Hey there, my little cantaloupe:

Today, as I was listening to very old Cocteau Twins and resting my hands on my belly, I swore I was touching what felt like your knuckles.  I had a vision of you reaching out to my hand with your little hand, and suddenly my being flooded with happiness.  

I keep thinking I am still in the adjustment phase to the 3rd trimester.  But I don't seem to be adjusting well at all.  I never feel like I am finally at a plateau and may rest, but I am instead hiking up a steep and steady incline, with no rest in sight.  Everything hurts, including my heart and brain.  I laugh now, but I had a breakdown this week of such a pathetic nature.  Clothes make me cranky anyway, and now I have very little that doesn't cut into my growing underbelly and it's VERY uncomfortable to wear anything but yoga pants.  I tried to change into a pair and those also didn't work so I had to fall into a crying spell on the bed.  The logic of trying to find something else more comfortable evaded me and instead, the world basically ended.  

In between the aching feet, uncontrollable emotion, bouts of anxiety, heart-palpitations followed by eerily shallow breathing, stabbing SI joint pain, neck immobility, unrecognizable body, bloody noses, little feet jabbing my rib-cage, and inability to get comfortable in just about any position, I do find moments of excitement.  This week, we had dinner with our neighbors who have a 1-year old.  As he and I locked eyes, I remembered how much I love babies and how now I would have my very own, how I would now smile so much more each day, how our house will be filled with the sweet smell of baby, and how this pregnancy will most assuredly end.  Indeed, I will be considered full-term in 3 short weeks!

We have finally made some progress on your accommodations.  You will not be sleeping in a themed nursery, sorry about that.  You will instead be sleeping with my old books; you'll have to learn to share the space with them.  We put your curtains up, have your crib to assemble, organized the closet so I can place your boxes of hand-me-downs away, and will be on the lookout for a vintage dresser. 

I have no fine advise or wisdom this week other than being thrilled by a brilliant speech from Captain Picard regarding the afterlife.  My brain seems to be on autopilot, just surviving the days - which seem insurmountable in the morning but always surprisingly transient by bedtime.  I ponder how your entering the world will come about, and I long deeply for wisdom and peace surrounding it, and so I read, but keeping in mind to prepare for the unknown, to plan to not plan.  For some, it seems reading a lot of books made their preparations more worrisome...but for me, information (the more, the better) has always been a way to ease the unknown.

In addition to relating to your movement, I can relate to the pressure you no doubt feel around your body as you grow.  I have to remind myself to take deep breaths and to say positive things to myself.  

I journaled the other day that I have this nagging voice telling me I am not doing pregnancy right.  The bigger I get, the more confidence seems to leak from my eyeballs in the form of tears.  I am not feeling awesome, I am not refraining from complaining, I am not eating as well as I should, I cannot seem to tap into the positive energy everyone else seems to feel about pregnancy, etc. etc.  Then, quite cosmically, I stumbled onto a chapter in "Birthing From Within" called Losing It that specifically addressed that there is no one or ideal way to get a baby out.  For some, actually LOSING it will produce exactly the environment and energy they need to birth.  It's so strange to me that you won't even remember it.

Baby Star Scout,

I hope you've been savoring the brain food I've gorged upon lately.  Your brain is working overtime these next few weeks to connect its synapses and form tissues, and I find it coincidental that I have also experienced a resurgence of academic inspiration and cerebral activity.  I am reading so many good books! I can't wait to tell you about them.  I think the brain is the sexiest organ a human can possess, and so even if you do turn out to be the world's next Gisele, know that I will do all I can to show you the worth you posses internally.

As Mother's Day approaches, I've been fantasizing more and more about how we will relate.  I've been in many leadership roles throughout my life, many of them dealing with the raising of children.  However, I've never seen myself perform as a mother, and despite the innate confidence from past experiences and a the general knowledge of relating to babies, I am still wise enough to know that I will be clueless most of the time.  Will I continue to despise how irritable I can be with your father?  Will I always struggle with wanting to control you?  Will you become Type-A, simply due to my neurotic linear tendencies?  Despite doing all this work to check my expectations of the kind of human I want to produce, will I still be unable to make my thinly-veiled opinion a positive resource in your development, or will it crush you on several occasions? Oh my god.  What if you don't want to go to college?!!!  And here's this thought, since no human is guaranteed a certain number of years on this planet, will I be able to enjoy the now with you instead of continually working to form you into a future version of yourself?  The truth is, I can imagine all manner of scary person you could become, for there are many archetypes of human I greatly struggle to love.  However, what I keep reminding myself is that I've been given a keen third-eye.  This vision has served me well especially when teaching, as a good teacher is required to see past the facade of a student and into their true, child-like self.  May it be that I always see your spirit and soul, may I be given the clearest vision of the honest, beautiful you.  When I forget this person as she screams at me at age 6months, 6, and 16, may the cosmos remind me of it.  I have no desire to avoid mistakes; I simply desire that you leave our nest in full possession of your parent's love and support of whomever you decide to become.  It's a bonus if you are also a cool person, but by no means a requirement for our love.

Humanity is the most gorgeous, most tragic of evolutionary endeavors. My atoms love your atoms, sweet little miracle.

Your dad and I also remarked to each other recently that you will have such a different childhood than either of us did.  For one, you will be exposed to parents who drink! ;)  Also, you may not be the outside kid Joel was, nor the worrier child I was.  Organized religion will not be the culture in which you grow up, as it was for us both.   I suppose I always knew this, but it's so strange and fascinating to think about all the things that will form you into YOU.

You are moving SOOO MUCH!  The other night, you performed a synchronized swimming routine for your father's hand.  While disturbed by these movements, (you will understand when you see the movie "Alien") we are also much enamored by them. Additionally, I can feel myself entering a lovely time of pregnancy.  When women say, "I loved being pregnant!" it is most likely this time they are remembering.  Only, it took 6 months to get here!  I am proud that I was gentle with myself through the journey.  

Just keep doing what you do, and I'll gladly co-exist for as long as humanly possible,

The Voice

      Yesterday, your Aunt Jackie sent the CUTEST pink onesie with a tutu attached (don't worry, I will pair it with some crazy patterned leg warmers and a funky hat).  For one of the first times in this whole process, I could see your chubby little body in my mind's eye; afterward I caught myself grinning like a fool.  It hit me that you will be MY baby.  For 33 years I have adored other's children so much, cared for them, learned about changing diapers, ways to comfort their cries, methods of gas expulsion, and feeding skills.  But I always gave the children back to their parents.  I won't ever have to do that with you and it's kind of blowing my mind.

     This week, your father said that he thinks we'll be great parents. When I asked why, he said because were are smart and logical adults.  I giggled at his simple answer, but it feels wonderful to have confidence radiating from him.  The very best advice I've heard yet (from your Gma Jean) is that I am to do exactly as I see fit with rearing my children.  I simply MUST trust myself.  Another book I am reading enforces this when in disciplinary situations with your child.  Not only should your 'no' be firm, but it should be full of conviction, as if you are entirely confident in your expectations of obedience.  I told your pop this week that I want to jump into every possible scenario with you and have a plan for all those various behaviors.  Of course this is impossible, so I realized that what I am trying to control is the horrible feeling of confusion.  I don't want to have little irritable arguments in front of you as we disagree, but that will be yet another thing to learn to do well, I suppose.  Additionally, let's not forget the merits of confusion.  It is the opposite of dogged stubbornness; it forces reevaluation and careful thought.  It will be better for you to see a woman working through problems than to see a woman perfected. Otherwise, you will never see problem-solving modeled well and will go through life assuming you should have figured it all out by now.  So my dear, I embrace the confusion of life.  It is perhaps the best of all teachers.

     As your father tried his culinary hand at Crepes Suzette this last weekend, I sat reading on the settee in my pajamas.  I think I may have felt you for the first time!  It was in the appropriate area my OB said you would be, and I saw my belly move.  It was so strange and wonderful, though I've not felt that same sensation since.  Some studies show that you now hear my voice.  I find it so riveting that the same week you are made aware of me, I am made aware of you.  My sweet firstborn daughter, it's nice to meet you.  What's your soul like?  Will you be an introvert or extrovert?  Will you love science and literature or perhaps politics and business?  What do you say we skip the whole birth thing and you can just appear in my arms one morning after a restful sleep.  

come on babe, swing your heartache

we have learned that hope does not come cheap

we all must sacrifice in the name of our beliefs

we believe in time that you will see

the frontier is misery

the frontier is misery

what do you think it is that makes us free?

a life without boundaries if you question everything

for all the times we cried and told the lies and realized life's not a rehearsal

come on babe, swing your heartache

come on babe, swing your heartache

getting older doesn't always mean you grow

to stare at the sun can easily blind you

the only way to learn you're not afraid to die

could very well involve risking your life

despite the contradictions that these words imply,

you've got to live on, live on, live on.

Dear Baby Femme Star:

       My sweet capsule of energy, this week marks the first official time I felt truly excited to become a mother.  Everyone tells me this is a pretty normal process for the beginning of pregnancy, since for the most part, you are just sick and tired.  The catalyst for this excitement was nothing less than empowerment.  After beginning an awesome book about parenting (and subsequently reading half of it in one sitting), I could suddenly see a vision of myself as a successful and happy mother.  "Bringing up Bebe" is a wonderful account of the differences in American pregnancy/parenting vs. French pregnancy/parenting.  A lot of what the French do makes so much sense to me that it quelled so many anxieties about parenting styles.  There is a lot I've learned, but mainly the notion that the French seem to make the transition from 'woman' to 'mother' a more seamless, holistic move.  They are still encouraged to take care of themselves, to be as beautiful as they can (and to take the time to do so), and to live their life integrated with a child, not because of and totally catering to a child.  They are calm, less anxious, and generally more trusting of their children's ability to learn at a very young age.  What was revived in my  soul this week, in the place of anxiety and dread, was nothing less than hope.  My goodness, it feels divine.

        Lets talk about boundaries, shall we? One of my dear friends recently reminded me that we must implement emotional boundaries as well as psychological/interpersonal boundaries.  I suppose I forgot that I cannot possibly internalize every person's opinion of my life, marriage, pregnancy, etc. I cannot adopt every birthing method or parenting strategy.  I am a sensitive person with a rather thin skin, and have only found a way to thicken it in my early 30s.  Oh child, how I hope that you will learn this lesson much sooner in life.  How I hope to spare you from the agony of extracting all those critical voices from your being, only to discover your own voice is the true critic and that you are using others as a scapegoat.  When we hear criticism of our own choices, and afterward become prickly, defensive, and downright hurt by another's opinion, I believe what is truly painful is actually our own doubts revealed to us within this opinion.  Take the time to internalize your doubt, truly examine it in light of new information, but let it stop before it destroys hope and crushes your spirit.  There is such a difference between healthy self-doubt and insipid absorption of the world around you.  May the voice inside you be always gentle, always educated, always kind, and always empowered.  Selah.

       Your father had the most endearing dream about you, and as his eyes welled up in tears while telling me, I felt a wave of familial bliss come over me.  Oh! I am so eager to meet you and kiss your chubby face and see your father's prodigious soul within your green eyes.

~The Voice

p.s. Additionally, Joel and I could use your voice to weigh in on our debate about Harper's Bazaar vs. Vogue.  This month, Bazaar all the way. What did you think?