AARP

Today is July 12th, 2011.  Jenn's official due date is the 23rd, but I am told that Baby Arrival Prognosication is an imprecise science at best. The baby could pop anytime between tonight (unlikely) and the end of the month (possible, but also unlikely). Here is the beautiful mother-to-be and the author in a recent photo:

Jenn's pregnancy has been as smooth as can be, but she has reached the stage where she has pain in her back and hips, and her bones are softening and becoming more pliant due to the release of a hormone called Relaxen.  When we first heard what it is was called, it lead to a solid day of coining equally obvious  names. Reflexen, we decided, was the hormone released when a doctor hits one on the knee with a rubber mallet; Re-stampeden is the chemical the brain releases right before being trampled by rampaging elephants; Flatulen floods our bodies when we need to break wind; and we produce Regurgiten right before projectile vomiting.

Unfortunately, Jenn has now passed the point beyond which she can be reached by a good running banter. Her moods swings have become more frequent, and she's laughing at my jokes less and less. Anymore, after I crack (what to her is) a particularly corny jape, Jenn will say something like, "Come here so I can poke you in the eye."

(A quick word to the wise: If you value your life--and I cannot emphasize this enough--do not sing the chorus to Pumped Up Kicks by Foster the People in a weak falsetto while in a car with Jenn. This is especially true if you don't really know the words to the song, and it comes out more like, "You better something something something ...  faster than my bullet.")   

It seems to me the final stage of pregnancy is designed to make the mother-to-be utterly ready to give birth.  At this point, she would do almost anything to vacate the baby from her womb. Jenn, a woman whose body has traditionally been strong and sturdy, is not the exception.  She is ready to be quit of the aches and pains of pregnancy, as well as the additional 35-40 extra pounds she's added.  Jenn will have her wish soon enough, but even at this late date, it's still all I can do to fathom what we are about to experience.

I was at a Buddhist service last Sunday facilitated by, Gamlam, the lovely Buddhist nun and religious director of the Shakyamuni Buddhist Center. Before donning the plum and yellow robes of her order,  Gamlam was a long-time hospice nurse. During the service, as is the Buddhist's wont, she spoke to us of death, rebirth and karma, but rather than paint the birthing process as a magical, transcendent experience, she referred to it as a birth "trauma." As one who has witnessed many beings entering the world, Gamlam suggested that if babies could communicate their experience--the pulsing uterus, the sounds, being expelled through a narrow birth canal into a strange world of light and sensory stimulation--he/she might indicate that it was something less than a joyous ride.

I can see her point. Newborns have never taken an unexposed breath, never seen unadorned light, never experienced anything but the most climate controlled of environments. Going from pure union with The Mother/God/Insert-Your-Belief-System-Here to this world of samsaric separation must be quite jarring. However, many transcendent experiences involve a passage through a symbolic birth canal. Suffering, it would appear, is an integral component in the transformation process. The choice is always there: to fight against our daily challenges (which I do, plenty), or say "Yes" to life.

The Native American sweat lodge is a great and timely metaphor for our entry into the world. The half dome of the purification lodge represents the womb of the Mother; the heated volcanic rocks in the center of the lodge are referred to as Grandfathers and represent the sacred masculine while the water poured on top of the rocks is the Grandmother. When the lodge pourer pours a ladle of water onto the rocks, the two meet in a sacred marriage, filling the lodge with an intense amount of heat. For four rounds the steam from the union carries the offered prayers up to the Creator. At the ceremony's end, each attendee exits the lodge through a low-set door on hands and knees, emerging from the womb humbly and reborn.

I am excited about the arrival of our daughter, but I still have middle-of-the-night moments when I  wake up with an almost paralyzing fear and anxiety, distracted with a bad case of the Whaddabouts:

Whaddabout writing? Whaddabout traveling the world? Whaddabout my privacy and time alone? Whaddabout having a fragile little being utterly, completely, utterly dependent on me for the next however many years?

I am soon to be 51 and have already started receiving AARP membership mailers. Frankly, I wish they'd leave me alone as I find their unsolicited pitches a subtle and unwelcome reminder of my mortality. This is, after all, an organization of gray-haired, septuagenarians toddling across the country in over-sized RV's, pink Rava Jeeps in tow, as they make a mad dash for the next KOA camp ground. Let the AARP keep their discounts and caravans. I've only just started feeling as if I've fully entered into manhood. With a baby on the way and a lovely wife to support, my senior years will wait. They must.

I'll be 68 when little Zinnia Rain Bender (for this is now her name) turns 18 and eighty years-old when she reaches her prime as a powerful, thirty year-old world changer. Will I, in my dotard-hood, be a drooling invalid in medium-sized depends whom Jenn patiently feeds pureed sweet potatoes; or will I  still be trekking the Andes with my delightful daughter and adventurous wife as we chatter away in Spanish and nibble at succulent racks of cuy (guinea-pigs-on-a-stick, to the uncouth)?

 Last night I had a dream: I was cradling our little angel on one of my arms in what our birthing teacher called the football hold. Zinnia looked wise and sweet, old and young all at the same time, and the whaddabouts floated away on her breath like clouds in the breeze.