Rhinoceros Running

A couple weeks ago, my mother commented that I was just going to have to suck it up and buckle down to get some things done. At the time, I thought, I just can’t. I’m not sure if I thought someone else really would swoop in here and wash my dishes, do my laundry, run my vacuum and rally my spirits, or just what.

But, none of that is going to happen. Also, a man isn’t going to suddenly want to be a father to his child. And I will still have to do my own grocery shopping, still have to lug my own bags up two flights of stairs. I will need to be more aggressive about finding a job that will complement motherhood. Turns out, no one is going to find that for me, either. Dammit.

What’s more, and this is a big one, no one who is heavily invested is going to think I’m a great mom. The only person who can really speak to that probably won’t really be able to judge whether I was a great mom for 25 or so years. I’m also not sure what I expected in that department. Billboards? And what’s kinda funny is that some friends have said they think I’m going to be a great mom–but for some reason I dwell on the silent ones and interpret their silence as disapproval. At dinner the week before last, Tom asked me if I’d seriously considered adoption. At the time I didn’t think much of it, but now I’m a little tee’d off, and intend to address this with him.

I have been conducting a lengthy pity party for myself. I realize I really was waiting for some kind of serendipitous intervention, divine or otherwise, that would save me and the kid from me. My mother was right. I need to suck it up. No one said this was going to be easy. In fact, someone said very specifically, this is going to be really hard and thankless. And the thing of it is, I had a choice. I still have a choice. And I choose this. I choose you, little stowaway, baby bean, tiny squirrel. I choose the colic (if you decide on that), the impending sleeplessness, the near poverty we will endure for a bit, the lifetime of sacrifices on my part to ensure a lifetime of opportunities for you. I choose your terrible twos. I choose the barely disguised disdain of your teenaged years. I choose to be who you blame for your absentee father (temporarily–I trust you’ll come to see reason eventually), and I choose your insufferable know-it-all college student self. I choose to do a lot of stuff I don’t want to do–except for Disneyworld. I’m holding fast on that. I haven’t decided about Disney movies yet, with the accompanying orgy of consumerism. I’ll let you know.

Be forewarned: graphic descriptions of bodily functions in this post.

Ok, last night? Violent, projectile vomiting. WTF. I’m laying in bed, reading, la la la, and I get to feeling a little funktafied, so I turn off the light and plan to ride out this bout of queasiness while sleeping. I can’t describe the difference between queasiness (theoretical sickness) and the real thing, but after a few minutes, I realized that I was probably going to be sick.

Now, I think when I was little, I just barfed all over my bed and hollered for my mother. And when I threw up in college, it was beverage (ahem) induced and somewhat spontaneous. It seemed prudent to get up and wait for the inevitable in the bathroom, and I didn’t have to wait very long. It felt like everything I’d ever eaten was making its triumphant return. After several waves, I was left with the dry heaves. Is there anything worse than the dry heaves? (Probably childbirth.)

At some point, I kinda wondered if I was going to stop heaving, and I gave some serious thought to calling my mother. What I thought she could do for me, I don’t know. It occured to me that dry heaves are kind of a mental thing, like the gag reflex just gets going and doesn’t stop even when there isn’t any more material to heave. So I forced myself to swallow hard, take a deep breath and rinse out my mouth.

I have no idea what I ate or what I did to cause my system to react so violently. I notice that since my physical self is busy gestating the stowaway, it doesn’t not suffer fools gladly, which is to say, whatever I eat is digested in direct proportion to its nutritional value. If I eat something with very little nutritional value, my body wants to evacuate it pretty quickly. Last Friday, I was downtown, and wanted a slice of pepperoni pizza and a fizzy, cold fountain Pepsi. About a half hour after my indulgence, my digestive system, in so many words, said this is garbage. Away! And the thing about downtown Chicago is that it’s tough to find a public bathroom. I had to hike a block and a half to the closest one.

Predictably, the day has been less than stellar. Physically, I feel so yucky, so bad, I seriously wondered if I can really do this. I opted to be honest with a prospective employer about my pregnancy, and my honesty got me nowhere; the recruiter said they could come across with a verbal offer by the end of the day, and I haven’t heard from  her since. So, how does this work people? Do pregnant women not need jobs?

I took the dog for a long walk, and even took myself for a short bike ride in an effort to throw some endorphins at the problem, but I was still feeling very, very low. Just to keep things interesting, I decided to dwell on the absentee father for a bit, followed by a review of my shrinking wardrobe. I might own about 10 things total that fit, and I’m not exaggerating.

And I marvel at how alone I can feel when in fact, I am not alone at all.

About halfway through the bike ride, I thought, wow, I am sacrificing everything: my body, the luxury of selfishness, job opportunities, any chance at romance for the immediate future, and more than likely, it’s all for a kid who will spend the next 20 years trying to pretend they don’t know me. For the first time, I really let myself think about not going through with this, which made me cry. So, even if I did terminate, I would just spend the rest of my life dwelling on this anyway, mired in certain regret.  

Well, the queasiness has subsided quite a bit, but I’ve got a little more heartburn than I’d like. Tired, but that could also be a consequence of the storms last night. It’s not the actual storm that ever wakes me up, it’s the 95-lb chicken dog. She’s never been a big fan of the supernatural. Ben didn’t concern himself with those kinds of details. As long as someone wasn’t trying to get in his house without an express invitation, he was right with the world.

I like remembering Ben. He was just a funny dog. We had 12 years together. There at the end, I knew what he was thinking before he did.  

Ruby and I made it through tonight’s walk with only one attempt at eating something dead on the ground (on her part).

As for the non-fur child (aka the stowaway), for some reason I trolled the internet for information about private schools. I haven’t decided any of the details about giving birth–epidural? mid-wife? But I’m thinking about the merits of private school in six years. I haven’t been feeling really high on my public school education lately. I still feel like my background in history and social studies is woefully lacking. I remember one teacher, he was legally blind as I recall, I don’t remember him every providing any instruction. He’d sit in the front of the room with the lights dimmed.

I can’t believe this, but I’ve kinda gotten sucked into that reality show, America’s Next Top Model. I don’t know why. There are quite a few international contestants, moreso than the usual reality show, I think. These girls from eastern European countries, African countries, it’s like they’re not as ruthless although their circumstances seem to be harder. American girls, on this show anyway, are kinda brash, some of them to the point of an unattractive cockiness. I felt oddly happy that one mean girl got the axe a couple weeks ago. Why do I care about this?  

Yet again, Ruby found something in the alley, something flattened beyond recognition, but most probably something dead and hideously unpalateable to reasonable people and animals, and it was all I could do to lure her away. It clearly took all her powers of self-control to leave it and do what I was telling her to do.

And, yet again, when we got home, I tried to tempt her with a little snack, little corner of my PBJ sandwich, and yet again, she regarded the offering with suspicion and only very reluctantly took it.

WHY is eating dead stuff so much more appealing???? These are the days and times when I remember Ben (dead dog). He would have NEVER eaten something in the alley. Oh hell no. And I never had to beg him to take any kind of bread product. He loved him some bread. Of course, he never came when I called his name, either, and I’ll never stop being charmed to death that Ruby actually acknowledges her name.

Don’t misunderstand me. She’s a great dog. I just don’t understand the dead stuff thing.

The funny thing about Chicago is that you go for months without seeing much of your neighbors, and then the weather breaks, and then each walk can be a social occasion. Although I don’t consider this a real break in the weather-I doubt it broke 50 today despite the most gorgeous sunshine-I correctly guessed that if I went for a walk with Ruby, we’d get some social time, see some folks we haven’t seen in a long time.

First, we ran into our neighbor with her two smallish, fluffish dogs: Lou and Greta. Greta loves Ruby. Loves. She’s not quite a year yet, so she’s still pretty excitable. She ricochets. I don’t remember whether her human and I could actually hold a conversation amid the dog chaos. But that’s ok.

Walking Ruby isn’t actually exercise. Her preference is to carefully smell her way down the block, which means I look like I’m loitering. I figure, it’s her walk. Her sense of smell is something like 200 times mine, so, if she wants to smell every blade of grass between here and Wrigley Field, I should indulge her when time permits.

So we loiter down the street, and meet another dog whose owner is clearly not amused with this weather. Girlfriend was wearing a down jacket (North Face, I think) and a winter hat. She didn’t appear particularly friendly, and neither was her dog: as we passed them, her dog strained at the leash, attempting to lunge at us, barking furiously. Alrighty then.

Next, we rendez-vous’ed with Frankie, the French bulldog. I happen to love French bulldogs. If I were the kind of person who paid for dogs, I’d probably have a collection of the darned things. I love their short, stocky stature, like lots of dog crammed into a little dog package. And those ears, those big bat ears seemingly out of proportion to their relatively diminutive features. Also, meeting French bulldogs gives me a chance to practice my very rudimentary French. (French bulldogs respond to my French the same way my German Shepherd responds to my German, which is to say, not so much.)

We headed back towards home up the other side of the street-I figure she’s already smelled everything on the west side of the street, so let’s have a go at the east side. I was hoping Greta the weimereiner would be out in her yard, but she was on a walk with one of her dads. I chatted briefly with her other dad. Greta’s not quite a year; they used to have Grommet, also a weimereiner, but he passed on to the great dog park after a nice long life.

Onward. Ruby smells, I loiter. Up around the corner, I thought I saw another neighbor who I hadn’t seen in a while, but it wasn’t her. It was a dog we haven’t seen in a while: Emma, the wheaten terrier. We’ve been running into her ever since she was a tiny, tiny puppy. Now she’s the cutest eight months ever, and chock full of puppy energy, which seems to confuse Ruby. You know how older dogs are; they play sometimes, but nothing too crazy.

Back up the other side of the street, past the house on the corner with the two bulldogs. Most often when I pass, a bulldog is sitting in a chair on the front porch, like his person. Tonight, he sat quietly in front of the front door, looking out onto his domain. He watches us with mostly indifference as we pass. I rarely see them out and about, and in the over two years I’ve lived here, I’ve only had occasion to pet them once.

We did pass a pair of white poodle-ish dogs, the smaller of the two growled menacingly at us, but Ruby ignored them, evidently smelling something wondrous. Sometimes, she pushes her nose into the grass and inhales deeply. What she smells must provide her the lay of the land, the landscape, the way our eyesight does. Her eyesight isn’t good. She frequently mistakes garbage bags or miscellaneous litter for a squirrel or something else worth stalking. If there’s another dog at the back of the yard at my parent’s house, she’s been known to stalk it until she gets close enough to realize that it is merely the basset hound. (A side note, I suggested to my mother that if my sister leaves her basset with them when she moves out, we should rename him Alfonso. His given name is Kirby Quentin, but I don’t think it matters what we call him because he doesn’t respond to anything.)

I’m tired. I know, so different than every single day. And, I’m hungry, but nothing sounds good, also different than every other day. (I hope dripping sarcasm doesn’t corrode parts of my computer.)

It’s official: the zen is gone. I am Cranky von Crankenstein. Please enjoy the following totally random thoughts:

I am lovin’ maternity pants. Why aren’t all pants like this? All pants should have elastic panels. You know those days when you overdo it at lunch? It’s just more comfortable. No zippers or binding waistbands. It shaves minutes off bathroom time.

The dog has been using doorways for her entire life. She’s a smart dog. But tonight, she forgot the door opens in and got a door in the face, much to my chagrin.

For some reason, my pregnancy symptoms are intensifying. Like, the heartburn is getting worse. Despite my expanding waistline, things are getting smooshed together in my abdomen, so even though it’s just the end of the first trimester, I already feel a degree of physical discomfort I hadn’t expected. I take all this as a sign that the baby continues to grow, which puts to rest this irrational fear I had that something is wrong. I’m looking forward to Tuesday’s Dr. appointment where I can see the heartbeat again.

Adventures on the bus: today, a man got on the bus and appeared to either pass out or fall sound asleep in his seat when he proceeded to pee himself. Yesterday, a woman suffering from schizophrenia (she was clearly responding to voices or sounds only she was hearing, hence, my diagnosis of schizophrenia) ranted and raved from her seat at the back of the bus. What is always interesting to me is how everyone just pretends like nothing’s happening. Like yesterday, when I was going to have myself a good cry at Target, I knew I could just stand there and sob and no one would even look sideways at me.

My new favorite place to go is Forever 21. There is always great, upbeat dance-y music playing that I always like, and it’s visually very enticing to me. They do sell some stuff that seems a little whore-ish (ha ha, listen to me, passing judgement!), but there’s a huge variety of stuff. For some weird reason, I find it relaxing to thumb through the racks of jersey-beaded tops and sequined dresses. I can’t actually wear any of this stuff. Even when I wasn’t rapidly expanding, the large-sized stuff was a little dicey. Depending on the cut, many things didn’t accommodate the boobs. And now, well, forget it.

I drink vast quantities of water, juice and milk. I am not dehydrated. I slather on the lotions, and yet, my skin is so dry. It’s like another small example of how my body is just working on another agenda.

I’d just like to say that although I have behaved in a somewhat trampy fashion, I never actually dressed like a tramp.

I’ve been really working myself over about this whole absentee-dad thing, and I decided today I just need to let go of it. I can’t force someone to want to be a dad. My thinking is that we’re all supposed to be grown-ups, so let’s take responsibility. This is hardly the end of the world. It can be a really amazing thing if you let it. So, we’ll figure out who should be ponying up the child support when we can administer the paternity tests, and all’sI can do is let him know that the door is open. The kid will need to accept that. There are worse things than just having one parent. If the kid persists in thinking this is a tragedy, I’ll ship ‘em off to somewhere where clean water is a luxury and let ‘em experience something really hard. Maybe a foreign study in Burma after a tsunami and the government won’t allow foreign donations of desperately needed assistance. Maybe China, where kids work instead of wear Nikes to school. (See? Cranky. Poor baby is in utero, minding their own business, and I’ve got my dander up.)

Side note: through a discussion board, I found my way to a child support calculator, which is hysterical. Based on the non-custodial parent’s income, it figures out how much they have to pay. The figure this thing came up with for me was a fraction of what it is going to cost to support this baby. A fraction. I know a lot of custodial parents who work multiple jobs. I think parents hsould have to split the costs a little more fairly. Just like the custodial parent, the parent who pays support needs to figure out how to come up with it.

Note to self: if I have a son, diplomatically explain the importance of taking responsibility for one’s (how shall I say this) emissions?

I went through a phase where I thought the baby was surely a girl, but I’m back the other way now, thinking he’s a boy.

I really thought I had a long list of complaints since I was feeling a little emotionally drained by the end of the day, but it’s amazing what a little food and quiet downtime do for one’s sense of well-being.

Tonight, I had a meltdown at Target. Fortunately, Carol was available to talk me down. My list of grievances:

1. I’m only 3 months pregnant, but nothing fits. I thought I could just bump up a size, but my proportions are all outta whack. So, I headed out to Target thinking their maternity department would most assuredly have just some very basic workwear, like a black skirt. Just a black skirt. What is so hard about a black skirt?? I guess I’d understand the scarcity if I were in . . . I dunno, rural southern Indiana. But this is freaking Chicago. Find me a woman here who doesn’t have a black skirt. It’s a must, an essential YET VERY DIFFICULT TO FIND.

2. I feel tremendous guilt, like I have the moral compass of a bag of Doritos b/c I don’t know who the father of the baby is.

3. And I’m mad because I think he’s going to try and blow this off. I’m on the hook one way or another. If I abort, I will still think about this baby for the rest of my life. So I have it, and endure. I’m so freaking tired a trip to Target can make me cry.

4. The pregnancy journal repeatedly recommends going to the bathroom when you feel the urge. I ask, do people really need a reminder? I’m also finding that now that I’m pregnant, with my bladder and bowels as some kind of fetal footstool, when I need to go, the urge is instant. It’s non-negotiable. Must. Find. Bathroom.

5. Not a grievance, just an observation: I wonder what the dog is thinking when she’s got one toy, then stops, appears to think, gets up, and seems to search for a very particular toy. But while I’m complaining bitterly, I find it a little insulting that this dog, who was once an emaciating, starving stray, carefully evaluates any food I try to give her. This dog STILL will eat dead things on the ground in the alley, but it is only with great trepidation that she’ll take a Scooby Snack (for real, thought they’d be fun) from me.

6. Yesterday it was something like 80 degrees and humid. Today It was chilly and firmly in the 50s.

7. I had a job interview today. In the interview room, there was a very cool print, and off to the side, there was a thought/speech bubble that said “Everything is going to be alright. I just know it!” I took that as a sign of sorts. But after almost two hours of interviews with multiple people which I thought went really well, they’d gotten back to the recruiter within a half hour to let her know that they were passing on me.

8. The problem with being so tired and queasy all the time is that my mood is especially suspectible to swing low. So this afternoon when I was navigating trains and buses to make my way out to Target, a feeling of profound loneliness came over me. The irony of course is that I’m not alone.

I think the best way to eliminate all zen from my life is to make a public announcement about being extremely zen. Day in and day out of intensified nausea has sapped all my patience. I’m about done feeling like death.

On Monday, I had a doctor’s appointment with a new psych. I call this doc the head meds doc because I go just to have my antidepressants managed. I used to go to an old guy from the ‘burbs but the last time I went to see him I felt like he just wasn’t much help. Dude seemed to be phoning it in. And if I were getting by pretty well, I can see where he didn’t need to hop to my request for a meds re-eval. But, at that point, I told him I was nearing the end of my rope, I could feel myself falling apart. At that point, I was on three (3) different anti-depressants. Three.

I seriously debated about keeping the appointment on Monday. I wondered how much difference there could possibly be between one psych and another. I’ve spent the past six months or so trying to accept that maybe I am just profoundly deeply flawed, which is fine when it’s just me screwing up my own life, but I gotta get it together for my little stowaway.

So I kept the appointment, and I am really glad I did. She took a look at my meds, and told me that I wasn’t even taking therapeutic doses of any of them. Doc #1 prescribed half dosages. She was far more thorough than #1 ever was, and had ideas, information and suggestions. I feel hopeful and more optimistic than I have in a very long time. Perhaps I am not fatally flawed.

And it makes me angry that I begged someone for help, and he dismissed me. And it’s not like I was complaining about a runny nose. I told him that I couldn’t go on like this, I told him that I was coming to the end of my rope. I had a general practice doc tell me once that perhaps I should install pictures of my friends to assauge my depression. WTF. If you don’t know about depression, refrain from making assinine suggestions. I’m sure there’s a lot of people who view depression as something akin to a phantom illness; I just didn’t expect my psychiatrist to be one of them.

I went downtown today, and trolled Clark Street’s alternative stores for amusement on my way home. I found a store that actually sold Dog Breath Gum, as well as Cat Butt Stickers. So I think my idea for a revolutionary line of dog odor home products has already been appropriated, and apparently expanded into cats, and probably other animals. Ferrets seem a natural candidate for odor-related products. (WHY do they smell so bad? Are they related to skunks? Ok, I just checked wikipedia. They are related to weasels and polecats (I wonder if these are the same animal . . . ) and the “musky” odor is apparently related to their fixed status, if I understand correctly.)

But I digress.

The “father” of my child has been a source of some concern for me. And when I counted back in my day-by-day pregnancy journal to the approximate date of conception, I realized that I don’t think I know exactly who the father is. Yeah, how great is that. I’m getting more white trash by the minute. My brother asked me about the status of the father, and I said we just weren’t dating anymore. He said, good, I was afraid I was going to see you on the Maury Povich show screaming about my baby daddy.

I actually looked up my cell phone records to see who exactly I was communicating with at the date of alleged conception, and it wasn’t who I thought it was. This doesn’t actually change things much. The most likely candidate still isn’t really interested in being a baby daddy, so I’m still in the same boat. This one might step up to the plate and have something to do with our child, but I am beginning to think that evenso, he will probably treat me with thinly veiled distaste whenever we do have to interact. In the time that I’ve spent with him, I’m beginning to see that he isn’t fundamentally really keen on women. (I do love my armchair psychology–my theory is that he holds his mother responsible for his flawed relationship with his father; he didn’t meet his real dad until he was 20.) What’s funny is that I can see this guy being a good dad, but I don’t think he’ll ever be a really good husband or partner.

I checked to see how early paternity testing can be done. We could do it now, but it’s pricey, so I’ll check that out after the birth of the lima bean.

Back to dog odor products–big rain tonight, so now I’ve got a big stinky wet dog. She wasn’t much for the rain, kept blinking her eyes hard, like, Why? Is? Someone? Flicking? Water? Into? My? Eyes?

This is kind of a momentous week: Week 12. The end of my first trimester! A dear friend gave me a day-by-day pregnancy journal wherein it details exactly what’s happening in utero every day (hence, the day-by-day thing). Every day, something significant seems to be happening. One day, all the teeth and gums are formed. The next day? Vocal chords. And on and on and on. There is so much going on. I completely understand why I’m so exhausted. My body is doing amazing stuff.

Most of the time these days, I enjoy this kind of zen-ness. I’m extraordinarily patient, kind to strangers, generally chock full of the milk of human kindness. But right now I’m having a dark night of the soul, prompted by some contact with the baby’s father. After a few phone conversations wherein he tried to persuade me that he missed me, wanted to see me, and felt keenly that his life was missing something in me, I reminded him that I am still pregnant.

This seemed to surprise him somewhat. The next morning, he texted me that it was best that we not see each other again, and good luck to me.

Fast forward 10 years or so, when I need to more fully explain to our child about the biological father. Am I right to bring someone into this world knowing that half their ancestry will be a gaping hole?

Sometimes I think America is a tough place to raise a child. Kids grow up with crap on tv like Gossip Girl, the Simple Life, etc. I’m not actually fluent in tv these days, so there might be some really cool programming. Oh, Bernie Mac is kind of good, I think. He’s taking care of his sister’s children, struggling to discipline them and guide them and love them, without the emphasis on material things.

I’ve started down a road with a thesis I can’t fully support. I think it’s hard to raise a kid alone. I think it’s hard to raise a kid with other people. I think raising children is hard work, which isn’t to say that it isn’t worthwhile or enormously gratifying, which it obviously is, since the population is growing despite the availability of reasonably priced and effective birth control.