I want to write, however, about what it feels like to be waiting around for your baby to come after she's "due".
So you get knocked up and you immediately have this anchor of a date in mind. January 30th (that HUGE, perigean full moon – the largest it will be this year) was my due date. The date is announced, advertised, it's rolling around in your head making its way into your plans, your family's plans, etc. etc. but it's all sort of bullshit, because the margin of "error" associated with that date is so vast. What midwives and docs do, as far as I understand, is choose and chart a middle date within four weeks of the possible birth. I was told today that first babies are born, on average, 10 days after their due date and that second babies come around 7 after. My first kid, Willoree, was a week "late". This round I'm now three days "late". The date (or choosing one, whether it's right on or a month off) isn't the problem, of course; it's a lady's strange attachment to it. And with attachment (specifically to a due date) there may come expectation, disappointment, second guessing, impatience. And with those things may come unnecessary physical discomforts...along with the discomforts of being 9+ months pregnant.
Attachment is probably the underlying cause of all suffering, and that's why I'm writing. To play around in the feeling of being attached to a due date. And maybe I'll stumble upon a suitable adjective to describe it. Or at least one good, concise sentence. So far no dice though huh.
So you pass your due date, you're still pregnant, and so you find yourself bumbling about in this mysterious, marginal land where all things are tinged with a strange hue of after wait. It's close to the way you feel when exams are done, but there are still 3 days of school left. It's the sweet pause after a completion of sorts, but it's more exciting...
So what have these three days been like?
Clearly I have a lot of free time on my hands. I can't concentrate on work. Sex. Answering a lot of phone calls. Feeling readier and readier, but actually not as "ready" as I did on the evening of the 29th. Sex. Or, better put, just as ready but less anticipatory. There indeed is a psychological shift that happens after the due date has come and gone. It would be easy to pitch it as anti-climactic, and while it is that, sort or, it's also kind of relaxing, and fun. Sex. I have a slot of lawless and unpredictable free time. Sex.
My friend Dug and I sat around in a Chapel Hill roof top bar one evening and talked about inventions, like many of you did over drinks back when we all thought we were smarter than we actually are. One of these inventions was an ATM dealing time. Like you could go to the ATM, deduct 5 hours when you needed it to study, or elongate a date, or...and conversely you could cash in a really lame day, deposit all that time, and just ff to later. Checks and balances; more like a debit card than a credit card of course.
Does this exist?
And then there's this baby I'm about to have, any day now.
I totally am missing my long hair.
And finally, what in the hole is up with PETA wanting to trade out the real groundhog for a robot? Have you heard about this? This might beat Cookie Monster's potentially turning into Carrot Monster to curtail the nation's immoderate percentage of fat kids. See ya, Phil.
http://blogs.villagevoice.com/runninscared/archives/2010/01/peta_demands_ro.php
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