An interview with Cristina, 33, conducted when her daughter was twenty-four days old. She brings along the diary of her pregnancy, a planner with the notes she took during the nine months.
A nine-month diary: what does it feel like to reread the pages you wrote during pregnancy?
When I found out I was pregnant, I immediately bought this black cardboard notebook with an elastic band: it's a Moleskine, the kind of notebook Bruce Chatwin used to take notes as he traveled the world. I thought that I, too, was about to begin a journey. Maybe not an itinerary, but a path. An adventure of the soul. So I started writing down my thoughts, my feelings, everything I saw, on the street, on the bus, lines from books I liked, the crying, the cravings, but also the numbers (counting the weeks, my baby's «measurements»)… A bit of everything. I didn't follow any order and I didn't write every day: I noted down what happened to me in a «nomadic», random way, following the thread of my own exploration. The feeling I get reading them now is nostalgia. Like with my belly: I miss it. As cumbersome as it was, it made me feel like a queen. I wish it could have lasted forever. And it's a shame it was winter, because under heavy clothes it showed less. In summer, everyone would have seen that I was pregnant.
What's the first thing you wrote?
Three wishes: that the baby be healthy, lively, and a boy. Then, though, when at four months I got the amniocentesis results and found out it was a girl, I felt terribly guilty. So I went back to the first page and added: «As long as there was doubt, I could have a wish. Now I'm sorry. Every choice brings a yes, but also a no. Better to want them the same, whether boy or girl. Or both».
What comes before the diary? What's the story that precedes it, the one you didn't write down?
It's not the story of a long wait. I got pregnant almost right away: just long enough to want it, between the two of us. Marco and I had been living together for five years and had decided to get married, a month away. That I wanted a child was obvious, but he had never really thought about it, or even tried to talk about it. One morning, just after waking up, he told me he'd dreamed of walking along a mountain trail with a child on his shoulders. That's when I understood that he, too, was ready.
What happened then?
It all happened so quickly that when, a month later, my period was late for the first time, I didn't even think I might be pregnant. I blamed it on the stress of getting ready for the wedding. I had friends who had been trying for a baby for years: could I really be so lucky on the first try?
I took the pregnancy test on our wedding night. A rather unusual way to celebrate! We were on our way back from the reception and Marco insisted on finding a pharmacy that was open. We got home with our hearts in our throats. Having bought the test made the doubt more concrete, gave it substance. What if we really were pregnant? (Yes, from then on, I always used the plural.) We opened the box together, read and reread the instructions, which are actually very simple. This litmus-paper-like strip is supposed to turn pink. The result is positive if the color lasts for at least a few minutes. Marco was tense: he said he'd already gotten used to the idea of becoming a father. It seemed like a surprising, auspicious coincidence to discover we were expecting a baby on the very day of our wedding. I had a strange fear of disappointing him.
What did you do?
The strip changed color right away: it was fuchsia, almost red, and Marco started shouting: «It's there, it's there, it's there!».
What did you feel?
A strange rush of emotions. On one hand, I was worried the test might not be reliable, that we were getting our hopes up for nothing. On the other, I was moved, almost overwhelmed by Marco's enthusiasm. Of the two of us, he was the hesitant one, the one who had always put it off. As for me, I felt «behind» the events, as if what I was feeling lagged a little. I still had my wedding dress on, I could still hear the echo of my «I do», his, my mother's words, our friends' good wishes, the sound of rice falling from every direction, the pleasure of a plan taking shape… I felt like I was already at the peak of emotion, and now here was news that raised the stakes even higher. I was breathless. With the feeling, even physically, that my heart wasn't big enough to hold it all. It would burst. You can't be that happy twice, with this intensity, on the same day.
And this is where your Moleskine begins.
Yes, I think I started writing partly to keep all that emotional overflow under control. I needed, somehow, to give it a voice, to let it out.
Then, little by little, pregnancy had a stabilizing effect on me. It forced me to slow down, gave me a rhythm for reflection and access to a new phase of life. Calmer, better paced in terms of mental time. Along with the diary, I almost immediately started a photo album too. Yes, because my collection begins well before the birth, with the ultrasound images. I read so many books about children's need for roots that I thought I'd preserve as much of her history as possible for Laura, her story. So the album already begins in the third month, with this white dot just a few centimeters long, photographed inside my belly.
Read another page from the diary.
February 6th. Right now, according to the medical encyclopedia, I'm growing my daughter's lungs. I focus on all the cells it takes to put these vital organs together. Maybe that's why I'm so tired?
February 8th. For our life as a couple, this is a magical time. This pregnancy has given us a direction.
February 9th. How would I like her to look? With Marco's hair, blond, very fine. Please, not my frizzy curls.
Were you able to write anything about the moment of childbirth too?
There are the days leading up to it: weeks of terrible anxiety. Mine was an almost perfect pregnancy. No problems, no surprises. It had gone so well that, right at the end, I became terribly afraid of ruining everything. I started thinking the baby could die being born, strangled by the umbilical cord, by me. The same guilty, uncontrollable, self-pitying fear I had felt in the fourth month, right after having the amniocentesis. I knew there was a small risk to the fetus, one percent, I think. The next day I had some spotting and immediately thought I would lose her. It was my fault. Because of my stupid, selfish need for reassurance, I had ruined everything. By the end of the nine months, the fear came back, overwhelming. I couldn't stay optimistic anymore. I was afraid something would happen. Right then, just days before the birth.
On top of that, I, who had always trusted medicine, trusted science, started to distrust my gynecologist, to doubt his competence. What if, at the last moment, he decided on a cesarean, against my will? Or induced contractions with oxytocin, just to speed things up and go home sooner?
I was also worried about Marco. He would surely panic and rush me to the hospital at the first sign of pain, while I wanted to stay home as long as possible.
And how did it really go?
I was proven wrong on every count. This piece of paper is the proof. Here are all the minutes of the contractions written down, from 8 in the evening, when they started, until 11:30. Marco wrote it. As soon as I felt them starting, I asked him to run me a lukewarm bath. I did almost all of my labor in the water, with him beside me, calmly and precisely timing the duration and frequency of the contractions. I tried to repeat the breathing exercises I had been taught in the prenatal class, and during the pauses between the pain, I focused on colors, paintings, memories. I had learned it in autogenic training classes: visualize, imagine. During labor, the challenge is keeping your mind occupied. Especially at the start, the interval between one contraction and the next is quite long, and there's enough time to recover. Still, you're so anxious that you risk spending the whole pain-free interval waiting for it to start again. That way, the waiting is worse than the pain.
How long after that did you give birth?
Partly thanks to the water easing the pain and partly thanks to the breathing, I managed to stay fairly calm. When, at 11:30, the contractions seemed close enough together, we went to the hospital. Marco came into the delivery room with me, and the two of us, the three of us, him, me, our baby girl, came out an hour later.
Did you write anything else in the diary after the birth?
Just: Laura, 3 kilos. The journey is yours now.