Pregnancy

What, if when you wanted a baby, you just plucked one FROM THE AIR? Instead of “TTC” or an accidental pregnancy, or the planning and expense and emotional and hormonal roller coaster of reproductive technology — or the forced private grief of a miscarriage — you’d just pluck one from the air.

Instead of the endless testing and the clandestine (or not so) throwing up on the subway . . . instead of the stretch marks, and insomnia . . . instead of having to spit everywhere including on your own foot, and devising strange ways to elevate the head of your bed because of heartburn . . .

Forget those things! I’m getting a floating air baby.

These air babies, we wouldn’t worry that they were too big and that their giant hard heads would wears our rib bones away, or that they were too small and that someone would utter the frightening phrase “failure to thrive.”

With our real babies, we worry, what if it comes out too soon, or: what if it never decides to come out? And let’s not forget the actual birth, which I won’t even get into, here.

Our babies: they do not just come from the air. But without the challenges of pregnancy, we wouldn’t have the same appreciation, would we? It’s often said that “it’s the journey, not the destination.” In the case of a relationship with a child, the journey, pregnancy, gives gravity and appreciation to the destination: the birth and charge and awe of a son or daughter. You’ll never love like you love someone who you made from your bones. Your aching, unable-to-have-a-goddamn-cocktail, I’d do anything at all for you, my sweetest little love, bones.

While you’re waiting to be pregnant or waiting to be done being pregnant or reflecting back on pregnancy, here’s some reading material compiled from the blog during my own pregnancy. May you not be reading this whilst barfing, though, if you are, it’s good to learn to multitask: it will help you later!

Making the Supertaster

Who Am I? And What Can I Eat?

A Personal Compendium of Nausea-Related Policies, Coping Mechanisms, and Fun Facts

Places I Have Recently Spit

Craving to Aversion

What People Say When You’re Pregnant

Leading Up to the Birth

Here Comes Tiny Valentine