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.