Coming Clean

I should probably admit that my zen-like state about not getting pregnant when I wanted to was actually achieved by getting pregnant.

I am sorry to spring this on you if you are not in a good place. The only thing that makes me feel better about other people's pregnancy announcements, still, is being pregnant myself apparently. I've attended a baby shower, made up with my SIL, and listened to stories about my secretary's three pregnant nieces without losing my mind. I still stare at the bellies of visibly pregnant women and get pissed when I read tabloid headlines about "Baby Joy." And I realize that as other people's pregnancies are grief triggers for me, so are my own pregnancies. When I first found out I was pregnant, I thought about Blue a lot, and had some very sad times. Wishing so badly that he were here too. The grief has subsided again a bit, but I still think of him a lot more than I had been before getting pregnant.

I am 11 weeks now and just had the NT scan in which everything looked good. We caught the little bean cuddling his/her umbilical cord and we got some really cute 3D pictures. I had the MaterniT21 test and will get results later next week. I really don't even want to hear the results, but I suppose I will have painted myself in a corner if I say I terminated for the sake of the baby the first time, but then didn't give another baby that same consideration. It's much more complicated than that, I know. And of course, my breath will be bated until the baby is born alive and kicking and screaming anyway. BUT, it's really not that bad this time. I am NOT THAT SCARED this time around. I am not naive, like I sometimes wish I were, but I don't freak out every day about what could be going wrong.

So there you have it. I will be blogging more about this pregnancy, but not exclusively about pregnancy. If the past few weeks are any indication I will not be blogging much at all.

Back in PA

We survived a week without Sprout! And so did Sprout, and so did our parents! We spent a week driving around Colorado to see friends and ski/snowboard. Mr. E has now spent 7 days on skis and can respectfully go down groomed black trails. I spent a day and a half on skis, with that first half day spent futilely trying to uncross my skis. I hadn't skied in two years, and it showed. I just need to be competent enough to ski with Sprout next year. Forcing my way down a blue trail is good enough, right? Luckily I am good at snowboarding and there was no new snow so I didn't feel the urge to ditch Mr. E. Much. Actually, fumbling around on skis reminded me of how difficult it was for me to learn to snowboard, and I can't even believe that I stuck with it long enough to actually learn how! I am also one of those intense people about sports who has NO FUN until some level of mastery has occurred. I took a few surfing lessons in summer/fall of 2010, and one day I had a "substitute" instructor who just wasn't as good as the guy I usually had and who didn't really understand my learning style. There weren't a lot of waves that day, so we sat around talking a lot about rock climbing, but every now and then he would push me into a wave and I would get all pissed for not catching it. At one point he asked me, "Well, are you having fun?" And I just gave him this look of death, thinking, "I'm trying to learn how to surf, I'm not here to have any fucking fun." I mean, really, who has fun learning hard sports?

Anyway, it was great to catch up with friends and spend some time outside and not think about work, except for the daily "check the Blackberry," which required only a handful of responses and no panicking. Apparently we are due for another snow storm and I may not have work on Monday again. I will have to go in this weekend to pick up some things to do from home. I guess.

Oh right, so we got home late last night and Sprout was sleeping. I wanted to peek in at him but it was too dark in his room of course and I kicked a few toys that made noise so I just ran out before he could actually wake up. I was disproportionately disappointed that I couldn't see my sleeping baby for another few hours. This morning we went into his room together and Mr. E took a video. Sprout looked at us confused for a few seconds, then cried kinda hard, then let me pick him up and hold him for a minute. He didn't want to go to Mr. E but then he warmed up and scrambled to get down and do his normal toddler thing. He was a little more affectionate today I think. He had to go down for a morning nap, which apparently my parents did not give him but I don't know how because he was already super crabby by 10:00 or so. I guess he will be catching up on sleep now that we're back. Fine with me.

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In other blog news, I feel the need to clarify how I went from obsessing about getting pregnant again to meh-no-news-is-not-bad-news-at-least. I just lost the energy to be so anxious about it all the time. I put myself in the position to feel bad about stuff when I really should just brush it off. Like a month ago, I was at the hair salon and it was like Pregnant Lady Day at the salon. And every pregnant woman there was asked about her pregnancy of course, and her last pregnancy and how quickly she got pregnant again and how the next kid will be more spaced out and on and on about perfect little pregnancies. It just reminded me that I still have these feelings of grief that sometimes manifest as generally "icky" feelings. And once I feel that way, especially about conversations I would seek to avoid but were rather imposed upon me, I just start to feel worse and worse instead of recognizing my grief as what it is, and allowing myself to honor it and honor Blue but not let the ickiness take over. So here's to a reduction in ickiness!!! Who doesn't want that?