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telemetry from the passenger compartment
Nov. 24th, 2008 10:17 pmIn my second-favorite pregnancy dream, I had decided to sign up for a three-year program to host an alien in my home and teach it everything it needed to know to get by in our society. My friends were opposed: all of the rules surrounding the alien program were really isolating, why would I want to do that? The thing was, participating in the host program was the only way to find out anything about the aliens' language and culture; over the years, you would sometimes be able to ask them a few questions about their homeworld. And it was worth it, to get to find out about them.
That dream did not, surprisingly, extend the metaphor to the obvious elaboration that first, you had to let them implant the alien in your body for awhile. But I think it was that dream, very early on, that started me thinking about myself as a spaceship and the meeple as an alien. I really like the metaphor of the spaceship - here I am, a hardy deep-space probe, going around investigating things, harvesting my own fuel, and, hey, it turns out I also have a passenger module that can provide life-support to a fragile little being that couldn't breathe this atmosphere or live on the things that grow here. It's undergoing a massive process of genetic re-engineering to enable it to survive outside the ship, but meanwhile, I am being a good spaceship and avoiding sampling possible sources of biocontaminants or heavy metals that might leak through the filtration systems...
For awhile, I couldn't get any information about how it was doing without complicated diagnostic instruments, but in the last month or so we've hit a series of milestones in taking readings with my own internal sensors:
- at about 18 weeks, I started feeling little pops that might have been the meeple, or might have been gas, which has, er, not been in short supply ("So, it turns out the National Federal Methane Reserve is a list of currently-pregnant women", ba-dum bum)
- the Great Big Sea concert that weekend opened with a BIG LOUD CHORD and the meeple FREAKED OUT in a whole definite string of bumps
- it also did something around then it hasn't done since; I leaned forward rather suddenly and there was this big slithery gloop exactly like someone very small doing a somersault in my guts
- last weekend, just past 21 weeks, I started getting a lot more definite movement. And I made the first successful two-way connection: I jiggled the meeple, and got it to move in response! Now we can have that classic parent-child conversation: "Hey, is everything okay in there?" "I'm fine, Mom, jeez."
- last night, it was pretty active - and Josh was able to feel it! "It sort of goes bloop, bloop," he said, or something like that, and, yup, that's what it does.
- The only development I am not 100% delighted by is that its kicks have gotten strong enough to be felt in my bladder. While I'm always happy to hear from it, it mostly does this while I'm driving, and my tiny smooshed bladder (*yes, already*, to everyone who feels the need to tell me I'm ahead of schedule there) is already having enough trouble when my commute runs long without little bips and bops denting it in from a weird direction.
So, these days my passenger is waking up and banging around in its cabin, and I am a happy spaceship.
That dream did not, surprisingly, extend the metaphor to the obvious elaboration that first, you had to let them implant the alien in your body for awhile. But I think it was that dream, very early on, that started me thinking about myself as a spaceship and the meeple as an alien. I really like the metaphor of the spaceship - here I am, a hardy deep-space probe, going around investigating things, harvesting my own fuel, and, hey, it turns out I also have a passenger module that can provide life-support to a fragile little being that couldn't breathe this atmosphere or live on the things that grow here. It's undergoing a massive process of genetic re-engineering to enable it to survive outside the ship, but meanwhile, I am being a good spaceship and avoiding sampling possible sources of biocontaminants or heavy metals that might leak through the filtration systems...
For awhile, I couldn't get any information about how it was doing without complicated diagnostic instruments, but in the last month or so we've hit a series of milestones in taking readings with my own internal sensors:
- at about 18 weeks, I started feeling little pops that might have been the meeple, or might have been gas, which has, er, not been in short supply ("So, it turns out the National Federal Methane Reserve is a list of currently-pregnant women", ba-dum bum)
- the Great Big Sea concert that weekend opened with a BIG LOUD CHORD and the meeple FREAKED OUT in a whole definite string of bumps
- it also did something around then it hasn't done since; I leaned forward rather suddenly and there was this big slithery gloop exactly like someone very small doing a somersault in my guts
- last weekend, just past 21 weeks, I started getting a lot more definite movement. And I made the first successful two-way connection: I jiggled the meeple, and got it to move in response! Now we can have that classic parent-child conversation: "Hey, is everything okay in there?" "I'm fine, Mom, jeez."
- last night, it was pretty active - and Josh was able to feel it! "It sort of goes bloop, bloop," he said, or something like that, and, yup, that's what it does.
- The only development I am not 100% delighted by is that its kicks have gotten strong enough to be felt in my bladder. While I'm always happy to hear from it, it mostly does this while I'm driving, and my tiny smooshed bladder (*yes, already*, to everyone who feels the need to tell me I'm ahead of schedule there) is already having enough trouble when my commute runs long without little bips and bops denting it in from a weird direction.
So, these days my passenger is waking up and banging around in its cabin, and I am a happy spaceship.
