We're growing things!
roots from a cutting!
a tree from a lava rock!
a human being from scratch!
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I learned I was having a kid via a ClearBlue test administered in the restroom at the Uncommon Ground, immediately followed (after a quick trip to Walgreens) by three more tests done in rapid succession (all positive: the plus signs were clearly plus signs and not Maybe Minus Signs With Blurry Edges). I am nothing if not thorough.
Christopher, upon learning he was having a kid, threw his clenched fists in the air homerun-style and yelled, “I AM CAPTAIN OF THE SWIM TEAM!”
We then made a deal to keep this news to ourselves until we made it through the first trimester, which was a challenge because this is the kind of information you want to scream from rooftops. Hire out a skywriter, or one of those annoying airplanes that drags advertisements around at the North Avenue Beach. The day after we found out, the GE guy came over to fix the dishwasher and as he looked through his tools I’m standing there like, “HOW CAN YOU FIX THE DISHWASHER AT A TIME LIKE THIS!?" And my poor summer school class!! All these intelligent, hard-working students sitting there day after day making incredibly astute observations about the short story form and in my brain I’m going, “THERE’S A F’ING HUMAN BEING IN MY STOMACH, PEOPLE!” And of course, I haven’t been drinking, and after a few weeks of ordering only Pellegrino I started to get the single raised eyebrow from people and even a couple tentative, “Are you … ?”’s, to which I was like, “Am I … ? Oh NO! I have a long day tomorrow I have an early morning tomorrow I had a long night last night I’m just tired,” and that’ll only evade the masses for so long.
Especially my masses. Who enjoy a cocktail or two or five.
But during my second ultrasound, the doctor told me the kid had two legs. TWO LEGS. TWO. And also TWO ARMS! AND LUNGS, IT HAS LUNGS! AND THAT LITTLE FLICKER, THAT’S A HEART! “You see that?” she said, pointing to the gray fuzz on the screen. I had no idea what I was looking at but since she had a med school degree and also a camera stuck up in my business, who was I to argue? so I nodded, and she said, “It’s sucking its thumb!” and I was like, “IT HAS THUMBS?” and she laughed ‘cause she probably hears silly girls like me say such things twenty times a day but, I swear to God, I could’ve floated right off that table, paper robe at all, and hit my head on the ceiling I was so goddamn happy.
Here are the stats:
The new Jobson has been around for four months and is currently the size of an avocado according to babycenter.com (a very informative website which keeps me up-to-date on what’s up with my kid and when will hormones make me nuts and do I really need a bouncy swing to hang from the doorframe and when should I buy new bras). Prior to a avocado, my kid’s been a jumbo shrimp, a kumquat, a grape, a kidney bean, a raspberry, a chickpea, a lentil and a sesame seed. This, while informative, is a fairly disturbing way to measure fetal growth. For example, when Christopher came home from the grocery store with grapes I couldn’t, like, EAT them! I had to sit and STARE at them! This grape—this little squishy, skin-thing—was my KID!
Not that I really wanted to eat the grapes. I haven’t wanted much of anything besides Saltine crackers, white rice and pre-natal vitamins, which is better than my usual diet of wine, sushi and soft French cheese, none of which I’m allowed to eat.
Dammit.
Babycenter.com told me it’s normal to eat only bland food in the first trimester. Babycenter told me lots of things, actually, and because of this I developed a scorching case of Medical Student’s Disease. Like, week six I read about how I’d be getting really emotional soon, and two hours later I’m watching that Sandra Bullock movie where she’s a witch and her sister is possessed by her asshole ex-boyfriend and there’s that neat part where Nicole Kidman sings the Joni Mitchell song in the car but for the most part it’s pretty mediocre and here’s the thing: I CRIED ALL THE WAY THROUGH. I cried ‘cause Sandra Bullock was lonely and ‘cause the beetle chirped for her dead husband and her daughters couldn’t eat cake for dinner and at the end they jumped off the roof in red and white striped socks and the whole time I was all, “WHAT THE HELL IS HAPPENING TO ME?” but now I just don’t care, whatever, I cried last week during Hell’s Kitchen and I’m not afraid to admit it although I do think that guy is really nasty and someone should spill hot soup on him which is not at all maternal of me and maybe I should work on that.
Seriously, though. We’re really happy. We’re bouncing off the walls.
(not literally, of course. That would be dangerous for the kid)