What I read about when I read about expecting: part 1.

I’ve read the Mayo Clinic Guide to pregnancy and the stupid What to Expect books back-to-back probably three times now, unintentionally—certain chapters just fall open, compliant under the thumb. In fact, I’ve read How to Survive the Loss of a Child: Filling The Emptiness and Rebuilding Your Life (Catherine Saunders), Making Babies: A Proven 3-Month Program for Maximum Fertility (Sami David and Jill Blakeway), A Child Is Born (Lennart Nilsson and Lars Hamberger); have constantly referred back to The 100 Healthiest Foods to Eat During Pregnancy (Johnny Bowden and Allison Tannis); perused Portraits of Pregnancy: The Birth of a Mother (Jennifer Loomis and Hugo Kugiya); cooked a smattering from Eating for Pregnancy: The Essential Nutrition Guide for Today’s Mothers-to-Be (Catherine Jones and Rose Ann Hudson); and I’ve had my eyes glaze over a truly embarrassing number of entries in the various baby name dictionaries and guides (thank god I didn’t start looking till I knew we were having a boy).

I’ve also e-mailed, like, every friend with a womb that has been filled or with a penis that has been in contact with a womb that ended up filled.

I’ve Googled endlessly, landing on opinion after opposite opinion, and yet many a large decision still looms on my list: now that we need to choose a new practitioner to handle my labor (more on that later), we’re back to square one. Midwife or OB? Hospital, birth center, or home? Lamaze or Bradley or hypnobirthing or ICEA? Doula who is a professional stranger or a friend? Circumcise or not? Immunizations—yes? no? And if yes, which ones, and if no, what precautions then become necessary? Not to mention the clusterfuck that is our incomplete registry and all the problems inherent: cloth vs. disposable diapers, what kind of bottles, which model of crib or co-sleeper or bassinet or moses basket or …, organic or not clothes and sheets and …, and … and …

Yeah. That’s what this brain looks like on pregnancy. What can I say? I really like to read. Also, my way of coping with paralysis caused by my own ignorance is to throw other people’s opinions at it and hope I can form my own opinion from the chorus/cacophony.

But it hasn’t been the birthing bibles that have cut through the fog as much as the stories. Like the one I am halfway through right now. It’s a book of essays of one man’s experience of his wife’s pregnancy: American Parent: My Strange and Surprising Adventures in Modern Babyland, by Sam Apple—my god! Who knew! This book’s been sitting on my bookshelf, unread, since 2009. But it's so helpful!

For the same reason that I reach out to friends who are young parents for advice, Apple’s vignettes bring me real comfort. Instead of the fifty ways to harm your helpless fetus by eating, drinking liquid, exercising, breathing, or having been born with a certain set of genetic code—also known as What to Expect When You’re Expecting—I want story. I want connection. I want intimate details you are surprised to find yourself sharing with me. I want an embarrassing catch in your throat and uncontrollable mirth in recounting your journey, and I want to see your eyes shine even if you have a spectrum of dark-hued bags under them.

Apple is a companion on an odyssey that transports you to a strange place where the natives debate the merits of increasingly specialized technologies of baby making, having, and raising and who worry over how best to grow a wee Einstein. This book is another friend, weary and wise, who cuts through the crap and tell you that cloth diapers may save the environment, but disposables will save your sanity. That Lamaze doesn’t work. That as sensitive and enlightened and profeminist as your partner may be, he doesn’t have boobs so you’re going to end up with the bulk of the early babycare. That there are a million ways to do all of this, and he only knows what he and his wife chose, and sometimes those choices were made for the most arbitrary of reasons. I can’t tell you how comforting it is to hear that last bit.

Here are some other books that have become friends during this fertility odyssey:

Increase (Lia Purpura)

The Room Lit By Roses: A Journal of Pregnancy and Birth (Carole Maso)

Room (Emma Donaghue)

Bad Mother: A Chronicle of Maternal Crimes, Minor Calamities, and Occasional Moments of Grace (Ayelet Waldman)

Manhood for Amateurs: The Pleasures and Regrets of a Husband, Father, and Son (Michael Chabon)

Baby’s First Picture: Ultrasound and the Politics of Fetal Subjects (Lisa Mitchell)

The Bitch in the House: 26 Women Tell the Truth about Sex, Solitude, Work, Motherhood, and Marriage (Cathi Hanauer, ed.)

The Moon, Come to Earth (Philip Graham)

Impossible Motherhood: Testimony of an Abortion Addict (Irene Vilar)

Because I Love Her: 34 Women Writers Reflect on the Mother-Daughter Bond (Andrea N. Richesin, ed.)

Books I am looking forward to next (among others):

The Blue Jay’s Dance: A Memoir of Early Motherhood (Louise Erdrich)

Operating Instructions: A Journal of My Son’s First Year (Anne Lamott)

Home Game: An Accidental Guide to Fatherhood (Michael Lewis)

Today is my husband's birthday ...

and I just want to celebrate that while 2012 is bringing a lot of big changes our way, I am truly willing to go on any adventure to any place as long as it is with him. I cannot wait to bear witness to him stepping into all the new roles that await him in 2012--not least becoming a father. I have no idea how I got so lucky as to get to share my life with such a warmhearted, kind, generous person. I can't imagine loving him more, but then I do, and I will and will and will.

Actually, today is a very good day in general. I know five incredible people born today, including my husband's birthday twins, my favorite cousin Mimi and my darling friend C. Happy birthday, much love, and many blessings to you all!

Thank you!

Thank you so much for voting for me in the Shameless Photography Letter to My Body essay contest. I won! I won! You like me, you *really* like me! In celebration of that win, I offer you the unedited letter that got me into the top ten finalists. More pretty bits, more flaws, more nakedness, and a lot more words.

Dear Body,

We weigh more now than we ever have by at least ten pounds, but I have never felt more beautiful. Every night I stare in the shower-fogged mirror at my image emerging and delight in my rounding curves and softening lines. I stand there long after I’ve oiled every inch of skin I can reach. I stand there grateful for you and everything of which you are capable. I stand there and am thankful to be standing there, thankful.

It’s not that I’ve hated you. At least not all the time. Parts of you I’ve even loved. I’ve enjoyed the fullness of my breasts, the long line of my legs, the curve of my ass—but for how they could be flaunted in the dip of neckline, length of hem, cling of fabric. I loved those parts of you for how they might contribute to the seductive push-pull of attraction, the covering up in order to reveal. But any pleasure taken was always countered by the scrutiny I gave your other parts. What of the hours I’ve spent wishing my mirror reflection would permanently suck in its stomach? What of the silent, internal debates about how many white hairs to pluck and when to give up and start dyeing? How much money have I spent trying to coax my pores to behave, trying to cover scars and irregularities, trying to shove wigglier bits into garments that could urge them in a more flattering direction, and trying to balance all of you up in the air on spindly-thin heels that, frankly, hobbled me like a geisha in kimono, taking tiny careful steps on skyhigh geta? What about being guilty of practicing smiles in the mirror—missing the point entirely that the beauty of a smile rests in its spontaneity? How many times have I stepped on a scale and gauged my self-worth on the number staring back at me?

And in 2009, when I learned I was pregnant, I had to begin wrapping my brain around the idea of you changing—even those parts that I liked. My mom gave me a toothbrush with a cow on it and gently teased me about whether I’d put on some baby weight, and I found myself sobbing on the bed. It terrified me that I had never managed to be as thin and gorgeous and fashionable as I had hoped to be—and that such a goal was fast-vanishing, as if in a rearview mirror.

But my grey-area feelings about you up till then paled in comparison to how much I loathed you after I miscarried that nine-week-old embryo. You had betrayed me, you were not to be trusted, you couldn’t even do this single, simple thing right. I only grew angrier as the months turned into a year, and becoming pregnant again became my sole focus, the thing around which I revolved and spun all possibility of happiness. But no matter how many vitamins and medicines and hormones I took, how much I changed my lifestyle in terms of exercise and diet and stress, no matter what fertility books or doodaws I bought, I could not get there. Something was wrong with me/you/us.

It’s too neat, annoyingly tied up with a shiny bow, to say that once I forgave you, I got pregnant again, and that once I got pregnant again, I came to finally really see and love you, but dear body, that’s exactly what happened.

You had worked through all the odds against you in making sperm and egg meet, fertilizing egg, egg journeying without getting lost along the way, and egg firmly implanting in the right spot. You were AMAZING! You could do ANYTHING! You were woman, hear you ROAR! Together we now had to become a matryoshka of bell jars—me shielding you so you could shield the growing babe. We weathered four months of fatigue, nausea, vomiting, food aversions, lack of appetite, weight loss, constipation, severe mood swings, and a depression that made the whole stretch of days feel like they’d been angrily scribbled over with a dark grey crayon. But nothing mattered as much as being kind to you. I napped four hours a day almost every day, missed deadlines at work, cancelled plans with friends at the last possible minute, and ate whatever I could keep down—even though for a while it was just soda crackers and judicious amounts of ice cream. Despite my fear of needles, I lay on an acupuncturist’s table while she inserted them toe to hairline, including one between my eyes. I was so afraid I had to keep my eyes shut the whole time. And before she left the room, she warned me that part of the treatment was that emotions would be released. I lay there, immobilized. I trembled. I worried about needles and fear and stress and release. I thought of how I was doing this for you, for me, for us, for the little him. I vibrated and felt electric and levitated and wept. I lay there and I forgave you and forgave you until I understood that there had never been anything to forgive.

Four weeks passed. Then nine—that magical milestone, wherein the last embryo had been lost, but this one stayed. Then the thirteen weeks of the first trimester were behind me, another marker reducing my risk of miscarriage. I could breathe. Fourteen weeks. Twenty (with all the exact perfectitude of the anatomy ultrasound, working organs and proper moveable parts and a heart that beats so furiously, with such determination). Twenty-one, twenty-two, twenty-three—and here we are.

I think I’ll always remember 2011 as the year I got pregnant again, but I hope it also marks the year I came to finally see and embrace you. You are so much more than just the sum of your parts. And far more wonderful than how you look in a bikini is what you are capable of doing as well as what, with a little patience and kindness, you are capable of learning to do. Like making and carrying a baby. Or upgrading from two-mile hikes to five-milers. Or climbing a rock wall when afraid of heights and receiving acupuncture therapy when terrified of needles. Or each week making my tree pose a little less windy. Or breathing more deeply, forgiving more quickly, letting all the little things go more easily because they are usually so very little.

Besides I’m getting rather fond of your parts. Even the wiggly ones. The girth of my belly now holds my child. The white hairs have, these last few years, been earned. And, well, my boobs are still big, my legs still long, and my ass still firm, so let’s call it a win.

Love,

Mayumi

Help me win a photoshoot with Sophie of Shameless Photography!

Click on the link (in Facebook) and "like" the photo of my letter to my body!

I need your votes by 9pm PST / 12am EST on December 23rd.

I would win the following with Shameless Photography...

A full retro makeover: professional hairstyling & makeup

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An online gallery of 60 proofs

Your choice of 5 final images fully retouched and finished

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P.S. Delete. Redact.

You know what? I take back the word "irrationally" in my previous post. It still seems quite rational to me; just in the moment of writing, I doubted myself and felt empathy for all those parents I so resented.

Aboyaboyaboyaboy.

I’ve thought long and hard about this, but there’s really no smooth or clever way to say you’re pregnant.

Posting an ultrasound or belly picture, crafting a sly hinting status update about not being able to drink or all the kicks to the ribs, sending out photo postcard announcements involving fruits or balloons, even just coming out and stating the obvious—nothing seems right. All seem too smug and assured, especially when you’ve been on the embittered receiving end of such news. After I miscarried, I took each baby announced or born so seriously, almost as a personal affront. This wasn’t a reflection on any of the parents to be or how or when they had chosen to share their news. This was me holding the measure of my life up to theirs and irrationally crying UNFAIR!!—as we are all wont to do sometime or another. If you’ve suffered a pregnancy loss, if you want to have a baby but have been unable to get pregnant, if you’re wading through the red tape of foster or adoption proceedings, if you want nothing to do with any of it at all, you might recognize this feeling of rage at being socially coerced to sugarcoat and coo. You might have embodied such temporary inability to separate your relative un/happiness from someone else's.

So to say anything felt wrong. To say nothing felt duplicitous.

And all of it felt too certain when the one thing I know I know is that nothing is certain. Egg plus sperm does not always a baby make. Neither does a baby bump or any time-based milestone. Drawing attention to my expanding self and sense of family in any way seemed foolhardy, and selfish, and incautious.

You see how unsmooth and not clever this was.

How dark and unfluffy and unbunnied. Nary a pink or blue. Sorry. I cannot not be myself. Despite how wide open I was about miscarriage, from the moment I knew I was pregnant—even before that $%&#%@*#(@ internet troll shit all over my blog and morning sickness banished me to offlineland—I’ve wanted to keep everything about him to myself.

But twenty weeks have gone by. I’ve called and e-mailed all the relatives and family friends. He is the little boy I always wanted to have, he has a strong thumping heart and beautifully operational organs and limbs. I am halfway through this pregnancy, and I am trying to breathe into it. Because there comes a time, too, when not embracing the fullness of this experience seems foolhardy, when staying mum seems selfish, when not letting the joy come to you is in its own way incautious.

It is Thanksgiving tomorrow. I am spending it with family, partially in a gorgeous snowy cabin in Tahoe. I want to breathe and increase and trust and invite joy. I want to celebrate the journey of it and to honor and not forget that, for some of us, it is not a straight, well-paved path. I want to stay honest, and share my stories, and through openness invite the stories of others to boomerang back to me.*

I want to be thankful for all of it, even the bitterness and overcaution, because of how sweet life can be in contrast to all that we fear.

---

* More about this to come. I am planning an anthology and will be casting about for submissions soon.

We, the Dysfunctional and Divine.

I managed to do nothing productive yesterday. Just kind of lazed around in bed, reading most of (the rest of) Rabih Alameddine's I, the Divine: A Novel in First Chapters.

Alameddine's narrator, Sarah Nour El-Din, is writing her memoir; this is the novel's conceit. The attempt to capture a whole life. How to and where to begin. How any one chapter can shape and slant your whole life in such a way that it could be cast as The Defining Moment--the moment around which all of your stories are spun, around which your whole self comes to revolve. The way we all revise our own stories, retell them, recast them. The act of revision/re-vision. Life as collage. Life as the many possible points of view and points of entry.

It's a clever notion--but just plain clever would fade once the novelty/sheer freshness of invention wore off. But luckily, there is more. There is the stunning resolution of the last chapter of the novel (the last first chapter of the memoir, if you will), which does a beautiful job of finding an exit point for the narrative without closing it off--leaving it to resonate and echo. This, despite the fact that this chapter would not have made a very good start for the proposed memoir. That last first chapter changes everything about the read, gives it explicit meaning, reveals depth and focus to a tale that, at times, seemed horizontal and so wide as to be panoramic, impossible to fit into a single lens view.

And what the last chapter provides--and what it becomes clear many of the chapters in the second half of the novel are also, more slyly, doing--is shifting focus. Instead of I, the Divine, it is now We, the Dysfunctional and Divine. As Sarah revises, she keeps trying to write about herself, but the other characters in her life intrude. So she starts over, begins somewhere else. Finally she comes to see that she cannot tell her story without those other voices: "Who am I if not where I fit in the world, where I fit in the lives of the people dear to me" (308). Essentially, without the others, there is no self.

I read that and thought, YES! What are we but wholes made up of so many parts. We are, each of us, equations, and the only way to puzzle us out is to write it all out, longhand, on a chalkboard. Relationships are messy. They're complicated. They involve multiple variables and require strange and complex graphs and charts to reveal how--and, indeed, that--everything is connected. Sometimes they venture into invention and the imaginary. Sometimes things are more or less complicated than they first seem. Sometimes there are remainders and bits that don't fit. Sometimes you've been working at a problem for so long you fail to realize that you've forgotten a variable, a value, you've forgotten what you're solving for. Sometimes you have to start over again. And again. ... And again.

One last thing about the novel: two chapters are narrated completely in French.

Now the thing you need to know is that I can't understand a lick of the language beyond hello, goodbye, love, Eiffel Tower, and croissant, so on my first read of the novel, I was utterly roadblocked when I encountered that first French chapter. I was stumped. I could guess at--using six years of high school Latin--the meaning of a word here or there but could not comprehend the elegant string of them all together. They were veiled in mystery. Entire plot points and nuances lost to me, forever! I mourned. I became frustrated. I got angry. I even tried to Google my way toward an answer. I suppose, had I been determined enough, I could have painstakingly retyped the bits into Babelfish or some such program, but I gave up. I was utterly stumped, and mad, and disappointed, and excluded by the narrative.

So I stopped reading the novel.

I almost let the library book go overdue in my care.

Then for no good reason except a sense of loyalty and trust in Phil Graham's excellent literary tastes (he recommends the novel here), as well as no small amount of stubborn OCDness in finishing what's been started, I renewed and began to read the novel again.

When I encountered that first French chapter for the second time, I gave it a longing last glance, flipped the page, and continued, undaunted.

It struck me as ... somewhat wonderful this time around. Ballsy. The kind of bold choice only a confident writer makes. It took me back to my graduating lecture I gave at VCFA ("Jabberwocky and the Asshole: On the Aesthetic Viscosity of Vernacular in Fiction"); for wasn't I arguing for the exact same kind of license but doing so from the place of privilege? The place of possessing the knowledge and deciding what could and would be revealed to different readers? Wasn't I suggesting--and wasn't Alameddine in a way proving--that more important than 100% comprehension to all readers was the artistic integrity of the work itself (not its author, the work)?

By the time I reached the second chapter in French, I was unfazed. I was fascinated by what I was missing and yet utterly unconcerned by it. It seemed to me another elegant metaphor was being formed--something about the unintelligibility of parts of a life, that there's always the possibility that something will get omitted or lost in translation. For how true it is that it's near impossible to know every intimate nuance of someone else's life--even those closest to us; even, I might venture, I might whisper, even our own.

In closing, GOD how I loved this novel. I may have to buy it so that I can bear returning this copy to the library.

File under "Whew, I am not a freak" and "Mood Swings and Self, Justification of."

"All changes are more or less tinged with melancholy, for what we are leaving behind is part of ourselves." --Amelia E. Barr