Crazy Thoughts From A First-Time Mother
27 Jan 2012 2 Comments
As some of you may already know, I was having a really tough time sleeping for the past week or so. This time, however, it wasn’t due to me feeling under the weather, but from me feeling nervous and anxious about being a mother. I am actually really surprised that I’m as nervous as I am. I’ve always considered myself to be a nurturer. I’ve been “taking care” of different cousins since I was 16 years old. I’ve even been watching after Ciera, Paige, and Genevieve since they were little babies. I think watching after children and nurturing them comes very naturally to me.
But recurring thoughts keep coming back to me over and over at night. Will I be a good mother? Will Dan and I be able to provide our child with the kind of lifestyle we want for him or her? Will we have enough money for college, extracurricular activities, and birthday parties? Will I be able to be strict enough to help guide them to be a decent human-being? Will I be lenient enough and respect their space so that they can be who they were meant to be?
And if all those thoughts were not enough to drive a pregnant woman crazy, there was also a touch of paranoia to add to the mix. Now, I’m fully aware that I’m not even 3-months pregnant yet and things are supposed to be uneventful (except for the nausea and constant visits to the bathroom, of course). But a lot of times, I don’t really feel pregnant. I started to worry that there might be something wrong. I started to think to myself, I hope my baby’s okay. Maybe I should’ve waited for the 3-month mark before I started announcing to everyone I was pregnant. Maybe I can call my obstetrician up right now and ask her to just give me 10 minutes of her time to give me an ultrasound and let me hear my baby’s heartbeat. That would give me some peace of mind.
That last paragraph there, I initially did not want to include in the blog. Who wants to read about something so negative on a baby blog, right? But Dan convinced me that I should and that I’m probably not the first pregnant woman to have these thoughts and feelings. (Please do not feel obligated to comment and legitimize my crazy thoughts)
But once again, my strong network of family and friends have helped me through this time and I have been feeling much better for the past couple days. My husband wrote a beautiful letter to me to help ease my worries and help me sleep at night. My mother has jokingly given me anecdotes to help me fall asleep. And my sweet father, after having heard from my mother that I’ve been getting little sleep at night, called me telling me that I have nothing at all to worry about. He said in his broken English, “Jenny, why do you worry?! You have nothing to worry about! This is MY grandchild, okay? He is just like his grandpa. He’s quiet and doesn’t make any trouble. He’s not like his grandma who is so loud and talks a lot. So don’t worry, okay? He’s quiet, but he’s good.”
And as weird as that sounds, that made me feel a lot better. I feel truly lucky that while I’m going through this crazy roller-coaster called Pregnancy, that I’ve got so many people holding my hand throughout the entire ride.
Only five more days until the next doctor appointment. I think all these pep talks will help me not freak out and will hold me over until then.
-J
A Note to My Wife
24 Jan 2012 2 Comments
For thousands of years, humankind has raised its children under deplorable circumstances. If it wasn’t razor-fanged predators and creeping glaciers, it was religious crusades and rampant plagues. Children were growing up with nothing to hope for but another generation to carry on their line.
These days, we have almost none of those problems. Food is readily available to even the poorest citizens, education is free to a point and potentially very cheap after that, we’re at the top of the food chain and shelter is a problem for relatively few. And that’s just the bare minimum that can be said.
Freckle is fortunate enough to have parents (and a great support network of family and friends) who can give far more than the bare minimum. We carry around small devices that keep us constantly connected to the global repository of all human knowledge. We think nothing of hopping on an airplane to fly thousands of miles for the weekend. While there are still some great plagues out there (e.g. AIDS), they can be avoided for the most part with a little education and effort.
When you look at how much has changed in the last 100 years, or even the last 25 years, you will realize that Freckle will be growing up in the most exciting time in human history. Advances in genetic, robotic, information, and nano technologies will change the world as even we know it. There are some who say that if you can live to 2050, you have a very good chance of living forever. We are already taking the first major strides in weening ourselves off fossil fuels and moving to renewable sources of energy. Commercial sub-orbital space flight exists and one day may replace those pesky slow airplanes. All plagues may soon be a sad footnote in history. Globalization and transnationalism are making war a much less desirable way of solving our differences.
Freckle has so many things going for him/her; what’s there to be worried about? Rest up, think about all the wonders our child will take for granted, drift asleep with a smile on your lips. It’s going to be great.
Mobile Site
22 Jan 2012 Leave a Comment
in The Pregnancy Tags: mobile
Hey everyone,
Just a quick heads-up that I’ve added functionality to make the site easier to read on mobile devices (i.e. your cell phone). If you have any issues with the mobile site, there is a link at the very bottom of every page to switch back and forth.
Let me know if you use it and what you think. It’s pretty basic, but that’s the idea.
Papa-D
Finally Feeling Pregnant
20 Jan 2012 1 Comment
The first few weeks of us finding out we were pregnant, I was suffering from a terrible cold. As a first-time mother, I was so afraid that it would harm the baby’s development. Luckily, the doctor assured me that it’s quite normal to be sick and in fact, it’s actually a good thing because the mother is sending antibodies to the baby as she is fighting the cold. What a relief!
This week, for the first time in a long time, I have been able to sleep through the night without coughing, sneezing, or blowing my nose. I am finally able to enjoy my pregnancy (which is the #1 advice mothers have been giving me). I’m not quite at the “glowing” stage of the pregnancy yet, but I think my excitement has shown through. I haven’t been moody really, but I suppose that’s something only Dan can answer. I have been sleeping pretty much any chance I get, which is mostly during the weekend. On average, I’d say I sleep and nap about 12 hrs/day on the weekends. Not so much on the weekdays since I have school and work. But I do get extremely tired.
Some of the perks of being pregnant is that my family has been spoiling me rotten. My great-aunt refuses to let me carry Genevieve (my 3.5 y.o. cousin) even though I’m not even 3 months pregnant yet. Every time I walk by, my uncles all joke around and make room for me and say, “pregnant lady coming through!” Both my parents call me almost everyday to check up on me to make sure I’m doing okay and my mom is always offering to make me any food I’m craving. And Dan has been the best of them all. While I was sick, he went out to the drugstore to buy me medicine. After work, he stopped by to buy me a humidifier to help me sleep better at night. After dinner, he’ll see that I fell asleep on the couch so he puts my plate and cup away for me. Little things like that help me feel more comfortable during this tough part of the first trimester. I feel so lucky to have a husband who is so involved with the pregnancy.
My next appt. with the doctor will be on Feb. 1st and it cannot come any sooner! I will keep you all posted as to how that goes. 🙂
-J
Photography
19 Jan 2012 1 Comment
in The Pregnancy Tags: photography
As some of you may know, I used to have a nice film SLR camera. I enjoyed taking photographs and, though I wasn’t great at it, I had enough control to get some great results occasionally. Well it’s been a while and I have been looking for a good excuse to spend too much money on a new DSLR. And what is a baby, really, other than an excuse to spend too much money? (Don’t answer that.)
When I say I’ve been looking for an excuse, I mean it. I spent months doing research before our wedding, looking for the perfect camera. I wanted to have something nice to take on our honeymoon. Unfortunately, circumstances conspired to keep me from purchasing one at the time. I did, however, have a great camera picked out back then. It didn’t take me too long, a year and a half later, to realize that it is still a great camera — but now it’s several hundred dollars cheaper! Score!
So armed with my research and armored by my little gestating excuse (aka Freckle), I approached Jenny prepared to duel for the fate of my photographic future. Can anyone stand against one so armed and armored? Don’t blame Jenny for her failure to protect our precious funds, nobody could have withstood that assault. Also, pregnant women fight like…well, like pregnant women.
To the victor go the spoils. I present to you, my new Nikon D5000:
Nikon D5000
Now I have six months to learn how to use it to take impressive photos of tiny humans. Wish me luck!
DISCLAIMER: No pregnant women were hurt in the making of this post. Some or all of the facts may have been changed to embellish the innocent. Ownership of said camera is technically joint between both parties. The author of this post does not wish to get beat up or yelled at by any pregnant women and apologizes in advance, just in case.
So you’re having a hapa?
13 Jan 2012 2 Comments
in The Pregnancy Tags: hapa
I used the term “hapa” previously but it occurred to me this morning that many people reading this may not have heard it before. According to Wikipedia, “Hapa is a Hawaiian language term used to describe a person of mixed Asian or Pacific Islander racial or ethnic heritage.” I don’t know that I heard the term before moving to the Bay Area, but it’s very common around here. (Apparently my spell checker has never heard the term either!)
The rumor is that hapas are more beautiful than pure Asian or white people. It’s a modern urban myth…or is it? According to this article in Psychology Today, “…according to a study…hapa faces are rated as more beautiful than European or Japanese faces. Researchers say the finding may extend to other racial mixes as well. ” I tried to find the source of the study, but only found older references to it. But who needs proof, just look at a hapa and you can tell!
As if our hapa-to-be didn’t have enough advantages with the enhanced beauty and the amazing parents, it turns out s/he will be generally healthier as well. The same article states “…evidence suggests that half-Asians’ diverse genetic ancestry would enhance health…”. Besides general health, they say “Genetic diversity, or heterozygosity, is associated with a lower incidence of some diseases. Genetic diseases, such as hemophilia and Tay-Sachs…”.
So the next time you hear us use the word hapa to describe Freckle, you’ll know we’re talking about our half-asian/half-white baby with +1 charisma and +1 constitution (Edited because my nerdy wife called me out on the original numbers).
Papa-D
Good News, Everyone!
12 Jan 2012 3 Comments
Hooray! I am 8 weeks pregnant! I feel tired throughout the day, my cough and leaking nose just won’t go away, and I can become instantly famished in a matter of seconds. And the craziest thing is, I cannot be happier!
What adds to the excitement is how our family and friends are so supportive and happy for us. We’ve received so many well-wishes over the last few days and I feel so lucky to have such a strong network of great people to help us as our family grows.
Of course, most excited are the grandparents. We knew this would be the case, which is why Dan and I planned on making the announcement to them very special.
After Dan and I got married, we made both our parents promise to not ask us for grandchildren for one year. Since they were good (for the most part) about keeping this promise, Dan and I wanted to surprise them with the big news.
Since Dan’s parents were scheduled to come to San Francisco a few weeks after we found out we will be having a baby, we decided to hold off on telling them right away. We had it so that my parents would come to San Francisco to have dinner with the Browdys (our excuse was that they haven’t seen them since the wedding). And after they all sat down at the table, Dan and I handed them both cards and said it was a “late Christmas/Chanukah gift”. I remember Dan’s mom pretending to be disappointed and said, “Aw… Your mom was hoping for a different announcement.” I kind of laughed off the idea and said, “No, no… that’s not it.”
Both our moms opened the cards and on one side was a picture of an ultrasound, and on the other side the card said, “CONGRATULATIONS ON BEING GRANDPARENTS (again!)” It took the moms a second or two to comprehend what the card was saying, but when they finally understood, they both squealed with joy! The people sitting at the tables near us all thought our moms had won the lottery! (Although if you ask our moms, this news is probably way better than winning the measly lottery.)
So now, I think we’re all just enjoying the idea of having an addition to the family. In the next week or two, Dan and I will start to get really down and dirty as far as preparing for the arrival of the little one. There is lots to do and plan, as I’m sure many of you can imagine. But just like when we first got engaged, we just want to sit and bask in the joy of this new stage in our lives for a little while longer.
Grandparents with their cards.
Grandmothers with their cards.
-J
Hello world!
12 Jan 2012 1 Comment
Hey everyone, Jenny’s pregnant! The Browdy-to-be’s code name right now is Freckle. Seeing as how me and Jenny are both afflicted, we thought it somewhat appropriate.
Our first ultrasound
Note the heartbeat. That made Jenny melt when we heard it for the first time. I wish I had a picture of the look on her face to show you. 🙂
In other news, my friend at work has started calling me “Papa-D” so I thought I’d try it on and see how it feels.
Papa-D