Dancing Queen, Young and Sweet, Only Seven Weeks

Before we started trying to have a baby, I read tons of things about having kids and did a lot of mental planning. I thought about what the nursery would be like, how I would tell my parents, what we would name the baby. As each try failed, my enthusiasm for these projects shrunk. When a year had gone by and I still wasn't pregnant, I pretty much stopped thinking about my still hypothetical kid. It was painful to give it too much energy.

However, there was one project I kept working on: My Ultimate Baby CD.

I have to confess that I don't know very much about music. I don't even listen to the radio, ever. I don't even like the question "What kind of music do you like?" because I never know what to say. However, when I was TTC, I became obsessed with the idea of creating a mix CD for yet-to-be-conceived-Sunshine. I started compiling a list of songs before we even started trying the IUIs. The list was a page in the back of my planner, and it grew and grew. I tried to incorporate songs from different musical genres. I tried to think of songs that would be appropriate and life affirming for a child. I checked in with Lovely Partner, who asked me to add Led Zeppelin, Tori Amos, and oddly, "You Can Call Me Al." I know it might sound silly, but this list was one of the things that kept me feeling positive about trying to have a baby. It was abstract enough not to hurt, but concrete enough that I felt like I was going to have a baby someday. It was a pleasant distraction from thinking about cervical mucus.

My sister started helping me with the project and soon we had an excel spreadsheet to sort the songs into categories ("Songs for and Inspired by the Gay Community," "Just Plain Fun Songs,"Soothing Sounds" etc.)

On the day Lovely Partner adopted little Sunshine, my sister presented us with the CDs, which must have taken her a really really long time to burn. It is a total of 8 cds, and over 100 songs.
(It also must have cost her a lot of money to buy the songs, and she confessed she did not already own any of the songs "For and Inspired by the Gay Community." )

Most days, I play these songs and dance with my baby. Every now and then a song will make me cry. Lovely Partner thinks its hilarious that I have included Christopher Plummer singing "Edelweiss." We have also clarified with each other that the way we dance at home with a baby (swaying like dorks) is not how we would dance at a club. It is hard to say, but Sunshine seems partial to "Do You Love Me?" by the Contours. So, I'm finding that I am listening to music a lot more these days.