I’d have you thinking that my life is so glamorous — days full of spinning classes, expensive client lunches at some smug fusion-y San Francisco restaurant, jogging in the park, pedicures and facials. But honestly, the hours merely comprise of long conference calls, email volleys, some finance writing, traffic, breast-pumping, poop cleaning, cooking and gibberish talking with my new little girlfriend.

All this makes for one haggard working mommy by the time little one is in bed.

But whatever — that’s no excuse. What I want to do with this blog now is discuss life as a working mother. A) That’s pretty much all I know right now;  B) Anything else requires too much brain power that my sluggish mind can’t handle for at least a few more months; and C) online mommies are the coolest and I hope to meet more of you via common interests and life experiences.

So, topic #1 stems from something that happened to me this week that made me realize that the moment I became a mother I lost the ability to be embarrassed about bodily functions and nudity/partial nudity.

My company rents space in a shared-office situation where a bunch of companies are together on one floor of a building. Each office essentially is one room – with some able to accommodate about 12 or 15 desks; others simply one-desk “lockers” with a phone and Internet connection. There is a common lobby area with a kitchen, arcade machine and weird chairs shaped liked puzzle pieces.

It’s a great collaborative environment for new, growing companies. Not so great, however, for someone who needs to pull her boobs out and pump a few times a day. (There are no walls within our office.)

After some really annoying arm-pulling to even get me a private space for breast pumping, the building office manager finally agreed to let me use empty offices as they are available. By the way, doesn’t anyone know that this is a pretty essential need for a new mother who’s breastfeeding? It’s not as if I’m in there throwing a party or conspiring to take over the world. I’m only trying to keep up the milk supply Addi needs to grow. Sheesh!

So now I endure stern looks from the receptionist desk every time I ask about room availability. They unlock a little locker for me to use, which I appreciate more than I can say. They never seem happy about it, but whatever. I just need an outlet and a door that locks and I’m golden.

This has been a great setup so far. I can pump in peace and privacy and my baby still gets her breast milk when I’m not there.

UNTIL …… Wednesday afternoon. I’m sitting there with my boobs hooked up and I hear some keys jangling. Just as I’m about to say “occupied!” the door swings open and a young dude is staring at me blankly. Apparently, they were showing the space to a potential renter and forgot I was in there.

Huh, I think and continue pumping.

Huh? Huh? Really? Someone just witnessed me milking my bare breasts like a cow and all I can do is shrug my shoulders and continue to browse Facebook while my cycle finishes. Prior to child birth, I would’ve been mortified. Mortified! Afterward? Not so much. Sure, it sucks to expose yourself to a stranger. But whatever, man. Gotta feed my baby.

And it’s exactly that reaction that made me realize my complete loss of embarrassment when it comes to these things. It’s either a side effect of just not having time to deal with it in that way or a sign of Addi’s ability to completely distract me from everything.

What have the last few weeks felt like? Let’s see — at one point I would’ve said it felt like waiting for Christmas to arrive as a kid, that feeling of trying to get to sleep knowing that a fat man in a red suit was going to break into my house at night and suspiciously leave presents I’d been wanting for a long time. (Remember that this was perceived as a good thing to an American kid.) Yeah, those were the light-hearted early days of waiting.

Then there have been days where my mind has wandered into the abyss of “holy shit what if something’s really wrong here?” These have not been fun days, and most likely counterproductive to the process of allowing my body to go into labor. Luckily, I’ve been able to talk myself down from this tree each time this has happened. Positive, Jess, positive. There’s nothing wrong and even if there were it can be managed like everything else. Everything is just fine. All is as it should be. Breathe. She will come when she’s ready.

Then there were a few nutso moments where I had an incredible urge to punch anyone who asked me about the status of my pregnancy. Of course, I controlled myself as I realize these questions from friends and family are all out of love and how wonderful to be loved so much by so many! But it’s the questions from strangers that have nearly put me over the edge. Headlines dashed through my mind at moments, “Overdue Preggie Loses Control, Whacks Grocery Store Clerk With Cabbage.”

And I’ve had quite a few hours of one-sided conversation with my baby. I’ve been trying to tell her it’s OK to come out, that the world is ready and we are ready. She can take her time but eventually that time may run out. That wouldn’t be the end of the world, but most likely wouldn’t be the sort of relaxed birth we’d like for her, involving many more needles, knives and other instruments we’re trying to avoid.

Today we’re at d-day plus 8. We had a great set of tests done yesterday to confirm that Addi is healthy and happy, the placenta is healthy and functioning and that there’s really nothing to worry about right now. The order is to just wait.

And so I wait patiently yet another day — this time with pretty noticeable stomach cramps (could it be? could it be?). I’m not going to play these psychological games with her or myself anymore, though. Plenty of babies are born more than a week late, and what does this EDD mean anyway? That’s sort of the funny part of the whole maternity care experience. When it comes down to it, every woman, baby and birth is so vastly different that it’s comical to even think that we can force protocols into place as if there’s a magic standard at work here.

So far, as Tom Petty once said, the waiting is the hardest part …

We are now officially at 40 weeks pregnancy – or one day past the “guess date” that doctors stamped on our file 9 months ago. Your father and I are anxiously awaiting your arrival (as are the rest of the family, friends and colleagues scattered around the world). One of the things I’m recommended to do during this special waiting period is to write you a letter.

What can I say? I am already enamored by you. I am already smitten and in love and I haven’t even seen your eyes yet. I already find myself looking out for your best interest, thinking about your future, instinctually protecting you.

We don’t know much about you at this point, but we hope you will see the world as we do: open to possibility, free from restrictions, diverse, complicated, simple, loving. There will be plenty of time to tell you the story of how your father and I met, how we became friends and finally realized love 3,000 miles from the first hello. But I won’t get into all that just yet.

As your mother, I wish a lot of things for you of course, but perhaps my biggest one at this point is that we can provide you with a deep understanding of all sides of your family, past and present. You are a first of many things for all of us — our first baby, the first grandchild on your father’s side, the first girl grandchild on my side, the first mixed-race grandchild on both sides. It’s important to me that you know stories and culture of both sides, but also that you understand you are new – you represent something entirely new and we fully expect you to embrace this throughout your life. In fact, when we finally landed on a suitable name for you, this was a driving force behind it. “Addis” means “new” in Amharic, and we decided to complement it with “Desta” which means joy.

You are literally our new joy!

As you grow up, you’ll hear many stories about our family. You’ll hear a lot about your grandpa Swesey, who unfortunately passed on much too early, but lives through our memories. I hope you inherit his easy, likable spirit. He was an “everyman” kind of person who always had fun, but never compromised his responsibilities because of it. People always took an instant liking to his warmth and sense of humor. He taught me to stand up for myself and for the working people, to not ever ignore old friends for new ones, and mainly to work hard for what I wanted in life. He also showed me that life should be fun.

Then of course, there’s your other grandpa, who has been declared “the most wonderful man on earth” by many in his family. He defines selflessness, love and leadership. He has led a truly amazing life, full of travel and adventure. And yet, he takes it all in stride as if it’s no big deal. Right now he’s working hard to pass on the educational opportunity he had as a young boy to young kids in Ethiopia who need it desperately to improve their future. His focus on “Hope Through Education” is inspirational to us all.

Your grandmothers — both strong, loving and wonderful women. They just happen to be polar opposites, which is pretty cool when you think about it. I’m thinking you truly will not have any sort of disposition toward assumptions about people because of how diverse your family is on all levels.

OK, that’s enough family history for now. My other secret wish for you is that you discover an innate talent for endurance running. Don’t worry, I don’t plan to force this on you in any way. But I personally have fallen in love with this activity these last 5 or 6 years and have zero talent for it. I just love doing it. And it’s pretty well known that Ethiopian women comprise the most elite and fastest runners in the world. Whether you like it or not, though, you and I will be running through Golden Gate park together starting in approximately 6 weeks. You will be snuggled up in a jogging stroller, but I do hope you enjoy the smell of the eucalyptus trees as much as I do.

I also hope that you never take yourself too seriously. I find that this is a quality I really admire in people and have tried to use it to keep myself grounded throughout life.

The other thing is that there’s this really cute boy named North ….

Oh and I hope you like our smiling faces because you will be seeing a lot of them!

With love and anticipation,
Your mother

One of the things you quickly learn while pregnant is that everyone — and I mean EVERYONE — has advice to give. Don’t get me wrong, it comes from a good place. And god help me had it not been for the advice that has really helped me along the way. It’s just kind of funny when you start to get advice from total strangers or better yet – people who don’t even have kids! For this, I will open up the list with my thoughts on advice….

Best advice: By far, some of the top advice I’ve received has been to not engage in conversations about birth with people you don’t know or who don’t have your best interests in mind (with more concern for relaying their own stories). They will inevitably launch into how HORRIBLE their birth was, blah blah blah. Excruciating pain. Long labor. Vacuums, c-sections, you name it. This is sooooooo true.

If you’re like me and plan to do it your own way AND enjoy the experience (pain be damned), then it’s best to just not go there. The truth is that there are plenty of awesome birth stories out there where everyone was laughing and smiling and enjoying themselves. If this sounds foreign to you, it’s because the horror stories are the ones that sell on TV, in movies and in people’s own minds.

Also, get a doula. I did and I’m so glad. We love her like family and she’s made us feel so capable and confident in this whole process. She will ensure that the safety circle around me is not messed with so Mekuria and I can focus on the relaxing birth we’ve planned for.

Worst advice: Take it easy and eat what you want. This is not so bad on the surface, but often comes from a dated point of view. Sure, you don’t want to go out and lift subcompact cars for fun while pregnant. I actually kept up my regular exercise routine through most of the first and second trimesters, cutting back on some running miles as I battled fatigue and a growing belly. It made me feel better and I believe helped me stave off things like high blood pressure, rapid weight gain, even deeper fatigue and anxiety.

Best book: Like many first-time preggers, I found myself reading a ton of books and Web sites. By far, though, the BEST book I read was loaned to me by a friend who has two kids of her own. “Ina May’s Guide to Childbirth” was the best thing I ever could have picked up at my midway point. It got my head into the birth, which I knew would come eventually but hadn’t spent much time pondering yet at that point. This book is pretty “beads and granola” as my boss would say. Put another way: it is super hippie. The first half is a collection of birth stories written by women who gave birth naturally with midwives – many of which took place at “the farm” where Ina May Gaskin and her team of midwives assist in non-hospital births. Yeah, it is that hippie.

But even despite my cynicism, this ended up being the best experience for me. Not only did it show me that natural birth can be achieved, but it also gave me some context as to why in the age of interventions and drugs a woman would want to do this. It made me realize that childbirth is not a medical procedure, but rather a natural physiological experience. What’s funny is my friend looked me in the eye and said, “You will want a home birth after you read this.” And at the time, I smiled and thought, um sure. But by the time I got halfway through I was seeing exactly what she meant. In fact, if I had a midwife, the confidence of a first birth already, and a nice quiet home with space for this, I would’ve gone the home birth route, birthing tub and all. If I have another child, I know that I will indeed plan a home birth (as long as everything is good and normal of course).

Worst book: OK, I can’t really say I read a “worst book,” but I can say that I have come across some pretty lame Web sites. I’m in the content business so maybe my point of view is different. But peruse through a handful of sites on one issue or question and you quickly see how many copy or license the same content. Hell, some are just outright ad traps where every other word is a sponsored link. This is true of many subjects though, not just pregnancy. It just really jumped out at me on this journey.

Clothing I’ve missed the most: I’m pretty down to earth, physically active, and love to be practical. However, I love heels and have not been able to wear any for quite some time now. I can’t wait to don my heels again!

Clothing I will miss the most: I do sort of miss zippers, but it’s also pretty kick ass to wear pants with elasticized waistbands all the time without venturing too far into the dowdy zone.

Best food: My two favorite foods have been fruit (any and all kinds) and vanilla ice cream with chocolate sauce poured over. (And yes, I am aware at how cliche this is, but I don’t care.)

Worst food: One day I decided to grab some vegetarian sushi rolls for lunch. I thought I was being good because raw fish is a big no-no while pregnant (and also one of my favorite things to eat) so I opted for the less exciting and downright bland avocado and cucumber rolls. However, I washed them down with a little wasabe on them not really thinking. BIG MISTAKE! This set off a red alert in my system and my esophagus proceeded to burn burn burn like the world’s best Talking Heads tune through the afternoon and night.

Funniest “only when you’re pregnant” story: OK, pretty much everyone knows that pregnant women have to pee constantly. Believe it or not this constant urge to urinate actually accelerates in the final weeks. (yeah, like how is that even possible!!??!!) Anyway, I left my office one evening to venture home, stopped at the bathroom on my way out and walked about one block down the street towards my bus stop. Waiting to cross the street, I was hit with an unforgiving urge to pee right then and there. I just happened to be right in front of my gym too, so rather than walk back to the office to hit the lav, I checked into my gym, used the bathroom and checked right back out. Nice workout, eh? I call it the preggie lady squat.

Strangest thing a stranger said to me: “Any day now!” (this when I was only 4 months and beginning to show – what??!!)

What I’ll miss the most: The kindness of strangers; Mekuria’s foot massages; the ease with which I can make myself relax – even in the most stressful situations. I’ll also miss feeling my baby move inside me. And, despite the Christmas-eve-like agony of waiting out these last few weeks, I’ll sort of miss the mystery of my little girl. (By the way, just typing “my little girl” made me a little weepy.)

What I will NOT miss at all: Well, this last month people have had no qualms about staring at my belly and even mouthing the word “wow!” right in front of me. I guess I will not miss that. Definitely will not miss the feeling of being trapped on either my left or right side while sleeping. Normally I’m a thrasher who needs to sleep on all sides, front and back. (I burn a lot of calories when I sleep.)

Hardest month: I would love to be able to say the first and last months, but I didn’t even know I was pregnant the first month so I guess it wasn’t that hard. The second month, though, when I did find out was fraught with nausea, drop-dead fatigue, bloating and constipation. Definitely the hardest month for me.

Easiest month: Somewhere around the fourth to fifth month life became blissful. I had told everyone who needed to know. My belly was growing and I was feeling and looking more pregnant rather than just fat. But I was still able to work out at the gym, sleep through the night, and birth seemed so far away. Yeah, that was a good month!

So far, the hardest week will definitely be this last one (or two?) as we anxiously await a sign – any sign – that baby is packing up and moving down. Soon, soon, soon….

This means that often I find myself staring at my husband while he sleeps, studying him for signs of Addi. Will she have his nose? His forehead? His cheeks?

The other day I found myself flipping through the sonogram pics on my phone while I was on the bus. I stopped at the one of her hand and studied it closely. It’s already been 12 weeks since then and I miss those regular glimpses we had in the beginning.

“She has your hands,” I told Mekuria as we woke up this morning. I’d been looking at his hands during my early early morning wake before drifting back to sleep for awhile.

Only two months now until we see for ourselves what she looks like — who she looks like. I already feel butterflies just thinking about her smiling at me for the first time. The road ahead has never been so mysterious and exciting.

“It was the kind of kiss that could change the world.”  – the opening line reads. The article then shows one woman’s perspective of state marriage ban laws. As a young white girl in 1948, she found herself in love with a black man. California’s ban on interracial marriage forced the couple to have to leave the state in order to get married.

Fast forward to 2000. Times had changed for sure. I was a young girl finding my way around San Francisco in the midst of the dot-com carnage. Jobs were pretty scarce for recent grads with little experience. Rents were still bloated from all the people who’d flocked here chasing Internet dreams of rich business adventures. But somehow I still had a purpose here.

My close Ethiopian friend from college had invited me to stay with him and roommates until I figured out what to do next. I took a silly side job working for a tie dye t-shirt company so I could pay my portion of rent, bills and food. My friend — Mekuria — and I would meet up after working hours each day in downtown San Francisco to catch the BART train to the East Bay together.

And then one day, for whatever reason I do not know, I felt such joy at seeing his face in the crowd that I instinctively moved in for a kiss as we met. This wasn’t a friendly kiss on the cheek, nor was it “gross, go get a room” type of public make-out session. It swept my heart up and “was the kind of kiss that could change the world” so to speak.

I knew then that I had always been in love with Mekuria, but had never opened myself up to the idea because we worked so well as friends.

The rest, as they say, is history. Almost nine years later, I have the privilege of waking up next to him every day and calling him my husband. When I count my blessings, he is always on top. I watch him sleep and smile at the thought of our child being the next chapter of us.

I often take for granted the fact that we were allowed to be married in California a few years ago. But I guess that’s the point of all those who came before us. It’s true that we still get stares from people and can never really go anywhere without being noticed. But much of the time it’s more a happy look than one of disapproval. I look back at the couples who came before us and I understand why they would endure prejudice. When you’re with someone you love, it really doesn’t matter what others think and you tend to forget that it’s unusual from other people’s point of view.

But I do want to thank those who had the courage to stand up for the love they believed in, for taking on state laws in groundbreaking lawsuits.

Thanks to them, I didn’t think twice about that kiss on a public street nine years ago that would change my life forever.

The amount of stuff we’ve thrown out in the past week has convinced me that no matter how often we move actual residences we should at least trick ourselves into thinking we’re moving every year. The cleansing is so cathartic, and this level of cleaning can only happen when you think you’re going to have to physically carry this stuff from one place to another. Suddenly, that makes it easier to part with junk rather than just think, oh I’ll hang onto it a little while longer.

But with the new excitement of starting within a new set of walls comes the unfortunate sadness of closing the door on this chapter. Mekuria and I have lived in our little one-bedroom apartment for four and a half years – the longest either of us have lived anywhere since leaving home after high school. We signed the lease as “boyfriend and girlfriend” and have signed the termination letter as married, expecting parents. What an awesome four years it’s been!

And there are so many details I will miss. I can’t even count the number of times I’ve watched the fog roll in across the Eucalyptus trees that line the top of Golden Gate Park, visible from the living room windows. I’ve always loved listening to the foghorns blowing at 6 a.m. at the bridge while getting dressed for work. I’ll miss the landlord’s cute broken English on the answering machine, saying “I am Gina,” which in no way is meant to be condescending as I’m sure if I tried to speak to her in Mandarin it would be so broken as to be deemed entirely shattered.

I’ll even miss telling the story of how we moved into this place – our UHaul broken down on a steep San Francisco hill, gliding backwards into oncoming traffic. The two of us waiting for the tow truck in the rain for two hours as we watched the chaos unfold due to our truck blocking city buses from getting by. And just that moment where we realized how funny it looked to arrive at our new home in a tow truck with the UHaul hitched to the back.

I’ve lived in lots of apartments, but it’s hard to say good-bye to this one.

Onward we must go, though, as we prepare our lives for the biggest change of all – our new baby girl! It’s true that we’re only moving about three blocks down the street, but three blocks is actually a big change of scenery. I definitely won’t have a view of that fog across the tower and trees anymore. And I doubt we’ll hear the foghorns, even in the wee hours of morning before most of the city awakes.

But I will have my new child’s eyes to gaze into, which I think will easily trump the serenity I felt in all these other things. So it’s cleaning and packing and moving and unpacking…  It was nice knowing you little apartment!

Jess at week 19

In a previous life, I was much better about packing my lunch for work. Most weeks I brown-bagged my way through Wednesday at the least and sometimes made it through Thursday without eating out.

But lately I’ve been short on time in the morning (as well as imagination, energy and motivation to predict what it is I’ll be hungry for later in the day). I’ll pack up the whole kitchen as mid-morning snacks — one banana, one yogurt, one granola bar and a piece of fruit for emergencies, but lunch gets put on the backburner.

Luckily, I have a lot more choices for lunch these days from when I used to work in a smaller town across the bay. But most days I tend to find myself at the Whole Foods grocery store behind our building, rummaging the hot and cold food bars. And it is here on this day that I’ve discovered these bars indeed are a match made in heaven for a pregnant lady.

Have a look at my lunch today:

Mac & cheese, mashed potatoes, creamed spinach, steamed veggies, cabbage salad, ceasar salad and one potato samosa. All in the same box. And I could’ve added more, but the cost was rising with each choice.

Needless to say, baby is very happy right now as this comfort food settles into my stomach and sends vitamin packets of love through my bloodstream.

All in all, though, I think I’ve been a pretty good eater once I got out of the puke phase of pregnancy. For snacks, I almost always choose fresh fruit, cheese and crackers or granola. Sure, I’ve splurged a few times on chocolate chip cookies, mint chocolate chip ice cream, or bagels. But I would’ve done that regardless and chalked it up to another a few miles on a Saturday run.

The main difference in my eating now is that when I’m hungry it’s pretty close to a DEFCON situation, which is why I’d rather have more things on my desk not eaten than nothing at all. Now that I think of it, I’m down to one single orange and it’s only 1 p.m.

Good thing Whole Foods is a 2-minute walk out the door. I just might be back for a Mango Lassie.

Here’s a funny thing that happened to me today:

My OB called me and left a voicemail while I was on a conference call at work today. She wanted to check in to remind me to call the main appointment line to make my next appointment to see her. Knowing how long it can take to get these appointments, I immediately call to get scheduled. Then the person on the line tells me they cannot actually make an appointment for me because this particular doctor is not the one on my file as my primary physician. What I need to do is call the HMO’s member services center, which I do, and leave a voice message that hopefully someone with a pulse will eventually hear and call me back.

So now I’ve got a call in, waiting for a response from someone who can change my records so that I can again call the appointment services line and make an appointment to see the one OB I’ve actually seen since starting with this HMO several years ago.

This is why I kind of laugh when people ask me since I’ve become pregnant how I like my doctor. You mean the nice lady who met with me for approximately 12 minutes 10 weeks ago that I’ve been trying to reach? Um, sure. Yeah I guess so. Or do you mean my primary doctor whom I’ve  never actually met because my HMO did away with annual pelvic exams and she was on maternity leave when I happened to get pregnant? That, I can’t really answer because like I said, I’ve never actually met my doctor.

I’m getting a midwife. No offense to the nice lady who examined me 10 weeks ago. I’ll still see you for the requisite bloodwork and other stuff. But I’m feeling more and more like I need the care and attention of a midwife to get through this childbirth experience. I’d like to know there will be at least one familiar face in the delivery room besides Mekuria when that day comes and I’m feeling less confident that it’s possible with the current set up.