32 weeks

I found a note this morning from my younger, sometimes wiser self, stuffed into a hidden pocket of a wallet I no longer use.  It's a list of values, of choices I hoped to make when at the cross-roads of choosing fear or love.  It's stuffed somewhere with my 2014 resolutions (top of that list: have a baby).  It's all the reminder I need on a grey day that our outlook is a choice; and that these repeated choices become habits, which form the basis of our character.  There's a Gandhi quote I've always loved, which essentially boils down to: choose your beliefs and thoughts wisely.

"Your beliefs become your thoughts,
Your thoughts become your words,
Your words become your actions,
Your actions become your habits,
Your habits become your values,
Your values become your destiny." - Mahatma Gandhi

In this week (and season) of giving thanks, I found myself this morning dusting off my gratitude journal and sitting down with a cup of strong tea in the baby's nursery.  Earlier in the morning, I had hastily written down questions to ponder on my iphone.  One that I underlined: what matters most to me?  Even as I write that now, I can feel a swirl of thoughts competing for attention in my brain.  Yet sitting down on the floor of the nursery, the answer moves easily from my brain to my heart.

You see, getting pregnant wasn't easy for us.  It's something that high school taught us to fear could happen at any time, and then suddenly when we finally wanted it, we learned it doesn't quite happen on-demand.  When we first moved into our apartment in Seoul fourteen months ago, there was this really funny room that stemmed from the master bedroom.  The tenants before us used it for one gigantic closet -- and I mean, gigantic!  This room had its own window and air conditioning unit, yet was only accessible through the master bedroom itself.  When one of my best friends came to Seoul to visit and saw this empty room, she excitedly suggested we use this room as an exercise room.  Something within me physically stirred because there was only one thing I envisioned for this room: our baby's nursery.

Over the last year, I ended up meditating quite a bit in the empty room.  On good days, I saw possibility and hope.  On bad days, it was a visible, physical reminder of an unspeakable emptiness, even shame.  We'd joke to friends about this "random" empty room we had in our house, and the doors, for the most part, stayed closed.

Even after we joyfully got pregnant this past spring, there was something about the nursery that kept me from going "all in".  It was as though starting to build the nursery would somehow tempt fate and allow the worst that could happen to happen.  Even after we started announcing we were pregnant (which we didn't even do on social media until close to 20 weeks), there was something that prevented me from writing definitively: "We're having a boy in January!" -- I kept wanting to do what a mentor of mine did when she was pregnant, and writing "inshallah" after the sentence (I finally largely settled on "expecting").  As though somehow not 100% fully embracing this would shield me from any heartbreak.  In this, I'm reminded of Brene Brown's book, "The Gifts of Imperfection" -- which I've already mentally noted to re-read at least once a year.  In her book, she talks about finding the courage to be vulnerable enough to openly celebrate those intensely joyful moments, in spite of being fearful that savoring happiness is inviting disaster.

This also reminds me of a Nelson Mandela quote I love: "May your choices reflect your hopes, not your fears."  And so with that, shortly after my return to Seoul from my month in the States, the doors of the nursery came down (quite literally: Tyler removed the nails and the doors, much to the concern of other parents who keep warning us, "Um, maybe you want to be able to shut the doors?").  We made a trek to IKEA, opened all the shipped boxes and stuffed suitcases from the amazingly thoughtful baby showers thrown for me in LA and NYC, and got to work.  Over the last three weekends, we've finally finished doing all the baby's laundry (he easily has more clothes than Tyler and I combined), and put on the finishing touches:

The Wall Street Journal published an amazing piece last month called, "Adventures in Fertility" (link here).  The writer, Jason Gay, a sports columnist for the WSJ, talks about losing all perspective on their adventures in fertility, now that their oldest son is three.  But how at night, when the kids are asleep -- that's when he feels it:

"I'll be walking down the hallway to our bedroom, and I'll have my mind on something silly like a basketball game, and I will pass their little room.  For a long time, it was this sad, unused room that we never were quite sure what to do with.  Is it an office?  A guest room?  A storage room for unnecessary crap?

'That's going to be the baby's room,' we would say.  But there were a lot of long, gray years when it belonged to nobody.

Now it's getting late, and as I pass by, I see the kids, asleep.  They're still new, still a mystery.

That room belongs to somebody.

That's when I know how lucky we are."

And so, with great awe and humility in how things somehow always magically work out in the end ("If it's not okay, it's not end"), I open up my gratitude journal this morning, surrounded by all the baby animal decals we lovingly put up floor-height, and begin to write...

31 weeks

I laugh envisioning how posts for the next 7-9 weeks will go... Yup, got bigger this past week...

Seriously though, Tyler and I joke that when he comes home from work, I'm bigger than when he left in the morning.  I bump into things with my stomach so often and so regularly that this is no longer newsworthy (the biggest is still constantly bumping up against the sink when I do dishes... every day, I have to stand farther and farther back!  What is new, however, is now I'm dropping things all the time, especially doing dishes -- it's apparently all the relaxin hormones loosening my muscles in preparation for delivery).

Reading "this week in your pregnancy"-type articles was always so amazing during the first trimester -- it's just remarkable how early things like heart and spinal cord develop (fifth week of pregnancy; or only three weeks after conception!).  And somehow by the third trimester, a little baby is there, nearly all in tact -- with the third trimester focused almost entirely on growth (one of my mentors is a pediatrician, and she said she would always breathe a sigh of relief after a baby progressed beyond 27 weeks -- after that, it's all about growing and thriving).

So, if you're wondering, at 31 weeks, our baby is now the size of a pineapple and almost 4 pounds (well, The Bump says 2.5 - 3.8 pounds, but ever since they started measuring weight, this little guy has been above the range... I'm always petrified my care team will tell me I need to stop eating so much, but thankfully that hasn't yet happened).

With all the nesting we've been doing over the last few weeks, we've now settled into a bedtime routine at home with the little guy (who we've been calling Gracie since the first trimester... long story, perhaps a blog post at some point).  Each night, we read Gracie two books: I read On the Night You Were Born (which brought tears to my eyes the first time I read it, remembering I bought it for a friend a couple years ago when we first started trying ourselves), and Tyler reads -- or rather, raps, Little Blue Truck.  I sing back-up to Tyler's raps, sometimes giving a beat, but more often playing the sound of the little truck honking ("beep beep beep").  I'm not quite sure any of this is doing anything to stimulate the neural development of little Gracie, but certainly a way that we feel connected to him.

What does provoke a response is when Tyler then sings "Swing Low, Sweet Chariot" to him (something Tyler started since reading "The Birth Partner" book on the plane back from NYC to Seoul in late September).  Since I started feeling Gracie move in August, music seems to always elicit a response: top of the little guy's list appear to be Ave Maria (from my cousin's wedding), anything by the Viennese Boys Choir (my osteopath says that babies like hearing the voices of children), Bob Dylan (this is recent), and Tyler's nightly rendition of "Swing Low, Sweet Chariot."  If Gracie were asleep before, this never fails to wake him up.  Of course, we joke that we don't actually know whether there's a correlation between movement and happiness -- he's either kicking around, dancing with joy, or putting his hands to his ears and kicking at us to stop (as I learned this morning: all his senses are now developed!)  We'll need to test this after he's born.

Until then, we're still memorizing all the verses...

Swing low, sweet chariot,
Coming for to carry me home,
Swing low, sweet chariot, 
Coming for to carry me home.

I looked over Jordan, and what did I see?
Coming for to carry me home,
A band of angels coming after me,
Coming for to carry me home.

Chorus.

If you get there before I do,
Coming for to carry me home,
Tell all my friends I'm coming, too,
Coming for to carry me home.

Chorus.

I'm sometimes up and sometimes down,
Coming for to carry me home,
But still my soul feels heavenly bound,
Coming for to carry me home.

Chorus.

The brightest day that I can say,
Coming for to carry me home,
When Jesus washed my sins away,
Coming for to carry me home.

Chorus.

This holiday season...

'Nuff said.

"I was going to write a book, but then I got pregnant."

Before I got pregnant, I had this awesome idea for a book I would write.  It stems from a book I had heard about a few years ago -- about an American man with back pain, who went all around the world getting treated for it, along the way stumbling upon insights and lessons from health care systems much different from ours.

I was going to do the same thing, in a way, but for maternity.  Through the course of my nine month pregnancy, I would write about the care I was receiving in Korea, as well as anywhere else in the world I happened to travel for work or for pleasure -- the US, India, Sub-Saharan Africa, Europe...

When I was back in New York City this past September, I saw my friend Blake, who is one of those rare friends who not only pushes you to be your best self, but calls you out on it when you're not.  He asks, "So how's your book coming?"  I respond: "Well, I was going to write a book, but then I got pregnant."  His response: "Great! - Sounds like an awesome title for your new book."

The takeaway for me here is that there's a vast difference between what I think I'm going to do around pregnancy and birth; and then the reality of what does happen (while I still get excited about that book and think it's an impactful way to shed light on the state of maternal health around the world, the reality is that actually, I don't want to travel to areas of the world with awful maternal health outcomes (the whole reason Gates has funded us to work there in the first place!) while I'm pregnant; I suppose this must have been obvious to everyone but me.)

... All of which is prompting me to get back on the horse and start blogging again regularly -- before I forget all of this in the haze of new motherhood (on that subject, one of my college roommates -- one of the most articulate and introspective people I know -- wrote an article in The Atlantic about this very thing, called "Before I Forget: What Nobody Remembers About New Motherhood": http://www.theatlantic.com/sexes/archive/2013/04/before-i-forget-what-nobody-remembers-about-new-motherhood/274981/)

So what's happening in my world right now?  Well, today is Veteran's Day in the US, Diwali in India, Singles' Day in China (google it, it's really a thing), and Pepero Day in Korea (in case you're wondering, it's like Valentine's Day, but instead of chocolate, you give your love a Pepero stick -- an evolution of the supposed origin of Pepero Day on 11/11: exchanging tall, thin Peperos in the hopes of becoming taller and thinner yourself -- ah, Korea).

But in the Morente-Bolender family, this day is significant because I'm now 30 weeks pregnant; ten more weeks to go!!

Time's a funny thing.  We all know it's relative.  One week in the first trimester was a wholly different psychological length than one week now.  For me, the first trimester dragged on and on... each individual week was momentous (you could have asked either of us what size fruit the baby was and we'd know instantly -- growing from sesame seed to watermelon seed to an actual real fruit size... now when you ask us, we shrug and look at the other person to see if they know!).

Then the second trimester came, and with it, what I'm now realizing to be the glory days of pregnancy: so much energy, so much appetite (absolutely everything tasted just so delicious!!); that illusive "glow" you keep hearing about and then somehow realize you have yourself!

And now I'm learning that the third trimester is a whole new category all on its own.  Week 27 came as a bit of a shock to us both -- suddenly, it was here (I remember doing pregnancy meditations in week 7 and looking longingly to month 7, thinking -- that's SO far away!!!).  And with the transition to third trimester, both of us realizing we had done next to nothing around actual planning for the birth and delivery.

So began a flurry of weekend activity, all focused around birth preparation: shopping (and finding!) a facility to deliver in; finding a post-natal center to be pampered in after birth (certainly a future blog topic); finding a nanny to help us next year; finding a prenatal yoga center in Seoul; buying and preparing our nursery... Our Wunderlist became a list of all-things baby and delivery.

After spending the last seven months focused on being centered, present, and calm -- the last few weeks have brought my Type A personality out with a roar.  So now it's about finding balance: being the mama bear ready to do whatever is needed, but also being here and present to these last incredible ten weeks.

As the quote hanging in my room reminds me daily: "These are the magic years... and therefore magic days... and therefore magic moments." (and as if on cue, the baby inside me is now kicking enthusiastically to concur).

Beyond the unknown

A good friend sent me this poem this morning.  As I sit here sipping my pregnancy red raspberry leaf tea, watching the sun set over the mountains on an unusually clear Seoul evening, I thought I'd share:

"In a mother’s womb were two babies. One asked the other: “Do you believe in life after delivery?” The other replied, “Why, of course. There has to  be something after delivery. Maybe we are here to prepare ourselves for what we will be later.”“Nonsense” said the first. “There is no life after delivery. What kind of life would that be?”The second said, “I don’t know, but there will be more light than here. Maybe we will walk with our legs and eat from our mouths. Maybe we will have other senses that we can’t understand now.”The first replied, “That is absurd. Walking is impossible. And eating with our mouths? Ridiculous! The umbilical cord supplies nutrition and everything we need. But the umbilical cord is so short. Life after delivery is to be logically excluded.”The second insisted, “Well I think there is something and maybe it’s different than it is here. Maybe we won’t need this physical cord anymore.”The first replied, “Nonsense. And moreover if there is life, then why has no one has ever come back from there? Delivery is the end of life, and in the after-delivery there is nothing but darkness and silence and oblivion. It takes us nowhere.”“Well, I don’t know,” said the second, “but certainly we will meet Mother and she will take care of us.”The first replied “Mother? You actually believe in Mother? That’s laughable. If Mother exists then where is She now?”The second said, “She is all around us. We are surrounded by her. We are of Her. It is in Her that we live. Without Her this world would not and could not exist.”Said the first: “Well I don’t see Her, so it is only logical that She doesn’t exist.”To which the second replied, “Sometimes, when you’re in silence and you focus  and you really listen, you can perceive Her presence, and you can hear Her loving voice, calling down from above.”" 

- Útmutató a Léleknek

A Celebration

It's a momentous day for me.  Today I'm 20 weeks pregnant!  Literally at the half-way mark.  There's much to celebrate -- particularly since getting pregnant wasn't easy for us.

It's funny though.  Celebration doesn't come naturally for me.  I once took a women's professional development class about putting passion into practice.  One of the core tenets was to "celebrate".  I literally raised my hand and asked the instructor what she meant by that.

There's a voice in my head that tells me not to get too happy -- that getting too happy means just waiting for the other shoe to drop.  It's like some invisible glass ceiling when I start to get too joyful -- a nagging voice that says this joy can be taken away at any second (our engagement was a constant stream of acute anxiety for me -- equal parts fearing I would lose my individuality, at the same time fearing Tyler could die every time he got on his motorcycle... good thing I was never melodramatic).

And forget about actually sharing this feeling of happiness with others.  That brings a certain vulnerability, letting others know what you want so badly.  Because what if it doesn't work out?  (I remember a good friend not telling me she was applying to business school until after she already got in -- even though I was already in b-school and could have helped with her application.  I told this to another friend who said, "What's weird about that?  It would have been so embarrassing if she hadn't gotten in!").

So is it embarrassment?  Maybe.  There have been loads of great articles written about the 12 week "communication hold" and keeping silent about your pregnancy throughout the first trimester (this article in "Medium" is one of my favorites).  The basic gist of the general argument is that miscarriages are so common during the first trimester (as high as 50%, though that also includes the mom not even knowing she was pregnant -- just seeming like a late period) -- so it basically just sucks to tell everyone you're pregnant, only to have to tell everyone you then had a miscarriage.

But why is that the case?  As the author of the article in "Medium" writes:

"I wonder whose anxiety we're trying to protect in concealing these first few difficult months.  Is this supposed to be for my sake?  Are we trying to protect me from the embarrassment of admitting that I can't go 45 minutes without eating and am gaining weight at a rapid clip?  That I spend most of the day crying and moaning on the couch, Alicia Florrick my fictional companion?  That I'm afraid of losing the pregnancy but can't fathom that this debilitating state of being has anything to do with an actual baby?  Are we really trying to save me from having to share the news if I have a miscarriage?  Or are we trying to protect our culture from admitting that not all pregnancies are beautiful and easy and make it to term, and that the loss can be absolutely devastating?"

I argue it's something even deeper than anxiety and even embarrassment, which I'm only starting to fully realize now.  It's around shame.  Shame of having to tell people you love and admire that you had a miscarriage... or that it's hard to get pregnant... or [insert issue here] -- especially when the outside self you seek to cultivate is, well, perfect.

As a recovering perfectionist myself, I recently devoured the book, "The Gifts of Imperfection," by Brene Brown (her TED talk on vulnerability is amazing; link here).  She argues that the gifts of imperfection are courage, compassion, and connection -- and that practicing these daily is how we cultivate worthiness (this is now on a sticky note on my computer).  In her book, she talks about finding the courage to celebrate those intensely joyful moments even though we've convinced ourselves that savoring happiness is inviting disaster.

The deeper I get into self-reflection and wholehearted living, the more I realize how flawed my black/white - either/or thinking is.  Rather, I'm finding it much more useful to think about the world in terms of juxtapositions and "and's".  I am joyful to be at 20 weeks and I am nervous that something may go wrong (am I drinking enough water? eating enough protein? getting enough sleep?)  Negating or downplaying the joy doesn't reduce the fear -- it makes us numb.  And keeping these fears a secret doesn't keep me safe.  As I'm learning, it's this vulnerability to open up and admit we're not perfect that allows us to really connect -- with those we love, as well as even strangers (I think back to a post I read about a woman who was convinced even up to her 20 week check-up that the doctor was going to say, "Sorry, just kidding! You're not really pregnant! -- We messed up."; thank goodness for this post -- it has kept me grounded and laughing more than that woman can possibly know.) 

So maybe that's why I've been so quiet on this blog for so long.  At first, I chalked it up to sheer laziness, tiredness, and nausea from the first trimester, combined with the "in-authenticity" of writing but not being able to share what was truly on my mind.  So perhaps this is all a cop-out, writing this halfway into the pregnancy (as the author in the "Medium" article admits as well).

Perhaps.  Part of it is that I'm also finally yielding to "the voice" -- that voice in my head that narrates and introspects on my life and urges me to write it all down.  Bono once said that he doesn't think about the process of writing songs.  He'll just hear notes in his head -- and it's so nagging and annoying, he'll write it down so that he can just go to sleep.  I don't think this blog will win any Grammy's, but there's something to be said about yielding to our desires to express ourselves authentically -- letting the voices or notes in our head flow through us, without blocking their way with fear of what others think.

And so with that, let's celebrate!!  Before I left for Korea, one of my closest friends and "twin" got me these awesome cards on happiness that you open each day.  A few now hang on my closet; this is one of my favorites: "These are the magic years... and therefore magic days... and therefore magic moments."  Cheers to that.

Back!!!

A mentor of mine used to say that "How you do anything is how you do everything."  So I suppose that's the way with blogs as well.  There have been about fifty blog posts written in my head since my last post way back in the beginning of April, just before going into silent meditation.

Since resuming the world of the talking, much has happened.  I discovered my happy place (perhaps not surprisingly, on a beach in Bali)...Good friends visited from the US...Cherry blossom season has come and gone in Seoul (in seemingly the blink of an eye)...Tyler's parents were here for an incredible two weeks.  And I've learned to celebrate every day and every small miracle.

Of course, being a recovering perfectionist, none of these have made its way onto the page.  "It better be really good for you to post that after two months of not writing!"

So I'm bypassing my perfectionist inner critic by showing, not telling.  Here's a small sampling of the last eight weeks in pictures...

My happy place:

John and Michelle visiting from Chicago:

Cherry Blossoms!!!!!

Dan and Kris's visit:

And if there's one thing I've learned over the last month...