abstract

9 months

The increasing size of my stomach has no relationship to the reality of whats about to happen. The wild baby movements are no less abstract. I am as likely to shrug when asked if I'm excited as 6 months ago. All I know for sure is I am excited to not be pregnant. I know what being not pregnant is like, its wonderful.  How can I know if I am excited for everything that comes next? I have no frame of reference. Comparisons to friends experiences are useless. I try to remember another time in life when the world turned upside down overnight. Nothing is upside down enough.

A week ago I had the feeling I had "made it." I decided I was done. I felt I had turned into a pregnant super hero, marching into client presentations at 9 months; running to catch a train; meeting friends for lunch; never having waddled..
Then somehow overnight, my attitude flipped. Breach. Even though my due date is a week away, I feel late. Overdue. Fooled by a string on confusing false alarms. Feeling I failed to send myself into labor early, the kid still small enough to ease birth somewhat. Failing to instinctually assess my body and it's nonsense.

who is who

7 months

I suppose I was never comfortable in my original body to begin with. So it follows that in a pregnant body, chaos would ensue. I constantly feel the strain of my skin, like I am trapped in a body suit that doesn't fit me. Its too tight.

I measure my fears of birth against the other women in the childbirth class. For as miserable as this has all been, I don't feel very much fear about giving birth. Maybe because pregnancy has been hard, birth means the end of it. A celebration of not only getting to meet him, but to know that I never, never have to do this again. To have my body to myself again.

I get confused about who is who. I stub my toe and for a split second, think that he felt it.

8 months

I feel like giving up, not really an unfamiliar response. How can it nearly destroy me to go for a 2 mile walk? Even sleeping hurts.
Foolishly googling "very active in the womb" hoping research has proven it translates to 'fast birth" but all that comes up is "irritable baby."

grace

People who are just now in the process of getting to know me are actually meeting someone else.  I imagine the stuttering professor who runs into things, knocks things over, moves slowly, whose mind goes blank.  If asked to describe me they might use adjectives like "clumsy, low energy, scattered..."
I never thought of myself as graceful, but looking back, I realize it may have been a fair descriptor. I have added "grace" to the list of things I will be grateful to ever get back. Grace, room enough in my stomach for a bowl of pasta, abs, motivation...

I think about how physical mannerisms play a part when we assemble a snapshot of someone's personality. The way they walk, sit, move are as much a part of that snapshot as the things they say.  I used to think of my body as separate from my mind and my actions. But the connections are inseparable. My mind can't carry on in its usual creative snowball when distracted by constant discomfort and confusion.

backwards

6 months 

Backwards progress. As the baby progresses, I lose things. Like this yoga dvd. Normally when you do something a lot you see progress. Results. Improvement. But now, the same moves just get harder every week.

At first i thought it was funny that i couldn't put on my boots the old way (knee to chest) but it has lost its humor. It just pisses me off now. I guess I should try to like the challenge of puzzling out new ways to do things like put on boots. But I still get mad. Feeling more trapped in body, stuck in my skin, most days thinking, that's it. I'm done, I can't do this anymore. I think the kid wants out too. He never stops squirming.

3 months to go and now looking unquestionably pregnant. I put up a wall when I"m teaching. trying to pretend its not down there. Occasionally seeing students eyes staring at my stomach, and it breaks the spell.

Still have moments of: Ok, I changed my mind. Force quit. But no. No turning back.

I am disoriented over the unoriginality of all this. How can it seem so completely strange and crazy, when over 40% of all humans do it. The two ends are as far apart as anything I can conceptualize.

body map

In my brain there exists a very detailed and precise map of my body. This is the map that makes coordination possible. My brain knows exactly what parts of my body fit through what spaces. Now the map is wrong. My stomach has grown too fast for the map to be redrawn. The brain continues to rely on it this outdated version. My stomach brushes up against surfaces constantly, and I am surprised every time. Like the door of the refrigerator.

I keep thinking of natural disasters which reconfigure entire coastlines in a day. In moments, all printed maps become incorrect.

I hear reports from pregnant friend L. She feels "fine." Fine?  I still wake up every day afraid for what digestive disaster will have me feeling I should be demoted from human to animal. I had no idea, 9 years ago, when I decided to work alone from home that I was saving myself from a hellish pregnant-in-office experience.

district 9

He already loves this kid. He can't leave the apartment without saying goodbye to both me and my stomach. I ask him how can he already feel that. I don't feel anything. Maybe just pity - imagining this helpless pre-baby who has to depend entirely on me for survival.

Well on my way to hiring a doula, craftily arranging trade-service agreements. Bartering my design services for someone to be my experienced "friend" through birth. After an hour long conversation with the doula coordinator, I feel the best I have yet about the entire thing.  I will be armed with a phone number for the next time the overwhelming loneliness and indigestion consume me.

Watched DIstrict 9 and felt very connected to the main character as he slowly and painfully morphed into an alien.

showing

For someone who hates to be looked at, 'showing' is pretty undesirable. The next thing to work on getting over. But I'm still so uncomfortable with friends and acquaintances staring. I know its just curiosity, and that the attention is all out of affection. They all claim you can't really tell. But I think those who know me just know I would prefer to hear that rather than "wow! you're huge."

And this is nothing. There is still the hugeness of 6 months. 7. 8. 9...Such a treat for a recovering dysmorphic.

I already know I will not have the problem of people touching my stomach. No one would dare.

The further along I get, the less inspired I am to hunt down baby items.  I can't have another discussion about strollers that lasts longer than 5 minutes. I don't care what colors the car seats come in. I can't understand why baby sh*t needs its own fancy word (layette.)

I try to focus instead on the kid. Did he mind that decaf chocolate mint coffee? Does he mind the jogging? Will he like his name? Will he make fun of my music someday?

swedish hips

Like many Americans, I tend to obsess about my ancestry and the confusion therein. I want to make precise, mathematical sense of what is a maddening stew of "definitely 1/4 this" and "maybe 1/4 that but no one knows.... "

So I am oddly thrilled with my latest worst symptom: hip pain. My research has uncovered that this is something affecting mostly Scandinavian women. While the pain itself absolutely sucks, the knowledge that I actually possess some real Swedish physiology is great. Statistically, I have always known that my dad is half Swedish, making me 1 quarter. Its the ancestry I always claimed since I take after my dad and because his dad was born there, making him the newest American of all the grandparents. Artifacts exist, a few books, a few words of Swedish, the faint memory of a song.

I reported my hip pain to my 3 favorite Scandinavians (a Swede, an Icelander and a Norwegian) and all confirmed that hip pain is very common among their reproducing female friends and family. They even had an armory of tips and tricks and reasons that are mysteriously absent from my American books and web sites.

While is nice to feel the evidence that I am from somewhere, its still frustrating to know I mostly take after a lineage of men. What I need now is to know the females I take after. I want to know how their bodies dealt with all this. I suspect my only physiological twin would be a great grandmother long dead and known only as a name and date. I try to see myself as a living remnant of her.  I am what's been left behind instead of a journal or a photograph. She can't tell me what to expect but she is speaking through me as I go.

I suppose it's an offshoot of the same recurring sentiment of hoping to identify with someone. somewhere. Where are you.

KPEM MЪIлO

5 months


Trudging 2 miles through the snow to the geriatric medical supply store to buy an egg crate mattress pad. Unable to stand another night of laying awake with hip pain. The Russian women running the shop seemed confused, but so happy to have my $70 that they sent me off with a free canister of mysterious bright pink hand soap. I don't feel pregnant today. I feel like an eastern european retiree with hip pain.

What is, so far, the one thing even stranger than the alien living in my stomach?
Doing a load of baby laundry. Picking through the early accumulation of hand me downs and gifts, examining labels to learn the sizing code.. dropping tiny socks into the washing machine has me asking, who am I?

recalibrate

He is always looking at me in awe, like I am onto something. Like I have a secret, as if I am the one making my stomach expand. I have nothing to do with it! My body has separated from me. Its no longer mine, no longer my ship to captain.
I am just as bewildered as he is. When I look in the mirror, I have the same expression on my face as him. Confusion. I don't feel any more magically connected than he does, despite the fact that this thing is inside me.

Trying to look beyond the lack of control, let go of the anger. Recallibrate to this body. Be reintroduced. Speak a new language through prenatal yoga dvds scrounged from the library and ripped. Running through snow, through the pain of strained abdominal ligaments.

When it becomes too much to comprehend I remind myself of the billions of other women who have done this. How can it seem so absolutely crazy?

The sick feeling lets up enough just long enough midday for me to brave the natural childbirth books. I think about the thousands of women who all gave birth that eventually let to the birth of me. Really, only the last couple were drugged.