Sunday, September 18, 2011

CHANGE OF ADDRESS!

Hi everyone,

This blog has been moved over to my main website. The link to it is here:

PREGGERS IN CHINA

I hope you'll continue to follow this story! If you'd like that, please feel free to click on the RSS feed for the blog specifically. Thanks so much for your support.

You may also be interested in a new blog that I've created called:

QUEER GIRL GETS MARRIED

That one gives a bit of the back story! ;-)

All the best,
Ember

 

Saturday, September 10, 2011


So, let’s talk about breasts.
I really had no idea.
I know I’ve mentioned before that my breasts are enormous and that I’ve wondered what random woman has inadvertently swapped breasts with me. I’ve asked people openly, “Who’s breasts are these? I mean, they’re not mine!” and this has made everyone laugh and openly acknowledge the mountainous masses on my chest rather than discreetly marvel at them, cameras on hand, like shy tourists do at the base of Mt. Everest.
Recently someone answered that question: their Little Spark’s.
Right.
The truth is that I like my (normal) breasts. Since about my mid-twenties when my weight regulated, I have been quite comfortable with my particular rack size. Not too big, not too small. Suitable for most clothing. I could push cleavage into place with the right undergarment equipment but I didn’t have to worry about its constancy. I was happy with their shape and their overall appearance. In other words, I didn’t fight with my breasts.
Now, however, I feel like a cartoon and I keep waiting for the giant pencil eraser tip (that’s the size of my head) to descend down into this page of life and erase these practical jokes that the cartoonist has drawn on my body. Anytime now!
I know that pregnancy hormones affect breast size. The thing is that I have seen other pregnant women who don’t seem to have been attacked by their breasts the way I have. When I know them and can launch into this discussion, as you can imagine I’m not getting the least bit of sympathy. This has been baffling. Do most women crave larger and larger breasts? Breasts that can topple large buildings? Breasts that need dump trucks for bras? Am I rare to have been satisfied with mine? I’d like to see them deal with breasts like these that are only slightly smaller than their baby bump and the aching shoulders and upper back that accompany them!
Speaking of upper back, mine’s not that broad. When I squeeze these monsters together as tightly as they can go, you can still tell that I actually have a small frame. (I think my upper back and my elbows are the last evidence of that, however. Everything else has puffed out like Popeye on spinach.) But try as I might, I can’t find a bra that will do that for them, and even if I could, I fear that the tray I’d create would be freakishly weapon-like and likely to inflict bodily harm on mid-size children if I turn suddenly in a public place. 
 <sigh>
People keep telling me this: “Just wait ‘til your milk comes in. They’ll get bigger!” This is no form of encouragement. What’s more, I am honestly not sure how that’s possible. These suckers (haha! pun intended!) are just slightly smaller than my skull size and there are two of them! Soon I’m going to look like a three-headed alien whose two superfluous heads have slipped slightly south of the neck!
It’s made me consider the letter “B” though. “B” is for breasts. “B” is for baby.  When you look at my profile, it truly looks like the letter “B.” The upper curve of the letter is just a wee bit less enlarged than Little Spark’s bump, but it still reads clearly! I wonder if there was subconscious connection to this when the image of this letter was settled on in the alphabet…? 
Things I’m missing related to these cartoon boobs:
·      Sleeping on my stomach
·      Walking quickly down stairs without injuring myself with the slap back
·      Not having constant cleavage and the annoying stares it elicits
·      All of my normal shirts, especially cute t-shirts
·      Positive (rather than negative) nipple sensitivity
·      Dancing comfortably
·      The joke!
And then, after people have told me that my breasts will only get larger (so LOOK OUT!), they follow that up with the lovely reminder that after Little Spark has sucked them dry, they will be floppy and saggy and never recover. People are so naturally encouraging, aren’t they? I even had someone say to me recently that I shouldn’t complain that they feel like rocks because very soon they will feel like empty sacks. Then they added, “Sort of like large scrotum.”
Ugh.
Great.
As long as the cartoonist can just shave the weight of them down, I’ll be happy. Everything else can be aided and augmented through fashion.
“So, did you hear that hovering cartoonist? I know you’re out there! Get that eraser tip ready because I’m going to need some adjustments over here! I’m the one waving my arms from the white page on the drawing board in a mayday signal! Yeah, me over here, the one who keeps tipping over!!”
I think I figured out whose breasts these really are.
Betty Boop’s.

Sunday, September 4, 2011

ACHES AND PAINS


In just a few short hours, I board a flight back to North America where I'll be until October 18th. I have a long tour that stretches from Ontario/Quebec into the US Midwest, down as far south as Virginia and back up through the New England states. This is the release of the first baby this year (my new album) and then I'll be coming home to Beijing to rest for my final two months before the release of my second baby this year: Little Spark.

As I type this, however, I'm sitting here propped up against pillows on the bed with a hot water bottle positioned at my lower back accompanying my new found daily companion: BACK PAIN. Only in the last week have I started to feel like my lower back was going to remove itself from my body and run away screaming into the distance like a figure on fire.

I've also been struggling with a minor bladder infection all week. Usually, I can douse these with cranberry juice, lots of rest, and lots of water, but my usual techniques for staying well have been thwarted by a compromised immune system (a la "Little Spark"), and so when my back started hurting I started to panic! I immediately imagined it must be a kidney infection and with my impending trip I wondered if I was going to need to delay departure, how I was going to deal with an infection without medication, etc. etc.

Turns out, I was just a panicked Mother. The back pain emerged because it was time for it to emerge. My considerable weight gain for my small frame, the fact that I'm nearly 6 months pregnant, and the fact that I've been doing a lot of computer work this week in preparation for the tour all are contributing factors to my back pain and just coincided with this mild bladder infection. It's not a kidney infection. There's no fever. I'm okay!

(In fact, I went to see the doctor just in case! They told me it was fine, but they did prescribe a mild antibiotic if it didn't clear up soon. Apparently this won't hurt the baby if I only take it for three days...)

So, I'm thinking I'm going to pack the hot water bottle and take it with me on this tour. I'll have a lot of long drives. I'm guessing my back isn't going to suddenly stop hurting from prolonged sitting. That experience starts with the 12-hour plane ride today!

The other thing that's been happening in the "aches and pains" department is cramping. At night! Yes, in the middle of the night I have been jolted awake twice. Once it was from a charlie horse in my left calf. I screamed as I woke to the pain and Guo Jian freaked out in his half-asleep state as I was speaking English (uhm, okay, swearing and exclaiming!) and he was yelling in Chinese and trying to help me with my leg when he had no idea what was going on! The word in Chinese for cramp is: choujin (抽筋, two 1st tones), but if you think I could remember that at five in the morning as I was trying to stretch and bounce and dance and rub my way through the charlie horse then you're very wrong about that! haha! That might be an early indication of what my language skills will be like during labour! Of course, it did eventually calm down and I was able to go back to sleep, but what a crazy experience.

The second time was a cramp in my toes, this time in my right foot that woke me up at about seven in the morning, a little too early for me! My toes felt like they were bent the wrong way and my foot seemed rubberized and unable to do anything about the strain in my toes. All I could do was get up, walk around, breathe my way through the cramp, and just will it to go back to normal. This time, I didn't scream so Guo Jian didn't wake up, but the experience was just as jolting for me.

After each cramping episode, I spent the whole day periodically stretching the strained areas and so far it hasn't happened again. I've also started to do research on back stretches and how to do different exercises to accommodate this huge beach ball that I'm carrying around my midriff. I'm hoping to implement some of those stretches on the plane today, in between movies! :-)

When I asked the doctor about the cramping, she said it was very common with pregnant women and that the best thing to do is to make sure that my legs are warm at night. There's something here in Chinese ideology that immediately blames all ailments on cold. Either it's the breeze at night through an open window, it's the air-conditioning in a work place, it's the cold water you drank or the icy treat you ate that day (etc.) that gave you whatever symptoms you have. She may be right, though, but while I cover up a bit more to sleep, I think I'll also do more stretching and walking around as an extra health insurance mechanism!!

Speaking of health insurance, do you know how hard it is to find health insurance for a pregnant woman? That's my task this week once I'm in a North American time zone and can make some phone calls at reasonable hours. I'm heading to the "gauge-you-with-hospital-bills" zone called the United States and I really don't want to be caught there without insurance, especially if something goes wrong. The problem is that only obscure pregnancy complications are covered in the few plans I've found online like ectopic pregnancy (which I don't have) or premature labour (which I hope to not encounter!). Wish me luck in finding a reasonable travel plan for me and the bump!

Okay, see you in North America, I hope! Me and Little Spark and my hot water bottle are taking to the skies!

Much warmth to you all,
Ember