Yo-Hah!

The Birthening, part 2: Tuesday, or, Things eventually start to happen

2012-01-26T11:30:00.000-06:00

DH and I dozed in the hospital room through Monday night. Every hour or so someone would come in to check my blood pressure, so I kept waking up, but I was generally able to get back to sleep. Around 7:00am someone brought a tray of breakfast - the food was actually pretty good at the hospital - and then at 8:00 the shift changed and the new midwives came in and talked with me.

I was starting to have mild contractions, but I couldn't even feel most of them. I had a second monitor strapped to my belly that indicated when a contraction was happening, but I generally wouldn't even know unless I was looking at the monitor right when the contraction started.

Once we were up, DH and I were relaxing and killing time before the real work began. We had brought a bunch of movies on VHS because the rooms only had VCRs, so we watched "The Empire Strikes Back". We had to pause it a few times for interruptions, including the arrival of my parents.

When Mom and Dad arrived, they seriously expected something to be happening. One of us told them it would be "at least twelve more hours, maybe longer", and they expressed surprise. I'm still not sure where they picked up the idea of an instantaneous induction... especially because my sister had gone through virtually the same scenario 18 months before. We told them they should go find some lunch while the midwife checks me out. (I know plenty of women who want their mother with them every step of the way during labor and delivery, but that's just not the relationship I have with my mom.)

At 11:00am the first Cervadil was removed, and the midwife checked me: no noticeable progress. No one was very surprised.

Since I was briefly unmedicated, I could take off the fetal heart rate monitor. I took a shower, which felt lovely, and then I put on my street clothes and DH and I took a brisk walk... down the hall. We weren't allowed to leave the labor and delivery area, so we walked laps back and forth, back and forth. I had a few contractions during the walk, but they were mild enough that I could walk through them. I hoped the contractions without meds were a sign that my body was starting to do some real laboring.

Labor is so weird: I was looking forward to pain as a sign of progress. When else do you want to be hurting?

My parents return from lunch while we were still briskly walking. We told them to just hang around my room and we'd catch up with them in a moment - I didn't want to lose that last chance to move the baby down before I was stuck in the room again.

Around 1:00pm, I got a second dose of Cervadil. Ouch again. While that was happening, my folks checked in to a hotel about 15 minutes away from the hospital.

My parents returned that afternoon... with my sister, who flew in as a surprise. I stayed in the hospital bed for most of the time they were visiting, because I had an open-backed gown and I didn't want to moon my whole family. Otherwise, though, I changed positions pretty regularly in the hopes that it would help move things along.

A few hours later, the contractions finally started to pick up. They were what I would call textbook contractions: I feel a tightening low in my abdomen that then moved up my belly, stayed tight for a time, and then dissipated. DH started timing them and he saw that they were lasting for about a minute. They were becoming uncomfortable, and I found myself starting to use belly breathing and relaxation techniques from my birthing class to get through them. By around 8:30pm I was lying on my side on the body pillow I brought from home (my trusty Snoogle!), trying to catch some sleep before things got really serious. When nurses came in to check my blood pressure, I just stuck my arm up - apparently the nurses were impressed with how relaxed and prepared we were, and commented about this to other staff in the midwife office.

Shortly after 8:30pm, we turned off all the lights and tried to make an early night of it, anticipating that we'd need to rest up for the day ahead. I kept dozing off, but waking up for contractions, breathing through them and relaxing different parts of my body. DH was fast asleep on the dad-cot about 10 feet away from me, and I let him sleep... I could handle these on my own, and (though I didn't know just how much yet) I knew he'd need the rest.

A bit after 10pm, I was awakened by a contraction. It was like the others: rolling up my midsection, tightening uncomfortably... and then something felt weird. I momentarily thought the baby was kicking, really hard, in the middle of the contraction. Maybe he was, but then I felt a definitive POP!... and a second later, a warm gush between my legs.

Oh, my God. My water just broke.

I yelled for DH, who was in a deep sleep at that point, so I had to shout his name while simultaneously fumbling for the nurse call button. Mere seconds after I told the nurses "my water just broke!", a crew of women swept in, all the lights came on, and there was a flurry of activity. I was somewhat stunned at just how much amniotic fluid there was: It just kept pouring out. Of me. Weird. It was also messy, and I kept apologizing to the nurses who were trying to clean me up. My hospital gown was soaked, as were the sheets on my bed, so the bed and I both got stripped down and changed. I couldn't really walk around anywhere without making a puddle, so I just stood awkwardly in one place while the gushing continued.

Academically, I knew I wasn't peeing all over myself, but it's hard to explain that to your emotional self when warm fluid is pouring down your legs.

The midwives came in shortly thereafter and checked the scene out. One of the nurses thought she saw meconium - baby poop - in the fluid. The midwife wasn't so sure, she thought it looked clear enough, which made me feel a better, but they were all keeping an eye on the heart monitor and my temperature to make sure things weren't getting sketchy.

My water breaking on its own was a good sign, all around - labor was finally taking off, it seemed. And sure enough, the contractions that came afterward were markedly different without the cushion of amniotic fluid. It would be days later that I would admit out loud to DH that what I experienced after my water broke was what is called "back labor": every contraction, for the next 22 hours or so, was located squarely in my lower back. And they weren't periods of tightness or mild discomfort any more. They were painful.

Boob Juice: I love it/ I hate it edition

2012-01-24T11:45:00.000-06:00

So it's been three months of exclusively breastfeeding the little guy, and now I'm back at work 4 days a week (I work from home on Wednesdays).The situation has changed, once again, so I thought I'd record the recent changes - both in circumstances and in my attitude - in list form.

Stuff I love about breastfeeding:

- Nursing is a really snuggly time. I have a super-tall baby, so he wraps himself almost all the way around me when he's nursing, which keeps us both warm on these chilly days. When I burp him after he nurses, he likes to snuggle and chat, too - it's great quality time.

- As the kiddo's personality is coming out more, he gets really cute mid-nursing session: sometimes when he's no longer starving but he's not finished with his meal, he'll take a quick break to look up and me and smile. Sometimes he does this three or four times in a row: it's like early peek-a-boo. When he sees I'm still there, he looks SO HAPPY. Bonus cute points are earned when some milk runs down his cheek while he's making faces at me.

- This is selfish, but holy crap, this is the best weight-loss plan ever. I'm within 5 pounds of my pre-pregnancy weight, all my pre-pregnancy pants fit, and the only exercise I've done since giving birth is walking around. All this despite the fact that I'm hungry all the time and eating like it's going out of style. This is a very nice side effect of being a nursing mom.

- So far, I haven't had an issue with supply. I built up a stash of freezer milk before I headed back for work, which has helped while I've figured out how much I need to pump in the office. Now that I've been doing it for a couple of weeks, I think things are starting to regulate, and I'm grateful we haven't really had a panic about what the kid will eat.

- Dude is growing in leaps and bounds, and everything he's eating comes from me. It seems arrogant to be proud about that, but... whatever. I'm proud of it.

- I'm a D-cup. Va va va voom.

Stuff I don't love about breastfeeding:

- I'm a D-cup. Yeah, that's hawt and all, but the need to wear industrial-grade underwire bras all day makes it a little less awesome.

- All those nice things about nursing? Yeah, that doesn't happen during pumping, which I do 3-4 times a day on office days and once or twice on days I'm home. Being attached to a milking machine feels very bovine, and a little sad because I know what I'm missing (see snuggle description above).

- If I go more than about 4 hours without either nursing or pumping, I get uncomfortable. If I go more than 6 hours, I start to feel like my chest will explode. This is a bummer, because on the occasional night when the kiddo sleeps 8+ hours, I don't get to sleep that long: I have to get up at some point and pump. And it's not like, "oh, maybe I should pump", it's painful. So some days I feel like I will never ever sleep more than 7 hours straight ever again. I know this isn't true, but it will be several months, at least, before I'll have that chance.

- My kid is great about taking a bottle, but he prefers nursing... which means he likes to make up for lost time on days I'm away at the office. Lost time gets made up at 2am. Bleh. At least I don't have to wake up at 6 to pump?

- I am concerned that one of these days I'll forget the bottles or pump parts I have to tote back and forth from home to the office... and then I'll have to take the 30-minute train ride back to pick them up. Hasn't happened yet, but I've only been doing this for a couple of weeks so far.

I will say that, on balance, things have smoothed out, and I can see continuing this nursing relationship as long as the little dude would like (or until he's 2 - that's my limit). My advice to new moms who are considering it remains that it's worth a try and it's best to ask for help BEFORE you're crying about it. Because you'll get to the point when you look forward to nursing the tot, and you kind of feel like a superhero for being the source of his food and a major source of comfort, and contented post-nursing snuggles are really the tops for both parties.

2011 in Review

2012-01-23T11:45:00.002-06:00

I'm always slow with New Year's stuff, but this is the Lunar New Year, so... happy year of the Dragon!

I'm fairly certain 2011 was the most life-changing year I've experienced thus far. It was also possibly the most difficult. It was definitely one of the most tiring. At the start of 2011 year I was a childless grad student, living in the city with my husband (also a grad student) and a cat. Now I have a master's degree, and a baby, and no cat, and I live in the suburbs. I still, fortunately, have the husband (who's now a doctor... of philosophy), but now we're parents, too. Those are some big changes in one year. When 2011 started, we didn't know the life and death stuff would happen - I had no inkling I'd get pregnant this year, and of course we thought our cat would live for many more years - which makes it all a little crazier.

Overall, I'm happy to bid adieu to 2011. With everything that happened in the year, I would like to think I've grown up a little. I still consider myself kind of a kid, though, and I wonder if I will still feel that way when I turn 30 this year.

1. What did you do in 2011 that you’d never done before?

Completed and defended a master's thesis.

Gestated a human being, experienced labor, then sustained said human with milk from my own body.

Moved to the suburbs (something I said I would never do).

2. Did you keep your new year’s resolutions, and will you make more for next year?

Eh, maybe I'll actually make some for 2012. Can I make a resolution to make resolutions?

3. Did anyone close to you give birth?

Haha! Me. Also: one of my coworkers, a close friend of mine, and one of my cousins. Lotsa babies.

4. Did anyone close to you die?

Dear sweet Corina the wonder kitty. I still miss her daily.

5. What countries did you visit?

We stayed right here in the US. Again.

6. What would you like to have in 2012 that you lacked in 2011?

Actual open dialogue with difficult members of my family.

More money*.

7. What dates from 2011 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?

January 6: the day we decided we'd think about having a kid.

February 10: the day I found out I was pregnant (yeeeah, that was fast!).

The second week of June: the week from hell (found out our baby's gender, put our cat to sleep, defended my master's thesis and celebrated DH's grad school graduation).

July 8: paid off the last of my student loan debt.

July 14: Our fifth anniversary - we took a much needed, very relaxing 4-night trip to Wisconsin to celebrate.

August 1: moved to our swanky new 2-bedroom apartment in the 'burbs.

October 20: birth of our firstborn son

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?

Finishing grad school and paying off the last of our debt were both pretty big, but I think welcoming our son in to the world kind of trumps all other achievements this year.

9. What was your biggest failure?

I still wonder sometimes: did I fail to realize Corina was getting really sick? Was I not aggressive enough about taking care of her before it was too late? I don't know.

Also, I didn't manage to birth my kid without major surgical intervention. It's dumb, but I do occasionally feel kind of like a failure for that.

10. Did you suffer illness or injury?

I'm not sure if abdominal surgery counts... with the long recovery involved, I think it should, though, so there was that.

11. What was the best thing you bought?

The swing/rocker we found at a consignment shop for $3. The kiddo loves that thing.

12. Where did most of your money go?

Rent, moving costs, baby supplies, paying off the last of our debt.

13. What did you get really excited about?

Being knocked up, and telling people about it.

Learning the Speaker is pregnant (she's already in to the third trimester - I'm so excited!).

Getting out of debt (have I mentioned that enough?)

14. What song will always remind you of 2011?

Probably the "Women of the World, Take Over" song DH played for me while I was in labor. Or Paul Simon's "Get Ready for Christmas Day"

15. Compared to this time last year, are you:

– happier or sadder? Yes, both. I cried more in 2011 than I have ever cried before, but I've also been so happy at times, thanks largely to the kid, that my heart hurts.

– thinner or fatter? Slightly fatter, but I've lost most of the baby weight at this point. This is a major benefit of breastfeeding!

– richer or poorer? On paper, verry slightly richer. In reality I feel pretty broke.

16. What do you wish you’d done more of?

Laughed, slept.

17. Wish you’d done less of?

Cried, worried.

18. How did you spend Christmas?

This was the first year in my life that I didn't spend any part of Christmas day in a car, and it was really nice.

The weekend before Christmas, DH, the kiddo and I went up to my brother's apartment and had a brunch and gift exchange with my brother and sister-in-law. It was Sunday afternoon, and we ended up hanging around until 7pm or so, watching football and just relaxing with them. Super nice.

On the 21st, DH and I loaded up an entire carload of baby equipment, gifts, laundry and of course the baby and drove the 2.5 hours to my in-laws' house. We stayed there until the 27th, and it was a pretty great week: the kiddo slept really well at night and my mother-in-law basically insisted we get out most afternoons without the baby so she could babysit. On Christmas eve we went to Mass and left the kiddo in the care of a rotating cast of family members back at the house. He seemed to like that. After church, we had chili for dinner and then opened our stockings and had Christmas cookies and egg nog. Then on Christmas morning we opened our big presents. Not surprisingly, there were about four times more baby gifts under the tree than gifts for anyone else. Our big present from the in-laws was a high chair, which we clearly aren't using yet, but I'm glad we have one.

I Skyped with my immediate family on Christmas day - we were in 4 different states. This made for a very low-drama Christmas on my side of the family, which is a Good Thing.

19. What was your favorite TV program?

Arrested Development and Cheers streaming on Netflix. Oh, and Pawn Stars - we watched all of it while packing and unpacking from the move.

20. What were your favorite books of the year?

Since we've moved and I was on maternity leave, I had access to a good library and a bit of time to read while nursing. Of course, I haven't read anything published this year except the excellent Life with Mr. Dangerous. I'd pick The Year of Living Biblically by A.J. Jacobs as one of my favorite reads of the year.

21. What was your favorite music from this year?

Possibly the new Paul Simon album? That makes me sound like such an old person, but it's a good album!

22. What were your favorite films of the year?

Cowboys and Aliens was one of the only movies I watched in a theater this year... but it was pretty awesome.

23. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?

I turned 29. Did the usual stuff at Silver Lake. I need to come up with something awesome for 30 this year, I think.

24. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?

My cat not dying, shit not getting weird with my parents. OK, that's two things.

25. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2011?

Maternity wear! Fun while it lasted, but I'm looking forward to a new look in 2012.

26. What kept you sane?

Long walks with DH, before and after the birth.

27. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2011.

Even if - or especially if - you just had a baby, people aren't going to give you what you need, especially if your real need is for time and space to adjust to the way life has just drastically changed for you. You have to claim it or you just won't get it.

On the other hand, sometimes you will be blown away by the generosity and thoughtfulness of people with whom you're merely acquainted. The neighbor with no kids of her own may turn out to be your dinner-and-diapers-delivering postpartum angel. Never discount folks like her.

Here's to 2012!

*Since big mommyblogger dooce and personal finance blogger JD Roth both just announced they're splitting with their spouses, I would like to note that I'd rather stay relatively broke and happy in my marriage than filthy rich and alone. Seems like it should be obvious, but it also seems like those people could afford marital counseling...

The Birthening, Part 1: Induction

2011-12-30T09:45:00.001-06:00

It's taken about two months to write this. Babies are a bit more work when they're out of the womb... and they're distractingly cute even when they're not being work. So I don't apologize for the delay. :-)

I had had my usual appointment with the midwives on Thursday, October 13. At that appointment they had told me I should come in over the weekend to do a quick blood pressure check. I had initially agreed to Sunday, but the prospect of one last weekend at home, just me and DH, without a 2-hour round trip drive to the hospital, was much more appealing... so I called on Friday and said I would come in on Monday, the 17th.

I went to work on Monday and had difficulty concentrating. I think, in the back of my mind, I knew I wasn't coming back in for a long time. Rather than spur me to productivity, though, the thought just made me listless. Since I'd already trained the part-time temp who was going to cover much of my job, I was mostly tying up small loose ends, anyway. I left a little early so I could take the el train to the hospital and be there by 4:00.

When I got to the midwives' office, there was some confusion: apparently someone had written me down for a noon check-in, when I had explicitly told the person on the phone that I would be there at 4:00. So I ended up twiddling my thumbs in the waiting room for some extra time, telling myself to be calm.

That was the whole problem with the blood pressure stuff: it got more tense each time I got checked, because I knew they would want to induce me, and I didn't want to be induced for a million reasons (including my sister's terrible failed induction/ c-section nightmare), so I had to stay calm. But telling yourself, "STAY CALM!" doesn't really, uh, work.

Finally, I was called back to an exam room and a nurse checked my blood pressure. I tried so hard to take deep, slow breaths while she was doing it, but my heart was racing.

150/80. Way too high.

In the past, they'd let me sit for five minutes and check it again. I naively thought they would do this at this appointment, too. They were also planning a cervical check and everything, so I de-pantsed myself and sat in the room with that big paper sheet over my lap for a moment and then Midwife Amy came in. She did a cervical check and declared me completely closed.

Here's where I was clearly just in denial: in my mind, what she told me ("completely closed") was that my body just isn't ready to have the baby yet, so they're going to send me home, tell me to relax, and they'll see me Thursday at my regular appointment.

Amy didn't see it that way, and the tone of resolution in her voice made me break out in to a sweat. She was giving me two options: be admitted to the hospital right now, or go home and pack a bag and return with DH tonight. Being completely closed just meant they'd have to do more work to get me ripened up.

I felt a little thick-headed: both options sounded like an induction would be starting within hours. But she just said my cervix is closed. After months of focusing on medication-free childbirth and hoping to let labor happen naturally - the whole reason I was working with midwives - this just puzzled me. At one point Amy said, "were we not clear that this was probably going to happen?" And I had to admit that, yes, they'd been talking induction for weeks. I just hadn't been listening.

Of course, I was also alone. This was the only appointment throughout the course of my pregnancy when DH hadn't accompanied me. Amy let me get dressed and call him before I had to make a decision.

My hands were shaking when I dialed home.

I explained what the situation was, and we agreed that I would come home, we'd eat a little dinner and pack up, and we'd come in to the hospital that night.

When Amy returned, I told her the situation, and she said she'd let Labor and Delivery know I was coming in. I explained how far we lived from the hospital and that it would likely be late - after 9:00pm - and she said that was fine.

With that, I left. As I walked toward the train, looking down at my big pregnant belly, I told myself that this was a lucky thing - I was getting one last chance to be on my own before I have this baby. A little time to myself to think.

In reality, I was scared and upset. This was all going wrong. I'd managed to carry a baby for 39+ weeks, but I was doing something wrong and now they're forcing the kid out when he's not ready. My hands were still shaking. I wanted a hug. (To be fair, Amy could see that: she gave me a big hug before I left and told me everything would be fine).

So I called my parents.

Parents of adult children: if your daughter calls you and says, with a nervous voice, that she's about to be induced, the first response you give should be "Are you OK? How are you feeling? Everything is going to be fine."

Despite your overwhelming excitement about the impending birth of a new grandchild, your response should not be: "GREAT! We're getting in the car RIGHT AWAY!" Which is precisely what my mother said.

My mother's enthusiasm didn't help. I was fighting a lump in my throat, and now I had to tell her to cool her jets, I'm completely closed, this is going to take a long time, et cetera. I had expected that she would remember how long my sister was in the hospital during her induction before they finally pulled my niece out via c-section, but apparently all that stuff about forgetting labor extends to grandmothers, too.

I don't blame her for being excited, of course. I just wouldn't have minded some reassurance. But she'd never been induced, anyway, and the one time she was threatened with it she was 42 weeks pregnant and it was a very hot August and she was SO DONE with being pregnant. I had not yet reached that point.

My parents insisted they would be leaving after dinner to drive halfway to Chicago (this panicked me. In hindsight, I shouldn't have called them until at least 24 hours later, or maybe even until after the kid was born).

My next call was to my brother, who had told me weeks earlier that he was keeping his phone by his side 24/7 in case I needed anything in the last days of pregnancy. His response was pretty much exactly what I needed to hear. He started with "Is everything OK? How do you feel about this? Is there anything you need?"

As my sister has said, our brother is rare among men. He absolutely loves being an uncle and was very excited about meeting his nephew, but he didn't let that get in the way of taking care of his lil' sister.

By the time I finished talking with my brother, I was on the el train, and I didn't want to be discussing the state of my cervix within the hearing of train strangers, so I moved to texting people: first my sister, then a few close friends and one co-worker. The slow process of sending text messages on my clunky phone helped distract me from the sweat that was developing in my armpits. As encouraging/excited responses trickled in, they helped me feel a little better.

I was on the train over an hour: first the brown line, then the green line. It felt like a year. I felt alone, detached from all the people around me in a completely different way than the usual commute. I wondered if they could tell what was about to happen to me.

When I called DH and told him I was almost home, he suggested he'd order a pizza for delivery, and then he would come meet me at my train stop. That sounded good to me.

When I finally got off the train and saw him walking toward me, I kind of started to lose it - I realized I'd been mostly keeping my cool in public but was really, truly freaked out. As he came closer, I started to cry. He gave me a hug and we walked through the dark together to our home, our last time doing something like this without worrying about the kid.

Once I was at home, my sister called. She, also, was very reassuring, and told me that her induction had been earlier in her pregnancy and it was really unusual, and that mine would go much more smoothly, and a million other kind things. I was gathering up things to pack while she talked to me, and then DH started badgering me about cash for the pizza delivery while I was still on the phone with my sister, and then my sister started asking about when she could visit in January, and I felt myself starting to crack: "You know, we still have to get packed up for the hospital, it's a little crazy here right now..." I was starting to cry again.

I got off the phone with my sister, and I - proud moment here - screamed at DH. But seriously, I felt like I was about to cede all control of my body and our baby to a bunch of doctors, and he can't get eighteen f***ing dollars together? And he didn't so much as wash a dish while I was trapped on the train, even though he knew we'd be in the hospital for days? I was pissed. Then it turned out I didn't have enough cash, and I really lost it. The stupid pizza was supposed to simplify things, and now I could feel my blood pressure going through the roof, and it was clear that I had to fix the situation even though my brain couldn't handle anything additional at that point. I told DH to call the pizza place and give them our debit card number, which for some reason he thought wasn't possible.

He called. It worked. We got our pizza. Things went a little better once we ate something.

We packed up the bag, and headed out in to the October evening, late enough that traffic wasn't bad.

We got to the hospital around 9:30pm - after hours, so we had to press a special button to be admitted to the main doors by some remote security person who buzzed us in. We carried all our stuff up to Labor and Delivery, and between the two of us we looked like we had planned to spend a month: we had bags of snacks and drinks, my body pillow, a laptop, and a million other things.

When we got to the secure L&D doors, I picked up the phone on the wall and said, "we're here for an induction", and they let us right in, no questions asked.

We schlepped up to the nurse's station with all our bags. The nurse at the desk did not inspire confidence: she acted like she had no clue who the hell we were. I had to repeat my name several times, and repeat that I was with the midwives, and it was an induction, over and over again. I was so ready to bolt back out the door at that point. Had I known what the next few days would be like, I probably would have. Finally, the nurse (who still kind of looked like she was just making things up) admitted us to L&D room 311.

I thought to myself, "this is where it's all going to happen. I'm going to meet my son in this room."

I changed in to a hospital gown and climbed on to the hospital bed. Another nurse came in and gave me an IV hep-lock and a hospital bracelet, and hooked me up to the continuous fetal heart rate monitor. The kiddo's heartbeat was nice and steady. Since I was going to be on medication, I had to have the monitor on all the time. Fortunately, I could still walk around: if I had to wander further than a few feet from the bed, I could just unhook the monitors, toss the cords behind my neck, and walk over to the bathroom or whatever. I was pretty happy about that.

Then Midwife Kim came in and talked with me for a while about the next steps: I'd have a dose of Cervadil that would stay in for 12 hours, then they would assess me. If I wasn't quite ripe yet, they'd give me another 12-hour dose of Cervadil. After that, Pitocin. She told me that sometimes, Cervadil is enough to just get things rolling on their own. I hoped for that outcome, because I'd heard some bad things about Pitocin.

She then gave me the first dose of Cervadil, which is a suppository-type thing that gets inserted in to the cervix. Oh lordy, was that unpleasant. I knew Kim to be pretty skilled when she has to deal with the nether-regions, so I think Cervadil just kind of hurts. Once it was in, though, I couldn't really feel it.

Around 11:00pm, we settled in for the night. DH pulled out the chair-bed thing in the room and put on some pajamas, and I reclined my hospital bed. We turned down the volume on the fetal heart rate monitor, turned down the lights, and waited for things to get started.

Boob Juice: the situation so far

2011-12-13T22:20:00.005-06:00

One of the reasons I haven't finished the birth story is that my hands have been full, in a very real sense, with feeding this baby. With the exception of three days, my 8-week-old son has been fed only breast milk, and he's thriving: he's over 12 pounds now, and is big and strong (95th percentile for length! And he can already roll over! And... I'll stop. But I'm very proud of him). After the first five days of his life, my milk supply has kept up with his demand pretty well; the "girls" are producing plenty to keep him fed.

Easy peasy, then, right?

Not exactly.

About two weeks ago, as I was struggling through yet another excruciatingly painful nursing session, I was composing a blog post in my head entitled, "Breastfeeding is An Enormous Pain in the Ass". I felt duped, and I felt like there was no getting out of the hell I'd gotten myself in to: my child was thriving on my plentiful milk, but I was crying at the end of (and sometimes the start of) each nursing session. This was clearly great for him and awful for me. Everyone had told me that the first two to three weeks would be difficult, but things shifted from challenging (i.e., figuring out the mechanics of nursing a new baby) to painful after those three weeks. I kept thinking I needed to tough it out, or maybe I was just more tender because I had a big, strong baby who liked to eat in gulps, or maybe I was doing something wrong... it all boiled down to something being flawed with me, or with my approach. I just had to figure out what it was.

Thanksgiving week was when it finally hit the fan; when I was sobbing in bed while my son was contentedly nursing. I was sobbing for two reasons:

A) The unending, burning, stabbing pain while my son nursed, and

B) The need to stock up on milk so I could go shopping with my mother that Saturday.

Item B is probably the topic for a separate post about difficulties with my family and their growing tendency to ignore my needs, but it did mean that I was pumping milk after each nursing session, trying to glean enough extra so I could spend precious hours away from my month-old son, shlepping around in a crowded shopping mall during Black Friday weekend. This was creating additional stress for me, which wasn't helped by item A: pain.

DH made the suggestion, while I was weeping, that I just start pumping until I could figure out what was going on. We had both given up on what we thought were La Leche League lies ("breastfeeding should never hurt!"), but he offered that perhaps it shouldn't actually hurt this much. And pumping was less painful.

The Sunday after Turkey Day I began exclusively pumping, and our baby started getting all his milk from bottles. (Side note: He is so easygoing. As long as there's milk, he doesn't care where it's coming from. I love this kid.) While I pumped, I Googled things like "agonizing pain while breastfeeding". And I learned a few things:

First, I learned that, while "breastfeeding should never hurt", it often does, especially in the early weeks. I found a message board of women describing the pain when their babies initially latch on as being equal to or worse than labor pains - and I nodded in agreement. And while I was told to expect "discomfort" for 2-3 weeks, several of these women said it took two to three MONTHS before that latch-on pain dissipated.

And by "latch-on pain", I mean take-your-breath-away, toe-curling, 9 on a scale of 1 to 10 pain.

Second, I learned that, though it can (and often does) hurt to start with, what should never happen while breastfeeding is a burning feeling, like the intense burn I would have for about 30 minutes after each feeding. That's a sign of a problem. Other chest-area problem signs I had: urgent itching during a nursing session, occasional shooting pains at any time, and, yes, pain intense enough that I cried while feeding my son.

Dr. Google told me I might have thrush, which hadn't occurred to me. OK, it had, but I kept checking my baby's mouth and he had none of the fuzzy white spots I knew to look for, and he never acted irritated when he nursed. If he didn't have thrush, how could I have it?

That Monday, I relayed my concerns to our pediatrician at the kiddo's one-month appointment. The doctor checked him carefully and told me she saw no signs of thrush in him, but it was possible - especially if I'd been given antibiotics and he hadn't - that I had thrush but hadn't transmitted it to the baby. She suggested I use Lotrimin (yes, the athlete's foot medicine) 3 or 4 times a day and see if that helped.

She also did what all the health professionals do, and complimented me on my milk supply. Thanks, but I would enjoy being able to give the milk to my child without the delivery of said liquid being such an issue.

After a couple of days of only pumping and using Lotrimin, I didn't feel like things had improved markedly - I was crying less, but only because I wasn't nursing. And I was sad about not nursing.

Also, all the dealing with bottles and the pump actually created a lot of friction between me and DH: when I exclusively nursed, I just took charge of the kid for an hour at a time, no fuss, no muss. I was forced to put my feet up and DH had some time to do what he wanted. With the exclusive bottle feeding, DH would feed him while I pumped, or else I would feed and burp the baby and then hand him over to DH so I could then pump... and then one of us would have to wash all the pump parts and bottle apparatus every day or so. It was a huge hassle, and felt like way more work for both of us.

So on that Wednesday I did what I should have done probably two weeks earlier: I called the midwife's office. The triage nurse who talked with me was awesome - she immediately made it clear that I shouldn't be in this kind of pain, and she made me feel, for the first time in a long time, that I wasn't inherently flawed or doing anything wrong. After a couple of conversations with her, I had a prescription waiting for me at a local pharmacy: two doses of Diflucan and a tub of All-Purpose Nipple Ointment. I'd heard of APNO several times, and it kind of sounded like a wonder treatment. Diflucan was referred to in a lot of the search results I found when I Googled around about thrush.

The nurse also told me that as soon as things stopped hurting terribly, I should get back to nursing the kiddo - there wasn't a big concern about giving him the thrush.

So a third thing I learned is something plenty of people have told me: ASK FOR HELP. If something hurts? Ask for help. If you feel like something's just not right? Ask for help! If you're crying while you're feeding your kid? Ask. For. Help. Or clarification, at least. I got really invested in toughing it out when what I needed was a prescription.

And a fourth thing: if you're sore (and if you're nursing, you will be, especially if you give birth to a mini-Hoover like my son), use these Soft Shells. They were recommended to me by a new-mom friend of mine and they work beautifully. Between these and my prescription ointment I started healing noticeably in a couple of days.

We're up to the point now that I'm nursing the kiddo about half-time, and the other half of his feedings he's getting bottles of pumped milk. In the last couple of days, I've had several nursing sessions when latch-on pain was minimal, and the rest of the feeding was essentially pain-free. It's amazing, and I think I can see where this is going: I'm back to hoping I'll be able to breastfeed this kid for a solid year, whereas a few weeks ago 12 months sounded like a lifetime of pain and suffering.

When it doesn't hurt, I have to say that nursing a baby is pretty awesome, in the true sense of the word. I gestated this baby, and now I'm still sustaining him with my body. I love the snuggle time that is guaranteed during a nursing session, and generally extends for a while afterward when I'm burping him and he dozes off on my chest, content with a full tummy. Nursing can certainly feel like the best kind of tender loving care a mother can give to her child.

But while I already stated for the record that I would be completely fine with some formula supplementation - which is exactly what we ended up doing in the first few days of his life, when he had jaundice, my milk hadn't yet come in, and he needed to poop out that bilirubin - I will now say, after two months, that I certainly don't blame women who don't stick with breastfeeding. If I hadn't had two solid months off work and a spouse who was home with me full-time and a health care professional who was extremely supportive, I don't think I could have weathered the learning curve. Of course now I know I had some issues that were unaddressed for too long (ASK! FOR! HELP!), so my case was probably not typical.

So, yes, so far we're exclusively breastfeeding, and as we come to the 2-month point I anticipate that will continue to be the case. But just because it's "natural" does NOT mean it's easy, not in the first two months, at least. I'm becoming convinced that anyone who says it is must be trying to sell you something.

Thanksgiving

2011-11-23T21:14:00.003-06:00

Yes, I'm still writing out the birth story, and it's three parts so far, and maybe I'll finish it or maybe it will stay an unfinished tale like that triathlon I never wrote about (the short story on that: it was fun. And now that I've given birth, it's no longer the toughest physical thing I've done).

But it's hard to fit in any writing - or anything - with a baby around. Yes, even though he sleeps approximately 16 hours a day, according to the books. And yes, even though DH and I are both home full-time together during leave. And, yeah, even though right now the kid only needs about three things in rotation: milk, diaper change, sleep. You'd think a couple of people with graduate degrees could manage that AND getting the dishes washed in the same day, but you'd mostly be wrong. So creative pursuits are not getting the attention they may have otherwise.

I'm not complaining, though. Despite fatigue and occasional frustration (it's a weird frustration, too - I'm frustrated for... getting frustrated. Like I should be able to handle it when the kid has a full tummy, a dry diaper and a comfy place to sleep and is screaming his head off at me for no apparent reason. DH reminded me that it might be normal to find that frustrating).

Last Thanksgiving I honestly wasn't even thinking about having a kid. When I realize just how quickly we shifted from "not yet" to "why not?" with the baby question, it's a little stunning. This time last year I was not only not pregnant, I didn't think I'd be having a baby any time soon. Certainly not while still in my 20s, anyway.

But our minds changed, and then we got ridiculously, stupidly lucky and I was pregnant much sooner than I dared to hope I would be, and here it is, Thanksgiving, and we have a one-month-old son. And holy crap, people, he is cute. He's starting to smile sometimes, and use his voice - he likes to say "ow", very cheerfully, sometimes very loudly in the middle of the night when I'm burping him and DH is trying to sleep - and he reacts to different voices in the room, and he's starting to see things like the shapes of the mobile that hangs over his changing table. He's also growing like crazy, and we're pretty sure he'll weigh over 12 pounds at his one-month pediatrician appointment.

So, clearly, there's a lot to be thankful for here:

We have a beautiful, healthy son, and somehow we've picked up the basics of this parenting gig without freaking out so far. (The very short list of needs he has is helpful). Also, let me repeat: he's beautiful. The whole time I was pregnant I was prepared for a weird-looking kid, because we're a little weird looking, ourselves. And then he was born, and... wow. He's objectively cute. I spend a lot of time staring at him and feeling amazed.

I'm healing up and feeling more like a human (OK, most of me... my "girls" are still feeling a bit battered - the kid's massive weight gain is all due to mother's milk. This kiddo inherited the appetite enjoyed by both his parents. This is great for his sleep, but tough on my mammaries). I can do things like take long walks outside now, so I don't feel like an invalid like I did the first couple of weeks. I'm looking forward to being cleared to do things like jogging and lifting things that are bigger than the baby (though, hey, he's big enough that I'm less limited all the time!).

We're surrounded by supportive family, friends and neighbors who have been fantastic about stopping by with meals, calling and e-mailing to see if we need anything, and appropriately fawning over our beautiful baby.

With the extra leave due to my c-section and the timing of winter break at my work, my maternity leave is basically 11 weeks long, which is awesome.

We have health insurance. I seriously don't know what we would have done without it, because according to the statements I've gotten in the mail so far, our week in the hospital cost $35,000. Do what?

We live in a friendly neighborhood, full of folks who will strike up a conversation with a couple walking around with a baby. We're still not used to it, but I like the surprise each time.

And... well, I'm sure there are things I'm missing. But that's sleep deprivation for you. I hope all three of you readers out there have a beautiful holiday. We'll get to see a whole lot of both of our families, with a minimum of travel on our behalf, which is wonderful.

Happy Thanksgiving!

The Birthening: the prologue

2011-10-27T11:16:00.004-05:00

Over the last several years, I have read many, many birth stories, and I know that there is often an unexpected thing that happens during labor and delivery. Birth plans are just plans, and they need to be flexible. My whole approach to labor took that in to account: we took a childbirth class focused on unmedicated childbirth, but I was clear with DH that if things took a long time and I needed to conserve my energy, I was open to the idea of some pain relief that would help me rest.

We didn't even write out a birth plan, actually: we talked the whole enterprise over with the midwives, and everything that really mattered to me was just standard operating procedure. The most crucial aspects of any plan we would have written were the moments just after birth: I wanted immediate skin-to-skin contact with my baby, I wanted the team to wait until his cord had finished pulsing before it was cut, I wanted to try breastfeeding before they gave him any shots or weighed and measured him. The midwife said this is all standard - we would need to write out a special request NOT to have these things happen.

Well, none of those things happened. My son was born in a freezing operating room, via caesarian section, after a failed induction that took over two days. I didn't get to touch him for almost 4 hours except for a quick kiss on the cheek before they whisked him away to the nursery while I was sutured up and rolled back to a recovery room, without him. DH spent some time in the middle of the night pacing the hall between his post-operative wife, his baby in the special care nursery, and all his in-laws in the waiting room, waiting for news. The final process looked nothing like our general plans.

I am 100% OK with all of this.

I used to think that the people who had experiences like mine who said things like "at the end of the day, I have a healthy baby and that's all that matters" were just making themselves feel better about a situation over which they lost control. Maybe they were, but I seriously feel good about the way my son's birth panned out. He's huge and healthy and beautiful, and I never felt like I had lost what small amount of control I ever had over the process. It's just that the plan had to be even more flexible than we realized.

In part because I feel like I owe it to all the bloggers who shared their birth stories, and in part because now, only a week later, certain details are already starting to elude me, I'm planning to write out my son's birth story. It will likely take a little time between feedings (oh man, does this kid like to eat) and naps (his and mine), but I'd like to write it down. Because what happened was basically my nightmare scenario, but it wasn't terrifying at all. Through the whole process, which lasted over three days, I felt supported and listened to, and I felt like all the options were being laid out fairly to me and DH.

And, yes, at the end we have a healthy baby. I think I had to grow up a little and realize that seriously? That is the point of this whole thing.

Before I get in to the long story, however, here are the details: the kiddo (sorry interwebs, you don't get his real name) was born at 1:48am on Thursday, October 20. He was 21.25 inches long and weighed 8 pounds, 15 ounces. The midwife on call noted that this was after he pooped several times immediately after delivery, so she insisted that he was at least a nine-pound baby. And yes, his size was part of the reason we ended up in the operating room.

Oh, and we love him to bits and pieces. I'll have to write a separate post about how my feelings toward newborns have changed, because this particular newborn is just the tops.

39 weeks

2011-10-17T11:30:00.002-05:00

OK, this really may be the last weekly pregnancy update. The midwives have continued to be nervous about my blood pressure and they're indicating that they won't let me go past 40 weeks, and may try to induce me sooner than that. Since, as I type this, I'm at 39 weeks, 3 days, that means - urp - some time in the next 4 days I may be delivering this kid. Am I ready for that? Is anyone ever ready for this? I'm huge and kind of uncomfortable, and I'm looking forward to meeting the little guy, but I just spent one last, relaxed autumn Sunday hanging out with DH and soaking up some just-the-two-of-us time, and it made me feel a little melancholy that I'm about to give that up. DH likes to say we're just adding someone else to the party, and I'm sure he's right (and I'm sure the second I see him holding our son I'm going to melt into a puddle), but after five-plus years of sharing my home life with just DH, I know it's going to be a serious adjustment for me. Not a bad thing, just a big change.

Weight Gain: 35 pounds! I lost a pound over the last week. Meanwhile, my belly got bigger, so I'm thinking we're in a magical phase wherein I transfer my weight to the tot. Maybe I should stay pregnant for three more weeks? Is that the best weight loss plan ever? Probably not.

Symptoms: Achey hips, occasional shortness of breath, bizarre hunger cues (I didn't want to eat much of anything Saturday, then I was STARVING ALL DAY Sunday). And - get this - contractions. Only a few, on Friday night, but they felt like menstrual cramps that started low down and moved slowly up my abdomen. It's bizarre to feel excited about pain, but as DH pointed out, the whole pregnancy enterprise involves feeling positive about crappy symptoms (early on it's "I want to puke... yayyy!"). Also, I know I could have on and off contractions for, like, weeks, but I still take it as a hopeful sign.

Happily, my belly button is still just weirdly flat. I feel blessed that it hasn't yet popped out, like a turkey timer. Maybe we'll manage to avoid that...?

Cravings/Aversions: All over the place, and kind of unpredictable. I'm thinking my system must be getting ready for some action, because my relationship with food is becoming weird. There's a little of the first trimester "I need to eat and I feel bad because I haven't but nothing sounds good" feeling, but then eating almost anything is generally delightful (except on Saturday when food was mostly a chore).

I am loving: How unavoidably huge I am. People just stare. And sometimes make comments. One woman just laughed at me. I wonder what people do to women who manage to make it to 42 weeks?

I miss: Oh, the usual stuff: especially rolling over in bed without it being a major chore. My hips feel like they're going to dislocate in the middle of the night these days.

I'm looking forward to: Meeting him! Maybe soon! We got a bunch of hand-me-down clothes from one of DH's cousins over the weekend, and since they'd been in storage for a while I washed all the newborn-to-6 month size stuff. Folding up the tiny sweaters and snuggly little pajamas was really fun, and I am geeked about finally putting a little person in to these outfits and cuddling up with him when it's cold outside.

I'm concerned about: How it's all going to go down, delivery-wise. I have no choice but to go with the flow (OK, I guess the other choice is to panic... but that doesn't help anything) and hope - and work for - the best delivery possible. I got to have a nice long chat with my friend who had an emergency c-section 10 days ago, and she's rooting for me to have a natural birth so she can live vicariously through me. I hope I can come through for her! But whatever gets this little guy out in to the world safe and sound is good to me.

Milestones: Little dude is "watermelon sized". And his mother is Sherman Tank sized. :-)

Movement: Still good. I got hooked up to a fetal monitor for 20 minutes on Thursday, and they wanted him to move twice in that time - which he did - and they wanted his heart rate to accelerate appropriately when he moved - which it did. So he's already passing tests! I'm proud.

Exercise: OK, mostly walking and puttering around the house. I've been sitting almost exclusively on my yoga balance ball at work, too, which is its own low-key exercise (and makes my hips feel like they're dislocating... but that's kind of all the time these days).

Sleep: Still pretty good, especially considering what I hear from other moms about how they just DID NOT SLEEP the last weeks of pregnancy. I'm getting at least 6 hours a night, and usually closer to 8. The kid is definitely down in my pelvis, though, because when I get up to pee at night it is a desperate and painful need to make it to the bathroom in time, not just kind of urgent like it used to be.

Diet: Mostly OK. Saturday was kind of a wash, as I had a big basket of fried stuff when DH's family took us out to lunch and then I felt crummy for much of the rest of the day. Otherwise I've been much better, and have been tending toward spicy foods, just in case that home induction remedy works.

Something nice: Most people, in most places, are just really nice to someone who's as huge-pregnant as I am. And most of them smile at me. I appreciate that.

38 weeks

2011-10-10T12:30:00.003-05:00

Though I know this can change at any moment, the little guy has shown no signs of making his appearance any time too soon. On the other hand, there's a full moon this week, so... will this be the last weekly update? Time will tell...

Weight Gain: According to the midwife, 36 pounds! Yikes. I'm gaining over 2 pounds a week lately, which is TOO MUCH.

Symptoms: Is "I can't say no to food" a symptom? I don't know. Otherwise, I'm big, my right hip occasionally hurts, I've started to have some really lovely crotch pain (sorry, TMI? It seriously feels like I got kicked down there sometimes), and my lower back is achey by the end of the day. So basically I've gained 36 pounds in a few months and my body is reacting appropriately. Oh, I also have cankles. This is what I get for being all smug a few weeks ago, when I thought I'd made it through the summer unscathed. Seriously, though, these are all minor, and - except for the cankles - none of them are constant. I still feel like it's been smooth going for this whole pregnancy.

Cravings/Aversions: I seriously want to eat everything. OK, except the canned mushrooms. But everything else.

I am loving: That the midwife at my last appointment took all the data points seriously and didn't order another 24-hour urine screen. We bought another week! And she was even asking us what our plan will be if I go over 41 weeks, so the specter of induction seems to be receding, which is fantastic.

I miss: Having a pregnant buddy. My friend who was due 4 days after me had an emergency c-section on Thursday. She had a boy, which means we're both raising sons, which is exciting, but we both really expected me to go first - she was talking about trying to hold out until November, actually. The circumstances for her were a little scary, and pretty sudden, but mom and baby are both fortunately doing fine now.

I'm looking forward to: the return of cooler fall weather this week.

I'm concerned about: When this is on my list of "concerns", I've got it easy: some of my maternity shirts are getting to be too short, and they're riding up in the front, exposing either my bare belly or the big elastic band of my pants. If I go to something like 41 weeks, WHAT WILL I WEAR?? I may need to get a pair of maternity leggings so I can just wear all my dresses as shirts.

Milestones: I asked the midwife how big she thought this baby is, and she said his head seems about 7-pounder sized, but that he might be faking her out because he seems really long. So... lanky baby? But also: seven pounds already?? Yikes. Also, he's been head-down for several weeks now, which is great.

Movement: Much of the same. If I drink something cold or have something to eat, his foot is all up in my rib. I'd yell at him but I really don't think he has a lot of options for where to put his feet these days. Also, he doesn't allow me to slouch. If I lean forward too much he gets very kicky.

Exercise: Improving. One insight we gained from the midwife appointment was that, even though I thought I was drinking plenty of water, I actually wasn't. I upped my hydration and a lot of the crampy feelings I was getting on our walks basically disappeared. DUH. So now we're back to taking LONG walks, which feels great.

Sleep: Holding steady. I never thought I'd just get used to waking up between 3 and 4 AM to waddle to the bathroom, but I do it every night now. I'm generally able to get back to sleep after not too long, and I think this is helped by the longer walks.

Diet: Also improving. Something about being over 36 pounds on my weight gain shocked me in to realizing that "occasional sweets" does not mean three desserts in the same day. So... occasional. And I'm eating more fruits and veggies.

Something nice: DH's adorable baby cousin got baptized this weekend, so we went to the service and the family lunch gathering afterward. This baby is so amazingly chill: she loves to eat, she's a good sleeper, and when she's awake she's content as long as she has a good view of the room. Every time DH and I are around her we both rub my belly and tell our kid to be just like his cousin. I hope that works.

DH's whole family is pretty excited about the little dude. His aunt found a bunch of clothes at a consignment sale that everyone has been telling me about: I haven't seen them yet, but there's a rumor of a sweater vest, and oh how I love a baby in a sweater vest. His family is also going to lend us a swing and buy me a breastfeeding pillow - two things I hadn't yet gotten that I really want to have. This kid is lucky! OK... so am I.

Also: over the weekend we stocked up on pantry goods. We have enough laundry detergent, canned goods and boxed mac n cheese to survive the apocalypse. It does help ease my mind, knowing that we can live for weeks (that's probably not an exaggeration) without going to the grocery store, since I'm anticipating a few weeks of complete brain-dead sleep deprivation at the start there. If I get my act together in the next few days I'm going to make a few meals to freeze, since there are still a few square inches of open freezer space in our kitchen, and we can't have that, can we? Does this count as nesting? I think it may.

Finally: several folks have asked me when I'm due, and then have guessed: "in a month?" Then they're all surprised when I tell them two weeks. So I just passed an invisible threshold of somehow looking less pregnant than I actually am. I have no clue how these things work.

Oh, and as a bonus: did you hear about the woman who ran the Chicago Marathon at "nearly 39 weeks" pregnant, went in to labor DURING THE RACE, finished, grabbed a bite to eat, then went to the hospital and had her baby? Thanks for making us all feel like slackers, lady!! I stopped running at something like 10 weeks!

Fall harvest

2011-10-06T11:30:00.000-05:00

I don't regularly check in on CJane's blog, so I didn't realize she was pregnant again until she was, like, really pregnant. But this post she put up last week made me nod:

"Good bye September.
It's a curious thing to have a body on the same fertile cycle as Mother Earth.When I see the heavy apples on the tree in the backyard, hanging on for one more month of perfect ripeness, I feel my position. When I see my face in this photograph I also see the roundness, the readiness of a harvest of a different kind.
September, we're glowing."

And she is, round-faced and glowing in the picture.

As I've been waddling around in search of tasty pumpkin delicacies, I agree with her that it's curious to feel rather pumpkin-like, myself, in the autumn. Curious and kind of fun. I've always loved October, and now I think I will love it even more, because (unless I go really overdue) it's the month when I get to meet my son.

I've heard that it's best to have babies in the spring, so one can do all the gestating and nesting when it's cold outside, and that always made sense to me. But this year I'm enjoying this affinity with apple trees and squash plants, and I'm looking forward to what this autumn will bring us.

37 weeks

2011-10-04T11:00:00.001-05:00

0-4 weeks until the big day! That's quite a range.

Weight Gain: About 32 pounds, according to the scale at home. I would like to keep it under 35, but we appear to be gaining 2 pounds a week at the end here. Not sure how I feel about that.

Symptoms: I know I still have it easy, but I'm experiencing an increase in aches and pains. My hips are achey, my lower back is occasionally giving me what-for (not in a crampy way, more in a "dang, girl, you're carrying 30 extra pounds around all the time" way), and holy hell, have I gotten some painful gas lately. Especially when the kiddo decides to try to stretch out, I have moments where I just feel like there's too much matter in my midsection and not enough space. I'd like to keep the little guy baking for at least another couple of weeks, but I can completely understand why some women are just done with the blessed pregnancy process at this point.

I am also getting occasional crampy feelings, and I'm feeling my Braxton-Hicks contractions more, so I think the body is moving in to "getting ready" mode.

Cravings/Aversions: I really just want to eat all the time again - hence the 2 pound a week weight gain, I'm sure - but carbs are always delicious.

I am loving: The nice weather and the way DH and I have been kind of soaking in our last few days/weeks together as just the two of us. We did a lot of work on our apartment this weekend and now I feel like we're really moved in, just in the nick of time. The place feels like home, and the kid's room is really cozy, and we're enjoying our last days of quiet while simultaneously looking forward to meeting the new guy.

Oh, and I have a new sleep strategy to ward off hip pain: I am now sleeping with my Snoogle, plus a regular pillow, PLUS a folded-up comforter between my knees. This looks completely insane, as I'm basically sticking one leg all up in the air, but it means I sleep.

I miss: Just about everything about my body 30 pounds ago. But most of that will come back soon, so I'm cool with it.

I'm looking forward to: Hopefully at least one more beautiful fall weekend at home with just DH before the Big Day.

I'm concerned about: My blood pressure... sort of. I'm really concerned about the midwives' attitude shift. Three weeks ago, my BP was a little higher than it had been for most of the pregnancy, but no one seemed too concerned. Then last week, when the nurse pulled out the blood pressure cuff, I briefly panicked - I felt my heart pound and I got that quick fight-or-flight head rush one can get. I should have asked the nurse to wait a second, but she was jabbering away about something, so she takes my blood pressure and it's scary high. Then she interrogates me: "Were you rushing to get here? How do you feel? Have you had headaches?" She makes me lie down and tells the midwife to take another reading later.

Here's the thing: 10 minutes later, the midwife takes my BP and it's almost exactly what it was two weeks before. I am certain I have a case of "white coat syndrome", especially in light of my sister's experience with birth. Despite the new normal reading, though, the midwife orders a blood test and a 24-hour urine collection - something they had made my sister do before they tortured her. When I heard about the urine thing, I yelled, "no!" - in my mind, this was the beginning of the end of hands-off midwife care, and they're about to hand me over to the OB wolves with their IVs and their scalpels.

So in between working on our apartment all day Saturday, I was also collecting my pee in a charming orange jug. Sunday morning we dropped the jug o' pee off at the hospital, and by Sunday evening we had confirmation that no problems were found in any of the blood test labs or in my urine - I'm cool. Despite that, the midwife who talked with DH on Sunday afternoon when I was away rattled off all the symptoms of pre-eclampsia that he should watch out for, and made sure to mention seizures as a possibility. He was rightfully annoyed that they're still acting like something is wrong even though all the tests are showing that I'm fine thus far. I understand that pre-e can crop up quickly, but it almost feels like they're hoping for something to be wrong so they can induce me.

Anyway, with all that, we bought another week. And we're kind of ready for a fight on Thursday at my next appointment. I do feel a little reassured that I have now managed to progress further in my pregnancy than they let my sister get. I feel like every additional day the kid can stay in the womb means better things for him when he's born, and hopefully a better birth experience for both of us... especially if they try to induce me. The closer we are to the due date, the more ready he'll be to get born. But I'm cranky that I even need to worry about induction.

Milestones: Full term! If he is born, say, tomorrow, they wouldn't even think about sending him to NICU unless there's some extra complication with the birth. Yes, I would like my slimy baby placed directly on my chest as soon as he's born, thank you. We have a lot of getting-to-know-you to do.

Movement: Ugh. It's still reassuring, but does it have to be so... painful? He likes to s t r e t c h out, and lo, there is no room in there for the stretching.

Exercise: OK. I've been more sedentary at work than I probably should be, but we are at least getting nice walks in during the evenings. This fall weather is fantastic. I'm sad that it's supposed to heat up again later this week.

Diet: OK-ish. I need to keep focusing on protein, especially with all the midwife panic.

Something nice:
On Sunday, a group of my friends had a "mothers' blessing" for me and my friend who's due 4 days after me. It was a really nice event, and a good opportunity to think about this transition. I'm supposed to text the organizer when I go in to labor so she can tell all the women who were there that they should say a prayer for me, which is cool.

Also, I got to Skype with my best friend who lives far away in Canada yesterday, and she was asking me all kinds of things about my experience with pregnancy and what I'd learned about birth. It's great to talk with her, anyway, but I also like feeling like I'm becoming one of those moms that other women can ask about this stuff. There's a lot of stuff that nobody tells you!

Also, DH's mom picked up a lot of really cute sleepers for the kiddo, and his aunt called on Saturday and said she found a bunch of adorable baby clothes at a consignment sale for super-cheap. There was a time when I was worried we didn't have any clothes for the little guy... that time is gone.

Boob Juice considerations

2011-09-29T11:30:00.001-05:00

I'm going to note, right off the bat, that my male readers might just want to give this post a miss. It's predominantly about breasts.

Wait, that probably didn't deter you.

Um, lactating breasts.

Right.

I've always expected that, should I produce some offspring, I would do what other mammals do and nurse them. It just makes sense to me. My mom did as much with her three children, and she's noted that it's easy and affordable - and also a nice bonding experience. DH's mom also nursed all three of her kids and has said basically the same thing. I recognize that I'm fortunate to have family support on the baby-feeding front... but some of that "support" has taken an ominous shape.

Over the Easter weekend, when I was still not even really showing yet, and DH and I were occupied with a long list of higher priorities like finishing grad school, finding a place to move, and other items of actual import, one of my relatives handed me an enormous book about breastfeeding and told me I should start reading it now and attend La Leche League meetings immediately - this was later backed up with "no later than July, really". Then my mother ordered me two more books about nursing which arrived at our apartment the next week. (Side note: you know that fun feeling when an Amazon box arrives at your door? Imagine it contains a book about nursing a baby. Still fun? Yeeah...)

So I suddenly had three books to read, on top of the couple of pregnancy books (thick, yes, but meant to be read piecemeal over the course of 40 weeks) and the stack of information I got from my midwife each month, and the weekly e-mail that pops up in my inbox. And, I don't know, the READING I WOULD LIKE TO DO THAT ISN'T ABOUT BABIES.

Look, I understand that the women in my family are being supportive. But this information overload was threatening to stress me out. I had thought that by planning to breastfeed, I was choosing the simpler route, but these people were making it into a research project, complete with deadlines. Will nursing suddenly not work, if I don't do all this reading? Can't I research this stuff my own way? Over the last, oh, five years, I've picked up plenty of useful tidbits from talking to other moms my age who have successfully nursed their kids and from reading the occasional blog post or article. I know my midwife has a lot of resources for new moms; I'll have a list of numbers to call if I need some advice.

And frankly, I don't want to join La Leche League. I never did, and I'm less interested in it now than I ever have been. They're entirely too dogmatic for my taste. I know a couple of League members who have told me that women who stop nursing "just give up too easily" or, seriously, are "failures". Because this is a test to pass or fail? I know there are women who tried valiantly and had to make the choice between nursing and providing enough nutrition for their baby to thrive, and so they turned to formula. Somehow their babies are still alive - thriving, even. The League doesn't want new moms to notice those kids. The League tells us formula is "poison". And what mother would willingly feed her baby poison?!?

I don't want to turn in to one of those moms who judge other mothers. And I don't want to nurse my kid out of a sense of stubborn correctness. That's not good mothering, it's sickness. I want to nurse my baby because... well, I already said it: it makes sense and I won't have to worry about running out, etc, etc. And of course, it's healthy for both of us. And it's cheap and we're on a budget. That's really great, and I'm willing to work hard to make it work (and to his credit, DH is willing to put up with a fridge full of breast milk and the hassle of warming bottles when I'm away at work). But if, for some unexpected reason, like I don't have ducts that work right or I have raging, violent postpartum depression or some other crazy thing happens, and the choice is between nursing and my child's health... well, this is a no-brainer. My son is more important than my sense of righteousness, and he's gotta eat something.

Frankly, the League fanatics overdo it so much that their rhetoric backfires with exhausted new parents. People like Marisa are led to believe that giving in to formula is admission of breastfeeding failure - there's no room for supplementing in the mind of the League. It's all or nothing. So for new moms who might need a little more time to get the hang of it, there appears to be no grey area - no actual choice - and they give up. Is that what the League wants? Why do they prioritize exclusive breastfeeding over the compromises some people need to make, like supplementing with formula while the whole process gets worked out?

I was also interested to see what Jenny recently wrote about her difficult (and exceptionally painful) breastfeeding experience, too - especially the part where she felt that pumping all the time actually took away from times she could have been bonding with her baby. I'm sure the League would disapprove of that kind of admission. In fact, it seems the League is unwilling to consider any emotions involved in child-feeding that aren't positive.

I feel like I'm not going in to this with illusions. I understand that breastfeeding is difficult, exhausting, and sometimes painful at the start, which is why I've been talking to my midwife and my friends and relatives and coworkers who've done it successfully, and why I'll have phone numbers of lactation consultants to call. I have the wonders of the internet, and I'm already on a message board that's been talking about this stuff. And, hell, I have three huge books now. So I've got resources.

It's also fair to point out that I've read plenty of articles and posts by women who had really positive experiences breastfeeding. Sherry at Young House Love posted in July about the 14 months she breastfed her daughter, and Emily at Oh! Apostrophe recently wrote about how breastfeeding managed to work for her and her baby even though she "broke all the rules" at the beginning.

It's almost like each one of these women, and each of their children, is different. And each of them figured out what worked for them and their kid. It's as if I'll have to do the same thing with my child.

If it takes some extra time for my milk to come in, or my baby has a poor sucking reflex, or whatever, I'm going to supplement with formula. I'm writing that out now and considering printing it off to hand to my League-obsessed relative. Maybe we'll have to do half-breastmilk half-formula for a while. That's OK. Maybe we'll have to do all formula. I'll be disappointed about the expense of that, but beyond the finances, I'd like to think I'll be cool with it. I'm disgusted by the "failure" language, and try as my relative might, I'm not going to buy into it by internalizing it, and I'm not going to attend a monthly League meeting where they'll tell me I'm doing it wrong unless I quit my job, co-sleep, and nurse on demand until my child is four years old. Because none of those things will happen.

In an ideal world, I would like to breastfeed my baby until he's a year old. Beyond that, we'll play it by ear. If we get that far, maybe he'll wean himself at 14 months like Clara Petersik, or maybe I'll have to wean him when he's two because he - like one of his uncles who will remain nameless - will "want to nurse until he's twenty". It's going to be up to him, to a large extent, and up to me and DH to pick up on his cues and figure out when we need to change what we're doing or ask for help from one of the many resources at our disposal.

At the end of the day, as long as our baby is getting nutrition and growing, I'll consider the test of early childhood feeding to be passed, no matter how we get there. And I solemnly hope that I won't turn in to one of the high-pressure "lactivists" when some mom-to-be asks me for advice in the future, because making a pregnant woman feel pressured about these things isn't actually being supportive.

36 weeks

2011-09-26T11:30:00.000-05:00

My due date is in less than a month, but I could deliver this Friday and have a full-term baby. So... in 0-5 weeks, we have a baby. Then we have to take care of it. Yikes!

Weight Gain: Right around 30 pounds, according to the scale at home. My weight gain has not had a very linear trajectory.

Symptoms: I'm sleepy, pretty much all the time. Of course, it's been raining and cold for the past 48 hours, so I think a lot of people just want to stay in bed these days. Fortunately, this isn't the soul-crushing fatigue of the first trimester, just general tiredness. Also: my ankles have started getting puffy. I managed to avoid cankles throughout the record-breaking heat of the summer, and NOW my ankles puff up? Whatever. If I put my feet up and drink something, they calm down again. Also: my hips are definitely expanding. If I try to roll over in bed, they make a loud POP, and I have to keep two pillows between my knees when I'm sleeping now. And when I get up from sleeping or from sitting for a while at work, I have to walk several steps before I feel like my hips are definitely going to support my weight. Weird.

Cravings/Aversions: I want food. Mostly carbs. Often desserts. Frequently. Since my stomach capacity is tiny these days, I'm eating little snacks all the time. If I go more than two hours without eating (unless I'm asleep), I'm faint/nauseous/cranky. I am turning in to an infant, apparently.

I am loving: Not gonna lie, I kind of enjoy being so big I turn heads/ make people look scared. Seriously, some people look frightened. Just wait three more weeks, people!

I miss: Not being sleepy all the time. I know I will read this in 6 or 8 weeks and laugh maniacally at myself, saying, "Schmei, you didn't know the MEANING of TIRED back then!" but still, this is how I feel.

I'm looking forward to: This is odd, because I know it will be when I'm very uncomfortable and sleep deprived and need a lot of help with day-to-day life, but I'm looking forward to my mom coming up to help after the baby is born. I think it's going to be really comforting to have her around.

I'm concerned about: Life with a newborn. We're completely responsible for a tiny, helpless human? This makes me nervous. Though I think this nervousness is good, because it means I'm becoming less worried about pre-eclampsia, at least.

Milestones: He'll be full-term on Friday! Yowsas!

Movement: He's slowing down and stretching out and getting crowded in there. Movement that feels like an actual kick is becoming rare. Now it's more slow rolls and leg stretches, and sometimes it's painful because he's really pressing hard against my bladder/kidney/something. He gets hiccups a few times a day, and I can feel that more strongly each day. The hiccups kind of make me feel bad for him, but I know they're helping to make his breathing strong. And as DH pointed out, hiccups are annoying when you're trying to speak or do something else, but the little dude doesn't really have a lot on his agenda these days. Good point.

Exercise: Pretty good. Over the weekend of the wedding we had access to a pool, and floating around without fighting gravity was heavenly. I did a few lazy laps each day. Otherwise, I've been pretty good with walks, and my legs get stiff so easily I'm doing stretching/light yoga moves a few times a day on days when I'm at work. I can't walk as fast as I could before - I start to get contractions - but I can still walk for a pretty good while.

Diet: To be frank, I haven't been as careful as I was the last 8 months. Hot chocolate? OK. Cake? Sure. My actual meals are all pretty healthy, and I'm still trying to get lots of lean protein and fruits and veggies, but I'm huge and my hips are separating themselves and it takes me ten minutes to haul myself off the couch and sometimes I just want a donut.

Something nice: I was at work, talking on the phone with a woman who was interested in one of our training programs, and I was explaining to her that I'd be on maternity leave soon. She was really nice and said she had three kids via natural childbirth, and then went on, being all encouraging. "Labor is really a mental thing," she said. Then she said she'd keep me in her prayers. I don't even know this lady's name! That was super nice. And the mental thing... it was just what I needed to hear.

Also, at the end of the wedding weekend - which was really nice - we were all saying goodbye to each other, and the bride's whole family (a bunch of British people who had just met us all less than 48 hours before) said all kinds of sweet things to me and asked that we send baby pictures and wished us the best. It was a little hard not to get verklempt.

So there isn't a stork?

2011-09-22T11:30:00.004-05:00

Now that I'm in the final month of pregnancy, my belly is so prominent that I'm getting used to constant comments from... well, everyone. Relatives, coworkers, random strangers. The thing I don't understand? People who tell me that childbirth is going to hurt.

Seriously, people do this. And they think they're... being helpful? Letting me in on a secret? I don't know. It wasn't just that woman I mentioned in my last post, it just happened again - this time it was a MAN, on the train. Men: never, ever tell a pregnant woman that childbirth will hurt, because she just might start thinking of what she can do to you so you can enjoy a comparable experience.

The dude on the train started off all friendly, telling me about his 18-year-old daughter who's starting college, and he's so proud of her, and it seems like just yesterday his wife was pregnant, and they grow up so fast... that's all nice stuff. Then there was a lull in the (mostly one-sided) conversation, and he said, "I don't want to scare you, but" (Schmei's internal monologue: THEN DON'T SAY IT, IDIOT!) "my wife said she wouldn't have had that baby, if she'd known how much it was gonna hurt."

There was another woman sitting near us on the train who rolled her eyes so dramatically I felt at least a little vindicated in my sudden hatred of the guy. I just said, "uh huh."

I have found that most of the folks who've told me it's going to hurt a lot are people who have never had children. And seriously, half of them are men. I'm sure they're in awe of the whole process, but they need to shut it.

And I need to start saying, "you know what? Never say that to another pregnant woman again."

But don't worry, dear readers: the universe attempted to right itself. A few minutes after that conversation I was walking toward home, and two guys sitting on a bench hollered out to me as I walked past:

Guy on bench: Hey lady! How far along... when are you due?

Me: In a month!

Guy on bench: You look real sexy!

Me: (laughing, give thumbs-up in their direction)

Hey, at least it was complimentary.

35 weeks

2011-09-19T11:30:00.001-05:00

Weight Gain: According to the midwife, 30 pounds. According to the scale at home, 28 pounds. Sometimes that makes me sigh, others I'm OK with it. I did gain 5 pounds in two weeks, according to the midwife's office scale, but I was wearing much warmer clothing than usual (copout) and the midwife noted that I had had something of a "plateau" the month before. We had one of the cool midwives. She did not snark that gaining more than 25 pounds is "bad for me", which I appreciated.

Symptoms: I'm tired. I think that second-trimester energy burst is starting to wane. I'm also getting occasional mild headaches... but at the risk of over-disclosure, my whole digestive system has, er, slowed down, so I'm guessing that's what that is from.

Cravings/Aversions:I've been craving sweets more, especially chocolatey carbs. Do I just need more calories, or is this a warning! sign! of pre-eclampsia! God, I wish I wasn't so worried about that.

I am loving: Cool weather. I'm not sure how many times I've thanked/apologized to my mother for having me in August, because I can't imagine spending the last month of pregnancy in July... and then going 10 days overdue. Sorry, Mom!

I miss: Full nights of sleep. OK, I can't complain too much, because I still get a full night of sleep every other night or so. But the intermittent nights involve waking up once or twice, going to the bathroom... and then staring at the ceiling for an hour or so because I can't get back to sleep. The little dude can't really be blamed - he hardly kicks me at night, and I don't think it would keep me awake if it did. My brain just doesn't re-settle very well.

I'm looking forward to: My brother-in-law's wedding this coming weekend. I will be playing the part of the enormous pregnant lady.

I'm concerned about: Pre-eclampsia. My blood pressure was slightly higher at the last appointment, though I'm trying to tell myself that it was because I drove through rush-hour traffic, and then the nurse took FOREVER to take my BP, which made me nervous. No protein in my urine or anything, and some headaches in late pregnancy (mine have been very mild) are supposed to be normal. Still, when I'm staring at the ceiling in the middle of the night, I keep envisioning being at my next midwife appointment and being told "You have pre-eclampsia. We're inducing you today. You're going to writhe in pain for two days and then we'll give you a c-section against your will. Got it? Why are you crying?"

What's interesting to me is that I basically spent 33 weeks or so being all chill about this pregnancy: whatever happens, happens, I can only control inputs, not outcomes, so let's all do some yoga. Why am I freaking out in the last month? I'm sure my sister's terrible birth experience (which featured - get this - pre-eclampsia, a days-long failed induction and a c-section. I'm very creative with my worries) has colored some of this, but I also wonder if worrying about this very specific potential problem is helping me to not worry about... everything else that could happen.

Milestones: He's honeydew-sized! And he'll be full-term in 2 weeks. Wow.

Movement: He just punched my bladder. The kid likes to move.

Exercise: Pretty good this week, what with the clement weather. A few long walks, some workout tapes, a little yoga, and on Sunday basically a full day of nesting-type behavior - organizing the baby's room and our bedroom, washing all the new clothes we got, etc. I'm trying to fight the sleepy and to feel like we're close to prepared for this kid's arrival.

Diet: actual meals have been pretty great - lots of home-cooking, mostly cooked by the wonderful DH. I am becoming more interested in desserts now. Not sure if this is because of the cold weather, the last month being when the kid packs on the most weight, or the dreaded pre-e.

Sleep: As noted above, it's becoming inconsistent. And unkind people like to mention that we will NEVER SLEEP AGAIN so this makes me a little sad. I really, really like to sleep.

Something nice: One of my coworkers told me I make pregnancy look easy. As I was about to fall asleep at the receptionist's desk at the time, I appreciated the compliment. Seriously, I have had it pretty easy up until now. I think expecting the last month to be as much of a breeze as months 4-8 were is probably just too much to ask: I am carrying around a darn-near full-sized baby at this point. In my uterus. Woah. That I'm merely tired and occasionally have mild aches and pains means I still have it easy, and most of the time I am grateful for that.

The other nice thing? Washing all the kid's clothes this weekend. DH and I kept geeking out at how tiny and snuggly and cute the stuff is. Itty bitty socks! Wee hats! Tiny diapers! Little footie pajamas with cartoon puppies on them! I can't believe that in, like, 4-6 weeks or so, we're going to have a small person around to put those things on. That's kind of mind-blowing.

Something less-than-nice: This is an anecdote I had to share.

So, I'm obviously, shockingly pregnant at this point, and random strangers comment on it all the time. At least 90 percent of the time, they say something nice - I'm seriously amazed at least once a day by something kind someone says or does - but this morning as we were heading out the door of our apartment (DH walks me to the train in the morning because he's a super nice guy), this random woman was sitting on our front porch steps, talking on her cell phone. There are only 3 other people who live in our building, and this lady was definitely not one of them, so we looked a little puzzled at her. She started giving a long explanation about how she was waiting for her friend who lives in the next building... and then she got a look at my (terrifyingly large?) belly, and cut her diatribe short.

Random Stranger Porch Lady: Oh - how many months?

Me (trying to get to the sidewalk so I can walk to the train): eight.

RSPL: Do you know what it is?

Me (almost to sidewalk - why is it suddenly so far away?): It's a boy!

RSPL: Is this your first?

Me (at the sidewalk! Trying to walk quickly!): Yep.

RSPL: (smiling broadly) It's gonna hurt!

Me (internal monologue) WHY the f**** would you EVER SAY THAT to an OBVIOUSLY SUPER PREGNANT WOMAN??? Don't you think it's a LITTLE LATE FOR ME TO BACK OUT? And do you think I'm COMPLETELY STUPID and have never heard of CHILDBIRTH?? YOU SUCK AND I HATE YOU! GET OFF MY PORCH!!

(what I actually said): haha - I've heard that!

Sigh. I really need to spend this last month removing that politeness filter.

34 weeks

2011-09-12T11:30:00.003-05:00

I'm not pledging to be consistent about this, but I do feel like there's more detectable stuff going on in this trimester than there was in the last two, and I feel compelled to write it down.

Weight Gain: Not sure. My next appointment is Wednesday and I still haven't weighed myself since we moved. I'm a little worried I'm gaining weight fast, but we'll see.

Symptoms: Belly button, please stay right where you are. Don't pop out. Please? Because you're starting to look... strained.

Also, cramps and contractions. My legs want to cramp up if I'm not careful, and the ligaments or whatever in my lower abdomen - right above my hips - have given me a couple of "yeee-owch!" moments, when I moved too fast or tried to roll over in bed. And on one recent hot morning I got another round of quickly repeating, mildly painful contractions while I was walking to work. I drank a bunch of fluids and sat down as soon as I got to the office, and they went away immediately.

And... is this pregnancy related? Mild headaches. They come and go, and they're in my right forehead, just over my eye. I'm telling myself this is related to digestive issues and not pre-eclampsia.

Oh, and stretch marks on my thighs. It's interesting what bothers me (essentially, stretch marks anywhere else) and what doesn't. I guess I've never found my thighs to be overly pretty, so this is not really a thing.

Cravings/Aversions:Sometimes I want ice cream, a lot. Or chocolate. Apparently craving sweets is some kind of pre-eclampsia warning sign, so I'm trying to down a lot of protein and keep moving around a lot. But sometimes I do just eat the ice cream. Still not down with canned mushrooms, but I love fresh ones now.

I am loving: The occasional cool day. Wouldn't mind if they stick around!

I miss: Being able to roll over in bed. It continues to get more complicated, and it's when I'm sooo tirred and just trying to get comfy.

I'm freaked out about: Just gonna say it: pre-eclampsia. This is the first time I've been a little nervous about an upcoming midwife appointment, what with the (mild!) headaches. Please, please, please let my urine screen be OK this week. I'm not really swelling and I'm consuming more protein than I did when I was triathlon training... but I'm right around the same stage in pregnancy that my sister was when they gave her the bad news, and having a sister who had it means my chances are higher than the average mama bear.

If I can make it past this week's appointment, my next one will be at 36 1/2 weeks, which is a lot closer to full-term and would make me less concerned about horrible interventions.

I'm actually not sure which element of pre-eclampsia makes me more nervous: the prospect of having an induction/c-section forced on me, or the prospect of caring for a premature baby while recovering from a c-section. Regardless, I hope everything is cool on Wednesday so I can just take a deep breath and focus on fun stuff, like my brother-in-law's wedding.

I'm looking forward to: my brother-in-law's wedding! It's in less than 2 weeks, which boggles my mind because I remember thinking "I'll be the size of a tank at that wedding!" I think that means I'm approaching tank-size...

Milestones: Those weekly e-mails I get are now comparing the kiddo to some pretty large fruit. This week: cantaloupe!

And this isn't a baby milestone, it's a parent milestone: we found a pediatrician. She's within walking distance of our apartment, she's fairly young (but she's been practicing for 10 years), she has two kids of her own, and her general philosophy is very similar to ours. I expected we'd just be settling for someone OK, but we both like her. And her office offers free classes on different parenting topics, which is cool. So that's a big task off the to-do list.

Movement: Still good. Sometimes when I'm sitting on the couch, he stretches out such that I have to lean way back to give him room or else his whole leg is in my ribs. A few times he's kicked me so hard it did actually hurt. Watch it, kiddo.

Exercise: After months of walking and doing the same yoga video, I was craving something different, so I checked out the cheesiest pregnancy workout DVD from the library. It was originally filmed in 1988, and it has the unitards and legwarmers to show for it. And the music was awful. But I kind of got an OK workout following along with it. Then on Tuesday we went back to the library and I checked out another workout DVD: FitMom. Holy crap, this lady is hard core. And the workout was filmed some time within the last 5 years, so it's way less 80s. So on good days, I take a long walk and then do 20-30 minutes of the FitMom workout. And then I sleep!

Sleep: This is a new category, partly because it's the number one question I get: "are you still sleeping?" I've been surprised, really, at how this is everyone's first question. For the most part, my sleep is OK, though it's becoming more common that I'm awake from about 3-4AM. Sometimes I wake up to pee, sometimes to get a snack, but then I can't fall back to sleep too quickly. This is why I'm trying to work out more, as it seems to help.

The other funny sleep thing is that I'm apparently making wacky noises when I am asleep. One early morning this past week, DH woke me by asking, "is he kicking?" And I muttered, "no", and I was annoyed that he was waking me up, but he mis-heard me and put his hand on my belly anyway. Not really a big deal. But then we were talking about it at breakfast and he told me that I'd apparently yelled, "WHOOOOO!" in my sleep. Real loud-like, as if I'd just gotten pummeled. I have zero memory of that.

Diet: Pretty OK. We're eating home-cooked meals pretty much every weeknight these days, which is awesome. I'm all about desserts, but I've mostly been turning to cereal to kick the sweets craving, so that's not too bad. But I'd be lying if I said I don't have ice cream 2-3 times a week. It's so good! I'm such a stereotype!

Something nice: The experienced-mom network is awesome. A woman I worked with on a conference in January, who is located in DC, is sending a box of baby stuff my way. She has four kids and isn't having any more babies (and her youngest is the cuddliest squishy-cheeked little guy ever - he joined her at the conference), so she's excited to get rid of the stuff and I'm happy to have it. This is in addition to the box of clothes (including a dozen pairs of itty bitty socks!) I got from another woman who's worked with me on an annual conference - that one came from Iowa. I'm getting free stuff from all over the country! I spent some of the weekend sorting out all the new clothes, bath towels, and other things we need to wash, and I think we're more prepared for a newborn than I originally thought, which is great.

Also, I keep holding things up and telling DH, "this is SO SMALL!" Last night it was newborn diapers. They're tiny! Whose butt would fit in that? Awwww.

33 weeks

2011-09-05T11:30:00.003-05:00

It's Labor Day, though hopefully not THAT kind of labor day for me. Here's hoping you readers are enjoying a day off from your hard work. We're taking advantage of our last holiday weekend together as just two married folks by puttering around the apartment, enjoying autumn-like weather, and taking naps. I love naps.

Weight Gain: 26 pounds... and now I'm officially over the 15-25 pounds I'm supposed to gain, with 7 weeks to go. I'm not sure there's a lot I could have done differently to gain less weight, and I'm honestly not stressed about it. I also seem to be carrying ALL of it in my belly (OK, some of it made it to my thighs): my face isn't puffy or anything. So there we are. I will likely gain over 30 pounds total, and the not-quite-so-nice midwife who told me "that's not good for you" can deal with it.

Speaking of that, after months of striding out of every midwife appointment feeling like I'm the best mom, and DH is the best dad, and our kid is the best ever, we met with our first dud this past week. She made me feel like I must be doing something wrong, she told me my legs are swollen (uh... or I have big calves? My ankles/feet/hands weren't swollen at all and my blood pressure was "great", according to the nurse), she harped on me about the weight thing, and she basically told me I'm doing it wrong because I didn't have a list of questions for her. I see a midwife every other week, I've read umpteen books and blogs, we just took a 12-week childbirth class... if I have questions, I seek answers. I just really didn't have any this week. Then she really made me feel confident by telling me her watch had been off by a day for the whole month, and she just realized it. That just sounds flaky to me.

Now I'm worried that she, not any of the other 6 awesome midwives I've met so far, will be on call when I'm in labor. I'm praying that isn't the case, as all the other midwives (except the one we have yet to meet at the next appointment) have ranged from "you'd be nice to have coffee with" to "can you please be my second mom?" I guess we had to have one who's less-than-awesome. Hopefully the last woman is more cool.

Symptoms: Big belly that now moves so much when the tyke is feeling gymnastic that it has interrupted meetings at work and a childbirth class. He likes attention, I guess. Also: decreased appetite and more of that first-timester "bleh" feeling when my stomach is empty, which has gotten bad enough in the middle of the night that I've had to get up and eat a snack at 3am.

Also... I think I've had some contractions. Totally irregular, localized to my lower abdomen, but kind of crampy feelings. Each time it's happened has been when I'm walking or attempting to bend down. If I sit still, they go away. They happened on a super-hot day, so I'm hoping this is heat-related, in part because if I can't even walk until after this kid is born, I will start to lose my mind.

The internal thermostat situation continues to weirdfy, as well. I get super hot and sweaty at the drop of a hat, even in a cool room. My skin almost always feels cool to the touch these days, though, so it's not like I'm feverish. I just can't handle heat - or even mild warmth. I'm so glad the weather is cooling down.

Cravings/Aversions: I'm having days when food in general isn't interesting, unfortunately. But sometimes I really, really want a milkshake. Or orange juice. I must need more calcium/vitamin C these days.

I am loving: that we're really starting to think about what life will be like after October 21 or so. I'm starting to daydream more about a baby who will be a little boy and then a young man, rather than just a theoretical concept that gives me digestive issues.

I miss: All the same stuff. And my second-trimester love of food. Food is getting complicated for me again, and I do not enjoy that.

I'm looking forward to: Seeing my son's face. It's so weird that we don't know what he'll look like. I've already had a couple of weird dreams in which he has no face, or I can't see it, etc. It's clearly bothering my subconscious.

I'm freaked out about: Going in to labor early and not being ready. But will we ever actually be ready? This, I do not know. Also: going in to labor and having Flaky CrankyPants midwife on call. I know the odds are greatly in our favor that one of the awesome ones will be around, so I should focus on that. Also: going in to labor before my brother-in-law's wedding at the end of this month. It's going to be such a cool wedding! We gotta make it to October, at least!

Milestones: We had our last childbirth class - finally! - and I think that made us realize we're moving in to home stretch territory. Also, we got the car seat (thanks, Mom and Dad!): the only piece of equipment required to leave a hospital with a newborn. Are they seriously going to let us take a newborn home with us? They're crazy.

Movement: Frequent, strong, and sometimes nigh-disorienting. He seriously almost knocks me over some times. I think he's doing Krav Maga or something.

Exercise: OK with walking, though at times I have to slow it down due to shortness of breath and occasional achy-ness... and now contractions. I'm trying to do more yoga, which helps me sleep/makes me less stiff/ is strengthening all the stuff I need to be strong to birth this kid. I'm also trying to incorporate more arms/upper body work, since a couple of new moms told me to do it NOW, before I'm holding an 8-pound lump for hours on end and wishing I had more arm strength.

Diet: OK. We got a big bag of brown rice with our sweet new Costco membership (thanks again, Mom and Dad!), and DH is experimenting with healthy/cheap dinner eats. What he's come up with so far has been delectable. I do think I frankly over-restricted myself the day after the appointment with CrankyPants midwife - I kept feeling hungry and drinking water instead of eating anything - so I need to just push her snotty voice out of my mind and eat when I'm hungry. I should be drinking more water, though, as CrankyPants reminded me. The problem with 80 ounces a day is that then I have to pee seven million times. But at this stage I'm peeing that often, anyway, so I guess I might as well have something to show for it.

Something nice: A woman who works at the university where I work, with whom I have never had a direct face-to-face conversation, surprised me with a couple of hand-knitted baby washcloths she made out of really nice soft cotton stuff in fun colors. She said it was a thank-you for a small favor I did for her department, but I felt like that was way beyond anything that was called for. I was surprised and touched.

Also, the new guy at the health food store around the corner from my office gave me a 10% "pregnancy discount" when I bought some coconut water on the day the weather was super-hot and I was feeling huge and crampy and not so great. He didn't know I'd just been huffing and puffing down the street and worrying about contractions and the heat, he was just being nice. It made me feel a lot better.

32 weeks

2011-08-30T11:30:00.000-05:00

I don't know if it's the case that more stuff is happening or that time seems to be going slower/faster all at once, but I find myself inclined to write an even-numbered weekly update, albeit a bit late.

Weight Gain: Amazingly, I have no clue and I don't care. I stopped weighing myself, and I think that contributed to my healthier rate of gain. We'll see what the midwife says.

Symptoms: Here's one thing: it hit 90 degrees outside one day this past week, and I felt like I was trying to walk through knee-deep pudding or something, I was moving SO SLOWLY. I was never a big fan of heat but my body just can't take it at all any more. I get all out of breath and huge-feeling. Bleh.

Also, my belly button, which was always an innie, is a... flattie. Just barely an indent. I think outies are weird, so this is going to be scary in a few weeks when I have one.

And my hips are definitely expanding. If I sit for a long time I get a pain in my right hip, and any time I start walking I have to take several steps before I'm sure my legs know what's going on. I've had a couple of night in which hip pain has woken me up. This is annoying, but I know I'll be glad for expanded hips when it's birthin' time.

Cravings/Aversions: I'm getting more interested in carbs again, like little animal-cracker-type cookies. And mac and cheese, which is what I lived on in the first trimester.

I am loving: Random acts of kindness. People hold the door for me, get out of my way on the sidewalk, and are all-around nice to me and my big ol' belly. I work with law students and they're all returning from summer break, and I can't tell you how many times I've been called "cute" at work. Normally I don't think I'd like this, but I'm soaking it up these days. I was even offered a bonus piece of fruit at a take-out place by the cashier. I turned her down because I didn't want to get her in trouble, but that was nice!

I miss: The usual life of people with waists. And being able to walk normally in hot weather.

I'm looking forward to: Well, despite the occasional discomfort, I'm trying to focus on things happening right now, like the last few weeks DH and I have just to ourselves. So I'm looking forward to quiet evenings with him before our lives become chaotic in a whole new way.

And I'm looking forward to being done with our birthing class. It was a good idea, but it's overkill and we're both burnt out on it.

I'm concerned about: Not "freaked out", but concerned: I'm a little worried about hormones and my mental health. In the interest of keeping it real, I've had two episodes this month of uncontrollable crying. Not, like, little sniffly stuff, either: falling-on-the-floor sobbing, accompanied by a pretty frightening feeling of despair. Both times it was in the late evening, at the end of a long day and at a time when perhaps my blood sugar was a little low, but it's on my radar. I do recall that I only actually threw up twice during my first trimester, so maybe this was the third-trimester version of vomit. Emotional vomit? I don't know. I feel OK now, but I'm trying to take it easy, emotionally speaking, these last weeks. Both episodes took a solid night's sleep and then most of the next day to really feel like they were over, so it all leaves me wondering what that postpartum hormone crash will be like. And this is going to sound vain, but I'm a bit concerned about which family members will be helping us out when I'm working through that. I think I need to get over being worried about my mother-in-law seeing me cry, because I'd rather there be a third person on hand to help DH with the baby (and with me) if I'm in sadness land.

Milestones: From here on out, the kid will allegedly gain a half a pound a week! I feel like yesterday I was all excited that he was as big as a kidney bean.

Movement: Still frequent, strong and enthusiastic. And occasionally somewhat painful (head-butting my bladder, jamming a foot in my rib, etc). So he's boogeying in there.

Exercise: Not bad. We've taken a couple of LONG walks in the past week, thanks to less-insane schedules and overall nice weather. I also finally did some yoga, after about a month off. I feel so much better the morning after just 30 minutes of evening yoga that I realized I really really need to keep doing that, no matter how lazy/pooped I feel at 9pm. I think my hips require it.

Diet: So-so. I find I need to eat something every 3 hours to keep from feeling queasy, and I don't always have the healthiest snacks on hand at work - especially because my well-meaning co-workers keep showing up with treats "for the baby".

Something nice: When I was taking a little lunch-time walk, a guy who was begging for change called out, "looking good, little mama!" It cracked me up. I did not, however, give him change. Maybe I should have.

"Mr. Mom"

2011-08-25T11:30:00.001-05:00

Though the connotation of the term can rankle me, I'm a feminist.

I didn't have a great deal of choice in the matter, really. My mother was the primary breadwinner of the household when I was growing up - she was, and still is, the only female judge in the county. My mom, my sister and I are all lifetime members of the Girl Scouts. Sis earned a PhD in physics and is now working in the boys' club of hard sciences. While I definitely veered more toward the education/social science world that is populated by more women, I still plan to work outside the home and support my family financially, no matter how many kids we end up having. For some reason this feels more important to me now that I know I'm having a son - I want him to know that Women Work.

With all the decisions I've made about my education and the work I do, though, probably the best choice I made as a feminist was my choice of a mate. Because, while I joke that I didn't have much of a choice in being a feminist, most men do have something of a choice. Men have the luxury of ignoring the challenges women face just because we were born women - they don't necessarily need to deal with them head-on.

I didn't fall in love with DH because he's a feminist - that would be pretty unromantic - but over the years of living with him, and especially as we've been thinking about what our lives will look like as parents, I keep being struck by the unwavering conviction he has that the roles we'll take as parents should reflect our skills and personalities rather than some outdated notion of nature.

Which is why, when we decided that one of us was going to "stay home" (more on that later) with the baby, while the other works outside the home, there wasn't really a discussion about who would do what: I'm an extrovert who thrives on dealing with assorted people in a busy workplace, and I'm married to an introvert who just finished a years-long writing project that required patiently slogging away each day at home. Had we exchanged places, we both would have gone nuts.

So, in many ways, we'll each keep doing what we did before: DH will be the daytime caregiver for our son while I return to the office. We're both happy with this arrangement: I can go back to work, earn a paycheck, and trust that my kid is in the best hands possible, and DH gets to help mold another human being to be as interesting as he is. It feels like each of us thinks we're getting the better end of the deal, but that's how a lot of our marriage has felt already.

Stay-at-home-dads aren't as unusual as they were, say, 20 years ago - good friends of ours who are due the same week as us are planning a similar arrangement - but they're still met with reactions that raise my blood pressure. When we were talking with DH's extended family about this plan, one relative (a great-aunt in her 80s, so allowances should be made for generational differences) said, "oh, so you're going to be the mommy?"

DH's response was, "I don't think that's physically possible."

Several others - cousins our age, even - referred to him as "Mr. Mom". As these are my in-laws, and not my natal family, I restrained myself from shouting, "NO, he's NOT Mister Mom, he's DAD." I find myself getting defensive about it, angry when there's a suggestion that he should be looking for a "real" job, pissed at the implication that, while it would be fine if I stayed home, this whole gig is beneath him.

Part of the confusion from folks is financial, I'm sure. No one has asked it outright, but people wonder: how are you going to support three people on your little income, Schmei? Well, by living within our means. When we had two incomes, and then one and a half, the extra money was going to pay off debt. Now the additional income is gone, but so is the debt, so not a lot is going to change for us, really. This gives us the luxury of having one parent at home, rather than shelling out ridiculous cash so someone I've never met can spend all day with my firstborn child.

I mean, seriously, have you seen how expensive child care is in Chicago? Ridiculous.

In this economy, I honestly don't know why having a parent stay home strikes people as strange. I know plenty of people who are living on less and have had no choice in the matter. We had the luxury to choose this life. Yes, we'll have to live with our 2000 Honda for a long time, but that ride is my dream car and I want it to live until my son is learning to drive, anyway. And we won't be able to take European vacations, but we have all the camping gear we need for fun family trips. Plus with the handy/crafty parent at home, I think we're going to save money in all kinds of ways that probably haven't even occurred to me yet.

A few folks - especially my mother-in-law - have shared concern that DH will go crazy if he's stuck at home all day with our small fry. We are both legitimately worried about how we'll handle those first weeks with a newborn, but we've been talking about that and we have family who will be stopping by to make sure we haven't lost our minds.

After I return to work in January, though, how will DH handle it? I think he'll be fine.

For one thing, as I mentioned before, he just spent years working from home on his dissertation, which was a frustrating project. Now he has a new little project that will likely also be frustrating but is hopefully more rewarding in the long run. For another thing, he won't be "stuck at home". There's this rumor I've heard that babies are actually pretty portable, and we live within walking distance of more than one library, parks and playgrounds, grocery stores, and just all around nice neighborhoods. He'll also have access to our car, and much of his extended family is a short drive away, so if he needs some daytime company he'll be able to find it. And, while he'll be the daytime caregiver, I'll still be home during evenings and weekends (and if I can rig my schedule, one weekday each week) and for the first months I'll be the sole source of food, as well, so I anticipate taking the kid off his hands as soon as I walk in the door in the evening so we can nurse.

[In my mind's eye, the kid is always happy when I come in the door. I suspect that in reality he'll be cranky because he's hungry, but I'm taking my fantasy life while I can.]

Here's the other thing about going the stay-at-home-dad route: I think it will make it much easier for me to return to work when my leave is over. The idea of leaving my firstborn with some babysitter kind of gives me hives. Instead, our son will be spending his days with his father, who loves him to bits already and is already good at taking care of me, an often-needy person who doesn't always know what her best interests are.

I've spoken with other women who cried on their first day back at work. Maybe I'll cry - I'm sure it's going to be a huge adjustment - but I think I'll feel a thousand times better about the situation because my son will be in the best possible hands.

So, besides living on one income, what are the downsides to having one of us stay home? I've been thinking about this for months and haven't come up with anything, especially because the setup works so well with our personalities. As our friend T, who is also planning on being a stay-at-home dad starting this fall, said, "this is an amazing opportunity!"

That's how we feel about it. I'm excited that we have the chance to start being parents this way. It might be temporary, depending on countless factors, but for now I'm grateful that the daytime hours of the first year or so of my son's life will be spent at home with his dad.

NOT Mr. Mom.

31 weeks

2011-08-22T11:30:00.005-05:00

This baby is due in 9 weeks, but could arrive in as few as FIVE (my sister was at 36 weeks when she had my niece). Or, you know, tomorrow. Yikes. Alternately, he could be like me and come two weeks late. At my current level of preparedness, overdue sounds OK to me, but ask me again in October.

Weight Gain: 22.5 pounds... I lost half a pound in the last two weeks! I think this means that my food, exercise and stress are all stabilizing. The midwife was as happy as I was about this.

Symptoms: Leg cramps. The first big one happened about 20 minutes before my alarm was set to go off on a Monday morning - a blindingly painful cramp in my right calf that jolted me out of sleep. I was writhing around, trying to take deep breaths, and poor DH woke up to me sounding like I was in labor. He sprang in to action and rubbed my leg, which helped a lot.

Also, indigestion. I know I've been lucky and avoided it so far, but I fear that my carefree days are over. And at first, we couldn't find the Tums because they were still packed away. Happily, DH braved the remaining boxes and found them for me. He's my provider!

Cravings/Aversions: I'm definitely getting a little of the first-trimester "meh" feelings about food back... I'm trying to eat smaller meals more frequently, so my stomach doesn't get empty.

I am loving: Telling people I'm due in ten weeks and getting told, "Wow, you're not that big!" Which is funny, because if I tell people I'm due in October, they say, "But you're already huge!" Um, it's the same time, people.

I miss: Being able to bend forward, and most other things about having a waist. This includes rolling over while in bed without it being a fourteen-step process.

I'm looking forward to: A few weeks without travel, big events, moving, vacation... any of that stuff. Some normal, boring routine sounds lovely (and I think that's better for my health, too). I'd like to savor it before all routine goes out the window when we bring home a newborn. I'm also looking forward to the start of setting up the kiddo's room, now that we have the major components (crib, dresser, comfy chair) and some baby stuff that needs organizing.

I'm freaked out about: Well, again, not "freaked out", but we just learned that one of DH's cousins just had a baby and gave him the name we really liked. I believe that means we can't use the name, but DH thinks it's not a big deal because that kid and our kid are third cousins with different last names and we see them twice a year. I'm not so sure... won't everyone think we just stole the name? This bums me out, as part of the appeal for that name was that no one in either of our families had it, and now there'd be a cousin the same age with the same name. Grumble.

Milestones: I'm going to the midwife every other week now. That's not supposed to happen until almost the end of the pregnancy, right? Oh, wait..

Also, my stomach capacity is definitely getting smaller. Whereas I used to go from OK to starving in the blink of an eye, now when I'm eating I go from hungry to uncomfortably stuffed in a moment. Another reason I'm trying to eat smaller meals, more frequently. I think my digestion is about to become something I think about a lot more. That was my least favorite part of the first trimester, and now it's back! Darnit.

Finally, this isn't really quite a milestone, but we got information on a pediatrician's office that sounds good. This feels like a big step toward being responsible for this new person.

Movement: I was advised at a recent midwife appointment to start doing "kick counts" to ensure the baby is moving regularly. At this point that's definitely not necessary. He moves all. the. time. And it feels like he really enjoys doing slow somersaults, which feels weird. I'm still able to sleep through his gyrations, fortunately. We'll see how long that lasts. The fun thing was that I drank a root beer shortly before my shower on Saturday, so a lot of folks got to feel him move around, including both of his grandmothers. My mom said that I would do slow rolls the same way my son is doing, which is cool - he's being like me!

Exercise: Pretty decent over the week of vacation: I took some long walks and spent one day kayaking and swimming and climbing some sand dunes with DH. The weather this past week was much more clement, so I've done a lot more walking outside, and more stretching, exercises, etc through the day. If I don't exercise, I don't sleep, so I have all kinds of motivation.

Diet: Greatly improved until the weekend of the shower. We actually planned a week of meals and did some real cooking in our kitchen, like we live in a place instead of being mendicants who survive on take-out. The weekend of the shower involved a lot of family and a lot of rich food, and now I'm feeling like plain toast or rice sounds OK for a few days.

Something nice: I'm excited about how long this section is:

1) I passed my glucose tolerance test "with flying colors" according to the friendly midwife student, and my iron levels look good, too. Let's keep on being medically boring, baby!

2) My sister and sister-in-law threw a baby shower in my home town this past weekend. They surprised me by asking everyone to bring a favorite children's book, and we got SO MANY great books. I am really, really excited to read to and with this kid, and I love that we have so many great reads. It's a perfect range, from little baby board books to kids' fairy tale collections - something for each stage. We got baby gear, too, which is very practical and was wonderful to receive, but I know the books are going to be special to our family for years and years.

3) A friend of mine is planning a women's blessing day for me and another good friend who's due the same week. Part of the deal is that these women will pray for each of us when they hear we're in labor. There's something really comforting about that, and I'm touched that they're organizing it. As I get closer to Birth Day, I'm realizing that this life change, more than any other I've experienced, is huge and fundamental and permanent and... just... way bigger than me. So I'm grateful to have some space to consider the spiritual implications of the whole enterprise.

4) Another fantastic friend of mine just told me she's 9 weeks along with her first baby, and I could not be more excited for her and her husband. She told me at the shower and I just suck at maintaining a poker face - I basically freaked out and I'm sure everyone knew what was going on. I've been thinking about them all weekend and sending non-pukey vibes her way as she survives the first trimester. It's made me reflect on how quickly one goes from having nothing but a queasy feeling and a lot of questions to being a big-bellied quasi-expert on pregnancy: there's a lot to learn and think about, but there's a nice chunk of time in which to learn it. And even when you might not know what to do, your body usually does. I hope the process of becoming a parenting "expert" is similarly fluid!

Think of the Children

2011-08-18T13:00:00.000-05:00

Someone I used to work with who is now a public defender just posted this link for my perusal, and it made me angry enough to want to share: read the article here.

I've found my perspective shifting when I read stories like this. I used to get angry when I considered the defendant's point of view as they navigated a Kafka-esque system that seems designed to do nothing but ruin their lives. Now I find myself thinking more about the kids involved and getting even angrier. I used to work for Child Protective Services back in my home town, and maybe the particular agency I worked with was just unusually short on resources, but we didn't have spare foster parents, money, or time to yank kids out of homes where they were living with their actual parents and were in no noticeable danger. Where does New York find the time? And all the extra foster parents? And what is the point of doing that, anyway? Why are marijuana and heroin being used in the same sentence like they're similar substances?

I'm trying to keep my blood pressure down while I'm pregnant, but New York is not helping me do that. Grumble.

29 weeks

2011-08-08T11:30:00.000-05:00

Weight Gain: According to the midwife's scale, 23 pounds. I've found enough of a difference between their scale and my scale at home to think they just like to make pregnant ladies feel bad about gaining too much... but I haven't used my scale in two weeks because we moved and it's still packed, so I'm taking their word for it. And drinking water.

Symptoms: Occasional hip aches, some funny blood pressure stuff (I sometimes feel woozy if I stand up too fast) and shrinking stomach capacity - I'm starting to notice that I can't eat as much in one sitting as I used to. That's probably a good thing, to keep the weight gain in check.

Cravings/Aversions: I really want fresh fruit these days, but it's summertime - I always want fresh fruit this time of year. So... nothing wacky.

I am loving: That we're finally moved. The new place still needs a lot of organizing, but if this kid comes early at least I know we have a room for him. Yes, it's a room full of boxes, but still.

I miss: Summer running. I walked past a sporting-goods store the other day, and the display of sports bras and running capris made me sigh. Next year!

I'm looking forward to: the last of my three (three!) weeks off this summer. Last year I realized I had gone an entire calendar year without taking time off to relax, so this year with the End of my Child Free Years looming, I decided I'd take a week off each month of the summer. I've noticed I've been more productive at work when I'm there, and this is the first summer I haven't felt moody about missing out on summer fun, so I think it was the best move.

I'm also starting to allow myself to look forward to actually having a baby. DH and I were in the waiting room at the midwife's office the other day, and this lady came in with a little dude who couldn't have been more than a few weeks old and who was just heart-meltingly cute. His hair was sticking up all over the place, and he just looked so snuggly. We're going to have one of those soon!

I'm freaked out about: For some reason, the 30-week mark looms as the time when I need to seriously get serious about bringing this kid home. And that's in a week. So far we have a room, a dresser, a changing mat and a few outfits for him. Nothing else. So I'm starting to get concerned that we won't have everything ready in 10 (or 8... or less!) weeks.

Milestones: I think we may have come upon a name. We came up with it over our anniversary/babymoon/cation and we've both been kind of test-driving it for a couple of weeks, and I still like it a lot. Naming someone is such a huge responsibility... I keep thinking about how it will sound when he's 17 or 35 or 60 or 83, and what nicknames might happen, and how the kids in fifth grade will find a way to make fun of it. But it could be a good one.

Also, I took the glucose tolerance test. Haven't heard back yet, but the orange drink wasn't as bad as it's been hyped. The bleary, knocked-out feeling I experienced for the rest of the day, however? That kind of sucked. I hope that means I passed the test.

Movement: Frequent, stronger all the time, and occasionally just uncomfortable. He clearly likes stretching out as far as he can and trying to shove his foot in my rib.

Exercise: Except for carrying things around during the moving process, my exercise has been miserable. The heat wave plus needing to pack/unpack means few walks, no yoga, no swimming... nothing. So the weight gain thing could be accurate, unfortunately.

Diet: Again, terrible due to moving. We've mostly lived on take-out and fast food. Boo.

Something nice: Our new place is so quiet, I have slept through the night multiple nights in a row. When I wake up in the morning I have to pee like crazy, but it's so worth it for full nights of deep sleep. DH and I are both soaking this up while we still have the place and our sleep schedule to ourselves.

27 weeks

2011-07-25T13:00:00.000-05:00

These weeks are going by faster all the time - yikes! 13 weeks to go...

Weight Gain: Roundabout 18 pounds. I seem to be maintaining a pound-a-week gain, even when I have days like these last few super-hot days when I feel like I'm not eating much. I think this is just what we're doing, and I'm (mostly) OK with that. My legs are going to be super strong from hauling all this weight around!

Symptoms: Does "can't handle heat AT ALL" count as a symptom? The heat this past week was just oppressive, and walking a few blocks made me feel exhausted/dizzy. Also, occasionally, my left hip bone feels like it wants to exit my body via my butt cheek, which isn't the most comfortable feeling. This is what the prenatal yoga lady refers to as "increased flexibility due to hormonal changes".

Cravings/Aversions: Iced drinks - this has nothing to do with pregnancy - is all I want to consume. I feel a little bit like I'm getting some of the "meh" feeling about food back that I lost at the end of the first trimester - some days, food doesn't interest me, and then I feel a little queasy when my stomach is empty. But it's a billion degrees, so is that just because I'm hot?

I am loving: The air conditioner and the Snoogle - no way I would sleep without those two things - AND our new box spring, which we got so we could toss our old IKEA bed frame before the big move. So I'm loving anything that helps me sleep.

I miss: Being able to bend forward easily.

I'm looking forward to: Being finished with moving. We started packing weeks ago, and I feel like we've been living in transitional mess FOREVER (we kind of have, since the beginning of June...). Good lord, do I want to just have a neat, organized living space that doesn't have crap sitting everywhere. It's maddening.

I'm freaked out about: The actual process of moving. Our landlord was a little too chill about letting us know when exactly the prior tenants will be out, so there's that, but I'm also already frustrated with my lack of heavy lifting abilities. Note to self: in the future, avoid moving when pregnant, if at all possible.

Milestones: Depending on whom you ask, I'm in the third trimester. Didn't I just find out I'm knocked up? Crazy.

Movement: Frequent and stronger all the time. He makes my whole belly jiggle sometimes. Every night when I lie down to sleep, he does this crazy rapid-fire kicking in my side which, while still entertaining, makes me wonder how sleep is going to go down in a month or so, and last night I swear he was doing his own version of the Three Stooges running around in a circle on the floor move after I got up to pee at 4am. Sometimes it just feels WEIRD. And I kind of think he knows that. Can they laugh at their mom at 6 months' gestation? I wonder.

Exercise: It's so hot out that walking a few blocks is too much for me. I've done a half hour of yoga each evening when I can (at the end of which - and this is pretty low-key yoga - I've been POURING sweat), and I'm trying to do all my Bradley exercises every day, though there are a million of them. When we were on our anniversary trip I got to go swimming, which was wonderful. Can't wait for after we move when we'll have a community pool nearby, because being neck-deep in water is very appealing these days.

Diet: I'm still aiming for lots of protein, and the heat has both restricted how much I eat and encouraged me to drink a LOT of water, so I'm doing pretty well without trying much.

Something nice: This week seems to have marked the passing of a critical belly-size point. Just today a stranger asked me on the elevator: "how far along are you?" and a bank teller I see only occasionally said, "Are you having a baby?" Before now, folks would look, but not say anything, so I've clearly passed the "too much beer" look and have shifted into "great with child". Both women told me I look great, which made me feel good. Folks, always tell a pregnant lady she looks great. It's something we need to hear, and since I'm so suggestible these days I saw my reflection later and thought, "hey, I do look great!" - which I guarantee wouldn't have been my thinking without that outside input.

Oh, and I finished grad school

2011-07-21T13:00:00.001-05:00

I've alluded a couple of times to the Week from Somewhere, but didn't say much beyond that. It was an emotional roller-coaster. In an attempt to get it all out of my head, I'm detailing that week here. Hopefully this will help me feel less melancholy about, well, the melancholy parts:

Monday (June 6): Corina the cat, after a very hot weekend when we thought she was just lethargic and thirsty from the heat, is clearly feeling unwell, so I insist that DH take her to the vet on what was supposed to be his day off. He agrees and takes her in. She has bad kidneys so we all (DH, me, and the vet) presume it's another kidney infection. Lots of samples (blood, urine) are taken, antibiotics are prescribed, and they go home. We'll get the results Wednesday. By evening Corina seems a little perked up, probably from the subcutaneous fluids she was given at the vet, and our suspicions of another of these annoying infections seem confirmed. Life with a special-needs cat, that's all. We have to give her oral antibiotics twice a day, but DH and I have a pretty good system down.

Tuesday (June 7): The Big Ultrasound. We get to the hospital in plenty of time and actually get in to the ultrasound room early. For the first 20 minutes or so of the exam, I can't see the screen at all, so I watch DH's face as he looks at the screen. This makes me fall in love with my husband all over again, as his face changes from delight, to awe, to pure interest. At one point he indicates to me that he can see the kid's beating heart. In the middle of things, the ultrasound tech shouts, "It's a boy!" and we both yell: "Really?". She turns the screen to show me the proof. DH and I had both half-thought this baby was a girl, so we're surprised, but we're excited nonetheless. Everything looks good and he's looking a little big for his gestational age, which isn't much of a surprise - DH is a tall man, and I was a large baby. We leave with a few grainy pictures to show our families. We're excited about our son. Our SON. OUR son. Woah.

Wednesday (June 8): The Very Bad Day. I wake up super early and kind of anxious. When I walk out to the living room, Corina is clearly uncomfortable, as she had been Tuesday, but maybe a little worse. Her usual sweet meow has changed to something more shrill - more of a cry - and she doesn't really eat or drink when I give her food or water. I'm worried the antibiotics aren't working as quickly as they usually do - she's never refused water before. I try to work on my thesis defense presentation, but my mind is everywhere. I take a walk at 6am and feel bad about how slow I feel. I spend some time just sitting on the floor with Corina, trying to get her to eat a little wet cat food. Finally, I leave for work.

When I'm at work, DH calls me and randomly picks a fight, which should have been a huge red flag that something else is going on, but I don't get it. Then he calls me an hour later to tell me the vet just called and the news is not just bad, it's terrible. Corina's kidneys are completely shutting down. His earlier crankiness had been because his daily companion was clearly deteriorating before his eyes. We both cry, for the first of many times that day.

What was supposed to be my lone normal day of work that week turned in to one of the saddest days of our life together. DH picks me up and I ride in the back seat with Corina - just like we did on the day we adopted her - and the three of us go to the vet. She is so weak when we get there that she can't really stand. We're there for hours, mulling over the options, but ultimately there is only one clear choice: We have to put our sweet friend to sleep. It all happened so quickly. She was only 3 years old. We decide we'll bury her in Michigan, at my in-laws' house, because that was her "vacation home". So I drive there, in a numb auto-pilot fog, as we intermittently pull ourselves together and then fall apart sobbing all over again. DH digs a grave in the waning daylight while I call my brother, one of the only people I know who will completely understand. Then, with my brother-in-law (who loved her, too) looking on, we bury her with a few of her favorite toys, right next to her beloved screened-in porch. We cry and cry and cry.

Thursday, (June 9): We wake up early in Michigan after a terrible night's sleep. I make a little coffee, and then we hit the road to get back to Chicago. Today should have been exciting for both of us: it's DH's last day teaching as a grad student, and the day of my master's thesis defense. The End of Graduate School for both of us. These things still happen, but we're both in something of a state of shock. The thesis defense actually goes quite well: I stammer through the first couple of minutes, and then my brain shifts in to academic gear and the planned 30-minute defense turns in to an interesting hour-long discussion with my advisor. I pass. Like that, I'm finished with graduate school.

Partly to celebrate and partly because neither of us can stand being in our too-empty apartment for long, we go out for sushi at a local place we've never tried before. We manage to have a nice time together, even though everything has an undertone of sadness. Corina was supposed to be part of this new life, after grad school. She was going to be the pet who taught our kid (our son!) about how to live with animals. We knew she wouldn't live as long as other cats, but I had always thought that would mean we'd have seven or eight good years with her, at least. Not just-over-two.

Despite that, the sushi is good and so is the conversation. Through the whole week, DH and I had each other, at least, and it feels good to celebrate that.

Friday (June 10): A midwife appointment. I actually lost weight over the course of the stressful week, and the midwife tells me to take care of myself - but also not to eat too much. After the way the rest of the week went, this normal (and fairly short) appointment feels nice. All looks well with the ultrasound, though there were a couple of things they couldn't see clearly so I have the option of going back again. We get to hear the kid's heartbeat again, which is always a treat.

I spend the rest of the day trying to do the work I was going to do Wednesday. Thinking takes longer than usual and I'm not very productive.

Saturday (June 11): DH's graduation day. His parents meet us at our apartment and we all walk together to campus. There are two ceremonies and a catered box lunch in between: the day of pomp and ceremony lasts from 8:30am to nearly 4:00pm. My in-laws come back to our apartment with us, afterward, and I am utterly spent. DH's mother orders me to take a nap and she doesn't have to twist my arm - I pass out for a half hour in our bedroom. DH dozes in a living room chair while his parents wash up dishes and tidy things up around our apartment, which, after the week we had, looks like it's occupied by a pack of lunatics. A couple of weeks later, I am still finding dishes in random cupboards, and it keeps reminding me of their kindness.

We all wake ourselves and head to a pizza parlor, where we are met by my parents and many of DH's extended family for a celebratory dinner. The naps did us good, and we both enjoy ourselves. I sit across the table from our adorable 18-month-old cousin who enjoys it when I make faces at him. We pass around the ultrasound pictures, and the family toasts our successes with good pizza and good beer (though I have root beer, of course).

We get home that evening in time to watch our favorite Saturday night B-movie feature, and while we're watching the TV, the baby starts kicking. I grab DH's hand and place it on my belly, and after a moment he gets a good kick. First contact! DH laughs. It's a reassuring end to a week that would have been tiring and stressful anyway, if it hadn't also held a family tragedy.

One element I left out was the one that made me feel like whoever wrote this script made it a little heavy-handed: the manila envelopes. At the ultrasound that Tuesday, the tech gave us our printed out ultrasound pictures in a small manila envelope - a 4x8 inch size or so. When we were at the vet's office on Wednesday, the vet tech handed us an envelope that was exactly the same, but it contained the bill for euthanasia and a pamphlet about how to cope with the death of a pet. DH tried to look at the contents of that envelope while we were still there, but he began crying as soon as he saw the paperwork. I put the envelope away. For the next few days when we were home, we had two unmarked manila envelopes floating around our apartment: one contained exciting information about our future, the other a depressing reminder of what we'd just lost. I finally took the sad envelope contents out and put that envelope away with our stationery. Then I labeled the happy envelope.

DH's reaction to the paperwork was similar to mine when I had to sign a statement about how we would handle Corina's remains. She was still alive, and she was inches away from me when I signed what felt, to me, like her death warrant. Like a good kid of attorneys, I read the whole paper, but when I picked up the pen to sign I was overwhelmed with grief and had to take a moment, apologizing to the vet tech who was just doing her job.

Something about the paperwork, I guess, made the hazy nightmare feel much more real.

So that was The Week. I'm thankful that DH and I were both able to successfully finish our graduate programs, and I'm very grateful that our baby looks to be developing well. But most days, I also just really miss my cat. And I don't think anything will fix that.

25 weeks

2011-07-11T08:00:00.000-05:00

I like doing these every two weeks, as I'm clearly not one of those super-bloggers who can keep up a weekly habit of this.

Weight Gain: Roughly 15 pounds. According to the midwife, I gained 5 pounds in the last month - but I had actually lost weight just before my last appointment on account of stress, so I think I've been gaining about a pound a week. Depending on whom you ask, this is: a) perfectly healthy, b) terrible and I'm a cow. Since I'm eating pretty well and getting fairly consistent exercise, I'm going to subscribe to A. I'm getting used to the idea that I'll be gaining at least 25 pounds in this whole process, and likely more than that.

Symptoms: Bigger belly. Bigger kicks! I think I'm getting tired more easily these days, too, but that may be in part because of the heat lately.

Cravings/Aversions: Still nothing too strong, though I still don't like the idea of canned mushrooms. I'm going out of my way to get a lot of protein, though, per the Bradley method class direction, and I kind of think that's keeping my cravings to a minimum. I'm eating a lot of Greek yogurt, which might cover any calcium-related cravings I may have had.

I am loving: My new Snoogle body pillow. I can sleep through the night again! I was waking up at least three to four times a night before, unable to get comfortable. A couple of times my hips were just aching me awake. We got the Snoogle last weekend, and the first night I had it I slept for 8 hours straight. I was in a mild state of shock. I'm also (still) loving our air conditioner, which also definitely helps sleep. A lot.

I miss: Being able to roll over/sit up without having to think about it. I know I'm going to look back in about 10 weeks and laugh at myself, because I'm going to get much bigger.

I'm looking forward to: Anniversary/Babymoon/Vacation with DH!

I'm freaked out about: Making Real Decisions. This includes choosing big items like a crib and a car seat, as well as choosing bigger items like... a name.

Milestones: We passed the point of "viability", which I'm keeping in quotation marks because it's way too early for this kid to get born. But this does mean that if I deliver at any point from here on out, the medical community will make every effort to save the kid. Child, let's make things easy for the medical community and wait until October, OK? Thanks.

Movement: Yes, indeed. I've been told I should start to notice patterns, but I haven't yet, at least not in terms of time of the day. The kiddo tends to move around a lot when I'm hungry, or when I've just eaten something, or when I'm lying down and trying to go to sleep. Kicks are getting stronger - my belly moves now sometimes, with good strong kicks - but they aren't keeping me awake just yet.

Exercise: I've been pretty good about walking, and am squatting all the time, per Bradley method instruction (this helps my legs feel less burn-y, so there's an incentive). I'm doing a lot of the other Bradley exercises pretty regularly, too. Did yoga twice in the past week, as well.

Diet: Protein, protein, protein. It's supposed to help prevent preeclampsia, which is one of my bigger pregnancy fears. After a week of eating a high-protein diet, I had a midwife appointment and she said my blood pressure was "beautiful" - the lowest it had been in months - so I'm hoping all the protein had something to do with that. Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go eat some Greek yogurt.

23 weeks

2011-06-27T13:00:00.001-05:00

The last few weeks have been utterly nuts, for the most part. DH and I are just catching our breaths. I had some other posts in the works, but life happened with a vengeance and there's some stuff I'm just not ready to write about yet. In the meantime, though, I persist in being pregnant - happily, none of the drama/tears/exhaustion was related to the babe, for which I'm very, very grateful - so here's a look at that:

Weight Gain: 13+ pounds... which means I've gained about a pound a week the past few weeks. Slow it down, hoss!!

Symptoms: frequent hunger, growing belly, weird burning thigh issue. I think I need more sleep these days, too, and my sleep at night has been lighter, partly because rolling over is becoming more of a chore than a natural maneuver. I haven't gotten up in the middle of every night to pee, but it's becoming more common. I've also had a couple moments of nausea, which I hadn't felt since week 12 or so.

Cravings/Aversions: I just want food, though protein - especially peanut butter or yogurt - is always a plus. The idea of canned mushrooms still sounds gross. I fully expect that to last for the duration.

I am loving: that when folks ask, "How are you feeling?" I can honestly say, "pretty good!" Also, I love that we got a window air conditioner unit for our bedroom (thanks, Mom and Dad!). The highs in the UPPER 90s later this week will make me even more grateful, methinks.

I miss: Running, especially in the early mornings when it's not hot yet and everything feels fresh outside. This time last year I was in the throes of triathlon training, which was fun. I'm tempted to start waking up earlier (since my brain seems to want to be up at 5am anyway) to take early-morning walks so I can experience that pre-hot day feeling. That would possibly still be nice.

I'm looking forward to: Taking an anniversary road trip with DH in a few weeks, and then moving to our new apartment a couple weeks after that! July will be crazy, though hopefully in a very different way than June has been.

I'm freaked out about: Um, actually having this child. Not the birth so much (OK, a little about that) as the lifelong 24/7 commitment afterward...

Milestones: DH got to feel a kick for the first time on June 11, the day of his graduation. We were both flopped on the futon after a long day (the end of the most challenging week of our lives together - no exaggeration) and I grabbed his hand and put it on my belly. Thanks, kiddo. You made us both smile when we really, really needed it.

Movement: Much more frequent and much stronger - I'm cutting back down on my caffeine intake so I don't get kicked so hard. DH has felt movement several times now, which is fun.

Exercise: After The Week From Somewhere (June 6-11) and then a weird week off traveling with my parents, I'm back to taking long walks and doing occasional yoga. Also: I've started doing some of the exercises for the Bradley method, which I think is the childbirth method we're going with. Those aren't very strenuous, though.

Diet: I'm not concerned about what I'm eating - mostly fruits, veggies, whole grains (um... well, carbs of every description), lean protein (OK, and at least one dessert every day - sweets are so tasty!) - but how much. I need to work on portion control.

Halfway there

2011-06-06T11:30:00.001-05:00

I am now 20 weeks pregnant, which means I'm halfway there, give or take (I've technically only been pregnant about 18 weeks, and I could go as far along as 42 weeks, but let's not split hairs here).

I think I'll do one of those question and answer type thingies for this milestone.

Weight Gain: 9-10 pounds, depending on the day. Basically right on track, I think.

Symptoms: My midsection seems to be protruding... hehe. Other than that "symptom", I've been hungry (which I've mentioned) and my thighs occasionally start burning terribly. There's a long story with that: basically I had pinched nerves in my legs that rendered my upper thighs numb during my adolescence, and about a month ago they started to un-pinch and I have feeling where I haven't had feeling in about 14 years. Sometimes that feeling is YOWWWCH. Fortunately I've figured out some stretches that help alleviate this. It's an unexpected annoyance, but I'll take it over nausea/insomnia/spotting/Mad Cow Disease/pretty much anything else bad.

Cravings/Aversions: I haven't had many specific cravings; food in general just sounds good. Except canned mushrooms, still. So: no real cravings, one weird aversion.

I am loving: this stage. I'm not huge, I have most of my energy back, I generally sleep through the night, and people can tell I'm pregnant just by looking at me, which leads to things like folks holding the door for me or offering me a seat. That's nice.

I miss: Not gonna lie, on hot days an ice-cold alcoholic beverage sounds really good. I'm being creative with alternatives, but I think I might ask for a White Russian once I've birthed this child.

I'm looking forward to: learning the gender. And getting the anatomy scan to see how the kid's doing in there.

I'm freaked out about: Well, "freaked out" is a strong word, but I think this month we need to start putting together a registry and make a childbirth-class plan. We didn't really have much of a baby-related to-do list before now, so concrete prepare-for-a-child stuff is a little daunting.

Milestones: Halfway there! And baby is the length of a banana now! Also: we found a place to move for the fall, which is sort of baby-related, as that will be baby's first home. Crazy.

Movement: Yes, I'm starting to feel the occasional kick/bump/flutter a few times a day. They're still pretty faint, but at this point I'm not mistaking it for gas or anything. It usually happens shortly after I eat, so there's just another motivation to eat.

Exercise: I've been doing fairly well this week, considering the amount of thesis work that's gotten crammed in: walking at least a couple of miles most days. I've only done yoga once in the last week, so I need to do that more often. The whole leg-burning thing happens less if I'm doing regular yoga.

Diet: ehh... I'm doing OK here. I got back in to the Green Monster groove this week, and have been adding whole milk kefir to the shakes, which makes them much higher in protein and super-creamy - so breakfasts have been great. I've been terrible about both the timing and the content of lunches and really need to get back in to packing a lunch every day. DH's schedule is calming down and he's offered to make me lunch in the morning, because he's awesome.

So I'm feeling pretty good, overall. On to the second half! I predict less nausea and secrets, more weight gain and comments from random strangers than the first half.

My face is up here

2011-06-01T11:45:00.002-05:00

I was never one of those women who were, shall we say, overly endowed in the chest region. (My high school friends, the guys, once made an illustration of the group of us as Robin Hood characters, and my title was "Maid VeryFlat". It was pretty hilarious.) I do have a bit of a rear end, which was something I needed to learn to live with when I worked in an inner-city neighborhood, but if I'm facing someone, they tend to look me in the eye.

Or at least they did, until a few weeks ago.

The size of my mammaries has increased impressively, but that's not what folks are looking at. They're checking out the belly. As I move toward the halfway-mark of this pregnancy, I have certainly "popped": there's no hiding what I've got going on in my midsection. And people have a tendency to look. I don't mind this - I certainly notice when other pregnant women walk by - but it does take some getting used to.

I've also noticed there are different types of looks.

DH, of course, is in his own category of belly-looking. He can't help but rub the belly and smile at it, and he keeps talking about how he's looking forward to feeling a kick someday soon. He tells me daily that the belly is cute, which makes me melt some days and just makes me feel better other days (because, fascinating as the process is, there are days when I am not feeling "cute"). His unabashed enjoyment of the belly is just nice.

Other people who know me, like relatives, friends, or coworkers, take glances at the belly that I'd describe as affectionate : these are folks who are looking forward to meeting the kid who's making this bump happen, and who are excited about watching me and DH become parents.

I don't mind these looks at all. Occasionally, they've been accompanied by touch, but a friendly pat from someone I know or the loving touch of this child's father are welcome. So far I haven't had strangers touching me, and I'm not sure how that will make me feel when it happens.

But I have had strangers looking, and these looks can run the gamut.

The most common and innocuous look so far is the quiet-smile look. Thus far I've noticed this look is a bit divided along gender lines. If I'm walking down the sidewalk and a woman passes me going the other way, she'll generally take a gander at the belly and then make quick eye contact with a brief smile as we both continue on our way. Men tend to eschew the eye contact, but not the smile - I've had a few moments where I've seen a guy just smiling away at my belly.

I always try to imagine what these people are thinking, and my guess is that women who make eye contact have possibly gone through pregnancy themselves or are close with another woman who has, and they instinctively give that little smile of support to an expectant mother because they've been there and they know it's not all rainbows and gumdrops, sister. I get more of a sense from the men that they're perhaps recalling a pregnant woman they know, maybe the mother of their own kids. With those men, the smile is often more of an inward reflection than an outward interaction.

I don't mind any of these looks. I enjoy making people smile.

Then there are... the other looks. So far this has happened to me only once, but it made my skin crawl.

I've established that men tend not to make eye contact with me if they're looking at my belly. But there's a stark difference between the man who just took a glance at my baby bump and is briefly thinking of a mother or a baby he cares about, and a man who is leering at my belly and thinking of... well, I try not to ponder it too much. I was walking out of the grocery store last week when a man who was leaning on a garbage can (already klassy!) got a good look at me and was clearly enjoying some impure thoughts. Iccccchh... I kind of felt like I needed to take a shower.

I guess it makes sense if you're a total pervert: We all know what must have happened a few months ago for me to have this bump. But... really? Can't we think about the baby? Or about anything else? Or at least keep our lip-smacking leers to ourselves? Why you gotta skeeve this up, dude?

Oh, well, if the ratio is roughly one icky look to 40 nice looks, I guess I'll take it. But no guarantees I won't hit the next gross-looker with my bag of groceries. The one that's full of cans.

The HUNGER

2011-05-17T12:15:00.001-05:00

There are things about being pregnant that sound obvious when you say them out loud. Lately, a lot of folks have asked me, "How are you feeling?" And my answer the last few weeks has been, "Pretty hungry."

I'm in the second trimester, which is when the tot goes from being roughly the size of a small lemon to a two-pound mini-baby over the course of three months. That requires plenty of calories (and fat! I've been encouraged to drink whole milk and eat ice cream. Yes, please).

But what I wasn't expecting about pregnancy hunger was what could be called Sudden Onset Starving.

See, I'll have a reasonable breakfast in the morning and head off to work. Non-pregnant Schmei could usually make it to early lunch time without needing much, perhaps a small snack. In my current state, however, I'll get to 10:30 am, give or take a few minutes, and be suddenly STARVING. It happens so fast, and to such an extreme, that it surprises me almost every time. And this is the routine all day. If I go more than three hours without eating something, bam! I'm about to start chewing on furniture (not that I want to, I haven't developed pregnancy-related pica).

This helps explain why a few women I know have told me that pregnancy makes you kind of dumb sometimes. If something happens, oh, five or six times a day, every day, for a few weeks, it should stop being surprising, right? But here I am, wondering, "holy crap, I am really hungry. I could eat just about anything that's not moving too fast." There's just no warning, so it continues to startle me.

One reason this is a paradigm shift for me is that during the first trimester, I didn't feel hunger at all. If my stomach was getting close to empty, all I felt was nausea, so I would just munch on something like crackers or a bagel because it would make me feel less crappy. Food had zero appeal - and most food made me want to gag. This sorry state felt like it lasted a long time - long enough to make me miss food and the relationship I used to have with it. I remember thinking, "I miss just being hungry." Hehe. I guess my wish has been granted.

Now, most any food (with the exception of canned mushrooms and a few deep-fried foods - I think those might be verboten for the duration of this project) sounds beautiful, and though I'm trying not to go crazy on sugars, any dessert is calling out my name. Part of the reason I want to put up this post is so the huge Oreo cookie picture of my last post can move down the page, because every time I see it I want cookies NOW.

This isn't a complaint: I'm enjoying this stage. I'm not huge and lumbering yet. I do have a bump that's starting to appear, and at the risk of being immodest, it's kind of cute. Even if my appetite is a little intense sometimes, I'm glad I have it and most of the accompanying energy back. And we're far enough out from actually meeting this kid that we haven't had to think too much about all the baby flotsam we need to acquire: decisions on cribs and diapers and everything can be quietly mulled or just ignored for a few more weeks while I marvel at my appetite (and think about other things, like my thesis and DH's graduation and moving, etc, etc). And hey, I don't know if it's a "glow" or all the water I've been drinking, but my skin even looks nice.

Second trimester, I like you. And if I need to feed you every two hours OR ELSE, well, I guess you're just preparing me for life with an infant. That's actually kind of considerate.

OK, OK, I'll go make some lunch! Calm down.

God Bless 'Murrica

2011-05-13T15:00:00.000-05:00

Since I'm trying to balance long afternoon cravings for chocolate with a very good motivation to eat a healthy diet, this is just terrible news for me. DH's crazy uncle had told me about a rumor that Oreo was coming out with a Triple Double, and now it's been confirmed. They're hitting the shelves this summer.

How can something look so gross and so desirable at the same time? I'm sure that's not just the hormones, right?

That other project

2011-05-10T11:30:00.001-05:00

So I mentioned that I have another project that I picked up a little while ago, and it's been taking my time and energy. Then I did the predictable thing that happens and disappeared for a while.

So, the project is large enough that it's been producing its own urine for a few weeks, which makes it high time I posted about it.

Dear readers: I'm knocked up.

I've been writing about this offline, but I feel like this is the stuff blogs are made of, anyway: pregnancy is temporary and prone to changes each day. I don't want this to become a strictly baby-centric blog, but at this point I've followed enough blogs that I know what the pattern is:

A) Hip young female writer starts a blog, just writing about LIFE, man!

B) HYFW falls in love

C) HYFW gets engaged and starts planning a wedding. But "this isn't a wedding blog".

D) weddingweddingweddingweddingweddingwedding

E) HYFW gets marrrrrieeeed!

F) long pause

G) HYFW returns! With wedding pictures and recaps!

H) OK, seriously, back to life. HYFW begins posting more of the stuff I liked to read in the first place, with the occasional relationship post.

I) Long pause out of nowhere.

J) I've probably unsubscribed because the pause was months long.

K) I psychically check in to HYFW's blog on the day she announces that she's PREGERRRRS! Often complete with an ultrasound picture. But "this isn't a baby blog"

L) It's totally a baby blog. For good.

Now, to be fair, I have kept reading one or two blogs that have done this to their readers, because they did keep posting interesting content even after having a child. (And YES, of course I think child-related content can be interesting: A child is residing in my midsection as I type). And I know that bloggers have zero obligation to make stuff up for their readers. If I don't like reading about poop and boob juice, I can go elsewhere, and they know that and so do I.

So I'm not going to say "this isn't a baby blog". I am going to say that I'll be writing about what the hey is going on in this body that, up until a couple of months ago, I thought I knew pretty well. I've already been surprised by all this pregnancy stuff in a lot of ways, and writing is kind of how I work through things, so maybe instead of a baby blog we should all just think of this as my really cheap, overly public therapy. Or something.

Anyway, the answers to the usual questions:

Due date: October 21, 2011. DH and I love October, so this is really exciting. Birthday pictures in a pumpkin patch, baby!

So, how far along are you? I'm at 16 weeks, 4 days. 16 weeks in the normal world is 4 months, but in pregnancy world it's 3.5 months, sort of. For reference, full-term is 40 weeks - which sounds like 10 months to me. But whatever. So I'm almost-four-months along.

Gender: Yes, despite my entire family thinking I'm RUINING the surprise, we're planning to find out some time in June. I'll write more about this.

How are you feeling, Schmei? Physically: Better. I think I had it relatively easy, from what I hear, but the first trimester landed me on my ass. All-day nausea (only puked twice so far, fortunately), exhaustion, crankiness, and a sense of smell that could detect a stale cigarette from four miles away... which contributed to nausea and crankiness. The last few weeks, though, my stomach and I have gotten back together. We're making up for those weeks of estrangement by the stomach being constantly hungry and me constantly feeding it. Beyond the occasional insomnia, I'm feeling pretty good.

Emotionally: all over the place. I still can't wrap my head around this being real, most days. I honestly think it's going to hit me when I meet the kid this fall. (Or maybe when I get cankles this summer. That will be a treat.) But then I get worried about the kid, which tells me that the instinctive side of me is pretty aware of what's going on.

Weight gain: 6 lbs so far. My goal, per the midwife, is to gain 15-25 total. I'm not sure if my ravenous hunger agrees with that goal, however. The second three pounds happened a lot faster than the first three - I'm worried it's exponential or something.

Midwife? Are you doing a crazy home birth? No, though I think home birth makes sense for a lot of folks, the idea of all that cleanup is not appealing to me at all, while the idea of having someone take complete care of me for a day or so after I give birth is appealing. We found a really cool midwife group at a nice hospital. I'm sure I'll write more about the midwives. So far I'm very very happy with that decision.

Are you still running? Eh, no. I had signed up for a 5K on May 7 which I planned to run-walk with DH. We ended up sleeping through it, which was the right choice for a lot of reasons. I was so out of it during much of the first trimester that long walks were the best I could manage, but now I'm really in to walking: aiming for 5 miles a day. It's something I know I can do until the end, and afterward, and it really helps me when I'm feeling down, which these damn hormones do more often than I care to admit. I got a prenatal yoga DVD, too, with some intense stretches and squats, and I'm aiming to do that at least three days a week. But yes, running and triathlon-ing are hopefully going to return in 2012 some time.

Do you have a bump? I'm getting the start of one... it depends on the angle and what I'm wearing and whether I just ate. That probably means not really, but my midsection certainly has more density than it used to. Most of my pants are still wearable, especially with a Bella band. I'm enjoying my non-enormity while it lasts.

Where's the ultrasound picture? I don't have one yet - this will likely be its own post soon - and I'm not planning to post it here when I get one. I've found myself feeling very strongly about this kid's privacy, which is pretty silly when you think about an ultrasound picture, since they all basically look the same. I will probably follow in the footsteps of Molly and not post any identifying pictures of the kid, since this is a public blog, and I think I may just start that from, well, the start, and not post the ultrasound picture. I know that's dumb. Blame it on hormones.

Have you felt any kicks? I think I have - it's tough to distinguish, but last night we had root beer floats for dessert, and about an hour later I was relaxing in bed with a magazine when I'm fairly certain I felt two little thumps in my lower-front midsection. Maybe the baby likes root beer? I know I do, so the kid should get used to that.

How is DH doing? Well, he's DH, so he's awesome. He's very in to brainstorming names, going to all the midwife appointments, giving me the occasional belly rub, dragging me out for long, restorative walks, and when I'm pooped, making me relax and drink some water. Menfolk should take note that no matter how horrified I am about some change my body just made, he acts like it's attractive. This is crucial to domestic harmony with a pregnant partner. Honestly, he's excited about the whole prospect, which is darn cute. I'm lucky.

And the question I can't wait for someone to ask me in real life:

Were you trying? Well, we were trying for a puppy. Turns out that's a different process, so... baby! Also cute and will hopefully chew the furniture less.

I am still working on my thesis, which was further delayed by being basically out of commission through late February and much of March, so posting will be light for the next month or so. But not as light as it's been of late - I have a few posts up my sleeve.

I have found that I like answering people's (polite) questions about this process, so if you have one, shoot!

Another one of those pauses

2011-03-30T11:00:00.001-05:00

As has happened here before, my lil' blog is taking a bit of a back seat to other real-life concerns. My thesis may or may not be in the final stages and I really really want this thing to be finished soon. Spring is always a busy time where I work, and this spring is nuttier than usual because we've been hosting a major event each month since January - and this will continue through to June. I also have an additional project I took on a little while ago that is taking more of my time and energy than I'd anticipated.

On top of all that, for Lent I decided to give up Google Reader. I briefly scan through posts on Sundays, but otherwise I'm not spending the time I used to on picking up fun tidbits from the interwebs. This is good for my productivity on all those other things, but it cuts down on some of the post fodder I used to have.

So except for the occasional fun fact, don't expect a lot of input around here until later this Spring. I prefer to post here when I have some actual content, so hopefully when I do return I'll have some good stories to tell.

In the meantime, if you like hearing someone grouse about the grad school process, check out PhD Comics. The complaints for those of us earning measly Master's degrees are shockingly similar.

What he said

2011-03-13T12:15:00.000-05:00

International Women's Day was this past week, but since I think we lady-folks are great every day, here's a belated link to a letter written by Carl Sagan that made me want to put on my boots and go exploring.

Three things

2011-03-07T15:00:00.000-06:00

Here's a fun gift from the interwebs:

Paper-Rock-Scissors played against a New York Times computer.

And here's a question: I grew up calling it paper-rock-scissors. Is rock-paper-scissors an East Coast thing?

At Least We're Number One at Something...

2011-03-01T11:30:00.000-06:00

I've been learning about prisons and how they affect people for years now, since my first post-college job at a halfway house for former Illinois State Penitentiary inmates. As DH can attest, there were days in that job that left me completely drained - people come out of prison broken, there's no way around it.

My thesis looks at some of the bigger-picture problems with prisons, but you don't want to read my thesis (definitely not now - the data analysis is a shambles). Instead, you should take a glance at this infographic about the "Land of the Free".

The United States locks up more people per capita - and more people in sheer numbers - than China. Oh, and that fun fact didn't even make it in to the infographic.

Why aren't we protesting in the streets about this? Good question.

Organizing the bookcase

2011-02-24T11:45:00.000-06:00

I'm at the point in my thesis where this is about all the text-based research I can handle anymore:

Organizing the Bookcase

Rahm-com

2011-02-23T11:30:00.001-06:00

Someone's already used that title, right? They must have.

Anyway, I did my civic duty and voted yesterday after work, then naively tottered through the early evening expecting to hear about how there'd be a runoff for mayor. Turns out, not so much: Rahm Emmanuel won by enough to not even need another race.

What a bust. After decades of foregone conclusions in mayoral races, we had a field of 5 candidates plus one... foregone conclusion. Such is Chicago politics, I suppose.

My bud Bro sent me this link, which left me thinking that Da Mayor-elect was actually kind of cute back when he was pre-verbal.

One wonders, was his first word a four-lettered one?

6-word love stories

2011-02-18T11:30:00.001-06:00

Angela at Oh She Glows (the woman responsible for my very healthy breakfast routine now) has been posting sweet stuff all this month to celebrate Valentine's Day. Today she wrote about six-word love stories, and I have basically had to peel myself away from all the comments on the NY Times article so I can, like, get other things done. It's really good stuff.

A few of my favorites:

When we stopped thinking, we loved.

Dog approves; maybe this guy’s good?

Rain on the roof. Strong arms.

red hair, brown eyes, weak knees.

She fed me.
Me wed she.

There are hundreds of them, spanning from pure romance to tragedy, and since they're so short, it's easy to tell yourself you're just going to skim them. Be advised that skimming is difficult and you will likely not come up for air for 45 minutes.

I decided I should try my hand, too:

Rome to Chicago, home's with him.

or:

Shelf too tall? He always helps.

also:

Proposed with violin, still making music.

Yikes - I think I just gave myself a cavity.

Anyway, happy belated Valentine's Day, everyone! We get to spend the weekend hosting the newlywed lovebirds from the super-fun October wedding we went to, so things are looking up over here.

Blizzaster '11

2011-02-11T11:30:00.001-06:00

I started writing this during the actual Blizzard, and then I got distracted and played in the snow instead. I'm OK with that.

In the more-than-ten years I've lived in Chicago, I've never had a snow day. Somewhere along the line I came to believe that snow days don't happen in Chicago, and they certainly don't happen for adults. So long, snow day, you were an enjoyable part of my childhood.

Or not, apparently: today is my second consecutive snow day. My employer shut down all offices at 3:00pm Tuesday and is not opening until Friday morning. As I mentioned in my previous post, Chicago was expecting a significant blizzard. And then it received it, right on time.

It was eerie, really: the snow was predicted to begin at 3:00pm. In the Loop, where I work, it started at 2:45. Considering the usual dependability of weather predictions, this was a bit stunning. At a few minutes before three, one of my coworkers and I observed that the two men jogging back and forth on the plaza across the street, shoving big snow shovels in front of them, could not keep up with the snow that was accumulating. This was after roughly ten minutes of snow.

I was preparing to take the train home, but since this was a couple of hours before rush hour, I was already stressing that my usual train line's web site was giving conflicting reports about what time trains were available and whether they would stop at my stop. I was considering taking the bus - a prospect that made me a little nervous, with the fast accumulation and the fact that my bus would run down Lake Shore Drive, a road about which there had been warnings for the day or two before the storm. As I was considering my options, Marlowe, the coworker of mine who is both my next-door office neighbor and a next-neighborhood neighbor came up the stairs. Marlowe also has a large four-wheel-drive pickup truck.

I asked him if he was driving home. He said sure, and he offered me a ride. Cue total relief.

We left at about 3:20pm, and the short walk to the parking garage was literally breathtaking: the wind, usually coming from the west, was whipping in from the east and then wailing down Wabash, and it felt like a punch in the chest. Thick snow was blasting sideways. As we walked in to the office building connected to the parking garage, swarms of people were leaving work, including the president of the university, who brushed past me in a hurry, pulling on his gloves.

We got to the parking garage, usually filled with cars, and it was nearly empty. As the truck pulled up the ramp out of the warm, quiet garage, the exit door lifted up and the scene before us looked fictional: it was damn near a whiteout. Pedestrians were hunched against the wind, blinded by snow, sliding across the sidewalk. Marlowe and I both made a kind of this-is-exciting-because-we-might-die laugh, and he steered the truck on to Wabash.

Marlowe has kids who are only a couple of years younger than me, so as a dad and a Chicago native, he took it upon himself to tell some stories about the 1967 blizzard. He started with "You weren't around when that happened, were you?" (Ahem, no... I was born 15 years later) "Well, I was!" And the stories were crazy. As the truck crept south along city streets he passed the time talking about being snowed in for days.

We made it to Cermak (aka 22nd street) before we saw cars sliding. At this point, roughly an hour into the snowfall, easily four inches of snow were already on the ground, and the wind was kicking it up in the air over and over again. Visibility was total crap, and lane markers were obscured: drivers were already creating their own lanes. Fortunately nobody was trying to speed along. I'd say we averaged 15-20 miles per hour. We were listening to WBBM news radio, and they were focusing almost exclusively on blizzard coverage. When they reported that the commute time on one of the major highways was over four hours, Marlowe yelled, "who would plan to do a long commute today?" And then the car in front of us slid all over the road. Marlowe was just starting to make a comment about that small car having no traction when our truck fish-tailed. We were almost halfway home.

The rest of the drive proceeded apace: terrible visibility, slow traffic, people starting to make their own rules but everyone still being mostly understanding. A couple of blocks from my dropoff, Marlowe's eleven-year-old daughter called his cell phone. I had to stifle my laughter when he put her on speakerphone, set the phone in the console, rolled his eyes, and occasionally said, "oh, really?" She was speaking so quickly and with such pre-teen excitement that I couldn't possibly decipher what the story was that she was telling. Occasionally she would crack herself up, bursting into high-pitched peals of laughter, which made me bite my finger so I wouldn't laugh out loud. Marlowe was laughing, too: her giggles were infectious.

Then she suddenly turned serious: "Are you almost home? Are you safe?" And Marlowe's tone shifted appropriately. He assured her that he was driving carefully, he was almost home, not to worry. She told him to call when he was safe inside, which was one of the sweetest things I've heard.

Marlowe is recently divorced, and his kids live with their mom most of the time. He's a pretty tough guy, though, so I'm sure it was my imagination that his voice got briefly husky when he told his youngest kid he'd call her when he was safe at home.

DH and I had gone to the grocery the day before, which was its own adventure with people stocking up on junk food in panicked anticipation of schools being closed, but I had forgotten to get eggs. I had been struck with this thought that, if we were snowed in, I would need to bake. So I asked Marlowe to drop me off at the store two blocks from my house. It was on his way, so that worked for him.

I picked up two items at the store: eggs and some generic Fruity Pebbles (people - it was a DISASTER! Eat what you need to live!). Picking up the items took approximately two minutes. Waiting in the checkout line took almost forty-five. When I finally got to the front with my two items, the cashier looked at me like I was crazy.

The walk home wasn't too bad at first: the wind was calm for the first block, so I was just shuffling through a few inches of snow as it came pouring (seriously - pouring) down. Just as I foolishly thought to myself, "Hm - I lucked out with the wind!" A blast came out of the south, trying to rip the grocery bag out of my hands and almost knocking me down. I could hardly breathe for that last block, and the ferocious wind meant it was tough to see if any cars were coming down the street I had to cross.

And then, at last, I made it home.

The rest of the evening was happily warm, dry and indoors, but when we tried to sleep, it was neither quiet nor dark: the wind kept smashing the tree outside our apartment against the windows, and the snow blowing everywhere was reflecting all the streetlights such that even with the blinds drawn, it looked like we were trying to sleep through daylight. I'm not complaining, though: I was wrapped up in quilts when the fantastic maintenance guy for our building was out snow-blowing before the blizzard had even finished. That sounds a little nuts, but it means our sidewalks were beautiful when everything else looked like... well.

I have pictures, but I'll save them for the next post.

Not part of the plan

2011-02-08T11:30:00.004-06:00

I'm having some trouble.

Honestly, everything is going quite well in my life: I'm healthy, fed, sheltered, clothed, loved beyond anything I deserve. I wake up in the morning next to my favorite person, spend my days at a job I usually like, occasionally work on a thesis that's still interesting to me, go to my small but more-than-adequate home, pet our purring cat, have dinner with that same favorite person. This usually-dreary month is full of visits from family and good friends, too, and that's nice.

So... what's the problem?

Here's what's up. One of my coworkers had her first baby in December: a bouncing baby girl. The child is hale and hearty, the new mom was recovering well from the birth, the new dad was excited, and all was well.

And then about two weeks ago, the new dad - my coworker's husband - collapsed. He stopped breathing, had no pulse. He was rushed to the hospital and put on a ventilator and sort-of resuscitated, but he had no brain activity. For the last 10 days, doctors had been trying whatever doctors can do, but it looked grim. And then it looked worse. On Saturday she had to make the decision no person should ever have to make, and they turned off the machines.

She became a mother and then a widow in less than two months. Her husband was only 33.

There are quite a few women in my office who are similar to her: late twenties to early thirties, married, and have a kid or two or are mulling the whole enterprise over. When we have discussed the situation, it's been common to let the end of our sentences trail off. We find our eyes wandering to the wedding pictures sitting in their little frames in our offices - just like the one she has - and asking ourselves "what if that was me?"

The deal - the way it works - is that you get married and then you have this person with you until you're keeping tabs on your grandchildren and watching Wheel of Fortune and are probably telling the same stories over and over. The deal does not include one of you being cut down in the prime of life, leaving the other alone to care for your baby. Sorry, but that shit's not what I signed up for.

I'm sure that's not what she signed up for, either. But here she is.

I went out on my lunch break yesterday and got DH a little Valentine's Day present - a week early. As I was walking back to my office, I asked myself, "Why'd you get this so early?" Well, I thought, I had some cash on hand today. And maybe the store wouldn't have it in a week. Or maybe things would get busy and I'd forget.

Sure.

Before the big blizzard last week, one of my other coworkers said she dislikes it when the weather reminds her she's "just a blip". I don't know if it's my rural upbringing or my general comfort level around the great outdoors, or what, but I kind of like the way big natural events make me feel small. This stuff, however, is terrifying.

It's not the smallness factor - I'm good with being an unimportant speck in the universe, for the most part - it's the randomness. We had days to stock up on groceries and rock salt before the big blizzard. But nothing can prepare a person for something like this, and it happened essentially without warning.

So the only option, I suppose, is to hug the ones you love and, when life scares you, get them little gifts a week early.

Long odds

2011-02-04T11:30:00.000-06:00

I'm writing up an account of the big blizzard and will post it soon, but in the meantime, if you're feeling lucky that you survived Snowmageddon and want to flex your chance-muscles, check out this interesting - and depressing - Lottery-winnings calculator. I plugged in what would be a possible combination of numbers I might have played, and then asked it to calculate my odds if I played that combination twice a week for ten years. It would have cost me $1040, and I would have won a whopping $55.

I think this "game" should be required for middle-school students in whatever class it is that shows you how to use a checkbook. The house always wins, kids.

Snowpocalypse!!

2011-01-31T21:30:00.000-06:00

To hear the meteorologists tell it, I won't be able to do anything for the next day or two because I, like a third of the country, will be trapped in a pile of snow. So here are some snow-day links, in case your work/school has been called off and you're killing time:

Here are some really cool photographs of insects (and a few lizards).

I just made this pasta recipe, and though it was vegan, it was also delicious. DH enjoyed it, too - we both kind of wanted to lick our plates afterward.

And today I learned that Nicholas Kristof from the New York Times has made it to Cairo, and he's using twitter when he can. It's fascinating to read updates from the protest as they happen - extra impressive since the internet has been shut down.

The Guys

2011-01-24T11:30:00.000-06:00

This could be construed as a confession, but I don't think I should be ashamed: I think the Three Stooges are funny.

It took me a while to come around to them, and I think that is mostly because my mother thinks they are completely stupid, so I grew up not really knowing much about them and, for the most part, thinking that was the best course of action.

Mom is to be forgiven: she exposed me to things like musicals and Star Wars, which are also important.

About six or eight months ago, though, when DH and I discovered Svengoolie's brand of fantastically bad puns to go with equally bad movies on Saturday evenings, we found that there was a Three Stooges show that was on just before Sven. I would usually be puttering around, but DH loves slapstick, so he started watching the tail end of the show. Then he figured out that the host of the Stooges show was the same guy as Svengoolie, which piqued my interest because, well, I kind of love Svengoolie, the man.

Confidential to Rich Koz: You're quite possibly my favorite person on TV. I want to buy you a beer. But please lose some weight, man... you're worrying us.

Anyway, back to the Stooges. Mom was almost right, thinking they're stupid. But we like to call them "stoopid": they're so dumb they are - sometimes - ingenious. The joke about the tapeworm cracks me up every time. The gag where two guys get caught in the same suit jacket so one guy accidentally starts punching his partner is perfect Vaudeville choreography. Throw in the occasional interesting trivia from Mr. Koz, and stoopid is skipping along, hand in hand with educational.

Rich Koz emphasizes that he reads all the letters he receives, so he features a few letters in the middle of each show. A while ago, some poor guy wrote in saying he loves the show, but his wife can't stand the Stooges, so he gets to watch them only if she's not around. Some comment was made about how women just don't like the Three Stooges. Then he moved on with the show.

This past weekend, Rich read a letter from a middle-aged woman who took offense at this sweeping generalization regarding the fairer sex. She'd been a Stooge fan since she was a kid, she wrote, and she had plenty of female friends who felt the same way. Women who hate the Stooges need to "get in touch with their inner guy."

This letter writer, I thought, just summed up something foundational about who I am.

Time for some back story. Please envision some vision-waving rays here:

Back in my home town, my closest friends growing up were all guys. There were three in particular with whom I spent most of my time, and whom I creatively referred to as The Guys. We were the drama club nerds for the most part, though our school was so small that the cliques weren't that well defined, so "Schmei and The Guys" was not an exclusive club or anything, it was just the way things often shook out.

My parents bought a beat-up Oldsmobile for my use in high school, and I was shocked to learn that it was a manual transmission. I hated my parents for approximately fifteen minutes, until one of The Guys expressed some level of admiration that a chick would drive a stickshift. I honestly hadn't paid attention to the fact that The Guys? Drove stick shifts. This is very manly, in part because it aids in driving recklessly fast on country roads. We will pass over without mention the other reason a stick shift can be construed as manly.

The Guys exposed me to good music and good books, to junky snacks and ginger beer. I was never entirely certain if I was "one of The Guys" or just the annoying girl they allowed to tag along. I do know that there were times they would have rather I had stayed home, because... well, I was still a teenage girl. They're terrible creatures sometimes.

There is also the awkward truth that in junior high and high school, there were attempts to date each of The Guys along the way. The first, in eighth grade, resulted in one of the best breakups of my life. We sort of held hands and stuff for a week, and then he tried to kiss me, and then that was weird and he admitted, "that was like kissing my sister." And I agreed. So it ended.

That was sort of how they all were: non-starters, really. The other two didn't even progress to the point that there was a formal break-up: They were more like a series of gaffes. But when you're fifteen or seventeen, who knows? Everything about our small town told us that we'd marry someone in our high school class, and I think we felt obligated to consider that. It's not like there were many options, anyway. And the concept of marriage was roughly as appealing as kissing your sister, i.e., not at all.

We're all married now. None of us the core group of Schmei and The Guys married anyone from high school, thankfully.

When I left town for college I fell out of contact with the guys, for the most part, and I found myself at a school with an overwhelmingly female population. Most of my college friends were women. Some of them created the kind of drama that only women can create for each other.

Oh, how I missed The Guys.

I would still see Bro (yes, he was one of The Guys) over breaks from school, and when I was studying abroad we wrote letters back and forth, but we were each living our own lives and doing some growing up. We'd go months without communicating.

I don't know if it was missing that testonerone-y sense of things that made me get in to the college newspaper, where I met my best college friends, but it could be.

I do think it was quite possibly the influence of The Guys that made my friendship with DH so natural when we first met at the start of my junior year. I was really happy to meet such a great dude. He was the kind of guy one could wander around with or tell fart jokes or talk philosophy. We became such good friends so fast that I wasn't really willing to consider something romantic. Besides, those are always non-starters, right?

Not always, as it turns out. Which is nice.

So here I find myself, more than ten years after I last hung out with The Guys: A married woman, living in a big city, writing a blog.

Through a series of recent conversations, I learned that three men I know and like, and whose writing I enjoy, read my blog. All three of them have mentioned it to me, with the occasional needling that I should write a little more. It's needling I've appreciated greatly.

I think this might be The Guys 2.0, which is fantastic. I prefer to remain in touch with my inner guy.

S-M-R-T

2011-01-24T11:00:00.002-06:00

Hi folks,

If you're reading this in a reader of some sort the "The Guys" post has been updated and is now no longer in draft form.

Have a good evening.

Small Neighbors

2011-01-20T11:30:00.000-06:00

Recently observed on my walk to work:

Sometimes I get off the train a stop earlier and walk the mile or so to my office, which is a nice way to kick off a day of mostly sedentary work.

There is a line of parks along much of the southern portion of Michigan Avenue in downtown Chicago. In one of these parks, a slim middle-aged lady was bundled against the cold in a pricey looking coat - she looked like she probably lived in one of the nearby high rise condominium buildings. She had her left glove off. In the crook of her right arm was the handle of a red plastic bucket. She was reaching in to the bucket with her gloveless hand, pulling out what looked like chestnuts, and placing them at about shoulder-height in the trees lining the paved walkway. A small group of squirrels were pacing in the snow nearby, watching her do this.

As I kept walking, I passed a cluster of sparrows hopping around a pile of birdseed that had just been left on the stone banister.

Tonight's temperature is expected to plunge below zero, so I'm sure our smaller neighbors can use the extra calories.

Essays: Because who has time for a whole novel right now anyway?

2011-01-19T11:30:00.002-06:00

I'm part of a pretty informal online book club, and I just posted this for them. This recommendation isn't just limited to that group, however, so I'm posting this here, as well.

Well hello there, fellow book-sharers. Schmei here. (It's pronounced like "pie", which, incidentally, is something I like to eat.) Most of you know who I am in real life, but I have this delusion about trying to remain somewhat anonymous on the interwebs, so humor me.

Because I, in turn, will humor you, with my best book recommendation of late.

Over Christmas, my librarian brother-in-law, Jon, gave me a book I'd never heard of. This is always a Good Sign. Jon is a master of the well-selected book, and I'm always excited when it's a complete unknown to me.

As I hoped, he hit this one out of the park. So I'm sharing it with you, and I hope you'll have a chance to read it soon, so I can talk about it with someone other than my long-suffering husband who hasn't had time to pick it up yet.

The book is The Fiddler in the Subway by Gene Weingarten.

I should note that I greatly enjoy journalistic writing, and for a brief time in a past life I considered becoming a features writer, so there's a part of me that essentially wants to beGene Weingarten, without the facial hair. And damn, people, the man can write like I've never seen before. These essays made me laugh out loud and cry... more quietly, only because I didn't want to startle people around me. The essays about his father managed to do both at once, perfectly. The final essay - and the title piece - made me think about life.

I mean Think. About Life.

(Though I have to throw out that DC is a crazier town than Chicago. Things would have been different here, I just know it. I'll leave it at that.)

Oh, and don't skip over the introduction. Weingarten gives some insight into his way of looking at life, and you can see how that informs his writing. It also offers some of the best writing advice I've seen since Stephen King's On Writing. Which is saying plenty.

I feel that I should also note this: the essay entitled Fatal Distraction - Weingarten won a Pulitzer prize for it - is extremely difficult to read. I had heard about this essay from a few folks who read it when it was originally published because the subject matter is troubling. Weingarten gives a warning before the piece, and if you have a small child in your life, or, hell, if you're human, you may have some difficulty getting through it.

But you should try. Because he manages to find some redemption there, in a painfully arbitrary, irredeemable situation.

And then he follows that up with a funny essay, because he knows what he just did to you. He's a man who respects his readers, that's what he is.

So please, go check out this book, and read the whole thing, and when you've finished, and then after you re-read a few of the essays three times (that's not just me, right?) - let me know what you think of it.

One-sided

2011-01-12T11:15:00.000-06:00

Recently observed in the Chicago Loop:

A broad-shouldered, hefty man in a Carhartt-type jacket and work boots - the kind of guy who looks like he lifts heavy things for a living - is standing in an alcove in front of an office building, trying to get out of the snow. Said snow is blowing sideways and has started to collect on one side of his face. He has the beginnings of a beard, which looks partly frozen. He is staring at the ground, shrugging. He's a man who looks like he's usually in control, usually of large objects. A man who gets his work done and probably carries a union card and surely can handle his beer.

His cell phone looks very small in his hand. He's holding it up to his ear but he's looking at the ground. He sounds nervous.

"So I was thinking... maybe... well I was thinking maybe I could take you out to dinner some time?"

He sounds like he took a while to make that call.

I hope the answer was yes.

Migraine

2011-01-11T11:00:00.001-06:00

I had a really good weekend. Most weekends with DH qualify as "really good", except the ones that rank as "fantastic". This one was somewhere in between the two. I got less work done on my thesis than I had hoped to, but I got some work accomplished, and I was able to sleep in both mornings and still do some wandering around the Chicagoland area with my favorite person.

We started the weekend on Friday night at a very hip art exhibit opening at Chicago's Museum of Contemporary Art, where we were so hip we were on the guest list so we got in for free. I am related to one of the artists in the exhibit and I'm very very proud of him... and this is supposed to be a quasi-anonymous blog, so I'll stop there. But if you're around Chicago, do check out the New Chicago Comics exhibit this month - there's some really cool stuff there.

On Saturday DH found a sheet-music store that he wanted to check out, so check it out we did, and then we continued wandering, like we do, and - as happens when we're both gamboling around together - we talked. We had a conversation that was important enough to span both days of the weekend, important enough to ponder in my heart during the times we weren't talking.

Important Conversations are part of really good weekends, too.

On Sunday, after church and lunch, we went for a long, sunny stroll in our neighborhood. We walked along the frozen lake. We talked and didn't talk. We noted the high number of cute dogs being taken for walks, and the big chunks of ice on the lake.

Before we'd left for our walk, I had started to get something of a headache, but we both thought the walk and the fresh air would help. It did help, temporarily, but when we got home and I sat down, my head started hurting a bit more. I began having trouble keeping my eyes open. I decided that what I needed, despite needing to work on my thesis or on dinner or on dishes or on something, was a nap. (This should have been a warning, I'm a terrible napper.) I went in to our bedroom and laid down in the dark and tried to sleep. But my headache just grew in ferocity, and I couldn't sleep. And then I felt like I wanted to puke.

And then I knew what was happening.

Migraine.

I used to think that migraines were made up, or exaggerated. There was a time in my youth when I just didn't think anyone could have a headache that bad. Seriously, buck up. It's only a headache. But one summer break from college when I was in my home town, working a somewhat-dull office job, I got my first known migraine. I'm fairly sure it was the worst migraine I've had, actually - I was unable to function at all. I remember shuffling in to a small, unoccupied office, turning off the lights, laying my head on the desk, and wishing I could cry if it just wouldn't hurt so much. I couldn't move. Breathing too deeply made my head want to shatter. I wanted to vomit, but I knew that the act of moving toward a wastebasket would make my pressurized forehead explode into a million fiery pieces. Walking to the bathroom was simply not feasible.

I finally just told my boss I was sick. I can't remember how I got myself home, but I managed to get a doctor's appointment for the next day. The pain, by then, was mostly gone, but I described it to my family doctor. He's a general practitioner in a small town where everybody knows everyone. His kids went to school with me. I trusted him, for good reason.

His first question was, "What did you eat yesterday?"

I didn't know that migraines ever have a cause, I thought they were just mysterious punishment from the beyond. So I presumed this was just some kind of unconnected standard procedure.

So I started to list it off: I'd had a ham sandwich for lunch that day, Chinese food for dinner the night before, a similar ham sandwich for lunch two days ago, some bacon with breakfast that day...

"I think I know what caused it."

"What?"

"Nitrites."

So it turns out that many meat products in the US, and anything made in a Chinese fast-food restaurant, are treated with nitrites - preservatives used primarily to make meat look more pink. Americans really are that obsessed with appearance, it seems, that we'll put freaky chemicals in our deli meats so they won't adopt a greyish tinge. And then we'll ingest those chemicals without a second thought.

And, as it happens, some weaker individuals develop an intolerance to those chemicals.

This weekend, as I was curled up in a ball in my darkened bedroom, I thought through the last few days. And the answer dawned on me in that migraine-way where an idea actually hurts: "Chinese food!"

Before we went to the schmancy museum opening, we stopped at Panda Express for a quick dinner. I observed to DH that, though the place was two blocks from my office, I'd never gotten food there before. I wasn't sure why not, I said, as I happily munched some spicy beef and fried rice.

Because you can't eat commercially-produced Chinese food, Schmei.

This seems to be my pattern: I'll go as long as a year being very careful not to eat anything that contains nitrites, and then I'll get hubristic and conveniently forget this truth about myself. And THEN I inevitably eat six nitrite-laced meals in 48 hours, which makes me a sniveling, nauseous, cringing mess. I didn't only have Chinese food this weekend. Over the course of three days, I had Chinese food, pepperoni pizza (pepperoni generally has nitrites in it), a few bites of DH's turkey bacon club sandwich (bacon = nitrites. So does turkey, often), and two hot dogs (is there anything that occurs in nature in a hot dog?).

I guess to some degree the Important Conversations had left me not really paying attention to what I was doing.

Fortunately, the doctor back home had told me that, as soon as I felt like I was getting a migraine, I should take two ibuprofen and just not move for an hour or so. I'm fairly stubborn about taking painkillers, but I knew I couldn't tough this thing out. I took the pills. DH got me a can of seltzer water to help settle my hash. I wrapped myself in a blanket on the couch and half-watched a football game (side note: commercials these days are REALLY bright and jerky, aren't they? Ow.) and sipped my fizzy water. Roughly every ten minutes, DH would ask "how're you doing?" And I'd say "better." Once he was sure I wasn't going to follow it up with "better get a bucket," I think he became a bit less concerned.

An hour later, though I was still a little woozy, the headache was definitely subsiding.

I'm blessed to have migraines that come with known causes and leave with known solutions. I know there are folks who just get them for no reason, or who get them for days, or who have chronic headaches that never go away. And that is simply terrible. I think people who are dealing with that level of pain and are doing anything but lying in the dark feeling sorry for themselves deserve medals or cash awards or a special place in heaven. Or all three.

It's difficult for people who haven't experienced migraines - people like my younger self - to appreciate how impossible it is to function with one, and in the rosy way that human memory works, I eventually forget how much they hurt until I wash my Spicy Asian Beef down with a ham sandwich and hate myself later. But once again I've learned my lesson. Each time I learn it, the lesson seems to stick for a little longer, so maybe I can make it something like two years before I do the migraine thing again.

So, that was my weekend: 93% fantastic and 7% agonizing.

Overall, it was really good.

Year in Review

2011-01-07T11:45:00.001-06:00

I was kind of paralyzed about reviewing 2010, but I think it's a good mental exercise – sincethat's what most of this blog is, anyway - but then I saw this questionnaire and was reminded of the writing prompts we always had to do in high school English class. I loved those things. So this was kind of fun.

1. What did you do in 2010 that you’d never done before?

Swam/Biked/Ran a triathlon, held a newborn baby (23 hours old!), had my thesis proposal accepted, baked a three-tier chocolate mint cake, made cinnamon rolls from scratch.

2. Did you keep your new year’s resolutions, and will you make more for next year?

I didn’t really make resolutions. I think I will make something like a resolution this year, because I enjoy checking out my progress a year later.

3. Did anyone close to you give birth?

My sister, a couple of blog-writers I read (is that close?), one of my coworkers.

4. Did anyone close to you die?

Chester Holton, a sweet old guy from my home town who would give me quarters when I was a little kid. He lived a full life, and according to my parents, his daughter was a little overwhelmed at the visitation with all stories of the kind things he did for people.

5. What countries did you visit?

I stayed in the good ol’ U S of A. Keeping life cheap these days.

6. What would you like to have in 2011 that you lacked in 2010?

No debt. That’s a double-negative but I don’t care.

A real vacation with DH.

7. What dates from 2010 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?

March 26 – my niece's birth

September 18 – my big brother's wedding

October 24 – Bro and the Speaker's wedding

December 3 – DH's big bro's wedding (we found out about it three weeks later!)

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?

Probably the triathlon.

9. What was your biggest failure?

I didn’t finish my thesis in 2010. Loser.

10. Did you suffer illness or injury?

I had the flu in February for the first time in years, and I ran on a wrapped foot right before my brother's wedding which totally effed up my foot, so I was limping everywhere all weekend. That was stupid.

11. What was the best thing you bought?

The $26 dress I found at Marshall’s that I wore for my graduation ceremony and my brother's wedding.

12. Where did most of your money go?

Food, rent, savings, debt payment. So amazingly boring. This is probably why I get excited about the grocery store.

13. What did you get really excited about?

Bro and the Speaker deciding to get hitched in a small park ceremony 6 months earlier than originally planned. And they made pie in a jar as favors. We were really excited for them and the weekend was really, really, really, ridiculously fun.

14. What song will always remind you of 2010?

The “Inception” sound, which isn’t really a song: BWOOOOOOAAHH…

Also probably “Strange Overtones” by David Byrne, which is one of DH’s favorite songs ever ever ever.

15. Compared to this time last year, are you:

– happier or sadder? About the same.

– thinner or fatter? Almost exactly the same – so much for the triathlon!

– richer or poorer? Slightly less poor, on paper at least.

16. What do you wish you’d done more of?

Taking days off to write the thesis, Vacationing with DH.

17. Wish you’d done less of?

Tried to make people happy who just aren’t, worked overtime.

18. How did you spend Christmas?

The weekend before, we went to my sister’s house and spent a long weekend putting up and decorating their tree, running a 5-mile run, making cookies and exchanging gifts. That Monday I went to work for one day, then stepped out the door of my office at 3:30 and was picked up in a car that contained my oldest brother-in-law (driving), my husband, sister-in-law (oooh – but I didn’t know she was legally my sister-in-law at the time!!), our cat, and a week’s worth of luggage, laundry and snacks. I spent 2.5 hours squished in the back seat, and then a week spread out and relaxed in Michigan, where there was much eating, drinking wine, sleeping, watching movies, finding out about secret weddings that had happened, laughing, cooking, etc.

We went to Christmas Eve Mass at the nice Catholic Church, which included a Christmas pageant and was really cute. Then we had a feast of Short Ribs, and we all exchanged gifts. I got a Wii. We drove back to Chicago on Christmas morning, dropped everything off at our apartment, took a nap (stayed up wayyy too late the last night in Michigan, which included late night couples’ laundry folding with BIL and SIL in the family room) and headed to the B grandparents’ for Christmas dinner and Scrabble/Yahtzee (SIL likes Yahtzee, which means I like SIL). We went home to our own place that night.

Boxing day (Sunday) morning we exchanged gifts with each other, then went to DH’s R grandparents where we spent the evening, ate cannollini and got more presents. I got a Wii Fit (my gifts had a theme). We spent another day (Tuesday) with the fam out there, went to see Tron Legacy and I went for a looong hike by a Slough with BILs and SIL. BIL and SIL left town on Wednesday.

DH and I got colds from our niece, so we were pretty congested most of the time, but we were able to sleep a lot so it wasn’t a big deal.

19. What was your favorite TV program?

Svengoolie!

(This is what happens when you don't have cable).

20. What were your favorite books of the year?

Middlesex (part of Bro's online book club), and I think the book younger BIL gave me for Christmas might count, too. Though I'm still reading it.

21. What was your favorite music from this year?

Spoon. DH gave me “Transference” for Valentine’s Day because I finally admitted to myself that I’ve always loved Spoon. Whenever a genius mix would come on, as soon as a Spoon song started I would say “this is a good mix!”

22. What were your favorite films of the year?

Inception, True Grit

23. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?

I turned 28, and we took a trip from Silver Lake to that town with the coffee shop, where I spent an hour on the café wifi and read a lot of birthday notes from friends. Later I had cake and ice cream with all my extended in-laws and played with my 9-month-old cousin. Since the whole week was vacation it was all very relaxed.

24. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?

About three more weeks of vacation time, probably. I feel like I’m always rationing my time off, and then misappropriating it.

25. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2010?

Um, what? "Personal fashion concept?" Well, I got this hot short haircut in November, and started wearing more dangly earrings. And I brought back the contacts. So I guess my attempted concept was “Well-put-together young adult” as opposed to "schleppy grad student".

26. What kept you sane?

DH and Corina, my tag team of humorous understanding and unconditional (as long as there's tuna) love.

27. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2010.

You're probably not going to finish everything you wrote down to do today, so just do the important stuff, then go home.

The Best Recap

2011-01-06T13:30:00.003-06:00

So it's a new year, and 2010 was certainly a mixed bag. In my personal life it was pretty great: my family expanded to include a new, ever-cuter niece, two new sisters-in-law and whatever you call the Speaker (Longest-Friend-In-Law? Whatevs). Also, I did a triathlon and baked a couple of fairly impressive cakes.

In world events, things were closer to terrible much of the time. But I'm not going to re-write what's already been said so well, so I'll be a blog slacker and just re-post Dave Barry's year in review.

I should note that I grew up reading Dave Barry's weekly column - when I could wrest it from the clutches of the rest of my family. He made my mom laugh Every. Single. Sunday. for years and years, and I have to thank him for making her almost spit-take her post-church coffee a few times. He made my dad snort a few times, too (Dave Barry is also one of the few people who's made Dad do his patented "running out of breath" laugh, which is very hard to describe, but when my siblings and I try to imitate it we usually just end up running out of breath laughing, ourselves).

I stopped reading his stuff, though, when it started to feel stale. I do think Barry probably ruined a lot of his readers by raising their humor standards to a difficult-to-meet level. This recap just made me love him all over again, though: He's at his best when he's making a reader guffaw about something that is essentially pure tragedy.

I've been reading Gene Weingarten too much lately. I'll write about him later, I'm sure.

Anyway, here is Dave Barry's year in review. I'll have another, way less interesting "Schmei's Year in Review" post in a bit, and then it's so long to 2010, since we're already 6 days in to the new year. I work better when I'm past a deadline, clearly.

Fire and Ice

2010-12-16T11:30:00.004-06:00

It's been what some would call "butt-cold" in Chicago lately - we've been getting February-like weather the last few weeks, which means it's in the teens or single digits Farheneheit most of the time. We went for a run Tuesday evening when it was sixteen outside. I remembered why 15 degrees is my cutoff temperature for outdoor running - I commented to DH that my bad knee was getting iced during the run, and my hands didn't warm up for the rest of the night.

This isn't a complaint. I would take this over crazy-making hot and humid weather any day. But part of what I love about the cold is all the ways one can thaw out: hot beverages, blankets, warm sweaters and scarves, fuzzy socks... and videos of solar flares.

Wait, what?

I don't know. But watching this certainly made me feel warm and toasty. And a little awed.

However, if you're somewhere where you're too warm, reading about the newly-discovered ice volcanoes on Titan will perhaps cool you off. Brr. Back to the solar flares for me.

Toddler Phonics Funnies

2010-12-15T11:30:00.001-06:00

Since I:

A) know that one of three readers of this blog is a speech therapist/pathologist/person who helps kids talk good, and:

B) am very much looking forward to hearing the ever-closer-to-words babbling of my niece in the very near future,

I wanted to re-post this story, as it made me laugh.

My friend Eddie (Ed? We called him Eddie in college, but now he's a husband and father and overall adult-type. Sir Edward, then.) writes an occasional blog about his growing family over at the Pluchar Baby Blog (this is one of at least FOUR blogs to which he contributes in his not-at-all-ample spare time).

So head over there for a chuckle. Sensitive readers be warned, there is one mildly explicit word used.

Putting some zzzs in to buzzing

2010-12-14T11:30:00.003-06:00

I know I don't function as well without a full night's sleep. Turns out, neither do honeybees.

I'm partial to bees by heredity - my dad is a former beekeeper - so I have to say that I found the methods of this experiment to be a little bit mean. Hopefully the bees involved were allowed to take a nap afterward.

Mini-geek update

2010-12-10T09:00:00.006-06:00

Image from here. And only marginally related to the story.

Katie's story was already going viral when I posted about it a little while ago, but it struck a chord with tens of thousands more people after that. Today, Katie's school is hosting "Proud to Be Me Day", and there's an accompanying Facebook Star Wars-geek-pride online happening taking place, too. The only Star Wars shirt I own is not exactly workplace attire, so I'll just say I'm dressing like Chewbacca because my winter coat has a fur collar. I do what I can.

The really cool thing about all the attention this story received is that folks have been sending Katie things like light sabers and Star Wars toys to show their support of her geekdom. She's such a neat kid, she's passing most of the toys along to kids in need, which is only making everyone feel more warm and fuzzy.

Today in My Cat Just Tried to Adopt Herself out to the West Coast

2010-12-07T12:45:00.003-06:00

A man caught a 405-pound tuna in California.

Not enough space

2010-12-03T11:30:00.002-06:00

Two galactic news bits of late: One which made me laugh, and one that made me marvel:

First, the marvelous one: Some pictures of our planet that "look like art". Maybe it is art.

Second, the crazy: A Spanish woman has claimed ownership of the sun. I'm kicking myself for this lost revenue opportunity.

... oh, and a bonus: alien bacteria. Holy crap.

Actual progress

2010-12-02T12:30:00.002-06:00

I wish every session of the Illinois legislature was a lame-duck session!

Yesterday a bill legalizing same-sex civil unions passed the Illinois Senate, and the governor is expected to sign it in to law. This is going to allow radical rights like the ability to visit with a partner in the hospital. Angry hyper-conservatives can hear the fabric of our society tearing, but all I hear is cheering.

And this week the Illinois House Judiciary Committee recommended that a bill abolishing the death penalty be passed. Apparently there aren't quite 60 votes for the bill just yet in the Senate, but it has supporters in the high 50s. There's an actual possibility that the thing might pass, which is kind of mind-blowing. As I predicted a few years ago, if the bill does pass, it will do so because the death penalty is expensive, not because it's wrong. Whatever. As long as the state stops killing people, I'm good.

Mini-geek gets bullied, goes viral

2010-11-24T11:30:00.003-06:00

When I was a little kid, I was a nerd.

Those of you who know me in real life know that not much has changed, but let's ignore that for the time being.

In fifth grade, I had glasses and crooked teeth. I laughed too loud, and I spilled my milk almost every day when we had our class snack break. Most of my clothes were hand-me-downs from my sister and cousins. I was into books that were ahead of my reading level and I got along better with boys than with girls.

So, like any kid who deserves it, I had a bully.

Most of the time, my bully said things that I didn't even understand: she made pop-culture references that I didn't get, and then she would laugh derisively at me. Sometimes she insulted me in ways that I figured just didn't apply to me. Occasionally, I could shrug her off. But her jabs and her soul-crushing laugh worked enough times that I can still remember the sting of it. I can remember her face when she laughed at me.

I had had another bully a couple of years before that - she was much older than me, probably 11 or 12. She constantly called me alternately fat or stupid. I was seven and I believed her.

No matter what I accomplish in my life, the voices and "advice" of those bullies can be conjured up in an instant. More often than I'd care to admit, I remember what they said and wonder if they were right.

It's cold comfort - OK, not even comfort, really - that both of them are fairly miserable people now. That doesn't make things any better.

So my reaction at a nerdy, be-spectacled 7-year-old girl being bullied by boys at her school for carrying a Star Wars water bottle was manifold: I logged on and left a comment of support for the kid, like almost 2,000 other people have already done, but I also found myself wondering if it's even possible to keep something like this from happening.

Kids are such jerks, man. And they're the worst to each other.

Aside from sequestering kids from each other, I don't know how to keep that sort of thing from happening. In the case of my experiences with bullies, there was never an adult within earshot - bullies know what they're doing is wrong, so they do it on the sly. And it's not like more supervision is the solution - kids need some space to learn and develop as social creatures. Katie's mom was savvy enough (and Katie is enough of a Star Wars fan) to pick up on something being off, but that's seriously a lot to ask of most parents. I was the third child and was already weird enough: how could my mom have picked up on some subtle change in behavior due to bullying? Did my behavior even change?

All's I know is, may the force be with Katie. And may I never get a hold of the kids who bullied her.

Abraham Day-Lewis

2010-11-22T11:30:00.000-06:00

The "team of rivals".

I have lived for the past ten years in Illinois, called the "Land of Lincoln" because it's where Abraham Lincoln got his start in politics. Before I moved here, I lived with my Civil War re-enactor parents in Ohio - my dad regularly portrays a member of Ulysses Grant's staff - and I've worn a hoop skirt several times for Civil-War commemoration events in my home town. There are bookshelves in my childhood home that are heavy with books of Civil War history, biographies and battle analysis. When the Ken Burns 10-hour documentary came out on PBS, it was an enormous deal: my parents taped every hour and have watched and re-watched it many times.

I share my parents' interest in - though perhaps not their devotion to - what happened during those bloody years in our country. The scale of the thing is impossible to comprehend, and of course the Civil War and its aftermath are still affecting our country.

Which is why I'm pretty geeked about this: according to various sources on the series of tubes, Daniel Day-Lewis is going to play the part of Abraham Lincoln in a biopic directed by Stephen Spielberg. In my opinion, Day-Lewis has the perfect face to be Honest Abe, even if he isn't an Amurrican.

I won't be surprised if my parents are already camped out at the movie theater.

There, I fixed it!

2010-11-15T15:30:00.002-06:00

The New York Times has a fun interactive game in which one can fix US Federal budget. The game even tells you when you've "won" by erasing the $1,345 billion deficit anticipated for the year 2030.

How many of these makes a thousand billion?

I was ruthless the first time through, because I thought it was an impossible task. Now that I know that it's doable, in more than one way, I think I'll go through the process a second time and be more thoughtful. But it's encouraging to note that this is not only possible, there are multiple ways to fix the growing deficit. It's just that none of the alternatives will be painless.

Check out how much would be saved by bumping the Social Security age up to 70, for instance. You bet your bottom I checked that box. People my age don't even expect Social Security to exist when we're 70, dutiful as we may be about paying into it. I presume that someone twice my age would be less excited about those savings, however.

Guess that's how they fit all those elephants there

2010-11-12T11:30:00.001-06:00

So it turns out that the continent of Africa is frickin' enormous:

A cartographer by the name of Kai Krause created this infographic to illustrate just how enormous Africa is, and to stave off "immapancy", which is apparently an affliction of making up made-up words.

Shortly after this was posted, the Economist decided to pick nits and claim that, though that was a nice mental exercise, it wasn't completely accurate.

I'm still busy having my mind blown at how, in both projections, all of China, the USA, India and Western Europe fit within the area of Africa, with room to spare.

What's possibly even more mind-blowing is that one of the commenters on the Economist article noted that the economy of that gigantic continent is roughly the same as the economy of the cities of Chicago and Atlanta combined. Tough to wrap the mind around that kind of disparity.

The Edmund Fitzgerald

2010-11-10T11:45:00.002-06:00

Until only fairly recently, I presumed that the shipwreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald happened back in the Days of Big Shipwrecks - like, the 20s or something. I had thought the Edmund Fitzgerald was a contemporary of the Titanic or something.

The doomed freighter in happier times.

Or it sank in 1975. Hey, I live by a Great Lake now, but I didn't when I was growing up. This is local history, isn't it?

Anyhow, the lake freighter sank thirty-five years ago today, tragically drowning its 29-member crew in a storm that sported hurricane-strength winds.

Recently, the Detroit Free Press posted some pictures from the ship and its wreck that hadn't been published before, along with coverage of dives that have checked out the wreck, analysis of that famous Gordon Lightfoot song, and a look at the drama surrounding the victims' families. It makes for a pretty interesting glance at not-so-ancient history... and a reminder that storms on the Great Lakes are no joke.

Drinkyscope

2010-11-08T11:30:00.001-06:00

It's Monday and I had a nice weekend which felt long because it involved "falling back" from daylight savings time. But now it's back to whatever I do during the week.

So I'll just put up this link to pictures of alcoholic beverages under a microscope.

Have a good week!

The Inception Button

2010-11-04T16:00:00.001-05:00

Not everyone loved it the way I loved it, but I LOVED the movie Inception. DH and I saw it twice in quick succession. I had already loved Joseph Gordon-Levitt after his appearance on Saturday Night Live, when he actually performed "Make 'Em Laugh" on live TV, proving that he is the kind of guy who should populate the dreams of dweebs everywhere. Watching that man fly around in a snappy vest and tie, beating up bad guys and timing important explosions, only deepened the love.

Even better than the acrobatics, however, was the foreboding, bassy score. For weeks, whenever something Important happened, DH and I would make a "bwwwwoooooh... bwwaaaaaah" noise. It was never quite right, but we'd gather it well enough that we could envision ourselves duking it out with bad guys in a spinning, zero-gravity hallway.

Thankfully, we don't have to do that anymore. All we have to do is hit the Inception button.

Some days, I love the interwebs for these little gems.

Today in paleolithic news

2010-11-02T11:30:00.001-05:00

The title is incorrect. It's really late Jurassic, mostly.

Anyhow, the folks who maintain both that Catholics aren't real Christians and that dinosaur bones were planted by the devil to confuse creationists can celebrate as much as all the Discovery-channel paleontology geeks about this piece of news: A dinosaur skull was "discovered" in the marble of a church near Milan.

The second picture in that story blew my mind.

Even cooler than that, though, is that the non-fossilized remains of a mammoth were recently unearthed from a peat bog in Colorado. This means that soft tissue is still intact... and scientists are even figuring out how to extract DNA from the skeleton.

This is all making me want to re-watch my favorite cautionary tale: Jurassic Park.

Well, shoot.

2010-11-01T12:30:00.002-05:00

I'm wearing a sweater and I just updated all my calendars: it's November. Election Day is tomorrow and I'm going to vote because it's my duty as a citizen and especially as a woman - I think anyone who isn't a white, land-owning male in this country who "forgets" to vote needs to bone up on his or her history. Gotta exercise our rights, people.

Speaking of exercising rights as an American, I saw a billboard on the way home from Michigan yesterday that was advertising skeet shooting, and I thought, "I would really enjoy learning how to shoot a rifle at a moving target".

Then I spent a moment wondering why I had that thought.

Now, I grew up in a rural area, and I knew plenty of people who owned guns. Hunting season was a big deal back home - some high-school kids skipped school with their parents' blessing to go shoot deer. I recall entering a friend's garage in late fall and being faced with the sight of a fresh deer carcass hanging from the ceiling. My friend's older brother had shot the deer, and his parents were thrilled: for low-income families, deer hunting isn't just a hobby, it's a very affordable source of lean protein.

Guns, in the right hands, are tools that can be used to feed a family and cull overpopulation of deer herds. As long as people are educated about their guns and keep them unloaded and locked up around their kids, I have no problem at all with responsible gun use and ownership.

However, I can't say I've had much of an interest in using a gun before now.

A friend of mine here in Chicago had a similar impulse in her late twenties, and eventually she and her father spent a day out at a rifle range and learned all about shooting. She had a great time. Her husband was appalled by the trip, as they are both urban, liberal, crunchy-granola peacenicks. I thought it was a neat idea at the time - though not something I was interested in. Plus, a little outdoor father-daughter bonding is a good thing: I like to go camping with my dad. Heading to the firing range has its similarities.

As I was mulling through my new, more real interest in learning to shoot a gun, however, I remembered this: my friend who spent that day at a rifle range did so a few months before she became pregnant with her first child.

This morning I found myself wondering: as a woman of childbearing age, is wanting to shoot a gun a harbinger of other desires? Does interest in learning how to shoot imply a no-longer-latent yearning both to provide meat and to protect home and hearth... and, eventually, children? Perhaps craving firearm control is the first step toward craving midnight ice cream?

I want to ask my friend if she was thinking in those terms when she was shooting targets or clay pigeons. Because if shooting a gun is an early step to motherhood, maybe I should wait a little while on that trip to the firing range.

Touchdown

2010-10-25T16:30:00.000-05:00

When I was in high school, one focus of the sports curriculum was learning how to be sportsmanlike. It was easy to distinguish teams whose coaches rewarded classy behavior, as opposed to teams whose aim was to win at all costs. I never had a prayer (or, honestly, a desire) of qualifying for college-level sports, so I appreciated that, most of the time, my school wasn't on the cutthroat side of the equation.

Even now, when DH and I are watching an NFL game, for instance, we take note when an opposing player helps up the guy he just tackled. Our favorite sports matches are the historic rivalries that involve players who are all friends with each other, like the Packers-Bears game in Chicago a few weeks ago.

I think what makes the story of Zach Beckman's touchdown last weekend in a high school football game in Mount Vernon, Indiana, so nice is that the coaches of both teams involved, as well as the student-athletes on the field, saw an opportunity to give a real lesson about sportsmanship to the rest of the players, and then followed through with it. Or - and this seems more likely - they weren't even thinking about the lesson, they were thinking about the best thing to do.

If high school football was televised, I'd be rooting for Jasper High School all the way.

Getting priorities straight

2010-10-22T11:00:00.006-05:00

When this post goes up, I will probably be packing up the car, preparing to pick up my buddy's little sister from college. She's riding with me and DH out of state this weekend, and we've plotted out the music lists, the junk food, the gas money - it's a road trip we've been anticipating. At this point, my buddy's sister is like unto a sister to me, too. She's a cool kid.

The reason for the road trip is, like many trips we've taken in our mid-to-late-20s, a wedding. This wedding, though, is a little different from others I've attended lately.

The groom, whom I will call Bro, is the brother of my fellow traveler, and has been my friend for roughly 26 years, which is fairly impressive when both parties are 28 years old. Bro and I grew up together in our rural town, and each moved away approximately thirty seconds after high school graduation. We both wound up in cities in the Midwest, living the start of the kind of lives we'd both hoped for back in our often-boring farm town. For both of us, those lives (eventually, as I'm glossing over years of hits and misses) included finding someone with whom to share the joy and the mundacity of everyday life.

Each of us sought some kind of seal of approval from the other about our potential life mate. When Bro met DH, the two of them hit it off almost immediately, which was a huge plus in my mind. When I'm not taking it for granted, I appreciate that my oldest friend and my husband are big fans of each other.

A month or two after DH and I got married - an event for which Bro flew himself in, dutifully wore a suit, and proceeded to make friends with both the bartender and everyone in attendance, because that's what he does in social situations - Bro had a date with a woman I'd already heard about many times before.

This is the hard-to-explain part: I'd first heard stories about the Speaker (she's a speech therapist and I'm terrible at nicknames, OK?) from other members of our high school class. She went to college with a couple of them, came back to my home town several time for big events, and met plenty of members of our class and folks from our town. I was probably 19 years old the first time I heard about the Speaker. And what I heard was consistent from all sources: she was cool, she managed to avoid most drama that arises when a group of college women live together, and - everyone said this - she was funny.

Here I will admit that I generally didn't pay much attention to stories about the Speaker, because it seemed unlikely that I would ever meet her. She was a friend of some acquaintances and her inclusion in a story was just one of those details people would leave in.

And then Bro went on a date with her. Followed promptly by a second date.

I wish I could remember where I heard about it first, but I remember thinking it was strange, my friend and this friend-of-all-our-classmates dating. They'd been dating for a few months when they visited Chicago together and stayed with me and DH. The Speaker had heard about me from all our shared sources the way I'd heard about her, which made for this bizarre situation of two people, having heard about each other for years, staying in the same apartment for a weekend.

If there's such a thing as an advantage in such a situation, I had it: we were on my home turf, I was only meeting one new person while she was meeting two, and those two people were her hosts for the weekend. I later learned that she'd been quite nervous about meeting me - she had really wanted to make a good impression. The situation was made a little more strange by the lack of first-meeting formalities. I already knew where she was from, where she'd gone to college, what she did for a living, who many of her friends were... so what does one ask about at that point? It could be awkward.

She needn't have worried. At some point during dinner, Bro said something moderately funny, and the Speaker made a immediate and hilarious comeback quip that almost made me choke. I laughed out loud, but I'm sure I followed that up with staring at her - which probably made her feel like an insect. Because I'm a great hostess like that.

I was staring at her because - and it still hits me sometimes - I cannot believe how perfect she is for my friend. And he for her. They are great together.

So last winter, on another trip to Chicago, Bro proposed to the Speaker, and she accepted, and we celebrated with them all weekend. DH and I were thrilled for them, and we were looking forward to the wedding, but also to, hopefully, years of just hanging out with the two of them as a couple of boring married couples.

When they started planning their wedding, they gave themselves plenty of time - a year and a half - and chose a date in April 2011. Bro would send me the occasional link to a venue, or an idea they had. Over the summer we visited them and we got to see the proof of their invitation suite. The party was going to be amazing and large and lots of fun.

And then, in August, when DH and I had just gotten home from a week's vacation and were just beginning to settle, our phone rang. It was Bro. The tone of his voice was somewhat grave. A disorienting split-second of serious worry struck me: they're breaking up. They're calling it off. Whatever happened, I need to talk him out of this.

"So, I have a question," Bro said.

DH saw the worry on my face and signed that he wanted to know what was wrong. I indicated that he should hold on a second.

"Yeah?" I asked.

"If the Speaker and I... " break up? Have an earlier-than-anticipated baby? Move to Abu Dabi? He was taking way too long with this.

"If we didn't do the wedding in April - " oh, crap. Are they really breaking up? No way.

"But we had a wedding in October, instead - " WHAAAT?

"Would you come to it?"

I hopped up and down. "HELL YES, we'd come to it!"

DH looked totally confused. I put my hand over the receiver and said, "they're eloping! Sort of." To which he replied, "AWESOME!"

Bro explained, "It's just, planning this thing is really starting to stress the Speaker out, and every time I see how much it's going to cost, I start to get sick. And we just want to be married, and buy a house someday, and have kids..."

"So, you want a marriage, but not necessarily a wedding."

"Yeah, exactly."

And thus, in about a week of plan-changing, the enormous springtime wedding in a rented hall with 200 people and a DJ became an intimate autumn ceremony in a park with less than 50 people. DH and I were looking forward to it before. Now we're beyond excited.

Of course, any time this wedding comes up, DH says, "they're doing it right. They're so smart." And I feel compelled to say things like, "We didn't know squat about wedding planning when we got married; we did the best we could."

Then we both remind ourselves that our wedding was really fun. Which it was. But DH is right: there's no denying that we'd do things a bit differently - a bit smaller and simpler - if we'd known then what we know now.

As it is, we get to live vicariously through our brilliant friends. This weekend will be full of good friends, good beer, some tiny pies, a few nerves, some dressy clothes, and a festive dinner after the formalities. As a bonus, my mother - a justice of the peace who's known the groom as long as I have - is officiating the ceremony, so I'll get to see my parents on the wedding day, too.

In that way and in many others, this feels as much like a family wedding as my brother's wedding last month felt. In which case, I'm so happy to welcome the Speaker to the family.

No, seriously, think of the children

2010-10-21T11:45:00.001-05:00

I promise there were more pleasant topics about which I was going to post, but when I saw this article about a pertussis outbreak in California that's killed 10 babies so far, I almost threw up. So I'm writing about this.

If you were to meet me in person and we were to talk about vaccines and you were to tell me you weren't going to vaccinate your children, I would consider punching you in the throat. And then I'd probably go through with it. There's zero reason for people not to vaccinate their children - especially against highly lethal, completely preventable diseases - and there are many, many reasons to do so. Sadly, 10 more reasons just manifested themselves in California, and it probably isn't going to change anyone's minds over there.

Wow, schmei, get over yourself. You don't even have kids. Who gives you the right?

Good point. Allow me to explain:

My father was the youngest of 4 children. He had two sisters and a brother. Only, wait, he never met his sisters. They both died, several weeks apart, of pertussis, commonly called whooping cough. The older girl was almost two, and her little sister was only a few weeks old. Some infected asshole decided to stop by and visit my grandmother with her new baby and her toddler at home. Over the next few weeks she watched, completely helpless, as whooping cough killed them both.

The pertussis vaccine came out about 2 years too late for my two aunts.

My grandparents went on to have two more children - two boys - and I can't help but wonder how it affected my grandmother, to lose her baby daughters and then to have two boys instead. Maybe it was better, really, because they were completely different. I don't know. By all accounts she was a loving mother to her sons. Additionally, from what I've heard about her, she never really recovered from her daughters' deaths. She died young, and still heartbroken. Her sons were in their early twenties. They're both in their sixties now, and they don't really talk about it much.

Last year, my graduate program ordered me to get a pertussis booster, which I thought was annoying at the time. But I read more about it, and it turns out that in adults, pertussis vaccination can wear out over time. It's recommended to get a booster every five years or so.

I was very glad I had the booster before I met my newborn niece. And I'm glad my sister is completely reasonable about vaccinating her baby, because the study that claimed a connection between vaccines and autism was terribly flawed and has since been recanted. Sis is a scientist so she gets that... but it's information that really doesn't require a degree in physics.

Sadly, recanting that article hasn't stopped stupid people from refusing to vaccinate their children. What those stupid people don't realize is that it's not their own children they're killing, most likely it's other people's infants.

Re-standardizing the test

2010-10-18T12:30:00.000-05:00

The master's thesis on which I'm making (glacially slow) progress is in educational policy. My specific interest is in adult education for imprisoned or formerly incarcerated adults, but there are plenty of factors that go into school kids growing up to be adults with criminal records and without high-school diplomas.

When I was still doing course work, I was part of a cohort of 12 other Master's level students in my program. Roughly half of my classmates were already school teachers, mostly in public high schools in Chicago. Since my experience is really only with nontraditional adult education, I appreciated their perspective. Essentially, they were trying to keep their kids from ever getting in to one my programs. I'm fine with that - it's the kind of work I wouldn't mind putting myself out of.

Any time the topic of standardized testing would come up, the tension in the room would escalate, and discussion would be uncomfortable at best. Every teacher has to deal with standardized tests now, and in many schools the students are subjected to high-stakes testing every two years at the least. I've read in the past about how some states make their tests as easy as possible so their schools aren't listed as "failing" - which is a slap-shod solution to a real school policy problem.

Now the state of Illinois is doing something different. The claim is that the ISAT test isn't less difficult, but a student's score can now be lower and still count as "proficient". I especially appreciate that one of the folks who is angered by the implication that Illinois could be manipulating the test - ("they'd have to be... lying to us") so more students will pass is a man whose job title is "director of research and assessment" for a school district. I'm fairly certain that's a position that didn't exist ten years ago.

I'm sure this is because I've worked in programs that don't receive government money, for the most part, but when we've used standardized exams such as the TABE , the purpose was to establish the adult student's base line of knowledge so the teacher had a starting point from which to work. I actually really liked the TABE - it was a good gauge of adult ability without being insulting in the "You can't really read good, so you must be stoopid" way that some literacy-level materials can be.

I can recall taking the California Achievement Test when I was in fifth grade. The CAT test, as we redundantly called it, was basically used as standardized-test-taking practice and as an evaluation of individual student abilities - much like the TABE is used with the adult learners I worked with. No teacher was going to be fired over CAT test scores, and it was something we took as kindergarteners and as fifth-graders... and that was it.

I looked up the CAT test, and it appears that it's now only used by homeschooling parents. I guess times have changed. And I guess even homeschoolers are taking standardized tests.

All this is to say that, like most educational-types, I'm not opposed to standardized tests as a whole. I think they can be a useful tool for both students and teachers. But they're almost never used properly - rather, test scores are used to exclude students from colleges and professional schools, to punish "failing" schools and teachers with drastic moves like replacing the entire staff, and - in my mind, this is possibly the worst part - to take up valuable instruction time with test drilling. When the most radical re-thinking of standardized tests is to make them harder to fail (but magically not "easier"), I can't help but think that post-prison education is a need that will be around in this country for a long, long time.

It's getting better

2010-10-15T11:45:00.001-05:00

I think Dan Savage is right. I could just end the post there, because I've know that's true since I started reading his advice column when I was in college. I mean, sometimes he's talking about kinks that make me need to draw out a diagram so I can understand them, but even with those, he's probably always right.

Anyway, recently Dan Savage wrote that he thinks the United States is nearing a tipping point in terms of LGBTQ rights. Yes, he despairs at the end. But I think he may have been correct at the outset. People who wouldn't have thought about or talked about gay rights are thinking and talking about them. It seems that everyone in this country is required to have an opinion about gay marriage, gay adoption rights, health benefits for gay partners, etc. Having an opinion about it requires acknowledging that the population exists - which, hey, means we're at least ahead of Iran.

And of course Savage and his husband Terry started the "It Gets Better" project, which was beyond the correct thing to do - it's brilliant. There are so many videos there now that a person could spend days watching them, which is what some people - especially some brutally bullied kids - need to be able to do.

I wouldn't even begin to try to watch them all, of course. But when Savage posts a featured video on his blog, I'll sometimes watch it. And this one made me - a cradle Catholic struggling with the battle against the church I love and the loving God I want to know - cry everywhere.

It Gets Better - Bishop Gene Robinson

God bless you, Bishop Robinson.

Now back at me

2010-10-14T10:45:00.000-05:00

By now I'm sure almost everyone has seen The Man Your Man Could Smell Like.

But I don't know if everyone has seen this. And to miss it would be a shame.

Right.

2010-10-13T11:58:00.005-05:00

Despite the lack of activity around here, I have been thinking about this blog. Blogs are kind of stupid, really, unless you actually have something to write in them. A blog that hasn't seen a post in over 6 weeks is really kind of a waste of bits.

Last year I tried participating my own truncated version of National Blog Posting Month, which was a good exercise. This year I think I'll try something similar, but I'm actually going to let myself be OK with doing the sort of thing I do on facebook: post a link to something interesting and say something _short_ about it. I have drafts of at least 5 long articles that got to about 800 words and then started to trail off. So I'm going to try to finish those, too.

This isn't really for you, readers, since none of you exist. This is an exercise for me. I've been a quitter since childhood, and I'm especially adept at quitting creative projects, or, more accurately, I'm well-practiced in putting projects on hiatus. I have a 70-percent-completed blanket that I started to crochet before DH and I were even engaged. I have some paint supplies that I've basically never used. A beautiful and neglected mandolin hangs on the wall of our apartment. Our sewing machine has seen a little use - because DH has made a few nice things for me.

Yes, I'm still finishing my master's thesis, slowly, and yes I'm working full-time (and I'm in the United States! We NEVER GET TIME OFF!) and months like September of 2010 will happen now and then - I'll tell you about that, possibly. The short story is that it was busy with Family Obligations - but I'm either going to maintain a blog or I'm not.

For now, we'll stick with maintaining it.

School years, intersections, and other flotsam

2010-08-23T12:15:00.000-05:00

By all appearances, I celebrated my fourth wedding anniversary and then proceeded to fall off the face of the planet. In reality, I've been busy in several ways, and so here's a brain-dump catch up:

1) First of all, I completed the sprint triathlon in 1:45:31, and though I spent the majority of the bike and run legs of the race chasing my sister, I caught her in the last three tenths of a mile and we crossed the finish line together. It was actually incredibly fun - something I allowed myself to realize when I was breezing along on my bike on some beautiful country roads - and Sis and I have already discussed doing something like this again next year. The afternoon after the race I felt more tired than I have probably ever felt in my life, and our plans to do some kind of hanging out just turned in to a communal nap: Sis asleep on the couch, my niece asleep on her chest, me curled up on the love seat. My brother-in-law was in the basement watching TV, where he - you might guess it - fell asleep. It was nice. Some time I need to write about my poor napping skills and how I'm trying to cultivate them. Apparently triathlons help.

2) I was on a bona fide vacation for a bit over a week earlier this month. As I was packing up for the trip I realized I hadn't taken a full week off just for fun in over a year. I should take more vacations.

3) My thesis is moving slower than expected, because it's a thesis. But progress continues.

4) DH and I are trying to eat more real food. Sure to be more posting about that soon.

5) My brother's getting married in a few weeks. This hasn't taken up a lot of my time, really, but it's exciting. Neither sis nor I have sisters-in-law, so we're both looking forward to acquiring one, and she's very cool - a perfect fit for my bro.

6) My best (and "oldest", though he's a few months younger than me) guy-friend is getting married in October, in the coolest way possible, to a very cool woman. DH and I have had to endure clusters of weddings before, but this time we're actually really looking forward to both weddings. Is this because we're on the "groom's side" in both weddings? Does that make them easier? Both couples are pairs that really work together, which obviously helps. I don't know. But I'm excited to put on the finery and celebrate love this fall.

7) Today marks the beginning of classes at the school where I work, though not the beginning of my thesis "class" because one school is on a quarter schedule and the other is on semesters. This is all within the same university. Makes plenty of sense to me.

And, because of number 7, this post will have to remain a list. More to come, hopefully soon, as the start of the school year means I'm getting back into some routines.

Toodle-pip,
-Schmei

Four

2010-07-14T10:30:00.001-05:00

Four years ago today, about this time, I was shaving my legs.

Stay with me, this isn't about my leg hair.

I was shaving my legs in the shower of a little hotel just outside of Chicago. In the adjoining suite were my mother, my sister, my best friend and a few other women I love. My father and brother-in-law were intermittently present, being sent out on errands.

The shower began like basically every other shower in my life, except that I'd been bustled in to the bathroom by a few of the aforementioned women. That, and it was quite a nice bathroom, large and clean and filled with sunlight. And I'd made sure to have a brand-new razor head, with which to shave my legs.

Somewhere between lathering up my right leg and beginning the removal of stubble, I was struck with an overwhelming sensation. I felt briefly faint, and found myself reaching for the wall to steady myself. My head spun. Something enormous was happening, something much larger than myself or the steamy shower or the people in the hotel room.

I'm getting married. I realized.

Today.

After the shower, one of my friends in the adjoining room would apply makeup to my face while another friend would do the same for my two bridesmaids - my sister and my best friend. Then that friend would do my hair. Flowers would be brought in to the room for all of us. We'd eat sandwiches that my brother-in-law would procure, realizing we wouldn't have a chance to eat again for a while. I would, soon, slide in to a white gown and my friends would place a veil on my head. I'd put on the jewelry and shoes my sister lent me from her wedding. My only brother would drive me in my little Honda to the church down the street. He'd get emotional. So would I.

Then I'd see my fiance, in a black suit, with his brothers, walking in to the same church. We'd all have our pictures taken and we'd drink bottled water in the stifling July heat.

And, shortly thereafter, we'd get married.

Nearly-fainting in the shower was the last moment I had by myself on July 14, 2006. For the rest of the day I'd either be accompanied by bridesmaids and relatives or by my new husband, and I appreciated the company. I loved that so many people were there on that day, helping us in ways large and small, supporting our union.

But I'll always be grateful for that brief, private moment of enormity. Because what followed it was solid, and hasn't left me: it was a calm and joyful sense of certainty.

Much of the time I have a typical American optimism, believing that things will turn out for the best, but I think much of my early relationship with DH was riddled with worry: we're so young, he seems so certain while I'm not. Honestly, he was ready to marry long before I was. But he was patient. When he finally proposed - a sweet surprise - I was excited about marrying him, but I was also nervous and occasionally terrified through the planning process. I'm still not entirely sure what it was, but I do know some things that it wasn't.

It wasn't about foregoing all my other options, because he's certainly everything I want in a man: hilarious, brilliant, strong, good with power tools and kittens and children. He's a skilled writer and a good singer and a great hugger. He has the best laugh, and great facial hair, and beautiful eyes. He is a keeper, in every way.

It wasn't worry about my in-laws, though I occasionally did fret that I was getting "too close" to them. They had welcomed me into the family long before the wedding - which had made me nervous, too, but which I now know is kind of silly. They're just welcoming like that. And they knew, before I did, how this relationship would work out.

So many things about marriage, about joining families, about the wedding, had made me nervous. I am a usually confident person who was plunged into the weird role of "bride-to-be" and became an anxious, fretting mess. Looking back I realize I'm just not bride material. The constant attention, the many parties, the plans that had to include everyone - it was a tiring process and even though I tried to stay calm and be rational about it, I cried plenty of times. I got into arguments with people I love. I cared about the wrong things and dismissed other things I shouldn't have.

But that morning, in the shower, I think the enormity of the moment was in part a realization that the planning is over, the fights are finished, the dresses bought, the cake decorated. The priest was checking over the liturgy. The musicians were warming up. All that was left, really, was to spend the day as it was planned. And that plan involved pledging my life to the best man I'd met. In that moment every fiber of my being told me that this was correct. I may have chosen stupid bridesmaid dresses (and I did) but I chose the right groom. Or he chose me. I suppose we had chosen each other, many times, by that point. We still do.

I was not a good bride. There are skills that brides need: grace, and a certain comfort with the spotlight in a time that is both intensely personal and very public. I didn't have a lot of those skills. But I was a bride for a short time, and we muddled through. At roughly 4:30 that day I became a wife. It was a change I welcomed. I was happy to shed the title of "bride". I felt I'd carried it too long, and too awkwardly.

This was the big surprise: I'm comfortable and happy with being a wife - at least, I'm great with being DH's wife. And he's excellent at being my husband. The words "husband" and "wife" sounded foreign to both of us initially, but the roles didn't take much getting used to. When the fanfare ended and the honeymoon was over and we started settling in to our first little apartment, we both marveled at how natural this was, living together and sharing the small decisions of life. The suddenly-blinding certainty I'd felt on the morning of our wedding has calmed down - for which I'm grateful, as I'd never get anything done if I was fainting all the time - but it hasn't dissipated. If anything, after 4 years and a career change and grad school and moving and adopting a cat and traveling and worrying about money and eating pizza on tired weeknights and arguing over dishes and everything that comes with sharing a life together, that certainty has become more solid. It was enormous when it struck me, because what we share is huge. But we have the rest of our lives for it to play out. For this I am more grateful than I can say.

Happy anniversary, DH. You're my favorite.

Triathlon training as a reflection of my past

2010-06-30T13:00:00.002-05:00

Here's how I thought triathlon training would work:

Running: I've run a few 5Ks, a 4-mile race, and an 8K. Training for the 5K run is something I can handle, no big deal.

Biking: I used to bike 1.5 hours to work a couple of times a week. I can bike. No big deal.

Swimming: Scary and difficult. I mean, I know how not to drown, but I've never been a competitive swimmer and I always kind of thought people who swim laps are weird/boring. I taught water aerobics in college, which was fun because it was basically adult pool-splashing time. It was a small class of interesting people, so we chatted a lot. A good workout, but not a swim.

How the training has actually been going since February:

Running: this is a big deal - because I'm enjoying it more than ever. DH (this is his new abbreviation. Not for "Dear Husband" - thought he's that, too - but for "Domestic Hercules". Because that's what he really is.) is running with me. We've already killed the couch-to-5K program, now we've started One Hour Runner. We anticipate long summer evenings jogging together along the lake, which sounds lovely. This actually isn't triathlon training anymore, it's just fun.

Swimming: after an afternoon in February when my sister gave me some much-needed pointers on how to do the crawl, I was swimming laps once or twice a week for a while, and it was working out all right. I think the increased lung capacity I've gained from swimming is what's making running so nice. I have to run hard to get out of breath now. Honestly, I've gotten so into the running that I've slacked on the swimming of late, but I'm not too worried about it.

Biking: what's a bike?

Oops.

Can I show up to the triathlon and say "two out of three ain't bad"?

As I've reflected on it, though, I'm not actually surprised that the bike is the neglected third of my training. See, I learned to run whenever kids learn to run (age three?) and I ran cross-country for a couple of years and have done plenty of running for other sports, as well as for fun. Once when I was a freshman in college I just woke up one Saturday morning in the spring and, Forrest-Gump style, started running and just kept going north until I was tired. Which turned out to be Evanston. (I then walked home and was in considerable pain for a few days).

I learned to swim when I was roughly 4 or 5 years old. My parents took me to the community pool in the summers, where I took lessons from a large-bosomed, leathery-skinned lady named Judy who had a scratchy voice and a natural skill for helping small children face their terror of deep water. I adored Judy like a surrogate aunt. For several years of my childhood, my response to "what do you want to be when you grow up?" was "a swimming teacher." I wanted to be Judy. To have the patience that allows one to tread water for hours in the 10-foot end of the pool, coaxing jittery first-graders off the diving board, is to be just short of a superhero - or perhaps a saint (I learned recently that teaching children to swim is a commandment in the Torah, so maybe Judy really is a saint).

Judy helped me feel the freedom inherent in swimming: by the time I was 8 or so I would leap into the deep end of the pool and just fly underwater as long as my lungs could stand it. I'd imagine I was a dolphin, or a mermaid. Judy did very good work.

Then there was the bicycle. Classically, kids learn to ride their bikes... when? 7 or 8 years old? Maybe sooner? I've seen 5-year-olds tooling around with confidence.

I was not one of those kids.

Had there been a Judy of bicycles, the story may have been different. My father did the usual dad-thing of taking me out on the pink-and-purple bike with the training wheels and coaching me as I coasted up and down the sidewalk on our block. He was experienced in these matters: both of my elder siblings could ride bikes with no problem. Eventually the training wheels came off... and for whatever reason, I didn't really get back on the bike. There was unfortunately timed nagging from my brother, which caused me, at roughly age seven, to declare: "Maybe I DON'T WANT to learn to ride a bike!"

So I didn't. At all.

The summer when I was thirteen, I took my mom's old bike a few blocks away to the empty county fairgrounds. I had had a dream the night before : I was on a bike, wind blowing through my hair, flying along. I decided it was time to teach myself to ride this bike, along an empty stretch of blacktop next to a soybean field, where no one would see me. I got to the point of coasting at a fairly good speed down the gentle slope of the country road. As I picked up speed I realized I was possibly losing control, and gripped the brakes - but the back brake lines were rusted through. Only the front brakes engaged - and I flew over the handlebars.

The good news is that, due to my lack of steering control, I was facing sideways and I landed in a patch of grass that had not been recently mowed. Nothing was broken, except my motivation. I walked the bike the mile or so home, parked it in the carport, and finished my childhood having never ridden a bike.

This could cause the reader to wonder how I managed to miraculously wind up biking to work from the South Side to the West Side of Chicago as a young adult, or - obviously - how I'm planning to participate in a triathlon.

Well, Domestic Hercules (Herakles, if you're that kind of guy, which he kind of is) did what he so often does: he saved the day.

There was a definite advantage to the way we met - studying abroad in Italy - as most of the self-propelled transportation we did was walking. I'm very good at walking. We found, without much difficulty, that we liked walking places together. (Please insert a terrible Hallmark saying about marriage here, because I will not bring myself to do so). But the study-abroad experience has to end eventually, and we found ourselves back in the US, trying to flirt long-distance. I honestly don't recall when or how it came up that I couldn't ride a bike, but what I do remember is a complete lack of judgment on his part.

This is something I like about DH. Usually when I say something that I expect to be a BIG HAIRY DEAL, he treats it like the non-event it really is.

Instead of this being a problem, it was a matter of understanding: I was lacking this particular skill, once which he had in spades. So he offered to teach me how to ride a bike the next time I visited his parent's place, where there were many spare bikes.

In the driveway of my future in-laws' home, I made a wobbly start on the bike. DH gave me the encouraging and counterintuitive advice to pedal faster, and for some reason I listened to him. After a few moments, I was not-very-confidently tooling up and down his parents' short street. And I didn't crash.

He gave me a few minutes to gain some confidence, then he got on his bike and we took a bike ride together. It was my first bike ride with someone. I was 21.

I persisted in not crashing, save a minor run-in with a wall which I saw coming from a mile away and which didn't really hurt that much anyway since I was going approximately 7 miles an hour.

Over that summer we worked on bike riding several times, though I still suffered from some kind of social anxiety about bicycles: when the whole extended family was renting bikes for a summer afternoon ride, I got extremely nervous. DH offered to ride the tandem bike with me, so we did. (When his mother later learned that we did this and didn't get in to a fight, I think she was convinced we'd get married eventually.)

On the same bike ride a couple of years later, I rode my own mountain bike and spent some time racing DH and his brother. It felt a lot like the dream I'd had as a teenager - flying on land, under my own power, with the wind in my hair. I made it there, it just took me a bit longer than most.

This weekend, I'll be attempting what I'm calling a "fake-athlon": I'm hoping to swim, bike and run approximately the same distances I need to cover at the end of July, without regard to speed or transition times. If I can survive that - and I think I can - I should be able to manage the real thing at the crack of dawn in a strange town with a bunch of spectators and competitors, right?

And if I can't manage that, maybe I need to ride my bike a lot more in the next month.

Wonderful Wash

2010-06-22T12:00:00.003-05:00

Last night I spent roughly an hour doing something I wouldn't have expected to do in a sixth-floor apartment with no balcony: I was hanging laundry.

Of course, when we use the laundry room in the basement of our building I'd sometimes pull out the delicates and hang them to dry, but I was hanging up everything.

As of several weeks ago, we have clothes lines running the length of our small hallway, and another line running through our bedroom. And as of about 9:50pm yesterday, all the lines, and our drying rack, were full of damp clothes. Strategically placed fans helped dry the laundry all night.

Why am I suddenly not using the dryers in the basement?

Because we're not using the washers in the basement.

So how are the clothes getting washed?

With this:

Photo from here, and certainly not from our abode.

While I was hanging the laundry, my husband was in the kitchen, cranking away at our new washer - the Wonder Wash.

We now use less water, less detergent, hardly any electricity (save for the fans, but it's summer and we don't have air conditioning so those bad boys would be working full time, anyway) and considerably less time doing laundry than we used to.

I should probably back up, because I'm aware enough to realize that this - thing - looks bizarre.

Since spring of 2007, we've lived in an apartment building which sports a fairly nice, generally quite clean laundry room in the basement. The laundry room has 9 washers and 8 dryers. The apartment building has approximately 90 units, most of which house 2 or more people - and many of which house 2 or more adults plus several children.

This means our laundry room is in demand.

To make matters worse, when the hubs and I were both taking (or in his case, teaching) courses in the evenings, the only time we'd really be able to do laundry would be on weekends. When roughly 40 other people needed to do laundry. And we'd have at least 5 loads to do.

Laundry time in our basement was a breathless relay that involved running in to the room, claiming as many open washers as possible, cramming laundry in as fast as one can go, spending two dollars a load to wash and dry, setting a timer, heading back up to the apartment (because the alternative is to sit on a plastic chair in a windowless room while people come in and glare at you for doing laundry), leaping up when the timer goes off, running back down to the basement, usually having to move the dry stuff that someone just left in the dryer for three hours - often having the worst timing possible, whereby the person whose socks you just carried across the room walks in and looks pissed - shoving everything in the dryers, spending more money, setting another timer, etc.

The moment when the laundry was dry was even more stressful, because that's when folks decide it's OK for some reason to PAW THROUGH YOUR UNDERWEAR when you're folding.

Don't worry, that only happened once (seriously! This woman walked in, saw me standing at the folding table with my clothes piled before me, and just started... picking up my underpants. Uh... hello? I'm right here. Yes, those are mine. I agree that they're cute. Thank you for putting them down. Yiiiicccchhh).

After that incident, the routine would be to cram all the clean and dry laundry back into baskets (thus wrinkling everything) and haul it all upstairs, where we would then fold our two weeks' worth of clothes while watching some reruns or something.

And then about two weeks later we'd do it all over again.

There was an alternative, but that was getting tiring, too: our families all felt sorry for us, and so even a Sunday afternoon visit with my grandparents-in-law would be initiated with a "bring your laundry!" My parents, his parents, and my brother all have their own washers, as well. So we'd visit family and do our laundry.

But that starts to feel like you're visiting the washing machine and just giving family a cursory "hello" after a while. Because, you see, the laundry situation in our building was unpleasant enough that we just... avoided it. We both went the college route of simply buying more underwear. And we would go two full weeks... and then three full weeks... and then longer, without doing laundry. We'd do an "emergency load" on a weeknight to hold us over until the next time we saw family. And then when we saw family, I would start the first load of wash immediately and basically spend three full days monopolizing the local washer and dryer and nagging the hubs to fold when a load was done, because there are only so many baskets in the house and I'll need another one soon.

We'd looked in to small washers that could fit into small kitchens before, but they were clunky and small and seemed like they'd use a lot of electricity.

And yes, we used to use Laundromats, but that's just taking our same routine and loading it into a car and going somewhere where we don't even have family with whom to visit.

But then, a few weeks ago, the hubs discovered the Wonder Wash. It cost less than $50, and there was a YouTube video explaining how it worked. We watched it, and spent a weekend thinking about it, and then (with my blessing) he ordered it.

It showed up, not-entirely assembled, within three days. Hubs had it put together in a matter of minutes. And then we tried it.

A "load" of laundry in this contraption is about half the size of a regular washer's load, but it's so fast you can do a lot of laundry in not much time. Washing takes two minutes. Rinses (we rinse twice) take 30 seconds each. Throw in a few minutes for draining between those cycles and the average load takes about... 7 or 8 minutes? And the stuff seriously gets clean. We use the most unscented detergent we can use, so if the clothes were stanky, we'd be aware. But they're not.

So now, the hubs cranks through a load of wash, and then I look like this:

Image from here

Or something like that.

Laundry has now been shifted from a stressor in our lives to both a pleasant task and a shared project. Since we started using this washer a few weeks ago, we've been discussing tweaks to improve our system. The hubs has been amazing: he figured out how to hang up all the lines and where best to position the fans for drying.

And perhaps most weirdly, we look forward to doing the laundry. We get dishes (another household annoyance) finished more quickly so we can have the counter clear for the washing machine.

Obviously we'll still need the occasional washer and dryer for bulky things that don't fit in our washer, but that will be something along the lines of one load a month, which sounds fantastic to me - and probably to all of our relatives, too.