Counting Down the Days

(This column was originally printed in the Herald-Citizen, minus the images).

Well, my husband and I survived our month-long birthing classes, despite my doubts that I’d make it through. As I’ve mentioned before, medical facilities make me anxious in the first place, and the thought of needles and other unpleasant medial instruments make me squeamish. I can’t count how many times I’ve read a few pages in one of my books about the birthing process, made a horrified face and then shut the book and went to pick up a nice novel instead.

So I knew I was in for a very long evening when women groaning in pain was the introductory “music” for the hour-long video we watched in one class. And then there was the zoomed-in view of these women giving birth — the VERY zoomed-in view. And the video of a woman getting an epidural. Plus the animated diagram of exactly what an epidural entails (a needle jabbed in between your vertebrae that they then thread with a tube and leave in your back for the duration of the birth — at least I think. I had my eyes closed for some of the explanation.) And the likewise animated diagram of what happens during a C-section (It’s a much more involved surgery than I originally thought).

Most nights I left educated but brimming with anxiety. After each class it took me a day or two to go from believing I was going to have a humiliating anxiety meltdown in the labor/delivery room to being able to tell myself “It’s not that bad. I can do this.” Then the cycle would start again after the next class.

Though after about the third class, I’d had to watch so much video of the labor process that I finally started being able to stomach it better. I could even watch the epidural process without grabbing for my husband’s hand under the table.

I’m hoping when it comes time to face labor myself, I’ll be able to just focus on dealing with each needle and other uncomfortable medical intervention as it comes. I’m also praying that I’ll take after my mother, who was in labor with both me and my younger sister for only two hours each time — instead of following my mother-in-law’s 27-hour labor experience with my husband.

However, one thing I will remember clearly about each night of the (sometimes slightly traumatizing) two-hour classes is when my husband and I would get to pause at the nursery and see the newborn babies sleeping soundly in their bassinets. It was a sweet reminder of exactly why I will be facing my medical anxieties head-on in a few weeks. I know it will be worth it.

Tearful Third Trimester

(This column was originally printed Feb. 10, 2013, in the Herald-Citizen, minus the images).

I’ve finally made it to my third trimester, and now every day seems like a small victory. Though with all the pregnancy hormones swirling around, pretty much everything is starting to seem like a bigger deal than it really is — both the good and the bad.

So while I can be happy for hours after a single nice comment from someone, my day can also come crashing around my (swollen) ankles with very little prodding.

[Me, looking miserable. The cat looking comfy.]

Like the night a few weeks back when I fell into bed in a sobbing fit and swore I was just going to delete my novel-in-progress that has more than 80,000 words and two and a half years of daily writing/­rewriting/­editing in it. This all because of an innocent comment from a critique partner about my first chapter needing a little more description in it. Luckily, by morning my despair had ebbed and I decided my novel was not the worst thing ever created in the history of the written word after all. I’m still working on it, with hopes to finish before the baby arrives.

Then there was the evening a couple weeks ago where my husband found me sitting on the floor of my running shower, crying because I couldn’t figure out how to maneuver around my whale-sized stomach to get to my legs with a razor. I laugh about it now, but then I’d had several stressful days in a row, felt like I had bruised insides from baby kicks, was frustrated with my decreasing maneuverability, and uncomfortable with my now regularly swelling ankles and fingers. My shower issue was the last straw that night, and so seemed like a perfectly sane thing to sob over.

My sweet, and probably slightly alarmed husband (since under normal circumstances I’m not a frequent crier at all) took me out to dinner at my choice of restaurants that night, offered to take me to get dessert, and anywhere else I wanted to go. Plus I’ve been getting twice the number of random “I love you!” texts I usually get from him throughout the week.

But while there have been fits of tearfulness, there’s also been happy times these last few weeks. Like me being able to start identifying which specific baby appendage is currently pressing against my stomach, making an uncomfortable bulge. (Though this has been the cause of some tears too, as junior has seemed to have decided that he prefers one particular spot on my right side to poke all day long. It gets quite painful after a while.)

And just a couple of weekends ago my mother and aunt descended on my house with paint buckets and brushes and helped me finally clean out and paint the baby’s room. Now instead of a dark room filled with a few bags of baby things, some boxes of my summer clothes and the cat’s litter box, the room is now empty of clutter and has bright, cheerful blue walls.

Plus there’s the birthing classes at the hospital to look forward to. I’m hoping they will help me stop having a panic attack every time I try to read one of my books on the birthing process. I keep getting overwhelmed with all the technical terms and the seeming 1,000 different things that could happen during the big event. I know it will also help ease some of my anxiety to actually see the facilities where my baby is going to be born.

I’m sure there will still be tearful days ahead as the frustrations of pregnancy continue to grow, but now I’m eagerly counting down the days when those tears will be not because of my uncooperative body and emotions, but instead because I’m finally holding my son in my arms.

Preparing for the Future

(This column was originally printed Jan 2012, in the Herald-Citizen, minus the images).

When the calendar rolled over to 2013 last week, I found myself hit with a sudden realization. I remember wandering into where my husband was on his computer and saying something like, "Holy cow, we're going to have a baby in about three months."

He looked at me like I was crazy. "Uh, ... yeah?" he replied. I guess he was wondering why I was saying this like it was a surprise. We've known a little one was on the way since last July. I'd been deathly ill with 24/7 morning sickness for the first three months. And then there's the hard-to-miss evidence of my greatly expanding waistline.

It's just that up until now, the due date seemed very far away -- something that I didn't have to worry about for a very long time. And now, here we are suddenly three months out.

The baby's room isn't painted yet. Anything baby-related has just sort of been dropped into a box and shoved into the corner. The crib isn't assembled. We haven't collected even a fraction of all the supplies we're going to need to take care of a newborn. We haven't even decided on a middle name for our son yet. Now that 2013's here, I'm feeling very unprepared for this huge change that's just over the horizon.

[My cat, napping under the pieces of the crib.]
[He's not ready either.]

Like most first-time moms, I'm also feeling very unprepared for the process of actually getting a baby into the world. I've had some moms tell me it's not that bad -- "After you're given drugs, you're fine," they say -- and then I've had some tell me it was the most painful, horrific thing ever. I've also had family offering to video the whole thing for me so I can watch it later. I don't even want to be there while it's happening, let alone watch it again.

I have a definite anxiety around most medical facilities. I get a little stressed just going to the dentist's office for a routine cleaning. Last year I had to have sinus surgery, which required me to have an IV in my arm. After it was in, I threw a blanket over it so I couldn't see the needle in my arm and spent the rest of that morning pretending that my arm no longer existed.

I nearly had an anxiety attack in my private room and then again in the operating room while waiting for them to knock me out. I was so grateful to see the man with the drugs finally come in that I would have hugged him ... if I hadn't still been pretending my IV'ed arm didn't exist. Unfortunately, they can't knock you out when you're giving birth.

I've been trying to read books so I'm somewhat prepared, since I figured most of my anxiety about the whole thing is coming from my only experience with births being the dramatic and scream-filled depictions in movies and TV. But I'm finding I can only read so much about needles and C-sections and medical devices shoved in awkward places before I feel my heartbeat speed up, my breathing quicken and I have to shut the book and go do something else for a while.

I have to push it all out of my mind and tell myself to just focus on getting through the aches and pains of today. Don't think about what's going to happen later. Just get through today. After all, by April there could be some miraculous medical breakthrough where doctors will be able to just magically transport a baby from the womb to your arms.

It could happen.

Maybe.

Otherwise I'm going to have to go to Plan B: throwing a blanket over the lower half of my body and pretending it doesn't exist.

Getting a Kick out of the Holidays

(This column was originally printed Dec. 24, 2012, in the Herald-Citizen, minus the images).

While many people are singing "Deck the Halls," this Christmas season, I've been busy getting decked in the kidneys by my little bundle of joy on the way. The little flutters of baby movements have slowly turned into full-blown punches and kicks these last few weeks, making me look like I have some sort of nervous twitch.

The first kick caught me completely by surprise one Saturday morning while I was at work helping to finish up a Sunday paper. I was leaned over my desk, proofreading a page and happened to have my hand on the side of my stomach.

I suddenly felt something jab me so hard from inside that it bumped my hand right off my stomach. I was pretty startled, as I didn't think my baby was big enough to be able to do that yet. As I felt the jabs a couple more times that day, I started wondering if I was going to give birth to some kind of Incredible Hulk baby. However, at my next doctor's appointment, I was assured that my little one was growing at a normal rate.

[This is the Hulk. You can see why I didn't want to give birth to one.]

At first I jumped or twitched whenever I felt the movement. There's just something a little freaky about having your internal organs kicked.Especially bizarre was the evening I was showing my husband my bare stomach to demonstrate how big I was getting and we both saw a quick bulge just below my ribs on my right side. I wasn't sure whether to say "Aww," or "Eww."

The swift jabs and kicks have become the norm now though, even though I still sometimes jump. I am no longer weirded out by the movement (Well, unless I'm getting kicked in the bladder. That just feels wrong.)

There was even one time last week while I was on my way home from work that I scratched at a spot on my stomach and felt a kick in that exact place. Just for the heck of it, I did it again. Felt another kick in the same place. I did this four or five times with the same result before it stopped. I'm not sure if it was a coincidence or if the baby really was interacting with me, but it entertained me, at least.

The periodic kicks make everything seem a little more real. Even though I've only got a little over three more months to go, there are still time when I can't believe this is really happening. I have those moments (probably intensified by pregnancy hormones) where I imagine the future and become convinced that I'll never be able to handle motherhood, that I'll mess it all up.

But recently I went to a Christmas party with a bunch of friends, one of which had a nearly one-year-old little girl. In the past, I would have given a baby a wide berth, but this time I felt comfortable with her around. I was even pleased when, tempted by the sparkles on my Christmas shirt, she let me pick her up off the floor and hold her so she could inspect it better.

She didn't scream, didn't cry. I didn't drop her. She just calmly poked at my shiny shirt in between glancing curiously up at me.

And I had the quiet thought, "Hey, maybe I won't be so bad at this after all."

It's a boy!

(This column was originally printed Nov. 19, 2012, in the Herald-Citizen, minus the images).

It's a boy!

I admit, as I was sitting there in the doctor's office and heard the nurse say those words, I was a little disappointed. I'd been hoping for a little girl I could dress in my old baby clothes, give my old toys to (I still have a lot of Barbies stashed away), and play dress-up and have tea parties with. The bedroom was going to have a lot of pink.

Now, I'm sort of at a loss. I have zero experience with little boys.I helped take care of my little sister when we were kids and all of my cousins who lived nearby and were around my age were all girls. My older boy cousins mostly left us to ourselves. They were usually off trading baseball cards or being loud somewhere.

I'm not sure what to do with a boy. I'm very sports-impaired. There is not a single sport I've been able to play well, and watching any kind of sport usually bores me to tears. (Sorry, football fans!) If my little boy wants to get into baseball or basketball or something similar, I won't know where to start. And I'd be afraid he'd catch me playing on my phone or trying to read a book during his games. I'd be an awful soccer mom.

I'm also still pretty nervous about this whole parenting thing. I keep hearing that little boys are a lot tougher to deal with than little girls. I was sort of hoping I could start this first-time parenting thing on Level 1 difficulty instead of Level 10. I wanted to build up my endurance a little. Get some experience before I tacked raising a boy.

But after I got home from my doctor's appointment, I started thinking about the things I might have in common with a little boy. There's dinosaurs. I loved dinosaurs as a child. Dinosaurs are something boys usually love. I can do dinosaurs.

I was also a big science geek. (This was before I grew up and learned that you had to be pretty good at math to get anywhere in a job that involved science.) I had tons of illustrated kids books on everything from how black holes are made to how photosynthesis works. I also had my own microscope kit as a kid and always liked looking at things with it. My dad had a telescope and helped me be able to aim it at the moon, stars or any birds we were trying to observe at our Florida home. Boys usually like those kinds of things too.

And though a little boy probably won't want to play dress-up, they still do like to play make-believe. I have some experience periodically helping to babysit a pack of little boys at my church. We spent Sunday mornings pretending to be superheros, running around the small playroom, firing lasers at evil monsters and trying to figure out ways to get out of the bad buy's traps. (Parents coming to pick up the kids would sometimes look at me funny when they spotted me in a corner with my hair a mess and my Sunday dress all in wrinkles after an hour of our adventures.)

And who's to say my little boy won't be artistic like my side of the family? Maybe he'll want to draw and paint like his aunt, write like me or craft things from wood like his late grandpa and great-grandpa.

So maybe I'll have more in common with a boy than I first though. Just as long as he doesn't expect me to throw a soccer ball around with him.

Oh wait. Soccer is the one where you kick the ball, right?

(I may be in trouble.)

Through the 1st Trimester

(This column was originally printed Nov. 13, 2012, in the Herald-Citizen, minus the images).

Now that I'm into my second trimester of my first pregnancy, I've noticed a lot of changes coming at me pretty quickly.

Probably the best one is the fact that I have finally been released from the grip of constant morning sickness. This change happened just a few days after I'd gotten fed up with getting out of bed two hours early to try to ease myself into the day, only to find myself jumping out of the shower and running to the toilet as soon as I started to get ready for work.

I'd just decided to simply get up, get sick and get on with my day. Either way, I'd get sick, but at least this way I could sleep in a little later. I think it was the third or forth day of this new way of handling my morning sickness when I was sitting on the floor of my bathroom, browsing Facebook and Twitter on my phone while waiting for the daily ritual of sickness. Fifteen minutes passed and I was still okay.

I shrugged, stood up and got on with my shower. The same thing happened the next day. And the next. I about cried with happiness. The constant nagging sickness I feared would continue the whole pregnancy was finally over.

Another huge change is that I can actually eat real food now. For those first three months I was living off mostly milkshakes, smoothies and vitamin-infused drinks. For way too long I had only been able to take a bite or two of a meal before I'd had to shove the plate away. Even trying my favorite foods at local restaurants didn't help. There were several occasions where I had to ask for a to-go box while pouting at my husband tucking away a delicious meal on the opposite side of the table.

Now it seems like I'm never NOT hungry. My coworkers poke fun at me while they hear me crunching away on cereal, crackers, Chex Mix, nuts and granola bars all day long. It's hard to write stories with one hand while constantly feeding my face with the other, but I do the best I can.

I'm also always tired, no matter how much sleep I get. I start the day off feeling only 50 percent recharged and by 3:30 p.m., I'm ready to take a nap. By 5 p.m., it's usually all I can do to drive home, eat something and then collapse on the couch while staring at the boxes that need to be unpacked just laying around my new house, taunting me.

But probably the biggest change has just happened recently. For some strange reason, even through the three months of 24/7 morning sickness, my slowly rounding belly and the several ultrasounds I've seen that show a healthy, growing child, I've still been feeling a sort of disconnect -- like this really isn't happening to me.

I think the idea of myself being pregnant is just too crazy for my brain to process. It keeps trying to convince me I'm still a high schooler and much too young for this sort of responsibility. Even though I graduated high school in 2001, I still can't quite believe my eyes when I see some of my friends of Facebook posting pictures of their four and five-year-olds when I remember like it was yesterday us passing notes in class and skipping out of gym class to go feed the baby birds in our biology classroom.

Then about two weeks ago I was sitting at work, typing away on a story when I thought I felt a faint tickle -- one from the inside. It was over quickly and I wasn't sure that I had even felt it. The next day I felt it again, at almost the same time in the morning. Then I felt it again that afternoon. When I felt it again the third day during the same hour, I knew I wasn't imagining things. I was feeling my baby for the first time.

I've been feeling the same tickle on a regular basis now and it's seemed to make things a little more real. It's hard for my brain to deny this is really happening when the baby is doing backflips in my belly. It's a constant reminder of the huge change that will be coming into my life in April.

And though the thought is currently both exciting and terrifying, it's definitely a change that I'm looking forward to.

[You can tell it's the child of me and Brandon because of the great faceplant it's performing here.]

Nobody Told Me

(This column was originally printed September 2012, in the Herald-Citizen, minus the images).

No one warned me about what pregnancy was really like. The silver screen shows the mom-to-be being sick when she first finds out she's carrying a little one, but after that, it's all smiles and baby showers and decorating bedrooms with cute children's themes.

No one told me that for the first 12 weeks or so, I'd be practically living in my bathroom at home or camping out in the bathroom at work. No one told me I'd be frantically trying every cure for morning sickness I've ever heard about, getting more and more frustrated as none of them do much of anything for me. Now instead of settling my stomach, the very smell of ginger makes me ill.

When I first learned I was pregnant, I made all these fancy lists and charts of what I could eat each day to make sure I was getting the proper nutrition. Nobody told me that I'd be too sick through this first trimester to even think about eating much of anything.

I didn't know I was going to be surviving by sipping on smoothies and Instant Breakfast, while nibbling on bird-sized portions of crackers, soups and bread. These days I get most of my nutrition from a ridiculously large prenatal pill that about gags me every time I take one. Then, if it doesn't gag me on the way down, then it usually makes me sick to my stomach several hours later.

Movies and television usually depict doctors appointments as happy times filled with ultrasounds, finding out the gender of the baby and watching them grow. I wasn't told that I was going to be continuously poked and prodded with medical instruments in unspeakable places and have enough blood drawn to fill a second person.

As I near the finish line of the first trimester, I've gotten gradually more grumpy at home as the reality of what being pregnant really is like sets in. Spending my time flopped over on the couch, a pillow clutched against my queasy stomach, and watching mind-numbing evening TV, I just have to glare at my husband now and he replies with, "I know, I know. I did this to you. I'm a horrible person." He's heard me groan one too many times from the bathroom: "People do this more than once?!"

So it was with dampened enthusiasm that I went with my husband to my regular checkup last week. As normal, I got poked and prodded. But this time we saw an ultrasound for the first time: a moving image of a figure on its back, tiny arms curled up over its heart. As I moved to try to let the nurse get a better image, the baby curled up into a ball, and my husband laughed, "Look, it sleeps like you do!"

In that moment, all the weeks and weeks of miserable sickness became worth it. I was even okay when the doctor told me I was actually a week LESS pregnant that we first thought (which probably means at least one extra week of morning sickness I didn't know I still had to endure.)

I've got that ultrasound above my desk at home now, where I look at it before gagging down that vitamin or running to the bathroom to be sick AGAIN.

Because behind the cause of all this miserableness is a tiny baby who "sleeps" just like me -- and no one could have told me what seeing that would feel like.