I still haven’t really wanted to tell anyone that I’m pregnant. It’s mostly because I haven’t gotten over the fear of how awful it would be for something to go wrong, and to have to say so over and over. If not for the obvious physical clues, I would rather like to just wait until volcano is here and then say, “hey, guess what! I have a baby now!”

but of course it is becoming somewhat obvious, at least to people who know me — those who don’t would not be unreasonable to assume I am just a bit round in the middle — and I didn’t think a surprise maternity leave would be the nicest thing to spring on my principal, either. so I started… not telling people exactly, but not keeping it a secret either. (I suppose that’s the pregnant equivalent of not-not-trying.) and once I let some of my students in on it, everyone at work knew without me having to make a big embarrassing announcement.

while I am still pretty shy in response to “how are you feeling?” and “how is the baby?” questions from adults, I have been surprised to discover how much fun it is for the students to know about the baby. they are adorably and hilariously overprotective, telling me not to bend over or stand on my tiptoes. (for some reason these admonishments are endearing when they come from sixteen-year-olds, even though when adults tell me my backpack is too heavy it makes me want to start doing cartwheels down the sidewalk just to spite them.) when I stand at the doorway to greet them as they come to class, they say “hi rabi! hi baby!” spider’s ninth grade students come to crowd around my doorway and ask, “are you rabi? are you spider’s wife? is that spider’s baby?” they rub my belly and squeal. they describe my child to me:

if it’s a boy, he gonna be the star basketball player. and he’ll be tall and a good science student. he likes to read too and he’ll be smart but not like in a dorky way. if it’s a girl, she’s gonna be the valedictorian with a real articulate speech. she will be a popular girl but not like ‘yeuchh’-popular. she gonna know how to dress.

somehow I don’t mind any of this.

today we went to the hospital for the comprehensive anatomy scan. after being pretty excited about it for the past week, I spent most of the morning in a muted panic, worrying that volcano would be missing a heart valve or a kidney or a cerebellum. depending on what I’m wearing, I can still make my belly disappear almost entirely, and when it does, the students freak out: oh no where’s the baby is it okay? I tell them everything is fine, pull my clothes tight against my body, point to the place where the baby is kicking me. and I think I might not survive that question if I didn’t have such an easy, happy response. so while the ultrasonographer calmly narrated her measurements of all volcano’s features — four-chambered heart, three vessel cord, right leg, left leg, head circumference — and spider joked about the giant feet, I just cried, silently and unblinkingly, in grateful relief.

I suppose it would be easier to tell everyone if it were easier for me to believe myself. I think I, too, am waiting for volcano to come out and say to me, “hey, guess what! you have a baby now!”

for now, she just does her best by prodding me with her giant feet. I do my best by continuing to imagine her four months from now, fully gestated and plumped with babyfat, sitting on the other side of my body. it could really happen.

this time of year, whenever I run through prospect park, I always go up to the top of lookout hill, the highest point in the park. (in fact it is one of the highest elevations in the entire borough, at just shy of two hundred feet above sea level; without the massive deposition from the wisconsin ice sheet, we would be completely underwater.) these are the last few weeks, before the buds and leaves appear, when you can see all the way from the hilltop to the ocean. in between are miles’ worth of unassuming rooftops, a few glistering twenty-first-century monoliths, the parachute jump’s waifish spindle, and the towers of the verrazano bridge, a reminder of the mainland lying mostly behind you.

it’s not the view itself that draws me up there so much as the sense of imminent change. there is something thrilling in the knowledge that the pathways taken by these particular photons will cease to exist in just a few days, once the nascent, nubbly buds on the branches let loose their blooms and leaflets. as lovely as the rush of flowers is once full-blown springtime arrives, I almost like this anticipatory moment better. this moment of being on the verge.

I think I am fairly patient about the wait for spring to arrive, but the changing seasons feel a little more poignant this year than they have before. this year, I am pregnant with my first child, and while I haven’t completely convinced myself that there will be an actual baby living outside my body this fall, I’ve seen enough of the little fetus kickings its minuscule legs to feel like it is, in fact, my child. to my secret delight, the color-coded trimester divisions on the spinning cardboard wheel my midwife gave us are nicely aligned with the dates on which the earth will pass through significant points in its orbit. and so my embryonic winter gives way to this vernal blossoming of hope and growth and light.

we went on a little honeymoon over the holiday break. I forgot to bring my travel journal with me, so I drew a few pictures with the ballpoint pen and notepad that was in our room.

we flew out of new york city at three in the morning, which meant that we got to montego bay just as the sun was coming up. maybe it was the suddenness with which it appeared, all at once as we descended through those towering mountains of clouds, but I was completely shocked by how beautiful the hilly terrain was.

the hammock may not have been quite as enormous, or our legs quite as small, as I made them look. but we did feel kind of like little kids getting away with something as we rocked in that hammock, with no work by our sides or money in our pockets.

I am neither a christian nor a believer, but I love “o holy night.” when I took ballet classes as a little girl, we danced to it every year. it makes me think about our mincing, fluttery little chasses and pas de bourrees, and how we all obediently flopped to the ground when the lyrics told us to. in jamaica, we listened to it as we watched this bonfire send its dancing embers into the sky.

in jamaica, every four year old with a threadbare ball is a better soccer player than I am. we watched some big kids play a good-natured game keepaway from this little guy for a while, which only made him happier to have the ball to himself when they got tired.

(if only a few days away from responsibilities made it seem so rewarding to get them back!)