Chasing A Child

27w4d

Went to visit Doc again today. I'm on a 2-week schedule instead of a monthly schedule, which is fine by both of us. A student nurse took my blood pressure, and I made her re-take it because the first number was out of my normal range. Fortunately, the second time I was right back on track. Phew. The last thing I need is Doc freaking out about preeclampsia. Or, well, I guess preeclampsia itself would suck too. Anyway...

My stomach is measuring 24 weeks, which is not optimal, but not a cause for major alarms either. It could be bad -- a problem with the baby's growth or the amount of amniotic fluid, or it could be no big deal. I'm actually much less worried about it this week than I was at my last appointment when she was measuring only a couple of weeks behind. I've been carrying low from the get-go, and I'm pretty sure this baby spends most of her time lying sideways across my belly and tucked down deep in my pelvis. Many of the kicks and jabs that I notice happen way down low and several times I swear she was bouncing up and down on my cervix. She's not super active on a regular basis, but she may just be a mellow kid. Sometimes days go by with just a flutter here and there. And then there are days like last Thursday, when I swear she spent the entire day tearing down walls and kicking organs around, remodeling her space to make room for the new growth. The Mister and I just shook our heads when Doc said "24", because both of us have been noticing the ridiculously expanding ball that is my belly region the past week or so. We have a growth-check scan scheduled for next Monday, so all will be known then. Until that time, I'm not going to stress.

The other highlight of today's visit to Doc was the GD test. Oooo yum yum, lime sugar drink. (Blech.) It was chilled, thank goodness, and tasted much like flat Sprite with a metallic aftertaste. I went back an hour later for the blood draw and the lab tech looked at me as if she'd never seen me before, gee thanks. Hoping that the results come back quickly, because I really don't want to have to take the 3-hour test. The chances of my having GD are really slim (kind of like my stomach hahahaha).

I don't have a lot more to report today, so I'll leave you with two stories of modern-day pregnancy wonder women.

One.

Two.

I can't decide whether to be impressed or dismayed. I mean, really -- it's all I can do to haul myself to prenatal yoga once a week ...

Best. Book. Ever.

I have been meaning to pimp the hell out of this book for the past few months. (And no, they didn't send me a free copy. I bought it with my own hard-earned cash.)

If you're a working mom, or if you're going to be a working mom, and particularly if you're a working mom with a Big Stressful Job, GO BUY THIS BOOK. I laughed, I cried, I yelled out loud. I forced the Mister to listen to paragraph-long readings, even though I was giggling so hard I couldn't spit the words out. Don't get me wrong -- unlike some "girlfriend" books I've read, this is not just a funny read. It's actually USEFUL. I learned stuff. It is helping me in ways I didn't expect. I. Love. This. Book.

These women are more Type A than I am, if such a thing is possible. They have jobs that are important to them, and they have children that they adore, and they don't pretend that balancing the two is easy -- or possible. So they give you lists, charts, tips, tricks, white lies, strategies, and the best practical advice you can imagine. Each chapter begins with a list of "Delusions", those little white lies you tell yourself, like "Having kids will not affect my career" or "I can't justify exercise; I'm six loads behind on the laundry" or "My colleagues don't realize that I'm sneaking out at 5:01." For those women coming back from giving birth (or, perhaps, from adopting an infant), the lies range from "I'm sure there will be a nice private place at the office to pump" to "After the first few days, this fog on my brain will lift and I'll be back to my old self." Hell, it's been over 2 years, and I'm still not who I was before I became a mom. And yet, I'm supposed to be the same competent attorney I was before we adopted. How the hell am I supposed to do that?!

Their advice is practical -- "Preparation is Everything", "Let it Go!" and "Why are You Doing This to Yourself?" And they're also not afraid to shake their finger at you like your best office buddy might do -- "Now Get Yourself out of This Mess -- Forever." They're no-nonsense, and they know what it's like to be you. They're here to help, but they're not going to waste their time doing it. Listen up, and then lead, follow, or get the hell out of the way. They've written a whole chapter entitled "Fake It Till You Make It (Looks Are Everything)." It's not their fault if you don't take their advice and end up with "Crazy Eyes ... the eyes of a woman who's barely hanging onto her sanity while desperately trying to shore up work, home life, and basic personal hygiene." How do they know that's you? They've been there. "We've lived Crazy Eyes and are back to tell the tale."

To get mentoring from Women Who Have Been There, who wouldn't squeeze out the personal time to finish this book? I know I've been at the Crazy Eyes point more often than I care to think about. In fact, my favorite chapter title is "The Realities of the Working Mom: Business Trips, Diarrhea, a Leaking Roof, Pinkeye, Hand-Foot-and-Mouth Disease, Whining Employees, Pouting Husbands, and Other Issues That Drive You to the Brink of Insanity," because it pretty much describes my day-to-day existence.

As busy as my life is, and as swamped as I am with trying to head off all of the aforesaid Issues before they Drive Me to the Brink of Insanity, it's incredibly hard finding time to spend with any of my intelligent, insightful, equally crazed professional female friends, women who might have actual helpful suggestions. So I'm often left with no one to lean on, or -- worse -- find myself receiving unsolicited assvice from random relatives whose lives are, shall we say, Lived At A Distinctly Different Pace. Like that time, in the months before we adopted Squeaker, when I was stressing about how I would manage both my Very Demanding Job and a newborn on what could be (and turned out to be) one hour's notice, and a relative emailed this gem: "It's just a job! Don't be so stressed!" Because, y'know, any any idiot could see the logic in that statement. At the time, I wanted to smack this person across the face, but since I'd have to see them again at holidays, I could only say: It is not "just a job." This is my career.

The ladies who wrote this book? They get that. And they also get that I would never "trade in the 'mommy' part of being a working mother." They really get it. And they're here to help. At long last, someone to help ME who doesn't want something from me in exchange. Imagine that!

You Like Me! You Really Like Me!

Wow! One of you lovely lovely people nominated me for the Scholastic Parent & Child Mommy Blogger Awards ... and now I'm one of ten finalists! At first, I was all "aw shucks" about this ... but now I'm feeling those competitive juices flowing ... So this is a bit of electioneering, I guess. You can vote for me by clicking on the badge in the left-hand column of this page. And thanks so much for your support! As I've said many times before, this journey would have been utter hell without all of you having my back. Seriously. You're my virtual rocks, all of you.

And can I just please take a moment to say how utterly freakin' weird it is that the contest name has the word MOMMY in it??!?!?!?! I mean seriously -- this was an infertility blog. And now ... well ... wow. I guess while I've been wallowing in sleep deprivation and stunned by the shock of our uber-quick adoption, I've become a mommy blogger. Who knew?! The enormity of having a whole bunch of parents looking at my blog because of that ... phew. Thank you, universe, for giving me the chance to have that precious word apply to me. I'll do my best. I promise.

Yes! What SHE said!

People, my people. Alexa has written something that needs to be read and shared.

She writes from a place that few have experienced and none of us would wish on our worst enemy. It is a brave and wise post. She is a strong strong woman. (Will someone please offer her a book deal already?!)

When our first kid coincides with life's second act

Some people really don't get the whole IF thing. For instance, there's an episode of S*ex in the C*ity where Trey gives Charlotte a life-size cardboard baby as a "joke" so that she will stop talking about wanting a baby. We watched that episode for the first time the other night, and the Mister literally gasped in horror. The Mister clearly gets it, and Trey clearly did not.

Other people get IF, but they don't get what it's like to be experiencing IF as a woman over 40. My friends who had their kids in their 20s and 30s definitely give me sideways looks sometimes, when they think I'm not paying attention, and I can hear them thinking, "Girlfriend, you know I love you and I wish you all the babies in the world if that will make you happy, but damn! I cannot imagine wanting to start the whole sleepless nights thing when our kids are in high school and we're all just beginning to slide into menopause!"

And then there is the co-worker who walked into my office last week and announced she's going to be a single mom by choice and she's 4 months pregnant. Generally, this kind of blatant announcement makes an IF woman's belly cramp up or causes flames to begin shooting out of her nostrils. But in this case, I actually squealed. "Close the door, sit down your pregnant self down, and tell me all about it!!" My co-worker, you see, is 49, almost 50.

Her story began with years of IF struggles, a broken marriage, explorations of adoption (which is often very difficult for single women and particularly so for older single women) and ended, in her words, with the use of "all donated parts." This would be illegal in France, which prohibits egg donation and IVF procedures for women over the age of 42. But it is perfectly legal here (albeit unexpected in a 50-year-old), and quite frankly, until my co-worker fessed up to her age, I would have pegged her at 43 or younger. She's healthy, optimistic, cheerful, and energetic. She has a strong support group of family and friends. Her child will be loved and wanted, and I couldn't be happier for her.

Selfishly, I'm also really happy for myself, because now there will be another woman in my circle dealing with being a new mother at an age when many women are grandmothers. (This makes 2 now, counting my 43-year-old friend and her husband who are adopting siblings from Ethiopia -- anyone else out there?)  I was able to think of myself as still being a youngish woman through most of this process -- many of my friends are 5-10 years younger than I am, I don't dress, think, or act like an old fart, really! -- but when I hit 43 in June, I knew I'd passed over a line of some sort and that mid-life is definitely here. The reality is that I do notice changes in my body, in my energy levels, in my skin, that let me know that things are changing. I know that it is still possible for me to get pregnant, but my realism streak keeps colliding with the inexorable passage of time. I'm not one of these folks yet, but my co-worker will be. And without donor eggs, my chance of joining her the natural way is less than 5%.

So, we're adopting, and I'll be a first-time mom at 43 if I'm very lucky, but I probably won't hold that baby until I'm 44, and when that kid is 16, I'll be 60. Yikes. There isn't a lot of visible support out there for women like us. I'm reading a book with the achingly appropriate title, Hot Flashes, Warm Bottles, and there are a few other books on being first-time older moms, but only a few. There will probably be more in the next few years as fertility treatments advance and more of us start coming out about our experiences, but for now, I feel like I'm exploring uncharted territory.

My co-worker will have a different experience than me, of course, as she will be experiencing not only sleepless nights but recovery from childbirth (!!!). But still, we will both be dealing with people who give us That Look (and whisper amongst themselves when our backs are turned), figuring out how to add caring for a child to our already over-booked mid-career schedules, and trying to keep our bodies and minds as healthy and young for as long as we can, all the while knowing that the clock is just ticking and ticking, and that the whacky symptoms of menopause will probably be hitting us just as our young ones are hitting their energetic stride. And she'll be doing it as a Single Parent!  Phew.

The funny thing is that after I came out to my co-worker about my IUIs, IVFs, and recent miscarriage, she was the one who giving me support. "Keep trying!" she repeated, "Keep trying! You just never know, and you can't give up!" That a 49-year-old woman pregnant with donor gametes believes in my 43-year-old eggs was just unbelievably touching -- and it speaks to the level at which we all carry that hope with us, even as reality bashes us over the head.

Honoring her work

I was a big fan of Hillary way back when, even when she stood by her man, which I sure as hell wouldn't have done. I liked her chutzpah, I liked that she was proud of her mind and refused to be a traditional decorative First Lady. Sure, she was married to a philandering knucklehead, but it was their marriage, not mine, and I think we're often quick to judge others when we actually know very little about what influences the inner workings of their relationships.  My SIL, as a mother, will never forgive Hillary for staying with Bill because of the message it may have sent to Chelsea (who, I might add, seems to be an astonishingly well-balanced and sane young woman).  I can understand that point of view, but I can't blame Hillary because I too have had relationships that were full of shades of gray.  Life is not always as easy as a yes you must leave him.  Sometimes you hate his guts but you know that staying is the best choice for everyone, including you, for whatever twisted reason.  At least for that moment.  Later, who knows.

Anyway, I was proud of her when she took the Senate seat (although as a then-New Yorker, I had to roll my eyes at the quickly-purchased home in the state; why is it that no one in New York is actually from there?).  She has been a good senator, I think, doing the hard work, throwing strategically placed elbows, making the deals, doing what it takes to get the job done.  And she really seemed to care about her constituents, which is more than many can say about their elected officials. 

Then came the war vote, and after that, things went downhill between Hillary and me.  I watched her become more conservative and hawkish in a clear bid to set herself up as a serious person who could run for and win the Presidency, and I had to admire her strategy, even as I disagreed with her direction.  I honestly enjoyed watching her argue with the boys over and over again during this interminable primary season.  Even when I was shaking my head in violent disagreement with her stance on various issues, I also admired the way that she kept on going, no matter what.  She kept getting up every morning, despite the horrible things the press was saying about her, and she put on her makeup and did her hair and wore cheerful bright colored clothing and pretended that yesterday wasn't a bitch and tomorrow wouldn't be more of the same.  She campaigned like a candidate -- male or female didn't matter -- but still she really reached out and made a human connection with women, and men, on issues that are important to working families. 

In the end, I think she had the misfortune to be part of an older political environment that just doesn't work anymore, and of course Bill, try as he might, didn't really help; in fact, I'd say he made things much worse for her (while moving ever closer to ruining his own legacy). I suspect the idea of the White House belonging to Bush/Clinton/Clinton/Bush/Bush/andanotherClinton was too much for many people to stomach. There are people of drinking age today who have never known a president that wasn't a Bush or a Clinton. That alone may have doomed her chances, even if Obama's star hadn't risen like a bright meteor on the horizon.

But we should all take a moment to stop and think about what she's done, the enormity of the wall that she has broken through.  Now it's feasible, imaginable, dare I say acceptable for a woman to be a serious candidate for -- and to eventually win (god, please in my lifetime) -- the Presidency.  I'm not sure what our problem is -- the rest of the world has been doing it for years.  Nevertheless, in this country, this year, Hillary shattered expectations.  I often didn't agree with the way she played the game, but play the game she did, until the bitter end.  For that, I can only say Well Done.  Brava.  Attagirl.

And if you haven't read this column, do so, and watch the video.  We think we've come a long way, and many younger women don't believe sexism still exists, but that's just because it's expressed so subtly now, and it's become so deeply ingrained in our culture.  As the column states, and the video shows, racism may no longer openly acceptable in this country, but sexism sure the hell is. If you substitute racist epithets for the statements in that video, corporate advertisers and consumers would have demanded that every one of those gentlemen get the boot. Instead, they have kept their jobs, and they are encouraged -- by the audience and each other -- to continue their behavior. 

For those reasons and so much more, Hillary's accomplishments must be honored, regardless of whether we agree with her personal choices or her political stance.  She opened a door that had been locked for hundreds of years. It's up to us -- or our daughters or nieces or goddaughters -- to either run through it if we can or hold it open for others who dare.

Holy High Achiever, Wonder Woman!

I'm completely blown away by this story about the women's division winner of today's New York Marathon.  More power to her for being tough as nails, but it can't be good for her body ... Of course, I'm not exactly what you would call a world-class athlete, so what do I know. Anyone else out there run right up to giving birth and start training again 12 days after giving birth?  Anyone?

Okay, I'm not this bad

Some of us delay having kids because we haven't met the right person or because we can barely support ourselves, much less another person.  But delaying having kids because it's an election year is over the top in my book, particularly if you're over 35.  Although I do agree that expressing milk on a campaign bus might be a bit, um, challenging.