03.02.06
Baby lock the door and turn the lights down low
This past week I have been asked numerous times about my due date. I chalked it up to entering my third (third!!) trimester and this ever-growing bump being too big to be anything but baby, so strangers who might have given me that little knowing smile three weeks ago but were not about to risk commenting on my belly just in case I was not pregnant, now feel safe asking me when I am due. Every time I tell people that I am due on May 31, they say something along the lines of that not being very far away. I smile and think to myself What? because it feels far away still. Very far away. Just under 13 weeks away. That is longer than three months. That is far away. I still have swelling and breathlessness to get through (and who knows what else) before this baby comes. It does not feel oh-so-soon to me.
So I have a lunch date tomorrow with a pregnant woman. We got set up by my mom and her aunt, I guess she is from home. We have chatted a couple times on the phone and decided to get together. She has started her mat leave and is due April 9. That? Is soon. Unlike May 31. I have seen another pregnant woman in the gym since we have moved here, and she looks like she is about two months further along than me. She is tall and skinny and when I saw her on Monday, I wondered if it was in fact, this Michelle chic. I am not expecting it to be her, because the bodies and voice just do not seem to match, but you never know.
I have read a lot about the best ways to bond with your baby, and not to worry if you feel a little detached at the beginning. In some ways I cannot even imagine what this will feel like. We put together our stroller last weekend, and it made me feel strange for a minute. That in a way, I cannot believe that in less than 13 weeks (still does not feel like a short time), there will be a real live squished and possibly wrinkly human being in there with a scrunched up face, curled up legs and fingers balled into a little fist. And it will be mine. Ours.
It is hard to grasp, sometimes, that the being growing inside of me is a product of Steve and I. That of all the people who try and try and try for babies, this happened to us. That just that once, a sperm slipped by and connected with my egg, and what used to be nothing more than an organism now kicks and changes positions, opens eyes, practices breathing, eats, poops, and possibly sucks the thumb. It is magical, really, a blessing. It is something so spiritually powerful, to close my eyes and connect with this life inside of me. To lay in the bathtub swishing water over my stomach and waiting for movement. To realize that not only can I feel the difference, but that I know when my baby is kicking or just moving around. To lay on the couch on my side and feel a couple nudges, to learn a new schedule that is taking place inside of me, to start to become aware of sleeping and kicking patterns.
This makes me a little more aware of the power of women, of their beauty. Sure, my legs are not as hard as they used to be, my breasts are bigger with more veins, my back aches and somehow this unattractive grunt emerges from me while I am trying to get settled into a new position, but it is understandable why so many religions and societies have worshiped goddesses and fertility. Christianity may have attempted to take away the strength and beauty that surrounds women by casting us in a negative light from the very beginning (see, Eve, apple) but I know in my heart that there is nothing negative or shameful about this process. There is nothing that needs to be hidden here, there is nothing for which I should be apologizing.
We are healthy and happy, we are in love with each other and with this child, already. There is nothing here that needs an apology.
wunderwuman at 4:05 p.m.