نوروز ۱۳۸۹ مبارک

این هم سفرهٔ ۷ سین امسال ما! خوشگله نه؟ :) امروز ساعت ۱:۳۵ به وقت تورونتو/واترلو سال نو تحویل شد.

تا ۲۳ روز دیگه تو به دنیا میائی‌ ... شاید کمی‌ زودتر یا دیرتر. حالا منتظریم تا ببینیم که کی‌ مثل "رستم پهلوان" به خودت تکون میدی تا از جائی‌ که "نه پنجره نه در" داره بیرون بیائی‌ :)

من یه کمی‌ اضطراب دارم (همهٔ ما داریم) اما من اولین مادر دنیا نیستم و تو هم اولین کسی‌ نیستی‌ که به دنیا میائی‌ پس نباید خیلی‌ سخت یا عجیب باشه. اما هر دوی ما برای اولین بر داریم اینو تجربه می‌کنیم ... تجربهٔ تولد و زایش! من هنوز از پدرت میپرسم که آیا این اسمی که انتخاب کردیم خوب هست یا نه! هر چند الان مدت هاست که به این اسم صدات می‌کنیم! بقیه هم تو رو به این اسم میشناسن! اما میدونی‌ کوچولو، این اولین باره که من برای کسی‌ اسم انتخاب می‌کنم.

نوروز سال آینده تو با ما در کنار ۷ سین خواهی‌ بود. انتظار قشنگی‌ است ...

"On Children" by Kahlil Gibran

Your children are not your children.
They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself.
They come through you but not from you,
And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.

You may give them your love but not your thoughts,
For they have their own thoughts.
You may house their bodies but not their souls,
For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow,
which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.
You may strive to be like them,
but seek not to make them like you.
For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.

You are the bows from which your children
as living arrows are sent forth.
The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite,
and He bends you with His might
that His arrows may go swift and far.
Let your bending in the archer's hand be for gladness;
For even as He loves the arrow that flies,
so He loves also the bow that is stable.


** Thanks Firouzeh jaan for reading this on my baby shower. An excellent choice and a lovely reminder!

The Empathy Vest

So we went to this Prenatal Health Fair on Tuesday. Aside from some of the workshops such as car seat safety which were helpful, they had some exhibitions mostly to provide free info for pregnant moms and their partners. (For my friends in Iran, I should say this is one of the services that I wish we could have in Iran.) The exhibitors mostly provided info about what to eat, where to get help if you needed, breastfeeding info, baby clothing, how to deal with issues at work when you are pregnant, coping with physical and emotional changes in pregnancy, information for those who are planning to have a baby, care for your new baby, infant safety, and etc. Basically nothing was new for us. My due is in almost 5 weeks and I got all these info so far from the prenatal class that we took, hospital tour, my obstetrician and the books I am reading.

But there was one thing that we had not seen before: the empathy belly. This is a vest designed to make you feel what it's like to be pregnant! In other words, it is a pregnancy simulator. What a brilliant idea! My hats off to whoever that thought of making such a thing. It is a vest that weighs 30 Lbs (13.6 Kg). The filling material is kind of liquid that moves inside the belly and gives you the feeling of the baby moving in your womb (well, as much as it possibly could). I asked K to try it on :) 

It was fun. Although K is empathetic himself and helps me with putting on my shoes, getting off the car, turning in the bed, and everything else I need assistance with, I just wanted him to feel what it is like to carry on an extra 37 lbs (16.7 Kg) that I gained so far! The maximum weight that they had was only 30 lbs but the women who were dressing him up were so sweet and told me they try their best to make him feel 8 month pregnant LOL

Anyhow, he put the vest on, and we walked for less than 5 minutes … he said there was lots of pressure on his waist and also he could not breathe easily since the vest also simulates the limited space for lungs and makes it hard to breathe! Then the ladies asked him to bend and pick up something from the floor … the other exercise was to sit on a chair and try to fasten his shoe lace to show him how hard it is to bend over!

If you are interested to have more info about the empathy belly, here is a good link: http://www.empathybelly.org/home.html

My tummy wonderland!

Your moves are quite entertaining Koochooloo! My favorite of the month is to look at my tummy while you move. I don’t want to touch it. I want to see your moves. You make waves sometimes … from right to left … left to right. Sometimes you just tap on one corner pretty frequent. I was thinking this cannot be your heart beat, since it is much slower than that … then I found out it is your hiccups! Yes. You do hiccups too. :) I learned that it is actually very normal for fetuses to have long time of hiccups.

Since you started moving in month 5, your progress has been very fast. At the beginning, it was only me who could feel it. In about 2 weeks, your father could also feel your moves by putting his hand on my belly. Every time you moved, I used to call him right away and he would come as fast as he could to not to miss the move! Your moves were hard to catch! We both waited quietly for your next move, and then when you moved, he would say “Eh!” with widen eyes and a big surprised smile, and I would nod to confirm that you moved! He needed my confirmation because sometimes what he felt was just my belly going up and down with breathing. Then we waited silently for your next move!

In month 6 your moves got stronger and a lot easier to distinguish. I could say that you kicked! It was not just like a quick shock any more. It was more like a big fish swimming and turning inside my tummy! In month 7, they were much stronger and more often. Sometimes when I wanted to sleep, you moved so continually that I got worried what would happen when you grow bigger and become stronger in month 8 and 9. I was thinking that it probably would hurt me! I asked my doctor and he said that you won’t be able to move this much in the last months, since you will grow bigger and you won’t have that much space left in my womb to be able to move a lot! Well, that was a relief but I hope you still can feel comfortable there.

My belly is round and firm; just like a round beautiful watermelon! One of my friends told me that it is like I have swallowed a big ball! Since month 4, I’ve enjoyed touching my firm round belly –even though it changes the centre of gravity in my body and causes me difficulty to walk, sit and sleep. I should say I love my pregnancy figure; it is a lot more interesting than my usual body! I’ve enjoyed putting oil on my round firm belly after every bath. We both love doing it. Every time you move or kick or tap or swirl, I feel something weird and amazing is going on. I wish my tummy was see-through and I could see what you are doing! Sometimes, I look at my belly and I laugh hard. You make me laugh! You actually show obvious reaction to some foods I take, especially to sour foods and sweet deserts. I don’t know is it because you like it or you dislike it. I take it as you like it :)

Having a child, really feels like a miracle!! You will only understand it when you go through it! All my life I was like "why men don't go through such things?" and now, I feel privileged for being pregnant and feel bad for men! I really like and try to involve Kambiz in every way I can. I want him to be able to feel the joy. I see him trying hard to be part of all these, helping me out with everything he can, but sometimes I feel pity for him. No one will ever kick him from inside! He won’t go through all these changes, body changes, harmonic changes, mind-blowing changes! I now feel the steady life is not much fun!

These are all exactly opposite to what I used to think before. I always used to think that one of the things that I don’t like about the process of having a child is the pregnancy time. I could not imagine myself going to work with a big belly. How could I hide it? I used to think I would be ashamed of my pregnant body. But things turned exactly opposite! Since month 4 –when my belly started to show- I would get really upset if people could not notice my belly! How could they not notice it? Wasn’t it so obvious?! :) I never tried to hide it. As a matter of fact, I was showing it off! It is very symmetrical and attractive! And I enjoyed all the comments I got … my colleagues were awesome and they were even more excited about my pregnancy than some family members! As my belly grew, they were quite excited about the size of it. It was a joy!

There is only one more unexplored step for me …. The labor! Would that be an amazing experience too? I just do not want to think about it!

I don’t know how fun that is for you to know about these things! Honestly, I had no interest to know about this sort of stuff before I get pregnant myself. Maybe no one described it for me this way! (Well, I never asked myself and never showed any interests!) It is hard to write letters for your future child, and not to mix it up with your own feelings. Sometimes, I really like to share a thought with friends – other moms to be or other new moms. Then I think it is non-relevant to you. Some other times, I like to talk about some more private stuff with you (e.g. God) , and I just don’t want to be judged by my blog readers – I just don’t want to fight over an opinion, some people think they know everything and they are always right just because they are with majority! They also get really offended by any opposite opinion. Then I will be put in a position to take a stand and that is what I don’t like. And sometimes, I just like to write for myself. A memoir about this especial time… Just for me to remember it. So I will quit re-thinking and censoring myself and I just write, OK? I’ll say whatever that comes to my mind. I haven’t written for a while, but my mind was not quiet these time … I almost wrote a letter to you every day and they are all piled up in a corner of my mind … .

Wanna know what I was doing in the last months? I was researching about your name. It is still ongoing. I want people to be able to pronounce your name correctly and I want to make sure it does not sound bad, old fashion, funny, etc. Choosing a name has been the most complicated thing I had to deal with so far. Your father is more relaxed –as he always is compared to me– he says we still have time! I don’t know where he wants to get the name from in the last minute! Anyways, I am doing my research and we chose a name we both like. I also want to make sure that most of our family/friends like the name and the sound of it.

You will be amazed to know that how your life has been affected other people lives even before you are born! You make some people ‘grandparents’ … my parents are becoming grandparents for the first time. All of your grandparents have dreams about you, about how you look and other stuff that I don’t want to know :). They talk long hours with their friends about their plans for you! Isn’t that strange? You make some others uncles and aunts all for the first time … they are all excited and preparing gifts for you. They ask about you and about your health. They helped us with suggesting names for you. Overall, there are lots of people who just cannot wait to see you :)