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Birth stuff:
Our Birth Plan
Fertility stuff:
My TCOYF chart
My Fertility Friend chart
2003-08-21 - 11:12 a.m. - Cycle day: 38 weeks, 4 days
I had a strange realization the other day. It just hit me that the way we talk about pregnancy causes a sort of separateness. People don't usually ask "When are you having your baby?" They usually say "the" baby, or "that" baby. Likewise, I don't recall ever telling anyone that "our" baby is due on Sept. 1, or talk about "my" baby. I always use open articles like "the" and "a." I started thinking about this, and just pondering the phrase "I'm going to have my baby" almost sent chills through me. Maybe this seems silly to other people, but I guess I hadn't really spent a lot of time really considering the connection between me, The Husband, and our child (I almost just wrote "this" child). I've just been so focused on having "a" baby that I haven't stopped to think too much about the deeper side of it. This is my baby. Our baby. Part of us both, for the rest of our lives. Not just biologically, but on an emotional and spiritual level. It's really a pretty overwhelming thing to imagine, and maybe that's why we use language that disguises that fact. I know a lot of women spend the first couple weeks after giving birth waiting for "the real mother" to come take the baby back, and I wonder if that's connected to this abstraction that we perpetuate for nine months.
Anyway, just some random thoughts I've been having, in between addressing birth announcements, assembling our hospital bag, and trying to figure out the washing instructions for the four different kinds of cloth diaper covers I've hoarded. I put away a bunch of our new baby things, and then cleared out the crib so we can take out the new mattress and air it out somewhere. I'd sort of forgotten about off-gassing and other environmental pollution issues during the stuff-collection phase, and now I'm trying to back up and make for a cleaner, healthier nursery. Which may mean pulling out all the new vinyl shelf paper from the dresser where it's just spitting VOCs out into all the freshly laundered baby clothes.
Oh, and since I'm all linky today, I'll add one more - here's the link to Intact's circumcision video. The Husband was going to watch it last night, but he couldn't even make it through the still photos on the Intact site. I think the message may have finally gotten through.
