I'm so high right now

Gratitude is a powerful drug.  I won’t go so far as to incriminate myself or to make any assumptions about your familiarity by hazarding comparisons (though I daresay I could for some of you!).  Suffice it to say I am feeling “high” on gratitude lately, whether it’s just an “upper” or a hallucinogenic matters little to me! 

(BELOW: Reese in the puddles, makes me giggle every time-- she is just so happy with life!)

 

There are a number of factors contributing to this feeling, of course…

My family is pretty awesome.  Reese is a rock star in her own right; watching her learn to swim and to sing in Mandarin, to name just a couple things, is more rewarding than I can say.  Pete is still the man of my DREAMS and I get to come home from work each day to see both of them.  My parents and mother-in-law visit regularly and my siblings “get” me.  Plus, I have a healthy baby on his way and I’m told that loving your second as much as your first is not as hard as it sounds.  :)

 

(ABOVE: a day at the skate park where Pete teaches Reese to ride and she learns confidence;

BELOW: having cocktails at the Waldorf Astoria-- well, just 1, given the price, but our date was LOVELY)

I’m fortunate enough to have astounding friends all around the world.  For the first time in my life, I am beginning to feel that I am using technology the way I want to in order to stay in touch.  This means more texting and emailing, more Skype conversations, and less useless “liking” on Facebook.  Do I still have a ways to go?  Absolutely!  But, I’m getting better and I feel more involved in the lives of the people that matter most to me and as if I am connecting with them more genuinely… even if I’m only 50% of the way there.  Plus, the generosity we’ve experienced from people gifting us with clothes, furniture, and more for our baby has been positively overwhelming.

(ABOVE: Mother's Day brunch with new friends from Chile, the US, and the UK)

It’s been a good month!  In the last 30 days, I’ve had hilarious picnics with my kid, romantic dates with my hubby, decadent (Mother’s Day) brunch with friends, read some captivating stories and even (wait for it) got a pedicure & massage.  The weather is looking more summer-ish week by week (so we get to play outside!) and summer vacation is just around the corner.  [Holy cow!  Just as I was finishing that last sentence a student brought me CAKE from a local bakery!  Seriously?]

(ABOVE: blueberry cheesecake on the left & chocolate mousse on the right!)

I am content at work.  I like my students & colleagues.  My supervisors credit the value I bring to the school and appreciate my contributions.  I am challenged and (occasionally) rewarded.  I have opportunities for collaboration with peers and I am making connections between my past education and my current experience.  It’s not all roses, but it ain’t half bad and I’m excited about what lies ahead (including a possible attendance at a conference in Amsterdam in November).

Around me, I’m sad to say, it often feels like the world is crumbling!  Family, friends, and colleagues are enduring serious crises daily.  Conversations and the realities of grief, infertility, suicide, bankruptcy, and kidnappings are very real RIGHT NOW for people that I love.  The news is only worse, of course.  Hundreds of innocent girls are taken from their parents in Nigeria, hundreds more are dead in a mine blast in Turkey, and wars are waged daily & globally.   Exploring the rationale behind these headlines (modernity vs religion & tradition in education, or worker’s safety vs economic demand for natural resources) can be daunting at best and depressing or deadly at worst.

So, today, while the sun is out and before the feeling slips away quickly… before the cynicism and fear of loss creep back in my mind, and before I remind myself of the things that aren't going my way, I am just going to be grateful for what I have.  I’m NOT forgetting all the rest, I’m just going to let myself take this “drug” today. Whether I deserve it or not, whether it will last another hour or another year, and whether it’s “fair” or just stupid luck, I’m gonna go with it right now.  I hope you can get high too!

 

(ABOVE: how could you not be happy with THIS in your life?!)

Yenbarski Baby #2

So, many of you already know that Pete, Reese, and I are expecting a little addition to our family this coming June.  It was a BIG surprise at first, but we are now anxiously awaiting the arrival of baby Beta (our nickname for child 2.0).  We’ve verified twice now that it’s a little boy and as we plow along through the 8^th month of this pregnancy, the reality that our little family of 3 will soon be 4 is becoming very intense.

[I'm posting preggers photos here simply for posterity's sake.  Mind you, the "quality" of these is AWFUL since they are either (a) selfies - which I positively HATE taking; (b) taken by Reese and so therefore, by definition, fuzzy; or (c) taken at night with an iPhone.  Please just scroll through.]

 (17 weeks along and showing much earlier with Beta than I did with Reese)

Thanks to a generous gift from Grandma at Christmas, we’ve already been to Ikea and started spending a great gift card’s value worth in stuff.  We’ve been given a crib and a gliding rocking chair!  Another couple straight out GAVE us their double Chariot stroller/bike trailer!  Have also accumulated a bassinet and baby bath.  When my parents came last month, they brought with them a large and very full suitcase of clothes, diapers, and more supplies from one of my best friends, Tara, who had her own little boy about 7 months ago.  The generousity we’ve encountered is beyond belief!

We’ve started to make space in Reese’s room and our own for this new little person and it’s hard to believe that he’ll be here before the school year is over.  (His due date is officially the 10^th - 15^th of June, but he’s measuring very big and so we doubt that we’ll make it that long!) According to all our prenatal appointments and tests, the baby is quite healthy (me too!) and measuring beyond his gestational age… which today is just beyond 35 weeks.

 

 (27 weeks along) 

We’ll be having the baby here in Shanghai, in the international/VIP (i.e. English-speaking) ward of a local Chinese hospital.  Our doctor is a Chinese woman who speaks English very well.  Going home to have the baby wasn’t an option as we’re not insured there and traveling late in the pregnancy would be tough and would require me missing too much work.  So, as Pete likes to say, our “made in China” baby will also be delivered here.  It’ll take about a month to get the Chinese birth certificate translated and made official by the US Embassy and we don’t anticipate having a passport for him any sooner than that either, plus he’ll then need a Chinese visa in said passport… which means we aren’t going to the States (or anywhere else) for our summer holidays.  Instead, we’ll be here in Shanghai, just getting accustomed to our new addition. 

Seeing a Chinese doctor, despite her very fluent English, has been an interesting cultural lesson too.  There are very obviously distinct expectations of the patient-doctor relationship, interactions, and expectations when it comes to my Western perspective and her Chinese one.  It’s not a bad thing, nor is it terribly uncomfortable.  It is, however… well, different.  In the US, as a patient I was seen as an equal partner in the process and my questions were welcome.  Here, the doctor is the expert (end of story!) and I fear my questions are seen, at best, as odd and, at worst, as rude.  I genuinely baffle the nurses.  I wonder whether my doctor is having as much difficulty handling me as I have handling her.  I’ve written up a birth-plan that I’ll be sharing with her this week and I can only guess what her reaction will be given the questions I received from our office assistant when she was translating it for me (in case the nurses don't all speak English once we arrive).  [What do you mean, "natural birth"?  What do you mean, "your husband should be present"?  When you say this, do you mean that?]  

 

 (30 weeks along)   

Some of my students are surprised to hear that I’ll be delivering our baby here.  They ask, mystified, “Miss Victoria— aren’t you going home to do that?!”  I reply, calmly, that given the millions of children that are born in China every year, I’m certain the medical staff can handle little ‘ole me.  I’m told, according to some Westerners, that Chinese hospitals won’t do blood transfusions for foreigners!  Apparently, they simply view us as being too different-- as if we were separate species!  Urban myth and cruel gossip, is all that is.  I think that’s probably a whole lot of misperception and discrimination as well as ignorance on the part of some of my peers living here.  We’re all human after all.

It has been an interesting experience though, being pregnant in a foreign land.  I remind myself that this is part of why we moved overseas.  We wanted to see how others around the world really live, what their experiences are like, what is their norm, how are we similar, and how are we different?  What more fundamental a way to do that than through the process of creating life?  Comparing birth stories with Western and Chinese colleagues and friends has been… informative, to say the least.  While I complain about (nearly) all things American, I had a perfect birth in the US and I won't fault that system (much).  Hopefully, I’ll soon be able to share the details of our next birth with some further insight and detail into the hospital setting (and hospitality?) of China.

(34 weeks along, and, yes I'm still riding my bike -- get over it, Mother!)