i eat some potato chips: they stay down.
i eat a dinner of cooked vegetables with hot millet: it doesn't stay down.
i eat a bowl of sweet cereal: it stays down.
i eat a breakfast of brown-bread toast and marmite: it doesn't stay down.
i have an egg-nog latte with a bite of brownie: they stay down.
THIS BABY IS TRYING TO TELL ME SOMETHING.
Monday, December 15, 2008
Friday, December 12, 2008
Friday, December 05, 2008
pukey talk
at the beginning of this pregnancy, i was hit with two months of feeling like death warmed up ALL THE TIME. truly, i didn't know that it was possible to feel that sick, even when i stopped smoking and had migraines for a month and i cried because i was in so much pain and the closest i got to sympathy was the suggestion that i might have brain cancer.
i didn't know how lucky i was to not have read any pregnancy/childbirth literature in those days.
dear, dear shaun, who---among too much else---listens to me complain and who reads to the baby (still inside the belly), and who has on more than one occasion made a late-night trip to the supermarket for chocolate eclairs, who rubs my back and who makes us dinner, and who thanks me for looking after our child, also leaves my breakfast next to my bed when he leaves for work in the mornings at 6:15.
this is because, after a several-month hiatus, i once again have the morning sickness. thank goodness it is pretty much restricted to the mornings. according to my weigh-ins at the clinic, i've even been losing weight, which i don't really believe, but whatever. i'll take weight loss wherever i can find it, even if it's caused by out-of-date equipment and the vagaries of nurses. p.s. i'm full-term now and could give birth any day. who else is freaked out by that?
if i try to get out of bed before forcing something down my throat, my body will protest at the tablespoon or so of hydrochloric acid that swills around in my cramped stomach, which organ forces it up and out with what feels like maximum unecessary pain and even, if i'm very lucky, a treat like a burned tongue i can carry around in my mouth for the next day or two.
the physicality of pregnancy, the pure EMBODIEDNESS of it, is something i was not at all prepared for and has put all prayers into a new context: the actual world.
since those early months, i have been reading parent-centric stuff, including my favourite and must-read-if-you're-thinking-of-reproducing, "Ina May Gaskin's Guide to Childbirth". this book is SO empowering and calming and helpful. it definitely advocates home-/natural births as being the main way to go, but at the same time i felt like it refrained from much (if not all) of the prejudice and judgement of other writing that shares the same opinions. at least it provides reasons, rather than simply opinion, for the positions that it holds on this subject. really, REALLY, read this book if you are parentally inclined.
having said that, however, there is one thing that i remember reading in this book that i wish i had not, because my brain reminds me of it at the inopportune times of when it is hanging over a toilet bowl, i.e., every morning.
along with all all sorts of tips about how to be physically relaxed and confident during birthing, it points out correlations between parts of our bodies, like how if your jaw is relaxed then you can't be physically tense elsewhere if you know what i mean, and the author also says at one point something to the effect of,
"If you're not gracious/graceful about puking, then you will probably find yourself tensing up during childbirth too." [emphasis/imprecision mine.]
from this i have concluded: when throwing up think ballet. my body should, perhaps, arabesque as i hold up my hair with one hand and the cistern with the other.
i know that Ina May probably didn't say it like that, but it's TOTALLY how i remember it being in the book, and my brain has for whatever reason chosen to fixate on this particular combination of phrase and concept WHICH IS NOT EVEN ONE OF THE MORE HELPFUL TIPS, so this whole thing has led to this ridiculous situation of my regular matutinal, face-first visits to the toilet being accompanied by this internal, paradoxical, screaming directive:
"REMEMBER TO VOMIT GRACEFULLY! RETCH GRACIOUSLY! BE GRACEFUL! AND GRACIOUS! IT SHOULD LOOK EFFORTLESS!! OTHERWISE LABOUR WILL HURT!!!!"
i needed to get this off my chest, but ... please. don't internalize and then do this to yourself. if for no other reasons than IT IS NOT EFFORTLESS, and i can guarantee you NO ONE IS LOOKING.
i didn't know how lucky i was to not have read any pregnancy/childbirth literature in those days.
dear, dear shaun, who---among too much else---listens to me complain and who reads to the baby (still inside the belly), and who has on more than one occasion made a late-night trip to the supermarket for chocolate eclairs, who rubs my back and who makes us dinner, and who thanks me for looking after our child, also leaves my breakfast next to my bed when he leaves for work in the mornings at 6:15.
this is because, after a several-month hiatus, i once again have the morning sickness. thank goodness it is pretty much restricted to the mornings. according to my weigh-ins at the clinic, i've even been losing weight, which i don't really believe, but whatever. i'll take weight loss wherever i can find it, even if it's caused by out-of-date equipment and the vagaries of nurses. p.s. i'm full-term now and could give birth any day. who else is freaked out by that?
if i try to get out of bed before forcing something down my throat, my body will protest at the tablespoon or so of hydrochloric acid that swills around in my cramped stomach, which organ forces it up and out with what feels like maximum unecessary pain and even, if i'm very lucky, a treat like a burned tongue i can carry around in my mouth for the next day or two.
the physicality of pregnancy, the pure EMBODIEDNESS of it, is something i was not at all prepared for and has put all prayers into a new context: the actual world.
since those early months, i have been reading parent-centric stuff, including my favourite and must-read-if-you're-thinking-of-reproducing, "Ina May Gaskin's Guide to Childbirth". this book is SO empowering and calming and helpful. it definitely advocates home-/natural births as being the main way to go, but at the same time i felt like it refrained from much (if not all) of the prejudice and judgement of other writing that shares the same opinions. at least it provides reasons, rather than simply opinion, for the positions that it holds on this subject. really, REALLY, read this book if you are parentally inclined.
having said that, however, there is one thing that i remember reading in this book that i wish i had not, because my brain reminds me of it at the inopportune times of when it is hanging over a toilet bowl, i.e., every morning.
along with all all sorts of tips about how to be physically relaxed and confident during birthing, it points out correlations between parts of our bodies, like how if your jaw is relaxed then you can't be physically tense elsewhere if you know what i mean, and the author also says at one point something to the effect of,
"If you're not gracious/graceful about puking, then you will probably find yourself tensing up during childbirth too." [emphasis/imprecision mine.]
from this i have concluded: when throwing up think ballet. my body should, perhaps, arabesque as i hold up my hair with one hand and the cistern with the other.
i know that Ina May probably didn't say it like that, but it's TOTALLY how i remember it being in the book, and my brain has for whatever reason chosen to fixate on this particular combination of phrase and concept WHICH IS NOT EVEN ONE OF THE MORE HELPFUL TIPS, so this whole thing has led to this ridiculous situation of my regular matutinal, face-first visits to the toilet being accompanied by this internal, paradoxical, screaming directive:
"REMEMBER TO VOMIT GRACEFULLY! RETCH GRACIOUSLY! BE GRACEFUL! AND GRACIOUS! IT SHOULD LOOK EFFORTLESS!! OTHERWISE LABOUR WILL HURT!!!!"
i needed to get this off my chest, but ... please. don't internalize and then do this to yourself. if for no other reasons than IT IS NOT EFFORTLESS, and i can guarantee you NO ONE IS LOOKING.
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