Well, folks, it’s been a journey. If you’ve been reading since the start, what began as a theoretical proposition now has a head and feet and blinking eyes and a name. And he’s three months away from drawing his first breath. My son’s zeroth birthday is in twelve weeks and four days.
And . . . we don’t know where we’re going to live.
Marie and I completed the baby registry about a month ago. We’ve picked strollers. We’ve picked a crib. We’ve picked car seats. We picked an amazing bed from Pottery Barn that expands like a transformer as the kid grows until age ten. We picked a glider. It was Marie’s idea, and I briefly got really excited. For those of you childless readers who saw the word glider and thought Pierce Brosnan in the Thomas Crown Affair, I’m as disappointed as you are. A glider is a chair — a supremely comfortable, wholly unnecessary chair that chiefly serves two functions:
Rocking a new father to sleep while he holds an infant.
Identifying first-time parents as yuppie marks who will spend outrageous sums to make their new roles marginally more comfortable.
Its actual purpose is to make bottle and breastfeeding easier. Sitting for feedings every two hours can be bad on a new parent’s back. Especially if the new parent is already an old parent. The glider is a soft, reclining, buzzing, pulsing, self-warming chair that will get utilized enough to justify at least half of its expense. But the problem is that we don’t know where to ship it.
We’re in the middle of a waking real estate nightmare. I won’t get into all of the specifics, but it’s been an expensive, maddening and emotionally draining saga that has made us briefly but energetically hate at least six people. Those six are two couples who made then withdrew offers and our home’s previous owners who likely concealed the reason that gave our buyers second thoughts. The issue has since been dealt with — expensively — but now our house has been on the market almost six months with two withdrawn offers (which is a source of unease and bargaining power for future potential buyers). And there’s no end in sight.
But Marie and I roll with the punches.
Since we met in 2019, we've had three surgeries between us - two hips and an elbow, two cancelled wedding dates, a career change and a death of a dog. Amidst our joy, we’ve also endured family turmoil, a pandemic, Chicago race riots, several lootings and gunfire literally outside our front door. That’s a lot to handle. Also, Lucy keeps trying to steal our thunder with near death experiences. (Knock it off, Lucy! It’s getting obnoxious.)
Throw in a real estate debacle amidst a pregnancy? Why not? We’ve proven that we’re pretty good at smiling and laughing through stress at this point.
And speaking of solidarity:
For several months, I’ve been joking that my gluttonous sloth was actually a heroic and generous service to my wife. I didn’t want her to be alone in her bodily expansion. But as the due date approaches, I’m changing course. Last week, I woke up at 7 AM still exhausted and realized I need more energy. I need to get in shape to keep up with a newborn’s odd waking hours and constant need. I’ve exercised five of the last six days, and I’m determined to drop fifteen pounds in the next twelve weeks.
I’m making the vow publicly so you can hold me accountable and appropriately shame me into keeping my word.
On the cuteness front, Marie has a new routine for interacting with her son. At night, she lays on her side for a few minutes and rubs her belly. For some reason, about a minute after she assumes that position, the boy begins his evening Kung Fu. Then Marie lays on her back. I place my ear to her abdomen. She strokes my head while I sing off-key lullabies. And the boy punches and kicks throughout the songs. He’s getting stronger and more energetic every night. These nightly episodes might be the most pleasant thing I’ve ever experienced.
Everything we’re reading states that, at this stage of the pregnancy, the child can recognize his parents’ voices. And while that is a lovely thought, I keep thinking how the hell do they know? The they is the experts, advice-givers and pronouncers — from MDs to PhDs to confident, credential-free bloggers — who inform us what prenatal infants like or dislike, what is good and what is bad, what can hurt your baby and what won’t. When it comes to alcohol, meth and glue-sniffing, I trust the expertise. But regarding spicy food and voice-recognition and the long-term benefits of playing Bach into the womb via custom belly-phones, how can anyone possibly know? Do they poll the babies when they emerge? Pregnancy lasts for nine months. How can you isolate the repercussions to specific behaviors? How do you attribute positive results to one thing and ignoring all other candidate-stimuli? And which mothers provide the control groups? Who volunteers to abstain from exercise and live on a diet of Cheez-Its and Twinkies to prove the fruitarian yogi joggers right?
The funny thing is that I believe the experts when it comes to the voice-recognition. I’m not sure if it’s because it’s intuitively obvious or because I enjoy confirmation bias as much as everyone else. Whatever the truth, when the kid reaches out after I start singing to Marie’s belly, I’m overwhelmed.
A great update! I completely agree with your assessment. Don’t follow advice from anyone who hasn’t experienced this amazing journey.
A joy!