Family Planning

As Chris and I prepare for the impending arrival of our little one, I also find myself relishing these final weeks and moments of pregnancy. We are literally on the precipice of HUGE change, that will be both wonderful and terrifying. I dream absurd and vivid things about birth. I lay awake and wonder about life with a child. I wonder also about how it will feel to no longer be pregnant. Will I miss feeling her move from the inside? Will I miss my large, hard belly? Will I miss the positive if unsolicited attention from strangers and acquaintances?

Sure, there are some physical discomforts that seem to grow as my body does and those I will not miss. I've grown a bit tired of being the default designated driver on nights when I still have the stamina to go out. I admit that I would love to have more than just sips of wine or any other alcoholic beverage. It would be nice to eat charcuterie and pate without guilt. And I already have raw oyster and sushi plans in the works.

But I imagine (as a consummate sap), that I will look back on these final days with deep fondness, nostalgia, and perhaps even a bit of envy for the time when things were so simple. When our plans and planning were still entirely within our control. When our sleep patterns were dictated largely by our whims. When it was easy to keep the house relatively clean and in order. When "we" meant just us two. I hope it isn't wrong to admit that in anticipating even the most exciting and positive change, it can be hard not to cling instinctively to what was already "known."

Chris and I have built such a happy life together and in my perpetual state of "too many feelings" I sometimes can't believe my good fortune in having him as my partner. Of course he's not perfect (and neither am I!) but we really suit each other. It feels fitting and poignant to share this with him. When I allow myself to dwell on it, my mind is blown by the notion that we've made what will become our new family member.*

Above you see us on our second wedding anniversary, wearing one of our wedding gifts. We kept meaning to wear these matching air brushed t-shirts to Kennywood (since wearing matching outfits is a grand Kennywood tradition that we've never actually shared) but it also made sense to debut them on our "cotton" anniversary. Although we weren't able to get photos in the same spot we did the last two years, we made the most of the day. It wasn't lost on me that it was our final wedding anniversary as just us two.

Our family planning brought us here. And I am both excited and nervous about what the future brings.

*My mind is also often blown by (mostly male) politicians playing political football with reproductive rights, especially when I reflect upon all the things the pregnant body has to do and all the discomforts that women can experience throughout this process. Rather than making me question my belief in reproductive rights, pregnancy has galvanized it. That some can flippantly suggest women carry unwanted, unplanned pregnancies to term with no say in the decision has become more baffling to me than ever.

The pregnant body image

Pregnancy is a liminal space of in-between. The life changes resultant from pregnancy are often described as "to be." And the language of pregnancy is often anticipatory and futuristic. Weekly emails describe my "baby" as though it exists autonomously and independent from me. And in a lot of ways, I feel abstracted from the process of its development. Instead I feel as though I must relinquish control to instinct and biology. My maternal body is doing its thing without conscious effort on my part (beyond some minor behavioral changes). So on some level, projecting "personhood" is to be expected, despite my own discomfort with such a notion.

The  rhetoric of personhood has led directly and indirectly to the erosion of women's reproductive rights in states around the country. So as a feminist, I feel reluctant especially to lend it credence. From an academic perspective it is interesting to notice how the descriptions of pregnancy's effects on the maternal body/person are near the end of the email, secondary and removed from the fetus rather than integrated across its narratives of development. In the discourse of pregnancy, these changes are framed as "side" effects, rather than simply "effects."

Recently, I revisited Emily Martin's canonical feminist text, The Woman in the Body: A Cultural Analysis of Reproduction and was reminded of the complicated history of (Western) medicine when it comes to treating women's bodies. In some ways, this history permeates how we understand and discuss pregnancy in broader American culture. And I've been trying to put that into context with my own experience of being pregnant.

So much of the discourse of pregnancy is futuristic and rooted in anticipating changes that are beyond one's control, but my pregnant body and mind inhabit the present. The pregnant body does remarkable things to foster and maintain a hospitable environment in which a fetus can develop (and an embryo and blastocyst, before that). The process is incredibly integrated and surprisingly efficient. I'm already grateful for the visceral and intellectual educations of this experience.

But at times it has been challenging to surrender those comforting feelings of control and put my trust in what is physiologically intuitive. Some days I feel alienated from an increasingly unfamiliar and occasionally uncomfortable, pained body. Related, I no longer enjoy the same amount of control in announcing my pregnancy to the outside world. My body speaks for me. And with the social and moral panic over pregnant bodies (i.e. so many opportunities to be policed and judged), it can also be incredibly disempowering to feel subordinate to what is an undeniably miraculous physiological process.

When you're experiencing so much change as you inhabit what was once a familiar body it can be tough to make sense of all the new normals. Of course, I am so thrilled to be pregnant and still find a great deal of novelty in feeling fetal movement which makes me even more excited and anticipatory. But this experience hasn't been without its own body image issues and transition pains.

On timing

at Chris's brother's graduation (week 22)

One of the questions asked by closer friends (who are still deciding whether kids will be in the scope of their lives) has been with regard to "timing." Above everything else, the question of timing plagued us most in the process of our own family planning. Chris and I agreed a long time ago that we'd like to have children "someday." Barring the potential for fertility challenges, that agreement made our discussion as a couple less about "if" and more about "when." While the changes resultant from this decision remained firmly in the realm of the abstract, it was easy to speak of the future with confidence. "When we have a family... When you're a mom/dad... etc. etc."

This hypothetical notion of "when" orbited our lives over the last few years without any definitive reason to set deadlines or rush. "When" continued to feel slightly out of immediate reach and therefore, still a hypothetical idea rather than a reality. Hypotheticals brim with possibility and idealized future projections. They are wonderful in that regard. Realities can bring with them fears over uncontrollables and unknowns. Now, rather than speaking of "when" I become a mother with no sense of self-consciousness, I feel pangs of performance anxiety over "how" to be a mother.

As I enter my third trimester of a very wanted pregnancy, I am still not certain that the timing question was answered "correctly." I don't know that there are perfect answers to that question, particularly once a pregnancy (that has been determined to be wanted) progresses. Hypotheticals morph into imminents that are accepted with fewer theories and philosophies. Change becomes your new normal, out of necessity. But this type of acceptance isn't without its own transition pains.

Not so long ago, I was on the other end of this conversation. I asked an experienced and wise friend about the question of timing. She assured me as she snuggled her own little one that although there is never a "perfect" time, it always becomes the "right" time to have your baby. I have held onto that notion since it was articulated to me. And to this day it brings me great comfort. A wanted, healthy pregnancy and a wanted child are life circumstances around which variables seem to adapt and make room with little fanfare.

As I mentioned above, when it comes to my pregnancy I am not certain of the "perfection" of my own life's timing. I don't feel regret about the shape of things to come and I don't doubt the capacity for the love that already fills our household to grow exponentially upon the arrival of our little one. I just also happen to believe that we could have had incredibly happy, fulfilled lives as a duo. Our lives were and are very full. And on some level, the biggest barrier to our "when" was in risking the significant disruption of circumstances that have been so good for so long. But this is a decision we made, on which we were lucky enough to be able to follow through. I imagine once the dust from these major transitions settles I will think back to the anxiety I felt over both "when" and "how" with some sense of rear view amusement.

Logistically, there were a few puzzle pieces we wanted to have in place, in advance of our "when." 

We weighed our personal financial circumstances, our ages, our time together thus far, our access to health care coverage, my options for maternity leave, child care arrangements, the proximity of our families right now, our housing situation, our vehicle situation, our job situations, our life insurance policies, our desires/hopes/fears,... I could go on.

Even with all of our forethought, who can say whether the timing is perfect to go from 2 to 3? I don't know that being "perfect" matters to us as much as it used to. And something about that makes it feel really right.

On bonding and psychic connections

Celebrating my bday at home with Chris... the gifts were all family-friendly and family-themed.

The "pregnancy, week by week" emails include two things consistently: a produce size comparison of the fetal growth and suggestions for how the pregnant person should be bonding with the fetus. Chris's (and my) favorite part about these emails is the former. I find myself generally ambivalent when it comes to the latter.

I understand the purpose of these bonding tips is to try to make more "real" what is otherwise a fairly abstract and surreal existential state. But I am not sure that I'm ready to be singing songs and reading stories to my abdomen. I guess I am skeptical that doing so would produce a more "bonded" maternal identity. It isn't that I feel a disconnect either. I just find the suggestions to be bizarre (and politically unnerving) in their subtextual assumptions about personage.

The increased feelings of fetal movement have made far more real my experience of (an otherwise fairly low symptom) pregnancy than anything else. Those brief encounters of sight and sound in earlier weeks were helpful too.

I have heard women describe pregnancy as a feeling of being haunted (by a presumably friendly spirit). Being haunted wasn't my experience early on, when I was having dizzy spells and couldn't drink coffee. That felt much more like an enduring hangover. But lately there is a feeling of something abstract and omnipresent that stays with me. I find myself unconsciously resting a hand on my abdomen. And I'm discerning with ease my stomach's own grumblings from the "quickening." I may not be reading books or singing songs but I catch myself communicating psychically and occasionally aloud to that looming presence. It feels silly to admit that on some subconscious level my brain thinks that a psychic connection is possible but because the fetus is internal to me, I guess it makes logical (albeit irrational) sense.

Wait, do I actually believe a fetus is capable of reading thoughts the way I have presumed a ghost (or at times in my life when I was feeling spiritual, a higher power) could? This doesn't jive with so many of my actual (rational) beliefs. Pregnancy is so weird.