Falafel

Lately, once again, I have been having anxiety. I believe it is due to the nightmare I had the other day (which I posted about). Apparently, according to my research online, my feelings are unique. So I alone can take credit for this neurosis (although I did read one article about a woman expressing my fears but along with a myriad of crazy others).

So, I have been feeling weird/scared/repulsed/strange at the baby moving inside me now. At first it was all very cute to feel him move (which he does often), but since my nightmare I have felt this abject feeling towards the little thing. I get into a panic and just want it out of me. The only way I can feel better is to firstly, think of it as the child I am having with my boyfriend (and not the alien fetus inside me), and also to just not think of it (avoiding sweet foods so he doesn't move as much). The other night he kept me up all night he was moving so much. I am trying to sleep and be in denial and all I feel are the little dings and bangs of who knows what in there!

My boyfriend had wise advice. But let me digress. My sister and I were emailing the other day, and she remarked that every baby needs to have a "womb name". Some cute and superfluous name. So she hereby named my baby, "Falafel". I love it. It cracks me up every time I say it. And to tell you the truth, he has Falafel tendencies: he is middle eastern, delicious and little. So, on with my story.

My boyfriend said to me when I was expressing this anxiety: Just remember, it's Falafel in there.

Those words eased my tension a lot.

Still, daily I am struggling with this. And it seems like I am alone. None of my friends seem to have experienced this during pregnancy. I think a part of my anxiety is that currently I have too much time on my hands to be aware of every little nuance of my body. I have always been hyper aware of my body and all that goes on so this is like the absolute condition. Something is alive inside of me. OK, doesn't this freak ANYONE out?

Falfafel. Just think Falafel.

Natural nightmare

Last night I had a horrible nightmare. The baby's limbs were protruding through my skin out far so a limb was fully extended (like some alien). And the feet were huge and I realized he was fully grown and people said I had to give birth now (at 22 weeks) and I was crying and so scared. I woke up in a panic and had to wait awhile before I could sleep again.

Even this morning, feeling him move inside is a little creepy post dream.

I wonder if other women have nightmares like that during pregnancy?

So, in the on-going saga of whether to go "natural" or not, I am re-thinking epidural again. I spoke to one of my best friends in Australia who has had three children and she convinced me that no birth is truly "natural" and if the process was so natural then why do women all around the world have extreme complications, even death, giving birth? She has a point. Even now my body feels like it is in shock and that this process is anything but natural. At the same time, it is the essential act of nature. The most pristine event that accompanies life on this earth. Thousands of women give birth every day and have since the dawn of time. Surely it is natural?

In any event, for me personally it may come down to finances as my health insurance does not cover a "natural" birth and the birthing center is expensive. Add the doula and the post-hospital "hotels" here in Israel and we are looking at an expensive birth. So the question remains...

I imagine the answer is going to be somewhere in the middle...

Tank tops

Lately, I have just been feeling anxious. I am always worried about the little one's movements. Is he moving enough? I have a second anatomy scan this week and really looking forward to it.

This whole process is really anxiety-provoking. Not only am I contending with the daily tracking of his health and mine, but I am still worried about how the birth will go. My boyfriend and I are looking at a natural birthing center this week. It is attached to a hospital however, which brings some relief. I spoke to another woman yesterday about her story and about how the complications meant a c-section for her...

And, while I do not like to admit my failings, I spent half the day the other day watching an MTV series called "!6 and Pregnant" on my computer. I watched six births and all of the young mothers looked like they were in agony until the moment they received the epidural and then they were all happy and joking and while it looked uncomfortable while they pushed, it didn't look painful. Most women who have had children kind of laugh when I say I may try the "natural" version and most like to inform me that even when they have a high threshold to pain, it still was too painful to go sans epidural.

So, I am feeling a little confused about it.

But mostly these days just anxiety. My mother sent me my very first present for the baby. Little tank tops from my favorite Australian cotton brand, Bonds. They are the cutest thing I have ever seen and it was quite surreal to think they will actually be used (I hope) one day. I have them by my bed. I can't quite put them away just yet. I just like looking at them for now... But with their arrival comes a new anxiety that is about the desire for everything to go well. The stakes get higher every day.

Now I want him. I want to see him in the little tank top.

Ina May Gaskin

I have spent the last few days reading a book called "Ina May's Guide to Childbirth" and I have to say, it is truly inspiring. All these women speak of birth being "orgasmic" and "spiritual" and none of them tear or injure themselves in any serious way. It has led me to think a lot about how I would like to give birth. It also makes me realize that we come to birth with a whole set of languages and assumptions and cultural heaviness that it is hard to see the wood for the trees.

For me, labor and delivery is about the bright lights of hospital, sudden C-sections, epidurals, shaking, pain, fear, and being totally disempowered. I have taken this to be what happens and what will happen to me. Interestingly, I actually know for a fact- having witnessed it- that natural childbirth can be relatively seamless. My friend that I watched giving birth did so in a dim lit room with an oil burner and it was quiet and fast. I remember she just yelled once (when the head was crowning) and that's it. So, contrary to most of my other friends' stories, this one was unique.

And that's just it. That birth was the only birth I have ever heard of that was not complicated and set in a hospital (it was in a birthing center next to the hospital). I hate hospitals. Just going to a hospital scares me without even the thought of having to give birth in one. I hate the way doctors treat a person. I hate the de-humanization process that takes place.

And so that's why this book has been so interesting to me. Birth as a spiritual experience? Can it be done? Can I do it? I don't know if I have the strength. On the one hand, I want to make this experience a deep one. I want my son's life to begin in a positive way. On the other hand, as I have mentioned before, I am an advocate for taking medication when I am in pain. To a degree however. I have had success with Chinese medicine and acupuncture. I have increased my immune system with herbs, healthy eating and yoga. I have tried to take an alternative approach generally. So, maybe it is possible?

I believe mainly it is the fear that gets in the way. Fear of the unknown. I am not really scared of the pain per se, I am scared of the baby being in a position where it is not safe. I believe that the pain is temporary and somehow giving birth is a singularly temporary experience. That said, I cannot predict how I will encounter pain.

Last night I felt a short, stabbing pain which I sometimes feel. It is said to be round ligament pain. My ovaries stretching to accommodate the little one. However, I thought to myself last night, wow, if this is anything similar to the type of pain in childbirth then this is going to hurt! A lot!

I don't know. I really don't...

Belly

The good news: the amniocentesis results came back and the little one is a healthy baby.

And it was a sweet moment when I found out as I was sitting on a bus and felt this overwhelming rush of love for the baby inside me (perhaps for the first time), and at that exact moment my boyfriend called and told me the good news. The convergence of acceptance and hope.

It was a weird day also, because on the first bus ride (to Jerusalem to become a legitimate citizen of this country), I was sitting next to this woman who kept accidentally jabbing my side. It was the first time I really felt this protective urge and I kept moving and holding my belly so she couldn't have any access to it. I didn't want this strange woman's energy next to my baby.

All this belly talk...

BRAT

So, back on the BRAT diet. Bananas, rice, apple sauce and toast. My stomach seems to be conspiring against me, along with my throat and general feeling of well-being. This is just getting better and better. Not.

In other news, my boyfriend finally was at the right time and the right place to feel the baby move and it was pretty cute. I had really been wanting him to feel him and it was very touching. It feels like the little thing is punching and kicking my stomach in the cutest, softest way. I am constantly wondering what he is doing in there?

So, even though my insides are in disarray, my belly looks pregnant and the baby is moving like an athlete. The other night my boyfriend and I went to a dinner party and a couple of the guests (who I know and feel comfortable with), felt my belly. It was strange as this was the first time I have been pregnant enough for people to actually see it (and feel it). I remember always wanting to touch the belly's of pregnant women, but once remember my pregnant friend telling me it was weird as in "real life" you don't go about touching the belly's of other women. And from then on, if I really felt the desire, I would ask her if it was OK before I touched her belly (the desire to touch never went away). So, now I am one of those women whose belly people want to touch. How many times can one use the word "belly" in a sentence?

Back to some toast.

Attachment part two

As I am writing today, the little thing is really moving about. Sometimes when I put my hand there it stops. My boyfriend has yet to feel it, but I feel any day now he will have a chance. I really am excited for him to feel it.

So, next week we find out the results of the Amniocentesis. If there is something wrong we will have the option to terminate. Today I am nervous as this would be difficult for me. Of course. However I am not sure what aspect of it would be the most difficult, going through the procedure, going through the loss of hope, or actually being sad about the little thing in me. Right now I still have mixed feelings about how attached I am.

A friend said something interesting recently about the little movements I am experiencing, which is, that in retrospect, knowing who actually came out, she wished she was more aware and more attached to the movements. Right now for me it is amorphous. I have no idea who this being is. However I can see what she is saying. Once I am attached to this creature in real life I will be able to look back and be nostalgic for his little movements in my womb. Perhaps the movements will be indicative of his personality somehow.

Another friend told me something very sweet about her attachment to her baby, which is that after he was born she still felt very much connected in the sense that they were one unit together. When she had to make doctor appointments for both her check up and her baby's, she made the one appointment, only to find out she needed to make two separate appointments. She didn't feel so separate. I love this story.

It is an evolution this process- and yes, why it is said that you really need these nine months in order to go through the myriad of emotions we endure. I think how different it must have been when my mother was going through this. No ultra sounds or Amnio. No real indication of anything but the eventual movements of the baby (me). I wonder how the connection at this time manifested then?

Lately I have been feeling like I have a little buddy with me. Someone along for the ride (literally). It is sweet but I am trying to be careful not to fetishize this feeling. I don't want to encourage a desire that the baby is here for me. I want to be there for him. I am aware of how it would be possible for women to use their children as their own safety objects and I don't want to create a neurotic agenda this early. Yet, still, there is something very interesting about having this person inside me. He is with me all the time.

It's all so interesting.

But, just so I don't miss my daily complaint: I wish I didn't feel so sick!

Control

Yesterday a close friend called from Sydney. I was telling her (yet again), how sick I feel and how difficult it is, and she said this was just the beginning. And then she said something very wise. She said that this experience is about "giving up control".

Giving up control.

There is a moment of surrender I am not sure I have quite hit. However the words hit home.

Before pregnancy I had a lot more control. I had control over my thighs, over my exercise, over my state of corporeal. It is too easy to say that I have no control right now, but I definitely have less. And the future is unknown. Completely. Will I carry the pregnancy to term? Will my baby be born healthy? Will the birth be safe for me? Will this baby have blue eyes or brown eyes (I spent some time googling this yesterday. Way too much time on my hands)?

Today I will focus on those words. I have no control over anything in my life. I can make choices and hopefully direct, to a certain degree, my future, but ultimately I have no control. I cannot control my thunder thighs or my growing belly or my pasty (who ever said pregnant women glow?) skin. None.

And of course, there is freedom in giving up control. Once you give up control you can accept what is. Which usually, is pretty good (at least in the moment of happening).

Right now I have had my morning coffee. I am well fed on eggs and fresh feta and I have a good day planned (an anomaly for my lonely self these days). In this moment, I have given up control and everything is OK.

Giving up control.

Sick still and other motherhood musings

OK. That's it. I give up. I am just ONE of THOSE women, who get sick for their whole pregnancy. Every week I have been like, OK, next week I am sure I will feel better, Or, I read that this woman started feeling better at 22 weeks, so maybe that's when I will feel better? But the other day in the car with my boyfriend I said to him that I need to stop peaking around the corner of the next week in the hope I will feel better and just accept that maybe this is how pregnancy will be for me.

Which is not cool. I am really not into feeling this way. At all.

I have described it before as a hang over feeling with a mix of nausea. Can I elaborate? It is like there is cotton wool in my head, mixed with a slight headache, mixed with exhaustion, mixed with nausea, mixed with this sick feeling in my chest, mixed with a head that hurts and aching limbs. That's about it. Oh, and an ongoing feeling of being faint and out of breath whenever I move.

I am done.

In other news, I have been thinking a lot about motherhood the past few days. I have been thinking about my own relationships with my parents (and their relationships with theirs) and how no matter how hard we try, our child is going to have some problem with us (me). I can just imagine my kid sitting, stoned at some beach after a day of surfing and laughing with all his friends about the embarrassing thing that his mother does, "Oh yeah dude, she always used to say that to me! It was so annoying".

The thing is, we all have expectations about how our children will turn out. Even with this unborn child I have expectations. He will be kind and gentle and strong and he will do good in the world. He will be successful (at whatever he does) and insightful and have compassion. He will make some woman a wonderful partner and he will be an amazing father. He will be respectful and honest with women and have great values. You get the picture. But, what if this is not the case? What if he pops out and is grumpy and unhappy? How much is nature versus nurture? What if he wants to be a selfish and ungrateful human being?

It is these thoughts which interest me. How do I participate in helping the evolution of a wonderful human being? Generally I think that my boyfriend and I will do a good job. We will give this child a lot of love and solid boundaries and all the support he needs. We will imbue him with decent values and make sure his self esteem is healthy. However, that doesn't provide for the x factor in all this. Who he is?

It's easy to love a baby. It's harder to love a pimpled, smelly teenage boy who wants to rebel (in my case rebelling may take the form of being some socially backward child who loves nothing more than to play some violent game online 24/7). What if our boy doesn't want to surf? Or explore life? What if he is afraid?

Enough questions. I have to have faith, that with the right kind of love and support, this boy will flourish. It's why I am having a child. It is partly selfish, but it is also motivated by the enormity of the task. It is noble. I take this responsibility seriously.

For now though, I will continue to hate being pregnant and love feeling him move inside me. The dialectic continues.

Dream monologue

Last night I had one of those long dreams that seem to continue like an epic adventure. This dream was about my baby. It was probably one of the first I have had like it. Yesterday (whilst consuming a hamburger my boyfriend and I ordered in), we watched (in keeping with the trashy food), a terrible show called "Against All Odds" where they showed babies being born in crazy circumstances- one of them being a woman in a coma giving birth in the coma. I guess I appropriated this image for my dream and in a matter of a dream hour I effortlessly gave birth to my boy. In the dream everyone kept asking me if I had given birth and I was like, "yeah, no problem".

So, then I am with this dark-haired baby (of course in my dream he looks like me and not my boyfriend- in real life I kind of want him to look like my boyfriend). And this baby is divine. I just want to smell him and hold him and watch him sleep. And then I breast feed him (with absolute ease of course in the dream) and I am overwhelmed with how much I love him.

That said: no dream is just a dream and it had an edge of nightmare when for the rest of the night I somehow couldn't get back to feed him and so was in a state of panic. However, once returned to feed him, the ease and love would return. I guess that is what being a parent is about- that mixed feeling of love and anxiety.

That was my night. I believe that part of the dream was initiated by the fact that I have been feeling him move quite a bit the last two days. The movements are only felt on the inside like flutters and soft beats, but they are unmistakable. I believe the other part of the dream was initiated by the fact that an old mentor of mine emailed me yesterday (after I emailed him about the pregnancy), and he said that he could see me really enjoying this "production" of my own and he remembered me making a book for his little boy back when I looked after him occasionally. I do not remember this, but know I have always been a huge, huge fan of children. Somehow I keep overlooking the fact that I am going to be in seventh heaven with one of my own. It doesn't seem like the story fits...

So, now after my morning coffee I am waking up to the fact that this may actually be exactly what the doctor ordered.

One cute baby I can love as much as I want.

To E or not to E...

So, I recently found out (maybe erroneously), that having a lower back tattoo (which I have), may impede the ability to receive an epidural during labor. I do not know for a fact if this is true, and my doctor will take a gander at the location of my tattoo next time I see her, but it's definitely a strange (and terrifying) thought.

I have always thought I would have an epidural as a matter of course. I have never understood these women who want to give birth "naturally". As far as I can see, there is not much that is natural about this whole process. At least for me.

However now faced with the remote possibility that I will be forbidden to take any course of action but the "natural" one is definitely something intriguing. What the X factor in all of this is that nobody can really project what kind of birth it will be? Will I be one of those women who can just pop out a baby in a few hours (I somehow doubt that), or a woman who goes into labor for 30 hours? My mother was in labor for a long time, however I am not sure if that is any real indicator for me (and our pregnancies are very different). Could I do it naturally? The fact is, I have no idea. That said, when I have a headache I take medication. When I have a cold, I take medication. I don't like feeling pain if I don't have to. Who does?

The only thing I am thinking about in this situation is that when you give birth naturally you have more pain blocking endorphin things that happen. And you heal quicker...That's what I have read anyway.

Again, the whole thing just seems so odd and scary and troubling. I know everyone does it. I know it's going to happen whether I like it or not. It's just weird!

I just ate some butter and honey on a fresh roll and I can feel him move about a little. It's kind of cute.

Victim

Yesterday I had my hair dyed and cut. Whilst sitting at the hairdressers I looked at my reflection in the bright lit mirror and was disgusted. My legs seemed to have grown wider than I have ever seen them. I kept making sure the black smock was pressed down as far as it could go past my knees and the offending thighs.

In time though, I started thinking about how I have been a victim to this pregnancy. My body the sacrifice. Yes, at 20 weeks I still feel sick. I thought after my bad cold and coughing that I would "wake up" to a new me without the hangover feeling, but alas, today I feel it more than ever. That said, sitting at the hairdressers I was convinced that from this point on things are going to be different. I am going to pretend I am not pregnant. I am going to go about my life as usual. Omit bad food, go to yoga like a maniac, and feel like I can dress like a normal person. This was my vow.

The rest of the evening I was full of energy. What had I been doing before? I had let this pregnancy determine who I was and what I was capable of. No more. Yes, there was something growing in me, but I could still participate in the world like a full human being? Yes!

This was it.

No more victim!

Today though I feel awful. Again. It is raining outside and I feel like I have cotton wool in my head, mixed with a tinge of nausea. I feel

like

a

victim.

Alien attachment

In keeping with this new attachment theme I am currently experiencing, the one deficit to this growing emotion is that I have still yet to feel the baby "move". And to be honest, I am not sure how I feel about the feeling of it moving. There is a part of me that is excited for this, however another part of me is kind of creeped out by this. It is an alien experience being pregnant and it is also alien to have an alien in you. My alien.

Generally, it is not a common experience to have something in one's body move without explanation or control. We do not have our livers fling about or our stomach's reel in flits of spams. That said, we do experience gas, probably the closest feeling to the movement of a baby (at least the initial ones). Again, pregnancy lends itself to this separation of self. There is no autonomous body but a big body (bigger every day) and a little parasitic body inside the big body, which has no jurisdiction over this little body.

Everyone tells me it is a flutter or a bubble and I have felt this. At least I am pretty sure. It is a little like gas. So maybe I have felt it "move" but not in any distinct way. There is of course, comfort in feeling it move. The alien is alive! However, more and more as he gets bigger I am getting more and more apprehensive about the movement.

I do feel primarily like a vessel. And I have a feeling that the more he moves, the more I am going to feel like his walking airplane. It's an abstract feeling. More than that however, I feel weird about it. There is a part of me that wants to scream, "get it out, get it out" like I really have some kind of close encounter alien squirming to get out.

This is a trip.

Birth fear

I will say this: Having a bad cold and being pregnant is no fun. However, the upside is that having a blocked nose and a terrible cough is distracting me from the general hangover feeling I have from the pregnancy. Yesterday, for a brief hour or two I felt a little better from my cold and then I started feeling the hangover feeling again. Good one.

So. It's happening. I'm getting attached. I am not sure when it happened, but in the last week I have been feeling excited. All of a sudden I am attached to the outcome of this bloated body. Who is he going to be? Who will he look like? However, with that comes more anxiety. The biggest being, how in the world am I going to give birth to him?

I have many, may friends who have had babies. All of them have a particular birth story. All of them, when asked about how their birth was? give a BIG sigh and say, well, mine was pretty tough. I have never met anyone who was like, oh, birth? It was great! That isn't entirely true as I know from my friends that the second and the third birth always seems to be a lot easier. The first, not so much.

I have actually watched a birth. A long time ago (16 or 17 years ago?) in a birthing center. The mother was a dancer and I guess was used to a certain amount of pain. The birth looked pretty good. She lay on a bean bag and her partner cradled her and all I remember is having her first child in my lap watching with her thumb in her mouth as this mother to be gave a few groans and pushes and out came the baby. I also remember, quite vividly, going to find her some dinner that night and bringing her back a huge plate of pasta which she ate with such gusto and relish that I will never forget the image. Pretty seamless.

That said, more often than not the birth stories I have heard always involve something unusual. Always there is a complication that nobody had really heard of. Always the woman describing the birth will say, well, in my case they had to....

They had to....

Cut, chop, insert, incise...

So: I am nervous. I have been told that in Israel the doctors do not attend births but the midwives handle. This is a little sad for me as I would so love my doctor to be there. I like her manner. She would be a calming influence for me and my boyfriend. I have been told that it is very business like in the hospital and that the midwives do the minimum needed.

I am already planning to have an epidural. I have no idea what kind of pain we are talking about here, but an epidural seems like the "easy" way out. It all seems so vague though. And nobody seems to remember exactly how to describe the pain. Pain is hard to describe in any event. It is existential to the core. Fleeting and deep, however wordless.

The unknown. I have to embrace it. For this is completely and utterly unknown. I know I will feel pain. I know I will feel scared. That's about it.

I wonder why other women don't seem to talk about this fear? Is it too neurotic to be pondering birth at this stage? The bigger he gets the more I think about it. How in the world will he get out?

How?