Nothing at All About Pregnancy

This has been a hard week.  The tragedy at Sandy Hook elementary school on Friday left me--and our entire country--more shaken than we probably even realized.  It left me contemplating anger and pain and hatred and where it all comes from.

Sometimes I get really overwhelmed by sadness in the world.  Why do bad things happen to innocent people?  Why is it easy to remember people who have hurt us and harder to remember those who've made us smile?  How is it that we can somehow forget each other's humanity and make blanket statements of anger towards an entire group of people?

I work in a junior high and this time of year can be tough.  The students (and teachers) are tired and ready for winter break, and there's something in the air--it happens every year and I'm sure someone could explain exactly what it is but I have no idea--that makes everyone tense.  The students are meaner to one other...apathy is passed around like a cold.  So, in light of all of this, I decided to show my students the documentary "Happy," in hopes of leaving for winter break with an uplifting message about where we can find happiness in the world.

Of course, the problem is that I'm sitting there watching this documentary and there's this scene where these toddlers in Okinawa, Japan are running a race, just for fun.  They round a corner and run towards their families who cheer for them and help the tired ones cross the finish line.  I look at their faces, think of Miles, think of how beautiful and perfect and innocent they are and I can barely stop myself from crying.  I don't want them to experience pain.  I don't want Miles to know how it feels to be nervous that someone will make fun of him.  I don't want him to know what it feels like to hurt another person.  I just want them to be...well, happy.

I know I can't protect Miles, or any child, from the pain that comes in life.  But one really beautiful message from the film is that in searching for our own happiness we all can make a contribution to making the world a better place.  Studies cited in the film demonstrate that a connectedness to the people and community around us, through making time for friends and family, and giving and helping in any way we can, are key factors in our own happiness.  And that if we practice happiness--and what an idea that experiencing happiness can be practiced and strengthened!--we improve not only ourselves but the world around us.

There are hard days...hard weeks...hard times.  So this is my prayer, sent out into the stratosphere: that each of us finds ways to practice and strengthen our own happiness, to connect ourselves to others and the world around us, and to find love in unlikely places, so that we can have the support within and around us to lift us up in those difficult moments.

xo

Yep, Some Things I Forgot...

You can have swelling in your legs after delivery.  I didn't see much swelling beforehand but I puffed up like a balloon after delivery and it was probably two weeks before my body was able to rid itself of all that excess water.

Night sweats.  Oh man.  I would actually have fevers in the night that would rise to around 100.0 F and then break.  I would wake up drenched (I'm not exaggerating here.  I literally had water running into my eyes), have to change all of my clothes (and the sheets, if I had the energy) and then it would happen again--all night long!  Maybe 2-3 fevers each night.  This is another one of those things that makes sense when you think about how out-of-whack your hormones are and the excess water too.  But I had no idea this could happen.

I was afraid that with a C-Section my milk wouldn't come in.  After all, I had to deliver early and there was no physical, hormonal cue to my body that comes with going into labor to tell it to start producing milk.  But, lo and behold, it did.  Everyone told me it would...but I guess it's one of those things that, for whatever reason, had me worried.

And on that note, pregnancy can cause you to worry about everything.  Try to resist the temptation to worry about what you can't control.  This is definitely something I want to remember for the future.  Your body is built for this.  And if you treat your body well and care for yourself, your body will do what it needs to do.  Of course there are the exceptions to the rule but you can't worry about that.  It's outside of your control.

What I Wish I Had Known About: Delivery

For me, delivery felt sort of like when you're speeding down the interstate and you suddenly roll the window down and the air WHOOSHes in really quickly deafening you and changing the pressure in the air.  For a moment I couldn't hear any of the sounds in the room.  There was only me and Miles and the change in pressure resulting from the way gravity shifted as he became the center of my universe (it's cliche, I know, but seriously, it's true).  In that moment nothing else mattered but my love for him and my need to keep him safe.  I was surprised by how primal my instincts were.  As much as I understood why I had to be still and let the doctors sew me back up, I have rarely felt an urge so strong as my desire to jump off the operating table and run to him, hold him, protect him.  The fact that I couldn't (I was strapped down, as every C-Section patient is) made me cry.  It was surreal.  
I'm getting a little ahead of myself.  I should make sure you know that I had a C-section after almost 3 months of bedrest due to a complete placenta previa.  Every woman's delivery is unique for many reasons, so before I go explaining things I wish I'd known, I need to clarify my own circumstances.  Also, because each woman's delivery is unique I know that this information might not be particularly useful.  But I'm still working from the perspective that if I had had the chance to read this blog before my own delivery, it would have been helpful for me.  I'll try to be concise....  :)

You deliver a C-Section in the operating room, not a delivery room.  Maybe this is obvious to everyone else, but it was not immediately obvious to me.

I knew I would have a C-Section from early on in my pregnancy, and everyone told me that Matt would be allowed to be with me the entire time.  What they neglected to tell me is that "the entire time" DOES NOT include during the epidural & spinal--the time when I was the most frightened!  Looking back on this, it makes sense: it's a sterile environment and they wouldn't necessarily want a nervous husband close to his wife as she's getting a needle the length of a ruler inserted into her spinal column.  Still.  I wish someone would have told me I'd have to do that part alone.

Having said that, one of the nurses sat across from me while I got the injections and held my hands, talked to me and told me exactly what the doctors were doing and that everything was going to be fine.  I'm not a person who would typically rely on a stranger, but when I was so scared it was SO comforting to let myself listen to her voice and block out everything else.

I never knew you could get the shakes from anesthesia.  I'm sure adrenaline was involved too, but my worst pain of the entire delivery/recovery was from shaking so hard for 2 hours straight.  Not everyone reacts to anesthesia this way, but because I didn't even know it was a possibility I was not at all mentally prepared for it.

Your connection with baby will come at it's own time.  Some women feel a connection early after conception.  They might read, sing and talk to baby while he/she is still in the womb.  For me, this wasn't the case. I couldn't conceptualize the enormity of what was happening inside me.  Some women feel it at the birth, some women--especially women who struggle with the baby blues--might feel it later.  I have never considered myself to be a particularly  maternal being, never really felt comfortable around infants.  I was afraid I wouldn't know what to do when the baby was born.  Don't get me wrong, I certainly didn't magically understand everything about babies.  But the connection and the desire to learn far surpassed my expectations.

Your breasts will get HUGE and ROCK HARD and be PAINFUL for a day or two, maybe more, while your milk comes in.  Bring a ginormous, comfy, soft sports bra or nursing bra to wear in the hospital.  I didn't bring any bras that would fit and SO wished I had!

As usual, I feel as though there's so much I'm forgetting...but it's a start.

What I Wish I Had Known About Pregnancy, Part 1

It's been a long time that I've been meaning to write down all of the things I wish I had known before being pregnant.  Lesson one: everything you plan on doing gets done in no less than 3xs the amount of time you thought it would take.  This blog I wanted to write when I was in the hospital? Yeah, here we are, 10 months later...

But before I continue, let me preface this trilogy of posts with a disclaimer.  Please read this for what it is: a letter to myself; I would never judge anyone's experience but my own.  If I ever decide to try another pregnancy there are so many things I want to do differently and writing them down is my only chance at remembering.  (Lesson two: Pregnancy Brain, real.  Never goes away, true.  But I take offense at people assuming I don't have a memory anymore.  It's just that there's SO MUCH MORE to remember and think about).  That being said, I would have loved to have something like this to read as an expecting or new mom! Which is what motivated me to make these personal thoughts public.

OH! One more disclaimer.  I'm going to talk about poop in lesson nine so skip that one if it's too much information for you. Ok, moving on.

Lesson three: Workout 4-5 days every week.  You're not going to want to.  You're going to be exhausted--your body is creating the miracle of life...yeah, that's hard work.  But not giving up on exercise might be the biggest lesson I want to remember for any future pregnancy.  When your body is changing and you have no control over what's happening to you and you even have moments where you lose a sense of self and feel more like a vessel than a woman, exercise is one of the only things you can do to make you feel like YOU again.  You're in charge.  Anything that counts as exercise goes: you can walk, swim, use resistance bands or lift weights (be careful with this one though--certain lifts/weights should be avoided), run, take exercise classes, do yoga...anything.  It's good for your physical health, it's good for the baby's health, and most importantly, it is good for your mental health.  I promise.

Lesson four: Do yoga.  It's exercise (see lesson three), it's stretching parts of your body that are going to become tight and tender, and it gives your running mind a place to calm down and center.

Lesson five: Eat healthfully, but don't stress about eating.  Eat when you're hungry, stop when you're full.  Your body knows what it's doing.

Lesson six: Pregnancy can be isolating.  Everyone thinks they know what to tell you, and everyone assumes you want to talk about it.  Women who haven't been pregnant want to know what it's like (but how can you ever really explain it?).  Everyone is eager to tell you how beautiful you look (mostly because it's the one safe thing to say, and because they assume you're feeling hideous which--let's be honest--is probably true) and that you're doing a great job (but seriously, what do they know?)!  I have to be up front here though and say that I'm not a person who shares very personal information--especially not about what I'm feeling.  I know there are women who have a completely different experience than I did because they do actually want to talk about it.  And other women really do love being pregnant.  I didn't.  So I know that people really were trying to be supportive and, had I given them a chance, I might have been surprised by their capacity to empathize with me.  But mostly I was surprised by how irritated I got at the fact that (a) I didn't feel like I could ever be honest (while I knew it was worth it, I still mostly hated being pregnant and it's not really socially acceptable to say so), (b) no one really knew what I was going through (even women who have been pregnant because no two pregnancies are alike), and (c) there are so many changes happening physically and mentally that even if I did finally think about what I wanted to say, chances are I would be feeling completely differently 38 second later.

Lesson seven: Don't become a hermit.  It will be easy, especially in the first trimester, for your habits to change.  I was so sick and exhausted that I didn't want to see anyone or do anything.  But when I stayed home I just felt lonely and had time to worry and just got a bit down in general.  I wish I would have tried to maintain as much of my normal schedule as possible: friends, dates, movies, family dinners... This does get easier in the second and third trimesters when you feel better, but sometimes those habits you fall into are hard to break!

Lesson eight: If you have heartburn, talk to your doctor.  If it's bad there's no reason to rely on Tums if they aren't working.  There's medicine that you can take that will make you feel SO MUCH BETTER.

Lesson nine: Miralax works wonders for pregnancy constipation.  My doctors and I worked really hard and tried all sorts of laxatives that didn't work (I know, TMI, but seriously.  I WISH I would have known this before and if someone would have written it I would have been eternally thankful).  Finally we realized that the first thing we'd tried (Miralax) was the answer.  But instead of taking multiple doses over the course of the day, I had to take multiple doses at once, with LOTS of water.  Just like that, 6 weeks of constipation were done.  Hallelujah.

Lesson ten: Do "Good things, Hard things" everyday.  At the end of the night, tell someone or write down something good and something hard from your day.  It could be anything.  But it's a safe place to get out things that are bothering you and remind yourself of the joyful parts of pregnancy.

I know there's things I wanted to remember that I'm forgetting...which is why I really should have written some stuff down.  (Lesson eleven: write things down when you think about them).  But I'll call it a night.

Coming up: Part 2: What I wish I had known about giving birth, and Part 3: What I wish I had known about having a newborn.