Packing a Bag

I was poking around at some pregnancy-and-mom forums this morning and came across a thread of women talking about packing their bag for the hospital. This had never occurred to me. I'm nearly 34 weeks, and some of these women have had their bags packed since around week 30. Sure, there's something to be said for being prepared for an emergency. But in my mind being prepared for emergencies means having enough bottled water and canned goods stocked in case of earthquakes or other natural disasters, or having a suitcase packed for evacuation from a politically unstable third-world country. Going to the hospital (in a modern, developed nation) for something routine like childbirth hadn't popped up on my contingency-planning radar until reading about it this morning.

I guess I'll pull out my airplane carry-on bag and replace a few things. What things, I'm not quite sure other than pajamas and clean underwear. Maybe some snacks. I'm not in the mindset of packing for two yet, but some baby outfits and diapers would probably be a good idea.

What goes into a hospital-stay bag?

Good-bye, Navel Ring

We took my navel ring out today. I've had it for over ten years with not a sign of infection or even discomfort, but my expanding stomach has proved to be too much. The area was turning red and while a nurse told me it wasn't infected, it definitely started to have a bruised feeling, especially when something brushed up against it. So Mike grabbed some pliers, I held my breath and closed my eyes because I thought that such an amateur attempt might hurt, but within seconds the procedure was finished, painlessly. I put the ring away as a keepsake for the baby book some day. And maybe after ten years it's time for a new one.

I think some of the achiness I've been feeling in my abdomen lately has been coming from the ring, not from any internal doings. I sleep with my stomach leaned up against a pillow, and when I did so for a nap this afternoon I felt much more comfortable than I have the last few evenings.

It's been a part of me for so long, but it was time to let it go.

Nice Gams

I had a revelation this weekend. The exercise I need to do to keep my blood sugar levels under control is finally making me feel good instead of awful. And it's a totally physical, vain thing that clued me in to this. I realized my legs look good again. A few months of not running or hiking made all my muscle tone disappear but the walking up and down hills and stairs and the stepping with the Wii fit for the last few weeks is bringing it back. I like that and I want to keep it.

When deciding on what to wear on Saturday night for dinner at a friend's house, I chose the short shorts I would have chosen pre-pregnancy rather than the jeans that have been covering up my legs for weeks. I put on a pair of wedge sandals and my legs looked and felt great.

Now I'm excited and happy to be working out again. I'm still taking it slow and easy, because I can't go very far without feeling winded and the extra weight I'm carrying around is aggravating some old aches and pains from my heavy mileage days.

My main reason for exercising is the health of me and the baby, but I'm enjoying the extra push I'm getting from liking my body again. It's been feeling like someone else's body for a while.

Gestational Diabetes

I hate the term, but by some of the calculations, scales, charts, and guidelines used by some doctors, I have it. In actuality, my blood sugar seems to be too high sometimes and too low sometimes, and those "too high" times happened when I was having my one-hour and then my three-hour glucose test. And the "too low" instances were a little troubling as well. My doctors are being extremely conservative and cautious because I'm living in a poor country in Central Africa.

I've been doing a lot of research on gestational diabetes. It seems that some people just plain don't believe in it, or think that there really are not harmful side effects. Even if the only side effect is a large baby at birth, I'd like to avoid that. I'm small.

But the vast majority of publications agree that you shouldn't take any risks with it. And I'm all for erring on the side of exercise and better nutrition. It's just a huge pain. My doctor had me consult with a nutritionist. Sugar is out, except for fresh fruit and some milk and yogurt. Healthy fats are in. I covered most of my dietary issues earlier this week at What I Eat. I need to eat more, but the selection of foods I should eat and can eat keeps getting narrower.

While the food is challenging, the harder part is the exercise. I'm supposed to be walking for fifteen minutes after each meal. My morning walk is wonderful; it's still cool and pleasant outside. I hate doing it some days, but it's still preferable to my lunchtime walk, either in the hot sun or pacing back and forth in my small, but air-conditioned, office. And my post-dinner walk is a drag because the only place I can safely do it is by doing laps on our terrace. Plus I'm pretty tired by then and the thought of pulling on my sneakers one more time really gets me down.

Then there's the glucose monitoring. I've been doing it four times a day for the last two weeks, and I have another week of doing it that often before I've proved that I can keep my levels even. Then I can go down to twice a day. I don't hate needles; I'm not squeamish about blood. I just hate doing it, especially so many times a day. (I have an upcoming post on how difficult it's been to secure a good glucose monitor here. I was afraid I'd get sent back to the States early because of it.)

All this exercise and healthy eating is supposed to make me feel better, but it's not. To combat fatigue and mood swings, all the books and all the doctors recommend exercise and healthy eating. Logically I know I'm fine because my sugar levels are okay now. I also know in the rational part of my brain that it's all good for the baby. But instead of having more energy and a positive mental attitude, I'm even more drained and prone to mood swings than I was before I started this regime. And that's extremely frustrating.

I know that in the grand scheme of things, these are all small sacrifices to make for the health of the baby. (I've been gluten-free for several years now; I know all about making sacrifices for health, and now I have another person's health involved as well.) I just wish I could get to the point where that logical knowledge made the daily decisions and activities a little bit easier instead of a huge chore.

In the Womb

Mike and I have been watching a series on the National Geographic channel called In the Womb. It follows pregnancy, from conception to birth, of different animals. The last time we watched, they featured domestic house cats and lions. This week, they covered dogs: a Neopolitan mastiff (a dog that I love!), a chihuahua, and a wolf. The animals make birthing look so easy! (Except for the chihuahua, which I'll get to in a minute.) It still looks gross, though, and while I'm not usually a squeamish person, I'm still quite apprehensive about childbirth. But the show is fascinating. Our little Sharkbait is going through similar developmental stages of all other little fetuses. Isn't that cool? I just have to be a brave lioness for the birthing part. (I hope I don't have to be a brave Neopolitan mastiff, who is in labor for about thirty hours in order to get seven pups out!)

In the dogs episode there was a lot of discussion about how humans have selectively bred dogs into so many different breeds with different purposes. The chihuahua has been bred to be so small that it cannot give birth naturally. All chihuahua pups must be delivered by c-section. Doesn't that seem cruel? We've denied an animal a natural birth for our own aesthetic purposes. And the way they showed the doctors doing the surgery looked so, I hate to say callous, but it was definitely impersonal and nearly insensitive. The doctor just rooted around, pulled out pups, snipped the cords, and literally tossed them into the hands of a waiting assistant. They were tossed! Who could toss puppies like that? Rationally or not, watching a chihuahua c-section strengthened my resolve to avoid one myself unless absolutely necessary.

When people ask me if pregnancy makes me feel more womanly or feminine, I have to honestly answer "No" (and that seems to offend some people). I feel like a science experiment. Just add food and water and a healthy baby will come out. I feel like part of something that's natural. I feel connected to other mammals when I watch their development in this series. The lioness doesn't worry about feeling feminine. She worries about delivering a healthy baby. Don't get me wrong, I certainly like feeling feminine. I just don't think it's coming from pregnancy; for me it comes from someplace else.

I was not compensated in any way for this post. However, if you click the link and ultimately decide to buy, Amazon will toss a few cents my way.

I'm Not Glowing with Motherhood

I'm glowing thanks to my Laura Mercier SPF 20 Tinted Moisturizer and some cheap blush I bought the last time I was in a Target.

Pregnancy has not been kind to my skin. Just when I felt like I'd found the right combination of skin care products, blam-o, everything changed with hormones and stuff. My expensive special-occasion product has been called in for everyday use.

And here's why. My crying jags tend to be first thing in the morning. I've also been sleeping fitfully and look tired every morning. But I have to go to work and I don't want to do that with red, splotchy, tired-looking skin. I tried cheaper brands of foundations and tinted moisturizers but I kept coming back to Laura Mercier, which transforms me from tear-stained mess to natural (looking) glow in under five minutes. And that's why, for me, it's worth the price.

The SPF 20 is extra nice. When I moved to California at the age of 25, after growing up in New England, I started using daily moisturizers with at least SPF 15. The California sun was harsh to my skin. I can't believe that was nine years ago and I think it's due to my daily moisturizing and sun protection that people mistake me for being under 30. (Yes, I'm proud of that.)

As an added bonus a tube is only 1.5 ounces, so I can keep it in my carry-on bag for traveling, duck into the bathroom before the plane lands, and emerge from a red-eye flight looking as fresh as when I departed. So, double-score for me in two months when I take a 30-hour trip while 34 weeks pregnant.

*I was not compensated for this post, however if you click the Amazon button and ultimately decide to buy the product, a few cents will be thrown my way. I purchased this product for my own personal consumption.

Crafty: Simple Blouses

Several years ago I bought this pattern, Simplicity 3887, for easy, breezy lightweight shirts to bring to Africa with me. I made a muslin of that white shirt, the middle one on the left-hand side. I really liked it, but for some reason never got around to making wearable versions of it.

Fast forward to now, when I'm busting out of my largest shirts. I dug into my sewing stash, found the muslin, tried it on, moved the tie up so the shirt has an empire waist, and voila! -- the perfect shirt not only for my growing tummy but the tropical heat as well.

Because these shirts are not fitted and don't have careful tailoring, they are quick and easy to make. You just have to make sure it fits around the shoulders so that it doesn't slide off (if you have small shoulders like I do). The puffiness around the neckline and sleeves cover up a lot of mistakes!

I have lots of cottons and linens in my fabric stash and I even had some elastic for the sleeves so I didn't have to worry about shopping (and shipping). I cut out three shirts in different fabrics, so that it's not quite as obvious that they are exactly the same. But by using the same color thread for all three, I could sew them all up at the same time, speeding up the sewing time. I went from zero shirts to three in a few days. I want to make more, with some of the locally printed fabrics from here, as reminder of my Africa pregnancy. One of the most time-consuming parts of making the shirt for me is making the tie, because I hate turning such a narrow strip right-side-out. I've got some extra wide ribbon that I've been using, and you could use any ribbons, narrow scarves, or anything else appropriate that you've got laying around (saving time and using something you've already got).

And when I'm no longer pregnant and have back something resembling my original waist, I can move the tie back down to my middle, making this a cost-effective, versatile shirt.

The finished product (one of them, at least), covering up my 24 weeks' pregnant stomach:

Pattern envelope image from Simplicity.com.

"I wouldn't want to be pregnant in this heat."

That's what the regional American doctor told me on Monday at my check up. Thanks, Doc. He's traveling through, so I did my monthly check up with him instead of the local nurse. He's leaving his post soon and he wanted to see the pregnancy for himself. (While he's seen me before in person, that was pre-pregnancy. He's been handling my pregnancy via email.) His replacement will be just one more member of my pregnancy team, spanning several countries and two continents. (All for one of the safest, healthiest, most boring pregnancies ever, aside from where it's happening.)

When the doctor asked how things were going, if I was having any problems, the only thing I could find to complain about was the heat and that's when he agreed that it must be rough. I generally run cold and I've been finding the equatorial climate quite pleasant actually, until just a few weeks ago. Yeah, I have some achiness and tiredness sometimes, but it really has been the heat that knocks me down and makes me useless. I try to be grateful that I work in an office with air conditioning, but that air conditioning really only works about twenty percent of the time. The electricity fluctuates so much that the air conditioner is always the first thing to die when the flow weakens. I strip down to as few clothes as appropriate for an office, try to drink as much room-temperature water as I can, try to catch any sort of breeze, and wish I knew a magic spell to get the air conditioner running again. As soon as I get home at night I lock myself in the bedroom with the air conditioner on a high as possible without blowing a fuse at the house.

And this air conditioner obsession is all new for me. I usually can't stand them and prefer windows open with fans. But fans aren't cutting it right now.

Today was a surprisingly, blessedly, rare sunless day. It rained for several hours and stayed cloudy all day. Now I have all the windows open, letting the cool breeze blow through the house. I wish I could bottle this cool air for tomorrow, because it's not going to last for long.

Book Review: Didn't I Feed You Yesterday? by Laura Bennett

I was a big fan of Laura Bennett's on Project Runway. She was a finalist in the third season, and she was pregnant with her sixth child at the time of taping. Shortly after I found out I was pregnant, I rewatched my season three DVDs to see how this glamourous woman handled the pregnancy and the unusual pressure of reality television. I resolved myself to not necessarily wearing a cocktail dress every day, but to avoiding sweatpants (and other assorted lounging pants, unless I'm getting ready for bed) as much as possible.

After being such a fan of hers and admiring how strong a woman she is, I was a little disappointed in her new book, Didn't I Feed You Yesterday: A Mother's Guide to Sanity in Stilettos. It was an entertaining peek at her unusual life, but it was less a guide and more an inventory of all the messes her husband and five boys make. There was nothing sane about it; in fact she talks a lot about how boy stuff drives her crazy. I'm all for fun, laidback parenting, but her kids sort of come off as brats rather than free-spirited, creative children. I think she was trying to portray them as free-spirited though. It's hard to tell, as the writing was disjointed and didn't flow evenly from chapter to chapter.

I do like the attitude that women shouldn't give up their personal style and shouldn't give up taking care of themselves so they can take better care of their families. But that was pretty much summed up in one short chapter, toward the end of the book. Myself, I find it just as easy to pull on a skirt as it is sweatpants, and I love heels. I'm not giving them up until I'm so pregnant that I topple out of them. Of course, bare feet are more practical for just around the house. I save the heels for work and nights out.

But in the disjointed Laura way, she talks about what a mess her apartment is with spilled food and ankle-breaking toys strewn about, and that's okay because boys will be boys. But she never resolves how, if she's wearing her little black dress all the time, she's kept herself clean from the general mess of babies. What does Laura wear when she knows she's going to be spit-up on? When she's changing a diaper? That's what I want to know. It's possible that those things don't happen to her. She talks about having nannies and a housekeeper, but it's difficult to know exactly what they do. (If there's a housekeeper, why is the house always such a mess?)

If you're a Laura fan, if you like the reality, tell-all genre, or if you're a parenting-book junkie you'll probably enjoy this book. I get that the "guide" part may be intended to be tongue-in-cheek, but I guess I just didn't find it funny or clever enough to pull me in.

Image from goodreads.com. I was not compensated in any way for this post. Items were purchased by me for personal use.

Why I'm Taking My Malaria Pill

I live in a tropical area where malaria is an epidemic. For most Westerners who don't take any sort of malaria prophylactic, the question is when, not if, will malaria strike you. My husband and I both started taking the weekly mefloquine pill before we arrived here in August 2008. For the first couple doses, Mike had the psychedelic dreams and I had anxiety and insomnia (but we were preparing for a move to Africa; I get anxiety and insomnia every time we move anyway) but after a couple weeks the side effects cleared up, we've taken our pills every Sunday, and neither of us have contracted malaria.

When I became pregnant here, one of the first questions my American doctor asked me was how I felt about continuing with the mefloquine. He and I discussed it and my husband and I discussed it. Mefloquine is the only malaria prophylactic that is approved safe for pregnant women. However, my doctor said that with mefloquine there's a slight chance of miscarriage in the first trimester. The effects of contracting malaria while pregnant can be more severe than normal for the mother and can result in miscarriage at any point during the pregnancy. Living where I do, where malaria is so easily contracted and even with all the precautions I take to avoid getting bites, I decided the risk from the mefloquine was less than the risk of malaria. My doctor, Mike, and other health practitioners I spoke to who know this region agreed. Plus, I was already seven weeks pregnant by the time I found out and had been taking the pill all along with no problems.

I'm generally against taking drugs unless absolutely necessary and just about everything else about this pregnancy has been more organic. I haven't even taken a Tylenol. But sticking with the mefloquine has been the right thing to do for me and my family.