Optimism

Witch baby is very active today, lots of kicks and rolls and pokes. The pokes seem like fingers, somehow, and are down where one expects hands to be given that we think s/he's head down. So I have projected that today is figure out hands day. For all I know it's wriggle your ass day in there, but part of the fun of pregnancy is thinking that you have a clue what's going on.

Yesterday I ended up leaving the apartment to seek a couple of hours in air conditioning. I didn't find walking comfortable; I felt awkward and heavy and out of step. It very much was not a dancing day; it was a peer in reflections in mirrors and sigh day. So this morning I spent time on body care and now I feel at least more human than whale. When Carl and I were at Mt. Sinai I had to note that many many women are much bigger than me - the special pregnancy unit in particular, thanks to all the multiple-baby pregnancies, tends to be full of people where you wonder how they are still walking - but I feel massive.

Because I started this pregnancy heavier than the last one, I pretty much weigh more than I ever in my life have before, and I think not only do I feel it, but my bones and feet (poor feet!) and back are all flipping out. I find myself fantasizing about all the things I will do at the gym later, and then I realize that it's unlikely that I'll be having time for that. So then I fantasize about pushing a stroller all through Guildwood and up and down the hill. Really all that is to offset the anxiety that I will feel tired and heavy forever.

If any people thinking of getting pregnant are reading this, I strongly suggest getting to a strong, healthy, normal to low-normal weight before you do, if you can. (This obviously means no crash-dieting.) It's actually not perhaps so much the weight but the fitness level; although I was well on my way back to fitter this time, last time I was really almost at the top of my game when I got pregnant, and I find it made a huge difference. Of course this time I have been less active in pregnancy too (and more stressed) and I don't really recommend that either unless like me you have bleeding and Concerns.

I do fine myself being increasingly optimistic about the possibility of having a child this time. I'm not sure what the source of this sudden hope and faith is. It's certainly not about labour. It may be witch baby him/herself, squirming around in there with a zest for motion. It may be the happy hormones. It may be summer. It may just be that I am by nature a forward-looking person and it's too hard to hedge my emotional bets forever. But whatever it is I find myself going through the thought-experiments I did before: baby and me classes, slings, clapping games, Raffi.

Then comes the crash, the lack of Emily and the anger that neither of us (but especially she) got to do that. But it's separate now somehow and both grief and hope exist and not a kind of - reproductive nihilism. at least not much. Occasionally I do end up in that magical thinking place that if I hope for it, it will not come. But the fact is that not hoping fails to prevent bad things.