So. That happened.
Even ladies who wear horrible pink-and-yellow marbelized Crocs can get up the pole!
Though it may surprise a few of my friends, this was completely intentional. I’d been ambivalent about having kids for a very long time (obviously, as I’m 35 and pregnant for the first time) but now that it’s happened, I’m actually really excited. Like no second thoughts, no “oh-shit-what-have-I-done.” I’m just totally stoked. I feel like a one-woman-science-fair-project and am fascinated by what’s presumably going on with the little parasite I’m hosting.
About a year ago, Joel and I started seriously discussing having a baby. I had my IUD removed. Then, I promptly freaked the fuck out and we tabled the baby-having-plans indefinitely. This past October, we decided it was fish-or-cut-bait time, and thus began conducting live fire exercises. Things happened a little (lot) quicker than I expected, considering as how we’re both kind of old and all. Given actual, you know, planning, I’d have tried to aim for a springtime baby, so that I wouldn’t have to contend with horrible winter weather when the baby was likely to be born, or to be gigantically pregnant during the dog days of summer. I guess I’ll get to miss out on most of August, though I reckon that will be cold comfort as July wears on.
Shortly after I came over all pregnant, I inflicted upon Joel a dose of my execrable sense of humor. He’d not ever heard the old chestnut about “what’s the best thing about banging a pregnant chick.” Every once in a while, I will make some comment so lewd and tasteless that it makes bits of his poor, beleaguered brain go “foom.” This was one occasion upon which he was rendered speechless.
But the thing is, I’m not the beauty-and-magic-of-motherhood type. I consider the whole business of making other humans almost tragically ridiculous and can hardly believe that it’s a real “thing” though I am manifestly experiencing that reality at the moment. Ah well, as the Wife of Bath was wont to say:
“Experience, though noon auctoritee
Were in this world, were right ynogh to me”
So as far as any factual content in this post, I suppose it wouldn’t be amiss to say that the baby is meant to put in an appearance on or around August 10, 2013, which is perilously near my youngest nephew’s 8-12 birthday. My family is thick with August birthdays, including my Mom, my sister, her son, one of my Mom’s younger sisters (they share the same birthday, but five years apart!), one of my Dad’s younger sisters, that aunt’s husband, another uncle, and a cousin. And, presumably, this one. Initially, because I am inexcusably shit with numbers, I had reckoned that this kid was liable to be born about 9-10-13, but as it turns out, I apparently counted a month twice or something. When they told me the proper due date at the doctor’s office, I started cackling like an insane hen. I’m pretty sure the ultrasound tech thought I’d lost my giddy biscuit. I then had to explain both my arithmetic error and my family’s overwhelming dominance of the month of August. When I told Mom that I was adding to the August Army, she began gloating like a gloating thing. When I’d previously thought it was going to all happen in September, she joked that perhaps if Baby got in a hurry, he or she could celebrate her birthday with her (8-28). It doesn’t look like that’s going to be happening, but I have a feeling that my nephew’s birthday week might end up being a bit eventful.
Well, congratulations and all that! August 10th is three days away from my b-day, and while for you having a child in summer doesn’t sound like fun, it’ll probably me more fun for your daughter or son. When I was a kid, I always loved having my b-day in the middle of summer, as I didn’t have to worry about school and it was fun to have a “holiday” during the month without holidays. (And it was far enough away from Xmas to not compete.)
This is very true. My own birthday is in June and I did enjoy having the day free to goof off as I saw fit.
Thank you for the good wishes! I fully expect this experiment to be weird and wonderful.
Congratulations, it couldn’t have happened to better people . I follow your blog from time to time and I enjoy your writing. May everything go off well and again congratultions.
Walter
Thank you, kindly! I’m very excited.
correction to email, sorry.
!! awesome !!
All good wishes for your very personal science experiment. I think being an older parent rocks because you’ve already settled a lot of your own emotional shit.
Oh and I’m imagining a very hot rod bike baby trailer.
Congrats! I’m so excited for the two of you! Is that why Joel has been wearing the nurse costume of late?
No, he just likes to feel fancy sometimes, Julie!
Nimble – I think we’re just going to have a sensible and ordinary Burley trailer. Not too flashy, but fairly foolproof.
Nothing wrong with feeling fancy! Can you translate your Wife of Bath quote? I’m not good with old english.
Congratulations!!!
That child is already very fortunate.
Thank you! We are very excited.
A little bit of background is in order. In Chaucer’s time, people relied upon authorities, especially the remnants of classical learning to understand the world. Empirical understanding of the world was not considered wise. It was considered somewhat self-important to think that you could figure things out just from observation or experience. You needed a bit of Ptolemy to legitimize things, ya know?
So what the Wife of Bath was saying was particularly unorthodox, as she’s saying that she doesn’t hold much truck with the scholarly view of things – her experiences have taught her all she feels she needs to know. And in the forum of being a bit of a slut, she was pretty well knowledgeable.