Crunching into a melting piece of ice is the most satisfying moment for me these days. The crunch takes on the same appeal as an accomplishment and the cool is this internal reward of both temperature control and hydration. My teeth are not terribly happy with me, but who cares? It is so worth it!
As my dentist and husband have pointed out they see no reason why I shouldn’t just have a tall glass of cold water instead, but I have tried to explain that it is beyond the cool. It is the CRUNCH. The crunch is the most essential part of the entire experience.
Clearly, pregnancy does some weird things to a body, but ice obsession? That’s a weird one. I can’t stop eating it… I thought at first it was a coolant tactic; because I am so internally warm I needed a way to cool down. With Iza’s pregnancy I was obsessed with frozen peas, so naturally, ice would just be a replacement now that I can’t get organic sweet peas so readily.
What is the cause? After searching around the internet it looks like I am not the only one who is obsessed with or questioning why they are so enthralled by cold, crunchy ice. The most probable is a disorder called pica. Other causes could be an iron deficiency and if focused on ice only it could mean that you are trying to self-soothe.
What is Pica?
Pica is the act of eating non-food items like dirt, ice, and paint which have no nutritional value. Outside of pregnancy it is a serious issue and is likely related to a mental health disorder such as a compulsive, obsessive behavior. Inside of pregnancy, it can be your bodies way of begging for a different kind of nutrition that is being offered. Pica is a serious disorder and should not be taken lightly. If you are pregnant, however, pica is likely a temporary disorder that will disappear after birth.
My Choice Ice Tray
Tovolo 15 cube grid and fill each cube with water by about 1/8″. They harden a little thicker than the liquid at about 1/6″ and offer the absolute perfect bite every time without it melting in the process.
Want something a little more fun? I sometimes do this with orange juice or mashed strawberries to get a little extra flavor in there. Its so delicious!
The idea of crunching on ice is one that our parents have told us not to do since we were little. But as a 37 weeks pregnant person with a toddler who likes to mimic everything I do, there is little I can do to control her from crunching ice. I am a terrible parent letting her have at it with a big bowl of ice! Her poor little teeth.
So last week we were in the car and driving to a friends house. I had a metal coffee mug filled with ice and happily crunching as we were driving. Iza starts singing, “Yo quiero ice” (which means I want ice) over and over again as a song. I started handing them back to her one by one every time she sang since I couldn’t really watch what she was doing. I could hear her crunching occasionally, though so I just assumed they were all going into her mouth.
Finally, there was a tremendous scream from her which nearly made me go right off the road. She started to cry and said that the ice is “no esta aqui” (which means was no longer in her hand). She had been saving them and as she was they were melting away in her sweaty sweaty palm and then falling down into her chair. She was soaking wet and without any satisfying crunch.
Thanks to the most wonderful friend and photographer Luis we got totally authentically us shots. We are so happy with the results and it was a ton of fun. Iza kind of hates getting her picture taken, so it was even more fun to see that the photoshoot was of a happy Iza.
Thank you to Bubby for the incredible DKNY tye dye dress that matched mine. It worked out so great. And to Luis for the patience and outrageous results. Perfect! And to Kurtis who I adore and who definitely only did this because it was important to me.
The reason for the shoot is more than just documentation: This shoot is part of my Bells Palsy recovery process to accept my permanent state and capture everything on camera to remember the moment. With Iza in the belly we have maybe 10 photos total from 6 months on because I was too overwhelmed every time I saw my face staring back at me. Now at 90%, it feels like the acceptance has come from a place of personal power. It was so much fun to take these shots and I see true joy in all our faces in the results. I really am so grateful to all my friends and family who have given me positive affirmation over the last 2+ years during recovery. Thank you!
From our Photographer Luis Pedro Gramajo: Un día lleno de sonrisas, amor y creatividad con esta hermosa familia, ya están listos para recibir al nuevo miebro de la familia… Los Brand son una familia muy divertida y sobre todo creativa, son fuera de lo común y estoy seguro que esta nueva vida que está siendo puesta en sus manos va a aprender disfrutar la vida cada moneto, espero que les guste…
Translated to English: A day full of smiles, good energy and love with this beautiful family, they´re ready to receive the new member of the family… The Brand’s are a really creative and fun family, I´m sure that this new life that is given to them is going to enjoy every day with them, hope you like it… ENJOY!!!
I suppose when in Rome, right? This is certainly a once in a lifetime opportunity for me, considering Zai is going to be our last pregnancy. I have to admit that it was pretty exciting to be able to participate in something with someone as cool as the owner Micky of Babyweight.tv. A fellow parent at Iza’s school, Micky approached me (I mean ran after me) a few weeks ago during morning drop off and asked that I participate in a video on 3rd trimester exercises. I certainly jumped at the chance to have a new experience like this!
Micky Marie Morrison has written a comprehensive book called Baby Weight on managing weight gain and loss before, during and after pregnancy. It offers great exercises and suggestions on how to support yourself physically during the transitional phases you go through. We all know how hard being pregnant is…. so this is a great way to maintain your strength, building up to birth and back to skinny.
After a full review of my efforts, I wish I would have been more prepared to be on camera. Perhaps a practice session in front of a mirror would have helped? I am, however, very proud of myself. What it showed me is my strength and ability to push through the moment of shear uncomfortableness, fighting to stay strong and full of energy. I see an inner confidence with the positions that I guess I haven’t been able to witness before. It’s kind of liberating in a way and now I plan to practice my birthing positions in front of a mirror more regularly.
I definitely realize that TV might not be in my future – especially now that I have Bells Palsy. I noticed the lip movement and the facial structure imbalance much more so on these videos than I see in person in front of the mirror. It was an overcast day, so I could feel my eyes squinting and I wasn’t equip to deal with my mouth, so I was in a bit of a half smile the majority of the time which makes it a challenge to keep my lips together (And also baby pink may not be my color :)).
But, I really enjoyed the moment and especially loved learning a few great positions to work on between now and October.
Go Micky. I love what this woman is doing – so sign up for her subscription service today!
We have really gone to the ends of earth to make sure that we were prepared for Iza’s arrival… although, it might be impossible to plan, preparing is an important step to any successful experience. I still got Bell’s Palsy at my 7th month mark, an indication of the stress that my body was ensuing as a result of carrying a child. In turn we challenged our own choices and worked hard to find a way in the last 3 months to rebalance my body and our birthing plan to accommodate.
Some of the external things we did to prepare:
We did the Bradley Method classes. It was 8 weeks long. Sounds like a long time, but it was a Friday night social thing which gave us the opportunity to meet other parents close to our due date. We found this out through Waddle & Swaddle – and amazing kid store in Poughkeepsie and in Rhine Beck. This included methods, relaxation techniques, general understanding of birthing naturally and partner-led births. We have very minimal assistance from the doctor with this method – Kurt is pretty much handles everything leading up to the delivery provided everything goes well.
Why natural? If you have a natural birth, your body recovers quicker and you have an instant connection with your child. Skin to skin is the most essential part of this and offers the best opportunity to make that happen. If you deliver through the birth canal it helps to clear the mucus out of the nasal passage and throat allowing the baby to cry. It also empowers the ability to be a woman and to go through the most incredible aspect of life – giving birth. It helps with postpartum and relieves many of the concerns around allergies in children.
Plus we did a yoga position and breathing workshop for a 1/2 day with Elizabeth Casasnovas-Calderon from Beacon Birth. This was one of the best experiences because it taught us to work together to bring Iza to the world and how we could help her along. Some of it was dancing, some of it was birthing positions, some was massage. In the end it offered huge confidence to Kurt and I to be able to work together.
We also hired the most well-respected Doula in the area – Sandy Trimarchi who is also my yoga instructor. She gave us a few 1-1 sessions and was there for the full birth, plus a few hours after as a lactation consultant. This was probably the most invaluable part of working with Sandy. She seriously changed my life with the information she shared with us. I was fortunate to do several classes with Sandy leading up to the birth which helped me to stay strong and prepared.
I have done prenatal yoga in a group the whole way through… so I have learned a lot from the other women, including stuff like which pediatrician to go to and what questions to ask. I also did acupuncture mostly every week from early on in the pregnancy for relaxation and to keep things smooth with my energy levels. I went to a chiropractor 2 times a month and a masseuse 1 time a month to keep my back straight and loose. And I exercised regularly hiking until my 6th month, running until my 7th month and walking there after until the day I delivered.
I did a registry through Harvard and Mass General Hospital for my medication and we were able to work with a genetic counselor and an imaging specialist out of Dr. Lescale’s office. We were fortunate to work with Dr. Lescale himself. We also were under the supervision of a fantastic Psychiatrist who was a female and dealt with many of these concerns around my medication before. And I had a great psychologist who is also a mom and was happy for me to voice my concerns and ongoing issues surrounding mommyhood.
Pick a great pediatrician, interview them and be sure that you are making the right choices for your child early on. We were able to go to several pediatricians to make sure that we knew exactly who we would be working with. Our first experience was with a guy that basically was the epitome of everything we are not – into vaccinating before 2 years old. We ended up with a great alternative doctor from Bambini Pediatrics called Dr. Malik. In the area he is a minor celebrity for his focus around health and wellness for families. He offers both Naturopathic services and regular modern medicine. He believes in helping kids however they need to be helped.
Read! Reach out to people! Be as educated as possible on your choices. The power of information is only as good as what you make of it. The more you reach out, the more you will learn.
Also, after going through the Bradley Method Classes we feel empowered to make our own choices and to not just allow the hospital / doctors to make decisions for us. We went on tours of 3 out of the 4 hospitals that we were associated with. First Putnum, (definitely never having our kid there with the cinder block walls and dark hallways and the Mid-Hudson Medical Group that we disliked immediately), then Vassar (with their politics and general issues surrounding healthful eating), next was Northern Westchester Hospital (which had a 40% cesarean rate) and finally Hudson Valley Hospital’s Birthing Center out of a recommendation from Beth Proague, a mommy and professional in Beacon. Our Doctor, Dr. Dinsmore, was local to Fishkill and was as weird and quirky as they come. But he came highly recommended and also did 2 days a week with a local clinic that I really respect.
I have to say that when I started pregnancy I knew absolutely nothing and I felt extremely prepared after going through all the above – the car was packed and ready, car seat is in and our birth plans were already at the hospital. We were checked in and our insurance already cleared, so really the classes were extremely helpful helpful to us in understanding, preparation and getting Kurt to feel part of the process. He was totally invested and knew how vital his role was to a healthy birth!
Took the right vitamins:
Everyone takes prenatal vitamins, but does anyone actually know what’s in them? Throughout your pregnancy there are different things that you need at different times and a blanked prenatal is just not enough to do the trick. There are also too many vitamins mixed into one tablet to make it effective, so it is best to do it without taking them all at once.
Immediately you need Folic Acid and a lot of it. I ate a ton of broccoli, but supplemented with 800mg of Folic Acid as well. Then I introduced Omega 3 around my 4th month for brain development. This I still take now when I am nursing. I also started taking E3 Live which helped to regulate my body and truly made me sleep. When I still had trouble sleeping I took magnesium in my tea and now I am doing a body spray which is helping Iza with regulating her immune system.
Ate organic & juiced often, but allowed ourselves to indulge in cravings:
Many women use pregnancy as an excuse to allow themselves to fall apart and just indulge in whatever they want. Really, you should be upping your health ante and eating even more healthy. Kurt and I juiced as many days as we could during the week. At the end of pregnancy this was hard because of the little space I had available, I was burping up a disgusting flavor of leaves all day long after drinking, but otherwise we maintained. I allowed myself to eat as much and as often as I wanted to. This was hard because my body wanted to eat all the time and I am not a super eater. I typically eat 4-5 small meals a day and maybe 1 big one and in pregnancy as soon as I was done with 1 thing, I was onto another meal. My time was sucked up by eating all the time!
We had large salads most of the time and Kurt became an expert gluten free baker. We cut out sugar completely and focused on eating a ton of fruit instead. I got really into frozen peas as a snack and frozen coconut and fruit smoothies as the weather got warmer. And my cravings seemed to go in waves. For a few weeks I was obsessed with eating quinoa porridge with raisins and then I couldn’t even look at it, same with avocados. It was weird to walk into a bakery or restaurant and the baby jumped with the smells. I wasn’t used to being so sensitive to my choices, but I truly turned a corner completely and focused on what Iza needed to be healthy and grow strong.
Most who know me, know I don’t eat meat, poultry, gluten, soy or dairy of any kind, so it was certainly an experience to craft my meals everyday. My favorite was Kurt’s raw bars and crackers which are 10x better than anything you can buy that’s store bought. I am a lucky girl with a chef like him!
I was still working at the beginning of my pregnancy on a contract in Massachusetts. As a result, I made sure that my clothes were always fitting me and that I had a great balance of work and play outfits. I did not want to be one of those women always in pj’s in the middle of the day or wearing sweatpants to meetings because nothing else fit! So, I indulged.
We were fortunate enough that I had off for most of the end of our pregnancy, so we were able to spend as much time as we wanted together. We took full advantage by walking and talking, planning our future and being creative together. Kurt especially was much more creative in his art during this time. I, on the other hand, became exceptionally organized and focused. It was a great blend to capitalize on opportunities to work together.
One of the most special items that we did was go on our own baby moon – kind of a honeymoon before the baby comes. We went to America’s best restaurant called Blue Hill at Stone Barns which is in a nearby town called Pleasantville. It was not a cheap dinner, and to prove it, we relished in every moment of it. We had 8 courses and maybe 3-4 drinks a piece. Everything was all natural, organic and grown right there on the farm. Everything was made just for us, based on our preferences and allergies. It was sensational and totally worth every penny. Kurt even did a little speech and gave me a wonderful card, filled with the sweetest message I have ever received.
We also cooked together every day and took quiet walks whenever we could. The idea that our life was about to change and a 3rd person was going to be invited into it offered us reason enough to seek as much time as possible together – for the next 20+ years we are going to be active parents and never truly alone without thoughts or worry.
And in the end:
Now, on the other side of all this, we are lucky. We have an insanely beautiful daughter who was brought naturally into this world and is the sweetest disposition. We were able to leave the next day from the hospital after giving birth and my milk came in within 4 days from date of delivery. We are managing to sleep through the night and our kid only squaks when she wants something, and rarely cries. We hold her whenever she wants us to and we listen to her needs because we know what to look for and the warning signs she is giving us. And in general, we are getting through… which is a lot for 1st time parents to be able to say!
For pronunciation, please click:
The beginning stages of a brand are crucial. It has to be a perfect setting with the right groundwork. Without it, you are already sunk before you get off the dock, so we know how important the branding of our baby is and we have not been light with the development of it.
When we found out that we were having a baby, we would talk about baby names on our decent from Mt. Beacon… it is about 30 minutes down, so we had lots of time to talk. Kurt loved the name Zai and within minutes we were both sold on it so we decided that if we had a boy it would be Zai Stefan (after his brother’s middle name). Coming up with a little girls name made us crazy. Rache had a million ideas and all of which were shot down with force, not being the right sound, arrangement of letters or potential nickname. Eventually, out of frustration, Rache tried rearranging the letters for Zai and it spelled Iza.
We selected Iza [pronounced EE-sah] because it is a tribute to beauty, being the first part of Izabela, a Hebrew version of the Americanized name Isabella. It also means in Hebrew “My God is Vow.”
There are many other significant sources of Iza in the Muslim religion, and we have also found origins of the name from the South African Zulu origin from the Zulu or Xhosa word meaning to “come.”
When we first shared the name with Rache’s grandmother she was certain that we had dropped the ‘L’ from the first part of the name, making it “Lisa.” So, when we shared that it was Iza in spelling, she was totally confused. Her Rabbi recently shared with her the Hebrew meaning of “Rising Up” and recognizing Iza will be raised culturally Jewish with the Zen Buddhist philosophy (she is going to be a JewBu), we find her name having a Hebrew origin is very fitting.
We are happy to stay that it stuck. Ruby is Rache’s family name and with a bunch of nutty ladies in the family, Ruby seemed to be a fitting name since she is sure to be textbook “nutso” with our combined genes!
There you have it: Iza Ruby Brand.
Click to download our very fun announcement. Here is a preview:
This website uses cookies to improve your experience. We'll assume you're ok with this, but you can opt-out if you wish. AcceptRead More
Privacy & Cookies Policy
Privacy Overview
This website uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website. Out of these, the cookies that are categorized as necessary are stored on your browser as they are essential for the working of basic functionalities of the website. We also use third-party cookies that help us analyze and understand how you use this website. These cookies will be stored in your browser only with your consent. You also have the option to opt-out of these cookies. But opting out of some of these cookies may affect your browsing experience.
Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. This category only includes cookies that ensures basic functionalities and security features of the website. These cookies do not store any personal information.
Any cookies that may not be particularly necessary for the website to function and is used specifically to collect user personal data via analytics, ads, other embedded contents are termed as non-necessary cookies. It is mandatory to procure user consent prior to running these cookies on your website.
My Choice Ice Tray
Ate organic & juiced often, but allowed ourselves to indulge in cravings:
One of the most special items that we did was go on our own baby moon – kind of a honeymoon before the baby comes. We went to America’s best restaurant called 
Now, on the other side of all this, we are lucky. We have an insanely beautiful daughter who was brought naturally into this world and is the sweetest disposition. We were able to leave the next day from the hospital after giving birth and my milk came in within 4 days from date of delivery. We are managing to sleep through the night and our kid only squaks when she wants something, and rarely cries. We hold her whenever she wants us to and we listen to her needs because we know what to look for and the warning signs she is giving us. And in general, we are getting through… which is a lot for 1st time parents to be able to say!
