Baby Love (6 page)

They could have shared some version of what my gynecologist told me fifteen years later: “I’ve delivered thousands of babies, and as a rule, women don’t regret having children, they regret not having them.”

It is shocking to think that not one person suggested that my fear of hurting my children might really have been a fear of growing up and following my own (not my mother’s) belief system.

Because the fact is that until you become a mother, you’re a daughter. The fact is that when you almost die so that someone else can live, you become a much larger human being. The fact is that none of the ideas we’ve gleaned about motherhood from the mothers we know and the mothers we watch on TV mean anything at all because motherhood is in the doing, not the thinking about. Motherhood is brand-new every time; motherhood is full of possibility. Just like when John and Yoko said “War Is Over.” Motherhood Is Free.

If you want it.

Spoke with my artist friend Sarah today. She gets the prize for the most foot-in-mouth response: You’re pregnant? Oh my God, congratulations! My friend just had a miscarriage.

After an awkward pause, I said, Yeah, well, I’m not going to be having one of those, thank you very much, and then we both cracked up.

I’ve been getting e-mails from all over and they are all so beautiful and supportive. Yesterday Rikke wrote that I shouldn’t worry, there is a reason it takes nine months to give birth: That’s how long it takes for the reality of it to set in.

We got to Mendocino last night to find that a mouse has eaten through all of my clothes. I came up to bed and found one arm of my black sweater, chewed off as perfectly as a piece cut from a dress pattern, lying on the floor. We’ve got to get a cat. Or call Terminix.

On the way up from the city, Glen and I got into a huge argument about the birth and who will attend. My fantasy is that everyone I know and love will climb into the hot tub-cum-birthing pool with me. They will rub my legs and massage lavender essential oil into my scalp. Those who don’t want to be in the water, or need a break from the festivities, will take shifts operating the iPod, or cooking. Every half hour I will be offered a fresh serving of pasta with garlic and oil, or organic chocolate cake. When the baby is born, everyone will say a blessing from a different spiritual tradition before we cut the cord.

Glen thinks my polytheistic fiesta theme is unrealistic and unsafe and doesn’t honor the primacy of our relationship. He said he refused to be a part of a birth that was more than five miles from a hospital. He kept asking where we, as a couple, fit into my vision. Is there anything that is only for us? he wanted to know. Had I considered the impact that sharing such a major event will have on our intimacy as a couple? And what if something goes wrong? Do we really want that many people in the middle of such a critical moment?

He made some good points, but I wasn’t ready to hear them. Instead I launched into a tirade about how it is
my
birth experience, and it should be however
I
want it to be, and how
dare
he even ask about
us.
For God’s sake, I yelled, we have the rest of our lives to be together, why on earth should we be so
precious
and
controlling
about the birth? And anyway, I yelled,
studies show
that women surrounded by family and friends have shorter,
easier
labors. To which Glen replied, Well, that’s great, but have there been any
studies
on the
divorce rates
for those women?

After a few minutes of strained silence, I had a flash of the baby and how arguments like these might frighten him or her, if they don’t already. I thought about something Glen and I have talked a lot about: not arguing, and prioritizing peace between us over whatever ideas our intellects have gotten hooked on. I never want ideology or “being right” to take precedence over loving one another and being a family. There’s just too much to lose. The baby’s mental health and Glen himself are just a couple of things that come to mind.

And so I am rethinking the birth plan, and telling the little voice that wants everything her way that she has to be open. You’re not alone anymore, I keep telling her. And that’s a good thing. Yeah, right, she says, and turns her face the other way.

Before we went to bed, we talked about names. I’ve been calling the baby Milarepa, after a Buddhist ascetic who tamed both human beings and animals by singing to them.

Maybe we should name the cat Milarepa. Or the mouse.

Carl came over to look at the water heater this morning. Turns out it is “pretty ancient,” and mineral deposits have built up inside the tank, taking up all the room where the hot water should go. He said it’s a fire hazard, and that by the way, when he was looking at the heater he noticed that the main supporting beams under the bathhouse also need replacing. This last alert evoked a gruesome image of the building collapsing and pitching the baby and me out of the bathtub and into a patch of poison ivy.

After he left, I did two phone interviews from last week that Leslie, my publicist, rescheduled for today. The first interviewer was a young woman from Detroit who “loved” the latest collection of essays I’ve edited,
What Makes a Man: 22 Writers Imagine the Future.
She asked questions about the contributors, the importance of looking critically at masculinity, and the relationship between this book and
To Be Real: Telling the Truth and Changing the Face of Feminism,
an anthology about Third Wave feminism I edited ten years ago.

The second interviewer was an ex-Marine who claimed that male aggression is biological, that men who don’t believe this are gay, and that I am offending our armed forces by questioning male aggression while our country is at war. When I told him that we probably had more in common than he thought, he said that no, he didn’t think so. I said, Well, I am going to bet that we both want peace, and that neither of us wants our children to be killed in war. He said that war is necessary for democracy, and that he would be willing to sacrifice his child for the preservation of the American way of life.

Who knows? He might be right about all of it, but when he said he’d be willing to sacrifice his child, a huge wave of exhaustion came over me. I felt that if I didn’t lie down that very second, I might collapse. I exited as politely as I could, made for the kitchen, and scarfed the entire pot of soup Glen made last night. Then I climbed up the little ladder to bed and fell asleep.

It’s now four in the morning. I have been sleeping for almost ten hours, but I still have the voice of the interviewer in my head. For what would I be willing to sacrifice my child?

Arrived at JFK in New York for the first time with baby on board. Everything was different because now all I can see are the women with babies. Were they always there? I am obsessed with how they move. Are they alone or do they have help? What kind of stroller are they pushing? Do they have a purse
and
a diaper bag? Cute or sensible shoes? Do cabdrivers do anything special to make it easier for them? Do they look happier than the childless women teetering by in high-heeled Manolos?

Now at my father’s house on the Upper East Side, getting ready for the long drive tomorrow to see Solomon, the now fourteen-year-old young man I’ve been helping to raise since he was eight, at boarding school. Since his mother and I broke up, we’ve been trading off visiting days. I get the two days before his graduation from ninth grade, she gets actual graduation and the day after.

In what seems to be yet another manifestation of my ambivalence affliction, I can’t figure out if I should tell Sol about the baby. I remember how abandoned I felt when my stepmother told me she was going to have her own biological child. The least I can do is spare him those feelings during a time that’s supposed to be all about him and his accomplishments. On the other hand, I am pretty sure I’m showing, and I don’t want him to figure it out and have to ask.

Pondering this, I feel an awful conflagration of elation and dread. I think I already love this little being inside of me more than I’ve ever loved anyone. How will this affect this person I consider to be, in many ways, my first child, the son I didn’t give birth to but whom I adore nonetheless?

Arrived in Lake Placid after a long drive out of the city. I hung out with Solomon at his school for the evening, eating and talking to his housemates and a few other parents who came up early for graduation. I heard about miles hiked, potatoes harvested, accidents sustained while snowboarding, and “hookups.” I was regaled with a
very
graphic description of the three a.m. birth of a lamb, and told that I am one of the coolest parents because I am young and wear “cool” clothes.

I like these kids. Over the last couple of years, I’ve watched them give presentations in their biology and Spanish classes, and even take stabs at improv. I’ve talked to their parents and grandparents, and heard their personal stories, many of them difficult. I am always in awe of how happy they seem in this environment. How the intimate, back-to-the-land, child-centered learning philosophy brings out their shiny, forceful natures.

Now that I am pregnant, I can’t help but wonder if this place had something to do with it. There’s a utopic feeling here, kids and adults together in the wilderness, planting, harvesting, learning, playing. I’ve liked knowing Sol is here, safe through the trials of 9/11 and largely unaware of its aftermath. Driving back to the hotel, I thought, Well, if I sink into a depression that threatens to damage my child, or if I buckle under the pressure of balancing the demands of work with the constant labor of motherhood, or if Glen leaves me and never wants to see me or his child again and I’m devastated, there’s always boarding school. It sounds awful, but the thought was infinitely reassuring.

I told Sol about the baby within the first hour, after I caught him checking out my waistline. He was excited and immediately told his favorite houseparent, who, in addition to being a total Macintosh devotee, is a caring, gentle guy. I took his excitement as a sign that I haven’t wrecked his graduation moment, and that the whole biological, nonbiological sibling thing just might work out.

I drove over to the school and spent the whole day. I asked Sol to take me to his favorite places on campus, the places he will miss the most. He took me on a trail through the woods to an old tree house, and then I followed him to the other side of the campus, to the tents around the lake. We stood there for a few minutes, getting lost in the shimmering water and wide-open sky.

Solomon will stay with me tonight at the hotel, and in the morning I will take him back to school and say goodbye. I am sad I will miss his departure speech, but I believe this way is best for everyone. In addition to the other complex dynamics of the day, including the presence of Solomon’s biological father whom I don’t really know, I feel protective of the baby. I don’t want him or her to, for one second, get caught up in the emotional aftermath of the separation from Solomon’s mother I’ve worked so hard to put behind me.

When I asked Solomon how he felt about the split schedule, he gave me his usual “Why are you always asking me how I
feel
?” look, and said it was fine.

I’m afraid it’s the best I can do and, for once, I can live with that.

I love New York: the movement, the fashion, the dynamism. The heady mix of high and low. It’s like a drug. Whenever I visit, I have to brace myself for the wave of ambivalence about California that washes over me. I miss the endless IV drip of films, performances, plays, and shopping. Food delivery of any kind at any time. Tasti D-Lite. Fortunately, I’ve been on this roller coaster enough times to know that in another forty-eight hours I’ll start getting tired and missing the more reasonable rate of stimulation of the other coast. In seventy-two hours I will be pining for home.

I am happy to report that it’s a little easier to feel good about my decision now that I’ve got the tot to think about. I want the baby to know New York so intimately that it loses its power to frighten and overwhelm. So intimately that she can harness the power of it for her own dreams. I owe her that. But fighting it out with a stroller on the subway? I just don’t see it.

I have decided to stop using “her” and “she.” Yes, I want to counter all of those years of the masculine pronoun standing in for all of humanity, but I really, really know in my heart that I am having a boy. It’s the most obvious thing in the world to me. I refuse to allow my political beliefs to trump my intuition because that was the point of all of those political beliefs, wasn’t it? To be able to trust our intuition?

My sister and stepmother took me shopping today for more maternity clothes. My sister took on the role of personal shopper, perusing the racks, and my stepmother was the voice of reason.

It was like being back in junior high, in a good way, until we split up and I tried to brave “the biggest maternity department in the city” by myself. All I got there was a big headache and another crashing wave of depression. Was it the J.Lo blaring through the store’s speakers, the haggard-looking mothers being dragged around by whiny, unruly kids, or the upbeat, colorful display of tees I couldn’t fit into juxtaposed against maternity wear that looked like it belonged on Dora the Explorer? Hmmm, let me think.

I got so freaked out walking around the store, I had to call Glen just to get my bearings. I know he must have thought I was losing it because I kept saying, Is this what’s going to happen to me? Am I going to be trapped behind a stroller for the rest of my life, at the beck and call of some badly behaved toddler screaming for his sippy cup? And will I be wearing beige chinos and an oversized T-shirt with a company logo on it? And will I look and be so tired that I won’t even care?