the boognish chronicles: part 1

thursday, november 20, 2008

dear little boognish,

today you transformed from a sesame seed into a lentil bean. i’m not sure why these things always have to be described in relation to food, but i guess women have been describing childbirth as passing a watermelon through their vaginas for many moons, so it probably shouldn’t surprise me. anyway, you’re not just any lentil bean. you’re a lentil bean with an oversized head and dark spots where your eyes and nostrils will be. sounds kind of crazy, i know, but i swear it’s true. all of this is really exciting and fascinating to me, but the stuff that goes along with it is already taking its toll, i have to tell you.

it has now been one full week of the sorest boobs i could ever imagine, which was my only real clue that you even existed. last thursday, i woke up in the wee, dark hours of the morning wondering who punched me in the chest and eyeing malichai suspiciously. he’s been known to get a bit handsy from time to time. the feeling did not go away, and after a quick internet search, i realized it might be time to break out the pregnancy tests i had stashed away under the bathroom sink. i was reluctant to use any more of them, since i had been disappointed in the past, after my period had been six or seven days late. it’s a horrible experience - thinking and hoping and then taking a test that instantly crushes you. i really didn’t want to go through that again. plus, those damn things are expensive.

in any case, at about 10 a.m. saturday morning, i took a cheap pregnancy test, one of those plus/minus ones. within seconds, a dark vertical line appeared, along with a very faint horizontal line. this confounded me no end. i just stared at the stupid thing, confused. it didn’t look anything like what i thought a positive result should look like, but it didn’t look like the negatives i’d gotten in the past. for the next two hours, i would run to the bathroom every few minutes to stare at the test, and i would yell aloud, “i don’t understand!” the dogs were very disconcerted by this. so at noon, i took another of the same kind, thinking this one would surely read negative and prove that the first test was defective somehow. but it did not. it resulted in the same ridiculous almost-positive reading as the first. now i had two of these sticks lined up on the bathroom sink, mocking me for another two hours.

at about 2 p.m., i broke out the big guns and grabbed the last test in the house - the expensive, supposedly idiot-proof name brand digital test. i thought for sure i would be so pissed that i wasted more money using this fancy thing to tell me i was once again not pregnant. but, i peed on the stick, capped it, placed it on the bathroom sink, and then hunched over it, watching the flashing hourglass. the test was supposed to take two minutes to complete the analysis, but within about a minute, the hourglass disappeared and was replaced by one word: pregnant.

my mouth fell open. i jerked upright and looked at myself in the mirror. and then i started to bawl and laugh hysterically at the same time. i know, probably not a very comforting picture of your mother’s psychological well-being, but i was completely overwhelmed. i sort of paced from room to room, crying and laughing, bewildering the dogs all the while. i actually grabbed the fancy camera and took a picture of the digital test in case the “pregnant” reading disappeared before papadog got home from his silly gun class. that’s right - your father was at a weapons course, and he would not return until more than three hours after i confirmed your existence. i was beside myself.

i spent the rest of the afternoon watching television and doing internet searches, and i tried to con your dad into coming home early, but to no avail. i did a quick calculation and realized that you were about five weeks old and currently the size of a sesame seed. i took a shower, and i thought about how weird it was that i had showered for five weeks without ever realizing you were there. i got dressed, and i was lying on the couch when papadog returned. after the dogs calmed down and he sat down next to me, i told him i wanted to look into hiring a contractor to convert the built-in desk in the back office to a closet soon. he looked annoyed and asked why the hell i wanted to do this now, and i told him it was because if the baby was a boy, we would be able to use that room as the baby’s room, since it was already painted blue. i wish i had a camera ready for the look on his face. i think the only look that’s ever come close was when he proposed to me. it’s this look of total excitement and anxiousness and disbelief and terror. it was beautiful.

we told our parents and siblings that night, but we’ve told very few others since then, as we want to wait a little longer before letting everybody else in on the news. it’s killing your dad to not tell everyone he talks to, so every time he sees me, it’s the only thing he can talk about.

in case you haven’t realized it yet, you were very, very planned, and we cannot wait to meet you.

love,
mamadog