Are you ready? Ok. My grandmother was born as the result of a
tryst between my great-grandmother and – gasp! – a Jewish man.
Jews and Catholics are, of course, not all that different
– we’re all neurotic, feel guilty a lot, and have overbearing mothers (joking, of course!). So being one eighth Jewish was never something
I considered much until recently, when I discovered how superstitious Jews are
about pregnancy. The most superstitious Jews,
it turns out, won’t reveal a baby’s
intended name before the bris, won’t buy anything for the nursery until the
baby is born, and have all sorts of customs to ward off the evil eye. My Jewish co-worker tells me that when she
was pregnant, her own mother wouldn’t even look at the ultrasound pictures.
Jews, it turns
out, are excellent at not counting their chickens before they hatch. And in that sense I am 100% Jewish.
I am 12 weeks
today and, despite what I said in my last post, still not comfortable telling anyone about my pregnancy. (The dull, consistent ache I’ve been feeling
in my uterus for the last few days hasn’t been helping matters, even though
intellectually I know that it’s probably the result of my uterus growing really
fast + me doing a lot of walking this past weekend.) No one at work other than my boss knows, most
of my friends don’t know, my dad’s family doesn’t know, and Facebook most
definitely does NOT know. I cringe
whenever someone gets excited or squealy about the babies. Henry and I are getting close to buying that house I wrote about before, and it makes me so nervous to make such a big life
change for two beings the size of limes whose heartbeats I haven’t confirmed in
nearly two weeks. I don’t even want to
post about the pregnancy here, because I don’t want to jinx myself by saying
everything’s fine when I haven’t had recent reassurance that it is.
Even though my lips are sealed, the not telling is
getting a little ridiculous. I’m
starting to show enough that my friends have been pulled aside by acquaintances
who ask if I’m pregnant (the “or getting fat” remains unspoken). The majority of my pre-pregnancy clothes don’t
fit; in a few days, I’ll be down to one pair of work pants and one pair of non-yoga
casual pants. As my exhaustion eases up
and I go out into the world more, I won’t be able to help people finding out,
whether it’s me or my belly doing the telling.
Or, more likely, Henry, who feels no such qualms about announcing the
status of my uterus to everyone he sees on the street.
But, dear God of Jewish superstition, please just grant
me nine more days of secrecy. On May 30, I
will have my NT screen. I will see the
babies, hear their heartbeats, hopefully be reassured about their health, and
recharge my faith that this pregnancy is real.
And then I’ll come home and, I promise, tell everyone I see before I
have the chance to get worried again.
