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December 10, 2003
TFY Goes to Chicago! November 7-11, 2003
Back in January, a bunch of us iParenting writers and lurkers who had previously gathered on Jeanette’s Moms Today board moved en masse to the “Time for You” board. It was an empty board under Children Today that seemed appropriately titled for our reality tv and birth chats. It also took the pressure off of Jeanette so she didn’t feel she had to reply to each one of the dozens of daily messages that had little to do with her.
Over the months, we remained a pretty chatty group. Some people came and others left, a few lurkers popped up from time to time. The board developed into a place with a pro-natural birth bent. We shared press releases, disheartening statistics, and birth stories--along with our predictions for Survivor and the Bachelor.
In late March, I flew to Montreal to stay with Allisun (of Moms Today) and meet Alicia (Moms Today) and Jen H (Preg Today). Alicia, Jen, and I were able to feel comfortable going to Canada for almost a week largely due to all the time we’d spent on TFY. (My description of that trip is posted here: http://momstoday.com/diaries/allisun/042403.htm and finishes here: http://momstoday.com/diaries/allisun/042503.htm ). The four of us had a fabulous time, and I can’t say it’s entirely a coincidence that after spending a week with Allisun’s kids, both Jen and I moved up our TTC plans. Both of us were pregnant within 3 months of the trip.
After having such a good time in Montreal, I had the opportunity to meet Jeanette in May and jumped on it. I had a business trip in Phoenix and arrived a day early to hang out with Jeanette and Bella. Jeanette and I hit it off, and Bella and I seem to have charmed each other. She became potty trained during my week in Arizona (at the tender age of 20 months!), which I’d love to take credit for, but won’t :) I was astonished by all the things she could say and do once I learned how to understand Bella-speak. My niece is 3 months older but still wouldn’t say my name with any consistency. Bella called me Amy-from-Minne-ap-o-dos almost immediately. She’s raised some high expectations for my own child!
Late this summer, the TFY ladies started talking about getting together. Chicago seemed like a central location for everyone, even though it would require being in a hotel instead of someone’s home. The discussions were occurring while Dan and I were house hunting and I didn’t know if I’d be able to go due to conflicts with our move-in date. Eventually, we settled on a weekend that worked for most people, November 8-9. Things were still fairly up in the air until mid-September when the first plane tickets were purchased. It was a couple weeks more before I was able to convince Dan that he’d be okay without me and the (unborn) baby for a few days.
A few weeks beforehand, emails started flying back and forth. Nine of us were trying to organize a trip to a city where only one of us lives. Ever try picking out a video with nine people? Try finding a hotel, choosing activities, and organizing transportation, all while separated by 3,000 miles and two countries. After some initial stress, we got hotel reservations booked at the downtown Chicago Marriott through Priceline. I’ll admit that my pregnancy hormones combined with my thrifty (cough, CHEAP, cough) nature didn’t exactly make me the easiest person to deal with. All other details of what we’d do while we were there were left up in the air until we arrived. I figured we could just talk, eat, and sleep for three days and not feel like we’d missed anything, so that aspect of the trip would work out fine.
Due to a variety of circumstances (cheaper plane flights, I didn’t need to work on Veteran’s Day, my sister lives nearby), I was the last to arrive and last to leave the Chicago area. All day Friday, I sat and twiddled my thumbs as everyone else went to the airport or started driving to Chicago.
I’d had a busy week and found myself running around Friday night finishing a lot of last minute things. I didn’t get to bed until 1 a.m., so the alarm came awfully quickly at 4:45. Neither Dan nor I is much of a morning person, but we managed to arrive at the airport by 6. I’d given up on my original plan to carry on all my luggage, but my bags still weren’t too heavy. Dan encouraged me to ask for help instead of lifting my bags whenever possible and wouldn’t even let me put them up on the curb by myself. Aww.
I slept for the whole (90 minute including taxiing) plane ride and woke up just long enough to get my juice and chips as the attendants came through. I had to wait at the baggage carousel for ten minutes, which felt interminable since I was SO CLOSE to seeing everyone. Luckily, I only had to wait for a few bags to come down the chute before I saw mine (I seem to have tremendous luck with baggage carousels and iParenting gatherings, although I doubt that the total number of bags on the flight was high this time).
Now, I have a fondness for transit and am particularly entranced by trains. Minneapolis is getting its first light rail line in April and I’m very excited. However, I was still nervous to take the train once I got to Chicago. As Jen mentioned in her entry, they’re old and ugly and intimidating. It took me awhile to wind my way over to the train station, and I stared at the map and schedule (and asked an attendant for clarification) before I dared put my $1.50 in the ticket machine. Midway Airport is the first stop on the orange line, so a train was waiting and I climbed on. I couldn’t tell which direction we’d run, so once I’d gotten settled and we started moving, I had to flip around and change seats to make sure I wouldn’t get motion sick.
I was impressed by how speedy the train was—it was only a minute or two from one station to the next, and even quicker once we went underground near the Loop. I had to transfer to the Red Line there and survived dragging my bags down three flights of stairs. Finding the hotel wasn’t hard—it was two blocks from the train stop, and at 9:30 Saturday morning, there’s not much traffic or many pedestrians to weave around.
I went to the check-in desk and had a clerk call up to the rooms. I’d arrived somewhat earlier than expected, so it took a minute to find someone dressed enough to meet me by the elevators. I rode up to the 14th floor and found Jen waiting for me. It felt like it had only been days since Montreal! Although I’d only met three of the eight other women in person, the entire weekend seemed much more like a gathering of old friends than a meeting of near strangers. I was able to figure out who people were as I met them, but most didn't look the way I expected, either. Rebekah and Sherry were the only ones I hadn’t seen clear photos of. Based on a combination of her tiny iParenting forum photo and the process of elimination, I determined that she was the blonde. I had no idea what Rebekah looked like, but I guessed correctly based on photos I’d seen of everyone else. Kathy was easy to pick out, given the baby on her hip. Even though I’d seen pictures of Tara, I still forgot that she’d cut her hair, so that threw me off at first.
Everyone filtered into Jen and Sherry’s hotel room and it was easy to keep up conversations. Finding things to talk about was NOT an issue for this group! Eventually everyone was ready to go and the nine of us women plus one baby set out to shop our way down the Magnificent Mile.
I consider myself a Fast Walker. During my first tri, I trudged everywhere at a snail’s pace, but ever before and after, I’m one of those people who goes from point A to point B as quickly as possible. Nine people walking in a busy pedestrian area (with a stroller) at the beginning of the Christmas shopping season are not that easy to keep together. It seemed that a few of us spent more time looking backwards to check that everyone was still in sight than we spent window shopping. After awhile, we did get the hang of shopping with so many people. And I certainly didn’t mind having an excuse to try the chairs at Pottery Barn. We got used to a couple people actively finding and buying things while the rest of us found new places to chat.
After wandering through a Marshall Fields seeing who could find the most expensive pair of shoes (Tara, at $600?), we found the best mall food court I’ve ever experienced. We had to wait outside in line for a few minutes, then were each given a credit card type reader and sat at a table. We then were able to separately wander around the dozen kiosks to find the food we wanted. I caved in to my need for a milkshake and got the fries and burger also being sold at that stand (think TGIFriday’s type of burger and fries, not McD’s). I think Alicia ended up paying $10 for a bowl of Campbell’s soup, but other than that, we paid reasonable prices for quick food without having to all come to agreement about where to go.
With all the preggos and new moms in attendance, we felt the need to walk through Baby Gap. I keep hearing that girls’ clothes are cuter than boys’ clothes, so I had Tara show me all the cute overalls and corduroys and other boys’ attire. I managed to leave without buying anything, but it took some willpower. Maybe that’s an advantage to not knowing the baby’s sex that I hadn’t considered—cuts down on impulse spending.
We shopped our way back to the hotel. I went to Borders with Sherry and Rebekah and started nodding off in the children’s section reading a Dr. Sears book. That was the only time all weekend that things slowed down long enough for me to realize how exhausted I was. I ended up missing the American Girl store, which I was bummed about because I had one of the first dolls, Kirsten, as a tween when the company was just starting, and I was curious to see how they’d changed. It was somewhat depressing seeing 4 year olds around the city with a doll in each arm, practically dragging them down the street, though. Since I didn’t have my doll until I was 10 or 11, it was something I tried to take very good care of, and I KNOW they aren’t cheap. It just seemed like the little girls I saw didn’t realize how precious the dolls were. After stopping to buy diapers and water at Walgreen’s, we stumbled back to the hotel to rest a bit before dinner.
After some brief confusion, we managed to walk to the restaurant and get seated despite our tardiness. We all went photo crazy taking pictures of each other and chatting, chatting, chatting. Our waiter put up with our lack of choices very kindly (with so many things to talk about, who has time to decide on entrees?) and helped us figure out how to order family-style for nine. While we waited for the food to arrive, someone whipped out gift bags for us preggos! It was so thoughtful of them to arrange a mini-shower for us—it was hard to keep from being teary even in the noisy restaurant. I’d only met most of these women 8 hours before, but they’d gone out of their way to arrange something for us. So sweet. The food eventually came and was delicious. We were worried that there wouldn’t be enough to go around, but there ended up being just enough room in our bellies for the giant desserts. Others were splitting cheesecake and chocolate concoctions, but I had to go for the cinnamon ice cream. It took me awhile to finish the enormous bowl, but I did it =)
We must have stayed at Maggiano’s for hours, but eventually we got back to the hotel. Most of us were eager to check out the pool before it closed. Unfortunately, it was filled with kids whose parents must not have cared that it was getting late and we had to carve a corner out of the deep end to keep from being splashed. Jen and Kathy and I survived the chilly pool long enough to play with Taryn. She’s quite the waterbug! Some of the other women tried the hot tub, but I’m never much of a fan of those, so it didn’t seem worth the risk to me. Jen was a natural with Taryn, spinning her around and making her laugh. I was more nervous and I think Taryn could tell. On land I’m okay, but I have no experience with babies in water. Eventually a hotel worker kicked us out and we dripped back upstairs.
After showers and chatting in our separate rooms, we all gathered in the room I shared with Sherry and Jen for birth stories. It’s getting fuzzy, but I think we heard Rebekah’s story of Aidan and Kathy’s story of Seth—the two HELLP babies. Hearing them calmly explain how their blood pressures went up, and up, and up was fascinating. I hope that I never experience what they went through for their first births, yet knowing that they got through it and have healthy, cute kids today is very encouraging.
After the birth stories, we kept talking for hours. I had Tara and Sherry feel my belly, and we all agreed that the baby appeared to still be transverse. “Find the baby” is such a fun pregnancy game! As everyone talked, I was sewing together the blanket squares that I originally planned to make with Alicia and Jen, for Allisun’s baby. Alicia’s yarn didn’t arrive in time so I still had four squares to knit, but I managed to attach half of the twenty squares while in Chicago. I was glad the other two Montreal folk were able to see how it was turning out. Around 3am, I drifted off on the bed next to Taryn. Oh, the sweet smell of babies! Maybe half an hour later, everyone went back to their rooms to sleep. I’d been awake over 22 hours—no wonder I couldn’t keep my eyes open. Jen, Sherry, and I went to sleep almost immediately after our room was vacated.
Sunday morning, I think I was the last person to pull myself out of bed. As the furthest along preggo and the earliest riser on Saturday, I couldn’t feel too guilty about it. I scarfed down a bagel before someone alerted me that we were going out to brunch. Whoops. Tanya had slipped away early that morning. I wish I’d been able to talk to her more, but Saturday was the only day we were both there. She was kind enough to bring each of us a bag of iParenting goodies.
We chowed down at a breakfast place near the hotel. They were out of whipped cream for my Belgian waffle (with strawberries), and Jeanette’s bacon was a dollar a strip, but our tummies were happy and full. We consulted a couple locals then headed down State Street to go to Old Navy’s flagship store. It was about a fifteen block walk, but with stops for photo ops and our never-ending chatter, it went quickly even in the chilly November air. There aren’t too many people out on Sunday afternoons—at least it wasn’t as crowded as it had been the day before—so we were able to comfortably take over the sidewalk and not get separated.
All eight of us took advantage of the sales at Old Navy (even me, who swears their pants are all made for hip-less teens). The Chicago store is three stories high, with half a floor for maternity attire. I found a white button down shirt for $10 and a ribbed turtleneck sweater for $22. The pants still didn’t fit. Apparently even pregnant women aren’t allowed to have hips. I grabbed a three-pack of maternity bikini underwear to try, then found myself in the baby section. They had all sorts of Christmas outfits, but I have no idea what size or gender I’ll be dealing with next Christmas so that didn’t seem worth it. Then I saw the cutest little Easter outfit. In 0-3 month size, it has lavender footed pants and a white shirt with a lavender and pink chick on it. Underneath is the word ‘Peep’. For the first time I was disappointed that I don’t know the baby’s sex. Then I said what the heck, it’s ten dollars, if I have a boy, I can always give it to someone else. It went in the shopping basket. I also found a shirt for Dan. I left the store with seventy fewer dollars in my wallet, but a little of everything clothes-wise. Jen bought the biggest pile—her Old Navy selection in Toronto is minimal and she can’t order online. Might as well stock up! Even Alicia, who claimed she didn’t need anything and planned to sneak across to Nordstrom’s Rack left with a new coat. Rebekah got jeans. Tara and Sherry found some maternity clothes. Jeanette may have escaped without a purchase, but she’d already bought a coat and dress at Gap the day before. Kathy let us use Taryn’s stroller for our bags after saying that the three Old Navy’s near her home would be easier to deal with.
Some of us went to Borders while others went to Nordstrom’s Rack after leaving Old Navy. Once we were all in one place again, we took the subway back to the hotel. Turned out it was only one stop, and since we waited 10 minutes for a train, it’s not totally clear that we saved any time. But sitting for two minutes sounded so much more appealing than walking fifteen blocks that I didn’t care. Sherry and I got good at carrying the stroller up flights of stairs. Lucky us, all the escalators seemed closed off wherever we went.
Tara was the next to leave us. There were lots of hugs and some tears before she caught a cab to the airport. I would love to live across the street from Tara. It would be so fun to get together in the afternoon while toddlers ran around our ankles. She gave me some good ideas for our kitchen renovation and showed me all the things she’s done in her home. Her kitchen is in the midst of some amazing changes! It was far scarier looking than mine (oh my goodness, what WAS going on under that fridge?!), but she has the ability to transform the strangest design bloopers of homeowners’ past. She also was the closest to my age, and I wish I could have talked with her more about what’s it’s like as a somewhat younger-than-average first-time mom. I plan to follow largely in her footsteps of staying home with my children shortly after finishing college instead of going on to further my education, and hearing her experience is always helpful.
For dinner Sunday night (what happened to lunch? Maybe the breakfast was more of a lunch? Or has pregnancy brain struck again?), we wanted to keep things quick and light. Just across from the hotel was a chain called Cosi’s. We were confused, because we could sit down and be served, or order from the counter. We were antsy because we hoped to hit a movie in an hour and no servers were around. Just as we were about to go to the counter instead, a nice young waitress appeared. It took an awfully long time for our salads, sandwiches, and pizzas to come, but the waitress was trying to find us a closer theatre so we wouldn’t have to rush as much. We ate quickly and reluctantly passed on dessert.
Off we went, half-running (even the preggos and Kathy, whose husband had arrived with Seth and taken Taryn off her hands) down the street to attempt to reach the theatre before it got too late. We were told it was seven blocks. We passed the eighth, ninth, (stopped to check at a restaurant), tenth, eleventh, before we saw the marquee. It was an older, more artsy theatre. We shoved our money through and went up to the fourth floor. Upon opening the doors to the theatre, we knew we were in trouble. Almost all the seats were filled, and more people were walking in as we hesitated. Even the first row was filling. We headed to the front, and I figured I’d be bold and pick a seat. The credits were rolling already, and I knew having seven women blocking the view couldn’t be appreciated by many. It’s not that seats didn’t exist, but finding even two together was tough. I noticed three seats (all split) in the third row and grabbed one. As soon as I was settled, I realized the other women were motioning for me to come and to leave the theatre. Part of me wanted to stay regardless of what they did, but I knew that wouldn’t be any fun. Finally, I got up and followed them out. I really didn’t want to lose my money but I didn’t care enough about any other shows to see them instead. And waiting two hours till the next one wasn’t worth it. We ended up cajoling the box office into repaying us. They sure don’t make that easy. Still out of breath and sore from rushing over, we began the long walk back to the hotel.
Despite my initial frustration, the return walk wasn’t as irritating as I feared. We found lots of fun window displays to gaze at. A few blocks before the hotel, we stopped at the Ghirardelli store. The plan was to just use their restrooms, but we found ourselves ordering sundaes. Chocolate and ice cream was too great a temptation to pass up. Unlike Jeanette =), I managed to eat my entire cable car sundae. Others bought chocolate for their families at home.
By the time we returned to the hotel, it was nearly 10pm (the movie had started at 7:30). Some people returned to the pool, but I stayed back with Alicia discussing Melaleuca. That night, we heard Taryn’s birth story and Sherry discussed being a doula to a number of eager listeners. We must have split to our separate rooms a little earlier that night—around 2am, I think. But Sherry and I stayed up talking for another couple hours.
Before the trip, the only things I knew about Sherry were that she birthed William at home—a footling breech baby—and that she was starting a doula practice. I got to see her photos of William’s emerging foot and was amazed. I haven’t seen too many pictures of babies coming out the “normal” way, and hearing how nonchalant she was about his unusual position clearly differed from how the medical profession would usually treat a case like hers. Even my midwives prefer footlings are born in the hospital. The way Sherry talks about her birth experience, it’s clear that she views it as a variation on normal, not a scary case to be treated with fear. She also talked about her approach to eating and it was very inspiring. Particularly since becoming pregnant, Dan and I have been trying to improve our eating habits. Hearing how successful she has been at eliminating processed foods and excess sugar from her family’s meals was fabulous. Hearing how much money it saves them also is very appealing to me. In the month since I was in Chicago, I haven’t turned my eating habits around completely, but I have been able to make a few changes (like eating bulk-bin granola with honey instead of pre-packaged cereals for breakfast) to work towards implementing healthier eating overall.
There were great intentions to zip all over town on Monday morning. Instead, we got a little extra rest and didn’t stray from the hotel. Rebekah left sometime in the wee hours, leaving two pair of boots in her wake. I wasn’t able to talk much with Rebekah while we were in Chicago, but we’ve spend more time chatting online than I’d had with some of the gals. She and I share enough religious beliefs that we can talk about that aspect of our lives. I look forward to getting her parenting perspective in rearing children while teaching them about God. I think she’s also the best bet for being bitten by the pregnancy bug (phew, so many B words!), I will also be joining her as a SAH spouse with a student husband very soon, and could probably use advice for dealing with those challenges involved with that as they come up.
When we pulled ourselves out of bed (and those were some comfortable beds! Even we preggos slept soundly in them.), it was around 9 or 10. We ate more of the bagels and pastries that some of the women had brought from home. While most of us were slowly packing up and gathering out things, Jen took off for the airport. Jen and I are in the unique position of being the only ones on the trip who don’t yet have kids outside the womb. We’re due two weeks apart and seem to be having a lot of the same symptoms, which has made comparisons and gripes to each other convenient. It’s been great having her as a pregnancy buddy—hopefully we’ll be able to help each other with first-time parenthood, too.
Alicia and I were originally planning to leave sometime after lunch, but ended up heading out a little earlier since we were just sitting around the hotel. We hugged everyone still around (Jeanette, Sherry, and Kathy) and had a porter carry our much-heavier bags down to her car. Unlike Alicia’s apparently painful drive into the city, getting out of town proved to be straight-forward. We had the change for tolls and soon found ourselves driving through Gary and lovely northeast Indiana. The deal was that she and I would meet up with my sister, who attends college in Valparaiso. To make things a little easier on Alicia, Kelsey agreed to come 15 minutes out of her way so Alicia wouldn’t have to lengthen her already-long drive back to Ohio. We ended up having to wait an extra fifteen minutes before Kelsey showed up, but managed to get to a gas station in the meantime. Alicia and I said our goodbyes and Kelsey and I headed east to go check out her school.
Alicia’s great. She and I are the farthest apart in age (we’ve got a ten year span), but I never would have guessed her age if she hadn’t told me. She’s a great role model for where I hope to be in ten years. Hearing about how she’s stuck to her guns with parenting decisions even when her family doubted her makes me a lot more confident in my own future parenting. Now she has a daughter who is respectful and makes good decisions on her own, and I know that’s a testament to Alicia and her husband’s choices earlier in Alaina’s life. Now she’s found a way to work from home that makes her happy, and that’s definitely something that makes my ears prick up.
Kathy and Taryn were quite the duo. Taryn was an angel-baby and Kathy was able to balance being the only one there with a child incredibly well. She had no problem passing Taryn to one of us and could juggle diapers and shopping bags without breaking a sweat. Kathy claims that Taryn isn’t always that easy when they’re home alone, but it was quite encouraging to be around a baby for three days and see day to day life go so smoothly. I’m glad we got to meet her husband and Seth, too. Seth is a cutie and wasn’t intimidated by all these women hanging out with his mom at all. He’s come a long, long way since his days in the NICU.
What can I say about Jeanette? Her diary brought us together and I’ll always be grateful. I wish all these ladies lived near me, but it would be particularly fabulous if Jeanette came to town. Both times I've seen her, we were able to start chatting as if we'd stepped out of the room for ten minutes and were resuming a discussion. We have a lot in common, but she’s the sort of person where even if we don’t agree on everything, we could still have an intelligent discussion about things and both come out more knowledgeable because of it, without it turning into an angry debate. I think we could be a dangerous force in birth research if we put our minds to it. With her love of all things birth related, my knack for statistics, and both our backgrounds in research, we could accomplish a lot. But the procrastinator in us will probably prevent us from getting too far! Regardless, I look forward to hearing about Bella’s antics in years to come.
I spent Monday afternoon and evening with my sister. Apparently, everyone on her dorm floor knew I was coming and came by to say hi. She’s a junior, but I’d never traveled to Indiana to see her there. Her constant stream of friends seemed like a great bunch of kids. (Can I still call them kids if they’re 21?) I had a little time on the computer while she attended a class (it’s where I wrote my last entry), and we went out to dinner with her boyfriend and a few others. I was able to go to her Bible study with her and we had time to talk afterwards. She’s going to Cambridge, England to study next semester and won’t be back until the baby’s at least two months old. We’ve always been close despite our four year age difference, but haven’t had the time to talk much since we’ve been taking turns going away to college. It’s nice that we’ve outgrown a lot of the sibling rivalries from our younger days.
The most amusing part of my Indiana visit was as we were preparing for bed. Her room was really warm and I asked if I could borrow a t-shirt. She’s a twig of a thing (she has to work to maintain her weight and not lose any…grrr) and all her shirts looked hilarious on me. She had me put on one of her roommate’s shirts with the slogan, “Objects under this shirt may be larger than they appear.” We were on the floor laughing at the sight of my belly pulling the shirt taut. She eventually found an extra-large shirt that wasn’t outrageously small. The baby wouldn’t perform for her, so she didn’t get to feel any kicks. Just feeling my round belly was quite an experience for her, though.
Tuesday morning we woke at the crack of dawn (ie, 6a.m) to drive to the airport. I’m not sure why I thought buying a 9a.m. plane ticket made sense, but we did arrive back at Midway by 8. It helped that Veteran’s Day traffic wasn’t as heavy as normal. The plane took off without any delays and I was back in Minneapolis before lunchtime.
Not too long ago, I would have been shocked if someone had told me that I’d be flying off twice in under a year to meet online friends. Going to Canada to stay in someone’s house I’d never met before? Getting together with eight other women in downtown Chicago? Crazy stuff. But I am so glad that it worked out so well. We all got along better than we could have imagined. There weren’t any catastrophes. We didn’t even need to have three people share a bed as we feared. Just lots of talking, sharing of stories, and exchange of ideas. What a wonderful group.
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