A Not-Too-Gory Birth Story

Telling the story of how one gave birth seems to be a ritual of motherhood. As a new mom myself, I feel compelled to record my experiences as well. But don't worry if you're a bit squeamish - this is the tame version. Also in the interest of privacy, I'm just going to call the boys "Baby A" and "Baby B" on the blog.

I was due on August 23. In the wee hours of the morning on June 12, I was awoken by what I thought was an urgent need to use the bathroom. (Not too uncommon for a pregnant lady!) But something seemed...different. I started having suspicions that my water had broken so called the on-call doctor who told me to go the labor & delivery to get checked out. I woke up DF and we headed to the hospital.

The medical staff confirmed that my water had indeed broken, but I wasn't in labor. They informed me I'd be staying in the hospital until the babies were born. Whoa, that was not what I was expecting! They gave me a couple different medicines to help the babies lungs and brains develop, and then I settled in for some bed rest. I was almost at 30 weeks gestation. The doctors said that the goal was to keep 'em cooking until 34 weeks.

A few days later, I was scheduled to have a baby shower. Since I was stuck in the hospital, the hostesses and guests were kind enough to bring the party to me! That was a nice distraction from worrying about everything for a couple hours.

I wasn't on strict bed rest - I was allowed to get up a little bit, but I was supposed to be taking it easy. I kept having contractions. They put the babies on the monitors twice a day to make sure they were doing ok, and they never showed any signs of distress. A nurse from the NICU came to see me and answer my questions about having preemies. She wound up taking care of the boys a lot and was their nurse on the day they were discharged!

After a week of bed rest, on June 19, suddenly my sporadic contractions became more regular and intense. I didn't realize it at the time, but I was probably in labor for about 2 hours before my doctor came in on rounds. I told her, "If this is how bed rest feels, I'm going to need an epidural to get through it!" She examined me and said, "It's time to have these babies!" I was like, "Whaaaaat? No, no, it's too early!" I called DF who hurried over from work. My doctor did a quick ultrasound and determined that based on the babies' positions, a c-section most likely wasn't necessary.

They wheeled me over to the delivery wing. The anesthesiologist came in to talk to me about an epidural but there wasn't enough time. Soon I was in the OR (they do all twin deliveries in the OR in case an emergency c-section becomes necessary). My doctor asked me if I felt like I needed to push, but I was like, "Where are the NICU people?! We have to wait for them!" Luckily the NICU team showed up just moments later.

After a few pushes, Baby A arrived weighing 3 lbs 1 oz, and he let out a little cry. I was so surprised and relieved to hear him cry because I'd had visions of a "blue baby" flashing in my head.

[OK, this part is a little bit TMI but it's interesting!] When Baby A was born, Baby B's legs popped out too - they had their legs tangled up together!

I was wondering if they were going to say they had to do a c-section to deliver the second one, but the next thing I knew, they were telling me to push again. Baby B was born 2 minutes later, breech, weighing 2 lbs 14 oz. After they cleared out his airway, he also squealed a bit. Another sigh of relief from Mom! I was 30 weeks 5 days along when they were born.

The babies were whisked off to the NICU. I spent the next several hours having various complications (because that's just how this pregnancy went for me), but I finally got to visit them the next day. Life in the NICU, though, deserves its own post.

I'd heard that we should go to a birthing class early because "you just never know with twins." We attended 2 out of 4 classes before the big event, so I guess I was 50% prepared :)  I asked the doctors why I went into early labor, but they weren't able to determine exactly. They said I might have had an infection, or also with twins sometimes your body just runs out of room. It certainly wasn't how I expected the birth story to unfold. I'm glad it had a happy ending!

My room was the one in the middle there, where I spent the week on bed rest.

File under: NaBloPoMo Day 1

Stay Tuned for NaBloPoMo

The blog's not dead! I'm resurrecting it for National Blog Posting Month (NaBloPoMo). This means I'm committing to post once a day for all of November. Now that I've written it down, you can hold me to it!

Why am I doing this? A few reasons...

A) I like writing

B) Since I quit my job and spend all day babbling at infants, my brain has started to atrophy

C) The world needs to know my opinions on everything :)

I'm planning to do some theme weeks on topics like motherhood, different cultures, public policy, and whatever else strikes my fancy. If you have a request for a particular topic, leave it in the comments and I'll do my best to accommodate.

Hope I can stick to this goal! This picture of when I was in a hot air balloon floating over Arches National Park should inspire me.

The Civil Rights Trail: Montgomery

The final leg of our journey took us to Montgomery, AL. Montgomery is the capital of Alabama. Its history dates back to way before the Civil Rights era, so we tried our best to learn about it all.

Did you know that the Confederacy was born in Montgomery? I didn't. Yes, the leaders of southern states met in the AL Capitol building to form their constitution and secede from the union. Jefferson Davis was the president. Across the street from the Capitol stands the First White House of the Confederacy where Davis and his family lived for a few months in 1861 before the C.S.A. capital was moved to Richmond, VA.

These are the flags of the Confederacy:

Statue of Jefferson Davis on the current Capitol grounds

The room in the capitol where the delegates met to form the Confederate States of America

Now, let's jump back to the 20th century and continue on the Civil Rights Trail!

Montgomery was the site of a famous bus boycott in the 1950s. We visited the Rosa Parks Museum, an excellent museum now dedicated to telling the story of this event and the people involved. Seriously, if you're ever in Montgomery it is worth the price of admission! I'm pretty sure everyone knows the basic story of how Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat to a white passenger. But did you know that she wasn't actually sitting in the "whites" section of the bus, and that she legally had the right to remain in her seat, but the driver had her arrested anyway?

We then briefly stopped by the Civil Rights Memorial at the Southern Poverty Law Center. It's a tribute of remembrance to those who lost their lives in the struggle for civil rights.

Our final destination that day was a tour of the capitol building. Our tour guide was in the original march from Selma to Montgomery 50 years ago as a young student, and he joined the commemorative march this year as well. He also helped out with the "Selma" movie and got to eat dinner with Oprah, much to his delight :)

Before heading home on Sunday morning, we visited one more important site, the Dexter Avenue King Memorial Baptist Church, where we attended their worship service. This is the church where Martin Luther King Jr. was a pastor as a young man, before he got involved full time in civil rights campaigns. Compared to the 16th St church in Birmingham, this one was a bit smaller, but there were more visitors. They asked all the visitors to stand up and introduce themselves. Being from Memphis, we were practically locals compared to others from Singapore, the Netherlands, and the Czech Republic! The sermon wasn't quite as memorable as 16th St either, but in their defense the speaker was a seminary student, not the regular pastor.

All in all, I give AL two thumbs up! It's a great state to visit with something for everyone - beach lovers, historians, foodies, and lots of other interests that we didn't even explore (like Nascar racing at Talladega).

The Civil Rights Trail: Selma & Voting Rights

After departing from the sugar-white sands of the Alabama gulf coast, our next stop was the town of Selma, AL.

Selma was the recent topic of a major motion picture by the same name. If you haven't seen the movie yet, I definitely recommend it! It's out on DVD now. We actually just watched it last night. It's pretty powerful. It tells the story of how people advocated for the right to vote in the 60s, a time when African-Americans had the Constitutional right to vote but were effectively barred from registering due to oppressive and racist policies and procedures. For example, if a black person tried to register to vote, they'd have to pay a poll tax or pass a (purposely impossible) literacy test. In the movie, one character is asked to name all 67 county judges in Alabama, and when she can't, her voter registration application is denied.

Civil Rights leaders strategically chose Selma as the site of protest because there was a defined goal (registering to vote) and a defined opponent (the town sheriff). When they started, less than 2% of blacks in Selma were registered to vote, and in a neighboring county, where the blacks made up almost 50% of the population, there were a total of 0 registered to vote. Zero. That shocked me!!

The point of marching from Selma to Montgomery was to raise awareness about the issue of voter registration and demand legislation that would end discrimination in the registration and voting process in Alabama. (When African-Americans had no voice in electing their public officials, it was no surprise that those officials didn't represent their interests. Also, black people couldn't serve on a jury because jury pools were pulled from the voter rolls.) As you probably know, the peaceful march was initially met with a violent response from local law enforcement. Eventually the march did happen and it achieved its desired result! The Voting Rights Act was passed a few months later.

On our trip, we visited this great little interpretive center along the road before actually arriving in Selma. We saw the churches where the activists gathered, the streets they walked, the bridge they crossed, and drove the highway they eventually marched on all the way to Montgomery.

Selma itself is a fairly small town, and we just spent a couple hours there since there wasn't really too much to do. I'm glad we were able to witness this important historical location, though!

If you'll allow me a slight political rant now, I was dismayed that the Supreme Court struck down key provisions of the VRA as unconstitutional in 2013. I would summarize the justices' opinion, briefly, as "it's been 50 years and the law worked. We don't have that bad of discrimination anymore, so this law is now an overreach of power by the federal government." Um, what??? Maybe we weren't seeing evidence of severe discrimination anymore because the law was in place and working!! If I had been a person who marched over that bridge and got beaten up in the name of voting rights, I think I would have felt like I was getting whacked upside the head all over again when I heard that decision come down from the Court.

In the wake of the Supreme Court decision, several states moved quickly to enact more restrictive voter laws, including photo ID requirements, a reduction of early voting times, and more. If the VRA were still in effect, these changes would have gone through a review process to ensure that they didn't unnecessarily disenfranchise minorities. But now, there is no oversight, and I'm not sure who is protecting minority rights.

Now lest this all be doom and gloom, let me give a shout-out to my home state of Oregon, which recently announced that citizens in the state will be registered to vote automatically as part of the driver's licensing process, with an opt-out process available if someone doesn't want to be registered. Way to increase the voter rolls, Oregon! The "discrimination watcher" in me feels compelled to point out that not everyone has a driver's license, though, so I hope they have other systems in place to keep actively registering those people as well. All elections in Oregon are conducted by mail, so I think that's also a good way to increase participation - since people can vote on their own time and don't have to appear in person at a polling place.

Chapter 3: Montgomery will be coming next!

The Civil Rights Trail: Birmingham

Every year for our anniversary, DF and I like to take a trip together to celebrate. (We're more into experiences than actual gifts.) Usually we go somewhere a little farther away, but given my current status we decided to do a road trip and stay relatively close to home. We visited several spots around Alabama on what I'd say was our most educational vacation yet!

We spent a relaxing week down at Orange Beach, AL. Since school wasn't out yet, the town was quite tranquil. I hear the whole Gulf Shores area becomes a madhouse in the summer. Guess we picked the right time to go!

While I enjoyed being on the beach, I'd say the more memorable parts of the trip were the two weekends that we spent taking in the key spots of the Civil Rights Trail. Alabama was one of the major settings where the Civil Rights movement took shape. Clashes over changing ideas even turned violent there. Important historical sites have been preserved, and now visitors are invited in to remember what happened, I believe with the hope that we'll all keep the ideals of the Civil Rights Movement alive today (rather than relegating it to a back-patting-look-how-far-we've-come corner of a museum).

Since we've been living in Memphis, I've been trying to educate myself more about this era of our nation's history - it's not something I remember learning a whole lot about in school. Or maybe I did, but as a kid it didn't seem as real to me as Lewis & Clark and hardtack and wagons and all that Oregon history we learned about on field trips.

First Stop: Birmingham

Birmingham in the late 50s-early 60s became known as "Bomingham" because of the frequency with which bombs went off around the city, targeting African Americans or whites who supported them. The city had an intense KKK presence and was extremely segregated. The most infamous incident was the bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church one Sunday morning, in which 4 girls were killed during Sunday School. It shocked the nation. But no one was caught or prosecuted for the crime until more than a decade later. 

We attended this church on Sunday morning and it was a unique and memorable experience. It was Mother's Day. The pastor's sermon was taken from the story in Exodus of Moses's mother hiding her infant son from the authorities who sought to kill him, then setting him in a basket in the river. It totally reminded me of what I learned in Central America about liberation theology. In this sermon, Moses's mother becomes the example for all mothers, especially African-American mothers, in that she did not accept what society told her about her son. Egyptian society told her that her child was not important-in fact, that he should die. She subverted that paradigm and instead accepted what God told her about her child, that his life mattered. Then she acted with faith, believing God's promises. The pastor related his own personal story of growing up in a poor family, in a high-crime area, and his mother was told he would be in jail or dead by the time he was 25. The pastor (who is well over age 25) testified that God had other plans for his life, and he was not held to those negative ideas that society wanted to perpetuate.

It's hard to capture this experience fully in words. Suffice it to say, if you're ever in Birmingham on a Sunday morning, I recommend you visit this church! Don't be intimidated if you are not black. Yes, almost everyone at the church was black on the day we were there, but you know what? It's good for you (if you're a white person) to be the minority sometimes! Just be friendly and treat others like you'd want to be treated, and I'm sure you'll have a lovely time. We sure did!

We went to several other places around town, including the Civil Rights Institute and the site of the historical marker for MLK's Letter from Birmingham Jail. If you've never read that letter or the story behind it, you should click on that link right now. Here's a summary: in April 1963, MLK and others were involved in several acts of non-violent protest against racism and segregation in the city. They were doing things like picketing, marching, sit-ins, etc. They were barred by a judge from demonstrating, but several people violated the ban and got arrested.

After this happened, a group of white religious leaders wrote an "open letter" to the protesters urging them to be patient, seek reforms through established channels, and basically stop causing a ruckus. It was published in the newspaper. MLK wrote an impassioned and eloquent response from his jail cell explaining that now was the time for action, as justice too long delayed is justice denied. This letter is credited as one of the most important documents of the Civil Rights Era as it crystallized the issues in the minds of those who perhaps were on the fence about where exactly they stood on the whole question of "justice for all."

I have lots more thoughts on all these issues, plus Selma and Montgomery to report about, but this post is long enough already. Stay tuned for more updates when I have time!

Pronunciation Practice

This past year, I've been teaching ESL once a week here in Memphis with an organization that works primarily with the Latino community. It's been a really great volunteer experience! I've taught ESL in lots of different venues before - it's nice to be back in the saddle again.

(Now I feel I should explain the idiom "back in the saddle" for any non-native English speaking readers...)

Last week was our final review session for the semester. I was going over vocabulary with my class in preparation for their upcoming exam. One of the words was "paint," which some of them couldn't remember how to say. So, I pronounced it clearly for them as "PAY-nt" (with a long "a" sound, sorry, can't really do phonetic symbols here). They tried to say it, but it didn't really sound right, so I again said "PAY-nt" and had them copy me. Then I thought, hmm, maybe the problem is that they are speaking with a Spanish+Memphis accent, and they don't understand my West Coast pronunciation!

In this part of the country, you'd pronounce "paint" differently. I think it's like "PIE-ent." It is certanly not a long "a" sound.

What's my duty as an ESL teacher living in the South? I can't adopt a drawl very effectively. I have mentioned "y'all," and "ma'am/sir" to them before. Probably the best I can do is try to teach some kind of generic English and let them pick up the local accent from native Memphians.

Hopefully I'm not confusing them too badly with my Pacific Northwest accent! And apparently exposure to a variety of American accents is part of the socio-cultural aspect of ESL instruction, so I've got that going for me.

Root for the Home Team

I grew up in Oregon during the glory days of the Portland Trail Blazers, which was the early 90s for those of you not following the NBA 20+ years ago. It was the era of Clyde Drexler, Jerome Kersey, Terry Porter, Kevin Duckworth, Cliff Robinson...and yes, I was such a hard-core fan that I just listed those players from memory! (It probably helped that my family regularly used our Dairy Queen Blazers' collector glasses, also.)

I remember in elementary school, we were putting on some type of choir concert and convinced our teacher that we should change the words to a song about eagles flying to instead be about "Drexler in the sky, racing to the hoop!" During the playoffs, my sister and I made posters to hang in the back windows of our station wagon heralding the excellence of the Blazers and the lameness of all their opponents with such colorful puns as "the Jazz are singing the blues," and "the Bulls are seeing red!"

But over the years, my attention to basketball waned as other pursuits became more important, and before I knew it, I didn't really recognize any players on the team any more. Then I moved to Seattle, home of the Supersonics (at least at that time). How could I keep cheering for the Blazers in the home town of their rivals? So, I opted out of following basketball. A subsequent move to DC planted me firmly in Wizards territory, but as a grad student in International Relations, I didn't have much time or brain power to devote to such domestic interests as professional sports.

Now, here we are in Memphis, home of the Grizzlies. This town is crazy about their team! And really, it's easy to be a fan, because they are great players. The Grizzlies are facing the Blazers in the first round of the playoffs, and I must confess that I'm cheering for my new home team. It feels a bit weird after growing up as a Blazers fan, but things change and people move on. Go Grizz!