Monthly Archives: August 2011

Let’s Just Get the Topic of Morning Sickness Out of the Way

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I really hate to give the topic of morning sickness more than its due. Nausea is the enemy. The best way to fight it is to continue with life as usual and give it no chance to stake my day as its territory. If you surrender to it, it wins. My husband – a very caring, compassionate person who has pulled out a new level of patience towards me and my pregnant complaints –  surprised me by being really pleased when I told him fortitude and resistance was going to be my philosophy towards morning sickness. I would’ve guessed that he’d assure me that I’m allowed to feel however I feel and not harbor guilt about it.  I think he just betrayed his own willingness for me to be nice and normal again! XD

But since I’m experiencing the first trimester of my pregnancy, nausea has become this defining force that I am aware of even when I don’t feel that bad. You always have to be on the lookout for it. If I get up in the morning and feel fantastic, I can pretty much be assured that it’s going to be a horrible day. I’ll be sitting there, having gotten through breakfast, the laundry, showering, and I’ll be ready to start in on a project for the day, and then – WHAM! – nausea and all its cohorts (dizziness, smell sensitivity, exhaustion) will burst out with the fervency and tyrannical horror of a velociraptor. And I’ll be about as pissed as said velociraptor because my day is now going to be devoted to lying on the couch and watching M*A*S*H all day on my non-cable-equipped television.

Or is it? That’s the thing – it comes and goes. When I started this post I felt a case of the pregnancy miseries coming on, but now they seem to have passed. But this means nothing. Nausea has been just too flippin’ fickle for me.  Sometimes it goes on without cease for days on end and other times I seem to be in the clear for whole weekends. I resent the fact that my hijacked body prevents me from making plans for when I can cook or paint a picture or have a conversation with my best friend without bursting into tears.

Another grievance. Because I feel entitled to complain about every single aspect of nausea simply because I am pregnant, ornery, and irrational, I have a bone to pick with the inconsistent frequency of nausea. I resent the fact that I feel like there’s something wrong with the pregnancy when I actually feel functional. All the books with Q&A say that nausea affects everyone differently. Some people are heaving day and night for the entire pregnancy, while others get none of it at all. (I would conjecture that that latter may actually be worse because then you have an “I didn’t know I was pregnant” case on your hands.) I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: no matter how much the book encourages you not to worry, you can’t stop worrying until you have a healthy, sweet, little baby in your arms. When I feel good, I pray for my blessed nausea to return because then I know all is well with Bebe. And when it’s there, I feel sad for my sorry self.

No win, all the way. Except maybe, just maybe, all this annoying crap will be put into perspective when my little Bebe comes. I’m pretty sure (s)he’ll be worth it.

Decorating!

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We don’t know the sex of the baby yet, but we are planning on definitely finding out. In the meantime, I really wanted to start working on some decorations for the baby’s room. My husband has several Babar the Elephant books from when he was growing up and they inspired me to create some Babar art of my own! I think Babar is pretty gender-neutral and awfully sweet so these will work in the baby’s room no matter what it ends up being.

Babar and his family. I realize Babar kind of turned out looking like Weegee, but I think the baby elephants redeem it. I mean, seriously, baby elephants. How could my baby not be happy when (s)he sees this?!

Babar reading. I think I like this one the most. I want that chair!

I’m really loving these! They are all fairly small so I’m planning on doing several (or twenty) more to fill in the gaps.


A New Kind of Crazy

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The first thing I did when I found out I was pregnant was go to the library and check out nearly every book I could on pregnancy, birthing options, and pregnancy recipes. The first thing I noticed when I started reading the books I took out was that nearly all of them cater to very specific corners of the whole pregnancy gamut. Some cater to moms-to-be who want to know every single minute detail about the science of their baby’s development. These kinds of books are awesome in their scope but can honestly be hard to get through when you’re in the grips of first trimester exhaustion and have a hard time keeping your eyes open. Definitely bedside reading.

Others are more like good ol’ syndicated advice columns where the anxieties of moms are quelled in language that I can’t help but guess would be similar to Benjamin Franklin’s if he had ever expanded his expertise to pregnancy. Just comforting, *generally* solid advice that is useful but for sure shouldn’t be left completely unexamined. I’ll accept that you should probably cut back on your Starbucks Doubleshot habit during pregnancy, but sorry, I find little reassurance in the claim that I can continue cleaning my bathroom with noxious chemicals as long as I turn on a fan and sit down if I get dizzy. I think the number of unpronounceable chemicals on the side of the Ajax confirms that I shouldn’t have them in the house at any time, especially when a tiny little baby is a-brewin’.

Then there are what I will call the “special interest” pregnancy books that tend to discuss making your pregnancy organic, having a natural birth, and choosing green options for your pregnancy and birth. There is definitely a need for this kind of information among all maternity literature as they examine a lot of the aspects of pregnancy – such as delivery, diapers, and the other products you may use during this time – that in the past were not considered up for debate. But here’s the deal: many of these kinds of books open up on the defensive and kind of scare/guilt you into following their guidelines. I mean, you probably should – there’s no question about that – but we pregnant ladies are already overwhelmed enough and don’t need any extra worries and feelings of guilt that we’re failing miserably because the idea of having an epidural has crossed our minds or we don’t want to drive fifteen miles out of our way to go to the good grocery store that has organic produce. I suppose also that lately I’ve been a little overwhelmed with what I’m reading and viewing about the state of prenatal care in our country and how at-odds the health care seems to be with whatI consider to be common sense, and it kind of freaks me out that I may not be able to afford the kind of birthing experience I want.

By-and-large, reading any type of pregnancy book is good because it indicates that you are not going to stand idly by while your little baby grows in you. You are educating yourself and arming yourself with information that will make sense out of your pregnancy. Blah blah blah.

OK, here’s why you should really read pregnancy books, especially when you’re like me and enjoy a nice drive through Crazy Town when time permits: some of the things these books say and suggest you should do during your pregnancy are absolutely bonkers. And you never see them coming! You’ll be reading a nice book about dealing with your emotions when you’re preggo and then all of a sudden the author will tell you a story about how she went to a party during her pregnancy and felt like her privacy was being invaded when the bartender at the party was taken aback and clearly conflicted when she ordered a full-strength margherita for her and her husband to share. Well, yeah, lady! I can’t say I’m all that comfortable that you think I’m on your side on this one!

I’ve noticed that the popular books can be more fertile ground for these little gems of wacko, maybe because they’re geared at a broader demographic to whom crazy is subjective. So maybe my next example won’t shock you as much as it did me, but for that I would really like to know where the heck you’re coming from. I will say that this next part does make reference to female genitalia and the existence of sex (you knew it was coming – you are pregnant) so put on your little earmuffs if you have any objections.

Nearly all books (and OB-GYNs, and mothers, and friends) discuss the topic of Kegels with you, which are the exercises you perform to strengthen your pelvic floor in preparation for the end of your pregnancy and the birth. Performing them throughout pregnancy also allegedly snaps your vagina back to its pert self after the birth in a more timely fashion; we’ll see on that one. When you perform your Kegel exercises, you basically contract and relax your pelvic floor muscles alternately.

Now, as doing Kegel exercises isn’t exactly like doing crunches, at one point or another everyone wonders, “Am I doing this right?” Well, one super great tip I got from one very successful pregnancy book suggested that if you are wondering if you are doing your exercises correctly, you should start performing them during sex and ask your partner if he can feel the pressure. Seriously. You’ve gotta feel for the men whose nutso partners interrupt the scant sex they’re having during the first trimester for a confirmation that their vagina exercises are being implemented correctly. I don’t even want to imagine the dialog that would take place during this exchange. Can’t we all just agree that if you’re peeing and you can cut it off mid-stream, you’re doing your Kegels correctly?

For a week and a half or so, I was feeling overwhelmed with being pregnant so I shelved all my books and just tried to relax. It definitely helped to safely distance myself from these books for a time, but thank God I finally went back to them. A trip to Crazy Town every once in awhile does one good!

Food Feud

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My husband and I recently moved to rural North Carolina (actually, I guess it’s not really all that rural, strictly speaking, but it is quite a departure from our last three home cities: Seoul, Chicago, and Memphis) because he took a job teaching English at a local college. When we came here, the question of what I would do as far as work was a hot topic, but we settled on me taking some time off and during that time *hopefully* get pregnant. For us, it didn’t make a lot of sense to buy another car, which we would need because the scant public transportation in our town doesn’t extend to where we live. With an additional car, I could then go on interviews that may or may not yield a job that I would have to take time off from essentially immediately after starting. So the plan was for me to hold down the fort at home by preparing delicious food, taking care of bills and budgeting, and working to make our home more green – an interest we’ve had for a long time and are now able to start really implementing. The last box had literally been unpacked days before I missed my period, took the test, and realized I was pregnant. Our bodies really were more efficient than we ever could’ve thought. Only two and a half months after starting to try for a baby, one was making itself at home. For once in our lives, our plan was working, maybe a little too well.

In the last five  years or so, food had become a pretty big part of my life. Soon after I got married, I quit my job writing copy for an industrial supply catalog and went to work at a three-star restaurant in the Chicago suburbs. I had several reasons for this. One, because there’s only so much you can say about foam insulation and sheet metal and it’s difficult convincing one’s superior of this when said superior is quite possible a certifiable lunatic. (I feel like this needs expounding on; maybe someday!) Two, because I had just discovered how roasting a tomato really makes it taste good. I had the sneaking suspicion that not only tomatoes but other foods could too taste good if they were properly prepared. Amazing. Three, I could do it. I had never waited a table before but I just wanted to. So I went to my new job and learned to love love love food and wine, and I learned to really appreciate the expertise needed to prepare it properly. I never intended to become a chef myself, but as I am continuing to understand even more to this day, you don’t have to go the whole way with a new interest in order to profess it and to perform it well. So I started making new things at home with ingredients I had seldom if ever used before, and I loved it and my husband loved it too.

Before we moved to North Carolina, I was beyond excited to finally have the time and energy to explore tons of new recipes I had been wanting to try for a long time, and when we arrived it was a food bonanza every day. My husband was (and still is) an endless encouragement. Nearly every meal we sat down to he deemed “the best ever.” When we ate we discussed the food, compared how it was better than what we had experienced before, what we might change for next time, or how we might improvise and fuse the dish with something else. Then the news of the pregnancy came and we went gung-ho trying new dishes saturated with folate and other good things for our baby’s developing organs. The first week was great. Brussels sprouts, asparagus, kale salad along with numerous other tasty dishes that tasted extra yummy because they were going towards our baby’s awesomeness. Sheesh, what are these women talking about wanting to eat garbage food for the first trimester? That was the first week.

Then reality set in.

Just writing this makes me queasy. No more Brussels sprouts, asparagus, and kale, please. Vom-it. Can’t handle it. Soups of nearly all types are out because they smell and taste like pee. Recently to be added to my shit list is chicken, which now just wreaks of bad eggs and is far too slimy and wretched. I can do beef, but only in flecks and it has to be high-end and natural colored. The only green thing that is palatable right now is that green-dyed ketchup and, on a good day, spinach. And by “on a good day” I mean a 20-minute window within that day. I seem to be OK with dairy products, but I’m just waiting for those to become nauseating for me too. Nearly everything I eat has to be drowned in Tabasco sauce, possibly because the atomic heat detracts from any real flavor I could glean from the meal. Whole grain breads and grains are sadly shelved for now, too.

The other day while watching TV, a commercial for one of Pizza Hut’s newer heart attack-inducing concoctions – the P’zone – elicited from me an ordinarily bizarre response: desire. I told my husband and he just said, “Yeah, if you’re definitely pregnant.” It’s a sad day at my house.

I feel as though I am at war with food and cooking, two things that have meant a lot to me for a long time. This time in our new home that I looked forward to for so long simply because I would finally have time to cook the way I wanted to is virtually being ruined by my first trimester food and odor aversion. It’s making more of a psychological impact than I would’ve thought, which I guess is just the fleshing-out of yet another early pregnancy woe: weepiness and moodiness. Sometimes I feel as though I’ve ruined a lot of my favorite foods and will never want to eat them again because I made the mistake of trying to prepare and eat them during this first trimester.

I’m going ahead the only way I really can, though. The way of optimism and the knowledge that in a few weeks the first trimester will be long gone and I will be able to eat like an adult again and not like the picky child who I am determined not to raise.

Hello, World!

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When I think about it, it’s kind of ridiculous that I am announcing my arrival to the world of blogging with such pomp and ceremony when in not-so-many months, I am going to push out a new person from my loins whose arrival will be roughly one hundred times more monumental.  So far, one of the first impressions that I’ve gotten from being pregnant is that although it’s a pretty normal thing that nearly everyone has an experience with – whether they’ve given birth themselves, known someone who’s had a baby, or just been born themselves – it’s nonetheless bizarre, unearthly, and miraculous. Your body is taken over by something else, something (which, in my case) I doubted would ever actually come. I wasn’t afraid that I wouldn’t conceive because I had any health risks that would pose a risk to me and my husband conceiving, but because the odds of conception as detailed in most pregnancy books are so insanely delicate and infinitely subject to factors no layperson could comprehend. Conception is nebulous, shrouded in mystery. When my husband and I decided it was finally time to try to get pregnant, I looked to books for real advice that would not fail me, and I soon realized I wan’t going to find any comfort in doing all that they prescribed to up our chances of conception because you simply don’t have comfort until the test comes back positive. And then you have a whole new set of tensions, both mental and physical, to deal with.

But against all odds – which may or may not have been there in the first place – I am now expecting. I had planned on making this blog months before I got pregnant. As I’ll turn 30 on my next birthday but certainly don’t feel as though I am equipped with all the skills and knowledge “necessary” to press on into adulthood with the vigor of a Power Woman, my original project was going to be learning to do all the things that I felt I should be proficient in at that point in time. For instance, I never learned to properly keyboard nor do I have a solid understanding of the American insurance system. Both are things that one might argue are not necessary for the daily living of a fulfilling life, but hey, I want to know because it really would make my life easier. So the original idea was for me to learn all those things I should have learned up to this point and then chronicle the humbling experience.

But now it just seems like pregnancy trumps all that. I mean, I’ve got this little guy or girl in me. IN me. I know I asked for it, but my body has been hijacked. And it’s hard to get up in the morning and want to run the typing wizard when you’re experiencing low-grade pregnancy misery, expecting at any moment that you might start heaving. So for the next few weeks, I’ll just be lying low contemplating my undeniable blessing and my new understanding of why what I’m going through right now really is such a big deal.