Taking Ownership

Something changed today, and it happened when I went to the Nova site and looked at developing baby pictures. Up till now I've been in denial, not because I'm not pretty much delighted when I look at the big picture, but because my day-to-day sense has been much more one of terror. And not about the flesh-tearing eventuality to this growth, but because of, I guess, just plain change and now being stuck with it. I feel like I've climbed to the top of a really really high high dive and there's a line behind me all up the ladder so I can't get down except by jumping. But I'm Options Girl! Even if I know all along the one door I want to open, I feel much better when I know that just in case I changed my mind I could do something different.

I've been so clumsy around the words even, carefully keeping it at an impersonal pronoun distance--it was still "a" or "this" baby--and even hypothetical, as in "if we have a baby." Just using the word baby felt like an enormeous commitment. Part of this was because I get kind of grossed out when I think about a living creature inside me. It's almost like having worms or something. And it's eventually going to crawl out of me and then feed off me. It's just so strange. Well I wanted a little unpasturized milk dairy . . . (but that was going to be for cheese production! I'll rely on my miniature partner to make the curds.) My breasts have gotten undeniably bigger and harder, and definitely more sore--no stiff hugs, ok? Even wearing a running bra I have to hold them when I run in the canyon or else it feels like my skin will tear or cells will get smooshed as my new iron Viking boobs move up and down.

But today the phrase little lima bean kept knicketing between my ears and I wondered how big, if it really is there, the baby in me might be. Oh man, I've already missed almost the entire show! This thing has not just arms and legs, but separated fingers and toes and ears by now! Supposedly, it can squinch it's eyebrows! Purse it's lips! (And it is so odd to think of another pair of eyebrows swimming around in my pelvic region) It really looks like a baby, not just a soft bug you'd find underwater. I'm growing a real live little human. That's a relief, you know. When Andy and I first got married, I was convinced for a long time that if we had a baby it would be a monster, not a person. I'm not sure where this stemmed from, it wasn't something as logical as eugenics. I just didn't think it was possible that something soft and pink and sweet would come from me, and really, it terrified me. When I got over that, I became convinced that whatever child we had would be seriously handicapped in some form or other, that it was inevitable that our union would produce a kid whose brain chemistry was so wacked, that frankly, it probably wasn't even fair that we create a body for some little spirit. Rereading that, I see how un- in the spirit of the Proclamation on the Family that is. True, though.

I guess it's still possible, and I really hope I'd be mature and deep enough to love a baby no matter how it came, but I haven't thought about it enough lately to be worried. What throws me off is when my sisters have asked about things like if I'm going to use cloth diapers, and what names we've been thinking of, or if I think it's a girl or boy. These are panicky questions.

Secretly, I think it's a girl. So does Andy. And so does Heidi, actually, and she has a good track record with these things, four for four. But I can't think of a single reason I would think this. Paradoxically, though I'm not someone who has my heart set on a first child of a specific sex, I can picture a boy more easily, probably because I envision all our children looking like Andy, having curly dark hair and long dark eyelashes.

Ok, so I'm making today the turning point: From here out it is our baby, or my baby, or her, not it. And she's no longer hypothetical, she's already here, finishing up growing from the inside out. I will not freak out or involuntarily cringe or quiver at the word "mama" and will take ownership in a way that reflects how much I've wanted this for a long time. Andy sweetly reassures me, "You were born to be a mom!" Born or made, I am now.