Friday, July 19, 2019
Sunday, July 14, 2019
Pitch
In Order for me to get Pregnant, my Protagonist had to do it First
Historians of witchcraft agree about one thing: writing about witchcraft will make you more superstitious. Strange coincidences, weird family connections, and odd outcomes abound. I thought it was weird enough when I discovered, years after the fact, that I was directly descended from a real life accused witch about whom I'd written an entire novel. But that was only the beginning.
I was three years into hardcore infertility treatment when it came time to write this novel, the follow up to my first witch novel. Like most first-time novelists, I wrote my first protagonist to be just a tiny bit too much like me. I wrote that book in grad school, and she was a grad student. We both are descended from executed Salem witches. We both spend a lot of our intellectual energy on the history of witchcraft and women in America. We are both brunette and kind of awkward. We both drove old beat up Volvos and we both had shaggy animals trailing along behind us wherever we went.
But our lives went in sharply different directions after that first novel came out. She become a professor, and I became a novelist. And when it was time to continue her story, for various narrative reasons it was imperative that she find herself pregnant at an inopportune time. Inopportune for her in her personal and professional life, and inopportune for me in that I was injecting myself four times a day with high octane chemicals amid ever-diminishing odds of success. At a moment in which much is being written about the challenges of being a writer and a mother at the same time, I faced the silent, invisible challenge of being a writer and a not-mother, and not by choice. I could give my protagonist what I wanted, whether she wanted it or not. But I had to face the truth that I probably would never have it for myself.
I wrote the book slowly, piece by piece, my protagonist grappling with the consequences of my choice for her personal life and her career, while I started yet another round of IVF, with its own consequences for my personal life and career. In the back of my mind, I thought maybe it would work in time for me to change the dedication of the book. My protagonist got more desperate. So did I. The manuscript went in, the dedication made, but not to a baby, as that round of IVF failed too. Things work out okay for my protagonist, though in ways shockingly different from what she expected. I told myself that they would work out for me too. That my life was good the way that it was, and that I could dump my invisible sadness on my protagonist as long as I wanted. If I couldn't control the outcome of my own life, I at least had some kind of say in hers.
It was after the manuscript revisions were all done, after the book was typeset, after the cover was picked, the acknowledgements written, and the dedication set in stone that my fifth, last ditch, hail Mary pass at IVF worked. I am about to leave on book tour six months pregnant, trying to come up with a way to talk about writing stories of witchcraft without succumbing to superstition.
Historians of witchcraft agree about one thing: writing about witchcraft will make you more superstitious. Strange coincidences, weird family connections, and odd outcomes abound. I thought it was weird enough when I discovered, years after the fact, that I was directly descended from a real life accused witch about whom I'd written an entire novel. But that was only the beginning.
I was three years into hardcore infertility treatment when it came time to write this novel, the follow up to my first witch novel. Like most first-time novelists, I wrote my first protagonist to be just a tiny bit too much like me. I wrote that book in grad school, and she was a grad student. We both are descended from executed Salem witches. We both spend a lot of our intellectual energy on the history of witchcraft and women in America. We are both brunette and kind of awkward. We both drove old beat up Volvos and we both had shaggy animals trailing along behind us wherever we went.
But our lives went in sharply different directions after that first novel came out. She become a professor, and I became a novelist. And when it was time to continue her story, for various narrative reasons it was imperative that she find herself pregnant at an inopportune time. Inopportune for her in her personal and professional life, and inopportune for me in that I was injecting myself four times a day with high octane chemicals amid ever-diminishing odds of success. At a moment in which much is being written about the challenges of being a writer and a mother at the same time, I faced the silent, invisible challenge of being a writer and a not-mother, and not by choice. I could give my protagonist what I wanted, whether she wanted it or not. But I had to face the truth that I probably would never have it for myself.
I wrote the book slowly, piece by piece, my protagonist grappling with the consequences of my choice for her personal life and her career, while I started yet another round of IVF, with its own consequences for my personal life and career. In the back of my mind, I thought maybe it would work in time for me to change the dedication of the book. My protagonist got more desperate. So did I. The manuscript went in, the dedication made, but not to a baby, as that round of IVF failed too. Things work out okay for my protagonist, though in ways shockingly different from what she expected. I told myself that they would work out for me too. That my life was good the way that it was, and that I could dump my invisible sadness on my protagonist as long as I wanted. If I couldn't control the outcome of my own life, I at least had some kind of say in hers.
It was after the manuscript revisions were all done, after the book was typeset, after the cover was picked, the acknowledgements written, and the dedication set in stone that my fifth, last ditch, hail Mary pass at IVF worked. I am about to leave on book tour six months pregnant, trying to come up with a way to talk about writing stories of witchcraft without succumbing to superstition.
Kick
I'm in Martha's Vineyard, and I should be going to sleep. But instead I am lying on my back staring at my belly.
This is because in the last two days or so, Succotash has been kicking hard enough for me to actually see it.
I sat for awhile, poised with my phone, trying to capture proof on video. Every time I was ready with the record button, he would settle down.
I'd try to jostle him, but like me, he is stubborn, and will only move on his own terms.
I finally got him. One weird ripple. Not my breath. A glimmer of life, or will, or something, but not mine.
I am 25 weeks. 15 to go. Which doesn't seem like all that many, when you get right down to it.
This is because in the last two days or so, Succotash has been kicking hard enough for me to actually see it.
I sat for awhile, poised with my phone, trying to capture proof on video. Every time I was ready with the record button, he would settle down.
I'd try to jostle him, but like me, he is stubborn, and will only move on his own terms.
I finally got him. One weird ripple. Not my breath. A glimmer of life, or will, or something, but not mine.
I am 25 weeks. 15 to go. Which doesn't seem like all that many, when you get right down to it.
Tuesday, June 18, 2019
Exhale
Everything looks fine.
You. You look fine. You are "a beautiful fetus," says the MFM team at NYU. The ultrasound tech doing the fetal echocardiogram agrees. You do not have to see the pediatric cardiac specialist again unless your pediatrician hears a heart murmur after you are born.
You are fine.
Everything is fine.
I am so relieved I could cry.
Maybe I will? Why not?
Why not.
Only a few more months. It's summer now. You arrive in the fall.
Not too long at all.
I can't believe it. After all this time. All these blog entries. Years. Years and years and years of hypothetical consideration. You are really in there.
You are on your way.
And you'll be here very, very soon.
You. You look fine. You are "a beautiful fetus," says the MFM team at NYU. The ultrasound tech doing the fetal echocardiogram agrees. You do not have to see the pediatric cardiac specialist again unless your pediatrician hears a heart murmur after you are born.
You are fine.
Everything is fine.
I am so relieved I could cry.
Maybe I will? Why not?
Why not.
Only a few more months. It's summer now. You arrive in the fall.
Not too long at all.
I can't believe it. After all this time. All these blog entries. Years. Years and years and years of hypothetical consideration. You are really in there.
You are on your way.
And you'll be here very, very soon.
Saturday, June 15, 2019
Worry
I read a post from an internet stranger who is ten days ahead of me. She got bad news at the anatomy scan that I am scheduled to have on Tuesday, and she had to terminate at 21+2. Today I am 21+1. I feel him moving, like a fish.
Yesterday, I stepped out of the shower and wept all over L. I do not like responding to someone else's pain by being afraid for myself - that feels selfish, unempathetic, even cruel. But I have known in the back of my head that nothing is guaranteed, that nothing is under my control, that all I can do is take my vitamins and get enough sleep and hope and hope and hope and realize there is no reason for anything, nothing is fair, none of the good things or bad things in my life are a reflection of my worth as a human being, and seeing the worst thing, the nightmare thing, happen to someone - not someone I know, exactly, but not a stranger either. It reminds me of how tenuous everything is.
Everyone who is a sailor knows someone who was lost at sea. And this is true of people trying to have children too, it seems - in my own small group of maybe 50-odd people, we have had two near term losses, one early delivery that seems to have worked out okay, and one late termination. It's like dodging a swinging pendulum that will knock down whatever tiny pin happens to have the misfortune to be standing in the way. A half an inch to the left, and the pin still stands.
I hate not having control. I hate having no say in any of this.
I hate that this stranger I know, moving in near lockstep with me, is now in indescribable pain.
And I am afraid.
Yesterday, I stepped out of the shower and wept all over L. I do not like responding to someone else's pain by being afraid for myself - that feels selfish, unempathetic, even cruel. But I have known in the back of my head that nothing is guaranteed, that nothing is under my control, that all I can do is take my vitamins and get enough sleep and hope and hope and hope and realize there is no reason for anything, nothing is fair, none of the good things or bad things in my life are a reflection of my worth as a human being, and seeing the worst thing, the nightmare thing, happen to someone - not someone I know, exactly, but not a stranger either. It reminds me of how tenuous everything is.
Everyone who is a sailor knows someone who was lost at sea. And this is true of people trying to have children too, it seems - in my own small group of maybe 50-odd people, we have had two near term losses, one early delivery that seems to have worked out okay, and one late termination. It's like dodging a swinging pendulum that will knock down whatever tiny pin happens to have the misfortune to be standing in the way. A half an inch to the left, and the pin still stands.
I hate not having control. I hate having no say in any of this.
I hate that this stranger I know, moving in near lockstep with me, is now in indescribable pain.
And I am afraid.
Friday, June 14, 2019
X-Files
Last night I took over the sofa and made a girl nest with a plate of cheese and ice water and a small glass of wine with ice cubes and a huge wool blanket because it was fifty degrees and raining even though it's summer and a dumb show called "Girlfriends' Guide to Divorce" which L hates and I hogged the TV all night with impunity. The Ward made me macaroni and cheese. I rolled over. I texted with my friend. I rolled over again. I felt you inside, swimming back and forth like a goldfish. I felt your fins. It's a strange feeling, having a goldfish bowl for a belly, and I put my hand there and enjoyed the faintest flickering, which has only just solidified in the last couple of days to be undeniable. The puppy dozed on the floor by the radiator, oblivious.
After a few hours L balked at being disallowed from the sofa and climbed under the blanket with me. He rubbed my sore back and hips and we put on "The X-Files," a now-vintage 1990s science fiction show that we both enjoyed. In 1995 the internet was still all in DOS. It's weird that we will both remember a time before the internet and you never will.
I rolled onto my back and made L rest his hand on my tummy, as you were in peak fish, flipping your fins.
There was a muffled blip.
"Did you feel that?" I asked L.
"No," said L, but his expression was uncertain.
We watched a bit more X-Files. It was the one where a small town in New Hampshire is secretly controlled by Satanists, and Satan himself appears in the guise of a substitute teacher to punish them for their lack of faith.
Another muffled blip.
"What about that?" I asked.
L's eyes opened wide. "Yeah," he said. "Yeah!"
Late last night I texted your honorary Aunt J, who is expecting Mini two months before we are expecting you, to tell her the news.
"That little five cell embryo," she texted back.
"I don't know if he was five cells. They just told me he was grade B/C. And today, I'm 21 weeks."
"I'm going to call him Wonder Embryo," J said.
And this morning you are still there, swimming with your little goldfish fins. Every day, a little more.
After a few hours L balked at being disallowed from the sofa and climbed under the blanket with me. He rubbed my sore back and hips and we put on "The X-Files," a now-vintage 1990s science fiction show that we both enjoyed. In 1995 the internet was still all in DOS. It's weird that we will both remember a time before the internet and you never will.
I rolled onto my back and made L rest his hand on my tummy, as you were in peak fish, flipping your fins.
There was a muffled blip.
"Did you feel that?" I asked L.
"No," said L, but his expression was uncertain.
We watched a bit more X-Files. It was the one where a small town in New Hampshire is secretly controlled by Satanists, and Satan himself appears in the guise of a substitute teacher to punish them for their lack of faith.
Another muffled blip.
"What about that?" I asked.
L's eyes opened wide. "Yeah," he said. "Yeah!"
Late last night I texted your honorary Aunt J, who is expecting Mini two months before we are expecting you, to tell her the news.
"That little five cell embryo," she texted back.
"I don't know if he was five cells. They just told me he was grade B/C. And today, I'm 21 weeks."
"I'm going to call him Wonder Embryo," J said.
And this morning you are still there, swimming with your little goldfish fins. Every day, a little more.
Friday, June 7, 2019
Bon Jovi Day!
We are halfway there.
When I lay down to sleep last night I felt tiny imaginary butterfly wings trilling along the inside of my abdomen. And a sore spot far own on my lower right quadrant, which when I reached down to touch it, felt like a hard lump.
A skull?
A foot?
Something. It was something.
When I lay down to sleep last night I felt tiny imaginary butterfly wings trilling along the inside of my abdomen. And a sore spot far own on my lower right quadrant, which when I reached down to touch it, felt like a hard lump.
A skull?
A foot?
Something. It was something.
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