a birth story that made me laugh

My baby, Emry at 3 days old, October 2010

I love birth stories, birth junkie that I am, but it's not often that one makes me laugh.

You should read this (by one of my sister's friends). Even if you're not a birth junkie, it's great.

one year ago

A year ago, I was pregnant.

I went to the pool a lot.

Sometimes with my pregnant friends.

Elan was already telling the baby jokes.

Did I mention? I was VERY pregnant.

But soon not to be.

At 2 a.m., I woke up. It was pouring. First I heard the rain, then I felt the sensation of the contraction. It was the baby's due date and a full moon. I couldn't believe the baby would really be so precisely punctual, but the contraction felt different than the ones I regularly got around the clock, so I got out of bed. Made cream of wheat. Read Blink on the couch. Timed the contractions. Told the baby I was really ready to not be pregnant anymore, and wasn't he/she ready to come out and meet everyone?

I promised a lot of yummy milk.

The contractions stayed about 10-15 minutes apart, so eventually I went back to bed.

Elan woke up and went to preschool.

The contractions were still 10-15 minutes apart. Between them, I'd think that maybe I run out and pick up that nursing bra I hadn't bought yet. But then, one would come, and I'd think Not a good idea.

I went for a walk to try to speed things up. I walked very slowly. I kept expecting someone to notice me, walking around my neighborhood, in labor, alone, with my cell phone in my pocket. But I only had one contraction the whole walk, leaning over the splintery railing by the path in the greenway, so I guess I wasn't that noticeable.

Mikhail brought me Thai chicken coconut milk soup, a sudden craving, and over several hours, I ate the whole container.

Elan came home from preschool. I hung out with him on the couch, reading him books. Every 10-15 minutes, I'd roll onto the floor and have a contraction. It freaked him out a lot less than I thought it might.

At 3 p.m., I told my amazing midwife that I wanted to come in to the hospital, but I was afraid I'd only be dilated to 2 centimeters. (In labor 4 years before with Elan, I got to the birth center where I delivered already dilated to 8 cm after laboring at home for 20 hours.) She assured me that she'd never had a second-time mom come in at less than 4 cm. I wanted to be in the water, and I couldn't fit in our little tub, so we decided to go for it.

Some neighbors saw me shuffling down the driveway to the car, while Mikhail loaded it up with all our stuff, and they called out Good luck! I thought - I guess I really am in labor.

The ride to the hospital was surreal. Everything looked so NORMAL outside the car window. It was Friday afternoon, and people were out doing their Friday afternoon, beautiful fall weather, thing. I only had one contraction during the 10 minute car ride. After that one contraction, I was glad I didn't have more.

My midwife Lindy was there waiting for me, at the nurse's desk. She got me a room with a big jacuzzi tub, like we had planned. She checked me. "Well, it's your worst fear," she said. "You're 2 centimeters."

Ha!

But then she was very comforting. She told me to take my time. "I've got my magazine so I'll just hang out a while," she said. She'd send me home if there was no baby by morning. It was 4:20 p.m. I was still having contractions 10-15 minutes apart.

I got in the tub. Everyone left me alone. I listened to music, rubbed my huge firm tummy, nearly weightless in the water, felt the baby move and wondered who was going to come out. Here we are kid, I thought, back in the water, where the best moments of this uncomfortable pregnancy had been spent. I had been feeling a little freaked out by the hospital, but in the tub, I got my head together. You've done this before, I told myself. You know what to do. Just relax and let your body do it.

I got out of the tub and decided to take a walk. But I never made it out the door of my room. Every time I'd head for the door, I'd have another contraction. And these were big ones, coming on every few minutes. Finally! It looked like the baby was in on the plan.

And then it hurt. More than I remembered. I've had 2 natural births now, with no meds, and I can say: there is pain. It's a whole heck of a lot of work. There's a reason they call it labor. But if you have a good situation - a great midwife and/or doula, and no complications - it's worth it. Your body makes the natural pain relief, which helps; you can stay completely active, birth in the position you want to birth in; you can feel nifty sensations like the baby's feet "walking" down your spine as he turns; and the high afterward is INCREDIBLE. I'm sure all women feel like super-stars after growing and birthing another human being, as they should. But I can say that my experience of natural birth is that, afterward, I felt like I could do anything. Which was especially helpful while recovering from my first baby's birth, which took longer and was more painful than I expected. Not to mention that whole adjustment to being responsible for a tiny, helpless human. I frequently thought back to my superhero birth powers and felt buoyed by them over the course of Elan's first few months.

But, yeah, it hurt. My mom came in the room, and I called her over to me by wailing Mommy!! I'm not sure if this alarmed or touched her, as I haven't called her "Mommy" in several decades. But that's what birth will do to you; you shed all the non-essentials; you become the most focused version of yourself, one is so intent on doing what you're doing that you don't give a damn who happens to come in the room and see your nether regions on full display.

I had an amazing team of midwife, husband and nurse all helping me. One would work on my back with each contraction, and this is not just a casual hand - this is putting some real weight into it. Though this labor was less back labor than my first, that strong counter-pressure still really helped me. The best position was standing next to the bed, leaning over it, rocking and swaying my hips. After contractions, they warmed me up. During, they cooled me off. Lindy put cold cloths on my forehead.

Sidenote: Recently, on a random Tuesday, Elan turned to me with a look of shock on his little face. "We don't have a video of when Emry was born!" he exclaimed. I had to stifle a laugh.

"That's true," I said. "But we have one of when you were born."

"I want to see it," he said.

"Actually, I don't think you do. When a baby comes out, there's a lot of blood."

"Ew, I don't wanna see that. Dis-gust-ing!"

Yeah, I didn't think so.

Anywhere, where was I? Oh, yeah, birthing a baby one year ago.

My midwife and I had come up with a little game plan of what we wanted to try for the birth, which included birthing on my side and trying to push the baby out between contractions. Amazingly, these both worked. Mikhail found the whole thing pretty interesting because he was beside me, holding my leg; when Elan was born in the tub, Mikhail was behind me, meaning he got a worse view than I did. But this time, he saw everything! Lucky guy!

Later, Mikhail told me that, as he was watching the baby's head crown, he kept picturing a 2-month-old's head size, and could not imagine that this whole birth thing was going to work. Thankfully he kept that observation to himself at the time. When Emry was actually born, he was shocked at how tiny his head actually was (it was smaller than Elan's, thank you!).

Once my water broke as I pushed, and we got through the ring of fire (that song has never been the same for me since having babies), and I did some good old fashioned screaming, Lindy told me to push again, and a hot, slippery little baby came out. I tell you, I think even if you birthed 12 babies, there would still be a part of you shocked that after all that - 9 months of nausea and insomnia and heartburn and varicose veins and backache and general slow lumbering quality of life, plus the labor itself - a BABY COMES OUT. Just amazing.

Mikhail announced It's a boy!

And there he was.

The Aforementioned Slippery, Ruddy and Oh-So-Sweet Baby Boy, aka Mr. Emry Isaiah Brams Davis, all 7 pounds, 15 ounces of him, born at 8:30 p.m. on October 22, 2010.

Everyone oohed and aahed over him. Lucky baby, he had 3 grandparents in attendance (my parents and my mother-in-law), and my sister-in-law dropped in just after he was born.

His big brother came to visit.

And took him for a ride around the hospital.

The promised yummy milk was provided, and he was a fan.

I could keep going like this all night, but I have laryngitis and a wicked cold, and my baby just turned 1 year old, so I'm feeling a little emotional and should get some sleep.

So just one more... for now.

This is what happens when you teach the big brother how to swaddle his doll before the baby arrives.

Did it make you look twice?

when you wait for it

We are waiting for some big job news. Some big, long-awaited job news. My hubby has been semi-employed for 15+ months, and we're hoping that will change. Soon. But for now, we're in waiting land, limbo land, promising-and-hopeful-but-nothing's-certain land.

It's hard to wait.

I wish I were more patient. It appears that is a theme for me lately.

The distracted feel of the past few days reminds me of how I so often felt early in my pregnancy with Emry: promising and hopeful, but nothing certain. I couldn't be blissfully trusting after my miscarriage; I couldn't count on the pregnancy turning out well. I had to make it through each hurdle of pregnancy, each week that passed, each test that turned out, my confidence slowly growing to the point where I could believe.

And then, of course, when all that waiting came to an end -- I have to say that I do think I appreciate Emry that much more, having waited for him. Being forced to delay the gratification of becoming a mother the second time around. The silky-cheek-kissing gratification.

I guess it's like that when we're waiting for our dreams to turn into reality. You do all you can, and then there's the waiting part, the being with uncertainty. Sometimes it feels exhausting. On Monday, I had a meltdown day. I felt the strain of holding all the elements of our current situation, like I was juggling balls that I couldn't ever set down. Trying to make things work out by sheer force of mental will. Which of course doesn't work. So instead I am trying to float along, riding the waves of uncertainty. Surfing in limbo-land.

And maybe a little distracting myself by reading blogs.

The possibilities we chose for this year feel even more appropriate right now. Abundance, vitality & faith -- I am repeating it like a mantra this gray, drizzly, waiting day.

transformation

After Mikhail lost his job over a year ago and started working from home, he took over our home office and a corner of our bedroom became my office. It was a plain little space, my beautiful vintage table that I used as a desk perpetually piled with projects in progress.

Truthfully it was not a very inspiring place to work, but I don't usually do my creative writing at a desk anyway. I use a desk for paying bills and doing household and organization work. The work that needs more intense focus I usually do at cafes, away from the chatter of little voices. Or when the house is quiet, I often migrate onto the couch, laptop on - well - lap.

When I was pregnant and couldn't sleep, I often found myself rearranging furniture in my head. I think it was part of my obsessive need to make the baby a real entity, a tiny person who would need a changing table, storage for diapers and ridiculously small clothes. It was like if I could just figure out how to arrange the furniture to make it all work in our small house, I could guarantee that the baby I so longed for would become a reality.

But when it came to implementation, I hesitated. When was the right time to take the plunge - to buy a changing table, to wash the baby clothes, to buy the diapers, to move the contents of my desk into cabinets in the living room? And I struggled with what it meant to no longer have a desk, that symbol of working life. Would it mean that I was no longer a writer? Would it mean that motherhood would have overtaken my life completely, leaving me no opportunity for my creative life? Would it mean that I had no chance for paid work?

The funny thing is that it totally works for me to have my office downstairs. Most of my papers are contained behind cabinet doors, there when I need them but not where I have to look at them. My laptop is perpetually within reach and regularly carted up and down the stairs. I've pulled out a pewter bowl that was a wedding gift to hold my stack of unopened mail, which before would just stack up on the counter. Ironically, I'm generally better organized than when I had my own desk, and I've done more paid work since Emry was born than I had in the previous four years. Of course someday, I'd like to have a desk again. Mostly because that would mean that my gorgeous & super-smart husband had a full-time job again.

In the meantime, I love how the nook in my bedroom has been transformed. It's cozy and bright and warm. Perfect for cuddling up in the rocking chair and having a nice snack of milk. It's the baby's space, and it's magical to me.

Art by Kelly Rae Roberts,

mobile with removable cloth insects/finger puppets by Furnis Spielwelt

yes, i did

Raise your hand if you've ever gone bathing suit shopping when you're 7 weeks postpartum.

I didn't think so.

I'm not so much brave as desperate. As I mentioned recently, swimming is an awesome mind-cleanser for me, and Elan is putting us through the wringer, so I need a good mind-cleanser right about now. And the bathing suit I wore all through my pregnancy was starting to put me at risk for indecent exposure so...

I started with one-pieces. I thought they would be more flattering. But this was an athletics store, so they were all Speedo and TYR and no no no no no.

Surprisingly, my regular fave the 2-piece still felt more comfortable, and looked better, "better" being a very relative term here.

In the dressing room, I kept telling myself 9 months on, 9 months off, and laughing. I laughed a lot, actually. Out loud. This crazy body, with its unaccustomed pads and rolls and ripples and soft spots where the muscle might be hiding deep in there somewhere - it doesn't even feel like my body. I guess that's the main difference between last time and this time. This time, it doesn't feel quite so personal. Mostly, I just wish I felt stronger - less wibbly-wobbly and injury-prone. I've been taking walks with Emry in a front carrier in part to slowly strengthen my core, which is not the steely core you want when you've got 2 kids, one of them giving you the run-around. It's more like a rubbery core right now. Rubber that's melted...

You get the idea.

Anyway, I've got this guy:

And he's so very worth it.

just add water

Today, I got back into the pool. There were a few big hurdles to surmount: 1) the baby had to get his first bottle, an event which makes me tear up with the thought he doesn't need me anymore, but that I know is necessary if I'm going to have some freedom in the many months of nursing to come and 2) I had to deal with the bathing suit situation.

I should back up for a minute. The last few months of my pregnancy, after I hurt my back and couldn't do much walking anymore, I swam as much as I could. When I was in town, I swam nearly every day. When I was traveling, I googled nearby pools. Water is fabulous therapy for me. Baths calm me down; showers clear my mind. But swimming is the best. It leaves me relaxed and energized at the same time, and as I stroke along in the water, I often find myself having realizations about issues I am stuck on.

I feel really lucky to have this relationship with a form of exercise. Some people run; some people walk; I swim. I've never swum competitively, and I'm not particularly fast. Swimming laps regularly is a fairly new addition to my life that I really came to rely on during my first pregnancy. And though it requires more equipment than running and doesn't give you quite the same view, it's easy on the joints and something I'll be able to do for the rest of my life.

So anyway, there I was, hugely pregnant in my two-piece suit, waddling my way out to the pool nearly every day. Past 37 weeks, being in the water was the thing that was keeping me sane. I felt so *filled up* by this other life; the baby had taken over my body and mind such that I couldn't focus or deal with things the way I usually do. But in the water, I still had some semblance of grace. I could move lightly. During the autumn heat waves, the pool was the one place I wasn't sweating. I could turn and float. A respite from gravity.

I kept starting to write about my relationship with swimming while I was still pregnant, but everytime I did, the post devolved into lists of the comments I got. Of course, I couldn't really blame people. I was pretty noticeable, with my giant belly and my two-piece bathing suit, the bottoms so worn-out from constant chlorine exposure that they were white and ragged. I was praying the baby would come out before I ended up exposing myself indecently, because I refused to buy new bottoms in the size that would be necessary. I told myself that my belly was so giganticly distracting that no one would notice the state of my bottoms.

Here's that list of what people said to me at the pool:

"Any day now, right?" (starting around 6 months)

"It must feel so good to get into the water" (yes, it does)

"How much weight have you gained, or is that an inappropriate question?" (uhhh...)

"When's that baby coming?" (wish I knew -- ask him/her)

"Wow" (succinct)

Then there was the man in the jacuzzi (yes, I went in the jacuzzi for a few minutes sometimes - I was careful not to boil the baby) who came up to me, blocking the stairs, staring at my belly with concerned eyes: "You know you are going to have a baby any day now?" At first I thought maybe he was a super experienced OB who could tell when a baby was coming, and I wanted to say: "Tell me when!" But then I feared that he was just another Berkeley weirdo, and so I just raised my eyebrows at him like: "this? it's just a watermelon I like to strap to myself for kicks."

And finally: "You should really take a picture of yourself in that bathing suit."

38.5 weeks, 10 days before Emry was born

So today, with Emry 6 weeks and 1 day old, he got his first bottle of breastmilk (cue hormonal mama sniffle). I wished futilely that I possessed a one-piece bathing suit, then swallowed my pride, put on an old two-piece, and slid into the water. Like an old friend, it embraced me. My body felt infinitely different, and yet comfortingly similar. My same old skin, just stretched out here and there. My arms pulling, my legs kicking, my heart pumping, the sound of my own breath in my ears.

And when I was done, I got to steam myself in the jacuzzi, and no one raised an eyebrow.

post partum

Let's get real about the post-partum body, shall we? We don't all look like this:

Jessica Alba, 3 months post-partum

Or even better, like this:

Rebecca Romijn, 6 weeks post-partum after TWINS

In fact, very many of us new moms - I would guess the majority - look more like this:

me, 2 weeks post-partum

I remember after Elan was born I was a bit shocked by the belly that remained. The same shape as what it had been, just shrunken down, empty and slack. The skin was soft and brown, and I completely identified with how Anne Lamott described her belly three weeks after her son was born in Operating Instructions:

"Oh, but my stomach, she is like a waterbed covered with flannel now. When I lie on my side in bed, my stomach lies politely beside me, like a puppy."

This time I was prepared for my puppy-belly, and grateful to discover that, despite the tremendous growth at the end of my pregnancy, the stretch marks below my belly button were fairly minimal and already a worn-out silvery color.

This time, I am a proud of my post-baby belly. After all, I grew an entire complete human being in there, and it wasn't an easy job. I didn't even mind much when a saleswoman at lululemon thought I was pregnant and advised me to buy a size up because "you're just going to grow bigger." I laughed, and pointed to my one-week-old asleep in his stroller beside me. "Actually, I'm pretty sure I'm only going to get smaller," I said.

4 weeks post-partum

Day by day, Emry grows bigger and rollier, and my belly shrinks down little by little. It is a visible symbol of our separation into distinct people, as well as a reminder to myself that it hasn't been very long since I gave birth, and I still need to take it easy.

I'm pretty sure that celebrities walking the red carpet a few weeks post-partum have stretch marks too, and they're likely wearing some major structural support garments to squeeze that belly into a designer dress. It's a silly ideal to hold up for women - how fast can you lose the baby weight; how fast can you "have your body back"? Not to mention potentially a destructive ideal: Jessica Alba's trainer said she exercised for one hour a day, 5-6 hours a day, and stuck to a 1700-calorie-a-day diet in order to lose the baby weight fast. It's hard to imagine that many women could keep up their milk supply to nurse with that kind of strain on their body. Of course, it is a celebrity's job to look good, and they have the resources (trainers, nannies) to make it happen. I'm certainly not against feeling good, looking good, and being active. I'm just against setting unreasonable standards for women in the already-delicate post-partum period.

And besides, as my midwife pointed out, the post-baby belly makes a perfect nursing shelf. As I snug Emry in between his old home and his new favorite place, I think eventually I will "get my body back" and then how I will miss this.

it's a boy!

We are so thrilled to welcome our baby boy to our family!

Emry Isaiah Brams Davis

October 22, 2010

7 lbs 15 oz, 20.5 inches

Emry is a Welsh name that means "honorable" (Davis is a Welsh name). Isaiah is a name I love and also in honor of David Brower, Mikhail's mentor, who loved to quote from the Book of Isaiah. In the tradition of Mikhail's family, my last name is Emry's second middle name (we did this with Elan too - his name is Elan Joshua Brams Davis).

He came exactly on his due date, and three of his grandparents got to see his birth. I'll write the whole story of his birth at some point. It was a wild ride. What birth isn't? But really, it was pretty great. I feel soooo lucky for how the birth went, to have a healthy baby... and to not be pregnant anymore!

Elan is extremely excited about the baby. He wants to hold him, touch him, rock him in the swing.

And take him for rides around the hospital in his bassinet.

We're having a whole lot of fun around here.

my boy

This is my boy.

We think he looks a little like an Ewok.

He woke up at 5:30 this morning. Mama was not pleased.

Of course, I had already been up since 4. Pregnant insomnia. That one good night's sleep with the Valerian was awesome, but I guess it was a one-shot deal.

Here he is with Doggie in the pocket of his new apron. In our house, we call this a "morale-boosting outfit." As in, the cuteness factor boosts Mama and Dada's morale.

He's even taken to helping with the cooking, but don't worry - he didn't want to eat the lasagna. That would have been a little too much.

fully baked

Well, here I am at 38 weeks + 5 days.

Yes, I am counting the days.

Elan was born at 38 weeks on the dot. Which means this baby is already asserting that he/she is a different personality than big brother. Elan came much earlier than we expected, and Mikhail and I often joke that we've been playing catch-up ever since. I rarely in my parenting life have the experience of being "one step ahead" of my strong-willed and big-personalitied little fellow. I never really feel prepared; I always feel like I'm winging it. Of course, much of that can be chalked up to the first child. Every new stage is a surprise; every few months I repeat to myself the refrain "I am a new mother" because for every new stage, I am.

I already feel like this baby is so different in personality. Who knows what you can intuit about the personality of a baby when they're still surrounded by amniotic fluid (some might say nothing), but I have certainly noticed that this baby tends to lie still all night long and into the morning. Sometimes it's even freaked me out in the middle of the night, as I've made yet another bathroom run or ponderous flip in bed without even a flicker of motion from the belly. And then Elan will be up at 5:40 a.m., crying in the hallway or chattering in our bed, and from the little one -- nada. Not even a kick, until some more sane hour.

For the record, Elan woke me up at 5 in the morning nearly every day of my pregnancy. Early on, I didn't know why I was so wakeful, but then later, it was quite clear: early-morning trampoline hour.

Is this just wishful thinking on my part, willing the baby to stay still so I can get my badly-needed and elusive sleep? Maybe. But I'm okay with that.

The idea of a radically different child with a very different personality is thrilling, and intimidating too. What new tricks will this one have up his or her cute little sleeve? How will we relate to each other, what will be the challenges, the particular joys of that child?

Right now, I am sincerely hoping that this baby is: 1) healthy; 2) comes out smoothly; and 3) does not choose to set me a new challenge right off the bat by coming late. Let's be honest. On-time will feel late to me. I tried to not set myself the expectation that the baby would come at 38 weeks, but I also wanted to be prepared in case my gestational oven was always set to quick-bake. And of course, it was inevitable -- preparing for 38 weeks did make me think I'd be having a baby at 38 weeks. On Friday, I wondered what to do with myself: it appears I'm not having a baby, how about a trip to the chiropractor instead? I have officially entered the waiting game, which I never played with Elan, and have no desire to play for any real length of time.

September into early October was fairly comfortable, compared to the general course of events for this pregnancy, in which standards for comfort have not been high. But now I am full up with baby. I am baby down to my knees, baby up to my throat. Not literally of course, that's just what it feels like. Going up the stairs leaves me breathless; leaning over to buckle Elan into his carseat is an Olympic event. I am a rather complainy and moany person. Just ask my husband.

As I walk waddle around town, my enormous belly invites comments. EVERYONE has something to say. I tell myself that the miracle of human life so bowls people over that they are compelled to comment. But sometimes I think that if one more person says "Looks like you're ready to pop" I will walk over and pee on their shoes. "Oops, guess I just popped!" I imagine saying with a shrug of my shoulders, and then strolling away unconcernedly.

Wouldn't that be fabulous?

Or am I just spending too much time with a potty-obsessed 3.5-year-old?

practicing to be a big brother

No baby yet, but Elan had a chance to practice some baby skills at a Big Brother, Big Sister class at the hospital last weekend. He keeps saying things to me like: "Mama, I want the baby to come today. I'm tired of waiting. It's takin' too long!"

That's not my refrain quite yet, but I know what he means. I feel like I've been pregnant forever, so these 9+ months must really feel like forever to him!

irresistible

Boy, girl... everyone looks good in dragons.

random confessions of a so-so-big pregnant mama

my first engagement ring

This pregnancy has really forced encouraged me to re-think my expectations of myself and of my body. Pregnancy this time around has been so different from my pregnancy with Elan. I'm more tired and crabby. I have more aches and pains. Back pain, hip pain, pain places I don't want to talk about on the Internet.

The baby is low, and my back is straining, so I have a back/belly brace to help support my back.

I have a map of veins down one leg, so I have black thigh-high compression hose. After I melted-down trying to buy them at the local medical supply store, my husband googled "sexy pregnancy compression stockings" -- mine are Italian.

I can't tell you how sexy I feel.

All the layers of binding and supporting make me crazy after a while, and I just want to rip them off. Sometimes I do. And some days I suck it up and make it most of the day wearing all this stuff to prop my body up and try to keep it from hurting more.

And now the latest occurrence in the "never happened last time" category: my wedding rings are getting tight. I'm not visibly swollen, but I don't want to take any chances about them getting stuck. I'm trying to be more accepting about all these discomforts and necessary adjustments, relax into being in the "so so big" phase of pregnancy, and remember it's all temporary, and really, in the larger picture, I'm right where I want to be. So I put my rings away and got out my first engagement ring. It's silver, and Mikhail bought it secretly in Bolivia and then gave it to me when we got engaged in Peru - on the top of Huayna Picchu, which is the picturesque peak just behind Machu Picchu in all the pictures of that awesome place.

From life B.C. (before child) -

Mikhail and I got engaged on the top of the peak shrouded in mist.

This ring is just a little bit bigger, so it's giving me that much more room to grow. Plus, it's fun to look at it and remember back to a time when our lives were so different. Soooooo different.

A combination of wearing this ring and a form of late-pregnancy distracted tiredness is making my mind wander. I keep thinking about the time Mikhail and I spent in South America - 5 months traveling, and then we went back to live in Peru for a year. I'd love to write more about the adventures we had there, and the discoveries we made, internal as well as external. It's on my mental list of writing projects. That list I'm not getting to before the baby comes. Someday, someday... I have visions of a series of essays that might someday make up a book. How crazy is that? I can't even believe I'm admitting it here, in "public" of a sort. I guess it's the hormones. These crazy confess-everything hormones.

My nesting urges have kicked in big-time, and I want to DO EVERYTHING RIGHT NOW. As my friend said a week before she birthed her baby: "I want to purge every single drawer!" I have that feeling too. But I am also so easily exhausted; I don't make it very far into my projects before I have to put my feet up or take a nap. It's a strange state: rushing and fretting and do-do-doing, and then zoning and resting and just not caring. Back and forth I swing all day long, and more often than I'd like I wake up in the middle of the night and start listing things in my head.

I keep trying to tell myself that I have time. That no matter when this baby comes, it doesn't really matter what I get done right now. Life will continue after October, and though it will be so so different again, I will adjust. I will still have me, my own interests and passions, my own wants and must-dos. Of course I am telling myself this because a part of my brain has decided that after October, my life is over. That I will never again have time to write, or pursue my own dreams. But I've had one child. I know it's that way for a while, and then it's not completely like that anymore. So I keep talking myself down from that particular ledge.

I tell myself: take a rest. You have time. Someday, someday...

34 Weeks

These pictures are actually from two weeks ago, when we were in Washington and I was 32 weeks, but you get the idea.

It's incredible what people will say to you when you're pregnant. My husband thinks I take the comments overly seriously, but I tell him he has no idea how many I respond to kindly. I understand how impressive it is to see what basically looks like a belly the size of a small human being strapped onto another body. I get it. I'm pretty amazed by it too.

But then there are those comments so unbelievable you wonder how these people make it through a day exhibiting so little tact. The species must be more forgiving than we sometimes assume. For example, the other day in the pool locker room, a stranger asked me how much weight I've gained. Seriously. The look on my face prompted her to follow up with: "or is that an inappropriate question?" Yeah...

Yesterday, when I dipped into the jacuzzi to warm up after swimming laps, a woman accosted me: "are you sure it's safe to be in here? what about the baby?" Even after I told her it was fine, she continued to mutter how she wouldn't do it. I snapped and told her I had a doctor already, thank you very much.

And then there was the barista at a Starbucks in Seattle who exclaimed: "Oh my God! When were you due?" Mikhail was there for that one and informed the man that in pregnant-lady speak, he just said: "you are incomprehensibly gigantic." The man then pointed to my protruding belly button and said, "But you popped. Doesn't that mean you're done, like a turkey?" Let's just say he only got away with this because he was clearly gay, so I'm guessing he's not used to dealing with hormonal women. But I did advise him he better be careful with that line of questioning, especially when the pregnant lady in question hasn't had her caffeine yet. Some of us can be a little grumpy.

ready for home

where we are now - so beautiful

I've always loved travel. But being gone for more than half of this August has been a bit much for me. At 32 weeks pregnant, my homing instinct is strong. I crave my own dishes in the sink, my own groceries (or lack of) in the fridge, my own bed (even if I do need to figure out how to soften it up for my aching-preggo hips). People have been good to me while we do our family-visiting; everyone has been helping me as much as possible. But I can feel in my bones that it is time to be home, to settle in, to give into the nesting instincts and my lists of projects, home and writing, swimming laps as frequently as possible and watching the seasons change from summer to Indian summer to autumn.

Pregnant with Elan, I felt this need to be off the road at 34 weeks, when we traveled north for a baby shower. So this time it has come sooner. But so many aspects of this pregnancy have been different from the first time around. It's all about constantly letting go of expectations. Like parenthood in general.

Soon we will be homeward-bound. I am hoping that coming home and starting up a more regular rhythm will help me regain some vitality and creativity, both of which have been mostly in hibernation this month as I pour so much energy into the outward-focused acts of travel and family visiting.

All The Rest Is Just Icing

30 weeks

Warning: this post involves vomit. You might want to put down your sandwich.

I might have mentioned before that I am not a puker. I have not vomited in 22 years, except when I was in labor with Elan, and labor doesn't count. I have weathered three 3-month-long bouts of terrible morning-sickness, garden-variety food poisoning in Mexico, a few instances of being room-spinningly drunk, and several severe cases of various third-world intestinal parasites without ever actually throwing up.

Sometimes I thought I'd feel better if I could just puke, and I'd try to make myself. One of those happened many years ago in New York City, in the middle of the night, when I woke up with a head cold several days before my friend Meg's wedding (I was her maid of honor) and took a zinc tablet on an empty stomach. Several hours of cold-sweat nausea later, in desperation I stuck my finger down my throat, activated a reflex that drops your blood pressure, and passed out cold on the bathroom floor. When I came to, Mikhail and Meg were crouched over me. It turned out that on the way down, I managed to hit my cheek on the edge of the sink, though I did miss cracking my head on the tub or landing in the kitty litter by several inches each. For the wedding, I sported a thin cut running from the side of my mouth to my chin that made me look like a pirate, a hugely swollen cheek, and a head cold. Luckily, Meg had a good make-up artist.

It is a point of pride in my father's family: we are not pukers. When I got my 3-hour glucose tolerance test a few weeks ago (pregnant lady torture involving 15 hours of fasting, drinking a disgusting beverage chock-full of sugar, and 4 blood draws in 3 hours), the technician warned me I might throw up, and if I did, they would have to start the test again. "Don't worry," I said. "I won't throw up."

"You'd be surprised," he said. "Women say that all the time, and then they do." This guy also kept going on about how the time was flying by, just flying by those hours of fasting and blood draws. I really wanted to say something rude to him, but he kept sticking needles in my veins so I kept my mouth shut.

And so, a few days ago when I was visiting Meg in New York City and I started to feel nauseous, I went into the bathroom fully expecting that nothing would happen. At worst it would be those fun dry heaves that I remembered so well from my last love affair with morning-sickness. "If you need to throw up, just do it in the sink," Meg, that veteran of four morning-sickness-filled pregnancies, called after me. I practically laughed to myself. Yeah, right. Who do you think you're talking to?

Except. Then. It happened. I threw up. It happened so fast I barely had time to register it, though thankfully I got my hair out of my face. Before I knew it, I was sitting on the toilet seat panting, moaning and feeling a little bit better, while simultaneously thinking that is so gross I'm glad I never do it. I was shocked and confused. What was wrong with me: food poisoning, a sudden virus? And why now, when so many times I had felt much worse?

I was also worried. I had a taxicab, 2 trains, and a car ride in front of me before I got back to my aunt's house in New Jersey. Thankfully I was not traveling alone with Elan, who tends to get fussy whenever I do not feel well. My parents were with me and they managed to keep him fairly distracted from his mother stretched prone across three train seats. Occasionally Elan would come check on me, and I would try to sound sufficiently peppy so that he wouldn't get much more worried than he already was.

Then I puked on the train, as I walked down the aisle, in front of several people sitting innocently in their seats. My mom told the man nearest "you might want to move" and he gratefully scurried out of the way, while offering his help if we needed it. The woman nearby averted her face and entire body away from the scene I made, retching over a sturdy Meg-supplied plastic bag. When the train stopped and the passengers made their way down the aisle, I even managed to turn myself slightly out of the way for them to pass. It might be that public puking ranked as one of my worst embarrassment-fears; I suppose now I have conquered that one.

The next time was back at my aunt's house, and that kicked off a sleepless night of low-grade fever, all-body aches, and most worryingly, non-stop Braxton Hicks contractions. Via phone my midwife reassured me that it is very rare for a stomach bug to start up pre-term labor, but some time after midnight, when the contractions were coming every 3-4 minutes, I started to consider going to the hospital. I was so afraid for this baby, afraid of having something go wrong after making it so far. I didn't really think I was actually in labor, but I was worried I might miss some key signal from my body that something irreversible had begun. I kept thinking of those stories that start: I thought it was just X but it turned out to be Y. I have finally allowed myself to become attached to this baby kicking and kneeing and fluttering inside me; I don't want to have one of those stories.

My father, a doctor himself, thought we could try waiting a few hours. Sometime in those hours, I hazily remembered that lying on your left side was the best position for blood flow to the uterus. I managed to turn myself over without puking, and the contractions lengthened out to every 10 minutes. Despite still feeling terrible, I was incredibly relieved. A few hours later, I finally managed to fall asleep, and when I woke up, the worst was over.

The next day, as I stayed in bed and started to recover, I decided something. For the next 10 weeks, I do not care what I accomplish or don't accomplish, so long as this baby is healthy. I don't care if I get to all or any of the writing goals I have listed in my head, or if the nesting projects turn from fantasy to reality. In the few weeks before this trip, I was feeling stressed about trying to GET EVERYTHING DONE before the baby comes. So much to do, so little time and energy. But crisis tends to clarify what's truly important. The only truly important thing for me to do in the next 10 weeks is to grow this baby and take care of myself. Take care of both of us. All the rest is just icing on the cake.

Now that I'm home, still not feeling tip-top but with all my lists and aspirations and worries more present, I thought I should write that down and post it on my wall. And so I did the kind of 10-minute art project I never do, with a Sharpie pen and Elan's watercolors.

Because it is.

Now Where Did I Put That Nuclear Warhead?

I think of myself as a fairly reliable person. I don't generally forget appointments or flake on people, though I do tend to run 5-10 minutes late, an inherited trait I blame on my mother (Hi Mom, are you reading the blog these days?). However, pregnancy mush brain has descended upon me with a vengeance. In the last few weeks, I have forgotten several appointments. I either wrote down the wrong time or never wrote them on my calender at all.

In this morning's example, I wrote the right time for my midwife appointment in my notes then transferred the wrong time to my computer calender. It's technologically complicated screwing up!

I forgot the combination to my lock at the gym, a lock I've used several times a week for the last year and a half. I tried combinations for an hour, even writing them down on a piece of paper, sitting in my bathing suit with a towel wrapped around me, before I finally gave up and had them cut the lock off. Then I bought a programmable lock with only 4 digits - fewer numbers to forget!

I forgot the end of the e-course I was enrolled in, which means that I never got to read the last few posts. (I remembered at 6 a.m. the following day and am hoping that the course teacher will cut me slack, given that she's pregnant too!)

Who knows what else I've forgotten, and not yet remembered that I've forgotten?

This certain level of spaciness leaves me with a floating feeling, like I'm not quite tethered to my normal life. I'm not particularly upset with myself; it just seems like another unavoidable pregnancy side effect, like being tired or having sciatica.

I'm not just dropping things figuratively; it's literal too. Yesterday, in one of those stunning chains of poorly-timed events, I dropped a glass bowl, which bounced on the slate countertop and then shattered on the slate floor, scattering glass shards all over the lower level of the house. Which meant that I had to send Elan upstairs just before Mikhail had a phone interview, so Elan was screaming and I was starving and my back hurt (the aforementioned sciatica) and I had to clean up the glass which of course was EVERYWHERE but I was that kind of pregnant-hungry where you're lightheaded and all you can think about is eating. And so I brought Elan his milk, read him a story, put him in "quiet time," sent Mikhail over to the neighbor's house so that there wouldn't be 3-year-old screaming in the background of his call, and then I could finally sit down on a barstool in the middle of the shattered glass and eat my tuna fish sandwich.

It was a really good sandwich.

This prenatal forgetfulness is common. A pregnant friend of mine confessed she forgot her 20-week ultrasound. That made me feel better. According to BabyCenter, no one knows why women tend to be more forgetful during pregnancy, or even if they actually do suffer real short-term memory loss, as opposed to just having the perception that they're flakier. Certainly growing a human being inside your body can distract you from life's everyday tasks (trying to remember that third item you needed at the grocery store as someone karate-chops your cervix from the inside). It's good training for parenthood, as you attempt to have a coherent conversation with someone from the credit card company while your child freaks out because he wants to watch Super Why and Curious George is on the TV.

I liked this advice from BabyCenter:

"Forgetfulness may be your cue to simplify your life. Easier said than done, of course. But you don't absolutely have to wallpaper that room you've been meaning to get to for a while now. Or clean all your closets just because a new baby is arriving. This sort of self-imposed stress, part of the feverish nesting that women often get into before a birth, can lead you to forget things."

I think BabyCenter is peeking at my to-do-before-baby-arrives list.

My current absent-mindedness forces me to not sweat the small stuff. Mikhail reassures me that I'm not going to forget our child, and that is the most important thing. Which child? I ask. But it's true - I won't forget them. The one out of the womb is too loud to forget, and the one inside the womb has taken to some major kicking and hiccups in the past few days, disabusing me of the notion that he/she is a mellow, sleepy baby.

For what it's worth, I'm keeping a careful eye on my calender. Practicing the art of forgiving myself for mistakes small and large. And by all means, if there's something you know I shouldn't forget, please remind me.

By the way, today is Mikhail and my 7th wedding anniversary. I remembered as soon as I woke up.

Moments, Lake Tahoe

Spend the afternoon. You can't take it with you.

-Annie Dillard

Lake Tahoe, 23 weeks

We spent a few days at Lake Tahoe with my parents, aka Nana & Babu, my sister Laura, brother-in-law Jason and their 9-month-old son Judah.

Laura, Jason & Judah

Judah and Elan are a study in contrasts. Judah is a great sleeper and loves to eat. Need I say more?

"Dude, can I have some of those?"

Judah covets Elan's crackers.

The boys are wearing my favorite kiddo hooded towels. They're super-soft, warm enough to take away a post-swim chill, breathable enough to play in, UPF 50, and if you want one in pink, they're on sale right now.

Elan slept across the hall from Judah. Guess who got up 6 times per night?

Drink of choice: Judah, baby sleeper extraordinaire, chugs his bottle while Nana sips her wine

Elan went bodysurfing in the lake. Which was not warm. His lips turned quite a lovely shade of purple. The water might have looked tropical, but it felt like snowmelt run-off. What is it that makes kids immune to cold when they're having fun?

Babu as lifeguard

Hope your weekend is filled with memorable moments.

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Moments is a weekly challenge I'm setting for myself, an opportunity to reflect on and capture all those little moments that make up life. If you'd like to join me in this blog challenge by starting your own Moments series, please do! It's not just for parents. If you do take this blog challenge, please link back here.