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Apologies for the long break in blogging.  I have just recently surfaced from a few very full months.  Some of it good: Hub and I took an AWESOME trip to Yellowstone, just the two of us!  Some of it really very hard: Laurel's 1st birthday (or as they say about the interwebz, her angel day.)  My health hasn't been great, widespread political misogyny is getting me down, and my entire schedule has been rearranged with far fewer moments to myself, so blogging (and writing and introspection in general) took a major hit. 

The all-consuming reason for my ill health and heightened sensitivity is this: I am pregnant.  Pregnant on purpose.  It's a very confusing way to be after a loss like mine.  Everyone who knows is very excited for me and for my family.  My team of specialists check in monthly.  They have the utmost confidence in this baby's brain.  I am still terrified.  I've been here before.  It's hard to put faith in imaging technology and in doctors when they've let me down so completely in the past. 

I want to ignore this entire process until, one day, I pop out a living, breathing baby.

But that ignoring is not to be.  Just yesterday, shooting the breeze across our chain-link fence, my delightfully quirky old neighbor asked me, "What's new?"  And when I told him a whole bunch of things that had nothing to do with any baby, he said, "You're getting fat, girl... what about that?"   (No need to hate on him, it was funny.)  There's no hiding it at 20 weeks in a heat wave.  I'm well-popped.

There is a woman in my infant loss support group who had ten miscarriages in a row between her two living children.  Ten.  By the time her twelfth pregnancy came along, she was here, too, trying to ignore it.  She lived her life as though nothing out of the ordinary was happening.  She didn't tell anyone but her husband and doctors about her pregnancy, and when she got huge, and people commented on her belly, she'd tell them she had taken up heavy drinking and was growing a beer gut.  She stuck to this story for nine months, until she held her healthy rainbow baby. 

I know at least two women personally who did not realize they were pregnant until 5 months into their pregnancies.  I wouldn't believe it if I hadn't discussed with them myself.  But it's true.  I am envious. Pregnant, my body is completely hijacked.  Morning sickness has now mercifully passed, but there's always the heat stroke, and the sacroiliac inflammation, and the mood swings, and the sheer and utter exhaustion.  There's no denying it.  Someone else has taken over my body.

At my first midwife appointment (which I put off until 18 weeks), she asked me if I was feeling any kicking.  "Oh, probably, but I like to ignore it or pretend it's gas..." seemed a little too honest.

Apologies if my negativity is obnoxious.  I want this baby.  It is a blessing to be in this uncomfortable position -- at least I'm not dealing with infertility on top of my loss.  I know that cultivating emotional detachment doesn't actually work.  And yet, I try it anyway.

The most reassuring detail of this pregnancy hasn't come from the mouth of my very optimistic specialist.  It has come from my body itself.  This is my sixth pregnancy.  The forth one that made it through the 1st trimester, and the forth pregnancy with symptoms and sickness.  This one feels like Elsie's pregnancy.  It isn't the violent, knee-buckling illness of the blighted ovum, and it isn't the persistent nausea or the weeks of fasting or the long-term malaise or the sleep apnea of Laurel's pregnancy.  It is the textbook morning sickness until the second trimester and general delicate disposition of Elsie's pregnancy. 

This baby is due on Elsie's birthday.  That is the best omen I could have asked for.