Gestation Explanation

I've been chastised by a few people lately for my sporadic, infrequent blog posts; and I have to say I'm flattered to know that at least two or three people miss me when I'm not around. So, thanks for that!

Now, the reasons for the cyber-doldrums... First, as many of you have learned in the past couple of weeks, I'm almost 13 weeks pregnant with our second child. What's wonderful about that is that I once again get to experience the miracle of the human body as it nurtures and sustains a new life until it is ready to bring into this world, and into our overjoyed little family.

What's less wonderful is that I feel like crap. More specifically, I feel like I've had a perpetual hangover for about 10 weeks and the whole dang world is a noisy, stinky garbage truck. And for some reason, my toddler doesn't care one bit. He continues to demand the same level of attention and care regardless of how I feel. Can you believe that? SO inconsiderate.

So for the last couple of months I've been spending my minimal down time cat-napping, searching for foods that don't make me queasy, and doing my best to exercise at least a few times a week. This last is a particularly good idea since most of the palatable foods I mentioned are primarily sugar -- in fact, you could say I'm on the empty calorie diet. I'm also pretty much toast (hey - toast!) by 5:30 p.m. each day. Even though I always, always, set out to write or accomplish something after Monkey goes to bed; I always, always end up sinking into the couch watching bad TV and/or going to bed at 8:30. There you have it.

This rigorous schedule of scarfing down carbs in front of reality TV has also impacted my other baby - the book I've been working on. Despite everything, I'm very pleased to say that I have managed to drum up enough spare time and energy to churn out about 53,000 words. Of course, 52,000+ are likely to end up on the cutting room floor -- thank goodness we bought a house with a cutting room! -- but I'm okay with that. I am learning to appreciate the imperfectness of my process.

My goal by the end of March is to have a super-rough draft ready for the friends who have kindly agreed to serve as first-line readers. Primarily, I'm hoping that none of them will regret too deeply the choice to volunteer, or die of boredom by Chapter 6. We'll see.

I'm finding that gestating a baby and gestating a book are similar in some ways. Like a child, the book has a life of its own; even though I am the one trying to shape it. There's lots of anxiety about the parts of the process over which I have no control, and lots of worrying over the parts I can control. I keep wondering if I'm good enough to really do this, or if at some point somebody is going to figure out that I never should've been trusted with either children or a laptop and come take my license away. And in both cases, sometimes I have to acknowledge that I've done the best I can for today, and it's time to rest.

One key difference is that at the end of the nine months, I know this kid is coming. I can't push back the deadline or realign my goals or decide to wait for feedback from an editor. Pregnancy is the one area of my life where I've been unable to successfully procrastinate (and let's be honest, by 37 weeks the last thing you want to do is drag out the process). So I am trying to treat my writing goals the same way, as an inevitable progression with a definite end date.... Hopefully with a lot less screaming there at the end.