A New Pace

14w 4d


With my ever-growing belly, I find the need to slow down. I used to make The Flash look slow with my quick moves walking downtown, passing the old people with their canes, the ever slow tourists and bikers alike. Now, the old people give me the finger as they walk passed me.

I have always been an observant of people. They are walking stories and if you pay enough attention, they tell you by how they look and their behavior. I wrote this poem last year when I saw this old lady with sagging breasts, in a white Puma jumpsuit, neon pink Nike's to match her lipstick that ran off the corners of her wrinkled mouth. Her hair as white as the suit, high and round, teased beyond frizz like a birds nest, her hand getting lost in it like a plane through thick white clouds. That was all of 10 seconds. Now, I am forced to take time not only to get from point A to point B, but to pay attention to all the minute, yet equally as important points in between.

With cell phones, text messages, instant messaging, email, we get instant answers, products, contacts. Is that however, what we really want? I still write notes and letters to people and mail them out and I receive them. Isn't it nice when you receive a letter from a friend among the pile of bills? With life taking over, I understand the need for emails. "How are you?" "What are you up to?' "Hope we an get together soon." I am there with you. But what about having a long conversation on how we are really doing, making and hearing each other laugh or wiping a tear? How about actually getting together? And it doesn't have to cost anything. A game of Scrabble (my favorite), a museum tour, a walk in the park.

I am 30. I am not old by any means, but I have already lived 30 years of my life. Have I made those connections? The true connections that count? Not through email, or im, or texts. But through personal connections, where I have made memories that will last a lifetime? Has it been enough?

The slower I move now, the more I see. Those people who take time to walk a little slower, to cancel an "all important" meeting to hang out with a friend, or their spouse or their mom, that is what I want to be. Once the baby comes, I am sure it will be a lot harder to make those personal connections for I will be forming the most personal connection of all. But that doesn't mean, I don't want to be there. So, what can we both do about it now, because it goes both ways.

Are you willing to walk slower or will you let life race by?

Sleep?

14w 1 d

I find myself sleeping more restlessly now. Could it be the fear of sleeping on my back and cutting the blood off to the baby? So, each time I turn away from my left side and my body pillow, I wake myself. Could be that now my dreams which where vivid and intense to begin with has become what I didn't think they could ever be - even more vivid and intense? For example, I can't read nor watch the news anymore. I have had two incidents already, in which I read a story about a murder-suicide and that night I dreamt as if it happened to me. The other time, I read about terrorists and I dreamt I was taken hostage and then shot. I only want to hear happy news now. Have any?

I also wake up through-out the night. My eyes open wide, stare at the gray of the night, at nothing in particular since I can't see without my glasses, and wonder, "Will I be a good mother? The type of mother my child needs me to be?" and I will lay there, pondering all that I am, all that I will need to be to make my child a well-rounded human being that will contribute to this world. See, I find that most men worry about money. Will they have enough to provide food, clothes, shelter, education? Will they be able to buy the top stroller, the best diapers, put them in the best schools? Most women tend to worry about the upbringing. About the hugs after a fall, about the right way to discipline that will be firm but fair, about instilling in our children the need, desire and want to care, love and respect others. Together, there is a balance. Of course, women do worry about money, men about emotions, but we each take on one more than the other, so that we aren't all worrying about just one thing.

For the last 3 months and for the next 6, I can control my child's environment. I can protect him/her from almost anything. But then they enter the world, and the instinct to protect will be more than I can imagine now. All my feelings will be heighten. Love, fear, guilt, joy. My mind races with so many thoughts, that now they wake me. Knocking as I lay there wrapped around my pillow, saying "Hey. There is no rest now. Have you thought about this?" Perhaps, it's to prepare me for those other restless nights when 'lil Vargas cries for food, warmth, comfort. When they cry for me or Daddy. When they just want to be near us. To snuggle next to us. In between us, as we watch a movie with Olivia at our feet.

To those restless nights, I say "Welcome."

13 weeks & 2 days

I can't begin to express how ecstatic Cesar and I are about our pregnancy. I wish I would have started this blog sooner (I did start a journal at 4 weeks for the baby), but I finally decided to make time to write online. I want the people I care for the most to know what is happening without receiving countless of emails from me.

So, I found out I was pregnant at 4 weeks. The first one to find out was Olivia since she walked into the bathroom when the two lines began to appear on the stick. I didn't cry. I was more in shock. I mean, we had planned it, but still seeing those two lines was like, "Ummm... it's happened!" I told Cesar the next day (after confirming it with 2 more tests). I gave him a t-shirt that said, "Guess Who's Going to be a Dad?" with a man looking up at him. That whole moment was surreal. I had pictured it in my mind many times, but to finally tell him that we were going to have a baby was amazing. To know that in a few 6 months we will hold a being that is part of both of us, that I already love more than anything is the most incredible feeling.

We have been on a high ever since.

The ultrasound pictures above are of the baby at 12w and 1d.