Skipping Town

If, a few days ago, you’d asked me to describe the most hideous morning of personal torture I could imagine, I probably would have described a morning much like this one: four blood tests in four hours. I failed my glucose tolerance test this week, and so today was my more diagnostically rigorous follow-up, involving eight hours of fasting, a post-fasting blood test, a drink of cringe-inducing glucose serum, and then a blood test every hour for three hours. Now I get to wait and see if I have gestational diabetes. I made the morning as tolerable as possible for myself by waiting until today to start reading The Angel’s Game by Carlos Ruiz Zafon, a book whose release I’ve been eagerly anticipating all summer. It’s set in Barcelona—a gothic, mysterious Barcelona—and definitely made the time pass quickly. By the time I left, with bandages on each arm and each hand, I looked pretty pathetic. Andrew picked me up and we went for lunch at Panera, where the cashier took one look at me and ask...

Now that I’m visibly pregnant to one and all, people are finding it within their right to a) comment on whether I’m the “right” size, and b) regale me with the horror stories of strangers. A few days ago, an older woman who lives across the street expressed her surprise--nay, her dismay--that I could possibly be seven months along. “I would’ve said four months,” she said. (For the record, I am, indeed, the “right” size. I confirmed this with the midwife on Monday.) Yesterday, while I was captive in the dentist chair, the dental hygienist spent the entire appointment telling me about her own miscarriage as well as the miscarriage—and late-term infant death—of a friend of hers. I don’t know what would possess someone to casually tell a pregnant woman about the horrible way her friend’s baby died in utero two weeks before term. I just don’t know. It’s one thing to hear a story about a friend or relative. It’s another thing entirely to hear a story about a stranger from another stranger wi...

We had a local weekend of baby-gear shopping, farmer’s-marketing, Ikea-assembling, swimming, grilling. Saturday we went back to a baby store we like and pushed around a bunch of strollers, still debating on which to purchase; I think we’ve finally decided on a jogging stroller called the BOB Revolution, which we’ll use with an infant car seat adapter until the baby’s big enough to use the stroller as is. From the reviews we’ve read, it seems most people love it and are perfectly happy using just one stroller, with other strollers gathering dust in their garages. We’re not ready to pull the trigger, but we’re getting close. As the due date nears, our starry-eyed shopping is getting a little more practical—it matters now whether a stroller is huge, and heavy, and impractical, even if it’s European and adorable. The farmer’s market is unbelievably satisfying these days, and for the past couple of weeks we’ve come home absolutely laden down with fruits and veggies. This weekend we bought a...

Last week, Andrew and I were driving home from the pool one evening and stopped behind a pickup truck at a red light. On the truck’s bumper was a sticker advising us to BOYCOTT FRANCE. The pickup was pretty beat-up, and the guy driving it was wearing a baseball cap, and as we sat at the light Andrew and I wondered what sort of involvement this person might have had with France that would make such a boycott effective. Did he purchase a lot of imported cheese or wine? Did he regularly fly to France for lavish vacations, spending economy-boosting tourist dollars? Did he have some sort of large investment portfolio in French companies? We couldn’t imagine a realistic scenario where this person’s boycott would have any effect on France whatsoever. And as he peeled away when the light turned green, it was clear that France would probably not miss him.

Today I sat down to read to the baby, and I posed a challenge for myself: the book I selected to read was The Velveteen Rabbit . I got it from a friend as a shower gift, and though I’ve always considered this book off-limits for me for reasons of emotional sanity (along with all books in which an animal, particularly a dog, dies), I decided it was time, now that I’m about to be a mother, to read it again. It had been, in my estimation, over twenty years since I’d read it. Surely, surely, it couldn’t be as bad as I remembered. It has a happy ending, right? The baby and I sat down on the couch. (Well, I sat down. The baby had no choice.) “We’re going to read The Velveteen Rabbit ,” I announced bravely. I admired the first few illustrations—it’s a beautiful edition, with oil-painted renderings. I read the first page, and the second, and the third. The baby began moving. We had a fan! An emotionally strong fan. And then I got to this line: “When a child loves you for a long, long time, not...

Last night, I was lying in front of a fan, feeling the baby kick, and I pulled up my shirt so Andrew and I could see some of the movements. Suddenly, the baby gave a hard kick straight up and left her leg extended—there, protruding from my stomach, was a very foot-like bulge. It was like she did a graceful leg extension to show off her tiny foot, giving us ample time to admire it. Oh, hello there , she seemed to be saying. Isn’t my foot just adorable? (Of course, it could also have been a fist, raised in a kind of victory: Only 93 degrees today? Yes!! )

I’ve been having a hard time watching and reading the news these days—it’s just too upsetting. And it’s too hot here to be upset. “Birthers”? Resistance to healthcare reform? It’s too much, too ridiculous. How could anyone be opposed to healthcare reform? It boggles the mind. Andrew and I have outstanding health insurance, and, if there is reform, I wouldn’t necessarily want our coverage to change at all. But we’re lucky. Lots of people aren’t. I’m on board with any reform that means no one has to face financial ruin because of unexpected emergencies, sick people don’t have to ration their prescriptions, people with pre-existing conditions aren’t cast off by insurance companies, and no one has to worry about whether they can afford to see a doctor when they suspect something is seriously wrong. Not to sound all flag-waving about it, but these things shouldn’t happen in this country. I hope by the time our baby is able to understand how lucky she is to get to see a doctor whenever she n...

The insane temperatures of last weekend prompted us to get serious about finding a pool here in Roseville in which we can spend the next 11 weeks of my pregnancy. There are several public pools around, but they’re only open for a couple of hours each afternoon; so Monday we called the local “raquet club” and went for a tour. We are now members, free to use either of their two enormous outdoor pools until 10:30pm every night, and the nonpregnant half of can get back to elliptical running and weight lifting. (The pregnant half of us could, I suppose, run too, but yoga and swimming are more my speed.) Swimming in the hot evenings—bliss. We went swimming yesterday, and it truly was wonderful. At 7:30pm it wasn’t very crowded—just a few kids splashing around, and a couple of swimming lessons going on. The smell of chlorine, and the sight of swimming lessons, always throws me back to my own years of swimming lessons—summers full of them, usually followed, in the afternoons, by more swimming....

Last night, Andrew and I went to our first pregnancy class, focusing on the third trimester and postpartum matters. The real reason we took this class was to get a tour of the hospital where we’ll be delivering the baby. It’s about six minutes from our house—and directly across the street from Andrew’s office. You can see his office park from some of the hospital windows. The other possible view is of a Target. Despite the not-so-stellar views, the hospital is very nice, and almost brand-new—it opened in January. I don’t know what’s standard these days and what’s not, but every woman has a private room for triage, delivery, and recovery, along with a private bathroom with shower for the final two stages. There were flat-screen TVs, DVD players, and mini-fridges in the delivery rooms, as well as plenty of space for moving around and a couch for the “coach” to sleep on. One man on our tour expressed his disappointment that the rooms were not equipped with wi-fi. Personally, I can’t imagi...

Saturday, Andrew and I took a little drive through hell to reach the not-so-hellish Napa, where Andrew would run a half-marathon. Our car still does not have air-conditioning, and as we drove through all the Worst Places on Earth—Vacaville, Fairfield, and on down—the temperature got hotter and hotter, reaching a sultry 104. We were melting. My poor baby must have felt like a bun in an actual oven. In a kind of desperation we stopped at a grocery store for cold drinks; in even more desperation we finally pulled into Sonoma for the race expo, where I procured a can of energy drink to press onto my scalding skin. I was reduced, as I am every year when the temperatures, as promised, pass the 100 mark and stay there, to a sputtering, walking fountain (lava fountain) of hatred, ready to take to the highway and not look back until my feet are in the Atlantic Ocean. Andrew directed his frustration and hatred at the car, threatening as we drove to get into an intentional accident. Earlier in th...

I really love being pregnant. I can say that since I had no morning sickness and remain symptom-free other than occasional annoying, but not debilitating, back pain and a tendency to become regularly overheated even if a room is air-conditioned. But I love watching my changing size, and I especially love feeling all the baby’s movements. Yesterday I read a little of my book, Cathedral of the Sea , out loud to her—it takes place in Barcelona in the 1300s. Later, Andrew read her a little of Colm Toibin’s Homage to Barcelona . Both times, she expressed her pleasure with a dance-like series of movements that felt more like moonwalks than kicks. That’s our girl. I also love being pregnant for all the little perks. I’m now 100% unambiguously pregnant—to the point where people can say “Oh, a baby!” or “When are you due?” without fear of a making a terrible faux pas. On the plane back from Pennsylvania, we were delayed while sitting on the plane, and a flight attendant, unasked, brought me a h...

My baby shower was Saturday, and I’ve never experienced such an overload of cuteness. Tiny dresses and outfits; cute bedding and blankets; a tiny bathing suit; adorable children’s books—it was enough to make one want to have a baby. Good thing I’m already having one. Now we just have to hope the ultrasound didn’t sneakily hide any boy parts… The shower was really fun, even though the rainy, humid day precluded our plans to have it outside in our beautiful, flower-laden yard. Socializing, a delicious lunch (chicken salad on croissants, green beans, green salad, fruit salad, deviled eggs, cheese and crackers), dessert (cake, biscotti, chocolate-covered strawberries), and gift-opening made the time fly by. I’m really glad I had a chance to be home this week, and for everyone to see me in all my big-bellied glory. It was enough to make someone want to exclaim, “Com. Margo!” “Com. Margo” was apparently the message the cake bakers at the local grocery store thought appropriate for a baby sho...

I’ve written before how Andrew and I are working to embrace the surprising small-town charm of our non-shopping-plaza-riddled section of Roseville. The small-town charm that does exist, however, is tainted somewhat by the fact that there’s a major highway a block away and Louis Vuitton within a five-minute drive. Over the past two weeks, however, I’ve been lucky enough to be immersed in some genuine small-town experiences. In Cornish, for example, the nearest grocery store is the Price Chopper in Windsor, Vermont—a store that, we discovered, carries neither fresh parsley nor cauliflower nor penne pasta nor capers. Last night, here in Connellsville, I went with Mom and Dad to our church picnic, where the Italian food offerings have people lining up for NYC-caliber amounts of time. Worth it, though, for the cavatelli and pierogies (a non-Italian interloper left over from the former Polish priest’s tenure). A dish of homemade cavatelli: $3. Two enormous homemade pierogies smothered in oni...

Another Gabe’s, another haul of maternity and baby clothes. Total bill: $27. Total items: five maternity shirts, a sports bra (size XL!!!), and a staggeringly cute baby dress that will make our baby look like she should be in New Hampshire in the 1800s. Mom purchased an adorable baby outfit as well, an economical instance ($4) of grandparently splurging. At the beginning of my pregnancy, I vowed that I was going to try to spend minimal money on maternity clothes, borrowing or adapting whatever I could. Well, I did borrow (thanks Beth and Michelle). I had a nice parental maternity-clothes shopping trip in California (thanks Mom and Dad). And for a while, I did adapt, wearing my roomiest, elastic-waisted things. The adapting days are over. The bump is simply too large to accommodate anything but true maternity waistbands. My old tops reach only to about mid-navel, if they fit over my chest at all. Most of my skirts won’t go over my hips. And I have three months to go—I certainly can’t be...

“Stop it, Jared. Stop it, or I’m gonna whup ya. I’m gonna whup ya.” When I heard these gentle, motherly words Monday night, I knew for sure I was back in southwestern Pennsylvania. In fact, I was at Gabe’s. And what a Gabe’s trip it was. I expected to come away only with, perhaps, a few baby clothes—but instead I got a big haul for myself, despite the fact that there is no real maternity clothes section. Rack after rack of clearance items yielded large, flowing peasant-style tops and empire-waisted dresses and shirts, many of which, somehow, fit over my pregnant belly and newly enormous chest. The most expensive thing I bought was $9.99. The rest of my purchases were $3, $5, or $7, including a $3 Topshop top with the £20 price tag still attached. (That shirt, incidentally, does not fit over my belly. But I will save it until post-baby.) The big discovery of the night was the Gabe’s baby section, where, until this trip, I had never before ventured. I know absolutely nothing about good b...

I seem to have lost count of my weeks of pregnancy—I was thinking for some reason that this was my 28th week, but I just looked at a calendar and realized I was wrong. Sunday started my 26th week. Flying from CA to NH last week wasn’t fun, but it was more because of turbulence and motion sickness than any pregnancy-related problems. Aside from returning to CA next week, I shouldn’t have to fly cross-country again until after the baby’s born…and Andrew and I become one of the over-burdened parent-travelers with piles of baby gear and bags in the security line. Good times.

Our week in New Hampshire is over, and it is terrible to imagine that we won’t be back until next year. Once a year isn’t nearly enough—and if we had our way, we’d be situated closely enough to go regularly, once or twice a month or even every weekend. There’s a timeless quality to the house and grounds, and being there makes the rest of the world feel very far away. Much of the world seemed to be in Cornish this year, however. Molly and Ian came for a few days; several of the Littells’ friends came; and Mom and Dad came for a few days at the end of the week. It was not exactly a relaxing time—everyone’s stacks of books went more or less unread—and it rained almost every day; yet the days passed pleasantly with Scrabble, meals, and conversation. Molly, Ian, Andrew, and I tried to swim in the river a couple of times, but it was too rainy and chilly. When Mom and Dad and I flew home, they said they could hardly remember not being in New Hampshire—it has that kind of timeless effect. I c...