Replacement Parts

Ok, so it's been a few days since we found out little Nemo is most likely of the male variety. And I am ashamed to admit that I'm having trouble with this. On one hand I am ecstatic, a little baby boy! That's so wonderful, I love him so much already, he is part of me, and he is so lively and amazing..

But on the other hand, I spent pretty much the entire evening tonight packing away all the girl clothes we have for the baby. And it's somehow sad, like I realize I finally have to say goodbye to all those dreams, all those hopes I had for her. It's like I'm saying goodbye to Sophie all over again. It feels like maybe I wanted another girl because I didn't end up with the living baby the first time. Tonight I had to accept the fact that my baby is not going to wear that gorgeous little pink tutu or the pretty dress daddy picked out..

That he probably won't want Dora the explorer toys, or barbies or purple butterfly wallpaper or any of that. He will likely want to do something scary like play football, or set things on fire. Not that girls can't do those things.. but they usually aren't all that interested in them.. I don't know. I'm not trying to gendertype. I'm probably still going to use some of the pink onesies while we're around the house lazing about just because clothes are clothes who cares what colour it is. But I know that if anyone saw me putting him in girl's clothes they'd give me hell because he's a boy, and I'm gonna turn him gay or whatever... /sigh

I think I am just struggling with letting go of the final idea that I'd somehow have a baby girl.. Maybe another baby after this one.. Who knows.. But I think it's more about letting go of the idea of Sophie. Somehow if this baby were a girl I would feel more connected to the one I've lost. It makes no sense. I feel like a bad mommy just for thinking all this. I just needed to get it off my chest I guess..

I'm also trying to distract myself while I wait for C to get off work because I have to take him to the hospital.. He's in a lot of pain and the nurse on the phone told me to force him to go get checked out tonight.. I just don't want to think about it. I'd tell you what's wrong, but it's his issue and he doesn't even want to think about it, let alone talk about it soo.. Have to keep level headed, I'm sure he's going to be fine. I wish he could leave work early.. ugh..

Anyone?

K so try to ignore my hand there, but uhm anyone think that this would be worth a couple bucks? Apparently baby seamonster won't be needing a lovely purple hat that mommy crocheted the day before the ultrasound.. You can hardly tell from the pictures but it's really pretty, handmade, and in those little holes all the way around the brim I'm going to add a nice purple ribbon and tie a bow at the back, so yeah. Just wondering if you think it's worth anything since I'm hoping to sell it and use the money to buy some err blue yarn to make a less girly hat.. lol.

In other news we found the perfect meditation music for baby. It's celtic it's dreamy, relaxing, soothing, I'm in love with it. We bought a little cd player for the bedroom so we can listen to it at night when we go to sleep. I'm hoping to use it during labour too..

Anyway I still have like half a ball of purple yarn so I might make another one of those lil hats if I find that there's some interest in that one.

Eep

Okay so today is the big day. Or the first big day during this pregnancy. My first ultrasound. I've got about an hour before my appt. I'm drinking my cup of water as it says on the instructions, and I'm trying to think of something to eat besides vanilla oreos..

Also I think I've got my first taste of ligament pain. Not exactly my idea of a good time, but at least I know what it is and what purpose it serves. I will update this after the ultrasound. :)

Hmm so I have decided that I don't particularly care for ultrasounds. Don't get me wrong, I saw the baby kicking! It was awesome, his little head, and his eyes and his arms and legs, and his spine, and everything.. But damn did he have to jab that ultrasound wand into my stomach that hard and for that long? And also, hello my appointment was for 10:30 not 11:15. My bladder was full just like they wanted, so thanks for making me wait forever people and then jabbing me in the gut like that for 30 minutes. In fact I'd say my pap smear at 11 weeks was much quicker and less uncomfortable than that.

Anyway I am going to let you guess what the outcome was... ;D

Hard to Believe

I guess it's strange that I haven't blogged about this yet, but it's only 5 days until my first U/S with baby Seamonster/Nemo. I'm excited, I'm confused, I'm scared, I'm anxious. I'm wondering if I will feel anything when I see the baby on the screen. Everytime I look at Ultrasound pics I just see blobs. None of it makes sense to me. What if I can't tell what's my baby and what's just part of my uterus/placenta/whatever? What if baby really does have two heads and a tail?? I guess if that's the case we'll just have to name her/him Charybdis.. or Hydra. But that would ruin my dream of giving birth naturally. I'm pretty sure you can't squeeze two heads out at once without a great amount of difficulty..

So baby has a very strange schedule. I've noticed I always feel baby kicking at the same times each day. I usually settle in to my laptop late at night, around 9-11 ish and I read blogs, check forums, maybe play a video game. This is always when baby starts kicking like crazy. Also I seem to feel baby move/kick only when I'm sitting or lying down. I'm not too sure if that's because I'm only 19 weeks along or what, but I realized it last night as we were watching the fireworks. I was standing up, and wondering why the noise and my increased heartrate wasn't making the baby move. I felt it kick only once last night while I was standing, and when I was sitting down I felt it kick a lot. Very strange.

It's also hard to believe just how far we've come now. I can't believe I'm halfway there. It seems crazy to think about. I still keep thinking that I am barely pregnant, but at the same time there are only 4 more months to go.. I'm still worried about stillbirth and pre-eclampsia which can happen at any point, but I made it past the miscarriage stage..


Aside from the annoying nasal problems and feeling like I have a constant cold, I feel like I'm getting off way too easily with this pregnancy. When I had Sophie I was naseaous, and there were foods I couldn't even look at without wanting to vomit. Eggs, meat of any kind pretty much, etc. I almost felt like a vegetarian, everytime I saw a piece of steak I felt sick to my stomach which is weird for me because I like steak usually. But it happened with chicken too, and every kind of meat I came across I just felt sick looking at it, even when it was fully cooked. This time around however, I haven't had any nausea except that one day that I had the stomach flu. I've had headaches, sleepiness, rhinitus, and some heartburn, but that's pretty much it..

If this baby wasn't a kicker I wouldn't believe that I'm pregnant.

C and I talked a bit the other day about our fears, concerns, etc. I asked him why he was so reluctant to read to my belly. I've asked him several times to read some french books because our Baby & Me nurses have said that they are making the connections in their brain for language already, and since we are teaching baby french and spanish when it's born I want it to get a headstart.. And despite it being our second language I can't speak it to save my life. Spanish I can do, no problema, but french no way. He has only read to the baby once, and I was telling him how disappointed it makes me feel.

He explained to me that he doesn't feel like the baby is real yet. He said that it's different because I can feel it moving inside of me, and he can't feel it yet.. I understand where he's coming from. He's scared about losing another one, and it's hard to believe that it's real and alive in there especially without seeing or feeling it. He's sad because he will never feel the baby the same way I do, and while he is super excited about being a daddy I guess it's just scary to be as worried as I am about losing this one, and at the same time at least I can feel it kicking and I know it's alive, he doesn't even have that small reassurance. I'm hoping he will feel more connected after this Friday when we see baby for the first time. Maybe he will be able to see more than just blobs..

I want to read to this baby while it's in my womb, because I know it can hear me, it kicks when I sing, and even if baby doesn't finish it's journey into this world, I will feel that I have been a good mother to it, and that I showed it all the love I had, and I will always have the memories of reading to my baby and knowing that it knows my voice. That's something.

What's In a Name?

There have a been a few posts lately in this side of the blogosphere by mamas who have lost and are now pregnant again. And the subject of names has come up. And since I almost went and did something so foolish as to make a long convulted post about how I felt on the subject manner on someone's blog comments I am here to make the post on my own blog.

I feel the need to get it out. There was a comment on one of them from someone saying that they knew their first child's name would be *such and such* not using the actual name. And when they lost their first babies, they just waited until one lived and gave it that name. I guess the idea of reincarnation comes up here, and I think that's a beautiful thing, perhaps that is what happened. Maybe the baby was trying to be born over and over again and finally it was.

But personally as much as I wish that was how I felt, it's just not. I think for some reason I want to see my babies as individual souls. That Sophie is Sophie, and my second baby will certainly not get her name because it would somehow "devalue" her in my mind. As though I am saying you are not important enough to keep this name because you didn't live. So your sibling now gets it. And I do think of them as siblings. Had Sophie lived I wouldn't have named her little sister Sophie right? Or at least most people wouldn't name their children the same thing. I think for me it's about regarding them as individuals. I worry that I would feel guilt about reusing a name, that it is hers alone to keep.

I want to stress that I have nothing against reusing the same name, and if the same baby is being reincarnated over and over well that's pretty cool, it gives you a sense of a really strong bond with the baby, because it's trying to be born so many times. But for me, I just can't see her as anything other than individual.

Then again on the other hand now that I think of it, people name their children after dead relatives all the time. So I suppose in that light, it might be an honour to give your living child their dead sister/brother's name. I think maybe I'd do it as a middle name or something if I went with that. I also love what Becky did with her boys names to give Lily a middle name.

In the end I think everyone should do what feels right for them. If you know that your baby is meant to be named something then that's the name they should have. As long as it feels right, there's no reason not to do it. And just to clear things up, I was only getting out my feelings about my babies. Not judging anyone. I can't say that I wish this baby was Sophie, because I already know it's not, but I can say that I love them both equally and that they are siblings. Who I know already love each other.

The Snakes Don't Bite

I had the strangest dream just now. I dreamt there was a baby girl underwater, in the ocean. Don't ask me how she could breathe, but she seemed fine. She was playing with all these sea snakes under the water, and none of them were hurting her in the slightest. She could twist them, sit on them, poke them, anything. And they just kept on with their business as though they didn't mind.

I woke up with such a sense of peacefulness. I feel like something is trying to tell me that this baby is going to be okay. Whatever scary things there are that might cause problems are not going to affect her. Maybe this dream is right. Maybe the snakes won't bite this baby.

Everyone keeps telling me she's a boy. I don't believe them. I guess we'll see in 9 days..

Don't Cry

"Things will get better. Don't cry." He said softly, as he brushed the strands of hair from her face.

"Why do you say that? I want to know, have you seen the future?" She spewed out between sobs. A crumpled kleenex in her hand, clutched close to her face bore the evidence of the night's crying bout.

"No, but when I look into your eyes I can see my future. We will get through this together, whatever it takes." He grasps her hands gently, and gazes lovingly into her eyes.

The tears fall heavier than before, and her body heaves with each gasp for air. In this moment he is all she can see, he is everything, and he is nothing. She wishes he would just die already, with his optimism and his placating, and at the same time she feels he is more than she deserves. She longs to feel those feelings, she yearns to believe that everything will be as wonderful as he seems to believe. She drops the soiled kleenex to the floor and pushes him away.

"How can you sit there and pretend like you understand?" She asks through clenched teeth. "You have not felt loss, you have not suffered like I have suffered." She feels like a martyr, and comes close to biting her tongue but the words roll like water through a floodgate and she finds she cannot hold them back. "You can sit there and you can pretend like the worst is over, and happiness and rainbows await us on the other side of this damned bridge but I know what comes next. Hardship, pain, grief, loneliness, darkness. I will walk alone into the night. For you cannot take this journey with me."

He recoils as if he'd been slapped. Seeing the pained look in his eyes makes her wish she could take it all back, but even if she could it wouldn't feel right.



No idea where this came from.. I sat down to write something "happy" and this flowed out onto the screen. I guess sometimes certain stories want to be written.
As an aside this is not a true story. It's based on a feeling. That feeling you get when someone just doesn't understand, and all good intentions aside you can't help but get frustrated with them.