What's better this time around

I was prompted by a conversation to consider what's the same or better in this pregnancy than the last one. There are actually a few things so here we go.

Birth defects: Last time I worried that our baby would be not-very-bright or have a huge birthmark over her face or extra toes. This time, breathing and with all major organs would be the big win. That's a bit of a flippant way to put it, but in fact a lot of the major parenting fears about providing the best ever environment have waned somewhat, because although I still am committed to doing the best possible job, I have abruptly come to see the line between small stuff and big stuff.

And also, we lived through some of it (conceptually) very quickly, although this is different from any reality of raising a handicapped kid. Right after labour, I was told that Emily would have "learning difficulties" (this was actually given to me as the absolute worst case scenario, when I asked if she was going to make it - at East General). My brain at first interpreted this as "learning disabilities" like dyslexia and I admit I was lying there in that period when they left me totally alone in the birthing room thinking how hard it would be to be a writer whose child had trouble reading. But it actually didn't matter that much to me, way less than I would have thought.

Then, by 11 pm that night, it was sinking in (the word 'seizures' helping with this) that they meant what when I was growing up was called retarded. You would think a former social agency worker would have the latest lingo down but I did not. And that didn't matter.

And then on the weekend after she was transferred to Sick Kids, the discussion was beginning about mobility, like would she be able to move her own head or not (never mind limbs). And although I admit to a fair amount of fear and terror, mostly financially, there was never any doubt in my mind that we, her parents, would just deal with it.

I know that no snap decision in the hospital could ever relate to the reality of that kind of life - and having known a couple of parents with severely disabled kids I know it is harsh - but still, the abyss opened, I looked down it, and said okay.

So, I really am not so worried about some stuff as I was before.

The bigger thing - and less common - is the whole multiple deal. In Emily's pregnancy I was worried about bringing a child into the minor chaos that is our shared life. We're not like a television movie - most of the real crazy stuff, the flashbacks and the lack of communication and the waking up three months later stuff is mostly a thing of the past.

Abuse trauma can bite you at any point, and I think parents who've been abused as kids have a huge responsibility to really be careful about not laying that on their children, as much as possible. I think it's important for parents to have someone like a therapist to check in with about issues that come up as their kids age - and trust me, I believe they will come up.

An abused multiple system has that to the nth degree. Because not only will all the people ("personalities" in the literature) be moving at different paces and have different ideas about what's an issue, but how do you know if that's going on? If one person in the system makes a sarcastic or hateful remark to their kid, does everyone else know? How do you make sure it doesn't happen again, and that the child gets the feedback they need ("I should never have said that to you and I'm sorry. Sometimes when people are upset they say mean things, but that does not make it right to say them.").

So these are some of the things I worried about, although a lot of it we have been working through reasonably well in therapy - treating our significant others right is a big start towards treating our kids right, and so on. And that won't change - I think we will always have to worry, a little, in order to be sure that we are good parents, and I like anyone else in the system take 100% of the responsibility for that. (One of our axioms is that just as marriage is not a 50%-50% proposition, but a 100%-100% percent deal with both partners fully connected, so in our system the "big fucking deals" are everyone's responsibility. Parenting being one of the biggest ever.)

But overall I felt we were at a point where we could negotiate /behaviour/ pretty well. No, we don't tell our kids that they'll get their fingers cut off if they touch our guitars (Lynn, who sees that as a mild sort of threat). No, we don't eat gummy bears all day. Etc.

What worried me even more was the feeling, the undercurrents of reality of being a multiple parent. Kids are pretty sensitive and I think they would know, on some level, if someone were fronting (being the person interacting with the world) and didn't like them or want them or appreciate them, even if that person were performing all the tasks right.

Now I realize some of this is idealized; no parent in the world is happy about their kids all the time, and it is my theory that this is an important truth for the kids to learn - that if they bicker for an hour their mother may in fact put them in their rooms in a not-super-nice manner and go in her room and make annoyed, unhappy, frustrated noises, and later serve dinner without enthusiasm, and go take a bath early. So to demand that every person in the system be glad to be a parent all the time is unrealistic in /every/ way.

But still. I know from experience with my own and other systems that if someone is sitting there minding their manners but really waiting for the "person I did not choose" (husband they didn't marry, friend they don't care for, children they didn't want) to go away so they can get on with *their* life, it comes across.

No one wants to be merely tolerated without some kind of connection of caring underneath. In fact it's one of the most awful things to be stuck in a room with someone you know doesn't really want you there. And I think to a child that can be devastating. It's like growing up knowing your parents got married because of you and watching them hate each other.

And I had no solution for this one. You can't force anyone to love someone else. I mean I knew that even where I failed in loving my children, Lyria would succeed dramatically (particularly when they are very small). I knew that I would be a help when rebellion and school cliques and things hit. I knew that if there were a problem JJ would point it out even if none of us wanted to hear it.

But I didn't know if Lynn and Magdalynn and others would connect with a child beyond the (to them) huge concession of not actively hating or being destructive towards them. And that worried me considerably. I started to suspect that they might, but I really didn't know.

But this time, I have no worries about it. In labour with Emily, everyone connected. (And Magdalynn has chosen to express that with San in a way that leaves no doubts.)

Throughout those days of her life, everyone cared. And when she died, it devastated everyone.
I think this is mostly a triumph of love: of the love that we have all touched through the people we have been lucky to love and who have loved us. When the child appeared, the heart was ready. It may also come in part from her being a child of our body, that which we all share. And it may be because the big split in our system always was sort of those who had Awful things happen to them and those who had Unbelieveably Awful things happen to them (not that pain is any different) and now everyone's had an Unbelieveably Awful thing.

Or maybe the adrenaline rewired our brain.

I don't know the cause. I only know the result.

Although witch baby's mum is going to be eccentric, different, creative, complex us, there will be no failure in love and caring there that is exclusively out of multiplicity. It won't, I'm sure, save us from a zillion mistakes and moments and hard crap, but it will be there.

So those are the two big ones. I guess in the end it does come down to acceptance, and love.

Shandra

Cat-and-fetus games

The cats loooove my belly 'cause it's round and soft, or something.

While I'm working, they sit on my legs and push at my belly, trying to get me to recline the way I might on a couch.

Today the game seems to be that they knead my belly and then the baby moves around. They can't feel it yet (Nox and Emily used to get into poking games), but I can.

Dancing, dancing

This post is related to a post in my other journal (you can leave a comment if you want to read that one, if you don't know where it is - include your email address in some way k?). It was a busy weekend fraught with relationship tensions.

And throughout, the baby kept moving, and I kept fighting not to dissociate from the experience. So you're moving around in there, just like Emily did, but in your own way. But what if you stop? It's freaky. It's a little disturbing. The joy of it is inaccessible to me right now.

Instead it makes me look down the road to that "maternal monitoring" that becomes the third trimester responsibility. If your baby slows down and you notice, sometimes you can intervene. But what if you don't? I know, now, that cords can get twisted up around babies necks early - 19 weeks, 25 weeks - and kill them then. Lots of other things can happen.

Emily slowed down, the last couple of days when I was throwing up. I did mention it, and everyone's consensus was that she was a) running out of room and b) in position for labour. But I still wonder.

My belly is now officially past my boobs, and it seems awfully early for that, especially given the state of my rack. But there it is. I'm just about past any phase that people would think "fat" and not "pregnant." Spring is arriving and I have almost no spring-like maternity clothes, but so far I hate everything I've seen in the stores. I am thinking of looking for some batik-like sundresses, if those come in pregnancy friendly shapes. I have some already (more accurately, Lyria does) but they are buried in storage. If this baby lives we'll be living in them for years while Lyr frolics anyway.

At least I hope she will. She is oddly detached too; more than I am in many ways, and last time she managed a lot of the pregnancy and most of the baby planning. I think it hurts her too much to hope, in some ways, or at least hope out loud.

Last night I dreamed about this; I dreamed that I was in a shop that sold all kinds of wild clothes, glittery fairy winged shirts and flowy dresses. I was flipping through the racks trying hard to find anything that would fit over my belly, and I couldn't find anything, and the salesperson didn't see why it was important since I was wearing a perfectly fine suit.

(In our multiple system, I would say I'm the suit and Lyr's the wings :))

The weekend was tense for a lot of reasons. This city decision is still on the emotional horizon, although it's clear that we're agreed on Toronto, as long as I don't fall prey to indecision and re-open the door. I appreciate so much being heard and supported, but I seem to have forgotten to get that across much - mostly I feel too raw and defensive. I feel vulnerable and it's still hard not to look for Carl for reassurance that he won't be miserable or bitter later. I tried, on Sunday, to push for it a bit (bad!) and he just said "well we agreed everyone had to be comfortable and you're not, so that's it." A very fair remark but to me it sounded like "the rules are the rules" and I spun into one of those weird life-partner fights where you're just sniping. "Fix it."

But also we were hitting triggers. It's not like Emily's birth and death were all that happened, and this is the grieving season we had last year. This month is just a blur to me - right through April and into May, actually. We also triggered ourselves. Once, Carl was flipping channels and hit the show on Life that is about the Hospital for Sick Children, and there in all its glory was the NICU Emily was in, with some of the same staff. That was freaky. Then we watched Finding Neverland which is about a lot, but especially grief. I personally find that kind of work helpful - it makes me feel more connected - but it still raises the issues.

Sometimes I feel mired. Last pregnancy I was playing music for the baby and gearing up to read to the baby and this time I feel like I'm just struggling uphill to eat right and not do anything awful like drink or get too worked up. Sometimes I feel envious of people where things happened at 20 weeks, or 22 weeks - they get to a point after which it's new. But for us it won't be until the baby's out and okay, if that happens.

On the other hand, we aren't facing down anything that necessarily recurs - no genetic, repeatable thing.

But I still need, I think, to find some joy in it. It's very hard to find anything joyful when the predominant actual emotion is fear. But we've done this before as recovering victims of sexual abuse - with sex, with relationships, with living itself. I think it can be done. Somehow. The main thing is, it really doesn't matter. If you don't feel the joy, and something awful comes, it doesn't hurt any less.

But tell my heart that!

Food, more tv, houses

One of the delightful things I've discovered while we've been living this crazy back-and-forth, morning-sickness-run life has been the bags of mixed/washed/cut frozen fruit. These are the big bag mixes that don't have any sugar or anything - the current mix is strawberries, grapes, pineapple, peach (mostly peach in fact), and melon balls. We get them at the local grocery store but I think the first place I ever saw them was at Costco, one of the times we've actually been there.

Given that it's winter and we are in Ottawa, pound-per-pound the frozen fruit doesn't actually cost a whole lot more than even apples - certainly less than peaches. It's not quite as yummy, and definitely not portable (if you stick it in a bag it becomes mush, I have found), but it's sooo fast and easy. I pour a bowl full, microwave it for a minute (this means no planning to defrost it) and then eat it up with a fork. If I want it hot and yummy I sprinkle it with cinnamon and nuke it for longer. Topped with ice cream or frozen yoghurt is optional.

If I had a blender I would make smoothies too, but I don't have one up here.

I foresee having a bag of fruit in the freezer for the next oh 10 years at least. I may in the spring, summer, and fall, try freezing my own, especially at the right seasons - see if non-flash freezing works. But it is so amazing to have snacks, desserts, cereal toppings, and smoothie fixings just sitting there in a bag. Woo hoo.

I've craved fruit in both pregnancies, and in between my fruit consumption stayed high.

~~

I found myself really angry at the television this week. I was watching one of the baby story shows - I admit I'm now hovering on addiction to them, although I still cry when other people's babies cry after delivery. In this episode a woman pregnant with twins was talking to her doctor about how she did. not. want. a c-section. And he was kindly explaining to her that her twins were in very bad positions for a vaginal delivery, and that they might well rotate down, but given their position and all the cords involved and that it was just about showtime to deliver, that he was guessing that she would have to have a c-section.

She'd brought in about 4 articles from the internet about how he could rotate the twins in utero and she was just adamant that she needed to deliver vaginally to feel like a real mom.

And he kept saying (nicely) things like, "You do understand that the risk I am talking about is a lack of oxygen, to the brain, which means permanent brain damage." And she wailed "but there are more risks to a c-section!" And he said "there are some risks to you, but not to the babies, not as much as I believe you will face in a vaginal delivery."

And she sat there and pouted.

I wanted to reach through the tv screen and time and shake her and make her go look at my baby's grave, I really did. I realize some of this is misplaced anger on my part. And it's also anger at the whole political baby-having scene, which gave Carl and I easily 1 hour on the dangers of pain medication, a half hour on the risks of an epidural, and at least 4 hours on breastfeeding (including a lot about delivering to the stomach and latching on right after birth), but never once, not one time ever mentioned, say, cerebral palsy. (Which, by the way, is most often caused by a lack of oxygen to the baby at birth.)

And I realize that information may not have changed our minds, but it might have caused us to throw a bigger fit about a c-section, and then we would be laughing about the near-miss and watching Emily learn to walk today.

And this woman sort of epitomized that political movement to me. There is a huge backlash against c-sections. Yes, some doctors order a lot of them (often doctors who have watched babies like mine die). And some people get them because they don't want to push, and perhaps that is a little silly. But there is a lot of pressure on women to be "real women" and go ahead and have a natural birth, and although that may be fine a lot of the time, there are reasons that infant mortality eventually fell. Intially when people started having babies in hospitals, it went up, because hospitals didn't manage germs very well. But then, it went down. A lot.

There are in fact reasons for that. And the idea that women everywhere in every historical time period have had babies fine, therefore you need to worry more about intervention than you do about risks is - baloney.

I will be a real fun person to have in whoever's pre-natal class.

(This is not a rant against midwives, by the way. A good midwife would probably have done better with Emily's distress than the nurse did. But if we'd been at home somewhere and had to get to a hospital, it might well have been too late (although maybe not, if I'd stopped pushing). I know that she wouldn't have been able to be revived by a midwife, but I don't know how I feel about that - those days were very precious time with her to us, but they were awful suffering as well for her and us. So I just don't know.)

~~

I still keep an eye on both real estate markets and did see a bungalow here, three bedroom, with a potential in-law suite, and what looked like a beautifully done indoor pool (with wood stove in the pool room), in a decent neighbourhood 10 minutes from downtown, for the same price as a tiny semi in the Beaches in Toronto. Carl saw it over my shoulder and we were oohing and aahing and then I said "but it's not in Toronto." And he said "right." And a little later I tentatively asked if he had thought of going to see it and he said "why would we if we're moving back to Toronto?"

And I admit that despite house and pool lust and knowing that some disappointing of people lies ahead, I was utterly happy to hear that.

Shandra

No news is good news

I didn't call the clinic and I think I won't, just because I'm not having a proactive day. We drove back to Ottawa late last night - left around 9 pm - and as Carl was really tired we were trading off to keep each other awake. So today I am tiiiiired.

I bought samosas at the organic food store for lunch, yummy. I wasn't too tired for that. :)

They'd've called if anything bad came back in the bloodwork, so yay us. I am starting to feel like an us, and I'm definitely into "obviously pregnant" now and out of "maybe fat." It's now way to late to not care about the outcome, and I suppose I'm settling in to that.

I'm also completely in maternity clothes now. There's still a shirt I feel belongs to Emily but the rest of the stuff has been worn or at least contemplated.

It's been hard, having put my foot down about living in Toronto. I want reassurance from Carl and for him to be happy, bubbly, and full of ideas (tm). In fact he has been some of that, but - gasp - his thoughts and feelings and emotions have not changed just to make me more comfortable. What a shock! I am working really hard to try to be cool with that and just be in the uncomfortable place of watching Carl struggle with it and feel the guilt and worry that he'll resent me or freak out, without demanding that he be the one to fix it. So far it seems to be working ok.

I have been thinking though, that we may want to rent something and delay purchase decisions. We'll see.

I didn't inform my parents that I had said that to Carl so they continued to be pretty crazy. My mother alternated between crying about my move and getting all excited about my sister's move. The combination made me feel both lousy and triggered, but I hung in there. I think it wore on other people in the system quite a lot though and we have some serious ground to regain in the next couple of weeks. I foresee trips to art galleries and some shopping. :)

Yesterday morning was bad as I think my mother tried to uninvite me to the Easter dinner at my sister's this weekend (in Ottawa), but I was so focused on leaving that I literally couldn't hear her. A brain freeze. I'll call my sister tonight to see what she wants to do, since it's her invitation.

Hopes, fears, and selfish vs. self-care

It's been a busy two days. Working backwards.

Today we had the ob appointment. The bloodwork for the thyroid stuff didn't come back that fast, but we should know soon.

I gained 3.5 lbs, go me (and the spa resort staff). The heartbeat was good. Everything seemed to be going okay, until I mentioned this rash I developed the last few days.

The obstetrician says it's probably a pregnancy rash (some people just get rashes from being pregnant), but that to be safe he would do some blood work. This is a good thing; I like this doctor who does lots of tests.

Until I read that one of them was for toxoplasmosis. Most people don't get toxoplasmosis rashes; they don't know they have it and then their babies are born with big problems: blindness, deafness, mental retardation, enlarged liver and spleen. Some of them die. There are treatments, but they are mostly not great at preventing at least some of the above. This is the reason pregnant women don't change cat litter (I don't) but in fact most people get it from undercooked meat. It's one of the big nasties. If you do have it, sometimes you are offered an abortion. And occasionally, if you have it, you do in fact get a rash.

It's a 1-10 in 10,000 case. Of course Emily's problem was at about the same statistical level.

So I'm a little freaked about that. It should come back soon, so I think I'll call tomorrow even if they don't call me. It's probably really low risk. But I wish I hadn't read the form, because it added a worry.

In possibly (hopefully) bigger news after days of thought and a long talk with my therapist (well - ok, an hour talk as per usual) I told Carl that I think I cannot move to Ottawa.

I feel like shit about it in some ways; I want to be able to enable all kinds of things like supporting Carl in his work and taking care of family. But in this case I think it is a little like putting your own oxygen mask on first. Had we not lost Emily, had we not had a year of turmoil and stress, had all these things not been going on, perhaps moving and starting over with friends and community and things would not be so overwhelming. But they are. And I do not want to give up my hometown at this time in my life. Even to spite my mother.

And I don't want to be like my mother and force everyone around me to bend to my will. And the idea of it scares me, and putting a bottom line down like "no move" is hard. I still don't know if that was the wrong decision. I know for me it wasn't, but in context I don't know what it means.

And I didn't have a lot of faith that Carl would hear me. But he did. He's not that happy about it, but he's prepared to make it so. I don't know what the long or short term repurcussions will be, but it looks like we will be meeting them in Toronto. Except that he will be working in Ottawa too.

And I'm glad we'll be here, although I simultaneously feel like shit.

Shandra

Swimming, jumping

Okay, witch baby is getting quite active now.

So's my gastro-intestinal system. Did you ever wonder what happens to the stuff that usually fills your abdomen when your uterus takes over? I did, before I took prenatal classes with Emily. There they showed us the nicest diagram with a nice round uterus, and then all the intestines *squashed* somewhere else. Which explains a lot, trust me.

But I can actually tell the gas from the baby, at least most of the time, and baby is definitely swimming around a lot. I suspect that if this baby survives, s/he will come tearing into the world on a mission. Funny how the poor thing is only 16 weeks after my last period and already I'm ascribing personality.

In case anyone is wondering how I'm showing, Carl and I went to have dinner in a pub on Wednesday night and the waitress asked if I would like anything from the St. Patrick's day drink menu, then looked at me again and said "I guess not!" She was scandalized when I had chicken in a whiskey sauce. (The alcohol cooks off! Really!) With Emily people started to guess around 6 months, and even at 8 I was carrying fairly subtlely, in the right clothes. This time I imagine I'll be wandering around in the summer as big as a whale.

I had a really difficult discussion with my mother yesterday. Carl and I are moving back to Toronto for the summer, delivery, and to finish up my commitment to work, but we may be back in Ottawa after that, particularly if my company does fold. Or we may not; it's hard to say right now.

It's a big stressful argument because I really want to move back to Toronto, but that's my only compelling reason - I want to, my friends are there, my therapist is there, my dentist is there. Carl wants to move to Ottawa and take care of his mother and try to slow down on the workaholism, which would be good (although I myself do not understand why this cannot happen from Toronto).

He thinks that Ottawa is a better family-raising place and perhaps it is, if by that you mean cul-de-sacs and soccer clubs. Myself I think funky lesbian haunts and plenty of good curry and Chinese food are the perfect atmosphere for child rearing. I will admit that Ottawa has a more sporty feel to it, which I do think is good for younger kids, and that it is much better for bilingual education. It has a major gallery, decent symphonic happenings, two universities, plenty of government jobs, and housing prices are lower. It is two hours from Montreal, always a bonus.

On the other hand, the houses are mainly either out of our reach or in something that looks, feels, and smells like suburbia even if it admittedly is much, much closer to downtown than Toronto suburbia. (Or there are these ugly, ugly, ugly neighbourhoods of bungalows in between. I mean uglier than Scarborough. I mean ugly.) However, should we choose to move to one of these park-friendly, school-friendly, library-friendly, coffee shop bereft areas, we would be able to get a nice big house well within our budget.

And that is probably more what Carl wants than coffee shops and funky coffeehouses (although he brought home a pamphlet for a funky Ottawa poetry coffeehouse for me this morning, pointing out that there are such things here).

But I like Toronto. I don't want to leave. And really if I were not pregnant I think I would dig my heels in and say I wasn't leaving and that it's time for Carl to bend a little to my desires for a while. But with going down to one income and having the prospect of being all about the drool, poo, and mom-friends, it seems harder somehow. It's not about sheer economic power but that is part of it; it's more that I don't know what my life will look like and I don't know, within myself, whether not wanting to move is just fear of change or a real aversion. I do know that if we move, it will be hard to move back.

So, I made the mistake of hinting about this to my mother, under some mistaken idea that sharing what's really going on is a good idea, and she asked a direct question, and I said that yes, we might be moving to Ottawa. So she told me that she and my dad like my sister and her husband better anyway and if we move to Ottawa then they will move to the States with my sister and that will be the end of any real relationship between us.

For about the first time in my life I actually just burst into tears in front of her (on the phone) and said fine, that I had to end the phone conversation right there. She talked me out of hanging up and apologized, but the emotional bomb of conditional love had already gone off. Gee I wonder why it's often so hard to assert my needs and desires in my marriage. In truth this is practically an argument for moving to Ottawa; if she's going to be like that I don't see why I should try to preserve a life near her so that my child can have to deal with it too. But that's not a good reason to move either.

And I was up at 4 am Friday wondering why they like my sister and her husband better anyway. I hope I remember this maternal power with any children I may have who survive.
And then I got into that mindset where I wondered why I (using I loosely) had to lose my baby, and why my husband has to make these crazy career choices, and why I had to sell my house (well, lots of good reasons, but still) and why I get the smackdown from my parents if I dare disturb their universe in any way, and why I have to be multiple which has affected some things like school and jobs and relationships and shit and when I was abused as a kid and why I have to be pregnant for all of this and my work be so unstable that I feel a bit like some chick who's gone and gotten herself knocked up in high school or something. So then of course I was angry that I couldn't just enjoy my baby swimming around my belly! Dammit!

Fortunately around then I decided to have a mug of apple cider and pet some cats.

When everything's up in the air you can juggle, or jump around in the confetti I guess.

Okay, witch baby is getting quite active now.

So's my gastro-intestinal system. Did you ever wonder what happens to the stuff that usually fills your abdomen when your uterus takes over? I did, before I took prenatal classes with Emily. There they showed us the nicest diagram with a nice round uterus, and then all the intestines *squashed* somewhere else. Which explains a lot, trust me.

But I can actually tell the gas from the baby, at least most of the time, and baby is definitely swimming around a lot. I suspect that if this baby survives, s/he will come tearing into the world on a mission. Funny how the poor thing is only 16 weeks after my last period and already I'm ascribing personality.

In case anyone is wondering how I'm showing, Carl and I went to have dinner in a pub on Wednesday night and the waitress asked if I would like anything from the St. Patrick's day drink menu, then looked at me again and said "I guess not!" She was scandalized when I had chicken in a whiskey sauce. (The alcohol cooks off! Really!) With Emily people started to guess around 6 months, and even at 8 I was carrying fairly subtlely, in the right clothes. This time I imagine I'll be wandering around in the summer as big as a whale.

I had a really difficult discussion with my mother yesterday. Carl and I are moving back to Toronto for the summer, delivery, and to finish up my commitment to work, but we may be back in Ottawa after that, particularly if my company does fold. Or we may not; it's hard to say right now.

It's a big stressful argument because I really want to move back to Toronto, but that's my only compelling reason - I want to, my friends are there, my therapist is there, my dentist is there. Carl wants to move to Ottawa and take care of his mother and try to slow down on the workaholism, which would be good (although I myself do not understand why this cannot happen from Toronto).

He thinks that Ottawa is a better family-raising place and perhaps it is, if by that you mean cul-de-sacs and soccer clubs. Myself I think funky lesbian haunts and plenty of good curry and Chinese food are the perfect atmosphere for child rearing. I will admit that Ottawa has a more sporty feel to it, which I do think is good for younger kids, and that it is much better for bilingual education. It has a major gallery, decent symphonic happenings, two universities, plenty of government jobs, and housing prices are lower. It is two hours from Montreal, always a bonus.

On the other hand, the houses are mainly either out of our reach or in something that looks, feels, and smells like suburbia even if it admittedly is much, much closer to downtown than Toronto suburbia. (Or there are these ugly, ugly, ugly neighbourhoods of bungalows in between. I mean uglier than Scarborough. I mean ugly.) However, should we choose to move to one of these park-friendly, school-friendly, library-friendly, coffee shop bereft areas, we would be able to get a nice big house well within our budget.

And that is probably more what Carl wants than coffee shops and funky coffeehouses (although he brought home a pamphlet for a funky Ottawa poetry coffeehouse for me this morning, pointing out that there are such things here). I believe him that he would at this point be happier here; at the very least it would give him a chance to make some needed changes.

But I like Toronto. I don't want to leave. And really if I were not pregnant I think I would dig my heels in and say I wasn't leaving and that it's time for Carl to bend a little to my desires for a while. But with going down to one income and having the prospect of being all about the drool, poo, and mom-friends, it seems harder somehow. It's not about sheer economic power but that is part of it; it's more that I don't know what my life will look like and I don't know, within myself, whether not wanting to move is just fear of change or a real aversion. I do know that if we move, it will be hard to move back.

So, I made the mistake of hinting about this to my mother, under some mistaken idea that sharing what's really going on is a good idea, and she asked a direct question, and I said that yes, we might be moving to Ottawa. So she told me that she and my dad like my sister and her husband better anyway and if we move to Ottawa then they will move to the States with my sister and that will be the end of any real relationship between us.

For about the first time in my life I actually just burst into tears in front of her (on the phone) and said fine, that I had to end the phone conversation right there. She talked me out of hanging up and apologized, but the emotional bomb of conditional love had already gone off. Gee I wonder why it's often so hard to assert my needs and desires in my marriage. In truth this is practically an argument for moving to Ottawa; if she's going to be like that I don't see why I should try to preserve a life near her so that my child can have to deal with it too. But that's not a good reason to move either.

And I was up at 4 am wondering why they like my sister and her husband better anyway. I hope I remember this maternal power with any children I may have who survive.

And then I got into that mindset where I wondered why I (using I loosely) had to lose my baby, and why my husband has to make these crazy career choices, and why I had to sell my house (well, lots of good reasons, but still) and why I get the smackdown from my parents if I dare disturb their universe in any way, and why I have to be multiple which has affected some things like school and jobs and relationships and shit and when I was abused as a kid and why I have to be pregnant for all of this and my work be so unstable that I feel a bit like some chick who's gone and gotten herself knocked up in high school or something. So then of course I was angry that I couldn't just enjoy my baby swimming around my belly! Dammit!

Fortunately around then I decided to have a mug of apple cider and pet some cats.

When everything's up in the air you can juggle, or jump around in the confetti I guess.

Hello baby

It's strange to think that Emily's brief life and death gave us a vacation this year when we needed it, but then that is how life is. We both (all? Except Lynn) cried and had moments of intense grief and sadness, and some mild anger, but in between we enjoyed lazing around a beautiful resort being fed gourmet healthy organic food.

And I started to feel more - well - pregnant. With possibility as well as just biologically. Although I knew that opening myself to what-ifs will be intensely painful if anything goes wrong, I still pictured perhaps bringing our kid along the next time we take a March vacation. Perhaps witch baby might one day nurse, or cry, or learn to walk, or something equally normal. Perhaps even go on vacation.

It may be related to the new flutters that sweep by my abdomen now and then, or just inevitable, or just letting go of some of the stress and fear because walking out on frozen lakes is good for that.

And last night I had my first baby dream about this baby, who was nursing fiercely and very much alive. Of course that hurt too. I think if that happens it will reignite a lot of the most searing grief, because there will be living evidence of what we lost in a way.

But regardless it was a warm, maternal dream. Hello, witch baby, or at least these ancestral dreams that *I* believe are basically there to train the mother to get used to the idea of not dropping the baby off the tree.
But there it was.

I ate tons of great food and I just know now I've overgained (I also ate chips all through Emily's birthday), but I also got out and moved around and I think as long as I keep doing that there is a good chance we can avoid anything truly nasty. And it really was excellent, healthy food (although sometimes matched with cream and butter): all kinds of veggies and fruit and meat and fish and cheese and yum. It was hard to come back and decide what mundane normal food to have for dinner last night.

Now it's time to go grocery shopping to try to keep it up.

Flutterbys

Just in time for Emily's birthday, we have quickening.

I thought I was feeling witch baby on and off before, but now I know I was because yesterday witch baby swam up to a spot that is definitely not gas and had a wriggly dance for about an hour and a half in the car. And continues to move around a bit this morning.

(You can tell me it's too early to feel it, at 15 weeks, but it's not. Call us hypersensitive about our body 'cause we are, but this is definitely baby movement.)

Up until now this was something I'd only shared with Emily. But I find it doesn't take anything away from her that wasn't taken away by her accident and her death.

It is hard for me though. It brings so much back in a rush in that visceral way.

Still, welcome to the biblical definition of alive, witch baby. Welcome to interaction. Enjoy the space, because it gets a LOT more squishy in there.

Shandra

Changes

This is here and not in my usual journal 'cause a friend of mine who works with me probably doesn't know all this yet.

Change, change, change.
This year in some ways my job has been my rock. I know what to do there and at the end of the day I get to feel that I have done something productive. And I get paid! I like getting paid; it pays for all the variations of wardrobe I have gone through and home renovations and agent's fees and all kinds of lovely things.

But yesterday we had news that, as it pertains to me (me! me!) if I'm not laid off before I go on maternity leave, it will be a miracle of some sort, because our company has been badly managed to the point that our current management poisoned a deal with a group of investors who were really interested in buying us and tossing some cash in during the short term 'cause of our awesome long-term potential.

So, that being March 10 and within the time frame, this year I will have:
- had a baby
- buried a baby
- had my husband essentially relocate
- had a family member (my mum) experience a critical illness
- renovated my house - twice
- sold my house
- essentially relocated /and/ moved back in with my parents in brief spurts
- gotten pregnant
- lost my job (okay, this is a projected bad, but still)

I think I'm burning through some stress indices here!

Baby stories, and forgetting, and remembering

This morning I forgot I was pregnant. Oh I don't mean I sat out on the deck (in -19 celsius weather!) with a scotch and some awful inhalable substance or anything like that. I just didn't feel unusually anything and I was reading some pregnancy blogs and I wasn't relating. I'm not sure if this is good or bad, but it does point to the fact that my stomach is more settled.

I'm trying to find is that connection to this baby, but it's not really there yet. It's only there in panic, if there's spotting or sometimes during this time that things seem too quiet to be going well. But sometimes, I just forget.

Another one of these entries that must absolutely disappear off the web before witch baby can click around.

Shandra

Stories

I wrote in my other journal a while ago how in May Carl and I would wind up at the Crowne Plaza in Ottawa 4 days a week. He would go to work, and I would write in the morning and then walk and then come back to the hotel in time for Life Network's Adoption Stories, being careful to miss the show before (Birth Stories). And I would lie in the king sized bed in front of the cable tv and sob through the show.

At that time I could perhaps see a day when we might adopt a, you know, guaranteed alive on arrival child, but I couldn't see growing one and all that implied. In fact though, I wasn't watching it to figure out what to do next. That was just kind of my way of taking a half hour to cry every day and wallow in it, so that I could get on with the other 23.5 hrs.

I also felt guilty. We don't install cable into our own homes (although I seem to be doing fine using the cable here) and the only birth story I'd watched had been the one at the pre-natal classes. I still have some feelings that if only I'd been better informed about the pushing stage we might have flipped out and gotten a c-section, and at that time they were really overwhelming. Plus I didn't want to watch other people taking home their squealing newborns.

This week I watched my first Birth Stories. It happened sort of accidently; I was flipping channels and they were showing a c-section, and I thought this time I'd better watch and see what I might be in for if we opt for that.

The first thing about the c-section was it looked very violent to me; the mum didn't opt for total numbness I guess and she kept saying it felt weird and full of pressure. Then the doctors wrestled (or so it looked to me) the baby out of her stomach, tugging the baby out and not gently lifting the way I suppose I thought it would be. Then, of course, she couldn't hold the baby right away.

And then the baby started crying, and so did I. Emily never cried; the only sounds we heard her make were those breaths that were noisy and chirpy and then gasping. It was hard to watch. Really hard. I try not to spend too much time being envious of other parents; so many bad things can happen to kids and raging at everyone to whom those things don't happen doesn't help much. But of course I loathed them all anyway, the smug Life Network parents who end up with healthy breathing babies.

But I guess it was time. This time I want to know everything; what's more it is in a sense getting to where we can actually do it. One way or another the baby has to come out, if we get there. I'm increasingly unsure about a c-section, but I'm not sure how I feel about an induction - that seems like a way to set up a bad labour, which will be bad enough anyway.

We'll see.

I don't yet feel like I might be among the parents who end up on the good side. But if taking pre-natal vitamins and not physically overdoing, and not ingesting bad things, and eating and resting can manage that, I certainly have been going that far.

Today I feel pretty low-energy; I've been doing well on food, but only got 8 hours of sleep last night (which used to be plenty). It'll be an early night I think.

Saturday is Emily's birthday. Around this time last year I was just coming down with the stomach flu. I was nervous about leaving work soon. And I was bitching about a flame war.

I do wish I'd danced more, but now I find myself scared to let myself go that far. Maybe once I can really feel the baby move. You're not supposed to be able to yet, but I think I have felt flutters a few times now, when witch baby gets scraping up against the right spot.

Shandra

Skipping weekends

This weekend wasn't all that busy but wasn't very self-reflective per se.

The party on Saturday went well, although was Cosmic Adventures ever loud. It's a warehouse full of habitrail for kids, with other rooms like the under-3 area, the parent's "cone of silence," the cafeteria, and the arcade (no video games, mostly things like ski-ball). It was Saturday and so there were tons of birthday parties and tons of "regular guests." Many of the guests' parents were sitting around with their laptops while their kids burned off steam in the habitrail.

I'm not sure what I think of that. Indoor playgrounds seem a little bit like some kind of travesty, until one considers bitter cold winter days with kids who need to burn energy off. It's just that you pay for it, and it comes with soda pop, you know?

I couldn't quite help visualizing what it might have been like to have Emily in the baby-play area or to nurse her in the nursing room and at the same time I was being a little hopeful about witch baby perhaps making it to an age of play sometime. Neither a huge high or low, just sort of considering. Many of the guests in our group (plus many of the women there, generally) were in some stage of pregnancy.

And once again I was struck by the birthday ritual. Most of the kids there were under 4, but most of them had it down already - run around like mad, then come in the room and have the "Cosmeteers" serve pizza (NO hot dogs!) and fruit flavoured drinks and then sing happy birthday and then have the cake. And face painting last.

I still feel myself observing children rituals instead of really participating in them; I'm still holding that piece of my heart back in some way. I think that's all right. The freest time we had was playing ski-ball I think; it's a favourite of our system kids and we hit a quiet time with no kids waiting in line and just racked up the tickets. I gave them to my nephew and he turned them in for a - whoopie cushion. Hee.

It was okay overall, anyway. Perhaps I'd had my real moment of grief earlier in the day, and for the strangest reason: I was at the mall shopping for the birthday gift, and I went into the food court to have a yummy cream of carrot soup, and some kids were sitting next to me discussing someone's first. date. ever. And I was hit in that weird way that Emily will never ever get to have that. Kind of a strange scope-of-loss moment.

All the walking and standing and crawling about in habitrail did take its toll though and I woke up Sunday morning at about 3 am with leg cramps - obviously I need to get more minerals as well as try to start swimming again. I couldn't get back to sleep, but then I took a 5 hour nap yesterday afternoon, and as a result my day was all discombobulated. I also skipped lunch due to sleeping, and that led to nausea in the evening. So today I promise to eat all my meals.

I feel a bit like it was a lost weekend - had some good times online, did some socializing, cleaned, etc., but I didn't really get any writing done or end up feeling especially relaxed. Of course this week I'm staring down at Emily's birthday on Saturday, and I think that probably is coming into play. We'll leave Friday; everything's booked.

Shandra

Good days

Today seems like a good day. I'm not working for work today although I did get a modicum of writing-related work done - a whole email sent, whoo hoo. (An important one though; the 'you lost this contest but send the story with my recommendation to this friend of mine at this publication' sort of thing.)

I ate good fruit + cereal + milk for breakfast and I made my own hot apple cider, the cider fairy having left some in the fridge, and cleaned up a bit. I felt almost, dare I say it, human the entire time, except for having the television on. The television turned out to be an interesting experiment; they had a show on about surprise baby deliveries (it was some talk show, I don't know which one as I was mostly wiping out the fridge and doing other non-lifting things) and although it made me sad, it didn't make me crazy, before I got around to changing the channel. Happy those women. Unhappy me and Emily. But not, you know, tearing at clothes and beating of breasts. I think in a way knowing that time for that is coming is making it a little easier to ride out some minor waves.

We'll see how we do tomorrow. We're attending a 4-yr-old birthday party for a cousin of Carl's whom we really like but who happens to have been born in March and is a darling little girl. Since it's at Cosmic Adventures (think: Chuck. E. Cheese) I imagine we won't be there all too long anyway. But the last kid-party we were at was really hard.

On a more multiple- than pregnancy-related note (but somewhat, because listeria comes into it) our inner system kids really REALLY PLEASE OH PLEASE want a Real Hotdog at this party (we already know the choice is hot dogs or pizza). Now in the past you see we have a simple agreement about the travesty of food known as hot dogs - at home we will occasionally have tofu dogs, but we will not buy ground up bits of you don't know what Real Hotdogs. But when we're out if there is a rare occasion on which we are offered Real Hotdogs, then the kids can have one, with the soft squishy white bun, pickle relish, and YELLOW (non-dijon, non-stone-ground) mustard. Because, you know, moderation is good.

So when they heard that there were hot dogs on the menu they were happy. Until the adults pointed out that pregnant people cannot eat hot dogs prepared in restaurants because of the risk of listeria to the baby. So much mourning ensued for the loss of the shot at a Real Hotdog. I think I'll get some tofu dogs and yes, squishy buns and YELLOW mustard for here. And eat pizza there.

Poor kids. But with luck it will be the kind of birthday cake with the sugar icing and white spongecake.

Now you can argue that the listeria thing is overkill. I sort of believe this in a way: I know that many things present risks to pregnancies and the main one is a car accident, so pregnant women really shouldn't actually go anywhere (but we all do). And some of the concerns about bacteria are a little outdated. For example: I have been told by all my practitioners to avoid soft cheeses, which I do. However intellectually I know that most of the soft cheeses on the list to avoid actually have been pasteurized (for example, Canadian feta cheese is) and are probably okay. But for 9 months is it really any skin off my nose to not eat feta? (Actually yes, but I don't anyway.) Because what if I were wrong and because I couldn't skip the cheese tray my baby died? That would suck.

And one thing about sitting down with lawyers and getting grilled on your pregnancy: it certainly gives you a lot of relief to be able to say: no, I read these books and they said not to do any of these things and I didn't do any of them. Didn't smoke anything, drink a single glass of wine, consume a single piece of sushi, or lie in a hot tub. Nope nope nope.

I can't really imagine how I would feel if it were a hot dog that did it this time, you know?

It's sunny and not bitterly cold from what I can tell from my balcony, and I would like to go out to the library and perhaps hit the maternity-discount shop, but I'm waiting first to see if my MIL still wants to go for lunch. She's at the vet with her cat. It's almost like having a social life! Except not quite.

Shandra

Bodies, eating, etc.

I ate plenty of food (healthy! Tomato-carrot-red lentil-sausage-soup!) during the day yesterday, and I even made beef and green lentil stew for dinner. But I didn't eat that. All I could think of food-wise from about 4 on was a hot fudge sundae.

Just that. It was almost so stereotypical as to be stupid.

So I had one. So there.

My first pregnancy was a lesson in how cool my body can be. This one feels the reverse.

I am starting to really look pregnant, despite being at hovering around 14 weeks ish. My belly is not out past my breasts yet, but that is because my breasts are preparing to feed an army. (I think they are still miffed about last time, when they got to pump but then were cut off just when they were really getting started.) When I was at work last week one of my coworkers-in-the-know pointed out that I don't have /that/ much longer before making it official, which is true. My next week in Toronto for work is March 21, so I'll have to say then and decide when I'm going on mat leave (I think August 15 is probably a reasonable day; I don't think I'll work to the wire this time). Still this just pointed out how large I am; last time I think I was still in size 14 pants. Actually I am wearing size 14 pants, but they're low rise, and under my longish sweater, my belly is actually probably hanging over them.

(checks. Okay, not quite. But almost. There is a ridge.)

You see this time the growth is not a nice smooth pregnant belly. It's jiggly. This is because there is fat over it, and also because I never really got my abs back. And because of all the feeling like crap my legs have gotten jigglier and my ass is a disaster. I feel as fat as I ever did, and I'm still on restriction and I can't just hit the gym and workout. My mother pointed out that there is plenty of time to do this later, which is true (although I am not sure I should believe her given the state of her body) but it makes me want to panic. Part of it is vanity, and the other part is fear that I'll never manage to get back a body that works.

So I feel totally mismatched in my body in a way I haven't in a long time, and it's vaguely triggering. And then I wake up thinking fuck, why did I eat that hot fudge sundae? and it loops in my head - stupid, lazy, aiming for fat, fat, fat.

It may help when I can feel the baby move, because then it will be "oh, look at this person rolling about" and not "what the fuck is this lump." But I don't know.

I wonder if I would feel differently if Emily had lived, and I think the answer is yes if only because I would have spaced the pregnancy differently. Well. I didn't space this one. To be honest if I /had/ spaced this one deliberately it would have been after 10-15 more lbs off. So.

Despite all this hating the fat, I know I have to gain 25 lbs for a healthy pregnancy (last time I gained somewhere around 26). I know that this is the only chance I have to help this baby's bones, teeth, neural tubes (oops! those are done!), liver, kidneys, brain, heart, skin, etc., to grow. And in the immortal words of - someone - it actually is easier to do inside right now than it may be outside. So I know that all this pride and worry is in the end, futile: my butt will blow up and my legs will be such that people will run from them in the streets in the summer, but I will still eat my meals and pack it on.

But I may try not to eat sundaes more than once in a while.

In other news I have made a plan for Pride this year. Normally I do not believe that pregnant bellies should really be err, on display. But this summer I think I will make an exception and I will walk in the pride parade with a very short top and I will paint my belly with a big rainbow.

And then, if this child survives, and is raised quasi-Catholic, quasi-err -US, one day we can haul out the picture I will have taken of this occasion and use it the way my generation's parents waved their Woodstock paraphenalia around, see, I was young and cool once too.

And jiggly.

I'm not a very gracious pregnant person. People struggling with infertility, should they come here, will probably vomit and leave post-haste.

P.S. US, as a religion/ethical perspective, is our multiple system which includes everything from a very fae earthy gentle love granola type through pagans and christians to a not-especially-satanic cult queen or three. Oddly enough we manage to agree on courses of action most of the time.

Second trimester foreshadowing, maybe? Please?

This week so far has been a slew of reasonably good days. Part of this is that I have been doing everything as absolutely right as I can manage: short, easy walks; mild, frequent food. I would like to see more vegetables reintroduced into my diet but I have gone slowly and carefully on the ones that were making me sick before. Periods of concentrated relaxation (baths, stretching) have been prevalent.

The other part though, I think, is as simple as the second trimester. And thank god, if the nausea and fatigue really were first trimester goo. Which it appears that they may have been.

So last night I was able to make a mild version of chicken paprikash and enjoy it, and I went to bed at 9:15 and wasn't so exhausted that I could barely make it to bed. I did dream again of sleep (this time Carl and I were sleeping in The Bay because we were between homes, and the security guard kept waking me up to my annoyance). You know something is up with your body when all your dreams seem to be about not getting enough sleep. Today I have enough energy to actually think about possibly doing a writer's group next week. I might be able to stay awake for the meeting.

This morning I heard baby-laughter, waking up, and it cut. I haven't talked about that much here because it is - well - weird (unlike everything else in my life, ha ha). But to go all Beyond the Grave-ish, I every now and then hear or feel Emily and she grows. And no, she's not one of the inner/astral multiple kids. It's - well, whatever. Then I started thinking about what if this baby actually lived to you know, smile, or laugh. Maybe. Maybe.

Shandra

Yikes

I should update more. :)

No more spotting since Thursday, so that's a good. It may be thyroid related and my nurse put me on a week's light activity. So Sunday at my sister's I mostly sat while everyone else worked their butts off painting and such. I entertained dogs and dispensed drinks.

(She's moving to Kalamazoo MI at the end of this month, her husband to follow once his immigration stuff comes through.)

I have been able to eat more. Friday I was a bit flipped out and that made me nauseous and Saturday also was a bit tense, but since then it's been pretty smooth sailing. So that should help. I feel like I have a bit more energy too: not as much as I usually do by any stretch of the imagination, but I don't feel like I'm going to pass out at 5:30 either.

My belly itches sometimes, a familiar pregnancy feeling. I'd better find some cream for it. :)

Hmmm what else. I'll quote Babycenter:

Your belly may soon be big enough to announce to the world that you're
expecting, but your baby is still tiny. In fact, he's only about 3 inches long
crown to rump — roughly the size of a jumbo shrimp — and weighs just about an
ounce. Despite the small proportions, there's a fully formed baby inside your
womb now. Much more proportional than it was a few weeks ago, his head is now
only about a third the size of his body. His tiny, unique fingerprints are
already in place. His kidneys and urinary tract are functional, and he's
starting to urinate out the amniotic fluid he's been swallowing. As you start
your second trimester, most of your baby's critical development will be
completed, and your odds of miscarriage will drop considerably.