Picture This

I have an odd assortment of photos I want to share, so I thought I'd just post them all together even though they're from different events.

A few weeks ago, Mr. Dick's sportsmen's club hosted their annual crab feast at Patapsco State Park.  The crab feast is always held in mid-August, and Billy's family members from both sides come.  This year I attended for my seventh time (Billy and I missed the crab feast once for a wedding out of town), but it is the first time the event hasn't signaled back-to-school time for me.  I used to eat a few crabs so I could participate in the experience, but for the past few years, I haven't really felt like putting in all the work it takes to pick them.  I don't feel so bad, though, because Mr. Dick has never eaten one!  Billy said the crabs this year might have been the best ever, though.

Here, Billy and his cousin Chuckie are selecting crabs out of the bushel to put in the boxes they use to serve them on the table.

Brian and Billy go to work on their crabs while Mr. Dick watches over the festivities.

Everyone who saw me at the crab feast finally agreed that I look pregnant!  And Patti and Chuck got to feel her move for the first time.

After I wrote up my post about the baby shower, Billy's cousin Heather shared a few of the photos she took throughout the day. 

With only the exception of his cousin Frankie, all of Billy's cousins on his mom's side attended the shower-- two generations worth!  From left to right: Allen, Jacelyn, Lily, Kristen, Katelyn, Heather, Cash, Brian, Me, and Billy.

While the women supervised the opening of the gifts, the men hung out in the yard and played tailgate games.  I was so glad that everyone was invited and found ways to have a good time!

And finally, I've made it to 32 weeks!  We had another OB appointment this morning that went really well.  I have officially achieved my highest weight ever, and the doctor says my weight gain, fundal height, and lab results are all perfect.  I feel like I have been making my way through nearly every negative pregnancy symptom there is to experience, but I'm certainly glad that I'm the one experiencing complications rather than the baby.  As far as anyone can tell, she's developing and growing right on schedule!  I had a bunch of specific questions to ask this week about labor and delivery procedure, and I was very pleased with all of the doctor's answers and explanations.  This strengthened my feeling that my doctors' birth philosophy corresponds nicely with and will support my own goals for the baby's birth, so that was another comforting outcome of the visit.  We have appointments every two weeks now, so it feels like Billy and I are in that office every time we turn around, but it is nice to have a constant source of positive reinforcement about the baby's health as we get closer to her due date.

(Picture This is a novel by Joseph Heller, the author of Catch-22, that builds an nonlinear, temporally experimental narrative around a single painting.  I haven't read it, but to me it sounds so quintessentially late 1980s!)

What a dog party!

This weekend, Billy's family threw us a baby shower.  It was such a great day.  There were almost fifty people there, including most of Billy's family members, Vickie and my Aunt Carrie, my closest and oldest Maryland friends, and friends of Billy's family.  There were so many delicious food options I could not even sample them all, the weather cooperated with plans for the men to play tailgating games in the yard, the Natty Boh was cold (I hear), and the company was perfect.

And there were gifts.  Lots, and lots, and lots of gifts.  I continue to struggle a bit with these occasions like bridal and baby showers because it makes me uncomfortable for people to give me things.  But the enthusiasm the guests showed in discussing Baby D and her impending arrival made it easy to keep in mind that participating in the shower of gifts was each person's way of saying, "I'm thrilled about the baby and I want her to have the very best."  As I opened everything, I was quite overwhelmed by the amount of thought, time, and expense that went into picking them.  People made sure we got what we needed by purchasing off the registry, found ways to incorporate our personal tastes, styles, and preferences in choosing the gifts they selected on their own, and drew from their own experiences with babies to give us things we didn't know we could use.  Billy and I are so thankful for all of these gifts and will do our best to put them all to good use.

Billy and I are also thankful for the various other ways people showed their love for the baby and for us.  Patti, Mary, Jacelyn, and Heather spent weeks planning and preparing for the shower.  Mary and Gary opened up their home to all the guests after they, along with Patti, Chuck, Brian, Jacelyn, and Allen, spent the entire day before getting the house and the food ready for the event.  Mommom and Kelly also helped to fill the table with food, and the Andersons traveled down from Pennsylvania for the day.  Carrie flew across the country right in the midst of her back-to-school routine at work to spend the weekend with us and attend the baby shower.  Despite a work schedule that called for Vickie to work something like 10 twelve hour shifts in 12 days, she spent her afternoon with us and helped things run smoothly before heading to the hospital to work from 7pm to 7am.  Amy, Brian, Katie, Jamie, Danielle, Anne-Marie, and Jon, as well as many of Patti's friends, traveled from places all around the Baltimore/DC metro area to help us celebrate.  In the middle of the party, Chuck stood off by himself along the side of the house grilling the chicken I'd requested.  Jacelyn dutifully wrote down everything we received, and Patti and Mary coordinated the games and gave out the Panera and Starbucks gift cards they'd purchased as prizes.  After the gifts were opened, Allen led the charge in loading all of them into the cars, and after the food was eaten, Heather coordinated the packing up of the leftovers.  Even our friends and family members that live out of town and could not attend, including Mom, Mimi and Papa, Nate, and Erin, remembered that the shower was happening that day and sent their best wishes for the event and for the baby.  I'm sure others did things I didn't notice, don't remember, or didn't know about.

All of this work meant that Billy and I got to spend the day chatting with the guests, sharing our excitement about the baby with them, and recognizing just how fortunate our little girl is already.  If the goal in life is to make it all the way around the baseball diamond, it feels to me like she's going to be born on second or third base.  One of the heartbreaking things about working with young people is seeing how many of them are born into less than ideal living situations, and having the privilege of education means realizing how many people around the world are born into even less fortunate circumstances.  This perspective, though, helps me to recognize and appreciate just how fortunate our daughter is.  I honestly cannot imagine that it is possible for a baby to be born into an environment which is more loving, enthusiastic, supportive, and fortunate than the one our baby will experience in a few weeks.  We want to thank all the people who have offered their support for her and joined us in our hopeful anticipation about her arrival.  We are grateful to you for feeling these ways about our child and for finding so many ways to make sure we know how well loved she is.  I am sure she can sense this love in some way already, and I hope we can teach her to fully appreciate her good fortune as she grows up.

While my inclination is to rely on the use of a lot of words and description to try to capture particular feelings, others have a better knack for saying what they want to say in fewer words, and often pictures do a better job at demonstrating sentiment, as well.  Our Dad's favorite children's book was Go, Dog, Go, and in the copy Vickie and Nate gifted the baby, Vickie wrote "We're so glad you joined our dog party!"  That party, which visually captures the breadth of excitement everyone has shared with us about our baby's arrival, looks like this.

Below are several of the pictures Carrie, Vickie, and Anne-Marie shared with me from the shower.  They got some fun ones and I'm hoping to have more to share from others in the weeks to come.

Billy, Katie, and Jamie are really excited about the miscellaneous baby necessities Billy's family clipped to this clothes line.  The shower planners did such a nice job of finding ways to add baby-centric touches that celebrated the baby while also accounting for the fact that almost all of the guests were adults.

I'm clearly very excited that Aunt Carrie gifted me the world's most beautiful, functional, and chic diaper bag.  It's named the "Elizabeth," and when it came out of the package, other guests said "It doesn't even look like a diaper bag!" and "That fits Liz's style exactly."  Precisely-- but it doesn't fit Liz's budget, so I will treat it with extra love and care for years.  I also can't resist pointing out that the way I'm holding it shows that I've moved up from 5lb bicep curls all the way to 12.5lb curls.  I'm hoping to get to 15 before the baby arrives, which will be good, since this bag can hold a lot of stuff.

Speaking of Aunt Carrie, I love how this photo Vickie took captures some kind of moment we were having.  It also begins to capture the mountain of gifts Baby D received.

Uncle Brian gave the baby a functional gift and a few funny ones.  The top bib reads "My uncle is hot and single," so I am glad to see that people are already thinking about how the baby can help enhance their lives, too. : )

Several guests even found ways to incorporate Billy's tastes in the gift giving.  Patti's friend Bev had this "I heart weather" onesie made, and Billy took a break from trash duty to open the backpack his parents got him to serve as Dad's diaper bag.

Though I look twice as wide as Vickie here, she confirmed that my belly is not quite that big when, during the "guess the belly size" game, the string she measured by wrapping it around her waist twice was several inches too long.  I also realized after seeing this photo that she's the only baby I've ever lived with before.  Back then, I got in trouble for kissing her too much when I held her, and I felt jealous when I realized my friends were coming over to see her instead of me, so I imagine that in these ways, having a baby daughter is similar to having a baby sister.  So now the pressure's on to try to make sure the baby daughter turns out to be somewhere near as kind, funny, and successful as the baby sister has.

There was plenty of fun competition during the baby-themed games.  Billy got plenty of laughs when his fill-in-the-blank answer for "Toddler" was "Toddlers and Tiaras."

While Katie, Anne-Marie, and I posed for this picture, I overheard someone say "Aren't those the girls from the clothes blog?" and someone else respond with something like "I can't tell, all her friends are dressed so nicely."  I'm thankful anytime people appreciate my taste in clothes, but it's even better when I have a chance to show off what good taste I have in picking friends.

But don't worry-- Baby D will be riding in style, too, thanks to so many generous gifts.  The BOB jogging stroller is courtesy of Mary, Gary, Jay, Allen, Heather, and Mommom, and it will allow Baby D to cruise along comfortably whenever her mom gets a chance to resume running.  I wish they made this stroller big enough to hold me so Billy could push me around for the next two months.  The Chicco carseat is courtesy of Patti and Chuck, and it will ensure that she rides safely and chic-ly in both the car and the BOB.  And then there are the clothes.  I have bought her only two outfits; the rest of these are gifts from the shower and hand-me-downs from her cousin Lily, who turns 1 next month.  These aren't all of them, either-- these are just the ones I don't need to wash yet because they are for 6 months and up.  While opening the clothes, I was so pleased and impressed that people picked so many things that I would have picked out myself.  One of the dresses she got nearly matches one I already own, and I would wear several of the others if they were blown up into my size.

I'm looking forward to spending the gift cards we received on a few more newborn outfits for the baby, and after that, we will officially have everything we need and everything we wanted to have before her birth.

I am so thankful that I continue to be welcomed so wholeheartedly as a member of Billy's family, that they are so welcoming to members of my family, and that the members of my family go to such great lengths to keep me involved in family life though I've chosen to live on the opposite coast.  Thank you so much for coming to stay with us, Aunt Carrie-- it was so great to have you, and it made the day feel more complete!

Oh, what a fantastic, big, fun dog party this baby will join, indeed.

The Days Before

Now that I've reached 30 weeks and am theoretically 3/4 of the way through my pregnancy, I thought I'd share a little more detail about how pregnancy is treating me at this point.

Looks like it might be time to retire these long and lean tanks that have been a maternity staple for me-- this one's working pretty hard.

For the most part, I feel pretty good.  I'm still able to go about my regular routines without too much interruption, but I have been trying to take things a bit slower.  I still get nauseous when I try to eat, so making sure I'm getting enough nutrition is a daily challenge.  I'm getting by with eating a lot of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and high fiber oatmeal and by supplementing my meals with Clif Bars.  I was nervous that I might be falling behind on my weight gain as a result of my lack of appetite, but yesterday's OB visit confirmed that I am right on track with that, so that was a relief for me.  I'd like to blame my aversion to most foods on the fact that my stomach is compressed, but I have considerably less trouble eating sweets, so I'm not sure stomach space is the issue.  I have been eating enough sweets to counteract the few calories I burn exercising, but have been making sure not too eat so many empty calories that I fill up on them instead of nutritious foods.

I'm starting to get to the point where my belly is big enough to cause more discomfort, though.  When I sit down, there's no longer any clearance between my lap, my belly, and my chest, and the baby lets me know that she does not appreciate being squished by kicking me in the ribs regularly.  Leaning back helps, but that makes her rotate the wrong direction, so the most comfortable way to position myself in order to position her correctly is to sit cross-legged and lean forward a bit.  I've actually been experiencing a less trouble sleeping at night and am able to get fairly comfortable sleeping on my side, so that is another positive.  Have any of you tried those pregnancy sleeping body pillows they sell?  I can see how they might help, but it seems like they would take up so much room in the bed that they might be counter productive.

I also believe I am getting an early start on thinking my baby is exceptional.  Past 28 weeks, moms are encouraged to do periodic "kick counts" to make sure the baby's movement does not decrease significantly.  They say the baby should kick around 10 times per hour if she's healthy, but this little one has never taken more than 25 minutes to get to 10 movements.  The other night she got to 10 in only 8 minutes.  She seems quite active at various times throughout the day, but when I lay down for the first time in a while, she begins engaging in some kind of uterine olympics.  She has also taken up kicking and elbowing Oscar, who can't quite figure out why the nice pocket of space he's used to curling up in when I lay on my side is no longer there.  He has yet to react to her movements, but I think he must feel them periodically because her kicks are starting to get pretty forceful.  I try not to let him step on me, but recently he did step one paw on my side when he was repositioning himself, and she pushed him back.  I thought this was funny because it seems like an early sign that she will not be pushed around, but it was especially amusing because I have been trying repeatedly to get her to respond to my poking and prodding to no avail.  Figures.  : )

We've also completed two weeks of childbirth classes with Danielle of Informed Birth Choices, and I am really enjoying them so far.  In addition to teaching self-designed childbirth classes that seek to prepare women for un-medicated births, Danielle works as a doula.  I'd describe her approach as holistically minded but scientifically grounded, and her style has been a great fit for what we were looking for in a childbirth educator.  She shares many of the same priorities that convinced me to attempt natural birth, but she is really focused on providing us with the information we need to make decisions for ourselves rather than trying to push her own opinions or agenda on us.  The two classes so far have also helped me and Billy to realize that we share a lot of common ground in terms of how we hope the birth will go and how we plan to respond if it doesn't go as planned, so that has also been comforting.  I do feel badly asking him to sit through a nearly 3 hour class in the middle of his work week, and I know the content is a lot more interesting for me than it is for him.  But I also know that I am most likely to be pleased with our birth experience if I feel mentally and emotionally prepared going into it, so I feel confident that the time we've invested in the classes will pay off once I go into labor.

For the past two months, the pregnancy has felt like it was speeding by, but that feeling has begun to shift in the past week or so.  Reaching 30 weeks feels more like "I really still have 10 more weeks to go?" than "I can't believe I'm 3/4 of the way done!"  I think that's partly because I'm getting more uncomfortable and partly because the list of things we have left to accomplish before the baby arrives is shrinking.  I am only working for two more weeks, and I'm afraid time might slow down even more once I'm home every day.  Thankfully, I'll be able to make more academic progress once my professors are around again, so I'm hoping I can keep myself occupied with schoolwork while I'm waiting for the baby to arrive.

(The Days Before is an essay written by Katherine Anne Porter, and it's also the title of a non-fiction collection she released in 1952.  It's out of print, but most of it can be found in the Library of America edition of her work.  It's on my never-ending list of things to read.)

Breaking Back

In tennis, it is such a big advantage to serve that you are expected to win every game in which you're serving.  When you win your own service game, it's called a "hold."  When you lose your service game, they call it being "broken."  I don't know the origins of these terms unless the "service break" refers to a break in the expected pattern of the server winning each game.  Since the players alternate service games, and a two game lead is needed to win a set, the set is usually won when a player breaks his opponent's serve at least once.  If no one breaks, the set goes to a special game called a tiebreaker, unless it is the final set of the match, when some tournaments require the play to continue until one player gets the two game advantage.

The best thing you can do when you've been broken is to win your opponent's next service game, which is called "breaking back."  This nullifies the advantage your opponent achieved by breaking you and puts the set back "on serve."  It also stops the momentum shift that is likely to occur when your opponent wins three straight games.  When you break back, you essentially even the score, though you may still be down by a game if your opponent served first.  You'll have to break again if you want to win the set before the tiebreak, but at least you are no longer playing from behind.

I am explaining all of this because I turn 29 today, and the best way I can think to describe the past year is that while 28, I was broken.  Sometimes in tennis you're broken when you play a loose game, or you let the other player get in your head, or you make too many unforced errors.  This was not the case for me.  Figuratively speaking, I came into 28 with a careful game plan, a good support team, proper training, and excellent conditioning.  I played the best tennis I could play while I was 28.  I pulled off shots that would have been clean winners at any other point in my life, but the balls kept coming back until I couldn't return them.  I maintained my mental focus.  I even hit a few serves that would have been aces in different games, but this time they were converted into returns that were shoved down my throat.  I was broken despite my best intentions and my best execution of those intentions.  And I was broken badly.

For the past few years I thought I would have some anxiety about turning 29.  I am not really worried about turning 30, because I'm looking forward to what my 30s have in store for me.  But I thought my 29th birthday might trigger the feeling that I was running out of time to accomplish all the things I'd expected to do in my 20s.  But this is not the case.  I am so ready to say good riddance to 28 that I welcome 29 with open arms.  I am glad this service game is over.  I do not like getting broken any more than I thought I would.  And 29 means a chance to break back.

Losing my dad was the most profoundly difficult of the several difficult experiences I endured while I was 28.  I hope that in the years to come, when I look back on 28, the pride I feel in how I played will grow stronger than the sting I've suffered from being broken so badly.  But despite any success I might have in recovering some positive sentiment for 28, it will always be the year in which I lost my dad.  It will always be the year in which I was broken.

This makes me extra thankful for my birthday this year. I can already see that 29 will be include important opportunities for me to break back.  One of the things I love about tennis and about life is that they both afford chances to stop, reset, and start over.  Everything else aside, if the baby and I make it through her birth happy and healthy, 29 will always be the age at which Billy and I had our first child.  If you read my Dad's blog, you know that he often relied on sporting metaphors to explain his experiences and his attitude about them.  In our family, this is why we love sports.  Sports give us a way of understanding our experiences and sharing them with others.  The tennis analogy feels perfect because breaking back is a hugely significant accomplishment, and at the same time, it is only the first step of many towards coming from behind to win the match.  Now that I've been broken, there is nothing else to do but just keep playing until I get the chance to break back.

(I can't claim to have drawn this parallel between life and "breaking back" myself; I first discovered it when I read James Blake's autobiography, which he titled Breaking Back.  In the book, Blake describes how fracturing his neck gave him the unexpected opportunity to spend plenty of time with his father as his father died of cancer, and how he subsequently had to overcome a debilitating case of shingles before returning to the ATP tour.)

Come to Win

We've had a busy week!  Last Saturday, we spent the day with Billy's family in Chestertown, Maryland at Billy's Uncle Gary's brother's house (did you get that?).  Jacelyn and Allen were house and dog sitting, and since the house is right on the Chester river, Gary's brother encouraged them to invite the family down for a mini-vacation.  He even arranged for a friend of his to deliver fresh crabs caught in the Chester river that morning!  I didn't have any, but everyone else said the crabs were delicious.  We all had a great time checking out the shops in Chestertown's small down downtown, hanging out at the pool, eating, and relaxing in the giant yard.  This was the first time Billy and I have seen Cash and Lily in a few months, and both of them are getting so big!  Cash turns three in October, and he took a break from the slide and diving board long enough to let me know that wants me to hurry up and have the baby that's in my belly.  Lily turns one next month, so she doesn't know it yet, but she is anxiously awaiting the arrival of her new partner in crime.  She is such an affectionate and happy baby that she makes it easy to look forward to having a little girl of our own soon!  It was so nice to feel like we "got away" for the day while still being able to sleep in our own bed that evening!

Regular readers of the blog will remember that for the past several years, I've spent the first week of August at the Legg Mason Tennis Classic at Rock Creek Park in DC.  It is my favorite week of the year, but even my non-pregnant body has a hard time spending seven straight days sitting on a bleacher in extreme heat, so I knew we'd need to scale back our attendance this year.  Rather than buying tickets for the whole week, we decided to go on Thursday for the third round and Friday for the quarterfinal matches.  This turned out to be a good year to attend fewer matches because Andy Roddick and Mardy Fish both had to withdraw due to injuries and there were quite a few rain delays.

My friend Anne-Marie has come with me for the past two years, and Billy and I were glad to have her and her husband Jon join us for Thursday evening's session.  It was fun to have another couple to chat with during the matches, and since Jon played tennis in college, it was interesting for me to hear a player's perspective on the matches.  We got to see Stepanek defeat Niemenen and Verdasco defeat Davydenko on the Grandstand court, which I love, because you get to see the action right up close.  We also caught most of Monfils' win over Tursunov, but that was a less competitive match.

with Billy and Anne-Marie at the tournament in 2009

On Friday, Billy and I got to see all four quarterfinal matches on the stadium court, and since I didn't think I could sit out in the blazing sun for twelve hours, we sprung for the undercover seats.  This kept me comfortable enough to last through the whole session, which was great, because the matches I wanted to see most were the first and last.  It also meant we were closer to the action than we normally are on the stadium court, so that also made the upgrade exciting, too.

I like Fernando Verdasco, so I was hoping he would beat Stepanek, but he didn't play his best.  Then we watched Donald Young of the USA reach his first ATP semi-final by defeating Marcos Baghdatis.  I am not a Donald Young fan because I've been disappointed in his attitude and behavior in years past, but he did play well and deserved to win the match.  The third match was between two big servers, John Isner and Viktor Troicki, and that is not my favorite style of play to watch.  I was pleasantly surprised, however, that there were more baseline rallies than I was expecting, and I was happy to see Isner advance.  The final match between Gael Monfils and Janko Tipsarevic is the one I was really looking forward to, and though Monfils won in straight sets, the match did not disappoint.  Tipsarevic is a determined grinder, and Monfils is an unbelievable athlete, so it was fun to watch them continue to return balls that would have been clean winners against other opponents.  In the end, Tipsarevic was just outmatched.

Next year we'll have the baby, and most of the top players are going to be playing in the Olympics during the Legg Mason tournament, so I don't know how likely we are to attend many of the matches in person.  But since taking in the matches with Billy is something I look forward to all year, I am so glad my body, stamina, and the weather cooperated with our plans for this year. 

Vickie has returned from her most recent travels and had a break in her busy work schedule, so last night Billy and I met her at her apartment before the three of us got dinner in Canton square.  It was fun to catch up with her, fill her in on what we've been up to, and talk to her about Wednesday's first childbirth class with the doula (more on that later!).  She also stopped by the house on her way home from church today to pick up her mail and visit Oscar, so she caught me in the middle of my weekend baby project.  The vinyl wall decal I ordered to bring the purple and green color scheme together arrived earlier in the week, so I spent the day applying that to the wall.  I am really happy with how it turned out, and I like that it gives the room some personality and makes it feel more like a baby's room without being permanent.  It's a little hard to tell, but the tree is dark green and the leaves are two different shades of purple.

We have a busy couple of weeks ahead, as well.  We continue our childbirth classes every Wednesday night, and next weekend is the Crab Feast Billy's family attends every year.  The following weekend Aunt Carrie is coming to visit us and Billy's family is throwing us a baby shower, so we are excited about both of those events!  I've decided that I'm going to stop working the following week, so I'll be busy at the office between now and then trying to get as much done as possible before I leave.  That should give me about six weeks at home to take care of final preparations (and hopefully get some reading accomplished!) before the baby's due date.  It's hard to believe she's going to be here so soon!

(Come to Win is Venus Williams's compilation of essays written by former athletes and others about the ways they believe participating in sports helped them in their professional lives.  I haven't read it yet, but I'd like to, because I certainly believe that my life has been shaped by the time I've spent playing and watching sports.)