I started doing a walking plan that calls for “easy cross training” one day a week, so I thought I’d give yoga a try.
I learned something today: Pregnancy Yoga is not for me! Or for The Dog. Per the video instructions, I grabbed a blanket and headed for the floor. The Dog spent forty minutes trying to lay on the blanket while I was using it for yoga. Then she absolutely wigged out while I was trying to Downward Dog in front of the computer.
Has anyone got any ideas for safe stretching videos that don’t involve “joining your hands together over your heart to feel the love that you have for your baby.” ICK! I think I was as wigged out as the dog.
Pilates usually works for me, but I haven’t done it in a while, so I can’t just sit down and start doing the teaser. Nope. No way.

Netflix has that streaming video on demand thing, but I only found “Stretching for Seniors.”

Has anyone got a copy of Stretching for the Lazy, Pregnant, and Cynical that I can borrow?

More blog and comments after the jump:

Last week, before I left my job, my coworkers threw me a wonderful baby thunderstorm. Dozens of people came and wished us well. I am completely overwhelmed by the generosity of everyone on campus. I won’t have to buy a shirt for this baby during the whole first year!

I brought some markers and puff paint and some blank Onesies in every size for my coworkers to paint. They ended up being so much cuter than I thought they would. I’m going to send the rest of the blank shirts to my friend Jen, and tell her to paint some more!

I couldn’t believe we were given three hand-crochet blankets, a handmade quilt and a whole pile of fleece and flannel receiving blankets. I’m a huge sucker for handmade goodies, those take time and love.

We got piles and piles of helpful stuff! I’m in heaven, I don’t have to go to the store to pick all of this stuff up!


We were given about a month’s worth of disposable diapers, a full set of large cloth diapers, bath towels, and burp cloths. My coworkers all pitched in to buy a huge stack of baby books, a stroller and an infant car seat!
I’m hoping someone will send me pictures from the shower. I was opposed to subjecting people to baby shower games, until we started playing “name that baby food.” My former boss was cracking me up! “Well, gee, this looks like Hummus, and that one… that’s definitely Chicken Pate.”
Commence the gratuitous baby photos:

Yesterday, I dropped the car off at the mechanic for the 100,000 mile tune up, smog, and an oil change. Oh, yeah, and a new timing belt. While I was waiting for the car; I walked the dog over six miles, and found a dog wash for $12 (SCORE!). I got home and cooked a nice Canadian Swiss Chalet dinner for DH, (isn’t it like Victoria day or something this week?). I think I managed to take out the trash before I collapsed on the couch.

Today is a new day, with a new list! And, darn it, I will finish this list today! Watch me!

Load the dishwasherand unload the dishwasher too!
Clean out the file cabinet
Put away loose files
Call about transfering retirement funds
Put stuff on the kitchen counter away
Cook breakfast
Walk Dog
Laundry
Vacuum
Cook dinner
Clean up dinner dishes

This is the first of what I’m sure will be many editions of “Weird People in Los Angeles.” This episode sponsored by: The Dog.

Man peeing in dog park.
Braless woman in dog park.
Woman comes to dog park wearing WHITE PANTS, and then actually gets MAD that other dogs are sniffing her.
Man at Starbucks: actually barks at my dog, tells her “Bad dog! Bad dog! Bad dog!” then sees me (pregnant, in pj pants and a paint-stained hoodie), he starts singing “Hey, hey, mama, said the way you move…”
Homeless guy; in shorts and tennis shoes, looking very very happy that he scored a new bottle of booze at 8:30 a.m. on a Sunday.
Homeless guy; sleeping under the “please clean up your pet’s waste” sign, right on the spot where my dog is trained to poop every morning.
Woman wearing lots of makeup, 4-inch heels, short shorts, and a fur coat. Riding a bicycle.

Dear Baby,
You won’t even breathe air for another twenty-or-so weeks, and I already owe you an apology. I’ve been so afraid to hope too much. I’ve been so afraid to jinx your existence, that we didn’t tell anyone about you until just recently. You are my pride and joy, you are my hopes and dreams. You are wanted, and your father and I wish you would hurry up and get here already.

Oh my gosh! I’m pregnant!

My coworkers threw you an awesome baby shower this week. You have a beautiful set of handmade blankets, and a whole bag of board books. They even bought you a stroller! You are going to be one stylin’ baby in all of your yellow Onesies and sleepers.
The Dog is getting jealous of your stuffed bear collection. We’ll have to go buy her some more nylabones.

I keep wishing that I feel you kick me. Sometimes I convince my self that yes, that was a kick, but then I second guess my gas. At midnight last night, I cursed you for being a night owl like your father. I was just sure that you kicked me, right after your father started snoring.

Now, Little One, you and I need to have a talk. I can understand giving me heartburn for eating a plate of enchiladas with chips and salsa; but what are you doing giving me heartburn from eating a bowl of Raisin Bran? Can we be reasonable now? I’ll lay off the salsa, and be extra diligent about my folic acid pill, if you can let mommy drink a glass of milk in the morning, DEAL? HMMMMM?

Now, come on, you and I need to go walk The Dog.

I went underground last year because I didn’t want to publicly share my/our struggle with infertility.
I didn’t want to join that group.
I didn’t want to be that woman.
I didn’t want to admit that I was consumed by that pain.

There are hundreds of infertility blogs out there. Women who have been hoping, trying, struggling for years to get pregnant. I spent a lot of time reading those blogs, searching, trying to find a way to cope and understand. But I did not want to be one of those women. Becoming one of them felt like accepting defeat. But I read them. I read them for months and months.

The Internet does not want to help you get pregnant. The Internet wants to sell you useless saliva ferning microscopes and $150 fertility monitors (talismans). I joined message boards, downloaded fertility software, temped, charted, told my husband when it was time to try. I read, I researched. I learned, and then I got angry.

I have never paid any attention to my menstrual cycles. I never needed to. My periods are rarely last longer than a day-and-a-half. I had a vague sense that I didn’t have a 28 day cycle like everyone tells me I do. I never needed to track, because, well, I have never had any embarrassing accidents.

Girlfriends in high school would ask me: “How can you go swimming all month long.” I swam five days a week for four years. I only get horrible PMS maybe twice a year. One extra-skinny tampon every month or so really wasn’t a big deal.

Wasn’t a big deal, until we had a good solid marriage, a little money in the bank and a spare bedroom with room for a nursery. I have PCOS. For you non-infertile types, that means I have eggs in my ovaries, but they don’t exit the ovaries every 28 days like all the textbooks say that they do. My 1.5 day “periods,” they would be Anovulatory Cycles.

I didn’t figure this out until after we had been “trying” for six months. Go read this book, Taking Charge of Your Fertility. Even if you don’t want to get pregnant, you deserve to have this information. Read every page. You are an intelligent woman with the right to know what is going on inside your own body. Seriously, did you buy it yet? Go buy it. I’ll wait.

I read the book, got angry at every female relative, doctor, nurse, and Sex Ed teacher I’ve ever had. Elementary school sex ed in the 80’s, Sponsored by Tampax, was nothing more than an awkward video of a woman standing at a card table in the produce isle of a super market; with a pair of panties and an adhesive panty liner. Do you prefer tampons or maxis?

A few years back, I took an upper division college biology course on Human Sexuality. We had a 16″x20″ textbook with full-page, full-color pictures of uncensored nether-regions. We learned the scientific name for every anatomical part that you never wanted to know the name of. We watched dozens of videos of the physiological aspects of orgasms, as studied in a laboratory setting. We watched the full-length college-biology version of how conception happens. How conception happens when everything works just like it says it works in the text books.

No one, not one person, ever spent five minutes saying “and here are the five most common causes of infertility, just for your information.” Not five minutes. When I put that book down, I was so angry. I got angry, and then I went online and ordered a vaginal speculum. My present to you is that I will put up with the google hits for vaginal speculum, just so that it occurs to you to go get educated and find out how your own body works.

Two months after that package came in the mail, I was pregnant. I love Amazon Prime.

There are many causes of infertility. Many women struggle against impossible odds with very serious fertility problems. I only had to join that crowd for less than a year.
I have a less-serious fertility problem, I have irregular, anovulatory cycles, and I ovulate maybe twice a year, but I can still get pregnant. But the waiting, and the not knowing, it really sucks. PCOS may effect as many as one-in-ten women. It might be you. Go read the book, and then go ask your doctor intelligent questions.

Good luck!

Hello! My name is Elizabeth, I used to write for Dink(y).
Used to, until we started struggling with infertility. I didn’t want to talk about infertility on my blog because I didn’t want the ass-vice. As it turns out, NOONE knows the right thing to say to a young married couple who should have had a kid by now.

Eventually, I just stopped writing. I couldn’t blog about an exciting night of going out for Chinese food for dinner… when the real issue of the year was “dang it, what is WRONG with my body?”

My ten-year high school reunion was hard for me. It felt like everyone else in my class (who wanted them) had a couple of adorable kids.

In January, I finally did get pregnant with our first. But, after waiting so long, it was so hard to be happy without being scared. Just scared. Don’t jinx it! It’s now the end of May. Hello Internets: I’m pregnant. Insert fanfare, excitement, and a jpeg of a stick with two lines on it. As it turns out, I have PCOS, and have probably had it since puberty. Every single person in my family/health/medical/educational life thought that it was someone else’s job to explain the birds and the bees to me. Ugh. It’s infuriating. So much wasted time and heartache could have been avoided with some basic information.

I have still been following dozens of blogs (I pink-puffy-heart Google Reader). I have been debating how to go back online and start over. I couldn’t find the words then, and I struggle with the words now. A couple of days ago, Dana posted something that was a swift kick in my big beautiful booty. What she posted really resonated with me. She found the words I couldn’t say out loud. I’m sorry that I finally got to the other side, and she has not… yet .

Blogging forces us to stick our bare underbellies out there for the whole world to see. Its scary, and there are repercussions, but we all need this community. We blog to know that we are not alone. Whether you’re an IF blogger or not, thank you for being open, and being honest with the world.

Go visit Dana and give her some love. Without the ass-vice, please.