It's been so weird for me not having internet access - it's good to take a break from it for a while, but I really missed it. It's like not having a good knife in the kitchen. (Or a cutting board - which is something that we haven't yet retreived from storage - I have a few of them, and of course they're all in the same box together and it WASN'T the one marked "kitchen essentials".)

I have DSL now, which was a much cheaper and easier proposition than I had anticipated. The modem was free and I picked the slowest option, which is less than the cable was. I notice the speed difference when I am downloading something, but for the bulk of what I do, it's no big deal.

It's really funny for me to read my last entry now because Steve has been working on Long Island for the past two weeks. So there I was saying that we were comng up here to be with him and it turned out that we STILL haven't been able to be with him. He just didn't have work up here yet and an empty bank account and a two week job opportunity on Long Island pretty much set up this situation.

He's been coming back on weekends to help set up house and birthing space and then going back on Sunday nights to work for the week. It's been really hard in a way, but we've also been grateful that he at least has work down there. It would have been much worse if he was here but we couldn't make our first mortgage payment.

I had one difficult day this past week where my hips started to really ache in the night. I typically get up now every one to two hours to pee. I hobble around for a minute and then my hips work it out and I'm fine, but this past Tuesday morning, they weren't working it out and I was feeling really crippled. It was very upsetting because I still had a long list of things to do to get ready for the birth and it felt like I might be incapacitated. I called my midwife that morning to talk to her about it and in the middle of the conversation my phone went dead. I didn't realize what a fine thread was holding me together until that happened. I just snapped and couldn't stop crying. I scared poor Aidan. I just suddenly felt so vulnerable.

All turned out fine in the end - I still don't know why the phone wasn't working - but it served to really put me in high gear to get ready for this birth. I got home from picking up another phone from a friend's house and the first phone was working. So now I have two just in case. I hobbled to Wal-Mart hell in the snow to get the items on the list of supplies that I was supposed to have for the homebirth. I had a conversation with Steve about how we would feel if he missed the birth. We both agreed that we could handle it and that he should stay and continue to work, but it was a comfort to have the conversation. It was a very intense day.

And the next day I was back to normal. The pain in my hips was gone. The phone was still working and hasn't been a problem since. Some friends came over and helped me set up the birthing tub. I felt strong and happy again. I don't think I have ever in my life had so many people around me who are willing to help with whatever I need and I feel so blessed. I just really need to have a phone so I can call them when I need them.

It's still hard for me to imagine birthing here. It takes a long time to make any place feel like home. Most every day a little something gets done to make it more comfortable. Yesterday I met the neighbors for the first time and that felt like a huge accomplishment. They were very nice and I got their phone number, so I feel like I could even call on them in an emergency.

We have a room set up downstairs as a birthing room - it has a twin bed in it with plastic between the sheet and the mattress, the birthing tub, all of our supplies, an office chair on wheels, covered windows, a space heater and Aidan's puppet theater hanging in the doorway as a curtain. It's a pretty sparse space, but just having the windows covered has made a huge difference.

Steve will be back, hopefully for good, tomorrow night or Tuesday. He's been working through the weekend and was only home for the day on Friday this week.

Aidan was sick last night and that's why I was able to write his birth story. He was all better by the morning. His sicknesses are like that a lot. He just burns through them with a quick fever.

I just finished reading Hope Dies Last by Studs Terkel. It's the second of his books that I've read in the past year. I read Race this summer. I think that I want to BE Studs Terkel. I want to use media for activism the way that he does. It's intelligent and sensitive and broadminded.

But for now, I'm having a baby.