My positive outlook is failing me.

My friend T is in the hospital now having her baby boy. And I have been sobbing for hours.

Because I am ANGRY. T had an easy pregnancy. My friends from high school, who got pregnant the same time as me, are both having easy pregnancies. One of them updated her facebook status this morning about how she shoveled 2 feet of snow from her car. I can't even GO OUTSIDE.

Of course I want everything to turn out for the best with all my friends and all their children. But at the same time, I am angry at everyone in the world who had an easy pregnancy with a healthy outcome, because they get to enjoy their pregnancies. Because they seem to deserve that more than me.

I know things could be a lot worse for me and for little Anouk. But they could be a lot better, too. And I don't know why the hard way always falls to me to walk. JUST ONCE I would like to have things turn out ideally, to not have to worry so much or so hard.

Most of all I am angry at myself. Why do I have to be so faulty? Why can't my body do the right thing by my baby? Why can't I keep her safe?

I want to turn to God, but the truth is that right now I am angry at Him, too.

Let your heart be light.

Well, things very rarely go as planned. do they?

A week ago, I was running around getting ready for a busy holiday. Today I am back on bed rest--AGAIN. It appears that my cervix (like myself) is TOO SHORT and I have to try and take some pressure off of it. It doesn't help that baby Anne is sitting right on top of things, kicking merrily away.

So we're looking at a very different holiday this year. I won't be going to church. I won't be making cookies or visiting family. I'll be lying on my left side on the couch or in bed with a pillow under my rear.

"Christmas is CANCELED," said James, half-jokingly.

But I don't think it is, really. It's amazing how a situation like this makes you realize what the season is truly about. I don't care about presents or trappings. I have my husband and right now I have my baby and we are all safe and well. And hopefully, next year Anne will be here and at least this particular trouble will be out of sight.

Merry Christmas to all!

Holidays and book carnage

It's always such a sad thing to get rid of books, at least in my experience. You picture them the first time you held them, crisp-paged and pristine and clean-covered. Now that they are old and dog-eared and have given you all that they can give, it feels like an act of treason to get rid of them, like putting a beloved elderly relative out on an ice flow. I have a stack of books now, spread out over the office floor, like bodies fallen atop each other in the trenches. It's breaking my heart a little.

But when you have 850 square feet for two adults, three cats and one impending baby, then you do what you gotta to have a little more space.

It doesn't make it any easier but it does lead to some funny moments, though. Today James and I cavalierly decided to throw away an entire Hemingway oevre in paperback, but ended up keeping a joke of a self-help book called "You are Worthless" that we got at Spencer's a lifetime ago. One is available at the library, you see, but the other? Who knows if we will ever run into it again! I am also not proud to admit that I got rid of a very serviceable edition of SHAKESPEARE...so that I could keep half a dozen installments in Diana Gabaldon's Outlander series.

____________________

I am in grave danger of never updating about James's and my first-ever (and probably only ever) solo Thanksgiving holiday, so I'll tack it onto the end of this entry to make sure it gets covered. We spent Tuesday cooking our feast. Our menu? I'll write it out, all fancy-style, so that it looks most impressive:

Salad of mixed greens with balsamic vinaigrette
Curried pumpkin soup
Roasted red potatoes, red onions and butternut squash
Stuffing*
Turkey**
Chocolate pecan pie

*from a box, though we added red peppers and celery of our own
**Turkey, free-range, organic, heritage breed bought directly from farm that cost $45 for EIGHT POUNDS

We drove down to Luray, VA on Wednesday. Home of the scary Luray caverns that you are forced to visit as a child when you grow up in Virginia. Luray is located in the Blue Ridge mountains, right in the heart of the Shenandoah Valley. Our cabin was located atop the highest of these mountains. We drove up and up and up, around twisty switch-backed roads, and I was so carsick. I also, on the way, as the streetlights faded behind me and the 7-11s grew few and far between, realized how much being out in the middle of nowhere scares me. For better or for worse, and as much as I enjoy nature, I am a creature of the city. I'd rather see a rat with a big, fat scaly tail than a fox or a snake or whatever else lives in the woods. Ugh.

Speaking of woods creatures, on Wednesday night, I was relaxing in front of the cabin's HUGE plasma TV when James came in. "Did you get the bags?" I asked him.

"No, and I am loath to go back out there because of the FUCKING BEAR that's out there in the yard," he replied.

It seems funny now, but I have to admit at the time that I was quite upset. I ran around the cabin locking windows, as if the bear could get in that way.

We had a very low key time. We went out to eat Wednesday night at the town's fancy Artisan Grill. The next morning we went to a dingy little diner that I loved. Then we cooked our turkey, ate our dinner, and watched movies the rest of the day. We saw (OK) and The Men who Stare at Goats and (GREAT) I Capture the Castle, based on the Dodie Smith book of the same name. Friday morning we got up early and drove back home. The drive should have taken 2 hours but took 5 because I stopped at every antique store we passed.

So that was our holiday and it was so restful that I don't know how I am going to face next year's drama and sniping and running around like chickens with the heads cut off, but luckily it's a year away. Maybe my entire family and James's will get kidnapped by Colombian drug lords by then.

Here's to hoping!!

Every year, around the time of major holidays, my paternal side of the family exchanges the kind of newsy emails that you get in Christmas cards, just to keep everybody in the loop. These are usually initiated by my Aunt Judy, who is the youngest and most sentimental of my dad's siblings. She likes to keep us all talking together, because without her, we would probably not tend to keep in touch. Well, this year, in our post-Thanksgiving email, Judy had some very interesting news for us: she and Uncle Jon are moving. To Belize!

Here's how it happened, I gather from what she told us: Aunt Judy has been afraid for a while that she will lose her librarian job. She and Uncle Jon recently started their own screen-printing business. And Judy and Jon recently visited Belize and fell in love with it. I guess with all of this combined, and with their children, my cousins Dane and Brynn, getting older, they decided to just go for it and pursue this dream.

And I am so proud of them.

It probably sounds crazy to a lot of people, to pick up and move to your favorite vacation destination, to leave your teenaged, adult kids on their own in the States, as they have no interest in going with their parents. But every single one of us has a dream like this. Mine is to pick up and move somewhere not chosen by proximity to family but by a kinship with the place: Massachusetts, Olympia, New Orleans, Vancouver. James's is to tour the world with his band. The only difference is that most people think it's crazy to pursue this kind of dream, but Judy and Jon don't. I love them for that. They've given me hope that one day I might throw all my chips in and pursue my own dreams despite great odds.

My aunt Judy has long been an inspiration to me but has become even more of one since I found out I was going to be a mother. My own mother had a very rigid, very cold style of parenting. I was to do exactly as she said, to get her permission for everything I wore, ate, thought, or else risk her wrath. I have this vivid memory of dyeing my hair in 9th grade at my friend Alana's house, dyeing it literally one subtle, reddish shade from my natural hair color. My mother didn't even notice until days later, after I had confessed what I'd done in a fit of guilt. Then she mocked me, said my hair was purple, that I looked ridiculous. And she hadn't even noticed.

My relationship with my mother has always been one long struggle: my mother struggling to make me into the daughter she had always imagined having, me struggling to just be myself. My mother sees herself as having failed in her job as a parent because I never did turn into that girl she wanted me to be. It doesn't matter that I think I'm pretty damn awesome, that I am charitable and successful in what I do, that I try to be kind and caring, that I have friends and a husband that love me. She has failed, because I am not her. She resents me for being the person I actually am, and even 30 years into this experiment, hasn't quite given up hope that if she just squeezes hard enough, one day I'll start being the daughter she actually wanted. She really believes that I will be happier and a genuinely better person if, like her, I'd start wearing low-heeled Aigner pumps with every outfit and counting the Weight Watchers points in everything. No more punk rock! No more gumbo! No more fun!

No thanks. I'll pass.

Aunt Judy's relationship with her own daughter is so relaxed, easy, and affectionate, by comparison. My 17-year-old cousin Brynn dyes her hair another crazy color every week, and that's OK, because it doesn't actually hurt anybody and because Brynn wants to. Right now it's shaved on the sides, with dreadlocks in between. It might not be her best look, in my or even her mother's opinion, but it suits her, allows her to express herself, and makes her happy. Brynn also has a nose piercing that she gave herself a year or two ago. Aunt Judy was upset when she found out about it...because she was afraid Brynn could have injured herself not having it done by a professional. She didn't care that Brynn had chosen a way to express herself that she might not have chosen for her.

Aunt Judy has always listened to Brynn, treated her as a person, allowed her to choose her own path, supported the person she is rather than some idealized person Judy might want her daughter to be. And I hope to do the same thing with my daughter. I hope to nurture the person she is rather than steer her to become the person I want her to be. I hope to have the fortitude to guide her, without pushing. To let her raise herself, to a certain extent--at least to decide the course of her own life. I'll be there to help her find out what that is, and to support her in it. But I want her to be free to be herself, and if I didn't have Aunt Judy's shining example in my life, I might have never learned how to do that.

I don't talk to my aunt nearly enough, but next time I do, this is what I think I'll say: I love you. Thank you for being you. Thank you for letting Brynn be Brynn. And thank you for showing me how to be a mother, so that I don't have to be MY mother.

Another update.

Slowly but surely, I feel as though I am getting back in the swing of things.

My bedrest edict was lifted officially about a week ago. Unofficially, I am supposed to get horizontal whenever I feel winded, crampy, tired, or just plain not good. So I'm spending a lot of time on my back. Morning sickness continues--I can't seem to eat enough food to keep the nausea at bay. I've actually lost weight in this pregnancy, which marks the very first time ever that I was not fat enough. The only thing that is getting me through this is books and prayers, both of which I have gotten from kind friends. I am extremely grateful for all three.

I actually had to turn down a work project that I felt would be a good opportunity because overall, I thought it would put too much strain on me. It worried me to give up such a great opportunity; I have to keep reminding myself that an opportunity isn't actually that great if it comes at the wrong time, and this one did, for me. There will be other projects.

But I am starting to stop worrying and start to really love my baby. James and I found out there is an 85% chance she's a girl, and so we tentatively started calling her by the name we picked out, instead of Jawbone. But the more that we called her that name, and the more we looked at her little pouty face in the 3D ultrasound, we found that a particular nickname suited her better. It just feels more natural. I mean to do a first trimester write-up, because there is so much I want to remember about this pregnancy--my Tabasco cravings, my crying jags over children's literature, being SO HOT and sleeping with all the windows open on 40-degree nights, not wanting to "jinx" things, but not being able to stop from buying the baby books, spelling out VIVAT JAWBONE in word tiles on the coffee table and leaving them there for weeks, seeing a pair of perfectly formed feet frog-kicking across an ultrasound screen--the greatest moment in my life to date... But to be quite honest, the way things are going, I probably won't get around to expounding more on these things than I already have. It makes me sad to think that this time is already slipping away from me, but then I remember all the things I will be glad to miss. Reading in front of the toilet, sick sick sick, mood swings, food aversions, sleeplessness, never being able to empty my bladder quite completely...

My good friends Jamie and Patrick had their baby early on November 10. His name is Atom Gray I_____. I am not a fan of the name, but I am a fan of Baby Atom himself. He is so sweet, with Patrick's Austrian nose and Jamie's Korean eyes, in a peculiar shade of blue that I hope endures. He never fusses, and he makes the grumpiest faces when he is displeased. He is going to be my baby's first friend, and I love him for that, but I also love him because he is the living embodiment of my friends' love for each other. I love going over to their house with supper and folding his little onesies and then holding him while his mother eats and naps.

In non-baby related news, we've completed a few home improvement projects in the past few weeks. Rather: James has, although I consider myself the mastermind behind the finished products. Example: James laid new vinyl flooring in the bathroom and I caulked! And also: I laid tile on the easy parts of the kitchen floor, and left the cut outs around the radiator and doorjamb to him. Tomorrow, James will spray paint a new bookcase that I picked out online! I just love feathering my little nest.

Thanksgiving is in three days, and I am looking forward to spending it with James and James alone. No cats, even! It seems impossible that we have been together for 10 years and never spent the holiday alone before (unless you count the impromptu Ghetto Thanksgiving of 2003 with Patrick Riggs, Eli, Alex, etc), but this has been such a nice entry that I will decide not to go into the "James's Mom is a Crazy and Manipulative You-Know-What" spiel and just say that we're looking forward to it. We rented a luxury cabin in the mountains near Luray, Virginia, and we will spend it there (and keep our phones on silent to avoid the thousand mournful calls from You-Know-Who, just checking in! To say she misses us! And ask if we need anything! And by the way, she misses us! And isn't having such a good time. Because she misses...)

There is a great big golden orb of a moon tonight, hanging in a ring of hazy smoke right over top of my building. I keep going downstairs to look at it. Because it's pretty, and because I can.

If thou could'st empty all thyself of self,
Like to a shell dishabited,
Then might He find thee on the ocean shelf,
And say, "This is not dead,"
And fill thee with Himself instead.

But thou art replete with very thou
And hast such shrewd activity,
That when He comes He says, "This is enow
Unto itself--'twere better let it be,
It is so small and full there is no room for Me."

-Sir Thomas Browne, 1605-1682

Picture post

I've been super busy/sick/tired lately so I haven't had the energy to do much beside work/eat/sleep. But a lot has been going on! My brain has sort of stopped functioning properly enough to tell you about it, though. So I'm going to rely heavily on visual aids to get me through this post.

First, and most importantly:

This is the Jawbone 3 weeks ago at 7w1d. It was the first time he looked like anything more than a speck and it was so, so exciting to us. We saw his heart beating again, not just a flicker like the first time but more like an actual heart, with a pumping motion. (His heart rate was 140, which puts him right on the cusp of that old wives' tale: below 140 bpm is a girl and above 140 bpm is a boy. I still think boy, though, and James still thinks girl.)

We were just amazed by this picture, and we didn't mind at all that our baby looked like a delicious shrimp and not actually like a baby at all. So imagine how we felt when we saw him again:


That looks definitively babyish at 9w1d. Here's Jawby hanging out upside down like a bat. Bat-baby! His head is on the left and you can see his little feet sticking out on the right. And when we were there, we not only saw his heart beating some more, but we saw him moving his arms, legs, back, and head!!

He is 2.36 centimeters (or was, there--I understand this is a big growing week for him, so he's almost double that, now, or should be). That's about an inch, and about the size of a medium green olive (which actually...sounds pretty yummy. I need olives. And I don't even LIKE olives!)

James totaled the old green Camry last week (he's OK, the car is, sadly, not) in the lamest accident resulting in a totaled car ever (but the safest, so we're not complaining). He was pulling out of a parallel parking spot on the street and a guy came roaring by and smashed into him, crumpling the hood and breaking an axle. So....we got a new car!


It is a silver 2007 Toyota Rav4 with 35,000 miles on it. It was listed for a good price, but even so, James haggled them down another 1,000 and got the dealership to pay the taxes on it for us. This is the first time we have ever really bought a car instead of just driving what our parents didn't want or buying a car from a friend for $300 or so, so he had never bargained like that before and I wasn't sure he could. Disloyal wife! I was so nervous, and then when the salesman agreed, I wanted to jump up and down going, "IN YOUR FACE! HA HA! WE GOT YOU!" I think James did, too, but instead we settled for giving each other a surreptitious high five under the desk where they couldn't see.

We love the new car. It has already been to Roanoke and Norfolk. It has so much space and is so clean and I love driving it.

Because we saved so much money on the car, we can afford to replace the gross old couch and chair we've had since 2001. We're thinking of something like this:

The fabric is microfiber, and the color would be the lighter khaki instead of the darker sand on top. I'm not 100% sure about this couch because I find the arms a little funky, but I like the shape of it overall and I like the three-cushion back a lot. And the space underneath would keep things from becoming irretrievably lost under there (Like the TiVo remote that was missing for three months...)

I won't let anybody buy anything for the baby until 12 weeks (only 14 days to go!!!) and that includes James (although he might have accidentally gotten some little pumpkin socks) and me (who might have sort of kind of gotten the baby a book called The Fat Cat Sat on the Mat--but only because the cat looks like our Hank). But it hasn't stopped us from planning out what to do with the study when the baby is born. Right now, James works from home at the dining room table and I work in the second bedroom. But I've heard from all kinds of people about how HA HA you can't work in the same room where the baby is sleeping YOU CRAZY PERSON AHAHAHAHAHA. So we were chagrined to find out we probably wouldn't be able to have a nursery/home office like we had planned.

Our condo is really, really small, guys.

We have about 850 square feet. That's not a lot, since it feels like 30 or 40 percent of that is taken up by closets. We have 9 closets in this place, including pantries and the double closets in the bedrooms. I am not complaning, since I love closets for storage, but it does make it rather difficult to position furniture in the rooms. There are only so many combinations that don't leave you blocking a door.

This weekend, I made James push all the furniture around in the living room, wondering where we could fit an extra desk. (We call this game House Tetris, but it is NOT AS FUN and FAR MORE SWEATY than regular Tetris.) It was very frustrating because there was no good solution and I made James push the furniture around for two hours and finally we got snappish with each other and went to bed.

In the middle of the night, one on of my frequent (bi-hourly) bathroom breaks, I got an idea. A brilliant idea. This morning, I sat down and drew up a plan that I am pretty sure will allow us to have a workspace in the living room without sacrificing space or aesthetics.

Here is our living room as it stands now:

This is not really done to scale, but I think it gives you an idea of what we have to work with now. But this is what I think can happen:


The wine bar didn't make it--I think with it it will look too crowded--but I don't know where we'll put everything in it. I guess I could buy one of those vintage-y globe liquor cabinets or put a wine rack in the kitchen?

A better illustration of the desk/TV setup:

I get a workspace and I get to have my house still look nice and Pottery-Barn-esque. James gets a flatscreen TV! And Jawbone gets his very own room. Everybody wins!

James thinks that if it works, I should take pictures and send them to Apartment Therapy. I probably won't, but this post has given me the idea of doing a virtual tour around my house--I wish I had more pictures of different places I have lived throughout my life. I don't remember places very well--I have vague ideas, but it would be nice to have a concrete reminder of things. And it's neat to be able to look back and see how my design style--how my idea of home--has changed over the years.

I wish the gorgeous crisp weather we were having would come back and replace this muggy awfulness. Autumn, where are you?

In love with today.

Today was the kind of day most people don't like: rainy, overcast, cool. I don't think the sun came out for one minute. But I loved today, every minute of it. Instead of dismal or dull, I thought of pearl gray and muted. The rain made a lulling sound on the pavement and I could hear the creek rushing outside my window. The air was cool enough so that I could turn off my horrible, noisy window AC units, and the curtains billowed and snapped all day. Outside my window, the wind tossed the branches of the maple, and I could see a few bright crimson leaves dancing among the green.

I think I might have reverse seasonal affective disorder. I don't like summer. I find the unrelenting sun, the forced gaiety, the heat to be oppressive. My mood perks up with the autumn, with the crispness in the air, with the cosy sweaters and jackets and boots. With color. Autumn means Christmas, and Christmas means my birthday and James's. After Christmas comes the snow, if we're going to get any. I enjoy spring, the miracle of new leaves, new buds, new warmth, but it seems so pale and weak next to the lushness, the magic of the fall and winter seasons. There is something ageless and witchy and pagan and wild about this time of year. Turning inward, homeward, drawing closer to the hearth. It feels like a veil has been lifted between this world and the next. It reminds us that this world we think we've mastered is wild and unrestrained and chock full of things that are far beyond our ken.

THERE is something in the autumn that is native to my blood—
Touch of manner, hint of mood;
And my heart is like a rhyme,
With the yellow and the purple and the crimson keeping time.
The scarlet of the maples can shake me like a cry
Of bugles going by.
And my lonely spirit thrills
To see the frosty asters like a smoke upon the hills.
There is something in October sets the gypsy blood astir;
We must rise and follow her,
When from every hill of flame
She calls and calls each vagabond by name.

-Bliss Carman

I am finding out all sort of stuff I never knew about myself with this pregnancy. For instance, that I have a very tender cervix that bruises and bleeds at the slightest provocation. This is a surprise to me, since I am usually fairly rough and tumble. I'm hardy and I hardly ever get sick; I guess I thought that would translate to a relatively uneventful pregnancy. Not so, I guess, since I was put on pelvic rest today after a mildly alarming episode of bleeding last night. To maintain at least a semblance of modesty, I won't say exactly what brought it on or what exactly pelvic rest entails, except to tell you that James was very depressed about it. I will be SO GLAD when this first trimester is over and I can relax a little. Only five more weeks!!

I have been having such a nice relaxing time at Aunt Cathy's house. When James left on Sunday I decided to stay behind, partly because my morning sickness won't let me survive a four-hour car ride and partly because I just cannot go back to that cramped and stifling apartment. I feel like all of my troubles live there. It's a dream come true to be able to relax and to get away and to spend a lot of time outside, something I don't get to do when I'm at home, since we have no yard or porch or balcony and our neighborhood isn't the greatest. I spent so much time this afternoon just sitting in the hammock by the lake. The weather was perfect.

One thing that I've been doing with my mom and aunt while I'm here is looking at houses for rent in Richmond. I think the Richmond move is going to need to happen sooner rather than later. I literally cannot stand to be away from my family right now (even my mom, who is being much better) and I know a lot of my depression is tied to living so far away from the majority of my support network. Though they individually drive me crazy a lot of the time, collectively, my family is my life. It's so nice to feel like part of a tribe again. Last night we had a family dinner with Mom and Dad and Aunt Cathy, Uncle Jerry, Aunt Liz, Caitlin, Kelsey. Today Uncle Mike came over to swim. When I am around my family I feel secure, like a part of a whole. When I am away from them I feel unmoored and lonely. I guess this is just because of how I was raised, as part of a large clan that lives nearby to one another and interacts on a daily basis. For better or for worse, it's who I am.

On Saturday, we went up to Richmond and toured some of the houses we'd found online. James and I had scheduled appointments at a lot of townhomes in the urban part of the city. We saw some amazing places, including a row house built in 1853, with all the original fixtures and an old carriage house with slave quarters in the backyard. It would have been amazing to live there, but I am realizing that what I really desire is a little starter home in a quieter, more residential part of town, with a yard and a shady, tree-lined street. The old me would have loved to be in the heart of things, but the new me needs some peace and quiet. I'm not 23 anymore--thankfully and regretfully.

On the drive home, I got in a fight with my mom. It started when I mentioned that I was upset that my Aunt Liz had told my uncles about my pregnancy. I felt it wasn't her place and amounted to a betrayal of trust; my mother felt that Aunt Liz hadn't meant any harm and told me to get over it. That made me feel like I wasn't allowed to be upset, and so I started crying, and I told her that I feel like my whole life, I've felt I'm not allowed to have any feelings unless she approves of them, and that that is stifling me and frustrating me. Things could have taken a turn for the worse, but they didn't. Because we were trapped in the car together, we had to work things out. We couldn't just storm away angry. And so we did, sort of, and so we've been actually able to enjoy each other's company since. It's only been a few days, but I can't help thinking that something has clicked, and things might actually be different from now on. Maybe not 100% better, but it's a start in the right direction. We've both been on our best behavior since, and I am cautiously optimistic. (If James's mother would stop being so petulant about our move, I'd be perfectly happy).

I am sitting out on the deck writing this and it's so beautiful out tonight. There's a full moon and everything is crickety and cool. I broke out my comfy fleece sweater and I'm still a little chilly. I am so excited for fall!

Notes from the Underbelly

Wednesday I had an ultrasound to follow up the inconclusive one I had at the ER at 4 weeks, 5 days. At that scan, they thought they saw something but couldn't even be sure I was pregnant, so I was very eager/nervous for this one. I went with James and my mom and aunt Cathy who drove up from Norfolk to be there, and so we were all together when we got to really see Baby for the first time!

I was 6w1d along, according to my dates, and Baby's size was measuring very nearly on track with that at 5w6d. We saw the gestational and yolk sac and the fetal pole, and then--wonder of wonders!--we saw a very tiny flicking at the base of the fetal pole. Just as if a few pixels in the screen were turning off and on, extremely tiny. It was Baby's heart beating, at 109 beats per minute, just right for his gestational age.

"Perfect," said the doctor. "Everything is perfect."

What a feeling, to see something like that! My baby doesn't have a name yet, but he has a heart that is beating, and I saw the EKG to prove it. It just seems so surreal to me. He is doing OK, even if I am not, and I felt like his presence there on the screen, that rapid but steady little perfect flicker, was his way of saying, "Look, Ma, everything is ALL RIGHT." In fact, everything was so good that I feel a little stupid for freaking out so much. But I've never been pregnant before, and so I'm cutting myself some slack as I get adjusted to it.

(By the way, I have a very hard time referring to Baby as anything but "he" because I am convinced it is a boy. I don't know why, except I just have this FEELING. I don't think I will even prefer a boy, really, so it's not wishful thinking. For the record, my mom and aunt also think it is a boy, but James and my dad think it's a girl.)

After my ultrasound, I drove home to Norfolk with my mom and Aunt Cathy to spend the last few days of summer by Aunt Cathy's pool. And on the way down, morning sickness struck for the first time. I was sick and dizzy--I didn't throw up--but I thought it was a miracle I didn't. We stopped for Sea Bands and sour candy and water and crackers and ginger and vitamin B-6 but nothing helped...until James called the pharmacist, who recommended Unisom, a sleeping tablet that is safe for pregnancy. I took one, and about a half hour later, I was feeling better and able to sleep for a while, which was nice because I haven't gotten a good night's sleep since I found out I was pregnant.

I haven't had nausea that bad since, but a vague queasiness is always there. Sometimes I get a whiff of something completely innocuous, like frosting on a cupcake, and have to leave the room. I miss my raging appetite of a week ago, and look back fondly to the days when everything seemed delicious. Now there is a very small circle of foods I can stand the thought of, and it's always something really random, like corn soup or tabbouleh. And it changes rapidly. Right now, I have a house full of food I bought just yesterday, but I am SURE the only think I could stomach would be Mongolian barbecue, so I am waiting for James to arrive in town for the weekend, and then I am going to beg him to take me to get some.

Since everyone in my family knows (my aunts have trouble keeping secrets) and since we saw the heartbeat (which takes away a superstitious belief that we might "jinx" the baby by talking about him) I have had a lot of people offering their opinions on my pregnancy lately. I am not supposed to: touch anything dirty, touch animals, including dogs, eat sugar, eat fatty food, eat raw foods, use ANY cleaning supplies (but what about the dirty things I am supposed to not touch!?), drive, or walk barefoot outside. Oh, and speaking of names, everybody has an opinion on them, even at this early stage.

Names that James and I like that have been summarily rejected by my family: Helen, Anne, John, William, Nora, Cordelia, Victoria, Grace, Owen, Charles, Louisa.

Names that I don't like that have been recommended by my family: Augustus, Frederica, Rosedonna or Donna Rose (my mom's name and James's mom's name together, natch), Cori-Beth (yes, with an i), Seymour, Laurence (for a girl!), Julianna, Daniella, Francesca, Arabella, Isabella, Bella....

My family is obviously more flowery than J&I are when it comes to names. It makes me laugh, because when people ask me what my favorite name for a girl is and I say, "Anne," they immediately follow up with "...abelle." Or I say, "John," and they finish, "...athon." I guess they never heard the old adage that short words are sweetest. Oh, and the one about how not everyone wants their daughter to sound like Disney royalty or their son, a soap opera character!

So those are the tales from Pregnancyville! and now that I've recounted them I should go work. But before I do: I am very pleased to present to you the very first photos of little Augustus Arabella Laurence Verdier, affectionately known as "Jawbone" to his mom and dad.


Right now he's very small--only 2 mm--which means that any one of those names is literally bigger than he is.

I sat down today to write an entry about some things in my life that are going really well, that I'm happy about, some home improvement stuff, baking sucesses, excitement about things in general...and then I got a call from my doctor and now everything is fucked up again.

My bloodwork from yesterday is shitty. The HCG has doubled from two days ago and that's great, but my progesterone has taken a nosedive from 14.1 to 8.2 in five days. At 5 weeks, which I was yesterday, it should be from 9-47 but ideally around 20. The doctor was quick to point out that he has had women with levels as low as mine go on to have healthy pregnancies and he put me on progesterone supplements, but at the same time, research shows that most of the time, the pills have no effect on whether or not you will miscarry, since dropping progesterone is caused by some underlying defect. Low progesterone doesn't usually cause miscarriage in itself.

I am heartbroken because I think now that my baby is going to die and I am just totally sick of my shitty life, in which nothing ever, ever goes right. It's just always bad news upon bad news. I can't believe this is my life. I hate it. Oh, oh, my heart hurts over this. I wish I could have some hope that things will be OK but I really can't right now.

Sorry I'm always such a drain and never have any good news to report. Trust me, guys, I hate it, too.

I hate everybody a lot or "Pregnancy hormones: American HELLthcare version"

Well, I've had a very eventful weekend, which I will tell you all about below in great detail. I am OK, the fetus is OK, but damned if I don't feel pulled through the wringer and angry with, like, everybody in the world right now (saving y'all, of course).

My doctor was supposed to get back to me on Friday morning with the results of my progesterone test. She didn't by noon, so I called her office. She told me she would call me back between 1 and 4. I waited until 3:30 and called back. They were closed for the long weekend! No results for me.

So I just told myself that I would have a long weekend, and get my results on Tuesday. Sunday I went to a friend's cookout, and had a wonderful time. After having been there for three hours or so I went to the bathroom and (WARNING: I AM ABOUT TO TALK ABOUT MUCUS) when I wiped, I noticed a glob of faint pinky-yellow mucus on the tissue. I knew this was probably normal, but anyway, I got James and we left and I tried to call my doctor's answering service to check it was OK. Oh, except she doesn't have an answering service. "Go to urgent care," said the message on the machine, so I went, and urgent care wouldn't see me and sent me to the EMERGENCY ROOM instead.

At this point, I am pretty sure this is a tempest in a teapot, but once you have started the emergency room process and you are pregnant and you mention bleeding, certain things have to happen. You get a pelvic exam. You get a ton of blood taken. You get a sonogram. You get an IV. You get to wait in a curtained off room for four hours while a person pukes in the room next to you, all the time wearing a thin gown with no back. Oh, and if you're really lucky? You get to do all this with your MOTHER IN LAW there.

James made the mistake of calling his mom to ask exactly where the Alexandria Inova Hospital was, since we are in criminal good health and have never been there. She told us, and we drove there. Then I'm waiting to check in and D. runs up, like, what are you doing here? Nobody asked you to come. And we would have, if we had wanted you here. But we didn't. So can you please go home? "I'd prefer to stay," she says, all reverse Bartleby the Scrivener. And I could not get her to leave. I thought at least she would wait in the waiting room, but when the nurse took me back she barged along with us and into my cube and sat down beside my bed and DIDN'T LEAVE for four hours. I tried to politely ask her to leave and she just didn't get it, or was deliberately obtuse about it, saying, "Oh, I don't mind staying. I'm so worried!" And then I felt like I couldn't be rude to her and be like, "NO. You really HAVE to go."

I know she was concerned and I am trying really hard to focus on that, but it was so humiliating and upsetting to have her there. I am so embarrassed that my MIL saw my bare ass. And it angered me that she kept trying to give my information to the doctor. She doesn't know a thing about my medical history, and she's not "Mom," like she told all the doctors and nurses, so that they thought she was my mom. She had to be literally pushed from the room when I was having my pelvic exam.

So I was mad at her for not taking the hint and leaving, and I was mad at James for not asking her to leave, and I am mad at my doctor for never calling me back with my test results and then I got to be mad at the sonogram lady, who tells me that she can't find anything on the sonogram and am I sure I'm really pregnant? Not what you want to hear when you are in that position, that there's no baby and maybe never was one. "Or it could be too early," she says like it just occurred to her, after I've started sobbing. Maybe you could have started with that? Way to bury the lead, lady.

Long story short: they diagnosed me with a threatened miscarriage, even though I only had that one clump of pink mucus, but the way I understand it is that they only did that because it was too early, maybe, at 4w5d, to find a sac or fetal pole on sonogram. Or else there's not one there and I really am in trouble? I don't know. My pregnancy hormone is detectable and doubling so that's a good sign. It was 302 on Thursday at my OB's, and it was 995 on Sunday night. I had blood taken today and if its gone up, we're happy. My progesterone is 14.1, and it has to be higher than 9. So, fine? Or low, but not dangerous? I don't know, and I wish I could get a straight answer out of anybody, but I can't because everyone seems to talk in circles. "The higher it is obviously the better but you know there's a threshold and yours is above that so that's good, but everything is different, of course, and you probably don't have any reason to worry, unless…" WHAT ARE YOU SAYING? YES OR NO? GIVE ME A THUMBS UP OR THUMBS DOWN, for crying out LOUD!!!!

The doctor told me I "shouldn't worry at this point" and that really there would be no way to see anything on a sonogram until 6 weeks, and that everything is "probably fine," and that's going to have to suffice, I guess. I haven't had anymore spotting or pink mucus since the first and only instance of it on Sunday, and I am still pretty sure that everything is OK, but even so I feel like everyone in the world is conspiring to strip all the joy from this situation that they can and I hate them for that.

And I really hate my mother in law. I shouldn't use the word "hate," but honestly, I think I probably do hate her right now. I don't know where she got this notion that she has lifetime front row seats to every single event in my life. I feel like if she could have, she would have wanted to be there when the baby was conceived. This has to freaking stop or I will seriously strangle her, and I'll probably get off due to my temporary pregnancy insanity right now and now I have to stop. Because this idea is sounding really, really, too great to me right now. Please send prayers both for my little guy and for me, so that I don't actually cause bodily harm to anybody. These hormones are starting to be murder.

I had my first prenatal visit today--my doctor was very understanding about giving me the progesterone test you recommended, Adrienne. I'll get the results of that as early as tomorrow. It is a weight off my mind to know that if there's a problem, YO! I'll solve it. (This is a heavy topic--I felt I needed to add some Vanilla Ice in there for levity's sake.) I also scheduled my first sonogram for next week, and learned that I may even be able to see my baby's heart beating then! I had NO idea that it begins to beat only 22 days after conception and was amazed by that. There is so much that I don't know yet about this process...it's a little daunting, but totally exciting too.

Dr. I also told me that since I am having strong symptoms (I woke up last night every time I rolled over onto my aching chest) that is a good sign. So I am worrying a little less over that, today.

On the way home, James and I stopped by the organic market and let me tell you, grocery shopping has never been this fun. I am so ravenous that everything looks good to me right now. I must have looked so strange, clapping my hands and crying out so enthusiastically over canned soup (Yes! I NEED THIS! YES!) Everything we ended up buying was so unlike the things I usually eat. We bought steaks and crabcakes (I usually dislike seafood), goat cheese (I do NOT ordinarily do dairy, due to lactose intolerance), yogurt (ditto), and dark chocolate (blechh! What is wrong with me?) I seem to want to eat not sugary or carby stuff, but things with a strong sour/bitter/salty taste. SO weird! What's up with that?

That's the question of the day, along with this one: Why is my mom such a [w]itch? I swear, it's not just hormones that make me at the end of my rope with her. Throughout my childhood, she's always been so emotionally (and sometimes physically) hurtful to me. Now that I am faced with motherhood myself, I am having a difficult time processing that kind of behavior. My baby is currently the size of an apple seed, and there is nothing I would not do for it, if I only could.

Yet when I called Mom today, to vent about a minor spat I'd had with James, she started in on her usual routine: You're a horrible person, Cathy, hard to live with, and you don't deserve someone so fantastic. When James loses his temper with you, you should apologize, because it's probably your fault. I started crying: she accused me of being abusive and manipulative. I finally lost my temper with her, screamed at her, and she hung up. It hurts my heart to fight with anyone, but she won't take my calls when I call to apologize. She lets it ring once, and then sends it to voicemail. So I know she's sitting by the phone and screening. Who's manipulative, again?

I hate that I lost my temper with her, because now she will freeze me out until I repeatedly grovel for forgiveness, agreeing with everything she says about me and releasing her from any culpability in our fight. "Say it, Cathy: you were wrong. And I was right." I don't know why I even bother trying to turn to my mother when things are bad. She has never, never reacted in the way I needed her to react. I guess there is some vestigial part of me that thinks "Mother" = "comfort." But it has never been that way in my family, and it never will be. I wish I could get that through my head. It would save us both a lot of stress, and keep me from getting hurt over and over by her. But I don't know how, and so I keep trying to force this interaction that will not and CANNOT take place. I've only ever tried to please her. But I'm never good enough, smart enough, thin enough, obedient enough. I try so hard to honor her as a parent, but she is always so disappointed in me.

At least she's a pretty good primer for parenting. How to Be a Good Parent: just do the opposite of what Rosemary does!

I know logically that I can't change my mother. It's too late for that. She's been like this for too long, and more than that, she doesn't WANT to change. And yet: my heart cries out for that special closeness, for mother. Today I'm praying for the Lord to help me accept the things I cannot change, and to grant me the strength to make peace with the imperfections in my life.

Remembering Mammaw

Today would have been my Mammaw's 77th birthday, if she hadn't died very suddenly seven years ago. I have been thinking about her all day today. Me and Mams were very, very close. I was her first grandchild, and only grandchild for five years. More than that, we were really, truly best friends, in a way that transcended the grandmother/grandchild relationship. She lived less than a mile from my family in Norfolk, and I was literally over at her house every day growing up, for dinner or just to drop in and see her. When I moved away to college we talked on the phone several times a day, for hours at a time. Sometimes we would call each other and watch Law and Order re-runs together (Mammaw loved all cop shows.)

She was a true free spirit. She was so funny, and so dedicated to having a good time. Her laugh was the loudest, brightest laugh in the world. She played Nintendo. I would sleep over at her house every weekend, and we would lay on the end of her bed facing her TV, with down pillows under our chests, eating candy corn from big plastic bins. She was the best cook I know. She listened to G. Gordon Liddy every day and cussed at him to high heaven. Whenever we went to the drive thru at Hardee's near her house, she would honk the horn and shout into the receiver, "I'm comin' around, dahlin!" She wouldn't talk into the box. Then, when we got to the window, she would say, "Hello, I would like a large fry, but only if they are FRESH and HOT." The kid there loved her and knew her by name. Whenever Mammaw saw a fat woman, she would say, "Oh, DORASS!" (Doris was her name) in a sympathetic, exuberant tone of voice. Mammaw loved other people and other people just loved her. Her funeral was full of people from all over the country, and even today, when I run into people I knew in grade school, they always have a "Mammaw" story to tell me. (One of my faves: my Aunt Liz's sorority sisters were spending the night with Mammaw and their sweet tooths got the better of them. They went, in their pajamas, to the grocery store, to the bakery, and ordered a sheet cake. The woman asked if they wanted something written on it, thinking it was a birthday, I guess, and they told her to write, "WE LOVE CAKE!" And she did and they took it home and ate the whole thing.) Everywhere she went, she brought the party and pure joy with her. It really, really bothers me that I can never manage to capture her spirit in words, but I will never stop trying to emulate it in my own life.

I still can't believe that she is gone, but today it was so nice to see that my cousin Mary Anne remembered her birthday. Here's what she wrote:

Mary Anne John-Telinde Happy Birthday to my Aunt Dorassss....Miss and Love her sooo much but makes me happy to know she is one of my angels.....All of our angels...smile everyone b/c you can only hear her laughing at us!!!!

• Pam John Vaughan Boy can I hear her laughing - I LOVE IT
• Janell McGowan OMG, not only can I hear her laughing, I can hear her saying, "Don't tell Rosemary on me." (NOTE: Rosemary is my mom!)
  
• Anna Decker I said Happy Birthday to my Aunt Doris today too!! Love that woman!! She and Momma are partying together-HA!
• Amy Butler Kallenbach Here's to Aunt Dorasssss! May she kick our butts when we get to Heaven just like she did here on Earth! Love her and you!
  
• Diane Rose Decker Aunt Doris is very missed! She was a hoot and also a very wise woman!

It is still very hard for me to think about my wonderful Mammaw without tearing up, but today I am just full of joy over the blessing that I got to know her at all. Thank you, God, for my Mammaw. It's so easy to imagine her sitting up in heaven with my baby on her knee, cuddling and taking care of it until it's ready to come to me.

1950.

1982, with baby Cathy at Nags Head.

2003, with her little brother Peter-Boy, at my wedding.

Doris Barbara Decker Cory, September 1, 1933 - September 28, 2003

It's so amazing how quickly things can change. Just a few weeks ago, I felt totally bereft, wondering what lay ahead, thinking of life as something grim and cheerless stretching out into nothingness. Today I am filled with joy and hope and contentment and true excitement for the months and years ahead.

Last week I thought I was getting sick, and I could tell I was depressed by how much I was eating. I would be finishing a meal, and thinking of what to eat next. I love my food but that rarely happens. I was also nodding off over my afternoon work--every afternoon, at 3PM on the dot, my eyes would close of their own accord. Since I stay up until 1 or 2 AM easily most nights, this was really unlike me.

I was also dreading an acquaintance's shower on Saturday afternoon. How could I get through it, I wondered, how could I be adequately happy for her when my own heart was breaking over the less than encouraging fertility news James and I had gotten? It was small of me, I know. But I could feel the beginnings of PMS: cramps, a TON of zits, bad mood, and I didn't want to go, I wanted to stay home and cry and feel sorry for myself. I was really unreasonable.

I thought about not going, about begging off. But I couldn't. I went to the bookstore and got the baby a selection of board books for his little library. I promised myself on the way to the shower that I would stay for just a little while, and then leave. So I went to the shower. When I showed up, everything was in disarray. My pregnant friend J. looked totally exhausted and the person throwing the shower had flaked out. Nothing was set up. The food wasn't out. The decorations weren't up. The cupcakes weren't iced. People were milling around, drinking and eating from under the plastic covering everything, but nobody was helping the poor mother to be, whose party we were attending!

So I put my feelings aside. I rolled up my sleeves and I spent the next hour decorating cupcakes, making little fondant blankets for little fondant baby heads to peek out of. And to my surprise, I enjoyed myself. I was having fun being useful. And even thought J and I have never been close, and even though I had been jealous of her happiness, I found that it didn't matter, because I was happy. I was happy for her, and I was happy to help. It felt good to help. And as I worked, I knew that my time would come, and I decided to look forward to it with anticipation, and to cherish the last few months of my carefree, childfree existence.

Well.

When I got home, just for laughs, I took a dollar store pregnancy test, and it was positive. At least: I thought it was. There was a line--wasn't there? Maybe? Or was it a shadow? I couldn't be sure. I took every pregnancy test I had in the house--I had bought a huge batch of them months ago, at the beginning of this--but they all were ambiguous. Finally, James and I ran across the street to get a digital test, the kind that says PREGNANT or NOT PREGNANT and faint little lines be damned!

I did the test--we waited--

PREGNANT. Definitively.

Based on my ovulation date, I am 4 weeks pregnant today. My baby, if we both manage to survive these long, long three seasons ahead of us, should be born around May 10, 2011. A springtime baby. My baby--mine and James's.

I feel like an entirely different person than the one I was days ago. I am so happy. I thought my hormones were supposed to be wreaking havoc? But they aren't, emotionally. I just feel great. I did have a sobbing fit earlier today when I read my baby was only as big as a poppy seed--it just seems so small, and it makes me worry. Something that small can get lost. I know the odds, and I want my baby to grow big and strong and be out of danger, and I want to be sure that it will stay, that it will be born. But that worry, though it's there, feels small next to the peace and wonder and joy I feel.

(And the hunger I feel. I'm SO HUNGRY. AND TIRED. And this weird heartburn--yeesh. But that might be because I am craving food with Tabasco in it. AND LOTS of it! And my boobs are aching--they feel like they've been punched, hard.)

So far we've told my mom and dad, and nobody else yet--save you ladies who read this blog. But I don't want to tell too many people--I'm afraid they'll make a fuss. My baby is so small right now, and a big fuss feels too big for him. I want to keep it a secret, but at the same time, I was bursting to tell someone. I really didn't feel right keeping it from you guys. I've noticed that I can't talk to anybody now because all I want to do is shout from the rooftops. I'M HAVING A BABY! And I definitely want to be able to keep talking to you. :) But this is TOP SECRET until October or so, and I'll probably take this journal entry down tomorrow in case snoopy-snoops should stumble across it and spread it around.

I have my first prenatal appointment on Thursday. I am equal parts excited and nervous about it. Basically, I am equal parts excited and nervous about everything right now. I am glad I turned to God before I got this news, because now I am able to pray with a sincere heart: Dear Lord, please let everything be OK. Please let my baby be healthy and normal and strong. And to trust in His wisdom, and put my life--and this new life inside of me--into His capable hands.

A few months ago, Adrienne, you said something about not having time to write because you were so busy at work, and I heard you, but I didn't understand. After a month and a half of working, I finally do. I have my whole Sally story planned out in my head, but by the end of the day I want to throw my computer out of the window and turn my brain off and zone out until bedtime. Why does real life have to interfere with my hobbies?

This is especially hard, because just yesterday I finally finalized (finally!) plans for my new novel. It took me so hard to come up with something original. I have the bad habit of reading something that I like, and letting that influence me. I wanted something original, and something fresh. I wanted to write a book that showed my love of reading.

Well, finally I came up with the perfect (in my quite modest--can't you tell?--opinion). I was reading through Jane Austen's unfinished novel, The Watsons, and I thought, suddenly, wouldn't it be great if I converted this to a modern-day New York--and finished it? It would be combining my two main writing genres: fanfiction and chicklit.

I have been so excited about this idea. Since you guys are Austenites, I can tell you what I have planned and you will understand. I am not going to stick literally to the five chapters Austen set out, but the relationships will be the same, and the ending she had in mind will still happen. I've decided to call my novel The Watson Women, and it will focus on three sisters. If I was going to write a book blurb about it, the kind that appears on the back covers of books, I imagine it would look something like this:

When Penelope Watson stole her sister Liza's boyfriend, Parviz, she did more than break up a relationship--she broke up a sisterhood. For ten years, the Watson sisters have grown farther and farther apart from each other. Liza married in haste, and now is repenting her hasty decision, and regretting her dull life as a wife and mother. Youngest sister Emma went to England to study and stayed. And scheming Penny is still the same selfish girl now that she was back then.

But when their brother, Sam, announces that he is marrying Maisie Edwards, the women are thrown together again. Emma comes home for the wedding eager to show off her British fiance, Osborne, only to find that she is drawn to Sam's best friend (her former high school classmate) Howie. As Liza sees her sister's interest in Howie growing, she decides that it's time to reconnect with Parviz, with disastrous results. And Penny worries that she may be reaping her well-deserved bad relationship karma: her playboy boyfriend, Tom Musgrave, has a chronic wandering eye, and seems less and less interested in her every day. Have Penny's past actions cursed her love life forever?

The Watson sisters aren't the only ones with problems. Bride-to-be Maisie is having second thoughts about starting a family with a med student who's never around. When she announces she is calling off the wedding, the Watson women must come together to try and protect their brother's chance for happiness. Can they convince Maisie to change her mind about Sam--and can they ever be friends, as well as sisters, again?

Like I said, it's not exactly the same as the Jane Austen book--I've deleted the other sister, Margaret, for one--but I think it could be a natural outgrowth of Austen's original story. I am ridiculously excited to start outlining--if I could only find the time! Stupid job!

Today was the first day in a week when my depression lifted. It isn't fully gone, but it's only pattering rain right now instead of storming. Last night I allowed my doubts to come creeping in, and by bedtime I was a mess of tears and frustration and fear all over again. But this morning, it was better and it's still good, if not perfect, right now. It's better.

There are probably a lot of reasons why I am feeling more hope. And there's a reason I am decidedly NOT and it's this book I'm reading. Meeting Jesus Again for the First Time, written by Marcus Borg. It's interesting and full of historical tidbits and Borg is really, really knowledgeable (although scarily named--BORG!) and I am liking the book immensely as a book. But I've just gotten to the part where Borg makes his case that Jesus was not divine. However, he says, this doesn't matter because Jesus is living proof of how people can be inspired by God, who is divine. The problem is that I find his argument so convincing. That's upsetting, because I want my Jesus to be divine. I want the Christ of faith, not the historical Christ, however inspired by God he might have been.

I have emailed my friend Mike who is the most devout Catholic I know and whom (I think) believes in the literal Jesus. He is writing me a response and I am hoping it will help me. I know I shouldn't need Catholicism to help me experience God, but it's what I was raised in, and it's the framework I know, and so I am going to go back to it, at least for a while, to ease myself back into the spiritual world. I don't plan (or really want) to go back to the Church, but I think I need a numinous moment, the kind Borg writes about, the kind he experienced and the thing about his book I find most compelling. I don't know if I've ever experienced God in my life that way, so fully, so completely. I don't think I've ever had that kind of transcendent moment (except the first moment I saw James, before he even spoke, when I was kind of lifted out of myself and toward him) but the closest I have gotten (other than that) has been at Mass. I need to be reminded of the holy. I need to go, this week, because that's the place I open myself up best.

I say that I haven't "experienced" God, but a spate of things has happened to me in the last few days, since deciding to open myself to Him, things that are almost miraculous to me in my hope-ridden life. An agent wants to read my book. I had emailed this agent back in the start of the year, and had almost given up hope that she would ever respond. And the letter came two days ago, right at the darkest hour before dawn, right at the time when I decided to open myself up to God. A reminder: that life can be good, and fun, and joyful, and exciting. I needed that. I needed it.

Secondly, I had been despairing about ever finding enough clients to make ends meet in my business, but then today another potential client got in touch with me and wants me to take an editing test to maybe work for their agency. After hundreds of resumes and applications, something, finally. And yet I doubt God's goodness? I feel like God is tapping me on the shoulder and saying, "Um, Cathy? What else do you need me to do?"

Maybe these things would have happened anyway, but they still would have been of God, wouldn't they? It could be that He's always been reaching out, waiting for me to turn to Him. This just happened to be the moment I noticed what He's been doing for me, all along.

The cloud has lifted a bit. Thank God. I mean it: thank you, God. Thank you for a little of my life back. Things aren't perfect right now, and I have the feeling I'm still going to require some medical help to get over this hump of my depression. But I understand that any lingering fear or anxiety I am feeling might be because of my human mind trying to explain something so much bigger than itself rather than God not being there for me.

O LORD, my heart is not proud, nor my eyes haughty;

Nor do I involve myself in great matters,
Or in things too difficult for me.
Surely I have composed and quieted my soul;
Like a weaned child rests against his mother,
My soul is like a weaned child within me.
O Israel, hope in the LORD
From this time forth and forever.

Last night, immediately after posting my last entry, I was full of terror and darkness and didn't know what to do. God bless my agnostic husband, though, because he took me and sat me down and told me to pray. And as soon as he said it, I knew that's what this whole swell of emotion had been: a prayer. Only I wasn't directing it to God, because I wasn't sure of Him. And he couldn't answer, because I had closed myself off.

So I closed my eyes and I said, "God, I put my heart in your hands tonight. Please hold it for me, so that I can have a little peace and respite from my fear."

As soon as I had thought those words, I felt peace come over me, like a blanket. Like when I am having the height of my panic, and I take a Klonopin. It was that good, that complete. And I felt better.

I kept running my mind through the old songs that we used to sing in church for the responsorial psalm, and one in particular jumped out at me, one that I cantered many, many times back at Pius.

The Lord is my Light, my help my salvation
Why should I fear? With God, I fear nothing
God protects me all my days
With the Lord, what should I dread?

I kept repeating it over and over to myself, even singing it out loud. Even after I stopped being Catholic, stopped being religious, I loved to sing that song. Now I know that is because something in me was aching, crying out for light. Because something in me recognized the truth of those words.

My doubts have come back today, not in full force, but they are there. My rational brain keeps trying to make logical sense of the divine, even of the divinity I have felt, trying to draw parallels, trying to explain things and scoffing at it, when it can't. I am working through this. I don't really have a plan except to keep praying, and to keep opening myself up to the Lord. I don't think my faith is even as large as a mustard seed at this point, but to use the analogy, I am going to plant my faith and tend to it and try to let it grow. As Adrienne said, I am not going to bar the door, but to throw it wide open.

One day, I feel sure I will look back at this moment and be able to see that God was already there in this heart that feels so empty right now.

I appreciate so much the testimonies and the stories and the verses you guys have shared with me. I would be so honored and grateful if you could keep them coming and I thank you for the ones you have given me so far.

Soul darkness

James and I have had a really rough couple of months this year. His grandmother and grandfather died recently, within weeks of each other. His grandfather was sick, but his grandmother wasn't. She just died. I don't think she could face life without him.

I spent a little too much time dwelling on morbid thoughts lately. My imagination is a curse sometimes--I started thinking about how it would feel to be dying, to be on the very edges of life, with a void on the other side of me. How horrible it will feel to know I am losing myself--losing everything--as I slip over it, and outside of life forever. For ever. A cold fear went through my veins and I was literally paralyzed with the worse sense of fear I have ever known, and I have known fear on many occasions. It was like being tortured--soul tortured. I don't want to die. I don't want to lose myself. I don't want the ones I love to be gone, just gone. Gone.

This awful feeling has persisted for the last four days. I have sunk down deep into something and I can't see my way out. I feel as though my life has become suddenly cursed. I don't know how I will ever be happy again, with the End of Everything waiting for me, leering at me, down the road. I got a letter from an agent today. She wants to see my manuscript. I felt no joy. James and I are trying for a baby. I feel only fear in the prospect of that. Any happiness I have--any friendships I make--any people I love--won't they all be taken from me, in the end? Won't we all lose each other? Why live, then? How can I live?

This isn't a cry for help in the after-school special sense of the concept. I'm not thinking of doing anything horrible to myself or anything like that. But I do need help, friends. I'm working with my doctor on the physical effects of my fear, but I need a rebirth of hope. I think--I think I want to be saved. Saved, with a capital S. I don't know, though. I can try to love God with my whole heart and soul and mind, but I don't know if I can tear my doubts down enough to follow Christ truly. I want to love God and I want the eternal life that Jesus promises, but I don't know if I will ever be able to believe in His existence with my whole heart. There will always be a skeptic in me that doubts Him. Can I still turn to Him, even if I know that I will doubt him? Will He still hear my cry, if I am turning to him out of pure fear?

I don't know what to do. But I feel as though my soul has hit rock bottom, and I need lifting up. I don't want to be afraid. I want to believe that life goes on for me after my body is finished on the Earth, that it goes on for all of the people I love, for everyone. I want to believe that the world is place for our souls to learn to act out the goodly things, love and generosity and joy and kindness and comfort, to prepare us for a world where we will abound in those things, free from the cumber of our mortality. But--I don't know if I can believe. A verse that my mom always used to quote to me as a skeptical child comes to me now: "Lord, help my unbelief!"

As a smart-assed twenty year old, I thought that religion was one of the childish things I would have to put off with my youth. And now I fear that I will never get back to that place. I want to go there so badly. But I have built up my wall against the divine, the sublime, so high. I held myself out as an unbeliever. I convinced myself that science and logic and reason can explain everything. Now I am not sure, but I have built that wall so high that I don't know if I will ever be able to tear it down.

I find myself cowering on a road, and the only end I see is Death. I want to be on the road to Emmaus. I want to live a live of joy, but find myself mired in fear and pain instead. Lord, can You help my unbelief?

The persecutions of Job(ette?)

This past week has been a difficult one for me and though nobody has died or even been (too terribly) injured, I can't help but compare my tribulations to that of a certain man from the Bible who was tested by God. Because I love the drama like that, don'tcha know.

First of all, we had James's fertility thing, which was a huge blow and stress and has pretty much shaken my confidence in my future.

Secondly, and this is going to sound REALLY weird, but I made pesto for dinner a few nights ago and when I woke up the next morning there was a VERY strong bitter taste in my mouth. I brushed my teeth several times and gargled throughout the day but it persisted. It was the strangest thing; I kind of thought I had been poisoned. Later I found out that it was the pine nuts I used. I know, it sounds stupid! But apparently pine nuts that are being imported from China are genetically engineered somehow and the result is that they cause an allergy in some people! Or that they have been treated with something really nasty, or an additive that the Chinese use in processing the nuts. Nobody knows for sure. But: !!! The taste is worse after eating, especially something sweet, and we are going on three days and counting with the problem persisting (J has it, too). There is no cure but to wait for it to go away, and that can take WEEKS, sometimes! I am buying EVERYTHING from the organic market from now on.

Thirdly, last Thursday I had a mishap with the straightening iron that I use to tame my curly hair. Because I am vain. The first two things might have been a persecution from the Man Above but this is my own damn fault. Vanity, thy name is Catherine. I accidentally turned the iron to its highest setting, and when I opened it, the entire left side of my hair fell to the floor from the nape of my neck down. The result has been somewhat dramatic. This is my new haircut:

I have to admit it's grown on me and that I am now finding it sort of flapperish and cute. But at first I couldn't help thinking that I looked like a prison warden. I am not skinny enough for the gamine look. And I miss my hair, though I cursed it when it was there. I guess, like Anne, I would have liked for this to be of my own choosing, and for a better reason. But I would be lying if I tell you that tears were not shed over this, most of all because I'm going to a wedding of my high school friends in two weeks and dammit, I haven't seen most of these people in 10 years! I want to look PRETTY, not like I cut my hair with a weedwhacker.

Fourthly (I know!) my shower developed a small leak that became a big leak when my asshole downstairs neighbor didn't report it to me, and now he wants us to pay for the damage, which we are not contractually obligated to do since he let it get worse before he told us. Legally, he is responsible for some of the damage. But of course (sigh) he swears it didn't start until the night he told us now that I've told him the law.

So yes. By Sunday night, I was worn out with anxiety and anger and frustration and fear and general upsetness.

But things are looking better today. The pine-nut taste is diminished somewhat. My homeowner's insurance will cover whatever we owe Downstairs Neighbor. And most importantly, I found a study on line put out by the World Health Organization that came out the day after James's fertility test. Apparently, they have changed the parameters of normal "little guy" count (as we're calling it because the other word is nasty) and now 8% normal is perfectly normal. It's only below 4% that is a problem, apparently. It seems like a lot, but hey, I'm not a doctor and I'm taking any good news I can get, here. He's still going to a doctor but we are a lot more optimistic about the baby thing happening--and happening sooner rather than later.

And hairwise, I'm feeling much better, too. Because I went out to Sally Beauty and I bought a WEAVE. Technically, I guess it's more of extensions because I can clip them in and out, but I like talking about my weave, so I call it that. Here is how I look wearing my fake (I guess it's real, because it's real hair, but fake to me...you get the picture) hair.

(It does creep me out, slightly, the idea of wearing someone else's hair, but when that happens I just raise it to my nose and inhale the plasticy scent, and then I make myself belief that it's just really good synthetic and that I got duped. That helps a lot.)

I am more than a little ashamed that I bought these, though, because 1) they were fairly expensive ($70 is super expensive for me) and 2) it was sheer vanity that made me do it. But then, I reckoned that I don't buy much for myself anymore and that it would be just as shameful to WANT them, even if I didn't have them. This might be sheer rationalization. Anyway, I'm so ashamed of them that I wouldn't dream of wearing them to Quaker meeting, which compounds my sin, I guess, because it is falseness...oh well. I'm not perfect.

But yes, I do have my long, lustrous, beautiful hair back! So I guess it's a wash.


Anyway, here's to hoping this week is better than the last. And for fortitude--!

When the thermometer goes way up...

It's been hot as Hades here in the mid-Atlantic states for the past week or so--ninety-seven, ninety-eight, a hundred degrees--real, sweltering, tomato-plant killing* weather. I've resorted to closing the door to the bedroom, where the AC unit in the back of the house resides, and sweltering during the day just so I can have a lot of trapped icy coldness to get me through the night.

So I find it really funny that tapes I'm currently transcribing and editing were recorded during the great blizzard of 2010. I can hear, over the sound of people talking, sometimes, the wind howling and moaning through the windows of the room the interview is taking place in. Which does absolutely nothing to cool me off, but makes me smile, nonetheless. Back in February, I thought I'd never be warm again. Now I can't imagine that kind of cold exists anywhere on the planet.

_____

*more on that, and this past week's Job-like persecutions and pestilence, in a post to come.

Probably TMI, but I am sort of beyond caring.

I was going to wait and post on this topic when I had good news, but now it looks like we might never have it, so what the hell, why not?

James and I started trying for a baby last month, and because he has a varicocele, basically a varicose vein in an important part of his baby-making anatomy, we had his sperm tested to rule out defects, because the vein can overheat things, which prevents pregnancy. The results came back and they are really negative. His count is high, but only 8 percent of his swimmers were normally formed. The rest were abnormal, meaning that 92% of them would not be able to swim properly enough to fertilize an egg. The highest rate of abnormality that you need to conceive normally is 15 percent. So his is a little more than half that.

I have been a wreck all day, probably exacerbated by my monthly visitor. But this is just so depressing to me. He can have a minor operation to repair the vein, but there's no really strongly proven correlation with that operation and increased fertility. The next step would be IUI or IVF, but that is so expensive and it seems (from the internet) to work not really well, and even if it does, I never thought that I'd have to go through this and it's just shock and again, really, really depressing to me. I'm praying that his second analysis, requested by my doctor, is better, but I know in my heart that it won't be, because bad readings usually come from things that aren't clinically proven to exist, like his varicocele has been.

I can't help feeling like my hopes for a baby are over before they even started, and I know this makes me a bad person but I can't help but be kind of upset with James. I feel like if he had gotten this problem taken care of when it started, instead of waiting, because he is afraid of doctors, maybe things wouldn't have gotten this bad? And there is the fact that he continues to do things like drink and ride a bike, that can make his problem worse, even though we've both know that they do. I am trying hard not to let this slight resentment show because I really don't want J to feel badly. I really don't blame him for this, and I know it is not his fault. But basically I feel terrible, so terrible, and scared.

My aunt was never able to have children and I have always been petrified that, like her, I will never have a chance to be a mother. And here I am, faced with the very real chance of that thing I have feared happening.