One Hundred Percent (Still) Pregnant
Pressure, politics, and consent
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You’re not supposed to fixate on the due date. I’ve been careful to phrase it as a range: sometime in the next X to Y weeks. It’s a normal distribution that skews late for first babies, and there’s only a 5% chance it will happen on the day itself.
But of course what that really means is that every night since 37 weeks, I’ve been going to bed thinking: maybe tonight.
I was due on Wednesday. Given that labor is highly sensitive to the mother’s oxytocin versus adrenaline balance, a due date around an American election day isn’t ideal. Then again, given that being nine months pregnant is inherently stressful, ideal was never an option.
It’s very hard, being a body. I spent two years failing to conceive with donor sperm before I met Robert, and it surprises me how much it feels the same to wake up each morning and think: once again, it didn’t happen. Each instance is individually felt.
Per Buddhism, attachment to desire is the cause of suffering, but of course it is impossible to detach. I have this flawed human conceit that because my body is my own, I must have some control.
