One of my writing tips is to use lists to help organize information and make its presentation more palatable for readers. So instead of saying, "Overview of Third Quarter Developments in Wage & Hour Law" (yawn), I tell them to try, "Five Things You Should Know about Wage & Hour Law this Quarter." Change comes slowly at law firms, where lawyers write like we're stuck in the 18th century before active voice and short sentences were invented. So in the meantime, I thought I'd take my own advice.
I haven't blogged about my pregnancy yet because I wanted to get through my first trimester before going public and frankly I've been too busy trying to get through the day without throwing up. So here is my first entry about the bean, written as a "five things I thought I'd never do" list.
1. Frame an ultrasound photo. I always thought it was a little creepy to walk into a baby's nursery and see a picture of his or her ultrasound in a frame. There was something so skeletal about the whole thing that made me kind of scared. The frame would inevitably have an engraving that said, "It was love from the very start" or some other cheesy, over-the-top sentiment. But since I got an ultrasound picture of our little one at three months, I've saved it on my iPhone and showed it to anyone standing still. Now the bean looks less like a fuzzy fragment of the Milky Way Galaxy ("Where's the baby?" I asked the technician who did my ultrasound at six weeks, squinting at the screen) and more like a baby with an actual head, torso, arms and kicking legs. I just can't help it – I think the bean is really, really cute.
2. Speak in weeks. Whenever you ask a pregnant woman how far along she is, she will give you the answer in weeks. Before I never understood why she was forcing me and everyone around her to do mental math. Okay if she's 23 weeks, 23 divided by four is more than 5 but less than 6, Let's see... oh, I got it, she's almost 6 months. Phew. But now I, too, speak in weeks. In fact, I'm 13.5 weeks today (Sorry, do the math). What I've realized is that pregnant women do this because unlike any other time in your life, every week counts. Every week the baby is doing something important like growing eyelids, building cartilage and developing reflexes. You can read about it in excruciating detail online or in 100 pregnancy books. I'll admit, it's pretty fascinating stuff.
3. Keep the sex a surprise. I never in a million years thought I wouldn't take advantage of modern technology's ability to tell you the sex of your child as early as three months. I'm someone who likes to plan, to say the least. Whenever expectant girlfriends told me they had decided not to find out because "there are so few surprises these days" I had to struggle not to roll my eyes. It seemed pathetically romantic and naive. Yet when the pee stick showed positive for pregnancy hormones, Dave and I talked about how nice it would be to keep the news of boy or girl a surprise. Neither of us felt militant about it, more like it didn't really matter one way or the other and it would be fun to speculate. We live in a one-bedroom condo so there are no big decorating decisions to make like whether to paint the nursery pink or blue. It's more like, "Where should we put the bassinet? In this corner or that one?" I chalk up my willingness to be surprised to mellowing in my "advanced maternal age."
4. Understand my mom's worry. When I called my mom the day before Thanksgiving to tell her that the results of the scary chromosomal testing showed that everything with the baby was okay, she started to sob. I had barely gotten the words out when I heard her making those squeaky, labored breathing noises you make when you're trying not to cry. I could picture her clutching her cell phone in the aisles of Whole Foods in L.A. trying to be strong. But the rush of relief was too much. "I'm sorry...." she gasped. "I'm sorry...I'm just so happy for you...I've got to go." Later I found out from my sister-in-law that my mom was so worried about my test (CVS) that she had to take Tylenol PM to sleep. I always found my mom's propensity to worry about me annoying as a child. She must have explained a million times in high school that when I missed my curfew, she couldn't fall asleep until I was safely home. I just thought she didn't want me to have any fun. Now, after making my own squeaky, labored breathing noises in the doctor's office when we first heard the baby's heartbeat at six weeks, I finally understand. There is nothing in the world more comforting to a mother than knowing her child is all right.
5. Throw up in my trash can at work. I'd heard the stories about morning sickness. A girlfriend complaining about how exhausted she was during her first trimester or another talking about how the only thing she could eat was toast. But I never really paid attention to it until it started happening to me. Imagine the worst hangover you've ever had. Now imagine being stuck in that hangover for three months. And that whenever you throw up you don't feel any relief because the hormones that are making you sick are still multiplying in your system. Yes, it's that bad. Not for everyone, of course. I met a woman at a party the other night with a 1 month old who when I asked how her pregnancy was, replied, "Pretty uneventful." I turned on my heel and walked away. The best advice I've gotten, and you get all kinds of advice when you're pregnant, came from my friend Amy. She said just find the things you can eat, go to bed at 7 p.m. and take it one day at a time.
