Lake-effect pregnancy

Just back from the doctor, and boy, my bladder is tired.  And it’s only going to get worse.

Short story: All is well. I am 18 weeks preggers. BeeGee likes my doc and waved at him. He made a point of telling me the baby was waving at him, not me. He also forced me to conduct my entire appointment in Hebrew, which is, actually, one of the nicest things anyone has ever done for me. I learned a lot very quickly. No one here forces you to learn Hebrew, so this was actually a welcome change. My doc gets picked on for bad bedside manner, but I think you just need to get to know him a bit. He’s actually got a good sense of humor when you get him laughing, and, well, me attempting to speak Hebrew could make anyone laugh.

In a nutshell, I’m fine, the baby is fine and that’s all good. This is coming off a very rough weekend.

TMI alert: Last Wednesday, I had a pasta dinner that didn’t really agree with me. The Dark Days of Vomiting came back; I threw up eight times from Thursday afternoon (Yay! Purim!) until the wee hours of Friday morning. What was really problematic, is that I was losing fluids at both ends. Between the vomiting and the diarrhea, I lost six pounds in 24 hours.

Which took me to a new low body weight: 178. Yup. I lost everything I had gained and two more pounds to boot. Water weight, of course.

And then it got hot in Israel. Really hot. As in, the high for Tel Aviv was reportedly 101 on Sunday. We had a sharav *, which I think translates roughly to “hell on Earth” in English.

Amazingly, I didn’t feel dehydrated, so I kept a low profile at home and relaxed. I pushed fluids. I (obstinately) didn’t go to the doctor. But it’s all okay.

That said, my blood pressure is still a little low (90 systolic, didn’t catch the diastolic in Hebrew but it was – uh – lower) so I need to drink more fluids. For the record, I was already getting 1.5-2 liters of fluids a day. And now?

3 to 3.5 liters a day. Preferably as much water as possible.

I asked if this was just for the duration of the hot weather. The answer: No. It’s for the duration of the pregnancy.

So, stay tuned for my next post: The Do-It-Yourself Home Catheterization Kit. And when you hear about the water shortage in the Middle East, just think of me. I am my own lake. The baby’s cousin might be named Kinneret, but damn if this little girl ain’t going to give her a run for her money on the total water volume front.

* Or a dry desert wind. It jacks up the temperature by a good 20 degrees. I think it comes from the Arabian peninsula or Africa or something. I’m not so good at geography.

Other news and notes:

• I feel great. I can’t remember the last time I felt this good. As in, probably a good eight years ago. I have been accused of glowing, but I think I was just a little flushed from walking in the heat. I think part of the Good Tidings of Today is the unhealthy weight loss (though what I lost will in effect be quite healthy for me after pregnancy, barring any harm to the baby – and no, that doesn’t make it okay to intentionally lose weight in pregnancy, which I absolutely didn’t) and part of it is just that the second trimester is easier.
• My doctor jokingly said he would like me to gain 30 kilo (66 pounds – the 30 pounds I lost plus 25-35 for a normal pregnancy growth) for the whole pregnancy. I think he was joking. I sure as hell hope he was joking. I talked him down to 15 kilo (33 pounds – starting, uh, now I guess), but in reality, I would be thrilled with eight to 10 (17 to 22 pounds). I’m just not gaining that much weight (I know, hate me, but this is a first for me) but the baby seems healthy and is even getting a little pudge on her. I mean, as long as the baby is healthy and I feel great and have energy and good bloodwork, vitals, etc., does it really matter?
• The baby kicks a lot. She likes music, especially classical Russian composers and piano sonatas, and her Abba’s voice. And when I fart. She loves that. She jumps when something falls on the floor or makes a loud noise. She sleeps in the afternoon and starts kicking somewhere around 3 a.m. If I rub my lower tummy, I can occasionally get her to go back to sleep (last night, no dice – up till 5:30 a.m. – I assume/hope you learn how to sleep through this). I can’t wait until the kicks are strong enough to be felt outside so the hubby can play along.
• I look pregnant. If I could stay just this pregnant until I delivered, I would be ecstatic. Yeah, not going to happen. I saw a belly shot of someone who was 37 weeks the other day. I am going to look like a full-on shipping barge by the time all is said and done. What’s funny is that I can’t imagine being any bigger than I already am – I can’t help but keep thinking, where in the hell is it all going to go?
• I already waddle. Not because I am that big, but because my hips seem a little shaky.
• I swam somewhere around a mile last week. I will not be doing this again any time soon, as I fully appreciate having the ability to lift my arms – a skill I lost for about 48 hours after said swim. Other than that, it was good. The baby doesn’t like it when I swim front crawl with a flutter kick, but I thought it was a little early to start lecturing about hypocrisy and what that means. I get the feeling she drowns me out when I start to lecture.
• I own maternity clothes. They are very comfy. I may never stop wearing them.
• Next up is more blood work and another ultrasound in a month. Eventually, there will be a glucose test. I will try to be a good sport about posting, but I can’t help but feel that my life is pretty boring right now. Questions are always welcome.

Eyes wide open

A little more than a year ago, I joined this community known as the infertility blogosphere. Since then, I’ve followed the stories of more than 100 couples trying to become families, families trying to find a sibling and more. Stories of ART. Of pregnancies. Multiple births. Adoptions from near and far.

And I decided to contribute my story to them. They became my friends inside the computer. I cheered for them; I cried with them. Some of them I met in real life. Others I hope to. Others remain good friends but far away. They have enriched my life in a way they cannot understand; I only hope I can do the same for others.

But it’s a tenuous thing to enter the infertility blogosphere. Not so much because you post so much of your life online. But because you share in the lives of others. Their gains. And their losses.

Just skimming the blogs of those around us opens one’s eyes to the fragility that is pregnancy and birth. And joining the community means learning the hard stories, too: when a baby is lost at 36 weeks gestation; when triplets are lost after every effort is made; when a would-be mother faces ending a pregnancy that cannot end in a healthy child; a baby girl arriving without her baby brother.

In much the same way that getting pregnant was harder for most of us, so too is reaching the end uninjured. And though we knew, through the magic of statistics, that these stories could also be ours, they were easier to face when they were just numbers. They are much harder when they have names, and stories, and often photos. When they are the stories of those we know and love. When there are faces, ultrasounds and belly pics.

This community comes with infinite wisdom, stories to make the most skeptical hopeful and support to rival any other. But it comes with the lingering knowledge that this, too, could be your story. As Julie once put it, “I’ve learned alot … but I’m not sure it’s worth it.”

May we have only simchas.

Bigfoot

From the uterus of Sasquatch, I bring you: Bigfoot.

Or feet, as it were. Two big feet.

We just got back from our early scan. We’re something in a 15 to 16 weeks pregnant. Unless you go by the head, in which case, I’m running about a week ahead.

And by all measurements and checks, we have a healthy little girl on the way.

She has a big head and big feet. Pretty little hands and short little femurs. Two little eyes, ears and all the right organs in all the right places. The placental arteries also look good and are pushing the right fluids right through.

Meanwhile, mommy has a helluva head cold. I have permission to take Robitussin and Tylenol and plan on availing myself of both.

And let me introduce you to my newest little adopted nephew: Baby Boy Inbar made his arrival on Saturday morning, much to his mother’s delight.

Next up, Playmobil Mossad expansion kit

It would appear that the lovely Playmobil company has released an airport security checkpoint as one of the many add-on packs available.

But forget that part. Check out the comments in the reviews at Amazon.com. I haven’t laughed this hard in a while.

A little taste of the greatness:

“I was a little disappointed when I first bought this item, because the functionality is limited. My 5 year old son pointed out that the passenger’s shoes cannot be removed. Then, we placed a deadly fingernail file underneath the passenger’s scarf, and neither the detector doorway nor the security wand picked it up. My son said ‘that’s the worst security ever!’ But it turned out to be okay, because when the passenger got on the Playmobil B757 and tried to hijack it, she was mobbed by a couple of other heroic passengers, who only sustained minor injuries in the scuffle, which were treated at the Playmobil Hospital.”

Subconsciously yours

Julie’s dream about Mario Batali inspired me to tell a few tales from my own subconscious.

They are strange. Not the cute stuff of weeks past. They frequently involve violence or sex, not both. Which is perhaps a small step in the right direction.  They are realistic enough that they raise my heart rate. I wake up completely freaked out and wide awake at 2 a.m. This, and what appears to be a touch of food poisoning from yesterday, conspired to keep me up at all hours of the night last night.

If you’ve been keeping up with the international news recently, you might have noticed a rise in attacks against Israel and anti-Zionist sentiment over the last week or two. It would seem that Israel might reenter Gaza. While I’m not going to go all political and lose readers (all four of you that are still here reading since the infertility blog took a hit and became a pregnancy blog), suffice it to say that this would be the first large-scale military operation since we arrived here last summer. It has made many people in Gaza hate us even more than they did. And the hatred has been felt in the West Bank too, which is a helluva lot closer to us than Gaza. The West Bank is just up the street.

I will say that I feel very safe here – safer than I was in the U.S. for a multitude of reasons I’m not going to get into – and I absolutely do not regret moving to Israel with any fiber of my being (save the fiber that really misses Target). But pregnancy comes with a certain vulnerability and it’s manifesting itself in my dreams. Things in real life take on a new meaning in the subconscious.

Yesterday, my morning bus to Jerusalem got pulled over, by Israel Police, on its journey through the West Bank. Right before we made our way to the lovely little town of Givat Ze’ev, the police boarded and arrested four Arab men who got on right after we left the Israeli side through the border checkpoint. No explanations given – continue as usual. And so I went to work. This is the second time since I became pregnant that my bus has been boarded – the other one was headed for Tel Aviv. Lest you really panic, it was probably nothing. Israeli security is always exceptionally cautious and that’s probably all it was. But it still gets the mind a thinking.

On more than one night, I’ve woken up in a cold sweat, short of breath, because I’ve just dreamed that my husband got attacked, or that I got shot by militants or that I got taken hostage (which is really a stretch because, you see, they don’t tend to keep people alive long enough to take hostages – unless you’re a soldier). It happened again last night and I always have a tough time falling back to sleep afterward.

Some things are always the same in these dreams: I am always alone, I am always pregnant and I am desperately trying to protect the baby. Which resembles many dreams I’ve heard of from American friends, just with a “I live in the Middle East” twist.

In many ways, these dreams are less disturbing than the crazy sex dreams. In the sex dreams, the sex is always ridiculously fabulous (thanks pregnancy hormones) but its when I wake up and put two and two together about whom I was with that I completely freak out. Thus far, I’ve been getting it on with relatives, relatives of friends, coworkers, athletes, heads of state (both dead and alive – ehh), all manner of people I see on a regular basis and the hubby (yay hubby! good for you!). I really get around. And it usually grosses me out.

And again, some themes pervade each encounter: I wear fabulous lingerie, I am svelte like you wouldn’t believe, I am not pregnant and, man, am I ever an animal. It would be fair to say that these things bear absolutely no resemblance to my real life.

Even if I wasn’t married, I can conclusively tell you I would not sleep with the vast majority of these people. Which leads to the “oh, why was I knocking the boots with so-and-so?” questions. And the awkwardness when you see them again in real life. And, unlike the terrorist dreams, you can’t really console yourself by telling the hubby. For these jobbies, you suffer on your own.

I almost miss the ones where I was just having individually wrapped kittens.

For both sets of dreams, I only have them at night. During the day, I’m fine and nap without event.

Maybe next time I’ll tell you about the hallucinations from the Phenergan! About the dinosaurs in the bathroom!

But for now, it’s light out and Miss Nocturnal is going back to bed.

Two weeks

The answer: Two weeks.

The question: How long does it take an infertile woman in the second trimester to start panicking that there is something wrong with the baby because of how long it has been since her last ultrasound?

I’ll take “Potent Pregnancies” for $500.

In other news, my doc told me I need to gain a kilo a week during the second trimester. I would have told him to sober up, but didn’t think that would go over well. I’m shooting for a pound a week, which seems more achievable. To hit this, the estimate is that I will need 2500 calories a day. I’ve been hitting that for five days now, or at least close to it, and I did it.

I gained my first pound. I am now 181. Yay!

I have adopted a method: A Double Whopper value meal a day makes me a happy pregnant woman. Consider it a stock tip.

And we have the “early scan” next Sunday night. When asked what they were going to be looking for, I replied, with all my wit and candor, a baby.

And now! For book club.