Before and after

My parents divorced when I was little and in the summers I went to stay with my father, where, unlike at my mom’s, eating was permitted without commentary. Since most of the year my mother thoroughly and forcefully controlled what was served and how much of it I ate and then how much of it I burnt off on the Stair Master, I had learned no internal monitors, and so always came back a little chubbier, much to my mother’s vociferous dismay. One fall I even overheard her lamenting the situation with my teacher. I got the message, and when I was 13, put myself on a diet of half a granola bar for breakfast, the other half at lunch (and one 1.5-calorie breath mint), a few figs and plain tea for a snack after school, and as little dinner as I could get away with. It was highly effective. I still remember the compliments Jeremy the Saxophone Player paid me that year. My mother was delighted. I was riding horses competitively then and remember deliberately tantalizing my algebra tutor by showing up to sessions in my jodhpurs, showing off my leanness.

But eventually I went off to college. The cafeteria, with its limitless grilled cheese sandwiches and amazing assortment of cereals, helped me gain twenty pounds freshman year. My sophomore year I went off the meal plan and ate a lot of boxed mac and cheese. Junior year it was pizza and enchiladas, and senior year pretzels and orange-flavored milk chocolate accompanied by Lady Grey tea with heavy cream. I went to college a size eight and left it at 16.

Then I moved and got married and fell into a series of depressing jobs and eventually suffered two and a half years of infertility. These things did not encourage me to stop eating for comfort. If something bad happened, I deserved ice cream. If something good happened, ice cream to celebrate! The fall I got pregnant I did start working on my diet and exercising of my own volition for practically the first time since childhood, and lost a bit of weight; I had just gone back to grad school, made some new friends, gone on an anti-depressant, and was feeling brighter and up to making the changes.

I got married about forty pounds north of where I am and now am nearly thirty pounds under my pre-pregnancy weight. Now I’m sometimes even wearing mediums, which is a constant surprise (have the sizes changed?). I can wear a lot of my clothes from high school. Honestly the weight loss hasn’t been very purposeful. It’s mostly just the by-product of being busy and caring about Little Girl’s nutrition and thus my own, and eliminating high fructose corn syrup, partially hydrogenated oil, and going vegetarian (and often vegan). I use an exercise bike but even for the spells I do it regularly my weight seems to stay the same, but it gives me energy, time to read, and a feeling of accomplishment. Breastfeeding was evidently quite the calorie-burner for me; I’ve only lost five pounds or so since weaning. I’m overall much healthier, though, whatever the cause; my blood work is improved, my energy, my shape.

What’s interesting now is meeting people in my average (slightly overweight) state. Like it or not, people often group themselves by appearance and assume things about others depending on their looks. I distinctly recall negative reactions I got as an overweight woman–like having to be moved from one bed to another after my c-section, before the epidural had worn off, and the disdainful look and faintly remembered comments one nurse gave another upon seeing me–and I don’t sense reactions like that anymore.

But I do others. A new acquaintance was recently very surprised when it came up that I used to weigh quite a bit more, and I realized she now saw me differently, as fundamentally unlike herself, a person drops her twins at the gym day care multiple times a week to get rid of the last few pregnancy pounds, pounds she is careful to assign ownership of to the children and not to herself. No, unlike her, I’m someone who once was fat, with all the connotations that confers, many of which were true for me. Her change in attitude interests rather than bothers me. I get it. But I am now pretty well at peace with my weight and my looks as a result of being happy with my life (rather than the other way around), and feel fortunate to have arrived at this place.

+++

I’ve been enjoying making healthful efforts, my chocolate stash notwithstanding. I’m also trying to pay more attention to Husband–to notice him, to engage him. We tried Wii Fit this past summer at my brother-in-law’s in Sweden and we all loved it (Little Girl even tried her hand at golf, and particularly enjoyed watching her daddy and uncle spar) and we’ve talked about getting one ourselves but we already have the exercise bike so it seems difficult to justify the cost. The social and competitive aspects of the game system are very appealing and I think sometimes it would be a great way for me and Husband to pay attention to each other, instead of the laptops, in the evenings, and to make exercise less of a special occasion, conducted only in the walk-in closet where the bike lives. If we had a Wii, we’d put it to good use. I’m a grown-up, now, and taking control of my well-being.

[This addendum is for Magpie Musing's Wii Fit contest which you should consider entering. The post follows its own logic and not always the contest's, as I started writing this before I knew about it. Yet since I was posting about fitness anyway I figured I should not pass up the opportunity to participate in the generous offer to win one of these systems, which I would be truly delighted to get to use, especially without an audience of in-laws.]

Political infertility

Alarmed as I am about the possible ramifications of my candidate of choice, Omama (as per Little Girl), not winning in the election just 27 (!) days away, I have felt compelled to do something rather than just worry.

Husband, however, being either pragmatic or fundamentally un-American (and after all, he’s not American), has discouraged my plans. It’s true: my state is unswervingly red. I can’t change that. And sure, I have a toddler and two jobs. I didn’t want to canvass door-to-door, not being eager to to argue with my immediate neighbors, to whom I was assigned by MoveOn.org; besides, I get overheated enough when I talk politics with people who agree with me in all particulars. Then Husband didn’t want me to host a calling party because of his disdain for “activists,” believing that they mostly just want, superficially, to be a part of something without caring what it is. And it’s not like I can travel to a battleground state. So those things were out.

Instead I’ve donated, I’ve made calls for the campaign, I’ve talked to everyone I know, I’ve encouraged those in my mothers’ group to register to vote, to do advance voting, to leave their kids with me so they can go to the polls (though in this case I have not mentioned my own political opinions unless asked). But it’s out of my hands. For something I feel so strongly about–consumed by, sometimes; I read political news late into every night–I feel helpless. It reminds me of infertility: to want something so much, and to have no control over the outcome.

Getting my (really expensive) copays’ worth

Today I took Little Girl to the pediatrician’s to have the spot examined from which, three weeks ago, I removed a tick mercilessly feasting on my innocent baby (okay, it was really small, and had no blood in it, but the gall of that thing, to attack my child!). She still has a little pink bump there and I wanted to be sure all was well. It is. Little Girl, though, was so wackily giggly, running laps around the little room, demonstrating hysterics at every opportunity, that the doctor was moved to ask, warily, “Is she always like this?” From a pediatrician, who sees toddlers all day!

You understand, then, the alacrity with which I filled the prescription for a new diaphragm I got when I went to see the OB/GYN who delivered Little Girl for my yearly appointment (even though, like IUDs, it’s not covered by insurance. Like a pregnancy and birth of mine would somehow be cheaper!). I had a long series of questions for her. I was quite interested by what she said about the office’s VBAC policy. Mostly that it differed remarkably from what I’d been told by repeat c-section moms I know who go to this same practice–that the circumstances under which VBACs are not permitted seem to be more limited to those in which they are (everyone had told me the doctors said they didn’t do VBACs; I suspect the discrepancy has something to do with birth spacing). I didn’t get any numbers to demonstrate how this translates into reality, but it was encouraging.

Unfortunately, it’s true my preeclampsia risk is heightened from having it before, and whatever it was my RE had found that made them put me on aspirin for my pregnancy is still true, and she agreed it was possible I had undiagnosed GD, given Little Girl’s birth weight (8.5 lbs) at her gestation when born (37 weeks). The doctor was very pleased with my weight loss (thirty pounds since when I got pregnant, forty since I got married) and said that the likely better nutrition that led to that would help with any further pregnancies. Not that I have any planned. Not that that can always go according to plan.

In town

Today Baby went dairy-free as part of our efforts to track down the source of her eczema so I wanted to go on down to the expensive health food store to see what I could get there to accommodate her (did you know you can buy cheese made from rice?). Since the IT people at my job decided that that I didn’t need that corporate laptop after all, I also wanted to return it since I’d be in the area. My city is big enough that it’s sensible to try to combine errands. I also figured that putting in some face-time at the office might move things along in getting the technical problems resolved (as indeed seems to have been the result! Unfortunately, this means I now have to do work).

Baby has been back to this office a few times–at six weeks old and again when she was crawling. She enjoys popping into office after office, greeting people, being fawned over, and then saying “bye bye!” and moving on. My best work buddy from back in the day was in and I was glad to catch up with her. We once shared an office and had the most fun chatting all day long. She ended up joining us at the health food store for some expensive sushi and some shopping.

While we were there, my boss from my teaching job happened by. This was fine until I realized I was supposed to attend a meeting tonight which I had had no intentions to attend since, for one thing, I am actually still sick (I sound like a frog), and for another, these meetings are pretty pointless for me, even if they do pay me for the time. Anyway, my boss is a single woman in her forties. The one time I included in an email a small mention of Baby she said nothing in response, so I got the idea that she isn’t interested in children. When we saw her today, she awkwardly and formally introduced herself to my one-year-old and then, upon receiving no response from Baby, said, “That’s just the way I like them–silent!” and hurried off.

The whole thing made me wonder how I would have turned out with regards to children if I had ended up never having any; is perhaps her reaction to kids a cause or an effect? The office buddy I was with is just finishing up her Ph.D. and, in her mid-thirties, is not sure she ever wants to have children herself. There was never any question about my desire in this area, so I can’t relate exactly, though I definitely can understand not wanting to jeopardize (possibly) a career or education into which much has been invested. I’m just glad women have the options to choose more of what they want in life–and men, too. Though, as for example with infertility, sometimes there’s only so much planning you can do.

Therapy

I’ve had a lot of therapy and I don’t think any of it really has anything to do with my current level of happiness, which is high. If there were coping tools it gave me , or realizations that altered my worldview, or subconscious changes that came about as a result, I don’t know what they might be. No, I think it’s all circumstance. These days I have exactly what I want (by this I mostly mean a baby), I am doing what I like (largely whatever I want), and I am getting lots of fresh air, sunlight, exercise, socialization, and healthy food. Simple as that.

I don’t mean to minimize depression; it was very defeating and self-perpetuating for me and I know how debilitating and painful it can be. I am simply not convinced that, for me, living more healthily wouldn’t have been just as good a solution as therapy and medication, if someone could have gotten me to do it at the time.

I first visited a therapist shortly after my parents divorced, when I was five. I remember it quite well. The woman, who was affiliated with my mother’s church, became excessively concerned when I told her that one of the many fun things I enjoyed doing with my father was playing horsie (you know, he would get on all fours, I would ride on top–I do the exact same thing these days with Baby; it’s all fun and games). A sensitive child, it was clear to me that she was getting the wrong idea, though I couldn’t conceptualize exactly what she was thinking, and I became quite anxious about talking to her. My mother didn’t make me go back.

When I was in college I was quite depressed (I think all it was was my super-dark room and my melodramatic long-distance relationship with my now-husband) and ended up in talk therapy twice a week. What we talked about, beyond my complaints about my mother, I can’t recall at all. Really, I didn’t have a lot going on at the time. I think once when my husband bought the house we live in now we talked about real estate in New England as compared to the Southeast. There was some more serious stuff I certainly could have benefited from airing out, but I never felt comfortable enough, or motivated enough, to do so. My main recollections revolve around the time I saw my therapist at the mall with her two small kids. At our next session, I asked her her children’s ages, just being friendly, really, and she wouldn’t tell me, wanting, instead, to know how her having children made me feel. I quit therapy shortly after that.

Finally, when I was going through my several years of infertility, I entered therapy again. I knew something like nine pregnant people, including many at work, notably two supervisors in succession, and was just miserable at my job and had developed some obsessions about making sure stoves were off and curlers unplugged, things like that (if I couldn’t control my ovulation, then by golly, I was going to control something). I started seeing a very smart woman who turned out to be a lesbian who repeatedly expressed her confusion about why people want children, and kept trying to talk me out of it, telling me about studies that showed how marital satisfaction decreased greatly upon procreation. Still, we had a good rapport, and we spent a huge amount of time talking about my tortured girl-crush on my then-supervisor, and she encouraged me to apply to grad school, which led to all kinds of good things for me. Eventually I visited a psychiatrist who prescribed an anti-anxiety medication which I took, with great results, until I found out I was pregnant a few months into grad school, at which point I quit the medicine and the therapy both.

Once while pregnant, and shortly after Baby’s birth, I did go visit the psychiatrist, who specialized in “women’s issues,” but it wasn’t because I felt like I needed it; I just felt like I should, to be on the safe side. And I visited my anti-baby therapist when Baby was six weeks old, bringing her along, struggling to feed her by various methods during the whole visit, unable to converse really at all. Given my nerve-wracking pregnancy, scary birth, miserable breastfeeding, and agonizing cold-turkey weaning experiences, combined with my history of depression and anxiety, I kept expecting to have some serious post-partum problems in that area, but no. Maybe all that therapy did fix me up, possibly getting treatment for my PCOS helped thus leveling out some crazy-making hormones, or the medication rewired something, or, and this what I think, my life and my psyche are finally in harmony. I think that was my problem all along.

Progress

Frequently these days new articles come out talking about advances in technology, from time to time involving cloning or gametes in some way. People like to become very upset with the various possible related ramifications: “How unnatural!” “Think of what people will do with that technology, what horrible things might come about!”

Of course, yes, unsavory things might happen as a result, sometimes, but really, flying in airplanes is “unnatural.” And bad things sometimes occur in consequence. Same with cars–even more so. (Note that you don’t see the fundamentalists walking instead of driving because the Bible doesn’t mention cars, but then they get all worked up over IVF). Same with telephones–now we can harass people from afar! And with every other technological innovation. To me, I just don’t see these other types of advances as necessarily harmful. Frankly, whatever helps people have the children they desire sounds fine to me, or whatever works to cure disease.

Over time humans have evolved to be wonderful tool makers and users, with creative, flexible minds (in some ways, anyway), and recent scientific advanced are just more examples of us putting our abilities to work. Instead of leaving our bodies as we found them, we can determine where we lead them—-to controlled reproduction, to the rewriting of them to suit our vain, medical, or whimsical purposes, to healing the sick. It is up to us to put our superbly programmed brains to use to figure out how fix the disease-causing mistakes our genes never worked out, or to figure out how to increase mutual respect, or run cars on less expensive and more environmentally-friendly power, or make loved babies, and many more things that we will dream up as we go along.

Reproductive skill

This morning my best friend D. gave birth to a healthy baby boy who weighed nine pounds. Labor and delivery took less than two hours from when her water broke, with no time for the planned-for epidural. They are both doing fine and the infant is nursing well.

+++

Yesterday my sister-in-law in Sweden announced her first pregnancy. They’d been trying for a month or two. She missed her period two days ago, so of course it was high time she made sure everyone knows. Anyway, she had told me last summer she was planning on having her first baby when we had our second, though I told her that kind of organization is difficult to orchestrate. Perhaps she got tired of waiting for me (we’re not even trying). When I was pregnant, and told her our baby name ideas, she insisted we relinquish the boy one as she wanted it. If it’s a boy, I bet she won’t even use it.

+++

I’m sounding a little bitter. Really I’m not. While I am happy for these people, yes, extremely, I can’t help but be struck, though: so many other people seem so much better at reproduction than I am. Well, good for them! It’s just as well somebody is! Congratulations.

Fertility expert

One of my grad school friends has just started trying to conceive this past month. It didn’t work the first time and she was concerned. They had had sex every day for a month! What could be wrong? Did I have any tips? Tricks? (Yeah, ask the lady for whom it took 2.5 years to get pregnant for her helpful conception techniques). I encouraged her not to worry, that it’s much too early for that. Then she told me that she, indeed, had reason to worry. Something was wrong: the “stuff” would come back out of her! How could she get pregnant if it wouldn’t stay put? Oh my. I assured her that this was normal and happens to us all. She was much relieved. Then she gave me a hug.

If it hadn’t happened just like this…

…how would it have gone down? If somehow hormones hadn’t conspired to convince my body to ovulate that ONE AND ONLY TIME THAT ENTIRE YEAR (I have the data to prove it), if we hadn’t happened to have sex at just the right time, if that one sperm hadn’t figured out where to go and found that pretty egg–if it hadn’t been that egg, or that sperm–if the myriad ineffable happenings thereafter hadn’t happened, or had happened differently, like if the great flood had been somehow more gushy (or, and I don’t know what else–which is the whole point–could have intervened), and on and on, creating at every millisecond the chance of alternate realities, rushing off in unknowable directions: well, what if? I can’t even think about missing this, just as perfect as it is.

Motherhood and fatherhood

In apparent anticipation of reading this fine post, I had a dream last night that I had a baby. There was nothing in the dream about said baby. Instead, my big obsession was shopping for baby bottles not 24 hours after he/she/it was born (yes, I was out wandering around the day after having what was surely a c-section). As I asked worker after worker in the Target of my dreams where the bottles were (you know it was a dream if I could even find someone who worked there to ask) I suddenly realized I hadn’t pumped in a WHOLE DAY and was quite stressed about it.

So, to summarize, my unconscious’s big concerns with regard to having a baby are BOTTLES and PUMPING. For that matter, those are my conscious concerns on the topic. Ick.

+++

My husband can go weeks without telling me anything substantive about his work life and emotions pertaining thereto, and then suddenly, like yesterday evening, he’ll suddenly have all kinds of shit to say, usually when I am trying to do something else, like be miserable from one of the many headaches I’ve been suffering lately. It seems this guy assigned to work with him, but who never does anything, has suddenly quit. Husband had lots of diagnoses about what is wrong with this guy–he’s having a midlife crisis; he’s forty and has no family; he’s depressed; he’s self-destructive. I don’t care about this fellow, but what interests me is my husband’s view on how horrid it must be for this guy not to have a (nuclear) family, not to have the purpose of supporting them, no children to enjoy. I wonder what kind of man my husband would be if he’d stayed with his first wife who didn’t want children. Loving him as I do, I’m glad he did get to be a father, even though he didn’t really, truly care as I did during our struggles to conceive. Sometimes I’ll say to him, “Now you see why I wanted a baby so much.” He’s really wonderful at fatherhood and enjoys it to no end. He and Baby have a relationship, not just as a threesome with me, but together, just the two of them, with elements that don’t include me. Husband was always a particularly kind and responsible person, and I can’t tell you how delighted I am that Baby gets a father like that. She certainly deserves it.

Urgent info about my phone

We recently got a new set of cordless phones. Certain numbers (like three) stopped working reliably on the old ones and were driving us nuts. We would push and push and push the number three, to no avail, and then push again, and suddenly four threes would get dialed. Very frustrating. I suppose this is probably related to the fact that these phones are Baby’s favorite toys. Anyway, this type of phone is cheap enough now that we just decided to give ourselves a break and get a new set. Is that planned obsolescence or are we just bad phone caretakers that these phones only lasted two years?

Anyway, now that we have our new set, I am tasked with moving the saved phone numbers into the new phones. This gives me the opportunity to spend some time carefully revising and reprioritizing what numbers we have on speed-dial.

That’s just as well, because according to what I discovered about the phone directory on the old phones, I have no natural talent in this area. Sure, “Husband at work” is fine at #1, but “Best Friend” at #27? Come on!

1. Husband at work
2. My cell (which I never carry and don’t know where it is and to which no one has the number. Actually we may even have canceled service on it.)
3. Old friend I never call
4. Friend
5. Cell of Baby’s godmother
6. Home phone of Baby’s godmother
7. My stepfather’s father, as if I were going to call him for some reason
8. Grandparents
9. Husband’s boss’s home phone (?)
10. Beach house
11. OB (put in when I was pregnant so I could call them quickly whenever the slightest thing worried me. As it happens, I still have the phone number to my reproductive endocrinologist memorized.)
12. Friend I rarely call
13. Friend I never call. Not sure we are even friends.
14. Friend
15. I think this is my stepfather’s cell phone number, possibly, judging from the area code, since I didn’t put a name in.
16. Sweden (not the whole country, just my in-laws)
17. Dentist
18. Empty
19. Empty
20. Therapist I haven’t seen in years
21. Old work friend I never call. Heard she got married and moved away.
22. Friend.
23. Family doctor
24. Old work friend I rarely call.
25. Husband’s cell phone.
26. Pediatrician
27. Best friend
28. Lactation consultant
29. Mothers’ group friend I never call
30. Grandmother’s cell? She has a CELL PHONE? That can’t be right.
31. Baby’s sitter

Who do you have on your phone directory or speed-dial? Are the numbers reasonably prioritized?

Work: Part 2

I used to do qualitative data analysis for a research consulting firm. This job saw me through the worst parts of my infertility, and in fact made it worse, since all my coworkers and supervisors kept getting knocked up. Thank goodness they finally gave me a supervisor that was post-menopausal! Anyway, I worked there up until the baby came, though I telecommuted (or in actuality, brought work home and then didn’t do it) for the last week or so. Though I don’t actually do any work for this place now, I’m still technically an employee.

I bring all this up because this place would like me to work there again, has called about it several times, and I have the option of working entirely, or mostly, from home, and as many hours a week as I like, and for a reasonable amount of money. All I have to do is decide to do it or not. For some reason, they can’t seem to get anybody else to do what I did (probably because it’s both difficult and BORING AS FUCK), so the work has languished since Baby was born.

While I realize how wildly luxurious it is that I can hem and haw about whether or not to work in such a cushy situation, that doesn’t really make my decision easier. I will be teaching one class and taking one class in the spring semester, but I honestly don’t think that will be too taxing. I’m sure I could do at least 15 hours of work a week in the evenings and during naptimes if I put my mind to it. I’d make some money, maybe get another publication, keep my research résumé active, that kind of thing.

But I’d also be more stressed and BORED OUT OF MY MIND and will probably get carpal tunnel again. Plus, it’s hard to say how often they’d need me in the office, and while I don’t mind Baby’s hanging out with the quirky but beatifically calm babysitter from time to time, I still prefer to spend time with Baby than navigating the insane office politics of my old job. There were tense meetings attended by sworn enemies (of each other, not of me; obviously everybody likes me, you know, duh) there that still frighten me when they come to mind despite my best efforts to block them out.

What do you think? What else should I consider?