From Fetus to Baby

I started his blog entry last week when baby was scheduled for be born on 11/21 (that’s today!) but he surprised us by demanding to come out on Saturday (11/16). I’ll be updating with that story soon.

Dear Baby,

Your dad and I joke around about if it’s possible to anthropomorphize you with statements like, “The baby likes pudding!” or “The baby is mad and showing his anger by kicking me in the cervix.” On the one hand you are human and you surely have little fetus wants and feelings but I have no way of knowing what they might be. Your kicking could be happy or sad or indifferent. Right now I know very little about you beyond the normal baby stuff -- you won’t know how to use a toilet, you can’t dress yourself, you need someone to feed you every few hours, you will need a lot of help with pretty much everything. But I’ve made some guesses based on your in womb behavior and documented them here. I can’t wait to see how right or wrong I am.

Things I knew about you before you were born:

• You will not turn over. Maybe you can’t. Maybe you don’t know where the womb exit is located. Maybe sitting on your butt is just so comfortable. Maybe you didn’t know about turning over. Hopefully you’re not panicking (though an apology when you get here would be nice I’m not counting on one).  It’s cool, we’re gonna get you out. 
• You hang out on my right side so much that sometimes I can push my hand down hard into the left side of my belly and it just sinks into the squishy flesh where no baby parts live. 
• You push your head up against the top of my uterus so vigorously that all 3 of the the ultrasound techs that we’ve seen in the past 3 weeks can never get a picture of your face.  
• You’re sitting in a position called “stargazer breech” though the breech part keeps changing -- some days you’re squatting on your heels, others you have your legs crossed, yesterday you had one foot dangling down. We saw one tech two weeks in a row and she didn’t recognize Geoff or I but as soon as she put the probe on my belly and saw you staring up at the top of my womb she exclaimed, “Oh! I remember you!”
• You will be born on or before 11/21/2013 but c-section because pushing you out butt first with your head tilted back is likely to injure you.
• You’ve been putting on the pounds in the last 2 weeks -- there’s some guessing here but the ultrasounds tech estimates a 1.25lb weight gain in 14 days that’s over a 20% increase in body weight! I think we might know who was demanding chocolate pudding this week -- I thank you for storing the calories yourself.

Assumptions I made about you:

• You will have little to no hair -- this is just because your dad and I were both hairless babies and so we assume you will be the same but on one ultrasound the tech pointed out some hair so we may be wrong.

Things I hope for you:

• I hope your neck is ok. Everyone says it probably is but you’re also holding your head weird and it worries me just a little bit. Apparently your cousin Zayden also had a hyperextended neck and while he was born with a mass in his neck it turned out to just be muscle trauma from the birth canal and he’s more than fine now.
• I hope you will like nursing and not be too much of a pain about it -- I know I’ve done nothing to earn an easy baby since you made pregnancy such a breeze (though I think my body deserves a little bit of credit there) but hope doesn’t care about what it’s due. 
• On that same note I hope you inherit your dad and I’s love for sleep. We could all have such lovely naps together; don’t ruin this. 
• I hope you will look a little like me and a little like your dad. I would love it if you had something super obvious from me -- I’d recommend my dimple over, say, my not so great eye sight.

Jinx

What has pregnancy been like so far?

Easy.

So easy that I worry about some karmic pregnancy due that must be paid through a designated amount of pain and, since I’ve had it easy so far, the last 3 months and the (*gulp*) birth are bound to be as awful as possible.

I have had no morning sickness though I do have the occasional urge to throw up when I contemplate the enormity of birth and parenting. So far everything has stayed down save a few tears.

I’m sleeping pretty well even with the frequent bathroom trips -- so well in fact that I have caught myself starting to doze while perched on the commode sometime around 3am. Once I drag myself back to bed I’m on the express train to dreamland faster than I ever was pre-pregnancy.

I have had a few bouts of the drowsies -- mostly in the beginning, all were met with copious couch time, which was fine -- I have Netflix streaming and an iPad, the couch and I get along great.

My ankles are still as (un)svelte as ever, my belly bares no dark line, I’ve had no fainting spells, no aversions to smells, no midnight cravings, no achy joints. I know I am getting away with something and that if ever a blogpost needed a “jinx” label here it is.

Honestly, this is exactly how I would have predicted pregnancy would go for me (had I the cajones to tempt fate like that). Perhaps it was the years of battles struggling to fit birthing hips into skinny jeans that cemented my internal belief that I would be spared the months of agony that many women seem to slog through only to be rewarded with a screaming infant.

There has been one challenge of pregnancy over the past few months -- weight gain. I could have also predicted this outcome -- my birthing hips love nothing more than to become even more birthing. Staying this side of chubby has been a battle I’ve fought (mostly successfully) for years and I always knew that pregnancy would be the enemy’s secret weapon.

When I started to seriously think about getting pregnant I entertained the idea of tracking calories through the entire pregnancy to maintain a sense of control and, hopefully, avoid packing on too many pounds. Once I actually became pregnant this idea seemed absurd. In addition to the fact that doing this would make me look insane (which I might have sort of enjoyed) it would have also meant continuing to feel guilty for eating things, and I desperately wanted a break.

Things seemed great at the start -- up through month 3 I gained 0 pounds.

At month 4 the doctor said, “The weight was going to show up sometime.”

At month 5, “Ok, now you’ve caught up to normal weight gain.”

At month 6, “So let’s talk about your diet.”

Looking on the bright side there have, possibly, been enough tears shed over the past few days to bring me down at least a pound in “water weight”. But I fear upcoming conversations like “Does the grocery store near your apartment have any ice cream left or did you eat it all?” “Did you feel that earthquake when you walked in?” and “MOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!”

The main problem is that I have only two eating modes:

1. Eat the things I want which includes copious veggies and fruit padded with extra servings of ice cream and empty carbs. (Heavy on the copious -- I could managed to gain weight on an all raw veggie diet.) 
2. Eat as little as possible. 

As a result, all of my successful weight management in the past 10 years has been at the hands of 1200 calories per day and a spreadsheet. When you dip down to 1200 two things are almost always true:

1. You will lose weight 
2. Choices make themselves -- You probably can’t afford to eat whatever it is you would like to eat right now so put it down. 

It turns out that neither of my modes is particularly well suited for pregnancy.

I am loathe to make excuses about weight gain. Years of dieting have taught me that excuses rarely lead to solutions and you’re better off being hard on yourself. That said I do not know where this weight is coming from and I don’t really see it on my body (Extreme denial? Perhaps.). Additionally, if I’m going to be putting on mass poundage I would like to be eating a lot more pizza slices, hamburgers, chocolate cake and milkshakes -- as things stand I seem to be gaining primarily due to bigger than average servings of pasta with kale. I’m sort of torn between really going to town on all of my dream foods (you only gestate once?) and getting serious about monitoring my food intake. But, ever the good little student, I can’t bring myself to disappoint my doctor with Big Mac rebellion -- defeated, I have taken up calorie tracking yet again.

Practical German Sense of Responsibility: 1
Hedonism : 0

My Biological Clock has Cold Feet

Despite my acute fear of getting knocked up I have always loved kids and though I was never one of those girls who listed "Mom" as my life's ambition (in fact I spent a good year mocking my brother because his pat 5 year old answer to "what do you want to be when you grow up?" was "A dad!" which, while cute was also ripe for 8 year old sister ridicule.) I did always think that I eventually wanted to reproduce if only because taking myself out of the gene pool could be considered an unfair attack on the future of the human race. You gotta respect the need of Darwinian evolution but as the expiration date on my ovaries looms I find myself more and more interested in selfishly spending all of what might have been diaper money on lavish vacations and booze (Ok, fine, we're not expiring over here. I'm 30, I know I have time but at most I have what? 7 years? 8? Honestly I think I need at least 10 just to mentally prepare for routinely having to get up before 8am on a Saturday).

Throughout high school and college I had reoccurring paranoid dreams about finding out I was 6 months pregnant the dreams appropriately ended with some serious freaking out and/or crying an/or getting grounded. My faith in birth control must have increased over the past few years because my dreams have ceased to resemble a surreal after school special despite a welcome upturn in activity likely to invite babies to my womb. But Monday night, deep in REM, my subconscious dreamed up a new version on the surprise bundle of horror craziness. In the dream I was happily going about my life when I suddenly remembered "Oh shit! I told Kajal I'd have twin babies for her and now I'm 4 months preggers!" Dream Brianna was deservedly annoyed with her expanding belly but in a striking bout of optimism decided that "at least I can go off birth control, it's probably bad for the babies anyway." Sadly, in the world of nightmares it turns out the you can get EXTRA PREGNANT and I quickly found out that in addition to Kajal's 6 month old twin fetuses my body was also home to a 3 month old fetus of my very own meaning I would be pregnant for an extra 3 months AND have to be a mom. Total bummer.

I never went through the all too common liberal college student "maybe I won't procreate at all!" stage. When friends would cringe at the possibility of crying and diapering and overpopulation I would counter with adorable baby shoes and reminders that babies grow up to be kids who will totally do chores for much less than minimum wage. I have always been the first person to volunteer for babysitting gigs or hanging out at the kids table and even today I can't help but dote on my niece to the point where my boyfriend occasionally feels a certain amount of present neglect come birthday season (things might improve if he'd just warm up to the concept of frilly dresses...). My deep desire to (someday) have kids has often made me super stressed out about my proverbially single status. I once even had a long phone conversation with my mother about how I would probably have to adopt a baby on my own since my poor sad pathetic whiny ass would never ever ever find a boy to lover her. I was 24 so you can understand my concern (I believe this was the same year that my EIGHTEEN YEAR OLD cousin commented that she thought it was sad that I would never have kids. You know, because I was a dried up old hag).

These days I know a lot of new mommies all of whom, unlike the mommies I knew in high school, are having bundles of joy under socially acceptable circumstances and their babies are cute and not on food stamps and very rarely annoying. My baby love has not waned and I love spending an hour or so eating their bellies and making monster faces until they giggle, but, unlike all of the babies I've thought about in my years of paranoia and day dreaming... these babies are REAL. Watching close friends of mine go through pregnancy and birth and motherhood has made the idea of babies suddenly very daunting. There came a point 7 months or so into one friend's pregnancy when I suddenly realized "Oh! She's going to have a baby! And it's going to be around all of the time. FUCK." This is when the new and improved freaking out started.

It's not that I no longer peer into my future and smile at the idea of a little blond haired terror of my own, it's that the future is coming at me at warp speed. The irony of waiting for babies until you're financially and emotionally ready is that when one really starts to think seriously about the reality of babies it becomes clear that no one in their right mind is EVER ready for this insanity. I'm convinced that almost all babies are born out of ignorance or denial. As far as I can tell the "Where to babies come from?" monologue should be edited so that it reflects reality:

When two people love each other very much and they pray really hard they slowly lose their minds and then they decide to go off of birth control and bring a child into the world. This child will make them stay home every night and spend all of their money on tiny spit up rags and environmentally conscious diapers and breast pumps and these two people will never again have a good excuse to spend $150 on one sushi dinner.

'Tis the Season for an Immaculate Conception

Warning: The following post makes reference to a certain biological process that happens to women. If you are a squeamish boy (especially if you are a squeamish boy who works with me) you may want to consider the back button your friend.

I have had roughly 80 pregnancy scares over the course of my 29 years. Most of these occurred before I actually participated in the key activity that causes pregnancy. As a teenager I did not consider this sure fire proof that I was not with child because it seemed likely that God would totally deal out an immaculate conception willy nilly just to ruin my life. I already knew for a fact that the big man hated me because I was already cursed with incredibly weak nails, parents who insisted on talking with me honestly about S-E-X (there is no scarier phrase than “Well, your father and I…”) and an inability to hide my gift for math.

You see health class made me crazy. In addition to the joys of carrying around 10lbs of flour dressed up in a frilly pink dress health class also taught me all of the following:

1. Drugs are bad.
2. Getting pregnant is incredibly easy, it could happen at any moment and it will RUIN EVERYTHING.
3. You should get your magical girl visit once ever 28 days because women are somehow linked to the cycles of the moon, just like werewolves.
4. If you do not get your magical girl visit by day 28.5 you’re probably having bastard triplets.

Here are some things that are actually true

1. A LOT of girls in my high school got pregnant.
2. You have to have sex to get pregnant and the sex usually needs to involve 2 people
3. Some girls (who are obsessed with schedules and things being on time and who also have a primal fear of pregnancy and who also shall remain nameless) actually get their special friend once every 45 or so days (some special friends are not very prompt).
4. 1+2+3 = FREAKING OUT

This is how things usually go down.

Day 26: Begin expecting visitor in case she’s early

Day 28, 12:15am: No visitor. Try not to panic.

Day 29: Remind self 15 times that it takes two to make a baby

Day 32: Admire cute baby outfit in window of store, consider buying it in an attempt to look on the bright side because clearly I am pregnant.

Day 34: Have little chat with God about more appropriate wombs to host the second coming.

Day 37: Wake up hyperventilating. Decide this is probably not good for the baby, try to calm down.

Day 40: Mix some whiskey into my coffee. Take that baby.

Day 43: Begin adopting pregnancy posture (wide stance, leaning back slightly, hand resting on belly)

Day 45: Oh right. Hi, totally not pregnant. Woo.

And then one day I went on the pill. The pill is magic. Suddenly I had special friend visits scheduled down to the hour! It was amazing. (I wish they made a pill that could make people this prompt then I could slip into drinks all over town.) But last month I forgot to refill my prescription and now? Let’s just say I’m lucky to be in a dry spell or I might have already gotten out Missy Flourbag for a little mommy practice.