Small Favors

This wedding planning thing is never-ending, I tell you. I sent copies of the readings Dr. Fiancé and I selected to our three readers, and one of them wrote back to say he wasn’t sure the poem he was supposed to read was appropriate for a wedding. “Do you really want a poem that uses the word ‘immolate’ read at your wedding?” he asked. Dr. Fiancé and I panicked, then re-read the poem, then re-read it again, and finally decided, yes, we want a poem that uses the word “immolate” to be read at our wedding. However, Dr. Fiancé no longer liked one of the other poems we’d selected. Upon further inspection, it turns out Shel Silverstein is a pretty dark dude. So we both spent the day not dictating charts or working on a magazine article or looking for branches for a chupah or sewing table runners for the reception dinner or any of the other 4,934 things we need to do in the next 13 days but instead looking for another reading. Again.

It only took the whole day, but we finally found one. And it’s kind of perfect. We’re just a little behind—but what else is new? At least I’m not still barfing.

Another Career Possibility

I’m thinking of writing a series of children’s books about the adventures of a pregnant lady about to get married. The Pregnant Bride Gets Her Wedding Dress Fitted Two Weeks Before Her Wedding Day. The Pregnant Bride Goes Bra-Shopping. The Pregnant Bride Goes Bra-Shopping Again. The Pregnant Bride Tries to Help Her Fiancé Choose a Champagne for the Wedding Without Giving Her Baby Fetal Alcohol Syndrome. The Pregnant Bride Drags Her Fiancé to Nordstrom Rack to Shop for Wedding Shoes. The Pregnant Bride Shops for Tile and a Faucet and a Sink for the Bathroom Remodel. The Pregnant Bride Makes Yet Another To-Do List. The Pregnant Bride Wishes She Could Take a Nap. And, The Pregnant Bride Says “Fuck It” and Takes a Nap Anyway.

The Butterfly Effect

I woke up this morning knowing that my baby is a girl.

I am 0% confident that this means I’m actually having a girl, as sometimes I wake up in the morning “knowing” that I’m in my childhood bed or that I’m still single and need to get busy looking for a mate.

When I poke and prod at this “knowledge” I have about my offspring, it becomes indistinguishable from sheer wishful thinking. So, Dr. Fiancé and I settled on a baby girl name 12 months ago whereas I’m having second, third, and fourth thoughts about the boy name we also “settled” on months ago—that isn’t the universe telling me that this child is a girl. It’s just the universe telling me that one shouldn’t choose names so far in advance—and that the girl name we chose kicks total ass.

Speaking of kicking, where are those much-advertised baby kicks? As far as I know, I haven't felt any yet, though I'm not exactly sure what I'm supposed to be feeling. I’m certainly having intermittent cramps, but reportedly baby kicks at this point feel like butterflies pounding their wings against the walls of your uterus—and any moron would know what that feels like.

Things They Don't Tell You About Pregnancy #11

Itchy nipples, people.

Maybe I'm Just Agnostic

You know what I just realized? “for all of eternity” is a really, REALLY long time. It seems so much longer than “'til death do us part” or “for as long as we both shall live.” So much longer. I’m pretty sure atheists aren’t supposed to feel this way, but there you have it. Promising to be with Dr. Fiancé until I die is no problem. But promising to hang out with him—or anyone—for all of eternity is just asking for trouble. There is no way I could keep that commitment, and there’s no way I would allow someone to hang out with me and my moodiness for all of eternity—especially someone I love. That’s just rude.

Variety: The Spice

Ever since I met him, Dr. Fiancé has been talking about his dream to remodel the downstairs bathroom so that it’s as nice as the other ones in the house—as long as you overlook the washing machine and dryer filling up the eastern half of the room. It’s not necessarily where I’d vote to spend our money, though the sink is truly hideous and the floor was laid out around the sink instead of under it, so if we replace the sink we have to replace the floor and if we’re doing that we’ll have to remove the baseboards anyway, and why not replace them with nice ones that match the rest of the house instead of the cheapo ones the previous owners threw down? It’s If You Give a Mouse a Cookie every day around here.

I thought I’d go insane if I had to make one more decision, but it turns out my sanity is more robust than I’d previously given it credit for. Because our contractor can only do the bathroom project in the next few weeks if it’s going to get done before the baby comes, Dr. Fiance and I were assigned to spend the day shopping for a sink, a faucet, floor tile, a light fixture, a medicine cabinet—and, while we were at it, a new washing machine and dryer.

I’d like to say that it was a nice break from choosing votive candle holders, table runners, and hors d’oeuvres—but I’d be lying.

Just Shoot Me

This is what my life looks like right now: wandering through Goodwill—not the first but the second Goodwill of the day—carrying a wedding veil and a onesie in one hand and a stack of shot glasses and a pitchfork in the other.

This is what it sounds like: Is this veil white or ivory? It looks white compared to that other one, but that one is practically yellow. Like my teeth lately. Why are they so yellow? I haven’t had coffee for months. Maybe it’s the pregnancy. Should I get them whitened for the wedding? Is that safe for the baby? Maybe I should hold the veil up to something I know is white… how about this cotton onesie? Oh, it’s so cute—I wonder if I should buy it or wait and see how many people give us for baby presents… there’s just something so classic about a white onesie. Okay, the veil is definitely ivory. Too ivory to wear with a white dress. Should I buy it anyway, just for fun? Maybe for the kid’s dress-up clothes box? No, they can play with the veil I actually wear to the wedding, and what am I saying “they”? Remember how miserable those first 17 weeks were? Remember the constant nausea? Just one kid. Zero population growth. Right. Okay. Focus. Shot glasses. Will these shot glasses work for the wedding? Are they too ugly? Too big? How about this pitchfork? What’s the pitchfork for again?

Chicken/Egg

I’m having a bit of trouble focusing, what with items from my giant, ever-expanding Wedding Planning to-do list hovering around my head like a tangle of gnats with some giant, buzzing Getting Ready for Baby to-do list flies mixing it up from time to time. Did I mention we’ve been remodeling our house for the past month and that I still have some work-work to take care of? Like writing a reflective essay on what the past year of teaching creative writing has meant to me… Five whole pages, which feels impossibly long right now. Five pages on planning a wedding? Easy. Five pages on my thoughts about getting pregnant before getting married? Cinchy. Five pages about the joys of spending one day a week trying to get 120 high school students to use a facial expression other than Disinterest? Impossible—especially with all those gnats and flies telling me I ought to be shopping for votive holders sewing table runners finding branches for a homemade chuppah finding non-cheesy secular readings painting the bathroom making wedding programs shopping on Craigslist for a crib looking for photos of wedding hairdos writing letters to my unborn child finding a comfy rocking chair that’s not too expensive and doesn’t smell like Febreze…

I went for a walk this morning to clear my head and ended up sitting on the curb in tears. There’s. Just. So. Fucking. Much. To. Do.

Two of my best mates who I’ve been friends with since high school wrote the other day to ask me what we’d like as a wedding present and all I could think was, “A breast pump would be useful.” And then I cried.

Dr. Fiancé, who is uncomfortable with the idea of people buying us wedding gifts, much less ones we’ve specifically requested on a capitalist greed list and is slightly less uncomfortable with the idea of people buying us baby gifts suggested that my friends could get us an infant car seat. I’m pretty sure the icy tone of my voice when I replied that I’d like it if the present from two of my oldest, best friends wasn’t something we’d only use for a year and then give to Goodwill guaranteed that Dr. Fiance won’t be giving me any foot rubs any time soon.

At my last doctor’s appointment when I asked my OB for therapist recommendations she asked if I’ve been feeling more depressed or more anxious. It’s just so hard to tell—am I spending every weekend crying in the bathroom because I’m anxious about my epic to-do list, or has my to-do list become epic because I’m spending every weekend crying in the bathroom? Either way, I’m getting headaches from all the crying, and I don’t know if you know this, but Tylenol is just sugar compressed into a capsule. So until I can take Excedrin again, no more crying!

Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to duck into the bathroom, turn on the ceiling fan and some running water, burrow my face into a hand towel and…not cry.

Bare Necessities

I’ve spent the last two days online researching baby strollers and car seats and swings and cribs and mattresses and bottles and nipples and breast pumps and glider chairs and changing tables and slings and diaper pails and everyone’s favorite—rectal thermometers. I was supposed to attend a friend’s garden party yesterday afternoon, but I never made it past my driveway because I realized I’ve lost the ability to converse like a normal person. All I’ve got is, “Can you believe they make a baby swing that simulates womb sounds? ... And do you think we need one?”