Assumptions

For ten to fifteen minutes, write as fast as you can anything and everything you assume to be true about pregnancy, labor, birth, and being a mother. 
-Birthing from Within, by Pam England and Rob Horowitz

Here we go... this is going to be the first stream of consciousness piece I have posted on this blog, and it makes me feel vulnerable to engage in this exercise here.  But I think it's an important party of my process of preparing to give birth.  I'll do my best not to edit or think about writing for an audience.

Everything I know to be true about pregnancy, labor, birth, being a mother... is basically that there is no recipe, no formula, no "normal" experience.  Everyone is unique and each person's relationship to these things is different.  In my own experience, I can say that I now know to be true that I can handle pregnancy comfortably (well, at least this one so far), and can actually enjoy the experience of growing a small human.  That's not something I believed about myself nine months ago.  I assume I will continue to have a healthy, manageable pregnancy through the next five to six weeks. 

Regarding labor... I think of myself as someone who is pretty independent, willful, self-determined and strong.  Or stubborn, narrow-minded, unwilling to accept help or support, especially when it feels like weakness.  However you want to frame it.  Yet at the same time, I know that I am pretty mousy when it comes to dealing with authority or other people in general.  I don't like to make a scene or cause trouble.  I follow rules pretty rigidly, even when I don't necessarily agree with them.  I am pretty passive when it comes to self-advocacy.  I like to be liked, to be "good." 

When it comes to my personal labor and birth experience, part of what I am assuming right now is that I will be "resigned" to the system.  In a hospital setting, I assume I will be unable to advocate for myself, that I will be more than willing to do what professionals suggest in the way of interventions, that I will be easily swayed even if internally I disagree with a decision.  Right now, going through the process of labor and birth feels daunting and even a little sad to me.  I'm not sure I have the strength or courage to go through it in a way that will make me feel powerful and in control.  I've read too many stories of people being disempowered by the system, influenced to go through interventions that ensure that they give birth in a way and on a timeline that makes sense for others.  Right now I'm assuming my experience will be similar.  I assume I will find the pain of labor and birth incredibly challenging to manage.  I assume I may have trouble accepting help and support from S or anyone else.  

On being a parent... I assume that I will feel connected to my child when he or she enters the world.  I assume the first few months will be challenging but manageable.  I assume that I will be a good parent.  I would like to be a great parent, one that approaches parenthood from a place of abundant love, hopefulness and creativity.  I assume I have the skill, patience, and capacity to raise my child in a way that feels right to me and consistent with my values.  I assume that I will need to work on expressing love and emotion very explicitly, more so than I am used to doing, to ensure that my child grows up secure and attached and confident.  I assume and hope that I will continue to have access to the resources (money, employment, time, shelter, safety, family support, community support) I need.  I assume that raising a child in a heteroqueer family will come with many privileges and challenges, especially as the child grows older and has to navigate complicated family and social systems.  I assume that S will be an incredible partner in the journey and will do an even better job than I at loving our child, fostering his or her imagination, raising him or her to be fierce and independent with a critical consciousness about injustice in the world.   

Becoming a Trans Dad

Post by S

Sing along...
"I am a boyish tranny
Getting ready 2 b a daddy
A little scared of getting a nanny
And once I had dreams of becoming a mommy"
LOL.

I am in the process of getting ready to become a parent ...a dad
And it's such a transforming experience ...I will be a transdad!
And I will share w my kid my memories of childhood
You know... when I was around 7 yr old... I used to play divorced mama! 
I don't deny my history as a woman...as a little girl who loved playing with dolls. 

I look forward to this experience of being a dad 
and my experience as a dad will be informed by my experiences in the world 
as a woman as a lesbian as a feminist as a transman as a man who knows what it means to have had menstruation, fear of breast cancer, or experiences of sexual harassment and sexism... 
a man who knows what it means to have my representation of masculinity questioned... 
a man who knows what it feels... 
how sad it feels and the responsibility that it implies to have the instant impact of causing fear when sharing the bus with a woman late at night...
and it all informs the kind of dad I will be. 

I am so looking forward to sharing with my child. 
To guiding them....
to supporting them...
to share in love, tenderness and compassion the amazing complexities of life and the lessons of gender and power and the importance of self-acceptance and gentleness towards ourselves and others! 
Oh my, I am so excited to be a dad!

Childbirth Class

S and I spent the weekend attending an intensive childbirth education class run by the hospital at which we were originally planning to give birth.  Walking into the room, the first thing we were struck by was that the class was composed entirely of couples.  Heterosexual, cisgender, mostly white couples (identities we assumed based on cursory observation).  No single people, no identifiable queer couples, few other POCs.  I took a deep breath and tried to remain open.

The nurse leading the class asked us to introduce ourselves, our due dates, and "what we are having" (side note: can I rant here about why so many nice, well-intentioned people ask "what I'm having" when they're really inquiring about whether or not I know the sex of the baby?  It's such a weird question!  I'm too polite to answer, "well, I hope I'm not having an elephant!"  But that's what I'm thinking.  The question irks me.)  Every woman in the room introduced herself, her husband (in the style of "we are Jane and John Smith") and identified the "gender" of their baby.  I introduced myself, my "partner" S (with a different last name than mine), and said we didn't know the sex of the baby.  Simple semantic differences that immediately marked us as the weirdos in the room.  Or so I hoped.  It's rare that we are in such a homogeneous, heterosexist space, and it was heavy and uncomfortable, especially since we pass as straight and folks tend to assume that the homogeneity means we're all on the same page (in this case, that we all identify as "moms" and "dads.")  Yet short of wearing t-shirts that say "we're here, we're queer," or a real opportunity to engage in meaningful conversation, it's sometimes hard to figure out how to out ourselves and our politics in such a setting.  So we rely on little cues.  Or I should say, I do.  At the end of the class, S, who is more direct and intentional than I, went to the instructor and straight up said, "I'm transsexual and really appreciate that you used the term "partner" rather than "husband" throughout the weekend.  Because you never know who is sitting in the room."

Overall, though, the class was good.  Very good.  The nurse was very much an advocate for the fact that nature is perfect, that our bodies are designed to know what to do during pregnancy and birth, that we can and should trust ourselves, and that non-pregnant partners are capable of supporting us through the birthing process.  I learned so much from her about the stages of labor, pain management options, what to expect from the process of giving birth in a hospital, postpartum self-care, and newborn care.  At times, it was disappointing for me to hear about the differences between the approaches of our first-choice hospital (for example, providing birthing balls in the labor room and allowing for the consumption of clear food and liquids during labor) and that of other hospitals in the city (bring your own birthing ball... maybe.  and consume nothing but ice chips throughout labor).  But I tried to keep in mind that ultimately, a hospital is a hospital, and even our first-choice hospital has as high of a c-section rate (29% - or 1 in 3 births!) as many others in the city.  No hospital setting - even a supposedly "baby-friendly" one - is going to allow me a huge degree of agency or self-determination in the process, no matter how much the nurse tried to portray the experience otherwise.

I came away from the weekend feeling much more informed, confident and prepared to ask my OB specific questions and to think concretely about what I want from my labor and birth experience.  The class was exactly the catalyst I needed to shift my mind into a place of focusing on my desires.  I haven't been able to stop thinking about it all since.

In fact, I've been feeling some serious urgency to perhaps flip our current birth plan on its head and maybe take an entirely different approach to bringing our little one into the world.  My mind is spinning, spinning, spinning.  I've made some phone calls.  Perhaps the fact that our hospital is closed is actually opening up more of an opportunity in our journey to parenthood than I originally thought.

33 Weeks and My Shoes Don't Fit

Walking home from the train last night, I began to realize one of the reasons I haven't been writing much lately is because I'm becoming a bit emotionally distant from this pregnancy.  It's a self-protective thing.  Suddenly the weeks are flying by, and as my due date draws near I'm starting to get nervous.  Scared, in fact.  My life is about to change dramatically in ways I can't even begin to anticipate.  I know I can handle it, I know I want it.  And still, time feels like it's moving too fast.

I've been coping by avoiding my emotional self.  I haven't really been connecting with the little one, thinking about giving birth, or grounding myself to get ready for this next big moment in my life.  Sure, I've been preparing.  Logistically.  By dealing with "stuff."  Organizing stuff, buying stuff, planning stuff, reading stuff, thinking about stuff.  I am constantly busy and moving at a million miles an hour.  There is so much to DO DO DO during the next few weeks, and too few days left in which to do them. Only nine / eight / seven weeks left!  I still have energy!  Must buyacarseat / packahospitalbag / getnursingbras / cookandfreezemeals / findapediatrician and on and on and on.

Yet at 33 weeks, it seems that my body just won't let me keep moving forward in this disconnected manner.  During the past few days, I've been feeling noticeably more tired.  Two days ago I came home from work and my hands and feet were painfully swollen.  This morning I woke up and found out that none of my shoes fit.  I desperately tried on pair after pair in a frustrated attempt to figure out what the heck to wear in the bitter cold.  I couldn't build a warm, work-appropriate outfit with barely any clothes that accommodate my growing belly and no damn shoes!

So I started crying.  10 minutes before I had to leave the house.  Not the most opportune moment for my pent-up emotions to emerge, but I was triggered and it was hard to stop feeling the enormity of my body's physical changes.  I finally rushed to the train in a pair of widely-laced sneakers, forcing back tears, my mind spinning.  I know I need to slow down, breathe, meditate, feel.  I want to start thinking about the birthing process, to envision how I want it to look, to express my needs and desires, to prepare my mind and heart go through such an enormous, life changing experience.  I hope I can create the time for myself to do the emotional work.  But first, I have to go out and buy myself a pair of new shoes.

My New Normal, Part II

It has been a month of half-written posts - about the election, about watching Ricki Lake's film The Business of Being Born and beginning to think about my own process of giving birth, about the baby shower my family threw for us, about taking a healthy pregnancy class.  It has been a very busy month and I've grown more tired with each passing week.  Most nights I don't feel like turning the computer on to write.  But I miss the process of writing, and there is so much I want to document for myself and for our little one as the weeks fly rapidly by.  Tomorrow I will be 32 weeks pregnant.  8 months along.  Our little one will be here unbelievably soon.

One of the most valuable tidbits I've picked up during this past month came from the aforementioned healthy pregnancy class.  The nurse leading the class started off by saying, "it's good to have a plan.  And a plan B.  And then, you need a backup plan, a contingency plan, and then you'll realize that many aspects of parenthood are totally unpredictable and all your plans will go out the window."

It was a direct reference to the fact that as a result of superstorm Sandy, the hospital where we plan to give birth is actually closed.  It could be weeks, it could be months, before the hospital re-opens.  When I spoke to my OB about the situation in mid-November, she said they were temporarily delivering at a hospital uptown.  I laughed to myself, realizing it was the same hospital with which we had originally considered working.  I began to prepare emotionally.  I needed to be flexible enough to deliver at either hospital, and to perhaps not know at which one we would actually end up until a week or two prior to giving birth.

Today, I had another visit with my OB.  She let me know that they are now delivering at a different hospital, located downtown.  While it's certainly closer to where we live, I don't know anything about their approaches or policies.  The news threw me for a loop.   It now seems our original plan to work with a hospital which is known for its newborn rooming-in policy, breastfeeding support, and allowing partners to stay overnight have indeed "gone out the window."  Rumors say our hospital may not open until February, if not later.

Between this news and the fact that my office building also may not re-open before it is time for me to go on parental leave, it has been an interesting few weeks.  I'm someone who relies heavily on planning and predictability for my personal wellness.  Yet life seems intent on teaching me that there isn't much in life that's actually in my control.  And while it's not entirely comfortable, I'm actually doing ok with the uncertainty in my life right now.  I'm just grateful that despite all the logistical challenges, I still have a job I love and an OB I trust to help us bring our little one into the world as safely as possible.  Perhaps there are important reasons for these changes in our plans.

My New Normal

It has been a weird couple of weeks.  My office building was impacted by superstorm Sandy and we haven't yet been able to return to the space.  So we've been working from home and in temporary offices scattered around the city, trying to piece together some semblance of routine despite not really being prepared with the tools we need to work remotely.    

For me, working from home has mostly been an great blessing during this third trimester.  I've never worked from home before, and always thought I would be someone who couldn't freelance or telecommute for lack of discipline.  What I've learned about myself during the past two weeks is that, in fact, I am really good at establishing boundaries and routines for myself when I'm held accountable to a job.  It's not like being in school, sitting at the library and procrastinating on writing a paper.  I've actually been waking up at a regular time, eating and taking breaks on a schedule, starting work earlier and focusing when I'm at my desk, and even finding time to exercise and take care of household tasks in ways that are much harder to do when I have to commute two hours each day.  Not having to take the crowded train and deal with the stress of being pushed around and finding a seat has been simply wonderful.  The few days I have had to go into the city I've realized how much I'm enjoying the escape from the rat race while pregnant.  Being home has vastly improved my quality of life.

I do miss being in an office and seeing my colleagues, and generally, I think I'm someone who thrives on being a part of an office culture.  I look forward to being back in our building at some point.  But for now, my new normal has left me more well-rested than I've been in a long time, something I've appreciated as I've been getting more achy and tired with each passing week.  The ability to feel, massage, and talk with our super active little one throughout each day has been a great perk of working from the privacy of home.

Entering the Third Trimester

A week has passed since the "superstorm" ravaged many areas of our city.  A long week.  While we have continually been giving thanks for our many blessings (housing, warmth, food, water, health, safe family and friends), it has been a time of intense reflection and bearing witness to the suffering of our neighbors.  A week of feeling angry and frustrated in the face of enormous economic and racial inequity.  A week of feeling heartbroken and sick when hearing about the injustices and inefficiencies propagated by our local governments and multinational corporations.  A week of feeling mostly helpless and trying to find small inroads into communities and networks from which we are ultimately so disconnected.  While I have been inspired by the remarkable grassroots efforts to support the recovery of the most devastated neighborhoods, no donation made or number of cans collected or volunteer shift served seems like enough.  In many ways I felt paralyzed and wasn't able to figure out how or where to meaningfully contribute to or participate in physical relief efforts while pregnant and without access to transportation.  So I mostly turned my focus inwards.

With unplanned time away from our jobs, S and I used last week to work on some of the household preparations for our little one that we had been hoping to get done during our limited weekend time; building storage closets, cleaning, sorting out and getting rid of clutter, planning and making the decor for the nursery corner of our bedroom.  We were able to find the space and time to connect with each other; to rest and relax and heal from the exhaustion, burnout and routine of our typically busy day-to-day lives.  We hosted a little brunch at our home over the weekend and enjoyed quality time with our queer neighbors.

We were unexpectedly "nesting" during the very week we began the third trimester of our pregnancy (28 weeks and counting...!)  As a result, my stress and anxiety about getting everything done before the little one arrives has significantly subsided; I feel SO much better and more prepared to manage the rest of this pregnancy.  I feel well-rested.  I've been trying to trust that this week was a gift of time that was okay for me to receive.  And yet heart still aches for those from whom time was the very least of what was ripped away.