It’s 1994. My first year of highschool and something is gaining momentum…
Huh? What’s the internet?
Notes From Home Plate
Already, It’s Getting Old
I’m right at 11 weeks today and it’s going to be a long haul to January if I don’t keep my annoyance in check. I’ll chalk it up to hormones, but lately, I’m so flipping irritated with answering the same questions over and over and over and over and over again.
From family and friends, I don’t mind, but at the mechanic’s body shop, at the grocery store, library, WHEREVER where people see you are buying something that indicates your preggers, people undoubtedly will ask the following:
1) How far along are you?
2) What’s your due date?
3) How are you feeling?
4) Is this your first?
5) I bet you’re excited, aren’t you?
Now, I sound like a total jerk, but I just want to remind people that answering the same questions, multiple times a day, everyday can add to the overall fatigue and moodiness of a pregnant woman.
The only thing that I REALLY don’t like is when complete strangers’ hands make a dive for your belly. HEY — belly is off limits to unknown persons.
Family and friends, that’s a totally different story.
As Nick does a 1/2 day at work, I am getting ready to leave for Russia. Of course, I have procrastinated to where we are now leaving in about 3 hours and I have not packed a thing, eaten, exercised, or showered yet. I better get a move on.
This weekend will be another hectic one. Eric Rosenbeck will be getting married while Keith is in the wedding and Nick is a reader. Big involvement for team Borchers this weekend. As always, I’m excited for another June wedding.
Russia-bound in t-minus 3 hours.
Ok, enough procrastinating.
Letter # 8
Dear Veronica,
I’ve been thinking about how these letters will be if I find out you are, in fact, a boy, not a girl as I have been thinking.
I don’t think it will matter much. You’ll be either Veronica or Isaiah and what I have to share with you is the same, regardless of what sex you happen to be.
I’m about to enter my second trimester with you and I can scarcely believe it. The picture Dr. David gave me yesterday of you nearly took my breath away. You LOOK like a baby. A head, limbs, and the outline of a body…I couldn’t believe it. I also couldn’t believe how I already thought you looked so cute. You’re, literally, a picture of shadows and, to me and your Pops, you looked simply adorable.
I’ve been thinking about what kind of world you are about to come into when January 2010 strikes and what captives me most is you are in me, yet not of the knowledge that I have. You have no knowledge of what evil looks like, or how it will pain you once you come into this world. You have no knowledge of what kindness looks like. The only thing you know is peace inside a floating sac of my blood, nourishing you with no disturbances or worry. All of that will change soon.
I shared with your father yesterday that I have observed how protective of children I feel these days. Suddenly, the world seems like a cold, cold place. An unloving and precarious playground with sharks in the pond, strangers leering at the fences, and untrustworthy mystery figures walking about. Isn’t it clear? I’m afraid to bring you into this world and the responsibility I will have to protect you as best as I can. So far, the only person I’ve really looked out for is myself. Selfishly, I sometimes think I will be a good protector because I don’t know if I can handle any amount of harm done to you. A selfish mother, indeed.
The wonder and innocence you symbolize to me right now cannot be adequately communicated. You are life, a breathing life waiting to grow and come into the world through my body and I find myself writing about the rights of women’s bodies, the rights of our voice and the place of our humanity. Your mom’s writing is often misunderstood and I hope you can learn from me. There is nothing wrong with being misunderstood. Actually, it only confirms that the more you speak your own way, the more of your own path you’ll find, the more others will misunderstand your ways.
I spoke to you this morning of individuality and trusting the voice you will develop inside you. The voice may not always be certain, but it will be strong in curiosity and wanting to do the most loving thing. That will lead you to where you will need to go. I don’t know if you can hear me, let alone understand the little talks we have in the car, but I hope you can soon understand that individuality can and should only exist in the context of community, accountability, and justice. Never, in all the days you will live, should you ever think you are alone in this world or this world was made just for your path. It is a beautiful, intimidating mudball where you will be pressed to find your own path. If it resembles anything like mine, it should be crooked with lots of uneasy turns that are hard to navigate. But it’ll be your path.
And then you are to share it with others. Should you ever be misunderstood along the way, know these letters serve as my companionship in your journey. To be misunderstood, my dear Child, is a blessed thing.
Love,
Mama
Doctor’s Visit, Week 10.5
Yesterday was our 10.5 week visit and it was another eventful afternoon. Nick brought his Time magazine for what he knew would be a long wait before we actually get to see the growing Plum.
But it wasn’t long before we were in there with the wonderful Dr. David and she says, “Ok, let’s hit the lights and take a look at the little critter.”
Excited to have another look at the Plum, I was expecting to see the small little dot bobbling along in the round sac I’ve understood to be my uterus.
I was shocked to see that the little dot looked more like a baby. “Oh yeah, your baby’s growing like a weed!” Dr. Davis was impressed.
She poked around to see if the fetus would move and, Nick swears, I must have blinked, he said he thought he saw it shimmy at one point. Shimmy? This is definitely our child.
We couldn’t get over how amazingly large the baby had grown. Of course, we were grinning ear to ear and agreed with Dr. David when she said, “It looks like a teddy bear. Whose genes are playing into this kid’s growth spurt?”
Without looking at Nick and knowing he’d agree, I explained, “It is for certain the German/Irish/French side of the family.” I watched her measure the baby from head to rump and was impressed with the healthy growth of our little one.
Happy Summer is Here
June 4th unfolded much like every morning of our previous anniversaries. We wake up, greet HAPPY ANNIVERSARY and then look at the clock, wondering what part we were at in our big day 4 years earlier.
After a few minutes of reminiscing, I’ll say, “OK, let’s watch the slideshow.”
And Nick always says, “Yes, good idea.”
So we hobble to the TV, put in our slide show from our reception and watch the pictures go by. From the opening chords of the background music, it’s just floodgates from my end of the couch. OH PATHETIC. I am bawling before my childhood pictures are even over. When I see pictures of my parents, I think, “OH those poor people! What they sacrificed to raise four children! I was so ungrateful and now our children are going to think the same of us! How naive we all are until we ourselves become parents!” The bawling continues.
Nick remains relatively calm until the music switches and the pictures turn to an adorable pretty blond baby (clearly that is not me) and it’s Nick’s turn to lose control. Nick doesn’t say anything, but he gets all choked up and his eyes fill as pictures of Russia, his siblings, his parents, his sporting events, his life parades on by…
It’s a good thing we only do this tradition once a year, because we wouldn’t get anything done in the mornings otherwise.
We head off to work for a 1/2 day and then celebrate later that afternoon with small, thoughtful gifts, dinner at J. Alexander’s, and then Dairy King for soft serve ice cream. We cap off the evening watching the Lakers demolish the Magic.
The weekend takes us to Cincinnati. Nick and I haven’t been to Cincinnati together in nearly a year or so and it was terrific to see everyone. Nick had Eric Rosenbeck’s bachelor party and I was to house-hop, seeing friends and catching up and then going to a Patty Griffin concert with my friend, Claire Mugavin at Riverbend.
Cincinnati hasn’t changed, but Xavier continues to respond to a “rapidly changing global society,” (that’s in their mission statement and I heard it 294874729 times over the four years I was there) and it’s looking entirely different since Nick and I were there. Good ol’ XU. It felt great to revisit our old home.
We concluded the busy weekend in southern Ohio with lunch at Arthur’s in Hyde Park with all the Borchers siblings. Over a ridiculous 2-serving order of fried cheese, we caught up on the latest job updates, friend updates, spouse/significant other updates, and anything else we thought critical to say. It was so nice to just relax and spend time with family.
Albeit wonderful, there’s nothing like heading home and unwinding in your own house. Nick replaced all the storm windows with screens so there is a lovely breeze moving through our house and my allergies have subsided.
As summer slowly approaches, Nick, Plum, and I continue to be extremely grateful for all the friends and family in our lives.
Hope your summer is unfolding as great as ours!
Update from the Three of Us
Nick – too tired to move.
Lisa – too fatigued to move.
Baby – size of a Plum this week and very happy.
June 4, 2005 – Happy 4th Anniversary, Nick!
The Year is 2100
Last night I came home from work at roughly 9:30pm. Driving in a rental, I pulled up and saw Nick sprawled on the couch, watching our old but new to us TV (huge applause to Nick’s cousin, Abby Cordonnier and fiancee for selling us a monstrously large and much improved telly) with an intent look on his face. I was chatting on the phone with Kelly, Nick’s sister, about the joys and woes of the growing Pinto Bean in my belly.
As I babble, I observe Nick is flipping the channel between some NBC news special on the White House and an ABC special program about what the earth will look like in the year 2100. After I got off the phone, Nick scooted closer to me and says, “It’s good your home. I was about to kill myself after watching this,” he referenced the Earth 2100 show.
I sat down to watch.
In the next 20 minutes, I watched the most depressing and strange story which told a part cartoon, part computerized tale that predicted what the world will become should we continue in our fossil fuel consuming ways. The southern states of the USA were desert, the coasts were in perpetual threat of flooding, and everyone was hoodlums with shopping carts on the side of the road, hitch hiking their way to Canada. I felt like I wanted to just bury my head in a sand dune and hope for a quick death. That or drink myself into an oblivion.
“Ugh,” I grunted at Nick, “it IS a good thing I came home when I did. You might have put a bullet to your noggin if you were alone watching the world go to shit.”
We tried to focus on something else to cheer ourselves up from the morbidity of 2100 and impending doom of human life.
Nick asked, “Did you see our new car?”
Yesterday, we had our insurance agent shop and find us a car. When they find one that fits your general description, s/he will arrange a test drive and get the car to us for inspection. If we like it, we buy it on the spot. It’s a nice FREE service from Nationwide. (Nick asked the agent 3 times to make sure it was FREE.)
Our used but new to us (do you see a theme emerging yet?) car is 2006 Honda Accord, blue, with a non-descript gray interior. According to Nick, back in his seminary days, one of the older priests drove an Accord and Nick told himself, “If ever someday I have a lot of money, I’m going to buy an Accord.”
I don’t know anyone whose car fantasies began in the parking lot of a Cincinnati seminary.
As Nick retold me his vow to buy an Accord someday, I jested, “Well, we are just rolling in the millions these days, so let’s pull the trigger. It’s now or never.”
The test drive was scheduled at 2pm yesterday and I was not able to get off work. Nick was hesitant to be the only one driving/inspecting the car, but I told him, “Look, this will be the second biggest purchase you have to make without me. Remember, we bought our house without my ever seeing it. Now it’ll also be our car.”
The Accord runs beautifully.
We returned our rental last night and then drove around Cleveland, frequently getting lost because we are the two most geographically challenged people in the midwest.
“I like it,” I told Nick. “Good job.”
Nick muses, “This thing is going to last forever. I mean, it’s an ACCORD. It’s supposed to run forever. For real, the world is going to collapse on itself in 2100, but this car is still going to be running.”
It Will Feel All That You Feel
My mother told me that the baby will feel all that I will feel.
In relation to a high sodium/sugar diet warning, or a lesson about high blood pressure, it seems like an appropriate lesson to understand about the effect I have on the fire growing inside me.
And then I wondereed if my baby can feel my sadness, my anger, my joy, and laughs when I laugh.
I’ve never had anything grow – alive – inside me before and that statement just shot a syringe of terrifying responsibility through my veins.
In my dreams last night, I dreamt I drank alcohol, fully knowing I was pregnant. I dreamt I was indulging in behaviors I never had before — sorrid love affairs, whole loaves of bread and muffins, and cigarettes. I wake up, sighing a relief that it was just a dream.
But where is this terror coming from?
As a soon to be new mother, I am just beginning to glimpse this new world of responsibility. The world that I’ve heard stories about, but never stepped into. I think this is the world where I’ve heard so many womyn judge and compare at the highest stakes of criticism: motherhood.
I don’t have much in excess. I don’t have a lot of savings. I’m not in therapy. I can’t buy organic. I sure as hell don’t have a mini-van or buy new clothes and sandals from a name brand store. I don’t know how to sew, have changed about 3 diapers in my life, and can’t stand doing the laundry.
I do believe that the memory of my mother’s rearing will guide me in what I need to do.
My mother entered the United States when she was 20 years old, determined to make money for her family in the Philippines. Over the course of 43 years, she’s managed to raise four children with no college degree or a lick of luxury to speak of. She raised us without lollipops or ice cream trucks. She hid, literally, from her children, when the ice cream truck music sounded on our street and pressed herself into a wall because she didn’t even have a quarter to spare for a popsicle.
My mother fought her way through high blood pressure, diabetes, sleep deprivation, heel spikes, thyroid problems, and bitter racism in the midwest.
She had religion. She had her faith. She brought us up, surrounding us in a protective circle of love, prayer, and simplicity. Where others had salads and desserts, we had a pot of rice, two fish sticks, and water for dessert. We were a family and didn’t need much else. Not until we were told that we needed “more” by our friends and commercials. Then our conversations became more and more westernized, more Americanized.
It’s only now I can begin to appreciate the decisions my mother made and how difficult times were for her, but we barely understood the stress she must have been under for so long. She raised a family in a foreign country while supporting her other family back home, sending her siblings to college, supporting her widowed mother.
It’s the memories my mother has left me that gives me strength when I feel terror, when I feel I may not have “enough” to bring life into this world. When I wonder how we’ll afford a crib, baby seats, strollers, changing tables and food, I remember that my mother never bought baby food, but used her big pots, hot water, an old blender, and tupperware.
It’s the memory of my mother that releases any external pressure or worry that I may not “have,” or am, enough.
This Pregnant Feminist Will Eat You Alive
Everything’s changing.
The moment was actually split. Plural.
There were two realizations that changed my life. One was the moment I knew I wanted to be a mother. The second when I realized I was pregnant.
Those two moments were distinct and both charged with a transformative power difficult to express.
The moment I knew I wanted to become a mother of some kind was a shock of worry — what if I couldn’t become pregnant? What if my health was not up to par? What kind of mother would I be? How will my life change?
Then the moment arrived when I realized I was pregnant. Everything turned into a statement, not a question. That left me in shock. I am now pregnant. My health is not up to par. I will be a mother. My life will change. All declaratives. All terrifying. No more questions.
I’ve come to understand my life in terms of my feminism and vice versa. My feminism is subdued or enthralled by the ongoing events and lessons of my everyday life. The more I engage in my life, the clearer my thoughts become, the more complex my issues grow. I wondered how my blogging would be affected — would I suddenly be thrust into the prego blogosphere? No…I thought to myself, I’m still the same person. I’m not a genre. I’m a womyn of color, pregnant. I am growing fire inside my uterus. You better believe I’m going to be writing about this.
Being a pregnant womyn has pushed me into a new role in this world. It has shifted my thoughts to a future-oriented way of thinking. When I watch the news, it’s not longer about me, but how it might affect the future my child will live in. When I see a car accident, I wonder if a child was lost, or if a child just lost a parent. Then I cry.
My eyes are wet with weepiness. As I ran on a treadmill, I stopped to weep into a corner. Then I got up and ran again.
The assault of medical worries and superficial expectations on what makes a “Good Mother” has astounded me. Everything from pre-natal yoga to avoiding bologna…all of the information and “education” has paralyzed me.
The greatest advice came from a friend who simply said, “Listen to your body. It knows what it needs.”
There’s a new fragility in my life that has gifted me with a strength I do not want to refuse. I want to be a strong mother, a strong womyn. I see the demons of this world who have painted the canvas of motherhood with images of white perfection, middle class luxuries, and the oldest tool of oppression used toward new and old mothers: guilt. I see the expectations heaped upon my life in the short 9 weeks I’ve been pregnant and am tickled with excitement. The world has no idea who they are messing with. Me. You are messing with pregnant me and my writing is going to fire back at all the mainstream feminisms that have contributed to the locking down, locking up, and criminilization of womyn of color who choose motherhood despite the odds, who choose to have children with or without a partner, who choose to raise their children with less than adequate healthcare coverage, who work and fight and love all in the same day. My blog will be focusing on the issues of pregnancy and feminism, on giving love and attention to all the truthful ways real womyn birth life into the world.
There is no epidural for the kind of birth I want.