The Final Frontier

Francesca Woodman: House #3, Providence, Rhode Island, 1976

Otherwise known as the Third Trimester. We have begun birthing classes, we have had baby showers, we are in the middle of a move. Ladies and gentleman, the future is nigh upon us.

Many refer to pregnancy and early motherhood as a time when a woman's body becomes hijacked. And while I no longer remember what it feels like not to be pregnant, I do feel more like a snake shedding her skin. I am the skin. And the baby is the snake. Not in an evil, biblical way, just that my body is less about me and more about what's growing inside. I feel superfluous, somewhat useless these days, compared to all the metamorphosis happening in there. As she grows, I feel the who-that-I-am shrinking. Not unlike an Alice in Wonderland.

And to what extent do I disappear? That is the hardest part to imagine of what comes next: the absolute change of my identity; the compulsory initiation into the tribe known as Parents; the loss of self as I know it. And too, I am fulfilling the biological imperative of what it means to be a woman. There are parts of a woman's body that simply lie dormant until she is pregnant. Another way of looking at is that you are never fully developed as a woman until you are pregnant and, among other things, have filled up your mammary glands. That is not supposed to be a cultural acceptance, but judging from the way in which I am now treated and embraced as a pregnant woman – as a woman who has finally achieved her biological destiny – one begins to wonder.

It is surprising then, for such a rite of passage, there are not more rituals or sacraments involved save a registering at the local big-box store for gifts. These exist for birth, of course, to mark the entrance of a child into the world and out of the uterus, but not for the woman whose body has been altered more significantly than any other time in her life. I guess from that point forward, it it gets hard to distinguish where the woman stops, the mother starts, and the child begins.