So being a graduate student, and in literature no less, I bought a slew of pregnancy books early on - this being pregnant thing is after all just another long term form of planning, research and delayed gratification, right?!
Some of the books are amazing:
-The Mocha Manual to a Fabulous Pregnancy by Kimberly Seals-Allers
-The Pregnancy Countdown Book by Susan Magee
-Natural Hospital Birth by Cynthia Gabriel
-Mindful Birthing by Nancy Bardacke, CNM
However, only one of these books talks about the fact that pregnancy is often lonely, filled with self-doubt and worry, and it further complicates already complicated existence. The Mocha Manual, a text for African American women who find themselves prego, actually dares to cross the line of conversation from eating right, feeling the glow of life within, and planning nursery room colors to point out that being pregnancy is kinda hard, especially when combined with other factors.
I welcome this perspective since no one tells you early on what an isolating and overwhelming experience it is to know you are bringing a new person into the world. I have to say, I was happy initially that I was having a girl considering i'm pregnant in the year that Trayvon Martin's death has been deemed completely acceptable in 2013 America - in other words, a young Black male's life is worthless. I had suspected this over the years, worry about the life of my father, uncles, cousins and brother being ever in the back of my mind as one after another of Black men have been killed by police or vigilantes throughout the country.
However, knowing a girl is coming feels no less daunting. What does one do with the recent rash of gang rapes of high school girls - some of which end in the girl being vilified for daring to speak out about the perhaps popular guys in the school having committed a horrible crime? Some of the girls have even committed suicide. What does one do with a world that still feels that women are second class citizens whose needs, desires, claims, choices and decisions are often treated as worthless too? How does one prepare their daughter for protecting herself in a world set against her?
And this leaves unspoken the changing family dynamics that turn seemingly loving family members into monsters. People whose impulses and actions feel as foreign as being dropped on another planet. How does one cope with the mercurial and constantly changing relationships that warp and distort in the face of a change that is transforming YOUR body and mind and life into something no longer your own?? When family laughs at your stress, when family rages over your need to eat at a table with lights on, when your attention to your pregnancy becomes something negative since you should be working harder on your work life... What then?
Mocha Manual author Kimberley talks about the super-woman phenomenon expected of ambitious, successful, motivated Black women, and this is unquestionably how I operate. Before pregnancy I was able to completely ignore my body. I could go 8 hours without peeing, almost as long without eating, and could block out physical pain in part because I had to and in part because as distance runner I am experienced in mind-trumping-body as a good operational mode. I commuted to campus almost 3 hours door to door and prepared for teaching for hours unappreciated by preppy madras wearing 19year olds, and gladly because I showed that I had to and could.
However, as I began plugging my brain back into myself as a whole being, a strange thing began happening. Stress sitting across my chest and neck becomes harder to ignore and feelings of overwhelming despair about what family even means since the two structuring married life now often seem so dysfunctional. And this does not mean there are not moments of joy and pleasure with family. It is just that my bulging 23week belly has now become a prism through which is refracted the whole of family life behind me and seems to color the world laid out ahead.
And the sad truth is, the isolation is intensified by the very factors that would seem to ease things. Being in a happy, functional relationship, seemingly having success in work (or in my case, graduate school life), attention to personal appearance (a MUST for black women who don't wish to be treated poorly in the world*... all these things can make one exempt from any sort of pity, support or compassion from those you might expect it from most. In other words, no one feels you have anything to feel bad about and thus dismiss any sign you may need help. They may even impose some arbitrary idea of how you should feel, behave, operate, that is so far out of accord with how things really are for you that you are pushed further away from them and into a space by yourself.
No one seems to say up front how isolating this experience can be, or the irony of this feeling considering how truly magical it is to feel your baby moving inside of your womb and know the transformative connection being created between mother child and even husband (or whomever your partner may be). But i've said it here, and I think anyone could check out Kimberley Seales-Allers book and find something helpful in her unhampered discussion of pregnancy depression in chapter eight. Anyone else who wants to share, feel free. I've electrified the part of me that acknowledges emotion beyond the drive to do well. I'll not shut it off again.
*The perception of pregnant Black women as brining another welfare baby into the world who will be poorly cared for, a drain on resources, and another "Problem" for society is well documented. And regardless of who is in the White House right now, it is an idea that persists - as I know on the days I forget to wear my wedding ring or dress too casually in t-shirt and shorts or just encounter someone who doesn't pay attention to anything but my race. Up to this point, the only people to show consideration in public - giving up seats, urging me to board buses first, holding doors, making nice comments, etc - have been foreign tourists and elderly Black women.
Wednesday, August 7, 2013
Tuesday, July 30, 2013
Prenatal Yoga Convert
So, I had never taken yoga before, and was pretty wary of what seemed the sort of exercise that inspired freakish levels of devotion and cult-like adherence to unnecessarily imposed restrictions. However, after finding information online and then meeting the woman who started this studio - the Prenatal Yoga Center - at the NYC Baby Show, I decided to give it a chance. And now I am a total convert! At least to prenatal yoga.
Between the fact that each class opens with mindfulness meditation focused on deep breathing/connecting to your physical body, and that most of the instructors are brilliant at suggestions about pregnancy body pains, discomfort and even diet, its been a godsend! Especially when you spend most of your day sitting at a desk hunched over a computer and books.
I can't talk it up enough and suggest it to pretty much every pregnant woman I talk to. In a world where we're constantly busy, told being a mother is not something that should cause any difference in your ability to work/live/be a super-functional super-woman, its really nice to be in a place where everyone acknowledges that what's happening to you is unusual and requires adjustments. Because this IS a freakin' bizzaro world experience and as I write this baby girl is kicking me like crazy!!
So now, without the freaky avoidance of comforts and without cutting out the meat, cheese and other animal parts we humans have been ingesting for the past ten thousand years, I have in fact become a yoga convert. At least, prenatal yoga's hippy comforting form.
Between the fact that each class opens with mindfulness meditation focused on deep breathing/connecting to your physical body, and that most of the instructors are brilliant at suggestions about pregnancy body pains, discomfort and even diet, its been a godsend! Especially when you spend most of your day sitting at a desk hunched over a computer and books.
I can't talk it up enough and suggest it to pretty much every pregnant woman I talk to. In a world where we're constantly busy, told being a mother is not something that should cause any difference in your ability to work/live/be a super-functional super-woman, its really nice to be in a place where everyone acknowledges that what's happening to you is unusual and requires adjustments. Because this IS a freakin' bizzaro world experience and as I write this baby girl is kicking me like crazy!!
So now, without the freaky avoidance of comforts and without cutting out the meat, cheese and other animal parts we humans have been ingesting for the past ten thousand years, I have in fact become a yoga convert. At least, prenatal yoga's hippy comforting form.
Its a Girl!!
Went in for anatomy scan a few weeks back when I hit the 20 week mark, and in excitement forgot to write about the crazy, technologically warped and deeply moving experience of seeing your baby moving INSIDE your womb on a giant screen!
Hubby and I both knew we wanted to know the gender - there will after all be millions of surprises and transformative moments throughout our lives and raising our daughter, this is one we can prep for. But leaving the house we were both wearing purple - without planning it - and ready for whatever was coming, as long as all the parts needed were there.
Upon having the baby show up on the monitor, we were stunned, I mean stunned like 80 year old people being told suddenly, "You can talk to people in Africa and see them on a computer screen as you talk to them." We were all, "Gosh-darn this new-fangled technology! You can see the full baby's face on the screen! Not only that, it looks like she's waving at us!!
Tearing up we marveled over the magic of seeing so much of her in the 3D images - she's a superstar at somersaults inside my belly so you can see everything, but the sonogram specialist had the darndest time getting her to stay still to take the still shots - and watching her kick the wall of my belly as I felt her doing it.
There are many things about the modern moment that, excuse my French, Freak Me The Fuck Out about having a child right now. There won't be any fish in about 50years, the oil is all gone and the planet is finally giving us the business for polluting for so long. However, when I see the magic of her little face on the screen, and experience the downright magical feeling of her moving around inside, I find little patches of peace among the stresses of daily life.
Hubby and I both knew we wanted to know the gender - there will after all be millions of surprises and transformative moments throughout our lives and raising our daughter, this is one we can prep for. But leaving the house we were both wearing purple - without planning it - and ready for whatever was coming, as long as all the parts needed were there.
Upon having the baby show up on the monitor, we were stunned, I mean stunned like 80 year old people being told suddenly, "You can talk to people in Africa and see them on a computer screen as you talk to them." We were all, "Gosh-darn this new-fangled technology! You can see the full baby's face on the screen! Not only that, it looks like she's waving at us!!
Tearing up we marveled over the magic of seeing so much of her in the 3D images - she's a superstar at somersaults inside my belly so you can see everything, but the sonogram specialist had the darndest time getting her to stay still to take the still shots - and watching her kick the wall of my belly as I felt her doing it.
There are many things about the modern moment that, excuse my French, Freak Me The Fuck Out about having a child right now. There won't be any fish in about 50years, the oil is all gone and the planet is finally giving us the business for polluting for so long. However, when I see the magic of her little face on the screen, and experience the downright magical feeling of her moving around inside, I find little patches of peace among the stresses of daily life.
Girls Vs. Boys
Living in NYC can be a wonderful and genuinely transformative interactive experience, where you meet and connect with people in unexpected and lovely ways. It can also drive you mad and make you want to kill someone. The hubby and I were absolutely ecstatic to find out we're having a girl - of course, stereotypically we would have been happy with boy or girl as long as the anatomy scan said all was well. Both families were happy and all has been going well. At least, until two encounters.
First, a long time friend sent a crazy-ass text declaring girls as being for loving daddy, and boys as being the ones to carry on the legacy of a father and fulfill his dreams and such. Koo-coo, Koo-coo said the clock to that pronouncement, and no response from us.
Second, WHO thinks its ok to comment on random people's pregnancy on the street?? EVERYONE that's who! I can deal with most of this stuff, after all, i've been tolerating random, unsolicited and unwelcome comments ever since puberty gave me breasts. However, ignoring suggestions about names, diet, size of belly for progress in pregnancy, etc is easier than what I encountered yesterday.
Usually it is Black men who feel most comfortable yelling random stuff at Black women, and this was no exception. I don't know where they were from - Caribbean? Africa? - but i'm walking the dog in the heat, waddling as I do now, and out of the blue one of these men speaks up:
Random Strange Man on Street: Hey, I hope that baby is a boy!
After a moment of incredulous silence, I could not help but respond to the casual misogyny:
Actually, its a girl. Which is Better.
They said nothing more and I kept walking. But Damn if that didn't throw a cloud over one of the few gorgeous, not-too-hot NYC days we've been enjoying as of late!
A Ben and Jerry's Cherry Garcia ice cream pop from a central park vendor smoothed the clouds away quite nicely.
Pregnancy (n): excuse for people to shout shit at you on the street.
First, a long time friend sent a crazy-ass text declaring girls as being for loving daddy, and boys as being the ones to carry on the legacy of a father and fulfill his dreams and such. Koo-coo, Koo-coo said the clock to that pronouncement, and no response from us.
Second, WHO thinks its ok to comment on random people's pregnancy on the street?? EVERYONE that's who! I can deal with most of this stuff, after all, i've been tolerating random, unsolicited and unwelcome comments ever since puberty gave me breasts. However, ignoring suggestions about names, diet, size of belly for progress in pregnancy, etc is easier than what I encountered yesterday.
Usually it is Black men who feel most comfortable yelling random stuff at Black women, and this was no exception. I don't know where they were from - Caribbean? Africa? - but i'm walking the dog in the heat, waddling as I do now, and out of the blue one of these men speaks up:
Random Strange Man on Street: Hey, I hope that baby is a boy!
After a moment of incredulous silence, I could not help but respond to the casual misogyny:
Actually, its a girl. Which is Better.
They said nothing more and I kept walking. But Damn if that didn't throw a cloud over one of the few gorgeous, not-too-hot NYC days we've been enjoying as of late!
A Ben and Jerry's Cherry Garcia ice cream pop from a central park vendor smoothed the clouds away quite nicely.
Pregnancy (n): excuse for people to shout shit at you on the street.
Monday, June 3, 2013
Pee, Pee, Pee All The Day Long...
So sorry for delay writing again (if anyone is even reading this half-academic/half-preganancy brain ranting). It has been a busy/sleepy series of days, and that includes Peeing Constantly!!
Pregnancy (n): sensation of having to pee all the time.
I used to be the kind of woman who could go loooong stretches without peeing. Commuting to teach over an hour away from home, with a schedule often packed so tight I would only get to pee at 8am and then again at 730pm, I had an ironclad ability to hold it in.
In addition, whether a sign of craziness or not, I always feel like going to the bathroom is a waste of time. Yes, I know its a natural part of human biology, but when I am in the middle of something important the stop to run to the bathroom feels like some twisted evolutionary quirk that we should be able to figure out a way around... Whatever my past slightly crazy Type A personality beliefs, I now feel like my life is dictated by peeing.
Throughout the day is ok, but I also wake up twice a night: once between 4-445am, and then again when the husband gets up to walk the dog at 645am. This feels crazy!! While sleeping, right before I am to wake up, I dream of water, of having to pee badly, of pressure on my stomach making me uncomfortable, then Boom. Right on cue I wake up and stumble to the bathroom to pee before eventually falling back asleep within 15min to half an hour.
At first this felt like another of the torturous events to pass over the gigantic petrie dish that I now call my body. However, a wise wife of a childhood friend who now has three girls, told me it was my body prepping me for what is to come. Waking at random hours to breastfeed the baby would be part of my life soon, so my body was getting me ready to wake up and be a fully sentient, conscious and able human on a moment's notice, and then be able to return to deep sleep quickly as well!
Then, my husband also read that the baby's amniotic fluid is actually recycled within the womb every few hours during the first trimester. During the second trimester, the baby begins excreting urine within the womb and then drinks it back in throughout the pregnancy, working out those kidneys!! So especially early, but actually throughout pregnancy this means that you Really Need to adhere to that whole 8-10 glasses of water a day since you're acting as a living, breathing waste treatment facility for the little person squatting in your belly.
Well wonders of nature never cease!! I feel a little better about the Why of all this peeing now, but lord knows rising at 430am after going to sleep at 12midnight has been coo-coo-bannanas at times. Plus I miss my dreams of randomness and fantastical happenings - my dreams used to be pretty warped and fun. Ah well. At least my body knows what's best even if I don't.
How are other women dealing with this?? Has anyone taken to wearing Depends?
Friday, May 24, 2013
Funny, She Doesn't Look Pregnant!
So one of these books says that one of the strangest parts of early pregnancy is that you Feel totally pregnant but when people look at you they only see a slightly heavy chick. I go to experience what that feels like fully at the most unexpected of places: The New York City Baby Show!
Yes, we may be early in the process of researching strollers and car seats, but considering how Chronically slow and procrastinatory my husband and I are, getting a jump on things seems prudent. So, last week - as I was ending Week 12 of the Baby Countdown - we trudged in torrential downpour style rain to check things out.
Now I am one of those women who didn't believe pregnancy brain exists and thought that getting pregnant probably wouldn't change much in my daily life, other than requiring me to eat better than I have in a decade. However, since finding out I'm pregnant at about five weeks, I've been sick to my stomach every day until a few days ago. I feel bloated and crampy and Exhausted like those miners in the Powaqqatsi documentary - you know, people forced to work the mines that go two miles into the earth and carry out baskets of mud on their heads to be sifted for precious metals. Yes, I feel that exhausted. And i'm a distance runner.
So strolling up to the Stem Cord Blood reserve table - my husband and I are still hazy on what that's all about other than seeming like people who perhaps want to do something as odd as folks who eat their placenta after pushing it out their chocha. But I digress.
After telling them I was expecting in November, the woman says, "You don't look pregnant." Now, was this supposed to be a compliment to super excited soon to be parents? To tell the woman she doesn't even look pregnant? And by the way, I was wearing a hippie loose flowy top over a tank top - so of course with extra fabric, how might you tell?!!
All I know is that if you're trying to sell me something that you offer "discount coupons" for $500 off, then you should probably consider your comments.
Sigh. You know, living my whole life as a woman of color and no one believing I was capable of very much, I at least thought that being pregnant would be different. But then, people keep being surprised that my husband and I are married - he's White and I'm Black - especially since i'm pregnant. What the hell is up with that??
Pregnancy (n): the state of being hormonally incapable of dealing with nonsense, but being forced to do so anyway.
Thursday, May 23, 2013
Dating Or Having a Baby?
As I stretched down in the shower to shave by bikini line, all of my leg, including the backs of my thighs for the second time in a month, and then got out to slather on the rich organic Shea Moisture Lavender lotion all over my body to ensure no ashy patches of skin were visible (especially below the waist) I had a enlightening realization - I haven't had to be this attentive to the appearance of my vaginal region since my husband and I were dating!
Welcome to Pregnancy!!
What does it mean to be Pregnant? There will be a definition each entry, but for now, well:
1) Pregnancy (v): To be constantly preparing for strangers or near strangers to observe your most private and least exposed parts in careful detail.
Going to the OBGYN used to be a yearly or bi-yearly embarrassment. Yes, I had a lovely provider who, although working out of the Princeton Health Center and probably spent most of her time tending to undergraduate cases of the clap, was wonderful for the married old lady graduate students who adored her. Her exams were quick efficient and tidy, she was helpful and solicitous. Then she moved to the Philippines and I got pregnant and now its Welcome To The Show Everybody!
I mean, is this how high-priced call girls feel? The constant need to be groomed and tidy for whoever may be getting a gander at your goose that day? Its not like I'm a Sasquatch or anything. And thanks to heavy doses of native american genes mixed into the ole' Black American Pot that makes up my familial gene pool, I am pretty nigh hairless anyway. But I'm not overly obsessed with how my garden looks if you get my drift - I am ok with the Mint overrunning the plant beds since no harm is really done. But now I have returned to that Dating Level Maintenance, where you have to make sure he doesn't know that actually you grow hair in all kind a weird places that freakin' Schick Shaver commercials pretend no one should. Its exhausting.
I found the OBGYN who is to deliver my baby, Dr. Duperval, through friends who adore her, and she is great! No nonsense but attentive, listens carefully but isn't likely to freak you out unnecessarily. But is there anyone out there than me to share the weirdness of that first time: throwing up your feet in the stirrups for someone you've met 20 minutes before?? And each time a different nurse, all of them nice, and my mom is a nurse, so I'm accustomed to certain levels of invasive behavior in the interests of well-being. But Come On.
And the thing is, since I want whatever will make the baby the most happy and healthy and cushy, I can't even care. I'm like, stick whatever you need to in there, probe and poke where you must, just give me a happy rugrat please. Of course that means that now, when my breathing capacity has been reduced by baby, I also have to bend and stretch careful not to cut my leg open while I prep my legs and chocha like a display case at Bloomingdales.
And then there's the time when I obviously miss a patch - hair so fine/scarce sometimes hard to see with fogged up glasses covered in water. At least if there is any judgement going on, everyone has the decency to keep it to themselves. I try to console myself that some woman out there must refuse to tend her display case at all - maybe I can be the Bloomies to her Sears?
Welcome to Pregnancy!!
What does it mean to be Pregnant? There will be a definition each entry, but for now, well:
1) Pregnancy (v): To be constantly preparing for strangers or near strangers to observe your most private and least exposed parts in careful detail.
Going to the OBGYN used to be a yearly or bi-yearly embarrassment. Yes, I had a lovely provider who, although working out of the Princeton Health Center and probably spent most of her time tending to undergraduate cases of the clap, was wonderful for the married old lady graduate students who adored her. Her exams were quick efficient and tidy, she was helpful and solicitous. Then she moved to the Philippines and I got pregnant and now its Welcome To The Show Everybody!
I mean, is this how high-priced call girls feel? The constant need to be groomed and tidy for whoever may be getting a gander at your goose that day? Its not like I'm a Sasquatch or anything. And thanks to heavy doses of native american genes mixed into the ole' Black American Pot that makes up my familial gene pool, I am pretty nigh hairless anyway. But I'm not overly obsessed with how my garden looks if you get my drift - I am ok with the Mint overrunning the plant beds since no harm is really done. But now I have returned to that Dating Level Maintenance, where you have to make sure he doesn't know that actually you grow hair in all kind a weird places that freakin' Schick Shaver commercials pretend no one should. Its exhausting.
I found the OBGYN who is to deliver my baby, Dr. Duperval, through friends who adore her, and she is great! No nonsense but attentive, listens carefully but isn't likely to freak you out unnecessarily. But is there anyone out there than me to share the weirdness of that first time: throwing up your feet in the stirrups for someone you've met 20 minutes before?? And each time a different nurse, all of them nice, and my mom is a nurse, so I'm accustomed to certain levels of invasive behavior in the interests of well-being. But Come On.
And the thing is, since I want whatever will make the baby the most happy and healthy and cushy, I can't even care. I'm like, stick whatever you need to in there, probe and poke where you must, just give me a happy rugrat please. Of course that means that now, when my breathing capacity has been reduced by baby, I also have to bend and stretch careful not to cut my leg open while I prep my legs and chocha like a display case at Bloomingdales.
And then there's the time when I obviously miss a patch - hair so fine/scarce sometimes hard to see with fogged up glasses covered in water. At least if there is any judgement going on, everyone has the decency to keep it to themselves. I try to console myself that some woman out there must refuse to tend her display case at all - maybe I can be the Bloomies to her Sears?
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