Mumbling Madly

With pregnancy comes a very delicate sense of fragility. It pops up when I drive over a large pothole and ‘oof’ I feel it in my whole body. Living in the city, one typically has to carry themselves with an air of toughness–especially if you’re a lady. You need to be able to get to your car at night after a late show and know that by mere stride and height that no one is going to mess with you. But now, I feel transparent and fragile. I don’t walk the same, I’m constantly navigating around the belly, and the Tough Girl feels exhausted. This fragility appears when strangers stare at me, when I catch myself longingly looking at the handicap parking spots, or when my hair dresser says crassly, “Yeah, this must be a new experience for you, carrying weight in your stomach. You’re built like me, after all: you typically carry weight in your butt and your thighs.”

While protecting this fragility, I find myself lapsing into the defensive whenever I’m in public. Asking me for change on the street? Expect me to be a little more hostile; Lately, I want to say, “Seriously? You’re going to bother ME?” I actually gave someone ‘the hand’ the other day while walking down Broadway and surprisingly, it totally worked.

A few weeks ago I was at 7-eleven making a bank deposit into our credit union account when suddenly I realized I HAD to use the restroom. The clerk with the turban on his head looked at me apprehensively when I asked, “Can I use your restroom?” He wouldn’t look at me and muttered, “Uh, no…well, no it’s not clean and well–” I cut him off, “I used your bank machine, I’m pregnant, and you’re not going to let me use your bathroom?” “The floor is very wet,” he started to say, “You might slip on it and–” I turned swiftly and walked away with a “Fine, whatever.” Maybe he had a point; perhaps the store’s bathroom was so embarrassingly disgusting the idea of a pregnant woman squatting over the toilet filled him with dread. But come on, this was a 7-eleven complete with a gas station–folks expect to be able to use their bathrooms. Interestingly enough, the bathroom I ended up using after being rejected by 7-eleven was a nasty, public park toilet by the arboretum that was missing its seat. Did that matter? Hell, no…

I’d love to say that I am able to feel less fragile at home, but unless Josh is around, I tend to feel nervous. The neighborhood has been scattered with bad activity–most of it north of us–but plenty of it disconcerting. Josh has been taking random overnight trips for work. I honor these trips–with the understanding that they will dwindle and die after the baby shows up for a while. Today a solicitor banged on my door twice and both times I hid. Normally, I wouldn’t care but I felt really bothered by the fact that the same person took the time to stop by twice and that he dared interrupt my nap. I was unable to fall back into my restful state so I made meatballs instead–which disappointingly led to lower back pain and foot soreness. (Aww, I can’t make meatballs without feeling the uncomforts of pregnancy?)

Baby Schlag is slowly running out of room and I can feel him trying to flip around with the same ease he used to. Instead he sloooowly rolls over, a foot flails out, and then he is very quiet. Occasionally I can sense his fists punching and sometimes little fingers tickling. Sometimes I try and try to make him move but he is very resistant. Is he sleeping? Is he being stubborn? Is he preoccupied with something inside the womb? “You’re like your dad already,” I say, dismayed. “Impossible to wake up once you’ve passed out.”

Nervously, I pull my friends closer. I try to go out and socialize. I’m blabbing to anyone in my prenatal yoga classes that look my way. I’m collecting emails and birth stories, quizzing women who are further along, have had children, who’ve been there. Pregnancy is the ultimate rationalization for things like my recent addiction to Columbia City Bakery’s Sicilian Prune Bars, sleeping in the middle of the bed, and reading whole works of Fiction in one weekend. I cheated and found myself snarfing down a bunch of soft brie cheese recently. This is a no-no because it is unpasteurized, but who cares…it tasted delicious. I’ve been listening to classical music day in and day out. Originally it was to block out all the bass in my neighborhood, but I find that when I’m home alone I don’t like a quiet house (and it reminds me of my parent’s home). Recently, I stumbled across the hideous VH1 reality tv show, Daisy of Love, and started watching the reruns. It’s the lowest of the low, a reality show of truly horrible proportions filled with fake breasts, teary confessionals, and total idiots. However, it merely fuels my recent sense of overindulgence. My sister-in-law gave me a fancy Dove chocolate bar along with two cute little onsies. The second she left I found myself eating the entire thing in three bites. Guilty pleasures don’t seem so guilty any more…

Walking down the street in a slightly seedier part of Capitol Hill wearing a short dress and boots. I was attending the latest Helsinki Syndrome shenanigans at a local gallery, excited because I had helped choreograph some bits for them. A car full of youngsters passed by and some young man cat called, “Hey, hey, looking fine, howz it gooooing?” To which I instinctively roared back, “I’m pregnant…that’s how it’s going!”

“Of course you would have yelled back regardless if you were pregnant,” my best friend of 27 years, Courtney, reminded me over the phone this morning. I recalled walking down the street in Longmont, CO with Courtney and getting honked at mercilessly and shouting all sorts of things at the passing cars. Cat calling is so grossly ineffective and it always makes me feel like a piece of meat. Guys are usually shocked if you shout back at them…but they always have the advantage: a moving car. No identity, no need to stop, no hope of really getting much of a reaction. In this instance, I don’t look pregnant from the back so I doubt they would have shouted at me if they had known (young guys typically shirk from pregnant women). But it was shocking to me how quickly some sort of tigress spirit reared up inside: hell no, I’m not being objectified while I’m carrying another living being. Save it for another lady, buddy. This pregnant chick is taken…

It’s just semantics, but the term “Mama” should not be used until a first time parent actually has a child in their arms. I don’t feel like a parent to my unborn fetus, we’re both just bumping along doing our own thing right now. I’m not directing him, guiding his every whim, or even holding conversations with him. We’re doing this pregnancy thing symbiotically and with very little effort. The term “Mom” doesn’t make sense to me unless there is an actual human being around who needs mothering.

Therefore, I totally cringe when people say things like “Hey, Mama” (Oh GOD, just shoot me now) or call me “Mommy”, or refer to my prenatal yoga class as “Mom Stuff.” Look, there is no Mom in the room…just a pregnant woman right now. When Baby Schlag shows up, he’s the only one allowed to call me “Mom.” Everyone else needs to call me by my name: “Mara.” It doesn’t seem fair that you’re instantly saddled with the heavy-weight term of matronly honor the second you start showing. I’ll be a parent for the rest of my life, but god-forbid it becomes my sole identity. NO WAY.

And yes, I’m one of those people who hate it when the vet refers to me as my cat’s Mom. I didn’t birth Hobbes! Can you imagine? And she certainly doesn’t look anything like me…

In the old days I could teach three 60 minute classes, one 60 minute camp choreography session with pre-teens, sit in a doctor’s waiting room forever, and then go to a 2 hour rehearsal. It would have felt like a lot, but now it feels mountainous (and by that I mean gigantic). I can barely walk when I get home and the next morning I get up and pretty much do the same thing (only it’s childcare instead of classes, defending my company member status for an hour to the a.d. instead of going to the doctor, but teaching the camp and the 2 hour rehearsal still stand). I do this for four days straight and then, on my day off I look around my home, start frantically cleaning, and host my awesome cousin for the next 24 hours.

My body now feels like it’s definitely housing something, and this something does not care for extended walking, seatbelts pressed against lower extremities when driving for miles, or casual food intake on the go. I walk up stairs and take notice like I’ve never before. I try to demonstrate a floor move during a choreography session and realize that my body weight balanced on one arm and one leg feels really heavy! I can hardly haul myself up of the floor. I was weighed during the doctor’s visit and my pounds remain modest–so far. But I’ve never operated in the world at this new weight.

Everywhere I go, people are taking notice. And older women, so far, seem to be the least helpful. Whether it’s my mother-in-law bemoaning how horrible each of her four births were (she was just never DESIGNED for childbirth), or it’s the mother-in-law of my employer telling me it looks like I’ll be having a big baby, (WTF?) none of these older mothers are helpful. Well, I take that back: my own mother has been very helpful. My older yoga teacher on Wednesdays has been kind. There are many, many, mothers who I’ve met and spoke with that treat me with the kind of care I need. And this week was so crazy, my mantra became: “I would do anything not to have to get up off this floor so I could take care of myself” but I still found myself standing up anyway, getting in my car, and driving to the next destination. I tell myself that it’s all just for now…after all, summer classes are over, I’m implementing changes, I’m slowing down whether I want to or not.

Folks say that the natural slowing down process of pregnancy gears you up for the limitations of having an infant. This is true. This must be true…it has to be true. So, I’m going to go lie down now…

It’s no surprise that crows overrun Seattle. This year has been an especially hearty year for crows. Throughout the day I can overhear many hungry babies squalling and squeaking on nearby roofs. While watering my garden, a mother crow screamed at me from a tree: wasn’t it clear that I was too close to her nest? The crows rouse the neighborhood at the crack of dawn, out-crowing the more cheerful sounds of native birds. Garbage is strewn up and down our street which only encourages crow scavenging. Their selfish caws invoke strange mutterings from my husband that usually involve bee-bee guns, stalking, and crow homicide.

This summer when the crows arrived, I felt slightly superstitious. Isn’t it rumored that crows represent death? Aren’t there some weird sayings about crows and babies? This isn’t a nice thing to think about when pregnant. So, I did a little online research and found all sorts of crow-related folklore. Everything from “Finding a dead crow on the road is good luck,” to “a baby will die if a raven’s eggs are stolen.” There is also a lot of superstition sorrounding the number of crows that hang around. A single crow over a house means bad news, and often foretells a death within: “A crow on the thatch, soon death lifts the latch.” It is unlucky in Wales to have a crow cross your path. However, if two crows cross your path, the luck is reversed. “Two crows I see, good luck to me.” But then, like all folklore, there are loads of contradiction: In New England to see two crows flying together from the left was bad luck.

I’ve decided I’m going to align myself with the Native American view on crows and ravens. Crows are good-luck signs of protection and messengers of wealth. However, much of their folklore involves the raven being a trickster, an originator of the human species, or a cunning helpful hand in navigating life’s mysteries (like death).

It was then fortuitous that I my local public radio station did an entire segment on crows in the community, (I highly recommend giving it a listen). While making ice cream on a hot day, I listened to a local author’s reverence for the cleverness of crows. While, I’m not ready to embrace crows as intelligent companions to my front yard, I certainly prefer thinking of them as wily neighbors then cunning killers. As the babies grow older and fly off, the noise has died down. Random lonely mother crows now sit on top of abandon chimneys, their caws long and brave.

After living in CO for 5 years, I think my heat tolerance is a little higher then the average northwesterner. In CO, we survived weeks of 100 plus temps without air conditioning–although the evenings were much cooler and easier going then the hot nights of late. I feel thankful, daily, that I am not in my third trimester nor do I have squalling, brand new, infant. In fact, the more I think about it, the happier I am that my kid is showing up in November…despite the hassle birthday parties will be for this kid (as a summer baby, my celebrations were always held outside).

The hood is strangely quiet, most likely due to the shock of high temperatures and the muffling of outside noise with our fans. A large bust went down last Friday where 15 high level gang members were rounded up along with all their weapons and drugs. This cheered me. Like sea turtles hatching from eggs, everyone in the south end seems to be flocking to the water. If you drive down Lake Washington Blvd, scores of cars line the various parking lots and streets as badly bikini clad women and shirtless men crowd the various shores. Inflatable rafts, smalls boats, and a handful of flustered geese fill the water. I noticed that all of the playgrounds are empty…

‘Baby Schlag’ or ‘Wolfgang’ as we alternately call him has rewarded me with a series of bizarre visuals: I can see him move beneath my skin. This occurs mostly when I lay on my back. My entire navel shifts briefly as a swimming foot splashes by or a fist juts out. Last Friday my husband felt him for the first time. (It’s true: My yoga teacher says this visual stimulation is largely for the partner’s benefit). I’ve experimented with poking my stomach to get a response, which works only occasionally. Usually Wolfgang will respond twice to my pokings before lying still, a swift kick in the nearby vicinity before growing bored with my antics. “He’s just like you,” I told Josh, “He refuses to perform on command…like when I try to get you to dance the Robot and you say, ‘not by request.’” As with all the latest and greatest perks of pregnancy my response to fetal movement was at first shock, awe, and now resignation. Sometimes Baby Schlag kicks so hard I interrupt my own sentence to exclaim, “Wow! Dang…”

Despite the 100 degree temps I still went to my prenatal yoga class last night. It turned into some sort of bizarre Bikram Yoga (or ‘Sweaty Yoga’) experience. Only four of us turned out and the teacher gave us wet towels to wrap around our necks. I removed my shirt and shamelessly practiced my asanas in a sports bra and shorts. It was nice to feel uninhibited around other pregnant ladies about my belly. Later that night I went to a ‘Welcome Back From Grad School in London” party for Rachel at a painfully hot bar. Our legs were sticking to the unbreathable vinyl seats and I quickly sucked down glass after glass of cold water. I became the star of the Pregnant Show a few times, entertaining the ladies with the secrets and humors of pregnancy. A celebrity in a totally different and remarkable way. One gal tried to compare the awe of pregnancy with the awe of performance and I quickly shut her down (not even comparable, honey). After escaping the bar, a handful of lady friends surrounded me and placed their hands on my belly. Underneath 3 pairs of hands, Wolfgang immediately responded and rewarded everyone with a series of artful flips and kicks…it was really nice.

Recently reclined while feeling sad and felt a little thump under my navel. Ah…so maybe the yet-to-be-named baby boy can tell I am sad. Maybe he knows that I was moved to alumni status at the theater, simply because when I’m so tired my bones hurt and the baby weighs so heavy the last thing I could ever imagine doing is getting into my car and driving to the city for Theatersports at 10:00pm. And so, with this obvious lack of commitment I must resign myself to second class…and my picture removed from the theater wall.

I am resigned. But I’m also rallying a bit of insight here and there from other theatrical mothers. After all, isn’t there such a thing as maternity leave? Pregnancy leave? Understanding? Maybe not, but I know that there is a fierce strength with women in the theater world who are mothers.

“It’s weird,” I said to Josh, “But my life is changing rapidly and yours isn’t changing AT ALL!” I know this will be the mantra for years ahead. But then I always try and pull back and look at the BIG PICTURE: there are only so many years that one can pull this pregnancy stunt off. So many years before your time is up and you become one of those 50 year olds on Oprah weeping because you thought you had all the time in the world (“Really?” I want to say, incredulously, “Has modern science really made us believe we still have a shot at 50?”). And so, I’m taking the world up on its limited offer and trying out the whole parenting, pro-creating, birth thing. (Because I think I would be good at it…not because I’m an ego maniac and want a kid who looks like me). I’m doing a noble thing! And yet, I’ve really had to talk myself back into it lately…even going as far as reading some of my desperate journal entries from a year ago. How concerned I was! How terrified that I would be childless! How ready I was to sign up and throw away everything else that mattered!

Anyway, I don’t have much energy to fight the good fight…yet. Maybe it will take a few months or a year or two but internally I’m taking a stand: I will shake off my alumni status and return to the goddamn stage eventually. (Or at least when my maternal clock has run out).

I went from not showing at all to: “You’re 22 weeks pregnant? Huh….you’re really small.” I know that even writing about this I am dooming myself to karmactic justice. Storms of women will immediately tell me that it isn’t until your 6th month that you really start popping out, that it takes a while for your stomach muscles to give in, and that your 2nd pregnancy will be entirely different (that in fact you will start showing the second you conceive). Many people can’t wait to crow, “Just wait! You’re going to get huge!” And if I don’t hear all of this, then I get the incredulous and definitive statement: “You’re really small.” To which I babble on about my height, my long torso, etc.

None of this really matters, other then it’s slightly uncomfortable having people rate you. As someone who is usually pretty comfortable being stared at, directing attention to myself has always been a talent of mine. This, however, is a whole new ball game. This is probably why I haven’t been able to set foot on a stage in quite some time, or take a dance class confidently, or even walk down the street without feeling like my belly button might pop at any moment. All this speculation is nice, but it’s also making me kind of shy…

Usually, I am the only pregnant woman around. This means at even given moment, out in public, I’m the only visible woman pregnant in the near vicinity. People have started to stare.

On the rare occasions that I am around another pregnant woman, it really is like we’re secretly high-fiving ourselves into a secret club. As an empathetic person by nature, I immediately fall into some sort of question and answer session. However, this wasn’t really kicked off until the sub for Wednesday’s prenatal class was 1/2 hour late. 10 of us, all at various stages of pregnancy, sat in the stairwell of the yoga center and waited. We kicked around the usual questions (everyone, pregnant or not, wants to know when you are due and if it is a boy or a girl). Then the questions got more personal; some started talking about midwives, obstetrics, and the merits of home birth–which made one woman next to me cringe (“I would never do home birth,”she whispered. “My first birth was so messy”). Because the studio is located on Rainier Ave. a car vibrated by with teeth chattering bass. “Is anyone else’s baby moving?” I asked. “Your baby is bumpin it!” One sassy pregnant Asian lady from Beacon Hill shouted. The sub finally showed up, didn’t have keys to the studio, and asked if we wanted to do yoga in the park. Out of the 10 of us, 10 agreed.

So, then you have to imagine 10 pregnant ladies walking down Rainier Avenue in Columbia City during rush hour. One woman was four days from her due date and hoping the yoga would jump start labor. She huffed and puffed across the street. Three of us ended up in the restroom at the public library before joining the others. We sat in a large, hippie circle, surrounded by clover. The traffic was merciless as it raced by, the sounds of the Farmer’s market festive, a pack of kids loitered and watched on a picnic table (you know you’re in Seattle when a bunch of 7 year olds recognize and use the word ‘yoga’). We breathed, stretched, and downward dogged our way through a full hour. People stared, birds called, cars slowed down; I noticed that the mothers walking by, their arms filled with farmer’s market produce, smiled.

The sub was continually apologetic about the wet grass, about the noise, about not having props. But none of the students cared. It’s cheesy, really, but all that mattered was that we were stretched, sore, puffy, and with child…together.

So far I’ve received a nice sampling of pregnancy aches and pains. I say ’sampling’ because many of these ailments have not been chronic and many are very fleeting. For instance: I’ve had one bloody nose. Common in pregnancy, my bloody nose lasted about 3 minutes while teaching preschool in the presence of a fellow teacher who is also pregnant. I think it was a sympathy bloody nose because the day prior she had regaled me with tales of her many pregnancy induced bloody noses–so massive, so surprising, and so very ,very bloody. My body responded, in kind, by giving me a single solitary bloody nose the next day.

I had one day of heartburn. I didn’t even recognize it as heartburn until about 11pm when I wondered what that weird burning in my chest cavity was. How strange. How odd. Oh wait! This must be what heartburn feels like…ow. So, I amped myself up for my new preggo heartburn only to never face it again.

I’ve had two emotional outbursts. The kind that are funny later in their audacity. The kind that are fueled strictly from the huge amount of hormones coursing through my body. The kind that my husband has repeated as really funny jokes to friends and family. I don’t mind this…in fact I’m kind of surprised I haven’t lived day in and day out as a crying hormonal mess. My temperament has always been peppered with mild hysterics, crying jags, and emotional instability so I fully planned for the waterworks to really kick in. The day after I learned I was pregnant I was listening to Pearl Jam’s remake of the song “Last Kiss” on the radio and I started bawling. “Oh boy, this is it,” I thought to myself while blubbering. “I’m in for an emotional ride.” But this hasn’t been the case. Instead it’s been more subtle…like stubbing my toe badly on the front door and it totally ruining my day. Sort of like a slow burn, a stewing, a simmering pot of emotion. It wasn’t until I found myself sobbing during prenatal yoga that I realized I was still sad over stubbing my toe earlier that day.

There have been other quirks that I’ve simply excused as pregnancy related; primarily the gnawing pain in my jaw. Prone to TMJ after over-wearing my headgear in 8th grade (I was really, really eager to get my braces off and overdid everything in an attempt to lessen my orthodontia), I hadn’t had any real jaw discomfort in almost 20 years. Suddenly I was rendered incapable of eating anything but soft foods for a few days. Yawning jags became painful and annoying as my jaw creaked and groaned under its obligation to open past a few centimeters. I’m visiting the dentist on Thursday for a regular cleaning (excited that I’ll be able to chirp, “No x-rays please, I’m pregnant!”), and I’m sure the dentist won’t have anything helpful to say. I can’t take any of the really great medication they recommend for jaw pain. I’m not a teeth grinder, so a night guard would be useless. It seems to be getting a little better lately, but the nuisance of chewing with pain is still there. I know that it is common for the joints to loosen up during pregnancy. Since I’m not giving birth through my mouth, I’m not sure why my jaw decided to slack off. I’m chalking it up to yet another ‘mystery of pregnancy.’