Pregnancy
Friday August 8, 2025
I haven’t really known when to write this one.
Part of me has probably put it off because it feels like something that requires my full attention, but I suppose this newsletter is a decent metaphor for how hard it has felt to contribute to this pregnancy thing. (I mean, I’m 50% responsible after all; it seems that I should be a 50% contributor to bringing it to fruition.)
Nobody tells you that pregnancy is actually 10 months, not 9. Nor do they explain how close that is to an entire year. Lindsay has been pregnant for virtually all of 2025, and I’m not positive she will look back on this year entirely fondly. Who knows, maybe she’ll develop some nostalgia for the parasitic Rockette who emulates the Dallas Cowboys cheerleaders Netflix show his mom watches in the middle of the night. People choose to do this more than once, after all. But damn, women’s bodies do some extraordinary things.
I asked Lindsay to send me a list of symptoms she’s experienced throughout pregnancy. She took the assignment very seriously:
Nausea (especially after brushing my teeth)
Exhaustion
Food aversion
Smell aversion
Cravings
Tinnitus (so bad I actually went to an ENT)
Headache/migraine
Congestion (multiple awful colds, amplified allergies)
Cramps
Mood swings
Backache
Constipation
Loose teeth
Lightning crotch
Skin changes
Finger swelling (no more wedding ring)
Feet and leg swelling
Can’t regulate body temperature
HUGE (sore) BOOBS
Increased libido
Decreased libido
Clumsiness / dropping things more frequently
Forgetfulness
Insomnia
Tingly hands if I sleep the wrong way
Constantly peeing
Peeing when I sneeze/cough
Easily out of breath / decreased stamina in general
Increased heart rate
Intrusive thoughts
Vivid dreams
Anxiety
Stinky / body odor
Round ligament pain
Drooling while sleeping
Charley horses
Dizziness
Strong nails
Brittle nails
Heartburn
Gassy
She’s literally growing a creature inside her. I couldn’t make a zucchini grow in a planter. Maybe if the soil had more heartburn, I could grow a zucchini.
I got her a prenatal massage yesterday, and the masseuse barely touched her out of concern she might induce labor. She has to pee several times a night, and Goose has gotten into the habit of aggressively bathing himself after she gets up. She’s running out of solutions to tying her own shoes. (The best seems to be Crocs). I think she’s reaching the point where she’s ready for the baby to be on the outside, as I imagine many women are when they’ve reached 33 weeks.
People keep asking if it “feels real.” And, like, no, it doesn’t. Not for me, at least. Even when I feel my son kicking, punching, and twirling around in Lindsay’s belly, or see his profile on an ultrasound, he’s still essentially a figment of my imagination. There’s literally a wall between us in a way that there isn’t with Lindsay. I’m excited to meet him, as I imagine Lindsay is, too, but even when I really think about those first few weeks that he’s here, I just can’t grasp how our lives are going to change. We’re so far removed from Goose’s puppy days, despite knowing I reached points where I wasn’t sure I could do it anymore, it feels like that was another person's experience. In that way, it feels like this kid’s dad might be someone else, too, and what does feel real is that I’m still becoming that person.
If you really think honestly about your life, I bet you’d say you’re not the same person you once were. We’re snakes. We shed skins, we inhabit new bodies and eras. Some of us may do it more than others, but it’s simply not reasonable to think 18-year-old you was going to parent a child the same way as 34-year-old you. Sometimes I humor Facebook by tapping the “On this day” notifications it desperately pushes to me, and I have no fucking idea whose memories I’m looking at. I said that? I took that picture? I looked like that? I crawled in the garden with a guinea pig like literal vermin?
You know, you’re still you, but you’re not. More than anything, I think Lindsay’s pregnancy has given me greater awareness of this particular transition. Learning words like “colic” and “breech;” that the research suggests kids actually should watch “Sesame Street” and pregnant people probably should drink a glass of wine every so often; the inexplicable complexity of the swaddle; and holy shit do people have opinions on sleep training and circumcision and these topics do not make for good dinner conversation and yet it happens anyway.
It’s all gestation, baby.
While Lindsay is creating life inside her, our lives are changing around us, and there’s persistent movement within and without to shed the skin and become the next iteration of ourselves; the ones who parent. Hopefully, we'll be done shedding when that little alien comes screaming into the world.
One Song: Huntr/x - Golden
TikTok started sending me videos of people singing the chorus of this song, but I was surprised to discover that it’s from Kpop Demon Hunters, a ludicrously named Netflix original for… Gen Z? Gen Alpha? I honestly don’t know. I’m almost definitely not going to watch the movie, but this song is a jam and it’s been my earworm this week. It is kind of cool that the movie is made for an American audience but the animated people are clearly Korean. Family animation so often defaults to white/black archetypes in some nebulous, vaguely familiar American conception of a city, but from the lyric video, it looks like this is very clearly set in the Global East but made for the Global West. It has been noticeable in recent years how much Asian creativity is influencing our culture beyond the occasional fad. Gens Z and Alpha have really latched onto Japanese and Korean franchises in a way that transcends the Pokemon, Yu-Gi-Oh, Crunchyroll, etc. excitement of my generation. The U.S. has had such a strong global cultural hegemony for so long, it’ll be interesting to see how Americans (especially in certain parts of the country) react to becoming a net importer over the next decade or so.
One Book: You Dreamed of Empires by Álvaro Enrigue
I just finished this one, and gave it a 4/5 on Goodreads. Probably more of a 3.5 but I’m generous. It’s a semi-fictional retelling of November 8, 1519, the day Aztec emperor Moctezuma welcomed Hernán Cortés into Tenochtitlan. The English translation is a little wonky, so at times the grim sense of humor the book pursues comes off as just silly, but it really excels at depicting the grandeur of Tenochtitlan, a city larger and more sophisticated than basically any in Europe not named Paris. The book is seeping with hubris, which makes the inevitable conclusion feel frustratingly avoidable. Pre-Columbian America is one of the most fascinating times and places in history, and books like this make it much more accessible. Both Mesoamericans and Europeans believed themselves vastly superior to the other; the invaders just had shamelessness and smallpox on their side. If you really want to nerd out about it, though, check out Charles C. Mann’s 1491, Camilla Townsend’s Fifth Sun, or David Graeber and David Wengrow’s The Dawn of Everything.
One Hollywood: One Night in Idaho: The College Murders, Prime Video
Ehh, this is not a strong recommendation. It’s just what Lindsay and I have watched recently. We’ve been reading more and, if we watch anything, it’s just been The Office. I’m not a huge true crime guy, but this is just four episodes and was sort of interesting mostly for how much it captivated the attention of true crime obsessors. It’s also funny to hear how many times these cow people say things like murder is only supposed to happen on the East Coast. (Where virtually every state’s violent crime rate is among the lowest in the country.)
One Restaurant: Comfort Kitchen
This isn’t of help to non-Boston people, but man, this was one of the best meals Lindsay and I have had in a while. We’re trying to dine out at least once a week as we get closer to baby arrival, so we’re working through our gargantuan list of restaurants we want to try for the first time or re-visit. (Sarma this week, Bar Vlaha next week, BenCotto in a few weeks!) Comfort Kitchen has been on the list for years, but they closed during COVID, only to reopen a couple of years ago in a new location in Dorchester. Not the easiest trip, but Somebody Feed Phil featured it and we’re devotees, so we prioritized it. Very glad we did.
Everything we had was excellent, even though we had to make some sacrifices due to our current dietary restrictions. I didn’t know okra could taste so good. The jerk duck is what they’re known for, and it was predictably delicious, but my fish chowder was one of the best things I’ve ever had at a restaurant. (I’m realizing there’s a theme here because The Lobster Pot’s Portuguese stew is also among the top 5 things I’ve ever eaten at a restaurant.) Clams, shrimp, fried cod, mussels, potatoes, pork bits, and corn in a spicy coconut broth. Just a great Caribbean twist on a New England dish. Well worth the three days of violent diarrhea.