One week to get real

Dear Baby X,

(Yes, that's your name for now, and you can thank your future father for it.)

It's been a week since I learned you took up residence. In that time, I've hated certain food, gotten sore breasts, cried about 45 times, and have slept about 4 hours a night. I'm excited, scared, and a dozen other hybrid emotions I can't name. Incredulous too. I doubted the doctor for a few days, trying some home pregnancy tests. The results on the two I too were both negative, but the blood tests I've been having every other day confirm you are there.

Baby, you have to know, I want you. But the minute you showed up, all I could think was "I'm not ready." I'm 39. I'm lucky to be pregnant without any medical help. But all I could focus on is that I'm not happily employed, your father and I are renters, and, most importantly, we're rather childlike ourselves. Our wardrobe favorite items are: sneakers and t-shirts. Our weekends are full of playing: biking, tennis, running, climbing. We use our adult minds at work, but we're not used to really using then at home. I think we'll be fun parents if not always the wisest ones.

I am taking you on your first trip next week: Climbing in Red Rock Canyon. After much reading and evaluation, I think it's safe for you to get one big climbing trip in while you're still the size of a pinhead. I'll stay attached to a top rope at all times, I'll rest when I need to, and I'll only do routes I know I won't be falling all over. I think we'll both benefit from the trip. My job has me very stressed, and nature always helps to calm me. Calm nerves will be good for you.

I'm hoping you'll like climbing as much as I do, or if you don't, you won't mind me being a climbing mother. I took up the sport late in life--36--and just fell in love. It's a challenge to mind and body, and it's also been a chance to get back in touch with who I was as I little girl. I climbed trees all the time, mostly to get away from my parents' divorce antics. Being high up took me away from the painful world below. Today, work disappears as I scale up the grips on the rockwall at the gym. For the time I'm climbing, I'm free in how I really always wanted the word to feel when I read about it as a student--free of judgement, expectation, deadlines, demands, and the other things I've never shouldered well.

Yup, your mother's got baggage, but hopefully I can check it before your ETA. I worked hard to shake a fair amount off during my 20s and 30s. That got me strong enough and at home within myself enough to meet your father. Now I want to be strong enough to raise you to be whatever it is you want to be. To see opportunity where I saw fear of failure or fear of people.

I've rattled on for a bit now. I'll have much more ground to cover in the days and months ahead. I have to work hard on explaining to you how the planet works right now, and how I hope it's very different by the time you're old enough to read this, your pre-memoir of sorts.

Day One

Dear Baby,

Your name should be Murphy, as in Murphy's Law.

You decided to announce yourself in my urine on my first, exploratory visit to a fertility clinic. I was there to find out how to have you, not that I did have you.

I welcomed you oddly. The doctor said, "You've made my job easy."

I replied, "Are you kidding? . . . Oh, no, you're a doctor, you wouldn't kid. Sorry."

Kidding. Kid. Funny doubt words when it comes to a noun kid.

You're also earning the Murphy nickname because you've taken up residence in my uterus just two weeks before a scheduled climbing trip. The fertility doctor answered my query about still going on this trip with a sarcastic "Come now . . . no." I'll have to check with other doctors, as it seems from trawling the web that plenty of women climb during pregnancy. The doctor didn't look like an athlete, anyway.

It's not that I want to risk you already, it's just that climbing and activity are major components of what keeps me happy. You'll be one too. I'll make sure you know that. I'll have to work at it. I'm 39. I've been doing my own thing for a long time. I'm self-centered by rote of having been by myself for so long before meeting your father, Mike. And Mike, good soul that he is, gives me free rein to pursue my passions when I can. But I've managed to balance our life together with my solo pursuits, so I know I can work you into the mix. I want to work you in to all that both Mike and I do, so you can see what's available to you, maybe find a passion you can turn into a career, instead of having a career around which maybe you'll find time to do things you love. More on that later.

Anyway, Murphy, welcome to my body. Settle in, and lets try to have a nice ride together.