If a blog falls in the forest... or a rather large bellied pregnant woman...

... and no one reads it, is it really there?

So to anyone out there reading this, I’ve decided to rather shamelessly self-promote in the only way I know how: update my Facebook status. So perhaps you are here reading because of that! In that case I’ll need to entice you to keep you coming back, or at least to encourage you to become one of my “followers.”*

So how do I go about doing that... especially when all that’s really on my 35-week-pregnant brain is the fact that I’m starting to feel like my prostate is enlarged** (no, wait...). Or the fact that as I review quality of life questions for a research paper I’m working on at work, I can’t help answer questions such as “Due to your physical health in the past four weeks, have you accomplished less than you would like” in the resounding affirmative. I consider transitioning from a reclining position to upright as a big accomplishment for the day, one that has me counting. “OK, 1... 2... 3!” in order to move. Oh and the “cute” waddle that was introduced into my walk about 3 months ago has become a full on momentum necessity for forward motion.

Yes, yes, this is all temporary, but I wanted to rationalize why I might not have a good-plot story this week; I’m not outside of the house or office enough for that now. And while I’m not above attempting to pass a B-movie action plot off as my own life, well, who am I kidding. So I’m regaling you with pregnancy mishaps instead; how shameless indeed! At least it’s not potty humor, though (oh wait, I already talked about peeing).

One final observation for the day: if anyone out there has not been pregnant yet, I *highly* recommend that you take pictures of your belly button along the way, starting at oh, say, the fourth month, maybe, or just before your belly pops. The metamorphosis is amazing. I went from normal, boring belly button, to slightly oval, to Crater Lake style, to a slit, and now it looks like a tiny navel orange stem. Will it completely pop out? Not sure, but I’m told if it does, like a turkey, it means I’m done.

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*Which means very little, I think: you won’t get emailed updates or anything like that. It’s more symbolic (yet functional: in the paraphrased words of Mike Birbiglia “turns my self esteem from a -10 to a -5.”
** What I wouldn’t give for a good pee. The kind where you really have to go, but when you do, it’s awesome! And then you’re set for hours. Not the kind where “oh my gosh I might not make it” to be followed by, “that’s IT?” And yes, I am fully aware that I do not have a prostate gland.

Radio Blues and Baby Moons

Two significant things happened to me last week:
1. Mike and I went on our last baby-free va-ca.
2. I was a guest on Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me!

Item 1 took us to the Homestead Resort in Hotsprings, Virginia, about a 4 hour or so drive through some pretty beautiful country. I was a bit anxious that it would be a little too much like Dirty Dancing, but without Patrick Swayze. And there was definitely some DD undertones, but no talent show or tackiness to be found. Our activities were limited to walking me around - I now take myself for walks, rather than go on walks.* But it really was lovely. In between summing up the courage to forego the elevator and walk up multiple flights of stairs, we managed to go on a beautiful gorge hike, hit the spa (at least I did), and get in some major pool time. Relaxing was had. We met some nice folks at the overpriced** Labor Day buffet who gave us some tips about surviving our first East Coast winter. And while getting some ice cream, a sweet older lady told me that I “really didn’t need any.” So it was good times all around! And for the record, ice cream is 100% required to maintain sanity and promote fetal development during pregnancy.

Item 2: still can’t believe I was actually called back from Wait Wait. I was sitting at my desk at 6ish on Wednesday night, my cell phone rang***, and I actually answered it,and it was Emily from Wait Wait, asking little old me if I wanted to be on the show as a contestant, the following evening. Unfazed by my bumbling, slightly psychotic answer, she let the offer stand, despite my hemming and hawing about the fact that I was chosen for Bluff the Listener (why me? the universe apparently does give you what you deserve!). See, Bluff the Listener is clearly the hardest segment on that show - for all those unfamiliar, you have to pick the real news story out of 3 very improbable ones. Other segments on the show include the A Casual Encounter with the Week’s News and the aforementioned Limericks (or the Not My Job celebrity host plays for you). So the first one is a bit intimidating if you get it wrong, because you don’t want to embarrass yourself for not paying attention to the news in front of the other NPR listeners, but Peter Sagal (the host) often sort of helps you out, and my track record with this segment is pretty good. I’d give myself a B, B+. Limericks, on the other hand, I get an A in; you just have to pick a rather obvious rhyming word. And for both of these segments, you just need to get 2 out of 3 right - totally manageable!
But Bluff the Listener on the other hand, you get 1 and only 1 chance. So hard! And I have about a D- track record. But I carpe-diemed my way onto the show, because when NPR knocks, you answer! And, despite having Mike next to me and attempting to decipher my nervous chicken scratch writing so he could Google the 3 stories and give me a thumbs up on the right one, our dynamic duo still lost. Moral of the story: cheaters never prosper, and they certainly don’t get Carl Kassal’s voice on their home answering machine.
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*Note the distinction: once I started waddling, I started referring to myself in the third person when referring to physical activity.
**(but tasty - they had legit fresh donuts that came off the little oil bath conveyor belt! Do I detect a donut fetish in this blog??)
***(which is rare given the bad reception in the office and my penchant to not have it close by)

Adventures in pregnancy #1

Last night I found myself playing tug of war with my sleepy husband; we were engaged in one of those totally absurd pregnancy moments, the how-to-put-the-”G”-shaped-pregancy-pillowcase-back-on-the-pillow endeavor. After many grunts, giggles, and exasperated sighs, we succeeded, but only after cursing the Snoogle company for such an apparent design flaw... can’t they just put a zipper along the hemline of the pillow? Sometimes I wonder if part of the challenges ubiquitous in baby gear are there simply to remind you of the real challenges that come with parenting. So you can’t figure out how in the world you’re going to assemble that high chair? Wait till you’re on zero-sleep night number 3. Swaddling got you stumped? Wait till your two year-old vomits all over you as you both are stepping out the door, you already 15 minutes late for work. I think Nietzsche is still alive and designing Snoogle pillowcase for this very reason.

Since this episdode is entitled, “Adventures in Pregnancy,” I’ll give you another. Just went to our childbirth education class weekend before last. I arrived expecting to leave anxious, but I couldn’t have been more relaxed upon leaving, if only for one reason: the anxiety level in the participants around us made me feel like a regular octo-mom. Oh the questions that were asked! I suppose it was the demographic: you show me northwest DC, and I’ll show you some over 30 (and up) power-elite mommies-to-be. The questions that came up involved every possible pregnancy hot-topic, most starting with “I’ve done research on...” and “my doula says....” and so on. Of course that space was exactly the space to ask those and any other questions (I’ve heard that you pay to place yourself on a waiting list to pre-reserve a room, is that true? What happens if you have a personality conflict with your L&D nurse? I’ve done research on epidurals, and among the risk factors is that it can literally fry your baby’s brain (last one more of a dare-to-engage than a question). It’s just that I think I learned more about the patient demographics of my hospital in my birth class than I did about birth. It’s all good though; my husband learned about the art of counterpressure, and I got free donuts.

32 and 32

Years and weeks, that is... years old and weeks pregnant. I don’t know if that strange-but-sweet coincidental time point was the tipping point or not, but something made me want to get back to the blog. Which in and of itself is a little strange, because I’m not per se a “blogger,” but I did start blogging a year ago and change, at a very different time of my life. That was for an event I was training for (which I’ll revisit), not a “lifestyle” kind of thing. So now, I find myself wondering if I could try the I’m-a-blogger* hat on as an ongoing, indefinite thing. But I am uncertain for many reasons:

(1) Time. Really, who has the time to keep it up? Well, plenty of bloggers seem to, ones who also keep families, hold jobs, dabble in hobbies, sport and compete, and consider themselves dedicated show-watchers (or all of the above). So time can be found, I suppose. And one of the appeals of blogging, to me, at least, is the episodic quality on which blogging is based. It can force its writer to maintain a sort of regularity with it (as rigid as one chooses), which might satiate the desire to write a little every or every-other day, without a level of formality or structure that keeps one from writing every or every-other day.

(2) Audience. Who will read this? Better yet, do I want anyone to read this? Before, during my first and last other blogging experience, I made the blog a blog and not a journal precisely as a tool of using a (mildly) public audience to keep me honest about my training for... (to be revisited - too much of a tangent at this point). So now, what is the excuse, for anyone to read this, or for me to want anyone to read this? I suppose it’s the lonely-girl-15** in all of us that wants to know that there’s someone, out there, who might take an interest in our thoughts, fears, dreams, and better yet, quirky little observations on life. Which brings me to...

(3) Ego. Really? Haven’t I always thought that there’s something a little self-promoting about the blogging genre? It’s completely based on self-publicizing, and it’s (almost?) always written in the first-person, vomited out into cyberspace for all the world to see, or more likely, ignore. I suppose there are worse transgressions, which isn’t an excuse, but... well... okay. I am stumped on this one. Can’t rationalize this away, but I guess I will procede because...

(4) Posterity (Strikethrough)

(5) Memory. I have these running little thoughts in my head, and random times during the day*** and sometimes I actually think they contain little sparks of brilliance. Or wit. Or both. But I rarely write them down, so they’re usually lost forever. This kind of space might allow me a little more opportunity to get them out of my head and into the world, for better or for worse.

(6) Practice. By this I mean blogging-as-writing-practice. So as uncertain as I am about this whole endeavor, it will at least get me writing. And you can’t be a writer if you don’t.... write.

(7) Posterity - yes, really. Perhaps the best of all uncertainties and biggest reasons why I might actually stick to this, is that 32-weeker in my tummy, the one who’s at present jabbing me inside my ribcage****-- a sort of game we play now after dinner, who one very-soon day is going to introduce herself to the world. Baby K, that is. Although I have a private writing project going to her, I thought it might be kind of, well, neat, to leave her a little blogacy, one that when she’s old enough to read and understand, might dismiss as being perfectly uncool. Which is totally ok—thinking your parents are uncool is one of the age-old rites of passage, as certain as sunsets and taxes. But still; Baby K, this blog’s for you.
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*I rather enjoy playing with punctuation in my writing... all of it, rather than keeping to one mark like Faulkner and his dash, and it’s much easier to find the freedom to do so in creative spaces like this one. Makes me feel a little like Dave Eggers to ramble on in a footnote, but hey, I love Dave Eggers.
**or whatever her age was
***one might call them “microblogs,” although one might be incorrect.
**** For nulliparous folks out there, imagine you had a little creature inside your diaphragm jabbing you with a fork right under and between your ribs - that is the only way I can describe the sensation.