My darling

Dear Baby,

I just wanted to take a second to say hello. Hello! You are right now kicking the dickens out of me. You are unbelievably strong. I can't get over how strong you are. When I put a little pressure on my belly to counteract your intense kicks, you provide counterpressure. Very, very strong counterpressure. How can you already be so strong?!

I'm sitting with you here at work. (Only six more weeks, give or take, that you will be able to come to work with me. It will be a sad day when I have to leave you behind!) I am listening to really, really boring people drone on and on about the "value" of things. Things they want to buy and sell and trade. Things like stock in companies, or pieces of the debt those companies hold, or insurance. Sometimes they talk about the "value" of houses they want to "trade". Or wine. Not for the business, mind you, but for themselves to live in and drink. And I really wonder if they know what value really means. Do they taste the wine when they drink it? Or do they only muse on its selling price and congratulate themselves for getting it on the cheap? Do they imagine the history of a home and its former inhabitants, imagine themselves and their families growing up in its rooms, listen to the walls and the wind in the backyard, notice the neighbors and the flower beds smiling at them? Or do they just calculate its monetary appreciation over the next five years?

And my spirit recoils from them. These are the people who cannot hear music, who cannot open their souls to pray, who cannot bare their hearts to others. There is too much calculation. Do they weep, I wonder? Do they truly love? Can they worship? Can they forbear?

My darling son, my innocent son who has not yet contemplated his vocation, I want you to know that Mommy and Daddy support any good endeavor you wish to pursue. If you choose business, you have our blessing. We know that the world needs business people and that it is as much a holy calling as any other. But if you choose this particular pursuit, please do not forget that you have still been called to create. Create work for others, create a product, create a business. Make something, quite literally, of your life that will be an offering both to God and to men. And do not forget what true praise is - the recognition on a visceral and soul-level of a thing's intrinsic worth, quite apart from it's monetary worth, that you share with others.

Despite what our money-mad society would have you believe, there is more to this gift of life than buying and selling. So much more. And it is wondrously beautiful.

Love,

Mom

Baby Blues

Ok, so I've heard of baby blues. And quite frankly, I've stressed about my probable susceptibility to post-partum depression. But honestly? Right now I can only imagine euphoria. Here are the things that I'm waiting for like a kid on Christmas Eve:

1. The baby here, safe and sound.
2. Sleeping on my stomach.
3. Maternity leave.
4. Summer.
5. Sleeping on my side without pulling ligaments in my belly.
6. No swelling in my feet and ankles.
7. NO NAUSEA!!!!!
8. Eating and cooking like a regular person.
9. My mom and aunt coming to visit us.
10. Baby's baptism. Seriously. Can't wait to put him in a christening gown and have cake. Oh, and remission of sins for the little guy, too.
11. No backache.
12. Wearing regular people clothes.
13. The beach. (Not related to the baby, but still, I am craving it like you can't believe.)
14. Watching Ross be a dad.
15. Singing lullabies.
16. His first smile.
17. His first laugh.
18. Hearing from everyone how adorable he is. (Because he will be.)
19. Seeing everything through his eyes.
20. Getting my body back.

Yeah. Not seeing anything about post-partum not to love.

A New Song

We are pregnant! Today is the day I announce to the world (well, the internet world, anyway) that we are expecting a baby.

I am already 26 weeks and 5 days along. The baby is due July 3rd or July 5th, depending on whether you talk to me or my OB.

This baby is healthy. Doing just fine. Kicking me and punching me and doing sommersaults and raking his heel along my belly. He's already extremely active and quite adorable.

It's nice to be singing in major again.

One Year Ago

One year ago today we said goodbye to our child, our daughter Rebecca. We didn't get a funeral, but this is the day she left us. She passed away on March 27, 2008, and was taken from us at the doctor's office on March 31, 2008. It is a day that neither Ross nor I will ever or could ever forget.

What a year.

Rebecca, my dear dear daughter, Mommy and Daddy love you so much. We miss you so much. We can't wait to meet you one day and finally get the chance to hold you in our arms and see your beautiful eyes and lovely smile.

Until then, we will hold you in our hearts.

Light a Candle

October 15th is National Pregnancy & Infant Loss Remembrance Day, a day set aside by Congress to remember all of the children lost to miscarriage, stillbirth and early infant death.

If you are home tonight, light a candle at 7pm, place it in a window, and let it burn for one hour. It will create a memorial wave of light that will travel across the world.

Also, there are many Pregnancy & Infancy Loss Awareness Walks this month that raise money for non-profit groups to support research to prevent miscarriage, stillbirth and early infant death.

You can find information about some of them here.

How Dancing with the Stars Reduced Me to a Sobbing Heap

Did anyone see Dancing With the Stars last night? I don't watch TV that much, and when I do it is usually either a presidential debate or House. But Ross and I were so tired last night, that we sat there watching it.

Did you see it? Did you see that tall woman with the long brown hair dancing at the end of the show before they brought Misty out with her torn Achilles tendon? So, I don't know the name of the woman with the long brown hair (is it Brooke?), but I think she might be a model. Anyway, she and her partner danced the Viennese waltz (my favorite dance!) to a song about fathers and mothers and children (don't know the name of the song - I'm not too up on my popular music). The song had a line in it about fathers be good to your daughters because daughters grow up to be lovers who grow up to be mothers so mothers be good to your daughters, too. And she danced right over to her daughter who looked to be about 8 years old or so and was sitting in the front row. She danced right over to this beautiful young daughter of hers and kissed her right when the song said mothers be good to your daughters, and then she waltzed right back on stage and finished her dance.

I. LOST. IT. I sat there and sobbed for fifteen minutes. I'm crying while I'm sitting here thinking of it. It was the epitome of my ideal of motherhood. This beautiful, gracious woman moving perfectly to sublime music and offering it all as a gift to her beautiful daughter who sat there enraptured with her mother, returning her mother's love. It was one of the most beautiful moments I've seen.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d79JmyN8Dyo

Rebecca would have been born at the end of this month. This will be a hard month for me, I think. I feel like my emotions are very hair-trigger. And the thing is, I don't want to get to the end of the month. I feel so connected to our child right now, and I feel like the end of October will be another saying goodbye.

A little bit of good news

We got the first of our test results back. My FSH and estradiol levels are normal. I don't know what the exact numbers are, but that may be for the best, since I tend to obsess and over-analyze. But the nurse said that they are completely normal. Hurrah!

I was more worried about this test than about any other because this is the one thing they cannot fix. There is no surgery, no drug, no therapy that can make your ovaries work again when they have stopped. I'm 36. It's young for people in the "advanced maternal age" category, but not really young. So getting a normal test result is a massive relief.

We did go out for wine and cheese last night. We got dressed up and had a lovely date at our favorite restaurant. (Even the waiter told me I looked pretty!! And Ross said it was good to see me happy and bubbly and sparkly again!!) We had glass after glass of champagne. Four kinds of cheese - Ross even actually liked the goat cheese and cow's milk cheese!! - and hazlenuts and some kind of jam. And gorgeous salads with pistacchios and arugula and endive. And pork chops in a peach and white wine reduction. And cheesecake with marinated cherries and banana nut bread pudding in a buttered rum sauce with vanilla gelato. So, so good.

Ross gave me a massage when we got home. And I fell right asleep. Even Hobbs was in a good mood last night. He licked my hand - a very rare sign of lapine love!!