So here I am, 23 weeks!
I type that with a lot of enthusiasm, but not a lot of
energy. There has been a lot going on and I am exhausted, mentally and
physically.
Where to start?
I have had good scans since my last post – nothing about our
situation has changed. I feel the baby kicking several times a day now, almost
constantly throughout the course of the day, really. He seems strong. He
responds to my husband’s touch and voice, which is a joy to see and feel.
I suppose that is the part of this pregnancy that is so
markedly different for me than my angel pregnancies. John would actually squirm
away from stimuli. Drew would ignore it. I know now that they were like this
because they could not see or hear, both died before they could really feel
sensations. I have the feeling John sensed vibrations – he moved when the dogs
barked or if I yelled. We know now that the glycosylation meant they would have
been born blind and deaf or been born with limited and steadily degenerative
senses.
Clark, on the other hand, seeks out his father for activity.
My husband puts his big paw on my belly and Clark squirms up to meet it and
kick. It is my sign, more so than the genetic tests and ultrasounds, that this
really is a different sort of pregnancy.
My daughter has taken on a mission or two of her own in the
journey to big sisterhood.
Over the holiday weekend, we took her to the toy store and
let her choose any toy she wanted. She chose a doll that wets itself.
“I have to practice,”
she insisted. “I have to learn how to burp a baby and how to change diapers. I
have to practice now.”
No arguments there. Every week, on our shopping trips, we
buy something for the baby. I have worked it out that, mathematically, we
should need about 100 packages of wipes in Clark’s first year. So we buy wipes
now to prepare. Yesterday I bought a fuzzy little snowsuit for his December
arrival. We have chosen binkies and bottles and lotions and toys and little but
fun needs for the baby. This is good for my nesting and for Emily’s planning.
It keeps us all in the right frame of mind – the place where we are preparing
for a baby to come home, not preparing in case we have a live baby.
As for me, I am a lot bigger than I had anticipated I’d be
at six months, which means I pretty much need to go clothes shopping again
pretty soon. I’m exhausted a lot of the time and that makes me mad because the
second trimester is supposed to be about feeling better and more energetic. All
I want to do is sleep.
We had a real hold up with our nursery planning this month
as a floor joist in the attic broke and sent a chunk of plaster crashing to the
floor in our bedroom. All that blow-in insulation EVERYWHERE. So now me and
Hubby are bunking in Clark’s room, so it feels a lot like we are camping in our
own house. Not fun.
Emotionally, my thoughts are all over the place. On one
hand, I miss my Drew and John so much. Taking Emily to Chuck E. Cheese over the
weekend was hard for me – babies of all ages are always there. My mind never
fails to jump from one lost son to the other – John would have been just big
enough to sit on the rides. Drew would be just about as big as that little baby
there.
I am constantly reminded that as blessed as I am to have
this life and this possibility of Clark, this is not the life that I was meant
to live. Something – two things – are missing and they will always be missing. My arms will always ache for those lost boys.
The emotional leaps from happy and blessed to genetically victimized are not big,
but they are incredibly hard.
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