| Week 32 After going back and looking at my entry for week 30, I realized that I never mentioned the hole in my bedroom or how it got there. Almost two months ago, we purchased three replacement windows. Two for the basement and one for the master bedroom. The ones in the basement were rotting and the one in the bedroom had mold growing on the wood surrounding the actual window part. After replacing the windows in the basement and finding no problems with the wood around or under the window, we were pretty confident that there wouldn't be any trouble with the one in the bedroom. We really couldn't have been more wrong. When Dylan went to push out the window in the bedroom, he made the discovery of some mold growing on the main window support, the siding and a little bit of the fiberboard underneath. He cut out a little of the sheetrock around the window to see if the mold had spread and things looked good. However, as he was taking the siding down and finding some spread there, he decided to take the sheet rock off on the inside to the floor. Seems we were providing the perfect breeding ground for three species of mold, a black one, a yellow one and a soft fuzzy white one. Now, according to the health deptment and some online sources, it is not necessary to replace solid wood or any other basically non-pourous material. Apparently all one needs to do is clean and disinfect these materials before building around them again. I disagree. Therefore, we have now put in new 2x6's and window supports. Just not taking any chances that we might miss a spore and have it regrow into it's own new little colony. While there was a rather large hole in the bedroom wall, I briefly considered just putting in a sliding glass door and adding a little balconey. Dylan would have done this, but wanted a decision right away. Umm....never mind, I'll pass. September is officially over and October begun. This means that basically there is only a month until the arrival of Almond, less than three weeks until the 4D u/s. We're going to be having our own little party in the u/s room. Dylan's dad and Teri are coming and so is my mother. If the rest of the family had their way, they'd all be there too. There are a whole mess of people who are very invested in this baby. Sometimes I wonder if that isn't a lot of weight to be putting on the shoulders of a child who isn't even born yet and likely won't weigh more than 7lbs at birth. I've had a number of Thanksgiving turkeys who weighed more than that. I'm definitely getting more excited about the u/s coming up. I did finally call Angie and Donnie regarding the impending arrival of their baby. It took me awhile, but I decided to tell them how happy we are for them and that we are very excited for the eventual arrival of their baby. This is all true. We are happy for them. I remember well, how exciting those first few weeks of my first pregnancy were. How I could concentrate on little else besides the baby. They're happy, we're happy. We're also excited for the arrival of their baby. The baby will arrive, eventually and therefore we can be excited for it. Her pregnancy has added a new dimension of fear, however. This new fear comes in a somewhat unusual form. Something that was a little unexpected for me. No matter how confident I tell myself that I am, that nothing will happen to Almond and that I will be going home from the hospital with a baby this time, I still worry. Now though, I worry not just about going home with empty arms again, but that another member of my family will go home with their baby and I won't. That again, I will have to watch a baby grow up that should be doing so with my own child. The only difference is that this time it is my side of the family instead of Dylan's. I'm not sure that this changes my feelings or whether it makes them better or worse at all. I realized this week, that I am confident in everyone else's pregnancies, but my own. There is no doubt in my mind that Angie will go home with a healthy baby. To all of my online friends, I have absolutely no doubt in their ability to conceive if they are currently trying or in the fact that they will be bringing home a baby at the end of a successful pregnancy. I have the same feelings regarding those in my support groups. I believe without question that they will all have a healthy, happy baby at the end of their desired pregnancies. Even the friend who was put on bed rest this week due to the beginings of a shortning cervix. While her history is having lost a baby due to an incompetant cervix and even though the scientist in me understands the statistics and knows that there is no guarantee that all of the precautions that have been taken will result in the birth of a healthy baby for her, I still believe with complete confidence that nothing is going to happen to her child. When the baby is fully developed and ready to survive outside of her womb, then and only then will the baby make it's arrival. It amazes me that I can have such complete and utter confidence in everybody else's pregnancies and not have the same confidence in my own. Each one of the people that I have mentioned or left unmentioned, has experienced the same type of loss as myself. They have all nurtured and loved a growing baby only to lose that child just shortly before or after birth. Why can I be so sure that they will all have healthy babies and still worry that I won't? There is nothing different about us. There is no reason to not have as much confidence in my own pregnancy as I do in theirs. Even while believing that all of my family and friends will have healthy, successful pregnancies, I know that I cannot tell them this on a regular basis, because they are likely battling the same demons that I am. I know that if they were to all say to me that they "know" that I will go home with a healthy baby, I would probably become upset. I would want to know how they can "know" this, considering I knew last time that I would go home with a healthy baby. The possibility of another outcome never entered my mind. Now that I'm familiar with a wide variety of outcomes, there are only two that occupy my thoughts, the dramatic loss of movement and a healthy baby. These thoughts are very much at odds with eachother and often compete for my thinking time. This is something I cannot understand and maybe I'm not meant to understand it. |