First hospitalization

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When I went into the hospital for a routine pregnancy ultrasound at the ultrasound/maternal fetal medicine unit today, I was not expecting that I’d have to stay overnight, but that’s exactly what ended up happening.

The ultrasound results all came back normal, so as I was waiting for the doctor to go over it in detail and let me make my next appointment, a nurse came to my room and said that they’d run a “non-stress test” for the baby, which means they’d hook me up to a fetal heart rate monitor for about twenty minutes to see how the baby’s heart rate changes depending on her movements. For the first 15 minutes, everything looked great, the doctor said, as he came in and out to check in on the results of the ebbs and flows of the heart rate, which were being recorded. But suddenly, a random dip occurred, and it apparently lasted for about 3 minutes. They said they weren’t a hundred percent sure if it was an actual dip in heart rate that lasted that long or if it was just that the baby moved out of the range, but they were concerned. So they sent me to the hospital triage unit on the labor and delivery floor for more monitoring that lasted about two hours. I was not super happy with what was happening. No one really explained the dips to me and what they could actually mean. A resident doctor came in, who I frankly was not a fan of, and after more monitoring, they identified another dip, and he said I’d need to stay overnight for continuous monitoring.

I felt terrified. He said that hopefully things would look good via the continuous monitoring, but the worst case scenario if the dips continued would be that they’d need to induce me for labor early, as it may be possible that the baby would be healthier and safer outside of the uterus than inside. And because of that potential worse case scenario, they wanted to give me a steroid shot to get the baby’s lungs to develop faster in case she needed to come out sooner.

They also wanted to hook me up to an IV, and I told him I didn’t want that. “Why?” I asked. “I am perfectly fine to drink water right now.” He said I looked a bit dehydrated. Irritated, I told him that I hadn’t had anything to eat or drink in over 5 hours, nor had I been offered, and water through my mouth would be just fine. He said the IV would allow the water to get into my system quicker. I retorted back that I was fine to DRINK the water. Also, would he be able to give me SOMETHING to eat because I was starving…?! If they really did need to quickly stick medication in me, they could just give me a heplock.

“How do you know what a heplock is? Do you work in healthcare?” he asked, smiling and a little curious.

Seriously, people. This isn’t rocket science. I don’t need to work in healthcare to know some healthcare basics. This stuff is all available online as public knowledge!!

He said he’d check with the doctor from my practice about the no-IV and came back with a large jug of ice water, which I proceeded to chug.

Eventually I got admitted into a hospital room, and the doctor from my practice came to check in on me a couple times to explain a few things. She said that they just wanted to be cautious and so that’s what the continuous monitoring was for. If all checked out fine and no more heart rate dips were seen, and if all the blood work and ultrasounds continued to look normal, then I could get discharged tomorrow. Luckily for us, everything else did come back normal, so now they just want to make sure the dips did not continue. They also wanted to do a weekly hospital ultrasound to ensure there was enough blood and oxygen flow between the placenta and the baby so that they could ensure she was getting enough nutrients… as according to them, she is measuring a bit small for this stage.

Pookie Bear had been super active the entire time in the hospital. I was worried she wasn’t getting much rest. I kept looking down at my belly, telling her we’d be just fine. I want her to stay in there as long as possible so she can be full term, but I was genuinely worried at the idea that she may not be getting enough nutrients. At the same time, other than the nurses, I was really unhappy with how I was rarely asked for my consent for anything and just felt like I was being herded off and forced to do things. That resident doctor really needed to slow things down and explain more. This is why I hate the American medical system and all the interventions here. This is why I hired a doula. I can’t really trust that this is all truly in my own best interest or my baby’s, as it feels like interventions for the sake of interventions. And now, I’m in a state of anxiety, wondering if my baby is really going to be okay and if we will have a safe and healthy birth.

Unexpected Facebook direct message

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It was around midday today when I was working at my desk, and a Facebook direct message popped up onto my phone. It was from someone who I was good friends with, perhaps potentially even a little bit more, in high school, who I hadn’t seen since high school graduation in June 2004, so 17+ years now. He said he was in New York for a quick trip and was actually leaving tomorrow and realized I was here, so he asked if he could see me. It was a happy, pleasant surprise, so I checked my calendar and suggested we meet up this early evening for tea.

We met up and chatted for about an hour, and it felt so funny but happy. I have lots of fond memories of hanging out with this old friend from high school. He had feelings for me and expressed them openly, and while we did hang out frequently and even went to a winter ball event together, I never really reciprocated or acted on anything since I knew he wasn’t really a fit for me both emotionally or intellectually. That sounds kind of snooty, but I knew what I wanted, and he was definitely not the person for me. It also didn’t really help that there were plenty of rumors during high school that he was closeted and likely gay (and, well, since then, as an adult, has “come out” and is now openly homosexual). Since graduation, we’d had zero contact. The most “contact” we’d ever had was “liking” or “reacting” to each other’s Facebook posts, and that was really it. So it was a total surprise when he actually reached out to meet up.

It was like a trip down memory lane, as corny as that sounds. We talked high level about things that have happened since high school. He admitted he’d been closely following pretty much ALL my Facebook posts since high school, as he thought about me often and wondered how I was doing. He knew about my boyfriends, my travels, my wedding and current partner, my brother’s passing, all my AFSP fundraising. He knew I was still closely in contact with two of my best friends from high school, who also used to be friends with him.

“When I look back at all the guys and girls I used to date or had a thing for, you always stand out to me,” he said, thoughtfully. “Even though we never really officially dated, you were always special to me, so I think about you often. I just hoped you were doing well.”

It was touching to hear this, but it also felt strange at the same time… to think that someone who was once close to you in the past but has kept quite the distance still thinks about you often, keeping a laser focus on all your social media posts, and still holds you close to their heart. It’s not like he was never able to directly message me or reach out in some way; it would have been so easy to do that given Facebook, but he just chose not to. I barely even knew what to say in response; I just smiled and said I appreciated his thoughts and well wishes.

He said that since his sister is living up in Toronto now that he’d have more opportunities to come to the East Coast, so he’d like to come to New York more often. I couldn’t believe it when he shared that this was not only his first trip to New York, but also his very first time on the east coast of the U.S.! I’m not sure we have much in common, but it would still be nice to see him for old time’s sake moving forward.

If I thought I would see him again, though, I never imagined it would be when I was pregnant. It was pretty hilarious and he seemed pretty happy for me. Everyone is happily looking forward to Pookie Bear’s arrival.

When your mom starts getting nervous

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Okay, to be fair, my mom is pretty much always nervous. In fact, I think it’s her default state to be nervous. Part of that is because of all the turmoil and terror she experienced living in a poor, rural village in Vietnam, then being there for the war, then entering the U.S. and being treated like crap by her mother-in-law and her new family she married into. But part of it, sometimes, feels like she just looks for things to be nervous or anxious about. We’re currently in week 35 of my pregnancy, and she said she’s getting anxiety about my going into labor. She kept asking questions today about whether we had everything ready – safe place for baby to sleep, diapers, changing area. She asked if there was food for us to eat in our freezer. She expressed remorse again that she wouldn’t be here to help prepare nourishing postpartum foods for me. She asked again (maybe because she inherently thinks men are useless… since that seems to be a favorite topic of hers concerning my dad in the last nine months regarding the two babies she birthed) to confirm that Chris was, in fact, planning to take time off in the beginning to help. She said she’s basically on standby waiting to hear news about when I will pop. And it’s highly unlikely that when this does happen that I’m going to call her between contractions to announce, “Hi, Mommy! Guess what — I’m in LABOR!”

Baking as nesting

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This afternoon, since I had some free time, I started making cookie dough for alfajores, those delightfully buttery, flaky South American sandwich cookies that I’m totally obsessed with. I think alfajores are likely one of the most perfect little cookies on the planet, as they are rich, indulgent, flaky, not too sweet, but sweetened with a delicious and sticky caramel filling. The dough is a bit hard to work with, as it’s super delicate and usually made from a mixture of corn or tapioca starch, a tiny bit of regular all purpose flour, and bound with butter and egg yolks, but it’s always so gratifying when the cookie cut outs are made. Alfajores were on my list of things “to make” before the baby came as a small indulgence to myself, both as an activity and as a treat to enjoy.

A lot of people like to make comments that if they had all the money in the world, they would just outsource tasks like cooking certain dishes or baking certain desserts so that they could just enjoy. But to me, it wouldn’t matter if money meant nothing and if I had Jeff Bezos’s wealth because baking and cooking are basically part of my identity and what makes me happy. If you took away cooking and baking from me, I’d probably feel weird and incomplete. I’m partly making these cookies for fun and as a treat for myself before Pookie Bear arrives, but also because I want to share them with my friends who are coming over for brunch this weekend. Food is meant to be eaten and shared and enjoyed, and this will be the very first time we’ve hosted anyone over for a meal since pre-pandemic, so I want to make sure it’s delicious.

Hand expressing during pregnancy

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Chris and I were on a Google Hangout chat with his cousin and wife on Saturday night and discussing pregnancy and breast feeding. His cousin’s wife, who is a midwife/nurse, told me that it’s becoming more recommended in Australia to begin hand expressing milk before the baby is born, after 35 weeks of gestation. While I’d heard of women experiencing colustrum leakage in the weeks leading up to birth, I’d never heard of women actually expressing and pumping milk before baby arrives. She said that since it may cause labor to begin, it’s safest to begin this process after 35 weeks. According to the Haakaa manual pump site, they suggest doing it after 37 weeks to be safe. You basically manually warm and squeeze your breasts to try to express the thick colustrum (first breast milk, which is usually really thick unlike later breast milk) out. Only a little comes out at a time, so it’s collected via a sterilized syringe and then stored in the fridge or freezer so that when baby is born, she will have food to immediately eat. Plus, this also expedites your body producing milk instead of waiting 3+ days for regular milk to come after birth since your breasts operate on a demand cycle; the more you express and feed, the more milk your body will produce.

This totally made sense to me, but I had no idea why no one had mentioned this to me before. My doctors never mentioned it, and neither did my doulas. I’m apprehensive about labor before 37 weeks, though, so I’m going to wait until week 37 to try this out. It’s supposed to be frustrating and have a big learning curve, but I’m definitely willing to do it, especially to prevent my baby from having these disgusting American infant formulas that have corn syrup and sugar in them.

Friends for nearly a quarter of a century

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Tonight, I was on a Zoom chat with two of my close friends. The conversation mostly revolved around my pregnancy and little baby coming soon, as well as my friend having her in-laws come for about two months after a very long pandemic period of not seeing each other, as well as random other family topics.

When we were growing up, we used to talk about how fun it would be if we all had kids around the same time so that we could become moms together and raise our children together. They’d have play dates and become good friends. We’d spend all this family/friend time together. I guess that isn’t really happening since I decided to move away. One of the three of us is never planning to have kids. So that picture we used to have in our minds isn’t really happening. It makes me wonder what kind of connection, if any, our kids will have to each other: will they remember seeing each other after long periods of time not seeing each other? Or will they just be some random distant person who is easily forgotten?

Regardless of what happens, I’m still grateful for their friendships and for how far I’ve gotten in this pregnancy to date. It still feels unreal that I’m almost 35 weeks into this pregnancy, and Pookie Bear still appears to be thriving. I feel extremely lucky.

Diversity of food in NYC

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It was Saturday today, so we were out and about yet again for another food crawl, this time around the Fordham / Arthur Avenue area in the Bronx. Unfortunately for me, I felt especially heavy and slow today, and it seems like during longer walks, my Braxton Hicks contractions keep going a little out of control. Walking up stairs now gets me far more winded than it used to, and so I am definitely a lot slower than even just a few weeks ago. I guess we’re in the home stretch, so I can manage this for just another month or so before totally going nuts.

It may only be in New York where you can get access to authentic Dominican and Puerto Rican cuisine and amazing Italian cuisine within blocks of each other. We made stops at some old staples we found last year, like Cuchifritos for mango juice, chicharron, and alcapurrias, Gino’s Pastry Shop for my favorite NYC cannoli, and also at the Calabria Pork Store for freshly made sausage (this time, I chose sweet Italian with fennel). We also discovered some new spots, like Borgatti’s for fresh pasta (we got fresh tagliatelle egg noodles and ricotta/porcini ravioli), and Casa Della Mozzarella, which had quite the line out its door. They are famous for being on multiple lists for making the very best mozzarella in New York City. Our main sit down meal was at Antonio’s, where we had magherita pizza with some of the best mozzarella on pizza we’d ever had, and Chris actually had a glass of Italian red (“super Tuscan”) that was for once, very fruity, tasty, and satisfying.

During food treks like these, on the way home, I always feel very grateful to live in such a diverse and delicious city. To have access to foods of this quality just a subway ride away is a real privilege and blessing. I hope my little Pookie Bear is able to embrace all of this deliciousness, too, when she arrives.

34-week appointment

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The Braxton Hicks contractions felt really strong this morning right before I left for my doctor’s appointment. They made me feel lethargic and a bit miserable, but I knew I had to go in for my appointment, so I hauled myself together and got out of the house. At my appointment, my doctor did a quick scan of the baby and reported that all looks good: she has plenty of amniotic fluid surrounding her, and her growth is still on track. As of today, she’s just over 5 pounds in weight approximately, and her heart rate is healthy. Oh, and my weight? I’m now at 140 lb. I never thought I’d see the day when the scale measured that high for my weight!! That means I have now gained about 23 pounds from pregnancy. All general measures say that a woman of average weight should gain between 25-35 pounds during pregnancy, so this seems okay. And luckily, she is still head down, as she has been since week 28, but she’s facing the front to my left side, and we want her facing my back for the easiest, speediest birth. So it’s likely I will need to do some forward leaning inversions to encourage her to get into the right position. All the things we must do to ensure baby and body are ready for labor…

Belly attention from a little boy

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I got into the elevator this morning to go down to the gym for my workout session, and my belly was clearly on full display. We’re at a point of the pregnancy now where it’s pretty hard to hide my pregnant stomach. And keep in mind that most of my workout tops are pretty loose fitted, yet despite that, the belly is *still* sticking out. In the elevator when I got in was a dad and his young son, who I later learned was 3.5 years old. As soon as the little boy saw me (or, well, my stomach), he broke out into a huge smile (that I could notice even with his mask on), and he immediately started patting my belly and hugging it with his short little arms. He then started repeating, “baby, baby,” and put his face into my stomach.

I thought this was the cutest, most adorable thing in the world. Granted, yes, there is something to be said about learning that touching a stranger, especially someone’s stomach, is kind of inappropriate, and this kid likely needs to learn about physical space and boundaries. But I couldn’t help but find this completely endearing and amusing. It was so heart warming. The dad was immediately mortified as you’d expect, and he lightly scolded the boy in Japanese to stop and to get away from me, which the boy reluctantly complied with. The dad then explained that the boy’s mom was pregnant with their second child, and that the boy really loved patting and holding the pregnant belly, so he was likely excited because of that when he saw my belly sticking out.

Oh, kids. They just do the darndest things.

Come from Away

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Tonight, my friend and I went to see the Broadway musical Come from Away, which is set during the week following the 9/11 terrorist attacks and tells the story of what happened when 38 planes were ordered to land unexpectedly in the small town of Gander in Newfoundland and Labrador in Canada due to U.S. airspace being shut down as part of Operation Yellow Ribbon. Those 38 planes consisted of over 7,000 passengers plus 19 animals in cargo, which doubled the population of the small town. That is really mind boggling to think of now.

My memory of what happened and the media reports around September 11, 2001, are quite hazy. It was the beginning of my sophomore year of high school. I understood that a terrorist attack had happened, but I didn’t quite understand the background and all the events that led up to it. I only really started paying attention and reading news regularly that year. But given what others have shared, it sounds like for the most part and based on what I remember, the vast majority of the reporting was on what happened with the World Trade Center towers and the Pentagon from the reports to the photographs, and relatively little was highlighted around these planes making emergency landings in Gander. But honestly, I wish I had known more about it then instead of learning about it 20 years later.

The musical showcases how everyday citizens of Gander welcomed these people from all over the world on these planes into their homes for meals, showers, and warmth simply because of the worldwide emergency that had erupted, just because of the kindness of their hearts. And it was just so heart warming to see this musical and see it on full display. And having visited Newfoundland and Labrador, I can definitely attest to the fact that it’s a beautiful Canadian province with warm, kind humans who do seem a bit different from other Canadians in accent and demeanor, but actually seem like better humans than the average American. I’m not really sure what would have happened if planes had diverted and landed somewhere in the U.S. Who knows how that would have ended up. But I think all these people who ended up in Gander were better off there than anywhere in U.S. territory.