pestering your wife every 30 seconds with hyper questions such as howareyoufeeling? anythinginteresting? areyouhavingcontractions? howareyoureallyfeeling? anthing? isthebabycomingtoday? isthebabycomingtonight? whenisthebabycoming? howareyoufeelingnow? DOESN’T SPEED THINGS ALONG. shocking.
S feels crampy and poopy and tired. she is 1 1/2 cm dilated and her belly is getting ridiculously large, but no baby, no sign that labor is starting any time soon.
Earlier this month I spend an ENTIRE weekend with Bri, Wes and Beckett of the Dimples. That baby. So fucking cute. What a happy boy he is. Where do I start? The view? The beach itself? Gossip about Bri?
Bri’s family beach house. Not just any beach house, but one right on the fucking cliff, with granite countertops and an *insane* view of the beach. And a hot tub. And music in the effing bathroom. Like you have a little dial in there and whatever is playing in the stereo (and Bri and Wes have fabulous taste in music) comes to greet you at the volume of your choice when you are showering! Fancy times. We could travel together (our family and theirs including Beck of the Dimples), and that is a gem of a find in friends, or anyone really. No matter how much you like someone you never know if you can spend large amounts of time with them, cook with them, make daily decisions, without getting irritated.
Smarty loved Beckett. He sat next to him, stared at him, gave him toys, refused to share his toys, and talked to him in a gentle voice. Finally on the last day, he let Becket crawl on him.
I will let Bri tell you about my unfuckingbelievable scrabble game. It is the most braggable score I have ever heard of. For realz.
I took pregnancy pics of S yesterday…here is a sneak peek.
as in i have it. i dropped our fucking laptop two days ago and broke the fucking screen. so i am typing this blindly them moving it back and forth in the small part of the screen that is not broken, to proofread. hopefully i can find the publish button.
i am so distracted lately. in a weird altered state waiting for the baby. i made some big mistakes with a client this week (well 2 clients acually), my supervisor was harsh with me, i broke the computer. i’m distracted. forgetting to return phone calls. spacy. boring.
39 weeks 2 days today. S, as of thursday is 1 1/2 cm dialated. holy crap.
S had some cramping last night that was painful and woke her up several times, but nothing today. I feel disconnected blogging about it. In real life I am super excited, even though labor could still be a week or more away. But I don’t know how to bring that intensity into this blog. I feel like I have not involved you all in the day to day of this pregnancy…party because I am not pregnant, partly because I got a job and don’t have as much blogging energy, and lastly, because I never was able to transform this TTC blog successfully into a pregnancy blog.
I remember how hard it was for me, at times, to look at other people’s belly shots, to comment when they were discussing crib bumpers. It isn’t that I feel guilty about being pregnant. Not quite. No. Right now I greatly enjoy the breastfeeding talk, the sleeping woes, the belly shots…on other people’s blogs. But this blog has always felt like a TTC journal, a place for support during the very shitty journey trying to make this baby. But now I feel sad that I have not blogged more about this part of the journey.
I feel close so CLOSE to attaining this impossible feeling goal, to having this baby, to holding her, finally, smelling her baby head, and I don’t know how to share it on this blog. Somehow I am not talking to you about how the excitement mixes with fear and it feels like my throat is closing. I’m not blogging about how it felt to tie the bumper to the crib, how I almost cried at the pure joy of it. I trust that if people need to not read about it, they will skip it. I do. But the intensity of this time doesnt’ come pouring out of me here. I am reluctant. Withholding. Maybe I’m just afraid it will all burn down before my eyes if I blog about the closeness, the delicate ‘almost’ feeling I have in the pit of my stomach every day when we are so close to meeting her. Shoot. I don’t know what I’m saying. I just feel confused, and sad, and I don’t know how to explain it, when really I’m happy. WTF?
I am a nesting lunatic. I successfully set up our crib in Smarty’s room and completely rearranged all the furniture, did laundry, decorated, and placed blankets throughout the house (this one is weird). I have been forgetting to take my crazy pills (Wellbutr!n) so I am slightly unpleasant to be around.
there is no car seat in the car.
there is no crib set up (it’s in a box).
there is no co-sleeper next to our bed (our friends have not given it to us yet).
there is no hooter hider.
her clothes are not washed.
her toys are not in a bin.
the house is a mess as we attempt to make room for an obscene amount of the baby paraphernalia.
S’s “nesting” is like a beer drinking guy’s nesting…she goes to the gravel store and people (men who feel sorry for her largeness) load her car with bags of pea gravel so she can redo the landing of our outdoor stairs. really?! yes. this is relaxing for her…not folding clothes, or cleaning or organizing the baby gear. no, placing concrete pavers and gravel on our stairs landing while 9 months pregnant.
at least we do have teeeeeeny diapers.
The baby is full term and could come any time now. Tic. Tock.
The reality of a baby is suddenly very real. Both for our family, and apparently, for our donor’s family. My friend WTF posted a little deal about it the other day, and then we had a soulful therapisty chat. I want her to be able to express her feelings, thoughts, worries, joys about this freely, but when she does, I sometimes get slightly nervous. I have actually been wondering where her angst was hiding, about this very complicated subject, and am relieved to see it surface rather than get shoved down or carefully put into a box and neatly wrapped.
These issues are real. They are juicy and complicated and full of paradox. Babies. Sperm. Biology. Genetics mean everything and nothing in the same moment. Rocket Man (our donor) is not Waffle Recipe’s father. Although we call him our donor, and we do not call his children our daughter’s half siblings - they are…technically, biologically. Yet, of course the relationships in our family are based on role and choice rather than biology. All true, but this can be true and other things can be true at the same time.
When I read WTF’s post, my first instinct was to reassure her - to tell her that feel her feelings are normal, but simultaneously minimize them. To convince her that her husband is not even the technical biological father of my wife’s baby. Of my baby. Because, you see, WTF and I want the same thing…for this baby to be mine.
But the truth is, when they handed us that cup of sperm, they became an alternative family. THEY did. We always were, they just had lesbian friends. Now their family is changed. And as generous as they are, and as freely as their gift to us was given, it is at the very least slightly complicated to give your genes away. Complicated to give your husband’s genes away. Complicated for another woman to be having a child who just as biologically related to your husband as your own children.
Fuuuuuuck. RIght? That is intense.
I do not want to pretend that doesn’t exist. I do not want to minimize her feelings, or the reality of their choice and its impact on her family. There has never been any doubt, for WTF, that this baby is ours, mine and S’s, but I think that was a little theoretical in some ways. I mean an actual baby is about to be born into the world. In like 3 weeks, or tomorrow! If I were WTF, I would be a little scared to love this baby, a little afraid of what my attachment might mean. Like, is it okay to be more attached to this baby than to Smarty? How much are donors, or donor families, allowed to love the children they helped the other family, the ‘real’ family, to make? What is appropriate? Are the donor’s kids allowed to love the child? How much? How connected are our families? WHat will happen when this kid grows up? Asks questions? I wonder how it would feel to be WTF right now, knowing NO ONE who is in her position. No one.
What does it mean that my wife is pregnant with the sperm of my best friend’s husband?
So here I sit, waiting for my baby to arrive, holding many truths.
This is my baby AND this baby is not genetically related to me.
WTF and RM have nothing to do with this baby in any parental way AND this baby ties our family together.
All of us entered this with love, with brilliant intentions, without strings, or regrets AND we are all allowed to have messy complicated feelings about it. This I know for sure.
As our roller skating, smart, stable, wine loving, funny, somewhat emotionally unavailable, handsome, donor says: This is just another way to experience life, and whatever happens, we will always know that we made this decision out of love [or something like that].
To my lovely friend WTF, thank you for being our sperm pimp, and ultimately pimping out your own husband so that we could create the lovely creature we are about to meet, and please know that you have permission, forever, to have feelings about donating sperm to us, because after all, that sperm made an actual baby. You have permission to feel messy, complicated and weird about it sometimes. And you have permission to love her, too.
my friend Chicory and her wife Klove are in the midst of a miscarriage, which is always dreadful, but this sadness is piling on a heap, on top of a heap. love to them.
and love to my friend J - as i cheer for her embryos who are going back in tomorrow.
more later on the known donor front.
S talked to her mom today, who is both saying the right thing (’whatever you guys need’) and pulling the guilt (’I really want to be there for the birth’) and we are back in the nightmarish land of Mother-In-Law. She called to ask S what the “final decision” is about the birth, and whether she can be there. Who calls to ask this? This is the 3rd time she has asked about it. Sheesh. Back it up bi-atch.
When I made my big concession (which can be read about here and here) a few months ago it was a huge relief. I decided that S could make the decision about her mom and I would deal with it. I have never in the history of this blog had so many comments on a post that wasn’t a. announcing pregnancy or b. announcing a deadbabydisaster. This is a giant heated topic. Two moms, two pregnancies, who makes the decisions.
Her decision is…
MIL can be in the hospital for the labor, visit once, and then come in for the birth.
I think to S this is a big compromise. This is her listening to my needs and wants. This is supposed to make me happy or at least be palatable. I know we have been through this before, my internet friends. I know that almost everyone feels that this should be S’s decision. Ultimately I have let it be her decision. But that doesn’t mean I like it. Her being there for the most important part is sickening to me. I appreciate that S is trying to minimize her time with us, but it doesn’t feel like a compromise at all.
I hate it. I hate every second of it and I have to suck it all up and accept her decision. So I will.
But it fucking sucks. I can pretend to S that I am okay with it, which I am planning to do, but the truth is: I hate it.
