Mind your manners

Many years ago, I took an intensive language course in preparation for a study abroad program. The course was great, in that it tried to prepare us not only for the linguistic challenges that we would face, but also for the cultural issues that would almost certainly arise. Going into the course, I had fancied myself a sophisticated world traveler, and therefore not in need of a lesson on cultural differences, so I wasn't entirely receptive to this message at first. However, I was struck by a metaphor that the instructor used. She described a situation in which you visit a culture in which the standard polite greeting is to spit in your face upon meeting. Since you KNOW this about the culture before you go there, the first time it happens, you're started, and perhaps a little disgusted, but not annoyed. The second time, you're less startled, still disgusted, and moderately amused. After the 10th time, though, it's just about impossible not to become annoyed. The intellect can only overcome one's own cultural baggage to some extent, and beyond that, it's just about impossible not to have an emotional reaction to behavior that is considered unacceptable in your own culture, even when you KNOW that no offense is intended.

I've found that indeed, in every country where I've spent a sufficient period of time, there is some habit or custom that I find difficult to accept. Well, after 11 months in Korea, I am now fairly certain that I have identified my Korea-specific Achilles heel. You see, I don't like to be pushed.

I don't mean metaphorically pushed. I mean physically pushed, either by a hard jostle with the shoulder, or by actually having someone reach out their hand to push me. Koreans are lovely people when you know them, but apparently it is 100% acceptable to push a stranger who is in your way, even if you can see with your own eyes that that person doesn't actually have a choice about being there. Impatient to get off of a crowded train? No worries, just push the person in front of you until they slam into the person in front of them. It won't get you out any faster, but it'll make you feel better. Are you having trouble negotiating your shopping cart through a crowd? Just slam it up against the legs of the person in front of you. Sure, they're stuck too, so the only result is to make them yelp with pain, but hey, wasn't that more amusing than just standing there waiting? What if the person in your way is elderly, disabled, a small child, or a pregnant woman? No worries. This is a democracy. What if they're not in your way at all? Oh heck, push them anyway.

At first, I interpreted the pushing as subtle expressions of anti-foreign sentiment. I do stick out like a sore thumb here, so I assumed that the pushing was related to my appearance. However, the more I looked around, I realized that everybody pushes everyone else, and nobody seems to get mad, or even to notice.

This is hard for me. Americans are particularly orotective of their personal space (ask any European, Asian, or African), and in that way, I'm typically American. I don't even like being crowded, and having a stranger make avoidable physical contact for no reason feels like an act of aggression. I have been particularly sensitive to this since I've been visibly pregnant. It is just very hard for me to understand how someone could really think it's OK to push a pregnant woman when she's not in the line of gunfire or something. I'm trying to learn to cope with it, but it's hard.

Being hugely pregnant actually raises lots of issues about manners and etiquette, no matter where you are in the world. Should people let you ahead in bathroom lines? Should you be annoyed if they don't? Should people give you a seat on the bus/train? Do they? Does it bother you?

Since I've been showing, I've spent time in three countries: Indonesia, Singapore, and Korea. Here is the score:

Long bathroom lines encountered:

Indonesia: ~100
Singapore: ~10
Korea: ~100

Times someone has offered to let me go ahead:

Indonesia: 0
Singapore: 0
Korea: 0

Rides on trains/subways when empty seats were not available:

Indonesia: ~10
Singapore: ~10
Korea: ~10

Times someone offered me their seat:

Indonesia: 1 (an old man who was then immediately given a seat by a young healthy man, who had been ignoring me)
Singapore: 0
Korea: 4 (but that number includes 2 Americans)

Unimpressive, all around.

In Korea there are specially designated seats on the subway for people who are "elderly, disabled, or pregnant" (that's what the sign says), and generally, people that don't "qualify" don't sit there, even if there are many empty "special" seats, no needy people, and the rest of the train is full. However, people from the "normal" seats pretty much never give up their seats. So, it's all about rules, not about the "honor system". I suppose that's fair enough. However, the "honor system" IS used by people deciding whether they qualify for the "special" seats. When do you become elderly? Well, according to my own observations, some people seem to become elderly at age 50. Then, once sitting, people in the "special" seats don't seem to give them up, even to someone who fairly clearly needs them more. I have actually only seen a sitting passenger get up from a "special" seat once, and that was when I got up from a "special" seat, because there was a very old woman with a cane standing. Apparently this shamed the healthy 50-year-old man next to me to the point at which he then offered me his seat. Does that count? I don't know.

What's it like where you live? Do people give up their seats for pregnant women? Do you?

The third trimester

I really don't know how this happened, but somehow I've found myself in the third trimester. It's become clear to me that pregnancy has its own time frame, which is completely different from every other kind of time that I've ever experienced. TTC time feels like dog years. Each month seems to take almost a year off of your life. Before TTC, a month took about a month, more or less. But in pregna-world, a month seems to take about five minutes.

Don't misunderstand me, they are an action-packed five minutes. I laughed, I cried. In the last month, I've experienced constipation, anemia, hypoglycemia, diarrhea, bizarre navel pains, a level of sweating that MUST put Seoul in danger of flooding, and many other strange symptoms. Still, pregnancy III, The Belly Strikes Back, has somehow snuck up on me. So far it's kind of like pregnancy II, but with hem*orrhhoids.

On the one hand, I'm thrilled. Somewhere along the way, I've started to believe that there might actually be a baby at the end of all of this. On the other hand, the fact that my due date is now less than three months away forces me to start actually preparing for the arrival of this so-far fictitious baby, which freaks me out. We now have baby clothes in the house. And bottles. Ack! We almost bought diapers the other day, but at the last minute we choked. As for the big-ticket items, well, it turns out that Korea had another trick up its sleeve for us. We have now spent three straight weekends shopping, and STILL haven't found a single crib for sale. Or a decent stroller for under $1000. Or for that matter, a Baby Bj*orn or a onesie. If I don't find where these items are kept, I may be forced to draw the conclusions that Korean parents keep their babies at home and naked until they can walk. Surely there must be another explanation, something that involves mandatory cosleeping, a preference for separate pants and little tops, and a belief that strollers are foreign luxury items, rather than basic necessities. Still, it's pretty alarming. We can always buy the Bj*orn on line, and we plan to visit the US while I'm on maternity leave, so we can wait and buy the stroller then. The crib issue is a more vexing problem, though. While I love the idea of cosleeping, the reality is that both Mystery and I are terrible flailers. We regularly whack each other upside the head in our sleep. Somehow I just don't think this is the ideal sleeping environment for a newborn.

A newborn. Holy cow. If everything goes well (please let it go well!) Eggbert will be a newborn in only three months.

News from the world

M-B was induced yesterday, three weeks early, after a very difficult pregnancy. Please go visit and wish her luck with the delivery and with her new baby SON.

Things that end in -emia

Hi all,

I would have posted more in the last week, but honestly, I've been too damn tired. Ever since I got back to Korea, my energy has been ebbing dramatically from day to day until as of Monday, I could barely crawl out of bed. I was just starting to think "this is not normal" when an email from my doctor arrived, informing me that I got an F- on my last hemoglobin test, and tanked the glucose tolerance test too. No, I don't have gestational diabetes, it seem to be rather the opposite. My blood sugar wasn't too high, but rather too low. After extensive consultation with Dr. Google, I came to the conclusion that this probably just means that I need to eat more often, and avoid sugary foods. My doctor, though, had different ideas, and made me repeat the glucose tolerance test. Have I mentioned that the syrup that they made me drink is unspeakably vile? Well, if not, it is, and it didn't get any better the second time. Luckily, I managed to register as alive the second time through, so I managed to skate with a heavy-duty iron supplement (for the anemia), and advice to eat more often (for the hypoglycemia). After only two days of iron, I'm already feeling better, so hopefully I'll be back to something approximating normal soon (well, whatever version of normal has a belly the size of Texas, anyway).

In other news, my belly button is KILLING me. Seriously. I had never imagined that a belly button could be so painful before, but mine is incredibly sore. Is this a normal part of the process whereby an "innie" becomes an "outie"?

25w3d

I can't believe that I'm almost at the six-month point. I never thought I'd get here. I've had six months to get used to the idea, but I'm still sometimes astonished when I look down and see my belly. Then I think "where are my feet? I thought I had feet?"

The lovely M-B asked if I knew the sex. The answer is no. My doctor(s) know the sex, but I have asked them not to tell me. Why? I can think of a few different answers, but I really don't know which one is the true motivation. It seems to change from day to day. Really the bottom line is that waiting to find out feels right for me and Mystery. If it stops feeling right, then we'll call the doctor and find out.

Reasons, in no particular order:

-To keep from getting flooded with pink or blue gifts (yes, I do realize that this means that we'll get green and yellow instead...)

-To keep from projecting a personality onto Eggbert before we even meet. Let's face it, some girls hate pink, and some boys love dolls, but it can be very difficult not to project one's own expectations about sex/gender-appropriate behavior onto a child. De-emphasizing the sex in our own minds at this point is one way for us to practice being open-minded about the little person that we hope to welcome in November.

-To avoid disappointment, part I. I don't think that either of us has a strong preference, but that may just be denial speaking. I can't imagine feeling anything but joy on the actual birth day, whereas finding out now, before we have an actual baby to hold, opens us up to the possibility of disappointment.

-To avoid disappointment, part II. Right now, I am very much enjoying both boy fantasies and girl fantasies. Since I don't know Eggbert's sex, the world is my oyster. I can dream about whatever I want. I think that finding out now would expose me to a sense of loss, since it would render half of my fantasies infeasible. At least on the birthday, I'll have a baby to console me.

-To do at least one thing the "old-fashioned" way. Given the years of infertility, the multiple interventions, the high-tech conception, and the intensive monitoring associated with this pregnancy, I'm enjoying the fact that there is still a little mystery left in the process.

I totally get why other people want to find out. I always thought I'd want to find out too. I can see a huge number of arguments for finding out. In the end, though, it doesn't make any difference to the baby, so there's not any "right" or "wrong" thing to do. For us, this decision feels good, and in the end, this decision IS all about what we want. So why did you decide to find out or not?

Indonesia in a nutshell

I arrived back in Korea on Saturday. It's good to be home.

Having been a very bad poster for two months, I feel like I owe my blog some sort of cathartic summary of the missing time, in which I laugh, cry, and possibly even hurl. Unfortunately, though, I'm far too lazy, and life moves too fast, so you'll have to make due with a random series of impressions of my time spent in Indonesia.


Indonesia would be a VERY bad place to be infertile.

Everybody asks about children all of the time. Children are a big deal in Indonesia, and are considered to be a standard part of marriage. Generally the very first question that people asked upon meeting me was "how many children do you have?" As it was, I could smile and say "I'm working on the first one now", but if that last IVF had been BFN, it would have been difficult to avoid tears when it happened for the 10th time in a single day. I can't imagine what it would like to live or visit there while still in the infertility trenches. I heard from others that if you just say "not yet", the follow-up question is usually "why not?", which would make things about a million times worse.

There are children EVERYWHERE. The current fertility rate is only ~2.4 children/woman of childbearing age, but as recently as 1990, it was 3.3, and in 1980 it was 4.6. Lots of families contain 4-10 kids. Kids are also a very big part of public life. It is widely assumed that people will enjoy interaction with other people's children, so children are not discouraged from approaching strangers, or making a spectacle of themselves in public. I actually did an informal survey in a big grocery store, and found that of the estimated 300 women in the building, only one was neither pregnant, nor accompanied by at least one child.

Indonesian children are beautiful. Now I think that all mothers think that their kids are beautiful, but Indonesian kids are particularly stunning. Looking at some of them practically makes my uterus ache.

Indonesia is full of neglected and unwanted kids. I frequently saw tiny kids (some as young as 3-4) begging on the streets at night, or approaching cars on busy streets, singing while soliciting "donations". The number of these "street kids" in Indonesia is staggering, especially in urban areas. Some live with their poor, often homeless, parents, while abandoned, orphaned, or runaway kids are often exploited by older kids or adults. It's absolutely heartbreaking. There are also orphanages everywhere. I asked people about the culture of adoption, and apparently it's very rare in Indonesia. Only infertile couples usually adopt, and then they often seek to adopt a blood relative, rather than seeking a child needing parents. To make things even sadder, it's VERY difficult for foreigners to adopt Indonesian kids. I looked into it, and the requirements are prohibitive for all but the most dedicated potential parent (perspective adoptive parents must live in Indonesia for at least two years before they can adopt an Indonesian child).


Indonesia is a good place to be pregnant

When they found out that I was pregnant, everyone that I met was obviously, exuberantly happy. I was invariably treated like gold after sharing the big news, even by people who had been rude or disinterested before they knew. On day 3 of my visit, the woman that was waxing my legs (unrelated aside-I have been a hairy mama since I've been pregnant, and my belly is making it increasingly hard to cope with all of the undergrowth), upon realizing that I was pregnant, felt my belly, pronounced that it felt "healthy" and "hard", showed me her stretch marks, enthusiastically held forth on the benefits of a vaginal vs. c-section birth, and then called in all of the other employees of the beauty salon to share my good news. (Another unrelated aside-the fact that on my way out, she slapped my ass and told me that I was sexy may or may not have had anything to do with my pregnancy, but definitely scored her a big tip).

Indonesia is also a bad place to be pregnant

I think that all Y-bearing fetuses in Indonesia are issued with their first pack of cigarettes while still in utero, and they spend their first 9 months longing for a little air so they can start smoking. Not only does the whole country smell of clove cigarettes and durian (see below), but men enthusiastically smoke while sitting at their desks in public offices right underneath prominent "no smoking" signs. They also feel absolutely free to light up in small enclosed spaces, public buses, and restaurants, and while holding small children, or sitting right next to women in the advanced stages of pregnancy. I felt like I should wear a gas mask the whole time I was there.

Indonesia is also very smelly. Some of the smells are good, some are bad, and some are simply horrifying. I have always had a very sharp sense of smell, and pregnancy has made it even sharper. So, I was constantly being assaulted by a wide array of challenging aromas. Thank goodness I was mostly over the morning sickness before I got there.

Indonesian roads are very bad. Not only are they badly paved and windy, but the drivers tend to be very aggressive. So, the net effect is that being in a car involves constant lurching around, trying not to fall out of your seat, scream, or cry, as the driver dodges chickens, children, and oncoming traffic. The fact that taxis tend not to have seat belts makes this even more fun. Good times, good times.

Indonesian food is very spicy and greasy. I suffered from hideous heartburn most of the time I was there. Now that I'm back in Korea, my symptoms have miraculously been reduced by at least 50%. I'm positive that the change is all due to the change in diet. It was hard to find foods that were both nutritious and safe (sanitation is a real issue there). In the last five weeks that I was there, I didn't manage to gain any weight at all.

Squat toilets are very hard to use when your belly gets big. I spoke with several pregnant Indonesian women about this, and am now fairly certain that this problem is not restricted to clumsy foreigners.

The quality of medical care in Indonesia is decidedly questionable. I knew this before I went, but was still shocked with the vehemence with which my (Indonesian) doctor insisted that I travel to Singapore for the amniocentesis.

Indonesia is beautiful

This one has been done to death, but bears repeating. There is just about nothing in the world more beautiful than a tropical rain forest, and forests try to grow anywhere there is a gap in the pavement in the tropics. The sheer exuberance of nature in Indonesia is breathtaking to behold, and really did my heart good. There are also spectacular volcanoes, beaches, mountains, palaces, and temples. Indonesian arts (especially dance and visual arts) are also amazing. There's really something for everyone. What a fantastic place for a vacation (but NOT a fertility-related vacation).

Indonesian people are absolutely lovely

Not only are the kids good looking, but they grow up into incredibly friendly, fun-loving adults. Smiles are everywhere, and there seems to be a song in every heart. It truly is a special place.

Still alive

I can't believe that it's been almost a month since my last post. It's not my fault, I swear! I haven't had internet access for almost three weeks. THREE WEEKS! That's kind of like not having chocolate, or air, for three weeks. It's amazing that I survived. It'll take me weeks to recover from the trauma.

Anyway, I'm now back in the land of the wired, and have so many things that I've been dying to post about. It'll probably take me weeks to catch up. I thought I'd just start with a quick pregnancy/health update, though. Thanks for the sweet comments checking on me, and I'm sorry to have worried you with the long silence.

Long story short, all is well with my pregnancy and everything else. I've just been in a very remote area, and while we were supposed to have a satellite internet connection, it failed, so I've been stuck with no means of communication. Thankfully, though, I'm now back in Jakarta, and will be heading back to Seoul in a week, so that won't be happening again.

Pregnancy-wise, the main news is that I am now officially huge. I think that the technical term for my size is "ginormous". It is now obvious to the most casual observer that I'm pregnant, and several people have commented that they can't believe that I'm only five months along. (Can you believe that I'm five months along? Time really flies). Eggbert is clearly planning to become either a soccer star or the next Lord of the Dance. The kicks are now clearly visible from the outside, which is great fun for both me and Mystery. So far I've been spared a lot of the aches and pains that so many pregnant women suffer (knock on wood!) However, I have made an amazing discovery that will forever change my perception of human digestion. Are you ready?

Heartburn really hurts.

I know, I know. It's fairly trite, but for me, this is big news. Before last month, I had never experienced heartburn, and I am ashamed to admit that I had absolutely no idea what heartburn sufferers go through. I suppose that the endless commercials for heartburn remedies on American TV should really have clued me in to the fact that this is a major problem for many people (and thus a major market), but somehow I missed the boat. I had always thought that it would feel like some minor irritation in the belly. If I had known that it was like having molten lava poured into your chest, I would undoubtedly have been much more sympathetic to sufferers for the past 38 years. I apologize to all of the chronic heartburn sufferers of the world for my shameful ignorance.

A recent scientific study suggested that the old wives' tale about heartburn during pregnancy may actually be correct (I'll try to find the link and post it soon). Apparently, if the mother has severe heartburn, the baby is much more likely to be born with a lot of hair.

I must be pregnant with a baby gorilla.