We're Having A Baby

Well this is the last day of being pregnant. I figured I'd celebrate the occasion with a genuine old school blog post in the style of diary blogging from years gone by, like the aging internet dinosaur/embarassing mom that I now am. I'm not promoting anything or selling anything or linking to brands and no click throughs will send pennies my way for writing this. I just thought I'd check in on this most auspicious occasion... And also because my mom asked me to please write a blog post because she "checks my blog every day and I haven't posted anything in a year"... a mother's love, am I right? 

So, anyway, how can I be so sure today is the last day? Because at 2 pm tomorrow I have a date with destiny in the form of a planned cesarian. 

Baby Fariss never wanted to get into birthing position, as he preferred sitting upright, wearing my stomach on his head, like a beret. This means he needs a little intervention on the whole being born front. Tomorrow we are going to don our surgical shower caps and gowns and get ready to meet our baby!!!

Seeing as today is the last day, I’ve decided to really go for it and drink all the pregnant lady cool aid I can... I am going all in on being a good pregnant lady for what little time we have left. For nine months I’ve been drinking wine and coffee and eating runny eggs and soft cheese.... but now that baby is about to be born, I’ve had a 180 degree change of heart. Today I became possessed with a need to be the ultimate organic goddess of holistic truth. 

 Has anyone else experienced this? Is this a special kind of nesting only experienced in the West Village? I think it might be. 

I’m drinking bone broth, there are literally acupuncture needles coming out of my ears, and I just bought turmeric that claims to have been harvested by monks, and I’ve covered my entire self in organic belly oil (because why stop with just the belly?) I feel like such a good pregnant person! For a day!  

Has anyone else discovered CAP beauty on W10th street? Oh my goodness you could literally spend the entire contents of your bank account there. I bought a brush designed to brush my body with. A brush for my body. Yes. And of course, when presented the option of buying the regular brush or the one with “ionic” bristles, there was no choice but to go ionic... nothing is too good for this temple of motherhood. 

And have you been to Brodo on Hudson? They do nothing but make bone broth. And this is enough to keep their doors open and lights on. Because West Villagers need to consume enough of this stuff to keep a store open that literally only serves this one thing.  

I tell you, my relationship with New York City just keeps becoming more enriched. Six years in, and I fall in love with it all over again every time I discover it’s newest way to surreptitiously separate me from my hard earned money. It is such a sneaky little minx! So bewitchingly determined to keep evolving, and keep tricking me! As far as relationships go, NYC really knows how to keep the flame alive. Bone broth in a fancy to-go cup that costs as much as a full meal! This is not the same thing as what you could buy for $2.50 at a grocery store in a quart container. Definitely not. This is special magic elixir that is going to significantly improve my breast milk production! 

I think all this over-compensation might stem from some silent fears about how I’ll be as a mother. I’ve been very lucky in that being pregnant wasn’t all that hard. But who knows how I’ll fare with baby existing out in the world? Certainly not me. 

Everyone, from the checkout lady at the grocery store to my mother has assured me that I’ll be a good mother. And I can’t tell you how many homeless men I’ve passed on the street who have stopped their panhandling to tell me that my son (how do they always know?!) is going to love his mama. It is one of the strange and glorious things about being pregnant in NYC - the homeless population weighs in on your condition with great enthusiasm. It is truly a very heartening metaphor for the resilience of humanity, that even men who are faced with the hardest and most humbling experience see signs of new life and feel their sprits lift.

So it seems everyone is fully confident that I’ve got this next phase in hand. And I know they’re fundamentally right. I love this baby and I will give him all that I have to give once he’s on the outside. I know I will do this. But what I don’t know is how I’ll feel, how i’ll cope as he begins life and things inevitably start being hard and imperfect and human - and most of all, beyond my control. I’m not entirely sure organic belly oil and a body brush will be enough to distract me from this reality.  

When asked, I tell everyone I’m so excited. I can hardly wait to meet baby. But internally i think, I could wait. He seems content in there, and I’m content out here. We’ve got a good thing going, let’s just stay pregnant. 

Though, I suppose this is the way it is with all things. Change is frightening. We want to change and grow, but we also are inevitably scared and surprised when our new reality is different than what we knew before. And, ready or not, it’s go time! 

Last night my husband and I experienced a NYC urban legend... a little gift from the pregnancy gods. We walked (well, he walked and I waddled and stopped every few blocks to stretch my lower back) to Buvette. There were no people waiting out side for a table. (people-waiting-outside-for-a-table strikes fear in the heart of this impatient pregnant lady who does not like being kept waiting for food) In fact, we walked right in and were immediately escorted to a quiet table in the back (I’ll pause to let you get over fainting and falling on the floor)... 

It was the perfect date for a couple of people with no babysitter to rush home to relieve, no breast-pump schedule to adhere to. We sat for a long time chatting over artichokes and tartines heaped with unpasturized (woops) cheese and prosciutto (also questionable?) and glasses of white wine. And then the last course arrived - the chocolate mousse. 

The mousse is famous at Buvette (in my estimation), heaped in a devilishly huge portion on an unassuming simple white bread plate and buried under almost an equal size portion of whipped cream with two spoons stuck haphazardly into the top. We were remarking that the presentation was so utterly un-styled it was almost comical, but after one bite you forget all about what it looks like, you know you’ve got the real deal on your plate. The finest quality ingredients, prepared with no shortcuts in accordance with a recipe tradition of the strictest standards of deliciousness. 

We realized this was kind of how life is, or how it ought to be. And that this is what we want our son to learn from us and what we want to remember to keep focused on tomorrow and all the days after that we are parents: 

If you start with the good stuff, taking the time to build a good life from the inside out, then you’ll always have confidence in what you’re made of. And after one taste of the truth and integrity that your built from, people will keep coming back for more, no matter what it looks like on the outside. (although, hopefully they’re not eating you, but instead delighting in your company) 

So baby, here goes nothing. I still don’t know how to do a lot of things... like change a diaper... but I do know how to give you a life built from good ingredients, as imperfect as it may look along the way. 

And the same to you who might read this, I don’t exactly know what my life, both personal and professional, will look like for the next little while. But I’ll strive to keep creating art in a way that brings joy to us both. 

Now, signing off for a bit, because as someone told me recently, babies don’t keep.