Dear Babycakes,
I’m gonna level with you: Man, this is weird. You and I have
been hanging out together for 13 weeks, and still I have these serious moments
of disbelief—like those dreams where my teeth are all falling out and I tell
myself in the dream, “No, you dream this all the time, this isn’t real,” and
then I tell myself in the dream, “Yes, those were dreams but this is the real thing, all your teeth are really falling
out,” and then I wake up and have to touch my teeth or look in the mirror to
make sure they are all still there—there you are. You’re the real thing. I don’t know what more
confirmation I could really be looking for.
I mean, you have upended my life already, like it or not. My
body: not my own. My emotions: not my own. My energy level: Not my own. For
some reason, you have nixed my appetite even though in theory I want to get all
earth-mama-hippie and eat organic vegetables and salmon chock-full of Omega-3s
to build up your brain. I can’t. The thought of cooked asparagus makes me want
to vomit, even though it is one of my favorite dinnertime foods. I have eaten
like a seventh grader for weeks: granola bars, dry cereal, Laffy Taffy, and
Icees. Ice-cold sour Granny Smith apples with sea salt. Popsicles. And the
ill-fated strawberry Jell-O. We won’t revisit that one again, I heard you. You didn’t have to be quite so emphatic.
Baby, it has been hot here. That is not helping my “condition,”
as it is. Funny thing is, I met your dad when it was scorching outside. Our
first date was right after the Fourth of July, seven years ago, and you could
fry eggs on the sidewalk. This is that same kind of summer, and it makes me
feel like I will love you with the same searing intensity I love your dad. We just celebrated our fourth wedding
anniversary. Unbeknownst to me, your dad bought me the fancy-pants Champagne I
love to drink, the kind we drank on our wedding day in south Maui. But I
surprised him right before the anniversary with the news that we were having
you. So the bottle of Veuve Cliquot is sitting in your future nursery, and we
will drink it when you arrive instead, which is due to happen January 29.
We know all of this thanks to science and technology (herewith
begins all my unsolicited advice to you: make science and technology your friends and be smart and kind
with them). Once we glimpsed you, although it was mostly circularish
blobs. But we have heard you twice, and baby, that is the best sound I have
ever heard in my life. Better than Michael Stipe singing "Find the River," better than a Led
Zeppelin guitar solo, better than cardinals whistling in the trees after a long winter, better than laughter.
The day we saw you, you were only 7 weeks into your
pre-life, which is like having, what, 110 percent of your life ahead of you or
something (I’m not good at math; I hope you are). I laid in the dark on a table
while a lady used an ultrasound to show us that you had indeed taken up
residence. She let us hear the heartbeat for just the merest of seconds. I was
so awed I didn’t think to ask her to prolong it, but both your dad and I were
deeply disappointed that was all we got once the appointment was over. You see:
We’re already hooked on you.
Then we had to wait another five long weeks before we could
hear you again. (The rest of this feels like a terrible case of lasting,
amped-up PMS, plus a hangover—promise me you’ll never have one of those—plus
stomach flu.) It’s not so much the romantic waiting-for-baby thing one might
think it feels like.
I waited it out on the couch in the sunroom with the dogs,
watching reruns of The Wonder Years,
nibbling like a bird on snacks and groaning whenever your dad walked by so he’d
take pity on me and rub my feet or kiss my forehead, or re-up my ice water
because I was so desperate for comfort in a sea of sick. Sometimes when I’d have a break in the day at
work, I’d count on my calendar how many days until the doctor would let us hear
your heartbeat again, and reassure us that everything was fine.
This past Monday, we saw Dr. M. We used a Doppler to hear
your heartbeat. She warned us that sometimes it takes a second to find it, because
you are so small right now. The suspense was exquisite, but didn’t last long.
She found it right away, and suddenly, your rabbit-quick heart sounds filled
the little beige room. Your dad said, “Sounds like a choo choo train,” and I cried on the
table, filled with an almost incomprehensible relief that my Laffy Taffy diet had actually sustained you
and that nothing had gone wrong. My doctor is a pretty woman, whipsmart and
caring. I’ve been seeing her for years and I trust her completely; she is
confident and articulate, and she wears eyeglasses that are
like works of art. On this day she was wearing all black, with carnation-pink
glasses that nearly had flames coming off the sides, with red
lipstick. She has very dark hair, and kind eyes. And she let us listen for a
long time, over and over reassuring me that it was a good, strong heartbeat,
that my uterus felt exactly like one carrying a baby, that you were indeed
there. A showoff, she called you. Later, I sent a message to your auntie Cindy,
telling her the news. She replied: “That’s what we want to hear! I’m not
surprised the baby is an overachiever. A true Van Dorne,” which is a
longstanding joke about our last name we will explain to you someday. Your dad
and I wiped away tears and we kissed in the elevator on the way home. The rest
of the week paled in comparison.
The last couple of days we were able to turn off the air
conditioning and tonight the windows were open. Cool, sweet breeze poured in
the front windows of the house as I read my book (Some Assembly Required, by Anne Lamott, in case you ever want to
know) and relaxed after a taxing week (and, surprise, surprise, endured some
nausea). I did my best to bask in the true Minnesota air, the kind I can’t wait
for you to grow up breathing in.
Love,
Your Mama
