Monday, May 28, 2001

 
oh dear. now, if you've come to this site looking for wonderment on the sacredness of it all, get thee to babycenter or similar.
'cos I'm the kind of girl who reads sentences like this: "throughout the nine months she listens attentively to what her body is telling her" and this: "they share the wonder of observing their baby's increasingly strong movements which send ripples across her growing belly", not to mention "she feels - radiant and very special".
cack. all the above is from a book I actually paid for today, called The natural way to a better pregnancy. oh, I'll read it. I'll winnow out all the useful information on vitamins and environmental poisons, because at heart I really do want to take as much care as possible. but why does the whole thing have to be so damn sugar coated? sugar is bad for growing babies. surely there's enough natural magic in it without having to say "oh, look, magic"?
and as for the stuff about breastfeeding being easy and ultrasounds being stressful for babies and technology not being necessary, I AM 35 YEARS OLD AND I WANT MEDICAL INTERVENTION IF I NEED IT!!!

never was one to sit back quietly and do what either doctors or gurus told me anyway ... the middle road for me.

 
well, not quite anemic. about 1 pt above the anemic level. now I have to take even more iron tablets, but not so many that it makes me constipated!

there was a pregnant woman in the pool on Friday.she floated about like a balloon. I wonder what it feels like to have a human being inside you.


35 today. that, I believe, was the deadline. but I still want to say "a few more months". I'm spoiled, that's the problem. can't stand the idea of not being able to drive around going to wineries and for bike rides and whatever I want when I want. maybe we shouldn't do it...

Wednesday, May 23, 2001

 
my arm still hurts. and the results are in and I have to go see the dr again. something about iron levels - hooray, I'm anemic! lots of steak and spinach for me!

also proud to announce that I'm A-negative. He's A-positive. Those of you who have been here will realise that this could be a problem. (some info here, about halfway down.)

which is more horrible to contemplate? a full blood transfusion for a newborn baby, or a massive injection in the bottom for me? The first, of course.

look at me. haven't even conceived the first baby yet and I'm worried about the technicalities of producing the second...

Sunday, May 20, 2001

 
now that my left arm feels better (it wasn't that bad, but I'm a wimp), I can report that even the first checkup involves at least two test tubes of blood being removed from one's arm. ouch.
so I missed a swim and a round of morning aerobics (didn't think pushups were a good idea with a bruised vein); this baby is already interfering with my exercise, about which I am obsessive.

the good news: my lovely Dr says of course I can have a cup of coffee in the mornings.

more bad news; my pregnant friend (due August) has a book on childbirth on her coffee table. even the slightest glance at that made me go pale. as I'll technically be an "elderly primagravida", do you think they'll let me book a caesarian in from the start? Hell, I don't think women were really designed to go through childbirth for the first time @ 35.

Monday, May 14, 2001

 
it feels a bit weird, like I'm someone else, when I say things like "I'm coming in for a pre-pregnancy checkup; will one appointment be long enough" to the doctor's receptionist.
have to remember that what seems foreign and strange to me, as starting to use the word "husband" was a year ago, seems just stock-standard normal to the people I talk to.

Friday, May 11, 2001

 
today I sat next to a pregnant woman at the market while I drank my after-lunch coffee (which I'll have to give up soon, of course.) And a couple sat across from me with their rather gorgeous Indian or Sri Lankan baby (they were white, but whatever), who looked at me with her black wells of eyes and broke into a huge beam of pure joy.
funny how once you think about something, you start noticing it everywhere.

Thursday, May 10, 2001

 
uh-oh, baby dreams:
I walked out into the backyard and thought to myself: I'll never be able to walk away from the house so freely, with such a sense of separation, again, because there's going to be a part of me in there, an actual physical extension of me, that A. is going to start, but which will come from me.
of course dreams don't use words like that, but that's the feel of it.

 
5/5
Today I went shopping in Hong Kong. this is, as the techs say, a non-trivial exercise. eventually the sheer volume of STUFF in the Hong Kong Industrial Centre overwhelmed me – but for a minute there I considered buying a maternity dress. My God, they’re like tents! and this is in a place where the all the clothes are tiny – I’m an Australian size 10 (European 2, US 4) and sometimes the clothes here are too small even for me.
But these things were huge. I’m ambivalent about buying pregnancy things anyway – it seems to be assuming far too much.

but I did buy a cute pink bag when I got to a more manageable shopping lane on the island. and now I wish I’d bought a blue one as well, for balance and fairness. I guess it was in the back of my mind that it would be good to chuck a few things in to go to the hospital, or to keep general baby stuff in.
Apart from the wonder and sanctity of creating a person and all that guff, this will be a project. and I love projects – I can write lots of lists and tick them all off!

9/5
last night my friend came over with her two kids. and the four-year-old boy said to me: “you should have a baby.” apparently they’ve been hassling her to have another one. kids think babies are like puppies or something – you just get them!

 
5/5
Today I went shopping in Hong Kong. this is, as the techs say, a non-trivial exercise. eventually the sheer volume of STUFF in the Hong Kong Industrial Centre overwhelmed me – but for a minute there I considered buying a maternity dress. My God, they’re like tents! and this is in a place where the all the clothes are tiny – I’m an Australian size 10 (European 2, US 4) and sometimes the clothes here are too small even for me.
But these things were huge. I’m ambivalent about buying pregnancy things anyway – it seems to be assuming far too much.

but I did buy a cute pink bag when I got to a more manageable shopping lane on the island. and now I wish I’d bought a blue one as well, for balance and fairness. I guess it was in the back of my mind that it would be good to chuck a few things in to go to the hospital, or to keep general baby stuff in.
Apart from the wonder and sanctity of creating a person and all that guff, this will be a project. and I love projects – I can write lots of lists and tick them all off!

9/5
last night my friend came over with her two kids. and the four-year-old boy said to me: “you should have a baby.” apparently they’ve been hassling here to have another one. kids think babies are like puppies or something – you just get

Monday, May 07, 2001

 
hey, someone linked me! this guy visited me and said: Hab grad ein cooles Weblog entdeckt... babybaby.
not even babelfish could tell me what that means. then again, babelfish couldn't tell me what most things mean.

 
so we were out and about yesterday and wandered into a shop that sells all things coffee - from percolators to chocolate-coated coffee beans (yerm!). and he said to me: I've been thinking that if you're good during your pregnancy I might buy you a coffee machine.
he's very pure - no drugs, easy on the alcohol - and he thinks that to produce a baby, I have to drink filtered water and eat organic rice - and that's all - for up to a year. I don't want to have an addicted baby, and I'll give up alcohol and painkillers and all that, but coffee? surely I can have one coffee a day? how will I work? think? stay cheerful? without coffee. Must ask my doctor if one cup is OK - and if it is, to write me a note.
too much coffee man is all about the wonders and funny side of coffee. anyone who's been sued by Starbucks is OK with me.

Saturday, May 05, 2001

 
then again, maybe I should just get more dogs. lots and lots of them. a pack.

Wednesday, May 02, 2001

 
hello. one of those brand-new blogs here.
I'm sitting in a hotel room in Hong Kong, a couple of gin and tonics past doing anything meaningful. There's a photo of me and my husband getting married stuck to the magnetic whiteboard above the desk, right next to a blue Texta drawing of our dog.
And I'm thinking about babies.
I'm 34, almost 35, and next month we're going to start trying to make a baby.
yep, I've lost most of you, especially the girls who are like I was ten years ago - not that I was against having babies, I just didn't care about it, didn't think about it and couldn't understand women who did.
fine, off you go.
this blog's for me, anyway. I have a real blog, but this one is single-purpose. it's for thinking about babies, and for total honesty.
So I'm 34, married a bit less than a year, and somehow, strangely, quite looking forward to wrecking my body, my health, my sleep, my work, my free time and a lot of other things.
I've had a good life. Now it's almost over.
I guess I knew I was in for it when images of childbirth on the television started to cause me to cry.
It was probably around the time I was with my ex, a man who I try not to think about too often, because that can make me cry too, that I decided that yep, I did want children.
He had arranged things so he couldn't have any more - various visits to doctors, tears, ambivalence, you know the stuff, later, he dumped me in the usual bastard fashion - by finding someone else.
Then, thanks to the wonders of the Web, specifically rsvp I met a sweet, gentle, intelligent, cute and very loving boy. Before you gag too much, he's not perfect. But he loves me, I love him and hell, we're going to breed.
Six months ago I procured from Amazon a book on fertility cycles - now every morning I take my temperature and sometimes I check my cervical fluids and where my cervix is at. Then I note it all down in a little chart - it's actually kind of cool seeing that peak when I ovulate, and I wish I'd known how to do it earlier. (When I get home I'll put up the name of the book).
So soon I'll be 35 and I'll have to give up booze, any kind of drugs (legal, illegal, whatever), start eating right and see what happens.
Which is what this blog is for. I'm a professional writer of a kind, and I guess I'd like to have an outlet for all the stuff that will go through my brain. I won't apologise for being a self-obsessed Western 30-something woman. I exercise my interest in other people in other forums. This is for me, and to be frank, I bloody hope no one I know comes here.

oh, and another thing? ALWAYS SAVE LONG POSTS!!! something made me save the s-of-c above before I published, and sure enough, Blogger dived on me.
but here it is. ;-)

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