January 2008 | Wired Momma

Monthly Archives: January 2008

January Blues

January 21, 2008

Those of you who know me well, know that I get to the gym very early in the mornings. So this morning, as I was pulling out of my driveway at o-dark-thirty, and wondering how in the hell it could be quite so cold, I noticed the moon. I hope some of you also saw the moon either last night or this morning. It was one of the most beautiful full moons I’ve ever seen. So big and bright and just glistening there – it immediately lifted my spirits. If only I didn’t have to keep my eyes on the road, I wouldn’t have been able to stop looking at the moon.

My great mood lasted only until I got to the gym and started watching the news. First, the local news was depressing enough and then the anchors busted out with how today is branded the most depressing day of the year. I’m sure there’s some bullshit reasons why that’s the case, something about it being three weeks into a cold month and no holidays to lift our spirits, everyone’s fat from over-eating, everyone’s given up their New Year’s Resolutions by now (ah ha! yet another reason to not make any – then you have nothing to feel bad about today) and the credit card bills from the holidays should be arriving this week (I’m definitely going to be feeling bad when that one drops through the mail slot. Any chance I can hide it from my husband??)

So, I was starting to come off the high from the bright glistening full moon, and then a segment came on about caffeine and pregnancy and miscarriages. Unfortunately, we all know someone who has experienced the pain of a miscarriage. I feel like I always hear the comment that it’s only the people who get pregnant the first time they try, that we all hear about – but who is actually talking about the frequency of miscarriage?

The thing is, in my circle of friends, though I hear this same comment, I feel like everyone is pretty open about miscarriages, the emotions that come with it, and her experience with it. I hope this is the case for everyone, not just KT’s BFFs, because it’s something that is so common and beyond our control.

That being said, everyone is always struggling with balancing what they can and cannot do when pregnant and handling caffeine is always one of them. So Kaiser just came out with this study of 1,000 women in San Francisco and the miscarriage rate among this group during the first three months of pregnancy.

Here is the finding: http://madelynfernstrom.ivillage.com/health/2008/01/caffeine_and_miscarriages.html?par=today,wb

“Those women with the highest caffeine intake (more than 200mg per day, daily) had double the number of miscarriages as those women who did not consume caffeine at all. 25 women out of 100 miscarried in the high caffeine group, compared with 12 in the 0mg caffeine ingestion group.”

So, if you haven’t heard this news by now, you might be wondering what 200mg amounts to? Sadly, not much coffee, read on:

”What does 200mg of caffeine look like? it’s two small cups of coffee, four cups of tea, or five cans of soda. ”

I must admit, I didn’t realize that two cups of small coffee is equivalent to five cans of soda. That’s actually really nasty. I mean – who in the world drinks 5 cans of soda in one day? But me, I definitely enjoy more than two cups of “small” coffee in the morning.

What I also heard on the news but isn’t explained in the above link is this: Caffeine constricts the blood flow to the placenta – thus making it not a good thing to digest for pregnant women.

In the interest of full disclosure, personally, when I was pregnant with my darling daughter, I basically cut out all caffeine the day we first started trying to get pregnant and I stayed completely caffeine free until I was through my first trimester. I’ll never forget the day that I was reunited with some caffeinated tea on that 13th week of pregnancy, it felt so good. We were long lost buddies, me and caffeine. From that point on, I probably had a cup of caffeine a day or every other day, for the remainder of my pregnancy.

Imagine my surprise when no one warned me that discipline with caffeine would persist for as long as I was breastfeeding. Talk about a buzz kill.

And speaking of buzz kills, by the time I was done working out, I was totally over the joy of the moon. From now on, maybe I’ll stick with watching E! instead of any news.

So to end this entry on this most depressing day of the year, I offer you this link, a predictor of your child’s height at the age of 18 brought to you by our friends at BabyCenter.com. I question its accuracy because it’s predicting my daughter will be 5ft. 11 inches by the time she’s 18….and that seems kind of extreme:

http://parentcenter.babycenter.com/child-height-predictor?pe=eiU70g&scid=mbtw_post26m:20080114:0:0:0

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Motherhood

Celebs I love to hate

January 18, 2008

Gather round kittens. It’s Friday, so what better way to end the week than to discuss something as meaningless and empty as celebs?

For being dreary, boring old January, there actually is good celeb fodder happening this week. Now, I could talk about how Brit made Kitson open for her at 2am so she could shop:

http://popsugar.com/963665

Or how Brit has multiple personalities and an even worse fake British accent than Madonna:

http://www.tmz.com/2008/01/17/britneys-multiple-personality-disorder/

Or I could pontificate on proof that Matthew McC doesn’t know how to spell and question why he uses words like “stoked” when describing his feelings about pending fatherhood. Or “womb” to paint a picture of where his baby is currently located:

http://www.usmagazine.com/matthew_and_camila_expecting

But I won’t. Because instead I would like to talk about the two celebs I love to hate more than anything: Katie Holmes and Katherine Heigl.

First, Katie. One KT BFF cleverly pointed out that Katie’s hair makes her look like a spitting image of Anna Wintour, a woman in her 60s. If you don’t agree, then please click here to then agree with me:

http://popsugar.com/gallery/209399?page=0,13,0

http://www.style.com/peopleparties/search/thumb/person270?page=1

It’s a brilliant point and honestly, why does she have this look?

But really – if I have to listen to her talk in some wimpy, whispery strange voice ONE MORE TIME about how amazing Cruise is and how madly in love they are and how perfect Suri is, I’m going to need to be hooked up to an IV because I’ll be so dehydrated from all the puking in my mouth.

Give us all a freaking break. Why hasn’t she received the memo that when one gushes incessantly about the perfection of their life and husband, it becomes increasingly more obvious to the rest of the world that it’s all bullshit? How about a normal tempered response every once in a while like “Sometimes it’s hard juggling all the travel and work schedules with Suri and Tom.” Or something honest.

And then her outfits. Why the need to always only dress like Royalty? She has a toddler, for the love of God, dress like you are chasing after a kid. Just once, I’d like to see her wearing flats if she can’t resort to sneakers, and jeans – actually being a mom – chasing after her kid, instead of these ridiculous 4 inch heels and thousand dollar pants at the zoo or while shopping. It makes no sense to me.

http://www.goholmes.com/gallery/20070824/big_katie_holmes_and_suri_in_paris_7.html

Her borderline anorexia also makes little sense to me.

And finally, get rid of Suri’s bottle. Why does a 21 month old still have a bottle? That’s just embarrassing.

http://popsugar.com/gallery/209399?page=0,5,0

Now, you might wonder why I can no longer stand Katherine Heigl? I used to like her just fine. I didn’t mind her when she stuck up for T.R. Knight and defended his homosexuality. But then she just started taking it all too far. She just seems so self-righteous and preachy any more. The constant interviews with her over this new movie are really wearing on me, kind of like Seinfeld and that ridiculous Bee Movie.

One KT BFF pointed out that Heigl was happy to make millions off “Knocked Up” but is quick to criticize the movie for being anti-feminist. Well then, don’t star in it, but you don’t get to become a millionaire from the movie and then criticize the role.

Do one or the other, sister.

And my final rant on this cold February morning is Trista. First of all, why is this woman given a platform? She is not a celebrity. She has no talent. She is attractive and was on reality TV many years ago. I just don’t understand why she continues to be given attention and magazine covers. If you didn’t see it, then you might want to just keep it that way because your life will be better, but here’s Trista’s latest cover story. I’m so sick of these stories.

http://usmagazine.com/exclusive_baby_trista_debuts_her_shocking_bikini_body

I would like to end on a positive note, however. In case you missed this in all the other celeb news this week, Salma Hayek is up to some good. She is one of my favorite new celeb moms and she just really nailed it with her announcement that she is working with Pampers and UNICEF as a spokeswoman to help promote vaccinations against tetanus for pregnant women and babies in Asia and Africa. Salma rules. We need more celeb moms like her.

http://lilsugar.com/944940

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Celebrities, Motherhood

The Feminine Mistake

January 16, 2008

A friend recently loaned me the controversial book “The Feminine Mistake.” I’m only a few pages into it, so it’s far too early for me to really comment on the book, specifically. That said, what’s to stop me from commenting on the overall premise?

I’m sure you all know by now that basically the author’s argument is that if women step out of the workforce to stay home full-time with their children, they are basically putting themselves in a vulnerable position. By earning no income on her own, the idea is that the woman is then putting herself in a corner should her marriage fall apart. She has then relied too heavily on her husband, financially, and she is at risk to not find the same kind of work and pay again if she needs to re-enter the workforce, and what about the care of her children? How will she be able to continue supporting them as they are used to being taken care of?

Again – without having read the book yet – on the surface it seems that the premise is a very harsh, dark cold one. Afterall, when we head down the alter to meet our groom and become husband and wife – surely no one’s thinking about what to do when the whole thing falls apart.

And when we get pregnant and deliver our first child into this world, surely no one is thinking about what we’ll do if the whole thing falls apart.

Same with when we quit our jobs to stay home full-time to tend to our children.

Bottom line is – everything we do, in terms of big, real decisions, in my view, is a leap of faith. You can’t get any assurances in this world – you have to just view it as the glass half full and move on.

So how do I take that philosophy on life and apply it against the “Feminine Mistake” premise, which is to very cautiously and conservatively, constantly plan for the worst in life and have yourself covered?

I don’t really have an answer to that. The truth is, while I think that the big decisions we make are leaps of faith and we can’t really plan for what happens when the whole thing falls apart, I think it’s naive to not consider that as an option.

We have no guarantees. We don’t know what our life is going to be in 15 years, we don’t know how we will change, how our husbands will change. How do you know that further down the road, you won’t suddenly become obsessed with skateboarding as your hobby and start spending too much time with teens at the skate park?

Sure, it might seem ludicrous right now – but it happens.

Just like affairs happen, illness happens, stress from life happens and wears on a marriage. Wears it out.

So no, you don’t think about that when you’re bounding down the aisle in a white gown, but the truth is – with the divorce rate what it is in this country, it is naive to not consider the hard horrible outcomes when making this choice.

You might be wondering why I’m bringing this up now when this book is not new. Basically a conversation I had with a friend last week over baby happy hour has been percolating in my mind since Friday and you know my rule of thumb, if I’ve thought about it for more than 2-3 days, it’s blog material.

My friend said that the discussion of the book during her book club meeting really turned contentious. There were younger moms in the room and many of them were almost offended at her suggestion that you’re naive to think that divorce and the dissolution of your marriage isn’t a possibility and so you should protect yourself with work.

Those aren’t words any of us ever want to hear but I just don’t think it’s that wrong to consider when making the decisions we make.

Even so, I still view the cup as half full.

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Husbands, Motherhood, Work

The Due Date

January 14, 2008

The due date is like the holy grail for the first time preggo. The first time you hear those words coming from doc’s mouth, it’s like the all-consuming date for the next 10 months. It is the date that so many live for, the wonderful date you can meet your baby!

The thing is, there’s so much psychology and neurosis behind this particular date that it has yet to stop fascinating me. I’ve found there are two tracks of first time preggos. Like with brides, there’s the pack of brides who only want an all white bouquet and there’s the pack of brides that want a vibrant color bouquet to pop off their dress.

There is the first time preggo who longs for that date, who absolutely cannot wait for that date, who holds that date up as the end-all, be-all date, and if that date comes and goes and they are still preggo, they are devastated.

Then there is the other preggo who just isn’t that into the date and figures baby will come when baby will come. By my count, there are very few first time preggos like this……but some of them are out there. What I’m beginning to notice, however, is that the reality check and wisdom you gain from having one child, puts the majority of second time preggos in this camp.

I only come at the due date from the experience I had, which was, I never made it because I had my baby 4 weeks early and my water came gushing out one cold November Saturday evening right around dinner time, to everyone’s surprise. So, I have no idea what it feels like to have your due date come and go – but I can tell you this – I longed to know what that felt like at the time and I still hope for that whenever there is a next time.

What I observed about sonograms and due dates is this – it’s not an exact science. The docs might state things with absolute certainty but this is the mystery and power of pregnancy and growing a child inside of you. Things happen on baby’s terms and baby’s schedule – so it seems like a due date is best considered an estimation…and if you’re lucky enough to still have that baby inside when that day comes and goes, then that’s the best case scenario because it means baby is happy and getting really fat inside. And what happens with big fat babies when they enter this world? It means they can eat more food….which in turn means they can sleep for longer…and just as the due date was once the holy grail for a preggo, sleeping at night quickly becomes the holy grail while the due date gets tossed and forgotten like the placenta.

And so, imagine my surprise and sheer delight upon hearing of a little trick my friend used recently. She is now pregnant with her second child. Her first child was induced at 42 weeks and that process still took almost three days because that baby was so happy inside, she just didn’t want to come out.

This particular friend was thrilled to have gone past her due date and actually pushed her docs to let her go past 41 weeks. She couldn’t see the logic in forcing the baby out if baby was happy and healthy inside and she was being put at no risk. Furthermore, she wasn’t dilated or effaced at all and she said “You can squeeze a green tomato all you want but it doesn’t mean any juice is gonna come out.”

Ha ha. Loved that.

So anyhow, moving on to her second pregnancy. When she went in for that first OB appointment, she actually fibbed on the first date of her last period, deliberately telling the docs it was 4 days later than it actually was. She wanted a later due date, she wants to keep that baby in as long as possible. I LOVE this approach! How ingenious, I sat there thinking! I asked her if the docs have tried to shift her due date after several sonograms, and each has noted that she seems to be a bit further along than her due date suggests, but then they move on and leave it as is.

It was so refreshing to hear this story. I’ll say it once and I’ll say it again, as long as mommy and baby are healthy, why the big rush to get that kid out? I just don’t get it.

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Motherhood