Thick as a brick.

Thick as a brick.

So, we've lived in this house for 1.33bar years now, and I just noticed that the bricks on the exterior of the chimney and the bricks on the porch columns are completely different. Let's review. They have completely different colors. They have completely different overall appearances. The chimney is a bright, orange-y red, and the columns are maroon. The chimney bricks are completely worn down and look about 80 years old. The columns are shiny and smooth with perfect sharp corners. In other words, they look sparkling and new. GOD.

I'd like to interject right now to tell you that I melt into a fit of giggles every time I say/think the word GOD in all caps like that. This is because Sasha once told me that when her niece was 2 or so, she had closed the door to her room and got all quiet. After a while, her mama asked her what she was doing in there, as mamas are wont to do when children close doors all sinisterly like that. The niece sassily responded: "I'm playing with my dolls. [slight pause]. GOD." Seriously. I'm not condoning this sort of attitude in youngsters, nor taking the lord's name in vain, nor giggling about it, but COME ON. That story is golden. Okay, where was I. Bricks. Yes, here's a picture.



Part of me wonders, if the column bricks truly are newer, who put the bricks on the columns, why, and what's underneath? And maybe it's a veneer! Our house! Faux! Frankly, I never really liked the brick columns all that much. What I really mean is I absolutely adore everything about my sweet and charming house. Anyway, I'm not about to go chipping away at the shiny new bricks/veneer to see what's underneath, only to have some 90 year old woman walk by and say she's always loved the brick columns on this house, ever since she was a little girl growing up in the 'hood when it was just built with original bricks on the columns that aren't new veneers at all. (Yes, this has sort of happened with the dead yard. Sweet old woman: "I always loved the yard on this house." Sweet old man: "Me too. She [previous owner] used to spend hours out here working on the garden." Julia: "um, I don't.")

And yes, I'm posting about house stuff on this blog instead of the house blog. Actually, I think I'll just duplicate the post there too. I really don't know who I was kidding making a house blog, assuming I'd have enough Interesting Content to sustain not one, but two blogs. But I like the fact that the house blog geeks can read the house blog posts, and then the normal (!) readers over here can also read about our dinky little projects/obvious brick observations. Especially because any improvements made in the next few months (FEW! MONTHS! Shit.) will all be baby related and you all want to see that, don't you? And I can't just do away with the house blog, because you need like 90% of your posts to be renovation-related to keep a coveted spot on the House Blogs list. And we all know that I don't have that kind of work ethic, renovating or blogging. So, I'm just going to duplicate the house-related posts on here. Goodness knows I need the content here. I recommend if any of you misguided souls happen to have RSS subscriptions to the house blog AND here, you should just cancel the house blog unless you like me repeating myself.

This post is like my worst writing ever. GOD.

Not-so built for motherhood.

Not-so built for motherhood.

For the longest time, I have absolutely loved to hear stories about those "natural" mothers. I don't mean hippie-natural - I mean the women who are totally built for motherhood. "I loved every minute of being pregnant. It was so easy," I'd hear people say, and dreamily wish I could fast forward and be pregnant and saying the exact same thing. Or, "childbirth was so amazing. I would do it again in a heartbeat." That's actually more common, and a lot of mothers say that it didn't matter how tough, complicated, or scary the birth was - they'd still do it all over again. The idea of being built for childbearing, though, is there. I adore the idea that there are some women who grow and birth children so easily that they should just keep having babies until they run out of beds in the house. Going through pregnancy and childbirth so breezily means these women are undeniably intended to be mothers. It's a lovely wistful vision of motherhood.

And, you can easily extrapolate it to say that some women are better than others. Or, some women really should run far, far away from all the sex lest they get pregnant. Sure, it's a pretty little dream of natural mothers, but it's totally at someone else's expense.

It turns out, one of those someone elses is me.

Don't worry, I'm feeling the little wriggler squirm right now. But getting here and staying here has been and is so far from the walk in the park I imagined, and that I thought that I witnessed other mothers going through. In the grand scheme of infertility, we got knocked up pretty quickly. Definitely below the average. But month after month after month of disappointment laid a steady foundation of doubting my body and feeling betrayed by biology. Once that seed has been planted, no amount of pink lines on a pregnancy test can take that away. But once upon a time, we finally got pregnant. That's when it started to hurt. My belly, my ligaments, my birth canal, my head, my breasts, everything hurt. It all started to creak and get ready for action. It got to the point where I had to stop running and all activity whatsoever because the pain was so bad. Then, enter morning sickness. And by morning, I of course mean ALL DAY LONG AND ALL NIGHT LONG. Gradually, as time progressed and I entered my second trimester, the nausea stopped having anything to do with being hungry. Whether or not I felt sick was indiscriminate to whether or not I had food in my stomach, and mostly, I'd feel worse after eating. And the pain, it's still there. I barely have a belly and I have to frequenty lie down to either dispell the nausea or relax my tummy. Some days, I feel like my uterus is completely strained all day long.

I am not the pregnant woman I imagined I'd be, the epitome of perfect motherly glow. Pregnancy is really hard on me physically. Really hard. But even right now, exhausted, sore, scared, and nauseous, I have no doubt that one day I'll look a future mother in the eye and tell her, "I loved every minute of being pregnant. Every last minute."

20 weeks.

20 weeks.

Yesterday, I passed the all-important "halfway" point in pregnancy: 20 weeks. 5 months! That's an awful long time. We're also more than halfway there, because of the convoluted counting system that nobody can agree on.


20 weeks + 1 day

Speaking of agreeing, Erik and I have currently stepped up our discussions (ha!) on naming now that we know(ish) that it's a boy. I love Oliver, he, well, doesn't. He also doesn't like anything else I suggest, but rarely offers up viable alternatives. And he also doesn't give me a good reason for not liking Oliver and other names like Jack. I told him to just tell me that an Oliver stole his high school sweetheart so that I would stop nagging him about it. Some viable alternatives are Henry and Graham, both of which were my contributions. Unfortunately, I like names that have sweet nicknames associated with them, unlike Graham. Like Olly. Le sigh! Olly! Or maybe it's spelled Ollie. The Y makes it seem less girly. He'd be so darling and creative and good at soccer. Maybe he'd be in a British indie band.

My main gripe with Henry is that it's all of a sudden the new John. Everyone is calling their kid Henry today. Although nobody is giving their Henries the nicknames Harry or Hank. They're missing out, I tell you.

My dad's name is William, and he went by Billy as a little blond-haired, scraggy English kid. We have documented proof in a little book about the history of our village. Billy! That's golden. However, Erik's cousin with the same last name called their firstborn William, so that's sort of taken. It's not like when your friends steal your favorite name, because this William would have the same last name. No need to confuse holiday gatherings with the relatives.

Or maybe we're just throwing these names out to absorb everyone's Well-Intentioned Feedback, and then we'll throw you all a curveball with something like Blaine or Logan when the baby's born. Although Logan is kind of a viable alternative, what with Wolverine being Erik's favorite X-men character and all.

Whatever we end up calling him, the baby is a squirmy little thing right now, which makes me really happy. And also, he is growing, which makes me even happier. All of a sudden, on Friday, my belly popped out and is now huge and always in the way. Grow little peanut, grow!

Home and dry.

Home and dry.

My coworker Michele is home. HOME! She is, obviously, doing much better after her harrowing experience in critical ICU. Now we just sort of wait-and-see some more, and hope for no more scares. She's still in the window of monitoring the stem cell transplant to see if it fully grafts (it is grafting right now!) and doesn't cause any graft vs. host problems. I can't wait to see her again.

I know this is wishful thinking, but I hope she never again has to see the inside of a hospital. Ever.

Sleep, sleep, sleep, little seed.

Sleep, sleep, sleep, little seed.

Tonight, I was reading to my belly from my copy of "Hymns and Prayers For Children," which was printed in 1956 and is positively falling apart. On the inside of the front cover, it has the little "This book belongs to:" part, with my sister's name "age 7" and my name, "age 5." (Note: I was not 5 years old in 1956.) However, my name and age had been crossed out with some vicious pencil scribble. That greedy wench.

Anyway, I found the following and choked up a little, especially since our sweet little boy is due Easter day:

Sleep, sleep, sleep, little seed,
Sleep through the winter long.
Wake, wake, wake in the spring,
Wake with the bluebird's song.

Sleep, sleep, sleep, little seed,
Hidden from sight away.
Wake, wake, waken and grow,
Waken for Easter Day.

Oh boy.

Oh boy.

More on this later, but we had an ultrasound today and it's a wee lad in there! We are pretty stuck on boys' names, but at least we can narrow the arguing down to one gender now.

He likes tucking his knees up to his face, and we also saw the sweetest little yawn. Le sigh!

Two things currently wasting my time.

Two things currently wasting my time:

1. Puking. Lots of it. Screw you everyone who said it would go away at 12 weeks. At 12 weeks, I was barely getting started. Yesterday I threw up three times, or more accurately stated, I had three "sessions." This, in turn, makes me scared to eat. This, in turn, makes me scared that mama's precious little parasite may not be able to leech everything out of me that it needs. Then, inspired by fear, I either try to eat something ghastly and pukey, like vegetables or at the very least, open the vitamin jar, and then I start throwing up again. Shampoo, rinse, repeat.

2. This game: http://shygypsy.com/farm/p.cgi. Holy god. You and your social life will hate me if you click through.

Remember remember the 5th of November.

Remember remember the 5th of November.

When I was a kid, the whole school used to make a huge ordeal out of the late-October, early-November creation of a Guy Fawkes dummy. We used regular-sized clothng and stuffed it with straw. I'm pretty sure it involved paper mache for the head, but I would have to verify with my parents. Then, on the night of November 5th, otherwise known as "bonfire night," we would build a giant bonfire (usually the dads would do this), set off fireworks from the school yard, eat toffee apples, and burn our homemade Guy Fawkes on top of the undiscerning bonfire.

Wholesome.

Only recently did I realize that Guy Fawkes was a) barely a cog in a much greater plot - he was just the guy with the gunpowder and the ability to set it off underneath Parliament during the 1605 State Opening, and b) persecuted for his religion. Treason is treason, don't get me wrong (and don't give them another reason to filter my blog at work), but I'm only now learning more about the Catholic "recusants," and a little part of me is ashamed for our childish celebration of this man's execution (which notably wasn't done atop a bonfire). I don't know if what they were doing was treason or revolution, good or bad. Bonfire night is always a really cherished memory from my childhood, but I just get the feeling that I was misled a little bit. I had no idea it had to do with religion.

The nursery rhyme traditionally sung ("Remember, remember the 5th of November...") ends with a really classy fantasy about the Pope's violent death. Way to raise your kids, England. But I did really like the toffee apples.

Sisters.

Sisters.

Tonight was girls' night. It had been a while for this particular group of girls as a whole, but everyone made it out, and we picked right up where we left off a few months back. We're all in somewhat different stages of our lives, so the conversation managed to cover it all from dating to toddlers. We fixated quite a bit on relationships, and someone noted that the best part of this is that we're all really close friends with each others' husbands or boyfriends (well, with one teeny exception which NEEDS TO CHANGE damn it). I think that makes us all so tightly knit. And at one point, sweet Karen and I both noted that we're both the other's oldest friend. A moment after we hit that point in the conversation, I realized how much more important it was than it sounded. And even now, it feels even still more important. I met Karen my first year in high school, after two years of living in America. It's so bizarre to think of everything we got each other through.

I have a sister. She's just under two years older than me, and we never fight or anything. It's just that we're not close - it can feel like acquaintances sometimes - but we always have fun when we're together. Tonight, I realized that is totally okay. These girls tonight are my sisters, just as much as Gillian is my sister. Just for different reasons.

Also, there was vegan chocolate cake. It was indeed a swoonful evening.

1905.

1905.


USGS marker (Nevada Falls, Yosemite.)

This is one of my favorite pictures that I have scanned in. By far the best part is the date: 1905. I love being out in places like that and imagining those people figuring out where the trails should go or using their best math to figure out elevation. Sometimes I imagine them all travelling through, west-bound, laying trails or roads as they go and after the 150th night in a tent, someone's kid whining and asking what was wrong with Virginia.

Former coworker Craig once told me a story about how he was hiking with some guy we both knew, and eventually, the conversation turned to poop. As it is wont to do after 7+ hours of relieving oneself in the backcountry. Craig was complaining about how much hassle it is to poop while hiking, what with all the digging and burying and what have you, and if you're not female and used to it, all the squatting and packing-up of the toilet paper. The other guy just sort of scoffed and said, "oh, it's easy. I just poop with the stream running by. It feels good."

As ridiculous as that is, in 1905 everyone probably pooped in the waterfall.

Best laid plans.

Best laid plans.

Today, I'm 18 weeks pregnant. For normal people not engulved in the world of pregnancy, or world-must-revolve-around-us-not-the-judeo-christian-calendar Intel "work weeks" or something, that's four and a half months. In two weeks, we'll be officially half-way there. I haven't really put our plans for birth into words yet, just sort of here and there descriptions and sending the link of the birth center to friends warning them to not look at the photo gallery when coworkers are walking by.

We've done all of our prenatal care at the birth center, the only place in southern California that does water births. It just happens to be a mile away and sweetly decorated. It's a free-standing birth center, not connected to any hospitals but still only a few blocks away from several big ones. It also doesn't have doctors (except for advisory obstetricians or something). The staff is entirely female, made up of certified nurse midwives, nurses, etc. So lovely they are. Each of the 3-4 birthing rooms have huge tubs, although one is much smaller than the rest so let's hope we don't get stuck with that one.

The plan is to labor outside of the birth center as long as possible, although $10 says this includes several trips and emergency calls to the midwife. Once we get to the birth center, we'll eventually get in a tub (well, that "we" will depend on a) how skeeved Erik is, and b) how comfortably we all fit in the tub) and finish laboring and birthing in the tub. The theory is twofold. First, laboring in the water should relax me and ease the pain and pressure. No drugs, no fetal monitors, etc. Second, the switch from womb to world, what with all the squeezing and gasping for air and flailing, can't be too peaceful for a little beeb. The water provides a little gentler of a transition. Right now, even at 18 weeks, the baby has lungs, it just doesn't use them until faced with air.

After birth, I honestly have no idea when they'll make us get out of the water, but the baby will come straight to mama's arms and cuddle for a while and try nursing. The baby won't leave our side. Like, ever. I guess they don't cut the cord until it stops pulsing, but BELIEVE ME, that is the last of anything new-age related that will involve the placenta. There will be no salting or frying up with a little garlic.

Anyway, these are nothing but hopes and plans. We'll know a little more after our next ultrasound, but if there are any complications, the birth center likely won't let us deliver there. My biggest worry is that if that were to be the case, I would struggle with feelings of disappointment or mourning for the birth I wanted. Really, regardless of how or where it happens, it doesn't matter. I can't wait. I can't wait to give birth, and I can't wait to have a child.

Fighter.

Fighter.

This afternoon, my friend Michele was transferred to the critical ICU and induced into a coma. Her lungs are 75% filled with fluid. As one of Michele's best friends found me to tell me the news, she looked at me and asked me, "She'll be fine, right? She'll beat this?" And for the first time, neither of us could chin-up and pretend we were just waiting it out anymore. It has always just felt like we had to sit still and be strong while she did her time with treatment, and then we'd have Normal Michele back again. I think it's the first time I've honestly been scared.

Later on, as thousands of illuminated balloons lit up the night around the racetrack, red balloons for people coming out in support, white balloons for survivors, and gold balloons for those who had lost a family member, I found myself completely overwhelmed. Standing alone at the edge of the track next to the standard-issue cover band, I broke down because I wanted Michele to be there. I missed her so much. I didn't even miss having her hang out with me - I just wanted to see her from across the way completely in her element and loving it.

It's not as simple as wanting her to hurry up and heal - I just want this to have not happened.

Cheating, Leis, et al.

Cheating, Leis, et al.

I'm cheating a little bit with my daily post, because it's almost 1 am and I technically haven't posted for Friday yet. So, I'm going to manually change the date. Ethics be damned! We just got home from a lovely evening with our lovely friends at the newish Lei Lounge in University Heights, home of the notably cheap sweet potato fries, laden with delicious vitamins for the baby and even more delicious run-on sentences. We reserved a cabanna for the group, which made our waiter/server actually a cabanna boy. Icing on the cake.

These people, who revolve mostly around my friendship with Kate and Tom, are so fantastic. I'd say about 75% of them are Peace Corps vets, but don't worry. They don't dress like it. Just every so often someone will drop a story about freezing cold trains in Russia or vultures in Cuba and you're reminded of what they've done. It's really subtle, which makes it all the more fantastic to me. Side note: poop on the Peace Corps for not taking non-citizens, not that I probably would have had the balls to do it. But it's a good excuse.

Regardless. My point is that I totally posted today and today is still Friday in my world. I get full credit. Even when I had a good rhythm going with regular posting, when have I ever posted on weekends?! Maybe going way back to that one post-bachelorette party post, but that was a distinct exception. I will get through this month.

Hairdryer.

Hairdryer.

The other night, I dreamt that I was showing my sister my almost-popped belly button. Actually, in the dream it had completely popped out, and was the size of a giant appendage. So, of course, my sister goes digging amongst the belly button appendage, and pulls out a full-size, foldable hairdryer with a cord, missing the little plug part at the end. You know, that one inch plug would be just TOO MUCH plastic in my belly button.

We look down at my restored innie, and she says, "see, that's why your belly button was sticking out."

Daily.

Daily.

In the spirit of someone else (maybe I heard about it from the superhero, I can't remember), I'm going to post daily to this blog. For at least a month. I really don't have a good excuse for not posting in over a month, so what better way to discipline myself than to commit to posting every day. Well, my work's server classifies my blog as "weapons," so that's part of it. I'm being pulled in a thousand directions these days, but really, blogging is not a chore. It's not something I have to do. I do it because it makes me a better person to thumb through my own thoughts and weave them into real words. The daily post could almost be meditative.

Right now, my friend Michele is in the hospital, recovering from a bone marrow transplant. And I don't even think recovering is the right word for this fragile place. It's like a purgatory. Everything sucks for her, and we have no idea if it's even going to work. We have no idea if it will heal her or kill her.

I try to blame work sometimes for being a source of stress/time-suck in my life, but I can't help it. I can't sit at home and rest when there is still cancer out there to be cured. I can't just do nothing while Michele wants to rip out each tube stuck on her or in her. I sometimes laugh at myself and tell myself to wake up, it's not like I'm the one peering at cells through a microscope solving it all or making the treatments suck less. I just sit in a yellow office where I let plants die and papers pile up. But the truth is, I do know that I'm making a difference. I feel like I could list how much money I've raised, through the many amazing volunteers, that has gone directly towards making things suck less for people like Michele. And I guess I won't ever stop this work until it stops sucking completely.

There is a lot to be done.

Just under two years ago, Michele was diagnosed with stage 3B Hodgkin's lymphoma. The difference between stage 3B and stage 4 is that stage 3B doesn't require a bone marrow transplant. She was lucky. In June of this year, Michele had her 18 month check-up, and was happy and healthy. The summer swept past us, and soon it was September. We were all pulled into the conference room one Wednesday. Michele is in the hospital. She has leukemia. We were all struck by so much at once. Sadness, fear, and confusion. Wait, I thought she had lymphoma? Maybe he said it wrong right now. How can she be sick? Again? But it was leukemia. For someone her age, the treatment for her kind of lymphoma has a somewhat rare side effect of secondary cancers. The leukemia was that secondary cancer.

It breaks my heart that what saved Michele's life the first go around has put her right back where she started, only this time it just seems harder. It wasn't a question of whether she'd require a bone marrow transplant, just who and how soon. I can't even begin to imagine the loneliness and abandonment you'd feel going through cancer, much less if it happens to you twice. I can't wrap my brain around it.

The amazing part is that she is still our beautiful Michele. She wrote "I am healing" in sharpie on the chemotherapy port jutting from her chest, which makes me overflow with love and hope for her. She arranges all of the cards and posters in perfect zen-like symmetry. She says things like, "this room has better energy than the last one." About HOSPITAL ROOMS. She's not just a fighter, she is graceful. And you don't just want her to beat this, you absolutely need her to.

Right now, she's in ICU. She's battling complications from all the treatments, including problems with her oxygen. I don't even understand everything that's going on I do understand, though, that there is a lot more work to be done, and a lot more Micheles out there strugging in ways I can't comprehend. I dedicate this November of daily posts, daily meditations, to Michele. You can do it, my sweet little thing. You can do it.