With D day approaching nearer by the day, I’ve been thinking about when I first get to see Bella, and how things will change. And it’s such a funny thought that I already know her. She’s a part of me right now; I can feel her every move, her heartbeat, her hiccups. I can speculate and infer her personality based on those movements and reactions. But somehow it seems that when I see her on the outside, outside of me, then I’ll really KNOW her. That sounds so oxymoronic, that I will know her when she is outside of me. Because seeing her eye color, her chubby cheeks, her toes…these things do not make her. Yet somehow it feels like when I see those features I will say, “ah, THIS is Isabella!”
And how will seeing that face, those toes change things? Today, with her inside the womb, I can continue my day with little interruption. Sure, I have a huge belly and there are inconveniences and symptoms that accompany the belly, but my life is not all that different than it was a year ago. A little over a month from now though, with Bella outside of the womb, I imagine my life will be very different. She will need feeding and pooping and rocking and cuddling- all things that right now my body takes care of with little voluntary interaction from me. I hope that when it’s my turn to take over, I’ll do as good a job as my body is doing on it’s own today.
It’s such a precarious little transition. Inside the womb versus outside the womb. Mere millimeters of flesh separate one from the other, yet they are as vastly different as night and day. What makes inside the womb just so different from outside? Maybe it’s the vocalization that separates these two dichotomies. Even though her only form of vocalization will be varying degrees of crying for a while, this form of communication seems like one of the biggest pieces missing while in utero. Can you imagine if babies could cry while in the womb? If I could hear her when she is fussy or upset? If I could hear coos during our nightly Dr. Seuss reading? Wow, even though I still couldn’t see her or hold her, she would feel more real. Of course, crying and cooing requires air to pass over the vocal cords, which are currently submerged under water…so it’s physically impossible. I think this is why hearing that first whaling cry when she exits the womb will feel so reassuring and exciting. She is alive, she is breathing, she is crying!
“Take the matter of being born. What does being born mean to mostpeople? Catastrophe unmitigated. Socialrevolution. The cultured aristocrat yanked out of his hyperexclusively ultravoluptuous superpalazzo,and dumped into an incredibly vulgar detentioncamp swarming with every conceivable species of undesirable organism. Mostpeople fancy a guaranteed birthproof safetysuit of nondestructible selflessness. If mostpeople were to be born twice they’d improbably call it dying–”
-e. e. cummings
