What It Was Like the First Time I Was Pregnant

Yesterday, I went looking in my old journal folders for something I wanted to share with a friend. I found what I was looking for, but I also found this. I was 8 or 9 weeks pregnant when I wrote this to some friends, and still living in hope that my nausea and vomiting would end with the first trimester. It didn't. Although I got some relief from anti-nausea meds later in my pregnancy, for all intents and purposes I didn't feel well again until the baby was born. Bless him for coming three weeks early. I was a grad student in English Literature at this time, and would probably have dropped out of school except that I needed my fellowship stipend to live on. When I think of that academic year, I see myself sitting at a seminar table, dull and blank-faced, with a baggie of saltines in front of me. One day toward the end of my pregnancy, I had a surprisingly lively couple of hours in class, and one of my friends said, "It was like the old Su was back, for just a little while, and then gone again."

Caring for me during my pregnancy was so encompassing that Toots told me later he had something like mild PTSD after the baby was finally born. And I think it's possible the dirty knives referenced in this post didn't get washed until after the baby, either.

Our plumber, Jim, had begun a bathroom remodel that was supposed to take about two weeks on the first day of my last menstrual period. Because of defects in the tub that was first delivered to us, it eventually took nearly 14 weeks to complete. Jim ended up rigging us a shower in the middle of the basement, near the floor drain, and his business was nearly bankrupted by the fiasco that was our new bathroom. Poor guy.

Anyway, enjoy!

November 2, 2000

I am sorry to have to tell you that last Friday's feeling of happy well-being is but a distant memory. I have had a very difficult week, augmented by the intensification of some symptoms and the appearance of a couple of entirely new ones, including excessive saliva (you will forgive me mentioning), which doesn't sound too bad when you read about it in a book, but which, it turns out, is unpleasant and troublesome when experienced. Raider believes that I am slowly turning to liquid; he says my stomach is squishy (I think so too). According to his reading on pregnancy, by the time the baby is delivered, I am going to be completely of a gelatinous, amoeba-like consistency.

What good news do I have? Despite having to call Raider to come pick me up at school this afternoon, I had this weird idea that I might be able to eat some sesame chicken. Sesame chicken being fetched for me, I succeeded in eating about a half-dozen small pieces with rice. It was very delicious. If all goes well, I intend to have some more for lunch tomorrow. I am amazed repeatedly by my ability to eat even when actively nauseated; it's a unique feature, in my experience, of pregnancy nausea. I have never been able to do more than suck popsicles when I've had an upset stomach before.

We told our plumber about the baby today. Turns out he has training as a naturopath and delivered two of his five children at home with no assistance from anyone but their mother. We have been joking about enlisting him as our midwife. He says it's natural that my joy in pregnancy should be suppressed by being sick, but assures me that I will begin to feel the "spiritual aspects" of pregnancy in the second trimester. "It's a whole little soul in there," he says. He also says we pick our parents, based on the karmic lessons we need to learn. The best either of us (the plumber or me) could say about the lessons of our upbringing, was that it taught us what not to do to our children; I have been thinking since our talk about what karmic lesson Junior might be seeking in choosing me and Raider. Scary.

Do you remember the TV show "Murphy Brown" and her house painter Eldon who came to paint the walls and stayed for, like, 10 years? I feel that way about our plumber, like he's been living with us for two months. I get to the point of wanting to say to him, "Jim, why don't you run the trash to the curb while you're up," or "Hey, Jim, put a load of dishes in, will you?" or "Hey, Jim, how about a ginger ale in here?" He did show up one day with a 12-pack of Vernors because he had noticed that we were almost out, and he understands how much I need it.

The representative of the bathtub company came today to inspect the tub; it can be fixed, he says, but he also says that the flaw in the pipe was so evident that it should not have passed inspection at the factory. He seemed quite indignant and promised to be very active in getting the repair done as soon as possible. We'll see.

Speaking of dishes and stuff: I have not lifted a finger around the house in a month (except during scheduled housework times on Saturday morning; last week I sat down more than I worked, but did succeed in tidying some things and dusting some other things while Raider and Toots cleaned the whole rest of the house). Raider and Toots have been terrific, doing all the shopping, doing dishes, scooping cat litter. Toots has taken over my job of feeding the cats, and also backs me up on dog care, checking to see whether I have fed them and doing it if I haven't been able to. I am enormously grateful, and yet am experiencing the frustration of having things done not by me and therefore not as I would do them. For instance, neither Raider nor Toots will generally do the hand dishes until they are quite scandalous; actually, not even then. As a consequence, every wood-handled knife in the house is dirty, and an archeologist could determine all the meals we've cooked (a very small subset of meals we've eaten) in the last few weeks by excavating the pile of pans to the right of the sink. Also, there is a tupperware container growing a culture in the fridge; no one else has dealt with it, and I have felt that it would be ill-advised of me to try it. I really want the fridge cleaned out and the hand dishes done, but I feel I can hardly press the point when they are already both doing so much. And I feel I can hardly use what little energy I have in a day in knife-washing when I have, for instance, a paper which was due yesterday and which is no farther forward than a list of possible source materials I have been too sick to go the library for.

I have to say, though, that it is a good feeling to have people in my life who will so patiently and cheerfully add my responsibilities to theirs, as well as the work of bringing me beverages and preparing me food (Raider packs me a Snack Kit whenever I have to go anywhere), over a period of weeks, with nary a complaint worse than, from Raider occasionally, "Can I finish this first or should I go get it right now?" (Although, truth to tell, he did get a little snarly last night between 12:30 and 1 a.m. when, first, I wanted the foam wedge to sleep on because I had heartburn, and then I wanted the window open and the fan on because I was hot, and then, after [our cat] Baby threw up, I wanted him to get out of bed immediately to clean it up because I needed to go pee and was afraid of stepping in it. But after that I slept straight through til morning, so what does he really have to complain about?)

The two of them have even agreed to go to the library and photocopy articles for me, since I keep saying that I feel I could work on my papers if only I had the materials here at home; if I can't manage the library tomorrow, I will take them up on it. In any case, I will probably take at least Raider with me to help with retrieving things from the stacks. And they are driving me everywhere, even when it means, on some days, six different trips in one day to drop me off and pick me up various places. I am in imminent danger of throwing up whenever I am in a moving car, and am much more comfortable in the passenger seat with a plastic bag in my hand than behind the wheel.

I have repeatedly been congratulating myself on having visited Montana when I did (and also on having visited my friend Julie the next weekend; by then, I was already constantly nauseated, but only mildly, and I don't think I had started throwing up yet). I feel like I did my traveling at the last possible time; I couldn't bring myself to get on a plane now, or to undertake a car ride of longer than 12 minutes.

One last thing: in all the pregnancy books, they say that labor and delivery are like orgasm in being an involuntary bodily response. But yesterday, I had a long and violent bout of vomiting (in the late morning; it is always worst in the late morning) during which I thought, for instance, that my eyeballs might explode*, and I realized how much of the body is engaged in throwing up; I had never really noticed the extent to which, for instance, opening your mouth to throw up is involuntary, and I swear I believe now that my vagina can get big enough for a baby because I'm pretty sure one could have come easily out my mouth yesterday. I felt exactly like those scenes in "An American Werewolf in London" in which David Naughton turns into the wolf. I couldn't believe when I looked in the mirror afterward that there wasn't some permanent sign. Anyway, in the middle of the worst of it, I thought, "I bet this is what labor is like." It wasn't like orgasm at all; it was too violent and all-encompassing and, interestingly (I've had a lot of time to think philosophically about retching), it's sort of neither pleasant nor unpleasant while it's going on; it just takes over. In between, in those little rests you get, hanging over the toilet wondering whether it's over yet or not, it's very upsetting, but during the actual vomiting, it just sort of is. I will let you know on or about June 11, 2001, whether my insight holds up. [Note: my labor with the Lego Savant was relatively mellow and not at all overwhelming, though it was difficult at points. Some of the vomiting I did while pregnant was much, much worse.]

*A couple of years ago, Toots had a bout of vomiting that left him with two black eyes; it was amazing. I keep half expecting that to happen to me, and when it doesn't, I think, "Good God, what Toots must have suffered!"

I have to say one more thing about throwing up: Last week, I experienced the most unpleasant vomiting-related thing that has ever happened to me. I haven't told anyone what it was, because it's just too gross and no one but me should have to be haunted by the vision of it, but I can't help telling you just that it happened. If you remember that I was once, in fact, sick in the hallway outside the door of my classroom while teaching a class, you can imagine that this must have been unpleasant indeed, although I was alone when it happened. Ugh. I won't say more, except, "Pity me! Pity me!"

Although I am physically very unwell, my spirits are improving. I think one can only be miserable so long, and as the weeks pass it begins to feel that I can endure the weeks ahead (how many? Perhaps as few as three, though I'm not counting on it), and, although I am keeping up with the reading in my classes, and making some slow progress on papers, I am ever more indifferent to school and am not letting my descent from the fabulous student I was all last year to a very indifferent performer distress me too much. On Friday, I thought singing in the shower was the mark of how well I felt, but today I have felt very sick all day but I still sang in the shower, just a little (the shower is one of my favorite places; the warm water on my stomach seems to really help. If only the basement drain weren't sluggish, so that showers have to be quick to avoid flooding the room, I would probably stand in there for an hour). And I have been very rewarded by small adventures in food; as well as the sesame chicken today, on Tuesday Raider, in response to an idea of mine that I might be able to eat some home fries if they were fried with only a very little oil, made me a wonderful bowlful of diced potatoes. A welcome variant from my usual assortment of yogurt, fruit, applesauce, Carnation Instant Breakfast, homemade ginger spritzers, peppermint tea, and, of course, saltines. [Later in my pregnancy, I began to live almost entirely on Peppermint Stick ice cream. I couldn't brush my teeth without vomiting, and so it freshened my mouth a little and was cool and creamy both going down and, if necessary, coming back up.]

Gender-Related Name Change Rant

I ranted a little on Facebook today, and then realized I might as well blog it as well.

I'm doing a lot of paperwork this morning, including getting the Tiny Tornado's petition for a legal name change filled out and printed. In Michigan, you can change your name for any non-fraudulent purpose, and when I changed mine, I was only asked whether I was doing it to evade debt or any other criminal sort of reason.

Unless it's for gender change reasons. In which case, you need a letter of support from an expert, cause god forbid *you* be the expert on your own name. It's so stupid! We could have named him Guyname Manlyman Lastname at birth and nobody would have stopped us, but now he's 7 and has CHOSEN HIS OWN NAME and we need a letter.

*grump, whine, complain*

Of course, we had no trouble getting a letter. The doctors at the Lurie Children's Sex & Gender Development Clinic have a form letter. "It is common that social transitioning for gender dysphoric children will lead to a dramatic improvement in social and psychological functioning, as Name_of_Child has experienced. There is no question that Name_of_Child was struggling with gender dysphoria and has benefitted from social transitioning."

But that it was easy for us to get the letter is not the point. The point is that people who don't fit the gender binary are unnecessarily subjected to additional scrutiny. AND THIS IS WRONG!

And the point is also that people who don't have the privilege of access to one of the THREE children's gender clinics in the whole country, or other knowledgeable and compassionate care providers, might find it difficult-to-impossible to get such a letter even though their child would also benefit from having a legal name that matches the name they use. THIS IS ALSO WRONG.

/end of rant

Why Gymnastics Will Never Be a Popular Spectator Sport

My youngest kid, the Tiny Tornado, started gymnastics just over a year ago. After his very first class, his coach told us, "I think we have a real gymnast on our hands." In June, he joined the competitive team at his gym as a Level 4, the lowest competitive level, and it looks like he'll have his first meet in November.

So now, we're fans of men's gymnastics. Gymnastics is one of the most popular sports at the Olympics every four years, but most people don't pay any attention to it in between. This is because being a gymnastics fan is hard work. Most gymnastics events, even the big international ones, aren't broadcast on TV. Fans have to get their fix via live scoring updates on the USA Gymnastics webpage, and twitter updates from people in the audience. Often, it's not possible to see video until after the fact. This year, for the first time, it was possible to watch the qualifying rounds from the world championships on a live feed, but even the men's team final was broadcast without commentary in the US. You have to be dedicated.

On the one hand, I think this is too bad: following the sport this year has given me a much better understanding of what's going on with all that flipping and spinning, and I can now evaluate a routine with just a bit more sophistication than, "hey, he didn't fall off, and he stuck his landing!" I look forward to the Rio Olympics in 2016, when for the first time in my life, I'll know who the gymnasts are before they walk into the arena. I'll know their strengths and weaknesses. I'll know that Danell Leyva uses headphones and a towel draped over his head to avoid getting overstimulated with the noise around him; I'll know that it's worth calling inattentive family members to the TV for  Donnell Whittenberg's vaults and Leyva's parallel bar routine; I'll know that John Orozco is talented and capable but lets his nerves get the better of him sometimes. I'll know who's not there, but might have been, and why they didn't make it.

On the other hand, I have some ideas about why gymnastics is a quadrennial treat for most people rather than perpetual fandom.

It is Too Far Removed From Our Own Experiences

This theory is not original with me; I read it somewhere, and it stuck with me. Basically, the forgotten writer of the piece I read suggested that fans of most sports that have strong followings, like soccer, baseball, football, and basketball, are games that fans can identify with because they can imagine themselves playing, too. Probably they have played, whether in gym class, a neighborhood pick-up game, a family match during halftime on Super Bowl Sunday, or in a league. What the players are doing on the field is different in intensity, quality, and skill, but it's the same game.

On the other hand, gymnasts of four years old (and even less) are already doing things the vast majority of us will never be able to do, at all. When we're watching gymnastics on YouTube, my gymnast son takes breaks to practice his handstands, presses, hollow-arch-kicks on the pull-up bar. But the rest of us? Ha! There's no gymnastics equivalent of taking a ball out back and tossing it around for awhile, and this, the argument goes, makes gymnastics too distant from our own experiences for most of us to spend a lot of time on it.

It's Repetitive

For the most part, in a given season, a gymnast is going to work up a routine on each apparatus, and stick to it. If you're paying a lot of attention, you might know that they have, say, an upgraded release skill on high bar that they're considering bringing to the competition. A year ago, I saw a short interview in which Sam Mikulak talked about working on his airflair as a skill upgrade on floor. I got to see him compete it (poorly) at a couple of college meets, and then really well at national and world championships. "Yay, Sam!" I thought. But if you're not paying attention, these little dramas and differences won't be apparent to you. "So-and-so took the extra twist out of his Tsukahara on vault today; he must not have been feeling confident" is pretty insider-baseball stuff.

So: you get to see the gymnasts do more-or-less the same things over and over, with variations that you have to be kind of an expert to recognize. I like this! But not everyone will.

There is No Head-to-Head Competition

Sure, the gymnasts are competing against each other, but not directly. Each of them has a routine they're trying to perform as well as they can, and, except for maybe psychologically, nothing any of the competition does can directly affect a gymnast's performance. There's no offense, no defense, no direct confrontation. In baseball, a great hit can be thwarted by an even greater catch, but there's nothing like that kind of drama in gymnastics.

It is Almost Impossible to Actually Watch a Whole Meet

During a men's gymnastics meet, there are athletes simultaneously performing routines on six apparatuses. When you watch on TV, the camera is always ignoring five other athletes to concentrate on the one you're being shown. Even when you're in the stands, you can't see it all. You miss an amazing vault because you're watching a mediocre floor exercise; the dramatic moment when the favorite to win falls off the pommel horse happens in the corner of your eye because you're watching somebody on rings. A meet lasts close to three hours, and to see all of it you'd have to watch it six times from six different perspectives.

Toward the end of a meet, when it's clear who's likely to win and who their competition is, the crowd will get excited and start to focus on those athletes. But for most of the meet, not even the people in the audience are watching the same event at the same time. Some of them are sending up a rousing cheer for a well-executed skill on the bar while some of them are sighing at a disappointment on rings, and some of them are checking their e-mail because their team is out this rotation on a bye. There's no single focal point, so you're always missing something.

Until Near the Very End, It's Almost Impossible to Know Who's Actually Winning

Throughout a gymnastics meet, individual and team scores are posted continuously (this only applies to team and all-around competitions; it's different in individual event competitions, but I'm not going to get into that right now). But for most of the meet, these scores are largely meaningless, except to the extent that you know how a specific team is doing relative to its usual performance.

One reason for this is that scores vary from apparatus to apparatus: the pommel horse is deadly, and scores there are usually lower overall than on other apparatuses. So whichever team starts the meet on pommel horse will very likely end the rotation in last place, but they have a good chance of closing the gap as the other teams rotate through their pommel routines.

In addition, teams and gymnasts have strengths and weaknesses. Teams A and B may both be great on floor, and only OK on high bar. Team A is going to pull ahead if they have an early rotation on floor while Team B is on bar, but that doesn't mean much until they've both finished both apparatuses.

Finally, if there are more than six teams competing, each team will take a bye on some rotations. So, at the end of a rotation, some teams will be far far behind because they've only been scored on, say,  three apparatuses, while other teams have already done four.

Predicting the outcome of a gymnastics meet in progress is an exercise in branching possibilities and if-thens that rivals a game of chess.

Scoring is Complicated

It's pretty easy to understand a home run, a touchdown, or a goal in soccer, and to do the math as the points pile up. In gymnastics these days, it takes a slide rule to keep up. I have to admit I don't fully understand it yet, and I may well be wrong about what I think I do understand.

Each routine gets a score for difficulty, and one for execution. The D score is based on the difficulty assigned to various elements in the routine, and the E score starts at 10 and then deductions are taken for various things, like not completing skills, falling, poor form, and so on. This means that the potential score for each gymnast varies; a gymnast with a D score of, say, 5.2 could earn 15.2 points if he executes his routine perfectly (not that a perfect execution ever happens). A gymnast with a D score of 6.4 has a ceiling of 16.4.  One reason Japan's Kohei Uchimura is favored to take Gold in the All-Around again at this year's World Championships is that nobody else has D-scores like his, and you can't beat him if your best possible score is still a losing score.

The Gymnastics Code of Points describes skills, and assigns them point values on a scale. "A" skills are worth a tenth of a point—my little guy's Level 4 routines are chock full of A skills. At the other end of the scale are a handful of F skills that are worth .6. When gymnasts talk about an "upgrade" skill, they mean they're working on something that will increase their D-score.

So, to understand a gymnast's score, you have have some kind of idea of their D-score, which determines the ceiling, and how many deductions they got, and how that stacks up in the context of the rest of the competition. Is 14.88 good? Bad? Mediocre? It can be hard to tell. For the broadcast of the national championships in August, the TV network invented a red-yellow-green symbol to cue the audience in about whether the gymnast had few deductions, some deductions, or lots of deductions. Green=Good, they told us, and Red=Bad. Because that's the kind of scoring we can understand.