Conception
The dream begins the same way every time.
“Ticket for one” I tell the usher. He’s wearing an old-fashioned uniform with gold epaulets. He points down the hall to a dark theater. I enter and take my seat. The cushions squeak, their tarnished blue-green velvet crunching against my thighs.
It’s a movie theater, old Hollywood, an art deco proscenium speaks to a bygone era of in-person preview announcements. More velvet, a dark red curtain hides the screen. I’m waiting for something, someone.
Just as I stand to leave, a small boy in an ill-fitting wizard’s robe appears stage left. His face is cherubic, with black eyes shining beneath the ill-fitting pointed cap. He balances on tip-toe to pull the curtain’s heavy golden cord, his strength belying his stature.
The curtain swings open to reveal a spinning, glowing, yellow orb.
Winter, 2018
I sit bolt upright on my platform bed, surveying the small studio apartment with a practiced eye. My clothes from the night before lay in a crumpled heap, next to them my keys and purse.
My hand fumbles next for my phone, which is easy to find, the chimes of my alarm are ringing their third round. Three glasses of wine the night before, three stabs at the snooze icon. And there’s my laptop computer, propped open on a chair pulled to the side of my queen size bed. The screen is frozen, I’ve fallen asleep watching Sex and the City season two, yet again.
The dream of the little sorcerer boy must have been strong this time because those three glasses of wine? They were more like five.
“Good morning, Andrew! I’ll take the noon Hatha. Slow flow feels like the right speed for me today.” In 2018 I was averaging five sweat sessions a week at Urban Yoga Spa, enough to balance out my twelve-hour work day; rehearsing in the afternoon, performing all night and then drinking to unwind. Yoga gave me structured space to think about the dream I was having with increasing frequency.
“Arch your back, open your heart” I move into camel pose on the hottest side of the spacious studio. Wine and stress drip out of my pores as I think about the dream. I know the sorcerer boy is my child. I know the golden orb is the egg, waiting in my body. This deep knowledge is the same feeling that made me go off of my hormonal birth control the year before. I’d been on the pill since I was 18. It was a quiet decision. There was no conversation, no opinions, no one to judge me when I signed up for the Natural Cycles app to track my ovulation. I sleepwalked through the decision to ready my body to conceive.
I would practice safe sex, but deep down I knew that there was a child in my future.
“Come out of the pose and sit with that feeling. Hands palm down on your thighs” Why hadn’t I shared my decision with my close friends, or even my Sister? If I’m honest, I feared judgement. I was a working actor, dating a few people, nothing special. I was the furthest thing from child-ready. I didn’t want to talk about it.
The moment Christian and I decided we wanted to try for a baby, that was when the talking really started. But it all began with that little boy from my dreams who magicked himself into being in the most human way possible.
June 8th, 2020
“Black lives matter! Thank you, health care workers!” I let the bellows of my accordion exhale and click the snap shut, hefting the twenty-pound instrument onto our bed. I leave the window open. It’s a warm summer day and small fan propped between the panes blows the twilight air into our studio apartment.
I started taking accordion lessons the week before the Covid-19 pandemic forced us into quarantine. Now, my lessons are on a Zoom video call. The silver lining of no theater, no restaurants and fear sequestering us in our 500 square foot apartment is that there is more time to practice. If you’ve ever played accordion, you know they multiply quickly! I have two and I’m teaching Christian a few beginner songs. His fingers, trained with a chef knife, are nimble and a quick study.
Our repertoire is up to three songs. A little waltz called ‘Skating’, ‘La Vie en Rose’ and we’ve recently added ‘For they are jolly good fellows’. This nightly concert is in response to the citywide Make A Joyful Noise campaign, encouraging we citizens to throw open our windows at 8pm to honor the essential workers who do not have the luxury of shelter-in-place, rather taking the front lines against the virus.
“I biffed the chord change to Dminor, but it’s feeling more memorized!”
I cross past our bed into the ships galley style kitchen to pop us both keylime LeCroixs. Christian puts his hands on my hips as I return, spinning me towards him. I lean into the hug and run my hand down his shoulder to the small of his back, relishing the embrace.
We’ve spent every day of the lockdown together, going on sixty now, but it’s hardly a honeymoon. The stress and fear of the pandemic has depressed us both. Spontaneous affection is rarer than you’d think, and treasured.
More shouting and car honking breaks us apart. A man without shoes, matted curls streaming behind him, is leading a group holding signs down Pine Street. I recognize him, he’s been camped out in the doorway of the congregational church that neighbors our 1920’s apartment building. Around 2pm, he’ll yell strangled profanities at the sky. Tonight, his eyes are bright, his words easy to understand as the crowd chants with him.
“Defund the Police! George Floyd! Say his name!” The ritual of the evening protest since the Black Lives Matter movement exploded after the murder of George Floyd has its own somber metronome.
“I still can’t believe it when I see so many people together. In masks.”
Christian is shirtless, holding the remote. We’ve ran out and joined the protests a few times, but the fear of the virus has frozen us both. It’s not a good feeling. We’re not alone. We notice our neighbors across Bellevue avenue, also observing.
In Seattle, the sky at 8:30pm in June is a handsome pink. The abandoned skyscrapers shine like a Ridley Scott feature film. I finish my Le Croix and open another. Our small fridge is stacked with veggies, sparkling water, four different kinds of cheese, ice cream and grapes fill out the freezer. Even though our jobs have been frozen, we’ve made an unspoken pact not to scrimp on groceries. It’s the small comforts that really count these days.
The opening credits of “Do the Right Thing” are paused, as Christian follows me into the walk-in closet as I clear the freshly folded laundry from our loveseat. I know there’s something on his mind. He touches my back again as I organize my summer dresses to the front of the closet. The rod sags with the weight of both our wardrobes. We never meant to stay in such a small space after moving in together last fall. It was supposed to be a trial run, to see how we fit together, and to save a little money.
“My love, are you ovulating this week?”I look up into his blue eyes, that wasn’t what I expected!
“My LH test was negative today, but it should happen in the next few days, yes.”
“I was thinking that we should just go for it. It’s been two months now. Things don’t seem to be getting any better out there” he nods to the open window “but how long are we going to put our dreams on hold?”
I think of the little sorcerer boy in my dream, and then of the tidal wave of rushing color that swept me off my feet when Christian and I fell in love in the cold beginnings of 2019.
He had put his hand on my knee as I sat on the table after a late rehearsal at the dinner theater where we both worked, waiting for my car ride home alone.“I want you to know I think you are amazing. I see how hard you work. You are so special”
Part of what makes me an Artist Mama is seeing art in every aspect of my life. This has led to some questionable behavior in the name of drama! That said, I pride myself on trusting my instinct. When Christian locked onto me and said exactly what I needed to hear, I could feel it, my dream coming true. And though the romance moved quickly, it was a conscious choice. We worked together, after all.
The tidal wave of color that consumed me was also water under the bridge. From messy exes to demanding careers, Christian and I had a lot in common.
April 2019
“There’s something we need to talk about”I fiddled with the rock collection Christian kept on the passenger dashboard of his well loved Scion. Queen played on the radio as we idled outside Uwajimaya in Seattle’s International District.
“I know you want to have children. I knew that going into this. I think you should know that I’ve dreamed of having a child, and I would be open to trying with you. If it’s meant to happen, it will.”
Christian’s heart was in his eyes as he leaned across the console to kiss me.
“It’s like I’m finally hearing everything I’ve wanted to hear. In all my other relationships it’s been so hard. I would tell myself, things might change, I would wait. But with you, it’s so easy. I love you.”
When we tell this story, Christian relishes pointing out that I was “shwastey”, having downed two gin martinis before beginning this conversation. Perhaps that explains what I said next!
“I do want to get started soon, if we are going to try. I wish I had met you ten years ago. I’ve never been pregnant before and a doctor once told me I have a tilted cervix and it might be difficult to conceive. I want to be honest, because if kids are a deal breaker for you…”
“Opal, I want you. You saying this makes me love you even more. If it’s between you and a baby, I choose you.”
We shopped for wild skate and fresh noodles and promptly left the store forgetting the grocery bag on the checkout stand, so eager and in love, and excited for our future.
But for an actor the idea of pregnancy was a scheduling nightmare. In 2019 I performed in Bohemia, Jitterbug Perfume, The Champagne Widow and Violet’s Attic – thirty weeks of 4-5 shows a week onstage. I was also planning a European tour for Bohemia in 2020. Yes, I dreamed of having a child, but these dreams were important too!
So when I looked at my Natural Cycles app and tried to predict which ovulation would begin the conception roulette, it felt like a thousand cards were precariously stacked on this one lovely act.
Like so many things in life, I learned what to expect from my friends.Wanda always wanted children. A Montessori teacher, she and her husband tried 13 times before they conceived their son, Jerome, shortly after her 28th birthday.
Kelsey had three children between her 18th and 35th years. Hoping for a fourth, she became pregnant on the second try, but suffered a false pregnancy, an unviable fetus that miscarried early, but failed to exit her womb, requiring surgery in her third month.
My best friend from high school, with much handwringing, agreed to her husband’s wish to try for a baby before she turned 35. She got pregnant the first time, mere days after flushing her trusty ortho-tri-cyclen.
So I was mentally preparing myself for the whole spectrum of emotional outcomes. Pregnant first go? This show canceled, that one – the costume would support a big belly (assuming I wasn’t horribly sick). Miscarriage…I tried to be realistic, it seemed like every other woman I knew had had at least one. How do you prepare yourself for that horror?
June 2019
“The likelihood that we’ll conceive the first time we try is very low, so we should try a lot, but it’s anxiety provoking!”
“If it’s not something you really want, just tell me. I want you. I’m happy.”
Christian pulled my foot out from under the black Egyptian cotton comforter and playfully caressed his cheek with my toes. I sighed, rolling my shoulders.
“Let’s make the first time we try special. July, after I finish performances for The Champagne Widow, let’s go to Mexico. You can practice your Spanish, and we can relax, without the stress of the show schedule. I’ll be ovulating that week.”
Christian fished my phone out from under the pillow and held it to my face, to unlock the combination, before opening my calendar app.
“I’m not sure how relaxing that will be for me. I’ll only be able to take off four days, and I should be working on the new menu for 7th and Jackson.”
My Libra won out over his Virgo this round! With a few clicks through Expedia and Airbnb and we were checking in to an oversized condo in off-season Cabo for four fertile days.
Christian wrapped his arms around me on the white sand beach, as we watched the waves crash against the coral, talking about our deepest fears.
“If you were to guess the reason our love would die, what would it be?” “I’m scared I will ruin everything that is good in my life.”Later that month, alone in my bathroom, before telling him the pregnancy test is negative, I look at myself in the mirror above the sink and check my heart: Ambivalence. Relief? It’s one thing to dream, another to live the dream.
We try again in August, and September. Negative. Negative. We take a break over the holiday season because of my show schedule. That fall I ask Christian to move in with me.
“I’m month to month on the studio, we can see how we like living together before signing a lease on something bigger.”
Yes, it did occur to me that I had more trepidation about signing a lease than trying to conceive a child. But if I had any doubts, they were easily overshadowed by Christian.
“I love you, I want to be with you. I trust you.”Christian. As we cheer In 2020, with every passing day he’s more interesting to me, more fun. Even the mundane task of choosing a film to watch is turned into a game. And he looks so hopeful when I tell him I’m ovulating. We decide to try again in February, as my fertile window falls over Valentine’s Day.
We both work through terrible colds, me preparing for a show tour abroad, he during the holiday season at his downtown Seattle restaurant – his job change prompted by a considerable pay jump from the dinner theater. “It’s the responsible thing, if we’re going to start a family.”
Despite the fevers and congestion, we book a suite at The Edgewater the Monday after Valentine’s Day. Propped up on a stack of King size pillows, I flick through the channels.
“There’s a Godfather marathon”
“The Godfather, again?”
“It’s good background sound”
“I see. Come here.”
We selfie wearing monogrammed bathrobes with towels on our heads and joke that this might be the photo we remember forever, if we conceived a child.
A week later, murmurs of a killer virus shutting down travel to Italy and Asia make their way to Seattle. When my test result shows negative again, my face in the mirror is fearful, drained of color. I feel the little sorcerer boy fading away, a silly dream there is no point in believing. I’m distracted by a text alert on my phone, another actor is breaking contract on our European tour, convinced that this oddly named “coronavirus” is something actually serious.
“No baby. I was disappointed this time.” I fall into Christian’s arms, he’s been waiting for me, on our bed. It’s morning, so he’s wearing his chef’s whites and I’m careful not to hug his sharp creases too tight.
A month later, the whites are hanging in the closet and we’re both unemployed.“I always wished we would have more time together. I didn’t mean to cause a pandemic” Christian jokes, as we lay together on the cozy section of carpet between the bed skirts and the back of the couch. He begins kissing my shoulders and there’s a pause, the kind that could go on forever, for two people in love. I break it.
“I want to stop trying for a baby. For a little bit. I’m sad. We’re not working. The world is on fire. Is this anything to bring a child into?”
Christian holds me as we grieve our imagined future.
60 days and 2 cycles later
“If we got pregnant now, we’d have to be very, very careful. Doesn’t the virus transfer to a fetus? And what If Trump is reelected?”
“I think we should try. We’re not going to go back to normal this year, maybe not even next year. And then - ”
“I’ll be forty.”
I cover my eyes and pace out of the closet, into the small bathroom. My fancy thong underwear is hanging from the doorknob to dry, the laundry chore forgotten.
Christian follows me. His shirtless abs sport a tattoo, in Olde English “Live Life. No Regrets” I look from him, to the mirror. Instead of my reflection, my eyes catch a pink post-it note. “I choose to see love instead of fear” is scrawled in my handwriting.
Could my decision be more obvious?
“Let’s do it!”We kiss, we cry, and three weeks later in the same bathroom I hold my breath and let go at the same time. The double blue lines on the error proof test are so strong. I jump up and down. I look into the mirror and see a mother’s love blinking back at me.
The dream begins the same way every time. The old Hollywood theater, the sorcerer boy controlling what I see on the screen. That young woman waking blind, but listening to a voice she could barely hear, reading fortunes on post-it notes and trusting faithfully. I’m so grateful for her.
Christian and I with our accordions for “Make a Joyful Noise” in May 2020
A Note:
Let’s go back to that pink post it note, when the path to my son Hero became crystal clear. That was the final stepping stone before conceiving, but it was quite the journey and I felt like I was fumbling through most of it. Here’s some contact tracing for you!
“I choose to see love instead of fear” is one of the daily mantras that are a part of spiritual guru Gabby Bernstein’s “May Cause Miracles” course (a 21stcentury riff on the fusty metaphysical tome, “A Course in Miracles”).
After watching Covid-19 splinter the most successful year of my artistic life, I was in need of a spiritual reset. I downloaded Gabby’s book from Audible and started her daily 10 minute meditations, reciting mantras and searching for a path back to hope and faith.
It’s no accident that I found this particular book. “May Cause Miracles” was vociferously recommended by Holly Whitikar on the Home Podcast. I binge listened to the some hundred episodes in January of 2020 after Christian and I set Valentine’s Day as our Make-A-Baby goal.
In the winter of 2019 I took a long, hard look at my life and turned up the volume on the voice that said my nightly glass (or five) of wine wasn’t going to help my baby dreams come true.
“The drinking can go. Make space for the little sorcerer boy.” The voice said. So, I listened. I followed the sparks of advice, the murmurs that said, “If you want to be a mother, become the mother you want to be.”
I did a Dry January with Georgia from My Favorite Murder, which led me to a book she recommended “This Naked Mind”. I then scrolled down, perusing the other “quit-lit” available. I found the Home Podcast - two gals in their late thirties who spoke about having a “sobriety toolbox”, and parenting that made sense to me.
When the pandemic rolled in, I had new coping mechanisms besides my wine glass. I wasn’t as afraid to slow down and listen to my body and spirit. This curiosity was inspired by spiritual activists like Sah D’Simone who managed to find joy despite the gloom and Sara Clark who practiced yoga with a sober curious lens.
Seeing this path gives me faith. Faith and listening are both skills I call upon daily, as an artist and as a mother. I call them skills because I had to learn them, and I’m hardly a natural. Does this feel like it rings a bell to you? I hope the mechanics of my education may serve, if so.
Ending on a sober note? Not really. I don’t identify as Sober, but I don’t drink in the same way I once did and the conception of my son is absolutely why. This path I’ve devised is simply what worked for me.
This is/was me! Love her. Baby was just a glimmer in the eye at this point. A dreamy future.
Street art by Kreau in our neighborhood, June 2020
And here is some of the on-site reporting (through comics) I followed from my friend and artist/activist Tessa Hulls that beautifully and simply explains what the Seattle Capitol Hill Occupied Protest (CHOP) was all about.
This photo was taken around the time I proposed a baby.