What to say

I haven't meant to take quite such a long blogging hiatus. Sister's been at the beach with her dad all this week and rather than her absence providing me with a break, I've found instead that Bean's been requiring quite a bit more of my time than I was expecting. Sister keeps Bean entertained much more frequently than I realize, I think.

But the other thing occupying my mind lately is a friend in the intensive care unit of the hospital. She's got very aggressive thryroid cancer and isn't going to last much longer. She may be moving to a hospice facility today, but I'm still waiting to hear from another friend if that's the case.

I have known my sick friend for about 15 years now, but we haven't been in contact much since our lives diverged. She's an ardent feminist and activist, never married or shacked up, never had kids or even pets. I, on the other hand,...well, here I am a stay-at-home mama, pregnant with my 3rd baby and engrossed lately in another quilting project. I love her, but our lives haven't have had much in common for some years. Even the restaurant business fell away as something we both shared.

Still, I visited her in the hospital the other night and it was devastating to see her just dying right in front of me. I spent that night dreaming dark dreams of her and hospitals. My life isn't on hold like certain of her other, closer friends' lives are right now. She has nearly 'round the clock company from her many other friends, none of whom have children. Nevertheless, I've found myself unmotivated to blog about the trivial details of my life just now. Vacations, summer colds, Bean's new tricks, and even the fact that I learned I'm pregnant with daughter #3 on Monday seem like very light fare indeed compared to an old friend dying in the hospital.

I won't really do it, okay?

It's weeks like these that make me feel almost tempted to have a big slug of gin despite the pregnancy. Sister's been an emotional wreck during her last week of 3rd grade, going into even more exaggerated than usual fits of hysteria over the discovery that an old toy found in her grandmother's attic contains lead and she'll no longer be allowed to play with it. Whereas before it was merely an interesting curiosity, now that it's made of lead it's suddenly her absolute favorite toy and she' s going to miss it so much. As she's been crying to me all week.

The Ex picked a fight with me in front of Sister a few hours ago because he wanted to change her summertime schedule to begin effective in 5 fucking days, threatening me with a lawyer when I "irrationally" said no, that was not enough notice for me to change all my plans.

And worst of all, a 42-year old friend of mine who was diagnosed with thryoid cancer some months ago has now been told that it's spread to her liver and pancreas. She has no health insurance. I talked with her on the phone a few minutes ago about bringing her some food and listened to her struggle to talk with paralyzed vocal cords and lungs full of God knows what.

I certainly hope the rest of you have had better weeks.

Return to normalcy

Husband and I took Bean to a friend's going-away party yesterday afternoon. This is a friend that Husband made here in Chapel Hill when we first moved here about 6 years ago and Husband joined a running group. I think they immediately hit it off, which pleased me at the time because, while Husband lived here when he went to college, he'd been gone for some time and didn't have friends here anymore. I'm very sorry to see this particular friend leave, though it's for a great job in a great town and his wife and 2 kids are very excited.

It was a fun party and I do feel up to parties again now. But I was a bit shaky when Husband's friend's wife asked how I was doing because she knew I'd "lost the baby." I had mentally prepared myself for the possibility of people asking me about it, but the second she asked me I teared up a bit and came very close to saying, "I don't want to talk about it," as a precursor to really losing it in the middle of the party. I didn't realize I was still that shaky. In my normal, daily life I am NOT that shaky at all. I'm too busy feeding the kids, grocery shopping, cleaning the house, walking the dog, working on projects, planning Thanksgiving dinner, bringing in the houseplants from the porch, planning our holiday party, and all the myriad other little items that fill my life to actively feel sad about it anymore. I feel o.k. now, really. Maybe just when I'm confronted with someone else's sympathy it's hard.

So if I happen to lay eyes on you in person, don't be sympathetic, damn it! A little light-hearted, "How are you?" will do fine.

The worst news

Well, the worst has happened. The spotting escalated into a full-blown miscarriage that kept me awake half of last night. I am no longer pregnant and am terribly, terribly sad about it. I'm also feeling like a complete idiot for announcing it so soon, given that I've had a miscarriage before and remember all too well how months afterward I would STILL have people asking me cheerfully how the pregnancy was coming along. I'm kicking myself now.

I remember writing here, too, that if something happened I'd want to talk about it here. You know what, though? I don't. I really, really don't. What I want to do right now is hole up for awhile and not talk to ANYONE about it. I need to think about it on my own for awhile and really believe my midwives when they say that even having 2 miscarriages is no indication that I'm predisposed, especially since they happened so far apart and I've had 2 perfectly healthy children in the interim.

My 2 beautiful girls ARE a huge help to me right now. Bean especially is so unfettered in her sweetness and mama-love that when I'm with her the sadness is just gone. So I'm going to immerse myself in my life right now and just do the things I enjoy and be sweet to my babies. I'll be back in a couple of weeks, I think.

Scary

It's been a pretty shitty day today. I got a call from one of the midwives at the birth center about the fact that I tested positive as a carrier for cystic fibrosis. Now Husband has to get tested to determine if he is, too. If he isn't, there's little to no chance that our baby will be born with the disease. If he is, then the baby has a 25% chance of being born with it. I immediately called Husband after hanging up with the midwife and burst into tears when he answered the phone. My thought was not of this baby in my belly, but of Bean who exists already. I now think I needn't have worried about her, because in reading descriptions of cystic fibrosis on-line today it looks as if Bean would already be a sickly child indeed if she'd been born with it. Still, both she and Sister have a 50% chance of being carriers themselves, and now I have to fear for any children they give birth to in the future as well as this new baby of mine.

Then again, I may not have to think about this new sibling because--as if the threat of cystic fibrosis wasn't enough--I'm spotting today, and have been since 5:00 am. I haven't had cramps so I have no way of knowing what the hell is going on, and neither do the midwives. I just have to wait and see, and in the meantime I'm pretty freaked out about it all.

Part of me also sees the irony in being so freaked out recently about the prospect of having this third baby so soon. Now I'm just worried that I won't.

Day 3, going, going...

This is the next installment of a little program I like to call, "It Really Sucks That My Husband Has to Travel for Work." Last night, I had to get up with a non-sleeping, screaming Bean at least 7 times. I think it was even more than just 7 times, but I was so deliriously tired, not to mention absolutely livid at the injustice of it, that I lost count by around 7. By 3:00 a.m. I made the executive decision to stop getting out of bed to comfort her. I turned off her monitor, told her to please be sleepy, closed her door, and closed my door. She cried awhile longer, but I could only barely hear her, so I was able to go back to sleep a few more hours. She was still alive this morning so it appears that this was an o.k. thing to do.

Then while I was out getting some groceries a little while ago and returned lugging my 27# baby plus heavy bags of milk gallons and canned beans and tomatoes and the like, I discovered that our new outdoor sofa had been delivered. The UPS guy had very helpfully deposited it on our front stoop, blocking the front door. Probably thought he was doing me a favor getting up the steps or something.

Have I said how much it sucks that my Husband is out of town just now? Wish me luck as I try to make it through the rest of this particularly damnable day...