Month: July 2009

  • Great Expectations!

    Shaun and I spent our entire day rotting away in a childbirth class called Great Expectations!.

    As most people know, Dickens wrote a book with the very same name, sans exclamation mark. The themes of the Dickens book speak to the fact that most attempts at self improvement are fruitless; social standing and money will always trump a good heart and a healthy conscience. (Also: that rich girls are pretty, but can be total bitches.) The childbirth class, Great Expectations!, did not cover any of these ideas, although I think it would be really funny if the class was named ironically, as in:

    You can try to learn all this shit to ease your childbirth pains, but really: it’s pointless. Birth is a bitch.

    ***

    Anyhow, the class started out fine enough. We introduced ourselves to the humorless cookie-cutter couple next to us. We watched a video of three different ladies giving birth. Shaun and I tried not to laugh as the instructor pushed a baby doll out of a skeleton. (Apparently, no one else in class thought there was something REALLY funny about a SKELETON giving birth to a live human.) We did breathing techniques. And then there came the visualization/relaxation portion of class. And this is where I proceeded to loose my shit.
    Before I can tell you just what happened during the visualization/relaxation lesson, I should start with The Original.

    Currently, on Chicago Avenue (between State and Michigan), there is an abandoned shop that I pass daily to go to work. I say abandoned, but it is not entirely so. For while there is no actual store or gallery per se inside the shop, there are three hideous paintings for sale, propped in the shop window.

    The first painting is my favorite. It’s about 5 feet tall and depicts a naked woman of hideous proportion and construct. She wears a feathered mask and wields a long paintbrush over her head. Her boobs are the big, perfectly round type that a thirteen-year-old boy might draw and a loose purple cape flutters around her body. The best part of this horrible thing is the price sticker, which reads:

    Original! $935

    Now, while the god-awfulness of this over-priced painting is entertaining enough as it is, I find it super funny that the artist had the instinct to clarify that it is not a forgery. In case you couldn’t tell, this painting is one-of-a-kind. This painting is The Original.

    I knew that we’d pass The Original on our way to childbirth class today and I’d been really excited to point it out to Shaun. He loved it just as much as I thought he would and we agreed to buy it and hang it in a really prominent place in our mansion if ever we hit it big (I think it was Martha Stewart who said, “there’s nothing like a horrendously wrought, big, raunchy painting to really add a touch of class a space”). 

    We’re still laughing about The Original when we get to class, but soon enough we pipe down and let the instructor tell us all about mucus plugs and perineal massage. I thought I’d all but forgotten about The Original until our visualization/relaxation lesson began.

    “Face your partner. Close your eyes. Breathe. Imagine a calm, soothing beach. It’s warm out, but not too hot. The breeze is blowing. The waves are tranquil. The sand feels good underfoot. Or perhaps you’d like to imagine an image from home, something that you find soothing…”

    Enter: The Original. She’s stepped out of the painting and is tottering about on her disproportionate, awkwardly placed legs on hot sand. In a room full of deeply breathing couples, I burst out laughing.

    “Sorry. Sorry,” I say.

    “Just relax and slip back into your visualization.”

    And there she is again, waiting for me. Tottering around in the sand. A crab chases her down the shore line. The Original builds a sand diaper and lets her sack of waters break into it. She gets up and leaves a crust of wet sand in her wake, forgetting to call her practitioner to report on the color and smell of the liquid. Instead, she races to the shore to rinse off. Her two-dimensional body swims around carefree as a person without joints can be. Suddenly, her bloody show comes gushing out into the water. A shark comes and bites her in half.  The Original flails around, trying not to get her feather mask or paintbrush wet. Everything is a disaster! She’s drifted into a nest of Portuguese Man ‘o War’s! Oh look! She’s paddling away with her one functional arm (the other one has to hold her paintbrush aloft) and has finally reached shallow ground! The Original drags her now-legless body up to shore, only to find herself caught up in a pile of sea urchins

    Instead of breathing deeply though the exercise, my body is tense and shaking with the effort of trying to bottle up my laughter. Shaun’s pose mirrors mine; he is laughing at me laughing and we are laughing in the dark, surrounded by strangers thinking positive thoughts about their soon-to-be newborns when I whisper “The Original!” and we just about both loose our shit entirely.

    It only gets worse when the instructor has our birth partners whisper to us the things they did during our simulated contractions to make our labor easier. Shaun and I are giddy and are whispering horrible things to each other. We are quaking with stifled laugher.

    “During your last contraction, I got our divorce papers in order.”
    “During your last contraction, I gave you a Dirty Sanchez.”

    Eventually the lesson is over and we are released for our lunch break to have a good, proper laugh. Once we’d worn ourselves out during the relaxation lesson, the rest of the afternoon was deathly boring.  We had to watch more cheesy videos, full of people saying smug ass-holish classics such as:

    “Having a child is that thing in life you never knew you were missing,” and “birthing is a beautiful experience.”

    I’m happy that we went to the childbirth class—there was some helpful information in it, for sure. But I’m happier still to know that I have a birthing partner who knows me well enough to know that if there’s one thing that helps me through discomfort: it’s humor. Best of all: he’s actually funny.
    _____________________________________________________________________
    What helps you through pain?

  • It’s the Final Countdown!

    Roughly six more weeks to go of this pregnancy business before Fetus becomes Baby on September 1. Winter seems like a thousand years ago.

    In the early days of this pregnancy, my world was chronically gray and tempuratures hovered around thirty below. I waited for the bus with tears freezing in the corners of my eyes. I wore two coats and wished I owed a burka. At work, I felt hung-over. At home, I was in bed by 8. While we wanted to have a kid, and I was in the process of getting healthy enough to do so, the timing of this fetus’ conception was not what you’d call “planned.” We wanted to wait until Shaun secured full-time employement again, until our debts were paid down, until this world-wide recession is over. Seeing a pink plus sign emerge on pee-stick after pee-stick made me feel wildly out-of-control. We barely had money enough to cover our own asses; how could we afford a plus sign? Deeper still, I felt really stupid. It’s not like I don’t know how to prevent pregnancy; Shaun and I have been together for eleven years.

    Emotional isolation finally drove us out of the pregnancy closet around the twelth week. I don’t know what I was expecting to happen when we broke the news to people (to be reprimanded? shunned?), but I was *shocked* at the outpouring of unbridled enthusiasm from our friends, family, and colleagues. I had been so worried and feeling so dog-tired and gross that my brain hadn’t acutally had time to realize that the Plus Sign was a happy thing. A thing that people wanted to help us with, to nurture, to rally around. All the gloom that I’d carried around for three months suddenly disapated. I was fine. Better than fine. I was great. Wonderful. Amazed and amazing.

    Weeks ticked by and Plus Sign became Grain became Mantis became Fetal Friend. Most days, my body feels healthy, strong, and full of energy. I work out at least three times a week. I’m enjoying my friends and my career. I sometimes feel as if my partner and I are dating again, scrawny teenagers introducing ourselves to eachother and liking emensely what we see.

    Little by little, same as before, Shaun and I will continue to piece together a sustainable future together. Only this time, that future dosn’t hold a hypothetical offspring. It holds a daughter.

    The further I get into this eigth month, the more I notice that there are days when I just have to let Fetal Friend take me where she needs me to go. Gory details:
           
    1.) The weight of my belly makes my hips decay in the night; most mornings, my hips feel ancient and rotted. Thank god my morning commute requires a 15 minute walk to the subway; once I move around a bit, everything feels alright.
           
    2.) Somedays (like yesterday and today), my pelvic area aches and reduces my usual fast stride a slow waddle. I’ve been told this is “growing pains,” but it feels like I pulled my groin playing soccar.

    3.) Some nights, Fetal wants me in bed before the sun goes down.

    Most days, however, things are good and I feel great. Besides, it’s not the pregnancy that’s been keeping me too busy to blog, it’s life…
       
    In late June, early July, my mom and I stayed with my grandparents in Colorado. Grandma cooked every evening, grandpa did all the driving, the fruit bowl was always full with loads of delicious apricots and cherries. Most days, the grandparents took mom and I on pretty little mountain rambles. Afternoons were spent reading novels. Evenings were spent conversing over delicious dinners. I love my grandparents.


    The grandparents, me, and a 31-week-old Fetal Friend in Estes Park.

    12,000 feet above sea level.

    A grassy knoll.

    This is what a day dream looks like.

    House cats love mountains.

    Why do elks always stop to take pictures of groups of humans?

    Four generations of ladies. (One lives in my guts.)

    We also spent two evenings with my aunt, uncle, and cousins in Longmont, where we were fed gormet meals on a beautiful back porch. Everyone seems so comfortable and at ease with eachother at my aunt and uncle’s house. My cousins don’t publicly display any signs of teenage snotiness; they are sweet, conversational, and seem genuinly happy to be part of the family. My aunt and uncle have done such a fine job at life.


    From left: Grandma, Aunt Susan, Grandpa, Kaitlin, Zander, Uncle Keith, Me.

    There was also afternoons spent looking at art at BMOCA and MCA Denver. Both museums were a trip, but most days I was just content to be breathing sparkly fresh air and having the tallest thing around have nothing to do with anything people made.

    Shaun is absent from these snaps because he stayed behind in Chicago to start an internship. If you’re wondering what a highly educated proffessional a month shy his 30th birthday is doing interning, it’s called “When Life Gives You Global Economic Melt Down, Make Lemonaide!”

    Shaun is still freelacing up a storm (he’s actually interviewing Zachary Quinto for an article today, and of this I have mixed feelings about. It’s weird when your husband chats up your Holywood crush, you know? Especially when it makes you realize that they look vaugely similar…), but securig full-time, stable employment has been elusive this year (welcome to America circa 2009!). Anyhow, Shaun figured that he’s more likely to meet professional contacts interning than freelancing from the kitchen table. The man has a fine attitude, that’s for sure. I can only aspire to be as calm and collected as he in the face of a shit storm.

    Other than that, not much is new. I’ve been reading lots lately. Work is busy and good as I prep the department for my maternity leave.

    Tomorrow, Shaun and I are attending a horribly named baby class called Great Expectations!, where we get a tour of the hospital, learn birthing techniques, and get a briefing on what to do with the little squid once we bring her home. Typically, people go to these classes throughout their pregnancy, but somehow we got busy so we’re doing the condensed version tomorrow from 8.30am-4.30pm. Yikes.

    Next week, Shaun is on assignment at the San Dieago Comicon (yay money!) and I will be hosting my step dad (not to be confused with my mom’s husband, which we can now start referring to as Grandpa Rick) and his girlfriend. The weekend following, we’re off to Mighigan to celebrate a 50th wedding anniversary. When we get back, my colleagues at work are throwing me a baby shower, which is so so sweet, but sort of crazy and I just have to go with it because, you know, it’s my boss and stuff. The week following it’s our Infant CPR class so that we know what to do if she stops breathing, and then before you know it: BABY COMES OUT OF VAGINA.

    Tonight we scored free tickets to see an improv musical staring Stephnie Weir and Nicole Parker (MadTV), Rachel Dratch and Seth Meyers (SNL) and Jack McBrayer (30 Rock). The show is at 10.30pm and I worry that I’ll be a sleepy, waddling preggo (me groin!). We’re meeting up with friends at a haunted pub before hand, too, so falling asleep would be extra anti-social.  We’ll see how it goes. If Fetal needs me to stay home and go to bed, I will. But I’m really trying to enjoy my last bit of not-arranging-and-budgeting-for-a-sitter time before it’s too late.
    ___________________________________________________________________________________
    What are you up to these days?