A Look Inside

As I laid awkwardly back on the radiologist’s bed next to a state of the art computer with thick, hot gel dripping down the sides of my stomach, I began to ponder the naturalness of pregnancy and the unnaturalness of technology’s pervasive role in it.

I wonder what the humans of a thousand years ago would have thought of our special machines that peak inside the skin and muscle of a pregnant belly to glimpse the ghost-like creature developing below the surface. We all do it now, don’t we? Even the young, healthy couple with an uncomplicated pregnancy (like us) wants to get their peak at the human that will inevitably emerge at the end of nine months. Odd.

Life has been busy lately. I lay on the table for nearly forty five minutes watching the technician take measurement after measurement of various body parts, growing increasingly uncomfortable in my supine position, struggling for breath under the weight of my bulging stomach thinking, ‘this is the most relaxed I’ve been in weeks.’

I want desperately to be less busy. I want to rest with my pregnancy, like I did when I was pregnant with Nicole and with Twila. I napped copiously and took gentle walks and ate whatever and whenever I wanted to. I want to play with my child. She craves my attention and I crave her company but endless small tasks and urgent to-do’s keep me off the couch, off the floor and at the desk or the computer, working, bustling, busy all day. It’s no wonder that yesterday was the worst day in parenting history.

My daughter declined to take a nap with me even though we flew in at midnight the night before and had woken at our usual six am. As I lay on the couch, unable to pay another bill or return another phone call, I suddenly received the sharpest, most startling slap I have ever felt. Twila stood in my befuddled gaze looking half-pleased, half-cautious. I held my face and sat bolt upright. There was nothing to say, what could I say? My knowledge of parenting tactics ends at being blatantly hit in the face. I know all the books say it’s a useless punishment but I dragged her to her room anyway. I shut the door and stomped away. I decided it was the better choice since my instinct was to hit back. The day declined from there.

I thought about the rotten day as the technician re-measured the baby’s head for what felt like the fourth time and I suddenly became convinced that something was wrong. She hasn’t said a word this whole time, something is wrong with the baby. And it’s my fault. It’s the wine I had before I found out I was pregnant, it’s the traveling, it’s the stress I’ve been under, I haven’t had enough water, enough vegetables, enough flax! I haven’t given this pregnancy the kind of consideration and attention I gave my last two.

When the results came in late in the afternoon, we learned that the baby is fine. My amniotic sac is low which means I do indeed need more water but otherwise the results were unremarkable, which is what I assumed to be true before I laid on the radiologist’s bed and took a peak at my growing fetus.