2 Sept 2009 – At this many days the baby starts having a heartbeat

It seems like an abstraction. But it’s there, he or she is there, heart beating already, directing all this downstream momentum without even being born.

1 Sept 2009 – notes on being placed

All day I’ve been thinking about how there’s this tiny chunk of life inside Lau’s panza, placed there. For me it still seems like an abstraction.

27 Aug 2009 – Notes on being pregnant again.

1. Lau and Layla came into the back room giggling and holding the test. Two stripes.

2. It wasn’t like the first time where we celebrated but then fought because we didn’t have health insurance and knew we’d go into debt. [Actually we don’t have health insurance this time either, but we’re on our way back down to Argentina where prenatal care is  affordable.] Basically this time we just hugged, skyped some friends down in Buenos Aires, then waited for my parents to come home so we could tell them. While we waited I went out to the pool and swam laps. While I was swimming I thought about starting a blog which is this.

3. Twelve hours ago I was trying to encourage a new student at Matador U. She just started writing. Not sure where to begin. I’d found this quote from Jeff Jarvis at buzzmachine. He was talking about blogging, writing, living openly, transparently. He’s recently written about having prostate cancer in a column for the Guardian, but some people just can’t get that close to the fire, even if it is across a newspaper page or a computer screen. I told the writer what Jarvis said to critics: “”transparency is a necessary ethic of the age.”  So often when you’re encouraging other writers you’re really just trying to encourage yourself.

4. Over the last few days Lau’s stomach has been upset and we’ve wondered what was up. She was 5 days late. Earlier this week Layla pointed to her stomach and said “baby, baby.”

5. A few weeks ago I left it in. Or Lau held me in.  It didn’t matter. Afterwards she whispered “La vida es corta.” Life is short. This is the kind of decision-making you can count on from us.

6. Last night the 90+ heat finally broke.  There were huge lightning storms. A couple inches of rain. Layla and I went out after it was over–lightning still flashing on different points of the horizon, cool rainwater in the Bermuda grass–and all across the  palmetto and cow fields behind the house were thousands of frogs singing.