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Pregnancy week 28: If these uterus walls could talk

April 16, 2014

This past week was the LA Times Festival of Books, which has become an annual tradition for my writer girlfriends and me.

It was my second time attending the festival — and it’s the second time I’ve been pregnant at the festival. However, the baby I carried last year died in the first trimester.

I thought I would be over it by now, because that’s what you’re supposed to think. That’s what people tell you: Time heals all wounds and all that. Besides, I have a new baby to look forward to, a new life to fill the space inside me.

So I was surprised by how the grief came back so forcefully this weekend, how fully formed it still is. It hasn’t dissipated. It hasn’t shifted into something else. It’s still this annoying, recognizable presence — a purple gorilla, as poet Matthew Dickman put it.

I did my best to lose myself in other people’s stories so that I wouldn’t be consumed by my own. I went to panels and had books signed by some of my new favorite authors. I swooned over the delightful Pico Iyer and went all fangirl on Laini Taylor in the bathroom. I met LeVar Burton.

READING EFFING RAINBOW.

But still the grief remained.

It’s something I’ll have to live with, I suppose. In a way it’s a relief to know that my other baby didn’t disappear completely. She’s still there somewhere, in that part of me that feels like a wooden splinter. But it doesn’t do much to lessen the loss.

This week I also had one of those 4D ultrasounds, the kind that makes the baby look like a lump of clay or some kind of sculpture-in-progress. I’ve always hated those things. They’re creepy. The photos always make the baby look like a criminal with pantyhose pulled over its head, someone about to knock over a convenience store.

But when it came time, I couldn’t resist. My pregnancy is still at the point where my child exists in an ultrasound monitor, not yet in real life, and I just wanted to look at him. I’m still scared he won’t be real.

It is remarkable what you can see on those ultrasounds. Not just the baby’s face, which was thrilling, even though he looks like a sack of mushy oranges.

My boy has a face!

For some reason, I also have a head of cabbage in there.

But it was amazing to see the heart too. Four chambers with valves that know exactly how to open and close.

I actually have a video of the heart pumping, but I couldn’t figure out how to upload it. So just imagine it.

And bones. I was mesmerized by the spine — the perfect, intricate pieces of a puzzle that somehow solved itself — and I couldn’t get over the fact that my body formed those bones. My god. No wonder I’ve been so tired. I made bones!

In my free time, I make spines.

Pregnancy is such a strange dichotomy. I’ve never felt so powerful, and I’ve never felt so weak.

On the one hand, I am making life. It’s a rush to acknowledge that. I’ve created this thing that will someday be a person with his own abilities, goals, and unique personality. That’s insane.

But it’s also unnerving to realize how random it is — how many forks exist in this road. There’s no reason why this baby might live and why the other did not. I didn’t do anything to make this pregnancy more viable than the last. I didn’t love the babies any differently. In fact, other than subletting my uterus, I really had no part in this at all.

That’s just how it is. One baby is almost here, one is not, and I’m still learning how to accept that some wounds never heal.

Pregnancy Week 27: Just the tip of the third trimester

April 6, 2014

ME: My pregnancy app says we need to talk about circumcision tonight. Presumably for the baby, but they didn’t really specify.

HUSBAND: OK. What do you want to say about it?

ME: (Googling) It appears to be a controversial topic with many pros and cons.

HUSBAND: How do you feel?

ME: I actually have no strong feelings about it one way or another. None. Zero.

HUSBAND: Neither do I.

ME: This is really your territory. All I can contribute is the story of the first time I saw an uncircumcised penis.

HUSBAND: Nope. Don’t want to hear it.

ME: Wait, I’ve got something. What do you call a cheap circumcision?

HUSBAND: What?

ME: A rip off.

HUSBAND: Alright, we’re done talking about this now.

A baby mushroom.

Times like these I feel like I’m still pretending to be an adult. There are very important decisions to be made here — such as, do I want to cut off the tip of my son’s penis? — and I have never even considered these things before. Not once. How am I qualified for this? My business card doesn’t say “foreskin expert.” (Maybe someday. Fingers crossed!)

More importantly, how do other people do it? Did everyone go to a special parenting school when I was out at a bar? If so, you guys are bastards for not inviting me. Is there some way I can obtain a spare baby, so I can try again after I irrevocably screw up this one?

All I know is that I have a lot more research to do before I make any organ-altering decisions. Back to the Google I go.

Here’s what else has been going on this week — the very tip of the third trimester!

Week 27: This is supposedly the beginning of the end, according to people who give me unsolicited advice: “Oh sure, you feel great now. But just wait. That third trimester is terrible.” So … yay?

Baby: As big as a head of cauliflower.

Me: Looks like I’m shoplifting a head of cauliflower.

Seriously, every week I look more and more like the pregnant dude in the “Been Caught Stealing” video, and it cracks me up. If only Halloween were closer, I could totally rock that look, no foam padding necessary.

Exercise: Not so great — only a couple long walks and one yoga class — and I’ve definitely noticed a difference. I feel far chunkier and more lethargic this week. Next week will be better.

On a good note, I did some cool stuff instead of working out.

For instance, I had a couple hours before work on Tuesday. Instead of going for a bike ride like usual, I watched a bunch of guys disassemble the Forever Marilyn statue in downtown Palm Springs.

All hung up.

When Marilyn really went to pieces.

And on Saturday, which is typically my hiking day, The Husband and I drove to San Diego and took a falconry class. The Husband was initially wary about us doing the class during pregnancy, because he was afraid a bird might peck the baby out of my womb.

I’m pleased to report we both enjoyed the class and had zero Hitchcockian incidents.

I should tweet this.

I made a new friend. It was hawkward.

Not ruffling any feathers.

The Husband is very talon-ted.

I still think most birds are weird and could really use some arms, but I’m starting to warm up to raptors.

Health: I had my glucose tolerance test this week, and I should get the results early next week. I’ve done a fair amount of research on the test, and I feel like it’s flawed — and because of that, too many pregnant women are incorrectly diagnosed with gestational diabetes. But I’m going to save that rant for another day. Also I’m not a doctor, just a lady with a lot of opinions.

Books: Baby received his first set of books this week, a gift from my dear friend Tracy. They’re some of my favorite children’s books too: “Where the Wild Things Are,” “Pat the Bunny” and “Goodnight Moon.”

I’ve already started reading to the baby, which seems to inspire a whole taekwondo performance in my belly. So the baby either looooves books, or he hates them and wants me to shut up about rabbits and mittens already.

Cravings: Peanut butter on all the things. Peanut butter on apples. Peanut butter with celery. Peanut butter crackers. Peanut butter and rice cakes. Peanut butter on a moldy rooftop shingle. I don’t care! Slather me in peanut butter and let me nom myself to death.

Pregnancy Week 25: A pierce of my heart

March 23, 2014

This week I am bidding adieu to my navel ring.

It’s not that I want to get rid of the piercing. It’s just that my belly is pushing against the steel hardware to the point that something’s gotta give. And I don’t want it to be the belly.

(You can’t see it here with my black T-shirt, but trust me — that ring is about to poke right out.)

I still remember when I got that piercing.

I was in college, of course. There was this girl who lived in the next dorm over, and I thought she was super crazy and super cool. Her hair was jet black, and her eyeliner always made perfect, inky rings around her eyes. She was skinny, more muscle than meat.

I don’t remember the girl’s name. It might have been Dana. I barely knew her.

One night I got messed up with Dana at a party, we waited in a long line for the bathroom together, and somehow we decided we’d get our stomachs pierced the next day. I think she brought it up, and my response was a resounding, “Fuck yeah, dude” — because nothing says “I’m an adult now” better than “belly button ring.” We traded phone numbers, and Dana was surprised when I followed up the next afternoon with a call.

Of course I called. Dana was the cool girl I wanted to be. She moved fast and wild, and she always seemed to have the most fun of anyone in a room. And right up until that moment, I had never done anything nearly as exciting or scandalous as a piercing. I didn’t even have my ears pierced! (I still don’t.)

Also, Dana had a car, and it was a long walk to get to the tattoo shop without her.

The place was called Art Apocalypse, and the piercer had a long ZZ Top beard. As I stretched out on the table and the man leaned over to swab my belly with cotton balls of cold alcohol. The hem of my shirt was tucked into the underwire of my bra, and I could feel his breath on my stomach as he placed a clamp on my skin.

“This is too freaking cool,” I said. “It’s just like Alicia Silverstone in that Aerosmith video, huh?”

“No,” the piercer said.

I decided to change the topic.

“So, like, do I need to worry about accidentally pulling this thing out? Like, with a sweater or something?”

“Listen,” he said. “The only way this piercing is coming out is if you put a big chain on it, and then you attach that chain to a Buick, and then somebody drives that Buick at 120 miles per hour. Are you going to be doing that?”

“No.”

“You should be fine then.”

I remember the smooth pain of the needle, then the zing inside my stomach muscle as the piercer pulled the ends of the metal ring together. It wasn’t entirely unpleasant.

I remember buying generic Dial antibacterial soap, in order to keep the piercing from getting infected, and keeping it in my Caboodles shower caddy. The hole got infected anyway, because college students are filthy and holes are always getting infected, and then somehow it cleared up on its own. I haven’t had a problem with it since.

I remember two weeks after we got our piercings, Dana went to a party somewhere off campus and I didn’t go with her. And then I remember running into her the next morning outside of the dining hall. She was still in last night’s skirt and crop top, but she was wrapped in a sweater holding the ends shut, like a cocoon. She was crying. I remember she was so silent when the piercer’s needle punctured her, but now she wailed as if she had been stabbed. Her eyeliner was smeared.

I don’t remember the details of who assaulted her, but I do remember going to the rape trial. I remember a lawyer asked Dana what she was wearing and what she’d had to drink at the party. I remember her cheeks burning when she testified that she wore a skirt and a crop top. I remember being so thankful she had been sober on the night of the assault — and then I remember the shame of feeling that way, because I knew it shouldn’t matter, even though it clearly did in that courtroom.

I remember the sinking regret of being a bad friend. Of not knowing how to support someone who was broken. Of feeling so awkward and awful for Dana that my piercing became a metal stitch in my stomach, holding me together.

We barely talked after the trial, and Dana eventually dropped out of school.

I don’t know why I’ve kept this thing in all these years. I no longer flaunt my belly or wear the navel ring for any decorative purposes. If anything, it seems silly to have a schoolgirl’s piercing at my age. I did the math once, and my piercing is actually older than Justin Bieber — though it hasn’t picked any fights with rappers or gotten caught drunk driving.

It’s just this thing I have, part of the cartography of my body. I guess when it’s out forever, I’ll still have the hole there, proof of something that once filled it.

The good news is that I have different things to fill me now. I hope Dana does too.

Here’s how everything else is going with the pregnancy this week:

Baby: The size of a cauliflower or rutabaga. Let’s go with cauliflower.

My uterus: The size of a soccer ball. Also, Baby has been so active lately, my uterus feels more like a burlap sack full of rabid coyote pups.

Special guest stars: My friend Xochitl brought me to a kick-off party for the Palm Desert Food and Wine festival, where my fabulous baby bump met The Fabulous Beekman Boys!

I’m a huge fan of these guys, particularly of Josh Kilmer-Purcell’s memoirs. If you haven’t yet read “The Bucolic Plague: How Two Manhattanites Became Gentlemen Farmers,” I highly recommend it. I also love that Josh and Brent used their “Amazing Race” winnings to create Mortgage Lifter heirloom tomato pasta sauce, in which 25 percent of the profits go to struggling American farmers to help pay off their debts. You can buy it here.

Cravings: I am not really having any cravings of my own, but I am very much influenced by other people’s food lately. Someone on Facebook mentioned Smarties … and I bought a bag of Smarties. Someone on TV made a green smoothie … so I made a green smoothie. There was a sample station of salsa at Costco … and I bought all the salsa, all 47 gallons of it.

Just don’t come around me with a pizza. Deal?

Pregnancy Week 23: When hormones attack

March 10, 2014

I have been waking up on the wrong side of the pregnancy pillow this week.

I am crabby and mean. But I am also needy and sad.

Within the space of five minutes, I complained to The Husband: I am so lonely. Nobody calls me anymore or wants to hang out with me. My friends don’t ask how I’m doing. They don’t care. Nobody cares. When I send pregnancy photos to my family, they don’t comment on them or say I look pretty. And the last time I sent a photo to my sister she said it looks like I’m about to cry. And why did I have to give up an hour this week? I want it back! With interest! And look — salsa fell off the chip and onto my big tummy and taxes are due AND OH GOD EVERYTHING, ALL AT ONCE.

Then I cried.

It is lovely being married to me right now, I’m sure.

Photo taken during the five minutes my emotions weren’t wildly ricocheting all over the place.

Are these hormones? Is that what’s happening here? Because fuck hormones. I hate feeling this uneven and irritable. This is not me.

On a lighter note, spring has waltzed into the desert, bringing crazy cactus blooms and pastel sunsets and letters from President Clinton. Those are good things, even though I feel a little too delicate to fully enjoy them right now.

Pen pals! This was the highlight of my week.

Little pricks.

You’d never know I was in a grocery store parking lot.

Here’s what else is up this week:

Baby: Supposedly the size of a grapefruit, but I no longer believe my iPhone app on this matter. So you’re telling me this baby is the size of a grapefruit? But he is also 12 inches long?

When’s the last time you saw a damn grapefruit that was as tall as a schoolkid’s ruler?

Never. That’s when.

Family portrait! The Husband, me and baby grapefruit.

Cravings: Tomato-based foods. Marinara. Salsa. Tomato-basil soup.

Body: Bigger. I guess this is what happens.

Also I am starting to feel the limitations of pregnancy, and that has been difficult to accept. Normally when a person works out each day, the reward is that the routine gets easier, your muscles take longer to fatigue, you feel the results. That’s one of the basic principles of physiology: The more you exercise, the more your body wants to be in motion.

Pregnancy is the exact opposite. For me, anyway. Lately I feel like I am fighting with myself. Each day the effort is more daunting, and laziness is more seductive. I want to rest. But also know that’s not what’s best for me or the baby — I need to maintain some level of fitness.

So I still walk 2-3 miles each morning, and I’ve been doing prenatal yoga. I took my bike out for a slow 10-mile ride. I went for a hike with my husband, even though I couldn’t make it anywhere close to the end; I had to admit defeat and turn back down the mountain, wheezing the whole descent.

The view from not-the-top.

Maybe in the coming days I’ll try to tackle that mountain again. Maybe this time I’ll even make it to the top.

Pregnancy Week 22: Fetus in Seattle

March 4, 2014

Baby went to Seattle this week! I went also, because it would have been strange and irresponsible to send a fetus on such a long trip alone.

This was my first visit to Seattle, and most of what I know about the city was gleaned from Sub Pop, Starbucks and the movie “Singles.” I also know Seattle as the home of the newborn vampire army in “Eclipse,” the sequel to “Twilight.”

Unfortunately, neither grunge nor vampires were to be found anywhere.

A whole big city and not a single sparkly man.

On a good note, I did find Starbucks.

“You know it’s an original Starbucks, because the mermaid is fatter,” said my friend Ashley.

I fell for Seattle immediately, the way you see a handsome stranger and can instantly imagine your life together. Over-caffeinated people, many slightly pale and dirty, shrouded in flannel? Restaurants that serve sizable portions of inventive, local food? Markets filled with freshly plucked produce? Mountains and pine trees and painfully blue, blue water? Yes! All of it yes. This city gets me.

Six blocks of yum.

The occasion for this trip was the annual AWP conference, the Association of Writers and Writing Programs, a gathering of 13,000 nerds for workshops, panels, a gigantic book fair, readings and evening events.

The conference squeezes all the experiences of going to school into just a few days. The first day is like a junior high dance, with everybody standing awkwardly in their own corner, looking at the wall. By the final day, it’s college. People have separated into cliques. They are bleary-eyed and weak, and their backs have been tweaked from carrying too many books. They skip workshops to meet friends or to tend to their hangovers. Or they skip the conference entirely to smoke pot in hot tubs.

AWP is a strange and wonderful world, but it was different to experience it sober rather than seeing it through a martini glass. Last year I was a social butterfly who hopped from bar to bar and the occasional hotel room, partying with questionable poets until 4 a.m. This year I was the pregnant lady who just shoveled pie into my mouth. But I spent less money this year. So there’s that.

Anyway, I did not take any photos of the conference, so here are some more pictures from Pike Place Market.

Spelling candy with a K makes it sweeter.

Warning: When a dead monkfish asks you to come closer, it’s gotta be some kind of trick.

Freshly chewed: The bubblegum wall in Post Alley.

Of course, the best part was that I got to spend a lot of time with one of my best friends, Ashley, and watch her give an incredible reading. Here’s the piece she read an excerpt from on stage.

MFA BFFs.

Here’s how everything else is going this week:

Baby: The size of a papaya. Yuck. This is the first week I haven’t liked the produce comparison, since papayas taste like feet and vomit.

Health: I had a full-on anxiety attack, because I suddenly couldn’t feel the baby move anymore. So before I left for Seattle, I called my doctor’s office and forced myself upon them until they agreed to let me come in for an appointment. My usual OB wasn’t there, and I was given someone with the bedside manner of a Pike Place Market monkfish. She listened to the heartbeat and said, “Well, it’s there. You’re fine,” before she ushered me out the door. It wasn’t exactly reassuring, but until someone invents a uterus porthole so I can peer inside myself and see what’s going on, I have no choice but to believe her.

By the way, can one of you invent a uterus porthole? Thanks.

Later, in Seattle, I ate some unbearably spicy Indian food, and the baby kicked up a storm. So he’s there. And I will eat tongue-shredding curry every day of this pregnancy if I have to, just to feel him.

Also, baby got his first piece of clothing this week! How sweet is this?

The onesie that said “Write like a motherfucker” was sold out.

Cravings: Everything, really. Although I still want slurpy noodles and dumplings and curry and sushi slightly more than usual. This conveyor belt of food at Blue C was a dream come true.

Sushi-go-round!

Strangers: This week two people confirmed why I don’t like to leave the house anymore.

1. My seatmate from SFO to SEA leaned over and whispered, “What flavor is it?”

ME: By “flavor,” you mean what?

HIM: You know. FLAVOR.

ME: Like, boy or girl? Ethnicity?

HIM: Democrat or Republican.

ME: Oh. Well, his parents are Democrats. But I hope to raise a critical thinker who can make decisions for himself.

HIM: Atta girl! So a Democrat.

2. Inside the AWP conference, a man sidled up to me on an escalator. Then he rubbed my belly.

HIM: So what are you doing tonight?

ME: Me? Sleeping.

HIM: I’m going to this boss party, and it’s gonna be off the hook. I’d love to get your number …

ME: Um, no. I don’t think so.

HIM: (groaning and running hands through hair) Ugh. Sorry. I drank too much boxed wine last night.

Belly: I think bathroom selfies are the ultimate in tacky, but I found myself in a bad place this week. And that bad place was the Westin lobby, with several hours to kill before my flight back to Palm Springs. I wanted to get my usual belly photo, but all of my friends were already gone and nobody else was around so … I selfied it up.

I realize the point of a selfie is to make yourself look good, but I decided to reject that idea by getting rained on, wearing no makeup and staring at my iPhone screen with dead, soulless eyes.

#badphoto

That is what Seattle Maggie looks like.

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