‘Drinking for two’

One thing about pregnancy: everyone tells you to stay away from everything. Sometimes there’s good reason, with solid research to back it up. Sometimes there’s no evidence that moderate consumption of forbidden foods will harm the baby. And the biggest of the taboos is booze.

One thing is certain: drinking is a confusing and controversial choice for pregnant women, and among the hardest areas in which to interpret the research.

Numerous long-term studies, including the original one at the University of Washington at Seattle, have established beyond doubt that heavy drinkers are taking tremendous risks with their children’s health.

But for women who want to apply that research to the question of whether they must refuse a single glass of Champagne on New Year’s Eve or a serving of rum-soaked Christmas pudding, there is almost no information at all.

- New York Times, The Weighty Responsibility of Drinking for Two

Personally, I’ve stopped drinking, but I’m not going to freak out if I eat a chocolate and find it’s filled with liqueur, and I probably wouldn’t refuse a small portion of rummy pudding.

It was easy for me to quit the booze – the smell of wine and beer made me feel queasy fairly early on, and I haven’t wanted any since. I’ve heard that the later in the pregnancy, the less risk there is to the fetus from a glass of wine or beer, because most of the critical early brain development has already happened, but I still doubt I’ll choose to indulge.

I don’t blame other pregnant women from wanting a glass of wine now and then, especially with dinner. I never really noticed how unexciting the beverage choices are with dinner. I do not like to drink pop, and juice is more of a morning/afternoon bevvy for me. That just leaves me with water, tea, or (if I’m feeling fancy), Perrier. But tea has its own problems – I’m trying to limit caffeinenated beverages to two a day, and many restaurants don’t have herbal tea. Those that do usually have only chamomile or peppermint on offer. Wine with dinner is much more pleasant.

Update: UrbanMama is talking about the same thing, after having read this NYT article:

I feel like every pregnant mama tries to follow the American model of the Good Pregnant Woman: no beer or wine at all, no soft cheeses at all, no sushi, no this, no that, etc. I spent Thanksgiving week with my husband’s family, and with his side of the family being from Switzerland and a sister-in-law from France, it’s a whole different world of what’s acceptable and what is not. To them, I’m another case of the repressed American being freakishly overcautious due to media hysteria.

Perhaps it is because it’s my second child that I am more weary of the societal and cultural taboos that are pressed upon us mamas-to-be, and I’m not reading those damn pregnancy magazines or any of the books this time. I trust my doctor, and the other doctors I’ve spoken with…yet I am still fraught by the guilt that comes with crossing those lines – I love seafood, I love wine , I love Brie – and while I restrained from all during my first, I’ve come to realize what doctors have been telling me: that almost everything is fine in moderation. A recent article in the UK advocates a pregnant or nursing mama have no more than two pints of beer per week, and my doc says I can have a glass or two of wine a week and it would be safe.

Definitely a common feeling during pregnancy. Everyone has advice – and judgement – for you, no matter what you do.

Cutest alien baby ever!

My very own alien baby!

At my first ultrasound today, I learned several very important things:

• My baby’s heart is beating. I could see it on the ultrasound monitor, and the technician turned on the sound so I could hear. At the doctor’s visit last week he couldn’t hear it. He told me not to worry, but I did
• I have only one baby! No more ‘maybe it’s twins’ jokes! Phew.
• My baby really does look like an alien! It’s got the face of a classic Gray.

But the one piece of information I was hoping to know was denied me. It seems in B.C. they refuse to divulge any information about the sex of the baby until after the 25th week. I asked if it was to prevent gender-related abortion, and the technician confirmed that it is the main reason. It was disappointing, but I’m also glad that it opens up the opportunity for my husband could be there for the big reveal – he couldn’t make it to this appointment.

All the other mommies told me the ultrasound would be uncomfortable, because they order you to drink a litre of water and prohibit you from peeing for several hours ahead of the appointment. But the real shocker was that when I got there, they told me my bladder was too full, handed me a styrofoam cup and told me to pee ‘just this much’. Um, okay.

Thank goodness I’ve practiced my Kegels.

GamerDad: birthing class isn’t worth it

Taking a birthing class is just kind of expected, it seems. I’ve been reading the curriculum for some of the ones in my area, and I couldn’t help but wonder if they were really necessary, and how much I’d really get out of them.

Well, here’s one dad’s perspective:

Here’s what you’ll get at a typical birthing class:
• We practiced “breathing”. I don’t know why you need to practice this – you’ve breathed roughly 30 times a minute for something like 26 years at that point, if you haven’t mastered it by now maybe you have no business reproducing.
• We watched videos of real live births. These births had either taken place during the 70s, or were filmed at a commune someplace inhabited entirely by fat, hairy people with no inhibitions about parading around naked in front of a camera, and giving birth while they were being filmed. And fluid… there was more body fluids flying around during these births than a human body is actually capable of holding. I had the impression that several of these women actually gave birth to large water balloons, that, sadly, popped on delivery.
• They showed us around the labor/delivery ward of the hospital.
• They give you all kinds of advice. They show you all kinds of signs. They tell you thinks like the different phases of labor, how long contractions last at each sign, and when you should begin pushing. I found this rather disturbing – wouldn’t we be surrounded by people with actual medical careers who we could trust to know all this stuff and tell us what to do? Why do I need to know what a Braxton-Hicks contraction is, or how far the cervix dilates at each phase of labor? Was this a bad sitcom episode where we could expect to have to give birth in the back seat of a taxi or in an elevator that I’d need this information?
• They encouraged us to call. Call when you have contractions. Call when you THINK you have contractions. Call when you DON’T have contractions. Call when you’re not sure of something. Call when you have questions. Call when you’re lonely and need a friend. But above all, if there was anything you took away from the class, it was that you MUST CALL WHEN YOU THINK YOU’RE IN LABOR. They’ll tell you whether you’re REALLY in labor and should come in.

None of this was helpful.

Apparently everyone they called to see if they were in labour wondered why they were calling. She didn’t forget to breathe. And the nurses just seemed annoyed when he tried to make smalltalk about cervix dilation and timing between contractions. Oh and there was not nearly as much fluid as the ’70s vids seemed to show, and there was no problem finding the maternity ward at the hospital, what with all the marked signs.

Expecting

It’s strange to think about the baby growing inside me. Early on, when we first started to suspect, there were lots of symptoms – the nausea, the fatigue, the suddenly luscious breasts … but now that I’m into the second trimester, those symptoms have normalized and I feel pretty normal. The boobs are still bigger,  and I still do fall asleep by 10pm every night, but I’ve grown accustomed to these things. I know that pretty soon I’ll start to ’show’, but for the time being I guess it’s the lull before the swell – I look softer around the middle now, but it’s still within the ‘had too many chocolates?’ realm of weight gain. Close family and friends know about the baby, but pretty soon everyone will.

It sounds funny for a blogger to say, but it will feel strange to have such a personal experience on display for everyone to see. The personal experiences I reveal online are to a certain extent under my control. While there’s a limit to how much I can limit public access to the information I put out there, it all starts with the decision to post or not to post. When the belly comes I no longer have the choice to keep news of the baby to myself. Everyone from the drugstore cashier to the transit cop will know.

I can’t tell yet whether this will bother me, but as the weeks pass it’s increasingly on my mind. One of the big adjustments to this time in my life is that so many things that have been private experiences will be in view of others, from the ‘yup, I had sex’ belly to the birth to breastfeeding later. It’s a big change from the privacy I’ve enjoyed until now.