My Baby, By Any Other Name...

We've known Sprout's name for a long time. Naming him, in fact, was one of the easier parts of child-preparation for us. It came to us, and it felt right, and that was that. So he has a name, and we - and Wonderbaby - have been referring to him by name for a long time. Which I love, because he's already part of the family, someone we know, someone whose name is included with all of our own when we talk about the future, or when we whisper good wishes to everyone we love at bedtime. I love that Wonderbaby discusses him freely with anyone who asks - I have a baby brudder his name is xxxxxx I love him I gonna share my toys we gonna have CAKE and and and I love him and I kiss him LIKE THIS (blows kiss at mommy's belly) - as though he were already here, which he is, of course, in the most important way, in our hearts.

And I've gotten accustomed to the occasional eyebrow being raised when Wonderbaby utters his name. It's not a strange name - artists and writers and characters of fiction have had this name - but it is a little on the eccentric side, maybe. It's not a name that you hear every day. So, yes, there have been moments when an utterance of his name provokes those arched brows and a politely restrained oh isn't that an unusual name. Which doesn't bother me. It's his name, and I just know that it's perfect for him, even having not yet met him. I just know. It just is.

Still, I avoided telling my mother, because I knew she'd hate it. I knew, because she hated all the boys names that I mentioned to her when Wonderbaby was just a Wonderfetus, gender unknown. "Theodore? Theo? Oh, NO, honey, I don't like that name AT ALL. Not AT ALL." I knew that I would have to preface any announcement of his name with the caveat that she would not like it and that I wouldn't care and that she'd just have to deal, etc, etc, but still. I knew that it would be an uncomfortable conversation. I knew that there would be an awkward silence over the telephone. I knew that she would sigh deeply and maybe issue a protracted hmmmm before saying something to the effect of I don't know, Cath and I suppose that I'll have to get used to it. Which is exactly what she did, yesterday, when I told her.

I'm not crazy about it.

I knew that you wouldn't be.

I just worry... will kids make fun of him? What will you call him for short?

MOM. It's not unusual enough for him to be made fun of just because of that. There are far more unusual boys' names out there. And I don't know what we'll call him for short. It doesn't matter. What matters is that this is his name.

Well... (DEEP SIGH) I suppose that I'll have to get used to it.

Yes. Yes, you will.

What about Theodore? Didn't you want that name before? I've always liked that name...

I love my mother, I really do, and have always valued and admired her naked honesty - she is very nearly constitutionally incapable of withholding her opinion - and I had told myself that I just wouldn't care if she didn't like his name, I had told myself that I knew she wouldn't like it, that I was prepared for her to not like it. But still... there was a moment there, the briefest moment between his name falling from my lips and her reaction to that name, during which I held my breath and willed her to like it. Wished for her to like it, to recognize it as the perfect name, as his name. And so I was deflated when she reacted as I had expected. Disappointed.

Because, as I keep saying, it is his name, his perfect name, and I feel lucky to have found it, just as I felt lucky to have found Wonderbaby's perfect name. So, the larger part of me says that it does not matter what anyone else thinks: I am his mother, and, along with his father, I hold responsibility for his naming, for finding the name that is uniquely his. Only we can recognize that name. It is ours to give to him, his to take from us, his to wear, his to own. Even if he grows up to hate it - which is always a possibility - it will remain his name, his original name, the one that I will whisper in his ear the very moment that he is first placed in my arms and that I will shout from the rooftops at every opportunity thereafter.

But, but... my instructions to my mother - get used to it, you will just have to get used to it - remind me that to some extent a name really is just a name, just a word, something that we get used to, something that grows on us, something that becomes our own because of what we make of it, not because it fell from the sky of ideas like a shooting star into our mother's lap and presented itself as sacred, sacrosanct, perfect. Our boy will be our boy, regardless of his name, regardless of whether we call him Jack or John or Junior or Pilot Inspektor. He will, if our experience with Wonderbaby is anything to go by, have many names, be called many things, be referred to by many terms of endearment. He will be, no doubt, our Prince, our Pirate, our Monster, our Parakeet, our Crunch. And no matter what he is called, he will always be him.

The him that he is, though - the him that he will be - that 'him' has a name, a name that I, we, have given him, a name that we love him by, and will always love him by. His name, his very own name. It is indeed special, and it will be the first word that he hears.

What anybody else thinks of it? Doesn't matter. It's between we and him.

(A question that vexes me, though: DO I TELL THE INTERNETS? I've long wanted to stop calling Wonderbaby 'Wonderbaby' and call her by her real name. And I'd so love to share Sprout's real name. But I've become so accustomed to using pseudonyms, even as I've become less convinced of their protective effect. This, however, is another topic for another day, and something to distract me while I continue suffering through this interminable, unpredictable labor.)

Mama, Me

I had hoped that this Mother's Day would bring me a baby. It didn't, and I was discouraged.

Then I remembered: I already have a baby. I already am a mother. Not that I'd forgotten, but I've been so distracted for the past however many days by this interminable early labor that I've come to define myself almost entirely as a very cranky pregnant woman who will be in said labor forever.

But, always, behind and before and beyond all of that, there is this:


She.


She made me a mother. She has made me the mother that I am.



This Mother's Day is hers.

All my love forever and ever, sweetie.


*(the day's not over yet and it's been the worst contraction day so far, by far, so who knows. Still, I'm reserving my hopes for tomorrow.)

Yo, Mamas

No, I have still not had this baby. I'm still having contractions, sometimes painful ones, but they're still irregular. I'm not going to prattle on about how frustrating this is, because you've heard it from me already.

What I am going to say is this: THANK YOU. For helping to keep me sane. Because, for seriously? I might have already gone well 'round the crazy bend by now if I didn't have this amazing community surrounding me and supporting me and helping me navigate the craziness that is this pregnancy and life, generally.

I wrote you all an OMG Thank You So Much And By The Way Happy Mothers Day card (early, because, well, if the gods are smiling upon I will be busy giving birth by Mothers Day). It's here. I meant every word of it.

********

I'm still working on visiting and thanking you all individually for those beautiful, beautiful shower posts, but it's slow going because everything I'm doing these keeps getting interrupted by painful and mind-messing early labor bizniss. I'll get to your post, I promise. I'm so thankful for all of them. They've been making me laugh and cry and the emotional release has been so welcome.

********

My blog updates might get more sporadic from here on out. It's tiring and tiresome - to me - to keep writing about NOT having this baby yet, so hard, so frustrating, early labor wtf, bitch bitch bitch. And if I am fortunate to get this baby out soon, I'll be going quiet for a few days (although the news WILL get posted.) Or maybe not. Maybe I'll just keep on bitching, daring the gods to NOT let this child pass. Because The Amazing Thirteen Month Pregnant Bitch-Woman (writing about her 5+ months of labor) might just make for a good alternate blog identity.

Camels take thirteen-plus months to gestate. Am not camel. YOU HEAR THAT, GODS???

Hysterical

Hysteric - from the Greek, hysterikos - of or from the womb (uterus: hystera); suffering caused by the womb.

Yesterday, I went to the hospital. I wasn't convinced that I was in full-on regular labor, but something was up, and I was concerned enough about what was going on - over two days of very painful, if irregular, contractions, and reduced fetal movement, and this after a full week of less intense 'false' labor - that I called my doctor and asked what I should do. The nurse on duty said, predictably, go into triage, better safe than sorry, this could be labor, it could something else, in any case we want to make sure that you and the baby are okay.

She also said, bring your hospital bag, just in case. Not having packed a hospital bag - because, you know, packing hospital bags just jinxes any possibility of a baby coming in a timely manner, yanno? - I gathered up my phone and camera and laptop, shoved a clean pair of underpants in my coat pocket and commanded my husband to drive.

The nurses at triage were wonderful, sympathetic, gentle women who said all the right things about me coming in and getting checked out and felt my belly gently as it contracted and contracted again and then hooked me up to all of those monitors and things and cooed soothingly as the heart monitor registered a healthy heartbeat etc, etc. Your contractions are registering as mild, they said, but of course that doesn't mean that they're not painful. Coo, coo, cluck, cluck, everything looks good, dear.

My doctor wasn't in or on-call, so they called in a resident to examine me further. The resident did not coo or cluck. The resident sat down in a chair next to the hospital bed and looked me up and down. I've looked at the fetal cardiogram blah blah blah, she said. Everything looks fine, and you seem to be in very early labor. She paused again. But it *is* early. Why did you come in?

(Momentary stunned silence)

'Um, because of the pain? The pain has been bad. Off and on, for days now. DAYS. Since early last week or so. And the baby wasn't moving so much. So I called, AND THE NURSE TOLD TO ME TO.'

That can happen; it can go on for weeks; it can be painful, yes, but it's perfectly normal. Your uterus is just getting ready for the birth blah blah blah.

'I know, I know, but my doctor told me to come in straight away if the pains got worse. They got worse. And the baby, not moving, and I called the nurse and she said...'

Of course, of course, you did the right thing (fake cooing)

She pauses again, and flips through my file.

I see here that you're a patient in the Reproductive Life Stages* program here at the hospital... *(RLS = Crazy Pregnant and Post-Partum Ladies Psychiatric Care Club, membership by referral only.)

'YES WHY?' (hysteria rising in voice)

Just asking. You've been feeling okay? Managing your anxiety? Have you spoken to them recently?

(Is she calling me crazy oh my effing god? IS SHE CALLING ME CRAZY FOR COMING IN HERE?)

'A few weeks ago WHY?'

Just want to make sure that you're not too anxious about this pregnancy.

'I am anxious right now because I am in PAIN.'

I know, I know (fake clucking, jotting of notes that I KNOW say something to the effect of batshit loco.)

She pauses again. So, she says after a moment. What are we going to do with you?

*HEAD EXPLODES*

I left, after numerous sympathetic back pats from triage nurses who cooed kind things about not hesitating to come in again if the pains worried me, and promptly burst into tears. When I got home, there was a message on the phone from Reproductive Life Stages, 'checking in' on me: was I okay? did I need an appointment? At which point I might have burst into tears again, if I hadn't needed to double over just right that minute to cope with yet another pain.

I'll talk to my doctor about it, and she will, I know, shake her head vigorously and insist that I was absolutely right to come in, and that I must not hesitate to do so again, and that I should pay no mind to any real or perceived suggestion that my experience with this interminable false/early/whatever labor is anything but legitimately frustrating and worrying and that, again, again I must not hesitate to call or come in at any time if I'm in any way concerned.

But the damage has been done. If I wasn't a basket-case before, I'm well on my way to being one now. If this baby doesn't begin his emergence in some sort of very obvious, textbook way, I'm going to be reluctant to call again, ever.

Which means that this baby just might get born in our bathroom. In which case, those clean underpants in my coat pocket really will be a useless precaution.

(For the Countdown To Baby record, the contractions subsided in the night - so I got to sleep for a few hours for the first time in DAYS - but are back again and are hurting and would be it be wrong for me to hit the liquor, like, now?)

If This Is It, Please Let Me Know

UPDATE: No baby yet. Have been to hospital and they say that I am in 'early' labor and that it could go on for days and oh, hai, yeah, sometimes it hurts like a bitch but it's just that way sometimes. Will update on that hospital visit - which made me, much to my embarassment, cry - later, after I have drunk my castor-oil martinis.

You all are getting sick to the death of the subject of my pregnancy, I know, and I apologize. Believe me, if I could summon the will to discourse intelligently upon any other topic, I would do so. Because, yes - as I keep saying over and over again - I am well and truly sick to the death of it myself.

I've been having crazy false labor for about the past 16 hours now. It's not regular labor, because, well, it's irregular, but it's more painful than past episodes, and this morning it's involving actual back pain and shit and although I know that this can go on for weeks, it feels different enough that I think something might be up. Which means, of course - because I have gone and written those words down and therefore invited the gods to bitch-slap me hard - that it's all probably all going to amount to nothing. But still: I get to sit here and feel my insides cramp up and wonder, for the umpteenth time, is this it? while contemplating the pros and cons of either continuing suffer through an interminable labor (because, false or not, this feels like labor, and so it is, to my mind, labor, and someday this kid is going to hear all about how mommy was in labor with you for weeks and don't you forget it) OR finally getting to a point where this kid might decide to get his massive self out of there.

For the record: the 'pros' of this continuing to be false labor involve the fact that so long as the labor is false, I do not have to get up off my lazy ass and do anything about it, like, say, pushing a giant kid out of my nether regions. The pros of this being true labor, obviously, involve the fact that I CAN HAS GIANT FETUS OUT OF MAH UTURUS kthxbye?

This is me, this morning, at 37 and a half weeks pregnant:


I am massive. My back hurts. My belly hurts. And it just keeps contracting and uncontracting and messing with my head omfg and I wish that I knew whether this time, it really is time.

Now if you'll excuse me, I need to go double over in pain and pray for respite.

*******

Everybody who participated in the shower this weekend? Thank you all beyond much, really. I'm trying to get around to all the posts to thank you personally - I've made it to about half of them so far, I think - but I'm being slowed by this may-or-may-not-be-labor thing. I promise that I'll get there eventually. In the meantime, big love to you all. (And also to everybody who talked me down from my panic about C-section nazis terrorizing me with their calls of doom and gory videos. Thanks for hearing me out, and for, as always, saying just the right soothing things in low tones and telling me to just go ahead, get it out, be angry. I love you for that.)

Oh, Hai, Person With The Childbirth Horror Videos? DO NOT SHOW ME THEM

I haven't even given birth to this child yet and I've already gotten my first flaming piece of assvice. Which, you know, would be totally poetic - seeing as this weekend is the weekend of a virtual assvicefest of a baby shower that is being held partly in my honor - if the nature of the assvice weren't so freaktastically disturbing.

Yesterday, I wrote a little post that was intended to thank my sweet friends for throwing this shower. I preambled with some babble about how miserable I've been and how badly I want this behemoth infant out of my body and included a few lines about an exchange that I'd had with my doctor that morning that went something along the lines of oh hai doctur pleez get this babee out of mah body and no srsly doctur I can haz C-section? Which - and I didn't think that this needed explaining - were tongue-in-cheek (mostly - more on this below) both in their original statement and in my recounting of them here, on this bad blog.

I did worry a little bit that I might offend someone - I know that some people have strong opinions about c-sections, and that some women who have had them experienced them as disempowering etc, etc, - and so I toyed with the idea of posting a little disclaimer to the effect that AM JOKING (mostly) PLEASE DON'T TAKE OFFENSE. But then I thought, a) if I had to apologize for every instance of black humor on this blog, it would be all apology, no blog, which kinda defeats the purpose, and b) I was also kinda not joking - to the extent that, yes, I am getting that desperate - and shouldn't have to apologize for my awkward attempts at expressing the extent of my current discomfort.

So I left it alone. I had closed comments anyway, so that people would follow the links that I provided rather than feel obligated to leave comments, so I figured that I wouldn't hear much about it. But then I opened my inbox in the middle of the night - have I mentioned? am not sleeping because there is no sleeping position known to womankind that can comfortably accommodate a belly with a 30-something inch girth - and clicked open a comment with a link to a video that seemed expressly designed to give me nightmares: full, unedited video of Anna Nicole Smith's C-section. The next comment, which would have preceded the comment with the link, said something to the effect of you must watch this... get as far away from your OB as you can... they are setting you up for a slaughter! (Those last few words? Not paraphrased.)

Which, you know? Not helpful advice for a woman who is 9 plus months pregnant with a gargantuan baby and who can't sleep even without the Sears-gone-Freddie-Krueger threats of doom and the explicit horror videos.

Look, I know that for some women, C-sections are almost as bad as female circumcision and forced sterilization in terms of disempowerment and violation of the female body, and I can totally see how if one felt that way, one might want to intervene to prevent others from undergoing such a procedure and that this person had all sorts of good intentions, BUT. How different is such intervention from, say, anti-abortion intervention, if imposed upon someone who has not asked for an opinion on the matter? I mean, sending me gory videos and telling me that I'm doomed for slaughter? Terrifying me isn't exactly the right way to engage me on the issue of C-sections, nor does it any way help me in any way to cope with the massive physical and psychological burden that this pregnancy has become (yes, I said it: burden. I am that f*cking miserable from pain and fatigue and the feeling of complete and utter broken-down uselessness). You're welcome to tell me that you disagree with C-sections (although, again, my request for a C-section was tongue-in-cheek, as are any and all statements to the effect that I plan on flushing this child out with castor-oil-and-vodka martinis) (maybe), but please do not tell me that I am 'not thinking' and that I am unappreciative of equal rights v.v. my body and puhleeze do not use scare tactics to make whatever point you're making.

I'm not planning a c-section, nor would my doctor even support giving me one for anything less than pressing medical reasons. Which, again, is not to say that I wouldn't joke that I can't see getting much bigger and incapacitated without being tempted to demand one or perform one on myself, and that it wouldn't be all the funnier for me because it's maybe a little bit true. Joking about it doesn't mean that I don't take this birth - or the means by which I will undergo the birth - very seriously. It does mean that I take choice very seriously - as I wrote at BlogHer just this week - and that I hold in very high value the fact that as a woman living in North America in the 21st century, I can choose whether to give birth at home or in a hospital, with drugs or without, and that if I need a c-section, I can have one.

And it also means that I am very attached the principle that what I do with those choices is nobody's f*cking business but my own. Which is to say, if anyone else out there is thinking of sending me gory childbirth videos starring doomed D-list celebrities, C-section or otherwise, don't.

Just don't.

Joy, and Pain (Pump It Up Pump It Up)

I cannot even begin to tell you how crap I feel. Seriously. Between the ongoing false labor and the muscle-searing leg cramps, the chest-sucking heartburn and the debilitating backache, the no sleep and the no f*cking sleep, I'm this close to asking somebody to just club me in the head so that I can be unconscious for the rest of this pregnancy.

My doctor, today: Well, this baby seems to be over the 90th percentile for size, so it's not surprising that you're uncomfortable.

Me: How much bigger are you going to let him get before you get him out of me?

Doctor: (laughs)

Me: No, seriously.

Doctor: We like to let babies come out when they're ready.

Me: What about when I'm ready? I'm ready now. Seriously. Can't you just, like, give me a C-section or something? Today?

Doctor: (laughs)

Me: (kills doctor)

I'm just, you know, done. And of course you know, because what else do I do but bitch about it (when, that is, I'm not bitching about other anxieties and issues)?

So, this weekend? I am declaring a moratorium for myself on bitching about pregnancy and motherhood. I declare a moratorium on bitching, period. In part because I am getting just so tired of myself, and in larger part because some very, very dear friends have decided to remind me - and a coupla other knocked up ladies I know - that there's much to celebrate to about this time, and also, that no-one has a right to be so bitchy when they have such good friends. By throwing a virtual shower. Which has me so bursty in the heart and choked up in the throat that I just don't know what to say about it.

Go see for yourself. Participate - they've got prizes, really cool ones. And also, it's fun, and I am totally needing me some fun right now, so please get liquored up on my behalf and join in. It's on until Sunday night.

********

Another, much more sombre reason to not be a flaming bitch from hell, even though I feel that I am totally justified in my desire to give in to that urge: because I am so lucky to facing a healthy childbirth and - fingers crossed and prayers fervently whispered - a healthy child. I'm facing the greatest of happinesses. Some moms lose their happinesses. I only know this pain at a remove, but what I know of it is already too much. I don't know how they do it, but they're writing about it. Go see.

White Flag

This is probably the last (intrauterine) picture of my boy:


It's not the best picture, not least because he's a bit squished up in there and he wouldn't hold still and so what might otherwise be a sweet sideways view of his wee face turned out to be a sweet sideways view of a wee face with two noses and four eyes. Which, you know, wouldn't stop us from loving him with all our hearts, but still. It doesn't matter, though, two eyes or four: it's a picture. It's him.

This picture was taken two days ago, when I was 36 weeks and 4 days pregnant. His estimated weight, at time of picture taking?

7 LBS 12 OZ.

With over three weeks to go until my supposed due date, he weighs 7 lbs and 12 oz. And he's been trying to punch and kick his way out for days now. No wonder my body has started advanced labor training already: I just might be facing childbirth on a par with the Battle of Thermopylae, where my nether regions are the pass at Thermopylae and this child is the Persians.

Whether I end up like Leonidas remains to be seen. At this point, I'm already conquered, so it doesn't really matter, does it? Take the pass, my fetal Xerxes, and just try not to break anything, please.

PLEASE?

Mommy Dearest

My child hates me.

Okay, maybe she doesn't hate me, but I am certainly not her Most Favorite Person Ever. That title goes to HBF, aka Daddy, who can do no wrong. (Last night, at bedtime: "I love Daddy" "Of course you do, sweetie. Do you love Mommy?" "Nope. I love Daddy. And medicine." Don't ask.)

Me, on the other hand - I'm persona non grata. On a good day, she tolerates my presence with a polite firmness that makes perfectly clear that she has boundaries and that I am to respect them (NO, Mommy, just me and Daddy gonna play outside. NOT YOU. THANK YOU.) On a bad day, she wants me as far away as possible, and tells me so in the fiercest of terms. (GO AWAY MOMMY. GO. A. WAAAAAY!) Sometimes, she pushes at me with her little fists and furrows her wee face into a scowl and issues her command that I retreat in a terrible little voice that is somehow at once deep-throated and high-pitched. More than once, she's thwacked me with her Toadstool (aka Phallic Lovey), as punctuation to her commands. More than once, she's thrown her entire little being into the effort of getting me away from her now. More than once, she's growled and scowled and faced me like an enemy.

GO. A. WAY.

MOMMY.

NOW!

And, you know, even though I know that toddlers go through these phases, and even though I know that her behavior is probably even more understandable now that I'm in the late stages of a pregnancy that has taken me away from her - in spirit if not in body - far more often than has been tolerable for me, even though I know that of course she still loves me, even though I know all of this, it hurts, and the pain of it cuts deep. She scowls at me and tells me to go, go, go away don't stay here go away I don't want you here BECUZ and throws her wee body against my legs in an effort to just get me away and it's like a million tiny knives cutting through my skin and into my bones and it takes every ounce of emotional energy that I have left to not burst into tears right in front of her.

Do you want to give Mommy a kiss?

NO.

Do you want to give Mommy a hug?

NO.

Can Mommy sit down next to you?

NO.

She's not like this all of the time, of course. She's been quite happy to go out for coffee with Mommy on occasion and go to the bakery with Mommy and go buy treats with Mommy (which, you getting the picture here? If Mommy shoves cookies or candy or mock lattes in her pockets, Wonderbaby is quite happy to have Mommy nearby. Otherwise, not so much). But these remain exceptions to the general rule, which is Mommy go away. And that breaks my heart.

It breaks my heart because now, more than ever, I want to just snuggle up with her and really revel in these last days of exclusive togetherness. I want her to be Mommy's girl for just a little while, so that when her baby brother comes (she now pats my tummy and refers to him by name, loving him, it seems, a lot more enthusiastically than she loves me) all I'll need to do is grab her hand and whisper Mommy's girl and she'll know that ours is a special love and that we'll always, always have it, just between us. But she doesn't want that right now. She wants her dad. And she wants Mommy - slow, belabored, distracted Mommy - out of her face.

And that hurts. It really, really, hurts.

I almost didn't write about this - because, in part, I've been something of a cranky-assed downer of late, and am getting sick of my own bitching, but more so because I feared hearing anything, from anyone, that might suggest that this is not normal, that I must be doing something wrong, something to make her justifiably angry with me, something to make her want to keep her distance. Something beyond just being pregnant and distracted (which, if it is the pregnancy? Is bad enough, because whither our mother-daughter relationship when the baby comes, and I'm even more distracted?) Something wrong with me, something bad about me, her bad mother. And I just didn't think that I was up for hearing that, even as the gentlest suggestion.

But if it is me, I need to hear it, because I need to change it. And if it's not me - if lots of children go through this - then I need to hear that even more. Because I need some peace.

Mommy fought the Law but the Law won.

Fear And Loving In The Mother 'Hood

I don't know about you, but I've never in my life felt more more fearful, more anxious, less brave, than I have as a mother. From the moment that the lines on that stick turned pink the first time around, I've been afraid. My pregnancy with Wonderbaby, Wonderbaby's birth, Wonderbaby's life thus far, the second set of lines on the second stick... I have lived and continue to live through these with the sharpest sense of fear, of awareness that there is so much to lose now, of myself, of all that I love, of all that I live for. I carry my heart around outside my body now - soon I will carry its beating, bloody weight times two - and because of that I am vulnerable in ways that I never thought possible. Because of that, I am afraid.

I do not mind this fear.

Not so much, anyway. Because the trade-off - for love, for love, for love and for so much heart-bursting, belly-aching joy, more than seems possible or even bearable - is worth it. But it's hard to explain, this schizophrenic state of mind and heart and soul wherein the greatest of all loves and joys is accompanied, always, by the deepest of all fears. Wherein the greatest confidence is coupled with the deepest anxiety; the greatest pride, coupled with the deepest humility; the greatest bravado and ambition, coupled with the deepest insecurity. A condition of ongoing paradox - of heroic paradox, but paradox nonetheless - which is, as I said, so difficult to explain.

But Rebecca explains it. Rebecca, who most of you know as Girl's Gone Child (and who I know as much-beloved, much-admired, oh-so-proud-to-call-her-friend FRIEND) (that was a disclaimer, by the way, to let anyone who reads this know that yes, I am entirely biased when it comes to Rebecca Woolf, but that that bias is based not only upon my deep affection for and shrieking fangirl devotion to her, but also upon my critical esteem for her as a writer) (where was I? oh, right...) Rebecca explains this paradox beautifully, perfectly in her book Rockabye, in the most beautiful narrative prose that traces her journey from unexpectedly pregnant wild child to wild child with child with heart-scraping honesty. Heart-scraping honesty that lays bare the kind of deep-seeded fear and anxiety that accompanies nearly every moment of pregnancy and motherhood while making perfectly clear the fierce hope and love that accompanies that fear. Heart-scraping honesty that allows for a vivid and visceral expression of the exhilaration of motherhood, of the feeling - both terrifying and thrilling - of being flung into the abyss with no bungee cord, only the hope of soft landing, or flight.

I can't do it justice, of course. She writes the experience of exhilarated fear and fearsomely fierce love and hope ("There's no such thing as messing up if you go with your heart") through the story of her own unexpected pregnancy and unexpected motherhood and all the unexpected moments in between and beyond. It's what's called momoir, I suppose, but it's so much more than that. It's more like Fear and Loving In Los Angeles: A Savage Journey To The Heart Of The Maternal Dream, which is to say, it's more like a great wave-speech ode to motherhood, a beat-epic-meets-gonzo-storytelling-meets-The-Confessions-subverted, all wrapped in love and hope. Which is probably the only medium though which such a story, the true fear-and-love-addled story, of motherhood can effectively be told.

And I admire her telling of it so much that there's no space in my heart for the even slightest smidge of envy - which there should be - because if anything, her work here is just the best possible evidence that this kind of storytelling - our kind of storytelling - is amazing and heroic and that the world needs so much more of it.

XOXO Becs. Thank you for this.

Fear is just a four-letter word for BRING IT ON.

(You can find more reviews here this week, and you can purchase her book - which, really, you must, and you know that I would never, ever say that in this space if it weren't 110% TRUE - here. You can also read the first chapter here, at Smith Mag. Which, you totally should. Then buy it.)

(I'm really sorry that I keep closing comments. I'm just super emotionally and physically exhausted and kinda not up for dialogue. Which isn't fair to you guys, I know, but it just is. I just want to close my computer and sleep more.) (You could always go visit Rebecca's blog and talk about turning fear into awesome writing there. Or, again - shameless charity plug - check out the muscular dystrophy links that I included in my last post. Every little bit helps, yanno?

I'll be back to my happy chatty self soon, I promise. xo)