Letters to an Artist as a Young Fetus

Okay, so I decided to start taking pics that were a bit more close up, because well, my head is starting to look really small in the pictures as the rest of my body expands and that's weird. Also, you can, if you so desire, see a bigger version of the pics by double clicking on the image.
Apparently, Awesome is mango sized this week (one of my favorites!). Yummy. Is it gross that every week, when I find out what size fruit/veggie Awesome is comparable to, I really start craving it? Mmmmm...mangoes.

The past few months I have kept a variety of records, including this blog, of my thoughts, feelings and general observations of this crazy time in our lives. I have been keeping a journal (the kind you write in with a pen- I know, what is this the '90's?) that tracks questions I have that need answering and more private thoughts on this matter, as well as hormonal ramblings that I feel others should be spared from. That being said, I also kept something of a record for Awesome, so that when she/he so desire (or when I read it to him/her ad nauseum as soon as they're born) they can look back and know what was happening in Mama and Papa's life as they prepared for her/his arrival.

I decided this week, that Awesome will probably be really tech savvy and may already have a little iPhone in my belly right now and is reading the blog, wishing she/he could make comments about how neurotic I am and making editorial notes on how the blog layout could look better. So, starting this week, I decided to include my little letters and thoughts I have been composing for Awesome. And hopefully if she/he is reading this now, he/she will have the common sense to know not to criticize his/her mother and will take everything I write as sage, sage wisdom.

Anyhoo, when I think about Awesome, I actually don't think of the moniker "Awesome." I know, big shocker. I more think of her/him as Little Bear. When Amos was a little boy, he thought he was a bear. In many ways, he still does think this. So, its hard not for me to think of this little baby as my Little Bear. So, for the sake of the blog and to others I may refer to Awesome as such, but when I writing directly to this little one, it's Little Bear. Just so you know.

Dear Little Bear,

Papa thinks that you are going to be a great musician like him because your heartbeat was so fast when we first heard it. Of course, we would love for you to play any musical instrument you like, as long as it's not the banjo or the drums (they get no respect.) I just want you to be funny. Papa and I have found that if you can make people tap their feet and laugh, you'll have a pretty good life, and that's what we want for you. A good life. We will promise to try and make you dance and laugh every day, so that you understand how wonderful it is to have those things.

Because you are a 19 week old Little Bear in my tummy, you are probably dancing around already and snapping your fingers. I played the ukulele a lot this past week and Papa played the guitar and fiddle. Did you like it? If so, kick once for "yes", twice for "not so much." Actually, I will be very happy when I can feel you dancing around. Maybe you should put on your tap shoes so I can feel it. Maybe you're just hanging out and taking it easy, having a good ol' time and sitting on my bladder. Whichever, I hope you're happy. I know I am.

Papa and I are so excited to see your picture next week! Give me a wave, okay? Or a thumbs up. Or a peace sign, that would be neat. Maybe you could dance a little jig. Whatever you do, I can't wait to see you.

We love you, Little Bear.

Love,

Mama

Reoccuring Dream

For several years before I was pregnant, I kept having this reoccurring dream. Most of the time, it consisted of two parts.

In the first part, Amos and I are at home (interestingly, in my dream, it’s never a home we've actually ever lived in) and we have a new baby. The gender and name are rarely known and the baby often looks different in different versions of the dream. Anyway, we have this new baby, and we have nothing for it. No clothes, no bed, no diapers, no blankets, no obvious sources for food. Nothing. And in the dream, I am very anxious and flustered because we have this baby, but aren't prepared in any way for its existence. In the dream, I am always angry with myself and think, "How could I be unprepared for this?! How could this baby have taken me by surprise? I should have my shit together. I have been preparing and wanting a baby for as long as I remember! How is it possible that I have been blind-sided by this little one's arrival?" In some versions of the dream, I scrounge around the house and come up with make shift solutions, like wrapping the baby in an old shirt. In other versions, I rush out and buy everything I need. One such version had me going to Baby's R Us with my Aunt Janet to buy baby gear and walking in and finding the store to be like a hybrid of Ikea and Costco on crack, with mile high shelves, everything disassembled in boxes, and like a maze. The seemingly simple task of searching for a receiving blanket turns into an overwhelming, insurmountable task. Whichever the version, my waking life resourcefulness and baby knowledge is completely absent and I am left feeling exasperated and frantic.

In the second part of the dream, Amos and I decide to go out for the night. The dream then continues as we maneuver through some social situation, usually a party of some sort. Towards the end of the night, as in hours later, I realize, "Oh shit! We forgot about the baby! We've left it at home by itself for the whole night!" I then rush home to find the baby in various stages of survival. Sometimes, the baby is happy as a newborn clam. In other versions, not so much. In one particularly dark version of the dream (the same version that had the Babies R Us trip), I find the baby in an antique cradle, covered in brush and cobwebs, long since dead. Disturbing, I know.

So what does this all mean?!!!! Well, I initially interpreted the dream as meaning that I have taken all of my life-long baby preparation for granted and there are just some aspects of having a baby that one can never truly prepare for. So this is my subconscious way of warning myself of two things: 1) You can never be too

During the period of my life when I was having this dream with some amount of regularity, I was really trying to convince Amos that NOW (as in then) was the perfect and ideal time to have a baby and that we could do it! And that we would be prepared! Consciously, my mind was filled with all the "rational" reasons and proof as to why these reasons were true and I truly, truly believed them all. In my waking life, I allowed myself no room for doubt and questioning, as to my own preparedness for a baby, convinced that I AM READY. But apparently, my subconscious felt otherwise.

After the particularly intense and dark version of the dream (Babies R Us and cobwebs), I mentioned the dreams to my mom. And of course, Dr. Karen "Carl Jung" Graves, had a very interesting interpretive twist to the dreams. As she put it, “If you are every person in the dream, then you are the baby.” And what does it mean now that the baby is unexpectedly without care and nourishment? Whoa. WHOA. So I am the baby. And perhaps it’s not that I subconsciously fear not being ready for my baby and worried about how I will take care of her/him, but rather I am not prepared to take care of my inner baby and worried that I will abandon myself, or some part of myself -my child self, myself as an individual, who knows? Crazy stuff, right?

But I think these dreams are on to something that perhaps every person faces, in varying degrees, if prepared and 2) No matter how much you prepare it won't be enough. they transition into parenthood. What will become of the person I am, or once was? Who will take care of me when I and my partner now have to devote so much time to this little baby? I have heard some parents speak of this automatic selflessness that accompanies parenthood, of some seamless transition from primary concern for the self, to concern for others. But does this really happen so seamlessly, or do people just tell themselves this because it’s the appropriate thing to say? Or perhaps they are afraid of acknowledging their own need for autonomy for fear of feeling selfish or uncaring. Or perhaps it doeas really happen that easily.

Now I find myself in this weird period where the baby is a real part of my life, insofar as I am pregnant and have heard the heartbeat and have begun a registry, but also still live a life where, in the greatest sense of reality, I am still on my own and unattached from this child (okay, okay, so I guess we are literally attached, but you know what I mean), able to make most decisions about my daily life without thinking too much about him/her. So on one hand, I can more realistically plan and conceptualize having a baby in our lives in the near future, but on the other hand, I also have the luxury of, nearly always, choosing my own needs over that of a child. So, I am trying to take this weird limbo state and apply careful foresight into how I hope I will balance this self-other dichotomy when the time comes. I look to the future now and firmly want to always be able to carve out time for myself. I look to the time after we have children and say to myself, as well as to Amos, that I will always make our relationship and marriage a top priority. I will always make sure we have time where it’s just him and me. Where we spend time together in a childless vacuum, where we can revert back to the space where only we existed. This I want for our future. But perhaps, as my dreams may predict, I can't be fully prepared, for anything. And all I can do is hope that I and we (Amos and I, together), are able to make it a constant priority to work on finding that balance and that we can also find grace and forgiveness in ourselves and each other when we don't always succeed.

Interestingly, I have only had this dream once since I have been pregnant. And in the dream, we only were without material items for the baby. Also, we didn't go out for the night and forget the baby. So what does this tell me? Or better yet, what does it tell you? That y'all better clear out our registry and stock our house with onesies and carseats, because, God forbid I have to make a trip to Babies R Us. Who knows if I'll survive?

For good measure, here's a reminder of Us:

Waiting for the Rumblies

My little sweet potato is 18 weeks! And hopefully, because that's the way I like 'em best, this little sweet potato is cushioned by butter, marshmallows, pineapples and brown sugar. In so many ways, the days and weeks seem to inch by and it feels like this baby will never get here, but then I am doing as my mom calls it, "end gaining." And so, instead, I am trying to be in the moment and soak up the wonder and the craziness that is being pregnant, because, hell, I'm only going to be pregnant a couple times in my life. I should really cherish this! But, as is my habit in life, I get really caught up waiting for the future and have a hard time being here and now. Got to do it. Its hard though, because I still don't feel 100 percent pregnant. I mean, something is definitely going on in my body and it is crazy, but I look at myself and think, "well, I could still just pass for chubbier...not exactly pregnant." And while we have heard Awesome's heartbeat, we still have yet to have an ultrasound. So for all I know, I could've just grown a second heart and be some sort of freakish medical anomaly.

I also have yet to really feel the baby move. Which is supposed to be happening right around now. According to thebump.com, "Awesome has become amazingly mobile (at least compared to you), passing the hours yawning, hiccuping, rolling, twisting, kicking, punching, sucking and swallowing. And, baby's finally big enough that you'll be able to feel those movements soon." Women who have been pregnant before describe the early movements as feeling like, flutters, or butterflies, or popcorn popping, or gas. Well, I certainly feel rumblies in my tumbly, but I don't know if its the baby or if its just air bubbles. I'm guessing if I can audibly hear it, its probably the latter. Anyway, hopefully I feel a good swift quick to the belly button soon and then have this very obvious Aha moment, and say, "Ahhhh, there you are!"

So I suspect that the further along I get, the more I can feel Awesome dancing around and the more I really look like a pregnant lady, I will (hopefully) be able to be more present and soak up these days. But in the meantime, I'm like, "Hurry up already, let's meet this baby!"

Week 17: Cry Me A River

Apparently, at 17 weeks, Awesome is no longer sweet and now is an onion. Which is apt, because this little one has tremendous super powers when it comes to making me spontaneously cry at the drop of a hat. Amos absolutely LOVES this aspect of Awesome. For him, crying means that one is experiencing extreme emotional overload and really only happens during major life and death events, like your own wedding and immediate family's funerals. It does not generally occur over yoga videos. And if it does, something is seriously, seriously wrong. Last week, I started sobbing when Amos had the audacity to make fun of the pregnant yogis on my prenatal yoga video. Upon hearing this, I rolled up the yoga mat and started to sob. He gave me a hug and apologized for upsetting me. I believe what followed was somewhere along the lines of, "Why can't you support me and tell me that I'm glowing?!!!!" "You're glowing," he said and wisely went into the bathroom and shut the door. When the tears flow, there is no reasoning with me. I'm like a wild animal and its best to back away slowly, but be sure to never, ever, turn your back or I may strike with, "Oh! And another thing!" ( I did, admittedly follow him to the bathroom, open the door and add "another thing." I then proceeded to cry on my bed for the next 15 minutes feeling very, very sorry for myself. All the while I was thinking about Anita Diamant's book, The Red Tent, and wishing I had a red tent to go into and be surrounded by women who would tell me that the yogis were not silly but very, very enlightened. These women would bathe my feet in rose water and feed me gummy worms and complement me on my stylish new capris with the elastic waist band.

The truth is, I don't mind the extra tears, some of the time. Crying while watching commercials for cell phones (That sweet couple can finally keep in touch!) gives me a strange sense of relief and is somewhat cathartic. What I do mind, however, is the crying that accompanies absolutely every conversation with my husband that involves disagreeing or negotiating or talking about feelings in any way. If that happens, watch out! Hear come the tears and the blubbering and all hope of having an adult conversation is now lost, down the tubes with the roll of toilet paper I now need to wipe my excessively running nose and ruddy swollen eyes. The truth of the matter is, sometimes I really do have some important point to get across, but it gets lost in the tears and the foot stomping, with Amos looking at me like I'm some sort of crazy person and it no longer becomes about the issue at hand, but my massive amount of emotion. Sometimes I can effectively hold off on having these conversations until we are both lying in bed and the lights are all off and he can't see my face, so when he says to me, "I wish you had remembered to pick up that thing at the store." I can say, " Yeah, my bad." and when I start to sniffle and he says, "Are you crying?" I can just say with forced cheeriness, "Nope! Just these danged allergies!" while I sob silently into my pillow over the injustices of the world.

So needless to say, I am looking greatly forward to moving beyond this "onion" phase which began the day I say that little plus sign and will end, hopefully before Awesome graduates from high school.

In other news, according to thebump.com, Awesome's skeleton is hardening, changing from rubbery cartilage to bone, and fat is finally accumulating around it. The umbilical cord is getting thicker and stronger, and those little fingers and toes are now topped by one-of-a-kind prints. That means she/he should turn away now form a life of crime, as they are officially "trackable"
Ah well, I'm sure it was fun for them while it lasted. Their joy riding days are over.

So here is what an onion looks like in my belly. Must be one of those vidalia onions, or perhaps one of those deep fried bloomin' onions from Outback Steakhouse. Note the extreme cherriness on my face that is meant to counteract the weepy moments that have also accompanied week 17.

Signs of Growth

Okay, so I probably should have started official documentation of my growing belly a month ago, but vacation won out, so that didn't happen and I was trying to come up with some creative way to take the pictures, kind of like this: http://pacingthepanicroom.blogspot.com/search/label/The%20walk%20to%2040%20weeks

But, I couldn't come up with something creative and the weeks were ticking by and I am, no doubt, getting bigger, so I just need to take the shots and maybe I'll come up with something more creative later.

Anyway, I did find some pictures that were taken of me every week since week 13, so you can get an idea, somewhat, of whats been going on.

Week 13

Week 14

Week 15

And finally, hears where you really see the effects of all that hibernating and Omega-3 rich salmon:

Week 16

I look like I gained a ton of weight, but when I went to the midwife for my 16 week checkup last week, I had only gained 4 pounds since my 11 week checkup. Crazy, huh?

According to thebump.com in week 16, "Watch what you say... tiny bones forming in baby's ears mean the little one can now pick up your voice. Eyebrows, lashes and hair are starting to fill in, and taste buds are forming. And, if you're interested, an ultrasound might be able to determine gender." Now we can officially start torturing our baby with banjo music. She/he is undoubtedly paddling faster already. Oh, and apparently Awesome is now the size of an avocado:



And, for Amos, and all other dudes out there, according to hisboyscanswim.com, Awesome is the size of a small studfinder:



At the midwives visit, we got to hear the heartbeat (still rockin'!) and made our 20 week ultrasound appointment. Yay! We are very excited to finally be able to see what Awesome looks like, well in a grainy ultrasound sort of way. We'll also be able to find out if Awesome is a boy or a girl. Any guesses?

Ahhhh, Relaxation, I Remember You.

Alright, alright, I know I have been absent and I am sure you all have been waiting with bated breath for an update. But I have been on vacation and doing some serious gestating. I spent two weeks with Amos in Ketchikan, Alaska and felt like a happy hibernating bear. I slept 15 hours a day, rising only to eat fresh caught salmon, halibut and dungeoness crab. Oh, and I also saw a lot of really great friends and was one of 14 brides maids in a wedding.

The problem with being pregnant and being in a wedding is that you really can't get a dress until, practically, the day before the wedding, as you have no idea what size to buy. Some wonderful friends in Louisville were kind enough to lend me a plethora of little black dresses to choose from (the dress code was black dress and red shoes). So I settled on a dress (Thanks, Annie) that was forgiving and would even allow for a little Alaskan growth, if need be. Here's the final result:



On one of the four flights I experienced an interesting phenomenon, known as "having absolutely no compassion for cute children." This was an entirely new experience for me, who usually finds children in all shapes, sizes and moods to be adorable and sweet and incapable of anything but utter perfection. But apparently I am transitioning into a new phase known as, "My child is leaps and bounds more superior and important and (inevitably) cuter than you could ever hope to be, so don't mess with her/him" And by "her/him", in this case, I mean, me. It started when I boarded and there was a child who had the AUDACITY to be sitting in my window seat. Excuse me if I had the foresight to plan ahead and reserve that seat ahead of time, as I knew I would want to sleep, and someone's mother didn't seem to remember to do this for her child, which is not my problem. So, when the flight attendant asked me if I would mind sitting in the middle seat, so this little boy could sit by the window, I smiled and said, "Yes, I do mind." Sorry, kid. He was slightly disgruntled, which would have pulled on my heart strings in days past, but not anymore. Whatever, my kid (and by "kid", I mean, me) wanted the best seat and my kid wins over your kid. Hands down.

So I settled in to sleep, only to be repeatedly woken up by the incessant kicking of the back of my seat of a 5 year old. I tried several times to shift dramatically in my seat and sigh loudly, which is the international symbol for "please stop annoying me." But someone's mother and father (both were on the plane) neglected to teach their darling hellion these simple social cues. So, after several more minutes of this, I then tried glaring at the mother, at which point I realized was wrangling, not one, but FOUR sons on this cross continental flight. Sweet Jesus. I decided to let this one slide. The distraction of iPods and Nintendo DS's were useless, except to bring on questions such as, "Mom! Why do you have a cover on your iPod? Mom!!! Why do you have a cover on your iPod? MOM!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Why do you have a cover on your iPod?" I almost turned around and and said, "Mom! Answer your damn child, for the sake of all those on board!" But then he switched to, "Mom! I can see the wing!!!" Clearly Mom was taking the "ignoring approach" to parenting. Note to self: Don't use this one a packed plane when others are wearing sleeping masks.

4 plane rides later I arrived in Alaska and was not shocked at all when I came down a cold, because that's what happens on vacation. All in all though, annoying kids aside, I had a lovely time, and held some very cute children, which redeemed my view in children once again.

I ended my relaxing vacation in sunny San Diego for a long weekend with my mom, where I presented at a conference for the American Psychological Association and stayed with my high school friend, Heather and her fiance' David, who were wonderful hosts. One of my best friends, Britt, drove down from LA and spent the day with Mom and I in La Jolla, and all was very lovely, except for the killer sunburn. But what vacation is complete without a cold AND a sunburn? Good times.

Vacation update

Well I have been appropriately lazy and accomplishing very little on my vacation, hence the lack of posting. I've be feeling pretty good, except for a cold, an ultimate vacation injustice. Awesome is definitely doing some growing, as I can feel my ligaments in my abdomen stretching more and more and my bladder has the capacity of a teaspoon. According to thebump.com, Awesome has grown from a peach to a lemon and now is nearly the size of a naval orange. Still juicy! More details to come when I'm back "in the swing of things" and have better internet access....