Letter to a bunch of cells cavorting in my uterus
Dear Stowaway,
You've been around for a few weeks and I just wanted to get some things straight. Just because you are unplanned does not mean that you are unwanted. On the contrary. You've been my favourite inconvenience so far. Those voices from the outside is your dad and me talking to you and telling you to be good and keep working industriously on cell division and the construction of your placenta and your rudemntary heart.
I would like to think that my almost complete absence of the usual pregnancy symptoms (except for itchy skin) is God throwing me a bone, saying "what with work and studying and a toddler and a 20,000 word dissertation, that woman has enough on her plate. let her be spared nausea, and dry, heaving, and aversion to any food that is not bacon or liquid smoothie.", rather than say, the lack of nausea being an indicator that you're not growing as you should, Stowaway. It's not that I'm ungrateful, because believe me being able to walk down Kilburn High Street without sensitivity to smell is a blessing I am grateful for every single day, but I love you a bit already you see, so I worry.
I think I know when you were made. I just felt ...something.. like a tiny light, a small star in my belly. It lingered for a day or so and then nothing. Just silence, no symptoms of anything at all. If it hadn't been for that persistent nagging feeling and the tidal sweep of fatigue I would have sworn I had imagined the whole thing. Except that my period never came and I did a test, and there you are.
It was similar with your brother. I remember the same glowing of something, and the sense of something beautiful and shy and a figure in a dream saying "Capricorn Boy", and then nothing more for three months and then only an intermittent flash of something until the last ten weeks when I could feel him. A sense of who he was going to be. Flurries of distress or delight, although none of that prepared us in any way at all for the reality of your brother as a newborn. Frankly I don't think anything could have prepared us for that except army bootcamp in which you have to lug a 4 kilo bag of flour around all day while not sleeping for more than an hour's stretch at a time.
It was hard, that. But we survived. So much so that now we want to do it again. But more than anything we want you. So be good, and multiply, and do all the things that you fetuses? feti? are supposed to do. Like dig in, grow, grow, grow and I'll see you in July.
Love
Yo Mama.
You've been around for a few weeks and I just wanted to get some things straight. Just because you are unplanned does not mean that you are unwanted. On the contrary. You've been my favourite inconvenience so far. Those voices from the outside is your dad and me talking to you and telling you to be good and keep working industriously on cell division and the construction of your placenta and your rudemntary heart.
I would like to think that my almost complete absence of the usual pregnancy symptoms (except for itchy skin) is God throwing me a bone, saying "what with work and studying and a toddler and a 20,000 word dissertation, that woman has enough on her plate. let her be spared nausea, and dry, heaving, and aversion to any food that is not bacon or liquid smoothie.", rather than say, the lack of nausea being an indicator that you're not growing as you should, Stowaway. It's not that I'm ungrateful, because believe me being able to walk down Kilburn High Street without sensitivity to smell is a blessing I am grateful for every single day, but I love you a bit already you see, so I worry.
I think I know when you were made. I just felt ...something.. like a tiny light, a small star in my belly. It lingered for a day or so and then nothing. Just silence, no symptoms of anything at all. If it hadn't been for that persistent nagging feeling and the tidal sweep of fatigue I would have sworn I had imagined the whole thing. Except that my period never came and I did a test, and there you are.
It was similar with your brother. I remember the same glowing of something, and the sense of something beautiful and shy and a figure in a dream saying "Capricorn Boy", and then nothing more for three months and then only an intermittent flash of something until the last ten weeks when I could feel him. A sense of who he was going to be. Flurries of distress or delight, although none of that prepared us in any way at all for the reality of your brother as a newborn. Frankly I don't think anything could have prepared us for that except army bootcamp in which you have to lug a 4 kilo bag of flour around all day while not sleeping for more than an hour's stretch at a time.
It was hard, that. But we survived. So much so that now we want to do it again. But more than anything we want you. So be good, and multiply, and do all the things that you fetuses? feti? are supposed to do. Like dig in, grow, grow, grow and I'll see you in July.
Love
Yo Mama.