This Guy

Please don’t crucify me for admitting this to the public at large, but I was a little worried all through my pregnancy that I wouldn’t bond with our baby.  It’s not that I didn’t want to be a mother… getting pregnant and extending our family was something I worked pretty hard at doing for a while.  From making sure I was healthy in every possible way to making sure I was somewhat financially sound before walking down the road to parenthood- I planned everything.

The thing is, I planned everything on a suspicion.  I suspected that becoming a mother might be a good step for me as a woman.  I suspected that having a child would be a great experience for Milton and me.  But like so many other times in my life, my faith was constantly questioning.  Would I be good enough for this guy?  Would I love him enough?  Clean our house enough?  Engage with him enough?  I even wrote to Milton in the middle of my pregnancy with worries that I would leave him with the baby, trotting back east to resume my selfish city girl high life because I just couldn’t take the parental heat.

I was worried that I would be one of those women who just didn’t connect with their babies.  Maybe I worried because having a baby was never a really concrete part of my life plan.  Maybe I worried because I have a hard time keeping up with my own business, much less the business of someone else.  Maybe I worried because I was so free and easy with abusing my body and burning the party candles at both ends for so many years that I wondered if I could really, REALLY be a responsible parent.  For whatever reason, I really worried about taking the heat and giving this guy the responsibility he deserved.

Being a responsible parent, to me, means being a loving parent.  Babies beg for love.  The children, teenagers, and adults they grow into beg for love.  Parental love is the first love any of us can beg to get.  If you care for a child, you are responsible for fulfilling all of that child’s needs, especially the need for love.  I wondered if I could possibly have enough love in me to put up with the spit, the diapers, the plastic baby gear, the aching back, the sleepless nights, or the belly that would lay beside me like a sad puppy after pregnancy.  I figured, if I can adapt to these MAJOR life changes, maybe I could hack my way through the other many years of parenthood.

Today, I am happy to report that I woke up on the second morning of our child’s life, after going through the shock of childbirth and the barely remembered haze of his first 24 hours, and saw my baby’s face in the first morning’s light.  He looked like such a sweet little buddha laying there, stirring in his swaddle and newborn cap!  I felt a surge of LOVE that I couldn’t believe, referred to him as Mr. Snugglepants, and kissed him all over his beautiful face.

Since then, I’ve only gotten worse with the doting.  This guy and I are bonded, for sure.

A Night of Hemingway

I was up all night last night with 45 second long contractions that started every 2.5 minutes.  It was very similar to a bit of false labor that happened last Sunday, but last Sunday’s hours of excitement and discomfort followed a cervical sweep, and this night did not.  This particular false labor followed a walk around the 3 mile path of GreenLake.

The walk was REALLY difficult, which surprised me.  Just a couple of weeks ago, I had no problem keeping up a terrific pace around the lake.  One week ago, I had no problem mounting the hills of Seattle on an hours and hours long walkabout with my husband.  This time I crept along at a snails pace.  The last mile of the lake about killed me.  Aching knees, aching feet, grumpy pants.  I could have curled up on any old patch of grass for a nap, but then I would have gotten to the car (and ultimately my bed) even later.  I can’t believe the difference one week post your due date makes!  I’ve always been in great shape, and feel a little broken.  I feel detached from my body in a way that I never have before.  I am watching my lumbering from afar.  Sometimes I wake from a nap and wouldn’t know I was pregnant… until I have to move and roll over to somehow make it up and to the bathroom for my every 10 minute trip to the toilet.  Everything is taking so much effort that I’m a little concerned about what a long labor is going to be like.  Having strong Braxton Hicks for 8 hours straight is not at all painful, but is absolutely exhausting.  Will real labor take even longer?  Will real labor be 10 times stronger… or 100?

We went in for a 41 week ultrasound today.  The baby looks great!  His cheeks are chubby like mine and we think he has his father’s eyes (which is how I always pictured him).  I felt as if I was cheating a little bit with our sneak peak, but placated myself with the knowledge that we were doing this to make sure everything was ok.

(Honestly, I knew everything was ok.  He’s totally chilling out in there.)

I’m exhausted today.  I just woke from a 4 hour nap and, having eaten a sandwich, am thinking about retiring for 4 more hours.  Maybe I’ll wake up in for real labor some day soon.  My sleeping schedule is totally screwed so I must be ready to be a newborn nursing mom, right?

We don’t have any.

Oh you guys! Honestly, we don’t need labor inducing tecniques. I get acupuncture needles all over my body, have been inserting Evening Primrose Oil for weeks, love awkward pregnant intimacy with my husband (even if I don’t want to talk about it on our blog), have had cervical sweeps, walk all the time, spend lots of time meditating, eat pineapple sprinkled with cayenne (ok mostly because that’s delicious!) and on and on and on and on and on and on. And then on. And on. Really. Truly. Madly. Deeply.

We know. We hear you! We read the books you recommended. We talked to our midwives. I get calls, texts, emails, facebook wall messages, gchats, facebook chats, and even pretty snail mail cards from everyone in our community. We love you all for that, but are feeling a little overwhelmed. And, honestly, we understand that none of it really works if the baby’s not ready.

I am trying to relax and not feel exhausted by pregnancy. I am madly looking forward to the batch of babymoon hormones I will get when our little crane decides that it’s high time he arrives. In the meantime, my best friend is going to arrive via plane tomorrow! We hadn’t been intending to have her here at the birth… but that could be awesome if it happens. Whatever comes with our imminent futures will be awesome as long as everyone remains in good health and high spirits.

Ok, it’s true.  The end of pregnancy gets weird.  I once read a tweet from a recently pregnant girl that said something along the lines of, “It’s like waiting for a houseguest who hasn’t told you exactly when he was coming, who will stay for 18 years.”  That’s true.  On top of that, there are all of these amazing hormones that a lady has to deal with.  Alternately, they have me spaced out, bone tired, become a weeping madonna, or they cause me to buzz about like a squirrel in November making last minute preparations for hibernation.  I’ve had me some manic episodes, but never combined in quite this way.  Usually, the buzzy squirrel (by far my favorite hormone-induced personality manifestation) comes after 10pm, and often stays until 2am, after which point I find myself meditating my way to sleep, which is great hypno-breathing practice.  Without a great effort towards breath meditation, there is no way I would even sleep after 2am.  We no longer sleep before 2am in this house!  We also no longer get out of bed before 11.  It’s just not possible.  This baby dictates these hours from within.

World, did you know that you can walk around with your cervix 3cms dilated, while breathing through non-progressive (and not painful) 30 second contractions that come every 2.5 minutes, for a whole day, without being in labor?  I did not!  My uterus has been doing lots of work without really bothering me too much.  Hopefully this means that when showtime comes along, I will need to work a little less.  I don’t really know.  The whole birthing process is still such a great mystery to me, even after reading all 50 of the books on our shelves and having a somewhat solid base understanding of the science that goes on behind the madness.

I am on my way to get some acupuncture at my midwifery office.  We are hoping to nudge this little crane down a bit.  He doesn’t seem to understand yet that, while it’s great that he’s comfortable, a bit more pressure on my cervix will bring him to his second home- The Outside World- where we spend a lot of time laughing, dancing, and cuddling.  Milton keeps telling my belly, “You can come out now.  There are warm blankets here!”

I had the hardest time sleeping last night because of a relentless windstorm… and a bit of a storm in my mind that I’ll keep to myself as far as this blog is concerned.

I woke up today at noon, after a few hours of rest, and am still exhausted. I’m so low energy today that I’m boring myself. Finally just drug myself to the mirror to put on some lipstick a minute ago, and am looking forward to a walk with my husband, and then a movie with friends.

I just thought to myself, “If I’m really right about having this baby right around my due date, I’m going to be a full on mom by this time next week, for certain.”

That’s just crazy. And awesome. And hilarious!

boredpants. waiting and anticipating.

I’ve finished working!  Which of course brought about a round of emotions last night at dinner.  I can’t recall the last time I straight up didn’t work for 4+ months.  I must have been about 10 years old.  As soon as I finished my last client yesterday, I felt a wave of “What in the heck am I supposed to do now?”

Of course, I have a long list of things I need to get done before the baby comes.  After the baby comes, that list dissolves into all the things that are completely imminent!  Breast feeding.  Burping.  Swaddling.  Rocking.  Catching whatever sleep I can.  Rinsing and repeating until something changes in the overall baby scheme and I have to reformulate my parenting style completely.  Intellectually, I am aware of all of this.  I’ve read about 100 books and talked to at least 100 moms.  I’ve got all the stories, all the supplies, and all the information.  Of course, I have no real knowledge of what having a newborn will actually BE like, because I have never had a newborn.  I’m looking forward to experiencing something altogether new, but am of course a little apprehensive about being the best possible parent I can be.

My mother suggested recently in a facebook comment that it’s ok to be scared.  I immediately felt defensive!  Defensive is my go-to emotion whenever anyone suggests that I am, in any way, vulnerable.  Goodness forbid I should appear to be vulnerable!  Luckily, I am able to afford being self-aware, and was thus able to step back from my defensive stance and investigate.  Am I scared?  I don’t really think I am.  I don’t think that’s why I’m crying here and there, all overwhelmed with emotion.  Frankly, I think I’m crying here and there because my hormones are peaking with impending babyhood…. but that’s not to say that the emotions that are coupled with the hormones are anything but totally viable.  I am emotional because my time alone with my husband as my only immediate family (side note: my parents and siblings are technically immediate… but live 3k miles away.  This is less… immediate.  Obviously).  I am emotional because I have no idea what the life ahead of us will be like.  On a lesser scale, I am emotional because I missed the Wedding Present perform Bizzaro at The Crocodile the other night (alas, I am too pregnant for shows right now) and because I can no longer just skip out into the city to catch shows or grab drinks at bars.  I am emotional because I might never have visible abs again.  Everything is changing!  When you can afford to be self-aware, you can’t help but well-up a little with emotion.

I’ve said it before, many times.  Pregnancy is  a long time.  A whole lot happens in 40 weeks!  There is a whole process that we have gone through as a family to prepare us for the next step.  I’m not feeling emotional because I haven’t prepared myself for life on baby island.  I’m 34 years old and filled with all the love and capability that is necessary.  Arguably, I am a fantastic candidate for a mothering job.  I’ve worked out all my kinks, gotten jollies in my career, let the ants in my pants make me break dance, lived in several desirable cities, and generally ensured that I’m not going to freak out and wonder if there was something I didn’t DO before building a house on baby island.  I’ve got a solid loving relationship with a partner who is a fantastic candidate for a fathering job.  I’m also seasoned enough to know that I’ll DO plenty more as my child grows and my family progresses.  I’m ready.  But until the time comes and the whole transformation occurs- I am over here feeling grateful, reflective, and emotional.

I love how Baby Center tells me what I should be afraid about.

Here are the seven deadly fears:

1. Will I be able to provide for my family?
2. Will I be able to “perform” during Esther’s labor?
3. Am I really the baby daddy?
4. Does this mean that my life is over?
5. Will Esther and Axelrod be okay?
6. Will Esther love Axelrod more than me?
7. Should I be afraid of hospitals in general?

I guess the point of listing all of these fears is to help people who are afraid feel like they’re “normal”.  But I can’t help but feel that they also serve to reinforce stereotypes that are about weakness, insecurity, and irrationality and offering them as ways to be.  Even if you weren’t necessarily afraid of these things before reading the list, someone might read the list and think, yeah, maybe I SHOULD be worried about the paternity of my baby.

It could be simply because, as I ease into a new role, I’m hyper aware of the pressures that attempt to mold me, inform me of my new role, give subtle clues, social cues, etc to help me along the way.  But where are the articles from Baby Center that talk about the strong stereotypes, the new fathers that feel secure in their ability to provide, have no squeamishness of blood and tears, know they’re the father, that life is not over, that everyone will be okay, that there will be more than enough love to go around, and that are either avoiding hospitals or are confident in their abilities?  Why does everything have to be about fears?

Even though Baby Center is by far the most popular, and in many ways the most informative, website for expecting new parents, it’s articles like this that make me realize that they sort of suck.

[Seven fears expectant fathers face]

For the most part, it’s not difficult to dedicate myself to making a whole human being that will be a part of my family linage and history forever.  It’s a pretty beautiful job to have, after all, and I am the only person I know in this family who can bare children with my husband, so I’ve got to be up to the challenge if I want to expand our awesome little family…

But, honestly, there are some not so nice days.  On Thursday, I had my first full-on pregnancy break down.  I had worked for my usual 8 hours, but was exhausted with horrible acid reflux and counting down each client and each hour.  Luckily, it’s easy for me to keep my game face on when I’m with my clients.  After all, their time is time that they are paying me for!  It’s not my time to collapse into a ball of pregnant emotions.  I have to not only tough it out, but be the best I can possibly be for the people who make my livelihood possible.  So, that said, I was perfectly fine at work.  I had my amazing and warm-hearted assistants helping me out with shampoos while I took 5 minute breaks to sit quietly and rest my back.  I made it through 7pm, 8pm, and finally through the wicked-tired hour of 9pm…

I packed my bag, walked home, and opened the door to a dark house at 9:30.  I stood in the kitchen for a minute and thought about cooking dinner.  My feet screamed.  My back moaned.  I literally threw up in my mouth a little for the hundredth time that day… and then dear friends, I just lost it and began to sob with the drama of a heartbroken teenager.  I gave it a minute before trying to gather up my senses into some semblance of adult and motherlike behavior, and then I lost it again.  I moved to the bed and just cut loose.  My husband arrived home a few seconds later.  Of course he was super concerned that I was bleeding or contracting, and searching for signs of a newborn on the floor… and I here I was having a hard time even communicating through my sobs that I was totally fine and just needed to cry for a minute.  Eventually, we set our communication straight, he held me and soothed me, and I ultimately got out of bed to make us a delicious and highly complex late dinner of almond butter, jam and apple sandwiches before settling back into bed (bringing my sandwich along for the ride) with a book I couldn’t concentrate on because I was having so much ligament discomfort… Eventually I just did a whole lot of hypnobreathing practice until falling asleep soundly in my fortress of pillows.

That seemed to be a somewhat late official introduction into the third trimester.  I’m puffy.  I’m farting.  I’m getting bigger and bigger.  I’m super tired.  And I’m getting annoyed!  I don’t like that Saturday night means DRUNK IDIOT NIGHT to everyone but me.  I don’t like that everyone wants to walk faster than I can handle.  I don’t like that I have to ask for an anchoring hand to help me off the darn couch.  I don’t like that I stepped on the new closet shelving system that I just built and broke it like an idiot.  I don’t like having to order my thai delivery with no spice like a total weakling.  I don’t like that there are so many things that I don’t like.  I annoy myself when I get off my regularly scheduled program of being a happy person who honestly has everything she could possibly need.

Luckily, there will always be good days to balance out the bad.  I intend to dive into those days, eat them up, savor them, and digest them like the fantastic nutrition they are.  Apparently I’m going to need the extra good-feeling nutrients for the next few crazy months.  In the meantime, I leave you with an image of what I look like when I’m having an ill-tempered moment:

When the 3rd trimester can suck it...

While I’m at it… bad days don’t only happen when I’m pregnant, that’s for certain.  I’m wondering what will happen when I want to tear my hair out and I have a child that I have to behave for.  Is this when parents switch off for a little while?  OH the things I need to learn!

The other day, one of my wonderful clients was booking her next appointment for her haircut and color at the salon. I asked what the date of her appointment was, and it turned out to be a good 11 days before my last day at work. I was surprised that I had so much work time left and searched for a word to explain my surprise.

“Everything just feels so… so….” I stumbled to find the words.

“Imminent!!” she exclaimed.

And that has become my word for this week. Maybe it’s my word for the next few years. Every moment Milton and I have alone makes me grasp to hold it tightly – these moments are bound for imminent change. Every kick I feel is one less kick I will feel with this baby inside of me. Everything precious is only precious for right this moment, and about to give way to other new and precious things, which will in turn slip away for even more things new and precious.

I looked up at him today and said, “Can you believe we’re having a baby?”

He replied, “And that baby will turn into a kid, and that kid will turn into an adult…”

“And he will be a member of our family,” I said, “And it will always be the three of us, after all this time of it being the two of us.”

It’s a pretty magical and confounding thing to realize that life as you know it is about to become completely and beautifully upheaved.  It will become life as we never knew it.  It will be a completely new journey that we can’t possibly be completely prepared for.  No amount of book reading or closet cleaning is going to make us more aware of what life will really be like once pregnancy ends.  And pregnancy ends in the not too distant future….

Milton and Sopor cuddle at dusk.

One of the differences between the way Esther and I think, when preparing for our son, is our various strategies for the ominous task of “feeling prepared for parenthood” and all that goes along with that foggy idea.  I feel prepared by making lists.  Esther feels prepared by preparing (admittedly, a more direct strategy).  But in a way, they’re both valid strategies against this amorphous goal.  Esther’s has the advantage of actually getting things done, mine has the advantage of knowing exactly what needs to get done.  My list making, so far, has only shown me that I don’t need to do anything yet.  Well, read a lot of books.  Check.  Enjoy the ride.  Check.

Selling the house was also a big thing on the list of things we absolutely needed to do in order to feel prepared.  Until, as of this week, our house still wasn’t sold and so we took it off the market.  One would think that we would therefore feel like we failed at preparing.  But the strange thing is that we both feel more prepared now that the house is off the market.  Selling a house, buying a house, moving everything, getting used to a new setting, etc, all feels counter-productive at this point.  I feel like we’re out of limbo and can make the best of what we have.  Deciding to make the best of what we have is a huge step in the direction of “feeling prepared”.

And, now that that item has been decided, if not completed, it sets in motion a lot of other things on my list of things that I need to do.  Starting with re-organizing our little loft.  Starting tomorrow, I’m going to be moving few pieces of furniture into storage, a bunch of art that we took down (in the house-selling attempt) but probably aren’t going to put back up just yet, and begin to move things around until things feel “ready”. I have some big ideas of making the room more ready for watching movies on the projector, playing music on the keyboard, and changing diapers.

Why all the quotes around “ready” and “feel prepared”?  I’m not sure.  I guess in a weird way I’m realizing that this is not about reaching some final end state for our house, because we had already thought the house wouldn’t work at all.  It’s about getting our minds ready, creating the solid feeling in our guts that the house will work, that everything is ready.  And of course it will, and is.  There’s not a huge list of requirements for taking care of a baby.  A boob, a blanket, and attentive caretakers are probably sufficient for 99% of the baby’s needs, especially during the first months.  But our brains… they need some serious work before we’re ready to take care of our baby.

And slowly, we’re adapting, and our house is adapting with us, and by the time he gets here everything and everyone will be ready.  And it will be difficult to determine what exactly it was that finally made it ready, other than a certain amount of worrying, questioning, doubt, stress, debate, brain storming, furniture shuffling, color-picking, and out of it all comes readiness.  Through a little whirlwind of fretting and confusion and worry we earn the right to feel ready.

This is an abstract post that came out of my stream-of-consciousness writing for my daily 750 Words.

Lately I’ve been thinking a lot about how my brain is subconsciously shifting gears into parent mode. My whole life I’ve assumed that this is a choice you make at some point to switch priorities and move from ambitious entrepreneur to ambitious parent. Where ambitious means two completely different things in context. But, I’m finding, that the changes are happening in some chamber of my brain that my conscious brain doesn’t control. And I’m actually relieved about that since I don’t know if I could’ve moved my whole thought process over as easily as it seems to have done over the last 6 months.

Back to the point though, context, like continents along fault lines, is what’s changing here. And right now I’m in that purgatory land between contexts, and it’s that brief little moment when both contexts can be seen from the sky for what they are… tectonic plates rubbing against each other. From any given context’s perspective, each looks like an entire world, and it’s every other context that’s driftless, a game, a system that works within itself but has no real meaning outside of the context. Monopoly money. But all contexts are like that. Life itself is like that. We build an empire and then leave it behind as building blocks for other empires. In the end all of our Legos go back into the shared community box.

In a meaningless world, meaning must be created. It comes from each of our own interpretations and stories of the world, of our place in it, of our people within it. And the context that we call home is the context that we hang most of these meanings on. We become attached to our preferred contexts. Worker, family person, singleton, etc. I’ve always thought of myself as an ambitious person, I stake part of my sense of self on the fact that I want to be successful, I want to be creative, I want to build companies and communities and have lots of friends. Backlash from growing up in Orange County made me shun the easy path of college -> marriage -> kids -> corporate job. Of course, along the way I’ve gone to college, I’m married, I had a semi-corporate job at Amazon for 5 years and even gave up my original dream of being a novelist in order to hop on at the top of the first big bubble in 1998.

Now as it comes time to shift contexts, I’m leaving behind a lot of self-made meaning. And am getting ready to create a whole new batch. The world of parenting comes with quite a few meaning templates though. Tones of voice, warnings of self-sacrifice, lots of reassurance that all of the bootcamp like habits are “worth it”, trained scripts on what to say when, what’s life-changing, what’s safe, what’s wise. It’s weird, and I’m ready to jump in, but am a little hesitant to take anyone else’s word about what I will or will not think, feel, or experience. That’s my own stubbornness.

The one I was thinking about today though was about this miracle of creating a baby. Creating a life from our lives, creating a new being from our being. It’s probably one of the most amazing tricks this universe has come up with. Condensing billions of years of biology into a 9 month process. And, even more interesting, is that we each get our own to play with. Each of us who decides to become a parent, if lucky, gets to experience this trick of the universe in the most personal and intimate way imaginable. It’s as if there were some way, between one and a dozen times in our lives, to create a new solar system. Or experience our own self-made sunset, or volcano, or to invent a new species of animal. Except even more amazing than those other examples. A merged copy of you and your favorite person in the world, with other slightly altered bits from previous generations, and a few random alterations. It’s crazy when I think about it that way, and find the meaning in this experience outside of the rough-cut templates that others have come up with themselves.

But, and here’s the twist, I think the danger of this magical event is to be afraid of it. To think it’s impossible, or likely to fail, or to be cynical about it from the start. Why can such horrible things happen in hospitals that people get away with? Because, despite all the unneeded drugs, lazy and biased excuses for surgery, repetitive sharing of the worst horror stories, cold, impersonal treatment, etc, in the end you still get your own amazing new human being. And it’s “worth it”. And, one might even say, there’s a part of us (some more than others) that think that all good things have to come at a cost. That, the drama, fear, and horror are part of the price that you pay for the privilege of becoming a parent. And that’s just wrong. Part of the reason I want my new child to have nothing to do with the institution of ritualized and religion-sponsored guilt systems. No pain no gain is NOT a law of the universe, and it sucks that so many of us were taught that and even expect that or are comforted by it. Work and pain are two different things. Work can build meaning, work can be joyful, work is good. Anyway, random rant, I guess.

I am of course studying every parent I see these days. I’m excited to join the ranks. I can’t wait, really. The whole thing is out of our control, largely, but it is not scary, it’s not going to suck, it’s going to be awesome. Being out of control is one of the best parts about it… because things are going to happen that are way more complicated, beautiful, awe-inspiring, magical, and rooted in the deepest secrets of the universe than anything I could ever build out of my own intentions.

I get to see a brand new baby that a friend just made in a couple hours. We’re bringing her tatertot casserole, some amazing cookies, and some wide eyes.

Today, I had this strange thought and it gave me shivers: our future son isn’t born yet!

Yeah, sort of obvious, but really. Can you imagine being not born yet? None of us remember it, and none of us will experience not being born yet again.

Can you imagine what it would be like to be born in May of this year? And then that process of slowly getting used to having arms, and legs, and eyes, and this weird sensation of hunger and this overwhelming struggle to control a big head without neck muscles? And.. the first realization that sleep happens, and that dreams happen, and that you have pee and poop.

It’s all so alien, and our future son has no idea what is in store for him. Hell, even I don’t know what’s in store for him and I’ve been here 33 years. How much have I really learned in those 33 years, and how much of it is really unknowable, or temporarily knowable and then eventually forgotten again?

This crazy process of being born, and growing up, and then watching others get born, it’s something that we’ve been experiencing over and over again for millions of years, and yet it still seems new to each of us. It makes me feel like a part of the universe in a weird way. Both alien and deeply familiar. Like something I forgot about a long time ago.

This baby is gonna be a trip, I can already tell.

Today was the momentous occasion we’ve been looking towards for some months:  The 20 Week Ultrasound!

This means that we are OFFICIALLY at the half-way point.  I also officially have a baby bump and officially know the sex of my baby (though I won’t be sharing that quite yet!).

Things are looking pretty sweet.  I have a great heart rate, have gained the perfect amount of weight and have a uterus that has grown right where it should have grown.

As far as our baby is concerned, (s)he is doing very well.  Good heart rate, good skull shape, no signs of the dreaded  spina bifida, no sign of a cleft palate, skull in good condition. 10 fingers, 10 toes…

Speaking of toes, the baby has my husband’s feet.  My big toe is considerably longer than my second toe, while my husband’s second toe is longer than his first.  While we both have long toes, Milton sports tingers, which simply means that his toes are freakishly long.  We can see in the ultrasound that our baby also has tingers.  I am also convinced that the baby has my husband’s leg proportions, which means another family runner.  This is all good stuff.

I did have a moment of nervousness after the ultrasound tech left the room and returned with (dum dum dum) The Doctor.  It was obvious from the start that The Doctor was summoned into the room to give us Potential Bad News.  First, he confirmed my age, “You’ll be having the baby when you’re 34 and a half,” he says, and suddenly I am filled with fear.  My brain immediately starts telling me that this will be my only child, that the risks are too great as I approach my dreaded (and absolutely youthful) 35th birthday.  The Doctor goes on to tell me that the baby’s heart is showing a sign of Echogenic Intracardiac Foci, as told by bright spots on the heart.  This increases my chances of having a baby with Downs Syndrome by 2.  Broken down, this means that while my age and history indicated a 1 in 350 chance of having a baby with an extra chromosome when I woke up this morning, appearance of EIF ups my chances to 1 in 200, or .5%.  SPECIFICALLY, babies with the EIF marker have a 1 in 188 chance of T-21 (Downs).

Of course, there is no indication of a chromosomal problem as far as the bone structure of the baby’s face is concerned.  The ridge of the baby’s nose and cheekbones appears to be strong and “normal”.  AND, further investigation (thanks to an immediate iPhone google search) indicates that a full 30% of Asians have EIF.  Further race investigation indicates 11% of caucasians and 6% of black babies show symptoms of EIF.  Thus,  I don’t think that there is anything to worry about… and if there is, it’s out of my control to do anything but love whatever baby we have.  I do find it odd that it’s required for a doctor to put extra fear in you, but not required for them to say, “But, hey, your baby is Asian, so there was a 30% chance the baby would have EIF anyhow.”  I mean, really?   I would hate to be a doctor who gets called into examination rooms to only deliver red flag news.  I was thinking the whole time about how awesome the job of the ultrasound technician was… and later I thought about how the stony-faced-bearer-of-bad-news doctor ‘s job was NOT awesome.  Also, WAY TO MAKE A GIRL FEEL OLD, doctor.  34 and a half. Geez louise.

All that EIF business aside, it was AMAZING to see our baby moving around in there!  S(he) is far more active than I even imagined!  Lots of times there is whole moving around that I can’t even feel.  I didn’t realize that!  The baby flips and flops into all sorts of different positions without my even knowing, all of the time!  I need to really be punched and kicked to know that something is going on in there… which means that I’m being punched and kicked all the time, too, because I feel it plenty!   So great!!

I’ve been plagued by nightmares this week. One was about INTRUDERS that us good guys were going head to head with. There was graphic killing and maiming on both the good guy teams and bad guy teams , resulting in an eventual cat and mouse game with lots of strategy and more blood. I woke with a gasp! and ran to the bathroom (because that’s was I do about 4 times a night still), where I wondered about the mental state of my poor baby. See, I’ve been a little obsessed with the state of my baby’s emotions ever since reading about a study in the book <i>What’s Going on in There (How the Brain and Mind Develop in the First Five Years of Life).  Read on:

“One 1982 Israeli study offers a fascinating demonstration of how a mother’s emotional state affects her fetus. Researches put headphones on pregnant women and allowed them to listen to various types of music while they measured fetal movements under ultrasound. Remarkably, most of the fetuses became more active when the music was turned on, particularly when their mothers were listening to their favorite type of music, whether pop or classical. Because the music was inaudible to the fetuses, the researches concluded that they must have been reacting to changes in their mother’s emotional state. The question is: How does an unborn baby know what its mother is feeling?”

The short answer is the limbic system, which links higher areas of the cerebral cortex to lower brain structures that coordinate the basic bodily functions from blood flow to sex drive.  The watered down explanation to my concern is that “hormonal responses can be based solely on the basis of emotional stimuli”, and that the same system that is running my hormones is busy running my baby’s hormones.

After reading about all of this, I became convinced that I needed to do my damnedest to be in a pretty good mood, most of the time. I am actively trying to not let little things about life bother me. This cuts down considerably on my typical east coast kvetching, which can sometimes become loud and cursing in my head even when there is a smile on my face. (Don’t blame me! It’s my culture!) To help me along this course, I have taken to sitting in front of a Philips GoLite blue light system on most mornings. I also stick with my regularly scheduled program of fish oil, vitamin D, yoga, walking, terrific music, and acupuncture. All of this busy blues combating behavior seems to help, too. Either that or I am actually a naturally happy person who is just being a little OCD about SAD and the kvetching voice in her head.

But, honestly?! How could possibly I protect my baby from my own bloody murderous dreams!!? Or, perhaps even worse, the dream I had right after the murderous dream in which I had a dramatic and bloody miscarriage? The second dream triggered an 8am wake up call that had me absolutely convinced that the child I was carrying was dead (until 9am, when I felt that child kick).  I can’t imagine that it’s very cool for me to impart such a dramatic, heart racing, fight or flight reaction to the child within me at the innocent age of 18 weeks.  But, then again, maybe all of life’s lessons start very early.  Maybe I should even let the occasional f-bomb rush out from my inner voice.  Goodness knows how I’m going to prevent such bombs from rushing out from my outer voice from time to time, when my baby is all ears, sitting right in front of me.

According to Wikipedia, Couvade syndrome, or sympathetic pregnancy, is a somewhat mysterious condition where a pregnant woman’s partner begins to exhibit some of the symptoms of pregnancy.  Labor pains, weight gain, food cravings, and sometimes even post-partum depression.  Now, I think this is a great idea.  Funny, at least.

Now, most of the articles I’ve read about it make it seem like a pretty unflattering condition.  In some cultures the fathers are considered to be possessed by demons.  In others, that they are simply starved for attention and trying to get some of the same sympathy that the pregnant woman gets.  Seems sort of selfish when you think about it that way.

I am trying to rebrand Couvade syndrome into something a little more interesting.  A sort of intentional empathetic bond with my wife.  And, while she starts to show her pregnancy, I can also become more proud of my little gut.  Rather than steal the attention, I can nod my head and say, yes, I can not only imagine how that feels, but also share in a tiny shadow of the feeling.

Okay, maybe that won’t really work as intended.  The symptoms of pregnancy will always be stronger in the actual pregnant person, therefore why not just let her enjoy the special treatment 100%?  I’ll consider it.  But in the meantime, this stigmatized little French syndrome seems like an interesting thing to learn more about.

This afternoon, I had a long chat with a girlfriend on the phone.  She is in the throws of trying to conceive.

I haven’t yet told her of my own pregnancy.  I’m hesitant to talk about it openly at this point, because it seems so possible that this pregnancy will end like up to 60% of other first-trimester pregnancies do- in a miscarriage.  I have shared my information with some good friends, but mostly prefer to keep my information to myself (and this blog) at this point.

Anyhow, this good friend was talking about the recent possibility of being pregnant.  She kept referring to this possibility, and saying things like, “I mean, I could have been carrying a whole other person.”

This got me to thinking… what exactly do I consider my 7 week condition?  Do I consider myself to be carrying a whole other person?

Let’s make a list of how I am feeling this week:

1. I am stressed out about our living situation. (definitely related to pregnancy)
2. I am stressed out about my family. (maybe only related because of the elevation of hormones)
3. I want to puke.  Sometimes I want to puke more than other times… but I could summon the feeling at any moment if I were to really tap into it. (definitely a symptom of pregnancy)
4. I am on a boat.  In motion.  I am constantly dizzy. (also a major symptom)
5. I feel as if I’m stoned.  This is particularly annoying when I can’t find simple nouns in my regular vocabulary. (yep.  pregnancy apparently makes you stupid.)

All in all, taking these things into account, I am definitely 100% pregnant.  And, if the old adage of “The sicker you feel, the stronger your pregnancy” is true, this pregnancy really seems to be sticking a whole lot more than the failed pregnancy I had 6 months ago.

So… am I carrying a whole other person?  I don’t know how I feel about that just yet.

I feel as if have a condition.  That condition could progress to a birth.  I really hope that condition DOES progress to a birth.  I would like to ultimately give birth to a whole other person. But, right now, I feel detached from my body a whole lot.  Little changes are happening that impede my regular life.  I can’t drink my beloved wine.  My belly is just beginning to swell and get into the way in yoga class.  My boobs are alien creatures who apparently have minds of their own.  My usually successful attempts at fashion suddenly do not work.  I am having mild panic attacks when looking at pregnancy gear at A Pea in the Pod.

All of this, for me, does not add up to carrying a whole other person. But, hey, I’ll totally let you know when I feel differently.  Not feeling as if I’m carrying a whole other person certainly doesn’t affect my level of anticipation or excitement for the future.

Hopefully feeling that my condition adds up to a whole other person will happen at some point, but it might not happen until birth.  I guess we’ll see.