Baseball has started—hurray for that!
It's raining-ish. As in, not actually raining right now, but looking like it's about to.
Henry got fixed and wore a plastic collar; it's off now, and he's just as insane and cute as before. Now with shaved balls, though.
I finished my teaching stint at Oakland School for the Arts. The students seemed very sad to see me go, and gave very positive feedback about the class. I also brought them cookies (a terrible breach of the schools no-food-in-the-classroom policy, I learned), which may have made them more prone to enthusiastic praise.
Ivy's movements are changing—I can tell that she's bigger because in addition to feeling her kicks and punches, I feel this incredibly strange and cool sense of her kind of rolling around, turning, shifting. Like she's trying to get comfortable in an increasingly shrinking space (which is exactly what's happening, I assume). Some of her movements are so strong and intense—yesterday I was lying on my side on the couch and I swear, I felt the length of her entire leg. As in, my hand was resting on my belly and suddenly her leg was in my hand, but beneath my skin. Ah! Amazing and freaky!
I'm officially in The Third Trimester. The homestretch. Well, I have a few months before it's really the homestretch, but this is the part that people like to tell you will really suck. In fact, people like to talk a lot about the aspects of birth and child-rearing that suck or will suck. And I'm really not a fan of this Culture of Suck. Don't get me wrong—in two months I might look back at this post and cackle at my naive optimism as I groan in pain and massage my spider veins and elevate my swollen cankles and curse at the world in general and beg the gods to get her out of me already! Maybe that will be the case. But dudes—maybe it won't! I'm not assuming I'll be in blissful comfort the whole time, but I don't believe I have to be miserable. That's what I'm going to focus on, hope for, intend for myself and Jason and Ivy and everyone around me. Birth will be painful and crazy and intense and who fucking knows, and all I can do is accept that, and believe that my body knows what to do. Intellectual Thinking Processing Experiencing Kate does not "know" how to have a baby, but Animal Primal Physical Human Woman Kate sure as shit does.
And the same goes for once she is here, in our arms, with us in this world. I know we will be tired and overwhelmed and maybe freaked out but we will have a magical little creature! And of course birth is painful and of course having an infant is hard and crazy because we have not done either and you can read a million books but nothing prepares you for the moment like the moment itself. Nothing can really teach you about your baby but the baby itself. As the wise wise Nancy Bardacke always said, your baby is your teacher. I think Jason and I—chronic knowledge-hoarding know-it-alls that we are—are both looking forward to being humbled, to being instructed and guided by this wise and fragile force. And so when people offer us their 'advice', their oh it's so hard and god you'll never sleep and say goodbye to your lives cuz you're never leaving the house again and blah blah blah the difficulties!, we both just kind of smile and nod and shrug and inside we're both thinking yup, it'll be hard. No shit. But we're actually pretty damn excited. It's like the Culture of Suck is about this common suffering, this complaining and compulsion to 'warn' people about what they're getting into and, ok, I know it's easy for me to criticize this, as I'm not there yet, but a) We've already gotten into it. So the 'warning' is a bit beside the point. and b) I don't really want to bond over the negative aspects of this. I'd really rather bond over how awesome it is to be pregnant, and to have the opportunity to have this baby together. The same goes for birth: women are taught to fear it, to expect unbearable pain,, intolerable pain. It's been pathologized to the point that it actually seems impossible for many women. And it is scary—it's totally insane to think that this big ass kicking moving baby is going to somehow emerge from my vagina. I mean, WTF?! BUT. I know I can do it. I know it will hurt. I know it will happen, I will endure it, I cannot begin to predict what it'll be like, or plan it, or design it. All I can do is believe it will work, that we will all get through it, it will end, and we will have a baby. I don't need it to be orgasmic and blissful (though I would not mind) but I'm not giving into the total terrordreadanxiety of it all.
I'm being harsh and crabby here, but I do think this is part of a larger cultural compulsion to connect with others based on hardship and things-going-wrong. We like to complain about work and love and the weather and money and our families and the economy and our health. I do it too—I'm not a total Pollyanna hippie. But I'm seeing it in a new way now. I get these emails from babycenter.com, which I like because they're weekly updates on the approximate size and development of the baby, but which I dislike because that info is inevitably followed by a laundry list of things that are probably making me miserable—veins and hemorrhoids and mood swings and barfing and fear and relationship problems and all this shit that is totally valid, and which happens to many, many women, and some of which may certainly happen to me. And it's important that women get info about it all—but it's also nice to get some love and support, some yay you're doing it, this is so amazing! They once had an article on "Things I Wish I'd Known About Pregnancy Before I Was Pregnant" and they had this immense list of awful shit that women hated about being pregnant. There was like one quote that was actually about how nice it was to be pregnant. And this week's email had the subject heading: "7 fears expectant fathers face" followed by a list of 7 pretty obvious things that a dude might be worried about (with little to no actual advice about how to manage these fears). But is there is companion list of "7 things expectant fathers look forward to"? Or "7 awesome things about being a dad"? Nope. What To Expect When You're Expecting (which should be retitled What To Be Totally Freaked Out About When You're Expecting) does the same thing—for each month of your pregnancy, you get a chapter filled with questions about all the things that can go wrong with your body and mind. So yes, I know that I'm having a very privileged pregnancy in many ways, and I'm lucky to be in such a good place, but that's exactly the point. It does not suck for everyone. And I have no shame in being blatantly, publicly happy about it all.
The other night Jenn was talking about this exact thing, as she relayed the fear she had about raising Arlo as a single parent—so many people 'offered' her sympathetic words of 'advice' about the challenges, the struggles, the misery, the exhaustion, all of which led Jenn—uncertain about her pregnancy in the first place—to develop a lot of fear around having him, sure that there was no way she's be able to work and raise him and stay sane. And as she says, YES, it's been hard and YES it's been challenging but oh my god she has the most wonderful intelligent awesome son that she loves to death and when she was up at 3am nursing him instead of sleeping she was tired, sure, but she was nursing this incredible baby that smelled so good and was so sweet and loving.
And so, there's the trade-off. That's the shit. It will be hard and awesome. It will be crazy and beautiful. It will overwhelm and overjoy. It will change us. Our lives will be different. Things will never be the same. Fucking duh.
It will blow our minds, in many ways. And I do believe we are ready to have our minds blown.
Ok. Rant complete. I am playing Fleet Foxes through the tiny ipod speaker next to my belly. I think she likes it.
Happy birthday mom! Thank you for making me, raising me, loving me, supporting me. Shit, now I'm going to cry.
It's raining-ish. As in, not actually raining right now, but looking like it's about to.
Henry got fixed and wore a plastic collar; it's off now, and he's just as insane and cute as before. Now with shaved balls, though.
I finished my teaching stint at Oakland School for the Arts. The students seemed very sad to see me go, and gave very positive feedback about the class. I also brought them cookies (a terrible breach of the schools no-food-in-the-classroom policy, I learned), which may have made them more prone to enthusiastic praise.
Ivy's movements are changing—I can tell that she's bigger because in addition to feeling her kicks and punches, I feel this incredibly strange and cool sense of her kind of rolling around, turning, shifting. Like she's trying to get comfortable in an increasingly shrinking space (which is exactly what's happening, I assume). Some of her movements are so strong and intense—yesterday I was lying on my side on the couch and I swear, I felt the length of her entire leg. As in, my hand was resting on my belly and suddenly her leg was in my hand, but beneath my skin. Ah! Amazing and freaky!
I'm officially in The Third Trimester. The homestretch. Well, I have a few months before it's really the homestretch, but this is the part that people like to tell you will really suck. In fact, people like to talk a lot about the aspects of birth and child-rearing that suck or will suck. And I'm really not a fan of this Culture of Suck. Don't get me wrong—in two months I might look back at this post and cackle at my naive optimism as I groan in pain and massage my spider veins and elevate my swollen cankles and curse at the world in general and beg the gods to get her out of me already! Maybe that will be the case. But dudes—maybe it won't! I'm not assuming I'll be in blissful comfort the whole time, but I don't believe I have to be miserable. That's what I'm going to focus on, hope for, intend for myself and Jason and Ivy and everyone around me. Birth will be painful and crazy and intense and who fucking knows, and all I can do is accept that, and believe that my body knows what to do. Intellectual Thinking Processing Experiencing Kate does not "know" how to have a baby, but Animal Primal Physical Human Woman Kate sure as shit does.
And the same goes for once she is here, in our arms, with us in this world. I know we will be tired and overwhelmed and maybe freaked out but we will have a magical little creature! And of course birth is painful and of course having an infant is hard and crazy because we have not done either and you can read a million books but nothing prepares you for the moment like the moment itself. Nothing can really teach you about your baby but the baby itself. As the wise wise Nancy Bardacke always said, your baby is your teacher. I think Jason and I—chronic knowledge-hoarding know-it-alls that we are—are both looking forward to being humbled, to being instructed and guided by this wise and fragile force. And so when people offer us their 'advice', their oh it's so hard and god you'll never sleep and say goodbye to your lives cuz you're never leaving the house again and blah blah blah the difficulties!, we both just kind of smile and nod and shrug and inside we're both thinking yup, it'll be hard. No shit. But we're actually pretty damn excited. It's like the Culture of Suck is about this common suffering, this complaining and compulsion to 'warn' people about what they're getting into and, ok, I know it's easy for me to criticize this, as I'm not there yet, but a) We've already gotten into it. So the 'warning' is a bit beside the point. and b) I don't really want to bond over the negative aspects of this. I'd really rather bond over how awesome it is to be pregnant, and to have the opportunity to have this baby together. The same goes for birth: women are taught to fear it, to expect unbearable pain,, intolerable pain. It's been pathologized to the point that it actually seems impossible for many women. And it is scary—it's totally insane to think that this big ass kicking moving baby is going to somehow emerge from my vagina. I mean, WTF?! BUT. I know I can do it. I know it will hurt. I know it will happen, I will endure it, I cannot begin to predict what it'll be like, or plan it, or design it. All I can do is believe it will work, that we will all get through it, it will end, and we will have a baby. I don't need it to be orgasmic and blissful (though I would not mind) but I'm not giving into the total terrordreadanxiety of it all.
I'm being harsh and crabby here, but I do think this is part of a larger cultural compulsion to connect with others based on hardship and things-going-wrong. We like to complain about work and love and the weather and money and our families and the economy and our health. I do it too—I'm not a total Pollyanna hippie. But I'm seeing it in a new way now. I get these emails from babycenter.com, which I like because they're weekly updates on the approximate size and development of the baby, but which I dislike because that info is inevitably followed by a laundry list of things that are probably making me miserable—veins and hemorrhoids and mood swings and barfing and fear and relationship problems and all this shit that is totally valid, and which happens to many, many women, and some of which may certainly happen to me. And it's important that women get info about it all—but it's also nice to get some love and support, some yay you're doing it, this is so amazing! They once had an article on "Things I Wish I'd Known About Pregnancy Before I Was Pregnant" and they had this immense list of awful shit that women hated about being pregnant. There was like one quote that was actually about how nice it was to be pregnant. And this week's email had the subject heading: "7 fears expectant fathers face" followed by a list of 7 pretty obvious things that a dude might be worried about (with little to no actual advice about how to manage these fears). But is there is companion list of "7 things expectant fathers look forward to"? Or "7 awesome things about being a dad"? Nope. What To Expect When You're Expecting (which should be retitled What To Be Totally Freaked Out About When You're Expecting) does the same thing—for each month of your pregnancy, you get a chapter filled with questions about all the things that can go wrong with your body and mind. So yes, I know that I'm having a very privileged pregnancy in many ways, and I'm lucky to be in such a good place, but that's exactly the point. It does not suck for everyone. And I have no shame in being blatantly, publicly happy about it all.
The other night Jenn was talking about this exact thing, as she relayed the fear she had about raising Arlo as a single parent—so many people 'offered' her sympathetic words of 'advice' about the challenges, the struggles, the misery, the exhaustion, all of which led Jenn—uncertain about her pregnancy in the first place—to develop a lot of fear around having him, sure that there was no way she's be able to work and raise him and stay sane. And as she says, YES, it's been hard and YES it's been challenging but oh my god she has the most wonderful intelligent awesome son that she loves to death and when she was up at 3am nursing him instead of sleeping she was tired, sure, but she was nursing this incredible baby that smelled so good and was so sweet and loving.
And so, there's the trade-off. That's the shit. It will be hard and awesome. It will be crazy and beautiful. It will overwhelm and overjoy. It will change us. Our lives will be different. Things will never be the same. Fucking duh.
It will blow our minds, in many ways. And I do believe we are ready to have our minds blown.
Ok. Rant complete. I am playing Fleet Foxes through the tiny ipod speaker next to my belly. I think she likes it.
Happy birthday mom! Thank you for making me, raising me, loving me, supporting me. Shit, now I'm going to cry.
4 comments:
Love love love your POV about all this. I totally agree about the Culture Of Suck and that totally plays into what I've been writing about (trying to write a book, actually). You're a great lady, Kate! <3
Really incredible post. It's so lovely to hear you celebrating this experience. It just shows what an amazing, positive and radical parent you're going to be. Yay awesome parents! Happy Birthday Barb!
Totally dead on about the "woes of living" that so many cling to. It's great to hear how you've indulged and sifted and are now enlightened in a super awesomely positive way. Rachel said it...Ivy is in some great hands.
Awwwww, thanks guys! Erik, I'll buy your book for sure!
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