gestation

On the phone, my dear friend asks me if I’ve been writing. “No, not really,” I answer, surprised at myself. Usually the answer is nearly always yes in some way. Usually I have some internal thread I’m following, a gentle hum of language in the back of my mind. No poems, no essays, barely even phrases in the notes app on my phone. “Third time around,” I said to them, “and I’ve already written so much about pregnancy, so I kind of don’t know what to say.”

Is this really true? Do I not know what to say? Is there anything to say about anything else in my life, or is pregnancy really that all-consuming? It isn’t all consuming, but it is constant and pervasive. I never really forget that I’m pregnant. It has become the water I am swimming in, the subtext of my life as a parent, as a worker, as an artist, as a spouse, as a person. Plodding my way through some complicated tax situations this year, I kept thinking woefully, I’m too pregnant for this! But I’m not that pregnant, I’m not huge and teetering on the edge of birth yet. No, I’m in the long spacious middle. I’m almost exactly halfway, we’ll be twenty-weeks on Saturday. Our anatomy scan is coming up on Monday and I feel it loom, hopeful we’ll be told that everything is perfect, no more no less. What to even say before then, before we know more about this baby? Right now, and for all this time so far, my womb has been a black box with a little living (and now kicking) thing inside. I know so little about our baby, our kid, except that they’re with me all the time. They’re our third, so we pretty much have all the stuff we need — a place for them to sleep, a car seat, carriers, clothes. Not that much needs to happen in terms of getting ready. The work is waiting, and making space, and offering so much of my energy, my life force, to this baby who demands so much of me that I am not even aware of. Gestation is ongoing, and easy, and hard.

So what to write? What is different this third time around? What could possibly be new? What am I thinking, what am I feeling, what is coming up? A lot of quietude, really. A lot of comfort, strangely. Bodily, no, but mentally, yes. I feel comforted and deeply satisfied to be pregnant again, to sit in the center of my family with all this power to help us all grow. What I am doing is huge, and I feel comfortable within it, finally. I don’t think I ever felt comfortable in pregnancy before. I’m scared, for sure. I sense that I don’t and can’t understand yet what is changing in all of our lives. But I know what my work is right now, and it’s the quiet work that I am doing all the time, in spite of myself. It’s work I’ve done a long time, in many ways.

The work of gestation, I know it well. The uncomfortable, too-full feeling. The all-the-time of it. And the satisfaction, knowing something worthwhile is in you to do, and you’re doing it. Birth is the satisfaction of women, of humankind really. We birth babies, and we birth all kinds of other things too — homes, books, businesses, marriages, paintings, quilts, friendships. To carry something secret and inscrutable around within, to finally externalize it, to nurture its growth. This cycle of love is infectious, and it’s our natural pattern, our productivity. To gestate a baby makes the whole thing biological, so innate as to be almost silent. This quiet time of my life is deeply generative, and carries great impact on the future. Even if I do nothing else for the next twenty-weeks, I am doing so much. I call it all joy, and honor, really. This is more than enough.

I tell myself this, but of course it’s more complicated than that. There is still life swirling around, many demands, creative projects I am not completing as quickly as I’d hoped. I am so tired this time, in a way that feels inflated compared to my memory of pregnancy before. I go to bed before nine every night, I sit down every chance I get. My eyes feel heavy almost all the time. My mind feels foggy and quiet. Taking my kids to the playground is exhausting, even if all I do there is sit on a bench and watch them play. It’s costly, and there’s a lot of loss — of all the things I used to be, or was capable of without pregnancy in the mix. Pregnancy is hard and demanding, even if satisfying. I could sleep my way through the next twenty weeks, truly, and that almost feels like what I want to do, damn the responsibilities and projects and ideas and things I could be doing or accomplishing instead. My first pregnancy I wrote a whole book! Not this time!

But I’m ok with all that. Growing a baby is enough, and the other things really can wait. And I have already thought and written about it so much, for myself and for others as a doula, that there is something appealing about letting it happen quietly this time around. I feel so aware that this is a limited experience, one I will live maybe once more in my life, maybe not even. I won’t be pregnant forever, it’s a short time with so much change. It will go quickly, even if the days feel slow. Already half of it has slipped away.

Talk to me again in the third trimester, I’m sure I’ll be singing a different song. All sorts of urgency tends to set in then, for me at least. I’m feeling none of it now. Right now, I’m just satisfied to be pregnant, to not know very much about what life will be like in a few short months when this baby is born. I don’t want to work too hard, think too hard, create a body of work right now beyond the body of the baby I carry. I don’t want to worry any more than the moment truly demands. I don’t need to leap into action yet, I don’t need to move through birth yet, I don’t need to stay awake all night with my newborn or help my big boys adjust or figure everything out yet. I can just gestate this baby, let them grow, lend them all I have to share which is pretty much everything — my mind, my blood, my energy, my beating heart, my meals, my sleep, the rocking motion of my walking around, the sound of my voice and my body. This and mothering my other children, keeping everything moving, is more than enough. How wild that my womb is a real place where three people I love have lived! How wild to love a baby before they are born, to know that there is so much ahead for us, godwilling. And so much happening now. I’ll stay in this quietude a little longer, wait to see what emerges — satisfied by the gestation I am constantly living which is so much and so little, all the time.

a few little things:

The pregnancy brain fog is so real, so reading novels has gone completely off my radar — but short stories are PERFECT for me right now! I’m savoring Lauren Groff’s Brawler (oh my GOSH, the woman can write!), and I have Louise Erdrich’s new story collection Python’s Kiss on deck. It feels so good to read short fiction, just the right amount for this tired mind to swallow at once.

Pretty much the only thing I want to buy before this baby arrives is a new mom bag that I’ll haphazardly stuff diapers in, etc. Pretty sure it’s gonna be this one.

I made playlists for my doula clients and they’ve already proven useful to me personally! My pregnancy playlist has been getting lots of play in our house and it always hits. Also the Tarzan soundtrack, for the boys to dance to, which I obviously also enjoy because who doesn’t? They didn’t love the movie but the music is a hit!

I literally haven’t watched any tv in months because I go to bed too early, so I kind of feel like I’m missing out. I’m sure I’ll be able to catch up when I’m nursing a newborn around the clock in a few months — looking forward to Hacks Szn. 5 and finally watching The Pitt. Any other recs?

I did write a whole book when I was pregnant the first time (and I still love it so much!). I also wrote a series of blog posts about that pregnancy that I turned into a zine! It’s so special to revisit both of these works that feel miraculous and helpful to me now. I’m so glad I wrote them. Maybe you’d like to read them too!

Thank you so much for reading. As always, I love to hear from you — please comment with any thoughts you have! And I always appreciate likes and restacks, sharing goes such a long way!

If you like this free newsletter, here are the best ways to support my work as a self-employed writer and artist who is also a full time caregiver:

1. SHARE WITH A FRIEND! It makes me so happy to hear when folks have sent my essays along to a friend who they know will resonate with it. That’s the best!

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4. LOCAL AND NEED A DOULA? I’m taking birth clients in Pittsburgh, PA through June! Then I’ll be on maternity leave, but I’m planning to be back to work at some point in 2027. More information on my website here!

xoxo, more soon