Ripples in the curtain
Hey, 35 weeks! How pleasantly surreal to be, as good Nurse Jilly refers to it, “term. ish.”
A big change occurred this week in the gyrations of the kid. Now when he moves around it’s like one of those big metal paint or plaster mixers: the thing doing the moving (we’re always trying to guess which body part) feels solid and purposeful.
It’s quite odd to see such seemingly intentional action without being able to yet view the actor. If Javid’s sense of theatrical timing seemed geared toward the cliffhanger, this one seems more suited to slowly building suspense. More fitting for direction by M. Night Shayamalan, say, than Steven Spielberg. Now the question remains, are we talking Sixth Sense or Unbreakable Shayamalan, or The Happening Shayamalan? Will there be a surprise twist at the end (he’s really a she!/he’s got 20 toes and his hair is purple!/it’s a miracle; he’s got a birthmark that looks like the Virgin!) or will the enjoyment come from the rollercoaster leveling out and sliding smoothly and satifactorily onto the platform?
Who knows at this point, but we’re having a hard time right now waiting for the curtain to draw back. The fact that in this case the curtain is made up of Ana Lisa’s epidermis plus several layers of flesh is a bit of a buzzkill, true. But if we end up with a healthy little boy, 20 toes or 10, we’ll be happy.
We find we’re starting to count down more than count forward. Monday, for example, was three weeks from when we think the C-section will happen. That date has begun to occupy a large spot in our consciousness, larger in some ways than the weekly since-gestation markers we’ve used as our gauge for many months.
Speaking of weekly markers, I never did post a 34-week photo, did I? This one’s a week old now, but better late than never.
Oops, there we go wearing our politics on our sleeves again. Poor poor kid. This photo has plenty of potential for future embarrassment I suppose, depending on how things turn out. Apparently that hasn’t chastened me in the past; I was after all one of only four people in my high school class who would have voted Mondale/Ferraro. Utterly humiliating now … except when you consider the alternative.
Back to the present. Here’s 35 weeks, with the now-traditional retrospective back through the 5-week intervals. AL looked at this progression this morning and said, “I miss my face!”
So that’s it for the 5-week photo series. Can I get a hand for my incredibly patient partner, who put up with my scribbling on her belly and attempts to elicit a “natural” smile during our photo shoots? Of course even the most grown-up person (and who doubts that AL is way more of a grown up than I? As competitions go, that would be what we used to call back in pick-up basketball days, a skunking) can only stay serious for so long. Imagine how much the kid will cringe, or take pride depending on his lifestage, in the following:
Happy 4th of July!
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July 4th, 2008 at 5:22 pm
Al looks beautiful! Can’t wait to hear of a successful delivery!