Tuesday, November 9, 2010

expecting everything

we are happy 37 weeks

Ever turned. At today's appointment, the good doctor could not find her heartbeat where it was last time, so she turned on the wand found Ever's sweet faced head planted downward. I was mesmerized by her nose. Her nose! Whose nose IS that, I thought to myself. It's not my nose, it's not Mr. Curry's nose, it's not Ian or Lola or Dakota's nose. I don't recognize that nose. Lola and Mr. Curry gazed at her; I was suspended in the moment where her profile hung cheekily on the monitor- if it's possible for an unborn baby to look cheeky? Then my Ever did. If she had known I was gazing at her, I suspect she would have winked.

The C-Section canceled, I went from wondering and worrying about the unknowns of a great slicing birthing from my abdomen and back to wondering and worrying about the twice known great birthing from my vagina. I told Mr. Curry that on second thought, I'd take the C-Section. Maybe, I said, I should wear a shirt to my next appointment that says
Save The Vagina! with an image of a C-Section on the front.
So November moves like this, back and forth, up and down, Ever topsy-turvy and the nightfall coming earlier and earlier. Tonight it darkened at five and now as I write I hear a pack of coyotes in their high pitched frantic yapping and yelping and the neighboring dogs responding with loud, aggressive barking.
I feel a bit shaky, a bit uncertain, a bit 'unnerved' as Dishwasher put it recently. November always does that with me, and now with a baby to come, my mind and body are slowly turning and adjusting, as Ever's head will have to do in my pelvic cavity, making small but significant and uncomfortable changes to get us where we want to be, with each other.
The coyotes are closer. So loud, and at least five or six, one breaking pack to howl for a few seconds before lapsing back into the yelping. They sound primal happenings: hunting, eating, burrowing, sex, birth, death. They announce their plans into the nighttime with each other as comfort. They have no where else to go. Their canyons have been bulldozed and concrete poured where their dens were laid. They are the Rats of Nihm, they are driven into suburbia by hunger and fear and confusion, and then they learn the streets, and try to make their way in an unfamiliar and unfriendly world. They make bed underneath the empty sauna's and half filled sheds of our backyards, to birth their babies, to feed them scattered dog food and neighborhood cats. Signs will be tacked tomorrow to lampposts: Missing: Flapp, our Cat. The cross middle aged man down the way will put out poison. The coyotes will slink where they can, dragging their babies with them, past the raccoons hiding in trash cans, past the birds nesting in porch overhangs, past the home where I live, nine months pregnant, waiting for my child to begin her descent into our arms and this strange, hard and wonderful world.

Mary said...

Can I just say how excited I am about this little Ever.

Even from all the way over here.

X

Anonymous said...

Yayayayay! I'm so glad she turned for you :)

Life and death are like this: intertwined, and doing what we can to survive. All of us - every species - even those not quite born, the mothers so fierce and the desire to keep on breathing, having that heart maintain its rhythm... all goes far deeper than we fathom.

November, heading into winter is a beautiful time to be pregnant, I say!

On a somewhat related note: did you ever receive my little package in the mail, all the way from Australia? xo

Andrea said...

You always give me goosebumps, you know that?!

Shana said...

Excellent news. Good job, Ever!

Ms. Moon said...

Have you read The Tortilla Curtain by TC Boyle? He writes almost as well as you do, dear Maggie.
I am so glad to hear that Ever is diving head-first again.

Annie said...

Hi Maggie,
I'm happy for you and Ever, too! I love this line: "So November moves like this, back and forth, up and down, Ever topsy-turvy and the nightfall coming earlier and earlier..."

Still Life With Coffee said...

I loved those last days and weeks of pregnancy just for that very reason you stated.... waiting to meet her and waiting for her to meet us and this world we live in. Wonderful

Marion said...

I have a November baby (well, she just turned 37) and she's the sweetest, most caring, loving person I know. I think Ever will be the same and more. I'm happy she turned for you. See, she's already being accommodating. LOL!

Sarcastic Bastard said...

The last paragraph is particularly a beaut, Maggie. This world is unsafe and hostile for damn sure.

I love you!

SJ said...

Oh Maggie--beautiful. I do love you.

Paula said...

Yeh! That is good news.

Used to love to listen the eerie coyote chatter in Montana.

Rebecca said...

Ever.......I can't wait to meet you.

Mo said...

...poor kitties!

(yay for turning!)

Ellen said...

Thank you Ever for rotating to head down! All ready for the birth day to come and into your loving arms...the sweet smell of a baby's head, the warmth of your child close to your heart...sigh...

Elizabeth-FlourishinProgress said...

Excellent! so glad she turned!

Bee said...

Maybe lots of the sinister things in life can't really help it? So glad that Ever has turned.

Caroline said...

I'm so happy for you and your family. The birth of a child is just like a child's Christmas morning, I always say. There's just nothing like it.

Sending good thoughts your way. xo

Magpie said...

Glad she turned!

Marylinn Kelly said...

How happy I am to learn that Ever has turned and readied herself for delivery. November thoughts and exiled coyotes have no power greater than the joy of a pending birth. Sometimes I have to make the world very, very small to be able to stay peaceful and present. Benevolent thoughts. xo

Sandi said...

I LOVE THIS POST!

SInce I am just a few miles up the five, I can so relate to the Coyote part of this. (I wish I could relate to the baby headed down and out my vagina part of the post, but we can't have everything right?)

These wild dogs rattle my nerves. WIth two, part domestic, part wild, cats residing part time with me.... That yipping in the night always causes me to shout up a little prayer for Tang and Storm's safety.

Yet I agree with you that we did this to them. Poor Coyotes. They have nowhere else to go. So we embrace them as the wild part of SoCal and protect ourselves and our fluffy loved ones against them.

I affectionately think of them as our own little street gang in Covenant Hills, but I like the Rats of Nihm better.

YAY for Ever! I read this last night on Facebook and was so happy for you. Vaginal births are much easier to recover from.

Thinking of you often-
Sandi

I'm Katie. said...

Your writing reminds me quite vividly of the primal experience of pregnancy and birth. What power. :)

I am so excited for your entire family! I have been on pins and needles waiting for the first Ever photo.

Bethany said...

this was gorgeous and so fitting for November, a weird and unsettled month for me too.

Petit fleur said...

Woo hoo! I'm so happy for you all! What a great birthday present from Ever. She's brilliant!

I love the part about the winking... and now I'm dying to see her nose!

Sighing in relief for all~
Kisses, pf

Ida Mae said...

I am so excited for her birth!
can.not.wait
much love to you Lady
ox
~ida mae

Irish Gumbo said...

This is beautiful. I really, really like the compare/contrast of the life within and the life without.

LifeDeathLife Cycle. I dig it.

Irish Gumbo said...

Seriously, that was brilliant.

Irish Gumbo said...

I'll be thinking about this for a long time, Maggie.

nfmgirl said...

She's a good girl, already obeying her Momma's wishes!

Lora said...

wonderful!!

Annje said...

Yay! That must be a bit of a relief. I can't believe she is almost ready to make her appearance. Maybe she'll be born on my daughter's birthday--a very good day to be born... can't wait to see her.

Millie said...

What a beautifully compliant baby you have there dear MM! Having experienced both ways of expelling the 10lb.+ alien forces that inhabited my body 3 times, I'm ambivalent. Either way, it doesn't matter as long as the outcome is that little alien blinking & staring up at you in your arms on their birth day. As you can see I failed Earth Mother 101 miserably, but the kids reckon I'm still OK!!
Millie ^_^
P.S. Make sure Mr. Curry gives you a pedicure & fresh polish. I always worried the midwives would notice if I laboured with chipped toe nail polish & they would witch about me in the Birthing Unit tea room.

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