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.