{"id":9880,"date":"2023-11-22T23:35:38","date_gmt":"2023-11-22T23:35:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dev.webhostlabs.net\/synergy\/?p=9880"},"modified":"2023-11-22T23:35:45","modified_gmt":"2023-11-22T23:35:45","slug":"a-pregnant-pause","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dev.webhostlabs.net\/synergy\/2023\/11\/22\/a-pregnant-pause\/","title":{"rendered":"A Pregnant Pause"},"content":{"rendered":"

Letter from America<\/span><\/h1>\n

I will have to give myself a timeout when I next hear some young woman (her joy almost palpable) say to me, \u201cWe\u2019re pregnant!\u201d\u00a0 Yup, I\u2019ll have to go sit in a corner of a quiet room to compose myself; otherwise, I know I will blurt out something I will later regret.\u00a0 Having been pregnant more than a few times, I can say with absolute certainty that, with the exception of baby \u2018n\u2019 me, there is no \u201cwe\u201d in pregnancy.\u00a0 Oh, I can understand the intent–or is it hope?–behind the expression \u201cwe are pregnant.\u201d\u00a0 It is the belief–or is it hope?–of the woman who employs the first-person-plural pronoun in the announcement of her impending arrival that the father of her baby is and will continue to be fully invested, not to mention wholeheartedly and enthusiastically involved, in what is, after all, the product of a joint effort.\u00a0 If she was lucky, it was a thoroughly enjoyable and memorable joint effort.\u00a0 Yes, that \u201cwe<\/span>\u201d is completely understandable.\u00a0 Understandable, but patently ridiculous.<\/p>\n

What kind of investment are we talking about here?\u00a0 Who is likely to suffer an occasional, more frequent, or\u2014ugh!–continuous wave of nausea for a month (or nine)?\u00a0 Who will have the final say-so regarding the desired birthing plan? \u00a0Hospital, at home, with a doctor in attendance, or a midwife? \u00a0My own wish for a birth experience was merely that my first child would not be assisted into this world by the same United Parcel Service delivery guy who helped my mom\u2019s friend in the rushed delivery of her seventh or eighth baby a few years prior. \u00a0Once reassured that\u00a0that<\/i>\u00a0particular scenario was unlikely to be repeated any time soon, I did consider all the options.<\/p>\n

I sought the advice of some older friends and chose Frank Hardart, M.D., as my obstetrician.\u00a0 The son of the founder of the celebrated (now-defunct) Horn & Hardart restaurant\/cafeteria chain, Dr. Hardart was himself the father of six children. He had a warmly professional bedside manner; most important, in my view, was that he was the OB most respected by the nurses at (the also now-defunct) St. Vincent\u2019s Hospital in the heart of New York City\u2019s Greenwich Village.\u00a0 If he was good enough for them, he was good enough for me.\u00a0 The fact that he was the direct descendant of the man who invented a unique and efficient method of delivering food to hungry hordes of thrifty people crossed my mind as well.\u00a0 I envisioned my future self on the afternoon of my exact due date:\u00a0 I would be attractively attired in an immaculate, crisply ironed hospital gown, glowing and rosy cheeked, with nary a hair out of place.\u00a0 With a twinkle in his eye and after only a minimal and effortless wait, a scrub-suited Frank Hardart would place a prettily-packaged bundle in my arms.\u00a0 (Don\u2019t laugh.\u00a0 What did I know? No amount of book smarts prepares the expectant woman for reality.)<\/p>\n

Nowadays, pregnant women have more options than I had back in the 1970s. \u00a0A woman today might believe that giving birth in a kiddie pool set up for that purpose in the living room of her apartment is a good idea. \u00a0Then again, maybe not:\u00a0 She might, after a particularly searing contraction, want to kick that pool clear across the room, through the sliding doors, and out onto the balcony, where it will teeter, then drop, contents and all, on the heads of passersby below.\u00a0 Note the operative word in that last sentence:\u00a0 SHE.\u00a0 The father\u2014i.e., the other individual in the \u201cwe-are-pregnant\u201d duo\u2014would\u00a0never<\/span>entertain such an idea.\u00a0 Why would he? Is it\u00a0his<\/span>belly that will forever bear remnants of stretch marks arranged in a pattern resembling a street map of Tokyo?\u00a0 For that matter, did\u00a0his<\/span>belly balloon to the size of the Astrodome in a matter of weeks?\u00a0 Did\u00a0he<\/span>have to push a 17-pound bowling ball through an itty-bitty bodily orifice?<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are expecting,\u201d a friend\u2019s daughter gushed to me recently. I was as overjoyed to hear her good news as I was happy to hear the words she used to deliver it.\u00a0 After all, a couple can be expectant, even eagerly expectant.\u00a0 Back in the 1950s, when readers of newspapers (remember them?) rarely, if ever, saw the word \u201cpregnant\u201d in print, some gossip columnist coined the coy euphemism, \u201cinfanticipating.\u201d \u00a0You would probably agree with me, though, that \u201cwe are infanticipating\u201d sounds just a tad\u00a0too<\/span>cute to a generation so accustomed and inured to hearing \u201cpreggers\u201d and \u201cknocked up,\u201d doesn\u2019t it?<\/p>\n

What is somewhat surprising to me is that today\u2019s tabloid readers will still find no shortage of coy euphemisms.\u00a0 \u201cBaby bump\u201d is one of them.\u00a0 No magazine is considered complete without a photograph of some female celeb with an arrow superimposed on the photo and pointed directly at her abdominal region.\u00a0 \u201cBaby bump?\u201d reads the caption, encouraging fans of the woman to speculate wildly about her status.\u00a0 Baby bump!\u00a0 I never noticed the juxtaposition of those two words prior to the late 1990s. The ubiquitous \u201cbaby bump\u201d is now such a clich\u00e9 that we are due for something new to replace it.\u00a0 That will not happen, though, until thousands (if not millions) more pregnant Facebook members have posted photos of their own baby bumps, taken at monthly intervals between the announcements of their pregnancies and the actual births of their babies.\u00a0 Take a look at a couple of them.\u00a0 You will probably notice that they all feature a profile view of a pregnant woman at various stages of baby bumpiness. She might be wearing a fitted shirt, stretched taut against her skin; you might even catch a glimpse at her discreetly bared bump. What you will\u00a0not<\/span>notice is a corresponding picture of the woman\u2019s \u201cbabydaddy\u201d (with or without his\u00a0own<\/span>shirt).\u00a0 Baby bumps don\u2019t lie:\u00a0 If anyone needs proof that the expression \u201cwe are pregnant\u201d is long overdue for delivery to the deepest recesses of our memories, these photos serve the purpose.<\/p>\n

Now,\u00a0I<\/span>happen to believe that the\u00a0enceinte<\/i>\u00a0female body is beautiful.\u00a0 I am glad that gone are the days when women had to hide their pregnant tummies in public.\u00a0 No longer does \u201cconfinement\u201d mean exactly that:\u00a0 A pregnant woman was\u00a0confined<\/i>\u00a0to her own home, lest she offend the refined sensibilities of her neighbors! I am delighted that the presence of dads in the delivery room is no longer the exotic novelty it once was and that pregnancy is no longer a taboo topic of conversation in mixed company. \u00a0As open as we are in talking about pregnancy, however, we have failed to emphasize one aspect of it: \u00a0Neither carrying nor siring a baby makes a woman out of a girl or a man out of a boy. \u00a0Furthermore, just as parking herself in a garage for nine months will not turn a woman into a Chevrolet, neither does a pregnancy automatically render her a mother. To be sure, pregnancy gives a woman some time to get used to the\u00a0idea<\/span>of mothering, but transformation from pregnant woman to true mommy occurs after a baby is born.\u00a0 Same with her partner:\u00a0 His involvement during a pregnancy and birth is appreciated, but relatively uncomplicated. \u00a0As Dr. Hardart, while tapping me on the tummy with his fetoscope, used to remind\u00a0this<\/span>impatient patient in the last weeks of my first pregnancy, \u201cThat baby is a lot easier to take care of inside than outside!\u201d<\/p>\n

A baby will emerge in its own good time, with or without the assistance of a doctor, midwife, husband, partner, or UPS delivery man.\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0Whether a baby goes home from the birthing center or hospital in the arms of its birth mother and father or goes home with adoptive parents, it is\u00a0then<\/span>that the journey of motherhood and fatherhood begins. Only after a few sleepless nights and the changing of a dozen dirty diapers should a couple use the first-person plural in sharing their brand-new status with others:\u00a0 \u201cWE are parents!\u201d<\/p>\n

May God bless each and every one of them!<\/p>\n

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\u00a0<\/span><\/h1>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Letter from America I will have to give myself a timeout when I next hear some young woman (her joy<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":9839,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[73,74],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9880","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-life-and-style","category-living-in-usa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dev.webhostlabs.net\/synergy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9880","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dev.webhostlabs.net\/synergy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dev.webhostlabs.net\/synergy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev.webhostlabs.net\/synergy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev.webhostlabs.net\/synergy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9880"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/dev.webhostlabs.net\/synergy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9880\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9882,"href":"https:\/\/dev.webhostlabs.net\/synergy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9880\/revisions\/9882"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev.webhostlabs.net\/synergy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9839"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dev.webhostlabs.net\/synergy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9880"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev.webhostlabs.net\/synergy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9880"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev.webhostlabs.net\/synergy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9880"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}