Cleopatra, Bathed in Milk

She's a month old today. It feels more like a parent milestone than a baby milestone, somehow: She's still alive! No blood has been shed! No babies have been harmed in the making of this family! I still chant a little safety mantra when I carry her down the stairs, and I can't stand to watch her father suction the boogers out of her nose with the blue sucky thing, even though he's very gentle and careful, and she always feels better afterwards (although the piggy little sounds she makes with a stuffy nose are adorable).

All that aside, though, we're starting to emerge from the foggiest part of Babyland Forest. We've been on a couple of family outings (bakery, concert in the park), and I'm almost back to being a functioning member of society. I've made dinner a few times, I can go up and down the stairs as many times as I want (woo!), and Cleo and I survived while her father went to a movie.

(edited to add: It's July 2010, and I just found this post lurking in "drafts." Cleo is now a robust almost-two-year-old who walked into the bakery with me this morning and requested a "bistuit an' a hightair", and this all sounds like a very long time ago.)

Quick, while she's sleeping.

Signs that you may be on heavy pain medication and/or the sleep-deprived mother of a newborn:

In the middle of the night, you try to drink from the moisturizer instead of the water bottle.

You cannot subtract 15 from 36 without a pencil and some paper.

Your first taste of non-hospital food almost makes you cry with its goodness.

(Baby girl. Born at 2:30 am on June 18. Everyone now delighted and happy and healthy and home.)

Month Nine: Evolution

In the first part of my pregnancy, as I was excitedly watching my body's appearance change, I had a little sadness in the back of my mind for the old body I'd never see again. It made me feel silly to be diluting my joy with vanity, but it was like saying goodbye to a friend, knowing I'd see them again eventually, but that things would always be different.

Well, nature has an answer for those mixed feelings. It's called the ninth month. Now the way my body will look after pregnancy seems inconsequential compared to how my body will feel. I'm no longer fazed by the prospect of the new squishier me. I'm instead completely captivated by the idea that one day, I'll again be able to run up a flight of stairs, walk a brisk mile or two on a whim, and even roll over in bed without first planning a strategy.

These feats all seem especially miraculous because there's a little, primitive part of my brain that believes that I will be pregnant forever; that maternity clothes will be my permanent wardrobe, that my feet will forever be strangers to me, that I'll always be this awkward and feeble.

Fitting into my skinny jeans by Christmas? Whatever. The ability to lift and tote and bend and jog? Yes, please! Oh, please. And soon. Please.

Month Nine: What? This is the Easy Part?

When I was trying to get pregnant, I was worried. Would it take a long time? Would I be able to? The waiting was stressful, and I was intent on our goal. I had this idea that once I was pregnant, I could relax and everything would be fine.

And then we found out I was pregnant! Hooray! We were both excited, I was relieved, and I did relax. For about a week. And then I started worrying about the baby. Was it okay in there? How about now? And now? Now? Each time we passed a milestone (end of the first trimester at 12 weeks, 20 week scan, viability at 26 weeks, full-term at 37 weeks), I'd again be relieved and happy, with relief and happiness giving way to worry again eventually.

I feel silly worrying so much, since I know we've been very lucky so far, and there's no sign that anything's wrong, but while I can turn down the worry, I can't shut it off completely.

And now, with birth coming so soon, I have this feeling that I'll finally be able to stop worrying once she's born. We'll hold her in our arms and everything will get better and easier and less scary.

Yes.

I am delusional.

Month Nine: Small Scare (No Suspense, Happy Ending Edition)

By now, the birth is getting so close we're going to see the midwife every week. Wednesday's visit was shaping up to be routine, until the nurse looked at my blood pressure and said calmly, "I think I'll just check your other arm." It has been routinely 120/80 for months, but Wednesday it was 138/90. On both arms.

That means one of two things: either I have high blood pressure from gaining 25 pounds in six months and running around like a headless chicken, or I have high blood pressure from pre-eclampsia, a reaction some women's bodies have to pregnancy. The cure for the first is pretty much just to chill out already. The cure for the latter is to induce labor and deliver the baby.

So they had to figure out which one it was. This got me a ticket to the lab to test various bodily fluids and also something called a Non-Stress Test, which, let me tell you, is badly named. It was stressful. The wires and printouts and monitors were bad enough, but the absolute worst part was when the nurse had to hunt around, looking for and not finding the baby's heartbeat. It probably took her 30 seconds, but it was not a reassuring moment. She finally found it, strapped me to the various devices, and left us to our appointed jobs for 20 minutes: baby to happily kick and squirm, mother to freak right out, and father to remain calm, tell a few jokes, and make conversation in a casual and reassuring way. We all performed exactly as described.

The midwife came in to review the printout, and said the best words ever: "That's a very happy baby. Just what we like to see. She's doing great."

So, while we're still waiting for the lab results, things look fine. I've been taking it easy and checking my blood pressure at home (it's gone and stayed back down a bit) and even bad news from the lab wouldn't be too bad. It might just speed up the baby-getting timetable a little, which is fine, since I'm almost 39 weeks along.

The really good news is that the baby is head-down and starting to engage, and I'm 2 cm dilated and 80% effaced. If you don't know what any of that means, that's okay. You can just move right along and think no more about my innards. It's good news.

And the less-important-but-still-good news is that I have official medical advice to: "Lie down, rest, eat bonbons, and read." Well, okay.

Update: For the third time in the last couple months, the lab results are... mixed. They need some more absolutist lab techs over there, if you ask me. People who can really commit to a one decision or another, and stay the course, evidence to the contrary notwithstanding. It's a great way to run a country, right? So it would be for medical care. Oh, wait. Never mind.

So, mixed results. They'll retest on Friday. Keep up with the feet up and the bonbons. Check.

Month Nine: Maybe I'll See Her at Naptime

My dreams are usually swashbuckling adventures, with lots of running and hiding and good guys and bad guys, but pregnancy changes your dream life as well as your waking life. Last night, I dreamed about my grandmother for the first time since shortly after she died, seven years ago. In the dream, it was morning, and I was going to take her a cup of coffee, a piece of leftover birthday cake (whose, I don't know) and the newspaper. She phoned down to the kitchen from her room and we chatted a bit. Eventually, she sweetly asked for a cup of tea and a novel instead, if it wasn't too much trouble.

It was really nice to dream about her again, but the downside of pregnancy dreams is that they're often interrupted. My pregnant self woke up to go to the bathroom before my dream self made it up the stairs with a cup of tea, a cup of coffee (one for her, one for me?), and a pile of books.

Month Nine: Maybe This Will Be My Eggplant Casserole

There are many steps along the path to motherhood. The biggest one, of course, will be some time this month, but there are also more subtle shifts. For example, an interest in trying a recipe that looks like this one.

Month Nine: FAQ

People keep asking me the due date, which is a natural thing to ask a woman who looks like I do, but I'm trying not to dwell on it. All the books like to remind me that the due date is a bit of a shot in the dark, and that the most specific prediction we can really make is that the baby will probably come sometime between week 38 and week 42. Beyond that, there's no saying with any more certainty (after week 42, though, they get out the crowbar. Or something).

I'm officially 38 weeks today, which puts me in kind of a funny place between gearing up and trying to stay patient. It's hard to hold both "any day now" and "maybe not for another month" in my head at once.

But it does make sense to approach it this way. It's like having a soft opening for a restaurant: you get ready, you see if what you think is ready actually is ready, you have a chance to get a little more ready, and then you see how that seems before things get all official.

So we've been doing all kinds of ready-getting. My nesting instinct has been satisfied by a pretty motley collection of accomplishments. We weeded and mulched the backyard, we got the car detailed, we planted some annuals, we got a huge stack of kids' books at a baby shower, I washed and stacked lots of ridiculously small cotton items, I cleaned out my office, we installed the car seat, I organized the basement, we took a carload of castoffs to the Salvation Army, we hung a new laundry line, and I made six casseroles for the freezer. I realize that most of those things have nothing to do with keeping a newborn happy and well, but a primal need was satisfied all the same.

After they ask about the due date people then tend to ask, "And are you all ready with the nursery and everything?" with visions of matching curtains and dust ruffles and crib bumpers obviously dancing in their heads. And well, no. We're not. It still looks like a half-moved-into room, any matching that's going on is accidental, and frankly, that probably won't change much before she gets here. But, really, yes. Yes, we're ready. And if she waits another month to make her appearance, maybe we'll have regrouted the shower, cleaned the gutters, and fixed the porch step too, so we'll be even more ready.

Month Nine: Progress?

We've been watching a lot of old Star Trek in the evenings, after our nightly midwife-mandated creep around the block. It's been hot here, and there's something cooling about outer space and the future.

In addition to a wide and entertaining variety of Space Unitards and Space Cocktails, the show features Captain Picard, who likes to give orders with a stern, deep, "Engage."

Well, it finally feels like the baby's been listening.

Month Nine: Malachite

Although I grew up in the friendly south, where smiling at strangers on the street is a way of life, I've lived up north long enough to develop a stern don't-mess-with-me face that I wear when navigating urban crowds. It usually helps would-be solicitors pick someone else to approach, but it's not always effective.

The other day, despite my best efforts, a man gifted with hair and deprived of teeth came right up to me and said urgently, "Excuse me, miss? Miss? Excuse me?" I couldn't sidestep his persistence or his politeness, so I said, "Yes?" while, I admit, stepping back a bit and holding my bag a little tighter.

"Here, take this. It's malachite. It's good protection for your baby when she's born. Just keep it by her bed."

And he handed me a little green rock. As my brain hustled to accommodate this unexpected development, I realized that in every folk tale I'm aware of, when a scruffy stranger offers an unsolicited kindness to a pregnant woman, she'd best take it and be grateful, unless she wants her first-born child to have some sort of colorful life-long curse.

So I did take it, I was grateful, I thanked him sincerely, and he went on his way. The stone is now on my bedside table. I'm not usually superstitious, but there are some archetypes you just don't mess with.

Month Nine: The Open Mouths of Babes

At the pool, in my belly-friendly bikini, I apparently make quite a spectacle. Women smile, men try not to look alarmed, and kids just stare, gaping at my mass.

The other afternoon, I came out of a bathroom stall into the ladies changing room, and surprised two eight-year-old girls. They stopped mid-chatter, mouths open, and proceeded to follow me with huge eyes as I washed my hands, dried them, adjusted my suit, and made my way back out into the sun. I didn't mind the inspection, and would have happily answered any curious questions, but I think the visual was as much information as they could handle, if not quite a bit more.

Neighbors of ours who swim at the same pool, three and five-year old boys, know me better and aren't afraid to ask questions. So far, the favorites are, "Have you started cracking open yet?" and "When are you going to crack?" and, "Is the baby naked in there?" and "Are you sure it's a girl?" (the last very skeptically, with a wrinkled nose). The youngest likes to pat my belly, which is the sweetest thing ever, and once evolved into him gently patting it with his knuckles, which made his poor mother have a heart attack when she glanced over, and yelped, "No punching pregnant ladies in the belly!"

Month Nine: I Chose a Pale Pink, Myself

Taking an infant first aid class at the hospital, we were surrounded by expectant women. They all looked to be about as pregnant as I am, which is to say, very. There was a wide cross-section, with people from all over the area, all over the economic spectrum, variously partnered and unpartnered, and of lots of ages, colors, and sizes (although there didn't happen to be any small women. Just large, larger, vast, and huge). But we were all learning about choking, bleeding, and anaphylactic shock together. And we'll all be mothers of infants pretty soon, and, based on a quick visual survey of all the toes I could see, none of us can reach our feet any more. I've never seen so many pedicures.

Her House Is On Fire, After All

I know that among my readers are a good many soft-hearted folks who are inclined to be friendly to helpful insects. Well, now's your big chance. The good sciency people of Cornell are trying to figure out how native ladybugs are doing all over the country (the answer so far? not that great). So they're soliciting photos of the ladybugs in your yard/garden/neighborhood. Catch some bugs, take their pictures, mention where and when you found them, and that can be your good deed for the summer. Cheap karma, if you ask me. More details here.

Month Nine: Gemütlichkeit? Bildungsroman?

As I get more and more pregnant, and the summer wears on, people keep asking me with delighted looks, "So, how're you feeling now, pretty awful, right? All swollen? Can't sleep? Achy joints? Real cranky?" The long German word for this is schadenfreude, I think, but I don't know the long German word for how I feel, which is: pretty satisfied to be able to say right back, "Nope, I feel great, actually! Never better!"

And it's true, too, just as long as I don't try to do much and stay off my feet and take a daily nap or two and eat every couple hours and drink lots of water and take my vitamins.

So, yeah. Short answer: great. I feel great.

Month Nine: A Review of Fetal Development

Dear Baby,
My main cravings over the last eight months have been for fruit, and as the seasons have changed, so have the fruits. As you grew your various parts, month by month, I kept up with various fruits. I ate other things too, of course, but a lot of you is constructed out of produce. For future reference then, my dear, a list:

Your heart is made of apples.
Your bones are made of red grapefruit.
Your teeth are made of prunes.
Your fingertips are made of pineapple.
Your eyebrows are made of cantaloupe.
Your eyelashes are made of cherries.
Your chub is made of blueberries.
Your lungs are lined with peaches.

And everything is held together with cheese, almond butter, and ice cream sandwiches.

Love,
Mama

Month Eight: Famous Last Words

As you might guess from what I've been writing about lately (food, dinner, recipes, eating...), I've been feeling a lot more like myself lately. Still pregnant, but not particularly hampered by it. Maybe my best month of this whole thing so far. It's really only in the last week that I've started feeling like that very pregnant woman you see in movies and on TV: huffing and puffing, walking funny, finding any opportunity to put my swollen feet up, and going to the bathroom every half hour. But, still, I feel good as long as I don't try to do much.

This feeling-good, not-doing-much does not lend itself to Exciting Writing Topics, though, so I've limited myself to the always-reliable subject of food. However, I want to have a record of the happy-pregnant part of this process, and not just the dreary-pregnant part, so I'm going to try to up my writing frequency, which will probably result in a related increase in the why-would-anyone-care factor. You have been warned.

One recent accomplishment is worth noting, though. Not knowing anything 'bout birthin' no babies, we took a class. The aim of the class was to teach anxious yuppies how to relax enough so that their bodies could take over and do what they were made to do (see "birthin" above). The curriculum sounded great: a lot of emphasis on letting go of anxiety, relaxing muscles and positive thinking. And gravity. Gravity is your friend in labor, apparently. All of those sound like good tools for a natural labor and birth, right? Right! Except when the teacher is shriller than your high school gym teacher, more anxious than any of the aforementioned yuppies, and keeps barking, "RELAX!" and "NO NEGATIVE THOUGHTS!" and "IT WILL BE PERFECT IF YOU JUST RELAX!" There was some serious message/messenger disharmony going on.

But in the end, it worked out just fine. We survived her drill-sergeant-style guided meditations, we practiced our calming breathing techniques, and we relaxed after every class by laughing at her teaching style. Our last class was a couple weeks ago, and it was a relief to be done. Now we just have labor and birth ahead of us. Piece of cake, I'm thinking.

Nime Chow

Making nime chow (or goi cuon or vietnamese spring rolls) is only worth doing if you have a good reason. They require a certain amount of fiddly knife work, a wrapping technique that takes practice, and last minute assembly. That said, they're superdelicious, healthy, festive, good finger food, cheap, and most of the prep work can be done ahead of time. So I'm not trying to convince anyone to make them, but if you do, here's a recipe that worked well.

Makes 15 rolls and plenty of dipping sauce

rolls:
3 carrots
1 english cucumber
15 rice paper wrappers (banh trang)
1 block firm tofu
thin rice noodles
cornstarch
salt and pepper
15 large basil leaves
30 mint leaves

sauce (nuoc cham):
juice of 2 limes (makes one part)
one part sugar
one part fish sauce
two parts water
2 cloves garlic, minced
chili sauce to taste

Cut carrots and cucumber into 4 or 5 inch long matchsticks.
Cook rice noodles in boiling water until tender, then rinse in cold water.
Measure the juice you get out of the two limes, and then make sauce.
Mix the sugar, water and fish sauce. Heat it to dissolve sugar.
Cool the sugary mixture, then add the lime juice, garlic, and chili sauce.
Squeeze and blot the tofu to get rid of some extra moisture.
Cut it into three flat slabs, then each slab into 5 long bars.
Mix cornstarch with salt and pepper, then dredge the tofu bars in it.
Fry the tofu in a well-oiled non-stick pan until crisp and golden brown.
Set up your work area: carrot, cuke, mint, basil, noodles, and tofu.
Dip one rice paper wrapper in hot water.
Lay the wrapper on a clean tea towel.
Lay one basil leaf and two mint leaves in the middle of the wrapper.
Pile some carrot, cucumber, noodles, and one tofu bar on the leaves.
Wrap like a burrito.
Once you've made all 15, you will have worked out your rice paper technique.
Next time will be easier. Here's some more info.

Variations:
Substitute cooked shrimp (or other tasty protein) for the fried tofu.
Substitute bean sprouts or iceberg (or other crunchy veg) for the carrot or cuke.
For strict vegetarians, use soy sauce instead of fish sauce.
Skip the rice paper all together, and have a pretty little cold noodle salad.

Fish Tacos

I'm don't have a lot of affection for Martha Stewart. This is not a high-toned feminist or post-feminist position, I just feel like she manages to un-fun a lot of pretty fun stuff: making things, messing around in the garden, and cooking delicious food: all things that are best enjoyed with an experimental attitude and a sense of adventure. Instead, she tends to present The One Way to do things, and emphasizes the product over the process. I find this kind of annoying, but it's probably why I like her food magazine, Everyday Food, when I just want something reliable yet new to make for dinner. In those recipes, the process has been worked out, the product is predictable, and you don't have to do a lot of experimenting. That said, I've probably never been able to truly follow a recipe in my life, so here is the Everyday Food recipe for fish tacos, as altered and rearranged in our kitchen yesterday.

Makes 12 small tacos to serve 4 people.

slaw:
3 cups finely shredded red cabbage (about a quarter of a cabbage)
1 cup finely sliced scallions
1 jalapeno, minced (de-ribbed and de-seeded if you like)

sauce:
juice of one lime
zest of that lime
1/4 cup sour cream
salt

1 lb tilapia (or other mild white fish)

12 corn tortillas

Mix the lime juice, lime zest, and sour cream. Salt generously to taste. Mix the cabbage, scallions, and jalapeno with half the sauce and set aside. Save the other half of the sauce for serving. This slaw can be made the day before.

When you're almost ready to eat, cook the fish. I followed the recipe (really!) and fried it in a hot pan in a little oil, but it stuck to the pan, fell apart, and didn't get particularly brown. Despite its inauspicious appearance, it didn't seem to matter to the deliciousness of the end product, so if you have a preferred method of getting fish from raw to cooked, do it now.

As the fish is cooking, heat the tortillas until they're soft and warm. Wrap or cover them to keep them from drying out and cooling off.

To assemble, pile some slaw, some fish, and a drizzle of sauce onto a warm tortilla. Fold in half and eat while dripping pink spots onto your plate.

Easy Spring Pasta

This is easy food. Easy in the shopping, easy in the cooking and easy in the eating, which, as we approach Cooking With Infants time, seems even more important than usual. But this one's actually fairly healthy, tasty and cheap too. Win win win win. Serves two or two and a half.

nine ounces cheese tortellini (fresh-ish, from the refrigerated section)
ten ounces frozen peas (get the good tiny sweet kind—not the giant starchy ones)
1/2 cup chopped ham (or more)
1/2 cup chopped fresh mint (or more)
4 cloves garlic, chopped
grated parmigiano
pepper
butter

Cook the tortellini like the package tells you to.
Saute the garlic and ham until the garlic softens and smells good.
Add the frozen peas to the ham and garlic and cook, covered, until peas are hot.
Combine the tortellini, ham mixture, ground pepper, and a big pat of butter.
Add mint and a generous amount of cheese to each serving.

Variations:
The first time I made this, I used orrechiette and prosciutto instead of tortellini and ham, and it was good too, and more sophisticated-seeming. To make sure the end result wasn't too dry, I tried a flashy new move (new to me, anyway):
Cook the pasta in well-salted water. Save a half cup of the liquid, and drain the pasta before it's quite done. Dump the pasta back into the hot pot, turn the heat to medium, and add the saved water, a bunch of grated parmigiano, tons of ground pepper, and a big hunk of butter. Stir energetically. The starchy, salty water will mix with the cheese and butter, making a flavorful, emulsified juice. The pasta absorbs enough liquid from the sauce that it finishes cooking in a few minutes. Once the pasta's done, add the (still warm) prosciutto and peas. The sauce will lightly coat everything, distribute the flavors, and keep the whole thing from being dry and gummy. So, a good technique if you have the time and inclination, but eminently skippable if you just use cheese tortellini and some butter.

Month Eight: Part Two

It's been hot here lately, and I've been very pregnant. These two factors combine to create a serious gap in my wardrobe. I tried my best to solve this the American way, by shopping my way to a solution, but some moron seems to have convinced the producers of maternity clothing that pregnant women want to wear nothing but clingy polyester dresses when it's ninety-five degrees outside. Well, maybe all the air-conditioned pregnant women like synthetics, but I have a different idea of what I want to wear. Which is: nothing. This weather calls for complete nudity and an icy glass of lemonade. But fear not. I like my neighborhood, and I think they might throw me out if I start waltzing around in the (massive) altogether. So I was shopping for, and not finding, thin cotton dresses. Dresses that would be both wispy and tent-like. Both huge and weightless. Think "gossamuumuu." But no dice. The marketplace failed me, which is how I found myself sweating onto my sewing machine earlier this week, making my own damn dress, and inadvertently learning things:

-The light on the sewing machine throws off an impressive amount of heat, like a little brunch-buffet heat lamp for the prime rib that is your fingers.

-When it's this hot, and one is this pregnant, every ten minutes sitting at a humming sewing machine needs to be balanced out by fifteen minutes of lying motionless right in front of the fan.

-When you're this sweaty, lying motionless in front of the fan is remarkably cooling. Hooray for physics! Or is that hydraulics? Whatever it is, it's a very refreshing demonstration.

-Working for ten minutes and resting for fifteen minutes is actually a very effective way of avoiding stupid mistakes when you're liable to cut corners and be slapdash. Many dumb decisions were avoided at the last minute by the Smart Brain having a chance to catch up to the Lazy Brain and overrule its plans.

-As soon as you finish the Breeziest Garment Ever Conceived, the weather will break and your other clothes will suddenly seem reasonable again.

-If there's not another brutal heat wave this summer, I'll be delighted. If there is, I'll be prepared.