knocked up

42 weeks and counting...

I was 42 weeks pregnant yesterday. I had a biophysical profile done on Thursday, which showed that both baby and I are perfectly healthy... so we carry on. Time is passing slowly now, and although I am showing signs of impending delivery, actual labor has yet to set in. And so we wait. This one wanted to be an aquarius, I suppose. I looked up the aquarius sign... they march to the beat of their own drummers... fitting.

In case you have never seen a pregnant person at 42 weeks (which I would guess you haven't since most women are induced by this point) here are a few shots I took this evening. I took them past sunset, so the exposures were long, up to 5 seconds long actually, and the ISO was bumped as high as it could go giving them a grainy, artsy quality. I dig it. In a few you can see my other 2 children running amok, streaks of light and color moving through the images... it was fun to shoot.

NaDa.

My cousin is here with her girls. I apparently don't go into labor if we have too much company. This is the 3rd time this has happened. I should have known.

Oh well, no tax deduction for 2008. I do hope she comes soon. I am getting very large and frustrated and uncomfortable. The girls are leaving tomorrow, though, so maybe tomorrow. Until then....

No baby yet....

Still no baby. Maybe Saturday.

So, to kill time, here are some self portraits I made. The first ones were from Christmas morning, before we opened up some presents. Ho, Ho Ho!!

The rest I took with the help of my new remote control for my camera. What a cool toy! Merry Chrismakkah to me.

And yes, I did actually measure my belly. 45"... can you imagine? And this is SMALL for me during pregnancy! You know, I usually am a 27"... in my magic mirror anyway.

Next, self portraits with faces!

Before opening presents:

After opening presents:

With help from Di:

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My own belly...

Last weekend, my friend Kath helped me shoot some maternity portraits... of myself. I got the camera set up and would do a few shots to show her the framing, and then she went to town trying to get the exact shot I wanted. I think she did a swell job, don't you? I was 35 weeks 3 days...

Kath in a test shot... (yes that is a pillow in there)

The resulting shot of me...

More tea

So here is another of my favorites from this session. Lovely Jenny has a similar image which was made when she was pregnant with Little Miss. This one strikes me because I am quite certain the first image was very beautiful, clean and crisp, everything in order and in place. Now,however, her life has changed. Still beautiful, but messier, in a happy sort of way. Life won't be this untidy forever, that is certain, but for right now, the Tiger ears and the bare toes, the toys strewn across the floor and the just-read books laying nearby.. that is the beauty of right now.

Tempest in a Teapot

So, for the past few weeks I have been struggling to get a handle on "Glucose Intolerance of Pregnancy", a diagnosis just short of gestational diabetes. I have been exceptionally stressed out, sleeping very little, keeping a very strict diet, and excercising more than I have in... well... let's not talk about that.

Unfortunately this has all coincided with a time when I am supposed to be editing up a few sessions, one of those being the gracious and eloquent Jenny, who is due with her #2 just a few days before I am due with my #3. Well, I have founf one of my favorite images of the session and wanted to post it here for her. I've never taken one quite like this before, but for some reason I really, really, love it.


There will be a few more to post, I am certain... for now I am off to another shoot.

The little Egg that Could

My friend K is pregnant for the third time. Not usually a very huge deal, I know, but this pregnancy is pretty amazing. Her first two were through invitro, and after the second one the doctors had two blastocysts left over. The doctors didn't implant these last two because they didn't seem strong enough. Sure enough one of them fizzled out, but the second one suddenly started growing. The doctors asked K and her husband what they would like to do with the extra embryo..destroy it or freeze it. They decided to freeze it, the destruction of it was a rather distasteful thought.

So, last year when the bank where it was being stored told them they needed to decide what to do with it, K and her husband chose to go ahead and try to implant it. With the first two pregnancies, they had 3 live embryos implanted, and only one survived each time. Apparently the thawing process itself is rather traumatic, and they didn't expect this last frozen embryo to survive. But it did. They went ahead with the IVF and that little egg that could made himself right at home. CONGRATULATIONS K!!

I am taking a series of photographs of K. The first is the embryo itself, the second and third are from her 1st ultrasound. I am going to take similar pictures featuring each of the followup ultrasounds and then one with the little guy after he is born. It should be a cool timeline for them.