My list of questions

I know that eventually I am going to understand how it all works. For now though, I have so many questions. Sometimes I lay awake thinking of them all. I want someone to sit down with me and just answer them one by one. Instead, I look online and sort through which books to get and hope that my friends will eventually start giving me all the information. It is difficult being so far away from all the mothers I know. So until then, here are my questions. Picture me shouting them from a mountain top with red cheeks (from frustration) and ill-fitting clothes (because none of my clothes fit me):

1. It seems like it would be intuitive, but apparently it isn't. Breast-feeding. I have no idea what to do.

2. How do I pump milk? When do I pump milk? What does a pumping thing even look like?

3. Should I (can I) give the baby a bath every day? What can I wash him with?

4. Where do I put him when he first comes home? If my room, then IN what? And how long does he stay in my room?

5. Do I use diaper rash cream and if so, what kind?

6. When can I take him out of the house when he first comes home?

7. How long do people have to use anti-bacterial wash to hold him after he is first born?

8. How do I know what hospital to go to? How do I give birth?!

9. How soon do I go home after I give birth? How much help will they give me?

10. How long do the 45 minute interval feedings last for?

11. What position should he sleep in?

12. If it's hot can I put on the AC with him in the room? Does he need blankets?

13. Back to breast-feeding: how long for? how to negotiate public feeds? how to breast-feed and work full-time?

OK, that's it for now. There are not as many questions as I thought...

Now I am weary from all that shouting.

Someone, please

answer.

Depression session?

Yesterday, while trolling the internet for pregnancy blogs, I entered into the search engine: "Still sick at 18 weeks?" and therein found a multitude of pages dedicated to women questioning where their second trimester burst was? Solidarity in numbers helps. It comforts me to know that I am not alone and other women are still experiencing pregnancy sickness at 18 weeks. Every week I hope that this is the week I feel better. Women have told me that one day you get out of bed and that's it, you feel better. That you feel almost "normal". I can't even imagine.

One post really struck me. The woman asked if she was suffering from depression or was she just sick from the pregnancy? She said that all the commercials for anti-depressants show women in bed, listless with no energy and prone to bouts of crying- which she was experiencing in her pregnancy. The post affected me as I too have been wondering the same thing. Am I depressed? Surely there must be some shadings of depression for sure. A body that is kept in this state of hormonal low level flu for so long becomes depressed. If someone was sick for that long you would say they were definitely a candidate for depression. Right?

So here's me. Yesterday for example, I felt so bad I couldn't leave the house. I forced myself to shower and go to the grocery store and in the store I felt like I was going to faint. So, I come home and plonk on the couch with the TV on and just can't move. Later I cry. I cry because I am so frustrated at this constant impediment to exploring a new life here in Israel. It is a catch 22. The more I stay at home, the less I socialize and create supportive networks and then the more I feel depressed in addition to feeling nauseous 24/7. And I worry about postpartum depression.

How to describe the feeling? Like a really bad hang over mixed with a dash of nausea and headaches. I look in the mirror some days and my eyes are blood shot. I have no energy at all. I want to go to yoga but how can I go to yoga when I feel faint in the grocery?

So yes, I guess I am depressed. I want my life back. I want energy again. I want to go to yoga and meet friends and start the process of learning the language here...

Part of my isolation is physical, i.e., I am at home a lot of the time feeling unwell, but also the language barrier in this new country daily obstructs me. Yesterday at the store I handed the woman some bread and she said something to me. I responded in English for her to repeat what she said, but she didn't speak English and gave up on me...And I wondered, what was she saying? Is she saying the bread is bad? Or if I buy one bread I get two? Or did I want five loaves? Who KNOWS! But this daily not understanding of another language exhausts me. It further confines me to my own little world...

So, the question that possibly many women face is this question of borderline depression? I imagine that if I had my friends and the familiar around me, things would be different. However would I still be feeling this way in my body? Or maybe I wouldn't?

Everything is all so connected. Mostly though I am worried about the baby. I have the thought that now my amniotic fluid is going to be infected with my sad feelings. I know he is insulated in there mostly. Baking. But I also feel that my mood must affect the growing process...

Today it is windy and rainy outside. I am watching a reality show on TV. I am in my pajamas. I know I should find a way out of this, but I just want this miraculous energy burst. Where is it?

Where is it?

A moment/A wave

A couple of days ago I had to have an Amniocentises performed. Actually, according to earlier test results we were effectively in the clear, but we wanted this extra test. In any event, during the procedure the doctor uses an ultra sound to check that the needle doesn't go too close to the baby. As soon as the ultra sound showed the baby, my boyfriend and I were convinced he waved to us! And it was a moment where I felt connected.

After spending 48 hours resting after the procedure something seems to have altered. I somehow feel more connected. I think perhaps I was waiting for this procedure as a bench mark. Like if I crossed that threshold then from that point on, maybe it was the real thing. Of course there is never a moment where you can truly rest during this pregnancy. I am always paranoid. How do I know he is alive in there? Is this feeling normal? Is that feeling normal?

Today I feel sick. This second trimester energy burst has not hit me. And I have spent the last hour looking at baby clothes online (http://www.bonds.com.au/bumpsandbaby/). Now, looking at cute baby clothes makes me feel more attached. Maybe one day soon I am going to have a little being that wears these clothes? One of my best friends sent me a photo of her new baby boy in a tiny tank top and that moment of seeing him made me love him and made me love my baby. Maybe it's just the child in me wanting to play dress ups, but I also think it is the first sensation of connectedness weaving its way into my psyche...

This illness/Body break down

I am four months and two weeks pregnant. I should be feeling less sick and have more energy. Most of my friends have told me that around this time, one day they wake up, and they have their energy back.

I want this.

I have been exhausted and sick since I became pregnant. It feels like I am in some old Victorian novel and suffering from "influenza" and some old doctor should be by my side cupping my back with glass cups and serving me hot tea. This "illness" is dragging on. And, I am losing patience.

When I first became pregnant I was tired in a way I had never been before. I would go visit people with my boyfriend and have to ask to sleep on their couch (in the middle of the day). It was weird. Then the singular exhaustion turned to nausea mixed with a side of exhaustion. And it has continued that way from then on. I have operated for four months and two weeks at this base level of existence. I am frustrated. I want the "old" me (I fear she is gone forever).

But today I am pondering the drama of it all. The fact that my body is so radically adjusting and creating that I am zapped of all psychic libido. My body is a unit existing entirely for the creation of a baby right now. My outer layer of skin and bones and blood and subjectivity has to just sit by the side lines and wait it out.

Identity shifts...

Today I had a real heart-breaking pang for New York. I wanted it to be a Sunday morning. I would be walking back from my corner store with the Sunday Times bunched precariously under an arm, with a bland, brown coffee at its tip, whilst the other hand grabbed a bag containing a hot, melting egg and cheese roll. I wanted to be in my old apartment on 7th street, sprawled out on the floor, reading the magazine section of the Times while taking a bite of the roll. Later in the day I would walk to an afternoon class of yoga and meander back home after stopping at organic stores to pick up supplies for the week ahead. I would put on some music and with one ear on the phone, start cutting up vegetables...

Nostalgia is easy to get caught up in. It is a misleading foe, leading one down a myopic path of illusion. An indulgence perhaps. However, my little bubble of pain this morning, at the thought of my prior life (so radically different than the one I lead now), was comforting as it was a reminder of a part of myself that, although lonely (at times), was "autonomous".

Something profound and unexpected happens during pregnancy. Reality (that word, perched at the end of every sentence like a pendulous period) sets in. No longer would I ever be "autonomous". Of course that changed once I entered into a relationship with my boyfriend, however there is room in a relationship for autonomy. Pregnancy, a singular state of being is the antithesis of autonomy. I have another being inside me. I am two people. I am at the whim of another, helplessly. I don't resent this, however I feel strange about it.

This morning I felt a flash of pain in my abdomen. It happens from time to time. I am never sure if it is my muscles adjusting or the baby somehow moving in a way that creates an unsavory ripple. Either way, it is a reminder of its presence (or should I say, his presence). Now, as my profile begins to take shape and my clothes start to shrink I am now, more than ever, conscious of a presence. Yet I can't help but feel that he is merely using me as a crash pad while he waits to get out. I know he is never going to say, wow, Mother of mine, I am sorry for making you get fat and anxious and in pain sometimes. Sorry about that. And why should he? He didn't nominate his conception. However, I still feel that this tangled relationship of mother and child begins its potentially precarious descent here in the womb.

Not wishing to appear to bleak (sometimes ugly can be beautiful), I do feel at times a connection with this little entity inside me. For the most part though I am a little confused. Where do I begin and he stops? Or, where does he stop and I begin? How do I become a mother and retain my identity? Or is it that my identity shifts in a way that I will embrace? That I can be both mother and that person sitting, metaphorically, on my coffee table with the paper sprawled enjoying a moment (except this time with my boyfriend joining me).

This piece is meandering a little. It is because I am meandering today. It is raining outside and my belly feels a little vulnerable and I am wondering where I fit in to all this? I have chosen to have this child. I then must take responsibility for taking care of it. Make sure it is happy and nourished. Make sure that I am a mother and a woman that he can look up to.

Maybe that's a big part of it. Be the person that shines in his eyes. Show him how to be a good and worthy human being.

It seems the pregnancy hormones are getting to me this morning... I'm going back to bed.

Gender bender/It's a boy

I have decided that this blog is going to meander a little. Every day new thoughts come to me. It should be noted that I have moved to a new country and so do not have too many friends here and so instead of complaining to my friends, I am writing this blog. I don't really know who will be reading it, if anyone, but I want it to be used as a place where women can really talk about the underside of their experience without feeling censored.

So today I want to talk about what happened to me when I found out I was having a baby boy.

Years ago I remember walking with a friend and she was pregnant with a boy. She already had a girl and this was an unplanned second pregnancy. We were at the beach and packing up to leave and she said, "Wow, when I have a boy I will have to be packing up buckets and pails and toy cars". And I laughed with sympathy as her delicate little girl held my hand sweetly. For some reason that memory really hit home when I found out my own baby's gender status.

In Israel they routinely use 3D ultra sound as will as the 2D one. I was having a particular test at 10 weeks (maybe I am getting the week wrong as my brain doesn't seem to function correctly right now. Needless to say, it was early) and it was obvious to all as my boy somehow displayed his status proudly right there on the monitor. There was just no denying it. Even to the untrained eye.

My boyfriend was excited and I started feeling awful. I asked the Doctor, "What's the percentage of accuracy that we are talking about here?" He said, "90 per cent"

So...a subsequent second test later and it is confirmed. I am having a boy.

Never, ever in my life did I ever think I would have a boy. I just assumed I would be having a girl. The thought, quite frankly, never occurred to me! And I was devastated. Really.

At that moment, I reached across the oceans and emailed all my friends who I knew had boy babies. I needed to know- how was it? How did they feel about their boy babies? Did anyone have the same reaction as I did?

I received so many emails the next day. It was overwhelming and wonderful. Most of my friends had exactly the same reaction I did and in those moments felt isolated and strange about their reaction. Guilt perhaps. And everyone around me was saying the generic, "Well, it doesn't matter, as long as you have a healthy baby!" Got it.
The thing is, I did feel guilty. I felt bad for feeling the way I should. I really did.

I came home to my mother (who was visiting) and she also couldn't disguise her deflated feelings. My brother and his wife already had two boys (and will probably keep trying until they have a girl). Everyone seemed to be having boys. Why couldn't I have a girl? A boy just seemed so....I don't know.

However, the emails really did help. A lot. One email correspondence was from someone I had only met once briefly, however she was a best friend of one of my close friends and she was very articulate about her own mixed feelings and confusion. She discussed how sad she felt and how she was ambivalent about her own feelings and how to express these. She too had picked out girl baby names since she was young, coveted little girl dresses in stores, assumed, like me that she would be having a girl.

That said: Nearly everyone I spoke to said that all my feelings will change once the baby is born. It was comforting. Women spoke of this absolute love which one cannot know until the baby is born. That once it is born, gender really does not matter. They also said (as if this is a good thing, however this remains to be seen), that boys love their mother more than girls do. That the bond is stronger.

The other night I had a dream that my mother held my baby up to me. He looked adorable. Completely narcissistic as in the dream he looked like a baby version of me! However, in the dream I felt this overwhelming love. I exclaimed, "Oh, he's so cute!"

And so the journey continues. I now feel (well, trying to most of the time until I see a cute little girl walking by), somehow noble, like I have been entrusted with a great task. How to raise a decent man? How to make him sensitive yet strong? How do I as a mother make sure that our relationship is unburdened and loving? How do I help him grow?

I have become obsessed with looking at little boys on the street. I see a cute one and think, oh, it's OK I am having a boy as I will have a cute one. Then I see a not so cute one and then freak out about it all over again.

I guess I can't really know until he comes out...

And really, I just hope he is healthy.

A stye in the ointment/Overcoming the body

Yesterday I woke up with a stye in my right eye. It is swollen and pink and painful. I looked in the mirror and was depressed at this mottled eye staring back. I go to the pharmacy and ask the woman there for some medication. She said, "You need a prescription, do you have one?" I said I didn't so she said she would give it to me anyway, but then I realized I had to call my doctor who had to approve of the medication, which she did. Then I get home and troll about online only to find that most websites say I shouldn't go near this medication when pregnant, however one website says it is completely safe. And it begins... The anxiety of being pregnant and the body. Not only what I put in my body, but this abject, disfigured pink eye staring back only reminds me of the tenuous state of my body right now.

Last week a friend was visiting from Australia. We went to the wailing wall. I was with a very religious woman, an Israeli woman who had just found her own version of G-d and my friend. As we trudged through the old city in Jerusalem they talked excitedly about how nervous they were to approach the wall and pray (one woman's knees were shaking). I was just tired and panting rather hard. We arrived. I took a plastic chair in the section for women and watched. I watched the crowds of women at the wall praying and crying as they were moved by this ancient talisman. I sat bored. I was tired. My feet hurt. I needed some water. And, I was a little hungry.

As we were walking back I asked my friend why I felt nothing? I was perplexed. I am Jewish, albeit a non-practicing one (whatever that means) and I should have felt something? My friend said to me, "You know, I think when you're pregnant you are so in your body that you don't have room for any feelings of spirituality or elevated emotions"

That was it.

It was a simple sentence but profound for me as since I have been pregnant I have felt so rooted to my body. Weighed down by it (literally and figuratively). I have felt every nuance, every itch, every movement and every ugly moment.

I feel remarkably ugly. And nobody wants to hear it. Nobody wants to hear me shout right now, "I hate this pregnant body". But, the truth is, right now I do. I hate my growing and heavy breasts. Everything about them is changing and mutating. I hate all the weight I have put on my legs, huge derriere and arms. I hate not fitting into anything I own. I hate my skin blotchy and white. I hate my hair turning more gray as I grapple with the question of whether to dye it while pregnant (some say yes, some say no). I hate my swollen feet and fingers.

But, I do like my growing belly. It gives me some legitimacy...Like maybe I really am pregnant.

That's the thing. I know I have a way to go and everything is going to get bigger and bigger. I know it was the abundance of breads and cheeses in Israel (amazing), which led to this burst of weight and I know it is only temporary. What I don't like perhaps, is the lack of control. That this baby is currently like a parasite of sorts, taking from me and giving me back a layer of fat. The sacrifice begins in the womb. If you want to see it that way...and right now I am not sure I have a clear perspective.

Mostly though, I want to be able to say to someone, I feel ugly. And when I say it, I want them to say, Yeah, this must be difficult for you having your body morph in front of you. I feel for you.

That's it.