12 weeks

Gabriel is 12 weeks today. He's a cute little guy, smiles a lot and has recently discovered that he has hands and can make them do things. He's got a bit more hair now, but we still can't really tell what color it's going to be. And we still can't tell if his eyes are going to be blue or brown. 

Sleep, uuuugh. I forgot how hard sleep deprivation gets by the third month! He's doing well overall, but man, I am tiiiired. I would sell a kidney for a week of good sleep at this point. He slept 10 hours straight a few nights ago and I felt like I had a whole new brain. It was glorious. Alas, it has not been repeated. 

He's turned into an excellent napper, though, regularly doing multiple 2 hour naps a day. It's lovely, but now I'm worried he's sleeping too much during the day and therefore waking up more at night. Sigh. I tried explaining "wake windows" to my mother and she was so confused. What did they do back in the 80s? Did they just, like, let the babies sleep whenever?!? In any case, Gabriel is starting daycare in a few weeks and naps will be terrible there so I won't have to worry about this "problem" for much longer. 

Jonah is turning 3 at the end of the month, which is hard for me to comprehend. He is a huge amount of fun now, but also an epic pain in the butt — he whines and cries and has a meltdown now over every tiny problem. This morning there were multiple rounds of tears: first, I did not let him eat an unlimited number of graham crackers. Second, I had the audacity to tell him he couldn't wear his winter hat to daycare (because it's 61 degrees outside). Finally, he was unable to zip up his coat by himself. So many tears! But he also told me he loved me and asked to cuddle, so does it even matter?? 

month two

Rapidly closing in on 8 weeks of babyhood. The major headline this week: he now coos and smiles occasionally! This is when things start getting better for me; I enjoy my babies much more once they smile. He's doing well at night too, generally going 6 hours for the early stretch, though unfortunately that stretch starts at 8pm. I know there will be regressions but I can just begin to see a light at the end of the sleeping tunnel. Hallelujah. 

Poor little guy has already had two colds, both brought home by his brother from daycare. Baby sneezes and baby coughs are so adorable and so, so sad! This is yet another difference between covid and non-covid babies: Jonah wasn't sick at all until he was about 6 months old, even after he started daycare. Though of course he just caught everything later on, and is still catching everything. But it hits different when they are so little. 

I cannot believe that Thanksgiving is next week. How is it not still October? Speaking of illness: last Thanksgiving we cooked an huge meal and I baked two pies and Josh and I both came down with a terrible stomach flu. Fortunately for Josh he started feeling ill before he ate anything. Unfortunately for me, I did not. The charming experience of puking up Thanksgiving dinner appears to have put me off the holiday entirely. I have no desire to do anything this year except order takeout. (Or maybe it's just that I have an infant?)

Weirdly, I have become less and less into holidays since I've had kids. I feel like it's supposed to be the reverse? Maybe once they are older it will feel more like fun and less like an enormous hassle. I keep seeing all these ads for matching family holiday pjs and it makes me feel as though I am visiting from another planet. Do people really spend money on matching pjs and then wear them together? This was not a thing people did before social media, right??

month one

Baby G is four weeks old on Monday. Amazing how having a newborn is simultaneously exhausting and also mind-numbingly boring. It helps to know firsthand that they do eventually become more like people and less like blobs, but man, time sure does drag during these first months. 

My blob baby right now looks like a sad blend of hormonal teenager and elderly man. (He has acne, greasy skin, and a receding hairline.) He's not going to win any cute baby contests. And when I say things like this, the baby people look highly scandalized. I'm sorry, baby people! I respect the fact that you enjoy everything about these little blobs, but that doesn't mean I understand you. I do love my baby, I just don't think he's super cute or interesting right now. Sue me. 

(Secretly I think people who really love babies have tyrannical souls: what sort of person so enjoys having complete authority over totally helpless blob creatures?)

Other than the boredom, the most trying thing about having a newborn is having a newborn and a toddler. Someone on Instagram somewhere said that having a first kid is an existential crisis, but having a second kid is a logistical crisis. This rings quite true so far. The hardest part of the day is toddler bedtime, because it inevitably coincides with the baby having a meltdown while Josh makes adult dinner. I only have two hands! I cannot feed the baby in a dark quiet room while also giving Jonah a bath and reading him a book. 

So far in these scenarios the baby loses, because the baby doesn't really know the difference and he can cry for 15 minutes without it being a huge problem. But once the baby becomes more like a person I think this will become even harder. 

To his credit, Jonah is taking all this like a champ. He's not super interested in the baby, because the baby doesn't do much, but he clearly likes him. He's always giving him hugs and "helping" me give him a bottle. So far he's a very good big brother, but we'll see how it goes when the baby is old enough to want to play with his toys! 

Nights aren't great, though he did give me a five hour stretch a few days ago! It was amazing. I have no idea what caused it, but I'm hoping it gets repeated soon and often. 

Birth

Back in March I wrote about how I never wanted to give birth again and now, having given birth again, I can reaffirm that yes, giving birth is terrible and I was right to never want to do it again. 

Don't get me wrong: this particular birth was far, far superior to the first one. Mostly because I entered the hospital at 8:30 on Monday morning and I had the baby out of me by 11:04am. Waaaay better than the 60+ hours I spent trying to get the baby out before the extremely painful surgery last time. 

And this c-section was not painful at all! I had a very frank conversation with the anesthesiologist before I went into surgery, where I basically told him that if I felt any pain I was going to put a hex on him and his entire family.  And god bless him because he understood the assignment, and I felt absolutely no pain at all. If anything he may have taken me a little too seriously, because I was so sleepy during the operation I could barely keep my eyes open. But I am not complaining! 

The baby apparently had no intentions of coming out the regular way, either. They checked me for contractions for weeks before delivery and up until a couple hours before I went into surgery – nothing, nada. Not even a little braxton hicks! It's so strange to have had two full term pregnancies and never experienced a single contraction. It's hard not to wonder what would have happened to me before modern obstetrics. Maybe I just have 43 week babies? Seems like a bad strategy! 

The c-section recovery has been about the same as last time, except for one hiccup: when I went into the hospital, I had a slight head cold. I didn't think too much of it, which in retrospect was really, really dumb. Turns out, coughing or blowing your nose while you have an abdominal wound is exceptionally unpleasant. 

Long story short: the cold festered while I was lying in a hospital bed for several days, and now I have a double ear infection. And while I don't think I've pulled any stitches from coughing, I'm sure it hasn't helped my recovery much. I'm on antibiotics and already feel better, thankfully. But going to urgent care for amoxicillin 7 days after giving birth was not ideal. 

My conclusion: I sincerely hope that I do not have to be back in the hospital for at least 40 years. 

In baby news: the little one is pretty good, as far as infants go! He's already sleeping for fairly long stretches at night, which actually I find somewhat disconcerting. I keep thinking that the other shoe is about to drop. Honestly, I find newborns very boring: cry, eat, pee, poop, repeat. But he's cute, and he appears to have dark hair like me, which makes me happy. His big brother is very excited about him, which also makes me happy. He calls him "Grabriel."

While Josh and I were in the hospital, my parents came to stay and take care of Jonah. When they arrived on Monday morning they took him out for pancakes so he wouldn't be upset as we were leaving. My mom wished me luck and gave me a hug. And Jonah, who is in a phase where he mimics people, turns to me and says in his little almost-three-year-old voice: "Good luck, Julia!" Cool as a cucumber. What a kid. 

41 weeks

41 weeks today. So very, very tired. My back aches, my hips ache, I can't walk for more than 15 minutes without needing to take a break. There is no position — sitting, standing, or lying down — that is comfortable. I swear that I can feel my organs compressed into my chest — my poor, poor intestines. And, man, acid reflux is really disgusting. Have I mentioned I hate pregnancy? 

I have never been in labor so I don't know what it feels like, but apparently I have no obvious signs of someone who is close to being in labor. Given my current status, I really feel that this is highly unfair. At what point, exactly, does my uterus have a chat with my spine and my bladder and call it quits?? It's like my own body is taking the baby's side over mine — which, of course, is exactly what's happening. Biology is cruel. 

I have a c-section scheduled for Monday. My doctors wanted to do it earlier, but I'm glad I waited until 41 weeks because I am now uncomfortable enough that a c-section will feel like a relief. Even if it's as painful as last time, at least it will be over in about 20 minutes and I can be done. 

It's really a bummer to be one of those women who stay pregnant way longer than necessary. This baby could have been born perfectly fine and healthy three weeks ago. At that point I was feeling ok and excited to meet this new person, and now I don't really have the energy to think about anyone but myself. Intellectually I know that the baby is whole point of all this, but the animal part of my brain is taking over now, and all the animal wants to know is when this will end.  

I've been trying to make myself feel better by remembering that these are the last few hours I will ever be pregnant. And that the next time I'm feeling this terrible, it will be because I'm actually ill, and no one will expect me to be happy or excited about it. I do find some comfort in that. 

Almost 40 weeks

40 weeks on Saturday. I can now definitively say that the first and last trimesters are tied in terms of disagreeableness. There is just something so tedious about having all your organs compressed and a baby's head sitting in your pelvis for weeks on end. You can never quite catch your breath, or sit comfortably. Or stand comfortably. Or walk comfortably. More succinctly: I am uncomfortable.

Last time, I was anxious for it to be over, which is why I was ok with being induced at 40 weeks. I wasn't particularly nervous, just impatient. Now I am in the unfortunate position of wishing fervently for it all to be over and also dreading the ending. It's like wanting a reallllly terrible movie to finish, but also knowing that someone is going to stab you as soon as you leave the movie theater. I know that I eventually have to leave the theater. All I can do is hope the assailant has a very small knife. 

Being this pregnant, everyone has started to tell me their birth stories. My mother is a repeat offender. She loves to tell me how she, my aunt and my grandmother all had babies three weeks past their due dates. Her point (I guess?) is that late babies run in the family, though I have explained to her many, many times that no doctor would allow this today. I have also reminded her that dating a pregnancy is a bit more sophisticated now, what with ultrasounds and all. Her response: there's no way that all of them were wrong in their due date calculations and I have no idea what I'm talking about. 

Other than my mother, I don't mind hearing people's birth stories. They are all entirely unique, which I find reassuring. It's also sort of fun to hear about someone's precipitous labor, or their water birth, or the time when the nurses forgot to insert a catheter. I mean, when else do people share this level of personal information with you?! It's highly entertaining. It's also sort of gratifying to see the look of horror on everyone's faces when they learn that I had a c-section after a failed induction that lasted three days. Veterans have their war stories, and I have this, apparently. 

It's so enticing to think that you can predict the future based on what happened in the past. But it almost never works that way. I am trying very hard to accept that I cannot predict how this will go. I don't know if I will go into labor before my c-section date. If I do go into labor, I have no idea what that will be like. And if I do have a c-section, I don't know that it will feel anything like the last one. 

I don't know anything, really, except that I will not be pregnant in October. And amen to that. 

37 weeks

On the fence about whether the last month of this pregnancy is going to be worse than the first trimester. With Jonah the last month was by far the worst, but I wasn't nauseous with him at the beginning. Months two and three were brutal with this pregnancy. All I did was gag, and I had to do it discretely because no one knew I was pregnant. Ugh. 

With Jonah I remember feeling like my pubic bone was going to break in half during the last few weeks — I haven't felt that way this time (yet). I'm thinking this baby is either in a different position or he's got a smaller head. Fingers crossed for both. 

The worst parts right now are: 1) it is so hot and I am so sweaty and 2) acid reflux. Also, while I like my doctors much, much more than last time, I am getting really tired of being told that I'm old and fat every time I go in for an appointment. They are very nice about it and use words like "over 35" and "higher BMI" but the upshot is the same. Very much looking forward to 2024 when I will (hopefully) only have to go to the doctor once, and I can enjoy being old and fat without anyone commenting on it. 

Next week is my last week of work, hooray. With Jonah, it was covid and I never left the house, so I worked basically up until my due date. In retrospect, that was not a good decision. All I did those last few weeks was work and watch Criminal Minds, which strikes me now as a truly insane combination. 

(Criminal Minds, in case you don't know, is a terrible and unwatchable tv show about serial killers. It's pretty graphically violent. For some reason I was obsessed with it during the last few weeks of my first pregnancy. When I came home from the hospital I watched it again and realized how terrible it is. That was the first time it really dawned on me that women who are very pregnant are not always totally in their right minds.)

This time I plan to actually take a break before I have the baby. No work, definitely no Criminal Minds. (Suggestions for good tv shows or novels that are NOT about serial killers are appreciated.) I am also training myself to forget about my due date, because I find the countdown to be entirely unhelpful. Either I will go into labor or I will have a c-section at 41ish weeks, and that's that. 

Also: I really like my boss, but he's been worried about finding coverage for me while I'm away and that's been stressing me out. I sometimes feel like I need to apologize for going on maternity leave, and I hate that feeling. I am grateful to have 4 months of paid leave, but nothing I do is all that important! The university will continue on just fine without me. I think my boss needs, as the 90s kids say, to take a chill pill. 

33 weeks and the fun continues

The baby will not stop moving, and it's driving me crazy. The first few months it's impossible to concentrate because you're trying not to puke, then the last couple months it's impossible to concentrate because you are constantly being thwacked from the inside. I'm up at 3am trying to figure out what kind of dance he's doing. Such a weird feeling. Take a damn break, kid! 

I'm trying very, very hard not to think too much about the size of the parasite inside me. Also trying very hard not to think of him as a parasite. But he is a parasite. He's just in there, floating! In a bag! Growing limbs! Feeding off me through a weird tether, made possible through the formation of an entire organ that didn't exist 9 months ago. And that I will summarily shed as soon as he is expelled from my body. 

The whole thing is just so damn creepy. Nothing makes me feel more like an animal than pregnancy. You know when you watch Animal Planet and there's a special on the horned toad, or whatever? And you're totally amazed to learn they have some crazy organ that sprouts when they're breeding 10,000 eggs? I feel like I am at least as strange as the horned toad, possibly more so. I deserve my own special on Animal Planet. 

And did you know that no one has any idea why or how labor is triggered? Every single person on this planet is born (somehow!) and yet we have no idea what gets that process started! So I have all these instagrammers telling me to eat dates to trigger labor. Like this is the fucking 14th century and we're still using fruit to perform medical miracles! I just cannot. 

A definite symptom of this pregnancy is overwhelming grumpiness. I don't remember my mood being quite this bad last time. I'm not sad, just extremely annoyed. Most of this is directed at my boss and my coworkers, though I also hate all the drivers in a 30 mile radius, every doctor I meet, and, sometimes, my family. 

My leave from work starts in a month, which I'm hoping will cut down on the grumpiness, since work has been a main source of frustration lately. But it's possible that I will just start to redirect my bad mood towards other areas of my life, once I'm no longer working. My poor family will just have to deal with me, I guess. 

Optimizing the children

As I get closer to the end of this pregnancy, I've been thinking more and more about what this little person inside me will actually be like. There are the usual idle thoughts about hair color and sleep patterns, then the more insidious worries about various illnesses that are more common for babies born to older parents. Intellectually I know it's unlikely he will be just like Jonah, either in looks or in temperament, but Jonah is the only little boy I have, so I find myself assuming they will be similar. 

It's easy to forget just how much I do know about this baby. I know an amazing amount about this baby, more than anyone ever knew about their unborn children until just a few years ago. I remain amazed that a simple blood test revealed not only his sex but also whether he carried a number of genetic diseases, and all before I was out of my first trimester. 

Even when I was doing these tests, though, I wasn't entirely sure they were a good idea. Josh and I had decided a long time ago that we wouldn't terminate a pregnancy because of something like Down syndrome. With some other diseases it was harder to imagine what we would decide. But I wasn't sure I really wanted to know in advance. 

When the doctors became concerned about markers for spina bifida, they suggested we get genetic counseling. I still don't understand why, because spina bifida is not a genetic condition. But I met with the woman, mostly because I was curious. She went through all the heritable diseases on our family trees — an exercise that revealed we actually have pretty good genetics. I tried to be polite, but mostly rushed through it so I could get to my actual question: why did we need this counseling when the baby's genetics were already determined and most of the diseases she was asking about had no cure?

Even as I the words left my mouth, I realized that the answer was obvious! The point was to help us determine whether we should be intermingling our genetic material in the first place. Just like the point of genetic testing in your first trimester is to see if you should remain pregnant at all. The point, in other words, is eugenics. Right? A softer, more modern version — a version that happens before you're even born — but eugenics nonetheless. 

In the midst of all this I had a conversation with someone who told me that she would definitely abort an autistic fetus. But there was no prenatal test for that, I said. Not yet, she replied. She didn't know I was pregnant at this point, but I imagine she will feel pretty bad if my baby ends up being autistic. I guess I should just try and forget this conversation ever happened. 

Catholicism has a very good answer to all this, which is that eugenics is wrong in all cases. But if you want to accept that argument, you need to accept everything that comes with it, including the prohibition against all abortion and birth control. I commend the Catholics for being philosophically consistent on these points! But I do not favor the absolute prohibition of abortion or birth control, so I guess I cannot say I am against eugenics in all cases. 

I don't know what other philosophies there are about modern eugenics — everyone else seems either mildly or extremely muddled. The modern position appears to be two-fold: first, abortion for any genetic abnormality is totally fine. Second, for those abnormalities that are not yet identifiable through genetics (autism, obesity, schizophrenia) we should conclude these are not actual illnesses but special gifts to be celebrated. 

I guess most people don't think much about this weird muddled argument because we never end up having to make these decisions. But it's not hard to see that as these tests become easier and cheaper and more advanced, more and more pregnant women will need to figure out if they favor eugenics, and on what grounds. It's a big responsibility. If there is a genetic screening for autism some day, will it no longer be a neurodivergence to be celebrated, but instead, like Down syndrome, something we can eliminate from the gene pool? 

When I was dealing with the genetic testing and genetic counseling, I went back and found an essay by Michael Sandel that I remembered reading many years ago. It's still good:

To appreciate children as gifts is to accept them as they come, not as objects of our design or products of our will or instruments of our ambition. Parental love is not contingent on the talents and attributes a child happens to have. We choose our friends and spouses at least partly on the basis of qualities we find attractive. But we do not choose our children. Their qualities are unpredictable, and even the most conscientious parents cannot be held wholly responsible for the kind of children they have. That is why parenthood, more than other human relationships, teaches what the theologian William F. May calls an "openness to the unbidden."

2020 vs 2023

It's very hard not to compare pregnancies, just like I imagine it's very hard not to compare children. This pregnancy has been different so far mostly because of the terrible nausea I had for the first 16 weeks or so. I was nauseous with Jonah, but only slightly, and only for the first trimester. 

With this pregnancy I also had an extremely strong craving for hotdogs in the first couple weeks, which was one of my first clues that I might be pregnant. I do like hotdogs normally, but this was an unusually intense level of hotdog desire. I remember the first OBGYN I saw (before I switched practices) told me I couldn't eat hotdogs while pregnant and I burst out laughing. He was not amused. 

I also have a hard time remembering the timeline of my last pregnancy — like, did I feel this out of breath last time at 30 weeks? Did that weird hip pain I had with Jonah appear at 35 weeks, or earlier? The problem is that everything in that final month feels like it lasts forever, so it's hard to remember when things got really uncomfortable. 

The most remarkable difference between these pregnancies is covid. I don't remember being worried about getting sick, so for me the difference is mostly just being able to do things. Like, I can actually get a massage this time! I can see my doctor's face, because the office no longer requires masks! Even better: I've been able to go out to dinner with friends and see movies in a theater and visit family. A friend from grad school that I haven't seen in 8 years (8 years!) is coming over for dinner in a couple weeks. I'm even taking a trip to Boston this weekend. (Which most of you already know since I'm going to visit you.) 

One of Josh's best friends would like to come visit and meet the baby when he's born. As much as I hate the idea of someone seeing me in a hospital gown, I was really touched by this! Last time I was grateful just to have Josh there. The idea that a friend could stop by is pretty amazing. 

I don't remember feeling bad about not seeing people during my last pregnancy — I'm a true introvert and am genuinely fine without much human interaction. But as annoying as it's been to get up and have to go to work most days of this pregnancy, overall it's been a lot easier, and gone much more quickly, than last time. And that's saying a lot, because it's now a million degrees here and I have nothing to wear and I really hate having to get up and leave the house. 

Also pretty excited that whenever I do eventually go to the hospital, this time they won't be sticking a giant q-tip so far up my nose it makes me cry. 

consumer joy

The third trimester has arrived. Hard to believe. 

Back in February, Josh and I spent an absurd amount of money on a new mattress. It's king size and made of a material that is apparently all-natural and never degrades. I am dubious about this claim, but suffice it to say: it's newfangled and fancified. (And comes with a 20 year warranty.)

We'd been eyeing this particular mattress for a long time, and even went to the manufacturers showroom in Manhattan to try it out. Judging by the proliferation of online mattress purveyors, we are apparently the last of a dying breed: people who insist on shopping for a mattress in person.

We hemmed and hawed over the purchase for months, but pregnancy pushed me over the edge. The memory of how badly we both slept in the last few months of my previous pregnancy convinced me we needed to try and improve something about the sleeping situation. If I couldn't gestate the baby like an egg, we would have to try the fanciest mattress in all the land. 

Dear Reader, I am here to tell you that this mattress is the best purchase I have made in an extremely long time. Possibly my entire life? I am struggling to think of a purchase that I have enjoyed as much as I enjoy my bed. Maybe my car wins out, but only because of its sheer utility. 

Do I still sometimes snore so loudly that Josh has to sleep on the couch in his office? Yes, I do. The mattress is not magic, after all! But it's so, so, so much better than any bed I have ever had. It actually has me wondering: what else can I spend money on that would drastically improve my life? 

This is saying a lot for me: I am not cheap, exactly, but it pains me to spend money on things that are not really necessary. Occasionally, the internet will convince me that some company has invented the most comfortable jeans or the worlds best bra or a face wash that fixes everything. These products are invariably 50-30% more expensive than whatever off-brand version I'm currently wearing/using, and there is never free shipping. But like any red-blooded millennial I eventually succumb to the marketing and buy whatever it is, only to discover that it pretty much sucks. Then I return whatever it is and I'm out the cost of shipping, vowing never to be lured in by marketing again. 

I'm not saying that I will suddenly start buying everything Instagram sells me, but I am suddenly open to the idea that sometimes you get what you pay for. For example: I have never spent more than $400 on a couch in my entire life. What if couch comfiness is actually correlated with cost?! What if I spent 10x that amount and every second I spent on the couch was 10x better?! I spend a lot of time on my couch, guys. 

But please, someone talk me out of this before I end up spending all my money on surfaces I can lay down on. 

update

20 week scan is done, baby is still fine. He did not cooperate at all for the scan and kept his arms crossed over his chest the whole time, making it difficult to see his heart. They kept me for nearly an hour to get all the information they wanted, but everything looks good. 

I'm getting better at telling the doctors to leave me alone. During the scan they wanted to do an additional, more invasive, procedure — something to check my cervix for risk of preterm labor. Given that I could not get the baby out at all last time, preterm labor does not appear to be a problem for me, so I politely declined. No one cared. 

The last couple weeks have been extremely annoying: it rained nonstop, everyone in the family came down with some kind of hacking lung disease, and then I found out I need to replace the transmission in my car. I have also been extremely busy at work, which normally I like but is less fun when I am dead from coughing all night long. So I am tired, sick, poor(er), and overworked. Not a great time. 

The good news: I am no longer nauseous! And gosh, it's glorious. I am still ravenous every 2 hours, but I no longer throw up if I don't get food immediately and in the exact right proportions. And I'm not yet at the stage where everything hurts, so we're in that nice middle period where I can eat and climb stairs. 

And I am somewhat sad to report that Jonah has started to move out of the baby talk stage. "Walla" is now "water." And for a long time he would say, "help you!" any time he meant to say "help me!" which was very, very adorable. But now he understands his personal pronouns. He also speaks in complete sentences, so if you ask if whether he wants dinner he will say, "Yes, I do." It's almost disconcerting, really. 

That's not to say he's always intelligible. He will get very excited about something and try to tell me about it, but the words that come out of his mouth sound like, "um yeah then trashcan and then um cheese whale ocean show swimming." I know he knows what he's talking about, which is cute, but no one else would have any idea. His friends at school appear to speak in this same toddler language and understand each other, so I'm glad he has them. 

He knows that "big boys poop on the potty" but that's as far as we've gotten with potty training. I'll be honest, I just really, really don't want to do it. It seems like so much work and there will be poop everywhere and I'll need to nag him constantly about going to the bathroom! Could I just ignore this until the daycare teachers take care of it? That's totally a parenting strategy, right? 

Buying people

Genuine question: why can you buy a baby in this country when you can't buy an organ? I would not be allowed to sell one of my own children and yet it would be entirely legal for me to sell my genetic material and rent my womb to create a child for someone else.

It would seem to me that on the scale of things you should not be able to purchase, a kidney would rank far lower than a human. 

I am confused by the logic here. 

In which I am only slightly less grumpy

The update I'm sure you've all been waiting for: I got the drugs. And they (mostly) work! 

It was shockingly easy. Yet another medical mystery! I walked into my 16 week appointment, told the doctor I was still terribly nauseous, and he said, "sounds like it's impacting your quality of life, would you like some prescription medicine?" Um...yes?!! Did making it to the 2nd trimester unlock a special drug door, or something?! I was afraid to ask, lest he question his decision. But I do not understand at all. 

They also did a screen for various fetal abnormalities, based on some blood protein marker, and my results came back as "possibly at risk." At first the lab result really freaked me out (rare for me!). Then I did some research and found out the test is not diagnostic but just "screens" for a million things and could indicate basically anything. Most of the time, there is nothing wrong at all. UNHELPFUL. 

The doctors made a big fuss, though, and scheduled a special ultrasound today to check for any abnormalities. The baby looks perfect. I am happy about this, of course, but not surprised, especially given the fact that I have already had two ultrasounds, one of them just last week, and the baby always looks fine. 

The doctor who reviewed the scans told me I could take the blood test again to see if my levels were just briefly elevated, or I could get more ultrasounds. I told her I would be getting more ultrasounds anyway, since I am over 35. "Oh right," she said. "So, yeah, it would make no difference." Always comforting when the doctor doesn't even bother to check your age. Sigh. I will not be taking the test again. 

My disappointment with the medical profession continues. It's not that they don't help — if the baby did have spina bifida, I would be so grateful for the interventions of modern medicine! But turns out the best way to diagnose something like spina bifida is the 20-week ultrasound, which I was going to do anyway! Not this stupid blood test. 

They do all these tests and flag all this stuff and there is never anything wrong. If anything, the constant monitoring and fussing just stresses me out. (And I am not an anxious person! What must this be like with anxiety?) By the time I have an actual problem, I hope I still take the doctors seriously. 

In which I am grumpy and pregnant

The headline news, for those of you who don't know: I am pregnant, and it is a boy! Due in September. Overall I am happy about this, except for the following not insignificant problems: 

1) I am so nauseous I want to die, but instead I just crawl into bed at 8pm and try desperately not to puke

2) I do not handle heat well and am dreading being heavily pregnant in the summer

3) I never, ever, ever, ever want to give birth again, but that's the only happy end to this pregnancy and I am having trouble accepting this

When I told Ms. Self-Important that I was pregnant, she said she hadn't realized I wanted to have another child. This is a fair comment! I'm not sure how people communicate these wishes to the world, though? I mean, Josh and I talked about this and made the decision, but I wasn't actively making a vision board or anything. Mostly, I like my family and would be happy to have another person in it. And I think it's nice for Jonah to have a sibling — as the youngest in my family, I have a hard time imagining not having a sibling. 

Also, I shared this last time, but because I was told as a teenager that I might not be able to have kids, I have never been able to shake the conviction that I can't get pregnant. So for me, wanting a baby has always been very separate from actually having one. For some reason my immediate success last time didn't cure this. I mean, doing it once could have been an aberration, right? Everything I read online assured me that women over 35 (who are not famous) are basically incapable of pregnancy, so why should I — possibly infertile to being with — be able to do it? And then this time, at 37 (!) it happened just as fast as last time. I remain shocked. 

Not planning on testing my fertility again, though! This is it. Pregnancy is terrible. I didn't enjoy it last time, but I hate it this time. I love being a woman but this whole deal is the worst. I feel like I have a parasite that has taken over my entire body and is making my organs revolt. I knew right away that I was pregnant because I felt like something was very wrong, and that feeling has not gone away at all. Despite being totally opposed to this idea intellectually, if they created an artificial womb that allowed me to gestate my baby like egg I would absolutely do it.  

The worst part is that nobody wants to give me any drugs to help with the unrelenting nausea. I know a lot of people don't want to take the drugs, but I am not that person. I want the drugs and no one will give them to me. Because nausea is normal and I am not puking every day, I apparently don't qualify for relief. No one seems to care that I am unable to concentrate for half my day because I am so intently focused on not gagging! I am utterly convinced that B6 and unisom are placebos that do nothing. What is the point of modernity if I can't get the drugs?! 

I was really not expecting this, but pregnancy and motherhood has utterly changed my attitude toward doctors. I never used to question them! (Remember: they told me I was infertile and I still believe it!) Now, I am intensely skeptical of doctors, so much so I basically assume they are full of shit until proven otherwise. I've already switched OB practices once, and while I'm much happier at the new place I still think they are basically full of shit. 

I'll never forget the discharge nurse at the hospital last time I gave birth lecturing me on using pain medication after my torturous c-section — she made me feel guilty asking for pain relief! I ask you: what is the medical profession good for if they can't give you pain relief after an abdominal surgery? (And the worst possible abdominal surgery, where you get no time to recover but are instead sent home with a small animal who wakes up every 3 hours to be fed?) Why will no one ever give me the drugs I need?! I understand that some people are junkies, but they are a small minority compared to the rest of us who just want help! 

In conclusion: I am uncomfortable and annoyed and I just want it to be October so the birth is over and I never have to do this again. Harrumph. 

College towns

I went out to dinner last night by myself, a glorious privilege! But when I left the restaurant, I thought I lost my keys. So I went back to where I was sitting to frantically search, and the people at neighboring tables very nicely helped me. 

In the midst of my search I realized the nice man who was using his iPhone light to help me look in the seat cushions had recently won a Nobel Prize. 

And my keys? They were in my bag. 

Two

A few months ago — early November or thereabouts — Jonah started losing hair on the left side of his head. It started gradually and then rapidly accelerated to the point where he was entirely bald on one side. The cause was very obvious: he pulled out his own hair. He has played with the hair on the left side of his head since he was a baby, usually while trying to fall asleep. For some reason, a few months ago he decided not just to twirl the hair, but to yank it out of his head. Probably he just finally gained the dexterity for it. 

Mostly I was amused, because he looked very silly without half his hair. And then people became Concerned. This included his daycare teachers, my mother-in-law, my aunt, and finally, the doctor. Probably my mother was also Concerned, but she knows me well enough to not say anything. (Also, she has rampant trichotillomania so it would be a little rich, coming from her!)

This Concern manifested as a question: "What do they say about this?" At first I was confused. "Who are they?" I would ask. As it turns out, it was the same "they" who had told me not to eat turkey deli meat while pregnant. The nebulous "they" who have Opinions about things that Concern us, including but not limited to: people on the internet, your random mom facebook group, strangers on the street, and medical professionals. 

The suggestion that I ask a doctor about this was particularly interesting to me. Do people really expect me to take my son to the doctor because he pulls out his hair? This did not seem like a medical problem, especially since I knew the cause. And don't people know that doctors are pretty useless unless you have a truly urgent medical problem? Every time I have taken Jonah to the doctor, even when he was very sick, the only help I received was advice to let him rest and drink fluids. 

When I did take him to the doctor for a routine check up, the response was exactly as underwhelming as I imagined. I got a long lecture on the signs of autism, though I expressed no concern that Jonah is autistic. The same doctor asked me if Jonah could talk, and Jonah, the very friendly, talkative boy that he is, answered him in the affirmative. (I will not be going to this particular doctor again.)

"Could he be anxious?" my Concerned people asked. "Could he be stimming?" The answer, in both cases, was no. How did I know? I’m not sure, I just do! No one seemed very persuaded.

In the midst of all this Concern, I took Jonah to the local SuperCuts and had the nice man there shave off all his (remaining) hair. Jonah didn't mind because he got to watch Bluey while he got his hair cut. He looked only slightly less silly than he did when half bald, but it totally solved the problem. Turns out, you can't pull out your hair if you don't have any.