She's moving around so much today that it's a little freaky. I see my belly undulating. It's amazing enough to get me to stop what I'm doing, every time, just to watch her move. Part of my reactions have been amazement, hesitation, annoyance and fascination. I can't tell what body part is moving but it's pretty cool. Sometimes she gets going when I'm really tired and that's when I get annoyed. It's not at her, she doesn't even realize she's sharing a space! But sometimes I just want to fall alseep, or stay asleep and she doesn't. Sometimes I can ignore it and sometimes I can't. Either way, she is more and more starting to make herself known!
And speaking of her moving around... I've started a cupcake and coconut craving. It doesn't have to be coconut cupcakes but both things make me happy. I found a great iced tea from Harney & Sons called "Organic Bangkok" and recently went to Magnolia Bakery for a box of cupcakes.
I actually just got up from my computer, went to the fridge and am eating the last cupcake of a box-of-six Magnolia Bakery cupcakes.
So what will happen shortly is that Tiny Dancer, after a sugar rush, will start to move around. I don't know if she's "bouncing off the walls" from sugar or just because I've eaten something. I try not to overdo the sugar, but I love me some cupcakes! The icing is really important. I don't think that Magnolia Bakery has the best cupcakes in the city but they are very good. And there's a new store of it just across the street from my husband's office. So after an appointment, I went to get some cupcakes, 2 slices of cake (one of them was coconut, of course), and then we took the train home together.
A co-worker has a 4-month-old at home and she was telling me how she ate a lot of chocolate one day last week and after breastfeeding her daughter, the little baby was wide awake from 1am-5am that morning. Poor kid was having a high from too much caffeine! And my co-worker's doctor told her that it can take 14 hours for a baby to have the caffeine leave her system entirely. That's a long time for such a small body.
I guess any dreams I had of going out for sushi and sake after the baby is born will have to wait for her to not be breastfeeding as well as us being able to take time to actually go out to dinner.
My entire thought about being a mother of a newborn is simply being exhausted all the time, and dirty. No time to shower or sleep. Thinking of it this way seems torturous but whenever I see a little infant I'm usually amazed and just sit there watching him or her. I can't imagine how intrigued I will feel about my own baby.
Either way, I think it's time for a cup of coconut green tea.
Sunday, March 22, 2009
Is doing a baby registry supposed to be stressful?
Normally, I can shop online with the best of them. Find all the great deals, sort out travel arrangements, and get really nice gifts without much stress or fuss. However, figuring out what we want for the baby has turned into one of the most stressful conversations we've ever had. And having people ask me, "So where are you registered?" makes me uncomfortable since I'm not registered anywhere and there isn't any one store that has all I want.
Part of this is just anxiety about the baby coming and, never having had a baby before, I don't know what I really need. So I've started to ask some friends of mine whose judgment I trust. What gets me frustrated, once I start thinking about everything, is how much furniture, clothes and things a baby needs. After having moved so many times in the past 8 years, I value not having a lot of things.
And how much of it is just going to fill up a landfill and be toxic. Not everyone understands how I feel about this, and I'm not on a quest to convert anyone. I never liked, for example, the idea of changing a baby several times a day with disposable diapers that are made from plastic and turned white by chlorine.
Yes, yes. I know it's more convenient and costs less to buy disposable. And when I have my own, I'll be too exhausted to care. That may very well be true, but for someone who gets a little stressed every time I think about the fact that my apartment building doesn't recycle all plastic number 1 and 2 -- just soda and milk bottles. I think I'll feel too guilty to not at least try to use something more environmentally responsible. Whether we can afford it, is something else entirely.
That alone makes me annoyed. Why is it that the upfront cost for a disposable diaper is so cheap and the price in the store isn't weighted with the environmental and health cost of that dirty diaper decomposing over potentially hundreds of years? Yes, yes. We're relatively affluent, live in big US city, I can afford (financially and values-wise) to feel this way. Blah blah blah.
I don't care. I cringe when I think of how many disposable diapers we're going to use with Tiny Dancer. So since this is something I can get my head around (more easily than which crib to buy), I started to look online.
This morning I found these things called gDiapers: http://www.gdiapers.com/shop/ and I'm willing to give it a go. So the next time someone asks where I'm registered, I'll still not have an answer but at least I know what diapers I want to start using.
Let's see how strident I am 6 months from now...
Part of this is just anxiety about the baby coming and, never having had a baby before, I don't know what I really need. So I've started to ask some friends of mine whose judgment I trust. What gets me frustrated, once I start thinking about everything, is how much furniture, clothes and things a baby needs. After having moved so many times in the past 8 years, I value not having a lot of things.
And how much of it is just going to fill up a landfill and be toxic. Not everyone understands how I feel about this, and I'm not on a quest to convert anyone. I never liked, for example, the idea of changing a baby several times a day with disposable diapers that are made from plastic and turned white by chlorine.
Yes, yes. I know it's more convenient and costs less to buy disposable. And when I have my own, I'll be too exhausted to care. That may very well be true, but for someone who gets a little stressed every time I think about the fact that my apartment building doesn't recycle all plastic number 1 and 2 -- just soda and milk bottles. I think I'll feel too guilty to not at least try to use something more environmentally responsible. Whether we can afford it, is something else entirely.
That alone makes me annoyed. Why is it that the upfront cost for a disposable diaper is so cheap and the price in the store isn't weighted with the environmental and health cost of that dirty diaper decomposing over potentially hundreds of years? Yes, yes. We're relatively affluent, live in big US city, I can afford (financially and values-wise) to feel this way. Blah blah blah.
I don't care. I cringe when I think of how many disposable diapers we're going to use with Tiny Dancer. So since this is something I can get my head around (more easily than which crib to buy), I started to look online.
This morning I found these things called gDiapers: http://www.gdiapers.com/shop/ and I'm willing to give it a go. So the next time someone asks where I'm registered, I'll still not have an answer but at least I know what diapers I want to start using.
Let's see how strident I am 6 months from now...
Tuesday, March 17, 2009
A year ago today
I've been avoiding setting up a blog while I'm pregnant while at the same time wanting to do so. I wanted somewhere to post photos and keep my friends and family who live very far away up-to-date and also give me a reason to blog in both English and Spanish. But I couldn't bring myself to do it. It wasn't that I'm embarrassed or think that blogging about being pregnant is "already done" or "too showy". It is of course all of this and more. But it's personal for me and I've been avoiding it because I was afraid. Afraid to put on paper what I was feeling and experiencing since I couldn't bring myself to really think about what had happened the last time I wrote it all down in a notebook.
The last time I did, I had a miscarriage. It was devastating. In fact, so much so that I haven't written a word about my current pregnancy and I haven't allowed myself to keep track of how many weeks I am. Until yesterday. Yesterday I realized I was 28 weeks pregnant. I was floored at how far along I am. She's small, I'm not showing that much. And with a winter coat on, since it's still pretty cold in New York, it's hard (if not possible) to tell I'm this far along.
Yesterday I was thinking of buying airline tickets to visit my family in Maryland, and my mother was the one who mentioned that I should check if it'll be ok since I'm pretty far along. So I had to figure out how many weeks I'd be at Easter. I'll be about 31 weeks. Or rather, she (our "Tiny Dancer") will be 31 weeks. And I thought to myself, how is this even possible I'll already be 31 weeks along?! I even had to call my husband to tell him how surprised I was.
And just now, on the way up the stairs at work to get to the kitchen -- to make myself a cup of tea -- it hit me. Today is March 17th. Last year, on this day, I spent 6 hours in the doctor's office because the night before I lost the baby. Well, it was a fetus and it was only 9 weeks along. But it defined the way I've felt about being pregnant, and trying to get pregnant, for the next 12 months. Thinking about it, really thinking about it, brings me to real, honest tears even right now. Sitting at my desk at the office.
So in celebration of the Tiny Dancer to come, instead of the sadness and fear of loss, I write this blog.
The last time I did, I had a miscarriage. It was devastating. In fact, so much so that I haven't written a word about my current pregnancy and I haven't allowed myself to keep track of how many weeks I am. Until yesterday. Yesterday I realized I was 28 weeks pregnant. I was floored at how far along I am. She's small, I'm not showing that much. And with a winter coat on, since it's still pretty cold in New York, it's hard (if not possible) to tell I'm this far along.
Yesterday I was thinking of buying airline tickets to visit my family in Maryland, and my mother was the one who mentioned that I should check if it'll be ok since I'm pretty far along. So I had to figure out how many weeks I'd be at Easter. I'll be about 31 weeks. Or rather, she (our "Tiny Dancer") will be 31 weeks. And I thought to myself, how is this even possible I'll already be 31 weeks along?! I even had to call my husband to tell him how surprised I was.
And just now, on the way up the stairs at work to get to the kitchen -- to make myself a cup of tea -- it hit me. Today is March 17th. Last year, on this day, I spent 6 hours in the doctor's office because the night before I lost the baby. Well, it was a fetus and it was only 9 weeks along. But it defined the way I've felt about being pregnant, and trying to get pregnant, for the next 12 months. Thinking about it, really thinking about it, brings me to real, honest tears even right now. Sitting at my desk at the office.
So in celebration of the Tiny Dancer to come, instead of the sadness and fear of loss, I write this blog.
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