The rest of the story

Um, you guys? I am at a coffee shop. For the first time in two and a half weeks, I am ALONE. With a computer, a piece of carrot cake, a steamed milk and a lovely view. Time to pick up where I left off.

You'll recall that I spent the day before Mia was born trying to get my labor started, using acupuncture, an herbal labor tincture, lots of walking, and a deep-dish pizza loaded with pepperoni, sausage, meatballs, Canadian bacon and linguica. I wolfed down quite a bit of that spicy pie, enough that when my stomach began to hurt at around 10 p.m., I figured I had too much to eat. I told Sal I was going to lay down. During the next two hours, my "gas pains" kept waking me up, but I was so tired I drifted back to sleep every time.

But at around midnight, it had grown too painful to ignore, so I got out of bed. Sal woke up and asked what I was doing. I told him I couldn't sleep, but not to worry about me! No sirree! I said was just going to read for a little bit and then I'd go back to sleep.

Then I went into the baby's room and sat on my birthing ball. A birthing ball is essentially just a big exercise ball, and I had been sitting one one for weeks while watching TV. It was more comfortable than hefting my big ol' body on and off the couch, but more important, it alleviates back pain and supposedly helps your pelvic joints widen, allowing the baby to descend more easily into the birth canal. I'm not entirely sure that worked for me, but I was 2 centimeters dilated the day before my due date, so who knows?

Anyway, so I was on the ball and trying to read a book. Only the "gas pains" kept disrupting my train of thought. I decided to start timing them. My logic was that if they came at a regular pace, it MIGHT be contractions. If not ... gas!

Well, somewhere in the next hour or so I grew frustrated because I couldn't keep track of the clock and the pain at the same time. The cramps were coming two to five minutes apart, and they didn't seem regular at all. I figured I must be doing something wrong. So at 2 a.m., I woke up Sal. Told him I needed him to come time the pain, because I couldn't figure out what was going on. I dragged my ball out to the living room, and Sal plopped down on the couch with a watch. He also put on a DVD of "The West Wing." I'm not sure why I need to mention that, maybe because it's my last vivid memory for awhile.

So Sal started trying to figure out the timing, only this also goes terribly, because I kept forgetting to tell him when the pain began. Or when it ended. Or anything useful whatsoever. I believe there were maybe two times I remembered to say something, and both times the duration was around two minutes. So we called the hospital, which basically said, "Uh, yeah, you are IN LABOR, dumbass. So you might think about popping in for a visit tonight."

At this point things get a little frantic. For Sal. Who realized well before I did that This Is It. He began running around the house collecting the various things we would need to take to the hospital. We had our bags packed already, but he needed to grab stuff like cell phone chargers, the laptop and camera, birthing ball, etc. Me, I jumped into the shower because it seemed very, very important that I shave my armpits before having a baby. By this time I knew I was having real contractions, because a few times in the shower I had to stop what I was doing and cling to the wall to get through them. After I got dressed I sat on the ball again until we were ready to get in the car. We arrived at the hospital at 3:30 a.m.

I don't really remember the ride to the hospital, where I arrived dizzy with pain. But I definitely remember the woman who greeted us in the ER. As she pushed my wheelchair toward the elevator, she chirped, "Don't worry, honey! Once you get the epidural, you'll be JUST FINE!" I was not capable of responding, but Sal, who knew I would burn with fury at such a comment, said, "Actually, we are hoping to do this without the medication." Nurse goes, "Oh. Well. Good luck with that!"

She was one in a series of hospital folk who would royally piss me off in the next hour or two. Like the sing-songy receptionist at Labor and Delivery, who heard me gasp at Sal to give me a water bottle. She clucked her tongue and said, "Now, you aren't supposed to be having waa-terrrr!" God, I would have loved to see her try to take it away from me. And for the record, the nurses let me have as much water and juice as I wanted, so maybe the freaking secretary ought to button it up with the medical advice, hmm? Then, because all the L&D rooms were occupied or being cleaned, we were put into a small, stuffy observation room. And in came this timid little med student who fired off a hundred pointless questions, including this gem as I huffed through a particularly nasty contraction: "So, um ... Are you in any pain tonight?" I don't even remember my response, but I hope it knocked him a good one in the nuts.

Two more things happened in that horrid little room. One, a doctor came in to check me, and I was already 5 centimeters dilated. Cool. Halfway there! Two, we learned that, evidently, when Amy Pizarro is in labor, she prefers that her body remain UNTOUCHED BY EVEN THE TINIEST STITCH OF CLOTHING. The only reason I can even admit this is now is that it felt so out of my hands. I mean, it's not like I sat there thinking, "Gee, this hospital gown is a real bummer. I shall decide to remove it from my person!" No, I simply was covered up one minute, and the next, whoosh! I was naked. Naked as a jaybird. Except for the stupid fetal monitors strapped across my belly, but hooooo boy, guess what happened next! The crazed pregnant lady ripped those off, too! With a flourish! I was just so incredibly hot and uncomfortable that this was simply the only way things could be.

Also around this time, Kathy, my doula, had arrived. Which was really good for poor Sal, who learned that Amy in labor also does not care for people touching her, or talking to her, or anything else we had practiced in our birthing prep class. He'd try to touch my shoulder, and I'd shrug him off. He did my breathing with me - something that was so sweet and helpful in class - and I told him to stop. I had no idea I'd be so distracted by that, and I think it was freaking him out to see me in such awful pain AND to realize how little he could do to help me.

I'm not sure when we got moved to an actual L&D room, I think maybe it was close to 5 a.m. (They did convince me to wear a gown between rooms, but DON'T EVEN think I wouldn't have strolled right down that hallway in my birthday suit.) I immediately took off the gown and got into the shower, where Kathy began spraying me down with warm water. Meanwhile, Sal went to move the car from the holy-shit-please-help-us spot by the ER front doors to a real parking space, and to get my birthing ball. When he came back, I rested my legs by sitting on the ball in the shower. The sound and feel of the water were soothing to me, so this is how I spent most of the next hour. In the shower, being coached by Kathy to moan low and loud through each contraction.

A note about the low moan: This is something we practiced in my prenatal yoga class, and we all felt ridiculous doing it. It's embarrassing. We sounded like farm animals. But the reality is, the low moan for me was the very best way to work though the worst of the pain. The ha-hee-ha-hee breathing did help during the early parts, but that breathing doesn't work for shit when things get ugly. You need something far more powerful for your mind and body to focus on during the bad contractions, and for me that was moaning.

The next part is blurriest for me, but here's what I remember. At around 6, Kathy said I needed to move around a little more, so I got out of the shower. She and Sal dried me off, and we went to the bed, which I leaned on for awhile. At this point, I was in the very worst of the worst part of labor, known as "transition." I remember this funny diagram they showed us at our birthing class, with cartoon faces of a woman in each phase of labor. The transition face was crumpled up like a person who might be thinking, "Ow! That kind of hurts!" But real transition? Man. The truth is, it was the most terrifying pain I have ever felt in my life. The contractions rocked me. And they were piled one on top of the other, no break in the pain whatsoever. I was petrified. It felt like I was trying to outrun a monster, and every single time I thought I'd escaped, I'd feel it tapping me on the shoulder. Over and over again.

But do you want to know the weird thing? As much as it hurt, the pain wasn't the hardest part. The hardest part was trying not to totally lose my shit. The panic was so close, OH SO VERY CLOSE, and I knew if I lost my balance even a little, I'd nosedive into a sobbing, pleading, screeching hysteria. And I think keeping my senses focused on staying calm made the pain, which I couldn't do anything about anyway, somewhat of a secondary issue. I focused my mind and ears on the moan. I opened my eyes and tried to find Sal's face (which was 12 inches from mine, but it still took me forever to spot him). I clutched his hands. I moaned, and I moaned, and I moaned.

And then there was one contraction that ended differently than the others - I heard my moan turn into a strange, teeth-clenching grunt. Kathy whipped around and said, "Amy, are you pushing?" I couldn't answer. But with the next contraction I heard a bigger grunt, and Kathy told Sal to get someone to check me. They helped me onto the bed, and then I heard someone say I was 9 centimeters. Kathy helped me get back up and said one more really good contraction would probably get me that last centimeter, so she and Sal held me up and I clung to them both while I fought through another one. Then I was back on the bed, and another check put me at 10.

Next I remember a flurry of commotion. With transition behind me, things were becoming a bit clearer, and I was able to open my eyes and realize what was going on. There were cheerful people in masks, a light coming down from the ceiling, noisy stuff being wheeled in, and someone telling me not to push. This is funny, because the thing I discovered about pushing is, it's not really something you DO. You can certainly participate, but in my experience, pushing happens TO you. It's an urge that is out of your control and nearly impossible to rein in. So I ignored them and pushed anyway, but they got a bit more insistent - later I found out they were waiting for the doctor to arrive. So I huffed and puffed through one contraction without pushing, and then the doctor was there and I was given permission to push away. Sal was on my right, holding up my leg and foot, and Kathy did the same on the left. During each contraction, they held me by the shoulders, helping me curl up my body. The cheering and yells of "PUSHPUSHPUSHPUSH!" were so loud, and the lights blazed down all of us, and it was such awesome, scary chaos.

A nurse asked me if I wanted to touch the baby's head. My birth plan specifically said I did not want to do such a thing. But at this point in my labor, especially with the worst of the pain behind me, I was fascinated by everything that was going on. So I said yes, and they helped me reached down and HOLY SHIT THAT IS A HEAD. Then they asked if I wanted to see it in a mirror. Again, I said yes. I'm glad I did. It was so encouraging to see how close we were - even though they were telling me that my pushing was moving the baby out, it was hard for me to feel the progress. Then there were a couple more pushes, and I felt the baby slide out. Sal's beaming face leaned over close to mine, and he told me that we had a little girl.

The big moment!

Under that blanket is a slippery, bony little body wriggling on my stomach. I kept trying to see her face, but all I could see was the top of her tiny head, which was covered in dark wet hair.

They let Mia stay with me for more than an hour before taking her to be weighed, measured and washed off. Here we are after dad cut the umbilical cord, allowing me to pull her up to my chest.


After she was cleaned up, a nurse took two little hospital hats and cleverly cut and folded them into one hat with a pretty bow.


Our first family portrait!


Here we are on our way from the L&D room to our recovery room. It was so cool to be wheeled down the hallway while holding my new baby - everyone kept stopping to grin and say congratulations. We were like our very own parade!

And that was that! And as for natural childbirth, I'm just so happy I went for it, despite the overwhelming feeling that everyone thought I was crazy. I'm glad I trusted my body to figure this out without a medical tangle of drugs, tubes and monitors. Yes, it hurt like holy hell. But the bad parts were over SO fast. From our hospital arrival to baby, it took a little more than three hours. I pushed for 20 minutes. And about an hour after getting a few stitches for a small tear I never felt, I was up and about like the whole thing had never happened. I walked around. I took a shower. I devoured a huge pancake breakfast.

While I know an epidural woudn't necessarily have made any of this impossible, I firmly believe that a birth this fast and relatively easy would have been far less likely if I had gone the modern-medicine route. And now I'm just so incredibly grateful. It must be among the rarest experiences a person can have, trudging through the most excruciating pain I could imagine, and then watching that suffering become the most joyful memory of my life.

Losing it? Perhaps just a bit.

Realization: "Nesting" just means that a pregnant woman HAS NOTHING LEFT TO DO. When the crib, the clothes, the car seat are all ready, well ... guess I might as well organize the goddamn spice cabinet!

Kid, IT IS TIME.

Happy week 40!

Check out that belly, wouldya? And I'm even sucking in!

So since we found out we were pregnant in mid-February, every Wednesday morning before I even get out of bed, I have marked the new weekly milestone by chirping at a sleeping Sal, "Happy week 11!" "Happy week 25!" And so on, and so forth. And no, I'm sure that did not get annoying to him AT. ALL.

So to hear myself say "40" this morning was, um, crazy and unbelievable. But here we are, at the due date. Evidently this kid doesn't realize it comes from a family who makes deadline.

I saw the doctor yesterday, and she said I'm 2 centimeters dilated and that she could feel the baby's head. Hooray! There's a head!

I celebrated my due date today by splurging on a prenatal massage. It's been months since I have spent 60 whole minutes feeling THAT comfortable in my own body. It was bliss. Of course, I have also been having contractions all afternoon (not the real deal) (at least, I don't think it's the real deal) (I'm new at this) so half the massage was spent fretting that my water might break all over the fancy table. At least they had lots of towels!

Presents for everyone!

Is there anything more fun than random, unexpected surprises being delivered to your front door? I DON'T THINK SO! I mean, it's completely awesome to get a package you ordered yourself. And then followed breathlessly via online tracking from New Jersey to Utah to Sacramento to San Jose to right there to your very own house - oh boy, do I get giddy about packages. But when a treat drops onto your doorstep from out of the blue?! EEEEEEE!

This has happened to me twice recently. For instance, just now a FedEx guy delivered a surprise package from my first college roommate, Paige. Well, correction: My FIRST college roommate was an angry girl named Michelle who sulked a lot and refused to decorate her side of the room. One of the first things she said to me was, "The thing about me is, when someone's a bitch to me, I'm all 'BITCH, you better step OFF.' " It's lovely to meet you, too, Michelle! A few weeks later I moved in with Paige, who was a thousand times more pleasant, and not just because she was a candyholic who kept troves of milk duds and peanut butter cups on hand. Paige and I also decorated our room by dangling empty beer cans from the ceiling. Oh, college. You make me smile.

Anyway, so the surprise package. It contained a gift for the baby - a soft, snuggly blanket decorated with dots. Red, brown, blue and orange DOTS! I am loving me some dots, you guys. And she bought it awhile ago, so she didn't even know I had dots in the baby's room already. A delicious coincidence!

Wrapped in the blanket was a book for mom and dad called "How to con your kid." It's full of inventive ways of getting your child to do stuff it doesn't want to do. My favorite idea so far is about getting your kid to eat veggies by giving those foods cooler names. Carrots become "orange suns." Broccoli is "baby trees." Love it.

But there was a third present in the package, this one for good ol' Chickenbone, who has been woefully left out of this whole baby-gift thing. And don't even THINK he hasn't noticed.


See that pink thing? It's called a "candy ball" from PetCandy. It's the perfect treat for dogs like Chickens who love to chase after tennis balls but can't quite get their little jaws around them. He's already nuts for this toy. Check out this glare, which means "I dare you to try to take this away, suckah":


Sorry for the crappy quality of these photos, but I had to take them with my BlackBerry because my good camera is in the car. IN THE LABOR BAG OMG. Anyway, thank you so much, Paige - especially from Chickens!

OK, the other gift I got was from my crazy-talented friend Robyn. Merely because I left a comment on this post. I'm telling you, I should have had to do far more to earn treats this neat.


The cool thing is that I had already fallen in love with her little kitchen towel embroidery projects, which she had written about earlier. So I went to pieces to have one of my very own. Also in the package were these adorable sushi potholders.

Robyn said she had to fight the urge to add some blood to the end of that chopped-off hand on the left. While I personally would have appreciated that, I suppose she made the right call since I won't have to hide these for company. Thanks, Robyn!

OK, kid, ready when you are.

For most of my pregnancy, I haven't been prone to those teary emotional spells that come over new mommies as they prepare to welcome their baby into the world. Of course, I'm beyond excited about everything, and I've had a blast getting the room and house ready for our new son or daughter, but I've kept the waterworks to a minimum.

But a few weeks ago, I rounded up all the baby clothes we've received at showers and from friends and relatives and threw them into the washer with, naturally, a cupful of Dreft. And when I opened up that dryer and caught a whiff of that OMGTHISSMELLSLIKEBABY soap, and when I saw this little green sock sticking out from the mound of clothes, I nearly swooned from the WOW of it all. And folding up all those impossibly tiny socks and jammies did, in fact, get me quite choked up.


I'm so happy to finally have a few minutes to sit down and post these pictures I have been taking for months. My maternity leave began last week, two weeks before my due date, and it has been so nice to have a some time to mentally prepare and to rest. I'm still feeling mostly OK, but I do have one major complaint that has finally pushed me into god-let's-get-this-over-with territory: My hands are a disaster. Evidently carpal tunnel syndrome is a common ailment in late pregnancy - it's a circulation thing. It's not my wrists, but my hands themselves. And while they are pretty stiff and achy all day, at night they hurt so much I can't even clutch the covers to pull them up. Last night I even woke up to find that one finger on my right hand was curled up and would not uncurl! I'm told this problem will vanish practically the moment I have the baby, so I shouldn't have to suffer too much longer. Stupid useless appendages!

But anyway, OK, on to the baby's room. Which used to be a guest room/office. Here's what it looked like before:



This summer, I spent my two-week vacation painting the ceiling and walls a color called Plastic Pear. For days as I painted, I couldn't decide if the color was crisp and bright and fun, or if it looked like urine.


Luckily all that blue tape was casting quite a strange tint over everything, so when I finally yanked all that crap off, I was pleased.


My most prized possession in the room is the big huge reclining armchair. I must have sat in three dozen rocking chairs at at least four stores, and this is the only one that could even remotely be described as comfortable. The regular rockers were too hard or jabby, and they didn't go up high enough so you could lean your head back. This chair, it feels like heaven. I've already taken four naps in it. And do you see the little red table next to the chair? Found it on clearance on Target. That's where mommy's cocktail goes!


Here's a picture of the crib and the polka-dot bedding set I fell in love with. I like how it's not a THEME, it's just cute and fun and colorful. The soft little lamb cuddler thinger was a shower gift from the best man in our wedding and his wife.


A closer look at the bedding, which is from Land of Nod. I love the brown dotted crib sheet! It also came with a solid yellow one.


Here's the top of the chifferobe, which is a somewhat unusual piece of furniture but it was perfect for our purposes. This room conveniently has NO CLOSET so we needed something with a little bit of hanging space. However we didn't want a gigantic armoir, because we also need lots of drawer room. The chifferobe is the best of both worlds, with one half devoted to hanging space and shelves and the other a tall stack of deep drawers. Anyhow, sitting on top are all the cool children's books we've received, as well as a cute lamp and my birthday gift from Sal, a radio/CD/iPod player that has already been used one million times.


The very first things I bought for this room, before I knew the paint color or anything, were these adorable prints from an Etsy shop called barkingbirdart. It was so hard to pick just a few!



A treasured gift from my girlfriend Amy, whose talented friend used a sewing machine and some fabric to make these burpcloths so much more adorable than spit rags have any right to be. And look! Polka dots!


Here's the other dresser/changing table. Between the chifferobe and this, I think we might have secured enough room to put away all of baby's things. And holy crap, does this kid already have a ton of things. But wait! What's that on top of the dresser?!


Why, thank you for asking. Those would be the favorite childhood toys of mom and dad. The green monkey was Sal's when he was a little boy. It was the mascot of this old San Jose amusement park called Frontier Village. The brown bear was a gift my mom's friend gave me when I was a baby. It used to have really cute brown eyes, but my dog Max was fond of chewing the bear's face off, which always sent me into HYSTERICS. My mom performed "surgery" each time this happened and was able to save the eyes a couple of times, but one time I guess they were goners, so she sewed on these red buttons. My point is, it didn't always look so scary. I halfway feel like I should go out and find some freaky little stuffed animal for our baby - the ones we have now are way too normal-looking to join this bunch.


So, that's the baby's room! And about an hour ago, our first batch of cloth diapers was delivered, meaning I get to use the "R" word now - ready. I have a good friend who likes to point out that you're never READY to have a baby, and I can buy that. But my great big 1,000-things-long list of things that must be done before the birth is now entirely crossed off. So maybe I'll just say I'm ready in all the ways I know how to be.

Oh, and also, the baby and I were under strict orders not to get this show under way until after Sal and I saw "Star Wars in Concert," which we did last night!

READY!

A very pregnant birthday

Well, this is me, 33 years old and 35 weeks (plus one day) pregnant. Hoo boy! Some women comment that I look small, and then I comment that their eyes are probably broken. I feel a lot of things right now, but small ain't one of them.

So far it has been a spectacular day. My little brother who is stationed in Saudi Arabia called me to wish me a happy birthday, and it was the first time I have been able to hear his voice in months. And this morning my darling husband made me French toast for breakfast. And tonight? TONIGHT! Sal and I are retreating to the couch with a huge and delicious pizza for the season premiere of Survivor. We are practically the only people we know who are still faithful followers of Jeff Probst and his merry band of castaways, but this is a tradition Sal and I have had going for a LONG TIME. Years and years. Before we got married. Before we lived together. Heck, we had pizza-and-Survivor-premiere parties way back when we were "just friends" who sat around trying very, very hard not to flirt with each other. So! A happy birthday it shall be.

UPDATE! The day got even better! Check out what two of my colleagues just brought me. A dish full of dainty desserts, plus a mocktail! Which I'm drinking! As a religion class is being taught in the room across from my office! God, it feels good to hold a cocktail glass again.

Oh, for pete's sake

Somehow I have it in my head that to recover from a long spell of not blogging I need to have something truly profound to say that will distract you from the absence. Well, if that's so, today is not your lucky day. Because I'm merely here to complain.

Turns out that at 32 weeks, the easy parts of being pregnant might be over. And today I have two completely whiny complaints that I haven't read about anywhere else, but they are happening to me now, and I am hot and cranky and need to vent about them!

First of all, did you know that when you are pregnant, sneezing hurts a lot more? Holy mackerel! Now when I feel a sneeze coming on, not only do I have to concentrate on squeezing my baby-bumped bladder closed tight, but I have to brace for the smack of pain in my chest, right above my belly. I suspect maybe my because my lungs are so squished up, the power of a sneeze just knocks the hell out of them. Is that possible? Nobody writes about this. Probably because, what on earth are you going to do about it.

Second of all, the skin on my stomach is stretched so tight that it feels like it could burst open at any moment and send my baby hurtling across the room. And WOW, did that feeling come on suddenly! I notice that I subconsciously suck in all the time, presumably because it feels a bit more comfortable (or is it because that's how I spent, oh, I dunno, ALL OF MY 20s?) And when I focus on relaxing my stomach muscles, I swear you can actually hear the uncomfortable stretching sound, like that wincy-sounding rubber noise a balloon makes when you twist it. It is so, so, so tight. And then five minutes later I forget and accidentally start sucking in again. What on earth do I do? Do I take a bath? Lotion? A bath in lotion?

That is all for now. Blogging dry spell over. Again. Yay!

Week 26: "Bump" may be an understatement

I sort of can't believe I am posting such a horrid, grainy dressing-room self-portrait. BUT WOULD YOU GET A LOAD OF THAT BELLY?!

The heat is starting to get to me, so last night I went to the mall in search of some cool summer dresses. And I remembered way back when I was 8 or 9 weeks pregnant, I practically had a breakdown in the Old Navy dressing room. I was already starting to feel uncomfortable in my regular clothes, so I set out to see what maternity wear would look like. Turns out, it looked ridiculous. I was like a chubby ragamuffin with all that material sagging over my not-yet-fat-enough belly. And I couldn't tell which was worse: feeling fat and constricted or feeling thin and dumpy. So I decided the best thing would be to cry.

When I pulled this dress over my head yesterday, though, I couldn't believe the difference. It's like a basketball shoved under there! This takes me by such surprise, because I don't really FEEL like that. I'd say 90 percent of the time, I feel like my normal, pre-pregnancy self, with the same old body and same old everything. So it's a shocker to look in the mirror and see this crazy pregnant lady. I did a happy jump-up-and-down dance right there in the Baby Gap dressing room. And then I took this picture. Wheeee!

Feeling a little ranty

About halfway through my body pump weightlifting class earlier this week, the instructor chirped that we had just finished what was voted "most challenging squats track of the year." Yay, us! But I was also reminded, for about the millionth time, that I'm still pissed off at Vicki Iovine, author of "Girlfriends' Guide to Pregnancy."

I discovered this book years ago in the waiting room of my OB/GYN office. I'd often pick it up and thumb through a few pages, feeling sorta guilty for peeking ahead but being unable to resist reading about this most mysterious topic. So when I became pregnant myself, I was excited to have an legitimate reason to read it.

The book claims to explain what REALLY happens during pregnancy, stuff your doctor won't tell you but your girlfriends will. A lot of it is fine, I suppose, but when I got to the chapter on exercise, the entire book was pretty much ruined for me. In this chapter, Vicki offers up eight reasons pregnant women shouldn't bother to exercise. And now I am going to share that list with you, along with my own personal opinion about why each and every item is total bullshit.

1. You will be too tired.
During my first trimester, the exhaustion was absolutely crippling, and it was indeed tougher to drag my ass out of bed in the morning. And nausea kept me off the elliptical a few times. But even during those morning (...noon, night...) sickness weeks, I tried to get out for a walk or two. And when I got back to regular workouts, I realized I had far more energy (aka fewer midafternoon naps at my desk) when I was getting regular exercise. For me, activity = energy.

2. You won’t like yourself in harsh gym mirrors.
Oh, right. I forgot how the most important thing at the gym is to look gorgeous! I seriously can't believe a woman wrote this. Vicki says she would prefer to "sulk and stop exercising" before becoming one of those "die-hard" pregnant exercisers who wear their husband's T-shirts "to camouflage things." She also warns that regular gym clothes "take on a whole new identity when stuffed with pregnant bellies, pregnant thighs and pregnant knees, and topped off by pregnant arms." I guess I am supposed to be ashamed of this? Well, I'm not. Look, I'm quite aware that the giant-T-shirt-over-a-beach-ball look isn't sexy, and that I'm likely plumping out all over right now. But I still feel a little proud when I look in the gym mirror. Watching my body doing lunges or shoulder presses is cool, like I'm still a strong and motivated person despite the increasing physical limitations of pregnancy. And guess what? If I wasn't at the gym, I'd probably be staring in the mirror at home, feeling depressed about the weight gain Vicki thinks I should do nothing to control. Fun!

3. You will get fat anyway.
No shit. Hey, Vicki, nobody thinks you can exercise away a pregnant belly. But just because weight gain is inevitable doesn't mean I should let the flab just wash over me. My doctor said I should gain 25-35 pounds during pregnancy, and so far I'm within the ballpark. If I wasn't working out several times per week - especially considering the volumes of food I'm eating - I don't think I'd stand a chance at achieving this perfectly reasonable goal.

4. Exercise will not help you during labor and delivery in any way.
I am going to go out on a limb here, since this is an area in which I have no experience. But I'm pretty sure I'm right that LABOR IS HARD. Physically. Mentally. Emotionally. Vicki explains that exercise won't make your vagina more delivery-friendly or your contractions less painful or more productive (did anybody really think that anyway?) But I believe the mental endurance and focus I have learned through exercise - particularly with running, yoga and weight training - may indeed come in handy one day in October. Another book I read suggested that you get lots of sleep as your due date nears, since you never know when you'll have to get up and perform the gynecological equivalent of running a marathon. For 18 hours. So to me, it seems that, in the months leading up to this feat, a little activity for the ol' ticker and the rest of your muscles MIGHT not be such a bad idea.

5. You might endanger the pregnancy.
I know there are situations in which exercise is a bad idea for pregnant ladies. But those ladies have received those instructions from their doctor, and it's just silly of this writer to alarm the pregnant population at large. This might be a good time to mention the benefits exercise can bring to your pregnancy, including alleviating constipation, making your back feel better, and helping you sleep at night.

6. Even if you don’t, and something goes wrong, you will forever wonder if your exercising caused it.
Well, I wasn't GOING to wonder that, but maybe I will now. Thanks a lot, "girlfriend."

7. It’s nine months up and nine down no matter what you do.
It's stupid to make a blanket decree like this. Some women drop the weight in a couple of months. Others take a year or more. In fact, pretty much all advice about pregnancy can in some ways seem worthless, since every complaint, every body change, every labor and delivery story, is different for every single woman.

8. Our compulsion to exercise when we are pregnant is a reflection of our inability to surrender and let nature run its course.
This is when I had to put the book down and laugh. Guess what. I surrendered the moment I saw that positive pregnancy test in February. And nature? Well, from the look and feel of things, it's running its course just fine, not hindered whatsoever - and perhaps even helped - by my dedication to working out.

And let me share my favorite part about working out while pregnant: When I go to the gym these days, I am heaped in admiration. My locker-room pals marvel at the fact that I'm still working out at nearly 6 months. They pat me on the back. They tell me I look great. And believe me, when a person is getting fatter, zittier, crankier, sweatier, and ever more uncomfortable living in their own skin, there is no quicker way to feel like a million bucks.

Spaghetti squash and a Subaru

Lots of big news and fun updates from the past couple of weeks, which has been a flurry of budgeting, buying, selling, list-making, fixing and organizing. The goal, I believe, is to be "ready" for the baby by the beginning of September, giving us a month or so of just-in-case time before we hit the real home stretch. So let's just say I'm feeling some pressure right now. But the good news is, I really dig shit like this. Diving headfirst into seven projects at once - especially when they have nothing to do with actual work! - is about my favorite thing. So here's what's been going on.

First of all, we realized several months ago to that to change our second bedroom from office/guestroom to nursery, we had to get our act together in two or three other rooms to find places to put all that stuff. We started with Sal's office, getting rid of some junky furniture on Craigslist and buying several large bookcases to organize our 1.8 trillion books. We also made one of Sal's lifelong manly dreams come true, buying him a cool leather chair. (And he totally tested out the baby-holding allowability of this model at Cost Plus, using a squishy long pillow from a nearby patio set. See? Manly!)


We also began the rather terrifying process of figuring out what we want in things like a stroller, car seat, crib. To do this, we took the advice of many and drove all the way up to Lullaby Lane in San Bruno. Everyone who tells you this is the ONLY place to do major baby shopping in the Bay Area is, I'm sure, 100 percent correct. We dealt with three salespeople about three different products and all of them were friendly, spectacularly knowledgeable and low-pressure. But this is not to say that the day was easy, so around noontime, we took a halftime break here:


We didn't make any purchases that day (we'll do that next week) as this was just to test the waters. But as we drove back to San Jose, we began to feel kinda bad about the idea of spending our money in another city. So just to play fair, we also visited San Jose's Babyland, which is famously located next to the Pink Poodle adult theater. Well, nobody talked to us, the selection wasn't nearly as good, and the whole 20 minutes we spent there just felt deflating. So we head back out to the car. And as I'm opening my door, Sal goes, "Want to know another reason we're not buying at Babyland? Because at Lullaby Lane, you don't find THIS in the parking lot."


Don't miss the fine print on that bad boy! Ahem. OK, so moving on, last week we sold my little green VW Beetle to a lovely young college student who answered my Craigslist ad. This was the first time I have ever sold a car privately (probably because it's the first time I was ever not selling a total hunk of crap) and I must say it was overall quite a pleasant experience. I LOVED that car, and I bawled as I turned the keys over. But this young woman was so sweet and barely acted scared of me at all. And a few days ago, she even sent me a photo of her and my car on a road trip to Napa. She wrote that she is in love with the car already and promises to take very good care of it. Adorable.


Then it was time to find the new, baby-friendly car. So on Tuesday night we went to the local Subaru dealership to look for a Forester, which we love because it's a teensy bit tall and a teensy bit wide, but it's not a big honking SUV. (Bonus: It's the 2009 Motor Trend Sport/Utility of the Year!) I saw a color I immediately loved in the exact trim I wanted, we took a test drive, and it was perfect. So we headed into The Scary Room with our salesman, who said the price they could give us was a hefty chunk off the sticker price, plus we qualified for an outstanding finance rate.

At this point, it had been a good 20 minutes since my last meal, and I was starving. So I told the guy we were heading out to get dinner and we'd be back. He paled, then offered to send someone to buy us dinner. Er, no. We're leaving. So he tosses us the keys and insists that we take the car. DAMN, that's a good trick. We drove it over to the nearest Round Table, since in this family, all important decisions and discussions are required to unfold over pizza.


Seriously! We had pizza twice when buying our home (once to discuss what kind of offer to make on our house, once when meeting with our financing guy) and we had pizza after the first time we saw our baby in the ultrasound. These are but three of many, many examples. We also have lots of pizza for non-important reasons, but that's not my point right now. Anyway, what we had to discuss was this: How to bargain with this guy when (a) we knew their offer was actually pretty good, (b) there's nothing more I want or need regarding the car, (c) we have a down payment, so there's no trade-in to haggle about, and (d) oh yeah, we've never done this before and are kind of clueless.

So I decided to be honest. We went back and I told the guy, "Look. The truth is, I love this car. I want this car, and I want to buy it from you. And I know you are offering a fair price. But the thing is, only a moron would walk into a car dealership and pay the very first thing the dealer offered. And I just can't be that person." And he's like, "So, you NEED something." Yes, I need something. So he went to his boss, got me a few somethings, and we shook hands. Could we have done better? Probably, but I feel pretty good about this considering it was our first time out. (Plus, don't tell Phil or whatever his name was, but we would totally have paid that first price.)


I would have posed in that picture with the car, but I didn't want to obstruct the view. HA! Jokes. But I have popped out a little bit. My helpful weekly BabyCenter e-mail tells me that the Appleseed is now the size of a spaghetti squash, hence the title of this blog post that probably should have been explained 18 paragraphs ago. Anyhow. Here's the grainy BlackBerry self-portrait taken of me and my baby at week 22!

Week 17 ultrasound

Here are some pictures from yesterday's peek at the baby, aka the best television show ever. The technician said our child is "gorgeous" and "cooperative" and "a real character." Therefore we like her very much. (The technician, not the child, whose gender we won't know till it's here. I mean, we like the child, too. But you see what I mean.)

At this visit, we could actually see organs for the first time, including all four chambers of the heart. We also saw two legs, but only one arm. I'm opting not to dwell on that.


Here's a closeup of the face, wherein my child looks like a bald, grinning, one-eyed clown pirate.


Some people may think this photo shows the baby trying to suck its thumb. But if it takes after me, Sal or Chickenbone, it is probably saying "Uh, trying to sleep in here, do you mind?"

Obligatory belly shot: Week 16

(How I love the first GOOD fat picture of my life.)

Week 13 glamour shots

Here are a couple pictures from an ultrasound I had last week, the final week of the first trimester. Here's to expanding waistlines and happier boobs!

Cirque du Bebe

So it turns out there is a baby in my belly!

OK, obviously I've known about this pregnancy for two entire months now, but I never felt this truly and honestly pregnant until yesterday when I went in for a 12-week ultrasound. I mean, last time we took a peek inside at 8 weeks, all I could see was a small white blob, which the doctor referred to as a baby. And I loved this small white blob, and I knew it was MY small white blob, but let's be honest ... how thrilling can a blob really be? 

Well, yesterday, the moment they put the scanner thing on my belly, ta-daaa! There on the screen was a freaking BABY. With fingers! And legs! AND A FACE! And oh my goodness, was it an active little thing. My tiny acrobat! I just felt so damned proud of it as it bounced and stretched and waved its wee arms ... it rolled over and twisted and turned ... one time it even stood on its head! It took my breath away. And then I saw Sal checking the Dodgers score on his BlackBerry, and I got it back again.

Just kidding. Well, I mean, Sal really did check the score. But in his defense, we had to wait quite awhile for the baby to be in the exact right position for this screening, so we had a lot of down time. Also in his defense, he was gleefully watching the Giants get pounded, and that plus hanging out with his on-camera baby is otherwise known as my husband's best day ever. And I'm SO not interfering with that.

A peek inside

I almost forgot to show you the pictures! I went in for my first doctor's appointment at week 8 and she did an ultrasound to check on the heartbeat. I also had to fill out a whole bunch of paperwork, including one sheet that began with this line:

"Mother: __________________________"

So I dutifully wrote in my mom's name before realizing HOLY SHIT THEY MEANT ME.

Anyway, here's our baby. The doctor also commented that I have the most perfectly round gestational sac she has ever seen. Sal: "Well, you ARE really organized."

It's like holding your breath for five weeks

One thing I have learned about myself is that if I can't speak freely on this blog about what's on my mind, it's hard to speak at all.

So when I found out I was pregnant last month, and we decided to keep a lid on it for awhile, it gave me a crippling case of writer's block. It sucks when all you can talk about, think about, fret about, dream about and beam about is a big, fat secret.

But now it's out, and I hope you'll allow me to finally take a few giant, gasping glugs of air here, while I remember everything I can about the past five weeks:

- I took the test on Valentine's Day, when I was three days late. I knew I was going to test that morning, but didn't tell Sal because I didn't want to get his hopes up for nothing. I tossed and turned all night because I was so anxious for morning to arrive, and as 5:30 a.m. rolled around, I couldn't take it anymore. I went to the bathroom, peed on the stick, and then watched the digital monitor flash a little clock at me for about a minute. Then it blinked, "Pregnant." I did this funny shriek-sob-gasp thing, clasped my hands over my mouth, and then stared at my face in the mirror for awhile. Then I checked the stick again. Still pregnant. I raced into the dark living room, then back to the bathroom to check the stick. Then to the living room, then the kitchen, then back into the bathroom to check the stick. Did a few more laps like this, not sure why, it just seemed like the thing to do. I finally made it into the bedroom to wake up Sal, who stumbled sleepily into the bathroom with me to check the stick. Still pregnant! These new digital tests are the best, because it actually has the word RIGHT THERE. So much cooler than pink lines.

- The first thing we did after this was go out to breakfast, where I triumphantly ordered decaf.

- We were both off that week, me for winter break, and Sal on furlough. So with nothing but time on my hands, I read everything I could get my hands on about being pregnant. Days later, I slid into a truly bitchy funk. I was worried, cranky and very unhappy. (Then I'd feel guilty for being unhappy at being pregnant, which made me feel even worse. It was one hell of a spiral.) Then I realized something kind of important: Most of the stuff written about being pregnant and giving birth is quite alarming. "Your hair will fall out!" "Your marriage will suffer!" "You'll never sleep again!" "Your finances are screwed!" "YOUR VAGINA WILL NEVER BE THE SAME!" I suspected I had just OD'd on the whole topic, so I put myself on reading restriction for a week or so, and that lifted all the clouds.

- Speaking of reading, Sal got a hilarious and very informative book called "Dad's pregnant, too" by Harlan Cohen. It kicks the crap of "What to expect when you're expecting." A sample passage from a section entitled "Tip #27 THE ME-TOO EXPECTANT FATHER: She Doesn't Give A Shi* If You're Tired":

"If your partner is complaining that she has a headache, don't say 'My head hurts, too.' If your partner is tired, don't tell her how tired you are, too. If she says she's nauseous, don't be nauseous, too. When she complains about aches and pains, don't talk about your aches and pains (even if you're a professional football player). If she says she can't sleep at night, don't tell her how you can't sleep, either. If she talks about her big belly and stretch marks, you can talk about your big belly and stretch marks, but only in an attempt to make fun of yourself (weight jokes about her are never never never never never never funny - she might laugh, but she'll kick your ass later)."

- I miss drinking. A lot. Nobody ever seems to write about this, because I guess you're supposed to feel all "Tra-la-laaaa! I'm a perfect and serene mommy-to-be who is thrilled to trade her martini glass for a nice, warm mug of pregnancy tea!" Surprisingly, drinking fruity non-alcoholic cocktails makes me feel tons better. Like I didn't get kicked out of the party. Also, for obvious reasons, one of the first people we told was my favorite bartender at my favorite bar, and he made it his mission to come up with interesting, delicious "cocktails" that he discreetly serves to me before I even have to ask. Awesome.

- Speaking of drinking, my husband is a genius. Early on, I was fretting about how I'd get through parties and dinners without people noticing that I wasn't drinking. Sal had an idea that must have pained him greatly, which was that he'd give up drinking for Lent. This took all the pressure off me, as everyone would stand around aghast at the diet coke in his hand, and they barely even noticed that I wasn't drinking either, to be "supportive."

- Except for the most debilitating exhaustion I have ever felt in my life and some queasiness that seems to have subsided in the past week, I am mostly feeling OK. I have only barfed once, and to be honest, I thought it was kind of cool.

- The first thing I read about week five of pregnancy was how the embryo was no bigger than an appleseed, and that's how we now affectionately refer to the baby. As in, "Uh, Sal? Appleseed's craving a nice cabernet."

Maybe that's all for now - oh, except to answer the big questions: I'm almost at 10 weeks, due Oct. 21, and we aren't going to find out the gender till the baby is born. And no, we do not expect Chickens to be thrilled about this.