A Christmas review

When the family was gathered and socializing on Christmas, in that nice pre-dinner chatting phase, my mother looked at me and whispered, "Can I tell them my news?" HER news. Ahem. Right. This is the same woman who told me straight out, if not quite in these words, that my inherent value as a person had diminished, and that my greatest worth now was to be an incubator for her grandchild.

I arched my eyebrow and retorted, "Do you mean MY news?" And then, without any plan, ceremony or ritual, I hollered out, "By the way, I'm knocked up. I'm 9 weeks pregnant." It wasn't quite how I'd planned to share my news with the family, but then again, I wasn't sure I was going to tell them just yet. Because despite the perfect Hal.lmark moment of telling the entire family I'm pregnant on Christmas day, I'm still only around 9 weeks. And have had pieces of paper that say "threatened abortion" in my RE's office. And now have a possible weird infection (more on that later). So I was feeling apprehensive about sharing the news, but with my mom's stage whisper about "news", I pretty much felt pressured into telling.

Hence the super countrified, red-neck announcement. I felt like that blonde actress on "My Name is Earl": "Hey, y'all, guess whut? I missed my monthlies, and now I'm all pregnified."

::

In my family, I'm in a weird, solitary position. I'm quite a bit younger than one group of cousins, and a bit older than the other group of cousins; so, I was in the middle and never quite fit in with either. One group babysat me, while I babysat the other! But the younger set is in a branch of the family that doesn't really come to the family dinners, so I remain in the minds of everyone something of a "baby" of the family.

After my announcement, one of my male cousins-by-marriage-- whom I adore, and is a cut up-- whispered to me, "You're pregnant? Ewww, that means you've been doing it." Throughout the evening he would pop into whichever room I was in and sing, "Kim's gonna have a baaaaaby!"

While my news was met with joy, that joy was accompanied by disbelief. No one could quite believe that I was pregnant since I'm the "baby"--despite me being closer to 40 than to 30-- and I don't think that anyone wanted to think of the "baby" having sex. My family has no idea of my infertility struggles, or that I used known-donor sperm to get pregnant. I see/speak to most of them 4-5 times a year, and it isn't exactly a topic you discuss with acquaintance-level people, even if they're relatives!

::

I had two female cousins, at different occasions, ask me what color the baby would be. One male cousin (the same one I mentioned earlier, who sang to me) tried to come to my defense--even though the defense was about as lame as the questions-- saying, "Well, she's black, so her baby will be black. It doesn't matter what the father is; if one of them is black, the baby is black."

Ouch that not only one, but TWO, relatives even asked such a thing. A part of me understands. I am different from my family, have always been different. Imagine being 16 years old, deep in the heart of Dixie. You happen to adore "The Rocky Horror Picture Show", Dead Kennedys, Poison, and A-Ha. And you've just gotten a Mohawk. Oh yeah, and you're black. If you want to be around people who like the same things that you do, your friends are going to be mostly white.

So over the years, my family has gotten smart enough to know that there's a pretty good chance that if I ever had a child, there's a 50% chance the father would be not-black. Still, I couldn't believe that I was asked the question, that it should even matter enough for the idea to be vocalized. Since I never said anything about being with someone, it should have been clear that I was having the baby on my own; so, to me, it doesn't matter what/who/where the father is, it's MY baby.

Want to know what's really sad-funny? I have had moments like this many times over the years, where members of my family have asked questions about the race of my friends, significant others, etc., or made comments about "those" kind of people. Yet I have never had a comment like that from my not-black OR black friends, not in all these years.

::

The night before Christmas eve, I had the mother of all BMs, and it was lovely. I know that sounds gross, but anyone who is/has been pregnant knows how magical a good BM can be sometimes, when vitamins and nature have you slowed down and stopped up.

Anyway, I was doing part one of the wipe, where you do the front bit. Having been a TTCer for many long years, I'm still in the habit of checking to see what's on the tissue. Well, there happened to be a huge gob of mucous, which I assume had been dislodged by the all the pushing action going on. Problem was, it was yellow-green. I know that yellow-green= double plus ungood when it comes out of your vajayjay.

There was no weird smell, no itching/burning, no pain. I've been having some mild cramps, but then again I'd been having those all along. Other than that one episode, there's been no more weird cootchie-snot. Still, the worrier in me is now half-convinced that I have some strange infection that's going to give my baby flippers for arms.

This of course had to happen over the holidays, when everything is closed. My OB office finally opened up today, and I called and begged/cajoled an appointment for tomorrow morning. My OB is on vacation (of course!) for about a week, but I'll get to see someone else in the practice. I really don't care, as long as they can do the procedures to check me for infections.