February 1, 2000 --- 2:24 AM EST

Baby thoughts.

I was browsing though CyberDiet's pregnancy module. It's pretty general and pretty ok, and it gets me thinking about things.

So important to have a sound nutritional background before trying to conceive. You won't even know you are pregnant until a month or more into the pregnancy and by then the fetus is off and running with its development. So this is a concern because you can't "make up" poor nutrition once it's off and going can you?

Another concern? My still being overweight can be an issue. No, I'm not obese anymore, but being overweight is not helping my odds any. "On one hand, excess weight can complicate a pregnancy. On the other hand, if you are fiercely dieting while you are trying to conceive, you may be lacking very important nutrients needed to start a healthy pregnancy. "Ok, so I ought to lose weight, get fit, maintain for a year or more and then go for the kid, right? Right.

Another? Try my long history of period weirdness (ammenorhea) and who knows what simply conceiving will be like for us.

Another? I've not been vegan for years and years here. I think I am doing ok with it, but I also don't have another life trying to grow in me either. What are my concerns supposed to be like with a vegan pregnancy?

I really need to have the odds stacked on my side in favor of as smooth a pregnancy as possible. This big long checklist is helpful, and I'll print it out later but boy, it looks daunting!

I told Paul not to freak out if I start a baby binder -- notes, articles, stuff I want to read again later on while we were eating dinner and relating our days. He just nodded.

No cracks, no jokes.

It feels weird. We still make cracks and joke about kids and things just because that is how we are about everything, but it feels really strange to be planning stuff about our life to include that MaybeBaby. Sometimes we joke because that's comfortable and vents a little bit of the weirdness, other times we don't joke and the solemnity of what we are contemplating gets to be a bit much.

Like on the one hand I want to feel really gooshy and warm and fuzzy and turn into a blathering idiot over pastel colors that I normally abhor and drool over baby socks. Then on the other hand I want to rip my hair out and scream for no apparent reason.

My SIL would one day like be a midwife so for fun I bought her a used copy of Spiritual Midwifery by Ina Mae Gaskin -- the first edition. The front are anecdotes by the parents-to-be on The Farm from when it was founded by Steven Gaskin in 1971 and just getting set up. His wife, Ina Mae Gaskin, was to become one of the first midwives. Ina also publishes The Birth Gazette now, and The Farm Midwifery Center has come a long way form it's modest beginnings. The anecdotes read with the slang of the time -- all hippie like. So while the book is about home birthing, the anecdotes are not just about the parents' experiences, but a look at the time, and a look at the universal feelings revolving around the decision to have a child, and then the experience of actually doing it.

Some thing don't change. All of the feelings I may feel now have been felt before many times over by all the women who came to this junction in their lives ahead of me. I know it's normal.

Some random thoughts?

I love him.

I love us.

We don't have to have natural birth children, we are both ok with adoption.

If we do elect to have a natural birth baby, it better be soon because my plumbing is wacky and the older I get the weirder it will be.

If we really want one for in our late twenties, I have to start planning money, do something about my general health, and have him do something about his.

I have a million questions in my head, some sane, some weird, some practical, some silly. Ought we really have a natural birth child? Is that ecologically/environmentally responsible when there are so many people around already? Would I raise it vegan? What about religion? What about homeschooling? What about a room for it? What about its furnishings and clothing? Who do we know with a kid who can tell us how much they've dropped on it? What about kid nutrition? What about our careers? What about us as a couple? About us as parents? Can we imagine the impact of having a child accurately? Should we borrow our nieces more in the next year or so? What about genetics? Ought we be worried about anything strange or bizarre in our family histories? I have twins in mine -- what if its twins?! Will I be mean and grinchy and drive Paul insane? Will he feel left out? Will there be more than one kid? If so, how to pace them out? What about teaching it Spanish? Will Paul learn it then? What about our pets? Will we have to give some up? Or can we manage? Will the pets be neglected? What do I expect from motherhood? Fatherhood? What are his feelings and thoughts? Hospital vs. birthing center? Names?

Ad infinitum.

Some are so way down there that there is no point in going there til I get there. Others are more immediate, namely me-as-walking-incubator. What's my body got to do? Am I fit enough for pregnancy?

I had to write a little intro thingie to the new quasi-mirror of my journal over at HealthyPlace and it made me sit down and write my goals down. When I look at the old goals that I met and the new goals it's so strange to have pregnancy thoughts on there.

When I read Spiritual Midwifery last year it was the first thing I read about pregnancy/babies. I did get it for Angie, but I knew I wanted to read it cover to cover. It wigged Paul out at first, until he found out it wasn't for me but his sister. Paul later read some of the anecdotes although he skipped the technical info in the back because it gave him the woolies and he wasn't ready to deal with that part of female biology.

We both had a good laugh over the stories though -- the writing style, the slang. We often thought we might have been misplaced flower children, born too late to be this age then. So reading stories written by people who were this age then at that stage of their relationship was somehow kind of cool. Like a time capsule.

But it made us snicker that in every anecdote written by a potential Dad, all he had to say was "It's heavy! It's heavy!" while the potential mothers wrote about all kinds of things from how their bodies changed to how they feel, to their worries that their husbands might feel displaced. The Dad's wrote less often, but when they did, it was expressions of panic and worry over the birthing and just major freak out time. "It's heavy! It's heavy!"

I remember those first MaybeBaby talks from then with Paul.

"Are you going to be freaking out like that?" I asked him.

"Probably. I don't know that I will be running around screaming, 'Its heavy! It's heavy!' but I am pretty sure all fathers-to-be get bizarre and stressed out and totally wacko."

"I'm glad I'm not you."

"That's something you don't hear often. Usually it's the guy saying that. Why?"

"Because I have a job. I am sure labor hurts, I am sure it's not always a bowl of cherries to be the walking womb, and feeling like my body hosts and alien and feeling all cumbersome, but at least I have a job to do, I have things happening. Dads don't have the same thing -- not like a primary job. Support, yes, but not a direct involved job thing besides to stand by and be all stressed. Given the choice between being anxious and having something to be doing, versus being anxious and just sort of flapping about and flailing and not knowing what to do with myself, I'd rather be the woman and not the man. I rather have a job!"

"No fair! You are right! I don't want to flap around! What if I want a job?!"

"I don't think you can get pregnant, pet."

"Not fair!" He shouted. "Wait a minute. Did I just say what I think I just said?"

"What if I decide to have it at home? What if by then Angie really is a midwife? Did I tell you she asked me if you and I had kids, would I let her deliver it? I told her sure. "

"Argh! She's my sister! Argh! Home birthing? Argh! Enough for today! Too heavy! Too heavy! Too heavy!"

The MaybeBaby conversations these days aren't so jumpy. I think we've both gotten comfortable with the idea in our heads, and so long as for a little while longer it stays hypothetical, we're groovy.

Still strange though.

~Astrophe

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