Weeks 31-33 Traveling while Pregnant

Before we got pregnant, Jon and I had been planning a second anniversary trip this summer.  I wanted to hike Mt. Fuji, and Jon wanted to hike around Yakushima-island of 6,000 year old trees.  (We both would have gone to either one though, they both sound awesome.)  At the beginning of my pregnancy, I thought we could still do it.  I'm an active person and I've tried to stay that way throughout the pregnancy.  About a month ago, I conceded defeat and we planned a much more relaxing and reasonable anniversary trip to Osaka.  

Here are some vacation photos.    We took the Hankyu ferry there and back, so here's a photo of me and baby as the sun sets. 

This is a shirt Jon made for me, that will become even more appropriate as Halloween approaches.  It's very accurate, as T-Rex loves digging both feet into my ribs exactly as the shirt demonstrates. 

Here we are at a beautiful waterfall just outside of Osaka.  It was a pretty long walk, for a pregnant lady, but I got to soak my feet in the cold mountain water before we started back down, so I thought I was doing fine.  When I got home and took my clothes off, I noticed that I had gotten a terrible rash all over my ankles, calves, and stomach from the heat and exercise.  Also, my ankles no longer looked like ankles, but sausages instead.  I rested that night with my feet up and cranked the air conditioner and the next morning I was back to normal.  This cycle repeated itself for the rest of the trip.  Wake up feeling fine, rash free, and with defined ankles, and go to bed exhausted, rashy and ankle-free.   

I wasn't about to stay inside the hostel and miss out on any of our fun plans, like the zoo or Osaka castle though!  So, we just walked slowly and went inside air conditioned gift shops more often than we normally would. 

Finally, here we are on our way home from our trip, back on the ferry.  We bought each other Japanese style outfits as presents, and I think we look pretty sharp.  

   

Baby’s getting big!! Pregnant in Japan weeks 26-30

 We've gone in for a few checkups now.  We go in every two weeks, so it feels like everything is moving faster and faster.  The day before our 26 week checkup, I mentioned to Jon that it felt like overnight T-Rex had gotten really heavy.  And lo and behold, during our 26 week checkup the ultrasound technician looked at T-Rex and said with big eyes, “Big Head!” Then, “Big body!”  Apparently T-Rex is pretty big for his/her age.  Four weeks big, according to the Japanese scale.  In fact, the ultrasound machine computed a new estimated due date of Sept. 26^th, rather than Oct. 25^th.

At 26 weeks, T-Rex weighed 1,100 grams.  This is a little strange because I haven’t gained all that much weight.  I’ve only gone from 71 Kilos to 74 kilos (a gain of about 6 ½ pounds).  I would have thought for the fetus to get big, I’d have to get big first.  I feel like I have been eating a lot more, but I guess T-Rex has been using all the calories herself/himself!  Once we got home from the hospital, I did some research online and found that American babies are generally a little bigger than Japanese babies.  Although T-Rex is still measuring large, by American standards, he/she is only two weeks big.   According to American measurements, T-Rex should be around 800 grams.   

We went in again at 28 weeks and I passed my glucose test and a different technician measured T-Rex again and found that he/she is only two weeks big.  I guess it’s all an estimate anyways. 

I’m starting to really feel this pregnancy now.  My belly is too big to ignore and everyone that sees me knows I’m pregnant.  I’ve started spilling food on my belly when we’re out picnicking or shutting the door on my belly when I’m trying to squeeze through a tight spot. I’m blazing hot at all times and I still feel a little nauseous from time to time, I think it’s made worse by the heat.  My back has started to hurt and it’s hard to get comfortable when I’m trying to sleep.  I have even started waking up around 6 every morning and taking a cool shower and going back to sleep.  I’ve started letting Jon carry everything for me and we walk a lot slower now.  Jon even asked me to stop riding my bike, though I feel perfectly balanced and fine. (I said I would.) I’m a lot more content to relax at home with the fan blowing on me as I watch the Olympics than I normally would be.  

We did go camping a few nights ago. (We wanted to be out of the city to watch the Perseid meteor shower.) Here's a picture of Jon and I and friends as we're headed to the beach.  It was great swimming in the ocean and relaxing on the beach--not so great that night, sunburned, itchy jelly fish stings and mosquito bites, sand in the tent, blazing heat even at midnight, hard ground.  I think I can safely say it was our last camping trip till next summer when T-Rex can come with us..outside of the womb. 

At the 30 week checkup, T-Rex measured 1,960 grams, about 4 pounds.  Still about two weeks big.  Something that’s odd about that is that the baby has gained about 800 grams in the past month and I’ve gained about 700.  I feel like I’m eating a lot more than when I wasn’t pregnant, and I’m definitely getting less exercise, but I guess that T-Rex really is using all those calories getting big.  I’m sure if I lived in the US, I would have gained a lot more, but the food I crave as a pregnant lady I can’t get here.  (Chef Boyardee raviolis and spaghetti-Os and burritos and Ben and Jerry’s Phish Food, and Arby’s Roast Beef, and ……..)  That’s all beside the fact that my husband is always encouraging me to eat healthy food for the baby instead of an ice cream cone and pickles for lunch.    Anyhow, the doctor says my weight gain is fine and T-Rex is obviously growing just fine, so I’m not too worried about it. 

T-Rex's Nursery

Japanese homes are known for being tiny.  In fact, our first apartment in Japan had one room with a “kitchen” (hot plate, sink, and a mini fridge) on one side, a short skinny bed on the other side, a veranda and a bathroom.  We fancied it up with a chair and hanging rack for our clothes and still had enough room to do whatever we wanted, as long as what we wanted to do was stand up straight or leave.  Our current place is much more livable, we have a kitchen (no quotation marks needed), a bathroom, a balcony, a small living room and a bedroom.  We love our little apartment, it’s got a great location, it’s a great price, and the neighborhood is quiet—so we don’t plan to move.  But then we started thinking about where the baby will sleep.  Hmmmmm… 

We decided to get a little baby basket to put by the bed--nursery completed!  But—what about all of baby’s stuff?  What about when baby gets too big for the basket?  We still need a nursery.   We decided to take a third of the closet and make it into baby’s room.  There’s a shelf at about waist height and we’ll put the changing table and clothes storage on top of that.  Once baby outgrows the basket, baby will sleep on his/her own baby sleeping pad under the shelf.  When I first suggested this idea to Jon, he was horrified, “What?  We can’t have baby sleep in the closet!”  But, there really isn’t anywhere else, unless we’re willing to have baby sleep in the bathtub or on the balcony.  The nice thing is that the closet has a sliding door that we can use while T-Rex is sleeping, it will block any light that we use as we get ready for bed (presumably at a later time than the baby), but it’s small enough that we will be able to hear T-Rex crying or fussing through it.  

<--  Before

I spent a lot of time surfing the internet to find ideas for decorating our little closet nursery and Jon and I talked a lot about what we wanted it to look like.  In the end we were able to decorate almost the entire closet corner with things we had around the house or that we bought at the hyakuyen shop (100 Yen shop, just like our dollar stores) for less than $US40.  It was a little tricky, because we want the room to be bright and colorful, but there aren’t any outlets for lights near it and we can’t paint the walls. 

We chose an outdoor, tree theme for the nursery.  We started with blue fabric to pin on the walls for the sky and bought brown, green, and yellow felt for creating a tree.   I started by cutting out the shape of the tree and branches and about a million leaves.

Then I ironed the blue fabric and glued the branches and leaves to it.

While I was doing this, Jon was cutting up a sleeping pad we had lying around the house.  In Japan, people sleep on the floor, and we used to sleep on a foam pad before I got pregnant and we decided to upgrade to a nice mattress.  (Best choice we every made.)   We tried to give it away, but everyone has these thin sleeping pads lying around their house, so it was just taking up space in the closet.  Jon cut two squares out of it, which would lay on top of one another.  He cut the center out of the top one, making a square donut shape—this will make a raised rim around where the baby lays when we change the diaper.  Then he covered the whole thing in a waterproof picnic print tablecloth.

Here I am sewing on the trunk and leaves using embroidery thread.  It took a really long time.

Finally, we put it all together in the baby closet.  We don’t have many baby clothes or anything yet, but what we have, we put in the shelves.  We have an Easter outfit, some baby kimonos, and a T-Shirt with a T-Rex on it. 

 

You can see from this angle that it leads into Jon’s side of closet.

Finally, I found a really colorful and cute bed that we’ll put right next to our bed.  I like it because it’s so bright.  Once baby grows out of it, he/she will get her own baby sleeping mat underneath the changing corner.  We’ll wait till baby is a few months old before we even start worrying about getting that ready. 

6 Awesome Olympic/Paralympic Events You’ve Never Bothered Watching

I love the Olympics, and what with these summer games in London being the last Olympics ever (tick-tock tick-tock Mayan calendar and December 21st 2012), I thought I’d share some of my favorite under-appreciated events.  Most viewers focus on the big ticket summer events-gymnastics, 100 meter dash, beach volleyball, Michael Phelps, etc.  But there are some real gems of sports hidden away that you've probably never seen and maybe never even heard of.  There are seriously exciting, and inspiring events that you'll be shocked don't get more coverage.  Well, I’m here to let you in on the best-kept Olympic secret: here are 6 Awesome Olympic Events you’ve Never Bothered Watching.

1 Modern Pentathlon

The idea for this event came from the story of a soldier during wartime, behind enemy lines, who is attempting to deliver a crucial message.  His horse is shot at some point; he fights off the enemy with his sword and pistol, races towards his destination (btw, he swims a river) and delivers the message safely.  So, the five events are, fencing, swimming, jumping (equestrian style), running and shooting.  
  
Running is my personal strong suit.


 The sport has changed a lot over the years, changing from a five day, men-only event, to a one day, men and women event that uses laser pistols.  Again, why don’t people watch this?  
Fun Fact: In the very first Modern Pentathlon, a little known guy, George S. Patton competed.   

In the pentathlon, the athletes have to be highly trained in these five VERY different skills, most of which are very popular with viewers, especially running and swimming.  Somehow, when you add them all together, suddenly no one cares anymore!

The first event is fencing.   The athletes get in a formation that allows them to all fight one other opponent at a time and then rotate to the next opponent quickly.  They fight each other for one minute, and then rotate.  They get points for stabbing the other person without getting stabbed in return.  (Finally, a sport I can understand!  Suck it, cricket.)

Next, they swim.  They swim 200 meters.  They try to swim very quickly.  Moving on. 

They ride!  You usually can’t bring your favorite pony to war, nor would you want to, right?  It’s the same here.  The Olympic organizers will provide unfamiliar horses and athletes draw lots to pick their horse.   They then have only 20 minutes to get to know their horse.


Yes. Exactly like that.


Then they ride and jump over at least 12 obstacles, losing points for being too slow, knocking down fence rails, falling off, or the horse refusing to jump.

Finally, the climax of the competition! It’s the combined event of Running and Shooting.  Competitors have to run 3000 meters (Almost 15 furlongs.....is that not a helpful conversion?) and shoot 15 targets. They have unlimited ammo during this event and can shoot as many times as they want…it helps that they're shooting lasers now.   They shoot right away and then stop again at 1000 meters and 2000 meters to shoot 5 targets.  They can continue running once they’ve hit all the targets or 70 seconds passes.  The person with the most points from fencing, swimming, and riding gets to start first, and the person with the fewest points starts last.  This means that the winner of the entire competition is the person who crosses the finish line first!  


Is THAT how a race works?

2-Wheelchair Rugby

This is played during the less popular, but equally exciting Paralympics (August 29-Sept 9--watch them!).  It's played on a basketball court and the players must have a disability which affects both their legs and arms.  Wheelchair "contact" is allowed (meaning they ram each other's wheelchairs so hard that tipping over is common), and it's one of the very few Olympic/Paralympic sports where men and women compete together.  

"What?  What?"

Fun fact:  In some countries, they call this genteel event Murderball.  

3 – Handball

Handball is a mix of the best of soccer and basketball.  There are often 50 goals scored per 60 minute game, (didn’t get THAT from soccer) and handballplayers are allowed an unlimited number of "faults", which are considered good defense and disruptive to the attacking team's rhythm.  Another way to score a fault?  “Playing too passively.”  

Also, it seems to be one of the oldest sports, even making an appearance in Homer’s Odyssey, so you can feel smart as you watch it and point that out to the people you call your friends.

4-Athletic Steeplechase.  

This is a 3000 meter race with all sorts of barriers that you have run over or through.   Over the course of a full race, you'll jump over 28 "normal" barriers and 7 water jumps.  A water jump means that you have to jump into and run through water, not simply hop over a puddle.  A "normal" barrier is a 30-36 inch tall solid hurdle.  The barriers don't fall over like a hurdle would, in fact, you can step or jump on them if you want.  Because of the seven water jumps, everyone is soaking wet once the race finishes!  

This sport started with people racing from town to town, so of course they had to jump over things like stone fences, creeks, slow-moving sheep, and so forth.  

I feel like it's less like an Olympic event and more like an obstacle course you'd set up for your 12 year old sister's birthday party and then secretly want to play on yourself.  Is that just me?

5 – Paralympic Judo 

Judo is a sport for those viewers with short attention spans.  Each bout starts and ends within five minutes or less (except when they go into a 3 minute overtime).   These paralympic athletes have some level of visual impairment (there are three levels, one of which means completely blind) or are deaf.   The competitors begin the match with a grip on each other, so there's no time wasted as they circle and try to grab their opponents shirt.

The mats have different textures to help contestants keep track of where they are.  It’s fast, exciting, and powerful.  Also, I feel like I’m learning things I can use as I walk home at midnight.....when there's no moon and all the street lights are burned out.  

6 – Paralympic football 5-a-side  


5-a-side is one of the events in the upcoming Paralympic Games and it's based on soccer.  But wait!  It’s WAY more exciting than that, although, god  knows, it’s not hard to be more exciting than soccer.   This is soccer played on a smaller field with all athletes being visually impaired.   That’s right, no one can see each other, the ball, the goal or the boundaries.   How can it possibly be more exciting than soccer?

Although   and I cannot stress this enough—anything is more exciting than soccer.  


Are...are they playing now?

First of all, there aren’t any pauses when the ball goes out of bounds, because there are walls around the pitch, ergo, the ball doesn't go out of bounds. That means the action never stops!  
The ball makes noise as it moves, so the players can hear where it is and there is a sighted person behind the goal who can shout directions to the players.   Although, I suppose they COULD shout anything they wanted...  Oops, I lied earlier, not everyone playing is blind, the goalies can see, which means that making a goal is slightly harder than it would be otherwise. 

All the players wear blackout masks to ensure that no one gets an advantage by being slightly less visually impaired than their opponents.  This makes the game fair.  Although no one is doing anything about making the REST of life fair....

Once you get over the irony of watching people with visual impairments play a game they can’t see themselves, it’s a super exciting game. (Is that technically irony?)


No one knows anymore.

Hiraodai Cave

 The other day, Jon and I decided to visit Hiraodai Park.  Actually, I decided that we'd visit the park and I should probably say "demanded if I'm being totally honest.  I wanted to get out of the city and do something different.  Most weekends, we just relax around the house, which is fine, and something I normally encourage, especially since I've been pregnant, but something was pulling me towards this park.  It was probably the fact that it would be the one day this month that was sunny. (Rainy season and all that.)  I had seen on their website that they had caves you could explore and I was sold.  Once I had put my foot down and insisted we go there, I started getting a little nervous.  The only way to get there was to take 30 minute train ride and then a fairly expensive taxi ride.  I read the website a little more clearly and found out that you can't explore all of the caves, some sections were blocked off, and the cave pictures on the website actually looked pretty lame.  Jon initially wanted to sleep in on Sunday, but he gamely prepared coffee Saturday night so he'd be able to wake up and go on this trip with me.  So after all that I was a little nervous that it would turn out to be an expensive dud of a trip.    

However, we went on our way and took the train to the middle of nowhere.  Luckily there was one taxi waiting at the station with the driver sleeping inside.  The station attendant asked us if we were heading to Hiraodai and once we said we were, he asked another question that we didn't catch.  ("Are you going to ________, too?") We smiled and got in the taxi as the attendant shouted something at the taxi driver and we were on our way!  
    
The taxi driver wasn't inclined to chatting and took us directly to Senbutsu Cave.  (Thousand Buddhas Cave)   Later we realized that this was the question the station attendant had asked us that we hadn't understood.  Luckily we smiled and nodded because this was the best place he could have taken us as it was seriously awesome.  Here we are standing outside the cave.  It was a really warm day, but we could feel a cool breeze coming out from the cave. 

Here are some tiny moss and plants that grow in the cave.  They only grow where there are lamps are lighting our way, otherwise there aren't any noticeable plants or animals in the cave. 

The whole cave was cold and damp and there was water dripping on us the whole time.  Besides the fact that the flash on my camera is broken, the dripping water also dissuaded me from taking many photos.  I wish we would have brought our rain jackets.

Jon kept telling me to slow down and admire the rock formations.  I wanted to charge ahead and just fly through, but I'm glad he made us stop and smell the stalactites.

About halfway through the cave we started wading through water.  I'm glad we brought sandals. The water was freezing and occasionally we tried to climb up the walls to let our feet warm up a little bit. I felt like a real explorer.  I've been in caves before, but never caves this extensive.  Also, in other caves I've explored in, there are strict walkways and they ask you not to touch the walls or the stalactites.  In this cave, nothing was off-limits. 

After the cave, we walked around and admired the karst landscape.  It was a really beautiful and relaxing hike.  Between the cave and the karst, it was the most exercise I've gotten in about 3 months, and I felt great.  We decided to skip the taxi ride back to the train station and just walk down the mountain, but about halfway there a gruff old man stopped and offered us a ride in his van.

Pregnant in Japan--Baby day care and Hospital tours

Pregnant in Japan - weeks 23 - 25

There is an adorable day care just down the block from our house that I've always assumed we'd send out little baby to.  I get two months off work after the baby is born and then we have winter vacation before I need to go back to work, so we need someone to take care of little 10 week old T-Rex from Mid January till the end of February, when Jon and I complete our contracts.  Depending on what we do for jobs next year, we could either move and have to start work in April, giving us a month off of work, or stay in Kitakyushu and find other work that starts in April, or keep our current contracts which would have us start working again in June.  So we’ll have between one and three months off to spend with our little dinosaur before I decide I can’t go back to work because leaving him/her with someone else was too traumatizing for me or before we, you know, go back to work.   

However, when we stopped in the day care to talk about their services, they told us that they won't accept babies till they are six months old.  Hmmm... The next day we went down to the city office to figure this day care thing out.

I figured they would give us a list of day cares that accepted young babies and we'd call and visit them to find out about availability and then get on the waiting lists. 

Day cares are both public and private, but both (I believe) are subsidized by the government.  Going to the city office should have been our first step anyhow, as we need to get on the official waiting list of the day cares we want to join and then wait till one accepts us.  Apparently there is a high demand and limited supply, so, going 7 months before we would even need one is actually not jumping the gun at all.    

We arrived at the city office and started talking with the lady who signs people up for the day cares, called Hoikuens for babies and Kindergartens for ages 2 through 5.  (Can I say one more time that I am so glad my husband can speak Japanese like nobody's business?  He did all the speaking and I wrote my name down and tried to follow.  Usually just when I thought I understood, "Ahh!  She's saying that they won't take kids over 4 or 5 years old!"  Jon would ask me, "Do you understand?  They won't take more than 4 or 5 kids total.")

We told the lady we wanted someone to take our baby and she pulled out a list of Hoikuens in our area and started outlining the rules for signing up.  So, if baby is born around Oct. 25th, then the baby can be accepted on Feb 1st...wait, wait, wait.  Jon explained that we both needed to be back to work by Jan. 15th.  She explained that they won't accept babies under three months old.  Jon explained that I only got 8 weeks of maternity leave and then we would use up all our vacations days to get two more weeks of winter break, but after that I had to go back to work (Jan. 15th). 

The three of us sat in silence and stared at each other for a while.  

Jon started explaining again about the maternity leave and how I had to go back and complete my contract till Feb 28th....and then we didn't need the hoikuen any more.  Ahh!  The lady’s face lit up! Success!  She pulled out a secret list of "Hoikuen Mammas," ladies who accept babies as young as 48 days old.  I don't know why she was holding out on us, but as she only pulled it out when Jon mentioned that we only needed one for 6 weeks, it must have been related.   There is only one in our nearby area, though there were about 18 listed on the sheet, some as close as a 30 minute bus ride away, others hours away.  We started looking through the complicated map system and trying to find out if these Hoikuens were near our home or at least our jobs, which would make drop-off and pick-up easier.  I won't go into detail about how complicated and different the Japanese address system is, suffice to say for now that it is nearly impossible to figure out without just typing the address in Google maps and following the arrow to the  location.  Then the lady stepped away to make some phone calls.  She came back a while later with a big smile!  Success!  The Hoikuen closest to our house was full, but the one that was close to Jon's school had one opening! I saw that she had crossed out about 10 other Hoikuens on the list.  Had she called them all and they were full?  Were they too far away and that's why she crossed them off?  I don't know.  I didn’t care, we were in!

So, she helped us fill out a few forms to officially get on the waiting list at this Hoikuen, and she even wrote the time we applied on the form.  These things fill up so fast that us filling out the form at 4:00 rather than 6:30 might mean the difference between getting in or not.  Then she gave us a list of forms and things to do after T-Rex arrives, but before we can be accepted to the Hoikuen.

This is what we've got to do after T-Rex is born, but before we leave on Dec 20th to visit America till Jan 13th. 

Get the baby a Japanese ID card.

Register the baby on National Insurance.

Register the birth and birth certificate at the City Office. 

Have a one month check-up 

Visit the day care with the baby to introduce ourselves to the Hoikuen Mamma.

Get a copy of our taxes and salary from our company to bring to the City Office (This will determine how much we pay for the Hoikuen.  It can range from $250 to $350 US per month.  That sounds like a steal to me, but I don't know how much day care is in the states.)

During this busy time we've also got to...

Get the baby a passport.

Get the baby a social security number.

Get an English version of the Birth Certificate (must be notarized by a registered bilingual notary).

Register the birth with the American Embassy 

It appears that every single one of these documents will be a nightmare of filling out dozens of forms, paying bills for forms or notarization, and/or traveling 2 hours on the bus to the nearby city, where the American Embassy is located.  I'm already stressing out about it!  But, I need to remember that I will have 7 weeks of no work to get all these things done, so between Jon and me, I'm sure it's possible.  It has to be.

We also went in for another check-up at the hospital this past Saturday.  (T-Rex is doing great, and weighs ~650 grams.)  After we finished, I asked about where I’ll actually have the baby and so we took a tour of the maternity ward.   I can see now why people would spring for the Lady's Clinics.  The hospital rooms where you stay with your baby are pretty standard hospital fare—white, empty, clinical.   I thought they might spruce the rooms up a little bit on the maternity floor, but they are as depressing and empty as in any other section.  

I don't regret our plan to go the hospital route so that I can have the option of an epidural and for us to save about $1,000 or more, but I'm glad that we took a tour so I can prepare myself.  For example, I've always heard that you don't want to go to the hospital as soon as contractions start, because your own home is more comfortable for the first several hours.  I can see that's true now and I'll be staying home much more comfortably than I might otherwise have. After the baby arrives, Jon can't stay the night, he has to go home at 9:00 PM.  That's fine, I'm sure I'll want to go to sleep early since I'll be waking up every few hours to feed T-Rex.  The rooms are empty and bleak, so I'll add framed photos, knickknacks, and other decorations to the hospital bag to make it homier.  The nursery is the only place with baby beds, so mother and baby can’t sleep in the same room.  I was disappointed about that, but I'll keep the baby with me while I'm awake and let him/her sleep in the nursery and enjoy that the nurses will change those first few days of dirty diapers.  They say most women stay for 5 days, sometimes 4, so I hope that everything goes well and I can leave ASAP. 

Baby Names and Secret Sex....(of the baby)

We've decided to keep the gender of the baby a secret....not from ourselves, but from everyone else!  (At our last checkup, the doctor wasn't even 100% sure about the sex, so we technically don't know yet either)  Hopefully we'll be able to nail it down at the next checkup at 24 weeks.  I've just started telling a little white lie to acquaintances that we're not finding out the gender, because it feels so weird to say, "Yes, I know the gender, but I'm not going to tell you!"   Initially, I wanted it to be a surprise for us too, but it's so hard to pick out a name, that we wanted to know the gender to cut out half of the name disagreements. We've started narrowing the choices down....here's a sampling.

Coralyn/Coraline (I'm for line, Jon's for lyn)

Corrine

Fiona 

Clark 

Grant 

Graham

Picking names is hard!  

I had no idea picking a name would be this hard, I always wondered why there were so many baby name books and website.  It's not just about making a list of names that sound pretty.  We've got to contend with the fact that 

1-Jon has an ex with the same name I like....goodbye name!   (I don't want to think about him ever having dated anyone before me....much less naming our baby after an ex!)

2-I had a childhood enemy with the same name that Jon likes...another name down.  

3-Jon likes the name Rose, but I hate girl names that endow the named with gender specific traits, like Lily (delicate and beautiful) or Charity (charity). 

4- We're both atheists, so we don't want to name our child something from religion or the Bible, so names like  Christian, Mathew, Michael, Mary, Ruth, Jesus, and so forth are off the list.   

5-We don't want too common of names, which pulls Sophia from the list, although I love the sound of it and the meaning (wisdom).  

6- This baby will spend some formative years living in Japan.  Japanese people have a hard time saying the "L" and "R" sounds.  Well, many of the names we like have those sounds, and some of them have both!  (Clark and Coraline/Coralyn)  We decided that in the end, we had to just ignore that aspect of choosing names, because we just couldn't bear knocking any more possible names off the list!   Although, if we pick Coraline/Coralyn, it'd be pretty funny because I would call her Cora for short, and that's how Japanese people say Cola.  It's even spelled the same in the Japanese alphabet. 

So the plan now, is to keep our minds open, and keep thinking of possible names.  We;ll go to the hospital with a short list of possible names and once we have the baby we'll have 5 to 7 days in the hospital to try them out and see which one fits before we have to sign the birth certificate and head home. 

Weeks 15-22: Telling Work about T-Rex, Free Pregnancy Advice, and Baby's First Kick!

We went in and told work about the pregnancy at week 19.  Because I had started working at my school, it’s illegal to fire me for being pregnant; although I was still nervous they might be angry.  However, everything went very well.  Everyone was very happy for us and congratulated us, although there were some funny looks when we mentioned the due date, October 25th.  My work asked me not to tell my schools yet because they will call the Board of Education first and let them know what’s going on and explain that they will organize a substitute for my three months of maternity leave.  So I haven’t told anyone at my school yet, though I have stopped dressing in ways that will hide my growing belly.  My first two days of work, I wore all black, vertical stripes, bright necklaces, anything to draw attention to my face, and keep attention from my belly.  I don’t think I needed to worry so much.  I haven’t hidden my fat tummy for days and no one has looked at me funny or asked me about it.  I guess if I look at it objectively, I can see how it just looks like I had a big lunch...sort of. 

 

I recently told a Japanese friend about my pregnancy and when I noticed her surprise, I asked her, “But, didn’t you notice my growing stomach?”  Her response was, “Well, no!  If I thought a fat tummy meant someone was pregnant, then I would just have to assume all foreigners are pregnant!”  She was joking (mostly), but I thought it was really funny and I’m pretty sure that’s what is going on at my school.  So far I’ve only gained about 2 pounds, but I don’t know how that happened because I feel like I have quite a bump.  I can’t button my normal pants anymore, so I either leave them unzipped with a belly band over them or wear the maternity pants my mom sent me from the states.  Maternity shopping in Japan is ridiculous.  As a general rule, I hate shopping.  Add to the mix that clothes are three times what they would cost in the states, that I don’t speak the language very well, the XL sizes are usually too small (I'm a M in the states) and it makes for a miserable shopping experience.  The maternity clothes I've found at the various malls are usually these filmy, boxy, tops and then short shorts.  My mother-law said she’ll send me some clothes and my mom, dad, and sister-in-law have already sent a box of all types of summer maternity clothes that I've been loving.

How are Japanese people reacting to my pregnancy?  Well, as I just wrote, it’s not yet obvious whether I’m pregnant or chubby, so I can’t say how strangers or neighbors will react just yet.  As far as people who do know, it’s a little frustrating.  I’m a very independent person.  I don’t like being told what to do.  My husband and I both joke sometimes that we both have oppositional defiance disorder.  Being told that we absolutely must do something a certain way is the best way to get us to do it differently.  On top of that, Jon and I have both been very careful about this pregnancy.  We planned to get pregnant, so I haven’t drunk any alcohol from the very start; I take my vitamins and eat healthy fresh veggies, fruits, and whole grains.  I stopped rock climbing at 10 weeks, and we never miss a doctor appointment.  We researched all the fish that are high in mercury and I even stopped drinking coffee.   So, when someone tries to boss me around and tell me how to act as a pregnant lady, I get really peeved. 

The first time this happened was when I was playing around with some little three year old boys that I teach English to.  I picked one of them up and immediately got attacked by six parents shouting that I shouldn’t pick up anything heavy...ever.  For nine months I’m supposed to just let my muscles atrophy, I guess.  This has happened many times since then, moving tables that hardly weigh more than 8 pounds, carrying groceries from the store, etc. etc. etc.  I’m sick to death of assuring people that I can still ride my bike safely.  I don’t need people telling me I need to hold the hand rail when I go up and down stairs.  If there happens to be someone smoking within a 15 foot radius, I don’t need anyone going over there and telling them they need to put it out because I’m pregnant and I don’t need to leave and go home lest I breathe a whiff of diluted smoke.  And I especially don’t need the comments asking why I'm coming back to work after my maternity leave is up. Don't I want to be a good mother and stay home with the baby?

It’s hard in a different way for Jon too.  Jon loves helping me.  He would carry all the heavy things all the time if I let him.  However, I’ve always insisted on carrying my fair share, whether we’re camping and hiking across the Great Wall of China, or carrying food home from the grocery store.  Especially now that I’m pregnant, I want to stay strong.  I know that exercise is good for me and the baby and I know that labor takes a lot of muscle power, so I am trying to stay as active as I can.  However, people tend to look askance at Jon when they see me with a heavy backpack, and I imagine it will only get worse once I obviously have a baby inside me.  So, Jon gets hit on two sides.  He wants to help me, but I won’t let him, and then he gets looks and comments from strangers insinuating that he isn’t a very good husband, when in fact he's the best husband.

Our friends and acquaintances have started to realize how Jon and I do things and I’ve let them all know that I plan to ride my bike to the hospital when it’s time to have T-Rex, so they have relaxed a little bit about it—or at least stopped making comments about it.  (I don’t actually plan to ride my bike to the hospital in the midst of contractions.  We live close enough that we’ll either walk or take a taxi.)  However, I imagine that as it gets more obvious that I’m pregnant, we’ll start getting more comments from strangers or nosy neighbors.  I don’t know how pervasive these sorts of things would be in the states, as I’ve never been pregnant there.  

The other day Jon got to feel T-Rex kicking through my belly muscles and it was a really special experience. I'm glad that he is now able to feel the baby move, although now he has the same worries I have been having every day, "Wait, it's been almost five hours since we felt him/her move...is he/she ok?"  The very next day I was looking at my stomach and T-Rex gave a mighty kick, making my belly bulge out about an inch.  It was not special or sweet and I didn’t rub my tummy or smile about our future soccer player.  Instead, I sat down quickly because I almost fainted.  My first thought was not of the precious bundle of life inside me, it was of the X-Files episode we had recently watched where the alien rips its way out of the man’s torso. And then goes on a killing spree.  Having a growing baby inside you with weird.