The Mystery of the Pregnant Mink

I've been wondering how wild animals handle pregnancy. My impression of life in the wild is that animals have to spend pretty much every waking moment foraging or hunting for food, and if they could gain weight, they would - but you hardly ever see a fat wild animal. I read an article about minks once, called "Living Hungry." A mink has to hunt continually, just to find enough food to survive. Their metabolisms are so high that if they don't make a kill and eat about once an hour, they die of starvation. They're an extreme example, but really life must be hard for any animal that doesn't have access to a grocery store. So when they get pregnant, how do they manage to put on the extra pounds?

Maybe they just spend more time eating, and less time keeping a watchful eye out for predators or defending their territories - they're forced to take additional risks in order to get enough calories. Or maybe they migrate to better hunting grounds or follow seasonal food, like whales traveling down the coast. (Though that raises the question of, if the hunting is better in those zones, why don't they just live there year-round?) It must be especially difficult for animals in temperate zones that mate in the fall and give birth in the springtime - because that means they have to gain all that weight in winter, the time of year when pickings are slimmest.

Or maybe in the wild, being pregnant is a normal state of affairs and most animals conceive every year, but then most of the babies die or get eaten. So it's a rare animal that spends a season non-pregnant or non-nursing, and without those extra demands on resources, that animal actually would be able to get fat. Maybe there is more "wiggle" room built into the system than it looks like - perhaps most animals don't have to spend all their time foraging just to survive, they eat until they're full and then have time to wander around doing other things (unless they're pregnant, in which case they just spend more time eating and less time wandering around). Still sounds like it's tough to be a mink.

I wonder about these things because, although I am not a mink, I have a high metabolism, and I'm not sure I can eat enough to gain the weight I'm supposed to. I try to snack extra, but then I usually don't have room for dinner, so I don't think I am managing to eat more than I did before I got pregnant. I think I am supposed to be gaining a pound a week from now on.

At the Clinic

I had a cool experience yesterday. I was calling around trying to find a place to get a flu shot, and found out that the city department of health gives them out for free (along with all kinds of other immunizations - childhood, preventive for travel, etc.). My tax dollars at work! They only give them out on Thursday afternoons, during a two-hour window, at a municipal building a couple miles from my office. So, I hustled on over there and found the building, which looked totally dark and deserted. The doors were unlocked, though, and the security guard told me to go up to the third floor. It was also dark and deserted. I wandered around trying doors, but they were all locked for the night. A cleaning crew was running a vacuum somewhere.

Then I tried another door, and it opened onto a hallway full of light, heat, conversation, and people. It was amazing. There must have been a hundred people there, standing and sitting against the wall, whole families, kids, people coughing. How did they all know where it was? Most of the people were Spanish-speaking and everyone looked tired. I put my name on the sign-up sheet and took my place at the end of the line. With all those people ahead of me, I figured I'd be there an hour.

To my surprise, they called me almost at once. I felt uncomfortably privileged as I walked past all the people and into the clinic. It turned out most of them were there for more complicated things, and there was a much shorter flu shot line inside the clinic.

As I sat down, the woman next to me smiled and said, "When is your baby due?" I turned to her with a million-watt grin. She's the first person who has noticed. I'm hardly showing at all yet. I said eagerly, "You can tell? You're the first! It's due in June," and just then the two women on the other side of me chimed in, saying, "I thought you were pregnant, the minute you came in," and everyone was congratulating me. They all traded theories on the baby's sex based on the way I'm carrying (all thought that it was a boy) and said that I was "carrying well" for my stage, though I'm not sure what that means. I felt lapped in friendship and sympathy and part of a community of women in that wonderful way I've felt just a few times before in my life. We were all different ethnicities and ages, and all laughing together like we'd been friends forever. It was just great.

Some Bold Plans

I've been researching places to give birth. The back seat of a taxi is looking like a better and better option. Just kidding.

Actually, after talking to a couple of hospitals in the area and touring a local birthing center, I am leaning toward the latter. It's basically an old farmhouse with three bedrooms - you show up when you're in labor, and a midwife checks on you periodically, and you have the baby all by yourself. The advantage is, no interventions, no pushy doctors, no fetal monitoring, no IV drips, no C-section. I'm worried to the point of obsession about being forced into a C-section. I know my body can do this on its own, given time. The down side of the birthing center is, no pain relief. They have hot showers, but no epidurals. When I told my friend that I was thinking of having natural childbirth there, she said, "You're brave." I don't think of it as brave though. I think of it as my only choice if I want to avoid being sliced up (now, and again for any child I might have in future).

I'm a little frustrated that it has to be this way. Despite the widespread availability of modern forms of pain relief, I'm going to have to do things the old, nineteenth-century way (actually, the way of all the previous centuries), suffering through every contraction, just because hospitals are so hyper and insane about interventions. I know that only 8-10% of women "need" a C-section (because their pelvises are too small, or because the presentation is wrong). But the hospitals in my area have a rate of 40%. Most of the time, the C-sections are given simply because doctors are tired of waiting and want to speed things up. It frustrates me that I have to hide at a birthing center just to escape that. Why can't it be my choice to labor as long as I want? Why can't I be the one to decide, instead of a doctor who doesn't even know me?

Anyhoo, so my job for the next six months is to psych myself up for natural childbirth. On days when I'm feeling good, it seems very doable. All those mantras about women's bodies being designed for it ring loud and clear. But then I stub my toe or hurt myself in some other way, and think, "Ahhh! I don't like pain! Make it stop!" and labor seems completely terrifying.

I also think I'd better keep my plans to myself. I just know that if I tell anyone, they will cheerfully say, "Hoo boy, you are crazy," and start relating tales of agony and try to convince me to go to the hospital. Even if it's really that bad, I don't need to hear about it. I need to be told, firmly and repeatedly, that it is fine and I can do it. "Si, se puede!"

Walking in Snowdrifts

It seems like I can't stay healthy for more than a few days at a time before I catch another cold. It feels like walking in deep snow, making just a little progress on the thin crust before I fall through into a mushy drift. I'm currently in the hacking-and-choking stage of the third cold of the winter. I managed to hold it at bay for a whole week - every morning I'd wake up with a sore throat and think, "This is it!" but then over the course of the day it would disappear, until I almost had hope that I was going to win.

Last Sunday the cold finally lost patience with me, stopped lurking, and went on the warpath. I went home early from work on Monday, fighting not to throw up in the bus. It was awful. The whole way home, I could feel my stomach heaving, and my throat starting to retch, and I just had to clamp my teeth shut and pray that no one was noticing. The second I got in the door to my apartment, I ran for the bathroom and threw up. It's not because of the pregnancy though. The baby's an innocent bystander, and actually hasn't caused me more than a few moments of nausea the whole time, which I appreciate. Although, I guess my immune system is probably suppressed on its behalf, and that's maybe why I'm getting sick so much.

I will also blame riding the bus, though, since people on the bus are always sick. It happens like this: I get on the bus, and invariably within a few minutes after I've sat down, the person next to me starts hacking. I quickly look away to inhale, hoping to get some uncontaminated air. The person on my other side chooses that moment to let loose a large, wet sneeze. I wait a moment or two so as not to seem rude, then quietly get up and move down the aisle to the standing-room-only section, where some guy launches a series of phlegmy coughs directly into my face. What gets me is the way no one on the bus even tries to cover their mouths. It's like a different culture.

Oh, enough complaining, though. The good news is that all the pregnancy books I anxiously peruse seem to agree that catching a cold isn't dangerous to a fetus (though taking cold medicines can be). So, that's all that matters anyway. I'm also happy because some friends gave us a bunch of baby stuff, so we won't have to go shopping for clothes, bassinet, etc.

Ode to Stretch Pants

Covering, not confining,
Shapely and refining -
To think I almost took you back
After try-on, to the rack!
Not work-appropriate, I thought.
Some instinct stayed my hand.
I relented, and I bought,
These pants that now I know are grand.
Now I wear you everywhere,
To work, and bed, while cutting hair.
"You'll wear those out," my mother said,
"Long before you reach month nine."
Little does she know - instead,
I'll wear you for my whole lifetime!