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Entry 5

Posted Friday, March 21, 2003, at 3:09 PM ET

Dahlia Lithwick is Slate's Supreme Court and legal correspondent. She is expecting her first baby in three weeks.

More photos from Dahlia Lithwick.

Dahlia Lithwick

Today starts with my weekly doctor's visit, which is nice because it's the one time each week when you are supported and validated in your own secret conviction that this baby you're carrying is indeed the Buddha reincarnated (or some equally holy personage that should be worshipped and revered rather than ignored pointedly on the D.C. subway). The astonishing news is that I've somehow lost a pound since last week. And you saw the Oreo picture. It's a miracle! This is cause for great feasting and celebration throughout the land as soon as I get home.

(There was the dark, dark day, around Month 6, when I outweighed Aaron for the first time. He promptly performed some kind of modified touchdown dance right there in the examining room. I suspect that could have triggered a Lorena Bobbitt moment for some women, but I just smiled coolly and regally and vowed to get even by writing all about it someday on the Internet.)

Dahlia Lithwick and obstetrician

My obstetrician and I engage in a protracted round of Middle-East-level diplomacy over my attendance at oral argument in the Supreme Court next month. She gives me a tentative yes for the gay sodomy case next week, and a big honking no for affirmative action the week after. My obstetrician is far too young and beautiful to also be an obstetrician. She could be the obstetrician on The Bachelor. But no means no, and I am secretly relieved that someone has finally said "no" to me so I can stop pretending to be the Energizer Bunny when I feel like road kill.

This all does put a serious crimp in my monthslong fantasy of Chief Justice Rehnquist delivering my baby right up on the bench in the Supreme Court, while Justice Souter holds my hand and gently guides me through deep, cleansing breaths. But, good readers, I fear that you're on your own (or at least in the vastly more capable hands of La Greenhouse) for the future of affirmative action.

So, today I was finally able to name the strange feeling that's been plaguing me all week; the sense that everyone else in the world is focused on real, important things, like global warfare, while I have been sucked—for the first time in my life—into this strange private world populated only by my husband and this tiny person inside me who doesn't understand that it's choosing to be born, inexorably, into such a complicated time of war. "Diarizing while Rome burns," is how I described it yesterday, when a friend called to reassure me that it's nice to laugh amid all this worry.

Tonight, Aaron gets home late from hanging his white flags for a show about the war. I lie awake, envying him for having something to say about this war, which has silenced me so completely. I can't fall asleep, and eventually I stop trying. My stomach is going wild—leaping and bucking without pause. It feels like I ate a whole plateful of bad babies last night. I get up finally and roam the house from 1 a.m. to 4 a.m., trying to figure out if there is anything to write or think about this war that would add value or meaning to a diary.

I stand at the window and listen to the peepers in the pond then lower myself in Hippo-Yogic fashion onto the kitchen floor to scratch Stubby—who is confused about this sudden hiatus in the Withhold Feline Affection Plan. Women have babies every day, I tell myself, this is no big deal. Women have babies in wartime, and during famines, and women are being bombed today in Baghdad, with new babies at their sides. It's not all that big or important, and it's certainly not worth writing about.

And then the Wee Bald Stranger kicks one more time, hard and up near the ribs where it's guaranteed to hurt for a few days at least. I give it a pat, and it occurs to me that maybe it's OK that the whole world has shrunk down for a few weeks to this baby, this belly, and this kitchen. Maybe my baby deserves to be treated like it's the Buddha reincarnated. Maybe the world would be a nicer place if all babies were made to feel like that for at least a little while. I wish that my having a baby in 3 weeks could end this war, or bring about world peace, or make the world a kinder place, but I don't think that's going to happen.

But, you know, for the next little while, me and the baby and its dad are going to pretend like it will.

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Entry 5

Posted Friday, March 21, 2003, at 3:09 PM ET
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Dahlia Lithwick is Slate's Supreme Court and legal correspondent. She is expecting her first baby in three weeks.
Photographs by Aaron Fein.
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