October First, Two Thousand Fifteen
So, looks like yesterday was a false alarm. A “false labor”.
I, mean, so they say, but they were real and true contractions, coming at a steady clip every 2 to 3 minutes for hours on end. How is that not labor? Yet it’s the cervix that tells the tale and the gate remained shut, so the lady-horde is staved off for at least another day.
Now we’re home again – sister-in-law Tara has sweetly offered to stay the night in case we need to zip off and abandon the boy. But so far, no, other than an exhausted and sore uterus, no new drama. A couple of small contractions here and there, nothing like what it was.
On the plus side, the time in the hospital allowed the docs to get a couple shots of betamethasone into my poor pin-cushion of a wife. It’s been almost 24 hours since the second shot, and every second matters with that miracle drug, so those girls should be coming out with golden lungs, mighty and strong.
Felt it quite keenly yesterday – as the daughter tsunami draws nearer, I’ve been looking at women differently. Like to think I’ve always been a respectful fellow, and probably appreciate and respect the gender more than my own, frankly. Still, I’ve been seeing women in yet another light. They are allllll daughters. Little girls who once sat on their daddies' laps. Little girls with poopy bums and runny noses, who will pull their pants up too high and skin their knee and cough directly in your face. There will be a struggle, I think, between the man who thinks of women as sexytime things and the daddy who will tear the head off anyone else who thinks that way.
I’ve never been particularly protective (my little sis is ten years younger than me, and I've always gotten along with her boyfriends), so this may yet resolve itself somewhat. And I genuinely do believe that that the idea of ‘protecting’ women can be demeaning in its own ironic way. But damn, women are amazing creatures who do not deserve to be befouled in any way whatsoever by the grosser sex.
Further cogitations. What would it be like to have a clone? (Because - no offense, future ladies - a clone is only an identical twin born several years later.) At first I was a bit horrified for my innocent baby daughters to have to go through that. How do you have an identity when you are, in a genetic sense at least, not actually unique?
I think of myself at 15. A bit of a rotter. Gloomy and self-absorbed, at least privately. Now give this greasy kid two clones. Watch them all descend into madness. Yikes.
Well, 1) you are not your genes. Obviously. And your personal little light of consciousness does not give a sweet godly fuck if it just so happens that some other goofball out there has “your” genome. He or she still can’t know what it’s like to BE you. It’s not like you would wake up in their body from time to time. Your own spotlight may share the same wattage as someone else’s, but you’re shining from a different place and on different thingies.
And B) Maybe these girls will be some of the blessed few to NOT feel lonely. It’s an epidemic – everyone feels out of touch to some degree, everyone feels a bit unplugged, everyone feels alone. But only multiples actually have people who know what it’s like to be them, or close enough, anyway.
And iii) all identicals I’ve talked to say they love their twins. So, no further theorizing necessary. Proof is all up in that pudding.
“Gill, tell me exactly how you feel right now.”
“I have a headache. My stomach is sore. Cramped up. Haven’t really felt the babies. Irritable and easily annoyed.”
“On a deeper level”
“Ready for it to be over.”
“Are you excited?”
“No.”
“Cause of the surgery, or because it’s too early.”
“Because right now I feel like shit. I was kind of excited yesterday when I thought they were coming. But now I’m anxious at the thought that this will just keep going on – like, who knows, after dinner we just have to go back to the hospital, and then come home, and then go back. Not as nervous about the surgery right now, at least.”
She pushes her plate forward.
“I can’t eat anymore of this.” (She’s referring to ‘Farmer Sausage in a Bun’, the latest masterpiece by Chef Taronno, world’s laziest cook.)
“I could use some chocolate milk.”
