Category: knocked up

When you read about pregnancy, happy is the predominant emotional theme. Which is good, don’t get me wrong. But I doubt if I am the only mother-to-be on the planet who is struck dumb with jaw-clenching, heart-stopping terror at the prospect of motherhood – and where, then, is our survival guide? There’s a few palliative columns in your average “what to expect” book about how becoming a parent can be anxiety-causing, and that it’s normal to feel afraid. Seriously now, the term “afraid” so minimally addresses how I feel. I am caught in a blizzard of frozen panic, snowed under by fright.  I need a book on how to convert an office into a nursery when all you want to do is watch episodes of House and re-read old mystery novels  as your body relentlessly balloons and your brain disintegrates.  Week by week.

I’m sure it doesn’t sound like it, but I’m actually happy to become a mom; there are things that I’m really looking forward to, I swear. These aren’t cold feet talking (despite the blizzard metaphor) – rather, every element of my adult psyche is desperately circling in my head in some broken game of musical chairs, as the uneven, tuneless jack-in-the-box music plays, trying to eye which parts of my being will have no place to sit when the music stops in December. It seems very real and evident to me that I will have to sacrifice some pieces of myself to become a mother – it’s an equation that seems as natural to me as the patellar reflex. Something new comes in, and some things have to go to make room.

So I’ve been thinking it was time to give up the blog. I’m not feeling even remotely creative (possibly because I am crusted over in panic, I grant you) and I am not drinking enough wine these days to do anything like keeping my hand in. I haven’t been reading other blogs or wine news. My whole interest in wine has scabbed over, I think in my anticipation that I could not both be a mother and a wine blogger, possibly any kind of blogger at all. Because honestly if I don’t blog about wine I don’t know what I’m entirely comfortable blogging about. It’s all very… exposed out here without a stemmed glass, isn’t it?

But then, to quote Alice, “I almost wish I hadn’t gone down that rabbit-hole–and yet–and yet–it’s rather curious, you know, this sort of life!”

Thus I am trying to dig myself out, gentle reader, of the numbing-dumbing snowbank. Melodramatic maunderings aside, I am taking it quite entirely on faith that I can be a mommy and a wine blogger. (My husband thinks I can.) It seems rather like Big Rock Candy Mountain at the moment, that combination of existences, but why not treat it like it could be true for a while and see what comes of it, I suppose? I’m honestly not sure what you’re going to be finding here from now on, but I’ll try to make it something. Don’t get your heart set – I make no guarantees.

Oh, and I had a tasty little Oregonian Pinot Gris the other night at McCormick & Schmick’s – called Cloudline, and evidently the consulting winemaker is Véronique Drouhin-Boss – which was lovely with my friend’s scallops and slightly less perfect with my pan-fried flounder.

Seriously with the first trimester fatigue?

I’m sorry, people, but the bean just keeps sucking all of my creative energy out and using it to build a placenta and kidneys and synapses and other stuff it thinks it needs. Meanwhile, the Scamp languishes in obscurity, gathering cobwebs and inflicting unremitting guilt upon me, your inadequate host. I’ve missed Wine Blogging Wednesdays and Wine Book Clubs and all sorts of great stuff. I don’t even read wine blogs these days! Oh, the horror!

I remember discovering Basic Juice and enjoying it so much, and then I remember how sad I was when the supply dried up. I don’t mean to abandon you, really – it’s just that all I do is work and sleep and stare off into space while blearily creating life. Dullsville Township, population: me.

Oh and please don’t assure me that it only gets worse when the kid sheds me and starts screaming. If you have nothing nice to say… maintain radio silence, if you please.

Back soon, if the rumors about the second triathlon are to be believed.

So, I’m interviewing midwives for The Big Day. I mean, obviously, the right candidate will be there all through the script work, reading and rehearsals, but really it’s all about the Opening Night. (har) Never really gave it too much thought, honestly — not like I do when I realize there might be a raised eyebrow or two over my lefty, granola behavior, given my state of residence. I always figured I’d see a midwife instead of an OB/GYN, as I was planning to get pregnant, not sick.

But my 74-year-old father-in-law, who is the last of the blue collar democrats and understands the political implications of a woman’s right to choose and everything, was severely taken aback by the midwife thing. Like, way.

I’ve talked to Dad-in-Law a little bit, explaining that 70% of births in Japan and Europe are attended exclusively by midwives, and that those countries have much lower infant and maternal mortality rates than the US does. I’ve also explained that midwives will only take on low-risk patients, so that if the tyke is presenting breech or I’m having twins or something, they’ll march me off to an obstetrician post-haste. I’ve even considered buying him a copy of The Business of Being Born, which I heartily recommend to you all. Slowly but surely, I think I am calming his fears for me and his new grandbaby.

Not so in the case of my brother-in-law, who told my husband that working seeing a midwife instead of a doctor was “dumb,” and that he’d be praying for our family. Brother Dear is certainly closer to The Jesus than I am, but I wouldn’t call them bosom buddies. Thusly, I think a thank you card from one of the trinity would be a nice gesture, since my reckless trusting of midwives has so fervently brought my in-laws closer to god.

That being said, of course I’ll take all the prayer I can get.