xx | xy

4.5 months

Distracting myself with details. Taking meticulous notes about what I eat. When I exercise. The word file with notation after graphic notation of the physiological nonsense caused by pregnancy. Why would evolution and biology have made this such a horrific experience for human women? All so we could walk upright and overthink with our giant brains.

They all tell me I have it worse than most with the unending sickness. "are you eating enough protein?"(yes) "are you sleeping enough?" (yes) "are you exercising?" (fucking yes, I am doing everything right and then some.) This is just the way it is for me, but I won't use the word "unfair."

Its a boy. I thought for sure it was a girl. Maybe just because everyone else thought so. The old wives tales. The odds. J said it would be a girl just because the universe would do that to me. Plague me with 15 years of the dreaded pink items and the large groups of squealing, giggling girls in my house. But besides all of that, I still thought I was up for the challenge. So the news boy silenced me for a solid 20 minutes. (after, well, imagine the miranda character from SATC faking excitement for the ultrasound tech)

Then it rushed toward me all at once. Massive relief. I would have been unjustly tough on a girl. I am tough on all girls. I expect every one of them to single handedly take on the task of disproving and undoing thousands of years of stereotypes. But a daughter would have had to shoulder all of that burden. That weight, the weight of me. My unreasonable expectations, the same ones I set for myself. The ones that trap me.

I think I have been saying goodbye to her, this fictional girl who has been let off the hook. I am relieved for her. Not to have to be spit out into the world a victim, always under male supervision, always in danger. Never alone after dark. The best time to be alone. Fragile confidences. Fighting the ideals of beauty. Self hatred. Its too hard to be a girl.

As W said, "another little boyfriend for you."
> boyz (M.I.A.)

reversion

3.5 months

With the relentless, constant sickness, I feel myself reverting to childhood. I want to eat the foods I liked as a child, spaghettios and macaroni and cheese. I want to watch the movies I used to watch. I can sleep all the time. I want to talk to my parents every day. Every dream takes place in my childhood house. I want to spend time in the kinds of places I loved, woods and fields. I want to go sledding.
E asks me if I am excited or anxious or both. I tell her I am neither. That I am not much of anything other than annoyed. Not surprised, she tells me I will be one of those women who won't fall in love until after it is born, and I wonder if it will be even then.
They all try to console me about the loss of my creativity. J says I should just let myself slip into a hibernation of observing and absorbing. M says blame hormones. But it doesn't matter whats to blame. Its unbearable either way.

prologue

I found these writings from a year ago:

Everything else I have ever done, all the big important decisions, have been reversible. If you choose the wrong college or job, you quit or transfer. You can date a person for years before you decide to marry them. If it doesn’t work out, you can break up. This is different than all of those things. Its officially deciding to change everything about your whole life forever. How can anyone ever firmly decide that?

I said to EH, do you feel like you have to change anything about yourself before we do this? He says no. And I suddenly feel completely alone. I have a lot of things to change.

Get over fear of doctors. Stop drinking coffee and allowing stress to get to me. Have to learn to stop feeling sorry for myself. Have to stop being selfish. Have to sacrifice a flat stomach. Have to pretend I don’t care about sacrificing those things. Shamefully afraid I will loose the thinness i work so hard to keep after having been an overweight teenager.

The book asked what positive things comes to mind. Names. Watching language acquisition. That cool modern baby lounge chair. I only thought of 3 right away. The book said to think of 5.

I wonder if other women have a secret fear that their brain will turn to mush if they have a baby. Months and months of repeating this tight, stressful little cycle over and over day and night. Baby cries, figure out why, fix it, relax, repeat. Never a stretch of time to just sit and think. I desperately troll my little world for research subjects. I spend a whole day with my friend G the international tax lawyer and her 6 week old. I watch. I ask questions. Yeah, she’s still smart. But she’s a tax lawyer! I fear my intelligence is more fragile.

The book says “Eat right. Exercise.” Seriously? That’s all they have for me? No sh*t.

apathetic

week 1- 6

I get the feeling i am somehow not supposed to expose my utter apathy, spying on message boards and blogs littered with bubbly exclamation marks, enthusiasm, and obnoxious slang like 'preggers' and 'hubby.' Come on.

There is also a tinge of guilt knowing some people try like mad to get pregnant for years. So I should feel grateful for fertility and nausea, congestion, gas, cramps, this awful taste in my mouth, having to give up coffee and beer.

Yet I did this to myself. Well planned years in advance with a husband now overflowing with excitement.

Its also my fault that I have fallen into a life and personality that is not very well suited to this whole process. I think about the throngs of women with their close knit groups of female friends who will throw them big baby showers. I think about women with sisters. Families that live close by. I imagine sitting here by myself in isolation day after day as the excited husband skips off to work.

I am not excited to tell certain friends, knowing they will be annoyed at my seeming to be jumping on the double stroller band wagon, doing what one is 'supposed' to do at this stage in life.

My bests friends are missing. Far away or trapped in their own bizarre worlds. This will make me less free to travel to visit, less able to relate. This chic pea sized blob that claims to be in my body is basically telling me I will lose everything I had before.

I find myself googling things like "do i have to buy a crib?" and "how to deliver your own baby." I can't stand to watch any movies with those loud comical scenes in the delivery room where 10 people all gather around some poor woman. I read once that in some tribal culture, the woman goes off by herself into the forest to give birth. Can I do that? I can't find it again, and now I think I may have made it up. Traditional cultures are set up to provide huge amounts of support, I can't imagine them sending anyone into the woods alone in that condition.

I refuse to tell anyone until well after that magical 3 month mark when its safe to say one is sufficiently pregnant. Excited husband calls me an iron closet. He can't imagine how to contain himself. I, on the other hand, have no problem containing myself.