Here we are in the third trimester, the final stage of the pregnancy journey before the Big Moment, when Stanley and I get to meet face to face. So that's what you look like, I'll get to think. Hey! Where'd my world go?? And what's this thing holding me?? Stanley will wonder.
Stanley's definitely getting used to his/her world in there. Stanley's movements have gotten a lot more coordinated, and I'm pretty sure the little devil is using this newfound talent to rock his/her world. Literally. A good sharp kick in the ribs is sure to shock anybody, and when it comes from the inside at unexpected moments, the resulting earthquake must be quite a ride.
I have a small mischevious streak, and my mother claims that I jumped up and down on her bladder on purpose. Mischeviousness may well be genetic, which may account for these sudden, purposeful jabs.
In any case the rumblings and rollings and sudden right-left jabs are getting much more noticeable in an Alien kind of way, so much so that I have to be careful not to lay a full glass on what's left of the flat of my stomach or it may get spilled with one powerful acrobatic twist on Stanley's part. And we're only at the beginning of this final, fun trimester.
Can I claim being battered from the inside as some sort of insidious domestic abuse? Or is this what my mother meant when she said, a gleam in her eye: just you wait? Does all this activity indicate a wild child? Or is Stanley just getting it all out of the way now so s/he'll be a model of angelic sweetness the rest of his/her life?
Only time will tell; we're only ten weeks away. Only ten weeks, a veritable eternity of constant Stanley activity. Oh well. At least we know Stanley's still in there.
Saturday, January 27, 2007
Sunday, January 14, 2007
Myth versus Reality
For the past two weeks I have been covering for a co-worker, the Network Administrator, while he goes off for a much needed vacation in St. Martins. I've covered for him before, but never for so long a period of time, and never at quite such a critical time; the first two weeks of the New Year. Naturally, I've been quite busy, since I am effectively doing the job of two people.
One (but not all) of the duties of my job is to collect and funnel Help Desk requests to the appropriate people. As the self-imposed first line of defense, I'm supposed to handle the "simple stuff" (are you sure your computer is on?), but often I'm able to funnel some of them off to the Network Administrator, with the excuse that I have other things to do. Being the Help Desk means that I am constantly being interrupted, and that's when we're fully staffed. Being the Help Desk and the Network Administrator pretty much ensures that my entire day is spent putting out fires. Especially when two switches and a tape deck die in rapid succession, the main file server seems to be asleep, people are screaming because a printer isn't printing or their email is on the fritz, not to mention all those calls where people are asking how to save a file in Word.
Clearly, some things will begin to fall through the cracks at this point.
So on Wednesday we had a three hour kick off meeting on a new product venture, which blew everyone's schedules out of whack. At the end of the meeting, no less than five people converged on me, wanting to talk about wildly different subjects and all of which needed to be dealt with asap. Doing my own mental task list, which put these items in a relative order of importance, I accomplished each one in turn, finally getting back to my desk half an hour later to accomplish the last, when my phone rang. It was the woman who had asked for Task #5.
"Sorry," I said, not feeling sorry at all, "I will get to it now."
"Pregnancy will do that to you," she said, a non-sequitor of monumental proportions.
"What?"
"Pregnancy. Makes you forgetful."
"Uh... doing two people's jobs will do that too." I didn't bother to point out that I had just gotten back to my desk and technically that didn't count as "having forgotten."
I made the mistake the next day of actually telling someone I had "forgotten" about their request, whereupon they seized upon the myth again, telling me with glee that when they were pregnant, they forgot everything. The woman in question was asking me to install a printer on her computer, a tediously simple task that she couldn't remember how to do from the last time I showed her, but I kept her chronic apparent memory loss out of the conversation.
Maybe some people do suffer from forgetfulness due to "Pregnancy Brain." Like doing the job of two people, you can only focus your attention on so many tasks at a time. If you are the type to concentrate more on your pregnancy than on the reality going on around you, then yes, you may find that you've forgotten the name of your husband or perhaps the name of the street you live on. But if you're like me, you may find reality much more appealing.
Some people like to quote this study as proof that pregnancy kills off brain cells. The study itself merely shows a corrolation between the last month of pregnancy and six months after and an increase in brain size before the brain returns to normal. Since no study was done to measure brain size throughout the whole pregnancy, it must have taken some doing for people to hypothesize that the increase in brain size during this period must be due to a decrease in brain size the rest of the time, sort of bending the science to fit the legend. Still, that's the popular myth: allowing pregnant women (and apparently the people around them) to blame yet another normal human condition--occasional forgetfulness--on their impending motherhood. These myths are so pervasive that even when faced with the obvious: person doing five tasks at once, forgets one task, the perception is all: pregnant woman forgot one task.
Taking respsonsibilty for one's actions, whether it be emotional outburst due to some inner turmoil or the act of forgetting where you put your keys, is something that we all have a hard time doing in practice. It becomes even harder when popular science encourages you to place the blame for these things on factors you "can't" control, such as "raging hormones". I've never put much stock in the raging hormone theory. I believe in mind over matter. Even if the hormone theories are true, I have no doubt that with a little mental discipline we can all overcome them. I am an intelligent, logical, stable human being, and no popular pregnancy myth is going to make me forget it.
One (but not all) of the duties of my job is to collect and funnel Help Desk requests to the appropriate people. As the self-imposed first line of defense, I'm supposed to handle the "simple stuff" (are you sure your computer is on?), but often I'm able to funnel some of them off to the Network Administrator, with the excuse that I have other things to do. Being the Help Desk means that I am constantly being interrupted, and that's when we're fully staffed. Being the Help Desk and the Network Administrator pretty much ensures that my entire day is spent putting out fires. Especially when two switches and a tape deck die in rapid succession, the main file server seems to be asleep, people are screaming because a printer isn't printing or their email is on the fritz, not to mention all those calls where people are asking how to save a file in Word.
Clearly, some things will begin to fall through the cracks at this point.
So on Wednesday we had a three hour kick off meeting on a new product venture, which blew everyone's schedules out of whack. At the end of the meeting, no less than five people converged on me, wanting to talk about wildly different subjects and all of which needed to be dealt with asap. Doing my own mental task list, which put these items in a relative order of importance, I accomplished each one in turn, finally getting back to my desk half an hour later to accomplish the last, when my phone rang. It was the woman who had asked for Task #5.
"Sorry," I said, not feeling sorry at all, "I will get to it now."
"Pregnancy will do that to you," she said, a non-sequitor of monumental proportions.
"What?"
"Pregnancy. Makes you forgetful."
"Uh... doing two people's jobs will do that too." I didn't bother to point out that I had just gotten back to my desk and technically that didn't count as "having forgotten."
I made the mistake the next day of actually telling someone I had "forgotten" about their request, whereupon they seized upon the myth again, telling me with glee that when they were pregnant, they forgot everything. The woman in question was asking me to install a printer on her computer, a tediously simple task that she couldn't remember how to do from the last time I showed her, but I kept her chronic apparent memory loss out of the conversation.
Maybe some people do suffer from forgetfulness due to "Pregnancy Brain." Like doing the job of two people, you can only focus your attention on so many tasks at a time. If you are the type to concentrate more on your pregnancy than on the reality going on around you, then yes, you may find that you've forgotten the name of your husband or perhaps the name of the street you live on. But if you're like me, you may find reality much more appealing.
Some people like to quote this study as proof that pregnancy kills off brain cells. The study itself merely shows a corrolation between the last month of pregnancy and six months after and an increase in brain size before the brain returns to normal. Since no study was done to measure brain size throughout the whole pregnancy, it must have taken some doing for people to hypothesize that the increase in brain size during this period must be due to a decrease in brain size the rest of the time, sort of bending the science to fit the legend. Still, that's the popular myth: allowing pregnant women (and apparently the people around them) to blame yet another normal human condition--occasional forgetfulness--on their impending motherhood. These myths are so pervasive that even when faced with the obvious: person doing five tasks at once, forgets one task, the perception is all: pregnant woman forgot one task.
Taking respsonsibilty for one's actions, whether it be emotional outburst due to some inner turmoil or the act of forgetting where you put your keys, is something that we all have a hard time doing in practice. It becomes even harder when popular science encourages you to place the blame for these things on factors you "can't" control, such as "raging hormones". I've never put much stock in the raging hormone theory. I believe in mind over matter. Even if the hormone theories are true, I have no doubt that with a little mental discipline we can all overcome them. I am an intelligent, logical, stable human being, and no popular pregnancy myth is going to make me forget it.
Thursday, January 11, 2007
Milestones
I reached another milestone in every pregnant woman's life: the Total Stranger Recognition Moment.
I shouldn't say total stranger; I see this woman two or three times a week when I come by to pick up my lunch. But still she's outside of the realm of corporate informants, and therefore I feel I can count this as the first such encounter, especially since she started it out with, "Congratulations, I didn't realize you were pregnant!"
I took this as a compliment, not because I particularly want strangers to notice the pregnant woman, but because I've apparently been hiding it well, until now, anyway.
I also reached another very important milestone today, the Pregnant Women Should Not Carry Items Perceived To Be Heavy Milestone, items such as, say, computers. In my myriad roles at work I sometimes have need to remove or replace equipment, and, unless I am doing more than one at a time I usually prefer to carry the single item down the stairs. It's mild exercise, to be sure, but it beats sitting at a desk all day. So today I had in my arms a small CPU topped with mouse and keyboard, barely 10 pounds at most, but was stopped by a co-worker who threatened to take it from me. "No, I'm fine," I said, and continued by him, at which point he said, "Well, you're pregnant, you know..."
I stopped and stared at him. "I am???" I said. And then continued on my way.
I shouldn't say total stranger; I see this woman two or three times a week when I come by to pick up my lunch. But still she's outside of the realm of corporate informants, and therefore I feel I can count this as the first such encounter, especially since she started it out with, "Congratulations, I didn't realize you were pregnant!"
I took this as a compliment, not because I particularly want strangers to notice the pregnant woman, but because I've apparently been hiding it well, until now, anyway.
I also reached another very important milestone today, the Pregnant Women Should Not Carry Items Perceived To Be Heavy Milestone, items such as, say, computers. In my myriad roles at work I sometimes have need to remove or replace equipment, and, unless I am doing more than one at a time I usually prefer to carry the single item down the stairs. It's mild exercise, to be sure, but it beats sitting at a desk all day. So today I had in my arms a small CPU topped with mouse and keyboard, barely 10 pounds at most, but was stopped by a co-worker who threatened to take it from me. "No, I'm fine," I said, and continued by him, at which point he said, "Well, you're pregnant, you know..."
I stopped and stared at him. "I am???" I said. And then continued on my way.
Tuesday, January 09, 2007
Sincerity meets the Sarcastic
The highlight of our last appointment--aside from the fact that, when asked to give a urine sample, I nodded distractedly, did my business and flushed the toilet, then belatedly remembered I was supposed to pee in a cup, thereby cheating my benefactors of the 9th or 10th urine sample they believe they need, not to mention the intensly gross, high-sugared drink they forced on me as a way of seeing whether I had gestational diabetes--was the aforementioned prenatal coordinator visit.
The staff is sincere enough, and the woman patiently explained all the classes we might take; "I highly recommend this 7 week course. It's designed for people who are having their first child, or people who've had children without the benefit of childbirth classes."
"Can you imagine," I said to my husband sarcastically, later when we were finally left alone, "People actually manage to give birth without taking a class?"
We were also sent home with tons of promotional material, which the prenatal coordinator carefully pulled out of the packet she had prepared and showed to us, ending the demonstration with a flyer on the kinds of birth control there were available.
"Birth control?" I said, "Now you tell me."
The material itself is well-intentioned, but clearly not intended for people such as myself. A pamphlet labeled "Questions Dads have about breastfeeding" labeled one of the benefits of breastfed babies as "mom will take fewer days off from work due to baby's illness."
"Mom will, eh? What about dad?" I grumbled.
The pinnacle of all the information was a pamphlet on Post-Partum Depression, which helpfully told me to seek the help of a psychotherapist and then, so I could be understood when I called to seek the help of the psychotherapist, told me how to pronounce the profession (sahy-koh-ther-uh-pee).
But clearly I can't take my hard-won sarcastic self out on the gentle souls of the baby profession, so even though I need to fill out a form outlining my pre/during/and post birth choices, I will refrain from answering these specific questions in this way:
Q: (Circle your preferences) Here are some common choices for labor: Wear own gown, tee-shirt Wear hospital gown Lights bright Lights dimmed Birthing ball Other: (write in)
A: I would like to wear my leather maternity bondage ensemble and would like to have the room plunged completely in darkness so I can perform my nightly satanic ritual in peace.
Q: Do you have any preferences for birthing positions?
A: I think that our belief in gravity is over-rated and therefore I would like to be strung feet first from the ceiling. I feel that our obsession with birthing children "down there" is a patriarchal misogynistic anachronism and think women should be able to give birth through any opening they'd like, including their mouths. Mine will be the very first esophagal birth.
Q: How do you plan to feed your baby?
A: Intravenously.
Q: Do you have any special concerns or requests regarding your baby's care while in the hospital?
A: Please don't paint the baby blue.
Q: What are your feelings about circumcision?
A: I think circumcision is great. In fact, why stop there? Eunuchs have made great contributions to history, and it's time to bring them back.
Q: How long do you plan to stay in the hospital after the birth?
A: Oh, three months to a year, maybe more. Please forward my mail.
Q: We offer home visits. How do you feel about this?
A: I have a gun. How do you feel about that?
The staff is sincere enough, and the woman patiently explained all the classes we might take; "I highly recommend this 7 week course. It's designed for people who are having their first child, or people who've had children without the benefit of childbirth classes."
"Can you imagine," I said to my husband sarcastically, later when we were finally left alone, "People actually manage to give birth without taking a class?"
We were also sent home with tons of promotional material, which the prenatal coordinator carefully pulled out of the packet she had prepared and showed to us, ending the demonstration with a flyer on the kinds of birth control there were available.
"Birth control?" I said, "Now you tell me."
The material itself is well-intentioned, but clearly not intended for people such as myself. A pamphlet labeled "Questions Dads have about breastfeeding" labeled one of the benefits of breastfed babies as "mom will take fewer days off from work due to baby's illness."
"Mom will, eh? What about dad?" I grumbled.
The pinnacle of all the information was a pamphlet on Post-Partum Depression, which helpfully told me to seek the help of a psychotherapist and then, so I could be understood when I called to seek the help of the psychotherapist, told me how to pronounce the profession (sahy-koh-ther-uh-pee).
But clearly I can't take my hard-won sarcastic self out on the gentle souls of the baby profession, so even though I need to fill out a form outlining my pre/during/and post birth choices, I will refrain from answering these specific questions in this way:
Q: (Circle your preferences) Here are some common choices for labor: Wear own gown, tee-shirt Wear hospital gown Lights bright Lights dimmed Birthing ball Other: (write in)
A: I would like to wear my leather maternity bondage ensemble and would like to have the room plunged completely in darkness so I can perform my nightly satanic ritual in peace.
Q: Do you have any preferences for birthing positions?
A: I think that our belief in gravity is over-rated and therefore I would like to be strung feet first from the ceiling. I feel that our obsession with birthing children "down there" is a patriarchal misogynistic anachronism and think women should be able to give birth through any opening they'd like, including their mouths. Mine will be the very first esophagal birth.
Q: How do you plan to feed your baby?
A: Intravenously.
Q: Do you have any special concerns or requests regarding your baby's care while in the hospital?
A: Please don't paint the baby blue.
Q: What are your feelings about circumcision?
A: I think circumcision is great. In fact, why stop there? Eunuchs have made great contributions to history, and it's time to bring them back.
Q: How long do you plan to stay in the hospital after the birth?
A: Oh, three months to a year, maybe more. Please forward my mail.
Q: We offer home visits. How do you feel about this?
A: I have a gun. How do you feel about that?
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