| Week 31 There have been some pretty major happenings this week. Before I get into the things that have happened, I'd like to touch on where I've been at emotionally this week. Disconnected sort of sums up how I've been feeling. Not just from the baby, but from life in general. I love Almond more than life itself and absolutely cannot wait to meet him or her. This week, though I've been feeling sort of adrift. I feel movements and hiccups, rolls, tumbles and kicks and wonder if this is really going on in my body. These feelings are almost similar to the early weeks when I was having trouble believing that I was really pregnant. Lack of movement can still throw me into a panic, so I know that I am still bonding with Almond and wishing more than anything that November would just come soon. Work has become significantly less important. This week marked the end of the month and end of the third quarter. Generally this imparts a feeling of potential doom. If the numbers aren't there, the shipments don't make it or there is an unfixable crisis that prevents the release of thousands or hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of product. My problem is that I just haven't been able to muster the expected feeling of urgency. While those around me have stressed about orders, back-orders, shipments, etc., I have just gone through the routine as if these were any other days. I think my brain went on maternity leave already. There's a "Gone Fishing" sign of some sort hanging around in there. Physically I still do my job and there isn't any suffering in my productivity or accomplishments. However, mentally, I've left the building and don't intend to show up until sometime in late March. This doesn't bode well considering I still have four weeks left to work. When I get home at night, I have no motivation to do anything. We don't have a large house, but I still find myself wandering a little bit. I'll start tasks and then just drop what I'm doing to start something else. If I'm doing dishes and something on the dining room table catches my eye, I'll wander over to that. Sometimes leaving the water running for several minutes before I realize that it's still on. I can't say that I've really been able to finish anything, except maybe my nightly cups of ice cream. I had my first visit with Jennifer and her twins this week. This was something that I really wanted to do, but was a little nervous about. I remember clearly how absolutely jealous I was when I found out she was expecting twins. The announcement of her pregnancy did not bother me too much as we had just started trying to conceive again, so I had yet to experience the frustration of things not happening as quickly as I wanted them to. It was when she found out she was having twins at just 7 weeks when I did not yet know that I was pregnant. My thoughts ran to "Why does she get two babies when I can't even have one?". Not my proudest moment, but understandable considering where I was at. The boys are cute, not adorable, but cute. Right now they're a little too skinny to be adorable. Born 4 weeks early, they are just skin and bones.. Jennifer looks great and so does her house. They've put on a little weight by the time I got to see them, they were up to just over 5lbs. It was a nice visit. We talked about pregnancy, birth, the boys, work, just everything in general and nothing at the same time. I stayed for dinner and left shortly after. Driving home, I realized that I was not upset at all. Jealousy did not rear it's ugly head and I didn't cry at all on the way home. Probably a little bit of the detachment coming through. I had really expected to cry as I had after leaving her shower, but there was just nothing there. I reviewed this fact the way one might review a grocery list or some other mundane matter. The other event this week is that my cousin announced that she is pregnant. Announced might be a little strong of a word. She told her mother that she is pregnant and her mother, needing to tell someone, told my mother, who, of course, told me. My intention was to email her right away and tell her how happy I am for her. Then I decided that a phone call would be better. But what do I say? Congratulations would be appropriate in her case, but I just can't bring myself to say that to a pregnant woman. My thoughts run somewhere along the lines of congratulating someone for having helped create life will be little solace if something happens to that life. I certainly don't want anyone to congratulate me. Don't tell me you're happy for me until I have a baby in my arms. Pregnancy is easy for me, it's the birth I have trouble with. In the end, I haven't emailed her, called her, sent her a card or a carrier pigeon. Nothing. I'm still not sure how I feel or what I want to say. I'm having trouble getting worked up about my own pregnancy, how am I supposed to get excited and say the right thing to another pregnant woman. Especially since I'm still avoiding pregnant women like the plague. They want to talk about the excitement and what delivery will be like. I want to get to delivery with a living baby. They're debating using drugs and positions, I'm debating VBAC vs C-section. They wonder if they'll want a doula on hand, I already know that I do, but wonder if I should also have the pastor on hand. Our bedroom still has a big hole in the side, although it looks like that should be cleared up shortly. We are putting in a window, the sliding glass door and balconey idea got scrapped, mostly because I cannot make major decisions that quickly. The idea of moving is looking better all the time, but here we go with the major life decisions again. Dylan is not exactly Mr Decision Maker and since I want a little feedback on the decisions, we're stuck in a holding pattern with no one wanting to be the one to make a decision that will have a big impact on our lives and no definitive outcome, good or bad. I guess we'll sleep on it, but considering we're still sleeping in the basement, we probably won't sleep well. |