The test reads positive

Hey belly. (I promise they won't all be in this format.)

It's been a long time since I had anything to say to you other than good healing job, and ew, jiggly bits. I'm still not sure what I think about you. You produced an incredibly beautiful kid last time. Too bad about messing up where the umbilical cord went. Still, the incredibly beautiful kid went far.

That positive sign on the pregnancy test was probably ill timed. I mean in 2004 I had and lost a daughter, potentially now an older sister. I saw my husband leave to work 5 hours away, went to a real writer's workshop and confirmed that I should be writing, cleaned out/renovated/listed our house instead, went through ups and downs on the market, sold it, and moved into a half-settled existence between an apartment hotel and my parents' home. I was sort of looking for a break there for a month or two, you know?

I'm still not sure exactly when sperm met egg. For all I know at this point, it's some bizarre hormonal thing anyway - no guarantees. Two positive pregnancy tests and not even a blood test yet.

But still. When I saw it, I can't deny that I had the sense that maybe, after this year of everything going wrong, something was going right.

So I congratulate you, uterus, on getting those hormones in gear.

And are they ever. I've been nauseated and tired - the tiredness was why I retested, actually. My period was late, and Christmas morning I peed on the stick, and it was negative. So why I did it again on Wednesday morning last week, I'm not sure. On Saturday I watched and felt my breasts swell up.

I'm looking for a doctor up here, and making an appointment in Toronto to see my GP. So belly, you'll get your own care again.

And we'll see what you've got in there exactly.

Shandra