Waiting

Dear Frijole,

I got to peek at you one last time by ultrasound yesterday--the last time I'll see you before you enter the world.  You were a rowdy little thing in there; once again the technician had a hard time measuring you.  At the moment I am 27 weeks pregnant with you and you are head up.  This is no surprise to me because I feel both your feet kicking my bladder simultaneously nearly every day.  Supposedly we don't have to worry about your position until 35 weeks, but I go ahead and worry a little now just for good measure.

At the time of the ultrasound you were laying on your stomach with your little legs crossed.  Every time they would get a good view of all four chambers of your heart, you would seemingly purposefully push your arm at the camera to block the view.  I laughed, but I was the only one in the room amused as the ultrasound ended up taking an hour and a half as a result of your antics.

Guess what?  You are going to be one well-dressed girl.  My lovely friend Diana has given us a virtual boat-load of clothes for you ranging from newborn sizes all the way up to 3T (though I can barely fathom you will ever be that big).  You now officially own more shoes than I do.

A final piece of news:  after much angst, discussion, and attempted (and failed) negotiations with our landlord, your daddy and I will be moving to another apartment March 1.  I am anxious beyond belief about it all--especially the cost of the move--and terrified we won't be able to find a nice place in a decent neighborhood where you and I can take walks.  Your daddy can take one look at my face and know when I am worrying about the move and he spends a great deal of time reassuring me.  All I can do for now to ease my mind is to take care of the items I can control now, such as booking our movers.  On Feb. 1 I will hit the ground running on the apartment search.  It makes me tired just thinking about it.

Touching your soft pajamas and looking through your baby things makes me feel better.  I can't wait until we are all settled in a new place and just waiting for you to make your grand entrance.  I'm so excited to meet you.

Love,

Mama

On baby/mama cell exchange

During pregnancy, the mother and fetus exchange cells and some of those cells can live on forever in the two bodies after the child is born.

During pregnancy, cells sneak across the placenta in both directions. The fetus's cells enter his mother, and the mother's cells enter the fetus. A baby's cells are detectable in his mother's bloodstream as early as four weeks after conception, and a mother's cells are detectable in her fetus by week 13. In the first trimester, one out of every fifty thousand cells in her body are from her baby-to-be (this is how some noninvasive prenatal tests check for genetic disorders). In the second and third trimesters, the count is up to one out of every thousand maternal cells. At the end of the pregnancy, up to 6 percent of the DNA in a pregnant woman's blood plasma comes from the fetus. After birth, the mother's fetal cell count plummets, but some stick around for the long haul. Those lingerers create their own lineages. Imagine colonies in the motherland.

Moms usually tolerate the invasion. This is why skin, organ, and bone marrow transplants between mother and child have a much higher success rate than between father and child.

Whoa.

(all taken from kottke.org and direct quote from article by Jena Pincott "Our Selves, Other Cells.")

In the year of your birth

Dear Frijole,

It makes me very happy to tell you that I am almost 25 weeks pregnant with you--that's over 6 months!  Just in the last couple of weeks I have started to feel you all the time, and you certainly make your presence known.  You happily kick and punch in there, and I swear sometimes it feels like you're practicing gymnastics.  I never get tired of feeling you, although you do protest if you don't like my sleeping position and we should probably work on that.

It feels momentous to me that it is now the year in which you will be born.  I try to pay attention to things more now--the price of gas, the cost of bread, what I do to fill a whole day by myself--because I want to remember what I was like before you will have arrived in my life.  I know and welcome the fact that I will never be the same again.  I'm not sure I will ever get another good night's sleep knowing that you are in the world and away from my body and might need my protection.

I think about you constantly:  what I want for you, what I want to teach and show you, what mistakes I'll probably have to let you make on your own.  Your daddy and I talk to your big brother about you and he is very excited to meet you.  I fold and refold the clothes I have for you so far, and I stroke the soft blankets and sniff the lotion I will rub on you after I give you a bath.  I dream about you at night.  We talk about you as if you are a separate person in the room already.  "What do you and Sophie Minophie want for breakfast?"  your daddy might aske me.  That is his special nickname for you.  You will probably have many.

For now I try to be patient.  I budget money and purchase the items you will need when you come home.  I try to memorize what it is like to feel you moving in me, because soon we will never have this time together again.  I get tired and take a lot of naps, but I wouldn't trade carrying you in me for the world.

Love,

Mama

On not worrying

Dear Frijole,

Your father and I had a conversation today that I want you to know about.  We'll talk about this again many years down the road if you should ever decide to have a child.  Mentioning injury and pain to the penis is the key, I think.

Ivan:  You don't have to worry.  I will be at the hospital with you as long as it takes.  And I'll count for you and help you breathe and everything.

Amie:  I don't know anything about all that.  I'll learn when I take my class.

I:  Class?

A:  Yeah.  A childbirth class.

I:  (scoffs)  You don't need a class.  You have hundreds of generations of women's instincts to rely on.

A:  If you had a person immimently being pushed out of your penis and you wanted to know more about it, you'd get more information. Talk to me then.

I:  Well-played, well-played.

Love,

Mama

"You are my face."

Dear Frijole,

Your daddy and I went to my ultrasound yesterday and were so excited to find out that YOU ARE A GIRL!  I cried happy tears on the table when they told me.  Your daddy is very happy, too, although he is already nervous for you to start dating.

Unfortunately, we weren't able to get good pictures of your face because of your position.  But just like last time, you kept crossing your legs and waving your arms around.  I suggested that maybe one day you'll be a conductor of some sort.  You are an active little thing in there.

We have decided that your name will be Sophia Ruth Pesic.  Ruth was one of my beloved grandmothers.  Juanita was the other, but sadly I feel like using her name and calling you Sophia Juanita makes you sound like a Latina porn star.

I chose the name Sophia for you in 2001.  I was sitting in a cafe in Hollywoood, CA when I declared it out loud and made it official.  When I met your daddy, he had already chosen this name for you, too, even before he met me.  So, even though the name has become very popular in the last couple of years, we felt there was only one thing we could call you.  But you'll always be my little Frijole.

Love,

Mama

Progress

Dear Frijole,

Things are really starting to happen now.

This week, I am 20 weeks pregnant with you--5 months!  My belly is changing all the time as you grow, and apparently you are currently the size of a cantaloupe.  On Monday I felt you move for the first time, and I was so happy.  The feeling was very subtle, like swishy little flutters.  I told your daddy, grandma, and auntie right away because I was so excited to finally, finally feel you in there.

While I feel pretty good overall, two things are a bit inconvenient.  First, my face is breaking out like crazy just in the last few days.  It's like puberty all over again and certainly doesn't do much to make me feel pretty.  There is also the groin pain that makes me feel like I've ridden a horse across a desert.  I'm not sure if he had a name or not.  Everything I read says this is normal as things are "stretching out and loosening up" down there.  Your grandma said it was my pelvis bones spreading apart.

Oh, dear god.

That's the other thing.  I'm having a bit of anxiety about how and where you are going to come out.  Every week I happily read how big you're getting and then I immediately feel trepidation.  There's no turning back, my little cantaloupe!  I got upset with your daddy the other night when I mentioned this to him and he joked, "Yeah, she's going to break you off in a couple of months."  I can't tell you how not funny I found this statement.

Tomorrow I have another ultrasound and--assuming you uncross your legs this time and cooperate--we will find out if you are a Frijolito or a Frijolita.  I've made no secret about the fact that I want you to be a little girl.  I know that I will adore you no matter which one your are (even if it's somewhere in between), but it's just that I've spent an awful lot of time taking care of little boys in my life and would really like the chance to buy you little sundresses.  I am very nervous for tomorrow to come.  The waiting has been killing me. 

Finally, I'm starting to gradually buy things to get ready for you.  I ordered you a bathtub, health and grooming supplies, and baby toiletries.  It feels momentous because these are the first baby things I've bought myself despite the fact that I've gazed longingly at these items since I was about 24 years old.  Your grandma is sending a car seat and stroller for you and I'm excited to get them.  I saw them online and they are lovely.  Plus, your daddy and I picked out the crib we want to buy in a couple of months.

We're getting there, Frijole, and I can't wait to meet you.

Love,

Mama

Know your onion

Dear Frijole,

I haven't written much here.  Actually, I haven't written anywhere at all.  Even though my head is filled with words constantly, I don't seem to have the energy to put them into anything bigger than a text message.  It's not your fault.  It's the rest of the world's fault.  It's my fault.

I am 17 weeks pregnant with you and, honestly, there isn't a moment when I don't think about you.  I never quite know what to say when people ask, "How is the baby?"  You're so quiet in there!  I THINK you're okay.  I'm not having any problems.  Our ultrasound and bloodwork have all come back showing that you are healthy and busy developing.  You SEEM to be okay.  I just wish I could feel you move.  I keep hearing and reading that this should happen any time now, and I keep waiting and waiting.  Sometimes I feel an uneasiness within me.  It's hard to explain--like a restlessness that does not originate with me.  At those times I feel certain you must be moving around in there but I just cannot feel it yet.  I am told it will happen all too soon and that, at times, I will want to go to sleep and wish you would STOP moving.  It's hard for me to imagine what that must be like.

I'm struggling to make the right decisions for us, Frijole.  My psychiatrist and I butt heads over what is right for me, for you.  She is strongly advocating that I undergo electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) to treat my severe and endless depression.  After learning more about it, I don't think that I can take the risk involved.  And so I struggle to find other ways to take care of myself.  Of both of us. 

Most of the time I feel so far away and alone, and the obstacles between here and there seem insurmountable.  It is still true that not very many people know about you, and I feel very strongly that it has to stay that way until you are born.  There's plenty of other people's criticisms of my life and my decisions to go around, and I feel like I will lose my mind if they criticize the existence of you, too. 

You.  My one little light.

In three weeks we will have another ultrasound and I should be able to find out if you are a Frijolita or a Frijolito.  I can't wait to see you again.  In the meantime, I will keep plodding along, doing my very best.

All my love,

Mama