"...don't drink, don't smoke—what do you do?"

 

33 Weeks

Many moons ago, a counselor once described Greg as a turtle and me as a rabbit. Thanks to Aesop, we all know the pros and cons of identifying with either lifestyle. And thanks to the Chinese "yin and yang" philosophy, we all know the advantages and detriments of being opposites. Greg and I are very lucky. Our core beliefs and interests are almost identical. It's just that our processes begin with one of us in the east and one in the west. Took us a while to learn how to respect that, but our obvious animal avatars really helped us figure it out.

Now that we are focusing on preparing for our new little guy, things have shifted. We're both starting more in the center of things. It's nice. It feels natural. It feels like real progress. It feels right and good and like real teamwork. Productive collaboration. It feels solid and safe and loving and powerful. It also feels kind of dull.

Every week I punch in the number of weeks of our pregnancy into a browser and read all about what the average of my demographic can 'expect while expecting'. As per the usual Internet surf, I receive waving flags for ads relating to my search. They're mostly ignorable but once in a while a few lines of copy will seep into my questioning head like when perusing ingredients. "Corn syrup in chicken?" This week, I barely recall seeing a kitschy, stock photo of a frowny pregnant woman with one hand on her head and the other on her belly. "Bored Being Pregnant?" I didn't give it a second thought after the first: "How on earth could anyone be BORED with this? Are they selling fireworks to pregnant ladies? That seems dangerous..."

However...

Lately... and really only since we got to this week... I think Greg's tortoise and my hare have caught up to the middle only to sit and stare at the same cocoon. And we both sit. And we both stare. And both look up and smile. Pat each other's heads. Look down again at the cocoon. Sit. Stare. Smile. Stare. Sit. Smile. Stare. Stare. Stare.

I think we're... well... bored.

If the baby arrived now, we'd be scrambling like contestants on a game show where naked men and women are released into a killer storm and get to keep anything they can carry. Tornado Trek: Do You Need It or Do You Want It? We don't even have a diaper in the house. Yet, some instinct must be taking over at this stage—we cannot wait to meet our new family member and we both want to meet him NOW.

All mammals go through a gestation period in order to multiply and now that we've joined those ranks, nothing zaps the human curse of 'wisdom' like reproduction to remind us of our equality with all living things on this planet. It is another one of the universe's impressive designs. Yet every day, humanity comes crashing in to battle it out with the natural order of things. Logic must prevail. We have to prepare and control this. We have to get wiper warmers or surely someone will die.

At least Greg and I are going through this together at the same pace. I'm not the lone rabbit waiting around for the sun to come up and Greg isn't crawling through quick sand with a predator on his tail. I hope our baby gets Greg's hawksbill shell and my big, fuzzy ears. Those are useful.