a journey started in a moment of heat
making love, making a child
at the same time making myself
something more than myself
changing from woman
to mother
I am not the same person
Invaded,
my body is not my own
my belly rolls and kicks
with a power I don’t possess
I am possessed
the new life within my body
changes my body:
juicy curves
rosy cheeks
thick hair
long nails
glowing skin –
I feel the weight
of my husband’s eyes
there is more to me now
I feel the connection
I am the connection
between past and future
I am full of hope
full of life
I see the smile in your eyes
when you see my belly
strangers fall over themselves to get the door
my husband holds my hand as we cross the street
then doesn’t let go
at home I rest
my husband wraps himself around me
palming my belly, whispering
“my two greatest loves
right here in my hand”
lady in waiting
simultaneously wishing
to speed up time
and hold this moment forever
I ran away to the mall a couple days ago. Everything was coming at me from every direction and I was in need of some retail therapy. Problem is, I have neither time nor money at the moment. Then I somehow silenced the nagging “you don’t have time for this…” long enough to find myself at a part of the mall populated by baby stores.
I’ve been trying very hard to avoid spending my money on baby stuff. I know the time will come when I have no choice, but now is not the time. We’re moving and we’re broke. If I’m going to spend any money I need to spend it on things we really need, like a stroller or diapers or one of those blue bulb thingies you shove up the baby’s nose to get the snot out.
This is not the kind of thing I need to be spending my money on:
I don’t believe I’ve mentioned this before, but I collect teapots – but a $79 teapot lamp… It took my breath away. I stopped to take a picture of it in the store and I don’t do that. I just sat there and looked at it for quite a while. It’s so impractical. But I love it.
Finally I tore myself away and poked around a little longer until I found the one thing that there was no way I would be able to leave the store without.
In exactly three months you are scheduled to make your grand entrance into this world, although the actual timing of that event is more up to you than any doctor’s calculations. I’m scared and excited all at the same time. I can’t wait to meet you, to hold you, to see you snuggled in your father’s arms.
Last night we went to our first childbirth class and watched a video of a woman going through labor and giving birth. I cried. I don’t think that was the intent of the movie, but it moved me. Somebody once said that parenting is deciding to allow your heart to walk around outside of your body. That’s probably the closest to how I felt watching that movie. Like it would be my heart, right there in my arms; tangible and real and fragile.
There is so much that I hope for you. I hope you will learn to think for yourself rather than just parroting the views and opinions others. I hope you will understand and value the difference between fact and opinion. I hope you will learn to process information and to see through the hype and sensationalism that is so prevalent in our world. I hope you will understand the love trumps hate, no matter what, even if the haters claim to be representing God. I hope you will learn that you are responsible for your own happiness and that you can’t just sit around feeling sorry for yourself and waiting for happiness to land on your doorstep. You have to get out there. You have to make friends and go to them rather than waiting for them to magically materialize. I hope you realize that feeling sorry for yourself only makes you feel more sorry for yourself. I hope you learn to value people for their differences rather than trying to change them to be more like you. I hope you learn to value yourself, and at a much younger age than I did. I’m still learning that lesson. I hope you learn the difference between having an understanding of where you stand with others, and worrying about what they think of you. Don’t worry about what they think of you.
Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don’t matter and those that matter don’t mind.
That quote came from Dr. Seuss, an author with whom you will become very familiar. It’s a short quote with a very big idea. One that I still have trouble dealing with because the truth is, sometimes the people that matter do mind. Sometimes the people who mind are are people you love, and it hurts when they love you for who they want you to be instead of loving you for who you are. I’m going to make a promise right now. I’m going to love you for who you are, whoever that turns out to be.
My blog reading the past couple of days has covered a seemingly endless list of New Years Resolutions, many asking about my resolutions for this year. Ha! Resolutions. This year I will be happy if I manage to safely get this baby from inside my belly to outside my belly and then appropriately feed and bathe and keep her safe for the duration of the year while at the same time not failing my classes and continuing to do the necessary work to keep a roof over our heads and our bills paid while not going insane from all the other demands on my emotional reserves, time, and energy. I think committing to anything more is a bit much.
Our last doctor appointment was a couple weeks ago. You may have heard about the freakish weather here in Seattle. Well on the day of the appointment the roads were a sheet of ice. We live 5 blocks from the office and that walk was slow and occasionally frightening because the sidewalks were just as slippery as the roads. Just putting one foot in front of the other was a challenge in grace and balance – both of which are a little short on reserves thanks to my displaced center of gravity and loosened joints (we won’t mention the general clumsiness that exists even when I’m not pregnant). Everyone keeps telling me “don’t fall down.” Uh, ya think?
The doctors appointment went well, but I had to do the glucose challenge to see if I have gestational diabetes. Gak! That is some nasty stuff you have to drink. I was an extremely high risk for that condition but, as it turns out, I don’t have gestational diabetes which is an immense relief to me. After giving up wine and unpasteurized cheeses and all the other goodies you have to give up for pregnancy, and then losing anything with any appreciable amount of fat because of the gall bladder issue, if they took away my carbs too I’d go nuts. I’m about at the end of my rope stress wise anyways – After that diagnosis you would have found me rocking under the table clinging desperately to my remaining allowed foods of celery and water while pulling my hair out.
Meanwhile, my doctor tells me I need to gain more weight.
Baby is doing very well and extremely active. She knows exactly where my bladder is, it’s her favorite spot for clog dancing. She also knows how to kick me in just the right way to make me sit straight up in bed. I’m starting to feel like a puppet. She’s not even born yet and already pulling my strings.
We live in on campus in the married housing section. Someone whose probably never had kids came up with the brilliant idea that pregnant students living in married housing must move to family housing in the third trimester. So we have to move. What day do we move? We’ll find out when it happens. We’re on a waiting list, so sometime between January 8, which is the date the school has determined that I will be in the third trimester, and April 8 when the baby is due, we will move 3 miles down the road to our new apartment. We just sit and wait for the school to assign the new apartment and give the go ahead to move. We’re in the middle of trying to get things packed up, but because we don’t know if it’s going to be a week or three months before we move, it’s hard to know what to pack. We’re packing the dishes and eating off paper plates (how very ungreen) and packing all the books that are not reference or school related, and packing my pre-pregnancy clothes, but there is still so much crap that we use every single day…
I can’t believe school starts on Monday. This break has flown by and there’s a part of me waving at the sky saying “Wait! I was supposed to get a chance to relax!” But off it goes as if I had no say whatsoever in the passage of time. In a way I’m relieved because school makes it easier to establish a routine, and routines make it easier to get things done. Also people respect your time more when school is in session. The scary thing is that the quarter ends 2 weeks before baby is due. I hope baby waits till after finals to make her grand entrance.
Last week I described our tradition of picking out a Christmas ornament together. I am pleased to announce that after a great deal of mall walking and searching, we have located and purchased the perfect ornament to memorialize the year I was pregnant.
I give you
the Christmas Pickle
Once we got home, we found a description on the box, it says: “The pickle is a German symbol of good luck. Traditionally, German parents decorated the tree on Christmas Eve, hiding the pickle ornament last. On Christmas morning, the first child to locate the pickle was rewarded with an extra gift from St. Nicholas.”
Then I went online and discovered there’s a poem that goes along with it:
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