A Few of the Ways This Pregnancy Has Changed Me

Since I'm still pregnant, I thought I'd take this moment to catalog just a few ways I've changed over these past 9 months.

(1) My main preoccupation these days is the Bloody Show. This isn't something out of "New Moon" (the teen vampire flick currently in theaters) but rather that hopeful little trace of blood-laced mucus that would indicate the onset of Labor sometime soon. This morning there was a hint of pink!

(2) Nine months ago I was a size 10 P (petite). Today I am a solid size 10 B (bulbous). Ditto for my bra size. As a consequence, Reeve, who gave up nursing last summer, has re-discovered my "mum-mums" as objects of curiosity. (I hope he doesn't re-discover a taste for Mama lattes once Baby shows up.)

(3) I've become an Oxytocin Devotee. My particular interest is the interaction and conflict between oxytocin (the love hormone) and adrenaline (the flight or fight hormone) during birth. I hadn't understood how the closely the cascade of birthing hormones follows the same sequence as the sexual response in women (isn't nature clever?), or how logical it is that an excess of fear hormones would counteract that process. How cool is it that the New York Times just reported on my favorite hormone?
www.nytimes.com/2009/11/24/science/24angier.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=oxytocin&st=cse

(4) My carbon footprint has more than doubled. Just as the Obama administration lured consumers to buy gas-saving vehicles, Jordy and I traded our Toyota Prius (45 mpg) in for a Volvo XC70 (18 mpg). By the government's formula for tax off-sets, we should have paid a $16,000 penalty for the exchange.

(5) I have received a promotion. My title has been C.O.O. (Chief Operating Officer) & co-C.E.O. (Jordy was my co-Executive, along with his other designation as C.F.O.). This morning Jordy and Duncan discussed my contributions to the creation of this family, and while they gave Jordy credit for Conceptual Contributions, they agreed that I deserved the rank of C.M.O.(Chief Manufacturing Officer), along with my aforementioned titles. Compensation will be in stock options.

(6) I have become a practitioner of Kundalini Yoga, without a clue what cosmic forces I am engaging. What it looks like, among other things, is a bunch of pregnant women squatting together in a circle moving our Kegel muscles in harmony to a woman's airy voice singing "Sa-ta-nam!" which means something about honoring my truth and my inner wisdom, etc. At the end, when we hold our bellies and join the woman in singing, "May the long time sun shine upon you, all light surround you, all love surround you... And the pure light within you, guide your way on!" to our babies, I find tears streaming down my face. I don't ask a lot of questions.

(7) I have become a recluse. This is a relative term, given the general Green family tendency to extroversion, but for two weeks now it's fair to say I've not made a single play date. I find pick-ups and drop-offs at school, usually a nice brief encounter with other adults, to be socially taxing. My inner female animal tells me to walk the dog for hours on end in the park, then return home and curl up under a blanket. However, sine Baby didn't come as early as we thought he might, based on past experience, I'm finding that my self-imposed isolation is starting to make me weird. What to do now? Should I crawl out of my shell for a breather, even as each day brings D-day closer? Thank God for my dear friend Jeanne in Palo Alto, due 12 days after me, who has a knack for calling at the exact moment when I think I've gone over the edge. And to Ali and Maria, who keep closer tabs on me.

(8) I have joined the iTunes revolution. After resisting the whole thing, even mocking it, the idea of a "birthing" playlist hooked me and I'm a junky. I've cleared two bookshelves in the living room by filing our CDs in a binder. I digitized the ones I want to listen to. I, Samantha Jane, am "synching" my iPhone to my iTunes. I've started up "Smart Playlists." I've bought a battery-powered speaker set that can travel with me to whatever room I feel like laboring in. And at this moment, I am listening to "It's Raining Men," which I dowloaded easily at the iTunes store along with "May the Long Time Sun Shine Upon You." My New Age playlist may do the trick, but I suspect the Weather Girls might give me the extra power I need to birth my third little man.

(9) The Good Girl has apparently given way to the Radical. I'm not sure when I drifted over the line, or who even drew the line. I was raised to believe women can birth babies, that it's a natural process that sometimes needs medical intervention. I gave birth to my first two in a hospital. I'm going to see if I can give birth to this guy at home. If we need to, we'll use the back-up of the hospitals nearby. Safe birth is the goal, and in my view, safety starts with my own preparation -- tackling my fears, or at least engaging them, so I don't set of the physiology of fear that comes with pain, as well as taking good care of myself physically and mentally these 9 months. It means lining up the right support, first and foremost my husband and our certified nurse midwife, then medical resources as needed, and wise women who've got my back. I've come to believe that the term "Home" Birth is most wisely taken as a metaphor. I care less where I give birth geographically than that I feel fully engaged in the doing of this. For me, anesthesia and continuous fetal monitors feel a bit like wiring up Tom Brady and sending him onto the field. If I get a serious body slam, I will be grateful for the support on the sidelines and will have no problem asking for their help. But I believe I'm the one who fundamentally has to do this thing, together with my little passenger.

(10) I have awakened to the cervical imagery that permeates the universe. I wear a necklace with a circular Polynesian nut pendant that is about 2 centimeters dilated. On December 1st the full moon rose over Prospect Park, a ripe, glowing, fully dilated cervix!

(11) I am learning how to live in the rubber time of the present moment. Day stretches after day, and here we are. Time to go check on the Bloody Show.