A few pics from last night's Samsung GSG Holiday Party, where the evening's theme was James Bond (but also included Gangnam-style horses, Suwon hip hop dancers, and seriously impressive talent in the GSG Idol sing-off):
Wednesday, December 16, 2015
Tuesday, December 15, 2015
34 weeks
Life is good. I'm sitting here in my new favorite french bakery in Seoul (Gontran Cherrier in Itaewon), munching on a mid-morning chocolate scone and sipping a honey lemon ginger tea, listening to jazzy renditions of Christmas carols. So why am I so happy? Well, so many reasons, but top of mind right now is: I was clinically instructed to eat more sugar this week! Ever since starting my "no sugar cleanse" at the beginning of third trimester, I've had quite a complicated relationship to sugar -- on one hand, craving it insanely (a direct quote from Tyler when we stopped at a convenience store on Sunday: "Trish...back away from the ice cream... just back away..."), and on the other, knowing on so many levels how sugar can easily spiral into a negative cycle (leading to eczema breakouts for me, and also realizing that what I eat now (especially in the third trimester) can fundamentally impact Gracie's health moving forward -- including influencing his own preferences and cravings later on in life (if I could only recommend one book to read about pregnancy and prenatal health to pregnant and non-pregnant folks alike, it would have to be Annie Murphy Paul's book on prenatal cognitive development, Origins: How the Nine Months Before Birth Shape the Rest of Our Lives). To be fair, she does cite new studies that show that pregnant women who eat chocolate every day during pregnancy have babies who show less fear, as well as smile and laugh more often at six months. But for me, a big takeaway was how nutritional choices made now (which the baby tastes through the amniotic fluid) set the stage for choices in life ahead. And while my "no sugar cleanse" has basically come now under the more feasible 80-20 rule (with cheat days for Thanksgiving and Christmas), I've generally been trying to stick with it.
This past Saturday, we had my big 34 week checkup. It was our second time at Yeon and Nature, but our first getting an ultrasound there. What struck me most, compared to our first hospital (Miraewa) was how non-clinical it all felt: rather than a clinical/hospital bed of plastic, I laid on what felt like a normal twin size bed with blankets and pillows for the ultrasound, as well as when Dr. Park took a pelvic swab (where are the stirrups and other clinical items?) All in all, I feel incredibly grateful for all the amazing resources we have access to here. I absolutely loved Miraewa; our doctor was the medical director there, who is incredibly kind, patient, and optimistic; compared to him, our Yeon and Nature doctor is fiesty and fast-talking, and we love her too, particularly her general view of seeing pregnancy and childbirth as something that's "not a disease" (hence, the non-clinical nature of the clinic). That said, I do admit that the artwork decorating the halls was a bit "out there" for us -- paintings made from placentas and umbilical cords of women who had delivered there (it's actually not as bad as it sounds -- some are really pretty pictures of trees and roots...)
But much more importantly, the 34 week checkup went incredibly well! Shockingly, though I've now gained 39 pounds in 34 weeks (and am now 136 pounds, or 140% of my pre-pregnancy weight!), this doesn't seem to concern the doctor (which goes against everything I've heard around Korean pregnancies and clinical advice to keep the baby small to ensure an easy delivery). Baby Gracie Oliver (I've spontaneously added his second name this week) himself is no little guy. He now weighs 5.8 pounds (average weight for 34 weeks seems to be around 4.7 pounds); healthy and strong heartbeat (I could seriously listen to a recording of that heartbeat all day -- which right now sounds like racing horses at 145 beats per minute); all ten figures and toes. It's really amazing how detailed these ultrasounds are, showing his vertebrae and even his heart ventricles (including blood in red and blue indicating blood leaving and entering his heart). As our doula indicated, he covered his eyes (babies don't like the light!) -- prompting Tyler to tell the sonologist not to take any photos and to make this as fast as possible (resulting in a glare from me)... though he did yawn -- prompting a big collective "aw" from all of us watching on the big screen. The big relief for us was that my amniotic fluid level was very much in the "normal" range at 10 (I'm sure it helped that I drank literally about 4-5 liters of water that morning in preparation for this check-up). So all good things!
The one not-so-great part was that Gracie Oliver's head is up, instead of down. Granted, this was also the case at my last ultrasound one month ago -- though then everyone told me not to worry about it. This time, while I was still told not to worry about it, Dr Park also talked about physically manipulating the baby to turn head down if he was still in this position in a week and a half (the beginning of 36 weeks). While this seemed like a fair enough plan (with success rates being highest at the beginning of 36 weeks), the more I read up on this after, the less this intervention resonated with us. For one thing, maybe there's a reason his head is up -- for instance, maybe the umbilical cord is short or something around the shape of the uterus. And I get really freaked out thinking about moving him around from the outside and the cord getting stuck around his neck or body in the process.
And soooo....the last three days have been interesting ones, to say the least -- as I embark on lots of do-it-yourself options for turning little Gracie around. Here have been some highlights... it feels like some sort of "Into the Looking Glass" fantastical adventure -- all aimed at loosening my pelvic muscles and giving Gracie the chance to turn himself around:
(1) Meditations and "self-hypnosis" rooted in the hypnobirthing classes we're currently taking. While I feel they certainly need a new name and re-branding, I very much agree with the concept. At the core of it all is fear. Fear (both known and repressed) constricts our muscles, including those in the reproductive system, leading to lots of bad things, like pain in childbirth and constrictions leading to breech positioning. Hence the theory is by addressing these fears and learning to relax, there's more room for the baby to get to optimal positioning.
(2) Inversions, taught to us by Dr Park, as well as my new midwife (Jin from Yeon and Nature, who we also just met this past Saturday) and doula, Miriam. Anyone who comes into our house now must wonder what kind of weird things go on, seeing the pillow and yoga mat at the foot of our guest bed (where I hang down three times a day now), and even funnier still, the ironing board propped against our couch (where I hang feet up, head down for 20 minutes at a time). I'm eternally grateful to Tyler, who came back from a busy day at work and a tough workout at jujitsu last night, and without batting an eye, got to work when I shoved this picture on my iphone in his face and said: "Please help me do this."
(3) Acupuncture and moxibustion. If the lying down on an ironing board isn't weird enough, moxibustion is a totally different level. I don't understand it myself, but the general idea is to "warm the uterus" through the use of Chinese fire sticks, leveraging acupuncture points. Lots of blogs I read warned about making sure that the practitioner doesn't burn you. Of course, this being Korea, I should have figured they'd have a more high-tech option. This consisted of some sort of "electrical" knobs the acupuncturist placed on my legs, following acupuncture. The funny thing here is that (as I've learned about other Korean clinics), there tends to be unlikely pairing (a friend told me about going to a dentist, who also happened to be a urologist, sitting with lots of sad-looking men in the waiting room -- each confused on why the other was there). This time, I saw an acupuncturist who was also a pediatrician. All the doctors there were dressed in an orange lab coat with polar bears; here's how the acupuncture room looks:
(4) Osteopathy: And finally, what brought me to Itaewon this morning and perhaps what's top on my list when I say I'm absolutely grateful and feel lucky to be pregnant in Korea: Create Wellness and Dr Joseph. Ever since first finding out I was pregnant, I've been seeing Dr. Joseph (an osteopath here), as well as getting weekly massages (love love our insurance!) And while Korea certainly gives special attention to pregnant women (given its low birth rates, pregnancy is quite a national priority here), these weekly massages are not limited to pregnancy. Tyler's been getting them as well, and our Saturdays in Itaewon have become weekly dates for us. This picture (created by the clinic's manager for Dr Joseph's birthday) pretty much sums up my thoughts about him:
Korean and trained in London, he became really passionate about osteopathy as a tool for healthy pregnancy through his own wife's pregnancies. While she was told she'd need a c-section for their second child, due to their experiences with their first, Dr. Joseph worked on her and she ended up having a normal delivery. When I told him the situation this morning, he sat me at his desk, took out his skeleton model, and cheerily told me about what needed to happen, reassuring me that we this wouldn't be a problem. As we worked on loosening my hip and pelvic muscles, he also suggested various holistic measures to address the situation: breathing deeply and often; talking to the baby; and keeping him more awake this week to increase his chances of moving down -- through things like music, dancing (both for me and Gracie), and yes -- sugar!!
One of my favorite quotes is "Once you set your intention, the universe conspires with you to achieve this." (I had to laugh when I recently talked to Tyler about career stuff, and he responded with -- "you know, it's like the whole universe thing") While so many people (Koreans and Americans alike) seem shocked that I'm delivering our baby here, I feel so incredibly supported. Stay tuned, let's see what happens at our next appointment next Thursday and hopefully seeing our little guy turning himself around on his own!
(And in the meantime, some photos of me back in October with Dr. Joseph for their new website... can you tell we're pretty much regulars at this place?!)
This past Saturday, we had my big 34 week checkup. It was our second time at Yeon and Nature, but our first getting an ultrasound there. What struck me most, compared to our first hospital (Miraewa) was how non-clinical it all felt: rather than a clinical/hospital bed of plastic, I laid on what felt like a normal twin size bed with blankets and pillows for the ultrasound, as well as when Dr. Park took a pelvic swab (where are the stirrups and other clinical items?) All in all, I feel incredibly grateful for all the amazing resources we have access to here. I absolutely loved Miraewa; our doctor was the medical director there, who is incredibly kind, patient, and optimistic; compared to him, our Yeon and Nature doctor is fiesty and fast-talking, and we love her too, particularly her general view of seeing pregnancy and childbirth as something that's "not a disease" (hence, the non-clinical nature of the clinic). That said, I do admit that the artwork decorating the halls was a bit "out there" for us -- paintings made from placentas and umbilical cords of women who had delivered there (it's actually not as bad as it sounds -- some are really pretty pictures of trees and roots...)
But much more importantly, the 34 week checkup went incredibly well! Shockingly, though I've now gained 39 pounds in 34 weeks (and am now 136 pounds, or 140% of my pre-pregnancy weight!), this doesn't seem to concern the doctor (which goes against everything I've heard around Korean pregnancies and clinical advice to keep the baby small to ensure an easy delivery). Baby Gracie Oliver (I've spontaneously added his second name this week) himself is no little guy. He now weighs 5.8 pounds (average weight for 34 weeks seems to be around 4.7 pounds); healthy and strong heartbeat (I could seriously listen to a recording of that heartbeat all day -- which right now sounds like racing horses at 145 beats per minute); all ten figures and toes. It's really amazing how detailed these ultrasounds are, showing his vertebrae and even his heart ventricles (including blood in red and blue indicating blood leaving and entering his heart). As our doula indicated, he covered his eyes (babies don't like the light!) -- prompting Tyler to tell the sonologist not to take any photos and to make this as fast as possible (resulting in a glare from me)... though he did yawn -- prompting a big collective "aw" from all of us watching on the big screen. The big relief for us was that my amniotic fluid level was very much in the "normal" range at 10 (I'm sure it helped that I drank literally about 4-5 liters of water that morning in preparation for this check-up). So all good things!
The one not-so-great part was that Gracie Oliver's head is up, instead of down. Granted, this was also the case at my last ultrasound one month ago -- though then everyone told me not to worry about it. This time, while I was still told not to worry about it, Dr Park also talked about physically manipulating the baby to turn head down if he was still in this position in a week and a half (the beginning of 36 weeks). While this seemed like a fair enough plan (with success rates being highest at the beginning of 36 weeks), the more I read up on this after, the less this intervention resonated with us. For one thing, maybe there's a reason his head is up -- for instance, maybe the umbilical cord is short or something around the shape of the uterus. And I get really freaked out thinking about moving him around from the outside and the cord getting stuck around his neck or body in the process.
And soooo....the last three days have been interesting ones, to say the least -- as I embark on lots of do-it-yourself options for turning little Gracie around. Here have been some highlights... it feels like some sort of "Into the Looking Glass" fantastical adventure -- all aimed at loosening my pelvic muscles and giving Gracie the chance to turn himself around:
(1) Meditations and "self-hypnosis" rooted in the hypnobirthing classes we're currently taking. While I feel they certainly need a new name and re-branding, I very much agree with the concept. At the core of it all is fear. Fear (both known and repressed) constricts our muscles, including those in the reproductive system, leading to lots of bad things, like pain in childbirth and constrictions leading to breech positioning. Hence the theory is by addressing these fears and learning to relax, there's more room for the baby to get to optimal positioning.
(2) Inversions, taught to us by Dr Park, as well as my new midwife (Jin from Yeon and Nature, who we also just met this past Saturday) and doula, Miriam. Anyone who comes into our house now must wonder what kind of weird things go on, seeing the pillow and yoga mat at the foot of our guest bed (where I hang down three times a day now), and even funnier still, the ironing board propped against our couch (where I hang feet up, head down for 20 minutes at a time). I'm eternally grateful to Tyler, who came back from a busy day at work and a tough workout at jujitsu last night, and without batting an eye, got to work when I shoved this picture on my iphone in his face and said: "Please help me do this."
(3) Acupuncture and moxibustion. If the lying down on an ironing board isn't weird enough, moxibustion is a totally different level. I don't understand it myself, but the general idea is to "warm the uterus" through the use of Chinese fire sticks, leveraging acupuncture points. Lots of blogs I read warned about making sure that the practitioner doesn't burn you. Of course, this being Korea, I should have figured they'd have a more high-tech option. This consisted of some sort of "electrical" knobs the acupuncturist placed on my legs, following acupuncture. The funny thing here is that (as I've learned about other Korean clinics), there tends to be unlikely pairing (a friend told me about going to a dentist, who also happened to be a urologist, sitting with lots of sad-looking men in the waiting room -- each confused on why the other was there). This time, I saw an acupuncturist who was also a pediatrician. All the doctors there were dressed in an orange lab coat with polar bears; here's how the acupuncture room looks:
(4) Osteopathy: And finally, what brought me to Itaewon this morning and perhaps what's top on my list when I say I'm absolutely grateful and feel lucky to be pregnant in Korea: Create Wellness and Dr Joseph. Ever since first finding out I was pregnant, I've been seeing Dr. Joseph (an osteopath here), as well as getting weekly massages (love love our insurance!) And while Korea certainly gives special attention to pregnant women (given its low birth rates, pregnancy is quite a national priority here), these weekly massages are not limited to pregnancy. Tyler's been getting them as well, and our Saturdays in Itaewon have become weekly dates for us. This picture (created by the clinic's manager for Dr Joseph's birthday) pretty much sums up my thoughts about him:
Korean and trained in London, he became really passionate about osteopathy as a tool for healthy pregnancy through his own wife's pregnancies. While she was told she'd need a c-section for their second child, due to their experiences with their first, Dr. Joseph worked on her and she ended up having a normal delivery. When I told him the situation this morning, he sat me at his desk, took out his skeleton model, and cheerily told me about what needed to happen, reassuring me that we this wouldn't be a problem. As we worked on loosening my hip and pelvic muscles, he also suggested various holistic measures to address the situation: breathing deeply and often; talking to the baby; and keeping him more awake this week to increase his chances of moving down -- through things like music, dancing (both for me and Gracie), and yes -- sugar!!
One of my favorite quotes is "Once you set your intention, the universe conspires with you to achieve this." (I had to laugh when I recently talked to Tyler about career stuff, and he responded with -- "you know, it's like the whole universe thing") While so many people (Koreans and Americans alike) seem shocked that I'm delivering our baby here, I feel so incredibly supported. Stay tuned, let's see what happens at our next appointment next Thursday and hopefully seeing our little guy turning himself around on his own!
(And in the meantime, some photos of me back in October with Dr. Joseph for their new website... can you tell we're pretty much regulars at this place?!)
Tuesday, December 8, 2015
What a difference a few months makes...
At some point during the summer, Tyler started (lovingly) saying: "I know you will, but I just can't imagine you getting any bigger!" This was one of our mutual "whoa" moments, back in mid-July, when I was 12 weeks pregnant:
We just came across this photo while going through my computer this past weekend and laughed at how "BIG" we both thought I was!!
Here's me over the weekend, now at 33 weeks pregnant:
Still gearing up for Gracie's growth spurt from week 36 - 39. Clearly we ain't seen nothing yet!
We just came across this photo while going through my computer this past weekend and laughed at how "BIG" we both thought I was!!
Here's me over the weekend, now at 33 weeks pregnant:
Still gearing up for Gracie's growth spurt from week 36 - 39. Clearly we ain't seen nothing yet!
33 weeks
Considering my dad just emailed me a 34-week-birthday wish to whisper to Gracie tomorrow morning, I figured it was time to stop procrastinating on my 33 week blog post...
It's definitely been an interesting couple of weeks. First, winter has officially started in Seoul. Not that I can complain... New York may have Indian summers, with high temperatures lasting through September, but Seoul has the longest (and dare I say, most beautiful) autumns -- with dramatic reds and deep oranges, and crisp cool weather -- requiring only a light warm coat -- through late November. Here are a few photos from playing tourist in Bukchon in early November:
And then, just as I remember from last year -- bam! The beginning of winter and frigid cold, right around Thanksgiving. This year, it happened on Thanksgiving Day itself -- the temperature dipped suddenly, and I had the most magical prenatal yoga class, watching huge snow flakes falling outside. Of course, since India basically trained me to stop looking up the weather, I generally dress for whatever the weather was the previous day. Thanksgiving was not a good day to do that, and I found myself fighting the good fight against a sore throat and cold for a good week after the wrong wardrobe choice.
So now I happily sport my size large Uniqlo winter coat -- it's bright white and my Korean teacher calls me 눈사람 ("noon saram", or snowman). I don't mind, since it keeps me warm and somehow even though I'm all bundled up, I'm still able to get subway seats (this is a very new phenomenon and only started happening around the same time that our guy friends started saying things like: "WHOA! You look like you're due tomorrow!" or "Wow, I knew you were pregnant, but I didn't know you were THIS pregnant!")
And while it's usually easy for me to complain about being sick, it's amazing to have friends that remind me what's important. Last night, I got an email from my friend Robert, organizing a night of meditative reflection of the past year and setting intentions for the year ahead (this is in NY... I don't yet have friends like this in Seoul.... yet!) I wrote him back saying what a year it's been for both of us; I remember skyping with him in January -- he was just telling me about this awesome girl he met just before the holidays, and I talked about our excitement to start a family. He got engaged the day before Thanksgiving.
His email response to me was a one-liner: "It's been a year! :-) we are so fucking lucky."
Cheers to that. So what comes to mind now, especially reflecting on the last couple of weeks, is around community. It's something that those close to me know I've been complaining about and generally frustrated by since I moved here. But something shifted once I got pregnant in the spring. It was like this parallel universe opened up, where generally things were still the same on the outside, yet there emerged this sense of understanding, belonging, and community (I remember I also felt this way when I got engaged -- it was as though I entered this "secret club" where people just started treating and relating to me differently -- especially my parents' generation).
And that's when I realize how lucky I am to be... well, right where I am. In the high-rise complex I live in, there are at least five other expats who are pregnant and/or just had a baby over the last year. One recently organized a weekly playgroup in our building (which feels more like the moms playing, as usually the babies generally seem to sleep), and another had families over to her place last weekend to teach baby massage (is that a thing in the US? -- it's huge here!). Last week when I was feeling icky and sick, my friend Anna, who lives three floors above me, came over with a giant pot of chicken soup and small oranges for Vitamin C (nothing like that comes close to neighborly care in NYC!) Tyler and I babysat for another friend her first weekend home with their new baby (his older brother, however, wanted nothing to do with us; a direct quote between the 2-year old's angry tears were: "We can tell our new friends to go BYE-BYE!!"); while another friend and I constantly text about our doctor's visits and just about everything else. As I headed to Anna's apartment in my yoga pants and slippers to return her pot, it occurred to me that this feels a bit like college -- with all of us going through big life changes together (though staying up all night clearly has a different connotation these days!)
The interesting thing about Korean culture, though, is that there's an enormous divide between strangers and friends. There is absolutely no such thing as "friendly strangers" here. In New York City, the band is much more narrow. Sure, I've never had a neighbor bring me chicken soup. But neighbors (whose names you surely don't know) also hold the elevator door open for you and offer to lend a hand when you're carrying heavy groceries. Not so in Korea. Elevators are silent as libraries, and no one makes eye contact (a common fight I hear between couples where one is Korean and the other is American is how the American keeps striking up conversations in the elevator or generally talks too loudly in them). Once you somehow become friends (which I must say, seems extremely rare), you are truly friends -- we met one of our neighbors, and we've since been to her daughter's wedding, over to each other's apartments numerous times -- her daughter even worked with Tyler to get us our TV from the US -- no small feat, which took literally a month because we kept accidentally returning the TV on the Korean-only website...
But until then, even though you live in the same building and therefore share something in common, you are a stranger, and the "friendly stranger" rules I'm used to from the States no longer apply. For instance, no one holds doors open for anyone else here -- whether this is an elevator door or the main door when you're carrying lots of groceries (or as my friends tell me, pushing a stroller). In fact, I often see neighbors pushing "door close" on the elevators as soon as the elevators open on our floor -- even though we are standing right outside to get in!! Alas, silly me thought this might change with pregnancy. I was in our lobby and the elevator door opened; there was one man inside, who looked at my belly and then made eye contact, as he pushed a button. Given our eye contact, I assumed he was holding the door open for me. As the elevator doors closed directly on my belly, I realized I had made the wrong assumption of which button he was pressing. Of course, when I told this to my pregnant friends here, all of them had the same story!
One of my friends -- who incidentally is one of the most laid-back, confident, and chill moms I know (which is a huge compliment in my book), tells the story of how she literally broke down in tears going to her doctors appointment, 38 weeks pregnant and carrying her toddler's stroller up the subway stairs, with everyone stopping to stare but no one offering to lend a hand. The extremes are much more stark here than in a place like NYC -- where I can't imagine a neighbor helping us procure a TV for one month, but where there's also no lack of friendly strangers to help carry a stroller up subway stairs. My friend Selene from NYC told me that she realized she's starting to show because strangers smile at her on the street. Even when I was barely showing in September, as soon as I stepped onto a subway car, someone would immediately offer me their seat. Here, well... they say a picture is worth a thousand words (as context, these "pink" seats are actually meant for pregnant women):
So what I'm realizing is here in Korea (and I suppose everywhere else too), "micro"-communities matter. Perhaps because we're outsiders to this culture, community is what you make of it. And with the holiday season kicking off, I'm realizing that as much as I still feel like an outsider here in many ways, I'm also starting to feel like an insider too, in the ways that seem to most matter -- those involving friends, starting a family, and creating a tribe. A big part of that has been entering this community of moms and will-be-moms (which, as I'm learning, is far from one defined group -- a recent Facebook post I sent inquiring about night nurses sparked lots of debate and dissension -- one can see how mommy wars begin!)
So with that, I'll end with a few pictures of our community here and holiday celebrations from the last couple of weeks -- first, an incredible expat Thanksgiving feast hosted by our pastry-chef friend, Alana and her husband, Dan; and this past weekend, an ugly Christmas sweater party (with the most amazing mulled wine and hot chocolate) hosted by Agnes and Michal -- also expecting their first baby in 2016! Here's to community, new traditions, and the start of an incredible holiday season!
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