Sonogram Says . . .

We just had our monthly visit with our doctor this week and found out we're having a boy! This was a bit of a surprise, as most of my friends (and I) had, rather unscientifically, predicted that it would be a girl - I had terrible nausea, I was not experiencing "boy food" cravings, etc. Even the proprietress of a wine store in San Fedele, Italy, had pronounced the arrival-to-be a girl (even though I wasn't showing yet). So a boy it is . . . I can't say I feel overly confident about being a mother to a little guy, but at least now I won't go broke buying little girl outfits. Also, it's been rather interesting hearing people's reactions to the news. Some comments:
"Funny, I never imagined you with a boy." Well, you will have to now!
"That's so fantastic! So now you can have whatever you want the next time around!" We were thinking perhaps orangutan, or maybe even that less desirable option, a human girl. 
"Congratulations! Boys are much easier." Phew - guess we're on easy street now.  

Breast Feeding, Home Birth

A couple of articles that have caught my attention recently - probably because of my "condition," but certainly interesting in their own right:

- Via Judith Warner's excellent blog Domestic Disturbances, the Hannah Rosin article I've been waiting for, The Case Against Breast-Feeding. Full disclosure: when the time comes, I plan to breastfeed. We'll see if it "takes," and I hope it does. But I cannot support anyone who argues at all cost for breastfeeding, particularly at the expense of the mother's needs/concerns/mental health. Because if there is one thing I learned in psych grad school (and it may only be one thing), it is that the studies on which we've based our religion of breastfeeding are fundamentally flawed, because we cannot randomly assign mothers to the breastfeeding or non-breastfeeding category. And that these two categories oftentimes naturally fall along the lines of socioeconomic status. And that the supposed gains in intelligence scores are often little more than the margin of error. And, as Warner and Rosin point out, those who say breastfeeding is "free" (like my mom, who works for WIC) are not taking into account the opportunity cost involved in pumping, pumping, pumping - all day long. (Moo!)

- Controversy-stirring (gotta love NY Magazine, even when you're not living there anymore) article about "new leader of the home birth movement" Cara Muhlhahn, who is willing to oversee home births even for high-risk cases, but is accused by her detractors of, among other things, using St. Vincent's as a dumping ground when cases go awry. Article talks about the nearly viral power of the Ricki Lake documentary The Business of Being Born (which I haven't seen and probably won't be able to, given my geographic location). Also makes you wonder why some of the most "nonconformist," fringey New Yorkers are also some of the herdiest - to the point of risking their newborns' lives. Compare and contrast with, say, the Netherlands, where home birth is neither a trendy elective nor a Big Deal - and they have it down to a science.

Working Moms

I am not currently working, mainly because we moved for my husband's job to a foreign country that appears reluctant to award me the right to work. But I would like to work again (and am currently in the process of awaiting the outcome of my work permit application), and becoming pregnant has inevitably brought up myriad thoughts and feelings about what it might be like to work as a mother.

I remember meeting with a female managing director when I started working in investment banking about ten years ago. How exactly the meeting came about, I can't precisely remember. But I imagine it had something to do with my asking the HR director (a hot-to-trot, suspiciously tan babe whose presence tended to inspire not only the admiration but also crass commentary of most of the male analyst and associate recruits) about "work-life balance." And, really, what a funny thing to ask about, on my part. After all, I was single and only 21, had just graduated college and moved to New York, and becoming a mommy was really not any kind of top priority. But, still, it seemed like something worth inquiring about - and in a conceptual way, even important. In the end, it did result in a fairly interesting conversation.

This particular female M.D. appeared to be in her late 40s/early 50s and told me she had two young children. I asked her how she did "it" - managing two kids and climbing to a top spot at a middle-market investment bank. She took a long, meaningful glance at one of the undoubtedly very expensive baubles she was wearing before answering, "I should say I've had a lot of help." And while this came as no surprise - help makes things happen, as my mother-in-law always reminds me - everything she said seemed to imply that, really, she almost never saw her children. She had multiple nannies, and her kids were enrolled in multiple "programs." Basically from their births on, she had not had to forsake any of her investment bank duties for child care. I left her office feeling somewhat deflated and hardly encouraged, consoling myself only with the knowledge I wasn't planning on having any tots in the foreseeable future.