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.