Into the sunset

You know, it's to be expected. All new mothers are stressed and tired. The majority of career women are busy and anxious. A lot of pregnant women feel shitty and emotional. And every last pregnant infertile is scared to the bone that something will go wrong. It’s all par for the course, and this is a course I most certainly chose for myself. I hear myself whinging about the nausea or the overwhelm or the exhaustion or the random scary cramp and I just don’t want to be around me. I want a break from me.

In that vein, I think it’s time for a hiatus here at the Dead Bug Blog. I hope to come back some day soon with a fresh perspective and something more than two-paragraph sad-sack posts.

The truth is, we are well. I have everything I could ask for, except infinite time. Olivia is something beyond wonderful—she’s winsome and bright, full of life and interest and sweetness. She has started hugging me, even if only after she started hugging her favorite stuffed animals. Her ill-coordinated walking is a delight, her nimble hands becoming so expert at so many things. Her eyes, these pale blue lamps that shine right into me, continue to take me by surprise.

And then there is this other little being, this textbook pregnancy, this extraordinary gift. He looks as he should, his NT measurements just right, with a beautiful heart and centimeter-long feet complete with minuscule, moving toes. Those too-short minutes in the perinatal center, with their detailed images and descriptive tech, have made him much more real than a month of morning sickness could have done. I believe in him now.

Jeff and I are finding a few minutes for each other, holding hands, talking about unimportant things and letting out our breath each night before bed. I missed it so much and didn’t really know it. He continues to awe me as a father—more often than not, the primary caregiver—as he puts Olivia’s needs before all else, with my pregnant self not far behind. He has always been generous and self-sacrificing, but I never knew he could extend himself this far. I feel so indebted to him, so grateful and so very much in love.

I’ve spent too long focusing on the things that make life difficult: it’s time to pay attention to everything that is right. So I will head off into a seventy-degree evening, the hills covered in Irish-green grass and studded with daffodils, and admire what’s left of the sunset as I drive the hour home. There is no “other side” to strive for, no world with a perfect house and plenty of sleep, a healthy dad and a job that makes me happy all the time. The grass really is as green as it’s going to get, right here, right now.

More of a Drunken Stagger

That "walking" Olivia was purported by the optimistic ladies at daycare to be doing does not, to my mind, qualify. But it sure is charming. I mean, there's nothing quite as heartwarming as an eleven-month-old who thinks she can walk, but actually resembles Nicolas Cage in the after-bar scene in Valley Girl: directionless, uncontrolled, shitfaced staggering. At least she does it with a delighted screech instead of a puke.

More...well, more someday. Our current level of overwhelm is reaching new heights and/or depths, what with the commuting, working, househunting, parenting, elder-caring, morning sickness and it being tax time. (Our taxes are, let's see, complex would be a laughable understatement. Self-employed husband, home office, stock options, new dependent, etc., etc., etc. And to further exacerbate our tax-time woes, we're also official employers of one fantastic part-time Tanzanian nanny, whose legal right to work in the US was finally printed on government paper this January 1st but whose payrolling began, erm, somewhat before then.

If it's Thursday, this must be Hell

No time. No time. No time.

There is an Etna-like explosion of work. I will be entombed in it if I don't claw out an airhole soon.

All is still well with the pregnancy. I am still wretched, and reassured.

Olivia started walking today. I have yet to see it.

Buuuuuugh.