heartbeat 2

We had another good appointment a few days ago. L got to hear the heartbeat for the first time. I'd heard it the month before & he was sad to have missed it. These appointments solicit enthusiasm and hope. Maybe everything will be ok.

In the weeks between doctor visits I waiver. I sometimes find myself back in the position of disappointment, rejection, and confusion, disconnected from pregnancy and my relationship with L. Disconnected from my body. Disconnected from my life. Then I have to change my mind again - accept the pregnancy again - accept mothering again - accept being parents again. Choose it all again.

I'm grateful that it was a choice. I get into my worst headspace when I (feel that I) am trapped. The pregnancy may have been a surprise but keeping it was a choice. Sometimes the choices are overwhelming but I'd still rather have them. What kind of health care provider, where to live, work or stay home, how to pay the bills, cloth or disposable, nursing or formula... Each one can be seen as a trap or as a choice. I somehow feel more capable, more able to do this, when I can see the choices and take them on in my own way/our own way.

And there's something in that choosing that calls me back into my body, my relationship with L, my life. I am invited to engage. The choices turn something thoroughly too big - the total changing of my life - into the little immediate decisions and homework of today.

It requires double vision. To be able to shift between the immediate decisions of now and the big picture that is desired for a whole life. To just live in the immediate needs is another kind of trap and can render a person wholly constructed of pragmatics, convenience, and common sense. Maybe this is a good thing sometimes, such as when subsistence is barelyin reach. Maybe what I imagine would be a common human right is actually a luxury - for a person to also be made of creativity, dreams, hobbies, friendship...

The former is one of my dreads of motherhood - that I'll be turned into a creature of immediate-need-meeting and perpetual pragmatism. The latter is my hope for motherhood - to still be me, to have something to share with a child, to be a sane me, to be a good model of an interested & engaged adult for a child.

My friend D is the second kind of mom. Her apartment gets cluttered and there is evidence of junk food, but her daughter is healthy, happy & enjoys D. D has just published her first book of poetry. That's the kind of mom I want to be.