Posting is going to be non-existent for a while...

Hint: See the "Projects in Progress" sidebar for details.

(And since I know you're wondering: I won't have to change the pseudonym currently attached to the, um, project.)

I hope to be back in a few weeks, with at least occasional posting. (And thanks to everyone who commented on the last post---I had a chance to read them and they are great. I wish I had time to respond!)

Professional nesting

It occurred to me today that perhaps now is not the best time to let days lapse without posting, lest everyone thinks I've gone into labor or something. (I haven't; I'm still here and still sans baby.) I've just been really immersing myself in work lately, that and running around getting all the last-minute baby stuff done. Both have been big time sucks.

Everyone keeps asking me if I've felt the "nesting instinct" yet. (Basically, the urge to clean everything in sight and get everything organized for the baby's arrival.) I *have* experienced the nesting instinct, but for me, it's been completely about my professional life.

So what does "professional nesting" look like? It's finishing up projects that have been languishing. Writing up long-forgotten-about results. Getting various pieces of research organized into various conference and journal papers. Revisiting analyses and experiments that some of my past students did but never finished, either because of time constraints or because at the time we thought we'd reached a dead end. (In the latter case, some of them turned out to not be dead ends, as later work showed.) Getting new projects at least sketched out, so that if I have to wait 3-6 months before I can start them, I'll at least have some idea of what I was thinking and what I want to do. Getting lots of inspirations for papers and trying to get those outlined (see previous sentence).

I think I've had this professional nesting instinct because I really don't know what is going to happen when the baby arrives. I have no idea when, realistically, I'll have the time and energy to start picking up a little bit of work again, because I'll be the primary caregiver for a while. In a sense, I'm hedging my bets, preparing for the worst-case scenario, which is that months will go by before I do any sort of substantive research work again. So I'm trying to finish up as much as I can. At the same time, I'm setting things up so that, whenever I do return to work, I can hit the ground running and pick up where I left off, hopefully.

And to me, right now, that's much more important and interesting than scrubbing my house.

Introspection time

I've been in sort of a weird mood lately. I've always done a fair amount of self-reflection, but lately I seem to have taken it to a whole new level. I've been super-introspective, almost to the point of withdrawing---from posting here, from keeping in touch with people, etc. Not that I've exactly become a hermit, and I haven't completely withdrawn or anything crazy like that, but lately I've really just wanted to spend time alone, thinking.

Part of this, I think, is mentally and emotionally preparing myself for the big life change that's about to happen. My due date is approaching. I'm excited, yet terrified. I'm ready, yet not. Almost everything is in place, yet I still feel vastly unprepared for this birth. I came to the realization the other day that I probably never will feel completely prepared for this birth, or for being a mom, and I have to accept that, no matter how uncomfortable it makes me. So a lot of the introspection has been around that.

Weirdly, the introspection has also spilled over into my work life. I've done a lot of reflecting on what I've chosen to work on during my sabbatical, what I've accomplished, and how that's been very different from what I set out to accomplish. The introspection, oddly, has also fueled this incredible burst of creativity in my work. The creativity burst is helping me find the energy to finish up some things and get them out for review. Today the creativity burst inspired an idea for another conference paper, which in turn can be combined with two recent conference papers for a journal article (which, unlike the journal article I'm currently struggling to get out, will not require a ton of work to put together, I think), which means that I could potentially have 4 things in the review pipeline at once. But the creative burst has a downside, too: there is so much I want to do in my research, and I know that my time is limited, and it's frustrating to not be able to get to all of it. Which I know is ridiculous: it's not like I'll never have time to do research again once my sabbatical is over. But I'm impatient. I see all these connections and paths in my work, and it's frustrating to not be able to follow them all at once. I don't want to prioritize; I want to clone myself and get it all done! :)

I've also been reflecting a bit on my department, taking advantage of my distance from the day-to-day happenings to think about things like department dynamics, what I want my role to be when I return, and department leadership. One thing I've realized is that I'm deeply unhappy with many aspects of our department's leadership. I've been trying to think creatively about how I'm going to deal with that when I return from sabbatical and maternity leave: whether it's better to work around it, with it, or confront it head-on and contribute to improving it. I don't have any good answers yet.

So that's where my mind's been lately.

Pregnancy by the numbers

Five recent food cravings/fetishes:
1. Ice cold (or really hot) drinks. It has to be one temperature extreme or the other.
2. Fruit juice.
3. Fruit in general, particularly tropical fruits like guava, pineapple, papaya.
4. All things dairy.
5. Chocolate.

Four things I really miss:
1. Wine.
2. Sushi.
3. Having a waist.
4. Running.

Three things I can no longer do:
1. Put on socks.
2. Get through a workout without having to use the bathroom.
3. Prepare or eat a meal without breaking something, burning myself, or spilling something. Usually, all three.

Two words I thought I'd never say or hear in a conversation with colleagues:
"nipple confusion"

One thing you should never, ever say to a pregnant woman in her third trimester:
"Wow! You're huge!"

Vacation is over, and panic sets in

I'm back from my "spring break", and it was a lovely, relaxing, and fun trip. (Well, except for the emotional/hormonal meltdown I had in a very public place the last day. Fortunately, it passed quickly. Boy, these pregnancy hormones are sure fun! Mr. Jane should be sainted when this is over, by the way.) It was the perfect March escape, and the weather largely cooperated. We have a number of friends in the area we visited, and we got to spend time with a number of them. And, as a bonus, we found a fabulous vegetarian restaurant---the best meal I've had in a very long time.

Now we're back, and I'm panicking over really stupid things. Mainly I'm panicking because I'm convinced that I'm going to go into labor ANY MINUTE NOW and there are still things that need to get done, like finishing the nursery (and clearing out all of the crap that's accumulated there) and finding a pediatrician and organizing all of the closets in the house, as well as organizing the garage and....

Let's stop to note a few things first:
1. The chances that I will actually go into labor at this point are quite small. We're talking tiny.
2. Even if I did go into labor at this point, Baby Jane would certainly not be coming home with us, so the nursery not being complete is a non-issue (and, needless to say, the least of our worries).
3. Organizing the closets/garage/junk drawer is really low priority in the grand scheme of things. Nice, maybe, but totally not necessary.

Intellectually, I realize all of this, but emotionally, I just keep thinking "ack! I'm not ready for this yet! I need more time!" (See reference to pregnancy hormones above.) Is this what they call "the nesting instinct"? Because if so, nesting sucks!

I had a dream last night that I was sitting in a house with a whole bunch of family and friends, just hanging out. I happened to look out the window just in time to see a huge tornado headed directly towards the house. I started screaming for everyone to go downstairs to the basement. I was the only one who went downstairs; everyone else stayed upstairs as it hit (in fact, no one else seemed the least bit fazed). There were two cats in the next room, and I ran to get them and then ran down to the basement with them, throwing myself over them to protect them just as the tornado hit....and that's when I woke up. I've never had a dream whose meaning was so clear to me, and such a perfect reflection of what I've been feeling lately.

Luckily, I realize how foolish I'm being here, and I'm being proactive about it. I spent some time (the time I meant to spend revising an article....oh well) setting up consultations with a few pediatricians over the next couple of weeks. I confessed all of this silliness to Mr. Jane and found out that he is also panicking as well, so now we can feel silly and panicked together. And I keep reminding myself that we have plenty of time to get everything done, and that everything will get done. And if not...well, in the grand scheme of things, it really doesn't matter.

When bloggers dream

...they dream about other bloggers, apparently.

I don't normally share my dreams on my blog, but this one was so bizarre that I had to share. (Interpretations are welcome in the comments!)

In my dream, a friend of mine (I'll call her C), profgrrrrl, and I were at the pre-race area of some marathon. (Now, the funny thing about this is that profgrrrrl and C are both currently training for marathons in real life. I, of course, am not.) Apparently profgrrrrl and C were both planning on running this marathon, and it was clear that they expected me to run it, too. But neither of them had told me; they just told me to meet them at this particular place. I was a bit concerned about my lack of, well, any training at all, and of course in the dream I was just as pregnant as I am in real life. But I decided to give it a try.

The race organizers called everyone to the start line. On our way to the start line, C and I realized we still had our purses with us, so we went to find my mom, who promised to hold them for us. I wanted to take some things with me, like lip balm and my cell phone, but I realized I had no pockets, so I left everything with my mom. Profgrrrrl came with us. We were all set to head to the starting line when profgrrrrl started having problems with her outfit. She was wearing a plaid skirt, thick gray tights, and these flats with these huge ribbon ties---she said it was her "lucky running outfit"---and her shoes were untied. C and I tried to help her tie them, but they wouldn't tie correctly. The race organizer came over and tried to help. None of us could get her shoes tied. We tried to get her to put on a different pair of shoes, but she insisted that she could not run unless she wore those shoes. Meanwhile, the race had already started, and C started getting impatient. "If we don't get to the starting line soon, we'll be disqualified!" she said. I was torn; stay and help or go with C? Finally, just before we would have been disqualified, C and I decided to leave profgrrrrl and run the race. We barely made it, but the starting official (who was a colleague from my cohort) waved us on.

C and I started running. I could tell she was pissed, so I said "hey, I don't want to slow you down, so don't feel like you have to run with me." At which point she took off, without saying a word to me. So now here I am, running a marathon that I haven't done any training for, 7+ months pregnant, all by myself!

I decided to just keep running, and see how far I could go. I was running pretty slowly, but at a consistent pace, and I was surprised by how easy it felt. I didn't feel tired, even when I was running up stairs or on a hill. I didn't feel sore. I just ran. 5 miles passed, then 10, and I still kept going, slowly and steadily plugging away. I felt confident and relaxed, just willing to see how far I could go.

I don't know if I finished the marathon or not, because I woke up at Mile 12 or so. I'd like to think that I did.

Pregnancy post

I haven't really done a pregnancy post in a while, and I thought it would be nice to post about something lighter after my angsty post on Friday. Plus, this pregnancy thing was really a big mystery to me before I started to actually go through it, so you could think of this as an educational post, if you've ever wondered what it's like to be pregnant. Anyway, I'm in the homestretch now, the good old third trimester, and so I thought I'd share some of my thoughts on what it's like to be at this stage of pregnancy.

The most surprising thing, for me, is how much I am enjoying being pregnant. The first trimester was hell, with all of the nausea, but since then, even with all of the restrictions, it's been much better. I think the thing I enjoy most is knowing that there's a little person growing inside of me, sharing my days and experiences. It's neat to imagine what this little person looks like and what this little person will be like once s/he makes an appearance. I love feeling the little movements, and I'm now at the point where I am starting to distinguish between kicks, punches, flips, and headbutts. (I'm not kidding about that last one. I've been headbutted. I'm sure of it.) It's just a fascinating experience to have another being hitchhiking along with you for 9+ months.

I'm surprised by how much I'm still able to do. My workouts have definitely slowed down a bit, and I've had to adapt some exercises (especially weight training stuff), but I'm still working out regularly and feeling great. My energy level is high---I haven't been napping excessively or anything.

I have, sadly, had to stop running. I had a running injury a while back that had for the most part gone away, but the extra weight I'm carrying seems to have aggravated it again. (If this isn't an incentive to go back to and maintain my "ideal weight" after this pregnancy, I don't know what is!)

Some things that have surprised me: I do become short of breath easily, especially when taking the stairs. Eating too much makes me extremely uncomfortable---smaller meals are definitely better. Basically, your uterus expands so much that it squishes everything else, like your stomach and diaphragm, into a very small space, so that's the reasoning for the two things above. I wasn't prepared for the back pain---although it makes sense, since I'm carrying an extra 20+ pounds all in one section of my body. And things like cleaning or doing the laundry take longer, because I have to find positions that don't hurt my back.

The other surprise is that Baby Jane seems to already be on a schedule. There are definitely times during the day when s/he is always active and times when s/he is rarely active. Unfortunately, "late at night" is one of the active times. I shudder to think what this kid's sleep schedule will be like...

Oh, and I'm definitely waddling now instead of walking. And I can't see my feet anymore.

I haven't had any weird experiences of people coming up to me and touching my belly, but I did have someone ask me the other day if I was carrying twins. (Ouch.) We have, however, heard some flak from a few of my relatives that our totally gender-neutral (and cute) nursery theme is "too masculine". The gender conditioning starts early, apparently....sigh.

So that's a glimpse into the life of a third-trimester pregnant woman. I have no idea if this is interesting to any of you, but I'd be happy to take questions in the comments if there's anything about pregnancy that you're curious about. (Hmmmm....everything you wanted to know about pregnancy, but were afraid to ask?)

Short unrelated thoughts

I have three short posts rattling around in my mind, so I've decided to combine them into one, out of sheer laziness.

* * *
ScienceWoman suggested an experiment of sorts in her comments to my whining post. Mini, her little one, responds enthusiastically to chocolate, and she wanted to know if Baby Jane responds similarly. Well, I finally got the chance to test this out (we have chocolate again!), and Baby Jane is not (yet) a chocoholic, apparently. But, here are some of the things that s/he has responded to with enthusiasm (signalling this by vigorous kicking):

1. Ethiopian food
2. Being read to
3. Whenever the cat sits on my lap (s/he apparently does not like to share!)
4. Whenever I'm really concentrating on something work-related, especially in the afternoon
5. Me waking up in the middle of the night

I'll be interested to see if/how this changes over time.

* * *

Also in that same post, I complained about having to work with data (and programs) written by one of my former research students. Well, yesterday while slogging through the code (and cursing repeatedly under my breath), I discovered that the student had come up with a really simple and clever way to do something that I thought would be rather difficult. Which will save me lots of time and effort, particularly since I didn't think the student had finished that particular task. So that was a nice and unexpected treat. Mea culpa.

* * *

And finally, related to The Little Paper That Could: John Dupuis over at Confessions of a Science Librarian has a great post linking to two articles about writing scientific papers (and some more serious thoughts on what this means about open publishing, etc.) One describes a post-doc's experience in getting a paper out to a journal, while the other is a funny look at writing the perfect scientific paper. (Funny, but like most humor it rings a bit too close to home.)

Whine, whine, whine

Top 10 reasons I'm super-cranky today:

10. My back hurts.
9. I tripped going up the stairs---twice.
8. I have to wake up every time I want to switch sleeping positions.
7. I burned myself---twice.
6. Hormones.
5. Did I mention the back pain?
4. I had to work with the Messy Data From Hell from the Careless Former Research Student. All day long. (and all week long, too. The fun never ends.)
3. Because of #4, research progress was veeeery slooooow today.
2. Mr. Jane's phone alarm went off at an ungodly hour this morning (on the other side of the house, but I *still* heard it), and woke me up for good.
1. There is no more chocolate in the house.

Jeez, now I feel obligated to end this on a positive note, so here are 3 things that made my day more bearable:

3. I thought of another new angle for my research---one that will involve some fun playing around with stuff. Yay!
2. Bananas and nutella.
1. Feeling Baby Jane kick and move at various points throughout the day (and night). Especially when s/he responds (or seems to respond) to my voice.

Grateful post

In honor of Thanksgiving tomorrow, I wanted to write a post about all the things I'm grateful for. But I didn't want this to devolve into a sappy, sentimenal mess of a post. Because of course I'm grateful for the usual suspects---Mr. Jane, family, friends, the continued healthy development of Baby Jane, life in a free society---and will spend lots of time tomorrow reflecting on that. So for this post, I am going to focus on the little things, the non-obvious, some would say the trivial things, for which I am thankful this holiday.

1. I am thankful that I got through the entire first trimester without once having to excuse myself from a meeting or (worse) a class to, er, throw up. (Let me just say that the nausea was pretty damn bad and was pretty much all the time. I consider this a major accomplishment.)

2. I am thankful for the new Sunday Night Football, for two reasons: (a) Jerome Bettis (I love that guy, and I'm not even a Steelers fan). (b) The new flexible schedule, where we now get to see good games between playoff-contending teams.

3. I am thankful for the eggnog-themed holiday drinks at coffee shops. Everyone seems to have one. Mmmmmm, eggnog!

4. I am thankful for colored, refillable gel pens. They have made my research notebook more colorful (and thus cheerful!) and have actually helped keep me more organized this year. Color-coding rocks!!

5. Ok, this last one's not as trivial as the rest: I am thankful for the existence of the Grace Hopper conference. Not only does this conference give all of us fabulous technical women a chance to get together and bond in a truly incredible environment, but it also gave me a great gift this year: a deeper friendship with the students I took with me this year. Since the conference, I have had many great, interesting conversations with these students, and they have felt completely comfortable coming to me and talking to me about all sorts of things that they never would have (or did) before. We are all learning a lot from each other. And for that, I am truly grateful.

What little things are you grateful for this thanksgiving?

A new chapter

I've been debating for a while whether or not to blog about this. If I do, there's a good chance my anonymity (such as it is) may be a bit more compromised. And since my (perception of) anonymity has been important to me---it allows me to be a bit freer to share things, particularly about the culture of this profession, that I might not feel comfortable about otherwise---this is no small issue. On the other hand, the thing about which I haven't blogged is actually part of the reason I've been a bit more quiet than usual on here lately. It's been a big part of my life for the past few months, something that has really touched almost every aspect of my life. And because of this, I wanted to talk about it, but didn't feel comfortable talking about it, and it sometimes felt weird to talk about my life without talking about it. (Does that make sense? I hope so.)

So I've decided that this is important enough, and big enough, that I have to share it. Even if it means that I'm a bit less anonymous. This is going to affect everything I do, and in some respects who I am, and it seems unnatural to not talk about it here. So I've taken a few precautions (you'll notice the archives are gone, and I've made the blog non-searchable/indexable from this point on) in regards to anonymity, and now I'm ready to reveal the reason behind this post's title:

I'm pregnant.

And so, a new chapter in the life of Jane begins.....