39 weeks Pregnant

“Sick” has always been one of my favorite Shel Silverstein poems and I’ve always read it in a whiny complaining voice, which explains why it comes to mind now that I’m 39 weeks pregnant. Everything I say now feels like I’m uttering words to my own version of the poem.

I have never been one to wallow in the sickly mindset. Luckily my A+ immune system banishes my annual cold in a few days – and most of the time I ignore it (à la Monica in the Friends episode where she denies being sick as she disgustingly coughs and sneezes on everyone and everything). But this pregnancy – oh it has had me feeling sick for the last 273 days.

“It’s for a good reason,” they say. “It will all be worth it,” they reassure me. And I have no doubt - but it’s still a long time to feel like shit every day.

In the course of the last 273 days, the feeling of shit has varied in flavors – but the common denominator has been the same. No glowing skin or luminous hair or fabulous nails. Just nausea, vomiting, heartburn and now heaviness and tightness that makes me feel like I’m wearing a girdle securing a watermelon around all my organs 24 hours a day.

My muscles feel like they’ve completely atrophied. I am thankful for my wrought iron bed so that I can use the headboard like a disabled handrail when I pull myself out of bed. I’d like to think that I was strengthening my abdominal muscles when I raise myself, like some Rocky-worthy exercise where he puts 25-pounds of weight on his chest and does sit-ups. But alas, I think my abdominal muscles have retreated somewhere behind my stomach or lungs, both of which function at partial capacity at this point.

Sleep, oh sleep, how I used to love you. But somehow my body is readying my schedule for a newborn with frequent trips to pee – or to toss and turn and toss again. They tell me to sleep on the left side, so I try, but then I get restless and venture to the right side guiltily. Then it’s back to the left, where I have to tuck a blanket between my legs and under the heavy belly.

My reflection never fails to shock me. My shadow is like an exaggerated monster. How did my petite frame become this huge? The baby daddy says he loves the shape … but I’m part Humpty-Dumpty, part Weeble Wobble.

Then there’s the way others perceive me. I pass by strangers in the street and their eyes are drawn directly to my belly as if it’s an eye-to-belly magnet. This must be what it’s like for women with big boobs. Eye-to-boob contact rather than eye-to-eye. And speaking of big boobs – where was that when they doled out the pregnancy side effects?

Full-term pregnancy, how lucky that I am here, but you are the antithesis to comfort.

Now I wait, eagerly in anticipation to see this new life I've created that erases all memory of the above.

Sick
by Shel Silverstein

"I cannot go to school today,"
Said little Peggy Ann McKay.
"I have the measles and the mumps,
A gash, a rash and purple bumps.
My mouth is wet, my throat is dry,
I'm going blind in my right eye.
My tonsils are as big as rocks,
I've counted sixteen chicken pox
And there's one more--that's seventeen,
And don't you think my face looks green?
My leg is cut--my eyes are blue--
It might be instamatic flu.
I cough and sneeze and gasp and choke,
I'm sure that my left leg is broke--
My hip hurts when I move my chin,
My belly button's caving in,
My back is wrenched, my ankle's sprained,
My 'pendix pains each time it rains.
My nose is cold, my toes are numb.
I have a sliver in my thumb.
My neck is stiff, my voice is weak,
I hardly whisper when I speak.
My tongue is filling up my mouth,
I think my hair is falling out.
My elbow's bent, my spine ain't straight,
My temperature is one-o-eight.
My brain is shrunk, I cannot hear,
There is a hole inside my ear.
I have a hangnail, and my heart is--what?
What's that? What's that you say?
You say today is. . .Saturday?
G'bye, I'm going out to play!"

'Babies' Trailer

Maybe it's being 39 weeks pregnant, but I don't think so ... this is human nature at its very core. So amazing. This is a wonderful documentary; highly recommend it - for those expecting - and for those that aren't.

It's also fantastic to see how the core of what all babies need is food and LOVE. Kudos to mothers around the world for being able to grow, birth and feed future generations. I'm honored to wear the title.

King-Sized Bed

NOTE TO READERS: Normally this blog is reserved for transcriptions of my life. However, in the slow, yet determined pursuit of my writing career, sometimes I'm inspired to write outside my box.

The below piece, King-Sized Bed is a piece of adult fiction. (I'm not sure if that's a real genre, but the piece contains adults, adult topics, and adult words such as sex & blowjob).

This piece is completely not based on my relationship. We are very happy, very much in love, and eagerly awaiting our first baby in less than 2 weeks. REPEAT: This is a piece of FICTION. It is likely, however, that anyone who has ever been in a relationship - and then wasn't - might relate.


King-Sized Bed

She lay there next to him, but a million miles away on their king-sized bed. Through the years the beds got bigger to keep up with the gap growing between them. He didn’t know about the expanding ditch between them, but she was getting sucked into its darkness. She was shivering in the cold and their relationship was an old sweater slowly unraveling into a ball of yarn.

It only took a few nights to break the habit, but once they stopped sleeping together enwrapped in each other’s arms, there was no going back.

When their relationship first began, they slept anywhere as long as they were able to entangle their appendages and sigh a collective breath. They slept deeply, growing closer together with each exhale. But over the years, and with the fights, they started to sleep further and further apart. On vacations they would get a king-sized bed and essentially be sleeping in separate beds.

He didn’t notice. Or else he did – and he let it go. “Are you OK sweetheart?” he would say. “I’m fine,” she would answer with her mouth only. He knew she was lying, but didn’t want to deal with the bullshit. She was no different.

He falls asleep shortly after sex. Nothing like passing out after a day of sun, a few beers and a smoke. Top the night off with a blowjob sundae and he's down for the count while she's left pulsing. A desire unsatiated; a flood of insensible emotions overwhelm her. She's left waiting for the payoff. She was always waiting for the payoff to come. Pun intended.

Harder, faster – more intense. She thought if she could just feel it more; but she had grown too callous. She felt only motions – no emotions. She was thirsty for the same elixir that only she was left pouring.

It felt so far gone – all the possibility, the innocence, the belief in something greater that was there at the beginning. Where was this romance that now feels like leftover dust from a tornado? A fall from romance is like a perfect swan dive directly into a belly flop.

When she was on the offensive, he was on the defensive. And then they switched roles. They were both in love with the memories, but couldn't sustain the intensity. Existing in this relationship alone yet together, it felt like there was no thread long enough to stretch across this canyon.

There were signs. Then were words, actions, screams. There were discussions, promises, failed resolutions. But she has to resign to the cruelty of a relationship you can’t fix.

She knew it was their last trip together. She takes out her notebook and documents in non-poetic poetry a souvenir of the evening:

The king sized bed
reminds her how far away they are.
Existing in the same plane -
but different horizons.
I spread out but do not touch him.
He spreads out, and misses me.
We exist together separately;
sleeping alone in a bed for two.
There was a time we were united;
there was a time it was impossible …
to be so near and not touch.
But now we lay like strangers.
Alone in paradise.
Once again,
in a king sized bed.

She sits under a thatched roof that shades her from the wind. The full moon is over her shoulder, peeking at the words spilling out from within her soul. The dippers and their galaxies, under the Mexican sky – encompass everything and make her feel tiny. Alone she sits – separate from the world, holding a truth that’s only hers.

She glances up towards the balcony for some recognition, for solidarity, for a sign of hope. But she sees only the blackness of nightfall.

Finding the Courage to Make Your Dreams Come True

Sometimes I wonder why some people were given the instinctual desire to question authority, culture, rules, society, defaults, the ‘norm’ – and other people were just given the peace to live with complacency of assumed truths. I struggle accepting things like God and regulations without scientific proof or logical explanation. Maybe it’s the journalist in me, or the skeptic or just the Russian genetics.

People with blind faith don't feel limitations by their beliefs; they aren't constricted by glass ceilings; they don’t necessarily feel confounded by boundaries or restrictions. Orthodox Jewish women, for instance, or women in Iran. For them, this is just life like they’ve always known it; just the way it is. If you don’t know what you’re missing, you’re not missing it.

But once you taste a morsel from the other side …

I never thought I’d be able to have a life where work meant I could write and get paid for it. In theory it seemed both selfish and a direct dichotomy to the word, ‘work.’ I thought work was just that – a job, labor. Something you do that you don’t necessarily enjoy – or is easy, but you then you get rewarded with money that will buy you something you want or need.

When I met my boyfriend, he showed me that you could, in fact, earn a living doing exactly what you enjoy and find fulfilling. So now I feel like an Orthodox Jewish woman who just discovered that not only could I wear shorts, but I could also lose the wig.

I’ve tasted from the other side … and I don’t want to go back. Now a "standard corporate job" would feel like heavy torture complete with long skirt, black tights and the world’s bulkiest polyester wig.

But a “dream job” - or any dream worth pursuing - requires a particular driving force. A unique and powerful motivation found in all dream catchers.

What happens when we feel like we don’t have enough passion or ambition or talent? How about when the biggest battle we encounter is our own self-doubt and infringement of limitations?

Why are we our worst enemies, constructing roadblocks in our own journey?

How do we persevere, believing in our dreams when it's clearly the harder route? How do we push ourselves to continue to question and not accept default? How do we believe that we’re good enough or worthy enough? From where do we draw the strength to achieve that resolution?


The future is confusing – money (or where will it come from) is scary. Why were some people created with the constant urge for more – with a perpetual hunger – and others were created to be satiated by so little.

My mind is continually going – it never rests. It wants answers and questions and realizations. I wait for a break through and realize it is only up to me to break on through.

So I tread forward. Sometimes carefully; sometimes on a whim. I make the best decisions armed with the information at my disposal at the time. I try to tame the doubt and guilt. I try to take the reins on life and move it forward.

I try to say poignant things out loud to make myself feel better, wiser, inspired. But sometimes, the guy who writes the Daily Kabbalah Tune-ups just has a better way with words: “Successes aren't what really matter in life; it's what we do with our failures that makes us, and our work, great in this world. Today, keep moving. Every no brings you closer to a yes.”

Key to Happiness: Daily Kabbalah

I'm not a big follower of Kabbalah, but appreciate the wisdom I get from my Daily Kabbalah Tune-ups (and yes I wear a red bracelet).

Here is one I got recently that really resonated with one of my ongoing preachy mantras: be accountable for your actions!

At the end of the day, the key to happiness is taking ultimate responsibility for your reactions to all of your experiences - the good and the chaotic. Whatever enters into your life is something you have to fully own.

Even if an event in your life doesn't make sense in the context of this life experience, you have to accept that it's a lesson you need to learn from. It may even be a lesson held over from a previous incarnation.

Today, remember that fully understanding and accepting responsibility is the only way to find happiness, fulfillment, and your purpose on this journey.