A Day at St. Joe’s

We had a very Peanut-centered day, with a doctor’s appointment in the afternoon and part 2 of our childbirth class this evening. There is really no narrative arc to this post, so I instead offer you a series of random observations:

-The doctor enlightened us on what parts of Peanut’s anatomy we’ve been feeling and observing, being able to tell exactly how the baby is positioned. The bad news is that apparently we’ve been affectionately rubbing the baby’s butt. Well, that and it has its little hands basically behind my hip bone, perfectly lined up to sucker punch me. The good news is that Peanut has its head face down, so if it can stay that way we’re in business.

-There is at most only one other couple in our class (out of around 10) who is within 5 years of us in age. And yet, all the guys look like they belong in a frat house.

-No one asks questions in our classes, despite the nurse’s best efforts to solicit them. That is, until she made the mistake today of making an offhand reference to epidurals. And then she could not stem the tide of questions, despite her efforts to refer them to the next session, when drugs were supposed to be addressed. Really, if they offered a class just on drugs, no one would come to the rest of the classes.

-We went on a tour of Labor and Delivery and Mother/Baby in today’s class and the rooms look more like hotels than hospital rooms. In the Mother/Baby rooms there is even one of those little triangle things on the bed that basically says "enjoy your stay." Combined with the childcare services, if it wasn't so expensive I'd ask to stay for weeks.

Appointments

We went to the doctor today, and both Sarah and Peanut are doing great.

At the end, we made appointments all the way through to the week of the due date (the visits get more frequent during the end). This is both incredibly exciting (we're almost there!) and frightening (we're going to live at the doctor's office!). But mostly exciting.

2.5 mile mark

For those of you who didn’t run cross country, a race is 5K (3.1 miles) and by far the hardest part was around the 2.5 mile mark. By the time you reach that point you are exhausted, but the end of the race is still too far away to pull on your reserves. This is the point in the race when your body tells you to just stop and the only thing that keeps you going is sheer mental determination. The absolute worst terrain for this part of the course was woods, where no one could see you. Because, you see, at this point all I wanted to do was walk and in the woods this was a feasible option. No, bad Sarah, must keep running.

As I’m sure you guessed, the reason I’m telling you this is that it seems an apt metaphor for my life right now. I am at the 2.5 mile mark in both the pregnancy and the semester, and with the overlap between them I am having trouble finding the energy to push through.

Last week I had a couple days when I was just done with pregnancy. It has actually by all measures been a really easy pregnancy and I know I have no reason to complain, but I was just done. I was sick of not sleeping, sick of being achy, sick of not being able to go for a walk at a normal pace, sick of wearing the same three outfits day after day, sick of people looking at me like I had an arm growing out of my head if I dared venture on campus, sick of worrying about every feeling or lack of feeling. All trivial things in themselves, but when they piled themselves up at a time when I was already tired and frustrated, I collapsed. I actually found myself resenting Peanut at one point. And if you’ve never tried being mad at a baby, let me tell you, it isn’t helpful at all because in addition to being frustrated I then felt horribly guilty. I’ve gotten a little sleep since then and haven’t been on campus in a week, so things don’t look as bleak, but I'm still wishing it was just May already.

Stopping isn’t actually an option when it comes to the pregnancy, but it sort of is when it comes to work, and that is dangerous. Normally when I reach the point in the semester where I just want to curl up in bed and ignore work, I can resist through sheer willpower. But when you add the fact that my body is just physically drained as well and I don’t feel like I can push it as much (it is one thing to shut down my immune system by working too hard and give myself shingles when it was just me, a totally different thing when it involves the baby’s health), and the fact that working from home while it has all sorts of benefits (comfy clothes, avoiding the bubonic plague undergrads pass around this time of year, not having my pretzels confiscated if I need a snack mid-day, avoiding people’s looks) is akin to the forest in the cc race, and I keep finding myself back in bed. And so the once ambitious deadline for circulating this chapter in late April is quickly becoming impossible. And part of me wants to just ditch it. After all, I’ve already written two chapters and an article this semester. Isn’t that enough? But I know that anything I can get done now will make life easier later.

But after many many races, I know it does end. If I just keep plugging along, I'll come around a bend where I can see the finish line. And making it to that bend is really the hard part because once you can see the end suddenly you discover energy reserves that you didn’t know you had and the sprint to the finish is a piece of cake by comparison. So I just have to keep plugging along for a few more weeks, knowing that bend is going to come into sight. And maybe go to the public library after lunch to get out of the forest (i.e. away from my bed) for a bit.

Storyville

In looking up the hours for the public library (where I plan to work in the morning for a change of pace), I stumbled across somewhere I am dying to take Peanut. Apparently there is a place called Storyville at a different branch of our county library system (about 10 minutes away). And while Peanut probably won't be up for a lot of the coolest features before we have to move, I am already planning a trip to check out the Baby Garden come October or so.

Update on Walkers from Grandpa Zippy

Apparently I once was a victim of the malice aforethought I described last night.


But at least since then I've grown into my ears. And don't you just love the canopy on the swing? In case it rains in the house, I guess. Or maybe even at that age I got sunburns from fluorescent light.

I'm dealing with morons ...

We went to our first childbirth class on Tuesday, and no, our fellow classmates are not the morons. Nor are we. I just want to relate a funny/frustrating anecdote that we heard.

One of the other classes that the hospital plugs when you show up is an update course for grandparents about all the things that are different from when they raised children (e.g., you're not supposed to put a baby to sleep on its stomach, etc.). The description of the course led me to muse to Sarah that it's a miracle any of us survived to adulthood. One example that the nurse gave was that kids used to have jumper/walker contraptions that had wheels—maybe you remember them if you had younger siblings. But they're not used anymore. Why, you may ask? Well, apparently lots of kids were getting hurt by falling down the stairs in them.

Which leads me to the obvious question: just how stupid does a parent have to be to put its child into a contraption with wheels—which the child is able to manuever—at the top of the stairs with nothing blocking them ... and walk away?

Just wondering.

Peanut’s routine

Peanut has developed quite an internal timeclock. In the past week or so Peanut’s active bouts have developed an incredibly predictable routine. There are little bouts of light squirming first thing in the morning, just enough to let me know I didn’t accidentally cut off all blood flow or anything else overnight. Then during the day there are some light squirms throughout and usually a more active bout a little bit after lunch and again for a bit in the late afternoon.

But the part that makes the predictability almost unnerving is that Peanut’s most intense and prolonged playtime begins at 8pm. Seriously, out of nowhere there is a party in my belly and I look at the clock and it is somewhere between 7:50 and 8:10. Peanut then alternates between medium-level activity and trying to burst out (the latter is hilarious to watch) for about three hours, more intense if Joe is around and interacting with the baby (talking, rubbing protruding knees and shoulders, etc). The books predict 30-minute alternating patterns of activity and sleep at this point, but apparently our kid has its own ideas.

I wonder how long this pattern will last. There are worse routines, though. I just hope Joe makes it back from Richmond soon because Peanut is currently begging for someone to play with. Ouch.

Cranky Phase

I think I’ve been pretty agreeable this far into the pregnancy—no more overly emotional than any other time at any rate. But in the past couple weeks this has started to change and I have been getting cranky and irritable. And there is a very clear culprit in this: lack of sleep, or more accurately lack of good sleep. I am getting enough hours of sleep but before last night I don’t think I had slept more than two hours consecutively in at least two weeks without being woken up by pain, and some nights it was more like every 30-45 minutes.

When I lay on my right side my hip hurts, when I lay on my left side my upper back hurts, lying on my back is against the rules because it limits blood flow to the baby, and lying on my stomach would be physically impossible even if the doctors would permit it. And so I start off on one side in minor pain and sleep until the pain is so bad it wakes me up, roll over and repeat. This means that not only do I never get into deep sleep but I spend the entire time I’m sleeping in some degree of pain. And all of this means I wake up achy and tired, leading to a day of crankiness and irritability.

Last night a miracle happened—I didn’t wake up for the first time until 3 ½ hours after we went to sleep! Unfortunately, the reason for this respite is that I had somehow ended up on my back. Well, those hours were glorious, but I of course then spent the next hour unable to sleep until Peanut had done sufficient gymnastics to assure me that everything was okay.

But today I feel wonderful! 3 ½ hours of real sleep and I am a new woman. And knowing that this was probably a one-night gift, I am determined to use this energy and optimism to make a huge dent in the chapter I started writing last night.

NCAA family fun

We've been watching basketball for the couple hours before bed since the tournament started and Peanut is getting in on the action. Each night Joe gets the baby all riled up by talking to it lots and rubbing its elbows or knees or whatever other unidentifiable part is poking out at the moment. I've never known Joe to be so distractable during the final minutes of sporting events as he is when Peanut starts squirming around in response. And Peanut loves the attention, squirming and kicking like crazy (either that or Peanut is saying "leave me alone, Daddy"). I think Peanut will be sad when the games are over and we go back to working at night instead of playing with it. It constantly amazes me how much the baby is able to interact with us.

One beeeellion dollars...

I turned on the news this morning, and immediately wished I'd shut it off. The Today show was running a segment on the rising cost of college, and brought somebody in who'd run calculations on how much college costs now, and how much college will cost in 2027 (Peanut's freshman year). The tab? Over $175,000—and that's just for a public college. The private ones run two to three times that price tag.

All of which means we're already probably about five years late to start saving for Peanut's education (let alone Peanut's siblings, Cashew, Macadamia, and Almond). So here's my plan. We'll give Peanut a few weeks to get settled, get used to the surroundings, make a nice groove in the crib mattress, maybe start sleeping through the night. Then it's off to work. At some point Peanut will need to get a summer job, so why not this summer?

If you have any suggestions, or are looking to hire a 4-6 week old come July 1, please contact me.

The Nursery--Phase 2

We put together Peanut's crib and reading nook tonight (with only one run to Lowe's to replace a broken wingnut and zero cursing), so here are pictures of the nursery in its newest phase. It really is amazing how quickly it is coming together.

Peanut's crib (courtesy of Grandma Alice and Grandpa Richard):

(And, yes, we have now added a bedskirt to the registry. Oops.)

The reading nook (courtesy of Uncle Mike and Aunt Melinda):

This is absolutely adorable and I really can't wait to use it. Talk about an inspired present.

The nursery as a whole:

You can't see the one wall that is still bare, but the dresser is on its way, so we are close.

Showered with love

We are overwhelmed with the gifts we have received for Peanut. Joe’s parents threw us a shower in NY this weekend, and packages arrived today from my aunts and cousins, who took up a collection at the baby shower they threw for another cousin and bought and shipped stuff to us. It was all so incredibly thoughtful and sweet and we now feel like we now have most of the basics covered.

And so, yet another reason to be feeling both grateful and relieved today. Grateful that we have so many family and friends who are so kind to us. And relieved that everything is in place for Peanut’s arrival. Well, okay, right now we have stacks of boxes, but in the next couple weeks we’ll put stuff together, install car seats, etc. I walk into the living room and look at everything that is there and am overwhelmed with how generous everyone has been and also so excited to picture Peanut using each of these things. In the constantly swinging pendulum between wanting time to speed up and May to be here and wanting time to slow down because I’m terrified of May, I am definitely in the midst of a wanting it to be May swing.

Peanut Scare

Before I tell you the story of yesterday, I want to reassure you that Peanut is fine and I am too—just a little sore.

We were in NY for the weekend for a baby shower (that post will be this evening, I hope, but I have to get some work done first) and I woke up yesterday morning with pain in my side and radiating across and around my belly. Within half an hour the pain had gotten so bad that I couldn’t move and was having real trouble even breathing through it. Our doctor hadn’t called back and while I had no idea what was going on, it obviously wasn’t good, so Joe and I went off to the ER.

Long story short, there were contractions (caused by they never figured out what—possibly irritation from whatever caused the initial pain in my side, possibly an infection—they gave me antibiotics just in case) but it hadn’t actually prompted labor yet and so they were able to stop the contractions with a couple doses of drugs. They did bunches of tests and found no other warnings of pre-term labor so are pretty certain this was an isolated event, and monitored the baby through the whole thing and Peanut was perfectly fine and content throughout.

It was a rough morning because for a couple hours there we were scared Peanut was going to be a very early preemie, and at a hospital where we knew nothing about their preemie care. We are getting antsy to have the baby here, but only as a healthy full term baby, and we know that our little Peanut is still too little for life outside. Now that it is all over, we are mostly just relieved and grateful. I get anxious at every twinge and have vowed not to be more than 20 miles from our hospital again until the baby is here. But while I’m more anxious about the next couple months than I was, I am decidedly less anxious about the actual labor and delivery because it has been somehow demystified.

The whole episode was somewhat traumatic, but we all came through fine and the doctors don’t seem concerned about the next couple months, so we are trying to convince ourselves that it really is all okay. And rationally we are there, but honestly we’re a little jittery. And so every time Peanut kicks or moves (while it hurts like crazy because I’m so sore) I feel a wave of relief wash over me. We’re just so grateful Peanut is okay.

Sex vs. Gender*

Allison asked me yesterday if we would keep the sex a secret with the second child as well, and my only answer is that I really don’t know. On the one hand, I have become increasingly opposed to the gendering of infants. But on the other hand, I’m getting really tired of feeling like I have to justify myself constantly. Most likely either we won’t find out or we’ll just cave and find out and tell everyone and save ourselves the trouble. But for now I will attempt to explain the reasoning behind all this.

When we decided to keep the sex of the baby secret, it was probably 90% practical and 10% ideological. The twin practical reasons were that we wanted to maintain the anticipation and day-of excitement for everyone else (ditto for name secrecy—we figured it would make the birth announcement that much more interesting), and that we hoped to end up with mostly gender-neutral baby stuff. Again, the reason for the gender-neutral stuff was 90% practical. A little bit of me liked the idea of not bombarding the baby with gendered messages from birth, but really it was mostly that we are hoping to use the same stuff for multiple kids. (And I promise, this was not an elaborate scheme to torture people. We didn’t think it was such a big deal.)

But the further we got into this process, the more these decisions became ideological and carried bigger stakes. It seems that our society sanctions an adherence to gender norms when it comes to children that is much more extreme than is considered permissible with adults anymore. Most people wouldn’t consider teasing a man who was a good cook and no one blinks to see adult women with short hair and wearing blue jeans or attending baseball games. And yet when it comes to babies and young children these ideas are still applied wholesale. We’ve heard many a comment along the lines of, “you have to find out the sex because then you’ll know if Joe will get to coach baseball or if you’ll be going to ballet lessons.” Seriously?! And they’ll go further, laying out the next ten years of our lives, based solely around the sex of this child, determining the child’s interests and entire future based on one characteristic. It is as though people forget that babies and children are individual people rather than pre-programmed machines.

Sometimes I wish we hadn’t found out the baby’s sex, because it seems like we’d have stronger ideological ground to stand on in these confrontations. But, like with most things, our reasoning was practical. Then we’d only have to fight over one name instead of two, we’d know whether it was worth doing research into circumcision, and really it just bothered me that the doctors knew anything about our child we didn’t know, whether it was the sex or the length of its eyelashes. The unexpected benefit is that it is nice to use gendered pronouns since the English language does not have any gender-neutral pronouns used for animate objects. “It” is something we only use for inanimate objects, and in my case not even for things I care about like stuffed animals or my car.

But all of this pales in comparison to my reactions to the gendering of baby stuff. And, my hatred of pink aside, the thing that really has enraged me is the nature of these gendered messages, as well as how much more offensive the girl ones are than those for boys.

Boys’ stuff centers on modes of transportation (cars, airplanes, construction equipment) and sports and the sayings on them are either just silly or characterize boys as troublemakers and mischievous. I’m not thrilled about boys being put in boxes, but at least these particular messages don’t seem destructive or limiting. They encourage exploration and activity.

Girls’ stuff, on the other hand, focus on images of flowers and kittens, passive objects to be admired for their appearance, half of them contain the phrase “princess” somewhere, or contain messages that characterize girls as narcissistic, manipulative, and materialistic. Seriously, the messages on some of the girls’ onesies make me want to throw something. Here are a couple I can think of off the top of my head: “My finger may be small, but I have my Daddy wrapped around it” or “If Mommy won’t give me what I want, I ask Grandma” or “Grandma bought me this with Grandpa’s money.” Is this really the ideal we want girls to strive for? And a friend told me the other day that she has to buy boys’ shorts for her 22-month-old daughter because the girls’ shorts are so short her diaper sticks out. Why, oh why are we sexualizing 2 year olds????

And so, while I’ve become addicted to buying baby clothes off the clearance rack, you can rest assured that none of the onesies with messages (either mischievous or materialistic) are in the collection I have brought home. There are lots of teddy bears, animals, and dinosaurs, which seem more age appropriate anyway. And the discussion of culturally-constructed definitions of age-based traits and interests is a conversation we can have another day.

* Sex is a person’s biological identity as male or female, based on chromosomes and reproductive organs. This is what is visible on sonograms or in prenatal testing. Gender refers to the traits a society associates with members of a particular sex, many (or most, or all, depending on your position) of which are not inherent but rather the result of internalized messages from one’s culture (hence, why gender norms change over time—they aren’t biological but cultural). (Yes, even as I blog I am still an academic. You are just lucky this footnote doesn't come complete with citations.)

Nursery: Phase 1

We made visible progress on the nursery today because my mom helped Joe move the last remaining bookcase and the maintenance guy came over with insane screws that allowed him to put the curtainrod screws through a metal bracket. But it is starting to look like a nursery, even though it is missing essentials like, you know, a crib. :)

The curtains I made are green jungle leaves with lions, tigers, hippos, giraffes, elephants, and monkeys. Here is a close up:

They actually remind me of curtains Peter and I had in our room when we were little, even though the colors are very different. I think they must have had similar animals on them.

And here is the nursery to date:
The stuffed animals are all ones I had. Many of you will recognize Stanley the Stegosaurus, my beloved companion from birth. The rocking chair was Joe's mom's when Brian was a baby. And the quilt on the chair is one that was in my room as a baby. Most of the other stuff on the shelves were presents from my college friends for Peanut. This picture is from the doorway and the lamp is against the other wall, so it really is a small room, but absolutely perfect for a nursery. And it is now starting to look the part.

Taking Shape, If Only in Our Minds

The nursery that is. Today was centered around nursery-related tasks and although the room itself doesn’t look all that different than it did this morning, plans have been set in motion. We spent all afternoon looking at dressers at three different furniture stores and have finally chosen one (that hasn’t been discontinued)! I swear we weren’t being all that picky—it is just absurdly difficult to find a simple dresser. But for the first time in months we encountered a salesman today who was happy to show us all the options that met our criteria and help us make an informed decision, rather than investing all his energy trying to convince us that we had deluded ourselves and what we REALLY wanted was whatever the most expensive thing was in the showroom.

So anyway, we now have mental pictures of the crib and dresser that we are inserting into the almost-empty nursery. And we finished putting up blinds in there when we got home and then I spent the evening finishing the curtains. The quilt my mom is making will go over the crib, and the bookcase and rocking chair full of my assortment of stuffed animals are sitting out in the dining room until after we clean, and that really is all that can fit in that tiny room. And so the mental picture of the room as a nursery is complete, even if the room itself still only has blinds, one leftover bookcase Joe needs help moving, and a bunch of trash from shortening the blinds. In fact, I noticed this evening that we’ve started referring to that room as “the nursery” pretty consistently, whereas we had been alternating between nursery and office.

I realize this post is taunting since I’m talking about a mental image I can’t share. But a lot of it will come together physically in about a week (assuming the maintenance guys can help us figure out how to put up the curtain rod given the stupid metal braces around the window), so we’ll post pictures then.

And now, after an amazing normal-person weekend (in addition to doing all this household stuff, we spent yesterday at the D.C. zoo with friends and their 22-month-old daughter), I somehow have to get my brain back into gear for a 10-hour day of meetings and seminars at school tomorrow. Ick.

Finished!

I finished Peanut's blanket! (And only broke two needles on my sewing machine doing it. Oops.) Here are some pictures:

Front:

Close up of the prints:

Back (nice, soft fleece):

Both:

If you look closely there are all sorts of imperfections, but I'm still really proud of how it turned out. Next step, curtains for the nursery.

One Step Closer

Last night, in a spur-of-the-moment decision, we started stage 1 in getting our apartment ready for Peanut's arrival. Joe and Allison moved furniture while I scurried around moving little things and consulting the floorplans I had drawn up. And the result is that our bedroom is now successfully half bedroom and half office, the office/nursery is now fully into transition (no desks, but still bookcases), and the rest of our apartment is a complete disaster area. Our goal is to have the office empty before we go to New York for the shower in a week and a half so we can put baby stuff directly into the nursery, set up the crib, etc. If we get ambitious we may try to install the blinds and curtain rods in the nursery before then as well, while the room is empty.

I have to say, even though the apartment is currently a wreck, it makes me really happy to finally be getting ready for Peanut to join us.