land of the (UN)cool

I decided last week that after another week of expansion it was time to get a few more maternity items.

It’s weird to shop for this stuff initially. When I was just getting puffy (but anticipating getting big) I went into a Motherhood Maternity store expecting lots of awesome. Of course, I got choked up, miserable, and hot. Every first makes me feel weepy anyway, and the ugly clothes made me weepier. Everything looked unfamiliar and I didn’t know how to negotiate it. I had no idea what size to get for a belly that had yet to come. I managed to get over myself and grab a pair of jeans. Apparently you get the same size you are pre-pregnancy theres just this really huge elastic waist instead of buttons and zippers.
My second attempt was the other day. I had a goal of getting a few tops and maybe a dress. I went into Target and managed to not get teary-eyed while I headed for the scary maternity section. Why is every thing black or red or tan?  It feels weird to dress in black when I’m pregnant. Black is for cool and backstage. I don’t know why, but maternity seems like it should be a little more stylish...I mean your body is already morphing into something crazy, the least designers could do is make you feel pretty with clothes. But I don’t want to spend a lot…there are some really hip sites with great clothes for a woman who wants to spend $75 on a top. Me, not so much. So, I am stuck in the boring middle ground of looking at places like Target and Motherhood. But why is everything so horrible? Are the manufacturers of moderately priced maternity clothes subliminally yelling at pregnant women to cover up? “YOU’RE A MOM NOW! NOBODY WANTS TO SEE ANY PART OF YOUR NECK!!” I am officially uncool. Not that I was cool before, but I could at least dress the part. Now...theres no hiding my uncoolness. Letting go of cool does have its perks...embarassing, but yet, still perks.
So I was shopping while wearing cut off yoga pants, a hat with completely outta control curly hair under it, a crappy tight red T-shirt, running shoes, and an oversize hoodie that came out of the mens dept. last week because womens hoodies dont zip over my belly. I looked like a really bad version of Julia Roberts in that movie where she disguises herself in order to run away from her abusive husband. All I lacked was the fake mustache. In my defense I had just finished walking the neighborhood...either way, I had a revelation. That I had become that woman that I always dreaded...careless and sloppily clothed with no makeup and a messy ponytail in a public place that was not a gym. But I WANTED some cool maternity clothes! So I drive to the mall...
More embarrassment. I park by the food court and before I get out of the car I thought, what store am I going to find maternity clothes in a mall full of "teeny bopper" stores? I look over. Sears was right next door. I reasoned that Sears of all places should have maternity clothes-it seems like a very matronly place and they have EVERYTHING. They only thing I’ve ever purchased at a Sears is a stove and a washer/dryer. I got over my prejudice that Sears was a place for old ladies and decided to go in. But before I got out of the car, I really wanted to finish a pretzel that I purchased at Target for my “second breakfast.” So as I was sitting there, I realized that I was dressed in sweat clothes eating a pretzel in my car in front of Sears. The brutal reality forced me to do the only thing I could imagine doing at a moment like this–I texted my gorgeous, insanely cool, perfect-haired, immaculately dressed, photographer/model friend Amanda and told her. It was some form of self torture. I was hideous and I needed to revel in it and soak it up for what it was worth.
I marched into Sears AND JC Penny’s in my sloppy outfit clutching my pretzel and looked at rows of dowdy unattractive clothes. I went into maternity section after maternity section and soaked up all the horrific tops and pants and big bras. Determined to find a dress and just one or two freaking tops, I even went into Dilliards. That was the most humiliating and freeing thing of all. Dilliards contains expensive, small clothes purchased by pretty thin ladies who dress up to go shopping early in the morning. Lets be honest, its the "Macy's" of my lame small town. Now I was slouching around Dilliards looking like a janitor or somebody about to unload a gun on the place. I was especially mortified when I walked by all the makeup counter girls. If I was them, I totally would have judged me. But there was a small part of me that enjoyed this state of disrepair–not even one Kiosk boy called out to me to ask if he could ask me a question. I was ugly and living on Mars. It was both great and awful. But the thing I kept reminding myself of was that I HAD CHOSEN to dress this way. Am I on my way to becoming sloppy sweatpant mom?
They were probably afraid I was concealing a weapon instead of carrying a baby bump.

 No.

I never found that dress or those tops. The only ones available looked like they belonged on an elderly woman at a senior citizen home.
So I gave up on real maternity clothes and bought clothes from a teeny bopper store that seemed to work really well as faux maternity clothes. I’m not ready to surrender to Sears.
It’s humbling, and anything that humbles us is supposed to be good for us. Some women accept pregnancy changes very gracefully and I applaud them. I just don’t want to look like a frumpy weirdo while I learn to accept my expanding shape.
Oh, and while I was in the mall I walked by another pretzel shop while I was eating my first one and actually considered a second…

2 Miracles & A Baby Story

I don’t like watching “A Baby Story” on TLC. It seems that every single woman featured on the show gets an epidural or a C-section at the hospital. I’m always disappointed in it, because there are rarely natural births, and NEVER home births.
But I wasn't feeling well so I was laying down and there was like, NOTHING else on t.v. So I found myself watching “A Baby Story” anyway, and was of course disappointed by watching women beg for an epidural at the first sign of pain. One young woman even said “I panicked the second I felt pressure, and I don’t want to feel ANYTHING.” I’m not discounting the fact that labor could possibly be an excruciating experience. I’m in a very comfortable position of ignorance. I am a perfect candidate for home birth because I have absolutely no idea what I’m in for as far as how painful it will be. Stomach cramp?! Stomach cramp times 1000?!?! Being stabbed repeatedly by a butcher knife?!?! In my blissful ignorance, I watch women beg for pain medication in wonder, thinking “How bad does that hurt? That must hurt really, really bad.” Even the women that come in determined not to get an epidural succumb eventually and get a needle stabbed into their spine so they can go numb. So I’m watching all this go on, my mind racing, and a MIRACLE happened.
I felt my baby "flutter" around in there!
Unbelievable.
Then, miracle number 2 happened (I know what your thinking, TWO miracles, yeah right).
The next episode coming up was a home birth!
I was so excited I decided to stay in bed despite the arguement in my head that I should get out there and start walking. The woman was explaining how everybody looks at her like she has three heads when she tells them she’s planning on a home birth,  and then said that she just stopped telling people. People think you’re a misguided freak of some sort, or they just think you’re irresponsible and totally disregarding the safety of your baby. Thankfully, the people who truly know me know that this is something I want to do, and they’ve embraced it and supported the idea.
I was so overjoyed to watch this woman’s birth story. Her birthing experience was so close to what I want mine to be. And for the first time ever watching this stupid show, I actually cried watching a woman in labor. It was beautiful. Her effort and struggle were just beautiful. It was primitive and instinctual and seemed so right.
 I think God gave me a burst of inspiration today by letting me feel a flutter, letting me know my baby is there, and that s/he is counting on me. It was just what I needed to remind me that I CAN DO THIS, and I can do it just the way I'm planning, despite all the women on "A Baby Story"!

Ugh, Yoga!

I think I’m the only woman in the world who actually gets angry while doing Yoga. There is something seriously wrong with my approach, obviously.

I’m trying to do this prenatal stuff, which seems embarrassingly easy.  They’ve modified all the poses to accomodate a gigantic pregnant woman’s belly and mine isn't very gigantic yet, keep in mind! The stretching is insanely gentle. They’re barely making you hold anything for more than half a second. And I’m still doing a crappy job. It seems really, really hard. And it makes me get mad at this hippied out blond woman named Shiva who really needs to tweeze her eyebrows.   She’s clearly holding back busting out her usual routine. I don’t like it when she tells me to open my ribcage and feel like a bird is about to fly out of it. I appreciate touchy-feely, but I can’t handle trying to imagine a bird flapping out of my chest. I’m straining to keep my back straight, to barely get my hands close to my ankles, to get into a triangle…sigh.

So I feel like a little bit of a failure, but I’m determined to get better. I know part of natural birth is trusting your body, but I must have spent a lot of time distrusting it over the last several years!

So Yoga. I have to do it, and I don’t have a choice now. It’s supposed to be the best thing for an easier labor.  It’s only my 5th day, and I spent most of the hour cursing and breathing like I was running track instead of doing something that is supposedly meditative.  I’m annoyed by my tight chest muscles that won’t let me get a deep breath. I’m annoyed by my tight shoulders that make it really hard to reach. And I’m annoyed that those really big pregnant ladies are doing better than me. Jerks.

I’ll get better, but this is a LOT harder than I thought. I think there’s something here that I have to overcome-my body is not my enemy.  So I’m just going to try and open my stupid heart chakra and keep it up.

Advice, really?!?!

My mom is a treasure to me. She has always had wisdom. I have asked her her opinion on countless things since I was a little girl. She’s not only wise, she’s comforting. She has that wonderful talent of offering an opinion with love, in a way that doesn’t make you feel like a screw up. I believe in the advice of women who have gone through this, one’s who’ve weathered the storm of childbirth and are finding their way through motherhood. They just know things. They know mommy things. They tell me I’m going to do okay and that I’ll figure it out and to not try to be perfect.
However.
There are some batty women out there who think that because they’ve just met you and know you’re pregnant that it is their god-given right to tell you how to live your pregnancy. It’s amazing. One woman I ran into in particular was absolutely RELENTLESS in advising me on everything from cloth diapers (“Ugh! Cloth!? You’ll regret that, and worst of all, you’re going to give your baby severe diaper rash”) to home birth (“You have no idea how fast everything will move. You’ll have no time to get to the hospital if there is a problem.”) Okay, this is coming from a woman who had a PLANNED Cesarean.  She has one 6 month old child, and she is a self-proclaimed expert on all things pregnancy, delivery, and post delivery.
I also had somebody say to me “CPR training is the difference between a dead baby and a live baby.” DON’T SAY THE WORDS “DEAD BABY” TO A PREGNANT WOMAN!!!! My god. Have some common sense.
So it continues. One of my friends is a fantastic help, and she’s so incredibly mellow. And it seems to me that mellow-hood is the key to making this all work. There are so many factors, so many variables on X, and everything requires infinite flexibility. You’re growing a child in you. That can either completely make you freak out and lose your mind and sense of perspective, or it can empower you to say “I’m definitely doing the best I can.”
I think about Baby growing in there constantly. There’s a new awareness in every moment of my life now. When I wake up at night, I’m in a pregnant mind, when I shower, when I go to work, eat, walk, write, do dishes…it’s all with this constant mantra or sense or something…”I’m pregnant, I’m pregnant, I’m pregnant.”  I think about the banana I’m eating and wonder what amazing things it will do nutritionally to help Baby grow. I hold my belly and shake it a little to tell Baby I know s/he’s there. When I rest, I think “this is good for Baby.” When I’m driving, I’m extra careful. It seems like this heightened state of awareness is something we all need in our lives, concerning just the fact that we’re human beings and we’re ALIVE. It’s a miracle. We all started as little miracles and here we all are, walking around, talking, driving, fighting, laughing…but I’ve lived and don’t think I’ve ever been this conscious of it. Somebody else is going to be here on this planet because of the miracle, the beautiful gift of life.
So it kind of helps to put all of the ridiculous naysayers telling you that there is a RIGHT way (their way) and a wrong way (my way) into perspective. Like everything else, you make the best choices you can and have faith that everything is going to turn out for the best.
Still hoping for a home birth, still waiting to see what life brings in the next few months. But I really feel, I honestly trust, that its going to be OKAY.