I can't whistle: 42

11 February 2009

42

I had a dream last night that Angela of fluid pudding fame gave birth to a child somehow magically conceived by my partner and myself even though there was no way that particular child could have been a mix of us-- and I spent a good portion of the night being acutely envious of her pregnancy and birthing experience, and watching her hold the little one. Then finally, I was holding him while he slept, and it was amazing to feel the softness of his skin, and I kept rubbing my cheek against his head, feeling a big intense mixture of amazement, fear since I had no idea what to do with this tiny magnificent being, and such acute sorrow.

I woke with the ghost of a memory of his hair against my skin, and a deep sense of awe.

I am 42 today.

9 comments:

Grade A said...: I can only see this as a good omen. A baby will get to your hands, even if you don't know how right now.

Hope the pill is treating you gently.; February 11, 2009 at 2:23 PM
Joannah said...: Happy birthday! I hope this will be the year in which all your dreams come true.

:-); February 11, 2009 at 6:05 PM
Anonymous said...: happy birthday!; February 11, 2009 at 7:46 PM
Ashley said...: Happy Birthday!!; February 11, 2009 at 9:49 PM
bb said...: Happy Birthday! and wow what a dream. I hope it is a good sign for things to come for you.; February 11, 2009 at 10:19 PM
April said...: Hi. I had a creepy interaction today and needed to change blogs. Transitioning to a new site that I don't want to publish on my blog: http://strongblonde.wordpress.com/

:); February 11, 2009 at 10:22 PM
Elle said...: Happy Birthday!

Mine's tomorrow. :)

And my birthday wish for you is for you to be holding a baby when you turn 43.; February 11, 2009 at 10:24 PM
Maredsous said...: Kate! Happy Birthday. How did you let it sneak up without any mention.

Have faith. You will be able to experience that deep sense of awe. Persistence always wins out.; February 11, 2009 at 11:26 PM
What IF? said...: Happy belated birthday, Kate. I hope you were able to do something on your birthday that feeds your soul. Re: your plan - 19 days may not seem like a lot of time to others, but I know that every day spent waiting sucks profoundly. Hang in there.

Thank you for the lovely message you left on my blog.; February 12, 2009 at 10:08 PM

About this blog

I started this blog during struggles with infertility--struggles that resulted in countless IUIs, medications, procedures, 5 attempted IVF cycles, 2 pregnancies, one heartbreaking loss, and one miracle baby.

Parenthood left me feeling like I was not sure what to do here, with this amazing community. To talk about parenting felt boastful for those still and forever struggling. To not talk about it felt disingenuous. So here I am. I want to talk about my real life. Parenting. Midlife reassessment. Flailing. Finding myself. Mucking about.

So yes, I am a midlife parent of an amazing child.
Yes, I battled infertility and will be forever changed by every single moment of that journey.
I am imperfect and life is messy, but it is also so beautiful.

Among many other things, I hope to reconnect to myself through writing here. And I hope to connect with you too. Others out there, parenting maybe later in life. Maybe after struggling. Maybe struggling still. We can all use a safe place and a lot of compassion. That's what I am offering to you. I hope you'll stick around.

inside out

"The key is, starting from the inside out. Often you say, “I don’t know what to do.” True, you don’t know what to do. There are infinite possibilities. And a bunch of them haven’t worked for you. A lot of them have been tried, and they haven’t worked under what you think are the same conditions. And so, you sort of pace around, you don’t know what to do. Sometimes you don’t even know what you want to have. But you always, you always, if you will stop and think about it, you ALWAYS know how you want to feel."

--Abraham