“Oh my gosh,” she says, clearly alarmed. “Do you think you should see a doctor?”
“No, I don’t think that would help. If I’m miscarrying, we’ll know soon enough.”
“Oh, I hope everything’s okay, sweetie. I’ll send prayers to you and the baby.”
She wants this badly for me, I can feel that. I hope she’s right, that this pregnancy and second birth child are nothing but good news.
The nausea persists, and over the next twenty-four hours I don’t have any more discharge.
“Looks like we have a keeper,” Dicken says.
But the next night, I have the first of what will be a series of nightmares, something very rare for me. In this one I find myself in the middle of an apocalyptic war. In the next weeks, I will dream of vampire attacks, creatures in a primordial swamp, being on a team of people who pick up dead bodies, my grandparents coming back from the dead. The line between life and death, people I know who have died, communicating with those in the other world—these themes pervade my psyche throughout this pregnancy, in a way that I’ll look back on months from now and find uncanny.
*
I’m sitting in the study dialing my good friend’s number. Vanessa and I went to high school and college together.
“Oh, it’s thrilling to hear from you!” she beams down the line.
I tell her I’m pregnant, and she is full of enthusiastic congratulations. Then I tell her how sick I’m feeling.
“Yes, you don’t sound like yourself.”
“I don’t feel like myself at all. I don’t even recognize myself. It’s the strangest thing. I’ve lost all my familiar desires, all interest in life. I suddenly find myself questioning everything, but from a different perspective. It’s like I’m just visiting my body, this life, and it’s not where we belong.”
“My gracious,” she says, her voice animated. “This is changing the very way you see reality. How incredible!”
It feels good to tell her about my odd insights and experiences so far in this pregnancy. She has her own ideas about it, many from her years of religious study.
“You’re experiencing the way of the Buddha, nonattachment. You’re so fortunate! People seek such a change in perspective with years of meditation and practice, yet rarely have such success.”
“Well, if this is nonattachment, just tell all those wannabe Buddhists to get pregnant. It must be the shortcut.”
“Too bad monks take a vow of celibacy,” Vanessa says, laughing.
“Celibacy sounds pretty wise to me right now. But wait a minute, you’re a Sufi, aren’t you, not a Buddhist?”
“Oh, it’s all the same thing when you boil it down,” she says. “And I would guess that you’re having a very blessed experience, in any spiritual tradition’s cosmology. A dark night of the soul, a vision quest, an initiation.”
“If I’m being initiated, who is it that’s initiating me?”
“Well, the little one, of course. Maybe your baby’s a mystic!”
This excites me, and I want to believe it, just as every mother wants to think her child is somehow special.
She ends our conversation with, “Blessings on your little miracle!”
I let that sink in for an exhilarating moment, then start the usual minimizing: It’s not really a miracle, it’s just a result of unprotected sex in a moment of abandon. The real miracle will be whether I can actually survive this hell. I am too sick and discouraged to see my situation as anything more than an ordinary burden that many mothers before, with, and after me have suffered or will suffer through.
CHAPTER 10
These June weeks are a nightmare of constant seasickness, a relentless hangover that makes every waking moment seem unbearable. Dicken continues to take up the slack, letting me sleep in and bringing me whatever I think I can stomach. He comes into the small bedroom and pretends to be a crowing rooster as he opens the curtains, or he puts on one of his hilarious accents to amuse me. I eat scrambled eggs and toast day after day until they begin to disgust me. Then, for a number of weeks, all I want are crêpes. Dicken throws himself into the art of crêpe-making with his usual aplomb, bringing a plate of eight paper-thin delicacies to my bedside every morning.
“I used a tiny bit more vanilla this time, what do you think?”
“You’re an angel,” I say with my mouth full.
Dicken flies back to the States for ten days to teach a seminar at the end of June. With help from Caroline, I grit my teeth and will myself to make it through the long days.
Pouring out all my thoughts and feelings into my journal helps:
When this sickness passes, I look forward to returning to a more active and joyful existence. Although now, I can see that life is all a dream, that my love for most things—nature, eating, exercise—is based on biochemistry. Only with this physical balance is the earth made bearable. Our souls aren’t specific to this realm, that much I’m sure of. I’ve lost my body for the time being. My desires seem pretty expendable.
Sometimes, knowing that the earth is not our home and that our bodies will die makes me feel extremely vulnerable, and at other times it makes me feel free.
Dicken comes back from his trip with a suitcase full of my requests—about a dozen bags of Barbara’s Cheese Puffs, both the plain kind and the jalapeño ones, papaya enzymes, and some prenatal vitamins. The cheese puffs taste like heaven, and I ration myself carefully so they’ll last through the trimester, or at least until the next fortifications arrive. I count down the days, willing myself to make it to the bearable land of non-nausea second trimester.
I find the boys a trial sometimes, and occasionally a welcome distraction from my physical state. One afternoon Jasper runs into my room with a very stern look on his reddened face.
“Mom,” he begins, his eyes narrowing, “someone stole a piece of my gum, and I have a grudge it was you!”
I try as hard as I can to look serious and concerned, but I can’t suppress a slight smile.
His cheeks get even redder as he points at my face. “Now I know it was you!”
July 2005
By this time, I’m finally entering the second trimester of pregnancy. The developing fetus is somewhere around three inches long, beginning to take practice inhalations, perhaps even starting to suck its thumb. The placenta will now begin to supply all of the fetus’s nutrition. In most pregnancies, reaching this stage would greatly decrease the chances of a miscarriage, and the hormonal shifts would probably reduce the nausea. In our case, we don’t know we are facing a high-risk situation. With the chromosomal abnormality, development is not going according to plan.
*
The idea of prenatal testing does occur to me, but I don’t feel concerned about the baby, nor do I want to get caught up in the medical system. We know a handful of parents who’ve had false positive results for various tests, which they agonized over for weeks or months—needlessly, because all ended up with normal babies. Dicken’s brother and his wife were told their sixteen-week-old fetus would almost certainly have problems and were offered an abortion on the spot. Their son, my godson Dominic, now six, is healthy and brighter than average.
Maybe it’s a blessing I’m not worried about the baby’s well-being; I’m struggling enough as it is. Much of the unpleasantness of the first trimester stays with me. The morning sickness isn’t getting worse, but it’s still there. Everything around me smells revolting, time crawls by, I’m exhausted. I force myself to do some activity with the boys almost every day. I continue with my walk each afternoon, finding that the once heartbreakingly beautiful bluebell-covered woods now look so unfamiliar and bizarre, I might be walking on the moon. The world is not our home … After the exertion, I give myself permission to collapse in front of the TV to watch tennis or a video or anything else to get my mind off the nausea.
*
My mother comes for a week and I am very glad to see her. She entertains the boys and sweetly attends to me. One morning, after I’ve asked h
er to tell Dicken to make me my usual breakfast, she returns carrying a plate of food.
“I made the crêpes myself,” she says, and, seeing the look of alarm on my face, quickly adds, “Don’t worry, Dicken gave me the recipe and I followed it exactly.”
I take the plate from her hand and gaze down at the crêpes. Instead of the usual eight or nine thin crêpes, there are two thick, greasy, rubbery-looking discs.
“You made a full batch of batter?” I ask.
“Yes, it’s not much, is it, only enough for a couple of crêpes.”
I saw off a bite with my fork and put it to my mouth. I nearly gag, and tears well in my eyes. I feel terribly ungrateful, yet I can’t stomach this offering of Mom’s. I’m reminded of years of childhood disappointment, a deep, burning ache that despite all her efforts, I’m somehow never able to take in her nurturing.
“I’m sorry, Mom. I guess I’m worse today than usual.”
“Don’t be sorry,” she replies in a cheerful tone. “I’d be happy to get you anything else. How about some fruit?”
I lie down on the bed, upsetting the plate and spilling greasy crêpes onto the white comforter cover. I grab the food, drop the plate to the floor, and weep into the pillow.
“It’s hard, isn’t it,” Mom says, coming to sit by me and stroke my head. “I wish there was something I could do.”
The way she’s touching me doesn’t feel good. I move away from her slightly, hoping not to hurt her feelings. I’ve always craved attention from my mom, yet whenever I get it I seem to find flaws in her delivery.
“I’m glad you’re here,” I cry. “I just feel so useless. Such a waste of space and no good for anyone.”
“You’re doing the most important work there is,” she says. “In the long run you’ll see that.”
*
Every day as I walk in the woods, the thought that keeps me going is, This is the last time I’ll ever be pregnant, thank God.
Mom flies back home. I’m sad to see her go. Dicken is away in London for a seminar and I’m lying in bed that night, feeling a little lonesome. I should have encouraged Jasper to sleep with me. I feel an ache for Jasper, a familiar feeling of yearning that’s been absent for several long weeks. Oh no, I’m becoming human again. My attachments are back and I can feel how vulnerable, how fearful they make me. What if I lost Jasper?
Just then, the door creaks open and I hear a sweet voice say, “Mom?” We snuggle.
“Mom, where’s the baby going to sleep? There’s not enough room for all of us.”
I smile in the dark. “We’ll just have to get a bigger bed.”
*
Dicken gets home late the next night and makes me crêpes. I sit at the kitchen table, wanting to be near him. Caroline shakes her head and says, “If I had asked your father to make me crêpes, he would have said no.”
“I don’t understand that at all,” Dicken says. “If you love someone, why wouldn’t you do anything you could to make them feel better?”
I sleep well with Dicken beside me and in the morning am back on the couch watching TV while he makes the boys breakfast. Watching a show on African heroes, I am astounded to hear that Nelson Mandela spent seventeen years of his prison time almost exclusively in solitary confinement. The annual G-8 Summit is about to happen, with the main agenda being the top industrialized nations’ discussion of debt relief to African nations. The UK is hosting this year’s meeting, and the British news is full of stories about Africa’s political and economic woes, as well as reports on global warming and other environmental urgencies. I hear about boy soldiers in Africa, see images of villages devastated by war, drought, and famine.
In my debilitated state, the chaos in the world seems all the more overwhelming and insurmountable. I write in my journal:
It really does seem like this existence is pretty much hell for most of humanity (and just about all of the animal kingdom), and I’m not sure how to go forward in a way that’s justifiable. Too much reality to digest. The oddest part is trying to hold the excitement of this new life when everything seems to be collapsing.
The next afternoon, Caroline comes in from the garden to report that the boys have taken some valuable tools from the barn and broken them. I drag myself upstairs to their room and find them listening to loud music. Jasper is hurriedly stuffing something into his pillowcase and eyeing me carefully.
“What do you have there?”
“Nothing, Mom. Just go away!”
I walk toward him and try to see into the pillowcase, glimpsing what I’m fairly sure are candy wrappers. He pushes me. Hot anger rushes through my body, and at the same time, from a detached place, I’m thinking, Wow, when did he get so strong? Kevin laughs, egging Jasper on.
“You shouldn’t push a pregnant woman!” I shout. “And you shouldn’t have broken the tools in the barn, you didn’t even ask permission to use them!”
“Liar!” Jasper shouts back. “We didn’t use those tools!”
“Then how do you know what I’m talking about?”
“What tools?” Jasper says. Kevin giggles like a schoolgirl.
“I’m ashamed of you boys!” I run from the room, angry tears forming in my eyes. I’ve lost control of them.
I slam our bedroom door behind me, throw myself onto the bed, and start sobbing. I feel done.
Jasper opens my door and shouts, “I hate you, Mom!”
“Get out of here, you can’t come in without knocking!” I yell.
By bedtime, Jasper is still angry at me, curling up in Dicken’s lap, giving me the evil eye from his safe haven. I apologize to him and offer a hug, a story, but he makes a face and says, “You’re the worst mom in the family.”
*
The next day, Dicken reads me Walt Whitman’s poetry to buoy my spirits. He plays me a Beatles album that belonged to his father, looks in my eyes, and says, “I love you, you’re the only one I want. I love you so much it hurts sometimes.” I feel emotional in a sweet way, and I’m abruptly back to feeling happy about the pregnancy, excited to give birth and meet the baby and have Dicken share that.
August 2005
I am still very tired, but not as sick, as we get ready to fly to Northern Ireland for a large family gathering on my dad’s side. I dread the travel, even though it’s a short trip, but I also can’t wait to get a change of scene. A stab of sadness comes over me as Caroline kisses us goodbye at the departures curb.
After the hour-long flight to Belfast, we head to Limavady, the town where both my and Dicken’s families have lived for generations. Ardmore, the house that now belongs to my father, was once part of the grand estate Caroline grew up on. My father and Caroline grew up knowing each other because their fathers were lifelong friends. My dad remembers attending dances and beach picnics organized by Caroline’s mother. My dad and Caroline reconnected when Dicken and I were in our late teens, which is how we ended up meeting and falling in love.
I feel the lovely old house embrace me as we step inside, and I can hardly believe the almost instantaneous change. I sense energy literally seeping back into my system. I begin to do yoga again, take longer walks, drink very weak tea, and eat a wider range of food. I still have constant low-grade nausea, but the contrast with how I was in England makes this a different existence. I actually feel like part of the world again.
I have always loved Ardmore. There is something magical about it, something indescribable. Even with stories of violence in the ongoing conflict between the IRA and the British Loyalists, as well as fairly vicious Limavady gossip—including the terrible rifts between families we know—I walk around feeling I’m in heaven. The rooks that nest in the trees and darken the sky as they fly around at dawn and dusk, with their distinctive caws. The huge leafy trees bordering the land and sky, the soft grass, the hundreds of shades of green, the shabby yet elegant house humming with generational memories, the soft beds, the warm radiators, the cozy kitchen. The dusty old books, hardbacks from past ages. Poppy, the young daught
er of Ardmore’s tenant-caretaker, Faye, galloping around the house with her chirruping so accented it sounds like a foreign language. The quaint courtyard, soft rain alternating with bright sunshine, clouds moving through constantly. I putter around all day and feel open and at home. Picking wildflowers and a rose or two from the few surviving bushes of long-ago gardens. Playing family football and dodgeball on the lawn.
It is a joy to see everyone again. My beloved uncles, our cousins; my sister Cecily and her husband Michal; Maud, who’s brought me maternity clothes and the dried pineapples I’ve been craving; our brother Ben and his wife Paula. Dad arrives a day later than planned because of a much-delayed flight from Washington, DC, where he lives, looking tired but happy to be in his favorite place in the world.
“You’re very brave to have another,” he tells me. Thanks a lot, I think, wishing he’d say something a little more encouraging or enthusiastic.
I get pampered, especially by my sisters. Foot rubs, food prepared for me, and extra attention that feels like sunshine after a long winter.
The week goes by quickly, with games, day trips to the beach, and evening gatherings with the whole family. I have the energy to take part in most of it, though I’m always tuckered out by the end of the day and fall asleep putting the boys to bed while the rest of my siblings and cousins stay up late. I’m also up earlier, along with my father, who usually sleeps only a few hours a night. Sometimes he and I wash the dishes left from the night before or sip hot tea together. Our conversations are predictably one-sided, with him dominating. He loves to talk, and I generally enjoy his stories and jokes, up to a point.
“Dad, I’ve heard this one three times already. You have to keep better track of your audience or we feel insignificant. I mean, weren’t you impressed by how hard I laughed the first time you told me? Or didn’t you even notice?”
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