Life Cycles

Lindsay has officially begun her sixth month of pregnancy.  My granddaughter is the size of an eggplant.  At this stage her brain is growing quickly and her lungs are developing “branches” of the respiratory “tree”....just as she is adding to the branches of the Kalmus and Feldman family trees.   

Last night, Mark and I went with the expectant parents out to dinner in a crowded, dark and noisy restaurant.  The only thing about it that was unique was its name, the same as a famous author, one of whose quotes was “There is nothing to writing.  All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed.”  Hmm…I think I know what you mean, Mr. Hemingway, even in the 21^st century, without a typewriter. 

During dinner, Lindsay was telling us about how it sometimes feels as if the baby is hanging onto her ribs, how painful it could be and how she tries to move her to a better position.  I asked her what it feels like when the baby moves.  She made waving motions with her arm.  Then she showed me where the baby was in her belly, guessing it was her butt or back.  I put my hand there, on the bottom right of her once perfectly flat stomach, now bulging with life and I felt something hard and strong.  I was yearning to feel a kick, but didn’t.  “Sometimes, she only feels it inside of her,” Scott explained.  “Then at around 11:15 at night, she starts to move a lot and you feel either the feet or the hands at the top, or maybe an elbow.”  Lindsay showed me where she thought the feet would be and I moved my hand higher to that spot, but still no kicks for grandma. 

When I think back on both my pregnancies, I try to recall what it felt like to have that life move inside me with either Lindsay or Kim.  I do remember, vaguely, that Kim hurt me when she kicked, but can’t conjure up that sensation.  The only sensation I do remember vividly is when I was pregnant with Lindsay.  It was much too early in the pregnancy to feel the baby move.  As a matter of fact, it was right after I was sure that I had lost the baby because at the end of my first trimester, I had bled.  Not a little bit.  It seemed like it had to be a miscarriage, because I was hemorrhaging.  When I went to the doctor and he examined me, he told me that the baby had probably died.   To be sure, though, I needed an ultrasound, which, back then, took three days to schedule.  Ultrasounds were not standard procedure in the early eighties.

Those three days waiting for the ultrasound were the longest I endured in my life.  The night before the day of my appointment I was lying on my stomach trying to fall asleep, miserable.  Below my belly button, I felt fluttering, as if a butterfly had emerged within me.  I dismissed it, thinking it was nothing, that I was most likely imagining it.  The next day when I laid on the table hopeless, while the technician did the ultrasound, she announced, “Here’s the baby’s heartbeat.”  I turned to her, shocked, and asked, “What heartbeat?” She looked at me as if I were nuts, “Your baby’s heartbeat; you’re about 13 weeks along. The doctor will give you the full report.”  So my fluttering little butterfly was Lindsay, perhaps whispering to me to never give up hope.  And that has always been her spirit, since the day she was born.

Last night, before I went to sleep, I thought of that time, over 30 years ago, when I first felt my baby move inside of me.  I dreamt of my granddaughter.  In the dream, I was working in a school and there was a student holding her.  I quickly grabbed the baby from him and took her in my arms. I felt her strength against my chest as I held her close to me.  I announced to everyone this was my granddaughter, Tallulah, but that is not her real name because her real name is a surprise.  Then I woke up.  It was a strange dream, like most are.  But there’s always a reason for your dreams and this one might mean that I’m just so anxious to finally meet that baby and hold her in my arms, for real. 

  

We are just midway through this journey and as much as the days are speeding by with Lindsay’s pregnancy, they are also dragging.  It’s a typical February and even though most of the record snowfall from last week has melted, it’s bone-chilling cold outside.  In spite of this, being a middle-aged woman, I can sit in thin leggings and a tank top in my kitchen and literally emit heat.  My mom came into the kitchen this morning wearing her velour robe over her flannel pajamas and sat down beside me.  “Aren’t you hot?” I asked her, “I’m sweating!  I can’t even look at you, it’s making me hotter.”  Of course, my mother being my mother thought she should take off her robe and believe she was as hot as I felt, or that somehow, taking her robe off, would eradicate my hot flash.  “No, you don’t have to take your robe off,” I said, “I just feel so hot looking at you!”  She left the room. 

Each day, each week, each month brings me closer to this new phase of my life- being a grandmother. It also brings me closer to the realization that, yes, I am getting older.  I am at the stage of life where I walk down the stairs and have to ask are those the creaks in the stairs I hear or the creaks in my knees?  I am forgetful at times and words don’t come as naturally and easily as they used to.  Just this week, on Valentine’s Day, I gave Mark his perfunctory card, made a special dinner for the three of us- Mark, myself and mom, with libations- a Chilean Cabernet. I held up my glass to make a toast and said, “Happy Thanksgiving!”  My mom looked at me confused.  Lucky I caught myself in time to realize my error.

Still, wasn’t it only yesterday when I was the carrying life within me and I felt those first flutters of my children?  Every stage leading up to that and past that is as ephemeral as a butterfly.  Those beautiful moments are what makes life worth living.  And as I anticipate this grandma chapter of my life, I will take the creaking knees, the hot flashes, the wrinkles and forgetfulness because as we get older, life still begins again and again.