Strangest turn of events. I am pregnant again. This time, after hardly trying. We had talked about trying for no. 2 -- and after much deliberation, mapped out the best time to start trying. When the little guy is 8 months old? No, that's too soon. How about at 10 months. Maybe that's better. You think that's good? Don't you? You don't think that may be a little too late? I'll be almost 40 by then. Maybe 8 months is better. Yeah, maybe that's better.
Little T's eighth month came and went. And we weren't really doing much about it. Work was busy, and I wasn't looking forward to being bogged down with pregnancy slumber. Three months later, we still weren't trying. Which seemed to matter little at the time. Except that I missed the pounds that came off from breast feeding.
Now, a month after T turned one, I find myself pregnant. I hardly even kept track of my periods -- and the other day, I suddenly realized that I hadn't had my period the whole time we've been in San Diego. And we've been in San Diego for exactly one month.
So I rushed out and bought some pregnancy test sticks. And tested myself -- and was amazed to find myself pregnant. Not that I had such difficulty getting pregnant the first time around. I had more difficulty staying pregnant. But here I am -- pregnant once again.
The first thought that ran through my mind was how horribly I've been eating for the past months. Hot dogs. Daily cups of coffee. Occasional glasses of wine. Hardly any vegetables -- except bits of olives, mushrooms, and onions on my pizza. And not a single vitamin. For some reason, my diet had been worse than usual. I'll blame it on the move and my hectic schedule.
I remember reading about how spina bifida is determined during the first few weeks of gestation. And how I am low on my folic acid.
I started popping my vitamins again like an addict. I made a big vat of creamed broccoli soup -- for me, little T, and No. 2 -- which I downed along with celery sticks and carrots. I stopped the coffee cold turkey, and caught myself as I started shoving soft cheese and crackers down my throat. And warned Jeff that I would no longer be picking up bottles of pinot noir on my trips to Whole Foods.
It's time to get back on the regimen -- whatever it takes to ensure the well being of this little person growing inside of me. And cross my fingers that this one is a keeper.
Showing posts with label Pregnancy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Pregnancy. Show all posts
Tuesday, November 9, 2010
Sunday, July 19, 2009
Tête-à-Tête
A couple of weeks ago, I had some spotting, so Jeff and I drove straight to the emergency room. The comfort of being this far along is that on our way, I felt the baby moving and I knew he was ok. We still went in though, just to make sure everything was really ok.
The ob-gyn emergency room at CPMC was practically empty when we walked in.
After a nurse set us up in a room, a second one walked in. She must have been in her 60's, rather large, with red blotches all over her skin.
She said, "You've been in here a couple of times for this already."
"I've been here once," I said. "In my first trimester."
"Yes, week 11," she replied.
I looked at Jeff, who looked back at me with raised eyebrows.
I had been told that having intercourse can cause spotting, so I dutifully told the nurse, "We had sex this morning."
She pivoted her eyes to Jeff. As she glared at him, she said, "Well, maybe you shouldn't."
Jeff sat straighter in his chair and said, "We've been told it's safe to have sex during pregnancy."
She replied, "Like I said, maybe you shouldn't."
She had me lie down on my back, even though I told her that I'd read that I shouldn't lie on my back after week 20. She just pushed me back on the bed and told me not to worry. I was still worried. She hooked up a heartbeat monitor to my belly and left the room. As soon as she left, I shifted my torso to remove the pressure from my back.
When the doctor examined me almost an hour later, she warmly reassured me that I was fine and said that spotting can be caused by anything, even the hour-long walk Jeff and I took that afternoon. When we asked if it was a problem to have sex, she said it may be prudent to stop for two weeks, but that's just an arbitrary guideline that has no scientific basis.
As soon as the doctor left and Jeff stepped out to use the restroom, the nurse put her hand on my arm and leaned in closer, tête-à-tête.
"Put him out to pasture, honey," she said. "Aren't men something?"
The ob-gyn emergency room at CPMC was practically empty when we walked in.
After a nurse set us up in a room, a second one walked in. She must have been in her 60's, rather large, with red blotches all over her skin.
She said, "You've been in here a couple of times for this already."
"I've been here once," I said. "In my first trimester."
"Yes, week 11," she replied.
I looked at Jeff, who looked back at me with raised eyebrows.
I had been told that having intercourse can cause spotting, so I dutifully told the nurse, "We had sex this morning."
She pivoted her eyes to Jeff. As she glared at him, she said, "Well, maybe you shouldn't."
Jeff sat straighter in his chair and said, "We've been told it's safe to have sex during pregnancy."
She replied, "Like I said, maybe you shouldn't."
She had me lie down on my back, even though I told her that I'd read that I shouldn't lie on my back after week 20. She just pushed me back on the bed and told me not to worry. I was still worried. She hooked up a heartbeat monitor to my belly and left the room. As soon as she left, I shifted my torso to remove the pressure from my back.
When the doctor examined me almost an hour later, she warmly reassured me that I was fine and said that spotting can be caused by anything, even the hour-long walk Jeff and I took that afternoon. When we asked if it was a problem to have sex, she said it may be prudent to stop for two weeks, but that's just an arbitrary guideline that has no scientific basis.
As soon as the doctor left and Jeff stepped out to use the restroom, the nurse put her hand on my arm and leaned in closer, tête-à-tête.
"Put him out to pasture, honey," she said. "Aren't men something?"
Wednesday, July 8, 2009
End of Phase II
This is the final week of my second trimester. Next week, I enter the final stretch. I can't believe I've made it this far, and the little guy is kicking and well. I am so happy every time I feel him move. Jeff has also felt him move several times, and each time it happens, he looks at me as if it is the most incredible thing on earth. It is.
The second trimester has been incredibly easy. Besides the kicking, I barely feel pregnant, even though that is I what I think about every waking moment. I've been full of energy, and I have to restrain myself from working on baby stuff 24/7. Not that there is that much to do, but all I want to do is get ready for this guy and read up on parenting. I have to force myself to pick up non-baby books, and I finally started reading my bookclub book for this Sunday.
A friend recently told me, "It's great being pregnant. You're never alone."
I love that thought.
Now that I'm not alone, I treat myself better than I ever did. Eating has been the main difference. I thought I ate relatively healthy before, but I never went out of my way to eat a balanced meal. I assumed somewhere along the line, it would balance out. Nowadays, I rarely eat a meal without a mound of vegetables. And at least two glasses of milk a day. And tons of fruit. Nurturing a little guy is a big responsibility.
Despite my initial anxiety about the weight gain, I am so proud of my protruding belly these days. A couple of days ago, a stranger finally noticed my belly and asked how far along I was. I started beaming. I find myself walking around with my hands rubbing my belly, as if to call attention to it, as if to remind myself that he's in there, as if to let him know that I'm protecting him.
The second trimester has been incredibly easy. Besides the kicking, I barely feel pregnant, even though that is I what I think about every waking moment. I've been full of energy, and I have to restrain myself from working on baby stuff 24/7. Not that there is that much to do, but all I want to do is get ready for this guy and read up on parenting. I have to force myself to pick up non-baby books, and I finally started reading my bookclub book for this Sunday.
A friend recently told me, "It's great being pregnant. You're never alone."
I love that thought.
Now that I'm not alone, I treat myself better than I ever did. Eating has been the main difference. I thought I ate relatively healthy before, but I never went out of my way to eat a balanced meal. I assumed somewhere along the line, it would balance out. Nowadays, I rarely eat a meal without a mound of vegetables. And at least two glasses of milk a day. And tons of fruit. Nurturing a little guy is a big responsibility.
Despite my initial anxiety about the weight gain, I am so proud of my protruding belly these days. A couple of days ago, a stranger finally noticed my belly and asked how far along I was. I started beaming. I find myself walking around with my hands rubbing my belly, as if to call attention to it, as if to remind myself that he's in there, as if to let him know that I'm protecting him.
Monday, June 15, 2009
Notions of Womanhood
I've been attending a sewing class all week. At 2:00 in the afternoon. While almost everyone else I know is at work. In fact, around noon on Monday, when most people were stepping out to take a break from his or her office, I found myself rummaging around Britex Fabrics, less than three blocks from where I used to work, looking for a pattern to use in my class. And fingering through swaths of cotton to select the appropriate texture and design for my project. And rummaging through mounds of ribbons and webbings to find the right notions (a new word I learned that day).
When I walked down the street to a nearby mall to grab a bite to eat, past mobs of people in their business attire, a part of me felt like an imposter. You know, the person who does not belong. The kid playing hooky. There I was in my strappy sandals, a coral skort, my black fleece. Like another tourist in the middle of San Francisco's Union Square. No business casual for me.
Early last year, when I was pregnant the first time around before I was fired, Jeff asked me (very gingerly) whether I wanted to keep working after we have the baby or whether we should look into alternative arrangements. I remember feeling stumped for an answer. I have no idea, I said. The thought of not returning to work scared me. What if no one hires me once I decide to return? Wouldn't I be jeopardizing my entire career by taking a break? Besides, what would I do with myself? Does the baby really need me full time? Could I become one of those women who stay at home to raise a kid?
And even if I wanted to be a full-time mom, would I dare admit it?
Even saying that maybe I wouldn't mind a period of staying at home seemed like too much of an admission. What kind of a throwback to women's lib would I be to say such a thing publicly? A lot of suffering and fighting went into giving me the option of being able to participate beyond the domestic sphere. Besides, other women manage to work and raise their children. Why couldn't I? What if people assume I'm freeloading off of my husband? Or typecast me as one of those women who have nothing else in their lives but the baby?
So the picture of pregnant me taking a sewing class when everyone else is at work strikes me as a bit much. What happened to all my concerns about living up to my professional womanhood? Wasn't there a time when I would have bragged that I simply don't have the time to sit around and sew loose buttons on a jacket?
I'm not really sure what happened, but living up to my professional womanhood no longer concerns me as much. Sure, I still have my cases that I'm handling and the writing projects I'm working on, but putting them on hold for a couple of years while I focus on the baby seems to be less of an issue. Maybe because my desire to protect my career -- or at least my big lawfirm career -- evaporated when I sent my mass email. Maybe from the other side of that career implosion, I now realize there are more choices -- and more flexibility -- than I had assumed, and choosing one role does not necessarily preclude the other, at least not forever.
For now, I'm planning to be a (mostly) full-time mom for at least the first couple of years of the kid's life (and his brothers' or sisters', if we are lucky enough to have more than one kid). And then I'll try to establish a part-time solo practice, as I'm doing now, while continuing to work on my writing.
Who says I can't be a writer/lawyer/mom who makes cute little lady bug hats? What do you guys think of my second completed project from my class? It's for the little guy. I have to admit that I'm quite proud of it. I feel like I'm making up for lost time for skipping home ec in high school. And feeling incredibly lucky now to have found the time -- and to have the choice.
Our New Phase
Maternal instinct had been knocking at my door for some time now, but I had kept it at bay until a couple of months ago. After the spina bifida ultrasound, the floodgates opened and I have been swimming in it since.
First, it started with a simple list. A to-do list. No lawyer is complete without her to-do list, and it appears mothers-to-be suffer from the same affliction. The list began with ten or so general items, such as "Read parenting books," "Buy baby gear," and "Organize house for baby." The one list has since proliferated to at least 10 different ones, including "Baby Gear," "To Do Before Baby's Arrival," "Feeding Tips," "Sleeping Tips," "Car Safety," "Medical Tips," "To Do for Delivery," and so on and so on. Each list is peppered with details. For example, under "Baby Gear," I have "Car Seat" listed as item number 3. This particular item is followed by 15 different points to consider during purchase, such as "Look for straps that clip, not just slide in" and "Thicker belts that don't twist are better."
I put my lists on google docs, where I can share them with Jeff, who is reminded no less than five times a week that the lists are to be examined regularly since they are constantly evolving. And that the due date is drawing closer and closer and closer. And that we really need to get going on some of the items on the list, like cleaning out our second bedroom and moving our furniture around to make room for the crib and all the baby things we'll be getting. And that they should have been done yesterday, and they're still not crossed off the list!
Urgency is the word that best characterizes my current sense of momentum. In my rational mind, I know that four months is more than enough time to prepare for the little guy. I mean, how demanding can he really be? Babies just need food, sleep, and shelter, right? And we are currently equipped to handle such demands. But another voice from somewhere in the crevice of my mind starts to shrill at the least unexpected moments. Four months?! Four months?! How the hell are you going to be ready in just four months! Just four months to read all these books, to research all the gears, to learn to become a parent! To become responsible for a little human being who can't even keep his head from rolling around.
In addition to this maniac, another strange being seems to have inhabited my body. All of a sudden, I find myself signing up for a sewing class. Sewing class?! I am the person who couldn't be bothered to sew a button on a shirt. Why waste the time when I can simply drop it off at the dry cleaners? Some of my casual pants have been cut off with a scissors because I couldn't even be bothered to take them to the cleaners for alteration. I've never even used a sewing machine. And here I am having fantasies of sewing my childrens' Halloween costumes.
And then there's the knitting. I blame my friend Hugo for this. Shortly after his mother passed away, he brought down a box of his old baby clothes his mother had saved during his entire life, which spans over four decades. In the box were elaborately decorated sweaters the size of my two palms. Along with socks, hats, and mittens the size of my fingers. Imagine, mittens for a baby born in Brazil! Each wrapped individually in plastic bags, protected from the environment and time. These were the clothes she had knit for him while she waited for his arrival. His dear mother, who had her only child at the age of 40. How she must have longed for him. And how she waited and prepared. I came home from that visit and longed to learn how to knit. Me, who always assumed knitting must be such a bore and only saw the hazard and liability in carrying around long needles.
Let's not even get into the photography class that starts this week or the baby album I've already purchased or the Thomas the Engine song that has been stuck in the head the last two days. Or the contentment I felt at my friend's daughter's 3d birthday picnic where I spent my day on Saturday.
So many changes. So many changes that feel perfectly natural. As Jeff and I discussed over dinner last night, we couldn't feel readier. Even as we sit surrounded by our to-do lists. We're ready to hold the little guy in our arms and nuzzle him with our noses. To fill him with our love.
Just four more months...
First, it started with a simple list. A to-do list. No lawyer is complete without her to-do list, and it appears mothers-to-be suffer from the same affliction. The list began with ten or so general items, such as "Read parenting books," "Buy baby gear," and "Organize house for baby." The one list has since proliferated to at least 10 different ones, including "Baby Gear," "To Do Before Baby's Arrival," "Feeding Tips," "Sleeping Tips," "Car Safety," "Medical Tips," "To Do for Delivery," and so on and so on. Each list is peppered with details. For example, under "Baby Gear," I have "Car Seat" listed as item number 3. This particular item is followed by 15 different points to consider during purchase, such as "Look for straps that clip, not just slide in" and "Thicker belts that don't twist are better."
I put my lists on google docs, where I can share them with Jeff, who is reminded no less than five times a week that the lists are to be examined regularly since they are constantly evolving. And that the due date is drawing closer and closer and closer. And that we really need to get going on some of the items on the list, like cleaning out our second bedroom and moving our furniture around to make room for the crib and all the baby things we'll be getting. And that they should have been done yesterday, and they're still not crossed off the list!
Urgency is the word that best characterizes my current sense of momentum. In my rational mind, I know that four months is more than enough time to prepare for the little guy. I mean, how demanding can he really be? Babies just need food, sleep, and shelter, right? And we are currently equipped to handle such demands. But another voice from somewhere in the crevice of my mind starts to shrill at the least unexpected moments. Four months?! Four months?! How the hell are you going to be ready in just four months! Just four months to read all these books, to research all the gears, to learn to become a parent! To become responsible for a little human being who can't even keep his head from rolling around.
In addition to this maniac, another strange being seems to have inhabited my body. All of a sudden, I find myself signing up for a sewing class. Sewing class?! I am the person who couldn't be bothered to sew a button on a shirt. Why waste the time when I can simply drop it off at the dry cleaners? Some of my casual pants have been cut off with a scissors because I couldn't even be bothered to take them to the cleaners for alteration. I've never even used a sewing machine. And here I am having fantasies of sewing my childrens' Halloween costumes.
And then there's the knitting. I blame my friend Hugo for this. Shortly after his mother passed away, he brought down a box of his old baby clothes his mother had saved during his entire life, which spans over four decades. In the box were elaborately decorated sweaters the size of my two palms. Along with socks, hats, and mittens the size of my fingers. Imagine, mittens for a baby born in Brazil! Each wrapped individually in plastic bags, protected from the environment and time. These were the clothes she had knit for him while she waited for his arrival. His dear mother, who had her only child at the age of 40. How she must have longed for him. And how she waited and prepared. I came home from that visit and longed to learn how to knit. Me, who always assumed knitting must be such a bore and only saw the hazard and liability in carrying around long needles.
Let's not even get into the photography class that starts this week or the baby album I've already purchased or the Thomas the Engine song that has been stuck in the head the last two days. Or the contentment I felt at my friend's daughter's 3d birthday picnic where I spent my day on Saturday.
So many changes. So many changes that feel perfectly natural. As Jeff and I discussed over dinner last night, we couldn't feel readier. Even as we sit surrounded by our to-do lists. We're ready to hold the little guy in our arms and nuzzle him with our noses. To fill him with our love.
Just four more months...
Monday, June 8, 2009
Strangeness
A few months earlier, I flipped through Lennart Nilsson's photography book, Life, at Border's and was fascinated by the images he was able to capture. He had photographed every stage of human development, from conception to birth. There is an egg descending into the fallopian tube. An egg magnified god knows how many times that it looks like some magnificent planet. A sperm penetrating the egg. Fetuses at various stages of development floating in their amniotic sacs. Looking through the book felt like spying into another world, one so foreign, bizarre, and completely captivating.
I ordered one of my own. I wanted a book to help me visualize what was happening inside of me. We found the illustrations in the Mayo Clinic Guide helpful for imagining the growth of our baby from week to week, but I wanted more. I wanted to peek inside, see him as he is, not as some penciled drawing. I didn't order the same book because Life is more of a coffee table edition, glossy and expensive. I ordered A Child is Born, which has most of the same images but more text to explain what the images capture.
So when I received it from Amazon on Saturday, I immediately plunked down on the couch to finger through it. Many of the images were ones I had seen in the other book, but I scoured them again, trying to extract as many of life's secrets as I could. Near the end of the book, I came to the section on "Labor and Delivery," and I saw photographs of women, bare chested, legs propped up, faces in obvious agony, as they prepared for delivery. I was amazed that they had agreed to be photographed as they were. Then I turned the page and was stunned to see photographs of women and babies mid-delivery. The first in a sequence shows the doctor grabbing the baby's head as it emerges, then the torso, and then the whole body dangling from the doctor's arms with the umbilical cord still in tact. The next two-page spread is a photograph of a woman mid-delivery with the baby's head protruding from her, and the image is captured from the top, as if the camera were dangling from the ceiling.
I had watched Nova's "Miracle of Life" in seventh grade, and I had heard delivery stories from my friends. I assumed I knew what I was in for. But I have to admit, these photographs were a shock. A part of me reeled from it - mostly from fear and perhaps a tinge of disgust - even as I threw the book in Jeff's face with "You have to look at these." I hadn't spent too much time imagining the delivery part, focusing instead on the baby's development. A couple of weeks ago, I had lunch with a friend who was coming upon her due date. She said, "I am so scared." Now I understood a little better, not just mentally, but emotionally.
I wondered why I had that reaction -- fear and disgust. Maybe all the blood and gore signaled to the brain that something horrific is happening to the body, even as I know mentally that it is something quite different. Maybe we live in such a sanitized world - where pieces of fish and meat come sliced in geometric arrays wrapped in saran wrap - that we're out of touch with life in its naked form.
But whatever it is, I'm still looking at the photographs two days later and re-living the same shock. Jeff and I joke that we hope our baby's head won't be too large, even as we anticipate it will be given the sizes of our own. We comfort ourselves that billions of women have experienced it before us, so how bad can it be? Then we talk about the time when so many women died during child birth, and feel eternally grateful that we live today.
I want to face my fear head on. I promptly put Miracle of Life on our Netflix queue. I want to find other sources to help me process this fear, so that it no longer seems a stranger come delivery day. But then I remember that strangeness has entered our lives, as I feel the little guy kick inside of me. A day hasn't passed for a while now when Jeff and I don't turn to each other to say, "Amazing... it is so damn amazing."
I ordered one of my own. I wanted a book to help me visualize what was happening inside of me. We found the illustrations in the Mayo Clinic Guide helpful for imagining the growth of our baby from week to week, but I wanted more. I wanted to peek inside, see him as he is, not as some penciled drawing. I didn't order the same book because Life is more of a coffee table edition, glossy and expensive. I ordered A Child is Born, which has most of the same images but more text to explain what the images capture.
So when I received it from Amazon on Saturday, I immediately plunked down on the couch to finger through it. Many of the images were ones I had seen in the other book, but I scoured them again, trying to extract as many of life's secrets as I could. Near the end of the book, I came to the section on "Labor and Delivery," and I saw photographs of women, bare chested, legs propped up, faces in obvious agony, as they prepared for delivery. I was amazed that they had agreed to be photographed as they were. Then I turned the page and was stunned to see photographs of women and babies mid-delivery. The first in a sequence shows the doctor grabbing the baby's head as it emerges, then the torso, and then the whole body dangling from the doctor's arms with the umbilical cord still in tact. The next two-page spread is a photograph of a woman mid-delivery with the baby's head protruding from her, and the image is captured from the top, as if the camera were dangling from the ceiling.
I had watched Nova's "Miracle of Life" in seventh grade, and I had heard delivery stories from my friends. I assumed I knew what I was in for. But I have to admit, these photographs were a shock. A part of me reeled from it - mostly from fear and perhaps a tinge of disgust - even as I threw the book in Jeff's face with "You have to look at these." I hadn't spent too much time imagining the delivery part, focusing instead on the baby's development. A couple of weeks ago, I had lunch with a friend who was coming upon her due date. She said, "I am so scared." Now I understood a little better, not just mentally, but emotionally.
I wondered why I had that reaction -- fear and disgust. Maybe all the blood and gore signaled to the brain that something horrific is happening to the body, even as I know mentally that it is something quite different. Maybe we live in such a sanitized world - where pieces of fish and meat come sliced in geometric arrays wrapped in saran wrap - that we're out of touch with life in its naked form.
But whatever it is, I'm still looking at the photographs two days later and re-living the same shock. Jeff and I joke that we hope our baby's head won't be too large, even as we anticipate it will be given the sizes of our own. We comfort ourselves that billions of women have experienced it before us, so how bad can it be? Then we talk about the time when so many women died during child birth, and feel eternally grateful that we live today.
I want to face my fear head on. I promptly put Miracle of Life on our Netflix queue. I want to find other sources to help me process this fear, so that it no longer seems a stranger come delivery day. But then I remember that strangeness has entered our lives, as I feel the little guy kick inside of me. A day hasn't passed for a while now when Jeff and I don't turn to each other to say, "Amazing... it is so damn amazing."
Sunday, May 31, 2009
Baby & Pregnancy Books
For Moms/Dads and Soon-To-Be-Moms/Dads,
I hope we can share our lists of favorite pregnancy/baby books. I've read only a few so far, but the one I very much enjoyed was What's Going on in There?: How the Brain and Mind Develop in the First Five Years of Life, by Lise Eliot. I read it during my first pregnancy in April 2008, so I am planning to re-read it to remind myself of all the fascinating information the book contains. As the title indicates, the book focuses on the baby's brain development and discusses several studies that reveal how babies think at certain stages of their development. One of the interesting parts I remember is that in some of these studies, babies expressed their preferences by adjusting the speed at which they sucked on their pacifiers. By this method, the researchers learned that babies prefer to listen to songs they heard when they were in the womb and in particular, songs sung by their mothers, and to eat foods their mothers ate while pregnant. Absolutely fascinating.
So, I'll keep a running list of books I go through (with asterisks by books I recommend), and I hope you'll leave comments with books you found particularly helpful.
Pregnancy
Mayo Guide to a Healthy Pregnancy, by Mayo Clinic* - Standard and reliable book to guide you through pregnancy week-by-week, labor, and possible complications during pregnancy.
The Girlfriends' Guide to Pregnancy, by Vicki Iovine* - Hilarious and sassy straight-talk on how to cope with pregnancy, including weight gain, sex during pregnancy, delivery, etc. She doesn't hold back on anything, and it's reassuring to hear it all from someone who's been through four pregnancies. (Note: Don't look to her book for medical advice. Check with your doctor on whatever she says.)
A Child is Born, Lennart Nilsson and Lars Hamberger -- Amazing photographs of the gestational process. Just a warning that some of the photographs may be TMI, but you'll see photos you would not have believed possible.
Post-Partum Issues
The Girlfriends' Guide to Surviving the First Year of Motherhood, by Vicki Iovine* -- A much needed sanity check after delivering. When I was pregnant, I thought reading a whole book on caring for myself seemed overly self-indulgent. When I picked up this book after delivery, I realized how much I needed this book. I felt like I was overtaken by hormones, and this book helped me to learn to give myself a break and put my behavior into proper perspective. Highly recommended for all moms!
Operating Instructions, by Anne Lamott - Lamott's memoir of her mothering a colicky baby. Sometimes, it helps to read about another mom's journey to find the right perspective for yours.
Newborn Care
Dr. Spock's Baby and Child Care (8th ed.), by Benjamin Spoke and Robert Needlman - Reliable how-to-guide on caring for a newborn and children. The book tries to cover too much and is not as detailed as I would have preferred, but it was a good starter book on what I'm facing for the next few years.
The Happiest Baby on the Block: The New Way to Calm Crying and Help Your Newborn Baby Sleep Longer, by Harvey Karp - Karp argues that the baby's first 3 months after birth is really the fourth trimester and suggests ways to replicate the womb to comfort your baby. For this, he lays out five steps (or 5 s's): swaddling, side/stomach position, shhh sounds, swinging and sucking. The whole book could have probably been written as a 10 page pamphlet, but my friends swear by Karp's method. Some friends have said that the DVD is very helpful to watch to nail down the techniques.
Secrets of the Baby Whisperer, by Tracy Hogg*** - This book has THE BEST succinct advice on how to deal with your newborn when trying to put him/her to sleep. It also has sections on feeding, bathing, and playing. We used Hogg's advice to sleep train our baby, and by 3.5 months, he was sleeping 12 hours a night. I kid you not!
The No-Cry Sleep Solution, by Elizabeth Pantley - I did not read this book myself, but my husband did. We incorporated many of her helpful tips on what to do (i.e., establish a regular bed time early on) and not to do (i.e., rocking the baby to sleep or allowing him to fall asleep while feeding) while sleep training.
On Becoming Baby Wise, by Gary Ezzo and Robert Bucknam - This book is apparently helpful for getting your baby on a schedule. I just perused this book to get a sense of a possible schedule for our baby, but we did not feel the need to have a strict schedule for little T so did not rely on this book too heavily.
The Nursing Mother's Companion, by Kathleen Huggins** - For anyone nursing, this book is invaluable. I first read the sections on what to expect when first starting to nurse, and believe me, you need someone to tell you what to expect because you have no idea. Your body goes through so many changes preparing to feed the little one, and one morning, you'll wake up to find your breasts raging out of control. After learning about the initial changes, I used it as a reference, and you may find yourself reaching for it every time you experience a plugged duct or heavens forbid, something worse. Very important book to have.
The Complete and Authoritative Guide Caring For Your Baby and Young Child, by American Academy of Pediatrics* - Our pediatrician gave us this book, and we used it as a bible during the first few months. It gives you a detailed description of what to expect each month of your baby's development.
Feeding
Super Baby Food, by Ruth Yaron** - This book has suggestions on what foods to first feed your baby, how to prepare them (she has an appendix on how to prepare each type of food, like vegetable, fruit, or cereal), what kinds of storage containers are helpful, what to look for in a high chair, etc. Fabulous book for wading through the initial stage of feeding solids.
Potty Training
Diaper Free, by Ingrid Bauer - A friend of mine gave me this book after she successfully potty trained her baby before age 1 by using the guidelines in this book. I am hoping to follow in her footsteps.
Baby Signing
Baby Signs Parent Kit, by The Baby Signs Institute** - This isn't just a book, but a class on how to teach your baby sign language. I took an intro class and received this very handy book, which contains a glossary as well as research on the benefits of signing. Linda Acredolo and Susan Goodwyn are the pioneers of baby signing and they run this institute. They have other books available on Amazon and other bookstores on how to teach your baby sign language.
Baby Development
What's Going on in There?, by Lise Eliot** - Fascinating studies of how the brain develops. Provides guidelines on how to take care of yourself during pregnancy and your child during his/her first few years to maximize the child's mental potential.
Becoming Attached: First Relationships and How They Shape Our Capacity to Love, by Robert Karen** - Great introduction to attachment theory. Provides a historical overview of various parenting approaches that had been fashionable in the past. It makes you realize how little we know and how parenting can be one big social experiment - sometimes, to the detriment of the children.
The Wonder Weeks, by Hetty Vanderjit and Frans Plooij* - Apparently some weeks in a baby's development are more critical than others. Who knew. This book focuses on weeks 5, 8, 12, 19, 26, 37, 46, and 55 of a baby's growth and explains why the baby may be fussier during those weeks and what you can do about it. The book does a good job of explaining how the world looks through the eyes of a baby, although it is repetitive at times. I would also have appreciated a little more science behind their claims, but still, it is helpful to be alerted to certain stages in the baby's development.
Baby Gears
Baby Bargains, by Denise Fields* - I've been using this book as the bible on baby gears, following her guidelines on what to look for in cribs, strollers, car seats, etc. With all the choices out there, I'm finding the process of buying baby gears very daunting. The book is very educational on safety requirements, something we knew very little about before picking up this book, and provides good recommendations on different brands. We've only ordered the crib so far, since it takes about four months for delivery.
General Parenting
Raising an Emotionally Intelligent Child, by John Gottman** - Fabulous book about being more in tune with your child's emotional states. So much of what Gottman says makes common sense, but it takes reading this book to remind you how important emotions are in our lives -- and in our children's lives. I'm so glad I read this book.
I hope we can share our lists of favorite pregnancy/baby books. I've read only a few so far, but the one I very much enjoyed was What's Going on in There?: How the Brain and Mind Develop in the First Five Years of Life, by Lise Eliot. I read it during my first pregnancy in April 2008, so I am planning to re-read it to remind myself of all the fascinating information the book contains. As the title indicates, the book focuses on the baby's brain development and discusses several studies that reveal how babies think at certain stages of their development. One of the interesting parts I remember is that in some of these studies, babies expressed their preferences by adjusting the speed at which they sucked on their pacifiers. By this method, the researchers learned that babies prefer to listen to songs they heard when they were in the womb and in particular, songs sung by their mothers, and to eat foods their mothers ate while pregnant. Absolutely fascinating.
So, I'll keep a running list of books I go through (with asterisks by books I recommend), and I hope you'll leave comments with books you found particularly helpful.
Pregnancy
Mayo Guide to a Healthy Pregnancy, by Mayo Clinic* - Standard and reliable book to guide you through pregnancy week-by-week, labor, and possible complications during pregnancy.
The Girlfriends' Guide to Pregnancy, by Vicki Iovine* - Hilarious and sassy straight-talk on how to cope with pregnancy, including weight gain, sex during pregnancy, delivery, etc. She doesn't hold back on anything, and it's reassuring to hear it all from someone who's been through four pregnancies. (Note: Don't look to her book for medical advice. Check with your doctor on whatever she says.)
A Child is Born, Lennart Nilsson and Lars Hamberger -- Amazing photographs of the gestational process. Just a warning that some of the photographs may be TMI, but you'll see photos you would not have believed possible.
Post-Partum Issues
The Girlfriends' Guide to Surviving the First Year of Motherhood, by Vicki Iovine* -- A much needed sanity check after delivering. When I was pregnant, I thought reading a whole book on caring for myself seemed overly self-indulgent. When I picked up this book after delivery, I realized how much I needed this book. I felt like I was overtaken by hormones, and this book helped me to learn to give myself a break and put my behavior into proper perspective. Highly recommended for all moms!
Operating Instructions, by Anne Lamott - Lamott's memoir of her mothering a colicky baby. Sometimes, it helps to read about another mom's journey to find the right perspective for yours.
Newborn Care
Dr. Spock's Baby and Child Care (8th ed.), by Benjamin Spoke and Robert Needlman - Reliable how-to-guide on caring for a newborn and children. The book tries to cover too much and is not as detailed as I would have preferred, but it was a good starter book on what I'm facing for the next few years.
The Happiest Baby on the Block: The New Way to Calm Crying and Help Your Newborn Baby Sleep Longer, by Harvey Karp - Karp argues that the baby's first 3 months after birth is really the fourth trimester and suggests ways to replicate the womb to comfort your baby. For this, he lays out five steps (or 5 s's): swaddling, side/stomach position, shhh sounds, swinging and sucking. The whole book could have probably been written as a 10 page pamphlet, but my friends swear by Karp's method. Some friends have said that the DVD is very helpful to watch to nail down the techniques.
Secrets of the Baby Whisperer, by Tracy Hogg*** - This book has THE BEST succinct advice on how to deal with your newborn when trying to put him/her to sleep. It also has sections on feeding, bathing, and playing. We used Hogg's advice to sleep train our baby, and by 3.5 months, he was sleeping 12 hours a night. I kid you not!
The No-Cry Sleep Solution, by Elizabeth Pantley - I did not read this book myself, but my husband did. We incorporated many of her helpful tips on what to do (i.e., establish a regular bed time early on) and not to do (i.e., rocking the baby to sleep or allowing him to fall asleep while feeding) while sleep training.
On Becoming Baby Wise, by Gary Ezzo and Robert Bucknam - This book is apparently helpful for getting your baby on a schedule. I just perused this book to get a sense of a possible schedule for our baby, but we did not feel the need to have a strict schedule for little T so did not rely on this book too heavily.
The Nursing Mother's Companion, by Kathleen Huggins** - For anyone nursing, this book is invaluable. I first read the sections on what to expect when first starting to nurse, and believe me, you need someone to tell you what to expect because you have no idea. Your body goes through so many changes preparing to feed the little one, and one morning, you'll wake up to find your breasts raging out of control. After learning about the initial changes, I used it as a reference, and you may find yourself reaching for it every time you experience a plugged duct or heavens forbid, something worse. Very important book to have.
The Complete and Authoritative Guide Caring For Your Baby and Young Child, by American Academy of Pediatrics* - Our pediatrician gave us this book, and we used it as a bible during the first few months. It gives you a detailed description of what to expect each month of your baby's development.
Feeding
Super Baby Food, by Ruth Yaron** - This book has suggestions on what foods to first feed your baby, how to prepare them (she has an appendix on how to prepare each type of food, like vegetable, fruit, or cereal), what kinds of storage containers are helpful, what to look for in a high chair, etc. Fabulous book for wading through the initial stage of feeding solids.
Potty Training
Diaper Free, by Ingrid Bauer - A friend of mine gave me this book after she successfully potty trained her baby before age 1 by using the guidelines in this book. I am hoping to follow in her footsteps.
Baby Signing
Baby Signs Parent Kit, by The Baby Signs Institute** - This isn't just a book, but a class on how to teach your baby sign language. I took an intro class and received this very handy book, which contains a glossary as well as research on the benefits of signing. Linda Acredolo and Susan Goodwyn are the pioneers of baby signing and they run this institute. They have other books available on Amazon and other bookstores on how to teach your baby sign language.
Baby Development
What's Going on in There?, by Lise Eliot** - Fascinating studies of how the brain develops. Provides guidelines on how to take care of yourself during pregnancy and your child during his/her first few years to maximize the child's mental potential.
Becoming Attached: First Relationships and How They Shape Our Capacity to Love, by Robert Karen** - Great introduction to attachment theory. Provides a historical overview of various parenting approaches that had been fashionable in the past. It makes you realize how little we know and how parenting can be one big social experiment - sometimes, to the detriment of the children.
The Wonder Weeks, by Hetty Vanderjit and Frans Plooij* - Apparently some weeks in a baby's development are more critical than others. Who knew. This book focuses on weeks 5, 8, 12, 19, 26, 37, 46, and 55 of a baby's growth and explains why the baby may be fussier during those weeks and what you can do about it. The book does a good job of explaining how the world looks through the eyes of a baby, although it is repetitive at times. I would also have appreciated a little more science behind their claims, but still, it is helpful to be alerted to certain stages in the baby's development.
Baby Gears
Baby Bargains, by Denise Fields* - I've been using this book as the bible on baby gears, following her guidelines on what to look for in cribs, strollers, car seats, etc. With all the choices out there, I'm finding the process of buying baby gears very daunting. The book is very educational on safety requirements, something we knew very little about before picking up this book, and provides good recommendations on different brands. We've only ordered the crib so far, since it takes about four months for delivery.
General Parenting
Raising an Emotionally Intelligent Child, by John Gottman** - Fabulous book about being more in tune with your child's emotional states. So much of what Gottman says makes common sense, but it takes reading this book to remind you how important emotions are in our lives -- and in our children's lives. I'm so glad I read this book.
Thursday, May 28, 2009
Little Moccasins
Last Friday, we stopped by a shop in Hanalei called Ola's. We were drawn in by the shop's glass display, given Jeff's interest in glass blowing. When we were in Venice a couple of years ago, we spent three back-to-back days in Murano so that Jeff could check out all the glass shops and factories there. This time, we emerged not with glass blowing tools, but a pair of little brown moccasins that we spotted among the touristy chotchkies. They are completely useless and impractical, a fitting purchase for a first time mother. I plunked my credit card down gleefully, holding back the urge to blurt to the store clerk, "It's for our little boy."
For the next few days, I took the moccasins with me wherever I went. If I went from the bedroom to the living room, they went with me, where I laid them down a foot to my left on the couch. When I went to sip my papaya, orange, and guava juice -- or pog, as they call it in Hawaii -- on the balcony, I sat them on the stand next to my book. I sometimes rested them on my belly, to try to imagine the feet of the little guy and the rest of his body protruding from the soft folds of leather. When we packed our stuff to return to SF, I secured them in the front pocket of my backpack so that they wouldn't be crushed by other things.
These shoes are the first and only purchase we've made for the little guy so far. We didn't want to start preparing before the CVS, and once we received the CVS results, we thought it made sense to wait for the spina bifida test. We had our spina bifida ultrasound on May 15th, and everything seems to be progressing smoothly. It was amazing to watch the technician press her sensor in various angles to point out his heart chambers and his kidney, and to hear that that he has no club foot or cleft lips. We took her word for it since all we saw were grainy images of a big head and boney hands flowing back and forth as if he were giving us the royal wave. And him moving and twitching and shaking, as if he were doing the jitter bug. We went in the following Monday because they needed one more photograph, and he decided to do a face plant just as the technician tried to capture a decent image for us to take home.
Now that the tests are behind us, we are now letting ourselves look forward. We have a little over four months left to read all the books we want to read, to buy whatever the little guy needs, and to become the parents we are becoming. We are not ready yet, and I suspect we'll never be ready. But we hope to be less un-ready.
In this process, I marvel at the strangeness of it all. Strange, not in a bad way, but in a way that feels foreign, even though this is one of the most common experiences in human history. And in a way that is mind-boggling and incredible and unreal. To have another creature inside of me, moving this way and that, causing little flurries in that vicinity of my body usually reserved for mundane digestion. I went to my first pre-natal yoga class a couple of weeks ago, and the instructor kept repeating, "Remember! You are your baby's first home." Now, what prepares you in life to become a dwelling?
When I was registering for sixth grade, I remember my dad asking me if I wanted to sign up to play the clarinet in band. I had no idea what a clarinet was, but I said ok. When I started mastering how to blow into that thing without squeaking, I remember suddenly realizing that I was playing the real thing. That this clarinet was the same real clarinet that the bearded guys in professional orchestras played. Me, playing a real clarinet.
I'm a long way from sixth grade, but that's how I feel these days. That I'm about to be entrusted with this little guy. Me, a mother to a real live baby.
Holy shit.
For the next few days, I took the moccasins with me wherever I went. If I went from the bedroom to the living room, they went with me, where I laid them down a foot to my left on the couch. When I went to sip my papaya, orange, and guava juice -- or pog, as they call it in Hawaii -- on the balcony, I sat them on the stand next to my book. I sometimes rested them on my belly, to try to imagine the feet of the little guy and the rest of his body protruding from the soft folds of leather. When we packed our stuff to return to SF, I secured them in the front pocket of my backpack so that they wouldn't be crushed by other things.
These shoes are the first and only purchase we've made for the little guy so far. We didn't want to start preparing before the CVS, and once we received the CVS results, we thought it made sense to wait for the spina bifida test. We had our spina bifida ultrasound on May 15th, and everything seems to be progressing smoothly. It was amazing to watch the technician press her sensor in various angles to point out his heart chambers and his kidney, and to hear that that he has no club foot or cleft lips. We took her word for it since all we saw were grainy images of a big head and boney hands flowing back and forth as if he were giving us the royal wave. And him moving and twitching and shaking, as if he were doing the jitter bug. We went in the following Monday because they needed one more photograph, and he decided to do a face plant just as the technician tried to capture a decent image for us to take home.
Now that the tests are behind us, we are now letting ourselves look forward. We have a little over four months left to read all the books we want to read, to buy whatever the little guy needs, and to become the parents we are becoming. We are not ready yet, and I suspect we'll never be ready. But we hope to be less un-ready.
In this process, I marvel at the strangeness of it all. Strange, not in a bad way, but in a way that feels foreign, even though this is one of the most common experiences in human history. And in a way that is mind-boggling and incredible and unreal. To have another creature inside of me, moving this way and that, causing little flurries in that vicinity of my body usually reserved for mundane digestion. I went to my first pre-natal yoga class a couple of weeks ago, and the instructor kept repeating, "Remember! You are your baby's first home." Now, what prepares you in life to become a dwelling?
When I was registering for sixth grade, I remember my dad asking me if I wanted to sign up to play the clarinet in band. I had no idea what a clarinet was, but I said ok. When I started mastering how to blow into that thing without squeaking, I remember suddenly realizing that I was playing the real thing. That this clarinet was the same real clarinet that the bearded guys in professional orchestras played. Me, playing a real clarinet.
I'm a long way from sixth grade, but that's how I feel these days. That I'm about to be entrusted with this little guy. Me, a mother to a real live baby.
Holy shit.
Tuesday, May 12, 2009
Community Building
This past weekend was our bat mitzvah weekend. A dinner on Friday night, the ceremony on Saturday morning at 9 followed by a mini-reception, a party at the country club that night, and a brunch the morning after. The bat mitzvah girl is the second daughter of one of Jeff's college friends. Because several of his college friends were flying in from the East Coast and Southern California, Jeff rsvp'ed yes to each one of the events.
Of course, come the day before the series of events and we are wondering why we had signed up for all of them. At the last minute, we even wondered if we could skip the bat mitzvah ceremony. We had attended the ceremony two years ago for their oldest daughter, and all I remember is the singing and the Torah reading -- that seemed to go on endlessly.
So I don't know if it was due to my hormones or what, but I found myself deeply moved by the ceremony this time. During the first few minutes of the ceremony, Taylor's grandparents stood on the podium with her. Looking her in the eyes, they each took turns to tell her how special she is, how much she means to them, and how much they love her. There was so much love in their faces, and they embraced her with such affection and warmth. After the grandparents, her parents did pretty much the same thing, doting all their attention on this 13 year-old. Followed by her siblings, her aunts and uncles, her friends, her parents' friends, and other relatives. All in front of a community of people there to celebrate this young woman's life.
It made me think we should all have a bat/bar mitzvah. No matter what age.
And it also made me think we should all live surrounded by a community of people who love and dote on us. It didn't seem to matter too much in my late 20s when I decided in a matter to days to move out to San Francisco where I knew no one. I figured I would make new friends. And if needed, I could fly home to see my parents in New York a few times a year. I thought of the freedom of starting anew, where no one knew my past and I could be my best self, as I envisioned it, without some reminder of the person I had been or was supposed to be. And I didn't have to be subject to my parents' constant nagging to get married when I hardly found it to be a matter of my sole effort.
For the past ten years or so, I've lived that life and have more or less savored it. There were a handful of days when I considered moving back to New York, but they were a small exception. Over time, I built up a network of great friends and found a sense of belonging -- to the extent you can in our culture when you haven't nurtured roots in a religious or ethnic grouping.
While Jeff and I have spent some time thinking about the kind of school we'd like to send our child or the type of neighborhood in which to raise him, I haven't spent much time thinking about building a community. I assumed it would be a natural by-product of the friends we have and continue to make along the way. But watching 13-year-old Taylor surrounded by her grandparents, aunts, and uncles, I envied her world. And wondered what I could do to entice my parents to move to the Bay Area.
Of course, come the day before the series of events and we are wondering why we had signed up for all of them. At the last minute, we even wondered if we could skip the bat mitzvah ceremony. We had attended the ceremony two years ago for their oldest daughter, and all I remember is the singing and the Torah reading -- that seemed to go on endlessly.
So I don't know if it was due to my hormones or what, but I found myself deeply moved by the ceremony this time. During the first few minutes of the ceremony, Taylor's grandparents stood on the podium with her. Looking her in the eyes, they each took turns to tell her how special she is, how much she means to them, and how much they love her. There was so much love in their faces, and they embraced her with such affection and warmth. After the grandparents, her parents did pretty much the same thing, doting all their attention on this 13 year-old. Followed by her siblings, her aunts and uncles, her friends, her parents' friends, and other relatives. All in front of a community of people there to celebrate this young woman's life.
It made me think we should all have a bat/bar mitzvah. No matter what age.
And it also made me think we should all live surrounded by a community of people who love and dote on us. It didn't seem to matter too much in my late 20s when I decided in a matter to days to move out to San Francisco where I knew no one. I figured I would make new friends. And if needed, I could fly home to see my parents in New York a few times a year. I thought of the freedom of starting anew, where no one knew my past and I could be my best self, as I envisioned it, without some reminder of the person I had been or was supposed to be. And I didn't have to be subject to my parents' constant nagging to get married when I hardly found it to be a matter of my sole effort.
For the past ten years or so, I've lived that life and have more or less savored it. There were a handful of days when I considered moving back to New York, but they were a small exception. Over time, I built up a network of great friends and found a sense of belonging -- to the extent you can in our culture when you haven't nurtured roots in a religious or ethnic grouping.
While Jeff and I have spent some time thinking about the kind of school we'd like to send our child or the type of neighborhood in which to raise him, I haven't spent much time thinking about building a community. I assumed it would be a natural by-product of the friends we have and continue to make along the way. But watching 13-year-old Taylor surrounded by her grandparents, aunts, and uncles, I envied her world. And wondered what I could do to entice my parents to move to the Bay Area.
Wednesday, May 6, 2009
Dressing Myself
We're attending a bat mitzvah this weekend. It's a bat mitzvah, but apart from the religious significance, more like a wedding without the groom - a ceremony flanked by a dinner the night before, a party at the country club on the evening of the ceremony, and a brunch the morning after. I have nothing to wear to any of these events.
Until this past weekend when a couple of my girlfriends brought me bags of their old maternity clothes, I had two maternity pants and a couple of loose tops. Between those and my baggy pants, I've managed to get by, especially since I'm not going into an office these days. For more formal occasions, I had a dress and a jacket that I had from my chubbier days, which I thought worked well until my mom saw me last week and commented that I looked rather dated in them. Suddenly, I realized she was right.
I've gained about nine pounds so far with this pregnancy. Given that I'm in week 18, I think that's pretty reasonable. But that's not counting the 20 pounds that I gained with my prior pregnancies and failed to shed after my miscarriages despite my regular visits to the gym.
None of these pounds has come gracefully. I look at women who expand only around their waists while skipping down the street in their skinny legs and high heels, and I wonder why I wasn't born to be one of those creatures. Instead, I'm large everywhere. My face has expanded, my arms, fingers, thighs, butt. I look at photos of myself when Jeff and I got married a year and a half ago, and I miss that body.
Viewing myself in a full length mirror at the department store is not a happy experience. I went to Macy's a few weeks ago to try to find something decent to wear, and I was mortified to find nothing fitting the way they used to -- or even anywhere close. When I found myself reaching for an extra large, I felt compelled to hide the size tag.
I never enjoyed looking at myself in the mirror. Throughout most of my teens and 20s, I remember looking at myself and wondering why any boy would want to date me. I didn't feel comfortable in my skin until my late 20s. I think a part of it has to do with having developed very quickly at a young age. In grade school, I was often the tallest kid in my class, although I leveled out at 5' 6". When I was in first and second grades in Korea, my teachers paired us up after lining us in height order. I was often the odd girl out, trailing at the end. My mom remembers me running home crying that I didn't have a partner.
I tell myself that it's only for another five months -- and that I have many more inches to expand until this little guy shows up. That I shouldn't even think about this until late October. And I'd be willing to gain a hundred pounds if it ensured his safe arrival. But I have to learn to stop treating my pregnancy as a weight gain -- and hiding my belly as if it were excess fat. If anyone has any magic tricks for dealing with that, I'd love to hear some ideas.
This morning, Jeff suggested that I sign up for a pre-natal yoga class. I suddenly realized the brilliance of that idea. Not only will I be getting some much needed exercise, I am bound to surround myself with women with body shapes like mine. Maybe I will see the physical glory of this experience more clearly in their bodies than I see in mine.
Until this past weekend when a couple of my girlfriends brought me bags of their old maternity clothes, I had two maternity pants and a couple of loose tops. Between those and my baggy pants, I've managed to get by, especially since I'm not going into an office these days. For more formal occasions, I had a dress and a jacket that I had from my chubbier days, which I thought worked well until my mom saw me last week and commented that I looked rather dated in them. Suddenly, I realized she was right.
I've gained about nine pounds so far with this pregnancy. Given that I'm in week 18, I think that's pretty reasonable. But that's not counting the 20 pounds that I gained with my prior pregnancies and failed to shed after my miscarriages despite my regular visits to the gym.
None of these pounds has come gracefully. I look at women who expand only around their waists while skipping down the street in their skinny legs and high heels, and I wonder why I wasn't born to be one of those creatures. Instead, I'm large everywhere. My face has expanded, my arms, fingers, thighs, butt. I look at photos of myself when Jeff and I got married a year and a half ago, and I miss that body.
Viewing myself in a full length mirror at the department store is not a happy experience. I went to Macy's a few weeks ago to try to find something decent to wear, and I was mortified to find nothing fitting the way they used to -- or even anywhere close. When I found myself reaching for an extra large, I felt compelled to hide the size tag.
I never enjoyed looking at myself in the mirror. Throughout most of my teens and 20s, I remember looking at myself and wondering why any boy would want to date me. I didn't feel comfortable in my skin until my late 20s. I think a part of it has to do with having developed very quickly at a young age. In grade school, I was often the tallest kid in my class, although I leveled out at 5' 6". When I was in first and second grades in Korea, my teachers paired us up after lining us in height order. I was often the odd girl out, trailing at the end. My mom remembers me running home crying that I didn't have a partner.
I tell myself that it's only for another five months -- and that I have many more inches to expand until this little guy shows up. That I shouldn't even think about this until late October. And I'd be willing to gain a hundred pounds if it ensured his safe arrival. But I have to learn to stop treating my pregnancy as a weight gain -- and hiding my belly as if it were excess fat. If anyone has any magic tricks for dealing with that, I'd love to hear some ideas.
This morning, Jeff suggested that I sign up for a pre-natal yoga class. I suddenly realized the brilliance of that idea. Not only will I be getting some much needed exercise, I am bound to surround myself with women with body shapes like mine. Maybe I will see the physical glory of this experience more clearly in their bodies than I see in mine.
Monday, April 13, 2009
CVS Results
We received our CVS results on Thursday. Everything is normal. And it's a boy.
We are so relieved. Now, we have to have the baby tested for spina bifida, and once we are cleared of that, we can really start breathing.
We started thinking of names. And pulled out the mound of books I had bought during my first pregnancy. And reviewed the To Do List to get ourselves ready for the little guy. And even bought a pregnancy magazine. I hear it has the powers of a talisman.
We are so relieved. Now, we have to have the baby tested for spina bifida, and once we are cleared of that, we can really start breathing.
We started thinking of names. And pulled out the mound of books I had bought during my first pregnancy. And reviewed the To Do List to get ourselves ready for the little guy. And even bought a pregnancy magazine. I hear it has the powers of a talisman.
Thursday, April 2, 2009
CVS
When we went in last week for our CVS, the doctor couldn't perform the procedure because of the position of the placenta. They just did an ultrasound and assessed the risks based on a blood test and the measurement of the baby's nuchal translucency. The odds look incredibly good: just one in 1400 chance of having down's syndrome and one in 4000 of having trisomony 8 or 13.
We went back in this afternoon for the CVS. The doctor who met with us today was the same doctor who was supposed to perform the CVS last November when we found out that the baby had died. He remembered us and greeted us with the warmest smile, a pat on the arm, and a hearty, "Looks like you're doing much better today!" The CVS was quick and painless, although my heart seemed to stop when we saw the catheter probe so close to the baby. It'll take about a week to get the results. In the meantime, I get to lie in bed for the rest of the day, bug Jeff if I need anything, and catch up on my old New Yorker issues. Not a bad way to spend an afternoon...
We went back in this afternoon for the CVS. The doctor who met with us today was the same doctor who was supposed to perform the CVS last November when we found out that the baby had died. He remembered us and greeted us with the warmest smile, a pat on the arm, and a hearty, "Looks like you're doing much better today!" The CVS was quick and painless, although my heart seemed to stop when we saw the catheter probe so close to the baby. It'll take about a week to get the results. In the meantime, I get to lie in bed for the rest of the day, bug Jeff if I need anything, and catch up on my old New Yorker issues. Not a bad way to spend an afternoon...
Monday, March 30, 2009
Professional Advice
Maybe I would have reacted differently if we hadn't watched Michael Moore's Sicko on Friday night.
On Saturday, I woke up bleeding. It was a very small amount. I looked it up in my Mayo Clinic guide, and it advised calling a doctor if the bleeding continued past 24 hours. Jeff and I decided not to worry about it unless it got worse. This past Thursday's ultrasound showed the little thing looking perfectly fine. And when I had some spotting two weeks ago, we rushed in for an ultrasound only to find out that all was ok.
On Sunday morning, I was bleeding again. I called my doctor's hotline and spoke to a triage nurse who asked me to call back if I started passing clots the size of a plum. I tried to rest, but when I used the restroom again, I appeared to be bleeding more. And this time, the blood looked fresh, as if I had some open wound somewhere, instead of the brownish color I had been seeing earlier. My first miscarriage started with a small streak of fresh blood in mid-afternoon. By 3am the following morning, I was dropping blood in buckets. I couldn't bear the thought of going through that process again -- sitting on the toilet, crying as my body purged itself, and feeling so out of control. I assumed that if I were already miscarrying, there was nothing the doctor could do. But she could at least help me cut the process short.
So I called the hotline again and spoke to another triage nurse. I explained that I was bleeding more, and I wanted to go in for an ultrasound. She asked me how much I was bleeding. I said that it wasn't very much but it now looked fresh, and I was concerned given my past two miscarriages at about the same stage in my pregnancy. She advised me against going into the emergency room since I was not bleeding enough. I asked her what harm it would do to just go in for a quick checkup to make sure the baby was ok.
She responded, "We have our protocol, and we don't advise you to go in unless you are filling more than one pad an hour or passing clots the size of plums." She advised me to lie in bed for the rest of the day.
I then asked her, "Do you know what is causing the bleeding? Can you tell me if this is normal?"
She responded, "No, Ma'am, we don't know the cause and we certainly wouldn't say it's normal."
I said, "Well, if you don't know what's causing the bleeding, then how do you know that bed rest would help?"
She simply repeated that that was the protocol.
I then explained that my first miscarriage started with a small amount of blood, and by that evening, I was miscarrying. Waiting until I was bleeding more to see a doctor didn't seem to make sense.
But she kept insisting that I rest in bed and not go to the emergency room.
I responded that I was going to go in and that I wasn't taking her advice. Then, she kept repeating, "Ma'am, that is not my advice. You would be going in against my advice."
I asked her what difference that made. Would going against her advice mean that insurance would refuse to cover my emergency visit? Would doctors refuse to see me?
She said, "No, maam, that's not what I'm saying. It's just our protocol, and I'm supposed to call ahead if we are sending someone."
I finally got fed up and said, "Well, I'm going in. Thank you for your help." Then I hung up.
When Jeff and I arrived at the CPMC emergeny room, there were two patients waiting. We waited for less than 20 minutes, and a nurse set us up in a room. She explained that the ultrasound in the emergency room wasn't very clear, but the doctor would be in shortly. When the doctor appeared in less than 15 minutes, he quickly performed an ultrasound. On the screen, the baby appeared alive and well, and we saw the little heart pumping away.
I asked the doctor if I needed to stay in bed for the rest of the day. He shook his head and said, "Don't lift anything heavy. Don't climb Mount Tam today. Otherwise, you're fine."
I could have spent the whole day lying in bed, fearful that I was miscarrying, reading everything on the web on bleeding during pregnancy, and counting the minutes until I could call my regular doctor on Monday morning. Instead, I spent the rest of the afternoon at my friend's baby shower, celebrating her new arrival. Sometimes, it helps not to listen to a professional.
On Saturday, I woke up bleeding. It was a very small amount. I looked it up in my Mayo Clinic guide, and it advised calling a doctor if the bleeding continued past 24 hours. Jeff and I decided not to worry about it unless it got worse. This past Thursday's ultrasound showed the little thing looking perfectly fine. And when I had some spotting two weeks ago, we rushed in for an ultrasound only to find out that all was ok.
On Sunday morning, I was bleeding again. I called my doctor's hotline and spoke to a triage nurse who asked me to call back if I started passing clots the size of a plum. I tried to rest, but when I used the restroom again, I appeared to be bleeding more. And this time, the blood looked fresh, as if I had some open wound somewhere, instead of the brownish color I had been seeing earlier. My first miscarriage started with a small streak of fresh blood in mid-afternoon. By 3am the following morning, I was dropping blood in buckets. I couldn't bear the thought of going through that process again -- sitting on the toilet, crying as my body purged itself, and feeling so out of control. I assumed that if I were already miscarrying, there was nothing the doctor could do. But she could at least help me cut the process short.
So I called the hotline again and spoke to another triage nurse. I explained that I was bleeding more, and I wanted to go in for an ultrasound. She asked me how much I was bleeding. I said that it wasn't very much but it now looked fresh, and I was concerned given my past two miscarriages at about the same stage in my pregnancy. She advised me against going into the emergency room since I was not bleeding enough. I asked her what harm it would do to just go in for a quick checkup to make sure the baby was ok.
She responded, "We have our protocol, and we don't advise you to go in unless you are filling more than one pad an hour or passing clots the size of plums." She advised me to lie in bed for the rest of the day.
I then asked her, "Do you know what is causing the bleeding? Can you tell me if this is normal?"
She responded, "No, Ma'am, we don't know the cause and we certainly wouldn't say it's normal."
I said, "Well, if you don't know what's causing the bleeding, then how do you know that bed rest would help?"
She simply repeated that that was the protocol.
I then explained that my first miscarriage started with a small amount of blood, and by that evening, I was miscarrying. Waiting until I was bleeding more to see a doctor didn't seem to make sense.
But she kept insisting that I rest in bed and not go to the emergency room.
I responded that I was going to go in and that I wasn't taking her advice. Then, she kept repeating, "Ma'am, that is not my advice. You would be going in against my advice."
I asked her what difference that made. Would going against her advice mean that insurance would refuse to cover my emergency visit? Would doctors refuse to see me?
She said, "No, maam, that's not what I'm saying. It's just our protocol, and I'm supposed to call ahead if we are sending someone."
I finally got fed up and said, "Well, I'm going in. Thank you for your help." Then I hung up.
When Jeff and I arrived at the CPMC emergeny room, there were two patients waiting. We waited for less than 20 minutes, and a nurse set us up in a room. She explained that the ultrasound in the emergency room wasn't very clear, but the doctor would be in shortly. When the doctor appeared in less than 15 minutes, he quickly performed an ultrasound. On the screen, the baby appeared alive and well, and we saw the little heart pumping away.
I asked the doctor if I needed to stay in bed for the rest of the day. He shook his head and said, "Don't lift anything heavy. Don't climb Mount Tam today. Otherwise, you're fine."
I could have spent the whole day lying in bed, fearful that I was miscarrying, reading everything on the web on bleeding during pregnancy, and counting the minutes until I could call my regular doctor on Monday morning. Instead, I spent the rest of the afternoon at my friend's baby shower, celebrating her new arrival. Sometimes, it helps not to listen to a professional.
Wednesday, March 25, 2009
Hoping
I'm in my 12th week. The first one died on the first day of the 12th week. The second had already died at nine weeks and three days, even though we didn't know it until we went in for our CVS on week 12. So technically, this is the furthest I have come with any pregnancy.
Last week, we rushed into the hospital for an ultrasound after I had some spotting. Seeing just a spot of blood takes me back to that first night when everything gushed out, when I continued to drain in buckets until the D&C the next afternoon.
When we went in this past Monday, the doctor first tried to find the hearbeat with a doppler because the ultrasound room was in use. She slathered my belly with some jelly and pressed down the wand. She moved it around and around, and we silenced ourselves to hear the heartbeat. We heard static, irregular beat that abruptly ended, more white noise. After 30 seconds, she said, "This is torture. Let's move to the other room."
In the ultrasound room, the image popped up and much to our relief, we saw the little thing moving around, flashing its heartbeat. We were stunned by how big it looked. We had never seen the fetus past eight or nine weeks. Those had been the size of a nickle. This guy or gal looked the size of a hand, and we could see its legs kicking mid-air.
Walking down the street later that day, I passed a little girl carried by her mom. I realized that I had stopped imagining our fetus as a baby. I stopped thinking about the little outfits and the crib. I just focused on seeing its heartbeat from one ultrasound to the next. I had forgotten that it's supposed to grow into a little baby we would carry around like that mom on the street.
Tomorrow is my CVS. Despite everything that has happened, we are hopeful. Sometimes, hope can make you feel like a sucker. But we've been suckers before.
Last week, we rushed into the hospital for an ultrasound after I had some spotting. Seeing just a spot of blood takes me back to that first night when everything gushed out, when I continued to drain in buckets until the D&C the next afternoon.
When we went in this past Monday, the doctor first tried to find the hearbeat with a doppler because the ultrasound room was in use. She slathered my belly with some jelly and pressed down the wand. She moved it around and around, and we silenced ourselves to hear the heartbeat. We heard static, irregular beat that abruptly ended, more white noise. After 30 seconds, she said, "This is torture. Let's move to the other room."
In the ultrasound room, the image popped up and much to our relief, we saw the little thing moving around, flashing its heartbeat. We were stunned by how big it looked. We had never seen the fetus past eight or nine weeks. Those had been the size of a nickle. This guy or gal looked the size of a hand, and we could see its legs kicking mid-air.
Walking down the street later that day, I passed a little girl carried by her mom. I realized that I had stopped imagining our fetus as a baby. I stopped thinking about the little outfits and the crib. I just focused on seeing its heartbeat from one ultrasound to the next. I had forgotten that it's supposed to grow into a little baby we would carry around like that mom on the street.
Tomorrow is my CVS. Despite everything that has happened, we are hopeful. Sometimes, hope can make you feel like a sucker. But we've been suckers before.
Wednesday, March 11, 2009
Another Ultrasound
We slowly drive up through the familiar narrow tunnels, being careful not to run into the pillars flanking our sides. I scour left and right, looking for an empty spot. Nothing on floor 3. Nothing on floor 4. Nothing on floor 5. Nothing on floor 6. We finally find ourselves on the top floor, with not one empty space in sight. As as we are about to voice our irritation, I notice a woman sitting behind the steering wheel of a Mazda. I hop out and approach, signaling with my hands and mouthing in exaggerated fashion, "Are you leaving?" She smiles and nods yes. We pull into the last empty space in the entire garage and make our way down the stairs.
We step out onto the sidewalk briefly before walking into the familiar building.
"We're here so often," I say to Jeff.
I can't believe we are back so soon -- just four months after my last miscarriage, with me already two months into my pregnancy. My third pregnancy in one year.
We ride up the elevator and into the reception area where we greet the receptionist by name. She smiles at us, and I remember the last visit when I sat on the same couch and cried silently with my head down in my chest as two obviously pregnant ladies chattered about their due dates and nursery room decorations.
We are soon in the examination room. Our doctor bounces in, and we no longer notice the lap top she always carries in the crook of her arm.
"How are you feeling?" she asks.
"I'm nauseous and exhausted ALL THE TIME. All I want to do is sleep."
"All right!" she cheers.
She props me up and prepares for the ultrasound. As she moves the wand, my eyes are fixed on the little screen. It is probably no more than a few seconds, but they seem to stretch into infinity. I stare and keep staring at the screen. All I see is a dark hole. Yes, there is the uterus, but... I'm afraid to ask. I just look at the screen, afraid to see the doctor's reaction, Jeff's.
I don't want to think of the last ultrasound when we stared so expectantly. While we obliviously chatted with the nurse about the state of the art ultrasound that could accurately measure the translucent space in the tissue at the back of the baby's neck, she kept rubbing the pad over my belly, pressing down more and more urgently. Abruptly, she removed the pad said, "Oh, I'm so sorry. I don't see a heartbeat." And we sat there, stunned, not knowing what to say.
This time, I am ready, for whatever the news may be. As I decide it would be ok, no matter what, a faint image appears. A little blob on the empty space.
"There's the heartbeat," the doctor says. She points to a speck less than half the size of the space in the letter "o" on this page. It blinks, and I remind myself that we saw them the last two times. But despite myself, relief sets in.
We step out onto the sidewalk briefly before walking into the familiar building.
"We're here so often," I say to Jeff.
I can't believe we are back so soon -- just four months after my last miscarriage, with me already two months into my pregnancy. My third pregnancy in one year.
We ride up the elevator and into the reception area where we greet the receptionist by name. She smiles at us, and I remember the last visit when I sat on the same couch and cried silently with my head down in my chest as two obviously pregnant ladies chattered about their due dates and nursery room decorations.
We are soon in the examination room. Our doctor bounces in, and we no longer notice the lap top she always carries in the crook of her arm.
"How are you feeling?" she asks.
"I'm nauseous and exhausted ALL THE TIME. All I want to do is sleep."
"All right!" she cheers.
She props me up and prepares for the ultrasound. As she moves the wand, my eyes are fixed on the little screen. It is probably no more than a few seconds, but they seem to stretch into infinity. I stare and keep staring at the screen. All I see is a dark hole. Yes, there is the uterus, but... I'm afraid to ask. I just look at the screen, afraid to see the doctor's reaction, Jeff's.
I don't want to think of the last ultrasound when we stared so expectantly. While we obliviously chatted with the nurse about the state of the art ultrasound that could accurately measure the translucent space in the tissue at the back of the baby's neck, she kept rubbing the pad over my belly, pressing down more and more urgently. Abruptly, she removed the pad said, "Oh, I'm so sorry. I don't see a heartbeat." And we sat there, stunned, not knowing what to say.
This time, I am ready, for whatever the news may be. As I decide it would be ok, no matter what, a faint image appears. A little blob on the empty space.
"There's the heartbeat," the doctor says. She points to a speck less than half the size of the space in the letter "o" on this page. It blinks, and I remind myself that we saw them the last two times. But despite myself, relief sets in.
Tuesday, March 3, 2009
Impatience
"This week your baby is becoming distinctly human in shape, looking less like a tadpole and more like a person."
During the past twelve months, I have read this sentence dozens of times. It is the first sentence of Chapter 3 of the Mayo Clinic Guide to a Healthy Pregnancy, entitled "month 3: weeks 9 to 12." I read it when I was supposed to be in Chapters 1 and 2, "weeks 1 to 4" and "weeks 5 to 8," peeking ahead to see how the little creature would transform. I also read it each time my calendar indicated that I was entering Week 9... as well as almost every night during the remaining six days of Week 9.
At this stage, the baby is "almost 1 inch long and weighs a bit less than 1/8 of an ounce." The paragraph tells me that the "embryonic tail at the bottom of your baby's spinal cord is shrinking and disappearing, and the face is more round." I scrutinize the drawing next to those words. It is a funny shaped thing. There is a strange, reptilian tail protruding out of its back. The head is large and bulbous. The rounded neck give it the appearance of an alien, and the pot belly is incongruous with its tiny but defined arms, hands, legs, and feet.
I have touched the figure drawn in the "Actual size" box to try to imagine it inside of me. I have shoved the picture in front of Jeff as he lay in bed reading some history or technical book, and watched him stare at it in fascination that it looks the way it does and that such a thing was actually there - with us in bed.
Between chapters 3 and 4, there is a place holder. I have peeked ahead a few times, like the picture in Week 17, where the page cannot afford space for an "Actual size" drawing, only a 50% reduction. But the pages in the later chapters are not nearly as worn. The first three chapters belong in a used book srore, and the following seven, at Border's.
Many chapters forward, there are other sections I am more familiar with, like the one entitled "trying again after a pregnancy loss." The section on "pregnancy loss" in the chapter on "Problems during pregnancy" is cracked at the spine, where I bent it over the xerox machine to make copies for my parents after my first miscarriage. After both miscarriages, I read those sections over and over again, as if they should explain more than the words provided, as if they answered questions that could not be answered.
This week, I find myself impatient. To rush through the remainder of Week 9 and then skip and hop over Weeks 10, 11, and 12. Another month feels unreasonably long, unnecessarily tormenting. Haven't I earned my way to Chapter 4 already?
During the past twelve months, I have read this sentence dozens of times. It is the first sentence of Chapter 3 of the Mayo Clinic Guide to a Healthy Pregnancy, entitled "month 3: weeks 9 to 12." I read it when I was supposed to be in Chapters 1 and 2, "weeks 1 to 4" and "weeks 5 to 8," peeking ahead to see how the little creature would transform. I also read it each time my calendar indicated that I was entering Week 9... as well as almost every night during the remaining six days of Week 9.
At this stage, the baby is "almost 1 inch long and weighs a bit less than 1/8 of an ounce." The paragraph tells me that the "embryonic tail at the bottom of your baby's spinal cord is shrinking and disappearing, and the face is more round." I scrutinize the drawing next to those words. It is a funny shaped thing. There is a strange, reptilian tail protruding out of its back. The head is large and bulbous. The rounded neck give it the appearance of an alien, and the pot belly is incongruous with its tiny but defined arms, hands, legs, and feet.
I have touched the figure drawn in the "Actual size" box to try to imagine it inside of me. I have shoved the picture in front of Jeff as he lay in bed reading some history or technical book, and watched him stare at it in fascination that it looks the way it does and that such a thing was actually there - with us in bed.
Between chapters 3 and 4, there is a place holder. I have peeked ahead a few times, like the picture in Week 17, where the page cannot afford space for an "Actual size" drawing, only a 50% reduction. But the pages in the later chapters are not nearly as worn. The first three chapters belong in a used book srore, and the following seven, at Border's.
Many chapters forward, there are other sections I am more familiar with, like the one entitled "trying again after a pregnancy loss." The section on "pregnancy loss" in the chapter on "Problems during pregnancy" is cracked at the spine, where I bent it over the xerox machine to make copies for my parents after my first miscarriage. After both miscarriages, I read those sections over and over again, as if they should explain more than the words provided, as if they answered questions that could not be answered.
This week, I find myself impatient. To rush through the remainder of Week 9 and then skip and hop over Weeks 10, 11, and 12. Another month feels unreasonably long, unnecessarily tormenting. Haven't I earned my way to Chapter 4 already?
Monday, February 9, 2009
This Time Around
This pregnancy feels different somehow. The other day, when someone asked me if I was pregnant, I completely forgot that I was and answered, "Oh, no, but we're trying." A split second after I responded, I remembered that I was pregnant. Maybe it's some defense mechanism kicking in after two miscarriages. Or maybe it's because it's becoming old news to be in the early months of a pregnancy. Sort of a been there, done that feeling. But it's nice not to be obsessively checking the toilet bowl each time.
Monday, February 2, 2009
Ambiguities
I thought about following social convention and keeping the news to myself until it is "safe" to announce the pregnancy. In some ways, keeping the pregnancy secret until the second trimester makes sense. A new birth is supposed to be the one of the happiest of occasions, and who wants to taint it with the risk of miscarriage? It is a bit awkward (as I have found out) to announce in one big blur, "So... I'm pregnant, but we just don't know what will happen and miscarriages are so common and I have about a 30% chance of another one so let's just see what happens and please keep your fingers crossed for us." And what if you do miscarry? Wouldn't it be awkward to have to go back and un-announce your pregnancy? In the days following my miscarriages, I found myself emailing friends instead of calling them because I found it difficult to talk about it without breaking down.
I've never been good at lying though. I give myself away. And when you've already had two miscarriages and all your friends know you're trying again, it's difficult to dodge the question, "Are you pregnant?" My friends ask me that question as soon as I decline a glass of wine. Instead of hemming and hawing, I find it easier to answer truthfully. Sometimes, the answer is, "Nope, but we're trying." Other times, it's, "We are!" followed by a series of disclaimers.
Even the first time around, I found it necessary to talk about my pregnancy early on, especially with other women who had gone through pregnancies. I had a lot of questions. First, I needed recommendations on the books I should read. Then, I wanted to discuss the advice in the books. (Do you think I really can't have prosciutto for nine months? I keep reading conflicting advice about air travel. What did you do?) Then I had questions about whether we should opt for CVS or amnio, where I should buy maternity clothes, when I should start looking into the maternity leave policy, etc., etc., etc.
But talking comes with a price, as I found out. Last time, when I told someone I miscarried, he responded, "You shouldn't have announced the pregnancy so early." I felt rebuked for a second, and then that sense of shame quickly turned to indignation. I thought, do you really think this is about your discomfort? Another time, I felt pretty small when a friend made a point to tell me that his wife kept her pregnancy secret until her fifth month. Is it a matter of my character? Am I the loud mouth who lacks the patience and the discipline to keep it to myself for just a few months?
Maybe it's that of kind attitude that drives women to hide their pregnancies in the first trimester. I've been in situations where women lie about their pregnancy, even as they are suddenly declining food they seemed to relish before. The red flag is a "no thanks" to wine and then another "no thanks" when I offer them a taste of my tuna tartar or caesar salad. Or suddenly requesting decaffeinated coffee after grilling the barrista about the de-caffeinating process. I usually ask straight out, "Are you pregnant?" And some women mouth, "Oh, no," even as they avert my eyes, their cheeks flush, and we quickly change the conversation to the latest news topic or gossip as we both feel embarrassed to be caught in a charade. Surely enough, the "announcement" comes a few weeks later. I feel a little taken aback, and a part of me feels as if something has been betrayed between us.
I can't help but wonder if silence during early pregnancy is a residue of the days (or maybe we're still mired in it) when a woman's social value is derived from her fertility. Maybe some women who miscarry see the miscarriage as failures on their parts - even among women who have degrees and work experience to attest to their ambitions, who see themselves as independent and progressive, who don't bank their identities solely on motherhood. I've seen these women whisper about their miscarriages and then ask me not to mention it to anyone else. It is enshrouded in a quiet shame, a stigma best kept secret.
I wonder if this secrecy doesn't cheat us. It feels like wearing a burka, hiding from society an ambiguous and complicated issue - like female sexuality - that should be socially addressed. In the case of pregnancy and miscarriage, many women seem to have tacitly agreed that these issues do not deserve room for discussion in the social arena. The truth is, life is ambiguous. Every pregnancy comes with the possibility of miscarriage, still birth, complications during delivery, or post-partum problems. Instead of acknowledging these openly, we seem to prefer to pretend that the baby does not exist until the second trimester and then suddenly all is well once we pass the CVS mark. And when the miscarriage occurs or we find ourselves facing a still birth or a death during delivery, we find ourselves alone, feeling like a social anomaly and a failure. I would prefer not to find myself in that kind of a hole if something goes awry again.
The strange thing is that we have come from a time when it was common for both the woman and the baby to die during childbirth to a time when it is almost completely safe. Maybe the denial of death and ambiguity is a safeguard against the fears that permeate in the face of possible risks. If I could help it, I would create a little space for some ambiguity. For society to understand that when a woman announces her pregnancy, that is not the outcome. It is the beginning of nine months of waiting, hoping, and safeguarding. And that the body is complicated and still mysterious in many ways, with no promise of certainty. That even if this fetus is not visible on the surface and may never see the light of day, it still exists inside me. And that is a miracle.
I've never been good at lying though. I give myself away. And when you've already had two miscarriages and all your friends know you're trying again, it's difficult to dodge the question, "Are you pregnant?" My friends ask me that question as soon as I decline a glass of wine. Instead of hemming and hawing, I find it easier to answer truthfully. Sometimes, the answer is, "Nope, but we're trying." Other times, it's, "We are!" followed by a series of disclaimers.
Even the first time around, I found it necessary to talk about my pregnancy early on, especially with other women who had gone through pregnancies. I had a lot of questions. First, I needed recommendations on the books I should read. Then, I wanted to discuss the advice in the books. (Do you think I really can't have prosciutto for nine months? I keep reading conflicting advice about air travel. What did you do?) Then I had questions about whether we should opt for CVS or amnio, where I should buy maternity clothes, when I should start looking into the maternity leave policy, etc., etc., etc.
But talking comes with a price, as I found out. Last time, when I told someone I miscarried, he responded, "You shouldn't have announced the pregnancy so early." I felt rebuked for a second, and then that sense of shame quickly turned to indignation. I thought, do you really think this is about your discomfort? Another time, I felt pretty small when a friend made a point to tell me that his wife kept her pregnancy secret until her fifth month. Is it a matter of my character? Am I the loud mouth who lacks the patience and the discipline to keep it to myself for just a few months?
Maybe it's that of kind attitude that drives women to hide their pregnancies in the first trimester. I've been in situations where women lie about their pregnancy, even as they are suddenly declining food they seemed to relish before. The red flag is a "no thanks" to wine and then another "no thanks" when I offer them a taste of my tuna tartar or caesar salad. Or suddenly requesting decaffeinated coffee after grilling the barrista about the de-caffeinating process. I usually ask straight out, "Are you pregnant?" And some women mouth, "Oh, no," even as they avert my eyes, their cheeks flush, and we quickly change the conversation to the latest news topic or gossip as we both feel embarrassed to be caught in a charade. Surely enough, the "announcement" comes a few weeks later. I feel a little taken aback, and a part of me feels as if something has been betrayed between us.
I can't help but wonder if silence during early pregnancy is a residue of the days (or maybe we're still mired in it) when a woman's social value is derived from her fertility. Maybe some women who miscarry see the miscarriage as failures on their parts - even among women who have degrees and work experience to attest to their ambitions, who see themselves as independent and progressive, who don't bank their identities solely on motherhood. I've seen these women whisper about their miscarriages and then ask me not to mention it to anyone else. It is enshrouded in a quiet shame, a stigma best kept secret.
I wonder if this secrecy doesn't cheat us. It feels like wearing a burka, hiding from society an ambiguous and complicated issue - like female sexuality - that should be socially addressed. In the case of pregnancy and miscarriage, many women seem to have tacitly agreed that these issues do not deserve room for discussion in the social arena. The truth is, life is ambiguous. Every pregnancy comes with the possibility of miscarriage, still birth, complications during delivery, or post-partum problems. Instead of acknowledging these openly, we seem to prefer to pretend that the baby does not exist until the second trimester and then suddenly all is well once we pass the CVS mark. And when the miscarriage occurs or we find ourselves facing a still birth or a death during delivery, we find ourselves alone, feeling like a social anomaly and a failure. I would prefer not to find myself in that kind of a hole if something goes awry again.
The strange thing is that we have come from a time when it was common for both the woman and the baby to die during childbirth to a time when it is almost completely safe. Maybe the denial of death and ambiguity is a safeguard against the fears that permeate in the face of possible risks. If I could help it, I would create a little space for some ambiguity. For society to understand that when a woman announces her pregnancy, that is not the outcome. It is the beginning of nine months of waiting, hoping, and safeguarding. And that the body is complicated and still mysterious in many ways, with no promise of certainty. That even if this fetus is not visible on the surface and may never see the light of day, it still exists inside me. And that is a miracle.
Saturday, January 31, 2009
Another Round
Here we go again. (Yes, that's a plus sign you're looking at.)
Don't they say three time's the charm?
Monday, November 3, 2008
On Stolen Time
I am 11 weeks and two days into my pregnancy. It is now one day after the length of the last pregnancy, and I feel as if I'm living on stolen time. At times, I find myself stealing glances over my shoulder, looking to see who's out to reclaim this time and declare that this time was never mine to enjoy. When I tell my friends that I'm pregnant, I speak sheepishly, feeling like an interloper staking a claim to what isn't really mine. At other times, I find myself flinging back on the couch, relieved as a mound of silly putty that we've survived this far, we, this baby and I.
I still have not told my mother about my pregnancy. She calls every few days and always makes a point to ask, "How is your body?" A seemingly strange question, but one that asks without asking, are you still fertile? are you still trying? are you pregnant yet? My answer is always a curt "I'm fine" because I am a terrible liar and I can feel her staring through the phone into my blushing face and wondering what it is I am hiding.
I think of Jeff's 74 year old father's response back in March when we told him I was pregnant. He counted out six fingers on his hands and said, "I can last that long. I'm going to last long enough to take him to the Wild Animal Park." We also haven't yet told him about this pregnancy. We'll wait until the shadow of disappointment recedes into the closet, or at least under the shadow of our happiness.
I am counting the minutes until the second trimester as if it is my day of reckoning. I feel as if in five days, I can start breathing again. I haven't read any baby books since April and I haven't opened any of the documents I started back then, the list of baby gears, the list of to dos and don'ts when the baby arrives, the list of things we should know as parents. I don't have time for the future yet. I need to focus on keeping this little being alive, healthy, inside me.
I still have not told my mother about my pregnancy. She calls every few days and always makes a point to ask, "How is your body?" A seemingly strange question, but one that asks without asking, are you still fertile? are you still trying? are you pregnant yet? My answer is always a curt "I'm fine" because I am a terrible liar and I can feel her staring through the phone into my blushing face and wondering what it is I am hiding.
I think of Jeff's 74 year old father's response back in March when we told him I was pregnant. He counted out six fingers on his hands and said, "I can last that long. I'm going to last long enough to take him to the Wild Animal Park." We also haven't yet told him about this pregnancy. We'll wait until the shadow of disappointment recedes into the closet, or at least under the shadow of our happiness.
I am counting the minutes until the second trimester as if it is my day of reckoning. I feel as if in five days, I can start breathing again. I haven't read any baby books since April and I haven't opened any of the documents I started back then, the list of baby gears, the list of to dos and don'ts when the baby arrives, the list of things we should know as parents. I don't have time for the future yet. I need to focus on keeping this little being alive, healthy, inside me.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)