I Spoke Waaaaaay Too Soon.

So, you know that entry I just made about how silly membrane stripping is?

Yeah. So. Um.  So, I definitely spoke too soon.

My water broke ten hours later and less than 24 hours after my membrane was stripped, I was holding my newborn son.

Granted, I think there were some other contributing factors to this as well.  I did have a spicy Chinese lunch with my mom before the stripping, got the stripping done, and made a huge hot pot dinner after the stripping.   So it may have been a perfect recipe of spicy food, membrane stripping/prostaglandin release and nesting that started the whole process.  So if you are 2 cm dilated, go ahead and eat some spicy food, get your membrane stripped, run around the house making a ridiculous, pregnancy induced last meal, and kiss your husband goodnight and you never know– you might just have your baby in your arms in 24 hours.

(He’s here!  He’s here!  And he’s freakin’ adorable!)

Week 38: They Do What to My What?

I know I am in the home stretch.  Really.  I know it.  I’m dropping, I’ve got weird pains, my feet are swollen, diarrhea ickiness, and I’m having insomnia like nothing I’ve had before.   But… I would like to have the baby sooner rather than later now.  I’m excited to meet him and impatient to wear my old pants again, even with a belly band.  And I know that as an Asian, my gestation period is one week shorter than my caucasian counterparts and I shouldn’t complain so much, but that didn’t stop me from seriously considering inducing today.

I didn’t get induced though… but I did get my membrane stripped.  It sounds much more awful than it is and felt just as awful as it sounds.  Essentially, the OB places their finger in the cervical opening and wriggles it around to stimulate prostaglandins that start labor.  I’m hoping that it works… because I don’t want to have to do it again.  Although it did provide for an interesting conversation with my OB today:

• Me:  So, this membrane stripping thing.  Does it harm the baby?
• OB:  No.  I just move my finger around your cervical opening, it doesn’t harm the baby at all.
• Me:  Can the baby feel anything though?  Does it hurt the baby?
• OB:  Oh, the baby likes it.  It’s like getting their head petted.
• Me:  Oh.  (???)  See Baby?  You need to come out… there’s a strange lady out here that wants to pet your head!
• OB:  (bursts out laughing)

BTW– membrane stripping doesn’t guarantee you’ll go in labor, it’s just supposed to help it along or help start it.  Personally, I think that the doctors just want to be able to pet the baby’s head before you do.

Those selfish bastards.

Hunan Taste – Catonsville, MD

Baltimore City still lacks decent Chinese food.  (Sorry, Zhong Shan, you still need a lot of work.)  But it seems like Catonsville has a solution to this dearth of real, authentic, I can take my mom to this place and she won’t hate it, Chinese.  It’s called Hunan Taste and it’s next to our favorite Sunday hangout place– the HMart in Catonsville.

The restaurant is in a strip mall, but it’s possibly the best located strip mall location for an authentic Chinese food experience.  With hundreds of hungry Chinese families going to the HMart on a daily basis, it is working by word of mouth through the Chinese community as a place to get real Hunan cuisine– “dry” cooked with fresh chili peppers and garlic being the essence of the dish.  It’s also got a wide range of dishes for large parties:  there are the American dishes of General Tso’s to the REALLY authentic dishes that my grandma makes because it’s hard to find, like the goose intestines, soft shelled turtle, hot pot, or fermented soybeans with chilis.  (Think stinky tofu, but not tofu.)  And it’s definitely trying to get those large parties in, with a fabulous wooden carving in the entry, a secluded back room with karaoke, and a polished but definitely Chinese decor that blends the Last Emperor with the Red Maple– posh, clean, but hinting of the Old World.  Jonathan Gold would hate this place, but my mom and I loved sitting there, calmly eating our dishes and trying to not get too excited.  Our food was great, fantastic, and dare I say it… damn good authentic Hunan cuisine.

We ordered the following:

Chicken Bumkin appetizer, which was chopped chicken with bone in, dry sauteed with black beans, hot chili peppers, garlic, and green onions.  There was no sauce to this dish, just tons of flavor from the fragrant ingredients.   I highly recommend this.

Chicken Bumkin

Twice Cooked Pork Belly -  with large leaks, red chili peppers, and red cooked pork, this was exceptional, although I lamented the pork belly wasn’t cooked long enough to make the fat melt like butter in your mouth.  Still, dry sauteed, with so much flavor I can’t really complain.

Twice Cooked Pork

Sauteed Frog Hunan style – sauteed with button mushrooms, red chili peppers, green onions and garlic, this was probably one of my favorites.  The frog was perfectly cooked, but more importantly, the mushrooms were too– firm, without any sogginess, and extremely well paired with the frog as the textures were so similar and yet the flavors so different that it made a silky party in your mouth.

Frog... Ribbit

Braised Cabbage Soup – who knew there was a vegetable called “wahwah?”  My mom and I didn’t… but apparently, it’s baby Chinese cabbage, and it’s was served in a white broth that had scallions, country ham (think Virginia salt ham), little medicinal tree seeds (I can’t remember the English word for it) and (wait for it…) A WHOLE THOUSAND YEAR OLD EGG!!!!!!  Not cut up in tiny pieces, but served quartered, to give a slightly bitter, umami flavor to the delicate soup.  I nearly shit a kitten eating this– it was so delicious, so perfect, and so unexpected.

Braised Cabbage Soup

The service was polite and the management friendly, in particular the owners, a couple who franchised out the Jasmine bubble tea chains that are found in the malls in the area.  They, like myself, were tired of running to Rockville, Flushing, LA to find food for themselves and decided to open this restaurant so that they could have a place to eat near their home.   A restaurant catered to feed its own, to show off real Chinese food, and to provide it in a relaxing setting.

I can’t help but want to scream “Run, Don’t Walk to This Restaurant!!!” because it’s going to be impossible to get a table there in a few weeks.  You know, when Thanksgiving rolls around and it’s packed with the people not working at the mediocre Chinese restaurants in the area.

Hunan Taste
718 N. Rolling Road
Catonsville, MD 21228
410-788-8988

Dishes – $12-20 average, market prices for other things.

Service:  Polite and expedient.

PS– they also have sinks outside the bathroom to wash your hands in before eating.  Very asian.

Week 37: The Husband Deserves a Raise or How to Keep the Pregnant Wife Happy

(Oh, double entendre.  You make my life so much more fun.)

Conversation while driving me to the train station:

• Me:  I suck at my job.
• Hubby:  No, you don’t suck at your job sweetie.
• Me:  I do too!  I suck.  Suckity suck suck at my job.
• Hubby:  You can’t say that– you’re doing great!  It’s not your fault the baby ate your brain.

Looking back at the past few weeks, I realize that my husband has been pretty incredible.  I don’t know if it’s because of the book I got him to prepare him for the past few months (and next couple of months), but I have a sneaking suspicion that he’s just a good man.  You know, the kind that is hard to find.  Especially since he thought the author of the book was kind of a pussy.

There are a few things that the husband does that have made my pregnancy a lot easier and very pleasant.   If you knocked up your wife/girlfriend/mistress this might keep you out of the doghouse … or at least get you fewer evil glares.

1. Tell her she’s beautiful, preferably once a day.  Even when she is beached on the bed in a whale-like state and unwilling to get out of it.
2. Tell her you love her.  ALL THE TIME.
3. Tell her she’s doing a great job at being a wife/mother/employee/sex siren.
4. Do more of her chores, and volunteer to do it consistently.  Don’t stop doing it, keep doing it so that she doesn’t have one other thing to worry about.  And do your chores too, or for the love of god, pick up your own damn socks.
5. Encourage the hiring of a maid, even if it’s just for one really deep cleaning in the third trimester.
6. Buy her snazzy jewelry.  Real jewelry.  Like diamond studs. 
7. Don’t pressure for sex, but definitely encourage her to feel sexy.  Even if she doesn’t feel sexy, you can help her feel sexy by doing number 1 and 2, and possibly whispering sweet nothings in her ear.
8. Make dinner.  Get take out.  But don’t make her make dinner.  And ALWAYS asks what SHE wants to eat.  Because your BBQ chicken just might make her leave the house and go to her mom’s.
9. Surprise her with a clean house.  I know, it relates to #5, but it really works to lift the spirits.
10. Get her a spa day.  She’ll need it.  And you’ll appreciate it in the end too.
11. Love her new body.  I know it may not be as hot as her old body, or hey, maybe you like the swollen, engorged look, but love her new body without any remorse of her old.  After all, it’s kind of like you’re getting a completely different woman to love now.  With improved, larger glands!

That’s all I got for now, but I’m sure there will be more once the baby stops eating my brain.

Week 36: So this is what getting kicked in the groin feels like.

Ah.  Pregnancy.  I am running towards your finish line, knowing that at the end, I will have a baby in my arms and new joyous pain.  But, no one ever told me that in my last leg of this race I was going to feel like someone has kicked me in my box.

I don’t know where this came from, this fleeting, bruised sensation that makes me wonder if this what gang bang victims feel like afterwards, but seriously, this is some kind of crazy pain.  Not excrutiating, not agonizing, but pain that makes you go “Seriously?  WTF?”  It’s like a discomfort that makes you wince when you walk, squat, or move– a pain that makes you understand why some women don’t get out of bed during these nine months.  It’s uncomfortable like an awkwardly placed bruise.  And there’s no explanation for it because it’s fleeting (so I can’t imagine it’s baby head pressure) and because I can’t find a definitive answer for it and am too lazy to look.  I’d rather bitch about it for a couple more lines of a blog entry, because I can, and because someone might laugh out loud at work enough to snarf up their morning coffee.  I hope your keyboard isn’t ruined.

Things have been interesting this past week:  I went to the doctor’s office on Tuesday and found out that I was 1 cm dilated and 70% effaced.  Which, after reading all this mumbo-jumbo about being pregnant you would think meant that I was going to go into labor that very day… but no.  I can be at like 3 cm dilated and 90% effaced for weeks and still not give birth to a baby.  So, my initial excitment of having this kid was completely diminished by reality– I’m still fucking pregnant.

But the next day, I lost my mucus plug.  For some people, according to pregnancy literature, it’s like a giant ball of snot in your panties.  For me, it was a discharge with brown and pink streaks, like some post-modern expressionistic art on my clean white panties.  (BTW, for future reference, don’t wear white panties while pregnant.  It will just gross you out whenever you do laundry.)  I know this is TMI, but frankly, it’s the only way to explain why I decided to go get my hoo-ha checked out.  Because you don’t know what this groin pain/pelvic pain plus mucus plug feeling is and hell, you might as well figure it out.

Initially I just wanted to go to my OB’s office but they wouldn’t let me just get my cervix checked– I called two nurses before finally accepting their advice and seeing someone in the hospital, where I waited a long time to see an OB who told me that a) I’m fine. and b) the baby is doing great and c) I’m not in labor and what I’m describing is not labor.

No.  Really.  I mean, I could have told you that.  But couldn’t you have reassured me over the phone?

“We like to be extra careful here.”  -  Midwife from Johns Hopkins Hospital

That’s nice.  But you better let me have my sushi and champagne after this baby pops out of me though.  Lest I throw a crazy fit and bring on the apocalypse.

FYI: Baltimore City School Fair

Baltimore City School and Children’s Program Fair

“Our family loves living in the City, but WHERE are we going to send our kids to school?” “What about classes like ballet, martial arts, sports, and music? I don’t want to drive to the burbs for these opportunities!” Are these familiar questions in your house? If so, the Downtown Baltimore Family Alliance wants to help your family with answering these important questions.

On November 7, 2009 from 9 a.m. to noon, we will be hosting our second annual school and children’s programming fair—“Keeping Education Local: Early Childhood, School, and Programming Options for Downtown Baltimore Families” at Hampstead Hill Academy, 500 S Linwood Ave, Baltimore, MD 21224.

The fair will feature exhibitors from various local, walkable school options (elementary to high school), early childhood centers (pre-schools and daycares), as well as children’s programming options including dance, martial arts, fine arts, sports, and music classes available to families residing in downtown Baltimore neighborhoods.

Discovering Baltimore City Schools: The Saga Begins with My Tummy

I grew up in one of the best school districts in the country and went to one of the top high schools in the country in Howard County, MD.  It’s needless to say that I’m a little worried about sending my kids to public school in Baltimore City.  Afterall, if you were given the best public education your parents could give, shouldn’t you give the same to your own kids?  Isn’t that what being a parent is all about?  And isn’t it a bit selfish to want to stay in the city so you can walk to work, walk to the grocery story, tailgate for Ravens games in your backyard, and have spontaneous trips to Camden Yards instead of living in some quiet suburban idyll?

I’m really torn about moving out of the city.  In all cases, unless I move to Prince George’s County (which has a worse educational program than Baltimore City), my commute does not improve.  But I would like to have a great schools and still maintain some of the quality of living standards we have.  I know that’s selfish, but I work really hard to be able to live this way and I’m not sure I’m ready to give that up for a $3000/month mortage, chain restaurants, and a minivan.

So it’s time to really evaluate the City Schools on a personal level, not just grades and performance, but teachers and programs.  To see what is out there for the students and if and how the programs address kids with special needs or who are gifted and talented.  To determine whether or not to stay in the City or to leave for suburbia.  To start evaluating Baltimore City schools and see if it’s a lost cause or see if there is some way of making it work. 

It’s the beginning of the saga, and it begins with food.

Being 8 months pregnant and hungry all of the time gives you a different perspective on food.  It’s not just sustenance, or a necessary evil, it is the end all be all:  if I am hungry and I want to eat, I will eat and thereisnothingyoucandotostopme.  Even if it means eating the person next to me or stealing a french fry, so be it, I will do it.  I think about kids in btown that have similar hunger pangs and I can’t imagine being able to learn or concentrate when all I can think about is eating food.  Any kind of food.  But definitely some kind of food and preferably not the person sitting next to them.

It turns out though, that Baltimore City has a universal breakfast program for kids, such that any kid can get a free breakfast without cost.  It’s supposed to reduce the stigma against kids that can’t afford breakfast in the morning but also has some other great benefits:  better participation and scores in classes, reduction in tardiness, and additional federal grant money.  Hooray!

The lunch menu  didn’t look bad either, and although I haven’t actually had a school lunch, I was impressed.  Asian stir-fry with snow peas?  Fresh fruit?  Side Salads?  That to me was fantastic compared to my memories of mystery meat and mashed potatoes– and really actually reassuring to me that my kids would be okay with school provided lunch.  (Although, I did love my french fries with gravy as a kid.)  And hold on– they use local produce and Baltimore City has their own 33-acre farm to help provide the school system with an educational means of providing food for the kids?

To top it all off, Baltimore City was recognized recently the Johns Hopkins Center for a Livable Future for being the first Meatless Mondays school system in the country.  And if you look at the Monday menu, the options aren’t bad: vegetarian chili, pasta primavera, grilled cheese, plus some other choices.  I don’t recall that kind of incentive in the county, nor do I remember any drive to make the county’s school lunch program sustainable, although in all fairness, that was DECADES ago.

Still, this kind of news really impresses me– a school system driven to provide healthier, sustainable food for students.  It really appeals to my county girl, hippy, liberal mentalities.  I will definitely have to check out the food in the future, but seriously, BCPSS:  you have gained a point on the PRO side for staying in the city.

Netflix Baby DVDs – What to Watch, What not to Watch

I’m not one of those soon-to-be-moms that always knew that I would be a mom.  So when I found out I was pregnant, I decided to read and watch everything about it.  This includes the Netflix DVDs that dealt with birthing or newborn care.  The following is a quickie review of the ones I have watched so far, what is good about them, what is bad about them, and whether or not I would watch them again.  I will note that I’m not a pro-homebirther and I tend to like informational movies versus sentimental ones.

The Laugh and Learn Series – About Childbirth

This DVD is by far the best “childbirth DVD” out on Netflix.  I felt that it was very thorough in describing the stages of labor and what to ask in regards to your labor progress.  The pros were that you learned a lot from the one DVD and she was actually pretty funny.  The con was the Viacord ad in the middle, but you ignore that.  Everything else was just practical knowledge.  A definite watch– I made the hubby watch it too.

The Laugh and Learn Series – Newborn Care

I felt that this was a little short, but because it was only an hour long, it wasn’t unbearable.  I also appreciated the use of a real baby for bathing and swaddling, which was much better than say, having a doll to practice on.  Pros:  Learn how to swaddle and bath a baby.  Con:  Didn’t feel like it covered everything.  It was worth it to watch for the two items, but you will definitely need to watch another.

The Laugh and Learn Series – Breastfeeding

(I need to somehow be able to stifle the immature giggle fits whenever I see breasts in these DVDs.  I mean, I know they’re going to show them in the breastfeeding DVD– it is about breasts!)  I really enjoyed watching this DVD because everyone was telling me that breastfeeding is HARD.  But seeing someone else do it, seeing the positions, and ways of doing it was really helpful, especially the tips to make engorgement easier and the way to breastfeed.  (Sheri advocates 15 minutes on each side and pump the rest out.  I know that’s not how they tell people to do it now, but it does seem like a viable alternative.)  Pros:  Very thorough breastfeeding DVD.  Cons:  Boob alert!  A definite yes for the queue.

The Baby Whisperer

Do not watch this DVD if you get creeped out by a blonde woman whispering to babies and talking about how babies feel.  I’m sorry– I just couldn’t take it.  She had some useful tips, but in general I wanted to gag the entire time.  I did like her tip of talking to the baby and explaining what you were doing but her reasoning for it was ridiculous.  I understand how some women would love her books, but man, the DVD is a waste of time.

The Baby Human

I loved this DVD– I just found all of the “experiments” fascinating.  It’s definitely good for those of you that are geeking out a little over the baby. 

The Baby Human 2

Isn’t as good as The Baby Human.  It’s really not as fascinating and I found that a lot of the conclusions weren’t as plausible, although I’m not an expert in this in any way.  I just also wasn’t as interested in the topics, although I can see how others would be.  It’s not worth the time.

The Business of Being Born

This movie is essentially propoganda AGAINST hospitals and FOR midwives and homebirthing (which is another entry for me to tackle another time.)  I found it extremely biased, but more importantly, ignorant and blase of the scientific breakthroughs that have made labor better for people. 

I wouldn’t recommend watching this movie at all, except that I found in enpowering in one way:  LEARN TO DEMAND CONTROL OVER YOUR OWN LABOR.  I think that knowledge over everything else will help you have a better labor and this DVD helped me see that.  I definitely won’t be homebirthing (bloody sheets and sitting a pool of blood, amniotic fluid, and fecal matter doesn’t appeal to me) but the message of controlling your own birth in the hospital setting hit home.  In combination with the LandL:  About Childbirth DVD, I feel a little bit more in control of my labor, or at least what I want out of my labor. 

Orgasmic Birth

I swear I did not make this name up.

After watching the Business of Being Born, I was expecting to hate this DVD.  But, despite the labor porn and the moaning, and the crazy woman Amber in the end (yes, I know!) I actually liked the movie.  It was still propaganda against hospitals, but the difference between this movie and the Business of Being Born was the relationship of the man and the woman in birthing.  Instead of having the woman screaming “I hate you for doing this to me!” or the man not really doing much at all during birthing, the woman and man were kissing and touching and supporting each other in labor– and I found THAT amazing.  I mean, I have been prepared this past few months to scream obscenities at the hubby during delivery, but the concept that we could be massaging each other and kissing each other during labor was really rather enlightening.  I really would love if my husband would kiss me and tell me that I’m going a great job and massage my lower back during labor.    That and the movie did re-emphasize the need for women to tune into their bodies instead of listening to someone else about what to do with their bodies, and taking control over their own labor, was nicer in this DVD.  It was less about FEAR and more about self-confidence. 

I do recommend this DVD.  I mean, there are times where I laughed out loud inappropriately, but I liked the overall message.  There is still some fear-mongering, but I felt that you could still get something out of the movie to take to the hospital and have it apply there.

Bringing Baby Home

Okay, a lot of this was review by now, except for one thing:  THE CARSEAT CAN BE INSTALLED ON A ROLLED UP TOWEL FOR PROPER ANGLING.  That was completely new!  Oh, and it was great to see a baby fart and poop while being bathed– it just made the whole thing so much more realistic.  I didn’t like the whole recovery timeline though– it made it sound like I could just bounce up a day after delivery.  I want my full 6 weeks!!!

I found it more thorough, although a bit more anal too, than the LandL: Newborn Care DVD.  So it’s a definitely watch.

 ***

And that’s all of the DVDs I’ve watched so far. I’ve got a few more on the queue, but I think I might skip them.  I would definitely recommend Bringing Baby Home, The Laugh and Learn DVDs, Orgasmic Birth, and the Baby Human 1– about 7 hours of DVDs.

Week 35: Back from DC

I just had a half a week of commuting from a hotel room in downtown DC to my job in Alexandria.  Metro ride was 25 minutes and there was maybe a total of 15 minutes walking each way.  Comparing this to my heinous 2 hour train ride every day each way is like comparing heaven and hell– they are polar opposites in every way.  I still love my job… I just really hate my commute.  How I suffer for my husband to not ever have to get in a car to go to work!!!

… … …

My husband is one lucky son-of-a-gun for finding me as his wife.

I have never been one for mass. Sorry Grandma.

Hanoori Town, Catonsville MD

My mother and I have a Sunday tradition that has stemmed from a) me living 25 minutes away from her, b) Ben working on Sundays and c) not being really religious, despite the Catholic heritage (which is a whole other entry!)   The tradition is simple:  get together with mom for shopping and lunch.  And preferably, do not spend a fortune on either.  This can mean a lot of things:  dim sum, hamburgers, Panera, or anything else we venture out to try.  But usually, it is one thing:  Hanoori Town.

Hanoori town is a small “shopping plaza/food court” between the HMart and the Starbucks in Catonsville.  It is not big from the outside, but once you enter, it contains 3 different Korean “restaurants,” a shaved ice stand, a cell phone/jewelry stand, and a mammoth home goods store in the basement.  The home goods store is very Korean, meaning that if you desire a Kim Chi refrigerator, it’s the place to go!  And if you desire, say, cheap lunch, the food restaurants are definitely the best bargains.

On Saturdays and Sundays, everything is a la cart, but during the week, the sushi buffet it $11 for a huge selection of a sushi and an amazing salad bar. But the a la cart the food is amazing:  we consistently get bimbimbap ($8) in a sizzling casserole wih kim chi and soup and have tried lots of other dishes.  My favorite right now is a beef soup with stomach and intestine ($12), which sounds offaw/awful, but is extremely delicate without any bile-flavor.  It comes with rice and kim chi and is extremely soothing in cold weather, and for some reason, craveable when pregnant.  There are lots of other dishes that I have yet to try, but they are all very affordable– especially with the amount of food you get.

The shaved ice stand (Mango Berry) is also very good, although I think the 5.95? specialty ice is the way to go.  It’s so good in the summer and definitely something to share as it is HUGE.  Red beans, ice, condensed milk, mochi, fresh fruit– it’s divine!

I love Hanoori Town– it reminds me of the shopping centers in Taiwan– nothing fancy, but really affordable food and everything extremely fresh.  And as I don’t foresee the hubby and I moving anytime soon, I think it’s a tradition I will be sharing with my family.  At least until Chinese school starts.