Dreamed Beginnings

36 weeks yesterday, and last night I dreamed about the Tex Mex place we used to go when I was a kid. It opened in the 1920s, in a faux-Spanish fort style building in a neighborhood in Houston that by the time I was born had become the center of gay nightlife. It was up the street from a leather daddy bar called "Mary's," which a painted mural on the side of men in police caps with curly hair on their chests. The man who opened the restaurant was a major figure in Houston Tejano politics, albeit a conservative, a proponent of assimilation and civic engagement. He died in the 1960s, and there were pictures of him in the front turret-shaped room of the restaurant, black and white with that perfect smooth skin of pictures taken in the 1940s. His wife continued to run it, a tiny Mexican woman, less than five feet tall, and we would sometimes see her outside under a giant umbrella, shooing people out of her parking lot who weren't customers. It never occurred to me to wonder how she could tell who were customers and who weren't. Maybe it was the leather.

The restaurant closed about a decade ago. Reportedly, is the first restaurant I ever visited in my life, placed in a baby carrier in the center of the table like a flower arrangement. We sat in the smoking section, because my father smoked and it was 1977. Another thing I accepted as fact without questioning: Anglo Texans have Tex-Mex restaurant affiliations that are non-negotiable, as engraved in stone as college football affiliations. You are either a Longhorn or an Aggie. You cannot be both. And your family either eats at Molina's or Felix's, or the Ninfa's on Navigation. You are welcome to visit these other places, of course, but you always pick one when given the option, and usually it's not up for discussion. My best friend growing up was from a Ninfa's family. My first boyfriend in seventh grade was from a Molina's family. But I am from a Felix's family. Are we still a Felix's family, now that Felix's is gone? Hard to know. Some of their recipes, and the imported Mexican chairs - bright colors, bolt upright, scratchy rattan seats, mismatched - that used to be in the dining room, pulled up to tables with white tablecloths topped with glass against the encroachment of glops of greasy queso and hot sauce, are now in a throwback restaurant up the street called El Real.

I go to El Real sometimes. But it's like a museum of Tex Mex, rather than a Tex Mex restaurant. The staff wear ironic t-shirts that refer to lard. The menu is winking, and has cute names for stuff. On top of the menu, in quotes, it says "hot plate," which is a nod to the warning usually delivered in the past by an exhausted Mexican man in a white waiter's jacket, sliding a platter of refried beans and rice and tacos with iceberg lettuce in front of you with a napkin on the edge, because the plate has been sitting under a heat lamp for who knows how long and the ceramic will burn your hands. El Real is the closest I can get to Felix's queso now. It's almost the same. Maybe it is the same, and I'm the one who has changed. The city has changed. All is as it should be. Mrs. Tirinja died years ago, around the same time as the AIDS crisis decimated Mary's and there was less jockeying for parking in the Felix Mexican Restaurant parking lot. I'd have liked to have taken Succotash there, put him on the center of the table like a flower arrangement and wafting queso under his tiny nose. But his life with be studded by other nostalgias that, in time, will rightfully pass. It will be his life, he is leading. Not mine. He won't even be Texan.

Mr. Guac and my doula have agreed that it would be pretty boss to bring me a fresh lime margarita with salt rim in the hospital after Succotash is born. I hope they do it. That would be amazing. A tiny nod to the power of memory, and of change.

Stressball

Well, Succotash, I fear your mother is being a stressball today. Partly it's a holdover from Tuesday, in which a nurse practitioner delivered point by point rebuttals to all of my concerns outlined on the birth plan that she refused to read, and then sent me to labor and delivery for another several hours' monitoring for preeclampsia. Overall, just not a great day (though you looked lovely on the ultrasound, it must be said. I have appreciated not having to worry about you during this otherwise dreadful process). And then last night we had dinner with your aunt, which technically went well, but among other things she expressed approval of your arriving early because then your birthday won't "compete" with hers. She is almost 40, Succotash, and you are a baby. I don't even know where to start with that one, so let's just leave it aside for the time being.

I never thought of myself as someone who was particularly wedded to having one kind of birth experience. But apparently I had very clear ideas of what I wanted to have happen. I wanted to go into labor naturally, and then stay at home for as long as possible. I wanted to spend early labor on our comfy sofa, or in our nice carwash-level shower, or snuggling your elderly dog, or eating cheese. I even thought I might go get a foot rub at the cheap Chinese foot massage place around the corner. I wanted to be at home until such time as the friendly doula told me yeah, we really ought to be going now. I was open to pain relief, but had this idea that the more calm and comfortable I could be, outside the grip of medicalization, the happier I would be.

Well, that's not what's happening. My hypertension means that they want to induce me, and bring you forth three weeks early. I'm not worried about what this means for you, as you strike me as a hearty individual, you with your high percentile scores and your insistent little baby feet. But I am worried what this means for me. It means pushing my body into doing something before it is ready. It means a lot of monitoring, and medicalization, and those things spell pain, and pain spells stress and anxiety, which makes for more pain. I tried to write up a birth plan that accepted this new reality but still spoke to some of what I think of as my core needs, and the nurse practitioner wouldn't even look at it. I felt dismissed. Unheard. And more afraid.

What am I afraid of? I'm not sure. Pain, of course. Lasting bodily harm. Death, if we're being honest. I know the odds of that are long these days, fortunately, especially as I am an upper middle class woman in a major metropolitan area. But I'm also afraid of loss of control. Of being seen not as an individual person, but as an abstraction, to be dealt with in platitudes and scripts. The tremendous depersonalization of modern medicine. I am afraid of being a statistic.

So today I wrote to my OB expressing these anxieties and sending along a copy of my birth plan, helpfully converted to PDF. I don't know if it will make any difference, but at least I have said - hey. I am a person, who has fears. I have needs. Please listen to me.

Scheduled

We have an induction date.

October 7.

Almost there.

Arg

Every day, in every way, I grow more spherical and enormous. Today I am beached on the couch like an exhausted walrus, except instead of sunning myself I am hiding behind translucent shades against an improbable 88 degree day in New York City. It's the first day of autumn.

My baby will be born this autumn. Probably in about a week and a half.

My blood pressure keeps veering wildly between the low side of normal and worrisomely high.

And I am exhausted. Some days I'm not. Today I am. The dog keeps staring at me with moist needy brown eyes, and I try to explain to him that I cannot walk him right now, I just can't, he went out already this morning and he will have to wait until L gets home and can do it, because I am exhausted and waddling and my blood pressure is through the roof and it's 88 degrees outside on the first day of autumn.

Dogs don't know about autumn. Or blood pressure. I don't blame him.

Even the veins in my forearms and hands are standing out.

Soon, Succotash. You are winning this war of attrition between our bodies, my old one and your brand new one. But we are past 35 weeks. You are in there, pretty much fully yourself, absent some extra layers of chub and fluff. I am happy to work on your chub from outside my body instead of inside.

We will see what they say at our appointment tomorrow.

Some People

Scene: In the elevator taking Dog Guac out for his morning constitutional. Dramatis personae: Me, elevator operator, Dog Guac.

Elevator stops and a couple get on. I know the wife, as we tangled on the lobby committee last year. She has been snooty to me. I decide to take the high road.

Me: Hi! So did y'all have a nice summer?

Snoot Wife, brightly: Hi! Oh yes, thank you! How about you?

Me, polite laughter, gesturing to round self under large college sweatshirt: Well, you can see what we were up to, ha ha.

SW: Oh yes! You must have had a fun summer.

Snoot Husband: Or a very fun spring!

thud

SH: You know, cause.... I mean....

Me: shocked, deadly silence

SH, clapping elevator operator on the back: All right, thanks Victor.

End scene.

What I wish I'd said: You know, I've been a woman my whole life, so I'm used to men I don't really know making jokes about my sexuality. But I'm here to tell you, there's nothing fun about IVF, and it was actually a pretty tough spring. Have a nice day!

In other news, 35 weeks today. Two weeks to induction. Almost there.

Developments

Today I have:

1. been diagnosed with gestational hypertension and told I can no longer travel and also - ta da! - I can expect to be induced at 37 weeks, which is two weeks from Friday

2. Canceled the talk I was supposed to give Thursday in a different state, together with the train tickets and misc other stuff I was supposed to accomplish whilst there

3. Informed all grandparents of accelerated schedule, and made inquiries for a guest room for my parents as their usual place is full

4. Not decapitated my husband over the telephone as I explained why yes, it is imperative he attend the last OB appt before my induction so we can ask questions, and yes, he must cancel the talk he is scheduled to give in a different city the day after that appointment, because I COULD BE HAVING A FUCKING BABY AND WHO CARES ABOUT A STUPID TALK I SWEAR TO GOD I'M GOING TO MURDER HIM IN HIS SLEEP

5. walked the dog

6. made myself a healthy and delicious dinner

7. announced cancellation of talk on professional social media outlets

8. informed collaborator of new situation and shared various in-process chapter drafts with him so he may work while I am out of commission if he so chooses

9. informed editor of progress with collaborator and of change in schedule due to high risk pregnancy situ

10. hoped desperately not to be fired from collaboration, which they have the contractual right to do even though it would be tacky as fuck

11. pointed out to self that stressing about getting fired is PROBABLY BAD FOR HYPERTENSION

12. said "fuck it"

34 weeks tomorrow

These baby feet are starting to drive me absolutely insane. Which feels terrible to say, as I worked so hard to make these baby feet, and to keep these baby feet safe, and the more I feel the baby feet the safer I know they are, and if I suddenly stopped feeling the baby feet I would panic. But even so, last night I actually dreamt about baby feet. In my dream I looked down at my midsection and shined a light on my belly which revealed a spreading bruise somehow underneath my skin, and within the halo of purpling bruise I saw two absolutely distinct baby footprints. I tried to take a picture, but I couldn't hold the camera and the light at the same time. The feet pressed out and I saw their outline, and the bruise rippled, and then the feet disappeared and were replaced with the outline of hands.

It real life it's not quite so uncanny as that. The feet emerge as lumps rather than outlines of feet. But as I sit here in the library trying to get work done a foot lump emerges under my arm, pressing out from under my ribs, like he's eager to step out into the world but doesn't know which way to go.

Tomorrow is 34 weeks. Our next scan and appointment is on Tuesday, and then we will enter the weekly appointments stage.

You can be early if you want, Succotash. I share your eagerness. I have blankets and little footie pajamas and beanies and a changing pad and a diaper bag and a couple of swaddles and I've signed up for diaper delivery and we have a formula machine just in case and I'm ready. I mean, I'm not ready. I'll never be ready, any more than you will be. Being born is going to be appalling for both of us I feel certain, as neither of us will have done it before, and it might be loud and scary and weird, but then your father and I will be there holding you and it will be much like when you were inside, except that you can stretch your baby feet out as far as you want, and use them to take you places other than under my rib and into the inner curve of my elbow. You will be free.

Good Morning, 33 Weeks.

Yes, thank you, good morning Puppy. No, I didn't want to sleep in. Yes, I'd much rather commence my 33rd week by hauling my round ass downstairs and letting you out two hours before my alarm. No, you're right, you are the first baby, and you get to go out when you want to. Yes, I know, I love you the mostest. Yes, a little bit more than L maybe. Yes. Okay. Say hello to the garden rabbit for me. Tell him I love him, too.

Oh hi there grumpy Succotash

Emotional

I just broke down weeping during the final scene of The Muppet Movie, which I was watching with your father and your friends Will and Irina and their baby Clara, who had never watched a whole movie before, and Adam and Jon and Annie.

Your father knew it was because I was imagining showing it to you for the first time.

Only seven more weeks and change.