That's right, my patient little pumpkins: all the missed posts and writer's block can finally be explained.
I happen to be quite knocked up.
Oh yes, there is much more to the story. Too much for one post so I'll have to keep you coming back for more over the next few weeks.
I'd have thought announcing our pregnancy to the world would feel more glamourous but it's hard to feel glamourous when meat makes me nauseous (MEAT, of all things...Andrew thinks that it's hilarious that his "little velociraptor" of a wife is a temporary vegetarian), I'm on a strict diet of beige - and occasionally green - food items, I'm experiencing bouts of insomnia for the first time in my life, and I now take sudden and unexpected trips to crazy town. Oh, and my bladder is the size of a ping-pong ball.
Speaking of size, however, Baby Gaz (who will be debuting on or around November 12th of this year) is now the size of a salted cashew:
Mmm. Salted cashew.
I most definitely ate the stand-in for Baby Gaz after this photo.
At this point, my favourite thing to announce is that no gag reflex, no sleepless night, no hormonal surge, and no inconvenient pee schedule could possibly dampen my excitement and joy. We've been waiting for Baby Gaz for a year and a half, and we don't mind waiting a few months more.
Anyone else kicked in the crotchola by the Christmas holidays this year? After/while surviving a two-week bout of laryngitis I hauled myself to seven holiday parties (down from nine; see: laryngitis), four family parties, a wedding in the States, and lead a three-day young adult conference whilst keeping house guests from England.
I CAN DO ALL THE THINGS!
This type of lifestyle flies in the face of my end-of-summer mantra: dolce far niente. Here it is, 2011, and I'm admitting that my last goal met its defeat in just under three months. Instead of dolce far niente-ing I've been keeping a schedule that looks like this:
And feels something like this:
This four-minute TED talk from Arriana Huffington reminded me again to refocus: we need rest, not simply as a luxury but as a prescription, to accomplish our goals. She quotes:
"The way to a more productive, more inspired, more joyful life is getting enough sleep. And we women are going to lead the way in this new revolution, this new feminist issue. We are literally going to sleep our way to the top."
Two friends of mine simplified my goal for me and I've been pulling their words around me like a woolen throw when I feel a draft of despondency in the baby making journey.
"I now know the sweet enjoyment of the small things, the things we miss while going about life a hundred miles per minute. I watch Noah as he takes in life around him, sucking it in through his wide eyes, trying to stay awake so he can soak in more. He inspires me. I don’t just go to the store now, I take a walk, I hear the leaves crinkle and the wind blow, I feel and taste the crisp air, I take pleasure in going to the store. I don’t just sleep, I rest. I go to coffee with a friend, I really listen. I enjoy and appreciate my husband on a whole new level, he is now a father. I don’t just eat I savour. I buy my favourite dark chocolate, I deserve it. I listen to Christmas music, even if it's too early. I kiss my little boys cheeks and hands and feet till their red."
"Your kid is going to effect this world in a major way - BabyGaz can't be born at just any time, it's got to be the RIGHT time. Take heart, friend. You're doing great. You just keep on being immersed in love and let the magic happen. It'll all happen at the right time."
I'm looking forward to 2011 because, for the first time in long time, my schedule looks like this:
If you haven't acquainted yourself with the phenomenal site I Heart Guts take a moment or two to check out a few profiled organs. I love any initiative that takes regular objects and animates them. Like Marcel the Shell with Shoes On.
In keeping with the mama theme of Mondays, and the patience/hope required along the way to pregnancy, I've been thinking a fair bit about guts. All those internal bits of us that (usually) feel nothing and (seemingly) do nothing. They're just...inside. Like the guts of a computer or a car. Few understand how they operate and even fewer know how to fix them if something is amiss.
When I had a kidney infection, and because I had never before experienced the particular surprise associated with a kidney infection, I couldn't figure out what was wrong. I'm not hungry...I guess I have a stomachache?...sort of a side cramp...but in my back...OK, now I need to assume the fetal position to keep the pain at bay...and now we're at the hospital and they're administering morphine and antibiotics and it's all over. That was weird.
A scrap or cut or bruise is obvious, and the pain is acute. Internally, things tend to work out on their own or send you muted, cryptic messages until a specialist is able to translate for you. Guts are obscure, vague, enigmatic.
In African culture, I'm told, what we in the Western world refer to "heart" is not located in the chest but in the belly. In Hebrew tradition (including translations of the Old Testament), heart and soul are intermixed with liver, stomach, and guts. There was no separation for them: body, soul and spirit was one and the same.
I know this to be true because when I'm sad I feel it in my stomach, and when I'm happy I feel it in my chest, and when I'm frightened I feel it shooting through my veins.
Somewhere in my guts, I believe, God is sorting out the mystery of conception. Somewhere in my guts, I believe, I harbour the hope that we'll meet the babies of our future. Somewhere in my guts, I believe, I'll find the strength to bridge between the two seasons: waiting and welcoming.
"And the knowing in her guts
Something's still gonna grow
She ain't leaving 'till it does"
(Brooke Fraser, Crows & Locusts)
"By the God of your father, Who will help you,
and by the Almighty,
Who will bless you with blessings of the heavens above,
blessings lying in the deep beneath,
blessings of the breasts and of the womb."
I've made a shortlist of the worst things (that I can think of) to wait for:
Waiting for a method of public transportation, outside, when the weather resembles Voldemort's return to power.
Waiting for your turn at a government subsidized office when turns depend on complex letter/number system, like Bingo, and the letter/number system does not progress alphabetically nor chronologically.
Waiting in line at an amusement park for a ride that your peer group chose by democratic vote, wherein you were of the minority group, in the blistering sun, having eaten very little.
Waiting to get pregnant (to be pregnant? to turn pregnant? to pregnacize?) is definitely up there and follows a strict mathematical increase of vexation whereby the axes are represented by "amount of time you are not pregnant" and "amount of time you've been thinking about being pregnant, including contemplations about, dreams about, poetry about, and blog postings about".
Unlike other experiences in waiting, however, I find that this one is difficult to explain. In fact, other than disappointment, the waiting period is generally pleasant: life is good, I have a fantabulous husband who loves me to bits and makes me laugh, friends surround and support me, an amazing extended family, a great house, and many aspirations for the future. Compared to examples 1, 2, and 3 above, the actual waiting process involved with parenthood is benign. A baby would only be the addition to an already agreeable existence.
Simplistic, maybe, but also true. So why not focus on what we have instead of what we're missing?
When Baby Gaz makes his/her debut and makes us parents in the process, will he/she want to hear that we were excitedly planning for his/her arrival while making the most out of every opportunity? Or will he/she have an image of Mom and Dad weeping and complaining their way through the months before he/she was born? I don't want whining to be a family trait.
...many of the characteristics, habits, mannerisms, modes of speech, and even culture that my son will learn are already in me. The lifestyle of fatherhood began long, long ago (not too long ago, I’m only 25 here!) and continues to grow and deepen as I do. What I’m getting at is the effect my life has on my son’s life even before he is born.
I want to live life now in a way that positively affects my family to come. If I want them to live in a world with less hatred, I'm going to start loving people more. If I want them to live in a world of possibilities, I'm going to stop limiting myself. If I want them to live in a world of hope, I'm going to cultivate it so they'll have a harvest of it when they're born.
I want to make my children proud.
“Be the change you want to see in the world.”
(Mahatma Ghandi)
"Once you bring life into this world, you must protect it.
One of the hardest commodities to hold on to while trying to conceive is hope. I guess the same is true of any situation where the outcome is just out of reach - whether hoping to be hired, or hoping to be accepted, or hoping for healing, or hoping to find someone to spend the rest of your life with.
I once felt hope was cyclical. It germinated, sprouted, bloomed, and then seemed to curl up and die before it was reborn again. Over the past year, I've realized that it isn't cyclical at all. The hope I have today of becoming pregnant is not the hope I had last year, or even last month. It's stronger, deeper, and truer. The growth/dormant stages I felt were actually spurts of progress and less obvious progress. But it was always progress.
On a bad day, I still need my friends around me and I'll sometimes send out an email to ask for prayer (community is so helpful in times of extended hope-a-thons). On a good day, I feel like my friend Naomi did when she so elegantly quoted these words in response to a piece of music called "Radio Protector" by 65daysofstatic.
I've included it here and recommend listening to it while you read. The video is an unofficial one, but nonetheless enchanting:
While listening to the crescendo of the song, Naomi mused:
It feels like something's alive inside
Like I have motivation to fix whatever I want to
I have all the hope in the world
...I'm learning what it is to be content
That not everybody needs to know everything
There is beauty in the mystery
There is beauty in things not unveiled
It's not easy to hope. It takes time and energy and a lot of guts. But as my wise husband says, "It takes the same effort to worry as it does to have faith." Worry tears and corrupts and demoralizes and although hope might sometimes feel like an uphill battle, its only goal is to mend and clarify and hearten. As long as time and energy and guts are required I'd rather be hoping.
And when I'm tempted to give up, I like to remember the words of C.S. Lewis: "There seems no plan because it is all plan".
Yahweh, Yahweh
Always pain before a child is born
Yahweh, Yahweh
Still I'm waiting for the dawn
- U2 (Yaweh)
“There is nothing that wastes the body like worry,
and one who has any faith in God should be ashamed
to worry about anything whatsoever.”
- Mahatma Ghandi
Too many of the blogs written by women trying to conceive only focus on the negative. Not being pregnant YET. Not having a family YET. Not being a mom YET. The competition with other women who are pregnant can be particularly vicious, which is something that has never made sense to me.
I'd assume that if one is so keen on babies that one would celebrate babies wherever they are, in any circumstance that they are.
Pregnancy isn't the only stage on which girls have showdowns. It's found everywhere from home ownership to home decor to marriage to weddings to relationships to fashion to careers to education and alllllll the way back to the playground. Girls can be mean. And usually to each other.
I'd like to take this Mama Monday to celebrate the girls who aren't mean. The ones that let other girls into their heart, no matter the cost, and keep them there. The girls who listen as well as speak. The girls who give the hard advice as much as the easy advice. And here's to hoping I end up more and more like one of those girls.
Melissa and her hubby, Jon, gave birth to the littlest friend in our group on October 10, 2010 (10/10/10) at 10:15 p.m. His name is Noah Contstance Börger and although we've been saying hi to him womb-side for 9 months, it's amazing to meet him in person. He's very, very fortunate to have a mom who doesn't have a mean bone in her body.
A few girlies and I watched "Eat, Pray, Love" on the weekend and delighted in all 38% of its tomato-freshness. None of us are sure why it received such poor reviews (it's schmaltzy, romantic and fluffy...and that's exactly what we wanted) but we didn't let it ruin our opinion(s), or our enjoyment of treating ourselves to manicures and pedicures afterwards. Sugar and spice and everything nice.
I would have been just as happy to watch the film on mute, so beautiful were the scenes shot on location in Italy, India and Bali. One particular scene, set in Rome, stuck with me:
I may have taken a course dropped a course in introductory Italian during university, and I may be married into an Italian family presently, but - let me assure you - dolce far niente doesn't come easily to me. As, I expect, is the case for many of us.
The baby-making issue raises its little head from time to time, reminding me (as many others have reminded me) to "take things easy", "just relax", and "rest yourself". Perhaps babies have the good sense to avoid being conceived in an environment that lacks peace.
Happiness is one thing, peace is something else. I can be hostessing a party, reorganizing my day timer, attending a conference, or traveling to another country and be COMPLETELY HAPPY. I feel fulfilled, energized, and alive. But I don't know if I could say that I feel peaceful. I kind of feel more like this:
When I looked up the expression that has stabbed me in the brain ever since I heard it, dolce far niente, which literally means "the sweetness of nothing", I found images that inspired me. The phrase seems to have inspired many more, since artist after artist painted "Dolce far Niente"s and they all looked similar. Peace, tranquility, rest, poise, ease.
Blogging is a fickle thing. It's not quite a journal and it's not quite a Twitter feed. It's both personal and public. I worry that it's being read and then I worry that it's not being read. I like my privacy and I like my honesty.
I started this blog in 2005 (happy 5th year anniversary, me!) to update people about my year spent teaching English in Korea. From there, it chronicled my travels in the UK, moving house six times, becoming a girlfriend, becoming a wife, and becoming a pastor. It has served me well.
What better way to keep the blog honest and current than dive into the topic of parenting? Anticlimactically, this August marks a year of "trying" (translation: a fabulous year of sex-having!) and this isn't the highly anticipated here's a picture of our positive pee test! post. Nope, not yet.
Still, there are lots of thoughts on parenting that I've been mulling over, and I keep accumulating more, so I'd like to post some of them here. To begin, some on pre-conception:
Prenatal pills have made my hair grow an inch a month.
There are acronyms for everything to do with fertility on the internet. "TTC", for example, once meant only public transportation in the city of Toronto. Evidentally also means "trying to conceive" by lots of cybermoms.
Said cybermoms, or cybermoms-to-be, are an opinionated bunch. You can find advice online that contradicts every other piece of advice you find online.
When I was single and naïve, I told a friend who was trying to conceive: "It's easy. Just have sex, like, ALL THE TIME." Graciously, she shook her head and said nothing. As many of you are doing now.
Welcome to the journey and feel free to post your anecdotes (really...I love stories). We'd love to hear from those of you who are thinking of trying, those of you trying, those of you who have tried, and those of you who are now parents either by birth, adoption, or fostering.
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