by Alena Deerwater
Lilly is six weeks old.
Lilly, my darling, my lamb, my life. Six weeks. In six weeks my life has radically changed and is still changing. Calling me to change whether I want to or not.
I remember somewhere in the last trimester saying to Dan, my partner in conception, “I can't stop this. I mean, I could stop writing the dissertation after years and months. I did. But this is going to happen whether I think I can do it or not. It's happening.”
Scared the life outa me. Literally. This life came out of me. This slippery, beautiful, shit-covered babe. She had pooed in the womb on her way out the birth canal.
“Wow.”
That was all I could say after all that pushing.
“Wow.”
Not very profound. Not a great use of language. I had no language, no words other than wow. Words are my life and I had pushed them all out of my womb with Lilly. Lilly. Lilly.
My next words?
“She smells like a baby. She smells like a baby. Wow, she smells like a baby.”
I think they had just put baby product on her. That gang of masked hospital bandits who swooped her around the corner of the room to clean the shit off of her. They called it mecurichrome or something.
Wait. I want my baby. I thought but couldn't get my mouth to function. Aren't they suppose to put her on my bare breast so she can naturally find my teat with her built in head-turning, sucking mechanism and we can instantly bond like in all those birth movies? I want my baby. I want my baby. I want my– Ah. Here she is. And she smells like a baby. Wow.
Smells. Smells. Smells.
I never truly smelled anything till I was pregnant. Smell is what first alerted me that my egg had accepted a sperm.
Thirty-first birthday dinner.
Chicago.
March 19, 1990.
All I want for my birthday is a baby.
Well, to be pregnant. I don't know nothin' about birthing babies or even changing a diaper. But I know this is coming. This is what's next. We had been trying all winter. Dan liked this part. Trying. Fucking. The sex. He would have been happy trying for years.
Each month we calculated what times would be best. In a self-created yoga pose I prayed after each try. Upside Down Clown, I called it. Held it for twenty minutes. Pillows under butt. Thighs vertical. Knees pointing up toward the heavens. Fluffy slippers cupped on my dangling feet by Dan on his way out the bedroom door. We were told this position would let gravity help the microscopic tadpoles swim in the right direction. The cat, Miss Otis, awkwardly curled her purring black body over my belly. Together we played matchmaker for ovum and her thousand and one suitors. Together, cat and woman waited till I could lower my legs, unprop my butt, and return to daily life.
Weeks or even just days after every try, the shock of blood, bright and defiant, between my legs cracked my heart. And with each crack, the plates of my heart shifted. Seismic movement necessary to open my heart wide enough, deep enough for what is finally coming.
Fettuccine Alfredo.
All I can smell in the entire restaurant on my thirty-first birthday is Fettuccine Alfredo. My throat thickens and constricts trying to hold down what wants to rise from my guts. Our food hasn't come yet. But across the eons of the dining area, I spot an aproned figure placing a steaming plate of creamy pasta in front of an appreciative patron.
I apologize to Dan and scurry to the single rest room in the chic bistro. Oh my God. Which end of me is going to explode first. I wait. Nothing. But every time I open the bathroom door to non-nonchalantly reenter the world of culinary delights all I can smell is Fettuccine Alfredo.
My favorite restaurant and I can't eat a thing. I can't even stay. Air, air, I need air. I wait outside while Dan gathers our sumptuous feast in plastic to-go containers. In the car, I roll down the window and suck the cold wonder of the night deep into my lungs. This is it. She's coming. I know. Tomorrow I'll walk the block down Sheridan Road to the Women's Health Center and pee in a cup. But I already know. Happiness competes with the bile rising up my chest to my throat and wins.
So this is what it feels like to be pregnant.
Happy birthday.