Filed under: The Pregnancy Diaries | Tags: apple fritter, depression, divorce, donuts, Dunkin Donuts, LA County Jail, Los Angeles, Los Angeles driving, midget, separation, South Central
‘One of the many lessons that one learns in prison is that things are what they are and will be what they will be.’ Oscar Wilde
This week doesn’t have much to do with being pregnant other than the fact that I’ve heard this funny story from a friend while I’m pregnant that gave me a chuckle, which I hope it does with you…this is Steve’s story:
Steve had a fight with his wife while they were living in Los Angeles. He wanted to die. He goes to South Central (a potentially violent area of town). He goes to a disco there. He’s the only white guy in the club. He gets drunk. He wants to be beaten up. The folks in there feel sorry for him. He finds himself in the parking lot of the club at 3am and thinks “Well, I guess I’ll go home.” Driving home, he sees a Dunkin Donuts and thinks an apple fritter sounds good. He gets one. He’s driving through an intersection, trying to eat his fritter at the same time, and he grinds his gears. A cop pulls him over. He’s got an out of state license and he’s drunk. The cop takes him to jail. He’s put in a cell with about thirty guys. They are mostly Mexican and black. The only other white guys are an old man who looks absolutely crazy and a midget. Really. It’s not politically correct in there. Every time a new black guy is put in the cell and sees the midget, he exclaims, ‘Whawt tha fuuuck?!’ The toilet in the cell has an industrial strength flush. You have to practically hold onto something to keep from going in. The guys in the cell take a toilet roll and put the paper end bit in the toilet and throw the roll around the cell, then flush the toilet and watch the roll fly around the cell and get swallowed by the toilet, then they all chuckle and do it again. Steve got arrested on a Friday and had to wait for court to open after the weekend. On Monday, they’re all shackled together and the guard is doing roll call and keeps calling a guy’s name. It’s the midget. The midget is jumping up raising his hand and finally the guard sees him and says, ‘Ah, no wonder I missed you,’ and all the guys in the chain laugh.
That’s the end of Steve’s story. I’ll talk about my pregnancy again next week. Till then, things are ticking along and I’m getting bigger by the week.
Filed under: The Pregnancy Diaries | Tags: big boobs, big breasts, boobs, boredom, breasts, Chamonix, drinking, drunk, lactating, London, maternity bras, pregnant abstinence, pregnant drinking, Rodney Dangerfield
‘I found there was only one way to look thin: hang out with fat people.’ Rodney Dangerfield
Given the ‘all clear,’ or ‘tout va bien,’ from my doctor regarding my pregnancy last week, I headed to London to visit friends. While there, I’ve experienced a metamorphosis of my body and in my perspective.
I left Chamonix with a slight curve to my belly – nothing particularly noticeable unless you know I’m pregnant – and suddenly my stomach has exploded and I look pregnant! It’s as though I’m a cartoon figure that has blown up an inflatable belly through my thumb or something. My boobs, usually very small, have suddenly become full and round. I walked into a friend’s house and she exclaimed ‘Jesus, Victoria! Wear a bra! You look like a sow!’ Being flat-chested, and to this point, not in need of a bra, I’m startled to discover that I’m, arguably, obscene now without one! In my shame, I scurried to Marks and Spencer and thankfully had a solicitous friend with me to help me to get the right size, so I’m now contained and respectably pregnant.
Being pregnant, I’m not drinking. I don’t judge those that do…if I were younger and didn’t have a history of miscarriages, I’d have the odd glass of wine, but I’m not taking chances given my age and circumstances. As a result, I’ve been dashing about meeting friends and acquaintances for the inevitable lunches and dinners, and what I’ve discovered is that many of my pub buddies (aka acquaintances) are dead boring when I’m not drinking. Worse, these folks are irritating, and there is nothing worse than being boring and irritating. I’ve suffered through so many ‘existential’ confessions, sober, this last week, that I’m wondering if I was as bad pre-pregnant, or whether it’s truly ‘cause I’m not in an altered state? Or, rather, not in the same altered state brought on by many late nights and midnight falafels…
Filed under: The Pregnancy Diaries | Tags: Brad Pitt, California, Cannes Film Festival, child loss, child neglect, films, mother's grief, Palme d'or, pine trees, Terrence Malick, Tree, trees
“A tree’s a tree. How many more do you need to look at?” Ronald Reagan
Watched Terrence Malick’s last film The Tree this week. Malick has taken his time with his films, working on this one for decades. He’s ‘only’ made seven films in a 35-year career, but his films Badlands and Days of Heaven are two of the most beautifully filmed movies of all time and this one is gorgeous, too. It’s lightly existential…a great film to watch when you’re in the mood to consider your life, your family, and the world you live in without delving too deeply into any of it…
That said, the film opens with the loss of one of the sons and the mothers consequent grief. I had a hard time getting through it because I can’t imagine losing a child and the actress’ portrayal of her sorrow was palpable. I kept wondering about my strong opinion that one should watch EVERY film a director one likes makes in order to watch their development and understand their cannon of films in context; maybe this isn’t necessary for me anymore now that I don’t work in film; it certainly doesn’t seem necessary to watch a film about the loss of a child when I’m pregnant.
The film is about three boys growing up in the 1950’s with their mother, a free spirit, and their father, a ‘hard ass’ who is sometimes affectionate (played by Brad Pitt). The story considers the origins and meaning of life, and death, in general and as it pertains to the boys’ lives and experiences. The film premiered in competition at the 2011 Cannes Film Festival, where it won a Palme d’Or, and was met with rave reviews from critics but was actually booed at the screening (a tough reaction particularly as the filmmakers and actors are present). Depending on whom you speak to, the sci-fi meets surrealist themes and imagery were seen as both imaginative and independently minded, or pretentious and boring. I found that the fragmented and non-linear narrative actually is how memories are remembered, and as it’s a story told in the present about the past, this seems appropriate and interesting. There is an argument for it’s being indulgent and meandering. However, in a world of films that appeal to the lowest common denominator and rely on frenetic images and action, this nicely paced, philosophically light film is refreshing.
But maybe hold off until you’re not pregnant or haven’t just had a child and your hormones aren’t blasting through your body. It’s entirely conceivable that you have a stronger stomach than me, but if not, maybe hold off watching other films that deal with child loss or neglect, too, such as Trainspotting again, or Rabbit Hole.
Filed under: The Pregnancy Diaries | Tags: acceptance, autism, France, Grief, hope, kids in France, loss, miscarriage, pregnancy, pregnant, still birth, stillbirth
“Loss is nothing else but change, and change is Nature’s delight.” Marcus Aurelius
Prompted by my husband’s planting an apple tree in our garden for our lost baby, Appleseed, I wrote about this miscarriage in last week’s column. While I’m American, and therefore prone to “vomit” my whole life upon the floor to anyone I’ve just met, I’ve lived in Europe for almost 15 years now, and have learned (am learning) to hold myself back more and to think before I speak…so to write about something so personal filled me with ambivalence and trepidation. However, the stories told to me by other women as a result of this piece, have touched me greatly and confirmed for me that it was right that I wrote about Appleseed.
Of course there was the angelic figure that I met when I was leaving the hospital after my pregnancy sack had fallen apart – her miscarriages and then the birth of her autistic son. One woman told me that she’d had five miscarriages, all at five and sixth months along in her pregnancy. Almost literally, the babies were falling out of her. Finally, the doctors tied her cervix shut and she was on bed rest for the duration of the pregnancy that resulted in her only child being born. Another woman told me of a stillbirth in which she’d had to deliver the child through induced labor; she has since had two healthy children but holds this sadness in her heart still. Another woman had six miscarriages, one in which she’d had to deliver the baby stillborn, before she finally had her healthy babies; she told me that every night she still says a little prayer before she goes to bed for the baby she delivered and named. These are harrowing stories from real life – not work, not money, not the tedium of daily life with its challenges, not friends who irritate us, or ‘enemies’ that overwhelm us – but the stuff that constructs who we are, what we’re made of fundamentally, and which defines our relationships to others.
When I was twenty-years-old I became pregnant with a boy man who’d been my boyfriend through secondary school. I was scared and confused. I’d just won a scholarship to a great university and knew that with a baby I couldn’t go…also, I was very young and the boyfriend was trouble. The only people we told about the pregnancy were his parents and mine. His family was incredibly Catholic and admonished me to keep the baby. He, himself, wanted to get married and have the baby. My parents were not sympathetic to his cause. They reminded me of what it would mean both in terms of my age and the unstable relationship that I had with the boy man. I got an abortion. It was painful and saddening for me, and because of the shame I felt, I didn’t tell anyone – not even my best friend – for almost a decade. It was harder still as my sister had a baby at the time I would have had this baby. Even now, my mind flits briefly to the thought of this aborted child when I look at my nephew. When I was finally open about the experience, I was startled to discover so many similar stories. Writing last week’s piece about the miscarriage of Appleseed reminded me of this early experience because of the fact that there are so many people who can relate to situations that we imagine are so unique to us…maybe even shameful…certainly not the image of ourselves that we want to portray…and it’s in the sharing of this vital personal information that we are truly courageous and that we begin to heal…and by ‘heal’, I mean that we begin to accept ourselves, our choices, and the circumstances and events of our life.
Filed under: The Pregnancy Diaries | Tags: 2nd trimester, blemishes, cat, George Orwell, luxuriant hair, pimples, pitfalls to pregnancy, pregnancy, pregnant, second trimester, spots, weight gain
Part of the reason for the ugliness of adults, in a child’s eyes, is that the child is usually looking upwards, and few faces are at their best when seen from below. George Orwell
Relief I’ve made it 17 weeks
belly rounded and swelling
ten pounds more weight on my body and counting
think of weight in terms of mince meat
heartburn and hideous burping
sit or stand up too quickly and I get a head rush
sleepy
chest a myriad of light green veins
nipples dark
industrial looking new bras
crooks of arms with tiny dots of green from the lab tests
hair luxuriant
hair not akin to ‘a just salon done’
face without spots or blemishes
nails long enough and strong enough to scratch back at a cat
Filed under: The Pregnancy Diaries | Tags: apple, apple tree, appleseed, bleeding in pregnancy, courage, France, London, miscarriage, pregnancy, pregnant, strength
How we apples swim. Jonathan Swift
My husband planted an apple tree in our garden this week in honour of our first pregnancy, a tangle of atoms that we called Appleseed… my column this week is a page from my diary, written in 2009:
It’s not just the little group of cells that’s lost. I’ve had a miscarriage before. I was attached to this child. I was trying to tell myself throughout to be careful, careful, not to get too attached. I was so excited that I was bursting to tell everyone. I satisfied this desire by telling strangers who I knew I would never see again. I’m so disappointed now. I haven’t stopped crying for four days. It’s horrible. It feels visceral. I miss Appleseed. I was fascinated from point ‘go’ by this strange little thing and its rapid growth. It was first a little group of cells, then it had layers for the nervous system and respiratory system, then it had little nubs for arms and legs, then webbed feet and hands…a heartbeat by the time it died. I understand the body rejected it for a reason, but it hurts deeply. Also what hurts – perhaps more – is the attachment I felt towards the dream that having this child conjured in me and now that feeling is lost.
I have to lie down. When I knew that I was pregnant, if my body told me that I needed to lie down, I did. If my body needed water, I drank it. If my body said I was hungry, I fed it well. It was a habit quickly established as soon as I knew that I was hosting Appleseed. I quit smoking. It became a protection issue for someone else. I didn’t have breakfast before I went to the hospital. Thinking about it now, I knew that I was losing Appleseed anyway and so I didn’t have to protect the little thing anymore, so what did it matter if I ate or was comfortable? At the hospital, I sat in this little hard plastic chair, in this Victorian-type narrow hallway with little light, shabby furniture, linoleum floors, dank, with people standing and sitting everywhere. I went into a little office. Last night’s scan showed that there was a ‘buoyant’ pregnancy sack, and inside of it a yolk sack, and next to it, a foetus. Today, there’s just blood, the pregnancy sack has collapsed. The doctor tells me that because of my previous miscarriage ten years ago, coupled with my age, that I have a 74% chance of a miscarriage if I get pregnant again.
Feeling sick, cramped up, completely overwhelmed, shocked and disappointed, I went out into the hallway and the world seemed hard and horrible. There were so many people in this hallway. I went out into the stairwell and this guy pushed past me. I was walking rather slowly, gripping the rail with my left hand. Then from behind me this woman said, “Are you okay?” And I said to her “No. I’m having a miscarriage.” She took my arm and helped me down the stairs. Outside, she asked me if I wanted to go for a coffee or a tea. She told me that she was 49 years old. She’d had three miscarriages and an abortion because of chromosomal problems before she had a fifth pregnancy and finally her child who is now 14 years old. She’d been at this hospital today because she’d been at this recurring miscarriage unit because a professor is doing a study for the Imperial College there with the NHS. We went out on the street into the cool sunshine, it was one of those beautiful autumn days – I love London when it’s sunny with a bit of freshness to the air. She says to me, “Do you want a cigarette?” and I say “Yes!” I’m standing on the street bleeding profusely, I’ve not even had water, and I’m smoking.
We went to a pub across the road and sat outside. She fetched me a glass of wine. She’s Italian. She lives in England with her husband of 30 years. She’s well-to-do. Well-educated. Earthy. She tells me about her three miscarriages and the choice after all of that trauma to have an abortion and then about her son who has Asperger’s. She tells me how sometimes she felt angry and scared. But now she realizes that she wouldn’t be the character she is – and she likes herself – if she had not experienced all of this. She has truly learned to take things as they come. She tells me that if there was a lottery ticket and there was a one in four chance of winning that lottery ticket, I’d buy that lottery ticket, no? That I can’t give up because one doctor was discouraging and the statistics look bad. I must believe in, and honor, the love I feel for the child that I will have. She tells me that life is about living, having hope and faith, friendships, time. At the end of it all, it’s only about this. I feel better. Courage flits in me in place of Appleseed.
Filed under: The Pregnancy Diaries | Tags: animal pregnancy, boy children, Fetus, Fetuses, Foetus, Foetuses, France, girl children, lanugo, pregnancy, pregnant animal, pregnant woman, ultrasound, vernix caseosa
“Inside every hardened criminal beats the heart of a ten-year old boy.” Bart Simpson
I had yet another ultrasound this week, but this time the foetus actually looks like something I can recognise as human – well, human alien, to be honest, as the head is inordinately big for its little curled body, and its eyes seem large and transparent. A friend told me once that there’s a stage in many animals’ pregnancy (and by “animal,” he also meant human) in which the foetuses all look like alike…I believe this now, having looked at pictures of pregnant cows, dogs and cats. Fits with my recent dreams in which I’m giving birth to a cat. My good doctor kept trying to give me the ultrasound image to take home, but I’m so paranoid about bringing an ultrasound into the house because I did this with the other two pregnancies and then lost them, that I summarily refuse. I think my husband is taking them into the house secretly…at least I’ll have someone to blame if things go ‘Pete Tong.’
After seeing today’s images, I looked up online what is actually happening to the foetus at present and am most surprised to discover it has eyelashes and fingernails. This is certainly an argument against late term abortion…before now, it could have been a cat, dog, or cow, (and I’m a huge fan of animals, particularly cats) but the fingers and toes and eyelids and eyebrows and eyelashes and nails already formed – that’s refined and real. Soon the foetus will stretch, yawn and suck its thumb. Right now, my baby is covered with a layer of thick, downy hair called lanugo, which seems to be similar to one’s nose hairs. His skin has a coat of slick, fatty substance surrounding it called vernix caseosa that protects it from the long immersion in amniotic fluid (so, does it get wrinkly at all, like one’s fingers do in water after too long? I’ll ask my good doctor about this, despite the likelihood that he’ll poke fun at me). The nervous system is starting to function now, and shortly my good doctor will be able to see whether I’m having a boy or a girl!
I just want a healthy child. I’ve always thought that I wanted a boy ‘cause they’re so much simpler and they love their mothers. Girls are so much more emotionally complex, I worry that I might find that exhausting and that she’ll hate me. That said, boys are noisier and don’t hold still for long, and there’s that awkward smelly, big-footed time when they’re adolescents that might freak me out…. anyway, it doesn’t matter, they each have their merits and demerits; I just want a healthy baby. It’s a long journey, and now the first trimester – the most dangerous time for a foetus and its mother – is over by a few weeks, so I’m breathing a little more easily…
Filed under: The Pregnancy Diaries | Tags: Chamonix, complications in pregnancy, diabetes, France, gestational diabetes, glucose intolerance, glucose intolerant, high risk pregnancy, laboratory, pregnancy, pregnancy tests, tests
“Seize the moment. Remember all those women on the Titanic who waved off the dessert cart.” Erma Bombeck
It turns out that my glucose test for gestational diabetes reflected high sugar levels. I’d taken it earlier than most women ‘cause I’m over 35 and have a history of diabetes in my family. Between 2-10% of women develop gestational diabetes in pregnancy, making it the most common health problem for expectant mothers. Apparently, and if I’ve understood my good doctor correctly (who good naturedly was annoyed that I asked for an explanation – “Ah, if only you were French…”), when you eat, your digestive system breaks your food down into a type of sugar called glucose. Glucose enters your bloodstream and with the help of insulin – a hormone that your pancreas makes (where’s my pancreas again?) your cells use the glucose as fuel. But, if your body doesn’t produce enough insulin, or if your cells don’t respond well to the insulin, too much glucose moves into your blood instead of into your cells…the ones that convert it to energy (whew!). Hormonal changes in your body during pregnancy can make your cells less responsive to insulin.
If I do have gestational diabetes, I’ll have to alter my diet, and have more prenatal visits to monitor the baby’s growth, movement and heart rate. If the baby becomes too big nearer to my due date, I’ll be induced, or have a C-section. It isn’t definitive that I have it…only 2/3rds of women who test positive on the first test actually have it. I knew that I was eating too much sugar but I can’t help myself; I’m a total Coca-Cola addict even as I know that Coke can take blood off of pavement, take the crud off of your car battery, and render mince meat soaked in it overnight, to shreds (this knowledge is courtesy of a Russian friend who said that they did these types of experiments in his chemistry class in secondary school in 1970’s-1980’s Soviet Union to prove, further, that products from the West are poisonous). Coke is the only bad thing I do now, and I don’t have too much of it…I’m even drinking decaf for goodness sake, but now this…
Anyway, I was ordered to take the longer, more definitive exam called a ‘glucose tolerance test’ this week – my results will be back next week. I went to the lab – they’ve seen me every week for the last four months (and even before that for the two other pregnancies) and still the receptionists are not friendly to me! I couldn’t eat or drink for fourteen hours before I went, so the last meal I had was dinner. I went in, they took my blood, and then gave me 50g of a very nasty sugar solution that tasted like a soda pop you’d buy in South America. I’m told that it’s sweeter than the first test ‘cause the solution is, actually, twice as sweet and ‘cause there’s fasting before. An hour later, they took another blood test. An hour after that, another blood test. An hour later, one more. All the while I had to stay in the lab reception – they wouldn’t even let me leave for a wee walk ‘cause they didn’t trust me not to eat or drink! To be fair, I might have. I’m ashamed to say I carried on like a baby. My bestie and I have been joking about my ‘need’, and other expectant mothers’, to eat for two as an excuse for pregnant women to eat like pigs…but I was frantic without food! I started crying after the first hour and the second prick, and I never cry – I felt so sick, shaky and faint. By the second hour and the third prick, the lab tech took pity on me (or the receptionists complained about my visible misery) and let me lie down in a room by myself where I cried and felt sorry for myself. Jeez louise. No ‘stiff upper lip’ on this one. Maybe I am what my good doctor says, a ‘woosie’ (or as he pronounces it, ‘ah wooz’).
Filed under: The Pregnancy Diaries | Tags: assistante maternalle, Chamonix, child care, creche, Elisabethe Badinter, feminism, France, French childcare, guilt, modern mothers, nanny, nu nu, The Guardian, The Washington Post, womens rights
“Guilt: the gift that keeps on giving.” Erma Bombeck
I recently went to the two crèches in the valley and signed my impending baby up for care – a crèche is a nursery from three months of age till they walk. There are only ten spots in each. Both tell me that their waiting list goes back to 2008!
Filed under: The Pregnancy Diaries | Tags: alpine, alpine guides, birth, Chamonix, climbing, France, mont blanc, mountain cimbing, outdoor life, pregnancy, risk in pregnancy, risk sports, single mothers, summer sports, winter sports
‘Courage is rightly esteemed the first of human qualities…because it is the quality which guarantees all others.’ Winston Churchill
Most of the women I’ve met in Chamonix are here because of their husbands. Sure, they may like it here and have some semblance of a community, but it’s because their husbands are keen outdoorsman, or simply want to be here, that they live and remain in Chamonix, away from their families. My circumstances are the same. Within this breed of women in the Chamonix valley, are the alpine guides’ wives. The guides work very hard throughout the winter and the summer. Their primary work is hauling ‘punters’ up and down the Mont Blanc. They’ll be gone for several days at a time for a given tour, sleeping in huts and climbing by day. Then they’ll return home, unpack, rest a little (though many of them are so avid they go out and cycle or ski, depending on the season), re pack, and do it again. What this means is that these women are, for all intents and purposes, single mothers.
Not my bag at all. An apartment dweller throughout my adulthood, I still feel that I live on some sort of farm by living in a house in the middle of nowhere, with necessary ‘chores’ to be performed each day to keep the house going. But my chores are nothing compared to these women. They’re chopping wood with an axe, changing gas for their hobs, fixing fuses, shovelling snow, on top of all the daily things. They’re the ones collecting and dropping their kids at school always, organising their children in the morning, shopping for groceries, carrying groceries, cooking, getting their kids to bed, day after day, alone. Most of them say, “it isn’t nice…but what can you do but get on with it?” A typical English ‘chin up’ thing to say. One woman has a quote from Churchill on a postcard prominently displayed on her fridge that reads, “Keep calm and carry on.”
On top of these daily trials, there are the perils that a guide faces: death, skin cancer, injury before an already early retirement (then what?!). I saw a study online conducted by German doctors. It states that ‘for reasons of their outdoor work, mountain guides are heavily exposed to ultraviolet radiation.’ In their study of 283 men, precancerous lesions were more frequent in guides than in the general population (25% vs. 7%). I then tried to find some statistics on death by climbing in various places, but the information online is disparate – there doesn’t seem to be one central information source, an organisation that oversees such matters. What I did find is that according to the American Alpine Club, there are only 25 climbing deaths on average a year throughout the U.S.A. When I asked a guide here about this, he snorted and said, “Humph. Amateurs. That many die in a winter here. Mostly in avalanches.” Of course he was joking, but it’s not far off. I’ve read in the local newspapers over the last couple of winters in Chamonix repeated reports of folks dying up on the mountain. I’ve seen the rescue helicopters carrying a body on the outside, in a flat plastic gurney, which isn’t a good sign. That said, one of the ‘8000’ers, (mountains above 8k meters), Annapurna in Asia, a desirable mountain for climbers to try out, has a death rate of 38%! That means 38% of those who climb it die. But that’s not Mont Blanc. And most of those who die here are not guides, though the general consensus is that it’s about three or four a year who do lose their lives.
But then I saw something that put all this danger into perspective again – the British government assembled these statistics when comparing various activities:
* Maternal death in pregnancy 1 in 8,200 maternities
* Surgical anaesthesia 1 in 185,000 operations
* Hang-gliding 1 in 116,000 flights
* Scuba Diving 1 in 200,000 dives
* Rock climbing 1 in 320,000 climbs
* Canoeing 1 in 750,000 outings
* Fairground rides 1 in 834,000,000 rides
* Rail travel accidents 1 in 43,000,000 passenger journeys
* Aircraft accidents 1 in 125,000,000 passenger journeys
Mountain climbing isn’t even on the list! And note what IS the highest rate of casualty – and with a huge frequency! Geez, here I thought I’m lazy, giving all these sports and dangers that those around me encounter, and yet I’m being courageous by trying to bring a life into this world!
Victoria Jelinek 