Pregnancy Update: Week 26

by Camille Posted on April 28, 2013

As I write this we are 13 hours away from jetting off to Cancun for our very first babymoon.

What is a babymoon, you ask?

It’s like a honeymoon but you take it before you have your first baby because it’s the last time until retirement you’ll be able to go somewhere just the two of you without having to arrange child care. It’s a trip you take while you still have time. It’s a last hurrah.

I know I sound like parenthood is going to end my life. And in a way, it kind of is. That is, my life AS I HAVE HERETOFORE KNOWN IT will be over. I will still have a life, of course, but it will be so hugely and unimaginably altered that I can only think of it as some kind of death and rebirth. Childless Camille will never exist again. That person will be gone. Things will change. Permanently.

Maybe it won’t be that drastic. Maybe I will like the changes. I don’t know. I can’t say because I’ve never been there before. All I do know is that it will be different and I am more than a little scared.

But enough of that. Want to see my stomach?

20130428-211221.jpg

That’s me at 26 weeks (or 6.5 months for those of you who get annoyed with pregnancy counts in weeks). I am officially due on August 2.

At 26 weeks random strangers have started asking me when I’m due. I half want to be mean and act like I’m not pregnant at all, but my aversion to awkward situations prevents me from doing so every time.

No stranger has tried touching my stomach yet but two different little kids did. That was weird. And everybody knows it’s not nice to slap a kid especially in public so there wasn’t much I could do about it.

Jokes.

Ish.

At 26 weeks pregnant I have extreme pregnancy bacne which has now made the glorious transition into chestne which is just as awful as it sounds. Luckily my facene has diminished significantly, a feat I attribute solely to my use of Jane Iredale’s Magic Mitt to wash my face. I think it really is infused with magic.

At 26 weeks I officially weigh in at 194 lbs. I’m telling you this because if I was ever slimmer than you, it should make you very happy indeed to know how far I’ve fallen. And if I was always thicker than you, well, whoop de do. I look at that number and it blows my mind. I weigh more than I ever have, by nearly 20 pounds in fact. And I thought it was bad 20 pounds ago.

No need to reassure me I “look great” or it will all “fall off” or any of that. I’m not fishing for compliments or sympathy or anything at all, really. I’m just telling you because I thought you might like to know. I’m trying to distance myself mentally from my weight because stressing about it just makes me want to eat more Rice Krispy Squares and I’m pretty sure that’s what got me into this mess in the first place. That, and unprotected sex.

Also at 26 weeks I have a fair bit of lower back pain. I am still tired all the time. I have a really hard time sitting up from a reclined position and don’t bother asking me to get up from the couch unless you plan on giving me a push, because it’s necessary.

No cankles yet and since I bet you don’t believe me here’s proof:

20130428-212439.jpg

No (new) stretch marks yet either but sorry you don’t get a picture of that shiz. You’ll just have to trust me.

Poor Kyle, in true Poor Kyle fashion, is half sympathetic and half completely clueless about how much sympathy I actually expect from him, but really can you blame him: Almost every person I know is clueless about the expectations I have of them. It’s not them it’s me.

He is very generous with his back rubs. He empties the dishwasher regularly. He doesn’t grumble much at all when I come home with yet another garbage bag full of baby clothes from thrift stores or yard sales or Kijiji. He talks to the baby every day. He is so excited to be a dad it sometimes makes me want to cry.

And in a bizarre and unforeseen display of unity, he has vowed not to shave his beard or cut his hair until the baby comes or maybe ever.

20130428-213023.jpg

This to you I swear: never in the history of humankind has there been a man so proud of a beard and a mane as Poor Kyle is of his.

I don’t like facial hair and never have, but I cannot begrudge a man this joy.

Posted in Married Life, pregnancy | Tagged , , | 6 Comments

Nomenclature

by Camille Posted on April 8, 2013

The baby is a boy. (This will come as no surprise to you if you follow me on Instagram, where I also post fairly regular photos of my ever-growing midsection. It’s not pretty. But you’re welcome to join me if you’d like.)

If all goes according to plan he will be in our arms in exactly four months give or take a week or so.

It’s rough trying to choose a name that both Poor Kyle and I like. There are several that I’ve had on standby for many years (Holden and Brighton stand out as my two longtime favourites), but Poor Kyle hates them all.

There are a few that are a little less unique that we both like (Oliver and Porter to mind), but we know so many kids with those names that just can’t do it. It’s not like we are bound and determined to choose a name that nobody’s ever heard of before…it’s just that we don’t want our kid to be one of four Olivers in his class (like the Jakes and the Matts and the Adams of my generation).

We finally found a boy name that we both liked a few months ago, and we were pretty dead set on it until we found out officially that our baby is, in fact, a boy. Because then it became real, and I started having second thoughts: It’s a big responsibility, choosing a name for a person. I almost feel like I don’t have a right to do it. I mean, who am I to declare what name this tiny person should be called? His mother, sure, but WHAT DOES THAT REALLY MEAN?? I grew him in my stomach for nine months? So what? Does that really give me a right to choose what the whole world will call him? And so early, too! What if his personality turns out to be completely different than the name we give him? What if it doesn’t match at all? Will he live his whole life feeling like a John when he has to answer to a name completely different? Will he feel like he’s living a lie?

And moreover, doesn’t every little kid hate his name anyway? I hated mine for years. My mom told me once that when she was pregnant with me they were torn between naming me Camille and Kara, and I was DEVASTATED because they’d so clearly made the wrong choice. I demanded to be called Kara for an entire summer just to spite them.

Then later on, when Kara didn’t take, I decided to work with what I had. Instead of choosing a new name altogether I decided just to use my real name as a base. I decided Cammie was a good enough name—better than Camille anyway—and for the better part of my sixth grade year I went by that.

Even Poor Kyle proudly admits to this day that he hated the name Kyle and he always wished he’d been called Spike.

So clearly we’re doomed to disappoint this boy no matter what name we choose for him, and the one we like is a little bit “out there” to boot. (It’s not totally made up like Zimmy, and it’s nothing super whacky like Sir Lancelot or Mr. Mistoffelees or anything like that, but it’s not a first name I’ve ever heard before and I do realise that uncommon names have the power to make or break a kid. He could wear it well, turn out super cute and confident and be the envy of all his friends; or he could be a super nerd and his name could become just one more thing he hates about his life.)

The pressure is too much for me. I love this child so much and I don’t think I can bear to ruin his life like this (if in fact he decides his name has ruined his life). Can’t we just call him “Number One” until he gets old enough to decide on one for himself?

How does anybody ever choose a baby name?

Posted in Married Life, mediocrity, oh brother what next, Poor Kyle, pregnancy, what a nightmare, woe is me | Tagged | 7 Comments

Whether or Not to Find Out the Baby’s Sex

by Camille Posted on March 13, 2013

whether or not to find out the baby's sex

TOMORROW IS OUR ULTRASOUND!

This is exciting for two reasons:

Reason #1: At almost 20 weeks, long after my iPhone’s baby app said I would likely be feeling my baby moving around inside of me, I have STILL not felt anything definitive. Nothing at all (besides round ligament pains, i.e. really painful cramps in my lower abdomen) that feels in any way different than my stomach feels normally. The obvious conclusion, then, that an overthinking, overstressing, overworrying lunatic like myself would come to is that my baby is dead.

Yes. Dead. My baby is dead inside of me and has been dead for the last 4 weeks, ever since the last day we heard its heartbeat.

Obviously the chances of this are unlikely, but there it is. In my mind, the absence of movement is clearly death.

[Tangent: Although I do look forward to feeling the baby move inside me insofar as it indicates the baby’s live-ness, there is a HUGE part of me that dreads it because quite frankly it grosses me out. There. I said it. IT GROSSES ME OUT. The idea of a living organism, A LIVING HUMAN inside of my very own self unsettles me to literally no end. If there were any other way to bring a child into this world besides having it grow inside me, I would do it. If you think that makes me an unfit mother, go ahead and keep judging me. I hate you right back.]

[Oversensitive much? Yes. Yes I am.]

Still, for all my queasiness at the thought of a growing organism in my self, a growing one is still better than a dead one. You might think me cruel, talking about dead babies so casually, but trust me: it’s a defense mechanism. I’ve had terrible nightmares lately that my baby is sitting there dead in my womb, and it’s been just awful.

Reason #2: I am almost at week 20 of this pregnancy. For those of you who don’t know, that means I’m almost halfway through and this will be my first ultrasound of the pregnancy. In Canada, where healthcare is socialized (i.e. free but we pay higher taxes for it), they make pregnant women wait until around week 20 to have their first ultrasound (as long as everything else checks out okay with the baby up to that point).

That means pregnant women in America, the land of the free (but expensive healthcare), who are due well after me have known for weeks now whether their baby is a girl or boy.

I feel gypped. Needless to say.

And in case you were wondering, it was never even a consideration whether or not to find out the baby’s sex. We are.

(Tangent: One time in college I took a class on Sexuality. Seriously. That’s what it was called. Sexuality 101. Can you imagine? Me? The prudeness? In a class? On SEXUALITY? It was the most awkward semester of my life.

During one particular unit, Sexuality and Culture, we learned that “sex” is a biological term and “gender” is a cultural term. That is, the SEX (biological term, i.e. female/male) of a person is determined by chromosomes, while the GENDER (cultural term, i.e. feminine/masculine) is determined by society. In other words, I might be biologically female but I could identify socially with masculinity.

The whole point of this being that technically speaking, ultrasounds do not reveal the GENDER of the baby—for how could a photo reveal whether the baby will identify as feminine or masculine—but instead the SEX of the baby.

Therefore, as one of the few snobberisms I allow myself in life, I have come to view it as very much a pet peeve when people say “Are you going to find out the gender of the baby?” instead of “the sex of the baby,” which happens quite regularly because what normal person WOULD say that awkward word “sex” when, in most people’s minds, the less embarrassing word is clearly “gender?”

I always want to reply, “The world may never know the gender of this child, but the sex we would definitely like to know.”)

One girl I work with said she chose not to find out the sex of her babies in advance. She said it was because there are so few surprises in life that she wanted to enjoy what ones she had.

At first I thought her reasoning sound, but then I realised it bore two fundamental flaws:

Firstly, that the sex of the baby can be only one of three things: male, female, or transsexual. It’s not like I’m randomly going to give birth to a sea turtle or some bizarre creature the world has never known. So how surprised can I really be? Male, female, or a little of each. SURPRISE!

Baby Sea Turtle Silhouette

And secondly, that what little element of surprise *might* exist in a revelation with only three potential outcomes can still exist at 20 weeks just as profoundly as it might at 40 (or 38 because we’re thinking happy thoughts here). Just because I intend to find out five months before the baby is born doesn’t mean it will be any less thrilling than if I’d waited until the very moment it shoots out of my wide open crotch.

On top of all this, I have baby crap to buy. And while I certainly don’t intend to dress a daughter all in pink or a son in solely blue, I nevertheless plan on buying some gender-specific items for the child. Think headbands for a girl or teeny baby jock straps for a boy. One can never be too safe.

Posted in ask me anything, awesome., pregnancy | Tagged , , | 12 Comments

Five Things. Mostly About Babies.

by Camille Posted on March 5, 2013

Here is a list of things I like today:

1. This picture of my niece. I know she looks grumpy here but actually she’s not. It’s a hilarious picture, at least to my biased aunt-ish eyes. It makes me want to make a meme:

Grumpy Baby Picture

Come to think of it, why can’t I make a meme? Just because I’ve never made one before doesn’t mean I never should! Yes! Yes I will make a meme! I will make a meme NOW!

Cute Baby Meme

I don’t know, what do you think? It’s not very good. I’m not a very good meme-maker. I always fancy myself hilarious until I have to write a funny caption for a photo, and then I’m like… “uh…why did the…uh…chicken…uh…why did the chicken peck at the ground?”

Lame.

2. This picture of my husband, Poor Kyle, holding my non-grumpy niece. He is so precious with babies I can’t hardly stand it:

Poor Kyle Holding a Baby

3. This other picture of my niece, taken a few months later, proving that a) she’s really not at all grumpy and b) I am missing her entire life and am therefore the worst auntie that ever lived:

Grinning Baby

I showed the above photo to my coworker today and she said, “That is a baby who wants for nothing.” I couldn’t agree more. Look at that grin! Her life is bliss!

4. The following possible name for our unborn baby:

Sassafras Fairbanks.

SASSAFRAS FAIRBANKS!!! Can you imagine?? Is that not the most epic baby name you ever heard?

I almost have the balls to do it but then I’m like, no. No balls. What if our baby has a big bum and Sassafras becomes some kind of dirty nickname? I can’t handle the pressure.

But I still think it sounds awesome. Somebody please name your baby Sassafras for me?

5. These three photos of a winter drive Poor Kyle and I took a few weekends ago. We were being spontaneous. We hopped in the truck one Sunday afternoon with an overnight bag and our passports and headed to Kalispell, Montana. The drive down was a little stormy and blizzard-y but between the nerve-wracking bits were other bits of wintery bliss:

Winter Drive to Kalispell Montana photo copy photo

It was an awesome little jaunt, highlighted by meals at restaurants without needing to pack a diaper bag or worry about noisy children. Highlighted by sleeping a whole night through in the most luxurious bed we’ve ever known, waking up at 9:30 to sunlight streaming through the curtains. Highlighted by driving the whole way there and back without stopping once for potty breaks. Highlighted by sheer, unadulterated carefree freedom.

In case you couldn’t tell, I feel these numbered days slipping away from me and I’m trying my hardest to make them count.

I’m not saying I won’t love my baby.

I’m just saying I won’t love it as much as I love my sleep.

Posted in pregnancy, thisandthat | Tagged , | 5 Comments

Pregnancy Update: Week 17

by Camille Posted on February 25, 2013

Back when I announced I was pregnant I sort of expected that people would be annoyed by pregnancy update posts. I didn’t plan on writing too many of them for fear of alienating what few readers I had left (after my months-long hiatus).

But the feedback was more or less positive, and people keep asking me questions about how it’s going and how I’m feeling and how I’m looking (the answer is not good, BTW), so I guess it’s not quite so divisive a topic as I thought.

I don’t think I’ll write a weekly update because nothing seems to change that often, but we’ll see.

So. I’m 17 weeks pregnant and I look like this, stringy hair and all:

Pregnancy 17 Weeks

 

I feel stupid even posting that photo because there’s not much to see. I don’t have much of a bump going on, but I have gained 10-ish pounds and my jeans don’t button comfortably anymore. I have an ever-growing double chin and my muffin top is Costco-sized. I’m normally not the type to wish for more weight gain, but I’ll be glad when my stomach actually starts to look pregnant so that I don’t have to walk around just feeling fat…I’ll have a valid, visible excuse.

Here are some 17-week stats for all the pregnancy nerds out there:

• Size of Baby: 5.5 inches (about the size of a sweet potato according to my apps)

• Weight of Me: 169 lbs

• Pukes: 0 (knock on wood)

• Face Pimples: 152

• Upper Back/Shoulder Pimples: 151

• Stomach Cramps When I Cough/Sneeze/Blow My Nose: Countless, starting since basically Day One.

• Times I’ve Forgotten I Am Pregnant: 2

• Weird (but happy) Pregnancy Dreams: 12

• Weird Pregnancy Nightmares: 1 (being shot in my head through a window point-blank)

• Times People Have Asked Me How I’m Feeling: 100

• Times I’ve Lost My Temper At Work Over the Stupidest Stuff Ever: 10+

• Rice Krispie Treats Consumed: 20

• Rice Krispie Treats Tried Not To Consume: 19

• Foods That Gross Me Out: Romaine lettuce, specifically in Caesar Salads

• Baby Items Purchased: 2

• Maternity Items Purchased: 3

• Nervous Breakdowns: 1

So there you have it. Basically everything notable that’s changed about me in the last 17 weeks.

I’m feeling very few symptoms of pregnancy besides the stomach cramps (apparently they’re actually “round ligament” cramps, caused by the growing and shifting of my innards) and my never-ending pimples, and a perpetually stuffy nose, which I kind of had before anyway. I know a lot of pregnant or formerly-pregnant women probably want to kill me when I say that I haven’t been very sick, and trust me: I feel guilt commensurate with the crime.

Maybe the following picture of one of my many terrible pregnancy pimples will make you feel better:

Pregnancy Pimple FTW

I’m smiling in this photo of my pregnancy pimples because it’s the best way to hold back the tears.

Posted in change, family, I hate change, Married Life, pregnancy, woe is me | Tagged , , | 6 Comments

Siblinghood

by Camille Posted on February 24, 2013

Women only [call each other sister] when they have called each other a lot of other things first. —Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest

Spring Banner

Did I ever tell you I was blessed with the World’s Greatest Sister? All of you have sisters whom you probably love, and I’m sure they’re great, but they couldn’t possibly hold a candle to my own sister. She’s seriously the best.

I suspect reading this will warm my mother’s heart, especially since she probably worried when we were children that she was raising the World’s Most Violent Sisters. In the absence of any brothers to roughhouse with, my sister and I fought like cats and dogs. Not only with vicious words (though we used those too), but also with our hands. And our fists. And our feet. Hair pulling was involved. As was biting (though as we got older we moved away from that arguably immature move). Doors slammed. Doors slammed on each others’ hands. Doors slammed on each others’ faces. Doors slammed so hard my dad took our bedroom doors off their hinges for a spell.

We fought so hard we literally knocked holes in more than one wall in our house.

(Ironically, those holes always brought us back together as sisters. They had to. We had to unify to figure out a clever way to either patch them or hide them from our parents. The holes made us forget about whatever offense we’d had with the other. We were a regular pair of idyllic Olsen twins when holes were involved [think Olsen twins circa the cute made-for-TV detective movies, not Olsen twins circa the creepy hooker eye makeup and eating disorders and wild affairs with Heath Ledger].)

(My sister’s biggest failing in my eyes, back then, was that she wasn’t my twin. I always wanted to be a twin. I dreamt about it daily—almost as often as I dreamt of being sent away to a private boarding school in England. [Hollywood’s biggest failing in my eyes, back then and even today, is using one Lindsay Lohan twice for the remake of The Parent Trap instead of two Olsen twins once. Some wounds time cannot heal.])

So but anyway we fought. Crazily. I bet there were days my mom cried herself to sleep with worry that we would never be a happy pair, that we would hate each other until the day we died, that we would never get to have cheerful family vacations or later on in life, reunions. I can’t really say that I blame her. We were horrible to each other.

It all changed around the year we were both in the same junior high together. She was entering ninth grade and I was just starting seventh. The week before that school year started, we each got our $100 of back-to-school clothes buying money. We went shopping together and deduced, very Olsen-twin-like if you ask me, that $200 could buy more clothes that $100. We were roughly the same size (actually we weren’t at all: she had way bigger b00bs than I did and my legs were much longer than hers, but we made it work), so we pooled our money and bought twice the amount of clothes that we could both wear.  It was a breakthrough.

I had a few friends of my own, but hers were older and therefore cooler, and she always let me hang out with them on weekends when they came over to our house. She never complained that I was cramping her ninth-grade style, and she even laughed at my jokes when I thought I was being hilarious and awesome. She took me under her wing and helped me run for student council, writing me a winning speech and advising me *not* to put a picture of myself on my flyers, since that was just asking to get them defaced with moustaches and blacked-out teeth. She watched out for me. It was a bonding time for us.

Of course the first time I got armpit stains on her favourite sweater or the first time she wore the Doc Martins to picture day when she KNEW I WANTED TO WEAR THE DOC MARTINS ON PICTURE DAY we were back to blows, but it was different. We were tamer. The previous passion we’d had for hurting each other had sizzled into nothing more than a formality, and over the years dissolved altogether.

I can safely say now that I would sooner hurt myself a hundred times than hurt my sister in any way.

Tulip Sisters

And that is why I hope we have more than one child semi-close together. I think everyone should have a built-in friend like that.

 

Posted in family, in all seriousness, introspection, It's All Good, looking back, The Original Archives | Tagged , | 1 Comment

Every Pity Needs a Party

by Camille Posted on February 11, 2013

In my prenatal class the other night (yes I’m taking prenatal yoga, it’s my childhood yuppie dream come true), while chatting with my fellow pregnant classmates before class started, the topic of registering (i.e. for baby gifts) came up.

Classmate: Are you guys going to register at Toys R Us? It seems kind of lame but that’s really all there is in this town for baby stuff.

Other Classmate: Yeah, I was thinking about it.

Other Classmate: Probably.

Me: I’m not. I mean, if I was registering at all, I probably would, but I’m not registering for anything.

Classmates: …

Me (realising I probably sounded snobbish and deciding to clarify): It’s not that I don’t believe in registering. I think it’s brilliant. It’s just that I’m not having a baby shower.

Classmate: Oh, why not?

Me (even as the words left my lips wishing I could lasso them back to my throat and swallow them, never to be spoken again in their awkwardness): Because nobody would come.

Classmates: (Exclamations ranging in various degrees of pity and sad-for-me-ness.)

Me (again realising I needed to explain further, as I was making myself out to be a sympathy-seeking pity-partier): No, no, it’s not like that. It’s just that I’m not from here originally and I only have, like, two friends, and any baby shower that anybody threw me would be out of pity and people I didn’t even know would come and it would be, like, super awkward. [Not entirely unlike this conversation.]

Quickly and deftly like Catwoman (except two sentences too late) I changed the subject to “It’s a Shame Target Isn’t Officially in Canada Yet; I Would Definitely Register There If I Could,” and the awkwardness was over.

But then class started and instead of channeling my root chakra all I could think about was the awkward conversation.

Here’s the thing: I do not want a baby shower.

I have made everyone I know—relatives, in-laws, coworkers and friends—promise me that they won’t throw me one. In my snootier days, I even vowed that I would not have children until I could afford to buy them yuppie baby crap all on my own without relying on a baby shower for anything. Of course I’m nowhere near as rich as I thought I’d be by the time I got pregnant, but the fact remains: I don’t like parties thrown in my honour. I find them horrendously uncomfortable.

When I was engaged I had two people throw me the most spectacular bridal showers imaginable—they worked so hard and I love them for it—and even though I use many of those generous gifts to this day, I can’t help but recall the guilt I felt knowing those people were obliged to spend money or effort on me—to take time out of their busy and waste it on me.

At the end of the day I perceive all difficult situations through my own lens of experience, which experience is this: I don’t like spending my own spare time or money on other random people out of obligation, so I expect that other people won’t like to spend their spare time or money on me.

You’ve been there. Don’t act all holier-than-thou, claiming never to have been there. We’ve ALL been there: It’s the night of some social function or other. You’ve worked yourself to the bone all day. You even went grocery shopping, the world’s most treacherous chore. You finally got a minute to flop on the couch with your iDevice and chill, when a reminder pops up on your screen: “Reminder 6:00-8:00 p.m. Super Awkward Social Function In Honour Of Someone You Don’t Know/Don’t Like; You’ll Be Expected to Shower and Change Out of Your Stretchy Pants; You’ll Have to Spend Money on a Gift and Wrap it Cuter Than Everyone Else’s; You’ll Probably See Your Husband’s Annoyingly Skinny Ex-Girlfriend There; The Food Will Be Divine But You’ll Be Too Self-Conscious to Eat As Much As You Want; Small Talk is Required; Also You Have a Pimple.”

Seriously? Nobody likes those things. Not you, not me, not anyone.

And, pitiful though it sounds, it’s not a lie when I say I have, like, two friends here. Aside from Kyle’s family and a couple friends from church, I do not know anybody well enough to invite them to a party in my honour.

This is not a sad thing. I LIKE IT THIS WAY. I am antisocial and cranky by nature. I’ve crafted, shaped, molded my life exactly this way because it’s how I function best: with very few emotional investments. I’ve made my anti-social bed and I will gladly lie in it.

So no, I’m not registering at Toys R Us or Buy Buy Baby or Target or Zappos or Amazon.com. Yes, I’ll have to buy my kid’s own crap, but that’s what I signed up for. I’ve had to lower my expectations considerably to stay within our budget (goodbye $1,000 stroller, goodbye 100% organic bamboo sleepwear, goodbye Pottery Barn upholstered glider+ottoman combo), but I’m good with that. It’s amazing what people are selling secondhand these days, and we all know that babies are only babies for a very short time, so most secondhand baby gear is in excellent used condition.

I suspect to normal, socially inclined women I sound mean and heartless but I write this post with the sincerest intentions: please please PLEASE don’t throw me a baby shower.

Posted in Canada, change, do what I say, It's All Good, Married Life, mediocrity, mondays suck, pregnancy | Tagged , , | 14 Comments