Worthiness / Creating the Pull

A conversation held between me and the hubby the other day:

Him: The baby is going to LOVE you.
Me: You think so??
Him: HECK Yeah!
Me:  *screwface*  I mean… what makes you say that?
Him: Well…  did you love YOUR mom?
Me:  Are you kidding?  LOVE her?  I worshipped her.  She was my idol.  There was no woman prettier, smarter, more amazing or kinder in the world.  She was everything.
Him: *”i told you” so look on his face* – well. There you have it.

The verbal conversation stopped there, but in my mind, I responded – but… all that my mom did… she fully deserved that love and admiration from me, my brother and anyone else who crossed her path.  The selflessness.  The sacrifices.  They were all apparant to me all my life.  What will I have done – outside of the surgeries and procedures to GET me pregnant (which might seem … well… self serving from a given angle) that will match that kind of angel-like behaviour that will merit admiration and love from this little one flipping about inside?

When I was an Amway Distributor, one of the philosophies they taught us was a concept called “Creating the Pull”.  They were grooming us all to be leaders, but what’s leading if you have no followers?  What’s worse – if you have proclaimed “followers” but no one wants to be where YOU, in particular, are.  So the concept of creating a pull – put enough distance between you and your “followers” in the achievement and attainment of dreams that makes it look like you are further ahead and wish they could hang with you but they’ve got x-amt of work to get done before they can achieve your success.  Accomplishing this by sending postcards from beautiful places that you’ve managed to be able to go as a result of your hard work and wishing they could be there… but they haven’t reached the success level required for them to earn that particular trip.  Or cars or clothes or free time… all the things they dangled before you as rewards for your work.  I’d gotten many a post card from tropical places “wishing I was there”.  And it made me want to work harder so that I could participate.  I wanted to belong to THAT group.

In a lot of ways and without any kind of effort on her part, my mom “created a pull”.  She didn’t tell me too much about herself.  She just carried herself with poise, grace, determination, pride and love.  She was all the things a grown woman should be in my mind and in my eyes and without dangling it in front of me… she made me want to be as much like her as I could possibly be.  There were some things about myself that I’d never be able to shrug off that were quintessentially ME – the social butterfly, the commensurate performer, the boy-crazy little girl…  Those were just parts of me that I had to know were uniquely mine and not like her at all.  But everything else?  I wanted to emulate her.  The wit.  The style.  The mystery.  The cool-under-pressure.  Personality wise, she was a female James Bond (to me).  And of course – while I learned more and more about her very human personality and flaws as the years passed, it took a very long time to get me to the point where she wasn’t just about able to walk on water in my opinion.

That same mystery brought certain distance between us though.  While  I was always aware that my mom was never supposed to be my “friend” or my “pal” – I felt she left the earth without me really KNOWING who she was.  There was a whole other woman that existed before the married mother I came to idolize.  There was the single, gorgeous,  adventurous youngster growing up in Haiti who had a penchant for wearing short things and was always thinking about her cousins and family and showed it by visiting and chatting with them often.    The woman who existed before my father married her.  I only get glimpses of her in stories from her counterparts and cousins who are still with us.  Making the myth of my mom even more elusive and glamorous.

I don’t know what this little one is going to think of me.  I might be so busy wanting her to love me as much as I loved my mom that I’d do all the wrong things… say all the wrong things.  She’d just end up being a Daddy’s Girl… and maybe not thinking much of me at all.  I know that I think she’s the bees knees already…  I guess… I just have to be myself and hope that she loves me just as much.

*

31 Weeks

aaaaannnd counting!

Stuff is starting to get really real  now.  As if it wasn’t before.  I constantly feel this little one jogging a marathon in my belly… she’s ALWAYS having the hiccups, which renders me feeling completely helpless because there’s nothing I can do to help her with that.  I’ve been told that it’s positive and encouraging that she’s having them because it means she’s practicing her breathing and getting her lungs mature enough to function outside the womb.  So I guess… hiccup away…  It gets a little surreal to feel after 20 minutes or a half hour.   I managed to piece together some semblance of a registry and have finally nailed down the details for the shower – enough to hand over to trusted friends an sisters.  We built the crib yesterday and are now fawning over it in lieu of fawning over her.  Things are moving along.

Ended up in Labor and Delivery on Saturday because there was this constant pressure happening in my lower abdomen all day that would spike and become extreme and then subside but back to the regular hum of pressure.  Since this is child #1 and I’ve never experienced a contraction before, we headed to the hospital after calling the OB and got put on a monitor to make sure the kid wasn’t making an unplanned escape.  She wasn’t.  No contractions.  Cervix is long and closed.  So… then… what was I experiencing?  No one knows.  But I was sent home in as much pain as I got there which was disheartening.  With the orders to stay hydrated and relaxed, that’s how I had to spend the rest of my weekend.  I wished I had gotten a little more direction or help – but I supposed in these cases, it’s a bit lofty to do either.  If it’s not contractions or the kid trying to slide out, then we just don’t need to deal with it might be the philosophy at hand right now.    My main concern is that SHE is alright in there.  Shortly after we got to the hospital, she started moving around a lot (she had been pretty sedentary when the pain was in full swing).  She took a special joy in kicking the baby heart monitor in particular that they placed on her.   She pinpointed exactly where it was and would give it a good whack every few seconds as if to say “get this offa me”.  As long as she was moving, i was fine.  But the search continues on my part to find out what the source of this pressure may be.  Growing pains?  Was she laying laterally?  I may never know.

Got some 3d pics of her this past week.  FINALLY.  The little gymnast hasn’t liked being on camera much so she’ll fancy herself throwing her feet up in front of her face.  To which the technician would say “can’t take a picture of her like this, you’ll just see two big black things in front of her face… it would be a waste.”  So the night before, Earl consulted the belly.  Begging her to just give us a look… a quick one… and he would make his famous homemade strawberry shake for her (which she loves).  Sure enough, when we got to the technician and saw that her feet were crossed Indian style away from her face, we took the opportunity to get a few 3d/4d pics of her little face.  Here’s a sneak peek at the love of my life:

Used to be that these pictures really creeped me out… But, I guess when you’re really looking to know that little one inside… they aren’t so creepy… you’re just looking for what you recognize.  My (mommy’s) nose.  His forehead.  A hybrid of mommy’s lips and his lips.   His cheeks.  Jury is out on the eyes till she opens them.  And her mom’s hammyness – hand poised right at the chin and cheek as if she was posing.  Little  superstar.  Earl can’t stop kissing the picture and my belly.  And I just stare.  Still in awe that any of this is happening.  That I can say aloud “I’m pregnant” and have it be true and enduring for the first time in my life.  It’s all still so indescribable.

I love this feeling!

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Mortality

Once you’ve lost one loved one… and I mean a really close loved one – a parent, a sibling, a best friend – you become painfully aware that you are at risk of losing them all one day.  And it’s inevitable.

It changes how you look at everything in life.   How you react to folks and interact with them.  Nothing is ever interaction for the sake of living life.  You start to look at it (or… at least I do) as the memories you’ll look back on one day when this person isn’t around anymore.   And I try harder to hold on to these images in my mind so that I have something to keep me company in those times.  The memories for later that I create now.

I touch the madonna chain my mom… left to me – because she didn’t give it to me.  And my hand drifts down just a bit to touch my belly, now full with expectation.  And I find myself stuck in between.  Right in the middle passage of this strange cycle of life.  The loss of my mom’s life… the anticipation of a new one to start.  And I am living moments between them both.

Sidenote: Hindsight makes you examine things a little more carefully when you have new information.   Nightmares are sometimes harbingers of good tidings – but you place them in the frame of your current knowledge and they scare you because you don’t have all the information.  I look back at that dream and realize, they were mentally removing everything chemical… everything artificial… making way for the natural miracle that was about to take place.  I see that so clearly now.  But with lack of information and foresight… their presence and actions in my dreams scared me to death.

Grandma used to tell me that nothing is forever in this world.  And I heard her… but wasn’t listening.  I didn’t want to believe that good things weren’t forever too… wonderful people and happy experiences and the tangible personal warmth of bodily affection in the form of hugs and kisses and tender moments with your loved ones.  As good as all those things are – they HAVE to be forever…. right?

No.  But the memories of those things and the actual feeling of love created from those instances I sincerely believe transcend this existence and go with you… wherever your spirit is.

My heart is heavy and hurting right now as I observe a dear friend and sister go through what I went through.  I wouldn’t wish it on a mortal enemy.  And while we tell ourselves we know of the possibility of the outcomes – we’re NEVER prepared for the instance that takes the physical presence of our loved ones away.  There is a deep seated hurt / numbness / inconsolable void that takes over your function and while the words of comfort from the community swirl about your mind and soul – none of them can say what you want to hear.  “She’ll be back.  This is only temporary…”  or “Here’s a number to reach her while she’s gone”  or better yet – “this is just a nightmare – you’ll be waking up soon”.

I am trying to empty my head so my heart will function today.

*

Dear Drizzy,

I know… it’s been a long time since you heard from me. I know that you’ve missed me a little….

It was wrong of me to just drop off the face of the earth like that.  But when you think about it – our relationship started out in much the same way so it’s poetic in a way.   But there’s a very important reason you haven’t heard from me and I’ve gotten up enough strength to tell you to your face…  well… in a letter.

This summer was a whirlwind.  When we met, I was feeling pretty low on myself.  Even though I would dress up pretty and make my hair do beautiful things it could have never accomplished with a perm, I wasn’t getting any feedback.  Feels like the only person that was telling me anything was me in my own mirror.  That had me feeling pretty down every day – so behind my smile there was all this sadness.  I was in a stressful position at work at the time… things were just rough all around.

But then you came out of nowhere… and told me that I was the best… the best you ever had – and I believed you, because I wanted to and I really needed to.  So I started to listen to what you had to say more carefully.  You were always talking about rolling with Young Money, being up all night and making the high life sound like where it was at!  Somehow you managed to take Sade’s musical melancholy and blend it with the party-downstairs feeling of muted base and blurred lights that I’d always lived for and spoke words I needed to hear over it all.   I took a good look at you and you were boyishly cute.  Never thought I’d fall for your type, but your swagger and demeanor had me sold.  At the end of the day, that’s all anyone has forever.  So we started to go steady.  You kicked game to me every day in my car telling me how fancy you thought I was and when I was getting ready for us to go out on the town, you instructed me to put those fucking heels on and work it girl – let that mirror show you what you’re doing.  I won’t mention what you told me to do when we got home… Straight fireworks.  I hadn’t felt so light and pretty and wanted and sexy in a long time.  You were MY favorite, even though you kept bringing up that Minaj girl.  I can’t hate – she’s beautiful, talented and IS from Queens, afterall… how can you resist?  But I knew that I was your number one when we spent my birthday night signing and rapping to each other.  It was a concert was just for me and the thousands watching were just observing to see what real passion looked like.  I was on cloud nine then… The city was ours.

But I have to come clean to you finally…  You haven’t seen me because I’m with child.  And it’s not yours.  And as much as you made me feel young and pretty and wanted — the life I’m preparing for now is the one I always wanted and need to get my mind right for.  You have years ahead of you full of fun, frivolity, fame and carefree living. But I want you to know that you saved me from me and saved my swagger this summer when I thought I’d lost it all.  I’ll always be grateful for that because now I can teach that to my little baby girl when she gets older and she’ll be all of those things without ever having to ask for validation or permission.

I promise to always give the world me – the real me.

Thanks, Drake.

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Third Trimester

Here it is… the final stretch as they say.  And when I thought I couldn’t be anymore humbled… I am bereft of the words that can explain all that’s going on.

When i lie in bed at night getting ready to sleep and rejuvenate… this little one rolls around and animates my tummy… and it literally tickles to the point where I laugh out loud – to my self… by myself.  And as I listen to the echo of my laughter fade away into the silence, I think about WHY I’m laughing and then I’m figuratively tickled…  I have a little baby inside of me…. I do…  one that looks like she’ll make it out of there … healthy enough for me to feel her movements and little limbs stretching and tickling my lower belly…  healthy enough for me to observe the quiet rhythmic jump of her having hiccups in my womb and every time I sit and think long enough about it… I’m reminded… There’s a little baby inside…. OF ME….  My baby.  Finally.  What a wondrous miracle.  What amazing blessings God is capable of.  And usually as I quietly entertain the fears that normally take over anyone in my position  – I pray that I’m ready… I don’t have all the elders to ask the questions to that raised me, how will i know what to do…  i hope that all that I’ve done and eaten in the last 7 months has allowed her to grow healthy and progressively and I’ve not done something to harm her… Am I too old for all of this… it’s all washed away by the amazing humility once she moves.   Or kicks.  or thumps.  And I know it’s not a lot… but right now?  It’s everything to me.  She is everything to me.  Everything else I’ve ever striven to accomplish or complete hasn’t had near the significance of these months.

Still so much preparation to complete.  Is anyone ever truly completely ready for a little baby to come into their lives?  I just trust and pray that I have all the internal tools ready so that they will manifest into anything she needs at all.

28 weeks… and counting.

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Trade Off.

I had a seriously strange dream last night.  I don’t remember a lot of the details, but the gist of it was this.  I was given the choice to exchange pieces of my life time for a chance to bring back my deceased loved ones for that period of time.  So – if I gave up one day off of how long I was going to live, I’d get to see my grandma alive again in this instance for 24 hours.  More time given up… more time to spend with that loved one.   In the dream, I deliberated it for a very long time.  There were so many factors that I needed answered:  Would the person be in the same health as they were before their demise?  Would this be a wrenching of their soul out of heaven?  I weighed options for so long in the dream having just given birth to my little one… thinking – the time I’m taking away from her having me as her mom on this earth… but… she’d get to know and see her grandmother…  It was such a huge conundrum because I know at the end of the day it will NEVER BE ENOUGH.  And I’ll experience the loss all over again when she has to go.  The first time around I know – even KNOWING the end is coming doesn’t cushion the blow.  And now… so will my daughter – because I know she’d LOVE my mom… there’s no question.  But at the end of the dream… my mom was there.  I don’t know how much time i gave up, but i fear it was a LOT.

The dream kept me tossing and turning all night long as my heart who longs to see my mom again wrestled with my mind that knows it’s best not to unearth the dead… literally.  So I asked the question on Facebook to see what others think.  I’m sure some movie house will steal the idea for a movie down the line – they always pick at my brain for the best ideas *snickers*  But it was such an interesting situation… because I always say I’d give anything to see my mom again…  But would I?

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Gifted and Robbed

(This is my first test post from my iPad WordPress app *crossing fingers*)

Gifted: because this wasn’t supposed to be me. It looked like i was not going to get to this place. Not naturally anyways. Babies weren’t meant to survive in THIS womb. But through some medical intervention, a little wholistic therapy and a whole lotta belief, here I am. Waiting on this child, who’s newest habit is to find spots in my back ribs to lodge herself into and give Mommy a reason to holler. Through the day she gently kicks me as I work to remind me she is in there. I have never taken better care of my self mentally, physically or emotionally as I am in this moment. And the whole time I feel completely surreal. Thus far it has been the very best parts of most people’s journeys that I know of all scrunched into one. I am extremely humbled by all of this and hope that I am ready to receive and deliver this little human to the world.

Robbed: in comparison, I shouldn’t even mind this small technicality. I should be singularly focused on all the miracles that brought me down a path that leads to this amazing place. But this scheduled c-section that I have absolutely no choice about is a downer. Most women would be practicing their breathing or researching midwives and taking classes or looking into Eco pools. I am one of THOSE types. The kind that DID NOT want an epidural or pitosin or any kind of intervention. I wanted to feel every part of this miraculous process. The immense pain and the reciprocal ecstasy … Deliver my little one and hold her in my arms immediately. Not me cut open, cauterized, lay prostate as she is yanked out of me and then have to wait hours before I can touch her. It’s all putting a major damper on me as I approach the final stretch. Everything is, “oh, your having a c-section? Then you don’t have to worry about doing this or learning that or feeling anything”. Auntie Ena has NOT given up on the possibility that I would deliver vaginally. She prays it onto my belly every time she sees me. A trained midwife all her career life, she would want to see this go as naturally as it possibly can. What I think us missing from her vast repertoire of knowledge is this new brand of expectant mother. The heavily worked on, cut up and sewed back together again that has so much potential for bleeding out at birth that a natural birth with contractions isn’t an option if everyone (mother and baby) want to make it out alive. Her endless hope has me wishing it was a possibility. But no dice.

Truly in comparison to the blessing… I should have nothing at all to say. And I don’t anymore. I just had to put it in words to get it out of my mind. I just wish there was more information/ preparation given to expectant c-section moms as there are for the way God intended…. That’s all.

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26 Weeks

Time is starting to slow down again.

In the first trimester, it would go SOOOO SLOWLY – mostly because every  moment is riddled with anxiety and nervousness and fear about if you’ll make it through to the 2nd trimester.  2nd trimester goes by at a normal pace.   You’re worrying WAY less… you’ve managed to let off some steam by letting people know the good news (and bad because now you can be all sorts of sick and anxious w/o feeling self conscious).  But then the ramp up to the big show begins.  The 3rd trimester is just out of touch and I feel that I’ve been at this 25 / 26 week mark now for about 3 weeks. LOL  It’s in my nature to rush things along…  I guess ever since I was a little child, plaguing my mom with questions about what it’s like to be a grown up and what it would be like to have my period and what it would be like to get married and move out and have a job and not be in school anymore.  You would think by now that I’d have the time and patience to just wait for stuff.  Trop presse pas fait  jour l’ouvrie. I know mommy.  I’m learning to be more patient.

I had a SERIOUS bout of missing her last night.  My dear sweet godsend of a hubby decided it was time to “tackle the office” – he’s not a pack rat.  AT ALL.  But I am.  And he witnessed how bad it can get by having to help my parents through their packrat-ism.  Or at least my mom.  Dad wasn’t so bad with his… but he also wasn’t as willing as Earl to help mom dig out.  So every month or so, he dedicates a good amount of time to helping me dig out of my own paper grave.  The office has been stacked up with stuff for a while.  Originally, we were going to clear it out to make room for a nursery.  But we cannot, no matter what we do, control the temperature in that half of the apartment.  So the nights that it’s cold… our little baby would freeze.  And summer nights, she would bake to death.  So we’ll have her in our bedroom until we move out.  But he wanted the office to be clear because as my belly gets bigger – it’s MUCH harder for me to scrunch over and do the freelance work I need to do over my computer.  So he dug out the space around my old computer (did a FANTASTIC job) but in the process unearthed some more memories that I wasn’t quite ready to see yesterday.  A small white envelope that has seen it’s share of wear and tear.  On the outside in crude black marker it exclaimed “To My Mother: The Maker Of ME”  This was obviously one of my many exercises in learning to write… so I had to be about 5 or 6 years old.  In my brief homemade thank you card written on a 3 x 5 piece of index card in blue pen I thanked for all that she’d done for me: “making me, giving me life, buying my toys” and professed that she “made life so satisfying”  and that I loved her.  (silly me with my big words).  I broke down.  This is the reason I don’t give cards anymore.  It seems terrible of me.

When grandma died and we had to go through her apartment, there was a huge envelope – you know for those absurdly large greeting cards that they sell at Hallmark.  We’d given her one of those through the years.  But inside that envelope was ANY AND EVERY CARD my brother, my mom and I had ever given the woman.  And in all the years of writing these cards, I never thought for ONE MINUTE that I’d be taking them back.  It warmed my heart to know that they meant so much that she kept them all (i mean ALL of them).  But it hurt too profoundly to have to reclaim them.

So i cried for a good while yesterday, missing mommy with all my heart.  Wishing she was here.  I had way less lonely moments when she was around because she was always available to just chat about nothing.. or let me listen to her watch tv.  But this bottomless feeling is just without resolve.  At the end of the tears and the feeling sorry for myself and the wishing I could call her – there’s no resolution.  I’m still without her and always will be, no matter how many tears or breath taking sobs.  No amount of pain I’ll feel will revive her … or wake me out of this reality where she’s actually still here with me.  And every day, more of her shows up in me that I can’t control; good things… bad things.  All her.

2 more weeks until the 3rd trimester.  Maybe I’ll learn to slow down and document everything happening so that I can regale the little one with tales of her arrival and focus less on the pain and sadness.

*

Special Phone Call

Ritmo Speaker System

With all that I’m reading about what you could and can do to make your baby more intelligent, more intellectual and more responsive from the womb, the one that I’ve latched on to (of course) is playing music for the baby.  So I ordered one of these Ritmo Sound Systems that has four little baby sized speakers that go on your belly strategically to create “surround sound” and a little controller that makes it so that you can’t ever have it be too loud (because it’s totally possible to over stimulate the baby in there with too much interaction or noise that’s too loud.

So on the night of the SuperMoon last Saturday, I played a little Moonlight Sonata for her and she enjoyed that along with some Nutcracker Suite selections.  She was just flipping around in there and loving the music.    I picked the system up though, because I read somewhere that you could pipe your voice through it somehow.  I thought this would have been an easy task w/o too much technical know how but they didn’t make it easy for the non techie to figure this out.  Thankfully… I’m not a non tech .  When I did the first music session, I plugged the Ritmo into my computer and played selections from my music library as well as from YouTube if I wanted to play something I didn’t actually posses.  So there was a way to bring a voice through… primarily Earl’s.  I know she can hear him peripherally but I want her to REALLY know his voice when she gets out here, just like she’ll know mine intimately (not much of a choice in that one for her… but you know).

So finally it hit me… SKYPE!!!  I plugged the system into my lappy and pulled up Skype and dialed out to Earl’s cell phone.  That way, when he talked, it piped right into the speakers.  Man…  when he picked up that phone and said “Hello little one…”  She kicked me SO HARD like  “HEY!!!  That’s Daddy!!!”  She’d never kicked that hard yet and there was nothing I could do to stop her from flipping around for the next 10 minutes as Earl sat back and caught her up on EVERYTHING for the last 6 months like he was talking to a long lost friend.  It was really so beautiful that tears just streamed down the sides of my face freely.  Real tears of joy – not ones tied into any kind of misery or self pity.  I was just so overwhelmed by the happiness felt from within and the joy emanating from Earl’s voice.  This is it – my little nuclear family.  The one I dreamed about.   The one I prayed for.  And worked extremely hard for.  It’s coming to pass right before my eyes.  My only wish is that my Mommy could have seen…  But she’s supervising from the great beyond and helping to keep a good word up for my dreams and prayers.

Earl chatted to the baby to his heart’s content and ended the call by saying “It’s getting late now, I’m going to let you get some sleep – I love you so much… I’ll call you tomorrow!”  LOL  I couldn’t help but have a good belly laugh at that.  Because he will and will always want to talk with her and to her.  I can’t wait to meet her!

*

Little one…

Soft sweet rumblings from within
You’re touching me so deeply and don’t even know it yet
Moving about, developing as per God’s plan
Your presence fills me with wonder beyond my limited words
While I never gave up hope to be this person to you
I’m speechless to express how humbled I am to be this way
I thought for so long this love they talked about was mythical
But I see that you have already begun to cast your spell on me
I’m in love with you, little one.

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25 Weeks

The journey continues…  So the docs slapped the big GD on me 2 weeks ago (gestational diabetes) and my world has been pretty topsy turvy since then.  If I was finicky about what to eat before??  Now? the baby is lucky to be getting food at all.  I’m scared of everything because I realize the levels of glucose damned near everything has.  I watched my parents and brother struggle with Type 2 Diabetes all my life.   It’s NOT something you want.  And with the history of it in my family, I’m praying that this is not a springboard onto diabetes for life.  Here’s to hoping.  I’m working on managing my numbers and keeping them in a mid range, but I gotta tell ya… there’s not a whole lotta food I feel like eating out there that helps me to do that.  Mostly everything is wrapped in some kind of glucose producing sugar.   Kinda sucks that the one time in life that I coudda gotten away with eating almost anything is when I have to diet the hardest.  But, like all other vices I’ve put aside, this too will go in the bin in the name of my baby’s health and wellness.

She’s an active little such and such now in there…  just moving and bouncing around.  Constantly kicking me.  Here I was complaining that I couldn’t feel her.  Now? I feel her ALL THE TIME and it’s GLORIOUS…  It’s otherworldly…. this little reminder that there’s a tiny little  someone growing inside. It’s humbling and awesome… usually leaves me completely speechless.  I spend much more time quiet these days in anticipation of feeling the little kick or nudge and I get to wondering what she’s doing in there.  How the next few years of her life, her body will be completely dedicated to growing to the next level – whether she’s aware of it or not.  How intricate and amazing this whole system is.  How my body is already producing the immune system protection filled meal that will help her body to grow…  And not to forget – how she’s keeping me a great deal of company in this quiet time.  We don’t have to say much to each other but neither of us is alone.  That? feels good.  I can imagine it’ll only feel better as the days move forward and of course when I finally get to meet her.  I look forward to that with such anticipation…  I just want to look into her face and see who’s there…. who does she look like?  What kind of immense personality is waiting?  Will she be quiet?  Will she be fierce?  Will she be all the things I ever prayed for – I already know the answer to that.  Yes.  She already has been.

Nursery Planning.  Registry Building.  Shower Coordination… there’s a lot going on in the outer world.  At times I feel like “fuck it… I just won’t do any of that”.  It’s starting to feel like my wedding all over again and I don’t know how much drama I really want.  My people are taxed.  How many times in the last 5 years have they had to corale together to do something for me or with me:  Bridal Showers, Wedding, Dad’s Passing, Mom’s Passing… there’s been a constant call out to rally in the name of something happening in my life.  I feel a little tired / bad calling on anyone anymore.  Perhaps this should all happen quietly.  Just E, me and fam greeting her into the world – no muss, no fuss.  I’m all about remaining stress free / melancholy free ever since I heard that she can feel all those things… the bad emotions too.  I definitely don’t want her to feel sad or droopy.  This baby? needs to be so happy and in love with life.  I gotta get MY mind right for that to happen!

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23 Weeks, 1 Day

We’re moving right along over here. The baby is progressing well. At her check up last week she weighed in at 1lb 2 oz, anatomy scan looked good, clotting in the placenta had stabalized and the doctor said some encouraging words to me that sounded like “you have a healthy normal baby in there” – which was wonderful sweet music to my ears. The AFP results came back in lowering my chances of abnormalities in the baby even more than the Nuchal did. Of course they make sure to tell you that nothing is 100% sure, but the chances were like 1 in 35,000 or 1 in 240,000… so for my age and all the treacherousness happening in my womb, it sounds like good news to me

She finally made her presence known to me in a physical way last Tuesday. I was out of the office sick with a cold *le sigh* which was hard hard hard to do w/o the comforts of my theraflu or anything to help decongest or soothe the cough. So I’m leaning back in my chair and rubbing my tummy and what felt like a foot followed the path of my lateral cesarean scar and pushed firmly down in the top of my pubis. It was a shocking feeling because everyone has been telling me “oh, it feels like butterflies or popcorn”. This little one is really bold because nothing she ever did was subtle so far. She’s HERE damnit is more the tone with which she’s been doing things and I? don’t mind. I can be on the dense side with things sometimes so she’s wise to dispense with the subtleties.

Sleeping is becoming increasingly more challenging. They tell you to sleep on your left side… but what if the baby likes the left side? I feel like I might crush her sometimes. I know they say that’s probably impossible but the way she revolts when I move from said side leads me to believe that she’s pretty sore with me weighing her down. So, I guess now is when sleep becomes pretty challenging. Good thing I tried to bone up on as much of it as I possibly could.

Last week we went for a 3 hour glucose test. My complaint isn’t so much the test itself or taste which seems to be everyone else’s gripe. I was moreso concerned with the length of time I’d been “fasting” because the appt was at 10. So I wasn’t allowed to eat until 2. When we got home, I used the bathroom and nearly passed out with the shakes. I couldn’t even get up for long enough TO eat at that point because i was so drained. Earl had to let me sleep for a half hour before propping me up to get some food. I get the results back today. I hope it’s good news. *keeping my fingers crossed*

They tried to take a 3D/4D scan of the baby last time but she’s still a little bony so she ended up looking like a young Smiegel. I’ll wait until 25 or 26 weeks to do it again. I’m just so curious to get an idea of what she’ll look like. At the base of it all, I really just want to meet her… Look in her face.. Look at her eyes and see who she is… I know I might not know right off…. but… I’m so curious… We’ve assigned her all these qualities in our fantasies and dreams… I want to see what she’s decided to be. It’s a very exciting ride!

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Amazing Dream…

I gave birth in my dream.

I’ve been reading up a lot on c-sections because well… I’m relegated to having one. So I want the most information there is to be had about it. In this dream I was laid flat with the curtain up above my belly, Earl on one side, Mommy Cora and Auntie Ena on the other. There was much excitement in the room. I was partially anesthetized. I felt the pulling like the books said I would. This deep profound extraction from within me…. started at chest level, like they were removing my heart and pulling it down through my abdomen. It was quiet for a moment and then one of the doctors came from behind the curtain and laid this little swaddled piece of glory on my chest. She squirmed about as I held her in place, staring at her in complete awe. She inhaled through her mouth deeply like she was going to take her first instinctual cry and I braced for it. But she looked me right in the eye and began to giggle with the utmost amazement and amusement. Like she and I had shared a private joke that she always found funny and I immediately fell completely in love. I woke up teary eyed and anxious for the day I’ll get to meet her!

THAT? is an image I want with me always.

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21 Weeks, 1 Day

This weekend, Earl and I celebrated our 4 Year Wedding Anniversary! We got married on president’s Day weekend then, so ever since, our anniversary has been able to be celebrated with a few extra days off. He treated me like a queen, despite the fact that he’d just had minor surgery on his knee to remove a floating body of soft bone. But he dolled up, picked me up from work in the car, brought me flowers, wined me and dined me at our favorite restaurant, bought me a video game I’d been talking about for a long while and just… doted on me (us). I’m aware a huge part of this all is because of the baby and I don’t mind being the recipient of all this love and attention till she gets here. He’s so overjoyed about this little girl… I am too – but HE? is beside himself. This is all he’s ever dreamed of — to be a daddy to someone that depends on him. He didn’t have that for any span of time. His father is a monster now as he was a monster then – yet and still, his one complaint was that the man wasn’t THERE to be his dad. So this is a huge retribution in so many ways. I’m just in awe as I watch this dream unfold for him.

As for me, I’m watching my belly go up and down in size… Some days, I look REALLY fully… other days, I wonder if I’m preggers. I hear that it could be because of gas or bloating; the baby shifting movements, the movement of my uterus… any number of reasons. All of which are extremely comforting because I didn’t want to think smaller belly = sick baby. Went for the OB / Perinatal combo again last week. Asked the OB why their outlook is so much rosier than the Perinatologist. She stopped short of calling them alarmists… but basically said they are looking for much more subtle changes while the OB is looking for general things – general size, presence of enough fluid, movement, protein in urine and weight gain. Which is why their ultra sound is 2 minutes tops. Where as at the perinatologist, they take 2 or three anatomy scans, they examine the positioning and integrity of the placenta, growth percentiles, etc. So when they find things wrong there, they work to correct them. I can appreciate all of that. The scan at the perinatologist put her back in the 51st percentile as far as growth is concerned, but the OB assured me what I read a few weeks ago was accurate. Anywhere between 90 and 10 is fine. That’s a big range – and in hind sight, she only “drifted” a few percentage points anyhow.

Mommy Cora came to the OB appointment and Aunt Ena came to the Perinatologist. The little one was kicking up a storm to show mommy but it was brief and she related so much to it being Earl. She kept nudging him in the ribs like “that was you!” At the perinatologist, during the very extreme and detailed scan, we heard sniffling… Auntie Ena was crying. She was so overwhelmed by the glory of this miracle moving and shifting and growing inside. She was so overjoyed.

Got me to start thinking about how much I wish my mom, grandma and dad were here to see. I know they can see from afar… but… I wish my mommy could be here. So I got to crying too. When they tech asked why I was crying (because I hadn’t up until this point) I blamed it on Ena. LOL I’ve become so stoic in life lately… nothing moves me. I though the last thing that would ever move me so profoundly was the death of my parents. I’ve never experienced ANY emotion so completely. I fear sometimes that I’m blocking out the joy and natural emotionality that I would normally experiencing during a pregnancy because of my apprehension to “feel” too much. I keep thinking, once I feel her… I think I’ll be a little puddle of tears. But I’ve not felt anything yet. I know she’s in there. But… I haven’t fully connected yet, other than to try to take the best care of myself in order for her to have the best chance.

Fibroids. The mere word makes me want to spit. I hate them. I hate them with every ounce of my being. And their back. 4 of them. Growing with my sweet pea. Doctor tells me that they’re outside the womb and not impeding her development at all. Even suggested that I don’t bother taking them out after the pregnancy and just watch and wait. Those words are always scary to me… “watch and wait” is how I got to a 22 week pregnant sized belly full of that garbage before last year’s surgery. two of them are on my left side and I feel them prominently when my belly is good and full. And I hate them. I don’t want them to crush my baby or stunt her growth in any way. HATE. FIBROIDS.

Milk?? Already?? So I found a little alone time… *wink wink nudge nudge* and since sex is the furthest thing from Earl’s mind right now (he never was a wild one, but even more so distant because of fears of “hurting” the baby) I do a lot of self servicing. I placate myself by remembering I read somewhere that the baby feels the euphoria of said release. So I don’t go overboard, but I don’t starve myself either. Anyway… this last time, I was getting it done… and near the climax, I felt something wet on my shirt… I was wearing a light colored shirt and there was this patch of wetness over my right nipple…… MILK?? it was odorless and ultimately dried colorless… but FREAKED ME OUT!!! I don’t even LIKE milk… the fact that it’s coming out of my body is like… WHOA… I later googled that oxytocin is known to bring down the milk at times and wouldn’t you know it? You make a bunch of that stuff when you climax. So now? I’m all weirded out about doing THAT.

Something tells me I’ll get over it That’s all for these weeks… More updates soon!

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19 Weeks

Moving right along. No serious events over the last few weeks. We got a glimpse of her twice this past week and we firmly believe that she’ll be a night baby, this one. Unlucky for us. When we have morning appointments, she barely moves around. She’s pretty tired, I guess… but when we have evening appointments she is just dancing up a jig. Either way, I love to see her moving and progressing. She has 2 arms and 2 legs and it looks like both hands have 5 fingers each and both feet have 5 toes each. It’s the little things that one can be super grateful for. I can’t wait to feel her. I am tricking myself into believing that I haven’t yet. It’s still all gas and bubbles – which I experience more of more often now. More belching and repeating of my food, which I’m being told is called “acid reflux” but if it’s just a result of the movement of the organs, I won’t heavily medicate for it. Earl bought me a Snoogle this week. If it were human, I’d leave Earl for this glorious piece of cotton and cloth. It’s AMAZING. I sleep through the night with NOOOOO problems!! It’s quite mind boggling how wonderful it is. But it does cause quite a significant barrier between the hubster and I. I don’t think he minds it so long as I’m comfy – or at least that’s what I tell myself.

I’m getting a little of my energy back so I’m able to stay up later than I was before. Not that I’m hating on the extra sleep I’m getting. Baking a human is big work. Belly is showing more. People want to touch it and stuff. Hasn’t yet gotten to the point of annoyance. I just can’t imagine total strangers in NY wanting to interact with each other on such an intimate level. But I’ve been surprised before. Got a little scare at the doctor when they said that from 2 weeks ago she dropped from her growth being in the 65th percentile to being in the 44th percentile. I was really beating myself up. But then I read on a website that between 90 and 10 percentile was considered normal for a fetus. The bottom line on that is that I HAVE to stop worrying so much. I just worry about this little girl all the time. I know that is a trend I’ll follow for the next … rest of my life. But I gotta take it easy.

Talked to my ls this past week and she was giving me some tips and tricks about c-section. There is a surprising lack of information when it comes to c-section because even though there are a LOT more elective ones, they still treat it as an emergency procedure. Earl will be the first one to hold the baby. I was able to share that good news with him and he’s all giddy with the prospect of it. He’s afraid he won’t know how to hold her and how delicate she’ll be that he won’t know his own strength because she’s so precious. I have complete confidence that he’ll do great. And I’m happy he’ll hold her first. He has wanted this more than anything so it seems very fitting.

We realized after much thought and careful examination that we’ll probably be living here for the first 6 months of the baby’s life. So we’ll set up the right wall of our bedroom as her “nursery” and when we move, she’ll have her own room. I hope this is a good decision. But we don’t really have a choice. The office which would have become the nursery is not predictable with the temperature. At least in the winter, the bedroom’s temp is controllable. So that argument won out. So I’ll pick a pretty pink to decorate the wall with and make it as much her room as it is ours.

Gonna have to start storing a bunch of stuff

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16 Weeks

Even though I’m at the end of the 16th week I’ll call it what it is. I’m really mellow these days. I am listening quietly to the things happening to my body. Hoping I don’t miss something significant.

As of our last perinatal appointment, the placenta previa is gone, since being on the lovenox and baby aspirin, the placenta has stabilized and no new clots have formed. And there looks to be a little happy baby girl in there. She’s running out of space to move around but she’s intensely full of personality (or at least we’re assigning a bunch of personality to her). During the ultrasound this week, the technician says “Oh look, she’s kicking your placenta”. And it wasn’t some random one kick two kick. It was rapid fire a la Charlie Murphy’s story about Rick James – “F*ck Yo Placenta” style kicking. Good thing I can’t feel it yet. She was giving it her all.

After my shower yesterday, as I’m toweling off, Earl calls me over and says… hey…. you’re showing and then caressed my tummy. Yeah. I am. And that comes with all the benefits and downfalls. LOL – achy back. shaky pelvis. achy back. pregnant stance. achy back. shortness of breath from having walked down… THE HALLWAY? achy back. LOL

Wouldn’t trade this in for anything else. I’m still waiting to fully connect this to me. I haven’t yet gotten the distinct sensation that this is ME this time. OUR baby in MY body. I’m so used to celebrating everyone else… that I still think they’re feeding in video from the next room when they’re showing me this little wonder writhing about. She’s in ME….. Amazing. We’ve picked her name and although we don’t say it allowed (yeah, we had the “yeah these are the names we picked” and someone stole the name right out from under us scenario happen) in mixed company, we call her by name in the house all day. And I can’t WAIT to speak it to her for the first time. For her to know all the strength and the power and amazing sensation she’s already caused in our lives and what’s in store for her.

On to my appointment with the nutritionist so I can learn to better feed my body and feed her.

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