Sailboats and pirates and sharks!

So having a boy should be cooler than I previously expected. After all, adventure, science, wit, strength… all these things are naturally appealing to little boys, right? It’s girls who fall privy to makeup, romance, tea parties, and rather boring things if you ask me.

            Well, so much for that myth. Now I supposed that with the scores of various styles and fashions today that looking at bottles and toys would be, maybe even fun. Turns out it’s a little challenging. Babies, who we claim are very receptive to their surroundings, only seem to need to come into contact with the lamest of the lame. Swings have large blob-like, atrocious colorings, bassinets are frilly and lacey (even the boy ones!) and the blues are always a soft pastel. Oh, but for a little masculinity, paw prints are added.

            Of course, at this point I’m complaining just for the sake of complaining. I don’t actually intend to run out and buy a six dollar washcloth for the sake of a print versus a four dollar set that all have the same boring puppies. It’s just a little surprising. Not to mention, I am certainly not one to sacrifice the style and atmosphere of the home for the sake of despicable baby colors that clash with everything.

            Oh, and people can feed me that nonsense about “stimulation” all they want. Children across the world, in tribes even, get plenty of stimulation from the outside world, from “bland” things such as rocks and trees. I can appreciate my own mother’s advice, as she explained to me that as a baby, she would take my brother and I outside, let us feel the bark and leaves as she said, “tree.” Touching the outside world, I believe, does wonders.

            Of course, every parent has their own beliefs, all over the globe. The truth is, unless a parent is blatantly sabotaging their child’s growth, most of us turn out alright. We are resilient, and able to adapt. It is how human beings have managed to survive through the worst of times.  I won’t pretend that Cesar will turn out without flaws. At some point, I expect I will say something hurtful, or will do something unintentionally that will “scar” him, or add an odd quirk to his personality. It’s inevitable, and any parent that pretends they have it right is in for disappointment.

            So, as I attempt to sort all of this out, I find myself becoming increasingly annoyed with other mothers. Not all. Understand, if a fellow mother tells me, “Well, you will probably be really hungry after labor. They starve you in the hospital. I know I was,” I am not only provided with experience, but with a reasonable explanation of why and how this might occur. Not to mention, such a statement is very general, and doesn’t assure me that I will have the experience.

            However, I find that mothers everywhere like to tell you that regardless of your personality, you are an unfortunate victim of pregnancy, and no matter who you are or what morals you have, you will fall prey to its terrors exactly as they did. For example, my coworker, when discussing due dates, told me, “Oh no! You can’t go even two days past your due date. If you do, your baby will get too big.”

            Really? She honestly expects me to buy into that myth? I couldn’t help myself. I said, “Are you kidding? You know a due date is an estimated date. To get the most accurate date, you’d have to have a sonogram done in the very beginning to get the gestational age, and that accuracy decreases over time.” Of course, I think by then she was annoyed and tuning me out. But seriously, are people honestly going to expect me to buy into these scares? So, my question is, in nature.. what happens when the pregnant monkey goes past her due date? If such a myth were, in fact, true, then would this big beast burst forth like a cheap rip off from the movie Alien? Would the poor mama monkey just be stuck for the rest of her days raising an oversized baby from the inside out until it ripped her open? Women have gone up to two weeks after their due date without complication. I am not saying being that big is comfortable, or that I want to be that big for an extra period of time. But it’s not impossible and shouldn’t be treated as scary.

            Experienced mothers have no place trying to throw nonsense information the way of new mothers. I especially hate when they tell you how you are going to feel, and have no basis for their facts beyond the trusted phrase, “It happened to me.”

            Another case in point. My coworker tells me, “Oh, you’ll be so tired. You won’t want to leave the hospital.” Again, I can’t help myself. I say, “Really? Because I can’t even go on vacation and relax for very long in a foreign hotel room. I hate doctors and hospitals, so I can’t imagine that being tired is going to override that anxiety.” I have literally thrown fits if on vacation too long, in a foreign place. Call it a disorder or whatever you want to, I like my environment. To tell me that being in labor is suddenly going to alter my psyche is somewhat unnerving. Luckily, another friend came to my rescue upon mentioning it to her, and reminded me, “Well everyone is different. I hated being in the hospital. I wanted out as soon as it was over with.”

            Do I seem like a stubborn person? I can be, but within reason. I like to think that I have a good mind for things. I may be skeptical before I’ve had time to process the information, but truthfully, I do bend if the sense is there.

            At my last doctor’s check-up (1-5-10), I told my nurse I was ready to start asking questions about labor. Of course, she wants me to take an annoying child birth class. “You’ll learn how to ask for medication there.” Again, “Really?” (I thought this to myself politely), “Really? I can’t just say, ‘Hey, I might vomit, do you have anything I can take before I puke?’ I really need to go and learn how to say that?”  I smiled and nodded, absorbing this info. Then the shocker. Oh, about a week before I’m due (May, 15^th), we are going to pick a date for me to go in and get induced. The nurse describes it as a convenience, which I suppose it is.

            “We’re just shaving off the time you would be spent having random labor contractions. You won’t have to run around in the middle of the night or anything,” the nurse tells us. I had never heard of this before! Immediately I called my mother, who was amazed. Her own labor with me had involved Pitocin (the drug used to induce labor) and had turned disastrous (they pulled me out with forceps). My mother referred to my suggested labor method as “cattle-herding” done by the medical profession. Sounds about right. I mean, let’s face it, for the doctor who wants his Saturday off, it’s much more convenient to spend your weekdays doing multiple inductions, a process guaranteed (provided there are limited complications) to get the patient in and out in a set amount of time. And, just to be fair (I can’t always fault the medical field alone), we have to place some of the blame on “modern” American mothers. The mothers who want to let their friends and family know exactly which day to request off from work to be around, to inform their job exactly when maternity leave will be starting. And hell, America is the land of convenience, after all. We love fast food, predictable movies, painkillers, credit cards. Why not lump child birth in with all that instant gratification as well? No more wondering when those pesky contractions will start. Here in America, we can have our greasy burgers and take a pill at the same time we eat them to lower cholesterol!

            So, thinking this was the oddest practice I’d ever heard of, I started asking around. Turns out it is not uncommon. In fact, lots of moms are proud and even encourage me to have it. “Well, why wouldn’t I?” they wonder. Of course, it’s an entirely different story when talking with someone from say, Europe. My friend in England was mortified. She claimed any woman who has an induction simply for convenience or because you’re, “tired of being pregnant” is incredibly irresponsible. And I have to agree. Yet again, we here in America tend to run on the irresponsible side of things!

            So, having established that it’s more of cultural opinion, I decided to do some research to see exactly what the risks are and whether or not such a procedure should be denied for logical reasons. The results? Well, nothing terrible, but there are risks, most of which a lot of these happily induced moms are not likely aware of. While most in the medical profession would agree that it’s not really necessary, it is offered and if, done properly, can turn out without incident. The truth is, enough babies are born without problems that I don’t need to turn my nose up at the thought of induction either. What I do need to be, is informed. Doctors usually utilize the Bishop’s score, which is a system designed to determine if a woman can successfully have a vaginal birth. It takes into account several factors concerning the uterus, cervix, and placement of the baby’s head, ect. Modifications to the scoring are added depending on if the woman has given birth before or to include other factors. The goal, as I understand, is to score as high as possible to be considered for induction. The lower the score, the less likely a successful birth.

            Of course, this is a lot of planning ahead, but it’s nice to be informed. I might go into labor early, after all. However, it’s nice to know, and when the time comes I trust that Vincent and I will make the most responsible decision. If that means saying, “I’m sorry, I don’t feel comfortable with this,” well that’s my right. However, having the information at hand, I also feel confident that if it is done properly I have nothing to worry about. So no, I’m not always stubborn.  

            I think Vincent was happy to hear that, though. I sometimes wonder if he tires of my need for information, at my blatant skepticism of just about anything. He’s much more relaxed, and I have to give him credit, it probably attributes to him having a lot less stress than I do. I like to brag about him on occasion, that I am very lucky I have someone who will allow me to have a bad mood. I was in a rough spot the other day, and while I apologized and roared, I couldn’t get over it. He sat by, waiting it out, making occasional kind remarks. So that was much appreciated.

            For now, Vincent has turned most of his attention to his car. I wonder if this isn’t some form of his own nesting experience. As if, he wants to prioritize something as well, but since I’ve unwittingly taken over the house, he has decided to express his urges elsewhere. Certainly I can’t blame him, and it’s not as though the car doesn’t deserve the attention. I only hope it’s not something a forced on him because he doesn’t feel included enough in the house arrangements.  

            He had the engine worked on, replaced a broken door handle, replaced the shocks for his trunk, and has recently ordered new door panels. It’s a marvelous thing really. I don’t think I’ve seen him so devoted to any project before. Perhaps, it’s a method of expression, but also an outlet for his own anxieties. He certainly does not vocalize his irritations, his upsets, or even his minor concerns with anyone else as far as I can decipher. Then again, perhaps I am reading too far into it. I overanalyze quite a bit.

            And Cesar hasn’t been moving about as much. Or maybe I’ve been too busy to notice, which worries me some. Supposedly, here in the next few weeks Vincent should be able to feel him move! That day excites me. I keep wondering how it must be from his perspective. Living in a world beyond of which you have no knowledge of anything. You have no visual beyond light perception, can’t speak, and this tiny world, this womb… you don’t know that you’ll be leaving it one day, or that you aren’t fully grown yet, or that there are deadlines and other little houses (bodies) moving all around your own. No concepts, no realizations… just, there. And yet, there are things from the outside leaking in. Music, sounds, the rumble of a tummy. How do these things register to this being? Maybe the way a storm does for us… just the passing of the weather.

Happy New Year!

The night before New Years, Vincent came home from a bar night, proudly announcing that he wanted to talk to the baby, and that he had managed to walk almost all the way home with a trophy. That trophy being a large orange cone he found on the way, and though would make for an epic story and surprise for me if he could just make it all way. Unfortunately, about a block before the complex, he saw a line of cars headed his way, and he was too tired to finish the job, so he ditched the plastic decoration and told me about it straightaway instead. I certainly got a laugh out of it, especially as he described his journey, and told me, “How cool it would be to tell our son one day that I carried home a cone for you!” The story enough was enough entertainment, as I smartly comforted his disappointment, “Well, I’m not sure where we’d end up putting in anyway, considering how spatially limited we are.” But it does make for a funny moment during pregnancy, and so I decided that I would write it in here. Especially since Vincent’s resolution is to ease up on drinking. His theory being that if he uses the money for say, one week of drinking for something else instead, he will accomplish his main task of fixing his car more efficiently. It makes me smile, especially since he did just have it worked on the other day by his father, who is a mechanic. I had been concerned about the engine, the trouble he was having taking off and the shaking of the car (it is a standard), so I’m so relieved to see that’s been taken care of. The more proactive we are early on, the more prepared I feel about everything overall.

Speaking of getting things done, New Year’s Eve rolled around. Being that it was a Friday, wrestling was on, and Vincent and I decided to watch it before going out for the evening. Well, admittedly I am not the biggest fan, but Vincent is and got me into it. Considered that Cesar is always hearing it, I’m certain he’s going to enjoy it as well. There’s a wrestler on the show called Dolph Ziggler… and I guess his name is Adolph but it’s his nickname. He’s not even that good of a wrestler (or actor?) but his name had never clicked for us as being Adolph, so when the announcer said his name properly instead of using the nickname, we marveled at how we had never made the connection.

Now let’s skip forward a few hours later. We had walked into the deep downtown of San Antonio, to a little bar that I used to be a regular at before I was pregnant and knew most of the bartenders. After reminiscing, having a good time, and a number of drinks for Vincent later, we were discussing Cesar, and how we had his first and last name picked for sure. Then it just came out.

“We could name him Cesar Adolph,” and as an afterthought, “Of course we’d be kind of naming him after two dictators.”

Vincent, being the history major he is, well his eyes lit up in just the right way, that way which said I’d gotten his attention, and he was slowly processing all of this information. Then, he ran with it. “That is awesome.”

So there you have it. We are still debating between Adolph or Adolpho. While I ran into an unfortunate fight with my father over the matter of the name Adolf, I was surprised to see that most people were giving us a hard time about Cesar! Even though the spelling would indicate the pronunciation should be Spanish, I did make it clear I would pronounce it Caesar, which sends people into a frenzy of, “Why would you name your kid after a salad?” One gentleman, thinking to have a quick tongue, made such a comment as that. Unfortunately for him, I can be quite rotten when I get going, and since his name was Albert I promptly responded, “Well I certainly wouldn’t name my son after Fat Albert. I’d much rather him be named after a salad. Just goes to show how any name can be made fun of.”

So yes, I do fall into the firm belief now that it’s a very bad idea to reveal the name of your child early on, that is, unless you’re prepared for all the advice and heartache people are going to throw at you. I believe that we all live in circles you see. In each circle, we encounter words and names that we apply pictures to. I fancy South Park, for example, and so when someone says the name Eric, I think of Eric Cartman, the large, evil boy. When I think of Helena, I think of one of my favorite characters who is elegant and just a bit snobby on a video game I enjoy.

Unfortunately, because we all have different experiences, influences, and encounter a variety of people, everyone’s circle is different. That means that no matter what name you select, be it in the best interest or otherwise, everyone is subject to seeing a different picture than the one you may have intended. That’s just life, and unfortunately, no matter what name, every child gets made fun of. I tried to explain to my father (of course, I was very heated at the time) that even my name suffered. Amanda Keller. Well in every school, creative kids somehow equated it to Panda Killer. Amazing, no?

I felt tremendously better after talking to other mothers though. In general, they tend to be a little more sympathetic to the process and stress of name picking. One of my friends told me that her son’s name is Caleb, but in Hebrew it translates to “dog,” and while she was pregnant a few of her guy friends would always sing, “How much is that doggy in the window?” to her until she sobbed.

My other friend had the middle name Carmen, and she suffered children making references to a cartoon called, “Where in the world is Carmen Sandiego?” I can take any name really, and turn it into a gag, and still children are far better at this task than me. Why? I suppose as an adult we want humor to have a little more intelligence to it. Children, on the other hand, in their innocence, can think just about anything is funny.

So yes, I fear that some little jerk is going to make a reference to Adolf Hitler at some point or another. But my mother made a really good point, which was that whether or not that has any effect on our son is in how we raise him. If he is strong, proud, and resilient, it will probably not have any consequence and therefore not last long, as happens with most confident children. However, if he is weak and easily distraught, then yes, we’ll have a problem. It’s not so much about the name, she explained, as it is his character. After all, my brother, Sean, was constantly picked on throughout school, and would be through high school. Had nothing to do with his name, but because he turned out to be a “target” he suffered.

Of course, it’s also important to point out how supportive Vincent has been in all this. I’ve never seen him tested before with anything, and I was even a little embarrassed to admit that my father had given me such grief over our choice, since he’s afraid that we would offend thousands of people and that it would ruin our son’s chances at life. I didn’t know how Vincent would react to this news, if he would take the criticism of others seriously or not. I had been so pleased with our choice. I honestly liked it, Adolph or Adolpho, I didn’t care and it hadn’t occurred to me anyone would get so bent out of shape about it. But when I told Vince, I was so surprised. Not only did he do his own bit of “research” by asking friends and coworkers of his own, but he said, “You know, if anyone doesn’t want to meet our son or be around him because of his name, then f@*! ‘em.” He was that proud of his own choice and liked the name enough to stand up for it.

I was so relieved, it reinstated the thrill of my original happiness, that innocence surrounded by laughter and joy when we had first decided that we had, in fact, found a satisfying name. I even did my own research, discovering that no one sensible felt that any name should be considered offensive as long as the intent was heartfelt, and that just because there were bad apples out there with certain names, doesn’t mean the name should be lost for all time. Vincent even told one of his friends, “Charles Manson had a cult and killed.” When his friend kindly responded, “Well, Hitler had a much larger impact,” he smartly replied, “Ok, Josef Stallin killed millions more than Hitler, yet the name Josef is still much used.” I guess being a history major does have its perks. I makes me happy that it’s not just about the fact that I liked the name, it’s that we both really like it.

Now for the funny part. When we had first selected these names, naturally I had to find out what they meant! Cesar means, “thick head of hair,” and Adolph or Adolpho means, “noble wolf.” If anything, I think we might have jinxed our son to be a hairy beast!

And yes, I had my glass of champagne at midnight, if those tiny plastic tubes are even worthy of being called a glass. It was not sweet as is my preference, but not so dry as I could not enjoy it either. Vincent told me to stand up, and he kissed me so nicely that I thought I was on TV! So much so that a few people in the bar started laughing and telling us to get out! It’s these good times I hope I can pass on to our son, not the silly mess over his name. I would just hate to have that memory of the fight with my father implanted in my head, and have to talk about that in detail to Cesar ever. It’s why I didn’t write too much about it. I don’t want to deny it, certainly it did happen. But I have to ask myself, should I tell my son that when we chose his name I was happy but then had an awful fight, in which all these terrible things were said... or should I tell him that even though there was a bit of controversy after, when we chose his name it was the start of a brand new year. We were merry and affectionate, and we celebrated the idea throughout the night and after because it was perfect.