When Due Date Arrives Before Baby . . .

    I imagine giving birth is like dying. No one can do it for you. No one can ultimately help you, especially not your husband, so forget it. In these last forty weeks I've learned to surrender to my psychopathic hormonal changes, and that whatever I do . . . I CANNOT share them with anyone! It's the only way to save my marriage, my relationship with my OBGYN, and my family and friends. I needed to find a "healthier" way to proactively deflate my misery from having complete lack of control over this baby's birth. Which is why today I am starting this blog.
    Today is my official Baby Bruno due date and I'm powerless. The only things in my authority are having sex/making love, eating and exercise, and all of which must be performed in a careful radius of my house, my husband, a chaperone, or my car. Let's be real here, even pissing and shitting have graduated to being beyond my domain of discipline. What do I do with all of this newfound treasure of vitality within me?  First desire is to painfully torture my husband with verbal unwarranted attack but maybe even that's a bit filtered . .  . I'd really love to just shake him, hit him and cry uncontrollably. But I won't do any of the above. This is one of the only forms of control I still have left -- control over what of my emotions I choose to share and with whom. For the record, I haven't mastered this technique yet.
    One of the most poignant moments of realizing that I was truly pregnant was when I first started having these thoughts of physically hurting my husband. It was a morning like every other. He jumped out of bed at 6:30 a.m., then hovered over me and stared into me with his olive green and sometimes teal blue eyes, always with a gentle smile and said "Ti amo," sealed with a kiss.
    I then unrolled myself across the whole California King bed and continued sleeping for another half hour as he leisurely prepared his Italian style stove top Moka coffee while reading La Gazzetta dello Sport and La Reppublica. I rise from his second alarm, a sing song Italian accented lullaby, "Amore, coffee's ready."  It sounds more like a question than matter of fact. He is truly happy, and this pisses me off.
    That should have been the first red alert, but as a woman I am comfortable and quite used to inconsistent emotions and really don't hesitate or feel badly for my thoughts. I do know better than to share them with him though, that's why it's ok. The moment and desire to inflict physical violence on him came later that morning, after I had asked him, "Will you make me a boiled egg while I'm in the shower?"
    "Of course I will.  Would you like anything else?" He was so optimistic and helpful, even before he knew I was pregnant.
    "No, that's it." I didn't even worry about how he made the egg. Did he remember to turn it down from a boil to a simmer? Did he turn it off too soon before it was done and just let it sit in warm water? O.k. maybe I pondered these things but everything transformed the moment I walked out of the bedroom dressed and ready for work and I sighted U.V. kitchen light reflecting off a wet hard-boiled egg sliced in half with a perfectly cooked center instead of the matte surface of an unpeeled egg shell. All of a sudden I truly wanted to grab his head and thrust it against the kitchen counter top.
    "You peeled the egg?" I asked while wrapping my arms lovingly around his waist and kissed his neck. He was about four inches taller than me.
    "Yes. You didn't want to eat it before work?" He looked at me with those same soft morning eyes.
    "No. I was going to take it with me and eat it later." I fumbled around the kitchen battling this newfound emerging demon in addition to a schizophrenic appetite that I had never encountered before. I hated that egg. I hated him.
    "Oh, I'm sorry. I'll make you a new one." He would sincerely do it too.
    "No. No. It's okay." I looked at the sliced egg, drizzled with imported Italian fresh pressed olive oil from Montalcino, Tuscany, and already dressed with crushed Italian rock salt from Sicily and freshly cracked pepper. "Oh, you put olive oil on it?" I asked.
    "Yes. You don't like it like that?"
    "I don't know. . " and this is how pregnancy began. We had been "trying" to get me pregnant for a whole year . . . and the only sad thing is that once it happens, your hormones and first trimester nausea take hold of you so fast and so certain, like an experienced salsa dancing partner would do, and you can't do anything but follow its lead.
    Somehow, sharing this story has made my day brighter.