{"id":1701,"date":"2009-08-14T10:17:36","date_gmt":"2009-08-14T15:17:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/girlwpen.com\/?p=1701"},"modified":"2009-08-14T10:17:36","modified_gmt":"2009-08-14T15:17:36","slug":"blogging-pregnancy-primordial-entourage","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/2009\/08\/14\/blogging-pregnancy-primordial-entourage\/","title":{"rendered":"Blogging Pregnancy: Primordial Entourage"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"It was recently pointed out to me by my dear observant friend Daphne<\/a> that when talking about this pregnancy with her, I haven\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t once said anything about the fact that there will soon be two new little beings around here (knock on wood) and that I will be their mother. I think the reason for my reticence lies snug inside those two parentheses: knock wood.<\/em><\/p>\n

I am not, in general, a superstitious person. My grandmother, an orthodox Jew who would have been 100 last week had she lived just two more years, believed in the evil eye. Before getting pregnant, I neither knocked on wood nor spat three times (the Jewish equivalent) when mentioning a hope or a dream. And yet I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve been a bundle of superstitious tentativeness when it comes to talking about the life forms I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m gestating as real people who will one day exist outside.<\/p>\n

Why?<\/p>\n

My mother, a therapist, says it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s obvious: \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Self-protection, honey,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d says she. And it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s true. I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m of advanced maternal age and I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m carrying twins, which automatically throws me into categorical high alert. But I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve been carrying this unfathomably wondrous primordial soup in my uterus now for almost 27 weeks, and all has unfolded, so far, according to plan. When, I wonder, will I allow myself to hope, to dream, out loud?<\/p>\n

I have never, ever wanted something this much. Well, that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not completely true. I wanted a husband, and then, when the first one didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t work out so well, I wanted another. I wanted a book contract, and later a second and a third. I achieved those things. I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve been blessed (if you believe in that sort of thing), and I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve worked hard to realize my desires. But with pregnancy, it feels different. We did everything in the book\u00e2\u20ac\u201dand then some\u00e2\u20ac\u201dto get to this point, but from here on in, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s pretty much out of our hands.<\/p>\n

The universe is encouraging, helping gently to push me along. Last week Daphne sent me an envelope in the mail with a note scrawled on the outside: \u00e2\u20ac\u0153the first of many hand-me-downs from me!\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Inside were two little sets of newborn-sized socks. The gear amasses. My mother-in-law sent baby shoes. A friend from childhood, herself a twin, gave me two matching onesies with images of the Dr. Seuss creatures, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Thing 1\u00e2\u20ac\u009d and \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Thing 2.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d My aunt corralled a gently used double stroller from her physical therapist. My cousin has offered me her breast pump. Soon it will be time to get the babies\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 room, currently full of boxes from our recent move, in shape for its forthcoming residents. I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve been calling it \u00e2\u20ac\u0153the second bedroom.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d I can barely even say \u00e2\u20ac\u0153babies\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 room.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

Don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t get me wrong\u00e2\u20ac\u201dI\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m moved beyond language at the thought that there will be babies. When I see newborns on the street, I choke up. Just thinking about those teeny socks makes me cry. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s just that somewhere between the concept \u00e2\u20ac\u0153babies\u00e2\u20ac\u009d and the reality \u00e2\u20ac\u0153my babies,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d or rather, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153our babies,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d my thoughts get lost in translation. Lost in gestation, maybe.\u00c2\u00a0 (Have any of you, I bet, I hope, felt this way?!)<\/p>\n

For now, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s easier to think of these inexplicable creatures that rumble in my belly as my own private primordial entourage. They\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re in there doing their thing, and I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m out here doing mine. I wonder if I should be talking to them more. I try to get my husband to put his mouth near my belly and sing. But we both have trouble, it seems, relating to them as people who can connect to us as \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Mom\u00e2\u20ac\u009d and \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Dad.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d It will be different, I know, when we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re all out here living on the same side.<\/p>\n

For now, they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll remain a mystery. They\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re abstract to me, but I can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t wait for them to become concrete. Yesterday my friend Kathy suggested I write them a letter. And maybe I will. This is how it might start:<\/p>\n

Dear Baby Things (1&2),
\nKeep cooking. I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m here for you, waiting. You may be my entourage, but I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m your number one fan.
\nLove,
\nYour Mama-to-be <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It was recently pointed out to me by my dear observant friend Daphne that when talking about this pregnancy with her, I haven\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t once said anything about the fact that there will soon be two new little beings around here (knock on wood) and that I will be their mother. I think the reason for […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1902,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[21096],"tags":[3109,3290],"class_list":["post-1701","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blogging-pregnancy","tag-motherhood","tag-pregnancy"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1701","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1902"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1701"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1701\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1701"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1701"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1701"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}