The Battle Royal

Historically, Dean has always been squicked out by pregnant women. One of the things I've struggled with is helping him get over that aversion when it comes to his own wife, but we've both been amused at how strange pregnancy can be on a body, especially when Bunky does things like distend my abdomen lopsidedly or send out a series of kicks and jabs that makes my whole stomach look like an alien is about to explode out of it. His response to this, and some of my descriptions of odd internal sensations, is always "gross." It's a private joke between us, but since Elder Son has moved back in, there's a lot less privacy in general. So as I was telling Dean I had a new idea for a blog tagline, the following exchange happened:

Me: "A teen, a tween, and a bean."
Dean: Gross.
Me: Damn, I was hoping for a "laf." Also, Elder Son has taken to saying "gross" any time I mention anything having to do with the baby. Be careful what you model. :)
Dean: chuckly chuckly chuckchuck chuck ------ Damn. [pause] Babies are gross, though ;)
Me: Great thing to teach his big brother. I'm calling him on it, and can't very well call him on it if you continue to do it around him, even joking.
Dean: Can I say "ew"?
Me: *facepalm

Body Blahs; Teenage Victories

Elder Son and I wound down a busy day watching fireworks from our front yard, which is two blocks away from the town park. Haven't figured out the occasion for the fireworks, but it was fun, even if I think we startled Bunky half to death several times. But he's still kicking, so we're now prepared for next year's Fourth.

Elder Son got registered for his new school today. He's taking Astronomy, Latin 2, World History I Honors, AP US History, Advanced Phys Ed, Driver Ed/Fitness, English 11 Honors, and Algebra II. I'm proud of him for not shirking away from the challenges and hope I can help him with the motivation, confidence and organizational issues he had while living with his dad. We also got a state ID card for him and picked up the manual for him to get his learner's permit. Fingers crossed that he'll be a licensed driver come spring, and I've been joking that I'll have him trained on the stick shift in enough time for him to drive me to the hospital when I go into labor but I won't be capable of being his "supervision" that he has to have to drive with a learner's permit. Ha!

I'm still a couple of weeks shy of third trimester but two of its unpleasantries that I remember from Elder Son have already started to set in: my ankles have swollen up twice, although I suspect it's the heat and the struggle to stay hydrated, and at my checkup this week my blood pressure was 135/85, which is higher than the midwife would like--mostly because she "doesn't want the OB to steal" me away from her. A little mindful meditation later, we ran it again and got 124/66. This just reinforces for me how important it is for me to stay in touch with my body.

I just wish I had air conditioning, now that it's muggy, or at least more fans in the house. But it's only been bad for a week or so, and it's just a few more weeks of dog days. One thing today made me realize is that I don't have any shorts, much less shorts I can wear pregnant! So I went down to the local Evil Box Store and got two pairs of extra-large, elastic waistband workout shorts that I will never wear in public but am so glad I have for wearing around the house and under dresses, now.

As for my ankles, I looked up compression stockings and my GOD, they are expensive, and I have no idea whether they will fit! Where does one find affordable ones, and how does one know what size to get? (I have heavy thighs, to the point that being nearly 6 mos. pregnant mostly just makes my belly look proportional to them, so sizing is difficult even when I'm not pregnant--size 12 waist with a size 20 thigh. ugh.) Finding maternity clothes in stores is impossible anymore, too. I'm sick of Target's offerings, but can't seem to find maternity sections anywhere else. There used to be one at my local Kohl's, buried in a corner behind the infants section, but as they've remodeled, the section has vanished. And I hate paying boutique prices, having enough trouble keeping up with the mortgage.

So cheap workout shorts it is. At least I feel a bit cooler now.

One last weird symptom, because I seem to have all of them: geographic tongue. The little bumps are falling off my tongue, leaving strange creases and white borders around patches of weirdness that almost look like outlines on a map, and are different each day (hence the name "geographic tongue"---partly because it looks like a map and partly because the lines 'wander'). Not much is known about this disorder, but apparently it's hormonal in nature, mostly harmless (stings a bit with hot or cold), and should go away after my hormones come back into balance.

The Smell of Dreft Things

This is a test, mostly. I'm trying to get twitterfeed to talk to bit.ly and so on.

Also, I'm trying to figure out why my clothes smell like Dreft today. I hate the smell of Dreft, and can't wait to burn through the bottle I got for washing baby handmedowns because nothing like buying a gigantic bottle of it for a good price only to find that the smell sets off one's gag reflex. But I'm not wearing anything that got washed with baby clothes.

Hunh. What else is good for washing baby clothes? I think I used All Free and Clear with Elder Son, but it was so long ago that I really have no idea. And given how much I *love* the smell of lavender these days, I'm wondering if I can scent my own detergent using essential oils somehow.

Anything but Dreft, please.

(The title of this post is a play on a short story title of mine, called "The Smell of Dead Things." Laugh now, be disturbed later.  I probably should have called it "Scents and Sensitivity.")

Week 25: Feeling Pretty, Oh So Pretty

....and that's saying a lot, considering that on Monday I felt like I was coming down with something horrible, but I did chalk it up to pregnancy fatigue, took the afternoon off, and rested up and now feeling much more glow-y than I think I have all summer. Of course, perhaps it's because I got my eyebrows cleaned up and so my face looks more normal to me than it has in a while, or perhaps it's because in 95˚ super-muggy weather without any air conditioning, of course we're all going to positively glisten. But since it's taken this long, til the last week in July, for the humidity and hot temperatures to set in this year, I'm taking it in stride.

Bunky is a very active baby but right now seems to be enjoying a siesta. I am wondering if he's starting to get into a groove of sleep and wake.  But all in all, we're doing ok. Weight gain a wee bit higher than I'd like, but a lot of it is coming on now as the baby gets bigger, and I really only have two more months of weight gain before I hit the top end of the curve. Had a minor blood pressure scare, but it was back down by the end of the appointment; I really think I'm going to start doing yoga workouts before my appointments and start doing more focused meditations. I'm through most of the pregnancy anxieties at this point and starting to process the labor and delivery anxieties--most of which revolve around a tangible fear that my first labor and delivery was so near-perfect that there's no way I'm going to be able to do a re-run. But statistics really are in my favor; easy labors (as labors go) run in my family and Elder Son's rapid arrival does more to establish that I can handle a large baby with no problem than would be the case if he wasn't around to be Mr. Precedent.

But as I was describing his birth to the midwife, her face was brightening. More people should tell their positive birth stories, she said. And she reassured me that we would work together to make sure I had another one, easing some concerns I had about being able to eat and drink in labor and her own caeserean rate (8 percent). One thing I didn't know about her that made me really happy to hear was that she had originally been a midwife in practice with the obstetrician who delivered Elder Son, and that obstetrician, other than ordering an amniotomy to trigger active labor (I'd been walking around at 3 cm with no idea I'd been in passive labor), steadfastly avoided ordering any interventions, even going as far to fuss at the nurses for giving me an IV without his asking for it.

I registered for childbirth education classes. To be honest, they are more for the Mister than for me; I'm realizing I would love to teach childbirth education, would love to be a doula, would love to be a midwife like I originally planned to do when I was 23. Because I can't imagine a health-care reform landscape without midwives and doulas. At the very least, I want to find freelance writing opportunities that fit this new passion of mine--or, rather, this reactivated passion of mine.

Week 24 - More Bzzting, and the Dreaded Glucose Test

Starting to worry about the vibrating sensation. It almost feels like I'm gestating a _cat_, it's so rumbly and purry. But then it feels like a shivering feeling. And then it goes back to just feeling like I swallowed a cellphone. So I called the midwife, and she got right back to me and confirmed that it was probably a pinched nerve causing a muscular tremor, sort of like the throbbing one occasionally gets under one's eye. But it also reminds me of the tremor that happens when you clench down really hard, and since I can't tell whether I'm feeling it from my own body or from the baby, I'm worried my baby is shivering.

But by the same token the baby is active and I can definitely tell that the baby changes position several times throughout the day, whereas this sensation is always toward the bottom back of my uterus. So it has to be me, but that doesn't stop me from being a worry-wart, because I never experienced this sensation in my previous pregnancy and so falls into the "wtf is that?" category.

Tomorrow is my glucose tolerance test. I've already done one of these, at the beginning of my pregancy, so I already know it's not as bad as it was the first time I was pregnant. But still, you wind up having some anxiety over these things.

I'm Not Helpless!

I've been known to snap at people who say the wrong thing, like calling me Mommy or Mommy-to-be or being the 130th person in a day to ask me how I'm feeling. Today I snapped because I walked past a coworker as I was carrying a computer semi-tower to my office ... and as I walked back out she said, "You should have gotten someone to help you with that." I had to bite my tongue to not retort "Well, I didn't see you offer." She's an older lady and I'd hate to swap down something I find annoying with something she'd likely find offensive. But this is the same woman who, last week when I wore something that didn't make me look pregnant enough, asked me if there was something that I needed to tell her, implying that I had lost the baby. The same woman who doesn't seem to notice the way I wince when she--or ANYONE--calls me Mommy, because no one has called me that since my son was 9 and it's going to be many months before I hear it from this one. Others may find it cute, but I don't.

On the way home, I nearly cried over my inability to let go of the negative feelings I get from people treating me like I'm delicate, or sick, or as if my name isn't [realname] anymore. It's true, I move a lot more slowly because of how relaxin has affected my hips, but it hasn't disabled me. It's true, I had to sit through a lot of early morning meetings during the nausea phase where I'd be surreptitiously munching saltines and turning shade of green that more becomes a plant, but I'm just fine now, thanks. And yes, the baby's moving quite a bit. In fact, if you like, I can stand here as if I were a TV set and you can watch my tummy jiggle explosively as though it were a jiffy pop container--but please for the love of God, don't touch it.

I've tried patiently explaining to people that the fuss they make over me actually makes me self-conscious to the point of withdrawing. That's hard for them to fathom because they are so accustomed to me the extrovert. But I guess that along with other things that kind of go into hiding during pregnancy, so is my extroversion.

It's also been a hard day because the new, probably-not-improved introverted version of myself is difficult even for me to understand. Conversations that I used to really enjoy now seem disruptive, even totally pointless, and blundermouth would love to just come right out and SAY so. (The ones that were disruptive and/or pointless to begin with? Now I find myself chewing on my ankles to get free of that trap.)

But then, on top of all of it, getting home and finding that my son has done all of his chores and then some, and is apologizing for not having watered the plants outside because, well, it's like raining and stuff.

I needed that laugh. Kid, you're awesome, and you're going to make the bestest big brother in the whole world.

Bzzzt! Bzzzt! Bzzzt! Bzzzt!

Around mid-day, I realized that Bunky has been given a cellphone, turned the ringer off and started texting back and forth with his friends all day, especially tonight.

Alternatively, I swallowed a cellphone in my sleep, and someone's calling me every 30 seconds.

So I was relieved to find out that this is probably the result of pressure on one of my nerves. Although honestly, I'd rather have sciatica. I know how to handle pain better than I know how to handle vibrating.

It's Full of Stars

Someone said to me the other day that I picked a good summer to be pregnant. It's true. I don't have air conditioning and to tell the truth I've only missed it on a couple of days when it's gotten really miserable. But for it to be late July in Virginia and under 70 degrees at night is kind of amazing! And it's really been like this all summer long, one of the mildest I can remember, honestly.

I live in a fairly small town in northwestern Virginia, in the northern half of the Shenandoah Valley and near one of the entrance points to Skyline Drive and Shenandoah National Park. It's still within hurling distance of Northern Virginia, so two or three days a week I slog into the sprawl to work at my office. The other two or three business days I work from home.

I guess sometimes I take for granted how beautiful it is where I live. I don't always remember to notice it, living right in the middle of town. My husband's parents live on several acres about 10 miles south of here, outside of town and right underneath the mountains. We spent the day there, along with my son, and my stepdaughter, who brought a friend along. After a cookout and lots of frisbee time for the guys, Doodlemaier took the kids down to the creek to build a campfire, where they made S'mores.

I mostly sat by and watched, augmenting my recipe collection from various magazines that have been piling up, when suddenly I was ready to keel over and nap. Wasn't really up for the campfire anyway; the smoke is overwhelming for me even when I'm not pregnant. But it really was campfire weather--as I slept and the sun went down, the air actually took on a chill.

The kids woke me up around 10. You lose track of time out there--I have no idea what time I conked out, but when a passel of tweens and teens come charging through the house demanding ice cream (the S'mores, it turned out, had not gone so well--the chocolate had turned out to be of the unsweetened baker's variety). After some time relaxing in the living room, with Doodlemaier curled up next to me, murmuring silly things to my thumping belly, Elder Son on and I got ready to go--hubby and his daughter were sleeping over. As we walked out to the car, an overwhelming feeling of peace came over me. I looked up in the sky and thousands of stars... THOUSANDS! were scattered across the sky in patterns that came back to my memory easily. I said something to Elder Son about it, pointing out the Big Dipper, and he said, "Wow, you're right, I've never seen it so clearly." Coming across the sky, I pointed out Cassiopeia, and Perseus. Elder Son asked about the bright star dead center overhead, and I said, "That's Vega. It's a star in the swan." "Cygnus?" he said. Yep. (except I'm wrong: it's actually in the lyre, right next to the swan. but not bad for dredging up information I hadn't looked at since Elder Son was about 9.)

Then I pointed out the swath of mist in the sky behind these summer constellations, explaining that it was the Milky Way, and not a cloud at all. That it's full of stars, stars so finely grained and clustered that they look like a thin wisp of atmosphere, stretched in a ribbon from one side of the sky to the other.

I've long said that one of the joys of parenthood is transmitting a sense of wonder at the world and the universe. We had one of those moments tonight, and it's so rare with a teenager that I'm pondering on it tonight. We'll have many of those moments with Bunky, after so many missed with Elder Son and Lil'D, my stepdaughter, because of custody stuff. But each of those moments that we share with our children is a gift, one that will carry them into adulthood, as they get in touch with their own sense of wonder and transmit it to their own children some day.

Brotherly Love and the Road Ahead

Elder Son announced to me today that under no circumstances does he ever want to have to change diapers. I hadn't really planned on using him to babysit anyway, because I need for him to focus on school, but I'm a little dismayed by this--that there's not even an inherent curiosity, and worried this will translate into his adulthood and he'll make the same announcement to his future significant other someday.

There are going to be so many things about having two generations of children that I'm going to have to figure out. Even though I'm not the only person to go through this, the only people I know that have kids this far apart are typically fathers who don't have their older children at home with them.

But on the bright side, we're going to see Harry Potter tonight, assuming we can. Living in a small town has its advantages and disadvantages--less likely to sell out, but no way to know if it is without going down there.

Layers! Leggings! Accessories! Oh my!

As a somewhat plus-size pregnant mom who lost about 30 pounds right before I got pregnant, a lot of my pre-pregnancy, pre-weight-loss clothes still fit me here at month 5. This leads to strange questions sometimes as I look more pregnant some days than other simply because of wardrobe.

But the liberating joy for me has been discovering ways of mixing and matching nonmaternity clothes in new ways that allow me to keep wearing them not only size-wise, but comfort-wise. I had a closet full of no-waist dresses that had seen limited use in their non-pregnant-wear life, but now I've discovered that leggings, scarves, and other accessories can really dress them up. And the same is true for the maternity clothes I find myself drawn to. Sometimes, a long t-shirt over a tunic and leggings is just what I need to get through a day.

So then a friend of mine posts a link to The Uniform Project, Sheena Matheiken's fundraising project that involves wearing, essentially, the same dress every day for a year. (They are actually seven identical dresses.) The project really shows off how you can be creative with limited clothing by accessorizing, and Sheena is apparently the master of finding nifty accessories on sites like eBay and Etsy.

This is particularly significant when you're dealing with a maternity wardrobe. I've bought two single-color (one black, one brown) maternity dresses that are sleeveless, and love dressing them up by pairing them up with shirts, sweaters, leggings, shoes, bangles, bows, headbands, and other things that give them more life. This way, I don't have to buy more maternity dresses, but instead have all these fun things that I will be able to use no matter what size I am. (Although I'm fighting another round of shoe-buying. I had finally accepted that I became a 9 1/2 because of the weight gain. As much as I'd like to be a perfect 10--not!!)

Check out Sheena's site because it will give you some great accessorizing ideas. And be sure to read up on her chosen charity, the Akanksha Foundation, "a grassroots movement that is revolutionizing education in India. At the end of the year, all contributions will go toward Akanksha’s School Project to fund uniforms and other educational expenses for children living in Indian slums."

What's your favorite way to get more mileage out of your maternity clothes?

Being Family

Tomorrow is one of those heretofore rare occasions when we have both kids here. It tends to happen most often during the summer, but I think it will likely happen more often in general now that Elder Son is a year-round resident for the first time since stepdaughter came into my life.

I'm hoping we can get the 4.5 of us together for a family portrait, even an informal one.

It's nice having my husband's parents so nearby. I think I'm kind of dreading the conversation I want to have with them, but hoping we can come up with a way of their helping with day care on the days I work from home, rather than having two nonfamily daycare providers for the two different locations I work at. My idea is that I establish an office at their place. It actually could work really, really well. They have an outbuilding--a garage with a small, kitchenless efficiency over it--that's currently a guest bedroom suite, and it's large enough that I could put an office there without changing out the bedroom part of it.

The only problem is that I could lose the current tax deduction I get for my home office, and paying rent for the space to then write off kind of defeats the purpose. But by the same token, how much would I spend on an in-house day care provider? How much value does face time with grandparents, and easy access to momma's breast, offer? Priceless, to me.

There are times I also wish my mother were closer. She would volunteer to be the in-house care in a heartbeat, but she's three hours south of here. At the same time, her house is in no condition to leave kids with her, whereas I have no qualms about leaving the kids with the in-laws if need be.

Lots of things to work out on the practical side; I hate how those pieces get in the way of enjoying the journey. But plain and simple: if I don't find a solution, I won't be able to work, and the mortgage is not going to pay itself.

I just wish it wasn't a 2 hour (one-way) commute for my husband. Killing off our inside-the-beltway housing expense for his weekday crash space there would go a long way toward making ends meet if my income decreases, and then I wouldn't feel so daunted. On the good side, they recently relocated his office and shaved just enough miles and minutes from the commute that he's starting to talk more openly about ditching the Annandale place.

Hyperactive in the Womb! And Teenager Successes!

Bunky has been so active today that I'm not entirely sure he's rested at all. We got up at 6 a.m. and he was happily obliging his father with palpable kicks... that have continued all day. Even now, it's like popcorn going off in my belly. I can't get over it--I really don't remember my first son being this active, but... 17 years is a long time to remember much of anything I didn't write down. (Part of the reason I blog as much as I do.)

But a weird thing happened at work today. One of the co-workers from the other side of the building came round the corner and gasped when she saw me. "You look so skinny!" she exclaimed. "Is there something you need to tell us?"

Some days I show, some days I don't. I am just heavy-set-but-big-boned enough that I still just look plump in most clothes, but anything cut for maternity makes me look more maternal.

I just feel like a freak show, though. The attention I get kills me. I'm not sure what I expected (ha!) but it's been very difficult to enjoy this pregnancy

But on a totally different note, Elder Son made his debut today on the radio, at the college station at the university where I'm working on my master's. He came off the air absolutely beaming, and filled with enthusiasm for the medium. Since I spent 10 years as a journalist and 4 as a club DJ, I'm completely squee about the idea of him following in my footsteps, but on radio--but even more so after seeing him so full of joy. We finally have almost everything together to enroll him in the new high school, and I'm finally starting to feel optimistic that things are going to work out just fine.

If I could just get all the bills caught up...

Week 23

It's been an up and down week for the most part. Work was one meeting after another, one of which was an off-site teambuilding activity that required a fair amount of walking, and I'm really the slow kid on the block. The relaxin has done a number on my hips (especially the right one) and so I vacillate between limping and waddling.

To add injury to insult, yesterday I slipped on a cat toy my indoor cat had left sit in the middle of a major household thoroughfare and faceplanted right into the middle of the dining room. Fortunately, my right arm took the brunt of the fall and is well-padded enough that I didn't break anything nor did I jostle Bunky too much, but I lay there for a few minutes recovering my wits and dignity only to have Elder Son find me there and yelp, "Mom, are you ok?" Comedian that I am, I had trouble not coming back with something highly inappropriate such as "just enjoying the view from down here," but was glad for his concern, which lasted for about an hour as I limped through the grocery store, patiently explaining to him that the limp had more to do with my loose hip joints than my little mishap.

But today, that arm is _sore,_ as if I'd spent most of yesterday working my right triceps out with 50 pound weights. So between that and the hip, my right side is practically out of commission today.

But Bunky remains active as ever, and is landing punches well above the belly button now. Less than four months until his due date--time is flying!

Scary Monsters!

This just in from my husband, which made me laugh and is probably a good tip for anyone parenting the pre-school set. My stepdaughter is 10 now, and well past fearing monsters under the bed, but I hadn't heard this anecdote about her wee youth before:

Remember when you were a frightened child and you'd sometimes call on your parents in the middle of the night to allay your fear of monsters under the bed? You might even have fond memories of your parent's creative ways of dealing with these shadow monsters, they might've shouted them down and ordered them out of the house, or maybe they shone a flashlight to cause them to evaporate along with the rest of the darkness there. My favorite method of monster proofing when my own daughter was little was a goodly dose of "monster spray" which, incidently, left the dust bunnies smelling fresh and clean of potpourri.

How do you monster-proof, now that we're about to go through this whole child-rearing thing again?

Eight Down, From Another Part of My Life

I wrote this in 1996, remembering being pregnant with Elder Son. It was during the throes of the divorce and custody fight, and the tone reflects that struggle to find my identity as a mother when so much had been reduced to my feeling like a Brave New World creche attendant. It's not a huge leap, looking back, to understand why I didn't feel empowered to help other women bring life into the world during this part of my life, even though I had spent the previous three years preparing to do just that:

Eight Down

I lost my toes this morning, when I stepped out of bed to draw the bath.

I keep losing things, parts of my burgeoning body, placidly accommodating the desired package which will present itself, screaming, in one long month. First, I lost my lap. The cat advised me of this. Padding softly across the back of the sofa, her inquisitive whiskers grazed my flushed cheek as she descended over my shoulder to the bubble of a belly that had once been my lap. She turned around slowly, kneading the offensive stretch panel that enclosed my distending flesh, and her needle-sharp claws seemed like they should burst the balloon. Apparently, the swelling belly agreed, for with an eerie jump of an errant, developing limb, the child within pops the cat off the polyester, furry legs and tail scrambling for balance in midair.

And now I have no toes, I think, as I lower myself into the hot bath and ease my grame, some 55 pounds heavier now, against the cold back of the porcelain tub. I can look down and see only breasts and stomach. That is all I am, the chamber of gestation and the vessel of lactation. I have arms, too, but they are no longer long enough to reach the flower of my womanhood--not to indulge myself, mind, but to ensure it's still there, for I lost it about a month ago. And if that's not there, how will my boy (I know it's a boy) pass through? Will I have to be cut, violated by a wayward scalpel above my invisible pubis, my head severed by a sterile screen with only blinding white lights for company?

My belly button is disappearing too. In the bath, I can see the actual scar of my umbilicus, my birthday wound, long buried; a navel never noted for its glory days of Amnion, long expatriated. My son will have a navel someday, but first it must be a blackened, rotten reminder of the rope that used to tie us together--cut, useless, dead--and now a lint trap. Are these lint balls 22 years old, too?

I rise from the cooling water, and wrap my stomach in a towel. It sits like a tablecloth over me, full breasts atop it like mugs of steamed milk. I drag myself over to clothes than do not fit, wishing they better covered the silver-purple snakes that skid about my abdomen. The cute pink flowers pinch my crotch, and the shoes pinch my missing toes.

The calendar speaks: three and a half more weeks. The scale speaks: I have gained too much weight. The kitchen speaks: There is no more food. The wallet speaks: There is no more money. Society speaks: But I don't know what it is saying. I am about to embark on the greatest most fulfilling failure of my life, and I know the truth. I am larger than life. I am invisible.

I have lost my body.

Found writing

I wrote this in 1996, remembering being pregnant with Kieran. It was during the throes of the divorce and custody fight, and the tone reflects it:

Eight Down

I lost my toes this morning, when I stepped out of bed to draw the bath.

I keep losing things, parts of my burgeoning body, placidly accommodating the desired package which will present itself, screaming, in one long month. First, I lost my lap. The cat advised me of this. Padding softly across the back of the sofa, her inquisitive whiskers grazed my flushed cheek as she descended over my shoulder to the bubble of a belly that had once been my lap. She turned around slowly, kneading the offensive stretch panel that enclosed my distending flesh, and her needle-sharp claws seemed like they should burst the balloon. Apparently, the swelling belly agreed, for with an eerie jump of an errant, developing limb, the child within pops the cat off the polyester, furry legs and tail scrambling for balance in midair.

And now I have no toes, I think, as I lower myself into the hot bath and ease my grame, some 55 pounds heavier now, against the cold back of the porcelain tub. I can look down and see only breasts and stomach. That is all I am, the chamber of gestation and the vessel of lactation. I have arms, too, but they are no longer long enough to reach the flower of my womanhood--not to indulge myself, mind, but to ensure it's still there, for I lost it about a month ago. And if that's not there, how will my boy (I know it's a boy) pass through? Will I have to be cut, violated by a wayward scalpel above my invisible pubis, my head severed by a sterile screen with only blinding white lights for company?

My belly button is disappearing too. In the bath, I can see the actual scar of my umbilicus, my birthday wound, long buried; a navel never noted for its glory days of Amnion, long expatriated. My son will have a navel someday, but first it must be a blackened, rotten reminder of the rope that used to tie us together--cut, useless, dead--and now a lint trap. Are these lint balls 22 years old, too?

I rise from the cooling water, and wrap my stomach in a towel. It sits like a tablecloth over me, full breasts atop it like mugs of steamed milk. I drag myself over to clothes than do not fit, wishing they better covered the silver-purple snakes that skid about my abdomen. The cute pink flowers pinch my crotch, and the shoes pinch my missing toes.

The calendar speaks: three and a half more weeks. The scale speaks: I have gained too much weight. The kitchen speaks: There is no more food. The wallet speaks: There is no more money. Society speaks: But I don't know what it is saying. I am about to embark on the greatest most fulfilling failure of my life, and I know the truth. I am larger than life. I am invisible.

I have lost my body.

I need new math

I don't see working for AFCEA working out long-term, for no other reason than despite the flexibility offered... northern virginia daycare is too expensive (on the order of $300/week for full-time care) and if I can't move to a full-time telecommute schedule I wind up in the untenable position of either being 60 miles away from the baby if something goes weird or having to juggle him between two different daycare providers. (I can't flex up my telecommute schedule to care for baby and work at the same time, either: if I got caught, I'd get fired.)

Plain and simple: I am looking at a scenario wherein health insurance for one dependent, day care, and the mortgage -- just those three things -- are more than my take-home pay. And I'm the breadwinner of the family.

Now, yesterday I had a discussion with my boss and the editor-in-chief, and they are restructuring my position to be more strategy focused. It will yield a promotion of some kind, but it will be a while before I know whether there's any sort of pay increase with that promotion. They have to be thinking about retaining me, but they also have to work within a budget. I suspect that the budget they submitted included a structure in which I'm a director. I don't know what sort of pay goes with that level of work at our org. But that has to get approved.

I wish I could be a stay-at-home mom, focus on writing, and not find myself parked in these corners of anxiety.