Spellcast

“In periods of rapid personal change, we pass through life as though we are spellcast. We speak in sentences that end before finishing. We sleep heavily because we need to ask so many questions as we dream alone. We bump into others and feel bashful at recognizing souls so similar to ourselves.” ― Douglas Coupland, Shampoo Planet

I’m finding it hard to talk about this.  My normal journal has a single entry about being pregnant, and my “pregnancy journal” has a baker’s dozen.  It feels hard to talk about something so, well, momentous.  And strange.  And so… final.  Like, post March, everything changes.  And that’s hard to wrap my mind around.

So let’s talk about the easy stuff.   I’m 20 weeks along tomorrow.  The baby is a little kicking, flailing machine.  I’ve been feeling movement for about a month now (since 16 weeks) and I’m pretty convinced we have a future soccer player on our hands.  I can’t feel it from the outside yet, but it certainly has made the meeting where Skipper moves more interesting.  (Also know as: it’s even easier to tune out the talking than usual!) Just this week I suddenly, I don’t know, popped?  I have gone from looking round (but possibly just overweight) to oh, hello, there’s a baby in there!  I can’t fit in to anything but my prepregnancy jeans, and that’s because they ride low.  I’ve put on like 4 pounds – the child is apparently just using my naturally occurring fat storage.  (Thanks, kid!)  I had a rather easy first trimester – some exhaustion, some nausea, no vomiting.  I’m getting the heartburn now most afternoons, but it’s not terrible.  I’m still going to all my fitness classes, and I’ve taken up prenatal yoga.  I like it – it’s run by a doola who brings her own pelvis and baby doll to class to illustrate her points, so it’s excellent birth prep as well as being all “and let’s make your backs hurt less.” 

As to the sex of the baby (which is the most asked question, because, really, what else is there to ask at this point?), we went to the ultrasound totally ready to find out.  I’m convinced it’s a boy, David’s equally convinced it’s a girl.  (We have that conversation regularly.)  The ultrasound revealed a healthy baby that would not uncross it’s legs.  At any point in the hour.  When she went in to stare at the kid’s junk, the baby responded by moving it’s crossed legs up in front of it’s face.  So we got a cute mental image but shitty picture (omg, who still uses an on laser printer?  and charges for it?) of the baby with it’s hands and feet in front of it’s face.  20 digits in one shot!  So that was cute.  It suggests very much that the kid is calling the shots here, and so David dubbed the kid Skipper, after the Nickelodeon penguin I love so much.  Neutrals it is!

Let’s see, what else.  I have purchased a grand total of, um, a single onesie.  In the 0-3 month size, which I keep staring at, and then looking at my stomach, and boggling about how the hell that’s going to work.  We have a crib and change table coming from a friend, and several people have offered us hand me down clothing.  I am so totally happy to accept other people’s stuff, and will pay it forwards when we’re done with babies.  We’ll probably spend more money on the fancy leather recliner in the basement (it matches the couch!  the basement reno is nearing the end!  6 months later!)  than we will on the whole nursery.  I’m burnt out from renos and so we’ll probably leave the room taupe and stick up the red balloon wall stickers, add some art, I’ll finish refinishing the dresser that belonged to my grandparents, buy a glide rocker from kijiji and hope that hand me downs and baby showers will provide clothing.  And then we’ll buy whatever we need.  That will work, right?   (I feel I’m failing at nesting.)   

About the only thing that I’m excited to buy is cloth diapers (which, in and of itself is, shall we say, very unlike me).  I fell down a rabbit hole the other day of jeweled colour diapers, and diapers with little giraffes with diapers, and diapers with physics equations and sqeeee.  Not that I’ve like, done anything about it, but I thought about it!  That counts, right? 

I am struggling to believe that I’m half done.  I’m 20 weeks tomorrow, so could already be more than half way done, if Skipper comes early.  And the time’s gone fast, which means I should do something to get ready, right?  Beyond reading books?  How much longer can I stall?  It must be a few weeks yet…