Anne TootillTo Be or Not to Be a Mother -Part One
September 13th 2006 17:37
Fun, fun, fun ‘til her daddy takes her T-bird away…” So now the fun part was supposed to start. And it did. For everyone else that is. Me, I was busy trying to fight off a horrific flu bug that I couldn’t shake. Flu bug that was eventually diagnosed as severe morning sickness aka Hyperemesis Gravidum (too lazy to spell check so forgive me if I erred) aka vomitosis neverending. As a matter of fact the only time I did come up for air - from an activity which by the way, I had done everything possible to avoid for the last fifteen years - was to sleep. So that’s what I did. I slept and I slept and I slept.
I slept and my husband had fun. As a matter of fact I’m fairly certain that next to the first time he popped Peggy Sue’s cherry in the back seat of his 1950 Chevy (o.k so may it was more like a 1976 Monte Carlo and the girl’s name was Caryn) pregnancy may have been the best time of my husband’s life. Walking around preening like a peacock, this otherwise tight-lipped, no need to let the world know our business, man told everyone within earshot that, yup, he did it, he got me pregnant. Underlying message for the few who might have missed it, he was a real man, case closed. I know I was in there somewhere but since I was in no condition to speak up for myself this was his moment to shine. And he did. Amazingly, in–between spoon-feeding me coke syrup in an attempt to re-hydrate my organs which were dangerously close to shutting down, ergo death, he still had the energy to joke with family, friends and co-workers. Nope, he wasn’t shooting blanks. Ha, ha, ha. You know if I hadn’t been so completely self-absorbed with the task of trying to keep down that coke syrup to keep his baby healthy I might have laughed too.
And then there was my mother-in-law, who I swear was born pining away for grandchildren. I mean, her grandchildren. From the moment she knew her son was serious about me I could not hold a baby in my arms without her commenting, “how becoming”. Never heard that one before, but not to worry, she made sure to make up for lost time. “How becoming,” she announced when I held her nephew’s baby son. “How becoming”, she cooed when I held my own nephew. “How becoming”, “how becoming” it didn’t take me long to realize that this was actually code for her becoming... a grandmother. And soon. Soon, soon, soon, I could feel the pressure building up inside me. Surprisingly, or maybe not so much as I later discovered after I became pregnant, there was no more me once I was in the family way. And by that I mean that while I was carrying the heir to the throne, it was all about her heir, her throne. Her, her her. I was pregnant but somehow it was all about her. As I lay in my bed between sleeping and vomiting and then in one in the hospital with an IV tube stuck painfully into a vein in my arm to re-hydrate my severely de-hydrated body, she was busy having fun, fun, fun planning for the arrival of her grandchild with her friends.
Three months flew by. I was in my fifth month, back in my own bed and could hold down cheese sandwiches. Now, I thought, patting my visibly swollen belly, now comes the part where everyone treats me special.
I slept and my husband had fun. As a matter of fact I’m fairly certain that next to the first time he popped Peggy Sue’s cherry in the back seat of his 1950 Chevy (o.k so may it was more like a 1976 Monte Carlo and the girl’s name was Caryn) pregnancy may have been the best time of my husband’s life. Walking around preening like a peacock, this otherwise tight-lipped, no need to let the world know our business, man told everyone within earshot that, yup, he did it, he got me pregnant. Underlying message for the few who might have missed it, he was a real man, case closed. I know I was in there somewhere but since I was in no condition to speak up for myself this was his moment to shine. And he did. Amazingly, in–between spoon-feeding me coke syrup in an attempt to re-hydrate my organs which were dangerously close to shutting down, ergo death, he still had the energy to joke with family, friends and co-workers. Nope, he wasn’t shooting blanks. Ha, ha, ha. You know if I hadn’t been so completely self-absorbed with the task of trying to keep down that coke syrup to keep his baby healthy I might have laughed too.
Three months flew by. I was in my fifth month, back in my own bed and could hold down cheese sandwiches. Now, I thought, patting my visibly swollen belly, now comes the part where everyone treats me special.
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