About the time I began to be comfortable with being pregnant, a dear friend started calling me Mamacita.
I was about 20 weeks along with Garcon, and starting to get over the initial queasiness of lifechange+nausea. I'd also started showing enough to not look lumpy but actually expectant. I'd begun prenatal water exercise, and met other first-timers. This meant I wasn't the only person in the world who was having a baby (as I sometimes felt with my single or just-married friends).
And we knew that we were having a boy, happily - and that he had a well-developed spine and a heart with all four chambers. Those were the things we knew - all we knew - and what little it was, it felt like it made all the difference.
So when Libby chose my new nickname, for my new self, it was very timely. And I loved it.
