So I went and got a pedicure. She asked me if I wanted a design painted on my big toes. I said, “Sure, whatever….and, um, are you going to eat the rest of those fries?”
I call these Stirrup Nails.
Archive for the ‘pregnant neurosis of the week’ Category
I’m supposed to give birth tomorrow
Friday, July 9th, 2010Oopsie! Wrong due date!
Friday, July 2nd, 2010Turns out the doctor’s office has been giving me the wrong information for the past, oh, six, seven months. The baby, I just learned today, is actually due July 10th, not on Independence Day, as previously expected.
I’m still not sure why the screwup. The doctor tried to explain the discrepancy — something about it being the ultrasound nurse’s fault (yeah, way to pass the buck, buddy!) — but I was so flustered and upset when he gave me the news that all I wanted to do was get out of there.
I do recall being told during our very first visit way back when that the due date was around July 9. But then on subsequent visits — specifically during the ultrasounds — the date was changed to July 4. Jake and I didn’t question the change, figuring they’re, um, medical professionals and know what they’re doing!
Subsequently, I became very attached to July 4th. I don’t know why I fixated on this particular date — I didn’t even realize the extent to which I had fixated on it until I found myself whimpering in the parking lot this morning — since babies rarely come on their due dates anyway, but July 4th became THE day. I’ve been going around saying to everyone for the past 7 months, “Yep, she’s due July 4th. Our little Patriot! July 4th. What a firecracker! She’s coming July 4th. I’m making her a 3-tier, red, white and blue Jello cake, yessiree!” My mother-in-law even bought her a red onesie that says “Little Firecracker!!!!” It’s what I was going to bring her home from the hospital in.
And now she’s not coming July 4th.
Maybe it’s “the hormones” — em, does that sound like something the cartoon character Cathy would say? — but I feel like the rug has been ripped out from under me. Like I had been promised an end-of-year bonus only to have the boss renege. I was so crushed after I left the doctor’s office, I couldn’t even call Jake. Largely because I already knew what he’d say: “What’s the big deal? It’s only a 6 day difference.” Not the point, dearie!!! So I called my mom instead.
My mom, god bless her, offered words of encouragement and support…..but then right in the middle of the pep talk, added this pearl:
“When you do finally go into the labor, don’t let them do anything you don’t want them to do! When I was in labor with your brother and the doctor hadn’t arrived yet, the nurses wouldn’t even let me open my legs. They clamped my legs together.”
Me: ”…???….”
Now, I love my mom to death. She’s very spirited and very wise, but conversations have a way of circling back to some of the wackiest tales of personal injustice and misfortune I have ever heard.
Me: ”Mom, I can’t think about that right now.” What, did you give birth on an enemy space ship?
Mom: “I’m just saying, don’t let them do anything to you that—”
Me: ”MOM! I don’t want to hear about that right now!”
Mom: “Okay, okay….just hang in there, sweetie! Baby June will come when she’s good and ready!”
Not a moment too soon. I’m at my wit’s end!
The end. And the beginning.
Thursday, July 1st, 2010My days of non parenthood are drawing to a close.
She’s due July 4.
Four days left.
The little Patriot.
I’m not exactly sure how I feel about this. Happy? Anxious? Indifferent?
I’ve been on my own since 17 so it’s probably time I have someone to think about and care for other than my winning self and general oral hygiene. This change steers me toward “happy.”
And yet what the heck is one supposed to do with a whimpering flesh packet all day?
I see a play group in my future. Perhaps entre into a mom’s club. Will my workaholic husband commit to a designated “family day?” And what does one do on such days around here? Mulch? Shovel things? As a family?
I wonder if it’s inevitable I will transform into one of those moms who change their kids’ dirty diapers on friends’ couches with no thought to the upholstery. And talk about the viscosity of baby poop in public because it seems like a fascinating topic worthy of discussion. And tote Goldfish crackers, half-eaten bagels and spelt rice cakes where ever I go like some damn Sherpa. Oh yes, and squirt breast milk on unsuspecting friends because it seems like a touchingly hilarious thing to do! (This has happened to me; I’ve never been the same.)
Yeah, I’m not going to deny it. There’s a lot about parenthood I dread.
In the meantime, I feel like I need to mark the end of my spawn-less days; to commemorate the end of an era somehow. I’ve got four days left. I’m thinking I’ll either
a) go out for ice cream
b) take a long walk through the woods
c) dream log
d) treat myself to another deep-fried hamburger….only this time, I won’t hold back. I’ll deep fry the bacon too.
The end of all that
Wednesday, June 23rd, 2010
As D-day — delivery day — approaches, everyone keeps telling us to make sure to go out on “dates” as much as we can — go to the movies, take weekends trip, go out to dinner – because once the baby arrives we’ll be in baby lockdown for, oh, the next 18 years (15 if she decides to run away from home).
The problem is, Jake and I never really go out anyway. Since moving to rural Virginia, the concept of “night life” has, for me, shriveled up and died like the blond carcass that passed for hair on Kate Gosselin’s head (before the weave).
A little visual reference
We never go anywhere together other than the Hen Hut, Walmart and maybe the sink hole. And occasionally we’ll have a hot date in the middle of some field somewhere where I’ve been sequestered to help Jake on one of his fencing jobs, which usually involves a shovel and a Bobcat. So really, I don’t think a baby is going to crimp our style much.
Be that as it may.
The other night we felt compelled to get in our last hoorahs as unshackled adults by going to the local drive-in theater. The goal: Stay for the double feature. The entire double feature.
We loaded up the beat-up, blue pickup truck, threw the dogs in the back, and threw caution to the wind by squealing into Walmart for a bag of their deli fried chicken, potato wedges and a sixer of Miller.
Once at the drive-in, we set up our chairs, Jake cracked open his first of six Millers while I, in between morsels of potato wedges, polished off an order of fried mozzarella sticks dunked in marinara sauce.
We watched Robin Hood (which pretty much sucked). About three-quarters of the way through the film, a downpour erupted from the sky, forcing all four of us — Jake, me, Sunny and Cowboy — into the cab of the miniature-sized pick-up and wait out the storm, while trying to watch the movie through a rain splattered windshield.
By the time the second feature started — Losers, which pretty much sums up my review of it — Jake was tipsy, I was bloated, the rain had stopped, yet we hung in there until the bitter end to suck every possible droplet of joy from OUR LIVES AS CHILDLESS ADULTS.
We didn’t get home until 2 in the morning, feeling valiant, vindicated, exhausted and suffering from indigestion from all that fried food.
Baby, we’re ready for you!
Pregnant neurosis of the week: Competing with 50 new chickens
Wednesday, June 2nd, 2010We have 50 baby chicks coming Monday. The human baby arrives in 4 weeks. We are ill-prepared for both.
In my latest vividly detailed worst case nightmare, I see me in the coop with an infant strapped to my chest, bending over to change the chicks’ water and the baby falls out of her Bjorn onto her noggin, smashing five or six chicks in the process. Carnage ensues. In this particular episode, Jake is off mowing the lawn for the third time that day (which he’s prone to do) or schooling some Yankee transplant in the ways of hay.
When I got out of bed this morning, I think I had a look of quiet constipation on my face (I’m not exactly sure what this looked like, but that’s how I felt) because Jake looked at me concerned.
“What?” He asked.
“You better not be off mowing the lawn once the baby comes. And how am I supposed to change the chicks’ water with a baby strapped to my chest? And we still don’t know infant CPR.”
“Um……good morning?”
“What if I accidentally kill the baby?”
“You won’t kill the baby.”
“How do you know? What if we end up in the poorhouse? How much $ do you think I can get if I sell all the chickens and the Hen Hut?”
“Here, eat this.” Jake handed me a banana dunked in Peter Pan peanut butter, then slowly backed out of the kitchen and headed for work.
I, meanwhile, continue to stew.
UPDATE: My friend Kathryn informed me that a baby can’t fall out of a Bjorn. Something about being strapped in.
Pregnant neurosis of the week: The nearing end of Special Needs
Monday, May 24th, 2010I’m nearly 8 months pregnant and have become quite accustomed to people, including Jake, offering to do all sorts of nice things for me: “Can I hold the door for you, ma’am? Do you want my seat, ma’am? Here, let me carry that for you, hon. I’ll do the dishes, babe. How about another ice cream sundae, hon? You’re eating for two after all!”
I think I’m going to suffer from post traumatic stress disorder once it ceases the moment the baby arrives. At least that’s what other moms say: People bend over backward trying to help an adorable pregnant lady, but all that goes bye-bye once a baby actually enters the picture and that once adorable mom is now covered in spit-up and her breast pads are leaking and she can’t sit down without a donut cushion because of certain anatomical unpleasantness, and her once doting husband now looks at her as The Mom, the wild-eyed, ratty-haired she-bear in mom jeans who’s responsible for taking care of all the domestic sh&% that hits the fan.
Yessir, once a mama actually NEEDS an extra set of hands, none are to be found.
I think I know why this is. It’s because if you offer to help a new mama whose been in newborn lockdown since the day she came home from the hospital, she’s likely to deposit her offspring in your arms and go chug a few Mai Tais down at O’Charleys. I mean, she might not come home at all. At least not sober or without being cuffed in the back of a squad car.
Here’s a minor example of what I’m talking about: After an afternoon of feverish cooking, I had to leave the house suddenly and left the kitchen an absolute disaster: dishes stacked to the ceiling, I broke the food processor, the stove top was caked with crud, there were food particles all over the floor. I came home later that night and Jake had cleaned everything — EVERYTHING! He even whipped up a batch of homemade empanadas. I thanked him and he said, “No problem, hon….considering your current condition.”
I wonder what will happen if I try to pull that same stunt once the baby arrives. Will I receive the same special attention? I doubt it. Right now, my swollen physical appearance makes me seem Special Needs, but once the baby comes, and I actually need a small army of servants (though I’ll settle for a few lackeys), I’ll be down on my hands and knees, baby lolling lifelessly in a carrier on my back, while I scrub the kitchen floor, weeping softly. Damn. Damn!
Pregnant neurosis of the week: Everything
Thursday, April 29th, 2010During last night’s birthing class, we had to watch a DVD of a woman laboring au natural (without pain medication) for hours and hours and hours. She looked like she was in absolute misery — grunting, groaning, wailing, and she was buck naked — while her husband, who I noticed was wearing a three wolf moon t-shirt (see below), “coached” her by cupping her face and boring his eyeballs into her forehead like a wizard trying to put her under a spell.
Her stomach was so big it looked like it was about to burst. I swear I could see little elbows and legs jutting just below the epidermis. At one point the doctor tried to say something to her; she told him to stop talking, her head lolling in her chest. And she looked like she had a missing tooth. (I think it was a local production.) After about 20 hours, the baby still hadn’t dropped into position, so they had to perform a cesarean, which they showed, incision, extraction and all.
On the way home, I was very quiet. I felt nauseous, actually. I felt my stomach cramping and my hip flexors gripping, and my tailbone was inexplicably sore.
Jake asked, “So….are you ready?”
“Uh…..not….exactly. But I guess there’s no turning this train around now.”
“Nope. But you’ll be fine. I know you will.”
“Just promise me one thing. Promise me you won’t wear a three wolf moon t-shirt into the delivery room. Promise me you’ll keep my hair brushed. Promise me you won’t let me hobble around the labor room with my lady parts hanging out for every orderly passing by to see. I’d like to keep a measure of decorum if at all possible.”
Jake laughed. “I don’t think you’re going to care what you look like when you’re in labor.”
“True, that’s why I leave it to you to make sure I don’t transform into a feral animal. And if they ask if you want to see the baby’s head crowning, you say no, okay?”
“I don’t think you’re going to care, hon.”
“But I will afterward. So you say no, alright?”
“Alright, if that’s what you want.”
“The whole business seems so….messy and violent to me. I don’t get where the “beauty of childbirth’ comes in.”
“You don’t think seeing our daughter take her first breath won’t be beautiful? That’s what makes the whole thing worth it. They don’t call it labor for nothing. You have to go through the darkness to get to the light.”
I wanted to say then he should probably have the baby and I could coach him in my three wolf moon t-shirt, but I didn’t want to seem facetious. So I kept quiet. We didn’t talk much for the rest of the ride home.
When I climbed into bed that night, I noticed he had taped one of the handouts from the class to the mirror.
Birth class recap
Thursday, April 22nd, 2010The best part of the birth class last night — aside from learning about the mucus plug — was when the nurse/teacher pulled Jake up to the front of the room. She got down on all fours to untie his gnarly dirt encrusted boots (poor woman!), then made him strap on a backpack with the pouch strapped to his chest. She proceeded to fill the pack with ziploc bags of beans meant to signify the average weight gain distribution experienced by pregnant women: Increased breast fat, 1 pound; placenta, 1 pound; increased blood volume, 7 pounds, etc., etc.
In a matter of minutes, Jake had 30 pounds — the recommended weight gain for women during pregnancy – of beans strapped to his chest. Then she told him to bend down and try to lace up his boots.
He had trouble doing it! He staggered. Hilarity ensued. (Let me mention that Jake is pretty much an Olympian; there is nothing physical the man CAN’T do to perfection….EXCEPT, it seems, tie his shoes with 30 pounds of beans strapped to his chest.)
He looked at me, and I made sure to wear my most self-satisfied expression to convey, “You understand now why my back hurts so freaking bad? Well, do you??”
Not to be outdone, Jake got down on one knee and slung the pack of beans to the side, as if it were nothing more than a sack of potatoes, and proceeded to lace up his boot. If only slinging the uterus was so easy.
By the time he sat back down, he turned to me and said, “Babe, if you need me to tie your shoes, I will.”
I now see the value of taking a birth class.
Pregnant neurosis of the week: Birthing school
Wednesday, April 21st, 2010Today is a big day. Today Jake and I attend our first birthing class. We’re going to learn how to conduct ourselves as future parents during the birthing process. Which I think boils down to two precepts:
Dad: Don’t stare blankly at mom during labor.
Mom: Don’t throw things at dad at this juncture.
The hospital offered both a six month course and a six hour course (spread over two evenings). We chose the latter, thinking there was a good chance we might actually fail if we took anything more rigorous.
To be honest, I’ve gone out of my way to keep myself blissfully ignorant on most pregnancy-related matters. I haven’t studied up on the merits and drawbacks of natural childbirth versus the epidural slip and slide. I haven’t read one book (save for a cursory glance at What to Expect When You’re Expecting) or one article in Fit Pregnancy or Parenting. I haven’t researched forceps, tubs, stirrups, doulas, midwives, hemorroids, swollen ankles, crowning, breech, or flavor options of Jello the nurses may serve post-delivery (but please let it be lemon).
I haven’t studied up because I don’t care. Furthermore, I don’t want to know because knowing the nitty gritty enematic, achy, bloody, horrifyingly painful details — not to mention when well-meaning new moms share stories of their bodies’ atrophy post baby– instills in me a deep and terrifying panic. A hysteria, actually. It may sound counter-intuitive since “knowledge is power.” But pregnancy knowledge is also paranoia. I clamp down and clench just thinking about it. Ain’t nothing passing through my womanly gates in that state of mind.
Sometimes I ask myself, “Self, are you a dude?” Because I’m as likely to brush up on pregnancy lore and preparation as my husband. Which is to say, not at all. Like men, I guess I’ve always been a bit terrified of the idea of childbirth and hospitals and parenting — I’ve never been one to pine longingly for a baby — so why on earth would I start feeding the anxiety monster now?
No, I prefer to keep a clear — and some might say, empty — head when I go into the delivery room to push. I like to think of this state of mind as being pushed into the deep end of a swimming pool: If I don’t know what to expect, then I won’t be able to ruminate over or psychoanalyze every moment preceding the event, which I am prone to do. Besides, all the preparation in the world flies out the window should the baby enter the world in a way unplanned for. I’m hoping I’ll be so caught up in the moment, I won’t have time to think, hence grip. And not gripping is the goal.
Prego scoped
Tuesday, April 13th, 2010I frequently set up office at the library at the university here in town — a very Waspy, conservative, Caucasian kind of place — and lately I’ve noticed I’ve been getting some strange looks from among the coeds. Mostly the dudes.
I’m almost 7 months pregnant. I’ll see a guy looking at me, then his eyes will drop to my protruding belly and a look of almost wonder mixed with fear will show up on his face, and he’ll hurriedly look away….almost out of embarrassment, like he’s thinking, “Cute co-ed….whoa! Somebody forgot to take her morning-after pill.”
That’s what I like to tell myself they’re thinking, anyway. For all I know, the thought bubble could be more along the lines of, “Whoa! Chunky monkey at 12 o’clock. Must look away.”
