02/12/08
Sarah was breathing strangely in bed the other morning, and I asked what was up. "I think I'm having this baby," she said. My heart stopped. It's go time. And I'm ready. For the next hour we tried to figure out whether or not she was in labor. After consulting multiple books, and timing what we imagined were contractions, we'd reached our conclusion: She had gas...
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02/08/08
I spent all day Saturday painting furniture for the baby room, which I figured would buy me a free pass to watch the AFC championship on Sunday. It was shaping up to be a great game: The Steelers had won 15 in a row, and the Patriots hadn't lost a playoff game in years. An hour before game time, I asked Sarah who she thought would win. She looked around the basement at little piles of unfinished projects here and there, and answered: "Me."
I spent the day building a crib and assembling a day bed...
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02/05/08
I've spent much of my life avoiding women who appear to be pregnant, because they scared the hell out of me. What if I said the wrong thing? I had nothing to offer them, conversation-wise, beyond "So, what's it like being pregnant?" Now everything is different. Today at the gym I asked the pregnant woman on the cross-trainer next to mine how she gets her recommended daily calcium intake. Watched Sarah's belly vibrate today. It looked like when you throw a stone into a still pond, and the splash ripples out to the edges...
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02/01/08
1. By the last trimester, a pregnant woman's breasts may leak a few drops of colostrum (practice milk). It's thick and yellow and has the consistency of wood glue.
2. Sometimes a drop or two of blood leaks out. Blood.
3. During pregnancy, the average woman's uterus expands up to five hundred times its normal size...
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01/29/08
Our condo in Fajardo, a town on the country's breathtaking northeastern coast, was lovely. We had a panoramic view of the ocean and palm trees—and our airy apartment had everything we needed. When the toilet became a little volatile one afternoon, Isaac decided to buy a plunger, and when he came home, he realized we already had one. Two plungers: now that's the lap of luxury.
I was left alone to babysit Lillian one day. We had masses of toys at our disposal, but for two hours, she was interested mainly in three things: a book called Huggy Buggy, a tin that once held a deck of Seinfeld playing cards, and my facial hair, all of which she endlessly studied and put in her mouth...
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01/25/08
Several airlines refuse to allow a woman on board if she is more than 36 weeks pregnant. What do they do, measure the fetus at the gate? I assume this policy exists because airlines fear for the safety of a lavatory delivery at 20,000 feet. Nope. It stems from the high cost of diverting a plane for an emergency landing. Ah, the friendly skies of United. We got in just under the wire on our flight to San Juan, Puerto Rico. It was Sarah's family vacation, and my traveling companions were an older man, a pregnant woman, a 9-month old baby, and a mother and father obsessed with the 9-month-old baby. The most reliable member of the crew was the baby...
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01/22/08
Why the hate? That's what I want to know. Misogyny is alive and well and living in male-oriented books about pregnancy. Take a look at these excerpts:
•"There are many reasons to resent your wife when she's pregnant."
•"[Y]our wife should be treated like any other savage creature ready to attack."
•"Instead of acting like a temptress, she'll act more like a toddler. Once you start thinking of your wife as a baby, not a broad, you'll notice other similarities as well."
•"[T]hink of pregnancy as a nine-month stint at a prisoner-of-war camp . . ."
•"Sure, living with a pregnant woman can't kill you, but it sure can take the fun out of living."
Boy. No wonder so many men bail out just after they've pulled out...
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01/18/08
I just read a new study that claims the average pregnancy is not 40 weeks, but rather 41 1/2. Great. I feel like we just got another couple of years tacked on to our life sentence.
Regardless, a healthy woman should gain between 25 and 35 pounds over the course of a pregnancy. A few years back, I saw a woman—let's call her Sharon—gain roughly 70 pounds. She didn't look like Sharon; she looked like a person who had eaten Sharon. With a side of fries. She was predictably miserable. Her wedding ring went in a drawer for nine months because her finger was too bloated to accommodate it. I recall the moment she realized she could no longer cross her legs. "Well, shit," she said, trying to locate her feet for a few seconds. Then she went back to looking miserable...
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01/15/08
We've begun watching horribly graphic childbirth videos in our Bradley class. Yes, I understand their purpose: no one is trying to candy-coat this whole delivery thing, nor should they. Labor is obviously painful and wet and loud and bloody, and if we aren't ready for that we're doing ourselves—and our baby—a major disservice. But it's still gross.
There was the video in which the husband crumpled to the floor like an empty tent when the doctor presented the massive needle for his wife's epidural.
There was the water birth in some kind of icky prenatal jacuzzi that eventually had nine or so different kinds of fluid floating in it, none of which you'd want to see in your kitchen sink...
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01/11/08
Sarah's heartburn is unbearable, for us both. Acid reflux is a problem for preggos, especially at night because when they lie down, stomach acid rises into their esophagus. Yuck. Therefore, she's sleeping with her head elevated, and making use of the "body pillow" Kenn and Julie bought from Bed, Bath & Beyond. It's doing the trick, but our king-size is getting mighty crowded. This morning I counted nine pillows, three blankets, four stuffed animals, five books, and one dirty spoon. Now the body pillow. It's such a massive presence that when I wake up in the middle of the night, I can't find my wife. She's over there somewhere, I guess, because I can hear the noises in her stomach...
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55.0F
