Tag Archives: family

Bubba McTiny’s Birth Story

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Hank was born four weeks early at just five pounds, and we called him “Teeny McTiny” for  the first six months of his life (until he experienced a massive growth spurt and shot from the bottom 10th-percentile on the pediatric growth charts to the top 15th-percentile). His little brother (whom we shall call Ollie here, to protect his privacy), arrived two weeks early, already weighing eight and a half pounds. He’s a big boy, yet one forgets how small and helpless all newborns are (even the big ones), and so we’re calling him “Bubba McTiny” for now.

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Thankfully, the pregnancy induced hypertension (PIH) for which I was being so closely monitored for the last month of my pregnancy never developed, though I continued to have  proteinuria until the end. I submitted to weekly blood tests, urine tests, ultrasounds, doctor’s visits, and twice weekly non stress tests at the childbirth center until my water broke, unexpectedly, the morning of March 10, when I was exactly 38 weeks pregnant. I was giving Hank a bath, squatting beside the tub, and when I got up to get his towel I noticed I’d left a small, pink puddle on the bathroom floor. (My mother also went into labor with my little sister while giving 4-year-old me a bath, so maybe there’s something to squatting by the tub as a labor trigger, at least in our family. My sister and sister-in-law have taken note.)

I called Dr. Dalton while Penelope helped Hank out of the tub, got him ready for the day, and told Grammy (who lives with us and who would watch Hank while we were in the hospital) what was happening. Dr. Dalton was already at the birth center with another patient, so she had us meet her there. They quickly confirmed that my water had indeed broken, but I wasn’t yet having contractions. Dr. Dalton didn’t want to send me home because she was still concerned about PIH, so we spent much of the day walking around the hospital and its grounds (it was a lovely, sunny, unseasonably warm day), trying to get things started. Penelope also had a IEP (Individualized Education Plan) to write for work, so she did that on her laptop while I did yoga in our birthing suite.

Unfortunately, I never had more than a few painless contractions all day, and once water breaks, there is increased risk of infection if labor doesn’t start reasonably quickly, so at 6:00 PM, we started to induce labor with pitocin. The first problem with pitocin is that it is delivered by IV and requires constant fetal monitoring, so even though they let me wear the wireless monitors, I couldn’t walk beyond the very small birthing ward, and I had to tote the IV around with me. The second problem with pitocin is that it creates very strong, very fast contractions in a short amount of time, before one’s body has a chance to acclimate. (At least for me: my sister also had a pitocin induced labor, and she says she contracted every two minutes for three hours before she felt any pain. I, on the other hand, was getting pretty uncomfortable by 9:00 PM, when my contractions were still more than three minutes apart and I had not dilated more than a fingertip.)

Around 10:00, I was miserable enough to request pain meds (a decision we’d left for “Game Day”), and we started with the IV narcotic Stadol. This made me dizzy, disoriented, and pretty loopy, but only provided pain relief for about an hour. My contractions increased in frequency, strength, and duration, and I began to shake and vomit, which made me hopeful I was progressing… but an exam at about 1:00 AM revealed I was still only dilated to 2 cm. That was a crushing blow to my morale and motivation, as I was already in serious, unremitting pain from back labor (with almost no break between contractions). I got another dose of Stadol, but this time the pain relieving effects wore off within about fifteen minutes.

At 2:30 AM, when I was begging for Penelope to make it stop and let me go home, I asked for an epidural. I wasn’t philosophically opposed to an epidural, but I was afraid it was too early to get one and that it would slow the already interminable labor process, but the nurses suggested it might give me relief enough to rest and let my body do the work while I got some sleep. That sounded good to me. They had to call in the anesthesiologist, who didn’t arrive for another hour (probably the longest hour of my life to date), but a little after 3:30 I got the epidural. Penelope got light headed (having not eaten in about eight hours) while trying to hold me up while the epidural was inserted, so she had to sit and I held on to the nurse instead. I remember apologizing, embarrassed because I wrapped my legs around her hips during a contraction, a very intimate thing to do to a total stranger!

The epidural worked quickly, and I did get to doze, fitfully, after that — but only for about an hour. Around 4:30 (I think, I was kind of out of it), the nurse came in and put an oxygen mask on me. She told me the baby was having late decelerations with each contraction, a sign of fetal distress, and they were putting me on oxygen to see if it would help. I think she also urged me to turn onto my left side, but I can’t remember. (Penelope slept through this, so she doesn’t remember, either.)

I continued in a confused, half-asleep, half-aware haze for another hour until Dr. Dalton came in and did another pelvic exam. I had dilated to 4 cm, which was finally some progress, but not enough: the baby was still having late decelerations, and I was not progressing fast enough to risk continuing with labor. Dr. Dalton recommended a caesarian section. (I think she’d already called in the surgical team, so I don’t know what would have happened if I’d disagreed — but I didn’t. I was ready to be done, one way or another.)

It took another forty-five minutes for the surgical team to arrive and set up, but that time moved quickly, filled with consent forms and other preparations. I remember the nurse handing me a consent form and showing me where to sign. I took the clipboard from her and said, “I’m a lawyer, I have to read it,” which made everyone laugh (except me). Dr. Dalton said, “As a lawyer, you probably know that they always tell us consent forms are unenforceable anyway,” and I retorted, “Well, yeah: how many drugs have you given me tonight? Do I look like I’m in my right frame of mind?” which made everyone laugh again (again, except me).

In the OR, they gave me a spinal and draped me for surgery. I cannot describe, and frankly don’t care to think much about, the actual c-section itself. Even with the spinal and a local anesthetic “gap” medication, I felt a lot more of the surgery than I expected to. The anesthesiologist kept asking if it hurt or was just uncomfortable, and I couldn’t answer her: of course it hurt, but it was also intensely uncomfortable. Penelope was sitting next to me, trying to talk me through it, but I can’t recall a thing she said.

The anesthesiologist told Penelope when they were lifting the baby out, and she looked over the drape (something I was afraid to do, being a blood fainter, when Hank was born). She says it wasn’t gory: it just looked like they lifted a baby out of a funny red hole in the drape. (“Red hole” = gory, to my lights.) I remember everyone talking about what a big baby he was, and then I was pretty distracted by pain/discomfort as they worked to remove the placenta.

Penelope went with the baby to watch as they cleaned him up and did his APGAR tests. (He scored a 7 first, and then a 9, which is about as well as c-section babies ever do.) She says the nurses were taking bets as to how big he was (8 pounds, 7 ounces). I could hear him yelling and yelling: he was soooo loud.

Penelope carried him over to me as they were still putting me back together. I didn’t know what to say, but knew I had to say something, so I started (in my narcotic haze) reciting “The Owl and the Pussycat.”

The Owl and the Pussycat went to sea in a beautiful pea green boat. They took some   honey, and plenty of money, wrapped up in a five pound note…

They gave me another dose of something because I was in a lot of pain, and Penelope says I went into a narcotic nod for about 5-10 minutes. I don’t remember that. I remember them driving my gurney back to a recovery room, being greeted by the dayshift nurses (shifts changed during my surgery), and then promptly throwing up on myself and one of the nurses. After that, though, I felt much better.

They brought Ollie to me and laid him on my chest. Paula (one of the day nurses, who we remembered from our hospital stay when Penelope had Hank, and who I’d also become re-acquainted with during the many non stress tests over the last few weeks) encouraged me to try breastfeeding. Ollie latched on immediately and nursed for a long time, probably 45 minutes, despite the fact that I couldn’t yet sit up or really even hold him, being still quite numb from my chest to my feet.

I hated that total sense of helplessness and was glad when the spinal started to wear off. I didn’t need much for pain management: just Motrin. I got up on my feet about eight hours after surgery and walked back and forth across the small room. It was still very uncomfortable sitting up and standing, but I was glad to be able to move.

Hank and both of his grandmothers came to visit that evening. Hank is an excellent, proud, gentle big brother. “The baby person is finally out of Mumma’s belly!” he says.

-C.

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Word of the day: Tokophobia (fear of childbirth)

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Penelope and I took a childbirth preparation class on Saturday. We took the same class when she was pregnant with Hank, but that was more than two years ago, and since she never actually had a labor, we figured we’d better do it again. That’s right: I said Penelope never had a labor. She developed severe pre-eclampsia and so at 36 weeks the doctor ordered an induction, but even over the course of 24 hours of ever-increasing doses of pitocin, her cervix never softened, dilated, or effaced, and she never really even started having contractions. Her blood pressure was still dangerously high, even with magnesium sulfate in an IV drip, so she had a C-section.

Not to minimize her experience, because she was really, really sick and miserable for that last month or so of pregnancy, and it took her weeks afterward before she felt human again, but the fact that Penelope didn’t labor is sort of a sore spot with us. You see, I’m pretty terrified of labor. Everyone’s afraid of labor to some degree, but I think my fear goes a little beyond the norm and skirts the line between healthy and debilitating. Back when we decided to have a family, part of the plan was that Penelope would have the first baby, in part so that when my own turn for labor came, I’d have seen it before, know what to expect, and therefore (hopefully) be more prepared and at peace with the process.

That didn’t happen, so I’m trying to prepare and educate myself through research. We’ve now taken the childbirth prep course twice. I’ve done a ton of reading. I’ve tried to watch videos, but mostly I “watch” with my hands over my eyes, squinting through a crack between my fingers, cringing and queasy (and I have to say, the videos don’t help me feel any better about the process). I’ve been speaking to friends and family who have been through it. I’ve been doing prenatal yoga, practicing positions that will hopefully be helpful in labor. I’ve been building a “toolbox” of breathing and visualization and meditation techniques intended to help me focus and deal with pain. I guess at this point, I’m about as “prepared” as possible.

Sometimes, I feel optimistic: I think I will do this, my body is made to do this, and like women have done all over the world since the dawn of humankind, I will come through labor just fine. (Only, unlike other women birthing throughout history, I can give birth in a clean, homey birthing suite with access to indoor plumbing and medical intervention if necessary, and not in a hut under a sweltering desert sun or in the back of a covered wagon traversing the Oregon Trail in January.) At other times, I remain terrified that I am the world’s biggest wimp, and evolution be damned, I cannot do this.

Here’s the thing: I can read all I want, and talk to every mother I know about labor, but the bottom line is that every labor is different and every woman handles labor differently, and so there’s really no way for me to know what to expect or how things will turn out. So I have to be prepared for everything.

Knowing that, we have what must be the world’s most flexible birth plan. Other couples write reams about what music they want playing, what comfort items they want in the room, what the lighting should be like, what labor positions or aids they intend to use, what photographs they want to take, etc. Not us. Our birth plan consists of just three goals for the big day:

1. Healthy baby

2. Healthy mama

3. Medical staff to treat Penelope/our relationship/our family with respect

If we come through labor and delivery with those three goals accomplished, we will be sublimely satisfied, no matter how we get there.

That said, I remain pretty anxious about pain and pain management. I’ve been lucky enough so far in my life not to have experienced much by way of pain. I suffer from debilitating migraines, but labor pain is not at all the same thing. I’ve never broken a bone or even suffered a major muscle injury. (Knocking on wood.) I had a bad grease burn on New Year’s Day that nearly made me pass out, and I hate getting slivers more than just about anything, both of which make me afraid that my pain tolerance must be pretty low, but again, I’m told labor is a totally different kind of pain.

ImageMy dad had this Peanuts comic on his fridge for a long time, because he and I are both total wimps when it comes to having slivers removed.

Knowing that I’m afraid of pain, friends have told me there’s no shame in an epidural. Surely not, but I don’t want to be so afraid of pain that I request an epidural before I really need one, because epidurals can lengthen labor, make it harder to push, and make childbirth seem a detached and out-of-body experience. I don’t have much experience with prolonged pain, but I do have experience with myself on pain meds: I had my wisdom teeth out a few years ago and I was loopy for days. I’m not a glutton for punishment by any stretch, and I’m not philosophically opposed to medical intervention (including pain meds), but since childbirth is something I expect to do only this once, I’d like to fully experience it to the extent that I can.

Ideally, pain management will be a game day decision, and I will be able to make a moment-to-moment assessment of where I am and how I’m doing with the pain, and be able to request medications as necessary. You hear and read about those poor women who wait too long to request the epidural and then can’t have it, though, and sometimes their birth experiences are more frightening, painful, and exhausting than necessary. I keep going back and forth on the natural vs. medicated debate in my mind (such that sometimes I hope circumstances evolve in such a way as to take the decision out of my hands), and not coming up with a satisfying, reassuring plan.

I suspect that I have long since given in to my tendency to over-think things. I need to go back to our birth plan (healthy baby, healthy mama, respectful treatment), and remind myself that the goal is simple, and that the details are out of my hands: baby will come when he comes, and how he comes, and he is in charge (and He is in charge), but I am not in charge.  

Breathe.

-C.

Pregnancy Brain

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Yeah, we’re still here: I know it’s been a long, long time since I posted. I keep drafting posts in my mind and then forgetting about them when I find time at my computer… in no small part due to Pregnancy Brain, I’m sure.

I got pregnant 100% on purpose, and not without considerable effort and expense. I signed up for this. I’m 36 years old; my wife has survived pregnancy, so has my sister, so have most of my female relatives and girlfriends. I knew — or thought I knew — what I was getting in to. In the first trimester: fatigue, nausea, anxiety; check, check, check. In the second trimester: cravings, round ligament pain, headaches; check, check, check. In the third trimester: heartburn, carpal tunnel, constipation, swelling, shortness of breath, insomnia, back aches; yeah, yeah, yeah… Quite a laundry list of aches and pains, but all relatively minor, and so worth it when one thinks of the end result: a baby, a perfect, beautiful new life, full of love and hope and miracle and potential.

Here’s what I was not prepared for: Pregnancy Brain. I’d heard of the phenomenon, of course. I had a law school friend who told a hilarious story of losing her car during her fifth month of pregnancy and spending hours walking the lots at the local mega-mall trying to find it. It was a great story, but she was in law school, keeping up with our classes just fine, so I thought, “how flaky can she really be?” I remember Penelope making lists for everything while she was pregnant with Hank, and leaving herself reminders on sticky notes all over the house: notes on the bathroom mirror when she had an early morning meeting, notes on the fridge about groceries we’d run out of, notes by the front door to remind her to bring such-and-such book to work so she could lend it to a colleague. She warned me that this was due to the pregnancy, because her mind was a sieve and she couldn’t remember anything (and worse, she now tells me that the forgetfulness doesn’t fully go away after baby’s birth), but to me, it just looked like she was becoming more organized, which, frankly, seemed like a good thing and something she could have stood to do even before she got pregnant. 

Even with these real life examples and all that I had read on the subject, I didn’t take Pregnancy Brain seriously. In all of the pregnancy guides, the official explanation for pregnancy-induced forgetfulness boils down to “hormones,” so I was dismissive, even derisive, just as I am when people write off a woman’s emotions or behavior as being caused or exaggerated by her menstrual status, as in, “Ah, she’s just bitchy because she’s on the rag.” Sometimes men make these comments (in which case they’re easily dismissed because what the hell does he know), but often women, too, will use their period as an excuse for bad behavior: “Sorry I’m acting as if I was raised by badgers; I’m PMS-ing.” I’ve never been sympathetic, perhaps because though my periods are sometimes brutal, they never made me behave like a troll, and when I am a troll, I like to own it. This is all me, baby:  no hormones required.

Anyway, somehow I thought Pregnancy Brain was the same deal, so I was surprised and a little bit offended when, right around the fourth month of pregnancy, my generally organized, compartmentalized, unapologetically Type-A mind started flaking out on me. I, too, started forgetting where I left my car. I’ve been compulsively punctual my whole life, and suddenly I found myself late for meetings or missing appointments entirely because they’d fallen off my radar. I go to court without needed files, go to depositions without a pen to take notes, leave the house without my wallet or my phone, forget to do things I said I’d do. I leave myself notes and reminders (mostly in my phone, which is a big help on days when I forget my phone), but even so, things fall through the cracks. I don’t make myself a note if the thing I need to remember is going to happen in the next few minutes — like if I leave my desk to go to the file room for a specific file, or if I hang up the phone intending to make another call to someone else, or if I walk to the kitchen intending to get a snack for Hank — but often I’ll wind up at my destination (the file room, holding the phone, standing in front of the fridge) and draw a total blank as to what I’m doing there. It’s embarrassing and humbling and infuriating, and I hope to God Penelope is wrong when she threatens that I may not go back to normal when the baby comes.

-C.

Trevor & Kelly’s Wedding

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It’s been much too long since I wrote a new post. I won’t bother with excuses, but here’s the catch up: I’m still pregnant, now safely into my second trimester, but not yet as relaxed and confident as I’d like; we’re all moved in but far from unpacked, and the needs-to-be-fixed-before-winter list keeps growing, but such is the joy of living in a 160+ year old home; and Hank is still the light of our world, though his adorableness is tempered right now by the fact that he’s got a nasty cold and is leaking disgusting fluids out of most of his orifices. But, this post is not about US: it’s about my little brother’s big, beautiful wedding on Saturday, and our adventures this weekend.

Hank was the ring bearer, which is a big job for someone who turned two the day before the wedding. Here he is all dressed up. The sweet yellow bow tie matched the ring pillow. He did a fantastic job, especially since unbeknown to us he was coming down with a raging flu bug and would be feverish, congested, and inconsolably miserable a mere six hours later.

The wedding party (including the dogs, who preceded Hank down the aisle). If you look closely, Hank is scrunching up his face like he swallowed a lemon. This is the face he makes if you hold up a camera and ask him to smile. I’m not sure the wedding photographers think this habit is quite as endearing as Penelope and I do.

Here comes the bride with her daddy.

This picture cracks me up, because it looks like Kelly’s introducing herself to Trevor. “Gosh, you look familiar. Have we met?”

Trevor reading his vows. If you knew my brother, you’d know how special it was for him to read aloud to his love in front of all of these people. First kiss as Mr. and Mrs.!

(Note the arch behind the bride and groom, above. My brother made that himself, and because every wedding needs a last-minute catastrophe, it got crushed in the truck during transport to the venue. Trevor was late to dress and meet the photographer because he had to rebuild it the morning of the wedding.)

Hank entertaining cousin Niecie, trying to keep her quiet during the ceremony. “It’s like church,” he tried to tell her (which is what we’d been telling him for weeks). She didn’t really understand.

Another of the wedding party. Hank is trying to make a break for it!

Everything about the wedding was beautiful, down to the smallest detail.

The guest book -

The cake (note the dog figurines beside the bride and groom) -

The desserts -

The flowers (all local, arranged by a friend of my sister). The bride and her mama spent ages collecting vases -

The music (Hank was enthralled by the bluegrass trio who played at the ceremony and during the cocktail hour. There was another band (rock) for the after dinner dancing, but Hank couldn’t stay up that late.) -

The entertainment (you know that awkward stretch at most weddings immediately before and after the ceremony, when the wedding party is busy with photos and set up, and the bar isn’t open yet? Trevor and Kelly’s solution = Lawn Games. Genius. Though what would you expect from the inventor of the Chasket? Hank liked the hula hoops and the jump rope best, though he didn’t know quite what to do with either. Yes, yes, he is singing into that jump rope. No, I didn’t tell him to: he came up with that all on his own.) -

The venue, and even the weather -

But the best part, of course, was seeing so many people we love. This is the first time that all of the first cousins on the groom’s side of the family had ever gotten together in one place, because we live all over the country. If only the grandparents (Hank’s great-grands) had been able to make the trip. They were sorely missed.

Before the wedding (the weekend wasn’t long enough to catch up with everyone!) -

So, even though it was really too much for four day weekend, and we’re paying for it now with a sick toddler, we had a wonderful time. Thanks so much to the bride and groom for bringing us all together to share your day!

-C.

 

 

Very Brief Summer Vacation

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We took a short break from all of the craziness on our plate — unpacking, trying to clean and rent the old house, the anxieties of early pregnancy, our full time jobs — to take a long weekend on Martha’s Vineyard with my mom (DeeDee, to Hank).

We took one of the Steamship Authority‘s freighter ships, the Sankaty, to the island. The freighters don’t have all the amenities of the regular ferries (no snack bar, tiny weather deck with very little seating), but they do have one great advantage, at least from Hank’s perspective: portholes right at toddler-eye-level. He spent much of the 45 minute crossing saying, “Do you see the ocean, Mumma?  I DO see the ocean.”

Credit: DeeDee via Instagram

Much of the weekend was rainy, but we caught a break between showers to go to State Beach, which is nice for kids because there’s never much surf.

Hank had a good swim with Mumma (and he wasn’t afraid of the water at all, as usual), but his favorite part was digging in the sand. It is amazing to watch toddlers develop skills at this age: this first day, he struggled to get any sand onto the shovel, but by Monday (our third beach visit), he was a pro and could fill his bucket in a matter of minutes.

Monday was the best beach day. Here we are at the private Black Point Beach, in Chilmark. (DeeDee’s friend Margie leant us her key.) The surf is a lot more active on the south side of the island, so Hank was too nervous to do more than put his toes in the water, but he loved trying on other people’s sunglasses (these are DeeDee’s), digging in the sand, and watching seagulls steal other beach-goer’s snacks. (One particularly ballsy bird stole a whole, unopened bag of potato chips from the group next to us. It was funny watching them run down the beach trying to get it back. They didn’t manage to.)

Here’s Hank in his own shades (for once), getting out of the sun and wind in his beach tent.

We took Hank’s picture in this chair mostly because we took a picture of him in the same chair during last summer’s Vineyard visit, and wanted this photo for comparison. Last year’s photo is below:

What a difference a year makes, eh?  Like most men, I think he just gets more handsome and distinguished with age.

And now we are home again, even though I am on vacation all this week, because Penelope needed to get back to get her classroom ready and get some scheduling and planning done for the new school year, which starts (gasp!) next week.

-C.

 

 

 

That’s Great! Now What?

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A dear friend who, along with her partner, is awaiting the just-around-the-corner birth of their twin boys, just sent me this article, “Formerly Infertile,” from the current issue of FitPregnancy magazine. In it, Leslie Goldman expresses so eloquently what so many people feel after finally getting pregnant after months or years of fertility treatments. She writes, “I was certain the worry and pain of infertility would vanish — Poof! — the moment we got our positive result. Instead, my concerns simply shifted from ‘Will I ever get pregnant?’ to ‘Will this pregnancy last?’ “

Exactly. ExACTly.

The morning after I got my maddeningly faint second pink line on my home pregnancy test, I went to the hospital for a blood test to confirm the results. Then I went home and waited by the phone for two hours before the nurse called with the marvelous news that yes, indeed, I was pregnant. I cannot begin to describe the incredible mish-mash of emotions that Penelope and I were feeling in that moment, except to say that all of the happy, excited, thrilled positive emotions were matched and tempered (nearly even cancelled out, alas) by worry, anxiety, fear, and yes, even guilt. One of the Sister-Wives (my pet-name for the mothers of our son’s donor siblings, which I have written about previously here and here) was trying to conceive at the same time I was, and had just gotten her negative test a few days before I got my positive. Even though I had always known that odds were that one of us would succeed first, in that moment, a part of me was sorry, even guilty, that I was the lucky one. I hoped my success wouldn’t discourage her, as hers might have discouraged me (I’m ashamed to admit) had our roles been reversed.

After that first blood test, I had to go back to the hospital every forty-eight hours for repeat blood work to monitor my hCG levels. HCG levels should double every 48-72 hours in the early weeks of pregnancy, and so long as mine did that, I could be assured that this was not a chemical pregnancy and that things appeared to be progressing normally.

Yesterday was my last beta-hCG test. My hCG level had reached 1,500 mlU/mL, and the nurse who called to report my results said that was good enough to stop testing. “You must be relieved,” she said. “You must feel like a pin cushion by now.”

Actually, I told her, I’d happily submit to blood tests every day from now until the baby quickens, if they’d let me. I’m not a masochist — in fact, I have a healthy fear of needles, and I always close my eyes and think of my happy place when the phlebotomist comes near — but these beta tests are currently my only weather report for how things are going in there.

I have an ultrasound scheduled for Friday morning. We might even get to see the baby’s heartbeat, and once we see that, the risk of miscarriage drops precipitously. Even then, I doubt I’ll be able to relax. Goldman says this is normal for the formerly infertile: many of us “report heightened levels of fear and vigilance” throughout our pregnancies. It makes sense: cycle after cycle of failed treatments condition us to disappointment, make us too accustomed to failure and too suspicious of success.

Isn’t that the exact opposite of how it should be? After going through so much to get pregnant, haven’t we earned the right to smooth sailing through a happy and healthy pregnancy?

Of course it doesn’t work that way, so for now, and for the foreseeable future, I wait — though my two week wait is over — and I worry.

-C.

 

Sucking That Crystal as Hard as I Can

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I love yoga. I love the way it exercises the entire body. I love that it makes me feel simultaneously both more alert and more relaxed. I love that it helps with my insomnia, backaches, and migraines. I love that it makes me flexible and strong. I love what it does for my posture. I love that it is social, but introspective; challenging, but not competitive.

However, there is much about yoga that makes me roll my eyes and laugh: the crystal-sucking, sage-burning, flaky, New Age-y fluff that so often accompanies the actual exercises. In the abstract, I believe there is a great deal of value in practicing mindfulness, in learning to quiet the mental static and be in the moment. In reality, I am really, really not good at it, and honestly, I’m skeptical and even a little bit scornful of that side of yoga. I’ve never been able to meditate, to focus my inner eye, to set an intention, to visualize a result. Maybe I’m just undisciplined, or maybe my mind just doesn’t work that way. Maybe my mind doesn’t work that way because the second yoga instructors start getting New Age-y, my Inner Child shoves a finger down her throat and pretends to gag and choke.

Of course I know that yoga is not just a fitness fad, that it is also a spiritual and mental discipline rooted in ancient Hindu and Buddhist traditions. As my Auntie Anne pointed out to me, “What you see as all that new-age-y stuff might be sincere attempts to carry on that [non-Christian spiritual] tradition.” Of course she is absolutely right, but I have to confess — sincerity of spiritual practice does not make the sage-burning and fire breathing any less goofy to outside observers. Maybe that is part of the nature of any spiritual practice, at least for me. I am sincere in my Christian faith; I attend church services weekly, I believe in Christ’s redemptive love and in the kingdom of God, I try to live my life according to Christian values — but when I try to find quiet moments of contemplation and prayer, to actually speak to my Creator, it feels every bit as kooky and uncomfortable and superstitious as any of the New Age-y traditions that accompany yoga.

Skepticism aside, I’m trying to get pregnant, and in addition to the fertility drugs and ovulation predictor kits and countless doctor’s visits, I’m open to anything that might help. For the first time in my life (outside of church or situations of life-threatening fear or stress), I’ve been praying: intentionally, sincerely, frequently, fervently. For weeks, I’ve been drinking herbal tea full of stuff like chasteberry (to stimulate ovulation hormones), raspberry leaf (to promote fertility), and ladies mantle (to regulate the monthly cycle and tone the cervix). I’ve kept a journal charting my menstrual cycles and the cycles of the moon. I bring baby clothes to my insemination appointments as a talisman of good fortune and fertility.

And starting today, with the arrival of a brand new yoga-for-fertility DVD, I’ve been practicing yoga. Not the yoga-for-strength-and-flexibility that I have been practicing for years: the kind of yoga that would ordinarily make me roll my eyes so hard it hurts. This DVD is divided into four different series, one for each phase of a woman’s cycle: menstrual, follicular, ovulation, and luteal. The narrator’s soothing voice notes that the follicular phase is a time of growth and hope, and gently urges me to set the intention of preparing my uterus to nurture a healthy baby. There are poses designed to massage and stimulate the ovaries and uterus. There is a lot of Breath of Fire (a breathing exercise I find particularly goofy). This DVD has a drum soundtrack, for Chrissake. Penelope had to leave the room while I was practicing, because she couldn’t stop laughing.

About halfway through my practice, Hank suddenly developed an intense interest in what I was doing. He patted my back during downward-facing dog, leaned heavily on my plank pose, crawled under my warriors and over my cat-and-cow, lay on top of my bow pose, and bounced on my belly throughout my savasena. I can’t say that I was able to quiet my inner static and concentrate much on inner peace, but he was a better, more present and inescapable reminder of the intention to nurture a child than any mindfulness exercise yet dreamed up, and I am so grateful for him.

-C.

Muddy Waters

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Hank loves water. He’s never shown the slightest fear, which is a bit of a problem now that he’s mobile and fast. When we take him to the beach or the pool (and to him, all water is either “tubby” or “pool,” even if it’s a river, pond, lake, or ocean), if there are bigger kids playing in the water, Hank will charge toward them, never mind that he’s only so tall and there’s only so far he can go and still keep his head above water. He doesn’t care; he’ll keep going, and then get mad at me or Penelope for hauling him back. He doesn’t realize we’re trying to save him from drowning, of course: he thinks we’re just meanies who won’t let him play with the kids. Fearless. Crazy. Scary. Fun.