Alone in a hotel

Well, I guess I'm not ever really alone anymore, am I? I would still call what I'm feeling more like squiggles than anything else. And I guess I probably feel them each day, but still nothing that is unmistakable shouting, "I am here and I am for real! We are two!"

I have been trying to work toward some writing goals to reach before July, and in the midst of February (never my favorite month) and on the rebound from two weeks of being snowbound, I almost thought it was silly to come to this writing conference. I should just sit and write, I thought, not go to yet another thing to learn to be a better writer. ("Because you're not very good?" my son asked when I explained the reason for me taking off for a day and two nights. Guess I didn't explain that very well.)

And then I felt guilty that the other writing mamas coming with me wanted to stay a second night, which I just can't swing. But I am warming to the idea of a different locale for a non-conference writing getaway. I wouldn't mind paying two nights in a hotel if I knew I would be in the room a lot to write and could use a fitness center, walk to a decent restaurant or two, take a break to walk on a beach or just somewhere interesting.

That sounds lovely, and probably a good idea to make happen in the remaining 5.5 months I have with the baby on the inside.

Clothing expiration date

Tonight was it. The last night I'll be able to wear the t-shirt I always wear to host meetings of the non-profit group I run. Last month a perceptive friend could tell I was pregnant before I made the public announcement. But my belly wasn't fully announcing itself to just anyone.

Tonight was a different story. I've been out and showing since I went to a WAHM on January 25, but this regular shirt over a turtleneck was pushing it. A friend visiting a meeting for the first time -- the one who has been so gracious of a listener and sharer just a few months after a miscarriage -- announced, "Well, you're really sporting the belly bump!" I felt embarrassed.

I guess I still don't know what it means to be a proud pregnant lady. This time last time, I was giving a presentation to a scholastic journalism conference and wearing maternity sweaters that made it obvious. I remember looking at myself naked in the hotel mirror and thinking, "I am absolutely huge."

Monday I was up to 114 lbs. and today the same scale said almost 117. I haven't dragged out my files to check on anything and haven't even given the forms to the midwife to get her own copy of them. So who knows how my growth compares to last time. I just know that the feelings I'm having do not.

Chest check

The other night was going to put my son to bed and so took off my bra while I sat on the toilet in case I fell asleep and just wanted to go to bed in my sweatshirt. The sight of my nipples caught my dear boy's attention.

"Why are they red?" he asked? Purple might be more accurate, but I guess compared to the pale pink he's used to, they probably do look red. I said something about that just happens in pregnancy. The nipples get dark. He wanted a close-up inspection, to look at whatever is on the tip of my larger-than normal pointers. I agree, it looks kinda funky.

Having nursed for three years, I used to be used to my son looking at my breasts. This, though, was like a rediscovery, as though he'd returned to country he'd forgotten about to find a whole crop of new houses in what used to be an empty field. I put my shirt down. He lifted it up and then tried looking down the front of my shirt when I pushed his hand down.

I got off the toilet, washed my hands, and announced it was time for bed.

Getting back to work

Is this for real?

I just do not feel pregnant. This is too weird. All I want to do is eat food with a lot of flavor. That's it. My breasts are a little tender, a little fuller, with slightly darker nipples. My temp is up every morning. My organs have all moved up and my belly looks big at only 7 weeks. Occasionally when I stand up I can feel some pulling, some tightness. And I felt it a little while shoveling snow.

But seriously, that's it. No nausea. No smell sensitivity. No real fatigue to speak of that can't be explained by other factors. So weird.

On Thursday we will visit with family for the holidays. I expect to tell them then. Not because I have weird eating behaviors like I did the first time at this exact gestational age -- like when I ate an entire steak dinner and then had to order room service after leaving a wedding early. That time we told my father-in-law and brother-in-law that night before I left for the room, and everyone else the next morning.

This time I think it will be too visible. Even though it's winter, I think it won't take long for someone to notice. And, more than anything, we're in person, something that rarely happens. It would seem silly not to tell them now. It might seem silly that we'll arrive without having told them already.

I'm still not sure what we'll say or how we'll say it. I feel so damn casual about the whole thing. How will that sound?

Crying into my pillow

Last night I laid all my fears out there in bed with my husband. Fears about not feeling bonded to this embryo, not singing to it every morning like I did with my son, not even feeling pregnant or really believing it, being disappointed about the pregnancy making me miss BlogHer, worrying about having a successful homebirth without doing something unsafe for the baby. Even though I seriously think unnecessary c-sections are really shitty for babies, I have to believe that mine was necessary and I worry that I could beat the odds and have another short-cord or other funky issue.

I talked about wanting to honor the fact that my 4'11" grandmother had 6 babies at home without a problem as far as I know. That my 5'2" mother had five babies vaginally (not naturally, but vaginally). Lots of people do this. Can I get out of my own way? Do I have to go through a whole bunch of Birthing from Within therapy or hypotherapy, or can I just ride the denial wave, imagine my baby falling out of me like happened to a denial-promoting friend twice?

This and so much else.

I needed to cry.

He said the best thing he could have, that it was okay to have doubts. Right.

A night at home

As of yesterday, I had been home for five straight days with my sick son (tacked onto a weekend of being home a lot, too) and out for five straight nights -- three for work, one for meditation (part of my volunteer commitment) and one for my volunteer commitment, a meeting I organized.

The good news is that I think I have two wonderful women who are willing to share that volunteer responsibility and leadership title with me. I was starting to feel like if I could not get that, I would just let the whole thing fold since I refuse to carry on a resentful role when having a second child. Or even if I end up dealing with a loss. I need help. I think they will offer it such that I don't have to throw in the towel on something I care about or let it further get to me. I don't want to be grumbling about this thing I love pissing me off while I have a new baby or am dealing with a miscarriage.

But, assuming the pregnancy goes forward, I still worry about being able to cobble out a postpartum existence that fits my values of attachment parenting at the same time that it provides boundaries other parts of me need.

Today my husband stayed home with a tummy bug, which was in some ways helpful and a relief, but it also was the first of several days of all three of us (with lots of snow predicted) and a boy who isn't really well enough to go to any holiday doings anyway, it doesn't seem.

The thing I want and need is time by myself. I cannot write an article if the little boy could burst in at any moment or his dad might just start playing the piano. It's fabulous that I now have a room of my own, but sometimes I wish it came with a beam that would transport me to a remote location where I could not be touched.

So if I feel like this now, without a mouth attached to my breast... Can I get it together by August?