When You're Pregnant and You Have the Flu, Do Not Google "flu and pregnancy"

Seriously, don't. I know better than that, but somehow, at 5:30am after I'd been up all night barfing, etc, I decided to increase my discomfort by enabling internet-based paranoia. Once the results popped up, I realized what a dumb idea it was, and though I didn't even go beyond the first page of hits, it was enough to freak me out for a bit, and I was momentarily convinced that the baby was sure to get this stomach virus. I woke Jason up and he was very comforting and then I fell back asleep and woke up and called Amrit, who assured me that as long as I'm fever-free (I am), the baby is fine. It's just me who feels like crap. She also told me that the baby has a three-day food supply, so if I can't eat for a few days, she'll be ok. Which was good to know, as I didn't really eat yesterday. Today I had yogurt and toast. And lots of tea. Luckily it's stormy out, and a three-day weekend, so it's a good cozy time to be sick. Jason is not yet sick (fingers crossed), though he did join me in my lethargy yesterday (when he wasn't fetching me tea and Saltines), and we watched "Best in Show" (for the millionth time) and "Pineapple Express" (I love James Franco) and lots of TV and we napped and read US Weekly (thanks Aubs). And I'm making headway in the third Twilight book. God, Bella is such a freaking moron.

It sucks to be sick, especially since I've been feeling so totally awesome and strong and healthy. But I'm feeling better now, and am no longer barfing, which is excellent. And the baby is kicking up a storm, which is wondrous, though it does make my already-queasy and weird-feeling stomach feel even weirder. But I love it, and I'm glad one of us has energy.

Here's to the much-needed rain and to Valentine's Day and Scrabble and reality TV and my cats and to getting better and reading a lot and this couch, which is really unbelievably comfortable.

The Quickening

At Abbot's Lagoon, up in the magical land of Pt. Reyes. This new sweater makes me look like a fat panda. But it's very soft and cozy.
In Inverness, at the home of our friend Louisa's stepfather. An incredible, incredible house.

"According to the Oxford English Dictionary, to "quicken" means "to reach the stage of pregnancy at which the child shows signs of life."

-From good ol' Wikipedia

The language of pregnancy keeps getting better and better. I have now experienced what is referred to as "quickening"; in other words, the baby's moving and I can feel it! The word 'quick' used to mean 'alive', and the term goes way back to fairly ancient times: the moment that the woman felt her baby move was the moment the baby was considered alive. Human life began at the first sign of movement, at least in the legal (and linguistic) sense; in many societies abortion became illegal once quickening occured. I am definitely not putting forth any sort of argument about human life and the fetus, but I can definitely say that it's damn cool to feel this tiny little thing poking around inside me.

It's often described as feeling like "popcorn popping" or "the fluttering of a butterfly". As an avid fan of popcorn, I'll go with the first one, as it's pretty accurate. It's like a little pop near the surface of my belly, like a tiny thing knocking on the inside of my stomach. It can be hard to discern from gas (of which I have plenty, thanks), but I'm getting better at distinguishing the sensations. I feel it most when I'm lying down, and though they're not very regular or strong yet, last night Jason was definitely able to feel it during a particularly long kicking session.

So, yay! She moves. She's quick. We quicken. It all sounds so fabulously witchy and medieval...

In other news I'm reading those stupid Twilight books. The first one was addicting and entertaining; the second one sucks and feels like it was written in a week (as it probably was). It's fun zipping through them, though, in a teenager kind of way.

And for the record, if anyone's counting or keeping track, I am 21 weeks along. I think. Something like that.

It's (Almost Certainly) A Girl

Yup, the psychic stoner Hawaiian mystics that Jason and I met when we stayed in a treehouse on the Big Island were right all along, as were the bartender at the LAX Hilton, and the many others who said "Hmmm...I think it's a girl." I was right, too, it seems, as I have sensed, in some strange and inexplicable way, that this tiny creature (current length from head to toe: banana) is indeed a wee lady. Now, let it be known that this is not for sure, as it's often hard to tell with girls; when it's a boy, it's generally pretty obvious, but girls are (ahem) more nuanced and challenging to detect. Basically the ultrasound technician looks for the absence of penis and scrotum, and then for signs of labia. In our ultrasound we saw no penis or scrotum, and two lines that are most likely labia. So it is certainly possible that we could get a sweet surprise when this baby comes out and we have a little penis and scrotum, but we're all pretty sure that we'll be getting vagina. To put it all delicately. Our ultrasound also revealed a total and complete baby with arms and legs and hands and feet and heart and liver and kidney and stomach and bones and she moves all over and is very active and awesome!

It's so interesting how divided people are on the do-you-want-to-find-out-the-sex-or-not question. For us it was a no-brainer; hell yeah we wanna know! Why not? Some have asked whether we "want to be surprised", and my response has been a) This is already so freaking surprising and mysterious and crazy. I am certainly not lacking for 'surprises' these days. And b) It's still a surprise. It's just you are surprised earlier than you would be otherwise. And now we can call her by her name and give her a pronoun instead of 'it' and we can buy clothes and when I write her letters with girl-specific advice and information...In general, it feels more real now that I can name her and imagine her and say her. And as I said the other night, "gender's a total myth until you're done with grad school and you get pregnant. Then it's super real." And I'm super into it.

And yes, we do have a name for her. We've had the name for years, in fact. You can ask me, and I might tell you.


And here we are getting ultrasounded!

Dancing With Myself (and Baby and Jason)

When I found out I was pregnant, one of my first thoughts (I had like 10 million 'first thoughts', mind you) concerned exercise: what can I keep doing? What's safe? What's gonna ruin the baby? Cursory internet perusal reveals that opinions on exercise during pregnancy are---like most opinions on what you should and should not do while knocked up---are pretty damn all over the map. I have been kickboxing regularly for about a year and a half, and when I got preg I was in the best shape I've been in for years. I wanted to keep exercising, but the intense punching, kicking, cardio, and ab work that we do at my kickboxing studio seemed a little scary, especially during the first trimester (I do not do sparring or any kind of combat---I was about to advance to that, but then I got this whole new condition). I took about two months off, and consulted with my doctor, who offered what seems to be the general advice on the topic: if you were doing before, keep doing it, but listen to your body and don't do anything that hurts. Ok then! I resumed kickboxing and have modified my workouts to a slower pace, with no intense ab work or extended jumping (the official jury's out on both ab work and jumping, but I'm going with intuition on this one, as it just feels weird to jump a lot and do major ab stuff). And I feel freaking awesome; strong, energized, healthy, and in great shape, despite my expanding ass and belly. (And I now know why a good, supportive sports bra is necessary; that was kind of lost on me before).

So I'm kickboxing and loving that, and also walking a lot, and once it gets more Spring-y, I'll start swimming (not like it's not totally Spring-y here already, but still...it's an outdoor pool and we're still in Feb.) and will probably do more yoga as I get bigger. Exercising during pregnancy is definitely not for everyone; I can't imagine keeping it up if I was barfy and sick, or exhausted (another reason I avoided it for the first trimester. SO TIRED!), and I imagine that some women are just not into it. But I definitely am.

And so I've added a new element to my workout routine: the Morning Dance Party Freakout, which basically consists of me dancing around my living room to really loud music and occasionally incorporating some stretching and yoga and free weights and geeky vaguely Jazzercise-y movements. A lot of hip shaking and arm flailing. It's super free-ing and dorky and I would be slightly embarrassed if someone encountered me (and someone will, as I do it with my front door open, but when they do I'll just be like "What? I'm pregnant!") but it's very fun and a good way to wake my body up and, I like to imagine, entertain the baby. The key is to be as un-self-conscious as possible, and to have no regard for how totally absurd you look. Today I made Jason do it with me, and we maniacally flailed around to Rihanna, Hall and Oates, MIA, Punjabi MC, The Gossip, Bowie, and Siouxsie. We were out of breath and cracking up. We video-chatted our friend Mark and danced for him and made videos on our Flip. There's one of me dancing that will most likely never see the light of day, but this one gives a good sense of the scene (we decided we should have a workout video series on Youtube. The Pregnant Chick Dance Party Morning Freakout Show!)

Home Visit and Heartbeat

Last month Jason and I made the decision to plan for a home birth, and we found our amazing midwife pretty quickly. Amrit Khalsa is well-known in the Bay Area midwifery scene (a bigger scene than you may think. Actually, you're probably not surprised that the Bay has a big midwife scene) and she worked with three acquaintances who gave birth last year; they all had very different birth experiences, and not all were smooth sailing by any means, and they all heartily recommended Amrit. Knowing that she was more than capable in these three dramatically different birthing scenarios is really great to know. But more importantly than the recs and all the accolades on the Berkeley Parents Network is the fact that Jason and I adored Amrit immediately upon meeting her. We sealed the deal during our first meeting, and were so excited for our first visit with her.

I have always been interested in midwifery, but until now haven't known exactly how the whole deal works. I'm learning a ton, and one of the most compelling aspects is that the midwife does all of the prenatal visits, and generally does them in your home (some midwives have offices, but most do home visits). Visits last around 2 hours, and are incredibly holistic and comprehensive; basics like blood pressure, baby heartbeat, and uterus size are checked, and the rest of the appointment is about the midwife getting to know you and your partner. Amazing. It's the kind of medical care that I have always longed for---I'm so sick of the 10-minute doctor visit (which is, by the way, what my OB prenatal visits are. 10 minutes of heartbeat, feel the uterus, blood pressure, weight, ask how you're doing, bye). I will soon tell my OB that I am planning a home birth, and we will then cease our doctor-patient relationship, for now, because in California it's illegal for an OB to work with you if you're working concurrently with a midwife and planning a home birth. Why? Malpractice of course! One downside to this is that, if a home birth mama ends up needing or desiring a hospital transfer, she most likely ends up with a doctor she doesn't know, who may or may not be down with the accompanying midwife, and who may or may not be a crappy doctor. As I've made clear and will continue to make clear, I'm not anti-hospital, but I do believe there are less-than awesome doctors out there, just as I believe there are compassionate, sensitive, woman-friendly doctors---and to not know which you'll end up with is not ideal. One major awesome point about Amrit is that she does have a relationship with an OB who is on call for all her births; thus, if I end up transferring to the hospital near my house, I would know the attending doctor.

Anyway. The first visit was wonderful---I made us tea and breakfast, the pets hung around and watched, and I even got to pee on a stick to test my pH levels. In my own bathroom! It's incredible how different a medical experience is in your own home vs. a doctor's office. I like my doctor's office very much, but the entire power doctor-patient power dynamic shifts in an amazing way when you're in your own home, on the couch, drinking tea and talking. Not sitting on that stiff crinkly paper, not under florescent lights, not feeling awkward or weird or worried about keeping your busy doctor too long with all your annoying, irrational questions...

I had emailed Amrit about my not-feeling-the-baby concerns, and she left me a great message in response, saying exactly what I figured she'd say (which is exactly what I wanted to hear). When she arrived she was like "Let's listen to this baby right away so you know it's ok!"

And so here we are, on the couch, listening to our baby's loud kick-ass heartbeat. The last time we heard it was around 12 weeks, and it was way more whoooosh whoooosh whooooosh. Now's it's like ka-thunk ka-thunk ka-thunk HEARTBEAT! You also get a nice taste of Amrit's vibe, which is the perfect balance of warm earth mama and super knowledgeable baby expert...

Amendment Re: World's Finest Baby

Notice: I erred in my previous statement re: Arlo Lutzenberger being the sole finest baby in the land. Please strike that statement and amend it to include the other finest baby in the land, one Madeleine Brouillard of the glorious and currently chilly state of Washington, beloved and cherubic rosy-cheeked child of my favorite cousin Liza Ragan and my favorite eventual-cousin-in-law Robert Brouillard. Madeleine's current favorite activity, according to her Grandma, one Nancy Murray of Faixfax, CA, winner of the gold medal in Grandmothering (previously held by one Mary E. Murray of Pleasant Hill, CA; soon to be contested by one Barbara Jean Schatz of San Jose, CA) is hiding behind a couch and then jumping up to gleefully surprise people. Miss Madeleine is also an excellent eater and sleeper, and has an adorable habit of resting her clasped hands on her belly in quiet contemplation.

Please allow this amendment to clear uo any misunderstandings regarding the finest baby(ies) in the land.

Note: All bets are off once my baby is born.

On Being Pregnant and Calm

For many of my dear, dear friends, I am the first to be on the baby-having train (who woulda thunk it, huh?!). Thus, many of them are understandably incredibly curious about how this whole pregnancy thing works. What happens to your body? What does it feel like? One thing that strikes me about being a woman is how little we tend to actually know about this insane and amazing thing that can happen to us. Sure, we know the Hollywood version of pregnancy (puke, eat, get fat, water breaks, rush to hospital, scream, grunt, doctor, birth, yay), but unless we've witnessed the pregnancies and births of friends or family members, we actually know very little about the mysterious phenomenon, no matter how righteous and conscious and aware we are about our bodies and vaginas and cycles and selves. I know that I was amazed and awed to witness the pregnancy of my friend Jenn and the birth of her son Arlo, the world's finest baby; I learned so much from Jenn, from the birth class that we took together, from the doctor visits, from her 4-day-long early labor, and from that incredible day when he finally decided to emerge. Right before my eyes.

I've always been a big fan of knowing a lot about women's health. I'm a go-to person when it comes to advice on UTIs, yeast infections, and all that jazz. I like learning about and understanding the potential miracles and miseries inherent in our systems, and I like informing others about it all too. (I once abandoned my lesson plan when I was teaching Women's Studies upon realizing that my class had little to no knowledge of female anatomy. I had them all draw the female reproductive system; then I drew it on the board and asked them to label parts. It was amazing how little they knew, and how excited (albeit initially shy) they were to learn.) So know that I know some things about pregnancy (at least, the first 19 weeks of it) I will share.

Of course, one of the reasons that we tend to not know much about how it all goes down may be that it's so incredibly different for every woman. It's strange: pregnancy is this totally universal, yet utterly personal and subjective experience. There's an incredibly strong sense of connection to other pregnant women and mothers, but also a kind of protective, "this is my unique experience" thing too. Similarly, there's great relief in learning that the pain or sensation or thing that you're feeling is normal and shared by other women, but many of the pregnancy books annoy me with their didactic accounts of what you are and are not experiencing. All of this is to say that in sharing my experience with pregnancy to date, I recognize that it is completely my own, and no better or worse or more magical or pure or easy or hard than any other woman. It is true that, thus far, my pregnancy has been easy and delightful. I know that this could change at any moment, any day, and I know that all kinds of unforeseen circumstances and occurrences and sensations await. I am incredibly lucky to have many things in place that enable a great pregnancy experience (family, friends, partner, love, time, enough money, dog, cats, home, health, etc) and I am so grateful for these privileges, and for the up-to-this-point ease of my experience. I say all of this because it's important for me to be conscious of the singularity of my situation as I relate it to other women, and to not seem braggy or cocky or naive. (I also don't want to tempt the Evil Eye that Brooke has warned me about. Can I tie a red string around a blog?)

Onward!

Of all the physical and emotional things I've felt thus far in my pregnancy, the most intense and notable thing (aside from really sore boobs) is an incredible and fairly unprecedented sense of calm. I do believe that America has made pregnancy into a fear-based experience and industry (that's another post, entirely), and even that crappy stalwart What To Expect When You're Expecting devotes the vast majority of its pages to cataloging every possible thing that might go wrong and feel bad during your pregnancy. Don't get me wrong---pregnancy is fucking scary, and childbirth is ohmigod scary! But it doesn't have to be as nerve-wracking and terrifying as the books and medical estblishment might like us to believe. So I am especially grateful for this calm. Not that I'm usually an anxious mess (only sometimes), but ever since I found out, I've been very relaxed about these epic life changes, about my body, about my health and the baby's health, about my relationship, about the future, about birth—most everything. (Granted, the positive preg test came right before Obama's victory, so there's definitely been a good vibe hanging over everything, but this is sometime quite deep and wonderful and hard to explain.) I tend to be a worrier about health in general (last year I went through a pretty health-anxious phase during which I was gut-wrenchingly and irrationally convinced that a tiny swollen lymph node on my neck was deadly lymphoma) and am a total moron sucker for looking up symptoms on the internet and then convincing myself that I'm dying. But during this, the most unknown and unfamiliar experience ever, where I am actually growing a tiny person that I cannot see, I have just felt weirdly not-worried.

Part of our cultural anxiety around pregnancy has to do with the whole process of trying to avoid getting knocked up when you don't want to/aren't ready/can't do it. I definitely didn't know I was 'ready' until I was actually pregnant. Like most women, I've had my share of pregnancy scares and late periods; even after Jason and I were well established and committed and agreed upon the future having of children, I still breathed a massive sigh of relief when my period came. He often made it clear that he was ready to have a baby yesterday; I often hedged and demurred and said "Yes, in the future, but not quite now." But in the weeks following our wedding, when I started to suspect that I was pregnant---unusually sore boobs a few weeks before my period was due, a general weird bloating feeling, one brief instance of spotting ('implantation bleeding' said the internet), and then the tell-tale absent period---I felt totally calm. I even stopped hoping to find my period everytime I went pee, and started feeling relieved when there was no blood. When the two blue lines did appear on the preg test stick, yes, my heart totally pounded and I was stunned and shocked and Jason and I stared at each other in disbelief---and when that initial moment of stunning realization was past, I just felt incredibly calm and happy.

Not that there haven't been---and aren't still---moments of major or minor worry and concern. It's just that this thing happens where, at the point during the worrying where I would previously spin off into anxious worry freak-out-obsession, I now somehow just come back to a rational place, and feel ok. I think I have a strong sense of how little control I have over this process: I eat well, think positive, get enough rest, exercise, and avoid dangerous activities, foods, and drugs. Apart from that, there's really not much I can do to ensure that this all turns out ok; that is at once scary and very comforting. A close friend suffered a miscarriage right before I found out I was pregnant, and that possibility was definitely with me for the first trimester; I sometimes felt freaked out about it, but again, I knew there was nothing I could do. Currently, I'm waiting to feel this thing move. I'm 19 weeks pregnant today, and most women tend to feel it between 16 and 22 weeks. So I'm fine, right in the normal range, and many women apparently don't know that they're feeling it for some time anyway, because the movements are very faint at first. So this concern is with me a little, but I don't feel that worried. I'm looking forward to Wednesday, when we meet with our midwife for the first prenatal visit. We get to listen for he heartbeat, which is my favorite thing.

In writing this, I'm realizing that I have a helluva lot to say about all this. Probably best to break it up into sections, no? Maybe the next post will be about how, aside from this calmness, which is quite mild and not at all an actual sensation, I don't feel much. I don't feel pregnant, really. I mean, my belly feels bigger, but it's still so abstract...Next week is our ultrasound, and we'll hopefully find out what it is and see how freaking big it is. That, combined with this impending feeling-it-move business, will perhaps move this from the realm of the abstract to the realm of The Real.

Calmly,

Kate

It Is Ok For Me To Do Nothing But Read, Eat, Write, and Nap Today

The post title is an affirmation of sorts. I'm tired. I've been traveling. I can't spell traveling. We went to the inauguration. It was amazing. I don't feel like writing about it right now, nor do I feel like doing any of the other many things I could/should do. What I want to do is lay down and get in touch with my baby. Say hi, sing it a song. See if I can feel it move. I haven't felt it move yet, and though I'm in the normal range for not-having-felt-baby-move-yet, I'm still starting to have anxiety dreams about it. My big thing to do today was to meet with Amrit, the midwife, but she rescheduled because she's spent her past 50 hours at a birth. A 50-hour birth. Times like this I manage to realize I will soon be doing this too.

So I am going to make a kale salad, set up some snacks, grab a book (and, yes, the remote) and get on the couch. Guilt-free. I am growing a person. So there.

Now Featuring Stuff About Pregnancy and Baby-Having!

Over the past 4 months I have turned 30, gotten married, gotten pregnant, and watched Barack Obama get elected. I also finished teaching for an unspecified amount of time, went to Hawaii for a belated honeymoon, spent epic quality time with my dear friend Rachel, set intentions for 2009, and decided to seriously investigate having a home birth. Holy f**king sh*t (see, look, already becoming a mom! Less swearing in '09!), batman! Life is changing in awesome and miraculous ways and I do want to document it. I am learning so much about pregnancy and birth everyday and am kind of roiling with thoughts about it all---being pregnant, getting pregnant (well, that part was pretty freakin simple), what to do, what not to do, what to ignore (most books), what to pay attention to (your instincts!). I am by no remote means an expert on any of us, and I don't believe that anyone really is. It's such a personal, yet public experience, completely individual yet totally universal.

Rather than start a pregnancy blog with a dorky name, I figured I'd just carry on here...cuz Experimental Soup Making is just a metaphor anyway. For the experiments I/we carry out daily, the recipe-less living, the trusting your sense of how much salt goes in, how much onion, lots of garlic, yum. The best soups I've ever made have been almost entirely made-up; maybe inspired by a recipe, but primarily made from the gut (and the nose and the palate) and from experience, trial and error. Which is not to say that I'm bumbling my way through pregnancy, and there's not too much room for error here. But it all just feels like an incredible experiment that I get to participate in everyday: the experiment of love and partnership, of creating a new being, of thinking about how to be a parent (helllooo, trial and error!), of observing and enjoying my everyday-a-little-new-body.

Anyway. I am, as usual, rife with opinions and thoughts. Stay tuned.

This is Actually About Soup

As winter settles in, my soupmaking is ratcheting up. Jason's convinced me to start documenting my 'recipes', though recipe is a misnomer; it's mo re of a list of things that I combine in order to make some kind of awesome soup. But for posterity, and for the sake of having some record of what went in that one really good soup we ate that one night, I'm gonna start actually writing about my experimental soups.

Yummy Curry Lentil Squash Soup

I'm going high-protein these days, and I freaking love squash, and I had some pre-cooked Trader Joe's lentils and I wanted low-key, low-prep soup. Thus:

Ingredients: Squash; coconut oil (or olive oil or butter. But I prefer coconut oil for this); lentils; canned tomatoes; veggie broth; spinach or some kind of green; chickpeas; yellow onion; shallot; ginger; garlic; curry (cardamom pods, coriander, fennel seeds, tumeric, cinnamon, cumin, black pepper); salt

• Roast a squash (in case, Acorn. Cut squash in half, put cut-side up in baking dish, drizzle olive oil on squash, bake at 425-450 until squash is soft)
• While squash is roasting, saute diced onion, a shallot (or more if you have more than one), lots of ginger, and garlic in Coconut oil on low-medium heat.
• When squash is done, scoop out and add to onion mix. Stir stir stir, and mush the squash a bit with the stirring spoon.
  
• Add small amount of veggie broth and let it all simmer for a while; add more broth as needed. I make my own broth; this particular one had lots of apples in it so it was a bit sweet.
• Add some lentils to the simmering situation.
• Meanwhile, make this awesome version of Heidi Swanson's Sri Lankan Curry from her cookbook Super Natural Cooking. I was out of cloves, so this was a clove-less version. Still super yummy though. I toasts cardamom pods, coriander seeds, half a cinnamon stick, fennel seeds, cumin, and a dried red pepper in a skillet. Then I put it in my mortar/pestle thing and ground it all up with a good amount of tumeric. Grind grind grind.
• Add 1 can of diced tomatoes (unless you have fresh ones, but this being winter in Cali, there are very few good fresh tomatoes). I used Muir Glen, which seem to be the ones that Bay Area hippie fancy food people prefer. Also the ones that Jason happened to buy from Long's.
• Stir. Add ground up curry goodness, and more broth, depending on your desired soup consistency. This one is good as a pretty thick stew-y deal.
  
• Add some chickpeas for extra protein and awesomeness
• Throw in some spinach leaves at the end and stir until they're wilted.
• Voila!
• This would be good with salad, but we didn't have any salad greens, so we had some hummus that I made, and some Sunflower Cheddar Dr. Kracker crackers.
• Then watch 3 episodes of Entourage On Demand. Enjoy!