18 Weeks

We’re 18 weeks now and Baby Green is as big as a baked potato. Not one of those dinky little red potatoes; a real baked potato - a honkin’ 5½” seven-ounce tuber!

Crystal can feel the big ol’ tater adjusting itself in her belly every once in a while. No big kicks or anything, but she says there’s something in there.

We went to the doctor last week and everything is going well. Baby Green’s heartbeat was 155 beats per minute, a healthy rate. Crystal was able to dish out her daily dose of I-told-you-so’s my way with assistance from the doc. Yes, vitamin water is safe. No, Crystal patting a little drumroll on her belly isn’t hurting anyone. Yes, Flintstone chewables are still a good alternative to the prenatal vitamins Crystal can’t stop puking up.

I admit it, I’m a worrier.

Here’s the latest pic of Crystal. Friends are telling her she’s showing now.

Is this normal?

Do pregnant ladies often stick fake bellies under their clothes to see what they'll look like in five months?

The liminality of pregnancy and the mother journey

I've conversed with many, many women the last few weeks about their experiences with pregnancy, birthing and motherhood. Each woman's experience is so very unique and yet, shared in a universal mother-tongue that is readily understood. I'm absolutely fascinated by the different archetypes that all these women embody through the telling of their own stories: the suffering/martyred mother, the earthly grounded mother, the protective warrior mother, the life-bringing mother, the free-spirited mother. The shape-shifting between dual roles and multiple archetypes is amazing and awe-inspiring to me, the idea that we can hold all things within us without having to be everything to everyone.

Much of pregnancy that I can tell is journey inward, a journey towards darkness or the underworld really- a winter's hibernation within one's body, something akin to a death but without the despair- a loss of what we once were, and the rebirth of what will be. I find it hard to not think be aware of death and my mortality when the birth of a new life cycle is so near. The changes in my body are like the changes in the season, slow but sure, steady and unrelenting in that march of time. My childhood was my spring, my young adulthood was a heady summer and now I am entering the glorious autumn of motherhood, where the harvesting of possibilities and the unleashing of new destinies will take place.

I am curious, now more than ever, about the feminine as well as the masculine- what energies exist in this world that allows each of us to shape-shift throughout our journey as we evolve from a spark of hope in the womb to what the world sets fire within us to become. The place that calls to you is “... where your deep gladness and the world's deep hunger meet." Frederick Buechner.

Pregnancy seems to be, to return to my Irish studies, (for those of my fellow Ireland Program peers, you will hear me well) a very liminal space. Our dear-dear teachers Patrick, Dorrane and Sean each spoke so eloquently about the liminality of in-betweenness, the shape shiftings, the veil between worlds- the neither here, nor there... the swinging in the balance between life and death represented by sickness, pregnancy, births, menstrual cycles (where you bleed, but do not die). Places that are liminal pull us all at sand shifting shores and mountain tops where water, ground and sky kiss, and at all the doorways and windows of our lives. Much of our lives are defined by such liminal events and places.

As I stand on the cusp of becoming, the mask of motherhood lies before me- that mask which does not belong to me alone but is passed on from generation to generation, from woman to woman, in a long, endless line of life-bringers before me and stretched out far ahead of me, I am aware of accepting stewardship of a new life, of becoming a safe, guiding and nurturing hand in someone’s destiny; a person and a destiny which does not belong to me but one that I can watch unfold and if I am very lucky, walk with for a short while.

“Your Children are not Your Children

They are the sons and daughters of life's longing for itself.
They come through you but not from you,
And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.

You may give them your love but not your thoughts,
For they have their own thoughts.
You may house their bodies but not their souls,
For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow, which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.

You may strive to be like them, but seek not to make them like you. For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.”

© Kahlil Gibran, 1923, 1973.

Found in Kahlil Gibran, The Prophet

Early morning sickness and the nursery (to keep my mind off my morning sickness)

The picture Kevin posted of me with some chain-saw looking contraption (it's actually an electric hedge trimmer) warrants explanation. This past weekend I worked in the yard. I weeded, planted some fall flowers, and hacked the heck out of the ivy hedge in our backyard. It needed doing!

Kevin was thrilled to see his pregnant wife actually doing real-down-and-dirty work and wanted to capture the moment.

How am I feeling now? Of course I went and jinxed myself yesterday, I couldn't help myself. I made the mistake of raving about how spectacularly awesome I felt and how I had all this energy and hardly any nausea to speak of.

The universe has a twisted sense of humor and likes to keep me humble.This feels familiar!

You know those spots on your face you get from the broken blood vessels created by too much vomiting? Well they've multiplied exponentially this morning. Vomiting for a couple hours will do that to ya. I fear I've ruined my complexion permanently. I look like I have some scaled down version of chicken pox, especially around my eyes. My worse fear is having a blood vessel in my eyeball burst. I'm seriously done with this morning sickness, so I wish it would just stop, please. This is my experience in the physical realm these days- a back and forth between sickness and vigorous health.

But on an aesthetic note, the fabric samples have arrived (last night!), thanks to my mother. They're wonderful and exactly what I wanted. I'm looking forward to sharing them here soon.

My mother will use the fabric I picked out to make bedding for the crib, a cushion & pillows for the window seat, as well as pillows for the reading chair.

Kevin and I walked through the nursery last night, mentally placing all the furniture and discussing all the projects that need doing. We'll paint first and then start putting the furniture in the nursery as we acquire them.

I am such a tactile and visual person that I can't imagine not working on the nursery now. I love the process of creating an environment that is aesthetically pleasing for myself, as well as stimulating and engaging for my child.

No matter who we are, however young or old, we all need our own place, a retreat from the world, a center where we experience peace and grounding. It's an incredibly symbolic process for me to create within the home this space for a child.

The nursery used to be my dressing room, which was ill purposed for it anyways and never really gelled. But the letting go of what was solely mine and the embracing of what will be a new life for all of us is similar to the ebb and flow of the tide and the moon. I'm relearning what it means to give, to nurture, to create life and in the process of working on the nursery I am able to physically articulate that very internal journey towards motherhood.

16 Weeks Pregnant and Lookin' Good

Our new floors

Hey! Kevin here. After a week at the in-laws, I came home last Friday to check out the floors and air out the house a bit before the momma-to-be came home. As soon as I opened the door, I started crying... and coughing...and gasping for precious air. Wow what strong fumes! It was like walking into my first gas chamber on Fort Benning 10 years ago. I was so not prepared for the strength of these fumes!

I held my breath, closed my eyes and scrambled around the house to open any doors and windows I could find during short sprints around the gas chamber broken up by gasps for fresh air on the back porch.

After the fumes dissipated enough to allow me to walk around with my eyes open, I checked out the floors. We're pretty happy with the results. We knew a few of the stains would remain; these are, after all, 84 year old floors. The stains look nothing like before so we're pleased. Here are a few before-and-after pics.

The living room before:


The living room refinished:


Our bedroom before:


Our bedroom refinished:

The bedrooms were in pretty good shape already. They're even better now!

Me pulling up carpet in the hallway:


The hallway with no carpet and no tiles:


The refinished hallway:

I spent most of the summer in the hallway. When I first ripped up the carpet I was greeted with ugly yellow tile. I panicked and thought the wood floors in the hall had been replaced with these tiles. After a minute or two of with a hallway of ugly yellow tiles, I pulled one up and saw hardwood. (whew) The tiles were only sticky tiles and had been hammered on top of the floors. I'm sure somebody had a reason to nail down sticky tiles at one point in the house's history, but wow what a pain-in the ass project to undo. Between pulling up the carpet, the tack strips, the staples, the tiles, the glue residue and sinking the nails, I'm sure I spent well over 20 hours prepping the hallway to be refinished. Yay- it turned out good!