Brynn Barineau

Tag: pregnancy

  • Live and Let Parent

    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.

  • One Day as a Teacher

    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.

  • Diagnosis: Information Overload

    Diagnosis: Information Overload

    The Internet is amazing.  Easy communication between continents, quick access to the rules on semicolon usage, and adorable animal videos.  What’s not to love?  Well, for me, the gross amount of information available on pregnancy and mothering.  Here is a tiny sample of the useful info the Internet has provided me concerning pregnancy.
    Google query:  “What to eat while pregnant?”
    You absolutely have to get enough folic acid, vitamin C, Calcium, iron and about a dozen other things while pregnant or your baby will not have a fully developed spinal cord, skeleton, or eyebrows. You can get these things from dark green vegetables, citrus fruits, beans, milk, yogurt, steak, eggs.

    Google query: “gas and indigestion while pregnant”

    You will inevitably suffer from gas and indigestion.  In the case of severe pain avoid eating dark green vegetables, citrus fruits, beans, and dairy products.

    Google query: “Foods to avoid while pregnant”

    Avoid any undercooked meat and eggs and any unpasteurized dairy or fruit juices.  Consuming these will cause terrible bacteria to eat your baby.

    Google query: “Important nutrients while pregnant”

    You really, really need to eat a lot of iron, which the body easily absorbs from meat and eggs, spinach and beans.

     

    An hour of this will make a sane person’s head explode.  You should eat beans and broccoli but not if you want to avoid being doubled over with gas pain.  You should eat lots of meat and dairy but only if it’s been pasteurized or cooked until it can be used as a spare tire.  This is the curse of too much information.  Spend enough time researching and you will inevitably end up with contradictory information.   If it’s not flat out contradictory, it will at least make every bite of salad cause for an anxiety attack and present you with the choice of gritting through passing a beach ball through your intestines or depriving your baby of vital nutrients.  And we all know which option a good mother would choose.

    During my first few weeks, I had pretty much convinced myself there was no way the baby could make it out of my uterus alive when I had my first consultation with Dr. Paulo Batistuta.  Leaning back in his chair, he listened while I asked about eating fish and peanut butter and salad prepared by anyone’s hands other my own.  He smiled and said “Go ahead enjoy.”  Restaurants don’t do very good business if their patrons get sick, so they keep their food clean and fresh.  As long as my peanut butter is made in the USA, it’s no problem.  (Remember, Brazilian peanuts can carry a liver-eating fungus.)  And fish? Well, of course. Moqueca capixaba is delicious, isn’t it?  Yes, doctor.  Yes it is.  And thanks to you, I will now be able to enjoy it without a side of guilt.

    Internet research is basically the only skill I got in college and it has become something of a curse since being pregnant.  Dr. Paulo is exactly the zen master this patient needs.  Eat a balanced diet. Cook everything until there’s no pink.  Stop using Google.  Everyone will be fine.

  • The increasing weight of my uterus

    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. ; )

  • The Miracle of Pregnancy?

    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.”

  • Coconut Water in a Bottle

    Coconut Water in a Bottle

    I’d like to share a PSA I’m working on.

    “Hey kids, let’s talk about statistics!  Statistics are lame? Ok, how about, sex and statistics? Did you know there are lots of statistics about sex? Totally! People base entire careers off of pie charts illustrating issues about sex.  What issues?  Well, you could have data about how likely it is for someone above a certain age with a certain medical history to have a baby.  You could then pass this information along to doctors.  Doctors in turn pass it along to patients.  These doctors might even chuckle when the patient talks about continuing to use birth control for the time being, because the doctor knows the odds of pregnancy are so slim contraception isn’t necessary.  Then the patient and his partner, believing the doctor knows what he’s talking about, think it’s ok to go a few weeks without birth control.  Four months later the couple is researching baby names and picking out colors for the nursery.  Look kids, my point is that the only statistic about sex that really matters is ‘A small chance is NOT the same as no chance.”  Say it with me, ‘A small chance is NOT the same as no chance.’ ” -This message was brought to you by the US Department of Agriculture, for years bringing you numbing statistics such as raising child from birth to 17 costs $221,000 (not including the cost of time, sanity or college).

    A little wordy for a 30 second spot?  Maybe.  I could just make t-shirts that state in bold and all caps “A SMALL CHANCE IS NOT THE SAME AS NO CHANCE” and give one to, well, everybody .

    It’s an important lesson my husband and I have learned, because, obviously, the story above is ours.  I am currently 18 weeks pregnant.  We’re expecting a little girl August 26.

    Despite what my PSA might imply, we are excited.  Although, to be completely honest, it is has taken me a couple of months to reach that stage.  We always planned to have a family, but we were going to wait another year or two.  Being a person who sticks to any well-made plan the way others adhere to religion, I was thrown by this schedule change.  “Buying an apartment comes before having a baby!”  Then I looked at the big picture, the one where you see your entire life laid out, and I realized that having a baby after college, after grad school, after marriage, after employment, even if it’s still one year earlier than planned, is actually pretty darn good life planning.  Also, I started looking at baby stuff and discovered there is not a single item of clothing that does not become totally adorable when miniaturized.  OMG, baby socks!!

    Now that I’m far enough along, I’m comfortable posting about my pregnancy to the world.  This means Coconut Water will have lots of posts in the coming months about having a baby in Brazil.  Having read about expats in Rio, I already know having a baby in Vitoria is about half the cost as Rio for the same quality of care.  There will be posts about my doctor (love him!), raising bilingual kids, costs, hospitals, finding a nanny, coordinating family visits, etc. Between the new job and the new baby, I have so much to write about but right now I need to go edit essays.  So many posts, so little time.