Try a little tenderness (instead of pissiness)

I was up and around after 4 hours sleep.

The "up" part has become a lot more challenging this past week. It's something I do s-l-o-w-l-y so the baby weight in my uterus has time to shift with me. If I get up too quickly it just plain hurts, so I ease into a standing position and make my way around the house with the help of the walls until I've got my equilibrium and momentum. I cleaned the kitchen, fed the cats, took my morning vitamins, and got to work finishing the data migration from my old MacBook Pro to the new one. I know if I don't have it done before the baby comes it could be months before I've got a fully-functioning personal computer again.

The wind woke M up about 10 minutes earlier than his usual time. It's been gusting up to 40mph here for at least 36 hours and the wind downed a gorgeous old olive tree across the street yesterday. We spent a little time together before he fired up the computers for work and play, and by 10am I felt an uncontrollable urge to nap.

We had another workman come in today, and after I found dealing with yesterday's workman so tiring, M decided to work from home today to help me out. The window for his arrival was 9:30-11:00 and at 10:50am, while I was napping, M got into the shower. He thought the guy was going to be a no-show. Nope. At 10:55 the doorbell rang. Then some knocking. I yelled for M to get the door, not knowing he was in the shower. The doorbell rang again and more knocking. I realized that if I didn't get to the door soon, the guy might leave, and the hole in the wall (left by the plumber who repaired a leak in the master bath) would go un-repaired. So I leaped out of bed (a feat that hurt so badly my knees almost buckled) and hobbled to the door as fast as my legs and the walls would support me. This 60 foot dash had me a little out of breath as I opened the door, still in my pajamas and clutching at my belly. I'm sure I wasn't a pretty picture, and as a result of my humiliation and disappointment, I sought out poor M while he was still in the shower and got pissy with him. It took me about half an hour to get over my pissyness, even after he'd apologized a couple of times and gave me a hug. Grr.

The good news is the contractor did a great job of patching up our wall. If we had regular drywall I would have patched it myself, but we don't. The walls in our circa 1950 house have two layers of wallboard--one is cementboard and another is a plasterboard that was a precursor to sheetrock, for a combined thickness of about 3/4". I didn't feel like wrestling with trying to find a combination of furring strips and sheetrock that would make the right thickness to match the rest of the wall, or doing the amount of messy mudding (spackling) it would take to build the surface up if I had to use just 5/8" drywall--even if I wasn't 39 weeks pregnant :) The best thing about being "handy" is knowing how to do a cost-benefit analysis that helps determine whether or not to let a pro do the work.

This afternoon we snuggled a bit and had a mini-talk about how the baby is going to impact our lives. I told him he's going to have to step in as the primary source of attention for Jasper, who is a very social animal and needs interaction with his people, or he acts out. It's rather funny, actually.

I also told him that I want him to let me know if he is experiencing an attention deficit, because I'm going to be tuning into the baby's needs and may not be as attuned to his. I've gotten very good about letting him know what my needs are, even making an effort to give him advanced notice where I can, and I've also gotten very good at anticipating his needs (which he loves--who wouldn't?) but realistically, I'm not sure I'm going to be able to maintain that level of presence with a newborn on my hands. I know a lot of couples go through a tough time the first 6 months because the father feels like a third wheel and an afterthought and I'm hoping to avoid that by reminding M that he has a better chance of getting what he wants if he has the presence of mind to ask for it ;)

Tonight he plays poker with his friends, and I get the evening to myself. Probably the last evening alone in a long, long time.

Tomorrow night we'll have our Last Supper as a childless couple.

And Friday morning we initiate labor. Finally.

Wish me luck!

Will he be born-gay or born-straight?

I've been reading about parental reactions to news that their children are homosexual, and more importantly, about young people's fears of their parents not loving them anymore because of their sexual orientations. I'm pleased to say that this is a non-issue for me. I believe that human sexuality is incredibly nuanced and I will do my best to raise my son with the understanding that his sexual self-expression -- whatever it looks like -- is fine with me.

I defy sexual pigeon-holing myself. I've dated men and women, people a decade younger and two decades older than myself, people incredibly straight-laced and incredibly kinky, chosen periods of celibacy and sexual voracity -- all depending on factors such as my internal landscape and who I found attractive at the time. The bottom line is that I am attracted to people, not gender, and more specifically, to people with interesting minds.  If I have an orientation, it is toward intelligence.

Ironically, I find that homosexual friends have been as intolerant of my sexuality as conventionally straight people supposedly are. Lesbian friends have told me outright that I am "confused" rather than bisexual or pansexual or sapiosexual (or pick-a-label-you'all). They believe people are born-straight or born-gay but not anything in-between.  I think that such insistence on stereotyping marginalizes and excludes people who need acceptance from others more than anything else. While I agree that there are people who are very strongly oriented toward one gender or another, my experiences and observations have lead me to conclude that sexuality and sexual identity is not binary -- it is a continuum.

When I was a little girl I liked dolls ok, but what I really wanted was Tonka toys and Legos. Dressing up in clothes out of my grandmother's rag bag and wearing floppy hats and sloppy makeup was fun, but so was climbing trees and wrestling with boys and playing chess. I chafed under the pink lace dresses and tights, and stripped down to my undies as often as I could -- which greatly disturbed my maternal grandmother's calm. Fortunately for me, my mother wasn't too keen on gender stereotypes (she became a lesbian later in life) and my father, lacking a son, liked having a daughter with an aptitude for tools and building things. Likewise, I'm hoping to raise my son in an atmosphere that allows him to indulge in whatever interests him, regardless of gender stereotypes, so if he wants to dress up as the Little Mermaid instead of a Power Ranger, that's ok with me.  He's a lot less likely to develop identity issues that way, I think.

So as for that gripping question: Will he be born-gay or born-straight? I don't care what my son's sexual orientation will be. I just hope to raise him in such a way that he won't feel the need to feel ashamed of or repress his sexual identity -- and won't try to make others feel that way, either. Being human is hard enough as it is.

Physical discomfort and cognitive dissonance

Discomfort is the umbra of my existence: leaning forward, walking, sleeping, digesting a meal, even my thought processes -- all are impacted by the entity occupying my womb.

I admit there are times when I feel occupied rather than, oh, I don't know, pregnant. My body is no longer wholly my own. Sometimes that bothers me on a deep, barely conscious level. I think it has something to do with the fact that gestation and motherhood just aren't part of my identity. They never had been. Yes, I am a nurturer, but I am not a mommy. The whole mommy-identity is foreign to me, and still uncomfortable. I know that when the time comes I'll step into that role, and that in being a mother, I will become one. I know this, and I'm not worried. I'm just uncomfortably aware that a disconnect is still there, and I'm doing my best to be okay with that.

The part of me that never wanted to be a parent wants validation, I think. This surprising miracle pregnancy has changed everything, and that part of me doesn't welcome the changes. There. I've admitted it.

I never wanted to be a mother and I'm not 100% certain I want to be a mother, but I'm carrying this baby and a larger part of me wants to experience this whole new realm that I never thought would be open to me. I've been rapidly playing catch-up, emotionally, mentally. Most females are indoctrinated to see baby-making as part of their identity, a prerequisite for being a "real" woman. They dress baby-dolls and pick out names and fantasize about weddings and nurseries. They evaluate the males in their lives as prospective providers and fathers. They ask themselves, "Would I want to make a baby with this man?" Many, if not most, women do this, I know. But not me.

I love being an auntie. I love solitude and serenity. I love the solitary pursuits of writing and voice-over recording. I love sleeping in and dining out and haring off on crazy adventures. I like riding motorcycles a little too fast and making love a little too slow. Someday... Someday I hope I'll say "I love being a mom." Even though I won't love waking up all hours of the night, even though I won't enjoy cleaning up vomit and poo. I hope I'll be saying that I love being a mom even after I've had to cancel much-anticipated plans because the baby is sick or the sitter fell through for the nth time.  I think I will.

I'm an all-in kind of person, and when M and I decided to proceed with this pregnancy, I committed myself to doing whatever it takes, to being whoever I need to be, in order to fulfill the imperatives of our child-to-be. Including being a mother.

I am grateful that the baby's father and I have such a strong connection. M and I have been each other's closest friends for years. Becoming lovers seemed natural, if accidental. Love flows this way, sometimes. I'm hoping we'll succeed at being parents together, succeed in building a family life together. He, at least, has always wanted a family, and in this, I'll follow his lead.

Soon. The baby is coming soon. I'm looking forward to the day he arrives. Even if he isn't being delivered by stork.

Mothering

I hobbled through life for many years as an emotional cripple. I loved with everything I was capable of, and sometimes it was enough. And sometimes it was not. But in those days, it was the best I could do. And in those days, I was aware of my emotional disability, and I was grateful that I could not have children.

In my early 30's everything changed. I wanted to grow. I wanted to become more fully me. I just didn't know how. Well, that isn't quite right. I knew that in order to effect meaningful change in my life, I needed to develop new, adult coping mechanisms. I just didn't know how to do that. I looked to the people in my life to learn how and made a very poor choice, landing myself in a same-sex relationship with a friend-turned-lover that was both physically and emotionally abusive.

And within months for embarking on that relationship, people I loved started dying. Four people in two years: my grandmother, my mother, my mother-figure, and a good friend. I went from an emotional cripple to an emotional quadraplegic. I couldn't cope. I understood the grieving process intellectually, but didn't know how to walk the path. Paralyzed, I huddled in on myself for a couple of years waiting for something, anything to change. And then it did. The woman I was involved with finally realized what I'd known after 6 months into our relationship, and broke things off.

Within two months I was in therapy. Something in me found the resolve to seek professional help. I wanted to understand myself, understand why I'd chosen an abusive relationship with a woman when I'd never tolerated anything of the sort from a man. And I wanted those adult coping mechanisms, damnit!

Therapy was the hardest thing I've ever done. It was 18 months of shoveling shit out of the barn in my head. Many times I wanted to quit, but I didn't, because I knew that if I stopped, I'd never start up again. It was just that painful.

But oh so worth it.

When I went in to my first appointment I told my therapist that I wanted help developing new coping mechanisms for today and tomorrow, and that I didn't want to revisit things deep in the past. I was very adamant about that. I was also very wrong.

In order to develop adult coping mechanisms, I needed to recognize the genesis of the ones that weren't working for me. And in order to determine why I'd chosen to remain in an abusive relationship with a woman, I needed to understand my relationship with my mother and how it shaped me, emotionally.

For years I'd blamed my being an emotional cripple on my father, a Viet Nam Vet whom I'd never liked even as a toddler, and who was physically, mentally and emotionally abusive all through my childhood. And while, certainly, his style of "fathering" was damaging, it was my mother's "mothering" skills, or lack thereof, which shaped my emotional landscape.

My mother was adopted. It's something she never got over, that very fundamental abandonment, and the onotological angst (Who am I? Why am I?) haunted her. She was herself an emotional cripple. She wanted closeness but feared it. She pulled with one hand and pushed with the other. She married to get away from her evangelical parents, and children were an accidental by-product of that choice. She didn't want children, and she didn't want motherhood. She hated keeping house and by the time I was five I was doing dishes and laundry, dressing my younger sisters, changing diapers, etc. I feared her temper. I kicked her once and she told me if I did it again, she'd break my leg. I believed her. She actually chased after me with a bullwhip once. When I was injured, I was afraid to go to her for care, because she was so impersonal and rough. But she had a wonderful voice and she told good stories and sometimes she was warm and loving. My best memories are of her playing with my hair.

She and my father fought, often violently, and after really bad fights one of them would disappear for a few days. But one day -- one day she went away and didn't come back.

And that was what crippled me.

See, children don't understand the world, but as children, we do try, and we make the best sense of it we can. In the absence of explanations that make sense to us, we connect the dots and come to our own conclusions. We make up our own meanings, our own stories, and we live inside them.

From a child's perspective, a mother is someone who loves you always, no matter what, and will always be there. From a child's perspective, when Mommy leaves you, it's because there is something wrong with you. When my mother left, my sisters and I made it mean that we were unlovable and unworthy -- that there was something wrong with us, something so wrong that even Mommy couldn't stand to be our mother. We internalized it and forgot the story we'd made up. We lived it.

And I took up the mantle of mothering. I thought that it was my fault that my sisters didn't have a mother anymore, so I took it on, as best I could. As best as any nine-year-old could. My father re-married and I took on my step-sisters, too, since their mother, like my father, was all too eager to offload parenting responsibilities so they could go play.

I became an enabler, a rescuer, a fixer. I became controlling and manipulative.  I craved peace and harmony, and to my young eyes, the familiar, the status quo, was the closest I could come to that.  I developed skills and coping mechanisms designed to perpetuate those conditions. It was a comfortable, if miserable existence. In therapy, I learned to call it what it was, neurosis. Jung said that neurosis is "the suffering of the soul which has not discovered its meaning" and that pretty much says it all.

So in the course of therapy, I discovered the story I'd made up about the little girl who was unworthy of her mother's love, and I learned to comfort my inner child and nurture her (instead of everyone else). I let go of my strangle-hold on my old ways of being and opened up to learning new tools and ways of being. I worked out my mommy-issues and my daddy-issues and took ownership of my life, my relationships, my emotions, thoughts, and attitudes. I fully inhabit me.

I'm emotionally and psychologically adult now. I am capable of loving and being loved without building barriers to protect myself from fears of loss and abandonment. I've buried three more family members in as many years and come through those experiences feeling enriched, and at times, transformed.

My biggest challenge so far has been dealing with my youngest sister, whose mental illness and refusal to accept the help and care she needs had challenged the limits of my ability to cope. Today she's in an institutional setting, the enforced structure of which seems to be giving her the basis she needs to examine and rebuild her life.

I'm facing a new challenge soon, the challenge of mothering my son, and I feel confident that I am up to it.  Finally, at 44, I think I'm grown-up enough to be a good parent, to raise a child without fear of perpetuating the emotional and psychological issues that have plagued my family. And what a tremendous feeling it is!

My Greatest Fear

When I was a kid my parents often hurled a curse at us: "I hope one day you have a child just like you!"

I didn't understand what they meant when I was grammar-school aged (except that I was somehow "bad"), though later I decided it was an expression of frustration resulting from their obvious incompetence as parents. Being a teenager, I knew everything, of course, and my parents, though older and more experienced, were somehow stupider. The hubris of youth, eh?

Today, though, as I find my bladder shrinking and my breasts expanding, I've starting wondering about what my son will be like, with my parent's words echoing in my mind. And more and more, I'm hoping he'll be like M. His parents say he was an easy baby and an easy child. He wasn't fussy or demanding, he wasn't a trouble-maker, and he wasn't accident prone. Just a little contrarian. And he's still contrarian. And given that I'm contrarian too, I will not be surprised if our son is as well.  I'm ok with that.  Contrarians don't follow the herd. We are comfortable questioning the majority (the status quo, the conventional wisdom, the common practice) when it doesn't make sense to us, and we'll often do the opposite just to demonstrate our disagreement. I can handle contrarians. I are one :)

I understand that a child's behavior and psychology are heavily influenced by their parent's behavior and psychology, and M and I are both pretty self-aware people, so I'm not too concerned about our child picking up passive-aggressive behaviors and the like from us. I'm not sure how much having a child will affect our relationship, but right now at least, we don't play the typical gender-role based mind-games many couples do. We're both too pragmatic and efficiency-minded to waste time with such counter-productive forms of communication. Our son will probably be very direct and verbally articulate, because that is how we are with each other.

Back to fears:
M's greatest fear is having a stupid child. It sounds like a terrible thing to say, but I understand. Heritability of intelligence is polygenic and highly variable depending on environment. So that M and I both have IQs over 140 doesn't mean our son will qualify for Mensa from birth. In his experience, it is difficult for people of very different intelligence levels to connect, and he's afraid he won't be able to relate to his son if he's not "bright."

Meanwhile, my greatest fear is of having a child like the one I was.

My friends have heard the stories over the years, and they are amusing. Except if you think about being the parent of a child like I was. Now I recognize that much of my early childhood behavior and psychology was influenced by my parents and my environment (the former being disinterested and the latter being quite odd), and I know that the environment I provide will be very different, but I can't help but wonder if the the way I viewed, experienced, and interacted with the world is something that will be passed on.

I was a terribly bright child. I heard it again this Christmas from the woman (Susan) who taught me to read and tell time and tie my shoes before I was 4 years old.  I was rather solemn and observant, active but not hyper, and very very curious. I wanted to know. I wanted answers. And I didn't hesititate to act in my pursuit of those answers. I was a budding scientist, always seeing connections and causality and wondering if the patterns I observed could be applied to other things. Put that way, it sounds innocuous enough but in many ways it wasn't.

A month ago at Xmas Susan and I were laughing about "The Water Hose Incident" It was interesting to hear about it from her perspective, and to remember it from my (then child's) perspective. Putting the two together made for a comical story.

It goes something like this:

Adult perspective: Pregnant Mother was out in the garage doing laundry and talking on the phone. While she was doing this, Kelly fed a garden hose through the mail slot in the front door and flooded much of the house with several inches of water. She splashed water everywhere, getting the TV, the stereo, and even her sister in the playpen soaking wet. When Mother discovered the mess she called Susan to come take Kelly away for a few days so she wouldn't kill her. The carpets had to be torn up and replaced, the TV and the stereo were ruined, and the water had to be pumped out of the house. It was a mess!

Child's perspective:  Oooh look! When you water a lawn, brown grass turns green. My carpet is brown, if I water it, will it turn that pretty green color? The mailman puts things through the slot in the door, can I put the hose through the slot in the door? If I can put the hose through the slot in the door, then maybe I can turn the carpet green! I'm watering the carpet but it isn't turning green yet. You have to move the sprinkler around to water all of the lawn so it all turns green, so maybe if I water all of the carpet, then it will turn green. Things are in the way, but I have to get all of the carpet watered, so I am going to have to water them too, I guess. Oh no! Tammy is screaming and crying. I like playing in the sprinklers, why doesn't she?  Uh-oh, Mommy is yelling. I'm not supposed to water the carpets? Why not? And if I'm not supposed to, why didn't anyone tell me that?

Amusing, isn't it? Only it wasn't an isolated incident. Long before I could be shipped off to kindergarten I was already dismantling things to find out how they worked. Crawling into places to see what was there. Trying to use grown-up tools to do grown-up tasks.  The world was a puzzle and I was determined to solve it.

Now admittedly, I was left unattended a lot, and my parents often resorted to "I don't know" and "Because I said so" and "Go away" when it came to my endless questions. So I tried to learn things  by myself. My parents, young as they were, didn't know how to cope with me. I scared the hell out of them many, many times. And back then, thorough spankings were legal, so I was spanked a lot for reasons I didn't understand, which brought out the contrarian in me and made things even more difficult all around.

Ok, so... maybe... thinking about it... my "awfulness" as a child was less about me and more a function of my parent's lack of preparedness to handle a child like me. But then again, is it even possible to prepare for a child like me? I'm not going to have 3 children under age five like my mother did, and M isn't going to have the PTSD that my father did when he came home from Viet Nam. I'm 20 years older than they were when I was born. I've had years of training and experience working with children -- but those were other people's children. I'm a calm person, not a reactive one, and I know not to let kids push my buttons. But still...

I guess my greatest fear isn't so much that I'll have a child like me, but rather, that I'd lose my mind trying to be an adequate parent for a child like me. A nice, sweet, quiet baby like M was -- no problem. But a double-handful of a child who is impossibly bright and contrarian and always on the go and getting into things... I don't know. I suppose time will tell if this unintentional mother has what it takes.

One thing I'm not afraid of...

One thing I'm not afraid of is one thing I know many younger women fear when they learn they're pregnant: the fear of being a bad parent.

The interesting thing about finding myself pregnant in my early 40's is that I finally feel that I'm grown-up enough to be a parent.

There won't be any regrets. I've sowed my wild oats aplenty. I've lived my life powerfully and with gusto. I've done things I never thought I'd do, and I've done things people wish they had the courage to do. I've explored intimacy and connection and sexuality in many of their myriad forms, and helped others along the way. I've cared for the dying and suffered through injury and loss. I've traveled to Europe and Asia. Made friends all over the world. Seen my writing published both online and in print. Been gratified to know that tens of thousands of people every month listened to my recordings.

And finally, in the last couple of years, I've settled down. Settled down in a monogamous (gasp!) relationship with a wonderful man, bought a house and a kitten, and given thought to what I want to do next in my life.

In other words, I'm not a twenty-something who, finding herself pregnant, regrets the things she'll have to put off doing for 15 to 20 years. I'm not a thirty-something just hitting her stride in her life/career who will resent the lifestyle she's giving up. I'm a grown woman who finds herself pregnant at an age when many women are finding out they're going to be grandmothers. And I think that being older -- being truly adult, knowing who I am and who I can be -- greatly improves my chances of being an excellent parent.

That, and the fact that I'm a nurturer by nature.

So, no, of the many fears I have with regards to pregnancy and motherhood, being a bad parent isn't one of them. I know what a bad parent looks like. My own parents were way too young when they had me, and they came of age during the sexual revolution. They were far too preoccupied with having a good time. Especially my father, when he came home from Viet Nam. He had his own demons and partying was an escape, I think. I've never understood the urge for extreme levels of intoxication and ego-obliteration, but he was pretty single-minded in his pursuits for many years, as was my mother and my step-mother. To say it affected their parenting assumes they did much in the way of parenting. Which they did not. But to give them credit, they've openly admitted their shortcomings and done their best in the past 10 years or so to be there for their now adult kids in whatever capacity we'll have them. And that's something I admire. It takes self-awareness and courage and more than a little humility to own up to our mistakes and try to make amends.

Tomorrow is the level two ultrasound and amniocentesis. I've practically begged M to be there, even knowing that he's got a business meeting running right up to the appointment time. My biggest fear is that there will be something wrong with the baby, and if that's true, I don't want to be alone when I get the news.