Category Archives: Musings

20 Weeks

How far along: 20 weeks, completed 5.22.12–halfway there!

Weight gain: 4 pounds! Hello, 137.

Clothes: I’ve been wearing lots of skirts and dresses these days and feeling both feminine and mighty comfortable. Though I did sport my skinny black cords one day, by mid-afternoon I finally relented and unbottoned that top button before it dug a permanent divet in my midriff. In a few weeks I may be saying my final goodbyes to my skinny pants . . . but I know it’s not goodbye forever, and I’m confident that we’ll have a tearfully happy reunion sometime in the fall. Hopefully earlier rather than later–we’ll just have to see how fast the weight melts away.

But first things first! It ain’t time to be losing weight yet, compadres.

Purchases: My wonderful mother-in-law has been collecting baby books! For some reason this made me extremely emotional (in a good way). This baby is going to be so loved.

Body: Feeling dang good! I love my little belly. I like to rub it all the time.

My belly also makes me feel safe. I was heading home on the El after dark one day and there were some sketchy characters on the platform with me. They were probably fine and wonderful people . . . but I was keeping an eye out (you fellow city-folk know how it goes). Then I remembered that pregnant women are universally loved and bring out that generous, gushing side of people–maybe even gangsters! So I pooched out my belly, settled my hands on it in a nicely pregnant pose, and quickly felt a bubble of baby-safety-zone descend around me.

Sleep: Still sleeping on my stomach–I wonder how much longer this can last?

Best moment(s) of the week: This one’s hard! The ultrasound . . . the conversation with my boss about my future at the company as a mother . . . my husband feeling the baby move for the first time . . . there’s just too much wonderfulness to choose from.

Movement: Yes!! Sunday night I was lying on the bed on my back, reading and trying to get sleepy. I looked down at my stomach and suddenly noticed that there was a weird lump on the lower righthand side of my abdomen. “Whoa! What the . . . baby, look at this!” I cried to my husband. I prodded the lump and it was hard as a rock. My husband reached over to touch it, and felt the baby move for the first time! Just about 15 seconds after he felt this, the lump subsided and my stomach got soft again–I guess the baby moved on to a different part of his or her little realm. It was the strangest thing, and the first time I’ve seen the baby’s body manifest itself so clearly.

Food cravings/aversions: Nothing!

Symptoms: A little nausea if I don’t eat as soon as the hunger hits, more tears than usual (but nothing insane), and a cramped feeling in the calve (or is it calf?) of my left leg (I’ve heard this is totally normal).

Emotions: Some bouts of crying, probably every other day. This can be provoked by anything–a tender word from my husband, talking about the future, my mother in law’s email with the list of books she was buying for the Little Wa-Wa . . . it’s all very wonderful.

I’ve also talked to my boss about what my life as an employee and mother will look like–but there’s a lot to say there, so I’ll save it for another post. Suffice it to say, the conversation was so much better than anything I had dared hope for that I might start crying again just thinking about it. God is GOOD!

Hopes and dreams: We’re officially searching for an apartment to move to when our lease is up at the end of August, and I dream of in-unit laundry . . . a not-so-heinous kitchen . . . a beautiful, sunlit space for our little family . . . a little baby room with a comfy chair . . . I’m excited about this move and thrilled that we’re able to upgrade our living space in time for this little one. I know it’s not strictly necessary–I slept quite comfortably in a cardboard box stashed in a closet during my first few months of life–but it’s just nice.

What I miss: Hmmm . . . nothing at the moment. Next question!

What I’m looking forward to: Getting some kind of birthing prep class nailed down. I’m fascinated by hypnobirth (not as scary or weird as it sounds, I promise), and love the idea of going natural and taking a Bradley method class. At this point, I am open to an epidural if I hate my life when the time comes and if it becomes evident to me that the pain just ain’t worth it, but I do really want to find that mental focus that can make the pain tolerable. We’ll see. I have a lot to learn, and I still don’t quite believe I’m going to have to go through that experience.

Husband update:  A few days before the ultrasound, I asked if he was dreaming more of a baby girl or a baby boy. I told him to just tell me what his heart was saying–I knew he’d be happy with whatever and not disappointed, blah blah blah. Anyway. He got this really tender, almost sheepish look on this face and said, “well . . . I would kind of like a little girl.”

He’s a darlin’.

Wednesday morning he came with me to my 3rd appointment with the midwives (followed by the ultrasound downstairs), and got to hear the baby’s heartbeat. It would go thump-thumpitty-thump-thump-GRNK!–thump-thump-thump-thumpitty-thump-GRNKLJL!

The midwife said the baby could sense the light from the machine and was kicking at it, hence the repeated GRNKLJL’s inserting themselves violently into the otherwise regular little rhythm. “The baby is really active!” she exclaimed.

As we took the elevator down to the ultrasound, my husband said, “After hearing those kicks I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s a boy.”

So–boy? Girl? Girl? Boy? Cast your votes now, and I’ll tell you guys what we learned at the ultrasound tomorrow!

(Yes, slightly evil, but I need time to scan all the pictures we brought home with us.)

And by the way–for the complete progression of pregnancy pictures you can see this page. It’s much more interesting now that there’s some visible progress!

The terror of the microphone

My story of our 2nd studio session wouldn’t be complete without a brief story about my experience recording lead vocals.

Carrie is our main singer and band leader, and for the most part, I stick to harmonies and guitar, with a little rhythm (egg shaker + tambourine) thrown in here and there. But there are a few songs–currently Denali, Green Wheat, and Pierced Through–that I take the lead vocals on.

After having an easy time getting clean guitar tracks during our first session and having a blast singing my heart out doing scratch vocals, I wasn’t really nervous about session #2. At all.

The situation: it was 1pm. Eric, Carrie and I were loaded in, tuned up, and warmed up, and our engineer Rick was ready at the mixing board. We had a couple hours before our friends Jon, Graham and Peter arrived to lay down their instrument tracks, so we needed to get lead vocals done for all the songs they were contributing to.

Which, for the purposes of this story, included Denali and Green Wheat.

Carrie started off strong with great takes on Scarecrow, Eloise, and a handful of other songs.

Eric continued, nailing his lead vocals on Dinosaur and Lucien.

 And then . . . it was my turn.

I stepped into the recording room and approached the microphone.

It had a funny little gold screen in front of it, which I’m sure serves some very important purpose.

And suddenly it was time to sing . . . for real.

As soon as I put the headphones on and faced that microphone, the nerves hit me like a punch in the gut. I felt that sinking/whooshing feeling, and all my breath support checked out of my body and went to hang out on another planet. Far, far away from my lungs where I really needed it to be.

“Rolling,” said Rick. The guitar track started playing in my ears. I stepped closer to the mic and opened my mouth.

guikgl

Somebody let me outta here!

Yes, I had a sense of humor about my own terror and hammed it up for the camera, but sadly that didn’t mean that the real terror went away.

I recorded a first take of Green Wheat–disastrous. Breathy, erratic, and the more erratic I heard myself getting, the more erratic my vocals became. But I pushed through the whole song even though I knew it was destined for deletion, just to give myself time to calm down and get into a groove.

After the first take, I turned to my bandmates and our engineer, who could hear everything from their perches on the other side of the glass. I couldn’t help but pity them all–nothing is more painful than sitting through an erratic performance by a nervous performer. I know from experience–it makes your soul kind of crinkle up and your cheek twitch.

“Um, wow,” I said. “Uf! Okay. I’m pretty freaked out right now guys.”

Oh, you guys. I psych myself out over lead vocals, purely because I know my part is the center of attention. Put me in front of the same mic to do harmonies, and I’m fairly calm and collected. But as soon as my brain registers “YOU ARE IN THE SPOTLIGHT, BABY,” something inside me clenches up and tries to wrestle my confidence into oblivion and beyond.

But that said, it didn’t make sense to be freaked out, dangit. It was totally irrational:

a) All three of these individuals had heard me sing lots in the past, so I had nothing to prove to them.

b) I’d been singing fine up until this point in this exact same studio, with this exact same group of people.

c) If I recorded a bad take, it could be deleted forever, so no horrible consequences were hanging over my head. In fact, I could record 100 million takes, and only the one I liked would ever be heard by the Peoples.

So why? WHY???

I just had to try and rationalize what was happening, or at least isolate some factors that I could perhaps control. The factors that came to mind were:

-I usually sing these particular 3 songs while playing the guitar–seated, and kind of hunched over my instrument. So standing up to sing them felt very different.

-When I stand and sing into a mic at our live performances (or at church), I usually hold the mic in what my husband calls my ‘death grip’ and kind of brace myself with the stand. Having something to grab that anchors me physically helps me feel more secure emotionally. I even rest my lips on the actual mic sometimes, especially if my eyes are closed, to maintain my sense of place and balance. So: standing next to this gold-screened mic with nothing to grab or touch, just my tall and lanky body hovering near it, made me feel unmoored. Unstable. A leaf in the wind.

With this quick (out-loud) psychological self-analysis complete, our engineer Rick (bless his heart) gave me a mic to hold that wasn’t even connected to anything–it was just something to grab.

Then he turned off the overhead lights, leaving only the red glow of the twinkle lights.

I sang in the dark for my next take, gripping the mic with all my strength, and alternately gripping my own arms and torso (and possibly collarbone? hard to say what I gripped during that frightening time).

The results: much better, but still quite wavery. By the third take, I was feeling waaaay better. So when we moved on to the next song, Denali, I was able to get it in one take–woohoo!

As of right now, Denali and Pierced Through are done, and I am pleased with the results. But sadly, after those 3 takes of Green Wheat, I decided to jump ship and leave it for another day. What’s that saying? “He who fights and runs away lives to fight another day”? Right-o.

So the lead vocals for Green Wheat will be attacked during our last session. I can do this . . . right?

Any recommendations for beating this frightful monster of nerves? Because it’s highly annoying.