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Cruz |
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with Michael Sebastien ... a very small bug |
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A first-time mother's time alone with baby-to-be
By RAPHAELLA CRUZ
of TheColumnists.com
Michael Sebastien, do you know how much you have changed my life? I’ll let you read this when you are old enough to understand it.
It began with the mystical revelation that three disposable pregnancy tests had proven positive.
Until that moment, I had considered myself an ultra-independent woman. I had two careers, I had just put myself through college for a master’s degree, I owned a car, paid the bills, lived the life of a decent and honest person.
I was probably the kind of woman that made other women my age jealous–the women who were tied down by husbands and children and endless worries, the women who were overweight but used to be a size two before having children. Yet at the same time they knew I had plenty to be jealous about too–for they had experienced childbirth.
And now, minutes later, I quite honestly felt as if everything was different. The mere knowledge that I was now totally responsible for you left me at odds with myself. What on earth was I going to do??
I went to the doctor, that’s what I did, for a real test. I thought perhaps you were not actually there. I asked the lab technician if it was possible to have a false positive on a pee test. She laughed in my face. “No. Positive is positive, sweetheart.” And again, it was.
The days that followed were stressful. Your father was thrilled at the news but I know that men--especially that man--can have a hard time expressing feelings. I could see in his eyes that he was feeling some of the same things I was. The difference was that I was desperate to reach out and share, while he desperately tried to be brave and hide. The fact was that we were both pretty terrified.
It wasn’t long before I truly felt pregnant. You had become a bug. Within days my previously concave, six-pack stomach was swollen and squishy. I felt constantly exhausted, and at once ravenously hungry and violently ill. The exhaustion hit me like a freight train, and at times I awoke from naps feeling as if I were from a different planet. Where I used to jump out of bed at the crack of dawn, now I had to force myself into consciousness and roll out of bed laboriously. And when I finally did, I’d throw up.
Some days were better than others, but I soon found that better days were all too fragile. One day I came home from work and wolfed down a bowl of Ramen noodles and my pre-natal vitamin, only to bolt running to the bathroom to throw it all up.
Everyone told me that it was normal and that in fact it was a good sign--a sign that you are healthy. “Eat crackers,” all the been-there-done-that mothers said, ad nauseum.
I was getting tired of racing down the Mass Pike praying that I would make it to the toilet before throwing up.
I began to wonder if I had made a big mistake, and how I would possibly make it through nine months of this. I had always believed pregnancy meant long hair, pretty dresses, and baby showers. Now I knew the truth: if women thought periods were a curse they had obviously never been pregnant. I wondered why any woman in her right mind would get pregnant a second time.
The one thing that made me feel better was rubbing my belly. It was like a drug. I’d rub my belly and suddenly feel totally connected to you. I felt warm, happy, better. My little bug was inside of me. Sure, Richie helped me make you, he loved you and promised to take care of you, but there were things he didn’t, couldn’t, and would never know. Mostly, he would never know the feeling of my hand on my belly.
I read every book about pregnancy I could get my hands on, and read every part, even the parts that most pregnant women skipped–about ‘high-risk’ pregnancies, miscarriages and still births. Terms such as ‘flat,’ ‘not viable,’ and ‘blighted’ haunted me at night. And yet each morning I woke up still pregnant, a little bit rounder than the day before. And then I’d puke again.
Almost to the day after passing the first-trimester mark, my exhaustion and morning sickness disappeared. My belly was rounder and more firm, and I had become an expert belly-rubber, knowing exactly which swishing and up-and-down motions would bring on that high that told me you were a miracle.
No matter how many mothers
gave me advice, how many books I read, how much
I logically knew about pregnancy, there were feelings developing
that could never have been predicted and that no one could know
or feel. At the start of every week I’d look up pictures
or illustrations of the fetus at that point in time. I was in
awe at the beauty of the life that was mine, not my life, but
the one I had created. You.
Finally I got to hear your heartbeat at the doctor’s office. My eyes filled with tears as I heard the “THUMP THUMP THUMP” of your life–and my heart was breaking with love. The nurse let me listen a few minutes and then put the doppler away. I felt like yanking it from her pocket to listen again, and I could have listened for hours and days.
As much as I was obsessed and mystified by my carrying you, I had to go on with work. But that began to appear rather petty compared to my pregnancy. One day around the 17th week I was standing by the elevator doing the belly rub. No one was around so I was getting into it, almost dancing with you in my hand. And then I felt you move for the first time. BLOOP–like a water bubble swimming around. I couldn’t believe it. I rubbed again, and again, BLOOP. It was as if you were talking to me, letting me know, “Here I am, mama!” When I got to my desk my eyes watered and I spent the rest of the day just sitting there, thinking about you.
And then, a few weeks later,
came the ultrasound. I was so terribly excited, and yet so very
afraid too. What if, what if, what if … something was wrong.
The technician told me that I was not to talk for a few minutes
as she dictated her medical observations into a microphone. “I
see two halves of the brain. I see four chambers of the heart.
I see the spine…” and so on. I was glued to the screen
staring in fascination and wonder as I watched your little body
squirming around. Finally after she was silent for a while I
couldn’t hold it any longer. “Is my baby all right??”
I asked.
“He’s perfect,” she replied, “And he’s
quite a mover.”
I loved you more than anything–there are just no words.
Again, tears rolled down my cheeks and I felt uninhibited, happy
and free.
“Does that mean he’s a boy?” I asked, and she said “Yup!” as she directed the ultrasound to the spot on the screen that proved it.
And then you were sucking your thumb. For the first time I saw your little face, and when she gave me the pictures I clutched them as if I would never put them down. You looked like Richie, I thought, and I loved him more than ever before.
I was in my fifth month. You moved around a lot!! I felt you all the time, punching, kicking, flipping. The moments when you were quiet I would get selfish and eat a few candies, because the sugar woke you up and made you move again. When I rubbed my belly now, you would move with me, move to me.
I loved lying in bed in the evenings, when you would really wake up and dance, and just feel you inside me. One day you were moving so much it felt stronger than ever, hard and lumpy and stretching. I looked at my belly and it was bumping all over! I started laughing and was sorry I was alone and had no witnesses. It felt a little like I had an alien inside me that would burst through my belly-button at any moment!
The only thing that will
be better than this is when I finally get to meet and to know
you. I don’t care what you are like, I will love you forever.
You will always be my little bug.
© 2002 by Raphaëlla
Cruz. The illustrations are from IMSI's Master Clips Collection,
1895 Francisco Blvd. E., San Rafael, CA, 94901-5506, USA.
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