She's a bird. I've named her Molly. And she wants to build a nest in my dryer vent.
We hear her scratching around in there some mornings and then she leaves, which means she isn't trapped. Molly's smart: our dryer vent is the perfect place to build a nest. It's two stories up, with a little hood over it on the outside that would protect baby birdies from rain or sun. It's completely enclosed—and, I imagine, very warm.
Unfortunately, it's also our dryer vent, which means we need to clear it out.
But I feel a delusional sort of sympathy for her. I did some nesting of my own not that long ago. And I probably would have attacked anyone who barged into my little nest and destroyed my hard work. Poor Molly.
Perhaps it's a fitting tribute to her that we decorated baby girl's room in birds.
someone's nesting. and it isn't me.
the physicality of motherhood
I think I'm going to say something about the universe collapsing because I don't know a better way to write about the birth of our gummi bear.
I could give you a play-by-play chronology: labor started Sunday morning at 10:30, water broke at 1am on Monday (10 minutes after we finished watching the episode of The Office when Pam has her baby), and baby girl arrived 7 hours later. But that feels insufficient somehow.
Anything I say will feel insufficient. People I love and trust tried to prepare me with good advice (and I took most of it), but some things, I had no way to know. Some things aren't easily described.
I prepared mentally for labor: we went to a lamaze class, I practiced some breathing techniques and visualizations. I thought I would distract myself from pain, go somewhere else in my mind when the time came. But once we arrived at the hospital and the contractions stepped up, I realized the whole experience would be a bit more physical than I imagined.
I'm a girl who lives in her own head—enough that I occasionally forget that the rest of me exists. I often run into doors and counter corners. I trip over things I don't notice (including my own feet). Before I got pregnant, I sometimes forgot to eat.
But I could not ignore any part of my body the closer I got to delivery. I needed things I didn't expect to. Christopher's physical presence became the most important thing in the world to me. I needed his hand on my cheek. I asked him to sing, which made him promptly forget every song he's ever known, so he made up his own words. He was a champ.
To cope for those last few hours, I squeezed his other hand, closed my eyes and thought of body parts. I imagined my baby's fingers and toes, one at a time, that I would get to see soon. I pictured her eyes, her elbows, her belly, her bum.
Normally, I can sense the space around me when I close my eyes, which is what I sensed during most contractions that night. I could sense the size of the room and hear people moving around in it. But that changed during the last push, a few seconds before our little girl came out to meet us.
I had been told about the "ring of fire," and that I should be grateful for it if I didn't have an epidural because it meant the end was coming. I wanted to process it like that—to recognize it by its name and description. But words skipped town at that point.
When I closed my eyes during those interminable seconds, I felt like the space around me shrank. The universe collapsed to a single point that contained me and two opposites: dark, burning pain and the hopeful, encouraging sound of my husband's voice. I have zero memory of what that voice said, but I know I needed it.
And then, there she was, with her eyes wide open, like that whole 21-hour process surprised her just as much as it had surprised me. Like she was surprised that our bodies had just gone through all that.
When they whisked her away to Apgar her, I figured that was it: we did it! I wasn't entirely prepared to discover that the physicality of being a mother didn't end there.
For instance, people warned me about the baby blues. I understood what they said in the abstract, like any weepiness I might experience would be purely hormonal or emotional, which in large part it is.
But there's something much more physical behind the emotions I've felt for the last two weeks. I was torn in half and sewn back up again. I ache and cramp and sag in places I didn't before and hadn't really realized that I would. Healing is more painful and takes a bit longer than I anticipated. I'll never sleep as much as I want to again.
At the same time, though, happiness feels more tangible than it ever has in my entire life. It's physically manifest in this tiny person who didn't even exist at this time last year, in the little grunts she makes while she sleeps, in the hand she wraps around my finger and won't let go, in the way she quiets right down when her daddy (who is enamored with her) scoops her up and rocks her. Everything she needs is so concrete: feeding and diapering and bathing and kissing and snuggling. These last two weeks, it's like our universe has shrunk a second time and she's become the lovely center of it. We wouldn't have it any other way.
motherhood will teach me this again, won't it
I made a long list of things I needed (read: wanted) to accomplish before the baby came.
Then the universe laughed at me. No, our gummi bear did not come early. I just got super sick. I've spent the last week moving from my bed to my couch and back again, with detours to the bathroom for more tissues and throat lozenges.
And the list?
Maybe it was a bit ambitious—even for a healthy pregnant lady. Looks like I planned on sewing, cooking, cleaning, writing, and decorating everything in the universe until the second the baby crowned. I'm working on deleting some items from the list.
I do this often: make plans too big for any person and then feel disappointed when I find out I'm not superhuman. Kind of like this little frustration:
I took on a project I wasn't prepared for, with instructions that were difficult to follow, and expected myself to finish in an afternoon. It eventually turned out, but only after weeks of tearing out seams and sewing them back up again crooked. I probably should have re-evaluated my progress halfway through and just gone to the store to buy a stupid diaper bag like a normal person.
I have a feeling that motherhood will demand that I re-evaluate and abandon overblown plans more often than I currently do. Just like this week's virus made me chuck my list, my little gummi bear will do the same when she throws up or falls down or just wants me to put down the to-do list to cuddle with her. I hope I figure it out.
i went home nearly speechless
I cry when I read the news—and not just when I'm pregnant.
I read stories of horrible things people do to one another and I grieve and worry for them. Sometimes, I even let myself get a little pessimistic. I think: the world has always been this way and will continue to be this way until we blow each other up.
But.
Then the people around me snap me out of it and give me a weekend like last Saturday. People like good friends who made a long drive to see me. People like my in-laws' extended family, several of whom I've done a horrible job of staying in touch with. People like the loveliest women in a ward I moved out of two months ago.
They came together to celebrate a baby girl they've never met, to help me prepare for the arrival of a complete stranger—a little person who didn't even exist on this earth until 8 months ago. They brought her truly generous gifts and wished me well in a way that made me think I might actually be able to do this whole motherhood gig.
This world is filled with good and thoughtful people. Welcoming a baby into this crazy world feels hopeful because of the ones I know.
i'm glad my dreams don't often come true
The night before we flew to Texas for my brother's wedding, I had a dream that I went into labor on the plane. We circled above the Houston airport, but the pilot refused to land because my brother had decided to change venues to hold the wedding on the airport runway. We couldn't land the plane because we would interrupt.
Fortunately, my dream and the reality of the trip didn't match up. I think my brain was just trying to make sense of the way our family is changing. I now have a beautiful sister-in-law who's fabulous for my brother. And in 6 weeks or so, we'll meet a beautiful baby girl who will be fabulous for us. Nothing's better than getting new family members you adore—even better if they don't join your family on an airport runway.
Fortune Cookie
We can't wait for our little girl to come. With baby on the brain, guess how we interpreted this fortune cookie—
K is well, though she worries whether she's doing anything wrong. I asked her if she was drinking, smoking, or shooting up heroin.
"No." She said.
"Then you're probably not doing anything wrong."
Here's to 22 weeks.
out of the woods
Whew! Gummi Bear gave us a little scare this past week—appropriately timed for Halloween. We got a little worried that she was already trying to join us, and it's far too soon.
I went to the doctor, took my medicine, stayed in bed, flaked out on my classes, and told my students to not even think about asking me when I would finish grading their papers. I talked Baby Gummi into waiting until March. She seems cool with it.
I think she's just excited to get here. Let's hope she's equally excited to embrace sleeping through the night and potty training.
The Ultra Sound
I edited the ultrasound down to one minute and added a song that K sings to her tummy.
I was going to make a dance club version, or do one with Black Sabbath's "Embryo." But I have homework to do.
Grandparents will get a DVD copy.
This video popped up as a related alternative to watch afterward.
meet our gummi bear
A few months ago, we went to the emergency room (nothing major—just pain that made our midwife nervous, but turned out to be nothing). The visit was a joke. We waited 3 hours to talk to a goober of a doctor, who charged our insurance over 300 bucks for the 9 minutes he spent reciting to us everything he remembered from medical school about the third trimester of pregnancy (I was only 10 weeks along).
BUT. I'm not writing this post about him. I actually think the visit was worth every minute and penny spent. When I had an ultrasound that day, we saw a teeny, tiny little baby on the screen. The lab tech said it looked like a gummi bear.
picture from moist production dot com
So true!
And the name stuck. Maybe because of the accuracy of the description. Maybe because my relief that the ultrasound was our last step out of the ER made it sound cuter than it was. Or maybe because it made the baby feel more real. Whatever the reason, I've been calling the baby by my favorite gender-neutral name these last few weeks: Gummi Bear.
We took another look yesterday. And, wow. Little Gummi has grown quite a bit since that ER visit. Her (her!) head, brain, spine, heart, arms, legs, feet, and hands are all accounted for. She (she!) swats away ultrasound transducers when they get poked in her face. She (a little gummi girl!) is excited to meet all of you.
And I'm sure you want to meet her. So, here she is. Our little gummi bear:
surprises
I went on a bloggie fast this week (easier said than done). And when I opened up google reader today, I found a little surprise—584 new posts waiting for me to read. Feels like a fitting end to a week of some other surprises:
- I, um, really liked relief society enrichment this week. I have generally maintained my prejudice against it, due to a long line of awkward-bordering-on-catastrophic enrichment moments in a long line of awkward single adult wards. Thanks for converting me, Misti.
- I survived the week. Monday looked a little daunting with a 350-page book to read, two workshop pieces to finish writing and submit, 20 student papers to read, 20 student conferences to hold, the introduction to my thesis still unrevised, etc., etc., etc. It's Friday. I'm still here.
- A funny little feeling in my tummy. Yep. There's really a baby in there.
sometimes i cry: a map
In the first week of this semester, my professor asked us to create an autobiographical map. He gave vague instructions about how we might construct one, and then asked us to bring whatever we came up with to class in a few days. When I mentioned my task to Christopher, he asked if my map would contain a river of tears (I was crying at the time—NOT because of the assignment).
When I considered his question, I imagined I might be more accurate if I just colored the paper blue, left off any hint of continent or island and handed in my map as a vast ocean.
I cry. Often, okay.
My map ended up looking less like a road (or ocean) map and more like a page of text—sort of in the spirit of John D'Agata's "Flat Earth Map," only shorter and less clever. I outlined some points of interest in the country of myself. And apparently, I charted them on a sad day because my map drew attention to my consistent experience of being talked over in large groups of people, moments in which my story trails off in the middle and nobody notices. That put a damper on the class-time show-and-tell.
But I included no river. And today, while thinking about maps yet again, I realized that my omission may have been a mistake. The river flows at a pretty constant rate around here. I might be sad. I might be happy. But the tear count remains steady. It is a permanent landmark.
I read the news today and noticed how many different ways people hurt or attempt to hurt one another: I cried.
I watched a video on my friend's blog of her wedding and remembered how good people can be to each other (and how fabulous her taste is): I cried.
I'm not going to create another map of me, but if I did, it might look something like this one, of the changes in the Mississippi River's course over time. The route or the reason might shift (can we say pregnancy?), but this river won't dry up anytime soon.
(Found this map at http://strangemaps.wordpress.com/)
marriage is a papa murphy's pizza
In the 3 weeks that our blog sat dormant, we've had plenty to write about—most importantly, our anniversary. We've been married for 730+ days, which simultaneously seems like no time at all and our whole lives.
Time does weird stuff. I've tried to reflect on the previous year, to bring images and moments together into some sort of conclusive statement about what the 2nd year of marriage is like. But I can only think of rather current moments. Most of them involve food. I don't know if I should go with food as a 2nd-year-of-marriage metaphor or not.
Here are a few happy, recent, marriage-defining moments that stand out in my mind (which should not stand in for a mushier and more endearing post, but will anyway):
- My husband has boosted Papa Murphy's profits this quarter because he buys me their gourmet chicken garlic pizza nearly once a week. He hopes not to maintain this habit. But for now, he values the pizza for its unique property of remaining in my queasy tummy after eating.
- He told me to buy the maternity dress of my dreams, even though it was full price (which I am opposed to) and I haven't started sporting a poochy tummy yet.
- When our car was in the shop, he walked to the grocery store to buy milk, which I just HAD to have. And when I insisted on going with him, he stopped to hug me for ages when I cried on the side of the road, because I imagined that our children might like him more and think I was the boring, ugly parent of the pair. What a trip to the store THAT was.
Something tells me that, while the scenery might change and some additional children will pop in for a visit, we'll still do what we always do: read lots of books, work on projects, spend time together. He'll consistently take out the garbage and water the plants. I'll be as erratic as ever with laundry and vacuuming (though I'll continue to claim that keeping up dependably on both are important to me).
And we'll eat. Maybe I'll cook up something better for us than Papa Murphy's.
two thoughts on billions of people
1. HOW does the world contain SO MANY people? The number of people driving around my little city or walking around in the grocery store blows me away. How many women had to throw up for months at a time just to make enough people to populate this single town? And how many of those women volunteered for this process multiple times? That's a lot of barf, people.
2. Why on EARTH does war even exist? If all those women had to barf up their guts and then go through labor and spend years and years putting care and love into little people until those people got big enough to defend themselves, doesn't it seem an immense waste to blow said people up?
If women ruled the world (and in order to become president or queen of any country, a woman was required to bear at least one child), I'm pretty sure we'd get rid of war altogether. The women in charge would know what sort of energy (and endless nausea) their population required to create and bear. And if anyone so much as whispered war from the other side of an ocean, the rest of the presidents would say, "No way, sister. We know what your women went through to make those people. We've been there. We're not about to blow anybody up."
More ta da
This is Christopher, I'd like to add something to Kathy's last post.
The night we found out, Kathy came out of the bathroom and said "I know why I've been acting crazy."
We laughed and celebrated and looked up names in the Oxford English Dictionary, which shows what kind of nerds we are. We've had over a year to think of names, because we've been trying for a while. If we have a girl, we'll name her Ermenie, and if a boy, Truman.
Ermenie is my grandmother's name and etymologically related (in my mind, at least) to Hermes, the god of writing. We'd call her Emmie.
The Greek Hermes is the Egyptian Thoth
So it's like naming your kid "The Rock" in nerd-tongue.
If you steal our names, I'll curse you (with cuss words, not voodoo).I still can't believe it's true, but Kathy throws up a lot to prove it to me.
Dear world,
Let it be proclaimed to the internet that I am not pregnant, and should not be assumed as such, until further personal notification as I will initiate if and when my pregnancy status changes.
Please supress your urge to ask my due date, congratulate me, or pat my tummy knowingly. I have a hormone imbalance that makes me fat; I'm taking medicine (to balance the hormones) that makes me throw up. Believe me: when I'm finally pregnant, I will let you know.
And yes, I need to exercise more. I plan to do so every SINGLE day next week.
Love,
Kathy
Elephant in the Room
I had a friend who went out East to sell security systems with her husband a few years ago. Out East she got pregnant. She called three doctors, all three refused to see her. She said she felt like Mary in the Bible, no room in the inn.
Now the same thing has happened to my cousins. They are out selling in Texas for the summer. The wife got pregnant, they called over a dozen doctors, but none of them would help her. They plan on going to Fetal Photo to see if their baby is okay.
Something is wrong with our health care system if doctors are too worried about profit to help a pregnant lady and her baby.
Not pregnant . . . yet.
me with my nephew Jonas:
I love this kid. Some delusional people have asked my wife if she is pregnant. Never ask that question; it leads only to tears, people.
Kathy and I work with 2 year olds in the ward nursery every week. I'm pretty crazy about the idea of having a baby soon, kath might be too. We want to move into an apartment that doesn't grow disease-inducing mold every fall before we do.