Menopause and Infertility

So hey there loves.
Yesterday was menopause day, aka CD 366. One full year with no period.

The past year has been filled with chin pimples and fading hair, skin that is thinning everywhere, showing the impact of gravity and estrogen loss.

As someone who lived, it seemed, cycle to cycle for so many years.  A late cycle would bring hope then torment and sadness. The year before last was a year of long periods, of wondering more than once if maybe, just maybe........ but then a panic would set it, what if? and what if I had a loss? And I think that might have happened but I did not check with sticks or temping... just waited things out.

Once, my first long cycle, I was sure I was pregnant. And the mixture of emotions was profound.  Amazement.  Fury. Hope. Fear. and then, when the bleeding started, such immense loss.  And then, the next time, I mostly felt loss, that I was officially out of the zone of possibility, no way for a good outcome even if... and to feel my body changing, to see it changing.... well, some changes are easier than others.

So today marks perhaps the first day of not wondering.
A feeling of in between. No longer that.  Not yet wholly and fully this.

Maiden, mother, crone. and the middle one holy moly mo-cro.
I am both.

not a day goes by where I don't feel wonder, even if it is wonder and madness.

So here we are.  in the middle of the middle.

big love and gratitude

Time is a funny thing, isn't it? It goes too slowly or too quickly. And then suddenly it feels like I drop out of the maelstrom and months have passed.

There is no single day that passes when I don't think about this space. How it has held me, saved me, kept me from going insane. How you, the you that read back then, and those of you who stop by and say hello, the friends I have made, and the blogs I still visit from time to time to see if there is any new news... you are a family to me. A family that understands things that no one else really can, and I want to say thank you.

I am not going anywhere, just feeling very big gratitude right now.
For not having to go this alone.

THANK YOU
big love,
Kate

ISO

Hello loves! Looking-- seriously-- for an only child IVF girl of color -- preferably smart and spirited, to become a penpal with Della. Della is now 7, and would love to find someone to talk with who is like her in ways that her class mates are not.

Her class mates all are white.
They all have siblings or have siblings about to appear (literally, any moment).
And none that she knows of are IVF babies.

So-- anyone know anyone?  Let me know! An older girl is fine too. And "girl" does not need to mean girl parts. 

THANK YOU!!!!

hear ye hear ye

Della pooped on the potty.




there will be cake.

4 years ago (aka winning the lottery)

4 years ago tonight, I was at home, wondering what might be happening with the two little embryos that had been transferred that morning... I was feeling oddly happy. Optimistic even.
http://www.i-cant-whistle.blogspot.com/2010/02/happy.html

Right now, one of those two little cell clusters is sitting on Doug, saying Again, Daddy-- I am bringing the baby to the doctor for a shot, but not an ouchy shot, a gentle shot...you be the doctor.

A billion and a half shots later, here we are.
holy moly.
How amazing is that.

infermentality

yesterday, apparently, was pregnant lady day at the GYN

I was the only non-spouse or parent there without a burgeoning belly
a non stress test was sending the whoosh whoosh whoosh whoosh of a tiny determined heartbeat into the hallway
nurses were happily announcing, Another labor check! while handing off manilla folders bedecked with hot pink post-it notes

If I had been someone else
If I had been my earlier self
it would have been sheer unadulterated hell.

As it was, I felt like an imposter. I felt other. I felt--- I felt my infertility acutely... and felt, something like shame?

As I have said a bazillion times, I am holding the brass ring.
I know it, and revel in it, even in the midst of 2 and a half year old 2 and a half year olding....
And yet, even with the ring,
even with the best thing ever
I fear there will always be this otherness, this shame, this tentative outsiderness, this longing, this whatever-it-is. This infermentality.

Surfing the longing

So here I am, luckiest person in the world and I *STILL* twinge uncomfortably with news of someone's pregnancy. WTF? Can I just grow out of this please? Can I just be happy for me, for them, for all of us who are so lucky?

Oh yes, I wish it were different. I wish I were totally emotionally unhooked. I wish I knew that there is no conservation of fertility law, where someone's pregnancy means someone else will wait. I wish I knew with every certain fiber of my complex being that where I am is exactly where I want to be.

Months ago, Mel wrote one heck of a piece on traveling with her ghost child that left me teary and stunned.

I remember at the beginning of the whole IF journey doing some hard work with visualization, and imagining very clearly two children, two "spirit babies"-- a very spunky girl (boy howdy was that on target), and a very shy boy a few years younger who kept hiding behind my legs.

And I think sometimes, a usually very quiet part of me feels that he is missing... somehow, somehow... that somehow there is a piece of our family story that I imagined coming true. Othertimes, oftentimes this is not at all in my awareness; I am fine fine fine with no longing at all.

Believe me, we have our hands and hearts full.
We have the most amazing child in the whole universe.
We are blessed beyond measure, beyond imagining. I am not actually missing anything. I am full to overflowing. Logistically, financially, physically, energetically, it would be *so incredibly challenging* if we had more than one little one.

And yet, there is this whispery recurrent ghosty longing.

If we map this longing, I bet dollars to doughnuts it is a 28ish day cycle, landing smack dab on trigger day. I'm just sayin'.

So it comes and goes. Whispers and wanes.
Like grief I guess.  Yeah.  Just about exactly like grief.

push me pull you

Ok I'm going to do it. I am going to talk about my push me pull you relationship with the idea of weaning.

I don't want to do it.
I want to have it be done and over with and onward on the far side.
But I do not want to do it, I don't want to think about it, deal with it, experience it, strategize about it, fear it, mourn it.

There are parts of it I am still truly loving.
But there are parts that I am getting more tired about, fatigued by, and will not miss.

Della is showing no signs of slowing down in terms of her interest and desire to nurse.

But here I am thinking and thinking and feeling and feeling and I am just not comfortable with any way through this that I can envision except my dreamy expectation that it would just magically happen.

I imagined this: Baby led weaning.
Unicorns.
Rainbows.
Della would grow up and get more and more independent (CHECK), she would become more and more interested in other things (CHECK), she would eat more foods (half CHECK), and find other ways to connect with me (yes?) and that along with that, nursing would sort of quietly diminish in importance for both of us.
Gently.
Slowly.
Organically.

Ha.

I did not think I would have to *do* anything, expect respond to the natural turn of events.
And I did not want to mourn.

And, boy howdy, I still don't.

I know nothing that seems to ignite strong emotions and opinions as much as breastfeeding. The whole who/what/where/when/why of breastfeeding is about as sticky with intensity as any other topic I can think of. (pardon the dangling participle)
I am not trying to start a debate here.

I more just wanted to state my ambivalence because I know other folks out there might be feeling what I am and not quite know what to do either.
I just don't know how this will turn out. I just want it to be gentle. And I just don't want to be sad.

Della photos by Susan Mullen

It was *SO COLD* and yet, Susan still managed to make magic happen.
Want more?  Head over to Susan's blog.  Oh my my.

playground

Today I took Della to the playground. I generally don't. We go to the farm, where we interact with each other and the animals and the tractors, but not really other families, other parents, other moms.

Today, we went to the farm, and the day was just so glorious, 70 degrees, warm breeze, nearly intoxicating...I could not imagine going inside. So, on the way home, we stopped at the playground.

I do this thing-- I feel like I am the new kid at school, spend time looking at my shoes, or just at Della, in some self-protective-feeling tunnel vision.  Wider awareness comes with something like monstrous trepidation, like I am a big fat faker. Like I am the only one making it up moment by moment, an interloper, a charletan.... something negative and out of place and yet
and yet

I am there with my amazing daughter.
And people smile at her and at me.
And people say hello, and so do I.
My internal scars and scarlet letters do not show on the outside.

I said hello to a woman looking my age with a 2 year old, and a 3 month old.
To a woman much younger with four kids, all under 5, the youngest 6 months.

But I am guilty of so many things:
envy,
a temptation to assume genetic connection,
a temptation to assume easy fertility,
to assume ease...


Today I tried my best to just be me. Not totally self conscious interloperKate. Just Kate. With Della.
But I still heard some sort of apology in my voice when I noted Della's diaper needed changing, and the bag was in the car,
I heard some sort of awe when I said "wow, four kids, that's really something"
I felt some sort of "less than" in the way I held my body


But all in all it was a glorious day,
we came home with sand in our pockets and dirt on our knees
we ate popsicles and talked about our big big day

and the evening wrapped up with me, in a tangle of rookie mistakes, tripping myself up with dinner and dishes and daycare lunch preparation when really, I should have just gotten down on the floor with Della, but instead found myself creating a perfect storm of dropped rice and a too-small casserole dish and sticky stuff dumped under the burner, while Della put on her own boots, stomped through the kitchen kicking clods off the treads, and was ratcheting up Mommamommamomma, increasingly calling for my attention and me, saying one more minute one more minute one more minute with a lump forming fast in my throat
and Della ended up lying on the floor crying
when all I really wanted to do at that moment was exactly the same thing
and it got alright once the casserole was in the oven
and I gave up everything else

so, tonight I am rewinding the day, reveling in the great day that it was
because if me
in spite of me
along with me

which is really what this is all about I think
magnificence.
stuff burning on the stove
and rice on the floor.

Della at 2

crazy light, the transition from wanting to having

Mo's new miracle baby, and Della's upcoming 2 year birthday have had me really thinking hard again about the bizarre and oddly difficult transition from full-time IF struggle to parenting.

First, let me be clear:  "Difficult" does NOT mean bad.

Let me explain.
I got used to being in the midst of the struggle. Every day, every night, every waking moment. I got used to the ebb and flow of the process of cd1, baseline scan, follicle counts, cysts or stimulation drugs, ultrasounds, injections, prayers while watching those little voids tucked into clusters in the midst of my innards, praying for them to grow, not too fast! please, all at once, same pace, same size.  I got used to seeing a big one and worrying. Seeing too few and worrying. Living from ultrasound to ultrasound, blood work to blood work.  When when luck would have it, I even got used to egg retrieval. When luck would have it, waiting for counts. When luck would have it, fertilization reports. When luck would have it, transfer. Interminable 2 week waits. Progesterone. Pee sticks. Negatives. Failures.

I also got used to a life that revolved around early morning appointments, injections of refrigerated equivalent of liquid gold. Liquid hope.
I got used to the struggle.
I got used to the regimented and intensely private lifestyle of IF and IVFfing.
And on some level, I got used to the failure.

When I read of someone else's cycle resulting in a negative, or heartbreaking miscarriage, I never EVER think of them as having FAILED.  And yet, with every one of mine, I felt like it was me who was failing. I remember apologizing, as if I had made it not work.  I was the old one, afterall. I was the one who waited too long. I was the one whose body did not respond like so many other people's. I was the one whose ovaries kicked out tiny follicle counts, often just over the limit to stay on the IVF path. And it was my body, mine, that somehow could not get pregnant. I felt, somehow, that I was responsible.

I confess, I'm slightly shamed by my own hypocrisy. My own double standard. 

My first pregnancy, I was stunned. It was from a conversion from an IVF cycle to IUI, a lead follicle messing things up.  I had no hope of it working. Cried my way through the insemination.
And then, suddenly and miraculously pregnant.
And then, numbers of weeks later, belly already rounding and hard, just as suddenly, not.

As soon as I could, I was back in-- cycling however they would let us.
Cycling and failing. Cycling and failing.
Failing, in fact, enough, that our old clinic would not cycle with us any more.
With Della, it was our hail mary.
It was a new clinic.
It was going to be Our Last Cycle (or so I say, who knows what I would have done to try again, or again, or again).
New places to drive to.
New phlebotomists to get to know.
New ultrasound protocols.
New new new.
But at the heart of it, it was the same old dance of injections, blood work, ultrasounds, numbers...
The first pee stick read was negative.
That was familiar too.
Then, it was not the same old dance.
Hours and hours after I peed on that stick, the faintest of faint lines had emerged:I was pregnant.
Bucking all odds, moon shot, crazy lucky, statistically LOTTO-winning, lightning striking.

And now, I have this perfect little person in my life who calls me Momma.

I have not yet learned to trust this, the way I trusted that.
That process, IVFfing, was something I could not believe I was doing (over and over and over and over), but it became so familiar to me.
Me as Momma? Not so much.  Each day I wake amazed. I know I have said this, but I really mean it.
I wake and worry some day I will wake up and I will discover to my horror (but perhaps not to my surprise) that I have dreamed this whole thing. This is too good to be true (knock wood, salt over shoulder, run around under a ladder backwards carrying a black cat).

So, some part of me wants to write to Mo and say: hey sweet and lovely lady, for some of us, not all of us, the transition from TRYING (and failing and trying and failing and trying...) to HAVING is as surreal as if we woke up next to a unicorn.
Be gentle with yourself as you try to learn this new way of being.
The new way of NOT struggling.
This new way of holding something miraculous and precious and singular and magnificent, in the crazy light of the wee hours with no sleep and no desire to close your eyes, because you don't dare close them, just in case you wake up and find it was all a dream.
And don't be surprised if, two years down the line, you find yourself in the crazy light of the wee hours, with no where near enough sleep, staring at this miraculous and precious and singular and magnificent being, stretched out long across the bed,  and feeling you don't dare close your eyes, because you don't want to wake up and find it was all a dream.

shifts

The sudden onset of CM this past week, the kind you dream of when trying to conceive in your 40s, is making me feel, well, like shit actually.

I have not had a period since Della, except what I thought was one right after she was born (about 6 weeks after).  Somehow, indications that it might be imminent made me feel so incredibly sad, not PMS blue, but existential sad... a mark of leaving this particular part of my journey maybe, very reluctantly leaving her babyhood, the specter of re-entering hormonal wackitude....

My periods have always been painfully intense and troublesome and I have not missed them one bit. But more than that, I have not missed the hyper awareness of The Cycle and my focus on where I was in my cycle at any given time and what it could possibly mean for our attempts at family building. I have not missed that perpetual obsessive awareness, that compulsive and acute awareness. That particular way of marking time, especially the cliff-drop connection of time passing to mid-40s infertility, well,

yeah.

I have not missed it at all.

So.

I've also been having trouble with my guts again, after a long stretch of miraculous calm.
The Miraculous Calm came about after quitting gluten and dairy.  I have had so few episodes of IBS in the past 3 years I could count them on two hands. But lately, things have shifted so I have been having more and more trouble.

This has knocked me down more a few pegs too-- nothing has impacted my life in a more limiting way than IBS. No, not my introversion. Not my fear of public speaking. But my IBS. It sucks rocks.

Of course, the return of the mucous, and the return of the IBS may be related-- hormonal shifts cause all sorts of collateral shifts in other body systems and functions.

But I immediately cut my diet back down to the bare minimum. Anything I suspected as a trigger is gone for now (except my one cup of pretty dilute tea). So no chicken, no turmeric, no carageenan. None of my beloved Udi gluten free bread (it has traces of corn in it, a known trigger for me).

Yes, things are *calmer*, but I am hungry.  Hungry mostly to be able to stand down, and to once again believe and trust that I am back into a remissiony stage of this thing.


In a further attempt at rebalancing, I got myself to my beloved acupuncturist this week for the first time since Della emerged.

Taking action like that made me feel that I was doing something to make a difference, to take back control. The IBS blues shifted ever so slightly, and I seem to be tolerating my new digestive enzyme supplement well (always a surprise; I suck at supplements).

But the CM blues, those are in full complicated swing, and differently symbolic, hugely messed up and tangled with IF and my age and.... so those I need to learn to be compassionate about, even while I want to kneel on it and force it to shift via the sheer force of intellectual override.

I'm starting to suspect that intellectual override  = unicorns
I'm just sayin'.

some baby pictures and reflections

A year ago (how is this possible?), I was beginning the last-chance-no-really-this-time-I-mean-it IVF cycle that ended with Della. I drove the route to Waltham on thursday, bringing a friend to a Dr down that way... I waved as I passed the clinic, simply amazed at what a difference a year makes.

This year I find myself mired in gutwrenching workstress and transitions, when all I want is to just simply revel in this beautiful baby and this truly miraculous turn of events. I don't want to be struggling with anything, you know? It is just very hard to let go of such a big (enormous) piece of my life and source of identity.

Every chance I get, I take a deep breath, re-center, refocus, gather myself, look at this amazing person and KNOW where my priorities are. NO matter what else is happening right now, coming apart or in the midst of the messy act of creation, this is exactly where I want to be.

I might continue to be a bit sporadic here while some of my bedrock comes apart and I allow myself at last to truly create a life that supports my heartwork, so I wanted to leave you with some images to tide you over for a bit.

Yes, she really is this cute.

baby steps (mine)

Kate at 9 months pregnant noticed things the unpregnant or not-quite-as-pregnant kate did not notice:

In the parking lot of a mini mall, a well dressed, well put together (clean) woman saunters by with a newborn tied in a mai-tai (baby hawk) carrier, looking totally comfortable together. Kate misses seeing the mom tie the baby carrier on, but the baby is peaceful and asleep, so much so, that the mom shops slowly and deliberately in the second hand store...

In the grocery or target or wherever, it seems millions of parents are there WITH THEIR BABIES-- most in car seats, some (once sitting) in nifty little germ protecting nests of brightly colored cotton... nearly all are peaceful.

Coffee shop-- women with babies, sitting and talking, their babies asleep in carriers or on laps or nursing or in car seats. How is this possible?

All of which I am now considering to be evidence of some serious parenthood MYTHOLOGY on the hoof.

Well, in my real life, I have a baby that does not like to be put down, ever, for longer than a few minutes... I cannot soothe her like Doug does unless it involves one of my (borrowed and enhanced) body parts... In the carrier, I need to be in motion. HOW do people do this?

So, the other day, to celebrate 3 weeks, I took Della out in the car. Just the two of us. I live in a drive-to place, since we live sticks (I envy Sprogblogger's walk-to city life sometimes).... so I bundled Della into the car seat, wrestled the car seat into my sub-compact for the first time with an actual baby in it (I have an old Scion Xa that has 5 doors. 5 doors = forethought no kidding, I really thought about the baby seat issue even way back when, but shallow back seat is NOT amenable to giant Graco seat base or seat, which will only get bigger as she does...)

We drove for about 45 minutes, around the block. There was some crying but none of it was mine.

Then home safely.

Last week, Doug and Della and I took a ride that required that I nurse in the car in parking lots, twice. And I needed to learn to tie on the mai tai myself while sitting in the passenger seat (awkward but not at all awful). Doug did the turbo cold weather back seat diaper change. We did take his bigger car since mine will not allow a passenger any comfort when the baby seat is in the car.

There was some crying, but none of it mine.

Today I am hoping to do this:

I am hoping to have the umph to bundle Della into the car seat, wrestle the car seat into my car, drive downtown (15 minutes) and bring her into a coffee shop with me (in my arms or in a front carrier), order something (tea? I am currently off of soy, and therefore also off of my occasional soy chai lattes to see if I can help Della's stomach be calmer). Back into the car and back here.

Friday, I will do a solo trip that includes nursing in parking lots at least once, and at least one diaper change ... and this is after our Dr appointment where I will do something similar but with Doug as my wingman.

Incremental baby steps, out into the world. Learning learning learning. I am not sure how long (if ever) it will take to feel comfortable or remotely competent or capable. This seemingly simple stuff is really surprisingly hard.

Days pass where I literally do not step out of the house (which for me is nutty).

So today or tomorrow I hope to take a walk alone, even though it is long underwear cold with a biting wind. Start the incremental treks up my hill that I somehow equate with mental stability. I don't have clearance to exercise but I can walk. So I will walk uphill. Slowly. Until I realize I need to stop.

B--although we have walked, I have yet to hike with Della since she does not quite have the stamina (nor do I, I bet). And even in the front mai tai carrier, I am not sure how to dress her to be warm enough but not too warm since our bodies are against one another. Hats and hoods just fall into her eyes (her hair is like teflon), zipped up jackets end up biting her under her chin.

And thank you for the moby offer, but I think we're good. I am open to a cast off Ergo carrier though-- anyone? Pretty much dislike the Bjorn, but love its simplicity.

I am stuck by just how much feels foreign. How do I.....?

But somehow, we do. We all do.

We figure out how to stick needles in our bellies. Over and over and over.

We chart.

We temp.

We learn new languages.

We show up for weird invasive procedures. And then show up and do it again. And again.

We use GPSs to find our way to new clinics.

We get creative with finances and debt.

We somehow do foreign and crazy things each step of the way, don't we?

And we do it. We just do. Because it matters to us so much.

We figure out how.

So, if I can just get Over It, and realize (with my actual non intellectual self) that this not knowing is a life long thing, and expected, and totally ok, and all will be fine....

just try it, figure it out, if the baby cries, you can leave a 2o on the table and walk out.

If the baby cries you can leave a cart full of groceries.

If the baby cries you can turn around and go home, make another choice, change your mind, adapt to the situation.

OF COURSE THIS IS TRUE.

So I wonder why it is so hard to remember it?

It is because I have images of competent women mothering in the world and figured you either are or aren't and I fear I know what category I am in?

Thanks culture, I appreciate that.

Sort of a marthastewarting of the parenting process.

no poop just gold dust and (well arranged) flowers.

(It is not culture's fault really, it is mine for buying into it even a little, subconsciously, unconsciously, in spite of my advanced age and all that I know to be true- just enough to feel like I must be doing it wrong)

Isn't it interesting what mythologies we create for ourselves? What impossibilities we set out for ourselves to never be able to live up to? (dangling participles notwithstanding?)

So yes, finding my way. And yes, this is oddly about me. Della will be Della, she is not tied up in oughts and shoulds. Hope I can allow myself to move more and more toward her way of being, which is so blissfully unfettered and weighted down by expectations and assumptions. Her way of being is just that: BEING.

She may be my littlest teacher, but her voice is mighty.

11/9/2010 +1

Hello loves,

I am too tired to write much, but wanted to say how much I appreciate all of your notes and love.

Della is beautiful- with a complex forehead filled with expression, the strongest legs and arms, and just a miracle to me in every every way.

I promise to post the birth story sometime soon, but for now these photos from yesterday. My eyes are fine, red from sobbing with JOY and no small measure of relief that she was out and ok. Doug's too.

We go home on friday.

Happy birthday Sprogblogger and Alyssa!

EDD -12

One piece of fun of waiting in this countdown mode is wondering what (if anything) means what (if anything)--

Normal things are suddenly getting my attention a little differently-- a mad dash to the bathroom, gurgly upset belly.... does it mean...anything?

I feel golden retrievery- tip my head, look quizzical... wonder....

It is a total waste of time, I know I will know when I know, but it is irrepressible.

So today I am bundled up and drinking tea

computer here on the kitchen table

on the phone with workstuff since before 8

lunch planned with a dear friend if my belly allows (in every way)

cold today

perfectly still

only asters showing color in the front garden

the back clearing is confettied with leaves, and most of our deciduous trees are nearly nekkid except those deeper in the woods. So in the thicket of deep green and vertical shadows there is YELLOW tucked in here and there, ash and some maples, an occasional birch...

Here there are no sirens, no delivery trucks, no hums of cars in the parking lot, no murmur of voices (except those in my head)...

I find myself eating more often, small bits, and my reflux is better for it.

I make tea all day long in an electric kettle that is remarkable in providing nearly immediate hot water gratification.

Yeah, I like working from home.

14 days/38 weeks

Holy moly folks, today is 38 weeks. 14 days left until the official due date... Doug and I were talking yesterday about how neither of us can quite believe I am even pregnant, so yeah... wow.

38 weeks.

Loads of pelvic pressure and cramps that come and go, cervix pinches that come in clusters, and long stretches of normal big kate feelings....

Last night we lay in bed and watched the baby move---it was being so crazy we called my sister in to join us-- nice family bonding with alienbaby.

Dropped baby is supposed to mean easier breathing, bigger appetite and less reflux. OH how I wish those were true. Breath a little deeper unless I am lying down, still feeling pretty full (!) so eating is a tradeoff between want and discomfort, and reflux, damn it, still the same.

I am just a little more swollen each morning, hands take longer to feel flexible, and today my sister says I look puffy for the first time. I usually shower right away when I get up and today I didn't and I bet that activity helps keep fluids moving. I also only peed twice last night in spite of drinking about a gallon yesterday afternoon. Who knows what is what, but I do know this, a year ago, in the throes of screwed up cycles and cysts, I never would have imagined myself here.

Never would have imagined it.

Autumn

The intense unrelenting cramping slowed sometime overnight, and is at least is back down to a more familiar level of discomfort. That really wore me out (I know, I know, I don't know anything)-- but I finally asked it to either step up and be real or let me sleep. I finally slept.

Today I am tired but ok, the weather is magnificent beyond description-- the bluest sky I've ever seen, dazzling sunlight, cold, delicious.

I hope to walk to the end of my road and back- but with

Doug, not without him. I am not feeling so brave as to walk that far alone.

I only know one thing: This baby will arrive before the end of the second week of November.

I am both SO CURIOUS and so not wanting to rush it. Unless I am crampy like that and then, well, yes, I am more ready in those moments of discomfort.

I used to go to the Putney School in Putney Vermont-- 2 years that saved me-- and today is their annual harvest festival. In the old days, back when I thought I could eat wheat- I would go nearly every year to eat cider doughnuts at the local apple orchard, eat apple pie and pumpkin pie at the vendor stalls, and wander in the crowd both hoping to see and hoping not to see anyone I knew. I would walk always to the top of watertower (a long sloping hillside pasture with a magnificent view of Mt. Monadnock), and sit with the cows there, away from people, and just soak up the beauty of vermont in Autumn. (The top image is from a few years back from about most of the way down watertower, the barn is the Putney School barn-- yes, a real working farm).

This year I dare not go for obvious reasons - so we've made a plan to go next year with the little one-- our first scheduled planned-for family outing (I know there will be a million in between)-- but it was a bizarre moment where I projected into the future and saw me, and a baby, out in the world.

IF is a funny thing (HA, not so much)-- it makes Everything feel uncertain. Life is uncertain, I know, but to be plagued with knowing that in every moment really sucks the fun out of so many things. IF makes it easier to see failure as a probable outcome than success, and it is really hard to leave that sticky pile of shit behind, even on the cusp of a birth of a baby that is inside me right now. I still feel as if I am being cocky if I think this will actually work out, hope I have not jinxed things, one quiet baby day and all hell breaks loose inside me-- what if I lose?

I miss optmisitiKate. The one who assumed that All Will Be Well. I will try to find her on my walk today, in the low grade cramping, in the movement of this miracle baby, in my waddling roundness, in the countdown to our due date, in our making plans for next year, in this moment and in the next and in the next. Mindful and deliberate returning over and over to some semblance of optimism, or at least neutrality.

I'll go outside and watch the leaves fall, and try to see beauty instead of loss.

The lesson I learn again and again and again from the turning of the seasons is of beauty and its many forms, and nearly none of them stagnant.

week 31

Me, today.

Holy big belly batman.

A nice long luscious weekend of sisterlove and she took this photo before we parted this morning.

Our second opinion on The Scary Thing is coming thursday morning. OH how I have enjoyed this break in the panic. The baby has been moving like crazy in spite of the tight quarters. So that has been wonderfully reassuring. I am hoping/expecting Dr. reassurance. I am cautiously optimistic.

Remember my hike? One evening, my sister and I walked down the road to the trail head, then up a few yards, then a few more.

Then the next day, we did it again with my nephew, this time going a few more yards, then a few more -- up to where I could imagine the birch across the path, the curve to where the trail runs along the first stone wall, up to where the woods open and the hill falls away.

Oh to smell the leaves and pines and dirt and the familiar feel of the trail. I imagine myself, baby strapped on, walking slowing up that hill. First to the rock. Then, maybe the next day, to the bent tree. Or where the cabin used to be. Or to the fallen birch.

I imagine it viscerally. There will be leaves down, and naked trees, and the smell of wood smoke, and there will be early dark...

I miss my own rhythms, my own self soothing, my ability to get out in it and MOVE.

I know that with this wonderful gift I am growing, I lose things. I lose autonomy. I lose the ability to maintain my level of self centeredness. I will lose nights of sleep (already beginning and I know I don't know anything yet). But I also know there are such unexpected gains. And some expected too-

simple things: to have to hike slowly, to pause to breathe, to have time while breathing to really look around and not just hike past and through, eye on the prize of heart rate, not tree bark.

In this slower pace, I am seeing things again. And I am grateful.