Spring Break
Choices available for next step in life
Rachel Spitler
Issue date: 5/30/08 Section: Forum
I've been thinking a lot about pregnancy lately, even though the subject isn't directly relevant to my life just yet.
With the recent passage of Mother's Day and the subsequent time spent among my siblings and their young children, it's inevitable that kids would be on my mind a little.
To make it even more personal, I recently had a long and fascinating conversation with a friend who happens to be a professional midwife.
Then I went to a baby shower. The universe is laying it on thick, huh?
That's okay. Eventually being a mom has always been a big part of my plan for myself. Now that I'm married, the logistics of that goal have become clearer, and the time is fast approaching.
Just one more year of schoolwork, and I'll be moving on to the stage of my life where I alternately bring babies and novels into the world.
That gives me a little while yet, but I've lived just enough years to have figured out that they're not very long. So while I'm continuing to wholeheartedly enjoy my classes, part of my mind is starting to be occupied with the concerns of my impending adventure.
Weirdly enough, one of the things I've been discovering is that these concerns are not very popular. I don't mean that there aren't resources available, because there certainly are. I mean that the average person on the street doesn't seem to think about pregnancy often or know very much about it.
Now that we've left the dark age when "pregnant" was nearly a swear word, popular culture has spent a long time being mainly concerned with expectant mothers as vehicles for dramatic tension.
If a pregnant woman appears on your TV screen, for instance, there's a pretty good chance she's in her third trimester - even on an airplane or something where that wouldn't make sense - and if that's the case, she's almost certainly going to go into labor at the worst possible time for the other characters, probably in a stuck elevator or something.
This trend is starting to change, though. I'm currently on a kick where if somebody asks me about my favorite Disney character, I bring up Chicha, the round-bellied "lady with a baby" from "The Emperor's New Groove." She's cute, she's smart, she's hilarious and she gives birth off-camera.
With the recent passage of Mother's Day and the subsequent time spent among my siblings and their young children, it's inevitable that kids would be on my mind a little.
To make it even more personal, I recently had a long and fascinating conversation with a friend who happens to be a professional midwife.
Then I went to a baby shower. The universe is laying it on thick, huh?
That's okay. Eventually being a mom has always been a big part of my plan for myself. Now that I'm married, the logistics of that goal have become clearer, and the time is fast approaching.
Just one more year of schoolwork, and I'll be moving on to the stage of my life where I alternately bring babies and novels into the world.
That gives me a little while yet, but I've lived just enough years to have figured out that they're not very long. So while I'm continuing to wholeheartedly enjoy my classes, part of my mind is starting to be occupied with the concerns of my impending adventure.
Weirdly enough, one of the things I've been discovering is that these concerns are not very popular. I don't mean that there aren't resources available, because there certainly are. I mean that the average person on the street doesn't seem to think about pregnancy often or know very much about it.
Now that we've left the dark age when "pregnant" was nearly a swear word, popular culture has spent a long time being mainly concerned with expectant mothers as vehicles for dramatic tension.
If a pregnant woman appears on your TV screen, for instance, there's a pretty good chance she's in her third trimester - even on an airplane or something where that wouldn't make sense - and if that's the case, she's almost certainly going to go into labor at the worst possible time for the other characters, probably in a stuck elevator or something.
This trend is starting to change, though. I'm currently on a kick where if somebody asks me about my favorite Disney character, I bring up Chicha, the round-bellied "lady with a baby" from "The Emperor's New Groove." She's cute, she's smart, she's hilarious and she gives birth off-camera.
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Dann Cutter
posted 5/30/08 @ 7:31 AM PST
Bwahahaha... options? Tons. Smart. No way in heck.
I've one through this... well, as close as any guy ever can. You will have many many feelings. But you will NEVER feel smart. (Continued…)
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