ultrasounds

What an interesting word. I would expect to hear incredible, out of this world tunes. Instead, we are holding hands, watching on a silent screen the very busy body of our future child in its living waters. Since it’s never happened to either of us before, I experience that out of body sensation that this is a film scene, close-up on the dewy eyed future moms, viewers wondering how the not-covered-in-slimy-lube mom is going to handle this latest evidence that she is not carrying their child. I tend to not be fully present to my emotions in these situations, just experiencing the moment and reacting later. I think it’s getting better each time, fewer aftershocks. I did start again down the shadowy road of fearing the child and I will have nothing in common when I remembered that many bio-children fare the same fate. The whole thing is a crazy experiment! Start with a decent base line of love (optional), add some drummed up egg and a cacophony of little swimming chords and poof! Music. But then you have to wait some 35-40 weeks for it to be released! Metal or Mozart, Hip Hop or Hippy, we wait with baited breath to hear those ultrasounds. The only audible thing now is the usual chorus of “just be healthy” softly behind it all, like monks chanting.

I’m scared! I have done a lot of scary things in my life: face riot cops with snarling dogs, travel to Israel alone at 19, walk into completely dark basements, get caught in the worst sandstorm in Cairo in 40 years (thankfully on a nonplused camel), carry trapped giant spiders outside, fall in love with women with manic parents who tell them they’ll kill them if they see me again, move away from my beloved Montreal after 30 years, attempt to beat 11 year old Gabriel at the “Set” card game, try to get pregnant again and again, and most of all continue to love with my whole heart and have faith. But damn, I’m scared! I think it’s best if I hum along with the monks, riffing when it feels right, avoiding the discordant “what if’s”. I want so much to meet our child and fall helplessly in love, to connect. They don’t tell you that it doesn’t happen to everyone right away. They don’t warn “other” parents, especially not other women since we’re not in any study on that yet, that post-partum can happen to them too. Well kid, whether or not we make sweet music, we’re stuck with each other for life. And I bet either way it’ll be incredible, it’ll be out of this world.

E