Someone different.

I'm at 22 weeks -- a full five months pregnant -- as of this past Monday. Things are starting to feel less abstract now that I'm showing and that we know that the Nut's a girl. It also helps that her kicks and punches are getting stronger, sometimes vigorous enough that I can see my belly jump a little.

I remember Mila's movements at this time. She'd swish around after I'd eaten and press against the seatbelt while I drove. D had just felt her move for the first time. The Nut is at least as vigorous in her movements, maybe even a little more decisive in her punches, but her patterns are different. I feel her the most when she kicks into the bed as I drift into or out of sleep in the mornings and evenings. There really is someone in there! And it's someone different.

It's been over two years since Mila was conceived, and sometimes I really feel that time. People have gotten pregnant, had first babies, had first and second babies, in that time. I have this book, Trying Again, that I bought almost a year and a half ago in (apparently overzealous) anticipation of a second pregnancy. I haven't even touched it since I got pregnant with the Nut. There was such a long pause between Mila's birth and the Nut's conception that a lot of the issues that the book addresses just don't feel relevant to me anymore. I've already had the chance to come to some sort of acceptance about Mila. I don't confuse the two babies, or half-wish that the Nut will be a "replacement" for her. I don't keep myself awake at night feeling terrified, for the most part.

If anything, I sometimes feel that I have to retread old ground to get myself back to the mental place where I was at the end of 2013, ready to transition from life with just me and D (and the pup) to life as a mom with a brand-new baby. That's been a surprise to me, but I guess it is of a piece with everything else. This is a different baby, a different pregnancy. She will have a different name and parents who have a different perspective. I will prepare a different nursery for her, and a different space in my head and heart for her. That space will be close to Mila's, but it'll be the Nut's own.

Little sister.

It's a little sister for Mila and Schmorgy. She's got all her bits, so far as can be determined via ultrasound at this point, and a normal cord insertion. D and I are happy and cautiously relieved. I'll let Schmorgy be the one to be unreservedly, no-holds-barred excited and optimistic. :)

Somebody asked me how it felt to have the anatomy scan done for the Nut (as we're calling her until she has a proper name). It was confusing -- scary and happy and sad all at once.

Scary because every pregnancy ultrasound I'll have for the rest of my life will be terrifying in the moments while the tech applies the gel and moves the wand, before the picture comes into focus and I can see movement and a heartbeat.

Happy because she proved to be alive and well -- unmistakably human with developed little hands, big feet like Mila's and D's, four pumping chambers in her heart, a spine with every vertebra clear on the screen, shapely quads and hamstrings wrapped around two strong femur bones, an umbilical cord and placenta that are wonderfully unremarkable. Because she moved vigorously, kicking and squirming and doing flips like her big sister did. And because she is a she, who will give me another shot at doing all the sweet little girl things that I didn't get to do with Mila.

Sad because still, still, Mila doesn't ever get to do those sweet little girl things, or play with the toys we bought her, or sleep in the crib that D put together for her. It feels like she was shortchanged. Some cell on some random, careless whim divided or implanted in some funky way that led some other cells down some narrow path, further and further, until they all turned into a velamentous cord insertion. Which everybody said would work out fine, until it didn't. And just as randomly, just as obliviously, the Nut's earliest cells went down some other path and gave her a normal one. The membrane separating the two paths feels so thin. Why, why, why? There is no reason why. Sometimes the universe is random. Atoms and molecules and cells move about in the dark.

Here is my strongest, dearest, sincerest wish that they all come together in just the right way for the Nut.

Schmorgy.

Towards the end of my pregnancy with Mila, D frequently (fake-) joked that we should get a dog to watch over us and keep us company at home while I was on maternity leave. I said that was a crazy idea and there was no way I was going to train a new dog and care for a new baby at the same time.

After we lost her, though, it felt so quiet and empty at home that I really, really wished that we'd gotten a dog -- a little creature to inject some life and lightness into the house. The idea hovered in the back of my mind all year until, sometime late last fall, the scales tipped and weight of All The Boring Practical Reasons Not To Get A Dog (who would watch and train him? how would we convince our landlord? what if we didn't have enough space? what would we do with him when we were traveling?) was surpassed by the weight of All The Reasons To Get A Dog (joy).

It took us a while to find the right dog and there was some heartbreak and PTSD along the way as we watched the first dog that we fell in love with get adopted by another family; but in February D found another one that he felt good about. He had been rescued by AHAN, an organization in SF that rescues and fosters stray dogs in Taiwan, and finds adoptive families for them in the US. There are lots of homeless dogs and puppies in Taipei, but they have a difficult time getting adopted at home and are often either euthanized at animal shelters or left to fend for themselves on the street.

His rescue name was Borg. The thing that sealed the deal for D, and then for me, was a video of him at his foster home in Taipei, stoically allowing two enthusiastic little girls to poke him, prod him, and pretend to eat his ears. A few weeks after we submitted our application for him, he arrived at SFO on March 3rd, scared and confused. Here he is meeting D for the first time in the international arrivals lobby.

We renamed him Schmorgy, short for Smorgasbord. He is about a year old, maybe a bit older, so D observed that it must have been not long after we lost Mila that the universe squirted out a little floppy-eared, golden-brown, bouncy puppy Schmorg. He was shy and hesitant for a little while when we first brought him home, but quickly settled in and let his true sweet, affectionate, silly self emerge.

First smile.

People-watching on Fillmore.

             

At Crissy Field Beach.

Giving D some encouragement.

His favorite things include:

• Holding hands.
• Playing chase with other dogs at the park.
• Digging holes and putting his face in them.
• Splashing in mud puddles and putting his face in them (sigh).
• Showing other dogs where the mud puddles are (double sigh).
• The beach.
• Chewing -- on rawhide, balls, squeaky toys, sticks, mulch...
• Cuddling on the couch with D.
• Sunbathing on the deck.
• Rummaging in his backyard dens (one in the way back, one under the flower bush, and one under the rosemary bush. When he's been in that one, he comes back into the house with his head smelling like rosemary).
• Baked pork buns.

I really feel a lot less anxiety about this pregnancy than I thought I would, at least so far, and while some of that is probably because of my own process, I give a lot of credit to the Schmorg. We're a lot less grumpy since he joined the family. He brings so much fun and innocence into our lives just by doing the simplest things -- smiling, sleeping, playing, and just wanting to be a part of whatever we are doing. He shadows us everywhere. To the kitchen, the bedroom, the backyard, the bathroom; wherever we go there is a little clatter of puppy fingernails against the floor, and when I turn around there is always a pair of upturned round brown eyes and a triangular black snout in a serious little brown face, hovering two feet off the floor looking up at me.