Tag: Personal Stories

The Novelty of Beach Life

Beach Comber From Birth

Growing up in Atlanta, I got to be part of that great American summer tradition, the annual family beach trip. Depending on the beach, my brother and I could look forward to between 4 and 6 hours of Wee-Sing-Silly-Songs cassettes, gas station candy, and fierce battles for control of the middle-seat armrest.

We usually ventured to one of a handful of beaches: Panama City, Florida; Daytona, Florida; St. Simons Island, Georgia; Hilton Head, South Carolina. Some on the Atlantic and some on the Gulf of Mexico but all had an abundance of cooked white flesh and thick southern accents. It was paradise!

I remember the thrill of the first palm tree sighting. My brother and I would then count the palms in growing anticipation until we finally glimpsed a flash of ocean between a Texaco and a McDonald’s. After checking into the hotel, we’d spend the next five days coated with sand and sunscreen jumping waves, riding boogie boards, and hunting for seashells. Often grandparents came along and sometimes aunts, uncles, and cousins. There was always a family putt-putt outing, which some of us took more seriously than others. Inevitably, the week ended, and we would say goodbye to the beach for a year.

I now live three blocks from the beach.

I can wake up any day of the week and decide to skip writing in favor of paddling around the bay spotting sea turtles. It. is. amazing!

My daughter has been going to the beach regularly since before she discovered her hands. The list of foods my girl will eat is short but includes white fish, salmon, shark, and tiny fried shrimp. Fried shrimp with the shell and legs still on them. The girl won’t part her lips for a carrot but she pops little shrimp in her mouth like chocolates. We frequently have some version of this conversation on Saturday mornings:

Me: “Should we go to beach today?”

Husband: “I don’t know. We went the last few weekends. I think she might be getting tired of it.”

Me: “Hey Little Bit, do you want to go to the beach?”

Kid: “No, I want to stay home and play with my toys.”

Yes, my daughter will turn down going to the beach in favor of staying home to play with her Littlest Pets because she has no idea how lucky she is and no appreciation for the months of waiting that I had to endure when I was her age to get to the beach. Preschoolers!

Because of these different life experiences, my daughter will probably never understand my obsession with ocean-based hobbies, specifically that she master one or several of them. Some parents dream of their children graduating from the ivy league, I dream of my daughter being a competitive sailor or windsurfer or deep sea fisherwoman. (That last one is lower down on the list.)

Given the novelty (for me anyway) of growing up next to the beach, imagine my joy when my girl started swim class and LOVED it! She has no fear of water, which makes supervising her around the pool more stressful, but is an important first step to becoming a world champion free diver!

A couple of weeks ago, we embarked on phase two of my master plan. Stand up paddle boarding in the bay!* We went as a family and spent the morning spotting green sea turtles in the bay. It was a success. You can see in the video below. My daughter had so much fun, we all went back out yesterday and the heavy grey clouds and constant drizzle didn’t deter her one bit.

Watching my daughter yesterday on my husband’s board, leaning forward through the rain with a smile on her face, I thought “I just might have a seafarer on my hands.” At least I hope I do. All she needs now is a willingness to use sunscreen.

*If you’re ever in Vitoria, Brazil, I highly recommend a morning of SUP. We rented our boards from Loop. They have windsurf and stand up equipment for rent. The bay is filled with sea turtle, fish, and the occasional ray leaping from the water.

March 2, 2015
Lessons For Toddlers and Expats

My 3 year old daughter is currently struggling to accept some of the physical limitations of our three dimensional world. “That tunnel is not tall enough for the train.” “It was made for one Littlest Pet not eight.” “Sweetheart, your teddy bear is never going to fit in that play dough pot.” She will ignore me, keep trying, and eventually hurl whatever it is against the wall in a frustrated fury. I hope it’s just a phase.

What is remarkable is her flat out refusal to accept an obvious reality. She will continue to struggle long after it’s clear that it’s not going to fit. Her tenacity is impressive. It’s also the source of many a nighttime tantrum. While I don’t want her to ever give up easily, I’d like to spare her the frustration and save her the energy spent fighting against a fact about her world.

As an expat, I should apply this lesson myself.

I’ve lived in Brazil eight and a half years, and I still struggle to accept some facts about life here. One thing that still makes my face burn is the out of control and invasive bureaucracy.

There is no question too personal for a form and no transaction that does not require one. The eyeglass store wants your social security number. The hotel wants your profession. The dentist wants your race. Your employer wants to know your blood pressure.

I get around some forms by pretending I’m here temporarily or don’t speak a word of Portuguese, but I couldn’t do this at my former job.

When I began teaching the school asked me to have a medical exam. When I came back from maternity leave there was another exam and another a year later for every employee at the school. When I gave notice at the end of last year, human resources asked me to sign several letters saying that I was leaving of my own accord and have another medical exam.

I refused. As American, an employer requiring a medical exam and making note of the fact you use contraceptives is deeply offensive. I had done the previous exams because I liked the job, and hey when in Rome…but now I was quitting. What could they do? Fire me?

There were several meetings with HR during which I nicely refused to accommodate and the HR lady just as nicely said it was mandatory by law. After checking with a lawyer, I explained sweetly there’s no law requiring a person to submit to a medical exam. She politely insisted there is.

Eventually I was told it was the union that required the exam. And speaking of the union, I had to meet with them and have a rep sign off on my paperwork. Please come back next Tuesday afternoon.

I showed up at the union rep’s office in my school and met a man very disgruntled by my lateness. The meeting was at 2pm. It was 2:02 pm. As he grumbled, he grabbed his keys, my work card, and my paperwork. Below is as faithful a transcription of our conversation as my memory allows.

Me: “Excuse me, are you leaving?”

Man I Have Only Just Met: “He’s going to wait for us.”

Me: “Who?”

MIHOJM: “The union Kahuna. (That’s my word because I don’t remember what title the guy really had.) You were supposed to meet with him at 2pm.”

Me: “Aren’t you the man I’m meeting?”

MIHOJM: “No, the Kahuna has to sign off on your papers, and he’s at the union’s headquarters.”

Me: “Wait. Do we have to drive somewhere?”

MIHOJM: “Yes. We’re going to the union office.”

Me: “Stop. I’m not leaving. Give me my work card and documents. I am not going.”

At that point I had been quitting my job for almost two months. I was done. I was out of patience and polite Portuguese. I unleashed the full force of my direct, low-context American culture on him and I wrapped things up then and there.

I am not going to the union office. I am not having the medical exam. I want to quit today. You are a union officer? Do you have authority to sign these papers? Great. Please, sign them all now.

While I did manage to officially quit, within a Brazilian context, I was a complete asshole to a guy who was just doing his job. He was acting according to standard practice and then comes this woman who freaks out on him, is blunt to the point of being rude, and very angry.

And I stayed angry. I complained about the whole process to everyone I met for days. Hurling my complaints about meaningless bureaucracy against every wall in a frustrated fury. What did that anger get me? Well, it used up a lot of my energy, a very precious commodity. It would have taken a lot less energy to shrug my shoulders.

Somethings you have to accept. Don’t waste energy being angry about something you can’t change. Lessons we expats have to learn. Expats and toddlers.

February 24, 2015
What Would Jesus Do?

Recently I finished unpacking after moving into my apartment three and a half years ago. Why the delay? I simply didn’t care enough to discover where the dessert bowls were. Caring requires a crucial combination of both time and energy that I haven’t had since my daughter came home from the hospital.

After a month of being abandoned every night in the NICU, she arrived home with severe separation anxiety. I have not had a full night’s in over three years. In the initial tortuous months, I was able to care about ten things:

1. Feed baby.

2. Clean baby.

3. Make sure baby sleeps.

4. Try to sleep while baby does.

5. Feed myself.

6. Provide age appropriate stimulation for the baby.

7. Get dressed and take baby for a walk.

8. Acknowledge my husband’s presence.

9. Brush my teeth.

10. Take a shower.

For the first seven months, I consistently managed numbers 1 through 8. Then I went back to work, showering moved up among my priorities, and preparing classes got added to the list. Unpacking the DVDs, staying up on current events, making intelligent conversation were not things I cared about at all. Caring takes energy and with so little sleep, my energy became a commodity more precious than clean water in Sao Paulo. It was awful. It was also the most liberating experience of my life.

A nice outfit. A good hair day. Makeup. Staples of my leaving-the-house routine. I stopped caring about them all. My routine was reduced to shower, brush teeth, brush hair, use deodorant (I remembered it most days), a comfortable shirt, jeans, and flat shoes. I had enough energy to be clean, dressed, and present wherever I was required. Nothing more.

Then it dawned on me who’s routine I had adopted: my husband’s.

With my new routine, I was living life like a man. No makeup. No blowdryers or straighteners or curling irons. No time spent over earrings, necklaces, and bracelets. Only flat shoes that make stairs merely good exercise and not treacherous. Holy crap!!! This is how men go through the world. No wonder they still run everything. They’re wearing shoes that actually allow them to run.

My husband goes out in the world with visible bags under eyes when he doesn’t sleep and he is still wildly successful with many people who want to work with him. He doesn’t dye his hair and he still has friends. He regularly puts his t-shirts on backwards and his family still loves him.

Why the hell can’t I have it so easy?

Turns out I can. It was during this time when I regularly forgot to brush my teeth until after lunch, that I met and made my three best friends in Vitoria. I had great relationships with my boss and colleagues and earned more responsibility at work. My husband didn’t leave me when I kept my hair in a ponytail for three months straight. My new friends didn’t stop calling when I went six months without putting in a pair of earrings. My fellow teachers didn’t ignore me because I recycled the same five tops every week.

I hope with all of my heart that I can teach these lessons to my daughter. If she is honest, respectful, hard working, and fair, she will be successful personally and professionally. That’s all she needs. High school might be a bitch, but her life will be a success.

I believe the best way I can teach her these lessons is to apply them to myself. Now when staring in the bathroom mirror, I ask myself a question I haven’t since trying to fit in at my public high school in Georgia. What would Jesus do?

As a man, would Jesus arrive five minutes late because he had to pluck his eyebrows? Would Jesus wear the super cute shoes even though they’ll give him a blister on the walk to daycare? Would Jesus wear eyeliner to a pool party?

I wish I could say I’ve been hardcore enough to ask if Jesus would shave his pits but I haven’t and don’t plan to. I admit I apply my new philosophy somewhat selectively. I guess I’m not perfect. But I don’t have the energy to care.

February 16, 2015
7 Weeks Early

Almost three weeks old!

The contractions started just before 5pm. I didn’t know that’s what they were. It was my first pregnancy and I’d never felt a contraction. Everything I read about contractions emphasized back pain. Oh the back pain! I had no back pain. So much for preliminary research.

What I had was pain across my lower abdomen that seemed to come in waves. While watching my students study during the last few minutes of class for the day, I chalked the pain up to intestinal problems. The one classic pregnancy symptom I’d had the joy of experiencing for several months was constipation. I assumed the pain was my intestine finally in revolt, not contractions.

Also, I was only 33 weeks along.

I noted the increasing intensity of the pain as I caught a ride home from a fellow teacher. I thought it odd when I finally scurried into my bathroom at home that I didn’t really have to go. Still, I did not think contractions. It was 7 weeks before my due date. I didn’t even dismiss the thought of contractions. The thought has to enter your head in order to dismiss it and the idea of contractions never did.

By 6:15pm however, I was in sufficient enough pain to ask my husband to call my doctor. My doctor told me to get in a warm shower and sent my husband off to buy some pregnancy safe pain killers. When the shower failed to lessen the pain, I began to think something was wrong. Then there was blood.

I called my husband. He turned back before ever reaching the drug store. He was on the phone with my doctor when he walked back into the apartment. As I was yanking on clothes in the bedroom, I heard him ask “How much blood is there? If it’s just…” He stopped talking. He’d seen the bathmat. In less than a minute we were in the car on our way to the doctor’s office.

Thankfully, Dr. Batistuta’s office is only five minutes from our apartment and he was working late. It was about 7pm and the office was empty except for the doctor and his secretary, as my husband helped me climb the stairs to the exam room. The pain was now so intense I wanted nothing more than to close my eyes and breathe. But there were questions and Portuguese verbs to conjugate in order to answer. I used to think speaking in Portuguese on the phone was difficult. Speaking in Portuguese during a contraction is much harder.

Placental Abruption. That was my Portuguese phrase of the day.

My doctor explained that the baby’s heart rate was elevated and that combined with the blood and contractions made him think the placenta had torn from the uterus and blood was now pumping into the uterus. I was headed for an emergency c-section.

After a flurry of discussion between my husband and the doctor, some quick phone calls made by his assistant, they confirmed no office with an ultrasound was open to confirm this diagnosis so we would be going straight to the emergency room. At least, that’s what I was told happened. I was still lying on the exam table breathing through contractions and pain that went from aching to breathtaking, never completely disappearing.

A little before 8pm I was standing outside with my doctor trying to have small talk in Portuguese while my husband got the car. Twenty minutes later my doctor was wheeling me into the emergency room and pushing me over to some nurses who began giving a flurry of instructions in Portuguese. I was being prepped for emergency surgery 7 weeks before my due date and strangely enough I was not panicked. I was too occupied with breathing through contractions and understanding the directions I was given to really dwell on worst case scenarios. Contractions are a great distraction. Contractions and conjugating Portuguese verbs.

I never thought I would die. I never thought I could die. I never thought my baby would die. In the moment, I never once feared for my life or my baby’s. It was only afterwards, when researching placental abruptions, that I learned just how serious the situation was. Not as much for me as for her. While I lay on my side curled into a ball having a needle stuck between vertebrae, I was worried about the kinds of complications my daughter could have being born so early. Would she have eye or ear problems? Would she have some sort of neurological problem? Would her lungs be working yet?

I didn’t bring any of this up to my husband as he sat by my head in canary yellow scrubs pointedly not looking in the direction of my open abdomen. The c-section is certainly one of the most surreal experiences of my life. To be fully conscious while your abdomen is opened and people stick their hands in and root around your internal organs…well, surreal doesn’t quite cover it. I felt tugging, sometimes hard tugging but absolutely no pain. There was one hard tug and suddenly a baby was crying. I cried for the first and only time all night.

My daughter was born at 8:50pm on July 11. We thought she was 33 weeks but her initial exams put her developmentally at 35 weeks. She was just small so the ultrasounds underestimated her age. She was 2.005kg or 4 1/2lbs. She was on oxygen for a day and then under a UV lamp for four. Some problems concerning her lactose tolerance resulted in her staying in Intensive care for 26 days. But those 26 days are the subject of a future post.

4 months old!

Yesterday, my daughter celebrated her 3 month birthday. She smiles and coos and refuses to sleep during the day anywhere but in a someone’s arms. That’s why there haven’t been many posts recently. It’s hard to type with a baby in your arms. A perfectly healthy, happy, and breathtakingly beautiful baby.

October 12, 2011
My Recommendation for an OBGYN in Vitoria

My expat identity has taken a back seat in my last few posts to the teacher or pregnant woman part of me, but after reading some blog entries from other expats in Brazil I’ve been inspired to finally write a post that has been in the back of my mind for some time.

Coconut Water is officially recommending Dr. Paulo Batistuta for anyone in Vitoria looking for an OBGYN.

While I’ve endorsed several Brazilian food options including açaí and moqueca capixaba, this is Coconut Water’s first official endorsement of a healthcare professional in Brazil and I’m recommending Dr. Batistuta with the same fervor I do a big bowl of açaí.

A fairly common complaint from expats here is that doctors in Brazil don’t really explain things to you. They tell you to get a test and bring them the results. Unless the results require being ordered to get another test or bypass surgery, that’s all you’ll hear about them. Another complaint specific to women in the process of childbearing is that doctors here in Brazil prefer doing c-sections to pretty much anything else. (I’d believe even more than sex given the rate at which they are performed here.) Some private hospitals in Brazil have c-section rates as high as 90%.

Dr. Batistuta (Dr. Paulo here in Brazil where they use first names) defies both of these stereotypes.

Personal anecdote. After an early ultrasound, I noticed there was one item that had an abnormal reading, specifically low blood flow in the left uterine artery. When we took the results to Dr. Batistuta, I asked about it and Dr. Batistuta picked up a pen and immediately began sketching a uterus and arteries. He explained what the test measured and what the result meant. He even sketched out exactly where the placenta was attached in my uterus. You know, the more information the better. He assured us that this wasn’t a problem given the normal results for everything else and we’d check it again at the next ultrasound. He was right. Everything was normal at the next ultrasound.

Dr. Batistuta never rushes us out the door. I’ll pull out a list of questions. He’ll happily answer everyone, giving me cards, books, even DVDs that will provide further information. While I’m in the bathroom changing I can hear him and my husband chatting away about upgrading their computers’ operating systems. We were in his office for almost an hour during our last visit.

As for c-sections, Dr. Batistuta is one of the leading voices in Brazil for natural childbirth. If you speak Portuguese you can watch him being interviewed on youtube. While he will state point blank he believes the best birth for the mother and baby is one with no unnecessary medical intervention, he has also told me that ultimately the doctors and staff are there to support me and what I want. If I ask for drugs, they will give me drugs.

I should mention cost. One of the great things about Vitoria is that you can get great medical care (private) for half the cost of what you’d pay in Rio or Sao Paulo. For an office visit, Dr. Batistuta charges BR$200 ($118). We pay this out of pocket at the visit and send a receipt to our insurance company for reimbursement. For the actual birth, Dr. Batistuta is charging BR$4.000 ($2,353). Again, we’ll pay and get reimbursed later. (Once the whole birthing process is said and done, I’ll do a summary of all medical expenses for giving birth in Vitoria.)

Finally, the language issue. Our visits are conducted exclusively in Portuguese but when I have to use an English phrase Dr. Batistuta understands. (I suspect he is modest about his level of English and understands way more English than he lets on.) Fortunately, my husband attends every visit and supplements my intermediate Portuguese with his native tongue thus preventing any serious misunderstandings. I can’t say for sure how it would go if you don’t speak any Portuguese. I think everyone could muddle through but it is important to know that Vitoria is a much smaller city than Rio, Sao Paulo or Belo Horizonte and English speaking professionals are in much shorter supply here.

If you are an expat in Vitoria looking for an OBGYN, I strongly recommend Dr. Batistuta. He talks to his patients as intellectual equals. He supports natural birth and medical intervention only when necessary. He understands some English and is very patient when listening to bad Portuguese. You can find his profile and contact info with the CECON medical group.

June 25, 2011
Live and Let Parent

This morning my husband was walking past the bookshelf and spotted a recent addition amongst the rainbow of spines. (Yes, he is that observant.) “Breastfeeding,” he murmured out loud, taking a closer look. He turned to me and said “Do you really need 200 pages on breastfeeding? Isn’t it pretty straightforward?” A few months ago I would have thought the same thing, but then I started reading pregnancy sites and the endless stream of personal anecdotes in the comment sections detailing difficulties with everything from breastfeeding to nose clearing. Now, I’m pretty sure 200 pages is not enough address all the ways breastfeeding can go wrong.

It’s complicated. I’m not just talking about breastfeeding. I’m talking about raising a baby. Last night, I spent an hour researching diaper creams. I’ve looked at swaddling blankets versus sleep sacks. Pacifiers before she’s one month old? What temperature for the bath water? Do visitors need to wash their hands before holding her or is hand sanitizer enough? If I give her peanut butter before she graduates from high school will she die of an allergic reaction? And these are only the questions about physical development. Never mind the ones about intellect and character.

As I develop an appreciation for how complicated raising a person is, I find myself becoming more and more tolerant of other parents. Recently Salon featured an interview with the creator of the website “Too Big for Strollers.” The name is literal. The site is a collection of photos of kids who are probably old enough to send text messages from their own cell phones being pushed around in strollers. From the tone of the site, its creator (clearly the Salon interviewer too) thinks putting a four-year-old in a stroller is what terrible parents do if they want to raise a lazy, entitled, and self-centered human being.

When I saw the pictures, I thought “Isn’t an older child in a stroller better than a lost child?”

The majority of pictures on the site seem to be taken in crowded amusements parks or cities, places where strapping in a kid perfectly old enough to walk but young enough to distractedly wander away is not a bad idea. Maybe overboard but not a terrible lapse in judgment.

I have also been in the presence of a hot, tired, and hungry kid. If they haven’t used this creature at Guantanamo, they’re missing a out on an extremely effective torture method not banned by the Geneva Convention. I have dreams of being the parent who looks at her child after the 80th complaint of tired legs and serenely says, “You are too big for a stroller,” but I know they’re just dreams. I’ll cave. I can only take so much whining and screaming. I have a breaking point. Be it a day out running errands or a 9 hour plane ride, I already know there will be circumstances in which I will cater to any demand as long as it keeps her quiet. And mommy sane.

Turns out the woman who created that site and the one who interviewed her are both childless! Figures. It’s so easy to think there’s a clear “right way” when you are not the one who has to do it. I’m a pretty critical person but I’m now trying to give other parents a break. As long as someone is feeding his child and not bathing it with bleach, I’ve got his back. At least I’m trying to, because parenting is complicated.

So to the Mom I passed on the street holding the hand of a 4 year old using a pacifier, I understand. Maybe it was the only way to get through your errands without constant screaming. So no judgment without context. That leopard print unitard, though? That’s just tacky.

UPDATE May 2015: It looks like Laura Miller, the creator of the tumbler site Too Big for Strollers, gave it up shortly after her interview in Salon. Apparently, there were A LOT of angry parents who didn’t like someone without children passing judgement on them. And on a personal note, I recently tried to get my 3 1/2 year-old daughter to start walking the five blocks to school. It lasted two weeks. Dang, that girl can put up a fight. She’ll overthrow a dictator someday. We compromised on a tricycle that I can take over and push if necessary. I’ll try the walking again on her 4th birthday.

May 25, 2011
One Day as a Teacher

Here’s what I do in my new role as teacher. I read the chapters of Great Expectations we’ll be covering, marking all difficult vocab that will probably need to be defined and difficult passages that will need to summarized as a class. Plan class on introducing Charles Dickens and Great Expectations. Find fun youtube clip on the life of Charles Dickens. Make adjustments to the supply and demand game that didn’t go well in class the day before. Make new material for tweaked supply and demand game. Correct and grade 15 essays on a personal response Aesop fables. Teach class for 3 hours.

That was this past Wednesday.

I realized two things after logging in to write a new post: 1) People link to my blog from pretty bizarre search terms and 2) I only wrote two posts for the entire month of April. Last November, I cranked out more than two posts a week. Still not anything close to the commitment of blogging all-stars, but it was still a big chunk of content for one month. Now, I have a job and a condition called pregnancy which robs me of the energy to do anything productive past 9pm. Unless your definition of productive is eating Belgian chocolate ice-cream and streaming the previous night’s Daily Show, in which case, I make my greatest contributions to society after 9pm.

Clearly, I’m going to have make a conscious commitment to maintaining Coconut Water. I don’t want it sitting out languishing in the Brazilian sun developing a film of bacteria and mosquito eggs. (Can mosquitoes lay eggs on coconut water? Probably, they’re basically invincible.) The end result of this pregnancy is a baby, which I’m told, will devour whatever remaining free time I have and possibly my will to shower and tolerate other human beings. The chances I’ll be getting back up to two posts a week are small.

Or maybe not. I will be on maternity leave for four months, and while breast feeding is supposed to beautiful, I haven’t heard anyone call it intellectually stimulating. I might desperately cranking out posts. In the long term though, next school year should be easier. I won’t be new to the material and spending hours planning every class. I’ll already have my youtube clip of Fozzy Bear reciting Robert Frost.

The really amazing about my daily schedule right now is that I only teach part-time. I’m in front of a class teaching 16 hours yet find myself working all day, every day. I think what I really need is one of those cushy full-time teaching jobs those pundits keep talking.

May 7, 2011
The increasing weight of my uterus

The other morning at breakfast my husband casually brought up an old colleague who had called him out of the blue. I listened attentively and then with a slowly furrowing brow as my husband explained this colleague wanted to put my husband in touch with a local college. This college is in need of professors. Perhaps my husband would be interested in teaching beginning in September?

Between bites of peanut butter toast, I calmly reminded him that he has a daughter arriving at the end of August. Won’t things be stressful enough without a new teaching gig on the side? That’s why he was taking the month of September off from work. So, he could be here helping with the baby and coordinating international family visitation. I agreed this was going to be a huge help but what about after September. He would go back to two jobs and I will be at home with no jobs.

We left the conversation at “Let’s wait and see what the college offers if they ever actually call,” but I continued to think about it for the rest of the day. Even knowing how much my husband loves teaching and has missed it over the last few years, I couldn’t muster any enthusiasm for this new project. His dissertation is not due for another few, stressful months and he’s already looking for something new to fill up his time. I would have thought a new baby would fill time pretty effectively but my husband seems to think he will still have some left over.

And he just might be right. After all, he isn’t the one whose body will be battered and bruised and need recovery time. He doesn’t have the mammary glands required to feed the baby every few hours. It’s not his voice lecturing on supply and demand that the baby will have heard for months and most likely have become very attached to. He’ll have a more fit body, more energy, and maybe even enough time to teach a few law classes, all in addition to having a warm, squishy baby to rock to sleep. Who the hell came up with this ridiculously unfair system?

That was it. That was the real reason I couldn’t support my husband pursuing something he loves. While there are legitimate arguments to be made about adding stress and leaving me alone for more hours during the week (I’m including the hours needed to plan lessons), my real hang-up is that I am jealous.

Taking on a professorship in September would not even be an option for me. There is no discussion. No debate. There is not even a discussion about continuing the job I have in September. If my husband and I have a baby, I’m not working for several months. Period. It does not matter how much I enjoy my job, how much money I make, or how long I’ve waited to find a real job in Brazil. I’m staying at home because in this partnership, I’m the one with the uterus.

I’m loving my job. I have been waiting for years wondering if my master’s degree would end up a completely wasted investment. I’m making friends and coming home daily with enough stories to fill up a week of dinner conversation. Seriously, at this point, I’ve got conversation material to last through July. But that doesn’t matter. I will be giving it all up for months and my own dreams, interests, and capabilities do not matter. Because I am the one with the uterus.

Before the defenders of motherhood swoop down around, let me say that, yes, having a family is a dream of mine, so having a baby is in fact pursing one dream. It’s just not the only one I have. And my husband gets to have a family without putting any of his dreams on hold and even has the option to pursue an additional interest.

I do not regret getting pregnant and I cannot wait for the moment I get to meet my daughter face to face. It is just a little shocking to me to have my life plan decided so absolutely by an internal organ other than my brain. I haven’t changed. The person who is Brynn still has the same interests, the same flaws, the same quirks as four months ago but, at least for the end of 2011, those things are secondary to the fact I have a uterus and have put it to use. Do men have any experience remotely equivalent?

I brought all this up to husband over dinner last night. I asked if he had any problems with my blogging about the subject. He said he didn’t mind, but he added one thought at the end. He told me he was making sacrifices to have this baby too. I asked what they were. He told me, “I’m going to have to share you with someone for the rest of my life.” And I suddenly felt a whole lot lighter.

Update: My daughter was born 7 weeks early and is turning 4 next month. My husband did finish his PhD and take the teaching job. He is now the coordinator of the law school…And despite not having a full night’s sleep since July 10, 2011, I have managed to write a graphic novel set in Brazil. Now if I could just get an agent to say yes, I’d have quite the uplifting cinematic ending. ; )

April 9, 2011
The Miracle of Pregnancy?

The miracle of pregnancy is that any woman voluntarily goes through it more than once.

At 19 weeks into my own pregnancy, this is the conclusion I’ve come to. Am I the only one that thinks a process which makes the act of consuming food torturous at exactly the same time your diet becomes more than ever before, is flawed? Admittedly, eating has become less of a chore in the second trimester, but between constantly belching like a teenage boy chugging soda to an increasingly limited number of comfortable sleeping positions, I’m not sold on the experience.

I’ve been doing a lot of research. I’m reading every thing from mommy bloggers debating epidurals to the Mayo Clinic’s week by week summary. Pretty much everyone, doctors and bloggers alike, reference this “glow” pregnant women experience. A warm, fuzzy feeling that radiates from toes to earlobes every time a woman looks at her belly. Unless this glow refers to light reflecting off of my sweat, I don’t know what they’re all talking about. I’m waiting for the fuzzy feeling. Seriously, any time now.

Maybe my hormones are off. Although, I’ve done so many blood and urine tests at this point, I’d think somebody would have noticed and told me if they were.

Do not misunderstand me. I’m not upset about being pregnant. I’m not regretting it. Really, I’m a huge fan of family. Go family! “More family,” I say. I can’t wait to go to school plays and put colorful, abstract renditions of the family pets on the refrigerator. I’m just not a huge fan of the pregnancy part and based on the vast majority of what is online, this feeling (or lack of) puts me firmly in the minority of women.

Reading the material available for pregnant women and new mothers, it’s pretty clear there are millions of women who dream about being pregnant. They yearn for it. They wish, hope, pray and stare longingly through store windows at baby clothes. I have never felt this. I never dreamed about being pregnant and giving birth was never on my list of life goals. In complete honesty, getting pregnant has yet to give me even half the personal satisfaction that finishing my master’s degree did.

When my husband came home from the doctor two years ago and said we might have trouble getting pregnant, I said “We can just adopt. There are plenty of kids that need parents.” I truly didn’t feel any sense of loss. What I wanted down the line was a family and that, at least in my mind, never required my being pregnant.

I understand many women feel a need to be pregnant, but I can’t empathize. I’m thrilled the baby is healthy and growing. I’ve got a library’s worth of books coming that will tell everything from how her synapses are forming to all the colors her poop can be and what they mean. Her nursery color scheme and theme are set five months before she’ll need it. Yet even amidst the nesting, there is a feeling Audrey will be an only child. At least, the only one I’m giving birth to. I’ve told my husband we can totally have more kids but it’s his turn to gestate. He assures me this won’t be possible. I shrug my shoulders and say “Well, there are lots of kids who need good parents and a big sister.”

March 30, 2011