Three Weeks and Two Days

Mollie turned three weeks old this weekend. It is such an enormous amount of time for her to have already been on the planet that I am struck by her age every time I murmur it to myself. I do not understand where the time went, how we made it from those moments when she was a few hours, and even a few days old, all the way up until now, when we can measure her lifespan in weeks. It seems unfathomable.

So it is an understatement to say that the last three weeks have been a blur. They have been a blink of the eye, one sleepless 24-hour stretch of breastfeeding, laundry, spit-up, teeny tiny clothes, thank you notes, and learning, OH, the learning.

This is a short list of some of the things I have learned in the last three weeks:

• When your milk comes in, it feels prickly.
• When your daughter is as perfect and tiny as ours is, people will always tell you how perfect and tiny she is, and you will have no idea how to respond. You will say, "thank you" as though you can take credit for her smallness and her perfection.
• Exhaustion can be manageable, as long as you're tag-teaming, and as long as there is coffee.
• Bottles and pacifiers won't cause her any real confusion, contrary to the teachings of the well-meaning, but slightly overwhelming, La Leche League.
• Dr. Internet is much more knowledgeable and helpful when it comes to breastfeeding tips than she was during pregnancy.
• Whenever anyone offers to help you through the first three weeks of parenting, the correct answer is, "yes, thank you!"

I hardly know how to describe how amazing our little girl is. She makes this face sometimes, eyes wide open, bright, and staring, her mouth a perfect little "o", her hands clasped in front of her, and it literally makes my heart hurt, I love it so much. I want to consume the image, eat it so as to make it wholly mine.

"It's crazy to think that she will never be this age again, that next week she will make new faces, new gestures, totally different expressions for us," Matt says. And I want to burst into tears for how sad it is that the time is literally flying by and that she is growing so quickly, and I want to jump up and down for joy, sky-write to the world about how incredibly lucky we are to have this healthy little girl we get to raise, how amazing it is that she is growing so quickly.

When I hear Mollie crying in another room, I know exactly what face she is making based on the sound of her cry. I love having that knowledge, love being one of the few people in the world who knows that about her. It is so intimate.

I spend a lot of time thinking about motherhood, things I have thought of only fleetingly over the years. I think about women in the Holocaust, unable to breastfeed their children because they were starving themselves. I grieve for those women, I grieve for the pain it must have caused them to know that they were unable to nourish their babies. I think about women who have lost their children, and I hold Mollie closer, kiss her soft head, tell her that I cannot imagine my world without her in it. I think about trying to keep Mollie safe, trying to give her good advice. I realize that I am not as cool as I thought I would be: I do not want her to try drugs and have lots of sex; I do not want her to hurt her body because it is too precious to me. I think about the fact that I have a little girl, that I was once a little girl. I think about being a mother and I think about my mother.

Late at night, I think about sleep.

This weekend our families will be in Boston for Mollie's baby naming. We will formally welcome her into the world as a member of the Jewish community. The ceremony itself is beautiful, a gesture of our commitment to raise her as a Jew, in the likeness of both her fore-mothers and the two amazing women for whom she was named. But more than the ceremony is the fact of her existence, that we have a daughter to welcome, that we have family who have new, never-before-experienced roles like Aunt, Uncle, Grandparent. We will all come together for the ceremony because of this one teeny little girl, this yet-unwritten beauty. I am struck, over and over again, by how different my world is now, how grateful I am for the change, and how quickly one little person can touch so many people.

"Ready" on One! Three...two...

At last week's 34-week appointment, my doctor turned to me and excitedly told me that 34 weeks is when she really feels good about a pregnancy.

Matt and I looked at her quizzically.

"34 weeks," she explained, "is when the risk for all of those horror-story-type pregnancy complications go way way down for the baby. So if you went into labor right now, we wouldn't try to stop you, we would just let your body do what it wants to do and in all likelihood, you would give birth to a perfectly healthy baby."

What good news! A perfectly healthy baby! We've waited so long to get here!

Except that Matt and I came home and promptly freaked the F out.

Of COURSE we want a perfectly healthy baby (who doesn't?). In fact, we're more or less "ready" for the baby (where ready is that place where we bought most of the things we need, or we know who we're borrowing them from, and we're ready for our world to turn upside down). Except that we're "ready" for the baby to make its appearance in six weeks. Or 5 weeks and two days at the time I'm writing this. Not now. Not 5 days ago.

So I now have a hospital bag that's packed with a really random assortment of things (pajamas, maternity clothes, underwear that I don't care about but is very comfortable). And we ordered a carpet for the nursery (greyish blue with a white border). And the baby's room is more or less coming together. You know, minus furniture. Also, my hospital bag doesn't have any clothes for the baby, which is ultimately fine because Julie is in charge of ensuring that the bean doesn't have to go home naked. But there we are: ready.

Ha!

Bean, if you're paying attention, please know that your parents are not yet ready for you to make your appearance in the world. We're thrilled and excited to meet you, but we're a little slow on the uptake over here, failing to completely realize that 34 weeks pregnant doesn't just mean that you've been growing for 34 weeks, but also that you will be here sometime within the next six.

And parents out there who are reading this, please reassure me that this is normal, that realizing you're going to be a parent eventually just dawns on you. Tell me that we're not SO slow on the uptake that this is basically a referendum on our parenting skills even before we've had a chance to implement them. Because if it's a referendum, all of the Weyants (grown and in bean form) are in for some serious growing pains!

On Fatherhood

The message in my inbox, sent from Amazon.com, said, "A Gift from Daddy." I was skeptical. It isn't like my dad to buy me presents online, and it's even less like him to send me something directly to my inbox. It's just a little too...2011 for his tastes. But there it was. I clicked on the email.

When I opened it up, I saw that he had purchased the mp3 of "Free to Be, You and Me," the record I listened to over and over and over again as a kid, wearing it out and necessitating a new copy. I can still sing most of the words from memory, and they still remind me of hours spent on the brown couch, belting out the hippie tunes along with Marlo Thomas (and Friends). I was touched. My Dad bought the bean a song! So I forwarded the email to Matt and told him that we should download it when we got home from work.

Two minutes later, my cell phone rang. It was Matt.

"Hi Sweets," he said. "I'm calling with some news that I hope won't burst your bubble."

"Okay..."

"The song wasn't from your Dad. It was from me. To the bean."

...

"Sweets? Are you okay?"

"Yes! I'm more than okay, I'm, I'm just, I...YOU'RE the 'Daddy!' You're going to be a Daddy!"

I was crying and laughing at the same time, sitting at my desk with my head in my hands, marveling at a fact that had somehow escaped me despite its obviousness. But it was in that instant, in that one perfect, bright moment, that I realized, from the bottom of my toes to the top of my head, that Matt is going to be a father. And not just anyone's father, he is going to be this little bean's father. This very little bean that has been growing and changing inside of me for 33 weeks, this little bean whose heartbeat we first saw together as a tiny little pulsating lima, who he reads stories about his favorite superheroes to at night, who he wakes up every morning to cuddle, who he kisses goodnight and says, "be good to mama." He is going to be this little bean's father. He, this man I married, this man that I love more than anyone in the world, is going to be the father of this baby, this little creature that on some level, some strange maternal level, I know that I already know.

Here is what I want to tell them, these two great loves of mine: you two are perfect for each other. My sweet boy and my precious bean. You two are going to be so great together, and I already know just how lucky you are to have each other.

***

All of the women in my family have always called their dad, "Daddy." My mother told me this when I was a little girl, and it stuck with me, part history, part admonition. I was pretty young when she told me, and I remember thinking that I couldn't imagine my grandmother calling her father "Daddy." But that's because it was hard to imagine my grandmother even being young enough to have a Daddy, especially when the only image I had of her father was a picture she kept on her bureau of a serious-looking and handsome young Russian man in a uniform. But it was also because in my mind, my own father was what it meant to be a Daddy, the man who made me oatmeal in the morning, took me "flying" in his Z-car, and would occasionally wake me up early on a school day in the winter to tell me that we were skipping school and going skiing instead.

Either way, the rule was written: fathers are Daddies. To this day I still call my dad, "Daddy" when I'm talking to him, typing that word into my gmail contacts when I want to send him an email, scrolling through my phone to find his number listed under that word. He has also abided by the rule, always signing his cards and emails appropriately.

I remember the day when I was too old to hold his hand when we crossed the street. I don't remember which one of us was more sad about it. I remember the day that he taught me to skip. Wildly, recklessly, in front of strangers. People might have laughed at us, but I don't remember them. I only remember feeling like I was flying. I remember learning that my dad could roller-skate backwards, a fact I learned at my 8th birthday party when he took my hand during the "couples skate" and twirled me around the bright yellow rink while all of my friends looked on, their faces showing the same surprise that I felt.

That's what Daddy means to me. There are other lessons associated with my father, times when I slammed the door and called him Dad, times when we were disappointed in each other and couldn't manage to communicate. But when I think of "Daddy," I think about oatmeal and a fast car, falling asleep on the way home from the Poconos. I see the disco ball from the roller rink throwing tiny little lights around the smooth oval while I'm holding tightly to his hand because he's a much stronger skater than I am.

***

"A Gift from Daddy," said the email. There it is, in my inbox. A gift from my husband, from my husband to his child. Somehow that's amazing and strange, and as life-changing as many of the other moments of these 33 weeks.

Even at 24, I had the good sense to realize that you shouldn't marry a man who you couldn't see as the father of your children. Over here at the wise old age of 32, I am realizing that I will soon come to know a side of him that I have never met. But more importantly, our child will know a side of him that I will never know, and will have a relationship with him that I will never have.

Good memories and bad, the things I think about when I think about my dad are mine and mine alone. And someday, this little person will have a similar story to tell. Some of the things I can imagine, because I know Matt. But others, the ones that are truly theirs and theirs alone, will be for them to capture and hold on to, for them to remember and to pass on.

***

It's a few days early for a birthday post, but it seems like the time to say it: on the eve of your 33rd birthday,my love, I can say without a doubt that you are going to have one hell of a year.

I Thought You Were Smuggling Something Under There!*

Or, How I Came to be 30 Weeks Pregnant

Last Wednesday afternoon, Matt and I got to see the bean for the first time since our 18-week ultrasound. Same drill as before: we spend a few minutes in overwhelming waiting area, get progressively more nervous while waiting and staring at other mothers-to-be, we walk into the dark ultrasound room and make stupid small talk with the ultrasound tech while I climb up onto table and pull down the elastic "waist" of my maternity pants. I forget that the ultrasound tech is going to squirt jelly on my tummy and I gasp when she does, and then I turn towards the screen because there! right there! is that perfect little heartbeat.

And then I smile and cry a little and relax, finally, because the tech is saying things like, "there are the four chambers of the heart," and "there are the kidneys," and "look at those cute feet."

All of a sudden, time slows down and it's just me and Matt and our bean, suspended in that dark cocoon of a room, like we're all swimming around on that black screen while someone waves a magic wand over us so that we're projected on some other, different screen, and larger than life.

The bean looks and feels like a real little person now. It moves around during the day, making my belly and abdomen twitch. If you were watching me at all times, you would occasionally see me frown as the bean pressed on my bladder or stuck its little fist up and under my ribs, like it's trying to do right now.

We had a chance to find out if we were having a boy bean or a girl bean and debated the option right up until the very moment when the radiologist matter-of-factly asked us if we wanted to know the gender. It is an important detail that the radiologist was matter-of-fact; radiologists seem to never think about the patient attached to the magic wand, and speak only in abrupt, short sentences. "Let's wait," I said at the very last moment, and as the radiologist casually tossed some construction-paper-masquerading-as-tissues in my direction and walked out of the room, Matt smiled at me and said, "fine by me."

So we don't know whether it's a boy bean or a girl bean, only that it's definitely a bean. With a heartbeat, and a spine, and a bladder, and more or less Matt's nose.

I can't believe that there are only 9 weeks left in this pregnancy. It's 9 very important weeks, I know, but the fact that I'm almost 31 weeks pregnant means that I'm 3/4 of the way through the whole thing. Even though I know that time will slow down in these next 9 weeks, much like it sped up during the past 9, there is a part of me that just can't even wrap my head around this final home stretch and is eager for it to slow down. I know I will rue the day that I wrote this, probably sometime around March 16th, when I will read this post and think, "dummy, you tempted karma and basically asked for this to happen!" But right now, I want to freeze the moment, like a picture I could print out from the ultrasound machine, and carry it around with me.

I am 31 weeks pregnant. I am okay. Matt is okay. The bean is head down and ready to go, organs formed, Matt-like nose ready, arms waving and moving so much that it's almost impossible to snap its photograph.

It seems like forever ago that I first found out that I was pregnant. But it was 31 weeks, just over 6 months ago, and yet almost an entire lifetime. And then in 9 (probably 10) weeks from now, the bean will be more than ready, it will be HERE. I cannot put into words how amazing this feels for me, how far it feels like I've come. So I will say this instead: my arms get tingly when I think about holding it, my chest feels tight when I think about kissing its little head, and I am excited and nervous and scared and thrilled that life is actually about to become larger than life.

*The title of this post refers to something our hostess said when she seated us at a table last night. As I was taking off my coat to sit down, she said, "I thought you were smuggling something under there! Congratulations!" And it made me laugh out loud. Smuggling, indeed.

Wow.Wow.Wow.Wow.Wow.

The title of this post roughly translates to the sound of the bean's heartbeat. Whisper it to yourself quickly, with short "o" sounds, at roughly the rate of 140 beats per minute. And that's the magical sound our little bean's heart makes as it flips around on the inside.

It is the best sound I have ever heard. Really. Ever.

I am 24 weeks today, and feel like a pretty good cliche. I have energy but I sleep well. I can eat a full meal and feel satisfied. Walking up a flight of steps is annoying but not totally exhausting. I crave chocolate but I also crave broccoli. I am hormonal but not totally off the deep end. I feel grateful that the bean is still warm and safe, and I don't yet feel annoyed with it for taking up so much space under my ribcage. And so far, I only get up to pee at most twice a night.

Despite all of this, despite the total unremarkable facts of this pregnancy, despite the fact that I have felt more or less okay since I passed the 16-week mark, the other day I had one of those horrible anxiety-ridden days where I just couldn't calm myself down.

The Anxiety Day came just after a very full weekend and a very long preceding week. Matt's return from Amman was fantastic. I felt like I'd never been so happy to have him home from somewhere. He came home on a Wednesday, the same Wednesday that I had my first ever work-related high-profile speaking engagement. That Thursday was my birthday, but it was also the beginning of a 3-day conference where I was supposed to remain intellectually engaged in the topics at hand while schmoozing with other lawyers. At the end of those three days, I went to work on a Saturday, and capped everything off with a birthday dinner, followed on Sunday by a football gathering at our place where I made too much food and worried that the invited guests wouldn't feel comfortable in our apartment.

I woke up on Monday feeling like I'd been run over by a truck. Which in my current state, translated to waking up and realizing the following impossibilities:

1. There is no way I am going to be able to cram 7 months of work into the 4 months that I have left before I go on maternity leave. And even though I probably need to take it easy on myself, I can't slow down because I haven't yet talked to my boss about my post-maternity-leave plans, and I don't want to her to think that I'm a slacker.
2. There is no way that Matt and I are going to be able to afford to pay for daycare and this apartment at the same time. Which is a problem because I want to think about decorating the baby's room, even just a little bit, even though it makes me feel superstitious, because it also makes me excited. Except that I can't think about decorating the baby's room if I don't know whether we're staying in this apartment, which I can't figure out until I know how much it will cost to send the kiddo to daycare, which I can't know until I figure out whether we're staying in this apartment.
3. There is no way to balance all of the changes that Matt and I are going to face in our relationship with the changes that we're going to confront when the baby is born; it is impossible to prepare for such things, so we are likely doomed.

This culminated in the obvious: a total meltdown at Park Street Station while waiting for my train to arrive.

Matt rescued me from Kenmore and stayed silent while I ranted for the car ride home. He was silent for two reasons. For starters, I was yelling. But also because when I finally took a breath between high-decibel tear-infused frustration, he looked at me and said, "I'm so glad you're finally ready to talk about this stuff."

What?

It turns out that Matt, like most dads-to-be (at least according to this valuable tome), think about all of these nitty-gritty details from the moment they find out that they're going to be someone's father. Moms-to-be, on the other hand, initially think about things like their changing bodies, and labor, and nurseries, and whether it's really okay to have sex in your pre-pregnancy favorite position. But eventually, all of us parents-to-be come to the same conclusion: having a baby is a giant mind fuck, and there's a lot that's going to change, a plethora of unanswered questions, and completely uncharted territory.

So my questions about where I'm going to live are other parents' questions about how to work out their call schedule. My concerns about getting all of my work done before maternity leave are other parents' nanny versus daycare conundrum. In typical Matt-Lizzi fashion, while I was spending my time marveling at the size of my breasts, Matt was patiently waiting for the day when I was ready to talk about things like our budget, our apartment, and our childcare options.

We had a long talk that night. It involved spreadsheets. We made a list of the things we need to do. We made some decisions. We made some decisions about not deciding. We reached out to some people who might have answers. We fell asleep on the couch totally exhausted. Matt read Superman to my belly.

I woke up the next day with the start of what turned out to be a 24-hour (plus) stomach virus, which I took to be my body's way of telling me to slow the F down, for REAL this time. And today I finally feel like myself again: 24 weeks pregnant, just as many unanswered questions as answered ones, and wow.wow.wow.wow.wow.wow.wow beating a steady pace inside me.

Over Halfway There

I am 21 weeks pregnant today. As I write this, I can feel the bean doing a somersault. Maybe he’s excited and wants to come out in 18 weeks! Maybe she likes her cozy home and wants to stay there for another 20. Either way, the calendars tell me that I’m over halfway there.

“Happy halfway there!” read Elissa’s email from last Thursday. And I read it and thought, “oh my god.”

That night on the way home I turned to Matt with a panicked look in my eyes. “What?!,” he asked, “what is it?” I put my hand on his arm to steady myself. “Matt,” I said, “it has to come OUT.” He laughed. He can do that, you see, because he doesn’t have a vagina.

But in reality, I’m not scared about labor. I’m too naive to know what to be afraid of. I have conveniently skipped the “Labor and Delivery” chapter in my books. My “birth plan” is to be admitted to the hospital while pregnant and to be discharged from the hospital holding a baby. What happens in between admission and discharge is up to me, Matt, the bean, and my doctor, not in that order.

What I am scared about is actually being someone’s mother, and doing so sooner rather than later. It has to come OUT, as in, it has to come into the world, it has to exist in our apartment, it has to ride safely in our car. It has to be clothed and fed. It has to have toys and books, blankets and black-out curtains. But more than the things that it has to have, more than the mountains of necessary and not-so-necessary baby stuff that is certain to accumulate in our apartment overnight, the bean has to exist in the world as a baby. The bean has to become a person in the world.

And what a scary world it is.

I’m not talking about the world of wars and climate change and Republicans (though lord knows that I could). I’m talking about my world, the world where Matt and I are pretty young and have no idea how to be parents. I’m talking about the world where my genetically-related family lives miles and miles away. I’m talking about the world where daycare is expensive and people ask me questions about how much I care about infant CPR. I’m talking about the world where we still get wrapped around the axle (every day!) about work and bosses and dry cleaning.

Everyone says that our world will shift. These soothsayers explain it all calmly, with a wave of their hand. Sometimes the shift will seem gradual, they say, and you’ll wake up sometime in June and realize that the lens through which you view the universe is different than the lens you were using in December. Dry cleaning and bosses will seem silly in comparison. And sometimes the shift will be immediate, they warn, and the day after the baby is born you will find yourselves un-self-consciously referring to your breasts as the “moo-makers.”

To say that I’m excited about it doesn’t really explain what I’m feeling. Excited is how you feel about your birthday, or a vacation. Excitement for me always implies a known component; I generally know what I am excited about. This time, while I am excited to see our little bean live and in-person, I am also apprehensive. I am uncertain, confused, nervous, tentative. I am guarding the world that we currently live in, struggling to balance day-to-day life with the ways that day-to-day life is already 100% different, all while totally unable to comprehend how it will change even more than it has since that day in July when I found out that I was pregnant.

You see, the bean has to come OUT. I will have moo-makers and new lenses in a matter of weeks. WEEKS! That’s what it means to be over halfway there, there where the world is different, where the ground has shifted, where the population of the world (our world) has increased so fundamentally, so dramatically, that it’s like we’re making space for a bean farm, not a bean.

So in the next 18, 19, 20 weeks, I have things to do. I have to store up on fertilizer and dirt, rakes and tractors. I have to get ready for the bean invasion, the bean explosion, the magnificent mountain of bean. In plain English this means that I have things to buy, pictures to finally frame, dinner dates to squeeze in. But more than that it means that I have to do exactly what I’m already doing. I have to stand at the precipice of my existing world and peer over the edge, holding Matt’s hand and wondering what’s out there. And then, when the time is right, the bean will help us all jump, the first of many things it will do to take us to a new and different world.

A Universe Unto Itself

I remember exactly where I was sitting the day that J called to tell me that Charlotte was born. I was at our kitchen table in our small apartment in Pittsburgh. I had spent the day planning for our trip, trying to nail down our precise route and figure out how we could fit all of the places that we wanted to see into just 100+ days (we couldn't). I wasn't working at the law firm anymore, so I spent my days at that kitchen table, listening to music and feeling happily unemployed for the first time in a long time.

When my phone rang, it startled me because I'd been by myself all day. But when I saw that it was Jason, my heart stopped for a split second, because I knew what he was going to tell me.

"It's a giiiirrrrrl," he said. "Her name is Charlotte and mom and baby are doing great." He went through the play-by-play of Cris's labor, and Charlotte's height, weight, and baby statistics. I know that my memory is accurate, because I wrote down everything that he said on a recipe card that I keep in the front of my recipe box, along with all of the songs that Matt and I heard in the bar that night when we went out to get a beer and celebrate Charlotte's existence.

Charlotte was the first baby that really changed my world. It's a hard thing to put into words, but the short version is that after Charlotte was born, I thought about her and before she was born, I didn't.

I thought about what she was doing, how she was growing, how her parents were adjusting, what she would be like in 3, 5, 15, or 20 years. Before Charlotte was born, there was no space for her in my head because she simply didn't exist. And then after she was born, either I found some untapped space, or I shoved over some other thoughts that weren't relevant in order to make room for her. Either way, she was in my head.

Since Charlotte, other babies have made their way into my brain space, eliciting boundless affection and a world of enrichment. My beautiful and perfect nephew, our dear friends' son who lives in Philadelphia with all of that delicious curly hair, Charlotte's adorable brother, my high school best friend's smiley sweet boy. These babies, (especially the nephew who makes my heart hurt, I miss him so much) are the opposite of how life often works. In my world, things are here today, gone tomorrow. But these children weren't here yesterday and today make up an entire universe.

It was something that I didn't totally understand before Charlotte was born, that a baby can take up an entire galaxy, that even when your life is complete, when you want and are ready for a child, it can make your life more complete somehow. Even when you are so happy about the path you have chosen, a baby can take you down a path you didn't even know existed.

The funny thing is that I know that I don't even totally understand this now, because I've watched other people go through it, rather than been inside of it myself. But as with many things on which I stand on the outside looking in, I have a sense of how much bigger my world will be after the bean is more than a bean.

It is a funny thing to credit a three-year-old with opening your eyes to a world that's a different place, but so it goes. Someday I'll explain this to her and I bet she'll do that thing where she crinkles up her eyes and nose just like her dad while smiling just like her mom. She will probably think I'm just being sentimental, OLD even. And that's fine. She will be well on her way to seeing new worlds of her own.

Happy birthday, Little C. I hope you help to water this baby for the rest of your lives together.

Lonely But Not Alone

This is not the first time I have experienced something huge without my mother. For some reason, I just didn’t think it would be this hard. I would like to say that I just didn’t think about it, but that isn’t true. I thought about it a lot, but I truly believed that I would weather it differently.

These are the times I have missed her: when I look at bassinets online, when I think about where I will store the furniture we need to buy, when my dearest friends offer me hand-me-downs, when my brother says he wants to buy me something, when I have to buy maternity clothes, when my boobs are suddenly the size of grapefruits.

I am standing there, bra in hand, marveling at the fact that my breasts have morphed into something I don’t recognize, and suddenly I am weeping in the dressing room.

I am going through the book about baby bargains at the kitchen table, thinking to myself that the selection of bassinets are basically the ugliest things I have ever seen and then I realize that I am feeling bereft that there won’t be one waiting at my mother’s house ready to come to Boston when she gets the news about the bean.

I am trudging through department stores with Matt, irritated that most maternity clothes make me look like a pregnant orka, and I am furious that she isn’t there with me, that she can’t just go online and surprise me with some clothes that at least make me look like an animal that is cute while pregnant.

I am 14 again, buying bras without her. I am 17 again, trying to decide on a college. I am 24 again, picking out bridesmaid dresses with Matt. Except that I am 31, I am pregnant with my first child, and this, finally, I cannot do alone and without her.

“You’re NOT alone,” Julie says. And I know what she means. I have her, I have Andy and Elissa and my dad and Matt’s brother, wife, and parents. I have the people around whom I have chosen to expand our family, raise our child, here in Boston. I have Matt, Matt who has gone through these lonely-for-my-mom times with me as an adult and trooped alongside me through a surgical breast biopsy, to pick out bridesmaid dresses, to buy maternity clothes.

But I AM alone. I am alone because I have an abundance of love and support and I still feel lonely for my mom. I am alone because I wish
that it was different.

I hate that last paragraph. I hate that I sound so ungrateful, that I am taking all of this support for granted. I am not ungrateful, I don’t take it for granted. When I think about these people, when I think about how lucky I am, how lucky this baby is because it is already so loved, I feel like I am overflowing with good fortune. But I am overflowing with good fortune and my mom is still dead.

This is how it ends: I do get through this and I am not alone. I pick out a bassinet and a crib and a changing table, I ask if I can store it in a friend’s basement, and I hope he understands what this means to me; I tick through the list of offered hand-me-downs and I truly think, “thank god Cris saved all of this stuff!”; I avoid my brother’s request to buy me something; I buy maternity clothes that don’t make me look like an orka; I find bras that fit.

And if all goes well, in 21 weeks we bring home a live and squirming bean who is so loved that it brings some people to tears to hold him for the first time, who has her grandmother’s cheeks or her uncle’s mouth. I bring home a baby that my mother will never meet, but who I believe she will know somehow, through and through. I become the mother that my mother will never meet. And sometimes I will miss her like I miss her right now, through and through.

Our World: Getting Bigger by the Day

Some of you might already know that I have been secretly blogging for a few weeks now, an activity that coincided roughly with seeing two pink lines on a "First Response" pregnancy test.

I have decided to go public with the posts, and as I'm writing this, I don't remember why I kept them secret in the first place, or why I have now decided that they shouldn't be a secret anymore. Either way, I am ready to share them with you, the two or three people in the world who are interested in reading what I have to say.

A few words of warning about these posts:

1. They are almost entirely about how I feel about being pregnant. There are no interesting pictures of far off lands, or stories about men touching Matt's butt in tight spaces.
2. They have a theme that goes something like this: I am thrilled and I am terrified in equal parts; life is crazy these days; everything makes me laugh and cry; the end. They are awfully repetitive.
3. I am 100% aware of the fact that I am lucky to be leading this life, but I also feel that since I am the only one I know who is living my life, I have the freedom to complain about it, cry about it, laugh about it, and talk about it.

With all of those warnings in place, please know this: if none of those things sound like something you want to read, by all means, stop reading! But if you decide to proceed, do not blame me if I sometimes make you want to throw up, shout "grow up already!" at your computer screen, or cry. You have been warned.

So with all of those caveats out of the way, welcome back! I can't promise it will be as exciting as watching a pizza hut dance party in Agra, or as crazy as taking a cooking class in Thailand, but I know for certain that we are in for the adventure of a lifetime.

You're Only What You Give Back

Written October 4, 2010

Nearly nine weeks ago, something really huge happened to me. Matt, Julie, and I were frantically preparing to host our house-warming party. None of us had showered, all of us were frazzled. I was cooking and cooking and cooking. Julie was as to be expected, cleaning the house from top to bottom. And Matt was running around doing errands, taking care of things we were sure we’d forgotten to take care of, and generally trying to stay out of our way.

There came a point in the day when Julie had finished the playlist and had gone out to get one last thing, Matt was doing a final beer run, and I had cooked everything I could and was taking a moment to savor the calm before the storm. I turned to Julie’s computer, which had been slowly working its way through the night’s playlist, and picked out a couple of songs to listen to. I danced around to a few and eventually landed on Imogen Heap, who was a new addition to my list of great artists. I had been playing her song, “Earth” on repeat for weeks. I can’t tell you why it spoke to me, only that it did.

That day, I lay down on the freshly-vacuumed living room carpet and listened to the song over and over again. I thought about the fact that I was living in this great apartment with two of the people I love most in the world. I thought about the fact that my best friend was happily dating someone I suspected might be around forever. I thought about the fact that our friends were coming over to celebrate our new place. I thought about how lucky I was to have this moment, and more importantly, to realize how lucky I was. I thought about the fact that I was pregnant. And then I burst into tears.

That was how Julie found me, lying on the floor of our living room, staring up at the ceiling fan, blasting Imogen Heap, crying huge and happy tears and gasping for breath. Only she didn’t know that they were happy tears and she knelt above me, touching my shoulders, my face, looking as worried as she sounded that day in January when I told her about the miscarriage, asking me what was wrong.

“Nothing,” I told her. “I’m just, I’m going to have a baby. Julie, I’m going to have a baby and I’m going to be someone’s mom.”

“I know!,” she said, her relief so obvious I felt like I could touch it, and she settled herself down on the floor next to me, shoulder-to-shoulder, and stared up at the ceiling fan as we listened to Imogen Heap and I laughed and cried and calmed down.

It was an amazing day, the day that I knew that this baby’s heart was beating inside of me, the day that I knew that I was right about Julie and that new boy, the day that I realized just how much my little world was changing, and how beautifully.

You’re going to lose it all and find yourself on your knees
So get a grip and you might flow, reverse the great slow bleed.
I’ve tried patience but you always want a war.
This house won’t tolerate anymore.

…

You’re only what you give back.
You’re only what you give back.
You’re only what you give back.

Today we had our 18 week ultrasound and saw kicking feet and waving arms and kidneys and leg bones. I stared at that screen and thought, “I love you I love you I love you” with every single inch of my body, crying and laughing and holding tightly to Matt’s hand.

I can’t totally explain why the two moments are connected in my mind, the sun-drenched day in July with Imogen and the happy tears, and today’s low-lit room flooded with pictures of our baked-potato sized baby. I think that it has something to do with realizing change, with being in a place where change feels amazing and right, despite the difficult things that come with it.

When I got up from the carpet that day in July, I turned towards the kitchen to put the finishing touches on something that we probably never got around to eating, and there were tears drying in the corner of my eyes. I remember smiling at Julie, who smiled back at me as she picked a final piece of lint off the carpet. When I hopped off the table today, I literally burrowed into Matt, holding onto him and saying what I always say after these appointments, “did you see the bone? Did you see the kidneys?” just so that I can hear him say, “did you see the ribcage? And the brain?” There were tears drying in the corner of my eyes and I smiled at him. He grinned back at me.

Yes, you’re only what you give back. And change can actually be everything you wanted and then some.

16 weeks

Written on September 23, 2010

I feel like I have to write something today because I want to capitalize on the sky-high happiness I'm feeling.

Today was my 16-week appointment and it seems like things are going well. For me and for the bean. I gained 4 pounds this month, meaning that I have gained 11 pounds so far. Which is bizarre and amusing at the exact same time. The bean has a perfect little heartbeat of 149,and it was rolling around in there so the heartbeat was pierced with occasionally little squeaks and squawks as it bumped around in its watery home.

Hooray!

The days leading up to these appointments are agonizing for me. I don't sleep, I eat white food and candy, and I generally feel nervous and worried. Every thing that is happening to me is evidence that something is wrong. I know that I'm not alone because Dr. Internet has helpfully directed me to thousands of crazy pregnant women just like me, who are experiencing the same near death symptoms as I am.
Oddly enough, these crazy sisters out there on the interwebs are comforting to me, and I am more grateful for their insanity, their complete inability to spell, and their extraneous use of exclamation points than I would have willingly admitted before I got pregnant.

An example of such words of comfort:

Ur baby sounds perrrrfect. I had so much hartburn I burped all the time and my hubby videotaped it. lol. congrats on your LO!!!!!!

(Where "LO" equals "little one." Yes, really.)

See, compared to other pregnant weirdos, I'm actually fairly normal.

I have been thinking a lot about the fact that just a few weeks ago, I was smack in the middle of my first trimester, more scared even than I am right now, more nauseated than I am right now, and so much more exhausted. It sort of feels like I dreamed it, because even though I know that it happened, I can hardly remember it happening to me.

My brother, his wife, and their amazingly wonderful son were in town last weekend and I was marveling at the fact that nephew has actually been a living, breathing person for a year already. I remember the night he was born like it was yesterday. I remember looking at him for the first time, totally breathless at the fact that this little pink person was my brother's son, and that I was lucky enough to be his aunt. I think about him all the time, probably at least once a day. I wonder what he found newly amusing that day, what made him have that beautiful belly laugh, what he learned about in his fast-moving little brain, what he incorporated into his world, what word he has come up with for milk or dog or truck.

When Andy saw me last weekend, he took one look at my little bump and said, "oh, Lizzi!" with that excitement that I'd been waiting weeks to hear. We spent so much time over the weekend talking about babies and pregnancy that by the time Sunday rolled around I was equal parts thrilled at the reality of this pregnancy, and overwhelmed by the fact that it would happen.

Andy kept talking about how he barely remembers Ike's infancy, about how he looks at him now and thinks about him exactly as he is in this very moment. I think that's probably the brain's way of coping with everything you have to cope with as a parent. Your child is exactly as they are, and they need you to be exactly what you are for them at that time in their lives. So I have decided that pregnancy is the same way. I don't remember the nausea because I don't need to remember the nausea. I only vaguely recall the exhaustion because I am supposed to capitalize on my newfound energy. And apparently, I'm supposed to eat my weight in pasta. Or not. Whatever.

If I can figure out how to put it up here, I'll leave you with a little segment of today's appointment. This was literally music to our ears today. I could listen to it all day and never grow tired.

Little bean, I am excited to be whatever you need me to be. And I promise to do my best to shield you from all of the crazies on the interwebs.

Just a Day

Written on September 16, 2010

Once upon a time, way back in December 2009, I thought that I was going to be having a baby this week. I was shocked and amazed by the news because after only three months of trying, I wondered whether or not I was really ready for something so huge. But just a few weeks after I found out, before I could get used to the idea, before my waist disappeared and my boobs grew a cup size, and before the faintest whiff of trash gave me dry heaves, I lost the pregnancy. Or, the pregnancy ended. Or the mass of cells that was supposed to be growing and doubling stopped growing and doubling. More succinctly: someone died.

At least, that’s how it felt.

I heard all kinds of things in the weeks that followed, both from loved ones and well-meaning dummies, who were occasionally also my doctors. I heard that “it was for the best,” or “better to have something happen now than later,” or “it wasn’t even a baby, yet,” or, my personal favorite, “at least you know you can get pregnant!” I said very little in response, though I wanted to say, “there is nothing best or better about this,” or “it was a baby to me and to Matt,” or, “yes, but I don’t know if I can stay pregnant, so please shut the fuck up.”

Some people said nothing at all. Their silence implied discomfort, disquiet, and sometimes, a respect for my wish to stay hidden and cocooned.

Trying to explain why I felt as devastated as I felt was impossible. I couldn’t even explain it to myself. I felt a strong need to justify it to others, especially the well-meaning dummies. Some of those dummies were people whose opinions I value and respect above most others in the world, people whose counsel I seek and whose shoulders I lean on. I felt like I needed to explain why I felt so bereft, so full to the brim of grief, so very much like I was walking through a fog.

I kept picturing myself in 10th grade when I had just come back to school after my mom died. I was going through the process of meeting with my teachers to try to catch up on what I missed, and in what is now a long-established habit, I apologized for being so sad. My math teacher brightened at this and said, “well, at least now that the funeral is behind you, you will be able to concentrate on school again, you won’t have to worry that your mother is going to die.” I stared at him just like you’re staring at your computer screen right now. How can you explain grief to someone with no connection to it? How can you teach someone tact and understanding? How can you tell someone to just take you where you are, to let you feel what you feel, even if they don’t understand it? You cannot. You cannot do any of those things. And you are foolish to try.

And so I soldiered on. Not alone, of course. There are very few things that I do alone. But I felt awfully lonely. The loneliness and grief sneaked its way into the very corners of my existence. I could and did pour myself into work, but I would push and pull all of my friendships and relationships. I could talk to Matt about how I was feeling, but then I would spend days pretending that I was totally fine, when my brain was repeating, “miscarriage, miscarriage, miscarriage,” over and over again.

To be perfectly honest, much like most of the months surrounding that 10th grade conversation with my math teacher, I cannot conjure up the months immediately after the miscarriage. I remember specific things like Matt’s birthday dinner at the Summer Shack, Neema’s falafel party, and going to New York with Julie. But I don’t remember how I functioned, because in my memory, the images float by like they happened a long, long time ago and I don’t feel connected to them.

The last few weeks couldn’t have been more different than those weeks. These weeks feel brightly colored, hued in pinks and yellows and bright, vibrant greens in my mind. The smiles I see in my memory are genuine and not strained, the connection I have felt with Matt is as real as it ever gets in any marriage, and there is nary a well-meaning dummy in sight.

But the fear is very, very real.

I recently read an article about pregnancy after miscarriage, and the author concluded that while all pregnant women know real fear about their pregnancies, women who have had a miscarriage have a totally different level of fear, one that can’t be controlled or rationalized. I couldn’t agree more. I was the only person who imagined myself as that baby’s mother and after I lost the pregnancy, my imagination was all that was left.

Some days I have to work hard to imagine myself as THIS baby’s mother. It will catch me off guard, the times that I imagine it, because more often than not I imagine myself grieving, walking out of the doctor’s office after hearing the terrible news, or trying to picture getting out of bed if something goes wrong again.

Miscarriage, as it turns out, is like any other loss. Sometimes it’s with you wherever you turn. Sometimes it sneaks up on you. But no matter what you do, it is part of you who are, something to fold into the fabric of your life, like any other fact, happy or sad.

Tomorrow was my first due date, the date by which I would have been pleading with my doctor to just induce me already. And now tomorrow is just a day. Just a day when I’m also 15 weeks pregnant. Just a day.

Population Two and a Bean

Written on August 25, 2010

A few weeks ago, something amazing happened. And over the course of the next six months, more amazing things are likely to happen. Please check back and prepare to be amazed.

The End.

No! Of course not! It’s more like, “Once upon a time” these days. For this, THIS is a beginning if ever there was one. This is the start of a journey, the journey of a lifetime. Three lifetimes, actually: mine, Matt’s, and the little person we hope to bring perfectly into the world sometime in March 2011.

I found out that I was pregnant exactly 12 days after I became pregnant. Which for those of you who are counting at home, is about 6 days before most normal people know that kind of thing, and made me exactly 3.9 weeks pregnant. I called my doctor immediately, because despite the fact that I had a perfectly clear answer sitting right in front of me, I was certain that something would go wrong, and I wanted her to reassure me that it wouldn’t.

She did not do that.

Instead, she scolded me for taking the pregnancy test too soon, and told me to wait through the weekend to come in for a blood test. It was a long weekend, made longer by the three additional pregnancy tests I took, with that second pink line growing pinker every time.

By the time Tuesday rolled around, I was not surprised that the blood test confirmed that I was pregnant. Instead of surprise, I was simply filled with abject fear. There wasn’t even a hint of giddy excitement, because the fear took up all of the emotional room in my brain and wouldn’t make any space for things like joy and delight. The fear spilled out in obvious and not-so-obvious ways: crying into Matt’s chest every night before bed, cursing while putting together a wooden filing cabinet, anxious and restless sleep, and trying to run over unsuspecting Newton residents on their way to 4th of July fireworks shows.

The problem was the problem that is always my problem: I cannot balance rational thought with emotional thought. I try to, I really do, but it hardly ever works for me. Which isn’t entirely true. I am both a rational thinker and an emotional thinker. I spend my days rationally and methodically convincing elected officials to do the right thing because it’s in the public interest. And I can cry with delight while I watch my best friend fall in love with the perfect person. I am Rational and Emotional and good at both, capital letters intended. But what I can’t do is reconcile both of those things around a single personal issue. So the rational side of me knew that I had just as much of a chance of having a miscarriage this time around as I did the first time around, maybe slightly higher, but only slightly. But the emotional side of me was convinced that this wouldn’t work, that this baby wasn’t going to be mine to love, that this pregnancy wouldn’t be mine to experience, that I should probably prepare myself to walk through the tunnels of grief that I walked through from January to June.

And as it usually happens, time marched on.

A few things have happened in that time. Most importantly, we saw our little bean. We saw its little heartbeat, beat, beat, beating as fast as it possibly could. And we saw it moving around, moving and shaking and dancing around, almost as if we’d caught it in a private moment. We also told some very important people. And those people cried and laughed and hugged and asked questions and reassured us and smiled fondly at us when they thought we weren’t looking. We told some not as important people, and those people asked practical questions about work and daycare and plans for after March. And some other amazing things happened in the world – dear friends started to fall in love with amazing people, parents were healthier than we worried they might be, babies with delicious thighs took their first tentative steps. And somehow, between the dancing bean, and the love from our favorite people, and the practical questions from the practical people, and the happy things that were unfolding all around us, it started to feel real for me. I started to believe that I am pregnant. I started to believe that in a few months, we’ll be falling in love, struggling with practicality, and living a totally different life.

Of course, I take myself wherever I go. And wherever I go there is doubt and fear and concern. I ask Matt 100 times a day whether or not he thinks I’m still pregnant. And he always tells me that I am, always without wavering, never rolling his eyes, just looking at me and sending clear, pure love for me and for our bean. I hear sad news about a loved one’s trials and my heart almost bursts because I want to make it better for her and her family and because I so desperately want to have a different experience. I toss and turn at night, partly because my vivid dreams don’t make any sense, but mostly because I can convince myself that any twinge or cramp is a sign that something is wrong.

But there is that pesky time again. Marching on. Moving me and Matt and the Bean steadily towards March, through fall and winter, through birthdays and holidays, and first-spoken “I love you’s,” through more fear and more doubt and tremendous excitement, through six months of a life that’s about to be so different, so absolutely different, that I just can’t wait to live it. Except of course, that the waiting is part of the story.

So welcome to the beginning of this story. I can’t promise that it will have a happy ending, but I know that the journey will be one for the ages.

Safe and Sound

Written and Posted from Philadelphia, PA, USA

We're home! We're really home! Sort of. Because right now, we don't have an actual home, per se. Which means we're actually homeLESS. But we're in Philly, staying at my Dad's home! And in a few days, we'll be in our new home! in a hotel in Boston!

Our flight was totally uneventful, except for the fact that it gave us the opportunity to watch movies and use clean bathrooms (yes, I'm talking about airplane bathrooms and yes, I know how ironic this is). We got in exactly on time and spent last night boring my dad with details about the trip that are probably only interesting to us. But he was a good sport and played along because I think he's happy that we're home! and safe and sound. In case you hadn't noticed, the word "home"! will be followed by an exclamation point for the duration of this post.

We will be spending the next few days trying to get over our jetlag and eating the food that we missed. It's 1:15am in Hong Kong right now and my body can't quite understand why I'm not out somewhere drinking a beer at this late hour. I'm trying to convince it that it really wants to eat a corned beef sandwich from Barson's instead. It is not complaining.

We can't wait to see you guys soon! But for now, we wanted you to know that we made it here in one piece, and that we're home!

...Come Home for Love

Written and Posted from Hong Kong

Exactly one hundred and eight days ago, we sat in a tiny little hotel room somewhere close to JFK and wrote the post that preceded this journey by an evening and a long-ass plane ride. I am writing to you now from a tiny little hotel room in Hong Kong, about to spend another 16 hours on a plane to get back home.

There are a lot of reasons that we decided to take this journey. At least, I think there were a lot of reasons that we decided to take it. Now it just seems like we decided to take a journey so that we could see what there was to see, and now we have seen some of it, and we are coming home, where we will stay until we decide to take another journey again. This is enough of a reason to me now. I have thought about this post almost since the day that we left on our trip, because I am the type of person who thinks of the ending while we're just at the beginning, and I am not likely to become a different type of person any time soon, try as I might. I thought I would be able to say something profound, like tell you some kind of story about what I learned about myself on this trip. But what I learned is, of course, something I've known for a long time, a mantra that some of you are probably so sick of: you take yourself wherever you go. But see, sometimes you get to go to really cool places. And when you do, and you're able to appreciate the coolness of the places while you're actually in them, well then the self that you've taken along with you is one lucky girl.

I will share with you this one thought that I can't get out of my mind, because it seems appropriate, given the title of this post. I don't know where the original quote came from, but the more that I think about it, the more I think that the idea that you go out for adventure and come home for love seems...oversimplified to me. Because I went out for adventure and managed to find love all around me, everywhere I looked, particularly when I looked to the man standing next to me. And I'm coming home for love, but also for an adventure in Boston that I'm really just really really excited about. Basically, over the course of the past three months I've concluded that love and adventure are often the same thing, that you can go out to experience the world, or you can have an adventure all by yourself, amidst the comforts of your hometown. I wish I could explain to you guys why this means so much to me, but I can't seem to get the words right so I'll just tell you that all of you are part of the adventure that I'm so excited to get home to, and all of you are part of the love that I was sad and nervous to leave behind for three months. But in the end, it was your adventurous spirits who helped to motivate me to find a way for us to take this trip, and as usual, I took your love right along with me. Thanks for that.

I'll stop with the philosophy long enough to tell you that we'll be in New York tomorrow by 2pm, (even though we leave Hong Kong tomorrow at 10am). And I'll also tell you that this isn't the very last post for this blog, because there are still some trip stories to tell you, and tons of pictures to put up, and unnecessary advice about traveling that we want to share with you, and oh yeah, that adventure we're about to start in Boston!

So thanks for following along on this journey, for reading this blog and supporting us, and letting us complain to you about so many things. Thanks for dealing with the fact that we didn't always have a fast enough internet connection to give you pictures, or even a post. Thanks for offering your comments and your suggestions and special e-birthday wishes to Matt. If you don't hear from us for a couple of days, it's because we're too busy brushing our teeth with water FROM THE TAP, walking into public restrooms just because there's toilet paper there, and stuffing our faces with meals that involve neither rice nor curry nor lentils. See you at Vino's!

The Backpacker Beat

Written and Posted from Kumily, Kerala, India

Over the course of the past couple of months, we have had the opportunity to meet people just like us. They're doing the backpacker thing just like we are, going here and there, seeing what there is to see. Most of them either quit their jobs at home, have delayed starting work until that inevitable day when they run out of money, or are on a perpetual backpacker circuit where they work until they save enough to travel and then travel until they run out of money. We have yet to meet the independently wealthy trustafarian, though we are sure he or she is out there, staying in much posher hotels than the ones we frequent.

By and large, backpackers fall into two big groups: the young kids and the old kids. The young kids are the ones that are just out of college, or are even in college and doing a study abroad/run away from college thing. They tend to stay in dorm-style rooms, eight to twelve kids to a space, and they're loud and they drink a lot of beer. They watch their budget so tightly that instead of spending $1 on an actual meal, they'll make a meal out of bread and chutney. They almost never splurge on things, but they do find a way to buy tshirts and pashminas, and they always look sunkissed and happy, if not a little bit tired. We've enjoyed meeting them because they make us laugh and they make us feel wise. We, however, do not fall into this category. We're the old kids. (Of course, there's still a set of even OLDER kids and those are the ones I admire very much. They're the people who actually DO what they said they were going to do when they retired. And while they often hang out in big tour groups or sit in big buses with tinted windows, we've met the occasional older kid who just straps on a backpack and some walking shoes and checks out India, FINALLY.) The old kids like us tend to stay in places that are just one step up from the dorm room, and when we eat a meal, it's okay to spend $4, even $5 dollars. We occasionally splurge on things like air conditioning and dessert, and we don't feel TOO guilty if we spend money on a beautiful bedspread (cough, cough). Some of the old kids even travel with their own kids (and props to them, right?) and while lots of the old kids are couples traveling together, many of them are also flying solo, or traveling in groups of two and three friends who decided that they'd prefer to trade their spot in a cube farm for a view of a cardamom plantation.

But the funny thing about backpackers, and here I mean ALL backpackers, is that we all have a tendency to want our experience to be the BEST experience. Though we have been very lucky to have met a few other travelers who are just as excited as we are to be traveling, and who seem like the type of people we would be friends with in our real lives, by and large, when we meet other backpackers, we start off conversations the same way, and then proceed towards a general dissertation of why our trip is the best possible trip ever. By way of example, here is a typical conversation:

Us: Hello, where are you from?
Them: We're from the US/UK/Australia/Sweden/New Zealand
Us: Cool. How long are you traveling?
Them: Oh, just 1 month/three months/a whole year.
Us: Wow, that's great! Where are you going?
Them: Just Thailand/All of Southeast Asia/Southeast Asia, India, Indonesia, Australia, Africa, and New Zealand.
Us: Awesome. We're doing Southeast Asia and Thailand in 3.5 months, so we're on kind of a whirlwind tour.
Them: I'll say! That IS quick. Where have you been so far?
Us: Well, we just got to India about a week ago, and we've already been to Thailand, Laos, Vietnam, Cambodia, and Sri Lanka.
Them: Oh, didn't you just LOVE Thailand/Laos/Vietnam/Cambodia?
Us: Yeah, we did. We feel really lucky to have--
Them: When you were in Cambodia, did you get out to that really remote temple that no one's even heard of? Because we did, and it was SOOOO much better than Angkor Wat or Bayon.
Us: Um, no, we didn't even know about that. But we loved--
Them: And wasn't Hanoi amazing? We thought the hubub was fantastic there.
Us: Actually, it was a little overwhelming to us.
Them: Really? Hmm... well then you better be careful in Delhi, because if Hanoi freaked you out then you're going to have a really tough time in Northern India.
Us (walking away): Um, thanks for the advice. Have a good trip!

And see, when I type it out like that, it doesn't quite convey how annoying it can be to have this kind of conversation with someone. But the conversation usually occurs when we're standing around waiting for a bus or a train, and really, we're all sort of lost, otherwise, WHY would we be halfway around the world when there are perfectly acceptable things for us to be doing in our countries of origin? But practicalities aside, is there really any NEED for that kind of conversation? Do I really CARE that I missed out on the really remote temple that no one's even heard of, particularly considering that I really enjoyed seeing the temples that I did see? Well no. Except that yes, sort of, I DO care.

At least, I care until I remember that in the end, this trip isn't about comparing ourselves to anyone else, or hearing about anyone else's experiences. In the end, this trip is about our experiences and our journey. This trip is about the fact that lately, when I find myself with time to sit and think, I find my mind drifting to happy things like an old friend's upcoming wedding, or how excited I am to live in Boston, or how cute all my nieces and nephews will be. I sit around and smile to myself, which is basically the reason I went halfway around the world. And then there's also the fact that I know myself well enough to know that in a few months, if I run into someone traveling to Saigon, I'll be quick to offer them my opinion about how much cooler Saigon was than Hanoi. You know, just in case they're curious.

Sixty-Day Status Report

Written in Cochin, Posted from Kumily, Kerala, India

In case you're curious, and even if you're not, we wanted to let you know how we're doing now that we're over halfway into this journey. So we categorized some of the top-priority items and wrote up our thoughts on them. Basically, it's a list of all of the things we had concerns about, most of which we shared with you, and how we're dealing with them so far. Without further ado, our status report:

Accomodations: After our disgusting four-nights-stay at Big John's Backpacker Hostel in Bangkok, Thailand, our standards increased considerably. We decided that we don't need to be hardcore backpackers and that we outgrew dorm rooms sometime around the day we graduated from college (and actually before, but we were RAs, so we couldn't really knock them). Dorms are fine for single travelers, but hard for couples. When we can't sleep near each other, we're not as nice to each other the next day. And then there's the fact that in a dorm room, we're 10-12 years older than our bunkmates. We now pay an average of $18 a night for a room. Sometimes that gets us AC, sometimes it doesn't. We are loathe to pay more than $20 a night and when we do, we are splurging. That $25 per night room better have AC and sheets so clean we can sleep on them without wearing pajamas!

Water: Still not drinking it

Vegetables and Fruit: We TRIED not eating raw vegetables. We really did. But we can't. So we are. So far, we haven't eaten any that were grown in someone's poop. And in fact, the vegetables we've eaten are delicious -- they actually taste like actual homegrown vegetables. And fruit? Did you know that there are over 150 types of bananas? Neither did we. We've eaten about 8 different kinds and so far, they're all delicious.

Cravings for American Food: The cravings are high but not presently as high as they were in Southeast Asia. Which is in part due to the fact that we caved and ate McDonald's when we were in Bangkok that second time (a cheeseburger never tasted so good). Since we love Indian food and we've eaten it loads of times before now, it tastes a little bit more like home than Beef Noodle Soup with Fish Balls tasted. On the other hand, when we're watching an episode of Friends, we occasionally drool when we see what they're eating. Especially if it's pizza. Oh, pizza.

Mosquito Bites: I have about 32 visible bites. Matt has about 10. But the ants love him and stay away from me. We use DEET to try to scare away the bugs, but really using it is more about the psychological factor of feeling like we're DOING something, since the bugs don't seem to care whether we're DEETed or not. Thank goodness for Malarone.

Tummies: For the most part, our tummies are fine. We both suffered a bit in Southeast Asia and for that period of time, neither one of us could handle the local cuisine. But we got through it and so far, India has been kinder than we expected. Though the mantra "if it's spicy on the way in, it will be spicy on the way out, too" still holds. And is repeated often. Except for Matt's current aversion to rice, we're loving the food. And when he's sick of rice, there are a host of breads to make up for it.

Crohn's: So far, so food. When my stomach was bothering me in Cambodia, I had that feeling of "here it is, this is it, my intestines hate me so much that we're going to have to go home so I can go back on steroids or something." But then I remembered the combined wisdom of Andy and my GI doctor: sometimes an upset stomach is an upset stomach. I concluded that mine was a classic case of "you've been in Southeast Asia for a month" and took it easy and listened to my body and made no rash decisions to change our itinerary. I ate a lot of sandwiches. By the time we got back to Bangkok, I was ready to eat street meat again.

Traveling as a Couple: Sometimes it's harder, but most of the time, it's easier. A lot easier. There are times when we bicker, but just like at home, 99.9% of the time, it's because we're tired or hungry. We've had an actual fight on two occasions, both while we were in Vietnam, and both within a day of each other. But both times we had the time to actually talk it out which is something that's actually easier here, given that we HAVE to spend 24/7 together. In fact, I think that's been the biggest gift of the whole trip -- the time we've had together. We realize that those opportunities will get harder to find as we get older. We're doing our best to savor it now. And I think that's makig it so that we're a little gentler with each other. For the first time in a long time, we have a chance to actually understand where the other is coming from.

That Thing you Don't Talk about with your Parents: Which is why I'm not going to talk about it here either, since our parents read this blog. Suffice it to say that when you have the time to actually understand where the other is coming from, when you know exactly what their day was like because it was your day too, and when at the end of that day you're still excited to hear their perspective on something you both experienced, well, then you have time to... you know.

Grooming and Beauty: We're generally dirtier here than we are at home. We shower every day (though much faster than we do at home, particularly when there's no hot water) but Matt shaves about once a week and even though I shopped diligently for the perfect all-in-one makeup pallette, I have yet to use it. When it's too hot to wear my hair down, it's too hot for mascara. Our hair! It's long, so very long! And my hair gel totally hates me -- it's the one thing that keeps exploding.

And if you're still reading, then you're probably the only person interested in our superlatives list, which is here:

Lowest Price for a Decent Room: $6, Julie Guesthouse in Chiang Mai, Thailand
Cheapest Big Meal: $3 for two, an all-veg place in Munnar, Kerala, India
Best Tea: Toss-up between the black tea in Sri Lanka and the Chai in India
Best Night Train: Thailand (Bangkok to Chiang Mai)
Cheapest Laundry: 10,000 kip/kilogram in Laos
Cheapest Western Food: Two Cheeseburgers, Two fries, Two Cokes = $5 in Saigon, Vietnam
Best Coffee: Toss-up between Sri Lanka and Vietnam
Best Pool: The Angkor Palace Resort in Cambodia
Best Rickshaw Driver: Manish in Munnar, Kerala, India
Best Night Market, So Far: Luang Prabang, Laos

And if you've gotten this far, then WOW, do you love us. Is there anything else you're just burning to know? Anything you wish I would have written about but didn't? If there is, let us know in the comments section and we'll write it up specially for you with love.

Oh, The Drama

Written and posted from Kerala, India

By far the most stressful point in our travels occurs in the few minutes after we first arrive in a new city. We step out of the train station/bus station/airport, with our packs strapped to our backs and our assorted other bags over our shoulders or in our hands, and stand, bewildered and hot (Cochin) or cold (Vietnam), wondering what we do now that we're where we intend to be. We usually stand in that spot, turning ourselves first towards the exit, then towards each other, before one of us pipes up with A Plan. A Plan is always a good idea to have BEFORE you set out on a journey, we have noticed this, and yet, time and time again, city after city, we arrive without one. And until one of us happens upon the ever-elusive Plan, we are lost, strangers in a strange land. And as you might guess, when you are traveling as a duo and you arrive in a new place, hot (or cold), tired, hungry, and bewildered, you are inclined to like each other just a little less, to find the other's Plan just a little less brilliant than you were hoping for.

Which brings me to yesterday. We arrived in Cochin after a 14.5 hour night train from Goa. The train ride itself was unremarkable except for the fact that it was long and that after 14.5 hours anything with human beings in it eventually starts to smell more like human beings and less like something that is clean. We were especially dirty when we arrived because we spent the better part of the day on a bus "tour" of old Goa. That's "tour" and not simply tour because it was less of a tour and more of guided tutorial, in Hindi mind you, of all that Goa has to offer, should you have the time and inclination to look around. Which is what we thought we were doing, but whatever. The air conditioning on the bus was less air conditioning and more "this bus has no windows so when we drive there's a nice breeze." It wasn't a bad "tour" so much as it was a waste of time, but mainly it was annoying because the open-air bus ride made us seriously dirty, covered in a fine film of red dust. And if you've never spent 14.5 hours on a night train when you're dirty, then boy, you have no idea how dirty you'll feel 14.5 hours later. But bus "tours" aside, we arrived in Cochin 14.5 hours after we set out.

Cochin is a much bigger city than our last home in Colva Beach, Goa. For starters, it's a city as opposed to a beach town. We'd made a reservation at a guesthouse while we were still in Goa, but because Lonely Planet India leaves a lot to be desired in the way of little things like, oh, information, we had no idea how to get to said guesthouse. Taxi? Tuk-tuk? Ferry? See, our guesthouse is on the island of Fort Cochin and the map in the book conveniently fails to connect island to mainland. So we stood in the Cochin train station, packs strapped to our backs, hungry, hot, and bewildered. We decided to take a tuk-tuk and just deal with however much it cost us.

Of course, the other thing that accompanies than unique mood of hunger/heat/bewilderment is a classic case of mistrust. And here, too, I fault the Lonely Planet. At every turn, the book warns backpackers against people who are trying to hustle you. And of course, there are people at every turn who ARE trying to hustle you, so the warning isn't entirely unfounded. Except that if you're not an idiot, and you're not stoned, and you have a general sense of when things are shady, you can TELL when someone is trying to hustle you. The guy putting our bags on top of the tuk-tuk WE hired? Not trying to hustle us. But did that stop us from shouting "no, we're married!" at him when he took our bags off of his tuk-tuk and wanted to put them on another, different tuk-tuk? We thought he was trying to hustle us into taking two separate tuk-tuks. He thought we were total weirdos who, totally unprompted, wanted strangers to know that we are married. Instead, he just wanted us to ride in his brother's tuk-tuk rather than his. Ten minutes later, feeling like an idiot, we were speeding through the streets of Cochin, and our driver was pointing things out to us. Things like the river, and the current, and other islands surrounding the city. There were children waving at us from the backseats of their own tuk-tuks, there were beautiful women in sarees, and there were those ever-present fruit stands. Feeling once again like traveling is, in fact, a fun thing to do, I silently resolved that when we get to the next city, the next new place, we'll find A Plan before we go, knowing that despite my best intentions, we will not, and that in a few days time, we'll be staring at each other again, waiting for the other to come up with something brilliant. At least I can comfort myself that after 8 weeks of travel, I know that brilliance really is just around the next corner.

Have Toilet Paper, Will Travel

The View from Halfway In
Written and Posted from Goa, India

When we started this journey, 54 days ago now, I didn't really have any thoughts on toilet paper. I mean, if someone would have asked me my thoughts on the subject, I would have told them that I prefer soft to scratchy, 2-ply to single, maybe ridges to smooth if I was being really picky. But that would have been about it. I would have offered no dissertations on the importance of the mere presence of toilet paper, nor would I have expressed profound affection for flush rather than scoop toilets and the effect that the later have on toilet paper. But 54 days later, walking around city after city with a half-used roll in the same over-the-shoulder bag that carries my ever-important camera and journal, I'll tell you that toilet paper is an essential part of THIS traveler's experience in the world, that men have it easy with their ability to use the facilities, at least half of the time, without the stuff, and that those little trashcans residing next to a scoop toilet don't gross me out as much as they did, say 53 days ago.

I feel confident that when I look back on this trip in the weeks, months, and years after we return, I won't often think of my bathroom experiences. In fact, I think my eyes will glaze over as I remember how I felt when I was standing under Buddha's gaze at Wat Po, my stomach will rumble when I think of those spring rolls on the beach in Koh Lanta, my fingers will tingle as I remember how much I wanted to tickle the tummies of those kids in Laos, my ears will ring with the sounds of horns honking and roosters crowing, and my mouth will water every time I taste a lime, wishing that it was drinking down a refreshing lime soda like the ones in Sri Lanka. Yes, I think I will sense all of those things again when I get home, that I will privately re-live those experiences whenever someone is bold enough (and probably bored enough) to ask me about this trip. But I also have a feeling that every so often, walking into a bathroom somewhere unpleasant, I will be reminded that once upon a time, I walked into a bathroom in an airport in Goa, and every single stall was devoid of toilet paper, each instead sporting a faucet-like nozzle attached to a hose.

In a way, it's all of these things together that make up a trip like the one that we're on. It's the feeling of quietly studying another statute of Buddha, while also calculating in the back of your mind just how many other people stood there in that same spot, as barefoot as you are, and wondering, silently, if any of them suffered from athlete's foot. Before we left, some people who had traveled more than we had told us that at some point, we would get used to it. It's like Europe, they told us. After a while, a church is a church is a church. Except that so far, I haven't felt that way at all. Every Wat or Temple we see, even the ones that don't feel particularly spiritual to me, are amazing. There's always a child to watch, or a woman in prayer, or a particularly interesting plaque to read. Every single day I experience a moment where I think to myself, "holyshit you are in Thailand!" or "Laos!" or "India!" Every single day I have a moment where I catch my breath, feel my stomach clench, and think, "you are so lucky to be here, experiencing this." And I'm not even exaggerating when I say that it happens every day. Even on the days that I don't like, the days when I'm feeling particularly lonely for home, or the days when every thing I eat makes me want to puke. Yes, even on those days I feel lucky. Lucky to say to myself that I will be so GLAD to go home and get a hug from Julie or my Dad, or so GLAD to drink water right from the faucet. Even on the days when it's hard, I feel lucky to be in a place that reminds me of how happy I am in the familiarity of home, just as happy, even, as I am when a child in Vietnam points at me and giggles, calling my hair "noodle hair" and laughs out loud when I laugh out loud too and shake my hair at her for fun.

If the next 54 days are anything like the past 54 days, they will fly by. They will be filled with colors and noises the sights and sounds of which I have never really seen or listened to. There will be days when I think that I could remain in that one spot forever, and other days when I wish that there were magic planes that could transport me home in an instant. If the next 54 days are anything like the past 54 days, I will check my bag before I head out the door, taking care that I have enough toilet paper to get me through the day, and double-checking that my camera battery is charged enough to record all of these experiences. If the next 54 days are anything like the past 54 days, I will be lucky enough to experience a few more bits and pieces of the world, I will feel how lucky I am at some point every single day, I will turn to Matt and smile at our good fortune at having found the one person with whom I want to share this expeirence, and I will go to sleep excited to see what the next day will bring, good or bad, clean or gross, spiritual or commonplace.

The Half-time Show

Posted from Colva Beach, Goa, India

Before Lizzi and I first met, I had already visited well over half of the states in the U.S., and I was excited to see the remaining few on my list. Simply put, I loved the adventure of the national parks, the hub-bub of big cities, and hospitality of small towns. Like a kid staring at a plate of food, you could say that I had eyes only for the macaroni and cheese. But then I met Lizzi and we talked of travel and adventure worldwide, and it was as if someone had just revealed the largest dessert cart ever! My eyes grew huge at all of the possibilities. And here we are in India, having traveled through a good portion of southeast Asia along the way. I can comfortably say that ten years ago, I would never have imagined a trip like this.

But even with my newfound appetite for the tastes of the world, I find that I still miss the flavors of home. Not just the feeling of being someplace I know with a language I understand, but literally the tastes I've grown to know and love: the food! Being an adventurous eater, I never realized that I could miss food from home the way I have in the past few days. On the long bus ride from Margao to Palolem yesterday, I found myself drifting through daydreams of mouth-watering barbecue, whether Texas-, Oklahoma-, Memphis-, Virignia-, or Carolina-style; pizza with real pizza sauce bursting with garlic and oregano; and, of course, sandwiches, piled high with cured salami, rare roast beef, and juicy turkey.

Although I'm excited for the next 54 days and the tastes I haven't even imagined yet, I also can't wait to get home to some of my favorite foods that I've missed terribly over the past two months. Cheese steaks from Vino's in Philly, lobster rolls and spicy Bloody Marys from J's Oyster Bar in Portland, the Roma hoagie from the Italian Shoppe in Arlington, slow-roasted pork barbecue from Jammin' Joes on Route 29, a kielbasa sandwich with cole slaw and fries from Primanti Bros. in Strip. Oh, and salad! A fresh Greek salad full of red onions, feta, and ripe kalamata olives from any pizza joint worth its salt on the east coast.

But I digress. Being in India so far has been a great experience; we couldn't have picked a better halfway point. The food is familiar and delicious, a reminder of the many times we sought comfort in a tangy curry when schoolwork threatened to bog us down. We have 54 days remaining, which is not nearly enough time, but we will make do. There's plenty of new food to try, and as for traveling, my eyes are only growing wider.