Monday, February 11, 2013

Early Pregnancy in Japan, Part 1


It may seem crazy for someone like me, a busty, size 12 Texas girl, to choose to be pregnant in Japan, and some of it is crazy, but some of it is works out really well.

One Good Thing
Regular Sonograms – The first thing they did when we went to the hospital to have our pregnancy validated by a trained professional with take sonograms of the uterus to identify the tiny, 6 mm long bean shaped growth causing my body changes and increase in human growth hormone.
At our next visit, two weeks later, we had another sonograms to see the teeny tiny heartbeat that had developed in our 1 cm long offspring.
Keep in mind that when I was an embryo, my mom didn't have any sonograms. At all. Really. Nothing. It just wasn't common where she was at that time.

One Bad Thing
Prenatal Vitamins – One problem with the service at the hospital is, aside from don't drink or smoke, they didn't give us much advice in the way of vitamins, minerals, etc. in fact, prenatal vitamins are not that easy to find here, at least in my experience. When I had my husband ask at a pharmacy, all they could tell us was "Take normal vitamins." Which meant I got to do some homework. I looked around online and found out what types of vitamins are most necessary and paid the exorbitant fees for calcium, iron, and folic acid supplements. Then, in hunting through one maternity department at a department store, I managed to find one small bottle of actual prenatal vitamins. By then, I'd already contacted friends and family back home to send me whatever they could find. Honestly, I'd rather have supplements I can read the back of easily. Playing match that kanji isn't so fun in this case.

Next week, we go back to the hospital for another checkup. At this one, they will give us are expected due date, and apparently a lot more information, which may or may not include warnings about weight gain. That is a story for next time.

Hello again!

Allo Blogosphere. Sorry for the delay in correspondence. I will actually do better this time, and stop trying to make up for old updates. Let's just move forward. Okay.

So let's start with some new information. First off, I'm writing this using Dragon dictation software which I bought at a 50% discount following Nanowrimo. In January, I finished editing the first decent draft of a novel and submitted it to the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Awards. We'll see if I made the cut in the coming week. The first cut that is.

As of May 17, I will have been in Japan for five years. The next day marks the day I met my husband five years previous. A little over six months after that will be our two year wedding anniversary which, if the fates allow, we will be celebrating with our infant offspring.

As of today, February 11, I am eight weeks pregnant, semi – full-time employed (by Japanese employment standards), and generally quite happy. I spend my free time using the bathroom constantly, eating as much as I think I need to (and even sometimes a little more), reading books I need to return to students, and learning how to take things slow.

I'm not good at taking things slow. It is not a skill I have ever had a need to develop. Part of how my brain wants to behave is more similar to a tank than a ballerina. I am more likely to just keep going and run over anything in my path than to stop, slow down, and carefully tiptoe around a difficulty. I don't like it. It requires taking more care of myself, and for some reason that's really hard for me to do.

But I am learning. And I am finding ways to be more generally appreciative of the things I have. A lot of the plans that I had as a child have actually worked out pretty well. I wanted to get married at twenty-seven to someone I had known for some time, and we did that. I wanted to be married for one year before we got pregnant, so my partner and I would have time to adjust our roles within marriage before adding parenthood to the mix. On that note, so far so good.

So now I'm a large pregnant foreigner living in Japan with the Japanese husband in a Japanese apartment in Japanese in-laws, physicians, taxes, food prices and all else that makes this place so special and at times so strange.

By the end of next month, we will be at the end of the first trimester, and I will be able to tell my students. A month later, I won't be their teacher anymore. The wonderful thing is the date when we can stop worrying as much and I can let the news out overlaps just about perfectly the blooming of the cherry blossoms in this area. A great time for great news!

I am so excited.

And for now, that is all.