We had a fascinating discussion on race and on what ‘being an American” means at my job the other day.  Prompted by a co-worker’s sociology essay, the discussion of ‘what makes a person African-American vs. black’ spread out to a discussion of values and labels and stereotypes.

This discussion was possible – or at least interesting – because I work in Queens, which is the most ethnically diverse concentration of people in the United States – hell, possibly in the world.  My co-workers include a Malaysian woman; an Uzbekistanian Jewish woman; a woman from Hong Kong; A woman from Canton; a woman & a man from Haiti; a Pakistani Muslim man; two African-American women who grew up really poor in the Bronx; a young woman from Yemen; a German guy; an Italian woman, two devoutly Catholic women from Columbia; a woman from Romania, several men and women from Puerto Rico – mostly Jehovah’s Witnesses – & the Dominican Republic; an Albanian girl; a woman from Minsk and a man from a teeny Russian village whose name I don’t remember; a Queens-born Jewish man; and me – whitebread mutt from Southwestern America.  All of whom are now American citizens and most of whom had to work really hard to become so.  Needless to say, the different feelings about race and identity were fascinating.

• The Haitians resent being called “African-American”, because they identify as Americans of Carribbean ancestry.  Or just plain ‘black’.
• One of the older African-American women from the Bronx describes herself as “an extremely dark-skinned white lady” because she identifies more, culturally, with mainstream Martha-Stewart America than with what’s popularly portrayed as “black culture” in New York.
• The Chinese women are tired of being called “Asians,” or even as being lumped together as Chinese – the woman from Canton grew up speaking an entirely different language than the others, and the woman from Hong Kong feels like she has more in common with the Malaysian woman, who’s from Singapore, than with the Chinese women – who are from rural villages – even though they all speak Mandarin in public.
• The South American & Uzbekistani women spoke mostly of how frustrating it was for people to assume they were Mexican or Russian.
• The German guy has a lot of pride in his heritage, but gets irritated by the Nazi comments.
• The young woman from Yemen is about as “all-American” a girl as you could imagine, only she wears a headscarf and long skirts over her blue-jeans every day to work.
• The Pakistani guy is sick to death of being teased about being a terrorist.
• The Albanian girl just received her American citizenship yesterday, and she’s over-the-moon excited over it.
• The Russian guy gets twitchy when people ask him if he knew the spies who were just arrested.
• The folks from Puerto Rico are more distinctive for their religious practices than for their culture-of-origin, and the guy from DR is sick of being mistaken for Puerto Rican.  Or JW.  Because he’s not.  Not at all.

At the end of the day, they’re all American and that’s how they’d prefer to be identified.  They’ve held onto their first languages & favorite foods (& let me tell you that potluck dinners in Queens tend to be instances of gastronomic glory!) but they’re Americans, and they work hard to be American – whatever that means to each of them at any given time, and no matter what other people might think ‘being American’ is or should be.  It’s a definition that’s broad enough to encompass just about everyone who wants to be encompassed, and for me, that’s what’s absolutely and totally the best about this country.

It’s not something I’ve ever applied too much to myself, though, because my ancestors have been here since approximately forever; plus I look like your basic, European-heritage person: brown-hair,brown-eyes,beige skin.  No one ever asks me where I’m from, or where my parents are from because, honestly, they expect it’s somewhere er, boring.

Which is fine – Phoenix is kind of boring, especially compared to a childhood spent raising camels & pomegranates in the Kashmir valley.  But it occurred to me that Thor is possibly going to be dealing with some of these issues of perception and of others’ views on ‘being a real American’ when he gets older, depending on the hand that the genetic cards have dealt him.

Genetically, he’s half Turkish/Armenian & half German/Northern Euro.  Which means he could end up being dark-skinned, black-eyed, black-haired, or could be lighter skinned, -haired, -eyed than either I or his father (or his egg donor) are.  My own family is mostly German/English on my mom’s side, and a hodge-podge of European ethnicities on my dad’s.   We have suspicions of a Cherokee ancestor.  There were lots of Quakers.  And Huguenots.  And a couple of defrocked priests.  You know, the usual interesting stuff that shows up when you make a study of anyone’s genealogy.  But culturally, we’re pretty much ‘standard American’.  No fancy food passed down from generation to generation, no lullabies hummed in minor keys that no one remembers the words to anymore, no stories of oppression and coming here to escape or to make a new life or to begin anew.

So while the history behind little Thor’s DNA is just one more addition to the familial mix he’s going to be culturally as much of a sponge as I am.  We’ll celebrate Christmas with the family and we’ll go look for meteor showers with friends at the solstice.  We’ll likely attend Seder dinners with his oldest sister, and we’ll make a point of watching the parades in Chinatown at the Lunar New Year.  We’ll watch fireworks and eat cherries on the Fourth of July and we’ll celebrate the things we love about this country just as we’ll try to change the things we don’t love so much.  He’ll grow up a part of so many different things.  And if he shows an interest, we’ll go out of our way to explore Turkish/Armenian culture and history with him.  Because it’s a part of who he is & who he’ll be, which means that culture and history have become a part of us as a family.  Which is just the way it should be.

I’ve always been a big fan of the intrinsically American ideal of the ‘melting pot’ – where the best parts of so many different cultures have the chance to come together and form something entirely new, something which is likely better than any of the originals.

Sort of like what this kid of mine will be.  I can’t wait to meet him, my little Turkish-Armenian-German-English-American son whose very existence is possible because of American ideals.

I can’t wait to clap with him next Fourth of July when a particularly beautiful explosion of lights goes off over the water.  I can’t wait to feed him cherries and tell him what America means to me.

Happy Fourth of July, little one.  Happy Fourth of July.

OB appointment was somewhat anticlimactic.  SuperstarOB dopplered Thor’s heart just long enough to tell that he was alive, prodded my belly – trying to get a feel for what position Thor was lying in, I think.  Then he asked how I was feeling, & told me to come back in two weeks.

For this I waited for over an hour?

Not really complaining.  I get my hospital U/S next week, and that’ll be a more comprehensive exam than this one, but it still felt a bit odd.

Reading The Big Book of Birth and rather enjoying it.  Far and away the best book I’ve found on the subject of actually giving birth, and a very non-attacking attitude about different pain controlling methods that women choose for various reasons.   I’m studying the Hypnobabies coursework, and hoping for a non-epidural, non-induced, non-C-section birth, but I’m also trying not to get too attached to any of those scenarios.  I’m also waffling back & forth on the idea of a doula – I don’t like being told what to do, but I’m also quite sure that not relying on the Boy for all my logistical support during labor might be a good thing.

And I’ve heard it both ways – people who hired doulas and were sorely disappointed in their services, and people who cannot imagine going through natural childbirth without them.

We’re taking the hospital tour in about 3 weeks, and I’m looking forward to seeing how things are done at this hospital.  It’s supposedly known as a natural-birth-friendly hospital, but their website kinda sucks, and I want a very clear picture of what to expect from the nurses, other staff, and the rooms themselves.

Yesterday, I got to hold my friend’s 7-week-old baby – probably the youngest baby I’ve ever spent any time with.

I want one.

I dreamed of babies last night.  Cooing, giggling babies.

This is really happening, folks.  For the first time, it’s really starting to feel like this is going to end up with a baby in arms instead of in dreams.

3/4 of the way through this part.  Only 10 weeks – or less – to go.

Wow.

Ok, so I hesitated to even post this, because, hey, I know all about jinxing myself.

But I can’t resist, plus there’s always the chance that other women might someday stumble upon this blog because they’re having the same kind of miserable SI back pain & are wondering what to do for it.

Ahem.

I think I found a battery of things that work.

I stumbled upon a book at the Sane Branch on my last day that I swear wasn’t there ever before.

Because surely I would have, um, picked it up before?  Yeah.  Well, it turns out that this sort of stabby, sacroiliac pregnancy-pain is pretty commonly regarded as being untreatable except by, say, delivery of a baby.  Except I knew my PT was able to make it go away temporarily.  So, again, I don’t want to take a tylenol or do acupuncture to deal with the pain, I want the dysfunction which is causing the pain to go away.   Stretching seem to work up to a point, but how often during the day can one really lie on one’s back to stretch with knees-over-ass, I ask you?

So I read the book.  And a lot of it seems more applicable to people with that Symphysis Pubic Dysfunction than with li’l ol’ sacroiliac pain. But still. Unlike many other things I’ve read, this book actually recommended sitting “tailor fashion”as a way to stretch out the butt muscles. Well, shoot, I grew up sitting on the floor and am still more comfortable doing that than sitting primly with my legs crossed delicately at the knee.

So I started sitting cross-legged on the couch (which is easy because it’s a piece of furniture sized for my gigantic husband and not for short me. My legs don’t come close to hitting the floor anyway, and I usually use a footstool.)  And I started sitting cross-legged in bed. In fact, I’m typing this with my laptop resting on crossed legs. And when I can’t sit “Indian style”, I cross one leg over the other “guy style” ie: ankle over the opposite knee.

And, folks? I can walk again. On Tuesday I walked several blocks before I felt any discomfort. Yesterday I didn’t feel more than the occasional twinge of hip pain all day long.

I think I might be on to something. And I’m practically giddy with relief. Yeah, it’s going to take a while, and I probably won’t be looking all that ladylike for the rest of this pregnancy. But if I’m good and I keep doing this – I might be able to behave more normally from here on out? I might be able to walk to the grocery store again – shoot – I might be able to walk to the post office to mail my parents’ Father’s Day and Birthday gifts?

Heck, I might not be completely pool-bound in Italy, but might get to go exploring nearby villages and cities with the non-pregnant sorts.

Oh yeah.

The books is all kinds of awesome, but really?  Hot shower in the morning to loosen everything up.  Sit “tailor fashion” and cross your legs ‘guy style’ and see if that doesn’t work.  Can’t hurt.  I mean, certainly can’t hurt more than it already does, right?

This has been a public service announcement from a not-in-pain-Sprogblogger.  Now we’ll see if I double over today from the bad-luck I’m surely drawing down upon myself by saying any of this out loud…

A friend sent me this over the weekend and I thought it was beautiful.  It reminded me of my home – the place I’ll always think of as home – in the southwest, as well as being awfully appropriate to where I am right now.  So I thought I’d share it with you all this morning.

Naming A Child

I fear I may have given the wrong impression with my lovingly-detailed posts about the incredible backpain & the PT who can’t do anything for it.

Actually, she can.  She can manipulate my sacro-ilial region and for a few blessed moments, there will be no pain at all.  And then I walk more than about 20 seconds and things slip back out of alignment.  And it hurts.

This is the same pattern (though less pronounced) when I simply get plenty of rest of a weekend – things improve!  and then go back to work (up and down 10-20 times a day, all day long – things go to hell.  I truly believe that if I were to go on a beach vacation today, the pain would be gone in a week.  I truly HOPE that after one week of R&R in Tuscany, I’ll be up for more excursions than ‘that daily walk between the pool & the dinner table’.  But for now, it is what it is.  I can keep everything well-stretched out, and it helps when I can shift often at night (despite the misery of two nights ago, I felt pretty good yesterday).  But until things sort of hit an equilibrium on their own, there’s no good way to stabilize the joints.  My pregnant body isn’t accommodating the belt all that well, but this discomfort bearable, as long as I don’t have to, you know, walk anywhere.

And last night?  Last night was bliss and joy and happiness rolled up into a sweet-smelling bedsheet.  I went to bed around 10 because the Boy was out playing poker with buddies.  I figured I’d wake up when he came home at 2 or so, but that would be fine because it would coincide with a desperate need to void my bladder.

I woke up at 8 this morning.  Folks, I haven’t slept for 9 hours without even a bathroom break in I-don’t-know-how-long.  Then, after he got up, I went back to sleep with a dog draped over me for another hour and a half.  Back doesn’t hurt (yet), no heartburn, and best of all?  I’m sort of – I don’t know – awake.

Plus I have coffee in front of me to make my morning go nicer.  And a microchipping appointment for the dog which, while I’m thrilled I found a low-cost clinic to do this before she’s kenneled for 2 weeks, I could wish didn’t mean a 1/2 mile hike each way.  Ah well.  It’ll be my exercise for the weekend.

Yesterday marked the beginning of my 29th week.  The mean Italian ladies (whom I love) at the bakery around the corner are treating me like a celebrity now that I’m so obviously showing – “Why didn’t you tell us?  Here, have another muffin, dear.  The baby wants a muffin.”

We’re having a cookout tonight for the Boy’s daughters, and it should be interesting.  I’ll let you all know how broaching the “do you want a stake in naming the baby?” conversation goes.  Could be good, could be disastrous.  With these girls you never quite know.  And now I’m off to do some cross-stitching.  Yay!

So last night sucked.  It’s hot and humid and my heartburn is competing with my backpain to see which discomfort can do the most to ruin my sleep.  Can’t prop myself up because that seems to be worsening the hip pain.  Can’t recline even a little because of the, you know, nose vomiting. Tried a propped-up-on-my-side compromise and ended up running to the bathroom at 2:30 to hack and spit, hack and spit.  Figured I couldn’t be any more wide-awake, so turned on the air conditioner so that at least I’d be more comfortable while I laid awake.  Instead, I fell asleep, and didn’t wake til my alarm went off at the ungodly hour of 6:30am.  I don’t know why the extra half hour makes a difference, but it does.

So, tonight, assuming I don’t sleepwalk into traffic or anything, the airconditioning will go on when I go to bed and it won’t go off til the morning.  Sorry, my environmental activist past.  But if I don’t start getting more than a couple of hours of sleep per night I’m going to stop functioning at all.

Which is, quite honestly, sounding like a nice rest right about now.

Good news (?) on the library budget cut – rumor around news sources in town claims that we might get back up to 60% of the proposed cut.  This is very good for all my friends, but possibly not so good for me.  I still think I need to stop working in mid-August.  I’m totally wiped out, people.  Exhausted and unwieldy and hurting.  I need a break before this kid arrives or I’m going to be too zonked to feed the child, let alone give birth to him.

And that’s all I’ve got this morning.  Off to my Rhogam appointment at the blood bank, hoping to get some cross-stitching done while waiting on the results of the antibody check.  Because my life is just that exciting.

Damn, I’m tired.

So I’m pretty sure the Boy thinks I’m lying when I tell him his son is dancing on my bladder.  Seriously, every time he puts his hand on my belly, Thor stops jitterbugging.  I’m starting to feel like a fraud when I tell him, because the kid immediately stops what he’s doing.  Ah well.  Another month or so and I’m hoping his movements will be so visible that the Boy will get his fill of baby-kicks.  Me?  I’m pretty sure I’ll never get my fill.  Love this part.

Don’t, however, love the peeing-part.  Ok, granted, I’ve always been one of these women who has a bladder-of-iron.  10 hour plane ride?  No problem.  I’ll pee when we get home.  Driving to Quebec?  Not an issue.  I’ll wait til we’re there.  I had to pee once or twice a night while on progesterone, but the normal “pee all the time” thing that was supposed to hit in the first trimester never really hit me.  But now?  Third trimester?  Holy urine samples, Batman.  I spend half my life on the toilet eking out another three drops.

Drip.  Drip.  Drip.

And as often as not, as soon as I stand up, I realize I could have gone some more.  So now I try to psyche my poor bod out before leaving the porcelain throne.  “Getting up now.  Yep.  Getting up and getting out of here.  Not coming back to the bathroom for at least another 45 minutes.”  Sure enough.  Another tinkle. It’s like being a man with prostate trouble.

And of course, since I’m super-hydrating these hot summer days, there’s also the bizarro phenomenon of where does all the water go during daylight hours?  Because I’m taking in maybe 2-3 liters of water a day, and I’m peeing out maybe 1/4 liter total.  Oh yeah.  All that water hangs out in my feet and hands, only getting pissed away at 11pm.  and 1am.  and 3am.  and 5am.  But it’s all good.  I’m glad my body’s in on the conspiracy to keep BH at bay.  Super-duper hydration isn’t the worst thing, I suppose.   Even if it does make my feet look like flippers.

So I’m off to my next-to-last day at the Sane Branch with a stopover at the Land of Crazy on my “way home”.  Long day on the train for me, so I’ll load up my hypnobabies MP3s and call it a day for meditation.  Which might also keep me from twitching to strangle the princess once I’m there.  Don’t piss me off, lady, or I swear I’ll occupy your bathroom for HOURS.

So, yeah, the back/pelvic/hip pain – whatever I want to call it – is still kicking my ass, so to speak.  And it’s getting really frustrating, being so limited in what I can do, and how I can do it.  The cringeing agony is also not so much fun.

But everything else is ok.  I’m still dealing with heartburn – like, say, when I eat spicy Indian food at 9pm before going to bed at 11pm (but it was so GOOD!) but it’s manageable, and it doesn’t really keep me from doing anything except eating chocolate late at night.  Which isn’t good for me anyway, so I’m trying not to feel too bitter about that.  Weight gain is right where it’s supposed to be at about 18#, and while my boobs look like someone attacked them with a tube of lipstick – wow!  So THAT’S what a stretchmark is! – the belly is still untouched.  I realize I have plenty of time for that, but I’m feeling fortunate that it’s not worse at this point.

I go in for my 28/29 week Rhogam shot this Friday, which is yet another milestone.  Next ultrasound (or is it OB appointment?) is next week, and the other (OB or ultrasound) the week after.  Since I’m switching to every-other-week appointments now, I’m thinking my life is soon going to feel like I spend all my time in SuperStarOB’s waiting room.  Which is better than spending it at work.  I will not be spending any more time (or money) in the PT’s waiting room, so I guess it all works out.

I think we’ve come up with a plan for Thor’s bedroom.  Which is currently the Boy’s office/exercise room/ hallway to the bathroom/dog-gear containment area wherein lie all her toys and beds and food bowls, etc.  I’m pleased because it appears that the Boy has put some thought into where all this stuff will need to go, as well as into where the stuff currently living in the room he’ll be moving his office into will go.  Since I’m going to be sitting in a comfy chair and directing him: “No, dear.  A little to the left” while tugging on a string of pearls and eating a bonbon or something, I figure it’s a good thing that I won’t also have to be nagging him about the need to start the process as well.

It’s hot out, so the dog is boycotting her walks.  If she weren’t a whippet I’d be able to call her fat and lazy, but as it is, she’s just skinny and lazy.  Really lazy.  Lazy like I wish I could be.

Have I mentioned that I have just about 1 month left of work, and that I’m officially counting down days?  Have I mentioned how ecstatic I am – already – to have work-free days on the horizon?  Have I mentioned that I hope I deliver right on time – not even just because I want a perfectly cooked kid, but also because if he were to come early I’d miss out on some of my eagerly anticipated downtime pre-birth?  Well, I do, I am and I do.  I need some serious rest.  This pregnancy stuff is hard work and it’s kicking my elderly ass.

Yawn.  Going to go face the day (and the bad performance review).  Yippeee.

So I’m accumulating quite the pile o’ baby gear in the corner of my crowded bedroom, which is good because – hey!  Last half of June! But which is bad because hey!  Last half of June & we’ve still made not move #1 towards converting the Boy’s office into a baby room.

And of course, I say “We’ve” but I mean “He’s” because there’s no way I’m schlepping his books & desk & bookshelves &c. up two flights of stairs.  So I can’t really complain that he’s not doing this on my schedule.

But still.  I want to decorate, damn it.

I read a horrifying article online yesterday about how children born of sperm donors have horrifyingly high rates of depression, substance abuse, and other symptoms of feelings of alienation – much higher than adopted children, even.  This wigged me out to no end, and I’ve spent the last, approximately 24 hours rationalizing to myself how Thor will know from the beginning, and we’ll be upfront with him and he’ll always know he was so very loved that he won’t care and ohmygodwhatifheCARES?  Of course, this study was conducted by a “focus on the family” type place, and I should ignore it because they’re biased and their interpretations of survey data looked wonky just from the (skewed) article, but still.   Whatifhecares?WhatifThorhatesme?Ack!

Minor freak out.  I’ll get over it just as soon as I order another gentle “you are a very special baby” book dealing with DE off Amazon.

Thor’s still kicking up a storm, somersaulting and ka-powing my bladder at odd times of the day & night.  I’m starting to get pissed off at the back pain, because other than the fact that I’m sort of chair-bound, I’m loving this stage of pregnancy.  I’m big, but not huge.  I’m unwieldy, but not immobile.  I’m aware of him, but not unpleasantly so.  I know these things will change.  But at the moment, (at least when I’m sitting down,) pregnancy is pretty ok.

And the payoff?  The payoff in less than three months?

Oh wow.

So this morning’s drama is that I got to work, checked my phone to see if my GTT results came in while I was on the subway, only to be met by a blank screen.  No big deal – I’ll just charge it at work.  Only thing is, my charger is still at the other branch. 

So I called my doctor, and becaue she’s a sweetheart, the receptionist told me everything came back perfect, even though she’s not supposed to tell patients their results.  I’ll have to wait for the exact numbers, but “Perfect” works well enough for me.

WOOHOOO!!! Italy –  here I come!  Ice cream every night this summer – you’re MINE!  back on track for a stress-free third trimester and a not-10-#-baby in September!  WOOHOO!  Go, Pancreas!  You da insulin-producing organ!