I’m still up because I’ve been playing heartfelt lullabies to my unborn child for the past 2 hours. Ann had wanted to visit Rebecca with me since my first (and only prior) experience with her. I didn’t get consistent notices of when she was coming back to do another workshop at the coffee shop, so it had been a full year before I learned an exact date that I could attend (I was getting notices of her appearance days after it was already over, or I’d hear about my coworkers having attended earlier that week). Tonight (well, technically last nite now), Ann and I made it to her intimate group setting. She hit Ann’s life and her relationships dead-on with little to no cues from Ann, but that’s Ann’s business. Toward the end of the evening, it turned out that Ann, another coworker Frances, and I all had a question about my potential future pregnancy. It was Frances who raised her hand and said, “I wanna know if my coworker Cindy [pointing at me] is going to have children.” Rebecca smiled at me and closed her eyes to receive information. Her expression changed and I felt an immediate reaction in my own face and ears. I guess crestfallen is how I would best describe that moment, seeing her smile fade and a serious look cross her face. She opened her eyes and asked me solemnly, “Do you want to have children?” I was thrown.
“Well…yeah, but…” I thought about the timing and how we don’t want to get pregnant until November, and about my past of indecisiveness on the issue.
“Because I see one or two there ready, just waiting…” I don’t remember her exact wording, but as she went on I soon realized the confusion came from her SEEING that the souls of my “one or two” kids were present and unobstructed, so the only reason they didn’t yet exist is because there is something, perhaps a lack of desire, blocking them from incarnating. She also said there appeared to be some difficulty with conception.
Relieved, I explained that my husband had a vasectomy so there is no getting pregnant easily. She also seemed relieved as understanding eased her brow. She closed her eyes and looked to receive more information. I thought of how a lack of desire for these kids’ existence has certainly been the primary reason they weren’t yet on this plane; it’s what Mr. W had decided when he went for his vasectomy all those years ago. It’s the reason I wasn’t careless enough to get knocked up before Mr. W. Rebecca opened her eyes again, warned me that she’s just going to say it straight out. I got scared again. She continued, “I only see one side working.” What did that mean? She went on and described something about ducts connecting and not taking. “If he gets a reversal, only one side is going to function. I see the other side not ‘taking.’ You’d have to do more procedures, go the whole way, do other things — And he’s got a low sperm count.” She went on to describe what would happen and how slim the chances of conception are if Mr. W went in for a reversal operation.
I was relieved again. “Oh, we already looked into that, and we’re not going to do a reversal. We’re doing the whole extraction from both of us, inject in a petri dish and implantation.” She was nodding, looking again relieved herself that she was not delivering me bad news that would devastate me. She talked along with me, finishing my sentences, describing that all fertility procedures would have to be used. We know he has a low sperm count, that’s what vasectomy does, especially after a decade-plus of it. The urologist who examined Mr. W last month said as much, cuz I was hoping that we could just artifically inseminate (turkey baster) with the extracted sperm and he said they’d have to collect every day for a month to get enough sperm for that. The extraction and direct injection fertilization (ICSI) would resolve the low sperm count problem.
And then she said that I would have a boy. I couldn’t help it, I turned toward Ann and had a strong disappointing “Darn it!” reaction. I just always thought about my little girl. Maybe it was projection of myself as a little girl. But since I was in college, I’d decided (or saw) that I would have 2 kids, a boy and then a couple of years later, a girl. I guess since Mr. W and I figured we’d only have one, I’d “chosen” it to be the girl. My little Isabella. Rebecca laughed at my reaction and said, for the second or third time that night, that although her general accuracy is about 85%, she’s only about 50% accurate in reading the genders of unborn children. She said the baby just seemed to her to have a masculine energy, so maybe that’s a strong girl or a boy, she’s not guaranteeing anything. But since she said that, we started referring to this future child as “he.” I kept thinking how happy Mr. W would be to have another boy, and how disappointed Stepdaughter (and I) would be.
I took the plunge and asked about how difficult the labor and pregnancy would be. The group around me (all of whom happened to be women this evening) jumped in animatedly and joked about how of course it would be painful, but so worth it, motherhood is so rewarding, get a C-section, get drugs, get epidurals, etc. Rebecca’s eyes snapped open and she told me immediately, do NOT do a C-section unless it was absolutely a critical necessity. I said I was totally with her, I wouldn’t get unnecessary surgery. (Heh, I guess that means cosmetic surgery is out.) I wasn’t even one for drugs and I want to do this as naturally as possible. She nodded her approval and said I can get whatever pregnacy and labor counseling or training that I was comfortable with, naming a few terms I was totally unfamiliar with. The only terms I recognized were “lamaze” and “accupuncture.” I told her I’m determined to have the happiest pregnancy ever and that I wanted to abstain from epidurals during labor. She said that actually will be the case if I will it to be. She doesn’t see any issues with my pregnancy, she in fact sees the fertility procedures “taking” on the first try, and aside from a little nausea in the beginning which she assures me is common and normal, she doesn’t see any other problems. As for labor, she laughed a little and said she can SEE me in labor (in her head) and it’s not bad. I said, “Oh, so I’m not passed out or screaming or anything?”
“No, well, there’s a LITTLE screaming, but you’re fine. You can do this without the epidural. It’s bad at the transition, about 15 minutes, but leading up to it and afterwards you’re fine.” I can handle 15 minutes of “bad.” AND…I called it. See it here. I just read it earlier today. “This will be a normal healthy pregnancy, as your child will be. Healthy and normal.” I was SO happy to hear this. “And he’s smart.” She looked into some picture only she could tap into, and chuckled in amusement. “He’s REALLY smart.”
“Smart-ASS? I can totally see that.”
She laughed again and said, “You will definitely have your hands full. He’s one of those kids — like, he’s quiet and doesn’t say anything and then when he finally speaks it’s something like, ‘Can you take me to the bus cuz there’s something I need..’ ” I didn’t understand at first and then I realized she was talking about his first words. My godson’s first words also weren’t “mama” or “dada,” they came out in an argument with his mother, something about her telling him to pick up his toys or something, wherein she said to him, “Did you hear what I said?” and he responded indignantly, “Did YOU hear what I said?!” Before that, all baby babble. Rebecca looked into the ethers again, and let out another chuckle. “I can see [Mr. W] going, ‘I don’t know what to do with this kid!'” Awesome.
And then she said that it looks like we’ll have this kid, and then it’ll be 2-3 years before we decide whether to have a second kid. Interesting. I wonder if this is my girl. I know Mr. W does not want to have a fourth kid, at least not at this point. But then, a couple of years ago he didn’t want to have a third kid, and now we’re spending money to make sure we do.
When I got home, I was wired and Ann and I texted for a bit, neither of us able to sleep, excited about the stuff Rebecca told us about each of our lives. (Ann got some goooood news about hers.) And then I was inspired to hit the piano. I’m glad I have that release, because by this time I was so shockingly in love with my boy that the only way I was able to express it was by playing my heart on the piano, swaying under the enormity of the force of the energy pouring out of me. Mr. W was asleep when I came home and did not want to discuss my evening, and I was grateful for the digital piano and its plug-in headphones so that I could play as long and loud as I wanted and not have it heard anywhere but in my own head. Somehow, I felt that the music was being communicated to or from my future child(ren), somewhere up and out there. I felt very close to them tonight, like I could talk to them, reach out with my heart and touch their own.
I think that now, the excitement has worn down enough that I can finally hit the hay for a few hours before going to work tomorrow. I had started thinking about potential boy names a couple of weeks ago, caught myself, and wondered why I was bothering cuz wasn’t I going to have a girl? I guess I’m glad Rebecca’s only 50% accurate on baby gender because that’ll at least still be a surprise, then.
Oh, P.S…2012? Not the end of the physical world. The planets will all line up, which is a very unusual occurrence that hasn’t happened for thousands of years. This changes magnetic influences, so things are gonna feel or be a little weird, but it’s not apocalypse. To me, it sounds more like a “reset,” when the counters all reach 00000, to use a tracking dial metaphor. That makes sense that the Mayan calendar would end there, because everything has reached a full cycle. We don’t flip through our calendars and freak out that it ends in December; we know the year has cycled out and we get a new calendar for the next year. So it sounds like I’m getting what I was hoping for. I sort of called this one, too.
