the pieces of my life

Today at my 28-week appointment, I have to take a blood test to check for gestational diabetes. The way this works is I drink a super sweet orange drink an hour before my appointment and then they test the sugar levels in my blood. I’m not feeling very optimistic about this drink though. It’s sitting in the office fridge, and I don’t find the following warning to be comforting: “To enhance palatability, chill before drinking.” Couldn’t they even have said, “enhance flavor?” Or they could have stated it like it is, “Choke this thing down as fast as you can before you get sick.” Of course, further instructions are even more ludicrous: “Instruct the patient to remain quiet, refrain from smoking and avoid caffeine before and during the test.” Not the latter two of course–I don’t smoke and I don’t have more than a two cups of coffee a week–but “remain quiet”? Do these people not understand who they are dealing with? What kind of blood test do you need to remain quiet for? Are they afraid I’ll wake up the blood sugar?

Or maybe it’s just that I’m getting tired. When I got a phone call from a workman yesterday and he asked for Mrs. Medros, instead of my usual, “This is Adam’s wife, Jenny Brown. What can I do for you?” (and yes, I use the word wife there, because it’s simpler than not–another way I’m going soft), I simply said, “Yes.” And today when one of the workman asked if I was having a boy or a girl and I said, “boy,” and he said, “You’re lucky. You won’t need to repaint the room” (Adam’s office was and the future nursery is a light blue), I didn’t launch into my long speech about how the room was painted blue with the assumption that we were having a girl and that I refuse to give into gender stereotypes and the only reason the room will remain blue is I don’t have the heart to ask Adam to repaint it; I merely said, “Yeah, you’re right.” Repeat after me: the world does not have to be my battlefield. The world does not have to be my battlefield.

Is it nap time yet?

Everyone who has read this blog for more than, oh, say, a week, knows that Adam and I are Jewish. Happily Jewish. It’s not a hard fact to grasp. Our parents are Jewish. Our grandparents are Jewish. Our great-grandparents were… well, you get the idea. What I’m trying to say is we’re Jews and everyone knows it. Everyone, that is, except apparently my dear father. The problem? Santa Claus. My father asked me today if I was going to raise Brown Brown to believe in Santa Claus. “You’re kidding, right?” I asked, deep down knowing that he wasn’t. “No!” he exclaimed. “Of course not! Oh, how I loved Santa Claus. I’d get so excited on Christmas Eve I wouldn’t be able to sleep just thinking about what he brought me.” “But you had no Christmas tree,” I responded, knowing full well that his parents wouldn’t allow a Christmas tree in the house. “Didn’t matter. Our friends–many Jewish–had Christmas trees. But, oh, Santa Claus. How can you deprive your child of Santa Claus?” How? I’d say it’s pretty easy. We celebrate Hanukah (which I should point out is eight fun-filled nights of presents). We have no chimney. We don’t believe that Jesus is our lord and savior. The issue is pretty black and white to me! “You want me to lie to my child,” I try, ” and then break his little heart when he gets the double whammy of the fact that there’s no jolly red man and that his parents are liars?” “It’s not like that at all. Why disappoint him? You’re in New England, and you’ll have the snow and jingle bells ringing and it will be holiday season and poor Brown Brown won’t have any presents on Christmas. You’d really do that to your son?” I would like to announce to the world once and for all and with great finality: Yes. I have no issues doing that to my son.

I’m guessing that this e-mail I just received–“you better not cry, you better not pout, i’m telling you why, santa claus is coming to town for brown brown”–means that this is not the last I’ll hear of this issue.

I really thought I’d be able to refrain from writing so much about being pregnant, but really, it’s taken over my life in every way, so there’s no way to avoid it unless I stop blogging altogether. I am so overcaffeinated and so overtired and so oversugared (the former and latter being attempts to compensate for the middle). The back aches have come on full force, so when Brown Brown isn’t making a jungle gym of my ribs, he’s apparently taking my back muscles and pulling at them as if they were his own personal slingshot. Which, I suppose, they are.

There are these moments when I think about the fact that there is a human being—a real live actual human being inside my body (and I won’t get into any debates about when life begins, because for Brown Brown, life has begun in the sense that he is a viable life form. If he were born today, he’d have a greater than 90 percent chance of survival)—and I get totally freaked out. I mean how completely bizarre is it that there is this thing, this living thing inside of me who will someday walk; talk; leave the toilet seat up; listen to bad music; date women I don’t like; and pick up disgusting habits like obsessively watching the Red Sox, thinking that his actions will influence how the team performs. How is it we are so advanced as a society and yet still have to do something as primitive, as base, as squeezing living things from our wombs. Yuck! It’s so, so… well, all I can think of is that thing coming from the belly in Alien.

But luckily those thoughts are relatively fleeting and most of the time I’m just in awe that there’s a little life inside of me, a little person who will someday walk; talk; amaze me with his wit and intelligence; smile and laugh and bring joy to his family; and obsessively watch the Dolphins, knowing that his actions will influence how the team performs.

Sometimes I feel like I’m blogging in a vacuum. I took down the comments section awhile ago, because my obsessive personality had me checking them way too often. I found I was unproductive, just coming back to see if anyone had anything to say. So I removed them. But lately blogging has been great because I feel like there are real people on the other side of this computer. I’ve been e-mailed great suggestions on baby books to read, tipped off on new Peeps coming out, and given lots of encouragement about this whole baby thing both from people I know from far away and people I’ve never met, but I feel like I know (thanks to folks such as Caryn, Anne, Jennifer, Diana). Just wanted to say thanks to all of you.

Okay, so I can’t marathon this year, for obvious reasons. However I will be running the New York marathon in 2004. I signed up for this year, and since I’ll be canceling before the race begins, I’m guaranteed entry for next year. I was a bit unsure about doing this so I e-mailed the marathon people to ask them is this was kosher (signing up when I knew I couldn’t run to guarantee my entrance for next year; I tried to run last year but didn’t get a lottery spot), and they said absolutely. I’m guessing they overbook hoping a number of people will cancel. Plus, they collect my race entry fee this year and next year, so it’s an easy way for them to raise a little extra money. I am PSYCHED! I’ve really missed running lately. With the temperature so reasonable these days, I’ve a hankering to get out there and move. That changes, though, the second I step outside and find that walking twenty feet has me running back home for the bathroom. That and I’m completely out of breath all the time. But as soon as I’m allowed (six weeks after giving birth, I think), I’ll be back on the road (or the treadmill, as the case may be). Anyone who’s in New York on November 7, 2004, will have to come cheer me on. And now that I’ve told all of you about it, you’ll have to keep me to this!

I’m at the point where I’m starting to count down the days till September 10th instead of counting up on how far along I am. Now that I’m in the home stretch–the third trimester–it’s all starting to feel a bit close. Pregnancy Weekly has this nifty little calendar, so I can keep track exactly: “This is day number 189 and you’re 27 weeks pregnant! You have 91 days or 13 weeks left, and are 67% of the way there. Baby’s age since conception is 175 days or 25 weeks.” Ninety-one days seems like nothing! Which means I should be worrying that we haven’t even started getting prepare. No crib, no diapers, no idea on what we’ll be doing with a tiny, crying newborn (I’ve been neglecting the baby reading). However, since I worry so easily these days (it takes pretty much next to nothing to set off those pregnancy hormones) and it gets me completely stressed out, we’ve delegated all worrying to Adam. He’s now in charge of worrying about the house repairs, setting things up, and what not. With him doing the worrying, I may actually be able to get a few things accomplished. Although, I’m a little worried that he isn’t doing enough worrying… We may have to work on this.

So, now more than ever, supposedly, I’m to watch what I eat. Studies have shown that Brown Brown can now taste what I’m eating through the amniotic fluid. According to What to Expect When You’re Expecting, I should be eating lots of broccoli and the like now, so that Brown Brown will develop a liking for good healthy veggies. Um, great idea in theory. But today we had a cake to celebrate June birthdays during an editorial meeting (chocolate with vanilla frosting, my favorite), and since I am one of those June birthdays, it would have been rude for me to not partake. And I swear, I distinctly heard Brown Brown urging me to have that second–and third–slice. And he’s so young and cute, it would be a shame to deny him what he wants now. Of course now he’s dancing along inside in celebration of chocolate. If only he’d get out of my ribs already. It’s not the most comfortable feeling. I guess Brown Brown is determined to have a sweet tooth. Hey, my mother did it to me, I can do it to my kid.

I asked Adam if he was going to blog about his grades, and he said, “I don’t think so. I’m not sure it’s an appropriate topic.” And of course, as you all know, HBS has a non-disclosure policy when it comes to grades. So I can’t tell you what he got. But I will say that he did very, very well this semester despite all his bitching about how difficult a semester it was and how he really shouldn’t care, because grades don’t matter, and all that counts is being the lowest 2, yadda yadda yadda. I knew it was all B.S. and that he’d come through. And boy did he come through.

I’m sorry, but if you want me to take a new disease seriously, you can’t call it the monkeypox. That’s just so, so, well, precious. I couldn’t help but giggle when Bob Edwards said, “monkeypox” on NPR this morning. Monkeypox. It’s funny! Sorry.