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Pregnancy Week 21: The Cat’s in My Cradle

February 23, 2014

I ended up spending a lot of time at home the past several days, which is why this week has been all about my cat.

Kung Pao Kitten has always been loving and cuddly, but my pregnancy has made him even more so. Like, affectionate x 1,000. Every time I sit, he clambers onto my belly and makes it his home, as if he’s a hen on a nest, trying to hatch an egg.

This guy.

When I sleep, it’s with a cat slung across my middle. When I wake up, it’s with a cat in my face. And when I stand up, he leaps into my arms and sprawls out on my shoulders.

The purrfect companion. (Get it? See what I did there?)

This is why I think the baby will come out purring. It’s possible that my uterus is like Dr. Doolittle and can talk to the animals.

Oh. The dog is here too.

Also, I’ve had a lot of irrational anxiety this week. This is where having a logical, math/science guy husband ~~is frustrating~~ comes in handy. For instance, the other day I didn’t do any of my normal errands because I suddenly became scared and sad and didn’t want to leave the house. Then I told The Husband about it.

ME: Well, I was afraid the baby might fall out.

HIM: Fall out? Is that something that happens?

ME: I think it has happened to someone.

HIM: The baby just falls out?

ME: Yes. I’m pretty sure that happens. I read something online …

HIM: What are your sources? How often does this happen? What are the statistics on this? How often do babies just fall out?

ME: I mean, I don’t think anyone keeps numbers on that kind of thing.

I’m also leaving for Seattle this week. Normally I’m a girl who loves planes — I’m an Air Force brat, I love to fly, I even maintain a top five list of favorite aircraft — but I’ve suddenly become a nervous flier. So I told The Husband I am unsure about going to Seattle now.

HIM: Did the doctor say it was OK for you to fly?

ME: Yes. It’s just … well, I think the baby might explode.

HIM: Has a baby ever exploded on an aircraft? Ever?

ME: I think so. It’s something to do with cabin pressure.

I’ve also been obsessively following the pregnancy of JWoww, of “Jersey Shore” fame, since she and I are expected to give birth around the same date. We’re pregnancy twinsies! Frustratingly, she still seems to have abs.

See? She looks great.

It makes me worry that I’m getting too big or maybe I’m not using enough self-tanner.

Irrational fears aside, here’s how everything else is going this week.

Baby: 10.5 inches long. Depending on the pregnancy app, baby is either the size of a pomegranate or a small cantaloupe or a carrot.

Listen, I thought this comparing-baby-to-food thing was charming at first, and it certainly made trips to the market with my husband more fun — “Look, a lime! Awww, this is what our baby looks like! But not green or nubby!” But now it’s starting to weird me out. Especially when none of my resources agree about basic size. Or shape. Or even type of produce.

Exercise: I’ve still been walking, hiking and doing yoga, but pregnancy is starting to affect my stamina and center of balance. It’s not too bad yet — just something I’ve noticed.

Cravings: Lots of berries. Chips and salsa. I also ate my weight in homemade hummus this week.

Total weight gain: 10 pounds. That seems about right on track for a person who is not part of the “Jersey Shore” cast.

Belly: Big. I think everything popped this week. I can barely tie my sleepy-time shorts anymore.

Whoa, baby.

One of my pregnancy iPhone apps shows me what my body would look like if it were split in half, kind of like a dollhouse. To be honest, I should have paid more attention in health class, because until now, I wasn’t quite sure how everything fit together in there.

So this is where babies come from.

It’s starting to make more sense now.

HUSBAND: Felt the baby kick for the first time! He was very excited and didn’t quite know how to put the sensation into words. He just shook his head and muttered, “So cool! So weird. But so cool! Wow. This is a big deal.”

Pregnancy week 20: Halfway!

February 16, 2014

I don’t know if it’s the pregnancy hormones or the Valentine’s Day propaganda, but lately I am so happy and so goopy with love.

I know, it’s terrible. I’ve become one of those people. Snow White singing to birds in the forest. Chirpy Pollyanna playing The Glad Game. Cheerful and bouncy Tigger. Believe me, I know it’s annoying. I get it. It’s hard to be “Shiny Happy People” when I’m typically all “Love Will Tear Us Apart.”

I never thought I would be this way. I remember sitting cross-legged by the exercise trail at Ohio University, blowing angry cigarette smoke in the faces of the joggers — they were up early, I was up late. I was so jealous of the life and health those people possessed, the way they faced each morning with joyfully pounding feet and vigorously beating hearts. Back then I was so depressed, I couldn’t imagine purposely propelling myself forward into the day when I was just barely hanging on.

Somehow that changed. I don’t completely understand what mysterious fairy dust led me to this place, but here I am. Happy.

I guess I’ve been much happier for years, the product of good friends, good books, living in a place with abundant sunshine, lots of travel and seeing a big world outside of myself. But this big love I have in my heart right now, like THIS VERY MINUTE? I think it’s the pregnancy.

I just love being pregnant. Love it. If I were younger, I would even consider doing this professionally. I love the fullness I feel. I love waking up to my husband’s smile and knowing that I’m carrying something we’ve created. I love embracing how wonky and different my body feels. For once in my life, I have zero control over what’s happening to my body, and it’s liberating. I love how pregnancy is a lesson in patience, because I just have to trust that everything will be alright.

It reminds me of when I was an avid skydiver, the way I was happiest and most calm during free fall. Because in free fall, I didn’t yet know if I had a problem with my parachute. I just relaxed into the sky and relished the sensation of floating, and it was magic.

Here’s how everything has been going this week:

The Husband and I celebrated Valentine’s Day with alcohol-removed champagne that tasted less sad than it sounds and homemade beet and avocado sushi.

Like Chris Rock once said: No sex in the alcohol-removed sparkling wine room.

Beet: It’s what’s for dinner.

Baby also did his first 5K! I carried him the whole time, though, lazy bum.

We did the Color in Motion run, which involves people tossing packets of dyed cornstarch everywhere.

Like Holi, but for no particular reason.

I blue myself. And greened. And yellowed.

Here I am with The Husband and our friend Wendy, before and after.

We totally dyed out there.

Baby: Somehow this child has gone from the size of a mango to the size of a banana, according to my iPhone pregnancy app. How is that possible? Who knows? I don’t understand it either. But I like bananas, so I am ok with this development.

Food: I’m not having any cravings exactly, except that I want to eat everything spicy and everything Asian. This is 100 percent normal, though.

Exercise: Lots of walking, plus that Color in Motion 5K. And swimming! I’ve rediscovered how wonderful swimming can be.

We’ve had some 90-degree days here, and the water has been warm and luscious.

I did not intentionally match my toenails to the pool, but let’s pretend I did.

I didn’t even realize the impact my new, round belly had on my body until I lowered myself into the pool the other day. The cocoon of water cradled me, held me afloat, and I felt truly weightless. I just glided through the water, anchored to nothing. It was glorious.

The water did make my growing belly seem all wobbly though, which was strange and funny.

Like a bowl full of jelly.

It’s amazing. Who would have ever thought I could be so round and happy?

Pregnancy Week 18: It’s a …!

February 3, 2014

There’s a moment during every ultrasound when I’m pretty sure my heart stops.

The technician squirts cold gel on my belly, then firmly presses the transducer to my abdomen. She moves it back and forth, as if channeling something on a ouija board. I turn my face toward the monitor, frantically searching the blackness on the screen. I don’t see a baby anywhere, and I die about 15 times in just a few seconds.

Abruptly, a tiny, squirming baby pops into focus. A baby! My baby! And all is right with the world.

Wee one.

So that happened again this week. Minor panic attack. Recovery. Good times.

I usually hate it when people post their ultrasound images, because they never actually look like babies. They’re more like fuzzy photo negatives from a century-old arctic expedition. Yet here I am now, so enamored with these speckled pictures of a big, gorgeous baby only I can see.

Though I will admit Baby looks like a resident of Whoville right now. Let’s hope that’s not permanent.

And then my heart grew three sizes.

Since I am of “advanced maternal age,” my most recent ultrasound was done with a genetic specialist, and the whole process lasted more than an hour. The Husband stood by my side, and we high-fived every time we saw a new body part.

TECHNICIAN: Here is the spine …

ME: Spine! Ohmigod. I love spines!

TECHNICIAN: There are the baby’s feet …

HUSBAND: Hell yeah. Feet!

TECHNICIAN: These splotches here are the kidneys …

US: Woo! Kidneys!

The technician pushed a button that made the screen move with splotchy clouds of blue and red, which supposedly displayed the four chambers of the heart pumping blood.

TECHNICIAN: See the blood flowing here and here …

ME: It actually looks like there’s a storm front moving in.

TECHNICIAN: Huh. Yeah, it does. Well, here’s the polar vortex, and that right there is Atlanta.

Finally, the technician confirmed what I suspected all along. It’s a boy!

Here you go. This is the first and last time my child’s penis will ever be on the internet. I hope.

The technician added some helpful notations.

I’m still in a little bit of shock. It’s a boy!

A boy who will pee in my face when I change his diapers. A boy who will get poop on his testicles. A boy who will turn paper towel tubes into weapons. A boy who will stand up to use the potty. A boy who will grow up and fall in love with a girl or boy and sneak out of the house and bong a few Miller Lites and smash the Camaro … and I’m terrified. I’m absolutely terrified. I don’t know how to be a mother to a boy.

For the record, I don’t know how to be a mother to a girl either. And we don’t have a Camaro. I’m just scared overall, regardless of the baby’s sex.

Here’s how everything else is going this week:

Baby: The size of a bell pepper. He also has little ears and his own unique set of fingerprints.

Baby also enjoys being stuffed and baked for one hour at 350 degrees.

Me: Not the size of a bell pepper. But I’ve reached the point of pregnancy where strangers will approach me and rub my belly, as if I can grant them three wishes. (I can’t, unfortunately.)

Also my belly is lopsided. I think this is normal? Or maybe all those strangers have just been pushing too hard on one side.

The belly of the beast.

Weight: I’ve gained six pounds so far. I didn’t necessarily want this information — I’ve been trying to keep my focus away from numbers on the scale — but my doctor told me anyway.

Food: Cravings have mostly been of the difficult-to-obtain variety: Masala dosa. Kanom krok, tiny coconut pancakes from Thailand that are crispy and creamy, sweet and savory. And these spicy kimchi dumplings from a street vendor in Seoul.

Not just any dumplings, mind you. THESE.

Wonton display of longing.

GIVE THEM TO ME NOW.

Pregnancy Week 17: Sweet Dreams are Made of This

January 26, 2014

For the first time, someone asked if I was expecting, and it was both sweet and awkward.

LADY: (looking at my belly) Oh! When are you … I mean, are you?

ME: Yes! July 5.

LADY: Oh. You still have a long way to go. You look farther along.

ME: Um, no. But I had a big bowl of pho yesterday, and I think the sodium kinda made me explode.

It was the truth. I was fat-cheeked and plumper than usual, as if the baby somehow gobbled a few pizzas and a pan of brownies without me. (Things have since settled down considerably.)

Pho king belly.

Then the lady asked the weirdest thing.

LADY: Are you peeking?

ME: Am I what?

LADY: Well, if not already, are you planning to peek?

ME: I don’t … um, I’m not sure what you mean.

LADY: You know. Boy or girl. Are you peeking?

ME: Oh, right. No. My belly doesn’t work that way.

I was confused. I pictured some kind of porthole into my uterus. Or something like Barbie’s pregnant friend Midge, with the removable stomach and pop-out baby.

Damn Midge. She makes it look so easy.

LADY: I meant, are you going to find out the baby’s gender?

I considered telling her that gender is a socially constructed concept. We will actually be finding out the baby’s sex, which refers to the child’s anatomy … but then I realized WHEE! We will find out the baby’s sex this week. Wow, that sure happened fast!

So, to answer her question, yes. I will be peeking.

I have two doctor’s appointments coming up this week, and as always, I am nervous — especially since one of those visits is with a genetic specialist, and it is literally his job to tell me what’s wrong with my baby. But I’m also getting to the point where I’m more pumped than anxious. Woo, I’ll get to wave to my little one on a black-and-white screen full of static again. BEST DAY EVER!

NEW THIS WEEK

Baby: Is the size of an onion, according to my iPhone apps. (I am not sure what variety of onion, but I’m picturing a sweet, bulbous Vidalia.)

Baby’s sex: My guess is boy.

Baby’s first national park.

Me: I feel good. I have had some round ligament pain, but it’s more like a dull ache or a tiny tug, and I don’t mind it. It reminds me that something’s happening in there.

I’ve also been having a lot of strange, particularly vivid dreams lately. Nothing about giving birth to kittens or anything like that. Just colorful, trippy dreams. It’s like dropping acid every night but without all the anxiety that I’ll never be normal again.

Some of the most notable ones:

* On Cyber Monday, everybody who went online turned into a robot.

* My friend Tod From Dayton (not be confused with Tod from Palm Desert), had to give Steven Tyler lessons on how to be a rock star.

* Adonis moved in next door. Like, the actual Greek god. It made borrowing a cup of sugar super hot.

* My friend Eileen took up a low-carb diet that consisted of only quail eggs.

* Heather and I met two men with ridiculous facial hair and helped them carry mattresses. They turned out to be editors at Tin House.

* My friend Agam quit his job as manager of an MFA program and joined a Doobie Brothers cover band.

* I was drinking a beer. Just one very big, beautiful glass of dark beer. And then I took Cheryl Strayed to my favorite place in Hampi, India, a little restaurant full of lavender scarves and clove cigarettes, where we sat on pillows, shared a dosa and wrote lovely things.

* North Korea decided to attack the United States. Specifically, they attacked Rancho Mirage, CA. But then Stephen Graham Jones, a professor in my creative writing program, thwarted their plans by distracting them with a fake Beach Boys band — just a bunch of golfers in Tommy Bahama shirts. While they were singing “Good Vibrations,” Stephen Graham Jones slipped the North Korean soldiers some jelly doughnuts filled with lethal doses of sleeping pills. ‘Merica!

Days until a dirty martini: 161

Pregnancy Week 16: Clinton, Kobe and golfers, oh my!

January 21, 2014

First, there was the pregnancy announcement with Bryan Cranston, who was perfectly lovely.

As soon as I told him my idea for an epic Breaking Bad pregnancy announcement, he was game. “Let’s do it,” he said. “Where should I stand? Should I hold your belly?”

The blue meth made me do it.

That was a couple weeks ago. And then this week of pregnancy, things got really crazy.

I volunteered for the Clinton Foundation’s Health Matters conference, which addresses important questions about health and wellness in the U.S. My job was to act as security for the talent, which included Herschel Walker, Matt Kemp and Kobe Bryant, checking badges backstage.

Safety first.

Like, this Kobe.

This marks the first and only time a Laker will be guarded by a relatively small pregnant lady.

The same Kobe who is chatting up Chelsea Clinton. Like, this Chelsea.

Outside this door? Me with a walkie talkie, ready to kick some ass! And talk to people in CB slang.

Then I brought my dad to the Humana Challenge golf tournament, which featured a bunch of men who are golf famous. Not Tiger, but you know. Those other guys in the pants with the clubs.

Hideous winter weather in Palm Springs.

And then we saw President Bill Clinton, who recognized me from such things as following him around the golf course last year.

Not the father.

This fetus, man. It’s destined to become an A-list celebrity. Or a TMZ paparazzo.

Here’s how everything else is going this week:

Baby: Is the size of a Hass avocado, and my uterus is the size of a cantaloupe. This prompted my friend Abby to say the best thing of my pregnancy thus far: “An avocado inside a cantaloupe inside your belly is like a pregnant vegetarian Turducken.”

Wee baby Turducken.

The interesting thing is that I have not received a single comment about my pregnant belly or anything like that. So all those times pre-pregnancy when I felt so bloated or thought everyone was focused on my extra pounds, NOBODY ACTUALLY NOTICED BUT ME. Right now I am literally walking around with something the size of a melon in my gut, and it still slides under the radar.

Other baby stuff: Baby is growing hair, lashes and eyebrows now. (Weird!) It can hear my voice. (So weird!) Supposedly I will feel it move soon. (Super duper weird!)

At night before I fall asleep, I lie very still and focus on the baby and try to feel it flutter. Sometimes I even feel the tiniest bit of something! And then I’ll realize I ate a lot of lentils this week, and I’m probably feeling what my friend Ashley calls “a cherished moment of gas.”

New this week: I am itchy. All the time. Every part of me. I’m sure part of this can be attributed to living in the desert in winter. But I think part of it is also caused by my skin expanding to accommodate an entirely new human.

These products have been hitting the dry spot: Weleda stretch mark massage oil, Weleda sea buckthorn creamy body wash and Alba very emollient body lotion. Sweet, sweet emollience.

Cream of the crop.

Also my hair has been weird. The curl is weird. Length is weird. Ends are dry. Where’s the glorious, thick pregnancy hair I’ve read about? I want my money back!

Clothes: Still wearing my regular clothes, but I’ve also added this maternity T-shirt into the rotation. It is so soft and so long, and it is black like Morrissey’s soul, and I love it forever and ever.

Liz Lange for Target; very comfortable for me.

I have also been wearing my Thai fisherman plants a lot. What exactly are Thai fisherman pants? Well, they are pants that involve a lot of fabric, very wide legs and a weird, wide waistband that is elaborately folded, then tied.

I was certain these pants would become fashion’s next big thing, and I stocked up while I was in Chiang Mai. I have about six pairs in a variety of colors.

I mean, they still haven’t gotten very trendy yet. And sometimes people point and openly laugh at me when I wear them to Trader Joe’s. But someday, you’ll all see.

Who’ll be laughing then? Me and this guy.