Twenty-Five and the Common Cold

I never realized how heavily reliant on conventional medicines that I was until becoming pregnant. I want to do whatever is best for my baby, but dear God I miss being able to take cold medicine that will knock me the heck out when I don’t feel well. I’m definitely taking some Tylenol because right now I have a sore throat that will not quit, but I’d love to just be able to sleep through this thing and not have to think about how annoying this sore throat is.

This one is definitely better than the last cold that I had when I first found out that I was pregnant—I actually started out the pregnancy with bronchitis so at least I can breathe this time—knock on wood, but I’m not accustomed to having to actually experience most of the discomfort of having a cold.

I definitely miss my conventional cold treatments, but it isn’t worth the overall risk. I guess eventually I’ll be able to take my conventional remedies again, but maybe for now it is better because it is probably an incredibly mild discomfort compared to the discomfort of childbirth, so I’m going to look at it like a mini training session.

In the meantime I have an appointment with the OBGYN tomorrow and maybe he can give me some insight as to what I can to knock this thing out of my system.

Twenty-Five and Natural Birth

How I expect to look during the process

Birth is something I have been thinking about a lot lately and on occasion it seems a bit like impending doom. I know that it has to come eventually, but no one has ever described it as a pleasant experience no matter how it goes down. One of the first things that I did when I found out that I was pregnant was sit down and watch The Business Of Being Born—which is really interesting, even if you only take most of what they say with a grain of salt.

In the film, they advocate a natural birth that is—more often than not—outside of a hospital setting. I’m not entirely sure how I feel about giving birth outside of a hospital environment, but I think that there is something to be said about women that pursue a natural birth. Of course, not everyone has this option, but if you do it seems to be the best option.

I obviously have no idea what the pain will be like, but it is my hope that I can have a natural birth. From what I have seen and read, I at least know that I want as few medical interventions as possible. Frankly, Pitocin scares the crap out of me—contractions are already supposed to be awful and common knowledge is that Pitocin makes that even worse. No thank you.

I’d like to say now, that I don’t want an epidural, but I can’t say how I’ll feel when I am in the moment. What I do know is that it seems like the female body does a pretty good job of progressing things and moving things along rather naturally so to me it seems like it might be best not to mess with nature.

From there, comes the question of the actual birthing process. Do I want to try and pursue a water birth or just check with the hospital and see what they allow in terms of birthing positions? That’s where it gets a bit more complicated for me. Sure, water birth would be kind of interesting, but around here it is a little difficult to find somewhere that has that as an option.

That leaves me with finding the right place for me to be as comfortable as possible with delivering the baby how I would like.

Twenty-Five and the Sex

Sorry to disappoint you, but this blog post isn’t poorly titled and it definitely isn’t about sex in terms of intercourse—at least not directly—instead it is about the decision I made to not find out the sex of my baby. Richard and I discussed this a long time ago, he wasn’t incredibly gung-ho on the idea of not knowing the sex, but ultimately I was a lot more adamant on not knowing the sex than he was about knowing it.

Personally, I don’t really see a reason to find out before the baby is born. Either way it is going to be a baby and whatever sex it is, I’ll be happy that it is here. When I tell people that we have decided against finding out the sex, I’m met with one of two reactions. Either I’m looked at like I’ve gone slightly crazy, or people ask how I will know what to buy for the baby.

Mentally, I view pregnancy similar to a series of challenges. Am I able to go nine months without knowing the sex of my baby? Will I be able to endure the challenge of giving birth without unnecessary medical intervention? I do have the answer to the first question, but no idea about the second.

As I mentioned before the other reaction I get when I tell people is curiosity about how I intend for individuals to be able to buy the baby things. The wonderful thing is that there are a ton of gender-neutral options in lovely colors like green—my personal favorite.

When Richard and I first had the conversation, he asked me how people would know if the baby is a boy or a girl—personally I don’t think it matters. I’m not sure that I like the idea of having my baby be gendered from the moment that it pops out of the womb because along with that pink or blue onesie comes a whole set of expectations about how that little human is required to ask—and some, if not most, of those expectations are bullshit.  

The odd thing is that even our doctor—at our most recent appointment—seemed confused as to why I don’t want to know the sex and the truth is I’m not sure anyone can give me a compelling reason as to why I should. If the primary thought is, “how will we know what to buy,” I don’t find that to be a worthwhile reason. Even though I didn’t choose to get pregnant, I did choose to have a baby and that choice wasn’t made with purchasing things in mind. In fact, if that were your primary reason for wanting to know the sex of your baby, I’d strongly consider taking a moment to think about the sets of gendered expectations that you’re putting on your child.

What is the worst thing that could happen? Your daughter is called a boy—then maybe she’ll be treated equally as part of society for .5 seconds before people realize that she isn’t going to be a man some day. She is going to have enough years dealing with inequality; do you really want that to start from day one? The opposite scenario is just as damaging—your son will probably have enough problems feeling “man enough” or whatever other crap is thrown at men, he doesn’t need to have that struggle begin as soon as you cut the cord.

Ultimately, you have to think about every decision you make on a larger scale now—sure it is convenient for you to not have to tell people, “Actually it’s a . . .” whatever when they get the sex wrong, but ultimately it seems like those few moments without gendered expectations could effect some sort of grander change—maybe that’s wishful thinking, but I’m willing to give it a shot.

Twenty-Five and What They Don't Tell You

Even before I got pregnant, there was a lot that I knew about pregnancy. I knew that I would probably have morning sickness, that my boobs would grow, and that might feet might grow—or more accurately—lose some of their arch. What I didn’t know was that morning sickness is a complete misnomer and that even the earliest stages of pregnancy can be fairly uncomfortable.

Within a month after I became pregnant, it became so uncomfortable to wear one of my old bras that I almost exclusively started wearing camisoles with built in bra tops when going out. I’m not a huge fan of bras anyways so that was a somewhat welcome change. I also—for the first time in my life—started noticing my uterus. Something I’d never given any thought to before now feels like the largest part of my body, even if it isn’t. Since my uterus feels so much larger, it is also uncomfortable to wear any sort of constricting pants for any period of time (subtext: I have been wearing yoga pants and sweats as much as possible for about 2 months).

One of the first questions that many people have started to ask me is whether I have cravings—what they generally mean is, “What combinations of weird stuff are you eating now that you’re pregnant?” Sorry to disappoint everyone—I haven’t craved any weird combinations yet, but most of the things I liked before, I like as much or more now. The only difference is that now if I feel hungry, I feel aggressively hungry. I also start to feel grumpy if I don’t eat immediately—which probably doesn’t make me very fun to be around, but I’d rather be grumpy and hungry than vomiting all the time.

What I do miss is being able to eat sushi or deli meat. Every time I drive past a Sushi place or a sandwich shop part of me gets a little bummed. Ironically, I didn't eat either of these things too much before getting pregnant, but I think that knowing that I can't have them makes me want them even more. Even though I doubt I'll be eating pickles with ice cream any time soon, I could go for a sandwich that isn't PB&J or grilled cheese. I'd also be down for a California roll (which I can't eat even though it doesn't have fish because of the risk of listeria!). 

Yet another thing that I wasn’t told prior to getting pregnant was that my skin would change. I went from having a fairly decent complexion to one that is much more similar to my complexion in high school than I’d care to admit. The worst part about that is that rather than having one consistent face problem, I have an ever-changing face problem—last week my face was greasy this week it is incredibly dry—and so it goes. Definitely not the “glowing” complexion I was promised at the beginning of this venture.

I’m sure I’ll notice more of these things as time goes on, but so far this pregnancy thing is by no means glamorous—especially at this stage. Since people can’t look at me and immediately tell that I’m pregnant, I just kind of look like a lazy slob wearing yoga pants—but then again who really cares at this point, I don’t have the energy to try and look like a supermodel.

Twenty-Five and Grateful

So far I have covered a lot of the downsides of my pregnancy, but I am also really grateful for a lot of what pregnancy has done for my life—even though sometimes it is really difficult to remain cognizant of those things. I feel as though pregnancy has really helped me to realize the things that are important in life, namely family.

The first huge change that pregnancy brought into my life was a much closer relationship with my significant other. I have mentioned it before, but Richard and I haven’t always had the healthiest relationship. We have always cared a lot about one another, but I also saw him go from an incredibly productive person—when we first started dating—to a lazy, depressed, self-doubting man in the following months as jobs became more difficult to find. We also had our fair share of drama, as one of the people who we regarded as a friend would lie to both of us independently about the other.

As a result of all the lies that our friend was telling, we had a lot of mistrust for one another. With all of that mistrust came anger, and as a result we spent nearly a year not talking to one another about the issues that we probably should have resolved sooner and instead talking to our supposed friend about them—who was fueling the fire. When I became pregnant, everything was put on the table. As I mentioned previously, we’d already had the discussion about what to do if I did become pregnant, so that wasn’t a necessary conversation to have. Given the state of our relationship, however, we did need to sit down and discuss how to be better partners to one another and effectively raise a child as a team.

Throughout this discussion we both had the chance to calmly clear up the lies that were being told about us. We discovered that the person that was supposed to be our friend, was very effectively preying on our general relationship fears and causing striations in the fabric of a relationship that pre-“friendship” was actually pretty effing awesome.

Second—and somewhat related to the first—pregnancy has allowed me to evaluate my life in a new way. I have a better grasp on what is “important” now and what isn’t. This clarity has allowed me to remove the people from my life that serve as negative forces—starting with the aforementioned “friend.” Removing the most manipulative, dishonest human being in my life was a pretty good start to removing a majority of the stress. Following up with removing those under his sphere of influence was also pretty helpful. Instead of caring so much what others—outside of family—thought I started caring more about what would be best for Richard, myself, and our future together. That kind of focus has allowed me to cut out a lot of the negativity that was based around petty drama that ultimately means nothing. I lost a lot of friends in the process because they’re still under the spell of a manipulative con artist, but those who actually know me and care about me have stuck around and become pretty awesome allies. I’m incredibly grateful for those friendships that have encouraged me and given me strength.

Finally, since I stopped seeking outside approval from my “friends” I have had a lot more free time to do things that are productive, like write this blog, or start creative projects in efforts to bring in more money for our growing family. I’m not saying that I’m a completely unselfish person now—since I think that part of pregnancy kind of makes you have to be selfish—but I am definitely more focused on the larger picture and making a good life for the three of us.