topotales

Tomorrow I will be 27 weeks pregnant.  The little girl in my belly, however, measures around 29 weeks.  My midwife says I’m “growing a nice baby in there”; presumably, “nice” means “large”.

Pre-pregnancy, I had a lot of assumptions about what a pregnant topo would be like.  For example:

1. I have a few climbing friends who’ve had babies now.  Most of them could be seen harnessed in and moving upwards well into their third trimesters, and some of them were running multiple miles with baby on board.  I assumed that I too would be unable to leave my climbing/athlete status behind to sit on a couch and incubate a baby.
2. “Cravings” are just an excuse for lazy people who don’t want to eat right during pregnancy.  I’m going to eat the same healthy diet as usual.
3. Your relationship with your partner changes in this way: now you’re a team working for a third party.  This must be incredibly depressing - where’s the romance?  Pnut and I will work hard to keep our relationship how it is.
4. People will be kind to big-bellied ladies- now I’ll finally be where I always belong- at the front of the bathroom line.  I am going to enjoy this.
5. Babies are boring.  Bellies are even more boring.  I hope I make it to when this kid can talk.

One of the most important things that pregnancy has taught me is something I already knew.  When I’ve traveled or moved to a new country, for example, I knew - the key to really learning or experiencing anything important is handing yourself over, mind body and soul, to the experience.  You have to go with the flow.  Your experience is not going to be the one you read about in a Henry James or Hemingway novel, no matter how hard you try to emulate a fascinating character.  Pregnancy is handing control over your entire life to the universe: you’re on a journey, like it or not.

So no, I haven’t been climbing or running.  The extent of my current athletic prowess is hiking with Pnut, or cross-country skiing, once or twice a week.  I generally make it about 500 meters before it feels like the baby is growing in my lungs instead of my uterus and I have to stop for air.  I can barely pull up my own pants and I certainly can’t see my feet let alone tie my own shoes (thank you, Ugg boots, for your laceless wonderfulness) so I won’t be wearing a harness or working my feet into climbing shoes three sizes too small anytime soon.

Cravings?  Cravings are a real thing.  I’ve been eating all sorts of stuff that I usually disdain as crap, because they are crap.  You know that feeling when you’re really dehydrated and thirsty - I mean, you’d give ANYTHING for a sip of water?  It’s like that, only you HAVE to have a FUCKING POWDERED DONUT NOW RIGHT NOW RIGHT NOW GOD PLEASE SOMEBODY JUST HAND ME A DONUT!!!!!  Yep, donuts.  And chocolate-covered peanuts.  And toasted everything bagels with cream cheese and onions and tomatoes and lox.  And Ritz crackers spread with Nutella.  Oh, did you say ICE CREAM?  And yesterday I cried all over Pnuts sweater because he told me we were out of Coke and why couldn’t I just drink juice instead.

My relationship with Pnut has changed, and it is all about the baby.  But guess what - it’s the most romantic fucking thing EVER.  I don’t presume it’s like this for everyone.  Just reading all the baby-forum posts about crappy partners confirms that.  But this baby has brought Pnut and I closer than we have ever been.  Because, like everything he undertakes, he’s so invested in the magic that’s happening in my belly.  And every time I look at him I feel waves of love and gratitude that he is the person I have by my side, and that the little girl in my belly is going to have the most loving, incredible father, and that finally somebody besides me is going to really know and love this stupendous human being who is my partner.  And every perceived or real slight or fight or annoyance or misunderstanding we have ever had is utterly meaningless garbage.  The only real thing is how much we love each other, how lucky I am, and how fundamentally good he is.

As far as strangers being good to pregnant chicks?  Not so much.  Maybe times have changed, but I haven’t skipped a bathroom line yet.  Also, strangers seem to think that they own a bit of you when you’re pregnant.  Like they can say anything to your belly with impunity.  You get a coffee and they inform you how many milligrams of caffeine they think you can have.  Or they tell you how far along you SHOULD be, considering your size and how big their daughters were while THEY were pregnant.  Or they tell you that you’re an ass for thinking you can use cloth diapers* because THEY couldn’t do it.  Or they tell you your house is too small, despite the fact that it’s twice as large as the apartment you and your brother were raised in.  This list goes on and on.  It’s what I’m least looking forward to about being a parent - this constant judging on how I’m doing things.  I’m learning that it’s going to be a struggle, parenting without having to justify every little thing to everybody else, and allowing myself to make my own mistakes without having an audience tsk tsk over them.  It’s next on my life lessons of momitude - not caring enough to respond to your opinion of how I should be doing it.  So let me say now - if I need it, I’ll ask for your advice; otherwise, just smile and nod and let me fuck it up, thanks.

As far as babies being boring?  Well, I can’t really comment yet.  Other people’s babies still seem boring to me, though I now have an appreciation for why they find them so interesting.  You spend 10 months (why do people still insist pregnancy is 9 months?  40 weeks = 10 months, do the math!!) looking at your belly (that’s almost a year!), thinking about all this crazy shit, rearranging your life and body, buying pacifiers and breast pumps all the while thinking WTF HAVE I DONE!?, feeling the baby move around, hanging fuzzy ultrasound pictures on your fridge, taking breathing classes, going through the throes of labor, and it all seems surreal.  Then, suddenly - a real live baby appears FROM YOUR VAGINA!  Seriously, think about it - how fucking weird is that?  After all the mental masturbation: “I’ll do this, I’ll do that, I’ll never, I’ll definitely”, “she’ll do this, she’ll do that, she’ll never, she’ll definitely”… and then seemingly miraculously, from an orifice of your body, there comes an actual flesh and blood and tears and poo and vomit and no more time to think HUMAN.  And I’m certain it will seem mysterious to me why nobody else cares that this idea of a baby is suddenly manifest in reality.  Which is why, again, I’m glad I have Pnut - the only other person who will care exactly as much as I will!

I should note here that one of the reasons for my long absence is the communion I’ve been having with my belly.  I spend a lot of time on the couch talking to my belly and watching it move, poking at it and watching it poke back (again, WEIRD!), and going to strange places in my mind (imagining the little girl in there as aware of me as I am of her, whipping out flip turns against the sides of my uterus, kickboxing, raising her hand in microbiology and wondering why the prof doesn’t call on her).  Also, I’ve been writing a journal for this little girl.  A journal with with as few boring platitudes (”your life will change”, “you don’t know love until you’re a parent”) and as much real introspective honesty as I wish another woman could have shared with me about this experience.

And now I’m going to go play with my belly.

*cloth diapers: a personal choice Pnut and I have made with primarily environmental concerns in mind: plastic diapers are made from oil (The Corporation I used to work for was partially a plastics manufacturer), plastic diapers add 40 lbs. of landfill waste per baby per week, and each takes hundreds of years to degrade.  We are fully aware that we may be changing our minds along with changing 10-20 of these a day, but it makes sense FOR US, to at least TRY to use the smart choice rather than the lazy one.  I’m sure you’ll be hearing all about how and if they actually work for us, because I couldn’t find any good personal experience information other than what I’ve already written here, and corporate stuff with an agenda.

I’m usually an avoider of confrontation.  Never afraid to speak my version of the truth, but usually under the right circumstances…like when nobody can beat me up.  That said, here’s some of the batshit crazy that I’ve been subjecting people to since being impregnated; it all happens in the hallowed halls of the university, since that’s where I spend all my time these days:

1. A guy was running full speed through the hallway.  He took the corner, where I was sitting on the floor, too fast and almost fell on me.  My first thought was “protect baby”, and I curled into a ball.  Then, my exact (yelled down a hallway full of students) words to him were: “Take it slow, or next time I’ll stick out my fucking foot”.
2. A woman interrupted my conversation with a fellow student to explain something I was half way done explaining.  She took out her pen, and started making notes on the girls homework.  I gave her the nastiest look I could muster and said “I KNOW you didn’t just write all over her homework in pen.  She has to turn that in.  Some manners would be appropriate, no?”.
3. I walked straight up to another pregnant woman in my Psychology class, whom I had never spoken to before, and said: “Are you seeing a midwife?  Oh, ’cause I’m pregnant too; I was just wondering”.
4. To a fellow student, who was trying to be helpful by suggesting some things that she ate while pregnant: like soup, soup, or… soup: “No, no moist things.  Please stop talking about moist things or I’ll throw up on you.”
5. To a sizeable crowd studying together: “My husband farted last night, and he thought it was real funny until I spent the next twenty minutes puking”.
6. I got insanely annoyed by a certain spammer, looked up the IP address and website owner, and sent them an email entitled “You Irritating Bastards”, that said: “Please stop spamming my blog, or I will begin to forward you every single piece of spam and shitware I get.”  Then, this morning, upon seeing two new pieces of spam from them, I did just that.

Okay, so number five and six could be pretty typical topo, pregnant or not pregnant.  But the rest are a bit over the line, especially the one where I just started blabbering to that poor pregnant woman like she should give a shit about me and my midwife.  SIGH.

If I haven’t yet mentioned that I’m pregnant, now’s probably a good time to do that.  I haven’t been avoiding writing about it, I just haven’t had anything nice to say about it so far.  This go around, I’ve spent a lot of time (like a good two hours a day) with my face in the toilet while my ever-growing tits are probably hanging out somewhere in the next state (I don’t know for sure how far they extend, because I can’t see them with my face in the toilet - I just hope they’re in a wine bar, the lucky bastards).  Somebody asked me last week if I were “enjoying” the pregnancy so far.  Let me set you straight, people - only a total fucking masochistic lunatic would enjoy this (and I had my crazy FIXED last year, remember?).  At least the that’s my impression so far.

Remember how for the last pregnancy Pnut wanted to book us international flights so that I could enjoy the thrills of epidural-free childbirth in the third class section of an airplane while staring at a stranger in a hawaiian shirt?  Well, this time he wants baby to come into the world in a shower of pyrotechnics at a Rammstein concert.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m looking forward to seeing Rammstein live - especially since this is their first and only show in the US since 1991.  But I was thinking about seeing it from the comfort of a SEAT.  Here’s what Pnut had to say:

A little over four weeks ago, Paolo and I were out having dinner and a glass of wine.  On our way home, it suddenly dawned on me that I was three days late.  So we stopped off at the pharmacy on our way home and got a box of pregnancy tests.  I peed on one, and two little stripes showed up.  When I finally shut my gaping maw, I took out all the other sticks and peed on every one of them, too.  The result?

Preggos.

A great deal of shouting and excitement followed.  Phonecalls to the parental units wherein my mother made very clear that she did NOT want to be called nanna or noni like all the other Indian grandmothers.  It would be GRANNY for her, thank you very much.  Then, a month of waiting for our first OB appointment.  Did you know they won’t even see you until you’re at least two months pregnant?  I didn’t know.  But yep, you have a whole month to figure out the murky waters of prenatal vitamins, diet and wrap your head around the fact that HOLY FUCKING SHIT, I’M HAVING A BABY!  You start packing on the pounds, crying about potatoes (obviously, potatoes are sad), and your boobs grow two cup sizes.  We planned our delayed honeymoon with the quickness (probably Barbados - no big trad climbing trips with baby on board - probably this April) since this would be our last shot at one with just the two of us.  My mom and a couple of friends sent us baby books.

And the day finally came.  This past Wednesday.  We went to the OB.  She stuck a bunch of instruments up my vagina and I peed on a few more sticks, all of which said THIS LADY IS PREGNANT.  We got smiles and congratulations from about five nurses and two doctors, a stack of prenatal literature and appointments for Lamaze classes and we scheduled our first ultrasound for Friday morning.

Thursday evening, Paolo came home from work with the pair of UGGS I’ve been crying about wanting for months.  And a bouquet.  And a card that said “Congratulations mommy, love daddy”.  And despite my huge, painful breasts and because of my little prodruding belly, everything was perfect.

Friday morning, we were handed another bunch of literature and ushered into a room with a tech who rubbed a bunch of warm goop on my belly.  I put my hands above my head while Pnut held them in his hands, and we held our breaths and waited with fascination to see the little critter in my belly.  The tech made a bunch of measurements with her little computer pointer, then told me to get dressed, we’d just hop across the hall to the other machine.  On our way across the hall, we saw the nurse who gave us all the literature.  She stopped in her tracks and asked the tech where we were going.  Then, both women ushered us into the vaginal ultrasound room.  This time, they put a condom over an instrument that looked exactly like a dildo… with a very long cord.  And after adding goop, they stuck that in my vagina.  You know on ER when they do ultrasounds and you hear that disturbingly gross whoosh, whoosh sound and the little flickering and beeping where the baby is?  The nurse pointed that stuff out to us by saying “This is where you would normally see…” and “and over here is where you would usually see”.  And I knew something was horribly wrong.  My mind was blank with shock, but my body went stiff.  And finally, she told us that our baby was dead.  Or rather, that “the fetus is not viable, I’m sorry to say you’ve miscarried”.

And back to the OB we went, to hear one option more grisly than the next.  Here are your options when you miscarry: 1. wait to pass the fetus at home (could take a couple of weeks) 2. take a pill to help you cramp and bleed and pass the fetus at home.  In case you’re wondering, and I did, and I asked, if you do this then flushing everything down the toilet is the standard operating procedure.  I didn’t have the stomach for these options.  I understand that medically and technically all I would be “passing” would be a “bunch of tissue” (as my doctor friend also reminded me on the phone yesterday).  I respect any woman’s right to choose how she feels about that mass of tissue.  But I chose for two months to think of that mass of tissue as my baby.  And I nurtured it, and fed it, and protected it and planned an amazing life for it.  And I would not be able to sleep ever again if I thought it was sitting in the septic tank in my front yard.

So we scheduled option 3. A D&C.  That’s the polite way to say abortion.  And Saturday morning, we went back to the hospital.  I saw, through my teary fish-eye lens vision, the other pregnant women in the waiting room, reading pregnancy and parenting books and smiling with their partners.  I was torn between wanting to burst out crying and wanting to punch them all in their happy pregnant faces.

The nice thing about a Catholic hospital (believe me, I never thought I’d think that, let alone write it down) is that every time the admitting staff, the nurses, or anybody else says D&C at the top of their lungs, you know that nobody thinks you’re there because you want to be.  Everybody knows that your baby is already dead.  Or not viable.  Or whatever you prefer to say that makes you feel better.  And most people are thusly kind and gentle to your grief.

We walked into that hospital on Friday as excited new parents.  Shocked and terrified, but excited.  And we walked out of that hospital on Saturday empty.  At least, that’s how it felt.  My breasts are still enormous and aching, my belly still sticks out a bit, but now I’m just a busty fat chick who can’t put anything near her vagina for two months (”pelvic rest” is the polite way to say that).  They say my body should go back to normal in a couple of months.

And here’s what you find out when you have a miscarriage - everybody else you know has had one.  People come out of the woodwork and tell you about their DNC’s, their bloody underwear at work, their heartache.  And you wonder, after all the guilt and crying and grief, why you never knew this before: one in five pregnancies ends in miscarriage.  The number is probably closer to one in four, but many women miscarry before knowing they were pregnant.  You think about the women you know, and the number of kids they have, and that’s a lot of miscarriages.  So WHY doesn’t anybody talk about it?  WHY do women have to feel like they’re the only person on earth to suffer like this when it happens?  WHY does everybody tell you “wow, you told us early” when you tell them you’re pregnant?  “So many things go wrong in the first trimester, we think you told us too soon”.  Like if something goes wrong, they don’t want to know about it.  Like you should handle your dirty secret miscarriage alone.  Well what’s the point in having friends and family if they can’t help you make it through something like this?  And how can they do that if they don’t know what you’re going through?

Sigh.

I know I’ll wake up one morning soon and know that it’s not the end of the world.  I will wake up ready to try again.  This one was a surprise, but a welcomed and much loved surprise.  Now we know for sure that, though we are as unready as anybody for parenthood, it is something that we want.  In the meantime, I am not going to hide this experience.  And if I get pregnant again, I won’t do anything different- no skulking about for months in fear of telling anybody.  I will still call my best friends and family, excited.  And if I miscarry again, I will want to talk about that too.

This whole experience has also resolved my feelings once again about nursing as opposed to doctoring.  Because, I find, it is the difference between somebody taking the time to sit with you, stroking your arm when the IV medicine burns and handing you a tissue versus informing you with one sentence that they are sorry but you will pass the mass of tissue.  It’s the difference between treating the human being like a grieving mother and treating the slab of warm meat like a car that needs repairing.  I want the skills to heal, but I also want the time to use them.  I want to heal people, not just bodies.

One last thing- folks should give more thought and attention to fathers going through this experience.  It’s my body, but it was P’s baby too.  He is grieving as much as I am.  And not a single person yet has offered a kind word just for him during this experience.