February 2014

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 19: Kicking but not screaming

February 11, 2014

Two things happened with my uterus this week.

The first is something I only know about thanks to the pregnancy app on my iPhone, which displays week-by-week drawings of what’s happening to my insides.

Apparently my womb has gone from a luxurious, four-star accommodation, as seen here in week 18 …

Week 18: Shall I order womb service?

… to something straight out of the Sochi Olympics in week 19.

Week 19: Is it hot in here?

Yikes! From spacious to squish in just one week.

Seriously, are my kid’s legs supposed to do that?

The other thing that happened this week: I felt my boy moving for the first time. It was wonderful! And weird! And at first I wasn’t entirely sure it wasn’t just gas.

I’ve been trying to describe the feeling to The Husband. According to some of my friends, it’s a fluttery sensation, like butterfly wings. My friend Emily says it’s like a melon baller, scooping you on the inside. And I think it’s something more difficult to define. The shimmery oil slick on the surface of diner coffee? It feels the way that looks. It’s the pop of a soap bubble. The tug of a cool silk scarf against skin. Ginger ale carbonation and eyelash kisses and when one raindrop slides into another. All of those things.

In short, it’s neat.

It’s also a sobering reminder that there’s a living person in my body. One with ears, who hears the same things I do. I’ve started curating the music I listen to, trying to build a perfect baby out of Prince and the Pixies. At the same time, I now worry about the other things I’m exposing my baby to. What about the movies I watch? The TV shows? When I binge-watch a full season of “Dexter,” am I making him a serial killer?

I realize I probably don’t have as much power over this little life as I think I do. But just in case, I crossed my arms in front of my belly during the entirety of “12 Years a Slave.” Sure, I won’t be able to shield my son from the ugliness of the world forever, but while he’s staying in the Motel Squish? It’s my business.

Here’s how everything else has been going this week:

Baby: The size of a mango. A mango! And who doesn’t love a mango?

Me: My belly officially popped out this week. Like, for really real. There’s no doubt that I’m pregnant now.

Also one night I had the strangest feeling in my gut, like a sour cramp. I groaned and hugged my sides. The Husband was terribly worried and frustrated and finally snapped, “I wish you would tell me what’s wrong!”

But I didn’t know what was wrong, only that it was something I’ve never felt before. “It feels like I swallowed a Zippo,” I tried to explain. “Like a burning, right here by my heart and up to my throat.”

“Oh heartburn,” he said. “Just eat a Tums.”

So that’s how I learned about heartburn. Also, it sucks.

Otherwise, I’ve been feeling healthy and happy and calm.

Mango making a fabulous appearance! Though that sports bra is doing me no favors.

My exercise has included a little bit of everything this week. Walking, biking, yoga and hiking. Today I felt the baby kick as I was hiking down a mountain, and I thought, “He’s an adventurer already! He just wants to keep climbing!”

A hazy day in the desert.

But he also kicked when I was listening to “One Night in Bangkok,” and there’s really no excuse for that.

Wheel-y fun.

Husband: Somehow he’s developing the nesting instinct that I should have. The red needle has hit the panic phase, and he suddenly wants to finish every home project we’ve ever discussed. We’ve even pulled out the sewing machine. Stay tuned for how that turns out.

15 writing tips from Panio Gianopoulos

February 7, 2014

I’m such a sucker for craft talk, especially lists of writing tips. Oh, those adorable, bite-sized bits that promise to reinvent my prose! I can’t get enough. I gobble them like dumplings.

Unfortunately, those lists rarely stick with me. As easily digestible as the tips might be, they rarely give me any real narrative strategies or provide me with something that truly lasts. Or if they are substantial, the lists are so dense and overwhelming I can’t even think about applying the tips to my own writing.

The exception to this came a few months ago at my MFA residency. And it was a surprise too. Author, essayist and publisher Panio Gianopoulos gave a very thorough lecture about novellas — writing novellas, classic examples of novellas, the market for novellas.

This is the novella that Panio built.

Then POW! Out of no(vella)where, Panio ended his talk with his top 15 writing tips. Not just for novellas either. And he gave me permission to pass this list along to you.

So here you go. These tips are smart, practical and best of all, super helpful. Enjoy. And thank you, Panio!

Here’s Panio in a photo I illegally swiped off the internet. Photo credit: Molly Ringwald

1. Write toward discomfort.

Panio talked about this in the context of fiction, but this comes up a lot in my nonfiction classes as well. Proceed directly to the scary, uncomfortable place. That’s where all the feelings are.

2. Pursue the accidental. (Don’t learn to type real well.)

I don’t remember the example that Panio used here. It was something about how he mistyped a word, but it led him down a different, more interesting path with that sentence. Like when autocorrect invites your boss to a poop party instead of a pool party.

3. Things are usually half as funny as you think.

e.g. My poop party joke. (See: above)

4. Movement! Action! Things have to happen.

This is a good one. You wouldn’t believe how many short stories I’ve written where people just sit around a coffee shop, talking. Then sometimes they have sex.

5. The reader has to care about the protagonist. (They don’t have to LIKE the protagonist. They just have to have a reason to care.)

I can actually think of a lot of books in which I didn’t like the protagonist. For example, I didn’t want to become BFFs with Nick from “Gone Girl.” But I wanted to watch his transformation through the story, and that propelled me through the entire book.

6. It’s OK if you don’t write fast and sloppy first drafts.

This one is liberating. I’ve had so many writers tell me to dash off a quick, messy draft — “You can’t fix a blank page!” they chirp — so it’s refreshing to hear the opposite of that. I’m a person who labors over every word of my draft, and I fix sentences as I work. I’ve tried to overcome this by banging my work out on an old Royal typewriter — I don’t own White Out, and I don’t even know how to do a backspace on the damn thing, so it forces me to leave a messy draft on the page. I even took an online course called Fast Draft. Still, my writing is slow going. According to Panio, that’s OK.

7. Don’t overly discuss a first draft while writing it.

Oh, man. I’ve already killed one story by doing this. It was a rookie mistake — I was new to my MFA program, I was inspired by the great work happening around me, and I wanted to participate in the conversation too. Except, in the process of explaining my book idea to everyone, I strangled the story before it ever found a voice.

8. If you’re worried that it’s boring, it probably is.

Writing is transparent. When I really struggle with a piece and force myself to slog through it, then it reads like drudgery. And when I bore myself? That’s a good indication that readers will be bored too.

9. Title as soon as possible.

This is an interesting tip, and maybe it’s one of those chicken-egg debates. I’ve always thought that as a piece progresses, the work will present a title. But Panio believes having a title in hand will shape the piece in subtle ways. I’m sure it can work both ways.

10. Write two hours or 500 words a session, 5 times per week.

This. This works. I know because I’ve been trying to follow this plan ever since Panio shared it.

11. With feedback, ask your reader the right questions. For instance, what’s the story? What do you think happened? What do you take from this?

This is another good tip, and it addresses something that is rarely discussed among writers: What exactly are we trying to get from workshop/feedback?

12. Separate publication from validation.

This might be the most difficult one of all. I have gotten better about squashing my envy when good things happen to my writing friends — there’s plenty of space on the bookshelf for everyone’s work, after all. But I’m still very hard on myself when my own essays are rejected, my pitches go unanswered, my work doesn’t get noticed. I assume I suck, and the whole world hates me, and I should become a professional barista already.

13. Beware: Research easily slips into procrastination.

Ah, the rabbit hole of the internet! I’ve lost many writing days to exploring the pop songs of Uganda and discovering how long it takes for a whale carcass to decompose on sand.

14. Read often. And while you’re reading, analyze and record what works.

My seventh-grade literature teacher, Kathi Russell-Rader, always said good readers make good writers. I’m not sure I believed her at the time, but I get it now. On the same note, I’m shocked when I meet writers who say they don’t read. That’s like a chef who doesn’t eat. It’s impossible to be competent in a field without some knowledge of it.

15. Support other writers.

This gets to one of my New Year’s Resolutions for Other People — to be a more active participant in my literary community. Buy more books, support more authors, encourage more reading among everyone.

Speaking of supporting other writers, why don’t you start with Panio? Read an excerpt of his book here.

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.