I'm getting more confident in my pregnancy now, no more balling out my eyes when I have to tell someone, like the salesgirl at the maternity shop, that I'm pregnant. I triumphantly walk around in my $24 Gap Maternity princess top. "It makes you look more pregnant than you are," says Aaron. But my regular clothes make me look like I'm just fat and sloppy, which I'm not. I'm very carefully groomed and disciplined about my body. Usually.
It was my birthday on Saturday and I could only think of my little one, if she was doing well and/or needed anything. Milk, mommy, I need milk. A curved talking finger placed by the belly serves as the Olive puppet. "Hello Daddy, how are you?" Aaron told me to stop that. It was too weird he said. Too much like Danny's friend in The Shining.
We went to the Catskills for my birthday and stayed at the Shandaken Inn. It was a beautifully wooded place. We swam in the pool and all three of us loved that: Olive, Aaron and me. I imagined that Olive was doing the breaststroke too. Despite both our efforts, Aaron won the race. He's very athletic and the bigger I get, the slower I'm getting. We hiked to a waterfall and stuck our feet in the pond - it was so cold and fresh. The waterfall was in the town of Olive! We passed over the Olive bridge, drove by the Olive folk - everything was Olive.
I went to a job interview and I do fit, kind of, into my suit. I had to put an elastic around the button and the buttonhole and hide it with a longer shirt. Still, I could button my jacket. If I do get the job, I wonder what will happen since I know I'll start showing very soon. Oh well, it's only a temporary job - for a few months - so that may be perfect for everyone.
I read Naomi Wolf's "Misconception," a good read to get shocking stats about the American way of having babies, where money takes precedence over style. All those C-sections, epidurals, fetal monitors, episiotomies are things that benefit a profit center of hospitals and doctors more than mother+child. Despite having the highest rate of Cesarian in the developed world, America does not save more babies and mothers than other countries - in fact it saves quite a few less.
Sadly, the whole technology approach to birth seems to stem from profit motives rather than anything else. A good doctor friend of mine recently said to me: "I don't like Canada because doctor's salaries are low." It appears that the lure to become a doctor in America has not much to do with the call to heal but everything to do with big bucks, no whammy. The whammy being malpractice litigation, another big reason for all the unnecessary tests, surgeries (C-sections) and other unnatural things in childbirth. There are tons more facts and figures in Wolf's book and also deep discussions on the less fluffy feelings about motherhood that one may experience: sadness for loss of the youthful self, tumult at having to take care of a crybaby alone, etc. I was quite depressed after reading the book, but also thankful that I've made careful preparations. My mother will stay with me for a month after childbirth. It's the tradition in our Pakistani culture, and gives the new mother a chance to baby her baby while her mother babies her and also shows her little secrets of mothering.
My mother and husband will also be informed labor partners because they will be prepped thoroughly on all the million and one techniques for natural labor - walking, dancing, sexual stimulation, ice-chewing, back-rubs, water baths, etc. My grandmother stayed by my mother when I was born. She held her hand and kept the doctors back, with their suggestions of epidurals and C-sections. That's all; she just held her daughter's hand and told her she could do it.
Other than that, if my doctor insists on strapping me done or cutting me up, what can be done about that? I'm hoping he won't, though I haven't asked yet, because he's Persian and everyone knows that people from an ancient culture have a real connection to old good knowledge. None of that new-fangled stuff for me. Unless I'm dying on the birthbed, of course.
Naomi was also critical of that horrid book - "What to Expect When You're Expecting." I've read it a few times, because I couldn't figure out what I was missing. Then I realized I was missing the fact that there is barely any information in that book. It's so general and rational and tuned to a dumbed down every-woman. There is no such woman, we're all so unique, emotional and feeling. We really do need better information than vague generalities and statistical comforts. My mother thinks I want too much information. Just stay happy, she says. Feel the pregnancy, don't think it. I kind of like that too. I had a good time yesterday simply daydreaming about a fat bouncy baby on my lap with these sweet curls on her head.
I've also read "Children: The Challenge," by Rudolf Dreikurs, M.D., a 50s style manifesto on rearing. When I first read it, I was amazed at how differently I was raised - very emotionally, very viscerally. This book is like the John Locke approach to childraising. Mother and Father are so reasonable; the family is a democracy and everyone gets their say. Mother and Father never spank or yell or repeat their requests more than once. I was quite attracted to the whole concept while reading it, especially since I could clearly see my mother-in-law's rearing of Aaron in it. It does have some great advice, like not insulting the children's sweet first attempts at doing things, even when they botch it up and create messes. But I don't know if I can be all that reasonable. Or callous. Like they suggest that if a child is misbehaving at the grocery store, to firmly ask the child whether they would like to behave or wait in the car. Is it possible to leave the child in a parked car? What if a stranger tries to abduct the child? Then, I thought, hmm, maybe I'll modify it to leaving the child in the trunk of the car. That would be quite unpleasant for the child and deter any abductor. And possibly be grounds for child abuse.
