Category: Motherhood

My “On Time” baby can be here in as little as 7 weeks. I thought by this point of pregnancy I’d be feeling super pregnant and baby would feel inevitable. But, with the exception of a few kicking/punching parties at regular intervals throughout the day (that I can barely feel), and the reality of the heaviness I feel when I move due to weighing 202lbs when I started out at 168, I don’t feel pregnant at all. I don’t feel not pregnant but I’m not yet at the point where I truly believe my enlarged stomach is caused by anything more than a few nights binging on, say, robotic Oreos that wiggle every so often while being digested.

But, surreal or real, baby is coming very, very soon. Life will change forever. It’s crazy to think that after 34 years of independence my biological clock has me yearning to throw that all away in order to nurture a human life. I’m excited and terrified. I have no idea what it will be like. My maternal instincts, other than being a good listener, are nil. When people hand me their babies, especially very little ones, I typically give them the death stare and they take baby back. I’m afraid of how fragile they are, how little, how much of a person they are (in needing certain things to stay alive) while not at all able to ensure their own survival they are.

Continue reading “10 Weeks Until My Due Date” →

Pregnancy is 9 months of a purgatory between a self slowly growing out of a restless youth and someone fully adult who you don’t know quite yet. Maybe 9 months is the ideal time to go through all the stages of mourning of your former self, even though she’s long gone, and prepare for this person you are about to become.

Continue reading “Before and After” →

It seems appropriate that the first day of my third trimester falls on Mother’s Day. While I don’t get to officially celebrate it as a mother, I do get to take today to prepare for motherhood, and look back on 34 years of a relationship with my own mom.

My mom grew up as the oldest of three girls in Los Angeles, the daughter of a quiet Rabbi who survived The Holocaust (while he left Hungary before WWII, many of his family members including parents, brothers, and sisters did not and were killed) and a woman, 20 years his junior, who could be described best as a classic narcissist and non-nurturing type with a host of mental illnesses. In short, my mother never experienced love as a child, because her mother was incapable of it and her father was, as fathers were at the time, older, busy working, and less involved with the family.

Continue reading “Mothers and All They Teach Us.” →

There are a few standard questions you get when someone finds out you are pregnant — so standard that I may just start answering them before I’m asked.

1. Do you know “what” you’re having?
2. How bad has it been? Did you have horrible morning sickness?

Well, the answer to one is, yes, but I’m not telling anyone… and two, I’ve had an incredibly smooth pregnancy thus far.

It has taken me until my 30s to figure out how to put my shirt on the right-side out and not lock myself out of the house by accident (have done that a few times.) How on earth am I going to be responsible for a life that is entirely counting on me to keep it alive?

Even though I’m getting to the point where I’m noticeably pregnant (23 weeks this weekend), it still feels incredibly surreal that baby E will be here in less than FOUR MONTHS. I don’t know, I guess I thought when you were this pregnant that whole baby-is-about-to-be-here thing would feel more real. Even when I wake up in the middle of the night to flutters in my stomach, it doesn’t seem like there’s a baby in there — it’s more like an alien snake has found its way into my intestines (cue horror music.) But a person? Nah.

Continue reading “Ok, I’ll admit it — I’m terrified of being a mom.” →

I won’t have any, of course. In case you haven’t caught on, I’m about 22 weeks pregnant, and I haven’t had a sip of anything resembling alcohol since Thanksgiving (if you’re doing the math, I was pregnant then, but I didn’t know it yet, and apparently according to my doctor and all of the internet that is fine.) Then I went cold turkey.

It hasn’t been that hard since I’ve never been a “glass a night” type of gal. But, sometimes I like to get lost in the buzz of a half shot of good whiskey or a glass of some kind of red (it usually ends up being more than a glass since my husband hates wine and that bottle ought not go to waste.) Whiskey is much more convenient. But tonight, I’m wanting for Merlot.

Continue reading “Tonight, I’d like some Merlot.” →

Although for normal pregnancies, it’s not even possible to find out the gender until 18–20 weeks (without paying for additional blood work anyway), the first thing anyone asked me when I’ve told them I’m expecting (or second after “when are you due?”) is “do you know what you’re having?”

It’s truly crazy how much our sexual organs influence our life from even before we are born. And, even though I hope to allow my child the gender fluidity their needs to determine their own preferences on the feminine to masculine spectrum, I’m kicking myself for having any pre-conceived notions about the baby’s sex and gender. But certainly, they’re there.

Continue reading ““Is it a Girl or Boy?” — The Question Everyone is Asking this Pregnant Woman” →

They say that the easier your pregnancy is, the harder your first years as a parent will be. I hope that’s not true. My pregnancy has been — shockingly — uneventful thus far. After seeing many of my friends going through long periods of horrible morning sickness and barely being able to keep anything down, I was sure I’d be next. Instead, I managed to gain 20 pounds in my first trimester. Oops.

The weight gain is actually a substantial issue. I started out my pregnancy right at the borderline at “overweight” and “obese.” This is more upsetting to me because less than two years ago I managed to get down to what’s considered a healthy weight for my height (5’3) for my wedding. It took a lot of hard work, a very controlled diet, and so many mornings of rolling out of bed at 6am to meet my trainer downstairs when I didn’t want to wake up.

Continue reading “The First 20 Weeks of My First Pregnancy” →