His and hers meconium
How a pregnancy tracking app gave me two babies this week.
When I first found out I was pregnant I downloaded a pregnancy tracking app called Baby Centre. Before that I had a period tracking app. I like tracking things. In the early days it was cool to see that our baby had grown from the size of a pea to the size of a grape, and that he went from looking like a gross sea worm to something that almost resembled a person, with eyes, arms, and a tail, like us.
As time went on I became more confident in my own body and baby and didn’t really look at the app, I know that he is bigger than an apple and smaller than me, and I know this because I can feel his little body pressing against me, and he is always doing a long interpretive dance, just like me, so I know that he’s alright, and his ultrasound reports and all the other test results throw out phrases like ‘very good’ and ‘great’, so I know he’s just thriving in the little belly-home I’ve made for him. I know that he’s due at the end of June and I won’t forget this because 1. My ever-growing belly will be fucking huge and 2. He’s coming out, one way or another, regardless of whether I’ve managed to forget this because I haven’t checked the pregnancy tracker app and had it inform me ‘your baby should be one week old now’. I don’t think I’ll see that and look down and think, oh fuck, I forgot to birth you.
Despite all of this, despite my anti-need for the app, I keep it, and I check it regularly because, much like my love for Married at First Sight Australia, it’s fucking hilarious, and I’m addicted. It has a forum where seemingly the worst people in the world (IMHO) talk about whether they’re going to decorate the nursery in jungle theme or ocean theme. They talk about whether they will name their baby Archer or Ava (the hottest names this season). They talk about serious health things that (I feel) really shouldn’t be posted about on a forum, unless you’re posting on your way to the hospital.
I once posted in the forum gently suggesting that perhaps we should all mind our language when talking about finding out the ‘gender’ of our babies, because we in fact aren’t finding out the gender, we are finding out the sex, and as this is a large, inclusive community perhaps minding our language and using the scientific term wouldn’t be harmful or hard for anyone. Many responses I received were as if I had said ‘babies suck and let’s throw them all away’ (mainly a bunch of people thinking I was talking about gender-neutral parenting, which isn’t something my husband and I plan to practise). Lots of positive ones too, which was great.
My favourite part isn’t always the forums but the little overview the app writes every week about your baby’s development. They like to alternate between male and female pronouns, I assume the reason behind this is so that everyone feels that it’s referring to their baby, however this might cause some confusion when little Archer’s mum stops mid jungle decal application to read the app and thinks, ‘well that doesn’t apply to MY baby because I’m having a boy’ when the article says ‘she has developed ears’. Sometimes one week will be all male pronouns, and the next week all female, and sometimes one week will be male for one sentence and female for the next. This week wins though, week 23 wins the gender-confused writing award, this week a sentence read, ‘He’s swallowing but she normally won’t pass his first stool (called meconium) until after birth’. Now, maybe the sentence is accurate, and there are suddenly two babies inside me this week; one that is swallowing, and his sister who is inexplicably preparing to pass his stool for him; but peeking ahead to next week, it seems the second child will have disappeared again. It’s an emotional roller coaster, really.
All of my current concerns about a temporary duplicate womb-resident, and the confusion of Archer’s poor mum, could be easily fixed if the app simply referred to the baby as THE BABY, or, ‘your baby’, or ‘they’. Gender-neutral pronouns are not a scary thing. Using them is not a political statement, it just stops you from tying yourself in knots trying to please two groups of people, only to end up disappointing everyone.
The world is a dark place right now. The bad outweighs the good and it doesn’t seem like things are going to get better. I try not to think about it too much, and focus on my little family, and our love, and growing our little one, and finding silly things to laugh at, but our son will grow up in a strange world. No matter what happens, we will give him so, so much love, no matter who she is or who he wants to be.
