If It's A Boy

Every day I ride the train with another woman who is pregnant. She and I have had a great time talking about how we feel and what our hopes and expectations are. Yesterday she had a sonogram (she's at 20 or so weeks, a couple months ahead of me) and found out that her baby is a boy. This morning we talked about the idea of wanting a boy or wanting a girl, and the fears that we feel, which are really associated with our own upbringing. My friend is more intimidated at the idea of raising a boy because she had no male siblings. She said, "I know how to raise a girl because I was a girl."

While I would be excited about having a boy or a girl, I feel a little bit the opposite of my friend. I am more intimidated to raise a girl because I was a difficult girl to raise, in many ways. I never got along with my mother while I was growing up, even though my mom was a great parent, very inventive and supportive and cool. All of my friends wished they had a mom like mine. But she and I struggled and struggled. To this day, no single person on earth can make me mad as fast as my mom can. And when I think about being the mother now, to a girl who might be something like I was, I feel a bit of fear. Maybe it was all those years of my mom threatening me with the idea that someday I was going to grow up and have a daughter exactly like me. . .

I am writing a long poem with multiple sections about the sex of our baby, a compilation of all the stories and old wives tales that people tell us, the crazy things they say like if you are tired in the morning you are having a boy. Yesterday I wrote a section about how I imagine it would be to have a boy.

Here it is:

I thought I saw you today
five years from now, counting
the sparkles on Jenny Lake.
At your age I roamed this shore
for pale-bellied frogs to hypnotize.
I perched on dark smooth stones
hunting them, luring the universe.
But you will be so much more, a boy,
conqueror of red-winged blackbirds,
of flat stones skipping, of waves as
even the water lies down at your feet.
Your father bends to teach you
to cast a line, you a descendent
of a long line of sun-kissed fishermen.
He instructs you on the way of cool
shapes along the murky blue bottom,
how the light from underneath makes
a salmon egg dance and glow.
You quiet as if you could be a fish,
hearing his fins push against the water,
the swallowing of silt and green algae.
When I see you the wind rustles aspens
in my heart, my son, O my son.

Belly Days

My belly is growing at an astonishing rate, to the point where it almost seems bigger to me every day. I am going to have to break down and buy some maternity pants soon. Yesterday an old friend came by to visit, and she was the first person to actually pat my belly. And it feels like a pregnant belly, this weird combination of hard and spongy, not just like an extra roll of fat.

I am looking forward to feeling better. I am ten weeks today, and so in my mind I think that I only have another couple of weeks before I enter the middle stage where I feel good again. I want to enjoy my pregnancy, to feel excited and alive and thrilled to be becoming a mother, but that is hard when I am so tired and feeling so BLEH.

Cat's out of the bag

First off, I want to say, "Happy Birthday, John!" Of course Baby, who is all knowing, sends his/her regards on this momentous occasion (although I don't really think Baby fully understands the concept of BIRTHday just yet. . .). It's crazy to think that by the time we have another birthday, our baby will be here. There will be a whole other person in our family. Our lives will be completely changed. We've come a long way from this couple of lovebirds kissing in the park.

My dad was the first to call last night, and later my mom called and the first thing she did was scream. I talked to them both for a long time, trying to fill them in on what I couldn't tell them for the last month. I can't even express how exciting it was to tell my parents. It was so good to hear them say that they were happy about the news. I get all teary just thinking about them holding our baby. Yay!

Now the proverbial cat is out of the bag, and I imagine that the news will spread like wildfire among our family and friends. It feels good to let people know at last! I feel like I can be myself, really tell people about what new and exciting things are happening in my life.

Would she make a cool grammy or what?

So today (at least I hope today) my mother and her husband should be receiving a package in the mail informing them that they will soon be grandparents. I am so excited. It has felt like the night before Christmas all weekend, waiting to see if our parents got the packages. John's parents, who live just a little bit closer than mine do, received their package on Saturday afternoon. His mom opened it up when it arrived, saw the book, read a little bit of it, and thought, "How nice that John would send us a grandparenting book." It wasn't until later that night that it dawned on her that we might be trying to tell her something. So she called. It was great listening to John talk about the baby, the things we have been through so far, seeing its heart beat and how real that made it for both of us.

So tonight I will be waiting for phone calls from my parents, and it makes my heart beat fast just thinking about it. Our child will be so lucky to have such great grandparents, all around. I am especially excited for my mom, who has been talking about wanting grandkids since I was a kid myself. When I spoke with John's mother on Saturday night, she said, "Your mom is just going to be over the moon!" and I couldn't help but smile and agree.

I have wanted to tell my mom so badly since the moment that I found out I was pregnant, exactly a month ago today. But I am glad that she gets to find out in this special way. She is going to be an awesome grammy. And it is going to be so fun to share all of this with her!

Fear of a ham sandwich

A couple of days ago I walked to a bistro near my work, feeling hungry for once. And I got a huge craving for a ham sandwich. So I ordered one: about an inch of deli honey ham, 2 pieces of Swiss cheese, a little mayo and mustard, lettuce, tomato, and pickles on whole wheat bread. It was delicious. It was nutritious. And afterwards I became very nervous that a ham sandwich might kill my baby.

There are a number of things you learn to fear in pregnant life if you read any books on the subject: hot baths, cleaning chemicals, hair dye, West Nile virus, nail polish, hot dogs, runny eggs, rare steak, and yes folks, deli meat. This is only made worse if you look at anything on the internet. We live in a culture of fear, a world of hidden poisons and tragic accidents, and a pregnant woman in this culture often can't help but become even more afraid then usual.

I looked up deli meat on the internet. Almost every pregnancy site says to avoid deli meat because of a slight chance of contracting listeriosis, a bacteria that last year infected 2,500 people in America. This is alarming, and the sites are quick to add that pregnant women are 20 times more likely to contract this infection than regular people. The message boards are pretty evenly split, with about half of the women on them claiming that they ate Subway sandwiches every day and have three healthy children, and the other half telling us to stay away from the cursed meat. There are always two or three people who post that they got listeriosis and lost their baby. Just think, said one person who posted, is a turkey sandwich really worth risking the life of your child?

I read these words directly after eating what might have been the best ham sandwich of my life. And I immediately felt so guilty, so fearful, like I was already a bad, irresponsible mother. But then I tried to remember the real people in my life, instead of the internet phantoms. My friend Wendy, who ate turkey sandwiches, colored her hair and probably had an occasional hotdog, who gave birth to two beautiful, near-to-perfect baby girls. And my doctor (who I did remember to ask about deli meats) who said that almost anything is safe is moderation.

Almost anything.

Beat of a baby's heart

So today was the big day, the first prenatal visit. I woke up early and curled my hair. Then I wrapped the books that we are sending to our parents: For John's parents, Chicken Soup for the Grandparents' Soul, with a post-it from John on it that reads, Guess what? For Dad and Julie, a book called Totally Cool Grandparenting, with a picture of the pregnancy test tucked in the first page with a note that says, Guess what? And for my mom and Jack, The ABCs of Grandparenting, with the actual (second) pregnancy test in a Ziploc bag stuck to the back of the book.

The doctor's visit went by in a blur. The doctor came in and congratulated us, did the usual exam, and then brought in the ultrasound machine. There was our little baby, less than an inch tall, and its tiny beating heart. It was so wonderful. I held John's hand and we stared in wonder at that little pulse. The doctor measured the baby, did his magic with numbers, and our baby is due on February 12. He says I get a lollipop if I can manage to have the baby on that day.

John said, "Great job! You're doing a wonderful job of growing our baby!" Then I went to the lab where they took a cup of my urine and 6 vials of my blood, and then to radiology to schedule another ultrasound for September.

Afterwards, John and I walked out into the bright sunshine and marvelled at what had just happened. We are really having a baby! We went to the post office and mailed the packages to our parents. We went to the Olive Garden and had lunch. And now here I am at work again, just like any other day. And the baby is still there, deep within me, its little heart beating on and on.

A baby and potato salad

Yesterday was the 4th of July, and my friend Wendy invited my husband and I to come over for barbecued steaks. I called my husband's mom and got her potato salad recipe, which I spent all afternoon cooking, slightly nauseated at the smell of hard-boiled eggs. But it turned out really good.

Wendy was nice enough to let me watch her when she changed McKinley, and when she gave her a sponge bath. Just a note for future reference: Babies do not like sponge baths. She screamed at the top of her lungs the whole time. But it's good to keep another fact in mind at times like these: Crying does not hurt babies. Wendy was totally cool with her. She said, "I'm sorry," to the crying baby but just went on cleaning her. She never lost her cool. I could learn a lot from that.

Tomorrow, my first doctor appointment!

An exciting week

This week is going to be an exciting one, and I am not just talking about the 4th of July. We have our first prenatal visit on the 6th. We just got a letter in the mail from my OB-GYN, which said that we can expect an ultrasound at the first visit. That was unexpected, and I still don't quite know whether to believe it. I thought we would only get one ultasound, in the middle somewhere. The idea that I could see the baby inside me, even if it is only a baby bird still, the size of a kidney bean, already makes me feel weepy and joyful.

And then, after the visit, we are going to tell people. Our parents, our close friends. We might still wait a while before telling the world at large, for another month or so, but I really can't describe how good it will feel to tell the people that we love. I can't wait to tell my mom and share my excitement with her!

Time is passing quickly. Not very long ago I was moaning about my prenatal visit being 3 weeks away, and now it's 3 days away!