It’s a boy!

…or maybe a girl. We didn’t get any confirmation at the last visit. We did, however, get plenty of waiting time between Rie seeing the doctor and midwife. This visit lasted about three and a half hours, and I, in my ultimate wisdom, didn’t bring my ipod or a book. The past few times it was just in-and-out (which is how we wound up in this situation in the first place) and I didn’t think that I’d need anything to occupy my time. The most useful lessons are often the hardest, so I will not be caught unprepared again.

Hmm…where to begin? Rie is feeling much better, although she still loses most of what she eats. Her stomach is definitely getting bigger, which was a bonus this past week when we went to visit her family in Saitama. Any passengers who have small children or are pregnant get to board first. Since we will never have enough money to fly business class, I milked this for all it was worth, pushing my way to the front of the gate. A couple of kids who were traveling alone for the first time started to head me off, but I would have nothing to do with that. In my experience, I’ve found that a long hard stare will usually do the trick, but sometimes a slight hip bump is required. Nothing too physical, just a show of who’s in control; something I learned from the BBC series “Planet Earth”. To my dismay, once we boarded the plane the attention of the flight attendants was focused on Rie. Um…hello? Maybe I’d like something to drink and an extra pillow too! Just another example of the lack of appreciation shown to me in my everyday life.

All in all, it was a pleasant visit. Rie went out to lunch with some friends on Saturday. One of her friends is also pregnant, due about one month before Rie. Her other friend is a nurse, and said that the way Rie’s stomach is poking out indicates that it will be a boy. Everybody I talk to says that it’s going to be a boy, and I’m starting to believe it. I really don’t care either way, as long as it’s healthy.

I have two more weeks of vacation until school starts up again, so I need to get my classes in order and put together my syllabuses. It’s been a relaxing vacation, and I am sad to see it end because that means spring is coming (not bad) and summer is just around the corner (bad). I’m going to cook dinner now before Rie gets home.

…And the Curtains Close Again

Well, that will teach me to be optimistic so soon. The day after my last post, Rie got really sick again and has barely been able to move off the sofa. She said that this past week has been the worst to date. The doctor says everything looks fine though, so that puts my mind a little more at ease. We went to the doctor and got the 3-D images. This one is the baby with its right arm coming up over its head.

I also learned that in Japan pregnancies last ten months. So everything I read or hear about in terms of time, have to be re-calculated.

Not much else has been going on. I got a new computer chair. It’s much more comfortable and it moves around a lot easier. I’ve started my web page that I will be presenting this spring. So far it has been a little slow going because I’m thinking about the layout of the page. My next step will be to add sub-pages and link them together, so the rest of my vacation will be filled.

Opening the Curtains

Here’s a basic rundown of what’s been happening over the past six weeks:

• Rie has been sick. Sick. Every day/all day. Sick. Fortunately, she is either getting better, or just handling the sickness better because she is able to communicate beyond grimaces, and can eat a wider variety of food. This is not to say that she is over her sickness. She still feels various levels of nausea throughout the day (as demonstrated today when we went shopping for a new computer chair and she had to throw up in a fifth floor bathroom at the store).
• About a week ago she developed a very severe rash that covered most of her upper body, especially the stomach. The rash wasn’t due to stretching, as she still hasn’t gained much weight and isn’t showing yet. But she is eating more. Anyway, we went to both a general practitioner and her Ob/Gyn four times over three days and they were able to get rid of it through a series of ointment and IV treatments. This was perhaps the low point so far. She was unable to sleep at night, thus by default, I was also unable to sleep. Days were spent sitting in the apartment with the curtains drawn. Let me tell you, Sitting in a dimly lit apartment at 3:00 in the afternoon will drag anyone into a depressive state. Thankfully, things are much better now and we actually venture out sometimes (like today when she threw up in a fifth floor bathroom at the store).
• We had a chance to see an ultrasound of the baby. Actually, the doctor said the ultrasound was being done about two weeks earlier than usual because last time he mistakenly told Rie that he would do an ultrasound on our next visit. So he did one for us to see. It was pretty amazing. On our way back from the doctor, Rie threw up in the gutter about 20 meters from or building. In mid-sentence she just stopped, bent over, did her thing, and resumed the conversation. Very weird.
• I’m doing three presentations this spring (one in Osaka, and two in Nagoya (between Osaka and Tokyo)). I just decided to do them this last week, so now I have to put together what I’m going to say and try to get an open source website going.

I know it’s been awhile since I updated, and to tell the truth, I haven’t been doing anything except watching DVDs , surfing the Internet and taking care of Rie. I was just feeling really down, and didn’t feel like writing about anything. But things are better now. This Wednesday, we will go in and have a 3-D video and image taken of the fetus. I’ll try to get some good scans of the image to post here.

Cabin Fever II

Rie is still sick everyday, all day. The sickness intensifies and abates throughout the day so we never know how sick she is going to be from one minute to the next. Because of this, we have been forced to remain locked up inside our apartment for the past three weeks. My only reprieve comes in the form of going to work, but as of next week I’ll be on vacation until April. Rie, however, has opted to keep working even though she feels so bad. We’re hoping that there will be only a couple of more weeks of this before her hormones level out and she starts feeling better.

The doctor set our due date for August 12. That also happens to be Rie’s brother’s birthday. He said that he hopes the baby is late, because if they both have the same birthday, then nobody will remember his. I told him that he should be glad to have the same birthday, because before the baby, I never knew when his birthday was. Now I’ll never forget. This doesn’t mean that I’m going to be buying him anything though because, well, I’ve got a baby to buy presents for at that time of year. Too bad for him, I guess.

Yesterday was a national holiday, “Seijin no hi“. This is the day that they celebrate all Japanese who turn twenty years old this year. Twenty is the legal age of adulthood here. They have big ceremonies throughout the country and all the “new” adults attend wearing kimonos and register themselves at city hall. Since it was a holiday, I wasn’t sure if the garbage was going to be collected (Mondays and Thursdays are our pick-up days). I took the garbage down, and about an hour later, heard the truck go by. Japanese garbage trucks play little songs like an ice cream truck to let people know to get their garbage ready.

Later, I went down and noticed that there were four or five bags of garbage that had not been collected. There were bright yellow labels on them. Anyway, this morning after Rie left for work, I got a call from her saying that our garbage was one of the ones that didn’t get picked up, so I had to go down and bring it back up until Thursday. Apparently, they are no longer collecting garbage in brown or black bags. From now on, we have to use clear bags so they can see what it is we’re throwing away. Whatever, just another red-tape problem to deal with.

Note: A friend commented that when the guy got out of the truck, the truck pulled away and kept going without a driver. This is because they drive on the other side here. No runaway tragedies here.

Proof of Life

Went back to the doctor last night, and had to spend three hours in the lobby waiting to see the doctor. Things were moving really slow. We went in at 5:00 and grabbed our ticket out of the machine (like at a deli). We were number 13 (great) and they were serving number 4. I didn’t think it would be too long, but an hour later, I noticed that they were only on number 8.

I had brought my ipod, so I was able to listen to one of my audiobooks. Rie has still been really sick, so she was just sort of sitting there, not really sharing my reality. On the front wall, They have a wide-screen television that replays some nature DVD. We went through that about four times before being called in.

The doctor finally accepted the fact that she was pregnant, and set our due date for August 10. My original calculation was August 5, and I still stand by it. Rie’s convinced it’s going to be about a week later.

We went through the usual routine where the doctor delivered information at breakneck speed, making it impossible for me to understand a large portion of what what was being said. I did have some questions that I wanted him to answer, so I had Rie translate them for me. Here they are in no particular order of importance:

Q: Does she need to be taking vitamins?
A: She hasn’t lost a lot of weight, so taking vitamin supplements isn’t necessary. Also, multi-vitamins contain some vitamins which are not good for pregnant women (Vitamin A??).

Q: Should she stop eating sushi?
A: Prepared correctly, sushi doesn’t pose a threat.
Q: What about Mercury? Isn’t that bad?
A: Sushi is okay as long as it’s prepared correctly.

Q: How much water should she drink each day?
A: If she feels thirsty, she should drink, but if she doesn’t feel the need to drink, there is no harm not drinking water.

So, a few of my concerns were shot down, but I’m still going to push for abstaining from certain types of fish. I just don’t want to take a chance of Mercury poisoning.

New Year’s Un”EVE”ntful

Since moving to Osaka in 2001, this New Year’s was only the second time we had spent it here in Japan. In the past we had either gone back to the States or other countries. The first year, 2001, was because we didn’t have enough money. This year was because Rie was too sick to go anywhere (and we didn’t have enough money). New Year’s Eve in Japan is very quiet compared to other parts of the world. Almost everyone spends it at home with their families, often going to a temple at midnight (hatsumode) to offer prayers and wishes for the coming year.

The New Year’s holiday is quickly becoming my favorite time in Japan for one reason: the television. Japanese television is famous around the world for its strangeness and outrageousness, but on the last day and first day of the year, they go all out. In the afternoon, we watched a four-hour show where they place different teams of people on deserted islands and force them to fend for themselves (ala “Survivor”). This really wasn’t my favorite show because:

1). I didn’t understand most of what they said, although the hunting and fishing for food was pretty cool

2). The Japanese humor is still lost on me, even after living here for so long. I understand why Japanese think it’s funny, but I just don’t get it.

3). I doubt the reliability of many of the shows here. I’m not sure how much of the show is influenced by the production team.

Even so, it still made for some passable viewing. My personal favorite came on at 9:00. “Downtown” is comedy duo from here in Kansai (Osaka, Kobe, Kyoto) who, besides having a regular television show, do a special every New Year’s Eve where they and some other members go to a Japanese resort and spend 24 hours there. The only catch is, if they laugh even a little, then guys dressed as ninjas come in and whack them on the ass with a leather strap…hard. The production team sets up situations where other comedians enter and do something that will make them laugh. It is incredible, and anyone back home who I’ve shown it to loves it. So that went until midnight and Rie went to bed. I stayed up drinking my nihon-shu (sake) and surfing the web, then went to bed around 2:00.

This morning, she was feeling better, so we went to the temple for hatsumode and then to a supermarket to buy something for dinner. It was nice to see her feeling better. The past few days have been rough, and she was hardly able to stand up without getting sick. I have decided to augment my blog title to include references to Japanese life, since the pregnancy has yet to offer up much news.

Note: I had taken some pictures at the temple, but am having difficulty cropping them to look good, so I will post them here later.

An “Embarrassing” Situation

We went back to the doctor on Friday night, and he said that there was definitely something there and a heartbeat could be heard. However, he wants us to go back again next Friday, just to be sure. I wonder at what point he’s going to be sure? Perhaps when Rie’s crowning on the delivery table. Still, it is a very nice clinic, and I’ve already gotten to know some of the other patients’ faces. For example, last Friday evening when we were leaving, there were two women sitting on one of the sofas. They looked very young, I’d say around twenty. Well, when we went back this week, They were both there again. Rie went in to do her blood pressure and whatever else it is that takes her so long to do. I sat on the sofa behind the two girls and started reading my book.

Now, these girls aren’t your average Japanese women. They look and act like they’re used to a wild life. One of them is heavyset and is clearly following the lifestyle of a kogyaru. Kogyaru are girls who follow a mid-1990’s trend of excessive tanning, extreme make-up and outrageous fashion. The other one is also heavyset (now that I think about it, all the women at this place are fairly heavyset…duh!) but is a little more reserved in her appearance. They both notice me sitting there and start whispering to each other and looking around at me. This is the typical reaction that I have gotten for the last ten years here in Japan. To begin, foreigners are stared at simply for being foreigners. It takes awhile to get used to, but that’s just the way it is. Second, I am 193 cm tall (6′4″), I literally stand head, shoulders and in a large number of cases, chest over much of the population. A third reason here might be that, in Japan, husbands never go to the OB/GYN with their wives, and so I have, for the last two weeks at least, been the only guy there in a room full of women.

Anyway, as I sit reading, the nurse calls out a name in Japanese. Both the girls stand, and in a rapid re-telling of the incident, the heavier girl’s sweatpants drop down to her knees, revealing her covert agenda of deciding not to have worn underwear on this particular day. Of course, her first reaction is not to bend down and pick them up, or even look over at her friend all embarrassed-like and say something like, “I can’t believe that just happened!” No, her first reaction is to look back at the big foreigner who goes where no man dares to go to see if he’s looking.

Here’s my first question: When you’re sitting in any kind of waiting room, and they call the name of someone sitting in your vicinity, do you not look up at them? Whether out of mild curiosity or just plain jealousy, don’t you at least give them a slight glance? Think about it. I’m fairly sure your answer will be a resounding “Yes. Yes I do look at them”. Well, I can safely tell you that you are not alone because when she looked at me our eyes locked as if she were a hypnotist in some cheesy Vegas nightclub, and I was some poor fool up on the stage getting ready to bark like a dog.

My second question is more of an introspective one that I asked myself at that very moment which, when boiled down to its core essence, went something along the lines of, “So when you go tanning, do you just get into the tanning bed totally naked, or do you use some kind of spray for that part of your body?”

Thankfully, she was unabashed by the incident, hiked up her pants and entered the doctor’s room with her friend. Situation…resolved. Rie came back, but before I could tell her what had happened, we too were called into the doctor’s room. It wasn’t until we were walking home that I got the chance to tell her the story. As it turns out (according to Rie), “Ms. Flash of the Pants” isn’t even pregnant. She just goes there with her friend (who is pregnant, I imagine) and offers support. I thought it was so sweet for her to that. Not many people would take time out of their schedule to go to a doctor’s office with their friend, where there is an average wait of about an hour, and sit there with him/her. My perception of her had definitely changed.

I then told Rie that I wanted to change our appointments to Saturday mornings.

Gomen for the Somen

The day started much like most mornings have for the past week: Rie woke up, ate some crackers, waited for about twenty minutes, got up and took a shower, dressed, and rested before going to work. I waited until she was taking her shower to get up. I made some tea, turned on the computer and waited to see what she wanted to eat.

She wasn’t in the best of moods as she criticized my breakfast making skills, and assigned me my objective for the day: go to the supermarket and buy, in order of importance: somen (a type of Japanese noodle), cucumbers and paper towels. Recently, she has been finding somen agreeing with her stomach. I cooked the last packet last night, so it was up to me to keep her somen habit going. She saved the package that it came in so I would be able to get the exact same kind.

After she left, I took a shower and got ready to go to “Life”, the supermarket nearest us (about 10 min walk). I decided that I would ride her bicycle to the store, but both tires were flat, so I had to go through our closet looking for the hand pump. I got the tires inflated, and set off for the store. Taking the bike was a lot faster, but the wheels are very small, and the seat, although set to the highest position, isn’t made for someone my height.

I got to the store and immediately realized that I had forgotten the package to help me get her the right kind of somen. I found the section where they keep the dried noodles, and tried to remember what the package looked like. I picked up one pack, and almost got it, but then I saw another package that I knew had to have been the same one that was at the apartment. I quickly picked up the other things and sped off for home. Total mission time: 22 minutes. When I got home, I saw that I had been way off on the package, but figured as long as she could eat somen, then all would be okay with the universe. I put the things away and proceeded to waste the day away in front of the computer.

Rie came home around 6:30, feeling really good. She said that her sickness was at “level 1″ (on a 1-10 scale). This means she was feeling almost no sickness. I apologized (”gomenasai”) to her for not getting the right somen. She looked at the package and said that what I had gotten wasn’t even somen, but udon, another kind of Japanese noodle. Now, I might not be the brightest person, but I do know some kanji (Japanese writing) and I definitely know the difference between somen and udon. I showed her the last two characters on the package, the ones I had interpreted to mean somen. Apparently, “-men” is applied to other types of noodles, so I had just overgeneralized its meaning. As for their appearances, Udon is long and really thick, whereas somen is almost like angel hair pasta. This distinction was was laid to rest by the simple explanation that there are many kinds of noodles, and each noodle has varying degrees of thickness, and what I had bought was thin udon. My bad, but she was happy with the effort and complimented my preparation of the udon.

Over the years, one of my biggest gripes is the lack of selection when it comes to buying many products. For example, in Japan we are limited to one brand of peanut butter: Skippy. Whenever I sound off about this to Japanese people, I am inevitably asked the same two questions:

1). Why do you need more than one brand of peanut butter?

and…

2). Why would you want to eat peanut butter? (It’s not a very popular condiment in Japan, and most Japanese people have never never eaten a peanut butter and jelly sandwich).

I tell them that different brands of peanut butter taste different, but more importantly, the freedom to choose which peanut butter I want to buy is something that I miss.

Their reply: “There are many different kinds of Japanese noodles to choose from.”

Christmas

Merry Christmas! It’s Christmas today and although I don’t have to work, Rie does. I told her that she doesn’t have to go in, but she said that she needs to tell her work that she’s pregnant. Yesterday wasn’t very good for her, and she spent most of it sleeping. As I write this post, it’s 6:30 a.m. We’ve both gotten up early so that she doesn’t have to rush to work. She promised that if she gets really sick, she’ll come home.

Christmas in Japan is very different than in the west (i.e. United States). The big celebration comes not on Christmas Day, which passes as just another day, but on Christmas Eve, when couples (mainly boyfriend/girlfriend) go out to restaurants for extravagant dinners. Reservations are often made months in advance in order to get a table at a top restaurant.

The meaning of Christmas here is also a little distorted. About 9 years ago, I was living near Tokyo, and went to look around for a present for my then girlfriend. There were many decorations up around the city, and it seemed to be like any other Christmas. Suddenly, my eyes gazed upon a sight which is still etched into the back vaults of my eternal memory. There, in one of the shops was a big cross. Nothing special, except for the fact that on the cross was a depiction of the crucifixion, only instead of Jesus on the cross, it was Santa Claus. His mouth was pulled back into a grimace, and his suit was all torn and tattered. A disturbing image that will never be forgotten, and which still pops into my mind at this time of year.

So, as I write this, I’m waiting for Rie to get out of the shower. I’m going to take the train into work with her, and then grab some coffee at Seattle’s Best. I wish you all a Merry Christmas, and hope the holidays find you safe.

A Good Act

Today was a much better day in terms of the sickness Rie has been feeling throughout the past week. She actually felt like going to lunch at the soba shop in Namba (an area in downtown Osaka). The only thing that could have possibly gone wrong was that some odor would cause her to become sick. Since the bouts of sick have started, she has become very sensitive to the faintest odors. A few days ago, I had drunk a small glass of juice. About four hours later, she asks me, “Did you drink the juice in the refrigerator?” It’s very acute to say the least.

She got through her shower okay and we left to go to the subway (about 3 minutes walk from our apartment). It had just finished raining, so the air was very clean; no trace of stagnation. We got onto the train, and immediately I winced at the overpowering smell of daikon. Daikon is a Japanese radish which is very popular in many dishes. It’s about the size of a giant zucchini, and although it tastes very good, it has the unfortunate attribute of smelling like…well, like a giant fart. Even more unfortunate is that since it is such a popular vegetable, the chances of encountering someone in possession of one is fairly high (although I’m sure there are some people who carry them around to mask their own indiscretions; a license to flatulate, if you please).

I looked at Rie and she just said, “Oh, my…” I suggested that we move to a different car because by this time, I was becoming sick from the smell. We managed to work our way through the crowded car and into another one that was much more pleasant. We finally made it to the restaurant and had a great lunch of tempura and soba noodles.

On our way back, she wanted to stop and do a little Christmas shopping. Since she’s been sick, she didn’t get the chance to go out and buy me something for Christmas. So we went to a big shopping area, and she suggested that I wait for her at this one coffee shop that wasn’t far away, but not as convenient as the Starbuck’s that was right in front of us. I told her that I would just wait at Starbuck’s.

Rie has never been one to mask her feelings (unless she’s very irritated at me, then she holds it in for hours/days until it bursts forth in extreme fits of verbal attacks). So, when I said that I was going to wait at Starbuck’s, she gave an audible wince of distress. At that point, I knew I needed to go to the other coffee shop so she could buy me a present at Starbuck’s. Ever one to think quickly on my feet, I said that I would only go to Starbuck’s if there was a table open outside. Thankfully, there were no open tables outside (except for the three tables right in front of the doors, but I managed to make it look like I didn’t see them). She rushed me off to the other coffee shop, saying that she was going to buy some decaffeinated beans. I guess she forgot that I had bought 200 g of decaf just two days ago. I was going to say something, but felt content with the power that I wielded at that point.

We met up about half an hour later and made our way home without any mention of the decaf purchase. The rest of the night has been fairly uneventful. She feels a little sick, but is functioning okay. Hopefully, the coming weeks will see more days like this or better.