The Bump Chronicles- week 21

Some people are surprised that Fox goes to all prenatal appointments with me, why shouldn’t he? He’s part of the process too! My body may be the one doing the cooking, but he was part of the process and we as a couple are pregnant.

I always feel bad when I hear women talk about how they went to their appointments alone and how they had to beg and twist their partner’s arm to convince them to come to the ultrasound to see the baby only to have them cancel for some work reason. Quite frankly I would be pissed at Fox if he were like that.

When we’re at the appointment with the midwife listening to baby Fox’s heartbeat and I look up to see the happiness and excitement in hubby’s face as he proudly holds up his cell phone to record the sound, it makes the experience that much more special and emotional.

Yes, daddy Fox has admitted that he feels movement, that makes me very happy that he can share on this part of the experience, specially lately when sometimes it seems like there is a party in my belly.

Strangers don’t seem to realize that I’m pregnant, I guess that to them I’m just fat. We were at a garage sale last week and there was a bin full of maternity clothes, as I was digging through it, 2 people felt compelled to loudly point out more than once that those were maternity clothes, one more time and I would have probably snapped with something not nice along the lines of “I can read”.

At work it’s the opposite, specially those people that have been working there for a long time and remember me as the stick with the big butt so now I get weird comments about beautiful pregnant bellies from the most unexpected coworkers.

I had been warned about bizarre dreams while pregnant, and yes I’ve had them. But over the last couple of days my dreams haven’t been so weird as just weirdly symbolic, 2 days in a row I’ve had symbolism in different forms of a huge transition, going “up a level” or graduating. In the dream I look back at the previous level, at those that haven’t reached the transition with me and instead of missing what is being left behind I just feel a little sad for the people that are still at that level.

I take this to relate to the huge rite of passage that I’m in preparing for, one that until just a short couple of years ago I never thought I would want, I can’t seriously claim that as a little girl I dreamed of being a mom (if at 5 years old you asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up my answer always was “a successful executive and divorced”) yet here I am 23 years later feeling a little uncertain about the unknown ahead, knowing that no book or website out there will be a good enough instruction manual for what is to come yet surprisingly I am not feeling scared.

I’m starting to have questions about baby showers coming from people whom I never thought would want to be invited. So here are my thoughts on baby showers… I hate them.

This doesn’t mean that I would be opposed to having a “baby shower like” event but it would need to be reworked slightly. Since motherhood is a major spiritual rite of passage for me and not an opportunity to get gifts (but I admit, I love gifts), I would more prefer to have a Baby Blessing gathering, similar to a Blessing Way that some people do.

How is this different from a baby shower you ask? For starters, it would be co-ed with Daddy Fox having just as big of a spotlight as Mommy Fox, silly games involving baby dolls and chocolate pudding would be replaced with more meaningful activities such as writing sentiments and decorating a scrapbook for baby to read as he/she gets older, belly decorating, if people want something fun there could be trivia. There would be no “oohs” and “aaahs” over opening presents as gifts would be optional and not opened at the event so that those that were unable or chose not to bring anything won’t feel bad.

For those of a spiritual persuasion regardless of religious affiliation that wish to stay until the end there would be a simple ceremony to promote a safe transition for baby from womb to real world.

So that would be my ideal version of a “baby shower”, now who wants to start planning? lol just kidding.

To be fair, I’m actually very upbeat as of this writing but I can’t claim that to be a constant, there’s enough stress factors coming from many different angles at once that I realize hormones can be my biggest enemy when it comes to trying to remain emotionally stable through it all. The other night I was in quite a phunk over a gazillion different things and I felt like my only escape was to sleep until the next day but thankfully hubby talked me into hanging out with the bird and it’s amazing how an animal doing something funny and cute without trying and the resulting belly laughs from it can be so healing.

That valentine’s day gift ended being coming in very handy…

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