These Days

These days I am preparing for my son to come home. He is supposed to be here May 24, less than 3 weeks away.


These days I go to work, clean my house and try to keep occupied. I think about May 24. Then I have to stop thinking about it or it's too much to take.


These days I wake up between 5-12 times a night. When I come back to bed, I can always count on Dave to ask in the darkness whether he's moved yet. Because these days I don't go back to sleep until I feel him move. 


These days every stranger in the world asks me when I'm due.


The due date question is always a little odd. I end up answering with some version of "Well, he's coming home on May 24."


This is usually followed by the standard "Is this your first?" My answer always leaves people a little confused, especially when my husband is with me and they see no child with us.


That never stops being hard.


So as I said, I am making preparations for my son. A new life. A new person. One that I am not convinced will be coming home to us, so I guard my mind and try to convince it that all this cleaning, preparing, baby-clothes washing, etc...is just because, not because we're preparing for a baby.


We put the crib together this afternoon. I couldn't help it. I cried. It has chips on it and is a little dirty. It looks a little like a crib for a second baby. How can that be when its first baby, the baby that was meant to christen it as a little one's bed, never slept in it?


Brooke was right in her most recent blog post. She was quoting from a book she's reading where a woman lost her child.  The woman said that visitors came by, offering condolences, and said "life goes on."  This was what the woman thought in response:


What nonsense, I thought, of course it doesn't.  It's death that goes on; [he] is dead now and will be dead tomorrow and next year and forever.  There's no end to that.  But perhaps there will be an end to the sorrow of it.  Sorrow has rushed over the world like the waters of the Deluge, and it will take time to recede.  But already, there are small islands of--hope?  Happiness?  Something like them, at any rate.


This is so my world right now. My mind has a daily attempt at reconciling the fact that I have one child in the grave and another alive inside of me. The whole death part of it doesn't go away, and it stings just as bad some days even now as it did hours afterwards. Especially as I prepare myself for the hospital, the stay, etc...my mind cannot help but compare how different this time it will be if all goes well. And I can't help but be sad, for myself, for my daughter, because of it. 


I have been pretty melancholy today. Sundays usually do that to me. It was once my favorite day of the week. Not anymore.


Now onto other things. Here are a couple of sneak peeks of the nursery:

I am in love with these Aden + Anais swaddle blankets. (see top left) 

 It's a little dark and grainy, but oh...I love the color of this room. I'll get a better pic later when there's more sun.

 I have already bought him the Big Bird, zebra, and blue dog. D and I also bought him some fab Dr. Seuss and Winnie the Pooh. I'm hoping that our little boy will be a little nerd like the two of us. But let's be honest, I'll just take alive. The rest will fall into place.

Changing table, pretty much put together. Bing stands guard in the background. He's been relegated to the hall. I just can't have my leaky dog leaking in my baby's bedroom. I draw the line, even with cute pups.

I continue to be so sad for Becky, who lost her rainbow baby. I'm still in some sort of state of shock. It doesn't really make me afraid for myself, though I don't even know how that's possible. Mostly it just makes me so sad for her, a kind of sadness I can feel as if it were my own. I'm excited for my baby, but let's admit I'm a pretty cynical mama at this point.

One last thing: Mother's Day. Yeah, pretty makes me as sad as it did last year. I was talking to Dave about this after church this morning. I remember last year, when I stood up at church when the priest asked all the moms to stand up and be recognized. I was broken, in more ways than I could ever explain. My body still healing from birth, and I hadn't yet started really taking care of myself again, i.e. no makeup or hair done, who knew what I was wearing, and I didn't even notice. I stood up and wondered who would look at me and wonder where my child was. But in an odd way, it would still be recognizing her, because there were no more children to make me a mother at that point.

This year, I'll stand up, 36 weeks pregnant (hopefully),  and people who don't know me will think how sweet it is that a pregnant mom, obviously with her first child, is standing up on Mother's Day for the first time. And they won't know that this will be my second Mother's Day to be a mom. And it makes me sad. I cried a little in the car about it. Dave just held my hand.

2 other fun bits. I had my last ultrasound on Friday. Davey-boy is measuring a whopping 6 lbs 4 oz, which means he's closer to a 37 weeker in size than a 35 weeker. Also, in the last two weeks, he decided to flip back around, so that his head is back up and near my ribs. 

C-section it is, then. It already was, but it appears as if God is giving me no choice or chance to be regretful about it.

I am so in love with this little boy. Please God, let him live.