What are you doing in there?

Is it a dance recital
Or are you practicing a martial art?

What is it like to live
Entirely upside down, feet in my ribs?

Do you really get to taste
A little of every thing I eat?

Can you hear my singing
Over the rush of blood through the placenta?

Are those hiccups hurting you
When you have them for over a minute?

Do you dream in color
Or are there only soundscapes and emotions?

Bronchitis While Pregnant

Breathing and not breathing,
Stuffy but clear enough,
Inside bigger than the outside.

Brain foggy from lack of oxygen getting in.
Or is it lack of iron to move it around?
Same difference, to the bloodstream.

Is that chest tightness
The swelling from the microbes
Or the baby pushing the diaphragm?


Cough out all the mucous (and air),
Then try not breathe too deeply or too fast while refilling the lungs
Lest the coughing start up all over again.

Drink more water, and tea.
Yes, even more than before,
So be ready for twice as many bathroom visits.

Have a snack.
It's been over an hour since the last one, after all.
Maybe something warm to help soothe the throat.


Relax, but not too much.
The wrong angle makes it worse:
The coughing, the back pain, the tight-yet-loosening tendons.

Rest, but don't sit still too long.
Gotta stretch all those shifting joints and muscles
Or there will be no unassisted movement later.

Sleep, but only in short increments.
There's too much coughing and peeing and stretching
To manage a nap of meaningful length.


To conclude:
Try to remember that
The discomfort is temporary.


I feel yucky today, but I still wanted to at least attempt some poetry. So, poetry about feeling yucky is what you get. That's life sometimes.

Growing Pains

Today, I have many growing pains.

My back hurts in three different places.
My chest hurts whenever I digest.
My thigh hurts if I lie on it too long.
My throat hurts from frequent heartburn.
My feet hurt if I ever stand still.
My side hurts when I sit at all.
My pelvis hurts without lots of stretching.
My head hurts if I get thirsty.

Growing a human can be uncomfortable.

The Apostrophe Question

I always wonder where the apostrophe should go: inside the word or next to it.

Inside implies one mother.

Perhaps it means “motherhood’s day”

(but that didn't fit as nicely on the sign).

Maybe it means a more personal mother:

the day to remember and honor your specific mother.

But, everyone has more than one mother.

On a biological note, all mothers have mothers;

it’s mothers all the way down.

Then there are the surrogates:

teachers, friends, spiritual leaders, aunts.

Anyone that helps a person grow.

Outside makes it plural possessive.

The day of many mothers,

the day of any and all mothers,

the day of celebrating nurturing itself,

and Mother Nature itself

(another mother we all have).

These days, I wonder where I should go: inside the group or next to it.

I am between maiden and mother spiritually.

I am fairly old or still quite young,

depending on culture, time, and personal opinion.

I did not yet feel motherly or mom-like

(more like a still-developing proto-mom)

when I experienced miscarriage.

I don’t much feel like I lost a child,

more like a particular vision of the future --

a (now alternate) reality to which I’d become accustomed,

and of which I was growing quite fond.

But I wanted it,

I was preparing for it,

and I had (nearly) accepted it as part of my identity.

I’m caught between alternate versions of being.

The apostrophe and me - in or out?

The answer feels ambiguous at best.

Because I wonder about this every time I type Mother's Day, I have researched it. Officially, the apostrophe goes before the s. Here’s the brief wikipedia explanation.