Sound and motion

Well, if movement is any indication this flu hasn't hurt witch baby at all. In face s/he's developing definite movement patterns - kicks around 10 am, very active in the late afternoon, and last night quite a lot of what I interpreted as stretching out, since it hurt in two directions. Not as much as it *will* hurt, but enough that I walked around to see if I couldn't convince witch baby to shift in some other way.

I still miss Emily, but I am enjoying this movement too now, more freely. I suppose this is just continuing to establish that new relationship with this baby.

There was a news report that a child died at East General and the coroner's office is investigating. Yeah. All I can say is you won't be finding me there anytime soon, unless it's to do something legal.

Even more exciting, I think the baby can hear. I was watching a show on baby language acquisition and they were showing the babies react to that high-pitched repetitive parent-voice ("that's your arm! Yes, your arm! Who has the cutest little arm!") and I was repeating it a bit and *wham* witch baby went all wriggly each time that high pitch penetrated. Now who knows really but I was having a lot of fun with it.

I am refinding my capacity for fun, despite all the fear underneath it.

And I still wake up a lot of mornings at 6:30 desperate for Emily. Both can exist at once.

I have to admit

That I get a kind of sick pleasure from watching first-time mums on the baby story shows talking about how they're working out so that labour will be easy and talking about pain management blithely and then they get into labour and they just freak out.

Because, frankly, it's like that, labour is. It's just nuts, no matter what you do before. And I was something like that myself.

So, I'm sick. Sick, sick, sick. I have a true influenza, the flat-on-your-back kind, although I have managed to do a bit of work from the couch. I'm stuck at my parents' which is an experience alllll unto itself. And I'm miserable and unhappy at this development, which wipes out the last 4 good weeks of health from my memory.

And mostly I'm a bit worried about witch baby, despite a lot of reassurance from my nurse. I controlled the fever early, flu itself isn't going to really hurt the baby provided I don't go out and get something else. Witch baby *was* really, really active on the weekend but is now just active. Active is good, it's just I wish s/he would be hyperactive now, just to reassure me.

It may be related to all the coughing (poor thing, his/her whole world gets shaken up on a regular basis), and now my entire front abdominal region is all pulled and sore and blah blah blah.

It helps in a strange way that I had a cold with Emily. It's a shocker when you get sick and you can't take much in the way of medication. At least this time I knew it was going to be a rough ride from the get-go.

Just be okay in there. Imagine if this fried witch baby's brain or something. That would suck.

This one's a kicker

Witch baby got into some super-active position yesterday (my theory, from the pain I was experiencing: sideways across my belly) and kicked and kicked and wriggled and god knows, probably giggled. I don't remember Emily being quite so active, which was making me feel guilty (what if I missed that she wasn't active? What if I could have /done something/?) until I remembered how wild she went at The Return of the King.

A movie I still can't watch. I loved that trilogy and now it haunts me.

You could even feel these kicks on the outside, beyond my belly fat. At 20 weeks! I'm starting to get scared for later. Of course really baby's not so small: check out this picture: at Babycenter. (I hope that works; the little edit/Word-like interface is down at Blogger this morning.)

Anyways, despite my best intentions not to stereotype I am developing a sense of a different personality for witch baby and where I now imagine Emily would have been snuggly and active but not hyper, this baby's a handful.

So perhaps it's a good thing we bought the baby a house on a cul-de-sac in the suburbs of Toronto yesterday, on a street with a park (no playground, but grass and trees and cliffs opening down to the lake far below - with a safety fence!).

The house is a bungalow with mostly hardwood on the first floor (except the kitchen/entryway), perfect for tearing around, big kitchen for playing with pots while mummy (Lyria) makes things, with a finished large basement, perfect for sending kids down to play when they're older. 3 bedrooms, in case witch baby ends up with a sibling. And a completely fenced backyard, not too big, but big enough for a whack of toys and a sandbox.

We close June 24, and then we let the painters in because, my friends, the house is completely decorated circa 1981. I did say we could get posters of Michael Jackson and Prince and stick them up all over instead, but I was vetoed. Unsurprisingly.

It's all very het-middle-class-couple-childrearing and not very urban-polysexual-artist-childrearing, but I think I can cope. I admit that when we first saw this house it struck me as not the best house for me/us, but probably the best house for our actual family to be. Then it sold. Then that deal fell through - yesterday - and we struck while the people were panicking - yesterday - and now it is ours! Conditional on inspection, which will happen Friday.

Now I'm scared, of course, that the baby will die and I will be stuck in a house in the suburbs a little too close to a cliff one could actually throw oneself off of, but I think we will cross that barrier if we come to it. In fact I went down to that same park to cry about Emily one day, and walked there many times pregnant with her, and I suppose if bad things happen I will do the same.

(There is a part of me that thinks if this baby is colicky, too, we'll just take the baby over to the park and let it scream at the lake; why not?)

Hope. It's a powerful thing.

Shandra

Busy bee

Well witch baby's super active this morning - I think s/he flipped over at some point and is now having fun shoving his/her limbs into the smushy edge of my uterus. Down low, sort of the underside of my considerable belly.

Out on my walk in the glorious sun yesterday (more today! 21 degrees celsius!) people were smiling at me with the indulgent smile pregnant women get. Once I'm in a t-shirt it's now completely obvious. It's hard to say if it's paranoia from the few comments I got with Emily, but now I feel like everyone's interested in the contents of my grocery basket (yesterday: organically grown Valencia oranges, chicken breasts, cat food, fresh bread, and a container of bruscetta) and what I order at the gelato place (cinnamon full-cream gelato, tsk, and yum).

I took some time to stroll through one of the local parkettes: not the nice garden kind but a recreationally-focused sort - dog walking area, playground, room for frisbee, tennis court. Everyone, it seemed, was out and although the park was pretty full it was relaxed. I felt a little frustrated about the frisbee - I play terrible frisbee, but we have somewhere an aerobie which is like "frisbee for people who can't throw frisbees" and Carl and I have been known to toss it around. But it's less a desire for that than just plain feeling pregnant and left out of normal people activities, I think.

So I put my back to the frisbee and stood watching the kids at the playground for a while instead. They were getting along as kids do, gleeful and screetching and occasionally shoving.

I missed Emily horribly, at least my concept of her. It's strange; I picture her older, toddler-aged, but I *feel* her weight in my arms just as she felt at Sick Kids, which would have been about 7 lbs including tubes. It points out the dichotomy: I miss "her" without having too much of a sense of who she would have been.

When I look at mothers and babies and tots I feel alien at times, bereft at others, and rarely, about to join the club. And it's hard not to notice them. I think it is almost an instinctive reaction, to start to gear up on social childrearing patterns. I know I did last time.

This time it comes and goes. Sometimes I go back into that mode where I just block it out as much as possible. There's loads of time to pick it up later.

Shandra

Maternity assvice

Okay my brain is not like yesterday, so a more practical post. Here's what I've learned about maternity clothes/shopping (brought on by a fit of laundry).

When buying maternity clothes buy only what you love, and take a friend to look at your behind. Because you will be wearing those clothes over and over and if you buy the purple top because it's a big deal and then feel like a grape, you will likely have many grapey days.

When your belly first starts to pop, you may want to buy up one normal size - this comes in handy on the way back down too, when you are still utterly sick of your maternity clothes and wonder if you'll ever be able to shop at normal clothes again.

My first pregancy I made the mistake of buying up two normal sizes rather than going to maternity clothes - it was more frugal in some ways and nice on the way back down, but since it was only my stomach (and breasts) that were growing and not the rest of me, I ended up feeling 18 zillion times fatter than I was. It is probably worth it to buy the maternity stuff a little earlier, and feel like you're having a baby, not becoming a "before" poster.

The pregnancy books say to shop in your husband's closet and this is not a bad idea in those early stages for a few things and for t-shirts/pjs; on the other hand, you will feel like you are wearing your husband's clothes. And obviously if you're in a lesbian couple this advice sucks.

Buy more lightweight clothes than you might otherwise. You can layer easily, but the pregnant body tends to work like a little furnace.

Budget for extra tops &/or stain remover, because pregnant fingers drop things and pregnant bellies attract pasta sauce and anything else that stains on contact - not to mention the temptation to rest one's dish on one's belly.

Buy an apron, because cooking while the belly is sticking out also turns your clothes into a food magnet.

Buy only pants that are comfortable in the store, because they don't get any better. Trust me on this one. I hate the look of the panels, but with my body type, they fit the best.

Budget for bras. They are expensive, and the padding on the shoulders looks ugly, until you hit a DD size and desperately need a $55 bra that doesn't leave scars and where you can move without getting a black eye. Buy as few as you can possibly get away with, because your size will change. The good news is, on the way back down you'll be all set.

Buy yourself one spectacular "event" outfit - a little dress, or a skirt and top. Buy maternity panty hose when you do. Put it all in the closet together. Because at some point in those last 4-5 months, you will be at home and the phone will ring and you will want to go to the event, and you will have something to wear right there.

And trust me, there is no maternity panty hose at the drugstore along the way.

Your tactics for this will vary according to where you live. When I was pregnant with Emily and worked downtown I was within lunch-shopping distance of three maternity stores, so I bought what I loved - on sale. Second hand stores were okay, although a lot of the clothes there were of the "tent" variety. If you need to be frugal (we did/do) pick a colour scheme, at least for all your bottom pieces. This also makes shopping faster. However it does increase the ennui factor.

Accept graciously any maternity clothes that are given to you that fit you. You may hate the linen turquoise-pinstripe pants a lot, but there will come a day you have not been able to carry the laundry down for three days because of spotting and you haven't been able to lean over to shave your legs because you're dizzy and it's hot out and all you have left to wear is those pants. Either that or the rest of your wardrobe will have driven you bugfuck.

You can always give it all away afterwards.

Don't use the dryer. Maternity clothes are not made to last. They fade, shrink, and weird pieces of them (waistbands, tiebacks) get mangled. Plus, the dryer is a long, long way down.

TMI I wear bikini underwear, so I didn't have to buy maternity. They just fit nicely under your belly.

A point of taste. It is entirely up to you, but I personally believe that if you are over 25, you should generally keep your belly covered, pregnant or not.

Hope comes with making space

Since the ultrasound and all the good news about what is not, in fact, going wrong, I find myself less and less in scared headspace and more and more in hopeful headspace. It's strange because of course, Emily's ultrasounds were all fine, and in fact there was nothing wrong with her, and that didn't guarantee that she would be okay. And the same is true now.

Still, something that was withheld until seeing this baby's four-chambered heart there working away on the screen, and this baby's hands and feet moving around, and this baby's cute little pug nose, is flowing. I find myself and sometimes Lyria talking to the baby in that self-absorbed pregnant way, and even Magdalynn has joined in with a song or two in the shower. It may be partly the time of year - spring, a season in which I was never pregnant before - or the second trimester highs, or trust in our medical team, or any number of things.

I suspect this'll change as we move towards labour &/or a c-section, which raises waves of panic. But for now I enjoy the ride.

So, the ride: on the train yesterday the motion must have been soothing. Whenever we stopped at a station the baby would move around, fairly nicely placed right in the middle rather than down against my bladder or up against my lungs. Unless placed nicely right over my cervix, the movements aren't all that strong yet - not the kind that comes later and stops you in your tracks, more like burbles, if burble can be a sensation as well as a sound. But they get stronger and more insistent, in their own way: muscles building, tendons getting their acts together. I'm surprised still that I enjoy them.

I was worried that I wouldn't be able to handle this - that it would only remind me of Emily. It does sometimes, but a whole new relationship is forming. There's something bittersweet about that; life goes on, except for the dead. Sometimes I have nightmares of leaving Emily behind - in the daytime I know it's not that binary, but my subconscious isn't entirely convinced.

But at the same time in all my dreams I'm pregnant, from the most mundane to the more dramatic. I really do think the body informs the mind, to help the spirit get ready for the child ahead. And our spirits respond.

~~

In that spirit of hopefulness I find myself again in the struggle to align my life with what I think would be a good environment for kids, and it's tiring. It helps (or doesn't help?) that we have made so many changes this year: we have a blank slate in terms of houses, neighbourhoods, even daily routines. At the same time when I said I wanted to go back to Toronto I was sticking up for a certain continuity - not to rush off and make all new friends and leave the past behind.

In houses it's reasonably simple, although the real estate market itself makes it hard: a safe house with good floors and spaces that invite images of toddlers rushing about without smacking into some weird thing, no mouldy old basements, no unfriendly lead paint. But the neighbourhood is a big deal. Not in the US way, dear Americans, or in the South African way Tertia writes so much about. There are bad neighbourhoods in Toronto but they are few and easily pinpointed by their lack of houses.

But for me this is what I want: a neighbourhood that encourages walking and exploring; parks and library and community centre within walking distance, or some facsimile thereof; some sense of a vibrant arts community - I am an arts snob in that I think life without storytellers, plays, puppets, paintings, and such is important; and somewhere for me to go to feel myself, Shandra, who would on her own live in a condo with minimal furniture and eat sushi or Thai or fondue or the latest other food trend with a friend or two every Friday.

Lyria wants if not a garden at least to be very close to one, and although I mourn the loss of my exciting urban townhouse with no backyard, the idea of sandboxes and water play and crawling about on grass is a good one to me.

Lynn wants to be close enough to drop in on the readings along Danforth without three hours of fuss, although she will settle for three hours of fuss as long as three hours of fuss actually happen. None of us particularly wants to have to get a second car because of the whole oil thing, although probably a second car will be in the future sometime when our child picks sports and instruments and those kinds of things, just because Carl's office is truly non-transit friendly (unless that changes, and it would be nice if it did).

And Carl wants space: space between houses, space for his tools and workshop and motorcycle, space to kick the soccer ball around in the backyard. And I definitely want him to have those things, especially if it means he will sometimes take our child outside with him to putter around so we can have our downtime too.

So neighbourhood is tricksy.

Even more though I find myself going through what I think of as my backpack list: the things I carry around with me as concerns and interests. Some of these need to drop off again, and in thinking about letting them go I realized that is one thing that was so depressing this fall and winter: I had divested myself of some commitments because I'd need the time to be a mum, and I never picked them up again, partly because of moving but also because of something else, some reluctance to start again what I'd carefully grieved and let go. And I didn't fill that space with other things.

But here I am again anyway, and I've surprised myself with some of the things I'm putting in the give-away pile, and some of the things I've moved into the keep!!! pile. My family of the heart (hi family) remains the same, exactly, as a year and a half ago, with some surprising new connections in there too.

My really close friends, some of whom border on the family of the heart - C&M, M&C, K, N(&G), S, D&M - have been so there that despite some of the kid/kidless tensions I no longer feel like I'll be making all new mum friends but rather adding some into the mix.

One thing I learned from Emily's death was that all the fuss I was making before about who was Teresa's friend and who was mine was rather stupid and that I made things out to be terrible in some self-centered way when really people were just busy, and once I was on their radar, they were there, there, there... and now I keep them on mine. Which was probably the problem in the first place.

(Well that and that historically a number of the people I think of as "my" friends are the glitzy, crazy, obsessive, charismatic-dreamer type people who also are prone to going entirely nuts because they have some shiny new thing, trailing broken promises - unfinished degrees, lost or quit jobs, discarded friends and boyfriends and husbands and girlfriends and wives - behind them, not unlike me, but I seem to be slowly in progressively less angstful waves growing out of that - on both ends: the attraction, and also for myself.)

But some of the people I thought would be a part of my greater community totally weren't, for whatever reasons (see above as some of them), and after battling out a lot of the pain of that not-ness in various bad and not so bad ways, I'm ready to take some energy out of that glittery world of Big Wow and plug it back into what's real. (Lohr love, the similarities between this and what you guys, esp. Sassy, are up to, strike me again but in case it bears mentioning here, you are already the real for me 'cause of how I always have seen things between us, and it's just seeing how that unfolds for you.)

Boy this got away from you, baby, but sometimes that's how it is when you're making room for someone: you take everything out of the closet and then you think "wow, I'd forgotten I cared so much about this at one time!" or "ooh! This is so nice and I'm glad I have it!" and get all dreamy over that for a while.

Shandra

P.S. I just realized that for a lot of people the Big Wow is romantic relationships. Whereas a lot of my own are more subterranean; my romantic attachments tend to creep up on me over time and then poof, there they are. For me the Big Wow I think is a group of people struggling over something - to make something, like the theatre crowd; to resolve something, like the survivor crowd; to change something, like the political crowd.

I suppose what I'm really talking about is Narcissistic Supply*, when I say Big Wow, which is getting awfully deep for a blog of any kind and I almost type way too much for a parenting-esque blog when I realize (or have just realized): actually not making your kids or their school or Parenting Methods a source of Narcissistic Supply is probably the central struggle in parenthood.

But there is a sunny day outside, so that may be something to write about later.

* If you look up NS, you'll find all kinds of stuff about how narcissists are the bane of everyone's existence and NS the source of much evil, which is true at one extreme end.

And certainly as the daughter of a narcissist (or at least, extremely narcissistically wounded person - I don't really hold with labelling her as if she were a criminal or something, but narcissist despite its dangers is the best word really, unless it's the vernacular drama queen) -and- the most narcissistic (or second most, as Lynn and I vie for it!! :)) person in the system - the person whose ego stood up to my situation's as a teenager - coming to terms with my own need for NS (known on the Internet quite a bit as drama:)) I have to say that the struggle not to become a full-blown narcissist in the pathological sense is a hugely important one and that slowly getting rid of the need for NS is a big deal.

But, having said that, I think a lot of the 'recover from your lousy relationship with a narcissist' sites focus entirely on the worst parts of it. (I also think that women are called narcissists for doing what men do that's considered strong, but that is a totally! separate! feminist rant.) Most people have something in their life that feeds their ego a bit more than their soul, and that's not a terrible awful horrible thing, provided it isn't defenseless children or something of the sort.

God, some hormone seems to have put my brain on crack for this sort of far-flung discussion thing this morning.

And NOW I go outside!

Your brain on pregancy hormones

(This entry a blatant attempt to get my focus back on, say, work! Good thing I'm working Friday.)

Here's the fight in my brain:

Regular brain: Can I email the grandmother that missed our interview again for this article on "when your children adopt" or is it a little too pushy?
Baby brain: oooohhhh cute little adopted babies, if we do have this kid would it be awful to have one bio-child and one adopted child? would that screw them both up?

Regular brain: Let's see what's in the new for a poll question - oh Yorkdale's got some new innovative mall thing, hmm, too regional and fluffy
Baby brain: oooohhhh I don't know, now I've seen the anatomical scan, should I look for baby stuff if I go to Ikea on Thursday morning, and if I do will it make me too freaked out, and if not am I being bad to not shop for this baby?
Regular brain (interjecting): Consumerism is not love!
Baby brain: must... provide... everything... for... baby...

Regular brain: M. is pissing me off with his little projects
Baby brain: M... projects... maternity leave, hmm, September, I hope it's nice weather...

Good news day

I had a looooong ultrasound. All my babies seem to run away from the ultrasound and hide in the far reaches of my uterus, or as close to my bladder as they can get. After two people working at it for over an hour the results are: totally normal. All systems are go. Yay!

The baby had his/her hands flexing and moving and twisting - always in front of his/her genitals, so no clue if we're having a boy or a girl. This was much less important than whether there was a four chambered heart and a well-developing brain, so who cares? It would have been nice to know but for now - witch baby remains whatever.

My thyroid was totally back to normal. My ovarian cyst remained disappeared. My blood tests were fine, and my sugar/protein was fine and I've gained 3 lbs (good amount) and my virus scan came back negative - really negative. The only downside is I've never been exposed to toxoplasmosis, which is good because you really don't want to catch it during pregnancy, but bad 'cause I don't have the antibodies so I could. So I'm supposed to really only pet the cats in short bursts and then wash, wash, wash my hands (I usually do anyway). They probably don't have it, but you never know. And of course we're careful about litter and raw meat anyway.

So, it was a good news day. Scan of ultrasound to come later.

Multiple parenting

This is an excellent post on parenting in an alternative lifestyle. I don't agree with every specific, but the thrust of it I think is bang-on terrific.

While I kind of shiver a bit about labelling being a multiple an alternative lifestyle, just because of all the implications for everyone, it has some things in common - even more so - in that multiples may easy be labelled insane or incompetent.
Of course I also think that the stability and adult life outlined is important for any kid.

(This post is duplicated in my d-x).

Hint to life partners

Hint to the man coaching the woman in labour on the preview for Life's Birth Stories: not a good idea to ask a woman in labour what she's so upset for. Just not. a. good. idea.

Whoa baby

Heartache + pregnancy = waaay too many cookies consumed in one day. I think it was 8 or 9. Ew. Today I would say I'm going to be virtuous and eat only lentils, but in fact I ate some carrot cake at breakfast and yes, the last cookie.

It'll be okay.

Witch baby seems to like the sugar rush and pokes and prods around in there. Keep enjoying the space, kiddo, 'cause it gets a lot squishier. I am getting excited about the ultrasound, along with some dread that they will find bad brain things like that Catholic woman's baby and we will have to terminate, or some other major issue. I'd say limbs would be good, but you know, are they really that essential?

(Plus we saw limbs already.)

Today I'd planned a long morning walk, but it's raining blowy-rain that won't be stopped by umbrella. If I had my raincoat here it wouldn't be such an issue (I have a real rubberized raincoat that lets you walk and walk and walk in the rain) but it's in storage. So I'll have to wait and see if it clear, I think. I did manage to hit the grocery store before the rain arrived and now we have apples and carrots and other non-cookie fist-happy snacks, so that's a good.

I think I'll settle in here and write for a bit and then hit the coffee shop downstairs for a change and write some more. It occurs to me that in some eerie parallel way, much of the end of my book is very like my present now, although under completely different circumstances.

I need to talk to some people for research purposes soon though. I need an estate lawyer to tell me if a plot point is truly possible; I have an alternative backed up but this is the way I want it to be. Sometimes the Internet is just not enough info.

Oh hey witch baby just rolled over (or some similar large type movement). Hey everyone out there in blog land! I'm starting to have hope for this kid and then I recoil in utter fear. Now that people are starting to be informed that we're pregnant I am getting a lot of people reassuring me that what happened to Emily won't happen again. I know they are trying to be helpful and in way it is a good counter statement to everything else in my head. On the other hand now that I have entered the eerie world of bereavement and NICU parenthood I am aware of many of the 18 zillion other things that could happen, and painfully aware that it is in fact the one thing you didn't think of that probably happens.

Right now I am trying to just take it day by day.

Ridin' the broomstick

Witch baby is definitely active, burbling around in there. This morning's position seems to be whatever would cause flutters right about where a zipper would be, if maternity pants had zippers. I'd like to know, if the baby is down there, why the rest of my belly is so freakin' big. I am going to have soooo much fitness work to do next year.

I had forgotten what it's like when they dance on your bladder; it's almost like the early stages of an infection. I am sucking back cranberry juice, but I am pretty sure that it was just where witch baby ended up for a couple of hours yesterday. Not the most comfortable of experiences, although not awful. Movement is good, and that will be the mantra for the next - oh - 20 weeks.

I really hope the scan next week goes okay. Vital organs looking good would be good.

Today I went out for milk (also have been sucking that back) at about 7:15 and the air smelled just like that first real thaw. It brought back the funeral for me, at the grave site anyway (I guess that's the burial). Nothing in the past year plus seems to have taken away any of the entirely despondent, hollow, bereft feeling of that moment. It is strange to juxtapose that with this new motion.

I wonder how it will be for this kid, if everything goes okay, to be the eldest but not the first. I'm sure we can feel our way through it. I don't think, after all the experience of being multiple and such, we will have trouble treating this child as his/her own person. But I wonder what it will be like for him or her to have a parent who occasionally mourns a sibling they never knew, on damp early spring mornings.

I think it'll be okay. Just maybe.

Squirmy wormy

Witch baby's either positioned just right today, suddenly gotten bigger, or having a hyperactive weekend, 'cause it's a lot of movement going on down there.

It's a nice feeling, actually.

Except I miss Emily that much more. Poor witch baby, getting compared to his/her sister in utero. But how else could it be?

I'm kind of looking forward to the 19 week ultrasound; I want to see more of this kid. Of course at the same time I'm terrified there will be something really wrong. It's still a week and a couple of days away, anyway.

Taking it easy / possible TMI

Today I've taken it easy; part of this is having Lyria around more, who is calmer. And part of it is just I think sort of that yesterday was upsetting. And I'm feeling lazy. I need to work harder on getting this book done, but today it's just far away.

It is also a high hormone day: yesterday I failed to note that my boobs don't fit into even *maternity* tops with buttons (the dreaded Gap appears). But today they've surpassed themselves by producing a tiny bit of milk! Whoa, girls! You're 5 months early. Watch them have trouble then.

(My own theory is that they are still all upset about pumping and never getting anywhere the first time.) However not letting the ducts get infected would be a good thing to do. However one does that. I'll take warm showers twice a day for now and see about then.

I had a dream last night that I had two babies, much to everyone's surprise as there was only one on the ultrasound, and one was Emily. It wasn't a terrible dream but it made me feel rather bereft -and- anticipatory at once.

I am also feeling guilty today 'cause I haven't eaten any lentils yet. I mean, I plan to, at dinner, but the broader thing is that I'm just a *little* less perfect about food this time around; I just don't have the same groundedness under every food choice.

On the other hand, what I have been eating is higher quality organic stuff, so it may even out.

But I still feel guilty. Mother guilt is such a strange thing, and I seem to be in a heightened position of it because despite my brain, I still feel like I failed Emily so badly in my heart. I'm reading The Mother Dance to try to start working this stuff out before it becomes acute. While looking at under-the-mattress monitors.

When it comes to baby shopping I can't do it. I don't really need to, since we have most everything - we don't have a change table as we were going to use a built-in in Emily's room, and we had a change pad for her (the scoopy kind that has a belt) but we used that in her coffin. And we don't have the under-the-mattress monitor, 'cause I thought that was over the top, before. Otherwise we have everything, even diapers and (if they survive in the packaging) wipes. We kept all those things, neatly labelled - well the diapers and such we were going to donate to a shelter and then at the last moment just stuck them in storage instead.

Still, I can't help but think of the time I spent cruising eBay and all kinds of stores thinking of Emily, and this kid instead gets the fleeting search on "angelcare" and then a rush of fear. It seems unfair to the poor tyke. Maybe at some point I'll get superfluous stuff, just to have done so for this baby. Or the later things we never got (swing/jumper, high chair).

18 weeks along, we are now, or just about. Close to halfway. It seems like forever in some ways.

The early breast catches...

I think I've mentioned that my breasts seem to be on speed this pregnancy. Yesterday I found I could not buy a single *maternity* top with buttons because of the dreaded Gap. And most days they are warm, flush with hormones. The cats compete to lie on them because they are such nice little furnaces (and then I kick the cats off).

Well they've now topped themselves by being on early milk production cycle; yes - one leaked. I don't think it's an infection, although now I have to find out how to prevent one since, you know, no one is consuming the product.

Probably later on they won't produce at all. Sillies. You're almost 5 months early!

Space your pregnancies better, is perhaps the lesson.

Victorian era

I had a fainting spell yesterday at the Ottawa library. Actually I just got up too fast, and the world went black, and then there ambulances and blood pressure taking and incident reports and it was all a little embarassing. Not too terribly unnerving, although I certainly wasn't happy about it.

I think I got a little dehydrated. I had a small steamed milk at a coffee shop and wrote, then walked around quite a bit (I needed the blood to my brain!) and then settled at the library around 1. Around 1:30 was when I was leaping up to look up something when - crash. I was sent "straight" home, but being me I went shopping to get my mind off it first - also perhaps not the wisest decision.

However the discount maternity store was going out of business and everything there was $10! It sucked that they had sensibly not ordered in a lot of spring things, but I still scored a lot: two tops, a pair of pants, a knee-length skirt, a pair of biking shorts, and a batik dress. With a pair of capris and a few more tops we're set, I think.

I did however curse my body. I'm back to a large, even though I still seem to fit into the mediums I have from Emily's pregnancy, and it jiggles, this ass. Plus, you know, it fainted (and yes, trying on clothes was not ultra-sensible, but $10!). It wasn't joyful anyway, this experience, it was utilitarian. Maybe Saturday's trip to consignment maternity store and Value Village will be different.

Then I came back to the apartment and ate salty crap - veggie pizza and a few chips. Bad! Today is lentil day I swear.

I had a dream that I went into labour and gave birth to both Emily and witch baby, to everyone's surprise since there was no second baby on any ultrasound, but we recognized Emily right away. It would be nice if it worked that way. I remember one of the dreams I had last year around this time was trying to stuff Emily back into the uterus because in the dream that would work.

Witch baby has tentative names, but they are private for now. Obviously names for either sex, until we have more evidence. That was a hard one, because in a way Carl and I were holding back on humanizing things. But then I said "well, look, if we lost the baby now, would we want to have a name for the baby?" and the answer was yes, so.