Ubuntu Turned Inward

When this blog started a few years ago, I wanted to write about humanitarian issues and how we have to get off our butts and do something to equalize revenue and power in the world. With time, my posts have moved away from this goal and have been more and more about me. With this pregnancy, I feel that this trend is not going to get much better.

I find myself pretty torn these days. I am still interested in what is happening in the world, of course, and really want to be part of the solution. Right now however, my whole focus is on the little one growing inside my belly and I find it very difficult to be energized about anything else. I read books about motherhood in the US (those are depressing), read pregnancy magazines, and don't relate to anything else. Part of it is because it is difficult for me to imagine my life in the next few years apart from motherhood (job, studies, life in general), and part of it is simply because of what is happening to my body. I hope to be bored with pregnancy-related topics soon and regain interest in the world!

As of now, the Ubuntu philosophy ("I am because you are") rings true of this inward phase: all that I do is for another person whom I must nurture. It's a new experience for sure, one that i am enjoying immensely, but also one that makes me self-centered and a little boring. Please give me some grace in the next few months as this blog will probably be about the baby and me. Soon enough, I'll talk about other subjects.

On a somewhat related note, I noticed in the past that a lot of very pregnant women always touch and rub their tummies. I thought that was weird, but now I do it all the time -and I'm not even showing yet!

A New Life

One evening early August, Joe and I came back home from a delicious happy hour -the place is called Bottle House, in Madrona, and their wine/cheese combo is the cheapest and most delicious I have tasted. I thought that one glass of wine was nice, but come on now, another one at home (free!) would be an excellent idea. Just then the image of a baby inside a womb popped into my mind. Seriously! Needless to say, I was freaked out enough that I didn’t get that second glass of wine. Just because you never know. I didn’t think much about it until Joe was away on a weekend at his parents’ and I poured myself a glass of wine. The same image of an fetus came to me. Er… oookay, now that was spooky. So I took a pregnancy test (you know where I’m going with that story, don’t ya?) and sure enough, it was positive.

HOLY CRAP! You’re lucky I’m polite.

Joe and I were just thinking that this life without kid was awesome, that we could wait a few more long months to try to conceive as he would start school in the fall and I wanted to spend a month somewhere in the field. Ha. Haha. Hahaha. Guess who had other plans? MY BODY! So here we were, a few weeks later, expecting a baby.

I was quite ambivalent for the first couple of weeks. Once the shock had passed –no more wine, no more suchi, no more brie, no more spending a whole month in the field, thoughts of labor and stretch marks and no sleep, waaah- I felt elated about the sesame seed growing inside me. Weird how you go from reasoning to falling for someone you haven’t met yet but who suddenly means the world to you and whom you would do anything to protect.

And then the sesame seed started acting up. Nausea, exhaustion, more nausea. I mean, it was not that bad, but I’m a huge wuss, so feeling a little nauseous is really uncomfortable (what? Wait ‘til labor? Hahaha. Shut up). In the morning I didn’t have anything in my stomach and felt like throwing up, but then any kind of food disgusted me and I couldn’t eat anything, which upset my stomach even more. And then there were the headaches and the bloating. Aaah, Heaven. I wrote it all down so that one day I can prove to that screaming teenager that I suffered injustly, too, now go to your room and do your homework. Oh, the good thing is that I was so disgusted by food that I was not craving brie or wine or sushi. I seriously thought that I would not really handle the no drinking game very well, but it has been really easy. Well, my appetite is coming back now, and with it the sweet craving for wine. Oh well.

And of course, there is nothing like the prospect of gaining 30+ pounds to make you realize that, um, these past 8 months not working out are certainly not doing you any favors. So I started eating right and will start working out. Next week, my friend Jen and I (she’s also pregnant and due a month before me) will start yoga.

So that’s it. We’re super excited. I can’t wait to start feeling him/her move inside my belly. I can’t wait to see my belly grow. I can wait to see my butt grow, though. I can’t wait to start teaching him/her French cuss words. I kid, I kid. Kinda.

Here is the baby, at 12 weeks and 5 days (this morning). S/he is due mid-April. Let the countdown begin!

School Is Starting!

Joe's school, that is! He has his first two full days on Friday and Saturday (mainly introductions and first class). He has to finish an accounting book before the first class, will be given an assignment to complete this weekend, and has a crash course in accounting Tuesday after next. The first regular class will be on Wednesday, September 29th. He is quite thrilled to be starting school, and understandably a bit stressed too. He is looking forward to going back to college, learning new things in a competitive environment, students discounts, and new friendships. I am looking forward to watching documentaries and... no more Monday night football! Score. Still, I am wondering how often we'll get to spend quality time together.

I don't think neither Joe nor I imagine how life is going to change because of grad school. We know it will be different, we know Joe will be busy, but we cannot yet really have a clear picture of what it's going to be like. I'll let you know as soon as I find out.

La Routine

Life this summer has been good. Tennis, dinners with our wonderful neighbors, walks with the dogs in the neighborhood, work (bleh), chilling at home, trying to find my passport (fail), and some more chilling. The weather hasn't been great so we have spent quite a lot of time indoors. It's been pretty perfect.

It's the end of August already. This is craziness.

I will try to be more interesting in my next post!

Ruined

Joe took me to a play on my birthday. The play is called "Ruined" and it deals with the situation in East Congo -rapes, war, and survival. It was beautiful, humorous, musical, and poignant. I couldn't stop crying when one of the characters recounted her experience of being abducted by rebels, held in the forest for 5 months, and rejected by her husband and entire community once she was released. Her whole story -from her abduction to the horrible rape experiences and rejection by her husband- is the story of many women in Easter DRC. I read quite a few of those in my first days at Panzi, when I was trying to know the hospital and the women better -I didn't speak Swahili and didn't want to have the women recount their stories to a stranger, so I read their intake paperwork instead. The actors are excellent and their attitude -from their accent to their gestures- really rang true. We just loved it.

I didn't know this coming in, but the theater was actually running a donation campaign for the Panzi Hospital. We didn't donate in the theater but I will send them a package soon. That experience in the DRC was so miserable that I slammed the door shut when I left and never re-opened it. Now is time for me to re-open the door and do something to support this hospital and its staff who work tirelessly to heal and re-integrate women in their communities.

Ruined is not playing anymore (if it is, I encourage you to see it pronto), but if you want to know more about the situation in East DRC, here are a few links you can go to:

www.panzihospitalbukavu.org

www.healafrica.org (the other Kivu hospital, located in Goma)

www.womenforwomen.org (to sponsor a woman in the DRC)

www.easterncongo.org (Affleck's NGO -quite promising)

30

I turned 30 on Friday. I was not happy about turning 30 and I am still not sure I'm embracing this age quite yet. I really did like being 20-something. I hope I am not supposed to act all grown up and think before I talk/write now.

Friday was actually pretty uneventful. I usually don't like to celebrate my birthday, so Joe and I went to dinner on Thursday night, cancelled our reservation for Friday night (at a great restaurant, but there's so much fat we can eat in 2 days!), and we spent the day driving around town, running errands -nice errands, though. In the evening we saw the play Ruined -which I will discuss in another post. All in all, pretty good day.

It's fun to compare where I thought I would be at 30 to where I am at:

* Thought I would live in the US: check.

* Thought I would be living in the sun: Seattle, you're killing me!

* Thought I would be married: check.

* Thought I would be married to a famous person: not yet (what? Joe might be famous one day).

* Thought I would have a child: working on that.

* Thought I would work in the entertainment industry: nope.

* Thought I would do something good for other people: through work, yes.

* Thought I would be filthy rich: damnit, no.

* Thought I would have a rock star body (not the mix-of-coke-and-booze type, but the awesome type): hahahha.

* Thought I would be rid of my fear of flying: uuuugh, that's a no.

* Thought I would own a house: no, but I like renting, so that's fine.

Well, that's pretty much all I thought. Not bad, akshully. I like where I'm at. I have been immensely lucky in my life (I wanted to write "blessed" but then I'd have to have a conversation with one of my besties about that, so let's leave it at lucky!).

So I think I'm ok being 30. Let's see what this new decade brings.

And Breathe!

I deleted my last post because I realized it might have been offensive. While I still very much am in favor of gay marriage -and hope that today it will be reinstated in CA- I didn't want to hurt any person who believes otherwise. Well, not that thousands of people read the blog, but still.

Anyway, today could be a good day for progress toward more equality and justice. I'll leave it at that!