Pregnancy

September Around Here

~ brixton ~ Leave a comment

We survived the first month with two kids. The baby continues to be easy. The big kid continues to be challenging. I imagine that at some point, these things will meet in the middle.

This month, the big kid turned 4. In past years, we’ve opted for a special outing rather than a party or gifts – this year he got the water bottle he wanted, and we celebrated by going to the Arboretum for “a nice troll hunt” and having pizza for dinner. This year, however, he seemed sad that we weren’t celebrating with others – when we finished making his birthday cupcakes (chocolate blueberry, his request), he asked who would be coming over to share them.

10 days ago, it was 90F when we went to a fall bonfire at the park that is effectively our back yard. We toasted marshmallows and swatted mosquitoes and bounced the baby and assured the big kid that his friend would be there soon – and then comforted him because he hadn’t understood that sharing birthday cupcakes with her meant that they were taking the remaining two cupcakes home.

In 10 days, I go back to work after 8 weeks at home. I have A LOT OF FEELINGS about this, as you might imagine. I’m devastated to be leaving my baby when he’s so small. I’m anxious about the adjustment period for everyone. I’m overwhelmed because if we’ve struggled to stay on top of all of the things with all of us home, how are we going to manage when I’m gone a third of the day? I’m not sure what to anticipate when I go back, workwise, since nearly 6 months have passed since my boss and I were both in the office. I’m worried about finding a balance between work, family, and home responsibilities while still making room for myself. For the last few weeks, I have intended to take some time to think about how I want to try to strike this balance, about my intentions as I return to work, about my expectations as I end my leave. Now, to make time for that.

I feel worn thin. I’ve had complications that have prevented me from exercising yet – and the new schedule means I don’t know when exercise will happen apart from a lot of walking – which is good, but not enough when exercise is the primary way I maintain my mental health. Like many women, I’m struggling with a Supreme Court hearing that is effectively gaslighting half of the population. I’m trying to find space to deal with trauma feelings from a difficult birth on top of existing trauma feelings from my heart crisis. I’m holding my babies close and hoping that we can do a good enough job of parenting them that they don’t grow up to reinforce the patriarchy.

September Reading:

September Eating:

Welcome to the Spinning World

~ brixton ~ 4 Comments

Prologue
We knew that we wanted you, but then your brother turned 2, and then our country descended into madness, and it was some time before we could even consider bringing another person into this world. But against our exhaustion and uncertainty and inertia, you willed yourself into being.

Winter
My body told me you were with me weeks before tests would confirm it. In December, an ultrasound at 5 weeks, and there you were, a tiny bean, enough to share your news with our family. We learned the same day that you would have a new cousin in Holland.

We told your brother right away. I didn’t want to – I wanted to be sure you would stay – but he proved to be good at keeping surprises.

I was so tired, just bone tired, for weeks. I had strong aversions to foods and their smells – fish, raisins, and, horribly, coffee. Your brother and I brought home a terrible stomach bug from the holidays and took turns lying on the bathroom floor in absolute misery.

I set my intentions for the year on the eve of my birthday. In most years, I make a list of things to accomplish. This year’s list focused on doing less, turning inward, setting lower expectations for myself recognizing that one of the things that made adjusting to your brother so difficult was that we thought we would be the same people on the other side.

At the end of January, your brother weaned. It was simultaneously sad and easy – we were both ready, we just didn’t know it.

We settled on a girl’s name easily, but a boy’s name was harder. Your brother had a funny long name for you that was shortened to: Mr. Baby.

We started telling people when occasions presented themselves. It was SO FUN to share the news in person.

At the end of the first trimester, it was like a switch flipped. One day I felt terrible, the next, almost normal.

I went to Denver for work and walked cautiously through the dusting of snow, remembering how I’d almost fallen in Philadelphia at the same conference with your brother newly in my belly.

Spring
I went to Iowa to visit your great grandma and to help clear out her house. The news of you didn’t quite register, but she reminded me that it took seven pregnancies to get her four babies.

A few days later, I blacked out in a restaurant, hitting my head on a table, and ended up in the ER. That is a different story, but it’s yours too, as you were with me while the doctors tried to work out what was happening with my heart. They listened to your heart as well, strong and steady, and you were part of every decision. (Making choices that could mean life or death are hard enough when you’re only making them for yourself.) Your papa felt you move for the first time the day was admitted. The day we left the hospital, we saw you on the ultrasound: Nico.

I was switched to the high risk practice, and to a dream of a doctor who made me feel engaged and supported in our care.

Recovery from the pacemaker was hard. I felt fragile in ways I’d never experienced. I looked for therapy because I knew this wouldn’t be the last big change. I struggled with the physical restrictions, remembering how early I had had to stop running the last time, and resenting my body for not letting me do the things I felt I should be able to do.

Meanwhile you grew steadily, and when the weather suddenly turned at the end of April, the belly I had been hiding under drapey sweaters was obvious.

We canceled our travel plans and burned my vacation time with family outings closer to home. We went to Iowa for your great grandma’s 100th birthday. Your papa and I spent our first night together away from your brother, a relaxed trip to Madison where we walked and talked for hours.

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Summer
Your brother and I went to Rockford to see your cousins and grandparents. In the pool, you flipped around in my belly like a fish.

In nearly every way, this pregnancy felt different than the first. Some of that was your position – you were head down, unlike your brother, who stubbornly refused to flip. Some of that was just being older, in a different body than the 34 year old one that carried your brother.

I had imagined an active pregnancy, but it didn’t work out the way I hoped. Yoga and swimming were off the table initially due to surgery, and then I never got around to making them happen. I stopped running in May. With your brother, I biked into my seventh month; a colleague’s terrible accident struck that off the table. When my gym closed for the summer in June, I started walking everywhere.

You moved all the time, but especially when I had fruit or sweets. I was addicted to Chloe’s mango fruit pops. I would have one after your brother went to bed and then sit on the couch and marvel as my belly rocked from side to side. We didn’t take weekly belly photos; I made up for them with videos of you dancing.

The nesting urge hit early, so we were ready for you by mid July. Every Sunday night I felt sad as the number of weekends left as a family of 3 dwindled. Every weekend we stocked up “just in case”. For weeks, I closed out every work day with the expectation that I might not be there the next.

We rearranged our bedroom in August and moved your brother to his own bed. I cried myself to sleep as another chapter abruptly ended.

Weekly monitoring for a month. A trip to the birth center after I didn’t feel well. A trip to the birth center, bags in hand, after hours of contractions that went nowhere. More days of exhausting, disappointing contractions, of answering a hundred questions about when and why and how uncomfortable I must be.

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The End
We waited, expecting you any day. On your due date, your brother and I went to the beach. Two days later, after a day of big meetings and ongoing contractions, the doctor offered an induction.

The neighborhood is still at 5am. We took a Lyft to the hospital while your brother slept at home. And then we waited for a long, hungry grey day while the induction did very little for my body or spirit. Your papa went home for a few hours. I bounced on an exercise ball and ate lemon Italian ice.

At midnight, they gave my body a break – food and sleep – before round two, more horrible than the first. Labor came, then, hours of contractions moving you closer to our arms. As the sun rose, I fell into a rhythm of breathing through the pain, then floating away in the moments in between.

We were moved to a different room. My water broke not long after, and time went sideways. I worked through the pain for as long as I could, but then it was too much. As I labored down, I could feel you moving through my body like a sled through snow, leaving an impression of your absence.

It was time. I pushed with everything in me. But then it became clear that you had turned your head just enough that you weren’t coming out, and so my doctor asked how I would feel about another c section. I trusted her enough to say yes without question, but cried from pain, exhaustion, and disappointment as I was prepped for surgery.

You were born 36 hours after we arrived at the hospital, 40 weeks and 4 days after you willed yourself into being. Your birth was the easy part; putting me back together was difficult, as the doctors struggled to deal with my bleeding, scars, and pain. We hadn’t planned on any more babies, but the danger of your birth decided that for us once and for all.

But here you are, my last baby, my constant companion through a very strange year. Welcome to the spinning world. We’re so glad you’re here.

Books about pregnancy

~ brixton ~ Leave a comment

As you might expect, I did a lot of reading in anticipation of the arrival of our son. Some of it was very helpful. Some of it I will need to revisit in 5-10 years. Some of it was pretty useless. Here’s what I found useful during my pregnancy:

Opting In: Having a Child Without Losing Yourself
I read this before I got pregnant. While other friends hated it, I appreciated the discussions of the various waves of feminism, our relationships with our mothers, the decision/value of returning to work, and the challenges for couples who choose or embody different gender roles. Good if you’re still trying to wrap your head conceptually around the many ways having a baby will change your sense of self.

Expecting Better: Why the Conventional Pregnancy Wisdom Is Wrong–and What You Really Need to Know
If you only read one book about pregnancy, let this be it. This book should be REQUIRED READING for any expecting parents, but will be of most interest to those who are at least a little skeptical of the advice and warnings doled out by books and other media related to pregnancy. The author and her husband applied their training as economists to analyze the recommendations she received from mainstream and hippie sources, as well as from their doctor – which was of particular interest to me as she provided enough detail to make it clear that she went to the same hospital we used. Their findings? Some of the well known recommendations are supported by good data. Many are not. Some are based on frankly terrible science, or on studies that haven’t been repeated or updated to reflect current medical practice. I finished this book feeling a great deal more confident in my ability to trust common sense, good nutrition, and my body – and a great deal less paranoid about the occasional drink, sushi roll, or falling asleep on my back at a time when sleeping in any position is kind of a miracle.

Mayo Clinic Guide to a Healthy Pregnancy
This was my mainstream medical establishment guide of choice. It seemed to be less alarmist than What To Expect When You’re Expecting, though it did still present a lot of recommendations that we flatly ignored. On the whole a decent reference book. I also consulted Your Pregnancy Week by Week, which I picked up for $1 at a conference, and got at least that much value out of it.

Real Food for Mother and Baby: The Fertility Diet, Eating for Two, and Baby’s First Foods
I loved Nina Planck’s first book and actually bought and read this long before pregnancy was on the table. I talk about this after talking about the Mayo Clinic book deliberately because it contradicts and complements the recommendations made therein. While I’ve softened my stance on supplements over the years, I still greatly prefer to get what my body needs from whole foods – and that’s what Planck does here, talking about what your body needs and where to get it – from conception through your child’s first foods. I worry a little that the data supporting her recommendations is selectively fished out of the great ocean of dietary advice, but it’s hard to argue with her simple, clear, time-tested advice that doesn’t rely on highly engineered products to support something we’ve been doing quite well for millennia.

The Pregnant Athlete: How to Stay in Your Best Shape Ever–Before, During, and After Pregnancy
Including this more as an afterthought – I picked this up at a conference after I’d had to stop running due to Braxton-Hicks contractions and general largeness and discomfort. I wish I’d read it earlier, as it does a better job than any other book I saw at addressing training during pregnancy – not just taking a walk to stay active.

2014 in meme

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Unbelievably grateful for the 14 weeks I've had at home with this little guy.

1. What did you do in 2014 that you’d never done before?
Got pregnant, went to Turkey, Belgium, and Las Vegas, gave birth via major surgery, took 3 months off of work.

2. Did you keep your New Year’s resolutions, and will you make more for next year?
50/50. Getting pregnant dramatically changed my plans for the year. I haven’t yet decided on my resolutions for next year.

3. Did anyone close to you give birth?
YES. In addition to our son, born in September, my sister and sister-in-law both had babies, as did Nicolas’s brother’s partner. A number of other friends also had babies. Babies everywhere.

4. Did anyone close to you die?
My friend Janet passed away in May. It’d been a couple of years since the last time I saw her, but I miss her all the time.

5. What countries (or new places) did you visit?
Turkey and Belgium with Nicolas in February and March and Las Vegas for work in June. I also explored new parts of Michigan, Seattle, and Chicago with Nicolas.

6. What would you like to have in 2015 that you lacked in 2014?
A waistline.

7. What date from 2014 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?
September 19

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?
Not losing my mind during my pregnancy and postpartum period; keeping a small human alive with my breasts.

9. What was your biggest failure?
I had a hard first trimester emotionally, and that tainted our trip to Belgium and our time with Nicolas’s family. I wish I could do that over.

10. Did you suffer illness or injury?
Mostly just normal pregnancy stuff, though I did literally swoon on a street corner in the heat in Vegas.

11. What was the best thing you bought?
Our 12 week Bradley Method course was probably the best way I spent money this year. Also we joined the cult of the AeroPress.

12. Whose behavior merited celebration?
Nicolas is a wonderful father, and I’m so grateful to be parenting with him.

13. Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed?
Grand juries.

14. Where did most of your money go?
Food and drink, rent, clothes that only fit me (or the baby) for a few weeks.

15. What did you get really, really, really excited about?
The water taxi.

16. What song will always remind you of 2014?

17. Compared to this time last year, are you:
i. happier or sadder?
Much happier

ii. thinner or fatter?
About 20 pounds heavier, though I will note that I’m at least 30 pounds lighter than a few months ago.

iii. richer or poorer?
Richer both financially and personally.

18. What do you wish you’d done more of?
Sleeping. Taking long walks.

19. What do you wish you’d done less of?
Driving. Always.

20. How did you spend Christmas?
In Rockford with my family. Nicolas made Christmas dinner: stoofvlees, a very traditional Flemish beef stew, which he spent all afternoon and evening of Christmas Eve preparing. All three of us were a bit overwhelmed and overstimulated by the Christmas celebration with the whole family, so I’m glad we kept it low-key at home. In future years, I think I’d like to shift our celebration to St. Nicholas’s Day to space out the crazy and be able to form our own traditions.

21. Did you fall in love in 2014?
With my baby boy, obviously, and even more with his papa.

22. How many one-night stands?
Zero

23. What was your favorite TV program?
True Detective was amazing, and we watched all of Battlestar Galactica during my maternity leave.

24. Do you hate anyone now that you didn’t hate this time last year?
Nope.

25. What was the best book you read?
With the exception of Bill Bryson’s new book, my year in reading was either baby/parenting books or Game of Thrones. One of these days I’ll get around to blogging about things I found useful during pregnancy and “the fourth trimester”, so I’ll save the book discussion for then.

26. What was your greatest musical discovery?
Despite my good intentions, I really didn’t listen to much music this year. I suppose installing SoundCloud on my phone counts?

27. What did you want and get?
A baby.

28. What did you want and not get?
The chance to run a marathon.

29. What was your favorite film of this year?
We didn’t watch all that many movies this year, and certainly didn’t see many in the theater. I really enjoyed In a World and Finding Vivian Maier.

30. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?
I turned 34, and did all of the things I shouldn’t have done given that I was 2-3 weeks pregnant and didn’t know it. I worked a half day, then took the train to Lakeview to meet Nicolas for lunch: fantastic burgers and beer at DryHop. We took a cab to the zoo to see the sand cat, where Nicolas surprised me with party hats and cupcakes and candles outside the small mammal house. (The sand cat didn’t want his cupcake, so I ate it later.) We walked to YogaNow in our party hats, and then I got a deep tissue massage, while Nicolas headed home to rest up. Megan, Annette, Stef, and Karina joined me for dinner at Oiistar (sake, ramen with mussels, a tiny creme brûlée), then I met Nicolas at Neo for a long, fun night of dancing and too many strong drinks. Nicolas was supposed to have class the evening of my birthday, so we celebrated the next night – wonderful food and cocktails in the library at Gilt Bar followed by Darkside at The Metro. Three days after my birthday, I found out that I was pregnant.

31. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?
Peace of mind. Living closer to the beach.

32. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2014?
Pregnant. Stripey.

33. What kept you sane?
Exercise, friends, and sisters.

34. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?
No one in particular.

35. What political issue stirred you the most?
The Case for Reparations

36. Who did you miss?
Friends in other cities. Our much more flexible life pre-baby.

37. Who was the best new person you met?
My baby, obvs.

38. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2014:
Being a mother is harder and more wonderful than I could have imagined. Parenting involves falling in love over and over and over again with your child and, if you’re lucky, your partner. It’s challenging and humbling and completely worth it. But that doesn’t mean you don’t miss what your life (or relationship, or body) was like before. And that’s OK too.

See also: 2011, 2012, 2013.

Beginnings

~ brixton ~ 2 Comments

39 weeks

We walked to Palmisano Park Thursday night to see the latest installation in the Ten Thousand Ripples Project. I stood in the center of the circle of Buddha heads as the sun went down in the west. We had dinner at a neighborhood Italian place, then stopped at the bar where we had drinks on our first date. We’d stopped in for dinner a few weeks earlier and saw another expecting couple due a a week and a half before me – they were there again that night, now at least a few days overdue. When we crossed the bridge on the way home, we walked through a film set, the crew warning us to protect our eyes from the kleig light shining down on the river.

It was our last night as a family of two.

In the morning, some kitchen disaster left me in tears, bent in half at the sink as my contractions started, the first around 6:30am. It was Friday, and I had a day-long webinar ahead of me, and an important final meeting that afternoon, and a case study and documentation to finish before I could go on leave. There was no way I could miss work, so I went in, resolved that this would be my last day.

I started timing my contractions around lunchtime, thankful that the chairs in the meeting room reclined enough to give me some relief. I had a ham sandwich with avocado. By the end of my 3pm meeting, my contractions were regular and 5 minutes apart. The last 90 minutes of my work day was a blur, and probably the most productive 90 minutes of the entire year. Some women “nest” when they’re in labor – I wrote documentation, registered for two conferences, compiled and double-checked statistics, and saved files in multiple locations.

At 5pm, my contractions were 4 minutes apart. I called Nicolas to talk it over, then called Labor and Delivery, who told me I might as well come in. I packed everything up, walked to my car, and drove around the corner to the hospital, parallel parking between contractions. By the time I checked in at 6pm, my contractions were 2 minutes apart. Three other women arrived within 10 minutes of me.

N hopped in a Lyft car and arrived shortly after I was admitted to triage, my labor well underway. I was hooked up to a bunch of machines, which made climbing around to get comfortable difficult. N massaged my back and calmed me during the contractions, just as we’d practiced. Nurses were in and out checking my vitals and taking my blood. One nurse bumped my foot with the table I was leaning on during contractions. When the contraction passed, I asked for a bandage for my bleeding toe. She was apparently so mortified that she couldn’t come back into the room.

A resident scanned my belly and confirmed that the baby was still breech, and still high up. Over the next two hours, they checked my cervix several times to make sure that my labor was actually progressing before making the decision to send me to surgery. Each check was more agonizing than the last. At some point, they determined that I was staying, and the baby would be born that night. N texted my family as I went into surgery, and was given surgical scrubs to cover up. In the rush to surgery, I was asked to take out my tongue stud; I forgot all about it until several days later, by which time it was too late to put it back in.

I don’t remember exactly how I got back to surgery – did I walk? I must’ve walked. We were at a teaching hospital, and the one time this was problematic was during the epidural when the physician critiqued the resident’s work in placing my epidural – not what I wanted to hear while hunched over waiting for the pain to stop. I could still feel more than I expected to feel, and when I said that I go through anesthetic fast, the doctor said, “this will be interesting.”

My doctor was out of town, so a doctor I’d never met performed the surgery. I was strapped to a table with the drape raised when N was brought in. He sat by my head and talked to me about the baby on the beach, about how we were about to meet our child. I felt a lot of pressure, pulling back and forth, and then they told N it was time to stand up and see the baby. The doctor said, “you grew a lot of baby!”. Our son was born at 10:49pm.

The aftermath of surgery is a blur. It wasn’t clear to me what was happening, but N and the baby went to an adjacent room for the newborn procedures, and I could only occasionally see the baby through the crowd of people attending to him. I kept asking what was happening, whether his eyes were open, what color they were. I could hear him crying, and wanted to hold him, but had to be put back together first. The doctor assured me that if I waited two years, I would be a good candidate for a VBAC.

We spent a long time in recovery. I was very sick, and N was very worried. The nurse was very kind. The baby was with us for part of the time, and then we waited a very long time for transport up to our room. There are a lot of things I don’t remember. I think we were both in shock. I think it’s best that I don’t remember.

I wanted so badly to have a natural birth, no drugs, no interventions. The birth I had was the opposite of that. I’m glad we had time to make our peace with this change of plans. Given the way my surgery went, and the way the baby was positioned, it was the safest option for both of us. I’m grateful that I went into labor on my own, and that I had the opportunity to labor before surgery. I’m grateful for the care I received, even though I don’t remember much of it.

Most of all, I’m grateful for the healthy and safe arrival of our son, who we named after our grandfathers. He’s beautiful, and we couldn’t be happier.

Introducing Kleintje, born via c-section at 10:49pm last night. He's perfect, and we're so happy. #100daystobaby

The Third Trimester

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Oval Beach

We went to Michigan for the July 4 weekend. On our last night there, we made it to Oval Beach just in time for the sunset. A young family was taking photos and playing just down the beach from us, their small son all white blonde hair and confidence, strolling up and down the beach like he owned the place as the sky turned to purples and pinks. We laid together on our blanket and imagined our own family in the future, our own kleintje confidently exploring. I would return to those moments on the beach many times in the coming months.

We took childbirth classes in the Bradley Method. I had intended to blog about our experience, and maybe I still will. 2 hours a week for 12 weeks seemed like a lot, and sometimes it was a chore to go, but we both felt like it was a valuable experience, even though we didn’t have the birth we’d hoped (more on that later).

Based on kicks, the baby seemed to like blueberries and pineapple, World Cup commentary, and N’s presence and voice.

My dear friends threw me a baby shower at the end of July – nothing ridiculous, just friends and food and gifts in a sweet park on a beautiful afternoon.

We picked up furniture on Craigslist and from my former roommate. I hung the garland from the baby shower on the wall above the bookcase. We decided to wait on any other decorating until the baby moves into the room after the long Chicago winter.

I stopped biking in late July after a close call on my commute home. I’m glad I was able to bike as late into my pregnancy as I did, but felt completely OK stopping when I did.

None of my workout shirts fit, and my gym is barely air conditioned, so my fellow gym-goers were treated to my sweaty belly while I read parenting books on the exercise bike. Few directly applied to new babies, and the one that did beat me about the head with the concept of THE FOURTH TRIMESTER.

I had to go to Seattle for work in August, and N came along. I was exhausted and overheated for most of the trip, and tried to blame it on altitude, which was totally incorrect. We took long walks, ate a lot of delicious Belgian food, and did our best to soak up our last pre-baby vacation. Flying at 32 weeks wasn’t as miserable as I expected, but I’m very glad I didn’t have to fly after that.

I read Expecting Better and wished I’d read it much earlier in my pregnancy, as it made me feel dramatically more sane about the choices I was already making.

I worried for awhile that I had pre-eclampsia. My blood pressure was higher than usual, and I felt dizzy and tired. My doctor wasn’t worried.

In mid-August, my family threw me a shower which ended up being an afternoon of babies and girl talk in the best possible way. I got to Rockford early and spent 15 minutes cleaning the pool in order to have a few minutes of delicious weightlessness. I had so looked forward to swimming all summer, but it was just too cool.

All told, I gained somewhere in the area of 50 pounds.

Sleep was hard. I was very warm, and very large, and up every 2 hours like clockwork to use the restroom. I couldn’t sleep under anything heavier than a thin muslin swaddling blanket, or wearing anything more than a sports bra and shorts.

I had a lot of pain in my ribs, and sometimes it felt like my solar plexus was made of broken glass.

I felt a lot of urgency to make time with friends, and for relaxed solo time with N. I felt overbooked in the last few weeks, but got to see nearly everyone and also take care of the sorts of personal errands that just wouldn’t be a priority after baby.

At 36 weeks, we learned that the baby was breech. I was hysterical, and frustrated by the lack of information from my doctor, and by the pressure to schedule a c-section without trying other interventions. In the following weeks, we tried the following to encourage the baby to turn:

  • inversions
  • strategic application of hot (coffee mug) and cold (frozen peas)
  • N talking to the baby through my belly
  • N shining a flashlight at the bottom of my belly
  • chiropractic adjustments (side note: why hadn’t I ever been to a chiro before?)
  • acupuncture (which I also hadn’t tried) and moxibustion
  • walking sideways up the stairs

At 38 weeks, the baby still hadn’t turned, and I decided I could either keep running myself ragged driving all over the city trying things that weren’t working – or make my peace with the surgery. I worked on the latter, and we scheduled the c-section for September 24.

The Second Trimester

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27 weeks. Belly to infinity. 90/#100daystobaby

It was fun to drop the news on friends and family. My roommate didn’t believe me at first. I sent the ultrasound photos to friends via chat, and 2/3 of them thought it was a photo of snow. (In fairness, the weather was TERRIBLE that day.) My mom said it was an answer to prayer – not at ALL the response I expected.

I spent entirely too much time running around looking for apartments before we finally found a great place in a great location in our price range. We moved in when I was just starting to show. It was very weird to not be able to help move furniture or carry boxes. After an exhausting day of carrying the things I could carry, I went to Simone’s and ate a giant pile of nachos and felt sad that I couldn’t have a beer (Lent, not pregnancy).

My last really great run was 7.5 miles with a coworker on the day we signed our lease. Nagging back pain led me to change my registration for the Illinois Marathon weekend from the half to the 10K. It was hard to let go of the idea of being able to PR when I had been getting SO MUCH FASTER before I got pregnant, and then it was hard to let go of the idea of racing, and then it was hard to let go of the distance. Instead, I felt fantastic running a solid 5K, and then N joined me (with Annette’s race registration) to run the 10K.

I developed temporary sensitivities to foods I previously ate all the time – specifically dairy. I cried when I realized I might not be able to have ice cream or a good cappuccino for months. Lactaid helped for a month, and then I decided to just live with the side effects of eating dairy because the side effects of Lactaid were worse.

I felt the baby move for the first time around the beginning of week 19, while we were sitting in traffic on Lakeshore Drive. I wasn’t sure, but there it was again, a tiny plink in my lower abdomen. I forced N’s hand onto my belly numerous times over the next week and a half until we were on a long walk and I stopped dead in my tracks near the Adler Planetarium, grabbed his hand, and he felt the baby for the first time.

I had to stop running around week 25. I had cut way back due to what I later identified as Braxton-Hicks contractions (and just being tired), but I’d kept up with a couple of runs per week until a 4 mile run  to Bridgeport and back left me in tears. I wasn’t ready to be done, but I was done nonetheless.

We made up for the lack of running with long bike rides on the weekends. N hadn’t ever biked in the city until last fall, but he picked up a Divvy with me and we rode to the far south end of the Lakefront Path, up north for coffee, all over. I found a safe route to work, and was able to ride in five days in a row during Bike to Work Week.

After one of those rides, I got my first pregnant lady privilege – I stopped for a pastry, and the woman ahead of me let me take the last chocolate croissant.

We went to Neo for what would turn out to be the last time – after knocking two items off my Chicago Bucket List, we went to New Wave Prom. The regular bartender gave me a once-over, asked “Is there a baby in there?”, and congratulated us. The last time we’d been was for my birthday, days before we found out.

I got defensive about being touched without permission, but it turned out that the only transgressive belly touches of my entire pregnancy came from two friends, and I didn’t mind at all.

I went to Vegas for work at 27 weeks. It was 115F, and I literally swooned on a street corner from the heat, and then again in a fancy restaurant after too much walking. I hated Vegas and hated being away from home, and so spent as much time as I could in the pool or eating frozen yogurt. My flight home was canceled due to severe weather. That’s what happens when you curse Vegas.

We watched a LOT of the World Cup. Baby and I bet for Belgium to beat the US, which they did, and now we have a debt owed to us by Vegas bookies.

Until halfway through the trimester, I was barely showing. By the end of it, my belly was unmistakable.

A Change of Plans

~ brixton ~ 3 Comments

35 weeks 35/#100daystobaby

A lot of things about this year, and this pregnancy, haven’t gone as expected. I thought I’d be running a marathon this fall; instead, I’ll be recovering from giving birth. I looked forward to lots of beer and soft cheeses and mussels in Belgium; instead, I had one amazing beer at the best beer bar in the world, and will have to hope I’m not pregnant the next time we go back. I hoped I’d be able to continue running for most of my pregnancy; instead, I stopped a little more than half way through. I hoped to be able to have a crunchy hippie natural birth with a midwife and minimal interventions; instead, my affordable health insurance plan limits us to a mainstream medical establishment birth with few choices.

Last week, we learned that the baby is breech. Another expectation blown away by circumstances beyond our control. Instead of having a natural birth – what we both wanted, what we’ve been preparing for over the last 10 weeks of childbirth classes, the only birth I could ever imagine for myself – it’s more than likely that I’ll be delivering by c-section.

I was heartbroken. I am heartbroken. It’s taken me nearly a week to be able to talk about this without crying.

I know that having the birth we wanted isn’t the most important thing. My health and the health of the baby are far more important than our expectations. But changing expectations is hard.

So over the last week, we’ve done our research, and started to make our peace with this. We’re trying everything we feel safe doing to encourage the baby to turn, and some day I’ll tell you all about it. We’re grieving for the experience we probably won’t get to have, and trying to make the most informed choices we can.

Most importantly, we’re holding onto our joyful anticipation of our baby’s birth, whether baby is forcefully pushed or gently pulled into this world. Because however it happens, we know that it will be worth the fear and excitement and sadness and anticipation and pain and recovery.