there IS a difference

i am not depressed because of something, like grief for hans or how i feel about being pregnant. i am depressed because i am wired for it and that wire has been tripped by something physiological, which i imagine to be the hormonal changes of pregnancy. these are two different kinds of depression. i know the difference. i have experienced them both. my discernment of the two is keen.

depression because of an issue is debilitating but not deadening. there is something which can be addressed, thought out, worked through, acted upon. there is a logical solution, even if it is lengthy, and the existence of a solution and one's ability to see it is empowering.

depression because, hey, that's who you are, sister, doesn't offer the same hope. talk therapy is comforting, for the moment, because someone else is trying to help, but it doesn't make a dent in that depression. it is a disease.

if how i felt was as simple, as understandable, as what was going on in my life, then there would be no real reason for depression. z is doing swimmingly, and this pregnancy has been far easier than the first one - the nausea has been minimal (and may even be over - no vomiting in a week and a half!) and i'm experiencing much less discomfort than i was at this point with hans. i made my peace with my dad a long time ago, he's doing pretty well on treatment, and i'm even communicating some with him (i sent him a postcard from tokyo, "from z," to tell him about the pregnancy, which he loved). i'm finally going to school to do what i always really wanted, and the class i'm taking is both interesting and low-stress. best of all, i'm with the love of my life; yes, we fought the other night, but it was about things going on because of my depression, and that i cried so much was not about the fight but a release from the misery i felt. everything in my life is going gangbusters except me.

justin and i talked when he got home last night. i may have realized yesterday that i was full-fledged depressed, but justin has recognized it for a while. this is not a pothole in the road.

the cure for the depression i have is to not be pregnant, or meds. i'm wary of taking something in addition to the buspar, for the sake of z. but i'm also concerned about creating patterns of depression in z's mental roadmap. and i'm concerned about post-partum depression; hormones will continue to be in flux following delivery for a while. but the category b meds everyone takes (paxil, zoloft) are not good fits for me; i tried them both before i got to serzone, and the side effects were awful for me.

terminating this pregnancy when z is so healthy is not an option for me, either.

so i'm looking at depression for the forseeable future. i will talk to my doc about it, but it's doubtful i will go on additional meds. i don't see any other way out. unless i develop full-blown psychosis; then maybe we could talk meds. :)

last night there was a psa on tv with mike wallace of 60 minutes talking about depression, how there's no shame in it, how it's a disease and treatment is available. "except if you're pregnant," i said sourly to him.

my list of unhappy things

okay, there's no list. the unhappiness just is. i tried to blog my way out of my funk today, but i'm full of shit. not that the things i listed aren't fan-fucking-tastic. but i am not.

i suspect the hormonal changes i'm experiencing as a result of pregnancy are triggering my pre-disposition for depression. in retrospect, i think what i'm feeling now is exactly what i felt with hans; it was just masked by the natural worry i had for him with the new problems that came up every month or so. at the end of that pregnancy, even though i was having weekly non-stress tests (with excellent results) and ultrasounds (which showed the kidney problem improving) i was deeply depressed. i thought at that point i was depressed because of having been pregnant for so long - everyone gets impatient at the end, right?

i realize now that there is a big difference between impatient and depressed. but hours after i delivered hans, i began taking serzone prophylactically (or so i thought), and i suppose it carried me over until my hormones were on an even keel again. but i'm not on an even keel now.

i feel like i've exhausted local talk therapy options. or maybe the thought of it just exhausts me right now. i don't feel like an anti-depressant is a great option for me right now, especially on top of the anti-anxiety meds (which i am in no position to give up).

the good thing is that pregnancy will not last forever (despite the fact that it seems that way after being pregnant for 16 of the last 22 months), and so hormonally-induced depression won't last forever, either. of course, another consideration is that, left unchecked, depression now doesn't make my prospects for avoiding post-partum depression any rosier.

i'm crawling back under the covers.

my list of happy things

1. the doppler is getting easier to use at home. i can routinely find the heartbeat alone, but i can't see the reading at the same time; fortunately, we are getting better at finding it as a pair, too.
2. i have stayed in bed all day today, because i felt like it, dammit. okay - in part it's because we fought last night and i cried half the night and felt like big monkey doody this morning. but mostly it's 'cause i feel like it. i did get up to fix lunch (open faced muenster and peppered tofurkey on honey whole wheat, lentil/carrot/spinach soup, red grapes) for justin and me to share when he came home between shifts, but that was food worth getting up for. i just love to stay home in bed on snow days.
3. we went to my in-laws' friday night with the excuse of wanting to watch the cavs' game, which was on cable, which we don't have. we have been hiding from them since christmas eve, so as we came in justin's mom said, "let me look at you and see if you've changed since i saw you last." as she moved in to hug me, i opened my cape (truly, a pregnant mother's best friend in winter) and looked at my belly and said, "what do you think? do i look any different?" she looked down, and up at me, and down again, and up again, and then whispered, "are you?" "yes!" i said. much celebration followed, including german chocolate cake. ecstatic MIL + german chocolate cake = happyrama
4. we saw a beautiful show saturday night, "mo pas connin or torment" - it was entertaining and thought-provoking and heart-breaking and ultimately life-affirming, but in a non-lifetime movie kind of way, and all the more important because it captures some big elements of new orleans culture that may never exist in one place again. it's a one-woman show from nina domingue, who voiced the notorious "nurse evil" character in the radio version of pengo's play. i wish i could go see it again.
5. it's early still, and i'm so...well-padded - but i think z and me are beginning to make contact. during the play saturday night, i felt a little internal jiggle, and again a couple of times since. which reminds me - i need to go eat, and maybe i'll get to feel a little more of z's exuberance.

and for extra credit: according to the baby center calendar, z is now about the size of an avocado. how yummy!

the kiss army's newest member

Deadbabymama gave birth to "sproglet" yesterday (25 Feb) at 12: 26pm. A 7lbs 6oz boy with deep blue eyes, a good bit of "medium-dark" hair and all his toes, fingers and a nose.

Mama, baby and papa are happy and healthy.

While getting to know their son, ma and pa are still deciding between two names; my non vote says that they should name their kid Ace, but who am I to say?

Congrats to the happy family! I can't think of two more deserving parents, or a luckier son.

what am i supposed to do with that?

my ob left me a message late friday afternoon to let me know that the quad screen results were already back, and the results were all normal. normal??? yes, normal. normal! NORMAL! also, the risk indicators showed my risk for any abnormalities was very low for my age, or that i had the risk of a much younger mother.

i was beaming, jumping up and down in my chair, but was thwarted in my efforts to share my news. at 4:30 on a friday afternoon, i was the only person still left in the office. justin had already heard from the ob, since the ob tried our home phone first, and that phone is forwarded to justin's cell, plus he was driving and couldn't talk. i called my mother in despair, sure that at 4:30 she'd be in her car on her way to dinner with her pal. hey, she's 63; if she's not having dinner at 5:00, her whole schedule falls apart. but she was still in her office, getting ready to go, and i was able to tell her the good news.

but then what?

i don't know what to do with good news. after i digest it, there's no next step. for the last nearly two years, every time i received a test result, it necessitated the development of a plan of action. but good news is just good news; no action needed except to keep breathing, taking the vitamin, and sleeping on my left side - all things i've been doing for two years (and the breathing thing, even longer...).

don't get me wrong - it's not that i'm not THRILLED. that z is doing so wonderfully, so normally, is my wildest dream come true! i most certainly do not want z to be imperiled in any fashion so that my life can be more interesting. but there is a definite gap now, where my mobilization plans (research, the list of questions for the ob, the behavior modification, the consideration of how we would deal with a child with [insert problem here]) used to be.

is this how a mother feels when a child begins to prefer reading on her own to having her mom read to her? or when she tells her mom, "don't bother," and gets her own snack? unimaginably proud of her child's accomplishments and independence but a little lost without the ownership of those tasks?

maybe this feeling is a lesson now to prepare me for the future: i need to not let my own life dissipate while loving and caring for z. i need to stick with school, keep working toward my new career, keep reading books i love and not just storybooks to z, so that when z no longer needs me, i still have a life.

ironic, then, that my current reading list consists of: parenting books. but i do want to be prepared for z, and this is the first time i've felt like i'm actually going to need to consider how i will deal with my child at, say, age 5. before i got pregnant the first time, i had already read "what to expect..." from cover to cover, so when i did get pregnant, i got the "what to expect..." book on the first year. i had finished most of it when the problems with hans started, but then i set it aside and never picked it up again. on some level, i knew i wasn't going to need it.

so i'm reading "the city parent handbook" and "on the go with baby" in an effort to back up our intent to raise z in an urban setting and to take z everywhere and to generally help him or her become a citizen of the world with actual know-how. we checked these books out from the library yesterday, but as we get into them, i'm thinking they're both books we want to own, so we can refer back to them as needed.

another book i'm working on is "thinking parent, thinking child." i know it's a little early to worry about behavioral conflicts with z; i don't expect that if z doesn't latch on right away, i can ask him or her to consider how she will feel if she doesn't get to eat. but the overarching lesson i've taken from my parents, who i know did the best they could, is that if a parent doesn't put some thought in advance into how they will parent, they will as their parents did, which is to say, mostly without thought, immediately, adhering to the same authoritarian patterns their parents followed. that approach invariably leads to spanking, among other things - to which both of us are adamantly opposed. so i want to think about how to think first before i respond to problems with z, and i figure i have more time now than i'll have later to read up.

i also suspect that if justin and i were to parent alone, given the identical situation we would inherently parent differently. i hope that by reading books now and discussing them, we can bring to light where we differ and figure out a compromise so that we can be consistent with z and not in constant conflict with each other.

this fantasy falls right behind the ones in which z is an angel on 14-hour flights, is not affected by varying bedtimes, is an adventurous eater and is always happy to self-entertain.

*****

this just in: strummer has a brother! deadbabymama gave birth to an as-yet-unnamed boy yesterday afternoon, and everyone is great! i can't wait to see him and to HOLD HIM! do you think it would be too soon for us to show up in toronto this weekend on dbm's doorstep?

it's a boy!

no, not z (at least, not that we know, as of yet). my college roommate has given birth (in a swimming pool!) to a lovely boy named solomon. he spent a week in the hospital because he had no fat on him at birth, but he's home now and everyone's doing well.

solomon's mom is my kindred spirit, my friend for two-thirds of my life. but our birthing styles could not be more different. what we both have in common is our age, and that we live about five minutes from major medical centers.

but she has now delivered all three of her children at home, with a midwife and a doula, and at least the last two were in an inflatable pool (not sure about the first one - we lost each other for a couple of years). heading to the hospital is her option of last resort.

can you even IMAGINE me doing such a thing now? i considered a midwife before i got pregnant with hans; justin was a big proponent of midwifery, and i was open to it - until i learned the only midwives on my then-insurance were housed on the far, far east side of town - i live on the west side and work on the south side - the east side just wasn't happening. and then i started bleeding, and the high-tech medical intervention began, and any thoughts of the happy hippy birth experience were forever forgotten.

i envy women who can do it. even more, i admire women who have lost babies and still have the courage. any minute now, maybe even as i write, but absolutely no later than tomorrow or saturday, deadbabymama will be bringing the little sproglet into the world, midwife at her side (or rather, at her cooter). that blows me away.

but envy and admiration do not constitute comfort for me. when my (and z's) time comes, i say, bring on the doctors! the more, the better! surround me with nurses! (but only good ones, please; hold the clueless.) strap me up with monitors, inside and out! the more medical professionals get a gander at my hoo-ha, the happier i'll be!

twenty people staring all the way to china is my dream birth experience. it may be time to go back into therapy.

*****

i think i'm coming down with a bad case of pregnancy acne. i don't know what's happening to me. my rosacea flared up a little with hans, but i never had anything like what i've got now. nor is it confined to my face. it's everywhere. i don't want you to have to picture just where all that is, so i won't elaborate. but how strange is it that i even have a giant zit on my forearm??? i'm a little freaked out.

*****

tonight was my first exam in my class, and i might have made a 100 or i might have made a 50. i have no idea. but i got through it.

when i got in the car, the radio announcer gave the women's figure skating results, before i could turn it off. doh! i deliberately did not do my usual olympic result check online today so i wouldn't know, and now it's ruined. oh, well - at least i can sit back and listen to dick button, without justin, whose boys' night out it is. me and dick, alone together at last.

never before imagined myself actually saying that.

but first i gotta watch the last of the idol elimination show. i skipped the girls' night tuesday for women's figure skating, but i watched the boys last night, and bobby was definitely the right person to go. i'm sure he's a sweetie-pie, but if i had a cat, it would have been howling during his performance. i hope the silver-maned taylor wins, but i'd like to have my way with ace. mmm, mmmm.

note to self: must get this junk tv out of my system before z arrives. can't be corrupting the babe with such nonsense.

simon cowell is my personal smack.

just relax!

i was nervous this morning, going in for z's and my checkup, but the appointment was so early (8 am!) i didn't have much time to build up a major anxiety attack.

i checked in and they called me back for my stats. as usual, upon walking into the pre-exam room, i shed my jacket and stepped out of my shoes and approached the scales, but the aide stopped me and told me to sit down. okay, then. she wanted to take my blood pressure first, because, she said, everyone's blood pressure goes up when they see how much they've gained. i assured her that my weight was not my biggest priority, but she already had me cuffed up, so she turned the blood pressure machine on and then sat down on her stool, staring at my chart on her computer screen while i got the squeeze.

she decided to make small talk. this attempt would be a first. when i have interacted with her before, i have had to repeatedly ask to be told what my own blood pressure is.

"is this your first baby?" she asked. while looking at my chart. even i can see the banner in red at the top of the page, the one that says i'm high risk, after a stillbirth and a miscarriage.

"no," i said. i was incredibly zen. i did not feel obligated to bonk her on the head with the explanation.

"are you having a boy or a girl?" she asked.

"well, i'm only 15 weeks," i said.

"oh, you're too young. yeah, you're too young. i mean, early. you're too early yet. well, what do you want?"

i smiled. "it really doesn't matter," i said. "i just want-"

"i know," she said. "you just want it to be healthy."

"well," i said, starting to lose a little of my zen mojo, "i was going to say 'alive'-"

she cut me off again. "do you have a boy and a girl at home?" what???

"uh, no," i said, with deadly but now distinctly un-zen-ish calm. "my son was stillborn and then i had a miscarriage, so that's why i-"

"oh, that's why you said 'alive'."

"yeah, and why i'm a little anxious today."

"well, it shows. you're blood pressure is way too high. you've gotta relax!"

of course, i immediately tensed up.

"that's actually not very helpful to say that," i said quietly.

"what?" she said. "can't you relax?"

i sighed deeply. "for future reference, it's really never helpful to tell someone to relax when they're anxious."

"well, you're going to HAVE to relax, 'cause your blood pressure is too high!" she adjusted the cuff and turned the machine on again.

"please stop saying that," i pleaded.

"what? are you upset? i'm trying to help!"

"then please help me by not saying that," i whimpered.

"I'M JUST TRYING TO HELP!" she yelped.

"then please don't say anything. that's how you can help me."

"well, you're going to have to relax!" she said. yet again. after all that.

"DON'T SAY THAT!" i barked.

"well, i'm just trying to help, but i won't say anything."

and then there was quiet, but it was too late. it was awkward, embarrassing. i had just YELLED at this person, this person who was attending to me professionally. i started to cry.

the door blew open, and there stood my avenging angel, in the person of justin, who heard me yell "don't say that!" through the heavy door and from across the long waiting room and came running to my rescue.

"what's going on???" he demanded.

"i had to explain, and then she kept telling me to RELAX," i sobbed. justin turned on the aide.

"we've lost two fucking babies in this place!" he yelled.

i cut him off. "she knows, justin. i told her. please don't curse at her." i was thinking about the afternoon in the emergency room, with the tadpole, when the clerk called the police on justin when he got upset. he sighed, and apologized, and sat down in the other chair in the room. but then he and the aide started going back and forth - i can't even remember what they said - while i broke down again.

we are a class act.

i broke in finally and told justin i asked her to help me by not saying anything, so to please not say anything to her, either; it was only fair. i don't know where i got that from. it really doesn't make sense. but they stopped yelling at each other, and she started trying to foist cups of ice water and urine specimen jars on me. no, no, no, i said.

"why don't we start with the scales and go from there?" i asked. so she turned on the scales, and i stepped up, and justin disappeared into the practice's hallways. then she offered to take my blood pressure manually, since sometimes the machine "acts up." i agreed, and forced myself to be very, very calm, and this time my blood pressure was 110/60. she never did tell me what it was before.

i said i didn't think i could produce a specimen at the moment (hard to pee when you're tensed up, you know), but i'd take the cup with me and take care of it before i left. she took me to the exam room, and we picked justin up from the hallway. he was standing there with my ob's nurse and a couple of the aides looking at him, mouths open. i'm not sure what transpired there. i'm not sure i want to know.

my ob came in almost immediately, and i asked him if we could do the doppler check first, rather than last, for my peace of mind. he happily complied, but the doppler would only produce static. i tried to be hopeful. or numb. "i feel kinda staticky today," i joked lamely. he wheeled the doppler into the hallway and came back with another one. this time, he zeroed in right away on z. 158 bpm. "perfect," he pronounced. and even he was amazed at how easy it was to find. i've been trying to remember the spot he used all day. maybe we just haven't been directing the doppler to the right place at home.

so everything is just fine. i was freaked out about nothing, of course. they drew blood today for the quad screen, and the results should be back late next week. he wrote me a permission slip for my lawsuit-petrified dentist, so i can go get my old cavity that's bothering me refilled. he didn't want to start the anatomical study until at least 18 weeks, so that what they see is really clear, but we'll be in argentina that week, so we'll go in for that ultrasound with the peri in four weeks, and then immediately after to see my ob for a checkup.

which is all fine, except - four weeks is like a lifetime to me right now. so i took a deep breath and said, "i need to ask for a favor." i told him i could coast for about a week on a good checkup or ultrasound, but four weeks was too much to ask. could we just go ahead and schedule a doppler check in two weeks, which would be the halfway point? so i could leave for my last pre-baby vacation (god, i hope) with confidence?

he smiled. he thought i might want such a thing. bless his heart. he entered the order for the two-week check and sent us off to the lab. two weeks. i can live for two weeks. or at least one week. and then there's only one week to be neurotic. one week of neurotic overload is much better than three.

i have a feeling that z is going to be supremely confident, fearless, completely mellow because he or she doesn't worry about a thing, a real cool cat - because his or her mother is such a nut job that she does all of the worrying for everyone. after nine months of swimming around peacefully, growing completely normally, thank you very much, while his or her mom was a freakshow, z will be used to treating my ravings as so much chicken little-speak. "what's the big deal?" will be z's signature phrase (or whatever like thing the kids are saying around then). it will drive me insane. but at least it's a better scenario than z inheriting my capacity for insanity, right? right? oh, god.

*****

and now, a word about richard totten button (or "dick" as we all know him), the commentator and critic of figure skating.

to me, he's the voice that belongs in the background when i watch figure skating, but to justin, who grew up watching hockey at the olympics and not this girly stuff, dick's brand of cattiness is unbearable. when justin gets home from work, i am in bed watching the last rounds of skaters (the medal contenders) and he listens in awe to dick's criticisms.

"who is he to judge?" he asks in wonder.

"well, he is a former gold medalist himself," i say, "in, like, 1952 or something."

"how does that give him the right to be so nasty? what's he done in the last half-century or so?"

"he's the voice of figure skating," i answer with a shrug, as if to suggest, that's just how it is, and justin is foolish to not accept it.

"what about the olympic spirit, huh?" justin persists.

"uh, well, i think figure skating is a pretty evolved sport at this point. the moves and the jumps and the science of it and the politics and the infrastructure - they're all more developed than, say, the luge. figure skating can take this kind of critique." i let my theory soak in.

"hrrrumph," he says finally. "i still don't see why anyone has the right to be that nasty, or why anyone would want to listen to it."

i give up and go back to half-heartedly studying for my upcoming exam.

today i thought to myself, who IS dick to judge? so i did a little googling:

• he was the first american to win the gold in figure skating at the olympics.
• he won two, back-to-back gold medals in men's figure skating (1948 and 1952).
• he was the five-time world men's champ (1948-1952).
• he was the first skater to perform a double axel in competition...and then four years later he was the first to perform a triple jump in competition.
• oh, and he attended harvard while he maintained the title of world champ.
• he also graduated from harvard law
• he has appeared in television specials, on stage and in the movie "the bad news bears go to japan." (not that the bears' movie is anything of which to be proud, but still, it's not like you were in that movie.)
• he created, among other competitions, the battle of the network stars. weird, huh? shameful, really, but weird.
• he won an emmy for his commentary on the 1980 winter olympics.
• he's a broadway producer and the author of a couple of books.
• oh, and by the way, he's an authority on american furniture and decorative arts.

so that's who he is to judge. i'm okay with it. i think it's the persona he cultivates. justin still thinks that "his panty hose are on a wee bit too tight." of course, this is coming from a man who actually uses the word "wee."

thank god for the medical-industrial complex

33 hours until the next checkup. despite physical signs to the contrary, i find it nearly impossible to believe everything is okay. justin keeps talking about this thing or that one that we'll be doing with z. i smile and nod, smile and nod, because it sounds great, but i can't really commit to it.

tonight, we were looking at apartments online for our week in buenos aires next month, and i started to find ones with two bedrooms where the second bedroom had a big bed and a toddler bed or a set of bunk beds. i could imagine for a few moments taking z and my mom or justin's mom with us next time, strolling the streets at lunch time with z in the stroller and again in the early evening, after z's nap, followed by one of the grandmas watching z while we went out for a proper 11:00 buenos aires dinner.

a lovely dream, one i'm fighting to not find foolish. wednesday's appointment will help me fight the feeling for a few days, and next week should start a round of testing and the anatomical survey that will keep me at the hospital on a regular enough basis to maintain some sanity for the next month. ah, organized medicine - where would i be without it?

jiggety jig

after three missed flights and a 13-hour train trip, we are home again. details over on the travel blog.

over dinner friday night, we toasted hans, and we wanted to talk about him, but the thing is - we didn't have anything new to say. justin said at this point it's not hans himself he thinks about so much as what might have been (i'm paraphrasing and may have that not exactly right - justin can clarify). i realized that i didn't have anything left for hans's birthday because i had already spent a year dwelling on his memory. i have desperately wrung every bit of meaning out of everything i knew about him. i've analyzed and then overanalyzed every kick, every quiet moment, ever movement that corresponded to any event, like eating pineapple or listening to the futureheads. i've stared at his face, his hand- and footprints, his cap with his dried fluids on it, to know him as much as i can.

but he hasn't done anything new since last 17 february, other than get himself cremated and come to sit on our stereo shelves. he hasn't rolled over or taken a step or held our fingers or babbled at us. on the other hand, he hasn't developed any other birth defects or fallen behind developmentally (well, other than in the obvious way - insert dead baby joke here) or given us any further cause for worry. and it's kind of a relief. there was no new way left to look at his life or his death, which meant no cause for fresh pain.

i wanted to spend the day being numb, and in the end i kind of did, not because of alcohol but just because there was nothing left to think about. weird. not the way i expected his birthday to go.

we popped into a duane reade before dinner and bought a "1" candle and a disposable lighter, and before we went back to our hotel, we bought a slice of black forest cake at an all-night deli. we were too tired by the time we got back, and it was already the next day anyway, so we waited until we woke up and then we lit his candle, and blew it out for him, and we hugged, and then we ate his cake. that was it.

i had thought that i would write hans a letter for his birthday, but i didn't have anything new to say to him that i haven't said here, in the last year. and what would i do with such a letter? maybe i could address it to the north pole.

i still miss him. i miss the opportunity to know him better. i will always want him back.

hans deserved better than a first birthday in a box.

the great escape, part two

tomorrow after my class, we're getting on the last flight to la guardia (we hope - there are only two seats left, and we fly standby) to spend friday - hans's first birthday - in new york. "anything to not be here" is our motto. i don't know that this method of commemorating his (still)birthday is the tradition i want to make, but it's right for us, for this year. when z is old enough to participate, we'll have to rethink the plan.

i got discount tickets to "rent" today (thanks for the tips, synge!), which will be our big outing for friday night; i have wanted to see it on broadway forever, and justin loves me enough to indulge me in a musical. and if he's going to see a musical, i'm thinking it's the one he'd most like. if he doesn't like it, well, i'll let him pick where we go to dinner.

we don't have plans for the rest of the day yet - we have a hard time planning too much in advance or having too much of an agenda on any trip, but i don't know if this might be the one day that should be well-planned. or not. we'll see. it's not like there's not plenty to do in new york, if we feel like doing it.

*****

in the mail tonight was a package from catherine containing a "thinking of you" card and a beautiful bracelet of silver child's blocks spelling "johannes" with amethyst, silver and crystal beads. it's absolutely lovely and it fits my already swollen wrist. catherine's friendship is one of the great gifts hans has given me.

*****

i think my pessimism about z's future right now is really about it being the anniversary of hans's death. the day before i delivered him, the day we learned he was dead, has weighed more heavily on me this week than the sweetness of the time we had with his body after the delivery. a month ago i was sitting on justin to go public already about z, but now i find myself suddenly withdrawn, not wanting to tell anyone else. i don't even want to tell justin's family when we get back from this trip, as we had planned. i at least want to wait until after wednesday's checkup. hell, i wouldn't say anything until z was born, if i could help it. when and how did that happen? i've turned abruptly from a blabbermouth into a clam.

i am insane, or at least incredibly neurotic. and maybe a little psychotic. more medication is in order.

happy heart day

justin came and met me at school tonight, and we left from class to have dinner together at siam cafe. we were both too tired to actually do anything valentiney for each other, but it was romantic to just be together. i'm so lucky to have stumbled across him in an internet chat discussing living in florida, five years and eleven months ago.

te amo, mi amornino.

*****

i've hung up the travel blog for a while, but the last of the pictures are now posted; click on the flying standby link in my list to see them.

*****

i'm working hard to not let my not-feeling-so-pregnant feeling today drive me into calling my ob's office for a doppler listen. my ob's on vacation this week, so it would be someone else, and i don't feel like someone else. we had a brief listen last night at home, but z's slippery and we never get a reading for more than a couple of seconds, and i'm psycho, anyway. i thought some of that japanese zen might rub off on me, but apparently i lost it on the flight back to the states. i just need to hold on until next wednesday.

and we're off

if i ever finish folding all the laundry done by the best husband in the world, we might get to bed and not oversleep and actually make it to newark and on the flight to tokyo. we'll be back on tuesday, but things will be hectic, so there may not be much updating here, but in the mean time, tune into our finally-formed travel blog for trip updates.

xoxo

waking thoughts

the whole newsletter fiasco was disappointing, but it just made me sad that we were even in a position to care about a third-rate piece of mimeographed nonsense. i found myself bent over the kitchen counter, crying into a dish towel depicting a paris cafe scene - a housewarming present from my mother. cute, but not nearly absorbent enough, dammit.

what i really hate about blows like this one is that they remind me that hans's death is permanent. he's not absent because of a delay, or because we have to pass some test to "get it right." he's never coming back. his ashes are not going to spontaneously reconstitute themselves into a real, live boy.

i hate that.

*****

last night, we gave the doppler a whirl. we had tried it together once, last week, and got a little flicker of a response after ten minutes or so of trying. but last night, within seconds, justin zeroed right in on z, and we got to listen to that lovely little heartbeat, all 170 bpm of it.

i love that.

*****

my nephew, hans's cousin-twin, celebrated his first birthday last friday. his party was saturday. my sister did call and invite us to come if we could (we live nearly a thousand miles apart), but i didn't have to hesitate or talk it over with justin first before telling her that i didn't think so. she didn't ask callously - she knew what it meant to ask us - but her openness made it easier for me to be straightforward with her and just say, no, i don't think so. i told her we were planning to get him a belated present in japan.

that's what i can do for him right now.

he took his first steps last week. i wonder if hans would have been on the verge of the same.

i've been thinking about hans, and how he lives on, or doesn't. i think sometimes why it hits me so hard when i realize that hans isn't coming back is that i've spent so much time thinking of hans in the here and now. i feel almost political about stating, "i *have* a son." "hans *is* my son." i feel like i have to fight so hard to define that he was real, that he did exist and that i am his mother, i'm *a* mother - and all those present-tense verbs are in conflict with the finality of his death.

i asked justin this morning if he thought hans was still around in some way. i asked because i woke up this morning and could smell him. it's only happened a few times, and each time, when i can't smell him any more, i think that i've lost that smell for good. so today it occurred to me that maybe it's hans, making himself known to me. every once in a while, when he concentrates hard.

justin said, "i think he lives on in our minds."

"and in my heart," i said.

i had a sensation once, not too long after he died, of him being sort of butterfly-like and fluttering around my shoulders. was it him? or my imagination? or my yearning for him? i have a hard time believing in ghosts (ironic given the title of this blog, i know...), and yet i can't quite accept that when the body dies, that spark within us just goes dark. i believe matter is constant; why not spark, or spirit, or soul, or whatever?

i don't need an answer to the question. i'm okay with just pondering it.

are principles (alone) worth fighting for?

Honestly, I've spend a good part of today stewing on this pastoral care guy and a newsletter that might circulate to a couple of hundred people, who may or may not actually pay attention to it, let alone pay attention to my kids 10 point font, strangely archaic/ethnic name.

I'm disappointed that my boys name was neglected. Why? Well, Narcisus comes to mind.

Well, I'm no beauty, but I've been obsessively checking the mail box; like my mythological predecessor, not straying very far from the pool. That can't be good, we know what happened to Narcisus.

Not that. I've found some lovely friends in the last year and I have a support group much beyond that. Infact, it was just yesterday that we got a card from David and Toni, thanking us for thanking them, for thanking us - or something like that. We'd spent some time together, gifts were exchanged, and they, being quicker (and probably more thoughtful than) us, sent a thank you card. Inside this card was something quite profound, but it took until now for me to recognize this - the prose had said something about how (strangely) without Hans, we may never have become friends and seeing that we all enjoy being friends, we could be grateful to Hans for this: His gift to all of us.

And, well, there it is. Han's beautiful gift - David and Toni, on the very day that I'd been so disappointed about not seeing my kids name in some random, cut and paste newsletter, had done just that, mentioned his name - with heart, and remarkable penmanship.

You just can't find something like that in the Hope newsletter.

i'm so fucking pissed

below, you'll find a very disappointed, angry, blog, written from mind to blog. uncensored.

every month we get a "hope" newsletter - a grievance group set up by the do-gooder chaplins (in twede jackets and elbow patches no less) at the hospital. it's generally a shit sandwich, with cut and paste articles about little angels and folks telling us how to grieve the way that folks who've never had to grieve think that we who have, should. anyhow, the front page (the only page i read anymore) has a list of anniversaries/birthdays of anyone who's ever had a neo-natal loss. i read every single babies name - and i take a moment to imagine the absolute hell that the parents have gone through, it's the least i can do. these kids deserve to have their names in print, honoring their short lives. affording their parents a rare, proud moment. i know that i'm proud of hans. who wouldn't be?

several months ago, i noticed that the newsletters had been addressed to justin & laura (insert laura's last name). that's not my last name, nor was it johannes name. his name is mine. we share initials, just like i did with my father. it's something very special to me, and i was afraid that the chaplains (or whoever puts together the newsletter), would botch this, so we called to make sure that it was right. well, it's not everyday that i get to see my sons name in writing, or mentioned by anyone but me, so yeah, i was really looking forward to seeing this. Probably with unrealistic expectations.

infact, i've been so excited to see his name, that i've been checking the mailbox everyday in anticipation.

30 names on the list today. Johannes name was absent. Not mispelled. Not with the wrong last name. Fucking absent. Absent as he is from my physical life today. This sucks.

I am fucking furious.... fuck you hope group, fuck you hospital. i've gotten past the fact that i can't have my son with me at home, and until a few minutes ago, i'd gotten past the anger of it all - but i can't get past people like you (who's entire profession is in helping folks grieve, and making their loss somehow meaningful, or significant, or whatever your calling is) forgetting something as simple as my boys name in your memorial newsletter.

i'll get over being pissed off - but ultimately, i'm heart broken.

how did i get here?

i'm a little startled, on the eve of the second trimester, to find myself in this place. thirty-six freaking years old. pregnant. not bleeding. a fetus measuring right on target. the first trimester behind me (give or take five hours). not too anxious, all things considered, albeit medicated. about to go to asia for the first time, at the same time i'm commemorating my first child's first birthday. finding vomiting so strenuously that i have red freckles under my eyes from the blood vessels i busted to be humorous.

this life is not the one i had planned.

i've been a little removed from the blog the last week as i've re-read our archives from the beginning, trying to figure out how it all happened. i gave up on "why" a long time ago, i suppose. it hurts to read about the pain i've felt in the last year, but ultimately encouraging to have come through so much of it and still be brave enough to have another child.

for all my confidence these days, there are still moments of terror and insecurity. but the peace outweighs the fear, which is more than i hoped for at this point - 11 1/2 months after losing hans, and 11 months (yesterday!) from beginning to blog.

i wish i had begun to blog sooner. i always meant to, especially when i got pregnant with hans. i wish now i had a record of my process of that pregnancy and of my contact with him. if i had, though, i might have found myself isolated at this point; i imagine if i had been a first pregnancy blogger, i would have formed a community of similar moms only to be left alone and bewildered when my outcome wasn't like theirs. starting to blog when we did led me to my fellow bloggers-in-loss, who have come to mean the world to me.

lately, i've been thinking about this blog as something for z to read one day. i don't see myself giving it to him or her; i think such a "gift" would be more about the giver than the giftee, a way to lay some heavy shit on a kid (an adult one, but still). rather, i'd like z to stumble across this blog some day, in some format, maybe after i die. (hi, z! love you!) i'd like for z to uncover what his or her mother was like as a person, and not just the side she revealed as a parent. and so sometimes i write about things that are not really that interesting to an external audience, a little "what i did today"-ish, because i think it will matter to z, or z's children, or their children, in a micro-anthropological way. at least, i hope so.

sunday in the park(ing lot), with pukey mcpukerson

i feel so fortunate that, unlike in my previous pregnancies, morning (or whenever) sickness didn't kick in for weeks. and luckily, it strikes periodically and isn't the 24 hour phenomenon i experienced previously.

but what i lack in quantity this time, i make up for in quality.

for all my puking in hans's pregnancy, i don't think i ever puked in front of anyone else (except poor justin). but this time, what puking i do has been spectacularly dramatic and sometimes alarmingly public. there was the spew across the fetal diagnostic center's lobby just before my first ultrasound, sending the receptionist running for cover. then there was the run down the aisle of the tiny commuter jet to cover every surface of the lavatory and clog the sink, all at a volume sure not to be missed by anyone on board, including the pilot at the opposite end of the plane. a couple of sunday mornings ago, i puked in bed; it came on so suddenly i honestly didn't have time to run to the toilet.

today i pulled through mcdarnald's for an egg and cheese bagel and orange juice before going to the pharmacy to get my anti-anxiety prescription refilled* and then to the grocery store to get a few things to get us through wednesday, before we fly out on thursday. as i considered my travel snack choices (lemon yogurt granola bars or the blueberry/strawberry/vanilla yogurt variety pack? orange juice boxes or apple?) i began to do the gagging lurch. no big deal! i told myself. i do this all the time! doesn't mean a thing! but then it just kept happening, and i knew i had to get the heck out of there. late in my pregnancy with hans, the same thing happened in the same grocery store and i ignored it until i threw up in my mouth, and then i panicked and swallowed it, and i did not want to repeat that particular episode of grossness.

i made it through checkout and to the car, but as i pulled out of the lot i realized it was all over. i pulled over to the side of the street just in time to put the car in park, get my seatbelt off and open my door before spraying the asphalt with sunny-delight-hued vomit. at least the scrambled eggs, american cheese and orange juice were of similar-enough colors to create a uniform palette for the poor person who will uncover the remains of my breakfast when the snow getting dumped on us today eventually thaws. and in keeping with my new-and-improved positive outlook, i hope my display distracted the diehard runners on the high school track off the street from the miserable conditions in which they were running for at least a moment.

on another pollyanna-ish note: this nausea does not require medication that causes me to need to wear diapers! it could be worse!

*****

to celebrate the end of the first trimester, i have gotten a haircut to clean up the scruffy, trying-to-grow-it-out mess that was my hair as well as banished the greys that made me look more like a prospective grandmother than mother. so now my new hair looks like a chocolate cherry winter hat, which is a little awkward but a hundred times better than it looked when i woke up yesterday, and by the time z is born, my hair might even be slightly fabulous. cross your fingers for me.


*how ridiculous is it that every time i've tried to fill this particular prescription my insurance company first rejects it, causing me to wait while the pharmacy tech calls them to fight it, which gets me agitated enough to get on the phone and rail at them until they finally grant approval and assure me it won't happen again? and why it does still happen each time anyway? does it occur to anyone at the insurance company that this process only increases my need for medication? and that an increase in treatment will cost them even more? apparently not.

it's a beautiful day

i've turned a corner. the realization wednesday afternoon that z was okay, and that it was me whose heart was racing and driving z's surge - that moment was the corner. that night, at home, alone, i managed to get a brief reading with the doppler - 166 - which was further confirmation.

i have confidence in this pregnancy. i can imagine z growing up. it fucking rocks.

i realized yesterday that i've turned a corner with hans, too. twice this week i told people who didn't already know about hans and his death, and i didn't break down doing it, which is a first for me. the last time i had to tell someone new was when i had to tell everyone in the dentist's office, three months ago, and it amounted to me crying in the dentist's chair for two hours. nine months after i lost him, i couldn't have imagined ever being in a place of telling my story, his story, without great raw pain - but here i am.

i rode the elevator up to my class thursday night with the instructor, and i thanked him for working with me so i could take my upcoming trips. he asked me a bunch of questions about going to japan, and i found myself telling him our story, and about the water baby ceremony, and he was so lovely about it and thought the ceremony was "really beautiful" and then class started and i realized i hadn't so much as swallowed hard.

earlier that day, a pregnant co-worker, in the neighboring department, who didn't work at my company yet when hans died and had just heard that i was pregnant, came to see how i was doing (she's two months ahead of me). she asked if i was going to have an ultrasound at 18 or 20 weeks, and i said, "well..." one of my co-workers who knows me well was there, and she said, "ha! if you only knew..." and so i told her, while trying to not freak her out, and it was easy and gentle and i felt no need to hit her over the head with it - another first. we ended up having a great conversation, over two days, about pregnancy and loss and complications, and my eyes never even watered. it was a wonderful added bonus that knowing about my losses didn't make her shrink away in horror for fear my defectiveness would rub off on her, which is the way the other women in my building who were pregnant when i was with hans all act.

it's such a relief to not be ripped up each time i talk about hans. it feels like an accomplishment, too, or at least a successful survival. and it's not that i feel any less for hans; i love him and miss him as much as i ever have. but i think the wound has finally scabbed over and is starting to recede into a scar, the kind of scar that never fades but can be rubbed periodically as a reminder of a valley i travelled through.

i'm ready for other travels now. i'm excited about tokyo in a way i haven't been about a place in a long time. i feel really ready to do the water baby ceremony now, and realize although i wanted to do it before, now is the right time. and i've become so jaded travelling to western countries, or to latino ones - nothing in those places phases me anymore. we're going somewhere completely new in every aspect, and the challenge is thrilling.

greater cleveland, jumbo shrimp, and other oxymorons

today's oxymorons: cautious enthusiasm and subdued joy.

z's nuchal fold scan went pretty well. it's measuring 12w0d or 12w1d, depending on the angle, which is the first time i've ever had a child measure on schedule, so let me hear a big yahoo out there for that milestone! also, the nuchal fold measurement was a 15 (whatever that means); the peri's translation was that i walked in with a 1 in 150 chance of down's, given my age (36), and based on the measurement, my risk went down to 1 in 600, or that of a 30 year old mother.

i guess the younger husband thing is paying off in keeping-me-young-ness.

the thing that keeps my joy contained: z's heartrate was high, in the 180s. when pressed, the peri admitted that there is some data suggesting a correlation between high heart rate and some trisomies as well as turner's syndrome, but that it was weak and muddled. we'll begin the anatomical study in a couple of weeks, which will give us more data, and then there's the quad screen coming up, although she'd like me to wait four weeks (instead of the planned three) for optimal results.

i would prefer not to do the amnio, since i am averse to the risk of it, but if the study or the screen give us any further concern, then we'll likely do it. i don't relish the thought of not only the risk but getting poked with that dastardly needle, but if i do end up having it, i at least learned from the first time to take off my wedding ring first so whoever is holding my hand doesn't cause the additional pain of having it squeezed against my ring.

of course, i consulted dr google this afternoon on the correlation between high heart rate and chromosomal abnormalities, but i didn't find much, especially compared to the data on low heart rate. i did learn that the possible correlations are to trisomies 21 and 13 (as well as turner's); 21 is down's, which i feel fairly comfortable with having ruled out today; 13 is one of those abnormalities not compatible with life. which, you know, would be kind of supremely sucky. turner's is the absence of one of the two X chromosomes in girls; turner's girls are generally treated with growth and estrogen hormone therapy, so that in all but the most serious cases they are rarely distinguishable from women with two Xs, but there is also often accompanying heart or kidney problems. so, turner's - not ideal, but manageable.

i calmed down considerably when i remembered that 12 days ago, z's heartrate measured a much healthier 165 - which forces me to acknowledge that the high readings today were almost certainly the result of my anxiety and not a problem with z. and i was highly anxious today going into the scan.

so more yoga for me, more overly brisk walking, more relaxation and meditation, and no going off the buspar for now. justin - it's time for us to watch the prenatal massage dvd. and best of all - the doppler arrived today! if we can measure at home, and the heart rate is more reasonable, then i'll have less cause for worry, which will help me not cause z's heartrate to surge again - the happiest and least vicious sort of circle, don't you think?

there was a moment of pure joy today, when the sonographer got a good head-on look at z's glowing jack-a-lantern of a face, and said, "hi, baby!" at that moment, z waved its hand like mr hanky the christmas poo from "south park". i could practically hear it saying, "hiiiiiiiii-dy ho, everybody!" i know z could hardly be responding to a greeting - more likely, it was trying to swat away those annoying ultrasound vibrations - but it looked like it, and it was wonderful.

now - deep breaths.