35 Weeks, 4 Days

It's 5 am, and I can't sleep. I'd been worried that I wasn't feeling Baby-G move nearly as much as last week, but I'm worried no longer, because the last hour has been all movement. As babies hit the last month, all of their organs and bone structure have developed, but they're still skin and bones and immature lungs. While they pack on the fat and the lungs develop, they get large enough to start finally displacing amniotic fluid, which is absorbed back into the mother's body. This results in less fluid for them to move around in, which changes the way it feels to the mother. I'd say it's like she used to practice Kung Fu and now has taken up Tai Chi.

As we were getting ready for bed, I was looking at the toilet longingly, and C said "You just went." "I know," I told him, "but it feels like I have to go again." Unfortunately, when there's a little foot massaging your bladder, it feels like you constantly need to go to the bathroom. I know I haven't drunk any water in the last 6 hours, and that I've gone 3 times in the last 3 minutes that I've been up, but it feels like I still need to go. Occasionally it feels extremely urgent and pressing, but it's just her body weighing upon my squished bladder. Do your Kegels. Besides the sexual benefits, they're a lifesaver in the last month as you try to prevent yourself from peeing at the slightest movement, and I've had multiple mom's tell me they prevent uterine prolapse when you're older.

I have so, so, so much more respect for moms now. Before I used to think "Whatever, it's a personal choice that you have to live through. You make your bed, you lie in it." Etc. etc. from my former hard-ass self. I think I have now probably stopped taking for granted the fact that when I was born, my mom had to go through all-of-this. On my 30th birthday this year I called my mom and thanked her. Because holy shit, this pregnancy thing is hard. I lucked out and had a ridiculously easy first and second trimester, and I still have come to that conclusion.

I finally talked to the HR company that handles leave-of-absences, and yesterday a "case-manager" called me back to verify dates/info/etc. I'd already gone over this info the day before with another staffer, but hey, I know bureaucracy, I've worked here going on 6 years, I'm cool, I can talk it over again. They already had wanted me to call only two weeks in advance of my expected leave date in order to simplify paperwork, so I was expecting them to have other arcane needs. Except this one won the most awkward conversation of the year award. She asks me my height and weight, and then apologetically tells me I don't need to answer either of those if I don't want to. I ask her whether she wants pre-pregnancy or current weight. She says she thinks she is asking for current weight. She asks me the gender of my future child. She asks if I'm planning on having a vaginal birth. I'm not sure if it was her, or me, or the phone connection, but I wanted her to be confident, clear and concise in her questions, and I wasn't getting it. I gave up when she asked "So...have you been feeling any symptoms of pregnancy?"

I thought this:
"You mean besides the bloating, thicker head hair, less body hair, softer skin, fast-growing nails, constant yet intermittent elimination, ginormous belly, excess fluids (including drool - I didn't mention that one in the last blog entry), increased hunger, grumpy-ass mood when dealing with phone-tards, and pelvic pain? Or the living, growing, BEING IN MY BELLY? Why no, no symptoms at all."
I said this:
"You mean besides the huge belly?"

I then passively-aggressively gave her 3-out-of-5 ratings in the phone survey afterwards instead. Apparently if you want to talk to me, come bearing ice cream.

***

I don't have a 9/11 story besides waking up at my dorm in college, seeing the TV on in Clam Lounge and just watching the news in dazed confusion. But I do have an atomic bomb story, because without the atomic bomb, I wouldn't be here. I don't think about this often, but when I do, I'm thankful for the Manhattan Project, which is a confusing thing to be thankful for. In WWII, the Japanese occupied Malaysia in the same timed offensive as their attack on Pearl Harbor. My mother's father made the mistake of giving money to the Malaysian resistance. They made the mistake of writing down his name. He was taken to a Japanese POW camp and tortured. The specifics that my mom told me a long time ago, besides the typical starvation and desperation, was that he was forced to drink water, and then the soldiers would jump on his stomach or beat him until the water came out. I always used to wonder why the phrase "Chinese Water Torture" was so culturally endemic in America, when the Japanese version seemed so much more effective.

Without the atomic bomb, most likely my grandfather would have died in that camp, instead of surviving to be released and fathering my mom and two more girls. Even though he survived, my mom referred to him as having been broken by the camp, though she only could have known the broken version. She sounds almost relieved when she talks about his death. This is what torture does. It breaks people - that's the point. Knowing this, when I first read about the Geneva Convention in school, I was so thankful that humanity had come far enough, or reached such a dark state and recovered, that it knew better than to ever do it again. And this is why it makes me so ashamed to live in a country that openly broke and possibly no longer follows the Conventions. Not having any more Great War survivors is irrelevant when we can't even remember the lessons from WWII.

My family knows first-hand what torture does, how useless it is, and that it is self-propagating. The individual impact of any country's torture policy is never forgotten. The small jabs in my bladder from my unborn daughter would be barely noticeable to my grandfather, but they do make me think of him, and hope that the future generations will similarly be able to get past the torture we continue to inflict, the wars we continue to wage, and the mistakes we are doomed to repeat.