So ready to pop!

February 27, 2007 Savvy Spoonie 4 Comments

Nine months is one month too many!!

Okay, I understand that creating human life is a beautiful and sacred thing, I get that it takes a long time to grow a human from an egg and a sperm. I get that the awesome power of birth is central to the most contentious political arguments in our culture.

However, I also can’t get off my couch anymore, or walk through the grocery store without availing myself of their bathroom. I can’t do anything without getting heartburn and my hips are letting me know what life at 110 is going to feel like. I understand that I should feel lucky to be a woman, and not an elephant, but really, nine months is one month too long!!

I am ready for pants that have zippers, the occasional beer, and a frickin pile of sushi! I am ready for lying flat on my back or stomach!

Why does our culture breed an expectation for an attitude of peaceful joy during pregnancy? I don’t feel calm, I feel impatient! I want to hold my baby, and get him out of me!! Most women I speak with sympathize with this sense of the final month taking for-frickin-ever, but we still have this image of the lovely pregnant woman peacefully eating her way through an entire chocolate cake and loving every crumbly minute. Where are the complaints? I don’t have gooey chocolate love, I have uncomfortable heartburny indulgence!! There is a foot permanently lodged in my stomach making chocolatey goodness my enemy!

Not to mention that I can no longer reach half my dishes, or half the stuff on grocery store shelves. Emptying a grocery cart is an acrobatic feat beyond my normal level of physical ability, and I can’t walk through any opening smaller than a banquet hall! I bump my ‘bump’ against everything that comes near it, and then moan because it’s extra sensitive to the touch!

Ugh. I feel like a huge mammoth beast, waddling towards my own self destruction. I don’t feel like a glowing serene woman on the verge of a miracle. I feel like a harried, tired, beached mammal trying desperately to feed and care for her current calf while preparing for the existence of another.

Moo.

New Jersey

Mocking NJ

February 26, 2007 Savvy Spoonie 2 Comments

I know I said I wouldn’t, but I have to!!

Last time I mocked the citizens of Red Bank for closing school said mocking was followed by a horrible ice storm that left the city without power for the better part of a day. I swore I would not mock them again, as I, the ignorant Coloradan, had obviously no clue what I was saying.

However, last night there was no ice storm, just a little snow. A little being not enough to coat the streets, barely enough to coat the lawn. This morning her school has a two hour delayed opening. Two extra hours when there are no cars to shovel out or icy streets to handle. A little mocking must occur.

It’s already melting off my roof and it’s only 9 am. I am wondering if the reason this school district has such short holidays is so it can call no school or delayed school each time the sky spits.

Of course, now that I have mocked, there will be another ice storm and she and I will be shut up in the house for another week of madness. Interestingly, I have found many web resources for the locked inside, including FamilyFun.com which has great ideas for indoor crafts, has lots of coloring pages to print out, and other neat stuff to do when you are tearing your hair out with a bored child on the umpteenth consecutive snow day.

Well, off I go to lament the weather, and wish that I was home in a state where the school closure policies make sense.

Monkey, Motherhood/body image, Otter, pregnancy

Not really baby blues…..

February 23, 2007 Savvy Spoonie 2 Comments

More like baby shock. As the day of Otter’s arrival approaches, I keep getting these flashes of reality… I am having a baby. Another person. Who will he be? What will he be like?

There is something disconcerting about growing someone inside your body for nine months and still knowing very little about him. It seems as though I should have a very in depth knowledge of this little guy, and while I know we are already bonded, and that this bond will continue to grow, it still feels strange to think I will be meeting him for the first time in about a month.

I remember when Monkey was born, I had a similar reaction. After months of singing to her, reading to her, playing music into my belly, my first reaction after her birth was surprise. “Oh that’s a baby…. Oh fuck that’s MY baby!!” I looked at her little face and held her warm little body and thought “How?”

Of course, then she was in my arms and snuggled up to my breast nursing and I felt that special bond. It is still here, stronger than ever, a connection she and I have that no one else shares. It is precious, and wonderful. I have often wondered how I can have another similar connection with another person when the one I have with her is so intense and deep.

I guess I am going to find out in about a month! I am sure it will be a similar experience with Otter, I will experience a moment of disconnect and then all the bonded mommy/baby feelings will come rushing in. I can’t wait to hold him, and hear him cry, and be able to wear pants with a zipper. I want to find out if he is funny, like his sister, or serious, or what he is going to like or dislike.

It is so strange, this creating life thing.

Here are some recent baby belly photos: