28 Weeks: This belly isn’t the only thing that’s growing around here

So this week, Keiki is the size of a Chinese cabbage. But don’t you think that Keiki should be a Napa cabbage? I mean, we like to keep our produce local in the Henig household. Just last Sunday, I rejected blueberries from Argentina, even though they are Jacob’s favorite. . .

Focus, Monkey Brain, focus!

So. Here we are, the third trimester. The hoooome stretch. The final act. The downhill slope. Should I keep going here, or have I made my point?

In 12 weeks or so, there’s going to be a person here. Did you HEAR ME INTERNET?? A real, live, crying, eating, burping, spewing, pooping person. Holy Bela Karolyi!! While this working through Jacob’s birth means that I am feeling a lot more, I’d like a smidge of denial back.

It’s funny because I started writing the above portion of this post on Monday, but after my OB appointment, I don’t feel as freaked out. Oh, I’m sure it will come back. My freshman year of college, I would have a moment every few months when I’d think, Holy Shit! I’m at HARVARD, completely freak out, and then it would pass. This is kind of like that. I know intellectually that caring for a newborn is a lot of work, but it’s not rocket science. Yes, there are potential sleep issues, reflux, breast-feeding, but I feel pretty confident about my basic baby care skills. The whole parenting two kids thing is a whole different animal, but I feel like I will be able to tend to Keiki and Jakey’s basic needs, even in a zombie state.

What makes me feel so good right now is that I feel surer that I will not repeat the same experience that I had with Jacob’s birth. That is not to say that there won’t be possible complications or even a similar outcome in terms of the facts of the birth. I may have another child in distress; I may have other complications or physical trauma. But the pain of Jacob’s birth is not just what happened, but my own reaction to it, my shutting down and letting everything happen to me because I was too scared to do anything else.

Over the last few weeks, I’ve felt a lot of emotional pain, I’ve cried a lot, and talked and written a lot about my experience with Jacob’s birth. And the weird thing is that it’s been amazing. It is scary to relive some of those moments from a couple of years ago, to bring myself to experience memories that I’d rather put in a box, tie up with string and label “I’m fine.” But those little boxes add up, weighing me down like a pair of cement shoes.

As I visit the memories of Jacob’s birth and aftermath, feelings come rushing in like the undertow of the Atlantic that I swam in as a kid. What I learned physically so long ago is what I’m trying to learn emotionally now: for the most part, if I can lean into the undertow, if I do not fight it, it will wash over me and bring me safely to shore.

And so I’m letting a lot wash through me, and it’s painful, but it hurts so good. It is the soreness after a good workout, the tired relaxation that follows any act of expression. It is growth.