The follow-up, one week later.

I still have hypertension.

I am taking seven different things: ibuprofen and hydrocordone for pain and cramp management, labetalol and milk of magnesia for blood pressure, iron pills and prenatal vitamins to help with my breast milk, and cordone for stool softeners to reduce water retention.

The baby is doing fine, but my hospital is strange: you have to look for a doctor to circumcise.

Because of the blood pressure medication, I am formula feeding now. The medication seeps too easily into the breast milk and more than likely can hurt him. I’ll still be pumping, but the milk produced goes directly down the drain otherwise…it is no good to anyone. The point is that if and when I can get my blood pressure under control, I want to try to breast feed him again…and my milk will be ready for him to feed off of. Alas, it’ll be pumped into a bottle, because by that point I’ll be working again, and the matter of fact is he will be so used to the instant gratification a bottle provides that breast-feeding will be too frustrating otherwise. (At the point before this, I decided to pump anyways, as I was getting too easily frustrated when he was unable to latch himself correctly. It was too hard on either of us mentally.)

At first, I was too overwhelmed, frustrated…I was trying to sleep in the baby’s room so he wouldn’t wake up the father, but in the end the situation was too psychologically depressing for me. We all sleep together in our bedroom again, even though the short bursts of sleep are hitting my husband harder than me, only because I am already used to the short bursts thanks to constant waking antepartum because of urinary in-continuance.

Otherwise…tomorrow is his first trip to church…

I believe again.

Because how else can it be explained to survive such a painful and complicated vaginal birth, that my son almost had his shoulder caught by my pelvis and wasn’t, and that everything, minus the toxemia, turned out so alright in the end when it could have the opposite outcome? And that my son was born in the best hospital in this area when it could have been one of the crud hospitals back in Jersey?

We cannot always get what we desire.

I want a natural birth.

Unfortunately…I may have to go into induced labor. I will need antibiotics fed to me (and perhaps my son as well) because I am strep-B positive. I will be using painkillers — I squirm too much when dealing with pain or extreme touch.

I will not get C-section unless absolutely medically necessary, and the circumcision will go on despite what others think or not.

As is, I may pre-eclampsia. The obstetrics want me to come in tomorrow for a follow-up blood-pressure reading and the like.

At least most of my pregnancy problems are mild compared to what other women have to face.

Confrontations, judgements, truth, and self-definition.

I have always told people, I hate confrontation, whether it be me confronting you, or you confronting me about something.

I get defensive, I cannot talk or think clearly. You confront me about certain essential truths about me, I freeze up, no matter how many times I have practiced in private how to defend my truths. It seems no matter how hard I try to give a reasonable answer, whether why I believe the way I do or why I do certain things the way I do, those who confront me about whatever never seem to be fully satisfied with my answer.

I was raised to think for myself, to think things through as best as possible. Yes, I am smart, and yes, I try to understand the reasons for why things are done, why I do things the way I do. I try to explain my beliefs — or lack, thereof, in this case — yet to no avail.

I understand to about 99% of the people out there in the whole world religion — or atheism, if you will — is a huge, defining part of who they are. To people who see themselves as part of the GBL-TTI community, their sexual attraction is a defining aspect of who they are and how they run their lives. Other people define their whole selves by their occupation, their status in society, their wealth as defined by their culture, their “intelligence” or “educational background”, or whatever.

A funny thing, mind you, when it comes to how others view you first-hand. They see how you carry yourself. They see how you interact with people, how you respect — or disrespect — everyone you interact with other people. They study you by your body language, by the tone of your voice, and to a small degree the very words you say and how you deliver them. They look at your mannerisms, your etiquette, your mood…everything external about you is to a large degree a reflection of who you are internally.

A saying I learned from the Disney movie Brink!: You are defined by the company you keep, and how well you keep it. The point is that people don’t usually judge you or define you by your religion, by your orientation, by your status, or whatever. People judge you by how you act, how you interact.

I try to judge myself by my actions, or at least that is what I try to define myself by. I am someone who, yes, is private about some major essentials, because when certain truths came out about me it hurt many of those closest to me and destroyed great friendships that have never fully healed. I am someone who goes with the flow and lives and let live. I am audacious.

My actions mean more to the external world than my beliefs, or what I proclaim to believe. There are certain things I am out and open about, but here is the thing: do you ever see me trying to convert you to my way of belief? For some, I understand why they do it, and I compliment them for following through on their own beliefs.

For some people, I know I am not the person that I used to be. Just as the saying goes that the river you see today is not the same river you saw yesterday, the person I am today is not the person I was yesterday, or even last year. Nothing is ever permanent, not even our being or personality. Not even how we define or judge ourselves.

How do I define myself? I am human. That is how I define myself, before using other adjective.

Maternity leave.

My leave has finally started. Too bad I live in a country that doesn’t make my company pay me an average a week based on previous hours I have worked. We really could use the income.

I plan to cut it short, return to work about early July…then while working for my old gig, look exclusively for positions as a barista.

Finally.

I finally got over 500 people to view my site.

Hace tres años que estudio el español en el colegio.

My boss asks me — in Spanish — to do something today. For the two years I moved out here, I have only told a relatively few people that I studied Spanish for 8 years, from 5th grade to the 12th grade, though the first two and last one I kind of slacked.

Whenever someone speaks Spanish or spanglish to me, I just smile, because I know more or less what they are speaking to me, even though I have barely practiced that which I’ve long retained en me cabeza (English: in my head). I am just a little rusty orally, but I happen to be more bi-literate than bilingual.

“¿Más?” he asks me. “One more?” I won’t say what he asked for; the nature of my work will not be revealed on this blog.

If you want to more, I am more adept at understanding Cuban, Puerto Rican, and Castilian dialects way more than Mexican and Central American.

Flooding memories.

I was watching the tale end of The Lion King earlier today while waiting for my obstetrician appointment. It was remember I heard Mufasa say “Remember…” was when it hit me.

I think it is time for me to finally and fully come out of my shell around everyone I know and just show them how crazy of a Jersey girl I am.

Five centimetres too long.

My uterus is five centimetres longer than it should be, so I have to take another ultrasound. Not that I mind them, but I hate the goop they put on me. I am not allergic, but I am worse than a cat when it comes to having foreign yuck ruck on my body.

Hopefully I can get a picture this time?!

Then I have a follow-up…90 minutes afterwards. All they could fit me in was two hours before my weekly appointment, not right before. I just hating in between, and having to go back and forth constantly.

Food verses biofuel.

I have a few questions about this whole war going on now about what we should be doing with our corns and our cereals.

• Should our grains be used to feed people, or should they be used to eliminate our dependency on foreign oil — despite the fact we still have so much oil in our own country we can use rather than sell?
• Should we still help the poor of other countries and drive up the prices of our own food, which makes it much more expensive for poorer families like mine to spend our money on food, or we should decrease our food exports to help our people and let other peoples starve and maybe even potentially die?
• Which should we invest in more, biofuels, which is destroying much more natural ecosystems than any other cause before it, which requires more land to be used and thus to be subjected to agriculture law — or should we invest in other alternative energies that use natural resources but, except for a small piece of land, doesn’t destroy other resources permanently in the process?