How Does the Baby Get Out?

I’m into the final weeks of my surrogate pregnancy. Like I can actually count the days down to the induction. The magic number is seventeen. 17 days! Sometimes I think it will happen sooner anyway, since both my kids were at least a week early, but as long as this baby waits at least 9 more days until her mom is in the same state as we are, I’m good to go. We’ve scheduled an induction not just for planning purposes, but for the IP’s peace of mind (they’ve had late term problems with previous pregnancies). 

So I am getting really excited. I obviously can’t claim the standard reason for being excited at the end of a pregnancy (the baby herself), but I have several other reasons:

1.      I want to not be huge so I can fit in my clothes again. I only have one pair of pants that fit comfortably. They are soft stretchy maternity jeans, which is all great, but they’re also skinny jeans, which is not so great when you are short-legged and top heavy. If my legs were slightly longer and/or more slender I might say I resemble some sort of adorable lollypop, but since they’re nice and stocky I might say I just look like...a dumbass. My darling husband might whole-heartedly agree. I imagine wide-eyed vigorous nodding. He hates those pants. With fire. 

2.      I want to not weigh 1,956 pounds so my feet quit hurting when I stand up for more than 0.78 seconds. I also would hope that they return to their normal size (still excessively wide but perhaps not so swollen). 

3.      I want to get into a hardcore diet and exercise routine and get back to my pre-pre-pregnancy weight. SIKE. (Or is it PSYCHE?) Well, yeah, I DO want to get back to my pre-pre-pregnancy weight, but I totally do NOT want to do the hardcore diet and exercise routine. UUUUGGGGHHH. I’m actually really dreading it, but it needs to happen. I’ve gained way more weight with this pregnancy than I did with my two, plus I started at a much higher weight than the other times. I’d like to blame the two cycles of IVF meds (which DO cause weight gain), but the inactivity of my first year staying home full-time is also to blame. Waitressing and childcare kept me moving more than I realized. HowEVER, I must admit, my extreme laziness and gluttony are the real culprit(s). I have milked the pregnancy excuse to the max. Oh, the baby wants another piece of pie. Oh, I’m supposed to take it easy. Heh. Whatever, Fatty. So I have a few weeks left to eat AALLLLLL the fudge, cinnamon rolls, ice cream, chocolate, cookies, cupcakes, etc., etc. currently in my house and then people had better quit giving it to me. (I suppose I’ll have to refrain from buying and baking stuff too.) 

4.      I want to drink beer. Prost Dunkelweizen, to be specific. And ginger beer. And strong coffee. Plus marijuana will be legal in Colorado tomorrow, so there’s that. Kidding not kidding. 

5.      I want to not be so lethargic and irritable. No doubt my sweet kiddos and hub are even more excited for that. I feel like I’m always so tired and cranky that I’m no fun to be around for anyone, and I’m such a massive lump that it’s hard to get up and play with the chilluns. There are other relationship areas affected by the physical and emotional aspects of pregnancy that I am eager to work on too.

6.      I want to pee less often. 

7.      I want to eat sushi and deli meat and all the other no-nos. 

8.   I want to be rid of excess indigestion and gas and that weird pressure that rises up at the base of your throat like you need to throw up or burp but you can’t. What is that? Heartburn?

9.   I want to laser the hell out of these heinous purple veins on my right leg. Yeah insurance covers that! Woot woot!

10.  I want to get a tattoo. I'm not sure what but I want one.

11.  I want to sleep on my stomach. Even if it's bad for my neck to twist around like that.

12.  Finally, and most importantly, I want to see the parents with their new baby. I don’t know just what this experience will look like, but I’m excited about it. Truly.

One common question people ask—after the standard “how are you feeling” physically—is the “how are you feeling” emotionally. I don’t have a very good answer though. Honestly there’s not an extreme depth of emotion at this point. It’s been a very long process (I started looking into it when my daughter was just a few months old, and she’s three now), so I’ve had plenty of time to get used to the whole thing, plenty of time to research and read other peoples’ stories. It all just seems very…normal, for lack of a better word. While I do recognize that there is something profound about carrying someone else’s baby for them, it generally feels no more profound than babysitting. Surely when it all goes down in the hospital I’ll have more to say on the matter, but it really is pretty simple to me. No complex tangle of emotion, even with the idea of actually giving the baby to them. It’s theirs anyway. It always has been theirs. 

I won’t deny the possibility that I might get a little case of baby fever, and there will be no stopping the wave of hormones that will inevitably wash over me, but all I need to do is read the list above to remind myself what’s so nice about not being pregnant (even though I have easy peasy pregnancies). I could also recall any number of super stressful days at home with my two wonderful monsters and imagine how it would be even more stressful with the addition of a third, OR contemplate the fact that in two short years they’ll both be in school full-time (*gasp*bite knuckles*SOB*) so I might be able to have a life again and WHY would I start over with another one?

So in the meantime I’m enjoying the alien antics of this baby girl rolling and kicking my belly in the freakiest of ways, waddling to the bathroom every ten minutes, and kegel-ing nervously when she pushes down in such a way that I think she’s trying to escape. Not yet, you. 

Dirt and Tuesday are only mildly amused by the strange pulsation in my gut, and seem completely at ease with the idea that this baby is not ours. They know her name and her parents’ names, and ask why the baby kicks them when they squish her, but are uninterested otherwise. I just reeeeaaalllly want to avoid giving them an in-depth answer about how the baby gets out. “The doctor gets her out” is the accepted response at present, but I fear that my little incessant questioners will soon interrogate further. While I’m all for discussing natural things in an up front and honest manner, that is one thing I don’t want to burden their curious brains with right now. 

Although sometimes (rarely, but occasionally) they readily accept the most basic answers without any additional questions, like the time Tuesday asked why grownup ladies have hair on their hoohoos. All I said was that she’d have it too someday, and she happily dropped the subject and left. The idea of a thong seemed much more disconcerting to her though: 

“Why are you not wearing undies?”

Me, flashing front hip area: “I am wearing undies. See?” 

Tuesday, looking worried: “Why are you not wearing undies…in the back?”

If pantylines and wedgies are such troubling issues to discuss with a three-year-old, I am quite skeerd to describe the logistics of childbirth. 

The Float Tank: Wa-pa-pa-pa-pa-pa-pow!

In the relentless chaos and noise that comprise most of my waking hours (even some sleeping hours if we’re being honest), I’ve often joked about needing a sensory deprivation tank. I mean, even when I get twitchy enough for my husband to realize that he needs to send me to my room and I go lock the door and close the curtains and hide under the covers, I can still hear everything. Maybe I should invest in some good ear plugs. Our two kids have a serious capacity for volume by themselves—yelling, crying, screaming, laughing, crashing, jumping, throwing, breaking—but then there’s dogs barking, TV blaring, tablet games ringing, loud husband talking on the phone (apparently he thinks he needs to yell, while pacing, in order for the phone to function correctly), and if it happens to be a get-stuff-done kind of day, there’s the addition of the dishwasher swooshing, dryer rumbling, and washer shaking the house.

So when I came across a Groupon for a “float tank” session, I bought it right away. I only recently learned this was a real thing accessible to regular people, not just for astronauts or Navy Seals or whatever. I was curious. I read up on it. I heard it was supposed to be relaxing for body and mind in the most transcendent of ways, more than a massage and a nap, which is a tough combination to beat. Float tanks, aka sensory deprivation tanks, claim to benefit everything from anxiety to arthritis, as well as reduce fatigue, enhance creavity, provide amazing relief for pregnancy symptoms, and probably cure cancer. People allege being transported to a magical world of peace and healing, having a deeply meditative and transformative experience while in the tank. I just wanted to take a nap in a quiet dark place (yes I will PAY for that chance), but major bonus if it also heals all that ails me, right? I mean, if I can take a bathnap and wake up wholly rejuvenated and self-mastery-ed and crap, that’s pretty cool. 

I’m totally not knocking the float tank thing. Overall I left feeling somewhat mentally and physically rested, and although nothing miraculous happened, I am glad I tried it. I might even do it again and see if it gets better the more you go, as I’m told. I like trying new things, even new-age-y things like acupuncture and avante-garde voodoo-y things like the chiropractor. It didn’t seem like too big a leap to get in a salty warm pitch-dark bathtub so I went for it.

That said, let me detail the experience…

At this particular venue, they start you off with a combination two things: an inversion table and binaural beats. The inversion table hangs you by your feet at various upside-down angles, as to stretch the spine and increase circulation of blood, oxygen, and nutrients, which makes brain chemistry magic that fixes every possible mood disorder, according to the Mayo Clinic and/or Dr. Oz, according to the floaty place website. While inverted, you listen to mystical earth sounds—or “binaural beat stimulation”—meant to alter consciousness while enhancing physical performance and relaxation, mental clarity and creativity, as well as spiritual tranquility and mastery. It’s highly scientific, with gamma and theta and beta frequencies and all, so it must be totes legit. It’s basically a variety of tones and rhythms overlaid with ocean waves or serenely chirping birds, like a mystical hearing test or white noise machine for helping babies sleep. I only did it for like ten minutes because the inversion table is super weird when you’re pregnant, with the baby all up in your ribs. It’s possible I didn’t appreciate that part to its full potential.

 The next step is stripping and showering and stepping carefully into the tank. The whole thing is in a private room: the inversion table, the shower, the tank…so the stripping part is fine. (As long as you have the moves.) The shower is supposed to be for getting oils and product off you. It was one of the best parts of the whole thing because of the phenomenal water pressure and consistent hotness of water, much unlike my home shower. But hey. 

The water in the tank is full of Epsom salt, so it feels very silky and slippery. It’s weird. Not as weird as bathing nude in a tub where countless strangers also bathe nude, but they say you can’t allow yourself the distraction of clothing. (Bathing suits are allowed though.) Epsom salts are supposed to work wonders on body and skin, and occasionally, allegedly, induce euphoria. The saltwater is so dense that you actually do float, which is actually really cool. The water is “skin temperature” and so is the air, which is also very dense with salty humidity. Some describe it as womb-like in there, especially since you might be au naturel, but that gives me the super creeps. 

The pitch-darkness gave me the super creeps too, when I initially laid back in the water and experienced the zero-gravity-ness coupled with the disorienting black nothing. I had to crack the tank door just a smidge to get my bearings and avoid a freak out. I tend to be a little claustrophobic, but the tank is large enough to sit up and much longer and wider than an average person so it’s not at all coffin-like. It’s just hard to remember that when you can’t see anything and the thick black air closes in on you. Cracking the door allowed in just enough light and fresh air as to not feel like I was suffocating in the trunk of a car that was submerged in a warm sea. 

 

They warn you to keep your face dry, otherwise the salt in the air will condense and burn your eyes out of your skull. They also warn you that any cuts and scrapes might burn, and for the same reason, they warn you not to shave right before floating. They don’t warn you about other sensitive places that salt may or may not burn. They don’t warn you not to scratch an itch that may or may not arise downstairs in the presence of saltwater and may or may not commence with the serious salt burn after being scratched. In such a theoretical situation, the injured party could hypothetically get out of the tank for a thorough rinse in the shower, and upon reentering the tank, commit to avoid any further scratching and proceed to attempt to enjoy the rest of his or her float session. 

Anyway. In the absence of all sensory input, the mind is free to wander. To think deep, profound thoughts with no distraction. Free for meditation and meaningful reflection. Or sublime napping. Or, in my case, to randomly spring forth with the most ridiculously obnoxious song trending on the web and continue playing it on a loop for the entirety of the float. “CHACHA-CHACHA-CHACHA-CHOW! FRAKA-KAKA-KAKA-KOW!” You guessed it…”What Does the Fox Say?” My brain replicated the abrasive voice perfectly, almost as though the actual track was playing inside the float tank. Nothing says relaxation like “WA-PA-PA-PA-PA-PA-POW!” abruptly (and incessantly) screaming in your head. And nothing says profound like “ducks say quack - and fish go blub - and the seal goes ow ow ow ow ow”. Thank you for enhancing my experience, Norway. 

 As if that wasn’t enough, the visual that my brain provided, also on repeat, was courtesy of SNL: the shot of the girl making her big-eyed, floppy-lipped horse face on their spoof of the Fox song. (“That girl looks like a ho-o-o-o-orse”, around 1:42.) Real tranquil imagery, brain. I couldn’t make the song or the picture go away. I tried and tried but that’s where my mind stayed.

The only actual sound that subsisted, speaking of horses, was my own deafening horse-like breathing, amplified by the fact that my ears were underwater. The. Whole. Time. The same way I can’t sleep when my nose is whistling or I’m slightly congested, I couldn’t relax or quit thinking about the blaringly loud inhale, exhale, inhale, exhale. They say focusing on your breath can be meditative. Not so with me apparently. It sounded so much like a winded horse, nostrils flared, having just trudged up twelve flights of stairs. Yes, a horse on the stairs. Get over it. 

I tried so hard to clear my mind and transport to another dimension. I wanted so badly to have the transformative relaxation raved about in all the testimonials. But I couldn’t get out of my head. Maybe it was too new and unusual an experience to fully appreciate it. I did have fun with the cool weirdness of antigravity water, but there was nothing subliminal to it...just strait up consciously marveling at the sensation of weightlessness, lifting my arms and legs out of the water to see how insanely heavy they felt, enjoying the way my whole body shifted from side to side with each subtle movement. I maybe started to appreciate the muscle relaxation—little tingles in my legs—is that good? Maybe I have to go try again a time or two so I can get deep, metaphysically speaking, and to fully appreciate the mental and physical benefits of floating. I just hope I can escape the fox song. 

And the burning. That was slightly distracting too.

Young and Sophisticated

Aight. So. Two things I did recently that I’d like to discuss include the following:

1. Went to a Salt N Pepa show at a sketchy venue

2. Went to try to buy fancy lady perfume at an upscale cosmetics store

Things I learned:

1. I am too old to be up until 4am

2. Smelling good is waaaayyyyy to complicated

Recommendations I have for the host establishments of said activities:

1. Consider the demographics of your crowd when scheduling a show

2. Two words: fewer choices

These activities are clearly unrelated. Nearly opposite, in fact. I know that. Do I care enough to give them separate entries? Nope. They have a similar theme in the end. Sort of.

Let’s begin with the show, shall we? For anyone who doesn’t know, Salt N Pepa is an old *skool* hip hop girl group from the 80’s, made popular by such supahfly hits as “Push It”, “Shoop”, and “Whatta Man”. While both women are in their mid-to-late forties now, they sound just like they did on the original recordings and still have some moves…or at least a lot of energy. They look pretty good too (Salt is stacked). The awkward aspect of the performance for me was that they had some handsome dancing boys that were probably half their age, acting out cheesy narratives to their sex-themed songs (including, of course, the hit “Let’s Talk About Sex”). With them. Acting out cheesy sexy narratives with them. I’m not hating on the cougar thing (good for you if you can pull that off), but Salt N Pepa’s kids are probably older than their dancers and the mommyprude in me got a tad squeamish. But more than that it was funny. And more than that, it was fun. I love me a good sing along. 

But moving on to the recommendation mentioned above. One would think that the average age of an S&P fan to be at least 35. Maybe more like 45. While we observed a wide range of ages at the show, we were definitely among the youngest (which was refreshing). But think about it. People our age and up don’t typically party all night. We often have jobs and kids and babysitters to get home to and things to get up and do in the morning. We want to go home and go to bed and would prefer to be at least somewhat functional tomorrow. Maybe I am being a total square here, but I was perturbed to discover that the headliner (S&P) didn’t even come onstage until after 1am. 1:00am! And since they obviously aren’t 21 either and wanted to go to bed just like the rest of us, they only played for thirty minutes, max. 

The doors opened at 8. E-i-g-h-t. That’s FIVE hours of openers. Being the fashionably late hipsters that we are, we arrived closer to 11pm (yawning all the while on the train ride over and bemoaning the fact that we were usually in bed by now), and only had to endure two or three hours of filler. Not to say all the openers sucked, but we got real tired of being told “When I say hell, you say yeah!” over and over again. I’ll say whatever I feel like saying, thank you very much. And of course there’s the incessant “Put your hands up!” and “Somebody screeaaaaam!” They’re so damn bossy. 

I especially enjoyed how some of them seemed like insecure teenagers who want to prove their coolness by bragging about their drug and alcohol use. Hey guy, you’re 38. You don’t need to keep telling us on repeat that you “like to get high like you like to get drunk”. It’s unbecoming of a gentleman your age. Plus they kept asserting the fact “This is real hip-hop!” And there we were, thinking it was faux. Good thing they gave us that constant reminder. As if the smoke and booze saturated environment throbbing with thunderous bass beats didn’t keep us aware of all these fun facts. 

Entertaining side notes:

1. The bathroom graffiti of the ghetto dive was filled with positive affirmations about love and beauty.

2. While I was sad not to be able to enjoy a beer, I took advantage of being pregnant in order to steal one of the few highly coveted chairs in the area to get off my feet.

3. The huge ad banners for a particular brand of rum failed to recognize the irony of showcasing the name “YOLO” right next to “gluten-free”.

4. There was an awesome older gentleman (sixties?) who danced onstage to “Whatta Man” like a champ and then later gave us hugs and asked us if he had properly “represented Denver”.

But I digress. I recommend this venue considers the demographic of the audience, and tries to get the headliner on at a more reasonable hour for us old timers. By the time the show ended and we finally managed to hail a cab (after jogging upstream to beat the others) to get back to the apartment where my car was and then I drove myself an hour home (don’t fret I obviously wasn’t drinking) because I had to get back for the freaking babysitter…yeah, 4am. I had a no-sleep hangover because guess who didn’t want to sleep in all day? My children. They were bright-eyed and bushy-tailed (i.e. loud and hyper and demanding as frick) right on schedule, at 7am. I allowed myself slightly more coffee that day.

Story #2 takes place in an entirely different part of town with an entirely different crowd. And I was no longer sporting a man tank that read “P-P-P-PUSH IT REAL GOOD”. I was in my “nice” clothes for work though—meaning I’d actually changed out of the yoga pants—and still felt a little schlubby at the swanky mall that housed the cosmetics store where I had a gift card meant for perfume. After circling the parking lot for a good long while like a vulture with the hordes of other parking spot-less cars, I managed to find my way into the makeup store and was immediately approached by a super chic, polished clerk offering her assistance. 

“I have this gift card and I’m not sure how much it’s for and I need to get perfume but I don’t know how because that massive wall of perfumes is scary and overwhelming.” I blurted instantly. She pawned me off on someone else and ran away before I knew what was happening. A fragrance expert, apparently. As I imagined and dreaded, her first question (a totally reasonable one) was “what do you like?” I don’t know. I’ve been using the same perfume since I was 15, and only occasionally, cuz I’m not a real perfumey sort. I only recently decided that perhaps since my age has doubled and I don't shower often enough I ought to try something else.

She got out a can of coffee beans in a special metal jar with a parmesan cheese style lid, meant to cleanse the nasal palette between sniffs. Then she started suggesting fragrances based solely on my unsure remark that I don’t love overly floral ones. She would offer her carefully selected product, describing the subtle notes with impressive detail and then step back to thoughtfully observe my sniffing. I’d take several long, deep whiffs and stare meditatively at the ceiling…then shrug. Even my pregnancy-heightened sense of smell could not detect all the subtleties or differences in these perfumes. All I could say was “This one’s alright, that one’s too flowery, this one smells like a grandma, that one is weird, this one’s kinna fruity.” I could not distinguish the “fresh top notes of mandarin, lychee, and bergamot playing softly against the sweet innocence of lily of the valley” or the “elegance of madonna lily and the heady opulence of Indian tuberose, blended with velvety jasmine and addictively sweet plum nectar”. (WTF is lychee and bergamot and tuberose anyway? I linked wikipedia for ya.)

I got super light-headed just from the nonstop inhalation. Too many long breaths in. And they all started smelling the same, despite the coffee huffing. I guess I lack a discriminating sniffer. Still, I was there for almost an hour. There were hundreds…seriously an unending wall, floor to ceiling…HOW does anyone choose? How?!

One of my favorite things about the fancy perfume industry is the *literature*. As if the ads and commercials aren't abstract and wacked out enough. I freaking love reading the over-the-top descriptions. Seriously, look them up and read some just for kicks. For example, one Dolce and Gabbana scent is written up as a “deeply feminine blend of luxurious ingredients as potent and captivating as the emotion of desire itself, which leads us on a journey of opulent seduction”. What the what? A Calvin Klein fragrance tells me that if I wear their perfume I will become “every man's fantasy”, while Dior tells me that I’ll be a “daringly sexy woman”. One of Armani’s scents just sounds delicious: “zesty blood orange, ginger, and pear sorbet softened with hints of sambac jasmine, orange blossom, and lavender honey, warmed with precious woods and vanilla”. 

Even the names of the fragrances are enough to get me giggling, although the professionals aren’t nearly as tickled. Evidently I am drawn to the ones with the silliest labels, like “Hypnotic Poison” and “Forbidden Euphoria”, fragrances that “ignite the senses” or “evoke long-forgotten memories and incite deep passion”. I kept reading everything aloud and guffawing, while the clerk just smiled politely. 

To her credit, she was very patient with the cosmetics Philistine that I am and ended up giving me a bunch of samples to take home. It’s just as impossible to pick even when there’s just six options. I feel like it’s a big commitment.

Sexy or tasty, all my new perfume options vary greatly from my daily essence au natural, which might be described as “a stunning perfume, overwhelming and irresistible like the joy of living in the inescapable prison that is motherhood. The scent is surprisingly colored with the liveliness of reworn clothing, the happiness of dog, and the spontaneity of poop. Familiar and resolute notes are expressed with the intensity of watermelon children’s toothpaste, the freshness of Secret Outlast deoderant, the charm of Febreeze, and the spirit of microwaved day-old coffee. The deep and true base embodies the character of skipped showers, the fullness of graham crackers, and the embrace of alfalfa hay.”

If that doesn't make me every man's fantasy, I don't know what does. Any good suggestions for the name of my signature fragrance?

If the story of the Salt N Pepa show has any connection to the perfume story, despite the polar opposite nature of their location, it’s their shared moral:

1. Being young and energetic and hip is hard work

2. Being sophisticated and decisive is hard work

3. Being young and energetic and hip and sophisticated and decisive is especially hard when you have two small children and are seven months pregnant, which cumulatively create an exhausted brainless slob.

I’d like to close by thanking a recently married pal who granted me both opportunities to grow as a person with such enriching experiences that got me outside my comfort zone and gave me this blog fodder. I'd also like to thank the pal who demanded I try to write an ell oh ell blog. Hope this suffices. <3