Number 4

And so, I find myself in the last 7 days of my fourth and final pregnancy, my last 7 days of a baby belly, of a sweet soul swimming in my womb, kicking and turning, hiccuping and sleeping in my protective sea belly.  It is a bittersweet moment as I am ready for this new life to come out(no, really you can come out now) to greet the world and our family, who eagerly await their new brother or sister, son or daughter.  However,  I am also shedding a few tears and mourning this stage of my life transitioning.  For almost a decade I have been carrying, birthing, feeding, giving wholly and completely of myself and my body to these intense, wonderful and dynamic little lives that we have been blessed with by the universe.  It has been the path I have chosen for 9 years, a career in a sense, my life.  A selfless choice, a silent profession.  One without promotions or raises or even very much praise from the outside world.  The reactions I get when a stranger asks if it is my first baby and then I let them know it will be my fourth, range from, "are you crazy? " "are you religious?" "you are a better woman than me" "trying for the girl?" to just plain staring at me in disbelief with their jaws open until they break the silence with a giggle and "god bless you."  I often wonder when my husband is creating a new project at work or finishing a screenplay if people react the same way.  More than likely, they give praise and high fives.  Talk about how amazing all the accomplishments are, for his "baby" finally seeing the light of day.  People see what he has written or created, talk about it with him and with others.  Chances are, for this undeniably hard and grueling but fun work, he is recognized by his peers for his success.  Full time motherhood, on the other hand, is a room of one's own in so many ways.

What I do know is, I can recollect each moment my children smiled their first smile, literally.  K in his stroller while walking to meet friends for dinner on a warm, breezy, sweet smelling perfect night in LA.  Q in his car seat looking up at me while driving in a golf cart on our way to a hotel room in Northern Cali, sun streaming trough the trees above and H, swinging in his baby swing while his big brother cooed and smiled at him.  Like a beautiful sense memory exercise from my days at NYU, I can see each moment so clearly, smell it, feel the time of day when they spoke their first word or stepped their first steps.  I can recall when we finally got a rhythm for breastfeeding after weeks of sleepless nights, pain, Eddie Izzard and Louis CK concerts on Netflix and so many tears shed together.  No one was there in many of those moments but this little being and I, but the success, failures and accomplishments were real.  Each child is like a novel, a screenplay or painting that you are constantly working on, editing, loving, hating, praising and cursing until the day you release it into the world.

I remember around 3AM when we had our first baby just home from the hospital, turning to my husband and saying, "I don't think I can do this, " as if I had a choice.   I was sleep deprived, pumping every hour, in pain from an emergency cesarean and thought in that moment, if I gave anymore of myself, I would die.  Then, the baby woke, screamed me out of my blues and smack into the moment.  I held and comforted him all night on our blue shabby couch in a sweltering heat wave in our 1920's apartment in Los Angeles and it was quite possibly the most profound moment in my life.  To love unconditionally this stunning boy, to smell his baby smell, sleep to the rhythm of his baby breath or just watch him in awe and wonder how on earth we created this powerful ball of energy and life.  I was hooked.  Through all of it, traumatic births, easy births, NICU stays, miscarriages, 10lb boys, my body given to others for growing, feeding and comforting on demand, I would not change a single moment.  It is my work portfolio, my book of creativity and each time they ride a bike without training wheels, paint like Pollack, run wild with their imaginations, sing when they think no one is looking, build to the sky, play their first song on the piano, smile a first smile, step a first step, cry over nothing, let their anger scream out, read that first sentence, write a poem, lose the first tooth, I know I am part of this force of nature with my symbolic paint brushes or typewriter.   I am helping to nurture and shape them and hopefully help them blossom into beautiful, kind and giving citizens of the world full of passion to take life and live it to the fullest with every cell in their bodies.

Who will this new baby be?  We have decided to be surprised for the first time about the gender(my husband is sure we only make boys and statistics are on his side).  The first 6 months were very hard, but now I am so excited to find out in the moment what extraordinary life has decided to join our family.  Especially in a world where we now find out everything in an instant.  I am ready, hope for a healthy birth and am also fearful to again jump into the unknown of this new work, this new novel about to spring forth from my body.  For the past few weeks, I have been stepping back and observing my 3 children, watching how different they all are.  Closing my eyes and listening to them play for hours together in the sunlight shining through the window on a 10 degree winter day, listening to them tell the most wonderful stories with their papa on the way to sleep, listening to their fights and tears, their laughter during tickle bugs that could cure anything and I know I chose the right path these past 9 years.

Yes, I mourn for my previous before babies life at times, have full volumes of shakespeare characters running through my head that I want to put on the stage, characters in screenplays I want to bring to the screen, marathons I want to run, cafes I want to open, size 2 jeans that I swear will fit again and oh how I miss weekends with just my husband, my love, on the upper west side, sleeping in, catching a film, reading the NY Times for a whole day,  dreaming of where to travel next or getting a film into Sundance.  This part of myself has been dormant or maybe not dormant, just used for now to slay dragons, become a pirate, read Should I Share my Ice Cream over and over again in different accents or sing our 3 year old to sleep.  I will have time to think about who I will be once our 4th is a bit self sufficient and I will, for the first time, in many years have a moment to think about what I have left to do in this life.  Whatever that is, my creations, my children will always and forever be a part of that as I am a part of their history and journey in life.  This is a life lived fully.  This new baby will be joining a very silly, loving, boisterous family that loves papa's famous pancakes, movie nights, telling bedtime stories, races and wiffle ball tournaments in the yard.   So, here's to number 4!  To being crazy or religious or going for the girl, here's to life!