Depending on what forum or channel I’ve been in, the letters FF have meant Fancy Feast, Final Fantasy, Firefox, Fertility Friend, or formula-fed. Pretty soon, I might start assuming it will mean something new everywhere I go online. I wonder what the future holds for my usage of FF.

I finally got an iPhone! Don’t ask me why Telia Lyngby never bothered calling, even though we were on a waiting list. We got it from Telia Ballerup. I so love it.

A couple days ago, I listened to the latest Pregtastic podcast. It was the last time I’ll listen to Pregtastic, at least for a long, long time. I listened to the last few, even though I’m not pregnant anymore, because there were a couple about life with a new baby, and then a couple of birth stories. When one of the women on the show gives birth, she leaves the show, but will come back a few weeks later to share her story. I still like birth stories, even though my own birth story kinda sucked.

Anyway, this woman is sharing her story, and mentioned that she had a cervical lip. I’d never heard the term before but I knew immediately that I had had one too…especially when the woman mentioned that the doctor’s attempts to move the lip out of the way were way more excruciating than anything else that had happened. I did a bit of investigation and it seems that they’re quite common. Basically, the cervix doesn’t dilate uniformly, so sometimes it isn’t a perfect round or oval shape. No big shock there. So even though you might be dilated 10 cm, there might be a part that has yet to get out of the way. Fair enough. Apparently the consensus amongst midwives is to wait for it to move, but that ignores the issue that I and the woman on Pregtastic had, which is that when a woman has that desire to push, there’s only so long she can avoid pushing, and pushing against that lip can make it swell up. It doesn’t take much to realize swelling up something that’s already in the way is bad.

So the next line of attack is to forcibly move it by hand. Both I and the other woman found this to be extremely painful and not at all helpful. The other woman had been in a birth center attached to a hospital, and at this point was moved to labor and delivery within the hospital, where they suctioned the baby out and they lived happily ever after. In my case, this still wouldn’t have worked because the doctor discovered Dagmar’s head was tilted poorly. That’s something I still haven’t found info on.

I subscribe to a lot of blog feeds, and several blogs I read make a habit of always telling me where to find the next (fill in the blank) Blog Carnival! I admit that I skip over those posts. I just don’t care about your blog carnival. Sorry. It’s kinda like how I hardly ever subscribe to magazines because you have all these pages but I’m only going to read three of them. Blog carnivals are free, I know, but it takes time to read through and decide which links I care about, and I’m lazy.

I finally found a blog carnival I think I can get into. I’ve already read about half the links so far. It’s like picking up a magazine you actually want to read most of. Skeptical Parenting Crossing is a breath of fresh air after countless parenting sites and forums that are really just pep rallies for whatever the dominant parenting style is there. I hope the future SPCs are equally awesome. I’ll definitely be checking for it.

I know my one and only recommendation advised against it, but I made a separate site for Dagmar stuff. My parents don’t read this site, and they are surely more interested in the minutae of her development than memes I fill out about high school, so it’s more for them than anything. I’m sure she’ll still get mentioned over here, but I’ll keep her growth updates or any talk about cracked nipples or whatever over there.

She smiles now. To see it, check out The Dagmar Diary.

This isn't an atheist blog, in the sense of being a blog about atheism, so it's hardly surprising no one tagged me. But this is a blog by an atheist, I read atheist blogs, and I thought this meme was interesting and would be fun to do.

Can you remember the day that you officially became an atheist?

I love the word officially here, as if I had to get my atheist certification notarized or something. I don't remember any such day. I was an atheist for a while before I knew the term applied to me, and even getting to that point was a slow, gradual process over several years. There was no significant moment when I said, "ah, so I lack a belief in a deity," nor one where I said, "ah, so I'm an atheist now."
But wait! There's more!

I hate ads. OK, sometimes they are cute or funny, but you can get cute and funny out of lots of things without trying to sell products in such a way that people feel like they want them even though they don't know anything about them. Plus ads take up space and/or airtime that I'd almost certainly rather have for something else, or even nothing at all.

So I'm going to do my part towards a happy world where ads aren't necessary by passing on recommendations via word-of-mouth, or post-of-blog. Here are the products that make my life as a new mother better.

My Brest Friend - OK, I hate this name. I think it's quite possibly one of the worst product names I've ever seen. But I love this nursing pillow anyway. It stays put. It has back support. It's stiff enough yet soft enough. My only complaint is that "sunburst" should not be the name of a primarily blue print. EU mums: If you aren't in the UK, Ireland, Germany, or Cyprus, Express Yourself Mums ships to other countries and won't have silly import duties like North American sites.

LilyPadz - I'm not wild about the z in this name, but enough with the name gripes, eh? They keep you from milking up your clothes, and you can wear them without a bra. Love.

I'm still in love with my Gaia & Ko diaper bag.

But the number one best thing to have around during these early days of my mommyhood is my husband Thomas. How awesome is he for staying home for 6 weeks from work? Very. Now back to your regularly scheduled programming.