Tag Archives: pregnancy

5 Weeks Pregnant: Peeing on a Stick

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July 20 – July 26: 5 Weeks 0 Days – 5 Weeks 6 Days

The Test

The first day after I got back from Wanderlust, I took a pregnancy test while my husband was at work. Tick-tock-tick-tock-tick-tock Pregnant! I did a legitimate double take and felt my eyes bulge. Then I smiled and laughed. I put the pregnancy test back on the bathroom counter where it had matured and paced around the apartment with my hands on my belly and a flurry of thoughts running through my head: Yay, I’m pregnant! Oh my God, I’m pregnant… How did this happen so quickly? How far along am I? How should I tell Richard? When am I allowed to tell other people? My dog, Foxy, diligently followed at my heels as I aimlessly ambled back and forth down the hallway.

Pregnant!

“Pregnant”!

The Announcement

I finally decided I would go to a baby clothing store, get a shirt that said “big sister,” and cut leg holes in it so Foxy could wear it. The first thing Richard does when gets home is greet the dog at the door, so it would be the first thing he saw.

Foxy and I walked up to Noe Valley in San Francisco, which is a hotspot for babies and dogs. It didn’t take us long to find a baby clothing boutique with a big sister shirt. The woman helping me asked me what size I needed. “Ummm,” I stalled guiltily, “Well, it’s actually for my dog.” She looked at me like I was nuts. “Okay, here’s what’s going on,” I admitted, “I just found out I’m pregnant and I want to tell my husband in a creative way, so I’m looking for a big sister shirt for my dog.” She was giddy that I’d let her in on the plan and proceeded to look through every single one of their used tops for me to try to find a cheaper used version of the shirt that I could justify cutting holes into. No luck. I almost bought the pricey brand new shirt, but I knew Richard would start obsessing about how we were going to pay for the baby’s college education as soon as he found out we were pregnant, so I decided to reformulate my plan.

When Richard came home Monday night, I had a couple homemade, hand-decorated cupcakes waiting for him with a sweet interactive picture book I found.

Daddies are for Catching Fireflies

Cupcakes and an interactive picture book I set out on the table to let Richard in on the joyous news

I was curled up on the couch reading when he got home, trying to hide my anticipation. When he saw the set up on the table, he asked, “What’s this? …Wait… What? Are you…” he met my smile, “Are you pregnant?”

“Yeah,” I admitted, sheepishly.

A little overwhelmed, he came and curled up beside me on the couch and we read “Daddies are For Catching Fireflies” together.

Once I got that positive test, my hint of nausea turned into overpowering nausea. I made the mistake of telling Richard that I suspected the nausea was at least partly psychosomatic, and he never let that go. Maybe it is just in my head, but I certainly don’t know how to turn it off!

The Appointment

It had been over eight weeks since my last period started. I didn’t think I was that far along, but I thought I’d better see—see—um, wait, who do you see when you’re pregnant? That was the first thing I had to figure out. Google told me to make an appointment with an OB/GYN. I found one that was close to our new house, had pretty good Yelp reviews, and happened to have an appointment available. In that moment, I was too overwhelmed to consider anything beyond those criteria for choosing someone to potentially deliver my baby. I just wanted someone with authority to tell me everything was going to be okay.

I didn’t have a full enough bladder to get a urine test at the beginning of the appointment to confirm my pregnancy. As such, the whole appointment was phrased in terms of “if you’re pregnant.” She told me that at my age, there was about a 15% rate of miscarriage. If we found a heart beat on the ultrasound, that risk would drop down to 3%. We didn’t find a heart beat on the ultrasound—it was too early. (Side note: If you’re going in for your first appointment, Google transvaginal ultrasound ahead of time to set your expectations. I did not even know this was a thing, and it caught me off guard). The doctor pointed to a tiny black dot on the screen and said, “If you’re pregnant, that’s the baby. If all goes well, we’ll see that spec grow over time.” Obviously the doctor needed to protect her liability, but the language of the appointment left me feeling detached.

After finally confirming I was actually pregnant via a urine test at the end of the appointment, she sent me home with some reading material. I read a small booklet about screening tests when I got home. All of the ones recommended for my age detected 50-90% of chromosomal abnormalities, and had the proviso “most women who test positive [for chromosomal abnormalities] give birth to healthy babies.” I couldn’t help but think that getting tested might not be worth the stress of getting a false positive. Richard and I would discuss more in the weeks to come. The other book was a manual on pregnancy and childbirth, and the longest chapter was about common discomforts of pregnancy. I got used to reading, “There are no safe medications to relieve X during pregnancy.” However, there were a ton of alternative suggestions for each discomfort, which turned out to be invaluable!

18 Weeks Pregnant: Pregnancy Firsts

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October 20 – October 26: 18 Weeks 0 Days – 18 Weeks 6 Days.

My eighteenth week of pregnancy was a week of firsts:

First Round Ligament Pain

Unknowingly at the time, Jane Austin‘s Prenatal Yoga Teacher Training was one of the best things I did to prepare for pregnancy. I took it years ago, but it permanently shifted my perception of pregnancy and birth from unknown and scary to natural and empowering. We read books like Ina May’s Guide to Childbirth and watched videos of real labors and births (which can be completely different from what we see on TV and in movies). We also came to understand the changes that occur in a pregnant woman’s body so we could form sequences of yoga poses that could help alleviate discomfort and prepare women for labor and birth. A piece of this training came back to me in the middle of the night this week.

I woke up uncomfortable (which is getting to be a usual occurrence), and as I rolled over and yelped as I felt a sharp, stabbing pain in my right lower abdomen. My first thought was, Oh my God, I have a hernia. My intestines definitely just burst through my abdominal wall. I worriedly palpated my abdomen, but didn’t feel any odd bulges. My second thought was, Wait, didn’t Jane Austin say something about pain in the ligaments that support the uterus? That’s one of the reasons pregnant women aren’t suppose to sit straight up… I reached for my phone, Googled “uterus ligament pain pregnancy,” and was displayed a list of websites about round ligament pain naming the exact symptoms I’d just experienced. Unless the pain persists, it’s relatively harmless.

I’m so grateful that tidbit of information from Jane’s training stuck, or I’d have been up all night worrying (and probably Googling much scarier things).

First Baby Kick!

While I was teaching yoga, I demoed supta baddha konasana (reclined butterfly pose). As my knees opened and my lower abdomen broadened, I felt a little pop below my belly button. It wasn’t painful, it felt like a little tiny fist without much strength behind it had socked me from the inside. It was pretty neat, and made the baby immediately seem more real. When I went to my appointment later in the week, the midwife heard a kick on the fetal heart rate monitor, so I’m pretty sure that what I felt while teaching yoga was indeed the baby. I haven’t felt much else since, but chances are the baby’s movements are such an unfamiliar sensations that I don’t recognize them yet.

First Group Prenatal Session

Saint Luke’s, the hospital I plan to give birth at, has the option of doing prenatal sessions individually or in a group of women with similar due dates. This week was my first group prenatal session, and I loved it! At the begin, we recorded our own weight and blood pressure, which I enjoyed as a subtle way to take ownership or my own health and body. Then, we each got a couple minutes of one-on-one time with a midwife off to the side to listen to our baby’s heartbeat and ask personal questions. The rest of the session was in a group setting, wherein we discussed the discomforts of pregnancy (we focus on a different topic every time). It was great to get the midwife’s professional opinions on information from articles and books I’d read and to discuss solutions with other women experiencing the similar changes. I’m looking forward to my next sessions!

First Week Fending for Myself

Richard has been reading The Birth Partner, and has been taking its advice to heart. Already, he’s been trying to support me in any way I need, which usually means making me snacks. That made it especially lonely when he was away on business the whole week. It wasn’t that hard to be alone, but it accented what a wonderful luxury it is to have a supportive partner who will cut up mangoes for me, rub cocoa butter on my belly, and voluntarily carry my purse and all the shopping bags for me when I’m tired. Needless to say, I glad to have him back and I’m trying not to use up all his goodwill before I really need it.

18 Weeks

Eighteen weeks pregnant. I’m wearing a maternity shirt, but I still don’t have much of a bump to fill it out.

(I love the shirt I’m wearing above because it’s got a peek-a-boob feature so it can double as a nursing top when the baby arrives. I’m much more willing to spend money on something that I can wear for more than just a few months! Here’s the link to the Etsy store I bought it from, if anyone is interested).

4 Weeks Pregnant: First Symptoms of Pregnancy

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July 13 – July 19: 4 Weeks 0 Days – 4 Weeks 6 Days.

Before I was ready to have a baby, I must have fearfully Googled “first symptoms of pregnancy” on dozens of occasions in months when my cycle lasted unusually long. Here’s how those early symptoms actually showed up for me when I did get pregnant (thankfully, it happened when I was good and ready!):

Bound Side Angle

Days before finding out I was pregnant I spent a wonderful weekend doing onderful weekend of outdoor yoga in the mountains at the Wanderlust Festival.

On the Wednesday of this week, my friend Stephanie and I headed up to the Wanderlust Yoga Festival in Squaw Valley. My breasts were sore and I was feeling the teeniest bit nauseous, and I kept telling Steph, “My period is going to start any day now.”

As we walked through the vendors scattered throughout the Olympic Village, Steph kept pointing out free samples: turmeric juice, coconut milk ice cream bars, multigrain crackers with vegan spread—it was a yogis paradise. Carbs—and sugar in particular—are an unshakable vice for me: more than once in university, I polished off a kilogram of wine gums during a single night of studying. But at Wanderlust, every time I imagined eating any of those samples it made my belly ache. As Steph enjoyed her pineapple popsicle, I told her that with maturity and experience I had realized sugar didn’t really serve my body. Yeah right, I should have know something was up. I think the only free samples I got all weekend were juices and when went to acquire them I asked a question my lips had never-before uttered: “What’s your least sweet option?”

Chin Pose.

Chin pose. We progressed into a deeper backbend—bending the knees and reaching the toes toward the head—before rolling back into upward facing dog.

In my yoga classes, I pushed my body in a lot of ways I may not have had a known I was pregnant—mostly in a class taught by a pregnant lady, actually. For example, we did a transition from chin balance backbend to upward

Upward Facing Dog

Upward facing dog pose.

facing dog, rolling along the belly—summary: thud. My practice didn’t feel too different from normal, but I did feel disconnected from my core. Handstand has never been my forte, and I was even less stable trying to kick up into it than usual. I remember telling the partner that I was working with that my core just didn’t seem to feel like turning on, and had the distinct thought, maybe I’m pregnant. However, a week and a half earlier I’d taken a pregnancy test with a negative result, and besides, Richard and I had just barely started trying.

I did a couple amazing guided meditations with Lora McCarville that focused on removing barriers and forming a clear vision for the future. The images that came up for me included me, Richard, three children, and a larger dog than I’d ever want to own. My stance has always been that one kid might be enough—we’ll see how the first one goes and maybe have a second, but that’s it! Who knows what surprises and transformations of opinion the future holds!

17 Weeks Pregnant: Big Feelings

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October 13 – October 19: 17 Weeks 0 Days – 17 Weeks 6 Days.

I may have freaked out this week.

A few years ago I took a yoga training with Hala Khouri about teaching at-risk youth. She explained kids’ emotions in a way that stuck with me: kids have big feelings. When little Jimmy drops his ice cream on the ground, his emotional response is not the same as an adult’s. We may dismiss him: “Don’t get so upset. It’s just ice cream;” but for him, it’s a death in the family, an amputated limb, the rapture and he was left behind. In order to hold space for little Jimmy to process this experience, we must acknowledge that what he’s feeling is enormous. A more compassionate response might be, “I understand that it’s hard to lose something. It’s okay to feel upset.”

I don’t know if it’s the yoga or just my personality, but I usually have the opposite of big feelings. Rage and jealousy are rare for me, I can’t be bothered with grudges that last more than a couple hours, and I’d describe my experience of excitement more as joyful anticipation. Pregnancy put an amplifier on all that.

In my first trimester I was introduced to pregnancy crying. I’m okay with shedding some tears and all, but, just like little Jimmy who dropped his ice cream, once I start crying I can’t stop! On top of that, it escalates: sniffling progresses to sobbing, sobbing progresses to wailing, and when I was at the height of my nausea, wailing progressed puking. That equanimous part of my psyche that stands back to observe my experience understands that my reaction is way out-of-proportion to whatever the trigger was, but instead of doing anything about it she stares on in helpless disbelief and mutters, “WTF.”

This week wasn’t my first freak out: early on in pregnancy, I got mad at some movers for having too long a truck (our apartment building had two large parking garages, and they either had to block one garage door or the other). When I confronted them I wasn’t trying to leave the building, I was just upset on principle. Maybe this reaction would be normal for people with a more confrontational disposition, but I wouldn’t usually expend energy and circulate a bunch of stress hormones over a problem that would most likely solve itself. Sure enough, after moving the truck back and forth several times to let tenants in and out, the movers separated the cab from the trailer to accommodate both garage doors. What happened this week had less of an external me-telling-people-off component, but the internal emotional experience was immense.

Patio before and after

I replaced my patios wood mulch gardens with black Mexican pebbles.

When we were looking for our new home, the intention was to find The House. You know, the one you pour blood, sweat, and tears into making your own, raise your kids in, and retire in. The house we bought and now live in has plentiful outdoor space, and my first blood, sweat, and tears project is to zen-ify the front patio.

Last Saturday I picked up my fourth and final 200-300 lb load of black Mexican pebbles, which Richard diligently loaded and unloaded for me (my low back hasn’t been tolerating heavy lifting well). As soon as I poured the first bag into the garden, I knew something was wrong—they didn’t match the other rocks. I dug them out of the garden and put them back in the bag. A couple days later, Richard loaded the rocks back into the car for me, and I took them back to landscaping store first thing in the morning to suggest that my pebbles may have been mismarked. After examining the rocks through the dusty bag I’d packing-taped shut, the man at the landscape store kindly insisted that the stones were black, but offered to exchange the bags for different ones anyway if I really wanted to. “No, it’s okay,” I sighed, feeling kind of silly, “I must have overreacted.”

Mismatched stones

I poured water over the stones compare their colors. The stones on the left are the ones in the rest of the garden, the ones on the right are the last batch. (See, they -are- different!)

I took the bags home (where Richard had to unload them yet again), and immediately dumped all six 50-lb bags into the garden. And then I really overreacted. The new rocks definitely did not match the others. The old rocks were exclusively shades of gray, the new rocks included shades of green and orange. Overwhelmed, I ran back inside the house and took a couple deep breaths, then went back outside hoping to have a fresh perspective. I kid you not, when I saw those motley stones my life literally flashed before my eyes: I saw 5 years, 30 years, 50 years into the future, how every time I stepped out into my patio for the rest of my life I would cringe at the sight of the rocks. I put my hand over my mouth and ran back inside.

I repeated this melodramatic (but very real to me, at the time) sequence several times, each round featuring a different train of thought tragically crashing in an explosion of big feelings and sending me running back into the house near tears:

Maybe it was just the lighting… Oh God no, they’re so different. Why do they only have men working at the landscaping store?? Men are much more prone color blindess!

They look like rainbow-colored aquarium pebbles! My patio is lined with giant aquarium pebbles. I can’t even…

The colorful rocks aren’t so bad. I can just mix them in with the others so the garden looks more uniform. Then I looked at the side of the patio that was completed to my vision. No! Green and orange accents were not what I had in mind. These rocks are a bastardization of my vision. I hate them and I can’t even handle looking at them! But they’re already all in the garden. What am I going to do??

By the time Richard told me it was time for me to drive him to his bus stop I was beside myself, fanning a hand next to my temple like a swooning southern belle. While driving, I tearfully redirected my frustration toward myself, “Why didn’t I trust my intuition? I knew those rocks weren’t right, but I didn’t exchange them even though the guy said I could. Why didn’t I trust myself enough to just exchange them! I was right there, it would’ve taken less than ten minutes.” I don’t think I was actually expecting an answer, but I got one anyway. Richard said plainly, “Because you don’t like asking for help, and you didn’t want to make those guys unload and reload the rocks for you.” In that moment, that didn’t make me feel better and didn’t stop me from continuing to lament (I think Richard was pretty glad when he got to get out of the car), but wow, how accurate.

In retrospect, that clear statement from my husband, my mirror, was invaluably informative. I was willing to completely disregard my knowledge and intuition to avoid inconveniencing someone, even if the result would be life-shattering (or at least feel that way for an hour). I will have to reverse that habit before attempting a natural birth in a hospital setting where medical interventions may be offered as often for your health as for convenience, comfort, and liability reasons. From everything I’ve read and learned, natural birth is all about intuition and self-trust; one of my affirmation is: my body knows exactly what to do.

By the time I got home I’d calmed down and started focusing on the solution rather than the problem. I went to work digging the rocks out of the garden and repackaging them. I put my low back out of commission for the rest of the day by lugging one of the bags down to the landscaping store and exchanging it for a bag of black Mexican pebbles that beautifully matched the rest of my garden. The next day Richard obligingly loaded the rest of the offensive rocks back into the car and then unloaded the ones I exchanged them for. I tried not to feel guilty about asking him for help.

My patio

Here’s how to patio looks now. Looking forward to adding more plants!

My matching rocks were all in place or the housewarming party on Saturday and I even had time to put in some more potted plants. My vision is coming together! As for the big feelings: I’m continuing to take them in stride, allowing myself to laugh about them in retrospect, and trying to remember to thank my husband for being so incredibly supportive.

Succulent cupcakes

Succulent cupcakes for the housewarming party to match the plants in the patio.

ps – If you’re interested in making the succulent cupackes, I used this tutorial.

3 Weeks Pregnant: Pre-Conception Nutrition

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July 6 – July 12 : 3 Weeks 0 Days – 3 Weeks 6 Days.

I have an irregular cycle (one of the reasons I was sure I was going to be infertile), so it takes me a while to worry about being “late.” By the second week of July it had been six weeks since the beginning of my cycle, so I took pregnancy test—just to check. It was negative, which makes sense since pregnancy tests don’t accurately detect pregnancy until nearly two weeks after conception (which is called “4 weeks pregnant”). I assumed I’d simply skipped a period due to the stress of closing on our new home over the last two weeks.

Wedding at Yosemite

Even though I’d made no indication Richard and I had even talked about trying, months earlier, my mom insisted I get this flowy dress for the wedding in case I ended up pregnant by then. Little did I know I was!

That weekend my two-week old embryo got some fresh mountain air when Richard and I drove up to Yosemite National Park for our friends’ elegant outdoor wedding. I felt oddly emotional while there, and I remember telling Richard I was definitely PMS’ing and that my period would start in the next week.

One of my New Years resolutions last year was to cultivate space in my heart and life for a child. Richard and I had talked about having kids, but I hadn’t really let that intention fully integrate. As part of that process, I read the memoir Having Faith by Sandra Steingraber, which is an amazing read about the impact of environmental factors on prenatal development. One of the points the author drives home is that many fish are contaminated with heavy metals, industrial chemicals, and pesticides, which can be extremely harmful to the embryo and fetus. These substances are arguably more harmful than alcohol, but for some reason booze gets all the attention. Since heavy metals take six months to leave the body, I chose to start immediately shifting my seafood consumption to fish known to be the least contaminated, such as salmon. Needless to say, when Richard and I selected our wedding reception meals months before the Yosemite wedding, I diligently selected “vegetarian” instead of “fish.” When we got our plates at the reception dinner, although my lentil cakes were delicious, I eyed Richard’s lemon-crusted salmon enviously—I’m going to assume it was farmed salmon to make myself feel better.

That weekend, I was more tempted than I’ve been in a long time to have a flute of champagne and a splash of dessert wine—especially since I’d just tested negative for pregnancy—but I settled for lemonade. I stopped drinking alcohol a year or two ago for several reasons, including the possibility that I might get pregnant. The evidence around exactly how much alcohol is safe during pregnancy is mixed, but if alcohol is going to cause damage, it does its worst early: between three and eight weeks after conception when the embryo is rapidly morphing and organizing into a human shape.

It has always made me nervous how vital and sensitive the early stages of development are, considering that it might take me several weeks to realize I’m pregnant. Another example: a folic acid deficiency during early pregnancy can cause severe neural tube defects.  For that reason, I also started taking prenatal supplements well in advance (well, intermittently anyway).

By the time I found out I was pregnant, I was grateful for the preconception care I’d committed to because I didn’t feel any guilt or worry that I’d exposed my embryo to potential damage. I felt I’d done the best I could with the knowledge I had, and with a diligence that didn’t create a ton of extra stress in my life (e.g. At a sushi restaurant, I would order a roll that contained some tuna if there weren’t enough salmon-only or vegetarian options available, and I never bothered asking if the salmon was wild or farmed).

Although I believe I made the best choices for me, I’m not about to stand up behind a podium to prescribe my way to all pregnant mamas (or pre-pregnant mamas). Maybe I should have done less: I just read that most prenatal vitamins have trace amounts of lead in them, so maybe starting them so early has done more harm than good considering I already have a pretty balanced diet. It’s impossible to know. Maybe I could have done more: I didn’t make a concerted effort to preemptively avoid BPA, caffeine, salmon sashimi, or cats. Pregnancy is hard enough—especially with how equivocal all the research is around it—there’s no room for us to be making each other feel bad because we choose different paths.  Each woman makes the perfect decisions that make the most sense to her.