Fourth birthday.

Happy 4th birthday, sweetie. You would be such a big girl now!

I'm a day late in posting to the blog this year, since life's getting more hectic with a two-year-old in tow. We've driven down from Madrid to Andalucía to spend the holidays in a house in the countryside surrounded by orange trees, lavender, and artichokes. This year Mila's candle, instead of being a quiet zone, is surrounded by toddler chatter and toy cars. Isla is growing into a girl who is sweet, funny, empathetic, and button-pushing all at once. She seems so grown-up to me at two, chatting and flirting and sassing me in both English and Spanish; but I wonder sometimes how different our dynamic would be if Mila were here to be the big girl of the family. Maybe Isla would still seem to me like a baby in comparison. Maybe I'd coddle her more, and maybe she'd lean on her more experienced big sister. Maybe Isla would not be Isla. Maybe we would not have undertaken our Spanish adventure. I'll never know for sure.

Down the path our lives have actually taken, Isla will be the big sister of the family, because we're expecting her baby brother in April. We're firmly in alternate-universe territory now, because this third pregnancy is the one I would not have planned to have if Mila had survived. I'm happy that he and the pregnancy look healthy and normal so far, but it does feel a bit strange to me. I'm definitely feeling the wear and tear more this time. I'm five years older and despite lugging around a 25-pound kid every day, I wasn't nearly as fit when I started this pregnancy as when I got pregnant with Mila. My body's getting creakier and more fatigued by the week. I've had more than my fill of pregnancy and I'm looking forward to hopefully being finished with it for good. 

I also (based on no logic whatsoever, but nevertheless) never expected to have a boy, always having felt like more of a girl mom, especially after having had both Mila and Isla. But here we are! We'll give away our old pink onesies, stock up on more boy-friendly ones, and figure it out.

Their roads diverged.

It's a strange new world; the lights are bright and, like Isla, I'm still adjusting my eyes.

It was so surreal to leave the hospital in the opposite direction, outgoing, with the Nut in my arms. I'd gotten so accustomed to being incoming, arriving at triage full of fear, the hospital a place of anxiety, mystery, and ultimately reassurance, but never of joy. A nurse wheeled me out, retracing the same path we had taken in three days earlier, but everything looked different and unrecognizable to me. We emerged into the bright sunlight and drove home through SF streets that looked distantly familiar. I felt like I had been gone on a long, long trip.

I marvel at Isla's perfect face and find it unbelievable that something so sweet was inside me just days ago. I think of my pregnancy with her, until now the only part of motherhood that I knew, and it now feels unreal. The daily walks with Schmorgy to the park, the countless doctor's appointments, the weekly and then daily antenatal testing, the panicked trips to triage, the twice-daily kick counts, the big belly that I protected but was too afraid to think much about even as it grew and grew and became a casual topic of conversation for the outside world. That whole time, I was walking around with this little girl growing inside me. Now she is out and shared with the rest of the world, no longer just mine. I felt her hiccup on the inside, and now all can see her hiccup on the outside. People buy her soothing baby toys that play simulated heartbeat sounds and I think, that's my heartbeat they're trying to replicate for her. The practice breaths I watched her draw via ultrasound on the inside, her diaphragm moving up and down, I now hear as sweet, tiny heaves as she lies on my chest. The regular, liquidy thuds of her heartbeat that I listened to on countless fetal monitors now happen outside of my body, beyond my hearing.

I wish I could have enjoyed that time more, the time when she belonged wholly to me.

The first night in the hospital after she was born, I held her to my chest as she slept, her head nestled just under the right side of my chin. The room was dark and quiet, and D was asleep on the couch. I realized I was holding Isla much the same way I'd held Mila on her first and only night, and I cried.

Mila and Isla don't look entirely alike, but they share many features. Their hair, eyelashes, and little lips. Even their birth weights were the same. For the first couple of days, Isla's every gesture and grimace reminded me anew and in vivid detail what was lost for Mila. I'm so happy for what we have, but it still hurts to think of what my first sweet girl was denied. It's not fair.

On my left forearm there is a scab from my IV from Isla's delivery and, just inches from that, a faint white dot, the scar from my IV from Mila's.

In our living room, the remainder of Mila's one-year yahrzeit candle sits on the same shelf as a photo of Isla at one day old. They're both flanked by plush llamas from our Chile/Argentina trip for Mila's first birthday, during which Isla was most likely conceived.

It's still confusing to me, how things were so much alike and yet so different. Their roads diverged.

Labor Day.

Happy Labor Day! And appropriately enough, happy induction day to me. D and I will be heading off to the hospital for a 10AM appointment. I'm scared and anxious but cautiously excited, and I keep checking on the Nut to make sure she's still there. It's a surreal feeling, having something as momentous and normally unpredictable as a birth scheduled like this. Amidst all the packing, fridge cleanout, dogsitter planning, and well wishes, it almost feels like we're preparing to get on a flight. We're even going to take an Uber to the "airport."

Everybody gird your loins. You too, Schmorgy.

Where is u going? Wut is a baby? Is like hooman puppie?

Minor observations.

Obviously, this pregnancy is different from my first one in a lot of important ways, but in some minor ways too.

Skin.  My skin is fine but not particularly glowy and perfect.  At thirty-five and a half weeks last time, it was so great that I'd regularly leave the house ecstatically without a lick of makeup.  This time, not so much; but happily, I've again made it this far without stretch marks.

Swelling.  I have only minor swelling, and as a result no carpal tunnel, in my hands at this point.  My rings still slide on and off without unusual effort.  Towards the end of my first pregnancy, I had trouble making a fist and I'd stopped wearing my rings.

Aches.  I have a lot more achiness this time, leading to full-on pregnancy waddle.  I don't remember if I waddled last time, but if I did, I certainly wasn't conscious of it.

So weird how different even the little things can be.  Reminder to self: this is a different pregnancy.

On the calendar.

I'm officially on the calendar at UCSF L&D for an induction on Monday, September 7th, 10AM. I will be exactly 37 weeks along.

Omfgomfgomfgomfgomfgomfg!!!1!!!!

It was as simple as Dr. R making a one-minute phone call at my appointment last week, as D and I traded bug-eyed astonished glances at each other behind her turned back.

As if spurred on by this development, the next day I started having contractions that were mild but uncomfortable and so frequent that I went in to be seen. As I lay there hooked up to the monitor, I wondered ruefully if I'd be admitted, caught unawares in the hospital for a chaotic delivery for the second time, after all these months of quiet, clenched-fist waiting and planning. I wound up being watched in L&D for eight hours before the contractions started to subside and the doctors sent me home with instructions to avoid exerting myself and to stay hydrated.

My number one hope is to come out of this healthy and with a healthy baby, and my second desperate hope is for all this to just -- go -- according to plan, this time. I would dearly love to just be able to pack and prepare at my leisure, drop off my dog with his sitter as discussed, show up calmly at the hospital at the appointed time with a bag carefully packed with all my toiletries and comforts, and be monitored by medical staff from minute one of my fast, smooth, and relatively pain-free labor. No surprises. Please.

Getting close.

Here I am, 34 weeks in, and despite all my superstitious feelings I can't help but nest. It's biological! I am possessed -- some ancient lizard brain switch flipped, and now all I can see are the little things around the house that need to be addressed. Not even all baby-related things, either. Burnt-out lightbulbs. A wobbly chair. Inefficient use of storage space. On my way to do one task, I'll get distracted by another, and an hour later the closet is super-clean and I've forgotten what my original task was.

We're now probably three or four weeks away from an induction date. I'm hopeful but I still don't totally believe. I've allowed myself to buy some things for the Nut and my post-partum self, telling myself that regardless of what happens, my body's going to have to go through the process of recovering after delivering a baby, and what's a few more unused onesies in a drawer already full of them for the last almost two years? What a morbid defense mechanism; I wish I could enjoy this more.

The Nut is doing well so far. I can feel a butt, spine, arms and legs, hands and feet stretching out in there. She is putting on fat quickly and weighs, I believe, about five pounds at this point. I feel much more pregnant than I did even five weeks ago -- t-shirts don't fit quite as well as they used to, my joints don't feel totally stable, and things ache in weird ways. My body doesn't feel like my own, and it's hard for me to discern its limits. D and I are ready for this part to be finished. We'd like to welcome her home and get on with our lives as a threesome, plus dog.

I lie.

I knew from the outset that I would get people asking me if this is my first child.  I had a plan.  I decided if I thought I'd see the person on a regular basis, and they asked directly, I would tell the truth.  And if they were just a random stranger I'd never see again, I'd save myself the grief and just lie.

But now that I'm big enough that anyone can plainly see I'm pregnant, I'm finding that it's always the random strangers who ask.  They're the ones who don't know any better and are just looking to make innocuous small talk.  Sometimes it feels like it happens every day.

So I lie, I lie, I lie.

I don't like it, and I wish people wouldn't ask, but I don't know how else to manage it.  I don't have the strength now to be pregnant and educate the general populace about babyloss, but every time I slap on a smile and tell the pretty lie, I can't help but feel badly that I've just passed the dilemma on to some other unsuspecting bereaved mom.

29 weeks.

My belly has been getting big for a while now, but in the last week or so the Nut herself has started to feel big.  Really big -- all elbows and knees and limbs pressing outward just a little too hard for comfort.  I can feel her all curled up in there, pressing against the muscle walls of her little bubble; shifting positions, extending a leg, and occasionally giving a little jump.  It feels real and unreal.

The last nine weeks have gone by exceedingly slowly, but here I am -- I'm 29 weeks today, and into the third trimester.  Although I know there are no guarantees, that means that if things go according to plan, I'm no more than 10 weeks away from delivering her.  It seems like no time at all and an endless stretch of days.

I've been stuck in emotional standby for too long.  It's a survival mechanism to get through the weeks and weeks of this pregnancy, but it's put me in a bit of a daze.  I'm having trouble figuring out how to prepare, both logistically (is it too early to start making plans for family to come to SF, to buy the newborn-sized clothes I didn't buy for Mila, to find a pediatrician?) and emotionally.  I can't fathom what it might be like to go to the hospital and suddenly have a real live baby to take home; I'm just trudging through these days with blinders on and a vague sense that when that day finally (and hopefully, hopefully) comes, I won't know what hit me.

Wondering.

Can the Nut hear the doggy snores just outside of her bubble?

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.

Don't.

Are you my doctor? No?

Then don't tell me what I should or shouldn't eat.

Don't tell me that I shouldn't sit where I want to sit.

Don't tell me that I should prioritize a healthy pregnancy over activity x.

Don't tell me to avoid air travel.

Don't tell me how I should train my dog.

Don't tell me that I shouldn't lift that.

Don't tell me what I will or won't be able to handle after the delivery.

Just don't.

When I lost Mila, I wasn't skiing or lifting heavy objects or eating cold cuts or flying on a plane. I was sitting quietly on the couch in my own home watching TV. I followed all the rules. None of those things would have changed the outcome of my pregnancy with Mila. Don't put the onus of that on me.

Change.

The switch flipped.  I'm pregnant again -- 16 weeks and 2 days today, which gives me a due date in September.

We'd just come back from Argentina when we found out.  I was late, but I'd been late before.  I went about my life for four days in a mild state of denial, not wanting to test and see that single line again.  After ten months I'd started to become resigned and begun to think, why would this time be any different?  Then suddenly, inexplicably, it was.

I'm really happy about it, of course.  I remember lying with my eyes closed shortly after we found out, marveling about it.  I think about Mila now as being part of the fabric of the universe, and in the same way I thought about this new baby as another wisp of that infinity that has taken up temporary residence in me; slowly growing, adding matter, and waking up into a tiny embodied part of the everything that there is.

But it also took me a while to digest this.  I'd gone a full year being not-pregnant.  I had, after a time, returned to feeling like my body was my own -- strong, predictable, mine to do what I wanted with.  Pregnancy this time, without the novelty or blind optimism of last time, just feels like watching my body slowly going haywire.  I feel frustrated when it's physically harder for me to do things that I did easily four months ago, and when my clothes don't fit right, and when all I want is carbs.  My body doesn't feel like the same one that walked the W, although I still have a pair of fucked-up pinky toenails to prove it.

So it is taking a little mental rearrangement.  I'd really like for September to arrive and to be finished with the pregnancy, but I'm not as scared or anxious as I thought I would be, at least not yet.  It helps that D and I adopted a rescue dog last month, who is the best pup we could ask for.  All we do is give him a home and something to eat; and in return he gives us endless smiles and butt wiggles and fun and lightness.  It's the best therapy I can imagine.

He sleeps in a little dog bed in our bedroom.  At night I listen to D breathing in his sleep to my right, the pup breathing in his sleep to my left, and sometimes I feel what might be the slightest little bounce from baby Peanut; and I feel comforted amidst my pack.  It's finally growing again.

Trying again.

People tell me they can’t imagine what it would be like to lose their babies.  “I’m so sorry, I just can’t imagine.”

Well, before, I couldn’t imagine it either.  And I didn’t think I needed to.  In my prenatal reading, I briefly came across a single article about stillbirth, the story of a woman who discovered her baby was dead in the womb and was then faced with the unimaginable task of birthing her dead child.  I glossed over the article.  A horrible story, but filed squarely under Not Applicable.

That was in the Before.

From where I stand now, I actually have trouble imagining having a living child.  Despite all evidence to the contrary, I have trouble believing that pregnancies don’t all end in disaster.  I am surprised when other people have perfectly healthy babies, so easily, like it’s nothing.  I see pictures of pregnant friends and acquaintances nearing their due dates and I think, oh god, it’s going to be so horrible when the baby dies.  But then a few weeks pass and their belly photos promptly, magically, turn into photos of beautiful, healthy babies.  How do they do it?

It’s hard to have faith in the statistics once you’ve been the 1 in 160.  Once you’ve been the 1 in 160, the statistics all become meaningless.  1% might as well be 100% for all the good it does you.

But, but.  Some part of us must still believe, because we aren't giving up.  There are two types of newly bereaved mothers.  Those who can't even think of getting pregnant again anytime soon, and those who can't get pregnant again soon enough.  I fall into the second category.  I wanted to be pregnant again as soon as I got home from the hospital.  I knew even then that it was just a way of missing Mila - for nine months, even when I was alone, I wasn't really alone; and I couldn’t stand the sudden, total emptiness.  I know the next child will not be her.  We will not get her back.  But we still want a family, so at least we can work towards that.

The next pregnancy will be hard.  We will be so happy, but also so terrified, for nine long months.  And I can’t help but feel frustrated that we are in this place.  We’re not even back at square one - we are at a place worse than square one.  A year ago, my body was in its best shape ever and our hearts were untouched.  Now I worry that I am, maybe, a little depleted.  I worry that I still haven’t lost the last twelve pounds.  And I worry about how I am possibly going to love another baby as much as Mila.  She occupies so much room in my heart; it scares me to think that I might not have enough for the next baby.

But I think back on my pregnancy with Mila, and I realize that even as she made my belly and butt bigger, she did the same for my heart.  As she grew, my heart grew to accommodate her.  To pump more blood, more nutrients; to give more love.  So I trust that that will happen again.

So, fuck it.  This is clearly kind of a crapshoot.  And I choose to believe that things will work out.