animal dreams

I have an assignment from my midwife: get out of my head and into my body. I am an animal, she tells me. And I have an animal growing inside me. These are not new ideas for me, though they are ones that I've yet to master. I would like nothing better than to slip away into animalistic trances carried by the beat of tribal drums, (Think what it would do for my writing, too.), or to have my first thought after I awaken be about my toes, the sensations in my ribs, instead of what time it must be and how I have to remember to charge my cell phone. I may process my world heavy on the cerebral, but there are worse things I could do.

It's true I overthink. But if overthinking got me out of the blasted doctor's office and into the home of a midwife, if it had a hand in deciding not to find out if the baby is a boy or a girl so that social constraints and gender stereotyping could at least wait til it was - for godsake - out of the womb, then I don't mind overthinking. So many pregnancies are so carefully planned nowadays in every manner possible that there must be someone out there thinking harder than I am. Here's where I get to be the free spirit – I didn't plan this at all! I just rolled with Nature's punches – took one for the team! Doesn't that make me just a little bit animal?

I ran into an acquaintance on my way to preggo exercise earlier this week who was dropping his new wife off at the same class. They'd started "IVF" right after getting married, he told me. Come again? In vitro fertilization, he kindly clarified. [Prayer to the gods of acronyms: May I never speak like this. May I always find it incredibly bizarre that other people do.]

When it comes to the unplanned kind of pregnancy, I'm learning that it can be unplanned or it can be unplanned-unplanned. Since I'm oh-so-comfy in my role/fate/situation now, I don't usually feel the need to tell people anymore that it was unplanned. But I used to tell them, regularly. And they would mostly shrug or chuckle. I realize now why what to me was a series of hairpin turns on my road of life, seemed to most other people a common speed bump. They thought I meant unplanned as in, "didn't mean to have kids quite yet," when in fact I meant unplanned-unplanned as in, "in this lifetime hadn't really meant to ever get pregnant."
Now to state the obvious. Pregnancy – planned or otherwise – is a woman's concern. I'm not saying men aren’t part of the equation – duh – or that they shouldn't be as involved in the process as possible, I'm saying, well, keep reading…

In our very first birthing class recently, I took for granted that I was in easy company where folks might take more uncommon issues in stride. After all, we are the 2% of the population that choose homebirth. Consequently, I was surprised when there was something like a gasp that circled the room when I off-handedly explained the unplanned-unplanned nature of my condition during introductions. But maybe I'm wrong – it could have just been some other sharp intake of air that was audible to everyone present. Here's the question: Why is it there was no equal show of shock or discomfort when one husband stated how he "only knows how to make babies," he "doesn't know anything about birthing them." Zzzzzzz. Yawn. Oh! Sorry, I must have fallen asleep because that line is so FREAKING TIRED. Or, why didn't anyone even blink when another husband admitted nonchalantly that his desire to be surfing far outweighed his interest in being in a birthing class. Now, he can do what he likes, and be as forthcoming about it as suits him, that's cool. My question, however, is this: Would the rhythm of the room have ticked on so undisturbed had his wife said she would frankly rather have continued her weekends scuba diving or her career in real estate than gotten pregnant?

We say choice is a good thing. And we pretend women have choices – to have kids or not, to parent full-time or work full-time. These are not choices. The first has become (or, was never anything other than) to have kids now or wait to have kids. The second, well, the second is silly, you always parent full-time, regardless of what else.

Men don't necessarily have these faux choices to make. Under other circumstances, lack of choice would seem bad, unfair. However... My husband's boss can slap him on the back and congratulate him on his "first" while simultaneously plopping down a folder detailing the next project he should work on. There is no interruption of service, so to speak. No one challenges him on the "choices" he's made or might make in the near future.

I’m probably just overthinking again, and god knows that this morning, once again, I did not wake up thinking about my toes, and my alarm did not go off to the beat of tribal drums, but… I guess feeling like I'd made it down a dark road of significant danger to finally arrive at acceptance, I've been particularly taken back lately by a few reactions (like the one in my birthing class) when I tell them "unplanned" means unplanned-unplanned. And through these encounters, the gender split rears up again, taunting me.

Whenever we get an emailed birth announcement from friends, there is a predictable set of pictures. There is the baby, round and wrinkly or small and pointy-headed; there is baby with mom, tired but smiling; and there is that picture of dad – sleeping. Yes, indeed, all those hours of labor must have been exhausting for him. In reality, I suspect the men are exhausted by what might need to be planned next, and from this quandary they retreat -- to their place of societal and biological freedom, to a dreamscape of animal dreams.