Opus Angara

Happy third birthday...

2011-10-10T14:26:00.002-05:00

Happy birthday to you...
Happy birthday to you...
Happy birthday dear Josie,
Happy birthday to you...

I wish you were still alive.

Click for original sizes of the following panoramas... This is where she is buried and this was the sunrise this morning...

I wish...

2011-10-09T21:13:00.001-05:00

I'm having a bad day. Tomorrow will be worse and for some stupid reason I made a doctor's appointment right smack in the middle of it. I'll probably walk in there and they'll want to know my medical history (first appointment with a new primary caregiver) which of course will include Josie, and I'll lose it.

So here I vent in an attempt to get some of this stuff out of my head...

Back in the glorious days of childhood; back in the days of magical thinking; back in the days of believing that people could come back to life; that bad things wouldn't happen if you just behaved well; that there were far-away fantasy lands in which giants roamed through the autumn leaves and everyone grew up...

I remember confidently telling my dad that if I grew up to be beautiful like Marilyn Monroe, then no bad guys would shoot me because I'd be too pretty to kill. I was about nine - he told me that no, bad guys would kill me regardless. He was right, of course. One of many push-pins that attached my psyche firmly to the walls of reality.

In so many ways, losing Josie threw me back to childhood myself. Back to the time of wonderment at everything, simply because I survived too. I'd been reborn and had to re-learn everything I'd ever known. In many ways, that is magical, that survival and the ensuing "different" that it makes you. In other ways it's alienating though.

This year will be the first year I've ever spent alone since Josie died. I will drive, alone, out to her grave before dawn and get out of the car and sit on the ground and cry. And watch the sun come up.

In one aspect, Josie's third birthday makes me want to crumple into a heap. In another, it makes me so angry that I want to smash everything up into thousands of pieces. This time of year is always bad. I want to shout "it's so f*cking unfair - I've had it!" It makes me want to say the following things, selfish or pedantic as they might be:

"All I ever wanted was a family, but then she dies and absolutely everything fall apart irreconcilably. Nothing happens for any friggin' reason. It's all bullsh*t."

"I was hard to understand before, already had enough to tell people that would put them off me completely. Now this too? Don't want to re-tell my story any more, want to live in a damn cave for the rest of my life. It's all crap and I'm so tired. So tired. So exhausted. So weak. So done."

"I don't want this burden any more; don't want to hold it up by myself and can't ask anyone else to help me. So lonely. Everything is useless. Alone, inside the high walls of my mind which have doors I won't come near enough to open because I'm too scared of the stuff people will see inside...so what's the point?"

"Everything just goes away. Emotions are poured out, hearts are opened and still, everything just goes away. Sometimes, I hate loving."

"I want to smash all the cups and the plates in my house and throw everything I own out of the window but instead, here I sit because I can't scare my beautiful living daughter. I have to pretend to be a normal person so that she will be okay."

"I'm so angry. I'm so hurt. I'm so hurt. I'm so hurt. I'm so hurt."

"When will I wake up? Please can I wake up now. This is a really long bad dream now. I've had enough now. I want to wake up and be four again, when everything was okay."

I'm broken, glad nobody else is here because I'm sure they wouldn't be able to handle me like this. No makeup, no airs and graces, just a woman in a puddle of tears. I wouldn't go near me if I were anyone else.

Now the tiredness has set in. I'll be really really glad when tomorrow is done. I feel really sick. Sorry if this entry sounds self-centered - I suppose it is really, since it's all about how I'm feeling. Bella is sweetly sleeping, looking like a little angel so it's just me here. I'm so glad she's alive - I'm so blessed with her.

It was only one hour ago, it was all so different...

2011-10-08T20:20:00.001-05:00

"It was only one hour ago, it was all so different..."

The first line from Peter Gabriel's "I Grieve" to which a link is below. I remember thinking that after Josie died. Racing into the sunrise, knowing in my heart she was gone and unable to do anything about it. Leaving the shreds of youthful innocence behind us as we sped down the freeway. All gone; never to be recaptured.

I think we hang on to the hours, the days, the minutes...since...because they make that event, that life, everything real. A few tiny bones in the ground that we can't see any more doesn't help. A big piece of stone over them, and soil - these things don't help, but remembering in minutes, hours, days, months, years - like a thread... That's all we have now. It's almost obsessive compulsive but it's a part of me that won't go away - and probably shouldn't. I map the passage of time after each of my children was born; one living here with me, the other stardust, as Joni Mitchell so beautifully puts it.

"We are stardust...we are golden...and we've got to get ourselves back to the garden..."

The day of the bath, today. That day I decided to have a relaxing bath in the fall sunshine because I knew it would be the last time I'd get the opportunity to do that. The day sticks out in my memory because it was also the first time I felt what I thought was a contraction but really wasn't - that pain that comes when something is going wrong with the placenta. I had no idea. I think I told people I'd had a strong contraction. There I was in the bath with Clannad playing on the laptop, candles burning and so on...

(Incidentally, I spent a lot of time in labor with Bella in the bath both at home and in the hospital. Funny how I threw myself into conquering my fears by repeating what had happened, in a similar fashion.)

You know that feeling you always got when you were little and you broke something valuable? That sinking feeling - you knew you were in trouble? Times that by about a thousand and it's one facet of how it feels to be the parent left behind.

I am going to curl up on the sofa now with a blanket and some hot chocolate...Bella is sleeping and my man is in Wyoming until next Friday. Down into the underworld I go for the third year - but not alone, because there are parents out there who know or can empathize with this. Thank you for remaining with me in my tired, aching, exhausted state that I get into this time of year.

It's that time of year again...

2011-09-29T21:30:00.000-05:00

Warning: there may be a little profanity here. I'm just going to write it as I think it, so hopefully you'll understand and won't be offended.

It's that time of year again - the run up to what would have been Josie's third birthday. When people said this wouldn't get any easier year after year, they weren't wrong. My mum - or Mutti, as we call her - still cries every time she visits my brother Finn's grave. He would have been 25 on September 22nd.

This time three years ago, I would have been washing and folding baby clothes. I still have visions of them laying out on the floor in piles of tops; onesies; little pants; little tiny socks. I took pictures, which will of course now haunt me forever.

May I just take this opportunity to say how utterly crap it is to have a dead child? It just doesn't go away - not even slightly. Nothing can make it better really - you just have to tend to the wounds when they surface, which they frequently do. You have to adopt coping mechanisms for the sadness like someone with a heart condition who has to carry pills around. God, it's so frikken crippling, it really is.

The real kicker is the fact that so many people who lose children then get to watch their families fall apart at the seams afterward. They get to watch people previously doing well go back to the booze and lose everything in the process - their children too. Some days it's hard to get going even slightly. Some days I wish I could just win a little on the lottery, even though I don't play it - just so that I could sit completely still on bad days and do nothing at all. Nothing at all.

The messed up thing is that after you lose a child, about 97% of the world's population doesn't understand you any more. I'm so aware of my own mortality nowadays that it's stupid - maybe long ago when infant death rates were higher, the support would be there - the understanding. With the advent of wonderful new medical procedures and interventions that understanding and the willingness to talk about babies and children dying has gone away. So you end up as this person just floating free of all the rest of the people, utterly knowing that everything could be taken away at any given moment. If people found you hard to "get" before, trust me, you'll really be a mystery after you lose a child. It's really fucking lonely in here.

Like I've said before, dying isn't hard - it's easy. It's not as painful as you might think either because the body takes over and pumps all this pain relieving stuff through your veins. Even when you're bleeding to death, you can comfortably remain in denial until the blood all comes out on the floor and then you just look, surprised, thinking "gosh, that was all inside me a minute ago - I'm probably fucked now." So don't be afraid, people - don't be afraid to die. To quote Kevin Kline from the wonderful French Kiss, "I promise you, if we crash, you won't feel a thing."

It's that time of year I find myself transported back in time to the weeks before Josie died. In stunning clarity, I sit behind the wheel of a Dodge Magnum thinking "I really shouldn't be driving this pregnant - it's so uncomfortable!" Frank Sinatra is playing on the stereo and I have McDonalds on the passenger seat because it's the most frequently found restaurant up and down I-35 and I was too hungry to wait. They have a special going on with the Chicken Tenders. I'm wearing a maternity top with a tie at the waist - it's very pretty and made out of some slippery artificial material which slides around on my belly. My feet are hot and a bit swollen in my flat shoes. Endless phone calls stress me out; I'm fighting a losing battle at work.

Sure, I could go and be diagnosed with PTSD - after all, the flashbacks are extremely upsetting, random and interfere with my life. But what good would that do? I'd be labeled incurable. I'll just stick with what I have: an intense desire to go back in time and pull the car over, stop, somehow change everything.

I miss you, Josie. I wanted you. I love you still. I wish you weren't dead. I will never forget holding you in my arms, all 6lb 6oz of you - you were so beautiful. If I could have died instead of you, I would have - in a heartbeat. You would have done a better job at life than me - of that I have no doubt.

Fragmented...

2011-08-07T20:40:00.001-05:00

Bits of my heart, little pieces
Are traveling a path up my body
And leaking from the corners of my eyes

Wandering are they, hit by a meteorite
Fragmented into the space
That exists within me like a starry blackness

Not made of stone, am I
Nor shielded in armor
But my stronghold shudders in the aftermath

And time keeps moving on
Toward a light in the far distance
Toward the explosion and the flowering
Toward the dawn
And things I cannot yet see

Emotions and intent...

2011-06-10T00:05:00.001-05:00

It's been two and a half years now since Josie left. She died, and the "me" I am today was born out of a completely annihilated wasteland of psyche into what I can only describe as a shell of a body, bereft of its former soul and its child. If that sounds harsh, so be it - I felt like a useless bag of flesh and bones after Josie died. My mind was in pieces on the floor and there I was, scrabbling like a mortally wounded animal, trying to scoop up pieces of myself from muddy, bloody substrate. It was useless of course. I sat there psychologically against a wall, gathering up the ingredients of wits out of the air. People rolled helpful things toward me as I waited in the quarantine of despair and madness.

What that experience did to me was cut me to the quick. Even after I'd stuck myself back together again, there were huge pieces I never found. I stuffed the holes with plastic bags and paper, taping the gaps shut in an effort to keep the wind out of my bones until new parts of me formed to fill the spaces. The layers of pretense that covered me before were gone. They never came back either.

Nowadays I am a raw human being. Take me to the deep forest and dump me there: I'd find a way to survive. I've slowed down. My eyes are open to everything; my ears hear it all. I'm fifty percent prey, fifty percent predator and one hundred percent alive. Through the monotony of a boring day, I find things I've never seen before like a little child.

All my life, I've felt things deeply - strongly: that's been me, all along. But now I admit the emotions I feel to myself and let myself really feel them rather than trying to escape or distract myself with other things. Pain is like a huge crevasse in the earth to me: sometimes it's like being carved in half length ways. My fibers strain for one another across the gap, trying to protect the heart inside. Joy is like a bubble in which I float, full up with laughter and magnificence. Exuberance takes flight and I'm flung across vast distances like an eagle.

The love I have for my child is fierce and without limit - I would die for her in a second without a thought and I've felt this way since well before she was born. It's a wonderful feeling.

Falling in love with another person is different: it is like a dance between the two people, alternating between coyness and pursuing, one to the other. One steps up - the other steps away with a choreographed grace older than the sands of time. They play, snatching little pieces of armor off each other as they go - distracting with glances and smiles. But one day, under the right circumstances, one person turns in the dance to find the other standing directly in front of them. The defenses are down: it's go time. And as they look into each other's eyes, which really are the doorways to the soul, neither one looks away and a mutual realization strikes. Hearts stop beating for a moment...then they both fall off that high place into a completely new world.

They're big, these emotions. But how exciting this is: to be alive. I'm glad I am alive. We may all be made of stardust, but we're certainly lucky incarnations of it to be able to exist like this, in a sensory state. We are like the fingers of the universe, reaching out. What is the meaning of life? Maybe it's what you make it, when you let go and stop worrying about what the meaning of life is...

Fresh from the kiln...

2011-02-21T15:24:00.001-06:00

Attempting to work effectively today has been hampered by a number of things within me that I feel I need to write first. I think the writers among you know what I mean when I say that there are times where you can't push out the "official" stuff because there are a bunch of proverbial sheep scattered about the proverbial road.

You're trying to get the car of work down the road.

There are sheep in the way.

They say "bbaaaaaaah!"

You say "Oh come on, move - MOVE!"

But, they're there, demanding to be recognized: demanding to be carried off the road one by one - daring you to ignore them (running over them would simply damage the proverbial car and cause work to suffer so that wouldn't be an option). Translating of course, can be difficult. Some days, all I want to do is sit there and say "bbaaaaah" like some semi-vegetative, over-sized, half dead sea slug. Some days, all the watery optimism in me is pressed out, as though I am a sponge. Then it's all hands on deck, trying to soak it back up before too much is permanently lost and has to be gleaned once more from other sources...

Lately though, I've felt alternately hopeful for new beginnings and then completely incompatible with everything, including myself. It's an extremely confusing state to be in, I can tell you. I crave stability. I can do all sorts of crazy, interesting things from a stable "base" but without one, I feel a little bit like one of those thin creepers that wind around trees and fences and other little plants. I need to change forms - evolve.

Bella is evolving too - thickly caught in the stranger anxiety that'll keep her safe; cutting teeth all over the place; beginning to walk more and more; discovering independence but worried that mama will run away and leave... It's got to be confusing for her as well. I muddle through each day trying to do my best to be a good mom, not really knowing if what I'm doing is "by the book" - just mostly instinctive. Instinctive and progressively more introverted, too, as I am aware that the responsibility will probably always just rest with me. I try not to think about that too much, because it makes me sad.

Sometimes, I sit here with my elbow on the table and stare through the screen, letting everything just slide for perhaps five, maybe ten minutes. I hear the cars go by on the road outside and the noise of the house settling; icicles falling off the roof; floorboards cracking as they move over long-placed nails in joints and timbers. I let my consciousness drift over to the other side of my desk and it sits there, regrading me with curiosity as if to say "are you a sad person, Jay? Are you that sad person sitting there?"

I'm not a sad person though. It's much more complex than that. Underneath, I am the long scar left after a potentially fatal wound has healed - the one people look at and whisper about because they're taken aback by it. When you peel the layers off, that's what I am. My optimism is only part of me - it's real, but it's like veneer. I choose to wear it on the outside because it's just better that way. I think I'm okay with it for the most part.

The thing is, I suppose, what bothers me is the possibility that what has happened in the course of my life has left me too...complicated (?) to really love. The outside is just fine, but it's not the whole of me, nor would I be happy with anyone ever assuming it was. I do wonder though, whether it's just too much trouble - too much to ask of anyone to actually deal with all of me. I wouldn't even know where to start anyway. Without trying to sound insecure (this is a different kettle of fish) perhaps what has changed is that before, as anyone with self esteem, I felt that doing my best would be enough and that I could give someone else a gift, of me. Now I almost feel as though that gift has changed into a burden.

As though I've been fired and am sitting here alone little a piece of hot pottery on a board, fresh from the kiln.

If that makes it sound as though I am completely depressed, don't be fooled - that I am not! I'm just doing a little soul searching. A little thinking out loud. I'm not the only one with these kinds of thoughts, I know. It's nice to write them down sometimes: get those sheep out of the road.

Being a grown up...

2011-02-16T13:15:00.000-06:00

Well, here we are in February 2011! In some ways it's amazing how quickly time flies - scary even, when you consider that once, you sat there thinking that there were so many decades in front of you to pursue any opportunities you might want to. Now it's all about thinking ahead and planning a little so that things don't totally fall apart at a moment's notice. It's all "grown up" stuff now.

So, what is being a grown up all about anyway? It's a difficult thing to really capture succinctly in a sentence or two. Actually I'm not going far enough there - it's impossible! That's probably why I keep a blog and not a spreadsheet of little quotes...

I suppose the easiest way to quantify it would be to compare me now with me at the age of eighteen and see what fits, and what doesn't. Like clothing. I weigh about 17lb more than I did at eighteen; thankfully some of that is in the "good" places... So needless to say, most of the pants from back then are now being worn by someone else or, probably more likely, decorating the inside of a landfill. Similarly, the contents of my brain are completely different now than they were then, so points of view, tolerance, understanding - it's all different.

At eighteen, I was still escaping from the primordial slime that accompanied me as a new person in the world. It had been rough so far - that is very true - but I'd only just picked myself up after shooting out into the brave new world at the age of sixteen. I ate pasta for pretty much six months straight - so much so that one day, I boiled a pot and sat looking at it because I just couldn't eat any more damn noodles! Thankfully my taste for Italian food has returned with a vengeance, but other things haven't.

Developmentally, things becomes more complex the longer you live - if you let them, though some people are afraid to learn and remain very much on the simpler sideline during their earthly existences. If you open up your mind, however, and let the fear flow in along with everything else then a myriad of meaning begins to reveal itself. Like an oil painting, the bare bones of the piece are there as you approach adulthood but it can take quite a while to get even the under-painting done. Then of course, you have the details and the many layers to go as well. Maybe the finishing touches would be Nirvana. I don't know.

People's lives can be so very different from one another though - some have the good fortune to coast through without a hitch (rare!) whereas others have a pretty normal mixture of ups and downs. You've got a sliding scale from the benign to the interesting. Some people spend years in a seemingly endless assault course being battered half to death by other people or themselves. Some completely give up and die at their own hands - I had a great friend who did this back in 2008, and the hole that event left was immeasurable.

Others completely turn their lives around, no matter what's happened. I think they're probably some of the bravest people in the world because they're fighting a one-person battle against a number of different fronts, including their past deeds, their impulses, un-supportive people and often, tremendous guilt as well. To rise up like that takes a huge amount of positive strength, so in many ways it's got to be the ultimate indication of a good soul. The war takes place mostly internally, but it's an unwillingness to go down with the light that ultimately saves the day.

In so many ways, perhaps being a grown up is the realization that we all have so much more power that we believe we have, to do good things. To change things around us for the better and create something incredible that will last so much longer than us. When we're young, it's night or it's day. As we grow into matriarchs and patriarchs, we slowly begin to realize that the dawn and the dusk have a huge effect on the passage of time and what is to come. So even if we are afraid, we sit down and watch. And we let the light open our hearts to love, since we're all delicate regardless of our defenses...

When reality is what it is...

2011-01-13T19:58:00.001-06:00

I haven't written here for a while - not because I am forgetting, but because life has enveloped me like it sometimes does, casting its goose down over me at night as I dream of things I forget as soon as I wake, and sweeping me along like a feather in the daylight hours.

I feel I should write here more though, now, because there's something I never did tell you when it happened. It wasn't the right time, and for a while I was in denial of it. A long time. Then, I was in denial of being in denial. Now here I am, and I'm treading a path that is both new and a little bit frightening.

The thing is, people grieve differently. At the beginning of our journeys through this pain of losing a child, we all come together - we wounded parents and families. We stumble blindly ahead through the dark. Someone shut everything off - clinging to each other was all we had, so that's what we did. Groping blindly for the edge of a pit, we supported one another and sometimes even dragged one another along until we were in twilight and could continue on a little more steadily. We saw stars and imagined our little ones somewhere out there, beyond the reach of our aching arms and vacuum hearts.

Then of course, there were choices to be made. Sink into a mire of depression; start to administer blame; remain in a mentally vegetative state for an unspecified amount of time or begin to have hope that things would lift. People do, you know, throw things around in moments of terrible sadness - literally and figuratively. I remember on Halloween night of 2008, crying so uncontrollably that I went out into the living room and took two Percocet as a means of calming myself down. I passed out and woke up at four o'clock in the morning because the sound of my own breathing had awoken me.

Maybe I came through the way I did because I refused to become depressed. I'd been there before and never wanted to go there again. So I threw out shards of light - like missiles - everywhere I could - I roamed the world with every ounce of my available energy channeled into healing and hope. Others feel that is idealistic - I've been told to take my rose-tinted glasses off on more than one occasion. But who can say I'm wearing any, really? It's just a point of view - and it's even available to those who have lost a child.

Still others begin to hate the world and everything in it. They get angry with everything. They continue to apportion blame because for them, the grieving process has become stuck for one reason or another. I'm not talking about real blame - individual circumstances are different - but blame to try to heal their hearts when really, that won't help. Angry blame. Hateful feelings toward individuals - particularly positive individuals. Deep, huge pain within themselves. It's a double tragedy in so many ways.

Sometimes, the two halves of a couple who have lost a child end up at polar opposites of the grieving spectrum. Sometimes, everything breaks down.

It's not a lack or an over-abundance of God, or religion in general. It's no good going to church on a Sunday if you want to explode out of the roof at any given moment. It's useless, praying, if you are dreadfully angry with the entity you're praying to - peace is nowhere in sight.

It's very easy to rip your reality apart if you're angry - furious even. You can reach out with the hands that once stroked the heads of your wife and children and tear the fabric of your existence apart. You can fuel it all with alcohol. You can shout at the ones you love. You can hide away in a hole with a bottle of liquor, away from everyone, until they are all gone, your eyes glowing with tears and a raging, unbearably bitter fire. You can blame the woman you love, telling her things would have been different had she been in hospital, when both of you and the doctors know that isn't true.

She would have died no matter where I was, H. There would only have been three minutes to get her out if they'd even noticed. It took them eight minutes to get in there even under the emergency circumstances. I'm so sorry she died, H. It wasn't my fault. I wasn't your fault. It wasn't anyone's fault. I'd give anything to have her back, H, but she's not coming back and everything else is sliding away like sand into the ocean. Please, stop now. Come back to your children, who need you.

The list goes on. The children cry. The woman co-exists. The situation is desperate. Long evenings are spent alone in separate places. Fear, terrible loneliness, darkness and desperate heartbreak coat all the surfaces in the house like thick, heavy dust. The scent of tragedy permeates everything, even when there's bread in the oven and perfume in the air. Both parents grieve, each differently. They are both hollowed out and dreadfully sad, but cannot reach one another across a deep chasm.

They don't understand each other any more. One cannot deal with the other. One on the attack; the other on the defense. One strives to die; the other to go on and survive. There are the children, in the middle of this tragedy of epic proportions, being subjected to the whole ordeal at the most formative time of their lives. So much love, but nobody knew what to do.

Something had to change. And it did - last April. All the good intentions had come pouring out across the garage floor, or been eaten up by the emotional rescue missions every day: the cleaning up of literal and proverbial messes. I'd shed enough tears to fill the Olympic Stadium by the time I left. I can't get any more specific really, since I don't want to deliberately cause other people pain, no matter how I have been treated. Two wrongs never make a right - except for in mathematical circumstances, of course...

So here I am, admitting to it all. I couldn't make it better. I could not control it; I could not rescue it; I could not mother it; I could not love it into healing. But I tried very hard, and my love was true.

In April, therefore, I will have been a single mother for a year. I've been very fortunate to have the support and the love of dear friends and family - and so, of course, has Bella. We're not the only family broken by a tragedy - we're just one of many, unfortunately.

I continue to hope for the best for all of us, and hope for healing and strength and joy - happy days ahead. Perhaps 2011 will show us a few new doors to tread through. A lifetime goes by very quickly, and you never know when your last day might be, so it's important to live as well as possible. It's all about the continuity of life. It's all about spreading a legacy that casts a glow around as big an area as possible.

I think we are all more interlinked than we imagine, not less.

H, if you ever want to know what you didn't want to know before, I've written it all down for you here. It's all here, every ounce of it - my heart and soul, split open and scattered across these posts. I hope that you read this, one day.

With that, I leave you a picture of my little rainbow girl, on her first birthday - what a milestone. I am grateful for every single second of every single day of her life. You can bet I am.

I need to post Josie's sunrise pictures...

2010-10-23T19:54:00.001-05:00

...oh, it was the most beautiful sunrise last Sunday, on the 10th. So many people got up for Josie's sunrise and I have been inundated with stunning photos that I must make into a beautiful photo montage. Absolutely stunning. Here I sit, wondering how it is that so many people are willing - even enthusiastic - to get up before dawn to remember my little girl. It's never-endingly touching and you can be sure that as I watch the sun rise myself, I am thinking of every little baby who didn't make it, whether that be before or after birth. Thank you, thank you for remembering.

There are beautiful things in the world to see. Beautiful little eyes that would have loved it if they would have been able to see little grasshoppers on the ends of grasses, birds in the sky...fish jumping out of the water at sunset. The legacy left after child loss, to the parents of the children, is a ropey one at best. Problem is, not only does grief happen, but the grief can tear through the family unit and lead to some behaviours that often destroy the family as it was before the tragedy struck. Long-buried alcoholism rises to the surface; living children suffer; mothers cry themselves to sleep over the new tragedies that befall her family after the initial loss.

It's very, very hard, being left behind. There are moments of utter desolation even years later. The little people lost were very important, and their importance only grows. Which has led me to come to the following conclusion:

Life is fragile. Life is precious. The fact that we can all get up on any given morning and look outside is a bloody miracle. We're run by basically one muscle - our hearts - and if that should ever spontaneously stop, we are completely done for. So we should seize the day...every day... Don't give yourself the leeway to not try to see beautiful things. That would be a waste, when there's so much beauty to see which would otherwise go undetected, caught on a breeze...fluttering over the horizon unseen...

It's funny. I woke up when Josie died - which effectively means living on the edge of your seat almost all the time. Emotions become acutely felt in both extremes. Actually, I feel everything more - the cold; the heat; the wind... The elements blow through me as though I am made out of material... Really, I think it's only because my outer layers have all been ripped off. The joys of life are all revealed - along with the sadnesses and the dreadful atrocities and the lonelinesses...

It's been like drinking from the cup of ultimate knowledge and then standing alone, realizing that the power people think it bestows is quite different than what they might expect.

So, please forgive me if you find me suddenly bursting into tears at 2am for no apparent reason; sleeping with a light on; not being comfortable in complete silence sometimes; needing to change the scenery simply because I need new visual input to break up the occasional flashbacks... Life is beautiful...and it can all come to an end in a second. This realization is brought to the fore in incidents like last night, when I dreamt that Bella had stopped breathing and then woken in a fright, to find her so fast asleep that I freaked out, picked her up and actually jostled her awake because for far too long a moment, her stillness meant death.

Sometimes I barely sleep at all. I long for the days of peaceful slumber... Maybe they will return at some poiunt. For the moment, it is only important that Bella achieves them. In that vein, let me share with you a recent picture of my little love...

Please, don't be concerned about me - I'm perfectly alright and totally normal given everything that has happened. There are always going to be aspects of losing Josie that will haunt me - as there are aspects of any child's death that will haunt a parent. If I do have PTSD over some aspects of the experience (perfectly possible, considering the way it went down) then that is not a "curable thing" according to the beliefs of modern psychology - just something to manage as best we can.

The main thing though, is that Bella is well - she is standing with help, pulling herself up - and crawling - and has five teeth. Tooth number six is right under the gum... She babbles away beautifully, and her first word has ended up being "hello" - which I think is very fitting indeed!

That is where I'll leave it for now, with the promise of more to come in the following days and weeks. Lots of love to you all - I hold you in my heart.

The night before...

2010-10-09T18:59:00.001-05:00

There are some days that I wish time machines were real. This is one of them.

It's almost been two years...

2010-10-05T10:57:00.000-05:00

How bizarre. Two years ago I was running around madly packing and unpacking baby clothes, washing them, folding them into tiny little pink bundles and wondering with a smile whether this level of organization would be able to continue after I had my little baby girl. Up and down the stairs I went, sorting out the children's rooms as much as I could - though stair walking manic behaviour wasn't really within my ability too much, being so heavily pregnant.

Wait. Stop.

Two years ago. Two years ago on Sunday everything would shatter like a fish bowl dropped onto a marble floor. You can run around and try to pick up the fish in a panic, as they flop around, losing their lives... But it doesn't work, does it?

You have to lovingly sit there, rescue as many fish as you can - though some will die, then spread out the skirt of your young maidenhood on the floor in the sunshine. In the glass. In the water. And pick up remnants, remnants in sorrow, placing them on a collage in front of you. If you're lucky, eventually you can look at the collage of your new life and it can be beautiful.

Because the thing is, beauty isn't always happy, is it? It can be terribly sad. Sometimes the most beautiful things are the saddest things. Heart-achingly beautiful things can be so gutting. I think the word "gutting" is a very good way to describe some stages of grief, since they do feel like someone has come and taken your insides out. Inside your chest is a vacuum. A vacuum with a black hole inside it. Even light cannot escape... Amazing though, aren't they - these big feelings? A dual narration by David Attenborough and Stephen Hawking would be fitting: "See, the phenomenon of the broken heart there, spinning in the boundless void of space. She crumples in her agony as the pain threatens to overwhelm her every waking minute - but she knows she has to stumble on..."

Coming up to anniversaries is really...difficult. There's not too much else to say about that. I would have had a two year old running around, and I don't. It kind of takes your breath away at times... I hug Bella and try to assimilate her essence into me so that I can protect her forever. My eye sockets hurt. My throat feels tight and my head is like a balloon under pressure.

This Sunday it'll be it. Then it'll be over again and I won't feel quite as weak. A lot of people are coming out to watch the sun rise in memory of Josie, and I'm so grateful for the support. I have found that it's the people who continue to remember that I feel the most connected with. The people who continue to acknowledge her small life to have been worth something. It feels beautiful to know that she made an impression on the world. She certainly made a difference in my life - I wouldn't change having carried her for anything. She was worth it.

An ode to my beautiful brother, Finn, on his 24th birthday...

2010-09-22T05:54:00.000-05:00

Today is September 22nd. This is the day, 24 years ago, when I excitedly jumped up and down because I knew my mum (who we call Mutti) was going into labour and would shortly be giving birth to a little brother or sister for me. My brother and I were packed off to a family friend's house with our sleeping bags - a sleeping bag I managed to avoid sleeping in by claiming it was a pyjama bag - and we waited in anticipation.

It's funny how, on the eve of something tragic, your memories get etched into your brain. It's like your mind is desperately trying to hang on to the last shreds of a normal life, before something massive came through and tore the fabric of it completely apart. So I write this entry with the memories of a child in my mind, the subsequent information having been added later on. I don't mean to make anybody sad, so I hope that instead it can be an ode to my little brother, who I love still.

________________

I remember the dinner we ate with the family there, and their two children, one of whom had been born with his organs reversed - a condition that had been deemed life threatening for him, but which he survived.

At that time, my little brother lost his fight inside my mother's womb. He died, his last heartbeats recorded on the output in the hospital. Nobody knew why. At that time, they decided they wanted him to be born naturally.

We were given a bath and prepared for bed at our friends' house.

At that time, my mother was giving birth to my brother. He arrived at 8pm. Unfortunately, so did the realization that a huge placental abruption had happened (like with Josie) and therefore out came most of my mother's blood supply. She tumbled over sideways drinking tea...

We were tucked in, excitedly, into a big bunk bed in our night clothes.

My father sat outside the hospital room as they worked on my mother, whose heart had stopped beating. His son lay beside him in a little hospital crib. A priest sat beside him - a priest who had no idea what to say (and therefore stayed silent) to the young man who stared ahead, his entire life shattered and his wife in cardiac arrest just a few feet away. The young man, who looked at his wife, beautiful as she was, and felt unable to comprehend the waste of such beauty. The young man who wasn't really encouraged to hold his son, and whose life had just shattered.

I know the feeling, daddy. I know that feeling very well.

We were sleeping, awaiting the good news, in warm beds and loving company.

My Mutti was being read the last rites. She would, in total, be shocked back to life three times.

The night passed away as my little brother had. We awoke in the morning, and the last thing I remember was running up to my daddy, who had knelt near the doorway, asking if it had been a boy or a girl. I don't remember his answer... Mutti survived, thank goodness. We have her in our lives today and are so thankful for that, because she is a deeply special person: warm and generous and loving.

That was the last I remember until his funeral, with a tiny little white coffin that we lowered into the ground on a crisp day at the end of September. I watched it from the path as we left. Afterwards I asked my mum why she hadn't taken proper care of him... Ah, the confused minds of sad children - thankfully she had been prepared by the hospital for the very literal ways in which children grieve.

Now of course, time has moved forward twenty four years. Some of us talk about Finn more than others. Some don't talk about him much at all because it is still extremely painful - all of these views must be respected and embraced. Here we are, spread out as a family across the UK - things have changed and sometimes it hasn't been easy, but I tell you one thing - we love one another, all of us, honestly and purely. As I've grown older, I have come to realize the true value of family - that unbreakable bond that is so undeniably precious. Our family is a good family. There is respect, admiration, support, friendship and adoration in our family.

Every member of my family is wonderful to me - they all glow in their respective lights. All members, those alive and those that have passed beyond the veil that really is such a thin separation between the worlds. Every one is precious. Every one is equally important. Every one is held gently in the soft embrace of the other members.

So, happy birthday, my brother, who is important. He may not have been here for long, but his soul's spark was conjured from the universe and it glowed brightly for a little while, before going back to that great pool of life again. Somewhere in the universe, as with starlight, it's only just being seen. If the universe is infinite, then by definition, his life, and the lives of others, will continue making a difference - and mattering - forever.

Meanderings...

2010-07-30T19:56:00.000-05:00

Well, it's been a while - and for that I apologize. We've been running around madly from place to place here and have come over to my homeland, England, for two months (well strictly speaking, "Europe" - since we're going to Germany by car and staying with my father in Scotland as well...). So I bring you this posting from England, which seems to have become populated with a whole host of very sweet little babies.

Mind you, it's been five years since I've spent any kind of meaningful time here in the old UK. Things have certainly changed a lot... For the better, in many ways - lots of recyclable plastic bags floating about; "green" cars; very wonderful buggies; bigger Cadbury's chocolate buttons... In other ways, they are the same: decent pies; excellent shopping; not-overbearingly-hot weather; scenic railway rides and beautiful coastlines. Since I am a foodie, I can always appreciate a nice pub lunch as well. I do love my homeland.

There are advantages and disadvantages to both sides of the pond, I suppose.

Mind you, the whole trip-thing had me thinking. I know now for certain that I have definitively drifted into "ex-pat-land" - I'm no longer so finely enmeshed in British society (I seem to have lost my way, fashionably speaking, for sure); no longer so familiar with prices and places and people. On the other hand, I am still "the British girl" in America - accepted and even loved by many (for which I am so grateful and thankful) but a bit out of place there as well. But I have been bound to one side of the ocean by a single thing - a little girl actually - my Josie.

She is buried in Minnesota, so that is where my heart, literally speaking, lies.

It's hard to know what I am, nowadays. At least in terms of belonging to any place or another. I suppose it's just easier to sit on the ground, with hands in the soil or the sand or the grass and feel the planet Earth, because she is universal and we are all connected to her, no matter where we walk. I am in limbo now; a bit of a social refugee. It's interesting and leaves me thinking hard, sometimes.

At least I know who I am. I think in the end, that is the most important thing. To know one's own reaction to events; one's morals; whether one can be bought and so on. In many ways I do believe Josie's death brought me to a place in which I could really know myself - everything was shattered, and I chose to put the pieces back properly this time, instead of throwing them about like I had in other major (though of course not tragic in even the slightest similarity) life 'events.' That choice, I owe to two lots of previous counselling and a determination not to die - either mentally or physically. Both would have been plausible ends, of course.

But, the world it too beautiful, and now I have Isobella to make it even more so.

Every day she continues to bring the most gorgeous pleasure to my life! I cannot tell you how blessed I am. Really, the alternative would have been much less pleasant than this life - this loving of my little daughter in whose eyes I see the future of the world. She makes me believe it might not be as dreadful as the predictions I keep hearing on the news or in the movies...

So off I wander in my quest to figure everything out, just like all the other people in the world. Well, within reason of course: there are those who prefer not to spend time on such things. And more power to them. I however, am destined to spend late nights in thought.

Anyway, here she is in her gorgeousness - growing more independent and energetic every day; increasing in length and weight and determination all the while! At the last check up she weighed 16lb 5oz and was 20...something inches long (she wiggled).

My little darling:

Without

2010-06-17T01:38:00.000-05:00

Without my Child,
I wander and weave, meander and ponder
The ways of life, and what lies yonder
Over the hilltop, the horizon, the edge
Of the sea, will you be together, with me?

Without my Love,
I discover and read, fall and recover
The woman I was, the girl-shell cast off
Sailing my boat, with the fruit of my womb
In my affection: one who grows, the other apart.

Without my Baby,
I will and I wait, walk on, but stand still
By myself, I forge a different path
And nurture my new embodiment of soul
Her glow in the dark is the light in my woe.

My heart has sprung open, casting petals about
The illumination of motherhood surrounding it's throne.
My love flows as water to bathe the children
They're running together; we're never alone.
Within.

Memories and Memorial Day...

2010-06-03T00:48:00.002-05:00

I remember this time last year, being very bummed out about Memorial Day and other's wishes for me to decorate Josie's grave "because" it was Memorial Day. I felt I remembered Josie EVERY day, not just Memorial Day. And I do still feel that way. I really do.

This year however I did walk up to the cemetery...at dusk. I put Bella in the buggy and walked up the streets, up the sidewalks, to the place where the sidewalk ends...out of town and up to where the graves are. There weren't many people there - just headstones and flowers in the dimming daylight. The sunset settling on the horizon, and all the buried people standing, looking at it, invisibly and peacefully at the end of the day.

I walked on to "BabyLand" - the slightly twisted (in my view...I just can't shake the weird connotation) name for where the babies are all buried together. There they were, all the babies. Mine, Josie, still the newest one. Still no headstone. Which is depressing, but then again none of us has had the hundreds of dollars needed to throw at a headstone lately, so there she sits, with her grave marker and her iron pot for flowers. Just a little way back, the patch of earth, still cut out beneath the grass in a little oblong shape where they lowered her coffin into the ground. The headstone will come: we never did have insurance in case our baby died, you know? People don't. Whens it does come, when it gets put in, I want it to be meaningful.

So there we stand, and sit, respectively - Bella and I. I got the flowers out that I would be putting on Josie's grave, and gave them to Bella to look at - I thought it'd be nice to get a picture of her with the flowers. Of course, she immediately tried to eat them:

...and I was reminded of the continuity of life, once again. My first biological daughter lies in the ground beneath my feet. My second biological daughter is eating the flowers of my first daughter.

Sisters, together. A baby doing what she ought to be doing. I'd like to think Josie might have liked those flowers as well. She might have wanted to eat them too. Isobella certainly jabbered when we picked them out - jabbered and cooed and talked up a storm in the store, like a baby ought to. And you know, it was nice, sitting there on the ground, chuckling at my baby daughter drolling all over her sister's flowers. It was normal.

(I love my Bella. She makes my life so much better, every day. She makes everything twenty shades brighter: when I'm having a rough day, all I have to do is look in her direction and she lifts up my heart and allows me to live in the moment. Thank you, Bella - you are so beautiful.)

So, once I'd managed to uncurl her little fingers from the tissue paper, we put the flowers on Josie's grave. Here they are, in their place of honor...

Here is Bella, by her sister's grave. Significantly, this is the first time both of my children have been at the same place, at the same time. Poignant truths sometimes make up the fabric of my life... But I do remember though, walking back from the cemetery being quite angry with the decorating "rules." Grief doesn't have any damn rules - it does what it pleases. People ought to be allowed to decorate the graves of their loved ones just the way they like, stuff those rules. They can mow around the flowers I want to plant. One day, I am going to utterly flood every square inch of the cemetery that they can't get to, to mow, with wildflower seeds. Wildflower seeds for my baby.

My heart overflows with the love I have for them both. I'm so grateful to be a mother.

My Girls...

2010-04-28T00:08:00.000-05:00

My Girls.

Oh, Josie, with your dark, dark hair

So soft to touch - so barely there

Now twirl in mind's forgotten halls

You play with light; you bounce the balls

Of make-believe and moonbeam warmth

And every memory lays me bare...

Your eyes are reincarnate now

They sparkle as you take a bow

In curiosity I lay

And watching Isobella play

A smile comes creeping on my lips

Which suddenly remember how...

Impossible to speak my love

For two girls, flighted as the dove

One resting deep in mother's earth

The other living after birth

But my heart runs with both of them

My daughters, made from stars above...

Bella...my heart incarnate...

2010-04-11T10:04:00.000-05:00

Oh yes, I know, waaaaay overdue for an update on Bella here too, aren't we? I've been a very naughty blogging lady! Before I do anything else I need to say that last Saturday the 3rd of April was the first time Bella properly laughed at me - you know, the "hahaha" sound, not the squeals she's been making for laughs until then. The laughs continue every now and again - but I tell you, she's been getting VERY very vocal in terms of squeaks, opinionated noises, all sorts! Loud too! It's wonderful and cute to listen to her babble away.

She is my heart - oh, my goodness. I get panic sensations thinking of anything happening to her. I can't stand it. That is the one thing. It gets worse over time, too - I mean, I'm not paranoid or crazy or anything like that but, boy I tell you I am a protective mama bear. More than that I am a mama bear with a great big stick - and I'm not afraid to use it!

Last week or so, she discovered her thumb, which was nice for her - she had found it a few times before, but not with regularity. So, sleep time has been different since then because instead of comfort-sucking me, she's been comfort sucking her thumb. Since it's easy to find the thumb, it's easy for her to basically stay in a much more restful state, which has been good for both of us and has enabled us to sleep deeply for longer periods. It really never bothered me much to have her attached all night, but as freelancing has become more busy these last few weeks, the extra sleep has certainly helped. It was strange though, the first night, because I woke up after a few hours wondering what was wrong, panicking, feeling her chest to see if she was still breathing.

But, that's the thing about being a mama to a lost one as well as living ones. Some part of you does wonder if, at any given moment, everything will be taken away and you will once again find yourself alone, without your baby. It's an eerie state to be in, but talking with other mamas, I do get the impression that we babylost mamas tend to feel that worry quite acutely. So, I do check on her about fifteen times while she naps, putting my finger under her nose to check for breath if she's very quiet; leaning over her chest to hear her. Sometimes there's still that shred of complete panic though - in the middle of the night - somewhere between asleep-ness and awake-ness, where I am transported back to the feeling I had when we couldn't detect Josie's heartbeat. Like waking up from a nightmare, it soon passes, however. Just makes me cuddle Bella a little tighter until the proverbial dark shadows have illuminated themselves in the light of consciousness.

She's such a joy though - she's really strong and healthy. Very expressive indeed! I must make a video and upload it one of these days. She's truly amazing and brings me so much love every single day. It's so nice, to work with her right next to me: she sleeps in her swing or in her bassinet when it's nap time, and then plays on blankets on the floor, or in the bouncy chair when it's play time. We talk to one another; she uses my hands as interesting playthings; she reaches out and grabs things in the last day or two as well, grinning and laughing broadly when she achieves control over whatever it is she wants to explore. Her teething links have become a fascination - especially the light green ones. I've attached them to the activity center on her bouncy chair, and she'll spend a very long time grabbing them, drawing them toward her and putting them in her mouth. She has a rattle she likes to shake about and has figured out her jungle gym, to her complete delight. She talks to lights (I'd love to see how she'd react to "Close Encounters of the Third Kind"), babbling and cooing and squeaking and screaming about.

She's amazing. I love - love - being her mother. It's such an honor to be the one who gave birth to her and gets to raise her. I love waking up next to her in the morning and seeing her happy little face, and her bright, intelligent little eyes looking into mine. Her big smile as she realizes I am awake too. Her joyful kicking. Her beautiful little heart, beating away healthily in her chest. She's lovely. I thank the universe. Life is amazing, even when it's really hard, it's still amazing.

So here are some new pictures of her. I think she's looked like herself really since the swelling went down after she was born - she's just changed shape a tiny bit and grown a bit! Mind you, perhaps this is just my perception because at this point she's about 13.5lb of cute chubbiness already! Anyway, here we are - and I promise to update more frequently!

In her Winnie the Pooh outfit...

Fierce:

Subdued:

Jovial:

Summer dress, looking lost in imagination:

Catching my eye:

Hiding:

Peek-a-boo!

First trip to the park in the buggy...slept all the way through!

Chilling happily on the sofa:

Must have said something funny...

On Mama's lap:

Kisses from Mama, late at night:

Hiding again:

Pe-BO!

Rocking the dress for Ishtar/Easter:

Eating the dress...

Looking at Mama:

Dancing about:

Tummy time, getting so strong!

Oof - tumbled over!

Never mind, we'll just suck the thumb then:

There's that thumb!

Kicking about!

And last but not least, my happy little bunny...

The way we were...

2010-04-05T11:08:00.000-05:00

I've been working hell for leather the last two weeks and have wanted to come here and write too, but it's just been much too busy. Now however, I do feel I have to take just maybe an hour out of my day and put some things down because they have been affecting me very deeply.

Thing is, I've been feeling her. Josie I mean. She's older than she ought to be at the moment - I ca't put my finger on what she's trying to tell me, but it's something. Did I do something right, or is she here to help me through something completely unexpected. I don't know.

I've been working really hard - I've been wearing myself out to the point where my eyes both got smacked with conjunctivitis this past weekend - if that's not a symptom of a crumbling immune system, I don't know what is. Also I've been feeling very drained. My work consists of designing graphics and writing, both of which I love. Then of course, I clean the whole house whenever I can, cook, take care of the children and do all that stay-at-home-mum stuff as well. Not much time off at all really - and because of some difficult circumstances, it's all been a lot to bear lately - not that I am complaining or asking that anyone feel sorry for me...it's just...been a lot to handle, is all.

So in amongst all this extreme fatigue, where I'll be sitting there with aching muscles trying to get something right, I have this feeling of a presence. Josie's back and at the moment I'm not 100% sure what she needs. Not that she is unwelcome - not at all - but I feel I should be "getting" something, and I'm not.

Am I so far gone that I'm almost dead and she is there to help guide me through to the next world? Death is never really very far away, no matter how invincible one feels - and not to be morbid, but believe me, death can come unexpectedly. I have almost died three times in my life: once, by a near drowning; once at the hands of an ex and once at Josie's birth. We're very fragile. Have I overdone it too much? Am I very close to her world?

Am I supposed to do something? Am I not doing something I'm meant to be doing? Is she here to remind me? Is she here to remind me of her - because that would be strange, as I think of her every day. I haven't forgotten. She knows this, I hope. Should I talk to her more than I do?

Is she here to comfort me? I just don't know. I am confused by her presence as well as curious about her. But, this new feeling of her being there is accompanied by very strong memories coming into my mind of her when she was alive back in 2008...

Thing is, when I lost Josie...when she died inside me in labor like the flame of an oil lamp being extinguished...I went into complete shock and totally lost part of my memory from that summer. I think looking back, I lost probably 45 days or so of memory apart from the five or so very fuzzy days leading up to her birth. *Boom* - it was gone, I'd assumed mostly for good. But lately it's been coming back...with some force.

Memories have been hitting me like massive waves. I'm standing in the surf, on the sand with my arms out and they're coming and smacking me in the chest, winding me. The sand is slapping me like a big hand - saying "wake up and listen to me" - it's so shocking. Bam, bam, bam. Knocking me over, and I'm sitting there afterward like a puzzled child, startled into silence.

I'll be cooking dinner and then suddenly I'm back in the driver's seat of the black Dodge Magnum I used to run, listening to Frank Sinatra on the sound system, looking at the dark, heavy interior, feeling Josie in my belly. Driving down highway 169 late at night, 11pm, late again...late again. Feeling a rush of relief because finally I was allowed home after the insane day that might have started at 4am. Running the crazy store alone...I shouldn't have done it. I should have quit...I should have quit. She might have been alive today if I'd just quit and not let them tell me I was capable of doing it when I knew I wasn't...

I'll be watching a movie with Bella asleep in the bassinet and suddenly, I'm sitting on the floor of the Shakopee *company* store rearranging batteries in my pretty maternity top. Or talking to a colleague and bending double from a sudden almost violent baby movement...

I'll be driving in my current car, going somewhere and the light will be just right, and suddenly it's a cool summer morning at 4am and I'm driving to northern Minnesota with Josie quiet inside me, turning left, then right again in the mist. Nobody else on the road...it should have been a clue...it should have been a clue...

Boom, boom, the memories come at me. Punches in the face with big hands. Talking to the inventory crew in Wisconsin after working endlessly to prepare a store that was handed to me to begin with in terrible shape. Knowingly working in that store even though it was riddled with toxic mold. Knowing that wasn't good for any of us. Coughing because it the air quality made our throats feel like they were raw. Failing at everything and being admonished by my boss... I should have quit before that. They shouldn't have made me go there. It's not fair... Josie was worth more than the value they put on her. She was worth more and they gambled with her without even flinching - they gambled with me. They knew what they were doing. We all lost. They all knew...they all still know. They all know what happened...

It hurts, and here she sits. She's behind me on the bed. She's been there for days in a white spring dress and a white headband, her hair curly. She's watching me work, watching her sister. She's haunting me. Her spirit is that of a child. She's little. I can feel her running her fingers through my shoulders, trying to touch me and it's...devastating. Mostly because I can't gather her up and cuddle her. She's made of light and air. We can't feel one another.

I've always been pretty undecided on ghosts in my adult life - at least when they apply to me. But now, there's something like one living in my house and I don't know what to do. Maybe I'm finally losing it... The "flashbacks" as I suppose one would call them, are just unbelievable. I can taste the air and feel the temperature when they happen.

I do love you Josie. You're here for a reason. Why are you here, sweetie? You don't seem upset. You're waiting. What are we waiting for, honey bunny? What is going to happen? What is happening now?

3D Ultrasound comparison...

2010-03-03T13:04:00.000-06:00

Here we are - the moment we've all been waiting for (or something - I thought of doing this this morning...)! I am about to compare a few of the 3D ultrasound photos of Bella to...Bella! The pictures here are of her early days, and I've put a photo filter on them so that we can really objectively look at the features, and not be put off by the coloring. Naturally the 3D ultrasound pictures were from 30 weeks - but just look at the similarities to her...

It's really quite amazing - I'm glad, crunchy as I am, that we had this done!

Comparison 1:

Comparison 2:

Comparison 3:

Comparison 4:

There now - wasn't that fun? The next post will be a comparison of Isobella and I as babies... I just got pictures from my mother and you can certainly tell she's my daughter! This comparison stuff is so interesting...

Morning morning...

2010-03-02T10:44:00.000-06:00

Here we are, my daughter and I, in the morning, for your amusement...

A long letter to my little daughter...

2010-02-26T13:38:00.000-06:00

I was thinking the other day about making a diary to record all of Bella's little "firsts" - and to some degree, I think I will do that. But just recording "you smiled on this day for the first time" doesn't really capture too much of the emotions I've been feeling in these last few weeks, so I thought I'd take some time today and write a letter to my daughter, who, on Tuesday, will be a while seven weeks old! With that said, here we go:

Dear Bella,

Here I sit, on a Friday morning at about 9.25am, starting this letter to you. You're sitting behind me sound asleep in your car seat, a little vision in a dusky pink sweat suit, making little noises as you sleep. Neil Diamond just started playing ("I am, I said") and the morning sun is streaming through the window blinds in the back room at our house. The absence of the willow this winter has made this back room a lot more sunlit: we had to have the willow felled last December. Isn't it funny that with one life cut short (or rather, chopped short - the willow is still alive, after all - just a lot smaller!), another - you - pop out soon afterward? It's nice though: I can take you out this spring and we can sow wildflower seeds out there, and they'll grow because we have the right light now.

I am going to pause now, and take a picture of you at this moment:

...and there you are, just waking up. Looks like you went back to sleep though, so I shall continue, stopping only to rub some Burt's Bees Almond Milk hand creme on - that's a brand I bet, by the time you are able to read this letter, you will know well. I like the Burt's Bees stuff and use it on you a lot. I bought some for your sister Josie, and now we use that after the bath - lovely baby oil that smells nice.

Ah, now you did wake up: time for your morning feed - you're grizzling for me! It's 9.32am so you're right on time. I'm going to nurse you to sleep right here in the bed in the back room, so you can sleep there while I work...

...alright, you've now had breakfast and are asleep in the little bed here close to me. Here you are. It's 9.44am now:

...you're smiling, nice and full. We do this every morning - usually about an hour earlier, but we had a busy morning this morning. We went to school for the Green Eggs and Ham breakfast they have every year. Quite a few people got a look at you and remarked at how well you've been growing. Your cute, chubby little cheeks certainly indicate that you know where the food's at...

You'll be asleep now for a while, so I can get on with the main portion of the letter here.

I wanted you to know that I appreciate you having come into this world, so much. We planned you, your Daddy and I - you were a plot, hatched strategically and put into action over the course of several months, you know! I took almost every herbal supplement known to man (or so it seems) to try to get pregnant with you, and wouldn't you know, I got pregnant with you on the one month I hadn't taken anything apart from prenatal vitamins.

I found out you existed only nine days after your conception. I'd taken a cheap internet strip test in the morning and there was *something* there - just a hint of a shadow. It made me curious, so I got a double pack of much more expensive tests at the grocery store at about 2pm that afternoon - the grocery store opposite my work. I took one in the bathroom at work, and the double pink line I got was pretty obvious. I can remember how I felt: my heart just leapt in my chest - my blood pressure shot up and I could feel my ears getting hot. I sat there barely breathing with this reflexive smile on my face. I took the test into the break room and had to sit down in a chair because my excitement had made me feel faint! I showed a co-worker, who confirmed that my eyes weren't deceiving me... Then I called your Daddy, who I could hear was smiling over the phone.

Funnily enough at that time, I was training a new district manager, a very nice man we'll call "D" - who, in years past, had been a minister at a very large church in the Twin Cities. I say "funnily enough" because one of my reactions to the positive pregnancy test was to kind of walk about with my head in the clouds muttering blasphemous things like "holy cow" and "oh my God" and "Jesus Christ" in front of the ex-minister, who really couldn't do much but smile at the occasion, though I kept apologizing and repeating myself over and over again...

Here are a the first tests from that day - such faint lines, but there you were:

Here is the digital test I took the next morning, ten days after you first sprung to life in my tummy:

Naturally I couldn't believe it, and took virtually every different type of test I could find, exuberantly looking at these blue and pink lines. I remember being just as crazy and excited with Josie - but with you, there was an added measure of triumph because we'd planned you and succeeded!

Now of course, the rest of the pregnancy is very carefully written down, week by week. What hasn't been written down yet are some of the feelings I've had since you were born. So, if you don't mind, I will fast forward to the moment I could feel your head coming out...

There you were, becoming separate from me - our last few moments joined together were coming to an end, now. I reached down and felt your head - you felt like a very soft walnut. Not as slimy as I'd thought - but very much softer, the wrinkled skin all gathered up on the part of your head presenting. Feeling you coming out was incredible! The "ring of fire" wasn't as bad as I'd thought it was going to be - uncomfortable, sure - but what really was amazing was the fact that they were telling me your head was almost out, and I could see in the mirror that it was true! So I pushed with all my might, and sure enough, out you popped. I still have the vision in my mind of your cheeks and your nose facing down, all blue, with your eyes shut. It was incredible and all I wanted at that point was the rest of you out, so I could get a good look at you. So I pushed again, and out you came, and were lifted onto my chest straight away by Dr Thorn - who looked after you with such tender care when you were in my tummy.

And there you were. My baby. The one that grew inside me all those months, now earthside and beautifully alert, breathing, healthy, whole. Your Daddy waited for you to yell - he was still very worried, as he had been the whole time you were in my tummy - and for him, it seemed like an age before you started making noise, though I could see long before that, that you were absolutely fine and looking about. Mind you, when you did start yelling, you were pretty loud for a good few minutes. Here you and I meet for the very first time:

Here, you meet Daddy for the first time:

Dr Thorn sat in a chair next to the baby monitor looking really exuberant! Your Daddy stood by my side, dripping tears onto the bed. Kate stood there across the room holding the video camera with this enormous beam on her face and our nurse Stacey, was walking about just rosy-cheeked and happy as a clam. Paula, another nurse who was taking over, was smiling about her business, taking your measurements and plopping your little feet down onto various papers for footprints. Here are your feet, all dirty from the ink:

Now, let's fast forward a bit. I was sick after you were born - a side effect of the intrathecal - actually, I was sick for the first time just at the time we both met your pediatrician - it was sort of a "hello - sorry could you take the baby? I'm going to be sick..." meeting! After that, I had a nice meal, and you, I and your Daddy all were together. Some good friends of ours came around to see you that evening, but apart from that and the nurses and doctors - some of whom were surprised you'd been born a VBAC and not another cesarean - we were left alone. The wonderful thing about it was, that I was able to get up and walk around pretty much straight away - very mobile, unlike with Josie where everything had gone wrong. I was very woozy from the medication for the nausea though: they'd tried to give me something mild, but I'd continued to be sick, so in the end I had to have some really crazy IV medication...

We spent a blissful - and sleepless - two days in the hospital. You were cluster nursing, meaning you were very intent on bringing in my milk and would nurse for hours at a time, mostly at night. You had a very long - four hour - nap the day after you were born, which worried me, but the nurses said that was fine. You slept all the way from 10am until 2am. Christie came with Maddie, who was disappointed she couldn't hold you that day!

We came home on Thursday the 14th. You and Daddy both had a very long nap - I think he slept for six hours, probably mostly with relief - when we got there. On the way home we drove through Taco Bell to get something instant to eat. We listened to Bob Marley in the car...

In those first few days, I barely put you down for an instant. I didn't even like being out of the room you were in - even to take showers, which felt so good. I tried putting you in your crib at night, but your breathing sounded so irregular that I felt better with you next to me in bed, in your little sleep positioner. So that's where you are, still - on the outside, next to me.

You first smiled at me for sure, at 15 days. You smiled often in your sleep in those first few weeks, and made funny little chicken noises. Sometimes, you had nightmares, and I wondered what they could be of? You'd breathe quickly and look so frightened, still with your eyes closed. I wondered if they were of your newborn exam, when you'd cried more vigorously and for longer than at any other time in your life so far. Perhaps they were little dreams of being alone, or in the company of bad energy. I don't really know - but, now, they're become less frequent, which is nice.

Naturally, like any other baby, you had baby acne, which first appeared on your chin at about two and a half or three weeks. Then it went away on your chin and appeared on your forehead. Then, it went away on your forehead and popped up again on your cheeks. After that we had a few on the nose, and then a few random ones, and now at almost seven weeks, it's almost completely gone, which is a relief! Along with the baby acne - almost on the same timeline - you've begun to be more and more expressive, which is wonderful! Here you are, smiling in your sleep at about 3 weeks and 2 days old:

Here you are, asleep in the big bed...

A couple of days later, on the 6th of February, you got to try out your swing for the first time. We didn't have any batteries for it to begin with, so we had to swing it by hand. Your other brother and sister, D and A, just found it really fun to swing you about! Here you are with them, looking very small:

Here you are in your Winnie the Pooh outfit at 4 weeks old:

Here again at 4 weeks old, just getting sleepy...

And finally, asleep...

At just before five weeks, you began to smile socially an awful lot! You'd smile in the morning, and after your morning nap, and your afternoon nap, and then a little bit in the evening. After that was your fussy time. Still is, actually! Here you are, smiling at about 4 weeks and 5 days:

I cannot tell you how wonderful it felt to see you smile at me in response for the very first time. It was so wonderful! Not only were you here, but you were feeling happy! It has been my quest you see, for the last six and a half weeks, to keep you surrounded by good people, love, good energy and interaction as much as possible, so that you can see all the wonderful things there are to show you, and feel very loved and very cherished and protected. So your gummy little smile was evidence that something was working!

Here you are a couple of days after that last picture, on the 16th of February 2010, making a few faces:

You started making all these wonderful faces with more and more regularity, which made for a wonderful Valentine's day. Daddy got me a purple and gold rose - it went so nicely with the red and the blue roses he'd bought the previous two years. They are made by coating and preserving a real rose, and then they paint gold on the outside - they're really pretty. Daddy gets me one every year for Valentine's day now. Here is the purple rose of your birth year with the two from before:

And then here, asleep in a nest on the sofa with your little bear on Valentine's Day:

As the weeks passed, I still couldn't get enough of you. Just looking at you made my heart light. You smelt lovely and babylike, and I often still, now, scoop you up and just smell your head. Your hair is really growing now, and you're looking more like me (as a baby) every day - but that's another story. Your skin is so soft and usually nice and warm, and as you grow, it's getting more and more springy as your baby flesh gathers in pudges and rolls all over your little body. Your fingers have dimples at the ends of them - I don't think I was ever so squishable as a baby - you're certainly squishable - you look like a little doll!

Often I look at you and stop, because I see how you and Josie look so much alike. Then I have a sad feeling in my heart because I wish I could have kept her too: she would have been a great big sister. Sometimes when I hold you, I still feel as though I am holding her too - like twins. The feeling was very strong when you were first born. Now it's a whisper in the air - maybe it'll always be there. It doesn't seem to bother you at all, so I think we'll be okay.

You're so beautiful, my darling darling. You really are. My favorite times of day are when I am looking into your eyes. Early in the morning, or sometimes in the middle of the night, you open up your eyes and tilt your head up to find mine, catching them with raised eyebrows and an "ooo!" look on your face. You grin your little grin, and make a few faces, talking to me. Saying "glue glue glue" and "oooo" and "aaah, aah, ah!" and "gennhaar!" and "guh!" and all sorts. If it's night time, we only have the night light switched on, and then your eyes are big and dark and full of sparkle, like a little fairy!

Talking about fairies, your American Grandma has a nickname for you: "Tinkerbell" - which is sweet!

In the morning, when we wake up, before your first feed, you smile at me with this exuberance - this kind of surprise at it being the morning. You look so happy to be awake, and excited at what the day will bring - what kinds of new experiences you will have. You and I talk for a while, in the morning, usually staring at the ceiling fan, which, being winter, is stuck in a motionless position. Still, it has metallic, shiny parts on it which must be very fun to look at.

Then, after a while, you begin asking for breakfast, and I nurse you to sleep in the crook of my elbow. When you're finished, you roll away a bit on my arm, and smack your lips, and make some lemony faces, before relaxing completely and falling into an engorged, Roman slumber right there. It's lovely to lay there in the morning with you and listen to your little tiny breaths, made with your little tiny lungs. Sometimes I fall asleep there with you. Other times, I gently uncurl you from my arm and go and do housework.

Though night time is your fussiest time, it's also just so peaceful when it's time to go to sleep. We sleep next to one another, facing one another so that you can nurse to sleep. So there you are, nursing to sleep, and soon, your breathing becomes more and more regular, and you just fall asleep right there. Then, I roll onto my back with my arm around the top of your head, and we both sleep soundly until you're hungry again. You whimper, I wake up, we nurse and go back to sleep. Daddy is in charge of letting Cecelia, our Bassett Hound, out at night and since she had puppies ten days after your birth, she's needed to go out frequently.

I think he's getting less sleep than we are...

Here you are, in the morning on the 20th of February, with Daddy in bed:

Actually, later that same day, Christie came over with a gift - your baby bouncy chair, which you often like to lay in and play in. You've just managed to begin holding a rattle actually. Here you are in your chair later on the same day that I took the picture of you and Daddy:

So here we are today, you and I. You make me wish there were 48 hours in each day, and that I never had to sleep. You're so very inspirational to me! I wish I had the time to do everything you inspire me to do... You make me want to paint. You make me want to write. Right now I'm getting more writing than painting done... Just looking at you makes me smile. Thank you for coming into my life.

I promise you that now, and for the rest of your life, I will try to show you at least one beautiful thing every day: even on your saddest days, because there will be sad days. But, I want to be the best mama that I can for you. I will protect you with every fiber of my being, and I will always do my very best to bring you up well, and keep you healthy and happy and optimistic. The world needs more optimists, I think. I know you will grow up and make a difference in the world at large, because you've already made such a difference in mine, and you're only seven weeks old.

You took my heart and you've been mending it. You're such a clever girl. I love you so, so, so, so much. Thank you for being alive.

All my love and all my cuddles,

Your Mama. XxXxXxX

Bouncy Chairs and other new things...

2010-02-25T07:53:00.000-06:00

Gosh, I must update here more frequently! I've been slack even for a new mother!

So, I am embedding some video here - this is Bella in her new bouncy chair... It was a gift from my friend C and in the right mood, Bella seems very entertained! Actually she's just started holding a little rattle and shaking it about - the last day or two she's been very excited when I've put it in her hand. I love to watch her developing like this!

She is smiling all the time now - especially earlier in the day, in the morning, before she has her breakfast feed. It's so amazing to watch her face light up when she sees me - makes me think perhaps I'm not such an awful mum... *wink*

Actually though I have to say with all honestly, I've not been overwhelmed at all with her. I think by the time Bella came, I was so ready to be a mother that if anything, I was expecting the newborn phase to be much more taxing. I was expecting long, inconsolable crying sessions, completely sleepless nights, something other than this. Sure, we co-sleep and I respond quickly to her, but really this has been very manageable and so enjoyable!

The only bad thing about today is my cold. I have a stinking, awful cold - am sneezing all over the place, coughing productively; my head is full up with some cotton wool substance; my nose is runny and my chest hurts. Also, I have a nice lady from the Healthy Families program coming to visit this afternoon - how ironic that I should be so unhealthy on the day she comes to visit!

So here I go, must clean. Will dose up on ibuprofen and coffee and hopefully that should make me feel a bit more human. Thankfully for the moment, Bella seems unaffected. Fingers crossed it stays that way.

I will update soon, with pictures and thoughts...

Bella is almost a month old...

2010-02-08T19:24:00.000-06:00

...and she is here and well! And I've been sustaining her with my mama milk alone. And she's still here.

I know that sounds a bit crazy, probably, to anyone who's never lost a child - who might think at the very worst, a child might not thrive on their food but, would then be put on formula (or whatever) and be fine. For those of us who've been through infant loss however - and those of us who have not, but who can sympathize nonetheless - actually keeping a child alive is an enormous "thing."

So I am not a complete failure as a mother. Obviously in many ways, that does surprise me. Once one has lost a baby, one wonders if one's body can actually sustain life in any way at all or if one will consistently kill everything. So morbid, sure, but at the end of the day it's true. After I lost Josie I thought, in the smallest part of the back of my mind that maybe...just maybe, I'd been marked for death.

Imagine the relief when Bella's head emerged - the surreal, mixed with relief. I felt like I was in a Quentin Tarantino movie in terms of the oddness of the situation and the joy, mixed in. If you've ever seen "Kill Bill 2" - think of the ending to the movie, which is bittersweet, but happy in a way - well, that's how it felt at the moment Bella's head emerged, alive, vaginally, from me. The death of Josie took the joy and sucked it into a big vortex. The birth of Isobella injected the joy back into my life with the curious force of the adrenaline syringe being pushed into Uma Thurman's chest in "Pulp Fiction."

Enough with the film references. In the end, all I'm saying is that life is not "shit" or "a bitch" in the end. Once you've been through a bit of real, gritty life, you've really got to stand back with your hands on your hips and say: "you know what? Life is just...very strange." Coincidences, determination, terrible timing, wonderful timing and maybe a bit of fate thrown in here and there, and you have this amazing, changing thing called life, in a nutshell. Can you qualify life? Define it? Well I suppose so, sure: life is life. It's just "there" - you've got to make the right decisions and prolong it as much as possible, love as much as possible and let go of the fear, and that's about it really.

Now here I am with my little muffin, a month later (almost) and she's chubby, here, cute and just about starting to really smile on a regular basis. The little baby I've been feeding only God knows how many times a day actually burst into laughter in her sleep two days ago in the morning. She laughed for goodness sakes. She's growing, learning, changing and life seems to amuse her. Isn't that wonderful?

Not only is she alive, but she clearly likes being alive. I love that she has an opinion!

With that, I will leave you with a few pictures we took of her and I on Friday - I really feel compelled to show off her chubbiness to the rest of the world...

Tons of love to you all!

Traveling to birth...a retrospective...

2010-02-03T10:46:00.000-06:00

Let me explain something about myself. I am a bit of a loner. If the FBI had to profile me, they would say "she's a loner, in her late twenties, likes unusual music and hanging about in secluded places..." and they'd be right. I've always been like this. From my earliest childhood, I was the kid telling stories to other kids. I did it to entertain, to provide a service, not to be social, though. I think I got that trait from my Dad - we both like being alone a fair amount (though we certainly appreciate company from the right people as well) because we have things to...do. Things to do in our own minds - we create by weaving complex tapestries that emerge from the centers of our foreheads to spill out onto paper, or into whatever we are making. The wrong kind of disturbance can cause the threads we are using to snarl up, creating knots that are difficult to unravel.

Ah, such is the creative process of an artist, and probably this is why other people refer to our temperaments as "artistic" in the first place. Why is one person's presence acceptable when another's is not? Aren't we all equal as human beings? Yes: you're right - I think it has something to do with the energy of people. Bella could always feel the energy of a person when they placed their hands on my pregnant tummy: if she chose, she'd kick about and make herself known; on the other hand, she'd often hide. Likewise here on Earth, she knows when I enter the room while she's napping and responds with a small noise - a little disturbance because it is me who has come in and nobody else.

I can't really apologize for being so picky and so odd about things, because it's me! I am who I am - I don't mean any harm in it - I'm a little strange and like talking about nuclear physics at improper times, but that's just the person I've turned out to be. No point in defending myself either: that never works.

So anyway, during one of my quiet, thoughtful times alone here - probably sitting on the sofa tuning out of some television program - I thought about the car ride to the hospital, and how such a familiar ride was so different on the occasion of these two births.

Josie's Ride...

Josie's car ride was terrifying. Now when I say terrifying I don't mean "screaming out in abject fear with my hands over my eyes" - no - true terror is quite silent. It's the horrible, slimy, black feeling percolating through one's entire body at the absolute knowledge of everything being suddenly very wrong. For me, it was the sickening thought in my mind that my child had just died, and that I was riding along in R's silver Ford sedan on a freeway - there were no electric heart paddles on a freeway. She was trapped, and everything had come crashing down - I knew it. R's coffee mug sat in the holder at the front; she was saying something about my baby being strong, and I sat there with a dull pain in my tummy (my body was going into shock) riding along at 85 mph clutching my recently deceased pregnant belly. Watching this beautiful sunrise. The most gorgeous sunrise coming up in the cool October morning air.

H was behind us, speeding along in the Jimmy. He'd gone out to get donuts and while he'd gone, his baby had died. To this day he wishes he hadn't gone out for those donuts. To this day, I tell him that he couldn't have done anything even if he'd been there. Donuts had nothing to do with what happened. God was not punishing him for buying pastries.

We reached the hospital and I got out of the car - we'd parked in front of the ER - and in the midst of this beautiful sunrise, walked into the lobby a broken woman - a pregnant failure - someone who'd brought this pregnancy to term only to lose the child. A pitiful, foolish girl who should never have tempted fate. As I walked across to the check in, blood just started pouring out all over the floor. Someone ushered me through doors at the end of the waiting room without even sending me to triage or checking me in (R had called ahead from the car). I was stripped down, many people around: catheterized painfully, had needles stuck in the middle of both arms, an ultrasound and a Doppler failing to show the heartbeat. One painful exam later, my terrified OB announced there was no time for a spinal, and I'd have to be put under general: a mask came over my face and a young man - the anesthesiologist - told me to breathe deeply because the oxygen was good for my baby... Then, all went dark.

That was the journey into the hospital with Josie. We made the same route with Bella...

Bella's Ride...

I'd been up all night long, laboring in various places: the birth ball, the tub. I'd had some blood come out - just a little less than with Josie - but enough to make my heart thud in my chest (though later when we looked at the placenta, there was absolutely no sign of any kind of problem at all) thinking perhaps after 40 weeks and 1 day, I might lose this baby as well...

4am came. I'd been on the telephone to my mother in England and could hear H's alarm going off in the bedroom. He kept switching it off, in denial of what we had to do. I found this cute but also frustrating! Finally, he did get out of bed at 4.15am, slightly grumpily and not really fully aware of the extent of my labor (I was having contractions about 2.5 minutes apart and could not move through them). I think he made coffee, and warmed up the car. Then he helped me with my clothes, which I was having trouble putting on because of the contractions: and we were off, out of the door.

My gallant knight held my hand as I climbed over the small snowdrift at the end of the path he'd carved out to the car. It was hard to walk, dark and there was no-one else around at that time in the morning. The streetlights seemed sleepy even - condensation and ice everywhere. The bank across from us seemed so utterly deserted that I imagined it hadn't been used for years. Basically everything seemed frozen in time, like a town abandoned because of the winter. I felt as though we were the only people alive in our town as I climbed into the passenger seat of the car and buckled up.

We drove off toward the next town and the intersection with the interstate nine miles away. The sky was dark; the snow thick on the ground, blanketing everything like a duvet. We were the only people going anywhere, I thought - though I'm sure there were others around.

Every time a contraction came, I would raise myself off the seat by bracing myself on the door handle and the center console, allowing my body to become limp in the middle so that I could let the contraction flow through me effectively. I remember doing this acutely as we rounded the last turn toward the next town because I had to tilt myself as well!

We sailed through the frozen next town, past the lake in the night. There was no hint of a sunrise this time. Nothing was stirring yet... Just white ice and snow and silence, and the imagined breathing of a thousand souls around us in the darkness, peacefully asleep as we raced through the early morning to get to the place in which we would release new, independent life upon the world.

We turned onto the interstate and I began recalling the same journey with Josie. But this time, we had a living baby, contractions and movement. Bella turning her head from left to right, rooting her way out like a puppy looking for it's mother's milk. I kept repeating to Harry "It's okay, she's moving around, everything is fine" as we drove. He drove over the speed limit - about 80mph I think. I didn't blame him: he worried, and I understood.

We turned off the interstate and onto the road leading into the town where the hospital sat. This time though, the sensation was one of impending relief the closer we got to the hospital - not, like with Josie, impending doom at being told what I knew had already happened. Bella twisted and turned in there and apart from one small thought "what if her moving so much means something is wrong?" I had no worries, just excitement and knowledge that I would soon hear her heartbeat again - something we never heard with Josie.

We drove past the animal hospital and the lake, and the houses all dark. We turned onto the street the hospital was on, and up the hill toward our final destination. Left, into the ER parking lot - except this time, we didn't park, we pulled up next to the entrance where I turned to see a smiling K clutching R's laptop inside the doors, talking to a man. H got out, telling me cheerfully that he was going to find a wheelchair. I waited for the chair and gratefully got in it. The sensation of being pushed along was strange because the last time I'd been in a wheelchair was when we'd gone to HyVee for my Percocet prescription after losing Josie and getting out of the hospital.

Gliding across the lobby, the same route I'd walked...again, strange. Speaking to the receptionist checking me in was interesting: I had to keep stopping for contractions. I kept thinking how stupid it was that they had to do this with a laboring woman at all. Couldn't they do this later?

And that is where the paths separated...

Instead of going into the swinging doors on the left and being rushed into emergency crash surgery as the ghost of Josie's birth had been, the lady behind the desk asked a friendly security man if he could "do them both at the same time" - meaning take me, and a woman I'd shared a room with for double NST's a couple of weeks earlier (who had come for a scheduled cesarean) up to labor and delivery at the same time. He replied to the affirmative, and off we went.

That was when it hit: this other woman and I were going to have real, live babies that day. Instead of medical personnel rushing around me in a prep room, I was having contractions in an elevator with H, another pregnant lady and a cheerful security guard. We were getting off the elevator at the maternity ward level - 3 - and I was being shown into the room furthest away from my previous room (which had been 358) - 308. The layout was completely different. K was parking my silver Dodge in the main hospital parking lot and would be up soon. I was not being cut open under general anesthetic; there was no blood on the floor.

There was a heartbeat on the monitor.

There was movement.

There was life.

It was like waking up from a nightmare that had lasted 15 months. As the sun rose that morning over the view from the window, it called in the very first day of our new daughter's life. It was just as beautiful as the sunrise for Josie, but it's beauty and meaning sat diametrically opposite from the first dawn on October 10th, 2008.

And here are both my daughters, two little human beings; two little souls very alike, but different at the same time. I hope one day everyone will understand that just because a child is gone at birth or before birth, it doesn't make them any different in terms of humanity than another child born alive: both are people, and both are loved equally.

My first daughter, who I love, who left us...

My second daughter, who I love, who has stayed with us...

Always sisters, always held in my arms and in my heart.

Almost two weeks old...

2010-01-25T18:45:00.000-06:00

...and she's absolutely gorgeous! I've been asked several times if I intend to continue blogging, and the answer is a resounding "yes!" - I absolutely intend to continue. This is just the beginning for a new chapter, my inspiration fresh and my mind clear of many of the issues clouding it for the past few months. During this post, I will pop a few pictures in of her in these last few days - the very first of her life.

So yes, Bella is growing beautifully - at her one week checkup she had actually gained 3oz over her birth weight and came in at a hair under 8lb 2oz, which is fabulous news! Now, at almost two weeks old, she is looking round-faced and very sweet indeed! She's certainly bigger now than she was, and her hair is growing at an alarming rate. She has a little swirl at the back of her head now that wasn't there before - you can really see her hairline. Her hair is mid-light brown with a little hint of red under the right light. Rainbow hair. How ironic!

I do often find myself looking at her and thinking "gosh, I just wish I could have kept them both..."

But, that's natural. I compare them to one another as equals: Josie had very dark hair; Isobella's is lighter. They look remarkably similar but not *quite* the same. Sometimes when Bella is asleep I catch Josie...just a whisper. Isobella's hair is growing - and there I am, sometimes, thinking how it would have been lovely if Josie's hair could have grown too... Every time I hold Bella, I feel myself holding Josie as well. I hold them both at the same time, next to one another, and I feel both are loved, and both know they are loved equally.

I think it might be like that for the rest of Bella's life. Not that she is a replacement, but that because of the close proximity of their births and the circumstances of everything, they are closely intertwined.

Breastfeeding has been wonderful. It was something I was looking forward to enormously with Josie and never got to do. With her, I did express some milk and then put it on her grave and after that, my body seemed to know it had some something for her (there is more to that little ritual there but I won't go into it now) and the engorgement went down. Nevertheless the situation was completely tragic - having the food but no baby - it's unbelievably heart-ripping, I can tell you. So this time I was determined. Bella was a "barracuda baby" as Yale scientists would put it, and brought in my milk vigorously and vociferously. I had all of the "early breastfeeding complaints" - sore, cracked nipples, blisters, blood, pain, all sorts - but I knew it would get better and being a Taurus, continued to persevere every day.

Sure enough, after about a week it got to be perfectly comfortable. And I tell you, it is wonderful - just wonderful and so healing to see that my body can sustain life both inside and outside the uterus - make it bloom and grow, even! I enjoy it for that reason and for all the other reasons that breastfeeding mothers enjoy breastfeeding. It's SO natural feeling. I can't imagine giving her a bottle at this stage: it would be...weird! Even if it had breastmilk it it!

So, her cord fell off three days ago, at the tender age of ten days. Thank goodness, because for the two days before it fell off it was super stinky! I did keep it though. Apparently the stink wears off! It's wrapped in gauze. So then we took our first bath! She really enjoyed that after she got used to being immersed - but the most noise she made was a bit of an uncertain whimper. Then we got down to business: we got washed up and played a bit, and I poured water over her with a washcloth and a cup. By the end of it, she was looking pretty chilled out and sucking the water off her fists, so that was nice!

So...milestones. We reach milestones and I am joyful. And at the same time, once again, feel myself leaving Josie behind because Josie never made it past the "just born" stage. Josie never grew and never changed after she was born - she remained in that stage forever. In some ways I felt like I had part of Josie back there for a few days after Bella's birth - but not because I thought Bella was Josie (and here I had the help of R to describe how it felt) - more that the veil was so thin after Bella was born that Josie was able to reside with us as well for just that first part. Those first few days. I think perhaps she was able to come out and get a cuddle. I don't know if that makes any sense to anyone, but it somehow does to me.

Milestones are wonderful though. As I look into my freshly-born daughter's eyes I can see this soul shining through - this little personality attached to her mama. I am fully aware of my responsibility toward this little being, and never have had a shred of doubt that I can do this. I'm not afraid, any time. She is safe with me, this little one. She will be fine. I don't feel overwhelmed at all: I feel complete. Ready. Grateful. Awed.

In love.

Isobella Mai Eytcheson...has arrived!

2010-01-14T22:50:00.008-06:00

Well, let me start by saying that I am now the earthly-mother of the most beautiful little girl. This is the second morning I've been blessed to wake up with her in my arms, and it's been complete and utter bliss. Sore nipples, yes; much sleep: no! But none of that matters because she is here, born beautifully and as I write this, she is under my right arm, lying on my lap. I can see her shiny mid-brown hair covering the side of her head like luxurious fur, and her flat little intricate ears just...well just attached to the side of her head, I suppose!

Here is how this all came to be. It's a long story...

Last Thursday - 7th January 2010, I was checked by Dr N (not my regular doctor, who was on holiday that week) and found to be softer and about 1cm dilated.

On Friday, in the early morning, I woke a little crampy to find I'd had a bloody show and was losing my plug. This was exciting! I had known for a couple of days that it would be soon, because I'd felt her moving lower and lower in my pelvis, actually moving herself down like a little puppy rooting for milk - twisting her head from side to side. She'd dropped, and I felt different. I'd been hoping we'd last until Monday, when my regular doc would be back - but, it looked unlikely on the Friday!

I started having regular contractions pretty soon after the bloody show. In fact, I emailed my mother and told her about it...about every 5-7 minutes, there'd be another one. We had a nap in the morning, and though contractions continued, they did slow down to about one every ten minutes. In the afternoon, my doula, (and midwife, and friend!) R came over: we drank red raspberry leaf tea and took some maternity photos in various poses. We sat and listened to music, were quiet, spoke about things...generally did the "early labor thing" together.

Now, she might not have waited to come out, had in not been for a rather upsetting Friday evening (which I won't go into here) suffice it to say, that evening was enough to stall everything. Contractions slowed to one every twenty-five/thirty minutes...

Saturday morning came. I felt very emotional still. My mother called, and I cried my heart out over the telephone. We had to get out of the house somehow - far too "caged in" at that stage, with nothing happening. So to cut a long story short, we went everywhere that weekend to see if things would get going again: two Wal-Mart stores, a Target, the MSP International Airport (yes, there was a reason why we went there apart from that - we ha to deliver a friend's son to a plane ride!) and a wrestling match: walked everywhere! Contractions continued - good one - but too far apart to be really productive.

Monday morning arrived, and things changed for the better...

My regular OB had returned from his wonderful Mexican vacation that very day: and I woke up to a little "gush" of pink fluid! It happened again a couple of minutes later, giving me the distinct impression that my water had broken... I called the OB phone nurse and told her - also telling her that I was a VBAC patient and therefore on a "time limit" (the hospital I delivered at only took VBACs between 8am and 5pm - no proper anesthesiologist at the location at night). She told me to come right in, so I called H at work and let him know. He arrived just a little later, and off we went, accompanied by my great friend C!

Naturally, things were not as they seemed... When we arrived, the NP tested the fluid after saying "oh yes! I can see it right there!" and to her surprise, came up with a totally neutral pH strip. It wasn't amniotic fluid after all... She examined me, and found I was at a soft 1-1.5, so not too bad. Then Dr T came in, looking gloriously tanned from his vacation, examined me again and swept/stretched my membranes. Then, we were to walk the hospital for a half hour and come back to get on the monitor.

Amusingly, I'd called R that morning, letting her and my other friend and doula, K, know what we were up to: R's February client's water had broken earlier the same morning! Nevertheless, R and K turned up at the hospital shortly after that, at which point C left, having to get some school work done - with my promise to call her if things started picking up.

So H, R, K and I walked the hospital up and own, quickly, for half an hour - squats and silly walking every now and again, up and down the stairs - all over the place. H was really hungry by now, so we dropped him off at the cafeteria downstairs for a bite to eat, about half way through the half hour. At 11.45, we arrived back up at the OB floor, and waited for the NST machine to be ready. The nurse got us a big red birth ball, which I bounced on in the waiting room.

By this time, I was having regular tightenings again. We got hooked up to the machine; H came back and we sat there and chatted for probably about an hour; the contractions showing up nicely on the monitor. After that, we were shown back to a room, and Dr T came back in.

The plan was this: I was to go home, have a glass of wine and a nice bath to slow the contractions down, then come back at 5am the following morning to be induced or augmented (or whatever) depending on progression. So, we were sent home, and told to try not to come in the middle of the night BUT that if we did, he would be the doc on call and would basically try to pull out all the stops for us...

So off we went! R and K went to their appointment in Mason City and H and I went to a Chinese restaurant there in the same town for lunch, making sure the contractions didn't suddenly turn into anything crazy.

Well, we sat in the restaurant and ate lunch, contrax coming every 5 minutes! They were enough to make one realize that actually, this was in no way "false" labor - this was the real deal. Would I last until morning? We drove past the HyVee liquor store on the way out of town, and I picked up a little mini-bottle of White Zinfandel in a brown paper bag, feeling naughty!

When we got home it was probably shortly after 4pm. I ran the bath, and popped a bath bomb from Lush in there - cocoa/shea butter (I'd been saving it for he third trimester!). I put on my chocolate face mask (sent to me by my lovely friend S) and poured the wine into a glass. There I sat for about an hour, with chocolate all over my face, and wine...luxury! It did seem to calm the contractions somewhat - not make them go away, but rather, space them apart perhaps a couple of minutes more, and dampen them slightly.

Here is the last picture of me, in my "weekly pose" at 40 weeks that night...

I got out of the bath and drank some hot chocolate; made some birthing music CD's (which came in very handy) and then watched some television with H, which was nice. More hot chocolate and a little snack later, H headed to bed. I recorded another CD and then, despite waves every 5 minutes and full-on laboring on the birth ball, thought I had better try to sleep - or at least doze.

Impossible, as it turned out! Dozing wasn't going to happen at all - the waves were far too powerful and in the end, I got back out of bed just before 2am because I'd tried everything to get rest, and simply found myself having to move through contractions on my hands and knees swaying on the bed - I couldn't hold still! Actually I was a bit annoyed at that stage: I really felt tired - my body was tired and I knew it. I couldn't sleep though, so I didn't have a choice: had to get up and just go with the flow.

I ran another bath, and got in for some water-based relief. There I sat for just over an hour, at which point I got out and moved to the birth ball, moodily emailing my mother:

"Okay then! Tried to sleep but contractions are way too strong. So here I am on my birth ball. I got annoyed with the contractions - they made me angry because I wanted to sleep but they were too intense. I'm still SO tired but, they are coming on like every 2-3 minutes and they are hardcore!"

Naturally she had a sensible reply to that, and called me shortly afterward, but I was bound and determined to last until 4.30 at least, by which time we'd be going to the hospital ER entrance to be checked in for our "induction" which, it would turn out, wouldn't need to be induced! I emailed her again at 3.45am:

"About 2.5 minutes apart right now, lasting about 50 seconds to a minute of peak. I am only counting the peak of the contraction - is that right?"

So once again she had a very good reply to that, and called me. I called R at about 4.15am - and she was at the birth of her other client, but had sent K over to the hospital instead: ah, the irony! K is lovely though, so everything was fine! H woke up at that point, and we got ready to go. He wasn't quite in "labor land" yet at that point, and wondered if I'd had chance to put the dogs out for a pee ("No H, the contractions are coming too close together!") or got my stuff together ("No H, I can't really move right now!) and then why I was taking so long to get ready and couldn't put my socks on ("I need help H - I can't bend over right now!"). Bless his heart, he got the picture after a few minutes and became a pillar of strength, leading me through the snow on the way to the car, carrying everything and supporting me beautifully.

The car ride was interesting. Every time a wave would come, I'd lift myself off the seat so that I felt able to completely relax my birthing muscles and the muscles in my abdomen. Thankfully it didn't take as long as I thought it was going to. We arrived at the ER entrance and H got a wheelchair, which he popped me into (slowly). We were greeted by a smiling K, holding R's laptop (for pictures after the birth) - it was good to know she was there as well! They checked me in; I signed some papers between contractions and then security let us into the hospital and led us up to "The Baby Place" on the 3rd floor, where I got room number 308.

They asked me about 100 questions, or so it seemed, upon check in. Twice about circumcision, were she to turn out to be a boy I answered "no, definitely not!" without even turning to H - we'd talked about it before, and in laborland, I could barely stand to think of the cord being cut, let alone anything else! I had a heplock put in my arm, ready for the (imaginary) pitocin and then we decided that since I was already in active labor, we would indeed not start the pictocin, but let me labor down and see what happened.

By now, things in my mind were a little blurry. The room lights were dim. There was a birth ball - the same red birth ball from before. I got hooked up to the monitor though, because our first nurse, who was there until 7am, wanted me on continuously. I was hoping that would change... So I labored there on the bed. K took some of the birthing things out of the bag: the little CD player, our Gaia Goddess, and set them up. We played music - but not the Bob Marley for some reason (I'll have to play that when we get home). That was great, and very soothing. I wore my sarong given to me by D (from Crete!) - there was a small frown from the staff, who had expected me to don a gown. K asked them if they wanted a copy of my birth plan. Apparently, they had already seen it...

Now around 6.45am, our nurse came in and introduced our new nurse, S. This is when things started to really get going. S was a nurse from the neighboring town - same healthcare system - different hospital. The hospital S came from did VBACs very frequently compared to this one, and all day and night because they were a bigger facility! Fabulous, thought I - and I was right!

Immediately we went over the birth choices we'd made for Isobella and I and H. She went off to call Dr T, who had not arrived yet for the day, to confirm the options, and then came back to us shortly afterward and said that yes; he'd confirmed everything we'd told her. So hey presto, I was allowed off the monitor and this is when the birthing started to actually make sense for me!

Happily, I asked for a bath. K went to run it, and I got my monitoring straps an my sarong off, and there I was, naked as the day I was born, in the bath, laboring through waves, the music drifting in through the open bathroom door...my eyes half closed. The warm water surrounded Isobella in my belly, and I knew things were progressing nicely. The nurse, S, came in like a true midwife every now and again with her portable Doppler and listened through contractions to Bella's heartbeat which remained beautiful and strong!

I think I was in there for about an hour and a half or so. Then, Dr T arrived and I got out to be examined. I was at a 4! Fantastic news - everyone was very pleased indeed! At that point we made the decision to break my waters, and so that as done with a little hook. I continued laboring on the birth ball, and every now and again, some water would come out: her head was so low that between contractions, she'd plug up the "exit" like a cork, which was quite funny really! The waves were long and strong, and powerful but by this time, the accompanying cramping low down that had accented the contractions since Friday had gone somewhat, which was nice - I found the lower cramping annoying!

We had a lovely view out of the window onto frost and snow covered lakes and trees - so we opened up the blinds and let Mother Nature shine through...

Things progressed nicely until 11am - I dilated to 6cm, then bout 7 with stretching from S. At some point soon after that though, my tiredness started to catch up with me. Nicely in transition, I decided to lie on the bed and try to snooze my way through a few contractions. This was working quite nicely actually - but only for one of us - the other one involved - Bella - was not having such a great time of it. She didn't like me laying down - her heart tones dipped to about 80 all the time, so then, we tried some other positions. All fours was not working for me any more at all - so in the end, the only way I was able to labor was standing up, supported by someone.

That didn't seem to work very well either though, because the thing about transition is this: you really can't stand up very well! Legs and arms turn to jelly, and it's very hard indeed to maintain any muscle tone at all - and with good reason: you need to relax everything to let your body take over and push the baby out! So, though I tried standing for over an hour, holding onto K an H, the situation became very difficult to handle. The problem was that while trying to hold my legs rigidly to support my laboring body, I couldn't relax my birthing muscles or my abdominal muscles, or my cervix properly at all. If I chose to hang off my jelly arms, and make them rigid, I might have less of a problem, but then my legs would give way and I'd fall into my supporting person...

So, though we tried, and checked me at probably just before 12 and then just before 1, I had made very little cervical progress. My tiredness had hit a delirious level as well: the combination just wasn't working: my blood pressure was to high - somewhere around 150/103 for the whole time. Something had to be done - *shock, horror* - something medical!

So I asked for something to take the edge off. Now, my birth team were amazing and knew I was also in transition on top of everything, so I did have to ask a couple of times, and then they made sure I wanted to know about the meds, to which I replied "yes." I knew all I needed was something to tone it down a little so progress could be made - I only had 3cm to go, and knew if I could just relax a little, that bit of cervix would move like butter. It wouldn't be a problem. On the other hand, with the situation as it was, I would be approaching a situation in which high blood pressure and no cervical change would lead to more intervention than I'd be comfortable with - and that, without pain medication. Getting back in the bath at this stage wasn't an option because of the blood pressure, the heartbeat problems and the stage of my labor given the circumstances of Josie's birth.

S went through the options: we could inject narcotics into my heplock (which at this point was still a heplock, with nothing in it at all!) - but, since my labor was so progressed, they would probably not have much of an effect. I did not want an epidural - that I knew for sure. The other option then, was an intrathecal morphine block. This basically was a very small morphine injection in similar place they would put an epidural - with some advantages. The intrathecal would take the discomfort from jagged, to smooth-edged but would not "take the pain away" - I would not be numb, would be able to walk about and there would be little risk of overdose (which can sometimes be a risk in epidural). Also, there'd be no effect on Isobella from the morphine. It sounded good. I said "yes please: I'd like one of those!"

So after a few contractions, the anesthesiologist came in. I don't like big needles - especially ones in my spine - so the only reason I opted for anything near that area was that the needle would be withdrawn and I wouldn’t have to tolerate a catheter in my back! In and out! He was lovely, the anesthesiologist: I sat there completely without shame, naked on a towel on the bed, as he enthusiastically explained what he was going to do, and then, as he inserted everything once again. It was all over in a matter of probably two minutes - but did take about fifteen minutes to get going properly.

Now ten minutes after the anesthesiologist left, I began feeling in control once again. Isobella was tolerating my sitting on the edge of the bed, breathing through contractions, without losing heartbeats. My blood pressure went down steadily - everyone was breathing their individual sighs of relief, as was I. Actually I was really pleased because the spinal morphine was doing just what it had to - I could still feel everything, still had to breathe and focus through the waves - still felt myself opening up my cervix changing and things "happening" down there. The anesthetic properties stopped just right at the bottom of my uterus, which I thought fantastic! I know some women love the numbness an epidural brings, but I honestly would have cried, had that been an effect of an anesthetic: I wanted to feel my baby: and my body working together to bring her into the world!

At this point, K and H began to laugh at me - apparently I was "back" and according to H afterward, sounded "high" - so he thought they'd shot something into my bloodstream as well: not so! I was high - elated on birth hormones, unbelievably tired but also relieved that my Isobella was looking steady again. I found myself able to talk and smile in between contractions again, but, yes, simultaneously feeling very drowsy - a feeling I let myself sink into under warm blankets, on my side, on the bed. I hadn't slept since 7.30am the previous morning - Monday morning. It was Tuesday afternoon at 1.25pm...

So S brought me blankets, I laid on my side and we listened to Isobella, and breathed through the waves beautifully. I felt everything working wonderfully. In the end, given the anesthetic, I was hooked to a saline line and told to close my eyes and rest because there'd be work to later on. Little did they know...

A little while later they also did introduce pitocin at a level of 2...the very lowest. Maybe a half hour later they went to 4. They never did have chance to check me again... That pitocin really didn't do much: I was dilating more than anyone knew already...

I have to guess here, but I would say that at about 2.30pm, I began feeling a little pushy. There were a few contractions I really felt something happening - I just breathed through them, laying on my side. Then all of a sudden, at about 2.37, I got a contraction that felt very different - something was moving down and pressing on a new area - and actually it felt really good - not bad at all!

The next contraction I will never, ever forget. I now know the difference between the "urge to push" and what Ina May would refer to as the "Fetal Ejection Reflex" - where your body reflexively pushes without your input! That was the beginning of incredible...

It must have been 2.40 or so when it happened. I was still deep in laborland, on my side, in a little trance between contractions when all of a sudden, a wave built that turned into something completely different: my body, bearing down without my consent or prior knowledge! I bent double all of a sudden - like one would in a sneeze (though only the very first sneeze of one's life would have that kind of a surprise effect!) and felt Isobella's head descend down and through the birth canal... Wow - that was truly cool!

I also could feel everything and it wasn't bad at all! It was fascinating! Nevertheless I suddenly thought "wow - I am well on the way to having this child under these warm blankets without anyone knowing about it!" and said:

"Umm: my body just pushed without me pushing." (Or something to that effect)

Nobody moved - K and H just kind of went "oh, how neat!" - So I had to say once again:

"No seriously, can someone help me please - this baby is coming out now!"

So then they both took off briefly toward the door and in came S - all about the action. She raised the level of the bed up, and everything was made ready for delivery. Gowns were put on; gloves were snapped and got the camera. H stood by the bed, looking quite excited while I babbled on about how amazing the contraction and pushing had been! The covers were taken off the lower half of my body - I got to keep one on the top though, which was nice. I flopped my right leg over and rested the left one - just laid there on my side, sitting up a bit, which felt fine and right.

Another wave built and I said "here comes another one!" - sure enough, I made a funny face involuntarily (again, a bit like a sneeze), bent double and felt her descend once again. In between waves and pushes, I tried to describe to K and H what I was feeling, and how amazing it was. I asked them to tell me when the head was there because I wanted to feel it. K smiled, holding the camera and very assuredly said "oh, you have some time yet!" Once again, little did anyone know...

Dr T wasn't there yet, but did arrive fairly shortly afterward. I had some more pushing, and I think S asked if I wanted to see in a mirror. I said "yes!" and one was set up, which was fascinating to look at during pushes because at that stage, you're so totally into the labor and at the apex of bliss, pushing - all the colors got brighter and my vision seemed clearer and sharper. Dr T snapped his gloves on, exclaiming how brilliant the situation was and looking extremely pleased! I was pleased too, and made it known! The brighter lights above the bed were switched on, along with an apology for switching them on. It was okay though - I saw everything better and then after delivery we turned them right off.

A couple of pushes later, I was told to feel the head - which felt like a wrinkly doggie's neck! All her skin was pushed up and was wet and warm. I couldn't feel a skull at all - it was all really soft!

Then, I pushed again, and felt her crowning. I said "ah - now this is the ring of fire! Now I know what everyone's talking about: it's not as bad as I thought!" - Because remember, I could still feel everything. The whole process was just fascinating! I felt totally fearless! Dr T confirmed what I was saying and then poured mineral oil all over the place for less "friction" and did a little stretching, which was a bit uncomfortable but tolerable. I grimaced through that, I think! Anyhow, with the next wave someone said "this is the one - you can push her head out!" and I made sure I darn well did, I can tell you - I let my body push ad then gave it a helping hand at the end, and *flopf* - out came her whole head, her chin facing down, all blue! I could see her entire face and chubby cheeks in the mirror and it was one of the most amazing and strange moments of my life! Dr T said "oh! There is a little cord around the neck" - which is normal and didn't worry me. He slipped it over easily, and then took a look at her shoulders.

It was either the next push or the one afterward (I must look at that birth video Kate made!) that Dr T said something like "woah, okay hold on" because he was kind of manipulating Bella's body around. Her chest was bigger than her head! I couldn't, however, for very long - and pushed deliberately along with my body. Out she slipped, like a sea creature - swooping down into Dr T's hands!

Immediately she was placed on the blanket covering my top half. My arms came up and I held on to her. Someone flopped some baby blankets on her, and I used one to wipe her head off. She was squawking like a little bird - short squawks - and spit up a bit. Her movements were great - her color soon picked up, and they did suction her a bit to get rid of some gunk, which simultaneously annoyed her a bit, but did stop her making yucky puking noises, which I think made her feel better. I wiped her over a little bit, and then looked at H, who had his arms by his side and was just dripping tears onto the bed. I'm sure I said something like "look - isn't she gorgeous - look what we made!" but again, I'd have to check the birth video!

Someone said "here, I'll get you some fresh blankets" and more were brought. Isobella was just so beautiful; I could scarcely believe my eyes. She also resembled Josie - a sister had been brought into the world, safe and sound! Her head was barely molded from the journey into the world - it had been such a short journey. I remember thinking how big she was! I wanted to know, but first, wanted to show her where food came from, so, I put her to the breast and she rooted a bit and did latch on just for a few seconds. She was so strong - so healthy - the picture of life! Oh, I fell in love. I know H fell in love. I passed him to her, encouraging her, and he held her and just melted. The atmosphere in the room was electric. Dr T was elated; I was on a huge high; H's heart was alight and everything was just wonderful!

We weighed her: 7lb 15oz. 2.59pm was the moment of birth! 21 inches - nice, long baby! 12.75 inch head and 13 in body - just pure fabulousness all over - oh...the love, the love everywhere! It was the most amazing experience of my life! It was just absolutely beautiful!

So, here she is. There's so much more to tell, and I will tell it as soon as I can - but - for now, let me just leave you with some pictures of her...the rainbow, arrived!

Here's Dr T, Isobella and I this morning before discharge...he'd better not retire for a while!

XxXxXxXxX

39 weeks and going strong...

2010-01-05T11:20:00.004-06:00

Yes! Here I am, actually today is 39 weeks and 1 day - so "definitively"into the 39 week bit. This is the last Tuesday of my "to term" pregnancy - the last Tuesday until my due date, which is next Monday the 11th of January 2010. I do believe actually, that I'll make it there. I'm not showing any signs of labor really, so far - I mean, sure, Braxton hicks and cervical twinges, but neither appear to be doing much to my cervix - at least, not very quickly.

It's alright: since my doctor is on holiday until next Monday, I'm fine with it - at peace, even. Certainly more than I was before he left, and we had those "crucial two days" in which he would still be able to deliver me if I gave birth.

Now, if I went into labor, I'd probably hang around until the last minute before going into hospital. I'm pretty confident I'd still get my VBAC if I did that, and I'm calm about it. How else can I be, really? Can't panic about it.

Isobella is beautifully active still, if in some funny positions. Her head bobs up and down - sometimes she floats high and at an odd angle; sometimes low and determined to scrabble her way out. Altogether I am fairly certain I'm going to birth a baby well over 8lb at the end of this. If so, she'll be the heaviest baby born in this family for two generations! Clearly once again, the little baby socks I bought aren't going to fit her giant feet... Ah well!

I feel good otherwise. Last night I had some really amazing feelings in my pelvic floor as Isobella just battered against it like a bull! Made me leap out of bed twice! I suppose that's a good thing though. Here she is as I type, moving about actively but not quite so crazily.
I am keeping occupied by cleaning, cooking, baking and more cleaning. Our washer outlet pipe got blocked with ice yesterday evening, which took until midnight to get thawed out again with a heater. The chunk of ice went through the pipe with a "thunk" and then finally, the washer would drain. This morning I have dry hands from wringing out the washing that was soaking in the washer last night. Also, the car wouldn't start on two occasions in the last four days - too cold. Today, it did start, with some resistance. I am trying to keep it running every ten-twelve hours at least, to make sure that if I DO go into labor, we have a running vehicle to get me to the hospital! Ah, the joys of birthing in the winter in MN...

Well, that's it for now. Not such an exciting update, but as ever, pics to show you how I'm looking!

Happy New Year...

2009-12-31T23:41:00.002-06:00

...thank you all for being such amazing examples of support and love throughout this year. It's been a year, I can tell you - a lot of firsts, a lot of mourning, a lot of newness: coupled with new life growing inside me once again - a miracle I didn't know would be possible.

Here I am, sitting here at 11.47pm on the 31st December 2009 - getting ready to post this at 12 o'clock. Thinking about this time - Isobella isn't here yet, but this is still her time. I'm done with cleaning and running about like a headless chicken - for at least the next day!

Random fact I wanted to put down before I forgot: Isobella had a biophysical profile done on Tuesday at which she measured around 7.5lb. During that profile they were looking for at least 30 seconds sustained breathing movement - something she does quite a lot - I feel it from the outside. Well, she wasn't really into doing that - and we waited a long time! I wasn't in the least worried though - since I'd felt it. But, in the middle of watching for her breathing, I asked the tech to go down to see if we could see her face...

Well, there she was, firmly wedged into the bottom of my pelvis - VERY low, and you'll never guess what she was ever so busily doing? Sucking on the wall of my uterus - no fingers involved! Oh yes, she was ever so busy and enthusiastic! Big sucking movements, just going for it - it was so completely sweet! I thought "oh, you're going to be a hungry one on the outside, aren't you?!"

I'd eaten a baked potato with cheese earlier in the day and apparently, the flavors of the foods you eat turn up in the amniotic fluid - so perhaps she's going to be a cheese lover, like me! Anyhow she obviously likes swallowing amniotic fluid because her bladder was hugely full! Ah, the things I don't want to forget!

And now here we are...quietly approaching 2010. It's 11.58pm and I thought for a long time "I would love to go into 2010 holding my baby..." - and she's not here yet. However, she is in my tummy, awake and moving about and so really, I AM holding her after all...

Soon enough, she will come out and I will be holding her in my arms. I can't wait. Bring on 2010...

38 weeks, 1 day...

2009-12-30T11:15:00.002-06:00

Here we are. This is me and my enormous belly just yesterday at 38 weeks, 1 day! I feel SO much more pregnant than I ever did with Josie...it's crazy, really!

...and here I am, hiding the bump under a shirt that is labeled "maternity" but which I am so past. I think I need clothes that are labeled "tent" at this stage...

I had a doctor's appointment yesterday at 3.40pm, and found out I was...nowhere near ready to go. Again. Which is somewhat vexing because at this stage I do feel rather stuck in pregnancy limbo: I'd hoped to have made a little bit of progress as far as "readiness" were concerned at this stage, but it doesn't look much like it. I've been having regular contractions, but they don't seem to be doing much to my cervix... In fact at the NST yesterday, I was having contractions 2-3 minutes apart. Ah, me.

The biophysical profile showed a nice, big, healthy babe - she looks to be measuring (if you take her thighbone measurement) around 7.5 lb - but, if she takes after me, she's torso-heavy in terms of length, so that could mean a heavier baby. It's good - I'm glad she's measuring nicely!

Now, can she come out, please? My lovely OB is on holiday next week - this throws a potentially rather serious spanner in the works because of course, I turn 39 weeks on Monday. He is gone until the 11th - my due date. If I go into labor next week spontaneously, I will be fighting a cesarean with the remaining doctors unless labor times itself beautifully during the day - which of course, is unlikely! I don't want another cesarean...I want a VBAC. I will be very upset if I have another cesarean, no matter the comments of "oh, but at least the baby is healthy" etcetera - there's a whole ton more to it than that - a whole ton.

So I am waiting today for a 'phone call from my OB, who is getting in touch with a doctor friend of his in the cities, to see if anything can be done as far as some kind of manual cervical dilation is concerned. We shall see.

However at this stage, I am thinking we're probably going to have to ride this out at least until he comes back from holiday in two Monday's time.

Problem is of course, you have about as much chance of getting baby to stay in, than getting her to come out. It's all such an enormous gamble...

Isobella's Time...

2009-12-26T22:10:00.002-06:00

Here I sit, at 37 weeks and 5 days pregnant. Still pregnant. It's Isobella's time now.

I say that with a great amount of emphasis. It's Isobella's time now I say. We've passed a big point now. Josie would have died yesterday. I would have held her overnight and then given her to the funeral director this morning at about 10am.

I cannot properly express what a huge milestone every minute - every second really - since yesterday morning at 7.56am (well, earlier, when she died) has been. This is new time now - Isobella's time, all of her own. This is a new passage of time not written by her sister. The time which was spent by Josie as well was by no means a horrible time, of course, but it was poignant - so very poignant. My body remembered every minute of the day since conception and told me "at this point in Josie's pregnancy..."

Now my body has take steps into a new place. I am in a big field at the end of a beautiful forest and I can see a new sunrise coming up over an enormous valley. The grass is green underfoot and the atmosphere is fresh; light and covered in dew like a new spring day. I can look behind me and see Josie; almost see me sitting on a rock some 30 feet away, cradling her in the pre-dawn glimmering. Then I can look ahead to the sun, shimmering over the horizon and bathing me in warmth. My belly is alive - it's full of this little baby who like her sister, is vital, but, unlike he sister, is going to come out whole, and healthy...

She is going to open her eyes and see what I see...so it is good that I am here, in this beautiful place. It's good that I made the choices I made to ensure we ended up here, and not at the bottom of a big, black pit.

I know that my time with her in my belly is limited now - not long now until she comes out. And come out, she will, in her own time, induced or not. I don't think it matters any more if I am induced or not: I will, and she will still work in harmony and we will prevail together as mother and daughter.

I can't believe how far we've come. This pregnancy has been amazing: so quick, yet so slow in so many ways. Looking back to the beginning, it seems like such a long time ago - so far away from now. But, then I think of the interim, which I have spent mostly trying to do worthwhile things, and can remember all of the days as though they were yesterday. Now here we are, she and I, full term and ready to embark on a wonderful new chapter in life.

And you know what? The most incredible, amazing thing is this: many people feel cynical about life - they believe that being positive involves rose-tinted glasses and denial. But I can tell you now, sitting here, that it's not true. Life IS beautiful. Life IS amazing. You've got to find the courage to surrender to that fact and admit it to yourself - acknowledge that there are things you cannot control. So don't try.

The secret is this: let go of all but the most real things. Your family; your babies, living and in the beyond; sunsets; sunrises; the spread of the earth; true friendships; an apple from a tree. All these things are real. You will always have these things if you choose to nurture and cultivate them rather than choosing the other, unreal things. So, in essence, we all have everything we need...for free. We have the meaning of life in our hands and in our hearts every single day. Just got to let go...and let understanding in: and it will come in.

And as I sleep, wake, go on, making Isobella's time here today, and tomorrow, and the day after that, I feel reality more and more. Smells are coming back to me. Sounds are coming back...my senses are waking up again and it feels...amazing.

Tonight, I'm up later than usual because my friend B is having her baby boy as we speak. She lost her son, Duncan, last year and now here she is, birthing her new little one and with him, all time from then onward - a new time. This event has infused through to me across the grand web of life that covers the Earth and now, I can't sleep. Instead, I am sitting here listening to some birthing music and just...

...being with her and her little boy tonight, as the page turns.

Perhaps I won't go to sleep until he is born. Perhaps I will, and will dream of his birth.

Either way, I will be treading the same path very soon. Isobella and I...

37 weeks, 4 days...Merry Christmas!

2009-12-25T10:47:00.006-06:00

That's me at 37 weeks exactly, this past Monday...

Well, I am officially MORE pregnant than I've ever been before in my life today! This morning at 7.56am would have been the equivalent gestation to Josie's birth, and here I am, this afternoon, still hugely pregnant, cleaning the kichen on Christmas day with a squirmy little girl in my tummy! Of all the milestones, this honestly has to be the most significant. Now, it's alien territory - new territory - from here on out.

Who know: perhaps I'll suddenly start sporting HUGE stretchmarks? I have no clue - my skin has never been this stretched out before...

We had the baby shower last weekend - which was...wonderful! It was so fun! My sister in law, B, came down and arranged the games, which were super excellent! We got a whole bunch of wonderful stuff - everything we needed. Even a pack 'n' play from my friends C and A! Wonderful! Really, I am very ready for Isobella to make her entrance now.

Here I am, being the model for the "how big is it around her belly?" game: incidentally, that measurement was 41 inches...

Once again, posing the belly so that people were able to gauge an estimate of it's bigness...

Here are about half the people there, in our living room. I think almost everyone we invited came, bar one who couldn't make it and had told us beforehand, and one who'd come down with tonsillitis. So we had a great turnout! Afterward, a couple stayed and we drank cocoa and ate chocolate until later in the night...

Here I am, playing the "what's in the pillowcase?" game - there were twenty baby items in the pillowcase, and we had to remember and write them down, simply from the feel... I got seven, I think. Winner got 14!

Last, but not least, here we all are, posing goofily by the Christmas tree last weekend.

So, Happy Yule, all of you - may the best wishes of the season be with you not matter what your spiritual beliefs are! I hope that, even if this is the first season without someone you love, something beautiful happens at least once to help you remember that actually, life is pretty amazing... Because it really is, isn't it. Big hugs to you all!

If I had only known...

2009-12-18T11:00:00.004-06:00

...that this would be your last week alive, Josie, I would have maybe done some things differently.

I am now 36 weeks, 4 days pregnant with Isobella. I gave birth to Josie at 37 weeks, 4 days at about 7.56am under general anesthesia via cesarean. She'd probably passed at about 7.15 or so, I think. I thought I'd felt a last movement in the car, but that might have just been her relaxing once she'd gone... that was as we were approaching the last turning on the interstate before the exit to CR13... I remember the sunrise in the car, and that last movement, which was probably not what I thought it was because we'd lost the heart rate already. Though at the time, R felt sure she couls still hear it, faintly. I couldn't though...I could only hear that awful static...

Then at the hospital, more static... Then the ultrasound machine and nothing...then the internal exam...the catheter...the drips on both arms; the straps; the undressing by several people; the anesthesiologist (who came to see me afterward because he was so sorry about my baby...) and then being told to take deep breaths of oxygen because it was good for my baby... Good for my baby...who couldn't breathe...because she was trapped inside me in a river of blood...

God it's hard sometimes, it really is. I really miss her.

Now here I am at this stage of pregnancy again and, remembering everything I did. Let me lay out the time line of Josie's last week or so, alive:

10/4 - (Equivalent of tomorrow) - we had a midwife appointment, and took some pictures...

Josie, if I'd known, I would have taken more pictures...

10/5 - Sunday - I washed clothes - so many loads of laundry - and made sure all your things were ready for you.

Josie, if I'd known, I would have talked to you more and wouldn't have done all that laundry so frantically, instead choosing to rub my tummy and speak to you...

10/6 - Monday - I took pictures of all your things, so proudly, to show my family thousands of miles away your stuff!

Josie, if I'd known, I would have gone for a long walk in the Autumn colors and we would have been together in peace and quiet for a little while...

10/7 - Tuesday- Your Daddy and brother set up your crib at my behest because I knew it wouldn't be much longer until you came: I'd had signs for about a week and a half by then, that you were on your way. I took a few pictures and thought it looked like a lovely nest for you...

Josie, if I'd known, I would have lain in bed with you, in the light of your little lamp, and we would have been able to have a conversation...

10/8 - Wednesday - I got my laptop and went upstairs, to take a bath in the sunlit bathroom there. I knew it would be my last for a while because I'd have my hands full with you, so I was going to indulge... I had a contraction in the bath which in hindsight wasn't quite...right.

Josie, if I'd known, I would have taken more baths with you... If I'd known about the contraction pain being wrong, I would have gone to the hospital...

10/9 - Thursday - We watched movies for the night and chilled out.

Josie, if I'd known, I would have spent the night with you, talking to you, being in touch with my body and with you, and thinking so many loving thoughts every second...

10/10 - Friday and the day of your birth and death - I started being in pain about 2am or so, I think. I thought it was normal and labored through it, never making a sound, taking a bath for the pain, which helped. I didn't even wake your Daddy up until about 4.30am. We called R a little later on. Your heartbeat sounded great. I labored in the birth tub, with your Daddy. We have one picture (I put a box over the boobs in case of strange visitors...but I wasn't wearing a black box!). Your Daddy looked proud and apprehensive. There was light in his eyes. I haven't seen that light since you died. Not once. I used to see it all the time. I wonder if it will ever be back.

About 6.45 or so, I started feeling lightheaded in the birth tub. I got out, and almost passed out in the bathroom. Suddenly, your heart rate went to 80bpm. We got dressed for the hospital and had one last check on the way out of the door. Your heartbeat was back up and sounding wonderful again, so we decided it as simply a case of a strong contraction. We went back inside, I took a shower because I was hot. I got out, and R checked me. I was at 3cm, which was not right.

Then we couldn't find your heartbeat any more. Only some kind of echo. I only heard static. We were in the car to the hospital quick as a flash. It was just after 7. It was too late...

Josie, if I'd known, I would have given my life to save yours. I would have torn into myself without anesthesia with a spoon if that's all we had, to get you out.

But that's the thing. Nobody knew. And that's the greatest thing "they" never tell you: sometimes, nobody knows. Adults aren't all powerful. Mummys don't know everything, all the time, even though they will have you believe they have eyes in the back of their heads. Had we been in hospital already, it is likely (according to the doctors) that the outcome would have been the same... Doctors are powerful, but, they lose people still.

Had we been able to know, somehow, you'd still be here. I know you know that we would have given anything to save you. Had I known this week would be your last week, I would have enveloped you with as much love as I could possibly have mustered up.

So in honor of you, the rest of this pregnancy will be spent making sure Isobella is absolutely saturated with love, at the possible expense of most other normally important things around here...

I love you little Josie; I love your sister as well. You're my babies; my girls. My heart.

36 weeks...almost there!

2009-12-17T20:37:00.003-06:00

Yes we really are! Check out the bigness!

I am 36 weeks, and 1 day in these pics. Granted, I'm now 36 weeks, 3 days - but I'm glad I waited to give an update, because of my fabulous and wonderful doctor's appointment yesterday... But before I go into that, let me post this belly out picture to give you a true impression of my vastness at this stage (amazingly, some people still say "oh, but you are SOOooooo tiny!" which is clearly their attempt at a joke...

...because I am in no way "tiny." I'm just not. Come on people, there's no way you can tell me there's a little, itty-bitty 5lb'er in there. Do you have any idea where my internal organs are Because I know where they are, and they aren't occupying a single iota of that big belly up there...

Anyhow on to that lovely doc's appointment.

I went in at 8.30am yesterday morning for my first non-stress test (NST). For those among you who are not aware of what this is, let me explain: an NST is where they take you, pop two sensors on your belly (one for uterine irritability/contractions etc and movement; one for fetal heart rate) and sit (or lay) you down for about 20 minutes or so, so monitor the babe.

Point of the whole exercise is to get a good reading of what said babe is up to in there: and, if babe's heart rate is consistent with movement. If babe falls asleep, they buzz him/her with a buzzer (or poke, or make you drink something sugary) to get him or her to wake up and move about a bit, and see what that does to the heart rate. This is all to figure out how healthy the baby is. Basically, you want to see nice heart accelerations and decelerations, corresponding with a good amount of movement. Etcetera.

Well, Bella hated that doppler for her heart - as soon as it got put to the belly, she launched an almighty body movement against the other movement/contraction sensor and tried to fling the damn thing off my belly altogether. She really did not like that thing at all! It probably really annoyed her little ears...

So, we remained on there for about 40 minutes in total. Of course, the entire time I was there I thought, from moment to moment: "just don't stop beating, little heart" - so the whole "non-stress" part of the test was a complete joke: I was stressed out, alright! Not loony-stressed, no - but not calm and relaxed in Hawaii-beach-sipping-coconut-margarita-style calm, either. Since, when you've had a doppler placed on your pregnant belly and heard...nothing; you can't ever be completely sure that won't happen all over again. Oh, for the innocence of that first pregnancy again...

After that, my wonderful doc (who I truly do adore - he is a gem) told me we would take a quick look at the placenta on the ultrasound. He is (naturally) getting to a rather nervous point now: probably more nervous than me, actually. He really doesn't relish the prospect of history repeating; neither, of course, do I - but I can understand his worry. So, we went into an ultrasound room and a tech came to start the ultrasound.

We looked at her head, one of her "orbital sockets" and then the heart, which, as usual, was loud. It sounded about 135 beats a minute or so. She was chilled now, being off that annoying doppler! However, that's where everything went a little haywire, because her heart rate kept measuring out at 268 bpm visually. It didn't make a darn bit of sense, so my doc came in to have a go. Sure enough, he could only get an ultra-high reading too. It sounded slow; it measured fast.

So then all of a sudden (in manner of a movie theater fire, when a good film is cut in half; the lights go on and everyone is told to exit in a "calm and orderly fashion") plans changed. I was told not to freak out, but that they were going to admit me to labor and delivery for monitoring because of a possible tachycardia issue with Isobella. I promised not to freak out, but then of course, my heart started pumping and by the time I got to L&D, my blood pressure was up to 130 over 90, and then 130 over 101. Not so great.

So there I am in a hospital gown, in bed, once again with those two little sensors on my belly (Isobella must have been livid), wondering if I am going to be made to go on bed rest because of high blood pressure or - even worse - be told that, because of this heart irregularity and the high blood pressure, I was going to have to deliver that day by induction or - horrendously - cesarean again!

I thought to myself "well, I'm 36 weeks, 2 days. She may well not even have to go to the NICU. But then she might if she has something screwed up in her heart... Oh gosh, I really don't want her to have to go through this..."

But instead of visibly panicking, I asked for toast, fruit juice and water, and the remote. I sat there watching true crime programs and looking completely under control. Naturally though, I kept glancing up at the monitor - I had a couple of nice contractions - or pressure/birthing waves as we call them in the Hypnobabies world - and that was exciting! I continued living, watching the minutes tick by and Frasier (who incidentally, had no furniture in his apartment that episode) - then a couple more true crime shows.

In the end, they had me hooked up for about 2.5 hours. I got to eat lunch in the hospital and peruse the menu for things I might like to eat when I come in to give birth... My doc came in then, after a while, and said everything looked nice and calm - nothing wrong at all. So who knows what happened in the first place... He made me promise to call if anything "weird" happened, which I promised - but then he made me promise again! I promised, promised, promised! After that, my friend (and midwife; and doula), R came to meet me at the hospital - I had been planning to go to hers, and was going to call after my 8.30am appointment: but, since I never called, and had apparently disappeared off the face of the planet, she'd called my cell, which I'd had a nurse retrieve.

I think I'd call for a pin-prick sized amount of blood, at this stage, I really do.

Then I got to get out... As we stood in the car park, R got a call from a client, who'd just finally gone into real labor: so, off she went to attend the birth, which went off beautifully and without a hitch, later that evening (congratulations!).

This whole episode though, got me thinking about just how close this birth really is. It made me realize that the car seat was not installed: I installed it today. It made me realize I didn't have mini travel-sized containers of soap and shampoo and conditioner: I went and bought them immediately afterward. It made me realize I needed to clean my house in readiness for this child: I did...

...I shouldn't have done so much cleaning, because afterward I hurt like hell: and felt dreadful this morning after a crappy night's sleep spent laying on my right hip, which now wants to spontaneously dislocate in public places, without warning. Fun.

But ah, at least now I am prepared. The bags are packed; the car seat installed (properly!); the tiny, last minute things bought; the house cleaned and vacuumed rather well. All is now done.

And it's about eleven days, give or take, until my week 38 milestone... That's not long. I go back in to see my doc next Wednesday, upon which I will be checked for "readiness." I have embarked upon an EPO consumption mission to attempt to ready my body for delivery...

It's all go time now, boys and girls... We're reaching the end of this rugged road. We really are.

Isobella's little face at 35 weeks and 4 days...

2009-12-12T13:50:00.004-06:00

Here we are! Here's the little face at the growth scan yesterday...

She's measuring in at about 6lb, give or take - according to the (notoriously inaccurate) ultrasound. Mind you, I totally believe that is true - minus perhaps an ounce: and apparently, according to the studies, the mother's point of view is more often than not more accurate than the ultrasound. Some people reckon she's going to be big at birth; some people reckon the same size as Josie.

I think she will be just over 7lb at 38 weeks: so, if that's when it's go time, I reckon we'll have a 7lb 2oz - 7lb 5oz baby. Josie was 6lb 6oz, but I do feel bigger now than with her...

Anyhow everything is looking GREAT with the placenta, cord, measurements, kidneys, tummy, head, abdomen, everything. Nice, active baby and it all seems to be stacking up nicely. She's flipping between right and left occiput anterior, which is fine. I called ROP before going into the ultrasound room and was correct! Yay for external palpation!

She is VERY far down in my pelvis now, hence the half head shot - we would have had to go down into my pelvis with the wand if we'd wanted to see her whole head. As a result I am getting wonderful pressure sensations and twanging pains as my body gets ready for delivery. It's all good. It's doing what it ought to. My hips have gone from being in different states, to different sides of the world, however, and I click whenever I walk - something to do with relaxin influxes so frequently in the last two years (that's the hormone responsible for loosening the joints in advance of birth). So that's a bit uncomfy, but, it's not the end of the world.

Anyhow there we are - isn't she a doll!

35 weeks and counting...

2009-12-10T20:19:00.006-06:00

Here I am again, at 35 weeks and one day! I missed my deadline for pics by one day. But really, how much difference did it make? Probably not much. So, here I am on Tuesday of this week...

What have I done this week in terms of baby prep? Well, I allowed myself the luxury of once again obsessively going through all the baby clothes, arranging them this time in size, just like I did with Josie. I told myself I wasn't going to go that nuts this time, but hey presto, here we are at 35 weeks, and I am totally that nuts.

I also took the bedding off the crib, and put new bedding back on the crib. Here's the evidence to that little venture. Plus, I (uselessly) set up the baby monitors and switched them on for no reason. Actually there was a reason: so I could stand in the kitchen later at night (H goes to bed earlier than me most of the time as he has to get up earlier) and chuckle at H snoring and making funny noises... Ah, the boredom of late pregnancy.

Can you spot the little butterfly hanging up there on the right? If you like, you can check out one of the first posts I ever made: it had a picture of Josie's crib in it (the same crib of course) and you can see the similar butterfly hanging up in hers...

I also packed the hospital bags. Here is our cat, Smokey (one of them - we have four) sitting with the socks, booties, mittens and blankets for Isobella. Since it's winter here in MN, we need to make sure that she is well bundled...

Here is the selection of teeny tiny clothing we have for her. Might seem like a lot, but there's only so long I want her wrapped in a scratchy hospital blanket: and if they keep us for the full three days, she ought to have a few bits and pieces in case she gets bored wearing the same thing...or has a poo explosion...or something! Okay fine - I just could choose. But the pink thing on the left is a really warm snowsuit. Since it's going to be extremely cold, she'll need that. The bundle on the bottom left is a baby cocoon and matching hat made for Isobella by a really good friend, Shelley - thank you Shelley!

Here is the extent of Isobella's wardrobe. Isn't it disgraceful how many clothes she has? I mean seriously, this is pushing the extreme. Plus, there are a few more outfits in the closet. But honestly, I don't feel bad because just the joy of getting to dress up a a baby is...well, it's going to be so wonderful. It really is. Poor thing will probably change outfits seven times a day, though. That rainbow onesie was made by another really good friend - Shannon - thank you Shannon!

So, that's the size of it. I have an ultrasound tomorrow. We're going to be checking on placental issues and all the rest. Then, non-stress tests for the remainder of the pregnancy once or twice a week.

I am so glad tomorrow is nearly here: honestly, I've spent the last 2.5 weeks since the previous doc's appointment just praying she'll make it to this ultrasound. It's completely irrational really, but this stage is rather scary. I have no real reason to be concerned. But I so want her to be alright. I just can't wait to visually see this placenta firmly attached. I just hope the cord is still completely free-floating: goodness knows I don't need another reason to stay awake at night, even if it's a benign, and common issue. Somehow, nothing seems benign or common any more.

Hopefully soon I will be just another "common mother" with a "common" and healthy child...

34 weeks and thinking...

2009-12-03T13:17:00.003-06:00

Well actually, I'm technically about 34 and a half weeks now: it's taken me this long to get my act together and post!

I was thinking yesterday about the way we all process things, depending on our genetic and environmental coagulation throughout the years, and my thoughts drifted onto child loss - most specifically, how child loss is processed differently by different people.

It is curious, as I look around, at my immediate family how differently I see them going through grief - or not going through grief. I have seen religion play a major role here, in my immediate surroundings, where religious beliefs have been used as reasons for things happening, or not happening. Or, where religious beliefs have been used as a means to get the person through the grieving process and life in the aftermath of child loss.

I myself am a total Earth worshiper. I believe this Earth is magical in itself, and gives to us everything we need. I look around me in every season and see what beautiful things are produced - from snowflakes in the winter, to bright summer evenings, to the fruits we love to harvest in the autumn and make things out of (I love elderberries and apples, around here). I see the magic of love between people on so many different levels; the communication between us and the animal companions we have and for me, that is evidence enough for wonderful things going on in the world. I've never really in the whole of my life felt the need to belong to a mainstream organized religion - but, that's just me. Conversely I don't see anything wrong with wanting to belong to any larger religion: it's just not me.

So for me, life and death are interwoven: they're intrinsically joined to one another, faded into one another in a gradient and to me, neither can be separated from the other. Trees die, and their wooden bodies add mulch to the surrounding forest floor. Plants die, adding minerals to the soil. Animals die, also adding nutrient. We are animals, in the end. Then, plants spring up from the earth; we eat the plants; we grow. We live, we die, the whole mechanism goes on and on.

Emotions also come into play, naturally. I suppose if the mechanical aspect of the continuity of life is the black and white outline, emotional components would provide the color within. We feel love, sadness, joy, despair...all of this. So, tied up in the natural process of birth, death and rebirth we have the colorful washings of emotion.

For me though, it's important not to let go of either the outline or the colors within. As important as the emotions within, the outline of life is the factual, tangible truth. Life and death happen. We conceive new life; and there is death.

So, in my mind, qualifying the death of Josie was not impossible. I never found her death impossible to believe, beyond the normal scope of grief and the associated mental injury of the grieving process. Her death was what it was: my brother had died of the same cause. She had died. She was now in the earth along with all the other things, animal and plant, that had died in the past.

Along the same vein, I never had trouble with blaming anything other than the literal source of blame - ever - again, beyond the initial grief. By that, I mean I did not ever sit about and wonder why "God" had "done this" to me. Since I don't believe the Devil is real, I never had trouble with the belief that something "evil" had happened, either. I didn't have a deity to be angry with. The only deity I believe in being our mother Earth, who is naturally black and white and gray and everything in between: I couldn't be "angry" with her because life and death is in her nature.

So for me, acceptance was not something I had trouble with. Not at all. I felt at peace fairly quickly with the death of my daugher - but of course, that does not mean to say I felt at peace with her being gone. Do you see what I mean? There is a difference, I think. I miss her terribly and especially now at the end of this pregnancy, with all the hormonal influences, I cry over her sometimes because of a combination of sadness that I can't hold her, and remembrance of this time in my pregnancy with her. The love never, ever leaves you. It's the same as holding a living child: that child is forever with you, but empty as air - there's nothing to pour your love into, so you have to find something else to hold the love.

I choose art, and writing, and talking, and just a little extra love for other people as my outlet for the love that would have gone to Josie. Perhaps that is why they say "losing a child will turn you into a more compassionate person" - you have this leftover abundance of love that keeps flowing throughout life. But, that is, only if you reach a level of acceptance. Without acceptance, you're pretty stuck really.

And that's what I see around me: varying levels of acceptance. Some are like me - not necessarily the same religious or spiritual beliefs, but they're come to a level of understanding. However, many haven't. Including some people who are really close to me.

I see this frustration with "God" all over the place. This "why did He do this to me?" and "I'm really pissed off with God" and "I don't understand why this had to happen to me." These are all questions that I never really thought of. I've never really had the mind to have to find a reason for everything. I suppose it gets very hard if you do believe that "everything happens for a reason" - because then you have to justify something awful happening. Can you ever really be sure your justification is correct, though, or are there perpetual, lingering doubts?

I've had pressure from some extended family members and acquaintances to get married before the new baby arrives, as though we, as a couple "owe" something to a God. Or, as though, curiously, a God took our last child because we were not married. Naturally that makes no spiritual or logical sense to me at all. How can it? At the same time, they profess that my daughter is an "angel" in "heaven" or that "God wanted her back because she was too perfect/wasn't meant to live..." Again, these explanations make no sense at all to me - they're foreign to me. They might be nice for someone else but as far as I am concerned, my daughter isn't sporting wings, watching over me or protecting me. She's at peace forever, that I am sure of - and I'm happy with that. What's so bad with being at peace forever?

Anyhow, so, around me, people are stuck in various stages of the grieving process because they have been hampered by their own spiritual beliefs. Unwilling to let go or change their minds about their beliefs - because they are afraid that these beliefs are the only things getting them through - they find themselves trapped in terrible wranglings between themselves and the God they were always sure was out to protect. I feel very bad for these people. I can only imagine the mental pain that must inflict.

Alternatively I do also have people who believe that a God is there to be with them through the pain. I find, looking at these people, that their realities are much more relaxed; much more peaceful.

So I suppose it can go either way. Perhaps it's just best to be flexible in one's spiritual outlook...

Anyhow enough ruminating: I am 34 weeks and 3 days pregnant today. In my pregnancy with Josie, I'd be the equivalent of just over a week away from the day I realized that my body was not tolerating the stress well at all - 35 weeks, 4 days, losing my plug and having some indications of early labor - which led to my being released from my crazy ex-job two weeks earlier than previously planned.

We're reaching the end of this journey here - it's not long. I can remember everything I was doing at this stage of my pregnancy with Josie - almost day by day. The last week of work would be spent getting up at 3.30am every day (driving two hours to a location just outside the cities), and going to bed sometimes as late as 11.30pm. Finally, my request for help had been granted and help had been sent - but by this time, it was almost too late. The problems in my district had been ignored for far too long - upper management had been making serious mistakes... I was going to pay for it in a lot more than a corporate-slap-on-the-wrist sense. After all, shoving blame and too much responsibility on to colleagues further on down the line only works until someone dies...

So here I am at 34 weeks exactly... It won't be long now...

Josie's life...

2009-11-30T14:09:00.001-06:00

Giving thanks for Josie's life with us here - one Thanksgiving beyond her birth and death. We may have lost her, but we will never fail to acknowledge her as a little person...

Photo and video editing at www.OneTrueMedia.com

Giving Thanks...

2009-11-29T16:21:00.007-06:00

It's really only been recently that the meaning of this festival has properly hit me. We don't have it in England, and all the "Pilgrims plus Native Americans" stuff didn't really strike me to begin with.

But nowadays, I get it. I also get the newer message - that of simply giving thanks - and I like it. We don't have a day simply to give thanks in England: we have a harvest festival many times, but it's not on a set date. So for me, Thanksgiving is much like a harvest festival. I sat there this year, gobbling food and really, feeling good about life. Here are a couple of pictures of my family, being thankful on Thanksgiving...

Last Thanksgiving...not so much. Actually last Thanksgiving hurt - a lot. It really stung. Christmas wasn't so bad - my sister N and brother F came to visit and it was lovely. But Thanksgiving was pretty awful. I remember being in a lot of emotional pain. My mother had just left a few weeks previously and I had no baby to hold.

So, when the adverts, or the people, or the stores said "think of what you're thankful for this holiday!" I had some real trouble. Remaining positive was possible on every other day than Thanksgiving. On Thanksgiving itself, the walls came kind of, crumbling down, so to speak.

I remember telling H I really couldn't be thankful that year. I couldn't think of anything to be thankful for. Not on that day. Every other day I could be grateful to be alive, but not on Thanksgiving.

I drove out to the cold, cold graveyard where my daughter slept under the ground, and left my car running next to her plot. It was dark by this time, and I'd just taken off and left everyone in my house because I couldn't hold the tears back any more. I drove out there and listened to public radio, sobbing and sobbing into a box of Kleenex next to me in the passenger seat. The heater was warm; the temperature outside was freezing.

Suddenly, a medley of Shaker hymns, arranged a Capella by a composer called Kevin (can't remember the last name) came on the radio and they were just beautiful - rich, warm voices filling my ears.

I opened both windows and turned the music up for my baby, who couldn't hear... I turned those Shaker hymns up for all the babies in "Babyland" where she was buried and played them out across the dark, cold evening. I sat there and cried the whole way through. When the hymns were over, I put the car into gear, rolled up the windows and with one final look at the semi-fresh earth of my baby's grave, I drove back to the house.

Isobella's Birth Plan...

2009-11-25T18:11:00.007-06:00

Well, I gave this to my very wonderful doctor this afternoon and he accepted it all! The only glitch, he said, would be if I went into spontaneous labor on my own in the middle of the night and came in - the staff on duty would probably want to c-section me and there'd be a fight. But, apart from that, here it is...

__________________________

J's Birth Plan - baby Isobella Mai

Hello lovely ALMC medical professionals! Welcome to my birth plan. I understand you probably get a lot of these but very much request that you read this and please, try to accommodate me and my baby as much as humanly possible. Please understand that this plan is written from two perspectives: a mother, wanting a natural, vaginal birth after a cesarean; and a mother wanting a natural, med-free birth after the death of her daughter from complete placental abruption on October of 2008. I really want the most natural, normal, loving circumstances for this birth, and for this child to be brought out into the world in a calm, peaceful way as opposed to a dramatic, traumatic way. This birth plan then, is written with the intent of making this as likely as possible.

With that said, I understand more than many how unpredictable life can be. If I should need surgery, we will come to that when we come to it. In the meantime however, here are the thing that I feel would make birthing really great for Isobella Mai (my baby) and I. Thank you so much for reading and I appreciate all you do.

Please - no constant asking about pain meds or epidurals: I will most certainly ask for these, should I feel I need them. I would much rather have support in my natural childbirth, and a little cheerleading!
Please use "pressure" instead of pain whenever possible because I am using self-hypnosis (Hypnobabies) to help me with birthing, and want to allow myself to think of the contractions as a lot of pressure, rather than abject, sheer pain and terror!
I would like to wear own clothes - sarong for comfort (will still allow doctors access but will make me more comfortable).
Please let me have an extra long drip so that I can move around.
Please give me the freedom to use the bath or shower, the birthing ball etc.
Please give me the freedom to labor in any position.
Please, give me the freedom to push the baby out in the position I feel most comfortable in. I promise I won't try to give birth on the roof, but I'd like to be able to, for example, give birth in a squat if that feels right.
Please, no episiotomy - I would much rather tear.
If at all possible, I would like to be able to dim the lights.
When pushing, I'd like to be able to push when it "feels right" - as much as possible. Please, please, no counting to ten...
Please let my birth partner catch the baby if he can!
Please let the umbilical cord stop pulsating before it is cut. I'd really like Isobella to get all her blood.
When baby is out, please place her on my chest - I want to bond with her straight away unless there are emergency medical reasons why this cannot be so.
Please, when she is out, do not whisk her off to "give me a rest". Ideally I would love to be able to breastfeed to allow the placenta to come out without a problem.
Also, because of the circumstances of the last birth, I really would like Isobella and I to be allowed to bond for at least a few minutes before weighing, measuring, and all the rest of the standard procedures. I really want to be able to spend those first moments looking into her open eyes.
After baby comes, I'd love to be able to be the one to dry her off and wrap her up. Please don't bathe her and dress her for me - again, these moments are not something I got the chance to experience before, so I'd like to be able to do this myself.
I'd like to room in with my baby at all times. There will always be someone there with me if I need to rest.
If Isobella should happen to have to be taken to the NICU for any reason, please let my birth partner go with her and be with her as much as possible.
If I should happen to have a cesarean, please, once again, let me be with my baby immediately afterwards as long as no complications exist. As you can imagine, the last time was very traumatic and I would not like to be separated from my child this time. I'd like to be able to breastfeed as soon as possible after the birth.
I plan to breastfeed!

I do believe that is about it: as you can tell, I strongly believe in the natural power and the natural progression of birth, even though it did not go as planned the last time. I feel calm about this birth, unafraid and very much ready. Thank you once again for reading and for helping me!

Lights in the darkness...

2009-11-24T21:03:00.003-06:00

I bought something today. Recently, buying things has been...not happening very much because my income hasn't allowed me to go out on any large shopping trips that didn't involve buying groceries. But, it's not been a problem for me because I don't really want much in my life - my needs are very few. I prefer experiences - always have. A karaoke session in a nice bar with nice people; visiting a beautiful place for the first time; seeing people I love; watching a wonderful movie with someone special...spending time sitting on the beach at sunset when there's no-one else there.

But yes, I did buy something today.

When Josie was buried, we had to make the heart-stopping decision of what to dress her in. I was told at the hospital what they chose - on the morning of the third day, I think - the Sunday. Her funeral was the Monday. She wore this beautiful fancy dress and underneath, a pair of white, velvety sock-pants with bunnies for socks - ears and all. It had a little white bobby tail on the tush and was so sweet. I remember looking at them, holding them up and washing them in baby soap during my pregnancy, because I couldn't wait to dress Josie in those little pants in particular.

So, she was buried in them. H's ma took pictures but I've never seen them. She wore makeup and her little soul had gone. One day I'm sure I'll see them: but who knows.

Anyway the children wanted to bury something with her as well. It was this little Carter's light-up butterfly. It was very soft and tied onto the crib. When you pulled it's tail, it twinkled red in the wings and set off the music box, which was not electronic - played Brahm's Lullaby.

The children wanted to bury it with Josie because it lit up, and they thought it would be very dark and scary underground. They're so practical.

So we buried it with her and every now and again - the more I get to the end of this pregnancy - I thought of that little butterfly twinkling away down there, with it's little red lights. I wanted another one just like it for Isobella - some connection to her sister.

The more I thought about it, the more I really wanted it. The more essential it became. Then of course, the item was so hard to find - nobody had it any more - it wasn't even being made. But the other day I happened to find it on eBay with the help of a dear friend of mine... Today, I bought it. I have to wait now to pay for it until I get paid again, but it's going to be there for Isobella.

And you know, I feel so emotional about it. Out of everything we buried with Josie, that was the most poignant. Twinkling and lighting up in there forever, in the dark, under the ground. I somehow knew that if I didn't get another one it just wouldn't be right. Something should be Earthside as well - something just like what was buried, like some kind of...baby monitor...something to connect to. Like Inanna's servant, Ninshubur. Except of course, little Inanna/Josie isn't coming out of the underworld - she's gone to a different place...

Isobella dancing in her Iso-Belly...

2009-11-23T21:25:00.001-06:00

Photo and video editing at www.OneTrueMedia.com

Birth beads, and 33 weeks today...

2009-11-23T08:12:00.004-06:00

...today's the big 33 week mark. I felt my tummy this morning, laying on my back as Isobella awoke from her little slumber, and there were bones, legs, arms, head, butt - just so palpable because I was so relaxed. There is undeniably another little human being inside me - not soft, but fully formed, with feet, and ankles, and little fingers and toes; nails; hair; eyes - eyelashes... She's really in there.

Right now, as I sit here, she's active. She is less bouncy than her sister, but still a very active baby, which is fine with me because I do believe part of Josie's bounciness was caused by my stress.

So, she is coming soon. In many ways I believe that this pregnancy my attitude has been different about bringing home a baby. Last time, the whole way through my biggest fear was losing the baby to a placental abruption - it was almost uncanny, the way it happened. I bought things for Josie, but I did not read about newborn baby behavior; how to change a nappy/diaper; how to bathe her... I knew it would come instinctively if I got to hold her alive at the end of it all. So I read in detail all the way up to the end of my pregnancy: but also knew she would come early.

Well, as it would happen, she did come early, and she did die as a result of an abruption. Do I believe in fate, or that it was "destined" to happen? Nope - I believe that's a load of rubbish (and I do still have to put up with the mindless "well, maybe it just wasn't meant to be. God probably wanted her back straightaway and now she's an angel in heaven..." BS) - but, it was uncanny how my intuition didn't allow me to read beyond the birth.

This time, I'm almost all the way through Sheila Kitzinger's "Understanding your Crying Baby" and a number of other early development books. Naturally, one cannot ready everything about a child's development all the way up to 18 before the little one's even born, but I do believe this time, something in telling me I actually need to be prepared to bring an infant home with me.

I got the birth beads sorted out this weekend for my due date club - there are sixteen of us participating and five of us (including me, of course!) wanted their beads pre-strung. So, I spent until about 3.30am on Saturday/Sunday morning making necklaces with beading wire and clasps. It was the first time I'd done anything like that, I am am *fairly* confident in them! People sent some really nice beads. I strung mine with a few others I had around, and the result was thus:

The necklace is very comfortable, so I've been wearing it more or less ever since. Also, I made and decorated little bags for everyone to put their finished necklaces into. They're all done now - I used fabric paint to write a the month and year on the bags. I hope everyone likes them and that nobody who I send a parcel to has to put memories in the bag along with the beads. May all the babies thrive and grow...

I also took a couple of more "arty" pregnancy pictures. One is below:

Last week, we set up the crib...at exactly 32 weeks. Nothing bad has happened yet, which is wonderful! I say that with a shred of irony, since so many say "just in case, " you know? But, I needed to take that plunge. Not acknowledging her was not an option.

Which is why, additionally, we are having a baby shower before she comes. My last baby shower was going to be be October 11th, 2008. We lost Josie in October 10th. We have to be optimistic and we have to celebrate this little life, our little Isobella. Having a baby show will not kill our baby. So, we are going to have one: not that we really need much!

I think that's it for now. I have been trying to videotape her squirming inside my belly, and I think I have a few decent shots of that, so I will make a short video and upload it to OneTrueMedia or something like that - I'll post that later...

Not too much creative, emotional writing today: much too spent being pregnant! But, I'm all about keeping everyone in the loop: so, that's what's been happening with me... Now, over to you...

Finally updating...

2009-11-21T14:01:00.005-06:00

Hi all - I felt I owed an update! Sorry I haven't posted in so long - I've been so incredibly busy with freelancing that I actually didn't have time to pluck my eyebrows until the bit that aren't meant to be there got as long as the bits that are! Every bath feels like an enormous relief after a huge adventure in some completely unexplored wilderness... It's wonderful to be so "in demand" - it really is, but it's also very unpredictable.

Thankfully I had a lovely letter from the bank regarding my car loan - an offer to skip either my December or January payment, so I gladly accepted the offer: I'm skipping my December payment (Season's Greeting, me!) and using the time to slow down a bit, nest, and probably make a bunch of cloth diapers. Then in January, taxes will pay for the car, so in effect it almost means I get two months of really nice nesting and bonding. Then, in February, it'll be back to normality, but with a baby in a sling on my chest - and really, I'm not anticipating too many problems doing my work and babywearing. I think we'll be just fine, Isobella and I.

Talking of Isobella: she's getting very big, and very active! She's just like her sister in terms of positioning, though actually she went head down at about 27 weeks and has remained that way ever since. I can feel her feet, and now quite regularly her little tush, poking out of the front of the Iso-belly... Good baby, getting into position like that! Actually as I am writing this, she is doing a few stretches and rooting about with her hands and her head. It's nice to know she'll be born in a few weeks: I'm getting very impatient.

Also, the scary dreams have started. Last night I had a dream that we'd lost Isobella too, somehow. Then there I was, looking at her crib, thinking that for a second time, we wouldn't get to use it... Thankfully it was just a nightmare, and hopefully not one that will come true. It does just go to show though - I am, in all of my positivity, not immune from fear regarding my child. I don't fear death myself - but I do for my baby.

So, less than six weeks - most probably just over five. I want to go into the New Year snuggling with my daughter at midnight - and so for that reason, she has until the very end of December (about 38.5 weeks) to come out - though I will most likely be induced right around 38. Christmas Day is the same day her sister came, at 37 weeks, 4 days - so it would be rather uncanny of she made an appearance then: but not really very surprising since so far, she's been so similar to her sister in so many ways.

We'll just have to wait and see...

Here She is...Isobella Mai...

2009-10-30T23:52:00.001-05:00

Make an on-line slide show at www.OneTrueMedia.com

29 Weeks...

2009-10-28T13:45:00.002-05:00

The more time goes by in the preparation to bring this new child home, the more I find myself often overwhelmed with emotion. It's amazing really, the creation of life. Letting go of control when it comes to this pregnancy has been frightening sometimes, but I've done it anyway. Perhaps sometimes, the free-falling gets just... Well, sometimes I recognize that really, my soul is naked here. I'm falling and trusting no matter what - breathing and twisting and just letting it be - and I am so vulnerable. We are all so vulnerable really.

But, believing is beautiful. Being vulnerable is beautiful. Letting life just stroke you on the soft underbelly of being is what it's all about, really. No big ego; no addiction; no false sense of security in money or material things... Just, life. Sleeping and waking up to a new day every morning. Looking at the leaves changing color. Focusing on what is real.

It's amazing, carrying this child in my belly. I remember Josie being at this stage. My tummy looks the same shape as with Josie. Wow, I really, really loved and still love her. And, I love Isobella the same way, and can tell she is adorable and different. I just pour all of my feeling into the hope that she will arrive here, safely and beautifully because you see, I am not content with simply a physically safe arrival. I want her to t have what Josie never did - a non traumatic, beautiful birth.

I will suffer any type of pain in the world - I will bear it all, no matter what, if she can be born in peace and comfort and love, without craziness and fear. When she comes, I want to catch her right there in the hospital, lift her up, wrap her up and look at her in her eyes. I want her weighed next to me by people I trust and like; I need her rooming in with me - never in the nursery. Really, after all is said and done I am in the hospital only because of my own strangely high pain threshold - I need to know what is normal and what is not. Also, for the benefit of others I care about who are not so trusting of the process of birth.

But, really, given the choice I would rather, still, go down to warm water and have my baby there. Alone or perhaps with a couple of people. Life is nothing to be messed with; nothing to be controlled - you can never control it anyway. You just need to surrender to it and feel it's every sensation like you're laying in a meadow and rolling across all of the grass and the flowers and sometimes the thistles underneath. And there will be dark days there, laying in the meadow. But, there will be days filled with sunshine as well. Because the continual motion and carrying on of life does not allow for continual darkness or light: variability is it's nature. You just have to open your eyes and see it for what it is. There is no "why me?" or "why did this happen?" - just things that happen, because they happen. Sometimes, things happen and sometimes, they don't. That's it.

I feel more and more like going through the baby things again and sorting them into sizes... I have already done that once, but now I find myself wanting to wash them again, dry them, fold them up in preparation for Isobella. Our 3D ultrasound is on Friday and I am just filled with joy at the prospect of seeing her face for the first time... I am filled with happy, overflowing tears and a knot in my chest at the thought of holding her in just a few weeks from now. I am so grateful that she is alive and that I have had the honor of holding her in me.

Here I am at 29 weeks...

28 Weeks...Well, almost...

2009-10-17T23:44:00.003-05:00

Yes, 28 weeks in about a day's time here, since it's almost midnight on 27.5 days. I have no idea what I am doing up. I need to sleep. But first, I feel it is only fair to share my big belly with you all...

Here I am with the belly covered up...

Here I am with the belly poking out!

I'm feeling good, if a little enormous now. I really feel like last time, with Josie, I was significantly smaller at this time...

October 13th and 14th, 2008...

2009-10-14T14:00:00.002-05:00

Well, this time last year was a lull in the storm.

Yesterday would have been the funeral day. I don't really know if I ever wrote out the funeral story or just kept it in my head, but in the week on Percocet, it was probably the occasion I remembered the most clearly.

I had been so used to wearing my maternity wardrobe that finding "other clothes" was difficult. I also felt that I wanted to wear black. I remember as a smaller human, being invited to attend the funeral of a little girl who'd died of leukemia, and being told not to wear black - only color. At the time, I had been unable to attend because I had been afraid: the last funeral I attended and had remembered had been my little brother Finn's, who had also died of a placental abruption when I was five. I remembered his little white coffin and really, didn't want to see another child-sized coffin. In short, I was a scared teenager and at that point, unwilling to deal with my emotions effectively. I sat on the bed and cried, and felt scared by the prospect that nobody was "safe" from death. So I didn't go, and didn't wear colors.

I hadn't been to a funeral in a good twenty years when I attended H's favorite aunt's funeral in January of 2008. The next funeral I attended was the funeral of my daughter. Then, H's good friend's mom, who I also had known. Then, my friend M's baby boy, Carter. Little person, big person, little person, big person, little person... Death is not discriminative.

This time I chose a pair of black, very lightly pin-striped pants I'd used to wear to work. They barely fit, but rode under my cesarean incision. I chose a sleeveless, wool turtleneck with a woolen belt as my top. I did add color - I wore purple flower on my top. I wore black shoes, and black socks. My hair was put up on top of my head in a tight bun. My clothes matched my bruises which only later turned into various colors of the rainbow...

We meandered to the funeral home, H and I, smoking on the way. I'd taken up smoking as a release after Josie's death: I didn't smoke much because I knew it impeded healing, and I wanted to heal - but I did smoke a little. It didn't really seem to matter at that exact moment. We smoked in the car and then wandered up to the funeral home slowly - my arm in H's because I could barely walk. I'd foregone my Percocet for the afternoon in an attempt to get off the stuff, and it had proven to be a mistake.

I really dreaded walking into the funeral home. I dislike being the center of attention unless I'm playing a character - and this was no play. I smiled weakly at the kindly funeral home director who'd taken Josie, who then took my coat and hung it up for me.

There were already quite a few people there and for a second, I felt envy because at the front of the room was my daughter, and they had obviously been there for longer than me and had spent more time with her than me that day. Silly, but true.

I noticed immediately that there were an abundance of flowers. They were everywhere - big, beautiful arrangements: daisies, roses, live plants, hanging plants, lipstick vines - and ornaments. There were big pictures of my girl in frames. I went to them, thinking they were all for show and realized that they had all been sent for Josie. I had never, in my life seen so many flowers in one place. I had been the district manager for the state of Minnesota for my company, and almost all of the stores I'd been managing had sent an arrangement. I had no idea how they'd even known. There was a beautiful little rose in a little vase from my midwife, R, and peace lilies from our friends. I was overwhelmed.

For some reason, many of us go around in our daily lives wondering if the positive things we do actually have a positive impact and if our friends are really our friends - or even on bad day, if people even like us at all. I got my wake up call that day and it said something like "whatever you've been doing, you've not done it wrong." I took that seriously and continue to.

(Later, those flowers would cover every surface in our house, from the kitchen table, to the main table, to the top of the television, to the window sills. I waited until they'd died, and then took the flower petals, which were still brightly colored, and packed them in jars and baskets. We still have most of the living plants.)

I walked up the aisle of the funeral home, I remember being on autopilot. There was the little coffin. Inside it was my baby. I knew this and I was afraid because I didn't know how she'd look, and we'd been apart for two days - she'd been in someone else's hands. I ignored everyone and went up to the coffin. There was a little, heart shaped cushion on it with tiny roses, from her two grandmas. She had on a really beautiful velvet dress and her little white bunny pants - they had a cottontail on the back and little bunny ears on the feet, which I remember thinking were so cute when I picked them up. I loved those pants. She lay on a blanket and had another blanket over her - a light pink one with stars and moons embossed on it, which I later did take and still have (I haven't decided whether or not to use it with Isobella yet, but I think now that I might).

What really killed me, and to some extent still does, is the little crib toy she was buried with. It was a little glow worm - pink and purple - and you pulled it's tail to make it play music in it's little tinkly winkly manner. That was buried with her. I wish I could find another one like that. You can see it in the post I made a little ways down the page - it's attached to her crib there. It lit up...the children wanted her buried with something that lit up...

She looked very serene. I was warned she was delicate, so I just touched her a little bit to get a feel of the clothes she was in, and kissed my hand and placed in on her forehead. She had makeup on and they'd done a lovely job of preparing her - they really had. I remember at the time thinking that her soul had departed, though. This little one laying there was not the so recently life-imbued little body I had held in the hospital - she was gone now, her soul had gone on. In the hospital, I do believe it hung around for a while and the life force only willingly went through the divide between life and death shortly before I handed her over for burial on the Saturday (11th). Before then, her life was with us all in glittering sparks - it just couldn't be reconnected to her body any more.

I sat down at the front with a box of tissues and gripped them between my legs. H sat next to me and we just held hands and looked at the floor, or each other, or our clasped hands. Pretty soon the tears began to fall and it was like turning a faucet on - they fell very thickly and very quickly. Part of me wanted to hide, and hoped nobody would notice me. But they did.

Then endless people came in and started coming down and crying, looking at Josie and then coming to us and hugging us. Some offered words; some said "I'm sorry." Some children came in of my friend, and they were crying and crying... My pregnant friend Jill came as well and I remember being awed by her - how brave of her...she must have been terrified. My friend E came, crying, and I gave her a big hug. R, my midwife and friend, came in and immediately sat next to me - and I was so glad to see her. I was so glad she was sitting next to me.

Nurses from the hospital came, and the doctor who'd delivered Josie as well, all crying. I honestly had no idea how people had known because usually I am the "doer" - the "informer" who tells people where to meet and arranges things. Others had taken over for me here and that was amazing. There were almost 100 people there in the home.

Father Stenzil came in - a Catholic priest I have a lot of respect for, who is very kindly and un-pretentious. He conducted the memorial there in a "non-Catholic" way and it was really beautiful. The whole time, I wondered if the scene was real. Could I really be sitting here at the funeral of my own child? Could I get away with pretending it wasn't the funeral of my child, but rather someone else's - or that this was all fiction? I really couldn't - but I did entertain the thought.

Afterward, we waited for people to leave, which they did. A few came later to pay their respects. H helped me up from the chair, and I kissed Josie again - then turned and quickly left - only looking back to see another friend who had not been able to get to the whole service walk up and see her there...

It was cold - a cold day; very gray. H and I got in the car and watched as the man from the funeral home carried Josie out to their Mercedes and placed her gently in the back seat. Awful, really, because my baby wasn't even big enough to need a hearse... Up we drove, in very slow, police accompanied procession, to the cemetery just outside town. Many people came.

We stood there in the cemetery and formed a circle, I think, around the tiny hole she was being buried in. We held hands and H went to the Mercedes, and was handed the tiny coffin, now closed. He walked it to the hole in the ground and gently set it down. It must have been the longest walk of his life. I looked at him and had never respected someone as much as that in my life. I still cannot imagine how hard that was for him. He cried and I saw his eyes just lost in the wilderness, without all the people around him. We stood together in the cold, and looked at her coffin with the little wreath over it, and prayers were said.

Afterward we gathered the tiny roses from her wreath and took some home. I really wished I had been there when she was lowered into the ground. In England we do it differently - we lower the coffin into the ground and are able to toss the first dirt onto it. I wanted to do that, but apparently it is not how things are done here... That still bothers me.

When we got home, everybody was there. Our house was filled with smoke...everywhere I went, people would follow - no place was a "safe" place. I remember conversing for hours. It was very, very draining. Good friends were there, which was nice, and also people I didn't know very well who all were asking questions and questions and questions... After a few hours, I was glad to find myself with not too many people around.

The bars Ma had baked, which we'd meant to use for the baby shower, we used for the funeral gathering instead. I remember thinking how the flavor would have been different under those different circumstances - so different.

But then, everything would have been different under different circumstances...

October 11th, 2008...

2009-10-11T20:57:00.002-05:00

...was the day that, at about 10am, the kindly man from the funeral home came to take Josie gently away from me.

I remember how he was shaking a little bit and on the edge of tears as he cradled her gently like any other newborn baby, and I told him "take care of her for me" in some cliche way (isn't that what you expect someone on TV to do? Only it actually came out of my mouth rather naturally) and he replied "we will..."

He was in a black suit, looking very appropriate I remember. I suppose people from funeral homes have to dress appropriately in black an awful lot, because of their professions. One can't work at a place like that looking like Rainbow Brite, after all. He was very, very nice though, that man. I felt sad for him because he was almost crying.

I was alone when Josie left and for a moment, as she was taken out of the door, I felt like panicking - I felt like I was losing my grip. But then, the morphine kicked in again and I turned to the somewhat pacifying television set and looked for something "normal" to watch. I think some kind of morning show was on: lots of people cheering, looking like the most spectacular thing that had happened to them that day was being part of the studio audience. Good for them, I thought. Life is obviously normal somewhere.

The hospital allowed me to eat something for breakfast that day, as well. I think it might have been something savory. My doctor came in and told me that according to blood taken earlier that day, my count was something dreadful and they were going to put more blood in. They then did that, along with saline. I do believe that at some point around midday my blood oxygen level started to improve to the point where they felt it was okay to unhook some of the machines.

I cannot for the life of me remember much about how I spent the entire rest of the day. I know they got me up and walking later that afternoon, finally, after my bloody, messy, frightening (more for the nurses - I just felt bad about the amount of blood they had to clean up) attempt the previous evening. I walked all the way down to the nurses station and all the nurses were rather impressed. My favorite nurse, Ann (who, much to my chagrin, has now retired) came and visited me. I think many people came and visited, and I had no idea what to say to any of them.

H came back with A, who wanted to leave, it seemed, much too soon. I begged him to take her home to grandma and then to come back and spend the night. I didn't know how I was going to get through the quiet hours without my morphine drip. It took some convincing, but he agreed. He then left to take A back home...

I remember that evening, being so grateful for the fact that H was there. Babies crying startled me...and they were everywhere. My ears seemed to have become more acutely aware of absolutely every noise, and I became frightened by the drug-induced and hormone-induced dreams I'd have when I drifted off to sleep. Coughing hurt, and I felt congestion building in my lungs as I lay there in bed; my incision was totally numb and the little butterfly stitches felt so strange and dry to touch. My belly was bruised completely black from the attempts to get Josie out in time.

It was a strange time: I was kind of in purgatory between being fairly calm and simultaneously wanting to scream and totally lose my mind - perhaps that's how it feels, just before one goes completely mad. I think they call it "on the brink" and then you have to make a choice: go crazy, or start climbing through the most insane territory possible, to get back to a new normality somewhere far ahead; somewhere legendary.

So my first night without Josie, I can't say I was "in denial" because I knew perfectly well what had happened. But, at the same time, my body was certainly pumping me full of all the happy hormones it could, because I'm sure some part of my brain knew that if it didn't, the shock might totally overwhelm me and stop my heart.

Now we're a year later and I do think about this day in 2008. I think for the next week or so, I will be following a time line - re-stepping in the days of last year. I'm so grateful that Isobella is here to keep me company though - she's such a blessing and a total miracle because looking at the state of my body this time last year, I'm surprised my ovaries didn't just shrivel up and die... Thank goodness for life's unwillingness to just "quit."

Josie's Birthday Remembrance...

2009-10-10T22:24:00.001-05:00

Photo and video editing at www.OneTrueMedia.com

October 8th, 2008...

2009-10-08T19:39:00.004-05:00

Someone saw a picture of you and I together today, in H's toolbox. He was shocked and taken aback because you looked "like any other baby" - of course, I'd retouched you and I both and brought you back to looking like you again. But it just went to show: of course you did. Of course you looked like any other baby. You were a baby; a little, worthwhile, human life. A tiny person.

This day, last year, I sat in the bath upstairs with you, Josie, in my tummy. I knew it wouldn't be long until you were born, and knew that in a few short days or weeks, I'd not be able to relax like this in a bath because you'd need me. I was looking forward to that: we'd discussed how we'd be spending all winter with a new baby, and how nice that would be. Nice and cozy.

I lay in the bath and listened to Clannad. My laptop was across about three feet away no the bathroom floor and I'd set up a playlist. I had my favorite bubble bath in the bath and it really was relaxing.

While in there, I had my first quite noticeably different contraction. In hindsight, this may have been the first indication there was something wrong because actually, the contraction felt like a slightly dimmer (but not much) version of what I felt for those hours on the Friday morning you were born and died. However, it went away and hey, everyone says that you get those stronger and sometimes quite striking contractions before labor begins properly. So, I based everything on that contraction. I had to turn around in the bath and breathe - it took a good couple of minutes to go away.

Oblivious though, I was. We all were. Up until the very end. You see there wasn't a massive amount of bleeding - just enough to indicate I was dilating. It was all totally hidden. Just the pain was there and having nothing but one contraction to compare to, I simply didn't know. But you know that, don't you Josie. You know I had no clue. I'd have gone through worse pain than that to bring you into the world in a loving and peaceful way...

I'd spent the previous few days nesting: washing all the baby clothes in Dreft soap, so that they smelt baby-like. I'd had sensitive skin when I was small, and thought perhaps you'd be the same. I bundled all your socks in little pairs, and folded up onesies and little outfits in age order, putting them in small plastic totes I'd bought for that very reason, in our closet.

Daddy and Devin assembled the crib and the car seat. I put sheets on the crib. I still remember trying to knot the bumper pad strings around the wide slats on the side of the crib. I finally got it done and glowed because it looked so neat. We'd probably be sleeping together in the same place anyway, but the crib was your place, you know? Your little domain, and a signal that you had a spot. A special spot with us there in our home.

Your car seat I loved. We'd bought a little animals one, that was yellow, in case we had a boy next. It was cute. I liked looking at it, assembled there in the living room. The cats wanted to sleep in it... We ended up having to cover it up so it didn't get hairy!

Your little bath sat in the bathroom. Your little washcloths were in a little hanging basket that hung under a shelf in the closet. I'd bought some lovely things from Burts Bees to wash you with and some lovely almond baby oil to make you soft with. You had a nightlight with a giraffe at the bottom - a kind of baby lamp, and I put it on the table by the crib together with some little diapers and wipes in case you needed changing in the night.

These are the things nobody sees. They just see the baby who died, not the preparation for the baby, or the things for the baby hung up in the bathroom, or the baby monitor plugged in and tested. They don't see the slings I bought, or the little green photo frame, ready for your first picture. They don't see my visions of lifting you up out of me under the water and raising you up, and looking into our eyes. smiling, the whole time, saying "welcome to life, little one..."

But, I'll always remember. I will always remember: the touch of your tiny hand in mine; the feel of the skin on your forehead; the feeling of you kicking me; the scent of your hair; your tiny, soft lips; your feet that looked just like mine; the back of your neck; your chest with your tiny little nipples; your little bottom; your chubby little knees; your eyes, so, so dark and huge, your eyelashes...your cheeks...your nose...your gums, full of spaces for new teeth...your weight...the little hole in your hand where they'd tried to revive you with drugs - evidence of a life so recently extinguished that it was unfathomable...unfathomable that they had been unsuccessful in bringing you back.

Instead of raising you up on the 10th October, I lay there hooked to monitors, moving my head from side to side, staring at the ceiling, saying "no..." and thinking it had to be a dream; a nightmare - it felt so much like a nightmare. I couldn't wake up though. I couldn't even begin to understand. I had no idea how to deal at all. It had all gone so, so terribly wrong.

And then I said what my friend, McKayla did only a month ago on the 10th October, 2009, when she lost her son, Carter. I said "I would have been a good mum..." and "but I would have been a good mum..." and "I would have taken care of her so well...I wanted her...I would have been a good mum..."

And I would have been. And I have been trying to be.

Now in the lead up - the final couple of days, I do feel very introspective - very introverted. I don't really want to be hugged by anyone but the very closest people when I cry, I just want to cry. Hugs are nice, but I am alone here, with you now, and I remember everything as though it's happening right now. I'm thrown back in time; slingshot into the past and I'm sitting up there on the bathroom floor, wrapped in a towel, stroking my belly in the October sunshine which came streaming through the window across the roof like melted butter.

I only wish I could have that day back, the 10th. To hold you for just another day would be so, so sweet. Oh, relief, the relief of a broken heart - the strange relaxation one gets from just touching something, even if it is lost. I would have frozen that moment and lived there forever if I could have. I would have stopped time for you if I could have.

Thank you Josie. You taught me to see colors as brightly as they really are; to relish every taste; every sound; every sight and every feeling because it's true - we are delicate. I am lucky to be alive after what happened to us. I am so lucky to be able to carry Isobella and oh, she is so bouncy, just like you, Josie. She reminds me of life every day. I pray so hard that I can take her home with me.

It's impossibly hard to be in love with something you can never have, you know. Sometimes I feel love might overwhelm me. What I need is to see an end to this stage - to birth Isobella as I should; to bring her out and hold her to me and say hello: to see life happening; continuing. To be able to pour some of this love out upon her and to put her in my arms, and somehow hold both of you at once.

So let me pour some love out now - I need to pour it on you because no other vessel is big enough. I need to pour it on you because if I don't, it's going to overflow all over the floor...running down the stairs in big rivulets and tiny waterfalls, just like overfilling the bath. You just take it. It's yours, little girl.

Josie, my first little girl...almost one year later...

2009-09-28T20:47:00.004-05:00

I started writing in advance of Josie's birthday. Things were coming to me, bit by bit, in the last few weeks of "the first year." I'll write again, I'm sure, before the 10th.

You might think that in the run-up to the big day, as it were, I would feel overwhelmed by grief again, but this isn't the case for me. I know that for others, it has been, and completely, utterly and totally respect that. But for me, the word "grief" so profoundly expresses what I felt in the first few weeks after Josie died - the utter desolation - the never ending spiral of despair...that it feels somehow incorrect to use it now, when things have settled to a new normal, for which I am grateful.

Nevertheless, I have been flooded with emotion. I think about Josie every day - I can say that there hasn't been a single day I haven't thought about Josie at various times. She's with me all the time. Every second of the day - and this isn't just imagination: when a woman has a baby, she actually carries that child's DNA around in her own bloodstream for the rest of her life... It's palpable, I can tell you. It's like a permanently activated link to your child: except with a child that isn't there anymore, the link is to the beyond...to wherever our souls go after we die...so in some ways we're permanently a little adrift forever after...

I do feel sometimes like I'm floating above people around me, hooked to a big, green, hugely deep sea of life to which we all fall up into when we go... A big energy - enormous and beyond comprehension. In some ways, since October 10th 2008, I've been standing in the middle of a bridge between two worlds. It's not a bad place now - there are trees and flowers, and sunshine - but nobody else. It's peaceful.

Back when Josie first died, I was stripped naked and whipped to the bone, bloody and bruised and completely spent, almost dead: laying on this rock bridge above a river of lava. My hair curled and frazzled in the heat; my skin blistering and completely raw - totally done. It was the beginning of a new world - before new life appeared in the small puddles of water next to the river...before the beginning of a new consciousness. My humanity had been completely undone, like a corset, fallen away and sending guts spilling out helplessly into the outside world. One can fight with fingers to keep them in, but they keep coming out...

In so many ways, that was exactly what had happened, though. At the end of a beautiful, nine month relationship with my girl, things had gone horribly, inconceivably wrong and I'd found myself stripped, roughly examined and catheterized, stabbed with needles and then anesthetized. So horribly, one-hundred-percent different from what I'd been preparing for. You can't prepare for that in any birth class. No woman can prepare to be walking into the entrance to a hospital, blood running all over the place, knowing her baby no longer had a heartbeat but that until just minutes ago, she had been kicking - one last thump on the way to the ER. No person can "get ready" for the utter desolation one feels to wake up to be told the child one loves is dead, even though the hospital staff tried desperately to revive her for thirty minutes with heart massage...electricity...epinephrine... You can't "make the best of" a birth plan gone so horribly wrong that you can only spend just over a day with your baby before giving her to the funeral home.

You can't "not be too disappointed" with the extraction of a little being from your body, like an abscess, ripped out quite violently through a large incision, instead of being able to birth the little one quietly and lovingly. In terms of birth plans gone wrong, this one's a big one. In terms of family members trying to deal with everything: seeing their woman lying there on a bed and being told she might not survive is not something one has to face every day. In terms of recovery, not being able to stand at one's own daughter's funeral because of the eight inch band of internal and external bruising that turned black was not where I thought I'd be on the 13th of October, 2008.

I'd never, ever known such mental pain. Or such physical pain. My body just ached for my baby - I cried from my eyes and my breasts leaked as I wept: big fat tears for my little one. My body, like a tiny child, unable to understand what was going on but just yearning to feed the infant, wondering where she had gone... How do you explain to your own body that your daughter is no longer there?

In terms of communication, my body and mind were torn apart - uncooperative; going down separate roads. I looked in the mirror and cried, cried and cried because of the great big scar on my belly and the big black bruising, and the soft mama-tummy I'd been left with for my infant to lay on. I really hated myself for weeks. I just cried, feeling like an empty shell, pulling bits of myself to myself; walking about picking pieces of the old me off the carpet like slivers of meat. I knew I had to heal; took my vitamins to help myself; rubbed oil on my scar but then looked at myself in the mirror and felt like two different people: the one rubbing oil in, and the one having the oil rubbed into them - the one I just couldn't stand.

I do remember the very first time I broke down and felt bad for me, having flagellated myself for a long time: perhaps it was November? I had a shower and just held myself tightly and as usual, cried. But this time it was a cry of "come back to me, my body - come back to me, my mind - let's be friends again instead of hating one another..." instead of being lost.

Being strong is a "doing" word I think. It's also a total choice: it really is. Every day for a long time I made a choice: get up and carry on as best I could, or slip into a bog and drown. It is a choice anyone can make in a position like mine - you don't have to be "special" to make that decision each day. If you know at the beginning of the journey that you want to live, it's a simple as making the choice to carry on, every day - every day until you start standing up again. Don't let yourself go under: you're the one resource you have.

Regardless of that, now, I am further down the path and able to look back over my journey. I've got to say, it's been damn hard. No two ways about it. I love my daughters - both of them (not discounting A and D, who I love equally) - the one who died and the one living in my belly and it was always going to be hard. From the emotions at the beginning of the journey, to the life changes, to dealing with other's grief (which one can only really observe and try to help with, never control) and the outbursts that come with that whole deal...it's been very rough at times. But...

It's also been beautiful. After you get through the anger and the destructive emotions; the desolation and then the crazy feelings, you do - you really do - eventually come to a point of acceptance. For some this can take years. For a certain extent you can control when you come to this point, too: but beware of depression! Acceptance is so much more peaceful. The seas are calm. You're not drowning any more: you're just floating, waiting for something interesting to come along.

I have the Kate Bush song "And Dream of Sheep" on my playlist for this blog (in case of international people who can't access that content) and that song is the beginning of the "Ninth Wave" part of an album entitled "Hounds of Love." It's about a woman drowning in a big, dark ocean, and I always felt drawn to it after Josie died - and still do, now. Here are the lyrics:

Little light shining

Little light will guide them to me
My face is all lit up
My face is all lit up
If they find me racing white horses -
They'll not take me for a buoy.

Let me be weak, let me sleep And Dream Of Sheep.

Oh I'll wake up to any sound of engines
Every gull a seeking craft
I can't keep my eyes open -
Wish I had my radio

I`d tune into some friendly voices.
Talking 'bout stupid things
I can't be left to my imagination
Let me be weak, let me sleep And Dream Of Sheep -

Ooh, their breath is warm,
And they smell like sleep
And they say they take me home -
Like poppies, heavy with seed -
They take me deeper and deeper.

That was me, almost a year ago. Today, it's still me - but now, the scene depicted by the song is like a featherlight veil covering my body. You can see through it, and perhaps if you didn't know what had happened, you might not notice at all - just a thin, light covering of...something...

Like the ocean in this song, I am deeper than you might realize. There's more to me. The loss of Josie has dropped into the darkness of the inside of me and my heart pumps it around my body every day.

If you know pain too, then come and sit with me and be my friend. We don't have to feel it to know each other now - we just have to have been there. Then, we can go out into the leaves of fall and kick them around together - we can feel joy and pleasure and depth and sorrow and love and compassion and calm together, because we know - really know - what real pain feels like. We know how to be grateful beyond the spread of a bountiful harvest. If we want to, we can experience everything life has to offer and not be destroyed by it, and remain thankful...

Preganancy Dreams...after loss...

2009-09-28T10:39:00.003-05:00

...seem to be even more horrific than one can think sometimes!

Yes, pregnancy dreams can be vivid at the best of times - but usually they're mild-vivid or pleasant-vivid, or odd-vivid. Occasionally you'll have a vivid night mare, wake up in the middle of the night and go "oh thank goodness!" and then go back to sleep. But this dream was awful.

I was perfectly happy at the beginning of the dream, living in some kind of outdoor encampment with a bunch of other people. The grass was green, and the whole encampment was surrounded by trees. All of a sudden, news started to spread about people being killed because of other people who disagreed with our way of living and our beliefs. It would seem that the people doing the killing were doing it in the same way as Hitler and other fascists justify killing: it needed to be done for the good of others. We were being killed for the good of the masses, because our ideas were so wrong.

First I saw one of these murderers walking about carrying the blond, curly head of my dead friend by the pigtails. The person didn't see me and I wondered if they had mistaken me for one of their own. Soon I saw more heads - sometimes two at a time, being carried by these murderous people. The murderous people appeared to be high, or in a trance - think of Carrie's mother in "Carrie" and you'll get the idea - and quite indifferent to everything else.

One of my friends gave me a four inch steel flip out pocket knife, which I put in my pocket to defend myself. I was walking up a big clear perspex tunnel (hamster style) when the murder people finally noticed me.

Of course, in this dream, I was pregnant as I am now and thought of protecting my unborn child. I couldn't believe these people would want to harm a baby, and when their intentions became clear, I started running, gripping my knife. There they were, behind me, blades drawn, wanting to stab me to death and cut my head off - more and more of them joining the chase every second. I came out of the tunnel, and they were almost upon me.

At that point, some conscious part of me said "you know this is a dream, but you need to wake up now, because you don't even want to dream this," so there I was, bodily shaking myself from side to side to try to wake myself up. After what seemed like an age, I finally came out of the dream for long enough to realize I was in bed, but not long enough to lose the sight of the knife-wielding crazy people bearing down upon me with an arsenal of knives and other weapons... The freakiest thing was the look in their eyes that said "this is a sad thing, but you must be killed to protect other people..." Sympathy for me in my situation, but simultaneously the absolute intent to get the job done. Must be the same thing when you kill an animal for food, I suppose, whether you're a lion or a human.

In the end I had to fight the dream for several minutes, really waking myself up and having a drink of water to prevent slipping back down into the same situation.

What helped actually, were the positive pregnancy affirmations from my Hypnobabies course, which I started reciting to myself in my head "pregnancy is normal, natural, healthy and safe...for me and my baby..." and "this is a different pregnancy..." and so forth. I thankfully didn't slip back into that nightmare, but the experience was enough to leave me very tired this morning.

I think this dream must have been directly related to being pregnant after losing a child. Being out of control against huge forces threatening to overwhelm; being at the mercy of other people; not really knowing fully if you're going to be holding a living baby (because after a loss, you really don't ever feel completely sure about that whole deal). Also, that whole deal coupled with the basic instinct to protect your child at all costs really can mess up the head a bit!

One interesting thing though - this dream did bring up a good point: no matter how self-sacrificial we are, we have to admit, especially in pregnancy, that our children are completely lost without us. For me here, it was the physical body: I couldn't say "kill me and spare the child" because the child depends on me for life.

In the end, the one abiding thing the dream has left me today is tired. It is cold in the house today: the beginning of fall is upon us, and I even thought about breaking out the winter duvet this morning. It's really frigid and between that fact and the disturbed night, I'm a little drained. This too, shall pass. Isobella is tired as well, very likely because of the stress hormones and extra activity inflicted on her in the night... Poor girl!

I will post a proper 25 week update and belly picture this evening!

24 Weeks...the start of "Viability"...

2009-09-19T20:00:00.001-05:00

Yes...here we are! We made it to the whole "viable" bit! I know, yes, of course, that doesn't necessarily mean a darn thing but heck - it's a milestone and so, let's celebrate it! Technically it's tomorrow, but since Bella is measuring ahead by about a week, I think we're safe to celebrate it today.

We're celebrating by making Cornish Pasties for the very first time and so far, the mixture is smelling a lot like....Cornish Pasties! Now if I don't go and burn them up in the oven, I will post pictures of the resulting edible later on...

But for now, here I am at 24 weeks with my belly covered...

And here I am at 24 weeks with my belly uncovered...

I love you, my little baby girl!

The tragedy of a sweet friend...

2009-09-08T23:32:00.002-05:00

I wanted to put this on here quickly, because it's just been found out.

A very lovely, very sweet friend of mine today found out at her very last prenatal appointment that there was no longer a heartbeat inside her son. I am just crumpled for her: totally heartbroken. She is only twenty years old and such a precious young lady: I'm so utterly fond of her - she was very sweet and gentle after Josie died and this is another example of how much unexpected randomness life can throw at you.

I'm never one to say "life sucks" because it doesn't: but sometimes, the events in life can be very hard; there are deep, dark holes that we all fall in. I just of course, wish it hadn't happened to her - I wish it didn't have to happen, but it does happen and it will continue to happen to a proportion of us.

She has been sent home for the night and will be induced in the morning. I am going to see her and her little boy, I hope, as soon as I can.

Please, anyone who reads this, send their most loving thoughts and their most healing vibes to southern Minnesota this evening, because when Josie died, I could feel the various prayers and thoughts coming from people every day like a warm blanket over both H and myself as we lay in bed. She will need this from as many people as possible tonight and for many nights to come...

Much love to you all...

Updated Pictures...

2009-09-05T10:29:00.004-05:00

Here I am at 21 weeks, 3 days - so two days ago. I got H to take these, and he did a good job! The last time, he cut half of my head off, and then I said "hey, you cut the top of my head off (!)" and he replied "yes, but you said I should take a belly pic and I got your whole belly in there!"

Ever the literal one!

So anyhow, here I am, looking bigger! Isobella is a little mover and shaker in there - really clanging about; has her rhythms: quietly active in the mornings, raising the roof from about 7-10 and if I wake up at 3 or 4 am, I get a fifteen minute ruckus from her then as well. Of course, we get bumps and kicks throughout the afternoon as well, but the above seem to be her most predictable active times.

Lots of love to you all...

I completed the rest...

2009-09-03T21:05:00.005-05:00

Yes, it's been weighing on my mind for months to do this: unfinished business is never a good thing, and this was definitely unfinished business. Now it's done though, and I am pleased with what we have here...color photographs of our beautiful baby. Eleven more of them.

I would like to share her with you now. Here she is...

The more I look, the more I realize it wasn't all my imagination: she really was an undeniably beautiful little girl...

Photograph of Josie and I...

2009-08-31T21:10:00.003-05:00

I've never shared this picture because until now, it was very grainy and shot in poor light, the day after Josie died. For that reason also, Josie did not look the way she did when she'd first come out: her lips were very dark and her skin very light - she didn't look the way I'd remembered.

I'd been meaning to work on this photograph, or one like it, for some time and had never been ready until now to do work on my own daughter. The shades of skin; the lights; the angles - her little features...always a little too hard to keep going on...always a little bit like scratching myself with the edge of a broken hairpin. But I've been working up to it, and I'm pleased now with the final result.

This photograph was taken by me, in the early hours of October 11th 2008, while I was by myself on the morning my baby went to the funeral home. I'd held her all night with what I can only describe as a tenuous grip on reality: nobody really knew 100% if I'd survive; I was in and out of consciousness and heavily medicated. The best way to describe what it felt like that first night, is this: you know the feeling when you're half out of a nightmare; half way in between sleeping and waking, and you can feel actuality as a haze into which you are emerging? She was like the haze between the nightmare and reality: the soft feeling of comfort given to me in a situation my body and mind had no idea how to deal with. She was like an old rope thrown to someone drowning: too old to really hold, but young enough to not break for...just a little while.

So it was an odd kind of euphoria: I'd made this little being who I looked at and who was so adorable, but who would soon be taken from me. I could live in dreamland as a new mother with this silent babe who couldn't ever feed, for about twenty-seven hours. This photograph was dreamland: but all the while knowing she'd be taken at some point, and wanting to get some mother-daughter pictures just because I am her mother, and she my daughter.

Some mothers call it "dead-baby mothering" but I can't use that phrase without flinching. This photograph shows the way I felt and the way I feel about my daughter - as a baby human, not a dead baby human. She'll never grow, but I'll never be a "dead-baby mama" either - I am just a mother, without excuses and without regret. Just a mother with love in her heart and a forever stifled desire to hug that baby just...one more time.

Now here I am with a new one inside me, and every day I just hope...I just hope so much that I get to hold Isobella for longer than I held Josie because in the end, that's all one wants to do when one's heart is in another person, outside one's body. Connect and never let go.

(You can click on the picture to make it bigger, if you want to...)

I love my little girls. I have never before had the unquestionable knowledge of what love really means. Given the choice, I would willingly lay down my life for either one without even thinking about it at all. All of the worries of being a parent boil down to just that one thing, in the end: it doesn't matter how old you are or how young you are; if your child has problems; if you have problems; if it's inconvenient to have a child; if you're scared of birth...all those trivial things go away in the end because what matters is that life goes on.

I think what got me through after Josie died was the unfailing desire to see that life continued: since I couldn't save her, I had to make sure I could save me, because life had to go on.

It's incredible how much more simple things are after an experience like this: when you lose a child in your belly, all the trivial details fly away and giant chunks remain. That's how it is for me, anyway.

So there we are. My first daughter and I, together and in peace.

Becoming one's parents...

2009-08-28T20:42:00.003-05:00

You know, we all do, to some extent. And it's curious, the way it happens.

When we're young, we think we're so utterly unique - set apart from our parents completely. Some of us as teenagers wish not to become anything like either one of our parents; some of us balk at the prospect completely, even if our parents are clever and kind and interesting: good people. That's all part of the teenage rebellion though I suppose: the whole "I am NOT my mother" etc thing, the "I am little Miss independent and can do anything better than my Mum and Dad..." rubbish. I have heard there are teens out there who behave better than this: I've yet to actually meet one. Maybe I can raise one...hmm...

Anyhow, so nowadays I'm not at all concerned about being like my mother or my father. We grow up and realize that we're all just human beings - like grapes in a bunch - not so different from one another as an entire race in the first place. Our mothers and fathers are just human beings, like us - they've made mistakes, but for goodness sakes, we've made equally bad mistakes (sometimes worse!) and we've not been struck dead by lightning up to now. I do apologize at this point if anyone does in fact get hit by lightning while reading this blog post...

So here I am and I just opened my desk to smell what exactly...a whiff of...incense and old wood. I suddenly got taken back to my Dad's study: my desk smells just like his. The contents are slightly different of course, but the incense; the old wood...they're the same. In our desks, we two individuals have created our worlds. Sharing a love of all things "old", we have chosen to use antique desks and surround ourselves with similar curious objects. In that way, I can see my father in me: his half of the DNA is shining through like the muted dawn of a misty forest in autumn. I can see him in me. I'm carrying him on to the next generation as though he is a fine vintage bottle of wine, held loosely in my hand as I tread along my path.

I see my mother in me as well. At the moment, chiefly through organization. Since I'm pregnant, I've been nesting an awful lot and have now come to the point where I've organized the baby clothes into little totes and put them, covered in plastic, into the cupboard where they will remain largely untouched for the next twenty weeks. Additionally I've been canning apple butter and elderberry jelly like there might never be any apples or elderberries ever again in the whole wide world. Today once again, we went out to gather our natural resources and came back with five stuffed and heavy (at least 8lb in each) bags of elderberries, three enormous bags of apples from the orchard and ten ears of corn from...well never you mind where from...

I've been less wasteful and more frugal without being scant in the last few weeks. Fewer leftovers have gone to the ice-man. The dogs have been fed at regular times; the fish have been fed at regular times; heck, even the frog has had mealtimes at approximately the same time each day.

And all the while I am there, rubbing my belly and remembering what my mother told me: this is a different pregnancy; a different baby - you will feel differently about this pregnancy than you think you will. She's so right - I do. My mother's DNA glows through my skin this pregnancy like an oil lamp left burning in a room completely devoid of people. I carry her with me through everything like a well-thumbed book of handwritten knowledge with a little ribbon for a bookmark...

I've been told I have a pretty equal blend of masculine and feminine energy and I think "they're" right, now. I sequester myself away like my Dad - sitting in concentrated silence for hours as I do my graphics work; always better at working as an individual rather than a member of a drone army in some large company. I'm the same as he is in that respect: both of us really need the creative freedom to...well, to create, because that is our meaning and the purpose that we have here on Earth. We need to be employed by either very understanding, flexible and trusting employers in jobs created specifically for us, or simply by ourselves. We don't really "work" any other way - not very well. I couldn't willingly be a cashier in WalMart or a Tax Collector or a Customer Service Rep, listening to people shout all day: those jobs make my heart shrivel up and all thoughts of real contribution to the universe go out of the window.

On the other hand I can get up half way through a project, make the children popcorn, put in a film and arrange some painting time, whilst simultaneously feeding the dogs, throwing together a pot roast and making jam. At the same time I can clean the kitchen floor, disinfect the toilet, hoover the living room and plan tomorrow's lunch. I might even find time to check the post, have a shower, put the kettle on for tea and change the sheets. In that way, I am very much my mother who was always awfully good at multitasking and awfully good at finding things to do. I find myself thinking "there's always more to do" quite often. I find myself saying "well, help me with the washing then!" when the kiddies tell me they're bored. These things all make perfect sense now: they never did when I was eleven...

So yes, an ode to my wonderful parents, who are within me every day. Now I'm feeling a squirmy little girl in me who will no doubt inherit a good mixture of both of her grandparents' characteristics. She'll probably have to be carried up and down the stairs...up and down...up and down the stairs...to get her to go to sleep as well, just like me.

Oh well, at least I'll end up with really shapely legs.

20 weeks...

2009-08-24T08:06:00.002-05:00

Yes - 20 weeks already! My goodness. In so many ways, it feels like this pregnancy is going quickly. Then, in other ways it feels like this pregnancy is going slowly... So odd!

Of course, now I have full-on hit the patch where I do - I do check all the time on Isobella's movement. But she's very co-operative. If I'm feeling totally paranoid, all I have to do is lay very still on my back for a couple of minutes and she'll start to bump around like anything. She felt like something out of "Alien" last night - almost felt like she was trying to break out!

But with all the joviality I know that I am going to be really over-worried now until I give birth. Honestly, every second of every single day the thought of her suddenly ceasing to live is going to be at the back of my mind. I somehow need to counter those thoughts with really positive thoughts for the next nineteen or twenty weeks. I need to make sure that I throw tons of wonderful thought at my baby and my uterus. I really want to get the Hypnobabies home study course, but right now it's rather expensive. Nevertheless I do need to think about that in the next few weeks... That I think would help relax me an awful lot. I'm never shy when I need guidance: I just don't always need guidance - but this time, I do: from wise people!

Anyway today, I am working on several really interesting projects for clients, and also simultaneously making elderberry jelly and various preserved apples. The apple harvest has just started and we have already been gifted four carrier bags full!

So thank you mother Earth for our bountiful fruits and thank you for a wonderful day!

Update on the meaning...

2009-08-22T18:43:00.003-05:00

Mai: yes, it seems to mean more than one thing depending on the language...

In Chinese, the meaning apparently is something like "ocean."

In Japanese, the meaning is "brightness."

In Vietnamese, the meaning is "tomorrow" or "future" - very fitting.

The whole "star of the sea" comes from it's association with Mary, who in the biblical sense had a name applied to her - "drop of the sea" or "star of the sea" depending on who's translation you trust. Since the bible was formerly translated to Latin, it was incorrectly stated that Mai was a direct translation of "star of the sea" when actually, the meaning is slightly more convoluted. It was a valid point brought up today by my mother, so I thought I'd put it out there!

Altogether all the different meanings kind of make the name even nicer... I like it more and more the more I know!

Her Name is Isobella Mai...

2009-08-19T13:01:00.002-05:00

We spent a long time choosing this one. "Isabella" is a little too popular at this point - #2 on the baby name rankings (but it's so pretty!) so we changed the spelling slightly and now, it's significantly less common. Mai means "Star of the Sea" in Latin...

So loosely translated, I suppose the whole thing would mean "Star of the Sea, pledged to our Goddess/God." Of course originally, the name Isobel/Isabelle meant something like "consecrated to God" - very biblical. Since I am not Christian, it seems fitting to modify the meaning very slightly there - not very much really, since really one God is another's Goddess in the end.

We thought it very fitting to have a meaning like this, since after Josie passed over, we obviously felt devastated and we wondered if we would be able to have another child. During the first trimester and beginning of the second, the whole family went to England and spent a lot of time i the sea, which H fell in love with and which has always been a very big, big part of me. And the fact that she was conceived at all is huge cause to be grateful to the universe.

So Isobella Mai - Star of the Sea, pledged to a higher power...

Pictures and things...

2009-08-18T13:46:00.003-05:00

So here I am at 19 weeks with me belly covered up...

...and here I am at 19 weeks with me belly exposed!

Here are some stills from the ultrasound yesterday: if you click on them, it'll take you to the full sized view and you can take a good look!

Ah, and I also noticed that actually, there are several incidences in that video where you get to see the gender before he actually zooms in for "the shot", so I think we're pretty 100% on the gender here - I don't have any doubts this time!

I am going to get the baby clothes out and let myself flower into exuberance and celebration... It's time to celebrate! Life has come again and closets need to be opened and aired out! The wheel keeps on turning, and you know, it is wonderful when it's turning your way...you have to be thankful and let the joy shine through!

Baby Goob has been exposed...

2009-08-17T20:53:00.002-05:00

...didn't even make a fuss! Was all bundled up in the fetal position, and gave us the shot we needed, plus a lovely face shot and beautiful measurements and a HUGELY thick cord! Here, for your viewing pleasure, is the link..... Baby Goob's expose!

I'll post some stills tomorrow! Now you go and see what it is...

The undeniable winding of life...

2009-08-15T19:16:00.002-05:00

Gosh, I'm almost 19 weeks now - that's practically half way there. As we go on, I get more and more emotional on a regular basis: yes, hormonal in part but as the movements become more and more tangible, a big part of me is drawn back into last year, and my pregnancy with Josie.

The movements of this little one feel so similar to Josie's movements at the same time: the little turnings, the twisting of baby's little body and the strong, viable kicks punches I get from baby's arms and legs. All state "I am ALIVE, I CANNOT be denied!" - all state "I am here to stay..."

It's also getting to the stage in which I need to be very careful that I pick the right health care provider. I really like the doctor I have, but he does practice in a hospital with a rather stoic policy on VBAC, which is what I will be attempting. So, he's rather bound by the rules - at least during the night. I don't want to have to go there and find myself at the receiving end of a pen and a statement of consent for a cesarean, simply because my timing is inconvenient. Therefore, we are going to be having a discussion on Monday as to what the realistic outlook is as far as actually getting the birth I want in the hospital closest to me.

The alternative is a hospital about an hour and fifteen minutes away. They are very VBAC friendly and a friend of mine has used the practice and likes the doctors and nurses there very much. So that's an option as well. It's funny, with me, the closer I get to 30 weeks, the more adamant I am about birthing the way I want to.

Yet at the same time, there's a part of me that dares not believe I will end up with a healthy, eyes-wide-open baby at the end of it all... It all seems so...fairy-tale. There was such an unbelievable ending; such a brick-wall event at the end of my last pregnancy that it seems my mind is unable to really imagine - or dare imagine - a time after the birth in which I am holding my child, wide awake and staring at me for the first time... Could it really be that I might get to wrap up my newborn in soft little homemade diapers and put him or her in a sling... Could it really be that I get to hold my baby for more that 27 hours after birth? The thought fills me with such a huge amount of joy: I can only liken it to a delusional person thinking they might win the lottery, and deciding in advance what they'd do with all the money... It just seems...so unrealistic.

Nevertheless I DO find myself looking forward, looking toward baby baths and baby oil, breastfeeding and yes, a comfortable, natural, healing birth in a kind place.

Even now, as I sit here, listening to Neil Young sing "Helpless", I sway from side to side with my hand on my belly, because I'm rocking and loving my child, far away from medical intervention and surgical knives... We can do this together, me and the baby, H and R, all of us together...we'll make this little dream come true...

Death and bewilderment...

2009-08-08T00:45:00.002-05:00

No, no the baby is fine! I'm talking about something else here.

Gosh, what a day today has been - one of those delightful days where nothing's gone quite right, but then nothing's gone completely wrong either: kind of odd! I think I made it better in the end though, by making a couple of decisions.

One, I left a site I've been visiting for almost a year (some of you know me from there I think) - I've disabled my link from that site, so I cannot be accused of being mean about it. I've made some wonderful friends there, none of whom I hope to leave behind so I've sent everyone I can think of a message: the word can get around from there, hopefully. I think I have the right to do that, don't I? You'd think so, wouldn't you - others do not, however.

So here I am, talking on my completely un-moderated blog (apart from by me!) which is wonderful. I can say whatever I like! Most of what I say is meant to be supportive, of course. I have a few opinions here and there - doesn't everyone? Isn't that what gives us our uniqueness? Having thoughts about things? Hmmm...

So that's done with - but my friends are my friends and I will be sending goodies!

There's another site I just can't frequent any more either. Two people there now have chosen to abort babies with Downs Syndrome... Oh my gosh. I cannot imagine wanting to make that decision. I know people with Downs, and to look at them and think "you shouldn't have been born" is just sickening and nonsensical to me. But here we go again today, another amnio, another diagnosis of Downs and another abortion. I hopefully am free to say on this blog that I think that decision is barbaric. I really feel in my gut that it's awful. I've lost a baby and can understand another person terminating for a condition that wouldn't be life compatible but Downs?

It makes me feel sick, the thought of purposefully destroying a life because of a diagnosis of Downs. Heck, there are people - many people - who would adopt a child with Downs deliberately. But to have one killed in the second trimester? I cannot agree. I just cannot. Plus there's a good friend of mine in the same due date club who lost her son to Downs complications last year and to have someone else aborting... Wow, I cannot imagine how she feels every single time she reads one of those posts.

I just don't get taking a little person who's kicking you and who could live, and have a job, have children, everything, so late... How could I feel a little person kick inside me and make a decision to have them destroyed? I just don't understand. Coming from where I'm from, I don't think I can ever understand that.

So, I'm all for political correctness and letting people do whatever, but I can't stay around that energy - it's so black and filled with the promise of a dark future. So I've kinda vacated my due date clubs now. Ah well. I am still due and the life in me is very active, and I am so thankful.

Hopefully though everyone will keep in touch here and on Facebook and on the email - my buddies are the most important people to me. I don't really have time to be dinging about on forums anyway - I'm SO busy with work right now, it's really crazy!

That's it for now. Chugging away, nearly 18 weeks! I will update with a new pregnancy pic on Monday!

Seventeen Weeks...

2009-08-02T20:45:00.003-05:00

My goodness me! Seventeen weeks already! I suppose I should give you a belly shot shouldn't I? Well, here's me two weeks ago at 15 weeks...

And here I am today...

Now you may think "not much difference there" but, keep in mind I've had the flu for a week - gosh I tell you - yuk! And therefore I haven't been able to do the enormous amount of eating I normally do. Which might be a good thing I suppose. The nurses at the hospital will probably all croon about saying "oh, haven't you done well - not so much weight gain in the first seventeen weeks!" - unlike last time, where the doc made me swear off McDonalds at my 15 week appointment...ha!

But anyhow, here we are, feeling baby movement all over the place and actually being able to feel it and see it from the outside, even! I tell you, that is truly awesome! Last night I think the babe was practicing one of the routines from "West Side Story" in there. I tried telling the babe it was already in America but it didn't pay any attention: to focused on acrobatics!

So there's my update for week 17! Two weeks today is the "big ultrasound"...

No Fear...

2009-07-18T10:53:00.002-05:00

I've been thinking about this on for years now. I'm still not 100% sure what the entire tapestry of the issue is all about, but it's coming together and I felt the need to share it with you today, so I am.

I look around me every day, at all the people I meet, and all the situations I see...I see fear for much, in so many people, for so many reasons, and I find myself detached from it - I can't relate completely to the situations some people find themselves afraid in, because I just don't feel fear the way I used to.

Maybe this is a common trait among people who have been almost dead, once, if not several times. Once you've almost been there, and experienced enormous pain, and survived, and been able to tolerate it all, being afraid seems...well, kind of a waste of energy. Being afraid of anything seems like a waste of energy. That is, when it concerns oneself and not others: being afraid of one's child drowning when he or she has just fallen off the boat is different than being afraid for oneself when taking off in a light aircaft on one's first solo flight!

Am I think skinned now? I don't think so. Perhaps a better analogy would be that I am like a well equipped wild human now. Things are thrown at me, and I have the coping mechanisms to catch them and turn them into...well, whatever I like, really. Fear or debt; fear of losing everything; fear of growing old alone; fear of being alone; fear of missing a deadline; fear of crashing in a plane...all those fears and so many more are inapplicable to my sense of consciousness now.

I'm not afraid of death. I'm not afraid of pain. I am not afraid of the combined nature of the two and I can tell you that with complete honesty. Yet I do care about myself - I don't want to be hurt, or die...I'm just not afraid of either one any more. So I milk every day for what it is, being aware that either death or pain, or both, could come to me any time, or perhaps not for many years.

The exception to these rules of course, is my belly: it holds a child, so it is out of bounds as far as death is concerned. But I think that goes without saying.

When people say "youth is wasted on the young" I can see it. Not being afraid any more, I am grateful for my life, my youth, my vigor and my strength. I know what I have, and what I have to give to other people and the world. I weigh up the risks, and the risks of never doing what I ought to be, and maybe take the plunge more than someone else might...but in the end, I still feel that is a good thing - for me, and for the people around me.

If I die tomorrow I can say "I spent yesterday working on an exciting graphic design project, baking bread and creating a surprise brand new bedroom for my daughter, loving my family..."

It's simple, but good enough for me.

Thirteen Weeks...

2009-07-06T07:23:00.005-05:00

How funny that the number thirteen should traditionally represent unlucky circumstances, when in pregnancy - undoubtedly one of the most important things in life (since it is when a new human is created) - it represents the beginning of the second trimester and a substantially decreased risk of miscarriage. Unlucky? I think not!

So here I am - thirteen weeks today and just a little chubby. Getting a little faddy about food - take for example yesterday, traveling down the M60 with my poor Mother, insisting we stop at a service station immediately because I had to have a chicken and mushroom Ginsters slice, and nothing else would do. She suggested I make do with a packet of crisps - which I didn't regard as an adequate compromise (not being a crisp/chip eater much anyway) and we did indeed stop at the next Welcome Break, where I got my slice and made my tummy happy.

In that regard I suppose my Dad and I are similar, because when we especially want a certain food, we tend to go and get that food, or make it out of something: glue; jam; plastic...whatever. Both my parents are fabulous people - I can see where I get bits of my personality from. I can detect the slightest de-tune of a musical instrument or voice, having spent so long in the company of my Dad, who is a musician. My mother, who is also extremely musical, has amongst other things, given me the gift of being unafraid of childbirth and has educated me enormously about natural methods in child-rearing.

I am starting to wonder what traits my little Opus will inherit from his/her Mother and Father. Will he or she be interested in finding shiny things, like Dad? Will he/she be musical, like me? I just wonder. In the meanwhile, as this pregnancy becomes more and more tangible, I wait with anticipation.

Here is little Opus, or Goob, as we call him/her on 6/19 bouncing around nicely on the ultrasound. I can't wait to feel the kicks properly in a few weeks!

A lovely little heartbeat!

As the weeks go by, it's getting more and more impossible to contain my excitement. I am so ready to hold this little one...so, I must make sure the months are filled with wonderful activities so that they are not wasted - and also to make them go by more quickly! I don't think I've ever looked forward to a harsh Minnesota winter more than in this particular year!

Opus Angara...

2009-06-15T14:08:00.003-05:00

Born of the wilderness, a greater masterpiece
Carving your way through the cool landscape,
Smoothing rock, tumbling over like
An old woman stumbling over, traveling
Onward over cracks in the dirt, over hurt
And bones of those who, long ago tried to
Stop the reason for your flowing.

Opus Angara, sliding past weeping willows,
Fast and with cool gray eyes you push
Toward the overhang, water falling for
A thousand seconds, fragmenting,
Catching and reflecting; spinning
And gasping and crashing into pools so deep
That you cant keep from losing everything.

Opus Angara, my darkest friend, ever living,
Ever ending, ever reborn, carrying me, worn,
To the edge of everything, to throw
My broken body over,
To catch me in your liquid arms.