Pride and Prejudice

This time the title of the post isn't some wordplay or a hint at something. It really is about Pride and Prejudice. Ever since I got a new phone - HTC Desire that used to be Erkki's - I have been spending a surprising amount of time reading from my phone. With iPod of iPad, which can also be used as an eBook reader, it wasn't that simple since we allow Siiri to play with those and there was always the risk of her demanding that it was her turn to play. Saying "a risk" is a gross understatement. I barely finished a few pages on iPod when it was no longer reasonably easy to tell her it STILL wasn't her turn to play with the toy.

Recently I started reading Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen and it wasn't long until I found myself enjoying the odd vocabulary and the peculiar grammar. I googled it and found out it was published in 1813 - that's nearly two hundred years ago. Amazing that something so old can still be so captivating. The dialogue was really enjoyable and the characters so vivid. I finished the book and went on to download and watch two versions of it on screen. First being the movie "Pride and Prejudice" from 2005, with Keira Knightley and Matthew Macfadyen and the second a 6-episode mini-series, called, lo and behold, "Pride and Prejudice" with Colin Firth and Jennifer Ehle, which was made in 1995 by BBC. This blog post is more like a movie review than anything I've written before.

First of all, I'll say what this book is about. The Bennet family is a family of five young women who barely qualify to belong to the high society. Their father has a manor but since there's no male heir, the manor will be inherited by someone else and the girls are destined to receive only a small dowry. This makes their prospects of a good marriage quite grim. A couple of really rich young bachelors join the neighborhood (Yay! ) , one of them the most pleasant gentleman and his best best friend Mr Darcy who manages to make everyone hate him by not being neither sociable nor polite . Appearances can be deceiving and people start falling in love and so on. All the courting is done properly as it was customary for high society around 1813. No kissing before marriage and even spending any time alone with a partner was something to be very cautious about. Sex before marriage was a far worse fate than death. Although there are more than one marriage formed by the end of the book, it's really a story about Mr Darcy and Elizabeth Bennet, the second daughter of the Bennet family, who is very opinionated for a woman of that time but uses all her skill and wit to express her views in a polite and positive way.

In the movie Elizabeth, played by Keira Knightley, is a hysterical giggling outspoken farm girl. Well, no wonder, the entire family is a bunch of hillbillies living in a big house. They don't mind pigs running around in their kitchen or chickens occupying a the area just by the garden door. They don't care about decent fashionable clothing or proper hats. The younger daughters desperately throw handkerchiefs to low-ranking soldiers when in the book they were spending their time with officers at private events. The mother has reddened complexion like the kind you'd expect from a homeless person with alcohol problems and the father is about as gentle-manlike as a rich farmer. I'm sure even regular merchants looked more decent back then. Such a shame really. Keira Knightley was exactly who I pictured as Elizabeth when I was reading the book but the gap between what I imagined and what I saw was too great to forgive. I expected her to deliver her opinions like an unexpected sting that you might not even notice if you're not paying attention. However, she was just impolite and outspoken with no witty subtlety.

Mr Darcy, played by Matthew Macfadyen looks very similar to what I imagined, although I have to agree with something I read in an IMDB user review of the movie - he looks more constipated than proud. Perhaps it's even more accurate to describe him as suffering from Asperger syndrome. He just looks so awkward but redeems himself so many times throughout the movie that I grew to like his version of Mr Darcy quite a bit. Colin Firth in the 1995 BBC series is seen as the perfect Darcy by so many Jane Austen fans that Matthew Macfadyen never got a fair chance with the fans. I did find Colin Firth very believable and he's seemed both proud and introverted like in the book, but he simply looks nothing like I imagined him. He did a really great job though.

Also, I never did get used to Jennifer Ehle as Elizabeth. She was supposed to be quick-witted and opinionated, not a younger version of Mary Poppins. She was so pleasant and friendly like she had just come from Sunday School. Something just wasn't right. Indeed she was a very positive person like in the book but I expected some mischievous smiles and a very young and fresh spirit. She delivered her lines much better than Keira Knightley. In the movie the dialogue from the book seemed so foreign that it felt like I was watching Shakespeare or some school play. In the series the same lines were delivered so believably and fluently that I can't help but think that Jennifer Ehle and Colin Firth must be much better actors than Keira Knightley and Matthew Macfadyen.

The family life of Bennets was much nicer in the series, though. Just like in the book, they constantly do their best to seem like they rightfully belong to the high society. The girls are expected to be tidy and conventionally dressed at all times and when there are unexpected visitors the girls have no reason to start running around CLEANING the house like in the movie. They have maids for that!

Amazingly, the most beloved and memorable scenes from both the movie and the series were the kind that never happened in the book. In the movie, Elizabeth and Mr Darcy meet at dawn while they have gone for a walk in their undergarments. This would never have happened in those times and they would have been mortified if anyone saw them like that. In the series Mr Darcy goes for a spontaneous swim in the lake outside his manor and later runs into Elizabeth while soaking wet. That also never happened in the book but is is actually mentioned how improper Mr Darcy looked so it's forgiven. Worst extra scene of all was from the movie - in the middle of the night when everyone's asleep and Elizabeth is sleeplessly in her nightgown, Mr Darcy enters her bedroom without knocking, leaves her a letter without saying a word and rides off into the night. If they had got caught with something as outrageous as that, they would have probably been forced to marry.

It would be fair to say I enjoyed both the movie and the series and was happy with neither. The movie had excellent casting, the best I've ever seen. Most of the people looked EXACTLY like they were supposed to look but it was so accurate that it was bordering on being a caricature of the roles. Mr and Mrs Bennet were the only people who were much better cast in the mini-series. The series was occasionally boring to watch and it had some extra dialogue that could have been left out. The movie, on the other hand, skipped some very nice dialogue because it didn't have time for it.

Over-all I wouldn't really recommend the movie or the mini-series because both had their faults. I wouldn't recommend the book either, only because I don't want to be one of those tedious people who say, "Oh the movie was nothing. You MUST read the book in stead." That is like sooo conceited. But if you happen to see the movie, be sure to remember that the Bennets didn't really live on a farm, okay?

Afraid of Giving Birth

Today I was reading something I never should have read - an article about some women choosing cesarean because they simply are too afraid of giving birth. And then I read something I REALLY never-ever should have read - the comments to that article. Some people saying that childbirth was painful so they don't want to do it again, some people saying that cesarean was even worse and some people saying that regular birth was painful but seeing the baby made up for the horrible experience. Well yeah, I do seem to have a very high pain threshold - I didn't scream or curse and I didn't beg for an epidural. And still, as I was reading other people's experiences, my mind took me back to that day with all the horror and desperation of being helplessly alone and suffering. I've tried to gloss over it thinking that Siiri made up for it and that it became okay the moment I saw a healthy baby. Of course nearly passing out from exhaustion did feel so wonderfully heavenly at that moment. But then again, when I think back at the entire experience, I get butterflies in my stomach and the urge to hide under some blanket.

I thought I was supposed to forget childbirth. There's some stupid urban legend about women being able to forget childbirth the moment it's over and then it becomes really foggy. For me, I think it keeps getting worse and worse. I mean, I remember how it didn't seem such a big deal right afterwards. It was simply a foggy memory of a truly sleep-deprived night that tested my patience and mental stability and all time became just minutes passing by, with the clock ticking too slowly and everything being a hazy nightmare that has to end sooner or later. I guess it's similar to soldiers going through their extreme hiking trip with heavy equipment and too little food. They survive it, it makes them feel stronger for surviving it and later becomes a foggy memory of past hardship. They don't really think about the experience but when they do remember it, they really want to avoid ever going through that again.

I didn't really think about birth for a long time but last week my pregnancy crossed over from carrying a fetus to carrying a potentially viable baby. If I have a preterm baby now, it will probably survive! This makes it all so real. I'm not simply pregnant - I'm actually carrying a baby that will soon want to come out! I'm gonna have to do that child birth thing again! It really is a horrible thought. It's like knowing that your dentist's appointment is approaching, only many times worse. Cesarean isn't a solutions either. With the dentist analogy, if a regular birth is like having your tooth yanked out bit by bit, then cesarean would be the doctor proposing, "There's an alternative to all that yanking - I could have someone punch the tooth out.".

I shouldn't think about the subject but on the other hand, I can't ignore it indefinitely. If I had birth right now I'd panic. Well, okay, I wouldn't panic. I'd simply get really defensive and spiteful in the birth department. I'd treat all the midviwes as potential enemies who just want to leave me alone with my contractions and everything. I keep reliving what I should have told them two years ago. I should have demanded a piece of paper to write my complaint on it. I should have told on them and accused them of endangering my life and Siiri's. They left me all alone - I could have died of a bleed in there! They didn't show me any emergency "call for help" button and even when I managed to tell some passing-by nurse to send someone to see me, it took an hour for that someone to arrive. Outrageous! Some people give birth in less than an hour. Should I have screamed for help? Should I have called the ambulance for some attention? I keep thinking that the least I could have done is to accuse them of neglecting me. If they told me I seemed perfectly healthy the moment they left me alone, then I would have just told them that I was giving birth and if giving birth is really so safe then I could have done it in some remote cave in the mountains. Why bother visiting THEIR hospital in the first place if it's as safe as giving birth in a remote cave...

I'm so angry at them for making me be afraid of childbirth. I know they're the best hospital in the area and they simply made a small mistake. It was some student who took me to that birth room and she really thought I wasn't really giving birth and I was calmly sleeping in that bed. When she left, she dimmed the lights and nearly tried tucking me in. I guess she had never seen an active birth with irregular contractions and there's a first time for everything. On some level I don't blame her at all but still, when I think about that night, I get really scared. The worst part is that I don't simply start thinking scary thoughts, I get physically scared. I get all tense, pull my shoulders up, feel shaky inside my chest and I bet I look deeply worried as if the doomsday is approaching. That's extremely far from the inner calm and well prepared attitude that is needed for a pleasant birth experience. I have to deal with my fear, otherwise the second time might be even worse than the first one. I could get very tense and make a potentially bad experience into a horrible one.

I'm gonna have to start preparing myself for the inevitable. I have no plan of action. I'm hoping tomorrow I'll be back to ignoring that the due day is approaching.

Iron Rich Foods

The last time my hemoglobin level was screened, it had dropped from 129 to 112. I was expecting something around 125, which would be very healthy for anyone, especially during pregnancy, but all I got was a lousy 112. The midwife said they don't worry until it's under 110, then realized how close my result was to 110 and corrected herself by saying that they don't recommend iron supplements until hemoglobin level drops below 105. Not so reassuring .

I have an idea why it might have dropped so fast during this pregnancy. I eat less meat. During the first trimester I suddenly didn't feel like eating meat and I didn't mind eating similar food to the one I make for Siiri - lots of carbs, plenty of vegetables and a bit of meat. I didn't fry a pork steak or serve a plate full of chili con carne with a slice of bread. I made REGULAR food. You know, the kind that is usually considered "healthy" . And this "heatlhy" nearly vegetarian menu almost made me anemic.

Problems are to be recognized and dealt with. I clearly don't get enough iron with food so I should eat more foods that are high in iron content. Right? Well that's what the midwife said so it must be right. So I should just eat plenty of beetroot, strawberries, beef, spinach, cereals and soybean?

There are so many foods loaded with iron but it's important to note that there are two kinds of iron: heme iron and non-heme iron. I've understood it has something to do with iron oxidation states. In animals iron is usually stored inside a structure called heme and has an oxidation state Fe(II). This heme with the iron is then used in red blood cells for oxygen transport. This kind of iron is quite easy to absorb from food. The other form is called non-heme iron, usually Fe(III) and that's hardly absorbed at all.

It's actually helpful to consume non-heme iron with antioxidant vitamin C, partly because it helps reduce Fe(III) to Fe(II) (source). Otherwise non-heme iron is actually pretty useless. Also, non-heme iron is usually consumed with lots of fiber. You know, "eat lots of healthy fruit and vegetables, they're full of fiber!". Fiber is horrible for iron absorption! It gets even worse. Most fruits or vegetables contain oxalates which bind divalent metallic cations like calcium or Fe(II). So the little amount of iron that gets reduced to Fe(II) and could possibly be absobed, in stead gets stuck on some oxalate and gets peed out. All you vegetarians out there, good luck getting your iron from food!

Lets talk numbers. Men need 10-20 mg of iron per day and women need around 20 mg. Pregnant women require roughly 30 mg of iron daily and anemic people are supplemented with 60 mg of iron once or twice a day. I should aim for at least 30 mg, if not even more. To simplify matters, I want to know how much I would have to eat each food to get 30 mg of iron. What I'd have to eat in one day, starting from heme iron: I would have to eat 860 g of beef, 2300 g of chicken leg, 1300 g of turkey, 670 g of trout, 3750 g of canned tuna or 350 g of oysters. That sucks. I can't eat that much meat every day! How about vegetarian sources of iron... Lets see, 860 g of cooked spinach, 670 g of oat flakes, 680 g of almonds, 1760 g of dried dates, 2140 g of potatoes, 1760 g of brown bread, 3000 of beetroot, 7500 g of strawberries, 3000 g of broccoli or 860 g of beans. That doesn't really help a lot.

Today I bought strawberries thinking they're a good source of iron. If I had known that I'd have to eat 7 and a half kilos of strawberries to reach my daily iron need, I would have only bought them for their taste. Also, I didn't know strawberries were a rich source of oxalates so the iron won't get absorbed anyway. Another food usually mentioned as a great source of iron is spinach. Popeye ate it for its high iron content and it made him strong. I guess he never read that spinach is so full of oxalates that they practically negate all the iron they contain. Rhubarb is sour because of oxalic acid and in not recommended for people with iron deficiency. I think this fact I'm going to have to ignore. I want rhubarb pie! I need my rhubarb pie and I'm gonna eat it no matter what those nutritionists say!

Uhm... I guess all that talk about simply eating iron rich foods is about as trustworthy as taking homeopathic medicine to relieve iron deficiency. It is nearly impossible to get the recommended amount of iron with food and it's practically impossible for vegetarians. 200g of beef each day with various iron-rich foods might add up to 10 mg of iron and that seems very realistic. However, three times that would simply make me fat.

I dislike the idea of food supplements, and I dislike the idea of having iron pills in my home since iron poisoning is the leading cause of poisoning in children in USA. Not the safest thing to have in the same apartment with a creative and curious toddler. I'll try eating lots of heme iron and non-heme iron with vitamin C with various foods. I doubt it will help much but at least now I know not to eat strawberries with the intent of getting my daily iron.

Back from France

A couple of days ago I came back from a wonderfully improper trip to France. I assume it was improper because I broke some "rules" and I other people seemed more worried about stuff than I was. Okay, so flying while pregnant is perfectly safe in most cases, so this "danger" was only in their heads but perhaps I shouldn't have eaten that raw beef...

Already at the start of the conference, people were discussing the wine that was being offered. I'm sure it was great. Although it was just regular conference wine, it must have been great because we were in Burgundy region of France. The discussion group was really small, so one guy turned to me and said, "But of course you can't try this wine.". That made me cringe inside, so I smiled and clarified, "I could try it if I wanted. There's a difference between trying and drinking. I CHOSE not to try it." I later realized the absurdity of a man (what do they know about pregnancy anyway) with a scientific background (calculating concentrations is like a second nature) telling me I am not allowed even to taste wine. Fortunately I knew he didn't really mean it that way - he was really friendly and sweet. Also he didn't comment when I tasted the good wines during conference dinner. There the waiters were really adamant to fill everyone's glasses with wonderful red and white wine that were picked especially for our 4-course superb dinner. I seemed to be the only one sending back two nearly full glasses.

One of the things I didn't plan on was eating raw meat. I have really horrible memory for trivia. I knew for sure that boeuf in French means meat, usually beef. I also remembered that there's some raw meat dish called "Boeuf de la something-something". But the menu item "tartar de boeuf" did not light up any warning lights for me. I would have been suspicious if it had been some sort of high-end restaurant specialized in variety foods, but it was just a small clean restaurant that looked like a place ideal for an early morning coffee and croissant. Of course Tartar de boeuf, also known as Boeuf de tartar, is the raw dish that I shouldn't have ordered. I tasted it and suspected what it was, then I had my friend ask the waitress how it's made. The reply was, "Take meat, chop it and mix it." It was really late, I was quite hungry, it didn't taste so bad and the meat looked, smelled and tasted completely fresh, so I just ate it. Just at the beginning of the month I declared that this raw meat dish is something that I want to try at least once in my life, but certainly not while pregnant. Oh well. I guess it was meant to be.

I also rode metro trains, although we were advised twice to take the bus in stead. I also drank coffee and I even went over my 1-cup-a-day limit. It was a CONFERENCE! How could I have skipped the coffee and not feel like I'm missing out on something. One waitress asked, "Coffee or tea?", I said "Coffee", she looked at me and brought me tea. I sent it back and had her bring me coffee. Another think not good for pregnant women was when I walked 20-30 km in Paris and finally returned to the hotel nauseous and dizzy. When we got to the hotel I googled why minor sunburn would make me nauseous and I found out I'm actually having a slight heatstroke, which is often caused by dehydration. I drank all the water I had and immediately felt better. Ah how I love the Internet.

Flying while pregnant felt adventurous, since I never knew what airplane company policy I was in disagreement with. The first time I was asked to switch seats with someone because I just happened to be sitting right next to the emergency exit. Company policy says that this is not the proper place for a pregnant woman. At first we thought it's because that's the least safe seat in the plane - if anything should happen, the door might detach and pull the closest seat with it. Later I found out it's because the person sitting there must be able to open the door and help people get out of the plane in case of emergency. During another flight, the flight attendant saw my belly and asked me to switch seats. Apparently it's company policy for pregnant women to be seated by the window. I don't know the real reason but I figure it's the safest spot in case people panic. I wouldn't want anyone trying to climb over me to get off the plane and I really would like to wait for a good safe moment to get out of my seat. Also, as long as I'm in the window seat, no one can accidentally drop a suitcase on me while opening the overhead compartment. That was all fine and sweet. Nice of them to make things safer for me.

However I was less happy when I was nearly denied a boarding pass on my way back. I knew I can't fly after 32 or 36 weeks of pregnancy but I'm only around 23 weeks, so there is no reason to worry. I didn't think I'd have to prove it! Just a week earlier I was still contemplating whether I look pregnant or simply out of shape and now one person thought I need a doctor's note proving that I'm not about to give birth any minute now. The check-in lady was actually calling someone to make sure she's allowed to let me fly without a certificate of pregnancy. Finally she let me proceed so she spared her company the discussions I was planning to have about my medical data being my private matter and, how ridiculous it was to think I was 2 months more pregnant and so on. I was even planning on demanding them to prove they have any right to keep me off the plane, and since I knew they don't have any right, since I wasn't a danger to anyone and not braking any rules. In case they would keep me off the plane for not having that certificate, I was going to demand refund and a compensation for any discomfort or I'll go to the press claiming this company has prejudice against pregnant women. The situation really was too ridiculous to be true. I'm glad they came to their senses while I was still nice and polite.

During my stay in France I visited two places - Dijon and Paris. Dijon is truly beautiful. I recommend visiting it to anyone who wants to experience France in all it's glory. I also think you should consider skipping Paris. There are some wonderful places worth sightseeing, like the magnificent Arc de Triumph, which was about 10 times bigger than I expected. Just find a picture on Google with tiny ants on the bottom edge of the picture - those are people. Eiffel tower is also really pretty. It's quite ugly from far away but up close it's a masterpiece of symmetry and perfection. Notre dame is also amazing. It's simply so huge! That's the thing with Paris - it might be a loud, crowded, unpleasant, smelly, dirty and impractical city full of people wanting to cheat money out of you, but their tourism objects are simply so BIG. All the things I mentioned - arcs, monuments, churches - can be found elsewhere but they are simply bigger in Paris.

Siiri didn't see me for 5 days in a row. I thought she'd miss me a lot and people would have a hard time with her because of it. The reality: she barely noticed I was gone. I did warn her several times that I'll be gone for many days and then I'll be back, and she seemed like she might even be listening, but she didn't even ask for me while I was away. She spent a lot of time with her grandparents and was too busy playing and having fun to remember I even exist.

Long Time No See

Life is a blurry rollercoaster. Stuff happens and time goes by. Siiri's turning 2 years old today and has started to talk in sentences. My last post was a month ago so she didn't have much time to learn it but I like how she does it. Most of you know that Estonian grammar is HELL . There's 14 cases. Even the most basic words like water can be vesi, vee, vett, veega, veeta, or other. Or the word home can become from kodu to koju or kodus and so on. It makes it so difficult to widen one's vocabulary, but it makes it even worse to find the right word for the sentence you're trying to piece together. Well, Siiri's much better at it than I would have expected. Maybe all kids are, but she's the one whose progress I've been observing. Just a month ago she wasn't combining words at all, and in the past couple of days she's said "Seda putru ei taha" (This porridge I don't want) and "Siiri joob vett" (Siiri is drinking water). She even used a plural for dinosaurs when she referred to several at the same time. She uses very few made-up words. Her version of "tüdruk" (girl) is "küke". It's always küke, even though for nearly all other words she really makes an effort to say it exactly right.

She likes her dinosaurs - small rubbery toys that she constantly dips in her glass of water, commenting, "Saurus's are drinking". I guess that's somewhat better than what she did the other day. I heard "Rabbit drinks" and stopped her just barely from dunking her hairy soft stuffed toy feet first in a glass of water. She likes to comment her actions in words. Today when she went to bed, she suddenly felt too crowded with her four bed toys, so she sat up, pushed all of them to the foot of her bed and announced, "Out of (my) way. Girl to sleep." (Estonian: "Eest ära. Küke magama!") And then let herself fall on the pillow again. She can be so wonderfully clear in her wishes. Or bossy, if that's the word you prefer. She's really growing up to be a strong-willed person who'd probably do well even in military if she wasn't so girly and pink and fond of pretty glittery things.

Siiri's also quite orderly and neat, but I'm not quite sure what causes it. Her stuffed bed animals always get her attention in one specific order. Rabbit always comes first and then Puppy and two small puppies, first black-and-white and then brown. She might be holding one of her puppies but if she decides to give her toys some water, she'll drop the puppy, ignore it, and go looking for Rabbit.

Pretend games are really IN with a 2-year old. She likes the invisible crown that is so easily accessible on the picture printed on her pajamas. She asks for the crown, we "take it" from her shirt and then put it on one head after another. It's important to remember who's wearing the crown. One time she had me put the crown on her pillow. When she lied down, she had very little room left at the edge of the pillow so I "pushed aside" the crown to make more room for her. She also picks flowers from books and tells me, "Two of them" (kaks tükki) , then puts them in her pocket for safe-keeping. She has even brought me something I couldn't really see, so I asked her, "Siiri, what did you give me?" and she replied, "A flower" and walked back to her book. The game took a whole different turn when she "picked up" Snow White's poisonous apple and quickly took a bite. I have been using the word "poisonous" to mark things she must never-ever put in her mouth so I "put back" the poisonous apple and conversationally told her she shouldn't eat it because it's poisoned, but I caught it in time and she'll be okay. Suddenly she looked so grim. She sat there completely serious and contemplative for nearly a minute and then burst out crying and sobbing as if she had just committed the worst crime possible (whatever that might be). It took a long time and a lot of effort to convince her that no harm was done, I'm not upset with her actions, and she'll be okay.

Me and Erkki took the most of my not-too-pregnant-yet second trimester and went to Prague (Czech Republic) with Siiri and Erkki's parents. The trip was nice but only the parts that depended on us. No significant disagreements among us, Siiri loves traveling and barely even made a sound on the plane, nothing got stolen, and Prague was such a great choice for it's wonderful buildings and statues. However, overall it was the least lucky travel experience I've ever had. The weather was atrocious. It had been 20 C during the week before we arrived and 20 C during the week after we left, but when we were there, it was constantly near 10-12 degrees and dropped as low as 4 degrees one morning. Not really the weather for walking around town and sightseeing.

On top of that Siiri got ill during the second night. She had 38.6 C with laryngitis. I had never seen it myself. It mostly affects small children and can easily become life-threatening within one night. It's basically throat swelling which obstructs breathing. We didn't diagnose the symptoms at night but we went to the hospital emergency room with Siiri first thing in the morning. Siiri got proper medical care and was well enough for travelling back 3 days later. Quite a scary experience to be honest. If that last-era place had had a proper internet connection in the hotel rooms, I would have easily found out about laryngitis and I would have called the ambulance in stead of waiting until the morning. Siiri was already wheezing in each breath when we started going to the hospital. It could have gone much worse but all went well in the end. Due to the medicine that was prescribed, we also found out that Siiri probably has some allergies we didn't know about. She reacts to antihistamines as if it's opiates we're giving her. From whiny and mean to happy and mellow in minutes.

As for the rest of my life, the one that doesn't revolve around Rabbits and dinosaurs, that has become quite routine aside from a couple of refreshing parties. I don't go out often enough and I still haven't taken up exercising again. Now I'm almost pregnant enough to join one of those creepy pregnancy yoga classes that discuss natural childbirth, details of labor and benefits of eating placenta. Or perhaps I can postpone it a little longer...

BTW, I'm about 20 weeks pregnant and I could hide a watermelon in my totally huge tummy. It's really big, even though I don't think it's got anything to do with food. I can barely and rarely feel any movement. I think he/she simply has too much room. Tomorrow's the moment of truth - is it a boy or a girl, or too shy to tell the difference.

Planning Ahead

Early warning! This post is about childbirth and scientific evidence about it. If you're uncomfortable with the topic, skip this post. For the rest of you, I've been obsessing about childbirth in the last couple of days. My only earlier experience turned out not quite like I imagined. 52 hours long counting from the time the water broke, about 40 hours of induced labor, including 9 h 42 m of "active labour", starting from the time I insisted that I really am giving birth and a physician finally gave in against her better judgement and moved me to the right room. No anesthesia because until the very end no one was around to offer it to me and afterwards it made no sense anymore and finally being so exhausted that after childbirth, I passed out for at least 24 hours, only waking for brief moments.

The entire experience was rather traumatizing. I know I've said I want several children but after that experience, I didn't want to think about going through that again. Maybe if it hadn't been like that, I'd already be a mother of two. Finally I just decided I have to stop postponing a second pregnancy. Now that I'm really growing a tummy and I've even felt the baby move (as early as 15 weeks) and all the routine pregnancy tests have been good, I can't avoid the thought that I will have to do that again. So I've been thinking, how can I do that better?

The most important thing - being alone during childbirth sucks. I'm hiring my own midwife to attend the childbirth. This way they can't neglect me just because another person in labor can make more faces and look more desperate. I don't regret sending Erkki home so he can get some sleep because after birth I needed him to stay awake when I couldn't. But I do kinda regret not looking more desperate and pitiful just to get a decent amount of attention from the local hospital staff at Tartu University Hospital. They're still the best in the entire Estonia and they did most things right. I would even recommend it to other people. I simply wouldn't go there without my personal helper. I don't know how much it costs but it's probably worth it compared to the pricelessness of a psychological trauma.

Some basics about childbirth: giving birth on your back is the worst possible position. Getting the baby out in that position requires much effort and is described as more painful compared to alternatives. In a modern hospital I was encouraged to get out of bed although that makes things more difficult for the midwife. Squatting during labor is the fastest method and opens up areas below by 10%, but can cause tears because it is so fast. It's also a very difficult position to stay in. Water helps childbirth but I chose against it because being in water restricts my movement and makes me feel clumsy. Besides, water gets cold after a while and I've heard it can get quite icky during an actual labor. Episiotomy, or deliberate cutting down below is pointless because doing the cut to avoid a natural tear is kind of counterproductive and the cut can tear up more as the baby comes. Women who have an episiotomy are more likely to end up with a very deep tear compared to women who don't have an episiotomy.

One thing that most people don't know is that there isn't much natural lubrication going on during childbirth. Ain't that cruel? Long ago people used oil to make things more slippery but now women are supposed to believe that the greasy substance called vernix on the baby's skin is enough. Babies who are carried to full term don't have much vernix left so that certainly isn't enough. Now there's a new product called Dianatal gel which is designed to be a birth lubricant. Quite ingenious in my opinion. It costs a ton of money, around $130, but if it might help, I'd try it. Some midwives say it helps, some say it doesn't make a difference, I say the product makes enough logical sense to pay the cost.

Pushing during the second stage of labor is also under debate. It's criminally common for childbirth to be portrayed completely wrong in movies: woman lying on it's back, people yelling "PUSH, PUSH! Take a deep breath, then hold your breath and push!". Although I wasn't instructed to stay in bed, I was instructed to push as hard as I can. This is the wrong thing to do. In normal labor when woman is not even drugged on pain medication, there is a natural force insisting that the woman pushes. It's hard to hold back. But when pain gets very strong, that can mean that it's really time to hold back a little to let skin stretch. That's how I felt. I wanted to pause for some time. "Push through the pain!", they told me. I was given the clear impression that the faster we get the baby out the better and that the second stage of labor is very dangerous for the baby. The longer it lasts the worse it is. Well, that's not quite true.

I found very clear data that the second stage of labor can last for HOURS (up to 5 and more) without any adverse effect to the baby - no decrease in Apgar scores. There really is no hurry. Very long second stage labor can be evidence of other problems but as far as everything else is okay, there's no need to force a hurried pace in the first three hours of "the pushing phase". After three hours there's an increased risk of significant blood loss. I did it in an hour and I was hurried along the entire time as if the midwife had a bus to catch. I haven't found any reliable data about "pushing through the pain", I've only found stories from women who say that there's less tears when you don't do that. I got the impression that the baby's heart rate decreases during the pushing phase but now I read that it only decreases because women hold their breath to push harder. Do try to push your hardest without holding your breath - it can't be done. Ironically, women aren't even supposed to push their hardest. If a woman just relaxes and pushes very gradually, slow and steady, while exhaling during a contraction, the baby comes out nearly as fast, with better Apgar score and causing less tears. Funny they never mention the side effects while yelling to push harder. And they certainly don't look sorry when they're stitching up tears they helped create.

I've been thinking about pain medication and frankly, that's been my last concern. Maybe I have indeed forgotten the pain but this time I'm planning to avoid any pain medication. It's not about being a martyr and a hippie. I just really don't like the side effects. Most pain medication have only limited usefulness for the mother and can make the baby dizzy and unable to start breathing on it's own. All pain medication wears off after a while so its not likely to stay drugged the entire time. Pain is strongest in the end when also pain medication is the most dangerous. Epidural is effective against the pain, but it has side effects that I am not willing to agree with. It can make the woman unable to move her legs or to support her body for better birthing positions as opposed to lying flat on her back. It also makes the woman unable to feel pain on the inside so tears are more common. Also, it can completely lose the sensation of needing to push. The large amount of women having an epidural is actually the reason why midwives give the instruction to push, no matter what the body wants. Basically, epidural loses the woman's control over her body. Water injection into the skin is still an option I'd consider because it's only side effect is short term discomfort but it can relax the body by relieving pain and thus help with childbirth.

After all that I've read about childbirth in the last days I'm actually somewhat eager to test my theory that it doesn't have to be so bad. I can't control whether labor is induced or not and I haven't made plans about that but I will probably try Dianatal gel, a personal midwife and lack of strong pushing. Also still avoiding pain medication, forbiddings epiostomy and avoiding laying on my back. So, the experiment plan is done but I still have to wait a whole 5 months until I can put it to test.

PS! Just to spread bad publicity for a dumb technological failure that should have been fixed long ago: IE9 is no longer beta but I still can't publish posts in Blogger using an updated IE9 browser.