It's a.....boy!...maybe...

I keep chuckling to myself over here. We're so sure that it's a boy (without any scientific or empirical evidence whatsoever) that we went shopping the other day and bought everything blue.

We went to this great store in Talpiot called Motzitzim and bought a whole package deal: crib, dresser/changing table, bath, some clothes, pacifiers, cotton balls, thermometer, and like 20 other baby odds and ends. It's all in a box on hold at the store until the baby is born and Menachem goes to collect it. If it's a boy, then all the stuff stays as is--the blue sheets, the blue changing pad, the blue diaper bag, etc.--but if it's a girl, Menachem will have a job ahead of him of switching everything to pink.

I read recently that babies don't really look so good in yellow and green, so rather than opt for neutral colors, we figured we'd gamble.

Don't get me wrong -- if it's a girl, we'll be thrilled...and surprised.

Life in the 8th month

Just some updates:
1) We went on a fantastic pre-baby vacation to Eilat. Apparently pregnant women are not allowed to swim with dolphins.
2) The other day I experienced the baby's first kick that actually startled me. It was fun.
3) Our most recent ultrasound picture revealed what still looks like a boy. But we still don't know for sure.
4) I ate my first sufganiya of the season and it was kinda dry. I'm looking forward to more this week.
5) I went to yoga TWICE last week.
6) My face is getting sorta fat.
7) I still love how the bigger my belly gets the smaller my butt looks (it's just an illusion though because my butt has actually gotten bigger too).
8) I finally finished reading The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy -- exactly one month from Menachem's birthday. (It was a birthday present to him that I would read it.)
9) I started eating sugar cereals again, which is not good.
10) I started a new blog www.babythingsiwant.com and you should check it out!

Hellooooo sweet tooth!

This is not good. I feel like I've been pretty healthy through this pregnancy. Then, a few weeks ago, I saw that a few weeks went by during which I didn't gain any weight, so I started eating junk. Lo and behold, the weight caught up with me and now I'm in a junk food rut. All I want are cookies and brownies and milkshakes. A few weeks ago I had this AMAZING chai milkshake at Tmol Shilshom. I keep dreaming of that. And I'm just itching to go into the kitchen and make myself a batch of chocolate chip cookies. Fortunately, laziness has stopped me from doing that for the last few days, but now the urge is stronger than my laziness. I don't just want them, I NEED them. NEEEEEED.

Meanwhile, all last week I thought I was in my 32nd week, but I miscounted and was only in my 31st, so THIS Wednesday will be 32 weeks -- only two months to go! It is now December and I'm giving birth in January (unless the baby is 2 days late, and then February)!

We're going on a final we-don't-have-kids-so-we-can-be-irresponsible-and-drop-everything mini vacation next week to Eilat. We already booked a hotel and I just made a list of things I want to do: snorkel in the coral reef, snorkel with the dolphins, go to the underwater observatory, and just relax by the pool and beach.

I'll tell you all about it when we get back. For now, I'm going to make some cookies.

The Misplaced Placenta

As you know, I've been worried about the presence of kicks and movements of our baby. I know you're not supposed to compare to other people, but it really seemed like everyone I spoke to and everything I read suggested that I should be feeling the baby A LOT more than I have been.

Now, I'm a little annoyed that no ultrasound technician and no doctor had mentioned this (following reason why) to me. It was only last week that our birthing teacher suggested it and then I looked at my ultrasound scan and confirmed it -- my placenta is not behind the baby, but in front of it. This means that everytime the baby kicks, it kicks the placenta, NOT my belly. This causes a muffler affect causing me to feel the movements a lot less and a lot weaker than the average woman with the averagely placed posterior placenta. (There are no risk factors to an anterior placenta.)

PHEW. How come no one told me this before? It would have saved some anxiety.

Tomorrow is 29 weeks. That's almost 30 and 30 is almost 40. I'm so excited! As though working wasn't hard enough before, now I have my mind constantly drifting to the glorious future, of holding and cuddling our new baby, losing weight, and eating raw cookie dough.

Fitting in places

This is a bit disconcerting. I'm not THAT big. I'm at Tal Bagels and I only JUST fit into one of their chairs. There are three types of seating here at Tal's. Regular chairs with no armrests, booths, and these rounded swivel chairs, and it is into that last type that I am just barely fitting in. It's sort of comfortable. Very snug. But strange that all of a sudden I'm so big that I don't have room between my butt and my chair. There are other instances of this, when I realize all of a sudden how large I've gotten. Like I'll see a chair sort of close to a wall and think I can just slide behind the chair...and can't. Or the door to the mirpeset sherut will be blocked partially by the bathroom rug, but I'll think I can squeeze in through the crack to see if the clothes are dry...and I can't. I guess, to sum up, I can no longer squeeze into tight places. There are worse things.

A terrorist and a pregnant woman walk into a cab...

Did I ever tell you about the time this terrorist got into our cab? We were on our way home and were stopped at a light on the corner of Herzog and Tchernichovsky and a guy hailed a cab and our cab driver let him in. He sat in the front seat and after closing the door, there was a knock on his window. It was cop who starting questioning this young, hippie looking guy, and then asked him to get out of the car and go with him. Meanwhile, it was all in very fast Hebrew and I missed the whole thing, but our cab driver caught it all and said that the cops had seen this guy running around outside the prime minister's house and suspected him of terrorism. He looked harmless to me. Looked like a post-army, just back from India, probably had lots of weed in his bag sorta guy. It must suck to get wrongly pulled over for terrorism and then have the cops find illegal drugs on you. Poor guy.

And now, some things I like about being pregnant:
1. You're allowed to be fat.
2. Breasts. My breasts now have a top, bottom, and inbetween. Like when I get out of the shower, I actually need to dry myself in the creases. This is a new phenomemon.
3. You can be tired and lazy and people assume it's because you're pregnant.
4. People do things for you.
5. You're allowed to be fat (did i say that?)

Third trimester here I come!

I'm obsessed...

...with this ultrasound picture. It's of our baby's face. It's so clear, like someone took the baby out for a minute to photograph it and then stuck it back in. It's so clear that I feel like I'm doing something philosophically or morally wrong. Are we supposed to get to know our babies this well before they're born? Are we supposed to get this attached? Are we supposed to look at their pictures and imagine what their thinking before they're even born? I've stopped short of posting the pictures on facebook or putting it up as my desktop background, but I have sent it around to a bunch of friends and to family. As though to say, "Introducing Baby Gold Pritzker!" But...isn't it a little early for introductions?

And now I'm really feeling the baby kicking. So not only do I feel it, but I've seen it. I can feel it kicking and look at the picture on my computer screen, and all of a sudden--where's the mystery? It's so suddenly UNOBSCURE and UN-ABSTRACT.

Is that how it's supposed to be?

In other news, I was waiting for a bus the other day and an old man sat down next to me and started speaking to me in Spanish. Now, I don't speak a word of Spanish, and I was about to tell him so, but didn't really have the heart to, so I heard him out. And strangely enough, I understood him. Here's what he said:

"You have such lovely white skin. It's good that you don't sit out in the sun. Then you'd have dark, splotchy skin like mine."

Or maybe it was:
"Damn, girl! You are so pasty white. You need to get yourself out in the sun more so you can get a nice tan like I have."

I heard these words: Blanco, negro, sol. And he was pointing to my white leg and then to his dark, splotchy leg. Before he ran for his bus, I said, "Blanco bueno?" and he said "Si" and gave me a thumbs up. And then he said (in Spanish) that he is an astrologer from Buenos Aires, but has been in Israel for seven years. And then I told him (in Spanish) that I was in Buenos Aires for four months. (Which isn't quite true, but I was all flustered from speaking and understanding a language that I've never spoken or understood.)

So that was a strange encounter.

We think we're having a boy. It just really looks like a boy. Tiffany said we're probably having a girl because everyone else is having boys, but I think that logic doesn't really make sense. I also think that the quick flash of what looked like a little penis on the ultrasound screen is a pretty good sign. Obviously we'd be happy with either one, but we have such beautiful girls' names picked out, and boys names are just tougher.

Happy Yom Kippur to you all! May we all be signed and sealed in the book of life!

Jerusalem nIghts and Richmond reminiscing

Halleluyah! The skies are beginning to cloud over a bit and it's not as sunshiny bright as it's been all summer! Days are still hot, but last night I was...get this...COLD. And now the windows are open and breeze is coming into the living room and maybe, just maybe, we can stop relying on the expensive a/c and save a buck.

Happy week 22! (or is it week 23? I'm starting to lose count.) I'm feeling better than ever and I think I'm even feeling the baby move a bit, which is good since today was my deadline before panic. Everything online says that I should feel the baby between weeks 16 and 22, and here I am, thinking I'm an early bird, expecting to feel it by week 15, and so, as luck would have it, I don't feel it until i'm toeing the line into week 23. And I guess I'm still not 100% certain that it's the baby I'm feeling. I don't really know what a kicking baby feels like.

Otherwise, life is moving along swimmingly. Last week was Molly and Mike's wedding which was so much fun. and then we had a Richmond sheva brachot which was even more fun. I love seeing old Richmond people. I was trying to explain to Menachem why hanging out with Richmond people makes me so giddy, and the only explanation I could come up with that really pinpointed it was how they remind me of my idyllic childhood. I think I outgrew Richmond by the time I was 15 or so, but those elementary school years were pretty sweet. And all these old friends were a part of that. Before I knew of world suffering, disease, twisted bowels, heartbreak, stress, starving children in Africa, and evil. Not that knowing those things hasn't made my life more rich and valuable, but there is still something to be said for life pre-knowledge. Like Adam and Eve before the fall. Paradise.

Is it possible to still raise children in that sort of world? Is it possible in Israel, or in Jerusalem, more specifically, to raise kids in an evil-less world? Where terror attacks and talk of war is a regular concern? But then again, isn't it sort of like that in America now too? Remember when all we were taught was 'don't talk to strangers'? And now there are sessions taught to kindergarteners about sexual abuse?

I do have a great talent of blocking things out. Maybe I remember things better than they were.

On another subject, I'm still playing tennis and doing some pottery, though both might come to an end soon, pregant-wise and money-wise, respectively. My pottery teacher said I looked "light". I thought she meant pale, but she said she means "light", like not heavy, but I'm not sure if she was talking about body weight. (Though I am still right on target for weight gain!). It was a peculiar compliment.

If we don't speak before Monday night, shana tova! May you have a happy, sweet new year, filled with peace and blessings!

Half way there...and feeling great!

It's strange. You think you're always going to feel nauseous and weak and exhausted and then soon you forget that you ever felt that way. First you think, "I'm NEVER going to do this again." And then pretty soon your bad memories fade and the thought, "Maybe we'll have our second one right away" pops into your mind. Though, I imagine the third trimester and labor might make that one take a turn for the worse.

Project: Clean out the little room. Make room for baby.
Goal: Clear out the little room without simply transferring all the stuff from little room into Shira's room. Also, clear out Shira's room. Make room for Shira.
Dates: Now until January, preferably early January.

Is that enough time? Today I started by emptying a drawer filled with papers. But now there is a bigger mess. We have too much stuff. Where do you keep little locks (like from an old locker)? Where do you keep listerene strips (is there an expiration date)? Where should I keep my purses? When should you throw out magazines? Should American change go in the tzedakah box with the Israeli change? What do you do with old course work that one day you may just need to refer to?

How do I declutter without feeling like I need to move in order to start fresh?

Yours truly, Sarah

Still waiting for a kick...

I thought: If most first time pregnant women feel their baby move at 18-22 weeks, then I will definitely feel it earlier. After all, I am sooo much more in touch with the goings on of my body than the average woman is. And now, here I am at 18 weeks, 3 days, and still nothing. How am I supposed to know that my baby is alive and well in there if I can't feel it? I understand why tom and katie cruise bought their own ultrasound machine. oh to be rich and neurotic!

One strange thing about pregnancy is that I love potatoes all of a sudden. I never disliked them, but I found them boring and pointless. And now, I dream of potatoes. Plain, boring, boiled or baked potatoes, with nothing on them but salt. I also really like peas. I've been making such an effort to eat two vegetables a day. Do potatoes count? I was never clear on that.

Good news: I had a driving lesson and my driving instructor said I was a good driver and another lesson would be a waste of time and money. So now I just need to wait until the test which will be in about a month. I begged him to make sure it wasn't early in the morning, because of the sun and because of my laziness, I mean Pregnancy Exhaustion.

I don't have so much other pregnancy news because, well, not much has happened. I feel like I'm at a bit of a stand still. I don't think my stomach has grown at all in the last few weeks. I still haven't felt the baby move, which is frustrating. I mean, the book says that for a first baby, it's possible at this time to feel "flutters that may feel like gas", but if they feel like gas, then how am I supposed to distinguish between baby flutters and gas flutters? I had a dream that I felt a good kick, but in the dream it was clear that it came from a fully developed baby sized leg, and my baby is still the size of a hamburger, so I'm not expecting to feel that (while I'm awake) for quite some time.

Menachem is afraid that if I don't feel the baby soon, then it may induce anxiety and so I should be careful not to obsess about this and just let things happen when they happen. I have no idea what he's talking about...

I want to go on vacation. I want to go to Italy for two weeks. And I want to go to a spa for at least two days. Somebody please knock some sense into me.

Week 16.5 News

The thing about now, is that how I look and how I feel completely depend on what I wear. Like if I wear a shirt with an empire waist and, even better, with a tie that accentuates that between the bust and stomach line, then I feel pregnant and good. But if I wear any other sort of shirt, I just feel fat.

Also my headaches have mostly subsided. I significantly cut back the amount of dairy I was consuming, so it's possible that that's related.

In other news, I finally went to work today. We had a very important "how to lock the doors" orientation that even people who work from home 99% of the time had to attend. Had lunch with Ben and sat next to Netanyahu and his posse, which I don't really care so much about but maybe you do.

Meanwhile, when given the choice today if I am more excited to have our baby or for the weather to get cooler, I opted for choice B. Obviously having a baby is the most exciting thing in the world, but for now, it's a bit abstract, as opposed to a change in weather which is something I'm quite familiar with.

Menachem pointed out that today is the first day that we've both been at work at the same time. That is because a) I rarely go to work, and b) because he used to work American hours, while I worked mostly during the day. But now -- Halleluyah! -- he got a normal job like a normal person and we will get some normal sleep! (If you need a real estate agent, let us know.)

Other things I'm looking forward to: My mother-in-laws arrival, and with her: Peanut Butter South Beach Bars (I like PB again), tennis rackets, and MATERNITY CLOTHES!

A Crazy Thing Happened on the Way to Bed the other Night...

I was getting into pajamas on Friday night. Off came my shirt, first, and I was left in a very tight, stretchy tank top. I glanced at myself in the mirror, and then-- stared. You will simply not believe what went through my head at that moment. It was: "Wow. I love my body." Now, if you know me at all, you know that those words have never crossed my mind, and as you can imagine, they came, therefore, as quite a shock. Menachem walked into the room to find me standing in front of the mirror. I felt slightly guilty, or rather, I felt like I LOOKED slightly guilty and felt the need to say something. So I blurted out, "I was just admiring myself in the mirror." I started crying. It was a very emotional moment, to share with someone this deepest, strangest realization. Off came the rest of my clothes, and I just stood there, shocked. I used to associate "body" with "thighs" because that's all I saw when I looked down at my body. But now, I actually SEE my body. And Menachem, perfect as he is says, "I'm just so happy that you finally see yourself the way I always have." God, I love him.

So am I ALWAYS going to have to be pregnant in order to feel this way about my body? Or will this boost of self-esteem somehow stick, even after the swell of the upper body deflates?

Happy week 15!

The topic of this week is: Headaches. Remember that image of the telephone pole banging against my stomach while I'm up against a brick wall? Well, this is like that, but at my head and not as bad. But still, in the last few days I've had a headache everyday and nothing works except for an ice pack and an Excedrin Migraine which I really shouldn't be taking, even though the doctor said I could. This is the same doctor who prescribed me muscle relaxants for a backache, who, on the phone, never asks what trimester I'm in or if I tried regular tylenol yet or really anything else. (I'm looking for a new doctor if you know of any maccabi doctors in Jerusalem.)

Ok, we're going to the mall and then to play tennis -- one of the last vestiges of my normal semi-active life.

I'M the irresponsible one?

I lost the piece of paper with my next appointment on it and now, THREE weeks in advance I call the doctor's office to find out when my appointment is so I can put it on my calendar. And she's like, "If you don't know when you're appointment is then I can't tell you.": HUH? I'm calling because I don't know when my appointment is...so how can I tell you when my appointment is and then if I did, what exactly would be the point of my question? So I give her my name, but that doesn't help. So she's like, "It's your responsibility to remember when you're appointment is." Okay...so what am I supposed to do? You can make a new appointment? Well, what about my old appointment?

So I made a new appointment, which is just dumb because now I'm going to MISS another one of my appointments sometime around then and the doctor is going to give me attitude. And this was all in broken Hebrew and it was frustrating and now I'm not so in love with Israel right now.

Some body changes

Here's something--my stomach is starting to feel solid! If you've ever touched a pregnant belly, you know what I mean. I doesn't feel like soft, flabby fat, it feels kinda hard, solid, and like there's something in it other than digested food.

Another exciting body change: I'm starting to notice that the bigger my belly gets, the smaller my theighs and butt look--it's an all illusion, of course, but still.

Also, my head is growing. Someone has suggested that maybe my hair is getting thicker (which certainly would be a nice perk), but I'm pretty sure it's my actual skull expanding. I can't tell by looking in the mirror, but scarves and bandanas are starting to give me headaches.

And there you have it--body changes of week 13.

Growing out of my clothes already??

Although I've already seen our baby a number of times on the ultrasound screen while the technician holds the wand up to my uterus, I'm still somewhat convinced that I'm growing our baby in my butt. I always feared this...

I always knew I wasn't going to have one of those gorgeous pregnant bodies where from the back you can't even tell the person is pregnant and from the front, the only thing is this perfectly round belly, but meanwhile arms, legs, and face are virtually unchanged. I always knew that wouldn't be me. I knew that as my belly expanded (and it is, thank god at least for that!) so would the rest of my body. My butt and theighs are enlarging, as well is pretty much every other body part associated with me (except of course, my breasts, are still rather small). Well, it's still early yet.

Happy 12 weeks and 6 days!

Pickles

Scratch everything I said about cravings not really existing. I'm eating pickes out of the can. I feel like such a cliche. But I really wanted pickles. and only pickles. But eating the pickles is kinda making me want hot dogs, which is strange because I've had no meat or chicken for the past month. Yum. Hot dogs and pickles. Maybe also because on the news they were talking about the July 4th eating competition on Coney Island. The winner ate 66 hot dogs in 15 minutes. And strangely, that doesn't repulse me, but rather intrigues me. I could probably eat 66 hot dogs in a day.

Indigestion

I finally understand what indigestion is. I never really experienced before and now I've got it down to a science.

There are 4 different types of burps:

1. Feels good, tastes good -- like after chocolate milk or soda.

2. Feels good, tastes bad -- maybe this category doesn't exist...can't think of an example.

3. Feels bad, tastes good -- like after apples.

4. Feels bad, tastes bad -- like after cheerios, tuna, peanut butter, and pesto.

Which brings me to another interesting pregnancy observation/experience. I despise peanut butter and pesto! Perhaps it is because I know that it provides the nasty aftereffect of burp #4, but also, the smells are simply repulsive and the tastes...well, i'm not going near enough to try them.

And here's the thing about cravings: Everybody has cravings, pregnant or not pregnant, and it's not even that when you're pregnant the cravings are stronger; but rather, it's that the aversions make you unable to eat anything OTHER THAN exactly what you're craving. For example, cheetohs. I love cheetohs and often crave them, but because i'm not repulsed by all other food in the world, I am able to settle on a healthier, also tasty option. Whereas when you are pregnant, when you want the cheetohs and someone (someone else or your very own conscience) says, well, how about some cottage cheese or an apple instead?, the answer is, "absolutely not. I need the cheetohs." And again, it's not because the craving is stronger, but it's because the craving is working together with the aversions which veto all other options. So in essence, the craving IS stronger, but only because strong aversions have kicked in.

That's my theory anyways.

Tomorrow I will be 10 weeks, which is exciting. We've decided to start telling people after my doctor's appointment which takes place on 11 weeks. But maybe we should also wait for those genetic tests to come back. Those freak me out and I try not to think about them....

I should really be working...

Breasts

I think my breasts are growing. It's hard to tell. They're still small. I don't know what I was expecting. It seems unlikely that one would go from a barely-A cup to a C, yet that's what I've been dreaming for....well, it's still early on. 9 weeks, tomorrow.

Can't kick this cold...

...and the problem with that is that I can't tell what's a pregnancy symptom and what's just plain old sick behavior. Let me start by saying that I am not a klutz. I always say that I remind myself of Bridget Jones (or the other way around?) except for the klutziness. I don't generally trip on my own feet, drop things, or forget things (not too often at least). And yet...And yet...in the last week since I started my 6th week of pregnancy AND since I got this nasty cold, I have done all those things multiple times.

For example, I went to take an egg out of the fridge and simply dropped it on the ground. I may have even forgotten that I was holding it. That's how smoothly it dropped from my hand. And then I made a banana bread, and forgot to put bananas in. Though I did go a little crazy with it and add everything else in the pantry -- craisins, flaxseeds, musueli...and I don't even remember what else. And then last night was the clincher: I was getting my pre bed snack (lately I've been too hungry to fall asleep) and I was about to get into bed with my cup of instant grits and my knee landed on my phone which tipped my whole balance and the cup went FLYING, spattering grits all over the sheets, my pillow, the wall, and my nighttable. I burst into a hysterical laughing/crying fit while Menachem patiently changed the sheets. I lose my appetite; I gain it back ten-fold. I eat too much; I get nauseous. I love food; I hate food. I've been queasy.

So, what I want to know is: Is my sudden klutziness and queasiness a symptom of pregnancy? Or is my cold making me lightheaded and unbalanced? I guess the answer is that it's probably both.

COLD, please go away. PLEASE? Please let me enjoy my pregnancy symptoms untainted by silly cold side effects!