Yes, 'tis true, 'tis true.  In just 17 short weeks, give or take, a tiny, wet human will emerge from the soupy mixture of genetic material recently donated by yours truly and my partner, who is now plump and glowing and amazing.  At the apex of our second trimester, things are progressing quickly.  'Twas only a handful of weeks ago that the baby looking something like this:

At a comfy 22 weeks, our baby is now nearly a foot long and proudly showing off her/his (we'll know when they're born and not a day sooner) tiny little spine, hands and feet plus a stunning ribcage protecting a whole host of blobby, grainy lines that we're told are organs.  Oh, and not to mention a big ol' heartbeat of around 140 beats per minute to go along with a round-the-clock penchant for doing the Lambada.  And that's the forbidden dance!

Needless to say, this has been not only a surreal and often terrifying experience, it has also been highly educational.  I now know more than I ever really wanted to know about the esoteric science of cloth diapers.  And of course, the politics of childbirth.  For example:

In the US, just 8% of births use midwives, yet midwives attend 90 percent of normal births in Germany and virtually all normal births in Denmark and France. There is a whole feminist view of the denial of women's autonomy involved in the history of shifting power over births in the US from a female-dominated widwife profession to a male-dominated obstretrician hierarchy, but along with the overall medicalization of birth, the changes also are part and parcel of the ridiculous costs of the US health care system. As Marsden Wagner, former director of Women's and Children's Health for the World Health Organization, recently wrote:

Midwifery is far cheaper than obstetrics for two reasons. On average, obstetricians take home a net income in the neighborhood of $200,000 a year, whereas midwives earn about one-quarter of that. Equally important, the cost of the obstetric interventions, such as induction and C-section, performed unnecessarily can easily be cut in half by having midwives, rather than obstetricians, assist at normal births.

As opposed to much of Europe, including the UK, midwifery in Ireland is still outside the norm alongside the pervasive myth that pregnancy is a form of illness best treated by physicians.  Fortunately, the state now provides access to an excellent team of experienced midwives if you're fortunate enough to live within their limited service area (we do) and have the foresight to book in at the moment of conception (which we did).  So mark your calendars for January 9th my friends and, if you're feeling particularly jubilant, why not drop the site a donation so I don't have to choose between diapers and blogging?  My unborn child will thank you for it!

Yeah, that's right ... I'm pimping my first-born to solicit donations.  Sue me!