There are a few things in this life that I struggle to wrap my head around.
First off, thinking about dying and having the world go on without me. I don’t mean this in a ‘I’m the King of the World’ way. It’s the thought of one day Will carrying on without me here to see it. That thought can send me into a ‘pass me a paper bag to breathe in’ anxiety attack.
Also, wondering about what life would be like if I had been born to totally different parents. You know what I mean? Like why was I so lucky? How did this happen? What if I had been born to a tribe in the Amazonian rain forest and never knew my family? And of course the big struggle I have is with why the hell George Clooney married someone who wasn’t me? What the what! You know all the big picture stuff.
Another part of life that I have a very, and I mean VERY hard time thinking about it is that I grew Will in my body. I was never a person who was driven to carry my own baby. I would have been thrilled to have adopted. That being said, as crappy as my pregnancy was, looking back on it, I’m happy I had the opportunity. But there’s at least once a week where I look over at the kid and narrow my eyes in a combo of ‘WTF’ and disbelief that at one point he was attached to me and hiding out in my uterus.
I watched this amazing video of the whole thing from conception to birth—in HD!
While I loved it, I’m now even more blown away. I guess I imagined Will as lying still, with his eyes closed, essentially not doing anything until he poppped out and met us all – in all his hairy glory! This baby looks like he’s trying to do double dutch with the umbilical cord!!!
I guess the times it hits me most strongly is when Will is lying on top of me watching tv. He’s over half my height now and I often say to him as I picture him contorted like a Cirque du Soleil performer and tucked back in the sac, ‘can you believe you used to live in my belly?’ He assures me that he’s aware but I’m sure he’ll be talking to his therapist soon about how obsessed his mother was at the thought of him residing inside her for 9 months.
What are your ‘defy logic’ quandries? Is it the Caramilk secret or something deeper?
I’ve been thinking about this a lot over the last week or so because I was invited to go back to the NICU at Mt. Sinai where he spent his first week to see their brand new NICU. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to make it but it’s brought a flood of memories back. I often wonder about the 1lb baby who was in the incubator next to Will and her incredible mom who worked all day and then left her other three kids at home, took two buses and came to see her baby at night. I can only imagine the feelings she has when she she looks at her daughter now!
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