Genetics

I’m going to let you in on a little secret; Waiting is hard work. I’ve been sitting around waiting for this baby to decide the time is right for her to make her grand entrance, and aside from regular bouts of hiccoughs, some very well placed kicks and the occasional practice contractions, she seems rather cozy and perfectly content to fight with me about who gets the space underneath my right rib cage.

Yes, we are fighting already, and she really does not play fair. She waits until I stretch out for a brief period of time and then with lightning speed manages to lodge a foot up under my rib cage effectively blocking me from returning my torso to a normal comfortable position—and the battle begins. I combat this invasion of torso space with a well meaning massage of said offending foot in a feeble attempt to maneuver it from underneath my lower ribs. She diligently defends her newly conquered territory with an all out attack on my bladder which I swear she is using as a speed bag to prove her boxing prowess. Sufficiently distracted I relinquish the battle for the rib cage and seek out the well known confines of the bathroom while she settles in with a smirk on her face and the ever lovely knowledge of one more victory over my body. Pregnancy is wonderful…

She’s a fighter I’m telling you, it takes one to know one, and well, I know it. I can’t wait to meet her face to face, which brings me back to my initial statement—this waiting stuff is no joke. I’ve had a lot of time to ponder about who she may be—throwing in variables regarding various markers in both John and my genetic background. Some of these thoughts are bordering on ridiculous, although I wonder if some geneticist has pondered the same questions while in his brightly lit lab room sporting a spiffy crisp white lab coat and peering through his trusty microscope at the building blocks of human life.

I’ve found myself attributing many traits that I carry to my genetics—granted they may in fact be scapegoats for my behaviors, but I prefer to think of them as genetic markers and hereditary conditions instead. For instance, I am beyond convinced that there is a messy car gene. I inherited this gene from my father and I’m praying that I do not pass it along to my daughter.

My father’s car was always in a condition of disarray when I was a young impressionable child. He had piles of junk all over the place, yet he claimed to know where everything was. I never missed an opportunity to comment on his cars condition, while riding high upon my horse and looking down upon the lowly cart of junk on wheels. To my dismay, I have developed this same tendency. I always swore that my car would be pristine, you know, the kind of car that retains its new car smell for three plus years or so. Thanks to genetics, I have yet to maintain a spotless car for more than a few weeks. I simply have found that fighting my nature is far too difficult a task for me, so I have given in.

I am well aware that some may argue that apathy rather than genetics are to blame for my car’s condition, but I will staunchly defend my attribution of my problems to Mother Nature herself, for there are many traits which I find myself at a complete loss of any ability to control. Maybe, possibly, it could be a lack of desire to control these hereditary compulsions, but most likely at least in my highly educated opinion—the messy car gene may very well become Ocean’s to embody, though I pray that she too will know exactly what is in which pile, for if she does not inherit the pack-rat organization gene as well, she truly will be lost when it comes to retrieving anything from the depths of her backseat.