parting shots

I'm about to take off to teach at the 10 day Antioch MFA residency, but thought I'd leave you with some images from our aforementioned garden. Here you'll see one of our green zebra tomatoes. Michael took a bunch of photos of the various fruits and veggies growing in our yard and set up a Flickr site (click here to view all the pics. You'll see that it's labeled as "Michael Brandeis' Photostream"--that's because he's taking my name.) :)

If I can post during the residency, I will. If not, have a wonderful and delicious 10 days!

full time

A couple of posts ago, I mentioned that I don't know how pregnant women can work full time. Michael teased me about this a bit, since I work more than full time--I guess I should have qualified that I meant working full time outside the home. It's hard to gage how many hours I actually do work per day, since it all kind of flows together--right now, I'm teaching at two universities (most of the work is online for Antioch, other than the residencies in June and December), writing for CODEPINK every week, copyediting one novel (my copy edits arrived from my publisher one day after I turned in revisions for another novel to another publisher), trying to get some fresh writing done, plus trying to have a life outside of work (which right now includes planning a wedding.) I often begin working as soon as I get up, and am up working until 1am--of course I'm not working every hour in between, but my day always features a constant weaving in and out of work. It is all stuff that I love and I'm grateful to have every opportunity that's been presented to me, but I don't always do a good job of juggling everything, or keeping clear boundaries between work and life. I'm pretty sure I've blogged about this before, so forgive me if this is repetitive, but it's something I return to again and again; I often have spans of time (such as right now) where I feel like I'm not doing enough in any sphere--I'm not doing enough as a mother, as a partner, as a daughter, as a sister, as a friend, as a writer, as a teacher, as an activist, as a human being, even as a blogger--I feel so stretched thin, as if there's not enough of myself to give to all the people and things I love. But of course even as I'm feeling pulled like taffy, I am growing fuller and rounder every day; I well with joy when I think about meeting this baby, but I worry that if I'm overwhelmed now, what will happen when a newborn is added to the mix?

My plate will be a bit less full when the baby is born--UCR can't bring me back next year because of the budget crisis, and I'm going to take a term off from Antioch after the birth--but money is an issue, so I'll be teaching online for UCLA, promoting new books, etc. The calm pool at the center of me trusts that it will all work out, that my life will expand to hold everything that needs to be taken care of, that support will be available when I need it, but the whirling part around that still center can't help but worry. I worry that I won't be able to give myself over to this baby as fully as I did when my older kids were born. I hear a lot of moms who had kids many years after their firsts say that they were much more patient with the babies they had later in life, but I worry that I'll be the opposite. When Arin and Hannah were little, I completely surrendered to motherhood (to a fault--letting them pull my hair because I figured it must feel really satisfying to them, that it was something they needed to express and experience, and I held back expressing my own discomfort in the process); I wrote, but there wasn't an urgency to it--I mostly just wanted to be available to my kids and was happy to write whenever I found a spare moment or two. I want to be available to this baby, too, of course, but I've grown more protective of my time, and know that I'll have to find ways to carve some for myself and my work (and say no to the hair pulling!) I've never been good at creating boundaries--I have a feeling that it's something I'm really going to have to learn to do this time around. That in itself may become a full time job!

super-heating

Every few months for the last 13 or so years, I've had strange bouts of intense abdominal pain and vomiting. I wrote about this on my other blog, Fruitful, after I was hospitalized for a particularly nasty episode last October. We still don't know the cause, although I recently had a negative test for porphyria, a condition I was originally diagnosed with when I was 19. Whatever the root may be, it's a thoroughly sucky experience. But now at least I have a new way of dealing with it.

I was up most of last night with doubled-over pain, cold sweats, etc. I have a couple of medications that can take the edge off, but I found conflicting information online about whether or not they are safe during pregnancy--a bit scary, since I had taken one of them during my last episode, when I was newly pregnant and didn't know yet--so I decided to avoid them for the time being. I tried deep breathing to get through the pain, telling myself it was good practice for labor. I even tried blowing raspberries, which iconic midwife Ina May Gaskin recommends, especially during the pushing stage (I am totally digging her book, Ina May's Guide to Childbirth, by the way--if you are pregnant and only want to read one book, this is a good one!) I finally started to throw up around 5am. After the sound woke Michael, we decided to call our midwife, Karen, and see what she thought about the different medications. She assured us that one of them appeared to be safe during pregnancy, but then she also offered a non-medical option, as well.

We had mentioned to Karen that one doctor had thought these episodes might be the result of abdominal migraines, so she suggested we try an old migraine remedy: super-heating the hands and feet. She said it helps redirect blood flow and can provide relief. So Michael ran hot water in the tub and I sat on a towel on the edge of it, hunched over so both my hands and feet could be immersed. It was a bit uncomfortable, so Michael put an upended drink bucket in the tub and I sat on that instead. At first my belly griped at being folded over, but the hot water on my hands and feet was nicely distracting, and then eventually relaxing, and before too long, I was able to stumble back to bed and sleep for a few welcome hours. I am pretty wiped out now, and have a bit of residual unrest in my belly, but overall I feel so much better, and I didn't even take any medicine.

I was already happy about our choice of midwife, but I feel even more pleased about it now--Karen has such a wonderful mix of compassion and knowledge (plus she's an activist who helped lobby for legalization of midwifery in California.) If she can help me so thoroughly over the phone through one of these episodes, I know she'll be a superstar at the birth.

napping

I am usually on campus at UCR from 10-2 on Tuesdays, but yesterday I stayed a few extra hours so I could attend readings by graduating seniors from the creative writing department (you did a great job, everyone!) Afterwards, I told a couple of my lovely students that I had stayed past my "pregnant lady naptime"--I usually crash after I come home from campus (I honestly don't know how pregnant women can work full time--those four hours at UCR, as enjoyable as they always are, tend to slay me). One student challenged me to blog about napping--I was too tired to write anything when I got home (sorry, Brian!) but I'll try my hand now.

In my normal, non-pregnant life, I am not a napper. I am not much of a sleeper, in general. Sleep and I have always had a complicated relationship. Sometimes I could nap if I was sick, or on the first day of my period, but for the most part, sleep has eluded me during the day. Napping while pregnant, however, is a different story entirely. Especially this time around.

I still have a complicated relationship with sleep--namely, I'm not getting enough of it. I often stay up too late, and when I do fall asleep, I wake up every few hours (sometimes every other hour) to pee. I know this is preparing me for the baby, for all those nighttime nursing sessions, but it's hard to appreciate that when I wake up feeling like a zombie. Napping is often essential.

Just as hunger is different while pregnant--often a sudden, roaring thing--tiredness is different while pregnant, too. It sweeps over me like a sand storm, hitting me with an almost violent force. If I resist it (which I try to do too often) I start to feel as if my whole body is going to shatter. And when I give in and lie down, sleep tends to overtake me quickly. It's like falling into a deep dark hole, one that can be hard to climb out of. I wake up groggy and disoriented, and often wonder whether the nap helped at all, but once I'm up for a few minutes, the fog clears and I feel refreshed (or at least less tired than I had before the nap.)

When Arin and Hannah were babies, I was never good at following the wise "nap when they nap" advice, even though neither of them slept much during the night (hence neither did I.) I have a feeling that when this baby comes, I'll be much better at napping along with it--these older bones need more rest than they used to. Then again, maybe I'll be back to my old resisting sleep tricks--baby naptime is always such a good chance to get stuff done, and I always have so much to do. But if those naps hit me like a locomotive the way they have been lately, well, I won't be able to do anything but give in...

joke time

I saw this joke on Jennifer Weiner's blog (submitted by her mother's friend and book club member, Lynne Hawkins) and had to share it here:

With all the new technology regarding fertility recently, a 65-year-old friend of mine was able to give birth. When she was discharged from the hospital and went home, I went to visit:

"May I see the new baby?' I asked

"Not yet,' she said 'I'll make coffee and we can visit for a while first."

Thirty minutes had passed, and I asked, 'May I see the new baby now?'

'No, not yet,' she said.

After another few minutes had elapsed, I asked again, 'May I see the baby now?'

"No, not yet,' replied my friend.

Growing very impatient, I asked, 'Well, when can I see the baby?'

"WHEN HE CRIES!' she told me.

"WHEN HE CRIES?' I demanded. 'Why do I have to wait until he CRIES?'

"BECAUSE I FORGOT WHERE I PUT HIM, O.K.?!!'

I've gotten more forgetful lately, but hopefully won't ever get that forgetful in my "advanced maternal age"! I have to say, seeing news items about pregnant 66 year olds is making me feel like a spring chicken in comparison (even though technically, I am still considered an "elderly gravida.") I'm feeling less nervous about the pregnancy and forthcoming birth in general now, probably because I've passed the 12 week mark, and also because we finally have found the midwife we want to work with (more on that later, but suffice it to say, she's wonderful.) Now, I really need to get back to work (if only I can remember what I'm supposed to be working on...)

burgeoning

I have always had a black thumb. I love plants, and long dreamed of having a lush garden, but somehow had never been able to translate that into reality. Years ago, when my kids were little, we had a plot in the community garden at Family Student Housing at UCR, but our patch never really took off. I think we grew one anemic watermelon and a couple of stunted cucumbers, but that was about it. Thankfully our neighbors were generous, letting us pluck their candy-sweet cherry tomatoes (especially delicious when warm off the vine), and giving us baskets of squash and eggplant.

This spring, Michael and I decided to try our hands at gardening together. We attended a class on edible landscaping, did a bunch of reading, talked with friends who were also planning gardens. It was exciting to see how many people we knew were making this leap into growing food--we even found out that the people who moved into my last house started a local organization, Growcology, dedicated to educating the public about organic gardening and sustainability. One dear friend used being laid off from her teaching job as an opportunity to follow her dreams and start her own regenerative gardening/permaculture business. I love being part of this upswell.

We planted corn, beans, peas, lettuce, eggplant, peppers, honeydew, cucumber, loofa (which I had always thought was a sea sponge, not a gourd!), pumpkins, sunflowers, onions, and four kinds of tomatoes (like the true writer geek I am, I chose two of the varieties of tomatoes based on my books coming out next year--yellow pear tomatoes for PEARS and Abe Lincoln tomatoes for MY LIFE WITH THE LINCOLNS.) Some we started from seed, others from seedlings from the nursery and the farmers' market. It was right around the time that we were doing all this planting that--unknown to us--the baby was conceived. It feels fitting that the baby began when so much other life was germinating around us.

Not all the seeds took, and some of the plants withered quickly in the sun, but many others have taken root--the stalks of corn are growing tall and sturdy, the peppers and eggplant and peas are blossoming, and we've already been able to harvest some of the lettuce. Onions that we had given up on started to push through the soil weeks after we expected them to--some cucumber plants popped up weeks after their sister seeds, as well. The tomatoes are especially exciting, the vines tall and shaggy and full of green fruit. The green zebra tomatoes were the first to start burgeoning, and it's been so lovely to watch them grow rounder and fuller as my belly starts to get rounder and fuller, too. It makes me feel part of something bigger than myself--part of a deeper cycle. Such abundance!

egg and cheese

Sometimes I get on laughing jags, totally slap happy, hard-to-stop fits of giggles that make me feel slightly insane, but are also incredibly cathartic. I remember freaking out a classmate in high school when we were having a study session together because I wrote down "weaky" instead of "weak" and I couldn't stop cracking up. It seems to be happening more often lately--perhaps it's hormonal?

Here is the latest thing that has had me laughing for two days, even in the midst of my concern about the spotting (I had trouble falling asleep last night because I couldn't stop convulsing with laughter. I think Michael was quite worried about me, actually--he looked a bit alarmed when I woke up this morning and started giggling afresh.) I doubt it will seem as funny in cold black type, but here goes...

I was talking to my sister a couple of nights ago on the phone; we often talk about food, so I mentioned that I had made latkes for dinner. She asked if I had served them with sour cream and applesauce, and I told her how Michael had been unable to find organic apple sauce at the grocery store, so he had come home with a jar of baby food organic applesauce. Except I didn't say "jar of baby food"--I said "food of baby jar". And I didn't even notice what I had said until my sister and Hannah both pointed it out to me. And then the hysterics began. My sister said that she was sweating, she was laughing so hard, and my stomach was hurting from laughing so hard, but it felt so good--after being so worried about a different part of my belly, it was wonderful to take the focus upwards for a while.

After we started to regain our senses a bit, my sister told me how when she was in town recently, she and our mom were talking about the process of making babies. "All it takes is an egg and cheese," my mom had said by accident. And of course the hysterics bubbled right up again. Now the words "food of baby jar" and "egg and cheese" keep popping into my head and I dissolve into laughter. I'm sure it's one of those "had to be there" things, but if you run into me and I start giggling like a fiend, you'll know why....