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.