Just One Small Moment

I've been thinking about my friends itc who are pregnant right now. I also happen to have more than a few friends in the flesh that are pregnant too. (I won't say, "irl" because I happen to think you friends in the computer are real life too.)

My first good friend who got pregnant was Lynne. She called me right before she left for Jerusalem and told me her news. I can still remember the morning-- I was lounging about in Partner's apartment on the bed. The morning was very sunny and bright, and I thought Lynne had left already for the airport. I was reading a book. After she told me, I kept walking around thinking about her being pregnant and being in Jerusalem, and it felt somehow meaningful to me. And probably to Lynne. I imagined being her and being a Modern Orthodox Jewish woman and visiting Jerusalem when you knew you were just pregnant with your first baby. I tried writing about it, and what came out ultimately, is below. This poem is a good three to four years old now. (Wait-- I could figure this out with one phone call to Lynne-- how old is darling first born now??) When I wrote the poem, I never thought we'd still be waiting to have babies around here. My friend is having her third baby now, and I am so excited for her. Every birth we talked about whether or not I'll be there. For this one, we are both really hoping I can be in the room. For her second, I got there a few hours after the baby was born. It was very powerful. I remember Lynne asking me to pick up the baby and utter fear I got when I looked in the bassinet and thought about picking up such a new fragile life.

I'm arching up on the hope quotient this week. I'm feeling like maybe it might happen. I'm scared to death about it happening and I'm scared to death about it not happening. Ultrasound and blood tests tomorrow. We'll see.

But for now, for all my pregnant friends and especially Lynne, my poem:


Lynne, in August, Ten Weeks Pregnant
(V’Etchanan)

Everyday a seamless series of remembrances:
no coffee in the morning,
no glass of wine with Shabbos lunch,
don’t wear those pants too tight,
rest in the humid afternoons.
Each moment, another thought—
an instant of attention—becomes true Judaism.

Her womb the perfect Siddur,
the magnification of prayer.

When she lies down at night, she thinks
of the translucent skin, the fish-like creature living
inside, the tender buds that will expand into arms,
extend long fingers, lengthen kicking thighs.
how the mikvah waters
are inside now, holding life.

The sound of a baby crying in the supermarket stills her
from two aisles over. She presses a hand into her stomach

and she knows
everything is holy.