Oh my

It's been a while since I updated hasn't it? Here's another one of those entries that will have to be deleted before any progeny of mine learn to read.

Seeing that ultrasound (I know, I still have to scan it) really made me feel - odd. Up and down odd. I said to Carl yesterday that this has all happened in such a messy, unplanned way that the reality of perhaps a live birth and subsequent child is having a lot of trouble working its way in, and when it does, mostly what I do is panic that now I'm a really really messed up mum, rather than just a singular really messed up.

On Friday I actually did some of the pregnant woman thing: I had to flee my parents' home for a few hours and I ended up browsing used maternity and baby clothing. And that felt okay and I had a smidgen of hope and mentally went through what things we have (which is basically everything and unless this is a boy and we suddenly decide we have to have blue things really there is not much to buy.)

On the weekend I was really engaged elsewhere on Saturday; my head was in the clouds and I scarcely remembered to take my pre-natal vitamin and all that. I walked the dog and hung out online and wrote a bit.

Yesterday Carl and I went house-shopping and I actually told one of the agents that I was pregnant, and that was okay. I haven't told many people about it here and don't plan to for another month or two, so the ease of it was unexpected. But, there it is - we sort of do want a house with room for a baby, although both Carl and I winced a bit about it because it just brings back all those renovation projects "for the baby" that never came home.

We actually found a house that we both loved - oddly. It was small, which I didn't think Carl would go for, and in a compromise neighbourhood - not right in the thick of the Beaches but not too far away (Hunt Club area).

What was odd about both liking it was that it was completely, totally renovated - top of the line shit, with stainless steel appliances, tumbled marble backsplashes, a shower with 8 jets, deep jacuzzi tub in the basement, crown mouldings, and completely new gorgeous hardwood floors everywhere. Total showcase home. I didn't think we were into showcase homes; I thought we were more into quirky fixer-uppers (although we have agreed to try not to get into a real fixer-upper this time). But we were. We drooled.

We almost put an offer in but then decided it is really too small. Which it is on our spoilt-brat scale: it's a two-bedroom post-war bungalow. One bedroom would hold the queen sized bed and a nightstand; the other is 9x9 and so would indeed hold one small child, but there's no back door (and hence no door where you can store say, tennis rackets), there's very little closet space (except in the basement), and we'd have to get rid of at least half our things, literally. I couldn't for the life of me figure out where you'd keep a stroller because the entrance came into the kitchen and only had the world's tiniest coat closet. The basement was additional space - besides having the tub it had a big rec room with an exposed-brick wall, and then there was a room that could be a small office but would probably -have- to be a walk-in closet.

So all your stuff basically is down a flight of stairs and past the laundry room - not really how we live. Someone very neat who owns one pair of shoes would probably find it perfect.

(Or indeed, most of the rest of the world. But we are not quite there yet, in our development, and we like to have room for our ridiculous things.)

So we didn't go for it, because if we want a beautifully-reno'd tiny home there are a lot of them around.

But that was a surprise, and for a minute I almost wished that we could get it, which we could if we didn't have to have stollers and playpens and sooner or later tiny duck boots and raincoats. And that - desire - for a non-parentally complicated life really surprised me.

And then last night I cried because I don't want this baby, I want Emily. Which isn't logical; I can be sad for Emily and still want & love this one. But last night that was all disconnected and I was really just kind of angry at "having to be" pregnant instead of watching Emily work on walking, which is possibly what she would be doing right now. I think it's partly because I was pregnant at this time last year, tired in that third-trimester way, and I'm pregnant in that first-trimester way this year, and it makes me feel perpetually pregnant with very little payoff.

And it's partly because children, like lovers, are not replaceable. This baby will be its own self and my life will change and go on, but it really doesn't change that I miss Emily.

And I just have mixed feelings. I feel 98% sure that if you just presented me with a fully-grown baby and said here, I would be glad. But since that's not how it works, I am mostly a mess in that way.

It's good to have some more months to work this out.

Shandra