I was distracted.
By what? I don’t recall. And I can’t remember what Marie and I were discussing on Tuesday before it happened. All I know is that she said that she wanted to do something “before I start showing”.
Then I made a mistake.
“Babe, you are sho . . .” I started.
My brain turned on mid-sentence. Nooooooooooooooooo! it screamed.
Marie looked at me. Said nothing. Eyebrows raised.
“Babe, you are sho’ beautiful,” I said. Nice recovery, dude. Like it never happened. Smooth as silk.
But two days later, Marie admitted it. She is not getting fat. She is not retaining water. She, at 20 weeks pregnant, has a small but undeniable baby bump.
At this point, it’s still hideable. Marie had an important meeting with investors this week and went to work with the top button of her pants unbuttoned. Her black blouse draped over her waistline and effectively concealed her bump (and her unfastened slacks). But at home in a t-shirt, it’s obvious. And the new bump is accompanied by another new development: Marie’s maternal instinct.
My wife isn’t baby crazy, but I haven’t heard her refer to our unborn child as “the demon who is going to ruin everything” in about three weeks. That’s serious progress. On all of her pregnancy-monitoring apps, the baby’s placeholder name is FunKiller. A large part of Marie is still clinging to the main virtue of childlessness: autonomy. With that said, her reluctance is steadily giving way. I notice her hand resting on her belly more and more. When we discuss baby names, she occasionally smiles. She has recently stopped referring to the baby as an it and has started to use he. And though she forbade me from buying any gifts for her on Mother’s Day, Marie has remarked that yesterday was the last Mother’s Day of which Lucy will be the primary honoree.
Despite Marie’s steadfast resistance to adopting the mom persona, pregnancy is not subtle. It has a way of making motherhood the center of your focus regardless of your intentions. For example, on Saturday, the baby kicked for the first time.
It was around noon. Marie and I were sitting on Abe and Lucy’s couch in Lake Geneva. Marie was working on her laptop with her feet in my lap as I watched something on Netflix. Suddenly Marie looked up. Her hand went to her belly. Smiling and slightly startled, my wife said “Okay! That one was real!”
“A kick?” I asked.
“Yep,” she replied. “No doubt this time.”
Over the past few weeks, there have been occasional flutters in Marie’s lower abdomen. She has mostly dismissed them as cramps or indigestion but Saturday’s incident was definitive. It’s alive!
And that’s a relief.
My wife and I are optimists and pragmatists. We’re not worriers, but we do consider all of the possibilities. When we’re planning for the future, we usually discuss worst case scenarios, and aside from a complication that actually kills her, the worst thing that is on our radar is something called a missed miscarriage. It’s “when embryonic death has occurred but there is not any expulsion of the embryo.” It’s sometimes asymptomatic, and Marie’s second trimester has been a breeze, so getting confirmation that the baby is alive and kicking was both thrilling and a mild relief.
Lucy was in the kitchen when the kick occurred. She smiled and recounted her own experience when her daughter was in utero. Not only was Marie prone to prenatal violence, she had a habit of kicking the same spot over and over again. Lucy withstood assault after assault until she had actual intercostal bruising from Marie’s incessant, focused battery. Lucy said that she didn’t full recover until Marie was two. On our Sunday drive home, I joked that, even as a fetus, Marie was goal-oriented. She had identified a weak point in her mother’s womb and was plotting an escape before she was born.
As for the baby names, we’ve narrowed the selection down to four. Shaka did not make the final cut, but that’s all I’m sharing. Marie and I will make the final decision today.
Coming Attraction!!!!
We’re having our 4-D scan in about three hours. So in the next entry, you will definitely see the baby boy as you’ve never seen him before. Possibly in video!
Have a great week!
Hank
So exciting! I’m sure Baby boy will be an athlete, and as such, will be dancing, jogging, and kicking his way through the next 4 months! Hold on!