13 weeks, 3 days – So, are you going to find out? July 8, 2009

The question we’ve probably been getting most frequently lately is “So, are you going to find out if it’s a boy or a girl?”  The first trimester is drawing to a close so the next big landmark is going to be the ultrasound between 18 & 20 weeks where they check out the kiddo to make sure that everything’s okay.  It’s also the time where, if the kiddo cooperates, we can find out if it’s a boy or a girl.

I understand that some people like surprises but I don’t, not for life-changing things, anyway.  I like the idea of having 20 more weeks to get used to the idea of having a son or daughter so, yes, we will be finding out the child’s gender.  In our house we don’t shy away from technology so I figure, if the technology is there, why not use it???  Thankfully, Pete and I are on the same page with this.  I understand that the “to know or not to know” debate can cause some consternation in some families.  We have other consternations but I’m glad to know that this isn’t one them.

I’ve never been accused of being particularly spontaneous.  I like to know what’s happening ahead of time so I can prepare for it.  Admittedly, I’ve been working in recent years to be more flexible and spontaneous but – what can I say – some of the relics of “old Heather” still linger.  And so it is with finding out the gender of our child.  I like the idea of knowing ahead of time, of imagining what The Kid will look like, of having time to practice saying “I have a son/daughter” over and over so it doesn’t sound quite so crazy. 

The other thing that Pete and I have discussed as part of this whole thing is whether or not we’ll tell everyone else what we’re having.  For him it’s a no-brainer – well, YEAH we’re going to tell people!  For me, was a little more difficult.  My idea of a nightmare is finding out I’m having a girl and then receiving a pile of pink things for her – or a pile of blue things for a boy.  Maybe it’s my feminist mother getting into my brain but the whole “pink = girl, blue = boy” thing makes. me. CRAZY.  I know that some people enjoy it, revel in it even, but I am NOT one of those people.  It feels like prenatal pigeon-holing to me.  What if you have a girl who enjoys Tonka trucks and Thomas the Tank Engine and wants nothing to do with all things pink and frilly?  What if you have a son that enjoys the arts, dance, and playing house and wants nothing to do with all things truck- and action figure-related?  I like to envision us leaving the future a little more open for our kid.

(One disclaimer here… I’m not naive; I know that boys and girls are different.  I learned that one the hard way.  When I became a toddler teacher I swore up one side and down the other that the boys and girls would be treated the same.  That lasted about 2 days before I realized that their little brains tend to develop differently.  Boys TEND TO be more kinesthetic and girls TEND TO be more verbal in the 1 1/2 to 2 1/2 year old set.  However, I also had boys that bucked the trend and were tremendously verbal early on (and vice versa).  My beef is not with how kids develop; it’s with how we, culturally, often insist on the tendencies dictating how individual kids develop, rather than their own individual inclinations.) 

So, all that being said (man, I kinda got on a soapbox there, huh?) we will find out the child’s sex and we will be telling people.  (I’m also hoping that we’ll select a gender-neutral theme for the nursery sooner rather than later so we can offer an alternative to the whole pink/blue thing.)  I may want to take a week or two to get used to the idea but we will eventually let everyone know.  So, stay tuned, the ultrasound appointment is likely to be the week of August 10th, just days before I head to the Philippines.

Update:  Just in case you think I’m a little strange for considering holding my tongue and not announcing the gender of our child, check this out.  A Swedish couple has decided to keep under wraps the gender of their TODDLER.  Yep, not a fetus, not a newborn – a 2 year old!!

13 weeks, 1 day – In which she celebrates the return of the energy July 6, 2009

One of the things that has caught me totally off guard with this whole pregnancy is the level of exhaustion that I’ve felt.  There’s tired and then there’s this.  I would come home from work, throw myself on the couch, and watch TV for a few hours – all before I could manage getting myself something to eat.  That moment of landing on the couch was sheer bliss, no doubt about it! 

I didn’t realize exactly how tired I was until it started to lift.  Today is the first day that it’s been really noticeable to me, although Pete already commented on how my energy and mood improved a week or so ago.  Last night I slept horribly – tossing and turning all night long.  Probably only got 5 – 5.5 hours of sleep.  Today, I managed to go to work, work a longer than usual day, come home, cook dinner, eat it, and now blog all without turning on the TV once!  I’m telling you, if it weren’t for the fact that I know a lot of women have gone through this before me, I’d say it’s pretty damn close to a miracle.  It’s good timing, too, because we’re headed into many weeks of absolute insanity culminating in my trip to the Philippines in August.

It’s incredibly freeing to get my energy back.  I feel like I’ve regained a part of my life.  Don’t get me wrong, though, I know it doesn’t stay like this for long.  From what I hear the 3rd trimester can be rough.  However, at the moment, I’m enjoying a renewed sense of peace, happiness, and energy.

12 weeks, 4 days July 2, 2009

Well, we just got back from our second doctor’s appointment and all’s well!  We heard the baby on Doppler and the heart rate was between 148 and 150 – a good solid number.  He/she was also VERY active.  There was a lot of blips that the doctor said was the baby moving.  It was really cool!  I’m a little surprised at how relieved I am to both hear the heartbeat and to know that he/she is moving.  I knew I was carrying a little bit of the “first trimester – is everything going to be okay” anxiety but I’m pleasantly surprised at how easily it abated.  Pretty soon we’ll be into the second trimester and I’m sure I’ll find something else to worry about  but for now I’m pretty happy.

One of the things I talked about with the doctor was my upcoming trip to the Philippines in August.  I’m traveling to Manila to attend a conference of child welfare professionals – particularly adoption professionals - that work in the Philippines.  I was wondering about visiting orphanages and whether that would be okay.  She actually discouraged me from going with the explanation that my immune system is suppressed during pregnancy.  The doctor is Indian and is familiar with health risks in developing countries.  Pete made the same request – that I not go – for pretty much the same reason.  I guess I’ll have to put my stubbornness aside for once and listen to the both of them.  Given I can be a pretty stubborn person, that may be a bit of a feat. 

12 weeks – The redemption of pregnancy books June 28, 2009

I’m pleased to report that not all pregnancy books are flippant, condescending, and alarmist.  After my rant about them, I ordered two new books from Amazon.  I’m enjoying both of them and am finding that they complement each other nicely.  They came this week so obviously I haven’t had a chance to read them in depth but the books I bought are Mayo Clinic Guide to a Healthy Pregnancy and The Joy of Pregnancy: The Complete, Candid, and Reassuring Companion for Parents-to-Be.  The Mayo Clinic book, as you would expect, focuses on the medical information but isn’t alarming or flip.  It’s factual and straightforward.  The other book has this information as well but, as the title suggests, it focuses a little more on the feelings side of things than the Mayo Clinic book.  It was written by a delivery room nurse who is also a childbirth educator.  It sounds like she has a lot of experience soothing and educating anxious parents, which is exactly what I was looking for.  Between the two books I feel like I’m getting a positive, realistic, and reassuring feeling about pregnancy.  Now THAT is what I needed!

11 weeks, 3 days June 24, 2009

Most women I know have a couple of different sizes of clothes in their closets and I’m no exception.  I have three sizes in there.  There’s Weight-Watchers-worked-and-all-my-clothes-are-too-big size.  There’s well-this-is-about-average size.  Last but not least, there’s I-got-lazy-over-the-winter-and-haven’t-seen-the-inside-of-a-gym-in-months size.  Small, medium, and large!  Before I got pregnant I was working my way back down from large to medium and having some success.  In the last few weeks, though, I’ve been solidly in the large category.  Much to my surprise, I had to retire a pair of pants and some shorts last week because there was no way I was getting into them this summer.  Both were in the medium category but I was hoping to make them last a little longer.  No such luck.

I wouldn’t say that I’m showing, per se, but my clothes are definitely getting more snug, both in the chest and the belly.  To remedy this – and because I was near the outlets in Lancaster the past few days – I ventured out with the idea of buying some bigger clothes.  I debated whether to buy maternity clothes or just bigger sizes.  I decided that I really didn’t want to risk buying bigger clothes and then growing out of THEM too, so I went for maternity clothes.  Yep, I’m not out of the first trimester yet and I actually now own maternity clothes.  2 shorts, 1 caprisfor work, 3 shirts for work, and 2 t-shirts.  And all I have to say about that is… ahhhhh!  It feels good to have some shorts that fit!  All my shorts except 1 pair were in the small or medium category so I was feeling  a little stuck for hot weather clothes.  It’s so, so nice to know that I now have some clothes that will be comfy AND I’ll be able to wear them for the whole summer.  The t-shirts fit now too – mostly becauseheir only “adaptation” for pregnancy is that they’re a lot longer – but everything elsewill have to wait a little bit longer.  Glad to know that they’re there when I need them because I’m starting to bust out of several of my work shirts!

It was a little surreal being in the store, I have to admit.  This was the first money we’ve really spent on anything pregnancy- or baby-related.  I guess that means that I finally believe and am starting to actually trust that it’s really happening!  We have our next doctor’s appointment next week.  Last time they mentioned something in passing about possibly doing another ultrasound then.  I’m kind of hoping that they do; it would be reassuring to see the heartbeat at the end of the first trimester too.  Stay tuned – I’ll let you know what happens.

10 weeks, 2 days – In which she rants about pregnancy books June 16, 2009

When Pete and I made the decision to build our family the “old fashioned way” I didn’t bother doing much preparation for the actual process of being pregnant.  I knew how to get there and I knew that the getting there is often not as easy as it sounds.  Over the last 7 1/2 years of working in adoption, I’ve worked with a lot of families that have experienced infertility.  Although I have not been through the pain of the infertility process, I’ve seen many families – and several friends – struggle with it.  I didn’t assume that we would be able to get pregnant so I didn’t bother to get or read any pregnancy books or websites.  Why fill my head with all that knowledge if I wasn’t going to need to use it?

Needless to say, once we had a positive pregnancy test I felt massively behind the curve!  I had no idea what was going on!!  Within a day or two I had run out to Target and, from their small selection of pregnancy books, selected one that looked good.  Before going, I’d read online about some of the books, including the famous “What to Expect when You’re Expecting.”  Solidly mixed reviews on that one!  That one happened to be one of the books that was at Target.  I picked it up and skimmed a few pages.  It seemed informative, chatty, and all around pretty helpful.  All these years can’t be wrong, right???

Wrong!  When I brought it home and started reading it “informative and chatty” revealed itself to be preachy, condescending, and flip.  I don’t like the tone and I don’t like the organization.  Sure, I’ve gotten some helpful information out of it but only by overlooking the pieces I don’t like.  My two biggest complaints, however, are these – it’s incredibly dismissive of the fathers AND it has made pregnancy and birth a time of fear rather than reveling in what your body is built to do. 

First, the father issue… I knew I’d hit a stumbling block when one of the questions was something along the lines of “Now that she’s pregnant, my wife is asking for a lot more help around the house.  Why has she gotten so demanding?”  The answer was basically do whatever she asks, you are her slave and errand boy for the next 9 months.  Okay, I understand what they were getting at – she’s tired, she’s nauseous, and she can’t perform at previous levels so someone’s going to have to pick up the slack.  However, the answer totally dismissed the reality that, while women are having physical and emotional reactions to pregnancy, men/partners could very well be having equally strong emotional reactions!  After all, they’re going to be a parent, too!  They’re going to have to support the family while the mom’s on maternity leave.  They may or may not know much about baby care.  Let’s give dads and partners their due – pregnancy and birth isn’t something that just happens to the mom, it’s a family affair!

Second, the fear issue…  The reality is that women’s bodies have been going through pregnancy and birth for thousands of years.  We’re built for this.  I’ve always joked that I better be fertile because I don’t want to be built like a “Fertile Myrtle” and not be able to use it!  I’m grateful that I was able to get pregnant.  I want a pregnancy book that’s going to be reassuring, whose message is “yes, women have been doing this for ages!”  Sure, I want to know what issues can arise, what danger signs to watch for, and how to stay healthy.  However, what I DON’T need is to hear that I’m going to irreparably damage the baby if I don’t eat enough leafy green vegetables for a day or two!  I’m starting to think that pregnancy and birth have been pathologized by the medical community so that now it’s seen as a time of danger and trouble rather than a natural process.  Yes, I fully understand that there are high risk pregnancies and that things could go wrong at any time.  But isn’t that true of pretty much everything we do?  Isn’t it safer and better for us and the baby to approach it with the idea that things are going to go RIGHT??

With this in mind, I’m in search of a better pregnancy book.  One that won’t condescend to me, one that will discuss the joys of pregnancy, and one that will reassure that, even if I don’t have much of an idea about what’s going on, there is something in my body passed down through the mothers and grandmothers from both sides of my family that knows what’s what to do.

10 weeks June 14, 2009

This morning I had my first dream about the baby.  I consider this a momentous step.  For the 5 weeks or so that I’ve known about the pregnancy, I’ve had a hard time envisioning the end result.  I was so focused on what was going to happen between here and there and so nervous about something going wrong that I had a hard time imagining that there will be an actual child at the end of all this.  This is the first time that my imagination wandered into the world of wondering what that child will be like. 

I was surprised to find that it was a girl – not quite what I’d expected.  She was cute - had a pretty light complexion and no hair.  Both Pete and I come from pasty-white European stock but I was born with jet black hair and Pete still has his.  In my dream I kept insisting that the baby was 2 days old, although it was more like a 6-month old developmentally.  I know exactly where that came from… most of my experience with children starts at 3 months old.  I’ve never spent a whole lot of time with a newborn.  When I worked in daycare the youngest the children could be when they started was 3 months old.  Now that I’m working in international adoption, it is rare that children come home at 6 months even.  In the countries where we work most of the children are a year old or older when the come home.  (Developmentally they’re typically delayed a bit but chronologically they’re frequently 12 months old or older.)  I think my brain couldn’t conjure what a newborn would be like so it went to something I did know.

One of the notable things for me was the lack of panic about how to care for the child.  If you take the premise that the baby actually WAS 2-days old, then I should have been feeling a little overwhelmed about what to do with this new little life that’s dependent on me.  Instead, I was feeling calm, cool, collected, and competent.  What a reassuring message to get from the recesses of my brain!!

8 weeks, 4 days June 13, 2009

First ultrasound – 6.4.09, originally uploaded by heatheracarter.

Written on Saturday, June 6 – Two days ago we had our first doctor’s appointment. Oh my lord, that was amazing! I know the photo is a little hard to see but if you look really carefully you can see the what will be the legs, the head, and – if you look REALLY carefully – you can almost see the little arms crossed over the chest. Hint – the legs are in the top right corner of the blob in the middle and the head is at the bottom left corner. The dark circle is the amniotic sac where he’ll be growing for the next 7 months (no, we don’t know gender, we’ve just chosen to use “him”).

We saw him first but then we heard him. There was the heartbeat going 160 beats per minute. I know everyone’s reaction in that moment is different. Mine was along the lines of, “Oh my god, I really AM pregnant.” I’d been too scared before then to really believe it. I have too many people in my life that have had difficulty getting pregnant or who have had miscarriages that I know sometimes this doesn’t go smoothly. Working in adoption you no longer take fertility for granted, that’s for sure.

We learned at the appointment that I was 8 weeks 4 days on that day and that our due date is January 7, 2010. Hmm, Christmas is going to be interesting this year!! This kid will join a bunch of friends and family members with January birthdays – Pete, Aaron, Chris W., Aunt June.

Now that we know everything’s okay, Pete and I are having a hard time keeping our mouths shut about this pregnancy. We’d planned on waiting until the end of the first trimester to tell folks but we just can’t hold it in any more.

8 weeks June 11, 2009

Written on Wednesday, June 3 – Tomorrow, little one.  Tomorrow we get our first glimpse of you.  Tomorrow we’ll know for sure that you’re there.  I don’t know why it matters more to have a medical professional tell me – and show me – that you’re there but it does.  It matters more that the results on the pee stick.  It matters more than all the symptoms I’ve been feeling.  Tomorrow they’ll do an ultrasound and we’ll see you for the first time.  If we’re very lucky, we’ll also hear your heart beat.  Hard to believe that you have a heart already and that it’s beating.  No wonder I’m so tired!  You’ve been undergoing a lot of construction! 

One thing to know about your mom, little one… she’s a worrier. I’ve been worried – wondering if the test is wrong, wondering if something has happened.  If the Wisdom of the Internet is to be believed, though, I’m not that different than most moms doing this for the first time.  Tomorrow they’ll tell us if you’re really there.  And then they’ll tell us how to take care of you, how to grow you over the next 7 months.  And then we’ll walk out… knowing that it’s true.  I’ll try to keep the worrying to a minimum for you; I know it’s not good for you to feel stress.  No promises, though, ’cause your mom’s a worrier.  Good thing your dad is a little more sane. 

When we walk out tomorrow, knowing that you’re there and okay, then we’re going to shout it from the rooftops.  We’ve been trying to keep it quiet the last few weeks.  It’s really, really hard – much harder than either of us expected.  We were going to wait a few more weeks to tell everyone just to make sure you’re okay.  But we just can’t – we can’t wait to share the good news of you!  Now I understand how my families at work feel when I call them with THE CALL and start with “Are you sitting down?”  And then I describe to them the precious little face I’m looking at of the infant/ toddler/ preschooler/ 3rd grader that will soon be their son or daughter.  Wow, now I kinda understand.

See you tomorrow, little one.

7 1/2 weeks June 10, 2009

Written on Saturday, May 30, 2009 – For many, many years I’ve felt like my primary goal in life was to become a mom.  From the time I was little I was always one of those kids that gravitated to the babies in the room.  In college, my first co-op at Northeastern was at a daycare center.  I used to joke that I chose that one because I wanted to be around babies so much that it was either that co-op or make some unwise decisions with my reproduction.  (We’ll ignore the fact that, um, I wasn’t doing anything that would risk reproduction at the time…)  I think it’s not by accident that I have always worked in jobs that focus on children and their welfare – summer camp counselor for kids with disabilities, day care with infants and toddlers, tutoring, school counselor, one-on-one assistant for deaf kids in a mainstream environment… you get the idea.  Even now, my work focuses on finding families for children from overseas and supporting the families once they’ve met their children. 

Before we were married Pete and I spent a LOT of time talking about our parenting philosophies and what kind of parents we want to be when that time comes.  Given that we’re both in our 30s, pretty financially stable, and the biological clock is ticking away, we decided to stop using birth control shortly after the wedding.  We weren’t trying to get pregnant, more like getting out of the way.  If it happened, it happened.  We went about our business normally and didn’t really watch when would be the optimum times to get pregnant.  We didn’t want to start putting that pressure on ourselves.  Fast forward to April when, after 5 months of this low key approach, we decided to try to time it just a little.  Well, it must have worked because on Monday it will be 4 weeks since we found out we’re pregnant. 

I took the test on  Monday night, May 4th.  I’d planned to wait until Tuesday but it turned out that Pete was going to be away that night and I sure as hell wanted him there to see the outcome.  I thought it would be three minutes of waiting and anxiety – what does it say?  what does it say?  Um, no – I had my answer within seconds.  It was startlingly fast.  I was stunned.  OMG, we’d really done it! 

“Pete, come here a second,” I called into the next room.  “What?” he asked, sounding like he was gauging whether it was worth moving.  I definitely wasn’t going to tell him he’s going to be a dad by yelling through the bathroom wall.  “Just come here a second.  I want to show you something.”  He came into the bathroom and I pointed to the test sitting on the counter.  I can’t remember what I said next but there was some hugging and kissing and probably a “holy shit” or two. 

It’s taken some time to get used to the idea of being pregnant.  For the first few days I walked around trying the words on for size in my head.  “I’m pregnant.  We’re going to have a baby.”  It seemed amazing to me that people just walk around every day doing this, just strolling through their lives gestating.  Didn’t they see what a HUGE deal this was???  Pete and I had decided that we were not going to tell people right away just in case something when wrong.  This gave me a few days to get used to the idea before starting to share the news. 

Turns out that I needed those couple of days.  I was vacillating wildly between joy, anticipation, disbelief, and freaking out.  I had to wrap my mind first around the changes that would be happening in my body in the coming months, before I could even TRY to envision having a kid at home.  To be honest, it took probably 3 weeks before I started believing that I really am pregnant.  Before then, I was a bundle of nerves, watching my body for any signs of miscarriage or something going wrong.  Even now, I’m only just starting to trust that there probably is a kid growing in there.  I’m still having a hard time envisioning the time when the child is actually here, though.  That’s still causing me a whole bunch of worries – how will I sleep?  how will I manage to make dinner or do laundry?  will Pete and I have any time together?  how will I manage going back to work?  will we ever find a new and happy equilibrium after the kid is born?  I know the answer to all these questions is “we’ll figure it out.”  However, knowing that and believing it are two different things!