Hello Baby Blog

Last night as I was making myself a breadstick I burnt my baby on the oven door…while she’s still inside me.  This is not looking good for my parenting skills.  I misjudged the size of my belly and leaned over to check on the breadstick a bit to close and my belly touched the inside of the oven door.  Then I lifted my shirt to check if it left a burn mark.  But I have no clue if it did, why?  Because the underside of my belly is as distant and remote to me as the other side of the moon.

When I look down at my belly it really doesn’t seem THAT big.  But when I catch a glance from the side in a mirror, I think “where the hell did THAT come from.”  At least now I can’t complain that random people tell me I look too small for how far along I am.  Lately random people at the gas station and such seem to think I’m going to go into labor any minute.  It’s so funny that maybe a month ago I was scared about a small belly and now I am expecting a phone call from the post office any day that my rotund midsection requires it’s own zip code.

I’m glad my belly only decided to pop out in it’s massive glory late in the pregnancy though.  Now I only have about a month of this belly.  And this belly is not fun.  It adds a layer of complexity to every day tasks.  Putting on tennis shoes now requires a good 10 minutes, a firm seat to sit on, lots of huffing and puffing, a few grunts, and patience.  I am trying to wear slip on flats every day for the rest of the pregnancy.  If only the weather would cooperate with me.  AND the weather…  It’s 30 degrees outside, everyone else is bundled up in sweaters and coats.  I walk outside in a long sleeve cotton shirt and a coat.  Immediately sweating, so I take off the coat.  Still sweating, so i push up the sleeves, and good god, who made 30 degrees feel like 80?  Someone is playing tricks on me!  AND the sweating…  No matter how much deodorant I put on and no matter how strong it is, I still sweat bullets every day.  I bought the super-strong deodorant that has like 40% of the antiperspirant active ingredient, and I slather it on daily.  Years from now my arm pits will grow eyeballs from all the Aluminum zirconium tricholorohydrex glycine I used during pregnancy.

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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

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