Ugly

We have some new people moving in on our street. I actually know them already...they are friends of a neighbor who is a friend of mine. They always come to my neighbor's get togethers and and that is the only capacity in which we know them. Now they are sub-letting the house next to my neighbor-friend because the owner is going to China for awhile evidently.

And this my problem that I can't talk to anybody about--the girl is pregnant and due in December, I think. And it's her first pregnancy. And I can't stand her. Never mind that she's one of those loud-talkers that think talking louder and louder in a discussion makes her sound like she knows what she's talking about in the first place. I can deal with that. Just something for me and my husband to make fun of on our way home. But now she's pregnant. I can't make fun of that.

This is one of the hurdles that I'm still having a lot of trouble with even 18 months later. When Nate died, I thought that I would never get rid of the rage and jealousy that I felt everywhere I looked. I thought that it would just rot me from the inside out. I would even get upset looking at cows with their calves while driving in the country. It's not that I've been really making an effort to purge these feelings, they're just fading away. I've gone from glaring at moms with new babies, to just not looking at them, to now being able to actually look inside the stroller and smile a little.

I'm still having trouble with people in their first pregnancy. A lot of trouble. That anger hasn't faded in the slightest and I hate it. I guess that I feel so cheated--my first pregnancy ended in a horror story. I don't ever get to have any do-overs and my first baby is not coming back. I'm jealous of the fact that they can coast through with no worries and I'm up at 4 am because my brain won't shut up. I'm jealous that they can register for gifts and put together the nursery months ahead of time. I can deal with painting the nursery, but I'm not ready to put the furniture back up. I still haven't gone through Nate's things to see if I need to register for anything. It's almost like I'm afraid that all the grief we felt packing up his things will come gushing out of those plastic tubs.

And yet, with most people I have to act like this is my first pregnancy. I've found myself more often saying, "Yes, it's my first" to strangers and unable to swap pregnancy stories with people who know what happened. We might be talking about something completely benign and maybe even funny, but they always look at me sadly, because they know what happened in the end. And then there's the fact that I have no clue what to do with a baby. I should be a pro by now and that kills me. So yeah, it's like my first pregnancy except it's not. I don't have the confidence and comfort that everything is going to be fine and bad things happen to other people that come with a first pregnancy. I'm in a pregnancy that small triumphs are saying "when" and not "if" and realizing how hard it is to say. "When he comes home." It seems like an easy off-hand thing to say, but it will be redemption for me after nearly two years that I thought I wouldn't live through. Hang in there, Piglet. Just six weeks to go.

Is This Thing On?

Hey ya'll. This was so weird. I don't know if Blogger was doing this to other people, but it wasn't showing that anyone had updated their blogs since Monday. I would go visit, but there'd be no new posts. I was getting worried, especially about those that usually post daily (Hi Catherine). Anyway, it worked this morning and I've been catching up. I was starting to panic.

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I passed my diabetes test (yay!) but my iron is wicked low. I knew that was coming--and those of you who've taken iron supplements know what that means. Dammit. You just don't appreciate it until no matter how hard you try, you can't do it. Fiber is my friend.

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I'm and exhibitor in a big, scary bridal show this weekend. I'm really dreading it, because (a) I don't like brides. (b) I like their mother's even less. (c) I have to play for 6 hours and my belly is getting too big for me to hold my flute properly. So then my shoulder starts cramping. But you know, I signed us up for this show when I was newly pregnant and I wasn't going to make any plans based on the fact that I would still be pregnant in August. How effed up is that? A good thing is, my adorable husband is going to be our "spokesmodel" and talk to brides so we can keep playing. There is another group that we complete with, a string quartet, and the guy they bring to shows is the cellist's husband who just happens to be the morning news and weather guy for one of our tv stations. My husband is cuter, though. Neener, neener. Today, I'm going to focus on being more positive about this show or my crappy, negative energy is going to scare everyone away. We will get gigs. We will get gigs.

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I'm so hungry. I've been up since 4am, mostly because of the items in the above paragraph and all the little crappy items that go along with it that I wouldn't delegate to anyone else because I wanted to make sure that they were done correctly. Anyway, I'm starving because I desperately need to go grocery shopping. I just tried to make some cream of wheat and when I added it to the pot, a scary, prehistoric looking bug floated to the top. Crap! I looked at the expiration date, and it was August 25, 2006. Well, that's disgusting. Now I'm trying to eat a bowl of stale, generic fruit loops with soy milk. They have the consistency of calamari. I used to make a detailed, lovely menu every two weeks that I posted lovingly on the fridge for everyone to see. I'd even type it up on the computer using clever fonts and we'd always take comfort in knowing what was for dinner. I had brilliant shopping lists, stuck to the grocery budget and we always had great food in the house. Now we have cereal with bugs. There hasn't been a menu on the fridge in months and months. When I first got pregnant, everything made me so sick, there was no way in hell that I was actually going to cook anything. If Tom was hungry, he pretty much had to go kill it and barbeque it himself. And now I've got this gall bladder thing and I still can't eat anything. Bleh. The squid cereal just isn't doing it for me. Would a veggie burger be too weird for breakfast? No bread though. If I even have any bread, it's probably moldy.

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We're talking October 12th for the Piglet to make his grand entrance. I was going to write a whole post about this, the gist of which is I don't really feel like my doctor is getting me. Like, he's not understanding how scared I am right now. I don't even start my two-week appointments until 32 weeks. I get an ultrasound at the 34th week, but he does that for everybody. I guess I'm just feeling like I need more attention...but I don't even know what he can do. There isn't any test to tell if I'm going to abrupt again. They can't predict it--it's like being struck by lightening and really the best he can do is to take the baby 3 weeks early. So, I need some feedback on this: he wants to do the amnio on the 11th and if Piglet's ready, do the section on the 12th. So I have to have a big needle stuck into my uterus and then be sent home? And I'm supposed to sleep that night!? He says that he doesn't want me to fast if I don't have to. What the hell? It's not like I'm getting a bunch of joy from food these days anyway, I don't give a shit if I'm hungry. I am not cool with this. Isn't it possible to have the amnio and the section the same day? What do you think? Am I being unreasonable about this?

Hey Neeto

Piglet usually sleeps when I play my flute. Especially when I play with harp, and Nate did that, too. Both of them, though, would wake up when I got particularly agitated with one of my students. I always wonder if my babies would recognize the sound of the flute.

Just now I was looking for some clips on YouTube for my students to listen to. I had my computer on my lap and was listening to one of the Bach Cello Suites. (Some of them are working on Bach and I always use the cello suites when I'm teaching this stuff. It's a great way to learn to play it well.) Piglet was quiet. I changed to a clip of a flute sonata and he went bonkers! Back to Bach--quiet. Back to flute--bonkers! Ah, my child is a genius.

That's a short, silly post but I thought it was cool.

surreal

We're painting the nursery today. There won't be any furniture in there for awhile, so for now it's just going to be a blue room.

It still makes me nervous.

Nine Weeks and Counting

Oh man, thank you so much for your input re: my crappy gall bladder. Two weeks attack-free! (Knock on wood.) If it's just going to happen every two or three weeks, I think I'll be able to make it without surgery. That last one was so bad, I thought it was going to happen after every meal. Anyway...

Something that I really didn't go into in my last post was how much that trip to L&D threw the entire family for a huge loop. I'm almost embarassed now--quit being so dramatic, it was just your stupid gall bladder. Okay, yeah, it turned out that way. But I think what was so amazing to me was how quickly we all went into panic mode. Just when the memories of what happened the night that Nate was born started to become less sharp around the edges, it came rushing back so quickly. I said good bye for the third time to one of my babies and that's just not easy to shake off, even after you know that everything is going to be okay. My mom and sister rushed to the hospital, my sister had a panic attack. For the next week, Tom and I were both so jumpy and every time I got up to pee in the night he'd ask, "What's wrong?" I'm not sure if he actually really slept that week. We bought a doppler that week, too. Now he follows me around the house with it. My God. You know, I'm so thankful that right now, this second, everything is okay. But I hate so much that I'm not clueless anymore. I know way, way, way too much.

But what I have to keep reminding myself is this: people have babies all the time. And most babies live. That's my mantra right now...most babies live. If they didn't, there wouldn't be whole sections at the store devoted to baby gear. There wouldn't be commercials for lotions and diapers and bottles. You couldn't buy strollers or cribs anywhere. They probably wouldn't exist if most babies died. What blows my mind lately is how people is how people go on and on about my belly and my due date and oh how exciting and excited you must be! They have no doubt that this baby is going to make it home. I just wish that I was as confident as they were. I know way, way, way too much.

I'm operating on about 50% of my brain right now. Half of me is so excited, the other half is being so cautious. Today, half of me bought a jogger stroller and a baby bjorn. The other half of me cannot even fathom putting a baby in either one of these contraptions. I was driving today and became overwhelmed with the memory of being wheeled out of the hospital a year and a half ago with a memory box on my lap. Sometimes those memories absolutely come out of nowhere. I thought about the possiblity of a live baby in my lap this time. Oh please, let this happen.

Before Nate was born, we kept his name a secret. After this scare, we decided to tell people this time. If something goes wrong, I want people to know his name. I want them to know him as much as they can before he's born. I love his name and being able to say it out loud makes him seem so much more real. It's also helping me not to keep calling him Nate. I'm sure that moms do that all the time with their kids, but when one of them is no longer living, it's a little upsetting. I'm going to keep his name as a surprise for my bloggy friends, though :) I've been calling him Piglet here, so I'll keep doing that. He got that name because this is the Chinese Year of the Pig. But it's extra special because this year is the Year of the Golden Pig. They say that Golden Pig babies are extra lucky. That sounds good to me.