed it up, upon realizing it might not make the journey (which was nice in the end, because we got to come up together in Justin's truck, but with less stuff than anticipated). Kansas City for the holidays and my grandparents' 70th wedding anniversary. Then Des Moines for a few days. And finally to Iowa City...with all our crap.
Here in Iowa City, Justin is working as an assistant-teacher at the Montessori School of Iowa City and I am doing some office work for my midwife and the midwife who I will very soon be doing births with. I was nannying for a 6mth old, but I started having a lot of contractions and wound up in the hospital overnight being treated for preterm labor, so I promptly stopped that work. The hospital experience was pretty icky, but ultimately good for me as a midwife…it’s all part of my journey in learning and experiencing different aspects of pregnancy and birth. I just thank God, Allah, the Devine, Universe, etc that I am not going to have to have the baby in the hospital… a few hours of being strapped to the monitor and I understood on a bodily level why so many women end up with C-Sections and epidurals in the hospital—you just become so disconnected from your body, not to mention become so physically uncomfortable and agitated! I was on bedrest for awhile and am just now getting back to normalish activity. I really miss going for nice long walks and yoga classes though! Soon enough I’ll be back to it, but I am still having a lot of contractions (several an hour), so I try to take it easy.
Other than that, Justin and I have been fighting lots of colds due to lack of sleep (from last week’s events), stress, and bugs from the Montessori school making their way home. Justin is also getting more and more involved with a farm 10 miles north of Iowa City, where he will be working full-time this summer, and hopes to get a little bee/honey operation going there as well asap.
The weather here is beautiful. I can’t help but delight in the sunshine, but Justin keeps reminding me that this is not normal weather and the prairie is suffering… yeaahhh but... :(
That’s it for now! I’ll be doing a 10-day meditation sit the first week and a half of March, so I shall be incommunicado.
Love!
Our little Cricket (this was almost 5 weeks ago at 22wks)
26wks
