Midwifery and the HMO

WHERE I AM: 5 weeks pregnant (actually 3).

HOW I FEEL: Good. Solid. Grounded. Calm. Still hungry. Even had energy at the gym today. The tired I feel isn't tired from lack of rest, but tired because my body is working harder inside. I feel awake and have energy, even if I am a little sleepy.

Today I switched my healthplan for OB-GYN from Oakland to Walnut Creek Kaiser. I did this because Walnut Creek has nurse midwives I can work with for my prenatals. I doubt it's going to be quite the same as my experience working with 2 homebirth midwives during my first pregnancy, but it might be just a little less medical than seeing an OB-GYN for 10 minutes every 4 weeks prenatally. I've heard good things about Walnut Creek, and being a while upper middle class suburb, I can't imagine it's too dreary a place. I have my first appointment on the 27th of March, just after we get back from Mexico, when I'll be around 9 weeks pregnant. I don't know that I'll feel the need to go to prenatal visits as frequently as I did last time. It's all part of feeling so much more confident about everything the second time.

Early Pregnancy

WHERE I AM: 5 weeks pregnant - I've been pregnant for 3 weeks.

HOW I FEEL: Bloated and gassy and happily full with good dinner.

At this early stage in pregnancy, it's sometimes hard to believe I'm pregnant. I know I am, and I can feel the subtle changes going on. But they are still so subtle and I don't look pregnant and my hair hasn't thickened yet and I'm not nauseous or sensitive to smells yet. And yet there is life growing inside me. There is a uterus preparing a placenta to help me grow and sustain that life. There are hormones changing the smell of my pee, the flora of my vagina, the way my body digests (or tries to digest) food. It's pretty remarkable.

40 weeks feels like a long time right now. And yet when you say it, 40 weeks isn't really that long. Three quarters of a year. A school year. Plenty of time to get used to it all slowly.

Sharing the news

WHERE I AM: I've been pregnant almost 3 weeks (5 weeks)

WHAT I FEEL: Expansive and accommodating... And gassy! I remember these farts from my last pregnancy. Enough said! Also feeling a little yeasty as the hormones shift in my body and everything expands... I'm enjoying relaxing my belly, something I didn't do very early on in my last pregnancy. Only when I was around 12-15 weeks last time did I realize I was holding my belly in. I'm not doing that anymore... I've heard the second time around you pop out sooner - maybe because of the body's memory and the familiarity of relaxing my belly.

Today I shared the news of my pregnancy with Laurie and Christie. It felt good to share with them, my closest friends besides my sister Sharon and my oldest friend Karina and my good friend Julius. And my acupuncturist and my therapist - the people who help me take care of myself and now of my baby. I feel truly held as I hold this little one.

I've started talking to baby Bubblegum. :) Introducing this little spirit to the taste of my chicken soup, the feel of hot water on my body in the shower, the adrenaline rush from exercising, the taste of decaf coffee Dave makes us on weekends, the divine experience of chocolate, the silliness of baby's soon-to-be big sister. Dahlia is going to be a wonderful big sister, I just know it.

Big Sister

WHERE I AM: I've been pregnant for 2.5 weeks (4/40)

WHAT I FEEL: I'm eating non-stop. I feel like I always have food in front of me. Last night in bed I was talking to Dave about all the food I ate in college, which contributed to the extra 60 pounds I gained and carried back then. I was talking with the most amazing delight about coffeecake, cinnamon buns, mochas with whipped cream, the salad bar in the dorms, all you can eat at the Souplantation, unlimited soup, salad and breadsticks at the Olive Garden, and the biggest burritos you ever saw. Oh, and frozen yogurt with toppings. Yup, I like my food. I don't eat like that anymore, and my body doesn't let me get away with that much sugar and wheat and caffeine without protesting in all kinds of ways (except I don't gain weight easily anymore)... But I am enjoying the more healthy delights I treat myself to in a day. 4 eggs every morning, unlimited avocados, yogurt, almond butter on apples. I should stop writing about food or I'm going to eat more even though I'm not hungry.

This morning when I asked Dahlia if she wanted to wear her rain boots to school or just her regular red boots with the butterflies on them (I wish I had boots like that!) she said to me, "We're going to have to get little tiny boots and a raincoat for... for... for when the other baby comes." Keep in mind we haven't told her yet that I'm pregnant, but she knows our family is going to grow. And she's very sure its fourth member is going to be a boy. And she wants to name him Bubblegum. And he's going to be "this tiny" (she demonstrates with her thumb and forefinger about 2 mm apart) and will need a much smaller raincoat and rain boots. I guess she's right.

This morning I touched my belly and said to baby that s/he is going to love her/his big sister, because she's a very cool kid and a very sweet person. And she's in a big nurturing place right now - it's all about wrapping Snow White and Monchichi in blankets and strolling around the house with them and nursing them to health when they're sick. When I was sick with the stomach flu a few weeks ago, she even gave me her extra blanky to snuggle with. It was actually really nice to have a blanky.

I get tired right around late afternoon, ready for a nap. A happy tired. Happy to be pregnant.

Pink House

WHERE I AM: I've been pregnant for 2.5 weeks (4/40 weeks).

HOW I'M FEELING: Tired and my joints ache and teeth were sensitive this morning. But good, happy. Realized last night that my body is not my own anymore, and it won't be again until more than a year has gone by, probably longer. Good thing I have some time to get used to that again before I get big and uncomfortable. I realized also that the last time I was 2 weeks pregnant was almost 4 years ago!

Yesterday on my way to acupuncture I stopped at a light in Albany, CA in front of the most beautiful vision. A pink house, with a dark green tree directly in front of it, and a magnolia tree in full pink and burgundy bloom in front of both the house and the green tree. It made me smile, the thought of a pink house. But more than that, it made me feel peaceful and good.

I fell in love with the color pink for the first time when I was pregnant with Dahlia. I'd never liked it before, and as a kid I wasn't allowed to even consider it because my mom hated the color. Something about that color, though, when I'm pregnant just feels good. Soothing. Delicious. Nurturing. When Dave and I took classes about energy several years ago (during my first pregnancy, actually) we learned that pink is a good color to imagine going through your body for healing and nurturing. So there you go.

I just finished reading The Secret Life of Bees, and the story takes place in a pink house. Maybe that added to my sweet simple delight yesterday. I love magnolia trees, too, and they are so in full bloom everywhere around here right now. They almost look edible, like strawberry ice cream. The edible part is probably because I'm a pregnant perpetually hungry bottomless pit who loves food in general and now has an excuse to eat non-stop. :)

Hungry!

WHERE I AM: I have been pregnant for 2 weeks (4 out of 40 weeks).

WHAT I'M FEELING: Hunger! It may be partly psychological, but I want to eat all the time. Part of me is determined to gain weight more easily this time than I did my last pregnancy. Unlike most, I had a hard time gaining and maintaining enough weight last time to fatten me up enough to really be able to nurse postpartum without feeling totally depleted. And it was still hard, despite the 28 pounds I managed to gain thanks to the help of Ben & Jerry's. I will definitely eat ice cream and chocolate again this time, but probably not as much, because it didn't help my yeast balance last time, and I spent my last trimester ITCHY as all hell! That was NOT fun, and I don't plan to go through that again if I can avoid it. Otherwise, I'm a little sleepy, despite that my body seems to want to snap awake at 6:00 AM every morning.

Two friends figured out I'm pregnant yesterday when we were at the park with our kids. One of them is 7 months pregnant with her second, so she's really in the zone. After I got up to use the bathroom for the third time, she joked, "Are you sure you're not pregnant?" It's hard to keep a secret after someone asks so directly, especially after she followed up with, "I think you should take a pregnancy test!" It actually felt good to tell them, and they were very excited.

One friend reminded me that the reason I already feel bloated and pot-bellied, even though my little bundle of cells is only microscopic at this point, is because my uterus to swelling and growing and preparing to house not only a baby but a placenta, which my body is also busy making. Thus the need to pee and poop nonstop this early. Ah yes, I remember that so well. Dave and I were in Turkey for a month during my second trimester, and the big joke was that I'd pee for the 18th time before we left our hotel for sightseeing or the beach, and just as we got to the door I'd say, "Wait, I have to pee again." And Dave would respond, "But you JUST peed!" After about a week of this my response would be, "Babe, aren't you used to this by now?" Thank God for Turkish toilets - they sure help you stay clean despite 35+ visits to the bathroom every day!

Last night in bed I realized that at some point during this pregnancy I'm going to have to start sleeping on my side all the time, and then I'm going to get bigger and more uncomfortable and have a harder time sleeping. I think it was my first realization that - WOW! - I'm really doing this! It's going to be work! I am giving over my body again to help a beautiful little soul embody for this incarnation. I am totally delighted and overjoyed to do so... and I hope I can remember that when I get to that uncomfortable stage.

My midwife in Israel is ready and lined up - her name is Ilana Shemesh and she's American born but has been living in Israel since 1973. She's lovely, and she does only homebirths and loves being a midwife. She has a gorgeous website (link on this site) and brought tears to my eyes with how she writes about birth and midwifing. She'll work in our home - wherever that will be - or we can use one of the birthing cabins on her moshav. That sounds beautiful. I was born in Jerusalem and Dave was born in San Francisco, like Dahlia. So we will have two children born in the two places each of us was born. Sweet synchronicity.

I am happy to be pregnant. I feel calm, and so does Dave. I feel incredibly blessed.

Baby in my belly

WHERE I AM: I have been pregnant for 2 weeks (4 out of 40 weeks).

WHAT I FEEL: Hungry, happy, sleepy, peaceful. A little queasy, but I think that's from the not-so-good and not-cooked-enough pancakes I attempted to make with rice flour this morning. (Rice flour is not right for pancakes.)

Dahlia just came to me with a doll in her shirt and said, "Mommy, there's a baby in my belly!"
"Wow, Dahlia, mazal tov, how wonderful! Is it a boy baby or a girl baby?"
"It's a boy baby."
"What's the boy baby's name?"
"Bubble Gum! Her's in my shirt. Her's born in my shirt."

We haven't said anything to Dahlia yet about the baby growing in my belly, but we have talked about wanting to bring a baby brother or sister into our family. Dahlia has expressly requested a brother, and I told her it's up to God. That's when she looked up at the sky and said, "God, I want a brother please."

This morning she came into my room at 6:45 and I said, "Hi special girl." She replied, "Hi special Mommy."

That kid makes me smile so much. Knowing already how much a child brings to my life just makes me that much more excited about embarking on this crazy adventure once again.

The Journey Begins... Again

WHERE I AM: I have been pregnant for 2 weeks.

That makes me technically 4 weeks pregnant, since pregnancy is usually counted based on 40 weeks from my last period, which is how OB-GYNs count it. For now, I'm counting based on 38 weeks from conception. It just feels weird to say I'm 4 weeks pregnant when I've only been pregnant for 2 weeks. Maybe when I get more weeks under my belt (or should I say over my belt) I'll switch to the traditional way of counting.

Estimated due date based on my ovulation - October 28, 2007.

Scorpio. I had a feeling. I love Scorpios; my best friend Karina is a Scorpio.
Dave (my husband) loves his Scorpio brother.

WHAT I FEEL: Hungry, sleepy, gassy, happy, deeply in love with my husband, in love with my daughter Dahlia in a whole new way.

Yesterday a pregnancy test confirmed what I'd started to suspect on the drive home from visiting my dad.
During that drive the thought crossed my mind: Maybe I actually WAS pregnant?

I'd thought that I might be a few weeks ago, because I was nauseous.
But that turned out to be that nasty stomach norovirus that has been going around, and which my three year old daughter, Dahlia, had the week before.
Incidentally, Dahlia was sick with that bug during the weekend Dave and I had sex four nights in a row right around my ovulation, with the very focused intention of conceiving.
I found it quite amusing that our first child was sick as a dog right when my body was primed for conception of our second - kind of like life preparing you for being the parents of TWO children.

We conceived Dahlia the first month we started trying back in 2003.
We are incredibly blessed to have conceived on the first try again.
Those kinds of amazing miracles aren't lost on me - a LOT of things have to go right in order to make a child.

In the first two weeks of this pregnancy, I didn't know if I was craving chocolate because of pregnancy hormones or premenstrual ones.
I sure consumed a lot of Toblerone, though. Yum.
I had little cramps every once in a while, night sweats like I sometimes get premenstrually, the occasional pimple and greasy skin.
But a few days ago I realized that something felt different.
I wasn't really feeling premenstrual. My period wasn't coming.
Maybe I WAS pregnant after all, despite the stomach flu in my daughter and myself.

My body is an incredibly resilient and efficient mechanism when my spirit is focused on creation.

I bought a pregnancy test on my way home and it came out positive, but the plus sign was a little vague - the vertical line not quite as dark as the horizontal line.
So I took the second test that came in the box, and it came out negative.
I know you can often have a false negative, but a false positive?
If you've got that pregnancy hormone the test detects, even if it's faint, that means it's there in your body, right?
Dave and I were confused.

Of course I had to go to Safeway at 9pm and buy another test. I laughed to find it was on sale!
The first one came out negative too. Weird.
I said to Dave that I'd wait a few days, until several days after my period was supposed to arrive, and take the second one.
I thought maybe my acupuncturist would be able to tell me one way or another, based on my pulses.
I managed to wait about 18 hours before opening the wrapper on that second test and peeing on it this afternoon.
Another faint positive, but definitely positive.
PREGNANT.