Yesterday, I bumped into an old friend from Boston who was at the gym with his wife, I hadn't seen either of them for at least a year. Dave (the husband) asked me, "What's going on, anything new and exciting?" I pointed to my stomach, which at this point is certainly looking like a baby bump, and told him that I was pregnant and due to give birth in approximately two months, G-d Willing.
Men. He looked at my stomach, and at me, and said, "You're pregnant?" And then his first reaction was wonderful, unlike any I have received until now: "You realize that puts you in a whole different category, a baby is a guy magnet. They will be banging down the door for you."
It felt nice to not get overly personal questions like "Who's the father?", or sanctimonious and judgemental lectures about how hard it is to be a single mother in a Jewish world of couples and "real" families.
In the changing room, there was a woman in shower stall next to mine, clearly pregnant, she told me she was in her fifth to sixth month. Bigger stomach than me, but these amazing perky breasts. Since the first month my breast have become so much larger, I sometimes don't know what to do with them.
The rest of the day, however, I felt rather pathetic, running downstairs to mail box every hour on the hour to see if by some chance, any one of my relatives in the States had planned ahead and sent me a birthday card, so it would arrive in time, before Friday. Here I am, turning 41 years old and about to become a mother, and it is still important to me to get birthday cards, to feel valued by my family, which has for the most part ignored my needs most of my life.
A friend of mine told me that my problem is one of expectations. Just because I program my Palm Pilot to remind me of my second cousin's (once removed) birthday, just because I send out birthday cards two weeks in advance to be sure that my relatives in America will receive them on time; doesn't mean that anyone else will hold themselves to the same standard, proven by their track record in the past. It could also mean that I am way more obsessive than most of known Western civilization.
This morning I woke up and noticed discharge, and with my due date two months from my birthday, I am starting to get more and more paranoid about all the things that could possibly happen, for better or for worse. Seven months since I have gotten pregnant, and yet every time I go to the bathroom I check for spotting or bleeding, a part of me that cannot be 100% sure that I really have a baby kicking inside me, that I am not going to get my period any day now.
I will monitor the discharge situation for today, and just may set up a gynecological appointment, for peace of mind.
2 comments:
I heard an interesting speech by rasbbi reisman. He said that happiness is based on expectations. If gas costs $4.00 gallon and you see gas costs $3.00 you are happy, but if gas costs $2.00 and you see gas costs $3.00 you are not. Keep up the good thoughts and do not think negativiely. Do not base your value on getting birthday cards from family. Soon you will have a child who will love you unconditionally and who you can love back.
That's the trick, and the scariest part of thinking about being a parent. I know I will make mistakes, and I am praying that I have done enough work on myself that I will not revert to the same terrible mistakes (like not loving unconditionally) that my parents made. But people keep telling me under stress, you do what is "programmed" sub consciously. Yikes!
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