The 8th Nerve

We had the ultrasound yesterday and it was an amazing, amazing experience. It was just incredible to see her head, hands, feet, arms, legs, belly and face! We saw her kicking, squirming, opening and closing her mouth, and having hiccups. Everything looks healthy and on track. She had her legs crossed and even when the tech poked her with the wand she wouldn’t uncross them. We thought we might have to go home without knowing, which would have driven me nuts! Then I got up and moved around and jumped up and down. When we tried the ultrasound again, her legs were uncrossed. A girl!

We were amazed. We were both leaning toward thinking it was a boy, maybe because we both only have brothers and are more familiar with boys. After the ultrasound I saw myself in the mirror and I was already seeing myself differently, as the mother of a daughter. Somehow, I feel like having a son would have confirmed my expectations about myself but having a daughter means I will transform them. I’m going to be different than I thought I was.

Already I feel new responsibility. If we had a boy, all he would probably need to do in order to become a decent man is to spend time with Steve, building tree houses and pinewood derby cars. Of course, our girl will do the same, and she will have wonderful sense of self and relationships with others because she has a father like Steve. But she may have challenges that even unconditional parental support and role modeling can’t overcome.

I want to spare her the color pink, queen bees, and society’s scrutiny. I want to spare her the years where most whole girls disappear into the partial twilight of uncertainty and doubt. Fixated and insecure about appearance and self-worth, they spend long years finding it infinitely more challenging to become a whole person. I want her to know in her heart that she is good enough to do and be anything she wants with self-assurance and acceptance. It will be time for me to overcome anxiety in more permanent ways so that I can be the role model of confidence and positive self-esteem that she will sorely need in order to be herself.

After the ultrasound, I was in a daze. What an earth shattering, life changing experience. The last time I felt this way was when Steve proposed. We went downtown, had lunch and called the grandparents-to-be and sent out texts to everyone we knew. We went to Kids Town and bought a crib mattress. This is for real. I can’t wait to hold her.

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Mar 26th 2009Introspection & pregnancy

Five days til the ultrasound! Five days!

I’m positive that I felt kicks on the first day of the 17th week. Since then I’ve noticed thumps and flutters but haven’t been as sure about those. You’d be surprised at how much activity there is in your body when you take a minute to concentrate. I can feel my heart working harder, the beat pulsating through my body.

I’m not firing on all cylinders, shall we say. If something crosses my mind that I want to say and I have to wait more than a few seconds to say it, I totally forget. This week it became evident that I am at least two and a half months behind in paperwork at work. How did I let that happen?! I’m going to spend half my weekend at work. Bleh. Concentrate, Sarah, concentrate!

I’m beginning to get an inkling of what is ahead. It is taking more and more effort to stand up from a sitting position or roll over in bed. I can’t sleep on my front or my back. I cuddle with a pillow wedge. When I look straight down, all I can see are my toes. When the toes disappear, that’s the point of no return.

I’m reading a book called The Seven Stages of Motherhood by Ann Pleshette Murphy. She writes about a phenomenon on the pregnancy stage where women have very vivid fantasies about the child-to-be. They daydream about what the child will look like, what his or her personality will be like, the things they will do with the child, what parenthood will be like, etc. Then, usually in the last month, they tend to wipe the fantasy slate clean, possibly in an attempt to be ready for what comes.

This was interesting to me because I haven’t had any fantasies at all. I’m not envisioning or imagining what it might be like. I don’t have any illusions about it. I wonder if it has to do with my field of work. I’ve seen all the things that can go wrong or become extremely challenging- developmental delay, medical conditions requiring 24 hour care, disabilities, explosive behaviors and mental illness. I don’t dare expect my baby to be ‘normal’ or healthy. I can only have faith that he or she will be. I don’t think past the day that the baby is born. I believe it will be ok, but I don’t expect it to be.

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Mar 20th 2009pregnancy

The weather this March has been amazing!  Usually March tends to be blustery and slushy and gross, but this time there are sunny, warm days.  I’m still a bit skeptical, Vermont spring likes to fake you out a few times before it is really here.

So I have been trying to think of what to write about other than the five inch human in my abdomen.  I’ll go with what has been bugging me lately.  I was really bothered the other day by the fact that a friend lied to us.  Not even about anything significant, just stupid, avoidance-type lies.  I recognize that I shouldn’t take it personally because he lies about stupid little stuff all the time. The thing that irks me the most is the fact that I KNEW he was lying but I just kept nodding and smiling and keeping up the social niceties. Really, the question that bothers me is WHY?

I feel like lies (all those silly white ones and big ones too) and pretense make up way too much of the fabric of social interaction.  People pretend, they wear masks, they cover up, they say things they don’t mean, they act all chummy with people they don’t even like.  People misunderstand things and make assumptions and misinterpret things others say and do, but no one directly confronts it.  No one dares to be honest and real.  They avoid confrontation and spare feelings.

People worry about sparing the feelings of others, but what drives them even more is sparing feelings altogether.  Anything other than social chatter and joking around is too threatening.  Not to say that anything is wrong with social chatter and joking around, I absolutely love it.  But then there’s the hypocrisy and the avoidance and the lies that seem to be required to maintain it.

This baffles and wounds me in ways that are hard to explain.  Maybe the exclusion that comes with hearing loss gives me a different angle on all of this, due to watching from sidelines. I spent too many years watching and wanting more than anything to be a part of it.  When I began to become part of it more (once no longer confined by the roar of hallways and cafeterias), I discovered the difference was very baffling and painful.  When it comes to socializing, appearance and reality are not the same.

I love to get down to the roots of perceptions and assumptions and reactions, making sense of where they came from and why.  Comparing and realizing the origins of misunderstandings and hurt feelings.  Insight, healing and reconciliation.  Not this pretense and distance “everything is great!” b.s.  Yet, more often than not, I go along with the surface stuff.  I play along and keep the confusion and intuitions to myself.  If I want things to be more real, I should initiate it more.

Steve and I have a couple friends that we’ve actually started doing this with, it has been really cool and a fascinating process.  Even though we have all expressed our intention to do this, almost as an experiment of sorts, it is amazing what a hard habit it is to break.  The social niceties and the pretense.  Keeping internal reactions, confusion and surges of annoyance to one’s self.  Rationalizing and explaining away thoughts and feelings in one’s head without even checking with the other person.

With these friends we tend to go back and analyze what happened and share our reactions and compare perspectives (and it is incredible how often it leads to dramatic realizations about one’s blind spots, past trauma, negative or outdated beliefs, among other things).  We’re still trying to get to a point where we can do it right in the moment.  Where we can experience our feeling in the moment (sometimes that’s a tough one right there), then say directly  “Wait, what did you mean when you said that?”  and explain how we experienced it.  In this process, no one tries to cover up feelings, ignore them, state platitudes or make jokes so that it goes away.  In those moments, everyone can truly express and truly hear each other.

When this happen,  angry outbursts and emergence of hurt or negative feelings that are so feared and avoided in the regular social get togethers do not occur.  Instead there are revelations and genuine closeness, safety and trust.  There is deeper understanding and my perpetual state of turmoil in regular social situations goes away.  This is the way friendships should be.

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Mar 17th 2009Everyday life & Friends & Hearing loss & Introspection

Let’s compare shall we?

Six weeks:

Seventeen weeks:

Time for a celebratory pregnancy jig with lots of hopping and wiggling and fist pumping! Go belly go!

Geez, what did I ever write about in this blog before I got pregnant?

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Mar 11th 2009pregnancy

Steve: The movie is called Flash of Genius.

Me: (wondering what intermittent wipers have to do with a flashing Jesus).

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Mar 8th 2009I Misheard When

We’ve just returned from a weekend in the Northeast Kingdom to…mud season. Ugh. Steve and the movie co. spent the day in Newport filming a scene with this guy.

The other day I walked by the guest bedroom and thought about how I would soon start changing it into a nursery. This led to the memory of the yellowed pictures of my nursery in my baby scrapbook. Suddenly I had this weird juxtaposition of emotions, a feeling of future nostalgia. Those yellow photos in the babybook of my earliest beginnings seem impossibly old fashioned. It seemed the whole world was yellowed at the time of my birth. Even as adults it can be hard to conceive of a fully formed world before your consciousness.

Yet, my parents were living in a technicolored world, fully grown at the time of the yellowed photographs, when my existence was just a glimmer. Now here I am, moving through the days of someone’s prehistory, carrying him/her as I plan and dream. They’ll have a hard time ever imagining Steve or me this young, or the fact that we had full lives before their existence. They may be well into adulthood before they realize Steve and I are separate people, with experiences and vulnerabilities and memories of our own.

The second trimester apparently ushers in symptoms I never knew to be associated with pregnancy. My nose is somewhat stuffy, sometimes there is blood when I blow my nose, and I’ve had a couple headaches. There are many other possible symptoms. As long as my boobs don’t start leaking and I don’t get skier’s mask, I think we’re all good here.

The avocado is pumping 25 quarts of blood a day and is beginning to grow hair and toenails. I can’t wait for the ultrasound in a few weeks, not to mention the day when I begin to feel the baby’s movements!

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Mar 8th 2009Uncategorized & pregnancy

This week the apple went to Boston to visit his/her uncle and aunt and got marshmallowed and toilet papered at a Blue Man performance.   Probably the only thing apple noticed was the crazy drumming and strobe lights.  Now four inches in length, apple can detect light and make a fist with the hand.

Last night I had a vivid dream that I had a son with dark brown eyes and sandy hair.  From certain angles, his face had a remarkable resemblance to my mother’s brother.   This dream really brought home the reality that there truly will be a person at the end of this process.   A person who will have parts of me.  Sometimes it is just so amazing that I feel like I can’t fully grasp it when I’m awake.

Between my family and Steve’s, the kid could look like absolutely anything.  There is every hair and eye color on both sides of our family.  One thing is probably certain, the head will be huge.   Not something this Mama is looking forward to, from a delivery perspective!

Our housemate, Felix, moved into his apartment today after five months with us.  The fact that he isn’t here anymore will be an adjustment!   It is back to just Steve and me…  for five more months.

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Mar 1st 2009Everyday life & pregnancy