OK so it's just after 4 am, and neither Morgaine nor I can sleep. She can't sleep because of ongoing respiratory issues and coughing attacks (and the need to be cuddled and have her belly kissed, which I can also do from here); I can't sleep because it's my last day of work today before Mat Leave and I have so many things swirling around in my head that they're keeping me awake. Which is a bit of a bugger, as I also have to head off after work to a two hour session on "Vaginal Birth after Caesarian" or VBAC for those with a tendency to fling it into everyday conversation, as I do. (A V-Dub? said my sister, what on earth are you talking about??)
It's also that stage in the pregnancy when you realise just how important unconscious movements in sleep are. Because if you can't do it, and wake up after lying in one position on one side, because the elegant wiggle you could usually do was something like a beached whale without the help of 26 anxious helpers on the beach with a TV crew in tow, is just impossible. So your shoulder's sore and your hips feel weird, and all my earrings are imbedded into the side of my head. (Bugger off, it's late -- so a shift between the you/ one voice and "me" is impossible to negotiate at this hour.) Although I've never really got the ongoing obsession with sleep that so many people have, which must be the privilege of a person who can usually simply sleep. But an old friend of mine used to always begin her conversations with "how are you - exhausted?", even before she had three children. And this used to drive me nuts.
And I know it can be the central obsession of parents, but I'll put it on record now, in order to be proved wrong in about six weeks time, that I do NOT want my dominant mode of conversation with new Baby Boy, to be about how much I have or haven't slept, or how much he has or hasn't slept. He'll be newly hatched, so he'll wake up constantly wondering where the hell he is and whatever happened to all that water. Fair enough.
So from sleep and pregnancy then, I'll move on to emotions, tears and pregnancy. I was watching the last bit of the Leonard Cohen doco I'm Your Man last night, with Abe on the couch and M on his lap. Looking at him with utter adoration. Then, right near the end, Rufus Wainwright sang "Hallelujah" (you can watch and listen to it here - although this version has clearly been captured from a German versionof the doco, complete with German subtitles, oh well) and it moved me to tears. I also thought it was a clever as hell, interesting, wonderful doco. And just loved hearing Nick Cave describing how hearing Cohen helped him think through everything he hated about living in small town Australia . . . and his version of "I'm your man" was lovely, but him singing "Suzanne" (one of the few Cohen songs I tend to be underwhelmed by) showed me what other's see in the song. Anway, I don't usually weep over songs, and a friend did suggest that this was about the hormones of late pregnancy. True, although I'm happy to add in a dose of the sublime in song, too.
But the doco then moved to a hilarious version of Cohen himself singing Tower of Song which just proves you can be a poet and not take yourself too seriously. And I have no idea whether that link to a YouTube clip will work. But this linking malarky is quite fun, isn't it??
But back to the girl on the lounge with her dad, while we watched the doco. Perhaps the emotions were all there and ready to go because everytime I looked at them, M was gazing up at Abe with complete and utter love and fascination all over her face. And with her very gentle movements she'd reach up to touch his face.
Surely, that'd "bring a tear to a glass eye"?
