The Final Countdown

Self Portrait as Art History: Mona Lisa in Pregnancy, Yasumasa Morimura

By the end of the 10th week, the embryo officially becomes the fetus. The embryonic tail disappears. The reproductive organs mature. And I am starting to officially feel pregnant.

Soon there will be people to tell and decisions to make. Will I move? When do I tell my job? What about my big pit bull? And does this mean I take my online dating profile down?

So far, the winter, the holidays, and the pregnancy have made me want to stay close to home, eat a lot, and watch bad movies at night. Is this what the next 7 months have in store for me?

In other news, I have to find a doctor who will agree to work with a midwife, and a midwife who won't be on vacation in the middle of summer when the baby is due. And I also have to find someone to be there for me. I am thinking I will just hire a professional, someone I can really count on, rather than, you know, mom. Can I hire someone to come to the Lamaze classes, too?

The other thing is that I absolutely have to finish the film. And I only have three short weeks until I go back to teaching four junior college classes a week. And I guess 6 months or so after that until my world changes entirely. So the pressure is on, even if the motivation is a little lacking. Let's just say, I am a mite distracted these days.

Secrets

19th Century Pregnancy Doll

Last night I dreamt there was blood. I know it's because of the doctor's appointment tomorrow. It's odd, those ultrasounds. Peeking inside like that. It almost seems like cheating. I mean, for centuries, we didn't have this technology. Pregnancy was a matter of faith. And deep mystery. An alchemical process.

Eventually, when the organs start to rearrange themselves around an expanding uterus, and the cartilage begins to soften so bones can spread, and the blood once used to support brain cell activity flows south to instead encourage embryonic cell development, a complete mutation of the female body as I have known it for 41 years will occur. It's already begun.

I have heard the process continues once you have a child. That feeling of not belonging to your own body. Of, well, belonging and being for someone else entirely. How can something so common as pregnancy and childbirth, seem so wildly different from anything I have known thus far?

7 weeks

Window Water Baby Moving - Stan Brakhage

I went to the doctor's office two weeks ago, and there is indeed now a little bean growing inside of me. Though the nurse both showed me what was supposed to be a faint heart pulsing and made me listen to what was supposed to be the faint swishing of a heart beating, I did not believe her. It all looked kinda empty and sorta unimpressive to me. But, I decided to take their word for it and accepted their sincerest congratulations. Now, I have a mere 5 weeks to go before it starts getting official. I do hope the little bean can hang on.

Like many who have come before me, I did decide to buy a few books so I could at least know what not to eat/drink/pop-into-my-mouth. And courtesy of Google, it seems, pretty much everything that hasn't been parboiled for 30 minutes is up for debate. But the thing that has proven most challenging (OK giving up coffee was pretty hard) has been keeping mum. So I pee on a stick, and I see a red cross, and then what? Just sit there for 12 weeks and not tell anyone? Not gonna happen. I know things can go wrong, and the risks are high at my age, but I just have so many questions, so many anxieties, so many moments of joy, they can't all be contained solely by my poor, slobbering dog.

So hence the blog. Hence the black and white ultrasound photo on the fridge...and if people happen to ask me why I am not drinking, well, I just tell them.

So here we are in limbo. Crossing our fingers. Waiting nervously for the next doctor's visit. And beginning to wonder just how a single, working woman with no family in town, might manage.