Drinking lake water, baby bump

It is a fortunate thing that when I am feeling a little sad/angry/frustrated or similar, I am currently at a point in my life when it is not possible for me to continue feeling that way for very long. I finished my grading, submitted grades for the semester, and for the most part I am done with all of this for quite a while (with the exception of students emailing because they think their grades are unfair, and similar straggling annoyances). After finishing this last Tuesday for the most part, spilling a bit into Wednesday morning, everything felt a bit better.

On Wednesday night we had a date night – we went out for sushi and then to see a performance by the Royal Winnipeg Ballet. I had a late meeting that day, so for dinner we picked a restaurant that was convenient and that in many ways doesn't seem all that nice (it is across the street from campus, sort of caters to students, you order at the counter) but which actually has food that is like what I expect at a decent sushi restaurant. We went there quite a while ago, and I had forgotten that I liked it, so it was pleasing to rediscover it. The ballet was also quite good – the performers come from all over the world to be part of this professional company, and although they don't come to Regina very often, it is nice to know that we have the opportunity to see a performance of this caliber at least once a year or so.

We also put a medicine cabinet up in the bathroom, did some rearranging, and ended up cleaning out and throwing away lots of things (like expired cold medicine and the like). Putting up the medicine cabinet took the better part of a day, and Jeff said it is the "most handy thing [he has] ever done." But once it was done it was extremely satisfying to finally have a home for things that have been cluttering up the bathroom counter and residing in drawers in a very un-organized way. We are trying to take care of things like this now, because chances are it will get much more difficult once the baby comes, and thinking ahead a year or so from that date we need to make sure that things like medication are securely stored and not accessible to toddlers. So strangely enough we put up a medicine cabinet in preparation for the baby.

I was dismayed the other day to notice that our tap water tasted and smelled like water from a lake or pond. After doing some investigating (news story here), I found out that our water would always taste this way in the spring/summer/fall if it weren't for a filtration system used by the city water. There was an early algae bloom in the lake that supplies our water, so they did not have the filtration system online yet, and our water will probably smell and taste like algae/pond water for several weeks. It is apparently perfectly safe, but is quite disconcerting. Jeff says we have to just pretend like we're camping, but I am finding that I'm not drinking enough water. We are using our Brita water filter, which does help, but doesn't get rid of the taste completely. So Jeff is out grocery shopping right now and he is buying lots of other drinks for me.

Lastly, I will leave you with a photo taken today:

I felt like a few days ago my belly kind of popped out, making me look dramatically more pregnant. But then I thought today that my belly looked small, and I started to worry a bit. Was the baby somehow shrinking? So I had Jeff take this picture, and he said "now do you feel like you're big enough?" And after looking at the photo, I do indeed. It is a strange thing how I go back and forth between feeling huge and feeling too small. I don't know if this is a thing that other pregnant women experience, but there is a part of me that can't wait until my belly is so large that there is no question about whether I am pregnant or just eating too many cookies. I know that I will probably regret looking forward to that stage, as of course that is also when things become much more uncomfortable, but right now that is what I want. I don't think am quite there yet, but getting close :-)

Mixed emotions

I am finding myself having lots of mixed emotions lately. The intensity of my hormones is probably making all this more prominent for me, but the emotions themselves are real.

First, there is annoyance and displeasure related to grading student papers. I just really dislike doing this, and then there are specific annoyances like the fact that many of my white students think that it is unnecessary and even offensive to state someone's race or ethnicity when giving a biographical sketch. My students this semester had to read a memoir by someone diagnosed with a psychological disorder. They had to write a paper based on that memoir, incorporating research and critical analysis of the diagnosis based on the experience of the individual who wrote the memoir. So context factors like socioeconomic status and race are important in understanding the experience of the individual. I actually had someone say that "it seems like a weird thing to state" to talk about these things, essentially implying that I should not be asking them to include those things about the subject of their paper. I feel like this means that people were just not paying attention in my class all semester. But I also know that this is just a thing here in Saskatchewan – people are so uncomfortable talking about race that some people don't even know what that means when you ask them to put their race/ethnicity on a survey, or they openly state that it is offensive to ask about that. It is only white people who do this, people who have the luxury of not being aware of the fact that they have a racial identity. This has come up multiple times since moving here, but grading my students' papers is activating the severe annoyance that I have.

I also feel a little sad, as spring hits and lots of people are out walking and jogging and enjoying the weather, and I can't do those things. It's true, Jeff and I were able to go for a walk today, but it's also true that we can't walk as far, and I can't go by myself. I can hold Jeff's hand and know that he is watching for cars (turning my head to look both ways before I cross the street can throw me off balance), and know that he will provide support if I need it (whereas a cane or crutches or any other type of support is something that I have to control and pay much more attention to). This tires me out quite a bit even with the extra support, and I feel sad about not being able to just go for a walk like I used to.

I also find myself angry and frustrated when dealing with how difficult it is to convey to other people the degree to which my disability impacts every aspect of my life. Of course I really don't know what life with a baby will be like, but I do know that there are a lot of things that are going to be different for me than for most parents. People give advice, or say "oh, you figure it out once the baby comes," and I think to an extent that is true, but there are a lot of things that I have to think about ahead of time just so we will be able to get through the first few days. For example, since I won't be able to carry the baby around for very long without getting fatigued (which is a safety issue, because once my arms get fatigued I physically will not be able to support the baby, and when my body gets fatigued generally my balance suffers and I can't really walk safely) we have to think about ways to move the baby around the house that don't involve me carrying it. Since I cannot get out of bed in the dark (I need my vision to know where the floor is) we have to figure out what we will do for night wakings. These are the kinds of things that people say we just shouldn't worry about, and that makes me angry and frustrated because they just really don't understand that it isn't the same for me as for other people. I am not particularly worried about these things, as there are many ways around them (keeping a buggy or stroller in the house, using a cosleeper), it's just difficult to know acutely that people don't understand, even when they are trying to. But how can I expect them to? People are used to a certain range of physical abilities, and it's hard to fully grasp what it means when someone falls outside that range. No matter what I say, this is not an experience that most people have, and without that experience it would take an awful lot of talking about it and seeing it to get what it means for me.

At the same time, I am feeling very happy and content. Whenever I actually think about the fact that we are having a baby, that the reason my belly is expanding is because there's a baby in there, I feel nothing but positive. I know that having a baby is hard, and that there will be lots and lots of changes, but none of that really scares me or bothers me. It is what we want, and have wanted for a very long time, at a very deep level. All the other stuff that bothers me can be pretty much wiped out by patting my belly and thinking "that's my baby."

End of semester busyness

The past couple of weeks have been super busy with work, as Friday was the last day of classes for the semester. There has been a lot to wrap up, and this will continue for the next couple of weeks as we finish with final exams, grading, the completion of honours theses, the defense of my master's student's thesis proposal, and various other bits and pieces that must be completed by the end of the month.

However, on Thursday I taught class for the last time for more than a year – I will start maternity leave in September and be on leave for a full twelve months (have I mentioned how much more sane the Canadian system is compared with the American one when it comes to parental leave?), so I will not teach again until September 2016. Jeff will be on leave during fall semester, so he will not be teaching again until January. So even though there is still a lot of end of semester stuff to deal with, knowing that I will not have to be lecturing in front of a class for quite some time is pretty exciting.

I can't quite remember what all I have mentioned and what is new – I feel like everything for the past month is kind of all blurred together. We have continued doing things around the house in order to prepare for baby and manage pregnancy. We bought a new mattress because sleep problems start pretty early in pregnancy, and as comfortable as our old mattress was, the body impression that I had put into the mattress over the past eight years was deep enough that I was unable to switch sleep positions anymore. We got a very good deal on a very good mattress, and now I am sleeping more soundly.We have also continued rearranging in the basement, buying some new shelves and a cupboard for our board games, tidying things up in the guest room, and finding spaces for things that have been displaced.

While working on all this, it became clear to me that there was still a smell of cat pee lingering in the basement. As you may recall, we had an unfortunate incident with some friends that we had to break up with last fall. For a while the smell seemed so pervasive that we were starting to think that we might have to replace the carpet in the basement, which might lead to a need to fix the floor (which consists of very lumpy concrete that is degrading and has huge buildup of efflorescence under the carpet). This is something that we have always known we would need to do eventually, but not something we wanted to do soon. Fortunately/unfortunately, some careful sniffing and sleuthing made it clear that the smell was emanating not from the carpet but from the side of our couch. Moving furniture around put the couch in a position where the smell was more noticeable. The very good news is that it seems that Nature's Miracle actually does work to neutralize the smell of cat spray (at least for this cat, and the one that has peed on our front door). So we will not be replacing the carpet, and our basement smells normal again.

Also incredible news is that the weather has finally turned a corner, and it is most definitely spring. The snow is now completely melted, even in the very shady places, and we were even able to spend a bit of time outside in the yard this weekend cleaning dead leaves out of the garden beds and uncovering the first little green nubs of the plants that are starting to grow there. Yesterday's high was 22°C/71°F. For the first time, the lows are above freezing. Jeff went for a jog in shorts this morning. It is lovely, and so nice to know that except for a possible short-lived freak snowstorm, we will probably have very nice weather from now through October.

The last bit of news to share is that everything seems to be going just fine pregnancy-wise. We had an appointment with our obstetrician last week, and she reassured me that my weight is just fine, I don't need to be worried about whether I am still sleeping on my back (even though the whole Internet will tell you that by now I should have transitioned to sleeping on my side), and we heard the baby's heartbeat again. I am mostly feeling good, although last night and today I believe there has been some kind of hormone surge. I am having physical symptoms that go along with panic attacks (in particular ones that are related to feeling strange in the stomach, a sense of derealization, and a feeling of general dread), but in the absence of any anxiety or psychological symptoms. I am so glad that I know what this is, because without that kind of understanding I can easily see why someone would become very anxious and go to the emergency room thinking that they are dying. It has been quite uncomfortable, but fortunately only on and off, and I believe it should settle down pretty soon. At least I hope so!

Starting to prepare

There are about a million things to do to get ready for a baby. We were pretty well just waiting and hoping for the best during the first trimester (other than doctors appointments and such). Now it feels like we need to start actually planning in earnest, because the due date is less than six months away and the to do list is long.

One of Jeff's very helpful qualities is that once it is decided that we are going to do something, he likes to just get it done. There is not a lot of indecisiveness or second-guessing, and it can be excruciating for him to have to wait. This makes the practical work of checking things off the to do list much easier.

Currently, Jeff and I each have our own offices at home. Our house has three bedrooms, and right now we sleep in one of them and I have a room and Jeff has a room. This is an unnecessary luxury, and it was already decided ahead of time that my office would become the baby room and my desk would move into Jeff's office. In order to do this, it was necessary to rearrange the basement to make room for a recliner that has been in my office (for reading, although it doesn't often get used), and for extra storage space to hold my yarn and knitting accessories. On Thursday night we went down to the basement to talk about how to rearrange things, and then basically Jeff just did the major work of moving furniture. We have since bought cube shelving with fabric baskets to use as drawers for storage, and now the only thing left related to rearranging the basement is purchasing a storage cabinet (a big shelf with doors on the front) to store our board games.

It is exciting to be doing things to get ready for the baby – now that the recliner has moved downstairs, there is room in this bedroom to start getting some baby things. We have signed up for a prenatal class that starts in June, and tomorrow Jeff is going to call some childcare centers to get our names on their lists – most places here don't take kids younger than eighteen months old, but apparently the wait lists can be up to several years long to get into some of the better places, so it is definitely not too early.

I think that our lives might be moving into the "all baby all the time" phase, but we are also trying to enjoy our time together in these last few baby-free months. We went out to dinner and dessert on Friday night, and even though we stopped and bought some maternity pants on the way home, we hear that it is important to do these kinds of things now, because after the baby comes it might be a very long time!

Pregnant for real

Being really and truly pregnant has been a long time coming. The fact that this is something that we have wanted for so long but that has been so hard to achieve, has made me very cautious about it and has made it seem hardly real. For the whole first trimester I was pretty scared about miscarriage, knowing that it is common and more common among "old" moms, which apparently is me (over 35!). So I think for the whole first trimester even though I knew I was pregnant there was a part of me that didn't really believe I was pregnant.

I have also been fairly lucky when it comes to pregnancy symptoms. I have not vomited a single time, which I really didn't expect given what some of my friends have been through. There were definitely things that I experienced, but it wasn't until after about ten weeks that any of those things felt especially different from just bad PMS. I was bloated, irritable, and tired, and those were my major issues. So I guess I sort of felt pregnant but at the same time felt like I didn't have super strong evidence that this was pregnancy. I was happy to get to the end of the first trimester because that marks the end of the greatest risk of miscarriage, and also because starting at about ten weeks I have continued to feel more and more pregnant, and this has felt more and more real.

On Thursday I went in for an ultrasound as part of prenatal testing, and was totally surprised to find out that our little human is starting to look extremely human, even this early on. The baby was also doing all kinds of wriggling and moving and even sort of jumping around, which I absolutely did not expect to see so early on. I've read all the stuff about prenatal development and knew that babies start to look very baby-like at this stage, and that there is a lot of movement occurring, but somehow I didn't expect to see it. It made things seem so much more real! Here are some of the ultrasound pictures:

I am also finally starting to look a little bit pregnant. I have been unable to button my pants for the last eight weeks (at first because of bloating, and then because my belly really is getting bigger), but for the most part nobody besides me and Jeff can tell that I look any different. However, I have been wearing maternity pants for a couple of weeks, and recently bought some maternity shirts as well because my regular shirts were riding up so high that it was clear that they did fit properly even if it wasn't entirely clear why. But today Jeff got home from being away for five days at a conference, and when he saw my belly he was a bit surprised by how far it was sticking out from my body. Somehow this is nice, because I'm starting to feel pregnant instead of just bloated and fat.

One little rant for today: I have been reading lots about healthy pregnancy from many different sources, and they all have the same (or at least very similar) guidelines for weight gain during pregnancy. There is basically a very narrow range that is considered normal, especially during the first trimester. Some people don't gain any weight during the first trimester, or even lose a little, due to feeling sick and vomiting. The guidelines say that at this point (I am at fourteen weeks today) I should have gained between 1 and 5 pounds, ideally about 3.5 pounds, and I have gained 6.

Everywhere I look it seems that there are warnings about gaining too much weight during pregnancy, and that if you are outside the normal range (even just a little bit!) you might be headed for disaster. Well, I have not been eating junk food. I would say I am probably eating less ice cream than I did before getting pregnant, I am more careful about eating only whole grains (no more regular pasta or white pizza crust), and the foods that I have added to my diet are eggs, cottage cheese, and nuts. I am probably eating more healthfully than most people in general, and and being careful about getting all the nutrients I need to support a healthy pregnancy. But the message I see everywhere is that I am gaining too much weight. Rationally I know that this is not true, that I am healthy, and as Jeff says that I am gaining the amount of weight that is necessary for this pregnancy. But it is hard to ignore those messages telling me that I am doing something wrong, something that could affect my health for the rest of my life and also lead to a greater likelihood that the baby will struggle with weight forever.

I have a feeling this is only the beginning, and that there will be things like this that occur throughout the rest of pregnancy and then probably even more of them that pop up about parenting. How do you resist these messages and not internalize the anxiety? Do you just stop reading, or learn to be so secure in yourself and your choices that this stuff doesn't faze you? Or is every parent just very anxious all the time? I clearly have a lot to learn in this department.