Nesting kicks in

Well with that good news and a modicrum of hope, there was space today for nesting to kick in big time. Still don't have the nursery together; Carl and I both need to do that and he was trapped in his workaholic hell for most of the day. But I did manage to make a plan for food to feed us all (or at least, a plan for some food to feed us all) post-partum. Let's hear it for freezers (and my mum has offered space in hers, as we only have the one fridge now).

The trick is to start picking freezable recipes now and doubling or tripling them up, I think. And the really tricky part is we don't know what Noah will and won't eat in his breast milk, so there needs to be a good range of recipes.

With Emily I actually spent a couple of weekends on it, but I also had less time as the kitchen floor was being replaced, etc. I also had a number of pasta-heavy dishes which weren't a bad idea and yes I have read how pasta isn't as terrible as white bread because of the exact flour, but we still have moved away from that. So today I thought "well, what's reasonable to get done in a hot week like the one coming up, and also can fit into this week's food budget." (Monday is a holiday, which helps.)

So this is my plan. I bought a pork roast, stewing beef, and two chickens. I also hydrated some beans, or at least they are soaking now. I bought many of the other ingredients although some we had already. Here at some boring length is my plan - meal sizes are for two + a bit, in case of a visitor or excess hunger or something.

Tomorrow we're in Kingston but I will put on the crockpot and cook the two chickens (my spiff X-mas present crockpot should hold both) while we're gone. That chicken will become the base for my Cooking Light recipe for Brunswick stew, which is fabulous and takes chicken, a tiny bit of bacon, beans, corn, and a few other various things (a very small amount of tomato) and actually is supposed to be made with already cooked chicken. We'll probably actually eat some on Monday, but the majority of it will be frozen for: 2-3 dinners

It will also be the basis for a very shameful casserole I pulled off the internet this morning that has "bland" written all over it, as well as "American comfort food" - a blast from my childhood, as you mix the cooked chicken with canned soup (!!) and layer it with potatoes and peas and top with grated cheese. There's no garlic or spice or tomato or vegetables other than peas in it. I was embarassed to buy the canned soup. I have enough ingredients for at least two casseroles (maybe three - I have three aluminum pans, since unlike stew, this cannot be frozen in a Ziploc bag). Kind of minus several points for nutritional value, but compared to a lot of takeout, not bad. And easy, I must say, except maybe for grating the cheese. 2-3 dinners.

So that's the chicken. Then on Tuesday I'll put the pork roast in the crockpot. We'll have that Tuesday dinner and then the leftover pork will go back in the crockpot overnight with beans and tomatoes and vinegar and sugar and spices - to make, you know, barbeque pork, except with beans to stretch it and make it more fiberlicious and nutritious. That'll be frozen in small batches, and eventually defrosted and served over buns for a fast meal or over rice for a slightly more complicated meal (that is, involving a pot to cook the rice in). Preferably with salad, although I have some extra carrots and zucchini I may hide in there (they will go with the roast on Tuesday). I'm not sure how much we'll have until I see how much roast is left. But with creative addition of beans, it should do Wednesday dinner, plus 3 more. (For bonus points I could freeze this with biscuits attached, or something... once my time & money budget frees up for some baking stuff.)

Then the beef. Thursday I'll make a big beef stew in the crockpot, wine-based and not tomato based, but it will likely have garlic in it. That should do one meal Thursday and then 2 frozen meals. And no beans, in case there's some breastfeeding issue with them.

So, something like 9 or 10 frozen meals plus almost a week's worth of dinners, plus (if I manage) some chicken stock for soups. And all those ingredients are here in my fridge right now, squee. And it still only means really the effort for one dinner each day (thanks to the crockpot, not such a big deal), plus not having the leftovers for lunches.

Having that planned and shopped for made me feel a bit better about getting ready to take care of this baby. I mean I realize that the food is for us adults, but that should give us time and energy to throw at the baby. And it was a kind of a mental hurdle, since all those frozen things kind of felt heavy last time. They seemed somehow like food tainted with false hope, even though I knew that was - kind of dumb. This time, if we do lose Noah, I'll just donate it to someone else rather than trying to work through it.

Nest, nest, nest.

Having Lyria around more helps too, although of course we had the usual conflict over how much meat there is. But we can have vegetarian lunches you see!

Shandra

Good news day

It was a good news day. Noah's fine. He's growing (they didn't give me numbers but weren't concerned) and he's moving and his heart and lungs are just fine and the placenta is just fine and we're all just fine here now... how are you?

I feel relieved, for as long as the good feelings about it last.

I took the day off work in celebration, because it's a gorgeous day, and because I got ultrasound goop all down my shirt, which was a clear sign from the universe to go home.

Shandra

Why is it

That 3 minutes after I left a message for my nurse that went like "well I don't think this constitutes *no* activity, so I'm not calling triage, but I was wondering if you could call me back to talk about when not-much-movement-compared-to-usual becomes not-enough-movement" -- Noah started kicking more?

Is it possible to have a sense of timing inside the womb? :)

Anyways my message stands because he really has slowed down the last few days, despite occasional spurts. I'm in for the ultrasound tomorrow, and I figure she'll likely say just to wait for that. But I couldn't not call any more.

Last night was all dreams of death, which doesn't help. I can see these last few weeks will be nailbiters.

If we get there. If the weight situation is bad tomorrow (i.e., he's lost weight) then we might be onto a whole other train track at that point.

Three fig newtons and a mug of hot chocolate later

There he goes boys and girls, put some sugar in there and the kid kicks.

Yay.

Argh

Quiet morning this morning with Noah, which does not thrill me. He has made his requisite 10 movements during the activity check, but they seem less thrusty. I'll give it a bit longer before I decide whether to panic and go in, or panic and call, or whatever. I mean he may just have his back to my front or something.

It's slowly sinking in that if he hasn't gained weight, or has lost any, we might have a baby on Friday. Or on Tuesday. That's a rather big deal, but I'm not sure I want to go announcing it. There are people to whom it should be mentioned though. I think I've become reconciled to the *idea* of the NICU. I was remembering how it felt to hold Emily that first time at Sick Kids and how nothing really could touch that goodness right at that moment, even if my mind was working hard on denial at the time that the nurses' willingness to go through the 15 minute procedure to move her might not be because they thought she would need the bonding, later.

Oh lord, that started the tear ducts. I think I'll save that line of thought for later.

The good thing is that work has been on the lousy side this week, so mat leave is looking better and better. :)

Shandra

Grow baby grow

Your pregnancy at 34 weeks (Babycenter, of course)

How your baby's growing: Your baby now weighs about 4 3/4 pounds and is probably almost 18 inches long. Her fat layers — which she'll need to regulate her body temperature once she's born — are filling her out, making her rounder. Her central nervous system is still maturing and her lungs are well developed by now. If you've been nervous about going into preterm labor, you'll be happy to know that 99 percent of babies this age can survive outside the womb — and most have no major long-term problems related to prematurity.

Except, of course, that Noah doesn't yet weigh 4 and 3/4 lbs. Poor Noah. I am really waiting for that ultrasound Friday. He's clearly active right now; in fact he's kneeing me in the ribs and pressing his knee against the desk whenever I get too close. He likes, I think, to push against things. I'll have to see if that's true once he's out here (and adjusted).

Hopefully, hopefully.

Today is the last day of Eating Constantly. I never thought I would say this but I am glad. I'm sure later when I'm trying to get back in shape I'll think I was insane, but I've had it with trying to find so many healthy calories when my stomach is not at its full size. I'm sure I can manage the 2500-2800 fine now, which is a pile unto itself.

White linen things

Today I saw a woman dressed in a beautiful white linen shift. She had a nice hourglass figure and white shoes.

She was pushing a stroller with 8 month-ish old twins in it.

Okay, I'm guessing this woman is either a) some random person pushing a stroller for someone else, b) endowed with supernatural anti-stain powers of the mind, or c) married to a drycleaner.

I have my white linen ideas too. Our house is coming together and yet - many things are within reach of little hands. I know we will have to change them around at some point. I just wasn't ready to think about it that hard yet. I am scared to rearrange my life again, only to have Noah not make it. I contingency plan for my life with and without baby, with sick baby, with learning difficulty baby. Then I breathe and try to go experience life, because I don't want to live in the future or the past, thanks; I'll take the present.

This weekend was good for that: I took time to walk by the bluffs and for snuggles, for fruit salad and reading. I read some of the Mother of All Baby Books, which is the Canadian sort of bible on baby things. It did bring up memories of reading it in bed while pregnant with Emily, and how it was utterly useless in the end, but I feel soft about it in part (ah the travels of the heart) because its author later had a pregnancy loss and wrote a book on trying again. It has a list of ten things to do before the baby arrives like - see a movie, have a fancy dinner, go out with your girlfriends, have spontaneous sex, etc. and I think I've knocked three off (I am not telling which three!).

I also read up on IUGR (http://www.chclibrary.org/micromed/00053290.html). Scary stuff. I have not been drinking, smoking, or taking any drugs and as far as any of us can tell my nutrition is a-ok. No high blood pressure either. So who knows? Noah doesn't officially have IUGR yet, being in the 20th percentile, but I am finding it a little freaky. Friday is the ultrasound. He's active, though, so all is well on that front.

Neither Carl nor I could face putting the nursery together though, again. We did joke about the lack of time to do it in.

Squirmy boy, are we ready for you?

Noah's activity is fine. Quite fine. Right now my interpretation of his movements is that he's got his hands around at the front where I can really feel them and he's playing with the uterine wall. Who knows, but it feels like squirmy flutters, punctuated by the occasional (higher) kick.

Yesterday whenever I laid down to do the checks he hit ten movements in under 5 minutes (20 minutes is how long you wait).

Maybe he's just burning the calories? I certainly am not. I never thought I would say this but I am tired of eating. Because he was up high yesterday it was hard to eat anything in a large quantity so I ended up having to eat a lot of the time. It was good food - scrambled eggs, whole wheat bread with hummus, fruit/yoghurt/milk smoothie, chickpea salad (with peppers and onions and olives), halibut (in the approved quantity), cheese, mixed veggie salad, and vanilla ice cream. Today I have a potato-lentil-carrot curry on that, depending on the schedule, I may serve with some dead animal bits, and I think I'll have an omlette for lunch.

It is remarkably harder to hit 3,000+ calories on the contents of my larder and fridge than it was earlier in the week when walking past restaurants. But we'll shop for some high calorie things today too, for the last 3 day push of it. I'm determined that they be high-quality food though: no point stuffing garbage in, or one trip through the McDonald's drive through would do it.

I also had 3 Braxton Hicks today, one of which actually *stopped* me in my tracks. Not quite down in the cervix, but a really good hard clench. Looks like the muscles are just raring to go.

Ah, but his nursery is still a disaster par excellence. It's full of stuff - mostly baby stuff, but some odds and ends we threw in there when the painters were here like, oh, computer monitors. I'm not yet in a huge rush, but I think maybe we should tackle that this weekend, for my peace of mind. Because let's hypothetically say that on August 2 my obstetrician decides that he has to come out to be fed out here. Noah'd be in the NICU of course, but I would be recovering from whatever method of getting him out we chose and probably *not* in any shape to be unpacking. So perhaps we should look at that as a target date for not having to climb through to get the diapers.

It's going to be hard to open all that stuff again - open literally and open emotionally.

People's reactions to this latest not-really-a-crisis have been really interesting - I mean inside/system people. Magdalynn, surprisingly, did two of the activity checks herself yesterday, in a laconic kind of non-panicked way. Lyria's been reading to him and made all the food yesterday taste *really good*. And JJ's read up on babies not gaining in utero. It's almost like the parenting team decided that we had better encourage him, which - I don't know; I don't think it really makes a difference, but it's connection, rather than withdrawal.

It's a good feeling, despite the reasons.

Houston, we have a slight problem

Ultrasound and ob appointment today - neither my regular nurse nor my regular ob were in (one was on vacation, one was dealing with an emergency) so I didn't get to present the birth plan, but that's okay.

My blood pressure and protein - fine. Noah's heartbeat - great. Movement - excellent. Pockets of fluid - just dandy. Umbilical cord flow? Just great. Breathing motions (they practice on amniotic fluid!)? You betcha.

Just one thing. Weight. I have not gained much in the last two weeks. My belly has not grown. And Noah, while he has gained and now weighs 3 lbs 9 oz, did not gain enough in the 4 weeks since his ultrasound (my total gain in that time: 3 lbs) and slipped from the 50th percentile to the 20th percentile.

This is not an immediate crisis, but it is not a good thing. I asked about my diet, and they said yes, they'd like me to eat more and more precisely, perhaps some fattier things (given I have eaten pizza a couple of times in the last two weeks I'm not sure where the fats were missing) but really it's not about that. This was made pretty clear to me: yes, eating is important, but this is not a simple cause/effect thing. Even if I were experiencing famine, the baby should be growing (and he is, just not ideally enough) and sucking it out of my body.

So, as the fill-in ob said (but to me it's an Idahoian phrase) "it is as it is." Noah didn't gain the weight 'cause he didn't, not 'cause I was hauling books around my house or should have eaten more pizza or steak or something. It may be a problem with the placenta. It may be that he has some kind of wonky metabolism. It may be that he kicks around too much. And it may be, and probably is, that he's just going to be a 6 lb something totally healthy baby and there's nothing to worry about.

What it does mean is that we have to have ultrasounds every two weeks, and if he's not gaining right at the next one, they may want to get him out early and feed him out here, in the NICU. Which - urgh. That would be hard. But not as hard as some things, like one's kid not making it to the NICU. If we have to go through being NICU parents again, then we will, and that's it.

When my belly wasn't growing with Emily and my other ob had concerns she said "well, that's a concern. See you next time." This staff organizes ultrasounds and puts me on high calorie warning and has me commit to three times a day activity checks and tells me the plan for how they will handle it if the trend continues. I'm not really knocking my previous ob here (well, maybe a little) because the wait and see message is still pretty much the same. But I am more comfortable this time to have all the extra tests, etc.

So, it wasn't a totally happy morning.

On the ultrasound though, I saw feet. Feet, feet, feet, that kicked the monitor and that had really quite lovely kissable toes, I thought. I saw how this kid punches. I saw his spine and his skull and the inside of his heart, things I won't see once he's out (I hope). And he had his belly measured so I saw that too. He's the most adorable kid in 2-d black and white.

So suck that nutrition back Noah. :)

Birth plan, draft one

Tips for your birth plan
Keep it simple and short!
Keep it positive in tone. Let those around you know how to help you.
Be flexible. Remember that you're not always going to get everything on your birth plan.

Birth plan for J., C., and Baby G.

Background & philosophy: Our first baby, Emily, died 4 days after her birth due to a 2X nuchal cord combined with monitoring failure in March 2004.

The pushing stage of labour was almost 3 hours, although early labour was fast (first contraction was at 6:30 am, at 9:30 am J. was 7 cm dilated; pushing started at 3:30 after the membranes were ruptured by the obstetrician). An epidural was used and an episiotomy performed.

We did not see an obstetrician at any point between membrane rupture and delivery. We both feel that our trust in the delivery team and the medical system was strained if not violated and anticipate that we'll need extra information, reassurance, and definitely as much monitoring as possible.

We strongly want whatever is medically best and most cautious for the baby's health at all points during labour, delivery, and post-partum care.

Labour & delivery:

• support: C. to be present at all times; J2 is also authorized to be present at our request
• monitoring: we would like belly monitoring throughout (with the possible exception of periods of walking, in the earliest stages of labour) and, during the pushing stage, a scalp or other internal monitor. And any other new monitoring methods, or old ones, are okay with us. Vaginal exams are fine.
• information: we would like as many updates and explanations as possible. Both J. and C. tend to be outwardly calm under stress; it would be really helpful to us if staff took extra care to check in on how we are doing
• comfort measures: the elective medication we prefer is an epidural, but we prefer to make that decision as labour progresses. Otherwise visualization, massage, music (we didn't have time to use water therapies or a birthing ball or anything like that last time, so not sure)
• pushing: because of the lengthy pushing and results last time, we would like to request a c-section after 40 minutes of pushing, if delivery is not imminent at that time
• shaving: no, unless there is a safety reason
• episiotomy: if necessary; local (or other) anesthetic would be nice if stitching is happening
• c-section: would prefer spinal or epidural anesthesia to general; C. to be present and to hold the baby as soon as possible; J. to touch the baby as much as possible
• would like baby delivered onto belly; nursing as soon as possible, and as much holding as possible; if tests, eye medication, etc. can safely be delayed for a little while that would be great

Postpartum:

• we plan to breastfeed exclusively and would like to avoid bottles, pacifiers, glucose water, etc., unless there is a medical need
• we prefer rooming in unless the baby needs to be in a nursery
• no circumcision
• we would like as much screening as is available to newborns at Mt. Sinai

Thank you staff, in advance, for helping us through this next, fearful delivery.

Was I worried about activity?

Whoops, the gremlins ate my post. :)

The long and the short of it is - Noah kicked so hard that my desk, against which my belly was pressed, shook. It is a very light desk with only a notebook on it, but still.

He's been consistently active since!

Quiet day

Noah's quiet today - some moving around, but not as much as usual. It makes me nervous. If he doesn't move around more tomorrow I think we'll go down and get checked out - on a weekend no less.

(He just moved but it wasn't a kick, more of a swoosh. Being pregnant can be so weird.)

My physical energy today was pretty low, but I still got about 5 boxes unpacked, mostly objets d'art or more properly, knick knacks, in the living room. I find myself oddly reluctant to move all the breakables to the top shelves, as if I'm courting disaster that way - surely Noah will be born paralysed or dead if I start to suggest that he might one day walk around and pull breakable things down.

Thoughts like that sometimes lead to odd ones. How will I handle him driving around, or going to parties? It seems impossible to manage all the points in his life that he'll be at risk. I realize this is worrying 16 years into the future: probably another way of protecting myself in the present. It's so similar to us renovating before Emily arrived, and the way I would sit on the rug and think - yeah, Emily will know this rug the way you only do when you're a kid; each little dimple. But she didn't. And my heart is so much a once-bitten-twice-shy kind of place.

Lynn's more extreme, generally: she won't invest at all, except in a kind of practical way - eating properly, etc. It's interesting how different that is from last time, when she was hugely vocal - and largely unhappy at the idea of having a child. Now she's not bothered, but not hopeful.

Magdalynn, though, is already thinking whether he'll be like her (astral) kid Ahren, and how it'll impact on him. Magdalynn's risking hope, I think, in some form. She and Lynn are still connected, but Magdalynn seems to have more range. Lyria's remarkably quiet about the whole thing, and babies are really her thing. I don't think she's removed, just - interior about it. But she's had a lot go on this year. Of everyone, she was the most at risk to go under with grief, and I think just being present is harder for her than it has been in a long time. When she's really around, I feel the burnt edges of her. Dominic's just freaked about labour: that was the worst experience for him ever, I think, feeling a head come through body parts he shouldn't have. But he was there. Everyone was.

Ugh, I don't even want to think about labour again. There's time. Even if there isn't, it doesn't matter. Once it goes, it goes.

Shandra

Much, much better

It's amazing what a more sedentary day-at-work, a pizza, and a long night of really deep sleep will do for you. I feel much better today. Noah kicked the shit out of me yesterday for hours, which kept me at "tired out" but was also really reassuring. Today he has not moved around too much yet, but I figure he tired himself out, and I will start worrying at eleven if he hasn't bestirred himself.

So, maybe I was too quick to whine.

I took the bus to the GO this morning, to avoid the 25 min walk, but I got a 5 minute walk to the bus stop right along the lake and mnn it was gorgeous. Maybe there is some water in that well after all.

Tired out

This is another one of those posts that has to be deleted before Noah can read.

Today I am really not sure I want to have a baby at all. I know I don't want to be pregnant.

I'm tired. My body aches, especially the hip that was pushed around so much in labour. I wake up in the night because it hurts. I'm heavier than I've ever been in my life ever by many lbs. My life remains in chaos with belongings everywhere, and if I weren't so fucking tired all the time, it would be so much better. I forgot both my keys and my lunch today. I forgot an appointment on Friday. I tried to appreciate grass and sky and trees this morning while watering the front flower bed and I just didn't. Because this pregnancy really sucks. I feel drained. And yes I have been taking my vitamins.

From what I understand, this only gets worse for a while. And today, that worries me.

My nurse says that once I get a live healthy baby in my arms it will all be worth it, but I don't believe her on either count. I hate it when medical people try to reassure me, because I know they're lying. Even if they did do everything right, out of 100 pregnancies, 98 people bring a baby home. Them's the cold, hard facts.

It's whiny-assed but I want my life back, meaning really my almost-indominable zest for it, and I'm kind of scared I'm not getting it back, ever, either way. I don't think I would survive another loss like Emily's and if I don't, then I'm a mum and we all know that means massive change and sleep deprivation and all those things.

Last time I felt ready to deal with that. Today I don't, because this last year - thanks to grief, Carl's job, and real estate - has been nothing like my life. And that was okay when I wasn't drained and tired out, but now I am. And I'm not anyone I recognize right now: tired and cranky and doing most things at the last minute and not particularly well. I organized the move, but the rest of my life turned to mush while I was doing it; living at my parents' was particularly bad. I'm coping more than I am living. And I resent it, today. And a lot of it has to do with sheer physical energy, or lack thereof.

I know that this happens when our collective well runs dry: when there haven't been enough grounding, happy things to fill it up. But there should have been - sitting on the porch, and looking at the lake, and nesting. I've been resolutely focusing on that and I've felt the moments of peace and waited for them to ease the overall fatigue. But it just hasn't happened. And I'm stuck on what to do next. I really think it is physical, and I don't think there's a cure for months ahead.

Of course it may be that once we're really settled in, it will improve. But I'm not holding my breath.

I feel really stuck, in this moment.

Fears and TMI (really.)

I need to write in here more often; part of it is all the emphasis on the new house, but a lot of it is that I'm still dealing with this numbness about the pregnancy.

Yesterday evening was a lot about Emily; my friend lost her dad and that touched on that death-grief a bit, and then there was music on the radio and it just went wobbly. But also (here's the TMI bit) Carl and I had sex for the first time in a couple of weeks, since we'd been at my parents' and I have a Thing about that, and something went on with my cervix that was painful and somewhat contraction-like, although not really.

And I just had that feeling that I couldn't deal with labour, again. I mean by that as well that I sat in a chair and wept for my losses and in fear of going through that loss again and wondering how to give birth in the midst of terror, because now I know, you see, how hard it can actually be. Although I'm assured it won't be so bad, I don't believe it.

Some times I can barely deal with checking on activity with Noah, although when he does move - and he does - I love to feel it. I love to see my belly move, life, motion, the opposite of being hooked up to machines and deathly still. But then it scares me and I walk away and shelve more dishes. The one exception yesterday was out on the lawn, dancing on the grass in my backyard.

Maybe I'll try listening to Raffi today and singing a bit; I want to do that with Noah; I want to dance and sing more. I vowed I would. It's just that sometimes the fear makes me forget. Yes, if something happens it will be another album I can't listen to anymore but would not having that association make it any better?

No, it wouldn't. So onwards.

It's not long now. 8 weeks at the outside.

Expansions of space and contractions of time

My belly continues to grow and is now far bigger than I ever got with Emily. I still can mostly breathe, though, although Noah has figured out how to get his little feet pressed up against my ribcage, or what feels like it anyway. From the way it feels now I'd guess he's kind of got his legs splayed like a little frog, but it could be knees. I mean who really knows?

I'm so in denial about labour. I have forms for the hospital I was supposed to fill out & fax over and haven't; I also haven't taken a tour yet at all. For me these are signs that I'm not really dealing with it. Maybe I'll put those things on today/tonight's to-do list. At 31 weeks it's really past time to be doing these things.

31 weeks!!

Some TMI stuff: my breasts were leaky last night so this morning I had to seriously consider whether I needed to go get the nursing pads. Yeesh. My back is starting to protest at the equal work it's been having to do, and I'm getting to where I can only eat small meals because things just feel so full. But, I have lots more energy than I often have this pregnancy - still less than usual, but it's way better. It may partly be back at work around colleagues, which for extrovert-me is a good thing, and partly excitement about the house.

The house is starting to come together. We had some crises this weekend - the cats took down the ceiling in the basement kitchen by getting up under the dropped ceiling tiles and bending the rails they were suspended upon. Then Carl went Sunday morning hugely early - like 7 am - to get tools out of the storage unit and the key snapped off in the lock. He'd been really upset about the ceiling (I wasn't, but I for once just said "yeah it sucks" and let him rant), and I think he was freaked about the key, especially telling me. But we had another key and he'd fished the bit out of the lock; we went and made copies of it before we tried it again, and managed to get the lock open.

We put a less secure but easier to open lock on, just to avoid problems on Wednesday when the movers are there. It really was a good thing it snapped yesterday and not then!

I was kind of glad because driving around to do all that we had a really good conversation on the phrase "meant to be" in the sort of religious-goodwill sense. He was telling his aunt a bit about our new house and she kept saying it was "meant to be" that we found it, in a fairly serious religious-sense way.

Neither of us is much into pre-destination in that sense. Just on a very surface level, it seems hugely and wholely arrogant to think that God would care what kind of a house we own in North America consuming more than our share of the resources. While, apparently, not caring what kind of a tin room people live in in slums around the world. I'm sorry: I try to do things as well as I can, but there is no way to explain that difference between my home and someone else's.

But also, if you deserve the good things, it kind of implies that you deserve the bad things. And I think that is the struggle that people who have gone through something fairly life-altering in an internal way really engage in. Carl left his religious vocation; I've been through both the multiple stuff and the abuse stuff.

And then of course there is the loss of Emily. Neither of us would like to live in a world where she deserved that, nor where we did. None of the logic around it, though, works. Inside there's still that question, quite often: why our family? And although we kept the discussion pretty broad, I felt like Carl was coming up against that wall again a bit. It sort of goes with the whole setting up house thing: here we are again making this nest for a baby.

But it's not the same. And Emily's missing it.