I'm a mom.


And internet, I'm back. Stay tuned.

Becoming

I have given over to the process of becoming.



I am here without choice or consultation but instead with the pull of nature and tides and things that are all their own.



The need to figure it all out has been replaced by the need to hold on, to keep pace, to sustain. It has occured to me that pregnancy in winter is an odd juxtaposition - growing life against the grain of a frozen backdrop. I alternate between feelings of swimming upstream through a dormant world and the idea of nesting into the cozy calm, hibernating and growing.



In my body, every priority seems to have shifted overnight, as though the marrow in my bones, the air in my lungs, the blood in my veins has one primary purpose of nurturing babies. They lead and I follow - as they stretch I stretch, as they grow I grow, as they move I move.



Every kick, every stretch, gives me worlds of hope and wonder, so that as they take, I receive exponentially. And in the end this process is not only inevitable but necessary.

Voice

When I was going through infertility, blogging was a cool breeze on a hot day. I had so much anger, passion, hope, fear, grief; words just tumbled out.

Going through pregnancy, words don't tumble out as gracefully. They're there, all right. But they're jumbled. I had three years of experience with infertility to help shape the sound and cadence of my voice. In six months of pregnancy, I've struggled to find a steady rhythm that will let it all out.

I feel like an awkward teenager struggling to find an identity. Although it left it's mark, infertility is behind me. Although I have a bulging belly swarming with life, I can barely bring myself to believe it's real.

As days pass, I stumble closer and closer to motherhood. I don't know what to think of it, let alone what to write of it. There's just so much there. But I wouldn't go back, and for that, I can only go forward.

Graceful or not, this is where I am.

In the Moment

I had this dream a few weeks ago that my babies were born and I put them in the sock drawer. And then I forgot about them, had two more babies, and by the time I found the first two, they had died of starvation.

When I woke up, I felt like a bad mother for a week. What if I absent-mindedly put my babies in a sock drawer and forget about them? And what if there are really four in there, and not just the two?

I'm a bit confounded by pregnancy. We seem to worship "living in the moment" like it's the end-all, be-all of life, and I have to admit that I'm sort of fond of the idea myself. However. It seems that there's only a certain amount of living in the moment that's acceptable during pregnancy. Preparing for the birth of a baby (or two babies), mandates some forward thinking. And forward thinking is all well and good. But it also opens the door for worry. Like, what if I'm the type of mother who forgets her babies in the sock drawer?

And then I find that living in the moment opens the door for worry too. Yesterday, living in the moment meant savoring a general bitterness towards the world, for no particular reason. Are my babies affected by my insane fluctuations in mood? Am I nurturing an environment for sweeping, unpredictable emotions?

Somebody recently told me that the reason humans are pregnant for nine months is because that's how long it takes to prepare for motherhood. And that makes sense to me. But I also have a feeling that at the end of this nine months, I am not going to have a tidy little motherhood plan all worked out. I like to believe that life as a new mother will be serene and beautiful. That I'll waltz through the world in a beautiful silk dress and embody all that is maternal.

I know myself well enough to expect a more realistic vision. Rather than waltz, my dance will be less graceful. But I'll dance. In place of a beautiful silk dress, I'll wear comfortable, cottony things that have holes and spit-up and have faded from too many washings. I'll embody maternal instincts, and a whole hell of a lot more, too. I will probably not brush my hair. Life will probably not be serene. I imagine it will be blissful, and beautiful, and difficult, and messy.

I doubt my ability to wrap my head around all of this that is pregnancy. I'm not sure I'm supposed to be able to fully comprehend it all. Despite the science of it all, there's so much of new life that remains miraculous. In a logical sense, I know exactly how I got to this point of being pregnant with twins. But every other sense that I have tells me that feeling two little bodies move within my own has nothing to do with logic at all.

24 Weeks...I am still amazed.

Every few months I write a post that starts with apologies for the long silences between blogs. No more apologies. Apparently, this is who I am as a blogger. Sporadic, and mildly dependable at best. I'm going to be okay with that.

But here are some updates on what's happened in the past month.

The shower game is over. I tried it out this morning for the first time in a long time, and I found that no matter how far forward I bend, my pieces are just no longer visible without the use of a mirror. Which at this point is a sight I can probably do without anyway.

I've started experiencing those coveted, random acts of kindness towards pregnant women that I was beginning to think only existed in mythology. I have to admit that upon discovering I was pregnant, I was really looking forward to this star treatment. And then kind of bummed when it didn't happen right away. But now, most people are nice. Probably because they feel sorry for my waddle. The one exception is the grocery store. Why are people always so terribly rude in the grocery store? It does not matter how much I waddle, or how much I hold my aching back as I meander down the aisle, people still shove past with nary an "excuse me." Well people, I will remember that when I'm waltzing down the aisle with two cute babies in a few months, and you want to coo at them and ask me whether they're boys or girls. Payback's a bitch.

The most exciting recent development, which probably relates to the whole kindness from strangers thing, is that my belly has become unmistakeably, hugely massive. And I love it.

The day I found out I was pregnant...

A few weeks later...
Later still...
...And later (I will need to become a better historian when these babies are born...dates, weeks, or even months might be nice...)

And just a few weeks ago...
The babies are growing.

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