3 posts tagged “pregnancy”

1) I feel like pregnancy has robbed me of my mind. I'm reduced to complaining about my kumquat-sized bladder, outgrowing maternity clothes, and how I'm eating everything in sight, then getting wicked heartburn.

2) Satsuma mandarins are local and in season and I'm consuming them at an alarming rate.  If Veruca Salt turned round and blue, it's only a matter of time before my skin becomes orange, and not from a spray-tan gone awry.

3) I see people running and I'm jealous.  This will be really funny when I actually do get to run in a few months and will be in complete and utter agony, hating every tortured moment as my lungs attempt respiration and my dormant muscles try to contract.

4) I have a Facebook stalker.  A woman whose name I vaguely recognize added me as a Friend.  After I looked at her profile I figured out I had gone to high school with her.  But, and I am quite certain about this, I've never in my life had a conversation with her or had friends in common.  So, I declined her request.  Then, a day later she tried to add me again. I don't know whether to decline her again or just leave her request in limbo. 

5) Feeling strangely distant and uninterested with the Inauguration.  Probably due to the fact that my usual enthusiasm for American politics was restrained, even throughout most of the election*.

6)  Otherwise, it's just business as usual.  Too much to do, too little time, though I'm still taking afternoon naps most days, just because if I don't A) I will OD my fetus on caffiene or B) I will be even more cantankerous...and no one wants that, trust me.

*Though that said, since I'm far from being a GWB fan, I am excited to start a new era of leadership.

Today two different mothers at my daughter's preschool pointed at my rounded belly and said, "You're pregnant!  I didn't know you were expecting!".  I guess the jig is up.  I have to come out of the closet as a Breeder.  It's a beautiful, natural, awesome experience to be pregnant, and in the privacy of my home I savor my baby's kicks and punches, and am excited we're getting closer to meeting her.  But, in public, it seems like an entirely different kind of attention that I'm not comfortable with.  I feel like I'm wearing a large sign proclaiming, "Yes, I procreate and my body is not my own right now."  In some ways I am excited that I'm now noticeably pregnant - after all, you can only hide the early, beer-gut-ish bulge under empire-waisted shirts so long, but there's something rather vulnerable in having your fertility on display.  Some strangers read it as a green light to stare, dispense advice, or most horrifying, invading your personal space by putting their hands on you like they're actually, somehow touching your baby.

The fascination is, for the most part, natural human curiosity.  No harm intended.  I mean what isn't fascinating about the fact that a living human being grows from microscopic to watermelon-sized all within a woman's abdomen. They call it a miracle for a reason.  Still, when you house that miracle sometimes you just wish you could wear a muu-muu and live undercover for just a little longer.

It goes something like this...

You’re pregnant and everyone tells you that your life is going to completely change when the baby arrives.  You nod. You understand on an intellectual level.  You map out when you’re going to return to work. You go about washing all those adorable little clothes in Dreft, preparing a ridiculously cute room that they won’t even remember, and counting the weeks and days.

Then, birth happens.  There’s all kinds of variation here in terms of how it happens, when it happens, how you handle it, how your husband/significant other/father of your child handles it, whether you have an epidural or not, vaginal or c-section, etc.  The bottom line is usually it’s a painful, extremely athletic, transcendent experience, and the cliché is true that when you look at your angelic child, the labor mostly fades into oblivion.  The love you feel is more powerful than anything else in the universe.

So, you try to breastfeed, because it’s the right thing to do.  It’ll come naturally, right?  Wrong.  Your baby doesn’t know how to do it, and neither do you, even though you took the 2-hour class on it, watched the video in birthing class, and read two books describing correct latch.  Your nipples are chewed raw, your baby is hungry, and your postpartum hormones are making you into a total, raving, weeping lunatic.  Enter the lactation consultant, who shows you how to do it easily and painlessly.  You may or may not meet this woman again, but she is your nursing savior.

At some point, you then go home with your baby.  This is a wonderful thing because the hospital food sucks, your husband can’t sleep on that chair they call a fold-out cot, and you really want to enjoy your baby in the peace and comfort of your own home.  You’re then thrust into another dimension where you have to decipher a crying infant’s distress on a regular basis.  It can be quite overwhelming.  Sometimes you’ve changed the diaper, fed them, and rocked them, and they’re still crying.  So, then you’re bouncing on exercise balls, taking midnight drives, and singing "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" even though people have said you're tone deaf.  You’ll try anything to stop the crying.  Eventually, you get the crying down, and they mellow out a little as well.

Since you’ve mastered the art of latching your baby on, you’re still breastfeeding, but you get mastitis (AKA a breast infection).  If you’re lucky it’s bothersome and feels like a cold, but it passes on it’s own.  If you’re not lucky you go to your OB/GYN and they tell you it’s one of the worst they’ve ever seen, and prescribe antibiotics.

The early days of parenthood are a lethal cocktail of sleep deprivation, and hormonal surges that make you feel like a cross between Attila the Hun and Sylvia Plath (did I mention the soreness in your nether regions and/or lower abdomen if you had a c-section?).   BUT, and this will sound crazy, you are STILL so happy to finally meet your baby that none of this is really awful.

Personally, I was a bit overwhelmed in the beginning (as if this isn’t evident by the above paragraphs).  But, it got easier.  I learned to be confident in my abilities, and realized that my mothering instincts were much stronger than I gave myself credit for.  In fact, I learned to trust my instincts over what a book, or a stranger, or even what my mother said, because I knew my baby better than anyone else.  And what I was told before is true, my life has undoubtedly changed.

For one, I’m more confident about myself, and my abilities (even though they’re challenged constantly by the benevolent dictator AKA my daughter).  Also,  I’m more even-keeled.  I’m not sweating the small stuff (as much at least).  I run from drama now…unless it’s on Grey’s Anatomy or Project Runway.  Our daughter has forced my husband and I to communicate better and more efficiently.  There’s not enough time to whine to each other, and go 9 rounds anymore.  No filibustering, and no deconstructive nagging.  Someone once told me that children magnify relationships so the good becomes great and the bad becomes awful.   Totally accurate.

Motherhood is a balancing act, and it's relentless.  But, the truism that motherhood is the hardest job you’ll ever love runs through my mind a lot.  We are blessed to watch our babies grow, learn, and become the amazing, unique humans they are.